CHAPTER XI
Martin left Rio’s hotel and walked slowly along Fourteenth Street. His mind was blended with the darkness about him, for the street seemed to rest after the petty trading and rush of the day. He passed the cheap little shops and solitary stragglers, unconsciously accepting them in their place; nor did he turn his head to glance at the thin blue lights of a tiny cinema across the way. But a girl, in passing, brushed his shoulder lightly and asked him for a cigarette. He stopped, felt in his pockets and pulled out a package which he offered her.
“Mentholated, ain’t they?” she said, pleased at her good luck. “Gee, I like mentholated.” She took one of the cigarettes and handed back the package.
Martin looked at her and saw the rakish, ill-fitting dress, the tired expression in her eyes and the affected smile.
“Won’t you keep them?” he asked.
“Thanks, Mister. That’s swell,” she said, stuffing them in her bag. “But d’you have any?” Here she hesitated. “You better have one,” she said at last, carefully selecting a cigarette and handing it to him.
He accepted it and put it in his trousers pocket.
“Not there,” she cautioned. “You’ll smash it. Put it there.” She pointed to the pocket of his coat.
Unthinkingly, he obeyed her.
“Say,” she said, peering at him. “You look hungry.”
“I’m not hungry,” Martin smiled at her. “But now, I have to hurry.” He smiled at her again, then walked on rapidly.
The girl kept at his side, looking at him, her mouth slightly open.
“You’re a nice man,” she said finally.
Martin stopped and looked directly at her.
“If you knew what I am, you’d run like a frightened cat. You’d run anywhere, and afterwards thank God for it.” Then, seeing her eyes widen and her fingers clutch her bag, he continued more gently, “For you are a little cat, aren’t you, Cat?” and he hastened on with long strides.
The girl stared after him, then turned, and with her head hanging down, walked slowly the other way.
As Martin approached Seventh Avenue he noticed a bright-eyed old woman on the corner. On the pavement in front of her was a basket of French marigolds. Martin hesitated and stared at the flowers for a second, then at the old woman.
“What do they mean?” he asked. “They look like wax.”
“Oh, sir, they ain’t. I grew ’em myself.” The old woman watched him, her hands in her apron.
“Give me a bunch of the prettiest!” Martin pointed. “There!—in the center. They are for someone I love.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll give ye the bunch that’s prettiest.” She chose the freshest ones and carefully wrapped the stems in a piece of damp brown paper.
“Thanks, old lady,” said Martin, dropping a coin in her hand. “And I’ll giveyoua wish.” For a moment she smiled, Martin thought rather shyly, regarding him with a strange, toothless understanding. He held the marigolds before him, sniffing occasionally as he hurried on.
When Deane saw him she wanted to cry; and taking the flowers, she fingered the little bouquet lovingly before laying it aside for a moment.
Martin sat down heavily on the divan.
“My God, I’m tired,” he said. “Tired and hungry. Why, I’m just as tired as when I left here. That seems like a long time ago.”
“Don’t let’s talk about it,” said Deane, sitting down beside him. Martin could feel each pulse beating from her wrist in time with his own blood. He put his head against her arm, letting the faint sound ring into his temples. He rested against her naturally, faithfully, as though returning from a voyage of centuries or death.
Deane added to this dream-like state, this swift advanceof years to year. She felt the soft wash of logic crumbling within her, loved him without exception, and remained quiescent. She heard Martin’s breathing, felt an awakening, a weary happiness. A clear stream of words, unintelligible, fell through her hair....
Martin sat up.
“Did you sleep, too?” he asked.
“No,” answered Deane, smiling. “But I was very happy. You slept like a baby. Don’t you ever talk in your dreams?”
“I did have a dream,” declared Martin, now thoroughly awake. “I dreamt that I met you at the point where the world meets itself. We decided instantly that we loved each other and——”
“What a lie!” interrupted Deane, laughing.
“I swear it!” said Martin, elaborately crossing his heart. “And I dreamt also that I was very hungry. Wasn’t that strange?”
“Yes. A coincidence,” said Deane, kissing him on the lips and starting to rise.
Martin caught the back of her hair and strained her to him.
“Deane!” he cried. But she pushed against his shoulders until he let her go.
“I’m going to cook some bacon and eggs, Martin,” she said, panting. “Don’t act that way now. You said you were hungry.”
“For you,” Martin argued, stretching out his body and holding out his arms.
Deane shook her head and went into the kitchen where she could hear Martin laughing.
“He is really a terrible person,” she said to herself. But her lips trembled, and as she brushed the damp hair off her forehead the implication in her dark eyes was delightful.
When she brought in the feast Martin jumped up to help her with the tray. He could scarcely wait to taste the coffee.
“It’s perfect,” he said. “And how did you fix the eggs?”
“I beat them up with a little milk before putting them in the pan.”
“They’re wonderful,” he repeated. “Let’s make it arealfeast. What do you say we wait up until dawn. There will be many colors and shapes in the clouds from this window.” He pointed to where the late moon, a dull, inverted sickle, was shining in the east. “I can put my hand outside the window and almost touch Europe, Deane,” he said.
“I don’t want Europe,” Deane said huskily. Her face seemed a little drawn as she watched him, her eyes half closing and unclosing.
Martin, noting the expression on her face, felt a kind of loving in his heart which he had never known before.
“Sweet little maniac,” he said gently, and petted and caressed her. The sedative movement of his hands, which he worked most carefully, so as not to excite the blood or open the tiny nerves about her spine soon quieted Deane and she lay in his arms. “I’m going to tell you some stories,” he said, rubbing his cool cheek against hers. “And later, we’ll watch the dawn come up over Europe.”
It was midnight. The last light had been extinguished in the giant buildings and only the raw sky and the face of the radio brought shadow into the room. Deane rested on the divan, her eyes on Martin who sat crosslegged on the floor in front of her. Suddenly, he leaned forward.
“This is a magical room, Deane, and this is a magical night. In older times, in an ancient time, there was a beautiful Princess—the loveliest in all the world. Arrogant Princes with long gleaming swords and many dragons to their credit wooed her. But she was unresponsive.
“Her father, the King, said, ‘She is sick.’
“Her mother, the Queen, said, ‘We shall see.’
“And so, one night, when the moon burned like a silver flame over the Kingdom, they stood at the wall of her room and peered through the chinks at their daughter. The Princess, a look of ecstasy upon her face, was in a chair, resting. In front of her was a little, old man—perched like a bird before her....
“‘What does she see in the little man?’ whispered the King.
“‘Whatdoesshe see?’ demanded the Queen. Affection? A reflection of herself? Or some quality in the creature?’”
Martin stopped. Deane’s hands braided and became sexed again. Once more, Martin leaned forward.
“Would you like to hear the sequel?... It happened in Paris, Deane. There was a gargoyle struck on the cornice of a gigantic cathedral. His stone eyes had been forced shut by the ages and his only tears were rain. His thick shoulders were bent by the centuries, and moss covered his throat.
“A beautiful woman, desired by all men, surfeited by leisure and adoration, saw this figure. And so, in secret, she took lodging across from the cathedral that she might watch the shadows move in the gargoyle’s face by moonlight, by lightning-flash and in sun. Day by day she contemplated his patient, agonized expression; and day by day she became more contemptuous of the gracefulness and vanity of her suitors.
“One night, moonlit and vagaried with cloud, she was gazing at the asymmetrical face. Suddenly the head seemed to move. The woman’s heart beat quickly and she grasped the sides of her chair. Deliberately, while she watched, the gargoyle’s eyes opened and turned upon her, asking a question. The woman, protesting, held out her white hands. At this, the figure shuddered; then his stone arms pushed on the cornice and his shoulders broke from the wall.
“The woman ran to her mirror, regarding her pale, excited face. In her closet she touched her gowns—faster and faster her heart! Dressing herself in the loveliest gown of all, she returned in haste to her chair. There she waited, facing the empty cornice where a gargoyle had lain for centuries....
“There was a soft sound at her door. Now, through the opening, the woman could hear quick breathing. She pressed her hand against her throat, observing the figure as it entered.
“Slowly the gargoyle went to her, his movement quiet and purposeful. Laying his head upon his arms, he dropped down on his knees before her. Frightened, the woman looked away. Then her love, conquering fear, placed an infinite pity upon him. Her hands braced under his chin, lifting the agonized face until his eyes met hers. Lightly, her fingers caressed the deep cracks in his cheek, brushed the dry moss from his throat—and for one helpless, inarticulate moment, the gargoyle lived.”
Martin felt the heavy wetness of his eyes. His twisted, passionate face looked up at Deane.
“She knew!” he cried. “And you know!”
Deane placed her hands upon his throat and drew him toward her.
“Yes,” she said. While in an uneven, throaty voice she kept repeating, “She knew, and I know.”
“Flower lips,” Martin whispered, the taste of blood inhis mouth, “squint your lovely eyes like old China—China eyes—” He moved her then, until she floated, insubstantial, upon the blue mosque of the couch. Once more, reality became a dream, and night pushed inward....
Martin watched the moon rise slowly and swing higher southward. Venus appeared, and then the Dipper, of such a calculating blue, such measured coldness that Martin shivered. He looked at Deane tenderly as she lay in his arms, trying to remember when such emotion had dominated him. Deane’s face, a cameo in the steel-tinted light, was now upturned to him in a death-like stillness. He put his ear against her heart to reassure himself. Deftly, he disengaged his arm from her waist and slipped on one knee to the floor. Then he crept softly to the window and looked out over the vast eastern sky. He imagined that he could faintly see the first pale ravages of dawn, so he returned. Still kneeling on the floor, he blew upon Deane’s hand and up her arm. He thought that she would never awaken, until suddenly he heard her say, “My, what a feeling you gave me! Did you enjoy the view from the window?”
“So you were awake all the time!” Martin laughed. “I thought as much.”
“Then why did you blow so hard?” asked Deane. “And why did you sigh once?”
“Come on,” said Martin, pulling her to her feet. “The sky’s beginning to change.” The sunrise was bleak, desolateand forbidding. “It just came out of the sea by way of Newfoundland,” he added. “Everything is cold in that region—even the sun. Do you see those clouds streaking over the horizon? That’s the point where all winds leave for a short visit with Mother Carey.” Martin sniffed the air. “I thought so. Don’t laugh, Deane, but I can smell icebergs.”
“What do they smell like?” Deane asked curiously.
“Some sailors say the bergs smell like wet sea moss; others say it’s like a pocket of cold salt. But to me they have no positive odor. It’s more like a taste. It’s like kissing an ammoniated mirror.”
“That’s strange,” said Deane, looking at him queerly.
The wind outside was raging and whistling through the radio antennas as through the rigging of a ship.
Deane made fresh coffee. As Martin was finishing his cup, she asked him gravely, “Martin, how are you going to live? What will you do?”
He raised his head.
“I shouldn’t worry about that, Deane; at least, not now. I know a typographer who, I think, will give me a job. It will probably be part time, but that’s all the better, for I have some other work I’d like to do.”
“What kind of work?” she asked.
“Along the same line,” Martin answered. He pulled an oilskin envelope from his pocket and carefully took out some papers. “I’m building a type design that I’ve worked on quite awhile. As an avocation I find a gooddeal of pleasure in it. Some of the letters got a little wet, but I think you can see what I’m trying to do.” He spread the papers out on a table and he and Deane bent over them. He pointed to one of the capital letters. “See, Deane?—The design is that of living forms—plant and animal. In the drawing, the bottom circles represent growth by cell structure in all life. By simply rolling up this series, beginning with the smallest cell, the face of the shell is seen, because that is the way shells grow—by rolling up themselves as they develop. Since the rate of development is normally the same, the flare of the sectors is constant.
“The black line of the drawing shows where the artist places the line for the letter stem, missing the center by half the radius. The blue line shows where the stem really should be placed. It looks much better that way. You will see that the straight line is intersected at an angle of about 100 degrees instead of the 90 degree angle.
“On the back of the drawing is seen how this measurement, ‘the square of root 2’ rule, is worked out for rectangular designs. The square root of 2 is 1.4141 etc.; its reciprocal, divided by 2, is .707 etc. That is, the strongest and most beautiful rectangle is 1.7 times as long as wide. Apply it to a book page. Width is determined mainly by size of type and number of columns per page. For a page 6 inches wide the length is 1.7 times 6 or 10.2 inches. This is the correct ‘golden’ or ‘sacred’ sector,used almost universally in the temples and sacred vessels. Textbooks give the page ratios 5 to 8 as the golden sector but it is not correct, neither is it so convenient or beautiful as the 6 to 10.2.
“The design is based on the soundest dimensional ratio known—‘dynamic symmetry.’ Many years were spent recovering this lost art, mainly in countries about the Eastern Mediterranean—Greece, Egypt, Persia, Arabia, and so on. The findings were published in a beautiful volume[1]and it was there I got my information and inspiration to design a type face.
“It is a humiliating fact that no original type face has ever been designed in America. Our type designers have been modifiers of European types, adding what Mark Twain called ‘new and killing varieties.’”
Martin folded the papers and returned them to the oilskin envelope. He was absorbed by his subject and failed to notice Deane’s expression, or her flushed cheeks.
“I’m ashamed of myself, Martin,” she said quietly. “I didn’t realize that you had such a definite structure running along with your life. Go on out now and try to get your job. And when you come back, I’ll have fixed our dinner.”
When she had tightly buttoned up his coat, he kissed her as a man would kiss his wife. She detained him for a second, ran into her bedroom and came out triumphantly waving a heavy muffler. After she had tied itproperly around his throat, she threw her arms around him and sobbed quietly for just a moment. Then she shook the tears away in happiness, lifted her chin and gently pushed him through the door.
Martin, expressionless, with a steady tread, faced the sharp wind outside. He looked at the foot-prints on the thin film of snow that covered the sidewalks. He smiled. The passers-by could not tell whether his smile was that of a child, or of an idiot. He crossed the street.