|THOUGH there is no known specific for heartache, there are palliatives.
One such Peter Ericson Mann found in the head barber's chair at the
strictly sanitary shop of Manus. The necessity, during all the spring
months, of avoiding this shop had irked Peter; for he was given to worry
in the matter of bacteria. And he could not himself shave his thin and
tender skin without irritating it to the point of eruption.
The shop of Marius was in the basement of that most interesting of New
York restaurants, the Parisian. The place is wholly French, from the
large trees out front and in their shade the sleepy victorias always
waiting at the curb to the Looeys and Sharlses and Gastongs that
serve you within. It is there a distinction to be known of the maître
d'hôtel, an achievement to nod to the proprietor.
Greenwich Village, when in funds, dines, lunches, breakfasts at the
Parisian. Upper West Side, when seeking the quaintly foreign dissociated
from squalor, dines there. Upper West Side always goes up the wide front
steps and through the busy little office into the airy eating rooms with
full length hinged windows. There is music here; a switchboard youth
who giftedly blends slang with argot; even, it has been reported, an
interior fountain. Greenwich Village now and again ascends those wide
front steps; but more often frequents the basement where is neither
fountain nor music, merely chairs, tables and ineffable food; these
latter in three or four small rooms which you may enter from the Avenue,
directly under the steps, or from the side street through the bar. The
corner room, nearest the bar, is a haunt of such newspaper men as
live in the neighborhood. Also in the basement is a rather obscure and
crooked passage extending from the bar past the small rooms and the
barber shop of Marius to the equally obscure and crooked stairway that
leads by way of telephone booths and a passage to the little office
hallway and the upper restaurant. The whole, apparently, was arranged
with the mechanics of French farce uppermost in the mind of the
architect.
Peter's large horn-rimmed eye-glasses hung by their heavy black ribbon
from the frame of the mirror; his long person lay, relaxed, in the
chair. His right foot rested on a bent-wire stand; and kneeling
respectfully before it, polishing the shoe, was the boy called
Theophile. His left hand lay on the soft palm of Miss Maria Tonifetti
who was working soothingly, head bowed, on the thumb nail. Miss
Tonifetti was pretty. She happens to be the reason why Peter had kept
away from the shop of Marius all spring. These Italian girls, from below
Washington Square, were known to be of an impetuous temper. Hy Lowe had
on several occasions advised Peter to let them alone. Hy believed
that they, carried knives. Now, however, finding Maria so subdued, if
gloomily emotional, of eye, experiencing again the old soft thrill as
her deft smooth fingers touched and pressed his own, he was seriously
considering asking her out to dinner. He had first thought of this while
Marius (himself) was plying the razor. (What a hand had Marius!) The
notion grew during the drowsily comfortable shampoo that came next. With
the face massage, and the steaming towels that followed it--one of these
now covered his face, with a minute breathing hole above the nose--came
a gentle glow of tenderness toward all the world and particularly toward
Miss Tonifetti. After all, he had never intended neglecting her. Life is
so complex!
I had hoped to slip through this narrative with no more than an
occasional and casual allusion to Maria. But this, it appears, is not
possible. She matters. And even at the risk of a descent into unromantic
actuality, into what you might call “realism,” she enters at this point.
Peter himself, like most of us, disliked actuality. His plays were all
of duty and self-sacrifice and brooding tenderness and that curious
structure that is known throughout the theatrical district as Honor.
Honor with a very large H--accompanied, usually, with a declamatory
gesture and a protruding chest. Sue, at her first meeting with Peter,
when she talked out so impulsively, really said the last word about his
plays. Peter's thoughts of himself (and these never flagged) often took
the form of recollecting occasions when he had been kind to newsboys or
when he had lent a helping hand to needy young women without exacting
a quid pro quo. The occasions when he had not been kind took the
memory-shape of proper indignation aroused by bitter injustice
to himself. He had suffered greatly from injustice as from
misunderstanding. Few, indeed, understood him; which fact added
incalculably to the difficulties of life.
Now just a word of recent history and we shall get on with our story.
When Sue broke her engagement to Peter he took his broken heart away to
Atlantic City, where he had before now found diversion and the impulse
to work. He had suffered deeply, these nearly two weeks. His food had
not set well. The thought of solitary outdoor exercise, even ocean
swimming, had been repellent. And until the last two or three nights,
his sleeplessness had been so marked as really to worry him. Night after
night he had caught himself sitting straight up in bed saying, aloud,
harsh things to the penitent weeping Sue of his dreams. Usually after
these experiences his thoughts and nerves had proved to be in such a
tangle that his only recourse had been to switch on the lights and, with
a trembling hand and an ache at the back of his head, plunge into his
work. The work, therefore (it was a new play), had gone rather well--so
well that when the expensiveness of the life began to appear really
alarming he was ready to come back to the old haunts and make the effort
to hold up his head. He had got into New York at four-ten and come down
to the shop of Marius by taxi. His suit-case and grip were over in the
corner by the coat rack.
It was now nearly five-thirty. The face massage was over with; his thick
dark hair had been brushed into place by the one barber in New York
who did not ask “Wet or dry?” And he was comfortably seated, across the
shop, at Miss Tonifetti's little wire-legged table, for the finishing
strokes of the buffer and the final soap-and-water rinsing in the glass
bowl. He looked at the bent head and slightly drooping shoulders of
the girl. The head was nicely poised. The hair was abundant and
exceptionally fine. It massed well. As at certain other moments in the
dim past his nature reacted pleasantly to some esthetically pleasing
quality in hair, head, shoulders and curve of dark cheek. Just then she
glanced up, flushed perceptibly, then dropped her eyes and went on
with her work--which consisted at the moment in giving a final polish
by-brushing the nails lightly with the palm of her hand.
The glow in Peter's heart leaped up into something near real warmth.
He leaned forward, glanced swiftly about, then said, low: “It has been
hard, Maria--not seeing you.”
The dark head bent lower.
“It did seem best. You know.”
The head nodded a very little--doubtfully. “There's no sense in being
too hard on ourselves, Maria. Suppose--oh, come on and have dinner with
me.”
Again the head was inclined in assent. And he heard her whisper,
“Where?”
Peter thought swiftly. This was not a matter for his acquaintances
of the Square and Greenwich Village. Then, too, a gentleman always
“protected the girl.” Suddenly he remembered:
“Meet me at the old place--corner of Tenth. We can take the bus up-town.
You can't get off early?” She shook her head.
“All right. Say twenty after to half-past seven. I'll leave my bags here
for the present.”
This, after all, was living! It was best. You had to keep on. And it
would be nice to give Maria a good time. She had been exacting in the
past, given to unexpected outbursts, a girl of secretive ways, but of
violent impulses, that she seemed always struggling to suppress. He had
noted before now a passionate sort of gloom in the girl. To-day,
though, she was charming, gentle enough for anybody. Yes, for old times'
sake--in memory of certain intense little episodes they two had shared,
he would give her a nice evening.... With such thoughts he complacently
lighted a cigarette, smiled covertly at the girl, who was following
him furtively, with her big dark eyes and went back through the crooked
corridor to the bar.
Here we find Hy Lowe engaged in buying a drink for Sumner Smith, one
of the best-known reporters on that most audaciously unscrupulously
brilliant of newspapers, _The Evening Earth_. Sumner Smith was fat,
sleepy-eyed, close-mouthed. He was a man for whom Peter felt profound if
cautious respect.
But his thoughts were not now concerned with the locally famous
reporter, were not concerned, for the moment, even with himself. He was
impressed by the spectacle of Hy Lowe standing treat, casually tossing
out a five-dollar bank note; so much so that he promptly and with a
grin accepted Hy's nod as an invitation and settled, after a moment's
thoughtful consideration, on an old-fashioned whisky cocktail.
It was not that Hy was stingy; simply that the task of dressing well,
taking in all the new shows and entertaining an apparently inexhaustible
army of extraordinarily pretty girls with taxis and even occasional wine
was at times too much for the forty-five a week that Hy earned.
Now, as it happened, while Peter thought about Hy, Hy was thinking about
Peter. Not six times in the more than three years of his life with Peter
and the Worm had Hy seen so jovial an expression on the long face of the
well-known playwright.
The man was self-conscious to the point of morbidity. This at all times,
dating far, far back of his painful relationship with Sue Wilde, back
of his tempestuous affair with Grace Derring, back of the curious little
mix-up with that Tonifetti girl. Lately he had been growing worse.
Why, it was not yet a fortnight since he had fought Zanin, over at the
Muscovy. Then Sue had broken their engagement, and Peter had left town a
crushed and desperate man. Hy had gone to the trouble of worrying about
him; an exertion which he was now inclined to resent a bit. He had even
mentioned his fears to the Worm; which sage young man had smiled and
observed dryly and enigmatically, “Peter will never really love anybody
else.”... And now, of all times, Peter was grinning!
The journalist left them to read _Le Sourire_ and nibble toast in the
corner room. Peter cheerfully regarded Hy's new homespun suit, his real
Panama hat with a colored stripe in the white fluffy band, his flaming
new tie and the silk shirt of exclusive pattern beneath it. Hy caught
this scrutiny, and returned the grin.
“I'm in soft, Pete,” he murmured. “Got a raise.”
“Not out of old Wilde?”
Hy nodded. “Considerable story, my son. First the old boy fired me. That
was at nine-thirty A. m. I went out and made a day of it. Then, of all
things, the Worm comes into the office--”
“The Worm! Henry Bates?”
“Yep. He was on _The Courier_, you know.”
“Was?”
“Was--and isn't. They sent him up with a stiff story about the
missionary funds we've collected through the paper. And what does the
old boy do but lock him out and holler through the transom that he'll
eat poison, just like that, unless the Worm goes back and kills the
story.”
“And what does the Worm?”
“As per instructions.”
“Kills the story?”
“And his job with it. He's writing a novel now--like everybody else.
Have another,” Hy added cheerfully, “on the old Walrus' partner in
crime.” Peter had another.
“The rest of it is”--this from Hy--“I come in at four-thirty that
afternoon to pack up my things, and the Reverend Doctor Wilde hands me a
raise. I get sixty now. I am on that famous road to wealth.”
“But what on earth--”
Hy chuckled. “Worm says the old boy thought I knew.”
“Ah!” breathed Peter. “Ah!”
“Can't say I wonder at Sue's leaving home, hitting out for the
self-expression thing.” Hy grew more expansive as the liquor spread its
glowing warmth within his person. Otherwise he would hardly have spoken
of Sue, even on the strength of that genial grin of Peter's.
Peter leaned an elbow on the mahogany bar and slowly sipped. “I wonder
if Sue suspects this.” It was not easy for him to speak her name. But he
did speak it, with an apparent casualness worthy of Waters Coryell.
“Probably not. I've worked at his elbow for years and never dreamed.”
He sighed. “It's hard to see where a girl of any spirit gets off these
days. From my experience with 'em, I'm convinced that home is the safest
place for 'em, and yet it's only the dead ones that'll give up and stay
there.”
Peter did not reply. His brows were knit, but not, apparently, in
concentration, for his eyes wandered. He said something about getting
his bags over to the rooms; started irresolutely down the passage toward
the barber shop; stopped; pressed his fingers to his mouth; came back,
passing Hy as if he didn't see him and went on out to the side street.
Here he stopped again.
The side street was narrow. A cross-town car shut off most of his view
of the Avenue, a few yards away. Then it passed, and he saw a young
couple strolling across toward the restaurant. The man--large, heavy of
hand and foot, a peasant-like, face curiously lighted by burning
eyes, better dressed than usual--was Jacob Zanin. The girl--slim,
astonishingly fresh and pretty, not wearing the old tarn o' shanter and
haphazard costume he associated with her, but a simple light suit--was
Sue Wilde; the girl who by her hardness and selfishness had hurt Peter
irreparably. There they were, chatting casually, quite at ease--Zanin,
who didn't believe in marriage, who had pursued Sue with amazing
patience for nearly two years, who had wrecked Peter's pocket; Sue, who
had broken his heart.