The Last Supper: And Other Stories Read Free

She was something that happened only to a very lucky man, and he—he was such a miserable neurotic fool that he had not been able to rest until he broke, up the marriage. Now he could face the truth. It was his doing, and entirely his doing, and he wasn’t man enough to come face to face with happiness. How deeply profound were Jane’s remarks about humility! And how few people possessed real humility! When he went through his friends, it was almost impossible to find one who was a truly humble man, and for some reason, that brought into his mind a line from the Bible—“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” He said the line over and over, and found it truly comforting. A new mood had come upon him, a benign, deeply-reflective, and philosophically satisfying mood. For a moment, anger and fear departed and he felt uplifted and ennobled.
    He began to feel that there was something providential in what had happened to him. He had been too satisfied with himself, in spite of his inner conflicts, and even his daily sessions with his analyst had not wholly dispelled his arrogance and self-justification. Now, in his present glow of beneficence, he began to wonder whether he was not having what his analyst referred to as a true passage of insight. If he were a Catholic—and it was strange how often this possibility had occurred to him recently—he would have been certain that what moved him was a high form of religious experience, and even though he was not a Catholic, he played with the thought.
    When his cab turned into lower Broadway, with its high buildings and narrow side streets and throngs of hurrying people, his feeling of assurance increased and he was filled with pity for all these hurrying, faceless, nameless people who lived out their lives in these high offices, wondering whether this wasn’t material for a new play—but then thrusting the thought aside, as he recalled the difficulties and reprisals inherent in such material. He had paid a full and sufficient price, and who was to say that this was the role of an artist? He must remember what Jane had said concerning humility.
    He maintained that feeling as he passed into the sumptuous waiting room of Henderson, Hoke, Baily and Cohen , and he greeted the girl at the reception desk with a smile as gentle as it was pure. And when Jack Henderson came bustling out, Crane greeted him with the same benign smile.
    â€œWell, thank God you don’t seem as worried as you sounded this morning,” Henderson said. Henderson was a stout, broad-shouldered man, with a fine thatch of prematurely white hair, and given to wearing gray tweeds and dark bow-ties. He had that thing as necessary to a successful attorney as a bedside manner is to a successful physician, an air of self-possession and calm assurance which never deserted him. Just looking at him reassured a client; but such was Crane’s mood that he even felt superior to a need for reassurance, and was a little amused at what Henderson’s reaction would be when he discovered that he, Crane, had already worked out the problem.
    Henderson led Crane into his private office, a commodious and well-furnished room, the windows of which overlooked the mouth of the Hudson River and the Bay. Then he asked Crane to let him see the subpoena, which he read carefully while Crane made himself comfortable in the leather chair facing Henderson’s desk.
    â€œI guess you’ve given some thought to this, Harvey,” the lawyer said finally. “I’m glad you’re less worried. I don’t say this isn’t a serious business, but I would call it more of a serious nuisance.”
    â€œI was nervous for a while,” Crane admitted. “Then I got to thinking. Had lunch with a friend of mine, and we discussed it rather thoroughly.” He told Henderson the substance of the discussion at lunch. “And the fact is,” he finished, “that I