When he had shaved (with particular care) and changed his linen
(trimming collar and cuffs to a degree of uncommon nicety) and resumed
his coat (brushing and hating it simultaneously and with equal
ferocity, for its very shabbiness) P. Sybarite sought out a pipe old
and disreputable enough to be a comfort to any man, and sat down by
the one window of his room (top floor, hall, back) to smoke and
consider the state of the universe while awaiting the dinner gong.
The window commanded an elevated if non-exhilarating view of back
yards, one and all dank, dismal, and littered with the débris of a
long, hard winter. Familiarity, however, had rendered P. Sybarite
immune to the miasma of melancholy they exhaled; the trouble in his
patient blue eyes, the wrinkles that lined his forehead, owned another
cause.
In fact, George had wrought more disastrously upon his temper than P.
Sybarite had let him see. His hints, innuendoes, and downright
assertions had in reality distilled a subtle poison into the little
man's humour. For in spite of his embattled incredulity and the clear
reasoning with which he had overborne George's futile insistence,
there still lingered in his mind (and always would, until he knew the
truth himself) a carking doubt.
Perhaps it was true. Perhaps George had guessed shrewdly. Perhaps
Molly Lessing of the glove counter really was one and the same with
Marian Blessington of the fabulous fortune.
Old Brian Shaynon was a known devil of infinite astuteness; it would
be quite consistent with his character and past performances if,
despairing of gaining control of his ward's money by urging her into
unwelcome matrimony with his son, he had contrived to over-reach her
in some manner, and so driven her to become self-supporting.
Perhaps hardly likely: the hypothesis was none the less quite
plausible; a thing had happened, within P. Sybarite's knowledge of
Brian Shaynon....
Even if George's romance were true only in part, these were wretched
circumstances for a girl of gentle birth and rearing to adopt. It was
really a shocking boarding-house. P. Sybarite had known it intimately
for ten years; use had made him callous to its shortcomings; but he
was not yet so far gone that he could forget how unwholesome and
depressing it must seem to one accustomed to better things. He could
remember most vividly how he had loathed it for weeks, months, and
years after the tide of evil fortunes had cast him upon its crumbling
brownstone stoop (even in that distant day, crumbling).
Now, however ... P. Sybarite realised suddenly that habit had
instilled into his bosom a sort of mean affection for the grim and
sordid place. Time had made him sib to its spirit, close to its
niggard heart. Scarcely a nook or corner of it with which he was not
on terms of the most intimate acquaintance. In the adjoining room a
deserted woman had died by her own hand; her moans, filtered through
the dividing wall, had summoned P. Sybarite--too late. The double
front room on the same floor harboured an amiable couple whose
sempiternal dissensions only his tact and persistence ever served to
still. The other hall-bedroom had housed for many years a dipsomaniac
whose periodic orgies had cost P. Sybarite many a night of bedside
vigil. On the floor below lived a maiden lady whose quenchless hopes
still centred about his amiable person. Downstairs in the clammy
parlour he had whiled away unnumbered hours assisting at dreary
"bridge drives," or playing audience to amateur recitals on the aged
and decrepit "family organ." For an entire decade he had occupied the
same chair at the same table in the basement dining-room, feasting on
beef, mutton, Irish stew, ham-and-beans, veal, pork, or
just-hash--according to the designated day of the week....
The very room in which he sat was somehow dear to him; upon it he
wasted a sentiment in a way akin to that with which one regards the
grave of a beloved friend; it was, in fact, the tomb of his own youth.
Its narrow and impoverished bed had groaned with the restless weight
of him all those many nights through which he had lain wakeful, in
impotent mutiny against the outrageous circumstances that made him a
prisoner there. Its walls had muted the sighs in which the desires of
youth had been spent. Its floor matting was worn threadbare with the
impatient pacings of his feet (four strides from door to window: swing
and repeat _ad libitum_). Its solitary gas-jet had, with begrudged
illumination, sicklied o'er the pages of those innumerable borrowed
books with which he had sought to dull poignant self-consciousness....
A tomb!... Bitterly he granted the aptness of that description of his
cubicle: mausoleum of his every hope and aspiration, sepulchre of all
his ability and promise. In this narrow room his very self had been
extinguished: a man had degenerated into a machine. Everything that
caught his eye bore mute witness to this truth: the shabby tin alarm
clock on the battered bureau was one of a dynasty that had roused him
at six in the morning with unfailing regularity three hundred and
sixty-five times per year (Sundays were too rare in his calendar and
too precious to be wasted abed). From an iron hook in the window frame
dangled the elastic home-exerciser with which it was his unfailing
habit to perform a certain number of matutinal contortions, to keep
his body wholesome and efficient. Beneath the bed was visible the rim
of a shallow English tub that made possible his subsequent sponge
bath....
A machine; a fixture; creature of an implacable routine; a spirit
immolated upon the altar of habit: into this he had degenerated in ten
years. Such was the effect of life in this melancholy shelter for the
homeless wage-slave. He was no lonely victim. In his term he had seen
many another come in hope, linger in disappointment, leave only to go
to a meaner cell in the same stratum of misfortune.
Was this radiant spirit of youth and gentle loveliness (who might, for
all one knew to the contrary, be Marian Blessington after all) to be
suffered to become one of that disconsolate crew?
What could be done to prevent it?
Nothing that the wits of P. Sybarite could compass: he was as
inefficient as any gnat in any web....
Through the halls resounded the cacophonous clangour of a cracked gong
announcing dinner. Sighing, P. Sybarite rose and knocked the ashes
delicately from his pipe--saving the dottle for a good-night whiff
after the theatre.
Being Saturday, it was the night of ham-and-beans. P. Sybarite loathed
ham-and-beans with a deathly loathing. Nevertheless he ate his dole of
ham-and-beans. He sat on the landlady's right, and was reluctant to
hurt her feelings or incur her displeasure. Besides, he was hungry:
between the home-exerciser and the daily walks to and from the
Brooklyn Bridge, his normal appetite was that of an athlete in pink of
training.
Miss Lessing sat on the same side of the main dining-table, but half a
dozen chairs away. P. Sybarite couldn't see her save by craning his
neck. He refused to crane his neck: it might seem ostentatious.
Violet and her George occupied adjoining chairs at another and smaller
table. Their attendance was occasionally manifested through the medium
of giggles and guffaws. P. Sybarite envied them: he had it in his
heart to envy anybody young enough to be able to see a joke at that
dinner table.
By custom, the landlady relinquished her seat some minutes in advance
of any guest. When P. Sybarite left the room he found her established
at a desk in the basement hallway. Pausing, he delivered unto her the
major portion of his week's wage. Setting aside another certain amount
against the cost of laundry work, tobacco, and incidentals, he had
five dollars left....
He wondered if he dared risk the extravagance of a modest supper after
the theatre; and knew he dared not--knew it in wretchedness of spirit,
cursing his fate....
There remained half an hour to be killed before time to start for the
theatre. George Bross joined him on the stoop. They smoked pensively,
while the afterglow faded from the western sky and veil after veil of
shadow crept stealthily out of the east, masking the rectangular,
utilitarian ugliness of the street, deepening its dusk to darkness.
Street lamps, touched by the flame-tipped wand of a belated
lamplighter, bourgeoned spasmodically like garish flowers of the
metropolitan night. Across the way gas-lit windows glowed like squares
on some great, blurred checker-board. The roadway teemed with
shrieking children. Somewhere--near at hand--a pianola lost its temper
and whaled the everlasting daylights out of an inoffensive melody from
"The Pink Lady." Other, more diffident instruments tinkled
apologetically in the distance. Intermittently, across the gaunt
scaffolding of the Ninth Avenue L, at one end of the block, roaring
trains flashed long chains of lights. On the other hand, Eighth Avenue
buzzed resonantly in stifling clouds of incandescent dust. The air
smelt of warm asphalt....
And it was Spring: the tenth Spring P. Sybarite had watched from that
self-same spot.
Discontent bred in him a brooding despondency. He felt quite sure that
the realists were right about Life: it wasn't worth living, after all.
The prospect of the theatre lost its attraction. He was sure he
wouldn't enjoy it. Such silly romantical nonsense was out of tune with
the immortal Truth about Things, which he had just discovered: Life
was a poor Joke....
At his side, George Bross, on his behalf, was nursing his private and
personal grouch. Between them they manufactured an atmosphere of gloom
that would have done credit to a brace of dumb Socialists.
But presently Miss Prim and Miss Lessing appeared, and changed all
that in a twinkling.