Elmer Gantry (29 page)

Bishop Wesley R. Toomis had suggested to Elmer that he ought to read philosophy, and he had recommended Royce. He
himself, he said, hadn’t been able to give so much time to Royce as he would have liked, but he knew that here was a
splendid field for any intellectual adventurer. So Elmer came back from Sparta with the two volumes of Royce’s “The World
and the Individual,” and two new detective stories.

He would skip pleasantly but beneficially through Royce, then pick up whatever ideas he might find in all these other
philosophers he had heard mentioned: James and Kant and Bergson and who was that fellow with the funny name—Spinoza?

He opened the first volume of Royce confidently, and drew back in horror.

He had a nice, long, free afternoon in which to become wise. He labored on. He read each sentence six times. His mouth
drooped pathetically. It did not seem fair that a Christian knight who was willing to give his time to listening to people’s
ideas should be treated like this. He sighed, and read the first paragraph again. He sighed, and the book dropped into his
lap.

He looked about. On the stand beside him was one of the detective stores. He reached for it. It began as all proper
detective stories should begin—with the tap-room of the Cat and Fiddle Inn, on a stormy night when gusts of rain beat
against the small ancient casement, but within all was bright and warm; the Turkey-red curtains shone in the firelight, and
the burnished handles of the beer-pump—

An hour later Elmer had reached the place where the Scotland Yard Inspector was attacked from the furze-bush by the
maniac. He excitedly crossed his legs, and Royce fell to the floor and lay there.

But he kept at it. In less than three months he had reached page fifty-one of the first volume of Royce. Then he bogged
down in a footnote:

The scholastic text-books, namely, as for instance the Disputations of Suarez, employ our terms much as follows. Being
(ens), taken quite in the abstract, such writers said, is a word that shall equally apply BOTH to the WHAT and to the THAT.
Thus if I speak of the being of a man, I may, according to this usage, mean either the ideal nature of a man, apart from
man’s existence, or the existence of a man. The term “Being” is so far indifferent to both of the sharply sundered senses.
In this sense Being may be viewed as of two sorts. As the WHAT it means the Essence of things, or the Esse Essentiæ. In this
sense, by the Being of a man, you mean simply the definition of what a man as an idea means. As the THAT, Being means the
Existent Being, or Esse Existentiæ. The Esse Existentiæ of a man, or its existent being, would be what it would possess only
if it existed. And so the scholastic writers in question always have to point out whether by the term Ens or Being, they in
any particular passage are referring to the WHAT or to the THAT, to the Esse Essentiæ or to the Existentiæ.

The Reverend Elmer Gantry drew his breath, quietly closed the book, and shouted, “OH, SHUT UP!”

He never again read any philosophy more abstruse than that of Wallace D. Wattles or Edward Bok.

He did not neglect his not very arduous duties. He went fishing— which gained him credit among the males. He procured a
dog, also a sound, manly thing to do, and though he occasionally kicked the dog in the country, he was clamorously
affectionate with it in town. He went up to Sparta now and then to buy books, attend the movies, and sneak into theaters;
and though he was tempted by other diversions even less approved by the Methodist Discipline, he really did make an effort
to keep from falling.

By enthusiasm and brass, he raised most of the church debt, and made agitation for a new carpet. He risked condemnation
by having a cornet solo right in church one Sunday evening. He kept himself from paying any attention, except for
rollickingly kissing her once or twice, to the fourteen-year-old daughter of his landlady. He was, in fact, full of good
works and clerical exemplariness.

But the focus of his life now was Cleo Benham.

With women Elmer had always considered himself what he called a “quick worker,” but the properties of the ministry, the
delighted suspicion with which the gossips watched a preacher who went courting, hindered his progress with Cleo. He could
not, like the young blades in town, walk with Cleo up the railroad tracks or through the willow-shaded pasture by Banjo
River. He could hear ten thousand Methodist elders croaking, “Avoid the vurry APPEARANCE of evil.”

He knew that she was in love with him—had been ever since she had first seen him, a devout yet manly leader, standing by
the pulpit in the late light of summer afternoon. He was certain that she would surrender to him whenever he should demand
it. He was certain that she had every desirable quality. And yet—

Oh, somehow, she did not stir him. Was he afraid of being married and settled and monogamic? Was it simply that she
needed awakening? How could he awaken her when her father was always in the way?

Whenever he called on her, old Benham insisted on staying in the parlor. He was, strictly outside of business hours, an
amateur of religion, fond of talking about it. Just as Elmer, shielded by the piano, was ready to press Cleo’s hand, Benham
would lumber up and twang, “What do you think, Brother? Do you believe salvation comes by faith or works?”

Elmer made it all clear—muttering to himself, “Well, you, you old devil, with that cut-throat store of yours, you better
get into Heaven on faith, for God knows you’ll never do it on works!”

And when Elmer was about to slip out to the kitchen with her to make lemonade, Benham held him by demanding, “What do you
think of John Wesley’s doctrine of perfection?”

“Oh, it’s absolutely sound and proven,” admitted Elmer, wondering what the devil Mr. Wesley’s doctrine of perfection
might be.

It is possible that the presence of the elder Benhams, preventing too close a communion with Cleo, kept Elmer from
understanding what it meant that he should not greatly have longed to embrace her. He translated his lack of urgency into
virtue; and went about assuring himself that he was indeed a reformed and perfected character . . . and so went home and
hung about the kitchen, chattering with little Jane Clark in pastoral jokiness.

Even when he was alone with Cleo, when she drove him in the proud Benham motor for calls in the country, even while he
was volubly telling himself how handsome she was, he was never quite natural with her.

He called on an evening of late November, and both her parents were out, attending Eastern Star. She looked dreary and
red-eyed. He crowed benevolently while they stood at the parlor door, “Why, Sister Cleo, what’s the matter? You look kind of
sad.”

“Oh, it’s nothing—”

“Come on now! Tell me! I’ll pray for you, or beat somebody up, whichever you prefer!”

“Oh, I don’t think you ought to joke about—Anyway, it’s really nothing.”

She was staring at the floor. He felt buoyant and dominating, so delightfully stronger than she. He lifted her chin with
his forefinger, demanding, “Look up at me now!”

In her naked eyes there was such shameful, shameless longing for him that he was drawn. He could not but slip his arm
around her, and she dropped her head on his shoulder, weeping, all her pride gone from her. He was so exalted by the
realization of his own power that he took it for passion, and suddenly he was kissing her, conscious of the pale fineness of
her skin, her flattering yielding to him; suddenly he was blurting, “I’ve loved you, oh, terrible, ever since the first
second I saw you!”

As she sat on his knee, as she drooped against him unresisting, he was certain that she was very beautiful, altogether
desirable.

The Benhams came home—Mrs. Benham to cry happily over the engagement, and Mr. Benham to indulge in a deal of cordial
back-slapping, and such jests as, “Well, by golly, now I’m going to have a real live preacher in the family, guess I’ll have
to be so doggone honest that the store won’t hardly pay!”

His mother came on from Kansas for the wedding, in January. Her happiness in seeing him in his pulpit, in seeing the
beauty and purity of Cleo—and the prosperity of Cleo’s father—was such that she forgot her long dragging sorrow in his many
disloyalties to the God she had given him, in his having deserted the Baptist sanctuary for the dubious, the almost agnostic
liberalisms of the Methodists.

With his mother present, with Cleo going about roused to a rosy excitement, with Mrs. Benham mothering everybody and
frantically cooking, with Mr. Benham taking him out to the back-porch and presenting him with a check for five thousand
dollars, Elmer had the feeling of possessing a family, of being rooted and solid and secure.

For the wedding there were scores of cocoanut cakes and hundreds of orange blossoms, roses from a real city florist in
Sparta, new photographs for the family album, a tub of strictly temperance punch and beautiful but modest lingerie for Cleo.
It was tremendous. But Elmer was a little saddened by the fact that there was no one whom he wanted for best man; no one who
had been his friend since Jim Lefferts.

He asked Ray Faucett, butter-maker at the creamery and choir-singer in the church, and the village was flattered that out
of the hundreds of intimates Elmer must have in the great world outside, he should have chosen one of their own boys.

They were married, during a half blizzard, by the district superintendent. They took the train for Zenith, to stop
overnight on their way to Chicago.

Not till he was on the train, the shouting and the rice-showers over, did Elmer gasp to himself, looking at Cleo’s rather
unchanging smile, “Oh, good God, I’ve gone and tied myself up, and I never can have any fun again!”

But he was very manly, gentlemanly in fact; he concealed his distaste for her and entertained her with an account of the
beauties of Longfellow.

Cleo looked tired, and toward the end of the journey, in the winter evening, with the gale desolate, she seemed scarce to
be listening to his observations on graded Sunday School lessons, the treatment of corns, his triumphs at Sister Falconer’s
meetings, and the inferiority of the Reverend Clyde Tippey.

“Well, you might pay a LITTLE attention to me, anyway!” he snarled.

“Oh, I’m sorry! I really was paying attention. I’m just tired— all the preparations for the wedding and everything.”

She looked at him beseechingly. “Oh, Elmer, you must take care of me! I’m giving myself to you entirely—oh,
completely.”

“Huh! So you look at it as a SACRIFICE to marry me, do you!”

“Oh, no, I didn’t mean it that way—”

“And I suppose you think I don’t intend to take care of you! Sure! Prob’ly I stay out late nights and play cards and
gamble and drink and run around after women! Of course! I’m not a minister of the gospel—I’m a saloon-keeper!”

“Oh, dear, dear, dear, oh, my dearest, I didn’t mean to hurt you! I just meant—You’re so strong, and big, and I’m—oh, of
course I’m not a tiny little thing, but I haven’t got your strength.”

He enjoyed feeling injured, but he was warning himself, “Shut up, you chump! You’ll never educate her to make love if you
go bawling her out.”

He magnanimously comforted her: “Oh, I know. Of course, you poor dear. Fool thing anyway, your mother having this big
wedding, and all the eats and the relatives coming in and everything.”

And with all this, she still seemed distressed.

But he patted her hand, and talked about the cottage they were going to furnish in Banjo Crossing; and as he thought of
the approaching Zenith, of their room at the O’Hearn House (there was no necessity for a whole suite, as formerly, when he
had had to impress his Prosperity pupils), he became more ardent, whispered to her that she was beautiful, stroked her arm
till she trembled.

The bell-boy had scarcely closed the door of their room, with its double bed, when he had seized her, torn off her
overcoat, with its snow-wet collar, and hurled it on the floor. He kissed her throat. When he had loosened his clasp, she
retreated, the back of her hand fearfully at her lips, her voice terrified as she begged, “Oh, don’t! Not now! I’m
afraid!”

“That’s damned nonsense!” he raged, stalking her as she backed away.

“Oh, no, please!”

“Say, what the devil do you think marriage is?”

“Oh, I’ve never heard you curse before!”

“My God, I wouldn’t, if you didn’t act so’s it’d try the patience of a saint on a monument!” He controlled himself. “Now,
now, now! I’m sorry! Guess I’m kind of tired, too. There, there, little girl. Didn’t mean to scare you. Excuse me. Just
showed I was crazy in love with you, don’t you see?”

To his broad and apostolic smirk she responded with a weak smile, and he seized her again, laid his thick hand on her
breast. Between his long embraces, though his anger at her limpness was growing, he sought to encourage her by shouting,
“Come on now, Clee, show some spunk!”

She did not forbid him again; she was merely a pale acquiescence— pale save when she flushed unhappily as he made fun of
the old-fashioned, long-sleeved nightgown which she timidly put on in the indifferent privacy of the bathroom.

“Gee, you might as well wear a gunny-sack!” he roared, holding out his arms. She tried to look confident as she slowly
moved toward him. She did not succeed.

“Fellow OUGHT to be brutal, for her own sake,” he told himself, and seized her shoulders.

When he awoke beside her and found her crying, he really did have to speak up to her.

“You look here now! The fact you’re a preacher’s wife doesn’t keep you from being human! You’re a fine one to teach brats
in Sunday School!” he said, and many other strong spirited things, while she wept, her hair disordered round her meek face,
which he hated.

The discovery that Cleo would never be a lively lover threw him the more into ambition when they had returned to Banjo
Crossing.

Cleo, though she was unceasingly bewildered by his furies, found something of happiness in furnishing their small house,
arranging his books, adoring his pulpit eloquence, and in receiving, as the Pastor’s Wife, homage even from her old friends.
He was able to forget her, and all his thought went to his holy climbing. He was eager for the Annual Conference, in spring;
he had to get on, to a larger town, a larger church.

He was bored by Banjo Crossing. The life of a small-town preacher, prevented from engaging even in the bucolic pleasures,
is rather duller than that of a watchman at a railroad-crossing.

Elmer hadn’t actually, enough to do. Though later, in “institutional churches” he was to be as hustling as any other
business man, now he had not over twenty hours a week of real activity. There were four meetings every Sunday, if he
attended Sunday School and Epworth League as well as church; there was prayer-meeting on Wednesday evening, choir practise
on Friday, the Ladies’ Aid and the Missionary Society every fortnight or so, and perhaps once a fortnight a wedding, a
funeral. Pastoral calls took not over six hours a week. With the aid of his reference books, he could prepare his two
sermons in five hours—and on weeks when he felt lazy, or the fishing was good, that was three hours more than he actually
took.

In the austerities of the library Elmer was indolent, but he did like to rush about, meet people, make a show of
accomplishment. It wasn’t possible to accomplish much in Banjo. The good villagers were content with Sunday and
Wednesday-evening piety.

But he did begin to write advertisements for his weekly services— the inception of that salesmanship of salvation which
was to make him known and respected in every advertising club and forward-looking church in the country. The readers of
notices to the effect that services would be held, as usual, at the Banjo Valley Pioneer were startled to find among the
Presbyterian Church, the Disciples Church, the United Brethren Church, the Baptist Church, this advertisement:

He improved his typewriting, and that was a fine thing to do. The Reverend Elmer Gantry’s powerful nature had been
cramped by the slow use of a pen; it needed the gallop of the keys; and from his typewriter were increasingly to come floods
of new moral and social gospels.

In February he held two weeks’ of intensive evangelistic meetings. He had in a traveling missioner, who wept, and his
wife, who sang. Neither of them, Elmer chuckled privily, could compare with himself, who had worked with Sharon Falconer.
But they were new to Banjo Crossing, and he saw to it that it was himself who at the climax of hysteria charged down into
the frightened mob and warned them that unless they came up and knelt in subjection, they might be snatched to hell before
breakfast.

There were twelve additions to the church, and five renewals of faith on the part of backsliders, and Elmer was able to
have published in the Western Christian Advocate a note which carried his credit through all the circles of the saints:

The church at Banjo Crossing has had a remarkable and stirring revival under Brother T. R. Feesels and Sister Feesels,
the singing evangelist, assisted by the local pastor, Reverend Gantry, who was himself formerly in evangelistic work as
assistant to the late Sharon Falconer. A great outpouring of the spirit and far-reaching results are announced, with many
uniting with the church.

He also, after letting the town know how much it added to his burdens, revived and every week for two weeks personally
supervised a Junior Epworth League—the juvenile department of that admirable association of young people whose purpose is,
it has itself announced, to “take the WRECK out of recreation and make it re-creation.”

He had a note from Bishop Toomis hinting that the bishop had most gratifying reports from the district superintendent
about Elmer’s “diligent and genuinely creative efforts” and hinting that at the coming Annual Conference, Elmer would be
shifted to a considerably larger church.

“Fine!” glowed Elmer. “Gosh, I’ll be glad to get away. These rubes here get about as much out of high-class religion,
like I give them, as a fleet of mules!”