been so kind about this little matter.... And perhaps it will interest
you to know that I have the promise, no I may say the certainty of a
very good position beginning Monday.”
“I vait tree veeks ... I not vait any more.”
“But my dear lady I assure you upon my honor as a gentleman...”
Mrs. Budkowitz began to jerk her shoulders about. Her voice rose thin
and wailing like the sound of a peanut wagon. “You pay me tat fifteen
dollar or I rent te room to somebody else.”
“I’ll pay you this very evening.”
“Vat time?”
“Six o’clock.”
“Allright. Plis you give me key.”
“But I cant do that. Suppose I was late?”
“Tat’s vy I vant te key. I’m trough vit vaiting.”
“All right take the key..... I hope you understand that after this
insulting behavior it will be impossible for me to remain longer under
your roof.”
Mrs. Budkowitz laughed hoarsely. “Allright ven you pay me fifteen
dollar you can take avay your grip.” He put the two keys tied together
with string into her gray hand and slammed the door and strode down the
street.
At the corner of Third Avenue he stopped and stood shivering in the hot
afternoon sunlight, sweat running down behind his ears. He was too weak
to swear. Jagged oblongs of harsh sound broke one after another over
his head as an elevated past over. Trucks grated by along the avenue
raising a dust that smelled of gasoline and trampled horsedung. The
dead air stank of stores and lunchrooms. He began walking slowly uptown
towards Fourteenth Street. At a corner a crinkly warm smell of cigars
stopped him like a hand on his shoulder. He stood a while looking in
the little shop watching the slim stained fingers of the cigarroller
shuffle the brittle outside leaves of tobacco. Remembering Romeo and
Juliet Arguelles Morales he sniffed deeply. The slick tearing of
tinfoil, the careful slipping off of the band, the tiny ivory penknife
for the end that slit delicately as flesh, the smell of the wax match,
the long inhaling of bitter crinkled deep sweet smoke. And now sir
about this little matter of the new Northern Pacific bond issue.... He
clenched his fists in the clammy pockets of his raincoat. Take my key
would she the old harridan? I’ll show her, damn it. Joe Harland may be
down and out but he’s got his pride yet.
He walked west along Fourteenth and without stopping to think and lose
his nerve went down into a small basement stationery store, strode
through unsteadily to the back, and stood swaying in the doorway of a
little office where sat at a rolltop desk a blueeyed baldheaded fat man.
“Hello Felsius,” croaked Harland.
The fat man got to his feet bewildered. “God it aint Mr. Harland is it?”
“Joe Harland himself Felsius ... er somewhat the worse for wear.” A
titter died in his throat.
“Well I’ll be ... Sit right down Mr. Harland.”
“Thank you Felsius.... Felsius I’m down and out.”
“It must be five years since I’ve seen you Mr. Harland.”
“A rotten five years it’s been for me.... I suppose its all luck. My
luck wont ever change on this earth again. Remember when I’d come in
from romping with the bulls and raise hell round the office? A pretty
good bonus I gave the office force that Christmas.”
“Indeed it was Mr. Harland.”
“Must be a dull life storekeeping after the Street.”
“More to my taste Mr. Harland, nobody to boss me here.”
“And how’s the wife and kids?”
“Fine, fine; the oldest boy’s just out of highschool.”
“That the one you named for me?”
Felsius nodded. His fingers fat as sausages were tapping uneasily on
the edge of the desk.
“I remember I thought I’d do something for that kid someday. It’s a
funny world.” Harland laughed feebly. He felt a shuddery blackness
stealing up behind his head. He clenched his hands round his knee and
contracted the muscles of his arms. “You see Felsius, it’s this way....
I find myself for the moment in a rather embarrassing situation
financially.... You know how those things are.” Felsius was staring
straight ahead of him into the desk. Beads of sweat were starting out
of his bald head. “We all have our spell of bad luck dont we? I want
to float a very small loan for a few days, just a few dollars, say
twentyfive until certain combinations...”
“Mr. Harland I cant do it.” Felsius got to his feet. “I’m sorry but
principles is principles.... I’ve never borrowed or lent a cent in my
life. I’m sure you understand that....”
“All right, dont say any more.” Harland got meekly to his feet. “Let me
have a quarter.... I’m not so young as I was and I haven’t eaten for
two days,” he mumbled, looking down at his cracked shoes. He put out
his hand to steady himself by the desk.
Felsius moved back against the wall as if to ward off a blow. He held
out a fiftycent piece on thick trembling fingers. Harland took it,
turned without a word and stumbled out through the shop. Felsius pulled
a violet bordered handkerchief out of his pocket, mopped his brow and
turned to his letters again.
We take the liberty of calling the trade’s attention
to four new superfine Mullen products that we feel the
greatest confidence in recommending to our customers as
a fresh and absolutely unparalleled departure in the
papermanufacturer’s art ...
* * * * *
They came out of the movie blinking into bright pools of electric
glare. Cassie watched him stand with his feet apart and eyes absorbed
lighting a cigar. McAvoy was a stocky man with a beefy neck; he wore a
single-button coat, a checked vest and a dogshead pin in his brocade
necktie.
“That was a rotton show or I’m a Dutchman,” he was growling.
“But I loved the twavel pictures, Morris, those Swiss peasants dancing;
I felt I was wight there.”
“Damn hot in there.... I’d like a drink.”
“Now Morris you promised,” she whined.
“Oh I just meant sodawater, dont get nervous.” “Oh that’d be lovely.
I’d just love a soda.”
“Then we’ll go for a walk in the Park.”
She let the lashes fall over her eyes “Allwight Morris,” she whispered
without looking at him. She put her hand a little tremulously through
his arm.
“If only I wasn’t so goddam broke.”
“I dont care Morris.”
“I do by God.”
At Columbus Circle they went into a drugstore. Girls in green, violet,
pink summer dresses, young men in straw hats were three deep along the
sodafountain. She stood back and admiringly watched him shove his way
through. A man was leaning across the table behind her talking to a
girl; their faces were hidden by their hatbrims.
“You juss tie that bull outside, I said to him, then I resigned.”
“You mean you were fired.”
“No honest I resigned before he had a chance.... He’s a stinker d’you
know it? I wont take no more of his lip. When I was walkin outa the
office he called after me.... Young man lemme tell ye sumpen. You wont
never make good till you learn who’s boss around this town, till you
learn that it aint you.”
Morris was holding out a vanilla icecream soda to her. “Dreamin’ again
Cassie; anybody’d think you was a snowbird.” Smiling brighteyed, she
took the soda; he was drinking coca-cola. “Thank you,” she said. She
sucked with pouting lips at a spoonful of icecream. “Ou Morris it’s
delicious.”
The path between round splashes of arclights ducked into darkness.
Through slant lights and nudging shadows came a smell of dusty leaves
and trampled grass and occasionally a rift of cool fragrance from damp
earth under shrubberies.
“Oh I love it in the Park,” chanted Cassie. She stifled a belch. “D’you
know Morris I oughnt to have eaten that icecweam. It always gives me
gas.”
Morris said nothing. He put his arm round her and held her tight to him
so that his thigh rubbed against hers as they walked. “Well Pierpont
Morgan is dead.... I wish he’d left me a couple of million.”
“Oh Morris wouldn’t it be wonderful? Where’d we live? On Central Park
South.” They stood looking back at the glow of electric signs that came
from Columbus Circle. To the left they could see curtained lights in
the windows of a whitefaced apartmenthouse. He looked stealthily to
the right and left and then kissed her. She twisted her mouth out from
under his.
“Dont.... Somebody might see us,” she whispered breathless. Inside
something like a dynamo was whirring, whirring. “Morris I’ve been
saving it up to tell you. I think Goldweiser’s going to give me a
specialty bit in his next show. He’s stagemanager of the second woad
company and he’s got a lot of pull up at the office. He saw me dance
yesterday.”
“What did he say?”
“He said he’d fix it up for me to see the big boss Monday.... Oh but
Morris it’s not the sort of thing I want to do, it’s so vulgar and
howid.... I want to do such beautiful things. I feel I’ve got it in me,
something without a name fluttering inside, a bird of beautiful plumage
in a howid iron cage.”
“That’s the trouble with you, you’ll never make good, you’re too
upstage.” She looked up at him with streaming eyes that glistened in
the white powdery light of an arclamp.
“Oh don’t cry for God’s sake. I didnt mean anythin.”
“I’m not upstage with you Morris, am I?” She sniffed and wiped her eyes.
“You are kinda, that’s what makes me sore. I like my little girl to
pet me an love me up a little. Hell Cassie life aint all beer an
sourkraut.” As they walked tightly pressed one to another they felt
rock under their feet. They were on a little hill of granite outcrop
with shrubbery all round. The lights from the buildings that hemmed in
the end of the Park shone in their faces. They stood apart holding
each other’s hands.
“Take that redhaired girl up at 105th Street.... I bet she wouldnt be
upstage when she was alone with a feller.”
“She’s a dweadful woman, she dont care what kind of a wep she has....
Oh I think you’re howid.” She began to cry again.
He pulled her to him roughly, pressed her to him hard with his spread
hands on her back. She felt her legs tremble and go weak. She was
falling through colored shafts of faintness. His mouth wouldnt let her
catch her breath.
“Look out,” he whispered pulling himself away from her. They walked on
unsteadily down the path through the shrubbery. “I guess it aint.”
“What Morris?”
“A cop. God it’s hell not havin anywhere to go. Cant we go to your
room?”
“But Morris they’ll all see us.”
“Who cares? They all do it in that house.”
“Oh I hate you when you talk that way.... Weal love is all pure and
lovely.... Morris you don’t love me.”
“Quit pickin on me cant you Cassie for a minute...? Goddam it’s hell to
be broke.”
They sat down on a bench in the light. Behind them automobiles
slithered with a constant hissing scuttle in two streams along the
roadway. She put her hand on his knee and he covered it with his big
stubby hand.
“Morris I feel that we are going to be very happy from now on, I feel
it. You’re going to get a fine job, I’m sure you are.”
“I aint so sure.... I’m not so young as I was Cassie. I aint got any
time to lose.”
“Why you’re terribly young, you’re only thirtyfive Morris.... And I
think that something wonderful is going to happen. I’m going to get a
chance to dance.”
“Why you ought to make more than that redhaired girl.”
“Elaine Oglethorpe.... She doesnt make so much. But I’m different from
her. I dont care about money; I want to live for my dancing.”
“I want money. Once you got money you can do what you like.”
“But Morris dont you believe that you can do anything if you just
want to hard enough? I believe that.” He edged his free arm round her
waist. Gradually she let her head fall on his shoulder. “Oh I dont
care,” she whispered with dry lips. Behind them limousines, roadsters,
touringcars, sedans, slithered along the roadway with snaky glint of
lights running in two smooth continuous streams.
* * * * *
The brown serge smelled of mothballs as she folded it. She stooped to
lay it in the trunk; a layer of tissuepaper below rustled when she
smoothed the wrinkles with her hand. The first violet morning light
outside the window was making the electriclight bulb grow red like a
sleepless eye. Ellen straightened herself suddenly and stood stiff with
her arms at her sides, her face flushed pink. “It’s just too low,”
she said. She spread a towel over the dresses and piled brushes, a
handmirror, slippers, chemises, boxes of powder in pellmell on top of
them. Then she slammed down the lid of the trunk, locked it and put the
key in her flat alligatorskin purse. She stood looking dazedly about
the room sucking a broken fingernail. Yellow sunlight was obliquely
drenching the chimneypots and cornices of the houses across the street.
She found herself staring at the white E.T.O. at the end of her trunk.
“It’s all too terribly disgustingly low,” she said again. Then she
grabbed a nailfile off the bureau and scratched out the O. “Whee,”
she whispered and snapped her fingers. After she had put on a little
bucketshaped black hat and a veil, so that people wouldn’t see she’d
been crying, she piled a lot of books, _Youth’s Encounter_, _Thus Spoke
Zarathustra_, _The Golden Ass_, _Imaginary Conversations_, _Aphrodite_,
_Chansons de Bilitis_ and the _Oxford Book of French Verse_ in a silk
shawl and tied them together.
There was a faint tapping at the door. “Who’s that,” she whispered.
“It just me,” came a tearful voice.
Ellen unlocked the door. “Why Cassie what’s the matter?” Cassie rubbed
her wet face in the hollow of Ellen’s neck. “Oh Cassie you’re gumming
my veil.... What on earth’s the matter?”
“I’ve been up all night thinking how unhappy you must be.”
“But Cassie I’ve never been happier in my life.”
“Aren’t men dweadful?”
“No.... They are much nicer than women anyway.”
“Elaine I’ve got to tell you something. I know you dont care anything
about me but I’m going to tell you all the same.”
“Of course I care about you Cassie.... Dont be silly. But I’m busy
now.... Why dont you go back to bed and tell me later?”
“I’ve got to tell you now.” Ellen sat down on her trunk resignedly.
“Elaine I’ve bwoken it off with Morris.... Isn’t it tewible?” Cassie
wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her lavender dressinggown and sat down
beside Ellen on the trunk.
“Look dear,” said Ellen gently. “Suppose you wait just a second, I’m
going to telephone for a taxi. I want to make a getaway before Jojo’s
up. I’m sick of big scenes.” The hall smelled stuffily of sleep and
massagecream. Ellen talked very low into the receiver. The gruff man’s
voice at the garage growled pleasantly in her ears. “Sure right away
miss.” She tiptoed springily back into the room and closed the door.
“I thought he loved me, honestly I did Elaine. Oh men are so dweadful.
Morris was angwy because I wouldn’t live with him. I think it would be
wicked. I’d work my fingers to the bone for him, he knows that. Havent
I been doing it two years? He said he couldnt go on unless he had me
weally, you know what he meant, and I said our love was so beautiful
it could go on for years and years. I could love him for a lifetime
without even kissing him. Dont you think love should be pure? And then
he made fun of my dancing and said I was Chalif’s mistwess and just
kidding him along and we quaweled dweadfully and he called me dweadful
names and went away and said he’d never come back.”
“Dont worry about that Cassie, he’ll come back all right.”
“No but you’re so material, Elaine. I mean spiwitually our union is
bwoken forever. Cant you see there was this beautiful divine spiwitual
thing between us and it’s bwoken.” She began to sob again with her face
pressed into Ellen’s shoulder.
“But Cassie I dont see what fun you get out of it all?”
“Oh you dont understand. You’re too young. I was like you at first
except that I wasnt mawied and didnt wun awound with men. But now I
want spiwitual beauty. I want to get it through my dancing and my life,
I want beauty everywhere and I thought Morris wanted it.”
“But Morris evidently did.”
“Oh Elaine you’re howid, and I love you so much.”
Ellen got to her feet. “I’m going to run downstairs so that the taximan
wont ring the bell.”
“But you cant go like this.”
“You just watch me.” Ellen gathered up the bundle of books in one hand
and in the other carried the black leather dressingcase. “Look Cassie
will you be a dear and show him the trunk when he comes up to get
it.... And one other thing, when Stan Emery calls up tell him to call
me at the Brevoort or at the Lafayette. Thank goodness I didnt deposit
my money last week.... And Cassie if you find any little odds and ends
of mine around you just keep em.... Goodby.” She lifted her veil and
kissed Cassie quickly on the cheeks.
“Oh how can you be so bwave as to go away all alone like this....
You’ll let Wuth and me come down to see you wont you? We’re so fond of
you. Oh Elaine you’re going to have a wonderful career, I know you are.”
“And promise not to tell Jojo where I am.... He’ll find out soon
enough anyway.... I’ll call him up in a week.”
She found the taxidriver in the hall looking at the names above the
pushbuttons. He went up to fetch her trunk. She settled herself
happily on the dusty buff seat of the taxi, taking deep breaths of the
riversmelling morning air. The taxidriver smiled roundly at her when he
had let the trunk slide off his back onto the dashboard.
“Pretty heavy, miss.”
“It’s a shame you had to carry it all alone.”
“Oh I kin carry heavier’n ’at.”
“I want to go to the Hotel Brevoort, Fifth Avenue at about Eighth
Street.”
When he leaned to crank the car the man pushed his hat back on his head
letting ruddy curly hair out over his eyes. “All right I’ll take you
anywhere you like,” he said as he hopped into his seat in the jiggling
car. When they turned down into the very empty sunlight of Broadway a
feeling of happiness began to sizzle and soar like rockets inside her.
The air beat fresh, thrilling in her face. The taxidriver talked back
at her through the open window.
“I thought yous was catchin a train to go away somewhere, miss.”
“Well I am going away somewhere.”
“It’d be a foine day to be goin away somewhere.”
“I’m going away from my husband.” The words popped out of her mouth
before she could stop them.
“Did he trow you out?”
“No I cant say he did that,” she said laughing.
“My wife trun me out tree weeks ago.”
“How was that?”
“Locked de door when I came home one night an wouldnt let me in. She’d
had the lock changed when I was out workin.”
“That’s a funny thing to do.”
“She says I git slopped too often. I aint goin back to her an I aint
goin to support her no more.... She can put me in jail if she likes.
I’m troo. I’m gettin an apartment on Twentysecond Avenoo wid another
feller an we’re goin to git a pianer an live quiet an lay offen the
skoits.”
“Matrimony isnt much is it?”
“You said it. What leads up to it’s all right, but gettin married is
loike de mornin after.”
Fifth Avenue was white and empty and swept by a sparkling wind. The
trees in Madison Square were unexpectedly bright green like ferns in
a dun room. At the Brevoort a sleepy French nightporter carried her
baggage. In the low whitepainted room the sunlight drowsed on a faded
crimson armchair. Ellen ran about the room like a small child kicking
her heels and clapping her hands. With pursed lips and tilted head she
arranged her toilet things on the bureau. Then she hung her yellow
nightgown on a chair and undressed, caught sight of herself in the
mirror, stood naked looking at herself with her hands on her tiny firm
appleshaped breasts.
She pulled on her nightgown and went to the phone. “Please send up a
pot of chocolate and rolls to 108 ... as soon as you can please.” Then
she got into bed. She lay laughing with her legs stretched wide in the
cool slippery sheets.
Hairpins were sticking into her head. She sat up and pulled them all
out and shook the heavy coil of her hair down about her shoulders. She
drew her knees up to her chin and sat thinking. From the street she
could hear the occasional rumble of a truck. In the kitchens below her
room a sound of clattering had begun. From all around came a growing
rumble of traffic beginning. She felt hungry and alone. The bed was
a raft on which she was marooned alone, always alone, afloat on a
growling ocean. A shudder went down her spine. She drew her knees up
closer to her chin.
III. Nine Day’s Wonder
_The sun’s moved to Jersey, the sun’s behind Hoboken._
_Covers are clicking on typewriters, rolltop desks are
closing; elevators go up empty, come down jammed. It’s
ebbtide in the downtown district, flood in Flatbush,
Woodlawn, Dyckman Street, Sheepshead Bay, New Lots Avenue,
Canarsie._
_Pink sheets, green sheets, gray sheets, FULL MARKET
REPORTS, FINALS ON HAVRE DE GRACE. Print squirms among the
shopworn officeworn sagging faces, sore fingertips, aching
insteps, strongarm men cram into subway expresses. SENATORS
8, GIANTS 2, DIVA RECOVERS PEARLS, $800,000 ROBBERY._
_It’s ebbtide on Wall Street, floodtide in the Bronx._
_The sun’s gone down in Jersey._
“Godamighty,” shouted Phil Sandbourne and pounded with his fist on the
desk, “I don’t think so.... A man’s morals arent anybody’s business.
It’s his work that counts.”
“Well?”
“Well I think Stanford White has done more for the city of New York
that any other man living. Nobody knew there was such a thing as
architecture before he came.... And to have this Thaw shoot him down in
cold blood and then get away with it.... By gad if the people of this
town had the spirit of guineapigs they’d----”
“Phil you’re getting all excited over nothing.” The other man took his
cigar out of his mouth and leaned back in his swivel chair and yawned.
“Oh hell I want a vacation. Golly it’ll be good to get out in those old
Maine woods again.”
“What with Jew lawyers and Irish judges ...” spluttered Phil.
“Aw pull the chain, old man.”
“A fine specimen of a public-spirited citizen you are Hartly.”
Hartly laughed and rubbed the palm of his hand over his bald head. “Oh
that stuff’s all right in winter, but I cant go it in summer.... Hell
all I live for is three weeks’ vacation anyway. What do I care if all
the architects in New York get bumped off as long as it dont raise the
price of commutation to New Rochelle.... Let’s go eat.” As they went
down in the elevator Phil went on talking: “The only other man I ever
knew who was really a born in the bone architect was ole Specker, the
feller I worked for when I first came north, a fine old Dane he was
too. Poor devil died o cancer two years ago. Man, he was an architect.
I got a set of plans and specifications home for what he called a
communal building.... Seventyfive stories high stepped back in terraces
with a sort of hanging garden on every floor, hotels, theaters, Turkish
baths, swimming pools, department stores, heating plant, refrigerating
and market space all in the same buildin.”
“Did he eat coke?”
“No siree he didnt.”
They were walking east along Thirtyfourth Street, sparse of people in
the sultry midday. “Gad,” burst out Phil Sandbourne, suddenly. “The
girls in this town get prettier every year. Like these new fashions, do
you?”
“Sure. All I wish is that I was gettin younger every year instead of
older.”
“Yes about all us old fellers can do is watch em go past.”
“That’s fortunate for us or we’d have our wives out after us with
bloodhounds.... Man when I think of those mighthavebeens!”
As they crossed Fifth Avenue Phil caught sight of a girl in a taxicab.
From under the black brim of a little hat with a red cockade in it two
gray eyes flash green black into his. He swallowed his breath. The
traffic roars dwindled into distance. She shant take her eyes away.
Two steps and open the door and sit beside her, beside her slenderness
perched like a bird on the seat. Driver drive to beat hell. Her lips
are pouting towards him, her eyes flutter gray caught birds. “Hay look
out....” A pouncing iron rumble crashes down on him from behind. Fifth
Avenue spins in red blue purple spirals. O Kerist. “That’s all right,
let me be. I’ll get up myself in a minute.” “Move along there. Git
back there.” Braying voices, blue pillars of policemen. His back, his
legs are all warm gummy with blood. Fifth Avenue throbs with loudening
pain. A little bell jinglejangling nearer. As they lift him into the
ambulance Fifth Avenue shrieks to throttling agony and bursts. He
cranes his neck to see her, weakly, like a terrapin on its back; didnt
my eyes snap steel traps on her? He finds himself whimpering. She might
have stayed to see if I was killed. The jinglejangling bell dwindles
fainter, fainter into the night.
* * * * *