Upton Sinclair - The Metropolis

But it was not the physical indecency of this show that struck Montague so much as its intellectual content. The dialogue of the piece was what is called "smart"; that is, it was full of a

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kind of innuendo which implied a secret understanding of evil between the actor and his audience — a sort of countersign which passed between them. After all, it would have been an error to say that there were no ideas in the play

— there was one idea iipon which all the interest of it was based; and Montague strove to analyse this idea and formulate it to himself. There are certain life principles — one might call them moral axioms — which are the result of the experience of countless ages of the human race, and upon the adherence to which the continuance of the race depends. And here was an audience by whom all these principles were — '• not questioned, nor yet disputed, nor yet denied

— but to whom the denial was the axiom, something which it would be too banal to state jHatly, but which it was elegant and witty to take for granted. In this audience there were elderly people, and married men and women, and young men and maidens; and a perfect gale of laughter swept through it at a story of a married woman whose lover had left her when he got married: —'

" She must have been heartbroken," said the' leading lady.

" She was desperate," said the leading man, with a grin.

" What did she do," asked the lady. " Go and shoot herself ? "

" Worse than that," said the man. " She went back to her husband and had a baby !"

But to complete your understanding of the significance of this play, you must bring yourself

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to realise that it was not merely a play, but a hind of a play; it had a name — a "musical comedy" — the meaning of which everyone understood. Hundreds of such plays were written and produced, and "dramatic critics" went to see them and gravely discussed them, and many thousands of people made their livings by travelling over the country and playing them; stately theatres were built for them, and hxindreds of thousands of people paid their money every night to see them. And all this no joke and no nightmare — but a thing that really existed. Men and women were doing these things — actual flesh-and-blood human beings.

Montague wondered, in an awe-stricken sort of way, what kind of human being it could be who had flourished the cane and made the grimaces in that play. Later on, when he came to know the "Tenderloin," he met this same actor, and he found that he had begun life as a little Irish " mick " who lived in a tenement, and whose mother stood at the head of the stairway and defended him with a rolling-pin against a policeman who was chasing him. He had discovered that he could make a living by his comical antics; but when he came home and told his mother that he had been offered twenty dollars a week by a show manager, she gave him a licking for lying to her. Now he was making three thousand dollars a week — more than the President of the United States and his cabinet; but he was not happy, as he confided to Montague, because he did not know how to read, and this was a cause pf perpetual humiliation. The secret desire of

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this little actor's heart was to play Shakespeare; he had " Hamlet" read to him, and pondered how to act it — all the time that he was flourishing his little cane and making his grimaces! He had chanced to be on the stage when a fire had broken out, and five or six hundred victims of greed were roasted to death. The actor had pleaded with the people to keep their seats, but all in vain; and all nis life thereafter he went about with this vision of horror in his mind, and haunted by the passionate conviction that he had failed because of his lack of education —■ that if only he had been a man of culture, he would have been able to think of something to say to hold those terror-stricken people!

At three o'clock in the morning the performance came to an end, and then there were more refreshments; and Mrs. Vivie Patton came and sat by him, and they had a nice comfortable gossip. When Mrs. Vivie once got started at talking about people, her tongue ran on like a windmill.

There was Reggie Mann, meandering about and simpering at people. Reggie was in his glory at Mrs. de Graffenried's affairs. Reggie had arranged all this — he did the designing and the ordering, and contracted for the shows with the agents. You could bet that he had got his commission on them, too — though sometimes Mrs. de Graffenried got the shows to come for nothing, because of the advertising her name would bring. Commissions were Reggie's specialty — he had begun life as an auto agent.

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Montague didn't know what that was ? An auto a^ent was a man who was for ever begging his friends to use a certain kind of car, so that he might make a living; and Reggie had made about thirty thousand a year in that way. He had come from Boston, where his reputation had been made by the fact that early one morning, as they were driving home from a celebration, he had dared a young society matron to take off her shoes and stockings, and get out and wade in the public fountain; and she had done it, and he had followed her. On the strength of the eclat of this he had been taken up by Mrs. Devon; and one day Mrs. Devon had worn a white gown, and asked him what he thought of it. "It needs but one thing to make it perfect," said Reggie, and taking a red rose, he pinned it upon her corsage. The effect was magical; everyone exclaimed with delight, and so Reggie's reputation as an authority upon dress was made for ever. Now he was Mrs. de Graffenried's right-hand man, and they made up their pranks together. Once they had walked down the street in summer with a big rag doll between them. And Reggie had given a dinner at which the guest of honour had been a monkey — surely Montague had heard of that, for it had been the sensation of the season. It was really the funniest thing imaginable; the monkey wore a suit of broadcloth with collar and cuffs, and he shook hands with all the guests, and behaved himself exactly like a gentleman — except that he did not get drunk.

And then Mrs. Vivie pointed out the great

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Mrs. Ridgley-Clieveden, who was sitting with one of her favourites, a grave, black-bearded gentleman who had leaped into fame by inheriting fifty million dollars. " Mrs. R.-C." had taken him up, and ordered his engagement book for him, and he was solemnly playing the part of a social light. He had purchased an old New York mansion, upon the decoration of which three million dollars had been spent; and when he came down to business from Tuxedo, his private train waited all day for him with steam up. Mrs. Vivie told an amusing tale of a woman who had announced her engagement to him, and borrowed large sums of money upon the strength of it, before his denial came out. That had been a source of great delight to Mrs. de Graffenried, who was furiously jealous of " Mrs. R.-C."

From the anecdotes that people told, Montague judged that Mrs. de Graflfenried must be one of those new leaders of Society, who, as Mrs. Alden said, were inclined to the bizarre and fantastic. Mrs. de Graffenried spent half a million dollars every season to hold the position of leader of her set, and you could always count upon her for new and striking ideas. Once she had given away as cotillion favours tiny globes with goldfish in them; again she had given a dance at which everybody got themselves up as different vegetables. She was fond of going about and inviting people haphazard to lunch — thirty or forty at a time — and then surprising them with a splendid banquet. Again she would give a big formal dinner, and perplex people by

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