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8
The classification of homeomorphisms
of surfaces

In this chapter we present and prove the first of Thurston’s theorems involv-
ing Teichmüller spaces: the classification of homeomorphisms of surfaces,
Theorem 8.1.3.
Understanding homeomorphisms and di↵eomorphisms of manifolds is a
central problem of mathematics. Already understanding homeomorphisms
and di↵eomorphisms of the circle is an immensely difficult problem with
a huge literature. The 2-dimensional case is much harder yet; Thurston’s
theorem is probably the main result in the field. The theorem concerns
homeomorphisms up to homotopy, so it is in some sense crude, avoiding
all delicate local study; in exchange, it provides vital global information.
Moreover, the group of homotopy classes of homeomorphisms, also known
as the mapping class group, is of central interest in geometric group theory.
Here also Thurston’s theorem is of fundamental importance.
We will present a proof due to Bers [12], which is more in keeping with
the style of this book than Thurston’s proof. Thurston’s proof has been
given in considerable detail by Fathi, Laudenbach, and Poenaru [40]; it is
much longer and more elaborate.1
Thurston classifies homeomorphisms into three types: periodic, reduc-
ible, and pseudo-Anosov. This terminology is inspired by the classification
of homeomorphisms of the torus.

Classification of homeomorphisms of the torus

Let T denote the torus T := R2 /Z2 . A matrix A 2 SL2 Z defines an
orientation-preserving homeomorphism fA : T ! T . Conversely, the para-
metrized closed curves
⇣ ⌘ ⇣ ⌘
t 7! 0t , 0  t  1 and t 7! 0t , 0  t  1

form a basis of the homology group H1 (T, Z) = Z2 , and any orientation-

preserving homeomorphism f : T ! T gives a homomorphism f⇤ : Z2 ! Z2
that has a matrix A 2 SL2 Z. One can show that f is isotopic to fA . Thus
1
Apparently Jakob Nielsen has some claim to having proved the result long
before Thurston. However, I have spoken with the people who know Nielsen’s
work best, and they say that he never made any definition similar to “pseudo-
Anosov”. Without it, no classification theorem seems possible.

June 25, 2015

 2 Chapter 8. Classification of homeomorphisms

the classification of homeomorphisms of T up to isotopy is the same as the

classification of elements of SL2 Z up to conjugacy.
This classification leads to three cases: a matrix A 2 SL2 Z may have
complex nonreal eigenvalues, a double eigenvalue ±1, or real distinct eigen-
values.
The eigenvalues of A are the roots of 2 (tr A) + 1 = 0. They can
be nonreal only if tr A = 0 or tr A = ±1 or tr A = ±2 (remember that the
trace tr A is an integer). If tr A = 0, the matrix has eigenvalues ±i, and
A4 = I. If tr A = 1, then A3 = I, and if tr A = 1, then A6 = I.
If tr A = ±2, then ±1 is an eigenvalue, and a corresponding eigenvec-
tor provides a simple closed curve on the surface that is mapped to itself
(preserving or reversing the orientation).
If |tr A| > 2, then A has two distinct real eigenvalues, necessarily irra-
tional: the contracting eigenvalue | 1 | < 1 and the expanding eigenvalue
| 2 | > 1. The directions of the eigenvectors provide invariant foliations on
R2 /Z2 , which are contracted and expanded by fA . These homeomorphisms
are called Anosov; in [8], Anosov studied them and in particular showed
that they are structurally stable.

8.1 The classification theorem

Thurston’s classification theorem is an analogue of the classification of
homeomorphisms of tori; it applies to surfaces of any genus g 2. Anosov
homeomorphisms are replaced by pseudo-Anosov homeomorphisms, which
also have invariant foliations that are expanded and contracted; the leaves
of these foliations are the horizontal and vertical trajectories of a quadratic
di↵erential q. In this case, however, the foliations are singular. Some ex-
amples are shown in Figure 5.3.1.

in
Definition 8.1.1 (Classification of homeomorphisms of surfaces)
Let S be a compact surface of genus g 2, and let f : S ! S be an
orientation-preserving homeomorphism. The map f is
1. periodic if the iterate f m
is the identity for some m 1
2. reducible if f is not homotopic to a periodic homeomorphism, and
some nonempty multicurve is invariant under f (such a multicurve
is called a reducing multicurve)
3. pseudo-Anosov if there exist an element ' : S ! X of Teichmüller
space TS , a holomorphic quadratic di↵erential q 2 Q(X), and
K > 1 such that ' f ' 1 is a Teichmüller mapping
(X, q) ! (X, q/K); see Definition 5.3.6

June 25, 2015

 8.1 The classification theorem 3

Remark It is usually better to think of a pseudo-Anosov map as an

area-preserving map f : (X, q) ! (X, q) rather than as a Teichmüller map
f : (X, q) ! (X, q/K). See Figure 8.1.1. 4
1

1 1
1/K

(X, q/K)
1
1
p
K
p
(X, q) K
p p
K 1/ K

(X, q)

Figure 8.1.1 At left, a piece of a Riemann surface X with quadratic di↵erential

q, and a (blue) unit square in the natural coordinate for q. The two blue regions at
right are the image of the unit square at left by the same map f (strictly speaking,
by ' f ' 1 ). The two pictures on the right are identical, but with di↵erent
metrics. Bottom right, f is a pseudo-Anosov homeomorphism from (X, q) to
p
(X, q); it stretches horizontal segments of curves by a factor of K, and shrinks
vertical segments by the same factor, preserving area. Top right, the same map is
seen as a Teichmüller map f : (X, q) ! (X, q/K) that maps horizontal segments
to horizontal segments of the same length, and shrinks segments by a factor of
K. (Since the metric at upper right is smaller than that at left, the (yellow) unit
square at right is of course larger.)

It is easy to find periodic homeomorphisms that are reducible, but re-

ducible and pseudo-Anosov are mutually exclusive.

in
Proposition 8.1.2 A pseudo-Anosov homeomorphism and a reducible
homeomorphism cannot be homotopic.

Let q be a quadratic di↵erential on a Riemann surface. Recall from

Section 5.3 (see equation 5.3.2) that in a neighborhood of any point where
q 6= 0, there exists a natural local coordinate z such that q = dz 2 ; the
element of length |dz| in such a coordinate is denoted |q|1/2 .

June 25, 2015

 4 Chapter 8. Classification of homeomorphisms

Proof Let f : S ! S be pseudo-Anosov, so there exists a Riemann surface

X, a quadratic di↵erential q 2 Q(X), and a homeomorphism ' : S ! X
such that if g := ' f ' 1 , then g : (X, q) ! (X, q/K) is a Teichmüller
map. We will show that g is not homotopic to a reducible homeomorphism,
so that f isn’t either. With the metric |q|1/2 , the image of a geodesic by
a Teichmüller map is a geodesic. A closed geodesic is made up of finitely
many segments, each with a slope. Suppose that a geodesic is mapped
by g to a geodesic 0 homotopic to . Then either and 0 coincide, or
together they bound a straight cylinder for the metric |q|1/2 . In either case,
the slopes of the segments making up coincide with those making up 0 .
However, a segment of slope a is mapped by g to a segment of slope
a/K. Thus the only slopes that can appear for a segment of 0 are 0
and 1. Further, the horizontal and vertical parts of must be mapped
to the horizontal and vertical parts of 0 , which must therefore have the
same lengths. This contradicts the fact that g expands horizontal lines and
contracts vertical ones. ⇤

The object of this chapter is to prove the following theorem, which will
be proved in Section 8.4.

in
Theorem 8.1.3 (Classification of homeomorphisms of compact
surfaces) Let S be a compact oriented surface of genus g, and let
f : S ! S be an orientation-preserving homeomorphism. Then the map
f is homotopic either to a periodic homeomorphism, or to a reducible
homeomorphism, or to a pseudo-Anosov homeomorphism.

8.2 Periodic and reducible homeomorphisms

It is reasonably easy to find examples of periodic and reducible homeo-
morphisms of surfaces.

Periodic homeomorphisms
Let S be a compact oriented surface, with finite subset Z ⇢ S. Let
⇢ ⇡1 (S Z) be a normal subgroup of finite index, and let p : S ! S Z
be the corresponding covering map. The surface S can be compactified
by adding appropriate points above points of Z; let S be the resulting
surface, and let p : S ! S be the extension of p; this extension p is now a
ramified covering map. The deck transformations form a group isomorphic
to ⇡1 (S Z)/ . All elements of this group are periodic homeomorphisms
of S , and this construction yields all examples, for appropriate S, Z, .

June 25, 2015

 8.2 Periodic and reducible homeomorphisms 5

It is not hard to find (lots of) normal subgroups of finite index. But
understanding what one has found is a di↵erent matter: counting and clas-
sifying the conjugacy classes of normal subgroups of index n in the free
group on m generators is an important and difficult problem in geometric
group theory.

Dehn multi-twists
To give examples of reducible and pseudo-Anosov homeomorphisms we first
introduce Dehn multi-twists. Dehn twists were defined in Appendix A2,
but here we will work with the piecewise linear definition of equation A2.2
rather than the smooth Dehn twist of Proposition and Definition A2.2.
Let be a simple closed curve on an oriented surface X, and let C ⇢ X
be a closed neighborhood of . Choose an orientation-preserving homeo-
morphism : R/Z ⇥ [0, 1] ! C. Define

g : R/Z ⇥ [0, 1] ! R/Z ⇥ [0, 1] by g(s, t) := (s + t, t). 8.2.1

Recall that MCG denotes the mapping class group.

in
Definition 8.2.1 (Dehn twist) The Dehn twist D 2 MCG(X) is
the isotopy class of the map X ! X given by
⇢
x if x 2
/C
x 7! 8.2.2
g 1
(x) if x 2 C.

Figure 8.2.1 illustrates the construction.

Figure 8.2.1 Left: A blue horizontal band crossing C (the tan); the curve is
gold. Right: The image of the band under the metric Dehn twist D . On both
boundary components of C, the band veers to the right under the twist.

Since g is the identity on @(R/Z ⇥ [0, 1]) = R/Z ⇥ {0, 1}, the map defined
by equation 8.2.2 is continuous, in fact a homeomorphism. Of course, this
map, called a metric Dehn twist, depends on the choice of C and . But
the Dehn twist of Definition 8.2.1 is an isotopy class, and depends only on
the homotopy class of the curve ; see Proposition and Definition A2.2.

June 25, 2015

6 Chapter 8. Classification of homeomorphisms

Exercise 8.2.2 Show that if and are disjoint simple closed curves on
X, then D D is homotopic to D D . Show that if you choose the
neighborhoods of and disjoint, then D D = D D . }
Remarks
1. One can easily imagine a twist map that twists in the opposite di-
rection. You might think – I did for many years – that the direction
depends on an orientation for the curve . Recall (Remark 7.6.2)
that this is not the case! The construction of the Dehn twist de-
pends only on an orientation for X. Our D has the property that
as you approach the boundary of C from X C, you veer to the
right. This is true for both components of @C.
2. Dehn twists are the easiest homotopy classes of homeomorphisms
to imagine, though their compositions rapidly become inextricably
complicated when the corresponding curves intersect. It is known
[65] that on a surface of genus g one can choose 2g + 2 Dehn twists
that generate the mapping class group; the relations between the
generators are also known. 4
Because the (homotopy classes of) Dehn twists around disjoint curves
commute, we can also define the Dehn multi-twist around a multicurve.
In Definition 3.6.1 we defined a multicurve on a surface S as a family
of simple closed curves on S whose elements are disjoint, with no two ho-
motopic to each other, and none homotopic to a point. We now add the
hypothesis that all of the curves 2 are nonperipheral, since a Dehn
twist D with peripheral is the identity of the mapping class group, so
D contributes nothing to the mapping class group.

in
Definition 8.2.3 (Nonperipheral curve) A curve on a surface X
is nonperipheral if there exists a compact subset K ⇢ X with K 6= X
such that any 0 homotopic to satisfies 0 \ K 6= ;.

A nonperipheral curve cannot be “deformed” into the periphery so

that it becomes disjoint from K. In particular, since K 6= X, the curve is
not homotopic to a constant map. A typical example of a peripheral curve
arises when X is a surface from which a point x has been removed. Then
a small curve surrounding {x} is homotopically nontrivial but peripheral.
On a compact surface, all nontrivial curves (i.e., curves not homotopic to
a point) are nonperipheral.
On a compact surface, a multicurve is always finite. More generally, on
a compact surface with a finite number of points removed, a multicurve is
always finite.

June 25, 2015

 8.3 Pseudo-Anosov homeomorphisms 7

Exercise 8.2.4 Let X be a surface of genus g with n punctures, such that

g 1 + 3n > 0. Show that a multicurve has at most 3g 3 + n elements.
What happens when g = 1 and n = 0? What happens when g = 0 and
n = 0, 1, 2, 3? }

in
Definition 8.2.5 (Dehn multi-twist) Let := { 1 , . . . , k } be a
multicurve. The Dehn multi-twist around is the element of MCG(X)
given by
D := D 1 · · · D k. 8.2.3

Examples of reducible homeomorphisms

Dehn multi-twists D are examples of reducible homeomorphisms: evi-
dently the curves of are mapped to themselves. These are not the most
general reducible homeomorphisms. We can compose Dehn twists with
homeomorphisms of the components of the complement of a multicurve.
Other reducible homeomorphisms permute the components of a multicurve
before performing Dehn twists.

8.3 Pseudo-Anosov homeomorphisms

Pseudo-Anosov homeomorphisms are by far the most common type of
homeomorphisms2 , but they are much harder to imagine than periodic
or reducible homeomorphisms (except perhaps in genus 1, where they are
relatively straightforward). We give two classes of examples of pseudo-
Anosov homeomorphisms: those obtained from appropriate billiard tables,
and those obtained from carefully chosen Dehn twists. The first class is
discussed much more extensively by Gutkin and Judge in [46]. The sec-
ond, due to Thurston, has been studied and generalized by, among others,
Kariane Calta, Pascal Hubert, Curt McMullen, and T. A. Schmidt.

Square-tiled billiard tables

Let X ⇢ C be a “square-tiled billiard table”: a simply connected region
bounded by segments of horizontal and vertical lines, with the coordinates
2
Here is a way to make “most common” precise. There exist 2g + 2 simple
closed curves on S such that every homeomorphism is homotopic to a composi-
tion of the Dehn twists around those curves. Consider elements of the mapping
class group that can be represented by words of length at most n in these Dehn
twists (some finite but huge family of homotopy classes of homeomorphisms): the
proportion of these that is pseudo-Anosov tends to 1 as n tends to 1.

June 25, 2015

8 Chapter 8. Classification of homeomorphisms

of all the vertices in Z2 ; see Figure 8.3.1. Double X along its boundary
to make the surface X := X [ X/ e ⇠, where X e is a second copy of X,
given the opposite of the orientation of X to make X oriented. Then X is
a Riemann surface isomorphic to the Riemann sphere. There is a natural
map ⇡ : X ! X that is the identity on both X and X. e
If you denote by z the natural coordinate of C, then the quadratic di↵er-
ential dz 2 on X and the quadratic di↵erential dz̄ 2 on Xe together define a
quadratic di↵erential q on X, with simple poles at the angles ⇡/2 of X, and
simple zeros at the angles 3⇡/2. The standard formula of plane geometry
X
(⇡ ↵i ) = 2⇡ 8.3.1
angles ↵i of X

gives
X ⇡ X ⇡
= 2⇡, 8.3.2
2 2
poles of q zeros of q

i.e., # (poles of q) # (zeros of q) = 4, as should be the case for a quadratic

di↵erential on P1 . This is illustrated in Figure 8.3.1.

becomes a zero
in X

become poles in X

Figure 8.3.1 The polygon X can be doubled on its boundary to make a Riemann
surface X isomorphic to the Riemann sphere and then a double cover X. b The
quadratic form on X has 10 poles and 6 zeros, and the Riemann surface X b is a
1
double cover of P ramified at 16 points, hence has genus 7, by equation 8.3.5.

Note that geodesic flow on X corresponds exactly to billiards on X:

motion on X flips to motion on X e after each bounce; see Figure 8.3.2.
Billiards have provided a lot of the impetus for studying these sorts of
homeomorphisms of surfaces.

!
!
c b
c
b

Figure 8.3.2 Left: A trajectory on the double X of X, with the two sheets
superposed. Right: If we unfold an edge, the trajectory becomes straight in the
resulting flat surface.

June 25, 2015

 8.3 Pseudo-Anosov homeomorphisms 9

Cut X into horizontal bands, by cutting along horizontal lines through

all the corners of X; two such bands are shaded tan in Figure 8.3.3. The
inverse images under ⇡ of these bands in X are annuli with height hi and
circumference 2li , where mi and li are integers. These horizontal annuli
form a partition of X. Suppose there are k such annuli.

lj0 Figure 8.3.3. Two horizontal

bands are shaded tan; two vertical
bands are outlined in blue. The in-
h0j verse image in X of the horizontal
A0j band labeled Ai is an annulus with
li height hi = 2 and circumference
(
2li = 10, for a modulus 1/5. The
hi Ai inverse image of the vertical band la-
beled A0j has circumference 2h0j = 8
and height lj0 = 2.

Similarly, we can cut X along vertical lines through the corners of X, to

obtain annuli A0j with circumferences 2h0j and heights lj0 (the heights are
horizontal in the drawing). Two such bands are outlined in blue in Figure
8.3.3. Suppose there are n such bands.
Now choose some positive integer M that is divisible by all the 2li , and
set pi := M hi /2li ; similarly, choose M 0 divisible by all the 2lj0 and set
p0j := M 0 h0j /2lj0 .
Denote by Di : X ! X the metric Dehn twist in Ai , which exists because
Ai is a metric cylinder. Denote by Dj0 the metric Dehn twist in A0j .

in
Proposition 8.3.1 The maps
p01 p0n
F := D1p1 · · · Dkpk and G := D10 · · · Dn0 8.3.3
are affine in the natural coordinates of q.

Proof In a cylinder of modulus 1/m, with the circles horizontal, the

metric Dehn twist has derivative

1 m
. 8.3.4
0 1
We have chosen our numbers pi so that all the metric Dehn twists Dipi lift
to the pi -fold cover of Ai ; these covers all have modulus 1/m. So along the
common boundaries, all the Dipi fit to form affine maps. The situation is

June 25, 2015

10 Chapter 8. Classification of homeomorphisms

similar for the vertical annuli A0j , but this time, the derivative of each of

p0 1 0
the Dj0 j is given by the matrix . ⇤
m0 1

Now consider F G, or more generally any element of the group generated

by F and G; these maps are all affine, with derivatives in SL2 Z. But unless
they are conjugates of powers of F and G, the eigenvalues 1 , 2 of the
derivatives are integers in a real quadratic field that are not rational, and
the directions of their eigenvectors give two foliations that are respectively
expanded and contracted. Algebraically, these foliations are defined by
the 1-densities |Re (↵ dz)| and |Re ( dz)|. Thus the map F G and all the
elements of the group generated by F and G (unless they are conjugates
of powers of F and G) are pseudo-Anosov for the quadratic di↵erential
(Re (↵ dz) + iRe ( dz))2 .
These maps are all defined on the sphere, and are associated to quadratic
di↵erentials with poles. It isn’t difficult to use them to construct pseudo-
Anosov maps on surfaces of higher genus; these maps are associated to
holomorphic quadratic di↵erentials (without poles).
Pass to the double cover X b of X on which q becomes orientable; by the
Riemann-Hurwitz formula (Theorem A3.4) it is a Riemann surface of genus

b = # (poles of q) + # (zeros of q)
g(X) 1. 8.3.5
2
For instance, if we had chosen our polygon X in Figure 8.3.1 to be a rec-
tangle, q would have four poles and no zeros, so X b would have genus 1.
Working on X b puts us in the realm of compact surfaces and holomorphic
quadratic di↵erentials (in fact, squares of complex 1-forms, also known as
Abelian di↵erentials), although it is often more convenient to carry out the
computations on X, or even in X directly.
The meromorphic quadratic di↵erential q lifts as a holomorphic quadratic
b This is easiest to see in terms of prongs (see Figure
di↵erential q̃ on X.
5.3.1): at a simple pole q has one prong, and hence at the corresponding
point of Xb the quadratic di↵erential q̃ has two prongs, so at that point q̃
has neither a zero or a pole.
Moreover, the inverse images of the annuli in X always consist of two
annuli, each of which maps by a homeomorphism, since q is orientable in
each annulus. So we can lift F and G to Fe and G e as metric Dehn twists in
each of these annuli, hence as maps that are affine in the natural coordinates
of q̃. Their compositions are pseudo-Anosov as above.

Pseudo-Anosov maps associated to two multicurves

On a surface S of genus g 2, let := { 1 , . . . , k } and := { 1 , . . . , l }
be two multicurves, in minimal position with respect to each other (see

June 25, 2015

 8.3 Pseudo-Anosov homeomorphisms 11

Definition 3.3.10). We say that and form a web if every component of

0 1
k
[ l
[
S @ i [ j
A 8.3.6
i=1 j=1

is simply connected. (Being a web is often referred to as filling the surface.)

The Dehn twists D and D are reducible, as are all Dehn multi-twists;
they preserve and respectively.
If and do not form a web, then all elements of the group they gen-
erate are
⇣Salso reducible; indeed,
⌘ they fix any simple closed curve contained
k Sl
in S i=1 i [ j=1 j .
But if and form a web, the situation is completely di↵erent: Theorem
8.3.3 shows that compositions of D and D are usually pseudo-Anosov.
Define M to be the matrix with k rows and l columns whose entry mi,j
is the geometric intersection number of i and j , i.e., the minimal number
of transverse intersections of curves in their homotopy classes. Figure 8.3.4
illustrates the construction.

2 2 00
H1 H2 00 2
2 0
0 2
2
1 1 3

H3 H4
1 1

Figure 8.3.4 Left: A surface S of genus 2 with two multicurves, := { 1 , 2 , 3 }

and := { 1 , 2 }. The matrix2 whose
3 entry mi,j is the geometric intersection
0 1
number of i and j is M = 4 2 2 5. The multicurves and cut S into four
0 1
hexagons, H1 , . . . , H4 . Right: Here we show that H1 is a hexagon; it has sides
0 00
1 , 1 (which is half of the 1 at left), 2 and 2 (which together make up half of
0 00
2 and bound the front and back side of the surface), and 2 and 2 (which make
up one-fourth of 2 and bound the front and back side of the surface).

Exercise 8.3.2 Show that there exists N such that all entries of the
matrix (M >M )N are strictly positive. Hint: Say that the curves 0 and
00
are “1-connected” if they both intersect some element of , and that
they are “N -connected” if there exists a chain 0 , 1 , . . . , N with 0 = 0
and N = 00 , such that i , i+1 are 1-connected for all i = 0, . . . , N 1.
Show that the i, jth entry of (M >M )N is the number of chains of length
2N connecting i to j (i.e., the number of ways in which i and j are
N -connected). }

June 25, 2015

12 Chapter 8. Classification of homeomorphisms

By Exercise 8.3.2 and the Perron-Frobenius theorem (Theorem C1.1 in

Appendix C1), M > M has a dominant eigenvalue > 0.

in
Theorem 8.3.3 (Pseudo-Anosov maps as compositions of Dehn
twists) Let two multicurves and form a web. If > 4, then each
word in the group generated by D and D is isotopic to a pseudo-
Anosov homeomorphism, except for conjugates of the powers of the gen-
erators.

We will illustrate the proof at each step with the special case shown
in Figure 8.3.4, underlining the symbols relevant to the example of Figure
8.3.4 and leaving plain the symbols relevant to the general case.
Proof By the Perron-Frobenius theorem, there is a vector v 2 Rl with
strictly positive entries that is an eigenvector of M > M for the eigenvalue
. Let µ be the positive square root of . Set
Mv
w := 2 Rk ; 8.3.7
µ
then w is an eigenvector of M M > with eigenvalue3 . The vector w has
strictly positive entries, and satisfies M > w = µv.
In the case of Figure 8.3.4, we have
2 3
 1 2 1
> 4 4 p
M M= >
, MM = 4 2 8 2 5 , = 5 + 17, 8.3.8
4 6
1 2 1
2 p 3
 1 + 17
4p 1 p
v=
1 + 17
, w= p p 4 10 + 2p 17 5 . 8.3.9
1 + 17 1 + 17
Now consider the graph A dual to [ . This is the graph that has a
vertex in each component of
0 1
k
[ l
[
S @ i [ j
A, 8.3.10
i=1 j=1

with an edge joining each vertex to the “middle of” each arc of i or j in
its boundary, as shown in Figure 8.3.5. Let A be the union of the edges
intersecting -curves (i.e., the i ), and let A be the union of the edges
intersecting -curves.
Our hypothesis that and together form a web says that each compo-
nent of S A is a quadrilateral, with two sides intersecting a curve in and

The eigenvalues for M > M and M M > are the same, except that if one matrix
3

has larger dimensions, it will have the extra eigenvalue 0.

June 25, 2015

 8.3 Pseudo-Anosov homeomorphisms 13

two sides intersecting a curve in ; some sides may be identified. In the

case of Figure 8.3.4, S A has six components, as shown in Figure 8.3.6. As
shown in Figure 8.3.7, make each quadrilateral into a metric rectangle (an
ordinary elementary school rectangle) using the entries of the eigenvectors
v and w, assigning length wi to the (green) edge that intersects the (blue)
edge i , and length vj to the (gold) edge that intersects the (red) edge j .
The rectangle of Figure 8.3.7 becomes the left cylinder in Figure 8.3.8;
the quadrilateral on the right side of Figure 8.3.6 becomes the right cylinder
in Figure 8.3.8. The middle cylinder corresponds to the four remaining
quadrilaterals of Figure 8.3.6, rotated by 90 degrees and glued together.

2 5
6 3
3 2
1 4 4

1 5
6

Figure 8.3.5 We can represent each quadrant of S as a hexagon with six spokes
going from the center to the middle of each edge; here we illustrate this for the
upper left hexagon, marked H1 in Figure 8.3.4. Left: The spokes emanating
from the purple circle (of which only the front is visible) are gold if they go to
a red edge ( 1 or 2 ), green if they go to a blue edge (a i ). The spokes going
around the back are fainter and are marked with italic numbers. Right: The
corresponding graph. The graph A is the union of four such “pinwheels” (the
graph at right minus the blue and red sides). Every spoke is half an edge, so we
have twelve edges and four vertices; six edges belonging to A and six to A .

Figure 8.3.6 The graph A cuts

the surface S of Figures 8.3.4 and
8.3.5 into six quadrilaterals. There
are two quadrilaterals in the center
of the figure, one in front, one in
back.

v2
Figure 8.3.7 Turning the
2 2 left-most quadrilateral of
w1 Figure 8.3.6 into an ordinary
1 rectangle with width v2 and
1
height w1 . It becomes the
left cylinder in Figure 8.3.8.

June 25, 2015

14 Chapter 8. Classification of homeomorphisms

Note that the circumference of the cylinder around i is given by the ith
entry of M v. In Figure 8.3.8:
2 3 2 3
0 1  v2
v
M v = 4 2 2 5 1 = 4 2v 1 + 2v 2 5 8.3.11
v2
0 1 v2
(The values for the entries of v are given in equation 8.3.9.)

2v 1 + 2v 2 = (M v)2
v 2 = (M v)1 #
v 2 = (M v)3
# #

w1 w2 w3

1 2 3

2 2
1 2 1
2

Figure 8.3.8 The three cylinders surrounding the core curves i 2 of Figure
8.3.4. The cylinder at left corresponds to the rectangle of Figure 8.3.7; that at
right corresponds to the quadrilateral at the right of Figure 8.3.6. Both have cir-
cumference v 2 . The middle cylinder corresponds to the four middle quadrilaterals
of Figure 8.3.6; imagine turning each into an ordinary rectangle and gluing them
together. All have height w2 , two have width v 1 , and two have width v 2 , so this
cylinder has circumference 2v 1 + 2v 2 .

Lemma 8.3.4 summarizes what we have accomplished so far: from two

multicurves and forming a web on S we have found a complex structure
on S and a quadratic di↵erential holomorphic for that complex structure.
These are the ingredients required by the definition of a pseudo-Anosov
map.

Lemma 8.3.4 Let Ri,j ⇢ C be the rectangle

n wj wj vi vi o
Ri,j = z = x + iy 2 C x , y .
2 2 2 2
1. For each rectangle R of S A, crossed by i and j as in Figure 8.3.7,
there exist orientation-preserving homeomorphisms R : Ri,j ! R
such that if R1 , R2 are two adjacent rectangles of S A, then R21
R1 is an isometry on the identified sides.
2. There is a unique analytic structure on S such that R is analytic
for each rectangle R of S A. We denote by X the Riemann surface
S with this complex structure.

June 25, 2015

 8.3 Pseudo-Anosov homeomorphisms 15

3. There is a unique quadratic holomorphic di↵erential q on X that

2
restricts to d R on each rectangle R of S A. The zeros of q are at
the nodes of A, the union of the critical horizontal trajectories of q
is A , and the union of the critical vertical trajectories of q is A .

Proof It should all be clear from the discussion above. Adjacent

rectangles are either crossed by the same i , in which case they have the
same height vi , or crossed by the same j , in which case they have the
same width. We leave to the reader to show that the complex structure
and the quadratic di↵erential are holomorphic there. ⇤ Lemma 8.3.4

Proof of Theorem 8.3.3, conclusion If we consider the union of

the rectangles that intersect i , we find a cylinder with height wi and
circumference (M v)i . By equation 8.3.7, (M v)i = µvi , where µ is the
positive square root of the dominant eigenvector of M > M , so for all the
cylinders, the ratio of height to circumference is the same (in fact, 1/µ). So
the metric Dehn twist D i in this cylinder is given by
 
x x + µy
7! . 8.3.12
y y
Since all the twists are the identity on A , they fit together to give a map
D of the form of equation 8.3.12 in the natural coordinates for q.
Similarly, if we cut the surface along H , we construct cylinders around
the j , of height vj and circumference (M > w)j , and the same construction
as above gives a representative of D , which in local coordinates is
 
x x
7! . 8.3.13
y y µx
The composition D D is affine in the natural coordinates for q, with
matrix

1 µ2 µ
, 8.3.14
µ 1
which has trace < 2 when µ2 = > 4 and is hence hyperbolic; see
Exercise 8.3.5. So D D is pseudo-Anosov.

Exercise 8.3.5 Show that an element of SL2 R induces

• an elliptic transformation if | tr A| < 2,
• a parabolic transformation if | tr A| = 2,
• a hyperbolic transformation if | tr A| > 2. }
The same argument as above shows that a word in D , D is pseudo-
Anosov if and only if the corresponding product of the matrices
 
1 0 1 µ
A := and B := 8.3.15
µ 1 0 1

June 25, 2015

Other documents randomly have
different content
 CHAPTER XXX
My purpose in telling you all this is to show you why I reacted so
slightly to Regina’s charge of the indirect method. Though my
curiosity as to what she meant was keen enough, the pressure of
other interests allowed it no time to work. This is to say, as soon as I
got back into the current of great events personal concerns became
relatively unimportant. They had to wait. One developed the
capacity to keep them waiting.
But toward the middle of March I met her one day in Fifth Avenue.
Even from a distance I could see that her step was vigor and her
look animation. The haunting sadness had fled from her eyes, while
the generous smile, spontaneous and flashing, had returned to her
scarlet lips. It was a new Regina because it was the old one.
To me her first exclamation was: “How well you look! You’re
almost as you were before the war.”
Though I was conscious of a pang at seeing her so far from pining
away, I endeavored to play up.
“Mayn’t I say the same of you? What’s done it?”
She laughed. “Oh, I don’t know. Work, I suppose—and the
knowledge that things are marching.”
“I hear you’re very busy.”
“I hear you’re busy, too.”
“People do seem to want to be told things at first hand.”
“I find the same.”
“And so one has to be on the job.”
“There’s nothing like it, is there? It”—she flung me one of her old,
quick, daring glances—“it fills all the needs. Nothing else becomes
urgent.”
“You mean that one’s personal affairs—”
“Oh, one has no personal affairs. I remember a man who was in
the San Francisco earthquake telling me that for forty-eight hours he
hardly needed to eat or sleep.”
“I’ve seen that doubled and trebled.”
“Of course you have. It simply means that when we get out of
ourselves we can make supermen of the commonest material.”
I ventured to say: “You look happy, Regina. Are you?”
“Are you?”
I weighed this in order to answer her truthfully.
“If I’m not happy I’m—I’m content—content to be doing
something—the least little bit—to urge things forward.”
“And I can say the same. If I look well, as you put it, that’s the
reason. And so long as that’s the reason other things can—wait.” She
added, quickly: “I must go now or I shall be late. I’m speaking to the
women at the Mary Chilton Club, and I’m overdue.”
She had actually passed on when I stopped her to say, “What do
you mean by the indirect method?”
She called back over her shoulder, “Ask Stephen.”
And I asked him that night. Having heard him come into his room
between eight and nine o’clock, I marched in boldly, bearding him
without beating about the bush.
“I say, old Stephen, what have you been saying to Regina about
me?”
His hat had been thrown on the table; his arms were outstretched
in the act of taking off his overcoat.
He repeated my question as if he didn’t understand it.
 “What have I been saying to Regina about you? Why, nothing—
much.”
“Nothing much; that means something. What the deuce do you
mean by the indirect method?”
“I haven’t spoken of an indirect method.”
“No; but she has!”
“Oh, I see.”
“Then if you see, tell me what it is.”
He finished the arrested act of taking off his coat, after which he
hung it up in a closet, doing the same with his hat. The minute’s
delay allowed time for the storm-clouds to gather on his face, and all
the passions of a gloomy-hearted nature to concentrate in a hot,
thundery silence.
“Is this a bit of bluff, Frank?”
“Bluff be hanged! I’m ready to speak out frankly.”
The storm-clouds were torn with a flash like a streak of lightning.
“Then why didn’t you come to me like a man instead of sending
that sneaking old beast—”
“Hold on, Stephen. What sneaking old beast have I sent?”
“He wouldn’t have come unless you had set him on me. You
needn’t tell me that.”
“What the deuce are you talking about?”
“You know what I’m talking about. There hasn’t been a day since
you came back that I haven’t had a hint.” He was not a man to
whom anger came easily; he began to choke, to strangle with the
effort to get his indignation out. “I’d have given him the toe of my
boot long ago if—if—if—if”—the words positively shivered on his lips
—“if—if—if I hadn’t wanted to see how far you’d go; and, by God!
I’ve—I’ve had enough of it!”
 “Enough of what, Stephen?” I endeavored to ask, quietly.
He knocked his knuckles on the table with a force that almost
made them bleed.
“My name is Cantyre—do you understand?”
“Yes, I understand. But tell me, what is it you’ve had enough of?”
“I’ve had enough of your damned diplomatic slyness in setting
that old reptile on me!”
I am not quick tempered. The tolerance born of a too painful
knowledge of my own shortcomings obliges me to be slow to wrath.
But when anger does get hold of me it works a change like that of a
powerful chemical agent suddenly infused into the blood.
I turned and strode out. A few times in the trenches I had been
the victim of this rage to kill—and I had killed. How many I killed at
one time or another I now couldn’t tell you. I saw too red to keep
the count. All I know is that I have stuck my bayonet into heart after
heart, and have dashed out brains with the butt end of my rifle. It is
all red before me still—a great splash of blood on the memory.
But I had got the habit. In a rage like this to kill some one had
become an instinct. I could not have believed that the impulse would
have pursued me into civil life; but there it was.
Having flung open the door of my apartment, I marched straight
for the “kitchingette.” Lovey was seated on a stool beside the tiny
gas-range, polishing one of my boots. The boot was like a boxing-
glove on his left hand, while he held the brush suspended in his
right, looking up at me with the piteous appeal of a rabbit pleading
for its life.
His weakness held me back from striking him, but it didn’t stem
my words.
“Who the devil, you old snake, gave you the right to interfere in
my affairs?”
 He simply looked up at me, the boot on one hand, the brush
suspended in the other. His lower lip trembled—his arms began to
tremble—but he made no attempt to defend himself.
“What have you been saying?” I demanded. “Speak, can’t you?”
But he couldn’t. I caught him by the collar and dragged him to his
feet.
He had just the strength to stand on them, though his limp hands
continued to hold the boot and the brush.
“Now are you going to speak? Or shall I kick you out?”
“You’d kick me out, Slim?”
The mildness of his voice maddened me.
“By God, I would!”
The brush and the boot fell with a dull clatter to the floor.
“Then I’d better go.”
He looked about him helplessly till his eyes fell on the old felt hat
hanging on a peg. I watched him as he took it down and crammed it
on his head. There was another helpless searching as if he didn’t
know what he was looking for before he spied an old gnarled stick in
a corner. Taking that in his hand, he fumbled his way into the living-
room.
By the time I had followed him I was beginning to relent. I had
not really meant to have him go, but I was not ready as yet to call
him back. What Cantyre must have thought of me, what Regina
must have thought of me, in egging so poor a creature on to say
what I wouldn’t say myself, roused me as to a more intense degree I
used to be roused on hearing of Belgian women treated with the last
indignities, and Canadian soldiers crucified. Had I stopped to
consider I would have seen that Regina didn’t believe it, and that
Cantyre believed it only as far as it gave an outlet to his complicated
inward sufferings; but I didn’t stop to consider. Perhaps I, too, was
seeking an outlet for something repressed. At any rate, I let the poor
old fellow go.
“What about your things?” I asked, before he had reached the
door.
He turned with a certain dignity. “I sha’n’t want no things.” He
added, however, “Ye do mean me to get out, Slim?”
I didn’t—but I didn’t want to tell him so. Fury had cooled down
without leaving me ready to retract what I had said. I meant to go
after him—when he had got as far as the lift—but I meant, too, that
he should take those few bleeding steps of anguish.
He took them—not to the lift, but out into the vestibule. Then I
heard a faint moan; then a sound as if something broke; and then a
soft tumbling to the floor.
When I got out he was lying all in a little huddled, senseless heap,
with a cut on his forehead where he had struck the key or the door-
knob as he fell.
It was more than an hour before Cantyre got him back to
consciousness; but it was early morning before he spoke. We had
stayed with him through the night, as he had shown all the signs of
passing out. His recovery of speech somewhere about dawn came as
a surprise to us.
To Cantyre I had given but the slightest explanation of the
accident, being sure, however, that he guessed at what I didn’t say.
“Told him to get to the dickens out of this, and he was taking me
at my word. Never meant to let him get farther than the lift. Just
wanted to scare him. Sorry now.”
But Lovey’s account was different.
About seven in the morning there came a streak of wan light
down the shaft into which the window of his room looked out.
Cantyre murmured something about going back to his own place for
a bath.
 “All right,” I agreed, “and you’d better get your breakfast. When
you come back I can do the same. You will come back, won’t you?”
“Oh, of course! I sha’n’t be gone more than an hour. When he
wakes again give him another teaspoonful of this; but don’t worry
him unless he wakes.”
And just then Lovey woke. He woke with a dim smile, as a young
child wakes. He smiled at Cantyre first, and then, rolling his soft blue
eyes to the other side of the bed, he smiled at me.
“What’s up, Slim?” he asked, feebly. “I ain’t sick, am I?”
“No, Lovey, old son, you’re not sick; you’ve only had a bit of a fall.”
And then it came back to him.
“Oh yes. I know. Served me right, didn’t it?” Rolling his eyes now
toward Cantyre, he continued: “I was just a-frightenin’ of Slim, like.
Kind o’ foolish, I was. Said I was goin’ to leave him. Didn’t mean to
go no farther nor the lift.”
“I didn’t mean to let you go, Lovey,” I groaned, humbly.
“Of course you didn’t! ’Ow ’uld ye get along without me, I’d like to
know? Didn’t I keep ye straight all them weeks at the Down and
Out?”
“You did, Lovey.”
“And ’aven’t I saved ye lots o’ times since?”
“You have, old man.”
“I wouldn’t leave ye, not for nothink, Slim. We’re buddies as long
as we live, ain’t we? Didn’t ye say that to me yerself?”
“I did, and I’ll say it again.”
“Well then, what’s the use o’ talkin’? You mustn’t mind me, sonny.
I may get into a bad temper and speak ’arsh to you; but I don’t
mean nothink by it. I wouldn’t leave ye, not for—”
 The voice trailed away, and presently he was asleep or
unconscious again, I couldn’t be sure which.
Neither could I be sure whether he believed this version of the
tale or whether he concocted it to comfort me. At any rate, it served
its purpose in that it eased the situation outwardly, enabling Cantyre
and me to face each other without too much self-consciousness.
As a matter of fact, self-consciousness had hardly embarrassed us
through the night. There had been too much to think about and to
do. The minute I had got Lovey into the living-room and on the
couch I had run for Cantyre, and he had run back with me. In the
stress of watching the old man’s struggle between life and death we
felt toward our personal relations what one feels of an exciting play
after returning to realities. We were back on the old terms; we called
each other Stephen and Frank. Only now and then, when for a half-
hour there was nothing to do but to sit by the bed and watch, did
our minds revert to the actual between us.
That is, mine reverted to it, and I suppose his did the same. How
he thought of it I cannot tell you; but to me it seemed infinitely
trifling. Here was a dying man whose half-lighted spirit was standing
on the threshold of a fully lighted world. One might have said that
the radiance of the life on which he was entering already shone in
the tenderness that began to dawn in the delicate old face. It was a
face growing younger, as for two or three years it had grown more
spiritual. I saw that now and did justice to it as something big. It
was on the level of big things; and love-affairs between men and
women were only on the level of the small.
And all over the world big things of the same sort were taking
place, some in the sharp flash of an instant, and some as the slow
result of years. I had seen so much of it with my own eyes that I
could call up vision after vision as I sat alone in the gray morning,
watching the soft, sweet pall settle on the old man’s countenance,
while Cantyre took his bath.
 Queerly, out of the unrecorded, or out of what I didn’t suppose I
had recorded, there flashed a succession of pictures, all of them of
the big, the splendid, the worth while. They came inconsequently,
without connection with each other, without connection that I could
see with the moment I was living through, beyond the fact that they
were all on the scale of the big.
There was the recollection of a khaki-clad figure lying face
downward on a hillside. I approached him from below, catching sight
first of the soles of the huge boots on which he would never walk
again. Coming nearer, I saw his arms outstretched above his head
and his nails dug into the earth. He was bleeding from the ears. But
when I bent over him to see if he was still alive he said, almost
roughly:
“Leave me alone! I can get along all right. Jephson’s over there.”
I left him alone because there was nothing I could do for him, but
when I went to Jephson he was lying on his back, his knees drawn
up, and his face twisted into the strangest, most agonized, most
heavenly and ecstatic smile you can imagine on a human face.
Then there was a young fellow running at the head of his platoon,
a slim young fellow with flaxen hair and a face like a bright angel’s,
who had been a crack sprinter at McGill. He was long after my time,
of course; but I had known his family, and since being in the
neighborhood of Ypres I had seen him from time to time. He was not
made for a soldier, but a brave young soldier he had become,
surmounting fear, repulsion, and all that was hideous to a sensitive
soul like his, and establishing those relations with his men that are
dearer in many ways than ties of blood. The picture I retain, and
which came back to me now, is of his running while his men
followed him. It was so common a sight that I would hardly have
watched it if it had been any one but him. And then, for no reason
evident to me, just as if it was part of the order of the day, he threw
up his arms, tottered on a few steps, and went tumbling in the mud,
face downward.
 With the rapidity of a cinema the scene changed to something else
I had witnessed. It was the day I got my dose of shrapnel in the
foot. Lying near me was a colonel named Blenkins. Farther off there
lay a sergeant in his regiment named Day. Day had for Blenkins the
kind of admiration that often exists between man and officer for
which there is no other name than worship. Slowly, painfully, dying,
the non-com. dragged himself over the scarred ground and laid his
head on the dying colonel’s heart. Painfully, slowly, the dying
colonel’s hand stole across the dying non-com.’s breast; and in this
embrace they slept.
Other memories of the same sort came back to me, disconnected,
having no reference to Lovey, or Cantyre, or Regina, or the present,
beyond the fact that they came out of the great life of which
comradeship was a token and the watchwords rang with generosity.
It was the world of the moment. Such things as I had been
recalling had happened that very night; they had happened that very
morning; they would happen through that day, and through the next
day and the next—till their purpose was accomplished. What that
purpose was to be—But that I was to learn a little later.
That is to say, a little later I got a light on the outlook which has
been sufficient for me to walk by; but of it I will tell you when the
time comes.
For in the mean time the tide was rising. As Lovey lay smiling
himself into heaven the national spirit was mounting and mounting,
quietly, tensely, with excitement held in leash till the day of the Lord
was very near at hand.
All through March events had developed rapidly. On the first day
of that month the government had revealed Germany’s attempt to
stir up Mexico and Japan against the United States. A few days later
Germany herself had admitted the instigation. A few days later still
Austria had given her approval to unlimited submarine warfare. A
few days later still Nicholas was deposed in Petrograd. The country
was marching; the world was marching; the heart was marching. It
was difficult for the mind to keep up with the immensity of such
happenings or to appraise them at their value. I do not assert that I
so appraised them; I only beg you to understand that what I wanted
and Cantyre wanted and Regina wanted, each of us for himself and
herself, became curiously insignificant.
Not that we were working with the same ends in view. By no
means! Cantyre was still opposed to war as war, and bitterly
opposed to war if it involved the United States. That he was kicking
against the pricks, as Regina asserted, I couldn’t see; but that he
was feeling the whole situation intensely was quite evident.
The result, however, was the same when it came to balancing
personal interests against the public weal. The public weal might
mean one thing to him and another thing to me, but to us both it
overrode private resentment. There was a moratorium of
resentment. We might revive it again; but for the moment it
vanished out of sight.
 CHAPTER XXXI
So we came to that determining moment when we held our
famous patriotic meeting at the Down and Out.
I call it famous because it was a new point of departure. In all the
club’s history there had never been a meeting for any other purpose
than to screw the courage up to the cutting out of drink. Other
subjects had been suggested from time to time; but we had stuck to
our last as specialists. We had not been turned aside for
philanthropy, for education, for financial benefit, or even for religion
in the commonly accepted meaning of that word; and the results
had been our justification. But now the flame at the heart of the
earth had caught us, and we were all afire.
I mean that we were afire with interest, though the interest was
against war as well as for it. But for it or against it, it was the one
theme of our discussion; and with cause.
The tide was rising higher, and the spirit of the nation floating on
the top. On one of the first days of April the President had asked
Congress to declare a state of war with the German Empire. Two
days later the Senate voted that declaration. A few nights after that
we got together to talk things over at the Down and Out.
It was a crowded meeting, but as you looked round you in
advance you would have prophesised a dull one. Our fellows came
from all over New York and the suburbs, washed up, brushed up,
and in their Sunday clothes. A few were men of education, but
mostly we were of the type generally classed as hard-working. In
age we ran from the seventies down to the twenties, with a
preponderance of chaps between twenty-five and forty.
What I gathered from remarks before the meeting came to order
was a dogged submission to leadership.
 “If you was to put it up to us guys to decide the whole thing by
ourselves,” Beady Lamont said to me as we stood together, “we’d
vote ag’in’ it. Why? Because we’re over here—mindin’ our own
business—with our kids to take care of—and our business to keep up
—and we ain’t got no call to interfere in what’s no concern of ours.
Them fellows over in Europe never could keep still, and they dunno
how. But”—he made one of his oratorical gestures with his big left
hand—“but if the President says the word—well, we’re behind him.
He’s the country, and when the country speaks there’s no Amur’can
who ain’t ready to give all.”
Perhaps he had said something similar to Andrew Christian,
because it was that point of being ready to give all which, when he
spoke, Christian took as his text.
I am not giving you an account of the whole meeting; I mean only
to report a little of what Christian said, and its effect upon Cantyre.
Cantyre had come because Regina had insisted; but he sat with the
atmosphere of hot, thundery silence wrapping him round.
“To be ready to give all is what the world is summoned to,”
Christian declared, when he had been asked to say a few words,
“and, oh, boys, I beg you to believe that it’s time! The call hasn’t
come a minute too soon, and we sha’n’t be a minute too soon in
getting ready to obey it.”
“Some of us ’ain’t got much to give,” a voice came from the back
sitting-room.
“We’ve all got everything there is, if we only understood it,”
Christian answered, promptly; “but whatever we have, it’s something
we hold dear.”
“If we hold it dear,” another voice objected, “why should we be
asked to give it up?”
“Because we haven’t known how to use it. Think of all you’ve had
in your own life, Tom, and what you’ve done with it.”
 I didn’t know what Tom had had in his life, but the retort evidently
gave him something to turn over in his mind.
“There never was a time in the history of the world,” Christian
went on, “when the abundance of blessing was more lavishly poured
out upon mankind. In every country in both hemispheres we’ve had
the treasures of the earth, the sea, and the air positively heaped
upon us. Food, clothing, comfort, security, speed—have become the
commonplaces of existence. The children of to-day grow up to a use
of trains and motors and telephones and airplanes that would have
seemed miraculous as short a time ago as when I was a lad. The
standard of living has been so quickly raised that the poor have been
living in a luxury unknown to the rich of two or three generations
ago. The Atlantic has got to be so narrow that we count the time of
our crossing it by hours. The globe has become so small that young
people go round it for a honeymoon. People whose parents found it
difficult to keep one house have two or three, and even more. There
is money everywhere—private fortunes that would have staggered
the imagination of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba and Augustus
and Charlemagne all combined. Amusements are so numerous that
they pall on us. In lots of the restaurants of New York you can order
a meal for yourself alone, and feel that neither Napoleon nor Queen
Victoria nor the Czar could possibly have sat down to a better one.”
“Some could,” one of our objectors declared, with all sorts of
implications in his tone.
“Oh, I’m not saying there are no inequalities or that there is just
distribution of all this blessing. In fact, my point is that there is not.
All I’m asserting is that the blessing is there, and that the very
windows of heaven have been opened on the world in order to pour
it out.”
“I never saw none of it,” a thin, sour fellow put in, laconically.
“But, Juleps, that’s what I’m coming to. The blessing was there,
and some of us wouldn’t try to get what belonged to us, and others
of us collared too much, and we treated it very much as children
treat pennies in a scramble. We did far worse than that. We rifled,
we stole, we gobbled, we guzzled, we strutted, we bragged; the
fellow that was up kicked the fellow that was down to keep him
down; the fellow that had plenty sneaked and twisted and cringed
and cadged in order to get more; and we’ve all worked together to
create the world that’s been hardly fit to live in, that every one of us
has known. Now, boys, isn’t that so? Speak out frankly.”
Since in that crowd there could not be two opinions as to the
world being hardly fit to live in, there was a general murmur of
assent.
“Now wealth is a great good thing; and what I mean by wealth is
the general storehouse, free to us all, which we call the earth and
the atmosphere round it. I don’t have to tell you that it’s a
storehouse crammed in every crack and cranny with the things you
and I need for our enjoyment. And it isn’t a storehouse such as you
and I would fill, which has got only what we could put into it; it’s
always producing more. Production is its law. It’s never idle. It’s
incessantly working. The more we take out of it the more it yields. I
don’t say that we can’t exhaust it in spots by taxing it too much; of
course we can. Greed will exhaust anything, just as it’s exhausting,
under our very eyes, our forests, our fisheries, and our farms. But in
general there’s nothing that will respond to good treatment more
surely than the earth, nor give us back a bigger interest on the labor
we put into it.”
“That’s so,” came from some one who had perhaps been a farmer.
“And so,” Christian went on, “we’ve had a world that’s given us
everything in even greater abundance than we could use. We’ve had
food to waste; we’ve had clothes for every shade of temperature;
we’ve had coal for our furnaces, and iron for our buildings, and steel
for our ships, and gasolene for our automobiles. We’ve had every
invention that could help us to save time, to save worry, to save
labor, to save life. Childhood has been made more healthy; old age
more vigorous. That a race of young men and young women has
been growing up among us of whom we can say without much
exaggeration that humanity is becoming godlike, any one can see
who goes round our schools and colleges.”
He took a step forward, throwing open his palms in a gesture of
demand.
“But, fellows, what good has all this prodigious plenty been doing
us? Has it made us any better? Have we become any more thankful
that we all had enough and to spare? Have we been any more eager
to see that when we had too much the next man had a sufficiency?
Have we rejoiced in this plenitude as the common delight of every
one? Have we seen it as the manifestation of the God who expresses
Himself in all good things, and Who has given us, as one of the
apostles says, all things richly to enjoy? Has it brought us any nearer
Him? Has it given us any increased sympathy with Him? Or have we
made it minister to our very lowest qualities, to our appetites, to our
insolence, to our extravagance, to our sheer pride that all this was
ours, to wallow in, to waste, and to despise?
“You know we have done the last. There isn’t a man among us
who hasn’t done it to a greater or less degree. There is hardly a man
in New York who hasn’t lived in the lust of the purely material. You
may go through the world and only find a rarefied creature here and
there who hasn’t reveled and rioted and been silly and vain and
arrogant to the fullest extent that he dared.”
The wee bye Daisy was sitting in the front row, looking up at the
speaker raptly.
“I haven’t, Mr. Christian,” he declared, virtuously.
“Then, Daisy, you’re the rarefied creature I said was an exception.
Most of us have,” he went on when the roar of laughter subsided. “If
we haven’t in one way we have in another. And what has been the
result? Covetousness, hatred, class rivalry, capital and labor
bitternesses, war. And now we’ve come to a place where by a queer
and ironical judgment upon us the struggle for possession is going to
take from us all that we possess.”
 He thrust his hands into his trousers pockets and spoke casually,
confidentially.
“For, boys, that’s what I’m coming to. All the good things we have
are going to be taken away from us. Since we don’t know how to
use them, and won’t learn, we’ve got to give them back.”
“Oh, I don’t believe that, Mr. Christian,” a common-sense voice
cried out in a tone of expostulation.
“Peter, you’ll see. You’ll only have to live a few months longer to
find yourself like every one else in America, lacking the simple
essentials you’ve always taken as a matter of course. It isn’t luxuries
alone that you’ll be called on to give up; it will be the common
necessaries of every-day life. The great summons is coming to us,
not merely from our government, not merely from the terrified and
stricken nations of mankind, but from God above—to give everything
back to Him. I don’t say that we shall starve or that we shall freeze;
but we may easily be cold and hungry and driven to a cheese-paring
economy we never expected to practise. The light will be taken from
our lamps, the work from our fingers, the money from our pockets.
We shall be searched to the very soul. There’s nothing we sha’n’t
have to surrender. At the very least we must give tithes of all that
we possess, signifying our willingness to give more.”
“Some of us ’ain’t got nothing.”
It was the bitter cry of the dispossessed.
“Yes, Billy; we’ve all got life; and life, too, we shall have to offer
up. There are some of you chaps sitting here that in all human
probability will be called on to do it.”
“You won’t, Mr. Christian. You’re too old.”
“I’m too old, Spud, but my two boys are not; and they’re getting
ready now. Whether it’s harder or easier to let them go rather than
for me to go myself I leave to any of you guys that have kids.”
“Perhaps it won’t be as bad as what you think.”
 “Jimmy, I’m only reasoning from what I see in the world already.
When the human race is being trodden in the wine-press we in
America can’t expect to be spared. If any of you want to know
what’s happening to the kind of world we’ve made for ourselves let
him read the eighteenth chapter of the book of the Revelation. That
chapter might be written of Europe as it is at this minute. Babylon
the great is fallen, is fallen. The kings of the earth stand off from
her, crying, Alas! alas! that great city Babylon, for in one hour is her
judgment come! The merchants of the earth weep and mourn over
her, for no man buyeth their merchandise any more, saying, Alas!
alas! that great city, which was clothed in fine linen and purple and
scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, for in
one hour so great riches is come to naught. And every shipmaster,
and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by
sea, cast dust on their heads and cry over her, Alas! alas! that great
city wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason
of her costliness! for in one hour she is made desolate.”
“But that ain’t us.”
“No, Headlights, that’s not us. I agree with you that there’s a
difference. America is not in the same boat with Europe—not quite—
but very nearly. Perhaps because our crimes are not so black we’ve
been given the chance to do what we have to do more of our own
free act. From Europe what she had has been taken away violently,
whether she would or no. We have the chance to come before the
throne of God and offer it back of our own free will. You see the
difference! And, oh, boys, I want you to do it—”
“It ain’t for us, Mr. Christian, to decide that.”
“Oh yes, it is, Beady! It’s for each of us to offer willingly in his own
heart. Not just to the government—not just to the country—not just
to France or Belgium or any other nation that’s in a tight place—but
to that blessed and heavenly Father Who’s giving us this wonderful
chance to put everything into His hands again, and get it all back for
redistribution. Don’t you see? That’s it—the redistribution! A better
world has to come out of this—a juster world—a happier world—a
cleaner world. And in that reconstruction we Americans have the
chance to take the lead because we’re doing it of our own accord.
Every other country has some ax to grind; but we have none. We’ve
none except just to be in the big movement of all mankind upward
and forward. But the difference between us and every other country
—unless it’s the British Empire—is that we do it man by man, each
stepping out of the ranks in his turn as if he was the only one and
everything depended on his act. It’s up to you, Beady; it’s up to me;
it’s up to each American singly.”
“Why ain’t it up to every European singly?”
“It is. They’re just beginning to understand that it is. The
Englishman, the Frenchman, the Italian, they’re beginning to see
that the democracy we talk so much about isn’t merely a question of
the vote—that it isn’t primarily a question of the vote at all—it’s one
of self-government in the widest and yet the most personal sense.
The great summons is not to mankind in nations; it’s to mankind as
individuals. It’s to Tom and Jimmy and Peter and Headlights and
Daisy and every one who has a name. It’s the individual who makes
the country, who forms the army, who becomes the redemptive
element. In proportion as the individual cleanses himself from the
national sin the national sin is wiped out. So it’s by Englishmen and
Englishwomen that England will renew itself—”
I think it was my old friend, the Irish hospital attendant, who
called out, “What’s England’s national sin?”
The question brought the speaker to a halt. He seemed to reflect.
“What’s England’s national sin?” he repeated. “I should say—mind
you, I’m not sitting in judgment on any one or any people—but
we’ve all got to clean our stables, even if it takes the labors of
Hercules to accomplish it—I should say England’s national vice—the
vice that’s been eating the heart out of her body, and the spirit out
of her heart—is sensuality.”
“What’s the matter with France?”
 “I’m not an international physician with a specialty for diagnosis,”
Christian laughed; “but in my opinion France has been corroded
through and through with sordidness. She’s been too petty, too
narrow, too mean, too selfish—”
“Say, boss, tell us about my country.”
“You mean, Italy, Tony? Haven’t you got to get rid of your
superstition, and all the degrading things superstition brings with it?
I want you to understand that we’re talking of national errors, not of
national virtues.”
“Have we got a national error in the United States?”
“What do you think, Tapley? Isn’t it as plain as the nose on your
face? Isn’t it written all over the country, on every page of every
newspaper you pick up?”
“What? What is it?” came from several voices at once.
“Dishonesty!” he cried, loudly. “We Americans have got our good
points, but of them honesty is the very smallest. If any one called us
a nation of sharpers he wouldn’t be very far wrong. Our notion of
competition is to get the better of the other fellow, by foul means if
it can’t be done by fair. That’s the case in private life, and when it
comes to public—well, did you ever hear of anything that we ever
undertook as a people that didn’t have to be investigated before
very long? You can hardly read a daily paper in which the
investigation of some public trust isn’t going on. Dishonesty is
stamped deep, deep into the American character as it is to-day; and
for that very reason, if for no other, we’ve got to give everything
back. If we don’t it will be taken from us by main force; and we’re
not of the type to wait for that.”
He seemed to gather himself together. His face, always benignant,
began to glow with an inward light.
“But, boys, what I want you to understand is that we can make
this act of offering as a great act of faith. Every good gift and every
perfect gift cometh down! We can take our good gifts and our
perfect gifts and hand them up! We can anticipate their being taken
from us by giving them. We can give them as men who know
whence they have been received, and where they will be held in
trust for us—not grudgingly nor of necessity, as the Bible tells us, for
God loveth a cheerful giver. Now is the time for us to test that love—
every man for himself. The appeal is to the individual. Give, and it
shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, shaken
together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom,
according to the measure that ye mete. For this giving isn’t to men,
it’s to God; it isn’t a portion, it’s all; it isn’t limited to material things,
it includes our love and our life. It’s the great summons; it’s the
great surrender. And—boys—my dear old boys who’ve been saved
from other things—we’ve all been saved for this—for something we
never expected, but which isn’t hard to do when you look at it in the
right way—to hand ourselves back, in body, mind, and possessions,
to Him from whom we came, that He may make a new use of us
and begin all over again.”
And the first thing I saw when he stopped was Cantyre springing
forward to grasp him by the hand.
 CHAPTER XXXII
When I got out the streets were already buzzing with a rumor that
no extra had as yet proclaimed. The House of Representatives had
followed the Senate in voting for war, and the President was about
to sign the declaration.
But I forgot this on arriving at the flat, for Lovey was propped up
in bed, with his thin nose in the air, making little sniffs.
“I smell it, Slim,” he smiled, as I entered. “Kind of a coffee smell it
is now, with a dash o’ bacon and heggs.”
“That smell is always round this flat, Lovey,” I said, trying to be
casual. “It’s all the breakfasts you and I have eaten—”
“Oh no, Slim. You can’t be mistook in this; and besides—” He
made a sign to the man nurse who for the past week or two Cantyre
had sent in from one of his hospitals. “You clear out, d’ye ’ear? I
want to talk to my buddy, private-like.”
The man strolled out to the living-room, whispering to me as he
passed: “There’s a change in him. I don’t think he’ll last through the
night.”
“Come and sit ’ere, sonny,” Lovey commanded as soon as we were
alone. “I’ve got somethin’ special-like to tell ye. Did ye know,” he
went on, when I was seated beside the bed, “as I’d seen Lizzy—and
she ’adn’t her neck broke at all. She was lovely.”
“Where?” I asked, to humor him.
“Right ’ere—right beside that there chair that you’re a-sittin’ in.”
“When?”
“Oh, on and off—pretty near all the time now.”
“You mean that she comes and goes?”
 “No; not just comin’ and goin’. She’s—she’s kind o’ ’ere all the
time, only sometimes I ain’t lookin’.” His face became alight. “There
she is now—and a great long street be’ind ’er. No, it ain’t a street;
it’s just all lovely-like, and Lizzy with ’er neck as straight as a walkin’-
stick—and not a drinkin’-woman no more she don’t look—it’s kind o’
beautiful like, Slim, only—only I can’t make ye understand.”
Sighing fretfully over his inability to explain, he lapsed into that
state of which I never was sure whether it was sleep or
unconsciousness.
The coma lasted for a great part of the night. Sending the nurse
to lie down, I sat and watched, chiefly because I had too much on
my mind and in my heart to want to go to bed. Every two or three
hours Cantyre stole in, in his dressing-gown, finding nothing he
could do. Once or twice I was tempted to ask him what he thought
of Christian’s talk, but, fearing to break the spell it might have
wrought in him, I refrained. He himself didn’t mention it, nor did he
seem to know that I had observed his impulsive, shaking hands.
On one of the occasions when he was with me Lovey opened his
eyes suddenly, beginning to murmur something we couldn’t
understand.
“What is it, old chap?” Cantyre questioned, bending over him and
listening.
But Lovey was already articulating brokenly. It took two or three
repetitions, or attempts at repetition, for Cantyre to be in a position
to interpret.
“What’s he trying to say?” I inquired.
Cantyre pretended to arrange the bottles on the table beside the
bed so as not to have to look at me.
“He says, or he’s doing his best to say, ‘I didn’t say nothink but
what was for everybody’s good.’”
It was on my lips to retort, “Perhaps he didn’t.”
 I left that, however, for Cantyre, who went back to his rooms
without comment.
He returned in the small hours of the morning, and once more we
sat, one on one side of the bed and the other on the other, in what
was practically silence. All I could say of it was that it had become a
sympathetic silence. Why it was sympathetic I didn’t know: but the
unclassified perceptions told me that it was.
When Lovey opened his eyes again it was with the air of not
having been asleep or otherwise away from us.
“I saved ye, Slim, didn’t I?”
“Yes, Lovey, old man, you did.”
“Kep’ straight so as you would keep straight too?”
“Yes, Lovey.”
“Ye’d never ’a’ done it if it ’adn’t been for me?”
“No, Lovey.”
“And I’d never ’a’ gone away from ye, Slim. I was just a—a-
frightenin’ of you. I didn’t mean no ’arm at all, I didn’t.”
“I know, Lovey.”
He fixed his glazing eyes upon me as he said, “I told ye my name
wasn’t Lovey, didn’t I?”
“No, but that doesn’t matter.”
“No, that doesn’t matter now. We’re fellas together, so what’s the
diff?... I don’t care where we sleeps to-night, so long as you’re
there, sonny.... Greeley’s Slip is good enough for mine, if I can
snuggle up to you, like.... Ye don’t mind, do ye?”
I put my arm round his shoulder, raising him.
“No, Lovey, I don’t mind. Just snuggle up.”
“’Old me ’and, sonny.”
 I took his hand in mine as his head rested on my shoulder.
He gave a long, restful sigh.
“Lizzy says it’s an awful nice place where she is, and—”
I felt him slipping down in bed; but Cantyre, who knew more of
such cases than I did, caught him gently round the loins and
lowered him.
 CHAPTER XXXIII
On coming back the next afternoon from selecting the spot for
Lovey’s grave there was a man in khaki on the train. When I got out
at the Grand Central I saw another. In Fifth Avenue I saw another
and another. They seemed to spring out of the ground, giving a new
aspect to the streets. In the streets that shining thing I had noticed
on landing was no longer to be seen. Silver peace had faded out,
while in its place there was coming—coming by degrees—but
coming—that spirit of strong resolve which is iron and gold.
Or perhaps I had better say that peace had taken refuge in my
dingy little flat, where Lovey was lying on his bed in his Sunday
clothes, with hands folded on his breast. Peace was in every line of
the fragile figure; in the face there was peace satisfied—peace
content—gentle, abiding, eternal.
Two days later a little company of us stood by his grave while
Rufus Legrand read the ever-stirring words of the earth to earth. It
was the old comradeship which Lovey himself would have liked—the
fellowship of men who had fought the same fight as he, and were
hoping to be faithful unto death like him—Christian, Straight, little
Spender, Beady, Pyn, the wee bye Daisy, and one or two others.
Cantyre alone had none of the dark memories—and yet the bright
and blessed memories—that held the rest of us together; but
Cantyre had his place.
We had driven out side by side in the same motor, as what the
undertaker called chief mourners. I don’t remember that we uttered
a word to each other till we got out at the grave.
It was Cantyre who said, then: “I want you to drive back with me,
Frank. There’s somewhere I should like to take you.”
 Reassured by his use of my name, I merely nodded, wondering
what he meant.
I didn’t ask, however; nor did I ask when we were back in the
motor again and on our way to town. I got my first hint as we began
to descend the long avenue in which Sterling Barry had his house.
As I expected, we stopped at the door. The vacant lot was still
vacant, and among its dead stalks of burdock and succory April was
bringing the first shades of soft green. I thought of Lovey, of course;
of our tramp round Columbus Circle; of my midnight adventure right
on this spot. It was like going back to another life; it was as this life
must have seemed to Lovey and his Lizzy reunited in that world
where her neck was as straight as a walking-stick, and everything
was lovely-like.
Cantyre spoke low, as if he could hardly speak at all.
“I asked Regina to be in. She’ll be expecting us.”
And she was. She was expecting us in that kind of agitation which
hides itself under a pretense of being more than usually cool. In
sympathy with Lovey’s memory, I suppose, she was dressed in
black, which made a foil for her vivid lips and eyes. Out of the latter
she was unable to keep a shade of feverish brightness that belied
the nonchalance of her greeting.
She talked about Lovey, about the funeral, about the weather,
about the declaration of war, about the men in khaki who with such
surprising promptness had begun to appear in the streets. She
talked rapidly, anxiously, against time, as it were, and busied herself
pouring tea. Suspecting, doubtless, that Cantyre had something
special to say, she was trying to fight him off from it as long as
possible.
I had taken a seat; he remained standing, his back to the fire. His
look was abstracted, thundery, morose.
Right in the middle of what Regina was saying about the seizure
of the German ships he dropped with the remark, “You two know
what Lovey told me—what he’s been telling me ever since you both
came home.”
Neither of us had a word to say. We could only stare. You could
hear the mantelpiece clock ticking before he went on again.
“Well, I’m not going to give you up, Regina,” he declared,
aggressively, then.
One of her hands was on the handle of the teapot; one was in the
act of taking up a cup. If coloring was ever transmuted into flame,
her coloring was at that moment. There was a dramatic intensity in
her quietness.
“Have I asked you to, Stephen?”
“No; but—”
“Have I?” I demanded.
“No; but—”
“If Lovey did it it was without any knowledge of mine,” I
continued. “I practically killed him, God forgive me, for doing it!”
“You’re both off the track,” Cantyre broke in. “You don’t know
what I—what I want to say.”
“Very well, then, Stephen. Tell us,” Regina said, tranquilly.
He spoke stammeringly. “It’s—it’s—just this: This is no time—for—
for—love.”
We stared again, waiting for him to go on.
“It’s what—what Christian told us two or three nights ago. We’re
in a world where—where love and marriage are no longer the
burning questions. They’re too small. Don’t you see?”
We continued to stare, but we agreed with him.
“So—so,” he faltered, “I want you—I want you both—to—to put it
all off.”
“The moratorium of love?” I suggested.
 “The moratorium of everything,” he took up, “but what—what
Christian put before us. I see that now more plainly than I ever saw
anything in my life. We’ve got to give everything up—and get it back
—different. We shall be different, too—and things that we’re
struggling over now will be settled for us, I suppose, without our
taking them into our own hands at all. That’s how I look at it, if you
two will agree.”
“I agree, Stephen,” Regina said, with the same tranquillity.
“And I, too, old chap.”
“I’m—I’m going over,” he stumbled on, “with the first medical unit
from Columbia—”
“Oh, Stephen! How splendid!”
He contradicted her. “No, it isn’t. I’m not doing it from any
splendid motives whatever. I’m going just to—to try and get out of
myself. Don’t you see—you two? You must see. I’m—I’m sunk in
myself; I’ve never been anything else. That’s what’s been the matter
with me. That’s why I never made any friends. That’s why you,
Frank, have never really cared a straw about me—in spite of all the
ways I’ve made up to you; and why you, Regina, can hardly stand
me. But, by God! you’re both going to!”
With this flash of excitement I sprang up, laying my hand on his
arm.
“We care for you already, old man.”
“That’s not the point. I’ve—I’ve got to care for myself. I’ve got to
find some sort of self-respect.”
But Regina, too, sprang up, joining us where we stood on the
hearth-rug. She didn’t touch him; she only stood before him with
hands clasped in front of her.
“Stephen dear, you’re not doing any more heart-searching than
Frank and I are doing; or than every true American is doing all
through the country. What you say Mr. Christian told you the other
night is more or less consciously in everybody’s soul. We know we’re
called to the judgment seat; and at the judgment seat we stand.
That’s all there is to it. Marriage and giving in marriage for people
like us must wait. It’s become unimportant. There are people—
younger than we are for the most part—to whom it comes first. But
for us, with our experience—each of us—you with yours, Frank with
his, I with mine—well, we have other work to do. We must see this
great thing through before we can give our attention to ourselves.
And we shall see it through, sha’n’t we, by doing as you say? We
must give everything up—and wait. Then we shall probably find our
difficulties solved for us. I often think that patience—the power to
wait and be confident—is the most stupendous force in the world.”
And with few more words than this we left her. I went first, giving
them a little time alone together. But I hadn’t gone very far before,
on accidentally turning round, I saw Cantyre coming down the steps.
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