He remarked: “Glad to meet you, Miss Gordon—Miss Llewellyn,” and plumped himself down at Mary’s side, where he started to make conversation, too glibly.
Valérie Seymour was soon talking to Lincoln with a friendliness that put him at his ease—just at first he had seemed a little self-conscious. But Pat was much more reserved in her manner, having hailed from abolitionist Boston.
Wanda said abruptly: “Can I have a drink, Jamie?” Brockett poured her out a stiff brandy and soda.
Adolphe Blanc sat on the floor hugging his knees; and presently Dupont the sculptor strolled in—being minus his mistress he migrated to Stephen.
Then Lincoln seated himself at the piano, touching the keys with firm, expert fingers, while Henry stood beside him very straight and long and lifted up his voice which was velvet smooth, yet as clear and insistent as the call of a clarion:
“Deep, river, my home is over Jordan.
Deep river—Lord, I want to cross over into camp ground,
Lord, I want to cross over into camp ground,
Lord, I want to cross over into camp ground,
Lord, I want to cross over into camp ground. …”
And all the hope of the utterly hopeless of this world, who must live by their ultimate salvation, all the terrible, aching, homesick hope that is born of the infinite pain of the spirit, seemed to break from this man and shake those who listened, so that they sat with bent heads and clasped hands—they who were also among the hopeless sat with bent heads and clasped hands as they listened. … Even Valérie Seymour forgot to be pagan.
He was not an exemplary young negro; indeed he could be the reverse very often. A crude animal Henry could be at times, with a taste for liquor and a lust for women—just a primitive force rendered dangerous by drink, rendered offensive by civilization. Yet as he sang his sins seemed to drop from him, leaving him pure, unashamed, triumphant. He sang to his God, to the God of his soul, Who would some day blot out all the sins of the world, and make vast reparation for every injustice: “My home is over Jordan, Lord, I want to cross over into camp ground.”
Lincoln’s deep bass voice kept up a low sobbing. From time to time only did he break into words; but as he played on he rocked his body: “Lord, I want to cross over into camp ground. Lord, I want to cross over into camp ground.”
Once started they seemed unable to stop; carried away they were by their music, drunk with that desperate hope of the hopeless—far drunker than Henry would get on neat whisky. They went from one spiritual into another, while their listeners sat motionless, scarcely breathing. While Jamie’s eyes ached from unshed tears quite as much as from her unsuitable glasses; while Adolphe Blanc, the gentle, the learned, grasped his knees and pondered many things deeply; while Pat remembered her Arabella and found but small consolation in beetles; while Brockett thought of certain brave deeds that he, even he had done out in Mespot—deeds that were not recorded in dispatches, unless in those of the recording angel; while Wanda evolved an enormous canvas depicting the wrongs of all mankind; while Stephen suddenly found Mary’s hand and held it in hers with a painful pressure; while Barbara’s tired and childish brown eyes turned to rest rather anxiously on her Jamie. Not one of them all but was stirred to the depths by that queer, half defiant, half supplicating music.
And now there rang out a kind of challenge; imperious, loud, almost terrifying. They sang it together, those two black brethren, and their voices suggested a multitude shouting. They seemed to be shouting a challenge to the world on behalf of themselves and of all the afflicted:
“Didn’t my Lord deliver Daniel,
Daniel, Daniel!
Didn’t my Lord deliver Daniel,
Then why not every man?”
The eternal question, as yet unanswered for those who sat there spellbound and listened. … “Didn’t my Lord deliver Daniel, then why not every man?”
Why not? … Yes, but how long, O Lord, how long?
Lincoln got up from the piano abruptly, and he made a small bow which seemed strangely foolish, murmuring some stilted words of thanks on behalf of himself and his brother Henry: “We are greatly obliged to you for your patience; we trust that we have satisfied you;” he murmured.
It was over. They were just two men with black skins and foreheads beaded with perspiration. Henry sidled away to the whisky, while Lincoln rubbed his pinkish palms on an elegant white silk handkerchief. Everyone started to talk at once, to light cigarettes, to move about the studio.
Jamie said: “Come on, people, it’s time for supper,” and she swallowed a small glass of crème-de-menthe; but Wanda poured herself out some more brandy.
Quite suddenly they had all become merry, laughing at nothing, teasing each other; even Valérie unbent more than was her wont and did not look bored when Brockett chaffed her. The air grew heavy and stinging with smoke; the stove went out, but they scarcely noticed.
Henry Jones lost his head and pinched Pat’s bony shoulder, then he rolled his eyes: “Oh, boy! What a gang! Say, folks, aren’t we having the hell of an evening? When any of you folk decide to come over to my little old New York, why, I’ll show you around. Some burg!” and he gulped a large mouthful of whisky.
After supper Jamie played the overture to her opera, and they loudly applauded the rather dull music—so scholarly, so dry, so painfully stiff, so utterly inexpressive of Jamie. Then Wanda produced her mandolin and insisted upon singing them Polish love songs; this she did in
