Gladiator - Philip Wylie (classic novels for teens txt) š
- Author: Philip Wylie
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The baby bawled and presently stopped. And Mrs. Danner, who had put it to breast, suddenly called her husband. āAbednego! Come here! Hurry!ā
The professorās heart skipped its regular timing and he scrambled to the floor above. āWhatās the matter?ā
Mrs. Danner was sitting in a rocking-chair. Her face was as white as paper. Only in her eyes was there a spark of life. He thought she was going to faint. āWhatās the matter?ā he said again.
He looked at Hugo and saw nothing terrifying in the ravishing hunger which the infant showed.
āMatter! Matter! You know the matter!ā
Then he knew and he realized that his wife had discovered. āI donāt. You look frightened. Shall I bring some water?ā
Mrs. Danner spoke again. Her voice was icy, distant, terrible. āI came in to feed him just a minute ago. He was lying in his crib. I tried toāto hug him and he put his arms out. As God lives, I could not pull that baby to me! He was too strong, Abednego! Too strong. Too strong. I couldnāt unbend his little arms when he stiffened them. I couldnāt straighten them when he bent them. And he pushed meāharder than you could push. Harder than I could push myself. I know what it means. You have done your horrible thing to my baby. Heās just a baby, Abednego. And youāve done your thing to him. How could you? Oh, how could you!ā
Mrs. Danner rose and laid the baby gently on the chair. She Stood before her husband, towering over him, raised her hand, and struck with all her force. Mr. Danner fell to one knee, and a red welt lifted on his face. She struck him again and he fell against the chair. Little Hugo was dislodged. One hand caught a rung of the chair back and he hung suspended above the floor.
āLook!ā Mrs. Danner screamed.
As they looked, the baby flexed its arm and lifted itself back into the chair. It was a feat that a gymnast would have accomplished with difficulty. Danner stared, ignoring the blows, the crimson on his cheek. For once in his lifetime, he suddenly defied his wife. He pointed to the child.
āYes, look!ā His voice rang clearly. āI did it. I vaccinated you the night the cordial put you to sleep. And thereās my son. Heās strong. Stronger than a lionās cub. And heāll increase in strength as he grows until Samson and Hercules would be pygmies beside him. Heāll be the first of a new and glorious race. A race that doesnāt have to fearābecause it cannot know harm. You can knock me down. You can knock me down a thousand times. I have given you a son whose little finger you cannot bend with a crow-bar. Oh, all these years Iāve listened to you and obeyed you andāyes, Iāve feared you a littleāand God must hate me for it. Now take your son. And my son. You cannot change him. You cannot bend him to your will. He is all I might have been. All that mankind should be.ā Dannerās voice broke and he sobbed. He relented. āI know itās hard for you. Itās against your religionāagainst your love even. But try to like him. Heās no different from you and meāonly stronger. And strength is a glorious thing, a great thing. Thenāafterwardsāif you canāforgive me.ā He collapsed.
Blood pounded in her ears. She stared at the huddled body of her husband. He had stood like a prophet and spoken words of fire. She was shaken from her pettiness. For one moment she had loved Danner. In that same instant she had glimpsed the superhuman energy that had driven him through the long years of discouragement to triumph. She had seen his soul. She fell at his feet, and when Danner opened his eyes, he found her there, weeping. He took her in his arms, timidly, clumsily. āDonāt cry, Mattie. Itāll be all right. You love him, donāt you?ā
She stared at the babe. āOf course I love him. Wash your face, Abednego.ā
After that there was peace in the house, and with it the child grew. During the next months they ignored his peculiarities. When they found him hanging outside his crib, they put him back gently. When he smashed the crib, they discussed a better place for him to repose. No hysteria, no conflict. When, in the early spring, young Hugo began to recognize them and to assert his feelings, they rejoiced as all parents rejoice.
Danner made a pen of the iron heads and feet of two old beds. He wired them together. The baby was kept in the in-closure thus formed. The days warmed and lengthened. No one except the Danners knew of the prodigy harbored by their unostentatious house. But the secret was certain to leak out eventually.
Mrs. Nolan, the next-door neighbor, was first to learn it. She had called on Mrs. Danner to borrow a cup of sugar. The call, naturally, included a discussion of various domestic matters and a visit to the baby. She voiced a question that had occupied her mind for some time.
āWhy do you keep the child in that iron thing? Arenāt you afraid it will hurt itself?ā
āOh, no.ā
Mrs. Nolan viewed young Hugo. He was lying on a large pillow. Presently he rolled off its surface. āActive youngster, isnāt he?ā
āVery,ā Mrs. Danner said, nervously.
Hugo, as if he understood and desired to demonstrate, seized a corner of the pillow and flung it from him. It traversed a long arc and landed on the floor. Mrs. Nolan was startled. āGoodness! I never saw a child his age that could do that!ā
āNo. Letās go downstairs. I want to show you some tidies Iām making.ā
Mrs. Nolan paid no attention. She put the pillow back in the pen and watched while Hugo tossed it out. āThereās something funny about that. It isnāt normal. Have you seen a doctor?ā
Mrs. Danner fidgeted. āOh, yes. Little Hugoās healthy.ā
Little Hugo grasped the iron wall of his miniature prison. He pulled himself toward it. His skirt caught in the floor. He pulled harder. The pen moved toward him. A high soprano came from Mrs. Nolan. āHeās moved it! I donāt think I could move it myself! I tell you, Iām going to ask the doctor to examine him. You shouldnāt let a child be like that.ā
Mrs. Danner, filled with consternation, sought refuge in prevarication. āNonsense,ā she said as calmly as she could. āAll we Douglases are like that. Strong children. I had a grandfather who could lift a cider keg when he was fiveātwo hundred pounds and more. Hugo just takes after him, thatās all.ā
In the afternoon the minister called. He talked of the church and the town until he felt his preamble adequate. āI was wondering why you didnāt bring your child to be baptized, Mrs. Danner. And why you couldnāt come to church, now that it is old enough?ā
āWell,ā she replied carefully, āthe child is ratherāirritable. And we thought weād prefer to have it baptized at home.ā
āItās irregular.ā
āWeād prefer it.ā
āVery well. Iām afraidāāhe smiledāāthat youāre a littleāahāunfamiliar with the upbringing of children. Naturalāin the case of the first-born. Quite natural. ButāahāI met Mrs. Nolan to-day. Quite by accident. And she said that you kept the childāahāin an iron pen. It seemed unnecessarily cruel to meāā
āDid it?ā Mrs. Dannerās jaw set squarely.
But the minister was not to be turned aside lightly. āIām afraid, if itās true, that weāthe churchāwill have to do something about it. You canāt let the little fellow grow up surrounded by iron walls. It will surely point him toward the prison. Little minds are tender andāahāimpressionable.ā
āWeāve had a crib and two pens of wood,ā Mrs. Danner answered tartly. āHe smashed them all.ā
āAh? So?ā Lifted eyebrows. āTemper, eh? He should be punished. Punishment is the only mold for unruly children.ā
āYouād punish a six-months-old baby?ā
āWhyācertainly. Iāve reared seven by the rod.ā
Well blazing maternal instinct made her feel vicious. āWell you wonāt raise mine by a rod. Or touch itāby a mile. Hereās your hat, parson.ā Mrs. Danner spent the next hour in prayer.
The village is known for the speed of its gossip and the sloth of its intelligence. Those two factors explain the conditions which preluded and surrounded the dawn of consciousness in young Hugo. Mrs. Dannerās extemporaneous fabrication of a sturdy ancestral line kept the more supernatural elements of the babyās prowess from the public eye. It became rapidly and generally understood that the Danner infant was abnormal and that the treatment to which it was submitted was not usual.
Hugo was sheltered, and his early antics, peculiar and startling as they were to his parents, escaped public attention. The little current of talk about him was kept alive only because there was so small an array of topics for the local burghers. But it was not extraordinarily malicious. Months piled up. A year passed and then another.
Hugo was a good-natured, usually sober, and very sensitive child. Abednego Dannerās fear that his process might have created muscular strength at the expense of reason diminished and vanished as Hugo learned to walk and to talk, and as he grasped the rudiments of human behavior. His high little voice was heard in the house and about its lawns.
They began to condition him. He was taught kindness and respect for people and property. His every destructive impulse was carefully curbed. That training was possible only because he was sensitive and naturally susceptible to advice. Punishment had no physical terror for him, because he could not feel it. But disfavor, anger, vexation, or disappointment in another person reflected itself in him at once.
When he was four and a half, his mother sent him to Sunday school. He was enrolled in a class that sat near her own, so she was able to keep a careful eye on him. But Hugo did not misbehave. It was his first contact with a group of children, his first view of the larger cosmos. He sat quietly with his hands folded, as he had been told to sit. He listened to the teacherās stories of Jesus with excited interest.
On his third Sunday he heard one of the children whisper: āHere comes the strong boy.ā
He turned quickly, his cheeks red. āIām not. Iām not.ā
āYes, you are. Mother said so.ā
Hugo struggled with the two hymn books on the table. āI canāt even lift these books,ā he lied.
The other child was impressed and tried to explain the situation later, taking the cause of Hugoās weakness against the charge of strength. But the accusation rankled in Hugoās young mind. He hated to be differentāand he was beginning to realize that he was different.
From his earliest day that longing occupied him. He sought to hide his strength. He hated to think that other people were talking about him. The distinction he enjoyed was odious to him because it aroused unpleasant emotions in other people. He could not realize that those emotions sprang from personal and group jealousy, from the hatred of superiority.
His mother, ever zealous to direct her son in the path of righteousness, talked to him often about his strength and how great it would become and what great and good deeds he could do with it. Those lectures on virtuous crusades had two uses; they helped check any impulses in her son which she felt would be harmful to her and they helped her to become used to the abnormality in little Hugo. In her mind, it was like telling a hunchback that his hump was a blessing disguised. Hugo was always aware of the
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