Maggie, a Girl of the Streets and Other New York Writings Page 18

  The young man, attired speedily, went to his friend, the assassin. At first the latter looked dazed at the sight of the youth. This face seemed to be appealing to him through the cloud-wastes of his memory. He scratched his neck and reflected. At last he grinned, a broad smile gradually spreading until his countenance was a round illumination. “Hello, Willie,” he cried, cheerily.

  “Hello,” said the young man. “Are yeh ready t’ fly?”

  “Sure.” The assassin tied his shoe carefully with some twine and came ambling.

  When he reached the street the young man experienced no sudden relief from unholy atmospheres. He had forgotten all about them, and had been breathing naturally and with no sensation of discomfort or distress.

  He was thinking of these things as he walked along the street, when he was suddenly startled by feeling the assassin’s hand, trembling with excitement, clutching his arm, and when the assassin spoke, his voice went into quavers from a supreme agitation.

  “I’ll be hully, bloomin’ blowed, if there wasn’t a feller with a nightshirt on up there in that joint!”

  The youth was bewildered for a moment, but presently he turned to smile indulgently at the assassin’s humor.

  “Oh, you’re a d——liar,” he merely said.

  Whereupon the assassin began to gesture extravagantly and take oath by strange gods. He frantically placed himself at the mercy of remarkable fates if his tale were not true. “Yes, he did! I cross m’ heart thousan’ times!” he protested, and at the time his eyes were large with amazement, his mouth wrinkled in unnatural glee. “Yessir! A nightshirt! A hully white nightshirt!”

  “You lie!”

  “Nosir! I hope ter die b’fore I kin git anudder ball if there wasn’t a jay wid a hully, bloomin’ white nightshirt!”

  His face was filled with the infinite wonder of it. “A hully white nightshirt,” he continually repeated.

  The young man saw the dark entrance to a basement restaurant. There was a sign which read, “No mystery about our hash,” and there were other age-stained and world-battered legends which told him that the place was within his means. He stopped before it and spoke to the assassin. “I guess I’ll git somethin’ t’ eat.”

  At this the assassin, for some reason, appeared to be quite embarrassed. He gazed at the seductive front of the eating place for a moment. Then he started slowly up the street. “Well, good-by, Willie,” he said, bravely.

  For an instant the youth studied the departing figure. Then he called out, “Hol’ on a minnet.” As they came together he spoke in a certain fierce way, as if he feared that the other would think him to be weak. “Look-a-here, if yeh wanta git some breakfas’ I’ll lend yeh three cents t’ do it with. But say, look-a-here, you’ve gota git out an’ hustle. I ain’t goin’ t’ support yeh, or I’ll go broke b’fore night. I ain’t no millionaire.”

  “I take me oath, Willie,” said the assassin, earnestly, “th’ on’y thing I really needs is a ball. Me t’roat feels like a fryin’ pan. But as I can’t git a ball, why, th’ next bes’ thing is breakfast, an’ if yeh do that fer me, b’gawd, I’d say yeh was th’ whitest lad I ever see.”

  They spent a few moments in dexterous exchanges of phrases, in which they each protested that the other was, as the assassin had originally said, a “respecter’ble gentlem’n.” And they concluded with mutual assurances that they were the souls of intelligence and virtue. Then they went into the restaurant.

  There was a long counter, dimly lighted from hidden sources. Two or three men in soiled white aprons rushed here and there.

  The youth bought a bowl of coffee for two cents and a roll for one cent. The assassin purchased the same. The bowls were webbed with brown seams, and the tin spoons wore an air of having emerged from the first pyramid. Upon them were black, moss-like encrustations of age, and they were bent and scarred from the attacks of long-forgotten teeth. But over their repast the wanderers waxed warm and mellow. The assassin grew affable as the hot mixture went soothingly down his parched throat, and the young man felt courage flow in his veins.

  Memories began to throng in on the assassin, and he brought forth long tales, intricate, incoherent, delivered with a chattering swiftness as from an old woman. “——great job out’n Orange. Boss keep yeh hustlin’, though, all time. I was there three days, and then I went an’ ask’im t’ lend me a dollar. “G-g-go ter the devil,’ he ses, an’ I lose me job.

  ——“South no good. Damn niggers work for twenty-five an’ thirty cents a day. Run white man out. Good grub, though. Easy livin’.

  ——“Yas; useter work little in Toledo, raftin’ logs. Make two or three dollars er day in the spring. Lived high. Cold as ice, though, in the winter——

  “I was raised in northern N’York. O-o-o-oh, yeh jest ough to live there. No beer ner whisky, though, way off in the woods. But all th’ good hot grub yeh can eat. B’gawd, I hung around there long as I could till th’ ol’ man fired me. ‘Git t’hell outa here, yeh wuthless skunk, git t’hell outa here an’ go die,’ he ses. ‘You’re a hell of a father,’ I ses, ‘you are,’ an’ I quit ’im.”

  As they were passing from the dim eating-place they encountered an old man who was trying to steal forth with a tiny package of food, but a tall man with an indomitable mustache stood dragon-fashion, barring the way of escape. They heard the old man raise a plaintive protest. “Ah, you always want to know what I take out, and you never see that I usually bring a package in here from my place of business.”

  As the wanderers trudged slowly along Park Row, the assassin began to expand and grow blithe. “B’gawd, we’ve been livin’ like kings,” he said, smacking appreciative lips.

  “Look out or we’ll have t’ pay fer it t’-night,” said the youth, with gloomy warning.

  But the assassin refused to turn his gaze toward the future. He went with a limping step, into which he injected a suggestion of lamb-like gambols. His mouth was wreathed in a red grin.

  In the City Hall Park the two wanderers sat down in the little circle of benches sanctified by traditions of their class. They huddled in their old garments, slumbrously conscious of the march of the hours which for them had no meaning.

  The people of the street hurrying hither and thither made a blend of black figures, changing, yet frieze-like. They walked in their good clothes as upon important missions, giving no gaze to the two wanderers seated upon the benches. They expressed to the young man his infinite distance from all that he valued. Social position, comfort, the pleasures of living, were unconquerable kingdoms. He felt a sudden awe.

  And in the background a multitude of buildings, of pitiless hues and sternly high, were to him emblematic of a nation forcing its regal head into the clouds, throwing no downward glances; in the sublimity of its aspirations ignoring the wretches who may flounder at its feet. The roar of the city in his ear was to him the confusion of strange tongues, babbling heedlessly; it was the clink of coin, the voice of the city’s hopes which were to him no hopes.

  He confessed himself an outcast, and his eyes from under the lowered rim of his hat began to glance guiltily, wearing the criminal expression that comes with certain convictions.

  NOTE ON THE TEXT

  Original publication of this article in the New York Press contained the following introductory passage and conclusion. This material was omitted by Crane when he prepared the piece for book publication.

  Introductory Material:

  Two men stood regarding a tramp.

  “I wonder how he feels,” said one, reflectively. “I suppose he is homeless, friendless, and has, at the most, only a few cents in his pocket. And if this is so, I wonder how he feels.”

  The other being the elder, spoke with an air of authoritative wisdom. “You can tell nothing of it unless you are in that condition yourself. It is idle to speculate about it from this distance.”

  “I suppose so,” said the younger man, and then he added as from an inspiration: “I think I’ll try it. Rags and tatte
rs, you know, a couple of dimes, and hungry, too, if possible. Perhaps I could discover his point of view or something near it.”

  “Well, you might,” said the other, and from those words begins this veracious narrative of an experiment in misery.

  The youth went to the studio of an artist friend, who, from his store, rigged him out in an aged suit and a brown derby hat that had been made long years before. And then the youth went forth to try to eat as the tramp may eat, and sleep as the wanderers sleep. It was late at night, and a fine rain was swirling softly down, covering the pavements with a bluish luster. He began a weary trudge toward the downtown places, where beds can be hired for coppers. By the time he had reached City Hall Park he was so completely plastered with yells of “bum” and “hobo,” and with various unholy epithets that small boys had applied to him at intervals that he was in a state of profound dejection, and looking searchingly for an outcast of high degree that the two might share miseries. But the lights threw a quivering glare over rows and circles of deserted benches that glistened damply, showing patches of wet sod behind them. It seemed that their usual freights of sorry humanity had fled on this night to better things. There were only squads of well dressed Brooklyn people, who swarmed toward the Bridge.

  The young man loitered about for a time, and then went shuffling off down Park row. In the sudden descent in style of the dress of the crowd he felt relief. He began to see others whose tatters matched his tatters. In Chatham square there were aimless men strewn in front of saloons and lodging houses. He aligned himself with these men, and turned slowly to occupy himself with the pageantry of the street.

  The mists of the cold and damp night made an intensely blue haze, through which the gaslights in the windows of stores and saloons shone with a golden radiance. The street cars rumbled softly, as if going upon carpet stretched in the aisle made by the pillars of the elevated road. Two interminable processions of people went along the wet pavements, spattered with black mud that made each shoe leave a scar-like impression. The high buildings lurked a-back, shrouded in shadows. Down a side street there were mystic curtains of purple and black, on which lamps dully glittered like embroidered flowers.

  Following the last word, the newspaper version concluded:

  “Well,” said the friend, “did you discover his point of view.?”

  “I don’t know that I did,” replied the young man; “but at any rate I think mine own has undergone a considerable alteration.”

  At a time about halfway between the original and the revision, Crane commented: “In a story of mine called ‘An Experiment in Misery’ I tried to make plain that the root of Bowery life is a sort of cowardice. Perhaps I mean a lack of ambition or to willingly be knocked flat and accept the licking.”

  AN EXPERIMENT IN LUXURY

  “If you accept this invitation you will have an opportunity to make another social study,” said the old friend.

  The youth laughed. “If they caught me making a study of them they’d attempt a murder. I would be pursued down Fifth avenue by the entire family.”

  “Well,” persisted the old friend who could only see one thing at a time, “it would be very interesting. I have been told all my life that millionaires have no fun, and I know that the poor are always assured that the millionaire is a very unhappy person. They are informed that miseries swarm around all wealth, that all crowned heads are heavy with care, and——”

  “But still——” began the youth.

  “And, in the irritating, brutalizing, enslaving environment of their poverty, they are expected to solace themselves with these assurances,” continued the old friend. He extended his gloved palm and began to tap it impressively with a finger of his other hand. His legs were spread apart in a fashion peculiar to his oratory. “I believe that it is mostly false. It is true that wealth does not release a man from many things from which he would gladly purchase release. Consequences cannot be bribed. I suppose that every man believes steadfastly that he has a private tragedy which makes him yearn for other existences. But it is impossible for me to believe that these things equalize themselves; that there are burrs under all rich cloaks and benefits in all ragged jackets, and the preaching of it seems wicked to me. There are those who have opportunities; there are those who are robbed of——”

  “But look here,” said the young man; “what has this got to do with my paying Jack a visit?”

  “It has got a lot to do with it,” said the old friend sharply. “As I said, there are those who have opportunities; there are those who are robbed——”

  “Well, I won’t have you say Jack ever robbed anybody of anything, because he’s as honest a fellow as ever lived,” interrupted the youth, with warmth. “I have known him for years, and he is a perfectly square fellow. He doesn’t know about these infernal things. He isn’t criminal because you say he is benefited by a condition which other men created.”

  “I didn’t say he was,” retorted the old friend. “Nobody is responsible for anything. I wish to Heaven somebody was, and then we could all jump on him. Look here, my boy, our modern civilization is——”

  “Oh, the deuce!” said the young man.

  The old friend then stood very erect and stern. “I can see by your frequent interruptions that you have not yet achieved sufficient pain in life. I hope one day to see you materially changed. You are yet——”

  “There he is now,” said the youth, suddenly. He indicated a young man who was passing. He went hurriedly toward him, pausing once to gesture adieu to his old friend.

  —

  The house was broad and brown and stolid like the face of a peasant. It had an inanity of expression, an absolute lack of artistic strength that was in itself powerful because it symbolized something. It stood, a homely pile of stone, rugged, grimly self reliant, asserting its quality as a fine thing when in reality the beholder usually wondered why so much money had been spent to obtain a complete negation. Then from another point of view it was important and mighty because it stood as a fetich, formidable because of traditions of worship.

  When the great door was opened the youth imagined that the footman who held a hand on the knob looked at him with a quick, strange stare. There was nothing definite in it; it was all vague and elusive, but a suspicion was certainly denoted in some way. The youth felt that he, one of the outer barbarians, had been detected to be a barbarian by the guardian of the portal, he of the refined nose, he of the exquisite sense, he who must be more atrociously aristocratic than any that he serves. And the youth, detesting himself for it, found that he would rejoice to take a frightful revenge upon this lackey who, with a glance of his eyes, had called him a name. He would have liked to have been for a time a dreadful social perfection whose hand, waved lazily, would cause hordes of the idolatrous imperfect to be smitten in the eyes. And in the tumult of his imagination he did not think it strange that he should plan in his vision to come around to this house and with the power of his new social majesty, reduce this footman to ashes.

  He had entered with an easy feeling of independence, but after this incident the splendor of the interior filled him with awe. He was a wanderer in a fairy land, and who felt that his presence marred certain effects. He was an invader with a shamed face, a man who had come to steal certain colors, forms, impressions that were not his. He had a dim thought that some one might come to tell him to begone.

  His friend, unconscious of this swift drama of thought, was already upon the broad staircase. “Come on,” he called. When the youth’s foot struck from a thick rug and changed upon the tiled floor he was almost frightened.

  There was cool abundance of gloom. High up stained glass caught the sunlight, and made it into marvelous hues that in places touched the dark walls. A broad bar of yellow gilded the leaves of lurking plants. A softened crimson glowed upon the head and shoulders of a bronze swordsman, who perpetually strained in a terrific lunge, his blade thrust at random into the shadow, piercing there an unknown something.

&
nbsp; An immense fire place was at one end, and its furnishings gleamed until it resembled a curious door of a palace, and on the threshold, where one would have to pass a fire burned redly. From some remote place came the sound of a bird twittering busily. And from behind heavy portieres came a subdued noise of the chatter of three, twenty or a hundred women.

  He could not relieve himself of this feeling of awe until he had reached his friend’s room. There they lounged carelessly and smoked pipes. It was an amazingly comfortable room. It expressed to the visitor that he could do supremely as he chose, for it said plainly that in it the owner did supremely as he chose. The youth wondered if there had not been some domestic skirmishing to achieve so much beautiful disorder. There were various articles left about defiantly, as if the owner openly flaunted the feminine ideas of precision. The disarray of a table that stood prominently defined the entire room. A set of foils, a set of boxing gloves, a lot of illustrated papers, an inkstand and a hat lay entangled upon it. Here was surely a young man, who, when his menacing mother, sisters or servants knocked, would open a slit in the door like a Chinaman in an opium joint, and tell them to leave him to his beloved devices. And yet, withal, the effect was good, because the disorder was not necessary, and because there are some things that when flung down, look to have been flung by an artist. A baby can create an effect with a guitar. It would require genius to deal with the piled up dishes in a Cherry street sink.

  The youth’s friend lay back upon the broad seat that followed the curve of the window and smoked in blissful laziness. Without one could see the windowless wall of a house overgrown with a green, luxuriant vine. There was a glimpse of a side street. Below were the stables. At intervals a little fox terrier ran into the court and barked tremendously.