THE SLEEPWALKER
_“A handless man a letter did write,
A dumb dictated it word for word:
The person who read it had lost his sight,
And deaf was he who listened and heard.”_
GEORGE BORROW--_“The Bible in Spain”_
1
Sleet and snow made Em feel apart and cheerless. She rose late and put
on her oldest clothes, garments she had worn before she knew Howard.
Without yet saying it to herself she knew she was going to talk to
her friends whom she had so long neglected. She prepared, and sat
down alone to her coffee and toast: ate with her hat on, her cloak
on a chair near her. She felt cold, unreal--alien. She did not quite
understand the instinct that had kept her away from her own. It was
not that, even before the incident with Tit Miller and Toby in the
restaurant, Howard had refused to have anything to do with Em’s circle.
“Your dancer friend moves like a blind snake,” he had said spitefully.
“But he’s not the only friend I have, Howard.”
“And the technique of seduction your Toby person employs would nauseate
a prostitute.”
“They’re all sincere and lovable dears!” she had declared with
unreasoning emotion.
“I don’t care for a retinue of lovable nonentities. You require them
because they adore docilely and don’t compete or criticize. A few
honest peers would be good for you.”
Hostile silence had ensued. Em had cut herself off from his friends,
and now hers were passing. He wants me to lose them, she thought this
morning, go back to them after he’s through with me! I won’t drive them
away. Putting it into words had not quite revealed her need to herself,
but she finished her breakfast and went out into the storm.
Genevieve still lived on the third floor of the ancient tenement, and
Em rang the door-bell three times. A window was opened above her and
Stuart peered out.
“Why, hello, Em!” he called in surprise. The window closed with a bang
and he ran down and admitted her. He preceded her up the stairs. “Where
have you been keeping yourself?” He turned his pale regular profile,
with its prominent chin, toward her as he spoke, but his kind bored
eyes did not meet hers.
“I’ve come to see you,” she replied fervently.
“I see you have!”
Stuart was in the habit of lounging when at rest, and now he walked
before her with a stoop. He opened a door. Genevieve was working at a
commercial drawing. Mark Leighter slouched his ungainly length on the
couch. There was Blanche Dixon. Also a plump young Jewess with shining
black hair and faint dark down on her upper lip.
“Hello,” said Em, rather timidly now.
“Hello!” Blanche heartily and Mark with gentle kindness. Blanche rose
and kissed Em boisterously.
Genevieve did not move.
“We heard from Tit and Toby that you had been in town some time.”
Genevieve’s voice and phrasing were as precise as she alone could make
them.
“Do you know, Mark, that John said to me last night. ‘Where is your
friend Miss Tyler?’ and I said--” Blanche seated herself beside Mark
and, while he smoked successive cigarettes, continued a soliloquy that
was both audible and confidential. Mark, with his negative submission,
was her especial outlet. She only asked not to be repulsed.
The Jewish girl had remained unnoticed.
“Emily, this is Cicely Frank,” Stuart said rather awkwardly at last.
Em responded to the introduction and then slowly approached Genevieve’s
chair.
“I’ve come to tell you something, Jen.” She seated herself on the
floor beside her friend. “I’m living with Howard Story.” Genevieve
glanced nervously at Cicely and murmured to Em, but Em would not be
deterred. “I’m not going to sneak any longer, Jen. Anybody can know it
who wants to.” She looked around defiantly.
The surprise had not died out of Genevieve’s eyes. She bent over Em.
Her lips trembled a little.
“But what about Les?” she whispered.
Em did not lower her voice.
“I’m not married to Les!” There was silence. Stuart frowned gloomily.
Mark smiled affectionately at Em. Even Blanche was speechless. Cicely
Frank looked steadfastly at her own hands. Em was saying to herself,
They’re mine again! I’m glad I have--But beneath her thoughts was a
deep relief in confessing Howard--a lust for release. She had forgotten
that it would hurt Les. I won’t be alone. I won’t. Her fear of being
isolated from her associations, her resentment of Howard’s caution! All
were looking at her kindly again. The surprise and affront of her going
away without telling them, her avoidance of them since her return--all
was forgotten. I love them! “I’m going to tell everybody Howard and
I were in Europe together.” She did not realize that her vanity was
healed by the feeling that she was betraying both Howard and herself.
I’m with them again, she said to herself.
Genevieve’s voice had almost its old affectionate note.
“We thought you were in Chicago with Les,” she said quietly but a
little stiffly, smoothing Em’s hair with her hand. “We wondered why
neither of you wrote. And when Tit and Toby saw you--”
“Yes, Em, I said to John only last week, ‘John, not a soul has heard a
word from Em Tyler and Les Drane and we all--’” No one in desperation
ever insulted Blanche, her good intentions were so much in evidence and
her benevolence so obviously genuine.
Mark’s eyes brimmed with tears, but he continued to smile.
“We understand, Em,” he said in a trembling voice.
“I’m going to make coffee for everybody.” Stuart rose suddenly and
stalked unsteadily toward the little kitchen. As he passed Em she
seized his hand and kissed it. Stuart had been emotional, for him.
It seemed like old times. The past devoted intimacy returned. Em’s thin
face grew tranquil. There’s somebody, even if Howard doesn’t--At last
she rose to go.
“I’m so glad to know you. I admire your work so much,” said Cicely
rather timidly.
Em was smiling like her former self.
“Good-by, dears!” She kissed her fingers to them.
As the door closed after her, Genevieve, with the emptied coffee cups,
followed Stuart into the kitchen.
“I’m worried about Les,” she said gravely. “I _hate_ women! I’m fond of
Em, but in some ways she’s just like all the others--myself included of
course.”
2
Resenting Howard’s secrecy more and more, Em developed a passion for
confessing their relation. All kinds of people, people not interested.
I wonder what there is in me that does it. Am I wrong somewhere in
me? She hunted up Tit and Toby. They were eating chop suey that Toby
had made in his room--a big garret crowded with laboratory apparatus.
A tumbled bed was in one corner. A fine piano laden with dust and
scattered sheets of music. They admitted her enthusiastically, and Em
sat down on a rachitic chair while Toby laid out an extra plate.
Tit had a mind adapted to ingenious subtleties, but incapable of
any simple fundamental impression. When he was at his worst he was
deliberately obnoxious. After they had drawn up to the table again, he
bent his flat almost negroid head toward her, eyes peering through
thick glasses, an oblivious smile on his curved beautifully red lips.
“I no more liking that Howard gent you introduced us to, Em,” he joked,
snickering at her inanely. “See! The finger of scorn!” He pointed a
long narrow finger close to her face.
She sprang from her chair.
“If you have no more insight than a Hottentot I wish you’d go,” she
flared, her eyes blazing.
Tit was perturbed but he was also extremely egotistical, and obstinate.
He had always resented Les, and took a secret pleasure in the
unfaithfulness Em had never confessed to him.
“I may have quite as much insight as some of your more wooden-minded
friends, Em,” he retorted sullenly, his near-sighted eyes spiteful.
“What you allowed us to infer the other night at the restaurant was
that the whole thing was a light affair. You spoke about it lightly
enough. Nobody made you leave Les. You followed your own taste in the
matter. If you wanted a cosmic pathos to envelop the circumstance you
might have indicated it. As a matter of fact there’s been nasty gossip
about you and I’m the one who tried to put a stop to it. I--”
Em was implacable.
“If you don’t go, I shall.”
With an evil sweeping gesture, his eyes filled with tears, Tit seized
his hat and went.
Toby’s eyes rested on Em with moist sympathy. He had never dared aspire
to her before, but the feeling that she had thrown herself away on
Howard made him stealthily avid in his attentions. Em regarded Toby
affectionately, but with complete understanding. He leaned toward her.
“_Dear_ girl, you know that I--” A loud knock sounded on the door.
Toby drew back and his mouth was petulant. “Damn!” he ejaculated with
genuine zeal.
Reluctantly he opened the door and his irritated peering gaze
discovered Michael, who stepped buoyantly into the room. Michael
was devoted to a conception of democracy which was contradicted by
everything in his temperament and appearance.
“Why, hello, Em!” he exclaimed in a pleased voice. “Jen told me you
were in town. Where are you staying?”
“With Howard Story. I’ve just been telling Toby and Tit.”
“I hoped--” Michael’s eyes were passionately commiserating. “It’s your
own business, Em. We all love you and Les both--no matter--what--”
He dragged out the last words with a painful effort, and immediately
changed the subject.
3
It was late. Michael’s appearance had made a formal friendly group of
three and they had chatted kindly. Dusk came before they realized it.
Michael looked at his watch.
“Let’s go to Esther’s for dinner.”
“All right.” Em agreed instantly. Unnoticed in her lay a silent hope
that she would see some of Howard’s friends.
Toby acquiesced wearily. “I’ll go, but I can’t eat anything.”
At Esther’s Em without hesitation approached a table occupied by Carmen
Stubbs and her group.
“Hello, dearie,” called Carmen’s husky dissipated voice.
Em paused intrepidly while Michael and Toby went forward and seated
themselves in a distant corner of the room, Gouvain turned his fine
dark eyes to her. Little Stieg caressed his mustache and imperial
preparatory to violent speech. The Hungry Soul shifted her raptorial
glance from one man to another, deciding on her prey. Tanaka smiled
obscurely. Mitra’s eyes bent on his plate. Pale little Celia St. John’s
open-eyed demureness was impartial to all. There was a shower of
greetings. Then Carmen spoke indulgently.
“I suppose you don’t know where Howard is these days? I haven’t seen
him for a week.”
“I presume he’s at home,” replied Em quietly.
“Whose home?” asked Celia caressingly.
“Ours,” said Em. “You know we’re living together now.”
Mitra let slip a poisonous glance at Celia’s innocent face. Tanaka’s
smile did not change. A wounded look in Gouvain’s eyes. The others
stared at Em with frank curiosity. Even little Stieg said nothing.
“We knew you were, child,” Carmen returned with throaty casualness.
“Well, good-by,” said Em valiantly. “I mustn’t leave my friends any
longer.”
“Bye-bye, dearie,” answered Carmen, speaking for all with raucous
benevolence.
During dinner (in the intervals of Stieg’s volleys of _ex cathedra_
pronouncements, and the probings of the Hungry Soul’s psychoanalytic
vocal tentacles, which floated to her) Em was steadied by noting the
whispered colloquies at Carmen’s table. Em was defiant and strong. I
have declared. I’m not ashamed--even of leaving Les. I’m not ashamed!
“We’ll take you home, Em,” Michael proposed when they had finished
coffee and cigarettes.
“Fine!” Em was rehabilitating herself. Michael’s offer was a symbol. I
can live unconcealed. She felt clean. She was almost gay as she led the
way out of the small food-smelling room into the cold bright darkness
of the animate street.
Michael and Toby left her at her door. As she slowly climbed to the
apartment Howard ran up the stairs and overtook her.
“Hello! Where have you been? I was here most of the afternoon.”
“I’ve been out with friends,” Em answered abstractedly.
The janitress was in the hall, a parcel in her hand. She did not
observe Howard ascending behind Em.
“Here’s a package for your husband,” the woman began. “Oh, here he is--”
“He’s not my husband,” Em almost snapped.
The janitress gasped.
Howard’s eyes were furious as Em unlocked the door and preceded him
into the flat. If he could only bring himself to use some brutal word
to destroy her! But something withdrew him from the impulse. Fine sense
of proportion! Female. This kind of martyrdom--Ennobles our relation to
confess it to an Irish janitress! We’ll be evicted next.
“My God, there’s nothing more holy than a sense of humor, Em!” he
grated.
Em would not answer. Damn the girl, anyway!