Susannah let herself lightly down on the tin roof; it was scarcely a
step from her window. With deliberate caution, she turned and drew the
shade. Then she tiptoed toward the skylight. The workmen were still
soldering; the older man, with the air of one performing a delicate
operation, lay stretched out flat, holding some kind of receptacle; the
younger was pouring molten lead from a ladle. Try as she might, she
could not prevent her feet from making a slight tapping on the tin. The
older man glanced sharply up. "Look out!" called the younger, and he
bent again to his work. Almost running now, she stepped into the gaping
hole of the skylight. The stairs were very steep--practically a ladder.
As she disappeared from view, she heard a quick "What the hell!" from
the roof above her.
Susannah hurried forward along a dark passage, looking for stairs. The
passage jutted, became lighter, went forward again. This must be the
point where the shed-addition joined the main building. She was in the
hallway of a dingy, conventional flat-house, with doors to right and
left. One of these doors opened; a woman in a faded calico dress looked
her over, the glance including the traveling-bag; then picked up a
letter from the hall-floor, and closed it again. Susannah found herself
controlling an impulse to run. But no steps sounded behind her--she was
not as yet pursued. And there was the stairway--at the very front of the
house! She descended the two flights to the entrance. There, for a
moment, she paused. As soon as Warner discovered her flight, they would
be after her. The workmen would point the way. The street--and
quick--was the only chance. Noiselessly she opened the door. At the head
of the steps leading to the street, she stopped long enough for a look
to right and left. Only a scattered afternoon crowd--no Warner, no Byan.
An Eighth Avenue tram-car was ringing its gong violently. On a sudden
impulse of safety, she shot down the steps, ran past her own door to the
corner. An open southbound car had drawn up, was taking on passengers.
She reached it just as the conductor was about to give the forward
signal, and was almost jerked off her feet as she stepped onto the
platform. Steadying herself, she looked, in the brief moment afforded by
the bumpy crossing of the car, down the side street.
The entrances of her own house at the corner, the entrances to the house
she had just left, were blank and undisturbed; no one was following her.
She paid her fare, and settled down on the end of a cross-seat.
And now she was aware not of relief or reaction or fear, but solely of
her headache. It had changed in character. It had become a furious
internal bombardment of her brows. If she turned her eyes to right or
left, she seemed to be dragging weights across the front of her brain.
Yet this headache did not seem quite a part of herself. It was as though
she knew, by a supernormal sensitiveness, the symptoms of someone else.
It was as though suddenly she had become two people. Anyway, it had
ceased to be personal. And somewhere else within her head was growing a
delicious feeling of freedom, of lightness, of escape from a wheel. Her
evasion of the Carbonado Mining Company did not account for all that;
she felt free from everything. "I'm not going to take any more rooms,"
she said to herself. "I'm going to sleep out of doors now, like the
birds. People find you when you take rooms. Where shall I begin?" She
considered; and then one of those little hammers of intuition seemed to
tap on her brain. Again, she did not resist. "Why, Washington Square of
course!" she said to herself.
The car was threading now the narrow ways of Greenwich Village. It
stopped; Susannah stepped off. The rest seemed for a long time to be
just wandering. But that curious sense of duality had vanished. She was
one person again. She did not find Washington Square easily; but then,
it made no difference whether she ever found it. For New York and the
world were so amusing when once you were free! You could laugh at
everything--the passing crowds, surging as though business really
mattered; the Carbonado Mining Company; the grisly old fool in their
toils, and Susannah Ayer. You could laugh even at the climate--for
sometimes it seemed very hot, which was right in summer, and sometimes
cold, which wasn't right at all. You could laugh at the headache, when
it tied ridiculous knots in your forehead. There was the
Arch--Washington Square at last.
But it wasn't time to sleep in Washington Square yet. The birds hadn't
gone to bed. Sparrows were still pecking and squabbling along the
borders of the flower-beds. Besides, New York was still flowing, on its
homeward surge from office and workshop, down the paths. Susannah sat
down on a bench and considered. She had a disposition to stay there--why
was she so weak? Oh, of course she hadn't eaten. People always had
dinner before going to bed. She must eat--and she had money. She shook
out her pocketbook into her lap. A ten-dollar bill, a one-dollar bill,
and some small change. She must dine gloriously--free creatures always
did that when they had money. Besides, she was never going to pay any
more room rent. Susannah rose, strolled up Fifth Avenue. The crowd was
thinning out. That was pleasant, too. She disliked to get out of the way
of people. She was crossing Twenty-third Street now; and now she was
before the correct, white facade of the Hague House. A proper and
expensive place for dinner.
Susannah found it very hard to speak to the waiter. It was like talking
to someone through a partition. It seemed difficult even to move her
lips; they felt wooden.
"A petite marmite, please; then I'll see what more I want," she heard
herself saying at last.
But when the petite marmite came, steaming in its big, red casserole,
she found herself quite disinclined to eat--almost unable to eat. She
managed only two or three mouthfuls of the broth; then dallied with the
beef. Perhaps it was because instantly--and for no reason whatever--she
had become two people again. Perhaps it was because she had been
drinking so much ice-water. It couldn't be because H. Withington Warner
was sitting at the next table to the right. It couldn't be that--because
she had told him, when first she saw him sitting there, that she was no
longer afraid of the Carbonado Company. And indeed, when she turned to
the left and saw him sitting there also--when by degrees she discovered
that there was one of him at every table in the room, she thought of
Alice in the Trial Scene in Wonderland, and became as contemptuous as
Alice. "After all," she said, "you're only a pack of cards."
With a flourish, the waiter set the dinner-card before her, asking:
"What will you have next, Madame?" Oh yes, she was dining!
"I think I can't eat any more--the bill, please," she heard one of her
selves saying. That self, she discovered, took calm cognizance of
everything about her; listened to conversation. As the waiter turned his
back, that half of her saw that Mr. Warner wasn't there any more;
neither at the table on her right, nor anywhere. But when she had paid
the bill, tipped, and risen to go, the other self discovered that he was
back again at every table; and that with every Warner was a Byan and an
O'Hearn. "I am snapping my fingers at them, though nobody sees it," she
said to both her selves. "I can't imagine how they ever troubled me so
much. They don't know what I'm doing! I'm sleeping out of doors; they
can find me only in rooms!" As though staggered by her complete
composure, not one of this triplicate multitude of enemies followed her
outside.
"Now I'll go to Washington Square," she said, realizing that her
personalities had merged again. "The birds must be in bed." She took a
bus; and sank into languor and that curious, impersonal headache until
the conductor, calling "All out," at the south terminus, recalled to her
that she was going somewhere. "I must have been asleep," she thought.
"Isn't this a wonderful world?"
The long, early summer twilight was just beginning to draw about the
world. The day lingered though--in an exquisite luminousness. All around
her the city was grappling tentatively with oncoming dusk. On a few of
the passing limousines, the front lamps struck a garish note. Near, the
Fifth Avenue lights were like slowly burning bonfires in the trees; in
the distance, seemingly suspended by chains so delicate that they were
invisible, they diminished to pots of gold. The six-o'clock rush had
long ago ceased. Now everyone sauntered; for everyone was freshly
caparisoned for the wonderful night glories of midsummer Manhattan.
Susannah sat down on a bench in Washington Square and surveyed this free
world. Though her eyes burned, they saw crystal-clear. All about her
Italian-town mixed democratically with Greenwich Village; made
contrasting color and noise. Fat Italian mothers, snatching the
post-sunset breezes, chattered from bench to bench while they nursed
babies. On other benches, lovers clasped hands. Children played over the
grass. The birds twittered and the trees murmured. Every color darted
pricklingly distinct to Susannah's avid eyes, burning and heavy though
it was. Every sound came distinct to her avid ears, though it sounded
through a ringing.
The Fifth Avenue busses were clumping and lumbering in swift succession
to their stopping-places. How much, Susannah thought, they looked like
prehistoric beetles; colossally big; armored to an incredible hardness
and polish. And, already, roped-off crowds of people were patiently
waiting upstairs seats. As each bus stopped, there came momentary
scramble and confusion until inside and out they filled up. She watched
this process for a long, long time.
"I can't go to sleep yet," she said to herself finally, "the people
won't let me. One can't sleep in this wonderful world. Where does one go
after dinner? Oh, to the theater, of course! On Broadway!" She found
herself drifting, happily though languorously, through the arch and
northward.
Twilight had settled down; had become dusk; had become night. New York
was so brilliant that it almost hurt. It was deep dusk and yet the
atmosphere was like a purple river flowing between stiff canyon-like
buildings. Everywhere in that purple river glittered golden lights. And,
floating through it, were mermaids and mermen of an extreme beauty.
Susannah passed from Fifth Avenue to Broadway. She stopped under one of
the most brilliant palace-fronts of light, and bought a ticket in the
front row. The curtain was just rising on the second act of a musical
comedy. Susannah would have been hazy about the plot anyway, for the
simple reason that there was no plot. But tonight she was peculiarly
hazy, because she enjoyed the dancing so much that she became oblivious
to everything else. Indeed, at times she seemed to be dancing with the
dancers. The illusion was so complete that she grew dizzy; and clung to
the arm of her seat. She did not want to divide into two people again.
After a while, though, this sensation disappeared in a more intriguing
one. For suddenly she discovered that the audience consisted entirely of
her and the Carbonado Mining Company. H. Withington Warners, by the
hundred, filled the orchestra seats. Byans, by the score, filled the
balcony. O'Hearns, by the dozen, filled the gallery. But this did not
perturb her. "You're only a pack of cards," she accused them mentally.
And she stayed to the very end.
"I thought so," she remarked contemptuously as she turned to go out. For
the Carbonado Mining Company had vanished into thin air. She was the
only real person who left the theater.
When she came out on the street again, her headache had stopped and the
languor was over. There was a beautiful lightness to her whole body.
That lightness impelled her to walk with the crowd. But--she suddenly
discovered--she was not walking. She was _floating_. She even flew--only
she did not rise very high. She kept an even level, about a foot above
the pavement; but at that height she was like a feather. And in a
wink--how this extraordinary division happened, she could not guess--she
was two people once more.
New York was again blooming; but this time with its transient, vivacious
after-the-theater vividness. Crowds were pouring up; pouring down,
deflecting into side streets; emerging from side streets. Everywhere was
light. Taxicabs and motors raced and spun and backed and turned; they
churned, sizzled, spluttered, and foamed--scattering light. Tram-cars,
the low-set, armored cruisers of Broadway, flashed smoothly past,
overbrimming with light. The tops of the buildings held great
congregations of dancing stars. Light poured down their sides.
Susannah floated with the strong main current of the crowd up Broadway
and then, with a side current, a little down Broadway. Eddies took her
into Forty-second Street, and whirled her back. And all the time she was
in the crowd, but not of it--she was above it. She was looking down on
people--she could see the tops of their heads. Susannah kept chuckling
over an extraordinary truth she discovered.
"I must remember to tell Glorious Lutie," she said to herself, "how few
people ever brush their hats."
While one self was noting this amusing fact, however, the other was
listening to conversations; the snatches of talk that drifted up to her.
"Let's go to a midnight show somewhere," a peevish wife-voice suggested.
"No, _sir_!" a gruff husband-voice answered. "Li'l' ole beddo looks
pretty good to muh. I can't hit the hay too soon."
"What's Broadway got on Market Street?" a blithe boy's voice demanded.
"Take the view from Twin Peaks at night. Why, it has Broadway beat forty
ways from the jack."
"I'll say so!" a girl's voice agreed.
Theaters were empty now, but restaurants were filling. In an incredibly
short time, this phantasmagoria of movement, this kaleidoscope of color,
this hurly-burly of sound had shattered, melted, fallen to silence.
People disappeared as though by magic from the street; now there were
great gaps of sidewalk where nobody appeared. Susannah--both of her,
because now she seemed to have become two people permanently--felt
lonely. She quickened her pace, her floating rather, to catch up with a
figure ahead. It was a girl, just an everyday girl, in a white linen
suit and a white sailor hat topping a mass of black hair. She carried a
handbag. Susannah found herself following, step by step, behind this
girl whose face she had as yet not seen. She was floating; yet every
time she tried to see the top of that sailor hat her vision became
blurred. It was annoying; but this stealthy pursuit was pleasant,
somehow--satisfying.
"They've been shadowing me," said Susannah to herself. "Now I'm
shadowing. I've helped the Carbonado Company to rob orphans. I'm going
to break my promise to go to Jamaica tomorrow. Isn't it glorious to
float and be a criminal!"
So she followed westward on Forty-second Street and reached the Public
Library corner of Fifth Avenue, which stretched now deserted except
where knots of people awaited the omnibusses. Such a knot had gathered
on that corner. Suddenly the girl in white raised her hand, waved; a
woman in a light-blue summer evening gown answered her signal from the
crowd; they ran toward each other. They were going to have a talk.
Susannah floated toward them. The air-currents made her a little
wabbly--but wasn't it fun, eavesdropping and caring not the least bit
about manners!
"My train doesn't start until one," said the white linen suit. "It's no
use going back to my room--the night is so hot. I've been to the Summer
Garden, and I'm killing time."
"Oh," asked blue dress, "did you sublet your room?"
"No," said the white linen suit, "I'll be gone for only a month, and I
decided it wasn't worth while. I'll have it all ready when I get back.
I've even left the key under the rug in the hall."
"I wouldn't ever do that!" came the voice of the blue dress.
"Well," said the linen suit, "you know _me_! I always lose keys. I'm
convinced that when I get to Boston, I shan't have my trunk key! And
there isn't much to steal."
"Still, I'd feel nervous if I were you."
"I don't see why. Nobody stays up on the top floor, where I am--that is,
in the summer. All the other rooms are in one apartment, and the young
man who lives there has been away for ages. The people on the ground
floor own the house. I get the room for almost nothing by taking care of
it and the hall. I haven't seen anyone else on the floor since the man
in the apartment went away. That's why I love the place--you feel so
independent!"
"I think I know the house," said blue dress. "The old house with the
fanlight entrance, isn't it? Mary Merle used to have a ducky little flat
on the second floor, didn't she?"
"Yes--Number Fifty-seven and a Half--"
Susannah was floating down the Avenue now. But floating with more
difficulty. Why was there effort about floating? And why did she keep
repeating, "Number Fifty-seven and a Half, Washington Square, top floor,
key under the rug?"
She met few people. A policeman stared at her for a moment, then turned
indifferently away. How surprising that her floating made no impression
upon him! But then, there was no law against floating! Once she drifted
past H. Withington Warner, who was staring into a shop window. He did
not see her. Susannah had to inhibit her chuckles when, floating a foot
above his head, she realized for the first time that he dyed his hair.
Why could she see that? He should have his hat on--or was she seeing
through his hat?
She was passing under the arch into Washington Square. But she wasn't
floating any longer. She was dragging weights; she was wading through
something like tar, which clung to her feet. She was coughing violently.
She had been coughing for a long time. Night in New York was no longer
beautiful; glorious. Tragic horrors were rasping in her head. There was
Warner. And there was Byan. She could not snap her fingers at them
now.... But she knew how to get away from them ... she must rest....
She cut off a segment of Washington Square, looking for a number. There
was a fanlight; and, plain in the street lamps, seeming for a moment the
only object in the world, the number "Fifty-seven and a Half." The outer
door gave to her touch. A dim point of gaslight burned in the hall. She
floated again for a minute as she mounted the stairs.... She was before
a door.... She was on her hands and knees fumbling under the rug.... She
was dragging herself up by the door-knob....
The key opened the door.
Light, streaming from somewhere in the backyard areas, illuminated a
wide white bed.
"I am sick, Glorious Lutie--I think I am very sick," said Susannah.
"Watch me, won't you? Keep Warner out!" Fumbling in the bag, she drew
out the miniature, set it up against the mirror on the bureau beside the
bed--just where she could see it plainly in the shaft of light.
She locked the door. She lay down.