He hesitated, and Dilman said, “For what, then, Nat? Why do they want to get rid of me?”

“Not because they fear you, but because-because they are ashamed of you. There are a hundred truths, but this is the main one, I would suggest. Men live by pride, and the predominantly white population of this country is mortified by the fact that their beautiful land and their beautiful lives are being run by a person who is-they have been brought up to believe-so shockingly their inferior, by a person whom one and all think they are superior to, and whom consequently they cannot respect, and whom they cannot have pride in before each other and the world at large. There is a kind of unvoiced national desire to regain national pride by liquidating, through due process, through civilized process, the one blot on the pure white landscape-and also, in doing so, sleep and play with less guilt for not having to look up constantly at you, Negro, so long wronged, who towers as a blatant rebuke to the national conscience. So, by legal hook or crook, out, damned spot. And that, I suppose, is why you go on trial in four hours.”

Dilman sat back in his chair, and his eyes did not leave those of his friend. “Nat, I intend to help you, not for myself but for what it means to everyone, the tormentors and the tormented. How can I help you?”

“By staying right in the Oval Office. By doing your job as President as well as you can. By letting us fight to keep you there.”

“Nat, that’s not enough. I want to confront the Senate and the country. I want them to see me and hear me on trial. I want them to see the man they’re ashamed of. I want to be the last witness for the defense.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Andrew Johnson never appeared in the Senate during his impeachment trial. His managers would not permit it. They felt that he might be goaded into losing his head and into saying things that could never be taken back. They felt his appearance could only endanger his cause. Johnson complained and protested, but he gave in.”

“Nat-why not?”

“Listen, you nigger lover, don’t you give me any more trouble. I’ve got headaches enough,” he said lightly, and he stood up. Then, looking at Dilman, he became serious. “Why not, Doug? Because I won’t throw a sheep, even a black sheep, to a slobbering pack of jackals. I may be your couselor, but I am also your friend… Now, you wish both of us luck, and if you believe in St. Christopher, it wouldn’t hurt to give him a jingle on the hot line, and ask him to hold a good thought.”

At five minutes to one o’clock in the afternoon, Nat Abrahams was witness to a sight that had been seen only once before in American history.

Jittery and impatient, he had left his three associates awaiting the official summons in the Senate Office of the Vice-President, slipped past the emptying Senate lobby, and come to the filled doorway on the Minority’s side of the Senate Chamber. The two doors had been fastened open, and the entry was crowded with curious, blue-uniformed Capitol police and gawking, scrubbed Senate page boys.

A policeman recognized Abrahams, and started to make a place for him just inside the Chamber, but Abrahams declined the offer. He did not yet want to be seen by the assembling congressmen and the eagle-eyed occupants of the press gallery. Instead he hung back, partially hidden from public view, but, because of his height, he was able to survey the scene inside fully.

The scene of this second Presidential trial for impeachment was, Abrahams felt sure, twice as hectic and highly charged as the first one over a century before. When the Andrew Johnson tribunal had convened, in those horse-and-carriage days, there had been 54 senators in attendance, and 190 representatives of the House present as onlookers, representing a United States populated by 30 million constituents. This early afternoon, there were packed in the Chamber before him 100 senators, to sit as jurors, and behind them 448 representatives of the House who had voted to become a Committee of the Whole to present themselves as guests in court, and these represented 230 million constituents. In 1868, the Andrew Johnson trial, beyond settling the balance of power in the government, as well as a political vendetta, possessed no central issue that would affect the lives of the citizens of the country. Today’s trial, Abrahams knew, possessed an issue of incalculable importance, that of the hidden reason for which President Dilman was being tried, the color of his skin, an issue that touched the life of every American. The outcome of the judgment on this issue would seriously affect America’s future at home and abroad.

Peering upward over the heads of the page boys, Abrahams’ eyes roved across the three sides of the galleries visible to him. As in Andrew Johnson’s time, the House had ruled that public admission to the trial would be by ticket only, a different-colored ticket to be printed for each succeeding day. The top-priority tickets had been passed out according to rank. Of the 1,250 tickets printed daily, 50 were given to President Dilman, 60 distributed among the foreign diplomatic corps, two went to each senator, one went to each representative, and only a few hundred were made available, on a first come, first served basis, to the quarter of a million persons, the public, who had been applying for them by telephone, telegram, and letter.

Except for the space requisitioned by the television cameras and technicians, the five steep tiers of the public galleries on high, with a sixth row for standees, were jammed tightly with humanity, and had been so for over an hour. Even the aisle steps above were occupied, and in the doorways could be seen the conservatively attired, ever-watchful agents of the Secret Service. By squinting, Abrahams could make out several familiar faces, among them Hugo Gaynor’s and Lou Agajanian’s. Then, as last-minute arrivals appeared with their dripping umbrellas, removing their wet raincoats, he could distinguish other persons known to him-Dilman’s chubby housekeeper, Crystal, the lobbyist, Gorden Oliver, the Party chairman, Allan Noyes, and then, dressed smartly in flagrant red, as if for an afternoon’s party, Sally Watson. In vain, Abrahams tried to locate his wife, and then gave up.

Turning slightly, to take in the desks of the press gallery directly over the Acting President pro tempore’s rostrum, Abrahams could see the reporters, feature writers, and columnists squeezed elbow to elbow, strips of their long white writing pads hanging down over their desks as they bent to their notes. Side by side, chatting, laughing, were Reb Blaser, of the Miller chain, and a young man whom Abrahams guessed to be George Murdock.

Now his gaze dropped to the floor of the Senate Chamber, shortly to be the arena of ceremony and then fierce conflict.

Never in its venerable life, Abrahams supposed, had the Senate Chamber undergone such a chaotic physical transformation as this. The comfortable, spacious, clubroom seating was no more. Within the biege walls and veined marble pillars of the Chamber, the spacious semicircle of proud senatorial desks had been rudely shoved together and pushed forward to the very lip of the rostrum. Every senator, ailing or not, appeared to be in his brown leather straight-backed armchair. On each mahogany desk, as if a last determined genuflection to tradition, sat those hangovers from the quill pen period, the paperweights that were once crystal shakers of blotting sand. Arranged on almost all the desks, also, were notepads as well as copies of the Articles of Impeachment. At each senator’s feet rested an unused polished cuspidor. Here and there, Abrahams could identify a juror he must soon confront: the smiling visage of the Majority Leader, Senator John Selander, the testy countenance, decorated with its pince-nez, of Senator Bruce Hankins, the vaguely Negroid features of Senator Roy Sampson, the perpetually snarling face of Senator Kirk Bollinger, the unexpected feminine profile of Senator Maxine Schultz, the leonine head of Senator Hoyt Watson.