Chapter XXVII

by Susan Glaspell

　　But they did not get her back. July had passed, and August, and most of

　　September, and they had not found Ann.

　　Heaven and earth were not so easily moved.

　　Katie had tried, and the man who mended the boats had tried, and Wayne,but to no avail.

　　There had come the one letter from her—letter seeking to save "Ann" forKatie. It was a key to Ann, but no key to her whereabouts save that itwas postmarked Chicago.

　　Those last three months had impressed Katie with the tragicindefiniteness of the Chicago postmark.

　　She had spent the greater part of the summer there, at a quiet littlehotel on the North Side, where she was nominally one of a party of armywomen. That was the olive branch to her Aunt Elizabeth on the chaperonequestion. For her own part, she had seen too many unchaperoned girls inChicago that summer to care whether she was chaperoned or not.

　　Her army friends thought Katie interested in some work which she did notcare to talk about. They thought it interesting, though foolhardy to letit bring those lines. Katie was not a beauty, they said among themselves,and could not afford lines. Her charm had always been her freshness, herbuoyancy and her blitheness. Now if she lost that—

　　Wayne had been there from time to time. It was but a few hours' ridefrom the Arsenal, and his detail to his individual work gave himconsiderable liberty.

　　He, too, had more "lines" in September than he had had in June. That theyattributed to his "strenuousness" in his work, and thought it to bedeplored. After all, the department might throw him down—who knew whatit might not do?—and then what would have been the use? For a man whodid not have to live on his pay, Captain Jones was looked upon asunnecessarily serious.

　　But Katie suspected that it was not alone devotion to military sciencehad traced those lines. It surprised her a little that they should havecome, but to Katie herself it was so vital and so tragic a thing that itwas not difficult to accept the fact of its marking any one who cameclose to it. After that night at the dance there had several timesstirred a vague uneasiness, calling out the thought that it was a goodthing Wayne was, as she loosely thought it, immune. But even thatuneasiness was lost now in sterner things.

　　She had never gone into her reasons for looking upon her brother as"immune." It was an idea fixed in her mind by her association with hisunhappiness with Clara. Knowing how much he had given, she thought of himas having given all. Her sense of the depth of his hurt had unanalyzedassociations with finality, associations intrenched by Wayne's growing"queerness."

　　It could not be said, however, that that queerness had stood in the wayof his doing all he could. Some of the best suggestions had come fromhim. And Katie had reasons for suspecting he had done some searching ofhis own which he did not report to her.

　　She knew that he was worried about her, though he understood too well toask her to give up and turn back to her own life.

　　Her gratitude to Wayne for that very understanding made her regret themore her inability to be frank with him about the man who mended theboats. She had had to tell him at first that he was helping, but Waynehad seemed to think it so strange, had appeared so little pleased withthe idea, that she had not seen it as possible to make a clean breast ofit. She told him that she had talked with him about Ann—that was becausehe had seen her, knew more about it than she did. And that she had talkedwith him again the day Ann left, thinking he might have seen her. ThatWayne had not liked. "You should have sent for me," he said. "Never takeoutsiders into your confidence in intimate matters like that."

　　And what she had not found it possible to try to make clear to him wasthat the man who mended the boats seemed to her anything but an outsider.

　　And if he had not seemed so in those days of early summer, he seemedinfinitely less so now. She talked with him of things of which she couldnot talk with anyone else. In those talks it was all the rest of thepeople of the world who were the outsiders.

　　He had been there several times during the summer. Katie knew now that hedid not mean to spend all his life mending boats. He was writing a play;it was things in relation to that brought him to Chicago. Katie wanted toknow about the play, but when she asked he told her, rather shortly, thathe did not believe she would like it. He qualified it with saying he didnot know that anyone would like it.

　　When he was there he went about with her as she looked for Ann.

　　Every day she pursued her search, now in this way, now in that. Thatsearch brought her a vision of the city she would have had in no otherway. It was that vision, revealed, interpreted, by her anxiety for Annbrought the sleepless nights and the ceaseless imagery and imaginingswhich caused her army friends to wish that dear Katie would marry beforeshe, as they more feelingly than lucidly put it, lost out that way.

　　She thought sometimes of Ann's moving picture show, showing her thethings of which she had dreamed. All this, things seen in her search, hadbecome to Katie as a moving picture show. It moved before her awake andasleep; "called" to her.

　　She would stand outside the stores as the girls were coming out at night.Stores, factories, all places where girls worked she watched that way. Bythe hundreds, thousands, she saw them filling the city's streets asthrough the long summer one hot day after another drew to a close. Oftenshe would crowd into the street cars they were crowding into, rush withthem for the elevated trains, or follow them across the river and seethem disappear into boarding-house and rooming-house, those hot, crowdedplaces waiting to receive them after the hot, crowded day. Sometimes shewould go for lunch to the places she saw them going to—always searching,and as she searched, wondering, and as she wondered, sorrowing.

　　She came to know of many things: of "dates"—vulgar enough affairs manyof them appeared to be. But she no longer dismissed them with that. Shealways wondered now if the sordid-looking adventure might not be at heartthe divine adventure. Things which she would at one time have called"common" and turned from as such she brooded over now as sorry expressionof a noble thing. And then she would go home to her friends at night andsometimes they would seem the moving-picture show—their pleasures andstandards—the whole of their lives. And she sorrowed that where therewas setting for loveliness the setting itself should so many times absorbit all, and that out on the city's streets that tender fluttering of lifefor life, divine yearning for joy that joy might give again to life,should find so many paths to that abyss where joy could be not and wherethe life of life must go. There were days which showed all too brutallythat many were "called" and few were saved.

　　Thus had she passed the summer, and thus it happened that she did nothave in September all the freshness and the gladness that had been hercharm in May.

　　Though to the man waiting for her that afternoon she had another and afiner charm. Life had taken something from her, but she had wrestedsomething from life.

　　"I could have had a job," she said, and smiled.

　　But the smile was soon engulfed. "And there was a girl who needed it, shetold me how she was 'up against it,' and through some caprice she didn'tget it. Needing it doesn't seem to make a bit of difference. If anything,it works the other way."

　　She had read in the paper that morning that the chorus was to be "triedout" for a new musical comedy. Thinking that Ann, too, might have readthat in the paper, she went.

　　She had been seeing something of chorus girls as well as shop girls. Shewent to all the musical comedies and sat far front and kept her glasseson the chorus. More than once she had stood near stage doors as theywere coming out. Seeing them so, they were not a group of chorus girls;they were a number of individuals, any one of whom might be Ann, morethan one of whom might be fighting the things Ann had fought, seekingthe things Ann had sought. It was that about the city that got her. Itwas a city full of individuals, none of whom were to be dismissed asjust this, or exactly that. She challenged all groupings, thosegroupings which seemed formed by the accidents of life and so often madefor the tragedy of life.

　　She was talking to him about chorus girls; announcing her discovery thatthey were just girls in the chorus. "I was once asked to define armypeople," she laughed, "and said that they were people who entered thearmy—either martially or maritally. Now I find that chorus girls aregirls who enter the chorus. Even their vocabularies can't disguise them,and if that can't—what could?

　　"Though there are different kinds of chorus girls," she reflected. "Somewanted to be somewhere else. Some hope to be somewhere else. And someswaggeringly make it plain that they wouldn't be anywhere else if theycould. I'd hate to have to say which kind is the most sad."

　　"Katie," he said—he never spoke her name save in that timid, lingeringway—"don't you think you're rather over-emphasizing the sadness?"

　　Two girls passed them, laughing boisterously. "Perhaps so. I suppose Iam. And yet nothing seems to me sadder than some of the people who wouldbe astonished at suggesting sadness."

　　That afternoon they were going to the telephone office. Katie had beenthere early in the summer, to the central office and all the exchanges,but wanted to go again. And Mann said he would like to go with her andsee what the thing looked like.

　　The officials were cordial to them at the telephone office, seemingpleased to exhibit and explain. And it seemed that with their rest roomsand recreation rooms, their various things to contribute to comfort andpleasure, their pride was justified.

　　But when they were in the immense room where several hundred girls weresitting before the boards, rest rooms and recreation rooms did not seemto reach. They walked behind a long row, their guide proudly callingattention to the fact that not one of those girls turned her head to lookat them. He called it discipline—concentration. Katie, looking at thetense faces, was thinking of the price paid for that discipline. Many ofthe girls were very young, some not more than sixteen. They preferredtaking them young, said the guide; they were easier to break in if theyhad never done anything else.

　　There was not the shadow of a doubt that they were being "broken in." Soclearly was that demonstrated that Katie wondered what there would beleft for them to be broken in to after they had been thoroughly broken into that. Walking slowly behind them, looking at every girl as a possibleAnn, she wondered what they would have left for a Something Somewhere.She remembered the woman who wore the white furs saying it "got on hernerves" and wondered what kind of nerves they would be it wouldn't "geton." The thing itself seemed a mammoth nervous system, feeding on othernervous systems, lesser sacrificed to greater.

　　Her fancy reached out to all the things that at that instant were goingthrough those cords. Plans were being made for dinner, for motoring thatevening, for many pleasant, restful things. Many little red lights, withmany possible invitations, were insistently dancing before tired eyesjust then. They seemed endless—those demands of life—demands of lifebefore which other demands of life were slowly going down.

　　She and Mann were alone for the minute. "And yet," she turned to him,after following his glance to a girl's tense, white face, "what can theydo? The company, I mean. One must be fair. They pay better than mostthings pay, seem more interested in the girls. What more can we ask?"

　　"Well, what would you think," he suggested, "of 'asking' for a systemmore interested in conserving nervous systems than in producingmillionaires?

　　"Why, yes," he added, "in view of the fact that it has to make a few menrich, perhaps they are doing all they can. I don't doubt that they thinkthey are. But if this were a thing that didn't have to producewealth—then it wouldn't need to endanger health. Don't you think that inthis nerve-blighting work four or five hours, instead of eight, would bea pretty good day's work for girls just out of short clothes?"

　　"It would seem so," sighed Katie, as she left the room filled with girlsanswering calls—girls looking too worn to respond to any "call" lifemight have for them.

　　Though when, a little later, they stood in the doorway watching a longline of them passing out into the street it was amazing how ready and howeager they seemed for what life had to offer them. They all looked tired,but many appeared happy—determined that all of life should not be goingover the wire. It seemed to Katie the most wonderful thing she knew ofthat girls from whom life exacted so much could remain so ready—sohappily eager—for life.

　　There was one thing to which she had made up her mind. Amid theconfusion of her thinking and the sadness of her spirit one thing she sawas clear. There was something wrong with an arrangement of life whichstruck that hard at life. The very fact that the capacity for lifepersisted through so much was the more reason for its being a thing to becherished rather than sacrificed.

　　"Let's walk up this way," she was saying; "walk over the river. Thebridge is a good place just now."

　　Katie's face was white and tense as some of the faces they had leftbehind "No," he said impetuously. "Let's not. Let's do something jolly!"

　　She shook her head "I have a feeling we're going to find her to-night."

　　Katie was always having that feeling. But as she looked then he had notthe heart to remind her of the many times it had played her false.

　　Many girls passed them on the bridge, but not Ann. "I can never make upmy mind to go," she said. "I always think I ought to wait till the nextone comes round the corner."

　　A girl who appeared to be thinking deeply passed them, turning weary eyesupon them in languid interest.

　　"I wonder what," Katie exclaimed. "What she's thinking about," sheexplained. "Maybe she's come to the end of her string—and if she has,hundreds of thousands of people about her—oh I think it's terrible"—hervoice broke—"the way people are crowded so close together—and held sofar apart. Everybody's alone. Nobody knows."

　　For a second his hand closed over hers as it rested on the railing ofthe bridge, as if he would bear some of the hurt for her, that hurt shewas finding in everything.

　　Despite the extreme simplicity of her dress she looked out of placestanding on that bridge at that hour; he was thinking that she had notlost her distinction with her buoyancy.

　　Her face was quivering. "Katie," it made him ask, "don't you think you'dbetter—quit?"

　　She turned wet eyes upon him reproachfully. "From you?"

　　"But is any—individual—worth it?"

　　"Oh I suppose no 'individual' is worth much to you," she said alittle bitterly.

　　There was a touch of irony in the tender smile which was his onlyresponse.

　　They stood there in silence watching men and women come and go—solitaryand in groups—groups tired and groups laughing—groups respectable andgroups questionable—humanity—worn humanity—as it crossed that bridge.

　　She recalled that first night she had talked with him—that first time ahot day had seemed to her anything more than mere hot day, that night onthe Mississippi—where distant hills were to be seen. She remembered howshe had looked around the world that night to see if it needed "saving."It seemed a long time ago since she had not been able to see that theworld needed saving.

　　That was the night the man who mended the boats told her she had walkedsunny paths. She looked up at him with a faint smile, smiling at thefancy of his being an outsider.

　　It seemed, on the other hand, that all the hopes and fears in all thehearts that were passing them were drawing them together. There had beentimes when she had had a wonderful sense of their silences holding thesum of man's experiences.

　　"You must go home," he was saying decisively.

　　"Home? Where? To my uncle's? That's where I keep the trunks I'mnot using."

　　She laughed and brushed away a tear. "You know in the army we don'thave homes."

　　"Well you have temporary homes," he insisted, as each moment she seemedto become more worn. "You know what I mean. Go back to your brother's."

　　"He'll be ordered from there very soon. There'll not be a place there forme much longer."

　　He did not seem to have reckoned with that. His face changed. "Then wherewill you go, Katie?" he asked, very low. "What will you do?"

　　She shook her head. "I don't know. I don't know where I'll go—and Idon't know what I'll do."

　　They stood there in silence, drawn close by thought of separation.

　　"Shall we walk on?" she said at last. "I've lost the feeling that we'regoing to find Ann to-night."

　　And so, still silently, they walked on.

　　But when, after a moment, he looked at her, it was to see that shewas making heroic effort to control the tears. "Katie!" he murmured,"what is it?"

　　"We're giving up," she said, and could not say more.

　　"Why no we're not! It's only the method we're giving up. This way ofdoing it. You've tried this long enough."

　　"But what else is there? Just looking. Just keeping on looking—andhoping. Just the chance. What other method is there?"

　　"We'll find some other," he insisted, not willing, when she looked likethat, to speak his fears. "There'll be some other way. But you can't keepon this way—dear."

　　There was another silence—a different one: silence which opened toreceive them at the throb in his voice as he spoke that last word.

　　He had to go back that night. "Well?" he asked gently, as they nearedher hotel.

　　"I'll be down in a couple of days," replied Katie, not steadily.

　　"And you'll be there a little while, won't you," he asked wistfully,"before you go—you don't know where?"

　　"Yes," she said, turning her eyes upon him for just an instant, "a littlewhile—before I go—I don't know where."

　　But though she was going—she didn't know where—though she was givingup—seemed conquered—through all the uncertainty and the sadness theresurged a strange new joy in their hearts as, very slowly, they walkedthat final block.

　　At the door, after a moment's full silence, she held out her hand. "Andyou'll be down there—mending boats?"

　　He nodded, his eyes going where words had not ventured.

　　"And you'll—come and see me?" she asked shyly. "You don't mean, doyou,"—looking away, as if with scarcely the courage to say it—"that I'mto 'stop'—everything?"

　　"No, Katie," he said, and his voice was shaking, "I think you must know Ido not mean you are to—stop everything."

　　As they lingered for a final moment, they were alone—far out in thesweet wild new places of the spirit; and all that man had ever yearnedfor, all joy that had been given and all joy denied seemed as a richsea—fathomless sea—swelling just beneath that sweet wild new thing thathad fluttered to consciousness in their hearts.