Etchings
Alexander S. Kaun
Onthe play-grounds. The pretty girl and I withdrew from the noisy festival to the desolate fountain. It was too hot to think, so I merely talked.
An old, ragged, grey-bearded, gibbous Jew, with a basket over his arm, was slowly approaching us.
The meaningless eyes of the pretty girl clouded.
“Peddlers are not allowed on the grounds. He must have sneaked in.”
The Jew stood at our side. He said nothing, but his timid eyes appealed.
It was too hot to think, but for a moment I thought that a waft of eternity breathed upon me from out the sad, timid eyes, and from out the folds of the soiled old coat, and from out the clotty grey beard of the descendant of Isaiah and the Maccabees.
“I shall buy some peaches, yes?”
The pretty girl twitched her little nose.
“But they are dusty.”
“Oh, no. See, they are covered.”
The sad, timid eyes smiled at me. I looked into the depth of those eyes-of-ages. A half frivolous notion passed through my mind: I raised the fruit, and pronounced the ancient Hebrew blessing:
“Barukh atah, Adonay, elohenu melekh haolam, bore pri haetz.” (Blessed art Thou, O Lord, our God, creator of the fruit of the tree.)
The sad eyes became faintly radiant and moist. A suggestion of a smile appeared around the hairy mouth. The lips mumbled something inaudible. A lean brown hand rubbed the glossy side of the coat, and tremblingly extended to me. I grasped it, embarrassed.
“Lange Johren magt Ihr hoben, lange Johren auf Euch!” (Long years may you have, long years unto you!)
I turned to the pretty girl. With her handkerchief she was diligently rubbing off a drop of juice from her white blouse.
It was too hot to think, so I resumed our playful talk.
It was night, and soft and blue and starry. A uniformed nurse emerged from the dark alley of the park, and heavily dropped on the bench where I sat. For some time she leaned backward, her eyes closed, her breast heaving, her mouth half open. Then she looked widely, straightened herself, sighed deeply, and casually glanced at me and at my box of paints.
“Are you an artist?”
“Yes. Obviously, you are a nurse?”
She nodded, and burst forth into a rapid talk, as if she had long been waiting for an opportunity to unburden herself.
“Just got off duty. See those lighted windows across the road? That is our hospital. Ah, I shan’t stand it much longer. Moans and groans, suffering, tears, madness—God! You know, it starts at twilight. As soon as the sun sets all the miseries get loose. Even the quiet patients become delirious and raise bedlam. And so till midnight. It will drive me insane. Give me a cigarette, will you? There is nobody around at this time.”
Her “shop talk” bored me. Silently I gave her a cigarette and a light, and watched her inhaling the smoke eagerly and intently. Her grey striped dress with the tight white apron outlined a light, slender body, a supple breast, and full strong arms. Her face was in the shadow, but my professional eyes noticed its lovely oval contours. The little white cap seemed toyishly small on the vast mass of disobedient hair. She flung away the cigarette, and turned to me:
“Thanks, stranger. Why don’t you say something? Ah, what a night! See the blue mist away there beneath the trees, and see that big oak—it’s like a tower. Gee, I am getting romantic. Ah, what a night!”
I was amused with her half bookish, half street-talk. Somehow she did not irritate me, as the rest of the people did, with her trivial remarks on things which I believed to belong exclusively to the realm of colors and music.
“Look!” She grasped my hand. “See the star falling? There, it dropped into the lagoon. Ah, I smell hyacinths, do you? Hey, if you are not going to say something, I’ll smash you!”
She snatched off my hat, threw it high up in the air, and, laughing loudly, ran away, dropping her cap on the grass. I picked it up, and pursued her. She was a swift runner, and we raced a long while across the wide lawn before I caught her. In the dim bluish light she stood at my side, a savage figure with stormy cascades of hair over her face and shoulders, with flashing eyes, open mouth, dilating nostrils. In my professional delight (I never lose my self-consciousness) I seized her by the waist and lifted her up above me. She waved her good arms and shrieked in joy, tossing her Medusa-head, arching her tense chest, quivering in ecstacy.
“Hey, there. Cut that out!”
A husky policeman on a motorcycle approached us. He dismounted, looked at us (I was still holding her in the air), and burst into a hoarse guffaw.
“Well, I’ll be.... Beat it now. It’s improper.”
I handed her the mussed white cap. She twisted it with her fingers, and her lips muttered somnolently:
“And at six thirty in the morning I must be on duty....”
At a crossing line on a Saturday night about 2 A. M. Tired men, women, children, families, couples, waiting for a street car. Some lean towards the wall, some sit on the sidewalk, on the garbage-box, on the curb. Dull silence. The June night rolls on indifferently.
Suddenly the calm is disturbed by violent screams and oaths. A woman is hurled out by invisible hands from the corner-hotel. She crosses the street towards the waiting crowd, staggers, waves her big handbag, and swears hideously.
No response. The ennui on the faces remains unstirred. The coarse solo of the prostitute, who ejaculates fantastically ugly verbs, nouns, adjectives, bespatters the velvet night.
A baggy figure in a battered derby rises from the sidewalk, and hesitatingly accosts the woman.
“You stop this noise....” Then threateningly: “Want to take a ride?”
Her foul flux interrupted, the woman thrusts her red face into the man’s, and hisses half coquettishly, half contemptuously:
“A ride? With you, sweetheart? Sure!”
He grabs her by the shoulder. His face grows pale.
“Come on, now. Move on, I tell you!”
The woman shrieks and struggles.
“Let go! Look what he is doing to me! Who are you? You are not a detective.... Let go!”
The crowd does not stir. Some one yawns desperately. A little boy whimpers, and clings to his dozing mother.
The man drags his shrieking victim. He pulls out a chain of keys, and swings it triumphantly. The woman screams and hits her assailant on the face with her heavy handbag. New figures appear from the adjoining streets. A voice is heard:
“Maybe he is not a detective.... Hey, where’s your star?”
The man’s pale face twitches convulsively. The woman feels encouraged, strikes him short, rapid blows, and shouts wildly:
“He is not a detective! Look what he is doing to me!”
A big fist plunges into the man’s face. He gasps, and falls. When he rises, a shower of fists meets him. Many of the erstwhile indifferent figures are now up, eager to lay a hand on the imposter. Like a toy, he falls and rises, looking astonished, in a trance.
The long-awaited car suddenly plunges into the imbroglio. Men, women, children, push and justle at the narrow entrance.
The man stands alone, hatless, wiping a bleeding face with his sleeve, muttering faintly:
“I am a detective.... I am.”
The night rolls on indifferently.
The soul of music is something more than the soul of humanity expressing itself in melody, and the life of music something more than an audible dramatization of human life.—Arthur Symons.
The soul of music is something more than the soul of humanity expressing itself in melody, and the life of music something more than an audible dramatization of human life.—Arthur Symons.