Part 3

“The duality, or multiplicity of the ego remains,” Oscar replied.

“Oh, I know its name. It ought to be a soft snap after what we’ve had.”

“Unless it’s full of dates and names you’ve got to know,” said Bertie.

“Don’t believe it is,” Billy answered. “I heard him at it once.” (This meant that Billy had gone to a lecture lately.) “It’s all about Who am I? and How do I do it?” Billy added.

“Hm!” said Bertie. “Hm! Subjective and objective again, I suppose, only applied to oneself. You see, that table is objective. I can stand off and judge it. It’s outside of me; has nothing to do with me. That’s easy. But my opinion of--well, my--well, anything in my nature--”

“Anger when it’s time to get up,” suggested Billy.

“An excellent illustration,” said Bertie. “That is subjective in me. Similar to your dislike of water as a beverage. That is subjective in you. But here comes the twist. I can think of my own anger and judge it, just as if it were an outside thing, like a table. I can compare it with itself on different mornings or with other people’s anger. And I trust that you can do the same with your thirst.”

“Yes,” said Billy; “I recognize that it is greater at times and less at others.”

“Very well, There you are. Duality of the ego.”

“Subject and object,” said Billy. “Perfectly true, and very queer when you try to think of it. Wonder how far it goes? Of course, one can explain the body’s being an object to the brain inside it. That’s mind and matter over again. But when my own mind and thought, can become objects to themselves--I wonder how far that does go?” he broke off musingly. “What useless stuff!” he ended.

“Gentlemen,” said Oscar, who had been listening to them with patient, Oriental diversion, “I--”

“Oh,” said Bertie, remembering him. “Look here. We mustn’t keep you up. We’re awfully obliged for the way you are putting us on to this. You’re saving our lives. Ten to-morrow for a grand review of the whole course.”

“And the multiplicity of the ego?” inquired Oscar.

“Oh, I forgot. Well, it’s too late tonight. Is it much? Are there many dates and names and things?”

“It is more of a general inquiry and analysis,” replied Oscar. “But it is forty pages of my notes.” And he smiled.

“Well, look here. It would be nice to have to-morrow clear for review. We’re not tired. You leave us your notes and go to bed.”

Oscar’s hand almost moved to cover and hold his precious property, for this instinct was the deepest in him. But it did not so move, because his intelligence controlled his instinct nearly, though not quite, always. His shiny little eyes, however, became furtive and antagonistic--something the boys did not at first make out.

Oscar gave himself a moment of silence. “I could not brreak my rule,” said he then. “I do not ever leave my notes with anybody. Mr. Woodridge asked for my History 3 notes, and Mr. Bailey wanted my notes for Fine Arts 1, and I could not let them have them. If Mr. Woodridge was to hear--”

“But what in the dickens are you afraid of?”

“Well, gentlemen, I would rather not. You would take good care, I know, but there are sometimes things which happen that we cannot help. One time a fire--”

At this racial suggestion both boys made the room joyous with mirth. Oscar stood uneasily contemplating them. He would never be able to understand them, not as long as he lived, nor they him. When their mirth Was over he did somewhat better, but it was tardy. You see, he was not a specimen of the first rank, or he would have said at once what he said now: “I wish to study my notes a little myself, gentlemen.”

“Go along, Oscar, with your inflammable notes, go along!” said Bertie, in supreme good-humor. “And we’ll meet to-morrow at ten--if there hasn’t been a fire--Better keep your notes in the bath, Oscar.”

In as much haste as could be made with a good appearance, Oscar buckled his volume in its leather cover, gathered his hat and pencil, and, bidding his pupils a very good night, sped smoothly out of the room.

III

Oscar Maironi was very poor. His thin gray suit in summer resembled his thick gray suit in winter. It does not seem that he had more than two; but he had a black coat and waistcoat, and a narrow-brimmed, shiny hat to go with these, and one pair of patent-leather shoes that laced, and whose long soles curved upward at the toe like the rockers of a summer-hotel chair. These holiday garments served him in all seasons; and when you saw him dressed in them, and seated in a car bound for Park Square, you knew he was going into Boston, where he would read manuscript essays on Botticelli or Pico della Mirandola, or manuscript translations of Armenian folksongs; read these to ecstatic, dim-eyed ladies in Newbury Street, who would pour him cups of tea when it was over, and speak of his earnestness after he was gone. It did not do the ladies any harm; but I am not sure that it was the best thing for Oscar. It helped him feel every day, as he stepped along to recitations with his elbow clamping his books against his ribs and his heavy black curls bulging down from his gray slouch hat to his collar, how meritorious he was compared with Bertie and Billy--with all Berties and Billies. He may have been. Who shall say? But I will say at once that chewing the cud of one’s own virtue gives a sour stomach.

Bertie’s and Billy’s parents owned town and country houses in New York. The parents of Oscar had come over in the steerage. Money filled the pockets of Bertie and Billy; therefore were their heads empty of money and full of less cramping thoughts. Oscar had fallen upon the reverse of this fate. Calculation was his second nature. He had given his education to himself; he had for its sake toiled, traded, outwitted, and saved. He had sent himself to college, where most of the hours not given to education and more education, went to toiling and more toiling, that he might pay his meagre way through the college world. He had a cheaper room and ate cheaper meals than was necessary. He tutored, and he wrote college specials for several newspapers. His chief relaxation was the praise of the ladies in Newbury Street. These told him of the future which awaited him, and when they gazed upon his features were put in mind of the dying Keats. Not that Oscar was going to die in the least. Life burned strong in him. There were sly times when he took what he had saved by his cheap meals and room and went to Boston with it, and for a few hours thoroughly ceased being ascetic. Yet Oscar felt meritorious when he considered Bertie and Billy; for, like the socialists, merit with him meant not being able to live as well as your neighbor. You will think that I have given to Oscar what is familiarly termed a black eye. But I was once inclined to applaud his struggle for knowledge, until I studied him close and perceived that his love was not for the education he was getting. Bertie and Billy loved play for play’s own sake, and in play forgot themselves, like the wholesome young creatures that they were. Oscar had one love only: through all his days whatever he might forget, he would remember himself; through all his days he would make knowledge show that self off. Thank heaven, all the poor students in Harvard College were not Oscars! I loved some of them as much as I loved Bertie and Billy. So there is no black eye about it. Pity Oscar, if you like; but don’t be so mushy as to admire him as he stepped along in the night, holding his notes, full of his knowledge, thinking of Bertie and Billy, conscious of virtue, and smiling his smile. They were not conscious of any virtue, were Bertie and Billy, nor were they smiling. They were solemnly eating up together a box of handsome strawberries and sucking the juice from their reddened thumbs.

“Rather mean not to make him wait and have some of these after his hard work on us,” said Bertie. “I’d forgotten about them--”

“He ran out before you could remember, anyway,” said Billy.