Since Mr. Wilson had immediately dissolved the connection, Jimmie could only conclude that he was parasitical, that he deftly extracted from other human beings the nutriment for his own concealed emotions and discarded the people as soon as they had no further usefulness. That opinion of the father blindly transferred itself to the daughter.
Because she was bored, Jimmie decided, because she was fed up with Muskogewan, and no doubt justly annoyed at her family, she had invented an emotional stage—set, with all the props of a wicked father and a little white cottage for night rendezvous; and she had stepped out in front of that scenery to sing her siren song—her torch song—or whatever it was.
An act.
So Jimmie had nobody for company.
He could have had the pick of many people.
Mr. Corinth had “made him acquainted” with numerous citizens who did not agree with the ruling caste on the matter of war. Their shades of opinion, however, were very complex, and Jimmie tired of arguing over trifles. Besides, when a person cannot have the friendship of those with whom he wishes to be friends, alternatives are seldom acceptable. The same principle held in the matter of female companionship. As Sarah had said, there were countless girls who would have rescued Jimmie from any doldrum at the slightest sign of a chance, girls, even, who were the daughters of isolationists but who considered matrimony more important than war, girls who were, as Audrey had said, “dashing daughters,” easily relished.
To them, he was polite and no more.
The glassed-in porch, one windy night, was occupied by a dozen people who had ranged themselves haphazardly around Mr. Corinth. Conversation flowed from him, sparked occasionally by a question or a phrase of disagreement. Jimmie listened, with the rest. His attention stiffened when Mr. Wilson idly sat down on the fringe of the group.
“I know it isn’t fashionable,” said Mr. Corinth, “but a woman is a man’s opposite.
Women are the opposite of men. Everything has an opposite that’s as real as it is. The very fashion itself—the fashion of thinking men and women are alike—will change too.
Because fashions are attitudes, and every social attitude that doesn’t take into consideration the law of opposites is bound to get turned upside down, sooner or later.”
“I don’t understand that,” said a Mrs. Clevebright.
Mr. Corinth turned amiably. “The people of this country understand the reconciliation of opposites better than most people. That’s because we recognize so many oppositions. We have a certain constitutional tolerance for them. The beginnings of wisdom. I mean this: oppositeness is a concept that is a lot broader than what we usually imply by it. It means more than left and right, up and down, day and night, zero and infinity, freedom and slavery. No activity follows from anything but opposition. You can’t get anywhere, fanning air. A bulge of steam has to have a resisting piston. Life itself is a struggle of opposites. And opposition means—complementariness. It means black and white—but also blue and orange. It’s the source of power—and it’s the way to learning how to regulate the flow and direction of power. The one abiding discovery, in the democratic theory, was the recognition of the validity of opposites. Without an opposition a government is a one-way job. Going one way only is always—going nowhere. You’ve got always to recognize both opposing truths. Take freedom and slavery, for instance—”
“Yeah,” said a voice. “Justify that!”
“I’m not justifying anything! I’m explaining it! Most of you people know by instinct anyway. That’s why we fight so hard for freedom of speech here—to maintain the necessary operation of opposing forces. All right. Take slavery and freedom. Every slave is freed of a vast responsibility. Every free man has to assume great duties. There go those opposites—working together. A lot of free Americans, these days, want to have also the slave’s irresponsibility. Can’t be. If they do abandon their obligations they’ll enslave themselves automatically to whatever they got in trade for the abdication: money—power—position—an absolute government—whatever.”
“He’s right, you know,” someone else said.
The old man grinned. “Not me. Us! We all know it. Take a thing like Hitler. He is an opposite. The world around him was trying to struggle toward ideals of liberty, individualism, morality, restraint of force, decency, democracy, and so on. Hitler attacked with all the opposites to those ideals. He was able to, because the people under him had not yet understood the ideals; and also because they were willing to exchange freedom for the irresponsibility of slaves; and still more, because their circumstances did not seem suitable to their egos. But—they didn’t want to do a lot of hard, moral work. They’re still, so to speak, social infants. Or social ignoramuses. All right. Hitler took every single opposite. Force, torture, suppression of individual rights, conquest, amorality, autocracy.
He got going in a big way for the main and simple reason that we—on the other side—instead of recognizing the valid power of Hitler’s theorems assumed we had legislated ’em out of existence. Believing that, we ignored the contrary evidence. Hitler pushed ahead. We kept saying he’d collapse, because we believed we’d predisqualified him. As long as we felt that way our own feelings gave his opposite practices the power they proved to have.”
Even Mr. Wilson cocked an eyebrow. “Never thought of that,” he said slowly.
Jimmie’s boss turned. “Take you, Wilson. You and your crowd. You’ve been against war and in favor of peace. I’ve been on the opposite side of the fence. In my opinion, you’ve shut your eyes to my side of the picture. You won’t believe that this awful, negative pole of human energy can ever roll across U.S. and Muskogewan, and swamp the works. Not believing that you think I’m a wanton ass. I don’t think that about you though. Your love of peace and prosperity is also a love of mine. I don’t happen to believe it’s possible at the moment. But I do believe it holds the seeds of the future. I do believe it is the one powerful opposite we Americans mustn’t lose sight of, even if we eventually bomb the damned Rhine dry and march up it clear to Switzerland. It is a well-known fact that Satan gives the Lord his due, in a constant, respectful fear. But I see mighty few Christians around these days who understand how to give the devil his due!”
Mr. Wilson cleared his throat uncomfortably.
“To go back to women,” said the old man, grinning archly, as everyone—and especially the women—listened harder, “she’s the opposite of man and the complement of man, the inspiring flame and the devouring mother, the object out of which his awareness is born and the object that gives him his first intimations of mortality. In still another sense, she is his immortality. Insofar as the present attempt of women to look and be like men represents an honest effort to integrate and to reconcile oppositeness—it’s sound and it’s honest. That is—it’s truth. But insofar as it represents an attempt by women to become men, it obeys the law I’m discussing.”
“Meaning what?” Mr. Wilson asked.
“Meaning,” Mr. Corinth replied blandly, “the young men act like hysterical girls.”
He looked at Jimmie. “Won’t help, refuse to serve, duck the draft, rage and yell around about their rights. And the old men”—his eyes wandered to Mr. Wilson—“are just—old women.”
Audrey’s father, spare and towering, looked down at the rumpled chemist. “You’re talking nonsense.”
“Nope. You’re thinking nonsense. You and all who think like you. Looka here, Wilson. You wouldn’t do business the way you conduct your politics and nationalism. I mean to say, when a business proposition came up you’d be hell-bent for facts—existing and long-range. You wouldn’t close a deal until you were mortally sure nothing could rise out of the present that would ruin future chances to make money. To ascertain that, you’d be what you call ‘hard-headed,’ ‘factual,’ ‘forward-looking,’ ‘skeptical,’ and ‘strictly from Missouri.’ If there was a spot on the proposition, a little threat that might grow into a ruinous cloud, you wouldn’t proceed till you’d eliminated the spot, or arranged a bulwark against the cloud. You’re a good business man.”