Part 27 (1/2)
”I'll be in Chicago to-morrow, barring wrecks.”
”You might have let me show you our more or less fair city.”
”I've shown it to myself. I've seen Riverside Drive at sunset, and at night. That alone would have been enough. But I've seen Fulton market, too, and the Grand street stalls, and Was.h.i.+ngton Square, and Central Park, and Lady Duff-Gordon's inner showroom, and the Night Court, and the Grand Central subway horror at six p. m., and the gambling on the Curb, and the bench sleepers in Madison Square--Oh, Clancy, the misery----”
”Heh, wait a minute! All this, alone?”
”Yes. And one more thing. I've landed Horn & Udell, which means nothing to you, but to me it means that by Spring my department will be a credit to its stepmother; a real success.”
”I knew it would be a success. So did you. Anything you might attempt would be successful. You'd have made a successful lawyer, or cook, or actress, or hydraulic engineer, because you couldn't do a thing badly.
It isn't in you. You're a superlative sort of person. But that's no reason for being any of those things. If you won't admit a debt to humanity, surely you'll acknowledge you've an obligation to yourself.”
”Preaching again. Good-by.”
”f.a.n.n.y, you're afraid to see me.”
”Don't be ridiculous. Why should I be?”
”Because I say aloud the things you daren't let yourself think. If I were to promise not to talk about anything but flannel bands----”
”Will you promise?”
”No. But I'm going to meet you at the clock at the Grand Central Station fifteen minutes before train time. I don't care if every infants' wear manufacturer in New York had a prior claim on your time. You may as well be there, because if you're not I'll get on the train and stay on as far as Albany. Take your choice.”
He was there before her. f.a.n.n.y, following the wake of a redcap, picked him at once from among the crowd of clock-waiters. He saw her at the same time, and started forward with that singularly lithe, springy step which was, after all, just the result of perfectly trained muscles in coordination. He was wearing New York clothes--the right kind, f.a.n.n.y noted.
Their hands met. ”How well you look,” said f.a.n.n.y, rather lamely.
”It's the clothes,” said Heyl, and began to revolve slowly, coyly, hands out, palms down, eyelids drooping, in delicious imitation of those ladies whose business it is to revolve thus for fas.h.i.+on.
”Clancy, you idiot! All these people! Stop it!”
”But get the grace! Get the easy English hang, at once so loose and so clinging.”
f.a.n.n.y grinned, appreciatively, and led the way through the gate to the train. She was surprisingly glad to be with him again. On discovering that, she began to talk rapidly, and about him.
”Tell me, how do you manage to keep that fresh viewpoint? Everybody else who comes to New York to write loses his ident.i.ty. The city swallows him up. I mean by that, that things seem to strike you as freshly as they did when you first came. I remember you wrote me an amazing letter.”
”For one thing, I'll never be anything but a foreigner in New York.
I'll never quite believe Broadway. I'll never cease to marvel at Fifth avenue, and Cooper Union, and the Bronx. The time may come when I can take the subway for granted, but don't ask it of me just yet.”
”But the other writers--and all those people who live down in Was.h.i.+ngton Square?”
”I never see them. It's sure death. Those Greenwichers are always taking out their own feelings and a.n.a.lyzing them, and pawing them over, and pa.s.sing them around. When they get through with them they're so thumb-marked and greasy that no one else wants them. They don't get enough golf, those Greenwichers. They don't get enough tennis. They don't get enough walking in the open places. Gosh, no! I know better than to fall for that kind of thing. They spend hours talking to each other, in dim-lighted attics, about Souls, and Society, and the Joy of Life, and the Greater Good. And they know all about each other's insides. They talk themselves out, and there's nothing left to write about. A little of that kind of thing purges and cleanses. Too much of it poisons, and clogs. No, ma'am! When I want to talk I go down and chin with the foreman of our composing room. There's a chap that has what I call conversation. A philosopher, and knows everything in the world.
Composing room foremen always are and do. Now, that's all of that. How about f.a.n.n.y Brandeis? Any sketches? Come on. Confess. Grand street, anyway.”
”I haven't touched a pencil, except to add up a column of figures or copy an order, since last September, when you were so sure I couldn't stop.”
”You've done a thousand in your head. And if you haven't done one on paper so much the better. You'll jam them back, and stifle them, and screw the cover down tight on every natural impulse, and then, some day, the cover will blow off with a loud report. You can't kill that kind of thing, f.a.n.n.y. It would have to be a wholesale ma.s.sacre of all the centuries behind you. I don't so much mind your being disloyal to your tribe, or race, or whatever you want to call it. But you've turned your back on yourself; you've got an obligation to humanity, and I'll nag you till you pay it. I don't care if I lose you, so long as you find yourself. The thing you've got isn't merely racial. G.o.d, no! It's universal. And you owe it to the world. Pay up, f.a.n.n.y! Pay up!”
”Look here!” began f.a.n.n.y, her voice low with anger; ”the last time I saw you I said I'd never again put myself in a position to be lectured by you, like a schoolgirl. I mean it, this time. If you have anything else to say to me, say it now. The train leaves”--she glanced at her wrist--”in two minutes, thank Heaven, and this will be your last chance.”