Chapter XI: Part 11

Dougan went crimson and began to stammer.

“Oh you seabeach Apollo,” jeered Garnett.

“And I think I can do best as treasurer because I’ve had more experience.”

“Cause you’re the crookedest you mean,” said Segal under his breath.

Joe stuck out his jaw. “Look here Segal are you wid us or aint yer? You’d better come right out wid it now if you’re not.”

“Sure, cut de comedy,” said Dougan. “Joey’s de guy to put dis ting trough an you know it.... Cut de comedy.... If you dont like it you kin git out.”

Segal rubbed his thin hooked nose. “I was juss jokin gents, I didn’t mean no harm.”

“Look here,” went on Joe angrily, “what do you think I’m givin up my time for?... Why I turned down fifty dollars a week only yesterday, aint that so, Sid? You seen me talkin to de guy.”

“Sure I did Joey.”

“Oh pipe down fellers,” said Segal. “I was just stringin Joey along.”

“Well I think Segal you ought to be secretary, cause you know about office work....”

“Office work?”

“Sure,” said Joe puffing his chest out. “We’re goin to have desk space in the office of a guy I know.... It’s all fixed. He’s goin to let us have it free till we get a start. An we’re goin to have office stationery. Cant get nowhere in this world without presentin things right.”

“An where do I come in?” asked Sid Garnett.

“You’re the committee, you big stiff.”

After the meeting Joe O’Keefe walked whistling down Atlantic Avenue. It was a crisp night; he was walking on springs. There was a light in Dr. Gordon’s office. He rang. A whitefaced man in a white jacket opened the door.

“Hello Doc.”

“Is that you O’Keefe? Come on in my boy.” Something in the doctor’s voice clutched like a cold hand at his spine.

“Well did your test come out all right doc?”

“All right ... positive all right.”

“Christ.”

“Dont worry too much about it, my boy, we’ll fix you up in a few months.”

“Months.”

“Why at a conservative estimate fiftyfive percent of the people you meet on the street have a syphilitic taint.”

“It’s not as if I’d been a damn fool. I was careful over there.”

“Inevitable in wartime....”

“Now I wish I’d let loose.... Oh the chances I passed up.”

The doctor laughed. “You probably wont even have any symptoms.... It’s just a question of injections. I’ll have you sound as a dollar in no time.... Do you want to take a shot now? I’ve got it all ready.”

O’Keefe’s hands went cold. “Well I guess so,” he forced a laugh. “I guess I’ll be a goddam thermometer by the time you’re through with me.” The doctor laughed creakily. “Full up of arsenic and mercury eh.... That’s it.”

The wind was blowing up colder. His teeth were chattering. Through the rasping castiron night he walked home. Fool to pass out that way when he stuck me. He could still feel the sickening lunge of the needle. He gritted his teeth. After this I got to have some luck.... I got to have some luck.

* * * * *

Two stout men and a lean man sit at a table by a window. The light of a zinc sky catches brightedged glints off glasses, silverware, oystershells, eyes. George Baldwin has his back to the window. Gus McNiel sits on his right, and Densch on his left. When the waiter leans over to take away the empty oystershells he can see through the window, beyond the graystone parapet, the tops of a few buildings jutting like the last trees at the edge of a cliff and the tinfoil reaches of the harbor littered with ships. “I’m lecturin you this time, George.... Lord knows you used to lecture me enough in the old days. Honest it’s rank foolishness,” Gus McNiel is saying. “... It’s rank foolishness to pass up the chance of a political career at your time of life.... There’s no man in New York better fitted to hold office ...”

“Looks to me as if it were your duty, Baldwin,” says Densch in a deep voice, taking his tortoiseshell glasses out of a case and applying them hurriedly to his nose.

The waiter has brought a large planked steak surrounded by bulwarks of mushrooms and chopped carrots and peas and frilled browned mashed potatoes. Densch straightens his glasses and stares attentively at the planked steak.

“A very handsome dish Ben, a very handsome dish I must say.... It’s just this Baldwin ... as I look at it ... the country is going through a dangerous period of reconstruction ... the confusion attendant on the winding up of a great conflict ... the bankruptcy of a continent ... bolshevism and subversive doctrines rife ... America ...” he says, cutting with the sharp polished steel knife into the thick steak, rare and well peppered. He chews a mouthful slowly. “America,” he begins again, “is in the position of taking over the receivership of the world. The great principles of democracy, of that commercial freedom upon which our whole civilization depends are more than ever at stake. Now as at no other time we need men of established ability and unblemished integrity in public office, particularly in the offices requiring expert judicial and legal knowledge.”

“That’s what I was tryin to tell ye the other day George.”

“But that’s all very well Gus, but how do you know I’d be elected.... After all it would mean giving up my law practice for a number of years, it would mean ...”

“You just leave that to me.... George you’re elected already.”

“An extraordinarily good steak,” says Densch, “I must say.... No but newspaper talk aside ... I happen to know from a secret and reliable source that there is a subversive plot among undesirable elements in this country.... Good God think of the Wall Street bomb outrage.... I must say that the attitude of the press has been gratifying in one respect ... in fact we’re approaching a national unity undreamed of before the war.”

“No but George,” breaks in Gus, “put it this way.... The publicity value of a political career’d kinder bolster up your law practice.”

“It would and it wouldn’t Gus.”

Densch is unrolling the tinfoil off a cigar. “At any rate it’s a grand sight.” He takes off his glasses and cranes his thick neck to look out into the bright expanse of harbor that stretches full of masts, smoke, blobs of steam, dark oblongs of barges, to the hazeblurred hills of Staten Island.

Bright flakes of cloud were scaling off a sky of crushing indigo over the Battery where groups of dingy darkdressed people stood round the Ellis Island landing station and the small boat dock waiting silently for something. Frayed smoke of tugs and steamers hung low and trailed along the opaque glassgreen water. A threemasted schooner was being towed down the North River. A newhoisted jib flopped awkwardly in the wind. Down the harbor loomed taller, taller a steamer head on, four red stacks packed into one, creamy superstructure gleaming. “_Mauretania_ just acomin in twentyfour hours lyte,” yelled the man with the telescope and fieldglasses.... “Tyke a look at the _Mauretania_, farstest ocean greyhound, twentyfour hours lyte.” The _Mauretania_ stalked like a skyscraper through the harbor shipping. A rift of sunlight sharpened the shadow under the broad bridge, along the white stripes of upper decks, glinted in the rows of portholes. The smokestacks stood apart, the hull lengthened. The black relentless hull of the _Mauretania_ pushing puffing tugs ahead of it cut like a long knife into the North River.

A ferry was leaving the immigrant station, a murmur rustled through the crowd that packed the edges of the wharf. “Deportees.... It’s the communists the Department of Justice is having deported ... deportees ... Reds.... It’s the Reds they are deporting.” The ferry was out of the slip. In the stern a group of men stood still tiny like tin soldiers. “They are sending the Reds back to Russia.” A handkerchief waved on the ferry, a red handkerchief. People tiptoed gently to the edge of the walk, tiptoeing, quiet like in a sickroom.

Behind the backs of the men and women crowding to the edge of the water, gorillafaced chipontheshoulder policemen walked back and forth nervously swinging their billies.

“They are sending the Reds back to Russia.... Deportees.... Agitators.... Undesirables.” ... Gulls wheeled crying. A catsupbottle bobbed gravely in the little ground-glass waves. A sound of singing came from the ferryboat getting small, slipping away across the water.

C’est la lutte finale, groupons-nous et demain
L’Internationale sera le genre humain.

“Take a look at the deportees.... Take a look at the undesirable aliens,” shouted the man with the telescopes and fieldglasses. A girl’s voice burst out suddenly, “_Arise prisoners of starvation_,” “Sh.... They could pull you for that.”

The singing trailed away across the water. At the end of a marbled wake the ferryboat was shrinking into haze. _International ... shall be the human race._ The singing died. From up the river came the longdrawn rattling throb of a steamer leaving dock. Gulls wheeled above the dark dingydressed crowd that stood silently looking down the bay.

II. Nickelodeon

_A nickel before midnight buys tomorrow ... holdup
headlines, a cup of coffee in the automat, a ride to
Woodlawn, Fort Lee, Flatbush.... A nickel in the slot
buys chewing gum. Somebody Loves Me, Baby Divine, You’re
in Kentucky Juss Shu’ As You’re Born ... bruised notes of
foxtrots go limping out of doors, blues, waltzes (We’d
Danced the Whole Night Through) trail gyrating tinsel
memories.... On Sixth Avenue on Fourteenth there are still
flyspecked stereopticons where for a nickel you can peep at
yellowed yesterdays. Beside the peppering shooting gallery
you stoop into the flicker_ A HOT TIME, THE BACHELOR’S
SURPRISE, THE STOLEN GARTER ... _wastebasket of tornup
daydreams.... A nickel before midnight buys our yesterdays._

Ruth Prynne came out of the doctor’s office pulled the fur tight round her throat. She felt faint. Taxi. As she stepped in she remembered the smell of cosmetics and toast and the littered hallway at Mrs. Sunderlands. Oh I cant go home just yet. “Driver go to the Old English Tea Room on Fortieth Street please.” She opened her long green leather purse and looked in. My God, only a dollar a quarter a nickel and two pennies. She kept her eyes on the figures flickering on the taximeter. She wanted to break down and cry.... The way money goes. The gritty cold wind rasped at her throat when she got out. “Eighty cents miss.... I haven’t any change miss.” “All right keep the change.” Heavens only thirtytwo cents.... Inside it was warm and smelled cozily of tea and cookies.

“Why Ruth, if it isn’t Ruth.... Dearest come to my arms after all these years.” It was Billy Waldron. He was fatter and whiter than he used to be. He gave her a stagy hug and kissed her on the forehead. “How are you? Do tell me.... How distinguée you look in that hat.”

“I’ve just been having my throat X-rayed,” she said with a giggle. “I feel like the wrath of God.”

“What are you doing Ruth? I havent heard of you for ages.”

“Put me down as a back number, hadn’t you?” She caught his words up fiercely.

“After that beautiful performance you gave in The Orchard Queen....”

“To tell the truth Billy I’ve had a terrible run of bad luck.”

“Oh I know everything is dead.”

“I have an appointment to see Belasco next week.... Something may come of that.”

“Why I should say it might Ruth.... Are you expecting someone?”

“No.... Oh Billy you’re still the same old tease.... Dont tease me this afternoon. I dont feel up to it.”

“You poor dear sit down and have a cup of tea with me.

“I tell you Ruth it’s a terrible year. Many a good trouper will pawn the last link of his watch chain this year.... I suppose you’re going the rounds.”

“Dont talk about it.... If I could only get my throat all right.... A thing like that wears you down.”

“Remember the old days at the Somerville Stock?”

“Billy could I ever forget them?... Wasnt it a scream?”

“The last time I saw you Ruth was in The Butterfly on the Wheel in Seattle. I was out front....”

“Why didn’t you come back and see me?”

“I was still angry at you I suppose.... It was my lowest moment. In the valley of shadow ... melancholia ... neurasthenia. I was stranded penniless.... That night I was a little under the influence, you understand. I didn’t want you to see the beast in me.”

Ruth poured herself a fresh cup of tea. She suddenly felt feverishly gay. “Oh but Billy havent you forgotten all that?... I was a foolish little girl then.... I was afraid that love or marriage or anything like that would interfere with my art, you understand.... I was so crazy to succeed.”

“Would you do the same thing again?”

“I wonder....”

“How does it go?... _The moving finger writes and having writ moves on ..._”

“Something about _Nor all your tears wash out a word of it_ ... But Billy,” she threw back her head and laughed, “I thought you were getting ready to propose to me all over again.... Ou my throat.”

“Ruth I wish you werent taking that X-ray treatment.... I’ve heard it’s very dangerous. Dont let me alarm you about it my dear ... but I have heard of cases of cancer contracted that way.”

“That’s nonsense Billy.... That’s only when X-rays are improperly used, and it takes years of exposure.... No I think this Dr. Warner’s a remarkable man.”

Later, sitting in the uptown express in the subway, she still could feel his soft hand patting her gloved hand. “Goodby little girl, God bless you,” he’d said huskily. He’s gotten to be a ham actor if there ever was one, something was jeering inside her all the while. “Thank heavens you will never know.” ... Then with a sweep of his broadbrimmed hat and a toss of his silky white hair, as if he were playing in Monsieur Beaucaire, he had turned and walked off among the crowd up Broadway. I may be down on my luck, but I’m not all ham inside the way he is.... Cancer he said. She looked up and down the car at the joggling faces opposite her. Of all those people one of them must have it. FOUR OUT OF EVERY FIVE GET ... Silly, that’s not cancer. EX-LAX, NUJOL, O’SULLIVAN’S.... She put her hand to her throat. Her throat was terribly swollen, her throat throbbed feverishly. Maybe it was worse. It is something alive that grows in flesh, eats all your life, leaves you horrible, rotten.... The people opposite stared straight ahead of them, young men and young women, middleaged people, green faces in the dingy light, under the sourcolored advertisements. FOUR OUT OF EVERY FIVE ... A trainload of jiggling corpses, nodding and swaying as the express roared shrilly towards Ninetysixth Street. At Ninetysixth she had to change for the local.

* * * * *

Dutch Robertson sat on a bench on Brooklyn Bridge with the collar of his army overcoat turned up, running his eye down Business Opportunities. It was a muggy fog-choked afternoon; the bridge was dripping and aloof like an arbor in a dense garden of steamboatwhistles. Two sailors passed. “Ze best joint I’ve been in since B. A.”

Partner movie theater, busy neighborhood ... stand investigation ... $3,000.... Jez I haven’t got three thousand mills.... Cigar stand, busy building, compelled sacrifice.... Attractive and completely outfitted radio and music shop ... busy.... Modern mediumsized printingplant consisting of cylinders, Kelleys, Miller feeders, job presses, linotype machines and a complete bindery.... Kosher restaurant and delicatessen.... Bowling alley ... busy.... Live spot large dancehall and other concessions. WE BUY FALSE TEETH, old gold, platinum, old jewelry. The hell they do. HELP WANTED MALE. That’s more your speed you rummy. Addressers, first class penmen.... Lets me out.... Artist, Attendant, Auto, Bicycle and Motorcycle repair shop.... He took out the back of an envelope and marked down the address. Bootblacks.... Not yet. Boy; no I guess I aint a boy any more, Candystore, Canvassers, Carwashers, Dishwasher. EARN WHILE YOU LEARN. Mechanical dentistry is your shortest way to success.... No dull seasons....

“Hello Dutch.... I thought I’d never get here.” A grayfaced girl in a red hat and gray rabbit coat sat down beside him.

“Jez I’m sick o readin want ads.” He stretched out his arms and yawned letting the paper slip down his legs.

“Aint you chilly, sittin out here on the bridge?”

“Maybe I am.... Let’s go and eat.” He jumped to his feet and put his red face with its thin broken nose close to hers and looked in her black eyes with his pale gray eyes. He tapped her arm sharply. “Hello Francie.... How’s my lil girl?”

They walked back towards Manhattan, the way she had come. Under them the river glinted through the mist. A big steamer drifted by slowly, lights already lit; over the edge of the walk they looked down the black smokestacks.

“Was it a boat as big as that you went overseas on Dutch?”

“Bigger ’n that.”

“Gee I’d like to go.”

“I’ll take you over some time and show you all them places over there ... I went to a lot of places that time I went A.W.O.L.”

In the L station they hesitated. “Francie got any jack on you?”

“Sure I got a dollar.... I ought to keep that for tomorrer though.”

“All I got’s my last quarter. Let’s go eat two fiftyfive cent dinners at that chink place ... That’ll be a dollar ten.”

“I got to have a nickel to get down to the office in the mornin.”

“Oh Hell! Goddam it I wish we could have some money.”

“Got anything lined up yet?”

“Wouldn’t I have told ye if I had?”

“Come ahead I’ve got a half a dollar saved up in my room. I can take carfare outa that.” She changed the dollar and put two nickels into the turnstile. They sat down in a Third Avenue train.

“Say Francie will they let us dance in a khaki shirt?”

“Why not Dutch it looks all right.”

“I feel kinder fussed about it.”

The jazzband in the restaurant was playing Hindustan. It smelled of chop suey and Chinese sauce. They slipped into a booth. Slickhaired young men and little bobhaired girls were dancing hugged close. As they sat down they smiled into each other’s eyes.

“Jez I’m hungry.”

“Are you Dutch?”

He pushed forward his knees until they locked with hers. “Gee you’re a good kid,” he said when he had finished his soup. “Honest I’ll get a job this week. And then we’ll get a nice room an get married an everything.”

When they got up to dance they were trembling so they could barely keep time to the music.

“Mister ... no dance without ploper dless ...” said a dapper Chinaman putting his hand on Dutch’s arm.

“Waz he want?” he growled dancing on.

“I guess it’s the shirt, Dutch.”

“The hell it is.”

“I’m tired. I’d rather talk than dance anyway ...” They went back to their booth and their sliced pineapple for dessert.

Afterwards they walked east along Fourteenth. “Dutch cant we go to your room?”

“I ain’t got no room. The old stiff wont let me stay and she’s got all my stuff. Honest if I dont get a job this week I’m goin to a recruiting sergeant an re-enlist.”

“Oh dont do that; we wouldn’t ever get married then Dutch.... Gee though why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t want to worry you Francie.... Six months out of work ... Jez it’s enough to drive a guy cookoo.”

“But Dutch where can we go?”

“We might go out that wharf.... I know a wharf.”

“It’s so cold.”

“I couldn’t get cold when you were with me kid.”

“Dont talk like that.... I dont like it.”

They walked leaning together in the darkness up the muddy rutted riverside streets, between huge swelling gastanks, brokendown fences, long manywindowed warehouses. At a corner under a streetlamp a boy catcalled as they passed.

“I’ll poke your face in you little bastard,” Dutch let fly out of the corner of his mouth.

“Dont answer him,” Francie whispered, “or we’ll have the whole gang down on us.”

They slipped through a little door in a tall fence above which crazy lumberpiles towered. They could smell the river and cedarwood and sawdust. They could hear the river lapping at the piles under their feet. Dutch drew her to him and pressed his mouth down on hers.

“Hay dere dont you know you cant come out here at night disaway?” a voice yapped at them. The watchman flashed a lantern in their eyes.

“All right keep your shirt on, we were just taking a little walk.”

“Some walk.”

They were dragging themselves down the street again with the black riverwind in their teeth.

“Look out.” A policeman passed whistling softly to himself. They drew apart. “Oh Francie they’ll be takin us to the nuthouse if we keep this up. Let’s go to your room.”

“Landlady’ll throw me out, that’s all.”

“I wont make any noise.... You got your key aint ye? I’ll sneak out before light. Goddam it they make you feel like a skunk.”

“All right Dutch let’s go home.... I dont care no more what happens.”

They walked up mudtracked stairs to the top floor of the tenement.

“Take off your shoes,” she hissed in his ear as she slipped the key in the lock.

“I got holes in my stockings.”

“That dont matter, silly. I’ll see if it’s all right. My room’s way back past the kitchen so if they’re all in bed they cant hear us.”

When she left him he could hear his heart beating. In a second she came back. He tiptoed after her down a creaky hall. A sound of snoring came through a door. There was a smell of cabbage and sleep in the hall. Once in her room she locked the door and put a chair against it under the knob. A triangle of ashen light came in from the street. “Now for crissake keep still Dutch.” One shoe still in each hand he reached for her and hugged her.

He lay beside her whispering on and on with his lips against her ear. “And Francie I’ll make good, honest I will; I got to be a sergeant overseas till they busted me for goin A.W.O.L. That shows I got it in me. Once I get a chance I’ll make a whole lot of jack and you an me’ll go back an see Château Teery an Paree an all that stuff; honest you’d like it Francie ... Jez the towns are old and funny and quiet and cozy-like an they have the swellest ginmills where you sit outside at little tables in the sun an watch the people pass an the food’s swell too once you get to like it an they have hotels all over where we could have gone like tonight an they dont care if your married or nutten. An they have big beds all cozy made of wood and they bring ye up breakfast in bed. Jez Francie you’d like it.”

* * * * *

They were walking to dinner through the snow. Big snowfeathers spun and spiraled about them mottling the glare of the streets with blue and pink and yellow, blotting perspectives.

“Ellie I hate to have you take that job.... You ought to keep on with your acting.”

“But Jimps, we’ve got to live.”

“I know ... I know. You’d certainly didn’t have your wits about you Ellie when you married me.”

“Oh let’s not talk about it any more.”

“Do let’s have a good time tonight.... It’s the first snow.”

“Is this the place?” They stood before an unlighted basement door covered by a closemeshed grating. “Let’s try.”

“Did the bell ring?”

“I think so.”

The inner door opened and a girl in a pink apron peered out at them. “Bon soir mademoiselle.”

“Ah ... bon soir monsieur ’dame.” She ushered them into a foodsmelling gaslit hall hung with overcoats and hats and mufflers. Through a curtained door the restaurant blew in their faces a hot breath of bread and cocktails and frying butter and perfumes and lipsticks and clatter and jingling talk.

“I can smell absinthe,” said Ellen. “Let’s get terribly tight.”

“Good Lord, there’s Congo.... Dont you remember Congo Jake at the Seaside Inn?”

He stood bulky at the end of the corridor beckoning to them. His face was very tanned and he had a glossy black mustache. “Hello Meester ’Erf.... Ow are you?”

“Fine as silk. Congo I want you to meet my wife.”

“If you dont mind the keetchen we will ’ave a drink.”

“Of course we dont.... It’s the best place in the house. Why you’re limping.... What did you do to your leg?”

“Foutu ... I left it en Italie.... I couldnt breeng it along once they’d cut it off.”

“How was that?”

“Damn fool thing on Mont Tomba.... My bruderinlaw e gave me a very beautiful artificial leemb.... Sit ’ere. Look madame now can you tell which is which?”

“No I cant,” said Ellie laughing. They were at a little marble table in the corner of the crowded kitchen. A girl was dishing out at a deal table in the center. Two cooks worked over the stove. The air was rich with sizzling fatty foodsmells. Congo hobbled back to them with three glasses on a small tray. He stood over them while they drank.

“Salut,” he said, raising his glass. “Absinthe cocktail, like they make it in New Orleans.”

“It’s a knockout.” Congo took a card out of his vest pocket:

MARQUIS DES COULOMMIERS
IMPORTS

Riverside 11121

“Maybe some day you need some little ting ... I deal in nutting but prewar imported. I am the best bootleggair in New York.”

“If I ever get any money I certainly will spend it on you Congo.... How do you find business?”

“Veree good.... I tell you about it. Tonight I’m too busee.... Now I find you a table in the restaurant.”

“Do you run this place too?”

“No this my bruderinlaw’s place.”

“I didnt know you had a sister.”

“Neither did I.”

When Congo limped away from their table silence came down between them like an asbestos curtain in a theater.

“He’s a funny duck,” said Jimmy forcing a laugh.

“He certainly is.”

“Look Ellie let’s have another cocktail.”

“Allright.”

“I must get hold of him and get some stories about bootleggers out of him.”

When he stretched his legs out under the table he touched her feet. She drew them away. Jimmy could feel his jaws chewing, they clanked so loud under his cheeks he thought Ellie must hear them. She sat opposite him in a gray tailoredsuit, her neck curving up heartbreakingly from the ivory V left by the crisp frilled collar of her blouse, her head tilted under her tight gray hat, her lips made up; cutting up little pieces of meat and not eating them, not saying a word.

“Gosh ... let’s have another cocktail.” He felt paralyzed like in a nightmare; she was a porcelaine figure under a bellglass. A current of fresh snowrinsed air from somewhere eddied all of a sudden through the blurred packed jangling glare of the restaurant, cut the reek of food and drink and tobacco. For an instant he caught the smell of her hair. The cocktails burned in him. God I dont want to pass out.

Sitting in the restaurant of the Gare de Lyon, side by side on the black leather bench. His cheek brushes hers when he reaches to put herring, butter, sardines, anchovies, sausage on her plate. They eat in a hurry, gobbling, giggling, gulp wine, start at every screech of an engine....

The train pulls out of Avignon, they two awake, looking in each other’s eyes in the compartment full of sleep-sodden snoring people. He lurches clambering over tangled legs, to smoke a cigarette at the end of the dim oscillating corridor. Diddledeump, going south, Diddledeump, going south, sing the wheels over the rails down the valley of the Rhone. Leaning in the window, smoking a broken cigarette, trying to smoke a crumbling cigarette, holding a finger over the torn place. Glubglub glubglub from the bushes, from the silverdripping poplars along the track.

“Ellie, Ellie there are nightingales singing along the track.”

“Oh I was asleep darling.” She gropes to him stumbling across the legs of sleepers. Side by side in the window in the lurching jiggling corridor.

Deedledeump, going south. Gasp of nightingales along the track among the silverdripping poplars. The insane cloudy night of moonlight smells of gardens garlic rivers freshdunged field roses. Gasp of nightingales.

Opposite him the Elliedoll was speaking. “He says the lobstersalad’s all out.... Isnt that discouraging?”

Suddenly he had his tongue. “Gosh if that were the only thing.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why did we come back to this rotten town anyway?”

“You’ve been burbling about how wonderful it was ever since we came back.”

“I know. I guess it’s sour grapes.... I’m going to have another cocktail.... Ellie for heaven’s sake what’s the matter with us?”

“We’re going to be sick if we keep this up I tell you.”

“Well let’s be sick.... Let’s be good and sick.”

When they sit up in the great bed they can see across the harbor, can see the yards of a windjammer and a white sloop and a red and green toy tug and plainfaced houses opposite beyond a peacock stripe of water; when they lie down they can see gulls in the sky. At dusk dressing rockily, shakily stumbling through the mildewed corridors of the hotel out into streets noisy as a brass band, full of tambourine rattle, brassy shine, crystal glitter, honk and whir of motors.... Alone together in the dusk drinking sherry under a broad-leaved plane, alone together in the juggled particolored crowds like people invisible. And the spring night comes up over the sea terrible out of Africa and settles about them.

They had finished their coffee. Jimmy had drunk his very slowly as if some agony waited for him when he finished it.

“Well I was afraid we’d find the Barneys here,” said Ellen.

“Do they know about this place?”

“You brought them here yourself Jimps.... And that dreadful woman insisted on talking babies with me all the evening. I hate talking babies.”

“Gosh I wish we could go to a show.”

“It would be too late anyway.”

“And just spending money I havent got.... Lets have a cognac to top off with. I don’t care if it ruins us.”

“It probably will in more ways than one.”

“Well Ellie, here’s to the breadwinner who’s taken up the white man’s burden.”

“Why Jimmy I think it’ll be rather fun to have an editorial job for a while.”

“I’d find it fun to have any kind of job.... Well I can always stay home and mind the baby.”

“Dont be so bitter Jimmy, it’s just temporary.”

“Life’s just temporary for that matter.”

The taxi drew up. Jimmy paid him with his last dollar. Ellie had her key in the outside door. The street was a confusion of driving absintheblurred snow. The door of their apartment closed behind them. Chairs, tables, books, windowcurtains crowded about them bitter with the dust of yesterday, the day before, the day before that. Smells of diapers and coffeepots and typewriter oil and Dutch Cleanser oppressed them. Ellen put out the empty milkbottle and went to bed. Jimmy kept walking nervously about the front room. His drunkenness ebbed away leaving him icily sober. In the empty chamber of his brain a doublefaced word clinked like a coin: Success Failure, Success Failure.

* * * * *

I’m just wild about Harree
And Harry’s just wild about me

she hums under her breath as she dances. It’s a long hall with a band at one end, lit greenishly by two clusters of electric lights hanging among paper festoons in the center. At the end where the door is, a varnished rail holds back the line of men. This one Anna’s dancing with is a tall square built Swede, his big feet trail clumsily after her tiny lightly tripping feet. The music stops. Now it’s a little blackhaired slender Jew. He tries to snuggle close.

“Quit that.” She holds him away from her.

“Aw have a heart.”

She doesn’t answer, dances with cold precision; she’s sickeningly tired.

Me and my boyfriend
My boyfriend and I

An Italian breathes garlic in her face, a marine sergeant, a Greek, a blond young kid with pink cheeks, she gives him a smile; a drunken elderly man who tries to kiss her ... _Charley my boy O Charley my boy_ ... slickhaired, freckled rumplehaired, pimplefaced, snubnosed, straightnosed, quick dancers, heavy dancers.... _Goin souf_.... _Wid de taste o de sugarcane right in my mouf_ ... against her back big hands, hot hands, sweaty hands, cold hands, while her dancechecks mount up, get to be a wad in her fist. This one’s a good waltzer, genteel-like in a black suit.

“Gee I’m tired,” she whispers.

“Dancing never tires me.”

“Oh it’s dancin with everybody like this.”

“Dont you want to come an dance with me all alone somewhere?”

“Boyfrien’s waitin for me after.”

With nothing but a photograph
To tell my troubles to ...
What’ll I do...?

“What time’s it?” she asks a broadchested wise guy. “Time you an me was akwainted, sister....” She shakes her head. Suddenly the music bursts into Auld Lang Syne. She breaks away from him and runs to the desk in a crowd of girls elbowing to turn in their dancechecks. “Say Anna,” says a broadhipped blond girl ... “did ye see that sap was dancin wid me?... He says to me the sap he says See you later an I says to him the sap I says see yez in hell foist ... an then he says, Goily he says ...”

III. Revolving Doors

_Glowworm trains shuttle in the gloaming through the foggy
looms of spiderweb bridges, elevators soar and drop in
their shafts, harbor lights wink._

_Like sap at the first frost at five o’clock men and
women begin to drain gradually out of the tall buildings
downtown, grayfaced throngs flood subways and tubes, vanish
underground._

_All night the great buildings stand quiet and empty,
their million windows dark. Drooling light the ferries
chew tracks across the lacquered harbor. At midnight the
fourfunneled express steamers slide into the dark out
of their glary berths. Bankers blearyeyed from secret
conferences hear the hooting of the tugs as they are let
out of side doors by lightningbug watchmen; they settle
grunting into the back seats of limousines, and are whisked
uptown into the Forties, clinking streets of ginwhite
whiskey-yellow ciderfizzling lights._

She sat at the dressingtable coiling her hair. He stood over her with the lavender suspenders hanging from his dress trousers prodding the diamond studs into his shirt with stumpy fingers.

“Jake I wish we were out of it,” she whined through the hairpins in her mouth.

“Out of what Rosie?”

“The Prudence Promotion Company.... Honest I’m worried.”

“Why everything’s goin swell. We’ve got to bluff out Nichols that’s all.”

“Suppose he prosecutes?”

“Oh he wont. He’d lose a lot of money by it. He’d much better come in with us.... I can pay him in cash in a week anyways. If we can keep him thinkin we got money we’ll have him eatin out of our hands. Didn’t he say he’d be at the El Fey tonight?”

Rosie had just put a rhinestone comb into the coil of her black hair. She nodded and got to her feet. She was a plump broadhipped woman with big black eyes and higharched eyebrows. She wore a corset trimmed with yellow lace and a pink silk chemise.

“Put on everythin you’ve got Rosie. I want yez all dressed up like a Christmas tree. We’re goin to the El Fey an stare Nichols down tonight. Then tomorrer I’ll go round and put the proposition up to him.... Lets have a little snifter anyways ...” He went to the phone. “Send up some cracked ice and a couple of bottles of White Rock to four o four. Silverman’s the name. Make it snappy.”

“Jake let’s make a getaway,” Rosie cried suddenly. She stood in the closet door with a dress over her arm. “I cant stand all this worry.... It’s killin me. Let’s you an me beat it to Paris or Havana or somewheres and start out fresh.”

“Then we would be up the creek. You can be extradited for grand larceny. Jez you wouldnt have me goin round with dark glasses and false whiskers all my life.”

Rosie laughed. “No I guess you wouldnt look so good in a fake zit.... Oh I wish we were really married at least.”

“Dont make no difference between us Rosie. Then they’d be after me for bigamy too. That’d be pretty.”

Rosie shuddered at the bellboy’s knock. Jake Silverman put the tray with its clinking bowl of ice on the bureau and fetched a square whiskeybottle out of the wardrobe.

“Dont pour out any for me. I havent got the heart for it.”

“Kid you’ve got to pull yourself together. Put on the glad rags an we’ll go to a show. Hell I been in lots o tighter holes than this.” With his highball in his hand he went to the phone. “I want the newsstand.... Hello cutie.... Sure I’m an old friend of yours.... Sure you know me.... Look could you get me two seats for the Follies.... That’s the idear.... No I cant sit back of the eighth row.... That’s a good little girl.... An you’ll call me in ten minutes will you dearie?”

“Say Jake is there really any borax in that lake?”

“Sure there is. Aint we got the affidavit of four experts?”

“Sure. I was just kinder wonderin.... Say Jake if this ever gets wound up will you promise me not to go in for any more wildcat schemes?”

“Sure; I wont need to.... My you’re a redhot mommer in that dress.”

“Do you like it?”

“You look like Brazil ... I dunno ... kinder tropical.”

“That’s the secret of my dangerous charm.”

The phone rang jingling sharp. They jumped to their feet. She pressed the side of her hand against her lips.

“Two in the fourth row. That’s fine.... We’ll be right down an get em ... Jez Rosie you cant go on being jumpy like; you’re gettin me all shot too. Pull yerself together why cant you?”

“Let’s go out an eat Jake. I havent had anything but buttermilk all day. I guess I’ll stop tryin to reduce. This worryin’ll make me thin enough.”

“You got to quit it Rosie.... It’s gettin my nerve.”

They stopped at the flowerstall in the lobby. “I want a gardenia” he said. He puffed his chest out and smiled his curlylipped smile as the girl fixed it in the buttonhole of his dinnercoat. “What’ll you have dear?” he turned grandiloquently to Rosie. She puckered her mouth. “I dont just know what’ll go with my dress.”

“While you’re deciding I’ll go get the theater tickets.” With his overcoat open and turned back to show the white puffedout shirtfront and his cuffs shot out over his thick hands he strutted over to the newsstand. Out of the corner of her eye while the ends of the red roses were being wrapped in silver paper Rosie could see him leaning across the magazines talking babytalk to the blond girl. He came back brighteyed with a roll of bills in his hand. She pinned the roses on her fur coat, put her arm in his and together they went through the revolving doors into the cold glistening electric night. “Taxi,” he yapped.

* * * * *

The diningroom smelled of toast and coffee and the New York _Times_. The Merivales were breakfasting to electric light. Sleet beat against the windows. “Well Paramount’s fallen off five points more,” said James from behind the paper.

“Oh James I think its horrid to be such a tease,” whined Maisie who was drinking her coffee in little henlike sips.

“And anyway,” said Mrs. Merivale, “Jack’s not with Paramount any more. He’s doing publicity for the Famous Players.”

“He’s coming east in two weeks. He says he hopes to be here for the first of the year.”

“Did you get another wire Maisie?”

Maisie nodded. “Do you know James, Jack never will write a letter. He always telegraphs,” said Mrs. Merivale through the paper at her son. “He certainly keeps the house choked up with flowers,” growled James from behind the paper.

“All by telegraph,” said Mrs. Merivale triumphantly.

James put down his paper. “Well I hope he’s as good a fellow as he seems to be.”

“Oh James you’re horrid about Jack.... I think it’s mean.” She got to her feet and went through the curtains into the parlor.

“Well if he’s going to be my brother-in-law, I think I ought to have a say in picking him,” he grumbled.

Mrs. Merivale went after her. “Come back and finish your breakfast Maisie, he’s just a terrible tease.”

“I wont have him talk that way about Jack.”

“But Maisie I think Jack’s a dear boy.” She put her arm round her daughter and led her back to the table. “He’s so simple and I know he has good impulses.... I’m sure he’s going to make you very happy.” Maisie sat down again pouting under the pink bow of her boudoir cap. “Mother may I have another cup of coffee?”

“Deary you know you oughtnt to drink two cups. Dr. Fernald said that was what was making you so nervous.”

“Just a little bit mother very weak. I want to finish this muffin and I simply cant eat it without something to wash it down, and you know you dont want me to lose any more weight.” James pushed back his chair and went out with the _Times_ under his arm. “It’s half past eight James,” said Mrs. Merivale. “He’s likely to take an hour when he gets in there with that paper.”

“Well,” said Maisie peevishly. “I think I’ll go back to bed. I think it’s silly the way we all get up to breakfast. There’s something so vulgar about it mother. Nobody does it any more. At the Perkinses’ it comes up to you in bed on a tray.”

“But James has to be at the bank at nine.”

“That’s no reason why we should drag ourselves out of bed. That’s how people get their faces all full of wrinkles.”

“But we wouldn’t see James until dinnertime, and I like to get up early. The morning’s the loveliest part of the day.” Maisie yawned desperately.

James appeared in the doorway to the hall running a brush round his hat.

“What did you do with the paper James?”

“Oh I left it in there.”

“I’ll get it, never mind.... My dear you’ve got your stickpin in crooked. I’ll fix it.... There.” Mrs. Merivale put her hands on his shoulders and looked in her son’s face. He wore a dark gray suit with a faint green stripe in it, an olive green knitted necktie with a small gold nugget stickpin, olive green woolen socks with black clockmarks and dark red Oxford shoes, their laces neatly tied with doubleknots that never came undone. “James arent you carrying your cane?” He had an olive green woolen muffler round his neck and was slipping into his dark brown winter overcoat. “I notice the younger men down there dont carry them, mother ... People might think it was a little ... I dont know ...”

“But Mr. Perkins carries a cane with a gold parrothead.”

“Yes but he’s one of the vicepresidents, he can do what he likes.... But I’ve got to run.” James Merivale hastily kissed his mother and sister. He put on his gloves going down in the elevator. Ducking his head into the sleety wind he walked quickly east along Seventysecond. At the subway entrance he bought a _Tribune_ and hustled down the steps to the jammed soursmelling platform.

* * * * *

_Chicago! Chicago!_ came in bursts out of the shut phonograph. Tony Hunter, slim in a black closecut suit, was dancing with a girl who kept putting her mass of curly ashblond hair on his shoulder. They were alone in the hotel sitting room.

“Sweetness you’re a lovely dancer,” she cooed snuggling closer.

“Think so Nevada?”

“Um-hum ... Sweetness have you noticed something about me?”

“What’s that Nevada?”

“Havent you noticed something about my eyes?”

“They’re the loveliest little eyes in the world.”

“Yes but there’s something about them.”

“You mean that one of them’s green and the other one brown.”

“Oh it noticed the tweet lil ting.” She tilted her mouth up at him. He kissed it. The record came to an end. They both ran over to stop it. “That wasnt much of a kiss, Tony,” said Nevada Jones tossing her curls out of her eyes. They put on _Shuffle Along_.

“Say Tony,” she said when they had started dancing again. “What did the psychoanalyst say when you went to see him yesterday?”

“Oh nothing much, we just talked,” said Tony with a sigh. “He said it was all imaginary. He suggested I get to know some girls better. He’s all right. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about though. He cant do anything.”

“I bet you I could.”

They stopped dancing and looked at each other with the blood burning in their faces.

“Knowing you Nevada,” he said in a doleful tone “has meant more to me ... You’re so decent to me. Everybody’s always been so nasty.”

“Aint he solemn though?” She walked over thoughtfully and stopped the phonograph.

“Some joke on George I’ll say.”

“I feel horribly about it. He’s been so decent.... And after all I could never have afforded to go to Dr. Baumgardt at all.”

“It’s his own fault. He’s a damn fool.... If he thinks he can buy me with a little hotel accommodation and theater tickets he’s got another think coming. But honestly Tony you must keep on with that doctor. He did wonders with Glenn Gaston.... He thought he was that way until he was thirtyfive years old and the latest thing I hear he’s married an had a pair of twins.... Now give me a real kiss sweetest. Thataboy. Let’s dance some more. Gee you’re a beautiful dancer. Kids like you always are. I dont know why it is....”

The phone cut into the room suddenly with a glittering sawtooth ring. “Hello.... Yes this is Miss Jones.... Why of course George I’m waiting for you....” She put up the receiver. “Great snakes, Tony beat it. I’ll call you later. Dont go down in the elevator you’ll meet him coming up.” Tony Hunter melted out the door. Nevada put _Baby ... Babee Deewine_ on the phonograph and strode nervously about the room, straightening chairs, patting her tight short curls into place.

“Oh George I thought you werent comin.... How do you do Mr. McNiel? I dunno why I’m all jumpy today. I thought you were never comin. Let’s get some lunch up. I’m that hungry.”

George Baldwin put his derby hat and stick on a table in the corner. “What’ll you have Gus?” he said. “Sure I always take a lamb chop an a baked potato.”

“I’m just taking crackers and milk, my stomach’s a little out of order.... Nevada see if you cant frisk up a highball for Mr. McNiel.”

“Well I could do with a highball George.”

“George order me half a broiled chicken lobster and some alligator pear salad,” screeched Nevada from the bathroom where she was cracking ice.

“She’s the greatest girl for lobster,” said Baldwin laughing as he went to the phone.

She came back from the bathroom with two highballs on a tray; she had put a scarlet and parrotgreen batik scarf round her neck. “Just you an me’s drinkin Mr. McNiel.... George is on the water wagon. Doctor’s orders.”

“Nevada what do you say we go to a musical show this afternoon? There’s a lot of business I want to get off my mind.”

“I just love matinees. Do you mind if we take Tony Hunter. He called up he was lonesome and wanted to come round this afternoon. He’s not workin this week.”

“All right.... Nevada will you excuse us if we talk business for just a second over here by the window. We’ll forget it by the time lunch comes.”

“All righty I’ll change my dress.”

“Sit down here Gus.”

They sat silent a moment looking out of the window at the red girder cage of the building under construction next door. “Well Gus,” said Baldwin suddenly harshly, “I’m in the race.”

“Good for you George, we need men like you.”

“I’m going to run on a Reform ticket.”

“The hell you are?”

“I wanted to tell you Gus rather than have you hear it by a roundabout way.”

“Who’s goin to elect you?”

“Oh I’ve got my backing.... I’ll have a good press.”

“Press hell.... We’ve got the voters.... But Goddam it if it hadn’t been for me your name never would have come up for district attorney at all.”

“I know you’ve always been a good friend of mine and I hope you’ll continue to be.”

“I never went back on a guy yet, but Jez, George, it’s give and take in this world.”

“Well,” broke in Nevada advancing towards them with little dancesteps, wearing a flamingo pink silk dress, “havent you boys argued enough yet?”

“We’re through,” growled Gus. “... Say Miss Nevada, how did you get that name?”

“I was born in Reno.... My mother’d gone there to get a divorce.... Gosh she was sore.... Certainly put my foot in it that time.”

* * * * *

Anna Cohen stands behind the counter under the sign THE BEST SANDWICH IN NEW YORK. Her feet ache in her pointed shoes with runover heels.

“Well I guess they’ll begin soon or else we’re in for a slack day,” says the sodashaker beside her. He’s a raw-faced man with a sharp adamsapple. “It allus comes all of a rush like.”

“Yeh, looks like they all got the same idear at the same time.” They stand looking out through the glass partition at the endless files of people jostling in and out of the subway. All at once she slips away from the counter and back into the stuffy kitchenette where a stout elderly woman is tidying up the stove. There is a mirror hanging on a nail in the corner. Anna fetches a powderbox from the pocket of her coat on the rack and starts powdering her nose. She stands a second with the tiny puff poised looking at her broad face with the bangs across the forehead and the straight black bobbed hair. A homely lookin kike, she says to herself bitterly. She is slipping back to her place at the counter when she runs into the manager, a little fat Italian with a greasy bald head. “Cant you do nutten but primp an look in de glass all day?... Veree good you’re fired.”

She stares at his face sleek like an olive. “Kin I stay out my day?” she stammers. He nods. “Getta move on; this aint no beauty parlor.” She hustles back to her place at the counter. The stools are all full. Girls, officeboys, grayfaced bookkeepers. “Chicken sandwich and a cup o caufee.” “Cream cheese and olive sandwich and a glass of buttermilk.”

“Chocolate sundae.”

“Egg sandwich, coffee and doughnuts.” “Cup of boullion.” “Chicken broth.” “Chocolate icecream soda.” People eat hurriedly without looking at each other, with their eyes on their plates, in their cups. Behind the people sitting on stools those waiting nudge nearer. Some eat standing up. Some turn their backs on the counter and eat looking out through the glass partition and the sign HCNUL ENIL NEERG at the jostling crowds filing in and out the subway through the drabgreen gloom.

* * * * *

“Well Joey tell me all about it,” said Gus McNiel puffing a great cloud of smoke out of his cigar and leaning back in his swivel chair. “What are you guys up to over there in Flatbush?”

O’Keefe cleared his throat and shuffled his feet. “Well sir we got an agitation committee.”

“I should say you had.... That aint no reason for raidin the Garment Workers’ ball is it?”

“I didn’t have nothin to do with that.... The bunch got sore at all these pacifists and reds.”

“That stuff was all right a year ago, but public sentiment’s changin. I tell you Joe the people of this country are pretty well fed up with war heroes.”

“We got a livewire organization over there.”

“I know you have Joe. I know you have. Trust you for that.... I’d put the soft pedal on the bonus stuff though.... The State of New York’s done its duty by the ex-service man.”

“That’s true enough.”

“A national bonus means taxes to the average business man and nothing else.... Nobody wants no more taxes.”