Erik Dorn | Page 5

The thought left him and his eyes fastened themselves upon a sheaf of
proofs.... Watch out for libel ... look for hunches ... scribble suggestion
for changes ... peer for items of information that might be expanded
humorously or pathetically into Human Interest yarns.... These were
functions he discharged mechanically. A perfect affinity toward his
work characterized his attitude. Yet behind the automatic efficiency of
his thought lay an ironical appreciation of his tasks. The sterile little
chronicles of life still moist from the ink-roller were like smeared
windows upon the grimacings of the world. Through these windows
Dorn saw with a clarity that flattered him.
A tawdry pantomime was life, a pouring of blood, a grappling with
shadows, a digging of graves. "Empty, empty," his intelligence
whispered in its depths, "a make-believe of lusts. What else? Nothing,
nothing. Laws, ambitions, conventions--froth in an empty glass.
Tragedies, comedies--all a swarm of nothings. Dreams in the hearts of
men--thin fever outlines to which they clung in hope. Nothing ...
nothing...." His intelligence continued a murmur as he read--a murmur
unconscious of itself yet coming from the depths of him. Equally
unconscious was the amusement he felt, and that flew a fugitive smile
in his eyes.
The perfunctory hysterics of the stories of crime, graft, scandal, with
their garbled sentences and wooden phrases; the delicious sagacities of
the editorial pages like the mumbling of some adenoidal moron in a

gulf of high winds; headlines saying a pompous "amen" to asininity and
a hopeful "My God!" to confusion--these caressed him, and brought the
thought to him, "if there is anything worthy the absurdity of life it's a
newspaper--gibbering, whining, strutting, sprawled in attitudes of
worship before the nine-and-ninety lies of the moment--a caricature of
absurdity itself."
His efficiency aloof from such moralizing moved like a separate
consciousness through the day, as it had for the sixteen years of his
service. His rise in his profession had been comparatively rapid. Thirty
had found him enshrined as an editor. At thirty-four he had acquired the
successful air which distinguishes men who have come to the end of
their rope. He had become an editor and a fixture. The office observed
an intent, gray-eyed man, straight nosed, firm lipped, correctly shaved
down to the triangular trim of his mustache, his dark hair evenly
parted--a normal-seeming, kindly individual who wore his linen and his
features with a certain politely exotic air--the air of an identity.
The day's vacuous items in his life passed quickly, its frantic routine
ebbing into a lull toward mid-afternoon. Returning from a final uproar
in the composing room, Dorn looked good-humoredly about him. He
was ready to go home. Arguments, reprimands, entreaties were over for
a space. He walked leisurely down the length of the shop, pleased as
always by its atmosphere. It was something like the streets, this
newspaper shop, broken up, a bit intricate, haphazard.
A young man named Cross was painstakingly writing poetry on a
typewriter. Another named Gardner was busy on a letter. "My
dearest...." Dorn read over his shoulder as he passed. Promising young
men, both, whose collars would grow slightly soiled as they advanced
in their profession. He remembered one of his early observations:
"There are two kinds of newspapermen--those who try to write poetry
and those who try to drink themselves to death. Fortunately for the
world, only one of them succeeds."
In a corner a young woman, dressed with a certain ease, sat partially
absorbed in a book and partially in a half-devoured apple. "The
Brothers Karamasov," Dorn read as he sauntered by. He thought "an

emancipated creature who prides herself on being able to drink
cocktails without losing caste. She'll marry the first drunken
newspaperman who forgets himself in her presence and spend the rest
of her life trying to induce him to go into the advertising business."
Turning down the room he passed the desk of Crowley, the telegraph
editor. A face flabby and red with ancient drinking raised itself from a
book and a voice spoke,
"Old Egan gets more of a fool every day." Old Egan was the make-up
man. Dorn smiled. "The damned idiot crowded the Nancy story off
page one in the Home. Best story of the day." Crowley ended with a
vaguely conceived oath.
Dorn glimpsed the title of the book on his desk, L'Oblat. Crowley had
been educated for the priesthood but emerged from the seminary with a
heightened joy of life in his veins. A riotous twenty years in night
saloons and bawdy houses had left him a kindly, choleric, and
respected newspaper figure. Dorn caught his eye and wondered over his
sensitive infatuation of exotic writing. In the pages of Huysmans, De
Gourmont, Flaubert, Gautier, Symons, and Pater he seemed to have
found a subtle incense for