The rain mutters in the night and the pavements like dark mirrors are
alive with impressionistic cartoons of the city. The little, silent street
with its darkened store windows and rain-veiled arc lamps is as lonely as
a far-away train whistle.
Over the darkened stores are stone and wooden flat buildings. Here, too,
the lights have gone out. People sleep. The rain falls. The gleaming
pavements amuse themselves with reflections.
I have an hour to wait. From the musty smelling hallway where I stand the
scene is like an old print--an old London print--that I have always meant
to buy and put in a frame but have never found.
* * * * *
Writing about people when one is alone under an electric lamp, and
thinking about people when one stands watching the rain in the dark
streets, are two different diversions. When one writes under an electric
lamp one pompously marshals ideas; one remembers the things people say and
do and believe in, and slowly these things replace people in one's mind.
One thinks (in the calm of one's study): "So-and-so is a Puritan ... he is
viciously afraid of anything which will disturb the idealized version of
himself in which he believes--and wants other people to believe...." Yes,
one thinks So-and-so is this and So-and-so is that. And it all seems very
simple. People focus into clearly outlined ideas--definitions. And one can
sit back and belabor them, hamstring them, pull their noses, expose their
absurdities and derive a deal of satisfaction from the process. Iconoclasm
is easy and warming under an electric light in one's study.
But in the rain at night, in the dark street staring at darkened windows,
watching the curious reflections in the pavements--it is different in the
rain. The night mutters and whispers.
"People," one thinks, "tired, silent people sleeping in the dark."
Ideas do not come so easily or so clearly. The ennobling angers which are
the emotion of superiority in the iconoclast do not rise so spontaneously.
And one does not say "People are this and people are that...." No, one
pauses and stares at the dark chatter of the rain and a curious silence
saddens one's mind.
Life is apart from ideas. And the things that people say and believe in
and for which they die and in behalf of which they invent laws and
codes--these have nothing to do with the insides of people. Puritan,
hypocrite, criminal, dolt--these are paper-thin masks. It is diverting to
rip them in the calm of one's study.
Life that warms the trees into green in the summer, that sends birds
circling through the air, that spreads a tender, passionate glow over even
the most barren wastes--people are but one of its almost too many
children. The dark, the rain, the lights, people asleep in bed, the wind,
the snow that will fall tomorrow, the ice, flowers, sunlight, country
roads, pavements and stars--all these are the same. Through all of them
life sends its intimate and sacred breath.
One becomes aware of such curious facts in the rain at night and one's
iconoclasm, like a broken umbrella, hangs useless from one's hand.
Tomorrow these people who are now asleep will be stirring, giving vent to
outrageous ideas, championing incredulous banalities, prostrating
themselves before imbecile superstitions. Tomorrow they will rise and
begin forthwith to lie, quibble, cheat, steal, fourflush and kill, each
and all inspired by the solacing monomania that every one of their words
and gestures is a credible variant of perfection. Yes, tomorrow they will
be as they were yesterday.
But in this rain at night they rest from their perfections, they lay aside
for a few hours their paper masks. And one can contemplate them with a
curious absence of indignation or criticism. There is something warm and
intimate about the vision of many people sleeping in the beds above the
darkened store fronts of this little street. Their bodies have been in the
world so long--almost as long as the stones out of which their houses are
made. So many things have happened to them, so many debacles and monsters
and horrors have swept them off their feet ... and always they have kept
on--persisting through floods, volcanic eruptions, plagues and wars.
Heroic and incredible people. Endlessly belaboring themselves with ideas,
gods, taboos, and philosophies. Yet here they are, still in this silent
little street. The world has grown old. Trees have decayed and races died
out. But here above the darkened store fronts lies the perpetual
miracle.... People in whom life streams as naïve and intimate as ever.
* * * * *
Yes, it is to life and not people one makes one's obeisance. Toward life
no iconoclasm is possible, for even that which is in opposition to its
beauty and horror must of necessity be a part of them.
It rains. The arc lamps gleam through the monotonous downpour. One can
only stand and dream ... how charming people are since they are alive ...
how charming the rain is and the night.... And how foolish arguments are
... how banal are these cerebral monsters who pose as iconoclasts and
devote themselves grandiloquently and inanely to disturbing the paper
masks....
* * * * *
I walk away from the musty smelling hallway. A dog steps tranquilly out of
the shadows nearby. He surveys the street and the rain with a proprietary
calm.
It would be amusing to walk in the rain with a strange dog. I whistle
softly and reassuringly to him. He pauses and turns his head toward me,
surveying me with an air of vague discomfort. What do I want of him? ...
he thinks ... who am I? ... have I any authority? ... what will happen to
him if he doesn't obey the whistle?
Thus he stands hestitating. Perhaps, too, I will give him shelter, a
kindness never to be despised. A moment ago, before I whistled, this dog
was tranquil and happy in the rain. Now he has changed. He turns fully
around and approaches me, a slight cringe in his walk. The tranquillity
has left him. At the sound of my whistle he has grown suddenly tired and
lonely and the night and rain no longer lure him. He has found another
companionship.
And so together we walk for a distance, this dog and I, wondering about
each other....