travels.... Maybe it’ll make you induce some of your little playmates
down at Tammany Hall to stop squabbling and give us wageslaves a little
transportation.... cristamighty I could tell em a thing or two.... My
idea’s for a series of endless moving platforms under Fifth Avenue.”
“Did you cook that up when you were in hospital Phil?”
“I cooked a whole lot of things up while I was in hospital.”
“Look here lets get out at Grand Central and walk. I cant stand
this.... I’m not used to it.”
“Sure ... I’ll phone Elsie I’ll be a little late to dinner.... Not
often I get to see you nowadays George ... Gee it’s like the old days.”
In a tangled clot of men and women, arms, legs, hats aslant on
perspiring necks, they were pushed out on the platform. They walked up
Lexington Avenue quiet in the claretmisted afterglow.
“But Phil how did you come to step out in front of a truck that way?”
“Honestly George I dunno.... The last I remember is craning my neck to
look at a terribly pretty girl went by in a taxicab and there I was
drinking icewater out of a teapot in the hospital.”
“Shame on you Phil at your age.”
“Cristamighty dont I know it? But I’m not the only one.”
“It is funny the way a thing like that comes over you.... Why what have
you heard about me?”
“Gosh George dont get nervous, it’s all right.... I’ve seen her in The
Zinnia Girl.... She walks away with it. That other girl who’s the star
dont have a show.”
“Look here Phil if you hear any rumors about Miss Oglethorpe for
Heaven’s sake shut them up. It’s so damn silly you cant go out to tea
with a woman without everybody starting their dirty gabble all over
town.... By God I will not have a scandal, I dont care what happens.”
“Say hold your horses George.”
“I’m in a very delicate position downtown just at the moment that’s
all.... And then Cecily and I have at last reached a modus vivendi....
I wont have it disturbed.”
They walked along in silence.
Sandbourne walked with his hat in his hand. His hair was almost white
but his eyebrows were still dark and bushy. Every few steps he changed
the length of his stride as if it hurt him to walk. He cleared his
throat. “George you were asking me if I’d cooked up any schemes when I
was in hospital.... Do you remember years ago old man Specker used to
talk about vitreous and superenameled tile? Well I’ve been workin on
his formula out at Hollis.... A friend of mine there has a two thousand
degree oven he bakes pottery in. I think it can be put on a commercial
basis.... Man it would revolutionize the whole industry. Combined with
concrete it would enormously increase the flexibility of the materials
at the architects’ disposal. We could make tile any color, size or
finish.... Imagine this city when all the buildins instead of bein
dirty gray were ornamented with vivid colors. Imagine bands of scarlet
round the entablatures of skyscrapers. Colored tile would revolutionize
the whole life of the city.... Instead of fallin back on the orders or
on gothic or romanesque decorations we could evolve new designs, new
colors, new forms. If there was a little color in the town all this
hardshell inhibited life’d break down.... There’d be more love an less
divorce....”
Baldwin burst out laughing. “You tell em Phil.... I’ll talk to you
about that sometime. You must come up to dinner when Cecily’s there and
tell us about it.... Why wont Parkhurst do anything?”
“I wouldnt let him in on it. He’d cotton on to the proposition and
leave me out in the cold once he had the formula. I wouldn’t trust him
with a rubber nickel.”
“Why doesnt he take you into partnership Phil?”
“He’s got me where he wants me anyway.... He knows I do all the work in
his goddamned office. He knows too that I’m too cranky to make out with
most people. He’s a slick article.”
“Still I should think you could put it up to him.”
“He’s got me where he wants me and he knows it, so I continue doin the
work while he amasses the coin.... I guess it’s logical. If I had more
money I’d just spend it. I’m just shiftless.”
“But look here man you’re not so much older than I am.... You’ve still
got a career ahead of you.”
“Sure nine hours a day draftin.... Gosh I wish you’d go into this tile
business with me.”
Baldwin stopped at a corner and slapped his hand on the briefcase he
was carrying. “Now Phil you know I’d be very glad to give you a hand
in any way I could.... But just at the moment my financial situation
is terribly involved. I’ve gotten into some rather rash entanglements
and Heaven knows how I’m going to get out of them.... That’s why I
cant have a scandal or a divorce or anything. You dont understand how
complicatedly things interact.... I couldnt take up anything new, not
for a year at least. This war in Europe has made things very unsettled
downtown. Anything’s liable to happen.”
“All right. Good night George.”
Sandbourne turned abruptly on his heel and walked down the avenue
again. He was tired and his legs ached. It was almost dark. On the way
back to the station the grimy brick and brownstone blocks dragged past
monotonously like the days of his life.
Under the skin of her temples iron clamps tighten till her head will
mash like an egg; she begins to walk with long strides up and down the
room that bristles with itching stuffiness; spotty colors of pictures,
carpets, chairs wrap about her like a choking hot blanket. Outside
the window the backyards are striped with blue and lilac and topaz
of a rainy twilight. She opens the window. No time to get tight like
the twilight, Stan said. The telephone reached out shivering beady
tentacles of sound. She slams the window down. O hell cant they give
you any peace?
“Why Harry I didnt know you were back.... Oh I wonder if I can....
Oh yes I guess I can. Come along by after the theater.... Isnt that
wonderful? You must tell me all about it.” She no sooner puts the
receiver down than the bell clutches at her again. “Hello.... No I
dont.... Oh yes maybe I do.... When did you get back?” She laughed
a tinkling telephone laugh. “But Howard I’m terribly busy.... Yes I
am honestly.... Have you been to the show? Well sometime come round
after a performance.... I’m so anxious to hear about your trip ... you
know ... Goodby Howard.”
A walk’ll make me feel better. She sits at her dressingtable and shakes
her hair down about her shoulders. “It’s such a hellish nuisance, I’d
like to cut it all off ... spreads apace. The shadow of white Death....
Oughtnt to stay up so late, those dark circles under my eyes.... And
at the door, Invisible Corruption.... If I could only cry; there are
people who can cry their eyes out, really cry themselves blind ...
Anyway the divorce’ll go through....”
Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng
Whose sails were never to the tempest given
Gosh it’s six o’clock already. She starts walking up and down the room
again. I am borne darkly fearfully afar.... The phone rings. “Hello....
Yes this is Miss Oglethorpe.... Why hello Ruth, why I haven’t seen you
for ages, since Mrs. Sunderland’s.... Oh, do I’d love to see you. Come
by and we’ll have a bite to eat on the way to the theater.... It’s the
third floor.”
She rings off and gets a raincape out of a closet. The smell of furs
and mothballs and dresses clings in her nostrils. She throws up the
window again and breathes deep of the wet air full of the cold rot of
autumn. She hears the burring boom of a big steamer from the river.
Darkly, fearfully afar from this nonsensical life, from this fuzzy
idiocy and strife; a man can take a ship for his wife, but a girl. The
telephone is shiveringly beadily ringing, ringing.
The buzzer burrs at the same time. Ellen presses the button to click
the latch. “Hello.... No, I’m very sorry I’m afraid you’ll have to
tell me who it is. Why Larry Hopkins I thought you were in Tokyo....
They havent moved you again have they? Why of course we must see each
other.... My dear it’s simply horrible but I’m all dated up for two
weeks.... Look I’m sort of crazy tonight. You call up tomorrow at
twelve and I’ll try to shift things around.... Why of course I’ve
got to see you immediately you funny old thing.” ... Ruth Prynne and
Cassandra Wilkins come in shaking the water off their umbrellas. “Well
goodby Larry.... Why it’s so so sweet of both of you.... Do take your
things off for a second.... Cassie wont you have dinner with us?”
“I felt I just had to see you.... It’s so wonderful about your
wonderful success,” says Cassie in a shaky voice. “And my dear I felt
so terribly when I heard about Mr. Emery. I cried and cried, didnt I
Ruth?”
“Oh what a beautiful apartment you have,” Ruth is exclaiming at the
same moment. Ellen’s ears ring sickeningly. “We all have to die
sometime,” gruffly she blurts out.
Ruth’s rubberclad foot is tapping the floor; she catches Cassie’s eye
and makes her stammer into silence. “Hadnt we better go along? It’s
getting rather late,” she says.
“Excuse me a minute Ruth.” Ellen runs into the bathroom and slams the
door. She sits on the edge of the bathtub pounding on her knees with
her clenched fists. Those women’ll drive me mad. Then the tension in
her snaps, she feels something draining out of her like water out of a
washbasin. She quietly puts a dab of rouge on her lips.
When she goes back she says in her usual voice: “Well let’s get
along.... Got a part yet Ruth?”
“I had a chance to go out to Detroit with a stock company. I turned it
down.... I wont go out of New York whatever happens.”
“What wouldnt I give for a chance to get away from New York....
Honestly if I was offered a job singing in a movie in Medicine Hat I
think I’d take it.”
Ellen picks up her umbrella and the three women file down the stairs
and out into the street. “Taxi,” calls Ellen.
The passing car grinds to a stop. The red hawk face of the taxidriver
craning into the light of the street lamp. “Go to Eugenie’s on
Fortyeighth Street,” says Ellen as the others climb in. Greenish lights
and darks flicker past the lightbeaded windows.
* * * * *
She stood with her arm in the arm of Harry Goldweiser’s dinner jacket
looking out over the parapet of the roofgarden. Below them the Park lay
twinkling with occasional lights, streaked with nebular blur like a
fallen sky. From behind them came gusts of a tango, inklings of voices,
shuffle of feet on a dancefloor. Ellen felt a stiff castiron figure in
her metalgreen evening dress.
“Ah but Boirnhardt, Rachel, Duse, Mrs. Siddons.... No Elaine I’m tellin
you, d’you understand? There’s no art like the stage that soars so high
moldin the passions of men.... If I could only do what I wanted we’d
be the greatest people in the world. You’d be the greatest actress....
I’d be the great producer, the unseen builder, d’you understand? But
the public dont want art, the people of this country wont let you do
anythin for em. All they want’s a detective melodrama or a rotten
French farce with the kick left out or a lot of pretty girls and
music. Well a showman’s business is to give the public what they want.”
“I think that this city is full of people wanting inconceivable
things.... Look at it.”
“It’s all right at night when you cant see it. There’s no artistic
sense, no beautiful buildins, no old-time air, that’s what’s the matter
with it.”
They stood a while without speaking. The orchestra began playing the
waltz from The Lilac Domino. Suddenly Ellen turned to Goldweiser and
said in a curt tone. “Can you understand a woman who wants to be a
harlot, a common tart, sometimes?”
“My dear young lady what a strange thing for a sweet lovely girl to
suddenly come out and say.”
“I suppose you’re shocked.” She didnt hear his answer. She felt she was
going to cry. She pressed her sharp nails into the palms of her hands,
she held her breath until she had counted twenty. Then she said in a
choking little girl’s voice, “Harry let’s go and dance a little.”
The sky above the cardboard buildings is a vault of beaten lead. It
would be less raw if it would snow. Ellen finds a taxi on the corner
of Seventh Avenue and lets herself sink back in the seat rubbing the
numb gloved fingers of one hand against the palm of the other. “West
Fiftyseventh, please.” Out of a sick mask of fatigue she watches
fruitstores, signs, buildings being built, trucks, girls, messengerboys
policemen through the jolting window. If I have my child, Stan’s
child, it will grow up to jolt up Seventh Avenue under a sky of beaten
lead that never snows watching fruitstores, signs, buildings being
built, trucks, girls, messengerboys, policemen.... She presses her
knees together sits up straight on the edge of the seat with her hands
clasped over her slender belly. O God the rotten joke they’ve played
on me, taking Stan away, burning him up, leaving me nothing but this
growing in me that’s going to kill me. She’s whimpering into her numb
hands. O God why wont it snow?
As she stands on the gray pavement fumbling in her purse for a bill, a
dusteddy swirling scraps of paper along the gutter fills her mouth with
grit. The elevatorman’s face is round ebony with ivory inlay. “Mrs.
Staunton Wells?” “Yas ma’am eighth floor.”
The elevator hums as it soars. She stands looking at herself in the
narrow mirror. Suddenly something recklessly gay goes through her. She
rubs the dust off her face with a screwedup handkerchief, smiles at the
elevatorman’s smile that’s wide as the full keyboard of a piano, and
briskly rustles to the door of the apartment that a frilled maid opens.
Inside it smells of tea and furs and flowers, women’s voices chirp to
the clinking of cups like birds in an aviary. Glances flicker about her
head as she goes into the room.
* * * * *
There was wine spilled on the tablecloth and bits of tomatosauce from
the spaghetti. The restaurant was a steamy place with views of the Bay
of Naples painted in soupy blues and greens on the walls. Ellen sat
back in her chair from the round tableful of young men, watching the
smoke from her cigarette crinkle spirally round the fat Chiantibottle
in front of her. In her plate a slab of tricolor icecream melted
forlornly. “But good God hasnt a man some rights? No, this industrial
civilization forces us to seek a complete readjustment of government
and social life ...”
“Doesnt he use long words?” Ellen whispered to Herf who sat beside her.
“He’s right all the same,” he growled back at her.... “The result has
been to put more power in the hands of a few men than there has been
in the history of the world since the horrible slave civilizations of
Egypt and Mesopotamia....”
“Hear hear.”
“No but I’m serious.... The only way of bucking the interests is for
working people, the proletariat, producers and consumers, anything you
want to call them, to form unions and finally get so well organized
that they can take over the whole government.”
“I think you’re entirely wrong, Martin, it’s the interests as you call
em, these horrible capitalists, that have built up this country as we
have it today.”
“Well look at it for God’s sake.... That’s what I’m saying. I wouldnt
kennel a dog in it.”
“I dont think so. I admire this country.... It’s the only fatherland
I’ve got.... And I think that all these downtrodden masses really want
to be downtrodden, they’re not fit for anything else.... If they werent
they’d be flourishing businessmen ... Those that are any good are
getting to be.”
“But I don’t think a flourishing businessman is the highest ideal of
human endeavor.”
“A whole lot higher than a rotten fiddleheaded anarchist agitator....
Those that arent crooks are crazy.”
“Look here Mead, you’ve just insulted something that you dont
understand, that you know nothing about.... I cant allow you to do
that.... You should try to understand things before you go round
insulting them.”
“An insult to the intelligence that’s what it is all this socialistic
drivel.”
Ellen tapped Herf on the sleeve. “Jimmy I’ve got to go home. Do you
want to walk a little way with me?”
“Martin, will you settle for us? We’ve got to go.... Ellie you look
terribly pale.”
“It’s just a little hot in here.... Whee, what a relief.... I hate
arguments anyway. I never can think of anything to say.”
“That bunch does nothing but chew the rag night after night.”
Eighth Avenue was full of fog that caught at their throats. Lights
bloomed dimly through it, faces loomed, glinted in silhouette and faded
like a fish in a muddy aquarium.
“Feel better Ellie?”
“Lots.”
“I’m awfully glad.”
“Do you know you’re the only person around here who calls me Ellie. I
like it.... Everybody tries to make me seem so grown up since I’ve been
on the stage.”
“Stan used to.”
“Maybe that’s why I like it,” she said in a little trailing voice like
a cry heard at night from far away along a beach.
Jimmy felt something clamping his throat. “Oh gosh things are rotten,”
he said. “God I wish I could blame it all on capitalism the way Martin
does.”
“It’s pleasant walking like this ... I love a fog.”
They walked on without speaking. Wheels rumbled through the muffling
fog underlaid with the groping distant lowing of sirens and steamboat
whistles on the river.
“But at least you have a career.... You like your work, you’re
enormously successful,” said Herf at the corner of Fourteenth Street,
and caught her arm as they crossed.
“Dont say that.... You really dont believe it. I dont kid myself as
much as you think I do.”
“No but it’s so.”
“It used to be before I met Stan, before I loved him.... You see I
was a crazy little stagestruck kid who got launched out in a lot of
things I didnt understand before I had time to learn anything about
life.... Married at eighteen and divorced at twentytwo’s a pretty good
record.... But Stan was so wonderful....”
“I know.”
“Without ever saying anything he made me feel there were other things
... unbelievable things....”
“God I resent his craziness though.... It’s such a waste.”
“I cant talk about it.”
“Let’s not.”
“Jimmy you’re the only person left I can really talk to.”
“Dont want to trust me. I might go berserk on you too some day.”
They laughed.
“God I’m glad I’m not dead, arent you Ellie?”
“I dont know. Look here’s my place. I dont want you to come up.... I’m
going right to bed. I feel miserably....” Jimmy stood with his hat off
looking at her. She was fumbling in her purse for her key. “Look Jimmy
I might as well tell you....” She went up to him and spoke fast with
her face turned away pointing at him with the latchkey that caught the
light of the streetlamp. The fog was like a tent round about them. “I’m
going to have a baby.... Stan’s baby. I’m going to give up all this
silly life and raise it. I dont care what happens.”
“O God that’s the bravest thing I ever heard of a woman doing.... Oh
Ellie you’re so wonderful. God if I could only tell you what I....”
“Oh no.” Her voice broke and her eyes filled with tears. “I’m a silly
fool, that’s all.” She screwed up her face like a little child and ran
up the steps with the tears streaming down her face.
“Oh Ellie I want to say something to you ...”
The door closed behind her.
Jimmy Herf stood stockstill at the foot of the brownstone steps. His
temples throbbed. He wanted to break the door down after her. He
dropped on his knees and kissed the step where she had stood. The fog
swirled and flickered with colors in confetti about him. Then the
trumpet feeling ebbed and he was falling through a black manhole. He
stood stockstill. A policeman’s ballbearing eyes searched his face as
he passed, a stout blue column waving a nightstick. Then suddenly he
clenched his fists and walked off. “O God everything is hellish,” he
said aloud. He wiped the grit off his lips with his coatsleeve.
* * * * *
She puts her hand in his to jump out of the roadster as the ferry
starts, “Thanks Larry,” and follows his tall ambling body out on the
bow. A faint riverwind blows the dust and gasoline out of their
nostrils. Through the pearly night the square frames of houses along
the Drive opposite flicker like burnedout fireworks. The waves slap
tinily against the shoving bow of the ferry. A hunchback with a violin
is scratching Marianela.
“Nothing succeeds like success,” Larry is saying in a deep droning
voice.
“Oh if you knew how little I cared about anything just now you wouldnt
go on teasing me with all these words.... You know, marriage, success,
love, they’re just words.”
“But they mean everything in the world to me.... I think you’d like it
in Lima Elaine.... I waited until you were free, didnt I? And now here
I am.”
“We’re none of us that ever.... But I’m just numb.” The riverwind is
brackish. Along the viaduct above 125th Street cars crawl like beetles.
As the ferry enters the slip they hear the squudge and rumble of wheels
on asphalt.
“Well we’d better get back into the car, you wonderful creature Elaine.”
“After all day it’s exciting isnt it Larry, getting back into the
center of things.”
* * * * *
Beside the smudged white door are two pushbuttons marked NIGHT BELL
and DAY BELL. She rings with a shaky finger. A short broad man with a
face like a rat and sleek black hair brushed straight back opens. Short
dollhands the color of the flesh of a mushroom hang at his sides. He
hunches his shoulders in a bow.
“Are you the lady? Come in.”
“Is this Dr. Abrahms?”
“Yes.... You are the lady my friend phoned me about. Sit down my dear
lady.” The office smells of something like arnica. Her heart joggles
desperately between her ribs.
“You understand ...” She hates the quaver in her voice; she’s going to
faint. “You understand, Dr. Abrahms that it is absolutely necessary. I
am getting a divorce from my husband and have to make my own living.”
“Very young, unhappily married ... I am sorry.” The doctor purrs softly
as if to himself. He heaves a hissing sigh and suddenly looks in her
eyes with black steel eyes like gimlets. “Do not be afraid, dear lady,
it is a very simple operation.... Are you ready now?”
“Yes. It wont take very long will it? If I can pull myself together I
have an engagement for tea at five.”
“You are a brave young lady. In an hour it will be forgotten.... I am
sorry.... It is very sad such a thing is necessary.... Dear lady you
should have a home and many children and a loving husband ... Will you
go in the operating room and prepare yourself.... I work without an
assistant.”
The bright searing bud of light swells in the center of the ceiling,
sprays razorsharp nickel, enamel, a dazzling sharp glass case of sharp
instruments. She takes off her hat and lets herself sink shuddering
sick on a little enamel chair. Then she gets stiffly to her feet and
undoes the band of her skirt.
The roar of the streets breaks like surf about a shell of throbbing
agony. She watches the tilt of her leather hat, the powder, the rosed
cheeks, the crimson lips that are a mask on her face. All the buttons
of her gloves are buttoned. She raises her hand. “Taxi!” A fire engine
roars past, a hosewagon with sweatyfaced men pulling on rubber coats,
a clanging hookandladder. All the feeling in her fades with the dizzy
fade of the siren. A wooden Indian, painted, with a hand raised at the
streetcorner.
“Taxi!”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Drive to the Ritz.”
_Third Section_
I. Rejoicing City That Dwelt Carelessly
_There are flags on all the flagpoles up Fifth Avenue. In
the shrill wind of history the great flags flap and tug at
their lashings on the creaking goldknobbed poles up Fifth
Avenue. The stars jiggle sedately against the slate sky,
the red and white stripes writhe against the clouds._
_In the gale of brassbands and trampling horses and
rumbling clatter of cannon, shadows like the shadows of
claws grasp at the taut flags, the flags are hungry tongues
licking twisting curling._
Oh it’s a long way to Tipperary ... Over there! Over there!
_The harbor is packed with zebrastriped skunkstriped
piebald steamboats, the Narrows are choked with bullion,
they’re piling gold sovereigns up to the ceilings in the
Subtreasury. Dollars whine on the radio, all the cables tap
out dollars._
There’s a long long trail awinding ... Over there! Over there!
_In the subway their eyes pop as they spell out_
APOCALYPSE, _typhus, cholera, shrapnel, insurrection, death
in fire, death in water, death in hunger, death in mud._