Upton Sinclair - The Metropolis

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trie light, and lima beans that had come from Porto Kico, and artichokes brought from France at a cost of one dollar each. — And all these extraordinary viands were washed down by eight or nine varieties of wines, from the cellar of a man who had made collecting them a fad for the last thirty years; who had a vineyard in France for the growing of his own champagne, and kept twenty thousand quarts of claret m storage all the time — and procured his Rhine wine from the cellar of the Emperor of Germany, at a cost of twenty-five dollars a quart!

There were twelve people at dinner, and afterward they made two tables for bridge, leaving Charlie Carter to talk to Alice, and Mrs. Winnie to devote herself to Montague, according to her promise. "Everybody likes to see my house," she said. "Would you.?" And she led the way from the dining room into the great conservatory, which formed a central court extending to the roof of the building. She pressed a button, and a soft radiance streamed down from above, in the midst of which Mrs. Winnie stood, with her shimmering jewels a very goddess of the fire.

The conservatory was a place in which he could have spent the evening; it was filled with the most extraordinary varieties of plants. "They were gathered from all over the world," said Mrs. Winnie, seeing that he was staring at them. " My" husband employed a connoisseur to hunt them out for him. He did it before we were married — he thought it would make me happy."

In the centre of the place there was a fountain^

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twelve or fourteen feet in height, and set in a basin of purest Carrara marble. By the touch of a button the pool was flooded with submerged lights, and one might see scores of rare and beautiful fish swimming about.

"Isn't it fine!" said Mrs. Winnie, and added eagerly, "Do you know, I come here at night, sometimes when I can't sleep, and sit for hours and gaze. All those living things, with their extraordinary forms — some of them have faces, and look like human beings! And I wonder what they think about, and if life seems as strange to them as it does to me."

She seated herself by the edge of the pool, and gazed in. "These fish were given to me by my cousin, Ned Carter. They call him Buzzie. Have you met him yet ? — No, of course not. He's Charlie's brother, and he collects art things — the most unbelievable things. Once, a long time ago, he took a fad for goldfish — some goldfish are very rare and beautiful, you know — one can pay twenty-five and fifty dollars apiece for them. He got all the dealers had, and when he learned that there were some they couldn't get, he took a trip to Japan and China on purpose to get them, xou know they raise them there, and some of them are sacred, and not allowed to be sold or taken out of the country. And he had all sorts of carved ivory receptacles for them, that he brought home with him — he had one beautiful marble basin about ten feet long, that had been stolen from the Emperor."

Over Montague's shoulder where he sat, there hung an orchid, a most curious creation, an ex-

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plosion of scarlet flame. "That is the odonto-glossum" said Mrs. Winnie. "Have you heard of it.?"

"Never," said the man.

"Dear me," said the other. "Such is fame!"

"Is it supposed to be famous.?" he asked.

"Very," she replied. "There was a lot in the newspapers about it. You see Winton — that's my husband, you know — paid twenty-five thousand dollars to the man who created it; and that made a lot of foolish talk — people come from all over to look at it. I wanted to have it, because its shape is exactly like the coronet on my crest. Do you notice that?"

"Yes," said Montague. "It's curious."

"I'm very proud of my crest," continued Mrs. Winnie. "Of course there are vulgar rich people who have them made to order, and make them ridiculous; but ours is a real one. It's my own — not my husband's; the Duvals are an old French family, but they're not noble. I was a Morris, you know, and our line runs back to the old French ducal house of Montmorenci. And last summer, when we were motoring, I hunted up one of their chateaux; and see! I brought over this."

Mrs. Winnie pointed to a suit of armour, placed in a passage leading to the billiard-room. 'I have had the lights fixed," she added. And she pressed a button, and all illumination vanished, save for a faint red glow just above the man in armour.

" Doesn't he look real.?" said she. (He had his visor down, and a battle-axe in his mailed hands.)

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so THE METROPOLIS

"I like to imagine that he may have been my twentieth great-grandfather. I come and sit here, and gaze at him and shiver. Think what a terrible time it must have been to live in — when men wore things like that! It couldn't be any worse to be a crab."

"You seem to be fond of strange emotions," said Montague, laughing.

" Maybe I am," said the other. " I like everything that's old and romantic, and makes you forget this stupid society world."

She stood brooding for a moment or two, gazing at the figure. Then she asked, abruptly, *' Which do you like best, pictures or swimming ? "

"Why," replied the man, laughing and perplexed, "I like them both, at times."

"I wondered which you'd rather see first," explained his escort; " the art gallery or the nata-torium. I'm afraid you'll get tired before you've seen everything."

" Suppose we begin with the art-gallery," said he. "There's not much to see in a swimming-pool."

"Ah, but ours is a very special one," said the lady.—"And some day, if you'll be very good, and promise not to tell anyone, I'll let you see my own bath. Perhaps they've told you, I have one in my own apartments, cut out of a block of the most wonderful green marble."

Montague showed the expected amount of astonishment.

" Of course that gave the dreadful newspapers another chance to gossip," said Mrs. Winnie, plaintively. " People found out what I had paid

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for it. One can't have anything beautiful without that question being asked."

And then followed a silence, while Mrs. Winnie waited for him to ask it. As he forbore to do so, she added, "It was fifty thousand dollars."

They were moving toward the elevator, where a small boy in the wonde:^ul livery of plush and scarlet stood at attention. "Sometimes," she continued, "it seems to me that it is wicked to pay such prices for things. Have you ever thought about it.!*"

"Occasionally," Montague replied.

"Of course," said she, "it makes work for people; and I suppose they can't be better employed than in making beautiful things. But sometimes, when I think of all the poverty there is, I get unhappy. We have a winter place down South — one of those huge country-houses that look like exposition buildings, and have rooms for a hundred guests; and sometimes I go driving by myself, down to the mill towns, and go through them and talk to the children. I came to know some of them quite well — poor little wretches."

They stepped out of the elevator, and moved toward the art-gallery. " It used to make me so unhappy," she went on. "I tried to talk to my husband about it, but he wouldn't have it. 'I don't see why you can't be like other people,' he said — he's always repeating that to me. And what could I say.''"

" Why not suggest that other people might be like you ? " said the man, laughing.

"I wasn't clever enough," said she, regret-

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fully. — " It's very hard for a woman, you know — with no one to understand. Once I went down to a settlement, to see what that was like. Do you know anything about settlements.''"

"Nothing at all," said Montague.

"Well, they are people who go to live among the poor, and try to Reform them. It takes a terrible lot of courage, I think. I give them money now and then, but I am never sure if it does any good. The trouble with poor people, it seems to me, is that there are so many of them."