IV

The noise is bad everywhere in New York, but in some of the finer

apartment-houses on the better streets you are as well out of it as you

can be anywhere in the city. I have been a guest in these at different

times, and in one of them I am such a frequent guest that I may be said

to know its life intimately. In fact, my hostess (women transact society

so exclusively in America that you seldom think of your host) in the

apartment I mean to speak of, invited me to explore it one night when I

dined with her, so that I might, as she said, tell my friends when I got

back to Altruria how people lived in America; and I cannot feel that I

am violating her hospitality in telling you now. She is that Mrs. Makely

whom I met last summer in the mountains, and whom you thought so strange

a type from the account of her I gave you, but who is not altogether

uncommon here. I confess that, with all her faults, I like her, and I

like to go to her house. She is, in fact, a very good woman, perfectly

selfish by tradition, as the American women must be, and wildly generous

by nature, as they nearly always are; and infinitely superior to her

husband in cultivation, as is commonly the case with them. As he knows

nothing but business, he thinks it is the only thing worth knowing, and

he looks down on the tastes and interests of her more intellectual life

with amiable contempt, as something almost comic. She respects business,

too, and so she does not despise his ignorance as you would suppose; it

is at least the ignorance of a business-man, who must have something in

him beyond her ken, or else he would not be able to make money as he

does.

With your greater sense of humor, I think you would be amused if you

could see his smile of placid self-satisfaction as he listens to our

discussion of questions and problems which no more enter his daily life

than they enter the daily life of an Eskimo; but I do not find it

altogether amusing myself, and I could not well forgive it, if I did not

know that he was at heart so simple and good, in spite of his

commerciality. But he is sweet and kind, as the American men so often

are, and he thinks his wife is the delightfulest creature in the world,

as the American husband nearly always does. They have several times asked

me to dine with them _en famille;_ and, as a matter of form, he

keeps me a little while with him after dinner, when she has left the

table, and smokes his cigar, after wondering why we do not smoke in

Altruria; but I can see that he is impatient to get to her in their

drawing-room, where we find her reading a book in the crimson light of

the canopied lamp, and where he presently falls silent, perfectly happy

to be near her. The drawing-room is of a good size itself, and it has a

room opening out of it called the library, with a case of books in it,

and Mrs. Makely's piano-forte. The place is rather too richly and densely

rugged, and there is rather more curtaining and shading of the windows

than we should like; but Mrs. Makely is too well up-to-date, as she would

say, to have much of the bric-à-brac about which she tells me used to

clutter people's houses here. There are some pretty good pictures on the

walls, and a few vases and bronzes, and she says she has produced a

greater effect of space by quelling the furniture--she means, having few

pieces and having them as small as possible. There is a little stand with

her afternoon tea-set in one corner, and there is a pretty writing-desk

in the library; I remember a sofa and some easy-chairs, but not too

many of them. She has a table near one of the windows, with books and

papers on it. She tells me that she sees herself that the place is kept

just as she wishes it, for she has rather a passion for neatness,

and you never can trust servants not to stand the books on their heads or

study a vulgar symmetry in the arrangements. She never allows them in

there, she says, except when they are at work under her eye; and she

never allows anybody there except her guests, and her husband after he

has smoked. Of course, her dog must be there; and one evening after her

husband fell asleep in the arm-chair near her, the dog fell asleep on

the fleece at her feet, and we heard them softly breathing in unison.

She made a pretty little mocking mouth when the sound first became

audible, and said that she ought really to have sent Mr. Makely out with

the dog, for the dog ought to have the air every day, and she had

been kept indoors; but sometimes Mr. Makely came home from business so

tired that she hated to send him out, even for the dog's sake, though he

was so apt to become dyspeptic. “They won't let you have dogs in some of

the apartment-houses, but I tore up the first lease that had that clause

in it, and I told Mr. Makely that I would rather live in a house all my

days than any flat where my dog wasn't as welcome as I was. Of course,

they're rather troublesome.”

The Makelys had no children, but it is seldom that the occupants of

apartment-houses of a good class have children, though there is no clause

in the lease against them. I verified this fact from Mrs. Makely herself,

by actual inquiry, for in all the times that I had gone up and down in

the elevator to her apartment I had never seen any children. She seemed

at first to think I was joking, and not to like it, but when she found

that I was in earnest she said that she did not suppose all the families

living under that roof had more than four or five children among them.

She said that it would be inconvenient; and I could not allege the

tenement-houses in the poor quarters of the city, where children seemed

to swarm, for it is but too probable that they do not regard convenience

in such places, and that neither parents nor children are more

comfortable for their presence.

V

Comfort is the American ideal, in a certain way, and comfort is certainly

what is studied in such an apartment as the Makelys inhabit. We got to

talking about it, and the ease of life in such conditions, and it was

then she made me that offer to show me her flat, and let me report to the

Altrurians concerning it. She is all impulse, and she asked, How would I

like to see it _now?_ and when I said I should be delighted, she

spoke to her husband, and told him that she was going to show me through

the flat. He roused himself promptly, and went before us, at her bidding,

to turn up the electrics in the passages and rooms, and then she led the

way out through the dining-room.

“This and the parlors count three, and the kitchen here is the fourth

room of the eight,” she said, and as she spoke she pushed open the door

of a small room, blazing with light and dense with the fumes of the

dinner and the dish-washing which was now going on in a closet opening

out of the kitchen.

She showed me the set range, at one side, and the refrigerator in an

alcove, which she said went with the flat, and, “Lena,” she said to the

cook, “this is the Altrurian gentleman I was telling you about, and I

want him to see your kitchen. Can I take him into your room?”

The cook said, “Oh yes, ma'am,” and she gave me a good stare, while Mrs.

Makely went to the kitchen window and made me observe that it let in the

outside air, though the court that it opened into was so dark that one

had to keep the electrics going in the kitchen night and day. “Of course,

it's an expense,” she said, as she closed the kitchen door after us. She

added, in a low, rapid tone, “You must excuse my introducing the cook.

She has read all about you in the papers--you didn't know, I suppose,

that there were reporters that day of your delightful talk in the

mountains, but I had them--and she was wild, when she heard you were

coming, and made me promise to let her have a sight of you somehow. She

says she wants to go and live in Altruria, and if you would like to take

home a cook, or a servant of any kind, you wouldn't have much trouble.

Now here,” she ran on, without a moment's pause, while she flung open

another door, “is what you won't find in every apartment-house, even very

good ones, and that's a back elevator. Sometimes there are only stairs,

and they make the poor things climb the whole way up from the basement,

when they come in, and all your marketing has to be brought up that way,

too; sometimes they send it up on a kind of dumb-waiter, in the cheap

places, and you give your orders to the market-men down below through a

speaking-tube. But here we have none of that bother, and this elevator is

for the kitchen and housekeeping part of the flat. The grocer's and the

butcher's man, and anybody who has packages for you, or trunks, or that

sort of thing, use it, and, of course, it's for the servants, and they

appreciate not having to walk up as much as anybody.”

“Oh yes,” I said, and she shut the elevator door and opened another a

little beyond it.

“This is our guest chamber,” she continued, as she ushered me into a very

pretty room, charmingly furnished. “It isn't very light by day, for it

opens on a court, like the kitchen and the servants' room here,” and with

that she whipped out of the guest chamber and into another doorway across

the corridor. This room was very much narrower, but there were two small

beds in it, very neat and clean, with some furnishings that were in

keeping, and a good carpet under foot. Mrs. Makely was clearly proud of

it, and expected me to applaud it; but I waited for her to speak, which

upon the whole she probably liked as well.

“I only keep two servants, because in a flat there isn't really room for

more, and I put out the wash and get in cleaning-women when it's needed.

I like to use my servants well, because it pays, and I hate to see

anybody imposed upon. Some people put in a double-decker, as they call

it--a bedstead with two tiers, like the berths on a ship; but I think

that's a shame, and I give them two regular beds, even if it does crowd

them a little more and the beds have to be rather narrow. This room has

outside air, from the court, and, though it's always dark, it's very

pleasant, as you see.” I did not say that I did not see, and this

sufficed Mrs. Makely.

“Now,” she said, “I'll show you _our_ rooms,” and she flew down the

corridor towards two doors that stood open side by side and flashed into

them before me. Her husband was already in the first she entered, smiling

in supreme content with his wife, his belongings, and himself.

“This is a southern exposure, and it has a perfect gush of sun from

morning till night. Some of the flats have the kitchen at the end, and

that's stupid; you can have a kitchen in any sort of hole, for you can

keep on the electrics, and with them the air is perfectly good. As soon

as I saw these chambers, and found out that they would let you keep a

dog, I told Mr. Makely to sign the lease instantly, and I would see to

the rest.”

She looked at me, and I praised the room and its dainty tastefulness to

her heart's content, so that she said: “Well, it's some satisfaction to

show you anything, Mr. Homos, you are so appreciative. I'm sure you'll

give a good account of us to the Altrurians. Well, now we'll go back to

the pa--drawing-room. This is the end of the story.”

“Well,” said her husband, with a wink at me, “I thought it was to be

continued in our next,” and he nodded towards the door that opened from

his wife's bower into the room adjoining.

“Why, you poor old fellow!” she shouted. “I forgot all about _your_

room,” and she dashed into it before us and began to show it off. It was

equipped with every bachelor luxury, and with every appliance for health

and comfort. “And here,” she said, “he can smoke, or anything, as long as

he keeps the door shut. Oh, good gracious! I forgot the bath-room,” and

they both united in showing me this, with its tiled floor and walls and

its porcelain tub; and then Mrs. Makely flew up the corridor before us.

“Put out the electrics, Dick!” she called back over her shoulder.