Rejected of Men

“I thought all that trouble was over and done with now,” said Gilderman.

“Oh no, indeed. Why, I’m going to meet Dolan–Inspector Dolan, you know–at eleven o’clock to-day, and we’re going down to a meeting that those people are going to hold this morning. I’m going to make a sketch of it. They are quite the most interesting thing I have come across for a long time, and I think the world will be rather struck to find that these strange folk are living in its very midst without its knowing anything at all about them.”

“Really!” said Gilderman. And then, after a moment of pause: “Do you know, Mr. Foord, I’d like immensely to go with you and Dolan and see these people.”

Santley Foord laughed. “Well, Mr. Gilderman, to tell you the honest truth, I don’t believe you would like it very much. The surroundings are not especially pleasant. I’ve got used to all those kinds of sights and smells by this time. One gets used to no end of such things knocking about on the rough side of the world, but I don’t believe you’d like it.”

Gilderman laughed in answer. “I don’t know that I would especially like the sights and smells,” he said, “but I’d like very much to see what these poor people are doing.” And then, after a brief second of hesitation, he continued: “Such things interest me very much. I saw the Man Himself two or three times while He was alive, and spoke to Him once face to face. He impressed me very singularly.”

“Did He, indeed?” said Santley Foord.

Gilderman had found it very hard one time to confess this to his wife. It had not been so hard to repeat the narrative in part to Stirling West, and since then he had described the scene in the cemetery several times to friends who had asked him about it. He described it now, growing conscious as he did so of how flat his narrative was compared to the clever way in which Foord would have told the story.

Foord listened very interestedly. “By Jove!” he said, when Gilderman had ended, “I would have given a deal to see that, Mr. Gilderman. It beats anything I ever saw down in India, and I’ve seen some very strange things there, too.” Then he began a vivid description of the old trick: how he had once seen some jugglers put a woman under a basket that was just big enough to cover her, and of how one of the Indians had run the basket through and through with a sword. His description of the woman’s screams and of the trick blood that flowed from under the basket and over the hot, white stones of the pavement was almost horribly startling, and Gilderman, as he listened, again registered a determination that he would ask Santley Foord to a man’s dinner some time in the near future.

After a while Foord arose from where he was sitting and sauntered around the room, looking at some of the pictures and sketches. Then, having completed his inspection, he said, in his almost abrupt fashion: “Well, it’s time to go around to the St. George. If you really care to go with us to see these people, Mr. Gilderman, I’ll be glad to take you along.”

“I’d like to see them,” said Gilderman, “but I don’t know whether Norcott’s through with me yet.”

“Just give me five minutes more, Mr. Gilderman,” said Norcott, “and then we’ll call the sitting off for the day.”

Gilderman took Foord around to the St. George with him in his automobile, and they got out together and entered the wide, marble-flagged vestibule almost arm-in-arm. They found Inspector Dolan already there and waiting. He was sitting on one of the leather-covered seats that stood along the wall and was talking to a stranger. He arose as Gilderman and Foord came in, and he looked distinctly surprised to see Gilderman.

“Mr. Gilderman wants to go along with us,” said Foord, and then the inspector laughed.

Gilderman ordered an electric coach, and as they whirled away down-town he offered his cigarette-case to his companions.

“I don’t think I’ve seen you, inspector,” he said, “since that man sold his Master to the bishop that day. Whatever became of him? I wonder if he ever felt sorry for what he had done.”

“Sorry!” said the inspector–“sorry! I should think so. The officers found his dead body hanging to a tree the day after the execution.”

“Oh yes,” said Gilderman, “I remember now reading an account of it. But I did not know it was that man who hanged himself.”

“Yes, sir, that was the man.”

The coach stopped in a narrow and dirty street. Then they all got out and walked for some little distance down the paved court until the inspector at last turned into an alleyway.

The alley opened into another paved court, and here Gilderman found himself in the midst of the sights and smells of which Santley Foord had spoken. There were two or three rather dilapidated houses looking down upon the court. They were shabby, squalid-looking piles, and overhead, from house to house, were stretched clothes-lines, with clothes hanging out to dry, motionless in the dull, heavy air. The court was paved with cobble-stones, and here and there water had settled in stagnant puddles. There were a couple of ash-barrels standing by one of the houses, piled high with ashes and scraps of refuse.

The inspector led the way directly to one of the houses. He put his hand upon the knob of the door and turned it very softly. Then he opened it and entered with Gilderman and Foord at his heels.

Gilderman found himself in a dark, narrow entryway. The walls of the entry had that peculiar, greasy look that seems always to belong to houses of the poorer sort, and there was everywhere a rank and pervading smell. As the inspector closed the door, another door at the farther end of the entry opened and a stout woman, unmistakably Jewish in appearance, stood framed in the space of light behind. She hesitated for a moment, and then said, with a sharp, rasping voice: “What do you want? What are you doing here?”

The inspector walked directly along the passageway towards her. “That’s all right, Sarah,” he said. “It’s Inspector Dolan.”

“What’s the matter now?” said the woman. “I ’ain’t been doing no harm.”

“There’s nothing the matter at all, only these two gentlemen here want to go up-stairs to see your friends on the third floor.”

“There ain’t nobody up on the third floor,” said the woman, sullenly; “they ’ain’t been here for a couple of days.”

The inspector laughed. “That’s all right, Sarah,” he said. “We’ll go up and look for ourselves. Just you stay down here. And don’t you go kicking up a row,” he added, turning suddenly stern in his demeanor.

The woman shrunk back as though threatened with a lash, but she did not go entirely away. She partly followed them and then stood watching with a sort of impotent sullenness as they went up-stairs, the inspector leading the way.

Gilderman was nearly overpowered by the close, heavy atmosphere of the house. His companions did not seem to think anything of it at all, and he knew that the people who lived every day in that atmosphere would not be aware of its close fetor. Surroundings of this sort were infinitely distasteful to him, but since he had come so far he made up his mind that he would go on to the end.

As the three climbed the stairs Gilderman became aware of a strange, droning, sing-song sort of chant, or rather mummer, that grew louder and louder as they ascended. He found it came from one of the rooms on the third floor. The inspector led the way directly to the door of this room, and Santley Foord turned and said to Gilderman: “It’s those people you hear, and, by George! Mr. Gilderman, we’re in luck; they’re about some of their religious ceremonies this minute. I hope you’ll be able to see some of them in a trance state.”

The inspector stood for a while with his hand upon the knob as though listening. Then he said, in a low voice, “I’ll wait outside here.”

“Is it perfectly safe?” asked Gilderman, instinctively lowering his voice to the same pitch as that in which the inspector spoke.

“Lord bless you! yes, Mr. Gilderman,” said Dolan; “they’re as harmless as mice.”

Then he opened the door and Foord stepped into the room, closely followed by Gilderman. There were maybe a dozen or so men in the crowded space. The room was very close and hot. Some of the inmates were sitting around a deal table; two were standing with their backs to a cold and rusty stove, and one was leaning against the wall, his face hidden in his arm, his body shaking as though he were crying. None of them seemed to be aware of the presence of the intruders, and then Gilderman saw with a shock, almost as of awe, that they were indeed in a state as though of entrancement. The faces of all were transfixed, vacant, exalted. They seemed all to be lit with a singular illumination. It was almost as though the faces were translucent and illuminated to that singular roseate brightness by a light from behind. Gilderman had never seen anything like it before. By-and-by a feeling akin to terror began to creep over him. What did it all mean? A strange, groaning murmur coming from the breasts of the men filled the room full of sound, now rising fuller, almost into articulate speech, now quavering away into a dull murmur. It was very impressive–almost awful, to Gilderman.

If Foord was at all impressed he was too busy to yield to his emotions. He had taken out his sketch-book and was sketching rapidly. Inspector Dolan was looking over his shoulder through the half-open door.

None of the three knew what it was that they had come so near to seeing; for the crying man with his face hidden against the wall was Thomas the Doubter.

Still Foord sketched away rapidly, and by-and-by Gilderman found himself becoming interested in the swift, dexterous strokes of the pencil and the quick suggestions of portraiture. “Do you suppose they mind you doing this?” he whispered.

“Lord bless you, no!” said Foord, sotto voce. “They don’t see or know anything when they’re in that state.”

At the sound of the voice the crying man lifted his face for a moment from his hands and looked towards Gilderman with strange, filmy, sightless eyes. His cheeks were drenched with tears. Gilderman knew that though the man looked towards him he did not see him.

As Gilderman continued down-town towards the office, he felt strangely softened and moved–strangely impressed by what he had just seen. Again, as he thought over it all, a feeling as of awe came upon him. He did not understand what it was he had beheld, but the impression lay heavily upon him. A recollection of the morning’s scene, accompanied by the same feeling of awe (though less strong and vivid), recurred again to him that afternoon as he crossed the river to embark upon the other side for the capital. He was standing in the bow of the ferry-boat at the time looking out across the water. He had never seen a human face illuminated as those faces had been. It was as though the spirit shone forth and consumed the fibres of flesh that incased it. Was it then, indeed, true that the spirit was so present in every fibre of flesh that it could thus glorify the human body to that strange illumination? The bright surface of the harbor stretched away before him, shut in by the distant farther shore of clustered buildings. A huge out-going steamer was ploughing its slow and monstrous way down the river. Gilderman saw everything and yet saw nothing as he stood there pondering the remembrances of that morning.

He suddenly awoke to the things of every day as the boat thumped its way into the slip, and he pushed forward with the crowd which, as soon as it had poured off from the boat, presently spread out until he was able to hurry through the waiting-room of the depot to the train.

His man met him at the gate and directed him to the parlor-car, where Stirling West met him. “Hello, Gildy!” he said; “I thought you were going to be left.”

As they went together along between the rows of chairs to the compartment where Tom De Witt and his mother and two sisters already sat, Stirling West nudged Gilderman with his elbow. “Ain’t she a daisy!” he said, in a whisper. And Gilderman, looking down, saw an exceedingly pretty and stylishly dressed blond girl sitting with an elderly man of senatorial appearance.

He felt a distinct pleasure in the prettiness of the girl, and he looked back at her again as he was about to enter the door of the compartment. He was already forgetting what he had that morning seen.

THE END