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New Perspectives on Goffman
in Language and Interaction
Titles include:
Social and Regional Variation in World Englishes
Local and Global Perspectives
Edited by Paula Rautionaho, Hanna Parviainen, Mark Kaunisto, and
Arja Nurmi
Everyday Multilingualism
Linguistic Landscapes as Practice and Pedagogy
Anikó Hatoss
Beyond Borrowing
Lexical Interaction between Englishes and Asian Languages
Hyejeong Ahn, Jieun Kiaer, Danica Salazar, Anna Bordilovskaya
For a full list of titles and more information about this series, please visit https://www.routledge.
com/Routledge-Studies-in-Sociolinguistics/book-series/RSSL
New Perspectives on Goffman
in Language and Interaction
Body, Participation and the Self
Edited by
Lorenza Mondada
Anssi Peräkylä
First published 2024
by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
and by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2024 selection and editorial matter, Lorenza Mondada and Anssi
Peräkylä; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Lorenza Mondada and Anssi Peräkylä to be identified
as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for
their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with
sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
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explanation without intent to infringe.
ISBN: 978-0-367-55577-1 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-55219-4 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-09411-1 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003094111
Typeset in Sabon
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents
PART I
Discussing Goffman’s conceptual insights from the
perspective of conversation analysis and ethnomethodology27
PART II
After Goffman: Studies on body, participation and the self117
1. Introduction
The prolific oeuvre written by Erving Goffman (1923–1982) has been
highly esteemed and largely criticized; his method of doing micro-sociology
has been abundantly referred to and acknowledged by many scholars,
although at the same time seldom adopted by them as a scientific model.
Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis (EMCA) traditionally share
this ambivalent relationship to Goffman, recognizing his importance in
paving the way for the analysis of social interaction as a valid sociologi-
cal object, while also being in many ways critical of his conceptualization
of social interaction. This book continues this tradition by presenting a
constructive critical perspective on Goffman’s work, acknowledging none-
theless that the richness of this oeuvre has not been exhausted by previ-
ous reception. Indeed, numerous topics and phenomena remain for which
Goffman has offered original innovative insights and which converge with
emerging conceptual and empirical interests within recent developments in
EMCA. Inspired by the work of Goffman, this book is a collection of theo-
retical and empirical studies that critically engage to reflect on his renewed
relevance for EMCA enquiries.
EMCA is a direction of research that emerged at the same time as when
Goffman was active (for example, see Heritage, 1984). In spite of the close
connections during their early phases, Goffmanian research and EMCA
have predominantly developed independently. One objective of this book
is to bring these two traditions back into closer contact, considering that
this contact can benefit both. In particular, the chapters of this book present
recent conceptual debates and empirical, video-based research procedures
in EMCA that can cast new light on Goffman’s central ideas concerning the
self, participation, public space, and the body. This book addresses Goff-
man’s ideas as a springboard to new systematic explorations of structures
and practices of social interaction within recent conceptual and methodo-
logical developments in EMCA. The authors’ relation to Goffman is deeply
DOI: 10.4324/9781003094111-1
2 Lorenza Mondada and Anssi Peräkylä
appreciative but also critical – with the appreciation and criticism balanced
differently in different chapters.
This introduction provides a general background of Goffman’s work
by addressing social interaction, positioning his legacy both in terms of
its interdisciplinary reception and its discussion within EMCA. We first
outline Goffman’s contribution to contemporary social sciences and lin-
guistics. We then present his work more specifically in the three key areas
covered by this book – the self, body, and participation. We also link the
contributions of the book chapters to these three research fields.
previous discussions, and that crucially involve the embodied self and oth-
ers in interaction, as demonstrated by the empirical chapters of this book.
Goffman’s theory of interaction – the “splendid tent” the feasibility of
which he also doubted – is erected on two key concepts: co-presence and
interaction order, which we will now address briefly.
The wide-reaching theoretical implications of Goffman’s emphasis on
co-presence as a distinct domain of social organization – initially formu-
lated in his short article titled Neglected Situation (Goffman, 1964) – have
been acknowledged and highlighted by social theorists such as Giddens
(1988) and Collins (1988, 2004). Co-presence as the focal domain of
social organization remains a distinct and radical perspective within
the subject matter of social science. Rather than beginning from group
relations, cultural structures, or large-scale social institutions, Goffman
invites social scientists to begin their inquiry into ‘the social’ from sit-
uations in which individuals can see and hear each other. Considering
co-presence enables the analysis to include the contingencies of social
interaction even before the would-be-interactants engage in the open-
ing of the encounter, casting new light on the conditions for establishing
a common interactional focus and on the opening sequence itself. This
enables questions related to the fundamental principles for the emergence
of human interaction.
Beside the physical co-presence in face-to-face interactions, which is
favored in this volume, questions regarding co-presence as the core of soci-
ality have also been recently recalled and reshaped. These are related to the
evolution of various forms of technologically mediated interactions (for
an overview, see Arminen et al., 2016), inviting analysts to also consider
co-presence for digital forms of communication (Campos-Castillo & Hit-
lin, 2013; Ayaß, 2022). The ultimate significance of co-presence is also
addressed by newer research technologies. These include neuro-imaging
(Jiang et al., 2012) and movement capturing (Stevanovic et al., 2017),
which make it possible to explore the biological and behavioral under-
pinnings of the co-ordination of interpersonal action and experience in
co-presence.
The studies presented in this collection all attempt to specify and elabo-
rate social processes that occur in co-presence, where participants are in
perceptual contact with each other. The studies share the approach of
EMCA in examining the social processes in co-presence, exploiting the
specificities of video methodologies and multimodal analyses to observe
in more depth the dynamics of co-presence. The studies specify, elaborate,
as well as correct the Goffmanian descriptions and taxonomies of social
processes in co-presence. An example of this is Goffman’s (1971) concept
of with, denoting a configuration of more than one person who is perceived
as one unit in a public space. Using multimodal conversation analysis (CA),
4 Lorenza Mondada and Anssi Peräkylä
both for psychological reductionism, that is, for explaining social practices
as outcomes of individuals’ motivations (Schegloff, 1988), as well as for
overlooking psychology at the expense of an exclusive focus on behavioral
analysis (Scheff, 1988). In this collection, the chapters on face by Herit-
age & Clayman and by Peräkylä as well as the chapter on attention by
Bergmann & Peräkylä suggest connections between individual-level pro-
cesses that are emotional, cognitive, and perceptual, and the organization
of interaction. From a different perspective, the chapter by Keevallik also
refers to the individual, as it focuses on how displays of bodily strain are
organized interactionally.
Goffman was a sociologist who – especially during the last part of his
career at the University of Pennsylvania – worked in a cross-disciplinary
environment that was in close collaboration with linguists and anthro-
pologists. His work had a major, enduring impact on a number of disci-
plines. Below, we will discuss four Goffman-inspired lines of research – in
linguistics, sociology, psychology, and political science – that to different
degrees converge with and diverge from the approach adopted in the stud-
ies included in this collection.
The central theoretical importance of human interaction as conceived of
by Goffman had a significant impact on linguistic models. While in Berke-
ley, and subsequently at the University of Pennsylvania, Goffman closely
collaborated with colleagues who were interested in language and talk in
society and culture, such as Dell Hymes and William Labov, among oth-
ers (see the volume edited by Gumperz & Hymes, 1964, in which Goff-
man’s article Neglected Situation was published), in a context in which the
ethnography of communication, sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, and
conversation analysis were emerging (Leeds-Hurwitz, 1987). In addition,
later on, Goffman’s early writings on face (Goffman, 1955) were a source
of a longstanding theoretical discussion as well as a line of empirical studies
on politeness, which was initiated by Brown and Levinson’s (1987) mono-
graph on the face-threatening implications of different speech acts. Goff-
man’s concept of footing (Goffman, 1979) has been equally important and
it generated further elaborations and systematizations, including typological
implications (Levinson, 1988; see Sidnell, 2022 for a critical perspective).
The concept of footing also influenced a vast array of studies on reported
talk (Holt & Clift, 2007) and more generally, an interest in voicing and
polyphony, which was also fueled by the reception of Bakhtin in this field.
Even more importantly, footing has been a wellspring for crucial discussions
on the notion of participation (Goodwin & Goodwin, 2004), leading to a
redefinition of the embodied dynamics of participation as well as of multiple
voices in interaction (in particular, see Goodwin & Goodwin, this volume).
One of the most influential appropriations of Goffman’s ideas in soci-
ology concerns interaction ritual theory. Developed by Randall Collins
6 Lorenza Mondada and Anssi Peräkylä
convey an impression that the bidder is a potential buyer, even when the bid
is actually from the seller. Goodwin and Goodwin’s chapter, on the other
hand, explores the ways in which a person with aphasia and exceedingly
limited language abilities successfully presents himself as an independent
and competent social actor through intonation, gesture, and the coordina-
tion of his actions with co-present others. More generally, while the papers
in this volume share the qualitative, data-driven approach with symbolic
interactionism, the studies included here do not draw overall pictures of
distinct social settings. Instead, these studies focus on the particular micro-
scopic practices of interaction, revealing their generic character, which are
found not only in one particular setting but everywhere people interact
together. Examples of such generic, micro-interactional practices include
the strain grunts studied by Keevallik and the skeptical facial expression
analyzed by Clift.
In political science, perhaps the most influential among Goffman’s
works is Frame Analysis (Goffman, 1974). Since the 1990s, researchers
have examined the frames and framing processes associated with social
and political movements. According to this research tradition, frames are
analyzed in the context of meaning construction (Benford & Snow, 2000),
that is, as outcomes of discursive and practical action, “action-oriented sets
of beliefs and meanings that inspire and legitimate the activities and cam-
paigns” (Benford & Snow, 2000, p. 614). In one application of frame anal-
ysis in the field of political movements, Luhtakallio (2013) examined visual
representations of contentious social movements, demonstrating the inter-
twined nature of the representations of political events (demonstrations,
violence, and performance as “dominant frames”) and representation of
gender (femininity, masculinity, or gender ambiguity as “keyings” of the
frames). Alongside dramaturgical ideas, frame analysis belongs to aspects
of Goffman’s work that have usually not been explored by conversation
analysts. In this collection, however, Keevallik touches upon the concept of
keying, which is revisited in a local and processual manner, demonstrating
that the strain grunts which can be leakages of physical effort sometimes
are keyed and become displays that are part of instructional activity. Like-
wise, Goodwin and Goodwin refer to frame analysis, showing how the
main protagonist of their chapter, Chil, successfully propels participants to
change a frame from one that is serious into one that involves make-believe
and humor. The chapters by Keevallik and Goodwin and Goodwin pre-
sent their analyses of frames and framing as local, momentary interactional
achievements – a perspective that differs from the more global understand-
ing of framing in political science.
Goffman has been predominantly criticized but also praised (see Inglis,
this volume) for his use of heterogeneous empirical materials, unsystem-
atic sources, and anecdotical evidence. Even when based on substantial
8 Lorenza Mondada and Anssi Peräkylä
4. Participation
The notion of “participation framework” was introduced and developed
by Goffman in Forms of Talk (1981) – although Goffman first introduced
the concept earlier in Frame Analysis (1974, pp. 496–559). His conceptu-
alization of participation was highly influenced by Harvey Sacks and con-
versation analysis, and in turn, it influenced linguistics and ethnography.
Goffman’s vision of participation emanates from the critique of the
conventional ‘two-party paradigm’ (1981, p. 132), opposing speaker and
hearer, and reveals the plurality of (not always convergent) facets of both
parties. Goffman offers an innovative critical appraisal of the positions of
speakers and hearers, even though he maintains their asymmetry and repro-
duces the traditional division between them. As early as in 1974, Goffman
emphasizes that the speaker is not a monolithic figure but rather “splits
himself off from the content of his words by expressing that their speaker is
not he himself or not he himself in a serious way” (Goffman, 1974, p. 512).
Later, Goffman systematizes this observation: in discussing the ‘production
format’ of utterances, he differentiates between the animator as a mere
‘sounding box’ from the author who selects the words to be uttered, and
the principal who is responsible for what is said (1981, pp. 144–145).
Goffman therefore demonstrates that the speaker is not a homogeneous
entity. This is in line with interests in the multiple and even contradictory
voices inhabiting the speaker that have been developed in other intellectual
contexts by Freud, Lacan, Bakhtin, and Gramsci. Goffman also devotes his
attention to the hearer, often considered by other analysts as absent, silent,
and passive; he offers a fascinating typology of how hearers participate in
ratified and unratified ways, in ongoing interactions, as overhearers and
eavesdroppers, and in a variety of forms of unratified exchanges, such as
crossplay, byplay, and sideplay (1981, pp. 132–134).
Goffman’s approach to participation has been read and received in many
diverse ways. Some insist on the permanence of the global participation
framework, typically characterizing institutional activities, and insist on
how it enables (or hinders) different forms of participation. Others firmly
support the subtle differentiations that footing categories make possible
12 Lorenza Mondada and Anssi Peräkylä
and develop them, for example, in terms of the linguistic expressions that
manifest them.
Goffman’s approach to participation frameworks inspired studies in
anthropology and education interested in the permanence of participation
structures, mainly studied by ethnographers interested in the compara-
tive studies of spatial and institutional arrangements of participants which
favor or exclude their participation to activities. For instance, Philips (1983)
explored the reasons for the school failure of Native American students,
adopting the concept of participation structure to oppose the white Ameri-
can classroom where the teacher controlled the student participation, and
centrally distributed opportunities to speak – and the Native American
class – more centered on peer exchange and group work, in which the
teacher had rather a role of support. Thus, by distinguishing structures of
participation, favoring different styles of communication, Philips (1983)
was able to demonstrate that Native American students were discriminated
by means of organizing participation.
Goffman’s approach to participation in the article Footing (Goffman,
1979) resonated rather differently with linguistic inquiries that were likewise
interested in the non-monolithic profile of the speaker and in distinguishing
various voices in talk and text. It is significant that the concept of footing is
introduced by referring to Gumperz’s notions of code-switching that enable
shifts in perspective (1976), differentiating voices in reported speech, forms
of involvement, types of addressees, topic versus comment, old versus new
information, etc. (Goffman, 1981, p. 127). Pinpointing the fact that linguists
have been critical of the distinction between speaker/hearer for a long time,
Levinson (1988, p. 168) shows how Goffman’s typology of participant roles
(the term he uses instead of footing) partially converge with grammatical
categories that are made relevant by typologically diverse language systems
to differentiate references to persons and mark phenomena of perspectivi-
zation. Goffman’s roles approximate ideas of polyphony, such as Ducrot’s
distinctions between locuteur (the producer of the talk) and énonciateur
(what Goffman would refer to as the author) (1984), which led to analyses
of negation, presupposition, irony, and reported speech.
The idea of participation is ubiquitous in conversation analysis, although
it is often not conceptualized as such. Participation in CA has not acquired
the same theoretical status as one of the basic structures of all interac-
tion, such as the organization of turn-taking or sequence organization. The
legacy of Goffman has been both recognized and criticized in the work of
Charles and Marjorie Goodwin, and further elaborated on in their chap-
ter in this volume. In particular, Goodwin and Goodwin (2004) highlight
the importance of the temporal and embodied dimensions of participation.
They demonstrate that the typology characterizing speaker’s and hearer’s
positions is too rigid, and underestimates the fleeting and flexible ways
Body, participation, self 13
5. Embodied practices
An important line in the early work of Goffman analyzed gatherings in
public spaces. His insights constituted a rich array of intuitions about
social conduct in groups and among unacquainted persons. This concerns
how people maintained unfocused interactions and civic inattention when
Body, participation, self 15
in co-presence, how they shift to focused interaction, and how they manage
gaze, glances, and looks. Other related human behavior Goffman analyzed
included how people engage in multiple activities and how they navigate
in public spaces by tacitly coordinating and avoiding collisions (Goffman,
1963a, 1971). In this work, Goffman introduced early on an attention to
the body, mobility, and space, as well as practices of gazing and glancing.
These ideas all resonate today in much of the contemporary research that
has revisited the body as central for social theory and has been able to
advance due to video studies and multimodal analyses.
Goffman’s insights into gatherings in public places were rather early on
also developed further by urban anthropologists and sociologists working
ethnographically, exploring the ways in which strangers manage their ordi-
nary trajectories in the city and the conditions at which they meet (or avoid
each other) (Lofland, 1973, 1998). More recently, a related field inspired
by the work of Goffman concerns mobility studies (Jensen, 2022). For
example, Conley (2012) develops a sociology of traffic through an ethnog-
raphy of drivers, bikers, and pedestrians, interested in how these different
“vehicular units” (Goffman, 1971) interact in their mobile trajectories and
negotiate the order of traffic. Likewise, the notion of negotiation-in-motion
(Jensen, 2010, 2022, p. 293) was proposed to account for the dynamic
complexity of human mobility, which connected the central sociological
problem of ‘order’ with Goffman’s insights into how pedestrians negotiate
traffic problems (as well as joggers who negotiate the space they run in
and that might be occupied by other categories of walkers (Smith, 2001).
More generally, Goffman has also inspired a reconsideration of the body
in sociology (Crossley, 2001, 2022; Shilling, 1993), crucially referring to
Relations in Public (1971) and Behavior in Public Places (1963a) as dem-
onstrating the centrality of the bodily idiom (1963a, p. 35) for the intelligi-
bility of public life, and therefore the embodied dimension of fundamental
forms of sociality.
From an EMCA perspective, it is relevant to pinpoint how Goffman’s
work on public spaces acknowledges some fundamental dimensions of the
multimodal organization of interaction that have been investigated over
the last decades, often not in reference to Goffman.
First and foremost, Goffman offers central insights into the management
of gazes and glances in social gatherings between people approaching each
other – concerning how focused versus unfocused interactions are based on
different types of gaze, how joint attention is organized, and how mutual
gaze characterizes focused encounters and the “ecological huddle wherein
participants orient to one another and away from those who are present in
the situation but not officially in the encounter” (1964, p. 135). These top-
ics continue to be central in the contemporary discussions on the organiza-
tion of gaze (from Kendon & Ferber, 1967 to Goodwin, 1981; Rossano,
16 Lorenza Mondada and Anssi Peräkylä
6. Conclusion
The studies presented in this collection are inspired by Goffman and adopt
the methods and theoretical concepts of ethnomethodology and conversa-
tion analysis (EMCA).
All empirical studies included in this collection also combine four ana-
lytical foci. All studies (1) originate from EMCA; (2) they concentrate on
a particular empirical field or fields (such as an auction, a family interac-
tion, a public space, or a psychiatric interview); (3) they focus on par-
ticular fine-grained embodied interactional practices (such as movement,
facial expressions, gaze, or prosody) on the basis of video recordings; and
(4) they critically elaborate specific ideas or concepts that originate from
Goffman’s texts (such as participation, self, withs, response cries, or shared
attention). While the chapters are firmly rooted in Goffman’s ideas and
concepts, the empirical methods and conceptual perspective from EMCA
enable them to move beyond Goffman’s original approach. The EMCA
conceptualization of social scenes and social facts as self-organizing assem-
blages makes it possible to envision “Goffmanian phenomena” as local
interactional achievements, rather than culturally given, rule-governed
forms of action. Analytically, video-based EMCA methods facilitate a mul-
timodal approach and offer a level of detailed granularity that was not
possible in Goffman’s ethnographies.
Body, participation, self 19
This book also has four chapters that are primarily focused on theoretical
issues. They address the continuities and discontinuities between Goffman
and EMCA, balancing these two in different ways. In his historical review,
Meyer presents evidence that Goffman and Garfinkel communicated more
and appreciated each other more than has thus far been assumed; nonethe-
less they also had points of disagreement, especially regarding the concept
of ritual that was central for Goffman. Maynard and Turowetz consider
another point of discontinuity: the understanding of rules as explanans
of interactional practices, a question in which Goffman was close to the
“mainstream” sociology, a perspective challenged by ethnomethodology.
Heritage and Clayman, on the other hand, focus on continuity, arguing
that the CA idea of preference structure should be seen as anchored to ten-
ets of interactional organization that Goffman referred to as face. Finally,
Inglis comments on continuities and discontinuities from a different view-
point, arguing that Goffman’s original contribution to social sciences was
also made possible by his creative writing style. Inglis also suggests that
this creativity may be at risk in EMCA and other studies if scholars over-
emphasize the technical refinement of data gathering and analysis at the
expense of “thinking like Goffman”.
Goffman was born 100 years ago and died more than 40 years ago and
there is broad consensus that he renewed much of social science. This book
attests to our understanding that the ramifications of this renewal continue
to offer further avenues for research.
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Part I
Discussing Goffman’s
conceptual insights
from the perspective of
conversation analysis and
ethnomethodology
2 Goffman and Garfinkel
Joint enterprises, theoretical
differences and personal
sympathies
Christian Meyer
1. Introduction
Erving Goffman’s relationship with Harold Garfinkel was multi-faceted.
Garfinkel and Goffman both stand for the achievement of having inno-
vated sociology by developing, diffusing and firmly establishing social
research about the evanescent details of everyday life and face-to-face
interaction, both theoretically and empirically, in the 1950s and 1960s.
Together with contemporary sociologists such as Howard Becker, Herbert
Blumer, Edward Lemert, Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann, they opened
up a new subject matter for the discipline. Goffman and Garfinkel both
represent a sociology that inspects in detail the ways in which people act
together in building their social reality physically in real time. They moved
the discipline away from focusing on abstract social structures that are
inaccessible for actors, and toward the valuation of the practices of actual
individuals and dyads within concrete social situations. Goffman and Gar-
finkel shared a concern with closely examining empirically processes of
social interaction in situ, a focus on the role of communication within
these processes and a skepticism towards quantitative methods, advocat-
ing instead methods of participant observation.
Thus, Goffman and Garfinkel lead the discipline toward a more detailed
look at the interaction order as a topic of sociology in its own right and
not as standing for something else (e.g., social structure or culture). In
doing so, they were confronted with the challenge that studies on social
interaction at the time of their doctoral research were dominated by the
“small group interaction” approach, both at Harvard and Chicago (Bales
et al., 1950). Goffman’s and Garfinkel’s emphasis laid on factors relevant
for social interaction as well as on its unfolding dynamics in real-time. Both
focused on the relevance of real, putatively “messy” processes of commu-
nication for the establishment and maintenance of social order. This is
DOI: 10.4324/9781003094111-3
30 Christian Meyer
III
Their routine continued much as it had been for the past two years,
but to her tortured senses there was something ominous now in the
brevity of their contacts. Shep often remained away late and on his
return crept softly upstairs to his room without speaking to her,
though she left her light burning brightly.
Constance kept to her room, she hadn’t been well, and the doctor
told her to stay in bed for a few days. For several nights she heard
Shep moving about his room, and the maid told her that he had been
going over his clothing and was sending a box of old suits to some
charitable institution. A few days later he went into her room as she
was having breakfast in bed. She asked him to shift the tray for her,
more for something to say than because the service was necessary,
and inquired if he were feeling well, but without dispelling the hard
glitter that had become fixed in his eyes.
“Do you know when Leila’s coming home?” he inquired from the foot
of the bed.
“No; I haven’t heard. I’ve seen no one; the doctor told me to keep
quiet.”
“Yes; I suppose you have to do that,” he said without emotion. He
went out listlessly and as he passed her she put out her hand,
touched his sleeve; but he gave no sign that he was aware of the
appeal the gesture implied....
It was on a Saturday morning that he went in through his dressing
room, bade her good morning in much his old manner and rang for
her coffee. He had breakfasted, he said, and merely wanted to be
sure that she was comfortable.
“Thank you, Shep. I’m all right. I’ve been troubled about you, dear—
much more than about myself. But you look quite fit this morning.”
“Feeling fine,” he said. “This is a half day at the office and I want to
get on the job early. I’m dated up for a foursome this afternoon with
George, Bruce and Carroll; so I won’t be home till after the game.
You won’t mind?”
“Why, I’m delighted to have you go, Shep!”
“I always do the best I can, Connie,” he went on musingly. “I
probably make a lot of mistakes. I don’t believe God intended me for
heavy work; if he had he’d have made me bigger.”
“How foolish, Shep. You’re doing wonderfully. Isn’t everything going
smoothly at the office?”
“Just fine! I haven’t a thing to complain of!”
“Is everything all right now?” she asked, encouraged to hope for
some assurance of his faith in her.
“What isn’t all right will be—there’s always that!” he replied with a
laugh.
He lingered beside the bed and took her hand, bent over and kissed
her, let his cheek rest against hers in an old way of his.
“Good-bye,” he said from the door, and then with a smile—Shep’s
familiar, wistful little smile—he left her.
IV
Shep and Whitford won the foursome against Bruce and Carroll, a
result due to Whitford’s superior drives and Carroll’s bad putting.
They were all in high humor when they returned to the clubhouse,
chaffing one another about their skill as they dressed. Shep made a
tour of the verandas, greeting his friends, answering questions as to
Connie’s health. The four men were going in at once and Shep, who
had driven Carroll out, suggested that he and Bruce change partners
for the drive home.
“There are a few little points about the game I want to discuss with
George,” he explained as they walked toward the parking sheds.
“All right,” Bruce assented cheerfully. “You birds needn’t be so set
up; next week Carroll and I will give you the trimming of your young
lives!”
“Ah, the next time!” Shep replied ironically, and drove away with
Whitford beside him....
“Shep’s coming on; he’s matured a lot since he went into the trust
company,” remarked Carroll, as he and Bruce followed Shep’s car.
“Good stuff in him,” said Bruce. “One of those natures that develops
slowly. I never saw him quite as gay as he was this afternoon.”
“He was always a shy boy, but he’s coming out of that. I think his
father was wise in taking him out of the battery plant.”
“No doubt,” Bruce agreed, his attention fixed on Shep’s car.
Shep had set a pace that Bruce was finding it difficult to maintain.
Carroll presently commented upon the wild flight of the car ahead,
which was cutting the turns in the road with reckless abandon,
leaving a gray cloud behind.
“The honor of my car is at stake!” said Bruce grimly, closing his
windshield against the dust.
“By George! If Shep wasn’t so abstemious you’d think he’d mixed
alcohol with his gas,” Carroll replied. “What the devil’s got into him!”
“Maybe he wants a race,” Bruce answered uneasily, remembering
Shep’s wild drive the night of their talk on the river. “There’s a bad
turn at the creek just ahead—he can’t make it at that speed!”
Bruce stopped, thinking Shep might check his flight if he found he
wasn’t pursued; but the car sped steadily on.
“Shep’s gone nutty or he’s trying to scare George,” said Carroll. “Go
ahead!”
Bruce started his car at full speed, expecting that at any minute Shep
would stop and explain that it was all a joke of some kind. The flying
car was again in sight, careening crazily as it struck depressions in
the roadbed.
“Oh, God!” cried Carroll, half-rising in his seat. Shep had passed a
lumbering truck by a hair’s breadth, and still no abatement in his
speed. Bruce heard a howl of rage as he swung his own car past the
truck. A danger sign at the roadside gave warning of the short curve
that led upward to the bridge, and Bruce clapped on his brakes.
Carroll, on the running board, peering ahead through the dust,
yelled, and as Bruce leaped out a crash ahead announced disaster.
A second sound, the sound of a heavy body falling, greeted the two
men as they ran toward the scene....
Shep’s car had battered through the wooden fence that protected the
road where it curved into the wooden bridge and had plunged into
the narrow ravine. Bruce and Carroll flung themselves down the
steep bank and into the stream. Shep’s head lay across his arms on
the wheel; Whitford evidently had tried to leap out before the car
struck. His body, half out of the door, had been crushed against the
fence, but clung in its place through the car’s flight over the
embankment.
V
To the world Franklin Mills showed what passed for a noble fortitude
and a superb resignation in Shep’s death. Carroll had carried the
news to him; and Carroll satisfied the curiosity of no one as to what
Mills had said or how he had met the blow. Carroll himself did not
know what passed through Franklin Mills’ mind. Mills had asked
without emotion whether the necessary things had been done, and
was satisfied that Carroll had taken care of everything. Mills received
the old friends who called, among them Lindley. It was a proper thing
to see the minister in such circumstances. The rector of St.
Barnabas went away puzzled. He had never understood Mills, and
now his rich parishioner was more of an enigma than ever.
A handful of friends chosen by Constance and Mills heard the
reading of the burial office in the living-room of Shep’s house.
Constance remained in her room; and Mills saw her first when they
met in the hall to drive together to the cemetery, an arrangement that
she herself had suggested. No sound came from her as she stood
between Mills and Leila at the grave as the last words were said. A
little way off stood the bearers, young men who had been boyhood
friends of Shep, and one or two of his associates from the trust
company. When the grave was filled Constance waited, watching the
placing of the flowers, laying her wreath of roses with her own
hands.
She took Mills’s arm and they returned to their car. No word was
spoken as it traversed the familiar streets. The curtains were drawn;
Mills stared fixedly at the chauffeur’s back; the woman beside him
made no sign. Nothing, as he thought of it, had been omitted; his son
had been buried with the proper rites of the church. There had been
no bungling, no hysterical display of grief; no crowd of the morbidly
curious. When they reached Shep’s house he followed Constance in.
There were women there waiting to care for her, but she sent them
away and went into the reception parlor. The scent of flowers still
filled the rooms, but the house had assumed its normal orderly
aspect. Constance threw back her veil, and Mills saw for the first
time her face with its marks of suffering, her sorrowing eyes.
“Had you something to say to me?” she asked quietly.
“If you don’t mind——” he answered. “I couldn’t come to you before
—but now—I should like you to know——”
As he paused she began to speak slowly, as if reciting something
she had committed to memory.
“We have gone through this together, for reasons clear to both of us.
There is nothing you can say to me. But one or two things I must say
to you. You killed him. Your contempt for him as a weaker man than
you, as a gentle and sweet soul you could never comprehend; your
wish to manage him, to thwart him in things he wanted to do, your
wish to mold him and set him in your own little groove—these are the
things that destroyed him. You shattered his faith in me—that is the
crudest thing of all, for he loved me. So strong was your power over
him and so great was his fear of you that he believed you. In spite of
himself he believed you when you charged me with unfaithfulness.
You drove him mad,” she went on monotonously; “he died a
madman—died horribly, carrying an innocent man down with him.
The child Shep wanted so much—that he would have loved so
dearly—is his. You need have no fear as to that. That is all I have to
say, Mr. Mills.”
She left him noiselessly, leaving behind her a quiet that terrified and
numbed him. He found himself groping his way through the hall,
where someone spoke to him. The words were unintelligible, though
the voice was of someone who meant to be kind. He walked to his
car, carrying his hat as if he were unequal to the effort of lifting it to
his head. The chauffeur opened the door, and as he got in Mills
stumbled and sank upon the seat.
When he reached home he wandered aimlessly about the rooms,
oppressed by the intolerable quiet. One and another of the servants
furtively peered at him from discreet distances; the man who had
cared for his personal needs for many years showed himself in the
hope of being called upon for some service.
“Is that you, Briggs?” asked Mills. “Please call the farm and say that
I’m coming out. Yes—I’ll have dinner there. I may stay a day or two.
You may pack a bag for me—the usual things. Order the car when
you’re ready.”
He resumed his listless wandering, found himself in Leila’s old room,
and again in the room that had been Shep’s. It puzzled him to find
that the inspection of these rooms brought him no sensations. He felt
no inclination to cry out against the fate that had wrought this
emptiness, laid this burden of silence upon his house. Leila had
gone; and he had seen them put Shep into the ground.
“You killed him.” This was what that woman in black had said. She
had said other things, but these were the words that repeated
themselves in his memory like a muffled drum-beat. On the drive to
the farm he did not escape from the insistent reiteration. He was
mystified, bewildered. No one had ever spoken to him like that; no
one had ever before accused him of a monstrous crime or
addressed him as if he were a contemptible and odious thing. And
yet he was Franklin Mills. This was the astounding thing,—that
Franklin Mills should have listened to such words and been unable to
deny them....
At the farm he paused on the veranda, turned his face westward
where the light still lingered in pale tints of gold and scarlet. He
remained staring across the level fields, hearing the murmur of the
wind in the maples, the rustle of dead leaves in the grass, until the
chauffeur spoke to him, took his arm and led him into the house.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I
Carroll and Bruce dined at the University Club on an evening early in
October. The tragic end of Shepherd Mills and George Whitford had
brought them into a closer intimacy and they were much together.
The responsibility of protecting Shep’s memory had fallen upon
them; and they had been fairly successful in establishing in local
history a record of the tragedy as an accident. Only a very few knew
or suspected the truth.
“Have you anything on this evening?” asked Carroll as they were
leaving the table.
“Not a blessed thing,” Bruce replied.
“Mr. Mills, you know, or rather you don’t know, is at Deer Trail. The
newspaper story that he had gone south for the winter wasn’t true.
He’s been ill—frightfully ill; but he’s better now. I was out there today;
he asked about you. I think he’d like to see you. You needn’t dread it;
he’s talked very little about Shep’s death.”
“If you really think he wants to see me,” Bruce replied dubiously.
“From the way he mentioned you I’m sure it would please him.”
“Very well; will you go along?”
“No; I think he’d like it better if you went alone. He has seen no one
but Leila, the doctor and me; he’s probably anxious to see a new
face. I’ll telephone you’re coming.”
As Bruce entered Mills’s room a white-frocked nurse quietly
withdrew. The maid who had shown him up drew a chair beside the
bed and left them. He was alone with Mills, trying to adjust himself to
the change in him, the pallor of the face against the pillow, the thin
cheeks, the hair white now where it had only been touched with gray.
“This is very kind of you! I’m poor company; but I hoped you wouldn’t
mind running out.”
“I thought you were away. Carroll just told me you were here.”
“No; I’ve been here sometime—so long, in fact, that I feel quite out of
the world.”
“Mrs. Thomas is at home—I’ve seen her several times.”
“Yes, Leila’s very good to me; runs out every day or two. She’s full of
importance over having her own establishment.”
Bruce spoke of his own affairs; told of the progress that had been
made with the Laconia memorial before the weather became
unfavorable. The foundations were in and the materials were being
prepared; the work would go forward rapidly with the coming of
spring.
“I can appreciate your feeling about it—your own idea taking form.
I’ve thought of it a good deal. Indeed, I’ve thought of you a great deal
since I’ve been here.”
“If I’d known you were here and cared to see me I should have come
out,” said Bruce quite honestly.
While Mills bore the marks of suffering and had plainly undergone a
serious illness, his voice had something of its old resonance and his
eyes were clear and alert. He spoke of Shep, with a poignant
tenderness, but left no opening for sympathy. His grief was his own;
not a thing to be exposed to another or traded upon. Bruce marveled
at him. The man, even in his weakness, challenged admiration. The
rain had begun to patter on the sill of an open window and Bruce
went to close it. When he returned to the bed Mills asked for an
additional pillow that he might sit up more comfortably, and Bruce
adjusted it for him. He was silent for a moment; his fingers played
with the edge of the coverlet; he appeared to be thinking intently.
“There are things, Storrs,” he remarked presently, “that are not
helped by discussion. That night I had you to dine with me we both
played about a certain fact without meeting it. I am prepared to meet
it now. You are my son. I don’t know that there’s anything further to
be said about it.”
“Nothing,” Bruce answered.
“If you were not what you are I should never have said this to you. I
was in love with your mother and she loved me. It was all wrong and
the wrong was mine. And in various ways I have paid the penalty.”
He passed his hand slowly over his eyes and went on. “It may be
impertinent, but there’s one thing I’d like to ask. What moved you to
establish yourself here?”
“There was only one reason. My mother was the noblest woman that
ever lived! She loved you till she died. She would never have told me
of you but for a feeling that she wanted me to be near you—to help
in case you were in need. That was all.”
“That was all?” Mills repeated, and for the first time he betrayed
emotion. He lay very still. Slowly his hand moved along the coverlet
to the edge of the bed until Bruce took it in his own. “You and I have
been blessed in our lives; we have known the love of a great woman.
That was like her,” he ended softly; “that was Marian.”
The nurse came in to see if he needed anything, and he dismissed
her for the night. He went on talking in quiet, level tones—of his early
years, of the changing world, Bruce encouraging him by an
occasional question but heeding little what he said. If Mills had
whined, begged forgiveness or offered reparation, Bruce would have
hated him. But Mills was not an ordinary man. No ordinary man
would have made the admission he had made, or, making it, would
have implored silence, exacted promises....
“Millicent—you see her, I suppose?” Mills asked after a time.
“Yes; I see her quite often.”
“I had hoped you did. In fact Leila told me that Millie and you are
good friends. She said a little more—Leila’s a discerning person and
she said she thought there was something a little more than
friendship. Please let me finish! You’ve thought that there were
reasons why you could never ask Millicent to marry you. I’ll take the
responsibility of that. I’ll tell her the story myself—if need be. I leave
that to your own decision.”
“No,” said Bruce. “I shall tell her myself.”
Instead of wearying Mills, the talk seemingly acted as a stimulus.
Bruce’s amazement grew. It was incomprehensible that here lay the
Franklin Mills of his distrust, his jealousy, his hatred.
“Millicent used to trouble me a good deal with some of her ideas,”
said Mills.
“She’s troubled a good many of us,” Bruce agreed with a smile. “But
sometimes I think I catch a faint gleam.”
“I’m sure you do! You two are of a generation that looks for God in
those far horizons she talks about. The idea amused me at first. But I
see now that here is the new religion—the religion of youth—that
expresses itself truly in beautiful things—in life, in conduct, in
unselfishness. The spirit of youth reveals itself in beautiful things—
and calls them God. Shep felt all that, tried in his own way to make
me see—but I couldn’t understand him. I—there are things I want to
do—for Shep. We’ll talk of that later.... Every mistake I’ve made,
every wrong I’ve done in this world has been due to selfishness—
I’ve been saying that to myself every day since I’ve been here. I’ve
found peace in it. There’s no one in the world who has a better right
to hear this from me than you. And this is no death-bed repentance;
I’m not going to die yet a while. It’s rather beaten in on me, Bruce”—
it was the first time he had so addressed him—“that we can’t just live
for ourselves! No! Not if we would find happiness. There comes a
time when every man needs God. The wise thing is so to live that
when the need comes we shan’t find him a stranger!”
The hour grew late, and the wind and rain made a continual clatter
about the house. When Bruce rose to go Mills protested.
“There’s plenty of space here—a room next to mine is ready for a
guest. You’ll find everything you want. We seem to meet in storms!
Please spend the night here.”
And so it came about that for the first time Bruce slept in his father’s
house.
II
Bruce and Millicent were married the next June. A few friends
gathered in the garden late on a golden afternoon—Leila and
Thomas, the Freemans, the Hendersons, a few relatives of the
Hardens from their old home, and Carroll and Bruce’s cousin from
Laconia. The marriage service was read by Dr. Lindley and the
music was provided by a choir of robins in the elms and maples.
Franklin Mills was not present; but before Bruce and Millicent drove
to the station they passed through the gate in the boundary hedge—
Leila had arranged this—and received his good wishes.
The fourth of July had been set as the time for the dedication of the
memorial. The event brought together a great company of
dignitaries, and the governor of the state and the Secretary of War
were the speakers. Mills had driven over with Leila and Thomas, and
he sat with them, Millicent beside him.
Bruce hovered on the edges of the crowd, listening to comments on
his work, marveling himself that it was so good. The chairman of the
local committee sent for him at the conclusion of the ceremonies to
introduce him to the distinguished visitors. When the throng had
dispersed, Millicent, with Carroll and Leila, paused by the fountain to
wait until Bruce was free.
“This is what you get, Millie, for having a famous husband,” Leila
remarked. “He’s probably signing a contract for another monument!”
“There he is!” exclaimed Carroll, pointing up the slope.
Bruce and Mills were slowly pacing one of the colonnades. Beyond it
lay the woodland that more than met Bruce’s expectations as a
background for the memorial. They were talking earnestly, wholly
unaware that they were observed. As they turned once more to
retrace their steps Mills, unconsciously it seemed, laid his arm
across Bruce’s shoulders; and Millicent, seeing and understanding,
turned away to hide her tears.
THE END
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been
standardized.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.
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