It was another perfect day, a forenoon after Veronese, a day of which
the charm was heightened by the witcheries that Harlem knows--the
shouted temptations of push-carts; the pastimes of children, so noisy,
so dirty, so dear! the engaging conversation of German ladies; the
ambient odour of cabbage and the household linen fluttering gaily on the
roofs. It was rapturous. Just beyond was a sewer--the Hudson. But above
was the turquoise of the mid-April day.
Cassy went by and on, turned a corner, crossed the street, descended
into a cave, smiled sweetly at a man who was closing a door and who,
seeing that smile, smiled at it, smiled wantonly, held the door open,
yet, noting then but an arid blankness where her smile had been, banged
the door and shouted fiercely: "Hundred-thirty-seven-street-next."
The train crashed on. Cassy, her nose in the air, assumed a barbed-wire
attitude, her usual defensive against the conjecturing eyes of old men
and the Hello, Kid! glances of New York's subtle youth. This attitude,
which enabled her to ignore everything and everybody, enabled her also
to think of what she liked, or of what she did not like, a circumstance
that happened to her then and which was induced by her father.
That day he had been terrible. The tragedies of the fated Atrides, what
were they to his? A lamentation longer than Jeremiah's followed. His
arm, his skill, his art, his strength, his money, everything, for all he
knew even his daughter, was taken from him. How long, O Lord, how long!
And presto! da capo, all over and afresh she had it.