To the few who approached him at all, Matthew was boorish and gruff. He knew that he was unfair, but he could not help it. All the little annoyances, which in healthier days he would have laughed away, avoided, or shortly forgotten, now piled themselves on his sore soul. The roommate assigned him discovered that his companion was colored and quickly decamped with his baggage. A Romanian who spoke little English, and had not learned American customs, replaced him.
Matthew entered the dining-room with nerves a-quiver. Every eye caught him during the meal—some, curiously; some, derisively; some, in half-contemptuous surprise. He felt and measured all, looking steadily into his plate. On one side sat an old and silent man. To the empty seat on the other side he heard acutely a swish of silk approach—a pause and a consultation, The seat remained empty. At the next meal he was placed in a far corner with people too simple or poor or unimportant to protest. He heaved a sigh to have it over and ate thereafter in silence and quickly.
So at last life settled down, soothed by the sea—the rhythm and song of the old, old sea. He slept and read and slept; stared at the water; lived his life again to its wild climax; put down repeatedly the cold, hard memory; and drifting, slept again.
Yet always, as he rose from the deep seas of sleep and reverie, the silent battle with his fellows went on. Now he yearned fiercely for someone to talk to; to talk and talk and explain and prove and disprove. He glimpsed faces at times, intelligent, masterful. They had brains; if they knew him they would choose him as companion, friend; but they did not know him. They did not want to know him. They glanced at him momentarily and then looked away. They were afraid to be noticed noticing him.
And he? He would have killed himself rather than have them dream he would accept a greeting, much less a confidence. He looked past and through and over them with blank unconcern. So much so that a few—simpler souls, themselves wandering alone hither and thither in this aimless haphazard group of a fugitive week—ventured now and then to understand: “I never saw none of you fellers like you—” began one amiable Italian. “No?” answered Matthew briefly and walked away.
“You’re not lonesome?” asked a New England merchant, adding hastily, “I’ve always been interested in your people.”
“Yes,” said Matthew with an intonation that stopped further conversation along that line.
“No,” he growled at an insulted missionary, “I don’t believe in God—never did—do you?”
And yet all the time he was sick at heart and yearning. If but one soul with sense, knowledge, and decency had firmly pierced his awkwardly hung armor, he could have helped make these long hard days human. And one did, a moment, now and then—a little tow-haired girl of five or six with great eyes. She came suddenly on him one day: “Won’t you play ball with me?” He started, smiled, and looked down. He loved children. Then he saw the mother approaching—typically Middle-West American, smartly dressed and conscious of her social inferiority. Slowly his smile faded; quickly he walked away. Yet nearly every day thereafter the child smiled shyly at him as though they shared a secret, and he smiled slowly back; but he was careful never to see the elaborate and most exclusive mother.
Thus they came to green Plymouth and passed the fortress walls of Cherbourg and, sailing by merry vessels and white cliffs, rode on to the Scheldt. All day they crept past fields and villages, ships and windmills, up to the slender cathedral tower of Antwerp.
III
Sitting in the Viktoria Café, on the Unter den Linden, Berlin, Matthew looked again at the white leviathan—at that mighty organization of white folk against which he felt himself so bitterly in revolt. It was the same vast, remorseless machine in Berlin as in New York. Of course, there were differences—differences which he felt like a tingling pain. He had on the street here no sense of public insult; he was treated as he was dressed, and today he had dressed carefully, wearing the new suit made for the opening school term; he had on his newest dark crimson tie that burned with the red in his smooth brown face; he carried cane and gloves, and he had walked into this fashionable café with an air. He knew that he would be served, politely and without question.
Yes, in Europe he could at least eat where he wished so long as he paid. Yet the very thought made him angry; conceive a man outcast in his own native land! And even here, how long could he pay, he who sat with but two hundred dollars in the world, with no profession, no work, no friends, no country? Yes, these folks treated him as a man—or rather, they did not, on looking at him, treat him as less than a man. But what of it? They were white. What would they say if he asked for work? Or a chance for his brains? Or a daughter in marriage? There was a blonde and blue-eyed
