We were discussing vacations and Sammy, who is eleven years old going on twelve, listened nervously to his father. Finally Sammy spoke up:
"I won't go," he bristled. "No, I won't if I gotta tell the conductor I'm under five. I ain't going."
Sammy's father coughed with some embarrassment.
"Sha!" said Feodor Mishkin, removing his attention from the bowl of fruit,"I see it takes more than naturalization papers to change alandsmannfrom Kremetchuk." And he fastened a humorous eye uponSammy's father.
"It's like this," continued the Falstaffian one from Roosevelt Road: "In Russia where my friend here, Hershela comes from, that is in Russia of the good old days where there were pogroms and ghettos andprovocateurs—ah, I grow homesick for that old Russia sometimes—the Jews were not always so honest as they might be. Don't interrupt me, Hershela. My friend here I want to tell a story to is a journalist and he will understand I am no 'antishemite' if I explain how it is that you want your son Sammy to tell the conductor he is under five."
* * * * *
Turning to me Mishkin grinned and proceeded.
"The Jews, as you know, are great travelers," he said. "They have traveled more than all the other peoples put together. And yet, they don't like to pay car fare, in Russia, particular. I can remember my father, who was a good rabbi and a holy man. Yes, but when it came time to ride on the train from one city to another he would fold up his long beard and crawl under the seat.
"It was only on such an occasion that my father would talk to a woman. He would actually rather cut off his right hand than talk to a woman in public that he didn't know. This was because Rabbi Mishkin, my father, was a holy man. But he was not above asking a woman to spread out her skirts so that the inspector coming through the train couldn't see him under the seat.
"Of course, you had to pay the conductors. But a ruble was enough, not ten or twenty rubles like the fare called for. And the conductors were always glad to have Jews ride on their train because it meant a private revenue for them. I remember that the conductors on the line running through Kremetchuk had learned a few words of Yiddish. For instance, when the train would stop at a station the conductor would walk up and down the platform and cry out a few times—mu kennt. This meant that the inspector wasn't on the train and you could jump on and hide under the seats. Or if the inspector was on the train the conductor would walk up and down and yell a few times,Malchamovis! This is a Hebrew word that means Evil Angel and it was the signal for nothing doing.
"The story I remember is on a train going but of Kiev," said Mishkin. "Years ago it was. I was sitting in the train reading some Russian papers when I heard three old Jews talking. They had long white beards and there were marks on their foreheads from where they laid twillum. Yes, I saw that they were holy men and pretty soon I heard that they were upset about something. You know what? I'll tell you.
"For a religious Jew in the old country to pass an evening without a minyon is a sin. A minyon is a prayer that is said at evening. And to make a minyon there must be ten Jews. And they must stand up when they pray. Of course, if you are somewhere where there are no ten Jews, then maybe it's all right to say it with three or four Jews only.
"So these holy men on the train were arguing if they should have a minyon or not because there were only three of them. But finally they decided after a theological discussion that it would be all right to have the minyon. It was dark already and the train was going fast and the three Jews stood up in their place at the end of the car and began the prayer.
"And pretty soon I began to hear voices. Yes, from under nearly every seat. Voices praying. A mumble-bumble that filled the car. I didn't know what to make of it for a few minutes. But then I remembered. Of course, the car was full of rabbis or at least holy men and they were as usual riding with their beards folded up under the seats.
* * * * *
"So," smiled Mishkin, "the prayer continued and some of the passengers who were listening began to smile. You can imagine. But the three Jews paid no attention. They went on with the minyon. And now, listen, now comes the whole story You will laugh. But it is true. I saw it with my own eyes.
"The prayer, like I told you, must be said standing up. At least it is a sin to say the last part of the prayer, particularly the 'amen,' without standing up. So as the prayer came towards its finish imagine what happened. From under a dozen seats began to appear old Jews with white beards. They crawled out and without brushing themselves off stood up and when the 'amen' finally came there were eleven Jews standing up in a group and praying. Under the seats it was completely vacant.
"And just at this moment, when the 'amen' filled the car, who should come through but the inspector in his uniform with his lantern. When he saw this whole car full of passengers he hadn't seen before he stopped in surprise. And the finish of it was that they all had to pay their fare—extra fare, too.
* * * * *
"It is a nice story, don't you think, Hershela" Mishkin laughed. "It shows a lot of things, but principally it shows that a holy man is a holy man first and that he will sacrifice himself to an inquisition in Madrid or a train inspector in Kiev for the simple sake of saying his 'amen' just as he believed it should be said and just as he wants to say it."
Sammy's father shrugged his shoulders.
"I don't see how what you say has anything to do with what my son said," he demurred. "Sammy looks user more than five and what harm is there in saving $15 if—"
Sammy interrupted with a wail.
"I won't go," he cried. "No, if I gotta tell the conductor I'm under five I better stay home. I don't wanna go. He'll know I'm 'leven going on twelve."
"All right, all right," sighed Sammy's father. "But you see," he added, turning to Mishkin, "it ain't on account of wanting to have a minyon that my son has such high ideas."
"Yes, it do interfere with their game," said Bill Cochran, the deputy sheriff from Tom Freeman's office. He cut himself a slice of chewing tobacco and glanced meditatively out of the window of the Dearborn Street bastile. Whereat he repeated with gentle emphasis, "It do."
A long rain was leaning against the walls of the county jail. A dismal yellowish gloom drifted up and down the street. Deputy Cochran, with an effort, detached his eye from the lugubrious scene of the rain and the day-dark and spoke up brightly.
"But at that," said he, "I don't think their being doomed for to hang can be held entirely responsible for their losing. You see, I've made quite a study of the game o' rhummy, not to mention pinochle and other such games of chance, and if I do say so myself I doubt there's the man in Chicago, doomed for to hang or otherwise, who would find me an easy mark. Still, as I say, in the case of these gentlemen who you refer to—to wit, the doomed men as I have acted as death watch for—it do interfere with their game. There's no denying that."
* * * * *
Now the rain chattered darkly on the grated windows of the Dearborn Street bastile and Deputy Cochran tilted back in his chair and thought pensively and in silence of life and death and high, low, jack and the game.
"They pick me out for the death watch on account I have a way with doomed men," he remarked at last, his voice modestly self-conscious. "Some of the deputies is inclined to get a bit sad, you know. Or to let their nerves go away with them. But me, I feel as the best thing to do in the crisis to which I refer is to make the best of it.
"So when I sit in on the death watch I faces myself with the truth. I says to myself right away: 'Bill, this young feller here is to be hanged by the neck until dead, in a few hours. Which being the case, there's no use wasting any more time or thought on the matter.' So after this self-communication, I usually says to the young feller under observation by the death watch, 'Cheerio, m'lad. Is there anything in particular as you'd like to discuss.'
"I was a bit thick with the Abyssinian prince, Grover Redding, you recall. The man spent the whole time we were with him praying at the top of his voice and singing hymns. Not that I begrudged the fellow this privilege. But if you've ever heard a man who's going to be hanged in a few hours try to pass the time in continual prayers shouted at the top of his voice you'll understand our predicament.
"Then there was Antonio Lopez. I was death watch on him and a difficult task that was. The lad kept up his pretense that he fancied himself a rooster to the very end. He crouched on the chair on his feet and flapped his elbows like as they were wings and emitted rooster calls all night long. I tried to dissuade him and offered to play him any game he wished for any stake. But the only way he could reconcile himself to the approaching fatal dawn was to crow like a rooster. I thought to cheer him up toward the end by congratulating him on his excellent imitations, as I bore him no ill will despite he gave us all a terrible headache before the death march took him away."
* * * * *
Now the rain dropped in long, quick lines outside the window and the pavements below glowed like dark mirrors. Deputy Cochran, however, had become oblivious to the scene. His eyes withdrew themselves from the rain-dark and casually traced themselves over the memories his calling had left him.
"There was Blacky Weed some years ago," he went on. "And Viana, the choir boy. And to come down to more recent incidents, Harry Ward, the 'Lone Wolf.' I played cards with them all and can truthfully say I won most of the games played to which I refer, with the exception of those played with the 'Lone Wolf,' hanged recently, if you recall.
"I will say that the chief trouble with the doomed men as I have engaged in games of chance with is their inability to concentrate. Now cards, to be properly played, requires above all a gift of the ability to concentrate. Recognizing this I have always refused to play for money with the doomed as I have been watch over, saying to them when they pressed the matter, 'No, m'lad. Let's make it just a sociable game for the fun there's in it rather than play for money.'
"There are others not so scrupulous," hinted Deputy Cochran. "Take for instance, the example of the newspaper man as was Eddie Brislane's friend and comforter. He was with him in the cell most of the time before the hanging, and two days before the aforesaid he paid Brislane $50 for a story to be printed exclusively in his paper. Then this newspaper man, which I consider unethical under the circumstances, played Brislane poker, and what with the doomed man's lack of concentration and his inability to take advantage of the turns of the game, therefore, this newspaper man won back his $50 and some few dollars besides.
"As for me, I doubt whether all my card playing with these doomed men, successful though it has been, has ever brought me as much as a half dollar. No, as I said, sociability is the object of these games and all I aim for is to put the doomed man at his ease for the time being."
* * * * *
Deputy Cochian suddenly smiled, although before an impersonal air had marked his discourse.
"There was the 'Lone Wolf,' as I mentioned," he continued. "A cold-blooded feller and a sinner to the end. But he was the best rhummy player as I have ever had the pleasure of matching skill with. Yes, sir, it was his ability for to concentrate. As I said, that is, the prime ability necessary and the 'Lone Wolf' had more concentration than any one I have matched skill with in or out of the jail.
"That was an interesting evening we spent on the death watch for the 'Lone Wolf.' He regaled us for an hour or so telling us how he used to steal motor cars. Yes, sir, whenever the 'Lone Wolf' wanted a new car he just went out and took it. A cold-blooded feller, as I say.
"Then he asked if I would mind playing him a game of rhummy and I answered, 'No, Harry. As you are aware, I am here to oblige. So we got out the deck and Harry insisted upon gambling. 'Make it a dollar a hand,' he said. But I would listen to none of that. We played eight games in all and he beat me six of them. Perhaps I was not at my best that night. But I never played against such a cold-blooded feller. He took a positive joy in winning his games and on the whole acted like a bum winner, making the most of his unusual good luck. I hold no grudge for that, however. But I feel that if we could have continued the play some other time I'd easily have finished him off."
Now the sun was slowly recovering its place and the rain had become a light mist. Deputy Cochran seemed to regard this as a signal for a conclusion.
"Summing the matter all up, pro and con," he offered, "it do interfere with their game a lot. But I lay this to the fact that they all fancy they're going to be reprieved and they keep waiting and listening for an announcement which will save them from the gallows. I've known some of them to lead a deuce thinking it was an ace and vice versa. But at that I can fully recommend a good, sociable game of cards as the best way for a doomed man to pass the few hours before the arrival of the fatal moment."
It rains. People carry umbrellas. A great financier has promised me an interview. The windows of his club look out on a thousand umbrellas. They bob along like drunken beetles.
Once in a blue moon one becomes aware of people. Usually the crowds and their endless faces are a background. They circle around one the way ripples circle around a stone that has fallen into the water. The torments, elation of others; the ambitions, defeats of others; the bedlam of others—who the piano. A cornet, probably. Or a ukulele.Parbleu, what creates in the plunge from youth to age.
Here, then, under the umbrellas outside the great financier's club, are people. One must marvel. They pass one another without so much as a glance. To each of them all the others—the bedlam of others—are ripples emanating from themselves. The great quests and struggles going on and the million agonies and tumults beating in the veins of the world—ripples. Yes, vague and vaguer ripples which surround the fact that one is going to buy a pair of suspenders; which circle the fact that one is invited out for dinner this evening.
* * * * *
Ah, the smug and oblivious ones under umbrellas! It rains, but the umbrellas keep off the rain. The world pours its distinctions and elations over their souls, but other umbrellas, invisible, keep off distractions and elations. And each of them, scurrying along outside the window of the great financier's club, is an omniscient world center to himself. The great play was written around him, a blur of disasters and ecstasies, a sort of vast and inarticulate Greek chorus mumbling an obbligato to the leitmotif which is at the moment the purchase of a pair of suspenders or a dinner invitation for the evening.
None so small under these umbrellas outside the window but fancies himself the center of the cosmos. None so stupid but regards himself as the oracle of the times. And they scurry along without a glance at one another, each innately convinced that his ideas, his prejudices, his ambitions, his tastes are the Great Standard, the Normal Criterion. Puritan, paranoiac, sybarite, katatoniac, hardhead, dreamer, coward, desperado, beaten ones, striving ones, successful ones—all flaunt their umbrellas in the rain, all unfurl their invisible umbrellas to the world. Let it rain, let it rain—calamities and ecstasies tipped with fire and roaring with thunder—nothing can disturb the terrible preoccupation of the plunge from youth to age.
* * * * *
The pavements gleam like dark mirrors. The office window lights chatter in the gloom. An umbrella pauses. The great financier is giving directions to his chauffeur. The directions given, the great financier stands in the rain for a moment. His eyes look up and down the street. What does he see? Ripples, vague and vaguer ripples, that mark his passage from the limousine into the club.
He is wet. A servant helps him remove his coat. Then he comes to the window and sinks into a leather chair and stares at the rain and the umbrellas outside. The great financier has been abroad. His highly specialized mind has been, poking among columns of figures, columns of reports. He desired to find out if possible what conditions abroad were. For six months the great financier closeted himself daily with other great financiers and talked and talked and discussed and talked.
But he says nothing. It is curious. The whole world and all its marvelous distractions seem to have resolved themselves into the curt sentence, "It rains." And somehow the great financier's faculty for the glib manipulation of platitudes which has earned him a reputation as a powerful economist seems for the moment to have abandoned him. His eyes remind one of a boy standing on tiptoe and staring over a fence at a baseball game.
* * * * *
The conversation finally begins. It runs something like this. It is the great financier talking. "Europe. Oh, yes. Quite a mess. Things will pick up, however." A long pause. The umbrellas bob along. One, two, three, four, five—the financier counts up to thirty. Then he rubs his hands together as if he were taking charge of a situation freshly arisen at a board of directors' meeting and says in a jovial voice: "Where were we? Oh, yes. The European situation. Well, now, what do you want to know in particular?"
Ah, this great financier has columns of figures, columns of reports and columns of phrases in his head. Press a button and they will pop out. "Have a cigar?" the financier asks. Cigars are lighted. "A rotten day," he says. "Doesn't look as if it will clear up, either, does it?" Then he says, "I guess this is an off day for me. No energy at all. I swear I can't think of a thing to tell you about the European situation."
He sits smoking, his eyes fastened on the scene outside the window. His eyes seem to be searching as if for meanings that withhold themselves. Yet obviously there is no thought in his head. A mood has wormed its way through the columns of figures, columns of reports, and taken possession of him. This is bad for a financier. It is obvious that the umbrellas outside are for the moment something other than ripples; that the great play of life outside is something other than an inarticulate Greek chorus mumbled as an obbligato for him alone.
The great financier is aware of something. Of what? He shakes his head, as if to question himself. Of nothing he can tell. Of the fact that a great financier is an atom like other atoms dancing in a chaos of atoms. Of the fact that each of the umbrellas crawling past under his window is as important as himself. The great financier's ego is taking a rest and dreams naked of words crowd in to distract him.
"We have in Europe a peculiar situation," he says. "England and France, although hitched to the same wagon, pull in different directions. England must build up her trade. France must build up her morale. These involve different efforts. To build up her trade England must re-establish Germany. To build up her morale France must see that Germany is not re-established and that it remains forever a beaten enemy."
The great financier looks at his watch suddenly. "By Jove!" he says. "By Jove!" He has to go. He is sorry the interview was a failure. But a rotten day for thinking. Back into his raincoat. A limousine has drawn up. A servant helps him to dress. In a moment another umbrella has joined the crawl of umbrellas over the pavement.
It rains. And a great financier is riding home to dinner.
"His name?" said Feodor Mishkin. "Hm! Always you want names. Is life a matter of names and addresses or is it something else?"
"But the story would be better, Feodor, with names in it."
The rotund and omniscient journalist from the west side muttered to himself in Russian.
"Better!" he repeated. "And why better? If I tell you his name is Yankel or Berella or Chaim Duvit do you know any more than if I tell you his name is Pitzela?"
"No. We will drop the matter. I will call him Chaim Yankel."
"You will call him Chaim Yankel! And what for? His name is Pitzela and notChaim Yankel."
"Thanks."
"You can go anywhere on Maxwell Street and ask anybody you meet do they know Pitzela and they will say: 'Do we know Pitzela? We know Pitzela all right.' So what is there to be gained by calling him Chaim Yankel?"
"Nothing, Feodor. It was a mistake even to think of it."
"It was. Well, as I was telling you before you began this interruption about names, he is exactly 110 years old. Can you imagine a man 110 years old? A man 110 years old is an unusual thing, isn't it?"
"It is, Feodor. But I once knew a man 113 years old."
"Ha! And what kind of a man was he? Did he dance jigs? Did he crack nuts with his teeth? Did he drink like a fish?"
"No, he was an old man and very sad."
"You see! He was sad. So what has he to do with Pitzela? Nothing. Pitzela laughs all day long. And he dances jigs. And he cracks nuts with his teeth. Mind you, a man 110 years old cracks nuts with his teeth! Can you imagine such a thing?"
"No Feodor. It is amazing."
"Amazing? Why amazing? Everything that happens different from what you know is amazing to you! You are very naïve. You know what naïve means? It is French."
"I know what naïve means, Feodor. Go on about Pitzela."
"Naïve means to be childish late in life. In a way you are like Pitzela, despite the difference in your ages. He is naïve. You know what he wants?"
"What?"
"This Pitzela wants to show everybody how young he is. That's his central ambition. He don't talk English much, but when you ask him, 'Pitzela, how do you feel today?' he says to you right back, 'Oi, me? I'm full o' pep.' Then if you ask him, 'How old are you, Pitzela?' he says: 'Old? What does it matter how old I am? I am just beginning to enjoy myself. And when you talk about my dying don't laugh too much. Because, you know, I will attend all your funerals. When I am 300 years old I will be burying your grandchildren.' And he will laugh. Do you like the story?"
"Yes, Feodor. But it isn't long enough. I will have to go out and seePitzela and describe him and that will make the story long enough."
"It isn't long enough? What do you mean? I just begun. The story ain't about Pitzela at all. So why should you go see Pitzela?"
"But I thought it was about Pitzela."
"You thought! Hm! Well, you see what good it does you to think. For according to your thinking the story is already finished. Whereas according to me the story is only just beginning."
"But you said it was about Pitzela, Feodor. So I believed you."
"I said nothing of the sort. I merely asked you if you knew Pitzela. The story is entirely about Pitzela's son."
"Aha! This Pitzela has a son. That's interesting."
"Of course it is. Pitzela's son is a man 87 years old. Ask anybody on Maxwell street do they know Pitzela's son and they will tell you: 'Do we know Pitzela's son? Hm! It's a scandal."
"The editor, Feodor, forbids me to write about scandals. So be careful."
"This scandal is one you can write about. This Pitzela's son is such a poor old man that he can hardly walk. He has a long white beard and wears a yamulka and he has no teeth and one foot is already deep in the grave. If you saw Pitzela's son you would say: 'Why don't this dying man go home and sit down instead of running around like this?'
"And why don't he?"
"Why don't he? Such a question! He don't because Pitzela don't let him. Pitzela is his father and he has to mind his father. And Pitzela says: 'What! You want to hang around the house like you were an old man? You are crazy. Look at me, I'm your father. And you a young man, my son, act like you were my father. It's a scandal. Come, we will go to the banquet.'
"What banquet, Feodor?"
"Oh, any banquet. He drags him. He don't let him rest. And he says: 'You must shave off your beard. For fifteen years you been letting it grow and now it's altogether too long. How does it look for me to go around with a son who not only can't walk, but has a beard that makes him look like Father Abraham himself?'"
"And what does Pitzela's son say?"
"What can he say? Nothing. The doctor comes and tells him: 'You got to stay in the house. You are going out too much. How old are you?' And Pitzela's son shakes his tired head and says: 'Eighty-seven years old, doctor.' And the doctor gives strict orders. But Pitzela comes in and laughs. Imagine."
"Yes, it's a good story, Feodor."
"A good story! How do you know? I ain't come to the point yet. But never mind, if you like it so much you don't need any point."
"The point, Feodor. Excuse me."
"Well, the point is that Pitzela and the way he treats his son is a scandal. You know why? Because he uses his son as an advertisement. Pitzela's son, mind you, is so weak and old that he can hardly walk and he carries a heavy cane and his hands shake like leaves. And Pitzela drags him around all over. To banquets. To political meetings. To the Yiddish theater. All over. He holds him by the arm and brings him into the hall and sits him down in a chair. And Pitzela's son sits so tired and almost dead he can't move. And then Pitzela jumps up and gets excited and says: 'Look at him. A fine son, for you! Look, he's almost dead. Tell me if you wouldn't think he was my father and I was his son? Instead of the other way around? I ask you.'"
"And what does Pitzela's son say, Feodor?"
"Say? What can he say? He looks up and shakes his head some more. He can hardly see. And when the banquet talking begins he falls asleep and Pitzela has to hold him up from falling out of the chair. And when the food is done and the dessert comes Pitzela leans over and says to his son: 'Listen. I got a treat for you. Here.' And he reaches into his pocket and brings out a handful of hickory nuts. 'Crack them with your teeth,' he says, 'like your father.' And when his son looks at him and strokes his white beard and sighs, Pitzela jumps up and laughs so you can hear him all over the banquet hall. But the point of the story is that two weeks ago Pitzela went to his grandson's funeral. It was Pitzela's son's son and he was a man almost 70 years old. And it was a scandal at the funeral. Why? Because Pitzela laughed and coming back from the grave he said: 'Look at me, my grandson dies and I go to his funeral and if he had a son I would go to his, too, and I would dance jigs both times.'"
A dark afternoon with summer thunder in the sky. The fan-shaped skyscrapers spread a checkerboard of window lights through the gloom. It rains. People seem to grow vaguely elate on the dark wet pavements. They hurry along, their eyes saying to one another, "We have something in common. We are all getting wet in the rain." The crowd is no longer quite so enigmatic a stranger to itself. An errand boy from Market Street advances with leaps through the downpour, a high chant on his lips, "It's raining … it's raining." The rain mutters and the pavements, like darkened mirrors, grow alive with impressionistic cartoons of the city.
Inside the Washington Street book store of Covici-McGee the electric lights gleam cozily. New books and old books—the high shelves stuffed with books vanish in the ceiling shadows. On a rainy day the dusty army of books peers coaxingly from the shelves. Old tales, old myths, old wars, old dreams begin to chatter softly in the shadows—or it may be the chatter of the rain on the pavement outside. The Great Philosophers unbend, the Bearded Classics sigh, the Pontifical Critics of Life murmur "ahem." Yes, even the forbidding works of Standard Authors grow lonely on the high shelves on a rainy day. As for the rag-tag, ruffle-snuffle crowd in motley—the bulged, spavined, sniffling crew of mountebanks, troubadours, swashbucklers, bleary philosophers, phantasts and adventurers—they set up a veritable witches' chorus. Or it may be the rain again lashing against the streaming windows of the book store.
* * * * *
People come in out of the rain. A girl without an umbrella, her face wet. Who? Perhaps a stenographer hunting a job and halted by the rain. And then a matron with an old-fashioned knitted shopping bag. And a spinster with a keen, kindly face. Others, too. They stand nervously idle, feeling that they are taking up valuable space in an industrial establishment and should perhaps make a purchase. So they permit their eyes to drift politely toward the wares. And then the chatter of the books has them. Old books, new books, live books, dead books—but they move carelessly away and toward the bargain tables—"All Books 30 Cents." Broken down best sellers here—pausing in their gavotte toward oblivion. The next step is the junk man—$1 a hundred. Pembertons, Wrights, Farnols, Websters, Johnstones, Porters, Wards and a hundred other names reminiscent more of a page in the telephone book than a page out of a literary yesterday. The little gavotte is an old dance in the second-hand book store. The $2-shelf. The $1-rack. The 75-cent table. The 30-cent grab counter. And finis. New scribblings crowd for place, old scribblings exeunt.
The girl without an umbrella studies titles. A love story, of course, and only thirty cents. An opened page reads, "he took her in his arms…." Who would not buy such a book on a rainy day?
* * * * *
It rains and other people come in. A middle-aged man in a curious coat, a curious hat and a curious face. Slate-colored skin, slate-colored eyes behind silver spectacles. A scholar in caricature, an Old Clothes Dealer out of Alice in Wonderland. The rain runs from his stringy, slate-colored hair. He approaches the high shelves, thrusts the silver spectacles farther down on his nose. In front of him a curious row of literary gargoyles—"The Astral Light," "What and Where Is God?", "Man" by Dohony of Texas, "The Star of the Magi."
Thin slate-colored fingers fumble nervously over the title backs. A second man, figure short, squat, red-faced, crowds the erratic scholar. A third. The rain is bringing them in in numbers. These are the basement students of the gargoyle philosophies, the gargoyle sciences, the gargoyle religions. Perpetual motion machine inventors, alchemists with staring, nervous-eyed medieval faces, fourth dimensionists, sun worshippers, cabalistic researchers, voodoo authorities—the old-book store is suddenly alive with them. They move about furtively with no word for one another, lost in their grotesque dreamings.
* * * * *
On a rainy day the city gives them up and they come puttering excitedly into the loop on a quest. The world is a garish unreality to them. The streets and the crowds of automatic-faced men and women, the upward rush of buildings and the horizontal rush of traffic are no more than vague grimacings. Life is something of which the streets are oblivious. But here on the gargoyle shelves, the high, shadowed shelves of the old book store—truth stands in all its terrible reality, wrapped in its authentic habiliments. Dr. Hickson of the psychopathic laboratory would give these curious rainy day phantasts identities as weird as the volumes they caress. But the old book store clerk is more kind. He lets them rummage. Before the rain ends they will buy "The Cradle of the Giants," "The Key to Satanism," Cornelius Agrippa's "Natural Magic," "The Astral Chord," "Occultism and Its Usages." They will buy books by Jacob Boehme, William Law, Sadler, Hyslop, Ramachaska. And they will go hurrying home with their treasures pressed close to them. Stuffy bedrooms lined with hints of Sabbatical horror, strewn with bizarre refuse; musty smelling books out of whose pages fantastic shapes rear themselves against the gaslights, macabre worlds in which unreason rides like a headless D'Artagnan; evenings in the park arguing suddenly with startled strangers on the existence of the philosophers' stone or the astrological causes of influenza—these form a background for the curious men whom the rain has drifted into the old book store and who stand with their eyes haunting the gargoyle titles.
The rain brings in another tribesman—a famed though somewhat ragged bibliomaniac. His casual gestures hide the sudden fever old books kindle in his thought. Old books—old books, a magical phrase to him. His eyes travel like a lover's back and forth, up and down. He knows them all—the sets, the first editions, the bargains, the riff-raff. A democratic lover is here. But the clerk watches him. For this lover is an antagonist. Yes, this somewhat ragged, gleaming-eyed gentleman with the casual manner is a terrible person to have around in a second-hand book store on a rainy day. Only six months ago one of his horrible tribe pounced upon Sander's "Indian Wars," price 30 cents; value, alas, $150.00. Only two months ago another of his kidney fell upon a copy of Jean Jacques Rosseau's "Emile" with Jean's own dedication on the title page to "His Majesty, the King of France." Price 75 cents; value, gadzooks, $200.
There will be nothing today, however. Merely an hour's caress of old friends on the high shelves while the rain beats outside. Unless—unless this Stevenson happens by any chance to be a "first." A furtive glance at the title page. No. The clerk sighs with relief as the Stevenson goes back on the shelf. It might have been something overlooked.
* * * * *
The rain ends. The old book store slowly empties. A troop of men and women saunter out, pausing to say farewell to the gaudily ragged tomes in the old book store. The sky has grown lighter. The buildings shake the last drops of rain from their spatula tops. There is a different-looking, well-linened gentleman thrusts his head into the old book store and inquires, "Have you a copy of 'The Investors' Guide'?"
The beggar in the street, sitting on the pavement against the building with his pleading face raised and his arm outstretched—I don't like him. I don't like the way he tucks his one good leg under him in order to convey the impression that he is entirely legless. I don't like the way he thrusts his arm stump at me, the way his eyes plead his weakness and sorrow.
He is a presumptuous and calculating scoundrel, this beggar. He is a diabolical psychologist. Why will people drop coins into his hat? Ah, because when they look at him and his misfortunes, by a common mental ruse they see themselves in his place, and they hurriedly fling a coin to this fugitive image of themselves. And because in back of this beggar has grown up an insidious propaganda that power is wrong, that strength is evil, that riches are vile. A strong, rich and powerful man cannot get into heaven. Thus this beggar becomes for an instant an intimidating symbol of perfections. One feels that one should apologize for the fact that one has two legs, money in one's pocket and hope in one's heart. One flings him a coin, thus buying momentary absolution for not being an unfortunate—i.e., as noble and non-predatory—as the beggar.
* * * * *
I do not like the way this beggar pleads. And yet after I pass him and remember his calculating expression, his mountebank tricks, I grow fond of him—theoretically. My thought warms to him as a creature of intelligence, of straightforward and amusing cynicisms.
For this beggar is aware of me and the innumerable lies to which I lamely submit. I am the public to him—one of a herd of identical faces drifting by. And this beggar has perfected a technique of attack. It is his duty to sit on the pavement and lay for me and hit me with a slapstick labeled platitude and soak me over the head with a bladder labeled in stern white letters: "The Poor Shall Inherit the Kingdom of Heaven."
And this he does, the scoundrel, grinning to himself as the blows fall and slyly concealing his enthusiasm as the coins jingle into his hat. I am one of those who labor proudly at the immemorial task of idealizations. I am the public who passes laws proclaiming things wrong, immoral, contrary to my "best instincts." Thus I have after many centuries succeeded in creating a beautiful conception—a marvelous person. This marvelous person represents what I might be if I had neither ambition nor corpuscles, prejudices nor ecstasties, greeds, lusts, illusions or curiosity. This marvelous person is the beautiful image, the noble and flattering image of itself that the public rapturously beholds when it stares into the mirror of laws, conventions, adages, platitudes and constitutions that it has created.
A charming image to contemplate. Learned men wax full of stern joy when they gaze upon this image. Kind-hearted folk thrill with pride at the thought that life is at last a carefully policed force which flows politely and properly through the catalogued veins of this marvelous person.
But my beggar in the street—ah, my beggar in the street knows better. My beggar in the street, maimed and vicious, sits against the building and wields his bladder and his slapstick on me. Whang! A platitude on the rear. Bam! A bromide on the bean! And I shell out a dime and hurry on. I do not like this beggar.
* * * * *
But I grow warm with fellowship toward him after I have left him behind. There is something comradely about his amazing cynicism. People, thinks this beggar, are ashamed of themselves for being strong, for having two legs, for not being poor, brow-beaten, cheek-turning humble mendicants. People, thinks this beggar, are secretly ashamed of themselves for being part of success. And their shame is inspired by fear. When they see me they suddenly feel uncertain about themselves. When they see me they think that reverses and misfortunes and calamities might overtake them and reduce them to my condition. Thinking this, they grow indignant for an instant with a society that produces beggars. Not because it produced me. But perhaps it might produce them—as beggars. And then remembering that they are responsible for my plight—they being society—they beg my pardon by giving me money and a pleading look. Oho! You should see the pleading looks they give me. Men and women pass and plead with me not to hit them too hard with my slapstick and bladder. They plead with me to spare them, not to look at them. And when they give me a dime it is a gesture intended to annihilate me. The dime obliterates my misfortunes. It annihilates my poverty. For an instant, having annihilated poverty and misfortune with a dime, the man or woman is happy. An instant of security strengthens his wavering spirit.
* * * * *
Thus my beggar whom I have grown quite fond of as I write. I would write more of him and of the marvelous person in me whom he is continually belaboring with his slapstick and bladder. But I remember suddenly a man in a wheel chair. A pale man with drawn features and paralyzed legs. It was at night in North Clark Street. Lights streamed over the pavements. People moved in and out of doorways.
And this man sat in his wheel chair, a board on his lap. The board was laden with wares. Trinkets, pencils, shoestrings, candies, tacks, neckties, socks. And from the front of the board hung a sign reading, "Jim's Store—Stop and Shop."
I remember this creature with a sudden excitement. I passed by and bought nothing. But after five days his face has caught up with me. A sallow, drawn face, burning eyes, bloodless lips and skinny hands that fumbled among the wares on his board. He was young. Heroic sentences come to me. "Jim's Store—" Good hokum, effective advertising. And a strange pathos, a pathos that my beggar with one leg and a pleading face never had.
I do not like cynics. I like Jim better. I like Jim and his burning eyes, his skinny hands, his dying body—and his store. Fighting—with the lights going out. Sitting in a wheel chair with death at his back and despair crying from his eyes—"Come buy from me—a little while longer—I don't give up … another week … another month … but I don't give up. I'm still on the turf…. Never mind my dying body … business as usual … business as usual…. Come buy from me … little while longer … a…."
But I never gave a nickel to Jim. I passed up his store. I took him at his word. He was selling wares and I didn't want any. But my beggar with the one leg and the inward grin was selling absolutions…. And I patronized him.
Late afternoon. An hour more and the city will be emptying itself out of the high buildings. Now the shoppers are hurrying home to get dinner on the table.
A man stands on the corner of Michigan Avenue and Adams Street. Unwittingly he invites attention. A poorly dressed man, with a work-heavy face and coarsened hands. But he stands motionless. More than that, he is not looking at anything. His deep-set eyes seem to withhold themselves from the active street.
In the sauve spectacle of the avenue his motionless figure is like an awkward faux pas in a parlor conversation. The newspaper man on his way to the I. C. station pauses to light his pipe and his eyes take in the figure of this motionless one.
The newspaper man notices that the man stands like one who is braced against something that may come suddenly and that his deep-set eyes say, "We know what we know." There are other impressions that interest the newspaper man. For a moment the motionless one seems a blurred little unit of the hurrying crowd. Then for a moment he seems to grow large and his figure becomes commanding and it is as if he were surveying the blurred little faces of the hurrying crowd. This is undoubtedly because he is standing still and not looking at anything.
* * * * *
"Can I have a light, please?"
The man's voice is low. A bit hoarse. He has a pipe and the newspaper man gives him a match. Ah, the amiable, meaningless curiosity of newspaper men! This one must ask questions. It is after work, but, like the policeman who goes to the movies with his club still at his side, he is still asking questions.
"Taking in the sights?"
The man, lighting his pipe, nods slowly. Much too slowly, as if his answer were fraught with a vast significance.
"I like it myself," insinuates the newspaper man. "I was reading Junius Wood's article on Bill Shatov, who is running things now in Siberia. He quotes Bill as saying what he misses most in life now is the music of crowds in Chicago streets. Did you read that?"
This is a brazen lead. But the man looks like a "red." And Bill Shatov would then open the talk. But the man only shakes his head. He says, "No, I don't read the papers much."
Now there is something contradictory about this man and his curtness invites. He seems to have accepted the presence of the newspaper man in an odd way, an uncity way. After a pause he gestures slightly with his pipe in his hand and says:
"Quite a crowd, eh?"
The newspaper man nods. The other goes on:
"Where are they going?"
This is more than a question. There is indignation in it. The deepset eyes gleam.
"I wonder," says the newspaper man. His companion remains staring in his odd, unseeing way. Then he says:
"They don't look at anything, eh? In a terrible hurry, ain't they? Yeah, in a rotten hurry."
The newspaper man nods. "Which way you going?" he asks.
"No way," his companion answers. "No way at all. I'm standin' here, see?"
There is a silence. The motionless one has become something queer in the eyes of the newspaper man. He has become grim, definite, taunting. Here is a man who questions the people of the street with unseeing eyes. Why? Here is one who is going "no way." Yet, look at him closely and there is no sneer in his eyes. His lips hold no contempt.
There you have it. He is a questioning man. He is questioning things that no one questions—buildings, crowds, windows. And there is some sort of answer inside him.
* * * * *
"What you talking to me for?"
The newspaper man smiles disarmingly at this sudden inquiry.
"Oh, I don't know," he says. "Saw you standing still. You looked different. Wondered, you know. Just kind of thought to say hello."
"Funny," says the motionless one.
"I got a hunch you're a stranger in town."
This question the companion answers. "Yeah, a stranger. A stranger. That's what I am, all right. I'm a stranger, all right. You got me right."
Now the motionless one smiles. This makes his face look uncomfortable.This makes it seem as if he had been frowning savagely before.
"What do you think of this town?" pursues the newspaper man.
"Think of this town? Think? Say, I ain't thinking. I don't think anything of it. I'm just looking at it, see? A stranger don't ever think, now, does he? There, that's one for you."
"When'd you come here?"
"When'd I come here? When? Well, I come here this noon. On the noon train.Say, don't make me gabby. I never gab any."
Nothing to be got out of this motionless one. Nothing but a question. A pause, however, and he went on:
"Have you ever seen such a crowd like this? Hurrying? Hm! Some town! There used to be a hotel over here west a bit."
"The Wellington?"
"Yeah. I don't see it when I pass."
"Torn down."
"Hm!" The deep-set eyes narrow for an instant. Then the motionless one sighs and his shoulders loosen. His face grows alive and he looks this way and that. He starts to walk and walks quickly, leaving the newspaper man standing alone.
* * * * *
The newspaper man watched him. As he stood looking after him some one tapped him on the shoulder. He turned. "Specs" McLaughlin of the detective bureau. "Specs" rubbed his chin contemplatively and smiled.
"Know that guy?"
"Who?"
"No; just bumped into him. How come?"
"You might have got a story out of him," "Specs" grinned. "That's George Cook. Just let out of the Joliet pen this morning. Served fourteen years. Quite a yarn at the time. For killing a pal in the Wellington hotel over some dame. I guess that was before your time, though. He just landed in town this noon."
The detective rubbered into the moving crowd.
"I'm sort of keeping an eye on him," he said, and hurried on.
You will sometimes notice when you sit on the back porch after dinner that there are other back porches with people on them. And when you sit on the front steps, that there are other front steps similarly occupied. In the park when you lie down on the grass you will see there are others lying on the grass. And when you look out of your window you can observe other people looking out of their windows.
In the streets when you walk casually and have time to look around you will see others walking casually and looking around, too. And in the theater or church or where you work there are always the inevitable others, always reflecting yourself. You might get to thinking about this as the newspaper reporter did. The newspaper reporter got an idea one day that the city was nothing more nor less than a vast, broken mirror giving him back garbled images of himself.
The newspaper reporter was trying to write fiction stories on the side and he thought: "If I can figure out something for a background, some idea or something that will explain about people, and then have the plot of the story sort of prove this general idea by a specific incident, that would be the way to work it."
Thus, when the reporter had figured it out that the city was a mirror reflecting himself, he grew excited. That was the kind of idea he had always been looking for. But at night in his bedroom when he started to write he hit a snag. He had thought he held in his mind the secret of the city. Yet when he came to write about it the secret slipped away and left him with nothing. He sat looking out of his bedroom window, noticing that the telephone poles in the dark alley looked like huge, inverted music notes. Then he thought: "It doesn't do any good to get an idea that doesn't tell you anything. Just figuring out that the city is a mirror that reflects me all the time doesn't give me the secret of streets and crowds. Because the question then arises: 'Who am I that the mirror reflects, and what am I? What in Sam Hill is my motif?'"
* * * * *
So the newspaper reporter decided to wait awhile before he wrote his story—wait, at least, until he had found out something. But the next day, while he was walking in Michigan Avenue, the idea he had had about the mirror trotted along beside him like some homeless Hector pup that he couldn't shake. He looked up eagerly into the faces of the crowd on the street, searching the many different eyes that moved by him for a "lead."
What the newspaper reporter wanted was to be able to begin his fiction story by saying something like this: "People are so and so. The city is so and so. Everybody feels this and this. No matter who they are or where they live, or what their jobs are they can't escape the mark of the city that is on them."
It was after 7 o'clock and the people in Michigan Avenue were going home or sauntering back and forth, looking into the shop windows, with nothing much to do. The street was still light, although the sun had gone. Hidden behind the buildings of the city, the sun flattened itself out on an invisible horizon and spread a vast peacock tail of color across the sky. In Grant Park, opposite the Public Library, men lay on their backs with their hands folded under their heads and stared up into the colors of the sky. The newspaper reporter stood abstractedly on the corner counting the automobiles that purred by to see if more taxicabs than privately owned cars passed a given point in Michigan Avenue. Then he walked across the street for no other reason than that there were for the moment no more automobiles to count. He stopped on the opposite pavement and stood looking at the figures that lay on the grass in Grant Park.
* * * * *
The newspaper reporter had been lying for ten minutes on his back in the grass when he sat up suddenly and muttered: "Here it is. Right in front of me." He sat, looking intently, at the men who were lying on the grass as he had been a moment before. And his idea about the city's being a mirror giving him back images of himself started up again in his mind. But now he could find out what these images of himself were. In fact, what he was. Whereupon he would have his story.
Being a newspaper reporter there was nothing unusual in his mind about walking up to one of the figures and talking to it. For years and years he had done just that for a living—walked up to strangers and asked them questions. So now he would ask the men lying on their backs what they were lying on their backs for. He would ask them why they came to Grant Park, what they were thinking about and how it happened that they all looked alike and lay on their backs like a chorus of figures in a pastoral musical comedy.
The first figure the newspaper reporter approached listened to the questions in surprise. Then he answered: "Well I dunno. I just came into the park and lay down." The second figure looked blank and shook its head. The reporter tried a third. The third figure grinned and answered: "Oh, well, nothing much to do and the grass rests you a bit."
The reporter kept on for a few minutes, asking his questions and getting answers that didn't quite mean anything. Then he grew tired of the job and returned to his original place on the grass and lay down again and stared up into the colors of the sky. After a half-hour, during which he had thought of nothing in particular, he arose, shook his legs free of dirt and grass and walked away. As he walked he looked at the figures that remained. The arc lamps on the park shafts and on the Greek-like fountain were popping on and the avenue was lighting up like a theater with the footlights going on.
"Funny about them," the newspaper reporter thought, eyeing the figures as he moved away; "they lie there on their backs all in the same position, all looking at the same clouds. So they must all be thinking thoughts about the same thing. Let's see; what was I thinking about? Nothing,"
An excited light came suddenly into the newspaper reporter's eyes.
"I was just waiting," he muttered to himself. "And so are they."
* * * * *
The newspaper reporter looked eagerly at the street and the people passing. That was it. He had found the word. "Waiting." Everybody was waiting. On the back porches at night, on the front steps, in the parks, in the theaters, churches, streets and stores—men and women waited. Just as the men on the grass in Grant Park were waiting. The only difference between the men lying on their backs and people elsewhere was that the men in the grass had grown tired for the moment of pretending they were doing anything else. So they had stretched themselves out in an attitude of waiting, in a deliberate posture of waiting. And with their eyes on the sky, they waited.
The newspaper reporter felt thrilled as he thought all this. He felt thrilled when he looked closely at the people in Michigan Avenue and saw that they fitted snugly into his theory. He said to himself: "I've discovered a theory about life. A theory that fits them all. That makes the background I'm looking for. Waiting. Yes, the whole pack of them are waiting all the time. That's why we all look alike. That's why one house looks like another and one man walking looks like another man walking, and why figures lying in the grass look like twins—scores of twins."
* * * * *
The newspaper man returned to his bedroom and started to write again. But he had been writing only a few minutes when he stopped. Again, as it had before, the secret had slipped out of his mind. For he had come to a paragraph that was to tell what the people were waiting for and he couldn't think of any answer to that. What were the men in the grass waiting for? In the street? On the porches and stone steps? They were images of himself—all "waiting images" of himself. Therefore the answer lay in the question: "What had he been waiting for?"
The newspaper reporter bit into his pencil. "Nothing, nothing," he muttered. "Yes, that's it. They aren't waiting for anything. That's the secret. Life is a few years of suspended animation. But there's no story in that. Better forget it."
So he looked glumly out of his bedroom window, and, being a sentimentalist, the huge inverted music notes the telephone poles made against the dark played a long, sad tune in his mind.