Empire

James and Caroline but not Blaise.

They paused in an empty corner, as the Hays made their entrance. “Our Henry refuses to come,” James observed with quiet satisfaction. “He was here earlier this month, and he has now declared that he has had his absolute fill of the sublime Theodore, whilst conceding how strenuous, vigorous and, yes, let us acknowledge it, supple, our sovereign is, the sun at the center of the sky, with us as… as…”

“Clouds,” Caroline volunteered.

James frowned. “I once was obliged to let go an excellent typewriter-operator because whenever I paused for a word, she would offer me one, and always not simply the wrong word, but the very worst word.”

“I’m sorry. But I quite like us as clouds.”

“Why,” asked James, “with the delicious exception of yourself, are there no beautiful women at court?”

“Well, there is Mrs. Cameron-if not Martha.”

“Alas, not Martha. But Mrs. Cameron’s a visitor. What I take to be the local ladies here are plainer than what one would find at a comparable-if anything in poor shabby London could be compared to this incomparability- reception.”

Caroline repeated the Washington adage that the capital was filled with ambitious energetic men and the faded women that they had married in their green youth. James was amused. “The same doubtless applies to diplomats…”

They were joined by Jules Jusserand, the resplendent French ambassador, and the three lapsed into French, a language James spoke quite as melodiously as his own. “What did the President say to you?” asked Jusserand. “We were all watching the two of you, with fascination.”

“He expressed his delight-the very word he used, as, apparently, he always does-at my-and his-election to something called the National Institute of Arts and Letters, which has, parthenogetically, given birth to an American Academy, a rustic version of your august French Academy, some half a hundred members whose souls if not achievements are held to be immortal.”

“What,” said Jusserand, “will you wear?”

“Ah, that vexes us tremendously. As the President and I tend to corpulence, I have proposed togas, on the Roman model, but our leader John Hay favors some sort of uniform like-Admiral Dewey’s.” James bowed low, as the hero passed by them. “He is my new friend. We have exchanged cards. I know,” James swept the air with an extended arm, “everyone at last.”

“You are a lion,” said Caroline.

Supper was served in the new dining room, where a number of tables for ten had been set. Henry James was placed at the President’s table, a Cabinet lady between them. Saint-Gaudens was also at the monarch’s table, with Caroline to his right. Edith Roosevelt had come to depend upon Caroline for those occasions where the ability to talk French was necessary, not that the great American Dublin-born sculptor, despite his name, spoke much French. He lived in New Hampshire, not France. Of Lizzie Cameron, who had posed for the figure of Victory in Saint-Gaudens’s equestrienne monument to her uncle General Sherman, he said, “She has the finest profile of any woman in the world.”

“How satisfactory, to have such a thing, and to have you acknowledge it.”

Unfortunately, a table of ten was, for the President, no place for the ritual dinner-party conversation: first course, partner to right; second course, partner to left; and so on. The table for ten was Theodore’s pulpit, and they his congregation. “We must see more of Mr. James in his own country.” Theodore’s pince-nez glittered. As James opened his mouth to launch what would be a long but beautifully shaped response, the President spoke through him, and James, slowly, comically, shut his mouth as the torrent of sound, broken only by the clicking of teeth, swept over the table. “I cannot say that I very much like the idea of Mark Twain in our Academy.” He looked at James, but spoke to the table. “Howells, yes. He’s sound, much of the time. But Twain is like an old woman, ranting about imperialism. I’ve found there’s usually a physical reason for such people. They are congenially weak in the body, and this makes them weak in nerves, in courage, makes them fearful of war…”

“Surely,” began James.

The President’s shrill voice kept on. “Everyone knows that Twain ran away from the Civil War, a shameful thing to do…”

To Caroline’s astonishment, James’s deep baritone continued under the presidential tirade. The result was disconcerting but fascinating, a cello and a flute, simultaneously, playing separate melodies.

“… Mr. Twain, or Clemens, as I prefer to call him…”

“… testing of character and manhood. A forge…”

“… much strength of arm as well as, let us say…”

“… cannot flourish without the martial arts, or any civilization…”

“… distinguished and peculiarly American genius…”

“… desertion of the United States for a life abroad…”

“… when Mr. Hay telephoned Mr. Clemens from the Century Club to…”

“… without which the white race can no longer flourish, and prevail.” The President paused to drink soup. The table watched, and listened, as Henry James, master of so many millions of words, had the last. “And though I say-ah, tentatively, of course,” the President glared at him over his soup spoon, “the sublimity of the greatest art may be beyond his method, his-what other word?” The entire table leaned forward, what would the word be? and on what, Caroline wondered, was James’s astonishing self-confidence and authority, even majesty, based? “Drollery, that so often tires, and yet never entirely obscures for us the vision of that mighty river, so peculiarly august and ah-yes, yes? Yes! American.”

Before the President could again dominate the table, James turned to his post-soup partner, and Caroline turned to Saint-Gaudens, who said, “I can’t wait to tell Henry. The reason he won’t set foot ever again in this house is that he’s never allowed to finish a sentence and no Adams likes to be interrupted.”

“Mr. James is indeed a master.”

“Of an art considerably higher than mere politics.” Saint-Gaudens reminded Caroline of a bearded Puritan satyr, if such a creature was possible; he seemed very old in a way that the lively Adams, or the boyish if ill Hay, did not. “I wish I had read more in my life,” he said, as a fish was offered up to them.

“You have time.”

“No time.” He smiled. “Hay was furious at Mark Twain, who wouldn’t answer the telephone. We knew he was home, of course, but he didn’t want to join us at the Century Club. What bees are swarming in that bonnet! Twain’s latest bogey is Christian Science. He told me quite seriously, after only one Scotch sour, that in thirty years Christian Scientists will have taken over the government of the United States, and that they would then establish an absolute religious tyranny.”

“Why are Americans so mad for religion?”

“In the absence of a civilization,” Saint-Gaudens was direct, “what else have they?”

“Absence?” Caroline indicated James, who was smiling abstractedly at the President, who was again in the conversational saddle, but only at his end of the table. “And you. And Mr. Adams. And even the Sun King there.”

“Mr. James is truly absent. Gone from us for good. Mr. Adams writes of Virgins and dynamos in France. I am nothing. The President-well…”

“So Christ Scientist…”

“Or Christ Dentist…”

“Sets the tone.” Caroline never ceased to be amazed at the number of religious sects and societies the country spawned each year. Jim had told her that if he were to miss a Sunday service at the Methodist church in American City, he would not be re-elected, while Kitty taught Sunday school, with true belief. If for nothing else, Caroline was grateful to Mlle. Souvestre for having dealt God so absolute a death blow that she had never again felt the slightest need for that highly American-or Americanized-commodity.

The voice of Theodore was again heard at table. “I stood in the Red Room, I remember, on election night, and I told the press that I would not be a candidate again. Two terms is enough for anyone, I said, and say again.” Henry James stared dreamily at the President, as if by closely scrutinizing him he might distil his essence. “Politicians always stay on too long. Better to go at the top of your form, and give someone else a chance to measure up, which is what it is all about.”