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Title: Men without women
Author: Hemingway, Ernest
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Men without women" ***
MEN WITHOUT WOMEN
By
ERNEST HEMINGWAY
BOOKS BY ERNEST HEMINGWAY
MEN WITHOUT WOMEN
THE SUN ALSO RISES
THE TORRENTS OF SPRING
IN OUR TIME
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1927
COPYRIGHT, 1927, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
_Copyright, 1926, by The Little Review Publishing Company_
_Copyright, 1926, by Ernest Walsh and Ethel Moorhead_
_Copyright, 1927, by Republic Publishing Company_
_Copyright, 1927, by Doubleday, Page & Company_
_Copyright, 1927, by Atlantic Monthly Company_
_Copyright, 1927, by The Macaulay Company_
Printed in the United States of America
TO
EVAN SHIPMAN
Some of these stories were first published
in the following periodicals: _The American_
_Caravan_, _The Atlantic Monthly_, _The Little_
_Review_, _The New Republic_, _La Nouvelle_
_Revue Française_, _This Quarter_, _Der Querschnitt_,
_Scribner’s Magazine_, _Transition_.
CONTENTS
THE UNDEFEATED
IN ANOTHER COUNTRY
HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS
THE KILLERS
CHE TI DICE LA PATRIA?
FIFTY GRAND
A SIMPLE ENQUIRY
TEN INDIANS
A CANARY FOR ONE
AN ALPINE IDYLL
A PURSUIT RACE
TO-DAY IS FRIDAY
BANAL STORY
NOW I LAY ME
MEN WITHOUT WOMEN
THE UNDEFEATED
MANUEL GARCIA climbed the stairs to Don Miguel Retana’s office. He set
down his suitcase and knocked on the door. There was no answer. Manuel,
standing in the hallway, felt there was some one in the room. He felt it
through the door.
“Retana,” he said, listening.
There was no answer.
He’s there, all right, Manuel thought.
“Retana,” he said and banged the door.
“Who’s there?” said some one in the office.
“Me, Manolo,” Manuel said.
“What do you want?” asked the voice.
“I want to work,” Manuel said.
Something in the door clicked several times and it swung open. Manuel
went in, carrying his suitcase.
A little man sat behind a desk at the far side of the room. Over his
head was a bull’s head, stuffed by a Madrid taxidermist; on the walls
were framed photographs and bull-fight posters.
The little man sat looking at Manuel.
“I thought they’d killed you,” he said.
Manuel knocked with his knuckles on the desk. The little man sat looking
at him across the desk.
“How many corridas you had this year?” Retana asked.
“One,” he answered.
“Just that one?” the little man asked.
“That’s all.”
“I read about it in the papers,” Retana said. He leaned back in the
chair and looked at Manuel.
Manuel looked up at the stuffed bull. He had seen it often before. He
felt a certain family interest in it. It had killed his brother, the
promising one, about nine years ago. Manuel remembered the day. There
was a brass plate on the oak shield the bull’s head was mounted on.
Manuel could not read it, but he imagined it was in memory of his
brother. Well, he had been a good kid.
The plate said: “The Bull ‘Mariposa’ of the Duke of Veragua, which
accepted 9 varas for 7 caballos, and caused the death of Antonio Garcia,
Novillero, April 27, 1909.”
Retana saw him looking at the stuffed bull’s head.
“The lot the Duke sent me for Sunday will make a scandal,” he said.
“They’re all bad in the legs. What do they say about them at the Café?”
“I don’t know,” Manuel said. “I just got in.”
“Yes,” Retana said. “You still have your bag.”
He looked at Manuel, leaning back behind the big desk.
“Sit down,” he said. “Take off your cap.”
Manuel sat down; his cap off, his face was changed. He looked pale, and
his coleta pinned forward on his head, so that it would not show under
the cap, gave him a strange look.
“You don’t look well,” Retana said.
“I just got out of the hospital,” Manuel said.
“I heard they’d cut your leg off,” Retana said.
“No,” said Manuel. “It got all right.”
Retana leaned forward across the desk and pushed a wooden box of
cigarettes toward Manuel.
“Have a cigarette,” he said.
“Thanks.”
Manuel lit it.
“Smoke?” he said, offering the match to Retana.
“No,” Retana waved his hand, “I never smoke.”
Retana watched him smoking.
“Why don’t you get a job and go to work?” he said.
“I don’t want to work,” Manuel said. “I am a bull-fighter.”
“There aren’t any bull-fighters any more,” Retana said.
“I’m a bull-fighter,” Manuel said.
“Yes, while you’re in there,” Retana said.
Manuel laughed.
Retana sat, saying nothing and looking at Manuel.
“I’ll put you in a nocturnal if you want,” Retana offered.
“When?” Manuel asked.
“To-morrow night.”
“I don’t like to substitute for anybody,” Manuel said. That was the way
they all got killed. That was the way Salvador got killed. He tapped
with his knuckles on the table.
“It’s all I’ve got,” Retana said.
“Why don’t you put me on next week?” Manuel suggested.
“You wouldn’t draw,” Retana said. “All they want is Litri and Rubito and
La Torre. Those kids are good.”
“They’d come to see me get it,” Manuel said, hopefully.
“No, they wouldn’t. They don’t know who you are any more.”
“I’ve got a lot of stuff,” Manuel said.
“I’m offering to put you on to-morrow night,” Retana said. “You can work
with young Hernandez and kill two novillos after the Chariots.”
“Whose novillos?” Manuel asked.
“I don’t know. Whatever stuff they’ve got in the corrals. What the
veterinaries won’t pass in the daytime.”
“I don’t like to substitute,” Manuel said.
“You can take it or leave it,” Retana said. He leaned forward over the
papers. He was no longer interested. The appeal that Manuel had made to
him for a moment when he thought of the old days was gone. He would like
to get him to substitute for Larita because he could get him cheaply. He
could get others cheaply too. He would like to help him though. Still he
had given him the chance. It was up to him.
“How much do I get?” Manuel asked. He was still playing with the idea of
refusing. But he knew he could not refuse.
“Two hundred and fifty pesetas,” Retana said. He had thought of five
hundred, but when he opened his mouth it said two hundred and fifty.
“You pay Villalta seven thousand,” Manuel said.
“You’re not Villalta,” Retana said.
“I know it,” Manuel said.
“He draws it, Manolo,” Retana said in explanation.
“Sure,” said Manuel. He stood up. “Give me three hundred, Retana.”
“All right,” Retana agreed. He reached in the drawer for a paper.
“Can I have fifty now?” Manuel asked.
“Sure,” said Retana. He took a fifty peseta note out of his pocket-book
and laid it, spread out flat, on the table.
Manuel picked it up and put it in his pocket.
“What about a cuadrilla?” he asked.
“There’s the boys that always work for me nights,” Retana said. “They’re
all right.”
“How about picadors?” Manuel asked.
“They’re not much,” Retana admitted.
“I’ve got to have one good pic,” Manuel said.
“Get him then,” Retana said. “Go and get him.”
“Not out of this,” Manuel said. “I’m not paying for any cuadrilla out of
sixty duros.”
Retana said nothing but looked at Manuel across the big desk.
“You know I’ve got to have one good pic,” Manuel said.
Retana said nothing but looked at Manuel from a long way off.
“It isn’t right,” Manuel said.
Retana was still considering him, leaning back in his chair, considering
him from a long way away.
“There’re the regular pics,” he offered.
“I know,” Manuel said. “I know your regular pics.”
Retana did not smile. Manuel knew it was over.
“All I want is an even break,” Manuel said reasoningly. “When I go out
there I want to be able to call my shots on the bull. It only takes one
good picador.”
He was talking to a man who was no longer listening.
“If you want something extra,” Retana said, “go and get it. There will
be a regular cuadrilla out there. Bring as many of your own pics as you
want. The charlotada is over by 10.30.”
“All right,” Manuel said. “If that’s the way you feel about it.”
“That’s the way,” Retana said.
“I’ll see you to-morrow night,” Manuel said.
“I’ll be out there,” Retana said.
Manuel picked up his suitcase and went out.
“Shut the door,” Retana called.
Manuel looked back. Retana was sitting forward looking at some papers.
Manuel pulled the door tight until it clicked.
He went down the stairs and out of the door into the hot brightness of
the street. It was very hot in the street and the light on the white
buildings was sudden and hard on his eyes. He walked down the shady side
of the steep street toward the Puerta del Sol. The shade felt solid and
cool as running water. The heat came suddenly as he crossed the
intersecting streets. Manuel saw no one he knew in all the people he
passed.
Just before the Puerta del Sol he turned into a café.
It was quiet in the café. There were a few men sitting at tables against
the wall. At one table four men played cards. Most of the men sat
against the wall smoking, empty coffee-cups and liqueur-glasses before
them on the tables. Manuel went through the long room to a small room in
back. A man sat at a table in the corner asleep. Manuel sat down at one
of the tables.
A waiter came in and stood beside Manuel’s table.
“Have you seen Zurito?” Manuel asked him.
“He was in before lunch,” the waiter answered. “He won’t be back before
five o’clock.”
“Bring me some coffee and milk and a shot of the ordinary,” Manuel said.
The waiter came back into the room carrying a tray with a big
coffee-glass and a liqueur-glass on it. In his left hand he held a
bottle of brandy. He swung these down to the table and a boy who had
followed him poured coffee and milk into the glass from two shiny,
spouted pots with long handles.
Manuel took off his cap and the waiter noticed his pigtail pinned
forward on his head. He winked at the coffee-boy as he poured out the
brandy into the little glass beside Manuel’s coffee. The coffee-boy
looked at Manuel’s pale face curiously.
“You fighting here?” asked the waiter, corking up the bottle.
“Yes,” Manuel said. “To-morrow.”
The waiter stood there, holding the bottle on one hip.
“You in the Charlie Chaplins?” he asked.
The coffee-boy looked away, embarrassed.
“No. In the ordinary.”
“I thought they were going to have Chaves and Hernandez,” the waiter
said.
“No. Me and another.”
“Who? Chaves or Hernandez?”
“Hernandez, I think.”
“What’s the matter with Chaves?”
“He got hurt.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“Retana.”
“Hey, Looie,” the waiter called to the next room, “Chaves got cogida.”
Manuel had taken the wrapper off the lumps of sugar and dropped them
into his coffee. He stirred it and drank it down, sweet, hot, and
warming in his empty stomach. He drank off the brandy.
“Give me another shot of that,” he said to the waiter.
The waiter uncorked the bottle and poured the glass full, slopping
another drink into the saucer. Another waiter had come up in front of
the table. The coffee-boy was gone.
“Is Chaves hurt bad?” the second waiter asked Manuel.
“I don’t know,” Manuel said, “Retana didn’t say.”
“A hell of a lot he cares,” the tall waiter said. Manuel had not seen
him before. He must have just come up.
“If you stand in with Retana in this town, you’re a made man,” the tall
waiter said. “If you aren’t in with him, you might just as well go out
and shoot yourself.”
“You said it,” the other waiter who had come in said. “You said it
then.”
“You’re right I said it,” said the tall waiter. “I know what I’m talking
about when I talk about that bird.”
“Look what he’s done for Villalta,” the first waiter said.
“And that ain’t all,” the tall waiter said. “Look what he’s done for
Marcial Lalanda. Look what he’s done for Nacional.”
“You said it, kid,” agreed the short waiter.
Manuel looked at them, standing talking in front of his table. He had
drunk his second brandy. They had forgotten about him. They were not
interested in him.
“Look at that bunch of camels,” the tall waiter went on. “Did you ever
see this Nacional II?”
“I seen him last Sunday didn’t I?” the original waiter said.
“He’s a giraffe,” the short waiter said.
“What did I tell you?” the tall waiter said. “Those are Retana’s boys.”
“Say, give me another shot of that,” Manuel said. He had poured the
brandy the waiter had slopped over in the saucer into his glass and
drank it while they were talking.
The original waiter poured his glass full mechanically, and the three of
them went out of the room talking.
In the far corner the man was still asleep, snoring slightly on the
intaking breath, his head back against the wall.
Manuel drank his brandy. He felt sleepy himself. It was too hot to go
out into the town. Besides there was nothing to do. He wanted to see
Zurito. He would go to sleep while he waited. He kicked his suitcase
under the table to be sure it was there. Perhaps it would be better to
put it back under the seat, against the wall. He leaned down and shoved
it under. Then he leaned forward on the table and went to sleep.
When he woke there was some one sitting across the table from him. It
was a big man with a heavy brown face like an Indian. He had been
sitting there some time. He had waved the waiter away and sat reading
the paper and occasionally looking down at Manuel, asleep, his head on
the table. He read the paper laboriously, forming the words with his
lips as he read. When it tired him he looked at Manuel. He sat heavily
in the chair, his black Cordoba hat tipped forward.
Manuel sat up and looked at him.
“Hello, Zurito,” he said.
“Hello, kid,” the big man said.
“I’ve been asleep.” Manuel rubbed his forehead with the back of his
fist.
“I thought maybe you were.”
“How’s everything?”
“Good. How is everything with you?”
“Not so good.”
They were both silent. Zurito, the picador, looked at Manuel’s white
face. Manuel looked down at the picador’s enormous hands folding the
paper to put away in his pocket.
“I got a favor to ask you, Manos,” Manuel said.
Manosduros was Zurito’s nickname. He never heard it without thinking of
his huge hands. He put them forward on the table self-consciously.
“Let’s have a drink,” he said.
“Sure,” said Manuel.
The waiter came and went and came again. He went out of the room looking
back at the two men at the table.
“What’s the matter, Manolo?” Zurito set down his glass.
“Would you pic two bulls for me to-morrow night?” Manuel asked, looking
up at Zurito across the table.
“No,” said Zurito. “I’m not pic-ing.”
Manuel looked down at his glass. He had expected that answer; now he had
it. Well, he had it.
“I’m sorry, Manolo, but I’m not pic-ing.” Zurito looked at his hands.
“That’s all right,” Manuel said.
“I’m too old,” Zurito said.
“I just asked you,” Manuel said.
“Is it the nocturnal to-morrow?”
“That’s it. I figured if I had just one good pic, I could get away with
it.”
“How much are you getting?”
“Three hundred pesetas.”
“I get more than that for pic-ing.”
“I know,” said Manuel. “I didn’t have any right to ask you.”
“What do you keep on doing it for?” Zurito asked. “Why don’t you cut off
your coleta, Manolo?”
“I don’t know,” Manuel said.
“You’re pretty near as old as I am,” Zurito said.
“I don’t know,” Manuel said. “I got to do it. If I can fix it so that I
get an even break, that’s all I want. I got to stick with it, Manos.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Yes, I do. I’ve tried keeping away from it.”
“I know how you feel. But it isn’t right. You ought to get out and stay
out.”
“I can’t do it. Besides, I’ve been going good lately.”
Zurito looked at his face.
“You’ve been in the hospital.”
“But I was going great when I got hurt.”
Zurito said nothing. He tipped the cognac out of his saucer into his
glass.
“The papers said they never saw a better faena,” Manuel said.
Zurito looked at him.
“You know when I get going I’m good,” Manuel said.
“You’re too old,” the picador said.
“No,” said Manuel. “You’re ten years older than I am.”
“With me it’s different.”
“I’m not too old,” Manuel said.
They sat silent, Manuel watching the picador’s face.
“I was going great till I got hurt,” Manuel offered.
“You ought to have seen me, Manos,” Manuel said, reproachfully.
“I don’t want to see you,” Zurito said. “It makes me nervous.”
“You haven’t seen me lately.”
“I’ve seen you plenty.”
Zurito looked at Manuel, avoiding his eyes.
“You ought to quit it, Manolo.”
“I can’t,” Manuel said. “I’m going good now, I tell you.”
Zurito leaned forward, his hands on the table.
“Listen. I’ll pic for you and if you don’t go big to-morrow night,
you’ll quit. See? Will you do that?”
“Sure.”
Zurito leaned back, relieved.
“You got to quit,” he said. “No monkey business. You got to cut the
coleta.”
“I won’t have to quit,” Manuel said. “You watch me. I’ve got the stuff.”
Zurito stood up. He felt tired from arguing.
“You got to quit,” he said. “I’ll cut your coleta myself.”
“No, you won’t,” Manuel said. “You won’t have a chance.”
Zurito called the waiter.
“Come on,” said Zurito. “Come on up to the house.”
Manuel reached under the seat for his suitcase. He was happy. He knew
Zurito would pic for him. He was the best picador living. It was all
simple now.
“Come on up to the house and we’ll eat,” Zurito said.
* * * * *
Manuel stood in the patio de caballos waiting for the Charlie Chaplins
to be over. Zurito stood beside him. Where they stood it was dark. The
high door that led into the bull-ring was shut. Above them they heard a
shout, then another shout of laughter. Then there was silence. Manuel
liked the smell of the stables about the patio de caballos. It smelt
good in the dark. There was another roar from the arena and then
applause, prolonged applause, going on and on.
“You ever seen these fellows?” Zurito asked, big and looming beside
Manuel in the dark.
“No,” Manuel said.
“They’re pretty funny.” Zurito said. He smiled to himself in the dark.
The high, double, tight-fitting door into the bull-ring swung open and
Manuel saw the ring in the hard light of the arc-lights, the plaza, dark
all the way around, rising high; around the edge of the ring were
running and bowing two men dressed like tramps, followed by a third in
the uniform of a hotel bell-boy who stooped and picked up the hats and
canes thrown down onto the sand and tossed them back up into the
darkness.
The electric light went on in the patio.
“I’ll climb onto one of those ponies while you collect the kids,” Zurito
said.
Behind them came the jingle of the mules, coming out to go into the
arena and be hitched onto the dead bull.
The members of the cuadrilla, who had been watching the burlesque from
the runway between the barrera and the seats, came walking back and
stood in a group talking, under the electric light in the patio. A
good-looking lad in a silver-and-orange suit came up to Manuel and
smiled.
“I’m Hernandez,” he said and put out his hand.
Manuel shook it.
“They’re regular elephants we’ve got to-night,” the boy said cheerfully.
“They’re big ones with horns,” Manuel agreed.
“You drew the worst lot,” the boy said.
“That’s all right,” Manuel said. “The bigger they are, the more meat for
the poor.”
“Where did you get that one?” Hernandez grinned.
“That’s an old one,” Manuel said. “You line up your cuadrilla, so I can
see what I’ve got.”
“You’ve got some good kids,” Hernandez said. He was very cheerful. He
had been on twice before in nocturnals and was beginning to get a
following in Madrid. He was happy the fight would start in a few
minutes.
“Where are the pics?” Manuel asked.
“They’re back in the corrals fighting about who gets the beautiful
horses,” Hernandez grinned.
The mules came through the gate in a rush, the whips snapping, bells
jangling and the young bull ploughing a furrow of sand.
They formed up for the paseo as soon as the bull had gone through.
Manuel and Hernandez stood in front. The youths of the cuadrillas were
behind, their heavy capes furled over their arms. In back, the four
picadors, mounted, holding their steel-tipped push-poles erect in the
half-dark of the corral.
“It’s a wonder Retana wouldn’t give us enough light to see the horses
by,” one picador said.
“He knows we’ll be happier if we don’t get too good a look at these
skins,” another pic answered.
“This thing I’m on barely keeps me off the ground,” the first picador
said.
“Well, they’re horses.”
“Sure, they’re horses.”
They talked, sitting their gaunt horses in the dark.
Zurito said nothing. He had the only steady horse of the lot. He had
tried him, wheeling him in the corrals and he responded to the bit and
the spurs. He had taken the bandage off his right eye and cut the
strings where they had tied his ears tight shut at the base. He was a
good, solid horse, solid on his legs. That was all he needed. He
intended to ride him all through the corrida. He had already, since he
had mounted, sitting in the half-dark in the big, quilted saddle,
waiting for the paseo, pic-ed through the whole corrida in his mind. The
other picadors went on talking on both sides of him. He did not hear
them.
The two matadors stood together in front of their three peones, their
capes furled over their left arms in the same fashion. Manuel was
thinking about the three lads in back of him. They were all three
Madrileños, like Hernandez, boys about nineteen. One of them, a gypsy,
serious, aloof, and dark-faced, he liked the look of. He turned.
“What’s your name, kid?” he asked the gypsy.
“Fuentes,” the gypsy said.
“That’s a good name,” Manuel said.
The gypsy smiled, showing his teeth.
“You take the bull and give him a little run when he comes out,” Manuel
said.
“All right,” the gypsy said. His face was serious. He began to think
about just what he would do.
“Here she goes,” Manuel said to Hernandez.
“All right. We’ll go.”
Heads up, swinging with the music, their right arms swinging free, they
stepped out, crossing the sanded arena under the arc-lights, the
cuadrillas opening out behind, the picadors riding after, behind came
the bull-ring servants and the jingling mules. The crowd applauded
Hernandez as they marched across the arena. Arrogant, swinging, they
looked straight ahead as they marched.
They bowed before the president, and the procession broke up into its
component parts. The bull-fighters went over to the barrera and changed
their heavy mantles for the light fighting capes. The mules went out.
The picadors galloped jerkily around the ring, and two rode out the gate
they had come in by. The servants swept the sand smooth.
Manuel drank a glass of water poured for him by one of Retana’s
deputies, who was acting as his manager and sword-handler. Hernandez
came over from speaking with his own manager.
“You got a good hand, kid,” Manuel complimented him.
“They like me,” Hernandez said happily.
“How did the paseo go?” Manuel asked Retana’s man.
“Like a wedding,” said the handler. “Fine. You came out like Joselito
and Belmonte.”
Zurito rode by, a bulky equestrian statue. He wheeled his horse and
faced him toward the toril on the far side of the ring where the bull
would come out. It was strange under the arc-light. He pic-ed in the hot
afternoon sun for big money. He didn’t like this arc-light business. He
wished they would get started.
Manuel went up to him.
“Pic him, Manos,” he said. “Cut him down to size for me.”
“I’ll pic him, kid,” Zurito spat on the sand. “I’ll make him jump out of
the ring.”
“Lean on him, Manos,” Manuel said.
“I’ll lean on him,” Zurito said. “What’s holding it up?”
“He’s coming now,” Manuel said.
Zurito sat there, his feet in the box-stirrups, his great legs in the
buckskin-covered armor gripping the horse, the reins in his left hand,
the long pic held in his right hand, his broad hat well down over his
eyes to shade them from the lights, watching the distant door of the
toril. His horse’s ears quivered. Zurito patted him with his left hand.
The red door of the toril swung back and for a moment Zurito looked into
the empty passageway far across the arena. Then the bull came out in a
rush, skidding on his four legs as he came out under the lights, then
charging in a gallop, moving softly in a fast gallop, silent except as
he woofed through wide nostrils as he charged, glad to be free after the
dark pen.
In the first row of seats, slightly bored, leaning forward to write on
the cement wall in front of his knees, the substitute bull-fight critic
of _El Heraldo_ scribbled: “Campagnero, Negro, 42, came out at 90 miles
an hour with plenty of gas——”
Manuel, leaning against the barrera, watching the bull, waved his hand
and the gypsy ran out, trailing his cape. The bull, in full gallop,
pivoted and charged the cape, his head down, his tail rising. The gypsy
moved in a zigzag, and as he passed, the bull caught sight of him and
abandoned the cape to charge the man. The gyp sprinted and vaulted the
red fence of the barrera as the bull struck it with his horns. He tossed
into it twice with his horns, banging into the wood blindly.
The critic of _El Heraldo_ lit a cigarette and tossed the match at the
bull, then wrote in his note-book, “large and with enough horns to
satisfy the cash customers, Campagnero showed a tendency to cut into the
terrane of the bull-fighters.”
Manuel stepped out on the hard sand as the bull banged into the fence.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Zurito sitting the white horse close
to the barrera, about a quarter of the way around the ring to the left.
Manuel held the cape close in front of him, a fold in each hand, and
shouted at the bull. “Huh! Huh!” The bull turned, seemed to brace
against the fence as he charged in a scramble, driving into the cape as
Manuel side-stepped, pivoted on his heels with the charge of the bull,
and swung the cape just ahead of the horns. At the end of the swing he
was facing the bull again and held the cape in the same position close
in front of his body, and pivoted again as the bull recharged. Each
time, as he swung, the crowd shouted.
Four times he swung with the bull, lifting the cape so it billowed full,
and each time bringing the bull around to charge again. Then, at the end
of the fifth swing, he held the cape against his hip and pivoted, so the
cape swung out like a ballet dancer’s skirt and wound the bull around
himself like a belt, to step clear, leaving the bull facing Zurito on
the white horse, come up and planted firm, the horse facing the bull,
its ears forward, its lips nervous, Zurito, his hat over his eyes,
leaning forward, the long pole sticking out before and behind in a sharp
angle under his right arm, held half-way down, the triangular iron point
facing the bull.
_El Heraldo’s_ second-string critic, drawing on his cigarette, his eyes
on the bull, wrote: “the veteran Manolo designed a series of acceptable
veronicas, ending in a very Belmontistic recorte that earned applause
from the regulars, and we entered the tercio of the cavalry.”
Zurito sat his horse, measuring the distance between the bull and the
end of the pic. As he looked, the bull gathered himself together and
charged, his eyes on the horse’s chest. As he lowered his head to hook,
Zurito sunk the point of the pic in the swelling hump of muscle above
the bull’s shoulder, leaned all his weight on the shaft, and with his
left hand pulled the white horse into the air, front hoofs pawing, and
swung him to the right as he pushed the bull under and through so the
horns passed safely under the horse’s belly and the horse came down,
quivering, the bull’s tail brushing his chest as he charged the cape
Hernandez offered him.
Hernandez ran sideways, taking the bull out and away with the cape,
toward the other picador. He fixed him with a swing of the cape,
squarely facing the horse and rider, and stepped back. As the bull saw
the horse he charged. The picador’s lance slid along his back, and as
the shock of the charge lifted the horse, the picador was already
half-way out of the saddle, lifting his right leg clear as he missed
with the lance and falling to the left side to keep the horse between
him and the bull. The horse, lifted and gored, crashed over with the
bull driving into him, the picador gave a shove with his boots against
the horse and lay clear, waiting to be lifted and hauled away and put on
his feet.
Manuel let the bull drive into the fallen horse; he was in no hurry, the
picador was safe; besides, it did a picador like that good to worry.
He’d stay on longer next time. Lousy pics! He looked across the sand at
Zurito a little way out from the barrera, his horse rigid, waiting.
“Huh!” he called to the bull, “Tomar!” holding the cape in both hands so
it would catch his eye. The bull detached himself from the horse and
charged the cape, and Manuel, running sideways and holding the cape
spread wide, stopped, swung on his heels, and brought the bull sharply
around facing Zurito.
“Campagnero accepted a pair of varas for the death of one rosinante,
with Hernandez and Manolo at the quites,” _El Heraldo’s_ critic wrote.
“He pressed on the iron and clearly showed he was no horse-lover. The
veteran Zurito resurrected some of his old stuff with the pike-pole,
notably the suerte——”
“Olé Olé!” the man sitting beside him shouted. The shout was lost in the
roar of the crowd, and he slapped the critic on the back. The critic
looked up to see Zurito, directly below him, leaning far out over his
horse, the length of the pic rising in a sharp angle under his armpit,
holding the pic almost by the point, bearing down with all his weight,
holding the bull off, the bull pushing and driving to get at the horse,
and Zurito, far out, on top of him, holding him, holding him, and slowly
pivoting the horse against the pressure, so that at last he was clear.
Zurito felt the moment when the horse was clear and the bull could come
past, and relaxed the absolute steel lock of his resistance, and the
triangular steel point of the pic ripped in the bull’s hump of shoulder
muscle as he tore loose to find Hernandez’s cape before his muzzle. He
charged blindly into the cape and the boy took him out into the open
arena.
Zurito sat patting his horse and looking at the bull charging the cape
that Hernandez swung for him out under the bright light while the crowd
shouted.
“You see that one?” he said to Manuel.
“It was a wonder,” Manuel said.
“I got him that time,” Zurito said. “Look at him now.”
At the conclusion of a closely turned pass of the cape the bull slid to
his knees. He was up at once, but far out across the sand Manuel and
Zurito saw the shine of the pumping flow of blood, smooth against the
black of the bull’s shoulder.
“I got him that time,” Zurito said.
“He’s a good bull,” Manuel said.
“If they gave me another shot at him, I’d kill him,” Zurito said.
“They’ll change the thirds on us,” Manuel said.
“Look at him now,” Zurito said.
“I got to go over there,” Manuel said, and started on a run for the
other side of the ring, where the monos were leading a horse out by the
bridle toward the bull, whacking him on the legs with rods and all, in a
procession, trying to get him toward the bull, who stood, dropping his
head, pawing, unable to make up his mind to charge.
Zurito, sitting his horse, walking him toward the scene, not missing any
detail, scowled.
Finally the bull charged, the horse leaders ran for the barrera, the
picador hit too far back, and the bull got under the horse, lifted him,
threw him onto his back.
Zurito watched. The monos, in their red shirts, running out to drag the
picador clear. The picador, now on his feet, swearing and flopping his
arms. Manuel and Hernandez standing ready with their capes. And the
bull, the great, black bull, with a horse on his back, hooves dangling,
the bridle caught in the horns. Black bull with a horse on his back,
staggering short-legged, then arching his neck and lifting, thrusting,
charging to slide the horse off, horse sliding down. Then the bull into
a lunging charge at the cape Manuel spread for him.
The bull was slower now, Manuel felt. He was bleeding badly. There was a
sheen of blood all down his flank.
Manuel offered him the cape again. There he came, eyes open, ugly,
watching the cape. Manuel stepped to the side and raised his arms,
tightening the cape ahead of the bull for the veronica.
Now he was facing the bull. Yes, his head was going down a little. He
was carrying it lower. That was Zurito.
Manuel flopped the cape; there he comes; he side-stepped and swung in
another veronica. He’s shooting awfully accurately, he thought. He’s had
enough fight, so he’s watching now. He’s hunting now. Got his eye on me.
But I always give him the cape.
He shook the cape at the bull; there he comes; he side-stepped. Awful
close that time. I don’t want to work that close to him.
The edge of the cape was wet with blood where it had swept along the
bull’s back as he went by.
All right, here’s the last one.
Manuel, facing the bull, having turned with him each charge, offered the
cape with his two hands. The bull looked at him. Eyes watching, horns
straight forward, the bull looked at him, watching.
“Huh!” Manuel said, “Toro!” and leaning back, swung the cape forward.
Here he comes. He side-stepped, swung the cape in back of him, and
pivoted, so the bull followed a swirl of cape and then was left with
nothing, fixed by the pass, dominated by the cape. Manuel swung the cape
under his muzzle with one hand, to show the bull was fixed, and walked
away.
There was no applause.
Manuel walked across the sand toward the barrera, while Zurito rode out
of the ring. The trumpet had blown to change the act to the planting of
the banderillos while Manuel had been working with the bull. He had not
consciously noticed it. The monos were spreading canvas over the two
dead horses and sprinkling sawdust around them.
Manuel came up to the barrera for a drink of water. Retana’s man handed
him the heavy porous jug.
Fuentes, the tall gypsy, was standing holding a pair of banderillos,
holding them together, slim, red sticks, fish-hook points out. He looked
at Manuel.
“Go on out there,” Manuel said.
The gypsy trotted out. Manuel set down the jug and watched. He wiped his
face with his handkerchief.
The critic of _El Heraldo_ reached for the bottle of warm champagne that
stood between his feet, took a drink, and finished his paragraph.
“—the aged Manolo rated no applause for a vulgar series of lances with
the cape and we entered the third of the palings.”
Alone in the centre of the ring the bull stood, still fixed. Fuentes,
tall, flat-backed, walking toward him arrogantly, his arms spread out,
the two slim, red sticks, one in each hand, held by the fingers, points
straight forward. Fuentes walked forward. Back of him and to one side
was a peon with a cape. The bull looked at him and was no longer fixed.
His eyes watched Fuentes, now standing still. Now he leaned back,
calling to him. Fuentes twitched the two banderillos and the light on
the steel points caught the bull’s eye.
His tail went up and he charged.
He came straight, his eyes on the man. Fuentes stood still, leaning
back, the banderillos pointing forward. As the bull lowered his head to
hook, Fuentes leaned backward, his arms came together and rose, his two
hands touching, the banderillos two descending red lines, and leaning
forward drove the points into the bull’s shoulder, leaning far in over
the bull’s horns and pivoting on the two upright sticks, his legs tight
together, his body curving to one side to let the bull pass.
“Olé!” from the crowd.
The bull was hooking wildly, jumping like a trout, all four feet off the
ground. The red shaft of the banderillos tossed as he jumped.
Manuel standing at the barrera, noticed that he hooked always to the
right.
“Tell him to drop the next pair on the right,” he said to the kid who
started to run out to Fuentes with the new banderillos.
A heavy hand fell on his shoulder. It was Zurito.
“How do you feel, kid?” he asked.
Manuel was watching the bull.
Zurito leaned forward on the barrera, leaning the weight of his body on
his arms. Manuel turned to him.
“You’re going good,” Zurito said.
Manuel shook his head. He had nothing to do now until the next third.
The gypsy was very good with the banderillos. The bull would come to him
in the next third in good shape. He was a good bull. It had all been
easy up to now. The final stuff with the sword was all he worried over.
He did not really worry. He did not even think about it. But standing
there he had a heavy sense of apprehension. He looked out at the bull,
planning his faena, his work with the red cloth that was to reduce the
bull, to make him manageable.
The gypsy was walking out toward the bull again, walking heel-and-toe,
insultingly, like a ball-room dancer, the red shafts of the banderillos
twitching with his walk. The bull watched him, not fixed now, hunting
him, but waiting to get close enough so he could be sure of getting him,
getting the horns into him.
As Fuentes walked forward the bull charged. Fuentes ran across the
quarter of a circle as the bull charged and, as he passed running
backward, stopped, swung forward, rose on his toes, arms straight out,
and sunk the banderillos straight down into the tight of the big
shoulder muscles as the bull missed him.
The crowd were wild about it.
“That kid won’t stay in this night stuff long,” Retana’s man said to
Zurito.
“He’s good,” Zurito said.
“Watch him now.”
They watched.
Fuentes was standing with his back against the barrera. Two of the
cuadrilla were back of him, with their capes ready to flop over the
fence to distract the bull.
The bull, with his tongue out, his barrel heaving, was watching the
gypsy. He thought he had him now. Back against the red planks. Only a
short charge away. The bull watched him.
The gypsy bent back, drew back his arms, the banderillos pointing at the
bull. He called to the bull, stamped one foot. The bull was suspicious.
He wanted the man. No more barbs in the shoulder.
Fuentes walked a little closer to the bull. Bent back. Called again.
Somebody in the crowd shouted a warning.
“He’s too damn close,” Zurito said.
“Watch him,” Retana’s man said.
Leaning back, inciting the bull with the banderillos, Fuentes jumped,
both feet off the ground. As he jumped the bull’s tail rose and he
charged. Fuentes came down on his toes, arms straight out, whole body
arching forward, and drove the shafts straight down as he swung his body
clear of the right horn.
The bull crashed into the barrera where the flopping capes had attracted
his eye as he lost the man.
The gypsy came running along the barrera toward Manuel, taking the
applause of the crowd. His vest was ripped where he had not quite
cleared the point of the horn. He was happy about it, showing it to the
spectators. He made the tour of the ring. Zurito saw him go by, smiling,
pointing at his vest. He smiled.
Somebody else was planting the last pair of banderillos. Nobody was
paying any attention.
Retana’s man tucked a baton inside the red cloth of a muleta, folded the
cloth over it, and handed it over the barrera to Manuel. He reached in
the leather sword-case, took out a sword, and holding it by its leather
scabbard, reached it over the fence to Manuel. Manuel pulled the blade
out by the red hilt and the scabbard fell limp.
He looked at Zurito. The big man saw he was sweating.
“Now you get him, kid,” Zurito said.
Manuel nodded.
“He’s in good shape,” Zurito said.
“Just like you want him,” Retana’s man assured him.
Manuel nodded.
The trumpeter, up under the roof, blew for the final act, and Manuel
walked across the arena toward where, up in the dark boxes, the
president must be.
In the front row of seats the substitute bull-fight critic of _El
Heraldo_ took a long drink of the warm champagne. He had decided it was
not worth while to write a running story and would write up the corrida
back in the office. What the hell was it anyway? Only a nocturnal. If he
missed anything he would get it out of the morning papers. He took
another drink of the champagne. He had a date at Maxim’s at twelve. Who
were these bull-fighters anyway? Kids and bums. A bunch of bums. He put
his pad of paper in his pocket and looked over toward Manuel, standing
very much alone in the ring, gesturing with his hat in a salute toward a
box he could not see high up in the dark plaza. Out in the ring the bull
stood quiet, looking at nothing.
“I dedicate this bull to you, Mr. President, and to the public of
Madrid, the most intelligent and generous of the world,” was what Manuel
was saying. It was a formula. He said it all. It was a little long for
nocturnal use.
He bowed at the dark, straightened, tossed his hat over his shoulder,
and, carrying the muleta in his left hand and the sword in his right,
walked out toward the bull.
Manuel walked toward the bull. The bull looked at him; his eyes were
quick. Manuel noticed the way the banderillos hung down on his left
shoulder and the steady sheen of blood from Zurito’s pic-ing. He noticed
the way the bull’s feet were. As he walked forward, holding the muleta
in his left hand and the sword in his right, he watched the bull’s feet.
The bull could not charge without gathering his feet together. Now he
stood square on them, dully.
Manuel walked toward him, watching his feet. This was all right. He
could do this. He must work to get the bull’s head down, so he could go
in past the horns and kill him. He did not think about the sword, not
about killing the bull. He thought about one thing at a time. The coming
things oppressed him, though. Walking forward, watching the bull’s feet,
he saw successively his eyes, his wet muzzle, and the wide,
forward-pointing spread of his horns. The bull had light circles about
his eyes. His eyes watched Manuel. He felt he was going to get this
little one with the white face.
Standing still now and spreading the red cloth of the muleta with the
sword, pricking the point into the cloth so that the sword, now held in
his left hand, spread the red flannel like the jib of a boat, Manuel
noticed the points of the bull’s horns. One of them was splintered from
banging against the barrera. The other was sharp as a porcupine quill.
Manuel noticed while spreading the muleta that the white base of the
horn was stained red. While he noticed these things he did not lose
sight of the bull’s feet. The bull watched Manuel steadily.
He’s on the defensive now, Manuel thought. He’s reserving himself. I’ve
got to bring him out of that and get his head down. Always get his head
down. Zurito had his head down once, but he’s come back. He’ll bleed
when I start him going and that will bring it down.
Holding the muleta, with the sword in his left hand widening it in front
of him, he called to the bull.
The bull looked at him.
He leaned back insultingly and shook the wide-spread flannel.
The bull saw the muleta. It was a bright scarlet under the arc-light.
The bull’s legs tightened.
Here he comes. Whoosh! Manuel turned as the bull came and raised the
muleta so that it passed over the bull’s horns and swept down his broad
back from head to tail. The bull had gone clean up in the air with the
charge. Manuel had not moved.
At the end of the pass the bull turned like a cat coming around a corner
and faced Manuel.
He was on the offensive again. His heaviness was gone. Manuel noted the
fresh blood shining down the black shoulder and dripping down the bull’s
leg. He drew the sword out of the muleta and held it in his right hand.
The muleta held low down in his left hand, leaning toward the left, he
called to the bull. The bull’s legs tightened, his eyes on the muleta.
Here he comes, Manuel thought. Yuh!
He swung with the charge, sweeping the muleta ahead of the bull, his
feet firm, the sword following the curve, a point of light under the
arcs.
The bull recharged as the pase natural finished and Manuel raised the
muleta for a pase de pecho. Firmly planted, the bull came by his chest
under the raised muleta. Manuel leaned his head back to avoid the
clattering banderillo shafts. The hot, black bull body touched his chest
as it passed.
Too damn close, Manuel thought. Zurito, leaning on the barrera, spoke
rapidly to the gypsy, who trotted out toward Manuel with a cape. Zurito
pulled his hat down low and looked out across the arena at Manuel.
Manuel was facing the bull again, the muleta held low and to the left.
The bull’s head was down as he watched the muleta.
“If it was Belmonte doing that stuff, they’d go crazy,” Retana’s man
said.
Zurito said nothing. He was watching Manuel out in the centre of the
arena.
“Where did the boss dig this fellow up?” Retana’s man asked.
“Out of the hospital,” Zurito said.
“That’s where he’s going damn quick,” Retana’s man said.
Zurito turned on him.
“Knock on that,” he said, pointing to the barrera.
“I was just kidding, man,” Retana’s man said.
“Knock on the wood.”
Retana’s man leaned forward and knocked three times on the barrera.
“Watch the faena,” Zurito said.
Out in the centre of the ring, under the lights, Manuel was kneeling,
facing the bull, and as he raised the muleta in both hands the bull
charged, tail up.
Manuel swung his body clear and, as the bull recharged, brought around
the muleta in a half-circle that pulled the bull to his knees.
“Why, that one’s a great bull-fighter,” Retana’s man said.
“No, he’s not,” said Zurito.
Manuel stood up and, the muleta in his left hand, the sword in his
right, acknowledged the applause from the dark plaza.
The bull had humped himself up from his knees and stood waiting, his
head hung low.
Zurito spoke to two of the other lads of the cuadrilla and they ran out
to stand back of Manuel with their capes. There were four men back of
him now. Hernandez had followed him since he first came out with the
muleta. Fuentes stood watching, his cape held against his body, tall, in
repose, watching lazy-eyed. Now the two came up. Hernandez motioned them
to stand one at each side. Manuel stood alone, facing the bull.
Manuel waved back the men with the capes. Stepping back cautiously, they
saw his face was white and sweating.
Didn’t they know enough to keep back? Did they want to catch the bull’s
eye with the capes after he was fixed and ready? He had enough to worry
about without that kind of thing.
The bull was standing, his four feet square, looking at the muleta.
Manuel furled the muleta in his left hand. The bull’s eyes watched it.
His body was heavy on his feet. He carried his head low, but not too
low.
Manuel lifted the muleta at him. The bull did not move. Only his eyes
watched.
He’s all lead, Manuel thought. He’s all square. He’s framed right. He’ll
take it.
He thought in bull-fight terms. Sometimes he had a thought and the
particular piece of slang would not come into his mind and he could not
realize the thought. His instincts and his knowledge worked
automatically, and his brain worked slowly and in words. He knew all
about bulls. He did not have to think about them. He just did the right
thing. His eyes noted things and his body performed the necessary
measures without thought. If he thought about it, he would be gone.
Now, facing the bull, he was conscious of many things at the same time.
There were the horns, the one splintered, the other smoothly sharp, the
need to profile himself toward the left horn, lance himself short and
straight, lower the muleta so the bull would follow it, and, going in
over the horns, put the sword all the way into a little spot about as
big as a five-peseta piece straight in back of the neck, between the
sharp pitch of the bull’s shoulders. He must do all this and must then
come out from between the horns. He was conscious he must do all this,
but his only thought was in words: “Corto y derecho.”
“Corto y derecho,” he thought, furling the muleta. Short and straight.
Corto y derecho, he drew the sword out of the muleta, profiled on the
splintered left horn, dropped the muleta across his body, so his right
hand with the sword on the level with his eye made the sign of the
cross, and, rising on his toes, sighted along the dipping blade of the
sword at the spot high up between the bull’s shoulders.
Corto y derecho he lanced himself on the bull.
There was a shock, and he felt himself go up in the air. He pushed on
the sword as he went up and over, and it flew out of his hand. He hit
the ground and the bull was on him. Manuel, lying on the ground, kicked
at the bull’s muzzle with his slippered feet. Kicking, kicking, the bull
after him, missing him in his excitement, bumping him with his head,
driving the horns into the sand. Kicking like a man keeping a ball in
the air, Manuel kept the bull from getting a clean thrust at him.
Manuel felt the wind on his back from the capes flopping at the bull,
and then the bull was gone, gone over him in a rush. Dark, as his belly
went over. Not even stepped on.
Manuel stood up and picked up the muleta. Fuentes handed him the sword.
It was bent where it had struck the shoulder-blade. Manuel straightened
it on his knee and ran toward the bull, standing now beside one of the
dead horses. As he ran, his jacket flopped where it had been ripped
under his armpit.
“Get him out of there,” Manuel shouted to the gypsy. The bull had
smelled the blood of the dead horse and ripped into the canvas-cover
with his horns. He charged Fuentes’s cape, with the canvas hanging from
his splintered horn, and the crowd laughed. Out in the ring, he tossed
his head to rid himself of the canvas. Hernandez, running up from behind
him, grabbed the end of the canvas and neatly lifted it off the horn.
The bull followed it in a half-charge and stopped still. He was on the
defensive again. Manuel was walking toward him with the sword and
muleta. Manuel swung the muleta before him. The bull would not charge.
Manuel profiled toward the bull, sighting along the dipping blade of the
sword. The bull was motionless, seemingly dead on his feet, incapable of
another charge.
Manuel rose to his toes, sighting along the steel, and charged.
Again there was the shock and he felt himself being borne back in a
rush, to strike hard on the sand. There was no chance of kicking this
time. The bull was on top of him. Manuel lay as though dead, his head on
his arms, and the bull bumped him. Bumped his back, bumped his face in
the sand. He felt the horn go into the sand between his folded arms. The
bull hit him in the small of the back. His face drove into the sand. The
horn drove through one of his sleeves and the bull ripped it off. Manuel
was tossed clear and the bull followed the capes.
Manuel got up, found the sword and muleta, tried the point of the sword
with his thumb, and then ran toward the barrera for a new sword.
Retana’s man handed him the sword over the edge of the barrera.
“Wipe off your face,” he said.
Manuel, running again toward the bull, wiped his bloody face with his
handkerchief. He had not seen Zurito. Where was Zurito?
The cuadrilla had stepped away from the bull and waited with their
capes. The bull stood, heavy and dull again after the action.
Manuel walked toward him with the muleta. He stopped and shook it. The
bull did not respond. He passed it right and left, left and right before
the bull’s muzzle. The bull’s eyes watched it and turned with the swing,
but he would not charge. He was waiting for Manuel.
Manuel was worried. There was nothing to do but go in. Corto y derecho.
He profiled close to the bull, crossed the muleta in front of his body
and charged. As he pushed in the sword, he jerked his body to the left
to clear the horn. The bull passed him and the sword shot up in the air,
twinkling under the arc-lights, to fall red-hilted on the sand.
Manuel ran over and picked it up. It was bent and he straightened it
over his knee.
As he came running toward the bull, fixed again now, he passed Hernandez
standing with his cape.
“He’s all bone,” the boy said encouragingly.
Manuel nodded, wiping his face. He put the bloody handkerchief in his
pocket.
There was the bull. He was close to the barrera now. Damn him. Maybe he
was all bone. Maybe there was not any place for the sword to go in. The
hell there wasn’t! He’d show them.
He tried a pass with the muleta and the bull did not move. Manuel
chopped the muleta back and forth in front of the bull. Nothing doing.
He furled the muleta, drew the sword out, profiled and drove in on the
bull. He felt the sword buckle as he shoved it in, leaning his weight on
it, and then it shot high in the air, end-over-ending into the crowd.
Manuel had jerked clear as the sword jumped.
The first cushions thrown down out of the dark missed him. Then one hit
him in the face, his bloody face looking toward the crowd. They were
coming down fast. Spotting the sand. Somebody threw an empty
champagne-bottle from close range. It hit Manuel on the foot. He stood
there watching the dark, where the things were coming from. Then
something whished through the air and struck by him. Manuel leaned over
and picked it up. It was his sword. He straightened it over his knee and
gestured with it to the crowd.
“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you.”
Oh, the dirty bastards! Dirty bastards! Oh, the lousy, dirty bastards!
He kicked into a cushion as he ran.
There was the bull. The same as ever. All right, you dirty, lousy
bastard!
Manuel passed the muleta in front of the bull’s black muzzle.
Nothing doing.
You won’t! All right. He stepped close and jammed the sharp peak of the
muleta into the bull’s damp muzzle.
The bull was on him as he jumped back and as he tripped on a cushion he
felt the horn go into him, into his side. He grabbed the horn with his
two hands and rode backward, holding tight onto the place. The bull
tossed him and he was clear. He lay still. It was all right. The bull
was gone.
He got up coughing and feeling broken and gone. The dirty bastards!
“Give me the sword,” he shouted. “Give me the stuff.”
Fuentes came up with the muleta and the sword.
Hernandez put his arm around him.
“Go on to the infirmary, man,” he said. “Don’t be a damn fool.”
“Get away from me,” Manuel said. “Get to hell away from me.”
He twisted free. Hernandez shrugged his shoulders. Manuel ran toward the
bull.
There was the bull standing, heavy, firmly planted.
All right, you bastard! Manuel drew the sword out of the muleta, sighted
with the same movement, and flung himself onto the bull. He felt the
sword go in all the way. Right up to the guard. Four fingers and his
thumb into the bull. The blood was hot on his knuckles, and he was on
top of the bull.
The bull lurched with him as he lay on, and seemed to sink; then he was
standing clear. He looked at the bull going down slowly over on his
side, then suddenly four feet in the air.
Then he gestured at the crowd, his hand warm from the bull blood.
All right, you bastards! He wanted to say something, but he started to
cough. It was hot and choking. He looked down for the muleta. He must go
over and salute the president. President hell! He was sitting down
looking at something. It was the bull. His four feet up. Thick tongue
out. Things crawling around on his belly and under his legs. Crawling
where the hair was thin. Dead bull. To hell with the bull! To hell with
them all! He started to get to his feet and commenced to cough. He sat
down again, coughing. Somebody came and pushed him up.
They carried him across the ring to the infirmary, running with him
across the sand, standing blocked at the gate as the mules came in, then
around under the dark passageway, men grunting as they took him up the
stairway, and then laid him down.
The doctor and two men in white were waiting for him. They laid him out
on the table. They were cutting away his shirt. Manuel felt tired. His
whole chest felt scalding inside. He started to cough and they held
something to his mouth. Everybody was very busy.
There was an electric light in his eyes. He shut his eyes.
He heard some one coming very heavily up the stairs. Then he did not
hear it. Then he heard a noise far off. That was the crowd. Well,
somebody would have to kill his other bull. They had cut away all his
shirt. The doctor smiled at him. There was Retana.
“Hello, Retana!” Manuel said. He could not hear his voice.
Retana smiled at him and said something. Manuel could not hear it.
Zurito stood beside the table, bending over where the doctor was
working. He was in his picador clothes, without his hat.
Zurito said something to him. Manuel could not hear it.
Zurito was speaking to Retana. One of the men in white smiled and handed
Retana a pair of scissors. Retana gave them to Zurito. Zurito said
something to Manuel. He could not hear it.
To hell with this operating-table! He’d been on plenty of
operating-tables before. He was not going to die. There would be a
priest if he was going to die.
Zurito was saying something to him. Holding up the scissors.
That was it. They were going to cut off his coleta. They were going to
cut off his pigtail.
Manuel sat up on the operating-table. The doctor stepped back, angry.
Some one grabbed him and held him.
“You couldn’t do a thing like that, Manos,” he said.
He heard suddenly, clearly, Zurito’s voice.
“That’s all right,” Zurito said. “I won’t do it. I was joking.”
“I was going good,” Manuel said. “I didn’t have any luck. That was all.”
Manuel lay back. They had put something over his face. It was all
familiar. He inhaled deeply. He felt very tired. He was very, very
tired. They took the thing away from his face.
“I was going good,” Manuel said weakly. “I was going great.”
Retana looked at Zurito and started for the door.
“I’ll stay here with him,” Zurito said.
Retana shrugged his shoulders.
Manuel opened his eyes and looked at Zurito.
“Wasn’t I going good, Manos?” he asked, for confirmation.
“Sure,” said Zurito. “You were going great.”
The doctor’s assistant put the cone over Manuel’s face and he inhaled
deeply. Zurito stood awkwardly, watching.
IN ANOTHER COUNTRY
IN the fall the war was always there, but we did not go to it any more.
It was cold in the fall in Milan and the dark came very early. Then the
electric lights came on, and it was pleasant along the streets looking
in the windows. There was much game hanging outside the shops, and the
snow powdered in the fur of the foxes and the wind blew their tails. The
deer hung stiff and heavy and empty, and small birds blew in the wind
and the wind turned their feathers. It was a cold fall and the wind came
down from the mountains.
We were all at the hospital every afternoon, and there were different
ways of walking across the town through the dusk to the hospital. Two of
the ways were alongside canals, but they were long. Always, though, you
crossed a bridge across a canal to enter the hospital. There was a
choice of three bridges. On one of them a woman sold roasted chestnuts.
It was warm, standing in front of her charcoal fire, and the chestnuts
were warm afterward in your pocket. The hospital was very old and very
beautiful, and you entered through a gate and walked across a courtyard
and out a gate on the other side. There were usually funerals starting
from the courtyard. Beyond the old hospital were the new brick
pavilions, and there we met every afternoon and were all very polite and
interested in what was the matter, and sat in the machines that were to
make so much difference.
The doctor came up to the machine where I was sitting and said: “What
did you like best to do before the war? Did you practise a sport?”
I said: “Yes, football.”
“Good,” he said. “You will be able to play football again better than
ever.”
My knee did not bend and the leg dropped straight from the knee to the
ankle without a calf, and the machine was to bend the knee and make it
move as in riding a tricycle. But it did not bend yet, and instead the
machine lurched when it came to the bending part. The doctor said: “That
will all pass. You are a fortunate young man. You will play football
again like a champion.”
In the next machine was a major who had a little hand like a baby’s. He
winked at me when the doctor examined his hand, which was between two
leather straps that bounced up and down and flapped the stiff fingers,
and said: “And will I too play football, captain-doctor?” He had been a
very great fencer, and before the war the greatest fencer in Italy.
The doctor went to his office in a back room and brought a photograph
which showed a hand that had been withered almost as small as the
major’s, before it had taken a machine course, and after was a little
larger. The major held the photograph with his good hand and looked at
it very carefully. “A wound?” he asked.
“An industrial accident,” the doctor said.
“Very interesting, very interesting,” the major said, and handed it back
to the doctor.
“You have confidence?”
“No,” said the major.
There were three boys who came each day who were about the same age I
was. They were all three from Milan, and one of them was to be a lawyer,
and one was to be a painter, and one had intended to be a soldier, and
after we were finished with the machines, sometimes we walked back
together to the Café Cova, which was next door to the Scala. We walked
the short way through the communist quarter because we were four
together. The people hated us because we were officers, and from a
wine-shop some one would call out, “A basso gli ufficiali!” as we
passed. Another boy who walked with us sometimes and made us five wore a
black silk handkerchief across his face because he had no nose then and
his face was to be rebuilt. He had gone out to the front from the
military academy and been wounded within an hour after he had gone into
the front line for the first time. They rebuilt his face, but he came
from a very old family and they could never get the nose exactly right.
He went to South America and worked in a bank. But this was a long time
ago, and then we did not any of us know how it was going to be
afterward. We only knew then that there was always the war, but that we
were not going to it any more.
We all had the same medals, except the boy with the black silk bandage
across his face, and he had not been at the front long enough to get any
medals. The tall boy with a very pale face who was to be a lawyer had
been a lieutenant of Arditi and had three medals of the sort we each had
only one of. He had lived a very long time with death and was a little
detached. We were all a little detached, and there was nothing that held
us together except that we met every afternoon at the hospital.
Although, as we walked to the Cova through the tough part of town,
walking in the dark, with light and singing coming out of the
wine-shops, and sometimes having to walk into the street when the men
and women would crowd together on the sidewalk so that we would have had
to jostle them to get by, we felt held together by there being something
that had happened that they, the people who disliked us, did not
understand.
We ourselves all understood the Cova, where it was rich and warm and not
too brightly lighted, and noisy and smoky at certain hours, and there
were always girls at the tables and the illustrated papers on a rack on
the wall. The girls at the Cova were very patriotic, and I found that
the most patriotic people in Italy were the café girls—and I believe
they are still patriotic.
The boys at first were very polite about my medals and asked me what I
had done to get them. I showed them the papers, which were written in
very beautiful language and full of _fratellanza_ and _abnegazione_, but
which really said, with the adjectives removed, that I had been given
the medals because I was an American. After that their manner changed a
little toward me, although I was their friend against outsiders. I was a
friend, but I was never really one of them after they had read the
citations, because it had been different with them and they had done
very different things to get their medals. I had been wounded, it was
true; but we all knew that being wounded, after all, was really an
accident. I was never ashamed of the ribbons, though, and sometimes,
after the cocktail hour, I would imagine myself having done all the
things they had done to get their medals; but walking home at night
through the empty streets with the cold wind and all the shops closed,
trying to keep near the street lights, I knew that I would never have
done such things, and I was very much afraid to die, and often lay in
bed at night by myself, afraid to die and wondering how I would be when
I went back to the front again.
The three with the medals were like hunting-hawks; and I was not a hawk,
although I might seem a hawk to those who had never hunted; they, the
three, knew better and so we drifted apart. But I stayed good friends
with the boy who had been wounded his first day at the front, because he
would never know now how he would have turned out; so he could never be
accepted either, and I liked him because I thought perhaps he would not
have turned out to be a hawk either.
The major, who had been the great fencer, did not believe in bravery,
and spent much time while we sat in the machines correcting my grammar.
He had complimented me on how I spoke Italian, and we talked together
very easily. One day I had said that Italian seemed such an easy
language to me that I could not take a great interest in it; everything
was so easy to say. “Ah, yes,” the major said. “Why, then, do you not
take up the use of grammar?” So we took up the use of grammar, and soon
Italian was such a difficult language that I was afraid to talk to him
until I had the grammar straight in my mind.
The major came very regularly to the hospital. I do not think he ever
missed a day, although I am sure he did not believe in the machines.
There was a time when none of us believed in the machines, and one day
the major said it was all nonsense. The machines were new then and it
was we who were to prove them. It was an idiotic idea, he said, “a
theory, like another.” I had not learned my grammar, and he said I was a
stupid impossible disgrace, and he was a fool to have bothered with me.
He was a small man and he sat straight up in his chair with his right
hand thrust into the machine and looked straight ahead at the wall while
the straps thumped up and down with his fingers in them.
“What will you do when the war is over if it is over?” he asked me.
“Speak grammatically!”
“I will go to the States.”
“Are you married?”
“No, but I hope to be.”
“The more of a fool you are,” he said. He seemed very angry. “A man must
not marry.”
“Why, Signor Maggiore?”
“Don’t call me ‘Signor Maggiore.’”
“Why must not a man marry?”
“He cannot marry. He cannot marry,” he said angrily. “If he is to lose
everything, he should not place himself in a position to lose that. He
should not place himself in a position to lose. He should find things he
cannot lose.”
He spoke very angrily and bitterly, and looked straight ahead while he
talked.
“But why should he necessarily lose it?”
“He’ll lose it,” the major said. He was looking at the wall. Then he
looked down at the machine and jerked his little hand out from between
the straps and slapped it hard against his thigh. “He’ll lose it,” he
almost shouted. “Don’t argue with me!” Then he called to the attendant
who ran the machines. “Come and turn this damned thing off.”
He went back into the other room for the light treatment and the
massage. Then I heard him ask the doctor if he might use his telephone
and he shut the door. When he came back into the room, I was sitting in
another machine. He was wearing his cape and had his cap on, and he came
directly toward my machine and put his arm on my shoulder.
“I am so sorry,” he said, and patted me on the shoulder with his good
hand. “I would not be rude. My wife has just died. You must forgive me.”
“Oh—” I said, feeling sick for him. “I am _so_ sorry.”
He stood there biting his lower lip. “It is very difficult,” he said. “I
cannot resign myself.”
He looked straight past me and out through the window. Then he began to
cry. “I am utterly unable to resign myself,” he said and choked. And
then crying, his head up looking at nothing, carrying himself straight
and soldierly, with tears on both his cheeks and biting his lips, he
walked past the machines and out the door.
The doctor told me that the major’s wife, who was very young and whom he
had not married until he was definitely invalided out of the war, had
died of pneumonia. She had been sick only a few days. No one expected
her to die. The major did not come to the hospital for three days. Then
he came at the usual hour, wearing a black band on the sleeve of his
uniform. When he came back, there were large framed photographs around
the wall, of all sorts of wounds before and after they had been cured by
the machines. In front of the machine the major used were three
photographs of hands like his that were completely restored. I do not
know where the doctor got them. I always understood we were the first to
use the machines. The photographs did not make much difference to the
major because he only looked out of the window.
HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS
THE hills across the valley of the Ebro were long and white. On this
side there was no shade and no trees and the station was between two
lines of rails in the sun. Close against the side of the station there
was the warm shadow of the building and a curtain, made of strings of
bamboo beads, hung across the open door into the bar, to keep out flies.
The American and the girl with him sat at a table in the shade, outside
the building. It was very hot and the express from Barcelona would come
in forty minutes. It stopped at this junction for two minutes and went
on to Madrid.
“What should we drink?” the girl asked. She had taken off her hat and
put it on the table.
“It’s pretty hot,” the man said.
“Let’s drink beer.”
“Dos cervezas,” the man said into the curtain.
“Big ones?” a woman asked from the doorway.
“Yes. Two big ones.”
The woman brought two glasses of beer and two felt pads. She put the
felt pads and the beer glasses on the table and looked at the man and
the girl. The girl was looking off at the line of hills. They were white
in the sun and the country was brown and dry.
“They look like white elephants,” she said.
“I’ve never seen one,” the man drank his beer.
“No, you wouldn’t have.”
“I might have,” the man said. “Just because you say I wouldn’t have
doesn’t prove anything.”
The girl looked at the bead curtain. “They’ve painted something on it,”
she said. “What does it say?”
“Anis del Toro. It’s a drink.”
“Could we try it?”
The man called “Listen” through the curtain. The woman came out from the
bar.
“Four reales.”
“We want two Anis del Toro.”
“With water?”
“Do you want it with water?”
“I don’t know,” the girl said. “Is it good with water?”
“It’s all right.”
“You want them with water?” asked the woman.
“Yes, with water.”
“It tastes like licorice,” the girl said and put the glass down.
“That’s the way with everything.”
“Yes,” said the girl. “Everything tastes of licorice. Especially all the
things you’ve waited so long for, like absinthe.”
“Oh, cut it out.”
“You started it,” the girl said. “I was being amused. I was having a
fine time.”
“Well, let’s try and have a fine time.”
“All right. I was trying. I said the mountains looked like white
elephants. Wasn’t that bright?”
“That was bright.”
“I wanted to try this new drink. That’s all we do, isn’t it—look at
things and try new drinks?”
“I guess so.”
The girl looked across at the hills.
“They’re lovely hills,” she said. “They don’t really look like white
elephants. I just meant the coloring of their skin through the trees.”
“Should we have another drink?”
“All right.”
The warm wind blew the bead curtain against the table.
“The beer’s nice and cool,” the man said.
“It’s lovely,” the girl said.
“It’s really an awfully simple operation, Jig,” the man said. “It’s not
really an operation at all.”
The girl looked at the ground the table legs rested on.
“I know you wouldn’t mind it, Jig. It’s really not anything. It’s just
to let the air in.”
The girl did not say anything.
“I’ll go with you and I’ll stay with you all the time. They just let the
air in and then it’s all perfectly natural.”
“Then what will we do afterward?”
“We’ll be fine afterward. Just like we were before.”
“What makes you think so?”
“That’s the only thing that bothers us. It’s the only thing that’s made
us unhappy.”
The girl looked at the bead curtain, put her hand out and took hold of
two of the strings of beads.
“And you think then we’ll be all right and be happy.”
“I know we will. You don’t have to be afraid. I’ve known lots of people
that have done it.”
“So have I,” said the girl. “And afterward they were all so happy.”
“Well,” the man said, “if you don’t want to you don’t have to. I
wouldn’t have you do it if you didn’t want to. But I know it’s perfectly
simple.”
“And you really want to?”
“I think it’s the best thing to do. But I don’t want you to do it if you
don’t really want to.”
“And if I do it you’ll be happy and things will be like they were and
you’ll love me?”
“I love you now. You know I love you.”
“I know. But if I do it, then it will be nice again if I say things are
like white elephants, and you’ll like it?”
“I’ll love it. I love it now but I just can’t think about it. You know
how I get when I worry.”
“If I do it you won’t ever worry?”
“I won’t worry about that because it’s perfectly simple.”
“Then I’ll do it. Because I don’t care about me.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t care about me.”
“Well, I care about you.”
“Oh, yes. But I don’t care about me. And I’ll do it and then everything
will be fine.”
“I don’t want you to do it if you feel that way.”
The girl stood up and walked to the end of the station. Across, on the
other side, were fields of grain and trees along the banks of the Ebro.
Far away, beyond the river, were mountains. The shadow of a cloud moved
across the field of grain and she saw the river through the trees.
“And we could have all this,” she said. “And we could have everything
and every day we make it more impossible.”
“What did you say?”
“I said we could have everything.”
“We can have everything.”
“No, we can’t.”
“We can have the whole world.”
“No, we can’t.”
“We can go everywhere.”
“No, we can’t. It isn’t ours any more.”
“It’s ours.”
“No, it isn’t. And once they take it away, you never get it back.”
“But they haven’t taken it away.”
“We’ll wait and see.”
“Come on back in the shade,” he said. “You mustn’t feel that way.”
“I don’t feel any way,” the girl said. “I just know things.”
“I don’t want you to do anything that you don’t want to do——”
“Nor that isn’t good for me,” she said. “I know. Could we have another
beer?”
“All right. But you’ve got to realize——”
“I realize,” the girl said. “Can’t we maybe stop talking?”
They sat down at the table and the girl looked across at the hills on
the dry side of the valley and the man looked at her and at the table.
“You’ve got to realize,” he said, “that I don’t want you to do it if you
don’t want to. I’m perfectly willing to go through with it if it means
anything to you.”
“Doesn’t it mean anything to you? We could get along.”
“Of course it does. But I don’t want anybody but you. I don’t want any
one else. And I know it’s perfectly simple.”
“Yes, you know it’s perfectly simple.”
“It’s all right for you to say that, but I do know it.”
“Would you do something for me now?”
“I’d do anything for you.”
“Would you please please please please please please please stop
talking?”
He did not say anything but looked at the bags against the wall of the
station. There were labels on them from all the hotels where they had
spent nights.
“But I don’t want you to,” he said, “I don’t care anything about it.”
“I’ll scream,” the girl said.
The woman came out through the curtains with two glasses of beer and put
them down on the damp felt pads. “The train comes in five minutes,” she
said.
“What did she say?” asked the girl.
“That the train is coming in five minutes.”
The girl smiled brightly at the woman, to thank her.
“I’d better take the bags over to the other side of the station,” the
man said. She smiled at him.
“All right. Then come back and we’ll finish the beer.”
He picked up the two heavy bags and carried them around the station to
the other tracks. He looked up the tracks but could not see the train.
Coming back, he walked through the barroom, where people waiting for the
train were drinking. He drank an Anis at the bar and looked at the
people. They were all waiting reasonably for the train. He went out
through the bead curtain. She was sitting at the table and smiled at
him.
“Do you feel better?” he asked.
“I feel fine,” she said. “There’s nothing wrong with me. I feel fine.”
THE KILLERS
THE door of Henry’s lunch-room opened and two men came in. They sat down
at the counter.
“What’s yours?” George asked them.
“I don’t know,” one of the men said. “What do you want to eat, Al?”
“I don’t know,” said Al. “I don’t know what I want to eat.”
Outside it was getting dark. The street-light came on outside the
window. The two men at the counter read the menu. From the other end of
the counter Nick Adams watched them. He had been talking to George when
they came in.
“I’ll have a roast pork tenderloin with apple sauce and mashed
potatoes,” the first man said.
“It isn’t ready yet.”
“What the hell do you put it on the card for?”
“That’s the dinner,” George explained. “You can get that at six
o’clock.”
George looked at the clock on the wall behind the counter.
“It’s five o’clock.”
“The clock says twenty minutes past five,” the second man said.
“It’s twenty minutes fast.”
“Oh, to hell with the clock,” the first man said. “What have you got to
eat?”
“I can give you any kind of sandwiches,” George said. “You can have ham
and eggs, bacon and eggs, liver and bacon, or a steak.”
“Give me chicken croquettes with green peas and cream sauce and mashed
potatoes.”
“That’s the dinner.”
“Everything we want’s the dinner, eh? That’s the way you work it.”
“I can give you ham and eggs, bacon and eggs, liver——”
“I’ll take ham and eggs,” the man called Al said. He wore a derby hat
and a black overcoat buttoned across the chest. His face was small and
white and he had tight lips. He wore a silk muffler and gloves.
“Give me bacon and eggs,” said the other man. He was about the same size
as Al. Their faces were different, but they were dressed like twins.
Both wore overcoats too tight for them. They sat leaning forward, their
elbows on the counter.
“Got anything to drink?” Al asked.
“Silver beer, bevo, ginger-ale,” George said.
“I mean you got anything to _drink_?”
“Just those I said.”
“This is a hot town,” said the other. “What do they call it?”
“Summit.”
“Ever hear of it?” Al asked his friend.
“No,” said the friend.
“What do you do here nights?” Al asked.
“They eat the dinner,” his friend said. “They all come here and eat the
big dinner.”
“That’s right,” George said.
“So you think that’s right?” Al asked George.
“Sure.”
“You’re a pretty bright boy, aren’t you?”
“Sure,” said George.
“Well, you’re not,” said the other little man. “Is he, Al?”
“He’s dumb,” said Al. He turned to Nick. “What’s your name?”
“Adams.”
“Another bright boy,” Al said. “Ain’t he a bright boy, Max?”
“The town’s full of bright boys,” Max said.
George put the two platters, one of ham and eggs, the other of bacon and
eggs, on the counter. He set down two side-dishes of fried potatoes and
closed the wicket into the kitchen.
“Which is yours?” he asked Al.
“Don’t you remember?”
“Ham and eggs.”
“Just a bright boy,” Max said. He leaned forward and took the ham and
eggs. Both men ate with their gloves on. George watched them eat.
“What are _you_ looking at?” Max looked at George.
“Nothing.”
“The hell you were. You were looking at me.”
“Maybe the boy meant it for a joke, Max,” Al said.
George laughed.
“_You_ don’t have to laugh,” Max said to him. “_You_ don’t have to laugh
at all, see?”
“All right,” said George.
“So he thinks it’s all right.” Max turned to Al. “He thinks it’s all
right. That’s a good one.”
“Oh, he’s a thinker,” Al said. They went on eating.
“What’s the bright boy’s name down the counter?” Al asked Max.
“Hey, bright boy,” Max said to Nick. “You go around on the other side of
the counter with your boy friend.”
“What’s the idea?” Nick asked.
“There isn’t any idea.”
“You better go around, bright boy,” Al said. Nick went around behind the
counter.
“What’s the idea?” George asked.
“None of your damn business,” Al said. “Who’s out in the kitchen?”
“The nigger.”
“What do you mean the nigger?”
“The nigger that cooks.”
“Tell him to come in.”
“What’s the idea?”
“Tell him to come in.”
“Where do you think you are?”
“We know damn well where we are,” the man called Max said. “Do we look
silly?”
“You talk silly,” Al said to him. “What the hell do you argue with this
kid for? Listen,” he said to George, “tell the nigger to come out here.”
“What are you going to do to him?”
“Nothing. Use your head, bright boy. What would we do to a nigger?”
George opened the slit that opened back into the kitchen. “Sam,” he
called. “Come in here a minute.”
The door to the kitchen opened and the nigger came in. “What was it?” he
asked. The two men at the counter took a look at him.
“All right, nigger. You stand right there,” Al said.
Sam, the nigger, standing in his apron, looked at the two men sitting at
the counter. “Yes, sir,” he said. Al got down from his stool.
“I’m going back to the kitchen with the nigger and bright boy,” he said.
“Go on back to the kitchen, nigger. You go with him, bright boy.” The
little man walked after Nick and Sam, the cook, back into the kitchen.
The door shut after them. The man called Max sat at the counter opposite
George. He didn’t look at George but looked in the mirror that ran along
back of the counter. Henry’s had been made over from a saloon into a
lunch-counter.
“Well, bright boy,” Max said, looking into the mirror, “why don’t you
say something?”
“What’s it all about?”
“Hey, Al,” Max called, “bright boy wants to know what it’s all about.”
“Why don’t you tell him?” Al’s voice came from the kitchen.
“What do you think it’s all about?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you think?”
Max looked into the mirror all the time he was talking.
“I wouldn’t say.”
“Hey, Al, bright boy says he wouldn’t say what he thinks it’s all
about.”
“I can hear you, all right,” Al said from the kitchen. He had propped
open the slit that dishes passed through into the kitchen with a catsup
bottle. “Listen, bright boy,” he said from the kitchen to George. “Stand
a little further along the bar. You move a little to the left, Max.” He
was like a photographer arranging for a group picture.
“Talk to me, bright boy,” Max said. “What do you think’s going to
happen?”
George did not say anything.
“I’ll tell you,” Max said. “We’re going to kill a Swede. Do you know a
big Swede named Ole Andreson?”
“Yes.”
“He comes here to eat every night, don’t he?”
“Sometimes he comes here.”
“He comes here at six o’clock, don’t he?”
“If he comes.”
“We know all that, bright boy,” Max said. “Talk about something else.
Ever go to the movies?”
“Once in a while.”
“You ought to go to the movies more. The movies are fine for a bright
boy like you.”
“What are you going to kill Ole Andreson for? What did he ever do to
you?”
“He never had a chance to do anything to us. He never even seen us.”
“And he’s only going to see us once,” Al said from the kitchen.
“What are you going to kill him for, then?” George asked.
“We’re killing him for a friend. Just to oblige a friend, bright boy.”
“Shut up,” said Al from the kitchen. “You talk too goddam much.”
“Well, I got to keep bright boy amused. Don’t I, bright boy?”
“You talk too damn much,” Al said. “The nigger and my bright boy are
amused by themselves. I got them tied up like a couple of girl friends
in the convent.”
“I suppose you were in a convent.”
“You never know.”
“You were in a kosher convent. That’s where you were.”
George looked up at the clock.
“If anybody comes in you tell them the cook is off, and if they keep
after it, you tell them you’ll go back and cook yourself. Do you get
that, bright boy?”
“All right,” George said. “What you going to do with us afterward?”
“That’ll depend,” Max said. “That’s one of those things you never know
at the time.”
George looked up at the clock. It was a quarter past six. The door from
the street opened. A street-car motorman came in.
“Hello, George,” he said. “Can I get supper?”
“Sam’s gone out,” George said. “He’ll be back in about half an hour.”
“I’d better go up the street,” the motorman said. George looked at the
clock. It was twenty minutes past six.
“That was nice, bright boy,” Max said. “You’re a regular little
gentleman.”
“He knew I’d blow his head off,” Al said from the kitchen.
“No,” said Max. “It ain’t that. Bright boy is nice. He’s a nice boy. I
like him.”
At six-fifty-five George said: “He’s not coming.”
Two other people had been in the lunch-room. Once George had gone out to
the kitchen and made a ham-and-egg sandwich “to go” that a man wanted to
take with him. Inside the kitchen he saw Al, his derby hat tipped back,
sitting on a stool beside the wicket with the muzzle of a sawed-off
shotgun resting on the ledge. Nick and the cook were back to back in the
corner, a towel tied in each of their mouths. George had cooked the
sandwich, wrapped it up in oiled paper, put it in a bag, brought it in,
and the man had paid for it and gone out.
“Bright boy can do everything,” Max said. “He can cook and everything.
You’d make some girl a nice wife, bright boy.”
“Yes?” George said. “Your friend, Ole Andreson, isn’t going to come.”
“We’ll give him ten minutes,” Max said.
Max watched the mirror and the clock. The hands of the clock marked
seven o’clock, and then five minutes past seven.
“Come on, Al,” said Max. “We better go. He’s not coming.”
“Better give him five minutes,” Al said from the kitchen.
In the five minutes a man came in, and George explained that the cook
was sick.
“Why the hell don’t you get another cook?” the man asked. “Aren’t you
running a lunch-counter?” He went out.
“Come on, Al,” Max said.
“What about the two bright boys and the nigger?”
“They’re all right.”
“You think so?”
“Sure. We’re through with it.”
“I don’t like it,” said Al. “It’s sloppy. You talk too much.”
“Oh, what the hell,” said Max. “We got to keep amused, haven’t we?”
“You talk too much, all the same,” Al said. He came out from the
kitchen. The cut-off barrels of the shotgun made a slight bulge under
the waist of his too tight-fitting overcoat. He straightened his coat
with his gloved hands.
“So long, bright boy,” he said to George. “You got a lot of luck.”
“That’s the truth,” Max said. “You ought to play the races, bright boy.”
The two of them went out the door. George watched them, through the
window, pass under the arc-light and cross the street. In their tight
overcoats and derby hats they looked like a vaudeville team. George went
back through the swinging-door into the kitchen and untied Nick and the
cook.
“I don’t want any more of that,” said Sam, the cook. “I don’t want any
more of that.”
Nick stood up. He had never had a towel in his mouth before.
“Say,” he said. “What the hell?” He was trying to swagger it off.
“They were going to kill Ole Andreson,” George said. “They were going to
shoot him when he came in to eat.”
“Ole Andreson?”
“Sure.”
The cook felt the corners of his mouth with his thumbs.
“They all gone?” he asked.
“Yeah,” said George. “They’re gone now.”
“I don’t like it,” said the cook. “I don’t like any of it at all.”
“Listen,” George said to Nick. “You better go see Ole Andreson.”
“All right.”
“You better not have anything to do with it at all,” Sam, the cook,
said. “You better stay way out of it.”
“Don’t go if you don’t want to,” George said.
“Mixing up in this ain’t going to get you anywhere,” the cook said. “You
stay out of it.”
“I’ll go see him,” Nick said to George. “Where does he live?”
The cook turned away.
“Little boys always know what they want to do,” he said.
“He lives up at Hirsch’s rooming-house,” George said to Nick.
“I’ll go up there.”
Outside the arc-light shone through the bare branches of a tree. Nick
walked up the street beside the car-tracks and turned at the next
arc-light down a side-street. Three houses up the street was Hirsch’s
rooming-house. Nick walked up the two steps and pushed the bell. A woman
came to the door.
“Is Ole Andreson here?”
“Do you want to see him?”
“Yes, if he’s in.”
Nick followed the woman up a flight of stairs and back to the end of a
corridor. She knocked on the door.
“Who is it?”
“It’s somebody to see you, Mr. Andreson,” the woman said.
“It’s Nick Adams.”
“Come in.”
Nick opened the door and went into the room. Ole Andreson was lying on
the bed with all his clothes on. He had been a heavyweight prizefighter
and he was too long for the bed. He lay with his head on two pillows. He
did not look at Nick.
“What was it?” he asked.
“I was up at Henry’s,” Nick said, “and two fellows came in and tied up
me and the cook, and they said they were going to kill you.”
It sounded silly when he said it. Ole Andreson said nothing.
“They put us out in the kitchen,” Nick went on. “They were going to
shoot you when you came in to supper.”
Ole Andreson looked at the wall and did not say anything.
“George thought I better come and tell you about it.”
“There isn’t anything I can do about it,” Ole Andreson said.
“I’ll tell you what they were like.”
“I don’t want to know what they were like,” Ole Andreson said. He looked
at the wall. “Thanks for coming to tell me about it.”
“That’s all right.”
Nick looked at the big man lying on the bed.
“Don’t you want me to go and see the police?”
“No,” Ole Andreson said. “That wouldn’t do any good.”
“Isn’t there something I could do?”
“No. There ain’t anything to do.”
“Maybe it was just a bluff.”
“No. It ain’t just a bluff.”
Ole Andreson rolled over toward the wall.
“The only thing is,” he said, talking toward the wall, “I just can’t
make up my mind to go out. I been in here all day.”
“Couldn’t you get out of town?”
“No,” Ole Andreson said. “I’m through with all that running around.”
He looked at the wall.
“There ain’t anything to do now.”
“Couldn’t you fix it up some way?”
“No. I got in wrong.” He talked in the same flat voice. “There ain’t
anything to do. After a while I’ll make up my mind to go out.”
“I better go back and see George,” Nick said.
“So long,” said Ole Andreson. He did not look toward Nick. “Thanks for
coming around.”
Nick went out. As he shut the door he saw Ole Andreson with all his
clothes on, lying on the bed looking at the wall.
“He’s been in his room all day,” the landlady said downstairs. “I guess
he don’t feel well. I said to him: ‘Mr. Andreson, you ought to go out
and take a walk on a nice fall day like this,’ but he didn’t feel like
it.”
“He doesn’t want to go out.”
“I’m sorry he don’t feel well,” the woman said. “He’s an awfully nice
man. He was in the ring, you know.”
“I know it.”
“You’d never know it except from the way his face is,” the woman said.
They stood talking just inside the street door. “He’s just as gentle.”
“Well, good-night, Mrs. Hirsch,” Nick said.
“I’m not Mrs. Hirsch,” the woman said. “She owns the place. I just look
after it for her. I’m Mrs. Bell.”
“Well, good-night, Mrs. Bell,” Nick said.
“Good-night,” the woman said.
Nick walked up the dark street to the corner under the arc-light, and
then along the car-tracks to Henry’s eating-house. George was inside,
back of the counter.
“Did you see Ole?”
“Yes,” said Nick. “He’s in his room and he won’t go out.”
The cook opened the door from the kitchen when he heard Nick’s voice.
“I don’t even listen to it,” he said and shut the door.
“Did you tell him about it?” George asked.
“Sure. I told him but he knows what it’s all about.”
“What’s he going to do?”
“Nothing.”
“They’ll kill him.”
“I guess they will.”
“He must have got mixed up in something in Chicago.”
“I guess so,” said Nick.
“It’s a hell of a thing.”
“It’s an awful thing,” Nick said.
They did not say anything. George reached down for a towel and wiped the
counter.
“I wonder what he did?” Nick said.
“Double-crossed somebody. That’s what they kill them for.”
“I’m going to get out of this town,” Nick said.
“Yes,” said George. “That’s a good thing to do.”
“I can’t stand to think about him waiting in the room and knowing he’s
going to get it. It’s too damned awful.”
“Well,” said George, “you better not think about it.”
CHE TI DICE LA PATRIA?
THE road of the pass was hard and smooth and not yet dusty in the early
morning. Below were the hills with oak and chestnut trees, and far away
below was the sea. On the other side were snowy mountains.
We came down from the pass through wooded country. There were bags of
charcoal piled beside the road, and through the trees we saw
charcoal-burners’ huts. It was Sunday and the road, rising and falling,
but always dropping away from the altitude of the pass, went through the
scrub woods and through villages.
Outside the villages there were fields with vines. The fields were brown
and the vines coarse and thick. The houses were white, and in the
streets the men, in their Sunday clothes, were playing bowls. Against
the walls of some of the houses there were pear trees, their branches
candelabraed against the white walls. The pear trees had been sprayed,
and the walls of the houses were stained a metallic blue-green by the
spray vapor. There were small clearings around the villages where the
vines grew, and then the woods.
In a village, twenty kilometres above Spezia, there was a crowd in the
square, and a young man carrying a suitcase came up to the car and asked
us to take him in to Spezia.
“There are only two places, and they are occupied,” I said. We had an
old Ford coupé.
“I will ride on the outside.”
“You will be uncomfortable.”
“That makes nothing. I must go to Spezia.”
“Should we take him?” I asked Guy.
“He seems to be going anyway,” Guy said. The young man handed in a
parcel through the window.
“Look after this,” he said. Two men tied his suitcase on the back of the
car, above our suitcases. He shook hands with every one, explained that
to a Fascist and a man as used to travelling as himself there was no
discomfort, and climbed up on the running-board on the left-hand side of
the car, holding on inside, his right arm through the open window.
“You can start,” he said. The crowd waved. He waved with his free hand.
“What did he say?” Guy asked me.
“That we could start.”
“Isn’t he nice?” Guy said.
The road followed a river. Across the river were mountains. The sun was
taking the frost out of the grass. It was bright and cold and the air
came cold through the open wind-shield.
“How do you think he likes it out there?” Guy was looking up the road.
His view out of his side of the car was blocked by our guest. The young
man projected from the side of the car like the figurehead of a ship. He
had turned his coat collar up and pulled his hat down and his nose
looked cold in the wind.
“Maybe he’ll get enough of it,” Guy said. “That’s the side our bum
tire’s on.”
“Oh, he’d leave us if we blew out,” I said. “He wouldn’t get his
travelling-clothes dirty.”
“Well, I don’t mind him,” Guy said—“except the way he leans out on the
turns.”
The woods were gone; the road had left the river to climb; the radiator
was boiling; the young man looked annoyedly and suspiciously at the
steam and rusty water; the engine was grinding, with both Guy’s feet on
the first-speed pedal, up and up, back and forth and up, and, finally,
out level. The grinding stopped, and in the new quiet there was a great
churning bubbling in the radiator. We were at the top of the last range
above Spezia and the sea. The road descended with short, barely rounded
turns. Our guest hung out on the turns and nearly pulled the top-heavy
car over.
“You can’t tell him not to,” I said to Guy. “It’s his sense of
self-preservation.”
“The great Italian sense.”
“The greatest Italian sense.”
We came down around curves, through deep dust, the dust powdering the
olive trees. Spezia spread below along the sea. The road flattened
outside the town. Our guest put his head in the window.
“I want to stop.”
“Stop it,” I said to Guy.
We slowed up, at the side of the road. The young man got down, went to
the back of the car and untied the suitcase.
“I stop here, so you won’t get into trouble carrying passengers,” he
said. “My package.”
I handed him the package. He reached in his pocket.
“How much do I owe you?”
“Nothing.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Then thanks,” the young man said, not “thank you,” or “thank you very
much,” or “thank you a thousand times,” all of which you formerly said
in Italy to a man when he handed you a time-table or explained about a
direction. The young man uttered the lowest form of the word “thanks”
and looked after us suspiciously as Guy started the car. I waved my hand
at him. He was too dignified to reply. We went on into Spezia.
“That’s a young man that will go a long way in Italy,” I said to Guy.
“Well,” said Guy, “he went twenty kilometres with us.”
A MEAL IN SPEZIA
We came into Spezia looking for a place to eat. The street was wide and
the houses high and yellow. We followed the tram-track into the centre
of town. On the walls of the houses were stencilled eye-bugging
portraits of Mussolini, with hand-painted “vivas,” the double V in black
paint with drippings of paint down the wall. Side-streets went down to
the harbor. It was bright and the people were all out for Sunday. The
stone paving had been sprinkled and there were damp stretches in the
dust. We went close to the curb to avoid a tram.
“Let’s eat somewhere simple,” Guy said.
We stopped opposite two restaurant signs. We were standing across the
street and I was buying the papers. The two restaurants were side by
side. A woman standing in the doorway of one smiled at us and we crossed
the street and went in.
It was dark inside and at the back of the room three girls were sitting
at a table with an old woman. Across from us, at another table, sat a
sailor. He sat there neither eating nor drinking. Further back, a young
man in a blue suit was writing at a table. His hair was pomaded and
shining and he was very smartly dressed and clean-cut looking.
The light came through the doorway, and through the window where
vegetables, fruit, steaks, and chops were arranged in a show-case. A
girl came and took our order and another girl stood in the doorway. We
noticed that she wore nothing under her house dress. The girl who took
our order put her arm around Guy’s neck while we were looking at the
menu. There were three girls in all, and they all took turns going and
standing in the doorway. The old woman at the table in the back of the
room spoke to them and they sat down again with her.
There was no doorway leading from the room except into the kitchen. A
curtain hung over it. The girl who had taken our order came in from the
kitchen with spaghetti. She put it on the table and brought a bottle of
red wine and sat down at the table.
“Well,” I said to Guy, “you wanted to eat some place simple.”
“This isn’t simple. This is complicated.”
“What do you say?” asked the girl. “Are you Germans?”
“South Germans,” I said. “The South Germans are a gentle, lovable
people.”
“Don’t understand,” she said.
“What’s the mechanics of this place?” Guy asked. “Do I have to let her
put her arm around my neck?”
“Certainly,” I said. “Mussolini has abolished the brothels. This is a
restaurant.”
The girl wore a one-piece dress. She leaned forward against the table
and put her hands on her breasts and smiled. She smiled better on one
side than on the other and turned the good side toward us. The charm of
the good side had been enhanced by some event which had smoothed the
other side of her nose in, as warm wax can be smoothed. Her nose,
however, did not look like warm wax. It was very cold and firmed, only
smoothed in. “You like me?” she asked Guy.
“He adores you,” I said. “But he doesn’t speak Italian.”
“Ich spreche Deutsch,” she said, and stroked Guy’s hair.
“Speak to the lady in your native tongue, Guy.”
“Where do you come from?” asked the lady.
“Potsdam.”
“And you will stay here now for a little while?”
“In this so dear Spezia?” I asked.
“Tell her we have to go,” said Guy. “Tell her we are very ill, and have
no money.”
“My friend is a misogynist,” I said, “an old German misogynist.”
“Tell him I love him.”
I told him.
“Will you shut your mouth and get us out of here?” Guy said. The lady
had placed another arm around his neck. “Tell him he is mine,” she said.
I told him.
“Will you get us out of here?”
“You are quarrelling,” the lady said. “You do not love one another.”
“We are Germans,” I said proudly, “old South Germans.”
“Tell him he is a beautiful boy,” the lady said. Guy is thirty-eight and
takes some pride in the fact that he is taken for a travelling salesman
in France. “You are a beautiful boy,” I said.
“Who says so?” Guy asked, “you or her?”
“She does. I’m just your interpreter. Isn’t that what you got me in on
this trip for?”
“I’m glad it’s her,” said Guy. “I didn’t want to have to leave you here
too.”
“I don’t know. Spezia’s a lovely place.”
“Spezia,” the lady said. “You are talking about Spezia.”
“Lovely place,” I said.
“It is my country,” she said. “Spezia is my home and Italy is my
country.”
“She says that Italy is her country.”
“Tell her it looks like her country,” Guy said.
“What have you for dessert?” I asked.
“Fruit,” she said. “We have bananas.”
“Bananas are all right,” Guy said. “They’ve got skins on.”
“Oh, he takes bananas,” the lady said. She embraced Guy.
“What does she say?” he asked, keeping his face out of the way.
“She is pleased because you take bananas.”
“Tell her I don’t take bananas.”
“The Signor does not take bananas.”
“Ah,” said the lady, crestfallen, “he doesn’t take bananas.”
“Tell her I take a cold bath every morning,” Guy said.
“The Signor takes a cold bath every morning.”
“No understand,” the lady said.
Across from us, the property sailor had not moved. No one in the place
paid any attention to him.
“We want the bill,” I said.
“Oh, no. You must stay.”
“Listen,” the clean-cut young man said from the table where he was
writing, “let them go. These two are worth nothing.”
The lady took my hand. “You won’t stay? You won’t ask him to stay?”
“We have to go,” I said. “We have to get to Pisa, or if possible,
Firenze, to-night. We can amuse ourselves in those cities at the end of
the day. It is now the day. In the day we must cover distance.”
“To stay a little while is nice.”
“To travel is necessary during the light of day.”
“Listen,” the clean-cut young man said. “Don’t bother to talk with these
two. I tell you they are worth nothing and I know.”
“Bring us the bill,” I said. She brought the bill from the old woman and
went back and sat at the table. Another girl came in from the kitchen.
She walked the length of the room and stood in the doorway.
“Don’t bother with these two,” the clean-cut young man said in a wearied
voice. “Come and eat. They are worth nothing.”
We paid the bill and stood up. All the girls, the old woman, and the
clean-cut young man sat down at table together. The property sailor sat
with his head in his hands. No one had spoken to him all the time we
were at lunch. The girl brought us our change that the old woman counted
out for her and went back to her place at the table. We left a tip on
the table and went out. When we were seated in the car ready to start,
the girl came out and stood in the door. We started and I waved to her.
She did not wave, but stood there looking after us.
AFTER THE RAIN
It was raining hard when we passed through the suburbs of Genoa and,
even going very slowly behind the tram-cars and the motor trucks, liquid
mud splashed on to the sidewalks, so that people stepped into doorways
as they saw us coming. In San Pier d’Arena, the industrial suburb
outside of Genoa, there is a wide street with two car-tracks and we
drove down the centre to avoid sending the mud on to the men going home
from work. On our left was the Mediterranean. There was a big sea
running and waves broke and the wind blew the spray against the car. A
river-bed that, when we had passed, going into Italy, had been wide,
stony and dry, was running brown, and up to the banks. The brown water
discolored the sea and as the waves thinned and cleared in breaking, the
light came through the yellow water and the crests, detached by the
wind, blew across the road.
A big car passed us, going fast, and a sheet of muddy water rose up and
over our wind-shield and radiator. The automatic wind-shield cleaner
moved back and forth, spreading the film over the glass. We stopped and
ate lunch at Sestri. There was no heat in the restaurant and we kept our
hats and coats on. We could see the car outside, through the window. It
was covered with mud and was stopped beside some boats that had been
pulled up beyond the waves. In the restaurant you could see your breath.
The _pasta asciuta_ was good; the wine tasted of alum, and we poured
water in it. Afterward the waiter brought beefsteak and fried potatoes.
A man and a woman sat at the far end of the restaurant. He was
middle-aged and she was young and wore black. All during the meal she
would blow out her breath in the cold damp air. The man would look at it
and shake his head. They ate without talking and the man held her hand
under the table. She was good-looking and they seemed very sad. They had
a travelling-bag with them.
We had the papers and I read the account of the Shanghai fighting aloud
to Guy. After the meal, he left with the waiter in search for a place
which did not exist in the restaurant, and I cleaned off the
wind-shield, the lights and the license plates with a rag. Guy came back
and we backed the car out and started. The waiter had taken him across
the road and into an old house. The people in the house were suspicious
and the waiter had remained with Guy to see nothing was stolen.
“Although I don’t know how, me not being a plumber, they expected me to
steal anything,” Guy said.
As we came up on a headland beyond the town, the wind struck the car and
nearly tipped it over.
“It’s good it blows us away from the sea,” Guy said.
“Well,” I said, “they drowned Shelley somewhere along here.”
“That was down by Viareggio,” Guy said. “Do you remember what we came to
this country for?”
“Yes,” I said, “but we didn’t get it.”
“We’ll be out of it to-night.”
“If we can get past Ventimiglia.”
“We’ll see. I don’t like to drive this coast at night.” It was early
afternoon and the sun was out. Below, the sea was blue with whitecaps
running toward Savona. Back, beyond the cape, the brown and blue waters
joined. Out ahead of us, a tramp steamer was going up the coast.
“Can you still see Genoa?” Guy asked.
“Oh, yes.”
“That next big cape ought to put it out of sight.”
“We’ll see it a long time yet. I can still see Portofino Cape behind
it.”
Finally we could not see Genoa. I looked back as we came out and there
was only the sea, and below in the bay, a line of beach with
fishing-boats and above, on the side of the hill, a town and then capes
far down the coast.
“It’s gone now,” I said to Guy.
“Oh, it’s been gone a long time now.”
“But we couldn’t be sure till we got way out.”
There was a sign with a picture of an S-turn and Svolta Pericolosa. The
road curved around the headland and the wind blew through the crack in
the wind-shield. Below the cape was a flat stretch beside the sea. The
wind had dried the mud and the wheels were beginning to lift dust. On
the flat road we passed a Fascist riding a bicycle, a heavy revolver in
a holster on his back. He held the middle of the road on his bicycle and
we turned out for him. He looked up at us as we passed. Ahead there was
a railway crossing, and as we came toward it the gates went down.
As we waited, the Fascist came up on his bicycle. The train went by and
Guy started the engine.
“Wait,” the bicycle man shouted from behind the car. “Your number’s
dirty.”
I got out with a rag. The number had been cleaned at lunch.
“You can read it,” I said.
“You think so?”
“Read it.”
“I cannot read it. It is dirty.”
I wiped it off with the rag.
“How’s that?”
“Twenty-five lire.”
“What?” I said. “You could have read it. It’s only dirty from the state
of the roads.”
“You don’t like Italian roads?”
“They are dirty.”
“Fifty lire.” He spat in the road. “Your car is dirty and you are dirty
too.”
“Good. And give me a receipt with your name.”
He took out a receipt-book, made in duplicate, and perforated, so one
side could be given to the customer, and the other side filled in and
kept as a stub. There was no carbon to record what the customer’s ticket
said.
“Give me fifty lire.”
He wrote in indelible pencil, tore out the slip and handed it to me. I
read it.
“This is for twenty-five lire.”
“A mistake,” he said, and changed the twenty-five to fifty.
“And now the other side. Make it fifty in the part you keep.”
He smiled a beautiful Italian smile and wrote something on the receipt
stub, holding it so I could not see.
“Go on,” he said, “before your number gets dirty again.”
We drove for two hours after it was dark and slept in Mentone that
night. It seemed very cheerful and clean and sane and lovely. We had
driven from Ventimiglia to Pisa and Florence, across the Romagna to
Rimini, back through Forli, Imola, Bologna, Parma, Piacenza and Genoa,
to Ventimiglia again. The whole trip had only taken ten days. Naturally,
in such a short trip, we had no opportunity to see how things were with
the country or the people.
FIFTY GRAND
“HOW are you going yourself, Jack?” I asked him.
“You seen this, Walcott?” he says.
“Just in the gym.”
“Well,” Jack says, “I’m going to need a lot of luck with that boy.”
“He can’t hit you, Jack,” Soldier said.
“I wish to hell he couldn’t.”
“He couldn’t hit you with a handful of bird-shot.”
“Bird-shot’d be all right,” Jack says. “I wouldn’t mind bird-shot any.”
“He looks easy to hit,” I said.
“Sure,” Jack says, “he ain’t going to last long. He ain’t going to last
like you and me, Jerry. But right now he’s got everything.”
“You’ll left-hand him to death.”
“Maybe,” Jack says. “Sure. I got a chance to.”
“Handle him like you handled Kid Lewis.”
“Kid Lewis,” Jack said. “That kike!”
The three of us, Jack Brennan, Soldier Bartlett, and I were in
Handley’s. There were a couple of broads sitting at the next table to
us. They had been drinking.
“What do you mean, kike?” one of the broads says. “What do you mean,
kike, you big Irish bum?”
“Sure,” Jack says. “That’s it.”
“Kikes,” this broad goes on. “They’re always talking about kikes, these
big Irishmen. What do you mean, kikes?”
“Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
“Kikes,” this broad goes on. “Whoever saw you ever buy a drink? Your
wife sews your pockets up every morning. These Irishmen and their kikes!
Ted Lewis could lick you too.”
“Sure,” Jack says. “And you give away a lot of things free too, don’t
you?”
We went out. That was Jack. He could say what he wanted to when he
wanted to say it.
Jack started training out at Danny Hogan’s health-farm over in Jersey.
It was nice out there but Jack didn’t like it much. He didn’t like being
away from his wife and the kids, and he was sore and grouchy most of the
time. He liked me and we got along fine together; and he liked Hogan,
but after a while Soldier Bartlett commenced to get on his nerves. A
kidder gets to be an awful thing around a camp if his stuff goes sort of
sour. Soldier was always kidding Jack, just sort of kidding him all the
time. It wasn’t very funny and it wasn’t very good, and it began to get
to Jack. It was sort of stuff like this. Jack would finish up with the
weights and the bag and pull on the gloves.
“You want to work?” he’d say to Soldier.
“Sure. How you want me to work?” Soldier would ask. “Want me to treat
you rough like Walcott? Want me to knock you down a few times?”
“That’s it,” Jack would say. He didn’t like it any, though.
One morning we were all out on the road. We’d been out quite a way and
now we were coming back. We’d go along fast for three minutes and then
walk a minute, and then go fast for three minutes again. Jack wasn’t
ever what you would call a sprinter. He’d move around fast enough in the
ring if he had to, but he wasn’t any too fast on the road. All the time
we were walking Soldier was kidding him. We came up the hill to the
farmhouse.
“Well,” says Jack, “you better go back to town, Soldier.”
“What do you mean?”
“You better go back to town and stay there.”
“What’s the matter?”
“I’m sick of hearing you talk.”
“Yes?” says Soldier.
“Yes,” says Jack.
“You’ll be a damn sight sicker when Walcott gets through with you.”
“Sure,” says Jack, “maybe I will. But I know I’m sick of you.”
So Soldier went off on the train to town that same morning. I went down
with him to the train. He was good and sore.
“I was just kidding him,” he said. We were waiting on the platform. “He
can’t pull that stuff with me, Jerry.”
“He’s nervous and crabby,” I said. “He’s a good fellow, Soldier.”
“The hell he is. The hell he’s ever been a good fellow.”
“Well,” I said, “so long, Soldier.”
The train had come in. He climbed up with his bag.
“So long, Jerry,” he says. “You be in town before the fight?”
“I don’t think so.”
“See you then.”
He went in and the conductor swung up and the train went out. I rode
back to the farm in the cart. Jack was on the porch writing a letter to
his wife. The mail had come and I got the papers and went over on the
other side of the porch and sat down to read. Hogan came out the door
and walked over to me.
“Did he have a jam with Soldier?”
“Not a jam,” I said. “He just told him to go back to town.”
“I could see it coming,” Hogan said. “He never liked Soldier much.”
“No. He don’t like many people.”
“He’s a pretty cold one,” Hogan said.
“Well, he’s always been fine to me.”
“Me too,” Hogan said. “I got no kick on him. He’s a cold one, though.”
Hogan went in through the screen door and I sat there on the porch and
read the papers. It was just starting to get fall weather and it’s nice
country there in Jersey, up in the hills, and after I read the paper
through I sat there and looked out at the country and the road down
below against the woods with cars going along it, lifting the dust up.
It was fine weather and pretty nice-looking country. Hogan came to the
door and I said, “Say, Hogan, haven’t you got anything to shoot out
here?”
“No,” Hogan said. “Only sparrows.”
“Seen the paper?” I said to Hogan.
“What’s in it?”
“Sande booted three of them in yesterday.”
“I got that on the telephone last night.”
“You follow them pretty close, Hogan?” I asked.
“Oh, I keep in touch with them,” Hogan said.
“How about Jack?” I says. “Does he still play them?”
“Him?” said Hogan. “Can you see him doing it?”
Just then Jack came around the corner with the letter in his hand. He’s
wearing a sweater and an old pair of pants and boxing shoes.
“Got a stamp, Hogan?” he asks.
“Give me the letter,” Hogan said. “I’ll mail it for you.”
“Say, Jack,” I said, “didn’t you used to play the ponies?”
“Sure.”
“I knew you did. I knew I used to see you out at Sheepshead.”
“What did you lay off them for?” Hogan asked.
“Lost money.”
Jack sat down on the porch by me. He leaned back against a post. He shut
his eyes in the sun.
“Want a chair?” Hogan asked.
“No,” said Jack. “This is fine.”
“It’s a nice day,” I said. “It’s pretty nice out in the country.”
“I’d a damn sight rather be in town with the wife.”
“Well, you only got another week.”
“Yes,” Jack says. “That’s so.”
We sat there on the porch. Hogan was inside at the office.
“What do you think about the shape I’m in?” Jack asked me.
“Well, you can’t tell,” I said. “You got a week to get around into
form.”
“Don’t stall me.”
“Well,” I said, “you’re not right.”
“I’m not sleeping,” Jack said.
“You’ll be all right in a couple of days.”
“No,” says Jack, “I got the insomnia.”
“What’s on your mind?”
“I miss the wife.”
“Have her come out.”
“No. I’m too old for that.”
“We’ll take a long walk before you turn in and get you good and tired.”
“Tired!” Jack says. “I’m tired all the time.”
He was that way all week. He wouldn’t sleep at night and he’d get up in
the morning feeling that way, you know, when you can’t shut your hands.
“He’s stale as poorhouse cake,” Hogan said. “He’s nothing.”
“I never seen Walcott,” I said.
“He’ll kill him,” said Hogan. “He’ll tear him in two.”
“Well,” I said, “everybody’s got to get it sometime.”
“Not like this, though,” Hogan said. “They’ll think he never trained. It
gives the farm a black eye.”
“You hear what the reporters said about him?”
“Didn’t I! They said he was awful. They said they oughtn’t to let him
fight.”
“Well,” I said, “they’re always wrong, ain’t they?”
“Yes,” said Hogan. “But this time they’re right.”
“What the hell do they know about whether a man’s right or not?”
“Well,” said Hogan, “they’re not such fools.”
“All they did was pick Willard at Toledo. This Lardner, he’s so wise
now, ask him about when he picked Willard at Toledo.”
“Aw, he wasn’t out,” Hogan said. “He only writes the big fights.”
“I don’t care who they are,” I said. “What the hell do they know? They
can write maybe, but what the hell do they know?”
“You don’t think Jack’s in any shape, do you?” Hogan asked.
“No. He’s through. All he needs is to have Corbett pick him to win for
it to be all over.”
“Well, Corbett’ll pick him,” Hogan says.
“Sure. He’ll pick him.”
That night Jack didn’t sleep any either. The next morning was the last
day before the fight. After breakfast we were out on the porch again.
“What do you think about, Jack, when you can’t sleep?” I said.
“Oh, I worry,” Jack says. “I worry about property I got up in the Bronx,
I worry about property I got in Florida. I worry about the kids. I worry
about the wife. Sometimes I think about fights. I think about that kike
Ted Lewis and I get sore. I got some stocks and I worry about them. What
the hell don’t I think about?”
“Well,” I said, “to-morrow night it’ll all be over.”
“Sure,” said Jack. “That always helps a lot, don’t it? That just fixes
everything all up, I suppose. Sure.”
He was sore all day. We didn’t do any work. Jack just moved around a
little to loosen up. He shadow-boxed a few rounds. He didn’t even look
good doing that. He skipped the rope a little while. He couldn’t sweat.
“He’d be better not to do any work at all,” Hogan said. We were standing
watching him skip rope. “Don’t he ever sweat at all any more?”
“He can’t sweat.”
“Do you suppose he’s got the con? He never had any trouble making
weight, did he?”
“No, he hasn’t got any con. He just hasn’t got anything inside any
more.”
“He ought to sweat,” said Hogan.
Jack came over, skipping the rope. He was skipping up and down in front
of us, forward and back, crossing his arms every third time.
“Well,” he says. “What are you buzzards talking about?”
“I don’t think you ought to work any more,” Hogan says. “You’ll be
stale.”
“Wouldn’t that be awful?” Jack says and skips away down the floor,
slapping the rope hard.
That afternoon John Collins showed up out at the farm. Jack was up in
his room. John, came out in a car from town. He had a couple of friends
with him. The car stopped and they all got out.
“Where’s Jack?” John asked me.
“Up in his room, lying down.”
“Lying down?”
“Yes,” I said.
“How is he?”
I looked at the two fellows that were with John.
“They’re friends of his,” John said.
“He’s pretty bad,” I said.
“What’s the matter with him?”
“He don’t sleep.”
“Hell,” said John. “That Irishman could never sleep.”
“He isn’t right,” I said.
“Hell,” John said. “He’s never right. I’ve had him for ten years and
he’s never been right yet.”
The fellows who were with him laughed.
“I want you to shake hands with Mr. Morgan and Mr. Steinfelt,” John
said. “This is Mr. Doyle. He’s been training Jack.”
“Glad to meet you,” I said.
“Let’s go up and see the boy,” the fellow called Morgan said.
“Let’s have a look at him,” Steinfelt said.
We all went upstairs.
“Where’s Hogan?” John asked.
“He’s out in the barn with a couple of his customers,” I said.
“He got many people out here now?” John asked.
“Just two.”
“Pretty quiet, ain’t it?” Morgan said.
“Yes,” I said. “It’s pretty quiet.”
We were outside Jack’s room. John knocked on the door. There wasn’t any
answer.
“Maybe he’s asleep,” I said.
“What the hell’s he sleeping in the daytime for?”
John turned the handle and we all went in. Jack was lying asleep on the
bed. He was face down and his face was in the pillow. Both his arms were
around the pillow.
“Hey, Jack!” John said to him.
Jack’s head moved a little on the pillow. “Jack!” John says, leaning
over him. Jack just dug a little deeper in the pillow. John touched him
on the shoulder. Jack sat up and looked at us. He hadn’t shaved and he
was wearing an old sweater.
“Christ! Why can’t you let me sleep?” he says to John.
“Don’t be sore,” John says. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”
“Oh no,” Jack says. “Of course not.”
“You know Morgan and Steinfelt,” John said.
“Glad to see you,” Jack says.
“How do you feel, Jack,” Morgan asks him.
“Fine,” Jack says. “How the hell would I feel?”
“You look fine,” Steinfelt says.
“Yes, don’t I,” says Jack. “Say,” he says to John. “You’re my manager.
You get a big enough cut. Why the hell don’t you come out here when the
reporters was out! You want Jerry and me to talk to them?”
“I had Lew fighting in Philadelphia,” John said.
“What the hell’s that to me?” Jack says. “You’re my manager. You get a
big enough cut, don’t you? You aren’t making me any money in
Philadelphia, are you? Why the hell aren’t you out here when I ought to
have you?”
“Hogan was here.”
“Hogan,” Jack says. “Hogan’s as dumb as I am.”
“Soldier Bathlett was out here wukking with you for a while, wasn’t he?”
Steinfelt said to change the subject.
“Yes, he was out here,” Jack says. “He was out here all right.”
“Say, Jerry,” John said to me. “Would you go and find Hogan and tell him
we want to see him in about half an hour?”
“Sure,” I said.
“Why the hell can’t he stick around?” Jack says. “Stick around, Jerry.”
Morgan and Steinfelt looked at each other.
“Quiet down, Jack,” John said to him.
“I better go find Hogan,” I said.
“All right, if you want to go,” Jack says. “None of these guys are going
to send you away, though.”
“I’ll go find Hogan,” I said.
Hogan was out in the gym in the barn. He had a couple of his health-farm
patients with the gloves on. They neither one wanted to hit the other,
for fear the other would come back and hit him.
“That’ll do,” Hogan said when he saw me come in. “You can stop the
slaughter. You gentlemen take a shower and Bruce will rub you down.”
They climbed out through the ropes and Hogan came over to me.
“John Collins is out with a couple of friends to see Jack,” I said.
“I saw them come up in the car.”
“Who are the two fellows with John?”
“They’re what you call wise boys,” Hogan said. “Don’t you know them
two?”
“No,” I said.
“That’s Happy Steinfelt and Lew Morgan. They got a pool-room.”
“I been away a long time,” I said.
“Sure,” said Hogan. “That Happy Steinfelt’s a big operator.”
“I’ve heard his name,” I said.
“He’s a pretty smooth boy,” Hogan said. “They’re a couple of
sharpshooters.”
“Well,” I said. “They want to see us in half an hour.”
“You mean they don’t want to see us until a half an hour?”
“That’s it.”
“Come on in the office,” Hogan said. “To hell with those sharpshooters.”
After about thirty minutes or so Hogan and I went upstairs. We knocked
on Jack’s door. They were talking inside the room.
“Wait a minute,” somebody said.
“To hell with that stuff,” Hogan said. “When you want to see me I’m down
in the office.”
We heard the door unlock. Steinfelt opened it.
“Come on in, Hogan,” he says. “We’re all going to have a drink.”
“Well,” says Hogan. “That’s something.”
We went in. Jack was sitting on the bed. John and Morgan were sitting on
a couple of chairs. Steinfelt was standing up.
“You’re a pretty mysterious lot of boys,” Hogan said.
“Hello, Danny,” John says.
“Hello, Danny,” Morgan says and shakes hands.
Jack doesn’t say anything. He just sits there on the bed. He ain’t with
the others. He’s all by himself. He was wearing an old blue jersey and
pants and had on boxing shoes. He needed a shave. Steinfelt and Morgan
were dressers. John was quite a dresser too. Jack sat there looking
Irish and tough.
Steinfelt brought out a bottle and Hogan brought in some glasses and
everybody had a drink. Jack and I took one and the rest of them went on
and had two or three each.
“Better save some for your ride back,” Hogan said.
“Don’t you worry. We got plenty,” Morgan said.
Jack hadn’t drunk anything since the one drink. He was standing up and
looking at them. Morgan was sitting on the bed where Jack had sat.
“Have a drink, Jack,” John said and handed him the glass and the bottle.
“No,” Jack said, “I never liked to go to these wakes.”
They all laughed. Jack didn’t laugh.
They were all feeling pretty good when they left. Jack stood on the
porch when they got into the car. They waved to him.
“So long,” Jack said.
We had supper. Jack didn’t say anything all during the meal except,
“Will you pass me this?” or “Will you pass me that?” The two health-farm
patients ate at the same table with us. They were pretty nice fellows.
After we finished eating we went out on the porch. It was dark early.
“Like to take a walk, Jerry?” Jack asked.
“Sure,” I said.
We put on our coats and started out. It was quite a way down to the main
road and then we walked along the main road about a mile and a half.
Cars kept going by and we would pull out to the side until they were
past. Jack didn’t say anything. After we had stepped out into the bushes
to let a big car go by Jack said, “To hell with this walking. Come on
back to Hogan’s.”
We went along a side road that cut up over the hill and cut across the
fields back to Hogan’s. We could see the lights of the house up on the
hill. We came around to the front of the house and there standing in the
doorway was Hogan.
“Have a good walk?” Hogan asked.
“Oh, fine,” Jack said. “Listen, Hogan. Have you got any liquor?”
“Sure,” says Hogan. “What’s the idea?”
“Send it up to the room,” Jack says. “I’m going to sleep to-night.”
“You’re the doctor,” Hogan says.
“Come on up to the room, Jerry,” Jack says.
Upstairs Jack sat on the bed with his head in his hands.
“Ain’t it a life?” Jack says.
Hogan brought in a quart of liquor and two glasses.
“Want some ginger-ale?”
“What do you think I want to do, get sick?”
“I just asked you,” said Hogan.
“Have a drink?” said Jack.
“No, thanks,” said Hogan. He went out.
“How about you, Jerry?”
“I’ll have one with you,” I said.
Jack poured out a couple of drinks. “Now,” he said, “I want to take it
slow and easy.”
“Put some water in it,” I said.
“Yes,” Jack said. “I guess that’s better.”
We had a couple of drinks without saying anything. Jack started to pour
me another.
“No,” I said, “that’s all I want.”
“All right,” Jack said. He poured himself out another big shot and put
water in it. He was lighting up a little.
“That was a fine bunch out here this afternoon,” he said. “They don’t
take any chances, those two.”
Then a little later, “Well,” he says, “they’re right. What the hell’s
the good in taking chances?”
“Don’t you want another, Jerry?” he said. “Come on, drink along with
me.”
“I don’t need it, Jack,” I said. “I feel all right.”
“Just have one more,” Jack said. It was softening him up.
“All right,” I said.
Jack poured one for me and another big one for himself.
“You know,” he said, “I like liquor pretty well. If I hadn’t been boxing
I would have drunk quite a lot.”
“Sure,” I said.
“You know,” he said, “I missed a lot, boxing.”
“You made plenty of money.”
“Sure, that’s what I’m after. You know I miss a lot, Jerry.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well,” he says, “like about the wife. And being away from home so much.
It don’t do my girls any good. ‘Whose your old man?’ some of those
society kids’ll say to them. ‘My old man’s Jack Brennan.’ That don’t do
them any good.”
“Hell,” I said, “all that makes a difference is if they got dough.”
“Well,” says Jack, “I got the dough for them all right.”
He poured out another drink. The bottle was about empty.
“Put some water in it,” I said. Jack poured in some water.
“You know,” he says, “you ain’t got any idea how I miss the wife.”
“Sure.”
“You ain’t got any idea. You can’t have an idea what it’s like.”
“It ought to be better out in the country than in town.”
“With me now,” Jack said, “it don’t make any difference where I am. You
can’t have an idea what it’s like.”
“Have another drink.”
“Am I getting soused? Do I talk funny?”
“You’re coming on all right.”
“You can’t have an idea what it’s like. They ain’t anybody can have an
idea what it’s like.”
“Except the wife,” I said.
“She knows,” Jack said. “She knows all right. She knows. You bet she
knows.”
“Put some water in that,” I said.
“Jerry,” says Jack, “you can’t have an idea what it gets to be like.”
He was good and drunk. He was looking at me steady. His eyes were sort
of too steady.
“You’ll sleep all right,” I said.
“Listen, Jerry,” Jack says. “You want to make some money? Get some money
down on Walcott.”
“Yes?”
“Listen, Jerry,” Jack put down the glass. “I’m not drunk now, see? You
know what I’m betting on him? Fifty grand.”
“That’s a lot of dough.”
“Fifty grand,” Jack says, “at two to one. I’ll get twenty-five thousand
bucks. Get some money on him, Jerry.”
“It sounds good,” I said.
“How can I beat him?” Jack says. “It ain’t crooked. How can I beat him?
Why not make money on it?”
“Put some water in that,” I said.
“I’m through after this fight,” Jack says. “I’m through with it. I got
to take a beating. Why shouldn’t I make money on it?”
“Sure.”
“I ain’t slept for a week,” Jack says. “All night I lay awake and worry
my can off. I can’t sleep, Jerry. You ain’t got an idea what it’s like
when you can’t sleep.”
“Sure.”
“I can’t sleep. That’s all. I just can’t sleep. What’s the use of taking
care of yourself all these years when you can’t sleep?”
“It’s bad.”
“You ain’t got an idea what it’s like, Jerry, when you can’t sleep.”
“Put some water in that,” I said.
Well, about eleven o’clock Jack passes out and I put him to bed. Finally
he’s so he can’t keep from sleeping. I helped him get his clothes off
and got him into bed.
“You’ll sleep all right, Jack,” I said.
“Sure,” Jack says, “I’ll sleep now.”
“Good-night, Jack,” I said.
“Good-night, Jerry,” Jack says. “You’re the only friend I got.”
“Oh, hell,” I said.
“You’re the only friend I got,” Jack says, “the only friend I got.”
“Go to sleep,” I said.
“I’ll sleep,” Jack says.
Downstairs Hogan was sitting at the desk in the office reading the
papers. He looked up. “Well, you get your boy friend to sleep?” he asks.
“He’s off.”
“It’s better for him than not sleeping,” Hogan said.
“Sure.”
“You’d have a hell of a time explaining that to these sport writers
though,” Hogan said.
“Well, I’m going to bed myself,” I said.
“Good-night,” said Hogan.
In the morning I came downstairs about eight o’clock and got some
breakfast. Hogan had his two customers out in the barn doing exercises.
I went out and watched them.
“One! Two! Three! Four!” Hogan was counting for them. “Hello, Jerry,” he
said. “Is Jack up yet?”
“No. He’s still sleeping.”
I went back to my room and packed up to go in to town. About nine-thirty
I heard Jack getting up in the next room. When I heard him go downstairs
I went down after him. Jack was sitting at the breakfast table. Hogan
had come in and was standing beside the table.
“How do you feel, Jack?” I asked him.
“Not so bad.”
“Sleep well?” Hogan asked.
“I slept all right,” Jack said. “I got a thick tongue but I ain’t got a
head.”
“Good,” said Hogan. “That was good liquor.”
“Put it on the bill,” Jack says.
“What time you want to go into town?” Hogan asked.
“Before lunch,” Jack says. “The eleven o’clock train.”
“Sit down, Jerry,” Jack said. Hogan went out.
I sat down at the table. Jack was eating a grape-fruit. When he’d find a
seed he’d spit it out in the spoon and dump it on the plate.
“I guess I was pretty stewed last night,” he started.
“You drank some liquor.”
“I guess I said a lot of fool things.”
“You weren’t bad.”
“Where’s Hogan?” he asked. He was through with the grape-fruit.
“He’s out in front in the office.”
“What did I say about betting on the fight?” Jack asked. He was holding
the spoon and sort of poking at the grape-fruit with it.
The girl came in with some ham and eggs and took away the grape-fruit.
“Bring me another glass of milk,” Jack said to her. She went out.
“You said you had fifty grand on Walcott,” I said.
“That’s right,” Jack said.
“That’s a lot of money.”
“I don’t feel too good about it,” Jack said.
“Something might happen.”
“No,” Jack said. “He wants the title bad. They’ll be shooting with him
all right.”
“You can’t ever tell.”
“No. He wants the title. It’s worth a lot of money to him.”
“Fifty grand is a lot of money,” I said.
“It’s business,” said Jack. “I can’t win. You know I can’t win anyway.”
“As long as you’re in there you got a chance.”
“No,” Jack says. “I’m all through. It’s just business.”
“How do you feel?”
“Pretty good,” Jack said. “The sleep was what I needed.”
“You might go good.”
“I’ll give them a good show,” Jack said.
After breakfast Jack called up his wife on the long-distance. He was
inside the booth telephoning.
“That’s the first time he’s called her up since he’s out here,” Hogan
said.
“He writes her every day.”
“Sure,” Hogan says, “a letter only costs two cents.”
Hogan said good-by to us and Bruce, the nigger rubber, drove us down to
the train in the cart.
“Good-by, Mr. Brennan,” Bruce said at the train, “I sure hope you knock
his can off.”
“So long,” Jack said. He gave Bruce two dollars. Bruce had worked on him
a lot. He looked kind of disappointed. Jack saw me looking at Bruce
holding the two dollars.
“It’s all in the bill,” he said. “Hogan charged me for the rubbing.”
On the train going into town Jack didn’t talk. He sat in the corner of
the seat with his ticket in his hat-band and looked out of the window.
Once he turned and spoke to me.
“I told the wife I’d take a room at the Shelby to-night,” he said. “It’s
just around the corner from the Garden. I can go up to the house
to-morrow morning.”
“That’s a good idea,” I said. “Your wife ever see you fight, Jack?”
“No,” Jack says. “She never seen me fight.”
I thought he must be figuring on taking an awful beating if he doesn’t
want to go home afterward. In town we took a taxi up to the Shelby. A
boy came out and took our bags and we went in to the desk.
“How much are the rooms?” Jack asked.
“We only have double rooms,” the clerk says. “I can give you a nice
double room for ten dollars.”
“That’s too steep.”
“I can give you a double room for seven dollars.”
“With a bath?”
“Certainly.”
“You might as well bunk with me, Jerry,” Jack says.
“Oh,” I said, “I’ll sleep down at my brother-in-law’s.”
“I don’t mean for you to pay it,” Jack says. “I just want to get my
money’s worth.”
“Will you register, please?” the clerk says. He looked at the names.
“Number 238, Mister Brennan.”
We went up in the elevator. It was a nice big room with two beds and a
door opening into a bath-room.
“This is pretty good,” Jack says.
The boy who brought us up pulled up the curtains and brought in our
bags. Jack didn’t make any move, so I gave the boy a quarter. We washed
up and Jack said we better go out and get something to eat.
We ate a lunch at Jimmey Handley’s place. Quite a lot of the boys were
there. When we were about half through eating, John came in and sat down
with us. Jack didn’t talk much.
“How are you on the weight, Jack?” John asked him. Jack was putting away
a pretty good lunch.
“I could make it with my clothes on,” Jack said. He never had to worry
about taking off weight. He was a natural welter-weight and he’d never
gotten fat. He’d lost weight out at Hogan’s.
“Well, that’s one thing you never had to worry about,” John said.
“That’s one thing,” Jack says.
We went around to the garden to weigh in after lunch. The match was made
at a hundred forty-seven pounds at three o’clock. Jack stepped on the
scales with a towel around him. The bar didn’t move. Walcott had just
weighed and was standing with a lot of people around him.
“Let’s see what you weigh, Jack,” Freedman, Walcott’s manager said.
“All right, weigh _him_ then,” Jack jerked his head toward Walcott.
“Drop the towel,” Freedman said.
“What do you make it?” Jack asked the fellows who were weighing.
“One hundred and forty-three pounds,” the fat man who was weighing said.
“You’re down fine, Jack,” Freedman says.
“Weigh _him_,” Jack says.
Walcott came over. He was a blond with wide shoulders and arms like a
heavyweight. He didn’t have much legs. Jack stood about half a head
taller than he did.
“Hello, Jack,” he said. His face was plenty marked up.
“Hello,” said Jack. “How you feel?”
“Good,” Walcott says. He dropped the towel from around his waist and
stood on the scales. He had the widest shoulders and back you ever saw.
“One hundred and forty-six pounds and twelve ounces.”
Walcott stepped off and grinned at Jack.
“Well,” John says to him, “Jack’s spotting you about four pounds.”
“More than that when I come in, kid,” Walcott says. “I’m going to go and
eat now.”
We went back and Jack got dressed. “He’s a pretty tough-looking boy,”
Jack says to me.
“He looks as though he’d been hit plenty of times.”
“Oh, yes,” Jack says. “He ain’t hard to hit.”
“Where are you going?” John asked when Jack was dressed.
“Back to the hotel,” Jack says. “You looked after everything?”
“Yes,” John says. “It’s all looked after.”
“I’m going to lie down a while,” Jack says.
“I’ll come around for you about a quarter to seven and we’ll go and
eat.”
“All right.”
Up at the hotel Jack took off his shoes and his coat and lay down for a
while. I wrote a letter. I looked over a couple of times and Jack wasn’t
sleeping. He was lying perfectly still but every once in a while his
eyes would open. Finally he sits up.
“Want to play some cribbage, Jerry?” he says.
“Sure,” I said.
He went over to his suitcase and got out the cards and the cribbage
board. We played cribbage and he won three dollars off me. John knocked
at the door and came in.
“Want to play some cribbage, John?” Jack asked him.
John put his kelly down on the table. It was all wet. His coat was wet
too.
“Is it raining?” Jack asks.
“It’s pouring,” John says. “The taxi I had, got tied up in the traffic
and I got out and walked.”
“Come on, play some cribbage,” Jack says.
“You ought to go and eat.”
“No,” says Jack. “I don’t want to eat yet.”
So they played cribbage for about half an hour and Jack won a dollar and
a half off him.
“Well, I suppose we got to go eat,” Jack says. He went to the window and
looked out.
“Is it still raining?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s eat in the hotel,” John says.
“All right,” Jack says, “I’ll play you once more to see who pays for the
meal.”
After a little while Jack gets up and says, “You buy the meal, John,”
and we went downstairs and ate in the big dining-room.
After we ate we went upstairs and Jack played cribbage with John again
and won two dollars and a half off him. Jack was feeling pretty good.
John had a bag with him with all his stuff in it. Jack took off his
shirt and collar and put on a jersey and a sweater, so he wouldn’t catch
cold when he came out, and put his ring clothes and his bathrobe in a
bag.
“You all ready?” John asks him. “I’ll call up and have them get a taxi.”
Pretty soon the telephone rang and they said the taxi was waiting.
We rode down in the elevator and went out through the lobby, and got in
a taxi and rode around to the Garden. It was raining hard but there was
a lot of people outside on the streets. The Garden was sold out. As we
came in on our way to the dressing-room I saw how full it was. It looked
like half a mile down to the ring. It was all dark. Just the lights over
the ring.
“It’s a good thing, with this rain, they didn’t try and pull this fight
in the ball park,” John said.
“They got a good crowd,” Jack says.
“This is a fight that would draw a lot more than the Garden could hold.”
“You can’t tell about the weather,” Jack says.
John came to the door of the dressing-room and poked his head in. Jack
was sitting there with his bathrobe on, he had his arms folded and was
looking at the floor. John had a couple of handlers with him. They
looked over his shoulder. Jack looked up.
“Is he in?” he asked.
“He’s just gone down,” John said.
We started down. Walcott was just getting into the ring. The crowd gave
him a big hand. He climbed through between the ropes and put his two
fists together and smiled, and shook them at the crowd, first at one
side of the ring, then at the other, and then sat down. Jack got a good
hand coming down through the crowd. Jack is Irish and the Irish always
get a pretty good hand. An Irishman don’t draw in New York like a Jew or
an Italian but they always get a good hand. Jack climbed up and bent
down to go through the ropes and Walcott came over from his corner and
pushed the rope down for Jack to go through. The crowd thought that was
wonderful. Walcott put his hand on Jack’s shoulder and they stood there
just for a second.
“So you’re going to be one of these popular champions,” Jack says to
him. “Take your goddam hand off my shoulder.”
“Be yourself,” Walcott says.
This is all great for the crowd. How gentlemanly the boys are before the
fight! How they wish each other luck!
Solly Freedman came over to our corner while Jack is bandaging his hands
and John is over in Walcott’s corner. Jack puts his thumb through the
slit in the bandage and then wrapped his hand nice and smooth. I taped
it around the wrist and twice across the knuckles.
“Hey,” Freedman says. “Where do you get all that tape?”
“Feel of it,” Jack says. “It’s soft, ain’t it? Don’t be a hick.”
Freedman stands there all the time while Jack bandages the other hand,
and one of the boys that’s going to handle him brings the gloves and I
pull them on and work them around.
“Say, Freedman,” Jack asks, “what nationality is this Walcott?”
“I don’t know,” Solly says. “He’s some sort of a Dane.”
“He’s a Bohemian,” the lad who brought the gloves said.
The referee called them out to the centre of the ring and Jack walks
out. Walcott comes out smiling. They met and the referee put his arm on
each of their shoulders.
“Hello, popularity,” Jack says to Walcott.
“Be yourself.”
“What do you call yourself ‘Walcott’ for?” Jack says. “Didn’t you know
he was a nigger?”
“Listen—” says the referee, and he gives them the same old line. Once
Walcott interrupts him. He grabs Jack’s arm and says, “Can I hit when
he’s got me like this?”
“Keep your hands off me,” Jack says. “There ain’t no moving-pictures of
this.”
They went back to their corners. I lifted the bathrobe off Jack and he
leaned on the ropes and flexed his knees a couple of times and scuffed
his shoes in the rosin. The gong rang and Jack turned quick and went
out. Walcott came toward him and they touched gloves and as soon as
Walcott dropped his hands Jack jumped his left into his face twice.
There wasn’t anybody ever boxed better than Jack. Walcott was after him,
going forward all the time with his chin on his chest. He’s a hooker and
he carries his hands pretty low. All he knows is to get in there and
sock. But every time he gets in there close, Jack has the left hand in
his face. It’s just as though it’s automatic. Jack just raises the left
hand up and it’s in Walcott’s face. Three or four times Jack brings the
right over but Walcott gets it on the shoulder or high up on the head.
He’s just like all these hookers. The only thing he’s afraid of is
another one of the same kind. He’s covered everywhere you can hurt him.
He don’t care about a left-hand in his face.
After about four rounds Jack has him bleeding bad and his face all cut
up, but every time Walcott’s got in close he’s socked so hard he’s got
two big red patches on both sides just below Jack’s ribs. Every time he
gets in close, Jack ties him up, then gets one hand loose and uppercuts
him, but when Walcott gets his hands loose he socks Jack in the body so
they can hear it outside in the street. He’s a socker.
It goes along like that for three rounds more. They don’t talk any.
They’re working all the time. We worked over Jack plenty too, in between
the rounds. He don’t look good at all but he never does much work in the
ring. He don’t move around much and that left-hand is just automatic.
It’s just like it was connected with Walcott’s face and Jack just had to
wish it in every time. Jack is always calm in close and he doesn’t waste
any juice. He knows everything about working in close too and he’s
getting away with a lot of stuff. While they were in our corner I
watched him tie Walcott up, get his right hand loose, turn it and come
up with an uppercut that got Walcott’s nose with the heel of the glove.
Walcott was bleeding bad and leaned his nose on Jack’s shoulder so as to
give Jack some of it too, and Jack sort of lifted his shoulder sharp and
caught him against the nose, and then brought down the right hand and
did the same thing again.
Walcott was sore as hell. By the time they’d gone five rounds he hated
Jack’s guts. Jack wasn’t sore; that is, he wasn’t any sorer than he
always was. He certainly did used to make the fellows he fought hate
boxing. That was why he hated Kid Lewis so. He never got the Kid’s goat.
Kid Lewis always had about three new dirty things Jack couldn’t do. Jack
was as safe as a church all the time he was in there, as long as he was
strong. He certainly was treating Walcott rough. The funny thing was it
looked as though Jack was an open classic boxer. That was because he had
all that stuff too.
After the seventh round Jack says, “My left’s getting heavy.”
From then he started to take a beating. It didn’t show at first. But
instead of him running the fight it was Walcott was running it, instead
of being safe all the time now he was in trouble. He couldn’t keep him
out with the left hand now. It looked as though it was the same as ever,
only now instead of Walcott’s punches just missing him they were just
hitting him. He took an awful beating in the body.
“What’s the round?” Jack asked.
“The eleventh.”
“I can’t stay,” Jack says. “My legs are going bad.”
Walcott had been just hitting him for a long time. It was like a
baseball catcher pulls the ball and takes some of the shock off. From
now on Walcott commenced to land solid. He certainly was a
socking-machine. Jack was just trying to block everything now. It didn’t
show what an awful beating he was taking. In between the rounds I worked
on his legs. The muscles would flutter under my hands all the time I was
rubbing them. He was sick as hell.
“How’s it go?” he asked John, turning around, his face all swollen.
“It’s his fight.”
“I think I can last,” Jack says. “I don’t want this bohunk to stop me.”
It was going just the way he thought it would. He knew he couldn’t beat
Walcott. He wasn’t strong any more. He was all right though. His money
was all right and now he wanted to finish it off right to please
himself. He didn’t want to be knocked out.
The gong rang and we pushed him out. He went out slow. Walcott came
right out after him. Jack put the left in his face and Walcott took it,
came in under it and started working on Jack’s body. Jack tried to tie
him up and it was just like trying to hold on to a buzz-saw. Jack broke
away from it and missed with the right. Walcott clipped him with a
left-hook and Jack went down. He went down on his hands and knees and
looked at us. The referee started counting. Jack was watching us and
shaking his head. At eight John motioned to him. You couldn’t hear on
account of the crowd. Jack got up. The referee had been holding Walcott
back with one arm while he counted.
When Jack was on his feet Walcott started toward him.
“Watch yourself, Jimmy,” I heard Solly Freedman yell to him.
Walcott came up to Jack looking at him. Jack stuck the left hand at him.
Walcott just shook his head. He backed Jack up against the ropes,
measured him and then hooked the left very light to the side of Jack’s
head and socked the right into the body as hard as he could sock, just
as low as he could get it. He must have hit him five inches below the
belt. I thought the eyes would come out of Jack’s head. They stuck way
out. His mouth come open.
The referee grabbed Walcott. Jack stepped forward. If he went down there
went fifty thousand bucks. He walked as though all his insides were
going to fall out.
“It wasn’t low,” he said. “It was a accident.”
The crowd were yelling so you couldn’t hear anything.
“I’m all right,” Jack says. They were right in front of us. The referee
looks at John and then he shakes his head.
“Come on, you polak son-of-a-bitch,” Jack says to Walcott.
John was hanging onto the ropes. He had the towel ready to chuck in.
Jack was standing just a little way out from the ropes. He took a step
forward. I saw the sweat come out on his face like somebody had squeezed
it and a big drop went down his nose.
“Come on and fight,” Jack says to Walcott.
The referee looked at John and waved Walcott on.
“Go in there, you slob,” he says.
Walcott went in. He didn’t know what to do either. He never thought Jack
could have stood it. Jack put the left in his face. There was such a
hell of a lot of yelling going on. They were right in front of us.
Walcott hit him twice. Jack’s face was the worst thing I ever saw,—the
look on it! He was holding himself and all his body together and it all
showed on his face. All the time he was thinking and holding his body in
where it was busted.
Then he started to sock. His face looked awful all the time. He started
to sock with his hands low down by his side, swinging at Walcott.
Walcott covered up and Jack was swinging wild at Walcott’s head. Then he
swung the left and it hit Walcott in the groin and the right hit Walcott
right bang where he’d hit Jack. Way low below the belt. Walcott went
down and grabbed himself there and rolled and twisted around.
The referee grabbed Jack and pushed him toward his corner. John jumps
into the ring. There was all this yelling going on. The referee was
talking with the judges and then the announcer got into the ring with
the megaphone and says, “Walcott on a foul.”
The referee is talking to John and he says, “What could I do? Jack
wouldn’t take the foul. Then when he’s groggy he fouls him.”
“He’d lost it anyway,” John says.
Jack’s sitting on the chair. I’ve got his gloves off and he’s holding
himself in down there with both hands. When he’s got something
supporting it his face doesn’t look so bad.
“Go over and say you’re sorry,” John says into his ear. “It’ll look
good.”
Jack stands up and the sweat comes out all over his face. I put the
bathrobe around him and he holds himself in with one hand under the
bathrobe and goes across the ring. They’ve picked Walcott up and they’re
working on him. There’re a lot of people in Walcott’s corner. Nobody
speaks to Jack. He leans over Walcott.
“I’m sorry,” Jack says. “I didn’t mean to foul you.”
Walcott doesn’t say anything. He looks too damned sick.
“Well, you’re the champion now,” Jack says to him. “I hope you get a
hell of a lot of fun out of it.”
“Leave the kid alone,” Solly Freedman says.
“Hello, Solly,” Jack says. “I’m sorry I fouled your boy.”
Freedman just looks at him.
Jack went to his corner walking that funny jerky way and we got him down
through the ropes and through the reporters’ tables and out down the
aisle. A lot of people want to slap Jack on the back. He goes out
through all that mob in his bathrobe to the dressing-room. It’s a
popular win for Walcott. That’s the way the money was bet in the Garden.
Once we got inside the dressing-room Jack lay down and shut his eyes.
“We want to get to the hotel and get a doctor,” John says.
“I’m all busted inside,” Jack says.
“I’m sorry as hell, Jack,” John says.
“It’s all right,” Jack says.
He lies there with his eyes shut.
“They certainly tried a nice double-cross,” John said.
“Your friends Morgan and Steinfelt,” Jack said. “You got nice friends.”
He lies there, his eyes are open now. His face has still got that awful
drawn look.
“It’s funny how fast you can think when it means that much money,” Jack
says.
“You’re some boy, Jack,” John says.
“No,” Jack says. “It was nothing.”
A SIMPLE ENQUIRY
OUTSIDE, the snow was higher than the window. The sunlight came in
through the window and shone on a map on the pine-board wall of the hut.
The sun was high and the light came in over the top of the snow. A
trench had been cut along the open side of the hut, and each clear day
the sun, shining on the wall, reflected heat against the snow and
widened the trench. It was late March. The major sat at a table against
the wall. His adjutant sat at another table.
Around the major’s eyes were two white circles where his snow-glasses
had protected his face from the sun on the snow. The rest of his face
had been burned and then tanned and then burned through the tan. His
nose was swollen and there were edges of loose skin where blisters had
been. While he worked at the papers he put the fingers of his left hand
into a saucer of oil and then spread the oil over his face, touching it
very gently with the tips of his fingers. He was very careful to drain
his fingers on the edge of the saucer so there was only a film of oil on
them, and after he had stroked his forehead and his cheeks, he stroked
his nose very delicately between his fingers. When he had finished he
stood up, took the saucer of oil and went into the small room of the hut
where he slept. “I’m going to take a little sleep,” he said to the
adjutant. In that army an adjutant is not a commissioned officer. “You
will finish up.”
“Yes, signor maggiore,” the adjutant answered. He leaned back in his
chair and yawned. He took a paper-covered book out of the pocket of his
coat and opened it; then laid it down on the table and lit his pipe. He
leaned forward on the table to read and puffed at his pipe. Then he
closed the book and put it back in his pocket. He had too much
paper-work to get through. He could not enjoy reading until it was done.
Outside, the sun went behind a mountain and there was no more light on
the wall of the hut. A soldier came in and put some pine branches,
chopped into irregular lengths, into the stove. “Be soft, Pinin,” the
adjutant said to him. “The major is sleeping.”
Pinin was the major’s orderly. He was a dark-faced boy, and he fixed the
stove, putting the pine wood in carefully, shut the door, and went into
the back of the hut again. The adjutant went on with his papers.
“Tonani,” the major called.
“Signor maggiore?”
“Send Pinin in to me.”
“Pinin!” the adjutant called. Pinin came into the room. “The major wants
you,” the adjutant said.
Pinin walked across the main room of the hut toward the major’s door. He
knocked on the half-opened door. “Signor maggiore?”
“Come in,” the adjutant heard the major say, “and shut the door.”
Inside the room the major lay on his bunk. Pinin stood beside the bunk.
The major lay with his head on the rucksack that he had stuffed with
spare clothing to make a pillow. His long, burned, oiled face looked at
Pinin. His hands lay on the blankets.
“You are nineteen?” he asked.
“Yes, signor maggiore.”
“You have ever been in love?”
“How do you mean, signor maggiore?”
“In love—with a girl?”
“I have been with girls.”
“I did not ask that. I asked if you had been in love—with a girl.”
“Yes, signor maggiore.”
“You are in love with this girl now? You don’t write her. I read all
your letters.”
“I am in love with her,” Pinin said, “but I do not write her.”
“You are sure of this?”
“I am sure.”
“Tonani,” the major said in the same tone of voice, “can you hear me
talking?”
There was no answer from the next room.
“He can not hear,” the major said. “And you are quite sure that you love
a girl?”
“I am sure.”
“And,” the major looked at him quickly, “that you are not corrupt?”
“I don’t know what you mean, corrupt.”
“All right,” the major said. “You needn’t be superior.”
Pinin looked at the floor. The major looked at his brown face, down and
up him, and at his hands. Then he went on, not smiling, “And you don’t
really want—” the major paused. Pinin looked at the floor. “That your
great desire isn’t really—” Pinin looked at the floor. The major leaned
his head back on the rucksack and smiled. He was really relieved: life
in the army was too complicated. “You’re a good boy,” he said. “You’re a
good boy, Pinin. But don’t be superior and be careful some one else
doesn’t come along and take you.”
Pinin stood still beside the bunk.
“Don’t be afraid,” the major said. His hands were folded on the
blankets. “I won’t touch you. You can go back to your platoon if you
like. But you had better stay on as my servant. You’ve less chance of
being killed.”
“Do you want anything of me, signor maggiore?”
“No,” the major said. “Go on and get on with whatever you were doing.
Leave the door open when you go out.”
Pinin went out, leaving the door open. The adjutant looked up at him as
he walked awkwardly across the room and out the door. Pinin was flushed
and moved differently than he had moved when he brought in the wood for
the fire. The adjutant looked after him and smiled. Pinin came in with
more wood for the stove. The major, lying on his bunk, looking at his
cloth-covered helmet and his snow-glasses that hung from a nail on the
wall, heard him walk across the floor. The little devil, he thought, I
wonder if he lied to me.
TEN INDIANS
AFTER one Fourth of July, Nick, driving home late from town in the big
wagon with Joe Garner and his family, passed nine drunken Indians along
the road. He remembered there were nine because Joe Garner, driving
along in the dusk, pulled up the horses, jumped down into the road and
dragged an Indian out of the wheel rut. The Indian had been asleep, face
down in the sand. Joe dragged him into the bushes and got back up on the
wagon-box.
“That makes nine of them,” Joe said, “just between here and the edge of
town.”
“Them Indians,” said Mrs. Garner.
Nick was on the back seat with the two Garner boys. He was looking out
from the back seat to see the Indian where Joe had dragged him alongside
of the road.
“Was it Billy Tabeshaw?” Carl asked.
“No.”
“His pants looked mighty like Billy.”
“All Indians wear the same kind of pants.”
“I didn’t see him at all,” Frank said. “Pa was down into the road and
back up again before I seen a thing. I thought he was killing a snake.”
“Plenty of Indians’ll kill snakes to-night, I guess,” Joe Garner said.
“Them Indians,” said Mrs. Garner.
They drove along. The road turned off from the main highway and went up
into the hills. It was hard pulling for the horses and the boys got down
and walked. The road was sandy. Nick looked back from the top of the
hill by the schoolhouse. He saw the lights of Petoskey and, off across
Little Traverse Bay, the lights of Harbour Springs. They climbed back in
the wagon again.
“They ought to put some gravel on that stretch,” Joe Garner said. The
wagon went along the road through the woods. Joe and Mrs. Garner sat
close together on the front seat. Nick sat between the two boys. The
road came out into a clearing.
“Right here was where Pa ran over the skunk.”
“It was further on.”
“It don’t make no difference where it was,” Joe said without turning his
head. “One place is just as good as another to run over a skunk.”
“I saw two skunks last night,” Nick said.
“Where?”
“Down by the lake. They were looking for dead fish along the beach.”
“They were coons probably,” Carl said.
“They were skunks. I guess I know skunks.”
“You ought to,” Carl said. “You got an Indian girl.”
“Stop talking that way, Carl,” said Mrs. Garner.
“Well, they smell about the same.”
Joe Garner laughed.
“You stop laughing, Joe,” Mrs. Garner said. “I won’t have Carl talk that
way.”
“Have you got an Indian girl, Nickie?” Joe asked.
“No.”
“He has too, Pa,” Frank said. “Prudence Mitchell’s his girl.”
“She’s not.”
“He goes to see her every day.”
“I don’t.” Nick, sitting between the two boys in the dark, felt hollow
and happy inside himself to be teased about Prudence Mitchell. “She
ain’t my girl,” he said.
“Listen to him,” said Carl. “I see them together every day.”
“Carl can’t get a girl,” his mother said, “not even a squaw.”
Carl was quiet.
“Carl ain’t no good with girls,” Frank said.
“You shut up.”
“You’re all right, Carl,” Joe Garner said. “Girls never got a man
anywhere. Look at your pa.”
“Yes, that’s what you would say,” Mrs. Garner moved close to Joe as the
wagon jolted. “Well, you had plenty of girls in your time.”
“I’ll bet Pa wouldn’t ever have had a squaw for a girl.”
“Don’t you think it,” Joe said. “You better watch out to keep Prudie,
Nick.”
His wife whispered to him and Joe laughed.
“What you laughing at?” asked Frank.
“Don’t you say it, Garner,” his wife warned. Joe laughed again.
“Nickie can have Prudence,” Joe Garner said. “I got a good girl.”
“That’s the way to talk,” Mrs. Garner said.
The horses were pulling heavily in the sand. Joe reached out in the dark
with the whip.
“Come on, pull into it. You’ll have to pull harder than this to-morrow.”
They trotted down the long hill, the wagon jolting. At the farmhouse
everybody got down. Mrs. Garner unlocked the door, went inside, and came
out with a lamp in her hand. Carl and Nick unloaded the things from the
back of the wagon. Frank sat on the front seat to drive to the barn and
put up the horses. Nick went up the steps and opened the kitchen door.
Mrs. Garner was building a fire in the stove. She turned from pouring
kerosene on the wood.
“Good-by, Mrs. Garner,” Nick said. “Thanks for taking me.”
“Oh shucks, Nickie.”
“I had a wonderful time.”
“We like to have you. Won’t you stay and eat some supper?”
“I better go. I think Dad probably waited for me.”
“Well, get along then. Send Carl up to the house, will you?”
“All right.”
“Good-night, Nickie.”
“Good-night, Mrs. Garner.”
Nick went out the farmyard and down to the barn. Joe and Frank were
milking.
“Good-night,” Nick said. “I had a swell time.”
“Good-night, Nick,” Joe Garner called. “Aren’t you going to stay and
eat?”
“No, I can’t. Will you tell Carl his mother wants him?”
“All right. Good-night, Nickie.”
Nick walked barefoot along the path through the meadow below the barn.
The path was smooth and the dew was cool on his bare feet. He climbed a
fence at the end of the meadow, went down through a ravine, his feet wet
in the swamp mud, and then climbed up through the dry beech woods until
he saw the lights of the cottage. He climbed over the fence and walked
around to the front porch. Through the window he saw his father sitting
by the table, reading in the light from the big lamp. Nick opened the
door and went in.
“Well, Nickie,” his father said, “was it a good day?”
“I had a swell time, Dad. It was a swell Fourth of July.”
“Are you hungry?”
“You bet.”
“What did you do with your shoes?”
“I left them in the wagon at Garner’s.”
“Come on out to the kitchen.”
Nick’s father went ahead with the lamp. He stopped and lifted the lid of
the ice-box. Nick went on into the kitchen. His father brought in a
piece of cold chicken on a plate and a pitcher of milk and put them on
the table before Nick. He put down the lamp.
“There’s some pie too,” he said. “Will that hold you?”
“It’s grand.”
His father sat down in a chair beside the oilcloth-covered table. He
made a big shadow on the kitchen wall.
“Who won the ball game?”
“Petoskey. Five to three.”
His father sat watching him eat and filled his glass from the
milk-pitcher. Nick drank and wiped his mouth on his napkin. His father
reached over to the shelf for the pie. He cut Nick a big piece. It was
huckleberry pie.
“What did you do, Dad?”
“I went out fishing in the morning.”
“What did you get?”
“Only perch.”
His father sat watching Nick eat the pie.
“What did you do this afternoon?” Nick asked.
“I went for a walk up by the Indian camp.”
“Did you see anybody?”
“The Indians were all in town getting drunk.”
“Didn’t you see anybody at all?”
“I saw your friend, Prudie.”
“Where was she?”
“She was in the woods with Frank Washburn. I ran onto them. They were
having quite a time.”
His father was not looking at him.
“What were they doing?”
“I didn’t stay to find out.”
“Tell me what they were doing.”
“I don’t know,” his father said. “I just heard them threshing around.”
“How did you know it was them?”
“I saw them.”
“I thought you said you didn’t see them.”
“Oh, yes, I saw them.”
“Who was it with her?” Nick asked.
“Frank Washburn.”
“Were they—were they——”
“Were they what?”
“Were they happy?”
“I guess so.”
His father got up from the table and went out the kitchen screen door.
When he came back Nick was looking at his plate. He had been crying.
“Have some more?” His father picked up the knife to cut the pie.
“No,” said Nick.
“You better have another piece.”
“No, I don’t want any.”
His father cleared off the table.
“Where were they in the woods?” Nick asked.
“Up back of the camp.” Nick looked at his plate. His father said, “You
better go to bed, Nick.”
“All right.”
Nick went into his room, undressed, and got into bed. He heard his
father moving around in the living-room. Nick lay in the bed with his
face in the pillow.
“My heart’s broken,” he thought. “If I feel this way my heart must be
broken.”
After a while he heard his father blow out the lamp and go into his own
room. He heard a wind come up in the trees outside and felt it come in
cool through the screen. He lay for a long time with his face in the
pillow, and after a while he forgot to think about Prudence and finally
he went to sleep. When he awoke in the night he heard the wind in the
hemlock trees outside the cottage and the waves of the lake coming in on
the shore, and he went back to sleep. In the morning there was a big
wind blowing and the waves were running high up on the beach and he was
awake a long time before he remembered that his heart was broken.
A CANARY FOR ONE
THE train passed very quickly a long, red stone house with a garden and
four thick palm-trees with tables under them in the shade. On the other
side was the sea. Then there was a cutting through red stone and clay,
and the sea was only occasionally and far below against rocks.
“I bought him in Palermo,” the American lady said. “We only had an hour
ashore and it was Sunday morning. The man wanted to be paid in dollars
and I gave him a dollar and a half. He really sings very beautifully.”
It was very hot in the train and it was very hot in the _lit salon_
compartment. There was no breeze came through the open window. The
American lady pulled the window-blind down and there was no more sea,
even occasionally. On the other side there was glass, then the corridor,
then an open window, and outside the window were dusty trees and an
oiled road and flat fields of grapes, with gray-stone hills behind them.
There was smoke from many tall chimneys—coming into Marseilles, and the
train slowed down and followed one track through many others into the
station. The train stayed twenty-five minutes in the station at
Marseilles and the American lady bought a copy of _The Daily Mail_ and a
half-bottle of Evian water. She walked a little way along the station
platform, but she stayed near the steps of the car because at Cannes,
where it stopped for twelve minutes, the train had left with no signal
of departure and she had only gotten on just in time. The American lady
was a little deaf and she was afraid that perhaps signals of departure
were given and that she did not hear them.
The train left the station in Marseilles and there was not only the
switch-yards and the factory smoke but, looking back, the town of
Marseilles and the harbor with stone hills behind it and the last of the
sun on the water. As it was getting dark the train passed a farmhouse
burning in a field. Motor-cars were stopped along the road and bedding
and things from inside the farmhouse were spread in the field. Many
people were watching the house burn. After it was dark the train was in
Avignon. People got on and off. At the news-stand Frenchmen, returning
to Paris, bought that day’s French papers. On the station platform were
negro soldiers. They wore brown uniforms and were tall and their faces
shone, close under the electric light. Their faces were very black and
they were too tall to stare. The train left Avignon station with the
negroes standing there. A short white sergeant was with them.
Inside the _lit salon_ compartment the porter had pulled down the three
beds from inside the wall and prepared them for sleeping. In the night
the American lady lay without sleeping because the train was a _rapide_
and went very fast and she was afraid of the speed in the night. The
American lady’s bed was the one next to the window. The canary from
Palermo, a cloth spread over his cage, was out of the draft in the
corridor that went into the compartment wash-room. There was a blue
light outside the compartment, and all night the train went very fast
and the American lady lay awake and waited for a wreck.
In the morning the train was near Paris, and after the American lady had
come out from the wash-room, looking very wholesome and middle-aged and
American in spite of not having slept, and had taken the cloth off the
birdcage and hung the cage in the sun, she went back to the
restaurant-car for breakfast. When she came back to the _lit salon_
compartment again, the beds had been pushed back into the wall and made
into seats, the canary was shaking his feathers in the sunlight that
came through the open window, and the train was much nearer Paris.
“He loves the sun,” the American lady said. “He’ll sing now in a little
while.”
The canary shook his feathers and pecked into them. “I’ve always loved
birds,” the American lady said. “I’m taking him home to my little girl.
There—he’s singing now.”
The canary chirped and the feathers on his throat stood out, then he
dropped his bill and pecked into his feathers again. The train crossed a
river and passed through a very carefully tended forest. The train
passed through many outside of Paris towns. There were tram-cars in the
towns and big advertisements for the Belle Jardinière and Dubonnet and
Pernod on the walls toward the train. All that the train passed through
looked as though it were before breakfast. For several minutes I had not
listened to the American lady, who was talking to my wife.
“Is your husband American too?” asked the lady.
“Yes,” said my wife. “We’re both Americans.”
“I thought you were English.”
“Oh, no.”
“Perhaps that was because I wore braces,” I said. I had started to say
suspenders and changed it to braces in the mouth, to keep my English
character. The American lady did not hear. She was really quite deaf;
she read lips, and I had not looked toward her. I had looked out of the
window. She went on talking to my wife.
“I’m so glad you’re Americans. American men make the best husbands,” the
American lady was saying. “That was why we left the Continent, you know.
My daughter fell in love with a man in Vevey.” She stopped. “They were
simply madly in love.” She stopped again. “I took her away, of course.”
“Did she get over it?” asked my wife.
“I don’t think so,” said the American lady. “She wouldn’t eat anything
and she wouldn’t sleep at all. I’ve tried so very hard, but she doesn’t
seem to take an interest in anything. She doesn’t care about things. I
couldn’t have her marrying a foreigner.” She paused. “Some one, a very
good friend, told me once, ‘No foreigner can make an American girl a
good husband.’”
“No,” said my wife, “I suppose not.”
The American lady admired my wife’s travelling-coat, and it turned out
that the American lady had bought her own clothes for twenty years now
from the same maison de couturier in the Rue Saint Honoré. They had her
measurements, and a vendeuse who knew her and her tastes picked the
dresses out for her and they were sent to America. They came to the
post-office near where she lived up-town in New York, and the duty was
never exorbitant because they opened the dresses there in the
post-office to appraise them and they were always very simple-looking
and with no gold lace nor ornaments that would make the dresses look
expensive. Before the present vendeuse, named Thérèse, there had been
another vendeuse, named Amélie. Altogether there had only been these two
in the twenty years. It had always been the same couturier. Prices,
however, had gone up. The exchange, though, equalized that. They had her
daughter’s measurements now too. She was grown up and there was not much
chance of their changing now.
The train was now coming into Paris. The fortifications were levelled
but grass had not grown. There were many cars standing on tracks—brown
wooden restaurant-cars and brown wooden sleeping-cars that would go to
Italy at five o’clock that night, if that train still left at five; the
cars were marked Paris-Rome, and cars, with seats on the roofs, that
went back and forth to the suburbs with, at certain hours, people in all
the seats and on the roofs, if that were the way it were still done, and
passing were the white walls and many windows of houses. Nothing had
eaten any breakfast.
“Americans make the best husbands,” the American lady said to my wife. I
was getting down the bags. “American men are the only men in the world
to marry.”
“How long ago did you leave Vevey?” asked my wife.
“Two years ago this fall. It’s her, you know, that I’m taking the canary
to.”
“Was the man your daughter was in love with a Swiss?”
“Yes,” said the American lady. “He was from a very good family in Vevey.
He was going to be an engineer. They met there in Vevey. They used to go
on long walks together.”
“I know Vevey,” said my wife. “We were there on our honeymoon.”
“Were you really? That must have been lovely. I had no idea, of course,
that she’d fall in love with him.”
“It was a very lovely place,” said my wife.
“Yes,” said the American lady. “Isn’t it lovely? Where did you stop
there?”
“We stayed at the Trois Couronnes,” said my wife.
“It’s such a fine old hotel,” said the American lady.
“Yes,” said my wife. “We had a very fine room and in the fall the
country was lovely.”
“Were you there in the fall?”
“Yes,” said my wife.
We were passing three cars that had been in a wreck. They were
splintered open and the roofs sagged in.
“Look,” I said. “There’s been a wreck.”
The American lady looked and saw the last car. “I was afraid of just
that all night,” she said. “I have terrific presentiments about things
sometimes. I’ll never travel on a _rapide_ again at night. There must be
other comfortable trains that don’t go so fast.”
Then the train was in the dark of the Gare de Lyons, and then stopped
and porters came up to the windows. I handed bags through the windows,
and we were out on the dim longness of the platform, and the American
lady put herself in charge of one of three men from Cook’s who said:
“Just a moment, madame, and I’ll look for your name.”
The porter brought a truck and piled on the baggage, and my wife said
good-by and I said good-by to the American lady, whose name had been
found by the man from Cook’s on a typewritten page in a sheaf of
typewritten pages which he replaced in his pocket.
We followed the porter with the truck down the long cement platform
beside the train. At the end was a gate and a man took the tickets.
We were returning to Paris to set up separate residences.
AN ALPINE IDYLL
IT was hot coming down into the valley even in the early morning. The
sun melted the snow from the skis we were carrying and dried the wood.
It was spring in the valley but the sun was very hot. We came along the
road into Galtur carrying our skis and rucksacks. As we passed the
churchyard a burial was just over. I said, “Grüss Gott,” to the priest
as he walked past us coming out of the churchyard. The priest bowed.
“It’s funny a priest never speaks to you,” John said.
“You’d think they’d like to say ‘Grüss Gott.’”
“They never answer,” John said.
We stopped in the road and watched the sexton shovelling in the new
earth. A peasant with a black beard and high leather boots stood beside
the grave. The sexton stopped shovelling and straightened his back. The
peasant in the high boots took the spade from the sexton and went on
filling in the grave—spreading the earth evenly as a man spreading
manure in a garden. In the bright May morning the grave-filling looked
unreal. I could not imagine any one being dead.
“Imagine being buried on a day like this,” I said to John.
“I wouldn’t like it.”
“Well,” I said, “we don’t have to do it.”
We went on up the road past the houses of the town to the inn. We had
been skiing in the Silvretta for a month, and it was good to be down in
the valley. In the Silvretta the skiing had been all right, but it was
spring skiing, the snow was good only in the early morning and again in
the evening. The rest of the time it was spoiled by the sun. We were
both tired of the sun. You could not get away from the sun. The only
shadows were made by rocks or by the hut that was built under the
protection of a rock beside a glacier, and in the shade the sweat froze
in your underclothing. You could not sit outside the hut without dark
glasses. It was pleasant to be burned black but the sun had been very
tiring. You could not rest in it. I was glad to be down away from snow.
It was too late in the spring to be up in the Silvretta. I was a little
tired of skiing. We had stayed too long. I could taste the snow water we
had been drinking melted off the tin roof of the hut. The taste was a
part of the way I felt about skiing. I was glad there were other things
beside skiing, and I was glad to be down, away from the unnatural high
mountain spring, into this May morning in the valley.
The innkeeper sat on the porch of the inn, his chair tipped back against
the wall. Beside him sat the cook.
“Ski-heil!” said the innkeeper.
“Heil!” we said and leaned the skis against the wall and took off our
packs.
“How was it up above?” asked the innkeeper.
“Schön. A little too much sun.”
“Yes. There’s too much sun this time of year.”
The cook sat on in his chair. The innkeeper went in with us and unlocked
his office and brought out our mail. There was a bundle of letters and
some papers.
“Let’s get some beer,” John said.
“Good. We’ll drink it inside.”
The proprietor brought two bottles and we drank them while we read the
letters.
“We better have some more beer,” John said. A girl brought it this time.
She smiled as she opened the bottles.
“Many letters,” she said.
“Yes. Many.”
“Prosit,” she said and went out, taking the empty bottles.
“I’d forgotten what beer tasted like.”
“I hadn’t,” John said. “Up in the hut I used to think about it a lot.”
“Well,” I said, “we’ve got it now.”
“You oughtn’t to ever do anything too long.”
“No. We were up there too long.”
“Too damn long,” John said. “It’s no good doing a thing too long.”
The sun came through the open window and shone through the beer bottles
on the table. The bottles were half full. There was a little froth on
the beer in the bottles, not much because it was very cold. It collared
up when you poured it into the tall glasses. I looked out of the open
window at the white road. The trees beside the road were dusty. Beyond
was a green field and a stream. There were trees along the stream and a
mill with a water wheel. Through the open side of the mill I saw a long
log and a saw in it rising and falling. No one seemed to be tending it.
There were four crows walking in the green field. One crow sat in a tree
watching. Outside on the porch the cook got off his chair and passed
into the hall that led back into the kitchen. Inside, the sunlight shone
through the empty glasses on the table. John was leaning forward with
his head on his arms.
Through the window I saw two men come up the front steps. They came into
the drinking room. One was the bearded peasant in the high boots. The
other was the sexton. They sat down at the table under the window. The
girl came in and stood by their table. The peasant did not seem to see
her. He sat with his hands on the table. He wore his old army clothes.
There were patches on the elbows.
“What will it be?” asked the sexton. The peasant did not pay any
attention.
“What will you drink?”
“Schnapps,” the peasant said.
“And a quarter litre of red wine,” the sexton told the girl.
The girl brought the drinks and the peasant drank the schnapps. He
looked out of the window. The sexton watched him. John had his head
forward on the table. He was asleep.
The innkeeper came in and went over to the table. He spoke in dialect
and the sexton answered him. The peasant looked out of the window. The
innkeeper went out of the room. The peasant stood up. He took a folded
ten-thousand kronen note out of a leather pocket-book and unfolded it.
The girl came up.
“Alles?” she asked.
“Alles,” he said.
“Let me buy the wine,” the sexton said.
“Alles,” the peasant repeated to the girl. She put her hand in the
pocket of her apron, brought it out full of coins and counted out the
change. The peasant went out the door. As soon as he was gone the
innkeeper came into the room again and spoke to the sexton. He sat down
at the table. They talked in dialect. The sexton was amused. The
innkeeper was disgusted. The sexton stood up from the table. He was a
little man with a mustache. He leaned out of the window and looked up
the road.
“There he goes in,” he said.
“In the Löwen?”
“Ja.”
They talked again and then the innkeeper came over to our table. The
innkeeper was a tall man and old. He looked at John asleep.
“He’s pretty tired.”
“Yes, we were up early.”
“Will you want to eat soon?”
“Any time,” I said. “What is there to eat?”
“Anything you want. The girl will bring the eating-card.”
The girl brought the menu. John woke up. The menu was written in ink on
a card and the card slipped into a wooden paddle.
“There’s the speise-karte,” I said to John. He looked at it. He was
still sleepy.
“Won’t you have a drink with us?” I asked the innkeeper. He sat down.
“Those peasants are beasts,” said the innkeeper.
“We saw that one at a funeral coming into town.”
“That was his wife.”
“Oh.”
“He’s a beast. All these peasants are beasts.”
“How do you mean?”
“You wouldn’t believe it. You wouldn’t believe what just happened about
that one.”
“Tell me.”
“You wouldn’t believe it.” The innkeeper spoke to the sexton. “Franz,
come over here.” The sexton came, bringing his little bottle of wine and
his glass.
“The gentlemen are just come down from the Wiesbadenerhütte,” the
innkeeper said. We shook hands.
“What will you drink?” I asked.
“Nothing,” Franz shook his finger.
“Another quarter litre?”
“All right.”
“Do you understand dialect?” the innkeeper asked.
“No.”
“What’s it all about?” John asked.
“He’s going to tell us about the peasant we saw filling the grave,
coming into town.”
“I can’t understand it, anyway,” John said. “It goes too fast for me.”
“That peasant,” the innkeeper said, “to-day he brought his wife in to be
buried. She died last November.”
“December,” said the sexton.
“That makes nothing. She died last December then, and he notified the
commune.”
“December eighteenth,” said the sexton.
“Anyway, he couldn’t bring her over to be buried until the snow was
gone.”
“He lives on the other side of the Paznaun,” said the sexton. “But he
belongs to this parish.”
“He couldn’t bring her out at all?” I asked.
“No. He can only come, from where he lives, on skis until the snow
melts. So to-day he brought her in to be buried and the priest, when he
looked at her face, didn’t want to bury her. You go on and tell it,” he
said to the sexton. “Speak German, not dialect.”
“It was very funny with the priest,” said the sexton. “In the report to
the commune she died of heart trouble. We knew she had heart trouble
here. She used to faint in church sometimes. She did not come for a long
time. She wasn’t strong to climb. When the priest uncovered her face he
asked Olz, ‘Did your wife suffer much?’ ‘No,’ said Olz. ‘When I came in
the house she was dead across the bed.’
“The priest looked at her again. He didn’t like it.
“‘How did her face get that way?’
“‘I don’t know,’ Olz said.
“‘You’d better find out,’ the priest said, and put the blanket back. Olz
didn’t say anything. The priest looked at him. Olz looked back at the
priest. ‘You want to know?’
“‘I must know,’ the priest said.”
“This is where it’s good,” the innkeeper said. “Listen to this. Go on
Franz.”
“‘Well,’ said Olz, ‘when she died I made the report to the commune and I
put her in the shed across the top of the big wood. When I started to
use the big wood she was stiff and I put her up against the wall. Her
mouth was open and when I came into the shed at night to cut up the big
wood, I hung the lantern from it.’
“‘Why did you do that?’ asked the priest.
“‘I don’t know,’ said Olz.
“‘Did you do that many times?’
“‘Every time I went to work in the shed at night.’
“‘It was very wrong,’ said the priest. ‘Did you love your wife?’
“‘Ja, I loved her,’ Olz said. ‘I loved her fine.’”
“Did you understand it all?” asked the innkeeper. “You understand it all
about his wife?”
“I heard it.”
“How about eating?” John asked.
“You order,” I said. “Do you think it’s true?” I asked the innkeeper.
“Sure it’s true,” he said. “These peasants are beasts.”
“Where did he go now?”
“He’s gone to drink at my colleague’s, the Löwen.”
“He didn’t want to drink with me,” said the sexton.
“He didn’t want to drink with me, after he knew about his wife,” said
the innkeeper.
“Say,” said John. “How about eating?”
“All right,” I said.
A PURSUIT RACE
WILLIAM CAMPBELL had been in a pursuit race with a burlesque show ever
since Pittsburgh. In a pursuit race, in bicycle racing, riders start at
equal intervals to ride after one another. They ride very fast because
the race is usually limited to a short distance and if they slow their
riding another rider who maintains his pace will make up the space that
separated them equally at the start. As soon as a rider is caught and
passed he is out of the race and must get down from his bicycle and
leave the track. If none of the riders are caught the winner of the race
is the one who has gained the most distance. In most pursuit races, if
there are only two riders, one of the riders is caught inside of six
miles. The burlesque show caught William Campbell at Kansas City.
William Campbell had hoped to hold a slight lead over the burlesque show
until they reached the Pacific coast. As long as he preceded the
burlesque show as advance man he was being paid. When the burlesque show
caught up with him he was in bed. He was in bed when the manager of the
burlesque troupe came into his room and after the manager had gone out
he decided that he might as well stay in bed. It was very cold in Kansas
City and he was in no hurry to go out. He did not like Kansas City. He
reached under the bed for a bottle and drank. It made his stomach feel
better. Mr. Turner, the manager of the burlesque show, had refused a
drink.
William Campbell’s interview with Mr. Turner had been a little strange.
Mr. Turner had knocked on the door. Campbell had said: “Come in!” When
Mr. Turner came into the room he saw clothing on a chair, an open
suitcase, the bottle on a chair beside the bed, and some one lying in
the bed completely covered by the bed-clothes.
“Mister Campbell,” Mr. Turner said.
“You can’t fire me,” William Campbell said from underneath the covers.
It was warm and white and close under the covers. “You can’t fire me
because I’ve got down off my bicycle.”
“You’re drunk,” Mr. Turner said.
“Oh, yes,” William Campbell said, speaking directly against the sheet
and feeling the texture with his lips.
“You’re a fool,” Mr. Turner said. He turned off the electric light. The
electric light had been burning all night. It was now ten o’clock in the
morning. “You’re a drunken fool. When did you get into this town?”
“I got into this town last night,” William Campbell said, speaking
against the sheet. He found he liked to talk through a sheet. “Did you
ever talk through a sheet?”
“Don’t try to be funny. You aren’t funny.”
“I’m not being funny. I’m just talking through a sheet.”
“You’re talking through a sheet all right.”
“You can go now, Mr. Turner,” Campbell said. “I don’t work for you any
more.”
“You know that anyway.”
“I know a lot,” William Campbell said. He pulled down the sheet and
looked at Mr. Turner. “I know enough so I don’t mind looking at you at
all. Do you want to hear what I know?”
“No.”
“Good,” said William Campbell. “Because really I don’t know anything at
all. I was just talking.” He pulled the sheet up over his face again. “I
love it under a sheet,” he said. Mr. Turner stood beside the bed. He was
a middle-aged man with a large stomach and a bald head and he had many
things to do. “You ought to stop off here, Billy, and take a cure,” he
said. “I’ll fix it up if you want to do it.”
“I don’t want to take a cure,” William Campbell said. “I don’t want to
take a cure at all. I am perfectly happy. All my life I have been
perfectly happy.”
“How long have you been this way?”
“What a question!” William Campbell breathed in and out through the
sheet.
“How long have you been stewed, Billy?”
“Haven’t I done my work?”
“Sure. I just asked you how long you’ve been stewed, Billy.”
“I don’t know. But I’ve got my wolf back,” he touched the sheet with his
tongue. “I’ve had him for a week.”
“The hell you have.”
“Oh, yes. My dear wolf. Every time I take a drink he goes outside the
room. He can’t stand alcohol. The poor little fellow.” He moved his
tongue round and round on the sheet. “He’s a lovely wolf. He’s just like
he always was.” William Campbell shut his eyes and took a deep breath.
“You got to take a cure, Billy,” Mr. Turner said. “You won’t mind the
Keeley. It isn’t bad.”
“The Keeley,” William Campbell said. “It isn’t far from London.” He shut
his eyes and opened them, moving the eyelashes against the sheet. “I
just love sheets,” he said. He looked at Mr. Turner.
“Listen, you think I’m drunk.”
“You _are_ drunk.”
“No, I’m not.”
“You’re drunk and you’ve had dt’s.”
“No.” William Campbell held the sheet around his head. “Dear sheet,” he
said. He breathed against it gently. “Pretty sheet. You love me, don’t
you, sheet? It’s all in the price of the room. Just like in Japan. No,”
he said. “Listen Billy, dear Sliding Billy, I have a surprise for you.
I’m not drunk. I’m hopped to the eyes.”
“No,” said Mr. Turner.
“Take a look.” William Campbell pulled up the right sleeve of his pyjama
jacket under the sheet, then shoved the right forearm out. “Look at
that.” On the forearm, from just above the wrist to the elbow, were
small blue circles around tiny dark blue punctures. The circles almost
touched one another. “That’s the new development,” William Campbell
said. “I drink a little now once in a while, just to drive the wolf out
of the room.”
“They got a cure for that, ‘Sliding Billy’” Turner said.
“No,” William Campbell said. “They haven’t got a cure for anything.”
“You can’t just quit like that, Billy,” Turner said. He sat on the bed.
“Be careful of my sheet,” William Campbell said.
“You can’t just quit at your age and take to pumping yourself full of
that stuff just because you got in a jam.”
“There’s a law against it. If that’s what you mean.”
“No, I mean you got to fight it out.”
Billy Campbell caressed the sheet with his lips and his tongue. “Dear
sheet,” he said. “I can kiss this sheet and see right through it at the
same time.”
“Cut it out about the sheet. You can’t just take to that stuff, Billy.”
William Campbell shut his eyes. He was beginning to feel a slight
nausea. He knew that this nausea would increase steadily, without there
ever being the relief of sickness, until something were done against it.
It was at this point that he suggested that Mr. Turner have a drink. Mr.
Turner declined. William Campbell took a drink from the bottle. It was a
temporary measure. Mr. Turner watched him. Mr. Turner had been in this
room much longer than he should have been, he had many things to do;
although living in daily association with people who used drugs, he had
a horror of drugs, and he was very fond of William Campbell; he did not
wish to leave him. He was very sorry for him and he felt a cure might
help. He knew there were good cures in Kansas City. But he had to go. He
stood up.
“Listen, Billy,” William Campbell said, “I want to tell you something.
You’re called ‘Sliding Billy.’ That’s because you can slide. I’m called
just Billy. That’s because I never could slide at all. I can’t slide,
Billy. I can’t slide. It just catches. Every time I try it, it catches.”
He shut his eyes. “I can’t slide, Billy. It’s awful when you can’t
slide.”
“Yes,” said “Sliding Billy” Turner.
“Yes, what?” William Campbell looked at him.
“You were saying.”
“No,” said William Campbell. “I wasn’t saying. It must have been a
mistake.”
“You were saying about sliding.”
“No. It couldn’t have been about sliding. But listen, Billy, and I’ll
tell you a secret. Stick to sheets, Billy. Keep away from women and
horses and, and—” he stopped “—eagles, Billy. If you love horses
you’ll get horse-s—, and if you love eagles you’ll get eagle-s—.” He
stopped and put his head under the sheet.
“I got to go,” said “Sliding Billy” Turner.
“If you love women you’ll get a dose,” William Campbell said. “If you
love horses——”
“Yes, you said that.”
“Said what?”
“About horses and eagles.”
“Oh, yes. And if you love sheets.” He breathed on the sheet and stroked
his nose against it. “I don’t know about sheets,” he said. “I just
started to love this sheet.”
“I have to go,” Mr. Turner said. “I got a lot to do.”
“That’s all right,” William Campbell said. “Everybody’s got to go.”
“I better go.”
“All right, you go.”
“Are you all right, Billy?”
“I was never so happy in my life.”
“And you’re all right?”
“I’m fine. You go along. I’ll just lie here for a little while. Around
noon I’ll get up.”
But when Mr. Turner came up to William Campbell’s room at noon William
Campbell was sleeping and as Mr. Turner was a man who knew what things
in life were very valuable he did not wake him.
TO-DAY IS FRIDAY
_Three Roman soldiers are in a drinking-place at eleven o’clock
at night. There are barrels around the wall. Behind the wooden
counter is a Hebrew wine-seller. The three Roman soldiers are a
little cock-eyed._
_1st Roman Soldier_—You tried the red?
_2d Soldier_—No, I ain’t tried it.
_1st Soldier_—You better try it.
_2d Soldier_—All right, George, we’ll have a round of the red.
_Hebrew Wine-seller_—Here you are, gentlemen. You’ll like that. [_He
sets down an earthenware pitcher that he has filled from one of the
casks._] That’s a nice little wine.
_1st Soldier_—Have a drink of it yourself. [_He turns to the third
Roman soldier who is leaning on a barrel._] What’s the matter with you?
_3d Roman Soldier_—I got a gut-ache.
_2d Soldier_—You’ve been drinking water.
_1st Soldier_—Try some of the red.
_3d Soldier_—I can’t drink the damn stuff. It makes my gut sour.
_1st Soldier_—You been out here too long.
_3d Soldier_—Hell, don’t I know it?
_1st Soldier_—Say, George, can’t you give this gentleman something to
fix up his stomach?
_Hebrew Wine-seller_—I got it right here.
[_The third Roman soldier tastes the cup that the wine-seller
has mixed for him._]
_3d Soldier_—Hey, what you put in that, camel chips?
_Wine-seller_—You drink that right down, Lootenant. That’ll fix you up
right.
_3d Soldier_—Well, I couldn’t feel any worse.
_1st Soldier_—Take a chance on it. George fixed me up fine the other
day.
_Wine-seller_—You were in bad shape, Lootenant. I know what fixes up a
bad stomach.
[_The third Roman soldier drinks the cup down._]
_3d Roman Soldier_—Jesus Christ. [_He makes a face._]
_2d Soldier_—That false alarm!
_1st Soldier_—Oh, I don’t know. He was pretty good in there to-day.
_2d Soldier_—Why didn’t he come down off the cross?
_1st Soldier_—He didn’t want to come down off the cross. That’s not his
play.
_2d Soldier_—Show me a guy that doesn’t want to come down off the
cross.
_1st Soldier_—Aw, hell, you don’t know anything about it. Ask George
there. Did he want to come down off the cross, George?
_Wine-seller_—I’ll tell you, gentlemen, I wasn’t out there. It’s a
thing I haven’t taken any interest in.
_2d Soldier_—Listen, I seen a lot of them—here and plenty of other
places. Any time you show me one that doesn’t want to get down off the
cross when the time comes—when the time comes, I mean—I’ll climb right
up with him.
_1st Soldier_—I thought he was pretty good in there to-day.
_3d Soldier_—He was all right.
_2d Roman Soldier_—You guys don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m not
saying whether he was good or not. What I mean is, when the time comes.
When they first start nailing him, there isn’t none of them wouldn’t
stop it if they could.
_1st Soldier_—Didn’t you follow it, George?
_Wine-seller_—No, I didn’t take any interest in it, Lootenant.
_1st Soldier_—I was surprised how he acted.
_3d Soldier_—The part I don’t like is the nailing them on. You know,
that must get to you pretty bad.
_2d Soldier_—It isn’t that that’s so bad, as when they first lift ’em
up. [_He makes a lifting gesture with his two palms together._] When the
weight starts to pull on ’em. That’s when it gets ’em.
_3d Roman Soldier_—It takes some of them pretty bad.
_1st Soldier_—Ain’t I seen ’em? I seen plenty of them. I tell you, he
was pretty good in there to-day.
[_The second Roman soldier smiles at the Hebrew wine-seller._]
_2d Soldier_—You’re a regular Christer, big boy.
_1st Soldier_—Sure, go on and kid him. But listen while I tell you
something. He was pretty good in there to-day.
_2d Soldier_—What about some more wine?
[_The wine-seller looks up expectantly. The third Roman soldier
is sitting with his head down. He does not look well._]
_3d Soldier_—I don’t want any more.
_2d Soldier_—Just for two, George.
[_The wine-seller puts out a pitcher of wine, a size smaller
than the last one. He leans forward on the wooden counter._]
_1st Roman Soldier_—You see his girl?
_2d Soldier_—Wasn’t I standing right by her?
_1st Soldier_—She’s a nice-looker.
_2d Soldier_—I knew her before he did. [_He winks at the wine-seller._]
_1st Soldier_—I used to see her around the town.
_2d Soldier_—She used to have a lot of stuff. He never brought _her_ no
good luck.
_1st Soldier_—Oh, he ain’t lucky. But he looked pretty good to me in
there to-day.
_2d Soldier_—What become of his gang?
_1st Soldier_—Oh, they faded out. Just the women stuck by him.
_2d Roman Soldier_—They were a pretty yellow crowd. When they seen him
go up there they didn’t want any of it.
_1st Soldier_—The women stuck all right.
_2d Soldier_—Sure, they stuck all right.
_1st Roman Soldier_—You see me slip the old spear into him?
_2d Roman Soldier_—You’ll get into trouble doing that some day.
_1st Soldier_—It was the least I could do for him. I’ll tell you he
looked pretty good to me in there to-day.
_Hebrew Wine-seller_—Gentlemen, you know I got to close.
_1st Roman Soldier_—We’ll have one more round.
_2d Roman Soldier_—What’s the use? This stuff don’t get you anywhere.
Come on, let’s go.
_1st Soldier_—Just another round.
_3d Roman Soldier_—[_Getting up from the barrel._] No, come on. Let’s
go. I feel like hell to-night.
_1st Soldier_—Just one more.
_2d Soldier_—No, come on. We’re going to go. Good-night, George. Put it
on the bill.
_Wine-seller_—Good-night, gentlemen. [_He looks a little worried._] You
couldn’t let me have a little something on account, Lootenant?
_2d Roman Soldier_—What the hell, George! Wednesday’s pay-day.
_Wine-seller_—It’s all right, Lootenant. Good-night, gentlemen.
[_The three Roman soldiers go out the door into the street._]
[_Outside in the street._]
_2d Roman Soldier_—George is a kike just like all the rest of them.
_1st Roman Soldier_—Oh, George is a nice fella.
_2d Soldier_—Everybody’s a nice fella to you to-night.
_3d Roman Soldier_—Come on, let’s go up to the barracks. I feel like
hell to-night.
_2d Soldier_—You been out here too long.
_3d Roman Soldier_—No, it ain’t just that. I feel like hell.
_2d Soldier_—You been out here too long. That’s all.
CURTAIN.
BANAL STORY
So he ate an orange, slowly spitting out the seeds. Outside, the snow
was turning to rain. Inside, the electric stove seemed to give no heat
and rising from his writing-table, he sat down upon the stove. How good
it felt! Here, at last, was life.
He reached for another orange. Far away in Paris, Mascart had knocked
Danny Frush cuckoo in the second round. Far off in Mesopotamia,
twenty-one feet of snow had fallen. Across the world in distant
Australia, the English cricketers were sharpening up their wickets.
_There_ was Romance.
Patrons of the arts and letters have discovered _The Forum_, he read. It
is the guide, philosopher, and friend of the thinking minority. Prize
short-stories—will their authors write our best-sellers of to-morrow?
You will enjoy these warm, homespun, American tales, bits of real life
on the open ranch, in crowded tenement or comfortable home, and all with
a healthy undercurrent of humor.
I must read them, he thought.
He read on. Our children’s children—what of them? Who of them? New
means must be discovered to find room for us under the sun. Shall this
be done by war or can it be done by peaceful methods?
Or will we all have to move to Canada?
Our deepest convictions—will Science upset them? Our civilization—is
it inferior to older orders of things?
And meanwhile, in the far-off dripping jungles of Yucatan, sounded the
chopping of the axes of the gum-choppers.
Do we want big men—or do we want them cultured? Take Joyce. Take
President Coolidge. What star must our college students aim at? There is
Jack Britton. There is Dr. Henry Van Dyke. Can we reconcile the two?
Take the case of Young Stribling.
And what of our daughters who must make their own Soundings? Nancy
Hawthorne is obliged to make her own Soundings in the sea of life.
Bravely and sensibly she faces the problems which come to every girl of
eighteen.
It was a splendid booklet.
Are you a girl of eighteen? Take the case of Joan of Arc. Take the case
of Bernard Shaw. Take the case of Betsy Ross.
Think of these things in 1925—Was there a risqué page in Puritan
history? Were there two sides to Pocahontas? Did he have a fourth
dimension?
Are modern paintings—and poetry—Art? Yes and No. Take Picasso.
Have tramps codes of conduct? Send your mind adventuring.
There is Romance everywhere. _Forum_ writers talk to the point, are
possessed of humor and wit. But they do not try to be smart and are
never long-winded.
Live the full life of the mind, exhilarated by new ideas, intoxicated by
the Romance of the unusual. He laid down the booklet.
And meanwhile, stretched flat on a bed in a darkened room in his house
in Triana, Manuel Garcia Maera lay with a tube in each lung, drowning
with the pneumonia. All the papers in Andalucia devoted special
supplements to his death, which had been expected for some days. Men and
boys bought full-length colored pictures of him to remember him by, and
lost the picture they had of him in their memories by looking at the
lithographs. Bull-fighters were very relieved he was dead, because he
did always in the bull-ring the things they could only do sometimes.
They all marched in the rain behind his coffin and there were one
hundred and forty-seven bull-fighters followed him out to the cemetery,
where they buried him in the tomb next to Joselito. After the funeral
every one sat in the cafés out of the rain, and many colored pictures of
Maera were sold to men who rolled them up and put them away in their
pockets.
NOW I LAY ME
THAT night we lay on the floor in the room and I listened to the
silk-worms eating. The silk-worms fed in racks of mulberry leaves and
all night you could hear them eating and a dropping sound in the leaves.
I myself did not want to sleep because I had been living for a long time
with the knowledge that if I ever shut my eyes in the dark and let
myself go, my soul would go out of my body. I had been that way for a
long time, ever since I had been blown up at night and felt it go out of
me and go off and then come back. I tried never to think about it, but
it had started to go since, in the nights, just at the moment of going
off to sleep, and I could only stop it by a very great effort. So while
now I am fairly sure that it would not really have gone out, yet then,
that summer, I was unwilling to make the experiment.
I had different ways of occupying myself while I lay awake. I would
think of a trout stream I had fished along when I was a boy and fish its
whole length very carefully in my mind; fishing very carefully under all
the logs, all the turns of the bank, the deep holes and the clear
shallow stretches, sometimes catching trout and sometimes losing them. I
would stop fishing at noon to eat my lunch; sometimes on a log over the
stream; sometimes on a high bank under a tree, and I always ate my lunch
very slowly and watched the stream below me while I ate. Often I ran out
of bait because I would take only ten worms with me in a tobacco tin
when I started. When I had used them all I had to find more worms, and
sometimes it was very difficult digging in the bank of the stream where
the cedar trees kept out the sun and there was no grass but only the
bare moist earth and often I could find no worms. Always though I found
some kind of bait, but one time in the swamp I could find no bait at all
and had to cut up one of the trout I had caught and use him for bait.
Sometimes I found insects in the swamp meadows, in the grass or under
ferns, and used them. There were beetles and insects with legs like
grass stems, and grubs in old rotten logs; white grubs with brown
pinching heads that would not stay on the hook and emptied into nothing
in the cold water, and wood ticks under logs where sometimes I found
angle-worms that slipped into the ground as soon as the log was raised.
Once I used a salamander from under an old log. The salamander was very
small and neat and agile and a lovely color. He had tiny feet that tried
to hold on to the hook, and after that one time I never used a
salamander, although I found them very often. Nor did I use crickets,
because of the way they acted about the hook.
Sometimes the stream ran through an open meadow, and in the dry grass I
would catch grasshoppers and use them for bait and sometimes I would
catch grasshoppers and toss them into the stream and watch them float
along swimming on the stream and circling on the surface as the current
took them and then disappear as a trout rose. Sometimes I would fish
four or five different streams in the night; starting as near as I could
get to their source and fishing them down stream. When I had finished
too quickly and the time did not go, I would fish the stream over again,
starting where it emptied into the lake and fishing back up stream,
trying for all the trout I had missed coming down. Some nights too I
made up streams, and some of them were very exciting, and it was like
being awake and dreaming. Some of those streams I still remember and
think that I have fished in them, and they are confused with streams I
really know. I gave them all names and went to them on the train and
sometimes walked for miles to get to them.
But some nights I could not fish, and on those nights I was cold-awake
and said my prayers over and over and tried to pray for all the people I
had ever known. That took up a great amount of time, for if you try to
remember all the people you have ever known, going back to the earliest
thing you remember—which was, with me, the attic of the house where I
was born and my mother and father’s wedding-cake in a tin box hanging
from one of the rafters, and, in the attic, jars of snakes and other
specimens that my father had collected as a boy and preserved in
alcohol, the alcohol sunken in the jars so the backs of some of the
snakes and specimens were exposed and had turned white—if you thought
back that far, you remembered a great many people. If you prayed for all
of them, saying a Hail Mary and an Our Father for each one, it took a
long time and finally it would be light, and then you could go to sleep,
if you were in a place where you could sleep in the daylight.
On those nights I tried to remember everything that had ever happened to
me, starting with just before I went to the war and remembering back
from one thing to another. I found I could only remember back to that
attic in my grandfather’s house. Then I would start there and remember
this way again, until I reached the war.
I remembered, after my grandfather died we moved away from that house
and to a new house designed and built by my mother. Many things that
were not to be moved were burned in the back-yard and I remember those
jars from the attic being thrown in the fire, and how they popped in the
heat and the fire flamed up from the alcohol. I remember the snakes
burning in the fire in the back-yard. But there were no people in that,
only things. I could not remember who burned the things even, and I
would go on until I came to people and then stop and pray for them.
About the new house I remembered how my mother was always cleaning
things out and making a good clearance. One time when my father was away
on a hunting trip she made a good thorough cleaning out in the basement
and burned everything that should not have been there. When my father
came home and got down from his buggy and hitched the horse, the fire
was still burning in the road beside the house. I went out to meet him.
He handed me his shotgun and looked at the fire. “What’s this?” he
asked.
“I’ve been cleaning out the basement, dear,” my mother said from the
porch. She was standing there smiling, to meet him. My father looked at
the fire and kicked at something. Then he leaned over and picked
something out of the ashes. “Get a rake, Nick,” he said to me. I went to
the basement and brought a rake and my father raked very carefully in
the ashes. He raked out stone axes and stone skinning knives and tools
for making arrow-heads and pieces of pottery and many arrow-heads. They
had all been blackened and chipped by the fire. My father raked them all
out very carefully and spread them on the grass by the road. His shotgun
in its leather case and his game-bags were on the grass where he had
left them when he stepped down from the buggy.
“Take the gun and the bags in the house, Nick, and bring me a paper,” he
said. My mother had gone inside the house. I took the shotgun, which was
heavy to carry and banged against my legs, and the two game-bags and
started toward the house. “Take them one at a time,” my father said.
“Don’t try and carry too much at once.” I put down the game-bags and
took in the shotgun and brought out a newspaper from the pile in my
father’s office. My father spread all the blackened, chipped stone
implements on the paper and then wrapped them up. “The best arrow-heads
went all to pieces,” he said. He walked into the house with the paper
package and I stayed outside on the grass with the two game-bags. After
a while I took them in. In remembering that, there were only two people,
so I would pray for them both.
Some nights, though, I could not remember my prayers even. I could only
get as far as “On earth as it is in heaven” and then have to start all
over and be absolutely unable to get past that. Then I would have to
recognize that I could not remember and give up saying my prayers that
night and try something else. So on some nights I would try to remember
all the animals in the world by name and then the birds and then fishes
and then countries and cities and then kinds of food and the names of
all the streets I could remember in Chicago, and when I could not
remember anything at all any more I would just listen. And I do not
remember a night on which you could not hear things. If I could have a
light I was not afraid to sleep, because I knew my soul would only go
out of me if it were dark. So, of course, many nights I was where I
could have a light and then I slept because I was nearly always tired
and often very sleepy. And I am sure many times too that I slept without
knowing it—but I never slept knowing it, and on this night I listened
to the silk-worms. You can hear silk-worms eating very clearly in the
night and I lay with my eyes open and listened to them.
There was only one other person in the room and he was awake too. I
listened to him being awake, for a long time. He could not lie as
quietly as I could because, perhaps, he had not had as much practice
being awake. We were lying on blankets spread over straw and when he
moved the straw was noisy, but the silk-worms were not frightened by any
noise we made and ate on steadily. There were the noises of night seven
kilometres behind the lines outside but they were different from the
small noises inside the room in the dark. The other man in the room
tried lying quietly. Then he moved again. I moved too, so he would know
I was awake. He had lived ten years in Chicago. They had taken him for a
soldier in nineteen fourteen when he had come back to visit his family,
and they had given him to me for an orderly because he spoke English. I
heard him listening, so I moved again in the blankets.
“Can’t you sleep, Signor Tenente?” he asked.
“No.”
“I can’t sleep, either.”
“What’s the matter?”
“I don’t know. I can’t sleep.”
“You feel all right?”
“Sure. I feel good. I just can’t sleep.”
“You want to talk a while?” I asked.
“Sure. What can you talk about in this damn place.”
“This place is pretty good,” I said.
“Sure,” he said. “It’s all right.”
“Tell me about out in Chicago,” I said.
“Oh,” he said, “I told you all that once.”
“Tell me about how you got married.”
“I told you that.”
“Was the letter you got Monday—from her?”
“Sure. She writes me all the time. She’s making good money with the
place.”
“You’ll have a nice place when you go back.”
“Sure. She runs it fine. She’s making a lot of money.”
“Don’t you think we’ll wake them up, talking?” I asked.
“No. They can’t hear. Anyway, they sleep like pigs. I’m different,” he
said. “I’m nervous.”
“Talk quiet,” I said. “Want a smoke?”
We smoked skilfully in the dark.
“You don’t smoke much, Signor Tenente.”
“No. I’ve just about cut it out.”
“Well,” he said, “it don’t do you any good and I suppose you get so you
don’t miss it. Did you ever hear a blind man won’t smoke because he
can’t see the smoke come out?”
“I don’t believe it.”
“I think it’s all bull, myself,” he said. “I just heard it somewhere.
You know how you hear things.”
We were both quiet and I listened to the silk-worms.
“You hear those damn silk-worms?” he asked. “You can hear them chew.”
“It’s funny,” I said.
“Say, Signor Tenente, is there something really the matter that you
can’t sleep? I never see you sleep. You haven’t slept nights ever since
I been with you.”
“I don’t know, John,” I said. “I got in pretty bad shape along early
last spring and at night it bothers me.”
“Just like I am,” he said. “I shouldn’t have ever got in this war. I’m
too nervous.”
“Maybe it will get better.”
“Say, Signor Tenente, what did you get in this war for, anyway?”
“I don’t know, John. I wanted to, then.”
“Wanted to,” he said. “That’s a hell of a reason.”
“We oughtn’t to talk out loud,” I said.
“They sleep just like pigs,” he said. “They can’t understand the English
language, anyway. They don’t know a damn thing. What are you going to do
when it’s over and we go back to the States?”
“I’ll get a job on a paper.”
“In Chicago?”
“Maybe.”
“Do you ever read what this fellow Brisbane writes? My wife cuts it out
for me and sends it to me.”
“Sure.”
“Did you ever meet him?”
“No, but I’ve seen him.”
“I’d like to meet that fellow. He’s a fine writer. My wife don’t read
English but she takes the paper just like when I was home and she cuts
out the editorials and the sport page and sends them to me.”
“How are your kids?”
“They’re fine. One of the girls is in the fourth grade now. You know,
Signor Tenente, if I didn’t have the kids I wouldn’t be your orderly
now. They’d have made me stay in the line all the time.”
“I’m glad you’ve got them.”
“So am I. They’re fine kids but I want a boy. Three girls and no boy.
That’s a hell of a note.”
“Why don’t you try and go to sleep.”
“No, I can’t sleep now. I’m wide awake now, Signor Tenente. Say, I’m
worried about you not sleeping though.”
“It’ll be all right, John.”
“Imagine a young fellow like you not to sleep.”
“I’ll get all right. It just takes a while.”
“You got to get all right. A man can’t get along that don’t sleep. Do
you worry about anything? You got anything on your mind?”
“No, John, I don’t think so.”
“You ought to get married, Signor Tenente. Then you wouldn’t worry.”
“I don’t know.”
“You ought to get married. Why don’t you pick out some nice Italian girl
with plenty of money. You could get any one you want. You’re young and
you got good decorations and you look nice. You been wounded a couple of
times.”
“I can’t talk the language well enough.”
“You talk it fine. To hell with talking the language. You don’t have to
talk to them. Marry them.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“You know some girls, don’t you?”
“Sure.”
“Well, you marry the one with the most money. Over here, the way they’re
brought up, they’ll all make you a good wife.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Don’t think about it, Signor Tenente. Do it.”
“All right.”
“A man ought to be married. You’ll never regret it. Every man ought to
be married.”
“All right,” I said. “Let’s try and sleep a while.”
“All right, Signor Tenente. I’ll try it again. But you remember what I
said.”
“I’ll remember it,” I said. “Now let’s sleep a while, John.”
“All right,” he said. “I hope you sleep, Signor Tenente.”
I heard him roll in his blankets on the straw and then he was very quiet
and I listened to him breathing regularly. Then he started to snore. I
listened to him snore for a long time and then I stopped listening to
him snore and listened to the silk-worms eating. They ate steadily,
making a dropping in the leaves. I had a new thing to think about and I
lay in the dark with my eyes open and thought of all the girls I had
ever known and what kind of wives they would make. It was a very
interesting thing to think about and for a while it killed off
trout-fishing and interfered with my prayers. Finally, though, I went
back to trout-fishing, because I found that I could remember all the
streams and there was always something new about them, while the girls,
after I had thought about them a few times, blurred and I could not call
them into my mind and finally they all blurred and all became rather the
same and I gave up thinking about them almost altogether. But I kept on
with my prayers and I prayed very often for John in the nights and his
class was removed from active service before the October offensive. I
was glad he was not there, because he would have been a great worry to
me. He came to the hospital in Milan to see me several months after and
was very disappointed that I had not yet married, and I know he would
feel very badly if he knew that, so far, I have never married. He was
going back to America and he was very certain about marriage and knew it
would fix up everything.
* * * * *
TRANSCRIBER NOTES
Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple
spellings occur, majority use has been employed.
Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors
occur.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Men without women" ***
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