After a time he became impatient of the distance between them. He saw looming princes who would aim to seize her. Hours of his leisure and certain hours of his labour he spent in contriving. The shade of this girl was with him continually. With her he builded his grand dramas so that he trod in clouds, the matters of his daily life obscured and softened by a mist.
He saw that he need only break down the slight conventional barriers, and she would soon discover his noble character. Sometimes he could see it all in his mind. It was very skilful; but then his courage flew away at the supreme moment. Perhaps the whole affair was humorous to her. Perhaps she was watching his mental contortions. She might laugh. He felt that he would then die or kill her. He could not approach the dread moment. He sank often from the threshold of knowledge. Directly after these occasions it was his habit to avoid her, to prove that she was a cipher to him.
He reflected that if he could only get a chance to rescue her from something, the whole tragedy would speedily unwind.
He met a young man in the halls one evening who said to him: ‘Say, me frien’, where d’ d’ Johnson birds live in, heh? I can’t fin’ me feet in dis bloomin’ joint. I been battin’ round heh fer a half hour.’
‘Two flights up,’ said Kelcey stonily. He had felt a sudden quiver of his heart. The grandeur of the clothes, the fine worldly air, the experience, the self-reliance, the courage that shone in the countenance of this other young man, made him suddenly sink to the depths of woe. He stood listening in the hall, flushing and ashamed of it, until he heard them coming downstairs together. He slunk away then. It would have been a horror to him if she had discovered him there. She might have felt sorry for him.
They were going out to a show, perhaps. That pig of the world in his embroidered cloak was going to dazzle her with splendour. He mused upon how unrighteous it was for other men to dazzle women with splendour.
As he appreciated his handicap, he swore with savage, vengeful bitterness. In his home his mother raised her voice in a high key of monotonous irritability.
‘Hang up yer coat, cant yeh, George?’ she cried at him; ‘I can’t go round after yeh all th’ time. It’s jest as easy t’ hang it up as it is t’ throw it down that way. Don’t yeh ever git tired ‘a hearing me yell at yeh?’
‘Yes!’ he exploded. In this word he put a profundity of sudden anger. He turned toward his mother a face red, seamed, hard with hate and rage. They stared a moment in silence. Then she turned and staggered toward her room. Her hip struck violently against the corner of the table during this blind passage. A moment later the door closed.
Kelcey sank down in a chair with his legs thrust out straight and his hands deep in his trousers-pockets. His chin was forward upon his breast, and his eyes stared before him. There swept over him all the self-pity that comes when the soul is turned back from a road.
CHAPTER VIII
During the next few days Kelcey suffered from his first gloomy conviction that the earth was not grateful to him for his presence upon it. When sharp words were said to him, he interpreted them with what seemed to be a lately acquired insight. He could now perceive that the universe hated him. He sank to the most sublime depths of despair.
One evening of this period he met Jones. The latter rushed upon him with enthusiasm.
‘Why, yer jest th’ man I wanted t’ see! I was comin’ round t’ your place t’-night. Lucky I met yeh! Ol’ Bleecker’s goin’ t’ give a blow-out t’-morrah night. Anything yeh want t’ drink! All th’ boys’ll be there, an’ everything. He tol’ me expressly that he wanted yeh t’ be there. Great time! Great! Can yeh come?’
Kelcey grasped the other’s hand with fervour. He felt now that there was some solacing friendship in space.
‘You bet I will, of man,’ he said huskily. ‘I’d like nothin’ better in th’ world!’
As he walked home he thought that he was a very grim figure. He was about to taste the delicious revenge of a partial self-destruction. The universe would regret its position when it saw him drunk. He was a little late in getting to Bleecker’s lodging. He was delayed while his mother read aloud a letter from an old uncle, who wrote in one place: ‘God bless th’ boy! Bring him up to be the man his father was.’
Bleecker lived in an old three-storied house on a side-street. A Jewish tailor lived and worked in the front parlour, and old Bleecker lived in the back parlour. A German, whose family took care of the house, occupied the basement. Another German, with a wife and eight children, rented the dining-room. The two upper floors were inhabited by tailors, dressmakers, a pedlar, and mysterious people who were seldom seen. The door of the little hall-bedroom, at the foot of the second flight, was always open, and in there could be seen two bended men who worked at mending opera-glasses.
The German woman in the dining-room was not friends with the little dressmaker in the rear room of the third floor, and frequently they yelled the vilest names up and down between the balusters. Each part of the woodwork was scratched and rubbed by the contact of innumerable persons. In one wall there was a long slit with chipped edges, celebrating the time when a man had thrown a hatchet at his wife. In the lower hall there was an eternal woman, with a rag and a pail of suds, who knelt over the worn oilcloth. Old Bleecker felt that he had quite respectable and high-class apartments. He was glad to invite his friends.
Bleecker met Kelcey in the hall. He wore a collar that was cleaner and higher than his usual one. It changed his appearance greatly. He was now formidably aristocratic.
‘How are yeh, of man?’ he shouted. He grasped Kelcey’s arm, and, babbling jovially, conducted him down the hall and into the ex-parlour.
A group of standing men made vast shadows in the yellow glare of the lamp. They turned their heads as the two entered.
‘Why, hello, Kelcey, of man!’ Jones exclaimed, coming rapidly forward. ‘Good fer you! Glad yeh come! Yeh know O’Connor, ‘a course! an’ Schmidt! an’ Woods! Then there’s Zeusentell! Mr. Zeusentell—my friend Mr. Kelcey! Shake hands—both good fellows, damnitall! Then here is—oh, gentlemen, my friend Mr. Kelcey! A good fellow he is, too. I’ve known ‘im since I was a kid. Come, have a drink!’
Everybody was excessively amiable. Kelcey felt that he had social standing. The strangers were cautious and respectful.
‘By all means,’ said old Bleecker. ‘Mr. Kelcey, have a drink! An’ by th’ way, gentlemen, while we’re about it, let’s all have a drink!’ There was much laughter. Bleecker was so droll at times.
With mild and polite gesturing they marched up to the table. There were upon it a keg of beer, a long row of whisky bottles, a little heap of corn-cob pipes, some bags of tobacco, a box of cigars, and a mighty collection of glasses, cups, and mugs. Old Bleecker had arranged them so deftly that they resembled a primitive bar. There was considerable scuffling for possession of the cracked cups.
Jones politely but vehemently insisted upon drinking from the worst of the assortment. He was quietly opposed by others. Everybody showed that they were awed by Bleecker’s lavish hospitality. Their demeanours expressed their admiration at the cast of this entertainment.
Kelcey took his second mug of beer away to a corner and sat down with it. He wished to socially reconnoitre. Over in a corner a man was telling a story, in which at intervals he grunted like a pig. A half-dozen men were listening. Two or three others sat alone in isolated places. They looked expectantly bright, ready to burst out cordially if anyone should address them.
The row of bottles made quaint shadows upon the table, and upon a side-wall the keg of beer created a portentous black figure that reared toward the ceiling, hovering over the room and its inmates with spectral stature. Tobacco-smoke lay in lazy cloud-banks overhead.
Jones