Chapter: I

THEY had four hours in New York between trains. The one thing Babbitt
wished to see was the Pennsylvania Hotel, which had been built since his
last visit. He stared up at it, muttering, "Twenty-two hundred rooms and
twenty-two hundred baths! That's got everything in the world beat. Lord,
their turnover must be--well, suppose price of rooms is four to eight
dollars a day, and I suppose maybe some ten and--four times twenty-two
hundred-say six times twenty-two hundred--well, anyway, with restaurants
and everything, say summers between eight and fifteen thousand a day.
Every day! I never thought I'd see a thing like that! Some town! Of
course the average fellow in Zenith has got more Individual Initiative
than the fourflushers here, but I got to hand it to New York. Yes, sir,
town, you're all right--some ways. Well, old Paulski, I guess we've
seen everything that's worth while. How'll we kill the rest of the time?
Movie?"

But Paul desired to see a liner. "Always wanted to go to Europe--and, by
thunder, I will, too, some day before I past out," he sighed.

From a rough wharf on the North River they stared at the stern of
the Aquitania and her stacks and wireless antenna lifted above the
dock-house which shut her in.

"By golly," Babbitt droned, "wouldn't be so bad to go over to the
Old Country and take a squint at all these ruins, and the place where
Shakespeare was born. And think of being able to order a drink whenever
you wanted one! Just range up to a bar and holler out loud, 'Gimme a
cocktail, and darn the police!' Not bad at all. What juh like to see,
over there, Paulibus?"

Paul did not answer. Babbitt turned. Paul was standing with clenched
fists, head drooping, staring at the liner as in terror. His thin body,
seen against the summer-glaring planks of the wharf, was childishly
meager.

Again, "What would you hit for on the other side, Paul?"

Scowling at the steamer, his breast heaving, Paul whispered, "Oh, my
God!" While Babbitt watched him anxiously he snapped, "Come on, let's
get out of this," and hastened down the wharf, not looking back.

"That's funny," considered Babbitt. "The boy didn't care for seeing the
ocean boats after all. I thought he'd be interested in 'em."


II

Though he exulted, and made sage speculations about locomotive
horse-power, as their train climbed the Maine mountain-ridge and from
the summit he looked down the shining way among the pines; though he
remarked, "Well, by golly!" when he discovered that the station at
Katadumcook, the end of the line, was an aged freight-car; Babbitt's
moment of impassioned release came when they sat on a tiny wharf on Lake
Sunasquam, awaiting the launch from the hotel. A raft had floated down
the lake; between the logs and the shore, the water was transparent,
thin-looking, flashing with minnows. A guide in black felt hat with
trout-flies in the band, and flannel shirt of a peculiarly daring blue,
sat on a log and whittled and was silent. A dog, a good country
dog, black and woolly gray, a dog rich in leisure and in meditation,
scratched and grunted and slept. The thick sunlight was lavish on the
bright water, on the rim of gold-green balsam boughs, the silver birches
and tropic ferns, and across the lake it burned on the sturdy shoulders
of the mountains. Over everything was a holy peace.

Silent, they loafed on the edge of the wharf, swinging their legs above
the water. The immense tenderness of the place sank into Babbitt, and
he murmured, "I'd just like to sit here--the rest of my life--and
whittle--and sit. And never hear a typewriter. Or Stan Graff fussing in
the 'phone. Or Rone and Ted scrapping. Just sit. Gosh!"

He patted Paul's shoulder. "How does it strike you, old snoozer?"

"Oh, it's darn good, Georgie. There's something sort of eternal about
it."

For once, Babbitt understood him.


III

Their launch rounded the bend; at the head of the lake, under a mountain
slope, they saw the little central dining-shack of their hotel and the
crescent of squat log cottages which served as bedrooms. They landed,
and endured the critical examination of the habitues who had been at the
hotel for a whole week. In their cottage, with its high stone fireplace,
they hastened, as Babbitt expressed it, to "get into some regular
he-togs." They came out; Paul in an old gray suit and soft white shirt;
Babbitt in khaki shirt and vast and flapping khaki trousers. It was
excessively new khaki; his rimless spectacles belonged to a city office;
and his face was not tanned but a city pink. He made a discordant noise
in the place. But with infinite satisfaction he slapped his legs and
crowed, "Say, this is getting back home, eh?"

They stood on the wharf before the hotel. He winked at Paul and drew
from his back pocket a plug of chewing-tobacco, a vulgarism forbidden
in the Babbitt home. He took a chew, beaming and wagging his head as
he tugged at it. "Um! Um! Maybe I haven't been hungry for a wad of
eating-tobacco! Have some?"

They looked at each other in a grin of understanding. Paul took the
plug, gnawed at it. They stood quiet, their jaws working. They solemnly
spat, one after the other, into the placid water. They stretched
voluptuously, with lifted arms and arched backs. From beyond the
mountains came the shuffling sound of a far-off train. A trout leaped,
and fell back in a silver circle. They sighed together.


IV

They had a week before their families came. Each evening they planned to
get up early and fish before breakfast. Each morning they lay abed till
the breakfast-bell, pleasantly conscious that there were no efficient
wives to rouse them. The mornings were cold; the fire was kindly as they
dressed.

Paul was distressingly clean, but Babbitt reveled in a good sound
dirtiness, in not having to shave till his spirit was moved to it. He
treasured every grease spot and fish-scale on his new khaki trousers.

All morning they fished unenergetically, or tramped the dim and
aqueous-lighted trails among rank ferns and moss sprinkled with crimson
bells. They slept all afternoon, and till midnight played stud-poker
with the guides. Poker was a serious business to the guides. They did
not gossip; they shuffled the thick greasy cards with a deft ferocity
menacing to the "sports;" and Joe Paradise, king of guides, was
sarcastic to loiterers who halted the game even to scratch.

At midnight, as Paul and he blundered to their cottage over the pungent
wet grass, and pine-roots confusing in the darkness, Babbitt rejoiced
that he did not have to explain to his wife where he had been all
evening.

They did not talk much. The nervous loquacity and opinionation of the
Zenith Athletic Club dropped from them. But when they did talk they
slipped into the naive intimacy of college days. Once they drew their
canoe up to the bank of Sunasquam Water, a stream walled in by the dense
green of the hardhack. The sun roared on the green jungle but in the
shade was sleepy peace, and the water was golden and rippling. Babbitt
drew his hand through the cool flood, and mused:

"We never thought we'd come to Maine together!"

"No. We've never done anything the way we thought we would. I expected
to live in Germany with my granddad's people, and study the fiddle."

"That's so. And remember how I wanted to be a lawyer and go into
politics? I still think I might have made a go of it. I've kind of got
the gift of the gab--anyway, I can think on my feet, and make some kind
of a spiel on most anything, and of course that's the thing you need in
politics. By golly, Ted's going to law-school, even if I didn't! Well--I
guess it's worked out all right. Myra's been a fine wife. And Zilla
means well, Paulibus."

"Yes. Up here, I figure out all sorts of plans to keep her amused. I
kind of feel life is going to be different, now that we're getting a
good rest and can go back and start over again."

"I hope so, old boy." Shyly: "Say, gosh, it's been awful nice to sit
around and loaf and gamble and act regular, with you along, you old
horse-thief!"

"Well, you know what it means to me, Georgie. Saved my life."

The shame of emotion overpowered them; they cursed a little, to prove
they were good rough fellows; and in a mellow silence, Babbitt whistling
while Paul hummed, they paddled back to the hotel.


V

Though it was Paul who had seemed overwrought, Babbitt who had been the
protecting big brother, Paul became clear-eyed and merry, while Babbitt
sank into irritability. He uncovered layer on layer of hidden weariness.
At first he had played nimble jester to Paul and for him sought
amusements; by the end of the week Paul was nurse, and Babbitt accepted
favors with the condescension one always shows a patient nurse.

The day before their families arrived, the women guests at the
hotel bubbled, "Oh, isn't it nice! You must be so excited;" and the
proprieties compelled Babbitt and Paul to look excited. But they went to
bed early and grumpy.

When Myra appeared she said at once, "Now, we want you boys to go on
playing around just as if we weren't here."

The first evening, he stayed out for poker with the guides, and she said
in placid merriment, "My! You're a regular bad one!" The second evening,
she groaned sleepily, "Good heavens, are you going to be out every
single night?" The third evening, he didn't play poker.

He was tired now in every cell. "Funny! Vacation doesn't seem to have
done me a bit of good," he lamented. "Paul's frisky as a colt, but I
swear, I'm crankier and nervouser than when I came up here."

He had three weeks of Maine. At the end of the second week he began to
feel calm, and interested in life. He planned an expedition to climb
Sachem Mountain, and wanted to camp overnight at Box Car Pond. He was
curiously weak, yet cheerful, as though he had cleansed his veins of
poisonous energy and was filling them with wholesome blood.

He ceased to be irritated by Ted's infatuation with a waitress (his
seventh tragic affair this year); he played catch with Ted, and with
pride taught him to cast a fly in the pine-shadowed silence of Skowtuit
Pond.

At the end he sighed, "Hang it, I'm just beginning to enjoy my vacation.
But, well, I feel a lot better. And it's going to be one great year!
Maybe the Real Estate Board will elect me president, instead of some
fuzzy old-fashioned faker like Chan Mott."

On the way home, whenever he went into the smoking-compartment he felt
guilty at deserting his wife and angry at being expected to feel guilty,
but each time he triumphed, "Oh, this is going to be a great year, a
great old year!"





I

ALL the way home from Maine, Babbitt was certain that he was a changed
man. He was converted to serenity. He was going to cease worrying
about business. He was going to have more "interests"--theaters, public
affairs, reading. And suddenly, as he finished an especially heavy
cigar, he was going to stop smoking.

He invented a new and perfect method. He would buy no tobacco; he would
depend on borrowing it; and, of course, he would be ashamed to borrow
often. In a spasm of righteousness he flung his cigar-case out of the
smoking-compartment window. He went back and was kind to his wife
about nothing in particular; he admired his own purity, and decided,
"Absolutely simple. Just a matter of will-power." He started a magazine
serial about a scientific detective. Ten miles on, he was conscious that
he desired to smoke. He ducked his head, like a turtle going into its
shell; he appeared uneasy; he skipped two pages in his story and didn't
know it. Five miles later, he leaped up and sought the porter. "Say,
uh, George, have you got a--" The porter looked patient. "Have you got a
time-table?" Babbitt finished. At the next stop he went out and bought a
cigar. Since it was to be his last before he reached Zenith, he finished
it down to an inch stub.

Four days later he again remembered that he had stopped smoking, but he
was too busy catching up with his office-work to keep it remembered.


II

Baseball, he determined, would be an excellent hobby. "No sense a man's
working his fool head off. I'm going out to the Game three times a week.
Besides, fellow ought to support the home team."

He did go and support the team, and enhance the glory of Zenith, by
yelling "Attaboy!" and "Rotten!" He performed the rite scrupulously. He
wore a cotton handkerchief about his collar; he became sweaty; he opened
his mouth in a wide loose grin; and drank lemon soda out of a bottle. He
went to the Game three times a week, for one week. Then he compromised
on watching the Advocate-Times bulletin-board. He stood in the thickest
and steamiest of the crowd, and as the boy up on the lofty platform
recorded the achievements of Big Bill Bostwick, the pitcher, Babbitt
remarked to complete strangers, "Pretty nice! Good work!" and hastened
back to the office.

He honestly believed that he loved baseball. It is true that he hadn't,
in twenty-five years, himself played any baseball except back-lot catch
with Ted--very gentle, and strictly limited to ten minutes. But the
game was a custom of his clan, and it gave outlet for the homicidal and
sides-taking instincts which Babbitt called "patriotism" and "love of
sport."

As he approached the office he walked faster and faster, muttering,
"Guess better hustle." All about him the city was hustling, for
hustling's sake. Men in motors were hustling to pass one another in
the hustling traffic. Men were hustling to catch trolleys, with another
trolley a minute behind, and to leap from the trolleys, to gallop across
the sidewalk, to hurl themselves into buildings, into hustling express
elevators. Men in dairy lunches were hustling to gulp down the food
which cooks had hustled to fry. Men in barber shops were snapping, "Jus'
shave me once over. Gotta hustle." Men were feverishly getting rid of
visitors in offices adorned with the signs, "This Is My Busy Day" and
"The Lord Created the World in Six Days--You Can Spiel All You Got to
Say in Six Minutes." Men who had made five thousand, year before last,
and ten thousand last year, were urging on nerve-yelping bodies and
parched brains so that they might make twenty thousand this year;
and the men who had broken down immediately after making their twenty
thousand dollars were hustling to catch trains, to hustle through the
vacations which the hustling doctors had ordered.

Among them Babbitt hustled back to his office, to sit down with
nothing much to do except see that the staff looked as though they were
hustling.


III

Every Saturday afternoon he hustled out to his country club and hustled
through nine holes of golf as a rest after the week's hustle.

In Zenith it was as necessary for a Successful Man to belong to a
country club as it was to wear a linen collar. Babbitt's was the Outing
Golf and Country Club, a pleasant gray-shingled building with a broad
porch, on a daisy-starred cliff above Lake Kennepoose. There was
another, the Tonawanda Country Club, to which belonged Charles McKelvey,
Horace Updike, and the other rich men who lunched not at the Athletic
but at the Union Club. Babbitt explained with frequency, "You couldn't
hire me to join the Tonawanda, even if I did have a hundred and eighty
bucks to throw away on the initiation fee. At the Outing we've got
a bunch of real human fellows, and the finest lot of little women in
town--just as good at joshing as the men--but at the Tonawanda there's
nothing but these would-be's in New York get-ups, drinking tea! Too
much dog altogether. Why, I wouldn't join the Tonawanda even if they--I
wouldn't join it on a bet!"

When he had played four or five holes, he relaxed a bit, his
tobacco-fluttering heart beat more normally, and his voice slowed to the
drawling of his hundred generations of peasant ancestors.


IV

At least once a week Mr. and Mrs. Babbitt and Tinka went to the movies.
Their favorite motion-picture theater was the Chateau, which held three
thousand spectators and had an orchestra of fifty pieces which played
Arrangements from the Operas and suites portraying a Day on the Farm,
or a Four-alarm Fire. In the stone rotunda, decorated with
crown-embroidered velvet chairs and almost medieval tapestries,
parrakeets sat on gilded lotos columns.

With exclamations of "Well, by golly!" and "You got to go some to
beat this dump!" Babbitt admired the Chateau. As he stared across the
thousands of heads, a gray plain in the dimness, as he smelled good
clothes and mild perfume and chewing-gum, he felt as when he had first
seen a mountain and realized how very, very much earth and rock there
was in it.

He liked three kinds of films: pretty bathing girls with bare legs;
policemen or cowboys and an industrious shooting of revolvers; and
funny fat men who ate spaghetti. He chuckled with immense, moist-eyed
sentimentality at interludes portraying puppies, kittens, and chubby
babies; and he wept at deathbeds and old mothers being patient in
mortgaged cottages. Mrs. Babbitt preferred the pictures in which
handsome young women in elaborate frocks moved through sets ticketed as
the drawing-rooms of New York millionaires. As for Tinka, she preferred,
or was believed to prefer, whatever her parents told her to.

All his relaxations--baseball, golf, movies, bridge, motoring, long
talks with Paul at the Athletic Club, or at the Good Red Beef and Old
English Chop House--were necessary to Babbitt, for he was entering a
year of such activity as he had never known.

 Babbitt and Paul spend a few hours in New York between trains. They visit the Pennsylvania Hotel, the city's newest, because Babbitt, as a realtor, is interested in seeing it. Afterward, at Paul's suggestion, they go to the docks to see an ocean liner. Babbitt is impressed by the majestic vessel and expresses a sudden desire to see Europe, but he is not serious. Paul, on the other hand, is strangely silent. The two men continue their trip and eventually arrive at their destination -- Lake Sunasquam, in the mountains of Maine. They hasten to change into their camping clothes and demonstrate their independence by openly using the chewing tobacco that both their wives consider vulgar. The next week is spent sleeping late, fishing, boating, and hiking. At night they stay up late, drinking and playing poker with the Indian guides. As the days pass, much of their tension and nervous talkativeness -- byproducts of life in Zenith -- disappear. They become quieter and more relaxed, and they fall back into the closeness and mutual understanding of their college days. As the time draws near for their wives to arrive, Babbitt begins to get restless. Paul, however, has made resolutions and plans to try to live harmoniously with Zilla. When the wives appear, they both insist that the 'boys" continue their "activities," and, indeed on the first two nights, Babbitt does stay out and play cards, but soon both he and Paul return to the routine of being married men again. After two more weeks, they all prepare to return to Zenith. The relaxed living and fresh air have done a lot to calm Babbitt and make him feel healthier. He is not eager to leave the mountains and go back to the office, but he is full of confidence and anticipates a great year. On the trip home, full of new assurance, Babbitt vows to give up smoking again, but his determination lasts no longer than it ever has. Within a few days, the busy regimen of his office prevents him from even remembering his resolution. After returning to Zenith, Babbitt decides to expand his recreational activities. He is an ardent baseball fan and vows to deepen this interest by attending three games a week. Despite his love of baseball, however, he is unable to find the time after the first week. Every Saturday, Babbitt plays golf at his country club and finds that the game is a source of relaxation and healthy exercise for him, and one evening each week, Babbitt, his wife, and Tinka go to the movies. Babbitt particularly enjoys three kinds of films -- those with pretty girls in bathing suits, those with policemen or cowboys and lots of shooting, and those with slapstick comedians. Myra prefers society romances set in New York or London. Besides baseball, golf, and the movies, Babbitt's other recreational activities include bridge, long auto drives, and conversations with Paul.

