I
"Though you do not know it, I have a soul. Behold, across the way, my
library. When the night shrouds those lions and the fresh young trees
shake out their greenery against the white stonework, do you not catch a
suggestion of atmosphere, something of a mood? And the black cliffs
around, with the janitress lights making jeweled bars the width of them,
are they not monuments? I cleave brilliantly, up and down this dormant
city. It is for you, late wayfarer. Pay no heed to the plodding
milk-wagon or the hatless young maiden speeding her lover's motor. Heed
my long silences, my slim tall darknesses. My human tide has ebbed. My
buildings come about me to muse and to commune. Receive, for once on
Fifth Avenue, the soul that is imprisoned in my stone and steel."
It is not for the respectable, this polite communication. Theatre and
club and restaurant have long since disgorged these. New York has
masticated their money. They have done as they should and are restored
uptown. Even the old newswoman, she who had spent starving months in the
Russian woods, caught in the first eddies of the war, she has tottered
from her stand down by the station. The Hungarian waiter in Childs' is
still there, still assuaging the deep nocturnal need for buckwheat
cakes, but that is off the avenue. It is three, the avenue is nearly
empty. It is ready to disclose its soul.
But before this subtle performance there is a preliminary. It is a very
self-respecting avenue and at three on a pleasant morning, when no one
is around to disturb it, it proceeds to take its bath. Perhaps a few
motors go by--a taxi rolling north, heavy with night thoughts, a tired
white face framed in its black depth; or a Wanamaker truck clanking
loosely home in the other direction, delivered of its suburban chores.
The Italian acolytes are impartial. They spray the wheels of a touring
car with gusto, ignored by its linked lovers, or drive a powerful stream
under the hubs of a Nassau News wagon trundling to a train. The avenue
must be refreshed, the brave green of the library trees nodding
approval, the sparrows expecting it. It must be prepared for the sun,
under bold lamps and timid stars.
A fine young morning, the watchman promises. A bit of wind whiffles the
water that is shot out from the white-wing's hose, but it is clearing up
above and looks well for the day. The hour beckons memories for the
watchman--fine young mornings he used to have long ago, in Ireland, a
boy on his first adventure and he driving with the barley to Ross.
It is an empty street. The hose is wheeled away over the glistening
asphalt. The watchman disappears--he has a cozy nook beyond the ken of
time-clocks. The last human pigmy seeks his pillow, to hide a diminished
head. With man accounted for, night sighs its completion and creeps to
the west. Then, untrammeled of heaven or minion, the buildings have
their moment. Each tower stretches his proud height to the morning. The
stones give out their spirit; their music is unsealed.