U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [372]
" Benny," he said, "leave everything to me . . . Mr. Watkins has consented to quash al charges if you'l promise to report for military training. It seems your number's been cal ed."
"If you let me out," Ben said in a low trembling voice,
"I'l do my best to oppose capitalist war until you arrest me again." Morris Stein and Mr. Watkins looked at each other and shook their heads indulgently. "Wel ," said Mr. Watkins,
"I can't help but admire your spirit and wish it was in a better cause." It ended by his being let out on fifteen thousand dol ars bail on Morris Stein's assurance that he would do no agitating until the date of his trial. The Steins wouldn't tel him who put up the bail. Morris and Edna Stein gave him a room in their apart-ment; Fanya was there al the time. They fed him good food and tried to make him drink wine with his meals and a glass of milk before going to bed. He didn't have any interest in anything, slept as much as he could, read al the books he found on the place. When Morris would try to talk to him about his case he'd shut him up, "You're doing this, Morris. . . do anything. . . why should I care. I might as wel be in jail as like this." "Wel , I must say that's a compliment," Fanya said laughing. Helen Mauer cal ed up several times to tel him how things were going. She'd always say she had no news to tel that she could say over the telephone, but he never asked her to come up to see him. About as far as he went from the Steins' apartment was to go out every day to sit for a while on a bench on the Drive and look out over the grey Hudson at the rows of frame houses on the Jersey side and the grey palisades.
-446-The day his case came up for trial the press was ful of hints of German victories. It was spring and sunny outside the broad grimy windows of the courtroom. Ben sat sleepily in the stuffy gloom. Everything seemed very simple. Stein and the Judge had their little jokes together and the Assistant District Attorney was positively genial. The jury reported
"guilty" and the judge sentenced him to twenty years' imprisonment. Morris Stein filed an appeal and the judge let him stay out on bail. The only moment Ben came to life was when he was al owed to address the court before being sentenced. He made a speech about the revolutionary movement he'd been preparing al these weeks. Even as he said it it seemed sil y and weak. He almost stopped in the middle. His voice strengthened and fil ed the court-room as he got to the end. Even the judge and the old snuffling attendants sat up when he recited for his perora-tion, the last words of the communist manifesto: In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.
The appeal dragged and dragged. Ben started studying law again. He wanted to work in Stein's office to pay for his keep, but Stein said it would be risky, he said the war would be over soon and the red scare would die down, so that he could get him off with a light sentence. He brought lawbooks up for him to study and promised to take him into partnership if he passed his bar exam, once he could get his citizenship restored. Edna Stein was a fat spiteful woman and rarely spoke to him; Fanya fussed over him with nervous doting attentions that made him feel sick. He slept badly and his kidneys bothered him. One night he got up and dressed and was tiptoeing down the carpeted
-447-hal towards the door with his shoes in his hand, when Fanya with her black hair down her back came out of the door of her room. She was in a nightdress that showed her skinny figure and flat breasts. "Benny, where are you going?"
"I'm going crazy here. . . I've got to get out." His teeth were chattering. "I've got to get back into the move-ment. .