Benjamin's disappointment grew stronger. At the start of the Spanish-American War in 1898[36] his home had so little charm for him that he decided to join the army. With his business influence he got an officer position as captain, and showed such talents at the work that he was made a major, and finally a lieutenant-colonel just in time to participate in the celebrated attack up San Juan Hill.[37] He was slightly wounded, and received a medal.
Benjamin had loved the active and exciting army life so much that he regretted to give it up, but his business needed attention, so he resigned his officer position and came home. He was met at the station by an orchestra and escorted to his house.
Chapter 8
Hildegarde, waving a large silk flag, greeted him on the front steps, and as he kissed her he felt in despair that these three years had taken her beauty and youth. She was a woman of forty now, with a faint line of gray hairs in her head. The sight depressed him.
Up in his room he saw his reflection in the familiar mirror – he went closer and examined his own face with worry, comparing it after a moment with a photograph of himself in uniform taken just before the war.
«Good Lord!»[38] he said aloud. The process was continuing. There was no doubt of it – he looked now like a man of thirty. He was not delighted, he was uneasy – he was growing younger. He had hoped until that moment that when he reached a physical age equal to his age in years, the grotesque phenomenon which had marked his birth would stop. He trembled. His future seemed to him awful, incredible.
When he came downstairs Hildegarde was waiting for him. She seemed irritated, and he wondered if she had at last discovered that there was something wrong with him. He made an effort to break the uneasiness between them when he mentioned the matter at dinner in what he considered a tactful way.
«Well», he remarked, «everybody says I look younger than ever».
Hildegarde looked at him scornfully and grumbled, «Do you think it's anything to boast about?»
«I'm not boasting», he said uncomfortably.
«I think you have enough dignity to stop it», she said after a moment.
«How can I?» he demanded.
«I'm not going to argue with you», she answered angrily. «But there's a right way of doing things and a wrong way. If you've made up your mind[39] to be different from everybody else, I don't suppose I can stop you, but I really don't think it's very tactful».
«But, Hildegarde, I can't help it[40]».
«Yes, you can. You're simply stubborn. You think you don't want to be like anyone else. You always have been that way, and you always will be. But just think how it would be if every one else looked at things as you do – what would the world be like?»
Benjamin thought there was no answer to that stupid argument and didn't say anything, and from that moment a misunderstanding between them began to grow. He wondered what possible charm she had ever had over him.
In addition to the breakup, he found, as the new century started, that his desire for amusements grew stronger. He was at every party of the city of Baltimore, danced with the prettiest of the young married women, chatted with the most popular of the debutantes[41], and found their company charming, while his wife sat among other older women who came to watch their children, and now followed him in disapproval with jealous, puzzled, and scornful eyes.
«Look!» people remarked. «What a pity! A young fellow that age married to a woman of forty-five. He must be twenty years younger than his wife». They had forgotten – as people often forget – that back in 1880 their mothers and fathers had also remarked about this same strange couple.
Benjamin's growing unhappiness at home was compensated for by his many new interests. He started playing golf and made a great success of it. He started to enjoy dancing: in 1906 he was an expert at «The Boston», in 1908 he was the best at the «Maxixe», and in 1909 every young man in town was jealous of his «Castle Walk».[42]
His social life, of course, influenced his business partly, but he felt that after twenty-five years of hard work at wholesale hardware, he could soon hand it over to his son, Roscoe, who had recently graduated from Harvard.
He and his son were, in fact, often mistaken for each other. This pleased Benjamin – he soon forgot the secret fear which had come over him on his return from the Spanish-American War, and now took a natural pleasure in his appearance. There was only one fly in the ointment[43] – he hated to appear in public with his wife. Hildegarde was almost fifty, and the sight of her made him feel absurd…
Chapter 9
One September day (a few years after Benjamin had handed Roger Button & Co., Wholesale Hardware, over to young Roscoe Button) a young man, about twenty years old, entered Harvard University in Cambridge as a freshman. He did not make the mistake of announcing that he was over fifty, he also didn't mention the fact that his son had graduated from the same institution ten years before.
He almost immediately got a leading position in the class, partly because he seemed a little older than the other freshmen, whose age was about eighteen.
But his real success was due to the fact that in the football game with Yale he played so well, with so much energy and with such a cold anger that he scored seven touchdowns[44] and fourteen field goals for Harvard, and as a result eleven of Yale men were carried one by one from the field in despair. He became the most celebrated man in college.
Strangely enough[45], in his third year he was hardly able to play football. Everybody noticed that he had become much thinner and was not quite as tall as before. He made no touchdowns – indeed, the team kept him only in hope that his enormous reputation would bring terror to the Yale team.
In his senior year he left the team. He had become so thin and weak that one day he was taken by some second year students for a freshman, an incident which humiliated him terribly. He became known as something of a prodigy – a senior who was surely no more than sixteen – and he was often shocked at the life experience of some of his classmates. His studies seemed harder to him – he felt that they were too difficult. He had heard his classmates speak of St. Midas's, the famous prep school, at which so many of them had prepared for college, and he made up his mind to enter St. Midas's after his graduation, where the life among boys his own size would be more natural and comfortable to him.
Upon his graduation in 1914 he went home to Baltimore with his Harvard diploma in his pocket. Hildegarde moved to Italy, so Benjamin went to stay with his son, Roscoe. But though he was welcomed there, Roscoe obviously had no warm feeling toward him – his son seemed irritated to see Benjamin, who was walking about the house in his sad youthful dreams. Roscoe was married now and had a good position in Baltimore life, and he wanted no scandal in connection with his family.
Benjamin was no longer persona grata[46] with the debutantes and younger college men, he found himself alone, only three or four fifteen-year-old neighbor boys were his companions. His idea of going to St. Midas's school came back to him.
«Listen», he said to Roscoe one day, «I've told you over and over that I want to go to prep school».
«Well, go, then», answered Roscoe coldly. The matter was unpleasant to him, and he wished to avoid a discussion.
«I can't go alone», said Benjamin helplessly. «You'll have to take me up there».
«I