“Yes, yes,” said Gob. “My sentiments exactly. I used to cry for it, until it occurred to me that tears do nothing. They comfort the living, but do they appease the dead? Do they want our tears? Is it useful to them that we mourn? Life might spend all its days grieving for lost life. You’d think something could be done with it.”
“All the blood,” said Walt. “All the precious blood. A great work ought to be coming, oughtn’t it?” He was sobbing, uttering a choking call like a hairy animal. It attracted the attention of the other patrons of the saloon, horsecar drivers and conductors all, and many of them Walt’s friends. A few came over to comfort him and glare at Gob. “Walt, is this fellow causing you some upset?” they asked. Walt shook his head, but all the boys kept casting angry looks at Gob, so he and Walt left the place, taking a walk up to the Capitol. As they walked, Walt apologized for the inhospitality of the boys in the saloon. “Everywhere I go I have friends,” he said. “But nobody like you.”
They sat on the steps of the Capitol passing back and forth another bottle.
“Drunker and drunker and drunker and drunker,” said Walt.
“Do you know what I am thinking, Walt?” Gob asked.
“You are thinking of Mrs. Surrat,” said Walt, “because she was hanged over yonder.” He pointed across the snowy grounds, across the street to where the old prison used to stand. “You are thinking, ‘Poor dear, I bet she was just somebody’s dupe.’ And you are thinking how it would upset your mama and all those other sufferables that a woman can hang but she cannot vote. I saw John Surrat’s trial this summer. He is very young. I sat near him. It was hot in the courtroom, and he kept me cool with his big palm-leaf fan.”
“I was thinking,” said Gob, “that we ought to take shelter from the snow.” Even as he spoke, Walt noticed that the snow was falling again, thicker and faster than earlier. Gob stood up, gathering his enormous black coat about him — it seemed to Walt that there must be room for two of him in it, or one of him and one of Walt. He ran up the Capitol steps, taking them two and three at a time. “Come along, Walt!” he said. “I see a little cottage where we can shelter!”
It was close to two in the morning, so there was no one about on the grounds, and there could be nobody inside the Capitol but a stray guard or two. Yet Gob was knocking as if he expected some bleary-eyed innkeeper to rise from his bed and open the door. “Hello!” he called out. “Open up for two travelers weary with the cold!” Walt laughed, but the door popped open with a great loud click, throwing cheery yellow light onto Gob’s shoes.
It was at just that point that the evening began to seem dreamlike and strange to Walt, but not frightening. Somewhere a little voice — not Hank’s, though — was urging him to flee over the snow and throw himself in George Washington’s arms, to cling to the General till dawn. But the voice was whispering through smothering pillows of booze and contentment. Walt could barely hear it. It was easy to ignore. He followed Gob into the grand building, and walked after him down the gorgeous painted corridors.
“They say this place is haunted,” Gob said. “They say you can see the ghost of a workman who fell from the scaffolding while they were building the new rotunda. They say his neck is at a horrible angle and he moans in a most frightening manner.”
“I’m not afraid of spirits,” Walt said.
“There’s also a demon cat. A great big one, black as soot, with red coals for eyes. It always appears before somebody important dies. And they say these statues come alive on New Year’s Eve and dance with one another to celebrate another year of survival for this delicate, sickly Union.”
They had come to Statuary Hall. Walt paused by a statue of Mr. Adams and tried to imagine him stepping down from his pedestal to click his marble heels around the room. “Come along,” Gob shouted as he ran away. “To the House Floor. We shall legislate!”
When Walt came into the House Chamber, Gob was already down at the bottom. Walt called to him: “John Quincy Adams died right there. In the middle of a passionate speech he suffered an apoplectic fit and fell down dead. In times of trouble, he reappears and finishes his speech. If you listen to the whole thing you will find that at the very end, he reveals the solution to whatever national crisis is pending. A very convenient arrangement, I think. It’s said that Mr. Lincoln came here during the war, in hope of a consultation, but Mr. Adams did not show.”
“Spirits are notoriously fickle,” Gob said.
“I make a habit of coming to watch the proceedings here. But I think I will give it up. I am sick of the shrewd, gabby little manikins, all dressed in black, all supremely lacking in ability.” Walt paused a moment and looked around the room, feeling bold and drunk and powerful. “From right here they might do it,” Walt said. “They might do a great work with the blood, might have done, but I begin to think it will turn out to have been all for nothing.”
“Shall we make it better, Walt? Shall we legislate?” Gob bounded up to the Speaker’s desk and, picking up a gavel, banged it on the wood. “I hereby declare,” he shouted, “that brothers are nevermore to be separated! Let it be so written into the laws, natural and unnatural, the laws of this Union and the laws of every state!” He let go with the gavel again. “Mr. Whitman,” he shouted, “what say you, sir?”
Walt raised his hands in a grand gesture. “Let it be so!” he shouted. “And furthermore make it forbidden that true friends and comrades should ever be separated!”
“Not by distance!” said Gob. “And not by death! Let it be so!” He banged again with the gavel, pounding away with it, relentless and furious, until it broke in half in his hand.
Walt kept wondering, Where were the guards? They were not drawn out by the racket he and Gob made in the Capitol. Now, in the Model Room of the Patent Office, there was no sign of them as Gob’s boots made sharp, loud noises. Gob stomped up and down the aisles, peering into the glass cases by the light of a match. Walt walked behind him, looking at Ben Franklin’s printing press, at the models of fire extinguishers and ice cutters, guns and rattraps. Gob was deeply excited. He said he was looking for something, and he wanted Walt to be there when he found it. There was a whole series of cases containing treaties between the United States and various foreign powers. Gob lingered over Bonaparte’s sprawling, nervous-looking signature on the treaty of 1803. Nearby were various Oriental articles. Walt pointed at an Eastern saber, at a Persian carpet presented to President Van Buren by the Iman of Muscat. “Is that it? Is this what you seek?” Gob shook his head and moved on.
“Not that,” Gob said. “Not this either, but maybe … this.” He shone a new match on another model, very plain and roughly made, representing a steamboat. A ticket on it read, Model of sinking and raising boats by bellows below. A. Lincoln, May 30, 1849. Hank spoke up, his voice very loud this time in the immense quiet of the Model Room. He was a builder, too.
“Is that it?” Walt said. “Is that what you require?”
“No,” Gob said. “But it is related to the thing I require. Ah, there it is.” With very little ado — he only cranked his arm back a little — he put his elbow through the case next to the one containing Mr. Lincoln’s boat. He reached in and removed a hat, which he immediately set on his head.
“It’s a crime!” Walt said. “It’s a crime what you did!” But he didn’t say it very loud, and in fact he found the vandalism somehow exciting. He had the old thrill back — the buzzing in his soul like Olivia’s frantic wings, and he did not know if it was the crime, or proximity to Gob, or the drunkenness that caused it. He lit another match and held it near the tag that dangled from the brim of the hat. Hat worn by Abraham Lincoln, it read, on the night of his assassination.