Yes, Life was a cruel joke, and Matthew turned to write of everyday things:
“As I sat last night huddled over my supper—a very greasy pork chop, sodden potatoes, oleomargarine, soggy cornbread, partly cooked cabbage, and weak, cold coffee—as I sat in my grimy overalls and guzzled this mess, someone came and sat at my table with its dirty oilcloth cover. I did not look up, but a voice, a rather flat, unusual voice, ordered rice. ‘Just rice.’ Then I looked up at a Chinese woman, and she smiled wanly back.
“ ‘I prefer,’ she said, ‘don’t you, the cuisine of the Lützower Ufer?’
“It was one of our Chinese friends. I was glad and ashamed to see her. She seemed to notice nothing—made no comment, asked no awkward questions. Principally she talked of China.
“Oh, China, China, where shall we find leaders! They rise, they fall, they die, they desert. The men who can do, the men of thought and knowledge, the men who know technique, the unselfish and farseeing—how shall we harness these to the greatest chariot in the world and not have them seduced and stolen by Power, Pleasure, Display, Gluttony? Oh, I know it is the old story of human weakness, but if only we had a little more strength and unity now and then at critical moments, we could climb a step and lift the sodden, smitten mass.
“There was Chiang Kai-Shek, so fine and young a warrior! I knew him well. I saw once his golden face alight with the highest ideals, his eyes a Heaven-in-Earth. Today, what is he? I do not know. Perhaps he does not. Oh, why was it that Sun Yat Sen must die so soon? But’—she rose from the half-eaten, mushy rice—‘we must push on always—on!’ And then pausing she said, timidly, ‘And you, my friend. Are you pushing-on?’
“I hesitated and then arose and stood before her: ‘I am pushing on!’ I said. She looked at me with glad eyes, and touching her forehead, was gone. And I was right, Kautilya, I am pushing on.”
And turning from Kautilya’s sealed letter, he took another sheet and laboriously wrote a long letter to Sara, saying all there was to be said; explaining, confessing, offering to return to her if she wanted him, but on the conditions which she must already know. He received no answer. Yet once again he wrote and almost pleaded. Again he had no word.
XVI
There was a little court scene on State Street in April, 1927. It looked more like an intimate family party, and everybody seemed in high good humor. The white judge was smiling affably and joking with the Honorable Sammy Scott. Two or three attorneys were grouped about. Hats, canes, and briefcases were handy, as though no one expected to tarry long. Mrs. Sara Towns came in. Mrs. Towns was a quiet and thoroughly adequate symphony in gray. She had on a gray tailor-made suit, with plain sheath skirt dropping below, but just below, her round knees. There was soft gray silk within and beneath the coat. There were gray stockings and gray suede shoes and gray chamoisette gloves. The tiny hat was gray, and pulled down just a trifle sideways so as to show sometimes one and sometimes two of her cool gray eyes. She looked very competent and very desirable. The Honorable Sammy’s eyes sparkled. He liked the way Sara looked. He did not remember ever seeing her look better.
He felt happy, rich, and competent. He just had to tell Corruthers, aside:
“Yes, sir! She just got up of her own accord and gave me a kiss square on the beezer. You could ’a’ bowled me over with a feather.”
“Oh, she always liked you. She just married Towns for spite.”
Sammy expanded. Things were coming very nicely to a head. The new Mayor had just been elected by a landslide; at the same time the Mayor’s enemy, the Governor, knew that while Sammy had fought the Mayor in the primaries according to orders, he had nevertheless come out of the election with a machine which was not to be ignored. The pending presidential election was bound to set things going Sammy’s way. The Mayor’s popularity was probably local and temporary. The Governor had his long fingers on the powerful persons who pull the automata which rule the nation. These automata had been, in Sammy’s opinion, quite convinced that no one would do their will in Congress better than the Honorable Sammy Scott. Moreover, the Governor and Mayor were not going to be enemies long. They could not afford it.
In other words, to put it plainly, the slate was being arranged so that after the presidential election of 1928, the succeeding congressional election would put the first colored man from the North in Congress, and it was on the boards that this man was to be Sammy. Meantime and in the three years ensuing, the prospective Mrs. Sara Scott and her husband were going to have a chance to play one of the slickest political games ever played in Chicago. Above all, Sammy was more than well-to-do, and Sara was no pauper. He wasn’t merely asking political favors. He was demanding, and he had the cash to pay. Sammy rubbed his hands and gloated over Sara.
A clerk hurried in with a document. The judge, poising his pen, smiled benevolently at Sara. Sara had seated herself in a comfortable-looking chair, holding her knees very close together and yet exhibiting quite a sufficient length of silk stocking of excellent quality.
“Does the defendant make any reply?” asked the judge. And then, without pausing for an answer, he started to write his name. He had finished the first capital when someone walked out of the gloom at the back of the room and came into the circle of the electric light which had to shine in the office even at noontime.
Matthew came forward. He was in overalls and wore a sweater. Yet he was clean, well shaven, and stood upright. He
