CHAPTER 16

The Long Way Home

He walked fast, through homing commuters and shouting newsboys, slipping past traffic-halted ranks at the curbs to dodge narrowly between taxi bumpers and keep going. At Madison, forgetting he was crossing a two-way street, he would have been run down had a cab driver not seen him walking against the light. The cab squealed to a halt and Ryan looked up; the driver laid his arms over the wheel and rubbed his face in them in an elaborate gesture of patience.

Another time Ryan would have grinned apologetically; now he hurried on, only belatedly aware. He was gripped by a compulsion to get some place in a hurry, to move and keep moving without thinking. He had no real goal. Getting home was as good an excuse as any, so when he came to Fifth Avenue he turned north and walked fast past the glossy, lighted windows of the big stores and the little shops. He wanted to walk, not think.

When he had crossed Fifty-seventh Street and was swinging up the avenue’s wide sidewalk, that was almost like broad, scented velvet under the lights of the apartment entrances and canopies, the silent trees and mystery of Central Park on the other side, he did not bear east toward home as he should have done. After a time he remembered Eleanor’s request for picking up the Ibsen book at the Columbia library and he seized the excuse to continue walking, fast and anonymous, through the night’s cold air, and think only of his errand, knowing his absence would cause no alarm at home, and above all determined not to think about what he could not help thinking about.

He was standing in line in the familiarly stuffy library when something poked his back. A thin, chicken-necked man with the gleam of discovery in his eye was looking at him, tapping finger still extended. “Aren’t you O’Neill Ryan?”

“That’s right.” It sounded surly. Then Ryan recognized the thin man. It was the hair that was deceptive.

“Professor Montagne!” He had not been nearly so bald when he taught Ryan Greek philosophy eight years ago.

When Professor Montagne shook hands his glasses gleamed even more brightly. “I knew it was you,” he said. “At first I told myself it was just because I had read about you lately.”

“Next,” said the woman charging out books. Ryan handed her the book and Eleanor’s card, then waited in the corridor for the teacher.

“This is amazing,” said Mr. Montagne, and took Ryan’s arm. “Do you realize I was going to telephone you within a few days?—here, this way, eh? I know a room.”

Ryan permitted himself to be led down a corridor and finally into a small reading room containing a single absorbed girl, student.

Mr. Montagne whispered. “We can talk as long as we keep our voices down.” He beamed. “Well, O’Neill, how have you been, as though I needed to ask?”

“Fine, Professor,” said Ryan. He still had an undergraduate’s respect for a member of the faculty.

“You look well,” said Montagne. “And I know you are doing well. You cannot imagine how good it is to learn that a boy from Philosophy 508 is putting into everyday practice some of the Socratic definitions that I—” His laugh deprecated the idea. “But that is not why I intended calling you, O’Neill. Frankly, I have a problem.

“For two years I’ve been director of the Men Students’ Forum. You appreciate what that means—a meeting and a speaker once a month. You are—well, as the students say, let’s face it. You are a celebrity. And you certainly must have much to say about the application of your education to the problems of life. If you could come up some Sunday evening and give us a plain, heart-to-heart talk, say thirty to forty minutes, about—”

“Okay,” said Ryan. He was suddenly oppressed by time’s brevity. He knew what Montagne wanted. But he wanted something, too.

“You’ll do it? O’Neill? Really? I can’t tell you how happy I—that I—that we ran into each other.”

“So am I,” said Ryan. He spoke aloud and the girl student looked up.

“Of course,” Montagne smiled slyly, “if you were to work in a few references about how Phil 508 helped in your career—in case it did. What I mean is, you are an officer of the law and I hope you remember the time we spent on the Platonic concept of the well-ordered state.”

“Yes,” said Ryan. “Sure. And that’s something I’d like to ask you about. You see, since becoming a cop I’ve thought about that philosophy course. Occasionally in my work you run into problems that—that make you think about justice and virtue.”

“I’m sure you do.” Professor Montagne’s head bobbed happily.

Dared he? Hell!—why not?

“I guess you’ve been reading about this guy Derby who was sentenced today.”

“I certainly have, O’Neill, and how it was you who arrested him.”

“Well, I’ve been wondering, just as a sort of problem, like one of those abstract problems in ethics you used to give us.” He watched anxiously for suspicion in the smiling face. “Supposing I happened to find out now, after helping to convict him, that this guy Derby, this hoodlum, was not guilty of the murder he’s charged with?”

It was out. Only in the abstract, of course, but even that had frightened him to say. Yet it obviously had not aroused Professor Montagne. Then he recognized that as a teacher he had dealt for years with the caprices of students. What was one more hypothetical question?

Montagne looked down his nose at Ryan. “Do? There is only one thing you could do. As a virtuous man you know what that is. For a moment I thought you had a poser.”

“Well, what? Tell the truth?”

“What else? Can a just man see another punished unjustly—for a crime he never committed—and remain silent?”

“But think of the crimes he did commit,” Ryan argued, “and never was punished for. Derby himself is certainly no just man.”

“That has nothing to do with the case. The just deal justly even with the unjust. It is implicit in the common law—”

“Common law nothing!” said Ryan. “Would you turn loose a known rapist and robber, a no-good—”

The girl student made a meaningful rustle with her book. Montagne bowed apologetically.

“We must be quieter,” he said. “Remember, you presented a hypothetical case. I gave you the only possible answer.”

“The only hypothetical answer.”

“Quite. Quite.”

“But—if you were a cop as I am, and this was a real problem—” He smiled to show he knew the absurdity of it.

Montagne raised a restraining hand. “My dear O’Neill, I will not let you lure me into arguing theory versus practice—real-life practice—on an empty stomach. I have no doubt that as a policeman I might have to—to compromise. If this fellow is the scoundrel you say, I might not be able to turn him loose quite so readily as I can hypothetically. But I give you the answer of a philosopher. Well! Sorry, I must get on. My wife—”

He rose, still talking. “How about the second Sunday in February? We still meet in the music room. I’ll ring you in advance, of course. We could discuss this further then, with the students. Eh?”

“Sure,” said Ryan. “We’ll do that. In February.”

Ryan walked head down, a purposeless night voyager, past murmurous blocks to Central Park and then along a winding park path. When he raised his eyes he saw neat rectangles of lights rimming the park’s black quiet; they were not human habitations but remote glitters against eternal darkness.

Why didn’t he just forget Derby? He did not have to be concerned about such animals, did he? Of course he didn’t. Then why… For a moment Ryan saw himself objectively, as though he were outside himself, skirting the path he was walking; he saw a tired, anxious, hollow-eyed man of twenty-eight who just wanted this to be over with. Even Professor Montagne had said…

He came to Fifth Avenue. Home was not far away.

No. Not that, now. Keep walking.

At the genteel curbs women in bright evening dress and furs stood with men in sober black, waiting for limousines to take them to theater or opera. Ryan strode on, numbly aware he was walking toward a decision and meanwhile numbly ignoring it.

After a time he found he wanted a drink.