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ascertain Feast
Soliia Solano
G.P. Putnam’s Sons
N^wYork & London JDjz Knickerbocker Press
#
Copyright, 1924 by
Solita Solano
First printing, August, 1924 Second printing, September, 1924
1 « •
Made in the United States of America
OCT II 1924
To
BASTIAN
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
I
Miss Elliot's chair scraped the concrete floor. “Is that all, Mr. Geer?”
Daniel blinked at the window and turned. “No.” She must be in a hurry to get away. Probably has an engagement for dinner. Cold cream, rouge and a hot iron waiting at home. He looked at her sleek brown head, bent again over her book, a poised pencil waiting. “What was the last paragraph, please ?”
Without raising her eyes she translated her hiero¬ glyphs tonelessly, challengingly : “ ‘While I am im¬ pressed with your work, it is impossible to consider you at present as our own Mr. Warren’s contract has a year more to run and will be renewed if he wishes.’ ” She waited again, her pencil quivering.
Daniel looked at her mouth. Too bad she isn’t pretty. Anyway I don’t like them when they draw in their mouths that way. Prunes and prisms char¬ acter. Like that girl in Newark who kept smiling and smiling and then squealed, “Oh, don’t, Mr.
3
4
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
Geer !” Now she’s frowning because I don’t finish. “If you are in the city, however, drop in and we will talk. Very truly yours. I think that covers it. Thank you, Miss Elliot.”
He turned back to his desk. Slapping her note¬ book together and scraping her chair. How uncivil she is! Always on the defensive. She needn’t act that way for my benefit. Her advances and retreats don’t interest me. If she were prettier I’d take her out. ... Feet at the door. Someone to annoy me.
“Mr. Edmunds to see you, Mr. Geer.”
Daniel looked up at the youngest office boy, too small for his coat, and took the afternoon papers he held out. “Does he know I’m here?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Send him in. And wash your hands.” He pushed away his clippings, and glanced at the head¬ lines. Black stupefying annunciations. Domestic tragedies, the pinchbeck hopes of governments, in¬ stitutional failures, information from eavesdrop¬ pers, the crambe repetita of court decisions, pitfalls from press-agents, the vagaries of Jupiter Pluvius and Old Sol and the uncovering of bones under ancient dolmens. All focused by the lickerish presses and presented every hour as a symptom of civiliza¬ tion.
He lighted a cigarette. Must be Bob’s day off. I always took Thursday and he had Friday. Now I’m here and he’s still stuck back there. He’ll always be an assistant. Or go on the copy desk. Most of
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
5
them end that way, poor old hacks, sharpening pen¬ cils, packing tobacco into their pipes, shades on their eyes. “I think this is a first page story, sir.” “Yes, you would think that. Cut it to two sticks — page five.” The others snicker at this humiliation. Their turn next. Bob’s probably hoping I’ll give him something here. Not much. He’d be too familiar. Calling me Dan and walking in here when¬ ever he felt like it.
“Hello, Dan!”
Daniel turned in his chair. “Come on in. How’s everything in Jersey? Paper still coming out?”
Edmunds crossed the room and they shook hands.
“Sure. Do you think we’ve closed up because you left? How do you figure that out?” He sat down and took a cigarette from Daniel’s box. “Pretty soft here, Dan. You’re in luck. Some difference between the island of Manhattan and the village of Newark, eh? Boys all sent regards.”
“Thanks. Your day off, isn’t it? Do you want to have dinner with me? Say a plank steak at Whyte’s. I might take an extra hour tonight.”
Edmunds leaned back and laughed, the smoke in¬ dicating each outward breath. “What’s struck you?” he said. “Has New York made you loosen up ? But, of course, you’re making big money now.”
Daniel reddened. “I’ve always had responsibili¬ ties,” he said. “My parents - ”
“They haven’t cost you much,” Edmunds cut in. “That little flat — you all lived there on $25 a week.
6
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
Oh, well, once in a hundred years comes along a newspaper man like you. The rest of us haven’t a nickel the Monday after payday. More power to you.” He lifted himself from the chair and walked to the window.
Daniel inhaled deeply and crushed the fire from his cigarette. Crude, crude. No manners, no sense. Especially about the future. He’ll never get any¬ where with those spendthrift ideas. The artistic temperament without any art. Despising the busi¬ ness man but living from him. Thinking it a dis¬ grace to the cult to provide for the future but always coming around with, “Could you let me have ten dollars till next week ?” Sometimes they save on the sly — like Summers. Caught with a check book. Blushing and denying it was his with the office howling him down for a tightwad.
“What about that steak, Bob?” If I don’t ask him again he’ll think I’m offended. Five dollars ought to do it. Maybe six. I haven’t spent much this week. I can afford it.
“I can’t tonight — I brought Effie along,” said Edmunds. “Say, where do you live now?”
“Uptown. I found a small apartment.”
“You going to bring the old folks over?”
Daniel frowned and blinked at the smoke from his cigarette. “They’re better off where they are. They didn’t want to come anyway.”
“You’ll be lonesome.”
“No time for that. I’m here every night till all
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
7
hours. Had to learn the plant from top to bottom, you know.”
Edmunds nodded and looked out of the window.
“The powers are already watching for the circu¬ lation to go up. But it’s much too soon. I haven’t had time to change the staff yet,” Daniel went on.
Edmunds did not comment and Daniel looked at his eyes, set in rims of fat. Poor Bob ! He sees my great active future while he stays in the old rut. Well, that’s life. Some of us live purposelessly — ex commodo — weaving peacefully in our cages. Others are driven on by a mysterious energy be¬ gotten, they say now, by our glands. When these are very active they result in some marvel of genius or great energy — Napoleon, Dumas, Hadrian, Shakespeare, Cicero, Thomas Aquinas, Casanova, old Atlas. My glands secrete enough to give me am¬ bition and vigor. Bob’s are dessicated shreds.
“So it’s still Effie. Are you going to marry her?”
“I guess so,” said Edmunds, returning to his chair. “Might as well. We’re used to each other. How about you? Still stalking what’s out of your reach? You never want what you can have. Better get married.”
“Not I,” said Daniel. “No marriage for me. No steady gold digger in my pockets. Nor no re¬ spectable Wednesday-evening-and-Sunday-afternoon girl either. Women want too much attention. I have no time for sentimental flower-sending and cooings over the telephone a dozen times a day.
8
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
That’s what women like. They’re swamps of senti¬ mentality. But when you get them to the point they say, ‘Oh, don’t, Mr. Geer or Mr. Smith or Mr. Jones!’ Different name, same objection.”
“You’ll change your tune when you meet the right girl,” said Edmunds.
Daniel’s mouth curled down in a thin line. “Don’t you think I’ve met all kinds ? Girl at my university, digging into uncial manuscripts by day and kissing me for a box of candy by night. Flirtatious wait¬ resses smelling of soup. Skinny highbrows slipping in here like panthers with poetry or lectures on Gi¬ otto. Girl reporters in this office with small volumes of the minor poets in their desks and three sticks of ‘An old hermit known as Cagey Williams was found dead yesterday in a vacant lot in Brooklyn’ on their typewriters.”
“I saw some girls out there while I was waiting. Won’t any of them do?”
“No. One is too thin, one is snub-nosed and the heavy blonde would want the city editor’s job if I so much as glanced at her exaggerated ankles.”
“Say, you’re too darned critical,” Edmunds burst out. “You’re no oil painting yourself when it comes to looks.” He leaned forward, smiling with spiteful eyes and laid a hand on the edge of the desk. His malice was like a mirror held up before Daniel to reflect a high shiny forehead, pale eyes, persistent nose and straight tight mouth.
“I suppose you think I want to look like a Greek
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
9
dancer or an Italian barber,” Daniel said. He saw the puffy fingers that were grasping the edge of his desk in an envious passing contact with success. Then he smiled in tolerant ascendency.
“Don’t forget that beauty is gone like a puff of wind. The Nile swallowed Antinous, the ephebe. And as for tearful Giton - ”
“If you’re going to begin one of your lectures on the great unknown dead, I’m off,” said Edmunds. “But first let a poor relation gather a few crumbs.”
He took up the box of cigarettes and transferred four to his leather case. Daniel stood up, his man¬ ner suddenly stiff. Damned cheek talking to me as he does and taking my cigarettes. He won’t get in here again in a hurry.
“Thanks, old pal,” said Edmunds. “Well, so long. I’ll give your regards to the boys.”
“Yes, of course, the boys. And Effie, too. Good¬ bye.”
He turned to his desk and drew out his sched¬ ule. Trainer will be champing to get in here. Prob¬ ably waiting outside for Bob to go. Five o’clock and dark enough for six. Soft dark like smoke or velvet. Yielding eastern dark — a permeating black¬ ness scented with ylang-ylang. It disperses at dawn for you to see the face beneath the veil, the pattern on which you lie and the minarets against the lift¬ ing mists. Funny how we still believe in the magic of the east. Neither the literacy statistics nor tales of vermin destroy its romance. I’ll go see for my-
IO THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
self one day. Good old U.S.A. currency will throw back many a veil. Istambol is finished — but perhaps Persia -
'‘Ready, Mr. Geer? I waited for your caller to &>”
Daniel looked up unsmilingly at Trainer’s lined unshaven face and nodded. “Sit down. Will you smoke ?”
“I don’t mind.”
Daniel held out the cigarettes with studied for¬ mality. I wish he’d wear a coat in the office. Old shirtsleeves school. I can guess how he hates me for a neophyte. Also for my clean linen. The fourth day he’s worn that green striped shirt. I suppose it doesn’t touch his skin — only the arms. Foreigners think it’s effeminate to wear anything un¬ derneath. That Irish boy at the university. Flaherty — Flannigan. From Dublin. His father said, “Just let me catch you wearing underdrawers like those damned English boys. I’ll take them off you and give you a good hiding.” He wore his shirttails tucked about him the first semester.
“Two column spread on Near East crisis leads the paper. Box the two-headed horse at Buffalo. Pub¬ lic always interested in monstrosities. Follow-up story on Long Island murder with one column cut of fair guiltless one. Ireland back on the first page again. The U.P. story. Miss Delmar’s inter¬ view with Dr. Straight on free love — spicy stuff. Miner left million by rich uncle in New Guinea.
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
ii
Won’t take it. Socialist. Let’s see. What’s new in Germany?”
The telephone rang. Daniel caught up the re¬ ceiver.
“Hello.”
“Mr. Geer?”
“Speaking.”
“This is Rufus Edwards.”
“How are you, Dr. Edwards?”
“I want to send a young woman to see you. An old friend. You might give her something to do down there — or at any rate, some advice.”
“Of course, I’ll be delighted to see her. Will you ask her to come in tomorrow — say about noon. What is the name ?”
“Amy Fiske. Thank you, Mr. Geer, a great favor — By the way, can you dine with me some night next week? How about Thursday?”
“Thank you, that would be fine. Thursday, then
_ ft
“About eight. Goodbye.”
“Goodbye.” Damned old bore. Speak a civil word and they take advantage. Now I’ll have to see that girl and waste an hour of my time hearing some hard luck story or the panting ambition of a recent graduate from a school of journalism. Damned inconsiderate of Old Rufus and I’d like to tell him so. I’ll get Miss Elliot to help me out. Call me to a conference after five minutes. And write a note for me about Thursday. “Regret press
12
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
of work at the office will deprive me of the great pleasure — ” Wish Trainer would keep his feet still. Paws like an ungulate. He could do that schedule in his sleep. Isn’t waiting for me. No imagination but good all around man. Trembling in his boots the day I came in here. They all were. Knew I had the power to clear everybody out. That will come as I find new writers. Young blood. That’s what I want. Vivid style, humor.
“Great cartoon that, Mr. Geer,” said Trainer, waving a hand at a ragged square of cardboard on the desk. “Warren certainly puts across some wonders.”
“Um — he’s not stale yet,” said Daniel. “But as soon as he begins to let up I have another man in mind. Warren had better keep on his toes.”
“Oh,” said Trainer, his eyebrows lifting. Just as well to let him pass the word about that I expect their best every day. No coddling in this office. The best they’ve got or out they go.
“I’ll get after the sporting department next week,” said Daniel. “We need a new writer in there. Per¬ haps Ormand - ”
Trainer got to his feet and looked at Daniel with shocked eyes. “Ormand? Ormand, Mr. Geer? He’s never even seen a game of tennis. Poker and pinochle are about his speed.”
“He’ll learn the ropes in no time. He has what we need — a humorous touch and lots of speed. McPhale can watch his copy for breaks.”
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
13
Trainer shook his head and drew down the stained corners of his mouth in a bitter curve as he started for the door.
Daniel picked up the evening papers. That old fogy hates new methods. He must know his day is nearly done. Hear he keeps a bottle in his desk. So does Sanderson. Poor devils, it consoles them. They need it at that age. The young have less ex¬ cuse. Let the prohibitionists guard the tender gullets and leave the leather-throats free to guzzle. Not easy to learn to drink. It takes patience and train¬ ing to swallow and keep it. The very young need coercion. Quite painful for them. Like those little girls in the pension in Paris who were always crying for milk. That’s the other extreme of prohibition. Well, there’s nothing like wine for age and grief. An unequaled panacea for life when it’s too late for love — or love’s substitute. And as for that -
He looked at his watch. Now for the fruit with the bitter core. Out to join the hunt with the rest of mankind — the only game in which any man can win who has the price. The preliminary elbow-touch and chin-chuckings. Don’t notice if there’s a cast in the eye or an irregularity of gait. Nature doesn’t bait her trap with the finest for a mere game of hide- and-seek. The choice morsels are reserved for the feasts of Canaan. Let me see. Get appointment and dinner by eight. Away from here by twelve. Will she wait ? Or find a better bargain before my tryst ? Faithful till midnight. Till death, they used to sing,
14
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
the troubadours. Saccharine romanticism surviving all ages. The madrigals and sonnets of the nine¬ teen-twenties written in terms of this moronic day in Tin-Pan Alley. Takes a jazz band nowadays to put them across. Then romance does a flourishing business. “Give me sixty percent royalties or I’ll take my thirty heart-throbs a month to another pub¬ lisher. What do you think I work for anyway — love ?” Not much you don’t, young Abraham Shake¬ speare. And quite right you are, my boy. We are past the sentimental seventeenth century.
“Oh, never say that I was false of heart,
Though absence seemed my flame to qualify.”
A weak recrudescence of the Virgin-worshipping middle ages when her Gothic fingers were in Euro¬ pean skies. Beauty without truth gives place to truth without beauty. A fleche exchanged for a Crookes tube. Good enough. A scientist is worth a hundred puling poets.
Daniel thrust an arm into his overcoat and reached for his hat. Half way to the door he went back for his cigarettes. He pulled the lid of his desk down half way, patted a pile of clippings into order and snapped off the light. Frowning, he threw back his shoulders and strode through the door into the bright, clicking city room. Without turning his head he saw the rows of desks and bent heads, the litter of newspapers, the dark door of the “morgue.”
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
15
An odor of wet ink arose from the stairs that led to the composing room. He breathed it with spread nostrils. As sweet as flesh to me. Black flesh? I don’t know. Ask Loti, Gaugin and the Father of his Country.
“Mr. Geer ! Will you sign your letters before you go?”
Daniel stopped and looked down at Miss Elliot. Nice eyes. Hazel with goldish tints and glints. She isn’t so bad when she lets her mouth alone.
“No. Leave them on my desk. Goodnight.”
He passed from the fulgid confusion into the grayness of the corridor.
II
The night outside was a black gulf hung with lights. Daniel's heels came down with regular clicks as if he listened to martial sounds. He avoided the eager-eyed crowd aiming for the subway in the square and struck across to a calmer corner. There he turned south and faced the giant containers of the city’s commerce.
He walked slowly, his eyes on the high horizon of masonry. They loom up to block out the stars and their ragged outline proclaims the daring and power of puny-limbed man — homo sapiens. He no longer has an instinct to raise something for the sake of having it last beyond his life. The Egyptians’ tombs! They tried to fight the oblivion of death by monuments at which men coming after would gaze astonished and murmur in perpetuity a name thus preserved in granite glory. But men have built all that ahead of me for rentals. They have sold their egos, already emasculated by Christianity, for an enormous annual income.
He was passing a lighted shop. A girl stood at the window. He curved in towards her. Fastidious profile. What does she stare at? Beads and brace¬ lets spread and hung for just such hungry eyes.
16
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
1 7
He stood at her side. She glanced up, startled, and received his full gaze. After a moment she bent her head. He did not move. She put up her hand and pulled down her hat with a timid gesture. He stepped back and looked at the glitter of gold and coral behind the glass. What pitiful eyes ! Little drowned flowers. Eve seen them before. Ruth’s eyes like that the day I stoned her kitten. How long ago? Twenty years. Eheu fugaces, Postume! Her eyes faded now and lined by Andrew and the three fruits — sour little devils. But this girl’s eyes enough like Ruth’s to be a restraint. She’s turning. Oh, let her go. Anyway, she can’t be. Not with those fresh eyes.
He swung on his heel and walked away. Ruth and my unpleasant childhood. She weak and sensi¬ tive, I rough and moody. “See how nicely your sister behaves in church.” “Your sister gets up in the morning when she is called.” “Your sister never forgets to wash her hands.” She used to cry when I was whipped and bring me cookies afterward. Wouldn’t steal them for herself. A born comforter. The weak serving the strong. She doesn’t like to see me now. Thinks my ideas for the children will undermine sweet sickening home influence. Mother¬ hood handled well only in Sparta. Leave the babies in the rain all night. Take those that survive away from pap and cooings and make them fit for life. That would solve the overpopulation problem with¬ out help from old Malthus. I’d like to write a book
18 THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
on motherhood. Part one : How to be intelligent though a mother. Part two: Taking the drool out of maternity. Part three: Painless extraction of sentimentality. Part four : The ferine mother ver¬ sus the mother evolved. Part five: Motherhood’s coming of age. Part six : They desert you at twenty, why not do it first ?
A man, stepping from a doorway, collided with him.
“Excuse me. Didn’t see you coming.”
Daniel pulled his hat back in place, standing in the light from a row of plate glass windows. Just inside a man stiffly wrapped in white threw limp cakes into the air and caught them on a plate. Be¬ hind him the rows of tables were half filled by early diners. A girl sat alone near the door. She had taken off her hat and her clipped hair fell about forehead and ears, making stubby black points against her skin. Her mouth was full-blown and scarlet.
Daniel stood staring. Little blackbird. Is that rouge on her mouth? She has a bold black eye and I think it’s fixed on me. She hasn’t blinked since I’ve been looking at her. Well, there’ll be no prettier one on the auction block tonight so let us get on with the matter. Let us enter and dine behind the vaudeville act in the window.
He passed the girl’s table and hung up his hat and overcoat on a hook, pausing to read the restau¬ rant’s repudiation of responsibility for empty gar-
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
19
ments. He dried his sweating palms and replaced his handkerchief ceremoniously. Nerves, nerves. Too much pressure on me. It’s harder to play than to work. Now for the role of conquering male. I would have done it better ten thousand years ago. As it is, I wield a newspaper in my hand instead of a club as I approach those mysterious soft allure¬ ments. Without prescience one would not only be tormented but destroyed in that pleasant baited morass. Courage, I go to crook the knee to Eros, the iconoclast.
The girl looked across at him with quick indif¬ ferent eyes as he sat down. Then as if unaware of his scrutiny across the narrow whiteness between them, she watched the street, her lazy eyelids droop¬ ing, recovering, drooping. I was right. Her mouth is rouged. But rouge on a background as red as itself. She keeps her eyes away. Some burly type would please her better than I, knowing the ap¬ proach. Yet I have in my pocket that which will release interest, smiles, flutterings — the parade of her graces. Touch the currency button. Fiat lux . Where’s the menu?
He reached toward the girl as a waitress with stained hands put down a tray and served dishes from it with the small rapid gestures with which one deals a pack of cards. She passed to Daniel’s side and bent for his order.
The girl began to eat, dipping successively into small dishes and chewing her food frankly. He
20
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
opened his newspaper. By looking at the headlines he could see her face, a pale blur beyond his direct vision. Savage little type. She would go well in the Place Pigalle. With longer hair, a Goya. Some¬ thing like that Portuguese girl I found on the Quai d’ Anjou. Dark down on her upper lip. One sees it often in France. Some like it. Others advocate a depilatory. I’m sure I don’t care. It’s neither an aphrodisiac nor a drawback to me. Certain tastes rejoice in a cast in the eye, a bizarre turn of counte¬ nance, a crooked back, Cezanne’s women, the poison¬ ous hauteur of old Florentine busts, Cranach’s false nudes. Of the ancients I choose never the chill calm of Greece but the exquisite lines of Nephretete, passionately lean, sweet-lipped, proudly ruling Egypt. Her dissipated dust now floats behind dis¬ tant curtains. Perhaps I alone in all the world mourn Nephretete tonight, sitting in vulgar glare and clatter, bent on a project that — Ah, she is star¬ ing at me. Thick lids insolent eyes.
Daniel folded his newspaper and held it out. “Would you like to see this?”
She hesitated. “Thanks.”
He watched her open the paper. Satin unflushed cheeks. A flare to the nostrils. Looks healthy. She didn’t have much of a dinner. I suppose if someone else were paying for it she would order nine opulent courses. I used to hear about women being delicate eaters. I’ve never dined one yet that didn’t eat more than I. I wish I hadn’t given her that paper. She’ll
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
21
read it all if only to annoy me. She knows I want to talk to her. So does every man she meets proba¬ bly. Old Bill McMahon used to say, “Let the pretty ones alone, boys, and pick the others. They’re fresher.”
The girl looked across squarely. “I bet she killed him — that Mrs. Cramer down to Long Island.”
“Very likely, judging from the evidence. But the jury - ”
“She done it all right, all right.”
“Tell me. Would you kill someone if you were jealous? You look as if you would.”
“Me? I dunno. I might if he was worth it.”
The waitress placed his dinner before him and poked the menu into the girl’s hand.
“Have something with me,” said Daniel. “Yes? Good. Bring some ice cream, please.”
The girl stared at Daniel with cold puzzled eyes.
“What do you do? I mean, do you work?” he asked.
“Sure. Don’t you?” She raised the newspaper between their faces.
Daniel took up his fork. Presently he put it down and dried the palms of his hands on his nap¬ kin. A touchy little devil. I’ll have to go slow. The chase in always a humiliation to me. Here I sit, eating a dinner I don’t want and trying to inter¬ est and placate a girl with a Neanderthalensis intel¬ ligence — all because the hour has struck. It’s degrading — appalling. No wonder those gaunt nar-
22
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
row-templed ascetics fled to caves with ropes and nettles. Swish, sting, be off with your beckoning eyes. My flesh shall not be leman to you, iniquitous and unclean messenger of Satan. Peace, peace, while I save my soul and on with the flagellation. Nowadays you’d be dragged off for a lunatic.
The waitress brought a plate of ice cream and the girl put down the paper. “You didn’t eat your din¬ ner,” she said.
“I was thinking,” said Daniel.
“Thinking never keeps me from eating.” She smiled slightly.
“Perhaps you haven’t anything to worry about,” said Daniel.
“Don’t you believe it.” Her voice took a higher note. “My mother’s sick and my sister’s just lost her job. That leaves me and the kid brother to make good. My father run off last year.”
“What kind of job have you?”
“What do you want to know for?”
“Why — I — Excuse me. I only hoped you had a good one.”
She lifted her shoulders and returned to her ice cream. Daniel watched her. Parents probably Italian. Even Greek. That’s why she evades a direct answer by moving her shoulders. She’s of¬ fended. Why? Perhaps because I don’t know how to talk to her.
He swallowed some water to relieve the dryness in his throat. “You didn’t have a very good dinner
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
23
tonight. Suppose you meet me when I get through at my office and we’ll have a little supper. Cold lobster or chicken — anything you like. And after¬ ward I’ll give you something to take home to your mother.” He tapped his breast pocket that she might understand.
She studied him a moment before she replied. “What’s the idea ?”
He hesitated. Damn her truculent air. Why can’t she be businesslike? I’m being as delicate as possible. Don’t tell me she hasn’t done this before. Not with that bold stare and paint on her mouth. Why did she talk to me if she wasn’t hoping for a good bargain? Everybody knows that some work¬ ing girls supplement their wages by going out occa¬ sionally. “You’re a pretty girl and I like you. Isn’t that enough?” Perhaps if I attack in my turn she will have more respect for me. If not I won’t waste my time persuading her.
“How late would it be ?”
“Midnight at least.”
She shook her head. “I can’t. My mother won’t go to sleep till I get home.”
“Why not go home now? Wait till she’s asleep and go out again. I used to manage that way when I lived at home.”
“And come all the way back downtown ?”
“No. I live in Eighty-First Street.”
“Where are we going to eat?”
Daniel looked directly into her eyes. “At my
24
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
apartment. You can come there in a taxi. I’ll be waiting for you.”
“Oh.” She considered something that seemed to amuse her. She began to smile. White shining teeth. Such a pretty little savage. I’m in luck. Her throat smooth and hard as marble. Shoulders nicely turned. My heart anticipates — beating, beating. She must like me a little. She hasn’t asked for any¬ thing. Usually they think they are about to tap a new vein and come running with pickaxes and dyna¬ mite.
“All right. What’s the address?” She buttoned the collar of her cape about her throat and put on her hat. Daniel wrote on his card with a hand that shook and sweated. He passed it across the table' and slid her dinner check on top of his.
“We’ll say half-past twelve then?”
She nodded and leaned across to him. Soft eyes and the gleam of teeth. I can smell her hair. The procedure of the female. All retreats and claws until the moment she decides to capitulate. Then the contours are smooth over relaxed muscles.
“What if you’re late? I’d be out in the cold with a taxi to pay for.” She stood and jerked on her gloves.
“I’ll fix that,” said Daniel. His stained old wallet trembled in his fingers. She’s right, of course. A tie-up in the subway — an accident to the presses — I might be delayed an hour or more. Damn ! Only five and ten dollar bills. Get change. “Just a mo-
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
25
ment,” he said. He laid a five dollar bill on the table while he folded his wallet. ‘Til get this changed for your taxi.”
The girl reached over and swept up the bill, laugh¬ ing. She walked around to him. “See you later.” Her hand stroked his sleeve up and down. He looked at her mouth, the blood creeping up in his face. Still laughing, she went to the door with quick steps and passed into the street.
The waitress came up to Daniel with a troubled face. “Is anything wrong, sir?”
“No, no,” said Daniel. “Nothing.” He went to fetch his overcoat and put it on at the cashier’s desk. My little treasure, my little scented savage. Her fingers still penetrate me. The folds of her cape clung close about her slenderness. She must be new at it. Not like most of them. Asked for no guaran¬ tees. Really, she likes me, I think. She didn’t have to touch my arm.
Outside Daniel stood bareheaded and looked at the sky. Sex isn’t always ugly after all. Sometimes a refuge from the prose and poetry of work, a per¬ fumed interlude without the pain of thinking. Per¬ haps I am not wise to force myself into such rigidities of habit. That girl — my little savage — I might see her often. But no. There would be an attachment — scenes — money for the sick moth¬ er —
He put on his hat and began to walk. The night was as chill as a cavern. A wind blew through
26
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
streets that were emptied each nightfall of their thousands as cities in other times were deserted when a plague descended. He smiled as he ploughed into the wind. Send Micky out for lobster or chicken. No, it’s absurd to spend money like that.
Sandwiches would do. Yet I promised her - .
Well, a chicken, then. Two dollars at a delicates¬ sen’s. And lettuce sandwiches — say, fifty cents. And a few drinks of sherry. Tell Micky to have the chicken packed in a box. I don’t want to carry a grease-smeared parcel. Out of the office at eleven- thirty. Home at twelve and half an hour to set the table and wash up. Must open sherry bottle. Tra, la, la ! The first visitor to my apartment. I’ll tell her so. No. She might feel too important. Will you walk into my parlor said the spider to the — female spider. Oh, so willingly, kind sir. My prices vary accordingly to the quality of your web. Is it cotton or silk? I must know before I advance another centimeter. My little savage will say silk, I’m sure. And silk it is compared to her tenement. Enter the first visitor — woman. Exit the ascetic, his grey mantle streaked with purple at last.
“Abstinence sows sand all over The ruddy limbs and flaming hair ”
Sands of time, running, running. Time only an illu¬ sion, being one with space. In the year of an atom man’s second is not perceived but lasts through an
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
27
eternity. And our eternity is but a flash in the life cycle of Canopus. The shivering weak cover their faces and flee back to the human bosom of their Creator with a capital C. He didn’t tell them any¬ thing so disquieting. Better heaven and hell than relativity. A man knows where he stands when he hears about harps and brimstone. He holds one and gets choked with the other. That’s reasonable. But tell him matter may be only a hole in the solid ether and he will shake a Bible at you. The number of Bible-shakers has fallen off, though, even in my time. Now a man is just as likely to say, “Let’s see you prove it to me.” Father is still shaking the Bible. But only at mother. He must miss the ferocious zest for prayer I inspired. The night he held me by my hair and prayed for my conversion. I felt anger and shame for him. Now that has faded into contempt. Honor thy father. An im¬ portant precept among Chinese and Jews. There’s small honor for parents among those that call them¬ selves after the beautiful megalomaniac of Nazareth. Only pity, mixed with diluted affection and irrita¬ tion. Blame sentimentality for that. When living gets soft the soul buds forth and the fruit is senti¬ ment, romance and havens for the unfit. Still some races left, however, that crack them on the head. Little corners of the earth where they don’t under¬ stand why we save them. One sect in India ostricises women after the menopause — roofs given only to the reproductive. Wonder what happens to
28
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
the old men? Servants, I daresay, hunting in the heads of their children’s children.
Daniel pushed through the swinging doors of his office building. A young woman with light curls under her hat was entering the elevator. He turned aside to the tobacconist established in the corridor and bought cigarettes. I’ll wait for the next ele¬ vator. She would talk to me about sending her to Washington for the convention. If she asks me about it again I’m going to tell her that I think Miss Ramsey can do it better. I’ll spare neither pride nor precedent in this office.
He filled his cigarette case and took the next ele¬ vator to the editorial rooms. The light had been turned on in his office and the lid of his desk pushed up to make way for the evening papers, mail, proofs and telephone messages. He sat down and opened a telegram that lay on top of his letters :
“Thank you for the appointment tomorrow. Amy Fiske.”
He let it fall into the basket at his side. Why does she R.S.V.P. me? She must think a newspaper is like a dinner party. I’ll see her just long enough to say there’s no opening for her here. I owe old Rufus that much.
He rang for Micky, gave a number to the tele¬ phone operator and drew a proof of the editorial page across his papers. The evening routine began. Orders, consultations, rebukes, corrections, the re¬ curring summons of the telephone. At half-past
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
29
eleven he pushed away some proofs and sent out for Trainer. “I’m going early tonight,” he said. “Look out for things.” That will flatter him — to be left in charge. A fever drumming in my blood. Fve been working entirely in the subconscious to¬ night. My little savage. She won’t have to wait for me. Package. Coat. Gloves. Hat.
In the street he turned up his collar and blew his breath in spurts of warm steam. The thick smell of sweat weighted the air of the subway station — that pungent incense to man’s labors. Daniel seated himself in a train and balanced his package on his knee. He stared through the window at the walls of the subway as they roared past, streaked by sudden lights. Each train paints its own frescoes. Patterns of almandite and ochre chasing us along moist walls, caught and effaced by sentinel lights or the inter¬ vention of a station. Clamor and blare, thunder and turmoil — we suffer all these in order to huddle our roofs together every man in terror lest he be squeezed out into the country where the stars will enter his thoughts.
His package slipped from his knees and fell to the floor. He snatched it up and held it between his hands. My little savage’s supper. Kisses between mouthfuls and sips — food translated into flesh and thought. The breast of chicken tomorrow trans¬ formed by nature’s alembic into a tender memory of me. Wagner’s sauerkraut and sausages became the piercingly sweet Abendstern. Newton’s dinners of
30
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
red beef turned into concepts of gravitation. Hoka- sai’s bowls of rice are now flowing lines hotly bid for at Occidental auctions.
The train ground to a stop and Daniel poked him¬ self through the crowd that pressed up the stairways. The wind, cold and determined, forced itself through cheviot and linen. He shivered and set his teeth. This climate one of the prices we pay for progress. We need a measure of discomfort, it seems, to buck us up for the struggle of achievement. We thrive on shivers and sweat and having to decide often about changing our underwear. Too much hard¬ ship and we sit dully in igloos unfit for mental effort or the proximity of a civilized nose. Too much comfort and we take our ease under a flat-leafed tree, almost too listless to like the motion of the waves on the beach.
Daniel opened the door of his apartment and looked about. It isn’t so bad since I bought that Mexican rug. Nice red in it — like the rich loam of Ceylon. She’ll like that. The books make pleasing blocks of color against the gray of the walls. But I daresay she won’t notice the books.
He spread a yellow and brown checked cloth on the table and fetched plates, glasses and a bottle of sherry from the kitchenette. Turning on the cold water in the bathroom, he put clean towels about. His pajamas were hanging on the bathroom door, wrinkled and limp. He pulled them down and kicked them under the bathtub. He thrust razor and
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
3i
toothbrush into the cabinet and filled a pitcher with water for the table. Half cutting, half pulling, he separated the chicken into four clammy parts. Hurry, hurry, hurry. Greasy fingers. Can’t stop to wash them. She may be waiting even now. I’ll leave the light burning. In case she’s timid about stepping over a strange threshold into darkness.
He snatched up his hat, closed the door behind him and ran down the stairs. The hall boy dozed at the switchboard of the telephone. Walking on his toes, Daniel passed by. The street was empty. He went to the curb and looked right and left. The wind lifted swirls of dust and tossed them back and forth before flinging them again at the buildings.
A man came around the corner. Daniel watched him approach, cross the street and turn into a door¬ way. Presently a window was raised in the oppo¬ site apartment house and a woman in a yellow kimono stood there for a moment before the light went out. More swirls of dust and then a long interlude during which the street rested inactive.
A yellow cat trotted by, tail held high, a senti¬ mental smile in her eyes as she blinked them at the light behind Daniel. A scarred grey cat followed her, stretching his neck forward and down and flat¬ tening his ears as he passed. The yellow cat leaped down an area way. The grey cat paused on the upper step, looking down and swinging his tail from side to side.
A silence like an augury lay on the street’s bleak-
32
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
ness. Daniel knocked his heels against the curb. He began to walk up and down. Four houses to the west. Turn. Four houses to the east. Turn. Four houses to the west. Turn.
The whirr of a taxicab sounded in the distance. Daniel stopped walking and thrust his head from the collar of his coat to listen to the knock of the engine as it labored up the incline of the avenue. He was at the curb before his own doorway when the taxi¬ cab turned the corner and rolled at him. He leaped to the door and pulled it open.
An old man stepped out, grave and surprised. “Thank you, sir,” he said. “What’s the meter read, driver?”
Daniel moved back. He looked at his watch and slowly returned it to his pocket. The old man went to the door and pushed at its weight with a feeble arm and shoulder. Daniel, reaching from behind him, threw it open with a vicious thrust. The old man stumbled inside and made for the elevator. Daniel, his lips a blue line, followed into the hallway. The door closed on his heels with a clang.
Ill
Among Daniel’s letters was an envelope addressed in wavering, old-fashioned writing. Mother. Still watering that old bottle of ink. Asking me to come out Sunday to dinner, I suppose. I’d better go. Let’s
see — two, no three, weeks since I -
He slit the envelope with a paper cutter and read the penciled lines, frowning.
“Dear Dan : — We haven’t had a letter from you in a week. How are you getting on over there? I hope you will come out on Sunday. The insurance is due on the first, you mustn’t forget it and Pa broke the clock again. Ruth was over yesterday with little Eddie. She wouldn’t want it known for anything but she’s expecting again. This is strictly private for you only. She looks poorly but that’s natural. Andrew is doing fine and had another raise at the office, so now he can give Ruth more comforts. I am well and wish I could say as much for your Pa. He mopes around the house and goes to bed every afternoon. Now, Dan, that is not like your Pa to do that. Maybe he’s got some sickness hanging over him but we’ll hope and pray for the best. Come Sunday sure. Your loving mother, Annie Geer.”
Daniel tore the letter into bits. Probably old age. He must be sixty-eight or nine. I was born when he
33
34
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
was thirty-seven. The years are heavy on him and will soon press him into the earth. Then mother’s turn. And mine. Each generation burrowing under disturbs the sod. Our steps kick up the dust of our ancestors. All life that has been lies under our boot-heels and we tread on the eyes of the quiescent dead. Stamp one day — get stamped on the next. Glad Andrew got that raise. Now he won’t be borrowing from me. Poor Ruth! Another suck¬ ling to sap her strength. Andrews image, impress¬ ed a fourth time, will inflate him still more. “Quite a little family, eh, Dan? And when are you going to do your duty by your country?” “Now, Andy, you stop teasing Dan. You’ll only stir him up and he’ll start on one of his lectures.” “Well, Ruthie, he ought to be stirred up. Why don’t he get busy and find some nice girl to marry him? With all that money he’s earning it’s a shame. He’s grow¬ ing into a regular old bach.” “Marriage, Andrew? Not for me. Just the first week of the honeymoon. If you stay longer than that you’ll find disillusion¬ ment. You start to save so she can spend. Bills, words, tears. She telephones your office to ask if you still love her. She just adores the theatre and dancing. Her friends come in the evening when you’re reading. Pregnancy. Humor her whims. Calm her fears. Reproach yourself. Terrors of birth. Then turbulent nights in the interest of lung development. Wet garments, faintly ammoniacal, hang on the radiators. Loose wrappers, untidy
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
35
hair, wrinkled eyes, inferior conversation — like yours, Andrew. Pregnant again. You’re caught in the trap for life. Only a villain ever gets away and breathes free, impersonal air, smiling at the curses that follow him as if they were petals.” “I told you so, Andy. You started him off and — ”
“Lady says she has appointment with you, Mr. Geer.”
Daniel took a card from the boy. Miss Amy Fiske. Damn! Old Rufus. Twelve o’clock. Telegram. Suppose I’ll have to. “Show her in. Send Miss Elliot here first.”
He scowled at his littered desk. They’re always late except when you don’t want to see them. Then they come before you have a chance to read your mail. If they want something from you they’re Johnny-on-the-spot. If you want something from them they don’t turn up. Like that little swindler last night.
“Dictation, Mr. Geer?”
“No. I want you to come in here in ten minutes and tell me that I’m wanted at a conference.”
“A conference ?”
“Yes, a conference. Is the word new to you?”
She flushed. “I don’t understand.”
“It isn’t necessary. Just do what I tell you.”
She turned away, her eyes filling with tears. Stupid! Does she think I have time to stop and explain my motives to the office force? I suppose I’ve hurt her feelings. Well, she isn’t here to have
36
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
feelings but to take orders. If she’s sensitive she’d better stay home and help her mother wash dishes. I’ve no time to coddle the employees. I hear Miss Amy Fiske approaching, damn her. If she has any of that vaunted feminine intuition she’ll see how busy I am and clear out. Behind my chair. Hesitating. Perfume. Penetrating French kind. Give me good old printer’s ink.
“Mr. Geer?”
Daniel lifted his eyes from the newspaper he was pretending to read and stood. Without looking at her face he accepted a firm, smallish hand in a fawn- colored glove.
“Won’t you sit down?” he said and tapped his desk with a pencil.
“Dr. Edwards told you, I believe, that I am looking for a position. He thought perhaps you would give me a chance here with you. I’ve brought some things I’ve been writing.” The voice was clear, slightly metallic, enunciating with sharpness.
Daniel moved his shoulders. “I told Dr. Edwards that there was no opening at present. If you will leave your — um — articles with me, how¬ ever, I shall be happy to look at them and give you an opinion. If you have talent and later there’s an opening — ”
“Thank you. You are very kind.” She laid a notebook on the desk.
Daniel took it with an abrupt gesture and placed it in a pigeon-hole. Not likely to press her point
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
37
after my firmness. I suppose I’ll have to read that ridiculous book and say something non-committal. Pity she doesn’t use a typewriter.
“I suppose you haven’t time to look at my things now ?”
He turned his head and looked at her for the first time. Red hair, grey eyes with a glint of green. Regular Mona Lisa face with that curious smile in the eyes rather than on the lips. She looks a bit undernourished — skin dead white. But the lips are red enough — thin unrouged line.
“I really haven’t, Miss Fiske. Sorry.”
“Oh,” she said. “I suppose I shouldn’t have asked.”
“Don’t apologize. I know you’re not used to offices.” He leaned back, still studying her face.
“No. That’s something I must learn. And soon.”
“What have you been doing?”
She moved and the perfume she wore entered his nostrils. “Going to school and travelling. The usual thing. I was finishing college when my father died. I came to New York a few weeks ago. Mother didn’t want me to do anything — to work — in Boston.”
Daniel acquiesced with a nod. “The usual thing.” Must have lost their money. That’s why her mother doesn’t want her to work in Boston. Their friends would be watching and criticizing like a pack of old harpies. Knowing light in her eyes. I wonder
38
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
how much experience she’s had with life. Of course she’s all primed to make a good impression with her talk about school and mother.
‘‘The field is larger here, of course.” Everything I say sounds banal and sterile. No, I haven’t time to look at your book now. What have you been doing? The field is larger in New York. A moron would have done better.
“You must be very clever, Mr. Geer. Dr. Ed¬ wards told me you were surprisingly young to have such an important position. Did you begin here?”
Daniel smiled. I knew old Rufus was impressed although he only said, “Well, well.” Funny the things people will say to others about you and you hear them by accident. Almost as if there were a tax on pleasant words.
“No. On a smaller paper in New Jersey. The circulation — ” But no. I can’t tell her that. Sounds like boasting.
“Yes?” said Amy. Her tone was encouraging and sympathetic, an overture to further confi¬ dences.
“Technicalities. You wouldn’t understand them.”
Her perfume reached him again. I daresay some men like it. Mother used to say good women didn’t use it. The old-fashioned idea, springing from tales of Parisian cocottes. They say women have per¬ fumes blended to express their individualities. Heliothrope and violet combinations for blondes —
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
39
mixtures of musk for brunettes. Red hair has its own natural flavor, that Frenchman at the Deux Magots told me. As often unpleasant as not.
“I think successful people are cruelly impatient with beginners,” Amy said suddenly. “I know they haven’t the time to give. But that superior attitude is in human nature. I can remember when I was going to school in France an American girl used to want to practise French with me. I told her I hadn’t time which was true. But whenever she was near I took delight in speaking as fast as I could, exaggerating all the r’s and intonations.”
“As a general rule, you’re right,” said Daniel, “but not this time. I didn’t want to explain how I happened to come here because — ”
“Do tell me. I’ll understand,” said Amy, leaning forward.
Daniel looked into her eyes, hot, cold, insistent. He breathed her perfume and after a moment looked away. Something in her eyes disturbs me. Danger¬ ous, that Gioconda type. Sorry for any man she gets between her claws. Not the usual female prowler. Has she brains?
“I’m sorry not to hear about it,” said Amy. She twisted a small lock of hair about a gloved finger and tucked it under her hat. “Perhaps some other time — when you tell me your opinion of my mis¬ cellany there.”
“Ah, yes,” said Daniel. ‘Til send you a note about it when I return your book.”
4°
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
“Then I’m not to see you again?” A flattering alarm sounded in her tone.
“I’m very busy, Miss Fiske. I come here at noon and leave after midnight.”
“But luncheon? Dinner? Tea? You must sometimes stop at those hours.”
“I lunch and dine at a restaurant two blocks from here. Half an hour suffices.”
He pushed back his chair. She’s insistent but she can’t trap me. I have no time for that sort of thing — to say nothing of the expense it would in¬ volve. Where the devil is Miss Elliot?
Amy fastened the fur collar of her coat. “I won’t keep you any longer,” she said. “Will you take my address?”
Daniel picked up her card from the desk and wrote her street number under the old-fashioned script. “I daresay it’s no use giving you my tele¬ phone number,” she said, “since you would not use it.”
“I’m sorry,” said Daniel. “I’m a busy man and cant waste time on either social amenities or gal¬ lantries.” Better be frank in the first place. Other¬ wise she’ll be telephoning me to leave work and come to tea. No wonder some women don’t get on in their careers. They have too much time on their hands. I suppose she’d like to have me running in at odd moments for a bit of gossip — or to aid her maiden efforts in literature. She’s offended. Biting her lip.
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
41
“And rude,” Amy said. “Don’t forget to add that while you’re describing yourself. Goodbye. And thank you for your trouble. I’ll tell Dr. Edwards you are to give me an opinion later ” Without of¬ fering her hand she walked toward the door.
Damn! Now she will tell him I was rude to her. “Forgive me,” he said, following. “I have to be stern with myself and focus every thought on the office for the next few months. If I don’t — well, someone else may be sitting in that chair.”
Amy stopped and, turning, held out her hand. “The American business man! A curious type. Do you think he’ll survive ? I warn you that you’ll lose interest in life before you’re fifty if you work at this unreasoning speed.” Still pressing his hand she smiled.
Sharp little teeth. Like a baby tigress. Lucky I’m not susceptible. She’s an insidious drink for any man. Her heady scent — more dangerous than bullets —
“You’re wanted at a conference, Mr. Geer.”
“Thank you, Miss Elliot.” He released Amy’s hand. Hope Miss Elliot didn’t see. She’s been crying. I spoke roughly — bad tempered today. That little sneak last night did it.
“Goodbye, Mr. Geer.”
He held the door open for Amy and watched her walk away from him through the city room, intent only upon her steps and the door before her. Walks as if conscious she’s better born than the rest. I’m
42
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
sure she’s not so simple as her manner. Back in her head something is constantly on the watch, cal¬ culating, counting this exchanged for that. Many men would have been knocking at her door tonight. Not I. The result is too clear. My blood fevered for weeks by pursuit, my hours split and scattered, coming and going as in a dream, flowers, dinners, lessons in journalese and at the end, “Oh, don’t, Mr. Geer !” as usual.
He sat down at his desk. Behind with everything today. Glass of milk here for luncheon. Wonder can Micky find a hot roast beef sandwich. Don’t forget deposit for knife and fork. That perfume still hanging in the air. Made in Grasse, probably. I must go there to see the flower gardens set high above the Mediterranean. Millions of pounds of petals used every year. Narcissi, mimosa, orange blossoms, tuberoses, violets, lilacs. Women working knee-deep in flowers. Any admirer that brings them a bouquet probably receives it back between the eyes. I wonder what kind of thing she has set down in that little book. Haven’t time now. Might glance at a page, though.
He pulled the notebook from its pigeon-hole. Red, supple leather. Pleasure to touch good leather. Silk raises my gooseflesh.
Mes Pensees
. . Quelques Essais sur la Vie
Un Poeme
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
43
And she wants to get on a newspaper ! Headlines for her stuff in French. Trainer, engage a special copy-reader for the new society girl reporter. One who can rhyme headlines preferred. Drape her desk in pink satin and serve tea every day at four-thirty sharp. Page i. Clear firm handwriting. Knows her own mind, that girl. Pensee number one.
Pierrot the Scientist
Under the albescent moon Pierrot poses Regarding the silver disk.
Green beams swim through his fingers,
“Come Pierrot, dance with me!”
“No, Columbine. Tonight I study The moon and her ways And count - ”
Pensee one doesn’t seem to amount to much. I’ll tell her what I think of vers fibre. Pensee two.
Dusk Falls on Palo
Crooked rows of bamboo huts, their shadows blurred by fine dust. Brown bodies bending to fight night fires beneath the shacks. From the muddy river come the carabao, led by naked children. They cry shrilly, “Cadi dao!” “Ayao!” “Uaray hin adlao, tatay!” “Damun tubig ini nga gabi!” It is the rainy season and the river has risen, flooding the rice-fields. Women, muddy to their hips, wade out from the rows of green shoots
44
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
and go to the river to bathe. A guitar begins a plaintive song. Domingo is courting Hermosa. She listens, drawing smoke from a cigar as long as her sister’s baby. He does not like to work but he has curly hair and after all her little shop of betel-nuts and fish brings
in enough for two. So perhaps - The sun has gone
and now the fires smoulder and give out a thick, suffo¬ cating smoke which mosquitoes are supposed not to like. The villagers withdraw into the huts to squat about the evening meal of rice and fish. Only the most daring suitors will go out after nightfall for there is danger. The evil spirit, Assuan, who perches like a bird in the branches of the ylang-ylang tree will fall upon the backs of the fool-hardy as they pass and by his touch steal away their wits forever.
Well, that’s average newspaper stuff. Where is Palo? She must have gone there on those vague travels she spoke about. Pensee three.
Sea Foam
The sea whispers to me at dawn. Foam like lace -
I don’t seem to be finding out much about Miss Amy Fiske’s real thoughts. I might have known she’d be too canny to turn them over to me. Little fox. A man would wait months to discover what lay back of those mysterious eyes. Pensee four.
The Delusion of Love
Love is like snow. You can’t touch it without spoil¬ ing its beauty.
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
45
Love is like a sunset. As you gaze it disappears.
Love is a man’s game. A woman plays only to lose.
A man says, “Love me - ”
Aha ! So she’s been bitten ! Those were shadows of the past I saw in her eyes. It left a taste of aloes and a leaning toward cheap epigrams. Leave epigrams to the epigrammists, I must tell her. Perhaps she’s been bitten more than once. Red hair is seldom left unwooed and she didn’t acquire that hardness from occupying an observer’s bench. Hardness and red hair. Not a conventional com¬ bination. Tradition teaches otherwise. Except Queen Elizabeth. Or was it only her wigs that were red? Red hair neglected by artists. There’s Ros¬ setti. And Henner. Well, he’s scarcely an artist. More like a plumber’s ideal of a New Year’s cal¬ endar. Titian’s women not really red-haired. A pity Botticelli never departed from his yellow gold- streaked manes. What ruddy aromatic masses he would have painted, more alive than the serpents that grew from Medusa!
He closed the notebook and pressed a buzzer. Now to close the incident of Miss Amy Fiske. I’ll send old Rufus a note, too, explaining that dinner Thursday night. I can ask him about her family. He’s always informed about blue strains in the blood and heraldic bearings.
Miss Elliot came in, sat down in the chair by Daniel’s side and snapped an elastic about her open
46
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
notebook. She held her shoulders erect and pressed her elbows rigidly into her sides. Her eyelids were swollen.
“No address for this letter,” said Daniel. “It’s to go by messenger in a package. By the way, Miss Elliot, take Saturday afternoon off if you like. I meant to tell you.”
Miss Elliot, sucking in the corners of her mouth, maintained an offended silence.
Sullen little beast. Sorry I offered. She ought to know it’s give and take in an office. I’ve half a mind to get a male stenographer in here. I need a man to swear at sometimes.
“I don’t want any favors — only civil treatment,” she said suddenly.
“This letter is to Miss Amy Fiske,” began Daniel. “Fiske with an e.” I’m not going to discuss my conduct with her — not if she floods this room with her grief. If she doesn’t like her job she’s free to resign and work for some soothing syrup manu¬ facturer.
“My dear Miss Fiske,” he dictated. “I am teturning your notebook by messenger. I am not a judge of vers libre which I detest but the Palo sketch isn’t half bad. It shows me that with training there is no reason why you should not qualify for a position on a newspaper. I did not read the Essays on Life so cannot comment. As for epigrams I advise you to leave that art to a more seasoned observer. The satire of twenty, however bitter,
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
47
has no bite. Paragraph. I should advise you to study the various newspapers so that you will be prepared to acquit yourself well on whichever of our dailies you may finally coax to let you try your wings. The best of luck to you and my regards to Dr. Edwards. If at any time there should be an opening here I will communicate with you. Very truly — no, sincerely — yours. Please type that at once, Miss Elliot, and call a messenger.”
Miss Elliot left the room and Daniel took up his mail. Why do I want to hurt that girl by sending back her book within the hour? I don’t know. It’s like an instinct to defend myself. I dislike her type. Feline. Watching her own safety while planning to spring. Carmen with her “Garde d toi” was more honest.
He opened a letter. '‘Managing Editor. Dear Sir.” More syndicate stuff to draw feminine read¬ ers . Does the modern woman want a business man or a charming companion for a mate? What would you do if your husband came home with a blue garter in his pocket? Should wives tell all? Rub¬ bish ! I can’t wade through it.
He took up the red leather book again.
Quelques Essais sur la Vie. Inscrutable cold eyes with green lights. Even the book is perfumed. She said I was rude. I daresay I am — according to her pink-tea standards. Should I ask her to luncheon to discuss her future? No, I’ll be damned if I will. The incident is closed. Goodbye, Mona Lisa!
IV
Daniel walked up three flights of stairs, mouldy retainers of the odors of dinners, long since digested and separated into force and fertilizer. During eight interminable years I climbed here three times a day. A total of — three times three hundred and sixty-five. My salary averaged say $30 a week. That’s about a dollar and a half a climb. Curious to know every dust-filled crack and yet to feel like a stranger who searches timorously for an unfamiliar door. The bell must be out of order. I suppose father has been poking into the batteries again. Sunday dinners simmering behind all these doors. I hope mother’s not cooking cabbage. No, across the hall.
Mrs. Geer opened the door, drying her hands on her apron. “I thought that would be you knocking, Dan,” she said. She pulled down his head. “The bell’s broken. Your pa — ”
“Who’s at the door, Annie?”
She laid a finger on her lips and made a -backward motion with her head. “He’s real cross today. Don’t rile him, son.”
“It’s I, father,” Daniel called and crossed the hall into the parlor.
48
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
49
“What are you whispering out there for?” de¬ manded Mr. Geer from his armchair.
“Nothing, pa,” said Mrs. Geer. “Just telling Dan we’re glad he could come over today.”
“How are you, father ?”
“Fine as silk. How else should I he? Your ma likes to fret about me because I stay in the house this cold weather. I tell her I ain’t an Esquimau.” He held out the book that had been resting on his knees. “Maybe I didn’t get to church but I’m doing my duty at home. More than the rest of you can say. Better listen to a chapter, Dan. The Lord said T will be exalted among the heathen.’ ”
Daniel, taking off his coat, did not reply.
“Say, Dan, what’s that you’ve got there ? Another new coat? Here, let me see it.”
“It’s only the coat I bought last fall, father,” said Daniel. “The first in six years.”
“What was the matter with your old coat? Not a hole in it, was there? I suppose it wasn’t good enough for your new job in New York, eh?”
“I’ll finish getting dinner, pa,” said Mrs. Geer. “You talk to Dan and see he has a pleasant visit.” She nodded meaningly at her husband and passed through the door, calling back, “Ruthie and Andy are coming over this afternoon.”
“Don’t count on me for supper, mother. I have to get back early.” He took his coat and hat into the hall and hung them on the rack beside his
50
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
father’s old hats. I can’t stand an afternoon of Andrew’s vulgarities and the three reproductions climbing over me. And father’s bad temper poison¬ ing the air. I’ll take the rest of my holiday in solitude with Pausanius. There’s mother coaxing me to stay. The dullest people are always the most persistent. And when they’re your family only lies can free you.
He walked back into the parlor, treading on the carpet brought from the home of his childhood. I’ve watered it, pulled the nap from its rosebuds and worn it with my knees. It’s ready to be scrapped — like the old man there. He sat down at the win¬ dow. His father’s chin rested on his chest and his eyes were closed. Asleep. Well, I’d rather hear him breathe than talk. Sleep, the solace of age and the thief of youth. One-third of our lives passed in gaining force to go on living. Nature cheats us grievously and we thank her for her kindly gift. If I live to be sixty I shall have had but forty years of real life. Unconsciousness isn’t living. Dreams don’t count. Father’s face drawn and blue about the eyes. A cracked and senile vase. Does he ever think of the man that begot me? Or does he reflect only on a grave soon to be dug ? The shadow of that charcoal portrait of him up there. He used to lift me up to look at it. When I began to tell my thoughts he turned to Ruth and gave her the ortho¬ doxy I refused. My Haeckel and his Bible. Smells like roast beef. I’ll have a rare slice from the
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
51
middle. Hope mother remembers I like salad. I’d better go out and talk to her.
He went through the hall into the kitchen.
“What is it, Dan? Is your pa — ”
“Asleep. He doesn’t seem very strong.”
“I’m worried about him. He drops off like that all the time.” She straightened up from the stove and looked at Daniel with troubled tired eyes. “I got him a tonic but he won’t take it. By the way, Dan, I need a new ice-box. That old one leaks and it’s hard to empty.”
Daniel sat down and brought out his check book and fountain pen. “I’ll give you your check for next month. Rent, ice-box, expenses — and the clock and door bell, too.”
“Don’t forget the insurance, Dan.”
“I don’t forget things, mother. You don’t have to go on reminding me.”
“No, you’re a good boy, Dan.” She went to him and kissed his cheek awkwardly.
He stood up and moved away from her. Worn and musty — like the carpet. Poor mother. Emptied of emotion she has only habit and her reflexes. The new ice-box takes the place with her of the star on the Christmas tree, the gold at the end of the rain¬ bow.
“Go on back and read, Dan. I know you don’t like the kitchen.” She broke some eggs into a bowl and he watched the brown, knotted fingers.
“Will you have dinner ready soon? I’ve brought
52
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
an appetite whetted by restaurants. No cooking like yours in New York.”
“If you like my cooking you’d better come back home where you belong,” she said.
He returned to the parlor. Father still sleeping. As intent on his vest buttons as a Hindoo in um¬ bilical contemplation. Suspend their animation at will. Don’t believe it. Lie entombed for three days and come out demanding breakfast. Send their astral bodies to the North Pole. Safe enough, they claim, as long as no one cuts the connection. That babu who wrote a book exposing them was found in a shallow pond. Give me the dervishes, dancing or howling. Their pretences less hypocritical.
He drew out a book from the shelves between the windows. New? No, only an old one without its cover. History of the Civil War. Lincoln the only admiration father and I ever had in common. He’s been arranging things here, I see. A segregation has taken place and his books are on the top shelf. World’s Almanac, Famous Battles, Life of General Grant, a space for the Bible, Mistakes of Congress, In His Steps, Darwin the Madman, the Old Testa¬ ment Atlas, Wicked Women of History, The Family Physician. Mother’s books next. Science and Health, Mothers of Great Men, Ivanhoe, Complete Works of William Cullen Bryant, When Knight¬ hood Was in Flower, Samantha at Saratoga, A Missionary in Old Nippon. Ruth’s books. How to Tell the Wild Birds, David Copperfield, The Wide,
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
53
Wide, World, Stories from the Bible, Little Women, Tales from Shakespeare, Janice Meredith, First Year Algebra, the Family Song Book. And my discards at the bottom.
He took up a book and looked at the title page. Daniel Boone Geer, December 25, 1903. Merry Christmas. My China Coast Pirates. With a yell that curdled Tom’s blood the crew of yellow savages swept down the deck, their pig-tails between their teeth. Even today that story unwinds in my brain as if I had seen it in a moving picture, its events more real to me than all the sodden years I lived here. Clive in India, Round the World in Eighty Days, From Earth to the Moon, Huckleberry Finn, Beginner’s Chemistry, Physics and Astronomy. And here’s the Book of Etiquette in honor of my first dance. My debut into society where I danced with the butcher’s daughter and the postman’s wife. Today I can send away Miss Amy Fiske of the Boston haut monde and refuse the dinner to Dr. Rufus Edwards whose family tree has a tail as long as our cat’s. Here’s my old brown notebook — notes and sketches on alfalfa fields, canals, sluice gates. If it hadn’t been for Harry Steele I would have gone out west. Instead of talk about which paper was left when the big divorce broke I should be hearing how old man Jones was caught with his gates open after his time was up. Stealing news — stealing water.
“Daniel !” His mother’s voice from the kitchen.
“Yes, mother.”
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THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
Mr. Geer lifted his head. “ Ain't dinner ready? I suppose you like to have it late — like your stylish friends in New York.”
“Mother is calling us now,” said Daniel. He held out his hand to his father but Mr. Geer ignored it and pulled himself out of his chair with jerking muscles. Daniel followed him into the kitchen and sat down in his old place by the window, his back to the array of mattresses and drying cloths across the court. Mr. Geer, knife and fork already in hand, watched his wife take a roast from the oven.
“Roast pork, Dan,” she said as she placed it before him. “There’s the carving knife in front of you. I thought you’d like a good solid roast for Sunday.”
“If he don’t like it there’s no call for him to eat it, Annie,” said Mr. Geer, passing his tongue over his lips. “He ought to be glad to get home cooking once in a while.”
“Indeed I am,” said Daniel, carving. “I was telling mother a little while ago — ”
“If your appetite’s getting fussy you can wait till you get back to New York,” continued Mr. Geer, holding out his plate.
“Just a moment — this is for mother,” said Daniel.
“You give it to me. Your ma’s not ready yet,” snapped Mr. Geer. “She’s got the potatoes to bring — and the apple sauce.”
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
55
“Help your pa and start in yourself, Dan,” said his mother. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
“Yes, mother.” I must keep my temper. After all, I needn’t come again for a month. Lust for food the only eager appetite retained by the old. He eats like an animal that fears a theft from its moving jaws. Curious that I’m half of him. That in me lies his greed, shrewdness, injustice. From her the impulse away from the sordid and a recep¬ tivity toward the unknown.
“Sugar your apple sauce if I ain’t made it sweet enough, pa. How is it, Danny?”
“The only official apple sauce. I commend it to the Bureau of Standards,” said Daniel.
“Talk English or shut up,” said Mr. Geer. “I’ll have another piece of pork.”
Daniel took up the serving fork. The mystery of the passing down of traits. Some of them develop actively and you are known by them. Others you hold in your seed and they pass through your un¬ awareness into beings you will never see. Father and mother have made me custodian of all the mil¬ lions that were their combined ancestry. Unknown warriors, sailors, dreamers, priestesses, chieftains, nomads, artisans, herdsmen —
“More potatoes, pa?”
“Yes — and gravy.”
Daniel held the dish towards him. “Here you are, father.” Each generation holds within it the characteristics of every being who has propagated
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
56
through the ages. In me lies embedded unconscious memories that I may never summon. Memories of the thrill of first life; of fear of the elements that was the beginning of religion; of labored cunning that saved man from the fate of the mammoths ; of that insane ecstacy beasts know when they smell blood — lost to men forever.
“How’s everything going at the office, Dan?”
“Fine, mother.”
“Do you think it’s permanent?”
“No reason why it shouldn’t be. They won’t find many men who will give them the time and thought that I do.”
His father leaned across to him, impaling his attention with his fork. “Horw much are they giving you, Dan?”
“Not so much now as later on.” He began to eat the broken piece of bread he had been crumbling beside his plate. I knew this would come up again. He’ll never be satisfied until he finds out.
“How much a week?” insisted Mr. Geer, rapping his plate with his fork.
“Enough for the rent, father. Don’t worry. I’d always see you’re taken care of — you and mother.”
Mr. Geer looked across at his wife. “What did I tell you, ma? It ain’t natural of him. Andy and Ruth say the same.”
“I wish you wouldn’t discuss my private affairs with anyone, father,” said Daniel.
“Private affairs? They’re your family, ain’t
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
57
they? They got a right to say what they think, ain’t they ? The last time Andy was here to see us he said wait till he was earning as much as you and he’d take a bigger apartment for us downstairs.” Mr. Geer leaned back and smiled triumphantly.
“Shame, pa !” said Mrs. Geer with trembling lips. “After all Dan has done for us !”
“He’s only done his Christian duty like a son should for his parents. Honor thy father and mother, says the Good Book.”
“Dan’s got his future to think of. He must put by a little something every week. Sickness can happen to anybody. Or he might want to get mar¬ ried.”
“The natural state of man ain’t for Dan, ma. More likely he’ll break loose and go sporting around New York with some actress — ”
“Pa! Now you just eat your dinner and don’t say another word!” Mrs. Geer left the table and went to the stove.
Daniel drank a glass of water. The sanctity of family life. The sweet inter-relationship that is the backbone of the nation. In every unit the victims writhe among their chains, each seeking to reinforce the bonds of the strongest member so that he may ;not escape to liberty. A foot on his neck, a hand searching in his pockets and translations from the Hebrew tribal documents ringing in his ears. Father’s smiling to himself as if he had gained a victory over me.
58
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
Mrs. Geer came to the table and began to clear away. A flush was on her cheeks and her eyes were wet. Her faded house dress fitted tightly over thin, stooped shoulders and showed a nest of darns near the arm-holes. She put down clean plates and brought the dessert. When she sat down she made a sign to Daniel. “Dropped off again,” she whispered.
Both watched the old man’s face — wrinkled eye¬ lids trembling and the tight mouth like Daniel’s still holding a smug smile of satisfaction.
“The good of a night’ s sleep don’t last him through the morning. Did you notice the two hats on the hall rack? I keep them there in case burglars should come — might scare them off.”
“You’d better put my cane there, too,” said Mr. Geer suddenly. His wife jumped. “I thought you was asleep, pa,” she said.
“Another good idea would be to pull Moody off his beat and stand him by the door to protect you,” Mr. Geer went on. “I don’t know what’s got into your ma, Dan. She tries to aggravate me every way she can think of from morning till night. Suppose you pass that pie over here, Annie, and stop complaining of me to Dan.”
Mrs. Geer cut the pie. Her face quivered and presently she pulled up her apron and sobbed into its stains.
Daniel pushed back his chair and walked out. He went into the little room that had been his
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
59
and looked out of the window. The street lay below covered with dust and patches of dirty snow. What was that epigram Amy Fiske wrote about love and snow? I daresay the domestic wrangling in her home was as hot as anywhere else but probably smoothed over with good manners. My background would repel her. If she could see it she would feel scorn and shame for me.
He turned to survey the room — a narrow iron bed, a washstand whose yellow surface was scarred by the eventualities of thirty years, a lame brown chair and strip of soiled matting, unravelled along its edges. Offered for purpose of comparison with the pink satin boudoir of Miss Amy Fiske — bath connecting, .bell summons maid, ice-water, ice-cream, hairdresser, ticket to Europe or a choice of suitable, fancy husbands. Wonder why she didn’t take one?
A pasteboard box lay on the washstand under the pitcher’s broken nose. Daniel, passing, stopped to lift the cover. My collection of actresses from cigarette boxes. So father’s been dipping into the old table drawer and casting out the goats. That’s where he got the idea of my sporting around New York with an actress. The photograph of a Sun¬ day school picnic. There I am, a solemn thin boy on the edge of the crowd. By me Minnie, long since dropped into dust, shouting that day for campestral delights. She ate a lemon pie to the last crumb — mother baked it for Ruth and me. Here’s a tooth. Mine? I don’t know. Perhaps Ruth’s. The day
6o
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
she came home crying from the dentist’s. He had shown her a dirty book and tried to kiss her. Father ran down there blazing —
“Danny?” His mother opened the door. “Go in the parlor. It’s too cold for you in here.” She looked at the hed and sighed. “I saved the night¬ shirts you left behind. You may want them some¬ time. Your pa won’t wear any but flannel.”
“I shan’t want them, mother. I prefer pajamas.”
“Well, I suppose I can use them for cleaning. But somehow I don’t feel a man is really undressed if he’s got on pajamas.”
Daniel went into the parlor, drawing out his watch. Half-past two. He looked at the black marble clock on the mantel-piece, bought at an auction with the money he had given his mother for Christmas. The hands pointed to five minutes past nine. Father’s destructive touch. Now he’s pre¬ tending he didn’t hear me come in. Mother’s brought out that stuffed pigeon again. I meant to throw it away. Yet it’s no worse than that plaster Cupid by the clock. Or that dried pampas grass. Exhibit two for Miss Amy Fiske and her Boston drawing room.
Mrs. Geer came in and picked up a newspaper from the floor. “You all right, Dan?” she asked. “Ruthie ought to be here any minute now. She’s late, I guess, with her Sunday dinner.”
“I must start back soon,” he said. “You know newspapers appear on Monday as on all other days.”
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
61
“What did you come at all for if you run away as soon as you get your stomach full?” said Mr. Geer.
His wife’s eyes clouded as they appealed to Daniel.
“Why do you put out that disreputable bird, mother?” said Daniel, turning his back to his father.
“Oh, I don’t know. It brought back the old days, I guess. You had such a good time working over it.”
“I remember,” spoke up Mr. Geer. The amiability of his voice turned their heads to him in astonish¬ ment. “You were just a little shaver — not fourteen, was he, ma? You wanted to be a taxidermist when you grew up. Guess you’re glad you changed your mind. I never fancied my boy being in the business of stuffing dead animals.” He waggled his head and laughed to himself, his amusement giving back to him for the moment a likeness to the charcoal portrait above his head. “You remember old man Lawson, Dan? His boy ran for alderman this last election.”
Mrs. Geer lifted her hand. “I hear them coming up the stairs. Don’t forget, Dan. Not a word to Ruthie that you know — ” She went into the hall, walking with awkward uneven steps.
Daniel waited for his father to continue but the communicative mood had passed. His thick eye¬ brows were pulled together in a frown.
“Andy’s a good boy, a good boy,” he said, eyes on the door. “Brings home his pay envelope to Ruthie
62
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
as reg’lar as clockwork. No secrets from anybody.’ *
Daniel walked to the window. Disagreeable old bore. What he wants is to live in style at my expense to show his neighbors what a successful son he bred. Not much you don’t, you old leech. Here you stay and live until you die and no amount of bad temper will pull another cent out of me. There’s Ruth’s meek voice, Andrew’s guffaw and the whining of the three replicas. I’ll get the greet¬ ings over and depart for the city of perfect privacy.
“How are you, Ruth?” He kissed her un¬ powdered cheek.
“How do, Dan?” Andrew gripped his hand in careless familiarity and enveloped him in the odor of onions that came unescapably from his wide mouth and wet flaring nostrils.
“Uncle Dan! Uncle Dan!”
He patted the three heads that bobbed about his legs.
“Come here, children,” said Ruth. “Uncle won’t want to kiss you until I wipe your noses.”
Daniel shuddered and went back to his chair, passing Andrew who stood, hands in pockets, with an air of expansive self-importance.
“Hear about my raise, Dan?”
“How was the sermon, Andy?” asked Mr. Geer.
“Oh, he gave us a fine talk today,” said Andrew. “Lay not your riches where thieves can get at them. He said — ”
“There, Dan, do you hear that?” called Mr. Geer.
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST 63
“What you need is to get to church once in a while and hear about the milk of human kindness.”
Daniel bit his lip. He can’t let me alone. Jeal¬ ousy eats him like a disease. His greed backed by the New Testament and the Old. He turned to his sister. “I saw a girl on the street last week with eyes like yours. It reminded me of the days when we were playmates.”
Ruth looked pleased. The lines in her face relaxed as she smiled across the heads of her children. “A long time ago, Danny. Everything’s different now. I’m glad you’re getting along so well but you look tired.”
“My late hours. I try to get along with as little sleep as possible. Mornings are the only chance I have for reading. I can’t waste them in sleep.”
“You’ll lose your health,” she said. “Better get more sleep.”
“Don’t worry about Dan, Ruthie,” said Andrew. “You can bet your last dollar that he gets everything that’s coming to him.”
“Sleep’s not so important,” said Daniel, address¬ ing Ruth. “Napoleon managed with four hours. Edison, too, they say. And Gibbon tells us that Justinian slept only one hour.”
Andrew burst into a derisive shout. “Is that so? You must think you’re like them fellows.”
“I wish I were. I admire kudos, don’t you?” he said. Ignorant lout. That will give him pause. He almost bursts through his skin when he hears a
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
64
word he doesn't understand. Childish of me. This house takes me out of myself. If I stay another five minutes I’ll be in a brawl.
“Now, Dan, don’t begin to show off,” said Ruth. “You’ll only make Andy mad.”
“Sorry, Ruth,” said Daniel. “But it’s a tempta¬ tion sometimes to make the bourgeois sit up.”
No one spoke. Every eye fastened on Daniel’s pale tight face with an expression of displeasure. He arose and moved toward the door. Exit Dan, the fifth son of Jacob and the first of Bilhah. They look as if the world had stopped for them — as if the diastole which goes on even though calamity stalks and reason melts away had ceased at an in¬ comprehensible word. He pulled on overcoat and gloves in the hall. Silence beyond the door. An alvine odor hangs in the air of this place. I’ll be in a cleaner atmosphere when I’m back with the Perfumed Garden and Von Bayros. I’ll not come here again in a hurry. If mother wants to see me she can meet me in New York.
He stood in the doorway. “Goodbye. I’m off.”
His mother crossed the parlor. She pulled down his head. “Don’t forget us, Danny. Come soon again. Your pa — ”
The sneer on his lips faded as he saw her tears. He kissed her and patted her hand. “Goodbye, mother.” She looked at him appealingly but he turned away and slammed the door behind him.
V
Spreading open a newspaper, Daniel nodded at the headwaiter. “Hurry my luncheon along, John,” he said. “I have only half an hour today.”
John bowed, suave, servile, bending a face that was flewed like a bloodhound. “By the way, Mr. Geer, a lady lunching here yesterday asked Henry what time you generally came in.”
“A lady?” Daniel stared at the important shirt- front. “What lady?”
“I don’t know. She isn’t a regular customer, I guess.”
“Urn.” Daniel rattled his paper and John moved away. A woman inquiring for me. It’s fantastic. Women don’t ask for me in restaurants. I’m no Broadway rounder to be sought out at mealtime. Probably she said Mr. Jeer or Leer or Beer with money to spend on foot-loose females.
He frowned at the headlines. Whew! Badly beaten on that Griggs case. I’ll fire the reporter who had that assignment. Bad as young Smoot last week writing the story without going near the place. That’s why Trainer wore a guilty air. Waiting for the thunderbolt. He’ll get it, too. Bet Miss Curtis did it. He’s always protecting her. If they hadn’t 65
66
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
held it over for the second edition we could have bluffed it. Here are John’s sly feet again. Con¬ versational as a barber today. Pretend not to see.
“Mr. Geer.”
“Yep.” Keep on reading. That’s the thing. Conspiracy from here to Harlem to keep me from reading today. If I don’t look up he’ll soon go. Discourages them to talk to a stone face. Psycho¬ logical difficulty.
“You haven’t ordered yet, sir.”
“Oh.” He took the menu and ran it down. “Rare roast beef, I guess. You don’t have much of a variety any more.”
“Got something pretty good today. Spanish dish. Rice, peppers and eels. Like to try that?”
“No. Roast beef — rare.” He put up his paper and shut off the room. Can’t stand scavenger food. Always think of the idiot sons who ate the eels they found in their father’s corpse when he was brought home drowned. Cannibals, once removed. Slimier than snakes, eels. That snake I killed that twisted around my wrist. An instinct against them. Pro¬ bably that’s why the Romans increased a criminal’s punishment by putting snakes in the sack along with the monkey and dog. How they must have writhed together on the Tiber’s bed, biting their venomous protests into eyes and neck!
“Good morning, Mr. Geer.”
He looked up with dazed eyes and stumbled to his feet. The newspaper fell to the floor and he
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
6 7
kicked it under his chair. Amy Fiske smiled at him, standing there mysterious, predatory, fragrant. A black lace veil made a shadowed retreat for her bright hair and softened the secret amusement in her eyes. She gave a black glove into his fingers. He drew out a chair.
“Sit down and tell me your news.” So the panther came out to stalk yesterday. Wonder how she discovered my restaurant. By cunning and craft, chicanery and artful dodging.
Amy settled herself with little sinuous movements and pulled off her gloves. Daniel sat down, too, and adjusted his. napkin over his knees. How awkwardly I received her ! Blushing like a sopho¬ more. My embarrassment amuses her. Tables turned against me today. Fm more at ease in my office. Here I feel encompassed. I must establish myself m her eyes. Be impersonal, that’s it. Im¬ personal and high-handed.
He leaned back, unsmiling, his eyes controlled. “I couldn’t get away from the office yesterday for luncheon. Did you have my table?” That will confuse her. She will ask me how I knew she was here.
Amy rested her pointed chin in the palm of her hand. Her eyes held to his in lenient insolence. “No. I sat over there by the window.”
Daniel moved under her gaze. Nothing but re¬ lentless social training could give a girl that poise. She knows I know about her hunting expedition
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THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
and yet she doesn’t even trouble to explain. I like that. Most women would serve up an alibi. “Per¬ haps if you haven’t lunched yet — ”
“Thank you. That would be very nice.”
He gave her the menu and watched her, still smiling as she read it. I hope she’s clever at in¬ terpretation. If so she will guess from my tone that I mean, “Since you have trapped me, Miss Fiske, I can do nothing else but invite you.” Just as well. Now she’ll give old Rufus a good account of me. I wonder why she’s smiling. Does she enjoy my discomfiture or does she want me to note well those little pointed pearls that are her teeth? Ah, Mona Lisa, swathed in seduction, I suspect you of every wile that directs the activities of woman. Knowing that black is your most fitting setting you hope to dazzle me today by wrapping your compact roundnesses in its penumbra. You are prepared for a conflict of wills.
“An omelette and a salad, please,” said Amy. “I’ll order myself, if you don’t mind. I like a special dressing.”
Daniel beckoned a waiter for her instructions and watched the gestures of her hands, strong yet listless, threaded with blue veins. On the little finger of her right hand was a scarab of greenish-blue in a setting of lotus blossoms carved from gold more red than yellow. Daniel studied it. A porcelain symbol of life everlasting made under Egyptian skies in their bluest days. It may have sustained a Pharaoh’s sad
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
69
speculations on his soul. I’d like to ask her if it’s genuine — not that illegitimacy would alter its beauty. Perhaps the pricelessness of age is a false value. At any rate it encourages fraud, theft, waste and romanticism. So does love for that matter. How ironically we spend gold for age and more gold for youth ! Our acquisitive sense struggling always against our weakness for the indolent lotus until the day that our eyes do not send our lifeless brain the message that the sun has forgotten to rise. Only in death do we possess the unpossessi'ble.
Amy dismissed the waiter and opened her velvet bag. Holding it up by its tassel she spilled the contents on the table — gold cigarette case, lip-stick, scent bottle, powder-box — tumbling and rattling together.
Daniel looked at them, his eyes amused and at¬ tracted. The secondary sexual characteristics sup¬ plemented. Lime for the snare. In mother’s time it was done with kidney-shaped pads, bodice cups and a steel girdle.
“Remnants of past days,” said Amy with a lift of her shoulders. “I used to lose everything. I’m more careful now that there can be no replacements.” She tapped a cigarette. “I’ve been to all the news¬ paper offices in town since I saw you. Yours is the most attractive by far. You must give me some¬ thing to do there — good, kind, nice Mr. Geer.”
Daniel struck a match. “I’m sorry. It’s out of the question.” Now for the heavy artillery. She’s
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THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
getting her smile into action behind the smoke screen. This amuses me. I like to refuse l}er. The first real mondaine I ever met. Wish Bob would walk in now. He’s always taken the attitude that charming women were out of my reach.
Amy touched her cigarette to the flame. By the flare he observed the smoothness of the skin about her eyes and the delicate blue shadows that rested almost imperceptibly beneath them. “ Don’t be so hard on a beginner,” she said. “Please make a place for me in a corner. Surely someone helped you when you began.”
“Don’t you believe it,” he said. I’d like to tell her of those years. The cold of my winters, my sweating summers. And she in her boudoir by the ice-cream button.
“I want to be like you. How shall I begin?” she asked.
Daniel looked at her long white hands. “You can’t. It’s too late. One has to get out early and fight.”
She lifted her cigarette, eyes on his. “But I didn’t”
“Then you’re up against it. Experience is what counts. You won’t get far with sex appeal these days.”
Amy began to laugh. Her voice, metallic in speech, came softly from her throat. “Mr. Geer! It’s still the best weapon against muscle.”
He watched the shadows in her face, altering, mpving, as the contours changed with her laughter.
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
7 1
She looks very young when she smiles. About twenty-three, I should judge. Wonder where’s she been hearing those speeches about the battle of the sexes. Probably belongs to some equal rights sorosis that cries out against the tyrant man at monthly1 meetings.
“I’m no super-woman,” she went on, “I’m terri¬ fied when I meet one. I must begin by favor. Many men begin that way, too, you know. They’re not all born as clever as you.” She stopped to draw breath, holding it before letting it out in a long sigh. Then she held out her hands, palms up, toward Daniel and lifted her shoulders. Her eyes, earnestly open, began to close. The lids crept down, covering the lights and leaving sphinx-like slits.
He gazed at her. She 'battles with the unlethal weapons of soft sighs and drooping eyelids. I admire more the spears and shields of the Amazons, immortalized in their rebellion on brave Greek friezes. I wonder if only the ugly ones joined that strange army. A beautiful face seems to sap a woman’s courage and condemns her to the path of a satellite where she shines so brightly that she deceives the unobserving.
The waiter brought a tray. Daniel helped Amy collect the glittering litter on the table. The top of her scent bottle was loose and he found his fingers wet and pungent. He dried them on his handker¬ chief. She bent toward him. The smoke from her cigarette rose between their faces.
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"Well, Mr. Geer?”
"I wish I could do as you ask,” he said. “But it’s impossible. If you had had the training and there were a vacancy — ”
“Can’t you arrange that?” She smiled again and her eyes, promising and denying, searched in his. He shivered. Something about this girl pierces and haunts. I won’t see her again. She blows away my refusals like feathers. What helpless hands, provocatively poised! I could crush them out of shape. And get well scratched afterward with those pointed pink nails. Would she scratch? I wonder.
He bent forward as if asking the question aloud. Her eyes are steady. Good. She doesn’t retreat. No pretences. The other day her eyes were gray. Now they’re as green as a chrysoprase is green and as cold as the waters of Cydnus. Cold, yet burning. She’s extraordinary. Perhaps I think so only be¬ cause I, the male, feel the female signalling. A pity that knowing what is true doesn’t control the instincts. Intelligence has no value when lovely woman is busy at her conquests. She’s as beautiful as the moon. Ah, a good collation, Amy and the moon, in their deception. Instead of being a shining shield, a pale princess, a silver sickle in the sky, a golden bowl, a slender crescent, the moon is in reality a black ball of unlovely dirt, hanging dead and unburied to remind us of a similar end. And Amy. What is she under that warm and tender flesh, tinted and adorned with two superb green jewels? A
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skeleton of dry horror — a grinning skull. Knowing that, she moves me. I don’t bring to this beef the appetite that its excellence deserves. She’s smiling again. A danger signal is flashing its message. Back to the office before I promise she may come to work in the morning for an inordinate salary.
He spoke with hesitation, eyes turned on his plate. “I’m afraid I must go now. I have a conference at two o’clock.”
“Another conference? Oh, dear!” Her reproach was flattery, delicately honied. He looked up with a smile. “How changed you are when you smile!” she said. “You’re another person, lighted up as if one passed a candle inside a shell.” She trailed her hand in the air between them.
Daniel’s smile flickered and went out. He blushed. My first pretty compliment and I don’t know how to answer her. I’m not used to people talking like that. Now she’s thinking how to persuade me. But it’s no use. I’m made of concrete. Plot and scheme all you like, Amy Fiske. Quicken the beat¬ ing of my heart. But no is the answer. My pulses do not guide my head. And for that I’m a man in a million.
“I’m afraid I’ve bored you and spoiled your luncheon,” said Amy. “I’ve talked of things that interest you very little. Women, I mean, and their difficulties.”
“Occasionally I have been interested in women but not in their difficulties,” he said. “I’ve found that
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to be interested in a woman’s difficulties means being put in charge of them.” Now Fve made her angry. She’s gathering gloves and purse. That was rude, I suppose. Truth always sounds rude. I!d better say something pleasant. “Black is very becoming to you. I like it better than the brown you wore the other day. It — er — sets off your skin and hair.” Damn! I can’t make a compliment without stam¬ mering. I’d do better to write it down and pass the paper across the table.
“Thank you,” said Amy. She clipped her words closely. A flush appeared on her cheeks and she pulled down her veil. Her eyes 'behind it were contracted, grudging. She slipped a hand into a glove and pulled at it.
“I’ve been admiring your scarab,” said Daniel. “Do you believe in its promise?”
“No. It’s for ornament, not optimism,” she answered. Without preliminaries she slipped into her fur coat before Daniel could reach her. “Good¬ bye. I shan’t see you again.”
Daniel stood by her side. He -bowed and looked at her with blank eyes. “Not — not see me again?”
“No. Thank you for my omelette.” Without offering her hand to him she turned and walked out of the dining room.
He was still standing there when the waiter brought the bill. He paid and left the restaurant, turning into lower Broadway. He walked toward his office, his overcoat blown back on his shoulders
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
75
by the wind. Pausing at a crossing for the traffic to pass, he began to shiver. He buttoned his coat, put on his gloves and pulled out his handkerchief. That damned perfume all over me. Serves me right for having touched her gew-gaws. It takes more than a few gold toys and a lace veil to seduce me, she knows by now. She’s wasted two days and received only an omelette for her pains. She needn’t think I minded her walking off like that. A punish¬ ment for my obstinacy, she intended it. But I’m not made up of such weak stuff as she thinks. She can go her way and I’ll go mine. Because she couldn’t get what she wanted she decided not to see me again. Fm not worth her time unless there’s something to 'be gained. Well, let her stay with her friends of the upper crust. They know how to pay compliments and bow and scrape like dancing teachers. They could give an answer to the candle- inside-the-shell compliment. All right, Miss Amy Fiske from Boston. I’m through. Go hang yourself on your family tree for all I care. But I should think she would blush to remember she called me rude. John saw her walk out but pretended to be talking to someone. He’ll pass the word around and all the waiters will have a good laugh. I’ll go somewhere else tonight. Damn women anyway. Or rather damn me that I have to think of them. Sex sex, sex. It poisons life. Push it away, forget it for a time, then back it comes. The cycle whirls again and you drop everything, scepter or pickaxe,
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and go hunting. Stronger than death. Cheap phrase, but true. Take war. The night Tom and I got leave before the attack. Extermination prob¬ able. Did we read a great book for the last time? Or contemplate aesthetic beauty in the Louvre? Like hell. Our choice was sex. Live by it, die by it. We packed a taxi with girls. Off to the cafes. That’s how we got ready to die. Funny how Tom’s girl knew it was the last for him. “Alors, a la prochaine.” But she shook her head. Good thing he didn’t notice. So sick that he wanted only the seclusion of one of those dirty tin spheres. Next day he lost his face. Brains lying about like grey gruel.
Miss Elliot was waiting in Daniel’s office. “They’ve gone into the conference, Mr. Geer.”
He took off his coat without replying.
She came to his side. “This was in those papers you gave me this morning. I thought you might want it.”
He looked down at the card in her hand. Miss Amy Fiske and her address. “No. Throw it in the basket.” He picked up a memorandum pad from his desk and stood there till she left the room. That girl’s getting too officious. Doesn’t she think I know I’m late? And if that card had been some¬ thing I wanted she would have tossed it out of the window.
He went half way to the door, stopped and turned back to his desk. He stood there, frowning
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and blinking, then bent quickly over the basket. The card was lying face down on the voided mail of the morning. He caught it up and put it in his pocket. Facing the door in an abrupt turn, he saw Miss Elliot standing there. She hesitated, then came forward, eyes on the floor, a gloating smile curling the corners of her mouth. In her hands were the letters he had dictated at noon, now typed and ready for his signature.
Daniel’s face grew tight and red. He brushed past her and hurried from the room.
VI
Daniel turned on the bathtub tap and a jet of water splashed and pushed the barricade of his hand. As usual no hot water. And tomorrow morning I’ll be lucky if there’s enough to cover my shins unless I get up at seven. Pyjamas disappeared. Mrs. Lewis has been here. Get clean ones. He went whistling into the bedroom, looked on and under the bed and opened the dresser drawers. That woman forgets my laundry for three weeks, then hides it. If those buttons are still off I’ll fire her no matter what she says about her Bill’s rheumatic pains from the docks. I’d better take some aspirin. Headache since luncheon with Miss Amy Fiske. Mr. Wood said I looked pale. No wonder. Humiliating for a woman to walk off like that. Mr. Wood guessed something was wrong. Kept looking over and once answered for me. Hope the others didn’t notice I hadn’t been listening. In another ten minutes I would have lost my temper. Not easy to say nothing but, “Oh, yes, Mr. Bird.” “Quite right, sir.” “Oh, abso-/wte-ly.” Pack of flatulent inefficients. Lucky for Horace Bird his father left a ready-made news¬ paper that he can’t put on the rocks in a hurry. “Now, gentlemen, the point before us is this. Are 78
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we willing to accept that new price for paper?” What if they weren’t, I’d like to know? I suppose he’d buy a few thousand yards of cheesecloth and print on that till some paper company felt sorry for him. Wonder if a cold shower would do my head good.
Shuffling in torn slippers, he went into the living room and stood frowning at the bookcase. A parcel lay along the top. He carried it to the table and opened it by the reading lamp. The laundry. My God, why did she put it there ? Might not have seen it for a week. Print another sign for her. PUT LAUNDRY ON BED. She’d never notice a new one. Hasn’t learned the old ones yet. Glad I bought that rug. Ancient Aztec flavor about the pattern. Are angles older than curves in art? No. Someone said the river Meander was the first design.
He kicked off his slippers, rubbed his soles on a red square of the pattern and began to slide about the crooked black 'border. Softly rough to bare feet. Very pleasant. Used to like grass when we lived near Newark. Stepped on a bottle once. Scar still there perhaps. Yes, here — like a crescent. Once more around Mexico before bed. Like hammered sheep’s wool. Wonder if the barefoot races have lost sensation in the soles. Perhaps the callouses are ticklish. Twelve o’clock. That’s what it was when I came in. Must have stopped. Stopped short never to go again when the old man died. Grand-
8o
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
father's clock. Mother sang that over her sewing. That and Oh, Emma, something dilemma. And I danced with a girl with a hole in her stocking. Set clock by watch. Twelve-fifteen. Never exactly alike, says Einstein. Position alters accuracy. Sunday supplement method of illustrating Einstein. Start away from a clock at the speed of light and although the clock runs on you see the hands always pointing to twelve-fifteen. After fifty years of this intensive travelling, still twelve-fifteen. Catchpenny educational propaganda for the masses which leaves them cold and more befogged than ever. The de¬ lusion of the proletariat's needs. Millions that should maintain science and art spent on educating sub¬ normals — or even normals. Those plumbers and painters who used Old Rufus's first editions to rest their pots and tools on. His original Beardsley two hundred pounds he paid in London was soaked with paste at a ladder’s top. A few thousand dollars more spent on their education by the city taxpayers and they would have cut up his Watteau to light their pipes. The fallacy of trusting the masses never seems to die out. Wilde in a music hall told chance young men about Greece. Cockneys from the gal¬ lery who did not reconstruct the temples of Athena and Diana with calm white columns but saw only Socrates’ hand on the shoulder of Alcibiades and the seminal activities of the great weak of the Golden Age.
He left the rug and went to the long bookcase.
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Outline of History? No. Gods in Exile? No. La Folie de Jesus f No. Cause of an Ice Age? No. Suetonius? No. Pater’s Renaissance? No. But yes. Mona Lisa in chapter on da Vinci. Picture I bought that day at the Louvre pasted in the back. Here it is. A twin for Amy.
He switched off the lights, went into the bedroom and pushed up the window. Leaning out over the night street he breathed deeply ten times and turned, shivering, to his bed. Too cold for the other ten. Come along, Lisa. Between the sheets with you. Pardon the open window, my love. Your fifteenth century ceilings held more cubic inches of air than those of a modem flat on the Harlem border. Here we supplement from the street. Fresh germs every hour. Now listen to the judgment of posterity on your portrait. “We all know the face and hands of the figure, set in its marble chair, in that circle of fantastic rocks, as in some faint light under the sea.” Wonder how he arranged his light effects? The household of II Giocondo must have been over¬ turned — that husband of yours, Lisa, whom I dare¬ say you tormented until he sent for Lionardo. “The presence that rose so strangely beside the waters is expressive of what in the ways of a thousand years men had come to desire. Here is the head upon which all ‘the ends of the world are come,’ and the eyelids are a little weary. It is a beauty wrought out from within the flesh, the deposit, little cell by cell, of strange thoughts and fantastic reveries and exquisite
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passions.” I wonder why she smiled. Perhaps at the memory of horns on her husband’s distraught head? Even dead women will smile for that. “She is older than the rocks among which she sits; like the vampire, she has been dead many times, and learned the secrets of the grave; and trafficked for strange webs with Eastern merchants.”
He turned again to the pasted picture. Lisa’s magnificent Medici died the year Columbus found Amy’s birth land, a gray forbidding soil. The Florence of Lorenzo and the Boston of the Cabots. Brunelleschi’s Duomo and Faneuil Hall. II Cor so and Commonwealth Avenue. And now, Lisa, I’m going to throw you out of bed to pass the night on that chair. Missed! I apologize. Make the best of the floor, then. Now to sleep. That damned light on the corner comes straight to my eyelids. Move the pillow. Better. Sleep. Sheep. Count one hundred. I daresay she’s in bed, too. Or read¬ ing. Not far from here. A Riverside Drive apartment house. Alone ? Perhaps an aunt or cousin keeps an eye on her. Mother and school, college and when father died. Sounds innocent enough. But those cinquecento eyes make me wonder. A predisposition to follies and calamities, plottings in corners, muscles tightening for the spring, hissings among serpents. That stone near the slave market in Constantinople. It moved or fell down or cried out when a woman went by who had lied. Some emperor’s sister always made a
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detour to avoid the Virgin's Stone. But maid or otherwise, Miss Amy Fiske has a gentle effluvium, deadly as X-rays and as inevitable — an emanation that no process but age can check. From where she sits reading it trembles through the air and touches me on all my surfaces. The curious timbre of her voice sounds in my ears. Daniel, she would say. Not Dan-yul. Daniel. I refused her telephone number so even an invitation to dinner must be written and the answer waited for. Information. Operator could get number. Five minutes. No, too late. Still she knows I’m up half the night and I daresay she often dances until dawn.
He bounded out of bed and walked cloth-shod into the living room, there to stand before the telephone in indecision, shaking his head, wrinkling his high forehead and whistling between his teeth. Then he lifted the receiver.
“I want you to get a number from information, Sam. The apartment house at 200 Riverside Drive. Call me when they answer."
The receiver replaced, he began to walk up and down, his pale blue eyes wandering over the walls. What shall I say? Good evening, Miss Fiske. I want to apologize for anything I may have said at luncheon that annoyed you. No. Awkward sen¬ tence. What’s the matter with me? I needn’t go into a panic because I’m going to talk to a girl who insulted me. How do you do, Miss Fiske? I thought you might find a free evening soon to dine
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with me. No, that’s taking things too much for granted, I must apologize first, I suppose. Women are like that. They offend and you apologize. How will she take the announcement that I am I, speaking out of later than midnight? Better not walk too far away from the telephone. Sam might think I wasn’t going to answer. Slipper off. Never mind.
The telephone gave out three sharp rings and Daniel jumped forward.
“Is this 200 Riverside Drive?”
“Yes.”
“Does Miss Amy Fiske live there?”
“Who? What’s the name?”
“Amy Fiske.”
“Jghnmnt ndlcfshen.”
“What’s that? Just a minute, don’t ring off! Hello !”
“I’m connecting you, sir.”
“Oh. Thank you.” Now he’s ringing.
“Yes ?” Not hers. Yet wire changes sound.
“Is this Miss Fiske?”
“No. Do you wish to speak to her?”
“If you please.”
“Just a moment. Amy! Someone for you.
. No, not your mother. It isn’t
long distance. It’s a man.”
Daniel’s hand was shaking. Why did she say that? Perhaps she will guess who and won’t come. Old meddler maiden aunt. Not long distance but a man. Same tone she’d use to say ogre.
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“Hello.”
“Hell-ump.” Throat closed. Can’t talk. Can’t answer coo.
“I don’t hear you. It’s Sydney, isn’t it? I thought you would be coming in tonight, my dear. What have you — ”
He pulled the receiver from his ear and hung it on the hook. There. That’s done with. Mys- terious midnight telephone caller hangs up after throat closes. Why didn’t I go on? I don’t know. Sydney, my dear. That’s the reason she came to speak. For him. Evidently no secret from the aunt. Some Fifth Avenue scion probably who telephones at any hour. What if the connection isn’t broken and she inquires of Sam? He’ll tell her who. If bell rings, don’t answer. Sweating all over. Can’t get into bed like this. Shower. Run under and out.
Stripping off his pyjamas, he strode into the bathroom. Forgot slipper. Get after. Sydney, my dear. Coo coo goo. And to me, I shan’t see you again. Thank you for my omelette. I’d better look at this thing squarely. I’ve become enfevered, it seems, of a woman who wants nothing from me except my wrist to step on while she climbs to economic independence. Knowing this, why do I go on? That damned sex thing again, acting through new media. That’s it. Somatic need of woman, subtle, poisonous, libidinous, mind-eating, energy- destroying, in-at-the-death woman. Tomorrow take
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out that little cashier and kiss her to rid myself of Amy Fiske. One the same as another. Except Elliot. Transfer her to another department till she learns manners. Probably she’s told every man in the city room about that card. Oof ! Water takes breath. Ice. Finnish system better. Graduating degrees each bucket-full. Wish Amy Fiske were in Finland. Old Rufus did me no favor when he sent —
He stepped from the tub and reached for a bath- towel. With long stropping strokes he rubbed his body. Sydney, my dear. He’s welcome to that name. Probably writes vers libre and thinks hers are good. Says he thinks so anyhow. Syd-neeee. One of those half-males always hanging about wo¬ men. Kissing their hands, sitting on a cushion at their feet and handing them their tea. Any pup who can manage his feet has privileges. That’s the way those women choose their friends. How¬ ever, the most discerning of us aren’t much better off. Pick our friends from necessity from among those who happen to be living in the world at the same time. I should like to have known Hisop. Lady Mary Montague, George Sand, Voltaire, Aspasia, for instance, chattering over tea. Or to have met between acts at the opera Hadrian, Pepys, the Queen of Sheba, Ninon de l’Enclos, Croesus, Aristophanes, Beau Brummel and the Medici family. Napoleon? No. Not up to much as a social asset. Always asking the women guests why they weren’t
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pregnant for France. Faustine, too. A bit de- clasee, perhaps, but all right for a supper party after the Follies. Her guests — let’s see. Lucullus to shake bootleg cocktails. How about the Marquis de Sade? That is, if his prison engagements didn’t interfere. Flis partner, Messalina. And Henry the Eighth with Diane of Poitiers, Casanova for Catherine of Russia, Nero for Lucrezia Borgia, Alexander for Sappho, having tastes in common. Then Cellini for the female Pope, Joan — Giovanni ventidue. Aubrey Beardsley for Salome. Louis Fourteenth for Semiramis. Rabelais and Agrippina. Heliogabalus and Oscar. Mona Lisa and Daniel Geer.
The telephone rang, two sustained rings and a short one that followed like a hiccough. Daniel, buttoning the collar of his pyjama coat, stiffened against the washbowl. She’s found out. Ringing me back. Should have warned Sam. Her de¬ tective instinct roused — like finding my restaurant. Won’t answer. That’s best. Keep out of trouble. Never could explain.
He went into the living room and walked about the telephone, looking at it with anxious eyes. It rang again, a long exasperated summons. He walked away and sat down in the padded chair by the reading lamp. Persistent red-head, persistent black-face, combine your colors ad lib. A man’s house is his castle. Curious sensation, being trap¬ ped. Used to have it in class when I thought my
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turn was coming. And that day in the chess tournament when Dobbey advanced the queen’s knight’s pawn.
The elevator door clanged in the hallway outside. Light steps advanced and halted. Daniel’s doorbell rang. Sam. Come for an explanation. I’ll give him a drink and fifty cents to shoot at craps.
Toes clinging to loose slippers, he went to the door and pulled it open. A girl stood outside who stared up at him from beneath a flopping hat-brim. He stepped back, leaving a slipper that lay like a barbican for him between invader and refuge. “Pardon,” he said, “I thought it was — ”
“Hello,” said the girl. “Your coon didn’t want to let me up when you didn’t answer your ’phone. But I showed him this and told him I had a date with you.” She held out a card engraved Daniel Boone Geer and he saw his address written there in his own handwriting.
“Where did you get that?” He tried to take it from her hand but she stepped over his slipper and walked past him to look about the room with eager curiosity.
Leaving the door open, he hurried after her in protest. “Please I’m not dressed — ”
She turned and gave him a long scrutiny that began with his light disordered hair, wandered down his striped pyjamas and ended at a rather large bare foot that rested on the rug. “Oh, don’t mind a little thing like that,” she said. “Say, you left
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your shoe over there.” Now her face was toward the light and she was smiling with fixed dark eyes and full-blown painted lips.
He stared. The little swindler of the restaurant! He frowned his recognition at her. She’s a week late. What does she want ? She didn’t come to give me back my five dollars, that’s certain.
Her smile began to fade from its security and she moved forward uneasily. “Don’t you remember me? The other night — I said I’d come here after but I couldn’t get out. My mother was sick. She’s sick yet. And me — I lost my job.”
He nodded. So that’s it. Wants money for mother. Or more likely for some lover waiting around the corner for the fleecing. “Yes, I re¬ member you. You took five dollars from me,” he said.
The girl laughed, more as at a joke they both shared than for embarrassment. “That’s right. Say, have you got anything to eat? I’m hungry.” She pulled off her hat and laid it on the table. The clipped points of black hair fell about her forehead and ears. She smoothed them and began to hum, smiling and expectant.
Daniel regarded her with cold unmoving eyes. Vulgar little gutter-rat. I must have been beside myself the other night, waiting for her in the wind. He folded his arms. Now get her out without making a scene that will float down the stairs to Sam’s ears.
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She was beginning to look at him with suspicion while waiting for him to speak. She thrust out her chin. “Say, what’s the matter with you?” she said in a rough strumming voice. “Why do you act so funny? You ain’t sick, are you?”
Wincing, he spoke in his severe office manner. “I am not dressed to receive visitors and I did not ask you to come in.” If that isn’t enough, I’ll push her out of here by force. In her environment she’s used to vehement invitations to come in or get out.
Hands on hips, she gave a strident laugh. “You wasn’t so particular the other night when you was after me to come here.” She crossed the rug and came to his side. “Come out of it,” she said in a coaxing tone. “Don’t ;be mad at me. I couldn’t help it if my mother was sick, could I?” She laid stubby fingers, ungloved and red from the cold, on his arm and stroked his sleeve up and down, smiling at him with the eyes of an impudent newsboy.
Daniel, white and stiff, jerked away. “Don’t you understand plain language? I can make it plainer for you.” He pointed to the door. “Get the hell out of here and don’t come back.”
She dropped her hand and studied his face, tight with anger and distaste. “Aw, now, be reasonable. I tell you I couldn’t help — ”
He went to the table and brought back her hat. “Now get out,” he said.
She took it slowly. “Here’s your hat, what’s your hurry, eh?” She pulled it down over her ears,
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9i
still gazing at him, unsmiling and unangered, in growing astonishment. “All right — if that’s the way you feel/’ She started away, turning at the door. “Well, you certainly must have fell in love to be acting this way. All I got to say is she’s welcome to you.” She threw up her head, made an impudent grimace to mock his fixed air of anger and passed into the hall.
Daniel stared after her. In love? Am I in love? Perhaps she’s right. That would explain my fevers and changes. Last week I burned for that low girl of the streets. Tonight the cornucopia of sex was open and I could have poured forth breasts and arms, thighs and delicately padded retreats. Why did I not? Simply because her hair was not red, her eyes held no reserves and she did not speak in the voice for which my ears are vigilant. Amy. Amy Fiske. You have killed a happy hedonist.
He listened to heels tapping on stone until sound no longer came up the stairway. Then he closed the door and threw himself into the big chair to gaze at the ceiling with vacant sleepless eyes.
VII
The door behind Daniel opened and closed. He stopped whistling and went on washing his hands.
“Good morning, Mr. Geer.”
Daniel looked up and nodded. The young re¬ porter moved further into the room.
“Just heard someone saying we’ve been picking up. That’s fine.” His bland face, diffident and admiring, turned to Daniel for comment.
“Thanks.” Daniel whirled the towel on its roller, seeking an unimprinted surface. The re¬ porter, embarrassed, paused and shuffled his feet. He passed Daniel and went through a small door beyond.
Daniel pulled down his cuffs, his mouth twitching on the way to a smile of cynicism. Guess I must be getting hard-boiled. Five years ago I would have been turning somersaults if the circulation had responded to me like that. Now I feel like a female fly whose egg output is five thousand more on Wednesday than it was on Tuesday. Both of us engaged in multiplication in danger of a descending swatter. Trainer must have heard the news. He looks glum today. If I’d listened to him I would
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93
have left the sporting department in statu quo, abandoned my idea for the subway campaign and kept that demoded moralist in charge of dramatics.
The open skylight that sprang above the men’s and women’s wash rooms admitted voices and the sound of rushing water. . . . “left his door long enough to eat . . . . get that idea and
you . .
He fastened his gaudy cuff buttons, the gift of the Newark staff — “To D. B. G.” in black letters. Elliot in there with one of the others. Not so stiff when my eye is removed. Knows how to be pleasant when she likes. Wonder why she’s always watching around my door. If she weren’t so good at her job I’d send her to the right about march. She’s laugh¬ ing again. One of those stories, I suppose. But when a man tells them one they stiffen their back¬ bones. Hypocrites by nature and convention. “. . . saying goodbye like a movie actress . . . holding her hand. . . . wanted at a conference I said and. . . . picked it out of the basket. . . . red in the face. . . . temper . . . . Rose, some
day he’ll . . .” “. . . worst temper but . .
“. . . stuck on him if you ask. . .”
He buttoned his coat and marched out. Passing the city desk he beckoned to Trainer who followed him, swinging his arms in faded pink cotton that puffed out from the tight armholes of his vest and bore the rings of summer sweatings.
“Want me, Mr. Geer?”
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Daniel caught up his hat and swung about. “ ‘Yes. Transfer Miss Elliot to another department and give me that dark girl — the one with loose hair.”
“You mean Miss Parks? But she’s not so good as — ”
“How should I know her name? Attend to it at once, please. I’ll want her after luncheon.” He brushed by Trainer and went out with quick steps, head lowered against salutations from reporters, telephone operators, engravers from the art depart¬ ment and proof readers, circulating in the city room or posted in gossiping groups of selected interests in the corridor.
Outside it was snowing. Fat flakes clung to his cheeks like wet lips. Through their thickness and motion he saw the geometrical lines of buildings across the square, blurred into romance. The white weightless flakes, falling with dignified eagerness, merged their numbers at last into an undivided covering for the pavement which received and silenced the feet of men and the hooves of dray horses bound for Brooklyn Bridge.
He put up his umbrella, a large one of black cotton, bought two years since in a Newark shop during a hail storm. I’ll walk .before luncheon. Too angry to eat now. Probably did Elliot a favor by transferring her. She has grudges that date back to my first dictation. I’ll work better now that the atmosphere of hatred is removed. Saying goodbye like a movie actress. Cinema the only standard of
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stenographers. They can’t understand a back¬ ground like Amy’s but see only a reflection of meanly patterned manner.
“Shine, sir?”
“Not on a day like this.” Two inches deep already. Wind rising and colder. That boy’s shirt open at the neck. Better circulation than mine. Always cold even at his age. Red nose, numb feet and fingers. Sledding in discomfort. Others en¬ joy it. Even the girls. They say a woman’s fat protects her from cold. As long distance swimming. Then how do they stand heat so well? More en¬ durance the answer. Exercise a hateful duty to me. Like this walk now. Starts the blood. Mine flows better in the pleasant months of release. Re¬ lease from cold. From life. From Elliot. From thoughts of Amy Fiske. A movie actress. That damned little gossip. Here’s one of the picture theatres she admires.
He stopped to examine a poster over which the word TODAY had been pasted. Looks like a Nick Carter serial. Dead woman on a park bench, blood flowing from her mouth. Man snatching a mask from her face. He’s wearing a mahogany colored vest, grey striped trousers, red and white shirt, white canvas shoes with red straps. A cinema director’s naive conception of a passional crime costume. Amy saying goodbye like a movie actress. Would that have so angered me had Elliot said it of some other girl? Decidedly not. That’s a bad
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sign. I must end all this by throwing the nuances of Amy Fiske back into the fifteenth century where they belong.
Bracing the umbrella over his shoulder against the wind, he turned and began stamping his feet. A girl, slight and with a rhythmic walk, came down the street into the wind, one hand making a shelter for her face. Her fur coat was caked with snow. Water dripped from the brim of her hat. Daniel looked up and his nostrils and eyes sprang wide. He took bold steps toward her, hesitated, stopped. The slender fur figure swayed on into whirls of snow. Through the thick gusts that fell between them, he watched her grow blurred and small, blinking after her into the white storm.
He broke into a run. His umbrella tugged at his hand as he raced into the wind, steering him into unexpected balances and collisions for which he took no time to apologize. Snow flew into his mouth and stung his eyes. At the corner of the street his anguished haste brought him abreast of her. He broke his pace to a walk and bent his head to hers, watching her breathe in small gasps of distress, eyes half-closed to shut out the beating snow which had wet her face and hair like rain.
“Miss Fiske — may I — you’re very wet — ”
“Mr. Geer !” She stood still and turned her back to the wind. “What dreadful weather! And I have no umbrella.”
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“Then come under mine,” said Daniel.
She opened her purse and took out a handker¬ chief. While she dried her face Daniel covered her with the umbrella, panting from his run, his pale eyes wide to mark every gesture. “I was almost afraid to speak to you,” he said.
Amy smiled at him with her eyes. “Nonsense,” she said. Her voice seemed less metallic in the curtains of snow and under the tent of the umbrella had all the close intimacy of a handclasp. “Will you take me to the subway, Mr. Geer?”
He shivered. “Yes, I will be glad to — yes,” he said. Throat dry. Hard to speak. Wish there were a cure for blushing. Trembling in my knees. Pull myself together and not act like a fool. It’s awkward because I can’t ask where she’s been without running a risk of having her talk about a position. Probably she was at the Standard of Unity offices asking for a chance.
They began to walk. “You are very kind,” Amy said. She put out her hand and slipped it through his arm in confident comradeship. Without volition his muscles tightened and pressed her hand against his side. I’m made divinely drunk by her touch. I burn even in this cold wetness. For the first time I perceive the bitter beauty of snow. I could strip off the ugly garments of this practical age and roll naked in that stinging powder. Her hand sends fluid fire to my heart and a winged impulse to my feet. I could walk on through wind and ice, my
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senses enchanted by her hand at my heart, and think I wandered in an elated meadow.
“This isn’t one of your communicative days,” said Amy. “I hope all goes well at your office?”
“Very well,” said Daniel. “I was thinking. Now you’ll say again that I am rude.”
“Not if you tell me what you were thinking,” said Amy. Her fingers on his arm urged him to speak and he turned to meet her green eyes filled with secret understanding.
“I’m afraid I shouldn’t dare. Yet — if you wish — This is part of it. I was seeing for the first time that snow could be beautiful and I wondered if I could find relief if it should touch me — com¬ pletely.”
He looked away to avoid her quick question, “Relief from what?”
“From my thoughts — from emotions that I don’t understand. I can’t explain. Perhaps women never feel what I mean.”
Amy laughed, the metallic sound again come into her voice. “Perhaps they don’t feel it so often, Mr. Geer.” Her fingers no longer pressed his arm and she walked, eyes hidden and lips curled slightly as if at a cynical memory.
His face chilled and he stared ahead at the sub¬ way kiosk, grey through the snow-filled air. Now she’ll think me an egoist like the rest talking un¬ endingly about myself. What I feel, how well I’m doing in business, anecdotes of college, my average
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golf score, what I think, if anything, about every¬ thing. Shall I tell her I’d rather talk of her? No — she’d think me impertinent.
They stopped to perform the gestures of parting. Now she'll go down those steps and return to the small circumstances of a life unknown to me. How green and water-bright are her eyes! Trying to read my thoughts. We’re still together under our shelter but here where men and women pass in con¬ fusion there is no longer that feeling of being isolated in a white cloud.
“Come to tea,” Amy said. “I’ll send you a note.” For the first time since their meeting she smiled and he saw the shining pointed teeth in their framing of thin red. She turned and left him receiving the force of the storm on his bared head. He watched her pass down among the unimportant figures of her background, his cotton umbrella trailing down from her hand.
VIII
An hibernal wind untempered by the pale after¬ noon sunlight blew across Riverside Drive but Daniel lingered there, walking with unwilling steps. I’m eaten by fevers that have taken my volition. Instead of sitting among my books I quakingly advance on number two hundred Riverside Drive shivering from nerves and this devilish wind. The first time I’ve been out of control since my awaken¬ ing fifteen years ago. Gladys. Over-plump and protuberant-eyed. Youth and my freshman taste made her seem as sweet as the land of Lebanon. That morning in class when I touched her skirt secretly. Old Ironsides saw my gesture and called on me in puritanical voice. Youth and its enemy knowledge. Fetters in place of fetes. Merciless mounds of learning raised by imperious older gen¬ erations to satisfy their instinct for pedagogy. Inscriptions over college doors should read CAVEAT EMPTOR — the purchase is at your own risk. It is not here that youth will find the golden fleece. Number two hundred. My golden fleece within.
He stopped before a wide stone door and stared
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THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
IOI
at the neatly cut number above it. Two children in fawn-colored coats for their Sunday walk came from the doorway, their nurse fatly bustling behind them. The boy began to shout and run. The girl stood by Daniel’s side and gazed at the ball of tissue paper in his hand. He turned up his collar and walked on. Even that child sees I am ridic¬ ulously situated — windblown with anachronistic violets held sentimentally upright, not walking far enough away from the door to matter, not daring to enter. No agamous being would understand my feverish ailment. Turn back. Succeed by driving feet. But calmly, calmly. She must not see in¬ decision and confusion. Probably there will be a Bostonian atmosphere of Henry James and faint aristocratic breathings, legends of birth and blood running blue. True blue. Bloody blue. Let them have it. Perhaps it’s pleasantly stimulating to re¬ flect on one’s cultured forebears. Mother had some ancestors, she says, that came over with Lafayette. De something. Might have it looked up and refer to him casually. Hope the aunt doesn’t say, “Geer? Geer? Curious name. One of the Frothingham Geers of Marblehead?” I’ve read they do that through a lorgnette. Hall boy looking at me. Might give him the violets. No. I’ll be valiant — like my ancestor De-What’s-His-Name. Boy, an¬ nounce the Chevalier de Geer of an inextinguishable royaume.
Upstairs a maid opened the door and received
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Daniel’s coat. He followed her through the ob¬ scurity of a long padded hall and into the formality of a Venitian drawing-room. Her voice meets me at the door. Not alone. The grimalkin is at her post, guarding with uneasy claws.
Amy's profile detached itself from the dark wood of a high backed chair. She arose, clothed in Confucian yellow, and came to Daniel’s hesitant hand.
“Did you have my note? Thank you for the roses. They were beautiful.”
“Is someone with you? Your aunt — ”
The lights in Amy’s eyes became fixed. “Aunt? What aunt? I have no aunt, Mr. Geer.” She led him across the room and spoke in her metallic voice. “I want you to know Mr. Harrington, Mr. Geer.”
A tall young man with a classic head dragged himself up from his cushions and held out a hand that drooped at the wrist. His eyes, brown and deeply set, wandered over Daniel with indifference and went to watch Amy as she placed herself at the tea-table. Then he sank back and arranged him¬ self into an impeccable attitude. Daniel looked from chair to chair, sat down near Amy and stood again, holding out the violets.
“I hope these are not frozen,” he said and went back to his chair.
Amy murmured “Thank you” and Daniel stared at her hands. Forgot to take off that damned tissue paper. Another blunder. I’ll apologize when that
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tailor’s model goes. His face swelled with blood and he glanced at the young man who was looking at some blue hyacinths that stood in a white por¬ celain bowl at his shoulder. From him probably. Supercilious eyebrows. He’s thinking of his rarer taste in flowers. I should never have thought of cut hyacinths. Can he be Sydney-my-dear ? A languid catamite, he looks, in need of a hair-cut. I wonder what women see in men of that type. They put them on a cushion and feed them a bowl of cream and listen to them quote poetry, I daresay. He doesn’t like my intrusion, that’s plain. Probably suggested she say not at home.
“How is your newspaper, Mr. Geer? Do its needs still transcend those of humanity?” asked Amy.
The young man turned his consummate profile from the hyacinths and examined Daniel’s ready¬ made suit and haphazard tie as he spoke. “Oh, do you write? How interesting!”
“No, I don’t,” said Daniel.
“Mr. Geer is an editor — a very frank and blunt person,” put in Amy with a nod of emphasis.
“An editor? That requires a great deal of con¬ centration, I’m sure,” said the young man with frank malice.
Amy frowned at him and lifted a silver tea-pot from the tray. “How do you like your tea, Mr. Geer?”
“Thank you. No tea,” said Daniel.
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“You’re making a mistake. This is no ordinary tea. It’s from China, green and with jasmine flowers. An expert’s special mixture.”
“No, thank you,” said Daniel, his mouth tight. I hope he doesn’t guess why I refuse. Taking tea an art he has perfected from daily sipping among mirrors and smart women. My tea technique has never been tested. I’ll drop no spoons and saucers for his malicious mirth. His face changes as he watches her brightness, his eyes as pensive as a calf’s. He wants two lumps of sugar and cream. I knew he liked cream. Cushions and cream.
Sitting with knees pressed together and fingers twisted, Daniel waited while Amy filled cups with gracious gestures and a flow of bright yellow sleeves about her hands. The young man sat in careless elegance, slim-waisted, a half-smile on his Greek lips, a spatted ankle in gentle motion.
“I found a charming thing yesterday by Gaultier de Coincy. I must bring it to you. Of course you know him, Mr. Geer?”
“No, I don’t,” said Daniel. “I have no time for obscure writers. I work for a living.” Let him digest that with his tea. She eyes me for my tone thinking rude again.
“Oh, yes. So many people do,” said the young man. “Er — ah — was it raining when you came in?”
“No,” said Daniel. Damn his soul. He might just as well ask me “What can you talk about?” as to say “Was it raining when you came in?” That’s
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how I treat Andrew. Now my turn to be patronized. Justice .balanced. What is she thinking? Does she want me to go and leave her to an hour with the muses new and old? No, or she would have told the hall-boy to keep the bull out of the china. I move too rudely for these two delicate ornaments.
“Elizabeth saw you at Kuan-Yin’s yesterday,” said Amy. “She said you were wearing your in¬ flexible bargaining expression. Did you buy some¬ thing?” She turned to Daniel. “Mr. Harrington has a rather famous collection of Chinese pottery.”
“Is that so?” said Daniel more pleasantly. “I’ve seen two or three Ming examples. I suppose you have any number of them.”
Mr. Harrington looked into his tea and stirred it. “Ah, not exactly. They’re — well, a bit late, you know.”
“I see,” said Daniel. That will teach me to hold my tongue. I should have known better than to expose myself. He gives lamb-like bleats when she looks his way but he’s like a snake in his ill-will toward me. I won’t speak again until he goes. An aunt and a forest of family trees would have been better than his poison. Damned china fancier. She’s looking at me. I’ll have to say something. But what ? Something. Hurry. Kill the pause. Some¬ thing general. Theatre.
“Do you go to the theatre often, Miss Fiske?”
“Is there something to see this winter?” darted the young man.
io6 THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
Amy laughed, leaning back with relaxed round body. “Don’t mind him, Mr. Geer. He loathes the theatre. His tastes are few and rare. A real eclectic.”
“He’s quite right there,” said Daniel. “The theatre is operated only for the kitchen.”
“Ah, yes,” murmured Mr. Harrington, disdainful dark eyes on Daniel. He rose with a long waving motion. “I must be running on, Amy. I’m dining the Marchesino tonight. Goodbye.” He nodded at Daniel and went to Amy, saying as he lifted her hand, “I’ll bring you the verses.”
Amy looked over at Daniel and while he stood in indecision before his chair she left him and went across the room with the young man. They stopped near the door, he swaying as he talked, a hand smoothing the back of his head, the other moving in languid small gestures. Daniel sat down and lis¬ tened for his words.
“. . . . Adam of Saint- Victor . . . mediaeval philosophy . . . rolling Latin sonorities . . .
. . . west portal of Chartres . . . living sym¬ bols . . . poetry . . . the Virgin ... his simple rhythms . . . Cantico del Sole . .
He began to beat the air as if he held a baton. “. . . consolatrix miserorum, suscitiatrix mortu- orum . . .” Amy raised a hand, crying, “But no organ! Plaint chant . . . San Paulo fuori le Mura . . . Chartres . . .” They were inclined to¬ ward each other’s faces, yellow brushing against
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dark brown of perfect tailoring as they passed through the door.
Daniel looked about him with dazed face. Latin verse. The roar of the presses more familiar to me. Cultural rarities for them while all I know is how to get a newspaper into the street on time. Rugs from Asia. My poor little Mexico. An Italian primitive — school unknown to my ignorance. My cheap Hiroshige. All those books there probably first editions. Must look at them. Breach of manners? I don’t know. I don’t care. Persian art. Picture of Darius stylus on cover, beard in formal curls. This soldier was a Persian slave. Dead he is as great as great Darius. Greek fragment. Swinburne, too. Implacable Aphrodite. Nice adjective I always re¬ member. Viollet-le-Duc. Stained glass authority. She’s a 'long time out there. How interested in him? Vases and verses instead of a day’s work. Despising him, I squirmed for shame, conscious of my social deficiencies. I am really as crude a man as father or Bob or Andrew. Ready-made clothes, no tea-tabie ease, no small talk, no erudition, no hobbies. Not even a decent college. That man probably went to Oxford. I’m out of place here. Perhaps they’re saying so now, laughing at me as they talk in the hall.
Amy came back through the growing dimness of the room, her yellow dress moving among the dark chairs and heavily carved tables. As she passed the window her hair caught at the dying
io8 THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
sunlight and kept for a moment its brightness. Then she touched the wall and a glow appeared in a wrought iron lantern over her head. She sat down beneath it and looked through the shadows at Daniel an arm’s length from her side.
“Now we can talk,” she said, clasping her hands about her knee. “Tell me — why did you think I had an aunt?”
He made a confused and awkward gesture. I knew that would come. Detective instinct. Next she’ll connect me with the mysterious telephone call. “I don’t know why I invented an aunt,” he said. “Probably because I didn’t think you would be living alone.”
“No more am I,” she said. “I was lent this place by a cousin of my mother’s who is at Palm Beach. Elizabeth Corning is staying with me — an old friend. As soon as I find something to do I must move. Where I don’t know. Small apartment, furnished room, garret perhaps.” She smiled and spread out her hands, head tilted back under the glow of the lamp. Her eyelids, threaded with veins of blue and red and purple, were as thin as if they had been scraped. Still smiling, she sighed and bent her head.
Daniel in his moyen-age chair watched the lights and shadows on red hair and yellow dress, his nostrils dilated to catch her perfume, his hands in trembling awkard pressure on his knees. The forces
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of my repressed years shaking me from reasoned processes. I must go. Go now.
He stood and at his movement Amy held out her -hand to him and smiled. “Ah, not yet,” she said. He seized her fingers and pressed them between his palms. His eyebrows strained up and his pale eyes fixed themselves on her face, staring at it as if they were being compelled outward from his head. He began to tremble in great paroxysms.
“Amy, Amy, Amy,” he said in a frightened voice, stopping only to stumble on again, driven out of his volition. “Amy — I love you.” He went on his knees by her side, still gripping her fingers under whitened knuckles.
She gave a cry and pulled away her hand. “My scarab,” she said. “You’re hurting me.”
He looked down at the red mark sunk into her finger as deeply as a cut and laid his congested face over her hand. Her perfumed fingers lay under his mouth and he breathed through them. “Love you — night and day — wonderful Amy — not angry — oh, tell me not — never before — oh, no, no, no, — others — pf 00000 f — but this — what joy — heat — all motion in one — Amy — Amy — ”
She pressed upward against his face with her hands and said in a voice that was measured and dry, “What do you want of me?”
Daniel, stiff and shaking at her feet, lifted his head from her knees. “My God, I don’t know.” His eyes, bloodshot and half closed, went from her
no
THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
cryptic eyes to the red line of her mouth, to her high pointed breasts. “I — I want to marry you — I suppose. I never thought I’d want to marry — until now. Yes, that’s it. Marriage. You — ”
She jerked at his arm. ‘‘Get up. Elizabeth Corn¬ ing is coming.” He stared at her from blind eyes and pulled himself to his feet. Amy left her chair and made him a sign. “Your hair — ”
He went to the window, dishevelled, stumbling. Some sort of seizure. What have I done? I must be mad. Inexplicable. Ungovernable. Her voice soft. Her eyes green as that day in the restaurant when she said “Forgive me.” Pointed nails did not scratch. Can’t be introduced like this. Keep Coming out. Smooth hair in glass over Chinese print. I’ve just been insane. Like epilepsy. Was she frightened? Wonder she didn’t ring for an ambulance. Be calm. Forget perfume, mouth, hands, round knees, Ready to face both? No. They’ll speak in a moment. Laughing at door. At me? That’s why they call shame burning. It scorches the skin and boils the blood. Boiling blood in my head. Room not lighted. She won’t turn lights on, remembering me —
“Mr. Geer!”
He turned his face into the room and as he ad¬ vanced to greet Miss Corning he projected from the light that entered from the street behind him a gro¬ tesque griffin-like shadow that rose against the hangings on the wall. Miss Corning, a tall thin
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woman with keen eyes, shook hands with a brief clasp and almost immediately sat down near the lamp. Daniel, fixed on a long ochre swirl in the rug, looked toward the door. Escape. Escape. Can’t survive an ordered conversation. Dizzy with boiling blood. Nausea too. Must have air. Both looking at me. Amy not smiling. Other question¬ ing. Say something. Say, can you see —
“Sorry to go just as you come in — but work at the office is waiting — ” Not bad. It slipped out without my knowing.
“Of course,” said Miss Corning. “Amy has told me how busy — ”
“Yes, of course,” he mumbled. “Well, good¬ bye.” He bowed and went to the door. Long room. Long walk. Legs shaky. She’s coming behind me. I’m ill — sick — what will she say? Out quickly. Shake myself out of this. Be normal. My coat. Put it on outside. Lethargy. Out of here before another brainstorm. He threw his coat over his arm and caught up his hat.
Amy came to his side and held out her hand. He stepped away from her toward the door but she touched his arm. “Mr. Geer — ”
He turned and bent toward her, swaying a little, his face dark with blood.
“No, no,” she whispered. “I’ll write you tonight.” She took his hand and at her slight pressure his eyes closed.
“Amy, Amy, Amy — ” His arm groped for her.
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THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
She opened the door for him and her eyelids fell slowly to screen her enigmatic gaze. He went through the door and turned to see her again. She stood waiting, her hands calmly at her side, her head bent a little, her face pale and secret above the yellow of her dress.
PART II
I
“What time do we arrive ?” Amy turned in her padded green chair and looked at Daniel from be¬ neath the looped edges of her veil. Before he could draw out his watch she was again questioning the field that moved by their windows, her eyes gray in the gray afternoon light and ringed about by wistful mauve shadows.
“In half an hour,” said Daniel. He replaced his watch and squirmed forward in the fat chair. “Are you tired?” He put out his hand, let it hover above her knee and drew it back.
“No,” she said, “but trains always bore me. In Europe one can smoke at least.”
“You can smoke at tea,” he said. “We’ll have tea as soon as we get in.” He hesitated, put out his hand again and laid it on her knee. “Don’t be bored, please — our first day — ” He glanced across the aisle and pressed her knee. He seized the list¬ less gloved hand near him. “Amy,” he said, pulling at her. “Amy.”
She turned and came forward to him. “Yes, Daniel?”
He raised himself halfway from his chair and 115
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kissed her on the mouth. As she drew away with a quick movement of her head the train lurched and sent him stumbling into the aisle, his hand drag¬ ging away the orchids she wore. He picked them up, fragile, purple, moist. “I’m sorry,” he said. “That was awkward of me.” He put the flowers on her knees and set to brushing the shins of his new brown suit, presently lifting a red and embarrassed face to hers.
She disregarded his activities, looking beyond him with impersonal eyes as if accepting the apology of a stranger who had stumbled over her foot. “Oh, not in public, please,” she said. “Really, Daniel, I — ,” She turned to the window a frown of dis¬ pleasure creasing the skin between her eyes. “All that is monotonous before it is changed by spring,” she said after a moment. “But I could ride through fresh green country for hours.”
Daniel passed his handkerchief over his high fore¬ head. He poked it back into his pocket and sat twisting his fingers. “But, Amy, it wasn’t in public,” he protested, leaning toward the pale pro¬ file. “See — ours are the last two seats in the car. And no one opposite.”
“It’s the feeling of being in public,” she said. “I suppose I’m sensitive about such things. I feel as if everyone were watching us and saying — well, you know the usual pleasantries — ” She blushed faintly and moved in her chair. “Please hand me that small bag, Daniel.”
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ii 7
He lifted it down from the rack and placed it on his chair, standing beside her while she took out a book of soft red leather from folds of silk and lace. Daniel’s eyes fastened on a pair of slippers, gray brocade and gray fur, that lay resting on each other like two curious kittens asleep in perfumed security and warmth.
“Thank you,” she said. Her lips parted in a smile, abstract and unreflective.
At this tepid signal Daniel crushed her hand in his, bending above her in an adoring arc of brown tweed. “To think you are really my wife — willing to be alone — ”
She pulled away her hand. “The conductor wants to pass, Daniel. Please sit down.” She bent her head and opened the book.
He replaced the bag in the rack and sat down. Of course she’s nervous and sensitive. Every girl is when on her honeymoon. She blushed, her cheeks changing their temperature in indication of inex¬ perience. That cold manner comes from training, not familiarity with men. A relief to know Sydney is married. Otherwise she might have been in¬ terested in him. Furry little slippers, open to re¬ ceive warm white feet. They looked new. Perhaps she bought them to please my eyes — with my check. Not many girls would have been so frank about money. They would have given excuses and put off the marriage. Mother waited a year until she could fill her linen chest. “Thank you, Daniel.”
n8 THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
Dan-i-el. That was the first time she kissed me, check fluttering to the rug. Not to tell her mother about it. She’d make a row, Amy thinks. My wife thinks. My wife. “Let me introduce you to my wife, Mr. Bird.” He’ll open his eyes. So will Trainer. I’ll parade her around the office when she comes to fetch me for dinner. Her mother will be furious. She must have the letter by now. Prob¬ ably wanted her to marry a pedigreed case of gout. She’ll mourn for having missed the pleasant grief of orange blossom and Mendelssohn. A fancy dis¬ play of mumble- jumble in their episcopal church in Boston. Glad Amy is no church hound. Had enough of that in my life with father. Religion like a fungus growth in his mind. He’ll be in a famous rage when he hears. Amy must guess why I didn’t arrange a family meeting. I couldn’t have endured her worldly eyes on mother’s hands. Fathers grammar and ill-humor. Worse now he’s failing. Bob still sore. My refusal of a double wedding didn’t set very well. They must under¬ stand that Amy is out of their class. Effie and Amy, brides at a double wedding in Newark! Afterward a family meal. Effie’s deaf brother in the coal busi¬ ness. Ruth, Andrew and the three sourlings. An¬ drew’s sly hints about progeny. Mother talking about my boyhood. Father’s fears that all my salary going to my wife. My wife. She’s my wife.
He gazed at her face, bent on her book with mild, impersonal pleasure. Baudelaire. Her taste is as
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admirable as her breeding. How possessed, how calm ! To look at her is to think of the arrogancies of an empire, galleons of gold, hennins with floating veils, falcons and palfreys, lutes, spinnets and flageo¬ lets. She’s as delicately haughty as a Donatello bust. Old wine in her veins for my inebriation. She will be charming tonight. A passionate potion.
His eyes left her face to linger on the flesh of her throat, spreading down, satin-smooth. The miracle of womens’ softness. They make scepters of their skins. They mount to thrones on epidermal steps. Under glass the scientist studies gaping pores and hairs of monstrous size, but the poet lays his fingers on a velvet plane and indites strophes to a strumpet.
He examined the luxury of her suit, the fur coat behind her, its gold cloth lining veiled with chiffon, the silk ankles, the narrow shoes with their bright buckles. His eyes became contracted with calcula¬ tions. She must be wearing a thousand dollars worth of clothes. Not very practical, I’m afraid. She’ll have to learn economy. I mustn’t tell her my salary. Hold a tight rein on expenses. Every man wants to save enough to go into business for him¬ self some day. Spend so much, save so much. Later when I get a raise we’ll move into a larger apartment. Might refurnish the bedroom when she goes to Boston. Wonder if she sews. I should like to come home and find her under my reading lamp with something white in her lap. A pity
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women don’t embroider any more, sitting before a frame, their long white hands weaving colors. Like Matilda and her ladies at Bayeux. That tapes¬ try a bit indecent after the manner of the times but I daresay William didn’t mind her depicting lusty men and horses. By the way, I mustn’t forget to give her that Hindoo book. Later on, of course. It would shock her now. Dalliances in love, laid out like so many exact geometrical figures in coffee color. Ananga Ranga. Sounds like an incantation. Open Sesame. Secrets for coaxing the frigid. I’ll lend it to Elliot’s husband if she ever gets one. He’ll need it. She didn’t congratulate me. Look of reproach in the corridor instead. She’s never forgiven me for the transfer.
Amy closed her book and shivered. “I’ll put on my coat, I think,” she said. “It’s unusually cold for Easter.”
He jumped to lift the coat from the back of her chair. She slipped her arms into the sleeves, the back of her hat touching his face. Perfumed warmth rose from her neck. He breathed it in be¬ fore turning her about. “You’re cold because you’re nervous today,” he said, whispering the words to impress their secret meaning. Her eyes caught at his, then slipped away. Her gloved hands fumbled at fastenings hidden in fur.
“We’re getting in, I think,” she said. “I can smell the sea.”
II
“Reservations for Mr. Geer,” Daniel said. The clerk ran over a pile of telegrams and nodded.
“Daniel Geer. Double room and bath. Number 71 1.” He passed a pen to Daniel and swung the heavy register around.
Amy laid her hand on Daniel’s arm. “One room, Daniel?” To the clerk she said, “Just a moment, please. There’s a mistake.”
Daniel stood, pen poised, puzzled eyes on Amy. “What’s the matter? Did you want two rooms?” The clerk waited, bored, his eyes on the telegram.
“Of course,” Amy said. “Two rooms, please, bath connecting.”
“Sorry, madam. We’re full up. Easter week.”
Amy smiled into his sallow eyes. “Is Mr. Shaw in his office?”
“Yes, madam.”
She turned to Daniel. “I know the proprietor. I’ve stayed here with my family. Go to the tea room and order something while I see about the rooms. Tea and cinnamon toast, Daniel.” She started away.
He stood in stiff resentment, watching her cross the lobby. Then he kicked the bag at his feet and muttered, “ Look after our things, will you?”
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“Certainly, sir,” said the clerk.
Daniel strode off, frowning, his heels ringing on the marble floor. I should have made the arrange¬ ments. I’m the man of this party and ought to have gone with her. That clerk must think I’m a weak sister of the Sydney breed. Why in hell does she want two rooms ? That’s carrying her modesty too far. Anyone would think we weren’t married.
I must tell her what rooms probably cost here. Lucky I have only a week’s leave or I’d be ruined. So I’m sent to order tea while she attends to the business. I’ll have a little talk with that young woman when she comes back. She’ll have to guess again.
He chose a table, ordered and lighted a cigarette. With angry eyes he watched smart women coming in, men trailing at their heels. Like dogs on a leash, all of them. Put them on chairs and toss them a biscuit to keep them quiet. They make me sick. I notice when it’s time to pay the check they suddenly become important and are allowed to address the waiter.
Amy came through the door, slimly conspicuous by her swaying walk, at her side a gray-haired man, tall and immaculate. She found Daniel with her eyes and came to him, smiling. “This is he,” she said. “Daniel, Mr. Shaw.”
Daniel held out his hand and Mr. Shaw shook it at length. “I wanted to see the fortunate man,” he said. “No, thanks, I won’t sit down now.” He
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pulled out a chair for Amy. “I wish you both a charming week,” he said. “And if you want any¬ thing special, let the chef know. He’s good. I found him in Paris last year. I suppose you’ll be going over soon?”
Amy sat down. “I don’t know how soon. Next summer, perhaps. We haven’t any plans.” She drew out her cigarette case and watched Mr. Shaw making off between the tables. “Lucky I knew him,” she said. “I’m sure we’ll be very comfortable here. Have you ordered?”
“Yes,” said Daniel. He struck a match and held it across the table. It quivered in his hand from the angry beat of blood in his pulses. He blew it out and laid it on the ash-tray. Setting his lips against each other, he leaned forward. “Amy,” he began and cleared his throat. “Amy, I - ”
“Ah, our tea,” she said. “Good.” She began to draw off her gloves as the waiter placed the tray before her. “You’ll soon count the tea hour among your pleasures,” she said. “See, I’ll perform all the rites. You have only to stir it.” She smiled and occupied herself with their cups.
He slumped back into his chair, gazing at her hands. On the fourth finger of the hand that held her cigarette gleamed his gift, a flawed old cabuchon emerald that she had found in a dirty little shop on Lexington Avenue. Beneath the stone and almost hidden was the important hymeneal hoop.
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He stared at the narrow band of platinum that had bound them since morning.
“Pass the toast, please/' she said. “I’m hungry. Here’s your tea.”
He took his cup and held out the plate of brown toast, still watching the movements of her long fingers. What beautiful hands! She would have been sent to the guillotine for them in 1 789. I never dreamed mere fingers could be so flavored with beauty. Mother’s crooked and warped. Ruth’s red. Elliot’s thin and blunt. Mine even more spatu- late, practical examples of the only tools man has been sure of inheriting, each generation passing on the cunning caught by the last until machinery stopped the process of evolution.
He drank his tea, relaxed by its heat, proud eyes noting her gestures, significant in their unfamiliar¬ ity, important to his exultation. She looks composed for the first time today. Not the moment to re¬ proach her. Let it go. Time now for joy in my bride. Tonight but a few hours away. Dreams will be turned into flesh.
Amy crushed her cigarette on her plate and reached for her gloves. “Let’s go rolling,” she said. “And be sure, Daniel, you choose a nice chair.”
Ill
The board walk creaked and vibrated under the moving weights that burdened its wide surfaces. Amy thrust her chin and mouth into her furs and sat huddled against Daniel’s overcoat as the black boy swung their chair into line. Without speaking they looked out over sands bared by the tide and toward an horizon that was indiscernible in the dusk and rising fog. Wisps of thick salt vapor blew across their faces and clung to their skins. Daniel blinked into the wind and shivered. Amy turned to him.
“One should be a real lover of the sea to approach it in its winter moods,” she said. “Perhaps you would have preferred Dr. Edwards’ lodge after all.”
Daniel shook his head. “It would have been stupid for you. I’ve never hunted anything but Jer¬ sey mosquitoes. You’ve heard of them? At home we always began talking of mosquitoes in spring, remembering and dreading the long stifling nights when our little house sang with them and every¬ one lay awake for hours groaning and slapping.” He looked at her face, softened by the gray light. “Your eyes have lost their green color today.
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They’re as gray as the fog,” he said. “Tell me that you are happy — a little.”
“I’m always quieted by the sea,” she answered. “Perhaps it’s the heaviness of the air. And I like to watch moving water.”
His eyes, disappointed, left her face. “I like it, too,” he said. “I think of the millions of years that the ocean was our mother and how jealously she guarded us until we grew up and crawled away. Even in this wind it warms me to remember that old bond.”
“I never thought of that,” said Amy. She turned her head and regarded him with interest. “Tell me more about it.”
He caught at her hand. “I want to talk about you and me. Our marriage. Let’s go back to the hotel, Amy. I want to hold you and kiss you. I’ve never kissed you yet — not a real kiss. You don’t know how much I love you.”
“Daniel! The boy can hear.” She drew away and stared into the mist. Then, breathing sharply, she closed her eyes.
“What’s the matter? Does something hurt you?” He bent forward and captured her hand again. “Tell me your thoughts, Amy.”
“I’m tired, I suppose. Nothing else. Nerves, per¬ haps. But everything’s all right now.”
He felt her weight return against his shoulder and in his delight he put his arm about her and pressed her in a trembling embrace. She twisted about and
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called to the boy to stop. “I’m frozen. I’d like to walk, if you don’t mind.”
Moving in the shelter of the buildings, he took her arm. I wonder why she seems afraid of me. Always a withdrawal. I’ve heard of women like that. Cold and aloof until they get used to a man. I mustn’t frighten her. Give her time. She’s no common wench to be chucked under the chin and forced between dinner and the closing hour. Like the girl that night in the Oxford bar. “Garn, you must be off your chump. Nah-ow ! Not if I was to ’ave my ’ead cut off!” But she did all the same. Hope Amy never asks me about those others. I’d better lie if she does. Women think each adventure is momentous.
Amy stopped before a jeweler’s window and ap¬ praised the rows of hard bright stones and gentle pearls that rested in cases of white velvet. “See, Daniel, that little bracelet there ! Isn’t it charming ?”
He stood, shoulder against her brown fur, and hand on her arm. “Yes. Very pretty.”
She looked at him with eagerness. “I should like that, I think. Let’s go in and look at it.”
He studied the circle of smallish pearls, closed and ornamented by a clasp of chip emeralds. Costs at least two or three hundred. I can’t afford that on top of everything else. I’ll be bankrupt in no time. “I don’t think we’d better, dear.”
“Why, Daniel, don’t you like it? Really, it’s very good taste. And such a simple little thing.”
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“I suppose it is. But this shop looks expensive.,,
“Oh, no, it isn’t ! Anyway, we can ask the price.” She pulled at his arm but he resisted, closing obstin¬ ate lips.
“It can’t be done. I’m not made of money, Amy.” His voice was a defense of property, acerb and in¬ dignant.
She stepped back and looked at him blankly. He saw her flexible mouth curling into lines of disgust. Swinging in an abrupt turn she walked away, leav¬ ing him to gape after her, unable in his astonishment to follow her with words of explanation and en¬ treaty.
Presently he turned again to the window, looking at the bracelet in the velvet bed. Why did I say “made of money?” I spoke as I do to father’s im¬ portunities. Better not follow her right away. Meet her at the hotel in a few minutes. I should have given a more romantic refusal. Father’s fault. Always hectoring me for money till I snarled at the word. Everybody after my money. Father, mother, Ruth, Andrew, the boys at the office. Always a fight to get it back. Hope Amy’s not crying. Still tears may teach her to check extravagant tastes. She never gave a thought to the price of two rooms and bath. I hope Rufus hasn’t given her grandiose ideas of what I’m getting.
He walked toward the hotel, taking short, deliber¬ ate steps. I can’t go on spending money like water. My bank account won’t stand it. First her rings
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and the check, then my clothes and this trip. I may not be blue-blooded but the purse strings are in my hands. She’ll have to keep a ledger of expenses for the apartment. Good training for her. I won’t speak of it till we get back to New York. Now to go in and make peace. Then we’ll change for din¬ ner. She’ll be in her room by now. Sulky, per¬ haps, but remembering that after all she is married to me. It will be charming to have her dress only one room away. Tomorrow I shall dare to go in whenever I like. I shall be her husband and admit¬ ted to all intimacies. The ceremony of the bath, the fall of red hair about her soft shoulders. . . . Won¬ der who conceived the fallacious idea about anticipa¬ tion. Someone with a taste for the whips of un¬ certainty. Anticipation disorders all the processes. The clear concentration that should be given to work is dissipated in hot flashes, chills and fevers, noc¬ turnal tossings. In fact, all the symptoms of malaria are present.
Turning off the board walk he struck across a small dull square and stared up at the unevenly placed patches of light that were the windows of the hotel. Behind the broad windows men and women seek nomadic shelter. Behind the narrow windows are the comfortable bathrooms of civilization. The world scrubs very clean these days — this new world, at least, whose art lies in its superb plumbing. Be¬ hind which window is she waiting for me ? What is her mood? I’ll take her in my arms, asking forgive-
130 THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
ness, an offending and contrite bridegroom. We will dine in a corner after cocktails from my flask. And then we’ll lock a legal door against the world.
He ran up the steps and hurried to the desk. The clerk, smiling now, passed out a key. “You have 335 and 337, Mr. Geer.”
“Thank you. Is — is my wife — has Mrs. Geer come in?”
“Yes. About ten minutes ago, I think, sir.”
Daniel squeezed the key into his palm. It im¬ pressed the shape of its narrow end into the flesh below his thumb. He went into the elevator, cherish¬ ing this physical pain as if it were an entry fee into Amy’s gracious relenting. The corridor of his floor showed two rows of dark wood doors and, walking along on a pattern of morning glories and roses, he peered at the numbers. This one 313. And 330 opposite. Mine must be around the comer.
He opened his fingers and stared at his key. With such pieces of metal history has been made, giving paradise to lovers, shutting in the socially unfit, re¬ assuring capital, guarding royal intrigues in archives, bestowing civic honors, comforting misers, sym¬ bolizing learning, inspiring God knows how many songs about hearts under a lock.
Turning the corner, he faced his room. He un¬ locked the door and went in. The lights were on, his bags lay between the windows and the door was open. He crossed the room and stood staring through the bright whiteness of tiles. The opposite
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door was closed. He turned away and took off his hat and overcoat, dropping them on the divan. Be¬ fore the mirror of the dressing table he smoothed down his hair and pushed up the knot of his green silk tie. Holding his breath, he crossed the bath¬ room and knocked.
“Amy, are you there ?” Her pause held him like a hand. He waited for words that should come from beyond the wood.
“I’m dressing. I’ll be ready in a little while,” she said.
“Oh.” He spoke the word as if it were giving her some important information about himself. “Oh,” he repeated. “Oh, all right.” He gazed down at the knob, studying its baldness.
“Daniel.”
“Yes, dear.”
“Telephone down and get seats for that new Belasco play.”
“Play?” he said. “When? Tonight?”
“Yes. It might be amusing.”
He stroked the cold shiny knob with his fore¬ finger, noting the steamy line that made a wake just beyond his nail. “All right,” he said again and, turn¬ ing, went to the telephone by his bed.
IV
They walked back to the hotel that night through a thick mist, broken about them by colorless figures, murmuring shades of the chattering, bright crowd of the theatre. Daniel, erect and grave, followed Amy to the desk, eyes fixed on the knot of red hair pressed against her neck by the fur collar of her cape. He watched her nod to the clerk and saw the long white fingers close on her key. He took his own and they went to the elevator to pass upward in silence from the buzzing confusion of the lobby.
“I’m hungry,” Amy said, unlocking her door. ‘‘Order some sandwiches, Daniel. In your room. I’ll come in as soon as I get out of this dress. Some of the beads are coming loose.”
He let himself into his room, smiling. He sent for a waiter, hung up his coat and began to whistle through his teeth. He took a dressing gown and pyjamas from his bag and held them up under the light. My first silk garments. Women have a pen¬ chant for silk. Extravagant for anything except a honeymoon. Mother would think I’d gone crazy. She never heard of masculine luxuries. Silk to her is for a woman’s Sunday dress. She turned hers over every two years. Might as well take off my
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coat and put on this kimono thing. Hope it pleases her. Apparently she’s passed over this afternoon. Women always forgive with both hands. Onel
reason men have treated them so badly. A
Tieing the narrow belt around his waist, he went to the mirror. I’d better take a drink. I look pale and nervous — altogether in the tradition. This color is becoming. Funny what a difference it makes who wields the sartorial scissors. Everything in the cut. Sartor Resartus. The Sage of Chelsea could write about it but he never managed to look smart. My new suit pleased her eyes, though accustomed to Sydney’s magnificences. But I’ll wear out the old things at the office. There’s the waiter.
He ordered sandwiches and ginger ale, then brought out a bottle of whiskey from his large bag. As he was drawing the cork, Amy knocked and opened the door.
“May I?”
She came through the bathroom, brilliant in a Chinese suit of grass green, like a rather tall, in¬ capacious bird from a tropical forest. She nodded at the bottle in Daniel’s hands. “I was hoping you hadn’t forgotten that,” she said. “We’ll need some ice, I think. Did you order ice, Daniel?” She walked about his room with nervous steps, twisting her scarab ring about her finger, an unlighted ciga¬ rette between her lips. “I’m looking for — oh, here they are.” She caught up a box of matches from his dressing table and lit her cigarette. Inhaling
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with relief, she blew out the match and looked over at Daniel. “What are you staring at?” she asked.
Daniel blinked at her. “It’s the — it’s those,” he said. “I never saw a woman in trousers before. I suppose you’ll think me provincial. And I daresay I am. I realize it when I am with you. You’re so different from anyone I’ve ever known.” He set the bottle down on the table and went to her. “How did you ever happen to care for me, Amy? Tell me!” He put his arms around her shoulders. “You never say anything about it. Don’t you know it’s what I most want to hear ? In the worst of my humiliation when you said you wouldn’t marry me, I understood it. I knew a person like you couldn’t care for me. But when you changed your mind afterward I kept asking myself. Why? What does she see in me?” He waited, gazing at her cheek close to his eyes. “Why do you love me, Amy?”
She released her shoulders and lifted her cigarette. “Really, Daniel, there are lots of women who would be happy to change places with me,” she said. “I didn’t know a man could be so modest.” She walked to an arm chair and sank into it. “Give me a drink, please. I’m exhausted.”
He brought a glass from the bathroom. “Don’t you want to wait for the ginger ale?”
She shook her head and drank down the whiskey, sighing as she gave him the glass. “Thank you.” She rested her cheek on her hand and closed her eyes.
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He stood before her, holding the glass and look¬ ing down at her loosened red hair and the white stretch of neck rising from emerald silk. She lay in the chair as still as if she were asleep, but the smoke that floated up from her left hand gave a sense of life and motion. His eyes went to the hand with the cigarette, seeing it was bare now of his rings.
When the waiter knocked, Daniel went to the door and took the tray from him. He brought it to the table and went back to sign the check. As he closed the door Amy opened her eyes and smiled. She stretched her arms and came to the table
“Waiters aren’t people, Daniel. Don’t be so old- fashioned. You act just like mamma.”
He blushed and jerked the tin cap from the ginger ale bottle. “I didn’t want that fellow to see — after all, they’re human beings — ”
She crossed her long green legs and took up a sandwich. “I’m as covered as he is,” she said. “That mine are more attractive is only a chance of nature.”
“We won’t go into that now,” said Daniel. He watched her pointed white teeth bite through the white bread. “It’s a large discussion to treat casually. And you’re too tired tonight to do your side justice.”
Her eyes drooped. “Yes. It’s been a difficult day. And I was bored at the theatre. I kept thinking of other things - ”
136 THE UNCERTAIN FEAST
“Of what I said this afternoon? Oh, Amy, please forgive me.” He leaned over the table and caught at her hand. “If you knew the circumstances of my younger years — the atmosphere I lived in at home - ”
“I can guess,” she said. “And there are things for both of us to forgive, I - ”
There was a knock at the door. Daniel jumped and it was Amy who called, “Come in,” adding, “I’ll put my legs under the table if you like, Daniel.”
A page boy came in, holding out a tray. On it lay a yellow envelope.
“For me?” said Daniel, putting out his hand.
“No, sir. For the lady.”
“Oh,” said Daniel. “For you, Amy.” He took it from the tray and gave it to her. “Mrs. Da!niel Geer,” he said with excitement. The boy turned and walked away. “Mrs. Daniel Geer,” he repeated. “It sounds unreal, doesn’t it? How do you feel when you see that? Do you get a sense of identity with me or — ” He stopped and waited for her to read the message.
Her eyes rested briefly on the yellow paper. She crumpled it into her palm and laid it on the tray. “What did you say, Daniel?”
He watched her face, noting a drawn look about the lips. The mauve circles topping her cheekbones had changed to gray. Her eyes were again green and secret, looking beyond him. “You had no bad news, I hope?” he said.
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She moved her eyes into a sharp focus upon his face. “Bad news?”
He watched her eyebrows move up defensively. “I mean your telegram,” he said.
“Oh, no.” She took up her sandwich. “I think I’d like another drink, please. With ginger ale this time.”
He got up at once and fetched the whiskey bottle. She acts as if it were an intrusion for me to ask. Bad manners again, I suppose. Damn it, I can’t get through an hour without making myself ridiculous. Mother and father always opened each other’s tele¬ grams and letters — when they had any. Evidently isn’t done in her set. Probably from her mother who had just heard the news. Why couldn’t she say so? Perhaps the old lady is angry and Amy doesn’t want to upset me. Oh, well, she’ll come around in time with the prescriptive blessing.
After giving Amy her highball, he made one for himself and was making another when the waiter came. He signed the check and lifted their glasses from the tray. The bottom of Amy’s glass grazed the ball of paper. Daniel’s eyes followed the yellow patch as the tray rose to the waiter’s shoulder. He watched it across the room and through the door.
Amy set down her empty glass and got up. Her face was white and her lips lost their red freshness. “I’m very tired,” she said. “I think I’ll go to bed now.” She walked into the bathroom and closed the door.
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He sat down and lighted a cigarette. I wonder if she’ll mind my hearing the sound of water in there. Brushing teeth and washing off soap are unromantic noises. Should I have gone downstairs? There might be other bashful bridegrooms to keep me com¬ pany, sitting in an empty lobby for the sake of romance. I’d better unpack and undress. Activity will be good for my nerves.
Taking a suit from his bag, he hung it in the closet by his brown one and found a hanger for his evening coat. He laid out his toilet articles on the dresser and filled the dresser drawers with shirts, socks, neckties and underwear. Then he began to undress. Water stopped in there. That’s her door closing. My ablutional turn. Funny how the vibra¬ tion of a brain cell can affect the heart. Love, fear, anger, desire and the pump begins to rock at full speed. Choking me. What if I don’t please her? I must attack, of course. Boldness wins. They de¬ spise you otherwise. The world loves a lover but laughs at a bridegroom. And a husband is a per¬ petual joke. Synonym for cuckold in France. II est cocu. Wouldn’t marry a Latin for the best prize in the lottery. Sure to deceive you behind any door at the first invitation. Better shave. Her skin is as thin as a veil.
After he had shaved and put on his pyjamas and new leather slippers, he brushed his hair before the mirror, smoothing it down with many meticulous motions. Then he lit a cigarette. My God, I’m
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trembling like a neophtye. Where is the swooning delight of today? Ousted by my terror. She may be asleep. Should I wake her? Perhaps there’s some unwritten law of which I am ignorant. Still manners can’t be so different in cases like this. The same motions must be current in all circles. Glad we’re not back in the 16th century. Wouldn’t like her mother bursting in with a cup of bouillon in her hand and admonitions to me on her lips.
He switched off the light and went into the bath¬ room to stand before her door. He lifted his hand and rapped three times. There was no answer. He turned the knob and pushed open the door. The room was dark and the light from the bathroom made a path to the bed. Leaving the door ajar, he followed the narrow line of light.
Amy lay on her side. In the dimness he saw her face, the eyes open upon his approach.
“Are you asleep?” His voice was tight in his throat, deranged from the pounding of his blood. He coughed and stopped at the side of the bed, stand¬ ing awkwardly, hands stiff at his sides.