The Fires of Spring (26 page)

It was agreed that Joe would have to be dismissed, and news of this was welcomed on the campus; but before the sentence could be put into effect Dr. Tschilczynski reported to the president and argued with him for more than an hour. That night the Russian said to David, “A uniwersity is got no right to set itself up as a geeper of little rules and regulations. Let Mr. Waux take fifty glasses, if he can get an edugation that way. A uniwersity is …”

“This is only a college,” David interrupted. The Russian stopped and looked at him.

“True,” the professor said. “A collitch is yet a small uniwersity. But it must not be small in the big things. Things like gettink an edugation.”

The upshot was that Mr. and Mrs. Vaux were called down to Dedham. They were remarkable people, not at all like the substantial parents from Philadelphia who preened themselves on the fact that their daughters had been invited to the Phi Kappi Psi dance or that their sons played football. The Vauxes were tight, belligerent Irish people who had worked bitterly hard all their lives. They were bewildered by Dedham and mortified that their son should be in trouble. They made him promise to behave. “No more roisterin’,” Mr. Vaux warned him. “A boy like you gets a chance like this once in a million years.”

They liked David and cautiously asked him if he would keep an eye on their son. “Watch after him,” Mrs. Vaux pleaded; but the entire visit was torn into a wrenching experience when it came time for the bewildered couple to go back to Boston. Joe and David took them to the station, where Joe promised them again that he would behave. Then, as the train came around the bend, Joe suddenly caught his parents’ hands and held them, gnarled and knotted, in David’s face.

“These are the badges of their honor!” Vaux said, as if he were about to cry. “Look at them!”

The train puffed to a stop and Joe kissed his parents good-bye. “What did you mean by doing that?” David asked.

Vaux turned on him furiously as the train chugged away. “What have you ever done to justify yourself on this earth?” he demanded. All the way back to the dormitory he railed at David as if he hated him, and before David could reply four big upper-classmen came to take Vaux away.

“We want to talk with you!” the big men said.

Next day the story broke all over the campus. The student leaders had taken Joe to a room and messed him up a bit “to knock some sense into his head.” But Joe had broken loose and had grabbed a chair. He had also kicked one of the seniors in the crotch, so that a true roughhouse had developed. “He’s a regular alley fighter!” the senior men reported.

The faculty heard about this and considered firing Joe for good, but when they saw the respect that Joe and the seniors now had for one another they dropped proceedings. Dr. Tschilczynski explained this to David: “Sometimes is even Qvakers got to see that a little physical wiolence is necessary. It glears up the air, sort of.”

If David had avoided going to Dr. Tschilczynski’s room, he might still have escaped involvement with the big Russian; but one day the professor said, “You like to gorrect your papers with me, yes?” and he led David to his quarters.

His room was a gloomy, forbidding place, in the home of a Greek restaurant-keeper’s widow. She was a blowsy Southern European who took no pains to keep the professor’s room clean. At first she had tried to do so, but he had complained that she mussed his papers. Now she left the big, sloppy man alone.

There was a samovar in the middle of the room and beneath it a battered tin of solidified alcohol. His clothes closet was merely a section of the room partitioned off by beaver board and green draperies that did not close. There were two unmatched stuffed chairs, and it was easy to detect which was the professor’s, for it was smeared with butter. There was a sink in the corner filled with saucers and glasses.

But more than the dirt David noticed the books and papers. Tschilczynski had hundreds of books piled about the floor in toppling stacks. His two tables were hidden by jumbled papers, on top of which rested the plates from which he had eaten his lunch. With a generous brush of his hand the Russian indicated his American quarters and said, “I abologize for the appearance. I’m yet a wery dirty man.” He cleared a
space for David at one of the tables and dragged up the battered chair. “I let you use my chair,” he said.

Soon David was immersed in his work, oblivious of the confusion about him. Then he looked up and saw that the restaurant-keeper’s widow was cleaning the room and Tschilczynski was gone. David smiled at her and she blushed like a peasant. “You ought to clean this place up,” he said to her. “No matter what Professor Tschilczynski says!”

The widow giggled, grabbed a trayful of dishes and said in parting, “Men! Men!”

Outside, in the yard, the Russian called lustily for David to come to the window. “A robin!” he cried. “Loog at him chumping!” The big man studied the friendly bird for some minutes and banged his way back into the room. “Gomes sprink,” he said like a poet, “I got to be movink. Listen to me, David. Never make good resolutions in the winter. Always in the sprink That’s when life starts to roll, I tell you.”

That night he walked David back to the dormitories and in the quadrangle he had a happy idea. “Tomorrow we both gut glasses and go into Philadelphia! We go to Leary’s!”

They went into Philadelphia on an early train and wandered down Market Street to the famous old bookstore that had served generations of scholars. “Now we see somethink!” he cried like a boy on his first trip to Paradise. He pulled from the long shelves book after book on a bewildering variety of subjects.

“What do we want all these for?” David asked.

“These are for you!” the Russian replied in much surprise. “My assistant with no library! Ah, no!” He picked out one book in particular, a treatise by Karl Pearson. “And this one special! This Karl Pearson! He is the father of all modern knowledge. In biology, medicine, egonomics, edugation, chemistry … At the foundation of any positive science is always Karl Pearson.” He would not let Leary’s wrap that book. “He takes it with him!” he announced to the manager. “It’s for him the beginnink of a new life.”

The two mathematicians—David with his new bible—walked up Market Street and felt the quiet breath of spring upon the city. “It’s nice!” Tschilczynski said. “Even in a city is nice, sprink.” At the Earle Theatre the Russian noticed that vaudeville was showing. “Well!” he cried exuberantly. “In the theatre best of all is waudewille!” He bought two tickets and led David into the darkened theatre. A cheap movie was three-quarters finished. In a loud whisper the
Russian announced, “But with waudewille the worst part is the movies.”

“Sssssh!” the other customers warned in irritation.

“We mustn’t talk!” the Russian whispered hoarsely.

“Please sit down!” a woman begged. With a massive hand Tschilczynski pushed David into a seat.

The movie ended and a brassy orchestra started to play extremely rapidly. The professor clapped his hands like a child and whispered, “Good, eh?” The curtains opened and a chorus of ten pretty girls danced out in ballet costumes. “Wery nice!” Tschilczynski beamed.

An hour later the show reached a noisy climax with all performers onstage. They bowed flashily and the orchestra ripped into a vigorous march. “We go now,” the professor said, dragging David after him. But as David struggled through the aisle he suddenly stopped so that Tschilczynski was caught between two women. They muttered at the clumsy man and the Russian pulled David’s arm again; but David was staring at the screen, where brilliant letters proclaimed: “
NEXT WEEK
.
TELL YOUR FRIENDS
.
AMERICA
’
S FAVORITE SONGSTRESS
.
MARY MEIGS
.” David gasped and would not move while the beautiful pink and white slide remained on the screen, showing Mary Meigs in a daring evening gown. Her hair was more blonde than ever, and she wore a string of pearls about her white neck. In the picture her eyes were an exaggerated blue, and she had her head raised in that insolent, attractive way she had practiced so long at Paradise, “
TELL YOUR FRIENDS
!” a new slide commanded, and Professor Tschilczynski finally dragged David loose.

So on the trip back to Dedham the professor and his student were each in a state of mild exhilaration. Tschilczynski hummed snatches of old songs he had learned in the music halls of St. Petersburg. “When I was a student,” he began, but interrupted himself to sing
Gaudeamus Igitur
. Then he told David of the manner in which he had practiced duplicity in order to visit the theatre, which his parents could not approve. He grew increasingly agitated, and when the train reached Dedham he insisted that David have dinner with him that night. The blowsy landlady produced a tableful of smelly and delicious food. “Like an angel she makes food, that one!” Tschilczynski said approvingly as the heavy woman disappeared.

When dinner ended the big Russian still wanted to talk. He clasped his huge hands about his knees and laughed.
“Everybody wants to know who I am. I tellink you.” He was the son of a wealthy Russian merchant. He left home for some reason and became a student. He had been to the Universities of St. Petersburg, Utrecht, Uppsala and Berlin. On his return to Russia he taught at the University in Moscow. His father, seeing him at last respectable, gave him a great deal of money. He married the daughter of a minor government official who was also wealthy. In the Revolution this woman became one of the most violent supporters of Lenin. He himself had no interest in the Revolution. Not understanding what it was about, he slipped out of the country, to Paris.

“But what about your wife?” David asked.

“I don’t know. I guess she’s dead.”

David looked at his professor. He was the first great man David had known, greater even than Sousa, and as he talked David learned that neither a man’s greatness nor his goodness can be measured by the happiness he has attained. This disturbed David, and he felt drawn toward the towering Russian. He remembered his own surging bitterness in the poorhouse when Hector was debased, and in the intervening years he had come to think that there ought to be a true correlation between happiness and goodness; but now he saw his professor, as kind as a man could be, and he was not happy. He was an outcast from home, a wanderer, a man who did not even know if his wife lived or was dead.

In the dark and messy room David brooded silently upon this unwelcome discovery. Evil men prosper, and good men die in the poorhouse. Other evil men are caught and executed. There was no mathematical certainty in life. Right now Max Volo was one of the richest men in Philadelphia with all kinds of corruption under his control. His name appeared in the papers: “Max Volo says it’s time for a change in City Hall!” “Max Volo returns from Florida.” Even though the warmth of spring was already in the air, David shivered.

He was not prepared for what happened next. Immanuel Tschilczynski, trembling like a boy, was over him blurting out, “I got to tell somebody.” Then, expansively, he kicked open the door into the kitchen. “You gome in now!” he ordered. Bashfully, the giggling widow joined the two men. Tschilczynski held out his big hand and she stood awkwardly beside him. “Three days ago we were married, yet,” the professor announced, like a child confessing a petty guilt.

David did not want to share this secret. He did not want
to be dragged back into the vast messiness of life, and he hated thinking of his great, brilliant professor married to a clumsy peasant. Awkwardly, and in shame, he congratulated the two middle-aged people and hurried to his own rooms.

“Why would he do that?” he muttered. “A man like him! Why, he could marry the best …” He stopped short. “Suppose his other wife is alive!” And the whole turgid tumult of living swarmed back upon him. He lay down on his bed and felt weak. Then he began to chuckle at something Tschilczynski had said: “She gan gook like an angel, that one.” He wondered if that’s what men wanted, the buxom warmth of a good cook.

Each day that week David bought copies of the
Inquirer
,
Bulletin
,
Ledger
and
Record
. As Saturday approached, both the advertisements and stories about the new vaudeville at the Earle made more mention of Mary Meigs. She was, it seemed, a brilliant singer whom Philadelphia would take to its heart. On Friday a group of pictures and a long story appeared, and it was with difficulty that he restrained himself from running to all the rooms on his hall shouting, “I know this girl!” It was warm and good to know a person who was successful.

At the same time David was deeply worried about Professor Tschilczynski. What would the college authorities say if they knew that he had married his peasant housekeeper? And what would they do—or the law, for that matter—if it was discovered that his Russian wife were actually living? Suddenly Tschilczynski seemed like Nora; they were the wanderers. They had no homes, no families, nothing to tie them into one place. And David felt agitated and sorrowful for them.

Yet he continued to be angry with Tschilczynski. He felt that his huge professor should not have placed on him the burden of the secret wedding; and he adopted the trick of mentioning the Russian’s name at frequent intervals, to see if the story had yet become common knowledge. He avoided Tschilczynski’s office for fear the towering man might want to indulge in further confidences.

Then his vague excitement about Mary Meigs and his irritation with Tschilczynski were each knocked out of him. Through Joe Vaux’s intervention he was drawn forcibly into the very vortex of college life, and the days of his isolation were ended. They were beaten out of him with clubs.

The strange events began on Friday afternoon, just after he finished reading about Mary Meigs’ gala opening next day at the Earle. Joe burst into the room, his pointed, hungry face livid with rage. “God Almighty!” he shouted. “Did you hear who’s going to be May Queen?”

“No,” David replied, shivering with an uncontrolled fear that was not really a part of him. “Did they pick me?”