Simonoff told it to me over the coffee cups. It was the twilight hour on
Second avenue and we were enjoying a late afternoon chat. The gates of
the human dam, shut all day long, had been opened and the rushing,
swirling stream of men and women beat past us relentlessly--past the
door of the Cafe Cosmos open to the sights and sounds of the street.
Every person in that human torrent seemed eager to reach a haven of
rest. Not that their faces looked tired or haggard. But each gave the
impression that something had been worn off in a subtle, persistent
process--a certain newness, freshness, gloss, call it what you will.
Shadows of men and women they were in the twilight as they scurried
past. And yet the rhythm of their footsteps beat upon the ear as
steadily as the roar of many waters.
"The ghosts are having a holiday," said Simonoff.
His voice was barely audible in the hum of conversation. Simonoff was
one of those rare teachers on the lower East Side who neither taught
night school nor practised law after his daily duties were over. His
passion was to understand his fellow men--to help them, if
possible--although, for a reformer, he was given entirely too much to
dreaming. His cafe bills for a year, when added together, made a
surprisingly large total. But then Simonoff never bothered with useless
mathematics.
A hand organ outside was droning the "Miserere." Children of the
tenements, like moths drawn to globes of brilliant light on midsummer
nights, hovered about the organ and danced. There was a capricious
abandon about their movements which fascinated Simonoff. He had a way of
running his slender fingers through his wavy, brown hair, when he was
emotionally stirred.
"The dancing maidens of Trebizond were not more graceful than these," he
sighed as his eyes followed the sinuous movements of two ragged little
tots. "They outgrow it after a while."
"Never," I protested. "The Grand street halls----"
"I mean the search for beauty," drawled Simonoff. "This is the dance of
Greek maidens at the sacrificial rites to Demeter. The Grand street
thing is a contortion before the obese complacency of the great god
Jazz. And Jazz has no soul."
Through the ever-gathering darkness the electric lights began to twinkle
like blue-white diamonds against purple velvet. The lights in the cafe
too were turned on by a pottering waiter whose flat-footed shuffle had
become familiar to us through many years of observation.
A bedraggled looking person entered the cafe, clutching awkwardly a
dozen or more cut roses. He passed from table to table and offered them
for sale. The price was ridiculously small.
It seemed strange to me that Simonoff's face should turn so white. His
manner suggested great agitation. When the peddler reached him, Simonoff
purchased the entire stock and gave him in payment far in excess of the
amount asked. The happy vender directed one searching glance at him,
then went out whistling.
"What will you do with all those roses?" I asked.
"Give them away," he answered, "to the dirtiest, most woebegone, most
forlorn little children I can find. I shall do this in memory of John
Keats."