By the time they looked up, the girls were gone. The thrill had dissipated at roughly the moment when Chaplin had ignored a pretty redhead’s empty glass while arguing that, in negotiations for the terms of peace with Germany, self-determination, the root of human dignity, was incompatible with punitive indemnities. Eastman, who had made this point earlier, agreed. Chaplin wrote Eastman a check, “for bailing out your magazine, its blues and woes.” The check was for seven dollars, but Chaplin explained Eastman could use it to build on. Eastman folded the check and put it in his pocket.

“I think I might send my films to Russia.” Chaplin put his chin in his hands. “I know I’ll never get them back, but it would be a gesture.”

“To whom will you send your films?”

“To Russia,” he said, as if Eastman hadn’t just heard something perfectly simple.

An hour later, Chaplin had expressed every political and social opinion he had, and he still didn’t want to go home.

“The new film is going to surprise people,” he declared.

“What’s it about?”

“It’s set on a farm,” he said, which sounded weak, so he added, “It’s about a worker who is terribly mistreated.”

“By his boss?”

“It’s about his revenge by being sleepy and lethargic.”

“Such is a man’s right.”

“Exactly!” With rising certainty, Chaplin told the story of Sunnyside. It began to make sense: an indictment of management, a vindication of the worker, followed by exposing the opiate of religion via riding a bull into church. The Fellow’s mind would be expanded by visiting a museum, where the hypocrisy of the bourgeois would be exposed when the statues came to life. Nudity! Allowable on statues but never on actors, imagine the enlightenment, not just for the audience but an infectious incident for the Little Fellow. He would return to the farm and lead a rebellion. “The whole film will be a savage crucifixion of the foibles of our time, but it will be a comedy.”

“I feel goosebumps, Mr. Chaplin.”

Chaplin swallowed his lemonade heavily. His breathing was shallow, and his heart thumped as if he’d just won a race. He drummed his hands on the table.

“Well,” Eastman said, “if you’re going to tell the truth, you should be funny. Otherwise, they’ll kill you.”

“Exactly,” Chaplin said.

“This will keep them from calling you the Mob God again.”

“Right. What?”

“You know, The New Republic.”

“Oh. Really?”

“Something about the public reception of Shoulder Arms. But this should shut them up.”

“Hmm,” Chaplin said, “yes. Well, yes.”

Thirty minutes later, still not interested in home, he was explaining that his mother was in town, and that, contrary to what the world seemed to think about mothers—