In the East 19th Street room, meanwhile, things were going from bad to
worse. Kay’s touring company delayed its starting, and consequently
his salary. Boyde’s huntsman’s job, equally, was postponed for various
reasons, while his income from posing, from churchly activities, from
the theatre as well, was reduced to a very few dollars a week. These he
shared faithfully, but my $15 every Friday (usually $13 net when office
loans had been repaid) were our only certain source of revenue.
After paying something on the room, the laundry in full, and buying
oatmeal, dried apples, and condensed milk for the week to come, there
remained barely enough for one man’s meals, much less for the food of
three, during the ensuing seven days. Boyde’s contribution brought the
budget to, perhaps, twenty dollars all told. Something, too, had to be
allowed daily to car-fares for Kay, while my own expenses in getting
about after assignments, only recoverable at the end of the week, were
considerable. The weather was turning colder at the same time, for it
was now past mid-October. Our overcoats had to be redeemed. Boyde’s
wisdom in obtaining only the strictly necessary became evident. We
redeemed the overcoats out of my second week’s pay. Boyde himself had
no overcoat at all. As we were all about the same height and build,
clothes were interchangeable. There was a discussion every morning,
when I left the other two, in bed and on the sofa respectively, as to
who should wear what.
We had now pawned with Ikey various items: a Gladstone bag, two top
hats, some underwear, and two pairs of boots. These were on separate
tickets, by Boyde’s advice. Tennis trousers, and several summer shirts
were together on another ticket. All that winter Kay and I wore no
underwear but a vest. The bag and top hats were taken out and put in
again regularly every week for many months. There was only one article
that, selfishly, I could never pawn or sell--the fiddle.
Dried apples and hot water--with expensive oatmeal we had to be very
sparing--constituted our dinner for four nights out of the week; coffee
and bread and butter for breakfast, coffee and “sinkers” for lunch
completed my dietary. Occasionally Boyde or Kay, having been invited to
a meal, brought home something in their pockets, but not often. We felt
hunger every day, only the evening dried apples and hot water giving a
sense of repletion that yet did not really allay the pangs of appetite,
though it stopped the dull gnawing until sleep finally obliterated it.
Kay and I, but never Boyde, oddly enough, had vivid and amusing dreams
of food, and one invariable topic of conversation every night as we
dined at Krisch’s, or gobbled apples and oatmeal, was the menu we would
order when things improved.... But Krisch’s, after a time, we found
too difficult and tempting, with the good smells, the sight of people
eating at other tables, the lager beer, the perfume of cigars; and many
a time, with the price of a dinner in our pockets, we preferred to eat
in our room.
Another topic of conversation was our plan, myself its enthusiastic
creator, to take up land in Canada and lead the life of settlers in
the backwoods, which by contrast to our present conditions seemed to
promise a paradise. Occasionally Kay spouted bits of Shakespeare, or
rehearsed a rôle in one of the plays his touring company was to give.
But it was the talks with Boyde about Eastern ideas and philosophy
that were my keenest pleasure, for his appreciation and sympathetic
understanding were a delight I thought about with anticipatory
eagerness even during the day. My attachment to him deepened into
affection.
The weeks went by; we scraped along somehow; Mrs. Bernstein was kept
quiet--a relative term--by cajoling, promises and bluff. We bullied
her. When Kay’s lordly talk of free seats at theatres failed to
materialize, and Boyde’s trick of leaving about telegrams received
from Davis and others, especially one from August Belmont, the great
banker, inviting him to lunch at a fashionable club--when these devices
lost their “pull,” I resorted to the power of the Press. Her husband’s
position, his orchestra, offered vulnerable points of attack; the
vermin-infested room, for instance, might be unpleasantly described....
For weeks we had paid nothing, everything worth fifty cents was
pawned, Boyde’s contribution had grown smaller and smaller, and the
only addition to my salary had been a few dollars Kay had earned by
posing to Smedley, one of Harper’s illustrators. Things looked pretty
dark, when luck turned suddenly; Kay received word from Gilmour, the
organizer of his company, that he was to start touring on November
15th, and Boyde had a telegram from Davis--“Appointment confirmed,
duties begin December 1st.” This did not increase our cash in hand,
but it increased our hope and raised our spirits. Kay and Boyde would
both soon repay their share of past expenses. We should all three be in
jobs a few weeks later. Early in November Kay actually left on his tour
of one night stands in New York State, and Boyde left the mattress on
the floor for the bed. A week after Kay sent us half his first salary,
$7.50, which we gave to Mrs. Bernstein forthwith. The letter containing
it was opened by Boyde, and dealt with while I was out.
It was a few days later, when I was alone one evening, that an
Englishman who had played with us in the cricket match called to
see me. I hardly remembered him, he had to introduce himself, the
apologies to explain his sudden call were very voluble. He was well
dressed and well fed, I noticed, a singer and concert accompanist; he
annoyed me from the start by his hesitations, his endless humming and
hawing. It was, he kept telling me, rather an intrusion; it was, he
felt, of course, no concern of his; but “New York was a strange place,
and--and--er--er--well, after much reflection, I really felt it my
duty--I decided to take the risk, that is, to--er----”
“To what?” I asked bluntly at last. “For heaven’s sake, tell me.”
I was beginning to feel uneasy. My threats to Mrs. Bernstein, perhaps,
had gone too far. Besides, the effect of the apples was passing and I
longed for bed.
He took a gulp. “To warn you,” he said, with a grave and ominous
expression.
It was a long-winded business before I got him to the point, and even
then the point was not really explicit. New York, he kept repeating,
was a dangerous place for inexperience, there were strange and
desperate characters in it. In the end, I think, my manners exasperated
him as much as his vagueness exasperated me, for when he told me he
came about “someone very close to you,” and I asked point-blank, “Is it
someone sharing this room with me?” his final word was a most decided
“Yes”--with nothing more. This “someone,” I gathered, at any rate, was
fooling me, was up to all sorts of tricks, was even “dangerous.”
I was infuriated, though I felt a certain sinking of the heart as well.
He was attacking either Kay or Boyde, my only friends, both of whom I
trusted to the last cent, for both of whom I had sincere affection. If
he knew anything definite or really important, why couldn’t he say it
and be done with it? I put this to him.
“I prefer not to be more explicit,” he replied with an air. He was
offended. His patronizing offer of advice and sympathy, his pride, were
wounded. “I would rather not mention names. It’s true all the same,”
he added. And my patience then gave way. I got up and opened the door.
He went without a word, but just as I was about to slam the door after
him, he turned.
“Remember,” he said, half angrily, half gravely, “I’ve warned you. He’s
a real crook. He’s already been in gaol.”
I banged the door behind him. I felt angry but uncomfortable, and as
the anger subsided my uneasiness increased. The horrible feeling
that there was truth in the warning harassed me. When Boyde came in
an hour or so later, I pretended to be asleep. I told him nothing of
my visitor, but through half-closed eyes I watched him as he moved
about the room very quietly, lest he disturb my sleep. His delightful,
kind expression, his frank blue eyes, the refinement and gentleness
of his gestures, I noted them all for the hundredth time. His acts,
too, I remembered; how he always shared his earnings, gave his help
unstintingly, advice, a thousand hints, the value of his own sad and
bitter experience. My heart ached a little. No, I reflected, it was
certainly not Boyde who was the crook. My thoughts turned to Kay, who
had just sent us half his salary. It was equally incredible. I wished
I had treated my visitor differently. I wished I had kicked him out,
instead of telling him to go. Sneak! A sneak with some evil motive into
the bargain!
Things began to move now with a strange rapidity. It was as though
someone who had been winding up machinery suddenly released the spring.
Item by item, preparations had been completed--then, let her go! She
went....
The weeks that followed seemed as many months. I was alone with Boyde
in a filthy, verminous room, food and money scarce, rent owing, Kay
away, clothes negligible, my single asset being a job. I lost that job
owing to illness that kept me for weeks in bed--in that bed.... And as
“she went” I had the curious feeling that someone watched her going,
someone other than myself. It was an odd obsession. Someone looked on
and smiled. Certain practices, gathered from my “Eastern” reading, were
no doubt responsible for this uncanny feeling, for with it ran also a
parallel idea: that only a portion of my being suffered while another
portion, untouched, serene and confident, accepting all that came with
a kind of indifferent resignation, stood entirely apart, playing,
equally, the rôle of a spectator. This detached spectator watched “her
going” with close attention, even with something of satisfaction.
“Take it all,” was its attitude; “avoid nothing; it is your due; for
it is merely reaping what you sowed long ago. Face it to the very
dregs. Only in this way shall you pay a just debt and exhaust it.” So
vital was this attitude in all that followed that it must be honestly
mentioned.
A stabbing in the side had been bothering me for some days, making
walking difficult and painful. A blow received while diving from our
island--I hit a rock--began to ache and throb. I came home in the
evenings, weary to the bone. There were headaches, and a touch of
fever. The pain increased. There was a swelling. I went to bed. Boyde
took down a letter to McCloy, asking for a day off, which was granted.
The next day I turned up at 8.30, but had to come back to bed after the
midday coffee and sinkers. “See a doctor,” snapped McCloy, in his best
maxim-firing manner, “and come back when you’re fixed up again.”
But there wasn’t enough money for a doctor’s fee of from two to five
dollars. I lay up for three days, hoping for improvement which did
not come. The pain and fever grew. Mrs. Bernstein, upset and even
disagreeable, sent me bread and soup in the evening as well as the
morning coffee. Boyde brought a few extras late at night. He was
chasing a new post just then--organist to a church in Patterson,
N.J.--and rarely got home before eleven, sometimes later. He brought
long rolls of Vienna bread, a few white Spanish grapes, a tin of
condensed milk. He slept peaceably beside me. His manner, once or
twice, seemed different. I smelt liquor. “Someone stood me a drink,”
he explained, “and by God, I needed it. I’m fagged out.” He was kind
and sympathetic, doing all he could, all that his position allowed. He
was very much in love at the moment with the daughter of the pastor of
the Second Avenue Baptist Church, where he sang in the choir, and he
confided his hopes and troubles about the affair to me.... It all gave
me a queer feeling of unreality somewhere. In my feverish state I knew
an occasional unaccustomed shiver. The long day in bed, alone with my
thoughts, waiting for Boyde’s return, was wearisome to endlessness,
by no means free from new, unpleasant reflections, yet when at last
the door opened softly, and he came back, his arms full of the little
extras mentioned, there was disappointment in me somewhere. It was not
quite as I expected. Accompanying the disappointment were these new,
faint twinges of uneasiness as well. I kept the gas burning all night.
I watched Boyde’s face, as he slept calmly beside me in that narrow
bed, his expression of innocence and kindliness increased my feelings
of gratitude, even of tenderness, towards him. There were deep lines,
however, that sleep did not smooth out. “Poor devil, he’s been through
the mill!” This habit of watching him grew.
There was delay and trouble about the Rockaway Hunt post; studio
sittings were scarce; the Baptist church organist was never unable
to officiate; Morton Selton never missed a performance; and Boyde,
as a result, though he still contributed what he could, earned next
to nothing. If I was puzzled by his late hours, his explanations
invariably cleared away my wonder. He always had a plausible excuse,
one, too, that woke my sympathy. It was just at this time, moreover,
that Kay wrote. The Canadian tour was such a failure that Gilmour was
taking his troupe to the States, where they anticipated better houses.
No salaries had been paid. They were now off to Pittsburg. Kay hoped to
send some money before long.
I spent the weary hours reading.... On the third day, my symptoms
worse, the door opened suddenly without a knock, and I saw an old man
with a white moustache and spectacles peering round the edge at me. I
laid down my “Gita” and stared back at him.
“Are you Mr. Blackwood?” he asked, with a marked German accent.
“Yes.” I had not the faintest idea who he was.
He closed the door, took off his slouch hat, crossed the room, laid his
small black bag on the sofa, then came and stood beside my bed. He was
extremely deliberate. I watched him anxiously. He said no word for some
time, while we stared at one another.
He was of medium height, about sixty-five years old, with white hair,
dark eyes behind magnifying spectacles, the strong face deeply lined,
voice and manner stern to the point of being forbidding--but when I saw
it rarely--a most winning smile. Except for the spectacles, he was like
a small edition of Bismarck.
“I am a doctor,” he said, after a prolonged silent inspection, “and I
live down the street. Your friend, an Englishman, asked me to call.
Are _you_ English?” I told him I was a reporter on the _Evening Sun_,
adding that I had no money at the moment. The suspicion his manner had
not attempted to hide at once showed itself plainly. His manner and
voice were brusque to offensiveness, as he said flatly: “I expect to be
paid. I have a wife and child.” He stood there, staring at me, hard and
cold. I repeated that I had nothing to pay him with, and I lay back in
bed, wishing he would go, for I felt uncomfortable and ashamed, annoyed
as well by his unsympathetic attitude. “Humph!” he grunted, still
staring without moving. There was an awkward silence I thought would
never end. “Humph!” he grunted again presently. “I egsamine you anyhow.
How old are you?”
“Twenty-two,” I said, “and a bit.”
“Humph!” he repeated, as he examined me rather roughly. “You’re very
thin. Too thin!”
He hurt me, and I did not answer.
“Not eating enough,” he added, and then gave his verdict. It was an
abscess, I must keep my bed for a month or six weeks, an operation
might be necessary....
I asked how much I owed him. “Two dollars,” he said. He gave me his
address, and I replied that I would bring the money to him as soon as I
could, but that he need not call again. He stared severely at me with
those magnified eyes.
“Haven’t you got two dollars even?” he asked curtly.
“I’ve told you the truth. And, anyhow, I didn’t send for you. I didn’t
ask my friend to fetch you either.”
I could think of nothing else to say. His verdict had flattened me out.
I was angry, besides, with Boyde, for not consulting me first, though
I knew he had done the right thing. Another period of awkward silence
followed, during which the doctor never moved, but stood gazing down at
me. Suddenly his eye rested on the book I had been reading. He put out
a hand and picked it up. He glanced through the pages of the “Gita,”
then began to read more carefully. A few minutes passed. He became
absorbed.
“_You_ read this?” he asked presently. “_Ach was!_” There was a look of
keen astonishment in his eyes; his gaze searched me as though I were
some strange animal. I told him enough by way of reply to explain my
interest. He listened, without a word, then presently picked up his bag
and hat and moved away. At the door he turned a moment. “I come again
to-morrow,” he said gruffly, and he was gone.
In this way Otto Huebner, with his poignant tragedy, came into my life.
That evening, with the bread and soup, there was a plate of chicken;
it was not repeated often, but he had spoken to Mrs. Bernstein, I
discovered, for her attitude, too, became slightly pleasanter. I spent
the long evening composing a letter to McCloy, which Boyde could take
down next day.... I lay thinking of that curious gruff, rude old
German, whose brusqueness, I felt sure, covered a big good heart. There
was mystery about him, something unusual, something pathetic and very
lovable. There was power in his quietness. Despite his bluntness, there
was in his atmosphere a warm kindness, a sincerity that drew me to him.
Also there was a darkness, a sense of tragedy somewhere that intrigued
me because I could not explain it.
It was after he was gone that I felt all this. While he was in the room
I had been too troubled and upset by his manner to feel anything but
annoyance. Now that he was gone his face and eyes and voice haunted
me. His bleak honesty, I think, showed me, without my recognizing it,
another standard.
Was it this, I wonder, that made me start a little when, about two in
the morning, I heard a stealthy tread coming upstairs, and presently
saw Boyde enter the room--carrying his boots in his hand? Was it this,
again, that made me feign to be asleep, and a couple of hours later
still, when I woke with a shiver, notice, for the first time, a new
expression in the face that lay so calmly asleep beside me?
Behind the kindly innocence, I thought, there lay a darker look. It was
like a shadow on the features. It increased my feelings of uneasiness,
though as yet no definite thought had formulated itself in my mind.