Mr. Vedder
Bussard, Paul
MR. VEDDER By PAUL BUSSARD THE sun was setting in a most outrageous manner as Pierrot and Columbine in company with a third person walked toward the town. The sun had so irritated the clouds of...
...In one hand he held a newspaper between his index and second finger, in the other a pair of spectacles with which he gesticulated as he talked...
...Mr...
...The lights of the town began to blink in the gathering dusk...
...Mr...
...I assure you, although you will certainly not believe me, that the weight of the entire world of men is less a burden to a man's shoulders than the slender presence of his own independent and unrelated ego, provided that he does not carry the burden simply for the sake of the burden...
...Vedder had wavered and waned till there was nothing left but his yawn...
...Curses are hopelessly old-fashioned," muttered the man...
...And it certainly has nothing to do with the vindication of my mode of life...
...I recommend his unique brevity to every philosopher who may be, but I counsel everyone else to beware his depravity-His, my friend, is a stench...
...Vedder was not his gigantic proportions nor his impressive Rodinesque head...
...He was alone on the road with Columbine...
...And besides I cannot see the connection between your observations and my phrase about business...
...Immediately the clouds floated about with their customary nonchalance, presenting themselves in a closer approximation to decency in coloring...
...A man cannot burden himself with anyone else's responsibility if he expects success...
...Your interchange of nouns may be a pleasant diversion," said Mr...
...Business is business: a man fights for and by himself...
...But what have the Greeks to do with our age...
...Vedder had become strangely vague...
...He was walking with these two inevitable romanticists in his shirt sleeves...
...And while Columbine pondered in silence this strange advice and, it must be confessed, actually did walk on tiptoe for a few steps, Pierrot addressed the third person: "You had finally come to the point in our absorbing discussion, Mr...
...I readily perceive," said Pierrot, "that you are a Cainite...
...I suppose yo0u mean Goliath...
...The surprising thing about Mr...
...During Pierrot's quaint speechifying the figure of Mr...
...As the three walked toward the west this annoying brilliance of the sun spent itself, and after a brief intolerable interval, vanished behind a little hill...
...Of course, and whether you think it right or not, that's the way the world is run...
...And furtherover I feel like saying that the fine-word summary of his philosophy was in reality tautological...
...and which moreover is not even a sentence but a. question...
...History has no interest for me...
...At Epiphany it will serve to patch a chink in the wall...
...They were fine people, I am told, but everyone says they are entirely too impractical to fit in with modern progress...
...There is always room at the top, I imagine," said Pierrot as he pensively scratched the tip of his nose with the nail of his little finger...
...I meant to intimate that when you said 'business is business,' as if it were an end in itself like Almighty God, you placed yourself in the same mental position as the man with the mark on his head...
...Pierrot's mouth was dry...
...See the end of all and the beginning...
...The person addressed as Mr...
...But, if you recall, I was speaking of the man who declared for personal independence of his fellows...
...But for Mardi Gras there must be a spangled dress...
...A man gets to the top only on the condition that he throw off all entangling duties and keep his eyes fixed on only one object-the topmost rung...
...That man of whom I speak proclaimed his personal primacy and in consequence went searching, a lifetime long, for that which he had lost in proclaiming it...
...As the cat in the story faded and waned till there was nothing left of her but the smile, so the tremendous bulk of Mr...
...His body was made on a grand scale...
...His vest was unbuttoned and his collar and tie were unfastened...
...And if it really isn't short enough, you can conceal its Victorian length by walking on tiptoe...
...And by that I do not mean to imply that you come from that land spoken of in the Bible, but that you follow the only system of philosophy that was ever expressed by its founder in a single sentence, containing neither clause nor phrase nor adjective for modification...
...He could have avoided two words and a question mark by simply saying 'I am I,' thereby using a reversible sentence just as you did...
...It is said that in punishment of the actional expression of his theory he has cursed, and in latter times that he wandered at random over the long-suffering face of the-earth in search of something...
...And the manner you travel Europe indicates a feverish desire to find the unknown thing you have lost...
...Vedder was his dress...
...Vedder yawned, tapped the open space between his teeth with a lens of his spectacles...
...I have always been intrigued with the phrases which read the same backward and forward," continued Pierrot...
...Columbine laughingly sang a silver thread of melody...
...Vedder, where you had summarized your argument by the statement that business is business...
...and that in the race anyone may be first...
...Said Columbine: "Pierrot, I know you would like to see me in a new dress for Mardi Gras...
...For the real and only reason of both his presence and the appearance in company with the elusive two was that he had joined them unconsciously while he was doing research work in his study after a heavy dinner...
...You assert your independence of everything but yourself, you hold your occupation unrelated to all men, all things and the end of life...
...It was a noble attempt and one could not but sympathize with the idea of the artist, but the final effect had not come off in a completely satisfactory manner...
...It seemed as if the architect who made him had endeavored to attain symmetry by constructing his entire body in accordance with the lines indicated by his stomach...
...Pierrot gestured slightly with his left hand...
...Said Pierrot: "Perhaps I have not made myself sufficiently lucid...
...Vedder was a man of portly build...
...Yes, yes of course, for Mardi Gras a spangled dress...
...A lovely spangled dress for Mardi Gras...
...I persist in saying that every man is for himself...
...Vedder, I assure you their cities have become ruins, and* the pillars of their palaces have no elevation whatsoever compared to our towering smoke stacks...
...It was when the smaller clouds were showing their native good taste by an exhibition of delicate yellow with a faint fresh green that Pierrot interrupted Columbine's ceaseless chatter about the length of her dress with a slight reflection of the sky's late annoyance: "But my dear, the dress will do...
...He had his shoes unlaced and the strings swished about distressingly...
...I do beseech you with most petitionary vehemence to rub your forehead and look about you...
...Pierrot gestured slightly with his right hand...
...His legs were huge and solid, so were his arms...
...Vedder in a suprising tenor, "but it is nothing else...
...The surprising thing about Mr...
...Recognize this mystery in which you are privileged to participate and acquiesce...
...The sun had so irritated the clouds of the sky with his brilliance that they had come together in sympathy and hidden themselves under a riotous mantle of red...
Vol. 11 • January 1930 • No. 10
