course.”
“What a pity,” murmured Hermes, looking at Holton admiringly; “I think
it’s the only answer, really the only answer. Almost everyone I know is
going over to Rome so there must be _something_ in it.”
“Perhaps there is,” said Carla. “I think in Italy we take the Church
too much for granted.”
“I do wish,” said Lewis, “that I could get interested in it. There
seems to be such a rush for rosaries today. But I’m dreadfully afraid
I’m just a hedonistic pagan.” He put his hand on Hermes’ plump little
hand. “I’ve always felt that somewhere there is a faith that I could
grasp onto.” With his other hand he took a drink out of his recently
filled glass. “Sometimes one feels so lost, so homeless. I think there
must always be a womb-longing in each of us, a desire to go back where
we came from. I used to think that art was enough but I suppose I was
wrong because I never had much real satisfaction from it. Carla here
will say it is love that gives us a reason, but I don’t think so. I’ve
always been in love. Occasionally with my own image, I must admit,
but there _have_ been others. No, I never got much out of love.
Hermes here has his dancing, but I don’t think that was enough for him
either....”
“Perhaps you’ve never given enough of yourself to another person,” said
Carla.
“Vampire,” chuckled Lewis. “Our identities are the only real things
we have in this shadowy world.” He was in good form now and he was
becoming drugged with his own facility. “No, we must try to obtain a
faith, or at least a medium, to carry out our search for immortality,
or should I say perpetuation? Women, normal women, seem to have less
fear of death because they have the function of child-bearing. They are
able to experience their own perpetuation; and in their primitive way
they feel a part of all mankind and there are no real mysteries for
them, no need of logic. But man is different. The act of procreation
is a pleasure and not painful and, therefore, he does not observe that
in that function his own image is mirrored through eternity. He turns
then to art (the sensitive talented man, I mean now) and in making
pictures or books, playing at creation, he hopes to survive death but
he is never really convinced: at best he is hypnotized, he is drugged
by his art and in desperation he tries to make meaning out of his own
creations: playthings, in reality. And so he finds himself in the end
with chisel and mallet in his hands making a statue and no nearer
perpetuation, closer only to death.”
“How beautiful!” exclaimed Hermes. “But that’s why we all have to go to
Rome.”
“Perhaps that’s the answer.” He began to speak again, his flat voice
rising and falling without emotion in it. Carla looked at Holton
questioningly. He nodded.
“Bob and I have to go now,” she said.
“Oh, you must stay a little longer,” he pleaded.
“We really have to go,” said Holton, rising. They thanked him (Lewis
insisted on paying the bill) and said good-bye. George _Robert_
Lewis was still talking to Hermes as they left.
_Chapter Eleven_
“How cool it is!” said Carla, as they walked along the street. “I
couldn’t breathe in there.”
“It was a crazy place,” said Holton, looking straight ahead as he
walked, following the traffic lights. Carla occasionally drew him off
the curb and into the street but he always managed to obey the green
lights.
They decided to walk uptown, to walk to Times Square.
Carla felt light and happy now that Lewis had been left behind.
“I like the air in New York,” she said.
“The air?”
“It’s exciting and silly and everyone is busy doing things they don’t
want to do but still it’s stimulating.”
“I suppose so.”
She hadn’t decided yet whether he tried to be noncommittal or whether
he had nothing to say. No, he had something to say: she was sure of
that. He was shy and he felt things very much but he was afraid to say
them. She remembered now that he had told her things about himself in
Florence. He had told her about his parents and his life, though he
hadn’t told her what he wanted to do. He still would not tell her that
and, if he knew, she would have to discover it.
“How long are you going to be in town?” he asked.
“I don’t know. A month perhaps, I don’t know. I think Bankton will be
coming over soon. They’re going to give him a big show here.”
“I’d like to see him.”
“He’d like to meet you, too.” She laughed. “I might lose you to him”
She stopped herself quickly. She shouldn’t have said “lose” because
they were supposed to be just casual friends; at least, that was the
basis he seemed to want. She mustn’t frighten him. “I don’t think you’d
like him,” she said easily, in control now. “He’s rather jealous and
disagreeable.”
They crossed more streets, dodged more cars, bumped into more and more
people and, finally, they came to Times Square.
At Forty-second Street they stopped and Carla looked at the lights for
a long time.
It seemed as if all the commercialism in the world had decided to
concentrate itself in one place, as if by blazing colored lights and
moving signs it could justify itself.
At one end of the square a giant sign exploded colors, advertising
cigarettes. Another cigarette advertisement had a man puffing smoke;
it was most realistic because real smoke or something like smoke came
out of his mouth. Soft drinks and chewing gum and cigarettes--all the
small things--were displayed in the most magnificent manner. There
was an almost religious appeal in the brightness of the lights, the
cathedral-like splendor of the signs which supported countless colored
bulbs of light: everything was so large, so magnificent, so desperately
appealing.
“Such wonderful strength,” murmured Carla, “so much misguided energy.”
“It’s very nice to look at,” said Robert Holton, speaking
self-consciously for America.
They stood pressed against a building while hundreds of people pushed
by them in a thick stream. Carla studied the lights, mesmerized by
their colors: red passionate ones and guttering greens, blue and yellow
glowing, and moving figures; they even had the lights turn on and off
in such a fashion that silhouetted men appeared to dance and animated
animals had adventures. The lights were most splendid and nowhere in
the world was so much grandeur hung against the sky. Carla watched the
lights.
Yellow taxicabs clattered by them and everyone moved quickly. Everyone
had at least a destination and that was a hopeful sign. She didn’t care
to think what their destinations might be.
She looked at the buildings and saw that they were not tall. They
looked like buildings in Paris or London. Squat and dirty and rather
Victorian: the buildings were most ordinary but there was so much
light over them, against them, all around them that they became as
insubstantial as theater props.
The movie houses which filled the lower parts of most of the buildings
of the square had the most light. Their marquees rippled and glittered
with names. Large posters were hung wherever there was no electricity.
People moved in constant streams into the movies, while other people,
as constantly, came out, blinking their eyes, adjusting themselves to
reality.
Then there was the noise. Not a really individual noise, not like an
Italian crowd, hoarse and insistent, but a roar with sharp breaks and
a rhythm like an automobile engine, a noise like a discordant piece of
music with the rumblings of a subway train as a bass. The conversations
of many people made a sound as soothing and as natural as the sea but
the mechanical things made sharp overtones, set the rhythm of Times
Square and of many lives.
Slowly Carla and Robert Holton allowed themselves to become a part of
the current of people, gliding with them toward the north end of the
square.
First of all were the young adventurers: boys with dark skins and dark
clever eyes, dressed in the spirit of the jazz they had made their own
without understanding. Looking for sex, they walked together in groups,
talking in whining voices, unpleasant nasal voices.
Young girls with bleached blond hair that looked untidy and unclean
walked in twos together, looking for men. Their well-formed bodies with
tight breasts moved self-consciously as they walked on awkward high
heels. They laughed too loudly, giggled too much and stared at sailors.
The couples were the happiest-looking of all. They always walked with
wonder in their faces, conscious of each other as they walked through
all the light and sound.
Old men in dirty clothes moved slowly, looking for cigarette butts.
This was not new to them; they had known the square before and found it
good hunting though not as congenial as quiet places. They had stopped
looking for sex: only cigarette butts.
Cripples and bums sang songs and rattled tin cups. It was hard to tell
what they were looking for besides charity. Perhaps they had stopped
their long search. Carla was sorry for them.
Hot stale air rushed out of the theater lobbies and from the bars and
restaurants; stale air rushed upward from the subway ventilators in the
sidewalk. The cool night was defeated by the city, even the darkness
had been defeated for it was as light as day, as light as day and much
prettier and more exciting.
“What a place!” said Carla. “So _much_ is here. Is this the dream
Lewis was talking about?”
“Maybe.”
“I think,” said Carla, laughing, “this is the peak of your
civilization.”
“Probably; it’s the sign of the century.”
“But there will be other centuries.” And they thought of other
centuries when they would not be alive and they tried to see the square
in future years--if the square survived with the dream.
* * * * *
Outside the Bijou Theater Marjorie Ventusa stood, trying to make up her
mind if she wanted to see her favorite actress suffer. Marjorie liked
pictures that made her cry. She wasn’t sure, however, if she wanted to
cry tonight.
Mrs Merrin had been quite pleasant that evening when Marjorie left and
this made her feel good. She stood now, undecided, Times Square all
around her. She often faced the high prices of the square to see new
movies. She liked crowded places because she felt happy with a lot of
people around her.
She stood beside the box office, warmed by the air from the theater.
The sight of all the people and lights made her feel secure as though
she were not really alone, for she identified herself with every couple
that passed by. She had no envy.
Marjorie was about to go into the movie when she saw Robert Holton
crossing a street on the other side of the square. She had a sudden
impulse to call him, to make herself heard over the hundreds of people.
Then she saw that he was not alone. She saw that he was with a dark
pretty girl: a woman from the world where he lived. Marjorie Ventusa
watched him as he walked with this person across the street. Then, on
the other side, she lost him. He had disappeared with the dark woman.
The square had changed now and the lights were cruel. The noises became
oppressive and she felt shut out of the lives of the people who passed
her.
Marjorie Ventusa grabbed her black patent-leather handbag close to
her and, controlling herself, she walked along the square. She walked
slowly, allowing others to push by her. She passed in front of many
movie houses and many bars. There was a great noise all around her,
harsh voices and much laughing. She hated the laughing the most. Two
young girls were stopped by two sailors in front of her and they spoke
together in the light of a red neon sign. The sailors said something
and the girls laughed. Quickly Marjorie Ventusa walked by them.
A group of boys were standing in a blue light and they were laughing
in their harsh changing voices. She wished they would stop. Looking
downward, she walked through the crowd, no longer with it.
Marjorie Ventusa was the center now of laughing people and her eyes
were dazzled by changing lights.
Finally, out of breath, and at the northern end of the square, she
stopped and pressed against a building. She looked back at the places
she had just left and she was tired.
A stout little man was staring at her. He was trying to figure out what
she was and what he might dare do. She looked at him with disgust, but
he was not bothered by this and, thinking her a whore, he separated
himself from the crowd and came over to where she stood. He leaned
against the building a few feet from her. Slowly, calmly he took a
package of cigarettes out of his pocket. He turned to her now, offering
her a cigarette.
“Want a smoke?”
She shook her head. “No, thanks.”
He took one himself and lighted it. He inhaled to show how calm he was
and then he said, “You want to walk maybe?”
“No,” she said furiously, comparing him with Robert Holton. “I don’t
want to walk with you.” She turned away from him and went quickly
toward the nearest movie. Without once looking back she bought a
ticket. As she gave the ticket to the man at the door she heard the
stout man whistle as he walked past the theater.
Setting her face, she walked into the marble and gold lobby. She
walked, conscious of a thousand nonexistent eyes watching her back.
Then she entered the darkened hall of the movie. On the screen two
characters, simulating love, were laughing loudly. Marjorie Ventusa was
trapped.
Caroline and Jim Trebling had been giggling all evening. Caroline had
never known anyone quite so amusing as Trebling. He had no respect for
anything; at least, no respect for the things most people did. He made
fun of her office and her job and he was pleasant as he did it; not
bitter as so many people were.
He had suggested that they visit Times Square and go dancing in one of
the large dance halls there. She had tried to talk him into going some
place more expensive but he had said that he didn’t have the money and
that as long as you danced somewhere that was all that counted.
From Fifth Avenue they walked along Forty-Seventh Street until,
finally, they came to the square. Trebling blinked.
“It’s the damnedest sight! I don’t think it can compare with L.A. but
there really is something wonderful about it.”
Caroline regarded the square without much emotion. She had seen it all
her life. “I think it’s too crowded,” she said finally, wishing that he
had decided to take her to a better place, a place with a big name, one
she could talk about later.
He stood, however, staring at the lights; then he lowered his eyes from
the lights and looked at the people. She noticed now that he looked at
people a great deal. Even when they were talking he always stared at
people as though there was something wrong with them.
“Why’re you looking around all the time?” asked Caroline. “I don’t
understand you at all. I don’t think they like being stared at.”
“What?” He hadn’t been listening to her. “Why do I ... stare? I just
like to look at them and see what they’re so busy rushing around for.”
“Don’t you know?”
“No, do you?”
“Well....” She hesitated, uncertain of her meaning, uncertain of what
they were talking about.
He laughed. She admired his way of telling when she couldn’t understand
him; he never really embarrassed her by trying to talk over her head as
some men tried to do: not that they really could, of course. She was
an American woman and just as smart as any man. Caroline stood there
looking at the square with Trebling who had just laughed and saved her
from embarrassment; Caroline stood erect and sure of herself and her
emancipation, her arm in his.
Then, without speaking, he led her across the middle of the square.
It was dazzling to cross between the many lights. Caroline liked the
colors. They seemed rather cozy to her. Times Square was in many ways
her symbol of home. It was no longer interesting because home is never
interesting but she liked it still.
“Look at all the movie houses,” he said when they had gotten over on
the other side. “There’s so much of everything. But it’s dirty. It’s
all awfully dirty.”
“Is it?” Caroline had not thought of that. Perhaps the square was not
very clean but how could it be? There were always so many people coming
to be impressed or depressed by it.
“Bob used to talk a lot about this part of town, about Broadway. I
think he used to like it a lot,” said Trebling.
“Is that right?”
“Oh, sure. He was a playboy during the war.”
Caroline was surprised but not very interested. “He sure’s changed a
lot,” she said. “He’s a nice fellow and I know you think a lot of him
but he’s a little dull ... now, anyway.”
“I think,” said Trebling, “that people sometimes feel they have to
change to protect themselves. He’s just making a new life now.”
“He’s certainly making a dull one.”
“Not if it’s what he wants.”
“Imagine working in an office if you could do something else!”
“What about yourself?”
Caroline flushed; she had found herself becoming so much involved with
Trebling’s personality that she had begun to lose her own in his: she
had begun to think that she was as free as he was or, rather, as he
felt he was. She had to retrace now; she must go back into herself. “I
can’t do anything else,” she said. “That’s all I know--working in an
office.”
“You could get married.”
“I suppose I could.” Purposely she left it at that. He didn’t ask her
anything else. They watched the square.
Caroline was conscious of odors, too conscious of them. There were a
great many unpleasant odors in the square: beer and cigarette smoke and
exhaust; perfume and sweat and stale air from theaters and subways;
food cooking--hot dogs, hamburgers, popcorn and peanuts. She got a
little dizzy just breathing.
“Come on, Jim,” she said, “let’s go find the dance hall.”
They walked together along the crowded streets and as they walked he
told her wonderful stories of freedom that were not true but still very
interesting; and she thought him the most fascinating man she knew and
not at all like his dull friend Robert Holton.
At last they came to a dance hall. As much as she liked the glitter
of the square it was a relief to go inside the red-upholstered,
mirror-walled dance hall where the only odors were of perfume and
cigarette smoke.
“I haven’t been here for so long,” she said.
* * * * *
Mr Heywood came out of the theater. He had left in the middle of the
last act. It was his personal strategy to do this because it meant that
he missed the crowd and the long wait for his car to find him.
The play had been dreary and he had seen it only because a friend of
his knew the girl in it. Besides, Mr Heywood did not like to go to
plays alone. His wife no longer went with him and he was afraid of
taking other women around with him because people talked. He did not
like any men at all.
The street was almost deserted. The theaters still were full and their
chaste white light signs shone cleanly into the street. Two blocks away
was Times Square. He could just barely make out the colored sign of a
soft drink bottle. He shuddered as he thought of soft drinks.
He stood in front of the theater, the light from the marquee shining
dramatically down upon him. He would stand here now without moving
until his waiting chauffeur saw him and took him away. To his left he
heard the sound of a motor starting. He did not look to his left. He
merely stood now, self-contained and passive, waiting.
His car stopped in front of him. The chauffeur got out, opened the
door and said something to him and Mr Heywood said something to the
chauffeur and an understanding was reached. Mr Heywood got into the car
and the chauffeur drove down the street into the square and toward home.
Mr Heywood shrank from the lights that suddenly made the inside of his
car as colorful as a rainbow. He tried not to look out the window at
the square but it was impossible not to look. His eyes were drawn by
the force of the lights and he looked out finally.
All the cheapness he hated was in the square. The people of whom he was
terrified moved all about him now. The noises he hated to hear and the
lights he hated to see intruded. He shuddered and wondered if he was
going to be sick.
Finally they left the square.
He felt much better now that they were in the quieter darker places
of the city. Mr Heywood was lonely now. He had always been lonely and
that was his personal sadness. He wished that he were young. It was
impossible to be lonely when one was young. He wished that he were
Robert Holton.
* * * * *
Carla and Holton stopped to rest at the northern end of the square.
They stood upon a small island of concrete surrounded by avenues. A
red light shone across Holton’s face giving him a sinister expression.
Carla laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“Your face ... you look like Mephisto.” He smiled and stepped out of
the red light and stood beside her.
“What do you think of it now?” asked Holton as they stood on their
island, watching.
“The things I’ve always thought. It’s very brilliant. It is a ...
production.”
“Everyone comes to see it.”
“And I think it means something different to each one. It’s like a work
of art that way.” She paused and added, “It is a work of art.”
“An unfriendly one, though.”
She shrugged. “Art doesn’t have to be friendly. To me all this bad
taste is very alive and miraculous.” She was going to say more but she
was not sure of her English. The language she had learned had been
literary and she was occasionally conscious of not speaking ordinary
words. Holton had not been listening, though. Caught in the magic she
had performed upon the square, he was melting into it, his eyes fixed
on the effect and not the details.
“What a place to make a decision,” he said firmly, turning to look at
her.
“A decision?” She was not sure of him now; not sure of the magic. “What
sort of decision?”
“I’ll tell you later.”
“If you like.” She could see that he was not ready to talk to her yet.
The signs were good, though. He was returning.
Arm in arm they deserted their concrete island. They crossed the street
and stood for a moment on the edge of the square, looking back at the
lights.
“Where do you want to go?” asked Holton.
“Back to my hotel,” she said, not looking at him.
“Shall I go with you?”
“Do you want to?” She noticed that one of the largest signs had several
dead lights in it.
“Of course I want to,” he said.
She was very happy then. The bridge was completed.
“Shall we walk? It’s not far.” He nodded. They left the bright square
and walked northward, not speaking. The bridge was not yet strong.
_Chapter Twelve_
They stood a moment in the gray heavily carpeted corridor. The hotel
was an expensive one and this was the first time Robert Holton had been
inside it.
“I’m down here,” said Carla, taking a key out of her bag. She led him
down the corridor.
She stopped, unlocked a door, and they went inside.
“In America you always try to make everything look expensive,” she
said. “But I like this room.”
“Looks like Hollywood,” said Holton. Carla looked about her and agreed.
The walls were dull green and the ceiling white. The furniture was
low and modern and there was much glass in the room: mirrors and
glass-topped tables. Two large windows looked out on Central Park. At
the left was the doorway to the bedroom.
“Bankton must have a lot of money,” murmured Holton.
Carla smiled. “No, I have, but that’s not important. Sit down over
there, Bob.” She motioned to a white couch by the window. “Would you
like something to drink?”
“If you want one.”
While she fixed his drink she would be able to think of the right thing
to say. She felt constrained still and her heart was beating rapidly.
She prepared the drink deliberately and, satisfied that it was right,
she turned and walked over to him. “Here you are.” Then she sat down
beside him.
They looked out at the city. Carla sat straight on the edge of the
couch, her eyes fixed on the tall buildings. She was conscious of
Holton’s slow breathing beside her. The silence was becoming difficult;
then he picked up his glass and ice clattered and the silence broke.
“Tell me,” she said, sitting back in the couch, “what do you do during
the days? What does a broker do?”
He opened his coat and relaxed. “Not much, I’m afraid. I get all sorts
of statistical books and I make out reports from them. It’s pretty
dull.”
“How long are you going to have to do that?”
“I don’t know ... a year maybe. I think Mr Heywood--he was the fellow
we met at the party--I think he’s going to move me out in the selling
end.”
“You would like that?”
“It means more money and it’s going to be my career.”
“That’s right; it’s going to be your career.”