Chapter V: Part 5

The music was becoming soft and sentimental. Full round chords gushed around them and people danced on the stage. Men danced with women and women with men for there was not really much courage among these people.

“Would you like to dance?” asked Holton.

“Not right now.”

He was not disappointed. She watched him as he watched the other people in the room. This was something new for him. She guessed that he was shocked by the people he saw at the different tables. He showed nothing in his face, though. Perhaps he did not recognize them, did not know them the way she did: she who had married one of them.

“It’s been quite a while, hasn’t it?” said Holton finally.

“Yes, but I haven’t forgotten any of it, have you?”

“Of course not. Naturally I didn’t know whether you wanted to talk about it. I figured that ... well, after you married Bankton you wouldn’t want to think about what we did.”

“I don’t,” said Carla, “love Bankton.”

He was shocked and she knew that she had said the right thing if in the wrong manner.

“But you got married,” said Holton.

She nodded. “I’m afraid I didn’t know very much about him then. I went to London after the war was over and I stayed with some artists there. I met him and he made love to me. I thought he was very wonderful. I had heard stories about him: that he was ... was like these people here.” She gestured to include the room. “I didn’t believe the stories. I married him. I found he wanted me for camouflage.”

“Why don’t you divorce him then?”

“Perhaps I shall someday. It seems so much trouble, though. He’s really a very nice person.”

Holton shook his head, confused. “I don’t see ... I don’t see why he married you in the first place if he was....”

“He could still like me, Bob.”

“I don’t see how.”

She smiled. “It _is_ hard to explain but anyway you know now that I don’t feel too deeply about him. You understand this?”

“I suppose so,” said Robert Holton. He _is_ beginning to understand, thought Carla, happy now: her words had begun to build the bridge between them. Soon they would meet again.

“You’ve certainly had a funny life,” said Holton, smiling.

“Sometimes I think so but then the most important thing is making a freedom for oneself. When that’s done nothing is strange because everything is natural. You know what I mean?”

He nodded. “Sometimes I know.”

She picked up a fork and drew pictures on the white tablecloth. “I want you to be free,” she said.

“Free from what?”

“You know. From your routine and morals: the things you don’t want.”

He laughed. “You know pretty well what my set of morals is and I don’t mind the routine so much.”

“I think you do.”

“Why?”

“Why did you want to come here with Lewis tonight? Why are you with me now?”

He smiled. “Perhaps you’re partly right. I was curious and I do get bored and....”

“And you’re alone.” She spoke for him.

He finished his drink and did not answer her; there was no need to answer her.

“Are you glad,” she asked at last, “are you glad to see me again?”

He said that he was. He declared that he was. He made an issue of it. He was still not at ease with her and she felt desperate. It was like a battle between them; first one side retreating and the other advancing.... Or perhaps a hunt. She was the hunter and her memories the pursued. She knew that beneath his many assumed faces there was the person she had known in Florence. Deliberately Carla began to smash the faces.

* * * * *

George _Robert_ Lewis had a very pleasant interview with de Bianca, the star; after a half-hour, though, he was beginning to get restless. Dancers seldom talked about anything interesting. Finally he excused himself, saying that his guests were waiting for him.

They were talking quietly and intimately when he got back to the table. He took a secret pleasure in interrupting them. Lewis had already decided that they were lovers.

“I’m so dreadfully sorry that I went off and left you the way I did. It was stupid of me but I got so involved with Hermes and his amours: he tells me all about them and though they’re really quite dull I have to be polite and listen. Have you ordered yet?”

They said that they had not. Lewis immediately became noisily efficient. He ordered the languid waiter about, gave him careful instructions and ignored his glances and meaningful gestures. Lewis never had liked this type at all. The ones like this waiter never seemed to have any respect for him. They couldn’t understand the principles for which he stood. They were not artists.

The dinner finally ordered, he turned toward his guests, a white-toothed smile on his slightly rouged lips (Hermes had lent him rouge).

“Are you adoring the atmosphere, my dear Mrs Bankton? It’s nothing to compare with Paris, of course, but you must admit that it’s a lot gayer than Rome. I love Rome and usually have a marvelous time there but somehow one never seems to find the same easy atmosphere that we have here.”

“No, it is not like Rome,” agreed Carla. What wonderful golden skin she has, thought Lewis, enjoying her aesthetically. He didn’t dislike women the way many of his friends did. He felt, in fact, most compatible with them.

“Are there many places like this in New York?” asked Holton. Lewis was pleased that he had caught on. Lewis, always optimistic, wondered if it might not be possible to make some sort of an arrangement.... It was not impossible, certainly.

“Oh, quite a few, quite a few. They _are_ rather charming from time to time. I enjoy visiting them and I do feel that the atmosphere is not uncongenial.” He wondered if perhaps he hadn’t been using the word “atmosphere” too much.

“I’ve heard about these places,” said Holton without much expression.

“Surely you don’t disapprove?” Lewis was intent on discovering this now. He could see that Carla was uneasy. Holton was unsatisfactory, though.

“I don’t care much one way or the other,” he said and he turned to Carla and began to talk to her again. Lewis, disappointed, listened to them as they talked of Fiesole.

Lewis was not quite sure what their relationship was. As they talked he gathered that she was more interested than he in continuing it. That was usually the case, however. Young men like Holton were apt to be a little unfeeling, a little stuffy. George _Robert_ Lewis thought pleasantly of young men.

When he felt that they had talked too long without him, he interrupted. “When were you last in Fiesole?” He looked at Carla, intending the question for her; it was difficult not having a name to call her.

She looked at him as though she had forgotten him completely. “In Fiesole? I was there just a year ago.”

“I suppose it’s pretty well recovered from the war. I told you how I used to love visiting there before the war. I hope it will always be pleasant.”

“I think it will,” said Carla.

“Europe must’ve been very nice before the war,” said Holton.

George _Robert_ Lewis made an elaborate motion to show just what it had been before the war; as he was finishing his movement the waiter brought them their dinner: a number of dishes with filet of sole at the center.

“I hope you enjoy it,” said the waiter spitefully, putting the dishes down loudly and angrily. He walked away, his duty done.

Lewis sighed. “These dreadful waiters, they presume so. I suppose that it’s all a part of the American dream. Shall we begin?” Like a priest of a pagan cult he began to perform the ritual of arranging plates, of removing covers, of neatly moving food from plate to plate, and finally of eating. The others imitated him.

“When,” asked Robert Holton, after the main part of the dinner had been eaten, “will the show start?”

Lewis put down his fork carefully, swallowed, and said, “Very soon, I think. What time is it?” There was an examination of watches: ten-fifteen. “The show starts at ten-thirty. I hope you’re not impatient. The audience is very often as interesting as the show. But I must say that de Bianca’s dance is in another world and that we mustn’t miss it. I’ll be very curious to know how you react.”

“There used to be a place in Paris like this where they had a wonderful dancer of the same type. I suppose he’s the type of dancer I think he is?” said Carla.

“He is quite probably the sort of dancer you think he is,” said Lewis, smiling, excluding Holton from his words. “The only difference is that he is a great artist, interpretive artist, I mean. I know you’ll appreciate him.”

A group of people who knew Lewis came over to their table. They acted most respectfully and he hoped that Carla and Holton were noticing what an important person he was. He spoke nicely to them, shook hands with them, and let them know that he was busy. They left him then, smiling. Smiling himself, he turned to Carla and Holton and he was disappointed to find them talking together again. Holton had taken Carla’s hand in his and Lewis felt a strange anguish, felt an inward betrayal. He did not know what had been betrayed, however.

“I’m sorry, my dear, that I didn’t introduce you to those people. It was rude of me because they _all_ admire your husband’s work.”

“That’s perfectly all right,” said Carla. “I know so little about his work. I’m only a layman, you know.”

“I can hardly believe that. You must’ve been an artist yourself at one time.”

She shook her head. “No, I was never an artist at anything. Except at living, perhaps.” Trumpets sounded loudly from the band, giving her statement an absurd grandeur. She sensed this and laughed. “I wish to say that I try to make my life a complete thing.”

“But what a marvelous thing to want to do! All of us try that but when we fail at it (and alas we most of us fail) then we must find ourselves a medium to guard our egos, to protect our fears.”

“That’s for the talented, Mr Lewis, but for the rest of us, the majority, only our lives count. We must make them natural.”

“And that,” said Robert Holton suddenly, “is for the rich to do. The rest of us can’t even do that.”

“How delightful!” exclaimed Lewis. “We have here the three representatives of humanity: the rich and ... free? the poor and trapped, and the artist who is finding both freedom and an opiate. But how wonderfully symbolic! We’re practically an allegory. I suppose we can reach some understanding.”

“How?” asked Holton and Lewis could see that he was asking Carla, not him. “How can you get what you want without money? I don’t see how you can ever do what you want if you aren’t free.”

“I think,” said Carla, “that you can become free. You can get free in art and you can get free in love. Money hasn’t much to do with it. You can’t go anywhere alone. I don’t think it’s possible to be sane alone, without love.”

“I think you’re right,” said Lewis sincerely and sadly, allowing the now soft music to dissolve his mind into an emotional waste out of which, of course, came art. “I think you have explained all the tragedies in the world.”

“And all the happiness,” murmured Carla, looking at Holton. Holton smiled then. It was the first time that Lewis had seen him smile and he was struck by the gentleness and beauty of his face. He was beginning to see the person under the rather rigid mask and he understood now why this quite wonderful woman was in love. Holton was about to say something when the band made a crescendo and the lights on the stage went up. The show was about to begin.

* * * * *

A slender little man, ineptly painted, appeared on the stage and welcomed the audience to the night club.

He then motioned and the lights in the room went out leaving only the stage with its curtain backdrop lighted. The band began to play a current song and the master of ceremonies proceeded to sing, using new dirty lyrics which made the audience laugh. He then told a joke about fairies. The audience laughed loudly at this, reveling in exposure; often their masks became too tight, too heavy. He removed them.

Finished with his joke, he bowed and several persons came onto the stage. They were probably men. They wore dresses and several of them had faces of great beauty. They danced, parodying women, transcending the single sex. And in the audience people looked at one another and nodded and looked again at the stage, smiles on their faces.

When their dance was finished they left. There was much noise from the audience.

Then a thin young man swayed onto the stage, took the microphone in his hands and sang a sexual funny song.

“Who is that?” asked Carla, turning to Lewis.

“Our waiter, darling,” whispered Lewis; “all the performers are waiters, too. Isn’t it exciting?”

Carla said nothing. Lewis looked at Holton. There was little light in the room and he couldn’t make out his expression. Holton was sitting motionless, one hand on the table, one hand touching Carla’s.

Their waiter was so well received that he sang another song.

More dancers appeared. This time they were real women and the men who came out with them were dressed as men. They did a serious near-ballet but, because they didn’t know how to dance very well and because they didn’t particularly care, the dance was funny and Holton laughed. Lewis and Carla didn’t laugh: for different reasons.

Suddenly in the middle of the dance a voice off stage announced loudly, “Jerry!” and a girl dressed in a fake tiger skin ran onto the stage. The audience whistled and stamped and a table of girls near the stage applauded hysterically. The girl’s face was square and smooth and hard, without expression. Her body was strong and slim and startlingly white. One shoulder and most of one breast were bare.

She moved in a stylized jungle fashion among the other dancers who ran from her, simulating fear as they did. Finally she was left alone on the stage. She danced then, showing as much of her hard white body as she could. Her face never changed expression, however. She always looked straight ahead without smiling, her square face rigid.

And, at last, as a climax, she unfastened the tiger skin and with a quick gesture pulled it off and for a moment let the audience see her white hard body. Then the lights went off and she disappeared as the women in the audience shrieked their delight and the men, catching some of the hysteria, applauded loudly.

The lights came on again and the stage was empty. The band played uncompelling music. “What,” asked Lewis, turning to Holton, “did you think of her? Isn’t she a perfect savage?”

“No, I don’t think she is,” said Holton seriously. “I don’t think she was good at all, did you?”

“Why, yes, I thought she had something. A certain ... how shall I say ... banked fire?”

“I agree with Bob,” said Carla. “I don’t think she’s a savage; I don’t think she’s natural.”

“Just prejudice,” said Lewis lightly, gesturing with his hand. “Just prejudice; anyway, the girls here love her.” He pointed to a table of women. The dancer, wearing a dressing gown now, was sitting on the lap of one.

Holton chuckled.

“What amuses you?” asked Lewis but Holton wouldn’t answer him.

Carla told them of a dancer in Paris, like this dancer, and as she talked the lights went off in the room and the band began to play. Suddenly a spotlight was turned upon the stage and the room became quiet as the people waited to see the thing they had heard of, the thing they had come to see.

Softly the orchestra played.

A boy with blond curling hair and a smooth white face walked onto the stage, turned his back to the audience, and hung a round silver moon from a hook attached to the low ceiling. He stood back a moment, looking at the moon, and then, satisfied that it was right, he stepped off the small stage and sat down on a bench near the wings.

The silver moon shone dully, dominating the stage and the room. In the middle of the moon there was a mask: a painted mask, enticing, sexual, ambiguous, a youth or a woman. From this mask long veils of pink and blue silk quivered gently, stirred by the now-excited breathing of the audience. They watched this mask and, watching, waited for the dance to begin.

A voice came startlingly into the room from a loud-speaker. Said the voice: “We take great pride in introducing the star of our show, the one and only Hermes de Bianca. To the music of a Tschaikovsky concerto he will do a dance symbolic of the struggle between the material and the spiritual natures of man. Introducing MR HERMES DE BIANCA!”

The band began to play the concerto. More lights, multicolored lights, were turned upon the stage. The veils of the moon fluttered and Hermes de Bianca entered.

A long sigh came from the audience as he appeared and began to dance.

He wore a thin silk costume, mysterious and black, with flowing sleeves. He was fat, not grossly fat like a man, but rather the plump voluptuousness of an old belle; his skin shone white through the semi-transparent costume.

His hips were heavy and feminine. His hands and feet were tiny; he was very proud of them, for he gestured with his hands and pirouetted on the tips of his dainty feet. His breasts were the breasts of a woman.

Methodically he danced. With an obscene grace he moved about the stage, moved like a yielding woman exulting in her passivity.

His face:

There are the faces of men and there are the faces of women and there are also the faces of children, but this was yet another face.

The skin was smooth and silken-looking. The face was beautiful; his eyes were widened with paint and across the upper eyelids rows of shining, diamond-like stones were glued, making his slightest expression glitter in the light.

As he danced he would touch his hair from time to time, using the most common of feminine gestures. His hair was dark and oiled, with an artificial peak over the forehead. And, most striking of all, streaks of gray had been painted at the temples.

The music then became sad and, as it did, his dance became slower, more sensual. His wide painted mouth was never still, always working, always moist, the lips never without expression; now parted, showing desire, now petulant, now commanding, always enticing young men to love.

He moved with great lightness, handling his heaviness gracefully as he advanced upon the moon, making love to the mask.

Then, as the music became louder, more compelling, he whirled and twisted among the veils of the moon, wrapping himself in them, surrendering to the mask, approaching and retreating, always attracted to the painted mask.

But, finally, he was the one conquered, the one who surrendered, the passive one. And he stood there, the sounds of music all about him, engulfing him, his back arched, his head thrown back and his plump white stomach shuddering beneath the dark material of his costume.

And then, as the music reached a climax, he whirled in the center of the stage, violent, obscene in a desire to be possessed.

The music stopped.

There was silence in the room--no sound save the unheard thundering of many quick-beating hearts. The ones who understood were too moved to speak and the ones who did not understand were embarrassed and sickened, aware of their danger, and afraid.

He bowed to the audience now, his moist red mouth smiling brilliantly, the mouth of an actress awaiting applause. The applause came, destroying the silence in the room, creating another less frightening mood, replenishing his ego.

Smiling, he walked in triumph off the stage.

The lights were turned on at last and the orchestra played a popular song.

The boy took down the silver moon and the painted mask and as he walked away he took the reality of the dream with him and couples began to dance on the stage where Hermes de Bianca had danced. Yet as they danced, close to one another, there was a certain fear within each of them, an uncertainty and a dread.

* * * * *

“What do you think of that?” asked Lewis.

He was breathing quickly, Carla noticed. His face was flushed and he was excited, more excited than she had thought he could possibly be.

“It is very ... erotic,” she said, knowing how inadequate that word was.

Holton was sweating when she turned to ask him what he thought. He looked angry.

“Did you like it, Bob?” she asked.

“No, I didn’t,” he said. He took out his handkerchief and dried his face. “Christ, but it’s hot in here. Why don’t we go?”

“In a moment,” said Lewis, now recovered. “You must meet dear Hermes. I’ll go back stage and get him.” He stood up, looked around the room to see if he were being watched; then, satisfied that he was, he went back stage.

“You don’t care for this?” Carla asked.

“I guess I don’t. I never saw anything like this before. I used to hear a lot of stories but I didn’t think there were really such places.”

“There are many a lot worse, said Carla. Of course I’m used to it. You see my husband is....”

He smiled. “I guess you were right about not coming here.”

“You don’t regret it?”

“It’s interesting.”

“I think it was a very good idea for you to see something of this world. Perhaps you can understand me better now, knowing that I’m living with people like these, married to a person like Lewis.”

He frowned and looked very serious and she was happy to see him concerned. “Can’t you leave him, can’t you leave Bankton?”

“Where would I go? He’s a charming person and I like him. I’d have to find someone else before I could leave.”

“Yes,” he said, not understanding her, “I see what you mean.”

George _Robert_ Lewis returned leading Hermes, still in costume, by the hand.

Everyone was polite. Hermes lisped that he was glad to meet them and he shook hands squashily with both Holton and Carla. Then they sat down at the table.

Lewis was excited. “You know Hermes has made the most dreadfully big decision? He’s going to Rome!” Trumpets did not blow at that moment in the band; they should have, though.

Carla was puzzled. “You mean he’s going to Italy?”

“No, darling, he’s becoming a Roman Catholic. Isn’t it the most thrilling thing!”

“I suppose so,” she said. “I used to be a Catholic myself.”

“What happened?” asked Hermes in a lisping little girl’s voice.

“I seemed to’ve gotten out of the idea. I married a Protestant, of 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.”

Holton crossed his legs, using the movement to give himself time to think. Carla waited, watching him.

“Are you going to live in Florence?” he asked finally.

This was not going at all well, she thought. “I think I may live there part of the year. I think I shall travel first.”

“Where? Where do you want to go?”

“Some place in the Near East, some place like the _Arabian Nights_--you’ve read it, haven’t you?”

“I read it once.”

“I always wanted things to be like that, to be enchanted.”

“And you’ve been disappointed?”

She nodded. “Sometimes I’ve been very disappointed but, you see, sooner or later it’s all right. I’ve great faith in things being right.”

“You’re a curious girl,” he said. He looked at her and she could see her own face twice reflected in his eyes. “You don’t,” he said, “really like Bankton, do you?”

The words were making the proper patterns now. She turned so that he would see all her face when she spoke. “Yes, I like him very much but I don’t love him. I can’t love anyone without having it complete, without having ... the other thing.”

“What we had.”

“Yes, what we had.” She felt that now he was coming back again.

“It was so long ago, wasn’t it?” She wasn’t sure now that he was coming back: “so long ago.”

“I’ve remembered it,” she said. “It doesn’t seem long ago to me.”

“I don’t mean that,” he said. “I meant that ... well ... so much has happened to us since then. You’ve been married and I left the army....”

“We’re not much different, are we?” She looked out the window now and watched different lights go out in the tall buildings; for each light that went out, though, someone else turned on another. “You know,” she said, concentrating on the lights, “you know you were really the first for me.”

He was awkward now. “Yes, I guess I was. I didn’t....”

“There were probably a lot of others for you in Europe. You know, I haven’t really wanted any man since then.”

This had to surprise; she wanted this to be her strongest weapon. She looked at him now. He had put down his drink and he was looking at her.

“Is that true?”

She nodded. “I don’t know why I shouldn’t tell you. I couldn’t keep from telling you.” She tried not to look at him.

“You mean what happened to us in Italy was the only time...?” He was confused.

She turned then and looked at him, at the troubled eyes and the boy’s mouth. “My dear, when something means a lot to you I think it’s hard to take a substitute. You see, I made an object for myself. I was upset when you left, naturally, because you’d become my object. I never heard from you and so I married Bankton in London. I never lost my object, though. It never changed.”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Carla smiled. “I understand it now. You had so many women and I was only one. I think that’s all right, I think that’s natural. I hoped you might have felt the way I did. One always wants to be loved and it’s not easy to find a lover. I never had another man--not because I couldn’t, but because I didn’t want to. I was waiting all that time, hoping to see _you_ again.” She had said everything now. He had listened and there was nothing else she could do.