His escort consisted of eight divisions of marching units. The Washington Grays Artillery of Philadelphia, forty-eight muskets, marched. The Philadelphia Fire Zouaves marched with their twenty-two-man drum corps. The Eagle Zouaves of Buffalo marched, as did the Lincoln Zouaves of Washington, the Butler Zouaves of Georgetown, and the Lincoln Zouaves (colored) of Baltimore. These last were brilliant in white leggings and blue flannel jackets with yellow trim.
The Hibernia Engine Company marched, together with the Naval Academy Band, the Government Fire Brigade and Hose Company Number 5 of Reading, Pennsylvania. The Supreme Court marched. So did the Philadelphia Republican Executive Committee, the Lancaster Fencibles, and Ermentrout's City Band, seventeen pieces. The Grant Invincibles of California marched, along with the Montana Territorial Delegation and the Sixth Ward Republican Club, whose horse-drawn car featured a miniature Constitution complete with anchors, chains, and cannons manned by youths in sailor suits. This car was the clear hit of the parade, generating riotous applause among the throngs on Pennsylvania Avenue.
President-elect Grant seemed pleased and entertained by the spectacle. President Johnson's reaction was unknown; he was still at the White House, signing bills.
Under skies showing ragged gaps in the clouds and occasional swatches of blue, Stanley deposited his wife in their reserved seats. These were directly in front of the platform built over the steps of the Capitol's east front. The platform was crowded with chairs and festooned with bunting and evergreen boughs.
"Where are you going?" Isabel demanded. She wore a dusty-peach jacket and skirt. Colors were more festive this year.
"Inside, to pay my respects. Perhaps shake hands with the general."
"Take me with you."
"Isabel, it's far too dangerous. Look at this unruly mob. Besides" — it was one of the few points he could score with relative impunity — "these public rites are principally for men."
Her equine face wrinkled. "So was the procession, I noticed."
"You sound like a suffragist."
"God forbid. But don't you forget who made a success of Mercantile Enterprises!" Stanley cringed, hands raised. "And watched the books, supervised every expansion, saw to it that our estimable fraud of a lawyer, Dills, didn't rob us of every —"
"Please, Isabel, please," he whispered, his jaundiced complexion fading to paper-white. "Don't say those things, even among strangers. Don't mention that company. We have no connection with it, remember."
Isabel started to reply, realized he was speaking prudently, and said, "All right. But you had better not be gone long."
Clutching his tall hat with one hand, his special ticket with the other, Stanley started through the huge, generally jocular crowd of standees. He wriggled around mounted marshals and passed through a cordon of Capitol Police with heavy batons.
Rumpled, his pearl-gray cravat hanging out of his matching waistcoat, he at last reached the noisy corridor behind the Senate chamber.
He darted onto the Senate floor but saw no sign of his mentor, Ben Wade. The galleries were already packed with a thousand or more spectators. He thought he glimpsed Virgilia but quickly looked away. He wanted no contact.
He roamed among the dignitaries, shaking hands like the important Republican stalwart he was supposed to be. He was somewhat daunted by the rows of gold braid — Sickles, Pleasonton, Dahgren, Farragut, Thomas, and Sherman were already present — and he didn't attempt to greet such famous men. He did congratulate the magisterial Mr. Sumner, about to be sworn in for his fourth Senate term. He greeted Senator Cameron, now returned to power and office; the Boss acted as if he hardly knew Stanton.
He next spoke to Carl Schurz of Missouri, the first German-born citizen to reach the high office of senator. Without preamble, Schurz started to discuss the debt, one of Grant's chief concerns. As a student, Schurz had joined the 1848 revolution, and he was still a political zealot. He talked about greenbacks and specie and fiscal honesty until Stanley excused himself. He found men of conviction such as Schurz intimidating, perhaps because his own convictions were so few and so ordinary. He believed that his wealth would never bring him happiness. He believed his wife was repulsive and his two sons worthless. Levi, whose college career had consisted of one week of study followed by expulsion for knifing a fellow student in a dispute over dice, now owned a half interest in a saloon in New York's Tenderloin, and was also, by his own boast, a successful pimp. Levi's twin, Laban, had managed to get through Yale despite an equally riotous disposition and a bad case of the pox in his second year, and was now establishing himself as a high-status thief, a term Stanley applied to all lawyers.
He went to Wade's office and squeezed up near the closed door. "Sorry, sir," an usher said, "Senator Wade is closeted with General Grant until the ceremonies begin."
"But I am Mr. Stanley Hazard."
"I know," said the usher. "You can't get in."
Smarting, Stanley retired.
Before going outside again, he whisked a slim silver bottle from an inner pocket and refreshed himself with his fifth drink of the morning. At his seat, he told Isabel he had met the President-elect, theoretically a coup because Grant had done little personal campaigning and had attended few party functions. He promised to introduce Isabel at the ball.
"You'd better."
The crowd stretched away on either hand, with the usual hat-throwing and hip-hip-hurrahing punctuated by screams whenever a tree branch gave way and dropped those whose weight had broken it. At 12:15, approximately the hour Andrew Johnson was to shake hands with his cabinet and depart by carriage from the front portico of the White House, the official platform party emerged from the Capitol.
Grant looked dignified in his black suit and straw-colored gloves. Justice Chase nervously administered the oath. Grant took it, bent to kiss the Bible, then delivered a brief address. Isabel's comment on the entire proceeding was, "Pedestrian."
PEACE
The great motto burned in the dark high above. Stanley stood admiring the committee's handiwork. The special illumination was created by gas jets across the front of the Treasury Building. It had been expensive to design and erect, but the effect was spectacular. There, for Washington and all the world to see, was the Republican presence, the Republican pledge.
While Stanley gawked, Isabel complained of the delay. They had joined other formally dressed couples hurrying inside.
A string orchestra serenaded from the balcony of the enormous Cash Room. In a stately setting of Siena and Carrara marble, the specially commissioned allegorical painting "Peace" was on display. The easel was surrounded by a good-sized crowd. Stanley and Isabel unexpectedly bumped into Mr. Stout, just returned to the Senate for a full term. On his arm was a hard-looking woman, much younger, with a tiara of sapphires in her hair. Very coolly, Stout said to them:
"I believe you know my wife, Jeannie?"
Isabel was enraged. This was the young woman who had been Stanley's mistress until Isabel discovered it and ended the affair. She was Jeannie Canary then, a variety-hall singer.
"Ah, yes —" Flustered, Stanley straightened his white tie. "I had the pleasure of watching her, ah, perform on many occasions."
Stout didn't immediately catch the inadvertent double meaning. When he did, he reddened, as if ready to call Stanley out for an old-fashioned duel. Jeannie looked equally piqued. Isabel pulled her husband away. Her eyes were misty. Stanley was astonished; his wife never wept.