XI

The comments of the occupants of nearby boxes would have been illuminating to J. Pennington Potter’s party, the box, for example, containing Cornelia Bond’s guests. Among these were young Dr. and Mrs. Peter Long, Mrs. Hermie Boston, Conrad White, who was a writer of stories about Negroes, and Betty Brown, his fiancée. Miss Cramp would have found their comments vulgar, unforgivable of Con and Betty, who had a way of forgetting all about the fact that they were white. J. Pennington Potter would have classed them as “Preposterous!” Dunn would have taken notes and written an editorial on the passing of Nordic supremacy. Merrit would have chuckled inwardly with glee.

“Who’s the scrawny neophyte with the J. Pop-eyed Potters?” from the reputedly wealthy Cornelia, who was tall and regal in bearing and thoroughly, beautifully Ethiopian in appearance.

“There are two,” said Hernie. “Which one?”

“Where’s the two?” demanded Cornelia.

“One’s off dancing with Nora Byle.”

“Nothing scrawny about him,” said Sarah Long.

“No,” agreed Cornelia, “and nothing dumb. The way he’s learning, it won’t be long now⁠—that Nora Byle is a dog.”

“Jealous!” grinned Hernie. “After the way you extracted Jimmie Polio from her clutches?”

“Don’t be a damn fool, Hernie. Wonder where Jimmy ran off to, come to think of it? Hasn’t reported to headquarters for an hour⁠—Sarah”⁠—to Mrs. Long, “I want you and that bad-haired husband of yours over to a little stomp-down Saturday night. Consider yourselves flattered⁠—Con and Betty’ll be the only other shines present.” Her eye fell again on Miss Agatha Cramp. “That’s the homeliest woman in the world, bar none,” she avowed.

Peter Long, who was “tight,” rose and sang in a loud voice:

“Oh her face was sharp as a butcher’s cleaber,
But dat did not seem to grieb ’er⁠—”

“She’s looking right at you, Cornelia,” said Hernie.

“Yea,” said Cornelia, “and I bet ten dollars she’s saying ‘Beautiful savage’ or ‘So primitive.’ ”

Conrad said, “Potter’s got a sense of humor anyhow. Hooking her up with Gloria Dunn and Nora Byle. I’ll bet Gloria snubbed her.”

“No, Con. You’re the only fay I know that draws the color line on other fays.”

“It’s natural. Downtown I’m only passing. These,” he waved grandiloquently, “are my people.”

“Yea⁠—so you seem to think, the way you sell ’em for cash,” said Cornelia.

“They enjoy being sold,” returned Con.

Betty said, “Don’t you think that Nora Byle has the most beautiful hands in the world?”

“I never pay much attention to her⁠—hands,” grinned Con.

“All the girls I know in Harlem have beautiful hands,” Betty complained.

“You don’t know many, then,” Cornelia remarked.

“Just look at mine,” Betty went on. “Pudgy as a poodle’s paw. This Caucasian superiority stuff is a lot of bunk.”

“Don’t let your liquor out-talk you, Betty.”

“No danger,” said Betty. Then, “Say⁠—do you know what I’m going to do?”

“Commit suicide,” suggested Cornelia.

“In a way. I’m going to write a novel much better than anything Con has done⁠—”

“Not much of an ambition⁠—”

“⁠—and present it as the work of a Negro.”

“Negress,” corrected Hernie with irony.

“Well,” said Con, “you can be sure of two things.”

“What?”

“You can be sure some critic will call it the best thing ever done by a Negro.”

“Yes,” said Cornelia, “as if that’s paying you a hell of a compliment.”

“And,” Con continued, “you can be sure that some fay will insist that it should have been more African.”

“And the critic’s name,” said Cornelia, “will probably be Rabinowitch.”

A tall, very blond young man with rosy cheeks, whose eyelids were ptotic with alcohol, came clambering into the box as if he had six pairs of feet.

“Where’s my Ethiopian?” he cried at the top of his lungs, peering about myopically and waving his arms like antennae. “Hey!⁠—where’s my Ethiopian queen?”

“Jimmy!” called Cornelia. “Bottle that racket. Come here and sit down, you imp.”

“Where?” pleaded Jimmy Polio. “Can’t see you at all, really. Can’t seem to get my silly eyes open⁠—”

“Look, Con,” said Betty, indicating Miss Agatha Cramp, who had heard Jimmy’s cry and was now observing from a distance. “Look at the horror on that poor woman’s face. She’s just about ready to die.”

Together they looked at the wide-eyed Miss Cramp and together they chuckled with merriment.

“Well,” sighed Miss Cramp, “Mr. Potter told me that this would be an excellent chance to observe different types of Negroes.”

“It seems to be an excellent chance to observe different types of Caucasians, also,” said Merrit.

“Disgusting, isn’t it? I can’t understand why people of apparently our own kind, Mr. Merrit⁠—It’s humiliating, isn’t it?”

“They out-Herod the Romans, don’t they?”

“Unpardonable. How can we hope to help these others if we set so poor an example ourselves?”

“An excellent point. If we are not careful, instead of helping them, we will find them helping us.”

“Helping us?”

“Yes. Or more. Transforming us. If things go on like this, one of these days this country’s going to wake up with dark brown skin and kinky hair.”

“Horrible!”

“Horrible? Why?”

“Oh, Mr. Merrit!”

“I really see nothing horrible about it. I rather think the country would enjoy it.”

“Well⁠—I for one shouldn’t.”

“But think, Miss Cramp,” he prodded, “how much better off our country would be⁠—”

“With dark brown skin? I can’t imagine⁠—”

“No. Figuratively of course. With a spiritual attitude⁠—an emotional makeup like the Negro’s.”

“Just what do you mean?”

“This tropic nonchalance, as Locke calls it. This acceptance of circumstance not with a shrug, like the Oriental, but with a characteristic grin. Nobody laughs at the miseries of life like the Negro. He laughs at himself, at his own pains and dangers and disappointments and oppressions. He accepts things, not with resignation but with amusement. That, it seems to me, should be a most alarming thing for his enemy to see.”

“I don’t understand at all.”

“No? Suppose you were fighting somebody, and at every blow you delivered, your antagonist simply grinned and came on. Wouldn’t you soon get scared? Wouldn’t you begin to lose your nerve? Would you begin wondering if maybe the other fellow wasn’t grinning at the futility of your blows⁠—if maybe he wasn’t just biding his time in the certainty of his power? How could you wound a fellow who simply laughed? How could you be sure what he was laughing at? Himself? Maybe. But I know I’d begin to think he might be laughing at me.”

“It isn’t easy to follow you, Mr. Merrit. But it seems to me that the Negro would be far better off if he didn’t laugh so much, no matter at whom. He doesn’t take anything seriously. If he did, if he worried more, I think he’d be far better off today.”

“Well⁠—maybe today, Miss Cramp. But what about tomorrow?”

“What can you mean?”

“Wouldn’t it be funny, Miss Cramp, if the Negro let his fair-skinned brother⁠—or cousin, to be a trifle more exact⁠—do all the so-called serious work? Build bridges, dig canals, capture natural forces, fly airplanes, amass wealth, evolve society⁠—these are serious things. Wouldn’t it be amusing if the Negro let others worry their brains out devising and developing the civilized luxuries of life⁠—while he spent his time simply living, developing nothing but his capacity for enjoyment; and then when the job was finished, stepped in and took complete possession? Suppose⁠—just suppose, for one can never know⁠—that this irrepressible laughter, this resiliency, is caused by the confidence that he will reap what his oppressors have sown?”

“But that’s impossible. Where will he ever get the power to take complete possession?”

“Power? Sheer force of numbers⁠—the overwhelming majority of dark skins in the earth. Together with the⁠—er⁠—the effect of climate. If the climate keeps changing, or if people keep exposing themselves to changes in climate, the time will eventually come when there won’t be but a few pure skins left⁠—Now won’t it be positively uproarious if the serious achievements reach their height about then?”

“Well,” she said after a moment, “I don’t think either you or I need worry over that, Mr. Merrit. It’s altogether too remote. If I can’t see that far, I doubt that any Negro can. It need not worry you at all.”

“Quite right. Nobody needs worry over any of it⁠—past, present, or future. Its course is unchangeable by anything so futile as people’s worry. That’s the joker in this very occasion, Miss Cramp. Uplift the Negro? Why, his position is the most profoundly strategic on earth.”

“You really think so?”

“He that is last shall be first.”

“Well, that would certainly be awful, wouldn’t it?”

There was silence between them.

Presently Miss Cramp remembered that Merrit had been presented to her as an inured bachelor. She said:

“Mr. Merrit, these are serious questions. We must thresh them out some time.”

“I should like nothing better,” he said.

“Do you spend the summer in town?”

“I’m leaving for the country tomorrow but I’ll be back the end of the summer.”

“Then you must come and see me on your return. We shall have so much to discuss.”

“Nothing would give me greater pleasure,” he said, and she saw from the present pleasure in his eyes that he must mean what he was saying.

It gave her a thrill, “Summers,” she sighed, “are so long, aren’t they?”

“My maid,” said Miss Cramp, “is a Negress. The first one I have ever had, and I must say, the best. She is very pretty, too. She is so different from what one thinks of on hearing the term, Negress. Extremely pretty, really.”

“And she remains a maid?”

“Why not? It’s honest work and very good pay.”

“The pretty ones usually prefer to go on the stage.”

“Oh, Linda wouldn’t think of any such thing. You see she was raised in an Episcopal Orphanage and seems to be rather religious⁠—I was quite glad to learn how many Negroes are Episcopalian. I didn’t know there were any, did you?”

“Are there?”

“A large number, from what this girl says. And what do you think Mr. Merrit? Religious as she is, she never sings spirituals!”

“No? I can’t believe it. But she must have some vices?”

“Her only recreation is dancing. Her rector seems to be a very up-to-date person. There are weekly affairs at her church community center and she always goes.”

“Must be an awfully dull person.”

“On the contrary, extremely interesting. It was through her that I learned of the General Improvement Association. No doubt she is here tonight. In fact, I thought I saw her once just now, down there on the floor, dancing.”

She looked sharply for a prolonged moment, then suddenly exclaimed, “I did too! There she is, there. That tall one in the gypsy costume⁠—isn’t she unusual?”

“The one just starting to dance with the big chap in gray?”

“Yes.”

Merrit too looked sharply. Appreciation of unfamiliar features at that distance in a crowd was difficult, but⁠—

“I’ve seen that girl somewhere. You say she’s your maid?”

“I’m positive that’s Linda.”

A moment’s rumination; then he remembered. Slowly over his face came an expression of elation far more than commensurate with the recognition.

“Miss Cramp,” he said, “do you by any chance live on Court Avenue?”

“Yes, I do.” She was extremely well pleased. “I was about to give you my address. However did you know?”

“Why, Miss Cramp,” there was no mistaking his joy, “we’re neighbors!”

“Really? Why, Mr. Merrit!”

“You live at 309, don’t you?”

“Yes!”

“And I live at 313⁠—that is I will when I come back to town.”

“How lovely! But⁠—how⁠—?”

“I saw that girl go into your house one morning when I was having some things moved in. She had her own key.”

“Well, isn’t this nice, Mr. Merrit.” She laughed. “I suppose when you saw Linda come in like that, with her own key, you thought you might even have got into a Negro neighborhood?”

“I admit, I wondered.”

“That would have been tragic.” She lowered her voice. “I can imagine nothing more awful. To help them is quite all right. To live beside them is quite another matter.”

“It is indeed, Miss Cramp. It is indeed.”

“You need never have any fear of that in Court Avenue. Frankly, we are rather exclusive, you know.”

“I had that in mind when I purchased.”

“And to think we are next door neighbors, Mr. Merrit.”

They beamed at each other, each in the delight of his own withheld motive, his own private anticipations; a tableau that was soon interrupted by the noisy return of the two couples that had been dancing. Whereupon, rather suddenly it seemed, Merrit decided that he must leave. He rose to go.

“I shall look forward to your call,” she reminded.

“If I could only be sure you were doing that,” said he, “you’ve no idea the pleasure ’twould give me.”

“You can be sure,” she said.

As he left, he chuckled and chided himself:

“Damn shame to worry that poor woman like that⁠—she’ll die before the night’s over. Somebody’ll tell her sure.”