Aurora Dawn (23 page)

Like one that hath been stunned, Andrew bought the paper and scanned the story while going up in the elevator. All was there
in astonishing exactness of detail–the origin of the sermon in “the internationally renowned painter” Michael Wilde’s remarks
at the Marquis dinner party, Marquis’s demand for another sermon, Andrew’s own airplane trip to West Virginia, and copious
faithful quotations from “The Hog in the House” itself. As he read the ruinous exposure, Andrew grew panicky under the insistent
reflection that Jaeckel’s column was reprinted daily by mechanical magic in several hundred journals throughout the land which
passed before the eyes of twenty-five million citizens, most of them presumably addicted to the use of soap and the radio.

The doorknob of Andrew’s apartment was festooned with telephone messages: “Call Mr. Van Wirt immediately when you come in”;
“Call Mr. Grovill–urgent”; “Call Miss Marquis around noon”; and last because oldest, “Laura Beaton called.” Glancing through
these, our hero became singularly animated, opened his door hurriedly and rushed to the telephone without troubling to take
off his hat, It is a plain fact, though a startling one, that he proceeded to call, not his superiors, not the raven-haired
goddess of his choice, but only his rejected sweetheart, Laura. Surely a young man in whom the pure motive of courtesy could
so triumph over both interest and love, is not unworthy of being the subject of a history.

The quality of telephoned speech resists capture by that obsolescent device, a narrator’s pen. The future of Homer’s craft,
in a time of machinery, probably lies with the mechanical storytellers such as the cinema and the colored-cartoon booklet,
which may soon render all imaginative prose superfluous. Meantime, in this last gasp of the old method, let us use the poor
resource of italics, intended here so convey not emphasis, but the far-off, disembodied and pathetic quality which a human
personality acquires upon being reduced to electric pulses and recreated as the vibrations of a little iron disc.

Andrew Reale listened with a thumping heart while the call bell rhythmically rang once, twice, three dines; then came the
click as the phone was answered.

“
Hello?
” said a clear young voice.

Andrew had not heard Laura speak since her utterance of the words, “I think that what you are doing is contemptible.” It seemed
strangely pleasant to hear her now, as though they were communicating after a prolonged separation, although the actual interval
had been four days. “Honey, this is Andy,” he said.

“
Oh
.” A slight catch of breath, and a pause. “
How are you, Andy?
” The voice was hesitant.

“Very well, Honey. I’m sorry I was out when you called.”

“
It was nothing important
.” Long pause. “
I see in the paper that you’re having trouble with Aurora Dawn. I’m sorry
.”

“We’ll be all right,” said Andrew. “I’d like to know how on earth Jaeckel got that story.” He stopped, and there ensued the
silence which on the telephone is so freighted with tension because the demon of electricity waits to leap miles from one
face to the other with more words and frets at delay. Andrew finally said awkwardly, “Did you want to tell me something, Laura?”

“
Only to apologize,
” said the faltering voice, “
for Mother’s rudeness yesterday and to–to ask you what it was you wanted to say to me
.”

To alter the whole course of this tale was now within the power of our hero, but not of the historian, who is a helpless bystander,
writing down what happened. Andrew Reale stammered, and stuttered, and began again, and stammered some more, and said at last
that he had only wanted to congratulate her on her forth-coming marriage, and find out when it was taking place.

“
Oh. Thank you … it’s tomorrow afternoon, at the Episcopal Church.… And when will you be married, Andy?
”

Replying that his plans were not yet definite, Andrew somehow felt himself shrinking all over, as though he had eaten the
wrong side of Alice’s mushroom.

“
One more thing, Andy
.” The voice was crystalline and sweet “
I behaved badly Saturday evening. If I said anything bitter, I no longer mean it. You have my wishes and my prayers for your
true happiness
.”

Andrew acknowledged these pleasant sentiments with uncouth phrases of gratitude.

“
Good-by, Andy
.”

A click cut short the vibrations of human sentiment, and the instrument was as dead as Old Marley.

So Andrew Reale disposed of less important business and went on to telephone, in rapid succession, the immediate Mr. Van Wirt,
the urgent Mr. Grovill and the beloved Carol Marquis, in that order. He quickly learned that the tide in the affairs of Aurora
Dawn had gone past flood and was spilling over the disaster bulwarks, as the next chapter will graphically describe.

Containing an account of the great battle

between the soap potentate and

the Faithful Shepherd
.

T
HE IRRESISTIBLE FORCE
of Talmadge Marquis’s money had run into the immovable object of Father Calvin Stanfield’s principles.

This was the phrase buzzing through the halls of Radio as the big battle loomed. Like many catchy phrases, it was philosophically
unsound, implying the existence at the same time of the two contradictory categories, “irresistible” and “immovable.” The
truth of one of the words implies
per se
the falsity of the other, or, to put it another way, only
one
of these two statements can possibly be correct:

1.  
An irresistible force exists
.

2.  
An immovable object exists
.

Readers of high-school age will find this analysis useful when next confronted with the sage inquiry, “What happens when an
irresistible force meets an immovable object?” For the mature audience, it is adduced to indicate what the outcome of the
struggle had to be: either Marquis must prove resistible, or Father Stan-field movable. Few wagers were made on the issue,
widespread though interest was. The movability of Stanfield was widely assumed to be the only likely outcome, failing that
kind of intervention from Above, which economists, politicians, and even priests count on not to happen in these graceless
times.

The structure housing the Republic Broadcasting Company was a vast cubic stone tomb, soundproof and lightproof, built to protect
its treasure of wireless entertainment, like the frail mummy of a Theban princess, from the corrosive outer world. It was
built in tiers, honeycombed with studios, filled with complicated electrical machines, transfixed with elevator shafts, and
lighted and decorated with a subdued mathematical balance of solid colors and soft materials which made human beings in these
austere spaces feel and look as intrusive as large monkeys. Whether this bleak emphasis on the animal aspect of our race was
in itself depressing, or whether the combined effects of artificial light and pumped-in air were deleterious to good cheer,
there were few happy faces to be seen in this prosperous and useful hive, most of its inhabitants looking either as though
they were pursuing someone, or (in the greater number of cases) being pursued. Since they were almost all making large amounts
of money, it is hard to understand why this should have been so. Possibly their preoccupation with time–for all happenings
here were regulated to the second–kept the image of mortality constantly before them, placing them in the predicament of the
guests of the legendary Baron Rothschild whose clock was supposed to boom out every hour, in the midst of the revelries in
his castle, the words, “
One Hour Nearer Death
!”

These same faces were happier today than usual, as though festivity had brightened the air. From the moment shortly before
noon when the newspaper containing Jaeckel’s story had appeared on newsstands, this holiday feeling had invaded the building
and bad been fed by jests and rumors. It was told that Chester Legrand had asked Mr. Marquis to meet with him; soon afterward
it was known that Mr. Marquis had agreed to come to Mr. Legrand’s office at three o’clock; then it was happily bruited about
that the chief of the corporation’s lawyers, Mr. Morphee, would be present at the encounter; and, biggest sensation of all,
the word passed shortly before three o’clock that Andy Reale (who was well known among the inhabitants of the great cube)
had brought Father Stanfield back with him from the West Virginia hills, and that the preacher was coming to the meeting.
For once, Rumor spoke with no idle tongue. At five minutes to three, Talmadge Marquis strode grimly through the swinging glass
portals, flanked by Grovill and Leach; two minutes later, there arrived Father Stanfield, Pennington, Van Wirt, and our hero;
both antagonists proceeded to the top floor where, solitary in the luxuries of sunlight and ordinary air, lay the offices
of Chester Legrand; and the door had scarcely closed on Van Wirt, the last to enter the sacred space, before everybody in
the building knew that the Miltonic trial of strength had begun.

Like most truly heroic conflicts of the twentieth century (setting aside the duels of machines in war), this fight took place
around a table–a long, beautifully-stained mahogany piece, set in a surrounding of wood-paneled walls, thick blue carpets
and drapes, wide windows and appropriate minor pieces of wood, leather, and chromium, all disposed to give the impression
that here was a place for great decisions arrived at with good manners by powerful gentlemen. Legrand was at the head of the
table. On one side sat the lawyer Morphee, Marquis, Grovill, and Leach, while arrayed opposite them were Stanfield, Pennington,
Van Wirt, and Reale. Legrand opened a cigar box and passed it to the Faithful Shepherd, and while the tobacco went around
he spoke.

“Gentlemen,” he said, in a frank, mellow voice, “I have to thank both Mr. Marquis and Father Stanfield for the favor they
have done me by meeting here in my office. Having started our business in this conciliatory way, I shall be very much surprised
if we don’t compose the matter to everyone’s satisfaction in a very short time.” This mild utterance soothed like music, and
Andrew Reale, in whose hierarchy Legrand was approximately the Pope, felt his forebodings melt away. He was consumed with
admiration for this good-humored dignified, handsome personage whose very name was a synonym for Policy, whose abundant graying
hair, sturdy frame, and nice dress gave him a presence that matched his position, and whose decent charm pervaded the room
like autumn sunlight. To such a man, thought Andrew, nothing was impossible. All would yet be well.

“Let’s talk,” went on Legrand, “with complete honesty. Let’s have the baby on the table and decide what to do with it. Shall
I talk first? Mr. Morphee and I read with considerable surprise–”

“Legrand, this doesn’t call for much discussion,” broke in Marquis, glowering at his clasped hands before him. “Father Stanfield,
for reasons best known to himself, has proposed to deliver a sermon on my hour Sunday evening which I find unacceptable. I
have always given him the utmost latitude, involving my company in serious difficulties on a previous occasion, but he has
overstepped the mark this time. What be wants to say is scurrilous and subversive, I might say communistic, and casts reflections
on the radio industry, on the advertising profession, and on my products. I have requested that he provide another sermon
in its place, and I have come to this meeting with the full expectation that he will produce the same and end the matter at
once.”

Legrand looked inquiringly at the Faithful Shepherd.

“I don’t want to waste nobody’s time,” said the cleric, “and my answer is what I told young Reale last night down in Pleasant-ville,
only he thought I’d better say it to Mr. Marquis myself, which maybe he was right. I figger to go on the air same as usual
Sunday night. My sermon will be ‘The Hog in the House.’”

In the silence that followed, the blue wreaths of cigar smoke curled slowly through the room undisturbed by the speech or
motion of any of the sitters at the table.

“Well,” spoke Legrand at last, seriously, “that’s how we stand.

Not quite in accord, at the moment. Before we go ahead, may Mr. Morphee and I read the disputed sermon? We have only Milton
Jaeckel’s story for information.”

“That is remarkably accurate,” said Marquis. “I’m sure Father Stanfield can give you a copy of the full text, since he evidently
had several made for distribution to the press.”

“I got to correct you,” said the preacher. “Someone in your outfit give the story to the papers, bein’ as how that copy I
sent you is the only copy they is. I keep my sermons in my head. I cain’t hardly figger why any of you done it, but it don’t
matter none.”

“I regret to have to accuse you of bad faith,” cried Marquis, growing red in the face as he drew folded papers from his breast
pocket and slapped them on the table, “but this copy has not left my possession since the moment I received it, and I have
guarded it for the express purpose of keeping its contents from the eyes of reporters. You obviously wanted to force my hand
by giving out the story, but I think you will find me a pretty stubborn cuss all the same. Pretty stubborn!”