Chapter V: Part 5

She patted him on the cheek. “P’tit ambitieux,” she said through her hollow inside laugh that made her shoulders and her big bust shake.

* * * * *

They had to change at Manhattan Transfer. The thumb of Ellen’s new kid glove had split and she kept rubbing it nervously with her forefinger. John wore a belted raincoat and a pinkishgray felt hat. When he turned to her and smiled she couldn’t help pulling her eyes away and staring out at the long rain that shimmered over the tracks.

“Here we are Elaine dear. Oh prince’s daughter, you see we get the train that comes from the Penn station.... It’s funny this waiting in the wilds of New Jersey this way.” They got into the parlorcar. John made a little clucking sound in his mouth at the raindrops that made dark dimes on his pale hat. “Well we’re off, little girl.... Behold thou art fair my love, thou art fair, thou hast dove’s eyes within thy locks.”

Ellen’s new tailored suit was tight at the elbows. She wanted to feel very gay and listen to his purring whisper in her ears, but something had set her face in a tight frown; she could only look out at the brown marshes and the million black windows of factories and the puddly streets of towns and a rusty steamboat in a canal and barns and Bull Durham signs and roundfaced Spearmint gnomes all barred and crisscrossed with bright flaws of rain. The jeweled stripes on the window ran straight down when the train stopped and got more and more oblique as it speeded up. The wheels rumbled in her head, saying Man-hattan Tran-sfer. Man-hattan Tran-sfer. Anyway it was a long time before Atlantic City. By the time we get to Atlantic City ... _Oh it rained forty days_ ... I’ll be feeling gay.... _And it rained forty nights._... I’ve got to be feeling gay.

“Elaine Thatcher Oglethorpe, that’s a very fine name, isn’t it, darling? Oh stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples for I am sick of love....”

It was so comfortable in the empty parlorcar in the green velvet chair with John leaning towards her reciting nonsense with the brown marshlands slipping by behind the rainstriped window and a smell like clams seeping into the car. She looked into his face and laughed. A blush ran all over his face to the roots of his redblond hair. He put his hand in its yellow glove over her hand in its white glove. “You’re my wife now Elaine.”

“You’re my husband now John.” And laughing they looked at each other in the coziness of the empty parlorcar.

White letters, ATLANTIC CITY, spelled doom over the rainpitted water.

Rain lashed down the glaring boardwalk and crashed in gusts against the window like water thrown out of a bucket. Beyond the rain she could hear the intermittent rumble of the surf along the beach between the illuminated piers. She lay on her back staring at the ceiling. Beside her in the big bed John lay asleep breathing quietly like a child with a pillow doubled up under his head. She was icy cold. She slid out of bed very carefully not to wake him, and stood looking out the window down the very long V of lights of the boardwalk. She pushed up the window. The rain lashed in her face spitefully stinging her flesh, wetting her nightdress. She pushed her forehead against the frame. Oh I want to die. I want to die. All the tight coldness of her body was clenching in her stomach. Oh I’m going to be sick. She went into the bathroom and closed the door. When she had vomited she felt better. Then she climbed into bed again careful not to touch John. If she touched him she would die. She lay on her back with her hands tight against her sides and her feet together. The parlorcar rumbled cozily in her head; she fell asleep.

Wind rattling the windowframes wakened her. John was far away, the other side of the big bed. With the wind and the rain streaming in the window it was as if the room and the big bed and everything were moving, running forward like an airship over the sea. _Oh it rained forty days._... Through a crack in the cold stiffness the little tune trickled warm as blood.... _And it rained forty nights._ Gingerly she drew a hand over her husband’s hair. He screwed his face up in his sleep and whined “Dont” in a littleboy’s voice that made her giggle. She lay giggling on the far edge of the bed, giggling desperately as she used to with girls at school. And the rain lashed through the window and the song grew louder until it was a brass band in her ears:

Oh it rained forty days
And it rained forty nights
And it didn’t stop till Christmas
And the only man that survived the flood
Was longlegged Jack of the Isthmus.

* * * * *

Jimmy Herf sits opposite Uncle Jeff. Each has before him on a blue plate a chop, a baked potato, a little mound of peas and a sprig of parsely.

“Well look about you Jimmy,” says Uncle Jeff. Bright topstory light brims the walnutpaneled diningroom, glints twistedly on silver knives and forks, gold teeth, watch-chains, scarfpins, is swallowed up in the darkness of broadcloth and tweed, shines roundly on polished plates and bald heads and covers of dishes. “Well what do you think of it?” asks Uncle Jeff burying his thumbs in the pockets of his fuzzy buff vest.

“It’s a fine club all right,” says Jimmy.

“The wealthiest and the most successful men in the country eat lunch up here. Look at the round table in the corner. That’s the Gausenheimers’ table. Just to the left.” ... Uncle Jeff leans forward lowering his voice, “the man with the powerful jaw is J. Wilder Laporte.” Jimmy cuts into his muttonchop without answering. “Well Jimmy, you probably know why I brought you down here ... I want to talk to you. Now that your poor mother has ... has been taken, Emily and I are your guardians in the eyes of the law and the executors of poor Lily’s will.... I want to explain to you just how things stand.” Jimmy puts down his knife and fork and sits staring at his uncle, clutching the arms of his chair with cold hands, watching the jowl move blue and heavy above the ruby stickpin in the wide satin cravat. “You are sixteen now aren’t you Jimmy?”

“Yes sir.”

“Well it’s this way.... When your mother’s estate is all settled up you’ll find yourself in the possession of approximately fiftyfive hundred dollars. Luckily you are a bright fellow and will be ready for college early. Now, properly husbanded that sum ought to see you through Columbia, since you insist on going to Columbia.... I myself, and I’m sure your Aunt Emily feels the same way about it, would much rather see you go to Yale or Princeton.... You are a very lucky fellow in my estimation. At your age I was sweeping out an office in Fredericksburg and earning fifteen dollars a month. Now what I wanted to say was this ... I have not noticed that you felt sufficient responsibility about moneymatters ... er ... sufficient enthusiasm about earning your living, making good in a man’s world. Look around you.... Thrift and enthusiasm has made these men what they are. It’s made me, put me in the position to offer you the comfortable home, the cultured surroundings that I do offer you.... I realize that your education has been a little peculiar, that poor Lily did not have quite the same ideas that we have on many subjects, but the really formative period of your life is beginning. Now’s the time to take a brace and lay the foundations of your future career.... What I advise is that you follow James’s example and work your way up through the firm.... From now on you are both sons of mine.... It will mean hard work but it’ll eventually offer a very substantial opening. And dont forget this, if a man’s a success in New York, he’s a success!” Jimmy sits watching his uncle’s broad serious mouth forming words, without tasting the juicy mutton of the chop he is eating. “Well what are you going to make of yourself?” Uncle Jeff leaned towards him across the table with bulging gray eyes.

Jimmy chokes on a piece of bread, blushes, at last stammers weakly, “Whatever you say Uncle Jeff.”

“Does that mean you’ll go to work for a month this summer in my office? Get a taste of how it feels to make a living, like a man in a man’s world, get an idea of how the business is run?” Jimmy nods his head. “Well I think you’ve come to a very sensible decision,” booms Uncle Jeff leaning back in his chair so that the light strikes across the wave of his steelgray hair. “By the way what’ll you have for dessert?... Years from now Jimmy, when you are a successful man with a business of your own we’ll remember this talk. It’s the beginning of your career.”

The hatcheck girl smiles from under the disdainful pile of her billowy blond hair when she hands Jimmy his hat that looks squashed flat and soiled and limp among the big-bellied derbies and the fedoras and the majestic panamas hanging on the pegs. His stomach turns a somersault with the drop of the elevator. He steps out into the crowded marble hall. For a moment not knowing which way to go, he stands back against the wall with his hands in his pockets, watching people elbow their way through the perpetually revolving doors; softcheeked girls chewing gum, hatchetfaced girls with bangs, creamfaced boys his own age, young toughs with their hats on one side, sweatyfaced messengers, crisscross glances, sauntering hips, red jowls masticating cigars, sallow concave faces, flat bodies of young men and women, paunched bodies of elderly men, all elbowing, shoving, shuffling, fed in two endless tapes through the revolving doors out into Broadway, in off Broadway. Jimmy fed in a tape in and out the revolving doors, noon and night and morning, the revolving doors grinding out his years like sausage meat. All of a sudden his muscles stiffen. Uncle Jeff and his office can go plumb to hell. The words are so loud inside him he glances to one side and the other to see if anyone heard him say them.

They can all go plumb to hell. He squares his shoulders and shoves his way to the revolving doors. His heel comes down on a foot. “For crissake look where yer steppin.” He’s out in the street. A swirling wind down Broadway blows grit in his mouth and eyes. He walks down towards the Battery with the wind in his back. In Trinity Churchyard stenographers and officeboys are eating sandwiches among the tombs. Outlandish people cluster outside steamship lines; towhaired Norwegians, broadfaced Swedes, Polacks, swarthy stumps of men that smell of garlic from the Mediterranean, mountainous Slavs, three Chinamen, a bunch of Lascars. On the little triangle in front of the Customhouse, Jim Herf turns and stares long up the deep gash of Broadway, facing the wind squarely. Uncle Jeff and his office can go plumb to hell.

* * * * *

Bud sat on the edge of his cot and stretched out his arms and yawned. From all round through a smell of sweat and sour breath and wet clothes came snores, the sound of men stirring in their sleep, creaking of bedsprings. Far away through the murk burned a single electric light. Bud closed his eyes and let his head fall over on his shoulder. O God I want to go to sleep. Sweet Jesus I want to go to sleep. He pressed his knees together against his clasped hands to keep them from trembling. Our father which art in Heaven I want to go to sleep.

“Wassa matter pardner cant ye sleep?” came a quiet whisper from the next cot.

“Hell, no.” “Me neither.”

Bud looked at the big head of curly hair held up on an elbow turned towards him.

“This is a hell of a lousy stinking flop,” went on the voice evenly. “I’ll tell the world ... Forty cents too! They can take their Hotel Plaza an ...”

“Been long in the city?”

“Ten years come August.”

“Great snakes!”

A voice rasped down the line of cots, “Cut de comedy yous guys, what do you tink dis is, a Jewish picnic?”

Bud lowered his voice: “Funny, it’s years I been thinkin an wantin to come to the city.... I was born an raised on a farm upstate.”

“Why dont ye go back?”

“I cant go back.” Bud was cold; he wanted to stop trembling. He pulled the blanket up to his chin and rolled over facing the man who was talking. “Every spring I says to myself I’ll hit the road again, go out an plant myself among the weeds an the grass an the cows comin home milkin time, but I dont; I juss kinder hangs on.”

“What d’ye do all this time in the city?”

“I dunno.... I used to set in Union Square most of the time, then I set in Madison Square. I been up in Hoboken an Joisey and Flatbush an now I’m a Bowery bum.”

“God I swear I’m goin to git outa here tomorrow. I git sceered here. Too many bulls an detectives in this town.”

“You could make a livin in handouts.... But take it from me kid you go back to the farm an the ole folks while the goin’s good.”

Bud jumped out of bed and yanked roughly at the man’s shoulder. “Come over here to the light, I want to show ye sumpen.” Bud’s own voice crinkled queerly in his ears. He strode along the snoring lane of cots. The bum, a shambling man with curly weatherbleached hair and beard and eyes as if hammered into his head, climbed fully dressed out from the blankets and followed him. Under the light Bud unbuttoned the front of his unionsuit and pulled it off his knottymuscled gaunt arms and shoulders. “Look at my back.”

“Christ Jesus,” whispered the man running a grimy hand with long yellow nails over the mass of white and red deep-gouged scars. “I aint never seen nothin like it.”

“That’s what the ole man done to me. For twelve years he licked me when he had a mind to. Used to strip me and take a piece of light chain to my back. They said he was my dad but I know he aint. I run away when I was thirteen. That was when he ketched me an began to lick me. I’m twentyfive now.”

They went back without speaking to their cots and lay down.

Bud lay staring at the ceiling with the blanket up to his eyes. When he looked down towards the door at the end of the room, he saw standing there a man in a derby hat with a cigar in his mouth. He crushed his lower lip between his teeth to keep from crying out. When he looked again the man was gone. “Say are you awake yet?” he whispered.

The bum grunted. “I was goin to tell yer. I mashed his head in with the grubbinhoe, mashed it in like when you kick a rotten punkin. I told him to lay offn me an he wouldn’t.... He was a hard godfearin man an he wanted you to be sceered of him. We was grubbin the sumach outa the old pasture to plant pertoters there.... I let him lay till night with his head mashed in like a rotten punkin. A bit of scrub along the fence hid him from the road. Then I buried him an went up to the house an made me a pot of coffee. He hadn’t never let me drink no coffee. Before light I got up an walked down the road. I was tellin myself in a big city it’d be like lookin for a needle in a haystack to find yer. I knowed where the ole man kep his money; he had a roll as big as your head but I was sceered to take more’en ten dollars.... You awake yet?”

The bum grunted. “When I was a kid I kep company with ole man Sackett’s girl. Her and me used to keep company in the ole icehouse down in Sackett’s woods an we used to talk about how we’d come to New York City an git rich and now I’m here I cant git work an I cant git over bein sceered. There’s detectives follow me all round, men in derbyhats with badges under their coats. Last night I wanted to go with a hooker an she saw it in my eyes an throwed me out.... She could see it in my eyes.” He was sitting on the edge of the cot, leaning over, talking into the other man’s face in a hissing whisper. The bum suddenly grabbed him by the wrists.

“Look here kid, you’re goin blooy if you keep up like this.... Got any mazuma?” Bud nodded. “You better give it to me to keep. I’m an old timer an I’ll git yez outa this. You put yer clothes on a take a walk round the block to a hash joint an eat up strong. How much you got?”

“Change from a dollar.”

“You give me a quarter an eat all the stuff you kin git offn the rest.” Bud pulled on his trousers and handed the man a quarter. “Then you come back here an you’ll sleep good an tomorrer me’n you’ll go upstate an git that roll of bills. Did ye say it was as big as yer head? Then we’ll beat it where they cant ketch us. We’ll split fifty fifty. Are you on?”

Bud shook his hand with a wooden jerk, then with the laces flickering round his shoes he shuffled to the door and down the spitmarked stairs.

The rain had stopped, a cool wind that smelled of woods and grass was ruffling the puddles in the cleanwashed streets. In the lunchroom in Chatham Square three men sat asleep with their hats over their eyes. The man behind the counter was reading a pink sportingsheet. Bud waited long for his order. He felt cool, unthinking, happy. When it came he ate the browned corned beef hash, deliberately enjoying every mouthful, mashing the crisp bits of potato against his teeth with his tongue, between sips of heavily sugared coffee. After polishing the plate with a crust of bread he took a toothpick and went out.

Picking his teeth he walked through the grimydark entrance to Brooklyn Bridge. A man in a derby hat was smoking a cigar in the middle of the broad tunnel. Bud brushed past him walking with a tough swagger. I dont care about him; let him follow me. The arching footwalk was empty except for a single policeman who stood yawning, looking up at the sky. It was like walking among the stars. Below in either direction streets tapered into dotted lines of lights between square blackwindowed buildings. The river glimmered underneath like the Milky Way above. Silently smoothly the bunch of lights of a tug slipped through the moist darkness. A car whirred across the bridge making the girders rattle and the spiderwork of cables thrum like a shaken banjo.

When he got to the tangle of girders of the elevated railroads of the Brooklyn side, he turned back along the southern driveway. Dont matter where I go, cant go nowhere now. An edge of the blue night had started to glow behind him the way iron starts to glow in a forge. Beyond black chimneys and lines of roofs faint rosy contours of the downtown buildings were brightening. All the darkness was growing pearly, warming. They’re all of em detectives chasin me, all of em, men in derbies, bums on the Bowery, old women in kitchens, barkeeps, streetcar conductors, bulls, hookers, sailors, longshoremen, stiffs in employment agencies.... He thought I’d tell him where the ole man’s roll was, the lousy bum.... One on him. One on all them goddam detectives. The river was smooth, sleek as a bluesteel gun-barrel. Dont matter where I go; cant go nowhere now. The shadows between the wharves and the buildings were powdery like washingblue. Masts fringed the river; smoke, purple chocolatecolor fleshpink climbed into light. Cant go nowhere now.

In a swallowtail suit with a gold watchchain and a red seal ring riding to his wedding beside Maria Sackett, riding in a carriage to City Hall with four white horses to be made an alderman by the mayor; and the light grows behind them brighter brighter, riding in satins and silks to his wedding, riding in pinkplush in a white carriage with Maria Sackett by his side through rows of men waving cigars, bowing, doffing brown derbies, Alderman Bud riding in a carriage full of diamonds with his milliondollar bride.... Bud is sitting on the rail of the bridge. The sun has risen behind Brooklyn. The windows of Manhattan have caught fire. He jerks himself forward, slips, dangles by a hand with the sun in his eyes. The yell strangles in his throat as he drops.

Captain McAvoy of the tugboat _Prudence_ stood in the pilothouse with one hand on the wheel. In the other he held a piece of biscuit he had just dipped into a cup of coffee that stood on the shelf beside the binnacle. He was a wellset man with bushy eyebrows and a bushy black mustache waxed at the tips. He was about to put the piece of coffeesoaked biscuit into his mouth when something black dropped and hit the water with a thudding splash a few yards off the bow. At the same moment a man leaning out of the engineroom door shouted, “A guy juss jumped offn de bridge.”

“God damn it to hell,” said Captain McAvoy dropping his piece of biscuit and spinning the wheel. The strong ebbtide whisked the boat round like a straw. Three bells jangled in the engineroom. A negro ran forward to the bow with a boathook.

“Give a hand there Red,” shouted Captain McAvoy.

After a tussle they landed a long black limp thing on the deck. One bell. Two bells, Captain McAvoy frowning and haggard spun the tug’s nose into the current again.

“Any life in him Red?” he asked hoarsely. The negro’s face was green, his teeth were chattering.

“Naw sir,” said the redhaired man slowly. “His neck’s broke clear off.”

Captain McAvoy sucked a good half of his mustache into his mouth. “God damn it to hell,” he groaned. “A pretty thing to happen on a man’s wedding day.”

_Second Section_

I. Great Lady on a White Horse

_Morning clatters with the first L train down Allen Street.
Daylight rattles through the windows, shaking the old brick
houses, splatters the girders of the L structure with
bright confetti._

_The cats are leaving the garbage cans, the chinches are
going back into the walls, leaving sweaty limbs, leaving
the grimetender necks of little children asleep. Men and
women stir under blankets and bedquilts on mattresses in
the corners of rooms, clots of kids begin to untangle to
scream and kick._

_At the corner of Riverton the old man with the hempen
beard who sleeps where nobody knows is putting out his
picklestand. Tubs of gherkins, pimentos, melonrind,
piccalilli give out twining vines and cold tendrils of
dank pepperyfragrance that grow like a marshgarden out of
the musky bedsmells and the rancid clangor of the cobbled
awakening street._

_The old man with the hempen beard who sleeps where nobody
knows sits in the midst of it like Jonah under his gourd._

Jimmy Herf walked up four creaky flights and knocked at a white door fingermarked above the knob where the name _Sunderland_ appeared in old English characters on a card neatly held in place by brass thumbtacks. He waited a long while beside a milkbottle, two creambottles, and a copy of the Sunday _Times_. There was a rustle behind the door and the creak of a step, then no more sound. He pushed a white button in the doorjamb.

“An he said, Margie I’ve got a crush on you so bad, an she said, Come in outa the rain, you’re all wet....” Voices coming down the stairs, a man’s feet in button shoes, a girl’s feet in sandals, pink silk legs; the girl in a fluffy dress and a Spring Maid hat; the young man had white edging on his vest and a green, blue, and purple striped necktie.

“But you’re not that kind of a girl.”

“How do you know what kind of a girl I am?”

The voices trailed out down the stairs.

Jimmy Herf gave the bell another jab.

“Who is it?” came a lisping female voice through a crack in the door.

“I want to see Miss Prynne please.”

Glimpse of a blue kimono held up to the chin of a fluffy face. “Oh I don’t know if she’s up yet.”

“She said she would be.”

“Look will you please wait a second to let me make my getaway,” she tittered behind the door. “And then come in. Excuse us but Mrs. Sunderland thought you were the rent collector. They sometimes come on Sunday just to fool you.” A smile coyly bridged the crack in the door.

“Shall I bring in the milk?”

“Oh do and sit down in the hall and I’ll call Ruth.” The hall was very dark; smelled of sleep and toothpaste and massagecream; across one corner a cot still bore the imprint of a body on its rumpled sheets. Straw hats, silk eveningwraps, and a couple of men’s dress overcoats hung in a jostling tangle from the staghorns of the hatrack. Jimmy picked a corsetcover off a rockingchair and sat down. Women’s voices, a subdued rustling of people dressing, Sunday newspaper noises seeped out through the partitions of the different rooms.

The bathroom door opened; a stream of sunlight reflected out of a pierglass cut the murky hall in half, out of it came a head of hair like copper wire, bluedark eyes in a brittle-white eggshaped face. Then the hair was brown down the hall above a slim back in a tangerine-colored slip, nonchalant pink heels standing up out of the bathslippers at every step.

“Ou-ou, Jimmee...” Ruth was yodling at him from behind her door. “But you mustn’t look at me or at my room.” A head in curlpapers stuck out like a turtle’s.

“Hullo Ruth.”

“You can come in if you promise not to look.... I’m a sight and my room’s a pigeon.... I’ve just got to do my hair. Then I’ll be ready.” The little gray room was stuffed with clothes and photographs of stage people. Jimmy stood with his back to the door, some sort of silky stuff that dangled from the hook tickling his ears.

“Well how’s the cub reporter?”

“I’m on Hell’s Kitchen.... It’s swell. Got a job yet Ruth?”

“Um-um.... A couple of things may materialize during the week. But they wont. Oh Jimmy I’m getting desperate.” She shook her hair loose of the crimpers and combed out the new mousybrown waves. She had a pale startled face with a big mouth and blue underlids. “This morning I knew I ought to be up and ready, but I just couldn’t. It’s so discouraging to get up when you haven’t got a job.... Sometimes I think I’ll go to bed and just stay there till the end of the world.”

“Poor old Ruth.”

She threw a powderpuff at him that covered his necktie and the lapels of his blue serge suit with powder. “Dont you poor old me you little rat.”

“That’s a nice thing to do after all the trouble I took to make myself look respectable.... Darn your hide Ruth. And the smell of the carbona not off me yet.”

Ruth threw back her head with a shrieking laugh. “Oh you’re so comical Jimmy. Try the whisk-broom.”

Blushing he blew down his chin at his tie. “Who’s the funnylooking girl opened the halldoor?”

“Shush you can hear everything through the partition.... That’s Cassie,” she whispered giggling. “Cassah-ndrah Wilkins ... used to be with the Morgan Dancers. But we oughtnt to laugh at her, she’s very nice. I’m very fond of her.” She let out a whoop of laughter. “You nut Jimmy.” She got to her feet and punched him in the muscle of the arm. “You always make me act like I was crazy.”

“God did that.... No but look, I’m awfully hungry. I walked up.”

“What time is it?”

“It’s after one.”

“Oh Jimmy I dont know what to do about time.... Like this hat?... Oh I forgot to tell you. I went to see Al Harrison yesterday. It was simply dreadful.... If I hadnt got to the phone in time and threatened to call the police....”

“Look at that funny woman opposite. She’s got a face exactly like a llama.”

“It’s on account of her I have to keep my shades drawn all the time ...”

“Why?”

“Oh you’re much too young to know. You’d be shocked Jimmy.” Ruth was leaning close to the mirror running a stick of rouge between her lips.

“So many things shock me, I dont see that it matters much.... But come along let’s get out of here. The sun’s shining outside and people are coming out of church and going home to overeat and read at their Sunday papers among the rubberplants ...”

“Oh Jimmy you’re a shriek ... Just one minute. Look out you’re hooked onto my best shimmy.”

A girl with short black hair in a yellow jumper was folding the sheets off the cot in the hall. For a second under the ambercolored powder and the rouge Jimmy did not recognize the face he had seen through the crack in the door.

“Hello Cassie, this is ... Beg pardon, Miss Wilkins this is Mr. Herf. You tell him about the lady across the airshaft, you know Sappo the Monk.”

Cassandra Wilkins lisped and pouted. “Isn’t she dweadful Mr. Herf.... She says the dweadfullest things.”

“She merely does it to annoy.”

“Oh Mr. Herf I’m so pleased to meet you at last, Ruth does nothing but talk about you.... Oh I’m afwaid I was indiscweet to say that.... I’m dweadfully indiscweet.”

The door across the hall opened and Jimmy found himself looking in the white face of a crookednosed man whose red hair rode in two unequal mounds on either side of a straight part. He wore a green satin bathrobe and red morocco slippers.

“What heow Cassahndrah?” he said in a careful Oxford drawl. “What prophecies today?”

“Nothing except a wire from Mrs. Fitzsimmons Green. She wants me to go to see her at Scarsdale tomorrow to talk about the Gweenery Theater.... Excuse me this is Mr. Herf, Mr. Oglethorpe.” The redhaired man raised one eyebrow and lowered the other and put a limp hand in Jimmy’s.

“Herf, Herf.... Let me see, it’s not a Georgiah Herf? In Atlahnta there’s an old family of Herfs....”

“No I dont think so.”

“Too bad. Once upon a time Josiah Herf and I were boon companions. Today he is the president of the First National Bank and leading citizen of Scranton Pennsylvahnia and I ... a mere mountebank, a thing of rags and patches.” When he shrugged his shoulders the bathrobe fell away exposing a flat smooth hairless chest.

“You see Mr. Oglethorpe and I are going to do the Song of Songs. He weads it and I interpwet it in dancing. You must come up and see us wehearse sometime.”

“Thy navel is like a round goblet which wanteth not liquor, thy belly is like a heap of wheat set about with lilies ...”

“Oh dont begin now.” She tittered and pressed her legs together.

“Jojo close that door,” came a quiet deep girl’s voice from inside the room.

“Oh poo-er deah Elaine, she wants to sleep.... So glahd to have met you, Mr. Herf.”

“Jojo!”

“Yes my deah....”

Through the leaden drowse that cramped him the girl’s voice set Jimmy tingling. He stood beside Cassie constrainedly without speaking in the dingydark hall. A smell of coffee and singeing toast seeped in from somewhere. Ruth came up behind them.

“All right Jimmy I’m ready.... I wonder if I’ve forgotten anything.”

“I dont care whether you have or not, I’m starving.” Jimmy took hold of her shoulders and pushed her gently towards the door. “It’s two o’clock.”

“Well goodby Cassie dear, I’ll call you up at about six.”

“All wight Wuthy ... So pleased to have met you Mr. Herf.” The door closed on Cassie’s tittering lisp.

“Wow, Ruth that place gives me the infernal jimjams.”

“Now Jimmy dont get peevish because you need food.”

“But tell me Ruth, what the hell is Mr. Oglethorpe? He beats anything I ever saw.”

“Oh did the Ogle come out of his lair?” Ruth let out a whoop of laughter. They came out into grimy sunlight. “Did he tell you he was of the main brawnch, dontcher know, of the Oglethorpes of Georgiah?”

“Is that lovely girl with copper hair his wife?”

“Elaine Oglethorpe has reddish hair. She’s not so darn lovely either.... She’s just a kid and she’s upstage as the deuce already. All because she made a kind of a hit in Peach Blossoms. You know one of these tiny exquisite bits everybody makes such a fuss over. She can act all right.”

“It’s a shame she’s got that for a husband.”

“Ogle’s done everything in the world for her. If it hadnt been for him she’d still be in the chorus ...”

“Beauty and the beast.”

“You’d better look out if he sets his lamps on you Jimmy.”

“Why?”

“Strange fish, Jimmy, strange fish.”

An Elevated train shattered the barred sunlight overhead. He could see Ruth’s mouth forming words.

“Look,” he shouted above the diminishing clatter. “Let’s go have brunch at the Campus and then go for a walk on the Palisades.”

“You nut Jimmy what’s brunch?”

“You’ll eat breakfast and I’ll eat lunch.”

“It’ll be a scream.” Whooping with laughter she put her arm in his. Her silvernet bag knocked against his elbow as they walked.

“And what about Cassie, the mysterious Cassandra?”

“You mustn’t laugh at her, she’s a peach.... If only she wouldn’t keep that horrid little white poodle. She keeps it in her room and it never gets any exercise and it smells something terrible. She has that little room next to mine.... Then she’s got a steady ...” Ruth giggled. “He’s worse than the poodle. They’re engaged and he borrows all her money away from her. For Heaven’s sake dont tell anybody.”

“I dont know anybody to tell.”

“Then there’s Mrs. Sunderland ...”

“Oh yes I got a glimpse of her going into the bathroom--an old lady in a wadded dressing gown with a pink boudoir cap on.”

“Jimmy you shock me.... She keeps losing her false teeth,” began Ruth; an L train drowned out the rest. The restaurant door closing behind them choked off the roar of wheels on rails.

An orchestra was playing _When It’s Appleblossom Time in Normandee_. The place was full of smokewrithing slants of sunlight, paper festoons, signs announcing LOBSTERS ARRIVE DAILY, EAT CLAMS NOW, TRY OUR DELICIOUS FRENCH STYLE STEAMED MUSSLES (Recommended by the Department of Agriculture). They sat down under a redlettered placard BEEFSTEAK PARTIES UPSTAIRS and Ruth made a pass at him with a breadstick. “Jimmy do you think it’d be immoral to eat scallops for breakfast? But first I’ve got to have coffee coffee coffee ...”

“I’m going to eat a small steak and onions.”

“Not if you’re intending to spend the afternoon with me Mr. Herf.”

“Oh all right. Ruth I lay my onions at your feet.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m going to let you kiss me.”

“What ... on the Palisades?” Ruth’s giggle broke into a whoop of laughter. Jimmy blushed crimson. “I never axed you maam, he say-ed.”

* * * * *

Sunlight dripped in her face through the little holes in the brim of her straw hat. She was walking with brisk steps too short on account of her narrow skirt; through the thin china silk the sunlight tingled like a hand stroking her back. In the heavy heat streets, stores, people in Sunday clothes, strawhats, sunshades, surfacecars, taxis, broke and crinkled brightly about her grazing her with sharp cutting glints as if she were walking through piles of metalshavings. She was groping continually through a tangle of gritty saw-edged brittle noise.

At Lincoln Square a girl rode slowly through the traffic on a white horse; chestnut hair hung down in even faky waves over the horse’s chalky rump and over the giltedged saddlecloth where in green letters pointed with crimson, read DANDERINE. She had on a green Dolly Varden hat with a crimson plume; one hand in a white gauntlet nonchalantly jiggled at the reins, in the other wabbled a goldknobbed riding crop.

Ellen watched her pass; then she followed a smudge of green through a cross-street to the Park. A smell of trampled sunsinged grass came from boys playing baseball. All the shady benches were full of people. When she crossed the curving automobile road her sharp French heels sank into the asphalt. Two sailors were sprawling on a bench in the sun; one of them popped his lips as she passed, she could feel their seagreedy eyes cling stickily to her neck, her thighs, her ankles. She tried to keep her hips from swaying so much as she walked. The leaves were shriveled on the saplings along the path. South and east sunnyfaced buildings hemmed in the Park, to the west they were violet with shadow. Everything was itching sweaty dusty constrained by policemen and Sunday clothes. Why hadn’t she taken the L? She was looking in the black eyes of a young man in a straw hat who was drawing up a red Stutz roadster to the curb. His eyes twinkled in hers, he jerked back his head smiling an upsidedown smile, pursing his lips so that they seemed to brush her cheek. He pulled the lever of the brake and opened the door with the other hand. She snapped her eyes away and walked on with her chin up. Two pigeons with metalgreen necks and feet of coral waddled out of her way. An old man was coaxing a squirrel to fish for peanuts in a paper bag.

All in green on a white stallion rode the Lady of the Lost Battalion.... Green, green, danderine ... Godiva in the haughty mantle of her hair....

General Sherman in gold interrupted her. She stopped a second to look at the Plaza that gleamed white as motherofpearl.... Yes this is Elaine Oglethorpe’s apartment.... She climbed up onto a Washington Square bus. Sunday afternoon Fifth Avenue filed by rosily dustily jerkily. On the shady side there was an occasional man in a top hat and frock coat. Sunshades, summer dresses, straw hats were bright in the sun that glinted in squares on the upper windows of houses, lay in bright slivers on the hard paint of limousines and taxicabs. It smelled of gasoline and asphalt, of spearmint and talcumpowder and perfume from the couples that jiggled closer and closer together on the seats of the bus. In an occasional storewindow, paintings, maroon draperies, varnished antique chairs behind plate glass. The St. Regis. Sherry’s. The man beside her wore spats and lemon gloves, a floorwalker probably. As they passed St. Patrick’s she caught a whiff of incense through the tall doors open into gloom. Delmonico’s. In front of her the young man’s arm was stealing round the narrow gray flannel back of the girl beside him.

“Jez ole Joe had rotten luck, he had to marry her. He’s only nineteen.”

“I suppose you would think it was hard luck.”

“Myrtle I didn’t mean us.”

“I bet you did. An anyways have you ever seen the girl?”

“I bet it aint his.”

“What?”

“The kid.”

“Billy how dreadfully you do talk.”

Fortysecond Street. Union League Club. “It was a most amusing gathering ... most amusing.... Everybody was there. For once the speeches were delightful, made me think of old times,” croaked a cultivated voice behind her ear. The Waldorf. “Aint them flags swell Billy.... That funny one is cause the Siamese ambassador is staying there. I read about it in the paper this morning.”

When thou and I my love shall come to part, Then shall I press an ineffable last kiss Upon your lips and go ... heart, start, who art ... Bliss, this, miss ... When thou ... When you and I my love ...

Eighth Street. She got down from the bus and went into the basement of the Brevoort. George sat waiting with his back to the door snapping and unsnapping the lock of his briefcase. “Well Elaine it’s about time you turned up.... There aren’t many people I’d sit waiting three quarters of an hour for.”

“George you mustn’t scold me; I’ve been having the time of my life. I haven’t had such a good time in years. I’ve had the whole day all to myself and I walked all the way down from 105th Street to Fiftyninth through the Park. It was full of the most comical people.”

“You must be tired.” His lean face where the bright eyes were caught in a web of fine wrinkles kept pressing forward into hers like the prow of a steamship.

“I suppose you’ve been at the office all day George.”

“Yes I’ve been digging out some cases. I cant rely on anyone else to do even routine work thoroughly, so I have to do it myself.”

“Do you know I had it all decided you’d say that.”

“What?”

“About waiting three quarters of an hour.”

“Oh you know altogether too much Elaine.... Have some pastries with your tea?”

“Oh but I dont know anything about anything, that’s the trouble.... I think I’ll take lemon please.”

Glasses clinked about them; through blue cigarettesmoke faces hats beards wagged, repeated greenish in the mirrors.

“But my de-e-ar it’s always the same old complex. It may be true of men but it says nothing in regard to women,” droned a woman’s voice from the next table.... “Your feminism rises into an insuperable barrier,” trailed a man’s husky meticulous tones. “What if I am an egoist? God knows I’ve suffered for it.” “Fire that purifies, Charley....” George was speaking, trying to catch her eye. “How’s the famous Jojo?”

“Oh let’s not talk about him.”

“The less said about him the better eh?”

“Now George I wont have you sneer at Jojo, for better or worse he is my husband, till divorce do us part.... No I wont have you laugh. You’re too crude and simple to understand him anyway. Jojo’s a very complicated rather tragic person.”

“For God’s sake don’t let’s talk about husbands and wives. The important thing, little Elaine, is that you and I are sitting here together without anyone to bother us.... Look when are we going to see each other again, really see each other, really....”

“We’re not going to be too real about this, are we George?” She laughed softly into her cup.

“Oh but I have so many things to say to you. I want to ask you so many things.”

She looked at him laughing, balancing a small cherry tartlet that had one bite out of it between a pink squaretipped finger and thumb. “Is that the way you act when you’ve got some miserable sinner on the witnessbox? I thought it was more like: Where were you on the night of February thirtyfirst?”

“But I’m dead serious, that’s what you cant understand, or wont.”

A young man stood at the table, swaying a little, looking down at them. “Hello Stan, where the dickens did you come from?” Baldwin looked up at him without smiling. “Look Mr. Baldwin I know it’s awful rude, but may I sit down at your table a second. There’s somebody looking for me who I just cant meet. O God that mirror! Still they’d never look for me if they saw you.”

“Miss Oglethorpe this is Stanwood Emery, the son of the senior partner in our firm.”

“Oh it’s so wonderful to meet you Miss Oglethorpe. I saw you last night, but you didn’t see me.”

“Did you go to the show?”

“I almost jumped over the foots I thought you were so wonderful.”

He had a ruddy brown skin, anxious eyes rather near the bridge of a sharp fragillycut nose, a big mouth never still, wavy brown hair that stood straight up. Ellen looked from one to the other inwardly giggling. They were all three stiffening in their chairs.

“I saw the danderine lady this afternoon,” she said. “She impressed me enormously. Just my idea of a great lady on a white horse.”

“With rings on her finger and bells on her toes, And she shall make mischief wherever she goes.” Stan rattled it off quickly under his breath.

“Music, isnt it?” put in Ellen laughing. “I always say mischief.”

“Well how’s college?” asked Baldwin in a dry uncordial voice.

“I guess it’s still there,” said Stan blushing. “I wish they’d burn it down before I got back.” He got to his feet. “You must excuse me Mr. Baldwin.... My intrusion was infernally rude.” As he turned leaning towards Ellen she smelled his grainy whiskey breath. “Please forgive it, Miss Oglethorpe.”

She found herself holding out her hand; a dry skinny hand squeezed it hard. He strode out with swinging steps bumping into a waiter as he went.

“I cant make out that infernal young puppy,” burst out Baldwin. “Poor old Emery’s heartbroken about it. He’s darn clever and has a lot of personality and all that sort of thing, but all he does is drink and raise Cain.... I guess all he needs is to go to work and get a sense of values. Too much money’s what’s the matter with most of those collegeboys.... Oh but Elaine thank God we’re alone again. I have worked continuously all my life ever since I was fourteen. The time has come when I want to lay aside all that for a while. I want to live and travel and think and be happy. I cant stand the pace of downtown the way I used to. I want to learn to play, to ease off the tension.... That’s where you come in.”

“But I don’t want to be the nigger on anybody’s safety-valve.” She laughed and let the lashes fall over her eyes.

“Let’s go out to the country somewhere this evening. I’ve been stifling in the office all day. I hate Sunday anyway.”

“But my rehearsal.”

“You could be sick. I’ll phone for a car.”

“Golly there’s Jojo.... Hello Jojo”; she waved her gloves above her head.

John Oglethorpe, his face powdered, his mouth arranged in a careful smile above his standup collar, advanced between the crowded tables, holding out his hand tightly squeezed into buff gloves with black stripes. “Heow deo you deo, my deah, this is indeed a surprise and a pleajah.”

“You know each other, don’t you? This is Mr. Baldwin.”

“Forgive me if I intrude ... er ... upon a tête à tête.”

“Nothing of the sort, sit down and we’ll all have a highball.... I was just dying to see you really Jojo.... By the way if you havent anything else to do this evening you might slip in down front for a few minutes. I want to know what you think about my reading of the part....”

“Certainly my deah, nothing could give me more pleajah.”

His whole body tense George Baldwin leaned back with his hand clasped behind the back of his chair. “Waiter ...” He broke his words off sharp like metal breaking. “Three Scotch highballs at once please.”

Oglethorpe rested his chin on the silver ball of his cane. “Confidence, Mr. Baldwin,” he began, “confidence between husband and wife is a very beautiful thing. Space and time have no effect on it. Were one of us to go to China for a thousand years it would not change our affection one tittle.”

“You see George, what’s the matter with Jojo is that he read too much Shakespeare in his youth.... But I’ve got to go or Merton will be bawling me out again.... Talk about industrial slavery. Jojo tell him about Equity.”

Baldwin got to his feet. There was a slight flush on his cheekbones. “Wont you let me take you up to the theater,” he said through clenched teeth.

“I never let anyone take me anywhere ... And Jojo you must stay sober to see me act.”

Fifth Avenue was pink and white under pink and white clouds in a fluttering wind that was fresh after the cloying talk and choke of tobaccosmoke and cocktails. She waved the taxistarter off merrily and smiled at him. Then she found a pair of anxious eyes looking into hers seriously out of a higharched brown face.

“I waited round to see you come out. Cant I take you somewhere? I’ve got my Ford round the corner.... Please.”

“But I’m just going up to the theater. I’ve got a rehearsal.”

“All right do let me take you there.”

She began putting a glove on thoughtfully. “All right, but it’s an awful imposition on you.”

“That’s fine. It’s right round here.... It was awfully rude of me to butt in that way, wasn’t it? But that’s another story.... Anyway I’ve met you. The Ford’s name is Dingo, but that’s another story too....”

“Still it’s nice to meet somebody humanly young. There’s nobody humanly young round New York.”

His face was scarlet when he leaned to crank the car. “Oh I’m too damn young.”

The motor sputtered, started with a roar. He jumped round and cut off the gas with a long hand. “We’ll probably get arrested; my muffler’s loose and liable to drop off.”

At Thirtyfourth Street they passed a girl riding slowly through the traffic on a white horse; chestnut hair hung down in even faky waves over the horse’s chalky rump and over the giltedged saddlecloth where in green letters pointed with crimson read DANDERINE.

“Rings on her fingers,” chanted Stan pressing his buzzer, “And bells on her toes, And she shall cure dandruff wherever it grows.”

II. Longlegged Jack of the Isthmus

_Noon on Union Square. Selling out. Must vacate. WE HAVE
MADE A TERRIBLE MISTAKE. Kneeling on the dusty asphalt
little boys shine shoes lowshoes tans buttonshoes oxfords.
The sun shines like a dandelion on the toe of each
new-shined shoe. Right this way buddy, mister miss maam at
the back of the store our new line of fancy tweeds highest
value lowest price ... Gents, misses, ladies, cutrate ...
WE HAVE MADE A TERRIBLE MISTAKE. Must vacate._

_Noon sunlight spirals dimly into the chopsuey joint.
Muted music spirals Hindustan. He eats fooyong, she eats
chowmein. They dance with their mouths full, slim blue
jumper squeezed to black slick suit, peroxide curls against
black slick hair._

_Down Fourteenth Street, Glory Glory comes the Army,
striding lasses, Glory Glory four abreast, the rotund
shining, navy blue, Salvation Army band._

_Highest value, lowest price. Must vacate. WE HAVE MADE A
TERRIBLE MISTAKE. Must vacate._

From Liverpool, British steamer Raleigh, Captain Kettlewell;
933 bales, 881 boxes, 10 baskets, 8 packages fabrics: 57
boxes, 89 bales, 18 baskets cotton thread: 156 bales felt: 4
bales asbestos: 100 sacks spools....

Joe Harland stopped typing and looked up at the ceiling. The tips of his fingers were sore. The office smelled stalely of paste and manifests and men in shirtsleeves. Through the open window he could see a piece of the dun wall of an airshaft and a man with a green eyeshade staring vacantly out of a window. The towheaded officeboy set a note on the corner of his desk: Mr. Pollock will see you at 5:10. A hard lump caught in his throat; he’s going to fire me. His fingers started tapping again:

From Glasgow, Dutch steamer Delft, Captain Tromp; 200
bales, 123 boxes, 14 kegs....

Joe Harland roamed about the Battery till he found an empty seat on a bench, then he let himself flop into it. The sun was drowning in tumultuous saffron steam behind Jersey. Well that’s over. He sat a long while staring at the sunset like at a picture in a dentist’s waiting room. Great whorls of smoke from a passing tug curled up black and scarlet against it. He sat staring at the sunset, waiting. That’s eighteen dollars and fifty cents I had before, less six dollars for the room, one dollar and eighty-four cents for laundry, and four dollars and fifty cents I owe Charley, makes seven dollars and eighty-four cents, eleven dollars and eighty four cents, twelve dollars and thirty-four cents from eighteen dollars and fifty cents leaves me six dollars and sixteen cents, three days to find another job if I go without drinks. O God wont my luck ever turn; used to have good enough luck in the old days. His knees were trembling, there was a sick burning in the pit of his stomach.