纽约往事（中英文对照）

著者：〔美〕詹姆斯·布兰德·马修斯

译者：朱燕楠 王力军 徐蓓思

文本整理：朱燕楠

编辑：王瑜玲

策划推广：中信出版社（China CITIC Press）

出版发行：中信出版集团股份有限公司

（北京市朝阳区惠新东街甲4号富盛大厦2座 邮编100029）

（CITIC Publishing Group）

电子书排版：张明霞

版本：电子书

版次：2015年4月第一版

字数：184千字

广告经营许可证号：京朝工商广字第8087号

广告经营许可证号：京朝工商广字第8087号

版权所有 · 侵权必究

凡购买本社电子图书，如有内容缺失、错误，欢迎随时提报。

服务热线： 010-84849555

服务传真： 010-84849000

投稿热线： ebook@citicpub.com

纽约往事

（中英文对照）

[美]詹姆斯·布兰德·马修斯 著

朱燕楠 王力军 徐蓓思 译

中信出版社

缘起·代序

“一个作家，一座城”系列是一套奇妙的作品。

之所以说是“奇妙”，一是缘于成书的方式——图书的引进、实现者就是它的读者，这些古老的经典，藉由互联网的思维方式在当下呈现。

书的选题全部来源于中国最大的译者社区——“译言网”用户自主地发现与推荐，是想把它们引进中文世界的读者们认定了选题，而这些书曾影响了那个时代，这些书的作者成就了作品，也成为了大师。

每本书的译者，在图书协作翻译平台上，从世界各地聚拢在以书为单位的项目组中。这些天涯海角、素昧平生，拥有着各种专业背景和外语能力的合作伙伴在网络世界中因共同的兴趣、共有的语言能力和相互认同的语言风格而交集。

书中的插图是每本书的项目负责人和自己的组员们，依据对内容的理解、领悟寻找发掘而来。

每位参与者的感悟与思索除了在译文内容中展现，还写进了序言之中，将最本初的想法、愿望、心路历程直接分享给读者。因此，序也是图书不可分割的内容，是阅读的延伸……

所以，这套书是由你们——读者创造出来的。

二是缘于时间与空间的奇妙结合——古与今、传统与现代在这里形成了穿越时空的遇见。

百多年前的大师们，用自己的笔和语言，英语、法语、德语、日语……来描摹那时的城市，在贴近与游离中抒发着他们与一座城的情怀。而今天的译者们，他们或是行走在繁华的曼哈顿街头，在MET和MOMA的展馆里消磨掉着大部分时间；或是驻足在桃花纷飞的爱丁堡，写下“生命厚重的根基不该因流动而弱化”这样的译者序言；又或者流连在东京的街头，找寻着作为插图的老东京明信片……他们与大师们可能走在同一座城的同一条路上，感觉着时空的变幻，文明的演化，用现代的语言演绎着过去，用当代的目光考量着曾经的过往。

然后，这些成果汇集在了“译言·古登堡项目”中，将被一个聚合了传统与现代的团队来呈现。这里有——电脑前运行着一个拥有着400多位图书项目负责人、1500多名稳定译者，平台上同时并行着300多个图书项目的译言图书社区小伙伴们；有对图书质量精益求精的中青社图书编辑；有一位坚持必须把整本的书稿看完才构思下笔的设计师……一张又一张的时间表，一个又一个的构思设想，一次又一次的讨论会……

就这样，那些蜚声文坛的大师们、那些他们笔下耳熟能详的城市带着历史的气息，藉由互联网的方式进入了中文世界，得以与今天翻开这本书的你遇见……

好的书籍是对人类文化的礼赞，是对创作者的致敬。15世纪中叶，一个名叫约翰内斯·古登堡的德国银匠发明了一种金属活字印刷方法。从此，书籍走出了象牙塔，人类进入了一个信息迅速、廉价传播的时代，知识得以传播，民智得以开启，现代工业文明由此萌发。

今天，互联网的伟大在于它打破了之前封闭的传承模式，摒弃了不必要的中间环节。人的一生何其短暂，人类文明的积淀浩如烟海，穷其一生的寻寻觅觅都不可能窥探其一二。而互联网给人们、给各个领域以直面的机会，每个人都可以参与，每个人都有机会做到。人类文明的积淀得以被唤醒、被发现，得以用更快、更高效的方式在世界范围内传播。

“让经典在中文世界重生”——“译言·古登堡项目”的灵感是对打开文明传播之门的约翰内斯·古登堡的致敬。这个项目的创造力，来自于社区，来自于协作，来自于那些秉承参与和分享理念的用户，来自于新兴的互联网思维与历史源远流长的出版社结合在一起的优秀团队。

从策划到出版是“发现之旅”——发现中文世界之外的经典，发现我们自身；是“再现之旅”——让经典在中文世界重生。这套作品的出版是对所有为之付出智慧、才华、心血的人们的礼赞。

这是多么奇妙的事情，多么有意思的事业。

我的朋友，当你打开这本书的时候也是开启了一段缘。我们遇见了最好的彼此。也许，你就是我们下一本书的发现者、组织者或是翻译者……

所以，这就让这段“缘起”代序吧。

作者小传

詹姆斯·布兰德·马修斯（James Brander Matthews，1852年2月21日—1929年3月31日）是美国作家、教育家、评论家，美国首位戏剧文学教授。他兴趣广泛，从莎士比亚、莫里哀、易卜生到法国的马路喜剧、民间剧场以及同时代的新现实主义都是他的研究对象。

马修斯出生于新奥尔良的一个富裕家庭，成长在纽约市。1871年，他从哥伦比亚学院[1]毕业，是那里的爱辩者社团和Delta Psi兄弟会的成员，1873年，他又从哥伦比亚法学院毕业。然而，他对法律兴趣寥寥，由于家道殷实，他无须打工谋生，转而踏上文学之路，在19世纪末发表了诸多小说、剧本、戏剧评论、演员传记以及城市生活随笔集。

1892年到1900年间，他是哥伦比亚大学的文学教授，而后一直担任戏剧文学教授直到1924年退休。作为一名教师，他魅力四射，讲课引人入胜，对学生要求也高。他的影响之大甚至让整整一代人“被同一个马修斯打上了烙印”[2]。

在哥伦比亚大学漫长的任职期间，马修斯创建了一座收藏戏服、道具、脚本和其他舞台纪念品的“戏剧博物馆”并亲任馆长。博物馆最初设在哥大哲学楼的一间四室套房里，他去世后收藏即停止，藏品被出售。不过，馆中的藏书被校图书馆收入，环球剧院模型和其他具有历史意义的戏剧场馆模型分散在校园里公开展览。曼哈顿117街上曾有一座布兰德·马修斯剧院，现已被毁。哥伦比亚大学至今仍有一个以他命名的英文教授职位。

马修斯通晓戏剧史，不仅熟知美国和英国剧作家，也对欧洲戏剧家如数家珍。早在剧本创作远未流行之时，他便大力推荐、频频盛赞那些不大合美国人口味的敢于针砭时弊的剧作家，如赫尔曼·苏德曼[3]、亚瑟·皮尼洛[4]、亨利克·易卜生[5]。他也是一个固执己见的人，政治倾向有点保守。1917年师从马修斯的剧作家S.N.贝尔曼在回忆录中写道：“有一天我犯了个错误，把一本自由派杂志《新共和》带到班里来。事实上，里面有我写的一篇文章。马修斯看看《新共和》，说：‘见你把时间浪费在那种东西上，我感到惋惜。’作为一名坚定的共和党人、西奥多·罗斯福的好友，他是要尽责任的。”不过贝尔曼承认，他也可以是“随和有故事的人”，时常出入上流社会，在学校里备受尊敬。他一心扑在戏剧上，明确提出戏剧首先是一种表演艺术，而剧本作为文学文本决不应等量齐观。在课堂上，他却是一位严格要求舞台技艺的导师。

在其他学生的回忆中，马修斯则是一位让人“既爱又烦”的老师，高调处世，从不掩藏自己的优越背景、社会关系和鉴赏品味。他与哥大同事的关系有时搞得很僵。晚年时，他的保守倾向更加明显：他坚决不收女研究生，还公开表态，认为女人天生不具备成为伟大剧作家的能力。

据马克·范·多伦回忆，他教授一门“古老”的美国文学选修课，几十年来拒绝修订课本。毫不奇怪，他自然是一战那一代作家和激进分子的攻击目标。回顾马修斯于1917年出版的自传时，哥大毕业生、自由派记者伦道夫抱怨道，对布兰德·马修斯来说“文学是斯文的作态而非生活的解读”。在《祖国的土地上》一书中，阿尔弗雷德·卡辛将他刻画为一位“文学绅士”。

马修斯是一位多产作家，著作三十余部，作品体裁多样，流行程度不一。他的小说和戏剧无人问津，早被遗忘，而其中一个剧本的出名是借了西奥多·德莱塞[6]的小说《嘉莉妹妹》的光：嘉莉出演了一部闹剧《一座金矿》（马修斯作品），于是开始考虑演艺事业。马修斯所著的一些美国文学和戏剧综述作为高中和大学课本非常畅销。他早在1881年出版的《十九世纪法国戏剧家》则是一部优秀的学术著作，二十年间修订并再版过两次。他于1919年出的自传《这些年》则娓娓道出一个生活优渥、著作丰富的人从事艺术教育的历程，同时生动再现了1860年至1900年间曼哈顿的风土人情。马修斯还分别于1910年和1913年出版了莫里哀和莎士比亚的传记。

马修斯对纽约和美国的热爱不亚于他对戏剧和哥大的热爱。虽然出生在新奥尔良，但他八岁时就移居纽约，对这座城市的爱从未动摇过。乔治·奥德尔论道：“最坚贞的纽约人是从外地来的。马修斯的父亲来自新奥尔良，母亲来自弗吉尼亚。马修斯认为，深爱这座城市的人很少是土生土长的纽约人。”他写过三本围绕纽约展开的随笔和短篇小说：《曼哈顿花絮》（Vignettes of Manhattan）、《曼哈顿情缘》（Studies in Local Color）、《纽约掠影》（Vistas of New York）。他的三部小说都以纽约为背景，这座城市是小说人物演绎人生的大舞台：《父之子》、《自信的明天》、《行动和语言》。

他之所做、所说、所写都意在将纽约城确立为美国文学的中心。他甚至说服威廉·迪恩·豪威尔斯[7]从波士顿搬到纽约；他创立并支持各种有助于纽约在美国文学发展中发挥作用的组织。他是作家俱乐部的创始人，意在提供“纽约文化人联络感情的机会”；他帮助成立了美国版权联盟，加强了美国作家，尤其纽约作家的团结。他是以纽约为本部的国家艺术文学协会的一位创始成员；1904年，该组织的核心群体创立美国艺术文学学院，他在1922年至1924年间担任学院院长。1906年，他被任命为简化拼写委员会第一任主席，并于1910年担任美国现代语言协会主席。因弘扬法国戏剧文化，马修斯在1907年获得法国政府颁发的荣誉勋章。

马修斯并不是那个时代的典型学者。他与众多名人结交，如罗伯特·路易斯·史蒂文森[8]、鲁德亚德·吉卜林[9]、布雷特·哈特[10]、马克·吐温、威廉·迪恩·豪威尔斯、西奥多·罗斯福。他与西奥多·罗斯福的通信从19世纪80年代开始一直延续到后者入主白宫。二人情趣相投，且都热心推行简化拼写。《曼哈顿花絮》便是马修斯献给罗斯福的“礼物”。

晚年的马修斯留着早已过时的络腮胡，总是一副扬扬自得的样子，但他一直非常热衷社交。他经常邀请学生到曼哈顿西区的公寓彻夜畅谈。他是一个名为“酒神好儿子”的非正式团体的创始人，其成员常聚在格林威治村的一家波西米亚酒馆里玩乐、阅读。该团体成员还包括博学多识的大批评家杰姆斯·吉本斯·哈尼克。同马修斯一样，哈尼克也迫切希望戏剧作为一种严肃的文学评论主题为人所接受，也呼吁美国观众对欧洲先锋戏剧家给予更多关注。二人曾在欧洲打过交道，当时马修斯正为写作第一本书《巴黎剧院》（1880年）进行考察。

马修斯也是长盛不衰的“酒馆俱乐部”的一员，这是一个更加排外的非正式组织，成员包括哥大校长尼古拉斯·默里·巴特勒[11]以及众多政府官员。

七十二岁时，布兰德·马修斯从哥伦比亚大学退休，五年之后的1929年，他在纽约去世。他的妻子和女儿都已先他而去。

作品

——The Theatres of Paris 《巴黎剧院》（1880）

——French Dramatists of the Nineteenth Century 《十九世纪法国剧作家》（1881，1891和1901修订）

——Margery's Lovers 《马杰里的情人们》（1884）

——Love at First Sight 《一见钟情》（1885）

——Actors and Actresses of the United States and Great Britain《美国和英国的演员》（五卷，1886）

——Americanisms and Briticisms 《美国腔和英国腔》（1892）

——The Decision of the Court 《法院的决定》（1893）

——Vignettes of Manhattan 《曼哈顿花絮》（1894）

——Studies of the Stage 《舞台研究》（1894）

——The Gift of Story-Telling 《讲故事的天赋》（1895）

——His Father's Son 《父之子》（1895）

——Aspects of Fiction《虚构的方方面面》（1896；1902修订）

——An Introduction to the Study of American Literature 《美国文学导论》（1896）

——Studies in Local Color《曼哈顿情缘》（1898）

——A Confident To-Morrow 《自信的明天》（1900）

——The Action and the Word 《行动和语言》（1900）

——The Historical Novel and Other Essays 《历史小说》（1901）

——Parts of Speech, Essays on English 《词性，英语论文》（1901）

——The Philosophy of the Short-Story 《短篇小说的哲理》（1901）

——The Development of the Drama 《戏剧沿革》（1903）

——American Character 《美国人的性格》（1906）

——The Short Story 《短故事》（1907）

——Americans of the Future and Other Essays 《未来的美国人》（1909）

——Molière: His Life and Works 《莫里哀：生平和作品》（1910）

——Introduction to the Study of American literature 《美国文学导读》（1911）

——Shakespeare as a Playwright《剧作家莎士比亚》（1913）

——On Acting 《论表演》（1914）

——The Oxford Book of American Essays 《美国散文牛津本》（1914）

——A Book About the Theater 《戏剧之书》（1916）

——These Many Years 《这些年》（自传，1917）

——Principles of Playmaking 《戏剧创作原则》（1919）

——Playwrights on Playmaking 《剧作家论戏剧创作》（1923）

[1] 1896年更名为哥伦比亚大学。

[2] “brandered by the same Matthews.”双关语。Brander既是马修斯的名字，也有打上烙印的意思。

[3] 赫尔曼·苏德曼（Hermann Sudermann，1857—1928）：德国剧作家及小说家。

[4] 亚瑟·皮尼洛(Sir Arthur Wing Pinero，1855—1934)：英国演员、剧作家。

[5] 亨利克·易卜生(Henrik Ibsen，1828—1906)：挪威剧作家，被誉为“现代戏剧之父”。

[6] 西奥多·德莱塞（Theodore Dreiser, 1871—1945）：美国现代小说先驱、现实主义作家，《嘉莉妹妹》是其代表作。

[7] 威廉·迪恩·豪威尔斯（William Dean Howells,1837—1920）：美国小说家、评论家、剧作家。

[8] 罗伯特·路易斯·史蒂文森(Robert Louis Stevenson ,1850—1894)：苏格兰小说家、诗人，新浪漫主义代表。

[9] 鲁德亚德·吉卜林（Joseph Rudyard Kipling，1865—1936）：生于印度孟买，英国作家、诗人。1907年获诺贝尔文学奖。

[10] 布雷特·哈特（Bret Harte，1836—1902），小说家，美国西部文学代表作家。

[11] 尼古拉斯·默里·巴特勒（Nicholas Murray Butler，1862－1947），美国哲学家、外交官、教育家。1888年创办哥伦比亚大学教育学院，1902年到1945年担任哥伦比亚大学校长。1931年与简·亚当斯同获诺贝尔和平奖。1925年到1945年担任卡内基国际和平基金会会长。

曼哈顿花絮

Vignettes of Manhattan

致西奥多·罗斯福[12]的信

亲爱的西奥多，你知道——我们已经反复讨论过了——我认为你不是一个典型的纽约人，因为你的血统源自荷兰，并且初见日光是在曼哈顿岛这里，而典型的纽约人生于新英格兰家庭，父母多半来自阿利根尼山脉[13]以西的地方。你也知道，典型的纽约人往往并不以他所选择的城市为傲，也不如我们所愿的那样对它忠心耿耿。对于我们的这座备受诋毁和误解的城市，他并没有始终不渝的关怀。当他跨过那条大河[14]回来的时候，并不会一看见它那雄健而参差的轮廓就豪情万丈，也不会一听见它那极富挑逗和刺激性的渐强的轰鸣就欣喜若狂。然而我们对纽约却有一种坚贞的感情，你和我，还有其他一些人，无论它是什么样，我们都喜欢它；无论我们希望它是什么样，我们都爱它。

正是由于对我们的这座奇特而多面的城市怀有这种平凡的关爱，我才自得其乐地向你奉上这小小一册花絮。恐怕它们实在算不上短篇小说——更不是散文，也不是论文，我想它们只是我所称之为的——花絮。一共十二篇，一年之中每月一篇，是记录时节的城市月历。虽不足道，但我恳请你接受以表我的友情和敬意；也恳请你相信我，永远是，你诚挚的

布兰德·马修斯

1894年5月于纽约

[12] 西奥多·罗斯福（Theodore Roosevelt，1858—1919），美国历史学家、政治家，第二十六任美国总统（1901—1909）。1858年在纽约市出生，荷兰人后裔。

[13] 阿利根尼山脉（the Alleghanies）：北美阿巴拉契亚山系西部的分支，从宾夕法尼亚州北部绵延至弗吉尼亚州西南。

[14] 指哈得孙河（Hudson River）。

1
小教堂中的葬礼

小教堂退立一隅，并不临街，一条小径从院子的铁门蜿蜒至教堂门口，小径两侧各有一方草坪。在这寒冷的一月清晨，雪在草地上铺了一尺厚，雪水已被夜风吹冻。一侧的小喷泉结了一层冰壳。在喷出的细流跌落的地方，一棵亮晶晶的冰笋正迅速长高，圆滚滚的麻雀要在它们日常的饮水槽里喝水就难了。天空是灰的，但愿上午能出太阳。一股凌厉的风从河边吹进这条街，随风传来阵阵叮当声，是雪橇铃铛在仅仅五十码[15]开外的大道上叮当作响。

灵车在院门前停住的时候，照例有一群好奇的闲人聚拢过来。几位抬棺人从随行的马车上下来，在人行道上各就其位，等殡葬工把棺材抬出灵车。这时，露着一头灰白发的教区长步出教堂门廊，走向院门口去迎接送葬队伍。他手捧摊开的祈祷书，来到棺材前，开始诵读庄严的葬仪祷文：

“主说：‘复活在我，生命也在我。信我的人，虽然死了，也必复活。凡活着信我的人必永远不死。’”

教区长在抬棺人前面领路，向教堂走去，教堂里已挤满这位死去演员的同事和朋友，以及完全不相干的人，他们过来是出于好奇，还为看看女演员们在白日里、舞台下的样子。室内昏暗，尽管各处都点着煤气灯。圣诞彩枝仍缠绕在柱子上，厚重的垂饰仍挂在低矮的拱顶下面。棺材缓缓穿过门廊的时候，教区长再次开讲：

“我们没有带什么到世上来，也不能带什么去。赏赐的是耶和华，收取的也是耶和华。耶和华的名是应当称颂的。”

整个教堂躁动起来，众人都把头转向门口。眼含泪水的男人不止一个，因为死去的演员一向是大家的最爱，默默哭泣的女人也不少。靠门的一排长椅上坐着两位年轻女演员，她们曾与死者在一家公司共事，那时他初次登台亮相，距今不过三年；而现在，两人一时情难自已，放声大哭。在她们旁边站着一位高挑、俊秀的金发女子，显然不是演员。她穿着一身黑。当棺材被堆积的花圈半掩着经过通道时，她只朝棺材瞥了一眼，然后就直勾勾地目视前方，绷着脸，眼中却没有一滴泪。

教区长缓缓地走在抬棺人前面，步入教堂的中央通道，与此同时，统一着装的诗班唱起庄严的赞美诗：

“耶和华啊，求你叫我晓得我身之终，我的寿数几何，叫我知道我的生命不长。

“你使我的年窄如手掌；我一生的年数，在你面前如同无有。各人最稳妥的时候，真是全然虚幻。”

这庄严的赞美诗是为一个年轻人而唱——为一个在二十五岁死去的人而唱，那正是他首获成功、前程似锦的时候。他的家族在美国历史上赫赫有名，朋友们原以为他会像父亲和祖父一样去当律师。他是个帅小伙，眼睛会说话，嗓音浑厚撩人。在父亲的朋友们看来，他俨然是个富有感染力的辩护律师。可是就在他大学毕业那年，父亲去世了，母亲也去世了，把他孤零零一个人留在世上。可巧，父亲的投资并不明智，多少年都别指望依靠那些投资获得什么收益。上大学时，他曾是戏剧俱乐部的首要成员，暑假期间，他参与过很多业余戏剧演出。也许放弃出庭改登舞台一直是他的秘密心愿。正当他左思右想该走哪条路的时候，机会来了，一位悲剧名角所属的演艺公司向他发出聘约。他接受了幸运之神的眷顾，不是作为一名律师，而是作为一名演员，开始谋生；此时在街巷深处小教堂中的葬礼，正是为作为演员的他所举行的。

伴着诗班献唱的歌声，棺材被抬至圣坛，安放在栏杆前，几乎被散置于台阶上、簇拥在讲坛下和诵经台前的鲜花遮没了。浓郁、甜腻的百合花香在教堂中弥漫。

教区长在圣坛内的诵经台前站定，宣读指定的讲章，传达信与爱的福音。当他宣告这必死的总要变成不死的时候，啜泣之声呜呜可闻。

“那时经上所记‘死被得胜吞灭’的话就应验了。死啊，你得胜的权势在哪里？死啊，你的毒钩在哪里？”

出席葬礼的有童年时代的老友，他们从远方赶来给死者献上最后的深情祝福，他们知道他登台时志向有多高，也知道他头一年有多苦：苦于乏味的学徒生活，苦于不停歇的四处奔波，苦于缺少机会不得志。其中一些人晓得在他戏剧生涯的第二年，他的命运如何有了转机，失意如何让位于信心。他所在的公司出现了纠纷，那位悲剧名角跟配角演员分道扬镳。于是小伙子时来运转，并借机证明了自己是值得好运眷顾的。舞台上已多年不曾出现这么年轻、火热的雷欧提斯[16]，这么激情四溢的麦克德夫[17]，这么狡诈、雄辩的马克·安东尼[18]了。他拥有天赐的恩惠——青春、阳刚之美和戏剧气质，还拥有使其天资发挥到极致的艺术智慧。在他的第二个演出季结束之前，他即被公认为同年龄段里最有前途的演员。仅在十二个月前，他才第一次扮演马克·安东尼，而此时，他静躺在棺木里，前来告别的纽约的男女演员挤满了小教堂。

教区长讲道完毕，教堂里一片肃静。雪橇铃铛的叮当声从大道那边轻轻飘来。

零散的几束阳光透过小教堂的右侧窗，给左边长椅的木纹染上了熔融的颜色。身着诗袍的诗班成员变换了队形，只见一位壮硕、庄严的女人走到管风琴前站定。她是一家大歌剧团的女低音，她中气十足、声情并茂地唱起《万古磐石》。

在管风琴和讲坛之间的长椅上坐着一位娇小、优雅的女子，长着黑眼睛和黑头发，年轻依旧，风韵长存，虽然清新之气已从脸上褪去。这就是一周前刚刚与死者同台演出的那位女明星。她是理想的朱丽叶——戏迷们这样认为——她从未和这么殷切、这么热情的罗密欧搭档过。这出悲剧从未被演绎得这么精彩过，从未产生过这么真实、这么丰富的戏剧效果。《罗密欧与朱丽叶》从未连续上演一百五十天不间断。而这一次，批评家竟和观众的论调一致，青春、美貌和激情的魅力太强大了。每个眼光敏锐的戏剧爱好者看到这么难演的角色被诠释得这么到位都感到莫大的快慰。于是乎，这出悲剧一连上演了五个月，场场爆满。这一戏剧盛事的中断，只是由于那炽烈的求爱者的辞世——那罗密欧此时躺在圣坛前的棺木中，而朱丽叶坐在长椅上，眼泪滑下面颊，身旁是她马上要嫁的中年商人。那年轻的男演员——傻傻的女生为看他一眼会守望在后台入口，痴痴的妇人向他送上一篮篮鲜花——此时尸身冰冷，百合丁香高高堆起在他静默的心上。

女低音用浑厚高贵的嗓音唱出最后一串音符，一曲终了，教区长继续主持葬礼：

“人为妇人所生，日子短少，多有患难。出来如花，又被割下；飞去如影，不能存留。”

死者是家族的最后一员，没有近亲出席葬礼。到场的没有母亲，没有姊妹，没有妻子。朋友们来了，但没有一个是他的血亲，没有一个跟他同姓。然而，当小块泥土扑簌簌掉在棺盖上，当教区长说“尘归尘，土归土”的时候，人群中涌起一阵同情的悸动。

葬礼迅速进入尾声，抬棺人再次各就其位，棺材被抬起，沿着通道缓缓地抬走。

哀伤的队伍渐行渐近敞开的门口，经过高挑的金发女人所在的那排长椅时，女人漠然站立，背过脸去，眼睛盯着地板，这时一个抬棺人绊了一脚，但马上恢复了平衡。女人抬起了手，险些大叫“当心”，但棺材被稳稳地从她面前抬走了。抬棺人哪里知道，他们抬着棺材经过的无泪女人，腹中正怀着死者那未出世的孩子。

（1893年）

[15] 1码=0.9144米。（译注）

[16] 雷欧提斯 （Laertes）：莎士比亚戏剧《哈姆雷特》中的人物。（译注）

[17] 麦克德夫（ Macduff）：莎士比亚戏剧《麦克白》中的人物。（译注）

[18] 马克·安东尼（ Mark Antony）：莎士比亚戏剧《裘力斯·凯撒》中的人物。（译注）

2
二月二十九

州长和他的秘书刚刚在饭店的私人会客室里用完午餐。州长点燃雪茄，仰靠在椅子上，秘书走到门口让一个老人进来，老人刚才一直在走廊里焦躁地踱步。

“州长现在可以见你，巴克斯特先生。”秘书说。

那老人高、瘦、挺冲，大步流星走过秘书身边，连个“谢”字都没说，径直走到州长坐着的地方。

“总算！”他喊道——“我总算有机会跟你面谈了。你要是知道我这么巴巴地盼着，你早就让我进来了。”

“请坐，巴克斯特先生。”州长和蔼地说。

“谢谢，我倒愿意站着，”老人回答，“其实，我更愿意走着。一说起这小子的事，我就好像坐不住也站不住了。你知道我为什么想要见你，对不对？”他突然发问，锐利的目光直盯州长。

“我认为，你是想求我赦免你的儿子，”州长回答，“我准备听听你怎么说。我这儿有全套文件，”他指了指肘边的一堆文件，“我刚才一直在看呢。”

“但是写那些文件的人可不像我这么了解我的儿子，他们讲不出来的情况我能跟你讲。他在监狱里，在那儿都快三年了，他今天满二十四岁——今天是他的生日——那他也不过是个小男孩。他还没长成男人呢，不能按一个男人来受审判，按一个男人来受惩罚。我不能跟你说他没开枪打那家伙，他的确打了，可他是在气头上打的，他忍都忍不住；更重要的是，他是出于自卫。哦，我知道这在庭审的时候没提出来，可你看看这个吧，”他解开外衣，掏出一包文件，挑出其中一张，塞到州长手里。“是2月28号，打架的前一天，卖给鲍尔斯一把手枪和一把刀的那个人写的。你再看看这个，”他又挑出一封信，以同样焦躁蛮横的手法塞给州长，“是鲍尔斯的一个朋友写的，开枪之前那人正跟鲍尔斯在一起。他在法庭上保持沉默，能不说就不说。他知道我卧病在床，所以一直不吭声。可是自打我又能走动以后，我就去跟他死磕，现在已经把他搞定了。这就是结果，凡事总归要真相大白的。你看，在那封信里，他说29号早上鲍尔斯随身带着那把手枪。如果没在身上给搜出来，那是因为鲍尔斯跌倒的时候把枪弄掉了。当天晚上那把枪在人行道上的一块木板底下被人捡到。就是鲍尔斯的这位朋友发现的，可他什么都没说——这杂种！连庭审的时候他都没说！可我知道他有话瞒着，最后我逼他开了口。他现在说出了实情，和盘托出。你看看那封信，看是不是这样。他恨我儿子，他说他希望看见他被绞死，可我逼他写了那封信。如果那还不够，我会把他推上证人席，我会逼他发誓保证字字属实。”

州长调整眼镜，开始阅读强塞在他手中的信。

老人急于倾诉，甚至无法容忍这片刻的耽延，当州长放下第一封信时，他又唠叨开了：“今天是他的生日，是开枪之后他头一次过生日，是他头一次不在我身边过生日。他生在2月29号，他每四年才过一次生日。就是在四年前的今天，他闯下这祸，开了那一枪，给我们造成这么多麻烦。那天早上他满二十岁，他是1864年生的，就是格兰特将军[19]准备把杰夫·戴维斯[20]那伙叛军一锅端的那一年，所以我们给儿子起名叫格兰特——出于对将军救国的感激。有时我觉得他没早生二十年真是可惜，否则他就能像条汉子似的死在冷港[21]，也省得进监狱了。可这就是命，我估计。我们的命是注定了的，我估计。也许一个生在2月29号的男孩跟别的男孩是不一样的。我不明白。他比大多数男孩都受宠，这我相当有数。我是在科德角[22]长大的，父亲从来没给过我爱抚。虽然我猜他也爱我，以他自己的方式。但我结婚以后就搬到伊利湖[23]，在湖边我们盼啊盼，我和妻子盼着生儿子。我们盼了二十多年，终于盼来了格兰特，他是我们的独生子。他的两个姐姐都夭折了。所以我们是老来得子。也许我们太惯着他了。我们当然舍不得打他。哎呀，我们爱他还爱不过来，连句狠话都没对他说过。大体上讲，他也是个好孩子——有时撒野，浮躁——但总是很有爱心，也容易引导。他母亲只要看他一眼，他就会跳过去伺候。所以我们由着他怎么欢喜怎么来，通常他也讨我们欢喜。也许我太纵容他了，我常这么想，现在我看他一脚已踏入万劫不复的深渊。但他是个好孩子，一直孝顺他母亲。她爱他——哦！她那么爱他！——胜过爱她的丈夫，我知道，尽管她很疼我。”

这时，老人中止了慷慨激昂的演说，突然背过脸去。

“你太太跟你一起进城来了吗？”州长和蔼地问。

“进城来？”老人哭号，猛转过脸，“她在家——在墓地！她跟那儿待着呢。儿子一被捕，她就萎靡不振，但她一直撑到庭审结束，指望他能逃过一劫，不相信她的儿子能被判有罪。可是当儿子被送往奥本[24]，因过失杀人去服刑十五年的时候，唉，她就再没什么活头了，她生命的全部乐趣都被锁在一间石头牢房里了。于是她卧床不起，死了。她气数尽了，她对生活失去了兴趣，于是她放弃了。现在这小子就是我的全部，我想让你把他还给我。我跑到这儿来为的就是这个。六个月来我一直追着你为的就是这个。这小子就是我的全部。我想在死之前看见他回到湖边的老家——估计我活不了太久了。我现在七十岁了，看上去挺硬朗，其实我的心脏有毛病，医生说，我随时可能过去，就像狂风里的蜡烛。唉，把儿子还给我吧，我死也甘心。让我在家里再一次见到他，作为一个自由人，然后只要时候一到，我就高高兴兴地带着这个好消息去找我老婆。”

他停顿片刻，他的激情演说丧失了几分暴烈的火气。

州长拿起第二封信开始阅读。州长手举信纸的动作再度唤起老人的倾诉欲。

“如果地方检察官尽到了本州人民赋予他的责任，也就轮不到我来从那胆小鬼口中榨出实情，你看的那封信就是他写的。有时我寻思这杂种就是整件事的始作俑者。就是他把格兰特介绍给那女的。你可知道婚礼本来要在那天晚上举行的——就是开枪的那天晚上？是啊，庭审的时候都说了。格兰特每四年才有一次生日，我跟你说过，所以他劝那姑娘就定那天为结婚的日子。他刚满二十岁——还是个小男孩呢。难怪他们欺负他。如果你看过报告，你就能看出她怎么欺骗他。连地方检察官也承认，虽然他激烈反对我儿子。啊！庭审的时候我要是能在场就好了！儿子发现真相的那天，我要是在城里就好了，他就不会开枪打那恶棍，因为我会亲自动手。”

“那么谁会来向我寻求你的赦免呢？”州长慈祥地笑问，“我看完这些信了，可里面并没有我不知道的新情况，而且——”

“没有新情况？”老人粗暴地打断，“这封信表明格兰特开枪是出于自卫，因为那家伙手里有一把枪。这难道不是新情况？”

“对我来说不是，因为地方检察官——你好像对他有偏见，巴克斯特先生——他已经向我报告了这个情况。”

“如果你一直在听他的，估计我这是白跑一趟了，”老人激动地回道，“从来没有哪个人对另一人的偏见比那人对我儿子来得更大。”

“你冤枉他了，”州长语气坚定，“他在法庭上尽到了敦促判决的责任，他现在也已尽职尽责，把新发现的证据摆在我面前。他甚至更进一步，劝我批准你的请求，赦免你的儿子。”

“地方检察官？”老人惊叫。

“对。”州长回答。

“他终于良心发现了。”

“主要是由于他的劝说，我才决定赦免你的儿子。”州长继续道。

“我不在乎这是谁力主的，只要成了就行。”老人反驳。“我儿子什么时候能出来？”他热切地问。

“我会让你把赦令带给他，”州长说，然后他打开放在身旁桌子上的一份文件，签上字，“拿去吧。”

老人抖着手一把抓过文件。他双膝颤抖，眼睛快速浏览赦令。

会客室的门开了，秘书回来了。

老人抓起帽子。“你知道下一班去奥本的火车是几点吗？”他忙问。

“我想四点有一班。”秘书回答。

“我会赶上的。”老人说。然后，他二话不说离开了会客室，颤抖的手指捏着赦令。他快步穿过饭店走廊，下楼梯，出门上街。走上人行道的时候，他定定地站了片刻，没戴帽子，丝毫没感觉到一场暴雨已在一分钟前倾盆而下。

一个小男孩从街对面向他跑来，叫卖：“晚报——四点的公报！”

显然，老人没有听见他的叫声。

“噩耗！有人丧命！”报童扯着嗓子走开，“奥本暴乱！犯人企图越狱！”

这时一只铁爪箍紧报童的胳膊，老人居高临下，声音嘶哑地问：“你说什么来着？奥本监狱里有人丧命？给我报纸！”

他抓过报纸。头版有一则从奥本发来的电讯，称州监狱发生了一起囚犯暴动，狱警镇压下去的时候事态已有所发展。囚犯在狱警向其开火后才屈服并返回牢房，致使五六个人受伤，拼命抵抗的暴乱头目被击毙。此人是来自湖区某村的青年，因过失杀人被判有期徒刑十五年，他的名字是格兰特·巴克斯特。

老人读至此处，报纸从他的指间滑落，他倒在人行道上死了，依然牢牢地抓着赦令。

（1889年）

[19] 格兰特将军（General Grant）：尤利西斯·辛普森·格兰特（1822—1885），美国南北战争后期北方联邦军总司令。（译注）

[20] 杰夫·戴维斯（Jeff Davis）：杰斐逊·汉密尔顿·戴维斯（1808—1889），南北战争期间南方美利坚邦联国唯一一任总统。（译注）

[21] 冷港（Cold Harbor）:位于美国弗吉尼亚州，南北战争的战场。1864年的冷港战役中，格兰特领导的北方军伤亡惨重。（译注）

[22] 科德角(Cape Cod)：美国马萨诸塞州东南部半岛顶端。（译注）

[23] 伊利湖（Lake Erie）：北美五大湖之一，为美国与加拿大共有。（译注）

[24] 奥本（Auburn）:纽约州监狱所在地。（译注）

3
预展见闻

春季展览开幕的时候，三月已脱去佯装威风的狮皮，露出羔羊般的温柔。漫卷尘埃扫过大街的风中没有刺骨的寒气，给建筑物的文艺复兴式立面镀银的月光也不再凄冷。飞渡的乱云正在增厚，恐怕要下雨。然而在人行道上临时搭建的帆布通道旁，马车纷纷停靠，载来许多不惜戴上华丽春帽的漂亮女人。应邀出席预展的女士中有不少人身着晚礼服，这光彩夺目的一群人熙熙攘攘地穿过宽阔的走廊，经过化妆间，拥进第一展馆，协会主席正站在那里恭候她们，身边围绕着其他知名艺术家。

穿过第一展馆，迈上六级台阶，是一间较小的展厅，左右各有一间更小的正方形房间。再往里走，再上几级台阶，是主展馆——一座辉煌、庄严的大厅，轩敞气派，比例协调，与墙壁上挂了两三层的众多精美画作很相称。在正对入口的显要位置上，是弗雷德里克·奥利芬特先生的惊人之作《斯芬克斯的谜题》，简朴的画框上附有一纸证书，声明其在去年夏季的巴黎美展上获过银奖。展厅一隅有这位艺术家创作的另一幅画，是他的朋友劳伦斯·劳顿先生的肖像。与之相对应的，在名为《昂提拉日落》的风景画的另一侧，是诗人鲁珀特·德·勒伊特先生的肖像，由一位名叫伦威克·布拉什利的青年画家创作，笔触奔放有力却不失同情，大大盖过了挂在它旁边的印象派画作《吊床里的姑娘》。宽敞的大厅里，雕像和半身像散置各处，其中一座半身像表现的是逗乐的喜剧演员阿斯特里德。阳光沐浴下的田园和严寒冬日里的海景并排张挂，细致的静物写生与几乎由单色构成的纯装饰性作品相映成趣。

拥挤在这一层的人形形色色，堪比满墙的画作。这里有众多的艺术家，有文化人和公子哥，有为艺术而活的女人和为社交而活的女人，有来参观展览的男男女女，也有来展示自己的男男女女。有艺术学生和艺术批评家，有买画的和卖画的，有诗人和小说家，有券商和教士。这些人中有《高谭公报》[25]的罗伯特·怀特先生和原属于该报社的哈里·布拉克特先生，寸步不离本人肖像的鲁珀特·德·勒伊特先生，建筑师德兰西·琼斯先生和他漂亮的妻子，作曲家J.沃伦·佩恩先生，华盛顿广场的马丁先生及夫人，还有马林斯派克小姐——一个老姑娘，她好像人人都认识，而且人人都喜欢她。

马林斯派克小姐在奥利芬特画的劳伦斯·劳顿肖像前徘徊，她和劳顿已相识多年。她喜欢这幅画，直到无意中听见两个年轻的艺术生对它的议论。

“可惜奥利芬特压根儿没有色彩的概念，是吧？”一个评论道。

“是啊，”另一个赞同，“而且头部线条错得离谱。”

“这人的脸还挺适合绘画的，”第一个接茬，“我自己倒想画画他。”

“奥利芬特的装饰画还可以，”第二个回应，“但是要说肖像画，他根本没法跟布拉什利相提并论。看见他的两幅画了吗？”

“谁的？”先开口的那个问。

“布拉什利的，”对方回答，“这里最大的两件作品。而且跟别人的画法都不同。最好的是那幅华尔街大款——普尔，好像叫这名字。”

“我知道，”第一个插话，“赛勒斯·普尔，他是西部什么地方的一个大铁路公司的总裁。老有钱了。我纳闷布拉什利是怎么搞到那份差事的？”

“估计他给鲁伯特·德·勒伊特画像没收钱。你知道，德·勒伊特在一本杂志上撰文捧他来着。”

两个年轻的艺术生在肖像前又站了片刻，定睛细看。然后二人走开，先开口的又说：“那个头也画得不准。”

马林斯派克小姐感到几分震惊，原来她两个朋友的头部线条都不准确。她想知道变形程度有多严重。她一时觉得，好像自己结识的是两个畸形人，是在廉价展览馆里展出来吓唬人的。这些联想一个接一个地浮现出来，她不由得轻轻笑起来。

“无怪乎你在嘲笑那幅画，马林斯派克小姐，”她右边的一个声音说，“它不比常规的《彩湖日落》强，你在自由街上花五块钱就能买到，还配一个价值两倍的画框。”

马林斯派克小姐转过身，认出罗伯特·怀特先生。她热忱地伸出手去。

“你太太来了吗？”她问。

“哈里·布拉克特正给她解说画作呢，”怀特回答，“他对艺术一窍不通，可他就像真懂似的那么逗人。”

“我喜欢布拉克特先生，”老姑娘回应，“他有点儿——呃，恐怕有点儿粗俗，不过他的看法十分古怪，十分独特。到了这个岁数，我就喜欢让人逗乐。”

“我知道你喜欢寻求刺激，”怀特回应，“我相信你是不会拒绝跟魔鬼共进晚餐的。”

“我为什么要拒绝？”马林斯派克小姐勇敢地回敬，“人家说魔鬼是位绅士，而且，能得知很多朋友的最新消息，我会十分高兴的。”

“说到那位并不像画里那么黑的绅士，”怀特说，“你看过赛勒斯·普尔的肖像没有？是这儿最好的作品。真没发现布拉什利有本事把什么事儿做得这么好。”

“在哪儿？”马林斯派克小姐问，“我一直在看这位布拉什利先生画的德·勒伊特先生的肖像，还有——”

“挺好看的小作品，是不是？”怀特打断她，“也许稍有点感伤和造作。可是真把诗人给画活了。”

“活力恰恰是我在这么多肖像里都没找到的，”老姑娘议论，“有些画看上去就好像画家先给他的模特做了一个蜡像，然后照着蜡像画的。”

他们缓慢地穿过人群向展厅另一头走去。

“查尔斯·沃恩，喏，他又在耍把戏，”怀特说着朝面前的一幅画一扬手，“自打去了巴黎拜在卡罗吕斯门下，他就把他的模特一律改造成法国人，然后把这种改造搬上画布。”

怀特提醒注意的那幅画表现了一个为舞会盛装打扮的女士，正站在镜前调整头发里的一根羽毛。这是建筑师的妻子德兰西·琼斯太太的肖像。

马林斯派克小姐举起眼镜，用挑剔的眼光审视片刻。然后她微微一笑。“这是老一套，喏，我看出来了，”她说，“道德败坏的暗示。”

怀特大笑，二人继续在大厅里巡行。

“你要是那么说查尔斯·沃恩的画，”他提出，“我倒想听听你会怎么说伦威克·布拉什利的画。就是这幅。”

他们停下脚步，面对占据展厅那一侧墙面正中显要位置的画作。

“那是赛勒斯·普尔，”怀特继续道，“奈厄布拉勒中央铁路的总裁，正在华尔街平步青云的一个人，现在去欧洲度蜜月了。”

画作标号十三，目录上注明它是《一位绅士的肖像》。画幅巨大，人物有真人大小。画面表现了一个年仅四十的男人，坐在其私人办公室里的办公桌前。他身后的墙上挂着一幅奈厄布拉勒中央铁路及各支线的地图。光线来自左侧窗口，办公桌靠窗放置。人物的姿势是这样：一个被打断工作的人在椅子里扭转身体去跟一位访客说话。这个人是从群体里被挑出来的，因为与众不同，他身形瘦削，个头偏矮，结实但不壮实。毫无疑问他精力充沛，不知疲倦，内心坚定而强大。他的坐姿表明对于实力的自觉，表情亦如此，虽然从他的相貌上察觉不到自负的迹象。他的头发又黑又密又直，鲜有白发。他长着挺拔的鼻子和炯炯有神的眼睛，却有着一张薄嘴唇和一个大下巴。

马林斯派克小姐津津有味地端详画面。“是啊，”她说，“难怪这幅画引起轰动。画上有种惊人的东西——新的东西。这是种新的调子，就是这么回事。而且那人也很有意思。他有个专横的下巴。我敢说，他不是怕老婆的人。而且从眼睛和嘴巴判断，他很会养家。我相信，他的妻子永远都用不着把自己最好的黑绸衣料翻过来穿。那张脸自有迷人之处，可我不明白怎么——”

她说到半截，又盯着画细看。

“这画跟本人很像吗？”她终于发问，眼睛仍盯着肖像。

“跟他太像了，我都不愿跟它讲话了。”怀特回答。

“我明白你的意思，”老姑娘回应，“是啊，那人要是真像画上那样，就没人愿意跟他讲话了。我可不会让这位画家——他叫什么来着？——布拉什利先生？——我无论如何都不会让他给我画像。哎呀，他要是画我，我的朋友们一旦看见，就没有一个敢再请我吃饭了。”

怀特微微一笑，迅速回应：“就像我刚才说的，你知道，就连那位你想让他带你去吃饭的绅士很可能都没画出来的这么黑。”

“我可不想让那人拐我去吃饭，”马林斯派克小姐立刻回敬，朝那幅肖像一挥手，“用色固然很好，况且，那只是外在的，女人并不介意。可黑的是那个人的心，是他的内心实在可怕。他让我着迷——不错——可他也让我害怕。他是谁？”

“我告诉过你，”怀特答道，“他是赛勒斯·普尔先生，奈厄布拉勒中央铁路的总裁，正在华尔街平步青云的一个人。十年前他在丹佛发迹，从丹佛学到一切可学的之后，他就跑去芝加哥。他从那儿的商品交易所学成之后，就来到纽约。他来这儿已有两年，而且已然崭露头角。他策划了华尔街上迄今为止最大的两三件事。结果，现在有两种对于他的看法。”

“如果这幅画像是真实的，”老姑娘说，“我看不出怎么能有不止一种对他的看法。”

“起初有三种，”怀特回答，“起初他们以为他是只温驯的羊羔，现在他们明白过来了。但他们仍然怀疑他是不是规矩。他们说，他用以获取奈厄布拉勒中央铁路股票并把自己送上总裁位子的那笔交易有点儿猫腻，假如没有成功，赛勒斯·普尔这会儿就不是在欧洲度蜜月，而是在蹲班房了。嘿，假如关于他当时情况的传言有一半是真的——他应该早就被吊死在绞索上，而不会吊在这儿的挂画绳上了。不过对于他的传闻，我连一半都不信。”

“像那样的一个人，人家说什么我都能信。”马林斯派克小姐说，“我想我从没见过这么邪恶的一张脸，虽然它显出坦率甚至友善的样子。”

“不过我只给你讲了一面之词，”怀特继续道，“普尔自有其党羽否认对于他的一切指控。他们说他唯一的罪过就是他的成功。他们宣称他因设法帮助朋友摆脱困境而陷入麻烦已经不止一次了。他的敌人说他寡廉鲜耻、报复心强，他的朋友却说他既忠诚又幸运。”

马林斯派克小姐一分多钟没作声。她正在研究肖像，没有丝毫兴致减退的迹象。突然，她抬头看着怀特问：“你觉得他知道这幅画有怎样的感染力吗？”

“普尔？”怀特反问，“不，我想不会。他对华尔街理解的价值比对艺术生联盟诠释的价值有更强的判断力。另外，我听说这幅画还没完成，他就结婚并去了欧洲。布拉什利只好后来补画上背景。”

“可怜的姑娘！”马林斯派克小姐说，“她是哪位？”

“什么可怜的姑娘？”怀特问，“哦，你是指新的赛勒斯·普尔太太？”

“对。”老姑娘回答。

“她原是卡梅伦家的一位小姐，”怀特回答，“尤妮斯·卡梅伦，我想她以前叫这名字。她好像是布拉什利的表亲。对了，我估计就是这个缘故他才被找来画了这幅肖像。他属于那种进步画家，华尔街的人是不太可能轻易赏识的。不过就算找别人来画，也不会画得更好了，是吧？”

马林斯派克小姐微微一笑。

“嗯，”怀特说，“布拉什利对人有着非凡的洞察力，你自己就能看出来。或者说，至少他画肖像让人觉得他有这种洞察力。这些艺术家当然是很难讲的，而且很容易高估了他们。他们看到的比他们理解的要多得多。他们有这个天赋，你知道，可他们解释不了。而且经常是，他们并不知道自己做了什么。”

老姑娘抬起头，笑了笑。

“我认为画这幅画的那个人，”她说，“知道自己在做什么。”

“对，”怀特承认，“似乎没有人能不知不觉地以这种惊人的力度做一件事。但是，十有八九，布拉什利思考的主要是他的线条、笔触和色调。或许对模特灵魂的揭示是个意外。他这么做是因为他无法避免。”

“这回我可不同意你的看法，”马林斯派克小姐回答，“我从这幅肖像里看出，画家对于人类作恶的潜力有相当的了解。噢，他在作画之前必定已经见识过了！”

“幸亏我不是一个职业画家，”怀特回应，“否则我会觉得有责任把你当场驳倒，我就说外行人总是‘望画生义’。”

马林斯派克小姐一时没有搭腔。她正怀着好奇的兴趣在看肖像。她往旁边斜了一眼，接着又盯住画面。

“可怜的姑娘！”她终于开口，带着一声轻叹。

“你指普尔太太？”怀特问。

“对，”老姑娘回答，“我为她难过，但我想我明白她何以不得不屈服。我自己就能感觉到那张脸的邪恶魅力。”

在充斥展厅的嘈杂人声之上，雷声隆隆可闻，接着是雨点打在上方巨型天窗发出的急促的嗒嗒声。

“失陪了，马林斯派克小姐，”怀特急忙说，“我妻子近来听到雷声总有点紧张。我得去找她了。我会打发哈里·布拉克特过来。”

“你不用替我担心，”他离开时，她回答，“我已经自己照顾自己好多年了，我想我依然能胜其任。”

此时大厅里已十分拥挤，往任何特定方向移动都变得越来越困难。雨水重重地拍在屋顶上，盖过了越发嘈杂的人声，甚至压过了时不时冒出来的尖厉嗓音。

马林斯派克小姐漫无目的地随人群移动，偶尔看看画作，兴致勃勃地听着从周遭传进她耳朵里的议论和零星的批评。当哈里·布拉克特跟她搭讪时，她发现自己正站在查尔斯·沃恩的《巴黎审判》前。

“我一直在到处找你，马林斯派克小姐，”他开口道，“怀特说你就在这附近，我有好几个月没见到你了。”

他们聊了几分钟上次见面的情形，还聊到请他们去家里吃过饭的朋友们。

这时哈里·布拉克特一抬头，看见了面前那幅巨作。

“原来查尔斯·沃恩的《巴黎审判》是一幅美展画，嗯？”他问，“在我看来，它倒更适合酒吧[26]。这就是伦威克·布拉什利所说的，把艺术家、道学先生和酒色之徒统统得罪了的那些裸体画中的一幅。”

马林斯派克小姐笑了。她的微笑是她最大的魅力。

“你认识布拉什利先生？”她问。

“自打他从巴黎回来，我就认识他了，”布拉克特回答，“他是个画家，他真是。他不是那种教富家小姐近大远小画月亮的公子哥儿。你不会撞见他串来串去喝下午茶，大谈什么艺术的自发性。”

“你见过他给某位普尔先生画的肖像吗？”她问。

“还没有，”他回答，“不过他们跟我说那是一件极品。我从未见过普尔，但我以前见过他妻子。她原名尤妮斯·卡梅伦，是布拉什利的表亲。你想想，他的第一幅轰动之作就是三年前在学会展出的一幅她的肖像。”

“她是个什么样的姑娘？”马林斯派克小姐问。

“先得说，她是个美人儿，”他回答，“虽然他们说她近来有点走样。我今年一直没见到她。但布拉什利把我介绍给她的时候，她是个非常漂亮的姑娘，我不骗你。”

人群已裹挟着他俩离开原处，这时马林斯派克小姐发现自己又一次站在《一位绅士的肖像》前，她又一次被画家在赛勒斯·普尔脸上描绘出的力量和邪恶抓住。

“他们以前常说，”哈里·布拉克特继续道，并没有看画，“布拉什利爱上了她。我记得有一回某人跟我说他俩订了婚。”

马林斯派克小姐的眼睛里突然闪过一道慧光。

“当然这里没有半点真实性可言。”他接着说。

微笑又浮上这位老姑娘的嘴角，此时她目不转睛地看着面前的画像，应道：“当然没有。”

（1893年）

[25] 高谭（Gotham）：纽约市的一个别称。Gotham原本是英国传说中的“愚人村”。（译注）

[26] Salon（美展，指巴黎美术展览）与saloon（酒吧）谐音。（译注）

4
小街之春

城里的春天比乡下来得早，在有遮有挡的广场上，七叶树有时会比原野上的同胞提前两星期绽放花朵。那一年的春天比往常来得早，乡下、城里皆然，三月像头狮子似的乱闯，把接下来的四月当傻瓜愚弄，人行道边高高耸起的大雪堆在三四天内就消失不见，空留泥泞的排水沟，沟里的泥巴比平日还黏腻些。让养病的人十分难受的是那多变的天气，天公显然无力把握自己的心意：早晨浓雾弥漫，午后清风拂面，正午朗朗如六月天，突然寒意袭来在夜幕降临前。

然而当四月的最后一周到来时，街角小广场上的草地再次转绿，丛丛灌木即将开花，病人也觉得自己的活力正在回归。他的体力随着春天回来了，恢复的健康送来新鲜的血液在他的血管里流淌，就像新鲜的汁液从树根源源不断地上升至窗前的树枝。痛苦挣扎已经过去，他知道，虽然他并不怀疑自己已跟死神本身较量过不止一次。现在他的胃口再次苏醒，他也有了更强的力量来抵挡那企图主宰他的郁郁悲伤。

窗外的那棵树不过是一棵颓萎的梧桐，而窗户则属于一间寝室，是小街深处一家破败的供膳宿舍走廊尽头的一个小隔间。那年轻人膝头上盖着大衣，靠在帆布折叠椅里，椅子是他在城里仅有的几位朋友中的一位借给他的。他的双手枯瘦而多筋，交叉搁在腿上放的一本书上。他的肉体被病魔销蚀惨重，但骨架还扎实牢固。他的脸仍然又白又瘦，虽然病态的蜡黄已经退去。几根顽皮的胡须蜷曲在他的下巴上已有两个月不曾修过，一头未剪的棕发厚厚地垂在外套的领子上。一双黑眼睛带有近来受苦的标记，但也揭示出一个顽强的灵魂，强得足以承受不幸。

他的房间在小街北侧，上午的阳光反射进窗口，此时他靠在椅子里，感激地享受着温暖。一辆沉重的马拉货车隆隆地碾过坑坑洼洼的路面。车在街角停了下来，一帮工人迅速清空车里装的钢轨，一根一根扔在人行道上，发出哐哐的巨响，震耳的噪声在街巷深处回荡。那一小群人正在搬运有轨马车[27]的轨道，一声声喝令从中传来，随后一根钢轨便下落到位并被迅速钉牢。之后，工人退到一旁，一辆刚才受阻的有轨马车重新驱驰向前，马蹄踏地发出规律的嘚嘚声，同马颈圈上小铃铛的叮当声一样清晰可闻，飘在这座大都市的巨大轰鸣之上。最后，从连片的屋顶那边传来一声响亮的汽笛，紧接着是一连串相似的信号，宣告午休时间已到。又有两三根钢轨哐哐落在其他钢轨上，然后货车隆隆驶离。搬运轨道的工人已在马路牙子上坐下开始吃午饭，其中一个去了街角的酒吧，要了一大罐窗口广告上推销的新啤酒，那俗丽的印刷品上画着一只活蹦乱跳的小山羊背着一位丰满的小女神。

趁铺轨工尚未制造更强的噪声，病人乐享片刻安歇，他的头脑还不是那么清醒，他的神经因疼痛而紧绷。他倾身向前，俯视下面的街道，捕捉到一个年轻人的目光，那人正扯着嗓子叫卖：“草——莓！草——莓！”病人笑了，因为他知道，卖草莓的小贩是可靠的报春使者，同小广场上的广告牌宣布对街的三栋房正在“招租”一样，是毫无争议的春来的迹象。五月一日将至。他不知道联合广场的花市是否已经开张。他回想去年春天的多少个清晨，他心爱的姑娘，那曾答应嫁给他的姑娘，同他一道去联合广场挑选娇嫩的玫瑰和盛放的天竺葵，只有这些花儿才配开放在她那俯临中央公园的客厅窗口。

那天早上他频频思念她，并无怨恨，虽然他们的婚约已在去年秋天解除，三四个月后他就生病了。他从圣诞节起就没见过她，他发觉自己在猜想那天下午她会是什么样，她是否高兴。他的遐思被隔壁的走调钢琴的啁哳声打断了，那家跟他的小屋只隔一道薄薄的隔断墙。有人正试着一个音一个音地敲出《等到云消散》的简单曲调。似乎现在是隔壁某个孩子的练琴时间，他时常听见那孩子活泼的嗓音。又似乎这项任务十分讨厌，因为钢琴、乐曲和听者都由于年幼演奏者的恶意而饱受折磨。

一阵敲钢轨的声音突然响彻下面的街道，告知他午休结束，工人已回去劳动。不知何故，他没有听见教堂尖塔传来一点的敲钟声，而那教堂就在短短一条街之外的大道拐角处。现在他才闻见一阵弥漫的气味，知道供膳宿舍的午餐时间已到。他醒得早，早餐吃得很少。这会儿他肚子饿了，当用人把一盘冷牛肉和一碟李子脯端上来的时候，他很高兴。他的胃口很好，吃得津津有味。

吃完这顿简餐之后，他又仰靠在椅子里。一阵狂风高扬起街上的尘土，吹得窗前的梧桐摇晃着刚抽芽的枝条。他望着阳光下的嫩绿新叶在他面前舞动，感到春意搅动他的血液；他又强壮起来，充满青春的力量。他能应付一切病态的幻想，能抛却一切怨懑。他但愿此刻身在乡下——在有小溪、树丛和青草的地方——在宁静安闲、噪声止息的地方——在有时间和空间去思考过去并果决地规划未来的地方——在没有两架手摇风琴在街的两头较劲——一个奏《安妮·劳里》，另一个奏《安妮·鲁尼》——比拼哪个更狂烈的地方。斗琴达到高潮时，他皱起眉头，与此同时隔壁的孩子更加凶狠地敲击钢琴。然后他微微笑了。

健康既已恢复，他又何必在意小小的烦恼？大约一周以后，他就能回到仓库重新开始自食其力。工作之初无疑会很苦，但苦工正是他此时所需的。为将来的结果，也为工作本身，他都需要繁重的劳动。许许多多的年轻人都在热火朝天地奋斗，但他知道自己心力强健不逊于全城任何一个人，命运为何不能也垂青他呢？有了金钱、权力和地位，他就可以立足纽约。也许现在瞧不起他的那些人，其中有些到时候便会乐意结识他。

他靠在小隔间里的折叠椅上休息时，日影开始一点点拉长，漫长的白天渐近落幕。他再次醒过来时，两架手摇风琴都已离去，隔壁的孩子也已停止练琴，小街又安静下来，只有一位女高音在邻街的音乐学院的一扇敞开窗口高唱华丽的咏叹调，还有一阵不寻常的隆隆车声正从宿舍门前经过。他使劲挺直身子，看见一溜马车在街对面慢慢地往街角驶去。一阵沙尘旋风又从下方街道腾起，飞扬的尘土几乎遮住了那些乘客的脸——车上坐的是穿浅色长裙的姑娘和穿双排扣礼服的小伙子。他们正在闲聊，时而爆出欢快的笑声。

他想知道婚礼时间是否到了。他艰难地在椅子里扭转身体，从身后的梳妆台上拿过装有婚礼请柬的信封。仪式定于三点举行。他看看表，发现只差几分钟就到点了。他的手微微颤抖着把表放回口袋。他呆呆地凝视虚空，直到大道拐角处教堂尖塔里的钟敲了三下。婚礼的预定时间已到。仍有马车速速赶来放下晚到的客人。

年轻人在小街深处的破败宿舍尽头的小隔间里养病，他还不够强壮，无力闯入春光并出席婚礼。可他就这样躺在摇晃的折叠椅里，膝头盖着旧大衣，却并不难想象出教堂里的场景。他看见中年的新郎站在轨道边等候新娘。他听见婚礼进行曲庄严而欢乐的旋律。他看见新娘挽着父亲的手臂缓缓地行经教堂通道，罩着的蕾丝面纱并不比她的一头朦胧秀发更淡雅更柔美。他想知道她会不会面色苍白，站在祭坛前时她会不会受到良心的谴责。他听见牧师发问并赐福新人。他看见新婚妻子再次行进通道，这回挽着丈夫的手臂。他疲倦地叹了口气，然后闭眼仰靠在椅子上，仿佛要阻挡那难以接受的视像。当马车再次经过他的门前，一辆接一辆地去教堂门廊接应乱纷纷的声嘶力竭的召唤时，他没有动弹。

他在那儿躺了许久，一动不动，也不出声。他在想自己，想他曾如春光般明媚的希望，想他苦涩的失意。他在思索宇宙的奥秘，在扪心自问是否对世界有任何用处——因为他仍然雄心勃勃。他在思考个人的劳动对他的同胞能有什么价值，他讨厌三六九等的划分。他对自己说，我们死后都要淡出视野，被众水淹没[28]，最优秀的很快被遗忘，最差劲的亦如此，扔进池塘的硬币是金是铜无关紧要——稀有金属并不激起更多的涟漪。这时，他看见长长的几近水平的一束束阳光从窗前的细枝嫩叶间透进来，回想那些由一人成就的伟业，他又振作起来。他跳出自怜的心境，他甚至对无意间生出的狂妄之心报以一笑。

一辆笨重的救火车发出的雷鸣把他从悠长的遐思中唤醒，车子轰隆隆地碾过街面，车后拖着嘎啦嘎啦响的消防水管。随后的寂静只被救火车的警笛时时打破，那车正穿过一条又一条大道向东渐行渐远，他趁着寂静的工夫牢记，每一个人的奋勇前进都有助于人类整体的进步，卑微的消防员尽责殉职是为全人类的事业效力。

纽约的暮色迅速降临，天色转暗时，他的思绪再次被打乱，只听几个大嗓门的男人你来我往地叫卖三流晚报的廉价号外。叫卖声从街巷两侧同时响起，住户们心生好奇，把卖报人叫到门口要买报纸，于是几个男人东一家西一家地跑，也顾不上吆喝了。

天空晴朗，孤星闪耀。空气新鲜而柔和。敲击钢轨的铿锵之声已在一小时前停止，那帮用道钉固定钢轨的人已散去，各自回家。白天行将结束。一阵做饭的味道又飘散在宿舍里，预示着晚餐时间将近。

而那年轻人在供膳宿舍尽头的小隔间里，在帆布折叠椅上躺着，却对一切并未在意，只想着自己的心事。他眼前是一幅画面：一列火车沿着月光照耀的山谷飞驰，投下急匆匆的影子。只见这列火车上，那天下午的新娘陶醉在她的丈夫身边。但他眼里只有新娘，没有丈夫。他看见她苍白的脸、明亮的眼、淡金的发。他不知道在未来的岁月里，她是否会幸福得如同她信守承诺嫁给了他。

（1896年）

[27] 有轨马车（horse——car）：又称轨道马车，一种交通工具，由马拉车沿轨道行驶。（译注）

[28] 指堕入阴间。（译注）

5
装饰日遐思

频频的春雨宣告迟来的春天。装饰日[29]到来时，花草树木呈现出一派清新佳貌，仿佛大自然正在为我们的光荣先烈准备花环。游行终于开始的时候，阳光透过广场树木羞涩青葱的绿叶洒下来，柔和地落在从树下经过的摇晃的队列上。金色的光束在斜向的刺刀上闪烁，仿佛跟激昂的战斗老曲合拍，乐曲从频频出现的乐队中澎湃而出。空气中弥漫着战斗豪情，就连爬上废旧灯柱安顿下来的小男孩的心里也荡漾着说不出的斗志。乐曲的间隙，短笛声尖锐嘹亮，轰轰隆隆的鼓声盖过了士兵有节奏的步伐。我在雄伟的海军上将雕像近旁徘徊良久，他稳稳地站立在那儿，海风将他的外衣下摆吹向后方，在雕塑家匠心独运的塑造之下，这尊一动不动的青铜像似乎比聚集在其基座周围的大多数普通男女更有生气。我想，这里——对于那个经历鏖战并恪尽职守的人，对于那些视这一天为圣日的英雄们——是合适的纪念地。令我高兴的是，游行的数千人都要在那沉默的形象面前接受检阅，他代表了我们的国家所能孕育出的最优秀、最勇敢的人。就在那一刻，一列水兵分队闯入视野，热烈的欢呼声从四面八方爆发。

当我徘徊沉思的时候，陆军的一个营从我们身边大踏步依次经过，他们英姿飒爽，衣着朴实无华，却随时准备履行血腥的职责：随时准备用冰冷的武器给入侵的外人以迎头痛击，随时准备以瞬间齐射来终结国内的非法勾当。一段间隔之后走来了民兵中的佼佼者，身着工装服似的统一制服，队列中有担架，有救护车，还有加特林机枪[30]。城市民兵团一个接一个地前进，毋庸置疑，他们必定会火速奔赴战场，如同他们的前辈——英勇的事迹给了前辈们高举旗帜的权利，那些旗帜在颂扬不止一场惨烈程度堪比马拉松或腓立比、丰特努瓦或滑铁卢的战役。当他们在晨光里昂首阔步走在大道上，当尖锐的乐声被阵阵响亮的欢呼声淹没时，我的思绪飘回四分之一个世纪前我所见到的走在那条大道上的其他千千万万，他们来自新英格兰的松林和石山，正要去往南方的静谧水泽和幽暗湖沼。在那些阴沉彷徨的日子里，我曾旁观部队川流不息地行进在那条大道上，一次一千人——年轻、真诚、热情的人；我记得看见他们返回时，人只剩下区区一两百，或许衣衫褴褛，心力交瘁，但仍然坚强勇敢。死亡，像扎克雷起义[31]中发疯的农民，挥着夺命的镰刀。那漫长的四年，时间流逝缓慢，死亡收获丰盛。如今千家万户的老妇一听见“前进，前进，前进，小伙子在行军”[32]那平凡的曲调就无法不感到喉咙一阵剧痛，眼前忽现安德森维尔监狱[33]。无疑，在那条被战争血洗的梅森——狄克逊线[34]以南，也有成千上万的妇人一听见《我的马里兰》[35]那抒情的旋律就会感到同样的辛酸和同样的温情。夏洛、马尔文山和葛底斯堡是被永远圣化了的名字，被那里所出的事迹和并肩躺在同一个坟墓里的死者圣化了，在那里，灰布蓝服[36]俱已零落成尘，无从区分。好在一个雨后清新、花开娇艳的春日，会有益于保持那份记忆的甜蜜。

军团一个接一个地行进在大道上，步履轻松，洋溢着健康和快乐。民兵团的年轻人过去后，退伍军人走来，他们手捧为阵亡战友献上的鲜花。有些老人坐在马车里，座位上多有横着的拐杖，但大多数人步行，步伐整齐划一，虽然步幅较小。当几位勇士高举一面战旗的破烂残骸从我们面前列队经过时，我不由自主地脱帽致敬。瞬间，帽子遮住了刺眼的光线，我突然看见对面房子的窗口有一组人。一位挺拔庄重的妇人，灰白头发上戴着寡妇帽，犹如戴着一顶王冠，她站在中间，双手搭在两个年轻人的肩上，这两个强壮的小伙子无疑是她的儿子，容貌健美，充满阳刚之气。我看见了，我认出来了。当我再次降低视线去看游行队伍时，我却见到另一组熟识的面孔。一辆马车上坐着一个五十多岁的男人，矮胖，粗俗，糙手上夹着一根点燃的雪茄，手搭在马车门上。他头发蓬乱，曾经的红发已经转灰，变成不洁的白色。外套的扣眼上系着共和国大军[37]的饰扣。与他同坐在敞篷大马车上的是三个嘻嘻哈哈的小青年——显然是那种卑贱的职业政客。

男人看见一个朋友站在路边，就热情洋溢地点头，露出谄媚的灿烂笑容。我身边的众人认出了他，于是一个传一个地喊他的名字，街角上的一小群年轻人还高声欢呼。

这两组人——马车上的龌龊之徒和他上方窗口中的高贵妇人——我都认得。我知道他们都是战争的幸存者。

随着游行队伍的经过，不时有人认出那位政客，我能听见阵阵欢呼声在观众行列中传播。我并不惊讶，因为这个男的在部分人中走红是明摆着的事。他是一个从未开过一枪的战士，是一位从未见过敌人的上校。他的战术技巧表现为：在有利可图而不必冒险的地方为自己保障一支特遣队。他的策略就是确保从那些分发美物的人的口中获得美言。

当别人为国奋战时，他一直在关照自己。战争结束时，他邀功请赏，并作为领事被派往东方。时候一到便有丑闻从大洋彼岸传来，调查令随即下达。于是他辞职，事情也从未被追究。然后他步入政坛。他出口成章，夸夸其谈。他奉承群氓，相信在政治上，巧言石[38]就是成功的垫脚石。攻击对手的时候，他从不停下来斟酌用词，相信在政治上，比林斯门[39]便是成功之门。他善于撩拨众人的耳朵制造纷争，这样就更容易牵着他们的鼻子走。仿佛为弥补他在战争中的失职，他现在不遗余力地辱骂南方人民，对他们的谴责总是粗暴又恶毒。每次选举中，他都恳求他的同胞要像曾经射杀敌人那样去投票。他对那些曾为南方而战的人侮辱起来是一贯的狠毒刻薄。简言之，他就是人渣一个，是每当深渊剧烈动荡时便会浮于表面的那种渣滓。

以其政治辩论之蛮不讲理和政治欺骗之肆无忌惮，他很适合领导他施展大能召于麾下的那帮走狗。他的地位无异于中世纪意大利诸国纷争时的那些外国雇佣兵头目。像他们一样，他也领导着一个紧密的团体，这伙人组织起来就是为了掠夺，只要得到报酬且有望分赃就立即服从命令。虽然他名义上属于争夺国家控制权的两大党之一，但如果他的报酬和分得的肥差没能使他自己和众爪牙满意，他随时愿意倒戈。他甚至会为受到怠慢而伺机报复，并指望从另一方获得更高的酬劳。

至于我，当我站在法拉格特[40]雕像下的拐角上观看老兵列队经过时，想起这个人的谋生之道，看见他出现在那些为了崇高目的而打过一场漂亮仗的人中间，我感到他玷污了这神圣的场合，也暗淡了这灿烂的晨光。我又抬头望窗口，就是曾见那妇人同她的两个儿子现身的窗口。她还在那里，身体微微前倾，仿佛沉浸在不自觉的兴奋之中，一只手勾着右边的英武青年。看见那三个人，我又振作起来，我知道他们是谁，知道他们在国家历史上代表的是什么——既是过去的光辉榜样，也是未来的希望之光。冠于那位母亲额头的寡妇帽令我回想起一则高尚而纯粹的事迹。

穿水兵服的男孩组成的军乐团走在前，后边跟着一艘铁甲舰模型，模型安装在车轮上，巧妙地装饰着鲜花和花环。这之后走来区区二十位老水兵，他们已经自发形成了罗德曼·R.哈迪老兵会。行至那妇人与她的两个儿子所站的窗口时，他们仰头欢呼起来。哈迪舰长的遗孀看见丈夫的老战友，眼睛里顿时充满泪水。当他们朝她和她的儿子们欢呼时，她的脸上泛起红晕，搂着儿子的胳膊也微微颤抖。她欠欠身，两个小伙子脱帽致意，老兵会一行人便继续沿大道前进去履行其悲哀的职责，尽管他们无法用鲜花装点老指挥官的坟墓，因为他长眠于水底。当他的身体沉入那永恒的安息之所时，勇士们正在接二连三地发射炮弹向他致敬。

有人说：水兵的行当就是学习如何去杀，如何去死，而如何去活则无关紧要。哈迪舰长活得像个男人，像个绅士，像个基督徒，他死得像个英雄。他来自水兵世家。他的曾祖父在1758年路易斯堡被攻克之际曾随同阿默斯特[41]指挥的舰队一道航行。他的祖父曾在好人理查号上给保罗·琼斯[42]当过见习船员。他的父亲在“老铁壳”上服役时正值宪法号[43]擒获战士号。他自己当兵出海时正赶上围攻韦拉克鲁斯[44]。内战爆发时，他结婚才三年。他在坎伯兰号上服役时，梅里马克号击沉了该舰。在新铁甲舰建造期间，他得到短短几周与妻子和两个男婴共度的时间。昂提拉号完工之后，他身为一名海军上校，被派去担任指挥官。

没有一艘铁甲舰比昂提拉号效力更勤，吃苦更多。就在大举进攻戴维斯堡之前，哈迪舰长冒着南方邦联的炮火去轰击一艘巡洋舰，该舰已退至河的上游，躲在炮台所处的长条地后面。尽管炮台的火力很猛，有可能将他的船轰得招架不住，他依然奋不顾身，把炮口瞄准巡洋舰。他刚进入射程之内，一场浓雾就笼罩下来，遮住了作战双方。炮台停止连发，只漫无目标地开几炮碰运气。铁甲舰则仰仗炮手的精确性，继续射出一发接一发的炮弹，炮弹穿透厚厚的雾墙，直击敌船所在的隐形位置。浓雾消散后，巡洋舰起火了。铁甲舰遂撤退至炮台射程之外，完成了哈迪舰长布置的任务。

次日开始对戴维斯堡展开猛攻。舰队司令命昂提拉号跟随旗舰进攻。防守水道的不仅有堡垒本身及辅助防御工事的大炮和一小队炮艇，还有隐藏的鱼雷，鱼雷的位置连那些领航员都全然不知，他们都是戴维斯堡的联邦人士，自告奋勇来引导我方舰船通过曲折迂回的河口。铁甲舰做好了战斗准备。甲板已沉至与海面平齐，除了带有两门大炮的旋转炮塔，没有其他突出物。在操舵室的小房间里，哈迪舰长在领航员旁边就位。舰队司令发出前进信号，于是昂提拉号紧随旗舰的航迹。

安全通过水道的第一个弯之后，铁甲舰终于完全暴露在堡垒的炮火之下。炮塔缓慢旋转，两门大炮双双瞄准一艘脱离堡垒掩护、铤而走险的大胆炮艇。第二发炮弹击中炮艇的蒸汽室，炮艇爆炸，随波漂流。舰队司令仍在前进，昂提拉号紧随其后。忽然船体猛地一震，传出一声沉闷的轰响，铁甲舰从船头颤抖至船尾，并开始下沉。原来一枚鱼雷把船底炸出了一个洞，昂提拉号正在沉没。几乎同时，来自戴维斯堡的一发炮弹击中炮塔，一块碎片打中哈迪舰长，扯掉了他的右臂。就在鱼雷爆炸后的短短几秒之内，在颤抖的船身倾斜下沉之前，十余人逃离炮塔，扎进河里。舰长还没来得及爬出水，他的船就在他脚下沉没了。当他从急转的旋涡中浮上来时，那只未受伤的手抓住一块碰巧漂过的木头，他得以支撑因伤口裸露而发虚的身体。他发现自己就在领航员旁边，那人正徒劳地与浪涛搏击，体力几乎耗尽。

“你不会游泳吗？”哈迪舰长问。

“只会一点，”领航员回答，“我怕是要完蛋了。”

“扒住这块木头。”舰长说。

领航员伸出手臂，用绝望的手指抓住那块破木板。木板太小，撑不住两个男人，于是哈迪舰长松了手。他用一条手臂奋力划水支撑身体，撑了一小会儿。后来他体力不支，终于没入昂提拉号曾在他脚下沉没的那方水面。水上激战正酣，炮弹从一艘接一艘的舰艇上发射，回应从堡垒和炮台发出的炮弹，另一艘铁甲舰接替昂提拉号执行任务，勇敢的心和敏捷的头脑在海上和岸上同时发挥作用，而罗德曼·哈迪却葬身水底，给他的遗孀和儿子们留下了烈士的遗产。

那顶寡妇帽当晚被年轻的妻子戴在头上，直到今日她从未摘下。他的两个儿子由她抚养成人，追随父亲的脚步。一个以优异的成绩从安那波利斯的海军学院毕业，已开始在海军崭露头角。另一个是律师，正在努力跻身政界。虽然还不到三十岁，他却已在州议会历经两任，在那里，他为这个城市做出了卓越的贡献。

游行终于结束了——因为罗德曼·R.哈迪老兵会是压阵的队伍之一——于是我转身穿过广场。寡妇带着两个儿子的出现洁净了空气，驱散了坐着粗俗大马车经过我身边的政客一路留下的秽气。对英雄事迹的纪念是生命景观里的一片绿洲，对哈迪舰长之死的回顾使这一天显得更加美好。阳光洒在街上仿佛金水泻地。一对小麻雀轻快地掠过我面前的绿地，落在我头顶上方的树枝上。从连片的屋顶那边，飘来《约翰·布朗之躯》[45]和《行军佐治亚》[46]的回声。

（1890年）

[29] 装饰日（Decoration Day）：最初为纪念美国内战（南北战争）中死去的将士，人们在5月某一天用花环和旗帜“装饰”将士墓碑，是为装饰日。后来演变为纪念历次战争中死去的美国将士，这一天也改称为悼念日或阵亡将士纪念日（Memorial Day），定在5月最后一个星期一。（译注）

[30] 加特林机枪（Gatling gun）：美国人查理·加特林发明的一种早期机枪，是世界上第一种实用化的机枪。形体较大，一般为两轮车载。（译注）

[31] 扎克雷起义（Jacquerie):1358年法国北部农民暴动。（译注）

[32] 《囚徒的希望》歌词，旨在鼓舞被俘虏的北方联邦士兵，是内战时期最流行的歌曲。（译注）

[33] 安德森维尔监狱(Andersonville)：内战期间南方军的战俘营，位于佐治亚州，条件恶劣，被关押的北方联邦囚犯因疾病和虐待大批死亡。（译注）

[34] 梅森——狄克逊线（Mason and Dixon's line）：美国南北方分界线。（译注）

[35] 《我的马里兰》（My Maryland）:内战时期南方流行的战歌。后成为马里兰州州歌。（译注）

[36] 指内战时期南北各方军服，南方为灰，北方为蓝。（译注）

[37] 共和国大军(Grand Army of the Republic)：内战后北方联邦退伍军人组织。1866年成立，1890年人数最多，1956年最后一名成员去世。（译注）

[38] 巧言石(blarney——stone)：爱尔兰布拉尼城堡的石头，相传亲吻此石之后即善于花言巧语。（译注）

[39] 比林斯门(billingsgate)：伦敦的鱼市，指代市井粗话、下流语言。（译注）

[40] 戴维·格拉斯哥·法拉格特（David Glasgow Farragut，1801—1870），美国海军上将，参加过1812年战争、南北战争、新奥尔良战役等。（译注）

[41] 杰弗里·阿默斯特（Jeffrey Amherst,1717—1797）：英国军事家，陆军元帅。1758年法国——印第安战争中率军攻克路易斯堡(Louisburg，位于加拿大布雷顿角)。后担任过英属北美殖民地总督。回英国后被授予勋爵头衔。（译注）

[42] 约翰·保罗·琼斯(Jonn Paul Jones,1747—792)，生于苏格兰，美国海军军官、军事家，被誉为美国海军之父。好人理查（Bonhomme Richard）号是其指挥过的一艘由商船改装的军舰。（译注）

[43] 宪法号（Constitution）:美国海军现役木壳三桅风帆护卫舰。由华盛顿总统命名，为纪念于1789年生效的美国宪法。自1797年入役至今连续服役两百多年。因其坚韧的橡木船壳而得绰号“老铁壳”（Old Ironsides）。曾在1812年战争中击毁英国皇家海军战士号（Guerrière）。（译注）

[44] 韦拉克鲁斯(Vera Cruz)：墨西哥东岸港口，1847年在美墨战争中被美军围困并攻克。（译注）

[45] 《约翰·布朗之躯》（John Brown's Body）：美国内战时一首著名的进行曲，纪念废奴主义运动家约翰·布朗。（译注）

[46] 《行军佐治亚》（Marching Through Georgia）：内战时的一首进行曲。（译注）

6
寻找地方色彩

小说家站在里文顿街和包厘街的交叉口，试图寻找恰当的词语来表述他所感知的纽约街道在一个潮湿的六月清晨呈现出的最独特的风貌。高架列车从他头顶上哐啷哐啷驶过，他并没有留意，因为太专注于默记从他面前经过的形形色色的路人。突然他险些被撞个跟头。一个年轻人踩上一块被随手丢在人行道上的香蕉皮，脚下一滑，重重跌在他身上。

“非常抱歉，”年轻人大声说，重新站定。“我——哎，德·勒伊特先生！”他惊叫，认出了作家。

“约翰·苏达姆！”鲁伯特·德·勒伊特应道，亲切地伸出手去，“嘿，真是巧了！你知道吗？我正要去大学睦邻之家[47]找你呢。”

“要是再过十分钟，你就在那儿找到我了，”苏达姆回答，“这星期是我住校。事实上，我想我会在这儿过夏天。你看，我上星期通过了哥伦比亚[48]的文科硕士考试——”

“那么现在要考试才能拿到文凭，嗯？”小说家问，“我上学那会儿，我们差不多是白拿的——至少我是——那不过是二十年前的事。你既拿了文凭，打算拿它做什么呢？我听说你求学是为当牧师。”

“我考虑过神职，”苏达姆回答。他是个又高又瘦的小伙子，有一头棕色的直发和一个坚毅的下巴。“可我现在不知道该做什么。我有点儿钱，你知道——要是我愿意，足够过活的。所以我可能留在睦邻之家，那儿的工作很有意思。”

“毫无疑问，”小说家欣然回应，“你一定能看到许多稀奇古怪的案例。我要是能抽出一段时间，跟你在这儿待上一个月就好了。”

“还犹豫什么呢？”苏达姆热切地建议。

“咳，手头的事太多了，”德·勒伊特回答，“下星期我得去哈佛朗诵优秀生联谊会[49]之诗。此外，我已经答应为《大都会》完成一系列纽约故事。这就是我今早要去找你的缘故。我想找你帮忙。”

“可我平生从没写过什么故事。”年轻人马上说。

“我不是想让你写故事，”德·勒伊特反驳，“当然我自己写得来。但我觉得你能帮我找点儿地方色彩。”

“地方色彩？”苏达姆疑惑地重复着。

“对，”小说家继续道，“地方色彩——那正是我想要的——新鲜的印象。”

“我不太明白——”年轻人犹疑着说。

“噢，我可以解释一下我想要什么，”鲁伯特·德·勒伊特打断他，“你看，我生来就是纽约人，你也是，而且我一辈子都住在这儿，我太了解这座城市了——就是说，我对它的某些方面都摸透了。我能周旋于众长老[50]之间，能办克莱尔蒙特茶会，或其他各种时髦聚会；我知道俱乐部里的人怎么讲话。我研究过那些画家、文人和记者。我能描述剧院首演当晚的盛况或大街上发生骚乱的情形。可是我所知的这些人，我差不多都挖掘尽了，于是我想，我该来这儿见识一下我所不知的类型。”

“我很乐意带你去睦邻之家，”苏达姆回应，“而且——”

“我想去的并不是睦邻之家，多谢，”德·勒伊特打断他，“睦邻之家里的人是我已知类型的种种变体。我想见识的是那些我一点儿都不了解的人——那些非常穷的人，住廉租房的人，为温饱而做工的人。你认识那种人吗？”

“认识，”苏达姆回答，“我认识很多那样的人。可他们一点儿都不像那些煽情报纸写出来的那么生动，那么凄惨。你干吗不去唐人街看看？”

“那不是我想看的，”小说家答道，“唐人街是粗俗的，是异域的，是外来的，只不过是附在纽约上的一种赘生物。而廉租房里的人是来扎根的，他们是这座城市的一个重要组成部分。我不关心唐人街，但我很关心桑树弯[51]。哎，苏达姆，你熟悉桑树弯，是不是？”

“是，”苏达姆回答，“我熟悉桑树弯。”

“你知不知道在桑树弯，或那附近，哪栋廉租房最有特色——最典型地代表了桑树弯所展示的最糟糕的状况？”德·勒伊特问。

“知道，”苏达姆又答，“我想我可以找一栋那样的廉租房。”

“那这就带我去吧，如果你能抽出一两个小时的话。”小说家说。

“我可以把差事推到今天下午，”年轻人答应，“我想我可以带你看看你想看的。跟我来吧。”

他俩一直站在刚才撞见的地方，即包厘街和里文顿街的交叉口。现在，由约翰·苏达姆领路，两人在高架铁路的单轨下面，沿包厘街往北走了一小段，然后拐进一条小巷，朝西进发。

每当他们来到十字路口，德·勒伊特就发议论，说其中总有三个拐角是酒馆，而且有时四个都是。宽大的镀金招牌悬在这些酒吧敞开的大门上方，招牌上的名字不是德文就是爱尔兰语，直到他们来到一个拐角，看见有个馆子自称“克里斯托法罗·科隆博小馆”[52]。一副木头架子立在小巷里，占去人行道宽的三分之一，上面有个牌子广而告之：冰镇苏打水加水果糖浆二分一杯；加巧克力和奶油，售价三分。一只盛水半满的大洗衣盆坐在拐角的路缘石上，里面泡着可疑的嫩卷心菜和抱子甘蓝。它的看守者是个瘦巴巴的姑娘，头上系着一条红手帕。

从这个街角，苏达姆拐出小巷，走上一条街，街不见得更宽，但往南往北延伸得那么曲折而犹豫，在纽约的街道中并不常见。这条曲街两边的人行道很窄，与此地密集的人口不相称，而且被种种默许的侵占行为弄得愈加狭窄。例如这边，一个小店侧面支出一副架子，上面的未脱壳豌豆在六月骄阳的暴晒下萎蔫。再如那边，几级台阶通往地下室，凹地一角的台阶上或许有只大桶，里面装满脏乎乎的冰块，镇着一罐号称是冰淇淋的东西，不然就是有块木板，上面摆着半打干硬的黑面包，也是要卖给偶然路过的顾客。又如这边和那边，高层廉租房里的居民把椅子搬到大门口，坐下来，舒舒服服地跟邻居交谈，全然不顾如此一来造成的人行道阻塞，逼得行人只好走到马路上去。

而马路也跟人行道一样拥挤不堪。苏达姆和德·勒伊特小心地择路而行，前面是一个皮肤黝黑的小伙子，他的法兰绒上衣领口大敞，袖子高卷，露出褐色的胳膊。他推着一辆手推车，车上堆满色彩艳丽的印花布。还有别的手推车，别的推车人，有老有少，在贩卖别的货物——往往是水果，极不诱人的臭烘烘的水果。偶尔会有一辆大马车隆隆地慢慢穿过街道，车上堆积如山的高级家具出自街角附近一家叮叮咣咣的工厂。在拉车的大马前方，孩子们总要等到有惊无险的最后一刻才四散逃跑。这里的孩子数不清，永远有成群的孩子从房子里出来，从地窖里上来，在路边转悠，在街心跑来跑去。各年龄的孩子都有，有躺在矮胖敦实的母亲怀里的婴儿，也有脸盘甜美眼睛黑的小姑娘——虽然看着老成像十四的样子，其实不过十一二岁。他们在街上疯跑，他们在闲坐门口聊天的母亲的腿边玩耍，他们在架设于每座高楼前脸的防火梯的栏杆上吊着。

到处都有意大利人把防火梯的平台当作斗室的外间。他们用长在破木箱里的花草装点它，他们用它的栏杆晾晒杂色法兰绒上衣，他们坐在上面乘凉仿佛它是故乡别墅的凉廊。

到处也有噪声和浊气。从敞开的窗口传来的附近机器的轰鸣，以及街头群众无休无止的吵闹和尖叫，使得都市的喧嚣在这里加剧。邋遢厨房的馊臭与腐烂果蔬的轻度腐臭混合在一起。

然而超越噪声、臭气和众人碌碌繁忙的表象，鲁伯特·德·勒伊特觉得仿佛他在接受生活的本相。就好像他窥见了宏大的生存运动——永不止息也不可避免。他所看见的并不令他心生怜悯，也不令他心灰意冷。眼前的景象并不美，甚至算不上什么景，然而一刻也不曾令他感伤。只是有趣，实在有趣——有无穷无尽之趣。

“我多少年都没见过这么浓的意大利味儿了，”当他俩小心翼翼地穿过乱作一团爬出门口的婴孩时，小说家对他的向导说，“记得第一次在意大利漫步——我们下了开往科莫[53]的船之后，在梅纳焦的山间漫步，那时我都没见过这么浓郁的意大利风情。这里的某些面孔是更纯正的希腊式，比你在意大利北部遇见的任何一个都纯正。你瞧见刚刚路过的那个年轻母亲了吗？”

“正给婴儿喂奶的那个？”苏达姆反问。

“对，”德·勒伊特继续道，“她有椭圆形的脸庞和橄榄色的皮肤，是希腊人留在西西里岛上的那种相貌。她不漂亮，算不上，但她具有出自雕塑家族群的那种沉静的美。她的侧脸俨然脱胎于一枚叙拉古银币[54]。这样一张脸竟出现在这里，在曾经是新阿姆斯特丹而现在是纽约的这座城市里！”

“我们可没时间在这儿怀念叙拉古和新阿姆斯特丹，”苏达姆说，“我们对纽约还考虑不过来呢。但凡真的想起西西里，也只是为了记住我们这儿的西西里人是所有意大利人中脾气最暴、最不好惹、最爱报复的。”

“假如我不知道，”小说家感慨，“意大利人是以牺牲一切艺术冲动为代价来发展商业才能的，我就会纳闷，米开朗琪罗、列昂纳多·达·芬奇、乌尔比诺的拉斐尔这种族群的后裔，怎么如今竟愿意住在那么丑恶的一座房子里！”他一扬手，示意一座高耸的双开间廉租房，大量的蹩脚装饰把房子弄得越发丑陋。“它甚至不因朽坏而别有风味。事实上，这一整片儿的维护状况比我预想的要好。”

“瞧瞧你身后的房子。”他的同伴回应。

他们身后的那座房子属于这条街上最老的一批廉租房。其防火梯的平台同周边住宅的那些平台一样杂乱，每一个窗口都显出室内有人居住的迹象。然而这座建筑物，作为一个整体，却像被忽视了。

“这房子真好似捉襟见肘、蓬头垢面，”德·勒伊特承认，“看上去就像个流浪汉，是不是？”

“看上去是不太干净，”苏达姆说，“而且后楼还要更脏。那就是我们要去的地方，如果你想去。”

“好，”德·勒伊特回答，“如果这一带确有地方色彩可寻，我猜我们会在这里找到相当一部分。”

“那就这边请吧。”苏达姆说着钻进一条有顶的巷子，巷子在房子下面延伸，通往一个铺着高低不平的石板的小院，院子被周遭建筑四面合围。即使在那个阳光明媚的上午，院里的空气依然透着阴冷，石板路上处处是水渍。

“新建筑法规不允许建这种不见天日的后楼，”苏达姆解释，“但是城里有数千座这样的楼，都是新法规生效之前建的。我们最好先去地下室看看。”

院子一角有五六级台阶通往后楼的地下室。来自大学睦邻之家的这位青年，身后跟着小说家，踩着台阶步入地窖似的房间，房间约占后楼地下空间的一半。

这间屋里的空气污浊不堪，害得德·勒伊特一阵憋气。房间不超过十二英尺见方。墙壁上没抹灰，露着粗基石。地面是土地，被踩得硬邦邦，除去啤酒罐滴液弄湿的地方。上层的地板梁似乎已朽烂。在室内的溽热中，十来个老少爷们儿坐在旧椅子和破箱子上，吸着烟，就着唯一一盏脏臭的煤油灯发出的摇曳光芒打牌，喝着用旧罐头盒收集的酒渣。

苏达姆和德·勒伊特进来的时候，地窖居民抬头看了看，然后继续之前的消遣，对闯入者并无进一步的关注。

离门口最近的是个身材魁梧的五十岁汉子，灰白的短发紧贴头皮，腰间的皮带上掖着一把刀。他正在打牌。

“早上好，贾科莫，”苏达姆对这位头发花白的粗人说，“我好长时间没听到你的消息了。你什么时候离开岛[55]的？”

“上周。”他硬生生地回答。

“你的妻子在哪儿呢？”年轻人问。

“她做工。”贾科莫回答。

苏达姆没有继续往下聊。他估计小说家看够了，就转身又踏上颤颤巍巍的台阶，身后跟着他的朋友。

“吁！”当他俩再次站在狭小的院子里时，德·勒伊特长长地舒了一口气。“真不知道他们怎么能呼吸那样的空气而且还能生活。”

“他们不生活，”苏达姆回答——“根本不生活，较弱的很快就被逼死了，只留下你看到的较顽强的个体。现在我们上楼去，如果你想去的话。”

“走吧，”德·勒伊特回答，“我来就是要看这个。”

后楼中央有一个入口。大门已脱离合页。过道里面就是楼梯，栏杆破损，许多台阶朽坏，很不安全。他们往上走的时候不见什么光，只有一股烂鱼的腐臭伴着他们。

楼梯口两边各有一扇门。苏达姆轮流敲门，然后试图开门，但两扇门都是锁着的，也无人回应一遍遍的叩门声。

“我说，”当他们往上一层走时，小说家发问，“这些人愿意让咱们这样打扰他们吗？”

“有些不愿意，”苏达姆答得干脆，“当然我尽量不去打扰。但是大多数人并不介意。大多数人没有家的感觉。大多数人不知道隐私是什么。他们怎么可能知道？”

“真是，”小说家重复着，“他们怎么可能知道？”

“这儿有个实例能表明我的意思，”俩人又上了一层楼时，来自睦邻之家的青年说。

通向右侧房间的门是敞开的。房间大约十英尺见方，放有两张床。其中一张床上有个男人盘腿坐着正在缝纫，他只在两个访客挡住门口的光时才抬眼看了一下，然后就继续他的活计。另一张床上有两个小孩，半裸着正在睡觉。一个是三岁的男孩，另一个是快两岁的女孩。这张床的床沿上坐着一个十七岁的高个儿男孩，也在缝纫。两张床之间的窄过道上放着两台缝纫机，一台由一个女孩操作，孩子十五六岁，瘦巴巴的，发育不良，肩膀佝偻着。另一台机器由这些孩子的母亲操作，她是一位大骨架的四十岁女人，长着特拉斯提弗列人[56]中十分常见的高贵头颅。

她认识苏达姆，于是面露微笑。

“早上好。”她说。

“早上好，”苏达姆应道，“我带一个朋友来楼里参观。你这儿好像有点挤呀。”

“现在不挤。”她回答，“现在只有一个房客，”她指指盘腿坐在床上的那个人。“上星期有两个。”

“你丈夫在哪儿？”年轻人问。

“噢，他又找了一个姑娘。”她回答，做了一个模糊的手势，明显不以为然。

苏达姆和德·勒伊特又上一层楼，往敞着门的房间里扫视。苏达姆认识这里的大多数住户，他们似乎很高兴见到他。显然他们把他当成了朋友。

在顶层，在通往屋顶的楼梯下面，有一个不足六乘八英尺的小窝。小归小，屋里的陈设却强于德·勒伊特刚才见过的大多数房间，它包含着渴望安家的种种迹象。墙上钉着暴力的彩色印刷品。床上铺着杂色床罩。唯一的住户是一个高大、黝黑的意大利人，眼睛炯炯有神。他正在一盏油灯上烹调拉丝奶酪通心粉。他的房门虚掩着。

“早上好，彼得罗。”苏达姆兴冲冲地招呼。

彼得罗的第一反应是迅速关上门。后来他改变了主意，因为他又打开了房门，狐疑地向外张望。认出苏达姆后，他正要把门大敞，忽然看见了德·勒伊特。片刻犹豫之后，他将手从门把上移开，继续烹饪。

“我带朋友来楼里参观。”苏达姆解释。

意大利人一言不发。显然，烹饪吸引了他的全部注意力。但他向德·勒伊特投去探寻的一瞥。

苏达姆转向小说家。“这是彼得罗·巴雷提，”他说，“他是美国最专业的马赛克镶嵌工。他来自那不勒斯，我估计，这就是为什么他的通心粉做得这么好。”

“确实，自打上次从那不勒斯回来，我还没见过那么做通心粉的呢。”小说家没话找话，实在吃不准这意大利人的态度。

“你老婆不在？”苏达姆问。

“不在。”意大利人生硬地回答。

“她去哪儿了？”年轻人追问。

“她殁了。”巴雷提回答。

“死了？”苏达姆大叫，“真是太惨了。她什么时候死的？”

“十天前。”意大利人回答。

当苏达姆和德·勒伊特结束了参观，正小心翼翼地下楼梯时，来自大学睦邻之家的青年问小说家是否见到了什么有趣的东西。

“噢，是的，”小说家答道，“我找到了很多色彩，正是我想要的。还有那妻子殁了的意大利人——他是素材，肯定是。”

“素材？”苏达姆疑惑。

“我是说我可以把他写进一篇给《大都会》的短文里。”小说家解释，“要是我知道他妻子长什么样就好了。”

“她是个漂亮姑娘——黑头发，黑眼睛，笑容生动活泼，”苏达姆说，“他把她看得很紧。我听说他俩以前常吵架，吵得很凶。”

“我可不愿意跟那个家伙为敌，”他俩穿出巷子来到大街上时，德·勒伊特声明，“他那眼睛就像玻璃锥子似的。”

小说家和来自大学睦邻之家的青年并肩走在街上。当他们接近一所由绿灯[57]谨慎戒备着的警察局时，三名警官走出来拐到街上。

三个警察走到这两位朋友跟前时，其中一个让了一步，跟来自睦邻之家的青年搭话。

“苏达姆先生，”他说，“你们这些睦邻之家来的先生有时候比我们更清楚这里的情况。你最近见过彼得罗·巴雷提吗？就是人称意大利皮特的？”

“不到十分钟前我还见过他——在他自己的房间里，”苏达姆回答。

“他没事，伙计们，”警察大叫，“他在。”

“你们想找他？”苏达姆问。

“怎么不想？”警察脱口而出，“我们要把他抓起来。”

“他干什么了？”德·勒伊特询问。

“噢，他干得够多的了！”警官回答，“他上星期杀了他的妻子，那就是他干的。”

苏达姆瞧瞧德·勒伊特。

“嗯，”德·勒伊特说，“这下齐了。我能得着一句好的结束语了。”

（1893年）

[47] 大学睦邻之家（University Settlement）：1886年在纽约成立的社区睦邻组织。在贫民区建一些大学生宿舍，使大学生与贫民共同生活，口号是“工作者与工作对象相亲相爱”，针对社区居民的实际需要制订工作计划，并尽量发挥当地志愿者的力量，培养其自动自发、互助合作的社区精神。（译注）

[48] 指纽约的哥伦比亚学院（Columbia College）,即哥伦比亚大学前身。（译注）

[49] 优秀生联谊会（Phi Beta Kappa）：成立于1776年的美国大学优秀生荣誉性组织。（译注）

[50] 长老（the Patriarchs）:纽约世家望族的族长。（译注）

[51] 桑树弯(Mulberry Bend):桑树街（Mulberry Street）拐弯处，原纽约贫民窟之一，后拆除辟为公园。（译注）

[52] 原文为意大利语：Caffè Cristoforo Colombo。“克里斯托法罗·科隆博”即“克里斯托弗·哥伦布”。（译注）

[53] 科莫（Como）：意大利科莫省的省会；梅纳焦（Menaggio）：科莫省的一个镇。两地皆坐落于科莫湖边。（译注）

[54] 叙拉古(Syracuse)：又译锡拉库萨，位于意大利西西里岛的一座沿海古城。由古希腊科林斯的殖民者于公元前734年建立，一度兴盛，铸币业发达。银币上多有女性侧面像。（译注）

[55] 指曼哈顿岛。（译注）

[56] 特拉斯提弗列（Trastevere）：罗马第十三区，位于台伯河西岸，梵蒂冈以南，意为“台伯河外”。 （译注）

[57] 绿灯：当纽约还是荷兰殖民地——新阿姆斯特丹时，巡逻员在夜间巡逻时会提一盏装绿玻璃的油灯，回到值班室后就把绿灯挂在门前以示有人值班。后来警察局沿用该传统，也在门前挂绿灯作为“警戒”的标志。（译注）

7
破晓之前

她住在街角的一座小木屋里，木屋缩在两栋高耸的廉租房的阴影中。这种脆弱的木屋仍少量残存于城市的那片区域——包厘街以东半英里和汤普金斯广场以南半英里的地方，那里的建筑毫无章法、拥挤不堪、缺乏关爱，如同那里的居民。在原本为单一家庭建造，而今却剧变为容纳八到十户的老旧私宅之间——在高耸、突兀而丑陋的新建廉租房之间——在这儿，在那儿，人们仍能找到距今半个世纪之久的、在城市扩张之前建造的木屋，破破烂烂，大可不必地自惭形秽于一座座并不比它们更好的新建大厦面前。这些木瓦覆盖的尖顶屋是一个时代的可怜孑遗，那时纽约还记得自己曾经是新阿姆斯特丹，那时它兴建房屋并未模仿巴别塔[58]的多元混杂和自高自大。就是在这样一座墙面铺着白色护板、被苍白的月光映得发灰的小屋里，玛吉·奥唐奈躺在那儿睡得正酣，此时远处一座尖塔里的钟敲了三下，天将破晓，这天正是七月四日。

她睡在酒馆楼上两间小室中较大的一间里。在城市的那片区域，几乎每个街角都有酒馆，有时一个街区有两三家。大多数酒馆的门面招牌，以及杂货店和面包坊和其他商店的门面招牌上都写着古怪的外国名字。此地离城中的德国区不远，离意大利区和中国区[59]也不远。而这一带的房子却主要充斥着波兰人，大多是勤劳、温顺、节俭的波兰犹太人。在占据另外三个拐角的廉租房里，缝纫机的嗡嗡声直到午夜才停息。玛吉躺在其上熟睡的那间酒馆，门面招牌上写着一个爱尔兰名字——她丈夫的名字——特伦斯·奥唐奈。然而那展示其名的朴素木板却被两侧夹击的巨型招牌震慑住了，那些招牌在两侧街道的墙面上各占好大一片，盛赞“凯利公司的麦高恩关隘[60]啤酒”。

这些啤酒招牌如此之大，令那座小屋看上去比实际还要小——实际也不过二十英尺见方。酒馆正门就开在拐角处，自然为便于揽客。临街一侧有两个窗口，另一侧有一个窗口和一扇门，上悬“私家入口”的牌子。这扇门通向一条小过道，由此可进入酒馆，也可爬上窄楼梯去特伦斯·奥唐奈和他妻子玛吉位于楼上的家。除了被这入口和楼梯占去的空间，整个底层都是酒吧。自从特里[61]在午夜过后不久关门上了锁，一束孤单的灯苗就一直在吧台上方幽暗地燃着。吧台在酒馆里曲折延展，吧台后面，镶着斜边镜子的餐具柜排列在两面内墙上。餐具柜因层层堆叠的玻璃杯而闪闪发亮，每座玻璃金字塔顶都放着一个柠檬，黄澄澄的。啤酒泵处于吧台下面的中间位置，吧台一头有特伦斯存钱的铁制保险箱；吧台另一头，就在通往私家入口的门后靠墙的地方，有一部电话机。

楼上有两间小屋和一两个壁橱。玛吉已将较小的一间屋改造成厨房兼饭厅。位于拐角的较大的那间是他们的卧室，玛吉就在这里酣然入睡。夜晚闷热，窗户虽然开着，小巧的白窗帘还是软塌塌地垂着一动不动。过去的一天炎热无云，另外三个拐角的砖房已积聚了十五个小时的热量，自从太阳落山就一直在往外散热。如此闷热的天儿，玛吉·奥唐奈却睡得很沉。特里在门口吻别她的时候已过午夜，她已睡了三个小时。此时已有熹微的晨光出现在天边，纽约这个地方，七月四日的太阳升起得早——四点半日出。一阵微风懒洋洋地从东河吹过来，轻柔地拂动窗帘。玛吉不安地翻个身，伸出手，唤道：“特里。”

她猛醒过来。一时间，她呆呆地看着身边空空的床铺，然后她想起特里将彻夜不归，在客船和驳船上卖力为野餐做准备。她又翻过身去，但睡意全无。她静静地躺在床上听，她能捕捉到的只有邻街啤酒车发出的低沉的隆隆声和海湾汽船发出的迟疑的嘟嘟声。然后她听见远处传来三四声枪响，她知道有些年轻人早早起来，已经开始在所住廉租房的房顶庆祝七月四日了。

她试着入睡，但睡不着。她已彻底清醒，她知道再次沉入梦乡的可能性很小。她曾不止一次像这样在半夜、在天亮前的一小时左右醒来，然后她只得躺在床上静静地听特里均匀的呼吸声。现在她独自躺在那儿，思念特里，感激他对她的好，陶醉在他的爱中。她独自躺在那儿想，要不是特里怜悯她，不知她现在身在何处。

突然，她一下子从床上坐起，屏息细听。她恍惚觉得楼下酒馆里有动静。她一点都不紧张，可她真希望特里没放那么多钱在保险箱里。他俩结婚快两年了，这是他头一次晚上不在家。她竖起耳朵，但声音没再响起。她又躺到枕头上，断定那是老鼠从吧台上掉落的声音，想必它一直在上面吃奶酪渣来着。地窖里有许多大老鼠，有时它们甚至冒险上蹿到卧室和隔壁的厨房。

想当年，要把如今是特伦斯·奥唐奈妻子的那个女孩从酣睡中吵醒，非来一声巨响不可。母亲在她不满五岁时就去世了，之后父亲带她搬到城中最差的一处廉租房里，那是一片破烂不堪的旧营房，就在地狱厨房[62]边上。那里无论白天黑夜，无论屋里街头，从来没有消停的时候。一天里无论几点钟，总有吵架闹事的。倘若谩骂和骚乱能让一个女孩睡不着觉，她在那儿就绝无片刻安眠。但玛吉不记得她小时候睡眠轻，事实上，她倒记得自己能随时随地睡觉。炎热的夏夜，当父亲醉醺醺地回家时，她会偷偷爬上屋顶躺下来，沉沉地睡去，仿佛就睡在父女俩住的那个单间里。

早在那时她父亲就常常醉酒，周六晚上必醉，工作日里也常有一两回。而且他一喝多就爱发火。要是见她在家，他就打她。父亲第一次把她打趴下的情形她历历在目，然而伴随那一拳的咒骂，她却忘记了。他并不常把她打趴下，可是从她一出生，他就天天诅咒她。她幼小的耳朵最早学会辨别的就是那些污言秽语。

父亲再婚之后戒酒一个月。他们从地狱厨房搬到东河附近一处较好的房子里。有那么一阵，一切顺心，继母对她也好。可是父亲又回到老路上去了，很快他的新妻子原形毕露。火气一上来他俩就吵架，要是玛吉没来得及逃跑，他们还会轮番殴打玛吉。正是在一个星期六的晚上，父亲朝玛吉一拳抡过来的时候，一头栽倒，摔下廉租房的一截楼梯，被救起时已断了气。邻居把他抬上楼，发现他的妻子躺在屋里醉得不省人事。

那时玛吉快十四岁了。她继续跟继母一同生活，继母在制盒厂给她找了一个位子。上班的最初几天是玛吉少女时代最幸福的日子。她记得自己因有能力挣钱而感受到的那份喜悦。那给了她一种自己做主、能够在世上立足的感觉。她还跟别的女孩交了朋友。其中一个叫萨迪·麦克德莫特的有个哥哥——吉姆，他常常在星期六晚上过来缠着妹妹要钱。吉姆是帮派成员，能不工作绝不工作。他没有职业。玛吉记得她和萨迪一起走回家的那个星期六晚上，吉姆大发脾气，因为妹妹不愿把工资分给他。他抢过她的钱包，拔腿就跑。玛吉骂了他一句，抓住他的一条胳膊，他极粗暴地甩开她，结果她摔倒了，脑袋狠狠撞上灯柱晕了过去。

那个七月四日的凌晨，当玛吉躺在床上，看过去的生活像一幅画卷展开在眼前时，她知道自己头侧的伤疤并不是吉姆·麦克德莫特给予她的最重的伤害。回想过去，她奇怪自己怎么会与他交好，怎么会让他如影随形，怎么会允许他向她求爱。正是吉姆·麦克德莫特的缘故，她才与继母吵翻的。吉姆从一个醉汉身上抢了五美元后邀请玛吉去郊游。那晚上，她的继母比平日多喝了几口，说如果玛吉跟他出去就再也进不了家门。玛吉可不吃这一套，她告诉吉姆次日一早就跟他去。继母骂她是个忘恩负义的丫头。第二天夜里玛吉同他游玩归来，走到与继母同住的卧室门口时，他们发现门被反锁着，玛吉的所有财物被打成了一捆，鄙弃在楼梯口。

那一夜，吉姆没花多长时间便说服玛吉跟他私奔，从此她再没见过她的继母。一星期后，吉姆因抢劫那醉汉而被捕，之前他和玛吉已经吵过架。他被押送到监狱岛上。自郊游之后玛吉就一直没回工厂。吉姆曾在一天晚上带她去过一间舞厅，当她被孤零零地抛在世上时，她就独自去了那里。一个月后，她在那里遇见了特里。初次见到特里的那会儿，她的前景明明白白就是停尸房，她正在往那儿去，而且步履匆匆，她心里明白。冬天还未到，她就已经日日夜夜饱受咳嗽的折磨。

她躺在舒适的床上，想到特里救她免受停尸房的寒气时，她闭上眼睛，挡住那恐怖的画面，又紧握双拳交叉在额头上。她继而微笑，因为想起了特里痛揍吉姆的样子，吉姆不知怎的在刑满之前就离了岛。吉姆说，他跟警察有交情，此来是找她要钱的，还威胁要霸占她。就在这时特里跟他交手了，把他一通收拾。那时候，特里在格拉默西公园附近的一家高档餐厅当酒保。老板星期天歇业，所以那天特里没上班。

痛揍吉姆的那次并不是特里第一次对她好，也不是最后一次。两星期后，他带她离开舞厅，刚一得空儿，他就跟她结了婚。他们到陵墓[63]去，法官为他们证婚。法官认识特里，特里亲吻新娘后，他祝贺特里，还说新郎是个幸运的男人，他找了一个好妻子。

玛吉知道自己一直是好妻子，也确信自己给特里带来了好运。现在门面上写着特伦斯·奥唐奈大名的这座木屋当时是由别人经营的，后来那人犯事不得不逃亡国外，于是店主让特里接管，并让玛吉到酒馆楼上的小屋里做家务。后来店主猝然离世，他的遗孀知道特里是老实人，就把这地方转让给他，很便宜，分期付款。那是一年半之前的事，现在应付款基本交齐，只剩下最后一笔，一周后才需支付，不过这笔钱已经备齐，就放在楼下的保险箱里。特里一直干得很好。他人缘好，朋友们会特地跨两条街来他这里喝上一杯。他刚刚得到一个做野餐生意的机会。他肯定会赚大钱。也许过两三年他们就能还清买固定设备的贷款。然后他们会发财，也许特里还会步入政界。

突然，玛吉的思绪被打断了。楼下传来一阵响声，混乱而沉闷，却明白无误。玛吉一动不动地听着，然后她迅速下床。她知道有人在楼下酒馆里，在这个钟点，来者不可能心怀善意。无论是谁，必是贼。也许是邻近的某个恶棍，知道特里不在便乘虚而入。

她没有任何一种武器，可她一点都不害怕。她小心翼翼地走到楼梯口，蹑手蹑脚地下楼，没有耽误时间去穿袜子。酒馆里响声继续，声音零星而轻微，但玛吉听得很明白。响声告诉她，一个人以某种方式进了屋，现在已到吧台后面。也许他正准备偷收银抽屉里的零钱。她庆幸的是，特里临走时已经把所有的钱都锁在保险箱里了。

玛吉轻轻溜下楼梯，站在小过道里，通往酒馆的门在她面前虚掩着，这时她感到一股小风，于是她知道窃贼是跳窗进来的，且任窗户敞着。然而她叫喊求助是没有用的。在喊声所及的范围内只有那些穷波兰人，他们太胆小了，就算见到她在光天化日之下遭劫也绝不敢抗议。他们是懦弱之辈，全都是。她不能全当他们是白人而指望从他们那儿得到帮助。警察或许听得到她的叫声，但巡逻范围很大，他在附近的可能性很小。

玛吉头脑清醒，思维敏捷。应该做的，唯一能做的，就是打电话求援。她站在过道上，电话离她不到两英尺，可它在门的另一侧，在吧台头上，因此无论谁在酒馆里，电话都暴露在其视野中。呼叫总机并求助而不被盗贼听见是不可能的。

一旦决定了怎么做最好，玛吉便毫不犹豫。她轻轻推开面前的门，悄悄步入酒馆。当吧台上方幽暗的孤灯发出的微光照到她时，她竟显得挺漂亮，光晕笼罩着她的一头红发，粗布白睡袍裹着她年轻结实的身体。她环顾四周，一时间不见一个人。她面前的窗户是敞着的，但是跳窗而入的人却全无踪影。

四下窥探时，她听见一阵刺耳的刮擦声，接着看见一个人的头顶刚好露在吧台上面，身体则隐在吧台后方。于是她知道，窃贼正在设法打开特里锁钱的保险箱。

玛吉让身后的门大敞着，两步迈到电话机前，飞快地转动摇柄。然后她一扭脸去看那人做何反应。

他的第一反应是猛然低头，完全消失在吧台下。然后他慢慢仰起脸露出吧台，此时，玛吉发现自己正瞪着吉姆·麦克德莫特的那双贼眼。

“你好，玛吉！”他说着站了起来，“真是你吗？”

她见他右手里有一把左轮手枪。但她再次抬手重拨电话。

“放下！”他大叫，同时举枪，“你要告发，我就开枪——明白？”

“你从哪儿偷的那把枪，吉姆·麦克德莫特？”她回了一句。

“从哪儿弄的不关你的事，”他回敬，“反正为你预备妥了。我也会开枪，你别忘了！撂下电话，否则让你见识见识我出手多快。听见没有？”

她没有回答。她正在等待总机确认刚才的拨叫。她直勾勾地瞪着吉姆·麦克德莫特，感到不自在的是他，而不是她。

这时电话铃响了，她转身对着话筒，清楚迅速却毫不慌张地说出：“这里是查塔姆三十一号，发生一起入室盗窃，窃贼是吉姆·麦克德莫特。速派警察过来。”

这就是她的留言。然后她一扭脸，冲他大嚷：“开枪吧，浑蛋！”

他照她的话去做，开了枪。子弹在电话机的木匣子上穿了个洞。

玛吉嘲笑一声，快速闪身出门，但没快到足以躲过第二发子弹。

五分钟后警察赶到，正是天将破晓时，他们发现吉姆·麦克德莫特已经逃跑，窗户敞着，保险箱完好无损，而玛吉·奥唐奈躺在楼梯脚的过道上，她的睡袍沾染了胳膊所受皮肉之伤流出的血。

（1893年）

[58] 巴别塔(Tower of Babel)：据《圣经·创世纪》11章1～9记载，当时世人都说一种语言，他们要建造一座城和一座通天塔以传扬己名，但没有造成，因为神变乱了世人的口音使他们无法交流，所以那城名叫巴别（即“变乱”），塔即巴别塔。（译注）

[59] 分别指曼哈顿岛上该国移民集中的区域。意大利区亦称小意大利，中国区亦称华埠、唐人街、中国城。（译注）

[60] 麦高恩关隘（McGown's Pass）：纽约中央公园里的一处地貌区，位于陡坡之上，遍布崎岖小径，在美国独立战争中起过重要作用。（译注）

[61] 特里(Terry)：特伦斯的昵称。（译注）

[62] 地狱厨房(Hell's Kitchen)：曼哈顿岛西岸的一个地区，早年为贫民窟，主要由爱尔兰移民的劳工阶层聚居，以杂乱落后的居住条件、严重的族群冲突和高犯罪率闻名。（译注）

[63] 陵墓(the Tombs)：纽约司法大楼的别称。（译注）

8
仲夏夜

在白舰队[64]的旗舰上服役三年之后，海军上尉约翰·斯通获准休一个长假。那是最热的八月天里的一个傍晚，他离开军港码头，搭乘渡轮去了纽约。他乘坐的有轨马车慢吞吞地在市内穿行，拉车的马儿好像被持续两周的难熬天气耗尽了气力，赶车人也无力使它们保持工作步调。

约翰·斯通并不介意它们走得多么缓慢。他不着急，他无事可做，他没有让谁等着。四十岁的他在这世上孑然一身，举目无亲，没有比远房表亲更近的人，没有家，没有地址，除了一句“由华盛顿特区海军部转交”。即使在军队里，他也没什么野心，因为他尚未获得指挥权，也不会为了晋升去熬三四个年头。他喜欢自己的职业，最近他钟情于研究海军的早期历史。他此来纽约是为去图书馆查找史料中的一些缺失环节，以便分析迦太基作为海上强国的盛衰。为靠近他需要查阅的书籍，他将投宿在华盛顿广场周边两三个街区内的一家旅馆里。

他在旅馆登记时，接待员上下颠倒地看着他签名，彬彬有礼地说：“很抱歉，斯通先生，我们无法为你提供更好的房间，只能把你安排在六楼。你看，房间全被南部和西部的客商占满了，他们已经发现纽约是全国最好的避暑胜地。我尽量为你做最好的安排，也就是给你一个临街的房间，带浴室的。”

“那就很好。”斯通回答。

“前面的！”接待员喊道，“带斯通先生上三一三。”

这位海军军官来到三一三房间时已将近六点钟。他打开窗户，俯视下面的街道。即使在那个高度也能感觉到热气从石铺人行道和对面的砖墙蒸腾出来。在他听来，仿佛这座都市的巨大轰鸣上传到他耳朵里时是被热气捂住了的、隔远了的。他点燃一支雪茄，探出窗外，寻思整座城里有多少人跟他有过一面之缘，又有寥寥几个能叫出他的名字。

从西边吹来一阵潮热的风，吹动了远在他下方的行道树茂密而蒙灰的树枝。他扔掉抽了一半的雪茄。洗完冷水澡后，他神清气爽地下楼去餐厅。

餐厅领班招呼他入座的那张桌子边已经坐了一个男子，一个高大、英俊的年轻人，约莫二十五岁。斯通喜欢那张面孔，也喜欢那法兰绒衬衫使脖颈全然不受拘束的剪裁样式。那朴素的围巾怎样打结及其两端怎样塞进衬衫他也注意到了。他还看见那年轻人坚持把他的黑色阔边软帽带进餐厅，挂在了旁边椅子的椅背上。这座位给了斯通之后，帽子立即被转移到帽主另一侧的椅子上。斯通认定他的邻座是个牧场工之类的人，是来东部办事的。

没花多长时间两个孤单的男人就熟识了。还没吃完嫩玉米，斯通就对他的同桌邻座了解得一清二楚，邻座也得知了一些关于他的事。

“你进来的时候我就打量你了，”年轻人说，“我一眼就看出你有来头。不知怎的，我料你就是山姆大叔的儿子[65]，当然啦，我料不到你是水手。我从没见过水手，直到今儿早上，我下到码头去打听轮船图赖讷[66]号的消息，才看见一个水手，是法国人，跟你不像，半点儿不像。我估摸着，喏，山姆大叔的水手跟他的其他儿子一样，我常在老家看见他们。那边有不是坏蛋的荷兰人，我还见过靠得住的拉丁佬，有时是墨西哥佬，时不常地——虽说他们是大老粗，但还是可以信赖的——可山姆大叔的儿子每回都是白人。”

小伙子名叫克莱·马格鲁德。正如斯通所料，他是个牛仔，此来纽约是要完成一项对自己至关重要的使命。他在等候他想娶的那个姑娘，她预计在次日早上乘那艘法国轮船抵达。

“这儿的吃食还不赖，是吧？”就餐行将结束时，马格鲁德说，“当然跟我们在家吃的不一样喽。自打我跟佩蒂格鲁老头混，我在哪儿吃的牛肉都赶不上我们这两年弄到的牛肉。哈什刀公司[67]一直有道儿上最好的伙食。这是它臭名昭著的地方。纽约这儿的东西够好了，可是这儿的味道抓不住你，不像在家似的。而且东部的咖啡是糟烂货，是不？咖啡该有的苦味都没有。”

用餐过后，他们走进旅馆的吸烟室，斯通拿出一支雪茄递给他的新朋友。

“不抽，谢谢，”对方说着从裤兜里掏出一个欧石楠木的小烟斗，“我对雪茄不大感冒。我觉着，我能从烟斗里抽出更实在的舒坦。”他装满烟斗，吸了五六口，然后冷不丁地对斯通说：“嘿！今晚城里有什么演出吗？我今晚得空儿，你知道，而且我老听人说，纽约为了吸引眼球能把什么都给亮出来。你以前来过这地方，是不？”

斯通承认这不是他第一次造访纽约。

“我就觉着是，”克莱·马格鲁德说，“那这儿的路你熟啊，我就不熟。这里交叉口太多，老把我拐带跑了。咱俩一起去看演出怎么样？——要是城里有演出的话。”

斯通买了一份晚报，查阅文娱活动一览表。他在琢磨什么最合这位新朋友的口味。

“这里有朽木迪克的狂野西部展，在尼布罗——”他开口说。

“朽木迪克？”牛仔十分不屑地打断，“他是作秀的，就会作秀。他是个骗子，就是骗子一个。咱们今晚能看的只有他了吗？”

“噢不，”水手回答，“还有半打别的东西可看呢。花园剧院有一场喜歌剧，之后在屋顶花园还有一台综艺节目。”

“喜歌剧——有唱歌、有逗乐，还有漂亮姑娘，猜得可对？”西部牛仔说，“我觉着咱们不如去那儿看看——除非你愿意去别的地方。”

“喜歌剧和屋顶花园正合我意。”斯通回答。

他们幸运地得到两个好座位，抵达剧院时，正赶上幕布徐徐上升，《耐心》[68]第一幕开演了。尽管时值盛夏，斯通新朋友的装束还是吸引了一些人的关注，坐在他们后排的一群漂亮姑娘在他入座时用胳膊肘互相轻推，哧哧地笑。瞧着这么英俊的男人，她们心里乐开了花。

第一幕演出时，马格鲁德的脸成了斯通的研究对象。很明显，牛仔完全无法理解《耐心》所蕴含的精致且孤立的讽刺。幕布终于落下时，他忍无可忍了。

“我从没看过这么傻的演出，”他说，“纯属瞎编乱造，一个家伙那样就能迷倒一群姑娘也太离谱了。这是我多少多少年来看过的最最愚蠢的演出。简直跟朽木迪克一样烂。《耐心》，是叫这名吧？好，我一点儿耐心都没了，实在看不下去了。你跟我说的屋顶花园啥样？”

于是斯通带他上屋顶花园，他们很高兴再次来到户外，楼顶上同样是热气灼人。他们一边听音乐一边喝酒、抽烟。

小舞台上的综艺节目开演时，斯通及时赶到前面去给马格鲁德和他自己占好位置。前面的节目里有一首法语歌，由一个花枝招展、戴一顶大帽子的年轻姑娘演唱。

“这首歌不错，”牛仔断言，“可她唱的是哪门子的外国话呀？明明白白的美国话怎么就不好用来唱歌呢？不过她倒是个漂亮姑娘，舞步也轻快。”

令克莱·马格鲁德激赏不已的节目是埃洛伊丝小姐的蛇舞。当他目睹那优雅的年轻女子舞动卷曲的裙摆，舞出美丽如画、出人意料的回旋盘绕，被投射在舞台上的不停变色的聚光灯映照得异彩纷呈时，他的兴致上来了。

“真厉害！”他大叫，“让我想起有一次在夏延[69]看一个意大利姑娘跳舞。她也是个美人儿，但这个更厉害。毫无疑问，这个可是厉害多了。”

马格鲁德附和众人的叫好，演员照例应声返场，重演舞蹈的一部分。也许是出于这个原因，他对接下来的两三个节目都不大感兴趣。总之，牛仔和水手两个都看腻了娱乐表演。于是他们穿过拥挤的人群，下楼来到街上。

他俩走回旅馆时，马格鲁德告诉斯通是什么风把他吹到纽约的。那就是去迎接预计次日早上抵达的图赖讷号，并说服其中一个乘客嫁给他。

“她一定得嫁给我，”他认真地说，“没她我再也过不下去了。她算是在佩蒂格鲁老头的姐姐家当家教——教小孩读书和弹钢琴。去年冬天他们都在迈尔斯城[70]，那是我第一次见到她。我立马当场下决心，克莱·马格鲁德太太就是她了，如果我能追到她。我这次来就是为追到她，如果我能的话。她美得像一张画——比画还美，我还从没见过有她一半好看的彩印画呢。去年冬天有一回差点刮起暴风雪，反正那风刮得是鬼哭狼嚎。你该看看她当时的样子，看看她脸蛋是啥颜色！所有东西都冻得硬邦邦的，她就怕摔跟头。哎哟，她摇摇晃晃地走路，活像一只喝醉了的母鸡。”他一想起来就哈哈大笑，“她明早就到了，你会见到她。明天，我要一大清早就下到码头去，哪个法国水手也甭想拦着我。”

他们快走到旅馆时，马格鲁德说：“嘿！这附近不能没有酒馆吧？进去陪我喝一杯。”

斯通跟他去了，他们举杯祝那年轻姑娘身体健康，马格鲁德细数她的迷人之处，畅想婚后降临到他的幸福。然后他们穿过马路进旅馆，上楼回房间。

巧得很，克莱·马格鲁德的房间正对着约翰·斯通的房间，于是他俩就站在各自的门前亲切地握手道别，互祝晚安。

水手发现屋里的空气很闷。他将窗户大敞，在窗前站了一会儿，俯瞰这座热烘烘的城市在他周围、在暗夜中躺卧。他想知道马格鲁德到东部来迎见的那位姑娘长什么样，他发觉自己有点羡慕那个牛仔。然后他下意识地叹了口气，准备上床睡觉。给手表上弦的时候，他发现已经快十一点半了。五分钟后，他睡着了。

他好像觉得才睡了五分钟，就慢慢醒过来，呼吸有点困难，感觉不大对劲。他仍睡意朦胧，但意识到一种像干树枝折断似的噼啪声。他睁开眼睛，顿时觉得双眼刺痛。吸入的第一口长气把稀薄的烟填满他的肺，他一下子完全清醒了。噼啪作响的意味确定无疑：旅馆着火了。

他从床上跳下来，打开房门。走廊里全是烟，燃烧的声音更响了。楼梯所在的走廊拐弯处，锋利的火舌正舔着拐角。斯通看出撤退的路被切断了，他必须依赖窗户逃生。他来到对门，咚咚地砸门，还大喊：“着火啦！着火啦！赶快起床！”直喊到克莱·马格鲁德应门。他脚下的走廊地板很热，这时他回到自己的房间，关上门，以最快的速度穿上衣服，火的低吟越来越近了。

他刚穿好衬衫就再次步入走廊，叫对门的马格鲁德。

对面的门开了，牛仔在门里现身，半裸着。

“楼梯着火了，”斯通大叫，“咱们没法从那儿下楼。必须想办法从窗户出去。拿上你的床单和毯子，到我屋来。”

“要是手头有两条套索就好了。”马格鲁德说着回去拿床单。

此时走廊里的烟气很重，令人窒息，拐角处的楼梯成了熊熊燃烧的大火炉。一缕缕的烟从走廊地板各处冒上来。

牛仔重新出现在自己的房门口，怀里抱满铺盖。

“快上这儿来，我好关上这扇门，挡住浓烟。”水手说着退后一步让出门道。

当马格鲁德踏出自己的房间时，走廊的地板咔嚓一声塌了，炽热的裂口在两屋之间大张着。斯通尽力倾身向前，试图搭救他的新朋友。但地板下陷太突然，马格鲁德掉进下方熊熊燃烧的熔炉里，火焰从炉里往上蹿得很凶。须臾之间，他就消失在沸腾的炉火中。斯通呆呆地站了片刻，俯身趴在炽烧的窟窿上，伸长胳膊直到被火烤焦才作罢。然后他迅速起身，进屋关门。

他自己的房间现在满是浓烟，他知道不消一分钟，房门就会起火。他打开窗户往下看，一眼看出单靠他的铺盖是无济于事的，顶多能将他缒下两层，而此时火已经烧到楼的正面。他发现，这层楼板边缘有一条凸出的窄檐顺着外墙延伸。他跨出窗口踩到檐子上，在身后关上窗户。就在这时，火焰破门而入，从走廊蹿进他的房间。

窗外的窄檐给了他立锥之地，他站在上面看见右侧前方是他原来没有注意到的东西——一座带有发光表盘的高高的钟楼。指针显示此时午夜已过四分钟。从下面的街上传来乱哄哄的噪声——呼来喝去的喊叫声、消防车赶来时笨重的轱辘嘎嘎的转动声、水泵运作时有规律的节拍声，十几股水流向上弯着猛攻燃烧的大楼时冒出的咝咝蒸汽声。行道树的枝叶太茂密了，斯通无法瞧见正下方的人行道，而那些负责救火的人显然也没看见他。

水手以前面对过死亡——他在海上多次经历大风大浪，他曾在萨摩亚遭遇飓风，还有一次在比斯开湾落水一个小时——他不怕死。他回想当时的感觉——确信自己快要淹死时的感觉，他想起当时的主导想法就是：彼时彼地的那样一种死亡是不必要且毫无意义的。那一次的情况，他或多或少是被动的，与海浪搏击耗尽了体力。现在他身强力壮，准备为活命而奋战。当时他不得不与水搏斗，而此时他知道，水是他的大救星。

就在这时，远远地从下方街道上传来一阵更大的喧闹声：喷水塔来了。它被迅速竖立起来并开始工作，它的长鼻子将一股粗壮的水流强行喷入火光熊熊的旅馆，距离斯通站的位置大约五十英尺。他看着它喷水，然后抬起眼睛，再次捕捉到发光的表盘，上面的指针显示此时午夜已过七分钟。

斯通不知道消防员能否制服烈焰。他心存疑虑，但他希望自己能加入战斗。最令他心焦的不是他的处境十分可怕，而是他孤立无援。他处于危险之中，而那危险随着每一分钟的耽搁持续加剧，可他毫无办法。他站立的檐子将将一英尺宽，大概十英尺长。檐子的长度等于房间的宽度，房间超出大楼主体墙一码多远。斯通小心翼翼地向右挪，一直来到檐子尽头，希望它继续沿侧面延伸，自己好顺着它溜过旅馆的整个正面，也许还能找条路逃到邻楼的房顶上。

可是希望落空了，因为窄檐在转折后越缩越窄，直缩到仅仅一英寸宽。水手惯于在不稳固的高处立足，此时他心神镇定，但他知道试图往那个方向前进无疑是送死。他把后背紧贴在墙壁上，向窗口溜过去，窗户被满屋子的火焰照得透亮。他赶紧挨过窗口来到左边直至檐子的左头，发现这一侧的檐子也像那一侧似的缩没了。他觉得自己像个囚犯，被牢牢困住，几乎没有获救的希望。向右向左都动弹不得，背后是熊熊燃烧的旅馆墙壁，面前是与下方街道的六十英尺之高的落差。他向下扫了一眼，然后抬起头来。右方远处是那座钟楼，现在是十二点零九分。他怀疑那钟突然停了，因为他觉得从醒来发现自己有生命危险到现在都快过去一个小时了。

他思念马格鲁德，他不知道为什么前途充满希望和喜乐的人竟断送了性命，而生活没什么盼头的人竟获得一线生机。牛仔已葬身火海，这是确定无疑的。一瞬间，思绪带着他跳出这危急关头，他仿佛看见图赖讷号劈波斩浪驶过桑迪胡克[71]，渐渐靠近斯塔腾岛[72]，在那里停船下锚，那边离城太远，乘客看不见炫目的火光。然而，这场大火还是远观为妙，只听一声沉闷的轰响，旅馆一翼的屋顶塌了。万千火花冲天炸，街上的人群高声呼喊，发出警告。斯通俯视，看见下面那层楼的一个窗口有个女人，她吓得尖叫不停，最后她发狂地纵身一跃。他眼睁睁看她压断树枝坠落下去，听见她的身体撞在人行道上。人群发出一阵骇然的惊叫，然后是沉默。几秒钟后，斯通听见当当当的急响，是巷子里的救护车的铃声。他不由自主地数着铃响了多少下，直到声音渐渐消失在远方。为了捕捉这个声音，他竖着耳朵仔细听，竟听见一列火车隆隆地停靠进仅仅一条街之外的高架铁路站台，他甚至听见刹车片摩擦车轮发出的尖厉的吱吱声。然后他回过神来，奇怪自己怎么竟去注意这等琐事。他转过头，发现钟楼的那只独眼依然在朝他放光。他傻乎乎地眨眨眼，这才看出此时是十二点十三分。

更多的消防车已经赶到下方的街道上，又来了一辆云梯车。几架小梯子已竖立在低层的窗户边，妇女儿童被安全地救下来。斯通观看消防员架设梯子，他们试图竖起一架有可能抵达三四层楼的高梯。然而行道树的枝叶太茂密，他们发现无法把这长长的梯子架设到位。于是一个人奉命上树，在他砍树枝的时候，火焰从最近的窗口喷薄而出。一股急流马上被导向那窗口，与此同时另一股水流溅落在树冠上，形成一个保护消防员的水罩，此人还在奋力砍枝子。他动作很快，但火势更快。几乎在同一时刻，火焰从低层的另外三四个窗口迸射出来。

斯通一直在关注下方人员的一举一动。起初没人看见他，但当那人砍掉一些树杈之后，两三个消防员瞥见了水手的身影。他们冲他大喊，然而大火在他背后和身下怒吼，使他听不清他们的话。一位长官突发命令，两个人扛着短云梯向前冲，成功地把梯子固定在二楼窗口，就在他所站檐子的正下方。居高临下，他能看见这些爬梯人的头顶，他们的身体则由于透视关系看不出来。人们无法上至二层以上，因为火焰呼呼地往外冒，仿佛窗口就是地狱之门。乌黑的浓烟升腾上来，把斯通裹在其中。

他看出来，指望他们马上就能把梯子架到他身边是没戏了，火焰不会给他们时间。他背后的墙变得越来越烫，高温已经炸碎房间的窗玻璃。火势正沿着他头上的屋顶蔓延，火苗时不时地蹿出屋檐向他窥探，仿佛在看还要行多远才能抓到他。下面冒上来的烟越来越浓，威胁着要呛死他。透过浓烟，他能看到独眼巨人似的钟楼瞪着那只眼幸灾乐祸地瞧着他。发光表盘上的指针已经慢慢爬过一段距离，此时将近十二点二十分。

斯通知道他的阵地守不住多久了。墙壁随时可能垮塌，把他埋葬在炽烧的废墟中。原地不动不是办法，逃又无路可逃。轰的一声震动了大楼，接着又是一声，他估计有两层楼板坍塌了。他再次溜到窄檐尽头，试图绕过转角窥看，隐约希望那里有可行的逃生之路。他发现后背平贴墙壁时不可能把头扭得足够远。转身则有坠落在下方人行道上的危险。他毫不畏惧地往下看，盘算如果失足跌落，生还的概率有多大。位于他正下方的那棵树比别的树更高，枝叶也更密，树杈或许能勉勉强强阻断他的跌落，但是生还的希望渺茫。浓烟从离他三英尺的窗口滚滚涌出。他不再犹豫，而是慢慢地、稳稳地转身。他心神镇定，安全完成姿态变换。此时他面朝墙壁——笔直耸立的墙壁没有给他手抓的地方——他能将头侧向探出，绕过转角张望。眼前的景象让他心头一颤，顿生希望。

他的房间超出主体墙大约一码，形成一个所谓的方形凸窗。他立足的那种大理石窄檐在旅馆正面的每一层都有，他认为可以从檐子上探身碰到大楼的主体墙。唯一可行的逃生之路就在这里。在凸窗与主体墙连接的拐角处有一条从楼顶导流雨水的管道，是镀锡铁皮管，水手怀着蓬勃的希望定睛打量它：它看起来挺脆弱，不牢固，也许已经腐烂。但它提供了一线生机，唯一的一线生机，因此它是值得拥抱的。斯通准备充分利用它。

迈出不可撤回的那一步之前，斯通最后扫了一眼周围。他瞥见那面钟，看出现在午夜已过二十二分钟。他向前探身，发现空当比他原想的更宽。他将将能用手指尖碰到铁皮管，它超出了他的抓握范围，可只有抓住它才能下到路面上。他没有犹豫。他左脚立在檐子尽头，右脚悬在空中。他小心把握分寸向前一扑，左手紧抓管子，右手立即跟上。管子突然受力，弯曲变形，但没有断裂。出于水手的习惯，他把双腿盘在管子上，减轻了压力。然后他开始慢慢地往下滑，越滑速度越快。

每一层上都有一条石檐子，就像他刚才在窗外立足的那一条，铁皮管穿檐而过。这时斯通不得不松开脚，只用手紧抓管壁，管子被他的身体坠得离开墙面。之后他在檐子下方再次扣紧双腿，松开一只手，再松开另一只。铁皮到处都是破口和尖刺，斯通的筋肉被深深割伤，深达骨头。可他在速降的紧张过程中并没有注意到伤势。

他下到一楼并试图重新扣紧双腿时，却发现双膝无着无落。原来从那里直至与排水沟相连，管线是在楼里走的。斯通双手扒着檐子吊在空中，不知道自己离人行道有多远。浓烟穿过他身下的地窖格栅腾腾地往上冒，不出一分钟他就会窒息。于是他松了手。

坠落高度有十英尺多，他落到一只被抛出窗口的箱子上，又从箱子摔到人行道上，一条腿骨折，一侧肩膀脱臼。他朦胧地意识到被人轻轻抬起，又经过一段短暂却痛苦的旅程。他觉得救护车铃尖厉的当当声仿佛在敲击他的肉体。

再次醒来时已是第二天早晨，他躺在床上，床在一间长屋子里，屋子两侧各有一排简易床，阳光斜照进来。

他静静地躺着，诧异着。

邻床的占用者正在展开一张报纸，斯通听他操着阿尔萨斯[73]口音对护士说：“今天又是个大热天；不知图赖讷号上恁些刚从巴黎回来的人可受得住不？”

（1892年）

[64] 白舰队（White Squadron）：又叫“大白舰队”。1907年在西奥多·罗斯福总统的倡导下，美国海军组建了由十六艘战列舰组成的舰队，因舰体均被漆成白色而得名“白舰队”。白舰队进行了历时十四个月的环球航行，确立了美国的海上强国地位。（译注）

[65] 山姆大叔的儿子（Uncle Sam's boys）：指美国军人。（译注）

[66] 图赖讷（Touraine）：法国旧行省名。（译注）

[67] 哈什刀公司（Hash-k——ife Outfit）：阿兹特克畜牧公司（Aztec Land & Cattle Company，1884—1902）的别称。公司标志形似哈什刀——流动炊事车上的一种用具。该公司牛仔以偷牲口、劫火车、枪战而闻名。（译注）

[68] 《耐心》（Patience）:由英国作曲家阿瑟·萨利文（Arthur Sullivan,1842—1900）和英国剧作家威廉·吉尔伯特（William Gilbert,1836—1911）创作的两幕喜歌剧。（译注）

[69] 夏延（Cheyenne）:美国怀俄明州首府。（译注）

[70] 迈尔斯城(Miles City):位于美国蒙大拿州东部。（译注）

[71] 桑迪胡克（Sandy Hook）:美国新泽西州东部伸入大西洋的半岛。（译注）

[72] 斯塔腾岛(Staten Island)：位于美国纽约州南端的纽约湾中，现属于纽约市下辖一区，与曼哈顿岛距离较远。（译注）

[73] 阿尔萨斯（Alsacian）：位于法国东北边境，曾被德国吞并。（译注）

9
中央公园

这是九月的最后一个星期日，蔚蓝的天穹笼盖公园，秋高气爽，万里无云。午后烈日高悬。忽而一阵飘游的风毫无预兆地吹来，徘徊片刻，吹颤了露台下喷泉里水生植物的阔叶。林荫道上方的小丘上，男男女女正在娱乐场里吃吃喝喝，有些坐在又脏又暗、杂乱无章的建筑物里，有些坐在室外的小桌旁，小桌呈曲线排列，放置在花哨的遮阳篷下，篷子遮蔽了从餐厅门口曲折延伸出去的宽阔步道。短号闹喳喳的伴奏声从下方人群密集处的露天音乐台传来，吹的是《夏日最后的玫瑰》。连漫步林里也都是人，在黄褐色的树下寻觅幽僻角落的年轻夫妇常常被迫与外人分享他们的长椅。渐红的枫树下，单身汉懒洋洋地扎堆儿躺在草地上，或者默然独坐于叽喳说笑的众家庭之间。

人们来自五湖四海，都不慌不忙。绝大多数是和善的有钱人。这里见不到一个乞丐，这里没有触目的贫困。这里有的是吃得好、穿得好的一家之主，带着妻子，带着儿媳，带着孙子孙女。穿黑长裙、系白围裙的女佣推着婴儿车。姑娘们成群结队地痴笑、闲聊。小伙子们三三两两地倚在湖桥边上，吸着烟，交换着意见。这里有一种欣欣向荣的大气氛在阳光里欢快地自我炫耀，这座大都市的苦难、匮乏、绝望被统统留在了背后，抛在了脑后。

一个魁梧的德国人，双手各拉着一个小男孩，最小的三儿子在前面骑着父亲的拐杖。两三码之后走来两个瘦削的日本绅士，矮小枯黄地衬在剪裁得体的外套和长裤里。后面跟着一群黑白混血女孩，臂挽臂嬉笑着，身穿人所共识的文明装，同样显得不伦不类，与之形成鲜明反差的是六个慢慢走过、好奇地打量她们的意大利男女：男人穿着破旧的橄榄色棉绒裤子，耳朵上戴着金耳环，女人穿着色彩鲜艳的裙子，披着绣花围巾。步行道与马车道相交的地方站着一个长相平庸但胖乎乎挺喜兴的爱尔兰女人，三十岁的样子。她怀里抱着一个婴儿，一个不到三岁的小女孩紧紧抓住她的打补丁的花裙子。她左手提着盛有苹果、香蕉和葡萄的果篮在兜售。另外两个孩子，均在六岁以下，在她的裙子边玩耍，还有两个孩子，一男一女，都在她的视野之内——女孩大约十岁，自己拎一个盛满棕色薄圆饼的篮子。那男孩肯定不到十三，手上捧着一个木箱，里面塞满成卷的润喉糖，用红黄绿各色纸张包裹出售。时不时地，母亲或其中一个孩子卖出一件东西给去听音乐的路人。较小的孩子们嘻嘻哈哈地看一只灰松鼠轻盈地跃起，在小路后面的草地上弹跳，用水平的大尾巴平衡身体。

宽阔的车道像任何一条步道一样拥挤。骑自行车的人穿着白运动衫和黑长袜三五成群地费力骑行，向前俯身在车把上。嘴角叼着雪茄的政客们勒住不耐烦的小跑马。园内公共马车满载妇女儿童在露台前停靠片刻，便又继续绕行湖边。破旧的老式四轮双座马车载着从酒店来的外地人慢腾腾地行驶。时而一辆双轮双座马车闯入视野，一对年轻夫妇衬在前部的车厢里，车夫高踞其后。时而一辆双轮倒座马车颠簸而来，高座上，一个英国长相的年轻人在赶车，跟乘客背靠背。这里那里还有其他私人马车——轿式马车和敞篷马车居多，间或有一驾驷马车轰隆轰隆地碾过坚实的路面。

一辆时髦的维多利亚式折篷马车飞驰而过，整洁簇新，挽具亮晶晶，钢链叮叮当，一双强壮的铁灰色高头大马并驾齐驱，两个男人漠然端坐于驾驶座上。突然，当马车接近露台末端的步道时，车夫猛地勒马停车，拉得马儿后腿站立，还低声咒骂那胖乎乎的爱尔兰妇女，她及时扔下果篮，救她的一个孩子免于被马车碾轧。

“你们该当心点！”母亲大叫，这时她重新站上步道，女儿紧搂着她的腰。

“非常抱歉，真对不起，”马车里的女士向前探身说，“这是一个意外。”

“一个意外，是吗？”爱尔兰妇女回敬，“是一个意外，不过，要是你自己的孩子像那样给轧过去，你就不愿意了。”

车厢内无儿无女的夫妇对视了一小会儿，然后丈夫冷不丁地说：“走吧，约翰！”

丈夫是个五十岁男人，身材瘦高，削肩膀。他敏锐地扫了一眼，一丝倦怠的笑容在唇边浮现又消失，未曾被稀疏的灰髭遮掩。他的妻子约莫三十岁，高个儿，黑发，有一双热情的眼睛和一副丰腴的身段。

当马车北转沿湖边飞驰的时候，她仍然身体前倾，紧抓车厢侧板。当她转回脸对丈夫说话时，她的声音表明激动的情绪尚未平复：“约翰越来越不小心。这是他一星期里第三次差点撞到小孩！”

“他还没真撞上一个。等他撞到了，还有足够的时间打发他。”丈夫平静地回答，“那个小女孩虽然受了惊吓，但毫发无损。她似乎是个漂亮的小家伙，她得救了，养在廉租房里长上十年再堕落下去。所以她妈妈有理由心存感激。”

他的妻子愤愤地看着他。“我猜，”她说，“你的意思是，约翰没有撞到那孩子并把她轧死真是可惜了。”

“我并不完全是那意思，”他回答，“但也差不离。死并不是这世界上最糟糕的事，你知道。”

“你总是说到死，”年轻的妻子不耐烦地回敬，“你倒是没自杀。”

“我想过，”他回答，带着宽厚的微笑望着她，“可生活依然令我好奇——我的好奇心太强了，你知道。但我有可能这么做，如果我确定我能有幸回来看一看我走以后你会怎么过。”

她直视前方没有作答，嘴唇抿得紧紧的。

他继续说话的时候，语气里有一抹柔情，一种奇怪的玩世不恭的柔情，相当有他的特点。“别让哪个无赖为了我的钱娶你，这会叫我生气的，我承认。可是，我也不知道为什么要提出这样一种可能性，因为你会是一位非常迷人的寡妇。”

她定定地凝视前方，默不作声，但她已把双手交叉起来，手指动个不停。

“不过，”他继续说，“恐怕我还有十来年活头呢。我们家族血脉强健，你知道。我父亲活到八十，他五十生的我。而且，你总是把我照顾得这么好。”

他把手伸给她，她接过他的手，紧扣进自己的双手，泪水盈满她的双眼。

“但也许今天下午你让我在外面待得太久了，”他说，“天儿暖和，我知道，但我已经累了。”

“约翰，”她赶忙喊道，“现在可以掉头了，我们回家。”

“我不想让你浪费掉这个可爱的九月下午，”丈夫说，“带我回家，然后再来公园逛一个小时，我在家睡一小觉，如果睡得着的话。”

就在这时，车流出现空当，车夫趁机拨转马头向南。五分钟后，马车向西偏转，离湖而去，直奔滨河大道。

湖上船儿多，洋溢着欢乐。黑色贡多拉罩着白色船篷，插着绚丽的美国国旗，由站立的船夫熟练地驱动。轻巧的小舟被轻快地划进划出水湾和水道，那里有鸭子和天鹅在懒散地游弋。小伙子穿着衬衫吃力地划桨，手划船里坐满姑娘。公园船工划动带有条纹遮阳篷的宽敞游船，一招一式轻松自如，以规定线路绕行湖面。船桨在闪烁的阳光下一晃一晃，轻舟在远景中掠过，阳光给远处的船头镀金。枫树矗立在湖对岸，黄色的枫叶乘着无定的微风飘散，终于无精打采地落入水中。西边，一栋公寓楼高高耸立在公园边缘，仿佛缩短了二者之间的距离。东边，一座新的犹太教堂的金色圆顶冒出树冠。一切之上是平静无垠的蓝色天穹。

当那辆二夫并驾、一双高头大马齐驱的折篷马车返回公园，再次绕湖而行，接近露台的时候，只有那位女士独坐车中。一看见林荫道，她就向前探身，急切地寻找半小时前他们差点撞到的那个小姑娘。

在露台附近，她看见那个长相喜兴的爱尔兰妇女，她一手提果篮，一手抱婴儿，三个幼童在母亲脚边玩耍，年长的男孩和女孩都只离她几码远。

马车里的孤单女人吩咐车夫停下。

看见马车停靠在路边，爱尔兰女人走上前来兜售水果。这时她认出那位女士，犹豫着止步不前。

车厢里的美人笑了，说：“哪个是我们差点撞到的小女孩？”

“这个就是，”母亲指着一个小瘦孩儿回答，孩子正扒着果篮边，睁圆了眼睛盯着这位陌生女士。

“真是个小可人儿！”女士说，“让她受惊了，但愿她没有大碍吧？”

“骨头一根都没断，如果你说的是这意思。”母亲回答。

“她几岁了？”她又问。

“到圣诞节就三岁了。”对方回答。

车厢里的女士摸索口袋，掏出钱包，打开翻找。

“给，”她终于说，同时拿出一枚五美元的金币，“我希望你能在圣诞节一早给她这个，就算我送的礼物。好吗？”

“好呀，”母亲答应着接过钱，“乐意着呢。她马上就比姐姐妹妹都有钱啦。”

“你有几个孩子？”女士询问。

“六个。谢谢夫人关心，”对方回答，“还都健健康康的。”

“六个？”马车里的女人重复着，眼里闪现一丝渴望，“你有六个孩子？”

“是有六个，”母亲回答，“而且他们归里包堆是群好孩子，虽然我不该这么说。”

女士又把手伸进钱包。

“拿这个给其他孩子买点东西，”她说着把一张钞票放进爱尔兰女人手里。然后，她提高嗓门吩咐道：“可以走了，约翰！”

随着马车隆隆地向西驶去，水果小贩屈膝行礼，孩子们都兴致勃勃地目送马车远去。

“那位女士一定非常有钱，”兜售润喉糖的长子说，“就算她有两百万美元我也不奇怪！”

“她一定非常幸福，”长女补充道，“我猜她每天都能吃冰淇淋，还能什么时候想去就去海滨之家住上两个星期。”

“她总归有颗善良的心，虽然她很有钱，”母亲议论道，这时她展开钞票，看见角上印的罗马数字X。

此时，折篷马车正在朗朗晴空下的灿烂阳光里飞驰，而车厢里的女士却心中作苦。

“六个孩子！”她自言自语，“那爱尔兰女人有六个孩子！为什么有些女人这么有福气？”

（1893年）

10
晚宴演讲

宴会的非实物部分即将开始。众宾客用餐完毕，侍者正往小杯里斟满黑咖啡，并递过来一盒盒雪茄和香烟。五张长桌排布在大厅里，桌边嗡嗡的谈话声越来越响。一张短桌支在大厅西端的舞台上，桌边却几乎无声，因为即将发言的人知道演讲时刻迫近了。乐师隐在绿色植物隔断后面，正在演奏流行新曲集锦。下面的长桌上，这儿一丛那儿一簇的食客时不时放声合唱一曲，发泄阵阵精力，逗乐了众佳丽，她们鱼贯而入并迅速充满宽大的楼座包厢。

晚宴的组织者觉得这是一次盛会，并力图将会场布置得美轮美奂，令人难忘。比例匀称的音乐厅的煞白之色因观叶植物聚散分布恰到好处而有所缓和；一盆盆棕榈树衬在雕有女像柱的纯白墙体前面；五彩缤纷的丝绸条幅从天花板垂下；天花板上、墙壁上、包厢上、舞台上，到处都有闪闪发光的电灯泡，把这座高敞的大厅照得亮堂堂。

靠近一张长桌的东头坐着一个年轻人——最多三十岁。他的位置刚好将整个场面尽收眼底，视线不受阻挡直达台上那张桌子，演讲者都在那儿专注地沉思。他守着对面楼座的入口，能看见女士成群结队地进来，渴盼着这种罕有的出席盛大宴会的乐趣。他能听见女人的叽叽喳喳越发尖厉，高过了下面男人的唠唠叨叨。他好奇地盯着那些包厢，好像不认识其中任何一位女士。当周围的食客在长桌另一头与这间或那间包厢的占用者互致问候的时候，他仍保持静默。显然即使在大厅底层，他熟识的人也寥寥无几，左邻右座基本上都在跟各自的邻座交谈。

他的孤独似乎不难承受，在他津津有味地观察这场盛会时就排遣掉了。他点燃自己的雪茄，很快就在协助制造那笼罩长桌的蓝色烟雾，烟气及时升腾，几乎达到与长长的楼座包厢平齐的高度。

然而他并不反感交谈，当他的右侧邻座回身拾起一支新的香烟时，他趁机搭讪：“让女士们出席这种晚宴在纽约可不寻常，是吧？”

“是，”右邻带着轻微但明显的德国口音回答，“我想是不寻常。我在纽约已经身（生）活很窘（久）了——快十一年了——我还从没见过这种场面。”

右邻既已点燃香烟，就又向后靠在椅子上，转去跟另一侧的人续谈中断的话题。

这位明显是初来乍到的年轻人得以保持沉默，但是才过了一两分钟，他的左侧邻座就跟他攀谈上了，而吃晚餐时他并没跟这位邻座说过几句话。

“我想他们是该撤了，”邻座指着正将橘树盆景和糖制奖杯从台上短桌撤走的侍者说，“现在咱们能看见谁是谁了。”

“我估计那些都是贵客。”年轻人揣测。

“大多数要发言的人都在那上面，”邻座回答，“哟呵，哟呵！坐在那一头的是亚历山大·麦格雷戈，就是留大红胡子的那个。他是圣安得烈协会[74]的主席。也是个一流的美国人，虽然他出生在爱丁堡。你知道，他就是所谓的‘星条旗苏格兰人’。”

“坐在他旁边的那个脸刮得干干净净、长得白白净净的金发男人是谁？”年轻人问。

“哪个？”邻座应道，“那是——呃，我忘了他叫什么了——不过他是圣乔治协会[75]的主席，想来是他。他是个英国人——确切地说，他曾经是。我估计他已经入美国籍了——不过话说回来，你永远摸不透英国人，不是吗？他们会在一个地方生活很多年，而他们骨子里始终是英国人。”

“那位大会主席是谁？”年轻人再度发问。

“你连他都不认识？”邻座责问，“嘿呀，他就是克劳宁希尔德·艾略特，大律师。他当过新英格兰协会[76]的主席。他是个聪明人，有时候演讲好得呱呱叫，不过他相当没准儿。他可能讲得精彩，也可能失态说错话。听他发言就像摸奖——你哪儿知道会得着什么。不过有他在就不会冷场，我跟你说，你就等着瞧他把别的演讲者都调动起来吧。我猜散场之前咱们能过把瘾，一下子看见这么多纽约的头面人物可不是常事，真是一场盛会啊！”

年轻人对这番话未做回应，心下正忙着暗自嘲讽呢。

“瞧那儿，那位是一有机会就要大吵大闹的，”喋喋不休的邻座继续道，“那个又高又瘦、一脸尊荣的人，留着黑色的山羊胡和小髭须，是费尔法克斯上校。他是南方协会的干事——全是叛军，你知道，不过现如今绝大多数都被改造了。他是地区检察官，现在是第二任，你应该听听他跟陪审团说的话。他能说动陪审团去定天使加百列[77]偷银号筒的罪。去年我在大陪审团时他就——”

年轻人的邻座自己转了话头：“哟呵，哟呵！真是怪事，不是吗？坐在费尔法克斯上校右边的正是当过我们大陪审团团长的那人。侍者要不拿走那个糖做的自由女神像，我还瞧不见他呢。看见没有？那个秃头，下巴上有道疤的，那是他在夏洛[78]落的一处枪伤。此人是S.科尔法克斯·莫里森，当过俄亥俄州第200步兵团少校团长，不过他在纽约生活起码有十年了。那就是他们津津乐道的‘俄亥俄理念’：尽快来纽约定居。鄙人就出生于俄亥俄州。”

健谈者随即让自己的滔滔言语化作一阵大笑，年轻人礼貌地附和了几声。

喧闹的话音突然减小，只见坐在台上桌子正中的那位绅士站起身，敲着桌面让大家肃静。即使在满溢着女士的包厢里，谈笑声也止住了，因为被选出来主持晚宴的人正在回顾他们集会庆祝的大事，以此作为开场白。他用巧妙的措辞和诙谐的语言宣告他们被召聚一堂的缘由。在开场白的末尾，他宣布，当晚的第一番敬酒要敬“纽约，这座踞守商业大门、把持贸易干线的帝国城”。

全场爆发出一阵掌声和一阵往后推椅子的吱嘎声，因为所有宾客都举着酒杯站了起来。

随后，大会主席准备介绍即将应和这番重要祝酒的演讲者。

“我今天上午才看见，”主席又说，“内华达州一位参议员的某些言论，在那篇报道中，纽约被称为‘风筝与乌鸦之城’。有些国会议员不散布乱七八糟的假消息就不会开口说话，只有还之以采矿营里直来直去的单刃长猎刀或者内华达州毫不含糊的大口短筒枪才是正道。在现代社会习俗允许我们使用的消过毒的词汇表里，找不到足以应对之词。然而好就好在，纽约就应该时不时地彰显自我——就应该为自己庆祝——就应该暂停繁重的劳动，哪怕只休息片刻，去欣赏自己的伟业。我们是幸运的，因为今晚的来宾中，就有一个能够恰如其分地阐述这一宏大主题的人，一个同我们大家一样深爱纽约的人，一个同我们大家一样深以纽约为骄傲的人——一个无须我在纽约人大会上介绍的人。多余的话令人生厌，在座的有谁不知道贺拉斯·昌西？”

主席话音刚落，一直坐在他右边的那位绅士就站起来，顿时大厅各处掌声雷动。男人拍手，还用水果刀刀柄敲击桌面。连包厢里的女士们也在挥动手帕。

主席职责已尽，随即落座，这时照例有预表欢欣的嗡嗡声响起并迅速止息，与此同时昌西先生准备发言。

坐在下方长桌远端的年轻人又听见左邻对他说：“现在你得睁大眼睛。要说这就是今晚的最佳演讲我也不觉得奇怪。”

年轻人打量新的演讲者，喜欢他那张透着老练和智慧的脸。昌西先生通身是一种雄强自知、泰然自若的气派。他鬓发斑白，霜髭卷曲，想来已年过半百。

“这样一个醇和的十月的夜晚，”演讲者开口，他的嗓音浑厚沉稳，他的吐字就像线雕画一般清晰——“这样一个醇和的十月的夜晚，在这个国家的其他城市或是在欧洲，我想都是找不到的，由此表明在纽约这个地方，我们拥有真正的气候，而世界上其他伟大的城市却大都只有多变的天气——在这样一个夜晚，在这座优雅的塔楼之下，你看它身姿挺拔直插碧空，冠以一轮明月，那月比笑盈盈俯望花园的以弗所人的狄安娜[79]更美，比巴比伦城上高悬的任何一轮更明，这座帝国城，无须我为她辩护，无须我为她致歉。你若是寻求她的优势的证明，就请环顾四周看看今晚在座的各位，并请记住：在美国没有别的地方能把这样一群人召聚到一起；在美国没有别的地方有如此富丽堂皇的宴会厅；在美国没有别的地方能云集如此多的佳丽来给这样一场盛宴增光添彩。但我觉得如果不花点工夫赘述一番，我就算是失职——我就会错失宝贵的良机——我要讲一讲这座城市历史上诸多事件中的几件，这些事件给了她骄傲的显赫地位，把她塑造成为之所是——拥有伟大人民的伟大壮丽的大都会。”

掌声再次爆发。演讲者稍作停顿，集中大厅里一切男女的注意力之后才继续。即使在切入主题之后，他的讲话依然字正腔圆，无懈可击，他滔滔不绝地摆事实、列数字、举例子，从来不打磕巴、不含糊。

“我不会耽搁诸位的时间来细数纽约众多的天然优势——高贵的大河流淌在一侧，大洋的长臂拥抱着另一侧，辽阔美丽的海湾足以为地球上所有国家的所有舰船提供庇护所。我今晚的目的不在于细细品味那些艺术之作，它们使我们的这座岛屿出类拔萃，一如那些自然之作使她繁荣昌盛。因此我将不去细说自由女神像、布鲁克林大桥、滨河大道、图书馆和博物馆、学校和教堂，我甚至不去细说中央公园，它实在是美国人迄今创造出的最佳艺术单品，仅作为一件艺术品，它是欧洲任何一座游乐场都无法媲美的。”

又是一阵热烈的掌声，但演讲者没等掌声平息就再度开讲。

“略过这些始终呈现在我们眼前的神与人的杰作，我将要唤起你们注意的是那些较为无形的事物——那些理应却并未铭刻于我们记忆之中的事物。安于物质繁荣，我们纽约人并不时常回顾这座城市历史上那些值得永远纪念的事件。不常有人指责我们为人谦逊——但我们是过分谦逊了，难道不是吗？——我们允许自己的孩子被教导说，革命的第一宗流血事件是波士顿惨案[80]，却忘了早在六周之前纽约就爆发了自由杆[81]之战。正是在这里，在纽约，印花税法会议[82]召开，这是美洲殖民地挣脱英国枷锁建立联邦的先导。在漫长而艰苦的革命战争时期，十三个殖民地中只有一个全额提供了人力、财力和物力——那个殖民地就是纽约！”

演讲者再一次被沸腾的喝彩声打断，他再一次不等声音平息就继续下去。

“当这个国家迎来历史上的关键期——也就是说，当所有人都觉得需要一部新宪法时，有两个纽约人对于那部宪法的制定功莫大焉，他们是亚历山大·汉密尔顿[83]和约翰·杰伊[84]，而那篇雄文的刚劲文风则要归功于另一位纽约人——古弗尼尔·莫里斯[85]。正是在纽约，美国文学之基础因《纽约外史》[86]的出版而被奠定，这部美国最早印行的书一直流行至今——八十多年的沧桑仍无损其幽默。多亏这部不朽之书的作者，多亏华盛顿·欧文，才有了第一部超越美国疆界获得公认的美国原创作品。正如华盛顿·欧文的《见闻札记》是第一部在英国获得成功的美国著作，另一位纽约市民费尼莫尔·库珀[87]的《间谍》则是第一部在英语世界之外赢得赞誉的美国著作。正是在这里，在纽约，我们的美国文学得到最早的哺育，也是在这里，在纽约，我们的美国作家人数最多，享誉最盛，收益最丰。”

演讲者再次停顿，但紧接着又说：

“文学如此，艺术亦然。在纽约这里，人们创立了国家设计学会，以及后来的美国艺术家协会[88]；感谢两位纽约的画家，感谢罗伯特·富尔顿[89]和塞缪尔·F.B.摩尔斯[90]，使我们用上汽船和电报。在纽约这里，人们创立了儿童援助协会——世上更无哪座城市拥有比它更高尚的慈善机构——它是同类的首创和最成功者。也是在纽约这里，彼得·库珀[91]创立了第一个旨在面向一切有志青年的机构——联邦地区几乎每座城市都有其效仿者，然而哪座城市也不曾有哪位公民受尊敬、受爱戴的程度甚于彼得·库珀在纽约这里。彼得·库珀其人的择居之地断乎不是‘风筝与乌鸦之城’，彼得·库珀其人备受珍重和崇敬之地断乎不是‘风筝与乌鸦之城’。”

至此，演讲又被经久不息的掌声打断了。男人纷纷起立喝彩，在头顶上挥舞餐巾。

全场再次安静下来时，演讲者继续：

“经过多年的和平与繁荣，美国人民突然发现自己正面对武装叛乱，战争迫近，在所难免。纽约一如既往地准备着。第一支抵达国家首都——保卫其免受叛军袭击的军团是纽约城市民兵的一个团。自此之后这座城市也不乏这样的好汉：他们藐视死亡的网罗，蔑视地狱的苦痛，他们奔赴战场何其勇敢、何其欢欣、何其高兴——用他们其中一个的话来说——高兴‘一路上打了那么多漂亮仗’。我听说——我承认一直无法核实这些数据——但我听说，在那充满疑虑的漫长的四年间，从我们这座城市应征参加美国陆军和海军的人数，超过了叛乱爆发当年的适龄男性居民数目。纽约城不满足于单单供给战斗人员，还全力保障伤员得到及时照料，使其痛苦尽可能地减轻——因为正是在这里组织成立了美国卫生委员会。”

又一次欢呼，再一次喝彩。足足等了一分钟，演讲者才得以继续。

“你们的掌声告诉我，我无须多说了，”他表示，“一个成功的城市是命运的宠儿，就像别的宠儿一样，也许时不时地挨一顿痛揍反倒更好。可是纽约迄今做过什么不当之事，令她活该遭受毒打呢？在云谲波诡的政坛，将你的对手暗指为披着羊皮的狼或披着狮皮的驴会被视为机智，但在我看来，更为机智的是压根儿不玩这一套。枪声越响，后坐力越大。当一个纽约人听到他深爱的城市被唤作‘风筝与乌鸦之城’时，他的第一反应是大笑；第二反应是打听说这话的是谁；第三反应就是再次大笑，笑得更响，因为他发现这一言论的作者来自内华达，这个州就连圣诞老人也不敢在平安夜里挨家走访，怕遇上劫道的！”

这一次，纵情的笑声混着热烈的掌声爆发出来，演讲者同时落座。

“讲得非常好。”显然初来乍到的年轻人对他的左侧邻座说。

“讲得好吧？”对方热切地附和，“我也这样认为。这是今晚的最佳演讲，一定是！他们之中没有一个能比得过他。”

“过去五年我一直在日本，我好像都记不得这城里谁是谁了，”年轻人说，“刚才演讲的那位先生叫什么名字来着？”

“贺拉斯·昌西，”对方回答，“我以为人人都认识他呢。他父亲是来自西弗吉尼亚的美国参议员，他母亲是当年的肯塔基名媛。他自己当过加州律师界领袖，几年前才搬来这里。他一到纽约就立马走红，现在是这儿最受欢迎的演讲者之一，有些人称他为‘咱们的贺拉斯’。你真的从没听说过他？”

“呃，”年轻人辩解，“你千万别指望我谁都认识。你看，我是出生在纽约的。”

（1894年）

[74] 圣安得烈协会(St.Andrew's Society)：纽约最古老的慈善机构，由纽约的一群致力于“扶危济困”的苏格兰移民成立于1756年，以苏格兰主保圣人圣安得烈命名，旨在帮助苏格兰同胞。（译注）

[75] 圣乔治协会(St. George's Society):由纽约的英格兰移民成立于1770年的慈善机构，旨在帮助英格兰同胞。（译注）

[76] 新英格兰协会(New England Society):成立于1805年的慈善机构，宗旨是在纽约的新英格兰人中间促进“友谊、慈善、互助”。 （译注）

[77] 加百列(Gabriel):基督教中负责为神传递信息的天使。（译注）

[78] 夏洛(Shiloh)：位于美国田纳西州，南北战争的一处战场。（译注）

[79] 狄安娜（Diana）：罗马神话中的月神。以弗所是古希腊人在小亚细亚建立的一个大城市，在今土耳其境内，原有月神庙。（译注）

[80] 波士顿惨案(Boston Massacre)：1770年3月5日波士顿居民与英军士兵发生冲突，英军开枪导致5名平民死亡。 （译注）

[81] 自由杆（Liberty Pole）：美国革命期间象征自由、解放、独立的标志。形式为一根高木杆，顶端悬挂旗帜或自由帽（红色无边软帽），通常由称为自由之子的公民竖立于城镇广场。在纽约市，英殖民统治者与自由之子们常因自由杆的毁立爆发冲突。（译注）

[82] 印花税法会议（Stamp Act Congress）：1765年10月7日至25日北美英属殖民地代表在纽约召开的会议，反抗英国议会通过的旨在向殖民地征税的《印花税法》。（译注）

[83] 亚历山大·汉密尔顿 (Alexander Hamilton，1757?—1804)：美国开国元勋，宪法起草人和签署人，第一任财政部部长。美国政党制度创建者。（译注）

[84] 约翰·杰伊(John Jay,1745—1829):美国开国元勋，曾与亚历山大·汉密尔顿等人联合撰文推动新宪法实施。1789—1795年任美国首席大法官。（译注）

[85] 古弗尼尔·莫里斯(Gouverneur Morris，1752—1816)：美国开国元勋，宪法起草人和签署人。因撰写宪法序言而有宪法的“执笔者”之称。（译注）

[86] 《纽约外史》(Knickerbocker's History):美国文学之父华盛顿·欧文（Washington Irving,1783—1859）的第一部重要作品，出版于1809年。（译注）

[87] 费尼莫尔·库珀 (James Fenimore Cooper,1789—1851)：美国小说家，代表作有系列长篇小说《皮护腿故事集》。（译注）

[88] 美国艺术家协会(Society of American Artists):成立于1877年，由一群认为国家设计学会（National Academy of Design，1825—.）过于保守无法满足其需求的艺术家组建。（译注）

[89] 罗伯特·富尔顿(Robert Fulton,1765—1815):美国工程师、发明家，当过画家。制造了第一艘以蒸汽机为动力的轮船。（译注）

[90] 塞缪尔·F.B.摩尔斯（Samuel F. B. Morse，1791—1872）：美国画家，摩尔斯电码发明者。（译注）

[91] 塞缪尔·F.B.摩尔斯（Samuel F. B. Morse，1791—1872）：美国画家，摩尔斯电码发明者。（译注）

11
感恩节晚餐

感恩节的黎明天气清冷，正是举行球赛的理想日子。早餐后不久，偏僻的街巷就让一拨拨小男孩搅得天翻地覆，他们之中有些怪模怪样地扮成女孩，有些穿着现凑的服装、戴着瞪眼的面具扮成印第安人或黑人。他们大吹鱼角，讨要铜钱。晚些时候，一群群奇幻人物或骑在马背上或坐在马车里巡游，还有散漫的团体——其中一些人身着三周前以选举而告终的竞选运动的统一服装——队形不整地行进在高架铁路下的大道上，打头的是寥寥几排开道者，还有区区几人的小乐队断断续续地在鳞次栉比的酒馆前奏乐，同行的伙伴也乐得在门口驻足。

太阳放射光芒，把街道一侧照得暖洋洋，人们正走出教堂。风儿轻柔地吹过大街，吹动了绽放在许多纽扣眼里的黄菊花的花瓣。年轻人三五成群地走过，姑娘在颈前系着蓝色花结或围着橙黑两色的围巾，小伙子系着校徽饰扣或露着彰显校色[92]的手帕。赶时髦的男士用品经销商已经布置好橱窗，不偏不倚地照顾到未来的顾客——一扇窗是一水儿蓝的法兰绒衣服和围巾、衬衣和袜子，另一扇则尽是橙黑两色。悬挂着一组或另一组颜色的四轮大马车陆续经过，车上满载的年轻人爆发出震耳欲聋的欢呼声，同时挥舞蓝地白字或黄地黑字的锦旗。阳光明媚，清风微拂，风儿吹得树木的秃枝颤巍巍。四轮大马车、私人马车、公共马车、形形色色的货车在麦迪逊广场上聚集，在大道上川流不息，风儿也吹皱了从各种车上伸出的旗帜。

夜幕降临，潮水退去，四轮马车陆续返回，年轻人由于不断大呼顿挫有力的加油口号而声音嘶哑。其中一些人因自己球队的胜利而狂喜，仍有兴致扯着嗓子叫嚷。另一些则因己方失利而悲伤无语。大多数去看比赛的人既不属于蓝校，也不属于橙黑之校，但他们都为刚才目睹的那场对决兴奋不已——那是力量与技巧的对决、智谋与勇气的对决。夕阳终于沉下去，午后清爽怡人的微风现在添了一丝凉飕飕的湿气。但纵情的年轻人并不在意，他们欢呼，他们歌唱，他们互相叫喊，仿佛此时正值春天，仿佛他们独自在海边。

罗伯特·怀特像其他人一样感染了那份狂热，当他沿着大道走向学院俱乐部的时候，他意识到一种多年未曾感受过的兴奋。他这一周独自住在城里，因为妻子带着孩子按早先的约定去乡下串门了，几天来他一直在学院俱乐部里打发晚间时光。一来二去他就跟别人合租了一辆马车，十几年来第一次去看球赛。他为自己学院的胜利而高兴，也为同学们的久别重逢而高兴，自从百年国庆的那个夏天他们在酷热中参加完毕业典礼之后，他就没见过这些同学。其中一位现在是新西部某州的年轻州长，另一位则可能成为新总统的内阁成员。

外出看比赛的路上，怀特坐在一位同学身边，此人现在回母校当了教授，他俩畅叙四年的同窗生涯，细数各位同学。他们回忆那些原本大有前途却辜负了众望的小伙子；那些曾经踏实、勤奋，依旧踏实、勤奋的家伙；那个寡言、害羞，不怎么懂拉丁文，更不懂希腊文，却爱好科学的人，正在崭露头角，成为全国首屈一指的小说家；班上最好的棒球运动员，现在是芝加哥一所主流教会的牧师；还有其他在各自领域里混得不错的人。他们聊到班上的害群之马——有的死了，有的生不如死，有的下落不明。

“约翰尼·卡罗尔怎么样了？”教授问。

“打毕业那天起我再没见过他。毕业前就有龌龊的丑闻传开了，你知道，我怀疑约翰尼是否拿到了学位。”怀特回答。

“我知道他没拿，”教授应道，“他一直不敢申请。”

“不管出了什么麻烦，反正他们设法让事情消停了，”怀特继续，“我一直不知道真相到底如何。”

“我当时也不知道，”教授回答，“后来有人跟我说过。不过现在没必要深究了。那女孩早死了，约翰尼也死了，听说是这样。”

“可怜的约翰尼·卡罗尔，”怀特说，“我还记得最后一晚——毕业那天晚上，他看起来那么帅。不过他一直很帅，而且一直好打扮。他不太聪明，哪方面都不出色，是吧？可我们都喜欢他。”

“我记得他想要参加新生划船队，”教授停顿了一下，说道，“但是他禁不住奢侈生活的诱惑。他不肯训练。”

“训练正是他最需要的，”怀特补充道，“道德和精神还有身体上的训练。可惜，他总是有太多的钱，反而对他不好。他父亲那时在华尔街，赚钱易如反掌。”

“我们毕业后还没到年底，老卡罗尔就自杀了，是吧？”教授问，“在浴缸里把自己脑袋打开了花，是他干的吧？”

“而且留下的钱还不够付丧葬费的，”怀特说，“约翰尼总是倒霉：起初是钱多得过分，而最需要钱的时候却一文不名。”

“他的大不幸，”教授说，“就在于他的父亲是个‘跟班的’。”

“是啊，”怀特赞同，“真是害人啊。不知道约翰尼如果还活着，现在身在何方？或许在西部淘第一桶金，要么在远洋轮船上烧锅炉，也可能他是百老汇纠察队的一员，靠搀扶女士过马路为生。”

“但愿他有那样的美差，”教授回答，“可我不相信卡罗尔会在部队里干得长，就算他捞到那差使。你还记得他唱那首《恶棍的儿子》唱得多好听吗？”

罗伯特·怀特下了马车往麦迪逊广场走的时候，回想的正是教授的这个问题。走在他前面的是三个摇摇晃晃的年轻人，其中两个还是毛头小子。他们臂挽着臂，指望三人联手走得稳当，可是很难做到，除非举止更加稳重。他们正在唱约翰尼·卡罗尔上学时的那首保留曲目。风越刮越劲，突出于人行道各处的木制广告牌在风力的摆布下摇晃得厉害。成群结队的热血青少年在饭店灯火通明的门廊前来来往往。

怀特退到一旁给分外闹腾的一群让道，这一退就撞到一个人，他正贴着一家餐馆亮晃晃的窗户站立。那人瘦而憔悴，脸刮得精光，面色发青，衣衫褴褛。他的姿势像是贴紧玻璃以希求映出来的暖意。

“对不起。”怀特大声说。

那人僵硬地转过身。“没关——”他才开口，就借着流泻在人行道上的明亮光线看见了怀特的脸。他住了声，犹豫片刻，然后转身离去。

片刻工夫足以让怀特认出他来。“约翰尼·卡罗尔！”他喊道。

那人继续走。

怀特大跨两步赶上他，伸手搭上他的肩头。“约翰尼！”他又叫。

男人扭过脸犹犹豫豫地回答：“呃，你想干什么？”

“真的是你吗？约翰尼·卡罗尔？”怀特问，同时伸出一只手。

“哦，是，”对方说，“我是约翰尼·卡罗尔——你是鲍勃[93]·怀特。”

怀特的手仍然伸着。长时间停顿后，他的同学伸手相握。怀特感到卡罗尔手指冰凉，大吃一惊。“哎哟，伙计，”他大叫，“你冻坏了。”

“嗯，”对方坦言，“有什么奇怪的？又不是第一次了。”然后，在匆匆一瞥怀特的脸之后，他转开脸说：“而且我饿了，如果你想知道的话。”

“我也饿了，”怀特诚恳地说，“我正要一个人去吃感恩节晚餐。你愿意跟我一起吗，约翰尼？”

“你当真？”对方问。

“我们干吗不一起吃呢？”怀特回应，快活地迈开步子，伸手挽住同学的手臂。“我们的球队今天打赢了，你知道——十八比零，我们要庆祝胜利。”

“你要带我去哪儿？”约翰尼不安地问。

“当然是学院俱乐部啦，”怀特答，“我们要——”

“我绝对不去，”约翰尼说着突然站住，“我现在没脸见他们。我——噢，我不能去！”

“不去就不去，”怀特答应，“那咱们去哪儿？去德尔莫尼科[94]你说怎么样？”

约翰尼又问：“你当真？不开玩笑？”

“当然当真，约翰尼。”他回答。

“我十多年没去德尔莫尼科了，”对方说，“我真想再去那里吃一回。可你不能带我去。瞧我这样！”

怀特打量他：那件薄外套扣得很紧，穿得很旧，但不破烂，比帽子和靴子的状况要好。

这两个人面对面站在街角的时候，预尝到了冬天的滋味，寒风侵袭他们，侵入骨髓。

怀特再次挽住同学的手臂。“说实话，你的样子是不如从前，约翰尼，”他说，“不过我今晚也没特意打扮。”

“那就去德尔莫尼科喽？”约翰尼问。

“就去德尔莫尼科。”怀特答。

“那就带我去餐吧，”对方说，“在男人面前估计我能受得住，可这副形象是进不得餐厅见女人的。”

“也好，”怀特答应，“就去餐吧尝尝。”

他们进入餐吧时，里面挤满了年轻人。已有一团蓝色烟雾笼罩在嘈杂的人群上方。小伙子们在紧挨着的桌子旁喝香槟，兴高采烈地隔着桌子彼此呼喊。

在百老汇一侧的角落里，怀特争取到一张小桌子。往桌边走的时候，他朝十来个熟人点头致意，其中一些人斜睨着他的同伴，待他走过后便交头接耳。

显然约翰尼既没看见斜睨的眼光也没听见窃窃私语。他紧跟怀特恍若在梦里，怀特刚才注意到，他俩一进这热烘烘的屋子，卡罗尔就深吸一口气，仿佛在热身。

“我在这儿就不用穿外套了，”他边说边在怀特对面的椅子上落座，俩人中间隔着大理石面的小桌。

服务员麻利地铺好桌布，约翰尼用指头轻抚桌布，感受它的细柔，像猫儿似的欣喜于它的洁净。

“那么，咱们来点什么？”怀特接过侍者递给他的窄边菜单，问，“你想吃什么？”

“我？”客人应道，“噢，什么都行——随你——就来烤牛肉吧。”

“看来自从离校以后，你的口味变了，”怀特说，“我是问你，你想吃什么。”

“我想吃什么？”约翰尼重复，“你当真？不开玩笑？”

听见那句上学时常说的老话又从老同学的嘴里蹦出来，怀特笑了。

“当然当真，”他说，“不开玩笑。这是菜单。爱点什么就点什么。别忘了今天是感恩节，而且我饿了，我想好好吃一顿。”

“那太好了。”约翰尼说着接过菜单。他已经暖和过来，现在他似乎因这罕有的排场而舒展了一些。

他细细地看着菜单。

“半壳蓝蚝必不可少，”他发话了，还嘱咐侍者，“一定要放在深的那一半里。绿龟汤——十五年前这儿的绿龟汤好喝极了。鳎鱼片浇莫尔奈白汁——鳎鱼就是比目鱼，我估计，可要说莫尔奈白汁，恐怕连希伯来手稿都能入口了。再来一份帆背潜鸭——两份帆背潜鸭，记住，要真正的帆背潜鸭，不要什么红头鸭绿头鸭——当然要配玉米片，还有芹菜蛋黄酱。再来一小块切达干酪和一杯咖啡。你意下如何，怀特？”

“正合我意，”怀特回答，“那喝什么酒呢？”

“还喝酒？”约翰尼问。

怀特笑着点点头。

“好吧，客随主便，”客人继续，“我不如索性点齐了，要是你非讲排场不可。”他把菜单翻过来，浏览背面的酒单，“74年的滴金甜白配牡蛎，他们告诉我有一款银装特酿84年的干香槟，比喝过的任何一种都好。给我们来一瓶搭配鸭子。尽快上来。”

他把菜单递给侍者，然后才第一次放胆环顾四周。

蓝蚝上得很快，等约翰尼吃下它们和半块面包，又喝下两杯滴金甜白之后，怀特对他说：“跟我讲讲你自己的事。这些年来你都在干什么？”

约翰尼的脸色稍微一沉。“我差不多什么都干过，”他回答，“驾过第五大道的公共马车，也给第三大道的当铺记过账。我还在科尼岛[95]上的一家汤菜馆里当过服务员。刚才给咱们点单的那个人，我去年夏天招待过——我招待他不止一次。我也发过法罗牌[96]。”

侍者给他们上汤。

等他离开后，怀特问：“难道你的老朋友们还不能帮你摆脱困境吗？——给你创造条件，让你东山再起。”

“别费劲了，没用的，”约翰尼回答，“你们现在扶不起我了。太晚了。我估计从一开始就太晚了。”

“你干吗不离开这地方？”怀特问，“到西部去，然后——”

“说这个有什么用呢？”约翰尼打断他，“离开纽约我活不下去。要是看不见那边的大高楼我会死的。”

“照这样下去你就快死在这儿了。”怀特回答。

“说的也是，”约翰尼承认，“可是无能为力。”他一口一口吃得又稳又扎实，并不是狼吞虎咽的。

待侍者上完鱼，怀特又问：“我们能为你做什么？”

“做不了，”约翰尼回答，“什么都做不了。当然，你可以给我五块钱，如果你乐意，十块也行。可是千万别给我你的地址，否则我再倒霉的时候，第一个就找你，求你再给十块。”

一群大学生，二十来个人，四个一排臂挽臂，大踏步走在百老汇大道上，放声齐唱一首校园歌曲。

“你以前爱唱这首歌，约翰尼。”怀特说。

“我以前爱做很多事。”他回答，这时侍者开启香槟。

“我从没听谁像你那样把《恶棍的儿子》唱得那么有韵味。”怀特继续说。

“十二年前我在一家黑人巡演团里当第二男高音，可是我们被困在了哈特福德，我只好走回家。从那时起我就尝试在包厘街的廉价展览馆里做歌舞表演，不止一次。可是没有用。”

当他们吃完帆背潜鸭，喝干香槟之后，约翰尼靠在椅子上笑了，说：“嗯，这就值了。”

这时咖啡来了，怀特说：“你忘点利口酒了，约翰尼。”

“你瞧这就是久不习用的结果，”他回答，“我想来杯橘子柑香。”

“那我就来点儿绿薄荷，”怀特吩咐侍者，“再来几支雪茄——几支亨利·克莱。”

“对极了，”约翰尼说，“我父亲只抽亨利·克莱，我估计这就是我喜欢抽雪茄的缘故。”

雪茄点燃后，怀特直视同伴的脸。“你确定？”他问，“我们什么忙都帮不上？”

“非常确定。”对方回答。

“一点儿都帮不上？”

“你请我吃了一顿好的，”约翰尼说，“这就够了。比我的大多数老朋友都慷慨。此外再帮不上什么。”

怀特不作声了。

约翰尼长长地呷一口咖啡，又吸了三四口雪茄。“真是上等好雪茄，”他说，“我最长一次将近两年没抽一口亨利·克莱，后来我捡了一支别人抽剩的，是幕间休息时在戴利剧院外边捡的。”

他带着恣意的快感又吸了一口，然后探过身子凑近怀特，推心置腹地说：“你知道吗，鲍勃？在这个世界上我喜欢的一切几乎都是不道德的，或昂贵的，或难消化的。”

“对，”怀特认同，“我估计那就是你运气坏的缘故。”

“我一生中交过很多运，”对方回答，“好的坏的——大都比我应得的要好——比如这顿晚餐。即使没有明天的消化不良，我也要记住它。可是往坏处想有什么用呢？我才不为明天操心，只要尽情享受今天。今天还剩几个小时——咱们现在去哪儿？”

（1892年）

[92] 校色是学校确定的代表本校的颜色，常用于校徽、校旗、校队制服等。文中涉及服饰颜色多指校色。（译注）

[93] 鲍勃(Bob)是罗伯特(Robert)的昵称。（译注）

[94] 德尔莫尼科（Delmonico's):纽约著名高档餐馆。（译注）

[95] 科尼岛(Coney Island)：位于纽约布鲁克林南端。（译注）

[96] 法罗牌(faro)：一种纸牌赌博游戏。（译注）

12
生活的困境

下午晚些时候，约翰·苏达姆拐上二十三街，他的目光向西越过街的尽头，跨过河，并没有看见通常远远可见的彩色亮光。那个平安夜，没有红色远景来烘托，因为乌云密布，天幕低垂，风中有阴冷的寒气，是降雪的预兆。天刚擦黑时，他绕过麦迪逊广场，看见电灯突然发出闪烁的光芒，点亮了第五大道南北，点亮了广场各处。

年轻人穿过百老汇大道，敏捷地躲过一辆庞大的快运货车，又轻盈地跃出轨道，让路给一辆叮当驶来的有轨马车。穿越第五大道时，他见缝插针地穿行于高高堆着纸包裹的客货马车之间。位于二十三街西段的饭店的白墙脏兮兮地衬在铅灰色的天空下，天光迅速转暗，暮霭沉沉。风渐渐地完全住了，空气依然阴冷潮湿。苏达姆从残疾报童手里买了一份晚报，报童坐在轮椅上，裹得暖暖的御寒，好像对卖报的收入心满意足。

往前走几步，年轻人路过一个年老的法国水手，他站在马路牙子上，用仅有的一只手转动玻璃箱的摇柄，箱中可见一艘船在有规律的波浪间起伏不定，同时一列火车在横跨海湾的一座桥上穿行不止。几乎就在水手脚下，一个老妇人蜷成一个脏团，伏在一架小小的手摇风琴上，慢慢地从里面摇出一支含混而忧伤的曲子。在她身边稍远一点的地方，两个男孩正在兜售用青枝绿叶编成的环形、星形、串形的绿色装饰物。黄光从一间布匹店的大窗户里流泻出来，靠窗的地方，一个瘦高的男人身前有一块放在支架上的木板，他就在这张便携桌子上展示一个玩具小丑的滑稽动作，那小丑从一截陡峭的楼梯上笨拙地翻滚下来。路人胳膊底下夹着包裹，行色匆匆，很少有人驻足去看船在波浪间起伏，去听气喘的风琴奏出含混的曲调，去买一点绿色饰物或买一个翻跟头的小丑。而这露天巴扎——也可直白地称之为户外集市——却一直沿整条街延伸，人行道的两边，各路江湖骗子正在努力积聚微薄的圣诞收成。

在约翰·苏达姆走到第六大道拐角处之前，雪终于下了起来。第一阵雪花迟疑着降下，被一阵短促的风吹得乱转，那风刮起一两分钟，然后渐息，完全停住。过了一会儿，雪下得更密更快，纷纷飘落，轻柔无声，却在街角的一串串电灯下弥漫，在火车头的强光下发红。火车在悬着的高架铁路上飞驰而过，车身被团团旋转的蒸汽围绕。雪在未售出的圣诞树的主枝上堆积，那些树东倒西歪地沿街立在第六大道往南几户的一间花店前，当苏达姆转过街角的时候，它们看起来就像裹着尸布的香柏树的幽灵。

沿这条大道行走，他必须穿过同样稠密的人群，那些迟来的圣诞采购者匆匆进出于体量过大的商店，利用最后的机会为明天买礼物。但随着他的前进，人群稀松了一些，也许是被暴风雪赶回了家。然而，尽管买主渐少，小贩却坚守依然。苏达姆注意到一个老头——驼背、皱缩、留着长长的灰胡子，他有个浅盘用肩带吊在身前，窄窄的木板上是几个圣诞老人的石膏像，他们高举着一棵枝枝杈杈的圣诞树，上面撒满了亮闪闪的水晶片。在高架铁路车站的楼梯篷下面，苏达姆看见一个小盲女裹在一小方披肩里，默默地在卖半打铅笔。路中央的上方，盖着雪的火车隆隆地南来北往，缕缕白汽从车头冒出长长地拖着。

当苏达姆接近十四街时，他发现人群再度密集。街角上，载客马车、运货马车和有轨马车乱了套。通向高架铁路车站的楼梯上挤满了携带大包小包的人，其中的大多数上下楼梯十分吃力，人们善意地互相推搡着。大大小小的孩子顺着宽阔的平板玻璃窗在一间大商店的拐角处排成长溜，好奇地盯着一队服饰华丽的玩具动物拉车、抬轿子，在画着棕榈树和花哨帐篷的布景前不停地转圈。雪下得正急，可孩子们仍在羡慕地看着、甘心地等着，虽然他们的帽子变白了，虽然柔软的雪花在他们的斗篷和外套上融化了。

簇拥在玻璃窗前的人丛几乎把苏达姆逼到了人行道边上，不过这是最后一群他需要从中挤过去的人。再往南就没有密实的群体了，虽然大道上依旧熙熙攘攘。他得以加快脚步。于是他疾速前行：路过肉店，那里有屠宰后的羊牛尸体成排吊在挂着绿叶饰串的绳子上；路过杂货店，那里有成垛的罐头食品码放在货架上；路过面包店，那里有面包蛋糕、馅饼麻花摆放在盘子和篮子里。他扫了一眼糖果店的黄色橱窗，看见五颜六色的甜食诱人地铺开。他瞥见好几家熟食店展示出来的银衣香肠、厚实馅饼和柳编酒瓶都足以调动老饕麻木的胃口。他看到了物阜民丰的迹象，但没有人比约翰·苏达姆更清楚，此时恰恰是短缺的季节。

夜幕降临的时候，他尚未走到法院高大的屋顶和高耸的塔楼跟前，尚未走到市场，在煤气灯的一束束火苗下，那里的菜筐大张其口，火鸡悬挂成行。他穿过大道，拐进一条小街——与纽约的大多数街巷不同，小街并不与大道垂直相交。最后他停在一座小屋跟前，那是一座二层老楼，因久用而破旧，却在衰败中显出尊严。这座小宅有荷兰式的屋顶，开着两扇老虎窗[97]。宅子落成的那个年代，新阿姆斯特丹的荷兰传统较之今日更为强盛。

年轻人登上高高的门廊，上面的雪已接近半寸厚。他按了两次门铃，间隔把握有度。屋里传出女孩飞快的脚步声，门旋即被打开，苏达姆便消失在这座古老的小房子里。

随着大门的关闭，小伙子把姑娘搂在怀里，亲吻。

“噢，约翰，”她说，“平安夜你过来可太好了。你怎么想法子离开的？”

“我只有两个小时，”他回答，“我得弄点东西吃，所以我想也许你们——”

“当然可以，”女孩打断他，“妈妈会很高兴的。她做了一张拿手的老式鸡肉馅饼，我们俩肯定吃不了。六点钟就开饭。”

“这下我知道我的晚餐在哪儿解决了，”她的恋人一边作答，一边跟着她走进小客厅，“可我一吃完就得赶回去。我跟他们说，办事处应该一直开到午夜，而且我会值班。要是求助的人在平安夜得不到帮助，那多惨呀！你说是吧？”

“而且这寒冬腊月的，一定有很多人需要帮助，”姑娘说，“今天下午我替妈妈跑腿，一直走到百老汇，我路过了六个乞丐——”

“噢，乞丐——”他开口说。

“是，我知道，”她又打断他，“我什么也没给他们，虽说不给好像太残忍了。我知道你对不加区分的施舍有看法，所以我才硬了心没给。我也为此而心里作苦。我知道假如我拿点什么给了他们中的一两个，我本来会更高兴的。”

“我想你确实使自己丧失了自我满足的道德光环，”苏达姆认定，“但是那种道德光环太廉价，不可贵。如果我们真想帮助邻舍，我们就必须践行自我奉献，而不是以他的自尊为代价来换取便宜的自我满足。”

“如果不送出点什么，我会觉得自己没在过圣诞节似的。”她反对。

“正是，”他回敬，“你还没有从狄更斯的致命影响下解脱出来，虽然你比十分之九的女人都理智得多。你盲从那种信念，认为你应该为你自己的益处去施舍，而不想想接受施舍对于乞丐是不是最有益。狄更斯的圣诞故事正在滋生第三代叫花子，我怀疑再有半个世纪我们也未必能说服广大群众相信他的社会学是谬论。要用科学来解决问题，歇斯底里的感情用事行不通。”

“你不会认为我今天看见的所有乞丐都是骗子吧，嗯？”她问。

“六个里头有一个是真困难的可能性不到十分之一，”他回答，“很可能六个里头有五个从事乞讨，部分是出于懒惰，部分是因为他们能讨来的钱比他们能老老实实挣来的钱更多。”

“可是有一个老头，少说也得有四十了，”姑娘力争，“他肯定是饿得要死。你看，我刚拐出百老汇，就瞧见他蹿到阴沟边上捡起一块面包，狼吞虎咽地吃起来。我自然就摸摸口袋找钱包，但一位先生也看见了，他走近那个男的，跟他说了几句，还给了他一张五美元的票子。总算有一个真实的贫困案例了，是不是？”

苏达姆悲哀地笑了。“那个饿得要死的男人大约四十岁，是吧？又高又瘦，留着一把稀疏的尖胡子，右脸颊上有道印子，对吗？”

姑娘惊奇地看着他。“嘿，你怎么知道的？”她大叫。

“那是疤脸查理。”他回答。

“他也是个骗子吗？”她问。

“上星期，我有天下午跟了他两个小时，”他解释，“我看见他捡起那块面包，假装吃了至少二十次。我抓住他的时候，他口袋里不止十美元。”

“唉，”姑娘宣布，“我再也不会相信任何人了。”

“可我不明白疤脸查理今天怎么会上街的，”苏达姆继续道，“我们送他进班房才关了一个月，因为法官对他从轻发落。如果他这么快就又上街了，我估计他一定有某种势力。那些家伙影响力之大往往超乎你的想象。”

“他完全把我蒙住了，”姑娘承认，“如果你所称的疤脸查理能装得这么好，他为什么不去上台表演，老老实实地讨生活？”

“去年春天我住进大学睦邻之家，开始自己琢磨这些事的时候，首先令我惊讶的就是这个。我发现乞丐里头有人热爱自己的营生，有人以自己的技能为骄傲。你拿他们怎么办呢？如果你由着他们勤奋从业，你又如何将他们从那些真有困难的人里区分出来呢？”

“实在是太令我困惑了，”姑娘坦言，“自从听你说了这些，我觉得做慈善还没有过去一半简单呢。”

“对，”苏达姆说，“是不简单。事实上，作为20世纪必须解决的问题，它是够复杂难解的。我很快就得出一个结论，那就是，区分哪些人需要帮助哪些人不需要的方法就是，后者是主动求助的而前者不是。纽约是富有而慷慨的，弄到足够的钱来救济城市范围内的每一个穷苦人从来都不难——毫无困难。真正的困难在于把钱给到真正需要它的人手里，并防止不该得到它的人染指。你看，那些主动寻求帮助的人不配得到它——五十次里也没有一次是真困难，而那些配得的人却不去求助。这些人里有男有女——女性居多——他们在下决心面对同胞的怜悯之前就会饿死。我每天都听说默默承受的、纯属意外发现的苦情。”

“一周来我一直在怀疑，眼下这所房子里未必就没有那种苦情。”姑娘说。

“这所房子里？”年轻人重复。

“我每天都好想跟你说说这个情况，”她继续，“可我对你太微不足道了，而且你来的时候，咱们有那么多事情要聊，你知道。”

“我知道，”苏达姆应道。他挨着她坐在沙发上，他的手臂搂着她的腰。他把她搂紧了些，又吻了她。“现在跟我说说你的苦情。”他说。

“嗯，”女孩开始讲，“妈妈和我两个人住这房子太大了，所以我们就把顶层的一间屋租给了两个老妇人。感恩节之前她们就搬进去了。她们都是外国人——古巴人，我猜。那位母亲想必有七十了，看得出她一向十分端庄。那位女儿肯定快五十了，你绝对没见过比她更孝顺的女儿。她对母亲照顾得无微不至。她们没带一件值得一提的行李——没有箱子，只有一个小包——我们一眼就看出她们非常、非常穷。她们预付了两周的房租，之后又付了两周。两星期前，那女儿对我妈妈说，如果她允许她们晚几天交房租，她们会很感激，因为她们一直在等的一封信还没有来。我估计情况属实，因为邮差从没吹过哨，但女儿常常跑下楼来看有没有给她们的东西。可是一直没有，我认为她们没有足够的钱买东西吃，肯定没有。女儿以前每天早晨出门，然后带小小的一包东西回来。你看，她们屋里有个煤气炉，她们自己做饭。但是她已经两天没出门了，而且自从前天她走到楼梯口问有没有给她妈妈的信之后，我们就没见过两人中的任何一个。我们能听见她们在楼上轻轻地走动，可是一直没看见她们。现在我们真不知怎么办才好。你来了我太高兴了，因为我跟妈妈说，我要问问你的看法。”

“你认为她们没有钱？”苏达姆问。

“恐怕都花光了，”她回答，“而且就我们所知，她们什么朋友都没有。”

“你说她们是古巴人？”

“我猜是。她们姓德洛里奥——德洛里奥夫人，我听见那女儿向邮差打听信的时候这么称呼她母亲。”

“要不是现在太晚了，”小伙子看看表说，“我就去西班牙领事馆跑一趟。可现在快六点了，领事馆肯定关门了。如果有理由认为她们确实在挨饿，何不委婉地去打探一下？”

“恐怕不行，”她回答，“我们昨天上午确实试过。我们发现那女儿没出去买东西做饭，就担心她们可能在挨饿，于是我们讨论再三，绞尽脑汁想办法帮助她们。最后妈妈有了一个主意，她做了一种西班牙炖菜——就是人家说的什锦菜，你知道。她是从菜谱上学的，然后她端着菜上楼敲门。她们问是谁，也没开门，只打开一条缝。妈妈告诉那女儿，她在试做一种西班牙菜，不知做得地道不地道，所以她就上来请她们帮个忙，尝一尝，告诉她味道是不是纯正。你看这就是妈妈的主意。她以为那样一来就能让她们吃东西，又保全了她们的自尊。可是行不通。那女儿说她很抱歉，现在品尝不了，她不行，她母亲也不行。她们现在没胃口，所以她们无法评判什锦菜的味道。她说，她们刚才还在做猪排和牛排。”

“猪排和牛排？”苏达姆问。

“她是那么说的，”姑娘继续道，“当然那只是拒绝的借口罢了。她是用那种方式告诉妈妈，她们什么都不需要。所以妈妈只好放弃，又把炖菜端下楼。不过，妈妈并不觉得她们特别惨，因为她们昨天做过吃的。她闻到了鱼味——昨天是星期五，你知道。”

“我知道，”小伙子应道，“可我还是——”

就在这时，邮递员的尖厉哨音传来，然后是门铃的一阵急响。

女孩跳起来，向门口走去。她开门的时候，飘进屋里的是远处雪橇的微弱悦耳的铃声，还有已经被雪压低了的街头的喧嚣声。

她回到客厅，手里拿着一个长长的蓝色信封。

“终于来信了。”她说。

“什么信？”苏达姆问。

“老妇人一直在等的信。”她回答，把信递给他。

他把信凑近客厅里的那盏孤灯，大声念出收信人的姓名：“‘德洛里奥侯爵夫人’，是挂号信。”

“对，”姑娘回答，“邮递员正等着签收条呢。他说他猜是钱或圣诞礼物之类的，因为上面有这么多封印。我想让你了解一下，但我现在就得送上楼去。”

她轻快地跑上楼，约翰·苏达姆听见她敲那两位老妇所住房间的门。隔了一会儿，她再次叩门，显然无人应答。然后他听见她轻轻地推门。

两秒钟后，她惊声尖叫起来：“妈妈！妈妈！噢，约翰！”

苏达姆飞奔上楼，发现她就在老妇人的房门外面。她浑身颤抖，一把抓住他的手。

“噢，约翰，”她说，“发生了可怕的事！比我想象的还要糟糕！她们真的饿死了！”

然后她默默地把他领进房间，她的母亲几乎同时赶到。

等了五分钟后，楼下门前的邮递员不耐烦了。他又急急地按门铃、吹哨子。他踢掉靴子上的雪，挥动胳膊来保暖，这时门终于开了，约翰·苏达姆出现在门口，手里拿着长长的蓝色信封。

“对不起，你只能把这封信再带走，”苏达姆对邮递员说，“现在这里没人签收。那位德洛里奥侯爵夫人死了！”

[97] 老虎窗（dormer-w——ndow）：一种凸出于斜面屋顶上的窗户。（译注）

百年前的曼哈顿

“曼哈顿情缘”是“曼哈顿花絮”的姊妹篇

十二个小故事记录了纽约的城市月历

曼哈顿情缘

Outlines in Local Color

1
与马林斯派克小姐的会面

一月初的一天，天气很冷，到下午四点时，灰蒙蒙的天空笼罩了整座城，好似一幅圆形画幕的背景。一圈圈蒸汽升腾在蓝灰色的天际，像用粉笔在石板上画画。河对岸，西方遥远的天边，有一点粉红的光斑——那是二十四个小时未曾露面的太阳存在的唯一迹象。

马林斯派克小姐转过小街的街口，驻足片刻，俯瞰那长长的滨河路，还有在冰层下面静静流淌的、宽阔的哈得逊河。这个曾经不知疲倦的旅人早已年过古稀；她定睛观看，汲取这壮观景色的壮丽之美，在她去过的城市当中，没有任何一座能超越它。她很庆幸自己是生于斯、长于斯的纽约人，也很庆幸自己有此殊荣，住在这样一个景致触目皆是的地方。然而在她含情脉脉地打量这条庄严的河流时，风儿又起，吹乱了她灰白的鬈发，吹起了裹在她身上的外套。

从马林斯派克小姐所站的位置往前走两户，一顶条纹遮篷曲折延伸，跨过人行道，登上参差的石阶，从门廊顶上挤进门口。一个身材丰腴、浅色头发夹杂少量金色发丝的年轻靓妹走在马林斯派克小姐前面，穿过这曲曲折折的帆布通道。当房门为迎接她俩而开时，这一老一少一起走了进去。

屋里灯火通明，仿佛已经入夜；窗帘拉上了，缀着流苏的奢华至极的丝绸灯罩下，灯全都点亮着。空气中弥漫着浓郁的花香，花儿高高地堆在壁炉台和桌子上，浓密的菝葜花饰从每一盏灯具、每一面镜子上垂下。棕榈枝立在角落里，躺在壁炉里；大厅的一端，棕榈枝堆积成一道屏风，透过屏风，匈牙利乐队的鲜艳制服依稀可见。

前厅里有一张大桌，桌上放着十多捧缠着丝带的美丽花束。大桌前是由串串菝葜枝搭成的一座花架，架下站着女主人和她的女儿，那天下午，她正引导女儿初入社交界。女主人是一位端庄和蔼的妇人，黑色的粗辫子里几乎看不到灰白的发丝。像母亲一样，女儿也很和蔼，很端庄，而且比她请来的六七个漂亮姑娘还要好看，她们是来帮她接待母亲的朋友和熟人的。

先于马林斯派克小姐进入房子的那位姑娘恰巧再次先一步进入前厅。女主人左手拿着一束兰花，高兴地欢迎这位姑娘，但似乎隐约带着一点屈尊低就的意思。

“是彼得斯小姐，对吧？”女主人问，有些吃力地压低嗓音，仿佛低声说话是很晚才形成的习惯，“这么糟糕的天气你还能来，真是太好了。米尔德丽德，你认识彼得斯小姐吗？”

女儿走上前，微笑着与彼得斯小姐握手，让母亲腾出身来迎接马林斯派克小姐。这次，女主人的态度里丝毫没有屈尊的意思，反而透着微微的满足感。

“哦，马林斯派克小姐，”女主人热情地说，“真令人高兴。这么糟糕的天气你还能来，真是太好了。”

“我爬上你家这儿的坡顶时，风刮得是不小。”马林斯派克小姐回答，“我的身体也不像前些年那么硬朗了。我想很少有人在七十五岁还能像十七岁时那样活蹦乱跳。”

“哪里的话，”女主人说，“你一点也不比咱们初次见面时老。”

“那也就是不久以前的事，”老姑娘答道，“咱俩相识也不过五年、十年吧？现在五年、十年对于我来说简直可以忽略不计。我感觉自己并不比半个世纪前老多少；至于我的相貌——呃，还是少说为妙。我从来都不是什么美人，这你知道。”

“你怎么能这么说？”女主人回应，无意中发现门口已聚集了一群新的访客，“米尔德丽德，你认识马林斯派克小姐吗？”

“哦，认识，的确认识。”女孩热情地说，与活泼的老姑娘握了握手。

带着一缕金色发丝的浅发姑娘依然站在米尔德丽德身边。女主人注意到这点，又看到那群新来的客人进门后朝她走来，便再次匆忙发话。

“马林斯派克小姐，你认识彼得斯小姐吗？”女主人问，“无论如何，彼得斯小姐都应该认识你。”

说完她扭头去接待新来的客人，再次压低声音对大家说，这么糟糕的天气大家还能来真是太好了。

女儿留下来同马林斯派克小姐和彼得斯小姐交谈，但是不到一分钟，母亲就喊她：“米尔德丽德，你认识希契科克夫人吗？”

由于新来的人群往里挤，蓝色明眸的老姑娘和胖乎乎的小姑娘略微向后退了退。

“马林斯派克小姐，我常听我爷爷说起你。”小姑娘开口了。

“你爷爷！”年长的女士回应道，“那你爸爸一定是彼得斯主教的儿子啦？”

年轻的彼得斯小姐点点头。

“那么你爷爷就是我弟弟的一位好友，”马林斯派克小姐继续说，“他们一起上的学。我还记得我第一次见主教的时候——想必是六十年前的事了——那天可是他第一次穿裤子啊！他还骄傲得不得了呢！”

马林斯派克小姐笑着回忆这桩有趣的往事，彼得斯小姐也跟着笑起来。

然后，老姑娘问：“你父亲战后在南方结的婚，对吧？你母亲不是亚特兰大人吗？”

“母亲去世前，父亲一直住在那儿，我也出生在那儿，”女孩说，“算到这个圣诞节，我来北方才两年。”

“我估计你爷爷的朋友们还在世的应该不多。现如今，人都死得怪早的。”老姑娘议论，“你父亲今天下午来了吗？”

“噢，他可没来。”彼得斯小姐回答，“他身体不好，只能住在南加州。我自己一个人在纽约。”

“可怜哪，孩子。”女人拉起小姑娘的手说，“我自己一个人生活很久了，我知道其中的酸甜苦辣。但是你必须像我这样做——跟自己交朋友，培养跟自己打交道的爱好。”

年轻姑娘轻轻一笑，回答：“我可不像你，有这么一位迷人的伴侣。”

马林斯派克小姐笑着回应：“不，你有的，孩子。虽说我现在并不是丑老太婆，可我当年是个长相很一般的姑娘；我知道，觉得自己其貌不扬对一个人的性格形成没有好处。但我打算善用这一点，我也的确做到了。我想我大概会有很多时间跟自己打交道，所以就跟这个不得已的相识交了朋友。现在，我成了自己的好伙伴。我很少感到无聊，因为我发现自己是个很有意思的伴侣，我们还有许多共同的兴趣爱好。如果你愿意，你也可以培养与自己的友谊。但是你不一定要像我这样，因为你是个漂亮姑娘，你瞧瞧，你浅黄头发中的那一缕金丝真的很迷人呢。我问你，你一个人在纽约做些什么呢？”

“我写作。”彼得斯小姐答道。

“写作？”马林斯派克小姐回问。

“我说过，我爸身体不太好，”小姑娘解释，“我得自己养活自己。所以我就写作。”

“可我不记得在杂志上看到过署名为彼得斯的文章啊？有吗？”老姑娘问。

“哎哟，那些杂志！”彼得斯小姐回答，“杂志！我还不够格给杂志写文章呢。就算他们接受了你的文章，也得等很长时间才会发表。不过我偶尔给周报写点东西。等我发表一篇你可能喜欢的文章，我就第一时间给你寄去，行吗？”

“我将立即欣然拜读。”马林斯派克小姐热情洋溢地宣布。

“我还没署过自己的真名，”彼得斯小姐继续说，“我用的是笔名。也许你已经读过了我写的文章，但不知道那是我的作品。”

“孩子，这很有可能，”马林斯派克小姐说，“今后我将多多留心。能把你的想法落实于白纸黑字让大家看，让这个世界变得更美好，一定是非常快乐的事。”

年轻的彼得斯小姐又笑了，嘴角露出一个迷人的小酒窝。

“我想我写不出什么能让世界更美好的文字，”她说，“即便写出来，我觉得编辑也不会采用。我想，现在的编辑追求的不是这些——你说呢？他们只盯着会让报纸畅销的东西。”

“尽是些可悲的东西。”老姑娘断言，“在我小的时候，报纸的内容就够暴力了，编辑们水火不容，像扒手一样互相谩骂，有时他们互相论战，有时受到别人的鞭挞。但那时的报纸还不像今天这样无聊、廉价、浅俗。好像现在的编辑异常轻视读者，认为他们有的看就算不错了。噢，我上周收到报社的一封信——还是一封铅印的——信中说他们‘希望在《社会要闻》上登载全面的、正确的消息，如果马林斯派克小姐能提供她今冬打算筹办的消遣活动的相关信息，编辑将感激她的好意，如有需要，编辑将很乐意安排一次全面的报道’。有这么厚颜无耻的吗？要我描述我自己的晚宴，再开列一份我的宾客名单！哪有女士愿意做这种事！”

“有些女士就会这么做。”彼得斯小姐直言不讳。

“那她们就不是你我所说的女士，孩子。”马林斯派克小姐回应。

南方姑娘的脸唰地红了，她不好意思地咬着嘴唇。一会儿，她又鼓起勇气问：“马林斯派克小姐，我想你没有读过《每日播报》吧？”

“我试着读过两周，”老姑娘回答，“别人告诉我这份报的消息最全什么的。但我最终还是放弃了。《每日播报》从没刊登过我认识的人的死讯。我朋友的死讯都刊登在《纽约公报》上。”

“《公报》在家庭间的传播量更大。”年轻姑娘承认。

“另外，”马林斯派克小姐继续说，“我无法忍受《每日播报》的粗俗。我现在是老女人了，我见过很多世面，但是《每日播报》对我来说还是吃不消。它似乎符合非洲原始部落里那些半裸居民的口味。”

“啊，”对方提出异议，“你真觉得它有那么差劲吗？”

“我确实这么认为，”老姑娘态度很坚定，“而且比那更差劲，因为可怜的黑人只是没开化，而《每日播报》是故意伤风败俗，也许这是它最可憎的地方。”

“我明白你的意思了。”彼得斯小姐说，脸颊再次泛红。

“比如说莱特富特离婚事件，”马林斯派克小姐继续讲，“《每日播报》的报道方式简直难以言表。我愿意认同莱特富特夫人不算一个好人；我接受她离婚的次数可能比结婚的次数还多的说法……”

“那就够可以的了！”小姑娘趁老姑娘停顿时插了一句。

“但是那样说就太过分了，说她像埃及艳后一样，有小猫般的举止和母猫般的品行——不过分吗？”

彼得斯小姐没有吭声。她的眼睛盯着脚下的地毯，脸变得更红了。

“当然，你可能没看过我说的那篇文章。”老姑娘继续说。

“不，”小姑娘回答，“我看过。”

“真遗憾，”马林斯派克小姐说，“也许是我老古板——都这个岁数了，一定是老古板了——但是我认为像你这样的好姑娘不应该读这种东西。”

彼得斯小姐又没吭声。

“我碰巧记得那段话，”马林斯派克小姐继续说，“因为文章的署名是‘波莉·珀金斯’。很可能根本就是一个男人写的，但也没准儿是个女的。如果是女的，我读的时候就为她感到羞耻。一个女人怎么能那样写另一个女人？”

“很可能作者是迫于生计。”彼得斯小姐辩解。

“这个理由不充分，这个借口太差劲了。”老姑娘坚定地说，“当然，如果我特别穷，我也不知道我会做什么——谁知道呢？但我认为我就是靠凉水和干面包度日，也不会以那种方式挣黄油面包的——你会吗？”

彼得斯小姐没有回答这个直率的问题。她沉默了一会儿。然后，她抬起头，掷地有声地说：“这确实是一种卑鄙的谋生方式。”

马林斯派克小姐还没来得及继续交谈，就被刚进门的两位女士招呼过去了。彼得斯小姐往后退了退，独自在角落里站了几分钟，这时，她面前的人越来越多。她直愣愣地盯着前方，却对周围的人视而不见。随后，她清醒过来，走进餐厅，喝了一杯茶，吃了一小片黄油面包，面包是卷起来的，还系着小丝带。大概过了十五分钟，她意识到自己来到了女主人面前。

她对女主人说，她今天玩得很高兴，以前从没见过这么合得来的人，特别高兴的是见到了她爷爷的老朋友马林斯派克小姐。“多么可爱的老姑娘，完全没有脱水老处女的味道。她也很有自己的思想。她给我讲了一些她对现代新闻采编工作的看法。”

“她很健谈，”女主人说，“你本来可以采访她的。”

“噢，她畅谈了很久，”彼得斯小姐回应道，“但是我可能永远也写不好她。还有，我正在考虑放弃报社的工作。”

这时三位女士向女主人走来，女主人伸出手迎上去，说：“这么糟糕的天气你们还能来，真是太好了。”彼得斯小姐趁机脱了身。

大概过了半小时，马林斯派克小姐喝完茶，吃完黄油面包卷，返回前厅，正巧听见一位害羞的小伙子向女主人告别，祝主人的女儿“青春永驻”。

马林斯派克小姐上前道别时，碰巧宾客往来有一阵短暂的停滞，她恰好有机会祝贺这家女儿初次亮相的茶会成功举办。

“我必须告诉你，马林斯派克小姐，”女主人说，“你彻底把那个彼得斯小姐迷住了。”

“她是个可爱的小家伙，”老姑娘说，“举止优雅，估计是血统的缘故吧；她告诉我她是主教的孙女，你知道。她跟这儿的其他女孩不一样，那些女孩的行为举止是从书本上学来的。她们是现学现用，而她是与生俱来的。而且她有教养的终极标志——长者讲话时，她注意听——现如今这是十分难能可贵的。”

“是啊，”女主人回答，“波林·彼得斯举止宜人，虽然她在一家报社工作。”

“在报社？”马林斯派克小姐重复道，“她告诉我她以写作为生，但她没说是在报社啊。”

“她离开时说了一些想要放弃的话，”女主人说，“但我认为她不会，她现在干得顺风顺水。她的某些文章曾轰动一时。你知道她就是《每日播报》的‘波莉·珀金斯’吗？”

“不知道，”马林斯派克小姐说，“我还真不知道。”

2
告别信

早上飘起的零星小雪快到中午时却变成了温和的阵雨，随着夜幕的降临又变成了久久不散的雾。一月最后一周的暴风雪使得街道两侧筑起了两道雪墙，每当太阳再次出来的时候，积雪就快速融化，雪水流进宽阔的排水沟，在夜间席卷城市的冷风吹拂下又变得铁硬。此时，闷热的一天已经过去，夜幕将至，一摊令人生厌的雪泥化开了，在十字路口四周流淌开来。女店员们回家时择路而行，在高架铁路车站的支柱下小心翼翼地从一角拐到另一角。头顶上方的火车一辆紧随一辆，接踵而至；火车在刺耳的刹车声中急停下来时，一团团蒸汽也随之盘旋落下。高架铁轨上的雪水滴落到下方的缆车车厢上，缆车轰隆隆地行驶，靠近十字路口时，车铃便叮当作响。空气潮湿，薄雾弥漫；路口的四个拐角上都是酒吧，酒吧窗户里的黄色灯泡周围都笼着一圈光晕。阴沉沉的一天就要结束，东河里的渡船那嘶哑而悲伤的喇叭声也越来越频繁。

一个意大利小贩已经把手推车推到通往上方车站的台阶下面，开始叫卖车上摆着的香蕉、苹果和坚果。摊位的一端摆放着一个烤花生的圆筒，小贩一丝不苟地摇动烤箱的手柄，就像在演奏手摇风琴。将近六点一刻的时候，他打开火箱，往里放了一两根柴火，顺便就着火苗暖和一下冻僵的手指。这乍现的红光透过毛毛细雨，吸引了一个正在过马路的中年男人的目光。他立足未稳，一瞬间的分心足以使他踏错步子。他脚下一滑，仰面躺到地上，右肩胛骨正好撞在一块结实的雪团上，雪团被冷风吹得很硬，但毕竟比石头铺的人行道要软一些。

这次碰撞让他受到了严重的惊吓；他在地上躺了差不多一分钟，大口大口地喘着气，根本站不起来。在他努力想站起身并再次正常呼吸的时候，他听见一个女店员大喊：“哦，莉斯，你看见他摔倒了吗？摔得可真惨。”然后，他听见女孩的同伴回应道：“我说，马姆，你去问问他伤得厉不厉害。”随后，两个男人走下人行道来扶他站起身，还有个男孩捡起他的帽子递给他。

“起来就好，”其中一个人说，“没有碰坏哪根骨头吧？”

跌倒的那个人慢慢缓过气来。“没有，”他呼哧带喘地说，“骨头没断。”说着，他小心翼翼地活动一下四肢，好确认这一点。

“这一跤摔得够呛，”另一个人说，“不过一会儿就能缓过来了。进帕特·麦卡恩的店里喝上一杯吧，会让你恢复活力的。”

“说得对，”被扶起来的那人说，“说得对，扶我进帕特·麦卡恩的店吧——那儿的人认识我——我能歇一下——过一会儿就没事了。”他把长话拆短了说，即便如此，说起话来还是很费劲。

他滑倒的地方离酒馆门口很近，两个男孩一人搀一只胳膊，把他搀进了酒馆，径直向吧台走去。

“晚上好，马隆先生，”酒保招呼道，“老板一直在找你呢。”看到刚进门的这个人面如土灰，他又说：“你气色不太好。想来点什么吗？”

这个叫马隆的人穿着普通；衣服虽整洁但已磨得发亮；外套很薄，由于刚才跌进雪泥里，背部已弄得很脏。破旧外套的扣洞里是共和国大军[98]的青铜扣子。

马隆抓住吧台前的栏杆使自己站稳。“给我来点——威士忌吧，汤姆，”他说，依然气喘吁吁，“再问一问这两个好人——他们想来点什么。”

这两位先生和他一样要了威士忌。然后，他们再次安慰他，说他一会儿就没事了；说完，他们把他留在吧台前，分头离开了。

这时，酒吧里碰巧没有别的客人，酒保汤姆得以把全部注意力放在马隆先生身上。

“你在老板的店门口跌倒，而他碰巧不在，没能扶你起来，听了这事他会伤心的，”汤姆说，“但你最好待到他回来再走。你要缓过劲儿来也不太容易呢——我自己也摔过跤，我知道——虽然我不是在冰上摔的。”

“帕特·麦卡恩想见我，是吗？”马隆问。他想深吸一口气，却发现办不到，因为他撞伤的背部肌肉不听使唤。“哦，好吧，我就坐在这儿等吧。”

“去那边角落，你的老地方坐着吧。”汤姆回应。

“我要抽上一锅子烟，”马隆边说边挪动步子，“只要刚才那一跤没摔坏我的烟斗就行。没坏，还好着呢。”说着，他从外衣胸前的暗袋里掏出一个欧石楠木的烟斗。

马隆拖着脚慢吞吞地朝酒吧角落里的一张桌子走去时，临街的门被推开，酒吧老板走了进来——他个子很高，戴着高顶礼帽，穿着毛边大衣。麦卡恩径直向吧台走去。

“汤姆，”麦卡恩问，“我那玻璃杯里现在还有几张记工签？”

汤姆看了看放在身后靠墙的架子顶上的一只平底玻璃杯。“还剩五张。”他回答。

“巴里·麦科马克在我们关门前会来，他会管你要记工签，你给他三张，”酒吧老板说，“告诉他就剩这几张了。如果杰里·奥康纳又来找我保释他那个犯事的弟弟，你必须把他支走。我不想保释他，你知道，但我又不想跟他直说我不愿意。”

“那我该跟他说什么呢？”酒保问，“我是不是说你去华盛顿见参议员了比较好？”

“随你怎么说，”麦卡恩回答，“但是别让他难堪。”

“我会尽力的，”汤姆应承，“你出门之前说过要找丹尼·马隆。他现在就在角落里坐着。他在门外的冰上狠狠地摔了一跤，摔得够呛——不过骨头一根没断。”

“我要告诉他的消息不会让他更好受，”麦卡恩答道，“但我会尽快说完的。”说着他穿过酒吧，走向远处的角落，来到马隆落座的小桌前。

麦卡恩向这边走来时，马隆抬起头，认出了酒吧老板，就试着站起身来。可这突然的举动被他背上拉伤的肌肉迅速制止，他随即跌坐在椅子上，脸疼得直抽搐，又喘不上气了。

“哦，丹，老伙计，”麦卡恩说，“你摔得可真够惨的。我为你难过。千万别站起来！坐那儿歇一会儿，打起精神。”

身材高大的老板僵硬地站在摔了一跤腰也挺不直的马隆身旁，好像一座铁塔，这时马隆抬起头看着店主的脸，希望上面写着好消息。

“好的，帕特，”他又缓过气来，开口说道，“我是摔了一跤——但不要紧——再过个把小时——我就没事了。我还强壮得很哪——你给我找什么活儿我都能干——”

他眼巴巴地盯着对方的眼睛，急切地等着一句充满希望的话。

酒吧老板垂下目光，清了清嗓子。他的外衣扣子已经解开，衬衣前襟上的那块大宝石露了出来。

不等店主作答，马隆老汉又忧心忡忡地开口了。

“你见到他了吗？”他问。

“是的，”店主回答，“我见到他了。”

“他会给你办吗？”老汉接着问。

“他要是能办的话会为我办的，可是他不能。”麦卡恩回答。

“他不能？”马隆问，“为什么不能？”

“他说，因为那个岗位不由他指派，”酒吧老板解释，“他跟我说，如果可以的话，他很愿意把这个位置给我的朋友——但那是政府文职部门。他必须照章办事，他说，主要是因为上次他打算破例，结果他们大发雷霆。”

“但我是个老兵，”马隆恳求，“我服了三年役。文职部门也得算上这个呀，不是吗？”

“此时此刻你也许就在名单上，但是根本没用，”店主回应道，“名单上的老兵现在多得是！”

“老兵协会会推荐我的，只要我开口——这总该有用吧？”

“什么都没用，他是这样说的，”麦卡恩解释道，“不是一支烟、一口酒就能帮上忙，否则我自己就能给你找着工作了，对不对？”

“那么，我是谁都指望不上了？”老汉又问。

“我跟你说，我已经尽力了，而且我相信在这一片儿没有人能比我做得更好了，”酒吧老板回答，“他说他倒是愿意把这个职位给你，可是他不能这么做。他必须录用文职人员。”

“那你就没有别的办法了？”马隆绝望地问。

“能办我就办了，”麦卡恩回答，“可我真想不到还能有什么其他办法。人家就是不肯帮忙，就是这样。一切都完了，没有别的办法。当然，我要是听到什么信儿，我会告诉你——要是能行，我会为你争取的。不过现在看来，今冬找工作着实不易啊，这你很清楚。”

马隆老汉没作声；他耷拉着脑袋，茫然地盯着酒吧另一头的沙箱。

面谈终于结束了，酒吧老板松了一口气。

“好吧，”他说着转过身去，“我得走了。我得去见个新人，他刚签了合同，在哈莱姆[99]那边顶缺。”

“别觉得我不知感恩，帕特。”马隆又抬起头，说道，“你知道我很感谢你，我也知道你已经为我尽力了。”

“我确实尽力了，”麦卡恩承认，握住对方伸出的手，“我希望下次能做得更好，但愿吧。”

说着他轻轻握了握马隆的手，离开了酒吧，走的时候对酒保喊道：“如果有人找我，跟他说我一小时后就回来。好好照顾丹尼·马隆。他受的打击可不小。”

老板刚走，三位顾客就进来了，酒上来后，他们站着一口气喝光，随即离去；他们打开外门时，阴冷潮湿的夜风吹了进来。

酒保走到马隆坐的角落，马隆手里拿着没有点燃的空烟斗，正瞪着眼睛发愣。

“马隆先生，”酒保说，“现在感觉好点了吗？缓过气来了吗？”

“好，好。”马隆应道，回过神来，“现在感觉好多了。”他又试着往起站；然后又腾地跌坐在椅子上，被肌肉的剧痛所困。“我好点了——但是我想——我最好——再歇一会儿。”

“就是嘛，”汤姆高兴地回应，“在这儿歇着。我来给你装烟斗。我想，没什么比抽口烟更让人舒坦的了。我估计，来口陈年麦芽酒应该伤不着你吧？”

五分钟后，丹尼·马隆嘴上叼着点燃的烟斗，面前的桌上摆上了一杯麦芽酒。他慢慢地喝着酒，一次只抿一小口；烟也是有一口没一口地抽着，烟斗都快灭了。他独自坐在那儿，瘫软在椅子上，最后的希望也破灭了。

半小时后，酒吧里又没有别的客人了，看见酒保得空儿，马隆就向他要来一个墨水瓶和一支钢笔，又要了一张纸和一个信封。汤姆把桌子清理干净，把这些东西都摆在他面前，然后他又要了一杯麦芽酒，并再次装上烟斗。

抿了一两口酒，抽了四五口烟之后，马隆忍痛坐正，开始写信。

首先，他在信封上写明收信人：奥尔巴尼[100]，州议会，特伦斯·奥唐奈敬启；然后他把信封推到一边去晾干，开始写信。他的字迹比平时更不工整；他的字一贯歪歪扭扭，难以辨认，何况今天手还有点抖。

“好友特里：我在帕特·麦卡恩的酒吧里给你写这封信，这也将是你从我这儿收到的最后一封信。我在这儿的街角摔了一跤，肩膀着地，伤得很重，气都喘不过来了，现在的我就像一只闭合的风箱。我还没有缓过劲来。我再也不会有力气了。我才五十岁，但我在联邦政府的军队里服役了三年。你带着腿伤在沼泽地里摸爬滚打、日夜拼命——你迟早得为寻求这种欢乐付出代价。我现在就在为我的乐子付出代价。今晚我感到十分衰老，老了就没用了。如果我再年轻点，我不相信玛丽会甩掉我跟了杰克。特里，你还年轻，又娶了一个好媳妇，上帝保佑她，你们会兴旺发达的，因为你为人正直，够朋友。但你永远不会知道被你爱的女人甩掉是什么滋味。这很伤人心，就算她嫁的是你亲弟弟也一样很伤人心。你知道，杰克只是我同父异母的弟弟，但还是一样伤人心。玛丽嫁给了他，他伤害了我，还一直不肯放过我。玛丽也站在他那边。我想这是自然——他是孩子的父亲嘛——但那也很伤人。这个冬天他一直对我恶语中伤。我都知道，但是我绝不会说出去。现在我发现他又在纵容孩子们和我作对。他们一直很友好，玛丽的两个孩子都是。随我名字的那个是一个好小子，特里，如果你哪天能帮他一把，那你就看在我的分上，帮帮他吧。我离开这儿后，就去当铺把手表当了，然后买把手枪。不过我会把当票和这封信一起放在信封里，有一天你发达了，我希望你把表赎出来给小丹尼。我一直想让他拥有这只表。

“我之所以现在求你，是因为这是我写给你的最后一封信，我以后再也见不到你了。我正在抽我的最后一锅烟，最后的一杯酒也已经喝完一半了。我会在干掉剩下半杯的时候想着你，祝你健康，祝玛吉健康，也祝你们即将诞生的宝贝儿子。

“我要退场了。我累了，而且一小时前摔了那一跤之后，我体会到了从未感到过的衰老。这一跤不只让我喘不上气来，它着实把我摔惨了。我以为这儿的帕特·麦卡恩能帮我找份工作，但是他因为对文职部门有顾虑也帮不上忙。我是到了永久退场的时候了。我打算把我的表当了，买把枪。然后我就上杰克家去。玛丽不会不给我一口吃的。我要的不多，这也是我最后一次向她伸手了。孩子们要出去聚会——主日学校组织的聚会。我将最后见他们一次，向他们说再见。晚饭后，等孩子们都走了，我就掏出手枪，把子弹射向它最该去的地方。也许杰克会悔之晚矣，也许玛丽也会。我不知道。当初他们要是对我好点，我如今就不会需要买枪了。

“别了，特里，上帝保佑你们全家。我还想见见孩子们，现在是去玛丽家的时候了。

你的老朋友 丹·马隆”

写完信之后，他抽了一两口烟，把酒喝完。他拿起刚写好的信，仔细看了一遍，看是否把该说的话都说了。他感到很满意，折起信纸塞进信封。他又抽了四五口，把烟抽完。他拿起烟斗在桌子上磕了两下，磕掉烟灰，然后把它规规矩矩地放进外衣胸前的暗袋里。

然后他小心地慢慢站起来，免得动作太大又抻着哪块受伤的肌肉。他拖着脚来到吧台前，付了酒钱，问酒保有没有邮票。汤姆正好有一张，就给了他，他把邮票贴在信封一角。

“嘿，马隆先生，”酒保问，“今晚在达泽勒女爵府邸有假面舞会，你不想弄张票吗？这将是他们迄今为止搞得最高调的盛会。”

“我再也不打算参加舞会了，”马隆回答，“我现在太老了。”

他把薄外套的纽扣在胸前紧紧扣好，然后把手伸向汤姆，让酒保大吃一惊。

“再见，”马隆说，“再见。或许我再也见不到你了，汤姆。”

“再见，马隆先生，”汤姆回应，“可是你明早就会好起来的，我觉得。”

“是的，”马隆重复道，“我明早就会好起来的。是的，我今晚会确保这一点的。”

他打开酒馆外门，一股湿气蹿进他的肺部，噎得他喘不过气来，但是他不敢咳嗽，生怕惊扰拉伤的背部肌肉。

从酒吧往上走两户是一家当铺，门头上挂着三颗金色的球，宽阔的橱窗里摆放着待售的未赎回的抵押物。马隆一头扎进当铺，庆幸摆脱了阴湿的空气，哪怕片刻也好。

大概五分钟后，他出来了，手里拿着寄给尊敬的特伦斯·奥唐奈的信。他在当铺门槛上站了一下，借着橱窗里气灯的光，把当票夹入信中，然后封上信封。薄外套右手边的大口袋里装着一件他进当铺时尚未放在那儿的、形状不规则的东西，就是他用手表抵押款买的那把左轮手枪。

他又顺着大道往回走去，因为那儿的灯柱上有一个信箱，就在麦卡恩酒馆所在的那个街角。当铺与酒馆之间的铺子是卖殡葬品的；马隆慢慢走过的时候，看见橱窗里有一副小棺材，上面铺着白缎子。

“得给我用一副比那个大的。”他说，“今天是星期五——星期天他们就该办葬礼了。”

他在街角把信投入灯柱上的邮箱，就在这时从他身后远远地传来一声怪叫，是河里的拖船在不耐烦地鸣笛。他在等缆车的时候，一个瘸腿报童一拐一拐地走上来，带着哀求的眼神向他兜售晚报。马隆摸了摸口袋，只摸出两个硬币，一枚五分的，一枚两毛五的。他把两毛五的给了报童。然后，他艰难地登上缆车的后部平台，把五分硬币递给不耐烦的售票员。缆车再次叮叮当当地前行，渐行渐远，车上彩灯的光晕很快就消失在了远处的黑暗里。

（1895年）

[98] 共和国大军（Grand Army）：美国内战后北方联邦退伍军人组织。1866年成立，1956年最后一名成员去世。

[99] 哈莱姆（Harlem）:曼哈顿岛东北部的黑人居住区。

[100] 奥尔巴尼（Albany): 纽约州首府。

3
底层社会一瞥

晚宴的规模的确不大，就餐者只有八个，时间是三月的一天晚上，地点是麦迪逊大道、默里山半坡上一幢宽敞又气派的宅邸。宽大的餐厅在这幢房子的后部，附带一间宽敞的、一直延伸到后院里的配膳室。厨房也很大，位于餐厅的正下方。配膳室下面的屋子和配膳室一般大，作为仆人的起居室。在这间家佣客厅的一角，有一架送菜升降机与上面的配膳室相连，另一角则是一段螺旋楼梯，好让管家在紧急情况下可以快速到达厨房。仆人起居室的窗户前摆放着一张桌子，桌子上有一盏破旧的学生台灯，桌子周围摆放着三四把与之配套的椅子。

厨房里哨子声轻轻响起，瑞典厨子不紧不慢地走到通话管前，也吹哨回应，听上面的人有什么吩咐，只听管家说：“大家都到齐了，我已经把牡蛎摆到桌子上了，现在我去通知夫人开饭。你把汤准备好——听到了吗？”

厨子不屑做正面回答。然而，在她离开通话管回到炉灶边时，她说：“好像我什么都不懂似的！我再也不会去黑人当管家的地方工作了。”这次的话音很高，隔壁起居室的仆人们都听得到。

在配膳室下面的起居室里，一个精瘦的机灵小子咧嘴笑着说：“他们老是拌嘴，就他们俩，是吧？如果我是卡托，我才不让荷兰厨子跟我顶嘴呢，就算我是个黑人也不行，你说呢？”

“这个不懂规矩的臭小子是谁？他怎么在这儿？”年轻的英国男仆问，此人脸上刮得干干净净，仪表整洁。

“他叫蒂姆。”爱尔兰洗衣女工说。

“我叫蒂姆。”男孩愤愤地说，“蒂姆就是我，虽说你是侍候爵爷的，但我也不比你差！而且你也用不着在我面前摆架子，再过一两年，我肯定比你牛！明白吗？”

“帕森斯先生，你不要介意那个死娃子。”爱尔兰姑娘从中打劝，“这里压根儿没人使唤他。他顶多是在上午跑跑腿什么的，忙忙活活显得自己有点用。所以他们才让他今晚留在这儿。”

“我跟他一样有权待这儿，”男孩声明，“而且他也不是来看你的，玛吉——你又不是他对象。让他神魂颠倒的是那个法国妞埃莉斯。”

“我管他看上谁呢！神魂颠倒，真是的！祝你这个小浑蛋倒大霉，”面容姣好的洗衣工挺直身子说，“不就是男人吗？我要是上心，身边的男人一大把。”

幸好厨师在这个节骨眼儿上把蒂姆叫走，给他派了个差事。屋里只剩爱尔兰姑娘和英格兰小伙。

男仆此前一直站着，手里拿着帽子和拐杖，外衣搭在胳膊上。这时他把东西都放到桌子上，坐到清秀的爱尔兰姑娘旁边。

“不用说，埃莉斯小姐是法国姑娘，”男仆说，“可我一向受不了外国口音。现在，我很乐意听你说话，玛吉小姐。”

“哎呀，你省省吧，帕森斯先生。”爱尔兰姑娘娇滴滴地回应。

“千真万确，”男仆辩解道，“我喜欢和你说话。你眼睛总是睁得大大的，什么都瞒不过你，总能告诉我发生了些什么事儿。”

“可不是吗？”洗衣工回答，“我知道什么样的蛋能孵出小鸡来——一猜一个准。”

“那你告诉我今晚谁来吃饭？”男仆问。

她还未来得及回应男仆的问话，微弱的哨声又响了，厨子就直接把盛放绿龟汤的精致银汤盆端进了配膳室，放在升降机上送了上去，然后立刻返回厨房。

“今天吃饭的人不多，”爱尔兰姑娘解释说，“只有八个人。其中有我们这儿的三个，对吧？范艾伦先生和夫人，还有埃塞尔小姐。再就是你家爵爷——我敢说你主人正在追求的是埃塞尔小姐吧？如果能追到，就是他的福分了；小姐简直就是一位甜美的天使。”

“那也是她的福分呀！”英国人回敬，“你想想！她将成为史丹尼赫斯特女爵，是不是？况且我家爵爷人也不错！”

“当然并不是哪个真心接近埃塞尔小姐的人，都值得埃塞尔小姐喜欢！”玛吉说，用眼角余光看着帕森斯先生。

“在美国这儿，没有哪个姑娘嫁了我家爵爷会不感到光荣。”男仆反唇相讥，“现在好多姑娘上赶着追求他呢。他可以随意挑选。”

“埃塞尔小姐绝不会撵着追求他或别的任何男人，”洗衣工坚称，“哪个小子想娶她，就必须主动向她求爱。”

“我有理由相信这桩婚事都安排妥了，”帕森斯断言，“我希望——”他顿了顿，吞吞吐吐地继续说，“但愿她父亲是位大款吧？至少能给她一大笔吧，我估计？你知道，我们可不能让自己白白耗在一个没有一大笔的姑娘身上。”

“一大笔是多少？”玛吉问。

“一大笔，”年轻的英国人解释，“就是十万英镑——合五十万美元，对吧？”

“范艾伦先生能给埃塞尔小姐整整一百万，”玛吉说，“要是他顺意，能给得更多。不单这个，他们还告诉过我，他在市中心有一幢很大的建筑——具体在哪里我不知道——租户们一年得交给他十万美元租金；而且都定期交着呢，年关时也没人因为欠钱被赶走。”

哨子又尖叫起来，厨子急忙把盛有海鲈鱼片的盘子放在送菜机上。

过了几分钟，埃塞尔·范艾伦小姐的法国女仆埃莉斯小姐进入仆人起居室，帕森斯先生热情地跟她打了声招呼。看样子，这位法国女人在范艾伦夫人的房间里耽搁了一阵，帮客人脱外衣去了。

“那个老姑娘，马林斯派克小姐——什么鬼名字！”埃莉斯说，“她真是个贵妇人，但是那个普莱费尔女士——噢！我可真受不了她！她真是——该怎么说呢——做作？傲慢？”

“她就是既傲慢又做作，”爱尔兰洗衣工坚称，“涂脂抹粉特别厉害，涂得连她妈都认不出来。要说傲慢，她的行为举止太差劲了，没有一个女孩侍候她一个月后还会留在她身边；她们挣到几个钱就离开了。真是这样，我哥哥是她家的车夫，他在那儿干了七年了。”

“你哥哥是怎么待下去的，”法国女仆问，“看在她这么傲慢的分上？”

“噢，我哥为人可靠，他们相处得非常融洽，”玛吉回答，“他懂得分寸，普莱费尔女士也懂得分寸。她对他是无话不说，他对她也是无话不说。这是份好差事，他可舍不得放手。我哥丹尼，他管得住自己的舌头；有的月份里，算上他的工资、他的伙食费、他赚的外快，这位子值一百多块呢。”

“这也就是一个男人在其位应该享有的酬劳吧。”男仆议论。

“哈，可丹尼是个仆人！”洗衣工刻薄地回应，“他对普莱费尔女士的情况知道得太多，丢不了工作。这是毫无疑问的！只要他愿意在那儿干，就能一直待下去。她会对他无话不说。”

“这个普莱费尔女士，她是寡妇还是离异了？”法国女仆问。

“她既是寡妇又离异了。”洗衣女工笑着说，“普莱费尔先生，他在离婚判决一周后就染病死了，一天没耽搁。”

“我听说你们的范艾伦先生和普莱费尔女士之间有什么事？”帕森斯问。

“你认为他俩之间有事？”

哨子又响了，厨子端着羊脊骨从他们身前经过，男仆的问题暂时未予回应。

“他们究竟请了哪些人吃饭？”洗衣女工问，“我们这边有三个，加上你家爵爷、马林斯派克小姐、普莱费尔太太——也才六个人啊。我想总共应该有八个人。一定还有两个人。”

“我听爵爷说他预计会见到塔克西多主教大人[101]。”英国人说。

“夫人说法官今晚要来。”法国女仆说。

“吉莱斯皮法官吗？”男仆来了兴趣。

“是的，”法国女仆答道，“正是吉莱斯皮法官。他怎么让你一蹦三尺高？”

“噢，没有，没有的事儿。”帕森斯说着靠到椅子背上，心中一阵窃喜。

“有话快说！”爱尔兰洗衣工大喊，“不要一晚上就是龇牙咧嘴跟杀猪似的，有屁快放！——我看你话都到嘴边了。”

“是啊——是啊，”法国女仆催促道，“有什么可笑的？”

“真有，”男仆开口了，“我不知道我该不该在这儿讲，在这所号子——我是说房子里。但是，我听说法官吉莱斯皮是范艾伦夫人顶要好的朋友。注意，我可没说这关系有什么不正当的。我只是把四处听来的东西告诉你们。要知道，在纽约，我不是只光顾这一所房子，绝对不是。我的其他朋友得知我来这儿，嗯哼，他们自然会告诉我一些新闻，知道吧——关于这儿的一些新闻，知道吧？”

爱尔兰洗衣女工和法国女仆面面相觑，然后哈哈大笑。

“他们不会是获得了第一手消息吧？”洗衣女工问。

很显然，法国女仆也打算发表点评论，但是看到厨子端着盛有炖甲鱼的小银锅又来到送菜机旁，她就改变了主意。

男仆两次试图打开话匣子，想刺探这家男女主人的丑事，但均告失败，不免有些伤脑筋。

“不知道夫人是怎么给他们安排座位的。”玛吉说。

“当然是爵爷领她进的餐厅，”英国人对大家说，“伯爵优先于法官和主教。”

“我倒愿意瞅瞅你家爵爷。”爱尔兰女人说，同时站起身来，“我要悄悄爬上那边的楼梯，兴许我能通过门缝瞧见，神不知鬼不觉。你家爵爷是个年轻人吗？”

“爵爷还年轻着呢。”男仆回答。

“我知道这话什么意思。”洗衣女工回答，“要是说他还年轻着呢，我敢保证他脑袋顶上没有一根毛。想来我们的埃塞尔小姐要跟这么个没毛的丑八怪交往。罢了，罢了，萝卜白菜各有所爱！兴许过几天我还嫁个荷兰人呢。”

她一边说一边登上房间一角的螺旋楼梯。

“你家老爷，他是一个什么样的人？”法国女仆问。

“他绝对不是个坏人，”英国人回答，“你家小姐跟谁都不如跟他，你知道——我是说，嫁给他。我不该这么说，但他年轻时的确有点花心，你知道，但这个现在对她来说无所谓，不是吗？就算他很久以前曾放荡不羁，现在也准备结个婚安顿下来了。”

“那你家老爷，他已经——défraíchi——怎么说来着——废了？”法国女仆继续说，“而小姐是个率真的天使。她无须忏悔就能直接见耶稣。”

“是天使也好，不是也罢，”帕森斯先生说，“三个王国里再没有比我家爵爷更好的对象了。他是个伯爵，明白吗？他还有城堡呢！你家小姐要是见了他的城堡，保准想嫁给他！”

“小姐见过他的城堡。”对方回答。

“噢，要命！”男仆说。

“真的见过，”法国女仆解释，“去年，在伦敦，你家老爷被介绍给小姐后就开始向她发动攻势。半个月后，我们去了利明顿，小姐和我，我们一起去看了你家老爷的城堡。”

“那是一流的城堡，对不对？”男仆问，“有时候，我们二三十个人聚在仆人活动室里，玩啊，乐啊，各种消遣。如果爵爷和你家小姐的这桩婚事能成，你会随她一起来，还是留在她母亲这儿？”

“我这辈子都不会离开小姐。”法国女仆答道。

“那么不管你何时去，我都希望能有幸把你引荐给城堡里最优秀的社交圈。”帕森斯先生恳切地说。

爱尔兰洗衣工此时迈步走下螺旋楼梯。厨子也进入房间朝送菜机走去，手里端着一个银色大盘子，盘子上十来个闪闪发光的锥形小果冻摇摇晃晃。

“什么东西颤悠成那样？”爱尔兰女工好奇地问。

“Paté de foie gras en aspic。”厨子草草回答，送上菜品，然后一声不吭地返回厨房。

“帕蒂的照片？”洗衣女工重复道，“你们瞧她脸皮多厚，居然睁着眼睛说瞎话。”

英国人看了看法国女仆，笑了，然后自以为高人一等地解释道：

“说的是法语——肥鹅肝酱饼，不是帕蒂的照片，是一种美味佳肴，用鹅肝做的。”

“那荷兰厨子怎么不这么说？”洗衣女工愤怒地问，“我和她一样有权利知道鹅的事。我怀疑她就是穷光蛋出身，他们家屋头连根鹅毛都没有。”

“你瞧见爵爷了吗？”男仆问。

“瞧见啦。”爱尔兰姑娘回答，“我刚才说他什么来着？他的头皮都露出来了！我估摸着，从他年轻时起，他头上的收成就时好时差——他的眼睛看上去也怪怪的。埃塞尔小姐结婚那天可真惨啊，嫁给这么个秃头老矬子，就因为他是个爵爷！”

“嘿，我说，玛吉小姐，你可不能这么糟蹋爵爷大人，”帕森斯坚称，“真的，你不能这么无礼。”

“我看，倒是普莱费尔女士和他挺般配的。”玛吉说，“她可真是个厚颜无耻的家伙，她身上穿多少衣服也不比不穿体面。还有，她看范艾伦先生的样子，看主教的样子，她讲话的样子——我可真受不了她。你们知道我听见她说了些啥？”

“我们怎能知道你听见她说了什么？”男仆不耐烦地反问。

“是啊，我这不正要跟你说吗，”爱尔兰姑娘回敬，“她一直跟主教说话，说啊，说啊。‘法官比你好，主教，’她说，‘至少他让更多的人幸福，’她说。‘何以如此？’主教问。‘这样说吧，’她说，‘你主持一场婚礼，你让两个人幸福了，’她说，‘而法官判一对离婚，他让四个人幸福了。’这就是她说的。埃塞尔小姐和那位白发老妇都没吭声，而其余的人都笑了。”

玛吉小姐刚才在楼上配膳室逗留时听见餐桌边对话的只言片语还有哪些，别的仆人就不得而知了，因为这时蒂姆懒洋洋地走进了起居室。

“我说，玛吉。”蒂姆发话了，“你没听见门铃响吗？是你的相好——我看见他了。他就在大门口呢。”

“你是说那个送信的吗？”玛吉问，经过镜子前时，她整了整头发。

“继续啊，”蒂姆不耐烦地说，“你跟我们说什么来着？你想要多少个相好？说！”

玛吉把蒂姆赶出去后，瑞典厨子又一次走到送菜机旁，把四只热气腾腾的帆背潜鸭送上去。

法国女仆和英国男仆继续攀谈，主要是聊他们侍候过的各家成员的个人怪癖。帕森斯就喜欢找前主人的毛病，但他总是维护史丹尼赫斯特爵爷，好像觉得事关荣誉。法国女仆对范艾伦夫人评价不高，对科特赖特·范艾伦先生也评价不高，但是对他们的女儿埃塞尔·范艾伦小姐的溢美之词总是说不完。

“我告诉那个爱尔兰疯丫头，婚事都安排好了，”帕森斯说，“我真心希望能成，因为爵爷急需用钱——不瞒你说，小姐，他已经六个月没付我工钱了，我倒不是自降身份讨要工钱。但婚事真的定下来了吗？——这是我最关心的。”

“我想是定了。”法国女仆回答，“你看，小姐在这儿并不开心。先生和夫人一直冷战，他俩已经两年没说过话了。”

“范艾伦夫妇俩谁也不理谁？”帕森斯兴趣十足地问，“可他们现在在饭桌上肯定是交谈的。”

“噢，在饭桌上是的，”法国女仆解释，“当着外人，是的，他们会交谈。但是在家里，一个字都不说。这让小姐很伤心，能不伤心吗？为了离开这个家，小姐谁都愿意嫁也就没什么好奇怪的了。”

“噢，嘿！”男仆惊呼，“我明白了，我明白了！但是如果她是在这种环境下长大的，你知道，我认为她跟爵爷未必合得来。”

“你家老爷要是不给她幸福——”法国女仆咄咄逼人，“可他必须，他必须给她幸福，因为她结婚以后除了丈夫，就再没有别的依靠了。”

“你说这话究竟什么意思？”帕森斯问，有点起疑。

“我的意思是，”法国女仆回答，“先生和夫人的婚姻只能维持到小姐结婚，然后他们就会离婚。他们没有对我明说，没说——但我能够看出来。”

“对，”男仆同意，“发现这种情况也不是很困难。”

“我还知道更多的情况，”法国女仆又说，“我又不是瞎子，对吧？我晓得二加二等于四，对吧？我跟你说了，小姐结婚后，先生和夫人就要离婚，这是其一。其二，夫人将嫁给吉莱斯皮法官，先生则会娶普莱费尔女士——明白了吧！”

“唉，那又将是一个荒诞的开始，不是吗？”这是帕森斯先生唯一的评论。

就在这个时候，他们看见膀大腰圆的黑人管家卡托正要从墙角的楼梯上往下走。

老黑仆的那颗白头刚一露出来，他就停住脚步，靠在亮铮铮的铁栏杆上和英国人说起话来。

“帕森斯先生，”他严肃地说，“你家爵爷今天可是发现了一样好东西，哈！他尝了我做的芹菜沙拉后，对范艾伦夫人说他从没吃过这么好吃的沙拉，哈，我也相信他没吃过，没吃过哟！”

说完他又慢腾腾地退回去了，这时，厨子端着内斯尔罗德布丁向送菜机走去。

（1896年）

[101] 塔克西多（Tuxedo)：纽约市郊的一个镇。

4
华尔街求爱记

前一天晚上瓢泼大雨下了整整一夜，经过一场暖雨的洗刷，即便到了第二天下午三点，空气仍然非常清新。幸运的是，太阳在教堂钟声响起之前出来了，做礼拜的人们在钟声的召唤下跪拜在大理石圣坛前，圣坛上高高地堆放着淡雅的白花。那天是复活节，正好是四月一日，更是春天里第一个暖洋洋的礼拜日。少男少女们打扮一新，簇拥在教堂门口——小伙子们穿着轻薄的外衣，姑娘们戴着崭新的盛装女帽。

一辆缆车在纵横交错的高架铁路下方平稳前行，缆车的角落里坐着一位小伙子，正带着几分妒意饶有兴致地观察周围的人，手里捻着一撮倔强的小黑胡子。菲尔森·谢尔比还没有融入纽约这个大都市，这一点他心知肚明，对此他心中暗暗表示不满。城里人总在乡下人面前得意扬扬，他一直伺机对这些城里人发泄愤怒。可是大都市已在很大程度上征服了他，他的帽子、他的鞋、他的衣服都是城里产的。

这位年轻的西南部居民离开生他养他的村庄来到纽约已经六个月了，他自认为已对纽约很熟悉了，尤其是从他寄居的哈莱姆区到他工作的华尔街这一块。他也深信自己已熟知纽约的风土人情，尽管纽约人的风俗习惯变化很快，令人难以把握。

在五十三街，许多人家的客厅窗户上盛开着白色的花朵，缆车正好经过这里。缆车咣啷咣啷地转弯，开始沿着第七大道行驶，恰从一辆卖花车的尾部擦过，车厢里的棕榈枝堆得老高。菲尔森·谢尔比意识到，复活节期间互赠盆栽花卉现在成了纽约人的一种习惯。

他虽早已获悉星期天下午拜访他人的这种习惯已经不时兴，而他却依旧走在去华尔街的路上，去约一位姑娘出来散步。在他心目中，似乎全纽约只有这一位姑娘具有西南姑娘的那种不矫揉造作的纯真美。他暗问自己，何必在意星期天下午去会女孩子是否时兴呢？不管怎么说，纽约人有什么权利认为自己做事的方式是唯一正确而恰当的呢？

他给自己提出这些问题，又一笑解之，因为他不但具有幽默感，还喜欢进行自我分析，他早已察觉到自己对生活在纽约有点自满情绪。置身于一个国家的总指挥部多么令人兴奋啊，在早期的家信中他曾对自己的家人表达过这种欣喜之情，信纸是从德国人居住区买的宽幅纸，上面装点着用红黄蓝三原色勾勒的纽约风景轮廓图。他不仅用这种纸给家人、朋友写信，甚至还给儿时的相识写信，他对这些人的关心微乎其微，只是觉得他们应该知道他将在大城市里定居。他不禁怀疑，如果现在回到他出生的村庄，他是否会在乡亲们面前神气十足，就像纽约人对待刚进城没几周时的他一样。

缆车沿着第七大道滑行，晃晃悠悠地拐进百老汇大道，时而平稳加速前进，时而急起急停。衣着鲜艳的家庭团上上下下，到麦迪逊广场时，缆车上已经空空荡荡。菲尔森·谢尔比兴致勃勃地观察坐在对面的两个女孩的举止，她俩身穿漂亮的长外衣，互相不太熟悉。他发觉其中一个——碰巧是较漂亮的那个——在另一位的陪伴下显得有点不自在，却又乐意被别人看到有对方相伴。令他遗憾的是，她们俩都在恩典堂下了车，长长的车厢里只剩下五六个人继续前往市中心。

他认定两女中姿色平平的那一位是被称为“四百名流”的奇特阶层的一员。由于常看星期日报，他对于这个阶层所知颇多。如果这一定位准确，如果要根据这个例子判断，那么“四百”阶层的女孩并不是长相很好看的一群人，尽管她们打扮得很入时。他还发觉，这个女孩的举止多少有点讨厌，虽然他也说不准讨厌在哪儿。

令他欣喜的是，他在纽约唯一熟悉的那个女孩拥有发自天生纯良之心的那种从容大方的举止。她和刚刚下车的那两个女孩一样受过良好的教育，或许是更好的教育，因为她再过两三个月就要从师范学院毕业了，然而她不做作、不招摇。正如他心中描述的那样：“她从不端架子。”他可以和她轻松地交谈，就像和他小时候一起上学的女孩们说话一样。可是每当他细想她其实和他儿时的伙伴们是如此不同，他就困惑为什么竟和她相处得如此融洽，同时他的思绪就会回到跟她初次见面的情景。

缆车现在飞快地穿过百老汇大道，没有任何车辆的阻挡。阿斯特广场南面的人行道和这条大道一样空无一人。空荡荡的大道两旁，高层建筑的窗户上，窗帘已经垂下，绚丽的招牌徒劳地闪烁不停。有一英里多长的路，他感觉好像在一座废弃城市的街道上穿行。除缆车之外，唯一的生命迹象是一个少见的骑车人沿着缆索槽从南渡口方向骑过来。这位来自西南部的年轻人不禁思索，如果他第一次来纽约是在一个宁静的星期天，也许这座大都市未必会令他这么不知所措。想当初，突然扎进这巨大城市的旋涡之中曾令他深感震撼。

菲尔森·谢尔比起先在离他出生地不远的一个小镇里当电报员，有一次他超越职责范围帮了一个碰巧在那里耽搁了两星期的纽约人。出于礼节性的回报，这位纽约人帮他找了一份工作，在华尔街一位朋友的办公室里当私人话务员。年轻人在家乡没有丝毫牵绊，急不可耐地接受了这份工作。尽管如此，在纽约的头三个月里，他不止一次感到极度想家。实际上，直到他认识了埃德娜·莱斯勒之后，他才安于大都市的生活，这里虽然人口众多，他身在其中却很孤独。尽管他同别人建立友谊的进展很慢，但他还是认识了几个人。

正是这样一位泛泛之交，有一天把他引到了证券交易所附近一幢旧办公楼的楼顶上。这里住着一位门房，门房得到准许把分给他住的屋子拿出一间来做大家的午餐室。门房的妻子做的饭很香，菲尔森·谢尔比经常去那儿吃饭。一个星期六，碰巧吃饭的人比往常多，身材瘦削、脸色红润的爱尔兰姑娘一时忙不过来。在菲尔森·谢尔比点好菜很长一段时间之后，一位身着整洁的棕色裙子的年轻女士才来为他服务。他善于观察，看到这姑娘的两颊各有一团红晕，像是火焰在燃烧，还注意到她双唇紧闭，看样子她似乎不甘心当服务员，同时又好像是出于自愿。他不喜欢盯着人看，但她在屋子里的时候，他却难以将目光从她身上移开。她并不是特别漂亮，因为她身材太单薄，头发又是红铜色的，人们常说红头发很难看。但她身上还是有什么东西吸引着他，也许是她的不卑不亢，也许是她的沉着自信，也许是潜藏在她眼睛里和嘴角边的幽默神情。

那天中午，他尽可能拖长吃饭时间，终于有所收获。第一次带他来吃饭的那个人走了进来，坐在了他身旁。这时，穿棕裙子的年轻女士过来为他点菜，刚进来的那人和她亲切地握了握手，称她为“埃德娜小姐”。

“她以前和我妹妹一起上学，”刚来之人向年轻的西南人介绍，“现在正在上师范学院，我以前从未在餐室里见过她。不过她现在放假，估计她觉得应该帮妈妈的忙。做饭的是她妈妈，你知道——烹饪技术一流——真正的家常味道。”

菲尔森·谢尔比依然拖着不走，埃德娜·莱斯勒端来黄油面包后，又返回厨房，他的朋友还在滔滔不绝。

“瞧她这一头火红的头发，”他接着评说，“如果再有几个像她这样的，人家还以为这是一支火炬游行队呢，是不是？但这跟她的气质挺搭，是吧？事实上，她是唯一我见了不会讨厌的红发姑娘。”

似乎他很期待菲尔森对此做出反应，为此年轻的西南人犹豫了一下，清了清嗓子，承认她的头发是红色的。

“就是，红得多正啊。”那人又说，“估计她的理发师得戴防火手套吧，嗯？但她是个好姑娘，埃德娜是个出淤泥而不染的好姑娘。我妹妹过去一直很喜欢她，我也很喜欢她，尽管她不完全是我们这个圈子里的人。我把你介绍给她，你愿意吗？”

这时，缆车突然停了下来，让过桥去布鲁克林的人下车，但是菲尔森·谢尔比完全没有意识到停车了。他沉浸在那个冬日的回忆之中，当时他害羞又尴尬地站起身，听见埃德娜·莱斯勒说很高兴认识他。他还记得接下来的那个星期六，他又回到屋顶下面那间又矮又小的餐室，希望能再见到她，而当他们在楼梯上相遇时，她对待他的态度十分坦然，毫不矫揉造作。

他记得华盛顿诞辰日那天，她毫不犹豫地接受了他的邀请去中央公园共进午餐。那天是假期的第一天，正好两人都有空，他也记得，他们在那儿度过了非常愉快的时光。正是华盛顿诞辰日那天，他发现在一些人眼里，红头发不是一种缺陷，而是一种美。他们乘坐的去市中心的公交车很挤，他俩被挤散了，而他听见一个穿着讲究的男子对同伴说：“瞧那位姑娘，你见过那样美的秀发吗？就像擦亮的铜丝——要是太阳照在上面，简直就是金丝。”

在那之前，菲尔森 ·谢尔比鉴于她的好人品，一直甘愿忽略她那一头咄咄逼人的红发，但在那之后，他迅速接受了公交车上那位体面男士的观点，把她的红发看作是荣耀之冠。她仍像第一次见面时那样吸引着他，但是他现在知道，除他之外，别的男士也会被她吸引。他不知道她是否像了解他一样，了解别的什么男人。他俩似乎从一开始就互有好感，他们现在是真正的好朋友。但他没有理由认为她不会再有别的朋友。

此刻，回忆的潮水渐渐平息下来，他得以跟随他乘坐的缆车继续前行。就在这时，他看见了三一教堂那棕色的塔尖，听到钟声响了三下。他向售票员示意，缆车便停在教堂门前，正好在华尔街的街口。

他沿着拐弯的大街向下望去，大街经过雨水的冲刷，在四月的阳光照射下显得格外干净。他问自己为什么要去见埃德娜·莱斯勒——特别是当他想到别的男人也有可能像他一样对埃德娜 ·莱斯勒献殷勤时，为什么他的心跳竟慢了下来。他并没有爱上她，是不是？他必须承认，是她的存在使他觉得纽约尚可忍受；他也承认，她比他遇见过的任何一个女孩都更招他喜欢。但是如果他在为她吃醋的话，这难道不能证明他爱她吗？

他一边思考这些问题，一边从百老汇走向那幢老楼，莱斯勒就住在那幢楼的顶层。当埃德娜·莱斯勒带着崭新的复活节帽下楼来迎接他时，问题的答案不言自明。他明白，如果他失去了进入她生活圈的权利，他将痛苦不堪；他进而明白，自从第一天见她起，他就深深地爱上了她，尽管他此前从未察觉到。他同时也明白，那天下午是向她求爱的最佳时机。在他们握手的时候他就下定决心，争取在送她回娘家之前让她答应嫁给自己。

决心已下，他就以平常话来打掩护。

“我迟了吗？”他问。

“迟了五分钟。”她回答，“我不知道你要在愚人节拿我开涮。”

“哦，埃德娜小姐，”他大喊，“你知道我不会那样做的！”

“我想你也不会真那样做，”她笑着回应，“我敢保证，如果你那样做，我一定会以其人之道还治其人之身。”

他们这样轻松地聊着聊着就来到了百老汇街的拐角。

“咱们去炮台公园怎么样？”他建议，心中盘算在那儿可以找机会向她告白。

“好，”她同意，“要享受带咸味的微风，那可是一流的地方。今天真暖和，跟入了春似的，对不对？”

在证券交易所门前，以及再往南两三个街区，除了一小队检查电缆管道井的工人之外，百老汇街简直空无一人。十来层高的大楼耸立在街道两侧，窗口、门口没有任何生命迹象。高楼那么寂静，仿佛无人居住，好像属于平原上的一座废城。地下酒吧的大门紧闭，由黑啤广告把守。生意人快餐店的弹簧门玻璃上贴着前一天的价格单，这里在工作日接待过不少来往的行人，现在却大门紧锁。许多自命不凡的大饭店也是如此。

但是随着菲尔森·谢尔比与埃德娜 ·莱斯勒继续向市中心走去，百老汇大道的面貌也慢慢改变。办公楼少了，零售店多了；街上出现了几家仓储批发市场，甚至有廉价的平房；生命迹象在逐渐增多。公路上、人行道上到处都是孩子。男孩们在骑三轮车，年轻妈妈们推着婴儿车，车里是熟睡的宝宝。女孩们穿着旱冰鞋滑来滑去，其中一个瘦高女孩牵着一条顽皮的黑狮子狗，狗儿拽着女孩在人行道上飞奔。

这些情况他们有的看在眼里，有的根本没注意到，他俩完全沉浸在自己的谈话中。就这样，年轻的西南人和纽约女孩穿过白厅街，来到炮台公园。他们一直走到水边，远远望去，只见波浪涌向高举火炬的自由女神像。一班满载移民的意大利汽船正从隔离检疫区驶来。由于前一天晚上下过雨，今天下午的空气很清新，而远处的天边还有点雾。巨大的谷仓无所畏惧地屹立在泽西海滨。

男男女女坐在草坪周围沿海堤摆放的椅子上。许多妇女怀里抱着或手里牵着孩子。男人大多在看花里胡哨的星期日报，还有一些在抽烟。温和的海风吹来，预示着天气将要转暖。草地呈棕灰色，只在边缘有少许绿色装点，而光秃秃的树枝还没有发芽。尽管如此，大家依然知道冬天已经过去了，春天随时会突然来临。

菲尔森 ·谢尔比环顾四周，看到很多情侣肩并肩坐在长凳上，或悠闲地漫步在弯弯曲曲的人行道上，他知道，他不是唯一一个春心萌动的青年。他轻轻一扫就发现，别的女孩都比不上埃德娜漂亮，比不上埃德娜时尚。时间一分一秒地过去，他表白的愿望越来越强，他是多么爱她呀，但是一次一次话到嘴边，又咽下去。有那么一两次，她对他说话，而他却没有吭声，然后又急忙为他的失礼而道歉。他也不太清楚自己在说些什么，恐怕她一定会以为他傻。他还忐忑不安，似乎他不可能在炮台公园这样的大庭广众之下向她求婚。

“我们去三一教堂，怎么样？”他建议，“那里的墓地安静极了。”

“这里不够安静吗？”她问，说着他俩离开了古堡花园。

“我得承认，这里并不太吵闹，”他回答，“但是我烦透了那些高架火车，呼哧呼哧地在脑后响个不停，你不觉得烦吗？”

她怪怪地斜瞟了他一眼，然后轻声笑了。

“哦，好吧，”她回答，“如果你认为三一教堂的庭院是个好地方，那我也不介意。”

说完她的脸唰地红了，她把头扭到一边。

于是他俩穿过高架铁路下的空地，由于忙着过铁路，年轻人没有发觉她脸红。

在他俩围绕椭圆形的博灵格林公园走的时候，女孩朝一个守护小公园的灰衣警察点头致意。

“那人是谁？”小伙子问，醋意顿生，尽管警察看起来不下五十岁了。

“他是奥罗克先生，”她解释道，“是罗斯·奥罗克的父亲。罗斯两年前刚从师范学院毕业，然后当了演员。她现在发展得很好，去年她演过伊丽莎白女王——她看起来多像女王！我敢肯定她比老女王漂亮得多。”

“但那位老女王，”他回应，“可不是雀警的女儿呀——你们是这样称呼他们的，对吗？”

“我不这样称呼他们，”她回答，“我觉得说俚语很粗俗。”

“但是男孩都管公园警察叫作雀警，对吧？”他坚称。

“野小子那样说，”她回答，“但是我知道奥罗克先生不喜欢这个称呼。”

“可以理解，”他说，“如果我有伊丽莎白这样的女儿，估计我自己就想做国王了。”

“哦，”姑娘继续解释，“罗斯确实想要他父亲放弃这个职位，她说她挣的钱足够养活他，让他不用工作了。尽管她强烈要求，可她父亲就是不愿意放弃。罗斯是个很和善的姑娘，一点也不傲慢自大。去年她还来我们学校为我们表演过诗朗诵。你应该来听听她朗诵的《曾经的铃声今晚不会响起》，跟你说，她朗诵得太棒了。”

“我不信她朗诵得比你好。”他断言。

“哦，你不信吗？”她充满真诚地回应道，“那只是因为你没有听过她朗诵。而且，她对我也很好，她还称赞过我的朗诵呢。”

“你朗诵了哪首？”他问。

“哦，我总是选一些激昂的爱国诗篇。我先朗诵了《谢里丹的骑兵队》，然后姑娘们要我再来一首，我就又朗诵了一首《老宪法号军舰》——但是我最喜欢《谢里丹的骑兵队》。罗斯·奥罗克说，在她听过的所有朗诵者当中，就数我对《谢里丹的骑兵队》理解最深。不过话说回来，她总是这样夸赞人。”

“我估计她是知道自己太走运了，因为你没有登上舞台。”爱她的人坚定地说，“你要是登台，她的日子就不好过了。我没见过她，但我肯定她不像你这样好看！”

“谢谢你的夸奖，”女孩回答，“如果我们不是在百老汇这里，而是在三一教堂前，那我就向你行屈膝礼了。但要是你见过她的话，你就不会这样说了，因为她真美得像画一样。”

“你的意思是她像上了油彩那样鲜亮吗？”他问。

“你真刻薄，”她反讥，“但罗斯即便在舞台上也完全不需要上油彩，她有一副姣好的面容。”

“在纽约，拥有姣好面容的姑娘不止她一个。”他声明，红晕又迅速浮上她的脸蛋，继而迅速消退。

他俩来到了三一教堂门口，看到一小群男女涌进教堂参加下午的礼拜。

“你不应该对罗斯怀有偏见，”女孩说，说着他俩转身离开百老汇，开始在墓碑之间漫步，“她是我的好朋友，罗斯说如果我要走上舞台，她就帮我签约。”

“你难道没这个打算吗？”他热切地插了一句。

“我非常愿意，”她平静地回答，“但我是个大大的懦夫，我永远都不敢登上大剧院的舞台，站在众人面前，感觉所有人都在看着我。”

“我很高兴你没这个打算。”他声明。

“登台演出是多么令人高兴的事！ ”她语气坚定，“但是我一直没有勇气，我知道我不会这么勇敢，所以就打消了这个念头。我要完成我的学业，拿到文凭，然后去当老师——如果我能被录用的话。但是如果你没有任何关系，就很难得到这份工作。可我父亲对政治不感兴趣，我们区的理事他一个也不认得，我不知道怎么才能进入学校工作。要是奥罗克先生愿意，他倒是可以帮忙——”

“那个雀警？”年轻的西南人插话，“怎么，他和公立学校有什么关系？”

“跟你说吧，奥罗克先生在这个警区很有影响力，”她回答，“他和好几个理事的关系都不一般。如果他支持我，我保证能得到这个职位！也许我最好去找找罗斯，问问她能不能请她父亲帮帮忙。”

他俩现在几乎走到了位于教堂北边的那块墓地中央，来到了美国囚犯纪念碑后面，这些囚犯死于英国占领纽约期间。下午的礼拜就要开始了，他俩站在这个位置可以听到教堂风琴那庄严的曲调。

菲尔森·谢尔比觉得是时候开口表白了。

他咽了一下口水，开口了。

“埃德娜小姐，”他迟疑地说，“你为什么想要当老师？”

“为了谋生啊，那还用说！”她回答，虽然脸又有点泛红，但是很镇静。

“但是你不需要教那么多的学生来挣生活费，是不是？”他问，慢慢地鼓起勇气。

“你什么意思？”她反问，迫使自己看着他的眼睛。

“我是说，”他回答，“我觉得你完全可以只教一个学生来谋生……”

“只教一个学生？”她反问。

“是的，只教一个学生，”他断言，“但是你可以终身教他，你可以教给他一切真善美——而他会为你努力工作，尽力让你幸福。”

她脸上的红晕退了，但是她什么也没有说。风琴的低沉乐声渐弱渐息，在这对年轻人身后的高架铁路上，一列火车咝咝地驶来，旋涡状的蒸汽缭绕在列车上方。

“我配不上你，埃德娜，我心里明白得很。但是，如果你愿意尝试，就一定能让我变得更好，更好。”他竭力表白，“我全身心地爱你——这是我一直以来想说的话。你愿意嫁给我吗？”

她抬起头，看着他的眼睛，简单地回答：

“愿意。”

一个小时后，随着夜幕的降临，他俩沿着华尔街向那幢旧办公楼走去，在她和父母居住的顶层，他俩仍在交谈，谈他们共同的未来，谈他们各自的过去。

他们来到门口，站在通往门房住处的五级台阶下面，两人还有很多话要向对方倾诉。

对于菲尔森 ·谢尔比来说，最让他惊讶的是他现在竟然已经定下婚约，而就在当天上午他还没有意识到自己爱着她。作为一个年轻的小伙子，而且是深深坠入爱河的小伙子，他无法保守这个秘密，他必须告诉她。

“你知道吗，埃德娜？”他开口道，“我肯定已经爱上你很久了，自己却没有发觉，这不是很离奇吗？今天早上我才发现了这一点！”

她站在上方离他一臂之遥的台阶上，突然欢快地笑起来，红色的鬈发在她的浓眉周围颤动着。

“你笑什么？”他问。

“哦，没什么，”她回答，然后又笑了起来，“反正没什么大不了的。只不过因为男人的知觉总比女人慢半拍罢了。”

“什么意思？”他又问。

“呃，”她回答，又笑了起来，还往上退了两三级台阶，“我的意思是，你说你今天上午才发现爱上了我——”

“怎么样？”

“呃，”她继续说，做出要逃的样子，“我两个多月前就已经发现了。”

5
春潮涌动

那是五月的第一个星期六，他从姐姐的小房子里出来，下了楼梯，来到史岱文森广场，只见广场上的草刚露出头来，嫩绿嫩绿的。稀疏的灌木丛中，娇嫩的鲜花刚刚开放，树木吐出嫩芽，他的内心也被涌动的春潮所感染了。湛蓝的天空万里无云，格外晴朗，高不可测。阳光亮晃晃地照射下来，影子在街上拖得老长老长。微风阵阵吹拂。他听见小贩含含糊糊的吆喝声。那小贩托着一个货盘，里面装着十来盒草莓，走在一辆堆满货箱的马车旁边。在横穿第三大道时，他注意到一把撑开的白伞遮住了街口那个意大利人擦鞋摊的高脚椅。还有一个屠夫小子，胳膊上挂着篮子，正在地下室门口闲逛，跟一个长相不错的爱尔兰厨子打情骂俏。一辆乡间来的货车，满载栽培植物，沿着大街慢慢前行，卖主大声兜售着便宜的货物。

联合广场上是另一番春景——脏兮兮的四轮马车顶盖半开，大批艳丽的花儿被移栽到花坛，水生植物点缀着宽阔的喷泉池，鸽子懒洋洋地咕咕叫，发出求爱的信息，麻雀也在精力充沛地打情骂俏，少男少女们漫步在弯弯曲曲的小道上，相视而笑。哈里·格兰特在阴冷的西北度过了一个漫长的寒冬后刚刚回到家乡，此时在他看来，人与自然好像都在为元气的恢复和生机的萌发而欣喜。春天来了，这座强健的城市也被注入了新的活力，城市的脉搏好像跳得更轻快了。哈里·格兰特感到由衷的喜悦，他又回到他所喜爱的景象中，离他出生的房子仅一箭之遥，离他心爱的姑娘也不到一把手枪的射程，他终于要去向她求婚了。

他将近一年没有见过她了，但是他知道她会像从前那样真诚地迎接他的到来。他所知道的是，威妮弗蕾德是他的一位好朋友，但他所不知的是，在她心目中他们的友情是否也发展到了爱情的地步。他俩自打记事起就认识了。他清楚地记得他第一次告诉她长大了要娶她为妻的情景——也是这样的一个春日，那年，他七岁，她五岁，他们一起在葛莱美西公园玩耍，照料他俩的保姆在围栏边慢慢地跟在他们身后。现在他二十三，她二十一了；在这十六年里，他没有一天不期待着他们能喜结连理。当然，在他长成大男孩并被送到寄宿学校的那段时间里，他一直羞于谈论这种事。但是当他进大学的时候，他却翘首遥望四年后，一心向往求婚的日子。

后来他父亲去世了，家庭事务陷入了一片莫名其妙的混乱之中。他的叔叔提出可以供哈里读完哥伦比亚学院，但是哈里本人急于自立，走自己的路，获取一定地位以求威妮弗蕾德与他共享。他很快在一家大型干货行的办公室谋到一份差事。他在那里获得了极大的成功，一位客户甚至提出了优厚待遇，请他去西北部一座快速崛起的城市发展。哈里·格兰特在那里苦干了两年——和他一起在这两年里终日辛劳的人们都很欣赏他充满朝气的活力。现在他作为西北最重要的资本家在东部的代理人回到了纽约，这位资本家上了年纪，很喜欢哈里，并看出哈里的谈吐和品行是能成大事的。对于一个如此年轻的人来说，这项任务非常艰巨，但也是一份荣耀，而且薪水就算在纽约也十分可观。他终于能再次以一个纽约人的视角看待生活。他终于准备好，要请她一起分享他的人生了。

此时此刻他并不着急，因为五点之后他才能确定她在家，他望了一眼广场对面珠宝店上方的窗户，看见阿特拉斯[102]背着的那块透明表盘显示此时还不到四点。这个美丽的五月午后，他在十四街街口刚过到百老汇大道对面，就立刻卷入了由市中心涌上来的春潮当中。花店的橱窗因复活节百合而美丽动人，因丁香花枝而芳香四溢。糖果店的橱窗里摆满花哨的复活节彩蛋和精致的巧克力兔，显得很喜庆。年轻姑娘们咯咯笑着挤进商店，站在拥挤不堪的冷饮柜台旁边。年长一些的男人们则在街角流连，盯着年轻姑娘看。

至多再过一两个小时，哈里·格兰特就要向威妮弗蕾德求婚了，这个他心里最没底的问题近在眼前，让他没法不去猜想对方的答案。威妮弗蕾德喜欢他——这是肯定的。但她是否爱他，哪怕只爱一点点，他却不敢贸然揣测。她意志坚定且思想独立，这他清楚，可他还是忍不住担心她奶奶会对她产生超乎他期望的影响。当然，那个永不满足、野心蓬勃的老太太很有可能早已向她年轻的孙女灌输了她的不满。

哈里的境遇与他们两小无猜的时候相比，已经发生了很大的变化，威妮弗蕾德的境遇也不同了。她的父亲也去世了，随后去世的爷爷给奶奶留下了一笔巨大的财富，威妮弗蕾德就搬去与奶奶温斯顿-史密斯太太一起住了。（在名字中间加上连字符是她奶奶自己的主意，她还坚持要儿子和孙女也采用这种形式。）温斯顿-史密斯太太不喜欢他，这一点哈里·格兰特心里再清楚不过，至少，他知道她并不赞成他向温斯顿-史密斯小姐求婚。她认为她的孙女应该嫁得非常体面。有人听她说过，要是在英国，威妮弗蕾德嫁给一个有爵位的人一定不难。上一季她曾带着孙女去伦敦，她俩受到了宫廷接见，后来还去乡间宅第四处拜访，很晚才回到雷诺克斯，在那里结束了此次夏季之旅。

这些情况都是哈里·格兰特从报纸上获悉的，至于威妮弗蕾德对这次旅程做何感想他就不得而知了，因为自从她动身去英国的前一天他俩会面之后，他就再也没见过她。而且那次会面是当着她的奶奶和另外两三个不速之客的面进行的。事实上，自从三年前的那天晚上，温斯顿-史密斯太太请他共进晚餐，结果却把他单独带到书房，说她看得出他被威妮弗蕾德所吸引，这不足为奇，但是他必须断了这个念头，别想赢得她的芳心——这次谈话之后，哈里·格兰特一直没有机会和他的心上人倾诉衷肠。当时，温斯顿-史密斯太太约莫六十岁，她是一位高贵的夫人，风度翩翩，但只要她愿意，她就会完全坦率、直接地表达她的意思。在当时的情况下，她认为敞开天窗说亮话较为妥当。她对他说，威妮弗蕾德已经习惯了奢华的生活，过不上好日子是肯定不行的；另外，如果威妮弗蕾德在结婚一事上违背了她的意愿，她将把所有的钱都捐给新建的大教堂，不给这个女孩留一分钱。她问哈里，如果明知一旦追求成功就会让他自称心爱的女孩陷入悲惨境地，而他还要执意求爱，这是不是太自私了。她还提醒他，他收入不丰，前途渺茫。要是到时候，威妮弗蕾德身无分文，作为他的妻子，她又怎么才能得到那些让她习以为常、已经成了必需品的奢侈品呢？她自然拒不承认威妮弗蕾德对他有哪怕一丁点兴趣。事实上，她希望，也相信女孩对他毫无爱慕之情，同时，她也寄希望于格兰特先生足够理智，不会如此自私自利。毕竟威妮弗蕾德只是一个孩子，还没见过多少世面。

哈里·格兰特没有对温斯顿-史密斯太太做出任何承诺，但他的确感受到了她某些言论的威力。他无权让他深爱的女人为了他放弃一切，这是明摆着的事，他也不想靠她奶奶可能给她的钱生活，这也是明白无误的。他要娶她为妻的决心比以往更加坚定，但他也清楚地意识到，自己必须先自立才行。为了能够给她一个配得上她的家，这些年来他一直努力工作。他终于事业有成，能够向她求婚而无须请求她放弃大部分给她的生活带来安逸的东西。即便她奶奶动了气，不给她留一分钱，以他现在的薪水，他也完全可以让她过得舒服。年轻的小伙子没有妄自尊大，他没有假装不在乎她奶奶是否真的会发狠。他非常明白，如果温斯顿-史密斯太太接受现实，成全他们，给她的孙女一笔适当的财产，他们的生活将会变得舒适许多。

当这些念头从他的脑海中掠过时，他忍不住为自己的愚蠢想法笑了起来：他怎么能如此草率地认为威妮弗蕾德的同意是理所当然的呢？温斯顿-史密斯夫人说了什么、做了什么都不重要，至关重要的是威妮弗蕾德如何回答他提出的问题。他必须承认，在分别了一年以后去拜访一位年轻女子，并在没有任何征兆的情况下突然向她求婚，这是非常规的做法。然而这正是他打算去做的事情。他发觉自己正在谋划，该如何把她从她奶奶和其他不速之客的身边带走。他要想方设法把她引入书房或哄进温室。也许很快就会有人来打断他们的谈话，那他也不在乎。他知道自己必须说什么，也准备好了要长话短说。五分钟就够了——他必须在五分钟之内表达清楚。如果一个人历经多年的等待只为提出一个简单的问题，那么，说出必须说的话应该花不了多长时间，而且他知道，威妮弗蕾德不会让他干等着不回答。答案是同意还是不同意，她自己心里有数，她要么心甘情愿地接受他，要么毫不犹豫地拒绝他。

他原本一直随着涌向市中心的人潮往前走，但他突然担忧起来，毕竟没有什么理由认为威妮弗蕾德就会爱他，于是他迫不及待地迈开大步向前走去，枉自焦急，想尽早得到答案。他抬头看了一眼差不多位于他头顶正上方的蒂芙尼珠宝店外的钟，看到现在还不到四点零五，于是他放慢了脚步。他还得等上至少半小时才有希望在家里找到她。

这时，他出乎意料地遇到了天赐良机。挨着珠宝店停在十五街上的那些马车之中，最靠前的是一辆漂亮的双座轿式马车，一位年轻女子正独自一人坐在里面。当哈里·格兰特快走到街角的时候，他的目光落在了这辆马车上，与此同时，那位年轻女子抬起了头。他认出她就是威妮弗蕾德。他俩目光相遇之时，她的脸唰地红了，红晕很快又退了。他飞快地赶到车厢门前，她则微笑着伸出了手，愉快地笑出了声。

“威妮弗蕾德！”他大喊。

“哈里！”她回应。

“真没想到能在这儿见到你！”他惊叹。

“你就是因为这个才到这儿来的吗？”她回应。

哈里·格兰特没有回答。他目不转睛地盯着她。再次见到她，他高兴得说不出话。

“怎么？”她觉得他应该看够了，就问了一句。

“哦，”他回答，“我是情不自禁呀。你比以前更漂亮了。”

红晕再次掠过她的面颊，这次颜色淡一些，消失得也快一些。

“这句恭维也太直白了，你不觉得吗？”她反问，同时收回一直被格兰特紧握着的手，“你的气色也很好。看来西部的生活对你有好处。要是你更喜欢那儿，而不是我们这座喧闹的老纽约城，我也不会奇怪。”

“我倒是更喜欢纽约，”他热切地表态，“纽约的一个星期顶得上整个大西部的一年。而且我已经受够那边的一切了。我回来了，不走了……”

“真的吗？”她回应。他犹豫了一下，千言万语不知从何说起。

“我是今天早上回来的，”他解释道，“本打算下午就来看你。我有——我有许多话想对你说。”

她看了他一会儿，然后移开了目光，说：“如果你有很多话要对我说，那就得快点说了。星期二上午我们就要坐船离开，今天下午我们将前往塔克西多过星期天。”

“你们星期二坐船走？”他大失所望地喊道，“就在我专门回来看你的时候！”

“你没有给奶奶拍电报说你要回来，否则她可能会改变行程的。”年轻女子笑嘻嘻地反驳。

“还有，如果你今晚要去塔克西多，”他没有听出她话里的讽刺意味，继续说，“那你今天下午是不会在家的了？”

“不会，”她回答，“我们回家换好衣服就去赶火车。奶奶还有两三件事要办——她正在珠宝店里置办她想要随身带的银饰什么的。”

“但是我今天一定要见你。”他恳求。

“你现在不是见到我了吗？”她说，脸上的绯红来得快，去得也快。

“但是我有些话要对你说！”他急了。

“不能等到星期一下午再说吗？”她又轻轻笑了一声，问道，轻率的表象之下却蕴含着深情。

“不能，”他毫不含糊，“一小时也不能多等，因为我已经等了许多年了。我是特意来说事的——而且必须在今天说！”

“如果你有话想对奶奶说……”她开口说，好像在争取时间。

“不是，”他回答，脑袋几乎要钻进敞开的车窗里了，“我是想跟你说——不是跟你奶奶说。”

“那么，”她说，态度有一丝微妙的改变，“如果你要说一些不想让奶奶听见的话，那现在就不要说了，因为她就快过来了。”

哈里·格兰特迅速瞟了一眼身后，认出了仪态高贵的温斯顿-史密斯夫人，她正站在那家大珠宝店的门内与一位售货员交谈。

“威妮弗蕾德，”他再次拉住她的手，恳切地说，“我能在哪里再见上你一面？一分钟就行——只要一分钟就够了！”

威妮弗蕾德看着他，又低头看着自己的手指。她犹豫了一下，最后答道：

“我听奶奶说她准备在回家前先去一趟花店——就是百老汇上靠近戴利家的花店，你知道的。她要在那里订许多花，到时我会坐在车里等她。”

“那我坐缆车去那儿等你。”他说。

“别让奶奶看见你，”她大喊，“我是说……那个……”

然后她向后靠到垫子上，因为温斯顿-史密斯夫人就要从商店里出来了。

哈里·格兰特及时地看见了老太太。他从马车边闪开，从后面绕了过去，走到了街对面，没有给威妮弗蕾德的奶奶认出他的机会。

他在街对面等着，直到温斯顿-史密斯夫人上了马车，挨着孙女坐好，直到马车掉转头向第五大道驶去。

然后，他穿过那片开阔地，几乎走到了公园边上，跳上了从转弯处疾驰而来的第一趟车。车厢平台上十分拥挤，但是他根本无暇顾及那些紧挨着他的人。

他的心思在别处，他的心中充满希望，正与春天的喜人气氛相应。百老汇大道上摩肩接踵的少男少女，他视而不见；他的眼里只有威妮弗蕾德。他看到的是她的脸、她的眼和她愉快的笑容。他又要见到她了，马上就要见到了，到时候他就可以告诉她他有多爱她，还可以请求她试着爱上他。就算这仅有的机会是在大街上又何妨？求婚本身才是最重要的，求婚地点则无关紧要。或许这种非常规的方式还能给求婚增添一些趣味呢。她和他约定地点时的坦率就蕴含着非常规的意味。他的心在满怀希望地跳动，部分是因为这种坦率，部分是因为当他们第一次对视时，他觉得自己在她的眼中看到了欢迎的神色。

缆车一路飞驰，几乎在每一个路口都会停车让人上下，这些人与哈里·格兰特擦肩而过，他却视而不见，只顾反复玩味着与心爱的姑娘进行的简短对话的每一个词。人行道上站满了穿着艳丽的女人，她们正向商店的橱窗张望，里面陈设着鲜艳的太阳伞、整洁的游艇服，还有色彩明快的夏季用品。

缆车经过第五大道时，他看见了温斯顿-史密斯夫人的马车，就隔着一条街。他看见车夫身子笔直地坐在车上，突发奇想，不知这位车夫对于他俩在敞开的车窗边的谈话以及他的突然出现有什么想法。他微微一笑——轻轻地笑出了声——他何必去介意车夫或其他任何人怎么想呢？她怎么想才最重要，别的一切都不重要。他又心急起来，想要马上见她，告诉她他爱她，并且得到她的答复。缆车疾驰如飞，他却感觉慢得像在爬。第五大道上的那个马车夫正轻快地赶着车，但哈里·格兰特却忍不住想要埋怨他动作迟缓。

终于，缆车经过了威妮弗蕾德所说的那家花店门口。花店的橱窗里摆满了杜鹃花，有几分日式艺术趣味。哈里·格兰特在下一个路口下了车，慢慢地往回走，在一家商店的橱窗前闲站了一会儿，而里面陈设的春款领饰根本没有进入他的眼帘。两分钟后，他看到温斯顿-史密斯夫人的马车从二十九街驶了过来。车子拐入百老汇大道，停在了花店宽阔的橱窗前。温斯顿-史密斯夫人下了车，指示车夫在街角等候。

马车尚未停入小街，温斯顿-史密斯夫人就消失在了花店里。

车夫刚勒住马的缰绳，哈里·格兰特就一个箭步冲到了敞开的窗户前。

“威妮弗蕾德……”他开口说。

“哦！”她大喊，“你已经到了？”红晕又浮上脸颊。

“威妮弗蕾德，”他重复道，一边把头伸进马车里，“我也许只有一分钟时间来说出我的心里话，我也知道这里不是说这话的合适地方，但我别无选择，因为我可能没有别的机会了。我已经等了太久，我必须现在就说出口。”

他顿了一下。她什么也没说，只是搓了搓手套的背面，好像要搓掉一粒微尘。

“威妮，”他继续说，“我想说的话简单得很。我爱你。想必你也知道吧？”

“知道，”她回答，抬起头看着他，“这我知道。”

“那我往下说就容易一些了。你了解我，你了解我的全部，你了解我的所有缺点，至少是大部分缺点，你知道我爱你。你觉得你有可能反过来给我一点爱吗？我将竭尽全力对得起这份爱。自从十七岁起我就一直努力挣钱，好挣到足够多的钱来向你求婚。我现在的境况很好，我一点都不羞于请你一起分享。你愿意吗？你愿意嫁给我吗，威妮?”

她还没来得及回答，哈里·格兰特就听到温斯顿-史密斯夫人在他身后对车夫说：“回家！”

他退到一旁，正好跟她打了个照面。

“是格兰特先生，对吗？”她头一扬，傲慢地说，“我进店的时候有你来取悦威妮弗蕾德，你真是太好了。我本来可以请你和我们一起喝杯茶的，但是我们要去塔克西多了。另外，我们星期二要坐船离开。威妮弗蕾德大概已经告诉你了。”

她站在那儿，等着他为她打开车厢门。这是举手之劳，于是他开了门。但是他找不到词句来应对她的那些客套话。他看了看威妮弗蕾德，看到她脸颊上的绯红越变越深，她的眼睛闪闪发亮。

“奶奶，”她说，这时温斯顿-史密斯夫人终于在她身边坐好了，“奶奶，”她又叫，声音很大，足以让站在窗外的年轻人听见，“哈里让我嫁给他——你过来的时候，我正要跟他说我愿意呢！”

（1895年）

[102] 阿特拉斯（Atlas）: 希腊神话中的大力神。

6
麦克道尔·苏特洛的不眠夜

那天下午，一位年轻人站在邮局窗口前，第三次提出同样的问题，再次得到了同样的回答：

“有麦克道尔·苏特洛的信吗？”

“没有。”

这一回他实在不想放弃，因为天色已经不早了，他实在不情愿得到否定的答案。

“肯定没有？”他急切地问。

“非常肯定。”窗口里传出这样的回答。

“今晚还会有来自加利福尼亚的信件吗？”他抱着最后一线希望询问。

“不会有了。”办事员回答。

年轻人在窗口站了一会儿，一脸茫然地盯着窗户里边，没看着任何人，也没看着任何东西。而后，他慢慢转过身欲离去。

办事员似乎从取信人的表情上看出了什么，动了恻隐之心。

“嘿，小伙子！”他有些唐突地喊。

麦克道尔·苏特洛迅速转过身来，心中重新燃起一线希望。

“如果你是在等寄钱的信，那很可能是挂号信，”那位办事员建议，“去那个角落问问吧。”

“谢谢您！”年轻人感激地回应，他满怀希望地走到角落里的那个窗口，脸上再次露出笑容。

但是根本没有麦克道尔·苏特洛的挂号信，次日凌晨之前也不会有新的信件到来。就在年轻英俊的加利福尼亚人离开邮局的一刹那，他觉得自己甚至没有资格去盼望他所询问的信件会到来。

他走出邮局来到第五大道上，尽管六月的暖风从华盛顿广场徐徐吹来，但他的心却是冰凉冰凉的。他哆嗦了一下，不知道下一步该干什么。在纽约他一个人也不认识，口袋里一分钱也没有。

年轻的他曾盼着继承一大笔财富，于是就不学无术。他由着自己潇洒地虚度时光，从没打算自食其力。这可能就是他两个星期未能找到工作的原因，自从他突然落到手头仅剩十元钱的境地，两个星期悄然而过。

他没有朋友，更没有任何来钱的方式。他那没装几件衣服的箱子还在寄宿公寓，十天前就留在那儿了，由房东掌管，只有付清所欠寄宿费后才能拿走。他仅有的珠宝也被一件一件地当出去了。

现在大约是晚上七点，自从十二小时前喝了点咖啡，吃了点早餐以来，他还没有进食，早饭让他花掉了付完过夜费后余下的最后一角钱。他走了一整天，又累又饿，不知道今天还能否找到安身之处，能否再填饱肚子。他听说过饿死在纽约街头的男男女女的惨状，现在他不禁要问自己，这就是他的命运吗？

他的腿也不听使唤了，他沿着第五大道来到十四街的街口，然后转身向百老汇大道走去。这六月里漫长的一天就要结束了，身后的夕阳慢慢西沉。大街上挤满了汽车、板车，街上的人行色匆匆，急着往家赶，根本没有留意与他们擦肩而过的这位无家可归的年轻人。

走上百老汇大道后，他感觉这里的人流和喧闹声好像翻了一倍，从他身边经过的男男女女好像被无形的大浪抛来抛去。他周围尽是城市的喧嚣，声如东北暴风掀起的巨浪拍岸般震耳欲聋，袭击着他疲惫的耳朵。他把自己比作筋疲力尽的泅水人，将被大浪猛击致死，迟早会被抛到沙滩上，化作一具赤条条的青肿尸体。

这种景象在他脑海中栩栩如生，他不由自主地挺直了身子，长出了一口气。他年轻又英俊，优雅的棕色胡须在没福的薄唇上方卷曲着。他站在那儿，身体笔直，好像时刻准备着为生命而战斗。几名女子从他身边匆匆而过，愉悦地让他这副身段盈满自己的眼眸。

一辆辆缆车在他面前飞快地转弯，在缆车的那一边，联合广场绿油油的美景映入了他的眼帘。虽然夜色昏暗，但鲜嫩的树叶还是很吸引他。他过马路时小心翼翼，特别留心过往的车辆，想到自己如此惜命，却不知如何把这条命维持下去，他不禁微微一笑。

麦克道尔·苏特洛终于站在了广场中央的绿地上，突然，电灯照亮了人行道，他的黑影蓦地匍匐在脚下。他抬头仰望，惊呆了，只见无边无际的天穹笼在其上——晴朗，无云，高不可测。一弯新月隐隐约约，像镰刀一样挂在遥远的天边。一幢高楼直插云天，大楼高处明亮的窗户就像嵌入深蓝色天空深处的方板。那一刻的美景使他暂时忘却了目前的窘境，活着多好啊！喷泉的溅水声令他双耳陶醉。微风轻拂水面，水中植物宽大的叶子懒洋洋地摇曳着。

麦克道尔·苏特洛如释重负地舒了一口气，一屁股坐在公园的长椅上。坐下后他才意识到自己有多累。他的脚很疼，肚子饿得咕咕直叫。然而，他内心坚强。“如果我非得在美丽的星空下过夜，”他自言自语，“我的命运再好不过了。今晚繁星点点，景色真美，就像在威尼斯的那个夜晚，我和汤姆·皮克斯利带着两个莫顿美女乘坐刚朵拉出游，害得她们的姑妈找不到我们。我记得我们在弗洛莱恩咖啡馆[103]好好吃了一顿，那里的米兰烩饭量很大——太大了，结果我们没都吃完。真希望我能再有这样的机会。现在就算来上两大份，我也能吃得精光。”

在第四大道那边，乔治·华盛顿的骑马像背后，有一家匈牙利餐馆，麦克道尔·苏特洛坐在草地边的长凳上，透过窗户就能看到一个老头和一个少妇正在桌边用餐。他的眼神跟随着他们的一举一动，心里数着他们吃下去的每一口饭。最后，他实在看不下去了，就换到靠近百老汇大道的一张长凳上坐着。这个位置正好又面对另一家饭店，宽大的窗子里陈列着各种各样的食物，十分诱人。男人们走出来，在饭店门口徘徊一阵，抽根烟。

麦克道尔·苏特洛看在眼里，烟瘾又犯了。烟虽不能充饥，但多少算个慰藉。他站起来摸遍所有的口袋，妄想手指头能摸到一截漏网的烟头。上衣的一个口袋底有什么东西，他掏出来一看才发现是根愚弄了他的火柴。他一屁股坐到凳子上，把目光从饭店方向移开，因为他不忍眼巴巴地盯着堆放在玻璃窗后面的蛋糕和馅饼，瞧着男人们酒足饭饱后嘴唇上烟雾缭绕。

在百老汇大道拐角的旅馆楼下有一间酒吧，时不时有三三两两的男人推门而入，五到十分钟后又从里面出来。更远处是一家剧场，宽阔的门前正聚着一群人。还有一家剧场正对广场，绚丽的招牌与密布的电灯显得十分喜气。麦克道尔·苏特洛看着男男女女走上楼梯，到这家娱乐场所的售票处买票入场，消失在门背后。他实在搞不懂为什么这些人会有闲钱观看表演，而自己却连吃饭住店的钱也没有。

也许是由于徒劳奔波了一天而感到疲惫，也许是杂耍剧场前的旋转灯具有催眠作用，孤独寂寞的年轻人很快就睡着了。他既不知道自己睡了多久，也不清楚自己是怎么醒的。他只隐隐约约记得有人碰了他，他的三个衣服口袋都被翻了个底朝天。发现这事后，他放声大笑。这种时候有人要抢劫他，在他看来比任何事情都更加可笑。

他应该睡了至少两三个小时，因为广场的景象发生了改变。此时夜已深，不再是傍晚了。他向四周张望，只见百老汇大道上的剧场门被推开了，观众从里面涌了出来。不一会儿，一群群戏迷从他身旁经过，仍然嘻嘻哈哈地回味着刚才欣赏的滑稽表演。又过了一刻钟，另一家剧场——广场边上的杂耍剧场——也散场了，入口上方闪烁的灯也一齐灭了。

接近午夜时，两个人坐在了原本只有麦克道尔·苏特洛一个人坐着的长凳上。他们两个都又高又瘦，胡须刮得干干净净，衣服破旧，然而却带有一种难以形容的神情，似乎他们已经习惯了勇敢地去面对世人的目光。

“不好，”较年长的那位接过话茬儿说，“她才不好。身材扁平像熨斗，声音难听像雾笛，不是吗？再说了，事先也没有计划，对不对？一个扫把星，她就是这样一个人，不管什么演出她都能搞砸。唉，上次巡回演出，她就想给我捣乱。我当场数落她一通，那个明星力挺她的时候，我差点就通知他们，我两周后就不干了，我真做得到，但那时我还有角色可演，我再也不想回这儿过穷日子了。可我要真罢演了，他们一个月内肯定关门，跟你说！他们不明白是谁在为那老掉牙的表演吸金，可我知道啊！你应该参加过一城一演的巡回演出，听说过我演谢默斯·奥布赖恩。想当年每晚来捧场的人哟——那叫一个多！把她给累烦了！”

“你看过我演雷欧提斯[104]吗？”年轻的那位问，“1972年，我在旧金山第一次演雷欧提斯，那时拉里·巴雷特也在旧金山演戏。哈，我与他同台演出的时候，他演的哈姆雷特就没得到掌声。我现在得到了一些评论家的称赞，说我是尚健在的雷欧提斯的最佳扮演者。”

“我有一次和拉里·巴雷特同台，我演伊阿古[105]。”先开口的那个说，“我演得太逼真了，他们差点把我嘘下舞台。”

“抽支烟吧？”另一个人掏出一盒烟，问。

“来者不拒。”年长的回应，“我有火柴。”

“那正好，我没带火柴。”有烟的人说。

“哎呀，我到底还是没有带。”年长的演员在口袋里摸了一番，不得不坦言。

“我给你们提供火柴，”麦克道尔·苏特洛趁机插话，“我只有一根火柴，给你们用好了。”

“谢谢，”对方回答，“我哪能不请你抽支烟呢？”

“来者不拒。”年轻人回答，不自觉地重复了刚才听到的话，赶忙伸出手。

第一口烟对他来说如同酒肉，他只顾嘴上享受这份奢侈，差点忘了接应那两人对他说的话。可他马上发现自己与那两个演员相谈甚欢。尽管他们去过加利福尼亚不止一次，可并不认识他的什么朋友，但只是再次听到他所熟悉的地标名称就令他高兴。他俩对他摆出一副高人一等的样子，傲慢劲溢于言表，但就算他察觉到了，也毫不厌恶。有人陪伴令他愉快，就算只是在午夜的联合广场上与偶遇的陌生人交谈，也大大降低了他孤身一人的凄凉。

谈话持续了大约一刻钟，那两个人站起身来准备离去。麦克道尔·苏特洛也站起来，仿佛这里是他的家，而他们是他的客人。

“走，喝一杯去。”年长的说。

年轻人又用那句话回答：“来者不拒。”

他更想吃东西而不是喝酒，但他不好意思告诉两个陌生人他饿了。

他们经过拉斐特的塑像并穿过缆车轨道的时候，他心想，不知他们要去的酒馆是不是供应免费简餐的那一种。

三个人一进酒吧间，他的眼睛就像饿狼似的四处扫瞄，然后盯上了柜台的尾端，那里放着大大的盘子，里面摆着奶酪、饼干、三明治。他差点失控，他很想冲过去，抓起食物大快朵颐。然而廉耻心还是促使他和那两个演员一起留在门口，尽管他的目光一直紧盯离他只有几步远的大盘子。

酒保把酒瓶放在他们面前，他们自己倒出酒水，然后对视一眼，说：“走一个！”

年长的演员一口气喝了半杯。放下酒杯的时候，他看到麦克道尔·苏特洛紧盯着免费简餐。

“这主意不错，”他说着沿吧台前移，“马无夜草不肥。我要吃块三明治，今晚感觉有点饿。朗诵完《炮兵连的骄傲》之后我返场了三次，确实需要吃点东西补充体力。吃块三明治？”

“来者不拒。”饥肠辘辘的麦克道尔·苏特洛回答，手指抓在面包上。可第一口就差点噎坏了他。

五分钟后，麦克道尔·苏特洛和那两个萍水相逢的人分了手，又回到广场上。吃下去的寥寥几口食物在他肚子里作怪，酒喝得虽也不多，却足以使他头晕目眩。虽然没有步态踉跄，但他还是清醒地意识到自己需要格外努力才不至于东倒西歪。

他此前一直坐的长椅现在被四个穿晚礼服的小青年占据了，他们猛吸烟斗，似乎是想培养自己对这种新式消遣的爱好。于是他转身去了广场中央，站在那儿看了一会儿水中的花草，听了一会儿喷泉的喷溅声。

喷泉周围的座位全被各色男女占用了，他们中的大部分人似乎都已经做好了在这儿过夜的准备，看样子他们常在这儿睡觉。麦克道尔·苏特洛寻思，不知自己是否也很快会习惯在没有屋顶遮挡的露天过夜。

一个壮实的德国人睡得死沉，呼噜打得震天响。这时，一个身穿灰色制服的警察用警棍猛击这个睡客的脚底板，把他打醒了。

“公园不是卧房，”警察说，“我也不会让你们这些家伙在这儿睡觉！明白吗？”

年轻人在小公园的外围转了三圈，终于在百老汇大道和十七街交汇处的一角找到一张有空位的长椅。灯火通明的缆车飞快地在百老汇大道上来回行驶，车上锣声不断，不过车次已经越来越少，横穿市区的马车一小时也仅有两三趟路过此地。城市漫长的一天终于接近尾声，只有黎明前的两三个小时里，一切才会安静，奋斗的人们才会暂歇。

他疲惫不堪地躺坐在长椅上，这时坐在他身旁的人醒了过来，是一位上了年纪的女人，头发已经灰白。

“对不起——我弄醒你了吗？”年轻人说。

“你确实弄醒我了，”她回答，“但是我原谅你。反正我这把年纪也只能打个盹儿罢了。我已经很久没在被窝里伸直了腿儿，睡个囫囵觉了。要是有机会，我也很想睡个够。可我已经习惯了熬夜。”她毫无怨意地笑了笑，“现在几点了？”她问。

麦克道尔·苏特洛不由自主地抬手摸了摸马甲口袋，又很快放下手来。他的脸羞得通红，回答说，“我不知道……我……”

“到点儿了，是吗？”她反问，笑了笑表示理解，“我也没带表，我把它和衣服一起丢在叔叔家了。不过，蒂芙尼先生是个好心人，他一直让大钟亮堂堂的给我们看[106]。你年轻，眼神儿比我好——现在几点了？”

麦克道尔·苏特洛目不转睛地看了大约半分钟才看清时间，最后回答说：“我想，大概是一点半了。”

“那么，我还能再打几个小时的盹儿，然后麻雀会把我们叫醒的，”她说，“这是你头一次来我们这旅馆过夜吗？”

“是的。”他回答。

“我看也是，”她接着说，“从你摸表的动作看出来的。你很快就不会再这么做了。”

他的脸唰地白了，害怕她预测到了未来的事实。难道他真有一天要习惯在露天睡觉吗？

老太太侧了侧身子，为了能看到他。

“你是一个帅小伙，”她继续说，“就冲你的模样，城里应该有不止一幢房子会愿意收留你——还有人给你盖好被子，让你暖暖和和的。”

“也许我还是待在这里更好。”他觉得自己应该说点什么，便表态。

“我们这旅馆不错，真不错，”她又说，“首先就是通风好。当然，你要是愿意，可以去车站过夜。我可不想去。我以前去过，我在雪地里都比在车站容易入睡，那里什么人都有。我们这旅馆整夜开着门，并且还是欧式付费制，我是这样认为的——至少你能买到任何你买得起的东西。夜猫子马车来的时候，你可以吃顿夜宵——只要你买得起。我是买不起的。”

“我也买不起。”他回答。

“那么，现在指望着别人请吃早饭的就有咱们两个人了。”她兴高采烈地回应，“我认为，如果有人邀请，咱俩绝对不会因为事先有约而拒绝。”

他没有回答，因为一想到未来，他的心就一沉。

“你现在饿吗？”她问。

“饿。”他简单作答。

“我也饿，”她说，“我就是习惯不了饿肚子。饥饿就像病痛，对不对？它不会放过你。它不知疲倦，也不会宽待你。它会赖着，就这样赖着不走，一直一丝不苟地办事。有时候，我饿极了，就有种想自杀的感觉，你有吗？”

“没有。”他回答，“至少现在还没有。我还没活够呢，不会那么快就活腻的。”

“我也没活够，”她回答，“有时我真想放弃，但不知怎么的就是做不到。不过死其实很容易，把自己撂在沿着百老汇大道开过来的缆车前面——转眼就上天堂。但是他们不卖往返票啊。再说了，被缆车轧死是一种糟糕的、邋遢的死法，你说呢？再加上今天是星期五——我相信如果我在星期五自杀，来世绝不会有什么好运气。”

“现在已不是星期五了，”他提醒她，“现在是星期六的凌晨了。”

“这样啊，”她答道，“那我们最好尽快睡个美容觉吧，既然是周六，那这里的花市很快就会吵醒我们的。就这样，晚安！”

“晚安！”他回道。

“祝你梦见自己找到了价值一百万美元的金子，醒来后发现是真的！”她继续说。

“谢谢你，”他答道，纳闷这位邻居到底是个什么样的女人。

她没再说什么，而是再次安顿好自己，闭上双眼。她身穿铁锈黑的衣服，头上蒙一块薄薄的黑披巾。她过去一定很漂亮——她的侧影给这个年轻人留下了这样的印象——他感到非常困惑，猜不出她为什么会来这儿，深更半夜，露宿街头，身无分文，独自一人。她似乎不该出现在这儿，因为她的态度虽有主见但并不无礼。她的腔调也不刺耳，实际上，她的话语夹杂着风趣。她的话甚至令他困惑，不过他认为这表明她是爱尔兰人。

他来回琢磨这些事，不一会儿就睡着了。他反复做起同样的梦——梦见一次粗野的宴会，稀奇古怪的巨型餐食摆在他面前的桌子上。菜的味道闻上去很奇怪，但还是让他直流口水。然而，当他想要吃上一点充充饥时，整桌佳肴就滑到了他够不着的地方，最后就彻底消失了。每次的梦都是大同小异，最后一次，他面前的桌板上只放一张巨型馅饼，他成功地切开了馅饼，却看见里面飞出二十四只黑鹂鸟。鸟儿在他头顶盘旋，然后飞回那张空空的馅饼壳里，停在那里，唱着歌儿笑话他。

鸟儿的叫声太大，吵醒了麦克道尔·苏特洛，他听见头上和身后的树上有数不清的麻雀在叽叽喳喳。

他回想起昨天晚上那位老太太说的话——鸟儿会叫醒他们的。鸟儿大概是先叫醒了老太太，因为长椅上他身旁的座位已经空了。

他站起身来，环顾四周。天已经快亮了，东面的天空出现了玫瑰色的光带。在他昨晚睡觉的凳子后的草坪中央有一棵大树，一只松鼠正在树上蹿上蹿下。广场北端的一片空地上停着十几辆花匠的马车，满载各种盆栽花卉，人们正把这些花一排排地摆放到人行道上。又有一辆笨重的马车载着玫瑰花横穿车道，惊起一群鸽子，鸽子在空中盘旋一阵又落了下来。一股湿润的微风从海湾吹来，预示着当天晚些时候要下雨。

散落于广场各处的长椅上的睡客正陆续醒来。麦克道尔·苏特洛看到有一个人去饮水器边洗手洗脸，也尽力效仿。洗完后，他看了看蒂芙尼的大钟，此时是四点半。几分钟后，第一缕阳光开始给远远高过林肯像的高楼檐口镀金。

不出一个半小时，缆车开始更加频繁地经过市中心，从渡口驶出的穿城马车也慢慢多起来。花车连同从车上卸下来的花塞满了广场北端的空地。牛奶车嘎吱作响地穿过广场四周的缆车轨道。一天伊始的迹象迅速增多，一个接一个，麦克道尔·苏特洛全都看在眼里，不管肚子饿得多难受，他的兴致始终不减。这是他第一次亲眼看见一座大城市的苏醒。

他离开联合广场，走到第五大道与二十三街交汇处，然后又走到第三大道与十四街交汇处，但他发觉自己总是回到花市。最后，他的心底萌发出一线希望。买花的人有些是身体不够强壮的女人，无法把沉重的花盆搬回家，也许他能因此找到一份差事。这并不是他心目中赚取面包钱的好方式，但是他从来没有像今天这样如此急切地想要吃到面包。

当他回到花匠的马车队附近时，他发现其他失业者也在周围转悠，希望能老老实实地挣点钱，他也不止一次看到有人得了差事，扛着高大的植物离开。

他看到一个小老太太在花车间走来走去，终于鼓起勇气走上前去。她眼睛明亮，举止文雅，笑容慈祥。他问她，她要是买了花，是否愿意请他帮忙搬回家。她看了看年轻英俊的小后生，在他看来，她的眼神既精明，又流露着同情。

“好的，”她回答，“我看可以信得过你。”

一两分钟后，她与一位苏格兰花匠就两盆盛放的杜鹃花讨价还价。然后她转身对麦克道尔·苏特洛说：

“把那两盆花送到第二大道与二十街交汇的街口处的研究生医院，工钱是半美元，你愿意吗？”

“愿意。”他急切地回答。

“非常好，”她说，“把它们送到新生儿病房。就说是范·道恩小姐送的。新生儿病房，明白吗？这是你的工钱。我不得不信任你，不过你长着一副诚实的面孔，我相信你不会剥夺小病孩们的权利，他们无非是想看到他们喜爱的花，闻闻花的香味。”

“不，”麦克道尔·苏特洛说，“我不会的。”说着拿起重重的花盆，两个臂弯里各抱了一盆。“研究生医院的新生儿病房，范·道恩小姐送的？对吧？”

“正确。”她回答，露出明媚的笑容。

他抱着两盆花走了，兜里揣着钱，可以开斋了，似乎怎样飞奔到医院都不够快。但是，当他把花送达，走在返回广场的路上时，他突然想起了昨晚长椅上坐在他身旁的老太太，她也一直饿肚子。他兜里现在有五十美分，透过第四大道上一家小吃店的橱窗，他看见招牌上写着：“普通早餐，25美分。”他的钱够买两份普通早餐，一份他自己吃，一份给老太太吃。

他围着小公园转了三圈，还从各个方向穿了几次公园，最后不得不承认自己找不到她。

于是，他独自一人去饭店吃了一份普通早餐。

从饭店出来后，他感到精神焕发，此时大街上匆匆而过的行人在他看来都要比天蒙蒙亮时见到的那些人更快乐。长长的太阳光束照亮了大街小巷。带着饭盒的工人逐渐减少，带着纸包午餐的女店员逐渐增多。

汹涌的人潮再次席卷大街，大城市的喧嚣又一次响起。

他回到花匠的马车附近，自信还能再挣半美元。但是当他看到其他人饥肠辘辘地等在那里时，他转身离去了，认为给别人一次机会才公平。

他在太阳地里找到一个座位，看着市场上的花被后来的买主一盆盆买光。他好奇那些植物都去了哪里，继而想起同样的花有的用于葬礼，有的却用于婚礼。想到同一种植物今天用来装点餐桌，明天也许用来活跃病房气氛，后天则会栽入墓地，他头一回觉得有些古怪。

终于，他觉得应该到了邮局开门的时间了，便动身走向第五大道与十三街的交汇处。

到达邮局门口时，他停住了脚步。他不敢进去，虽然大门开着，他也能看见其他男女在小方窗前咨询问题。要是他的发问得到和昨天一样的答复怎么办？要是他不得不在联合广场上再熬一宿怎么办？

最后，他还是鼓足勇气，走进邮局。他一靠近窗户，里面的办事员就认出了他。

“麦克道尔·苏特洛，是吧？是的——今天有你的信。不过信超重了——需要你额外支付四分邮费。”

当这位年轻人把吃早餐后剩下的二十五分硬币放下时，他的手直哆嗦。他迅速抓过信封，要不是办事员提醒他，他差点忘记收起找回的零钱。

他撕开信封。信是汤姆·皮克斯利寄来的，内含一张五十美元的邮政汇票，信是这样开头的：

“亲爱的老兄，去百老汇大道78号找山姆·萨金特，他会帮你在巴拉塔里亚湾[107]中心谋个职位，当新边界的测量员。我会在你收到这封信前给他写信，另外……”

但麦克道尔·苏特洛一时无法往下读。他的眼里噙满泪水。

（1895年）

[103] 弗洛莱恩咖啡馆（Florian’s）：威尼斯的传奇咖啡馆，历史悠久。

[104] 雷欧提斯（Laertes）：莎士比亚的戏剧《哈姆雷特》中的角色。

[105] 伊阿古（Iago）：莎士比亚的戏剧《奥赛罗》中的反派角色。

[106] 指蒂芙尼珠宝店外的大钟。

[107] 巴拉塔里亚湾（Barataria）：美国路易斯安那州东南部墨西哥湾的小海湾。

7
纠结[108]

夏日的烈焰整日炙烤着这个旧库房低矮的木屋顶。这里前不久还是个冰淇淋店，现在却被仓促地改建成了救世军[109]的营地。宽敞的入口处张贴着各种标语牌，宣称“欢迎所有人”，并恳请陌生人“走进来吧，获得救赎”。高高的出租屋排列于小巷的东西两侧，那天傍晚，居民们倾巢而出，涌上大街，人行道上挤满了男男女女，他们被白天的炎热折磨得无精打采，盼着夜幕降临时潜入城市的那一丝慵懒的微风。不过，没什么人乐意走进这间闷得发慌的会堂，去参加即将开始的唱诗敬拜，特别是在那天晚上——相比之下，外面的活动可有意思多了。在即将开始焰火表演的广场上空，各种烟花已经开始升腾绽放。偶尔会有男孩子（怀着比捣蛋鬼略强的自制力）把一包准备好的炮仗点燃，扔进别人家的木桶里，而当木桶的主人在噼里啪啦的爆炸声中来到门口时，他已经欢蹦乱跳地跑开了。

一位苍白、消瘦的少妇穿着救世军制服，神态疲惫地站在入口处，向所有路过的人兜售《救恩报》[110]。看得出来，她年轻的时候大概也是个美丽的姑娘。然而此时的她显得那么虚弱、憔悴，好像久病初愈一般。在她头顶上方，一朵烟花在高空绽放，像彩色星雨般洒落。这时，她忽然想起上一年的七月四日[111]，仅仅一年之前，自己是如何观赏焰火表演的——她躺在床上，吉姆在下楼主持敬拜前特意把床抬到了窗边。她怀抱着两周大的宝贝安详地躺在那里，觉得那些在空中旋转闪烁的光轮和沿着曲折轨迹起落的烟火不是别的，正是一个光辉灿烂的金色未来的预兆。但是这般憧憬在随后的几个月里是怎样破灭，只剩一片漆黑的啊！婴儿因为吃不到合适的食物生了病，吉姆也病倒了，而虚弱的她又不得不起身下床照顾他俩，直到父子一前一后相继离世。每当她任由思绪飘回那些绝望的日子，她就得非常努力地控制自己，否则难免情绪失控，大哭一场，以致在接下来的二十四小时都感到筋疲力尽。

她克制住心头涌起的情绪，转而在眼前的职责中寻求慰藉。五分钟过去了，没有一个人买她的报纸，时间已到，该进会堂参加唱诗敬拜了。

她推开弹簧门走了进去，看到里面聚集了二十来位观众，已有六七位救世军成员在这间窄小会堂尽头的低矮讲台边就坐。奎格利上尉也站在那边，黑亮的头发被仔细地卷好，山羊胡子也被仔细地梳理过。他已准备就绪，抱着手风琴，就等开场了。

她也说不清为什么一看到奎格利上尉带领唱诗敬拜就觉得难受。她并不否认他带领得很好——他弹的曲调里带着摇摆的节奏，让所有人都忍不住站起来跟着舞动；他唱歌动听，讲话动情。但她并不完全喜欢他的态度，他那副施恩于人的样子，更别提他总是会在演讲的时候突然提到她的名字，并多此一举地把她叫到台上去——就算已经加入救世军两年了，她依然既不喜张扬个性也不爱抛头露面。他对她的本意是好的，这点毋庸置疑，她也知道他曾不止一次对她给予过特别关照。不过，就在短短一周前，慈母般亲切的威利茨副官曾询问过她是否真的喜欢奎格利上尉，并建议她如果对他并无爱意就该谨慎行事，不要误导了对方。这次与副官的谈话加深了她对上尉的厌恶之情。

奎格利上尉一看见她就立刻开始讲话，像是一直在等待她的出现。他讲话时鼻音很重，时常省掉一两个辅音，他欢迎在座的各位，很高兴大家能来。他邀请大家一起歌唱那庄严古老的赞美诗《宝血活泉》。他用手风琴定好调子，弹奏歌曲的第一小节，开始领唱。来宾中只有三四个人跟着唱，于是唱诗的重任就落在了救世军成员的肩上。

接下来，上尉为听众介绍了当天早上刚出版的《救恩报》，说它不仅内容丰富有趣，还印着大家接下来要唱的歌词。因此，他建议在场的诸位人手一份，这样大家就都能跟着音乐唱起来了。

那个一脸哀愁的瘦弱少妇开始沿着过道向左右两侧的人兜售报纸。

“这就对了，米勒姊妹。”上尉大声说，似乎是在鼓励她，可她听到自己的名字被公之于众，不禁畏缩了一下。“我希望大家都能买米勒姊妹手中的报纸，好让她回到台上来和我们一起唱歌。你们还不知道米勒姊妹的嗓音有多么甜美吧？我们可知道。”

上尉继续用亲昵的口吻讲话，这时她绕着座椅走了一圈，回到讲台上，在慈母般关切地冲着她微笑的威利茨副官身边坐下。突然，上尉语气一变:“现在，我们一起来祈求主赐福于我们——愿他祝福在座的各位，也愿他祝福这场聚会。我并不知道你们今晚来这里都是出于什么原因，但我确实知道：如果你来这儿是为寻求上帝的祝福，那你一定会得到。如果你另有所求，那我无从得知你是否能称心如意。不过，只要你为祝福而来，那你必将满载而归。只要你祈求，上帝就一定会赐福于你。希金森弟兄，可以请你带领我们做祷告吗？”

当希金森弟兄祈祷上帝赐福于当晚在场的所有人时，讲台上的男男女女纷纷跪下来，散坐在会堂里的众人也大都虔诚地低下头。米勒姊妹听过无数遍希金森弟兄带领的祷告，她知道他会说什么，甚至可以精确到每个词，因为他祈求的范围十分有限。即便如此，这个男人怀有的那种单纯的热诚还是每每让她有点小激动。像往常一样令她反感的是，上校总要在希金森弟兄的祷告中时不时地插进几声“阿门！阿门”或“哈利路亚”。

祷告结束之后，大家又唱了一首福音歌曲，随后上尉放下他怀中的手风琴，拿起《圣经》。他朗诵旧约中的一个段落，描述了以色列民在白天的云柱和夜间的火柱的引导下向旷野行进的历程。讲解经文的时候，他一直手捧《圣经》。他说，以色列民为了获得胜利做好了艰苦奋斗的充足准备。所有的人都必须做好这样的准备——以色列人也好，英国人也好，美国人也好，没有任何人例外。大家都知道七月四日的意义，都知道一百多年前的美国人如何勇猛地战斗。说到这里，他抓起了身后的国旗，国旗一直靠在墙上，挨着血红色的救世军旗帜。

看着他挥舞星条旗的样子，米勒姊妹越发厌恶起上尉来，因为她知道上尉是个才来美国没几年的英国人，在她看来，这样的举动可以算是公然与自己的祖国作对。她不知他是否真会无知到竟然以为独立战争中有某场重要的战役恰好发生在七月四号。

随后，她的思绪飘回了少女时代，她忆起毕业前的那个夏天在家乡的校舍里最后一次庆祝独立日的情景。她想起老法官斯坦迪什如何气宇轩昂地朗读了独立宣言，仿佛是他自己刚刚拟就的。现在，她坐在这间小小会堂里，呼吸着凝重的空气，那一天的点点滴滴在她的回忆中翻涌上来，她对奎格利上尉号召所有在场的人来做上帝战士的呼声充耳不闻，耳中反而回响起年轻的德克斯特·斯坦迪什那恳切的声音，说他要去海军学院学习，希望她能在这里等他回来。她许下了诺言，但她又为什么没能信守诺言？当她听说他到了安纳波利斯之后成了班上最棒的舞者，所有巴尔的摩的姑娘都热切期待成为他的舞伴时，她为什么愚蠢地感到嫉妒呢？她其实早就意识到自己取消婚约的理由一点都站不住脚，而她竟又犯傻，没有预见到德克斯特不可能离开学院，回家亲自向她解释。就算他理应受到惩罚，但只要他能出现在她眼前，亲口说出他爱她的话，她本来是能原谅他的。可他是军校生，要到第二年才有请假的资格。结果，她没等到第二年就嫁给了这个叫詹姆斯·米勒的神学生，没想到新婚丈夫很快就怀着渴求受难一般的宗教狂热放弃了学业，加入了救世军。吉姆是爱她的，他以为她也同样爱他。她心头掠过一阵自责的痛楚，扪心自问：吉姆在尚未意识到妻子远没有那么爱自己的时候就撒手人寰，对他来说算不算是一种解脱呢？

奎格利上尉凭借丰富的经验，别出心裁地从《基督精兵前进》里摘选了一段歌曲，用以结束自己的演讲。米勒姊妹从遐想中被拉回现实，加入众人的合唱。大家唱过三段歌词的时候，上尉突然叫停了合唱，转向米勒姊妹身边的威利茨副官，邀请这位头发花白的女士对台下等待救赎的众人说几句话，表达亲切的问候。

同副官在一起，被她慈母般的笑容所安慰，被她宜人的信心所鼓舞，米勒姊妹总是感到很快乐。威利茨姊妹有着公谊会[112]教徒般的质朴和强韧的个性，让柔弱而憔悴的米勒姊妹总觉得可以依靠。这位年长的女性还有一个令她喜爱的特点：她的宗教热情既足够真诚，又历久弥新。她每晚的见证都像第一次时那样，充满了同样的力量和同样的感情。大多数人的发言都逐渐变为陈词滥调，少有新意，几乎成了机械的套话。但是威利茨姊妹走到台前，对她从上帝那里获得的、不可言喻的平安做见证时，分寸拿捏得正好，既不害羞也不怯懦，而是让人觉得她十分乐意向众人宣告上帝为她所做的一切。

副官发言结束，回到苍白的少妇身边坐下，两人相视而笑。奎格利上尉再次捧起手风琴。

“接下来，请听一段独唱，”他说，“有请米勒姊妹为我们演唱这首古老而辉煌的赞美诗《万古磐石》。米勒姊妹，请上台。”

她的声音并不是特别大，但足以充满这间小小的会堂。虽然她并不喜欢站到显眼的位置上，但她的确很喜欢唱歌。在全神贯注地歌唱时，她有时竟能全然忘我。

在那个七月四日晚上，她才张口唱了几句，就意识到有一双眼睛正热切地注视着她，完全不同于她习以为常的那种普通的好奇目光。她顺从自己的冲动，向台下看去，正撞见德克斯特·斯坦迪什凝视的双眼，仿佛他是来宣告自己要立刻占有她一样。

眼前的情景大大出乎她的意料，她几乎失去自制，连声音都支吾了，差点中断唱到一半的歌词。但她稳住自己，虽然感到血液上涌，脸颊发烫变红，但还是坚强唱了下去。她的第一个念头是逃离这个地方——马上躲起来，哪儿都行，只要是他看不见的地方就行。他已经六年多没见过她了，她的青春和美貌已在那些令人疲惫不堪的岁月里消逝殆尽。她知道自己已不再是他爱过的那个漂亮姑娘，她对他打量的目光避之不及，深恐他看到她褪色的容颜和干瘪的身躯。

但她既不能跑开，也无处可藏，她只能老老实实地站在那里任他端详，等他发现她看上去多么疲惫和衰老。她再一次和他四目相对——他的眼睛压根儿就没离开过她——她觉得这双眼睛里饱含怜悯之情。这让她感到厌恶。他有什么资格同情她？她挺起了单薄的身板，为了逞强唱得更响了。不过，唱完后她还是松了一口气，终于可以退回威利茨姊妹的身边坐下了。

上尉紧接着开口，说现在到了奉献的时间。希望在场的各位根据自己的财力多少奉献一点，量力而行。威利茨姊妹和米勒姊妹，请你们二位到下面收集一下大家的奉献，好吗？

她拿起手鼓的时候，一时冲动，转向身边年长的女性寻求帮助。

“请让我负责讲台边上的观众吧，”她请求，“您负责靠后的那几排可以吗？”

副官略感惊讶地低头看了她一眼，但还是立刻答应了。

少妇在过道上往下走了几排就不再往前，想尽可能离他远远的。每当她偷偷向他瞥去，就发现他还在紧盯着她，她走到哪儿，他就盯到哪儿，而且，这眼神流露出的并不是她刚才觉察到的怜悯，而是爱意——是他俩最后一次面对面时，他眼中流露的那种爱意。

当她们把手鼓伸向会堂里的每一位观众之后，两个女人回到了讲台上。副官开始数钱——大都是分分角角的硬币，总共还不到两美元。

上尉继续坚定不移地主持敬拜。他又领唱了一首赞美诗。唱完之后，他转向一位姗姗来迟的富态男人，他一直坐在讲台上希金森弟兄的身后。

“杰克曼弟兄，”他过分热忱地问，“今晚，你的灵魂有什么感动呢？能和我们分享一下吗？”

当这个发福的男人局促地用手抓住前排椅背站着，快活地宣告他获得救赎的确据时，米勒姊妹默默地坐在讲台上。

她没法不去看坐在她正前方的德克斯特·斯坦迪什。她注意到他坐得笔直，宽厚的肩膀看起来十分坚毅。她看出他也见老了，她发现他的脸上带有一种强势的表情，这正是她上一次见到他时他所缺少的。

他一直是个英俊的男子，在安纳波利斯接受的训练对他助益颇多。他不再是个毛头小子了，而是一个男人，皮肤黝黑、蓄着胡须，那架势就好像他知道自己想要什么，而且会去千方百计地获取。她看得出，他选择去保护的那个女人一定不会受到外界的任何伤害。一个憔悴的女人会在他的可靠保护之下得到休憩。不知不觉地，她把自己曾经答应要嫁的男人和自己最后嫁了的男人做了对比——一个雄健有力，一个温柔软弱。这时她又脸红了，觉得这么想是对死者的不忠。吉姆一直对她非常好，他是孩子的父亲，他没做过任何错事。但这个念头又冒了出来——要是他更有魄力一点，也许他们的孩子就不一定会夭折了。

杰克曼弟兄还在滔滔不绝，但米勒姊妹丝毫没有留意，甚至没听见他的讲话。在敬拜的后半程，她什么都没听进去。她机械地跟着大家起立，坐下，恍恍惚惚地下跪。敬拜结束之后，人群开始散去，她看到他没有离开。他静静地站在那里，等着她过去找他，准备把她带走。他还未曾开口，米勒姊妹就已猜出她的旧情人此来的目的：他希望跟她重叙四年前被斩断的鸳鸯旧梦。

等会堂里的人走得差不多了，他向她走来。

她转向身边的头发灰白的女人。

“请告诉我该怎么办吧，”她央求道，“他要来把我带走了。”

威利茨姊妹看到了那个正慢慢向前走来的年轻人，最后离开的人正纷纷为他让道。

“他是否也爱着你呢？”她问。

“是的。”少妇回答。

“那你爱他吗？”

“爱——至少我是这么觉得。噢，我爱他！”

“他是个好男人吗？”这是最后一个问题。

“是，绝对是，”答案脱口而出，“是我认识的最好的男人！”

强壮的身影越来越近，年迈的女人站了起来。

“要是你爱他甚过热爱与我们共事，那么以上帝之名，去找他吧，”她说，“我们这里不需要勉强留下，如果你无法欣然投入服事中，那就将其他一切都放下，平平安安地去吧——愿上帝的祝福与你同在！”

她弯腰亲吻少妇，然后离开，这时德克斯特·斯坦迪什走到少妇跟前站住了。

“玛格丽特，”他坚定地说，“我是为你而来的。”

她一言不发地走下讲台，跟着他去了。

他们走到门口的时候，一辆双轮马车恰好经过，他叫住马车。

“你要带我去哪儿？”她问。她很高兴能得到他衷心的爱护，也下定决心从此以后让他为她的未来做主。

“到我妈妈那儿去，”他一边把她扶上马车一边答道，“她住在宾馆里。她见到你一定会很高兴。”

“她会吗？”女孩有些疑虑地问。

“当然，”他断言，“她知道我一直爱着你。”

(1897年)

[108] 原文Irrepressible Conflict直译为“不可遏止的冲突”。美国政治家威廉·亨利·苏厄德（William Henry Seward）在1858年的演讲中首次提出这个用语，他预言美国北方和南方的社会经济制度将产生“不可遏止的冲突”。

[109] 救世军（The Salvation Army）：成立于1865年，是一个以军队形式作为架构和行政方针、以基督教作为信仰的国际性宗教及慈善公益组织，以街头布道和慈善活动、社会服务著称。

[110] 《救恩报》（The War Cry）：救世军官方出版物。不同国家的救世军组织在世界各地出售《救恩报》以筹款支持救世军的社会工作。

[111] 七月四日：美国独立日，在这一天，美国各地会举办各种庆祝活动。

[112] 公谊会（Quaker）：亦称“贵格会”或“教友派”，是基督教新教的一个教派，17世纪创立于英国。

8
单人交响乐团

向晚时分，空气闷热而浑浊，这座大都市在遭受连续十天的热浪侵袭之后往往是这样。马儿疲倦地拖着超载的车厢穿过市区，前额上绑着海绵。下班回家的女店员们懒洋洋地给自己扇着风。从办公室里解放出来的男人们无精打采地走在路上，胳膊上搭着外套。红通通的太阳渐渐没入哈得逊河对岸的山背后。不过看样子，晚上并不会比白天凉快多少，因为树上的叶子还是纹丝不动，和下午的时候一样。

我们整个七月都不得不留在城中，因为家里的病人迟迟不见好。现在已是八月初，就算再等上十天，我们也不一定能出城避暑。高温让病人难以成眠，延缓了身体的康复。那天傍晚六点刚过的时候，她好不容易昏昏沉沉地睡了过去。我们轻轻地离开她的房间，但愿她能至少睡上一个小时。

我悄悄走下楼梯，打开大门到外面的门廊上站着，这时，我听到了排箫的尖厉音调，伴着套铃的叮叮当当和鼓点的砰砰闷响。我马上猜到肯定是哪一路的流浪音乐家准备开演了，我也知道音乐一起，我家病人急需的安眠就会被无情地打断。

我轻轻关上身后的大门，跃下台阶，向街角飞奔过去，声响似乎是从那儿传来的。我寻思着，这家伙要是个外国人，我只好给他几毛钱把他打发走，之后他准会每天晚上回到这里，不讨到钱就不走人，而我等于赞助了好几周我根本不想听的音乐会。而这位流动音乐家要是个美国人，我当然就能向他求情，以礼相待，而他也一定不会再来打扰我们了。

我转过街角，看见几码开外的地方有一个古怪的身影——一个打扮得稀奇古怪的怪人——一个又瘦又高、四肢灵活的男人，头上戴的尖顶高帽显得他个子更高了，帽尖上用铁丝搭了个架子，上面挂着一串铃铛，随着脑袋的晃动叮叮当当响个不停。他穿着一件长长的亚麻风衣，衣摆拍打着两条裹着黑色紧身裤的竹竿腿。两腿间是一对镲，分别绑在两个膝盖上。他的背上绑着一个低音鼓，鼓上漆着广告，称这位表演者是“西奥菲勒斯·布里格斯教授，单人交响乐团”。鼓的两面各接了一根鼓槌，绑鼓槌的绳子顺着他的腿一直延伸到脚，这样一来，他只需用脚尖打节拍就能把鼓点加入合奏了。我刚才听到的排箫被固定在他的胸前，高度恰好到下巴，这样，他只要把脑袋一偏就能轻松地吹出声来。他左手拿着一把小提琴，右手持弓。一看到我过来，他就用弓轻叩琴箱，仿佛在提醒整个乐团集中注意。随后他举起小提琴，并没有举到下巴，因为有排箫挡着，而是把提琴靠在肩膀下方一点的位置，这种姿势在街头音乐家里并非罕见。毫无疑问，我来得正是时候。

他显然不是外国人。只要看一眼他瘦长的脸、友好的眼和温柔的嘴，就能看出他是地地道道的美国人，他的父母和祖父母也都出生在大西洋的这一边。

“很抱歉在你开演之前打断你，”我赶忙说，“可否劳动大驾去稍远一点的地方表演——离这个街角稍微远一点，如果你同意，我将不胜感激。”

我马上意识到自己措辞不当，因为和善的笑容从他的嘴角消失了，而且他缓缓作答时的态度显得很生硬。

“我好像没太听明白你的意思，”他说，“我可不是——”

“很抱歉不得不请你离开，”我打断他，努力解释，“我自己倒是很想听你的演奏，但是有个情况，我的一位家人久病初愈，正在慢慢地恢复，她已经一夜没合眼了，这才刚刚睡下。”

“你怎么不早说呢？”西奥菲勒斯·布里格斯教授立刻应道，愉快的笑容重现在瘦削的脸上，“当然没问题，我可不希望我的音乐打扰到任何人。要是能让病人感到舒服，我就是跑到城市的另一头去也乐意呀。我可知道家有病号是什么滋味，没人比我知道得更清楚了——没人比得了。”

“你真是太好了，真的。”我说着，和他一起往街角走去。

“噢，没关系，”他回答，“在哪儿演奏都一样。你就告诉我是哪幢房子吧，我好离它远点儿。”

我把大门指给他看。

“从街角数过去的第三户，对吗？”他问，“好，那就行了。我也很感激你提醒了我，我可不愿意吵醒一位病人。排箫和大鼓可不是安神的玩意儿，你说对吗？”

微笑漾成一阵欢笑。我再次道谢并和他握手道别，然后他就转身走了，后面跟着一群孩子，自打我开口跟他说话，他们就一直眼巴巴地围着我俩。

次日拂晓前，一场暴雨席卷了城市。大雨下了整整一天，总算给街道降了温，把空气洗刷一新。随着热浪的退去，大家终于可以安然入眠了。男人们在清晨迈着轻快的步伐走向办公室，女店员们上班的时候也不再没精打采的了。我家病人在迅速康复，过不了几天，我们就能带她一起出城了。

扫除酷热的暴雨是周四下的，直到周五傍晚，天空才完全放晴。周六和周日的空气一直很清新。

周日的黄昏时分，我来到门廊上坐着，这是不得不在城里度夏的纽约人的习惯。我搬了一两个坐垫出来坐下，嘴里叼着晚饭后的第二支雪茄。我陷入了一种与世无争的宁静之中，这一刻，我甚至摒弃了思考的必要。看着吐出的烟圈悠悠地在头上盘旋，我觉得十分满足。

尽管我已超然世外，可我最终还是模糊地察觉出，有个男人在房子前面已经来来回回地走了两三趟，而且每次经过时都紧盯着我，似乎在期待我认出他来。他再次走过的时候引起了我的注意。我看出他是个瘦高个儿，约莫五十岁，瘦长脸刮得干干净净，穿着一身朴素的黑西装，从衣服上的各种皱褶和折痕判断，明显是周日去教会穿的正装。走到房前的时候，他放慢了脚步，抬头望上来。四目相对的时候，他笑了。我也立刻认出了他。原来是西奥菲勒斯·布里格斯教授，单人交响乐团。

他发现我认出他来，就在那里站住了。我站起身来和他打招呼。

“我记得是这座房子，”他开口说，“但我拿不准。你瞧，我这人没记性，就像蛤蟆没尾巴。不过，我觉着自己还不至于忘掉房子这么大的东西吧——你看，我没搞错吧？”他愉快地笑了。“而且我觉得门廊上坐着的那人就是你，”他兴致勃勃地继续说，“真高兴我猜对了，因为我还想再见你一面，问问那位女士好些了没。那天晚上她睡好了吗？她现在感觉怎么样？”

我再一次为初次见面时他的体谅行为道谢，还感谢他此时的亲切关怀，并高兴地告诉他家里病人的好消息。这时我意识到应该尽些地主之谊，就问这位来客需不需要“来点什么”。

“不用了，谢谢你，”他回答，“当然，如果你不介意我拒绝的话。事实上，我不喝了。我现在看不上红酒了，它像毒蛇一样又咬又叮，我可再也不想把蛇灌进肚子里了。我是喝够了，再也不想喝了。我觉着现在对我来说喝点最淡的鸡尾酒就够了。在那个蓝色老鼠绿色耗子和黄色猴子组成的欢乐大家庭里，已经没有我了。这些玩意儿我当年可不缺，就像开了个小动物园似的——你懂的，那就像是一场常年举办的‘世界上最棒的表演’，而我拿着一张长期有效的入场券。但和那些没完没了的演出一样，你很快就厌倦了——至少我厌倦了，然后就不喝了，现在我是滴酒不沾了。”

“发誓戒酒了？”我一边问，一边在坐垫上挪了挪，让他在我身边坐下。

“没有，”他坐了下来，干脆地说，“我不需要发誓去戒。我就是不喝了，就这么简单。”

“有些人可觉得戒酒没那么容易。”我议论道。

“那是不假，”他回答，“老实说，这对我来说也不容易。但我必须这么做，就是这样。你看，我尝试过喝酒解闷，但我发现并不上算。我可不喜欢那种长远看来注定赔本的买卖——像是一种非常糟糕的经营之道，是不？所以我就不喝了。”

似乎该由我接上一句老生常谈了，而我也把握住了时机：“沾酒容易，戒酒难呀。”

“这我懂，我沾上它是够容易的，”他和蔼地笑答，“那时我还在当兵。一个男人在沼泽地里摸爬滚打了一个多星期之后，来上一口朗姆酒，那感觉可真不赖。”

他这么一说，我才头一回注意到他外衣上的铜纽扣。

“原来你当过兵呀？”我问，羡慕之情油然而生。我这一辈的人在南北战争的漫长年月里还只是无法参战的毛头小子，大多数人对上过沙场的老兵都怀有羡慕之情。

“我在葛底斯堡当小鼓手来着，”他回答，“捞上这么个差事还真不容易啊！”

“怎么呢？”我问。

“咳，是这么回事，”他解释道，“我的父亲呢，是个缅因人，是一位船长。我母亲死后不久，父亲又结婚了。他这第二个妻子不喜欢我，而我也不咋喜欢她。我猜是我们俩之间从来就没什么母子之情吧。她喜欢时不时地跟着我父亲去航海，我也喜欢。我俩有一次跟他出海，那时正赶上战争爆发。我们出发去考斯[113]贩货，在接下来的1962年夏天到了地中海。那年夏末的时候，我们到了热那亚[114]，在那儿有机会看到报纸，上面印着的全都是战事消息。看样子这边的买卖也进展得不太顺，所以我就很想回家乡帮把手，镇压叛乱。你知道，我那时满十四岁了，个头很高，看着不止十四——估计跟我现在差不多一样高。我在船上干的就是力气活儿，我想，既然山姆大叔[115]日子不好过，我怎么就不能像个汉子似的帮把手呢？我也不介意告诉你，后妈也没给我什么好日子过，她就是个鸡蛋里挑骨头的火药桶，怎么着都没法让她满意。港口里还有一条船停在我们附近，那个船长算是后妈的某个远房亲戚吧，我就上了他的船，我们直接回国，从热那亚一路开回朴次茅斯[116]。我想当兵打仗，结果人家不要我，说我太小，你说这不是瞎扯吗？所以我就当了小鼓手，在波托马克集团军[117]里，从葛底斯堡到阿波马托克斯都待过。”

“到战争结束时你也还只是个孩子呀。”我议论。

“这个嘛，我那时十七，但我觉得自己老得像七十，”他笑答，瘦削的脸上笑出了皱纹，“反正李将军[118]投降后，转年我就够岁数结婚了，再转年我的女儿就出生了——她要是还活着，现在应该快三十了。”

“那你战后是不是留在正规军的某个乐队里了？”我问，很想弄明白他是如何从小水手变成小鼓手并最终壮大为单人交响乐团的。

“没有，”他答道，“我的确考虑过，但是没留下。不过在海上漂泊了那么久，又参过军，总是居无定所、四处漂泊的，我可安顿不下来，我不愿意长期定居在任何地方。所以我开始了表演生涯。我一直很喜欢音乐，几乎什么乐器都能把弄，一把密齿梳子也可以，装满音栓的教堂管风琴也没问题。所以我就随一家马戏团外出巡演，用和声杯助兴表演。”

“和声杯？”我疑惑地重复。

“就是一个托盘，上面放好些红酒杯、高脚杯、平底玻璃杯什么的，杯子里放一些水，你懂的，水多水少音高就不一样。哈，我曾经用一个跨了七个八度的和声杯表演《铁砧合唱》[119]，总要返场两次才能让观众过足瘾。我记得以前管这玩意儿叫‘音乐玻璃杯’ ——但现在业内人士都叫和声杯。”

我承认我听说过音乐玻璃杯。

“我就是在那个助兴演出里表演和声杯的时候遇到我后来的妻子的，”他继续说，“她是个马戏团女郎。你知道，大多数马戏团女郎都是爱尔兰人，可她不是。她是从白山[120]那边来的。我刚一进团就朝她献殷勤，等马戏团到了冬季驻地的时候，我俩已经存了不少钱，于是就结婚啦！我老婆的乐感也不差，所以那个冬天我俩就搭档，搞了一个双人组合，开春的时候，我俩就作为‘瑞士摇铃人’上路开演啦！我俩的打扮就像我以前在那不勒斯见到的意大利佬似的。”

我再次请他解释一下。

“噢，你应该看过那种表演吧？”他忙问，“不过最近好像有些过气了。你得有一套好铃铛，能奏三到四个八度，全部铺开放在你面前的桌子上，然后你敲铃铛奏出曲子，就像敲和声杯似的。有的曲子用铃铛敲出来比什么都好听——比如《洋基歌》和《吓跑黄鼠狼》。大伙儿就喜欢你挑些朗朗上口的曲子，再用铃铛给敲出来。哈，我和我老婆以前经常演奏爱国歌曲串烧，压轴的是《集合到国旗下》，士兵的寡妇们总是听得泪汪汪。要是我们能这么表演下去，肯定早就发了。可第二年夏天生了闺女之后，我老婆就病倒了。我们一直以为她很快会好起来，所以我接受了纽约这边的一份工作，在百老汇大道上巴纳姆的旧博物馆[121]里，在交响乐团里打鼓。你还记得巴纳姆的旧博物馆吧？”

我说确实记得百老汇大道上的巴纳姆的旧博物馆。

“我不太喜欢那里。你知道，动物可臭了，工作上限制又多，一天要表演两三次。但我必须想方设法留在纽约，因为老婆动弹不了。长话短说吧，她卧病在床差不多三十年了——当然，并不是一直在遭罪，只是一直病恹恹的，也没什么胃口。我有时觉得她就这样了，不会好转，也不会恶化。但是两年前，就在我差不多习惯了她久病不愈的时候，她突然死了。女人真是太善变了，不是吗？”

我不得不承认，我们这个物种的雌性行为的确让人捉摸不透。

“我女儿比她妈妈早死一年；她这辈子一天病都没生过——真的，这点她随我，”布里格斯教授继续说，“她和她丈夫以前在歌舞秀里表演‘美国姑娘和爱尔兰小伙’二重唱，现在人们都管这叫歌舞秀。”

我说，我觉得“综艺节目” ——那种娱乐形式的旧称——似乎更为恰当。

“我也这么认为，”他接着说，“我也总这么跟他们讲。但他们都觉得歌舞秀这个名字更时髦——现在的人就好这个，什么事都讲时髦。不过我觉得很多老式的东西比他们引以为傲的那些花哨的新发明要好得多。就拿三环马戏场来说吧——除了老板之外，三环马戏场对谁有好处？观众每人总共只有两只眼睛，就算你有斜视，一次最多也只能看两个环啊，对不对？再说了，三环场没办法让真正的艺术家好好表演，只会让他灰心丧气，因为观众的注意力都被分散了。要是他根本没法确定观众在看他，他又怎么发挥出最佳水平呢？”

我再次插话，表示完全赞同他的观点。

“不管他们给我什么好处，我都绝不会去三环马戏场表演，”他继续说，“我搞了一出新节目，就快准备就绪了，一旦他们听说了，准会争着请我去表演。我——”说到这儿，他停了下来，往街上来回扫视了一遍，似乎想确认没有人躲在附近偷听他接下来要说的话——“我不介意告诉你，如果你想知道的话。”

我声称自己很感兴趣，特别想了解他的这出新节目。

“好，”他说，“我记得刚才跟你说过，我的外孙女现在是我唯一的家人。她快八岁了，是个小机灵鬼——而且很健康，像她妈妈。她很喜欢我，这也像她妈妈。而且她天生就有音乐天赋——我一放下乐器，她就摆弄起来，爱不释手——她用风笛吹起《荣美圣城》来简直能让雕像落泪。她还喜欢唱歌——好像欲罢不能似的。她有天使般的歌喉——嘿，总有一天她会成为一代歌后。就是她的歌声启发我搞了这出新节目，就叫《山姆叔叔的小屋》，由她和我二人搭档。我演山姆叔叔兼拉小提琴，她演小伊娃，中间快速换装，扮成托普西。演小伊娃的时候，她当然得唱赞美诗——《等到云消散》《到那日，乐无比》之类的曲子，演托普西的时候，她会先来一段班卓琴独奏，返场的时候她会来一段唱跳，我拉小提琴给她伴奏。这个计划是不是很棒？肯定会引起轰动的！”

我表态，认为这个主意很吸引人。

“不过我已经决定了，”他接着说，“在我找到合适的首演机会之前，绝不带她亮相。我不想一上来就谈条件，因为等我们出了名之后，我们很快就能开出自己的条件。但是首演时机至关重要。所以我得等到秋天，甚至等到新年，才会为这事操心。与此同时，我的街头表演还要继续。这个夏天，单人交响乐团能妥妥地赚个盆满钵满。上一次你没听我演奏真是遗憾——毫无疑问，演出精彩极了。也许不如和声杯或瑞士铃铛那样正规——这点我不太确定，但也不赖，而且大夏天的，只要有一群孩子围着你，你就必定成功。有时候我演奏《土耳其巡逻兵》之类的曲子，能有上百人围着我呢。”

“回想我请你离开的那个傍晚，那些小不点儿瞧我的神情，”我说，“明显感觉到他们非常渴望听你演奏。而我迫不得已，也让自己丧失了欣赏的机会，真是遗憾啊！”

他慢慢站了起来，灵活的骨架仿佛一节一节地舒展开来。

“这样吧，”他热诚地回应，“你家的女士不是好多了吗？”

我说家里病人正在稳步康复。

“那好啊，”他建议，“我下周哪个晚上再过来一趟，你说怎么样？我可以为你们全家，还有你愿意邀请的朋友演一场。你再告诉她，她要是想听哪首新歌、圆舞曲、进行曲、歌剧选段什么的都行，我没什么不会的。只要她报上曲目，单人交响乐团就会演奏。”

我理所当然地接受了他奉送的这场演出。说定后，布里格斯教授起身离去，他煞有介事地和我道别，好像习惯了万众瞩目似的。

第二个星期过去了一半，一天傍晚，单人交响乐团出现在我家前面的人行道上，演出特意为我们献上的音乐会。

我家病人如今已恢复元气，能坐在窗台边观赏布里格斯教授的表演了。但她的注意力很快就从单人交响乐团转移到簇拥在周围的一大群孩子，他们把他团团围住，对他的奇异演出表现出了浓厚的兴趣。

“快瞧那个坐在对面台阶上的小美女，她孤零零地坐着，好像谁也不认识，”渐愈的病人叫道，“她真是我见过的最有灵气的小美人儿。瞧她听这单人交响乐时的一脸倦容，就好像咱们这里上演的是《唐怀瑟》[122]，而她是坐在剧院包厢里的贵妇人。”

夕阳的余晖渐渐消退，单人交响乐也在《土耳其巡逻兵》和压轴返场曲《铁砧合唱》中圆满结束。西奥菲勒斯·布里格斯教授收完钱之后，我下楼来和他握手表示感谢，而孩子们也终于接受演出已结束这个显而易见又不可避免的事实，慢慢散去。这时，坐在街对面的那个镇静自若的小女孩庄重地站了起来。高个儿音乐家穿过马路，尖顶帽上的铃儿叮当作响，这时，她牵起他的手，好像他属于她一样。他迈步离去，她小跑着跟在他身旁，抬着头冲他微笑着。

“我知道了，”我说，“那一定是她的小外孙女，未来的双面娇娃，小伊娃和托普西。”

（1896年）

[113] 考斯（Cowes）：英国南部港市。

[114] 热那亚（Genoa）：意大利西北部港市。

[115] 山姆大叔（Uncle Sam）：美国的绰号和拟人化形象，一般被描绘为穿着星条旗纹样的礼服，戴着星条旗纹样的高礼帽，身材高瘦，留着山羊胡子，鹰钩鼻，精神矍铄的老人形象。

[116] 朴次茅斯（Portsmouth）：美国弗吉尼亚州东南部城市，自南北战争时起就是海军基地。

[117] 波托马克集团军（Army of the Potomac）：美国南北战争东部战区中联邦（北军）的主要集团军。

[118] 李将军（General Lee）：罗伯特·李，美国军事家、教育家，在美国南北战争中担任美国南方邦联总司令。1865年，他在邦联军弹尽粮绝的情况下向尤里西斯·辛普森·格兰特将军投降，从而结束了内战。

[119] 《铁砧合唱》（Anvil Chorus）：威尔第的歌剧《游吟诗人》里的著名合唱。

[120] 白山（White Mountains）：美国新罕布什尔州北部阿巴拉契亚山脉的一部分。

[121] 巴纳姆（Barnum）：美国马戏团经纪人兼演出者，1841年巴纳姆买下纽约市百老汇街的一座废弃博物馆，此馆日后成为巴纳姆的“美国博物馆”，以奢侈的广告和怪异的展品而闻名。

[122] 《唐怀瑟》（Tannh.user）：德国作曲家瓦格纳在1845年创作的歌剧。

9
新剧排演

威尔逊·卡彭特走到两条主干道交汇处时停下来看了看手表，希望自己不要比预定的排演时间早太多。看到已经快八点了，他立刻加快脚步，穿过在道口交织、向四方延伸的缆车轨道。一列火车咣当咣当地从他头顶上方的高架铁路上驶过，留下一串打着转儿的蒸汽。一辆缆车用独眼瞪着他，在闹市区飞奔而过。街角教堂传来悦耳的晚间敬拜召集音乐，教堂的尖塔旁，一轮柔和的满月窥视着喧闹的大街。往北一条街，一串俗气的灯泡照亮了某个演艺场入口上方张贴的海报，宣告在当晚的“圣大音乐会”上，被誉为“爱尔兰女皇”的奎妮·多尔蒂[123]将要表演新歌《他打起架来风度翩翩》。这位青年剧作家在疾行的同时注意到，仍有三三两两的行人在往敬拜所或娱乐场里走。他不由自主地把这座大城市的周日晚间景象和童年时在出生的那座小村庄里度过的周日晚间迅速做了一番对比。

他不知道倘若寡言少语的双亲还健在，得知他参与创作的一部话剧就要上演，而他正在前往最后排演的路上，他们会怎么想。这部话剧并不是他的第一部作品，他去年冬天就幸运地赢得了由某份前卫报纸主办的最佳独幕剧比赛大奖，不过，这是他的作品头一次被纽约的主流剧院搬上舞台。来到大门紧闭但灯火通明的剧院入口处时，他再次停下，饶有兴致地将张贴在大门两边的三幅海报看了一遍。五彩缤纷的海报上介绍说，美国青年演员，黛西·福斯特尔小姐，将首次在本剧院登台亮相，出演由哈里·布拉克特和威尔逊·卡彭特联手为她量身打造、由泽凯·基尔伯恩亲自执导的最新美国喜剧《一触即发》。

这部最新美国喜剧的作者把海报来回看了两遍，再次掏出手表，发现刚好八点。他扔掉手中的香烟，快速绕过街角，钻进一扇小门，走下一条昏暗悠长的通道。通道尽头是一间小小的方厅，也许唤作楼梯平台更恰当，从这儿上楼是更衣室，下楼是道具室。一扇大大的门把舞台与这里隔开。

卡彭特刚一进方厅，这扇门就被猛地推开了，一个神情紧张的年轻人冲了进来。一看到剧作家，他就止住脚步，伸出手，疲惫地笑着说：“你来了呀？我真是太高兴了！”

“排演还没有开始吧？”卡彭特急切地问。

“明星还没到呢，”这位演员回答，“你知道，她从来不着急。黛西就是这样，总是从容不迫的。她那些小伎俩我可全知道。我跟你说过，要不是我一月份之后就一直闲着，我才不会接下这部戏呢。我觉得我和你写的这个角色毫无共鸣呀。当然，我会尽全力去演的，也许这个角色也没那么差，但我就是找不到共鸣。”

卡彭特亲热地拍了拍对方的肩膀，大声说：“德雷瑟，千万别担心，你一定没问题！哈，要是你成了整部戏的亮点，我也不会惊讶！”

说着，他伸手去推通向舞台的那扇门。

可德雷瑟却突然恳求道：“我刚找到你，你别急着走呀。我一整天都在等着见你呢。我得听听你的建议，这很重要。”

“嗯？”剧作家回应。

“呃，”年轻演员说，“你知道在第三幕里我有一场戏，和吉米·斯塔克演对手戏的那场。他应该对我说：‘我觉得我老婆是吃饱了撑的。’然后我说：‘你是怕她叫你吃不了兜着走吗？’哎，这句话到底该怎么说呀？”

在剧作家看来，这句台词中哪儿该重读再明显不过，但他还是向演员解释了一番，然后才得以脱身，总算来到了舞台上。

《一触即发》第一幕的场景已经设置好了，舞台被灯光照得亮堂堂的，观众席则漆黑一片。至少过了一分钟后，卡彭特才依稀分辨出楼座的轮廓，楼座罩着防尘的亚麻布，免得天鹅绒和镀金装饰落灰。台下总共有二三十人，三五成群地散坐在乐池的椅子上。舞台前侧包厢空洞洞、黑黢黢的。尽管这是个温暖的初秋晚上，卡彭特仍觉得剧院里寒气袭人，令人生畏。他凝神在黑暗中搜寻，想找到那张他一直渴望再见的脸。

两个男人坐在舞台正中脚灯附近的桌子旁边，聊得十分火热。其中一个身量较矮，头发花白，举止威严。此人是谢林顿，应邀参与话剧制作的舞台监督。另一个人就是哈里·布拉克特，和卡彭特共同编剧的合著者。

才来的剧作家刚刚在漆黑的剧场里分辨出他要找的那群人，并向其中的两位女士鞠躬致意，这时，哈里·布拉克特看到了他。

“哎呀，威尔，”他大叫，“魅力巨星又迟到了——咱们今晚也不省心，要做的事多着呢！谢林顿对他们在第二幕的两场重头戏里的表现一点都不满意。咱们得格外上心，让他们都能演好，否则就只能指望这剧‘叫好不叫座’了。”

“叫好不叫座！”谢林顿断然反对，“怎么会！你们写的这个东西有“钱途”——大有“钱途”啊。前提是我们能挖掘出第二幕里黛西的那两场戏里的所有笑点。但要把该有的笑点都给合理地挖出来还有很多工作要做——而且一定要做！我总说，每一阵笑声都值一块五。”

“第二幕里的两场戏？”卡彭特问，“你说的是跟斯塔克配戏的那场和跟马文小姐配戏的那场吗？”

“我觉得跟马文配戏的那场没什么问题。”舞台监督说。

“那可不一定，”哈里·布拉克特插了进来，“威尔，是你坚持要她参演的，可她太没经验，真不知道她怎么撑得住那么长的一场戏。”

“马文小姐非常聪慧，”卡彭特急于为自己心爱的姑娘辩白，“而且她的外形跟角色十分相称！”

“外形条件的确很好，”布拉克特回应，“但是在第二幕的那场戏里，她要做的是演戏，不是当花瓶。”

“她也会演好的，”舞台监督坚称，“你看，今天晚上她把她妈妈带来了，哪儿都找不到比凯特·香农·洛兰更厉害的老戏骨了。”

“那倒也是，”哈里·布拉克特承认，“我估计洛兰能给女儿示范一下，怎样才能把那场戏里的全部韵味呈现出来。”

“今晚，香农会把整出剧看一遍，”谢林顿说，“这样她明天就能给马文好些指教。这个小姑娘问题不大。倒是黛西，我比较担心她在那场戏里的表现。这部戏必须演成一出高雅喜剧，高高在上的狄泽尔夫人[124]——高雅喜剧不太对黛西的路数。”

“现在是无能为力了，”布拉克特回道，“要是魅力巨星没办法把那场戏演好，那就是魅力巨星自己的错了，是不是？威尔，你记得吧，是她在我们写剧本的时候一再要求，要我们尽可能地把她的角色写得高端一些。我们照做了，现在她只能超水平发挥了——如果她能做到的话。”

“我倒不担心那场戏，”卡彭特说，“我一直对她能否演好高雅喜剧持怀疑态度，所以写剧本的时候特意留了一手，就算俗着演，这场戏也能出彩。你知道，演狄泽尔夫人可以有两种方式。”

“对大众情人黛西可没有两种态度，”舞台监督说，“观众都认可她，这就够了。归根结底，我觉得她怎么演那场戏并不重要，雅还是俗，观众都会接受。这个角色就是给她量身定做的，我们需要做的就是让每个人的表演都符合她的基调，再就是把能找出的笑点都找出来。你接受我的意见把第三幕里的冗长对白删掉，这部戏就会变得一票难求——你就瞧好吧。我跟你们说，在咱们完事之前，我就能教会你们两个毛头小子写一出真正的滑稽剧！”

舞台监督谢林顿发表这番演讲的时候，哈里·布拉克特几乎站到谢林顿背后去了。他冲卡彭特眨眨眼。

“对，”他过了一会儿说，“我觉得这在同类作品中可以算得上是一部上乘之作了，我希望它能吸引观众。反正，我相信，就算我们的死对头也不会说它只有‘文学价值’。”

卡彭特苦笑一声。“对，”他赞同，“我们已经把它打造成型了，我觉得应该不会有人侮辱咱们，说《一触即发》‘写得还行’。”

“威尔，你还记得我们去年冬天一起写剧本时开的玩笑吗？”哈里·布拉克特问。他随即转向谢林顿，对他解释道：“我们以前总说要是‘触’动不了剧院经理，就没人会去看戏，我们也就‘发’不了财了。”

“触动剧院经理可比让观众去看戏难多了，”卡彭特补充说，“我相信傻瓜都能写剧本，但是只有才华横溢的人才能成功地将剧本搬上舞台。”

一个眼睛乌溜溜的美女轻快地走上舞台。

“魅力巨星终于来啦，”哈里·布拉克特说，“我们总算可以开工了。”

“我来迟了吗？”美女一边问一边走上前来，“大家都在等我吗？”

“亲爱的，你只晚到了二十分钟，”舞台监督看了看表说，“我们的确都在等你。”

“那就好，”她微微一笑，回答，“我们还有一整晚的时间呢，对不对？”

提词人拍了拍手，大声喊：“第一幕！”两个一直坐在舞台侧翼的男人站起身走到台前。两人的胡子都刮得干干净净，看不出具体年龄。德雷瑟先生也跟他们一起走来，从他的举止可以看出，他比平时越发紧张了。一个保养得很好、年纪稍大的女士从前侧包厢下方过道边的椅子上起身，穿过那扇隔开观众席和舞台的门。她的身后跟着一个纤弱、优雅，长着明亮的蓝灰眼睛的金发姑娘。

“卡斯尔曼太太，马文小姐，”提词人跟她们打招呼，“现在全体准备就绪。”

接下来就到了正式排演的时间了。卡斯尔曼太太走到舞台中央，拿起一份报纸，大声念出上面的日期，说自打男主人和女主人盛怒之下分道扬镳已经过去整整五年了，还说尽管这儿离纽约只有不到一小时的路程，这五年来他俩却谁也没再踏进这座老宅半步。这时，其中一个配角，一个笨拙的小伙子，就是原本站在舞台侧翼的二人中的一个，拿着一份电报走上来，递给卡斯尔曼太太。她拆开电报，大声读电文：男主人将在当天傍晚早些时候到家。随后，马文小姐，长着一双明亮的蓝灰眼睛的姑娘，拿着一封打开了的信走上前来告诉卡斯尔曼太太，女主人终于要回家了，当天下午晚些时候就到。排演就这样一板一眼地进行着，每个人都全情投入。演员们的台词会时不时地被舞台监督打断。“把最后一场再过一遍，”他下达指令，演员们就会回到原位，重新开始。“亲爱的，等他上台之后你再走过去。而且，他说‘这是什么意思’的时候，你别抢话。稍等一下，然后再说出你的那句旁白‘他能怀疑什么呢？’要沙哑着嗓子小声说。明白？”

终于，雪橇铃铛的叮当声响了起来，管弦乐队的配乐起先轻柔舒缓，随即渐强直至终结于一个短促的强音，接着黛西·福斯特尔小姐推开舞台后部的大门，初次亮相。发现所有人都吃了一惊时，她甜甜地笑了，说：“我看出来了，你们没料到我会回来——但愿你们都很高兴再次见到我。”

这时，一个蓄着又浓又黑的小胡子、面如死灰的瘦男人上前一步，面对五年未见的妻子。“我们都很高兴再次见到你，”他不得不说，“真的非常高兴，更高兴的是，你看起来气色这么好，精神头这么足！别离并没有暗淡你眼中的神采，也没有——”说到这儿，高瘦的演员停住，犹豫着。“我不知道这段台词有什么问题，”他不耐烦地说，“但我就是记不住。我从没说过这么拗口的台词！”

提词人告诉他接下来要说的话，就再没人关注这个小插曲了。

两位作家正坐在脚灯中间的桌子边，哈里·布拉克特对卡彭特嘀咕：“斯塔克越来越自大了，是不是？就是个只顾耍帅却不记台词的新手，还真把自己当回事儿呢！”

接下来是一场重头戏，妻子用诙谐轻松的语气给丈夫讲述分居五年来她的所作所为，最后宣布一条令人震惊的消息：她在南达科他州待过六个星期，并且在那里设法办理了离婚！不过，《一触即发》的详细情节就无须在此透露了，总之，这部新排的美国喜剧正在一幕幕地展开。临近幕终的时候，谢林顿敦促演员们加快表演节奏，好在一个出人意料却精心设计的突发场景中迅速落幕。

第一幕结束之后，舞台监督又让大家把末尾那段重排了两遍，确保首演的时候万无一失，随后，舞台被打扫一空，为第二幕的布景腾出了地方。

卡彭特望着这个优雅的灰眼睛女孩回到昏暗的观众席上，在她母亲身边坐下。他的心突然怦怦直跳，他不知自己何时才能鼓起勇气告诉她，他爱她，并请求她嫁给他。接着，他也走下舞台，坐到这对母女身后的椅子上。

“洛兰夫人，您今晚能过来真是太好了，”他说，“我觉得，有您的女儿在我写的这部戏里表演，似乎能给我带来好运呢。”

“荒唐！”马文小姐笑着说。

“玛丽告诉过我这部戏写得有多妙，”年长的演员回应，“其实比她形容的还要好。有些地方的对话非常精彩，角色的反差恰到好处——更重要的是，整出戏上演效果非常好！情节带动演员入戏，演员的发挥空间很大。明晚一定会演出成功！”

“这是一部很好的戏，”玛丽·马文断言，“我觉得我的角色可爱极了！”

他还没来得及表示恰当的感谢，洛兰女士就接着说：“的确，玛丽的角色很迷人。而且我觉得她也会演得很好！”

“肯定会！”他毫不犹豫地大声说。

“我觉得戏的内涵比我原先料想的要丰富，”玛丽的母亲说，“现在戏也看了，我今晚会帮着玛丽把她的角色再过一遍，给她示范一下怎样处理角色。我正等着看第二幕里她和福斯特尔的那场对手戏呢。我觉得在那场戏之后，玛丽应该和她一起出来谢幕了。事实上，我不敢保证她不会抢掉福斯特尔的风头。”

“哎呀，妈妈，”女儿插话道，“那可不行！那我还不得明儿一早就收到两周后解约的通知？我可不想在演出季刚开始就砸了饭碗，现在各个剧团都人员齐备了。”

“要是你们一个多月都没什么上座率的话，你确定这个福斯特尔的班子还能每周都发薪水吗？”洛兰女士问道，声音里透出一丝焦虑。

“我觉得泽凯·基尔伯恩还行，”剧作家回应，“去年，他靠那部进口情景剧《医生的女儿》赚了大钱；再说，他是有资助人的。”

洛兰夫人微微一笑，露出了漂亮整齐的牙齿。她年纪虽长，却仍然是个美人儿，身材姣好，银发如冠。

“资助人？”她又问，“但谁又来资助这个资助人呢？我听你的朋友布拉克特先生说，嗓门大的鸟儿不聚财。”

卡彭特热切地回答：“我真的认为基尔伯恩很有实力，不过我估计很大程度上的确取决于这剧是否迎合大众口味。纽约这里有空档期，要是《一触即发》受人追捧的话，他们就能在这里一直演到圣诞节。总而言之，要是我们这部戏大受欢迎，薪水就一定能按时发放。”

“我希望它一炮而红，”洛兰夫人回答，“也是为了你好。你们没把这部戏卖断给剧院吧？”

“当然没有，”年轻的剧作家回答，“哈里·布拉克特是业内的老油条了，不会做这样的傻事。只要一周的演出收入超过四千美元，我们每晚都能分成。只要它能一炮而红，我们就等着挣大钱了。洛兰夫人，您觉得希望有多大呢？”

“第一幕还不错，”她答道，“我现在只能说这么多。等我把三幕戏全看完再来问我吧，到时候我会告诉你我的意见，而且我相信自己能非常准确地预测它的命运。”

这时，第二幕的场景已经布置好了。展现的是一座小山顶上的度夏小屋，俯瞰西点军校濒临的哈得逊河。这个场景不仅美丽如画，还设计巧妙，可以营造出生动的舞台效果。

第二幕快开始的时候，卡彭特陪着马文小姐返回舞台。

他刚穿过隔开观众席和舞台的那扇门就迎面撞见了德雷瑟，后者正焦躁地来回踱步。

“哎呀，卡彭特先生，”他喊道，“看见你真是太好了！我想听听你的建议。你看，毕竟是你写的剧本，你应该能说了算。在我和马文的这场戏里，我是真爱她呢，还是不爱呀？谢林顿说我爱着她，但我觉得要是我当时并不爱她的话会好笑很多——这样一来，最后一幕就会更加出彩。你意下如何？谢林顿非说照他说的那样演会更戏剧化。我不否认这一点，但是那样就不好笑了，是不是？”

卡彭特就这个问题给出了自己的意见之后，德雷瑟才放他走。但他还没走出十码远，就又被卡斯尔曼太太叫住了。

“卡彭特先生，”这位老演员开口说，一副惯常的高傲作态，“你觉得我在第一幕里应该如何装扮呢？她是个管家，对吗？所以我觉得我应该穿一条围裙。”

年轻的剧作家表示，他也认为管家在第一幕里穿一条围裙是得体的。

“但是帽子就不用戴了吧？”卡斯尔曼太太追问。

卡彭特表示，帽子是没有必要的。

“谢谢你，”卡斯尔曼太太说，“你瞧，我此前向来只和正统戏剧打交道，所以碰到这种事情就不知道如何是好了。”说到这里，她突然一顿，连忙改口道，“哎呀，请你见谅，卡彭特先生，我真的无意暗示你的这部迷人的话剧不正统——”

剧作家哈哈大笑。“你不用道歉，”他说，“我倒觉得《一触即发》不正统得连亲生父母都认不出它了呢[125]！”

第二幕的排演终于开始了，两位作者同舞台监督一起坐到小桌边。

有一两次，谢林顿就删除某些台词的问题向他们征求意见。

“我总说，台词要能砍则砍，”他解释道，“台词少了，观众的哈欠也就少了。”

但有一次他叫停了排演，却建议加一句话。“你得把这个复杂的情况解释得明明白白，”他说，“我认为，在这个地方解释最合适。你要想让他们明白德雷瑟会在下一场戏中把马文误认为是福斯特尔，你就得在这里加一句，铺垫一下。”

两位作者草草商议了一下，卡彭特便拿出笔记本和铅笔，匆忙写下一句话给布拉克特过目。

“这样挺好，”谢林顿说完，将台词大声念给德雷瑟听。德雷瑟向卡彭特借来铅笔，在他那个角色的台本里写上新台词，并大声质疑自己能否在头一晚就把新台词记熟。

几分钟之后，谢林顿再次打断演员们的表演，坚称落日效果需要好好调整一下，以便烘托对话。

“这个场景中，在福斯特尔身上，我想要一种柔和的玫瑰色调。”他说明。

“太对了，”黑眼睛的明星笑道，“那应该和我的气质很相称。”

“在和马文配戏的场景里，我想让这色调跟蓝色的月光形成对比。”舞台监督说。

“太对了，”黛西·福斯特尔表态，“我往舞台中央那么一站，你就让彩光灯全打在我一人身上！”

“我们最好回到你出场的地方，”谢林顿决定，“把这场戏再从头过一遍。”

男女演员顺从地回到黛西·福斯特尔在那一幕亮相时各自所在的位置上。得到登台的提示后，她爆发出一阵矫揉造作的笑声，走上前来。

“这阵笑声非常好，”谢林顿称，“——比上次的好。你要尽可能笑得很假，很虚伪。记住你的处境：你的心上人背叛了你，你在强装镇定，但其实心都碎了。明白吗？”

大明星又笑了一次，其中的造作虚伪更加明显。

“亲爱的，就是这样，”舞台监督说，“你就一直这样笑着穿过舞台，然后跌坐在那边的椅子里，最后让笑声渐弱，变成一阵啜泣。”

大明星回到刚才穿过的那扇粗木门旁边，又笑起来，并向前走去。她穿过舞台，瘫坐在一张椅子上，哽咽起来。

卡彭特上前一步，在谢林顿耳边窃窃私语。这时，福斯特尔小姐马上坐直了，满腹疑虑地问：“搞什么呢？有什么就大声说出来，别嘀嘀咕咕的！”

年轻的剧作家连忙解释。

“我只是想建议谢林顿，不妨把那张椅子转过来一点儿，这样你就不会侧对着观众了，观众才能更好地看到你的全脸。”

“我得承认，要是剥夺了他们欣赏的机会，那就太遗憾了。”女演员缓和下来，和舞台监督一起把粗木椅子转了转。

随后，她再次跌坐到椅子里开始抽泣。

马文小姐登上舞台，自言自语道：“多么美妙的傍晚啊，多么壮丽的日落呀！”说完，她静静地站在那里欣赏起来。

黛西·福斯特尔小姐又抹起眼泪，哭哭啼啼地说：“我现在还剩什么活头呀？”她回头看了看另外那位女演员，又用正常的声音说：“你会容我在山上待一阵子，让我自己好起来的，对不对？”随后又用刚才的哭腔继续道，“我现在还剩什么活头呀？我的心都碎了！我的心都碎了！”接着，她又换用日常说话的语气问舞台监督：“这样可以吗？够入戏了吗？”

接下来他们该排演整出话剧里最重要的一场戏了——魅力巨星（布拉克特惯用的称呼）和卡彭特暗恋的姑娘之间的对手戏。两位演员和她们各自扮演的角色都十分相配。尽管卡彭特对黛西·福斯特尔并无好感，他却对她在演绎这个精彩片段时表现出的精准判断和娴熟演技感到几分惊讶。与此同时，温柔的玛丽·马文在角色反差中展现的微妙气场让他十分着迷。

排演就这样艰难地进行着，谢林顿独揽导演大权，命令某些场景快快演，又要求某些场景慢慢来，好让观众有时间明白剧情。卡彭特或布拉克特时不时地提一点建议或意见，但要是谢林顿态度坚决，他俩也只得妥协。舞台监督督促一班演员好好演戏，把他对剧本的理解强加给他们，那情形好似乐团指挥带领他的一班乐手在演奏交响乐。

第二幕从头到尾排演完了，最后那场戏也重复了三四遍，直到顺溜得如同上好油的发条钟，然后舞台又被一清而空，以便进行第三幕的场景布置。

谢林顿陪着马文小姐穿过前侧包厢后面的门，来到昏暗的观众席。

“那场戏你会演得特别好的，”他说，“不过，你一定要有自信。”

“这真是个美妙的角色，你说呢？”她热情地回应，“我还没有演过这么令我享受的角色呢！”

卡彭特正准备到台下去告诉玛丽，听她亲口说出他写下的字句令他感到多么快乐，忽然，他的合著者拍拍他的肩膀，叫住了他。他一转身，哈里·布拉克特就凑到他耳边低声说：

“留神那个魅力巨星。她恐怕已经盯上马文的角色了。要是她怀疑那小姑娘会把这场戏的风头抢走，她准会大闹一场，让谁都不好过。我觉得我们最好过去跟她说，她演得比夏洛特·库什曼[126]还好。”

卡彭特笑道：“小心别让她盯上你吧！要是她觉得你是在嘲笑她，岂不是更糟？”

“那倒不会，”哈里·布拉克特回应，“我们的魅力巨星对溢美之词可是来者不拒——没有她消受不了的。”

两位剧作家在舞台侧翼找到黛西·福斯特尔小姐的时候，她正站在那里同德雷瑟议论另一位戏剧界人士的怪癖。

卡彭特和布拉克特走近的时候，这位女演员正说道：“哼，她居然有脸对我说，我在台下比台上更有趣——那个贱人！我可不甘示弱。我跟她说，很抱歉我没法给她同样的恭维，因为她在台上比台下更无聊！”

两位剧作家跟着一块儿笑了起来，随后哈里·布拉克特开口了。

“你嘲弄的那位是你恨之入骨的死对头吗？”他问，“哈，要是她明天来看你在这部戏里的表演，那场工一定得在她的私人包厢里铺一块防水地毡，因为她看你在第二幕的表演时肯定会绝望得痛哭流涕。”

黛西·福斯特尔小姐朝他眨了眨大大的黑眼睛，高兴地笑了。

“就是，”她承认，“我相信，她看那场戏时肯定好受不了——难受归难受，演出结束后，她还是得过来和我握手道贺。”

“她大概会走个过场，”布拉克特回应，“她可不会热情到把手套握穿的。”说完，他悄悄地用手肘碰了碰他的合著者。

“事实上，”卡彭特一经提醒便开口，“我正要跟哈里·布拉克特说呢，我们给你写了这么一个高雅喜剧的角色或许是犯了个错误——”

女演员用怀疑的目光打量了他一下，但他却若无其事地说下去。

“看得出来，”他继续说，“你会把这个角色表现得精彩至极，你会一炮而红，评论家们都会催着你去演狄泽尔夫人和罗瑟琳[127]。他们会告诉你，你演现代戏根本就是浪费才华，你应该把精力都投入正统戏剧中去。”

黛西·福斯特尔小姐的脸上退去了怀疑的神色，又浮现出高兴的笑容。

“确实是这样，”哈里·布拉克特宣称，“我们生怕你凭借这个角色大红大紫之后，下一个演出季就只有谢里丹[128]和莎士比亚才配得上你了。那不是把我们到嘴的面包给抢走了吗！”

女演员轻快地笑了起来：“我可不觉得你们会挨饿呢，”她回答，“倒是我有可能挨饿——如果我去演正统戏剧的话。倒不是说我从没演过正统戏剧，我很小的时候就在《暴风雨》中演过爱丽儿。我只能说，可不好演哩。我觉得爱丽儿真是个很难演的角色，而且台词里有种特殊的韵律，要是你在哪儿卡壳了，你可没法自己编一句应付过去，但是演你们这部剧的时候就不成问题。”

“没错，”布拉克特严肃地表态，“《一触即发》里的对白可不像《暴风雨》里的对白那样有韵律感。”

“我还演过《黎塞留》[129]里的弗朗索瓦，”福斯特尔小姐继续说，“可我觉得，莎士比亚的这几个角色我一个也不喜欢。”

“没错，”布拉克特再次带着无畏的严肃劲儿表态，“弗朗索瓦并非莎士比亚笔下的最佳角色之一。不管你当时多么没经验，这角色都配不上你。不过，话说卡彭特提到过的罗瑟琳，还有比阿特丽斯[130] ——”

此间，卡彭特从德雷瑟的阵发性动作猜出这位演员想要插嘴，而又拿不准会造成怎样的结果，于是这位年轻的剧作家抽身出来，还设法拉上德雷瑟跟他一起离开。

他俩才聊了几句，卡彭特就望向观众席去寻找玛丽·马文。他看见她坐在母亲身边，这时洛兰太太正与谢林顿聊得兴高采烈。他欠了欠身，像是要离开德雷瑟，这位喜剧演员连忙恳请他留待片时，探讨一些问题。

“跟第三幕里我的那段台词有关，我想提一点建议，”演员说，“这段台词非常好，而且我觉得我能轻易挖掘出三个笑点。你记得那段台词吧。我指的是关于三个老女佣的那段：‘我们镇子里有三个老女佣，第一个其貌不扬，第二个朴实无华，第三个奇丑无比。每当她们一块儿出门上街的时候，那里所有的钟都会停摆。她们的父母给她们受洗时起名为信心、希望、仁爱，但男孩子们总管她们叫战争、谋杀、猝死。’就是这里，当我说出‘那里所有的钟都会停摆’的时候，要是乐队能同时轻轻奏响《爷爷的大钟》[131]的旋律，岂不是更能烘托笑点吗？你觉得怎么样？这可是我自己想出来的！”

剧作家沉默了一两秒钟，然后让演员去请教刚刚返回舞台准备开排第三幕的舞台监督。

新场景很快就布置好了，家具都已各就各位。最先出场的演员是面容枯槁、暴躁易怒的斯塔克。他一开始说得很流利，但不久就打了个磕巴，接着，他不顾两位作家在场，不耐烦地喊道：“哎呀，我记不住这句台词！我也不知道它是什么意思！怎么能指望一个人张口说出这种垃圾话？”

和刚才一样，没人在意他耍脾气，而这个演员也没再废话，继续演下去了。

随后，德雷瑟走上舞台，两位男士的相互误解加深到了纠缠不清的地步。斯塔克扮演的角色认为德雷瑟扮演的角色是黛西·福斯特尔角色的舅舅，是一名士兵。同样地，德雷瑟认为斯塔克才是那位女士的舅舅，是一名水手。因此，他们分别用士兵和水手的说话方式称呼对方，笑料也由此猛增。当误解达到高潮的时候，黛西·福斯特尔突然走了进来，立刻发现自己被卷入这场滑稽的困局，怎么也解释不清楚。

舞台监督发现德雷瑟漏掉了一句话，给他提了个醒。“你没说‘真该死！’”他说。

“我知道，”演员解释，“但我想留着在下一段台词里再说。这句话在那儿说更有感觉——你琢磨一下是不是？”

谢林顿也认为“真该死！”放在后一段话里的效果更好。这个调换得到了批准，德雷瑟感到十分满意。

斯塔克、德雷瑟和黛西·福斯特尔相互误解的这场戏十分重要，所以舞台监督让大家重排了两遍，直到他们能流利地说出每一个词，不假思索地做出每一个动作。就这样，排演接近了尾声，谢林顿进行了最后的润色，看上去总算对他的劳动成果感到相当满意了。

这出喜剧的最后一句台词毫无疑问是由大明星来说的，不过在得到提示之后，福斯特尔小姐只简单地说了一句“完结”。大家心里都清楚，要是在某部戏剧排演的时候念出了最后一句台词，那可太不吉利了——就跟往舞台上放了一把雨伞或者引用了《麦克白》里的台词一样不吉利。

“齐活，”舞台监督说，“我相信明晚一定会演出顺利的。”

排演在这句话中正式结束，人们开始散去。

“但愿一切顺利，”哈里·布拉克特对卡彭特说，“而且我觉得没问题。不过，大概要等到下周三或周四，等售票处那个男的热情地过来和我握手，向我问安的时候，我才会信心倍增。到那时候，他就会知道我们创作的是不是一部好剧了！”

卡彭特帮马文小姐披上薄披肩。等她的母亲也过来之后，他们向众人道了晚安，一起离开了剧院。

他们走出剧院，走进这温暖的夜晚，此时的大街比卡彭特刚进剧院那会儿清静了许多。门前经过的缆车少了很多，大街上方的高架铁路上，火车的车次也不再频繁。街对面演艺场前的灯都已熄灭，那场盛大音乐会显然已经结束。月已西沉，他们还没走过一个街区，教堂的午夜钟声就响了起来。

走在洛兰太太身旁的小伙子终于打破了沉寂。

“呃，”他问道，“您现在觉得这部话剧怎么样呢？”

“我觉得它是同类话剧中的一部好作品，”年长的演员回答——“是这类话剧中的一部佳作，而且排得很好，演员们也会好好表演的。谢林顿知道怎么引导每个人发挥出最佳水平。它会是一部成功之作。”

“是不是好到会在这里连演三个月？”年轻的作家问道，“然后在演出季剩下的时间里去各地巡演呢？”

“噢，会的，一定会的，”洛兰女士回答，“一定会的。在这里少说也得演上一百场！”

他们在街角停下等缆车，这时谢林顿也加入了等待的行列。

卡彭特抓住这个机会，把女儿从母亲身边引开，来到了几步开外的地方。

“妈妈觉得这部戏会成功，真让我高兴，”女孩子开口了，“而且妈妈的判断一定不会错。你一定会赚很多钱的。”

年轻的剧作家觉得他的机会终于来了。

“我赚钱主要出于一个目的，”他回应，“我想请你分享一半。”

“一半？”她重复道，没听懂似的。

“啊，呃——是全部，”他飞快地应道，“再加上我。”

“卡彭特先生！”她叫道，绯红的脸蛋让她显得比之前更加可爱。

“你愿意嫁给我吗？”他热切地问。

“噢，我觉得我必须答应你，”她回答，“否则你就要当场跪在大街上了！”

（1895年）

[123] “奎妮”(Queenie)这个名字来自古英语，意为“女王”。

[124] 狄泽尔夫人（Lazy Teazle）：谢里丹的话剧《造谣学校》里的主角，彼得·狄泽尔爵士的妻子，本是村姑，进入伦敦上流社会后染上了挥霍和打情骂俏的恶习，致使婚姻几乎破裂。

[125] 原文illegitimate有“不正统”、“私生”等意思。

[126] 夏洛特·库什曼（Charlotte Cushman，1816—1876）：19世纪一位非常成功的美国女演员。

[127] 罗瑟琳（Rosalind）：莎士比亚的喜剧《皆大欢喜》中的人物。

[128] 谢里丹（Richard Brinsley Sheridan，1751—1816）：英国戏剧家、政治家，以讽刺喜剧著称。

[129] 《黎塞留》（Richelieu）：英国剧作家爱德华·布尔沃·利顿（Edward Bulwer-Lytton）创作于1839年的剧作，但女演员误认为这也是莎士比亚的作品。

[130] 比阿特丽斯（Beatrice）：但丁《神曲》中的人物。

[131] 《爷爷的大钟》（Grandfather’s Clock）：发表于1876年，美国著名歌曲，歌词中提到墙上的大钟在爷爷出生时开始运转，在他死去之后停摆。

10
盘上的蜡烛

年轻的彼得斯小姐最后看了一眼餐桌，桌上点缀着极富装饰效果的秋叶，她又确认了席位卡都已摆放到位。路过音乐室的时候，她匆匆照了照镜子，看到脸颊上的红晕后露出了微笑。她来到雇主——那个发福的女主人身后谨慎地站好，恭候陆续到来的宾客。她注意到今晚众位宾客聚会的主角——那位年轻的爱尔兰男士开朗热情，很显然心里也倾慕其俊美的容貌。现在，她正一声不吭地坐在餐桌边她的座位上，心里暗暗揣测，不知那外来客会如何看待他们这群人。

要说坎顿太太家的晚宴向来沉闷无聊，对这位可敬的寡妇来讲是有些不公平的；不过，尽管烹饪水平一流，而且宾客都精选自社交界的核心圈子，但不可否认的是，菜品的种类有些单调，讨论的话题也缺乏新意。不过那天傍晚在座的宾客当中，有几位却是首次荣幸受邀来到这上层人士的宅邸参加晚宴。九月刚过，大多数社交名流都还在城外避暑之地流连忘返，因此，当坎顿太太突然收到曼宁顿勋爵为潘切斯顿勋爵的弟弟吉尔伯特·巴里阁下所写的介绍信而不得不设宴招待时，她一度为补足宾客人数头疼不已。她听说，这位英俊的爱尔兰人在莱诺克斯颇为成功，所有的女孩都为之倾倒。曼宁顿在信中写道，这位年轻人酷爱造访贫民窟一类的地方，并提到他一直住在汤恩比馆[132]里，因此，他恳求女主人把他介绍给纽约的那些热衷于提升下层社会状况的人士。

正是因为曼宁顿勋爵信里的这句话，坎顿太太才邀请了小说家鲁珀特·德勒伊特，因为她恰好读过他的一篇文章，描写的是居住在意大利区里的那些可怜人身上发生的故事，她觉得要是巴里先生想了解纽约贫民窟，鲁珀特·德勒伊特一定能解答这位爱尔兰青年的所有问题。同时，她还有幸请到了吉米·苏达姆夫妇。她知道吉米太太对穷人十分关心，经常充当女资助人什么的。最后，当年轻的彼得斯小姐进来抄写邀请函、核对支票簿、回复堆积如山的信件时，坎顿太太检查完宾客名单，一言不发地盯着这个年轻漂亮的秘书看了一阵，说：“要找准并请到主宾想见的人可不那么容易。彼得斯小姐，要不你也来作陪吧？你不是参加过那种组织吗？叫什么来着——打工女孩俱乐部——是不是？”

“我自己就是个打工女孩，对不对？”彼得斯小姐回答，“而且，能有事干我就十分高兴了。”

“要是德勒伊特先生对这些人有什么不了解的地方，你可以跟他讲讲。一位爵爷的弟弟居然会为大西洋这边的这种事情操心，多荒唐啊，是不是？”坎顿太太回应，“那就这样定了。”

尽管这位南方女孩不欣赏女主人提出邀请的方式，但她并没有拒绝，反而乐得借机重温一下过去的奢侈生活，自从她赚钱谋生以来，那种生活就离她远去了。就这样，十月的那个傍晚，她默默地坐在那张餐桌旁，对面就是吉尔伯特·巴里和鲁珀特·德勒伊特。她好像没有注意到年轻的爱尔兰人不止一次带着明显的仰慕神情向她望过来，还千方百计地诱导她加入谈话。

鲁珀特·德勒伊特一个人滔滔不绝，这让彼得斯小姐感到恼火。他的嗓音很刺耳，让她心烦意乱，她也十分嫌恶他使劲撅着方下巴的样子。她听着他口若悬河，虽然说不上自吹自擂，但让人觉得他比别人懂得都多。他确实能时不时地描绘出一桩极具画面感的事实，因为他有着记者的敏锐眼光。他还有新闻工作者那种无忧无虑的天性，在他的喋喋不休中充斥着对现实状况的多种荒唐误读，以至让她想起了一个嗓子不错却难免跑调的歌手。

“我并不想装作自己把纽约里里外外、上上下下摸了个透，”他说，“不过说起对我们这座多语混杂的城市的研究，那真是令人着迷呀，你钻研得越深入，就越有可能获得不可思议的发现。你知道我们这儿有个意大利区吗？”

这个问题大概是冲着不列颠客人问的，但回答者却是吉米·苏达姆太太。

“当然知道了，”她说，“谁没读过你写的那个惊心动魄的故事？——那个故事有个吓人的标题——《死地之景》。”

听到这位如此貌美的女士、如此高端的社交精英这样夸赞自己的一篇文章，作者脸上流露出骄傲的神色。

吉米·苏达姆先生向坐在他右边的坎顿太太侧身说道：“真搞不懂我太太是怎么做到的，是吧？你瞧，她什么事儿都落不下——什么书都读——什么都知道。”

“我并不是有意想让您回想起我写的那篇小玩意，”德勒伊特继续说，那副自鸣得意的样子让年轻的彼得斯小姐恨不得用大头针扎他，“这并不是重点，不过我确实下到意大利区待了两天，为写文章亲身领略那儿的地方特色。不过有一点您不知道，我敢说在场诸位都不知道，那就是，这座城市里的部分土壤是从意大利运过来的。”

“真的呀，”不列颠客人评论说，“那倒的确很有意思。我猜，这是出于某种宗教动机吧——正如中世纪的某些教堂墓地会使用从圣地巴勒斯坦带回的泥土一样？”

“这无疑是个更浪漫的缘由，”说书人解释道，“不过真实原因恐怕十分无趣。纽约这里的意大利土壤是作为压舱物带过来的，那些船过来是要把这里出产的面粉谷物运回去。哈莱姆区[133]那边有很多很多地块都是用这种压舱物填埋的——主要是石头，但也有一些泥土。”

“辉煌的热那亚为纽约帝国城奠定了地基，”年轻的爱尔兰人用略显华丽的辞藻说道——而彼得斯小姐猜测德勒伊特已在心里记下了这个人物的特点，以便日后详细刻画。“那么，纽约城下方是否也像那不勒斯一样藏着一座火山呢？——说到火山，好像欧洲每座伟大的城市都有火山。你们这里有没有贫穷、悲惨、不满的劳苦大众在怒火中烧，就像在巴黎公社领导下闹得沸反盈天的那群人一样？我最想知道的就是这个。”

“我们这儿有自己的魔鬼大锅，你说的是这个意思吧，”德勒伊特回答，“而且我们这儿有来自全球各个角落的人，都在帮这口大锅保持沸腾。我们这儿有上千的俄罗斯犹太人，他们的生活方式和在栅栏区[134]的时候别无二致。我们这儿的中国人多得足以维持一家中国戏院的运营。我们这儿的叙利亚人实在太多，他们已经开始为自己抢占某些街区。我们这儿的爱尔兰农夫胆小又多疑，他们就算到了鬼门关也不愿意去医院，因为他们坚信医生都会备一瓶毒药，碰到麻烦的病人就让他们喝下去。”

“我觉得他们住在宽敞的医院比待在闷热狭小的出租屋里会舒服得多，”吉米太太说，“况且他们在自己家里也得不到像样的看护呀，对不对？”

“穷人是最不讲道理的一群人了——而且还忘恩负义，”苏达姆先生补充道，“至少我是这么认为的。”

“他们在自己的出租屋里可没你想象的那么糟糕，”德勒伊特解释，“如果有人生病了，会有别人帮忙照顾孩子。”

“普天之下和衷共济的母爱啊，”吉尔伯特·巴里议论。彼得斯小姐估计那个说书人又在心里暗暗记下了这句话。

“他们真让人无法理解。”德勒伊特说。

“为什么呢？”彼得斯小姐隔着桌子冷不丁问了一句，让所有人都吃了一惊。年轻的爱尔兰人露出鼓励的微笑，这位漂亮姑娘之前不肯发言似乎让他一直感到惋惜。

“你问他们为什么让人无法理解？”说书人重复道，“我实在是不知道为什么。他们都是难解之谜，全都是，而我也不打算搞懂他们了。”

“难道不是因为你坚持用那样的眼光看待他们，把他们看成陌生的野兽吗？”年轻姑娘继续说，“你谈论他们的方式，就好像他们和我们截然不同。但他们和我们并无不同，不是吗？他们和我们一样有感情；他们和我们一样，也会恋爱，结婚，争吵，死亡。出租屋里的罪行并不比城市别的地方更多——你别忘了住在出租屋里的人远远多于住在别处的人。那里的欢乐不比别处少，悲痛也不比别处少。我认为，那里的幸福跟别处一样多，而乐趣则多得多。他们并不是低等动物，听到别人那样说他们，我就气得发疯。不管怎样，他们都是人——如果你无法理解他们，那是因为你就没打算把他们作为平等的人来对待。”

“我也这么认为，”爱尔兰人表示赞同，“我们必须在人道的层面去关怀他们——只有那样才能让他们敞开心扉。”

“我们凭什么指望人家对我们敞开心扉呢？”彼得斯小姐继续说，“我们自己也不对陌生人敞开心扉呀，是不是？”

“千真万确，”巴里承认，“有时候我会觉得，我们随随便便闯入一个穷人的屋子是不是太无礼了。我想我们可不会欢迎他闯进我们自己的房间。”

“我觉得你的这个提议倒十分有趣，”吉米太太宣称，“我会满心欢喜地期待五岔路派遣传教士来第五大道[135]的那一天。”

“多荒唐的念头！”坎顿太太嫌恶地叫道。

“拜托，”爱尔兰人回道，“我否认这个提议是我提出的，但它并没那么荒唐——真的不荒唐。他们能教给我们许多东西。我还真说不准，到底是他们能向我们学到更多东西呢，还是我们能向他们学到更多东西——我真的说不准。说起基督教精神——实践的基督教精神——之类的——我觉得吧，在穷人中有这种精神的比富人要多。”

“如果你想目睹纽约底层生活的生动画面，”德勒伊特插嘴道，“那你一定要找个机会去看看盘上的蜡烛。”

“盘上的蜡烛？”巴里重复道，“我从来没听说过。”

“听起来像是迷信传说的标题，那种从欧洲移植过来在美洲幸存下来的迷信。”吉米太太说道。

“这不是迷信，只是一个习俗而已，”德勒伊特解释道，“至于是不是移植过来的遗风就不知道了。要知道，我自己从没见过这种东西，我只是听人说起过。我听说在出租屋片区，要是哪家人交不起房租被房东赶了出去，少得可怜的家具也都被扔到人行道上，他们不知道当晚可以去哪里过夜，这时候就会有一个邻居拿出一支蜡烛，点上，立在一个盘子上，然后托着盘子站到人行道上去。看到这个迹象，大家就都知道有个家庭陷入了痛苦的不幸之中，路过的人都会往盘子里丢几个硬币，直到积攒了足够的钱来还清拖欠的房租，让那可怜的母子回到出租屋里去。”

吉米·苏达姆太太苦笑一声。“那种事情在切里山[136]还有可能发生，”她说，“但是在默里山[137]绝无可能，对不对？想想看，一个破了产的百万富翁站在街角，手托银盘，上面放个小灯泡，指望路过的千万富翁给他扔一两张支票去付清房租，这也太荒诞了吧！”

“我还以为给你们描绘了都市生活中的新奇一景呢，”德勒伊特笑答，“但您一开这样的玩笑，就把整个画面都糟蹋了。”

“这真是非同寻常，”巴里说道，“确实非常奇特。‘一支小小的蜡烛，它的光照射得多么远。’[138]我觉得这个习俗并非是从爱尔兰或者英格兰传过来的——至少，我没有听说过任何类似的事情。”

“我听一个爱尔兰老妇人抱怨过，说这里对租客的法律比她故乡的要严厉得多，”彼得斯小姐语气坚定，紧接着以那位爱尔兰老妇的口吻补充道，“‘在那边儿呀，租客们一定会联合起来抵制房东，他们一定会的，兴许还会朝房产中介开枪呢，但在这儿是办不到啦——这儿有警察，这帮倒霉玩意！’”

“你见过盘上的蜡烛吗？”巴里隔着餐桌问她。

“从没见过。”她回答。

“那你听说过吗？”德勒伊特问道。

“今晚是第一次听说。”她回答。

“你不会是说，你不相信有这种习俗存在吧？”吉米太太问，“那我们的幻想岂不是一个接一个地破灭了？”

“我当然不知道了，”女孩回答，“我在那边工作的时间并不长——去年二月才开始的。不过这听起来像是假消息，我以前当记者的时候，我们在报社里常这么说。”

吉米·苏达姆太太今晚是第一次和彼得斯小姐见面。这时，她好奇地打量着这个姑娘，很想知道曾经当过记者，现在和穷人住在一起，又居然在坎顿太太家出席晚宴的她到底是一个什么样的女人。

此时，女主人正在向苏达姆先生低声介绍说彼得斯小姐是个南方姑娘，出身于好人家，以前常常用“波莉·珀金斯”的笔名为《每日播报》的周日版写稿子，但她去年冬天辞掉了那份工作，来到这里给她当起了秘书。

“假消息？”爱尔兰人兴冲冲地重复道，“这是你们那种美式英语，对不对？我得把这个记住。假消息——到底是什么意思呢？”

“意思是子虚乌有的事物，”德勒伊特解释道，声音里透出一丝酸涩，“彼得斯小姐并不相信有盘上的蜡烛这回事，但她太客气了，不说我讲的故事是瞎编，所以才说它是假消息。”

“哎呀，德勒伊特先生，”她回敬，“你自己还当过报社记者呢！”

“说起你们的报纸，”巴里插话，“我必须承认，让我有些困惑。那些报道都非常精彩，非常及时，非常吸引人，但你永远不知道报纸可不可信，对不对？有时候报纸干的事真是糟糕透顶。”

“你恐怕会发现，连美国人也没有几个会为我们的报纸辩护，”说书人说道，他总是对曾经当过记者抱有一丝羞愧，“不过，你刚才想到了什么糟糕透顶的事呢？”

“实在是匪夷所思的事，你知道，”爱尔兰人解释道，“比如这样的一件事。一两年前，有人给过我一份你们纽约的报纸——我记得好像是《每日播报》。我兴致勃勃地看了一遍，就像在看描写某个奇特的野蛮部落的文字一样，明白了吧？真是太离奇了。”

正当客人直言不讳时，年轻的彼得斯小姐恰好捕捉到了端庄的吉米·苏达姆太太的眼光，两人会心一笑。

“最让我震惊的是，”巴里继续说，“某个特约记者写的一篇长文，题目用大大的字母——”

“那叫爆炸性大标题。”德勒伊特解释道。

“爆炸性大标题？”爱尔兰人重复道，“这名字真是太贴切了。爆炸性大标题——真有意思！这篇文章有个很大的爆炸性大标题，讲的是一桩自杀案如何被查得水落石出。好像是有个工人阶层的穷姑娘陷入了麻烦，她不想给家族蒙羞，于是跳进了这儿的河里——哈得逊河，对吧？她精心筹划，以求不留下任何线索，免得被人发现。但她万万没有料到，这个特约记者有着恶魔般的机谋，会把事情查得水落石出，而这个记者也是个女人——至少我猜是个女人，因为文章署名‘波莉·珀金斯’。”

吉米太太发现血液涌上彼得斯小姐的面颊，这个南方姑娘的脸红得就像装点这两个女人中间的桌布的枫叶。她还注意到鲁珀特·德勒伊特正带着掩饰不住的尴尬神色瞪着前面的盘子，而坎顿太太则有点坐立不安。

“报道称这个可怜人的遗体被送到了太平间，”巴里继续说，“但是没有人认领，于是县里出钱把她埋了。就在这时，这个记者使出了她那恶魔般的诡计。她猜测女孩的家人一定想亲眼看见遗体葬在圣洁之地的过程，于是下葬那天她也去了。她果然猜中了，有两个身穿黑衣的女人在那里，正是那个可怜姑娘的母亲和姐姐，她们以为没人认识她们，监视她们，所以毫不掩饰她们的悲痛。而这个密探尾随她们到家，查出了她们的名字，然后把整个事件都登上了报纸！我估计这伤透了母亲和姐姐的心，她们原以为死去姑娘的羞辱已随她的遗体被深埋地下，却发现羞辱又重新找上了门。我不否认这位女密探展现了极大的才能，但这是多么可鄙的事呀！冒险去伤害两颗慈爱的心——却又是为了什么呢？”

爱尔兰人提出了这个无法回答的问题，于是整个屋子陷入短暂的沉寂。随后，彼得斯小姐抬起头，直视他的眼睛。

“这就叫‘抢先报道’。别的报纸都没有这条新闻，”她说，“而撰写那个故事的记者得到了每周五美元的加薪。”

“诚然，这是她应得的。”巴里回道，“可我觉得她拿到的是带血的钱。”

“我现在也这样认为，”彼得斯小姐回应，“我当时要是这么想就好了。我写了那篇文章，这就是我现在和穷人同住的一个原因，是为了尽量弥补对他们的亏欠。当然，我不能抹去我做过的错事，但我愿意尽力。”

屋里又是一阵沉默，最后吉米太太打破了沉默，转头去问坎顿太太是否会在马匹展览会上置办一个包厢。

等女士们离开餐厅之后，巴里在苏达姆身边的椅子上坐了下来。

“那个漂亮姑娘叫什么名字？”他问，“彼得斯，是吧？她竟然告诉大家她就是‘波莉·珀金斯’，要我说她还真是十分勇敢呢，对不对？我喜欢她。她真是好样的！而且她那一头浅发也相当迷人呢，不是吗？”

（1897年）

[132] 汤恩比馆（Toynbee Hall）：1884年创立于伦敦，旨在团结社会各界的有志之士参与社区改革，做出反贫穷的努力。

[133] 哈莱姆区（Harlem）：纽约的黑人区。

[134] 栅栏区（The Pale）：18世纪末，沙俄政府在边远地区划出的犹太人聚居地，以限制犹太人的活动。

[135] 第五大道（Fifth Avenue）：纽约的高级住宅区和名媛仕绅聚集的场所，后逐渐形成高级购物街区。

[136] 切里山（Cherry Hill）：位于纽约附近的新泽西州。

[137] 默里山（Murray Hill）：纽约曼哈顿的一个富人区。

[138] 引自莎士比亚《威尼斯商人》。

11
男人、女人和马

那是一个暖融融的十一月傍晚，阵阵微风温柔地穿城而过，从这条河吹到那条河，风里没有丝毫冬季的寒意。梅里芒特·莫顿沿着麦迪逊大道轻快前行，穿过一条又一条窄街，望见一轮满月低低地挂在东方，又大又圆，月光如水。来到默里山的坡顶上时，他停下了脚步，尽情享受着眼前的景致，这景致与他在谋生之地目之所及的景观迥然不同，那是位于新英格兰的一座小小的大学镇，他在那里度过了大半生。灯火辉煌，车马喧嚣，大城市的气息在空气里弥漫，将他团团包围。他几乎能感觉到这座大都市的心脏就在他面前怦怦跳动。他发现自己又在患得患失，不知道当年从德国回来后便欣然接受那个教授职位算不算走错了一步，不知道当时他若照曾经的设想来了纽约，在这座商业之都的喧闹中奋力打拼，他的生活会不会更充实，更丰富多彩。

漂亮的花园剧院坐落在山坡下，一串闪闪发光的灯泡拼成一个已上演近百场的庸俗娱乐表演的名称，这条大道的这一段于是焕发出一种奇特的、不自然的光辉。抬头望去，只见美丽的塔楼高高耸立，直指纯净的深蓝色天空，塔楼的灯光照亮了自己的优雅身姿。大道上的马车堵成了长龙，塔楼下、剧院前的拱廊通道上人潮涌动，一些人胳膊下夹着大竞技场的折叠卡纸平面图，还大声叫卖着马展的门票。梅里芒特·莫顿与最新的潮流如此脱节，甚至不知道马展周即将迎来辉煌的尾声。但他对纽约足够熟悉，知道马展同时也是各色男女的展示会，而且人的亮相不仅和马的亮相同样重要，甚至更加有趣。他以前从未在恰逢马展的季节来过纽约，所以，原打算去大学俱乐部打发晚间时光的他决定抓住这个机会，见识一下碰巧对他来说十分新奇的都市奇观。

他从一位坚持不懈地向他大声兜售的票贩子那里买了一张入场券，走进了宽敞的大厅，里面是一段上坡路。他穿过右侧餐厅的一扇门，顺着一截通往半地下畜栏的楼梯向下望去，看到了拴在那里的马匹。一股强烈刺鼻的马厩味钻进了他的鼻孔。随后，他走进一个巨大的圆形竞技场，在他头顶上方，长串的小灯泡勾勒出屋顶的每一根骨架。莫顿对这里的第一印象是光辉灿烂和巨大无比，第二印象则是永不停歇的喧嚣忙乱。从他身后的楼座上传来铜管乐队演奏的东方风格的进行曲，响亮又刺耳，然而这样的音乐也无法掩盖数千张嘴发出的乱哄哄的嗡嗡声。莫顿觉得这座巨型建筑好像被男男女女填满了，所有人都在说话，很多人还在走动。他觉得自己被拥挤的人群裹挟，正围着展览马匹的圆形场地外侧那高高的围栏缓慢绕行。人群挤得密不透风，他根本没法靠近围栏，也无从得知里面到底有没有什么可看的东西。

围栏边站着一溜对马多多少少有所喜好的人，他们似乎对围栏里的情况还算感兴趣。不过，挤在围栏和长排私人包厢之间的宽阔步道上的男男女女大都并不关注圆形场地，他们只顾盯着那些打扮得花枝招展的坐包厢的女士们。这位来自新英格兰的大学教授突然发现，在场的多数人并没有假装对马匹感兴趣，仿佛马儿天天得见，他们反而大大方方地盯着那些被包厢圈起来、一个挨一个坐着的时尚人士，这些人可不经常把自己暴露在大庭广众之下。坐在又窄又高的看台上被别人打量的那些人中，有的带着业余人士的拘谨，有的则在长期实践中学会了泰然自若。后者看起来好像习惯了受人瞩目似的，好像他们料定这是理所当然的事，好像他们来这儿的目的就是被人看。他们好像都彼此认识。莫顿突然觉得，他们显然都是某个秘密时尚联谊会的成员，他们有自己的手势和密码，有自己的一套密语，对那些没有被接纳的非该阶层成员，他们统统视而不见。他们会对迟来的圈内人点头示意，露出灿烂的笑容。他们之间的交谈没有片刻停歇，女人会探身和隔壁包间的熟人说话，男人会串到朋友的包厢去拜访。间或会有某个坐包厢的人从下面绕行的人群中认出某个熟人，不过大多数时候，两个阶层的人相互之间没有任何交流。

对莫顿来说，眼前的新奇景象吸引着他。这确实很新奇，都让他拿不准该如何理解这一幕了。看到那些明显很有钱，或许还很有势的人们居然心甘情愿地自我卖弄——很多人的打扮就像特意要引人注目似的——这让他大惑不解。作为一名学过社会学的人，他发现这次的社会考察——以“社会”一词最狭窄的定义来理解——不仅有趣，而且很有教益。整件事的庸俗不堪时时令他大为震动，但最让他震惊的莫过于不小心听到一群打扮得过于招摇的女人用很大的声音议论一个叫“威利”的人。

“他真是个无耻的小坏蛋！”一位女士吵嚷。

“你可不能这么说，”一个高个儿灰发女人争辩，“你知道，他可是我的傍尖儿。”这一神来之笔让其他女伴嘻嘻哈哈笑个不停。

不过，展会上鲜有人和这群女士一样粗俗。实际上，莫顿发觉大部分被别人瞪得局促不安的男女显然都是有良好教养的人，令他惊讶的是他们居然愿意把自己放到这样一个在他看来十分尴尬的位置上。举例来说，很多服装扎眼、帽子奢华的姑娘本身倒是面容精致、神态腼腆，毫无疑问，她们很时尚，但她们也很有教养。莫顿觉得，这些纽约姑娘的主要特色也许就是时髦——时髦而非美丽。

在场女性的平均姿色很不错，尽管如此，他绕着这座巨型建筑走了半圈之后，却没见着几个能称得上美丽的女子。那些姑娘看上去或强壮，或健康，或活泼，或机敏，或迷人，但鲜有美丽的。此外，他认为她们明显都比同行的男伴优秀很多，不仅容貌更为姣好，连举止和智慧都更胜一筹。

莫顿惊讶地发现，这些男人当中，有些人对自身服装的关注不亚于在场的任何一位女性，他也不止一次地注意到，对女性服装的鉴赏并非局限于女性本身。

当他走到这座巨型建筑靠近第四大道的那一端时，他望见头顶正上方的一个包厢——他发现自己和其他人一样正盯着那儿看——那里坐着一位容貌出众、神色忧伤的美人，只有当她和站在座椅边台阶上的三四个年轻男子交谈时，才会露出一丝不自然的微笑。她的面容深深吸引了莫顿，而他身后的两个小伙子已经认出了她。

“看哪！”其中一人说，“那是赛勒斯·普尔夫人。她的裙子可真漂亮，你说呢？”

“向来如此，”另一个回答，“她是全纽约着装品位最高的女人。”

“确实，她总是打扮得非常漂亮，”先开口的那个回答，“不管怎么说，赛勒斯·普尔今夏从寡妇孤儿身上赚了那么多钱，够给他的妻子买这个冬天穿的衣服了。”

梅里芒特·莫顿见缝插针地绕着马展场地走了半圈之后才头一次见到了马。当他来到第四大道那端时，挤在前面的人散开了，栏杆间的一扇门被推开，横在了步道中间，这时，马夫领着五六匹俊美的种马走出圆形场地。这位新英格兰的大学教授对好马十分喜爱，他的双眼紧随这些美妙的生灵，直到看不见为止。接着，他看到建筑另一端的空场上停着三驾马车，其中一架已经套上了四匹马，人们正把马匹往另外两架车上套。

他在那里站了几分钟，饶有兴致地看着那些人。之后他转过身，再一次随着拥挤的人群开始绕着圆形场地移动，直至走到票面座位之前都再没机会看到一匹马。他掏出那张小卡片又查看了一遍，发现自己的座位其实离入口很近，只是他进来的时候没往左走，反而往右走才绕了这么大远。到这会儿，在包厢里展览的男男女女渐渐失去了新奇的吸引力，于是莫顿尽可能迅速地穿过人群，希望能及时赶到座位上去看马车比赛。

走到座位前的台阶下方时，他抬头一看，看到了一张熟悉的脸。在离他只有五六米远的一间包厢里坐着一位美貌非凡、气质高贵的女士，一位无可争议的美人。她大概将近三十岁，看起来却比两边的姑娘们还要青春靓丽。她身穿的服装结合了刻意的简洁设计与鲜明的个人特色，然而见到她的人却并不会在意她的装束，因为她的美貌让一切黯然失色，也让任何她有可能采用的装饰都显得理所当然。

她的姿态略带僵硬，或许透着一丝傲慢，但她微笑的时候却妩媚动人，正如她美得令人迷醉。

看到她的那一瞬间，莫顿怦然心动，心脏急促地跳了一两分钟。尽管已有近十年没见过她了，他还是一眼就认出了她。自两人上次见面以来，她并没有多大变化。无论在何处，他都会一眼认出她来。

而且，就算他不确定那就是她，一直在他后面绕场行走的两位年轻人之间的对话也会打消他的疑虑。

“吉米·苏达姆太太今晚可真漂亮呀，是不是？”其中一人问。

“她好好休养了一个夏天，”另一个回答，“她和她妈妈在圣莫里茨避暑，她丈夫吉米去找史丹尼赫斯特伯爵了。”

“他赶着马车从巴黎去了维也纳，对吧？”先开口的那个问，“我倒宁愿坐卧铺车厢——你呢？”

“我说不准，”对方回答，“驾着自己的马车跟史丹尼赫斯特那样谁都认识的人一道游遍欧洲，也真够神气的。我猜吉米觉得这样可以少花钱。另外，《笨拙》[139]管他叫‘漫游的耶户[140]’，大西洋那边的人都觉得这个笑话妙极了。”

“这个笑话当然要让吉米破费了，”对方议论，“他们说史丹尼赫斯特伯爵只要能抓个美国人来付账，就绝不会自己掏钱。”

“嗯，吉米有自己的盘算，”另一个接茬，“而且他出得起这个钱。苏达姆老爹留下了一桩好买卖，而且吉米够聪明，知道不该插手。”

莫顿前方的人群刚才拥塞住了，但现在人群散开，一条通路出现在他面前。他退到一旁让身后的两个年轻人先过。他无法将视线从前方包厢里的那个美人身上移开。他不知道自己有没有勇气走上前去和她说话。他对她的记忆是那么深刻，他记得她的每一次转头，记得她的每一次优雅的抬手，他清楚地记得他们最后一次见面时说的每一个字，难道她会忘记他？他觉得不太可能，然而又并非不可能——让他不能忘怀的，她为什么就一定记得呢？

正当他犹豫不决的时候，她包厢里的人开始四散离去。原本坐在她身边的一位姑娘站起身来，在两位小伙子的陪伴下走下台阶，从莫顿身边经过时，他们的对话传到莫顿耳中，原来他们要去下面的马厩里看一匹十分出名的马。另一个姑娘换到了包厢后排的座位上，和一位坐到她身边的年轻人相谈甚欢。苏达姆太太独自留在包厢前排。

她显然并不因为无人陪伴而觉得无聊，也显然毫不在意几英尺下的步道上往来的男女对她毫不遮掩的注目。她冷艳镇定地坐在那里，对一切都无动于衷、漠不关心，好像思绪已经飘远了似的。

莫顿终于下定决心，再次向前挤了过去。

当他来到离通往她包厢的楼梯仅仅一两米的地方时，她正好朝下看了一眼，恰巧捕捉到他紧盯着她的目光。她刚要转移视线，却又细看了一眼，随即认出他来，于是脸上绽放出笑容，还生起一抹淡淡的红晕。

莫顿脱帽行礼，她则点头致意，在他登上台阶来到她的包厢时，她热情地伸出了手。

“我真不敢奢望你还记得我，苏达姆太太，”他说着轻柔地握了握她的手，“我上次见你之后已经过去这么久了。”

“你怎么能以为我竟会忘记在你母亲家里度过的那快乐的一个月呢？”她回答，“人生中的快乐岁月并不太多，对不对？可不能随便让它们从记忆中溜走。你并没有忘记我，不是吗？那我又怎么会忘记你和你的母亲，还有那座小巧可爱的大学镇呢？”

“那一个月的时光，我无法忘怀，”他回答，“但那毕竟是很久以前了，我的生活一向平淡无奇，而你的生活却那么充实——再说，后来又发生了那么多的事。”

“的确，”她承认，“发生了太多的事。我结婚就是其中之一。但那并没有让我忘记你们全家对我有多好。你在这儿坐一会儿，跟我讲讲大学里和镇子上的新鲜事，好吗？”

“乐意至极，”他说着坐到她身旁的椅子上，“我该从哪儿说起呢？”

“说说你自己吧。”她这样要求。

“那倒不费时间，”他回答，“我没什么新鲜事。我本来就打算去德国——也许你还记得——就在那个秋天，在你离开我们之后。于是我去了，在那里待了两年，拿了博士学位，然后回到这所老校，他们给了我教授职位——就是这样。”

“我觉得这就够了，”她回答，一双黑眼睛真诚地看着他，“你有你要做的工作，你也去做了。你清楚地知道自己应该从事什么，并且能够从事它，我觉得人生中没有比这更好的事情了。”

“我想你是对的，”莫顿承认，“归根结底，我发现，艰辛的工作往往带来最大的快乐。不过，我也能从无所事事中获得实实在在的乐趣。我记得你和我们在一起的那个月里，我们并没有踏踏实实地工作，但我们无疑过得非常愉快。至少我很快乐！”

“我也是，”她表态，微微挺了挺身，带着愉快的回忆笑着说，“我很享受在你们家度过的每一分每一秒。我多么希望如今也能有这样的快乐时光！”

“难道没有吗？”他问。

“不常有，”她回答，“也许根本没有。”

“真让我惊讶，”他回应，“我还以为你是朝朝暮暮受款待，月月年年有宴乐呢。”

“确实是，”她解释说，“但是宴乐并不一定有乐趣，对不对？”

“理论上说应该有，不是吗？”他回答。

“也许理论上是这样，”她承认，“但我相信实践中并非如此。”

“我知道我们那个小小的大学镇远离发展轨道，”他继续说，“但有时，我们也会留意文明的信使——纽约的星期日报纸。而凡是我收到的报纸上，都一定会刊登你去这个晚宴舞会、去那个化装舞会的消息。我断定你生活在一种无休止的快乐之中，就像旋转木马一样转不停。”

她再次微笑，笑容里没有悲伤，只有一丝不易觉察的厌倦。“晚宴舞会是当下的时尚，”她说，“要说有什么事比时尚更荒谬，那就是浪费精力去反抗时尚。”

“很有19世纪末思潮[141]的意味啊。”他议论。

“不想被晾在一边是有道理的，不是吗？”她问，“就算一个人不愿意参加那些活动，也并不希望不被邀请，因此往往会去参加，尽管更情愿待在家中。”

“我觉得，要是大部分人的动机都是这样的，你们纽约的社交聚会大概会很沉闷吧。”他笑了一声，回应道。

“是很沉闷，”她平静地回复，“有时候相当沉闷。不过，当然了，不去也不行。”

“我想也是。”他表示同意。

“可我有时也在寻思，”她继续说，“社会上的那些无聊人都是从哪儿给刨出来的。有时，在连续一个月参加没完没了的晚宴之后，我会绝望得想弃绝尘世。唉，去年冬天我对丈夫说，自打我们从佛罗里达回来后，没有一个晚上是待在家里的，而且没有一个晚上是过得愉快的，一个都没有。他觉得不至于那么糟糕，也许对他来说不至于，因为我相信女人不像男人那么麻木。当然，偶尔会有一个我觉得自己应该喜欢的晚宴，但结果都令人失望。我会见到某个我愿意与其交流的聪明人，我会见到他坐在长餐桌的另一端，仅此而已。倒是某个沉闷的老男人陪我进餐，吃完饭后大概会有两三个毛头小子走过来，试图恭维我，于是成功地挡住了那些或许真有话可说的男人。”

“尽管如此，还是有那么多人费尽心思要进入你们的圈子，”他说，“如果我对纽约小说里的描述理解正确的话。”

“确实，”她回答，“我估计我们的满足感主要来源于此——我们知道那些想拜访我们或者希望被我们拜访的人都嫉妒我们。我估计，对进入上流社会的渴望填补了许多女人生命中的空白，这种渴望给了她们生活的动力。”

“她们似乎并没有她们的‘敌人’那么快乐[142]，”莫顿议论，“她们活得很苦很累。在那边的角落里，我看见一个漂亮女人，还无意中听别人提到她的名字——赛勒斯·普尔太太，是那个华尔街操盘手的妻子。我一看到她满脸志不得意不满的神色，就觉得她或许正是我读到过的那种努力跻身上流社会的人。”

“普尔太太？”苏达姆太太淡漠地重复着，“我不了解她。当然，我见过她——在这个圈子里谁跟谁都见过——但是我不了解她。她长得挺漂亮，她也的确在奋力争取社会地位。向上爬、往外拓是她的座右铭——人往高处走嘛！他们常说，去年整个冬天你都能听见她攀高结贵的爬梯声。不过话说回来，他们这样议论过很多人！他们都说她聪明，说她请客一掷千金，所以我毫不怀疑她早晚会成功。不过到时候，她恐怕会十分失望。”

莫顿笑了：“照你的话说，力争上流不是喜剧反而是悲剧了，而且我得承认，我忽然觉得其中不无一丝闹剧的色彩。”

“是够荒谬的，不是吗？”她笑答，“我们不就是一群势利眼吗？吉米说，纽约的上流社会几乎跟伦敦的一样势利。”

片刻的沉默之后，莫顿略显生硬地问：“苏达姆先生怎么样？你知道，我还没能有幸见他一面。”

“是吗？”苏达姆太太回答，“你就快见到他了。他去驾驶乔治·韦斯滕的马车了。看，他们来了！”

小号声响，竞技场靠近第四大道那端的围栏门被打开，一辆马车驶入圆形场地。一个非常壮硕的男人孤零零地坐在车夫座位上。

苏达姆太太举起长柄望远镜看了看驾车驶来的马车夫。

“噢，那不是吉米，”她马上说，“显然不是。那是被人叫作‘堆肥’的那个人。”

小号声再次响起，第二辆马车拐进圆形场地。拉车的是四匹一模一样的栗色马。驾车人又高又瘦，看样子还年轻，他淡然地坐在车夫座上，当马车的一个轮子蹭到门柱发出刺耳的声音时，他也没流露出丝毫的恼怒之色。

“那就是苏达姆先生，”和莫顿交谈的女士说，此时四匹栗色马正轻快地小跑着经过他们面前，车夫座上的男人挺直了身板，娴熟地挽着缰绳。

“他看上去很专业，”莫顿评价。

“可不是吗？”苏达姆太太回应，“要知道，他曾驾驶从伦敦到布莱顿的马车，驾过三年。大家都说他的驾车技术十分精湛。我和他说过，要是哪天我们的钱全没了，他一定可以做个非常优秀的马车夫。”

“那些栗色马真是绝配，”大学教授说，“而且苏达姆先生驾驭得十分出色。只可惜马的尾巴都被剪短了！”

“噢，这是英式剪法，”她解释，“这样才时尚。不过这样很丑，是不是？你还记得那匹肯塔基母马的尾巴吗？又长又漂亮，就是那天我骑过的那匹——”

说到这里，苏达姆太太突然停住了。

“是的，”莫顿回答，眼睛并没有看她，“我还记得。”

苏达姆太太克服了小小的尴尬，轻轻笑了一声。

“我真是太无礼了！”她说，“我一直在谈论我和我丈夫，却没问你的情况。你结婚了吗？”

“没有，”他回答，抬眼看着她，她又脸红了，“我想，我可能这辈子都不会结婚了。这个世界上只有一个女人是我心所属的，我跟她说了，但她根本不喜欢我，她也跟我说了——然后她就跨上那匹肯塔基母马，带着我挂在她鞍头的心，策马远去了。”

“你会找到比她更好的女人，”她这样作答，“一个远比她更适合做你妻子的女人。”

还没等莫顿作答，先前在包厢然后去参观马厩的姑娘和两个小伙就回来了。小号声再次响起，评判员让四架马车——苏达姆先生之后又有两架马车入了场——再次绕场一周。随后，经过长时间的商议，评判员终于确定了奖项，马夫们飞奔过去，先把玫瑰结贴在由大块头先生驾驭的马匹身上，祝贺他获得第一名，然后转向苏达姆驾驭的马队，祝贺他获得第二名。获胜马车的分数显示在大厅各头的大布告牌上。几架马车再次绕场一周，随后驶出场地。小号沉寂片刻之后，铜管乐队再次奏响嘈杂的乐声。

“吉米没拿到第一名，会不会不高兴？”刚回到包厢的姑娘问。

“我觉得他不会为此烦恼的。”吉米的妻子回答，恢复了先前的高傲态度。

她并没有把莫顿介绍给包厢里的其他人。

那么多人在场，他俩已经不可能像老朋友那样继续谈话了。莫顿发觉，自从姑娘和小伙子回到包厢，苏达姆太太对他的态度就不一样了。他很难描述清楚，但他感觉得到。或许她自己也意识到了。

他欠身准备离去的时候，她问：“你这就走吗？我想让你见见我的丈夫。明天来我们家一起吃午饭好吗？”

莫顿表示感谢并遗憾地说他可能要赶午夜火车，又说十分荣幸再次见到她。然后，她再一次伸出手。一分钟后，他又置身于拥挤的人群中，沿着步道绕行了。

当他快要走到入口处时，乐声戛然而止，小号嘀嘀嗒嗒响起来，一个男人的声音断断续续地从场地中央传来，徒劳地想要告知挤在这座辉煌的竞技场中的数千名观众，世界上速度最快的马即将登场。目不转睛地盯着包厢里的男男女女的众人对这则公告毫不在意；对他们来说，就算一匹马能在没有陪跑马的情况下在两分钟内跑完一英里，也远远不如那些坐在包厢里的男人和女人有意思。

（1895年）

[139] 《笨拙》（Punch）：英国幽默周刊，1841年起在伦敦出版，带有资产阶级自由派色彩。

[140] 漫游的耶户（Wandering Jehu）:出自《圣经·列王纪下》9章，公元前9世纪的以色列王，赶车甚猛。

[141] 1880—1890年在法国艺术圈子兴起的一股带有犬儒主义和悲观主义色彩的思潮。

[142] 典故出自英国作家瓦尔特·斯科特的叙事长诗《湖边夫人》。

12
新年前夜的守候

四轮马车摇摇晃晃地从小巷子里出来，艰难地驶上大道，雪依然下得很大。车夫位上笔直地坐着两个男人，他们的大毛领上很快又堆积了大片大片的雪花。马车的窗户上结了一层厚厚的霜，车里那位训练有素的护士只能从一侧向外张望。她靠坐在这辆豪华马车里，身旁的座位上放着一个装满换洗衣物的包。每当她收到意外之请去负责一桩未知病例时，她都会感到好奇：不知这幢她即将走进的房子会是什么样，在让人骤然亲近的病房里，在不知多久的一段时间中，她被迫与之打交道的那些人又会是什么样。显而易见的是，这位病人既有钱，又舍得花钱——马车，拉车的马匹，身着制服的仆人，这些都是佐证。她还知道病人叫斯旺克，她好像在一两年前听说过一个名叫斯旺克的老富翁迎娶了一位年轻漂亮的太太。马车带着医生的便条来接她，她从便条上得知那位先生得的是急病，而且病情可能很严重。

那是一年之中最后的一天，天色很快就变黑了，马车沿着大道前行的时候给了她充足的遐想时间。旅店的窗户上还装点着圣诞花环，然而随着马车的疾驰，她只能透过持续不断的飘雪看到一点模糊的红黄色灯光。大道上，行人寥寥无几，只有当马车穿过宽阔的街巷时，她才看到结束了一天劳作之后下班回家的工人一群群地涌上街头。马车经过圣帕特里克大教堂，只见教堂已被白雪包裹起来，雪比石头更白。马车来到中央公园并继续前行，只见左边的宽阔草坪在渐渐降临的暮色中呈现一片灰色。终于，马车在街角的一座房子前面停了下来——在执业护士看来，这是一座很大的房子。它那大理石的墙面虽说不上阴沉，却也让她感到阵阵寒意。工人们正沿着大理石台阶匆忙支起遮篷的支架，而在积满雪的人行道上，一条小路已经被清扫出来。

随行男仆帮她把包拎上门廊，并为她按响门铃。

门旋即被一位英伦味十足的男管家打开了。

“这是为斯旺克先生请来的护士，”男仆说，“他好些了吗？”

“我看还那样吧，”管家回答，“这边请，”他对护士说，此时男仆已经把她的包放在了门内，“我先带你去斯旺克先生的房间，随后再把你的包送上来。”

护士跟随管家走上了刻有繁复暗纹的宽大的木楼梯。她注意到房屋内部灯光昏暗，仆人们来来去去，不知在为什么活动做准备。

“我们今晚要举办一场晚宴，”管家解释道，“只有二十四位嘉宾；可遗憾的是，斯旺克先生无法下来参加。我们现在把屋子弄得暗一些，这样到了晚餐的时候就不至于太热。”

无论照明不足的原因是什么，都让楼上比楼下更加阴郁——护士这样认为。

“那就是斯旺克先生的房间了，这是更衣室，供你使用——是大夫安排的。”管家说着带领这个陌生人进入一间天花板很高的小屋，屋里有一扇窗户朝向中央公园。遮光帘还没有拉上，孤零零的煤气灯正在幽暗地燃烧，房间里没有壁炉，墙边的沙发上铺着床单和毯子充当她的床铺。

这地方看起来是那么凄凉，她差点打了个寒战。但她训练有素，已学会不去在意自己是否舒适。

“这里就很好。”她肯定地说。

“我会让人把你的包拿上来，”管家说着正欲退下，“过会儿要不要吃点晚餐？”

“好的，”她回答，“我想待会儿吃点东西——方便的话随时都行。”

管家刚一出去又回来了。

“医生到了。”他敞着门宣布。

一个身材颀长、相貌英俊的男人威严地抿着嘴，迈着轻柔、坚定的步伐走了进来。

“你就是那位护士吧，”他开口说，“克莱门特小姐，对吗？你这么快就能按照我的指示过来，真是太好了。请你换好衣服，然后马上到隔壁病人住的屋子来，我会跟你交代一下你要做的事情。”

说完他便走了出去，过了不到十分钟，她就按照指示走进了房角上的那间大大的卧室。这个房间出奇的宽敞，有高高的天花板和四扇高大的窗户。

房间里生着一团暗红的火，看上去甚至不足以让那个精美的大理石壁炉变暖。靠近角落的地方放着一张大大的床，厚厚的帘子从一个顶罩上垂落下来。

护士走进房间的时候，医生正坐在床边。

“斯旺克先生，这位是克莱门特小姐，”他用欢快的口吻对一动不动躺在床上的老人说，“她会在晚上照顾你。”

斯旺克先生没有作答，但他睁开眼睛看了看这个过来护理他的女人。后来她常跟人提起，她从未见过这么锐利的目光。

医生转向她，同样以职业化的欢快口吻说：“护士小姐，我之所以请你过来，是因为斯旺克太太今晚有一场重要的晚宴，因此她可能无法给斯旺克先生所需的照料。”

医生是在对护士说话，护士却觉得他的这番话其实是说给病人听的，而那病人仍在目不转睛地盯着她。

突然，病人从床上坐了起来，开始剧烈地咳嗽。这阵发作过去之后，他又躺倒在枕头上，疲倦地闭上了眼睛。

“我觉得这次没有上次咳得那么严重，”医生说，“现在，我可以把你交给克莱门特小姐来照顾了。如果午夜的时候我恰好路过这里，我会再进来看看你是否一切正常。与此同时，护士小姐，请你让他每两个小时服用一次胶囊——上一次服用的时间是五点半。如果他醒着，你要每个小时给他量一次体温。”

他用同样的欢快语气跟斯旺克先生道了晚安，然后向门口走去。护士心领神会，跟着他走了出去。

当他俩来到走廊里，身边没有旁人的时候，医生对她说：“要是他的脉搏或体温出现了任何变化，马上派人来叫我。摇铃找管家，告诉他必须叫我过来，他知道该怎么做。斯旺克先生只是得了流感，但他的心脏很脆弱，他需要悉心照顾。我今晚的最后一件事就是再过来一趟。”

护士回到角屋时，病人已经沉沉睡去，她便趁这段时间为漫长的守夜做起了准备。在留给她使用的那间更衣室里，她把自己的东西摆放在伸手可得的地方。她不但没有把遮光帘放下来，还在窗户旁边站了一会儿，想要眺望中央公园，然而纷飞的雪花就像一道摇曳的纱帘挡在眼前。工人已经搭好了从门廊通往人行道边的帆布通道，通道里挂着灯笼，在灯光的照耀下，条纹遮篷的奇怪形状尽显无遗。护士向下凝望的时候，看见一个连外套都没穿的老人站在挡雪篷的入口处，想在那里暂避风雪，不料却立刻被守门的仆人赶走了。

护士又回到大屋子里，看见病人还在温暖的被窝里熟睡。她纳闷生活为何如此不公：为什么那个人得在大雪纷飞的街上过夜，而这个人则拥有钱能买到的一切——居所、温暖、食物和侍候。她想起自己的父亲过去常说，我们在周围所见的不平等都只是表面现象，对于一切的贫乏都有所补偿，只是我们不知道罢了，而一切明显的优越都会通过某种方式、在某个时刻得到偿还。她从未像今晚这般怀疑过父亲的说法到底有没有道理。流落街头的老人和躺在床上的这个老人之间，除了不平等，还能有什么吗？她觉得不可能有了。

在逐渐适应房间里的昏暗灯光之后，她注意到，这里的家具又黑又笨重，地毯出奇的厚，墙上挂着巨幅油画，天花板上画着色调沉郁的壁画。在她四周全是财富和乐于消耗财富的证据。然而这个房间和整个屋子在她看来怪讨厌的，甚至令人厌恶。她自问，那个躺在大床上熟睡的病夫为什么没有更好地利用自己的财富，为什么没把自己的病房弄得宜人一些。她随即嘲笑起自己的愚蠢。房间的主人当然不曾预见到自己会病倒，他装修房子的时候当然不曾想到疾病。

她轻轻地在房间里走动，想看看那些画，但光线不足。她能辨认清楚的只有刻在小牌子上的画家姓名，那些小牌子都附在宽边的画框上。尽管她对绘画没什么了解，可她毕竟读过一点报纸，知道这些画家的画值很多钱——很可能一幅就值好几千美元。要是她有几千美元可以支配，她相信自己能把这笔钱花在比这家房主的作为更有利的地方。她再次强烈感到，这个病夫所拥有的远远超出了他应得的人生馈赠。她还未曾听他开口说过话，她其实也没有仔细观察过他的相貌，但她忍不住想，一个拥有这么多东西的男人，一个有能力做这么多事情的男人，一个完全自主的男人，一个只要乐意就能一掷千金的男人——她忍不住想，这样的男人应该是幸福的。的确，他现在病倒了，但流感终究会退去，等他康复之后，坐拥这么多财产的他一定比别人快乐——比那些穷人要快乐得多，这是一定的。

得出这个结论的时候，她正站在床脚附近，看着躺在那里沉睡的人。七点半的钟声已经敲响，她过来是想请他再次服药。这时她才注意到他的眼皮并没有合上，他一直在看着她。

“现在该吃一粒胶囊了。”她说着轻轻来到他身边，把药递给他。

他一言不发地接过胶囊，就着一口水咽了下去。然后他躺回到枕头上，不料又马上坐直了，身体又一次在一阵剧烈的咳嗽中颤抖。

他总算又躺回床上，但还在喘着粗气。

通向走廊的门外传来一个朝气蓬勃的声音，说：“约翰，我可以进来吗？”随后，一个优雅的年轻身影像只鸟儿似的飘进了房间。

病人睁大双眼看着妻子向他走来，笑容让他的脸变得明亮起来。

“你可真美啊！”他说，声音虽弱，却充满自豪。

“是吗？”她答道，笑了笑，“我今晚是尽力打扮了一番，因为全纽约最漂亮的女人都会过来，她们都是参加吉米·苏达姆太太的舞会的，我希望自己不输给她们中的任何一位。”

在这位妻子走过来之前，护士就退到了窗户边上，她相信吉米·苏达姆太太舞会上的任何女人，不管是谁，都不会比眼前这个正微笑着站在病夫身边的女人更加美丽。

这位老夫的少妻是个金发女郎，年纪很小，穿着低胸的天蓝色裙子，修长的雪颈上挂着一串硕大的珍珠项链，秀气的脑袋上戴着一顶钻石头冠，反射的光芒投向这间阴暗病房的各个角落。

“我想我应该趁大家还没到的时候跑过来看看你怎么样了，”她轻声说，“你知道，晚餐八点差一刻开始。我真心希望你能下来。我们会非常挂念你的。当然，我在最后一刻发出了邀请，找了一个男人来填补你的位置，凑足二十四个人，但是——”

她突然住了口，因为看到房间里还有一个人。

“那么，这位就是奇弗医生找来的护士啰？”她接着说，“我相信她一定会好好照顾你，约翰——医生一向十分细心。再说了，要是没有人陪你，我可不愿意把你一个人留在这儿——真的，真的不愿意！”

她说着又绕床走了一圈，转身朝门口走去。

“我得走了，”她解释道，“我不能就这样把时间浪费在你这里。我现在真该下楼去客厅了，而且我还得先检查一下桌上的花是否都布置好了。”

丈夫的双眼一直怅然地追随着她，注视着她的每一个轻巧而优雅的动作，待她终于消失在门外之后，过了好一会儿，他才转过头来用询问的目光望着护士，似要得知她对那位美妙绝伦的可人儿做何感想。

护士拿着医用体温计走到床边。

“你现在醒了，”她和善地笑着说，“我可以量一下你的体温吗？”

五分钟后，她把体温计上显示的高温记录到笔记本上，病人也再次坠入梦乡。这时，来参加夫人晚宴的第一批客人开始抵达。

车轮碾轧在厚厚的积雪上毫无声响，然而当受邀的客人一个接一个地穿过帆布通道时，护士还是听到了关车门的砰砰声。从安排给她使用的更衣室的隔壁房间传来了丝织物的沙沙声，人们的说话声有时如此高亢，以至谈话的片段偶尔会飘进那个默然坐在病房里的年轻女子耳中。当所有宾客全部到齐之后，房子又复归寂静，楼梯转角处的一座大钟敲响了八点的钟声。

病人睡着的时候，护士没有什么事情可做。尽管她的身体一动不动，思绪却纷飞不止。她从小在乡间长大，后来离开那座靠海的新英格兰小村，去外面的世界闯荡。到现在，她成为执业护士已有近两年的时间了，然而，她的工作地点不是旅店，就是中等收入家庭。这是她第一次进入这么富丽堂皇的宅子，看到如此富有的人们。她情不自禁地感知着周围的一切，而且发觉自己也在渴望能这么有钱。她承认自己十分乐意作为宾客去参加楼下的晚宴。她很好奇，不知道一张可围坐二十四个人的餐桌会是什么样。能够举办奢华的宴会，而且不用担心筹备、开销等一切问题——噢，哪个女人都会乐于过这样的生活。她觉得自己有花钱的才能，也享受得起任何程度的奢华。她热爱她的职业，因为这是自己的选择。她也干得很成功，不过，她渐渐有些担心自己高估了自身的体力。这份工作十分辛苦，限制又多，她近来不止一次地感到疲劳过度。也许再过一两年，她储备的精力就会耗尽，而她也不得不放弃拼搏，返回家乡。家里的大门自然永远为她敞开，但是这样一来却会加重母亲已经肩负的重担。

还有另一条路可走，当她独自坐在病人身边，坐在豪宅中的这间昏暗的角房里时，这条路充满了前所未有的吸引力。她可以嫁人。不止一个男人向她求过婚，其中一个男人向她求过不止一次婚。他不屈不挠，至今不愿将她的拒绝当作最终的答复。他还算不上是个老头子，尽管他的年纪是她的两倍。他是个有钱人，尽管同她坐在其中安静沉思的这座豪华却压抑的宅子的主人比起来，他没那么富有。诚然，她并不爱他，这是毫无疑问的，但她确实很尊重他，而且她听说，有时爱情会在结婚之后萌发。他能让她得到她想要的一切，他也准备把他拥有的一切都给她。要是她嫁给他，她也能举办二十四人的晚宴，也能佩戴珍珠项链和钻石头冠，而且到那时，她有了钱就能做许许多多的善事。

在医院，以及后来在穷人中间服侍的过程中，她遇见过太多的苦情，不是凭她一己之力就能消除的。如果她拥有财富，她就能完成许多现在做不到的事，她能行各种各样的善事，她能扶危济贫，帮助弱者，而且能比那些出身富贵、从未有过她的生活经历、没遭遇过不幸和苦难的女人做得更加娴熟，游刃有余。她觉得她很了解自己的品质，也相信自己有强大的意志力来抵抗围绕着富人的种种诱惑。她自认为是个无私的人，觉得自己无法独享有可能临到她的财运。她郑重地下决心，要是她嫁给了那个准备娶她为妻的男人，她一定要投入大部分的金钱和时间去做善事。当然，她会打扮得符合自己的身份地位，也会极尽奢华地招待宾客，但是当她举办二十四人晚宴的时候，在她门前瑟瑟发抖的老人绝不会被赶走。

她的遐想被震颤病人身躯的阵阵咳嗽打断了五六次，她觉得咳嗽似乎越来越频繁，也越来越剧烈了。九点半，她再次给他喂药，量体温。随后她生起火，火烧得不旺；她抻平床上的床单，把枕头翻了个面。

他很快又进入梦乡，但呼吸有些沉重，还在睡梦中不安稳地翻来覆去。房子里异常安静，楼下聚会的响动丝毫没有传到楼上角房里的护士耳中。偶然走进更衣室的时候，她发现那里放着一个托盘，盘里盛有几样从晚餐桌上取来的菜肴。她很高兴有东西吃，就坐在窗边享用起来。厚厚的、柔软的积雪几乎沉寂了平日街头的一切喧嚣。大道上来往的马车好像在毛毡上行驶一样寂静无声。不过，乘坐雪橇的人越来越多了，听着铃儿叮当，她联想到了愉快的伙伴和热闹的活动。忽而，一辆消防车飞快地从房前开过，平日的那种轰鸣被厚重的积雪削弱了，当车子临近街口时，刺耳的警笛声阵阵传来。十分钟后，消防车又慢慢地开了回来。原来只是虚惊一场，护士感到高兴，因为她知道，这样的夜晚在拥挤的出租屋里发生火灾是多么可怕的事。

她还没用完这顿迟来的晚餐，厅里的大钟就用低沉的音调告诉她十点已到，即将过去的这一年只剩下最后两个小时了。接下来的一个小时里平静无事，除了病人偶尔咳醒。

在一年将尽的时候，护士突然觉得这一年在她人生中的意义要超过以往的大多数岁月，因为在十点到十一点之间，她终于下定决心，要嫁给那个想娶她为妻的有钱人——尽管她并不爱他。决心已下，她就任由思绪驰骋，畅想未来。当然，他们要到春天才会结婚，然后会去欧洲度蜜月。秋天的时候，她会力劝他把家搬到纽约来。他热爱自己的家乡小镇，但是他迟早会适应城市生活的。他们可以买一幢新房子，俯瞰中央公园的房子——也许就在这一带，在她就着病房的朦胧灯光置身其中的这幢房子附近。她发现自己在想，要是她买下隔壁的房子，不知这位病人的年轻貌美的妻子是否会登门拜访。想到这里，她不自觉地露出了笑容。

十一点刚过，她再次听到隔壁房间传来丝织物的沙沙声，紧接着，从下方街道上传来仆人为离开的宾客叫马车的吆喝声。不过，有些宾客仍迟迟不去，因为将近半小时之后，病房门才被打开，病人的妻子才带着优雅的倦意再次款款走进来。

当她向他走过来时，他的双眼立刻盯住了她，脸上也露出了满意的笑容。

“你一直在睡觉呢，是不是？”她开口说，“我太高兴了，不用说，这对你很有好处。我们都在楼下挂念你呢，所有人都问到你，都说你不在真令人遗憾。你一定要赶快好起来。到时候，我会再举办一场这样的晚宴，这次办得可成功了。那些花漂亮极了——而且我觉得，哪个女人的礼服都不如我的漂亮。我还知道，她们一个个都算上也没有我这么雅致的钻石。我相信，参加舞会的人也没有谁会戴着和我一样多的钻石。”

“坐到我身边，给我讲讲晚宴上的事儿吧。”生病的丈夫说。

“噢，我可不能耽搁，”年轻的妻子回答，“我得马上走。我得赶到那边去参加辞旧迎新。他们说吉米太太为大家准备了一个惊喜，晚宴上的人没一个猜得出会是什么！”

“你今晚要去参加舞会吗？”卧病在床的男人问。护士在他的眼睛里看到了恳求的神色，尽管他的妻子并没有觉察出来。

“当然要去了，”妻子回答，“我绝不会错过的。我觉得在新年前夜跳支舞是个极好的主意，你说呢？真希望你身体好，能同去，吉米太太一定会问起你的——她总是这么彬彬有礼。你不会挂念我的——再过五分钟，你又会睡着了，对不对？”

“也许吧，”他回答，还是紧攥着她的手指，“我会努力去睡的。”

“这就对了，”她一边说一边抽开手，向门口走去，“我会把你交给护士照料。她怕是比我照顾得还周到呢。有人生病的时候，我从来帮不上什么忙。那就再见啦。但愿我回来的时候你会有好转。当然，我会过来道晚安的。我也不会弄得太晚——三点前到家吧——最晚四点。”

说完，她款款离开房间，临走时回头冲丈夫笑了笑。他的双眼一直追随着她，在她离开之后，他又盯着门口看了好久。他的脸上有一种饥渴的神情，在护士看来，他就像一个在富足之中忍饥挨饿的人。他一边妄想那美丽的身影或许会回转，一边安静地躺着，同时却凝神细听，直到听见马车门砰地关上，才放松下来，在床上辗转反侧。

那时正是十一点半，护士遵照医嘱给他量了体温，又喂他服了一粒胶囊。她觉得他烧得越发厉害，咳嗽也越发频繁了。即便她看到病人再次沉入断断续续的睡眠之中，她还是希望医生能尽快过来。

直到离午夜只差几分钟时，医生才姗姗赶来，护士因而有时间彻底反思自己并非出于爱，而是为了钱而嫁人的决定。她的决定是经过深思熟虑之后慢慢形成的，而推翻这个决定却是突然的、毫不犹豫的、不可挽回的。是病夫眼中那无声的恳求让她改变了想法。看到那眼神之后，她觉得自己不可能走进一场无爱的婚姻——不仅是为她自己考虑，也是为她要嫁的男人着想。要是他爱她，她却不爱他，他们之间就不会存在公平交易。她就是在欺骗他。当看清这种交易的本质之后，她正直的心感到了厌恶。她已经不止一次地拒绝了他的求婚，而现在，她的拒绝便是最终答复。

她在窗边站了一会儿，向外望去。雪已经停了，云也撕开了一道缝，月光透过云层断断续续地洒下来。风在公园的大草坪上一个劲地吹，吹弯了落雪树枝的白色骨架。

三辆巨型雪橇满载欢乐嬉笑的人群从大道上经过，坐在雪橇上的人们互相对着歌。号角的嘟嘟声在一条小巷里反复响起，从城市两边的河船上传来越来越响、越来越频繁的汽笛声。手枪的射击声时不时地鸣响。旧岁最后一天的午夜就快到了，人们即将照例在嘈杂的喧闹声中迎来新的一年。

护士刚从窗边转过身，医生就走进了房间。她简短地报告了老人的病情，说他的咳嗽越发厉害，身体也似乎更加虚弱了。

正当他俩站在床脚说话的时候，病人又爆发出一阵猛烈的咳嗽。他坐起身来，在剧烈的咳嗽中颤抖——这次比之前的任何一次都更剧烈。他似乎要努力寻求解脱，却是徒劳，随后又无力地瘫倒在枕头上。医生立刻走到他身边，把手放在他的心脏上。短暂的寂静之后，楼梯上的大钟敲了十二下，钟声与屋外的手枪声、号角声和汽笛声的喧嚣混在一起。

“这正是我担心的，”医生终于说，“我估计他是得了心脏脂肪变性。”

“他——他死了吗？”护士问。

“是的。他死了。”

而窗外刺耳的喧闹声过了十分钟才渐渐平息下来。

译后记

世界上恐怕很难再有第二个城市像纽约这样，让我们感到既熟悉又陌生吧。

它出现在无数本书中：旅游书里的人在寻访街角的美食，艺术书里的人在探讨梵高的星空，推理小说里的人在这里死了八百万次。它出现在房间角落的荧屏上，IMAX 3D的巨大幕布上，我们面前的电脑屏幕上。我们见证了无数结局美好的爱情和阴错阳差的遗憾在这里上演：因为一副莫名地同时适合赠送男朋友和女朋友的手套而引发的天注定的情缘，给时尚杂志老板卖命结果差点夭折的感情，建立在为纸杯蛋糕的事业奋斗拼搏之上的友谊。我们觉得自己已经看遍了中央公园每一个角度的美景，从航拍飞机上，从高级办公楼的窗口，从慢跑者的身旁。我们甚至看着它一次次被摧毁，被厚厚的寒冰覆盖，被不知名的病毒感染以至全城沦陷，在七百年之后成为人猿瞳孔里的一尊立在海边高举火炬的手。

正因如此，当我2011年到美国学习，顺道和朋友一起去纽约度春假时，我以为眼前的一切并不会让我觉得新奇。但是我错了，这座城市的内心如此充盈丰富又自相矛盾，它不是三言两语能描述得清的，也不是文字和图像能草草勾勒的。中央公园在晴好的天气里和阴冷的时节中完全是两副样子，你有时恨不得多驻足一阵看艺人卖力的表演，有时又想尽快离开冷清的湖边回到大街上。歪戴帽子的街头少年冲着我们吹口哨。脚步匆忙的行人被我们拦住问路，结果路人甲和路人乙指出了截然相反的方向。地铁站里，肥硕的老鼠从我们面前狂奔而过，在纽约生活很久的同学对此见怪不怪，却吓了其他人一大跳。我们当时念书的地方在大农村，没有电影院，几个人商量着晚上看场电影，却没注意到电影票上并无座位号；等电影开场前五分钟进去的时候，影院里几乎座无虚席，我们差点跟更晚入场的人一块儿坐到台阶上。当时停留的时间太短，很多以为到了纽约一定会做的事情都没有去做。我们没有去华尔街，没有去帝国大厦，甚至没有去看自由女神像，而是在MET和MOMA里消磨掉了大部分时间。唯一能从心愿单上画掉的事情恐怕就是去看一场百老汇音乐剧了，不过剧场的陈旧和观众的稀少也远在我们的预料之外。

纽约就是这样充满惊喜，每一个走在街上的人看在眼里的一定各不相同。这一点在詹姆斯·马修斯的笔下也得到了印证，何况那是19世纪末的纽约，是四轮马车还在麦迪逊大道上飞驰的年代。少女欣赏街道和花园里的春色，小伙子留意的却是姑娘美丽的容颜。上流社会的女主人只在乎晚宴的成功，穷苦大众则看到被房东赶出来的一家子在街边点亮了一支蜡烛。身无分文的青年在街头长凳上挨过漫漫长夜，找不到工作的老头在酒馆里默默地吐着烟圈。每翻过一则新的篇章，你又会从另一个人眼中看到一个新的纽约，而这也许就是本书的妙处所在。

这是我第一次在译言上参加翻译，也是我第一次得到翻译小说的机会。我并没有特意选择一本和纽约相关的故事集作为开端，不过这也许说明纽约和我的缘分还未完待续。翻译这本书是一个学习的过程，不仅让我从一些从未接触过的角度重新了解了纽约，还让我学习到了不少英文知识——特别是翻译《新剧排演》时接触到了不少戏剧方面的专业词汇，查资料的过程颇为曲折，还好得到了负责人燕楠的不少帮助。当然，我从燕楠和合译者王力军身上也学到了很多。我此前一直独立翻译，在经历了这本书的翻译之后才发现，要是碰到了对的合作伙伴，合作翻译确实益处颇多。我有一些累积多年却一直没有得到纠正的语言习惯和标点用法被一一指出，翻译过程中不小心出现的纰漏自己复校时很难觉察，但两位合作者总能凭借火眼金睛揪出错误，从而也保证了这本书翻译的准确性和成文质量。这一次和你们二位一起的“纽约之行”如此独特，真是意料之外的收获。

纽约，我们下一趟旅途再见。

徐蓓思

VIGNETTES OF MANHATTAN
OUTLINES IN LOCAL COLOR

Books by Brander Matthews

These Many Years, Recollections of a New Yorker

———

BIOGRAPHIES

Shakspere as a Playwright

Molière, His Life and His Works

———

ESSAYS AND CRITICISMS

The Principles of Playmaking

French Dramatists of the 19th Century

Pen and Ink, Essays on subjects of more or less Importance

Aspects of Fiction, and other Essays

The Historical Novel, and other Essays

Parts of Speech, Essays on English

The Development of the Drama

Inquiries and Opinions

The American of the Future, and other Essays

Gateways to Literature, and other Essays

On Acting

A Book About the Theater

Essays on English

———

"PEOPLE WHO THRONGED THE FLOOR WERE WELLNIGH AS VARIOUS AS THE PAINTINGS"

VIGNETTES OF MANHATTAN:
OUTLINES IN LOCAL COLOR

BY

BRANDER MATTHEWS

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

W. C. BROWNELL

ILLUSTRATED BY

W. T. SMEDLEY

NEW YORK

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

1921

COPYRIGHT 1894, 1897, BY

BRANDER MATTHEWS

——

COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

THE SCRIBNER PRESS

TO
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

My dear Theodore,——You know——for we have talked it over often enough——that I do not hold you to be a typical New-Yorker, since you come of Dutch stock, and first saw the light here on Manhattan Island, whereas the typical New-Yorker is born of New England parents, perhaps somewhere west of the Alleghanies. You know, also, that often the typical New-Yorker is not proud of the city of his choice, and not so loyal to it as we could wish. He has no abiding concern for this maligned and misunderstood town of ours; he does not thrill with pride at the sight of its powerful and irregular profile as he comes back to it across the broad river; nor is his heart lifted up with joy at the sound of its increasing roar, so suggestive and so stimulating. But we have a firm affection for New York, you and I, and a few besides; we like it for what it is; and we love it for what we hope to see it.

It is because of this common regard for our strange and many-sided city that I am giving myself the pleasure of proffering to you this little volume of vignettes. They are not stories really, I am afraid——not sketches even, nor studies; they are, I think, just what I have called them——vignettes. And then there are a dozen of them, one for every month in the year, an urban calendar of times and seasons. Such as they are, I beg that you will accept them in token of my friendship and esteem; and that you will believe me, always,

Yours truly,

BRANDER MATTHEWS

New York, May, 1894

"When I came to my chamber I writ down these minutes; but was at a loss what instruction I should propose to my readers from the enumeration of so many insignificant matters and occurrences; and I thought it of great use, if they could learn with me to keep their minds open to gratification, and ready to receive it from anything it meets with."

——STEELE, in "The Spectator," August 11, 1712.

INTRODUCTION

FEW volumes of short stories published a generation ago remain in print to-day and fewer still either merit or would repay reprinting. But the case is different with the two volumes published by Mr. Matthews in the early nineties under respectively the title and subtitle now given to their contents combined in one and made once more accessible to the reading public. Whatever may be said of the progress made by current literature in the interval, the public for it has augmented at least correspondingly with the census, and it is permitted to hope that the interest of this wider public in work of such exceptional authorship, subject and quality has similarly increased. Mr. Matthews has himself a wider public, amply earned, and I should say that interest in New York has probably increased in pretty nearly equal measure with the change in its character. Its cosmopolitanism has grown prodigiously, yet its self-consciousness far from diminishing has distinctly deepened——if one may properly speak of depth in connection with it. No doubt the chameleon's changes, even shallower, quicken its sense of self. Vignettes of Manhattan should therefore appeal to such actual local pride and public spirit as we have, as well as to a historic interest in a previous epoch of their subject's evolution——as the pace of the day requires us to consider the aspect, character and manners of twenty-five years ago, when Mr. Matthews had the idea of fixing these in the framework of the short story. Besides, a good deal of the scent of those roses survives.

So far as I know it was a unique idea. It was certainly a happy one. Would it not be a pleasant thing if we had such series of analogous authorship systematically celebrating London, Paris, not to say Florence, Rome, Athens itself? Perhaps it was never attempted by any one before because it was too difficult of execution. To the pure fictionist it would necessitate irksome notation; the mere observer would hardly perceive its fictional value. Mr. Matthews fortunately was at home in both departments of writing. The result was that almost every essential phase of New York life and character, belonging to every quarter of the city, is veraciously pictured in these twenty-four proficient and polished stories. Each is composed with attentive art to illustrate its two-fold motive of interest as fiction and as portraiture. And the whole, the collection, constitutes a dramatic panorama of the metropolis a generation ago of great variety and point. "Little old New York" has never had so thorough-going and so diverting a historiographer. Are there any New York "types" omitted? I think of none. How did the author come across some of them? How get some of them to sit for him? Unlike a writer with a reporter's record he has never been, as it were, a prowler among the precincts and purlieus of the town; yet clearly he knows his Mulberry Bend material as well as that of Fifth Avenue, the studios as well as the stage, the now extinct saloon as well as the still flourishing Salvation Army barracks, and portrays Lazarus and Dives with equal familiarity——our kind, too, of each and all. I suppose a writer must have been born in New Orleans to have such a sharp sense of New York, but it is true that he immigrated early.

Rich enough in material for plots and characters——in the right hands——Mr. Matthews shows the metropolis to be in these twenty-four stories, (though I wish he had also republished a volume of Manhattan "Vistas" containing twelve more tales belonging to the same period). But obviously to have forced the fictional note would have been to diminish that of portraiture and accordingly to have minimized the motive of the stories. In order to keep New York itself in the foreground the author's personages are of necessity types——not individuals to be found anywhere. And their stories are such as might have happened, since their author's design is to convey an impression of what does happen. Their representative qualities and circumstances and adventures are therefore those that are emphasized. They are not for this reason less definitely depicted, though they may be less elaborately realized. If they were more highly complicated, however, their typical function would be frustrated. New York itself would recede too far into the background. As it is, Miss Marlenspuyk, for example, though a personally charming silhouette, is chiefly differentiated for us by the characteristic perfume of genuine Knickerbocker idiosyncrasy. Similarly of homely and low-life figures for supplying which the author never seems to be at a loss, any more than he is for supplying them with appropriate Manhattan adventure——drama and dramatis personæ, indeed, Manhattan to the core. Among them all they certainly create the illusion of a very palpable environment.

It was to be sure a little different from that which now surrounds us, and furnished a different theme for treatment different from current practice. Probably if ecstasies and excess, "psychoanalysis" and external melodrama had in the nineties been invented, or been deemed normal, Mr. Matthews would have picked his way through them, but in any case to be veridical the Manhattan "picture" of those days had to be, by contrast with ours, placidity itself. The crime-wave was unknown, the daylight holdup unprecedented. There was an occasional murder mystery, always more than a nine days' wonder; the public had not yet grown callous. One of the stories records an assault with murderous intent. There were more fires. Our author has a fire story. Suicide has always been with us and we have here a rather notably well handled one——minus the horror, which the fastidious artist must generally, one would think, doubt his capacity to dwell on to advantage, just as the sensitive painter leaves Niagaras and volcanic convulsions to Nature. But incontestably the life here mirrored was quieter than ours and, being "slower," was correspondingly fuller. People had time to devote to living.

It is furthermore incidentally to be pointed out that the Vignettes have a technical interest quite apart from that of their substance. Every one nowadays is enormously interested in process. One might almost say there was a "popular movement" of concern with the philosophy of technic. If so, it could hardly be denied that Mr. Matthews was one of its pioneers. Certainly of the philosophy of the short story he was the first analytic and explicit exponent. Each of these tales is his theory in action, so to say. Nor is it to be doubted, in the case of so ardently systematic a temperament and such a talent for argument and organization, that this was in each case definitely his design. He was not content to contend but desired to demonstrate and we have here his "philosophy teaching by example." Accordingly the skeleton, the structure, the framework and the filling of each little tale produce an effect that at least is bound to have the merit of having been intended. The hap-hazard and the desultory are avoided not only altogether, but, to analysis, quite obviously. For this reason indeed the Vignettes have also, I should think, a certain text-book or "collateral reading" value in the populous courses now offered by the Universities for the elevation of the short-story-writing masses. Nothing, one would say, could better inculcate by explicit example the measured and disciplined practice, the ship-shape and organic result which——plus, of course, literary talent——are the elementary excellences of this prevalent form of literary expression.

"Introductions," too, I may add, are in fashion, and fashion is, as is well known, inexorable. Otherwise I should not have been asked to write one about the lighter work of an author who in virtue of a shelf-full of books comprehending all varieties of literary activity——novels and tales, biography, autobiography, history, linguistics, literary and social criticism, the drama, versification and verse as well as prose, even juvenile fiction——is widely recognized both at home and abroad as one of the particularly representative men of letters of our time.

W. C. BROWNELL.

CONTENTS

VIGNETTES OF MANHATTAN

IN THE LITTLE CHURCH DOWN THE STREET

THE TWENTY-NINTH OF FEBRUARY

AT A PRIVATE VIEW

SPRING IN A SIDE STREET

A DECORATION-DAY REVERY

IN SEARCH OF LOCAL COLOR

BEFORE THE BREAK OF DAY

A MIDSUMMER MIDNIGHT

A VISTA IN CENTRAL PARK

THE SPEECH OF THE EVENING

A THANKSGIVING-DAY DINNER

IN THE MIDST OF LIFE

AN INTERVIEW WITH MISS MARLENSPUYK

A LETTER OF FAREWELL

A GLIMPSE OF THE UNDER WORLD

A WALL STREET WOOING

A SPRING FLOOD IN BROADWAY

THE VIGIL OF MCDOWELL SUTRO

AN IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT

THE SOLO ORCHESTRA

THE REHEARSAL OF THE NEW PLAY

A CANDLE IN THE PLATE

MEN AND WOMEN AND HORSES

IN THE WATCHES OF THE NIGHT

IN THE LITTLE CHURCH DOWN THE STREET

HE little church stands back from the street, with a scrap of lawn on either side of the path that winds from the iron gate to the church door. On this chill January morning the snow lay a foot deep on the grass-plots, with the water frozen out of it by the midnight wind. The small fountain on one side was sheathed with ice; and where its tiny spirtle fell a glittering stalagmite was rising rapidly, so the rotund sparrows had difficulty in getting at their usual drinking-trough. The sky was ashen, yet there was a hope that the sun might break out later in the morning. A sharp breeze blew down the street from the river, bearing with it, now and again, the tinkle of sleigh-bells from the Avenue, only fifty yards away.

There was the customary crowd of curious idlers gathered about the gate as the hearse drew up before it. The pall-bearers alighted from the carriages which followed, and took up their positions on the sidewalk, while the undertaker's assistants were lifting out the coffin. Then the bareheaded and gray-haired rector came from out the church porch, and went down to the gate to meet the funeral procession. He held the prayer-book open in his hand, and when he came to the coffin he began to read the solemn words of the order for the burial of the dead:

"I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die."

Preceding the pall-bearers the rector led the way to the church, which was already filled with the dead actor's comrades and with his friends, and with mere strangers who had come out of curiosity, and to see actresses by daylight and off the stage. The interior was dusky, although the gas had been lighted here and there. The Christmas greens still twined about the pillars, and still hung in heavy festoons from the low arched roof. As the coffin passed slowly through the porch, the rector spoke again:

"We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the Name of the Lord."

Throughout the church there was a stir, and all heads were turned towards the entrance. There were tears in the eyes of more than one man, for the actor had been a favorite, and not a few women were weeping silently. In a pew near the door were two young actresses who had been in the same company with the dead man when he had made his first appearance on the stage, only three years before; and now, possessed by the emotion of the moment, these two sobbed aloud. By their side stood a tall, handsome, fair-haired woman, evidently not an actress; she was clad in simple black; she gave but a single glance at the coffin as it passed up the aisle, half hidden by the heaped-up wreaths of flowers, and then she stared straight before her, with a rigid face, but without a tear in her eye.

Slowly the rector preceded the pall-bearers up the central aisle of the church, while the vestured choir began the stately anthem:

"Lord, let me know my end, and the number of my days; that I may be certified how long I have to live.

"Behold, thou hast made my days as it were a span long, and mine age is even as nothing in respect of thee; and verily every man living is altogether vanity."

It was for a young man that this solemn anthem was being sung——for a man who had died in his twenty-fifth year, at the moment of his first success, and when life opened temptingly before him. He bore a name known in American history, and his friends had supposed that he would be called to the bar, like his father and his grandfather before him. He was a handsome young fellow, with a speaking eye and a rich, alluring voice; and his father's friends saw in him a moving advocate. But the year he was graduated from college his father had died, and his mother also, and he was left alone in the world. As it happened, his father's investments were ill-advised, and there was little or no income to be hoped from them for years. In college he had been the foremost member of the dramatic club, and in the summer vacations he had taken part in many private theatricals. Perhaps it had always been his secret wish to abandon the bar for the stage. While he was debating the course he should take, chance threw in his way the offer of an engagement in the company which supported a distinguished tragedian. He had accepted what opportunity proffered, and it was not as a lawyer but as an actor that he had made his living; it was as an actor that his funeral was now being held at "the little church down the street."

While the choir had been singing the anthem, the coffin had been borne to the chancel and set down before the rail, which was almost concealed from sight by the flowers scattered about the steps and clustering at the foot of the pulpit and in front of the reading-desk. The thick and cloying perfume of the lilies was diffused throughout the church.

The rector had taken his place at the desk in the chancel to read the appointed lesson, with its message of faith and love. There were sobs to be heard when he declared that this mortal shall put on immortality.

"Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?"

There were those present——old friends of his boyhood, come from afar to give the dead man the last greeting of affection——who knew how high had been his hopes when he went upon the stage; and they knew also how hard that first year had been, with the wearisome drudgery of his apprenticeship, with the incessant travelling, with ambition baffled by lack of opportunity. Some of them were aware how the second year of his career in the theatre had seen a change in his fortunes, and how discouragement had given place to confidence. There had been dissensions in the company to which he belonged, and the tragedian had parted with the actor who played the second parts. Here was a chance for the young man, and he proved himself worthy of the good-fortune. No more youthful and fiery Laertes had been seen for years, no more passionate Macduff, no more artful and persuasive Mark Antony. He had the gifts of nature——youth, and manly beauty, and the histrionic temperament; and he had also the artistic intelligence which made the utmost out of his endowment. Before the end of his second season on the stage he was recognized as the most promising actor of his years. He had played Mark Antony for the first time only twelve months before; and now he lay there in his coffin, and the little church was filled with the actors and actresses of New York who had come to bid him farewell.

When the rector had finished the reading of the lesson there was a hush throughout the church. A faint jingle of sleigh-bells came floating down from the Avenue.

A few straggling rays of sunshine filtered through the windows on the right side of the little church, and stained with molten colors the wood-work of the pews on the left. There was a movement among the members of the vestured choir, and a large and stately woman took her stand before the organ; she was the contralto of a great opera company, and it was with skill and power and feeling that she sang "Rock of Ages."

In a pew between the organ and the pulpit sat a slight, graceful, dark-eyed and dark-haired woman, young still and charming always, although the freshness had faded from her face. This was the celebrated actress with whom the dead man had been acting only a week before. She was the ideal Juliet——so the theatre-goers thought——and never before had she been aided by so gallant and so ardent a Romeo. Never before had the tragedy been produced with so much splendor, and with dramatic effect so certain and so abundant. Never before had "Romeo and Juliet" been performed for a hundred and fifty nights without interruption. And for once the critics had been in accord with the public, so potent was the glamour of youth and beauty and passion. It was a joy to all discerning lovers of the drama to see characters so difficult interpreted so adequately. Thus it was that the tragedy had been played for five months to overflowing audiences; and its prosperity had been cut short only by the death of the fiery wooer——of the Romeo who lay now in the coffin before the chancel, while the Juliet, with the tears gliding down her cheeks, sat there by the side of the middle-aged merchant she was soon to marry. The young actor, to catch a glimpse of whom silly school-girls would watch the stage door, and to whom foolish women sent baskets of flowers, now lay cold in death, with lilies and lilacs in a heap over his silent heart.

When the final notes of the contralto's rich and noble voice had died away, the rector went on with the ritual:

"Man, that is born of a woman, hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay."

The dead man had been the last of his line, and there were no near kindred at the funeral. There was no mother there, no sister, no wife. Friends there were, but none of his blood, none who bore his name. Yet there was a shiver of sympathy as the tiny clods of clay rattled down upon the coffin lid, and as the rector said "earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust."

Then the service drew to an end swiftly, and the pall-bearers formed in order once again, and the coffin was lifted and carried slowly down the aisle.

As the sorrowful procession drew near to the open door and passed before the pew where the tall fair-haired woman stood, stolid, with averted head, and a stare fixed on the floor, one of the bearers stumbled, but recovered himself at once. The woman had raised her hand, and she had checked a cry of warning; but the coffin was borne before her steadily; and they who bore it little guessed that they were carrying it past the dry-eyed mother of the dead man's unborn child.

(1893.)

THE TWENTY-NINTH OF FEBRUARY

HE Governor of the State and his secretary had just finished their lunch in one of the private parlors of the hotel. The Governor lighted his cigar and leaned back in his chair as the secretary went to the door and admitted an old man who had been patrolling the corridor impatiently.

"The Governor will see you now, Mr. Baxter," said the secretary.

The old man, tall, thin, and impetuous, strode past the secretary without a word of thanks, and came straight to where the Governor was sitting.

"At last!" he cried——"at last I've got a chance to talk to you face to face. If you only knew how I have longed for this, you would have let me in before."

"Take a seat, Mr. Baxter," said the Governor, kindly.

"Thank you, but I'd rather stand," replied the old man. "In fact, I'd rather walk. I don't seem to be able to sit nor to stand when I get a-talking about the boy. You know why I wanted to see you, I suppose?" he inquired, suddenly, fixing the Governor with a penetrating stare.

"You wish to urge your son's pardon, I take it," the Governor answered; "and I am ready to listen to you. I have all the papers here," and he indicated a bundle of documents at his elbow. "I have just been reading them."

"But the men who wrote those papers didn't know my boy as I know him, and they can't tell you about him as I can tell you. He's in jail, and he's been there nearly three years, and he's twenty-four years old to-day——for to-day's his birthday——but he's only a boy for all that. He isn't a man yet, to be judged as a man, and to take a man's punishment. I can't tell you that he didn't shoot the fellow, for he did; but he did it in his anger, and he was sorely tempted; and what's more, he did it in self-defence. Oh, I know that wasn't brought out on the trial, but just you read this," and he tore open his coat and pulled out a package of papers; selecting one of them, he thrust it into the Governor's hands. "That's from the man who sold Bowles a pistol and a knife on the 28th of February, the day before the fight. Then you read this too," and he picked out a second letter, and gave that to the Governor with the same impatient and imperious gesture. "That's from one of Bowles's friends, the fellow who was with him just before the shot was fired. He kept quiet at the trial, and said as little as he could. He knew that I was sick a-bed, and so he held his peace. But I've been at him ever since I got about again, and now I've pinned him down. And there's the result; the truth must prevail in the end always. There, in that letter, he says that Bowles had that pistol on his person on the morning of the 29th; and that if it wasn't found on the body, it was because Bowles dropped it as he fell. The pistol was picked up that night under a plank in the sidewalk. It was this same friend of Bowles's who found it then, and he said nothing——the cur! Even at the trial he said nothing! But I knew he had something to say, and at last I made him speak. He's telling the truth now, and the whole truth. Read the letter and see if it isn't. He hated my boy; and he said he wanted to see him swing; but I made him write that letter. And if that isn't enough, I'll put him on the stand, and I'll make him swear to every word of it."

The Governor adjusted his glasses, and began to read the letters thus forcibly placed in his hands.

In his eagerness to be heard, the old man could not brook even this delay, and as the Governor laid down the first letter, he broke forth again: "To-day's his birthday, the first he's had since the shooting, the first that he's ever spent away from me. He was born on the 29th of February, and he has a birthday only once in four years; and it was just four years ago to-day that he got into this scrape, and fired the shot that caused us all this trouble. He was twenty years old that morning, for he was born in 1864; that was the year when General Grant was getting ready to smash Jeff Davis and the rebels; that's why we called him Grant——out of gratitude for the saving of the country. Sometimes I think it's a pity he hadn't been born twenty years before, so that he could have died at Cold Harbor like a man, without ever having seen the inside of a jail. But it was to be, I suppose. Our lives are laid out for us, I suppose. Maybe a boy born on the 29th of February is different from other boys; I don't know. He was loved more than most boys; I know that well enough. I was raised on Cape Cod, and my father never gave me a caress; though I guess he loved me, too, in his way. But I moved out to Lake Erie when I was married, and out by the edge of the lake we waited, my wife and I, for a man-child to be born to us. And we waited a score of years and more; and when Grant came at last, he was our only child. Both his sisters had died in their cradles. So he was the son of our old age. Maybe we spoiled him. Surely we spared the rod. Why, we loved him too much ever to say a hard word to him. In the main he was a good boy, too——wild at times, and skittish——but always loving and easily led. His mother had only to look, and he'd jump to serve her. So we let him do as he pleased, and most generally he pleased us. Perhaps I gave him too much rope; I've often thought so, now I see how near he came to hanging himself. But he was a good boy, and devoted to his mother always. And she loved him——oh! how she loved him!——more than she loved her husband, I know, fond as she was of me."

Here the old man paused in his vehement speech, and turned away abruptly.

"Is Mrs. Baxter with you here in the city?" the Governor asked, gently.

"Here——in the city?" cried the old man, facing about sharply. "She's at home——in the cemetery! That's where she is. She drooped as soon as ever he was arrested, but she bore up till the trial was over, hoping that he might get off somehow, not believing that her boy could be found guilty. But when he was sent off to Auburn to serve fifteen years for manslaughter, why, then there wasn't anything left for her to live for any longer, with all the joy of her life locked up in a stone cell. So she took to her bed, and she died. She faded away; she had lost her interest in life, and so she gave up. Now the boy's all I have, and I want you to give him back to me. That's what I've come down here for. That's what I've been pursuing you for these six months. The boy is all I have. I want to see him back at the old home on the lake before I die——and I can't live much longer, I guess. I'm seventy now, and for all I look hale and hearty, there's something the matter with my heart, the doctors say, and I may go out any time, like a candle in a gale of wind. Well, give me back the boy, and I'm ready to die. Let me see him at home once more, a free man, and I'll carry the good news to the old woman whenever the call comes, and gladly."

He paused for a moment, and his impassioned speech had lost a little of its fierce fire.

The Governor took up the second letter and began to read it. The movement of the Governor's hand as he raised the paper aroused the old man again.

"If the District Attorney had done his duty by the people of the State it wouldn't have been left for me to wring the truth out of that coward whose letter you are reading. Sometimes I half think this cur was at the bottom of the whole thing. It was he who introduced Grant to the woman. You know that the wedding was to have taken place that very night——the night of the shooting? Yes, it all came out on the trial. Grant only had one birthday in four years, as I've been telling you, and so he persuaded the girl to set it as the wedding-day too. And he was just twenty——a mere boy. It was no wonder they took advantage of him. If you've read the report you can see how she deceived him. Even the District Attorney admitted that, bitter as he was against the boy. Ah! if I could only have been in court at the trial! If I had only been in town the day when the boy discovered the truth, he wouldn't have shot that villain, for I'd have done it myself."

"Then who would have come to me to ask for your pardon?" inquired the Governor, smiling kindly. "I have read these letters, but they contain nothing that is new to me, and——"

"Nothing new?" interrupted the old man, violently. "That letter shows that Grant fired in self-defence, since the fellow had a pistol in his hand. Isn't that something new?"

"Not to me, for the District Attorney——against whom you seem to have a prejudice, Mr. Baxter——had already informed me of this."

"If you've been listening to him, I suppose there isn't much hope of my getting what I'm after," the old man returned, hotly; "for no man ever spoke more unfairly against another than that man did against my boy."

"You do him injustice," the Governor said, firmly. "He did his duty at the trial in pressing for sentence, and he has done his duty now in laying before me this newly discovered evidence. He has even gone further; he has urged me to accede to your request for your son's pardon."

"The District Attorney?" cried the old man in surprise.

"Yes," the Governor replied.

"Then his conscience has pricked him at last."

"And it is chiefly in consequence of his recommendation that I have decided to pardon your son," the Governor continued.

"I don't care on whose urging it is, so long as it's done," the old man rejoined. "When can the boy come out?" he asked, eagerly.

"I will let you bear the pardon to him," said the Governor, and he unfolded one of the papers which lay on the table by his side and signed it. "Here it is."

The old man seized the paper with a convulsive clutch. His knees trembled as his eyes read the pardon swiftly.

The door of the parlor opened, and the secretary returned.

The old man grasped his hat. "Do you know when the next train leaves for Auburn?" he inquired, hastily.

"There's one at four o'clock, I think," the secretary answered.

"I shall be in time," said the old man; and then, the pardon in his twitching fingers, he left the parlor without another word. He passed quickly through the corridors of the hotel, down the stairs, and out into the street. When he reached the pavement he stood still for a moment and bared his head, quite unconscious of the rain-storm which had broken but a minute before.

A small boy came running to him across the street, crying, "Evening papers——four o'clock Gazette!"

Seemingly the old man did not hear him.

"Terrible loss of life!" the newsboy shrilled out, as he moved away. "Riot at Auburn! Attempted escape of the prisoners!"

Then a clutch of iron was fastened on the newsboy's arm, and the old man towered above him, asking hoarsely: "What's that you say? A loss of life in the prison at Auburn? Give me the paper!"

He seized it. On the first page was a despatch from Auburn stating that there had been a rising of the convicts at the State-prison, which the wardens had been able to repress after it had gained headway. The prisoners had yielded and gone back to their cells only after the wardens had fired on them, wounding half a dozen and killing the ringleader, who had fought desperately. He was a young man from one of the lake villages, sentenced to fifteen years for manslaughter; his name was Grant Baxter.

As the old man read this, the paper slipped from his fingers, and he fell on the sidewalk dead, still tightly grasping the pardon.

(1889.)

AT A PRIVATE VIEW

HEN the Spring Exhibition opened, March had thrown off its lion's skin, and stood revealed as a lamb. There was no tang to the wind that swept the swirling dust down the broad street; and the moonlight which silvered the Renascence front of the building had no longer a wintry chill. Flitting clouds were thickening, and threatened rain; but the carriages, rolling up to the canvas tunnel which had been extemporized across the sidewalk, brought many a pretty woman who had risked a spring bonnet. Not a few of the ladies who had been bidden to the Private View were in evening dress; and it was a brilliant throng which pressed down the broad corridor, past the dressing-rooms, and into the first gallery, where the President of the Society, surrounded by other artists of renown, stood ready to receive them.

Beyond the first gallery, and up half a dozen steps, was a smaller saloon, with a square room yet smaller to its right and to its left. Still farther beyond, and up a few more steps, was the main gallery, a splendid and stately hall, lofty and well proportioned, and worthy of the many fine paintings which lined its walls two and three deep. In the place of honor, facing the entrance, was Mr. Frederick Olyphant's startling picture, "The Question of the Sphinx," which bore on its simple frame the bit of paper declaring that it had received a silver medal at the Salon of the summer before. In a corner was another painting by the same artist, a portrait of his friend Mr. Laurence Laughton; and balancing this, on the other side of a landscape called "A Sunset at Onteora," was a portrait of Mr. Rupert de Ruyter, the poet, by a young artist named Renwick Brashleigh, painted vigorously yet sympathetically, and quite extinguishing the impressionistic "Girl in a Hammock," which hung next to it. Here and there throughout the spacious room there were statuettes and busts; one of the latter represented Astroyd, the amusing comedian. Landscapes drenched with sunshine hung by the side of wintry marines; and delicate studies of still life set off purely decorative compositions painted almost in monochrome.

The people who thronged the floor were wellnigh as various as the paintings which covered the walls. There were artists in plenty, men of letters and men about town, women who lived for art and women who lived for society, visitors of both sexes who came to see the exhibition, and visitors of both sexes who came to be seen themselves. There were art-students and art-critics, picture-buyers and picture-dealers, poets and novelists, stock-brokers and clergymen. Among them were Mr. Robert White, of the Gotham Gazette, and Mr. Harry Brackett, formerly attached to that journal; Mr. Rupert de Ruyter, who could not be kept away from his own portrait; Mr. Delancey Jones, the architect, with his pretty wife; Mr. J. Warren Payn, the composer; Mr. and Mrs. Martin, of Washington Square; and Miss Marlenspuyk, an old maid, who seemed to know everybody and to be liked by everybody.

Miss Marlenspuyk lingered before Olyphant's portrait of Laurence Laughton, whom she had known for years. She liked the picture until she overheard two young art-students discussing it.

"It's a pity Olyphant hasn't any idea of color, isn't it?" observed one.

"Yes," assented the other; "and the head is hopelessly out of drawing."

"The man has a paintable face, too," the first rejoined. "I'd like to do him myself."

"Olyphant's well enough for composition," the second returned, "but when it comes to portraits, he simply isn't in it with Brashleigh. Seen his two yet?"

"Whose?" inquired the first speaker.

"Brashleigh's," was the answer. "Biggest things here. And as different as they make 'em. Best is a Wall Street man——Poole, I think, his name is."

"I know," the first interrupted. "Cyrus Poole; he's president of a big railroad somewhere out West. Lots of money. I wonder how Brashleigh got the job?"

"Guess he did Rupert de Ruyter for nothing. You know De Ruyter wrote him up in one of the magazines."

The two young art-students stood before the portrait a few seconds longer, looking at it intently. Then they moved off, the first speaker saying, "That head's out of drawing too."

It gave Miss Marlenspuyk something of a shock to learn that the heads of two of her friends were out of drawing; she wondered how serious the deformity might be; she felt for a moment almost as though she were acquainted with two of the startlingly abnormal specimens of humanity who are to be seen in dime museums. As these suggestions came to her one after the other, she smiled gently.

"I don't wonder that you are laughing at that picture, Miss Marlenspuyk," said a voice at her right. "It's no better than the regulation 'Sunset on the Lake of Chromo,' that you can buy on Liberty Street for five dollars, with a frame worth twice the money."

Miss Marlenspuyk turned, and recognized Mr. Robert White. She held out her hand cordially.

"Is your wife here?" she asked.

"Harry Brackett is explaining the pictures to her," White answered. "He doesn't know anything about art, but he is just as amusing as if he did."

"I like Mr. Brackett," the old maid rejoined. "He's a little——well, a little common, I fear; but then he is so quaint and so individual in his views. And at my time of life I like to be amused."

"I know your fondness for a new sensation," White returned. "I believe you wouldn't object to having the devil take you in to dinner."

"Why should I object?" responded Miss Marlenspuyk, bravely. "The devil is a gentleman, they say; and besides, I should be so glad to get the latest news of lots of my friends."

"Speaking of the gentleman who is not as black as he is painted," said White, "have you seen the portrait of Cyrus Poole yet? It is the best thing here. I didn't know Brashleigh had it in him to do anything so good."

"Where is it?" asked Miss Marlenspuyk. "I've been looking at this Mr. Brashleigh's portrait of Mr. De Ruyter, and——"

"Pretty little thing, isn't it?" White interrupted. "Perhaps a trifle too sentimental and saccharine. But it hits off the poet to the life."

"And life is just what I don't find in so many of these portraits," the lady remarked. "Some of them look as though the artist had first made a wax model of his sitter and then painted that."

They moved slowly through the throng towards the other end of the gallery.

"Charley Vaughn, now, has another trick," said White, indicating a picture before them with a slight gesture. "Since he has been to Paris and studied under Carolus he translates all his sitters into French, and then puts the translation on canvas."

The picture White had drawn attention to represented a lady dressed for a ball, and standing before a mirror adjusting a feather in her hair. It was a portrait of Mrs. Delancey Jones, the wife of the architect.

Miss Marlenspuyk raised her glasses, and looked at it for a moment critically. Then she smiled. "It is the usual thing, now, I see," she said——"intimations of immorality."

White laughed, as they resumed their march around the hall.

"If you say that of Charley Vaughn's picture," he commented, "I wonder what you will say of Renwick Brashleigh's. Here it is."

And they came to a halt before the painting which had the place of honor in the centre of the wall on that side of the gallery.

"That is Cyrus Poole," White continued. "President of the Niobrara Central, one of the rising men of the Street, and now away in Europe on his honeymoon."

The picture bore the number 13, and the catalogue declared it to be a "Portrait of a Gentleman." It was a large canvas, and the figure was life size. It represented a man of barely forty years of age, seated at his desk in his private office. On the wall beyond him hung a map of the Niobrara Central Railroad with its branches. The light came from the window on the left, against which the desk was placed. The pose was that of a man who had been interrupted in his work, and who had swung around in his chair to talk to a visitor. He was a man to be picked out of a crowd as unlike other men, rather spare, rather below medium height, rather wiry than muscular. Beyond all question he was energetic, untiring, determined, and powerful. The way he sat indicated the consciousness of strength. So did his expression, although there was no trace of conceit to be detected on his features. His hair was dark and thick and straight, with scarce a touch of gray. He had a sharp nose and piercing eyes, while his lips were thin and his jaw massive.

Miss Marlenspuyk looked at the picture with interest. "Yes," she said, "I don't wonder this has made a hit. There is something striking about it——something novel. It's a new note; that's what it is. And the man is interesting too. He has a masterful chin. Not a man to be henpecked, I take it. And he's a good provider, too, judging by the eyes and the mouth; I don't believe that his wife will ever have to turn her best black silk. There's something fascinating about the face, but I don't see how——"

She interrupted herself, and gazed at the picture again.

"Is it a good likeness?" she asked at last, with her eyes still fixed on the portrait.

"It's so like him that I wouldn't speak to it," White answered.

"I see what you mean," the old lady responded. "Yes, if the man really looks like that, nobody would want to speak to him. I wouldn't have this artist——what's his name?——Mr. Brashleigh?——I wouldn't have him paint my portrait for the world. Why, if he did, and my friends once saw it, there isn't one of them who would ever dare to ask me to dinner again."

White smiled, and quickly responded, "As I said before, you know, even the gentleman you wanted to take you in to dinner is probably not as black as he is painted."

"But I wouldn't want that man to take me in to dinner," returned Miss Marlenspuyk, promptly, indicating the portrait with a wave of her hand. "Paint is all very well; besides, it is only on the outside, and women don't mind it; but it is that man's heart that is black. It is his inner man that is so terrible. He fascinates me——yes——but he frightens me too. Who is he?"

"I told you," White answered. "He is Mr. Cyrus Poole, the president of the Niobrara Central Railroad, and one of the coming men in the Street. He turned up in Denver ten years ago, and when he had learned all that Denver had to teach him he went to Chicago. He graduated from the Board of Trade there, and then came to New York; he has been here two years now, and already he has made himself felt. He has engineered two or three of the biggest things yet seen in the Street. As a result there are now two opinions about him."

"If this portrait is true," said the old maid, "I don't see how there can be more than one opinion about him."

"There were three at first," White rejoined. "At first they thought he was a lamb; now they know better. But they are still in doubt whether he is square or not. They say that the deal by which he captured the stock of the Niobrara Central and made himself president had this little peculiarity, that if it hadn't succeeded, instead of being in Europe on his honeymoon, Cyrus Poole would now be in Sing Sing. Why, if half they said about him at the time is true——instead of hanging here on the line, he ought to have been hanged at the end of a rope. But then I don't believe half that I hear."

"I could believe anything of a man who looks like that," Miss Marlenspuyk said. "I don't think I ever saw a face so evil, for all it appears frank and almost friendly."

"But I have told you only one side," White went on. "Poole has partisans who deny all the charges against him. They say that his only crime is his success. They declare that he has got into trouble more than once trying to help friends out. While his enemies call him unscrupulous and vindictive, his friends say that he is loyal and lucky."

Miss Marlenspuyk said nothing for a minute or more. She was studying the portrait with an interest which showed no sign of flagging. Suddenly she looked up at White and asked, "Do you suppose he knows how this picture affects us?"

"Poole?" queried White. "No, I imagine not. He is a better judge of values as they are understood in Wall Street than as they are interpreted at the Art Students' League. Besides, I've heard that he was married and went to Europe before the picture was quite finished. Brashleigh had to paint in the background afterwards."

"The poor girl!" said Miss Marlenspuyk. "Who was she?"

"What poor girl?" asked the man. "Oh, you mean the new Mrs. Cyrus Poole?"

"Yes," responded the old lady.

"She was a Miss Cameron," White answered; "Eunice Cameron, I think her name was. I believe that she is a cousin of Brashleigh's. By-the-way, I suppose that's how it happened he was asked to paint this portrait. He is one of the progressive painters a Wall Street man wouldn't be likely to appreciate off-hand. But it couldn't have been given to a better man, could it?"

Miss Marlenspuyk smiled.

"Well," said White, "Brashleigh has a marvellous insight into character; you can see that for yourself. Or at least he paints portraits as if he had; it's hard to tell about these artists, of course, and it's easy to credit them with more than they have. They see so much more than they understand; they have the gift, you know, but they can't explain; and half the time they don't know what it is they have done."

The old lady looked up and laughed a little.

"I think the man who painted that," she said, "knew what he was about."

"Yes," White admitted, "it seems as though no one could do a thing with the astounding vigor of this, unconsciously. But, as like as not, what Brashleigh thought about chiefly was his drawing and his brush-work and his values; probably the revelation of the sitter's soul was an accident. He did it because he couldn't help it."

"I don't agree with you, for once," Miss Marlenspuyk replied. "I find in this portrait such an appreciation of the possibilities of human villany. Oh, the man must have seen it before he painted it!"

"It's lucky I'm not a painter by trade," returned White, "or I should feel it my duty to annihilate you on the spot by the retort that laymen always look at painting from the literary side."

Miss Marlenspuyk did not respond for a minute. She was looking at the portrait with curious interest. She glanced aside, and then she gazed at it again.

"Poor girl!" she said at last, with a gentle sigh.

"Meaning Mrs. Poole?" White inquired.

"Yes," the old lady answered. "I'm sorry for her, but I think I understand how she had to give in. I can feel the sinister fascination of that face myself."

Above the babble of many tongues which filled the gallery there was to be heard a rumble of thunder, and then the sharp patter of rain on the huge skylight above them.

"Excuse me, Miss Marlenspuyk," said White, hastily, "but my wife is always a little nervous about thunder now. I must look her up. I'll send you Harry Brackett."

"You needn't mind about me," she answered, as he moved away. "I've taken care of myself for a good many years now, and I think I'm still equal to the task."

The hall was densely crowded by this time, and it was becoming more and more difficult to make one's way in any given direction. The rain fell heavily on the roof, and dominated the rising murmur of the throng, and even the shrill voices now and again heard above it.

Miss Marlenspuyk drifted aimlessly with the crowd, looking at the pictures occasionally, and listening with interest to the comments and the fragmentary criticisms she could not help hearing on all sides of her. She found herself standing before Mr. Charles Vaughn's "Judgment of Paris," when she was accosted by Harry Brackett.

"I've been looking for you everywhere, Miss Marlenspuyk," he began. "White said you were here or hereabouts, and I haven't seen you for many moons."

They chatted for a few minutes about their last meeting, and the friends at whose house they had dined.

Then Harry Brackett, looking up, saw the huge painting before them.

"So Charley Vaughn's 'Judgment of Paris' is a Salon picture, is it?" he asked. "It looks to me better fitted for a saloon. It's one of those nudes that Renwick Brashleigh says are offensive alike to the artist, the moralist, and the voluptuary."

Miss Marlenspuyk smiled; and her smile was one of her greatest charms.

"Do you know Mr. Brashleigh?" she asked.

"I've known him ever since he came back from Paris," Brackett answered. "And he's a painter, he is. He isn't one of those young dudes who teach society girls how to foreshorten the moon. You don't catch him going round to afternoon teas and talking about the Spontaneity of Art."

"Have you seen his portrait of this Mr. Poole?" she inquired.

"Not yet," he replied, "but they tell me it's a dandy. I've never met Poole, but I used to know his wife. She was Eunice Cameron, and she's a cousin of Brashleigh's. Come to think of it, his first hit was a portrait of her at the Academy three years ago."

"What sort of a girl is she?" Miss Marlenspuyk asked.

"For one thing, she's a good-looker," he responded, "although they say she's gone off a little lately; I haven't seen her this year. But when Brashleigh introduced me to her she was a mighty pretty girl, I can tell you."

The pressure of the crowd had carried them along, and now Miss Marlenspuyk found herself once more in front of the "Portrait of a Gentleman," and once more she was seized by the power and by the evil which the artist had painted on the face of Cyrus Poole.

"They used to say," Harry Brackett went on, not looking at the picture, "that Brashleigh was in love with her. I think somebody or other once told me that they were engaged."

There was a sudden gleam of intelligence in Miss Marlenspuyk's eyes.

"But of course there wasn't any truth in it," he continued.

The smile came back to the old maid's mouth as she gazed steadily at the portrait before her and answered, "Of course not."

(1893.)

SPRING IN A SIDE STREET

N the city the spring comes earlier than it does in the country, and the horse-chestnuts in the sheltered squares sometimes break into blossom a fortnight before their brethren in the open fields. That year the spring came earlier than usual, both in the country and in the city, for March, going out like a lion, made an April-fool of the following month, and the huge banks of snow heaped high by the sidewalks vanished in three or four days, leaving the gutters only a little thicker with mud than they are accustomed to be. Very trying to the convalescent was the uncertain weather, with its obvious inability to know its own mind, with its dark fog one morning and its brisk wind in the afternoon, with its mid-day as bright as June and its sudden chill descending before nightfall.

Yet when the last week of April came, and the grass in the little square around the corner was green again, and the shrubs were beginning to flower out, the sick man also felt his vigor returning. His strength came back with the spring, and restored health sent fresh blood coursing through his veins as the sap was rising in the branches of the tree before his window. He had had a hard struggle, he knew, although he did not suspect that more than once he had wrestled with death itself. Now his appetite had awakened again, and he had more force to withstand the brooding sadness which sought to master him.

The tree before his window was but a shabby sycamore, and the window belonged to a hall bedroom in a shabby boarding-house down a side street. The young man himself lay back in the steamer chair lent him by one of the few friends he had in town, and his overcoat was thrown over his knees. His hands, shrunken yet sinewy, lay crossed upon a book in his lap. His body was wasted by sickness, but the frame was well knit and solid. His face was still white and thin, although the yellow pallor of the sick-bed had gone already. His scanty boyish beard that curled about his chin had not been trimmed for two months, and his uncut brown hair fell thickly on the collar of his coat. His dark eyes bore the mark of recent suffering, but they revealed also a steadfast soul, strong to withstand misfortune.

His room was on the north side of the street, and the morning sun was reflected into his window, as he lay back in the chair, grateful for the warmth. A heavy cart lumbered along slowly over the worn and irregular pavement; it came to a stand at the corner, and a gang of workmen swiftly emptied it of the steel rails it contained, dropping them on the sidewalk one by one with a loud clang which reverberated harshly far down the street. From the little knot of men who were relaying the horse-car track came cries of command, and then a rail would drop into position, and be spiked swiftly to its place. Then the laborers would draw aside while an arrested horse-car urged forward again, with the regular footfall of its one horse, as audible above the mighty roar of the metropolis as the jingle of the little bell on the horse's collar. At last there came from over the house-tops a loud whistle of escaping steam, followed shortly by a dozen similar signals, proclaiming the mid-day rest. A rail or two more clanged down on the others, and then the cart rumbled away. The workmen relaying the track had already seated themselves on the curb to eat their dinner, while one of them had gone to the saloon at the corner for a large can of the new beer advertised in the window by the gaudy lithograph of a frisky young goat bearing a plump young goddess on his back.

The invalid was glad of the respite from the more violent noises of track-layers, for his head was not yet as clear as it might be, and his nerves were strained by pain. He leaned forward and looked down at the street below, catching the eye of a young man who was bawling "Straw-b'rees! straw-b'rees!" at the top of an unmelodious voice. The invalid smiled, for he knew that the street venders of strawberries were an infallible sign of spring——an indication of its arrival as indisputable as the small square labels announcing that three of the houses opposite to him were "To Let." The first of May was at hand. He wondered whether the flower-market in Union Square had already opened; and he recalled the early mornings of the preceding spring, when the girl he loved, the girl who had promised to marry him, had gone with him to Union Square to pick out young roses and full-blown geraniums worthy to bloom in the windows of her parlor looking out on Central Park.

He thought of her often that morning, and without bitterness, though their engagement had been broken in the fall, three months or more before he was taken sick. He had not seen her since Christmas, and he found himself wondering how she would look that afternoon, and whether she was happy. His revery was broken by the jangling notes of an ill-tuned piano in the next house, separated from his little room only by a thin party-wall. Some one was trying to pick out the simple tune of "Wait till the Clouds roll by." Seemingly it was the practice hour for one of the children next door, whose playful voices he had often heard. Seemingly also the task was unpleasant, for the piano and the tune and the hearer suffered from the ill-will of the childish performer.

A sudden hammering of a street rail in the street below notified him the nooning was over, and that the workmen had gone back to their labors. Somehow he had failed to hear the stroke of one from the steeple of the church at the corner of the Avenue, a short block away. Now he became conscious of a permeating odor, and he knew that the luncheon hour of the boarding-house had arrived. He had waked early, and his breakfast had been very light. He felt ready for food, and he was glad when the servant brought him up a plate of cold beef and a saucer of prunes. His appetite was excellent, and he ate with relish and enjoyment.

When he had made an end of his unpretending meal, he leaned back again in his chair. A turbulent wind blew the dust of the street high in the air and set swinging the budding branches of the sycamore before the window. As he looked at the tender green of the young leaves dancing before him in the sunlight he felt the spring-time stir his blood; he was strong again with the strength of youth; he was able to cope with all morbid fancies, and to cast away all repining. He wished himself in the country——somewhere where there were brooks and groves and grass——somewhere where there were quiet and rest and surcease of noise——somewhere where there were time and space to think out the past and to plan out the future resolutely——somewhere where there were not two hand-organs at opposite ends of the block vying which should be the more violent, one playing "Annie Laurie" and the other "Annie Rooney." He winced as the struggle between the two organs attained its height, while the child next door pounded the piano more viciously than before. Then he smiled.

With returning health, why should he mind petty annoyances? In a week or so he would be able to go back to the store and to begin again to earn his own living. No doubt the work would be hard at first, but hard work was what he needed now. For the sake of its results in the future, and for its own sake also, he needed severe labor. Other young men there were a plenty in the thick of the struggle, but he knew himself as stout of heart as any in the whole city, and why might not fortune favor him too? With money and power and position he could hold his own in New York; and perhaps some of those who thought little of him now would then be glad to know him.

While he lay back in the steamer chair in his hall room the shadows began to lengthen a little, and the long day drew nearer to its end. When next he roused himself the hand-organs had both gone away, and the child next door had given over her practising, and the street was quiet again, save for the high notes of a soprano voice singing a florid aria by an open window in the Conservatory of Music in the next block, and save also for an unusual rattle of vehicles drawing up almost in front of the door of the boarding-house. With an effort he raised himself, and saw a line of carriages on the other side of the way, moving slowly towards the corner. A swirling sand-storm sprang up again in the street below, and a simoom of dust almost hid from him the faces of those who sat in the carriages——young girls dressed in light colors, and young men with buttoned frock-coats. They were chatting easily; now and again a gay laugh rang out.

He wondered if it were time for the wedding. With difficulty he twisted himself in his chair and took from the bureau behind him an envelope containing the wedding-cards. The ceremony was fixed for three. He looked at his watch, and he saw that it lacked but a few minutes of that hour. His hand trembled a little as he put the watch back in his pocket; and he gazed steadily into space until the bell in the steeple of the church at the corner of the Avenue struck three times. The hour appointed for the wedding had arrived. There were still carriages driving up swiftly to deposit belated guests.

The convalescent young man in the little hall bedroom of the shabby boarding-house in the side street was not yet strong enough to venture out in the spring sunshine and to be present at the ceremony. But as he lay there in the rickety steamer chair with the old overcoat across his knees, he had no difficulty in evoking the scene in the church. He saw the middle-aged groom standing at the rail awaiting the bride. He heard the solemn and yet joyous strains of the wedding-march. He saw the bride pass slowly up the aisle on the arm of her father, with the lace veil scarcely lighter or fairer than her own filmy hair. He wondered whether she would be pale, and whether her conscience would reproach her as she stood at the altar. He heard the clergyman ask the questions and pronounce the benediction. He saw the new-made wife go down the aisle again on the arm of her husband. He sighed wearily, and lay back in his chair with his eyes closed, as though to keep out the unwelcome vision. He did not move when the carriages again crowded past his door, and went up to the church porch one after another in answer to hoarse calls from conflicting voices.

He lay there for a long while motionless and silent. He was thinking about himself, about his hopes, which had been as bright as the sunshine of spring, about his bitter disappointment. He was pondering on the mysteries of the universe, and asking himself whether he could be of any use to the world——for he still had high ambitions. He was wondering what might be the value of any one man's labor for his fellow-men, and he thought harshly of the order of things. He said to himself that we all slip out of sight when we die, and the waters close over us, for the best of us are soon forgotten, and so are the worst, since it makes little difference whether the coin you throw into the pool is gold or copper——the rarer metal does not make the more ripples. Then, as he saw the long shafts of almost level sunshine sifting through the tiny leaves of the tree before his window, he took heart again as he recalled the great things accomplished by one man. He gave over his mood of self-pity; and he even smiled at the unconscious conceit of his attitude towards himself.

He was recalled from his long revery by the thundering of a heavy fire-engine, which crashed its way down the street, with its rattling hose-reel tearing along after it. In the stillness that followed, broken only by the warning whistles of the engine as it crossed avenue after avenue farther and farther east, he found time to remember that every man's struggle forward helps along the advance of mankind at large; the humble fireman who does his duty and dies serves the cause of humanity.

The swift twilight of New York was almost upon him when he was next distracted from his thoughts by the crossing shouts of loud-voiced men bawling forth a catchpenny extra of a third-rate evening paper. The cries arose from both sides of the street at once, and they ceased while the fellows sold a paper here and there to the householders whose curiosity called them to the door-step.

The sky was clear, and a single star shone out sharply. The air was fresh, and yet balmy. The clanging of rails had ceased an hour before, and the gang of men who were spiking the iron into place had dispersed each to his own home. The day was drawing to an end. Again there was an odor of cooking diffused through the house, heralding the dinner-hour.

But the young man who lay back in the steamer chair in the hall bedroom of the boarding-house was unconscious of all except his own thoughts. Before him was a picture of a train of cars speeding along moonlit valleys, and casting a hurrying shadow. In this train, as he saw it, was the bride of that afternoon, borne away by the side of her husband. But it was the bride he saw, and not the husband. He saw her pale face and her luminous eyes and her ashen-gold hair; and he wondered whether in the years to come she would be as happy as if she had kept her promise to marry him.

(1896.)

A DECORATION-DAY REVERY

HERE had been a late spring, set off by frequent rain; and when Decoration Day dawned there was a fresh fairness of foliage, as though Nature were making ready her garlands for our honored dead. When at length the march began, the sunshine sifted through the timid verdure of the trees in the square, and fell softly on the swaying ranks that passed beneath. The golden beams glinted from the slanting bayonets, and seemed to keep time with the valiant old war-tunes as they swelled up from the frequent bands. There was a contagion of military ardor in the air, and even the small boy who had climbed up into the safe eyry of a dismantled lamp-post had within him inarticulate stirrings of warlike ambition. In the pauses of the music fifes shrilled out, and the roll and rattle of drums covered the rhythmic tramping of the soldiers. I lingered for a while near the noble statue of the great admiral, who stood there firm on his feet, with the sea-breeze blowing back the skirt of his coat, and so presented by the art of the sculptor that the motionless bronze seemed more alive than most of the ordinary men and women who clustered about its base. Here, I thought, was the fit memorial of the man who had done his duty in the long struggle, to the heroes of which the day was sacred; and I was glad that the marching thousands should pass in review before that mute image of the best and bravest our country can bring forth. At that moment a detachment of sailors swung into view, and cheers of hearty greeting broke forth on all sides.

As I loitered, musing, a battalion of our little army strode by us in turn, with soldierly bearing, clad in no gaudy garb, but ready for their bloody work; ready with cold steel to give a cold welcome to the invading foreigner, ready with a prompt volley to put an end to lawless strife at home. After an interval came the first ranks of the citizen soldiery, trim in their workmanlike uniforms, with stretchers, with ambulances, with Gatling-guns. One after another advanced the regiments of the city militia, and no man need doubt that they would be as swift now to go forward to battle as were their former fellow-members whose deeds gave them the right to bear flags emblazoned with more than one battle as hard fought as Marathon or Philippi, Fontenoy or Waterloo. As they swept on down the Avenue in the morning sunlight, with the strident music veiled now and again by ringing cheers, my thoughts went back to the many other thousands I had seen go down that Avenue, now more than a quarter of a century ago, coming from the pine forests and the granite hills of New England, and going to the silent swamps and the dark bayous of the South. In those drear days of doubt I had watched the ceaseless tramp of the troops down that Avenue, a thousand at a time——young, earnest, ardent; and I remembered that I had seen them return but a scant hundred or two, it may be, worn and ragged, foot-sore and heart-sick, but resolute yet and full of grit. Death, like the maddened peasants in the strife of the Jacquerie, fights with a scythe; and for four long years Time held a slow glass and Death mowed a broad swath. There is many a house now where an old woman cannot hear the trivial notes of "Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching," without a sharp pain in the throat and a sudden vision of the prison-pen at Andersonville. No doubt there is many another woman south of that Mason and Dixon's line which was washed out in the blood of the war where the sentimental strains of "My Maryland" have an equal poignancy and an equal tenderness. Shiloh and Malvern Hill and Gettysburg are names made sacred forever by the deeds done there, and by the dead who lie there side by side in a common grave, where the gray cloth and the blue have faded into dust alike, and there is now naught to tell them apart. It is well that a spring day, fresh after rain and fair with blossoms, should help to keep their memory sweet.

Down the Avenue regiment after regiment went on briskly, with the easy pace of health and enjoyment. After the young men of the militia came the veterans, with flowers for their fallen comrades. Some of the older men were in carriages, with here and there a crutch across the seat; but for the most part they walked, keeping time, no doubt, though with a shorter stride. As a handful of brave men filed before us, bearing aloft the tattered remnant of a battle-flag, I raised my hat with instinctive reverence. For a moment the gesture shielded my eyes from the rays of the sun, and I caught sight of a group in the window of a house opposite. A lady, tall and stately, wearing a widow's cap above her gray hair as though it were a crown, stood in the centre with her hands on the shoulders of two young men——her sons, beyond all question——stalwart young fellows, with features at once fine and strong, bearing themselves with manly grace. I looked, and I recognized. When I lowered my eyes again to the procession I saw another set of faces that I knew by sight. In a carriage sat a man of some fifty years, stout, vulgar, with a cigar alight in the coarse hand which rested on the door of the vehicle. He had a shock of hair, once reddish and now grizzling to an unclean white. He wore in his button-hole the button of the Grand Army of the Republic. In the open barouche with him were three youngish men, noisy in laughter——apparently professional politicians of the baser sort.

"DISTRACTED BY THE CROSSING SHOUTS OF LOUD-VOICED MEN"

The man bowed effusively, with a broad and unctuous smile, when he saw a friend on the sidewalk; and the crowd about me recognized him, and called him by name one to another; and a little knot of young fellows on the corner raised a cheer.

I knew both groups, the unclean creature in the carriage and the noble lady in the window above him. I knew that both were survivals of the war.

As the procession passed on, I could hear an occasional cheer run along the line of spectators when one or another recognized the politician. I was not surprised, for the man's popularity with a portion of the people is patent to all of us. He was a soldier who had never fired a shot, a colonel who had never seen the enemy. His tactical skill had been shown in the securing of a detail for himself where there was chance of profit with no risk of danger. His strategy had been to secure the good word of those who dispensed the good things of life.

While others were battling for the country he was looking out for himself. When the war was over he presented his claims for recognition, and he was sent as consul to the Orient. In due time there came across the ocean rumors of scandals, and an investigation was ordered; whereupon he resigned, and the matter was never probed. Then he went into politics: he was ready of speech and loud-mouthed; he flattered the mob, believing that in politics the blarney-stone is the stepping-stone to success. He never paused to weigh his words when he assailed an opponent, believing that in politics billingsgate is the gate of success. He was prompt to set people by the ears that he might lead them by the nose the more readily. As though to make up for his delinquencies during the struggle, he was now untiring in his abuse of the Southern people, and his denunciation of them was always violent and virulent. In every election he besought his fellow-citizens to vote as they had shot. He was unfailingly bitter in his abuse of those who had fought for the cause of the South. He was, in short, a specimen of the scum which may float on the surface whenever there is an upheaval of the deep.

Brutal in political debate and brazen in political chicanery, he was a fit leader for the band of hirelings he had organized with no small skill. His position was not unlike that of the condottieri of the foreign mercenaries in the mediæval quarrels of the Italian republics. Like them, he led a compact body, prompt to obey orders so long as it received the pay and had hopes of the plunder for which it was organized. Although he belonged nominally to one of the two great parties which contended for the control of the nation, he was always ready to turn his forces against it if his pay and his proportion of the spoils of office failed to satisfy himself and his men-at-arms; or even in revenge for a slight, and in hope of higher remuneration from the other side.

For me, as I stood on the corner under Farragut's statue and watched the veterans file past, the knowledge of this man's career, and the sight of his presence among those who had fought a good fight for a high motive, seemed to tarnish the sacred occasion and to stain the glory of the morning. Again I looked up at the window where I had seen the lady with her two sons. She was still there, leaning forward a little, as though in involuntary excitement, and one hand clinched the arm of the soldierly young fellow at her right. The sight of those three refreshed me, for I knew who they were, and what they stood for in the history of our country——a shining example in the past and a beacon of hope for the future. The widow's cap which crowns the brow of that mother brought up before me the memory of a deed as noble as it was simple.

A fife-and-drum corps of boys dressed as sailors preceded a model of a monitor mounted on wheels and artfully adorned with flowers and wreaths. Behind this came the scanty score of old sailors who had formed themselves into Post Rodman R. Hardy. When they came abreast of the window where the lady stood with her two sons, they looked up and cheered. The eyes of Captain Hardy's widow had filled with tears when she caught sight of his old comrades; and when they cheered her and her boys her face flushed and the arm which rested on her son's trembled. She bowed, the two young men raised their hats, and the Post passed on down the Avenue to perform their sad office; though they might not deck with flowers the grave of their old commander, for he lies buried at the bottom of the sea, and great guns were firing many a salute with shot and shell when his body was lowered into its everlasting resting-place.

I have heard it said that a soldier's trade is learning how to kill and how to die, and that how he lives is little matter. Captain Hardy lived like a man, like a gentleman, like a Christian; and he died like a hero. He came of a generation of sailors. His great-grandfather had sailed with the fleet under Amherst when Louisburg was taken in 1758. His grandfather had been a midshipman with Paul Jones in the Bonhomme Richard. His father served on "Old Ironsides" when the Constitution captured the Guerrière. He himself had gone to sea in time to take part in the siege of Vera Cruz. When the war broke out he had been married but three years. He was on the Cumberland when the Merrimac sank her. While the new monitors were building he had a few brief weeks with his wife and his two baby boys. When the Onteora was finished he was a captain, and he was appointed to take command.

And there was no monitor which did better service or had more hard work than the Onteora. Just before the grand attack on Fort Davis he ran under the guns of a Confederate battery to shell a cruiser which had retreated up the river behind the strip of land on which the earthworks stood. Regardless of the fire from the battery, which bade fair to hammer his ship till it might become unmanageable, he trained his guns on the cruiser. He had no more than got the range when a fog settled down and hid the combatants from each other. The battery ceased firing or aimed wildly a few chance shots. The monitor, relying on the accuracy of its gunners, continued to send shell after shell through the thick wall of fog to the invisible place where the enemy's ship lay. When the fog lifted, the cruiser was on fire; and then the monitor fell back out of the range of the guns of the battery, having done the work Captain Hardy had set it to do.

The next day came the grand assault on Fort Davis. The admiral ordered the Onteora to follow the flag-ship in the attack. The channel was defended not only by the cannon of the fort itself and of its supporting earthworks and by a flotilla of gunboats, but also by hidden torpedoes, the position of which was wholly unknown even to the pilots, Union men of the port who had volunteered to guide our vessels through the tortuous windings of the entrance. The iron ship was made ready for battle; its deck was sunk level with the surface of the sea; and nothing projected but the revolving turret, with its two huge guns. In the little box of a pilot-house Captain Hardy took his place with the pilot. The admiral gave the signal to advance, and the Onteora followed in the wake of the flag-ship.

The first turning of the channel was made safely, and the monitor was at last full under the fire of the fort. The turret revolved slowly, and both guns were discharged against a pert gunboat which had ventured out beyond the protection of the fort. The second shot struck the steam-chest of the gunboat, and it blew up and drifted at the mercy of the current. Still the admiral advanced, and theOnteora followed. Then a sudden shock was felt, there was a dull roar, the monitor shivered from stem to stern, and began to settle. A torpedo had blown a hole in the bottom of the boat, and theOnteora was sinking. Almost at the same time a shot from Fort Davis struck the turret, and a fragment smote Captain Hardy and tore off his right arm. In the scant seconds after the explosion of the torpedo, before the shuddering ship lurched down, half a score of men escaped from the turret and flung themselves into the river. The captain had barely time to climb into the open air when his ship went down beneath him. When he arose from the vortex of whirling waters his unwounded hand grasped a chance fragment of wood, which served to sustain him despite the weakness from his open wound. He found himself by the side of the pilot, who was struggling vainly with the waves, his strength almost spent.

"Can't you swim?" asked Captain Hardy.

"Only a little," answered the pilot; "and I am almost gone now, I fear."

"Take this bit of wood," said the sailor.

The pilot reached out his arm and with despairing fingers gripped the broken plank. It was too small to support two men, and Captain Hardy released his hold. He sought to sustain himself with one hand, and for a little he succeeded. Then his strength failed him, and at last he went under almost where the Onteora had sunk beneath him. The battle raged above; shell from ship after ship answered shell from the fort and the batteries; another ironclad took up the work of the Onteora; brave hearts and quick heads were at work on sea and on shore; but Rodman Hardy was dead at the bottom of the river, leaving to his widow and his sons the heritage of a manly death.

The widow's cap which the young wife took that night she has never discarded to this day. His sons she has brought up to follow in their father's footsteps. One has already begun to make his mark in the navy, having been graduated from Annapolis, high up in his class. The other is a lawyer, who is solving for himself the problem of the scholar in politics. Although not yet thirty, he has spent two terms in the Legislature of the State, where he has done yeoman service for the city.

The parade was over at last——for the Rodman R. Hardy Post had been one of the latest in line——and I turned away across the square. The sight of the widow with her two sons had cleansed the atmosphere from the miasma that trailed behind the politician as he rode by me in his vulgar barouche. The memory of a great deed is an oasis in the vista of life, and the recollection of Captain Hardy's death made the day seem fairer. The sunshine flooded the streets with molten gold. A pair of young sparrows flitted across the park before me and alighted on a bough above my head. From over the house-tops came floating echoes of "John Brown's Body" and "Marching through Georgia."

(1890.)

IN SEARCH OF LOCAL COLOR

HE novelist stood at the corner of Rivington Street and the Bowery, trying to find fit words to formulate his impression of the most characteristic of New York streets as it appeared on a humid morning in June. The elevated trains clattered past over his head and he gave no heed to them, so intent was he in making a mental record of the types which passed before him. Suddenly he was almost thrown off his feet. A young man, slipping on the peel of a banana cast away carelessly upon the sidewalk, had stumbled heavily against him.

"I beg your pardon," cried the young man as he recovered himself. "I——why, Mr. De Ruyter!" he exclaimed, recognizing the author.

"John Suydam!" returned Rupert de Ruyter, holding out his hand cordially. "Well, this is good-fortune! Do you know, I was on my way to the University Settlement to look you up."

"You would have found me there in ten minutes," Suydam answered. "This is my week to be in residence; in fact, I think I shall be here for the summer now. You see, I passed my A.M. examination at Columbia last week——"

"So they examine you for it now, eh?" the novelist queried. "In my time we got it almost for the asking——at least, I did——and that was only twenty years ago. What are you going to do with it, now you've got it? I heard you were to study for the ministry."

"I had thought of the Church," answered Suydam. He was a tall, spare young fellow, with straight brown hair and a resolute chin. "But I don't know now what I shall do. I have a little money, you know——enough to live on, if I choose. So I may stay here at the Settlement; the work is very interesting."

"No doubt," the novelist responded, readily; "you must see many curious cases. I wish I could cut loose for a while, and spend a month with you here."

"Why don't you?" suggested Suydam, eagerly.

"Oh, I have too much on hand," De Ruyter replied. "I've got to read the Phi Beta Kappa poem at Harvard next week; and besides, I've promised to finish a series of New York stories for theMetropolis. That is why I was on my way to find you this morning. I want you to help me."

"But I never wrote a story in my life," said the young man, promptly.

"I don't want you to write the stories," De Ruyter retorted. "Of course I can do that for myself. But I thought that you could help me to a little local color."

"Local color?" echoed Suydam, doubtfully.

"Yes," the novelist went on, "local color——that's what I want——fresh impressions."

"I don't quite see——" the young man began, hesitatingly.

"Oh, I can explain what I want," Rupert de Ruyter interrupted. "You see, I'm a New-Yorker born, as you are, and I've lived here all my life, and I know the city pretty well——that is, I know certain aspects of it thoroughly. I can do the Patriarchs, or a Claremont tea, or any other function of the smart set; I know the way men talk in clubs; I've studied the painters and the literary men and the journalists; I can describe a first night at the theatre or a panic in the Street; but I've pretty nearly exhausted the people I know, and I thought I would come down here and get introduced to a set I didn't know."

"I shall be glad to take you to the Settlement," Suydam responded, "and——"

"It isn't the Settlement I want, thank you," De Ruyter interrupted. "The people in the Settlement are variants of types I know already. The people I want to meet are people I don't know anything about——the very poor people, the tenement-house people, the people who work for the sweaters. Do you know any of those?"

"Yes," Suydam answered, "I know many of them. But they are not half so picturesque and so pathetic as the sensational newspapers make them out. Wouldn't you rather go and see the Chinese quarter?"

"That isn't what I want," the novelist made answer. "The Chinese quarter is barbarous; it is exotic; it is extraneous; it is a mere accidental excrescence on New York. But the tenement-house people have come to stay; they are an integral and a vital part of the city. I don't care about Chinatown, and I do care about Mulberry Bend. Now, Suydam, you know Mulberry Bend, don't you?"

"Yes," Suydam returned. "I know Mulberry Bend."

"Do you know any tenement-house in the Bend, or near it, which is characteristic——which is typical of the worst that the Bend has to show?" De Ruyter asked.

"Yes," Suydam responded again. "I think I could find a tenement of that kind."

"Then take me there now, if you can spare me an hour or two," said the novelist.

"I can put off my errand till this afternoon," the young man answered. "I think I can show you what you want. Come with me."

They had been standing where they had met, at the corner of the Bowery and Rivington Street. Now, under John Suydam's guidance, they walked a little way up the Bowery, beneath the single track of the elevated railroad. Then they turned into a side street, and pushed their way westward.

Whenever they came to a crossing De Ruyter remarked that three of the corners always, and four of them sometimes, were saloons. The broad gilt signs over the open doors of these bar-rooms bore names either German or Irish, until they came to a corner where one of the saloons called itself the Caffè Cristoforo Colombo. A wooden stand, down the side street, and taking up a third of the width of the walk, had a sign announcing ice-cold soda-water at two cents a glass with fruit syrups; with chocolate and cream, the price was three cents. Right on the corner of the curb stood a large wash-tub half filled with water, in which soaked doubtful young cabbages and sprouts; its guardian was a thin slip of a girl with a red handkerchief knotted over her head.

At this corner Suydam turned out of the side street, and went down a street no wider perhaps, but extending north and south in a devious and hesitating way not common in the streets of New York. The sidewalks of this sinuous street were inconveniently narrow for its crowded population, and they were made still narrower by tolerated encroachments of one kind or another. Here, for instance, from the side of a small shop projected a stand on which unshelled pease wilted under the strong rays of the young June sun. There, for example, were steps down to the low basement, and in a corner of the hollow at the foot of these stairs there might be a pail with dingy ice packed about a can of alleged ice-cream, or else a board bore half a dozen tough brown loaves, also proffered for sale to the chance customer. Here and there, again, the dwellers in the tall tenements had brought chairs to the common door, and were seated, comfortably conversing with their neighbors, regardless of the fact that they thus blocked the sidewalk, and compelled the passer-by to go out into the street itself.

And the street was as densely packed as the sidewalk. In front of Suydam and De Ruyter as they picked their way along was a swarthy young fellow with his flannel shirt open at the throat and rolled up on his tawny arms; he was pushing before him a hand-cart heaped with gayly colored calicoes. Other hand-carts there were, from which other men, young and old, were vending other wares——fruit more often than not; fruit of a most untempting frowziness. Now and then a huge wagon came lumbering through the street, heaped high with lofty cases of furniture from a rumbling and clattering factory near the corner. And before the heavy horses of this wagon the children scattered, waiting till the last moment of possible escape. There were countless children, and they were forever swarming out of the houses and up from the cellars and over the sidewalks and up and down the street. They were of all ages, from the babe in the arms of its dumpy, thick-set mother to the sweet-faced and dark-eyed girl of ten or twelve really, though she might seem a precocious fourteen. They ran wild in the street; they played about the knees of their mothers, who sat gossiping in the doorways; they hung over the railing of the fire-escapes, which gridironed the front of every tall house.

Everywhere had the Italians treated the balcony of the fire-escape as an out-door room added to their scant accommodation. They adorned it with flowers growing in broken wooden boxes; they used its railings to dry their parti-colored flannel shirts; they sat out on it as though it were the loggia of a villa in their native land.

Everywhere, also, were noises and smells. The roar of the metropolis was here sharpened by the rattle of near machinery heard through open windows, and by the incessant clatter and shrill cries of the multitude in the street. The rancid odor of ill-kept kitchens mingled with the mitigated effluvium of decaying fruits and vegetables.

But over and beyond the noises and the smells and the bustling business of the throng, Rupert de Ruyter felt as though he were receiving an impression of life itself. It was as if he had caught a glimpse of the mighty movement of existence, incessant and inevitable. What he saw did not strike him as pitiful; it did not weigh him down with despondency. The spectacle before him was not beautiful; it was not even picturesque; but never for a moment, even, did it strike him as pathetic. Interesting it was, of a certainty——unfailingly interesting.

"I haven't found anything so Italian as this for years," he said to his guide, as they picked their way through a tangle of babies sprawling out of a doorway. "I remember seeing nothing more Italian in my first walk in Italy——up the hill-side at Menaggio, after we landed from the boat to Como. Some of the faces here are of a purer Greek type than any you meet in northern Italy. Did you see that young mother we passed just now?"

"The one nursing the infant?" Suydam returned.

"Yes," De Ruyter went on. "She had the oval face and the olive complexion the Greeks left behind them in Sicily. She was not pretty, if you like, but she had the calm beauty of a race of sculptors. Her profile might have come off a Syracusan coin. And to see such a face here, in the city that was New Amsterdam and is New York!"

"We haven't time down here to think of Syracuse and New Amsterdam," said Suydam; "we are too busy thinking about New York. And if we ever do think of Sicily it is only to remember that the Sicilians we have here are the hottest tempered of all the Italians, the most revengeful and vindictive."

"If I didn't know," the novelist remarked, "that the Italians had developed their mercantile faculty at the expense of all their artistic impulses, I should wonder how it was that scions of the race of Michael Angelo and Leonardo da Vinci and Raffael of Urbino could now be willing to live in a house as hideous as that!" and with a sweep of his hand he indicated a lofty double tenement, made uglier by much misplaced ornament. "It isn't even picturesque by decay. In fact, this whole region is in better repair than I had expected."

"Look at the house behind you," answered his companion.

The house behind them was one of the oldest tenements in the street. The balconies of its fire-escape were as cluttered as those of the neighboring dwellings; and every window gave signs that the room behind was inhabited. Yet the building, as a whole, seemed neglected.

"This house does seem out at elbows and dishevelled," De Ruyter admitted. "It looks like a tramp, doesn't it?"

"It does not look very clean," said Suydam. "And the back building is dirtier yet. That's where we are going, if you like."

"Well," De Ruyter answered, "if there is local color to be found anywhere round here, I guess we shall find a fair share of it in this place."

"This way, then," Suydam said, plunging into a covered alleyway, which extended under the house, and led into a small yard paved with uneven flag-stones, and shut in on all four sides by the surrounding buildings. Even on that sunny pure morning there was a dank chill in the air, and there were patches of moisture here and there on the pavement.

"The new building laws don't allow back buildings of this sort," Suydam explained. "But there are thousands of them in the city, put up before the new laws went into effect. Perhaps we had better try the basement first."

In one corner of the yard half a dozen steps led down into the basement of the back building. Followed by the novelist, the young man from the University Settlement went down these steps and into the cellarlike room, which occupied about half the space under the back building.

The air in this room was so foul that De Ruyter held his breath for a moment. The room was not more than twelve feet square; its walls were unplastered, showing the coarse foundation-stones; its floor was of earth, trodden to hardness, except where the drippings from the beer-cans had moistened it; the beams of the floor above seemed rotten. In the damp heat of this room ten or a dozen men and boys were seated on old chairs and on broken boxes, smoking, playing cards by the light of a single foul and flaring kerosene-lamp, and drinking the dregs of beer-kegs collected in old cans.

The inhabitants of the cellar looked up as Suydam and De Ruyter entered, and then they resumed their previous occupations, with no further attention to the intruders.

The man nearest to the door was a powerfully built fellow of fifty, with gray hair cropped close to his head. He was playing cards. He had a knife thrust in his leathern belt.

"Good-morning, Giacomo," said Suydam to this grizzled brute. "I haven't heard of you for a long while now. When did you get off the Island?"

"Las' week," was the gruff answer.

"And where is your wife now?" the young man asked.

"She work," answered Giacomo.

Suydam did not pursue the conversation further. Judging that the novelist had seen enough, he turned and went up the rickety steps again, followed by his friend.

"Ouf!" said De Ruyter, drawing a long breath, as they stood again in the cramped yard. "I don't see how they can breathe that air and live."

"They don't live," answered Suydam——"at least, the weaker are soon pushed to the wall and die, leaving only the tougher specimens you saw. Now we will go up-stairs, if you like."

"I'm ready," De Ruyter responded. "This is exactly what I came to see."

In the centre of the back building there was an entry. The door was off its hinges. Just inside the passage were the stairs, with the railing broken, and many of the steps dangerously decayed. There was little light as they went up, and a rank odor of decaying fish accompanied them.

At the head of the stairs there was a door on either hand. Suydam knocked at them in turn, and then tried to open them; but they were locked, and there was no response to the repeated hammerings.

"I say," remarked the novelist, as they went up to the floor above, "do these people like to have us intrude on them in this way?"

"Some don't," Suydam answered, promptly, "and of course I try never to intrude. But most of them don't mind. Most of them have no sense of home. Most of them don't know what privacy means. How could they?"

"True," echoed the novelist. "How could they?"

"Here is an exemplification of what I mean," said the young man from the Settlement as they came to the next landing.

The door leading into the room on the right was open. The room was perhaps ten feet square; it contained two beds. On one of the beds a man sat cross-legged sewing; he glanced up for a moment only as the two visitors darkened the doorway, and then he went on with his work. On the other bed were two little children, half naked and asleep; one was a boy of three, the other a girl of nearly two. On the edge of this bed sat a tall boy of seventeen, also sewing. In the narrow alley between the two beds were two sewing-machines, one tended by a girl of fifteen or sixteen perhaps, a thin, stunted child, with bent shoulders. The other machine was operated by the mother of these children, a large-framed woman of forty, with the noble head so often seen among the Trasteverines.

She knew Suydam, and she smiled.

"Good-mornin'," she said.

"Good-morning," responded Suydam. "I am showing a friend over the building. You seem a little crowded here."

"Not crowd' now," she answered. "Only one boarder now," and she indicated the man seated cross-legged on the bed. "Last week two."

"Where is your husband?" asked the young man.

"Oh, he got another girl," she replied, with a vague gesture, apparently of disapproval.

Suydam and De Ruyter went a floor higher, glancing into the rooms which were open. Suydam knew most of the inhabitants, and they seemed glad to see him. Evidently they looked on him as a friend.

On the top floor, under the steps which led to the roof, was a den scarce six feet by eight. Small as it was, this room had better furniture than most of those De Ruyter had seen; it contained evidences of a desire to make a home. There were violent chromos pinned to the wall. The bed had a parti-colored coverlet. The sole inhabitant was a tall, dark Italian with fiery eyes. He was cooking macaroni with ropy cheese over an oil-lamp. His door was ajar only.

"Good-morning, Pietro," said Suydam, cheerfully.

Pietro obeyed his first impulse, and shut the door swiftly. Then he changed his mind, for he opened the door and peered out suspiciously. Recognizing Suydam, he was about to throw it wide, when he caught sight of De Ruyter. There was a moment of hesitancy, and then he took his hand from the knob of the door and went on with his cooking.

"I am showing my friend over the building," explained Suydam.

The Italian said nothing. Apparently his cooking absorbed all his attention. But he gave De Ruyter a searching glance.

Suydam turned to the novelist. "This is Pietro Barretti," he said; "he is one of the most expert layers of mosaic in America. He is from Naples; that's the reason he cooks macaroni so well, I suppose."

"Certainly I haven't seen macaroni cooked that way since I was in Naples last," the novelist remarked, for the sake of talk, not knowing just what to make of the Italian's manner.

"Your wife not here?" asked Suydam.

"No," the Italian answered, abruptly.

"Where is she?" persisted the young man.

"She mort," responded Barretti.

"Dead?" Suydam cried. "That is very sad. When did she die?"

"Ten days," the Italian replied.

When Suydam and De Ruyter had made an end of their visit, and were going down the stairs cautiously, the young man from the University Settlement asked the novelist if he had seen anything interesting.

"Oh yes," was the answer. "I've got lots of color; just what I wanted. And that Italian whose wife was mort——he's copy, I'm sure."

"Copy?" queried Suydam.

"I mean I can use him in one of my sketches for the Metropolis," the novelist explained. "I wish I knew what his wife was like."

"She was a pretty girl——dark-haired, dark-eyed, with a lively smile," Suydam said. "He was very jealous of her. I've been told they used to quarrel bitterly."

"I shouldn't like to have that fellow for an enemy," De Ruyter declared, as they passed through the alleyway and came out in the open air. "He has an eye like a glass stiletto."

The novelist and the young man from the University Settlement walked up the street together. As they drew near to a police-station, jealously guarded by its green lamps, three officers came out and turned down the street.

When the policemen were abreast of the two friends, one of them stepped aside and accosted the young man from the Settlement.

"Mr. Suydam," he said, "you gentlemen from the Settlement sometimes know what's going on better than we do. Have you seen Pietro Barretti lately——the one they call Italian Pete?"

"I saw him not ten minutes ago——in his own room," Suydam answered.

"He's all right, boys," cried the policeman. "He's there."

"Do you want him?" asked Suydam.

"Don't we?" the policeman replied, promptly. "We've got to bring him in."

"What has he done?" De Ruyter inquired.

"Oh, he's done enough!" responded the officer. "He murdered his wife last week, that's what he's done."

Suydam looked at De Ruyter.

"Yes," said De Ruyter, "that completes the picture. I can get a good mot de la fin now."

(1893.)

BEFORE THE BREAK OF DAY

HE lived in a little wooden house on the corner of the street huddled in the shadow of two towering tenements. There are a few frail buildings of this sort still left in that part of the city, half a mile east of the Bowery and half a mile south of Tompkins Square, where the architecture is as irregular, as crowded, and as little cared for as the population. Amid the old private houses erected for a single family, and now violently altered to accommodate eight or ten——amid the tall new tenements, stark and ugly——here and there one can still find wooden houses built before the city expanded, half a century old now, worn and shabby and needlessly ashamed in the presence of every new edifice no better than they. With the peak of their shingled roofs they are pathetic survivals of a time when New York still remembered that it had been New Amsterdam, and when it did not build its dwellings in imitation of the polyglot loftiness of the Tower of Babel. It was in one of these little houses with white clapboarded walls, ashen gray in the paling moonlight, that Maggie O'Donnell lay fast asleep, when the bell in a far-off steeple tolled three in the morning of the day that was to be the Fourth of July.

She was asleep in the larger of the two little rooms over the saloon. In that part of the city there are saloons on every corner almost, and sometimes two and three in a block. The signs over the doors of most of these saloons and over the doors of the groceries and of the bakeries and of the other shops bear strangely foreign names. The German quarter of the city is not far off, nor is the Italian, nor the Chinese; but hereabouts the houses are packed with Poles chiefly, and chiefly Jews——industrious, docile, and saving. Not until midnight had the whir of the sewing-machines ceased in the tenements which occupied the three other corners. The sign over the door of the saloon above which Maggie lay fast asleep bore an Irish name, the name of her husband, Terence O'Donnell. But the modest boards which displayed his name were overawed by the huge signs that flanked them, filling a goodly share of the wall on either street and proclaiming the "McGown's Pass Brewery, Kelly & Company."

These brewer's signs were so large that they made the little house seem even smaller than it was——and it was not more than twenty feet square. The doors of the saloon were right at the corner, of course, to catch trade. On one street there were two windows, and on the other one window and a door over which was the sign "Family Entrance." This door opened into a little passage, from which access could be had to the saloon, and from which also arose the narrow stairs leading to the home of Terence O'Donnell and Maggie, his wife, on the floor above. The saloon filled the whole ground-floor except the space taken up by this entry and the stairs. A single jet of gas had burned dimly over the bar ever since Terry had locked up a little after midnight. The bar curved across the saloon, and behind it the sideboard with its bevelled-edge mirrors lined the two inner walls. The sideboard glittered with glasses built up in tiers, and a lemon lay yellow at the top of every pyramid. The beer-pumps were in the centre under the bar; at one end was the small iron safe where Terence kept his money; and at the other end, against the wall, just behind the door which opened into the Family Entrance, was a telephone.

Up-stairs there were two little rooms and a closet or two. The smaller of the rooms Maggie had turned into a kitchen and dining-room. The larger——the one on the corner——was their bedroom, and here Maggie lay asleep. The night was close and warm, and though the windows were open, the little white curtains hung limp and motionless. The day before had been hot and cloudless, so the brick buildings on the three other corners had stored up heat for fifteen hours, and had been giving it out ever since the sun had set. Stifling as it was, Maggie O'Donnell slept heavily. It was after midnight when Terry had kissed her at the door, and she had been asleep for three hours. Already there were faint hints of the coming day, for here in New York the sun rises early on the Fourth of July——at half-past four. A breeze began to blow lazily up from the East River and fluttered the curtains feebly. Maggie tossed uneasily, reached out her hand, and said "Terry."

Suddenly she was wide awake. For a moment she looked stupidly at the empty place beside her, and then she remembered that Terry would be gone all night, working hard on the boat and the barges making ready for the picnic. She turned again, but sleep had left her. She lay quietly in bed listening; she could catch nothing but the heavy rumble of a brewery wagon in the next street and the hesitating toot of a Sound steamer. Then she heard afar off three or four shots of a revolver, and she knew that some young fellow was up early, and had already begun to celebrate the Fourth on the roof of the tenement where he lived.

She tried to go to sleep, but the effort was hopeless. She was awakened fully, and she knew that there was small chance of her dropping off into slumber again. More than once she had wakened like this in the middle of the night, an hour or so before daybreak, and then she had to lie there in bed quietly listening to Terry's regular breathing. She lay there now alone, thinking of Terry, grateful for his goodness to her, and happy in his love. She lay there alone, wondering where she would be now if Terry had not taken pity on her.

Then all at once she raised herself in bed, and held her breath and listened. For a second she thought she heard a noise in the saloon below her. She was not nervous in the least, but she wished Terry had not left so much money in the safe; and this was the first night he had been away from her since they had been married——nearly two years ago. She strained her ears, but the sound was not repeated. She sank back on the pillow again, making sure that it was a rat dropping down from the bar, where he had been picking up the crumbs of cheese. There were many rats in the cellar, and sometimes they ventured up even to the bedroom and the kitchen next door.

Time was when it would have taken a loud noise to wake the girl who was now Terence O'Donnell's wife out of a sound sleep. After her mother died, when Maggie was not five years old, her father had moved into one of the worst tenements in the city, a ram-shackle old barrack just at the edge of Hell's Kitchen; and there was never any quiet there, day or night, in the house or in the street. There was always a row of some sort going on, whatever the hour of the day; if profanity and riot could keep a girl awake she would never have had any sleep there. But Maggie did not recall that she had been a wakeful child; indeed, she remembered that she could sleep at any time and anywhere. On the hot summer nights, when her father came home intoxicated, she would steal away and climb up to the roof and lie down there, slumbering as healthily as though she were in their only room.

Even then her father used to get drunk often, on Saturday night always, and frequently once or twice in the middle of the week. And when he had taken too much he was mad always. If he found her at home he beat her. She could recall distinctly the first time her father had knocked her down, but the oaths that had accompanied the blow she had forgotten. He had not knocked her down often, but he had sworn at her every day of her life. The vocabulary of profanity was the first that her infant ears had learned to distinguish.

Her father quit drinking for a month after he married again. They moved away from Hell's Kitchen to a better house near the East River. All went well for a little while, and her step-mother was good to her. But her father went back to his old ways again, and soon his new wife turned out to be no better. When the fit was on they quarrelled with each other, and they took turns in beating Maggie, if she were not quick to make her escape. It was when aiming a blow at Maggie one Saturday night that her father pitched forward and fell down a flight of the tenement-house stairs, and was picked up dead. The neighbors carried him up to the room where his wife lay in a liquorish stupor.

Maggie was nearly fourteen then. She went on living with her step-mother, who got her a place in a box-factory. The first days of work were the happiest of Maggie's girlhood. She remembered the joy which she felt at her ability to earn money; it gave her a sense of being her own mistress, of being able to hold her own in the world. And she made friends among the other girls. One of them, Sadie McDermott, had a brother Jim, who used to come around on Saturday night and tease his sister for money. Jim belonged to a gang, and he never worked if he could help it. He had no trade. Maggie remembered the Saturday night when she and Sadie had walked home together, and when Jim got mad because his sister would not divide her wages with him. He snatched her pocket-book and started to run. When Maggie reproved him with an oath and caught him by one arm, he threw her off so roughly that she fell and struck her head on a lamp-post so hard that she fainted.

As Maggie lay in her bed that Fourth of July morning, while her past life unrolled itself before her like a panorama, she knew that the scar on the side of her head was not the worst wound Jim McDermott had dealt her. As she looked back, she wondered how she had ever been friendly with him; how she had let him follow her about; how she had allowed him to make love to her. It was on Jim McDermott's account that she had had the quarrel with her step-mother. Having robbed a drunken man of five dollars, Jim had invited Maggie to a picnic; and the step-mother, a little drunker than usual that evening, had said that if Maggie went with him she would not be received again. Maggie was not one to take a dare, and she told Jim she would go with him in the morning. The step-mother cursed her for an ungrateful girl; and when Maggie returned with him from the picnic late the next night, and came to the door of the room where she and her step-mother lived, they found it locked against her, and all Maggie's possessions tied in a bundle, and scornfully left outside on the landing.

It had not taken Jim long that night to persuade Maggie to go away with him; and she had not seen her step-mother since. A week later, but not before he and Maggie had quarrelled, Jim was arrested for robbing the drunken man; he was sent up to the Island. Since the picnic Maggie had not been back to the factory. Jim had taken her with him one night to a dance-hall, and there she went without him when she was left alone in the world. There she had met Terry a month later. When she first saw Terry the thing plainest before her was the Morgue; she was on the way there, and she was going fast, and she knew it. Although winter had not yet come, she had already a cough that racked her day and night.

And as she lay there in her comfortable bed, and thought of the chill of the Morgue from which Terry had saved her, she closed her eyes to keep out the dreadful picture, and she clinched her fists across her forehead. Then she smiled as she remembered the way Terry had thrashed Jim, who had got off the Island somehow before his time was up. Jim said he had a pull with the police, and he came to her for money, and he threatened to have her taken up. It was then Terry had the scrap with him, and did him up. Terry had had a day off, for his boss kept closed on Sundays; at that time Terry was keeping bar at a high-toned café near Gramercy Park.

When he thrashed Jim that was not the first time Terry had been good to her. Nor was it the last. A fortnight later he took her away from the dance-hall, and as soon as he could get a day off he married her. They went down to the Tombs, and the judge married them. The judge knew Terry, and when he had kissed the bride he congratulated Terry, and said that the new-made husband was a lucky man, and that he had got a good wife.

A good wife Maggie knew she had been, and she was sure she brought Terry luck. When the man who had been running the house which now bore the name of Terence O'Donnell over its door got into trouble and had to skip the country, the boss had put Terry in charge, and had let Maggie go to house-keeping in the little rooms over the saloon; and when the boss died suddenly, his widow knew Terry was honest, and sold out the place to him, cheap, on the instalment plan. That was a year and a half ago, and all the instalments had been paid except the last, which was not due for a week yet, though the money for it lay all ready in the safe down-stairs. And Terry was doing well; he was popular; his friends would come two blocks out of the way to get a drink at his place; and he had just had a chance to go into a picnic speculation. He was sure to make money; and perhaps in two or three years they might be able to pay off the mortgage on the fixtures. Then they would be rich; and perhaps Terry would get into politics.

Suddenly the current of Maggie's thoughts was arrested. From the floor below there came sounds, confused and muffled, and yet unmistakable. Maggie listened, motionless, and then she got out of bed quickly. She knew that there was some one in the saloon down-stairs; and at that hour no one could be there for a good purpose. Whoever was there was a thief. Perhaps it was some one of the toughs of the neighborhood, who knew that Terry was away.

She had no weapon of any kind, but she was not in the least afraid. She stepped cautiously to the head of the stairs, and crept stealthily down, not delaying to put on her stockings. The sounds in the saloon continued; they were few and slight, but Maggie could interpret them plainly enough; they told her that a man having got into the house somehow, had now gone behind the bar. Probably he was trying to steal the change in the cash-drawer; she was glad that Terry had locked all his money in the safe just before he went off.

When Maggie had slipped down the stairs gently, and stood in the little passageway with the door into the saloon ajar before her, she felt a slight draught, and she knew that the thief had entered through a window, and had left it open. Yet there was no use in her calling for assistance. The only people within reach of her voice were the poor Poles, who were too poor-spirited to protest even if they saw her robbed in broad daylight; they were cowardly creatures all of them; and she could not hope for help from them as she would if they were only white men. The policeman might be within reach of her cry; but he had a long beat, and there was only a slim chance that he was near.

Her head was clear, and she thought swiftly. The thing to do, the only thing, was to make use of the telephone to summon assistance. The instrument was within two feet of her as she stood in the passage, but it was on the other side of the door at the end of the bar, and therefore in full view of any one who might be in the saloon. And it would not be possible to ring up the central office and call for help without being heard by the robber.

Having made up her mind what it was best for her to do, Maggie did not hesitate a moment; she pushed the door gently before her and stepped silently into the saloon. As the faint light from the single dim jet of gas burning over the bar fell upon her, she looked almost pretty, with the aureole of her reddish hair, and with her firm young figure draped in the coarse white gown. She glanced around her, and for a second she saw no one. The window before her was open, but the man who had broken in was not in sight.

As she peered about she heard a scratching, grating noise, and then she saw the top of a man's head just appearing above the edge of the bar behind which his body was concealed. She knew then that the thief was trying to get into the safe where Terry's money was locked up.

Leaving the door wide open behind her, Maggie took the two steps that brought her to the telephone, and rapidly turned the handle. Then she faced about swiftly to see what the man would do.

The first thing he did was to bob his head suddenly under the bar, disappearing wholly. Then he slowly raised his face above the edge of the bar, and Maggie found herself staring into the shifty eyes of Jim McDermott.

"Hello, Maggie!" he said, as he stood up. "Is that you?"

She saw that he had a revolver in his right hand. But she put up her hand again and repeated the telephone call.

"Drop that!" he cried, as he raised the revolver. "You try to squeal and I'll shoot——see?"

"Where did you steal that pistol, Jim McDermott?" was all she answered.

"None o' your business where I got it," he retorted. "I got it good and ready for you now. I kin use it too, and don't you forget it! You quit that telephone or you'll see how quick I can shoot. You hear me?"

She did not reply. She was waiting for the central office to acknowledge her call. She looked Jim McDermott square in the eyes, and it was he who was uncomfortable and not she.

Then the bell of the telephone rang, and she turned and spoke into the instrument clearly and rapidly and yet without flurry. "This is 31 Chatham. There's a burglar here. It's Jim McDermott. Send the police quick."

This was her message; and then she faced about sharply and cried to him, "Now shoot, and be damned!"

He took her at her word, and fired. The bullet bored a hole in the wooden box of the telephone.

Maggie laughed tauntingly, and slipped swiftly out of the door, but not swiftly enough to avoid the second bullet.

Five minutes later when the police arrived, just as the day was beginning to break, they found Jim McDermott fled, the window open, the safe uninjured, and Maggie O'Donnell lying in the passageway at the foot of the stairs, her night-gown stained with blood from a flesh wound in her arm.

(1893.)

A MIDSUMMER MIDNIGHT

FTER three years' service at sea on the flag-ship of the White Squadron, Lieutenant John Stone had a long leave of absence. It was late in the afternoon of one of the hottest days of August when he left the navy-yard and took the ferry to New York. The street-car in which he rode across town crawled along, the horses seeming to be exhausted by the wearing weather of the preceding fortnight, and the driver had no energy to keep them up to their work.

It mattered little to John Stone how slowly they went; he was in no hurry; he had nothing to do; he had nobody waiting for him. At forty he was alone in the world, without a blood-relation anywhere or any nearer than a second cousin, without a home, without an address, except "Care of the Navy Department, Washington, D.C." He was almost without ambition even in the service now, for he had not yet had a command, and he would not get his step for three or four years more. He was fond of his profession, and of late he had been working lovingly at its early history. He had come to New York now to look up in the libraries a few missing links in an account of the rise and fall of Carthage as a sea power. To be near the books he had to consult, he was going to stay at a hotel within two or three blocks of Washington Square.

When he had registered at the hotel, the clerk, reading his name upsidedown, said, courteously: "I'm sorry we can't do better for you, Mr. Stone, but I shall have to put you on the sixth floor. You see, we are overrun with our Southern and Western trade now; they have found out that New York is the finest summer resort in the country. The best I can do for you is to give you a room on the Avenue, with a bath-room attached."

"That will do very well," Stone answered.

"Front!" called the clerk. "Show Mr. Stone up to 313."

When the naval officer reached room 313 it was nearly six o'clock. He threw open the window and looked down at the street below. Even at that height the heat welled up from the stone sidewalks and from the brick walls opposite. To his ear it seemed almost as though the mighty roar of the metropolis rose to him muffled and made more remote by the heat. He lighted a cigar and leaned out of the window, and wondered how many people there were in all the city whom he knew by sight, and how very few there were who could call him by name.

A sweltering wind from the west swayed the thick and dusty branches of the trees which lined the curb far down below him. He threw his cigar away half smoked. Then he took a cold bath, and went down to the dining-room somewhat refreshed.

At the table to which the head waiter waved him there was already one man sitting, a tall, handsome young fellow of twenty-five, perhaps. Stone liked the man's face, and he liked the way the flannel shirt was cut so as to leave the full throat free. The manner in which the simple scarf was knotted and its ends tucked into the shirt he noticed also; and he saw that the young fellow had insisted on bringing his black slouch hat with him into the dining-room, having hung it on the back of the next chair. When this seat was given to Stone, the hat was promptly transferred to the chair on the other side of the owner. Stone made up his mind that his neighbor was a ranchman of some sort, who had come East on business.

It does not take long for two lonely men to get acquainted; and before he had eaten his green corn, Stone knew all about his neighbor at table, and the neighbor knew something about him.

"I sized you up when you come in," the young fellow said, "an' I took stock in you from the start. Somehow I kind o' thought you was one of Uncle Sam's boys, though o' course I didn't 'low you was a sailor. I never see a sailor till this mornin', when I went down on the dock to get news of this Touraine steamer, an' the sailor down there was a Frenchman, an' not like you, not by a jugful. I suppose, now, Uncle Sam's sailors are like his other boys I've seen at home often. There's Dutchmen that ain't bad men, an' I've seen Dagoes you could tie to, and sometimes a greaser, now and then——not but what they's powerful skase, greasers you can trust——but Uncle Sam's boys are white men every time."

The young fellow was Clay Magruder. He was a cowboy, as Stone had supposed, and he was in New York on a mission of the highest importance to himself. He was waiting for the girl he wanted to marry, and she was expected to arrive the next morning on the French steamer.

"The grub here ain't so bad, is it?" Magruder said, as the repast drew to an end. "O' course it ain't like what we get at home. I don't find nowhere no beef that's equal to the beef we've been gettin' right along now for two years, ever since I've been with Old Man Pettigrew. The Hash-knife Outfit always has the best cookin' on the trail. It's jest notorious for it. Things here in New York is good enough, but the flavor don't take hold of you like it does at home; an' their coffee East is poor stuff, ain't it? It don't bite you like coffee should."

After dinner they went into the smoking-room of the hotel, and Stone offered a cigar to his new friend.

"No, thank you," he responded, taking a small brier-wood pipe out of his trousers-pocket. "I don't go much on cigars; I can git more solid comfort out of a pipe, I reckon." After he had filled his pipe and pulled at it half a dozen times, he said to Stone, suddenly: "Say! is there any show in town to-night? I've got a night off, you know, and I've allus heerd that for shows New York could lay over everything in sight. You've been to this town before, haven't you?"

Stone admitted that this was not his first visit to New York.

"I reckoned so," was Clay Magruder's comment. "An' so you know your way here, an' I don't; there's too many trails crossin' for me to keep to the road. Suppose we go to the show together——ef there is a show in town?"

Stone bought an evening paper, and looked over the list of amusements. He wondered what would best suit the tastes of his new friend.

"There's Deadwood Dick's Wild Western Exhibition at Niblo's——" he began.

"Deadwood Dick?" interrupted the cowboy, in great contempt; "he's a holy show, he is. He's a fraud; that's what he is. An' is he the only thing we can take in to-night?"

"Oh no," the sailor replied. "There are half a dozen other things to see. There's a comic opera at the Garden Theatre, with a variety show up in the roof garden afterwards."

"A comic opera——singing, and funny business, and pretty girls, I suppose?" said the Westerner. "I reckon we'd might as well go there——unless you'd rather go somewhere else."

"The comic opera and the roof garden will just suit me," Stone responded.

They were fortunate in getting good seats at the theatre, where they arrived as the curtain was rising on the first act of "Patience." Even in midsummer the attire of Stone's new friend attracted some attention, and a group of pretty girls in the row behind them nudged each other as he came in and giggled. In their hearts they were glad to look at so handsome a man.

During the first act Magruder's face was a study for Stone. It was evident that the cowboy failed wholly to understand the narrow and insular satire of "Patience." When the curtain fell at last, he could contain himself no longer.

"I never see such a fool play," he said. "There ain't no sense in makin' believe that one fellow could round up a bunch of girls that way. It's the plumb-stupidest show I've seen for years and years. It's bad as Deadwood Dick 'most. 'Patience' they call it? Well, I 'ain't got none to see no more of it. What's this roof garden you told me about?"

So Stone took him up to the roof garden, and they were glad to get again into the open air, baked as the atmosphere was even at the top of the building. They had a drink and a smoke while they listened to the music.

When the variety show began on the little stage, Stone went forward in time to secure advantageous positions for Magruder and himself. Early on the programme was a French song by a highly-colored young lady wearing an enormous hat.

"That's a good enough song," the cowboy declared, "but what sort of a lingo is it she's singin' it in? Why isn't plain United States good enough for songs? Not but what she's a pretty girl, too, and lively on her feet."

The part of the performance which excited Clay Magruder's warmest appreciation was the serpentine dance of Mademoiselle Éloise. When he beheld the coiling draperies of that graceful young woman curving about in picturesque and unexpected convolutions, and heightened in effect by the changing colors of the lime-lights directed upon the stage, his enthusiasm rose to a height.

"That's some!" he cried. "It reminds me of an Eyetalian gal I saw dance once in Cheyenne. She was a daisy, too; but this is bigger. They's no doubt about it, this is a heap bigger."

Magruder joined in accomplishing the inevitable recall and the repetition of a part of the dance. Perhaps this was the reason why the next two or three numbers of the programme seemed to him to be less interesting. At all events, both the cowboy and the sailor tired of the entertainment. So they made their way through the crowd and down to the street.

As they walked back to the hotel Magruder told Stone what had brought him to New York. It was to meet the Touraine on her expected arrival in the morning, and to persuade one of the passengers to marry him.

"She's jest got to marry me," he said, earnestly. "I can't get along without her any longer. She's a sort of governess to Old Man Pettigrew's sister's kids——learns them to read and play the pianner. They was all in Miles City last winter, and that was when I first see her. I made up my mind right off on the spot that there was Mrs. Clay Magruder if I could get her. And I'm here now to get her if I can. She's as pretty as a picture——better'n that, too, for I never see no chromo half as good-lookin' as her. Once last winter they was 'most a blizzard; leastways the wind set back on its hind-legs and howled. You ought to have seen her then, with the color in her cheeks! An' everything was froze stiff, and she was skeered of fallin'. Why, she teetered along jest like a chicken with a jag." And he laughed out loud at the recollection. "She'll be here in the mornin', and you shall see her. I'm goin' to be down on that dock good an' early to-morrow, and no French sailor ain't goin' to stand me off."

As they drew near to the hotel, Magruder remarked: "Say! ain't they a jag-factory somewheres round here? Come in and have one with me."

Stone went with him, and they drank the young lady's health, Magruder expatiating on her charms and on the happiness that awaited him when he should marry her. Then they crossed the street to the hotel and went up to their rooms.

As it happened, the room of Clay Magruder was exactly opposite John Stone's, so it was at their own doors that they parted for the night with a hearty grasp of the hand.

The sailor found the air of his room stifling. He threw wide the window and stood for a while looking out over the heated city as it lay around him in the darkness. He wondered what the girl was like whom Magruder had come East to meet, and he caught himself almost envying the cowboy. Then he sighed unconsciously and made ready for bed. As he wound up his watch he saw that it was nearly half-past eleven. Five minutes afterwards he was asleep.

He had been asleep but five minutes, as it seemed to him, when he was waked slowly with a slight difficulty in breathing, and with the feeling that all was not well. While he was still drowsy, he was conscious of a crackling sound like the snapping of dry twigs. When he opened his eyes he found that they smarted. The first long breath that he drew filled his lungs with thin smoke. In an instant he was wide awake. The meaning of the crackling and the snapping was not doubtful. The hotel was on fire.

He sprang out of bed and opened the door of his room. The corridor was full of smoke, and the sound of the flames was louder. At the bend in the hall where the stairs were, sharp tongues of flame were licking around the corner. Stone saw that his retreat that way was cut off, and that he must rely on the windows for escape. He crossed to the door opposite, pounded at it heavily, and cried "Fire! Fire! Get up at once!" till Clay Magruder answered. The floor of the corridor was hot beneath his feet as he went back to his own room, closed the door, and dressed himself as swiftly as he could, the murmur of the fire growing nearer and nearer.

When he was still in his shirt-sleeves he stepped again to the corridor and called across to Magruder.

The door opposite opened, and the cowboy appeared in it, half-dressed.

"The stairs are on fire," cried Stone; "we can't get out that way. We must try the windows. Take your sheets and your blankets and come in here."

"I wish I'd a couple of lariats here," said Magruder, as he went back for the bed-linen.

The air in the hall was now thick and suffocating, and the stairs at the corner were a furnace of fierce flames. Here and there thin threads of smoke were rising from the floor of the corridor.

The cowboy reappeared in his doorway, with his arms full of bedclothes.

"Come in here quick, so that I can get this door shut and keep out the smoke," said the sailor, standing back to leave the doorway open.

As Magruder stepped out of his room, the floor of the corridor gave way with a crash, and a red-hot gulf yawned between the two rooms. Stone leaned far forward to try and save his new friend. But the falling of the floor was too sudden, and Magruder went down into the roaring furnace below, from which the flames sprang up fiercely. In a moment he was lost to sight in the seething fire. Stone stood stock-still for a second, bent over the blazing opening, with his arm out-stretched until the heat scorched it. Then he rose to his feet swiftly and shut the door behind him.

His own room was now full of smoke, and he knew that the door would be on fire in less than a minute. He threw open the window and looked down, seeing at once that his bedding alone would be useless, as it would take him down two stories at the most, while the fire had already broken out at the front of the building. He discovered that there was a ledge or narrow cornice running around the house just on the end of his floor. He stepped out upon this, and closed the window behind him. As he did so, the flames burst through from the corridor into his room.

Standing outside of his window on the narrow ledge, which gave him a scant foothold, he saw in front of him on his right what he had not before observed——a tall tower with an illuminated clock face. The hands pointed to four minutes past midnight. From the street below there arose a confused murmur of noises——shouts and cries of command, the rattle of heavy wheels as the engines rushed up, the regular rhythmic beat of the pumps as they got into play, the hissing of steam as a dozen streams of water curved upward and smote the burning building. The foliage of the trees which lined the curb was so thick that Stone could not see the sidewalk just below him, and apparently those in charge of operations had not seen him.

The sailor had faced death before——he had weathered many a fierce gale at sea; he had been at Samoa during the hurricane; he had been overboard for an hour once in the Bay of Biscay——and he was not afraid to die. He recalled his sensations when he believed himself to be drowning, and he remembered that his dominant thought had been that such a death then and there was needless and served no purpose. On that occasion he was more or less passive, being spent with the struggle against the waves; at present he was strong and ready to make a fight for his life. Then he had to contend with water, and now he knew that water was his chief hope.

At that moment there came a louder roar from far down in the street below: the water-tower had arrived. It was speedily erected and in service, and from its long trunk a thick stream of water was forced into the blazing hotel perhaps fifty feet from where Stone was standing. He watched it at work, and then he raised his eyes and again caught sight of the illuminated dial, whereon the hands now pointed to seven minutes after midnight.

Stone wondered whether the firemen would be able to get the better of the flames. He doubted it, but he wished that he could take part in the fight. It was rather the helplessness of his position than its fearfulness that he felt most keenly. He was in danger, and the danger was deepening with every minute of delay, but he could do nothing. The ledge on which he was standing was barely a foot wide, and it was perhaps ten feet long. Its length measured the width of his room, which projected a yard or more beyond the main line of the building. Stone moved cautiously to the right till he came to the end of the ledge, in the hope that it continued around the side, and that by following it he might pass along the whole front of the hotel, and perhaps find some way to escape to the roof of the house next door.

But the hope was futile, for the slight cornice shrank away as it turned back till it was barely an inch wide. The sailor was used to an insecure footing at a great height, and his nerves were steady; but he knew that it was certain destruction for him to try to advance in that direction. With his back pressed tight to the wall, he glided along to the window, now lighted up by the flames which filled his room. He pushed past it to the left until he came to the end of the ledge on that side, finding that the projection ceased on the one hand as it had on the other. He felt himself a prisoner, held fast, with little hope of rescue; neither to the right nor to the left could he move; behind him was the wall of the blazing hotel, and before him was a sheer drop of sixty feet to the street below. He glanced down for an instant, and then raised his head again. To the right, in the distance, was the clock-tower, and it was now nine minutes past twelve. He wondered if the clock had stopped suddenly, for it seemed to him nearly an hour since he had awaked to find himself in peril of his life.

He thought of Magruder, and he wondered why the man who had hopes and joys before him should be cut off, while the man who had little to live for should be given a chance for his life. That the cowboy had perished in the flames he had no doubt; and in a flash his imagination bore him outside of the exigencies of the moment, and he had a vision of the Touraine making her way past Sandy Hook, and drawing near to Staten Island and anchoring there, too far from the city for its passengers to see the glare of the conflagration. Yet the fire was one to be seen from afar, for there was a sullen roar, and the roof of a wing of the hotel fell in. A myriad of sparks was blasted upward, and the crowd in the street raised a loud shout of warning. Stone looked down, and he saw a woman at a window of the floor below him; she was shrieking with terror, and at last she gave a wild spring forward. He beheld her crash through the branches of the trees, and he heard her body strike the sidewalk. There was a yell of horror from the crowd, and then silence. A few seconds later Stone caught the quick clang of an ambulance bell in the side street. He counted the strokes automatically until they died away in the distance. His ear was so strained to catch this sound that he heard the rattle of a train stopping at the station of the elevated railroad only a block away, and he seized even the shrill squeak of the brakes as they grated against the wheels. Then he aroused himself, and wondered why he had noted such trifles. Turning his head, he found the single eye of the clock-tower still beaming at him. He blinked stupidly before he saw that it was now thirteen minutes after twelve.

More engines had arrived in the street below, and another hook-and-ladder truck. Several small ladders had been put up to the lower windows, and women and children had been carried down in safety. Stone watched while the firemen tried to raise one of the taller ladders which might reach to the third or fourth floor. The branches of the trees were so close that the men found it impossible to get this longer ladder into position. A man was sent up into the tree, and he was cutting away the branches, when flames burst out of the nearest window. A torrent of water was at once directed into the window, while a second stream splashed down upon the tree and made a watery shield for the fireman, who went on lopping off the limbs. He labored swiftly, but the fire was swifter still. At almost the same time the flames burst forth from three or four other of the lower windows.

Stone had been noting every effort of the men below. At first he had not been seen. But after the man had cut away a few of the branches of the tree, two or three of the firemen caught sight of the sailor. They shouted to him, but in the roar of the fire behind him and below him he could not make out their words. A captain gave a sudden command, and two men sprang forward with short scaling-ladders, which they succeeded in hooking to the second-story window immediately below the ledge on which he was standing. Looking down, he could see the heads of these men as they climbed the ladders, their bodies being foreshortened into invisibility. The men could not get above the second story, for the fire was gushing forth as though the window were the mouth of hell. The smoke rose black and dense, enshrouding Stone.

He saw that it was useless to hope that they could now get a ladder up to him; the flames would not give them time. The wall behind him was becoming hotter, and the heat had broken the glass of the window of his room. The fire was creeping along the roof above his head, and every now and again it peered over the edge at him, as though seeing how far it had still to go before it could grasp him. The smoke from below was thickening, and threatened to choke him. Through its haze he could see the cyclops eye of the clock-tower gloating over his inevitable fate. The hands on the illuminated dial had slowly crept forward, and it was now nearly twenty minutes past twelve.

Stone knew that his position was untenable for many seconds longer. At any moment the wall might fall back and bury him in the blazing ruins. To remain was impossible; and there seemed no way of escape. A crash shook the building, and then another; and he guessed that two of the floors had fallen in. He slid along again to the end of the narrow ledge and tried to peer around the corner, in the vague hope that there might be some possible means of escape. He found that he could not twist his head far enough to see anything while his back was flat against the wall. To turn was to risk a fall to the pavement below. He looked down fearlessly, and calculated his chances if he missed his footing. Immediately beneath him the tree was taller than its fellows, and its foliage was thicker; it was barely possible that the branches might break his fall; but the chance was slim. The smoke poured heavily from the window three feet from him. He hesitated no longer, but turned slowly and steadily. His nerves were unshaken, and he executed the manœuvre in safety. Standing with his face to the wall——which rose sheer above him, and which gave him no hold for his hands——he was able to thrust out his head sideways and to look around the corner. What he saw gave him a thrill of hope.

His room projected perhaps a yard beyond the main line of the building, forming what might be termed a square bay-window. From his position on the narrow shelf of marble, which ran around the front of the hotel on every floor, he thought he could reach forward and touch the main wall of the building. And here was his one possible chance of escape. In the corner formed by the junction of the projection and the main line there was the leader which conducted the rain-water from the roof. It was of tin only, and in the eyes of the sailor gazing at it with upspringing hope it seemed frail, insecurely fastened, perhaps rotten. But it offered a chance, and the only chance, of life, and therefore it was welcome. Stone prepared to make the best of it.

He gave a final glance around before he made the irrevocable move. He caught sight of the clock, and he saw that it was twenty-two minutes after midnight. He reached forward, and he found that the space was wider than he had thought. It was with the tips of his fingers only that he could touch the tin pipe; it was beyond the reach of his grasp. Yet to seize it was the one way to the street below. He did not hesitate. He stood on his left foot on the very end of the ledge, with his right foot dangling in space. He made a carefully measured plunge forward, and he gripped the leader with his left hand and then instantly with his right. It yielded under the sudden strain, but it did not part. With the habit of a sailor, he clasped his legs about it, and so eased the pressure. Then he began slowly to slide down, gaining velocity as he descended.

At every floor there was a shelf of stone like that on which he had stood outside his window, and through which the tin tube passed. Stone had therefore to release his feet, and by his hands alone to cling to the pipe, which spread from the wall with the weight of his body. Then he clasped his legs again below the ledge and let go one hand after the other. The tin was broken and jagged here and there, and Stone's flesh was cut to the bone. But he did not notice this in the tension of his swift descent.

When he came to the first floor and tried to take a fresh grip with his legs, he found nothing to clasp with his knees. From there to its connection with the gutter the pipe went inside the building. Stone hung from the ledge by his hands, not knowing how far he was above the sidewalk. The smoke was pouring up from the cellar grating beneath him, and in a minute he would have suffocated. So he let go.

The drop was ten feet or more, and he came down on a trunk which had been thrown out of a window. From this he pitched to the sidewalk with a broken leg and a dislocated shoulder. He was dimly conscious of being lifted gently, and of a brief but painful ride. The sharp clang of the ambulance bell he felt as though it were a physical blow.

When he came to himself again it was morning, and he was in bed in a long room with a row of cots on both sides of it, under the slanting sunbeams.

He lay still, wondering.

The occupant of the next bed was unfolding a newspaper, and Stone heard him say to the nurse, with an Alsacian accent: "Ve're goin' have nodder hot day; I vonder how dhose people yust back from Paris on dhe Douraine vill like dot?"

(1892.)

A VISTA IN CENTRAL PARK

T was the last Sunday in September, and the blue sky arched above the Park, clear, cloudless, unfathomable. The afternoon sun was hot, and high overhead. Now and then a wandering breeze came without warning and lingered only for a moment, fluttering the broad leaves of the aquatic plants in the fountain below the Terrace. At the Casino, on the hill above the Mall, men and women were eating and drinking, some of them inside the dingy and sprawling building, and some of them out-doors at little tables set in curving lines under the gayly colored awnings, which covered the broad walk bending away from the door of the restaurant. From the bandstand in the thick of the throng below came the brassy staccato of a cornet, rendering "The Last Rose of Summer." Even the Ramble was full of people; and the young couples, seeking sequestered nooks under the russet trees, were often forced to share their benches with strangers. Beneath the reddening maples lonely men lounged on the grass by themselves, or sat solitary and silent in the midst of chattering family groups.

The crowd was cosmopolitan and unhurried. For the most part it was good-natured and well-to-do. There was not a beggar to be seen; there was no appealing poverty. Fathers of families there were in abundance, well-fed and well-clad, with their wives and with their sons' wives and with their sons' children. Maids in black dresses and white aprons pushed baby-carriages. Young girls in groups of three and four giggled and gossiped. Young men in couples leaned over the bridge of the Lake, smoking and exchanging opinions. There was a general air of prosperity gladly displaying itself in the sunshine; the misery and the want and the despair of the great city were left behind and thrust out of mind.

"TWO SLIM JAPANESE GENTLEMEN"

Two or three yards after a portly German with a little boy holding each of his hands while a third son still younger rode ahead astride of his father's solid cane, there came two slim Japanese gentlemen, small and sallow, in their neatly cut coats and trousers. A knot of laughing mulatto-girls followed, arm in arm; they, too, seemed ill-dressed in the accepted costume of civilization, especially when contrasted with half a dozen Italians who passed slowly, looking about them with curious glances; the men in worn olive velveteens and with gold rings in their ears, the women with bright colors in their skirts and with embroidery on their neckerchiefs. Where the foot-path touched the carriage-drive there stood a plain but comfortably plump Irishwoman, perhaps thirty years of age; she had a baby in her arms, and a little girl of scant three held fast to her patched calico dress; with her left hand she was proffering a basket containing apples, bananas, and grapes; two other children, both under six, played about her skirts; and two more, a boy and a girl, kept within sight of her——the girl, about ten years old, having a basket of her own filled with thin round brown cakes; and the boy, certainly not yet thirteen, holding out a wooden box packed with rolls of lozenges, put up in red and yellow and green papers. Now and again the mother or one of the children made a sale to a pedestrian on his way to the music. The younger children watched, with noisy glee, the light leaps of a gray squirrel bounding along over the grass behind the path and balancing himself with his horizontal tail.

The broad carriage-drive was as crowded as any of the foot-paths. Bicyclists in white sweaters and black stockings toiled along in groups of three and four, bent forward over the bars of their machines. Politicians with cigars in the corners of their mouths held in impatient trotters. Park omnibuses heavily laden with women and children drew up for an instant before the Terrace, and then went on again to skirt the Lake. Old-fashioned and shabby landaus lumbered along with strangers from the hotels. Now and then there came in sight a hansom cab with a young couple framed in the front of it, or a jolting dog-cart, on the high seat of which a British-looking young man was driving tandem. Here and there were other private carriages——coupés and phaetons, for the most part, with once and again a four-in-hand coach rumbling heavily on the firmly packed road.

A stylish victoria sped along, spick and span, with its glistening harness and its jingling steel chains, with its stalwart pair of iron-gray steppers and with two men on the box, correct and impassive. Suddenly, as it passed close to the walk at the end of the Terrace, the coachman drew up sharply, pulling his horses back on their haunches and swearing inaudibly at the plump Irishwoman who had dropped her basket of fruit just in time to rescue one of her children from being run over.

"It's more careful ye ought to be!" cried the mother, as she stood again on the walk with her daughter clasped to her waist.

"We are very sorry, indeed," said the lady in the victoria, leaning forward. "It was an accident."

"An accident, was it?" returned the Irishwoman. "An' it's an accident, then, ye wouldn't like if it was yer own children ye were runnin' over like that."

The childless couple in the carriage looked at each other for a moment only; and then the husband said, swiftly, "Drive on, John!"

He was a man of fifty, spare in frame and round-shouldered; he had a keen glance, and a weary smile came and went on his lips, not hidden by his sparse gray moustache. His wife was a woman of perhaps thirty, tall, dark, with passionate eyes and a full figure.

She was still leaning forward, clinching the side of the carriage as it turned northward and rolled along by the side of the Lake. Her voice showed that her excitement had not subsided, as she faced her husband again and said: "John is getting very careless. That is the third time this week he has nearly run over a child!"

"He has not quite run over one yet. It will be time enough to discharge him when he does," her husband answered, calmly. "That little girl there is none the worse for her fright. She seemed a pretty little thing, and she has been saved to grow up in a tenement-house and to go to the devil ten years from now. So her mother has cause to be thankful."

His wife looked at him indignantly. "I suppose," she said, "you mean that it is a pity that John didn't run over the child and kill her."

"I didn't mean that exactly," he responded. "But perhaps it is true enough. Death is not the worst thing in this world, you know."

"You are always talking of dying," returned his young wife, impatiently. "I wonder you don't commit suicide."

"I have thought of it," he answered, looking at her with a tolerant smile. "But life amuses me still——I have so much curiosity, you know. But I might do it, if I were sure I could have the privilege of coming back to see what you will be up to when I'm gone."

She looked straight before her and made no answer, keeping her lips firmly compressed.

There was a touch of tenderness in his tone as he went on, a curious cynical tenderness, quite characteristic of him. "Don't let some rascal marry you for my money. That would annoy me, I confess. And yet, I don't know why I should suggest the possibility of such a thing, for you will be a most fascinating widow."

She gazed ahead steadily and said nothing, but she had joined her hands together, and her fingers kept moving.

"Still," he continued, "I'm afraid I'm good for ten years more. We're a hardy stock, you know. My father lived to be eighty, and he was fifty when I was born. Besides, you take such good care of me always."

He held out his hand to her, and she took it and clasped it tight in both of hers, while the tears brimmed her eyes.

"But perhaps you are letting me stay out too long this afternoon," he said. "It is balmy, I know, but I'm getting tired already."

"John," she cried, hastily, "you may turn now, and go home."

"I don't want you to lose this lovely September afternoon," her husband declared. "Take me home, and come back to the Park here for an hour, while I have a nap, if I can."

Just then there was a break in the stream of vehicles, and the coachman took advantage of it and turned the horses' heads southward. In five minutes the victoria swerved to the westward, leaving the Lake behind, and making for the Riverside Drive.

The Lake was gay with boats. Black gondolas with white canopies and brilliant American flags were propelled adroitly by their standing boat-men. Light canoes were paddled briskly in and out of the bays and channels, where the ducks and swans swam lazily about. Young fellows in their shirt-sleeves tugged inexpertly at the oars of row-boats laden down with young women. By regular and easy strokes the Park watermen rowed the capacious barges, with their striped awnings, in the prescribed course around the Lake. The oars flashed in the flickering sunlight, and the sunshine gilded the prows of the distant canoes as they shot across the vista. The yellow leaves of the maples high on the bank over the opposite shore fluttered loosely away on the doubtful breeze, and at last fell languidly into the water. To the west a towering apartment-house lifted itself aloft over the edge of the Park, and seemed to shorten the space between. To the east the gilded dome of a new synagogue rose over the tree-tops. Above all was the blue concave of the calm and illimitable sky.

When the victoria, with its two men on the box and with its pair of high-stepping horses, returned to the Park, and skirted the Lake again, and approached the Terrace, the lady sat in it alone. As she came in sight of the Mall she bent forward, eagerly looking for the little girl whom they had almost run over half an hour earlier.

Near the Terrace she saw the pleasant-faced Irishwoman, with her basket of fruit in one hand and the baby in the other arm; the three little children were playing about their mother's feet, while the elder boy and girl were only a few yards away.

The lonely woman in the victoria bade the coachman draw up.

Seeing the carriage stop at the side of the road the Irishwoman came forward, proffering her fruit. Then she recognized the lady and checked her approach, hesitating.

The handsome woman in the carriage smiled, and said, "Which is the little girl we almost ran over?"

"That's the one," answered the mother, indicating the slip of a child who was now clasping the edge of the fruit-basket while staring at the strange lady with wide-open eyes.

"What a pretty child she is!" said the lady. "I hope she is none the worse for her fright?"

"Ye didn't break any bones, if that's what ye mean," the mother responded.

"And how old is she?" was the next question.

"She'll be three years old come Christmas," was the answer.

The lady in the carriage felt in her pocket, and brought out her purse and looked through it.

"Here," she said at last, as she took out a five-dollar gold-piece; "here is something I wish you would give her on Christmas morning as a present from me. Will you?"

"I will that," the mother replied, taking the money, "and gladly too. It's richer than her sisters she'll be now."

"How many children have you?" the lady inquired.

"Six; thank ye, ma'am, for askin'," was the response, "an' all well and hearty."

"Six?" echoed the woman in the victoria, with a hungry gleam in her eyes. "You have six children?"

"It's six I have," the mother answered; "and it's a fine lot they are altogether, though I say it that shouldn't."

The lady put her hand in her purse again.

"Buy something with this for the others," she said, placing a bank-note in the Irishwoman's hands. Then she raised her voice and added, "You may drive on, John!"

As the victoria rolled away to the westward the fruit-vender courtesied, and the children all looked after the carriage with interest.

"That lady must be very rich," said the eldest boy, the one who had the lozenges for sale. "I shouldn't wonder if she had two millions of dollars!"

"She must be very happy," the eldest girl added. "I suppose she can have ice-cream every day, and go to the Seaside Home for two weeks whenever she wants."

"It's a kind heart she has anyway, for all her money," was the mother's comment, as she unfolded the bank-note and saw the X in the corner of it.

Meanwhile the lady in the victoria was eaten with bitter thoughts as the carriage rattled along in the brilliant sunshine beneath the unclouded sky.

"Six children!" she was saying to herself. "That Irishwoman has six children! Why is it that some women have so much luck?"

(1893.)

THE SPEECH OF THE EVENING

HE more immaterial part of the banquet was about to begin. The guests had made an end of eating, and the waiters were filling the small cups with black coffee, and passing boxes of cigars and cigarettes. At the five long tables which gridironed the great room the hum of conversation rose higher and higher; while at the shorter table, raised on the platform at the western end of the hall, there was almost silence, as the men who were to make speeches saw the oratorical moment approaching. The musicians, hidden behind a screen of greenery, were playing a medley of the latest popular airs; and here and there, at the tables below, a little group of the diners now and again took up a chorus, with intermittent energy, to the amusement of the ladies who were arriving and filling rapidly the broad boxes in the galleries.

The organizers of the dinner had felt that it was a great occasion, and they had sought to make it memorable artistically. The severe white of the beautifully proportioned concert-hall was relieved by foliage plants, massed and scattered with a delicate understanding of decorative effect; against the absolutely colorless walls, with their carved caryatides, were palms in pots; gayly colored silken banners floated down from the ceiling; and everywhere, on the ceiling and the walls and the balconies and the platforms, the electric lights glowed and twinkled, illuminating the lofty hall with steady brilliancy.

Near the eastern end of one of the long tables there sat a young man——at least, he was barely thirty. He was so placed that he had before him the whole scene. He had an uninterrupted view of the raised table, where the speakers were absorbed in self-communion. He commanded the entrance to the gallery opposite, and he could see the ladies as they arrived in little groups, eager for the unwonted pleasure of attendance at a great public dinner. He could hear the feminine chatter rising shrill above the masculine babble below. He gazed at the boxes curiously, as though he did not know any of the ladies in them; and he remained quiet while the diners about him at that end of the table exchanged salutations with the occupants of one box or another. Apparently he had few if any acquaintances even on the floor of the hall, the men on each side of him being generally engaged in conversation with their neighbors.

Seemingly his solitude was lightly borne, and he found solace for it in amused observation of the gathering. He lighted his own cigar, and was soon helping to make the blue haze which hung over the tables, rising in time almost to the level of the boxes in the long balconies.

Yet he was not averse to conversation, and when his right-hand neighbor turned back to pick up a fresh cigarette, he took occasion to say, "It isn't usual to let ladies in at dinners here in New York, is it?"

"No," his right-hand neighbor responded, with a slight but obvious German accent, "I don't think it is. I've been lifing in New York for a long vile now——'most eleven years——and I never saw it before."

Then the right-hand neighbor, having lighted his cigarette, sat back in his chair again and resumed his interrupted talk with the man on the other side of him.

The young man who was apparently a stranger was allowed to keep silence only for a minute or two, however, as his left-hand neighbor, to whom he had hardly spoken during the dinner, now engaged him in conversation.

"I thought it was about time they did that," said the neighbor, indicating the waiters who were removing the potted orange-trees and the sugar-trophies from the upper table. "Now we can see who's who."

"I suppose those are the more distinguished guests?" the young man suggested.

"Most of the men who are going to make speeches are up there," the neighbor responded. "Hello, hello! there's Alexander Macgregor down at that end there, the one with the full red beard. He's the President of the St. Andrew's Society. He's a first-rate American, too, for all he was born in Edinburgh. You know, he's the man they call the 'Star-spangled Scotchman.'"

"And who is that clean-shaved, clean-looking, fair-haired man next to him?" asked the young man.

"That?" the neighbor replied, "that's——oh, I forget his name——but he's the President of the St. George's Society, I think. He's an Englishman——that is, he was; I suppose he's been naturalized——but then you can never tell about Englishmen, can you? They will live in a place for years, and they will be Britons to the backbone all the time."

"Who is the presiding officer?" was the next question.

"Don't you know him?" the neighbor retorted. "Why, that's Crowninshield Eliot, the lawyer. He used to be President of the New England Society. He's a clever man and he makes a rattling good speech sometimes, but then he's mighty uncertain. He may speak well or he may make a bad break. A speech from him is a regular grab-bag——you never know what you are going to have. But things don't get rusty when he is around, I tell you. You can rely on him to wake all the other speakers up. And I guess we shall have some fun before we get through; it isn't often you see so many representative New-Yorkers together; it's really a typical gathering."

The young man made no response to this, being for the moment busy with his own ironic thoughts.

"Now there's a man who will make the fur fly if he gets a chance," continued the loquacious neighbor, "that tall, thin, dignified-looking man, with the black goatee and mustache; that's Colonel Fairfax. He's Secretary of the Southern Society——all rebels, you know, but reconstructed by this time, most of them. He's District Attorney for the second term now, and you ought to hear him talk to a jury. He could get a verdict against the angel Gabriel for stealing the silver trumpet. When I was on the grand jury last year he——"

Here the young man's neighbor interrupted himself to say, "Hello, hello! that is odd, isn't it? Right next to Colonel Fairfax is the man who was foreman of our grand jury; I didn't catch sight of him till that waiter took away that candy Statue of Liberty. See him? The bald one with the scar on his jaw; it's a bullet wound he got at Shiloh. That's S. Colfax Morrison; he was major of the 200th Ohio, but he's been living in New York for ten years now at least. That's 'the Ohio idea' they talk about: to come to New York to live as soon as they can. I was born in Ohio myself."

And the talker let his loquacity taper off into a laugh, in which the young man joined courteously.

There was a sudden diminution of the roar of talk as the gentleman sitting in the middle of the raised table rose to his feet and rapped for silence. Even in the boxes, now filled to overflowing with ladies, the chatter ceased as the man who had been selected to preside over the dinner began his remarks by recalling the event they had met to commemorate. In felicitous phrases and with neatly turned strokes of humor he declared the reason why they were assembled together. And when he had made an end of this, he announced that the first toast of the evening would be "New York, the Empire City, sitting at the gates of commerce, and holding the highways of trade."

There was a burst of applause and a pushing back of chairs as all the guests rose with their glasses in their hands.

Then the presiding officer prepared to introduce the speaker who was to make the response to this important toast.

"I saw only this morning," he began again, "the report of some remarks made by a Senator from Nevada, in which New York was called a 'city of kites and crows.' There are Congressmen who cannot open their mouths without disseminating miscellaneous misinformation; and the only appropriate retort would be with the plain-spoken bowie of the mining-camp or with the unambiguous derringer of Nevada. No adequate answer is possible in the sterilized vocabulary permitted to us by the conventions of modern society. And yet it is well that once in a while New York should assert herself——that she should celebrate herself——that she should rest from her mighty labors, if only for a moment, to contemplate her own great work. We are fortunate in having with us here to-night a man who can do justice to this imposing theme, a man who loves New York as we all love her, who is proud of New York as we are all proud of her——a man whom there is no need for me to introduce to an assembly of New-Yorkers. Works of supererogation are discountenanced, and who is there here who does not know Horace Chauncy?"

As the chairman ceased the gentleman who had been sitting at his right rose, and immediately there was great applause from all parts of the hall. Men clapped their hands and rapped upon the table with the handles of their fruit-knives. Even the ladies in the boxes waved their handkerchiefs.

Then, as the chairman, having done his duty, took his seat, there was the customary hum of anticipated enjoyment, dying away swiftly as Mr. Chauncy prepared to speak.

The left-hand neighbor of the young man down at the far end of the long table turned to him again, and said, "Now you keep your eyes open. I shouldn't wonder if this was the speech of the evening."

The young man looked at the new speaker and liked his face, at once masterful and intelligent. Mr. Chauncy's attitude was one of conscious strength and of perfect ease. He was a man of fifty, perhaps, with gray hair and a curling gray mustache.

"Upon a mellow October night like this," the speaker began, and his voice was rich and firm, while his delivery was as clear as a line engraving——"upon a mellow October night like this, possible in no other city in this country or in Europe, I think, and illustrative of the fact that here in New York we have really a climate, while most of the other great towns of the world have only weather——upon a night like this, and under this graceful tower, uplifting its loveliness into the azure air and topped by a Diana fairer than that of the Ephesians smiling down upon gardens more beautiful than any ever hanging in Babylon, there is no need for me to present any defence of the Empire City, or to proffer any apology for her. If you seek for proof of her superiority, look about you here to-night, and remember that nowhere else in the United States could any such company as this be gathered together; nowhere else in the United States is there a banquet-hall so beautiful; nowhere else in the United States would a feast like this be graced by the presence of so many lovely women. Yet I feel that I should be derelict to my duty——that I should let slip a precious occasion——if I did not dwell for a while upon a few of the many things in the history of this city which give her proud pre-eminence; which make her what she is——the mighty and magnificent metropolis of a great people."

Again the applause broke forth. After a pause the speaker continued, having the attention of every man and woman in the hall. Even as he warmed to his subject he preserved the perfection of his delivery, and he poured forth facts, figures, illustrations, one after the other, with never a broken accent or a blurred syllable.

"I will not detain you by detailing the many natural advantages of New York——the noble river which sweeps by on one side and the arm of the ocean which embraces the other, and the spacious and beautiful bay, with its harborage ample for all the fleets of all the nations of the earth. It is not my purpose to-night to linger long over the works of art which make this island of ours distinguished as the works of nature have made possible her prosperity; and therefore I shall say nothing of the Statue of Liberty, of the Brooklyn Bridge, of the Riverside Drive, of the libraries and the museums and the colleges and the churches; I shall even say nothing of Central Park, truly the finest single work of art yet produced by any American, and, simply as a work of art, unequalled by any pleasure-ground of Europe."

There was another burst of applause, but the speaker scarcely waited for it to die down before he began again.

"Passing by these works of God and man, ever present before our eyes, I am going to call your attention to things less material——to things which do not cling to our remembrance as they ought. Secure in our material prosperity, we New-Yorkers do not always recall those incidents in the history of the city which deserve to be forever memorable. We are not often accused of modesty——but we are over-modest, are we not?——when we allow our children to be taught that the first bloodshed of the Revolution was in the Boston Massacre, forgetting that the Liberty Pole fight took place in New York six weeks earlier. It was here in New York that the Stamp Act Congress met, the forerunner of the federation of the American colonies which cast off the British yoke. And in the long and weary war of the Revolution only one of the thirteen colonies furnished its full quota of men, money, and supplies——and that colony was the colony of New York!"

Once more was the speaker interrupted by a tumult of approval; and once more he went on again as soon as he could make himself heard.

"When the critical period in the history of this country came——that is, when the need of a new constitution was felt by all——no men had a larger share in the making of that constitution than two New-Yorkers, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, while the nervous English of that great instrument was due to a third New-Yorker, Gouverneur Morris. It was in New York that the foundations of American literature were laid, by the publication of Knickerbocker's History, the earliest book to be printed in America which keeps its popularity to-day——and more than fourscore years have not yet tarnished its humor. To the author of this immortal book, to Washington Irving, was due the first work of American authorship which won acceptance outside of the boundaries of the United States. And as it was the Sketch-Book of Washington Irving which was the first American book to win its way in England, so it was the Spy of another citizen of New York, Fenimore Cooper, which was the first American book to achieve fame outside of the English language. It was here in New York that our American literature was first fostered, as it is here in New York that our American authors are most abundant, most highly honored, and most richly rewarded."

The speaker paused again, but only for a moment.

"As in letters, so in the arts. Here in New York the National Academy of Design was founded, and later the Society of American Artists; and to two painters of New York, to Robert Fulton and to Samuel F. B. Morse, we owe the steamboat and the telegraph. Here in New York was founded the Children's Aid Society——than which no city in the world has a nobler charity——the first of the kind and the most successful. Here in New York, also, Peter Cooper established the first institution intended to provide instruction to all ambitious youth——an institution that has been imitated in almost every city of the Union, although no city of the Union has ever had a citizen more esteemed or better beloved than was Peter Cooper here in New York. It is not in 'a city of kites and crows' that men of Peter Cooper's character choose to dwell; it is not in 'a city of kites and crows' that men of Peter Cooper's character are cherished and revered."

Here the speech was again broken into by prolonged applause. Men rose to their feet and cheered, waving their napkins over their heads.

When there was quiet once more the speaker went on:

"After years of peace and of prosperity, the people of the United States suddenly found themselves face to face with armed rebellion, and war loomed before us inevitable. New York was ready then as always. The first regiment to reach the capital of the country——to secure it against traitors——was a regiment of New York City militia. Nor was there ever after any lack of men here in this city who despised the snares of death and defied the pains of hell, and who went into battle bravely, and gayly, and glad that——in the words of one of them——glad that 'there is lots of good fighting along the whole line.' I have been told——I confess I have not been able to verify the figures——but I have been told, that the number of men who enlisted into the army and the navy of the United States from this city of ours during those four long years of doubt and anxiety exceeded the number of the male inhabitants of fighting age in the year when the rebellion broke out. And not content with furnishing men to fight, the city of New York saw to it that the wounded were duly attended to and their anguish lightened as far as might be——for it was here that the United States Sanitary Commission was organized."

There were cheers once more and yet again, and it was not for a full minute that the speaker was enabled to continue.

"Your applause tells me that I need say no more," he began. "A successful city is the spoiled child of fortune, and perhaps, like other spoiled children, it is all the better for a sound thrashing now and then. But what has New York done amiss now, that she should be scourged with scorpions? In the welter of politics it may be considered adroit to suggest that your opponent is either a wolf in sheep's clothing or an ass in a lion's skin; but it is more adroit still, it seems to me, to avoid personality altogether. The louder the report of the gun, the more violent the kick is. When a New-Yorker hears his beloved town called 'a city of kites and crows' his first impulse is to laugh; his second is to inquire as to the man who said it; and his third is to laugh again and louder when he discovers that the author of this assertion is from Nevada, a state where even Santa Claus on Christmas Eve does not dare go his rounds for fear of being held up by road-agents!"

This time a burst of hearty laughter mingled with the abundant applause as the speaker sat down.

"That's a very good speech," the young man who seemed to be a stranger said to his left-hand neighbor.

"Good speech?" echoed the other enthusiastically; "I should think so. It's the speech of the evening, sure! There's not one of them can beat that."

"I've been in Japan for the past five years, and I seem to have lost track of people here in the city," said the young man. "What is the name of the gentleman who made the speech?"

"Horace Chauncy," was the answer. "I thought everybody knew him. His father was United States Senator from West Virginia, and his mother was a famous Kentucky belle in her day. He himself used to be the leader of the California bar before he moved here a few years ago. He caught on at once in New York; he's one of the most popular speakers we have now; some fellows call him 'Our Horace.' Haven't you ever heard about him, really?"

"Well," the young man retorted, "you mustn't expect me to know all these people. You see, I was born in New York."

(1894.)

A THANKSGIVING-DAY DINNER

HANKSGIVING Day had dawned clear and cold, an ideal day for the foot-ball game. Soon after breakfast the side-streets had been made hideous by small bands of boys, strangely disguised as girls some of them, or as Indians and as negroes, with improvised costumes and with staring masks; they blew fish-horns, and besought coppers. A little later in the day groups of fantasticals paraded on horseback or in carriages; and straggling target companies——some of them in the uniforms worn during the political campaign which had culminated in the election three weeks earlier——marched irregularly up the avenues under the elevated railroads, preceded by thin lines of pioneers, and by slim bands of music that played spasmodically before the many adjacent saloons, at the doors of which the companies came to a halt willingly.

The sun shone out and warmed one side of the street as people came from church; and the wind blew gently down the avenues, and fluttered the petals of the yellow chrysanthemums which expanded themselves in many button-holes. Little groups of young people passed, the girls with knots of blue at their throats or with mufflers of orange and black, the young men with college-buttons or with protruding handkerchiefs of the college colors. The fashionable dealers in men's goods had arranged their windows with impartial regard for future custom——one with blue flannels and scarfs, shirts and socks, and the other all orange and black. Coaches began to go by, draped with one set of colors or the other, and filled with young men who split the air with explosive cheers, while waving blue pennants with white letters, or yellow pennants with black. The sun shone brightly, and the brisk breeze shivered the bare branches of the trees. It rippled the flags which projected from the vehicles gathering at Madison Square and streaming up the avenue in thick succession——coaches, private carriages, omnibuses, road-wagons of one kind or another.

Towards nightfall the tide turned and the coaches began to come back, the young men hoarse with incessant shouting of their staccato college cries. Some of them, wild with joy at the victory of their own team, had voice still for exulting yells. Others were saddened into silence by the defeat of their side. Most of those who had gone out to see the game belonged neither to the college of the blue nor to the college of the black and orange, but they were all stimulated by the struggle they had just seen——a struggle of strength and of skill, of gumption and of grit. The sun had gone down at last, and the bracing breeze of noon had now a touch of dampness which chilled the flesh. But the hearty young fellows paid no heed to it; they cheered and they sang and they cried aloud one to the other as though the season were spring, and they were alone on the sea-shore.

Robert White caught the fever like the rest, and as he walked down the avenue to the College Club he was conscious of an excitement he had not felt for years. He was alone in the city for a week, as it happened, his wife having taken the children into the country for a long-promised visit; and he had been spending his evenings at the College Club. So it was that he had joined in chartering a coach, and for the first time in a dozen years he had seen the foot-ball game. He had been made happy by the success of his own college, and by meeting classmates whom he had not laid eyes on since their Commencement in the heat of the Centennial summer. One of them was now the young governor of a new Western State, and another was likely to be a member of the new President's cabinet.

On the way out to the game White had sat beside a third classmate, now a professor in the old college, and they had talked over their four years and their fellow-students. They recalled the young men of promise who had failed to sustain the hopes of the class; the steady, hard-working fellows, who were steady and hard-working still; the quiet, shy man who had known little Latin and less Greek, but was fond of science, and who was now developing into one of the foremost novelists of the country; the best base-ball player of the class, now the pastor of one of the leading churches of Chicago; and others who had done well for themselves in the different walks of life. They talked over the black sheep of the class——some dead, some worse than dead, some dropped out of sight.

"What has become of Johnny Carroll?" asked the professor.

"I have not seen him since class-day. There was some wretched scandal before Commencement, you know, and I doubt if Johnny ever got his degree," White answered.

"I know he didn't," the professor returned. "He never dared to apply for it."

"They managed to keep the trouble very quiet, whatever it was," White went on. "I never knew just what the facts were."

"I didn't know then," responded the professor; "I have been told since. But there is no need to go into that now. The girl is dead long ago, and Johnny too, for all I have heard."

"Poor Johnny Carroll," White said; "I can remember how handsome he looked that last night, the night of class-day. But he was always handsome and always well dressed. He was not very clever or very anything, was he? Yet we all liked him."

COMING FROM CHURCH

"I remember that he tried to get on the Freshman crew," the professor remarked, after a pause, "but the temptations of high living were too much for him. He wouldn't train."

"Training was just what he needed most," White added; "moral and mental as well as physical. Fact is, he always had more money than was good for him. His father was in Wall Street then, and making money hand over fist."

"It wasn't till the year after we were graduated that old Carroll committed suicide, was it?" the professor inquired. "Blew out his brains in the bath-tub, didn't he?"

"And didn't leave enough money to pay for his funeral," White answered. "Johnny was in hard luck always: he had too much money at first, and none at all when he needed it most."

"His great misfortune," said the professor, "was that his father was 'one of the boys.'"

"Yes," White agreed, "that is pretty rough on a fellow. I wonder where Johnny is, if he is alive? Out West, perhaps, prospecting on a grub stake, or else stoker on an ocean steamer, or perhaps he's a member of the Broadway squad, earning a living by elbowing ladies over the crossing."

"I hope he has as good a berth as that," the professor answered; "but I don't believe that Johnny Carroll would stay on the force long, even if he got the appointment. Do you remember how well he sang 'The Son of a Gamboleer'?"

It was this question of the professor's which Robert White remembered after he had got off the coach and was walking towards Madison Square. Three young fellows, mere boys two of them, were staggering on just in front of him. They were arm in arm, in hope of a triplicate stability quite unattainable without more ballast than they carried, and they were singing the song Johnny Carroll had made his own in college. The wind was still sharpening, and the wooden signs which projected across the sidewalk here and there swung heavily as they felt its force. There were knots of eager young men and boys going to and fro before the brilliantly lighted porticos of the hotels.

As White stepped aside to get out of the way of one of these groups, rather more hilarious than the others, he knocked into a man who was standing up against the glaring window of a restaurant. The man was thin and pinched; his face was clean-shaven and blue; his clothes were threadbare; his attitude was as though he were pressing close to the glass in the hope of a reflected warmth.

"I beg your pardon," cried White.

The man turned stiffly. "It's of no con——" he began, then he saw White's face in the bright light which streamed across the sidewalk. He stopped, hesitated for a moment, and then turned away.

The moment had been enough for White to recognize him. "Johnny Carroll!" he called.

The man continued to move away.

White overtook him in two strides, and laid a hand on his shoulder. "Johnny!" he said again.

The man faced about and answered doubtfully, "Well, what do you want?"

"Is this really you, Johnny Carroll?" asked White, as he held out his hand.

"Oh yes," said the other, "it's Johnny Carroll——and you are Bob White."

White's hand was still extended. After a long pause his classmate took it. White was shocked at the chill of Carroll's fingers. "Why, man," he cried, "you are cold."

"Well," the other answered, simply, "why not? It isn't the first time." Then, after a swift glance at White's face, he turned his own away and said, "I'm hungry, too, if you want to know."

"So am I," said White, cordially. "I was going to have my Thanksgiving dinner alone. Will you join me, Johnny?"

"Do you mean it?" asked the other.

"Why shouldn't we dine together?" White responded, setting off briskly and putting his arm through his classmate's. "Our team has won to-day, you know——eighteen to nothing; we'll celebrate the victory."

"Where are you taking me?" inquired Johnny, uneasily.

"To the College Club, of course," answered White. "We'll——"

"I mustn't go there," said Johnny, stopping short. "I couldn't face them now. I——oh, I couldn't!"

"Very well, then," White agreed. "Where shall we go? What do you say to Delmonico's?"

Again Johnny asked: "Do you mean it? Honest?"

"Of course I mean it, Johnny," he replied.

"I haven't been in Delmonico's for ten years and more," said the other. "I'd like to have just another dinner there. But you can't take me there. Look at me!"

White looked at him. The thin coat was buttoned tight; it was very worn, and yet it was not ragged; it was in better condition than the hat or the boots.

As the two men stood there facing each other on the corner of the street there was a foretaste of winter in the wind which smote them and ate into their marrow.

White linked his arm again in his classmate's. "I've seen you look sweller, Johnny, I confess," he said; "but I haven't dressed for dinner myself to-night."

"So it's Delmonico's?" Johnny asked.

"It's Delmonico's," White responded.

"Then take me into the café," said the other. "I can stand the men, I think, but I'm not in shape to go into the restaurant where the women are."

"Very well," agreed White. "We'll try the café."

When they entered the café it was crowded with young men. There was already a blue haze of smoke over the heads of the noisy throng. Boys drinking champagne at adjacent tables were calling across to each other with boisterous merriment.

White was able to secure a small table near the corner on the Broadway side. As he walked over to it he nodded to half a score of acquaintances, some of whom looked askant at his companion, and exchanged whispered comments after he had passed.

Apparently Johnny neither saw the looks nor heard the whispers. He followed White as if in a dream; and White had noticed that when they had entered the heated room Carroll had drawn a long breath as though to warm himself.

"I don't need an overcoat in here," he said, as he took the chair opposite White's with the little marble-topped table between them.

When the waiter had deftly laid the cloth, Johnny fingered its fair softness, as with a cat-like enjoyment of its cleanness.

"Now, what shall we have?" asked White, as the waiter handed him the bill of fare in its narrow frame. "What would you like?"

"I?" the guest responded; "oh, anything——whatever you want——some roast beef."

"Then your taste has changed since you left college," White declared. "I asked you what you would like."

"What I'd like?" echoed Johnny. "Do you mean it? Honest?"

White smiled as the old college phrase dropped again from the lips of his classmate.

"Of course I mean it," he said; "honest. There's the bill of fare. Order what you please. And remember that it is Thanksgiving, and that I'm hungry, and that I want a good dinner."

"Very well, then," said Johnny, as he took the bill of fare. He was already warmer, and now he seemed to expand a little with the unwonted luxury of the occasion.

He looked over the bill of fare carefully.

"Blue Points on the half-shell, of course," he began, adding to the waiter, "be sure that they are on the deep shell. Green turtle soup——the green turtle here used to be very good fifteen years ago. Filet de sole, à la Mornay——the sole is flounder, I suppose, but à la Mornay a man could eat a Hebrew manuscript. Then a canvas-back apiece——two canvas-back, you understand, real canvas-back, not red-head or mallard——with samp, of course, and a mayonnaise of celery. Then a bit of Chedder cheese and a cup of coffee. How will that suit you, White?"

"That will suit me," White responded. "And now what wine?"

"Wine, too?" Johnny queried.

White smiled and nodded.

"Well, I'll go you," the guest went on. "I might as well see the thing through, if you are bound to do it in style." He turned over the bill of fare and scanned the wine list on the under side. "Yquem '74 with the oysters; and they tell me there is a Silver Seal Special '84 brut that is better than anything one has tasted before. Give us a quart of that with the duck. And let us have it as soon as you can."

He handed the bill of fare to the waiter, and then, for the first time, he ventured to glance about the room.

The oysters were brought very soon, and when Johnny had eaten them and part of a roll, and when he had drunk two glasses of the Yquem, White said to him: "Tell me something about yourself. What have you been doing all these years?"

Johnny's face fell a little. "I've done pretty nearly everything," he answered, "from driving a Fifth Avenue stage to keeping books for a Third Avenue pawnbroker. I've been a waiter at a Coney Island chowder saloon. Two summers ago I waited on the man who has just taken our order——I waited on him more than once. I've dealt faro, too."

The waiter brought the soup and served them.

When he left them alone again, White asked: "Can't some of your old friends help you out of this——give you a start and set you up again?"

"It's no good trying," Johnny replied. "You can't pull me up now. It's too late. I guess it was too late from the start."

"Why don't you drop this place?" White queried, "and go out West, and——"

"What's the use of talking about that?" Johnny interrupted. "I can't live away from New York. If I got out of sight of that tower over there I'd die."

"You will die here soon enough at this rate," White answered.

"That's so, too," admitted Johnny; "but it can't be helped now." He was eating steadily, sturdily, but not ravenously.

After the waiter had served the fish, White asked again, "What can we do for you?"

"Nothing," Johnny answered——"nothing at all. Yes, you can give me a five, if you like, or a ten; but don't give me your address, or the first time I'm down again I'd look you up and strike you for ten more."

A band of undergraduates, twenty of them or more, four abreast, arm in arm, went tramping down Broadway, yelling forth the chorus of a college song.

"You used to sing that song, Johnny," said White.

"I used to do lots of things," he answered, as the waiter opened the champagne.

"I never heard anybody get as much out of 'The Son of a Gamboleer' as you did," White continued.

"I joined a negro-minstrel troupe as second tenor twelve years ago, but we got stranded in Hartford, and I had to walk home. I've tried to do a song and dance in the Bowery dime museums since then, more than once. But it's no use."

When they had made an end of the canvas-backs and the brut '84, Johnny sat back in his chair and smiled, and said, "Well, this was worth while."

Then the coffee came, and White said, "You forgot to order the liqueur, Johnny."

"You see what it is to be out of practice," he replied. "I'd like some orange curaçoa."

"And I will take a little green mint," said White to the waiter. "And bring some cigars——Henry Clays."

"That's right," Johnny declared. "My father was always a Henry Clay man, and I suppose that's why I like those cigars."

After the cigars were lighted White looked his companion square in the face. "Are you sure," he asked, "that we can do nothing for you?"

"Dead sure," was the answer.

"Nothing?"

"You have given me a good dinner," said Johnny. "That's enough. That's more than most of my old friends would give me. And there's nothing more to be done."

White held his peace for the moment.

Johnny took a long sip of his coffee, and drew three or four times at his cigar. "That's a first-rate cigar," he said. "I haven't smoked a Henry Clay for nearly two years, and then I picked up one a man had lighted, between the acts, outside of Daly's."

He puffed at it again with voluptuous appreciation, and then leaned across the table to White and remarked, confidentially, "Do you know, Bob, 'most everything I've cared for in this world has been immoral, or expensive, or indigestible."

"Yes," White admitted; "I suppose that's the cause of your bad luck."

"I've had lots of luck in my life," was the response, "good and bad——better than I deserved, most of it——this dinner, for example; I should remember it even without to-morrow's dyspepsia. But what's the use of anticipating evil? I'll let the next day take care of itself, and make the best of this one. There are several hours of it left——where shall we go now?"

(1892.)

IN THE MIDST OF LIFE

T was late in the afternoon when John Suydam turned into Twenty-third Street, and he remarked the absence of the gleam of color generally visible far away to the westward beyond the end of the street and across the river. There was no red vista that Christmas Eve, for the sky was overcast and lowering, and there was a damp chill in the air, a premonition of approaching snow. It was about the edge of dusk as he skirted Madison Square and saw the electric-lights twinkle out suddenly up and down Fifth Avenue, and in the square here and there.

The young man crossed Broadway, skilfully avoiding a huge express wagon, and springing lightly out of the path of a clanging cable-car. He crossed Fifth Avenue, threading his way through the carriages and the carts piled high with paper-covered packages. The white walls of the hotel on the opposite side of Twenty-third Street were dingy under the leaden sky as the haze of the swift twilight settled down. The wind died away altogether, and yet the atmosphere was raw and dank. Suydam bought an evening paper from the crippled newsboy who sat in his rolling-chair, warmly wrapped against the weather, and seemingly cheerful and contented with his takings.

A few steps farther the young man passed an old French sailor standing on the curb-stone, and using his single hand to wind the machinery of a glazed box, wherein a ship was to be seen tossing on the regular waves while a train of cars kept crossing a bridge which spanned an estuary. Almost under the sailor's feet there was an old woman huddled in a dirty heap over a tiny hand-organ, from which she was slowly grinding a doubtful and dolorous tune. By her side, but a little beyond, two boys were offering for sale green wreaths and stars and ropes of greenery, to be used in festooning. Close to the broad windows of a dry-goods store, whence a yellow light streamed forth, a tall, thin man had a board on a trestle, and on this portable table he was showing off the antics of a toy clown who tumbled artlessly down a steep flight of steps. The people who hurried past, with parcels under their arms, rarely stopped to look at the ship tossing on the waves, or to listen to the hesitating tune of the wheezy organ, or to buy a bit of green or a performing clown. Yet the open-air bazaar, as it might plainly be called, the out-door fair, extended all the way along the street, and on both edges of the sidewalk the fakirs were trying to gather in their scanty Christmas harvest.

Before John Suydam came to the corner of Sixth Avenue the snow began at last to fall; the first flakes descended hesitatingly, scurried by a brief wind that sprang up for a minute or two, and then died away absolutely. After a while the snow thickened and fell faster, sifting down softly and silently, but filling the air under the electric-lights which were clustered at the corner, and reddening under the glare of the engines on the elevated railroad overhead, as the cars rushed along girt with swirling clouds of steam. The snow clustered upon the boughs of the unsold Christmas-trees which stood irregularly along the sidewalk before a florist's a few doors down Sixth Avenue, and by the time Suydam had turned the corner, they looked like the shrouded ghosts of balsam pines.

All along the avenue he had to make his way through the same crowds of belated Christmas shoppers, hurrying in and out of the overgrown stores, availing themselves of their last chance to buy gifts for the morrow; but as he advanced, the throng thinned a little, driven home perhaps by the snow-storm. Yet though the purchasers were fewer, the peddlers persisted. Suydam noted one old man, bent and shrivelled, and with a long gray beard, who had a tray before him hung on a strap over his shoulders, and on the narrow board were plaster figures of Santa Claus carrying aloft a branching Christmas-tree besprinkled with glittering crystalline flakes. Under the hood of the staircase of the station of the elevated railroad he saw a little blind woman wrapped in a scant shawl, silently proffering half a dozen lead-pencils. And high over the centre of the roadway the snow-clad trains thundered up and down, with white plumes of steam trailing from the engines.

As Suydam neared Fourteenth Street he found the crowds compacting again; and at the corner there was a chaos of carriages, carts, and street-cars. The flights of stairs leading to the elevated railroad station were packed with people bearing bundles and boxes, most of them, ascending and descending with difficulty, jostling one another good-naturedly. Long lines of children of all ages spread along the wide plate-glass windows at the corner of one huge store, gazing wonderingly at a caravan of toy animals in gorgeous trappings, with chariots and palanquins, which kept circling around in front of painted palm-trees and gayly-decorated tents. The snow was now falling fast, but still the young ones looked admiringly and waited willingly, though their hats were whitened, and though the soft flakes melted on their capes and on their coats.

The mass of humanity clustering about these windows forced Suydam almost to the edge of the sidewalk; but this was the last crowd he had to make his way through. Lower down there were no solid groups, although the avenue was still thronged. He was able to quicken his pace. So he sped along, passing the butchers', where carcasses of sheep and of beeves hung in line garlanded with ropes of evergreen; passing the grocers', where the shelves were battlemented with cans of food; passing the bakers', where bread and cakes, pies and crullers, were displayed in trays and in baskets. He glanced into the yellow windows of candy-stores, and saw the parti-colored sweetmeats temptingly spread out. He caught a glimpse of more than one dealer in delicatessen whose display of silver-clad sausage and heavy pasty and wicker-work flask was enough to stimulate the appetite of a jaded epicure. He saw the signs of a time of plenty, but no one knew better than John Suydam that just then there was truly a season of want.

Night had fallen before he reached the court-house, with its high roof and its lofty turret, before he came to the market, with its yawning baskets of vegetables and its long rows of pendent turkeys beneath the flaring jets of gas. He crossed the avenue and turned into a small street——not here at right angles to the thoroughfare, as are the most of the side streets of New York. At last he stopped before a little house, an old two-story building, worn with long use, and yet dignified in its decay. The tiny dwelling had a Dutch roof, with two dormer-windows; and it had been built when the Dutch traditions of New Amsterdam were stronger than they are to-day.

The young man mounted the high stoop, on which the snow was now nearly half an inch thick. He rang the bell twice with a measured interval between. The flying step of a girl was heard, and then the door was thrown open, and Suydam disappeared within the little old house.

As the door closed, the young man took the young woman in his arms and kissed her.

"Oh, John," she said, "it is so good of you to come on Christmas Eve. How did you manage to get away?"

"I've only two hours," he answered, "and I had to get something to eat, so I thought that perhaps you——"

"Of course we can," the girl interrupted. "And mother will be delighted. She has made one of her old-fashioned chicken pies, and it's ever so much too much for us two. It will be ready at six."

"Then I know where I'm going to get my dinner," her lover returned, as he followed her into the little parlor. "But I shall have to go back as soon as I've had it. I've told them that I think the office ought to be kept open till midnight, and I said I'd stay. It would be a sorrowful thing, wouldn't it, if any one who wants help couldn't get it on Christmas Eve?"

"And there must be many who want help this hard winter," said the girl. "I went as far as Broadway this afternoon, on an errand for mother, and I passed six beggars——"

"Oh, beggars——" he began.

"Yes, I know," she interrupted again. "I did not give them anything, though it seemed so cruel not to. I knew what you thought about indiscriminate charity, and so I steeled my heart. And I suffered for it, too. I know I should have felt happier if I had given something to one or two of them."

"I suppose you did deprive yourself of the virtuous glow of self-satisfaction," Suydam admitted. "But that virtuous glow is too cheap to be valuable. If we want to help our neighbor really, we must practise self-sacrifice, and not purchase an inexpensive self-gratification at the cost of his self-respect."

"I should feel as though I wasn't spending Christmas if I didn't give away something," she protested.

"Exactly," he returned. "You haven't yet freed yourself from the pestilent influence of Dickens, though you have much more sense, too, than nine women out of ten. You have blindly followed the belief that you ought to give for your own sake, without thinking whether it was best for the beggar to receive. Dickens's Christmas stories are now breeding their third generation of paupers; and I doubt if we can convince the broad public of the absurdity of his sociology in another half-century. It takes science to solve problems; hysteric emotionalism won't do it."

"You don't think all the beggars I saw to-day were humbugs, do you?" she asked.

"There isn't one chance in ten that any one of the half-dozen is really in need," he answered; "and probably five out of the six have taken to begging partly out of laziness, and partly because they can beg larger wages than they can earn honestly."

"But there was one old man; he must have been forty, at least," urged the girl, "who was positively starving. Why, just as I turned out of Broadway, I saw him spring down to the gutter and pick up a crust of bread and begin to eat it greedily. I felt in my pocket for my purse, of course, but a gentleman had seen it, too, and he went up to the man and talked to him and gave him a five-dollar bill. Now, there was a real case of distress, wasn't it?"

Suydam smiled, sadly. "The starving man was about forty, you say? Tall and thin, wasn't he, with a thin, pointed beard, and a mark on his right cheek?"

The girl looked at him in wonder. "Why, how did you know?" she cried.

"That's Scar-faced Charley," he answered.

"And is he a humbug, too?" she asked.

"I followed him for two hours one afternoon last week," he explained, "and I saw him pick up that bit of bread and pretend to eat it at least twenty times. When I had him arrested he had more than ten dollars in his pockets."

"Well," the young woman declared, "I shall never believe in anybody again."

"But I don't see how it is Scar-faced Charley is out to-day," Suydam went on. "We had him sent up for a month only, for the judge was easy with him. If he's out again so soon, I suppose he must have a pull of some sort. Those fellows often have more influence than you would think."

"He took me in completely," the girl admitted. "If Scar-faced Charley, as you call him, can act so well, why doesn't he go on the stage and earn an honest living?"

"That's the first thing that astonished me when I went to live in the University Settlement last spring, and began to study out these things for myself. I found beggars who were fond of their profession, and who prided themselves on their skill. What are you to do with them? And if you let them ply their trade, how are you going to distinguish them from those who are really in need?"

"It is all very puzzling to me," the girl confessed. "Since I've heard you talk, charity doesn't seem half as simple as it used to."

"No," said Suydam, "it isn't simple. In fact, it is about as complicated and complex a problem as the twentieth century will have to solve. But I'm coming to one conclusion fast, and that is that the way to tell those who need help from those who don't need it is, that the latter ask for it, and the former won't. New York is rich and generous, and there's never any difficulty about getting money enough to relieve every case of distress in the city limits——none whatever. The real difficulty is in getting the money to the people who really need it, and in keeping it from the people who ought not to have it. You see that those who ask for assistance don't deserve it——not once in fifty times; and those who deserve it won't ask for it. There are men and women——women especially——who will starve before they will face the pity of their fellows. Every day I hear of cases of suffering borne silently, and discovered only by accident."

"I've been wondering for a week if we haven't one of those cases in this house now," said the girl.

"In this house?" the young man repeated.

"I've been meaning to tell you all about it every day," she went on, "but I've seen so little of you, and when you do come we have so many things to talk about, you know."

"I know," Suydam repeated. He was seated by her side on the sofa, and his arm was around her waist. He drew her closer to him and kissed her. "Now tell me about your case of distress," he said.

"Well," the girl began, "this house is too big for mother and me alone, so we let one room on the top floor to two old ladies. They have been here since before Thanksgiving. They are foreigners——Cubans, I think. The mother must be seventy, and I can see she has been very handsome. The daughter is nearly fifty, I'm sure; and a more devoted daughter you never saw. She waits on her mother hand and foot. They didn't bring any baggage to speak of——no trunk, only just a little bag——and we saw at once that they were very, very poor. They paid two weeks' rent in advance, and since then they've paid two weeks' more. A fortnight ago the daughter told mother that they would be obliged if she would let them defer paying the rent for a little while, as a letter they were expecting had not come. And I suppose that was so, for the postman never whistled but the daughter came running down stairs to see if there wasn't something for them. But it hasn't come yet, and I don't believe they've got enough money to get things to eat, hardly. The daughter used to go out every morning, and come back with a tiny little parcel. You see, there's a gas-stove in their room, and they do their own cooking. But she hasn't been out of the house for two days, and we haven't seen either of them since the day before yesterday, when the daughter came to the head of the stairs and asked if there was a letter for her mother. We can hear them moving about overhead gently, but we haven't seen them. And now we don't really know what to do. I'm so glad you've come, for I told mother I was going to ask you about them."

"Do you think they have no money?" Suydam asked.

"I'm afraid it's all gone," she answered. "And they have no friends at all so far as we know."

"You say they are Cubans?"

"I think they are. Their name is De los Rios——Señora de los Rios, I heard the daughter call her mother when she asked the postman about a letter."

"If it wasn't so late," said the young man, looking at his watch, "I would go to the Spanish Consulate. But it's nearly six now, and the consulate is certain to be closed. If there is any reason to think that they are actually suffering for want of food, can't you find some feminine reason for intruding on them."

"I'm afraid we can't," she answered. "We did try yesterday morning. When we found that the daughter didn't go out for something to cook, we misdoubted they might be hungry, and so we talked it over and over, and did our best to hit on some way of helping them. At last mother had an idea, and she made a sort of Spanish stew——what they call an olla podrida, you know. She got the receipt out of the cook-book, and she took it up and knocked at the door. They asked who it was, and they didn't open the door but a little. Mother told the daughter that she had been trying to make a Spanish dish, and she didn't know as she'd got it right, and so she'd come up to ask them as a favor if they wouldn't taste it, and tell her if it was all right. You see that was mother's idea. She thought she might get them to eat it that way, and save their pride. But it wouldn't do. The daughter said that she was sorry, but she couldn't taste it then, she couldn't, nor her mother either. They had no appetite then, and so they couldn't judge of the olla podrida. She said they had just been cooking some chops and steaks."

"Chops and steaks?" echoed Suydam.

"That's what she said," the girl continued. "But of course that was only her excuse for refusing. That was her way of impressing on mother that they didn't need anything. So mother had to give it up, and bring the stew down-stairs again. Mother doesn't feel so badly about them, however, because they had been cooking something yesterday. She smelt fish——yesterday was Friday, you know."

"I know," repeated the young man; "but still I——"

Just then the shrill whistle of the postman was heard, and a sharp ring at the bell.

The girl jumped up, and went to the door. As she opened it there came in the faint melody of distant sleigh-bells, and the roar of the street already muffled by the snow.

She returned to the parlor with a long blue envelope in her hand.

"Here is the letter at last," she said.

"What letter?" asked Suydam.

"The letter the old ladies are waiting for," she answered, handing it to him.

He held it up nearer the single gas-jet of the parlor and read the address aloud, "'Marquisa de los Rios,' and it's registered."

"Yes," the girl returned, "and the postman is waiting to have the receipt signed. He said he guessed it was money or a Christmas present of some sort, since it had so many seals on it. I wanted you to know about it; but I'll take it right up now."

She tripped lightly up-stairs, and John Suydam heard her knocking at the door of the room the two old ladies occupied. After an interval she rapped again, apparently without response. Then he heard her try the door gently.

Two seconds later her voice rang out in a cry of alarm: "Mother! mother! Oh, John!"

Suydam sprang up-stairs, and found her just outside of the door of the old ladies' room. She was trembling, and she gripped his hand.

"Oh, John," she said, "something terrible has happened! It was even worse than I thought! They really were starving!"

Then she led him silently into the room, where her mother joined them almost immediately.

After waiting five minutes the postman at the front door below became impatient. He rang the bell sharply and whistled again. He was kicking the snow off his boots and swinging his arms to keep warm, when at last the door opened and John Suydam appeared, with the long blue envelope in his hand.

"I'm afraid that you will have to take this letter away again," Suydam said to the postman. "There is no one here now to sign for it. The Marquisa de los Rios is dead!"

OUTLINES IN LOCAL COLOR

AN INTERVIEW WITH MISS MARLENSPUYK

T was a chill day early in January, and at four in the afternoon a gray sky shut in the city, like the cylindrical background of a cyclorama. Now and then a wreath of steam chalked itself on the slate-colored horizon; and across the river, far over to the westward, there was a splash of pink, sole evidence of the existence of the sun, which no one had seen for twenty-four hours.

As Miss Marlenspuyk turned the corner of the side street she stood still for a moment, looking down on the long Riverside Drive and on the mighty Hudson below, flowing sluggishly beneath its shield of ice. She had long passed the limit of threescore years and ten, and she had been an indefatigable traveller; and as she gazed, absorbing the noble beauty of the splendid scene, unsurpassable in any other city she had ever visited, she was glad that she was a New-Yorker born and bred, and that it was her privilege to dwell where a vision like this was to be had for the asking. But while she looked lovingly up and down the solemn stream the wind sprang up again, and fluttered her gray curls and blew her wrappings about her.

Two doors above the corner where Miss Marlenspuyk was standing a striped awning stretched its convolutions across the sidewalk and up the irregular stone steps, and thrust itself into the door-way at the top of the stoop. A pretty young girl, with a pleasantly plump figure and with a dash of gold in her fair hair, passed through this twisting canvas tunnel just ahead of Miss Marlenspuyk; and when the door of the house was opened to admit them they entered together, the old maid and the young girl.

The house was illuminated as though it were already night; the curtains were drawn, and the lamps, with their fantastically extravagant shades of fringed silk, were all alight. The atmosphere was heavy with the perfume of flowers, which were banked up high on the mantel-pieces and the tables, while thick festoons of smilax were pendent from all the gas-fixtures and over all the mirrors. Palms stood in the corners and in the fireplaces; and at one end of the hall they were massed as a screen, through which glimpses could be caught of the bright uniforms of the Hungarian band.

In the front parlor, before a broad table on which there were a dozen or more beautiful bouquets tied with bows of ribbon, and under a bower of solid ropes of smilax, stood the lady of the house with the daughter she was that afternoon introducing to society. The hostess was a handsome, kindly woman, with scarce a gray hair in her thick dark braids. The daughter was, like her mother, kindly also, and also handsome; she was better looking, really, than any of the six or seven pretty girls she had asked to aid her in receiving her mother's friends and acquaintances.

The young woman who had preceded Miss Marlenspuyk into the house happened also to precede her in entering the parlor. The hostess, holding her bunch of orchids in the left hand, greeted the girl pleasantly, but perhaps with a vague hint of condescension.

"Miss Peters, isn't it?" said the lady of the house, pitching her voice low, but with an effort, as though the habit had been acquired late in life. "So good of you to come on such a nasty day. Mildred, you know Miss Peters?"

Then the daughter stepped forward and smiled and shook hands with Miss Peters, thus leaving the mother at liberty to greet Miss Marlenspuyk; and this time there was no trace of condescension in her manner, but rather a faint suggestion of satisfaction.

"Oh, Miss Marlenspuyk," she said, cordially, "this is a pleasure. So good of you to come on such a nasty day."

"It did blow as I came to the top of your hill here," Miss Marlenspuyk returned, "and I'm not as strong as I was once upon a time. I suppose that few of us are as frisky at seventy-five as we were at seventeen."

"I protest," said the hostess; "you don't look a day older now than when I first met you."

"That's not so very long ago," the old maid answered. "I don't think I've known you more than five or ten years, have I? And five or ten years are nothing to me now. I don't feel any older than I did half a century ago; but as for my looks——well, the least said about them is soonest mended. I never was a good-looker, you know."

"How can you say so?" responded the hostess, absently noting a group of new-comers gathering in the door-way. "Mildred, you know Miss Marlenspuyk?"

"Oh yes, indeed I do," the girl said, heartily, shaking hands with the vivacious old maid.

The young woman with the touch of gold in her light hair was still standing by Mildred's side. Noting this, and seeing the group of new-comers breaking from the door-way and coming towards her, the hostess spoke hastily again.

"Do you know Miss Peters, Miss Marlenspuyk?" she asked. "Well, at all events, Miss Peters ought to know you."

Then she had just time to greet the group of new-comers and to lower her voice again, and to tell them it was so good of them to come on such a nasty day.

The daughter was left talking to Miss Marlenspuyk and Miss Peters, but within a minute her mother called her——"Mildred, you know Mrs. Hitchcock?"

As the group of new-comers pressed forward the old maid with the bright blue eyes, and the young woman with the pleasantly plump figure, fell back a little.

"I've heard so much of you, Miss Marlenspuyk, from my grandfather," began the younger woman.

"Your grandfather!" echoed the elder lady. "Then your father must be a son of Bishop Peters?"

Little Miss Peters nodded.

"Then your grandfather was a great friend of my younger brother's," Miss Marlenspuyk continued. "They went to school together. I remember the first time I saw the Bishop——it must be sixty years ago——it was the day he was put into trousers for the first time! And wasn't he proud of them!"

Miss Peters joined Miss Marlenspuyk in laughing at this amusing memory.

Then the old maid asked, "Your father married in the South after the war, didn't he? Wasn't your mother from Atlanta?"

"He lived there till mother died; I was bo'n there," said the girl. "I've been No'th only two years now this Christmas."

"I don't suppose you found many of your grandfather's friends left. Nowadays people die so absurdly young," the old maid remarked. "Is your father here this afternoon?"

"Oh dear no," responded Miss Peters; "he has to live in Southe'n Califo'nia for his health. I'm in New Yo'k all alone."

"I'm sorry for you, my child," said the elder woman, taking the girl's hand. "I've been alone myself a great deal, and I know what it means. But you must do as I did——make friends with yourself, and cultivate a liking for your own society."

The younger woman laughed lightly, and answered, "But I haven't as cha'ming a companion as you had."

Miss Marlenspuyk smiled back. "Yes, you have, my child. I'm not an ill-looking old woman now, I know, but I was a very plain girl; and I know it isn't good for any one's character to be conscious that she's almost ugly. But I set out to make the best of it, and I did. I thought it likely I should have a good deal of my own society, and so I made friends with this forced acquaintance. Now, I'm very good company for myself. I'm rarely dull, for I find myself an amusing companion, and we have lots of interests in common. And if you choose you can also cultivate a friendship for yourself. But it won't be as necessary for you as for me, because you are a pretty girl, you see. That glint of gold in your fair hair is really very fetching. And what are you doing here in New York all alone?"

"I'm writing," Miss Peters replied.

"Writing?" echoed Miss Marlenspuyk.

"My father's in ve'y bad health, as I told you," the younger woman explained, "and I have to suppo't myself. So I write."

"But I don't think I've seen anything signed Peters in the magazines, have I?" asked the old maid.

"Oh, the magazines!" Miss Peters returned——"the magazines! I'm not old enough to have anything in the magazines yet. You have to wait so long for them to publish an article, even if they do accept it. But I get things into the weeklies sometimes. The first time I have a piece printed that I think you'd like, I'll send it to you, if I may."

"I will read it at once and with pleasure," Miss Marlenspuyk declared, cordially.

"I don't sign my own name yet," continued Miss Peters; "I use a pen-name. So perhaps you have read something of mine without knowing it."

"Perhaps I have, my child," said Miss Marlenspuyk. "I shall be on the lookout for you now. It must be delightful to be able to put your thoughts down in black and white, and send them forth to help make the world brighter and better."

Little Miss Peters laughed again, disclosing a fascinating dimple.

"I don't believe I shall ever write anything that will make the world better," she said; "and if I did, I don't believe the editor would take it. I don't think that is just what editors are after nowadays——do you? They're on the lookout for stuff that'll sell the paper."

"Sad stuff it is, too, most of it," the old maid declared. "When I was a girl the newspapers were violent enough, and the editors abused each other like pickpockets, and sometimes they called each other out, and sometimes somebody else horsewhipped them. But the papers then weren't as silly and as cheap and as trivial as the papers are now. It seems as though the editors to-day had a profound contempt for their readers, and thought anything was good enough for them. Why, I had a letter from a newspaper last week——a printed form it was, too——stating that they were 'desirous of obtaining full and correct information on Society Matters, and would appreciate the kindness if Miss Marlenspuyk would forward to the Society Editor any information regarding entertainments she may purpose giving during the coming winter, and the Society Editor will also be happy to arrange for a full report when desired.' Was there ever such impudence? To ask me to describe my own dinners, and to give a list of my guests! As though any lady would do a thing like that!"

"There are ladies who do," ventured Miss Peters.

"Then they are not what you and I would call ladies, my child," returned Miss Marlenspuyk.

The face of the Southern girl flushed suddenly, and she bit her lip in embarrassment. Then she mustered up courage to ask, "I suppose you do not read the Daily Dial, Miss Marlenspuyk?"

"I tried it for a fortnight once," the old maid answered. "They told me it had the most news, and all that. But I had to give it up. Nobody that I knew ever died in the Dial. My friends all died in theGotham Gazette."

"The Gazette has a larger family circulation," admitted the younger woman.

"Besides," Miss Marlenspuyk continued, "I could not stand the vulgarity of the Dial. I'm an old woman now, and I've seen a great deal of the world, but the Dial was too much for me. It seemed to be written down to the taste of the half-naked inhabitants of an African kraal."

"Oh," protested the other, "do you really think it is as bad as that?"

"Indeed I do," the old maid affirmed. "It's worse than that, because the poor negroes wouldn't know better. And what was most offensive, perhaps, in the Dial was the unwholesome knowingness of it."

"I see what you mean," said Miss Peters, and again the color rose in her cheeks.

"There was that Lightfoot divorce case," Miss Marlenspuyk went on. "The way the Dial dwelt on that was unspeakable. I'm willing to allow that Mrs. Lightfoot was not exactly a nice person; I'll admit that she may have been divorced more times than she had been married——"

"That's admitting a good deal!" said the young woman, as the elder paused.

"But it is going altogether too far to say that, like Cleopatra, she had the manners of a kitten and the morals of a cat——isn't it?"

Miss Peters made no response. Her eyes were fixed on the carpet, and her face was redder than ever.

"Of course it isn't likely you saw the article I mean," the old maid continued.

"Yes," the younger responded, "I saw it."

"I'm sorry for that," said Miss Marlenspuyk. "I may be old-fashioned——I suppose I must be at my age——but I don't think that is the kind of thing a nice girl like you should read."

Again Miss Peters made no response.

"I happen to remember that phrase," Miss Marlenspuyk continued, "because the article was signed 'Polly Perkins.' Very likely it was a man who wrote it, after all, but it may have been a woman. And if it was I felt ashamed for her as I read it. How could one woman write of another in that way?"

"Perhaps the writer was very poor," pleaded Miss Peters.

"That would not be a good reason, and it is a bad excuse," the old maid declared. "Of course I don't know what I should do if I were desperately poor——one never knows. But I think I'd live on cold water and a dry crust sooner than earn my bread and butter that way——wouldn't you?"

Miss Peters did not answer this direct question. For a moment she said nothing. Then she raised her head, and there was a hint of high resolve in the emphasis with which she said, "It is a mean way to make a living."

Before Miss Marlenspuyk could continue the conversation she was greeted by two ladies who had just arrived. Miss Peters drew back and stood by herself in a corner for a few minutes as the throng in front of her thickened. She was gazing straight before her, but she was not conscious of the people who encompassed her about. Then she aroused herself, and went into the dining-room and had a cup of tea and a thin slice of buttered bread, rolled up and tied with a tiny ribbon. And perhaps fifteen minutes later she found herself in front of the hostess.

She told the hostess that she had had such a very good time, that she didn't know when she had met such very agreeable people, and that she was specially delighted with an old friend of her grandfather's, Miss Marlenspuyk. "Such a very delightful old maid, with none of the flavor of desiccated spinsterhood. She does her own thinking, too. She gave me some of her ideas about modern journalism."

"She is a brilliant conversationalist," said the hostess. "You might have interviewed her."

"Oh, she talked freely enough," Miss Peters responded. "But I could never write her up properly. Besides, I'm thinking of giving up newspaper wo'k."

Three ladies here came towards the hostess, who stepped forward with extended hand, saying, "So good of you to come on such a nasty day." Miss Peters availed herself of the opportunity, and made her escape.

It might be half an hour afterwards when Miss Marlenspuyk, having had her cup of tea and her roll of bread-and-butter, returned to the front parlor in time to overhear a bashful young man take leave of the hostess, and wish the hostess's daughter "many happy returns of the day."

As it happened, there was a momentary stagnation of the flood of guests when Miss Marlenspuyk went up to say farewell, and she had a chance to congratulate the daughter of the house on the success of her coming-out tea.

"Then I must tell you, Miss Marlenspuyk," said the hostess, "that you completely fascinated little Miss Peters."

"She's a pretty little thing," the old maid returned, "with excellent manners. That comes with the blood, I suppose; she told me she was a granddaughter of the Bishop, you know. She isn't like so many of the girls here, who take what manners they have out of a book. They get them up overnight, but she was born with them. And she has the final sign of breeding, which is so rare nowadays——she listens when her elders are talking."

"Yes," the hostess replied, "Pauline Peters has pleasant manners, for all she is working on a newspaper now."

"On a newspaper?" repeated Miss Marlenspuyk. "She told me she was writing for her living, but she didn't say she was on a newspaper."

"She said something about giving it up as she went out," the hostess remarked; "but I shouldn't think she would, for she has been doing very well. Some of her articles have made quite a hit. You know she is the 'Polly Perkins' of the Daily Dial?"

"No," said Miss Marlenspuyk——"no, I didn't know that."

A LETTER OF FAREWELL

HERE had been a hesitating fall of snow in the morning, but before noon it had turned to a mild and fitful rain that had finally modified itself into a clinging mist as evening drew near. The heavy snow-storm of the last week in January had left the streets high on both sides with banks that thawed swiftly whenever the sun came out again, the water running from them into the broad gutters, and then freezing hard at night, when the cold wind swept across the city. Now, at nightfall, after a muggy day, a sickening slush had spread itself treacherously over all the crossings. The shop-girls going home had to pick their way cautiously from corner to corner under the iron pillars supporting the station of the elevated railroad. Train followed train overhead, each close on the other's heels; and clouds of steam swirled down as the engines came to a full stop with a shrill grinding of the brakes. From the skeleton spans of the elevated road moisture dripped on the cable-cars below, as they rumbled along with their bells clanging sharply when they neared the crossings. The atmosphere was thick with a damp haze; and there was a halo about every yellow globe in the windows of the bar-rooms at the four corners of the avenue. More frequent, as the dismal day wore to an end, was the hoarse and lugubrious tooting of the ferryboats in the East River.

Under the steps of the stairs leading up to the aërial station of the railroad overhead, an Italian street vender had wheeled the barrow whereon he proffered for sale bananas and apples and nuts. At one end of this stand was the cylinder in which he was roasting peanuts, and which he ground as conscientiously as though he were turning a hand-organ. A scant quarter past six o'clock it might have been, when he opened his fire-box to throw in a stick or two more of fuel and to warm his stiffened fingers in the flame. The sudden red glare, glowing through the drizzle, caught the eye of a middle-aged man who was crossing the avenue. So insecure was his footing that this momentary relaxation of his attention was sufficient cause for a false step. His feet slipped from under him and he fell flat on his back, striking just below the right shoulder-blade upon a compact mass of snow, hardened by the chilly breeze, and yet softer than the stone pavement.

The concussion knocked the breath out of him; and he lay there for a minute almost, gasping again and again, wholly unable to raise himself. As he struggled to get to his feet and to refill his lungs with air, he heard a shop-girl cry, "Oh, Liz, did you see him fall? Wasn't it awful?" And then he heard her companion respond, "I say, Mame, you ask him if he's hurt bad." Then two men stepped from the sidewalk and lifted him to his feet, while a boy picked up his hat and handed it to him.

"That's all right," said one of the men; "there ain't no bones broke, is there?"

The man who had fallen was getting his breath back slowly. "No," he panted, "there's nothing broke"——and he cautiously moved his limbs to make sure.

"Ye've knocked the wind out of ye," the other man returned, "but ye'll get it again in a jiffy. Come into Pat M'Cann's here and have a drink; that'll put the life into ye again."

"That's it," agreed the man who had been helped to his feet——"that's it; get me into Pat M'Cann's——they know me there——I can rest a bit——then I'll be all right again in a little." He broke his sentences short, but even thus he was able to speak only with effort.

Taking him each by one arm, the two men helped him into the saloon almost at the door of which he had slipped. They led him straight up to the bar.

"Good-evenin', Mr. Malone," was the barkeeper's greeting. "The boss was after askin' for ye." Then seeing the ashen face of the new-comer, he added, "It's not well ye're lookin'. What can I give ye?"

The man addressed as Malone was plainly attired; his clothes were tidy but shiny; his overcoat was thin, and it was now thickly stained down the back by the slush into which he had fallen. The bronze button of the Grand Army was in the buttonhole of his threadbare coat.

He steadied himself by the railing before the bar. "Ye may give me——a little whiskey, Tom," he said, still gasping, "and ask these gentlemen——what they'll take."

These gentlemen joined him in taking whiskey. Then they again assured him he would be all right in a jiffy; and with that they left him standing before the bar, and went their several ways.

There was nobody else in the saloon, for the moment, as it chanced; and Tom, the barkeeper, was able to give undivided attention to Mr. Malone.

"It's sorry the boss'll be to hear of yer fallin' here at his door, an' he not there to pick ye up," he remarked. "But ye'd better bide till he comes in again. Ye'll not get your breath back so easy either——I've been knocked out myself, an' I know——though it wa'n't no ice that downed me."

"So Pat M'Cann wanted to see me, did he?" asked Malone, trying to draw a long breath and finding it impossible, as the bruised muscles of his back refused to yield. "Oh——well, then I'll sit me down here and wait."

"There's yer old place in the corner," Tom responded.

"I'll smoke a pipe," said Malone, moving away, "if I haven't broke it in my fall. No; I've got it right enough," he added, taking the brier-wood from the breast-pocket of his coat.

As Malone was shuffling slowly forward towards a table in a corner of the saloon, the street-door was pushed open and the owner of the barroom entered——a tall man, with a high hat and a fur-trimmed overcoat. M'Cann went straight to the bar.

"Tom," he asked, "how many of those labor-tickets have I now in the glass there?"

Tom looked in a tumbler on the top shelf of a rack against the wall behind him. "There's five of 'em left," he answered.

"Barry M'Cormack will be in before we close and he'll ask ye for them, and ye'll give him three of them," said the owner of the saloon. "Tell him it's all I have. An' if Jerry O'Connor is here again wantin' me to go bail for his brother in the Tombs, ye must stand him off. I don't want to do it, ye see, an' I don't want neither to tell him I don't want to."

"An' what will I tell him, then?" asked the barkeeper. "Hadn't I better say ye've gone to Washington to see the Sinator?"

"Tell him what you please," responded M'Cann, "but be easy with him."

"I'll do what I can," Tom promised. "Ye was askin' for Danny Malone before ye went out. That's him now in the corner. It's a bad fall he had out there on the ice. The drop knocked him out——but there's no bones broken."

"What I've got to tell him won't make him feel easier," returned M'Cann. "But I'll get it over as soon as I can." And with that he crossed the saloon to the farther corner, where Malone had taken his seat before a little table.

Looking up as M'Cann came towards him, Malone recognized the owner of the saloon and tried to rise to his feet; but the suddenness of his movement was swiftly resented by the strained muscles of his back, and he dropped sharply on the seat, his face wincing with the pain, which also took his breath away again.

"Well, Dan, old man," said M'Cann, "so ye've had a bad fall, sure. I'm sorry for that. Don't get up!——rest yerself there, and brace up."

The tall frame of the saloon-keeper towered stiffly beside the bent figure of the man who had had the fall, and who now looked up in the face of the other in the hope of seeing good news written there.

"Well, Pat," he began, getting his breath again, "I've had a fall——but it's nothin'——I'll be over it——in an hour or two. I'm strong enough yet——for any place ye can get me——"

He had fixed his gaze hungrily on the eyes of the other, and he was waiting eagerly for a word of hope.

The saloon-keeper lowered his glance and then cleared his throat. He had unbuttoned his overcoat and the large diamond in his shirt-front was now exposed.

Before he made answer to this appeal the elder man spoke again, overmastered by anxiety.

"Did ye see him?" he asked.

"Yes," was the response, "I saw him."

"An' will he do it for ye?" was the next passing question.

"He'd do it for me if he could, but he can't," returned M'Cann.

"He can't?" asked Malone. "An' why not?"

"Because the appointment isn't his, he says," the saloon-keeper explained. "He'd be glad to give the place to a friend of mine if he could, he told me——but there's the civil-service. He's got to follow that, he says, more by token that they raised such a row the last time he tried to beat the law."

"But I'm a veteran," pleaded the other, "I served my three years. The civil-service has got to count that, hasn't it?"

"Ye might be on the list this very minute, and it wouldn't do any good," the saloon-keeper responded; "there's veterans to burn on the list now!"

"My post will recommend me, if I ask 'em——won't that help?"

"Nothing will help, he says," M'Cann explained. "It isn't a pull that'll do ye any good, or I could get ye the job myself, couldn't I?"

"There ain't no influence that'll help me, then?" was the elder man's next question.

"As I'm tellin' ye, I done what I could, and I don't believe any man in the district couldn't do more," the saloon-keeper answered. "He says he'd rather give ye the job than not, but he can't. He's got to take the civil-service man."

"Then there ain't nothin' else you can do?" asked Malone, hopelessly.

"I'd do anythin' I could," M'Cann replied. "But I don't see nothin' more to be done. That dog won't fight, that's all. The jig's up, there ain't no two ways about it. Of course, if I hear of anythin' else I'll tell ye——and I'll get it for ye, if I can. But it's been a pretty cold winter for the boys, so far; you know that well enough."

The other said nothing; his head had fallen, and his eyes were staring vacantly at a box of sand across the saloon.

The saloon-keeper drew a breath of relief that the interview was over.

"Well," he said, turning away, "I must be goin' now. I've got to see the new man who's got that contract for fillin' in up on the Harlem."

"Don't think I ain't beholden to you, Pat," Malone declared, raising his head again. "Ye know I am that, and I know ye've done yer best for me."

"I did that," M'Cann admitted, taking the hand the other held out; "an' it's better I hope I can do some other time, maybe."

With that he shook Malone's hand gently and left the saloon, calling to the barkeeper as he passed, "I'll be back in an hour, if there's anybody wants me. An' make Danny Malone as comfortable as ye can. It's a bad shock he's had."

As the owner of the saloon left it three customers came in, and were served, and tossed off their drinks standing, and went out again; and the dank night-air was blown in as they swung open the outer door.

Then the barkeeper went down to the corner where Malone was sitting, with his pipe in his fingers, unlighted and unfilled, gazing fixedly at vacancy.

"Mr. Malone," he said, "is it better ye're feelin' now? Have ye got yer breath again?"

"Yes, yes," answered Malone, rousing himself, "I'm better now." And he tried to rise again; and again he sat down suddenly, seized with muscular pangs. "I'm better——but I'd best——stay here a while yet——I'm thinking."

"That's it," responded Tom, cheerfully, "get a rest here. Let me fill yer pipe for ye. There ain't nothin' so soothin' as a pipe, I don't think. An' I don't believe a drop of old ale would hurt ye, would it now?"

Five minutes later Dan Malone had his pipe alight in his mouth and a glass of ale before him on the table. He drank the liquid slowly, barely a mouthful at a time; and he smoked irregularly also, scarcely keeping the pipe alight. He sat there by himself, limp on the seat, with his last hope washed out of him.

Half an hour afterwards the saloon happened again to be empty, and seeing the barkeeper at liberty, Malone asked for the loan of an inkstand and a pen, and for a sheet of paper and an envelope. When the table had been wiped off, and these things were placed on it before him, he ordered another glass of ale, and he filled his pipe again.

After he had taken a sip or two of the ale and pulled four or five times at the pipe, he squared himself painfully to the task of writing.

First, he addressed the envelope to "Hon. Terence O'Donnell, Assembly, Albany"; then he thrust this on one side to dry, and began on the letter itself. His handwriting was more irregular than usual; it had always been cramped and straggling, but now it was shaky also.

"FRIEND TERRY,——Ime writing you this at Pat M'Canns, and its the last letter you will ever have from me. I slipped at the corner here and I fell flat on my shoulders and I knocked all the wind out of me like I was a shut bellows. I aint got it back yet. I will never have any strength again. Ime only fifty, but I had three years in the Army of the Potomac; and fighting and sleeping in the swamp and laying out all day and all night with a wound in your leg——thats fun you got to pay for sooner or later. Ime paying for mine now. Ime feeling very old to-night and old men ain't no good. If Ide been younger I doubt Mary would have shook me for Jack. Your young yet Terry and you got a good wife, God Bless her, and youll thrive, for your square and a good friend. But you wont never know what it is to have the woman you loved shake you. That hurts and it hurts just as hard even if it is your brother she marries. Jacks only my half brother you know but it hurt all the same. Mary married him and hes never forgive me for the wrong he did me then. And Mary she sides with him. Thats natural enough I suppose——hes the father of her children——but that hurts too. Hes been doing me dirt all this winter. I know it but I aint never let on. Now I caught him setting the kids against me too. And theyve been friendly, both of Marys kids have. The one named for me is a good boy and, Terry, if you can give him a helping hand any day do it for my sake. Ime going to pawn my watch when I leave here to buy a pistol with. But Ill put the ticket in the envelope with this, and some day when your feeling flush I wish you would take it out and give it to little Danny. I always meant him to have it.

"I ask you now for this is the last letter I will write you and I wont never see you again. Ime smoking the last pipe I will ever smoke and Ive drunk half of my last glass of beer. I shall think of you when I finish it, and it will be drinking your health and Maggies and the baby boy your expecting.

"Ime going to quit. Ime tired, and I aint never felt so old as I do since I had that fall an hour ago. It knocked more out of me than wind. I was thinking Pat M'Can here could get me a job, but he cant for fear of the civil service. So its time I quit for good and all. Ime going to put up my watch and get a gun. Then Ime going up to Jacks. Mary cant refuse me a bite. Its little enough to give me Ime thinking and its the last time Ile ask it too. The kids are going out to a party——a sunday school party it is. Ile see them all once more, and Ile say good-by to them. After supper when the kids are gone I will get out the pistol and I will put the bullet where it will do most good. May be Jack will be sorry when its too late may be Mary will too. I dont know. If they had treated me white first off, I woodent need to buy no gun now.

"Good-by now, Terry, and God Bless you all. Its time I was going along to Marys if I want to see the kids again.

"Your old friend

"DAN MALONE."

When he had made an end of the letter he had a pull or two at his pipe, and then he finished his beer. He took up what he had written and read it over carefully to see if he had said all that needed to be said. Satisfied, he folded it and tucked it inside the envelope. After four or five whiffs more his pipe was smoked out. He emptied it on the table with a sharp rap, and methodically put it back in the breast-pocket of his coat.

Then he raised himself to his feet slowly and carefully, not knowing just what bruised muscle he might chance to stretch by an inadvertent gesture. He shuffled across to the bar and paid for his drinks, and asked the barkeeper if there was a stamp to be had. As it happened, Tom was able to give him one, which he stuck on the corner of the envelope.

"Say, Mr. Malone," asked the barkeeper, "ye don't want no tickets for the Lady Dazzlers' Coterie Mask and Civic Ball, to-night, do ye? It's goin' to be the most high-toned blow-out they ever had."

"I'm not goin' to balls any more," Malone answered, "I'm too old now."

Buttoning his thin overcoat tightly across the chest, he held out his hand to Tom, to the barkeeper's great surprise.

"Good-bye," he said, "Good-bye. Maybe I won't see you again, Tom."

"Good-bye, Mr. Malone," Tom answered. "But ye'll be better in the mornin,' I'm thinkin'."

"Yes," the elder man repeated, "I'll be better in the mornin'. Yes; I'm goin' to make sure of that, to-night."

When he opened the outer door of the saloon the damp moisture suddenly filled his lungs and he choked, but he dared not cough, as the strained muscles of his side warned him.

Two doors above the saloon was a pawnbroker's office, with the three golden balls hanging over the door, and with the unredeemed pledges offered for sale in the broad window. Into this store Malone made his way, glad to get out of the dank air, if only for a moment.

In perhaps five minutes he came forth holding in his hand the envelope addressed to the Honorable Terence O'Donnell. He paused on the threshold of the pawnshop and, by the light of the gas-jets in its window, he put the pawn-ticket into the letter and then closed it. In the large right-hand pocket of his thin overcoat there was something that had not been there when he entered the pawnbroker's——something irregular in shape; it was the revolver he had bought with the money advanced on his watch.

He turned down the avenue again, for there was a letter-box on the lamp-post at the corner occupied by M'Cann's saloon. The store between the pawnbroker's and the barroom was an undertaker's; and Malone, walking slowly past, saw in the window a little coffin, lined with white satin.

"It'll take a bigger one than that for me," he said. "To-night's Friday——they'll be havin' the funeral on Sunday."

At the corner he dropped the letter into the box on the lamp-post, just as there came a weird shriek from an impatient tug in the river far behind him. While he was waiting for a cable-car a lame newsboy limped up to him and proffered the evening papers with a beseeching look. Malone felt in his pocket and found only two coins, a nickel and a quarter. He gave the quarter to the newsboy. Then he lifted himself painfully on the rear platform of a cable-car, and handed the nickel to the impatient conductor. The car clanged forward again; and soon the halo about its colored lamp faded away in the murky distance.

(1895.)

A GLIMPSE OF THE UNDER WORLD

T was a little dinner indeed, a dinner for eight only; and it was given one evening in March, in a spacious and handsome dwelling in Madison Avenue, high up on the slope of Murray Hill. The wide dining-room was at the rear of the house, and it had a broad butler's-pantry extending into the yard behind. The large kitchen was under the dining-room; and under the butler's-pantry was a room of the same size which the servants used as a parlor. In one corner of this sitting-room for the domestics was the dumb-waiter which connected with the pantry above, and in another corner was a spiral staircase which allowed the butler to descend swiftly to the kitchen in case of emergency. There was a table near the window of this servants' parlor, with a battered student-lamp on it; and around the table were grouped three or four chairs.

A whistle sounded gently in the kitchen, and the Swedish cook walked leisurely to the speaking-tube and whistled back. Then she listened, and heard the butler say, "They're all here now; I've got the oysters on the table, and I'm a-goin' in now to announce dinner to the madam. So you get that soup ready——do you hear?"

The cook did not deign to make any direct reply, but, as she left the speaking-tube and went back to the range, she said, loud enough to be heard by the servants in the sitting-room adjoining, "As though I did not know anything! I will never have another place if a black man is butler."

In the room under the pantry a sharp, wiry boy was grinning. "They're allus havin' spats, ain't they, them two? If I was Cato I wouldn't let no Dutch cook sass me, even if I was a nigger, would you?"

"Who is this young cub, when he's at 'ome?" asked the clean-shaven, trim-looking young British valet.

"He's Tim," answered the Irish laundress.

"I'm Tim," said the boy, indignantly, "that's who I am, and I'm as good as you are, too, for all you belong to a lord! And you needn't put on no frills with me, neither, for when I'm a year or two older I can lick ye!——see?"

"Don't ye mind the boy, Mr. Parsons," the Irish girl intervened. "He's no call here at all, at all. He'd run of an errand belike in the mornin' and does be sthrivin' to make himself useful. That's why they kept him here the night."

"I've got just as good a right here as he has," the boy declared, "and he doesn't come here after you either, Maggie——you're not his steady. It's that French Elise he is sparkin'."

"An' greatly I care if he is! Sparkin', in truth! Bad cess to yer impidence," said the pleasant-faced laundress, drawing herself up. "A man, is it? It's lashins and lavins of men I could have if I'd a mind."

Fortunately the cook called Tim at this juncture and gave him a chore to do; and so left the Irish girl and the young Englishman alone.

The valet had been standing until then with his hat and cane in his hand and his overcoat across his arm. Now he laid these things on the table and took his seat by the side of the comely Irishwoman.

"Mam'zelle," he began, "is a French girl, of course, and I never could abide a foreign lingo. Now it's a pleasure for me to hear you talk, Miss Maggie."

"Ah, do be aisy, now, Mr. Parsons," she returned, coquettishly.

"It's gospel truth," he rejoined. "I enjoy talkin' to you. You keep your eyes wide open and can always tell me what's goin' on!"

"Troth, can I?" replied the laundress. "I know which ind of the egg the chicken'll be after chippin'——every time."

"Then tell me who's dinin' 'ere to-night," the valet asked.

Before she could answer the whistle sounded faintly again, and the cook immediately brought in the green-turtle soup in the handsome silver tureen, and sent it up on the dumb-waiter. Then she returned at once to the kitchen.

"It's not a big dinner," the Irishwoman explained. "There's only eight of them. There's us three, isn't there?——Mr. and Mrs. Van Allen and Miss Ethel. Then there's your lord——and I'll go bail it's Miss Ethel he's after now? He'll be the lucky man if he gets her, too; it's a sweet angel she is."

"She won't be so unlucky to 'ave 'im neither," the Englishman returned, "mark that! She'll be Lady Stanyhurst, won't she? And my lord is a fine figure of a man, too!"

"Sure it isn't under the skin of any man that ever stepped to be worthy the likes of Miss Ethel!" said Maggie, looking at Parsons out of the corner of her eye.

"There ain't any girl in the States 'ere that wouldn't be proud to 'ave my lord," the valet retorted. "There's lots of 'em settin' their caps for 'im now. He can 'ave 'is pick, 'e can."

"The sorra cap Miss Ethel'll set for him or any man," the laundress declared. "The boy that wants her'll have to court her."

"I 'ave reason to believe that the marriage is arranged," Parsons asserted. "I 'ope——" then he paused, and with an effort he went on again: "I hope that 'er father is a warm man? He's good to give the girl a plum at least, I 'ope? We couldn't throw ourselves away on a girl who 'adn't a plum, you know."

"An' what might a plum be?" asked Maggie.

"A plum," the young Englishman explained, "is a 'undred thousand pounds——'alf a million dollars, isn't it?"

"It's a whole million Mr. Van Allen can give Miss Ethel," Maggie said, "and more, too, if he wanted to. By the same token, they do be after tellin' me he has one big building down-town somewhere——I don't know——where the tenants pay him a hundred thousand dollars a year; an' they pay it, too, regular, an' nivver an eviction from one year's end to the other."

The whistle shrilled out again, and the cook made haste to place on the dumb-waiter the dish containing the fillets of sea-bass.

A few minutes later Mlle. Elise, the French maid of Miss Van Allen, entered the servants' sitting-room, and was cordially greeted by Mr. Parsons. It appeared that the Frenchwoman had been detained in Mrs. Van Allen's room relieving the guests of their wraps.

"Zat ole maid, Miss Marlenspuyk——what devil of name it is——" said Elise, "she is a true grande dame; but that Mistress Playfair——oh! I cannot suffer her! She is——how you say——made up? stuck up?"

"It's both stuck up and med up she is," the Irish laundress declared. "She's that painted her own mother wouldn't know her. An' as for stuck up, her manners is that bad there isn't none of her girls will stay in her house the second month; they gets their bit of money and they goes. Sure my brother is coachman there, and it's seven years he's had the place."

"How can he rest zere," asked the French maid, "if she is so stuck up?"

"Ah, my brother is a steady lad, and they get on very well," Maggie returned. "He knows his place, and she knows her place, too. She never says nothin' to him, and he never says nothin' to her. An' it's a good job he has, an' he don't mean to let go of it. He keeps a still tongue in his head, Danny does; but there's months when, with his wages and with his board-wages and with what he makes on the feed, the place is worth more than a hundred dollars to him."

"It's as much as a man's place is worth sometimes to accept the commission you're entitled to," the valet remarked.

"Ah, but Danny's the boy!" the laundress responded, shrewdly. "It's too much he knows about Mrs. Playfair for him to lose the job; trust him for that! As long as he wants that place he can have it an' welcome; she won't never say nothin' to him."

"Is she a widow or is she divorced, zis Mistress Playfair?" asked the French maid.

"She's the wan an' the other," said the laundress, with a laugh. "Mr. Playfair, he took and died a week after the trial, barrin' a day."

"What's this I 'ear about your Mr. Van Allen and Mrs. Playfair?" Parsons inquired.

"Is there anything between them, do you think?"

The whistle was heard again, and the cook passed before them with a saddle of mutton; and for the moment the valet's question remained unanswered.

"Who is it they have to dinner, after all?" the laundress inquired. "There's our three and your lord and Miss Marlenspuyk and Mrs. Playfair——but that's sure only six. There was to be eight all out, I'm thinkin'. It's two more men they must have."

"I heard his lordship say that he expected to meet the Lord Bishop of Tuxedo," the Englishman remarked.

"And madame say zat ze judge would be here," said the French maid.

"Judge Gillespie?" asked the valet, with a certain interest.

"Yes," the Frenchwoman answered, "the Judge Gillespie. What does that make to you zat you jump like zat?"

"Oh, nothin', nothin' at all," returned Parsons, settling himself back in his chair with a snigger.

"Out with it!" cried the Irish girl. "Don't be grinnin' all night there like a stuck pig! Out with it——I see it's on the end of your tongue."

"But yes——but yes," urged the maid, "what is it you have to laugh?"

"Really," the valet began, "I don't know that I ought to say anything 'ere in this 'ouse, you know——house, I mean. But I 'ave been told that this 'ere Judge Gillespie is a very great friend of Mrs. Van Allen's. Mind, I don't say there's anything wrong in it, you know. I only tell you what I 'ave 'eard tell myself in society 'ere and there. You see this ain't the only 'ouse I visit in New York, not by a long shot it ain't. And knowin' I visit 'ere, why, naturally, you see, my other friends tell me the news, you know——the news about the goin's on 'ere, you know."

The Irish laundress and the French maid looked at each other for a moment, and then both laughed.

"It's not outside they get the first news, is it?" the laundress inquired.

Apparently the maid was also going to make a remark, but she changed her mind as the cook again came to the dumb-waiter with the dish of little silver saucepans containing terrapin.

The valet was somewhat puzzled by the failure of his two attempts to open the family cupboard of the host and hostess for an inspection of the skeletons it might contain.

"I don't know how she has them seated at the table," Maggie declared.

"Of course, his lordship took her in," the Englishman declared. "A earl 'as precedence of a judge or a bishop."

"I'd like to have a look at that lordship of yours," the Irishwoman said, as she rose to her feet. "I'll slip up the stairs there, and maybe I can get a glimpse of 'em through the door an' no one a ha'p'orth the wiser. Is it a young man your lordship is?"

"His lordship is a young man yet," the valet replied.

"I know what that means," the laundress answered. "If he's a young man yet, I'll go bail he hasn't a hair between him an' heaven. An' to think that our Miss Ethel here is to take up with a poor hairless cratur like that. Well, well, there's no accountin' for tastes! Maybe I'll marry a Dutchman myself one of these days."

And with that she began to climb the spiral staircase in the corner of the room.

"What sort of a man is he, your milord?" asked the Frenchwoman.

"He is not a bad sort at all," the Englishman answered. "Your young lady might do worse than 'ave 'im, you know——have him, I mean. I won't say but that 'e's been a bit fast in 'is time, you know; but that's nothin' to her now, is it? 'E's sowed his wild oats long ago, and 'e's ready to marry now and settle down."

"He is zen——défraíchi——how you say——worn? your milord?" the Frenchwoman went on. "And mademoiselle is an angel of candor. Zey would give her le bon Dieu wizout confession."

"Angel or no angel," returned Mr. Parsons, "there isn't any better catch in the three kingdoms than 'is lordship to-day. 'E's a earl, isn't 'e? And then there's the castle! Your young lady wouldn't be in a 'urry to let 'im go if she'd only seen the castle, now!"

"Mademoiselle has seen ze castle," was the answer.

"Well, I'll be damned!" said the valet.

"But yes," the French maid explained. "Last summer, in London, your milord was presented to mademoiselle, and he began to make his court. Fifteen days after, when we were at Leamington, mademoiselle and I, we go see your castle."

"It's a tip-topper now, ain't it?" he asked. "There's sometimes twenty and thirty of us in the servants' 'all, and there's goin's on, and larks, and all manner of sport. If this match comes off, now, between 'is lordship and your young lady, will you come with her or stay here with her mother?"

"Never of the life do I quit mademoiselle," the Frenchwoman responded.

"Then I'll 'ope to 'ave the honor of introducin' you into the best society at the castle whenever you come over," urged Mr. Parsons.

The Irish laundress now began to descend the spiral stairs. The cook also came into the room and went towards the dumb-waiter, carrying a silver platter, on which shook and shone a dozen little jellied cones.

"An' what might that be in thrimbles like that?" asked the Irishwoman, with curiosity.

"Pâté de foie gras en aspic," the cook responded, curtly, sending up the dish and then returning silently to the kitchen.

"Patti's photograph?" repeated the laundress. "Do ye mind the impidence of her, tellin' me a lie like that?"

The English valet looked at the French maid and laughed. Then he explained, patronizingly:

"Patty de four grass, as we call it in French——not Patti's photograph. It's a delicacy, and it's made of goose livers."

"Then why couldn't that Dutch cook have said so?" the laundress asked, indignantly. "I've as good a right to know about a goose as ever she has. I misdoubt she was that poor where she came from they had never the grass of a goose to their cabin."

"Did you see 'is lordship?" asked the valet.

"I did that," the Irish girl replied, "an' what did I tell you about him? His head has grown through his hair! There's been good and bad harvests since he was young, I'm thinkin'——and it's mighty quare he looks about his eyes, too. It'll be a poor day for Miss Ethel when she marries a bald-headed ould runt like that, for all he's a lord!"

"Oh, I say, Miss Maggie; you must not speak so disrespectful of his lordship," Parsons insisted; "really, now, you mustn't."

"It's that Mrs. Playfair 'ud be the match for him, I'm thinkin'," said Maggie. "It's a bold-faced creature she is, an' no more clothes on her than ain't decent anyway. And then, how she looked at Mr. Van Allen and then at the bishop; and how she talked——I'd no patience with her. Do ye mind what it was I heard her say now?"

"How could we know what you 'eard her say?" the valet responded, impatiently.

"Sure, amn't I tellin' ye?" the Irish girl returned. "She was talkin' to the bishop, and she says, says she. 'The judge is a better man than you, bishop,' she says, 'leastwise he makes more people happy,' she says. 'How so?' says the bishop, says he. 'This way,' she says; 'when you marry a couple you make two people happy,' she says, 'an' when the judge divorces a couple he makes four people happy,' she says. Miss Ethel and the old lady with the white hair, they said nothin', but the rest of them laughed."

What further fragments of the conversation at the dinner-table up-stairs Maggie had been able to gather during her brief visit to the butler's-pantry could not then be made known to the other domestics, for Tim came slouching into the sitting-room.

"Say, Maggie," he began, "didn't you hear that ring at the bell? That's your feller——I seen him. He's out at the gate now."

"Is it the letter-man you mean?" asked Maggie, adjusting her hair as she passed the looking-glass.

"Ah, go on," returned Tim, impatiently, "what t'ell are you givin' us? How many fellers do you want, say?"

After Maggie had chased Tim out of the room, the Swedish cook went to the dumb-waiter once more to send up the four smoking canvas-backs that lay luxuriously on their cushions of fried hominy.

The French maid and the English valet continued to chat, discussing chiefly the personal peculiarities of the members of the households in which they had served. His former masters Parsons was willing enough to find fault with, but Lord Stanyhurst he seemed to think it a point of honor to defend. Mrs. Van Allen the Frenchwoman had no high opinion of, nor of Mr. Kortright Van Allen; but of their daughter, Miss Ethel Van Allen, she could not say too much in praise.

"I told that wild Irish girl that the marriage was arranged," said Parsons, "and I'm sure I 'ope so with all my heart, for 'is lordship needs money badly——I don't mind tellin' you, mam'zelle, 'e 'asn't paid me my wages this six months, not that I'd demean myself by askin' for them. But is it really settled, after all?——that's what I'd like to know."

"I zink so," the Frenchwoman responded; "you see, mademoiselle is not happy here. Monsieur and madame are at drawn knives. Zey have not spoken since two years."

"Mr. and Mrs. Van Allen don't speak to each other?" asked Parsons, with great interest. "But they must be speaking to each other there at dinner now."

"Oh, at dinner, yes," the French maid explained; "in the world, yes, zey talk zemselves. But at ze house, never a word. Zat is so sad for mademoiselle, is it not? It is not remarkable zat she marry herself with anybody to get out of ze house."

"Oh, ho!" rejoined the valet, "I see, I see! But if that's the way she's been brought up, you know, I don't believe she will 'it it off with 'is lordship."

"If he makes her not happy, your milord——" began the maid, forcibly, "but he must. He must render her happy, for she will have nobody to go to after ze marriage except her husband."

"Whatever do you mean by that?" asked Parsons, a little suspiciously.

"I know what I mean," she responded. "Monsieur and madame only attend till mademoiselle is married, and zen zey are divorced. Zey don't tell me zat, no——but I know."

"Yes," the valet admitted, "it ain't so very 'ard to find out a thing like that."

"And I know more yet," added the French maid. "I am not blind, am I? I can see that two and two make four, is it not? Zen, I tell you zat after ze marriage of mademoiselle, monsieur and madame are divorced, zat is one zing. Zen madame will marry zat Judge Gillespie, and monsieur will marry zat Madame Playfair——you see!"

"That would be a rum start, now, wouldn't it?" was the only comment of Parsons.

At this moment the portly form of Cato, the black butler, was seen descending the staircase in the corner of the room.

As soon as the aged negro's white head was visible he paused, and leaning over the light iron railing he addressed himself to the young Englishman.

"Misto' Parsons," he said, solemnly, "yo' lord knows a good thing when he gets it, sah! He tasted my celery salad, and he said to Mrs. Van Allen that he hadn't never eaten no better salad than that, sah, and I don't believe he never did, neither!"

So saying he slowly withdrew up-stairs again, as the cook advanced to the dumb-waiter carrying the Nesselrode pudding.

(1896.)

A WALL STREET WOOING

T had poured all the night before, and even now, at three o'clock in the afternoon, the air had the washed clearness that follows a warm rain. Fortunately the sun had shone forth before the church bells summoned the worshippers to kneel in front of the marble altars, banked high with scentless white flowers. It was Easter, and the first of April also; and, furthermore, the first warm Sunday of the spring. So the young men and maidens who clustered about the doors of the churches that afternoon were decked out in fresh apparel——the young men in light overcoats, and the maidens in all the bravery of their new bonnets.

In the corner of one of the cable-cars which were sliding along under the skeleton of the elevated railroad there sat a young man looking at his neighbors with begrudging interest, and pulling at the ends of an aggressive black mustache. Filson Shelby was not yet at home in the great city, and he knew it, and he silently protested against it. He was forever on the watch for a chance to resent the complacent attitude of city folks towards country people. Yet the metropolis had so far conquered him that his hat and his shoes and his clothes were city made.

It was six months now since the young Southwesterner had left his native village, and already he thought that he knew New York pretty well, from Harlem where he boarded to Wall Street where he worked. He was sure that he was well informed as to the customs of New-Yorkers, although the New-Yorkers changed their customs so rapidly that it was not so easy to be certain about this.

There were white flowers blossoming in the parlor windows of many of the houses in Fifty-third Street, through which the cable-car was passing, and as the car clanged around the curve and started on its way down Seventh Avenue it grazed the tail of a florist's wagon, the box of which was piled high with palms. Filson Shelby was aware that it was now a practice of New-Yorkers to give one another potted plants at Easter.

He had been told also that the habit no longer obtained of paying calls on Sunday afternoon; and none the less was he on his way down to Wall Street to take out for a walk the one girl in New York who seemed to him to have the unpretending simplicity of the girls of the Southwest. What did he care, he asked himself, whether or not it was fashionable to call on girls Sunday afternoon? What right had the New-Yorkers, anyhow, to assume that their way of doing things was the only right and proper way?

Having propounded these questions to himself, he answered them with a smile, for he had a saving sense of humor, and even a tendency towards self-analysis, and he had long ago detected his own pride in living in New York. In his earliest letters home he had expressed his delight in that he was now at the headquarters of the whole country; and he had written these letters on broad sheets of paper bought in the German quarter, and adorned with outline views of the sights of the city, picked out in the primary colors. He had sent missives thus decorated not only to his family and to his old friends, but even to mere acquaintances of his boyhood, for whom he cared little or nothing, except that they should know him to be settled in the metropolis. He could not but suspect that if he were now to go back to the village of his birth, he would seem as stuck-up to the natives as the New-Yorkers had seemed to him the first few weeks he was in the city.

The car slipped down Seventh Avenue, and stumbled into Broadway, and sped along sometimes with a smooth swiftness and again with a jerky hesitation. Gayly dressed family groups got on and got off, and the car had almost emptied itself by the time it came to Madison Square. Filson Shelby was greatly interested in the manners of two handsomely gowned girls who sat opposite to him, and who did not know each other very well. It struck him that one of them——the prettier of the two, as it happened——was a little uneasy in the other's company, and yet pleased to be seen with her. To his regret, both of them alighted at Grace Church, leaving only half a dozen people in the long car as it started again on its journey down-town.

He set down the plainer of the two as a member of the strange society known as the "Four Hundred," about which he had heard so much since he had been reading the Sunday papers. If he were right in this ascription, and if he were to judge by this sample, the girls of the Four Hundred were not a very good-looking lot, for all they were so stylishly dressed. It struck him, too, that this girl's manners were somehow offensive, although he could not state precisely where the offence lay.

He was glad that the one girl in New York whom he knew at all well had the easy good manners which spring from a naturally good heart. She was as well educated as the two girls who had just left the car; perhaps better, for she was going to graduate from the Normal College in two or three months; and yet she was unaffected and unassuming. As he phrased it in his mind, "she didn't put on any frills." He could chat with her just as easily as he used to talk to the girls who had gone to school with him at home. And yet when he considered how unlike she was really to these friends of his childhood he wondered why it was he and she had got along so well, and his thoughts went back to the occasion of his first meeting with her.

The car was now speeding swiftly down Broadway, obstructed by no carriages, no carts, no tracks, no wagons, and no drays. Below Astor Place the sidewalks were as bare as the street itself was empty. The shades were down in the windows of the many-storied buildings which towered above the deserted thoroughfare, and the flamboyant signs made their incessant appeals in vain. For a mile or more it was almost as though he were being carried through the avenues of an abandoned city. The one evidence of life, other than the cars themselves, was an infrequent bicyclist "riding the cable slot" up from the South Ferry. If only he had first arrived in New York in the restful quiet of a Sunday, so the young Southwesterner found himself thinking, perhaps the metropolis might not have seemed to him so overwhelming. As it was, it had been a shock to him to be plunged suddenly into the vortex of the immense city.

A telegrapher in the little town near which he was born, Filson Shelby had gone beyond his duty to oblige a New-Yorker who had chanced to be detained there for a fortnight, and the New-Yorker had repaid his courtesy by the proffer of a position as private operator in the office of a Wall Street friend. The young man had accepted eagerly, having no ties to bind him to his home; and yet he had felt desperately homesick more than once during his first three months in New York. Indeed, it was not until he had come to know Edna Leisler that he had reconciled himself to the great town, which was so crowded, and in which he was so alone. He was slow to form friendships, but he had made a few acquaintances.

It was one of these casual acquaintances who had taken him one day to the top of an old office building not far from the Stock Exchange. Here the janitor lived, and was allowed to use one of the rooms allotted to him as a lunch-room. The janitor's wife was a good cook, and Filson Shelby returned there again and again. One Saturday, when the room happened to be more crowded than usual, the rawboned and ruddy Irish girl was unable to serve everybody, and some time after he had given his order Filson Shelby was waited upon by a young lady in a neat brown dress. He was observant, and he saw a red spot burning on each cheek, and he noted that the lips were tightly set. It seemed to him that she was acting as waitress unwillingly, and yet at the same time that she was doing it of her own accord. He did not like to stare at her, and yet he could hardly take his eyes from her while she was in the room. She was not beautiful exactly, for she was but a slim slip of a girl, and she had coppery hair; and he had always been taught that red hair was ugly. Yet something about her took his fancy; perhaps it was her independent manner, perhaps it was rather her perky self-possession; perhaps, after all, it was the humorous expression which lurked in her eyes and at the corner of her mouth.

He had lingered over his luncheon that noon as long as he could, and then he was rewarded. The man who had first brought him there entered and took a seat beside him. When the young lady in brown came for his order the new-comer shook hands with her cordially, and called her "Miss Edna."

"She used to go to school with my sister," he explained to the young Southwesterner. "She's up at the Normal College now, and I've never seen her here in the dining-room before. But she has a holiday, and I suppose she thought she ought to help her mother out. It's her mother who cooks, you know——and boss cooking it is, too, isn't it?——real home sort of flavor about it."

Filson Shelby had still delayed his departure; and as Edna Leisler brought bread and butter, and went back again to the kitchen, his friend's chatter had streamed along.

"Red-hot hair, hasn't she?" was the next remark. "If there was half a dozen more of her you'd think it was a torchlight procession, wouldn't you? But it suits her style, don't it? Fact is, she's the only red-haired girl I ever saw I didn't hate at sight."

It seemed as though he had expected Filson to respond to this, and so the young Southwesterner hesitated, and cleared his throat, and admitted that her hair was red.

"Well, it is just," the other returned. "I guess her barber has to wear asbestos gloves, eh? But she's a good girl, Edna is, if she is a brand from the burning. My sister used to be very fond of her, and I like her myself, though she isn't in our set exactly. I'll introduce you, if you like?"

The cable-car now came to a halt sharply to set down passengers for Brooklyn by way of the bridge, but Filson Shelby was wholly unconscious of this. He was busy with the recollection of that winter day when he had stood up with bashful awkwardness and had heard Edna Leisler say that she was pleased to meet him. He had the memory also of the next Saturday, when he had gone back to the little low eating-room under the roof in the hope of seeing her again, and of the unaffected frankness of her manner towards him when he met her on the stairway.

He remembered how simply she had accepted his invitation to go to Central Park to lunch on Washington's Birthday, the first holiday when they were both free, and he remembered, too, what a good time they had up there. It was on that Washington's Birthday that he had first found out that in the eyes of some people red hair was not a blemish, but a beauty. The omnibus in which they came down-town had been so crowded that they were separated, and he heard one well-dressed man say to his companion: "Did you ever see such stunning hair as that girl has? It is like burnished copper——except when the sun glints on it, and then it's like spun gold."

Hitherto he had been willing to overlook her aggressive locks in consideration of her good qualities, but thereafter he came rapidly to accept the view of the well-dressed man in the omnibus, and to look upon her red hair as a crown of glory. She did not seem any more attractive to him than she did at first meeting, but he knew now that other men might be attracted also. He wondered whether there were any other men whom she knew as well as she knew him. It seemed to him that they had taken to each other at the start, and they were now very good friends indeed. But there was no reason why she should not have other friends also.

The current of his retrospection was not so sweeping that he could not follow the course of the cable-car in which he was seated, and just then he saw the brown spire of Trinity Church and heard the clock strike three. He signalled to the conductor, and the car stopped before the church door and at the head of Wall Street.

As he stood looking down the crooked street, washed white by the rain and looking clean in the April sunshine, he asked himself why he was going to meet Edna Leisler——and especially why it was his heart had slowed up at the suggestion that perhaps other men were as attentive to her as he was. He was not in love with her, was he? That she had made New York tolerable to him he was ready to admit, and also that he liked her better than any girl he had ever met. But if he was jealous of her, did not that prove that he loved her?

These were the questions he propounded as he walked from Broadway to the old building on the top floor of which the Leislers lived. When Edna Leisler came down-stairs to meet him, with her new Easter hat, he knew the answers to these questions; he knew that he would be miserable if he were to lose the privilege of her society; he knew furthermore that he had loved her since the first day he had seen her, even though he had not hitherto suspected it. He knew also that he would never have a better chance to tell her that he loved her than he would have that afternoon; and while they were shaking hands he made up his mind that before he took her back to her mother's he would get her promise to marry him.

With this resolve fixed, he took refuge in the commonplace.

"Am I late?" he asked.

"Five minutes," she answered. "I didn't know but what you were going to April-fool me."

"Oh, Miss Edna," he cried, "you know I wouldn't do that!"

"I didn't think you would really," she laughed back. "And I felt sure I could get even with you if you did."

Thus lightly chatting, they came to the corner of Broad Street.

"Shall we go down to the Battery?" he suggested, thinking that he might find a chance there to say what was in his heart.

"Yes," she assented; "it'll be first-rate to get a whiff of the salt breeze. It's as warm as spring to-day, isn't it?"

In front of the Stock Exchange, and for two or three blocks below, Broad Street was absolutely bare, except for a little knot of men working over a man-hole of the electrical conduit. The ten-story buildings lifted themselves aloft on both sides of the street, without any evidence of life from window or doorway; they were as silent and seemingly empty as though they belonged to a deserted city of the plains. Bar-rooms in cellars had bock-beer placards before their closed portals. On the glass panel of the swing-door which admitted the week-day passer-by to the Business Men's Quick Lunch there was wafered the bill of fare of the day before, but the door itself was closed tight. So were the entrances to more pretentious restaurants.

But as Filson Shelby and Edna Leisler went on farther down-town, Broad Street slowly changed its character. There were not so many office buildings and more retail shops; there were a few wholesale warehouses; there were even cheap flat-houses; and there were more signs of life. Children began to fill the roadway and the sidewalks. There were boys on tri-cycles, and there were Little Mothers pushing perambulators in which babies lay asleep. There were girls on roller-skates; and one of these, a tall, lanky child, had a frolicsome black poodle, which pulled her quickly along the sidewalk.

Seeing some of these things, and not seeing others, and being taken up wholly by their own talk, the young Southwesterner and the New York girl passed through Whitehall Street and came out on the Battery. They walked to the edge of the water, and looked across the waves to the Statue of Liberty holding her torch aloft. An Italian steamer full of immigrants was just coming up from Quarantine. The afternoon was clear, after the rain of the night before, and yet there was a haze on the horizon. The huge grain-elevators over on the Jersey shore stood out against the sky defiantly.

A fringe of men and women sat on the seats around the grass-plots and along the sea-wall. Many of the women had children in their arms or at their skirts. Most of the men were reading the gaudily illustrated Sunday newspapers; some of them were smoking. The sea-breeze blew mildly, with a foretaste of warm weather. The grass-plots were brownish-gray, with but the barest touch of green at the edges, and there was never a bud yet on any of the skeleton trees. None the less did every one know that the winter was gone for good, and that any day almost the spring might come in with a rush.

As Filson Shelby looked about him he saw more than one young couple sitting side by side on the benches or sauntering languidly along the winding walks, and he knew that he was not the only young fellow who felt the stirring of the season. No one of the other girls was as good-looking as Edna, nor as stylish; he saw this at half a glance. With every minute his desire grew to tell her how dear she was to him, and still he put it off and put it off. Once or twice when she spoke to him he left her remark unanswered, and then hastily begged her pardon for his rudeness. He did not quite know what he was saying, and he feared that she must think him a fool. He was restless, too, and it seemed to him quite impossible to ask her to marry him in such an exposed place as the Battery.

"Suppose we go up to Trinity Church?" he suggested. "It's always quiet enough in the graveyard there."

"Isn't it quiet enough here?" she asked, as they turned their footsteps away from Castle Garden.

"It isn't really noisy, I'll admit," he responded; "but I get mighty tired of those elevated trains snorting along over the back of my head, don't you?"

She gave him a queer little look out of the corner of her eye, and then she laughed lightly.

"Oh, well," she replied, "if you think Trinity Church Yard is a better place, I don't mind."

Then her cheeks suddenly flamed crimson, and she turned away her head.

They were now crossing the barren space under the elevated railroad, and, as it happened, the young man did not see her swift blush.

As they skirted the oval of Bowling Green the girl nodded to a gray-coated policeman on guard over the little park.

"Who's that?" asked the young man, acutely jealous, although he saw that the officer was not less than fifty years old.

"That's Mr. O'Rourke," she explained. "He's Rose O'Rourke's father. She was graduated from the Normal College only two years ago, and then she went on the stage. She's getting on splendidly, too. She played Queen Elizabeth last year——and didn't she look it? I'm sure she's a great deal handsomer than that old Queen was."

"But that old Queen," he returned, "wasn't the daughter of a sparrow-cop——that's what you call them, don't you?"

"I don't call them so," she responded, "for I think it's vulgar to talk slang."

"But the boys do call a park policeman a sparrow-cop, don't they?" he persisted.

"The little boys do," she answered, "but I know Mr. O'Rourke doesn't like it."

"I can understand that," he replied. "If I had Queen Elizabeth for a daughter, I think I should want to be a king myself."

"Well," the girl went on to explain, "Rose did want him to give up his appointment. She said she was earning enough for her father not to work. But he wouldn't, for all she urged him. She's a kind girl, is Rose, and not a bit stuck-up. She came up to the college last year and recited for us. You should have heard her do 'Curfew shall not ring to-night'; I tell you she was splendid."

"I don't believe she did it any better than you could," he declared.

"Oh, don't you?" she returned, heartily; "that's only because you didn't hear her. And she was very nice to me, too. She complimented me on my piece."

"What did you speak?" he asked.

"Oh, I always choose something fiery and patriotic. I spoke 'Sheridan's Ride' first, and then, when the girls encored me, I spoke 'Old Ironsides'——but I like 'Sheridan's Ride' best; and Rose O'Rourke said I got more out of it than anybody she had ever heard. But then she always was so complimentary."

"I reckon she knows it's lucky for her you don't go on the stage," the lover asserted. "It would be a cold day for her if you did. I haven't seen her, but I'm sure she isn't such a good looker as you are!"

"Thank you for the compliment," the girl answered. "If we weren't here in Broadway, in front of Trinity Church, I'd drop you a courtesy. But you wouldn't say that if you had seen her, for she's as pretty as a picture."

"Do you mean that she is as fresh as paint?" he asked.

"That's real mean of you," she retorted, "for Rose doesn't need to paint at all, even on the stage; she has just the loveliest complexion."

"She's not the only girl in New York who has a lovely complexion," he declared; and again the color rose swiftly on her cheek, and then as swiftly faded.

They had now come to the gates of Trinity Church, and they saw a little stream of men and women pouring in to attend the afternoon service.

"You must not be down on Rose," the girl said, as they turned away from Broadway and began to ramble slowly amid the tombstones. "She's a good friend of mine. She said she'd get me an engagement if I'd go on the stage——"

"But you are not going to?" he broke in, earnestly.

"I'd love to," she answered, calmly. "But I'm too big a coward. I'd never dare stand up before the people in a great big theatre and feel they were all looking at me."

"I'm glad you're not going to," he declared.

"It would be too delightful for anything!" she asserted; "but I'd never have the courage. I know I wouldn't, so I've given up the idea. I'll finish my course at the college, and get my diploma, and then I'll be a teacher——that is, if I can get an appointment. But it isn't easy if you haven't any influence; and father doesn't take any interest in politics, and he doesn't know any of the trustees of this district, and I can't see how I'm ever to get into a school. Now Mr. O'Rourke could help me if he wanted——"

"The sparrow-cop?" interrupted the young Southwesterner. "Why, what has he got to do with the public schools?"

"Mr. O'Rourke has a great deal of influence in this ward, I can tell you that," she returned. "He has a pull on more than one of the trustees. If he were to back me, I'd get my position sure! And maybe I had better go to Rose and ask her for her father's influence."

They were now almost in the centre of that part of the church-yard which lies above the church, and behind the monument to the American prisoners who died during the British occupancy of New York. The afternoon service was about to begin, and the solemn tones of the organ were audible where they stood.

It seemed to Filson Shelby that the time had come for him to speak.

He swallowed a lump in his throat, and began.

"Miss Edna," he said, hesitatingly, "why do you want to be a school-teacher?"

"To earn my living, to be sure!" she answered, calmly enough, although the color was rising again on her cheeks.

"But you don't need ever so many scholars to earn your living, do you?" he asked, gaining courage slowly.

"What do you mean?" she returned, forcing herself to look him in the face.

"I mean," he responded, "that I don't see why you couldn't earn your living just as well by having only one scholar——"

"Only one scholar?" she echoed.

"Yes——only one scholar," he declared; "but you could take him for life. And you could teach him everything that was good and true and beautiful——and he would work hard for you, and try and make you happy."

The color ebbed from her cheeks, but she said nothing. The low notes of the organ were dying away, and on the elevated railroad just behind the young couple a train came hissing along wreathed in swirling steam.

"I'm not worthy of you, Edna; I know that only too well; but you can make me ever so much better if you'll only try," he urged. "I love you with my whole heart——that's what I've been trying to say. Will you marry me?"

She raised her eyes to his and simply answered,

"Yes."

An hour later, as they were going through the dropping twilight down Wall Street to the old office building, on the top floor of which she lived with her parents, they were still talking of each other, of their united future, and of their separate past.

When they came to the door and stood at the foot of the five flights of stairs that led up to the janitor's apartment, they had still many things to say to each other.

What seemed to Filson Shelby most astonishing was that he should now be engaged to be married, when that very morning he was not even aware of his love for her. And being a very young fellow, and, moreover, being very much in love, he could not keep this astonishing thing to himself, but must needs tell her.

"Do you know, Edna," he began, "that I must have been in love with you a long while without knowing it? Isn't that most extraordinary? And it was only this morning that I found it out!"

Standing on the stairs above him, and just out of his reach, she broke into a merry little laugh, and the tendrils of red hair quivered around her broad brow.

"What are you laughing at?" he asked.

"Oh, nothing," she answered, and then she laughed again. "At least, not much. It is only because men are so much slower to see things than women are."

"What do you mean?" he asked again.

"Well," she returned, laughing once more, and retreating two or three steps higher up the stairs, "I mean that you say you only found out this morning that you were in love with me——"

"Yes?"

"Well," she continued, making ready for flight, "I found it out more than two months ago."

(1895.)

A SPRING FLOOD IN BROADWAY

S he came down the steps of his sister's little house, that first Saturday in May, he saw before him the fresh greenery of the grass in Stuyvesant Square and the delicate blossoms on its sparse bushes and the young leaves on its trees; and he felt in himself also the subtle influences of the spring-tide. The sky was cloudless, serene, and unfathomably blue. The sun shone clearly, and the shadows it cast were already lengthening along the street. The gentle breeze blew hesitatingly. He heard the inarticulate shriek of the hawker bearing a tray containing a dozen square boxes of strawberries and walking near a cart piled high with crates. When he crossed Third Avenue he noticed that a white umbrella had flowered out over the raised chair of the Italian boot-black at the corner. A butcher-boy, with basket on arm, was lingering at a basement door in lively banter with a good-looking Irish cook. A country wagon, full of growing plants, crawled down the street while the vender bawled forth the cheapness of his wares.

There were other signs of the season at Union Square——the dingy landaus with their tops half open, the flowers bedded out in bright profusion, the aquatic plants adorning the broad basin of the fountain, the pigeons wooing and cooing languidly, the sparrows energetically flirting and fighting, the young men and maidens walking slowly along the curving paths and smiling in each other's faces. To Harry Grant, just home from a long winter in the bleak Northwest, it seemed as though man and nature were alike rejoicing in the rising of the sap and the bourgeoning of spring. It was as though the pulse of the strong city were beating more swiftly and with renewed youth. Harry Grant felt his own heart rejoice that he was back again amid the sights he loved, within a stone's-throw of the house where he was born, within pistol-shot of the residence of the girl he was now going at last to ask to marry him.

It was nearly a year since he had last seen her, but he knew she would greet him as cordially as she had always done. That Winifred was a good friend of his he knew well enough; what he did not know at all was whether or not the friendship had changed to love on her part also. He could hardly recall the time when he had not known her. He could distinctly remember the occasion when he had first told her that he intended to marry her when he was grown up——that was on a spring day like this, and he was seven and she was five, and they were playing together in Gramercy Park while their nurses followed them slowly around the enclosure. Now he was twenty-three and she was twenty-one; and in all these sixteen years there had been no day when he had not looked forward to their marriage. Of course, when he had grown to be a big boy and had been sent away to boarding-school, he had been ashamed to talk about such things. But when he went to college he had gazed ahead four years and almost fixed on the day he intended to propose.

Then his father had died, and the family affairs were left in inexplicable confusion. His uncle had offered to pay Harry's way through Columbia, but he was in a haste to be independent, to make his own path, to have a position which he could ask Winifred to share. He found a place at once in the office of a great dry-goods house; and he had been so successful there that one of their customers had offered him inducements to go out to a swiftly growing city in the new Northwest. Two years had Harry Grant spent out there——two years of hard work amid men who were all toiling mightily and who were capable of appreciating his youthful energy. Now he was back again in New York to act as the Eastern representative of the chief capitalist of the Northwestern city, an old man, who liked Harry, and who saw how useful his address and his character might be. The position was onerous for a man so young; but it was honorable also, and the salary was liberal even from a New York standpoint. At last he was again able to look at life from the point of view of a New-Yorker. At last he was ready to ask her to share his life.

He was in no hurry for the moment, as he could not make sure of finding her at home until nearly five o'clock, and it was now barely four by the transparent dial which Atlas bore on his back in the jeweller's upper window on the opposite side of the square. He crossed Broadway at Fourteenth Street, and there he was caught up at once and swept along by the spring-flood rolling up from down-town that beautiful afternoon in May. The windows of the florists' were lovely with Easter lilies and fragrant with branches of lilac. The windows of the confectioners' were gay with gaudy Easter eggs and with elaborate chocolate rabbits. Young girls pressed giggling through the doors to stand packed beside the soda-water fountains. Elderly men lingered at the street corners to stare at the young women.

Within an hour or two at the most Harry Grant intended to ask Winifred to be his wife, and as he saw the dread question so close before him he could not but wonder what the answer would be. Winifred liked him——that much he felt sure about. Whether she loved him, even a little, that he could not venture to guess. She had sturdy common-sense and she was self-reliant, he knew well, and yet he could not help fearing that perhaps the influence of her grandmother had been more powerful than he wished. It was possible, of course, that the restless and ambitious old lady had inoculated her young granddaughter with some of her own dissatisfaction.

As Harry's circumstances had changed since they were boy and girl together, so had Winifred's. Her father had died also, and then her grandfather, leaving a very large fortune to his widow, and Winifred had gone to live with her grandmother, Mrs. Winston-Smith. (It was her grandmother who had put the hyphen into the name, and who had insisted on its adoption by the son and the granddaughter.) That Mrs. Winston-Smith did not like him, Harry Grant knew only too well, or, at least, that she did not approve of him as a possible suitor for the hand of Miss Winston-Smith. She thought that her granddaughter ought to make a brilliant marriage. She had been heard to say that in England Winifred would have no difficulty in marrying a title. She had taken her granddaughter to London the season before, and they had been presented at court, to go afterwards on a round of country-house visits, returning late to finish the summer at Lenox.

All this Harry knew from the newspapers; but what Winifred had thought of it all he did not know, for he had not seen her since the day before her departure for England. And that interview itself had been in the presence of the grandmother and of two or three casual callers. Really he had not had chance of speech with the woman he had loved for three years——ever since Mrs. Winston-Smith had asked him to dinner one night, only to take him into the library and to tell him that she saw that he was attracted by Winifred, and no wonder, but that he must give up the hope of winning her. Mrs. Winston-Smith was some sixty-years old at the time of this talk with Harry Grant, and she was a very stately dame, with no lack of manner, but she could, if she chose, express herself with absolute frankness and directness. On that occasion she had seen fit to be perfectly plain-spoken. She had told him that Winifred had been used to luxury and could not do without it, and that if Winifred married against her wishes she would give all her money to the new cathedral, cutting the girl off without a cent. She asked Harry if he did not think it would be very selfish of him to press his suit when its success would mean the misery of the woman he pretended to love. She reminded him that his own income was meagre, and that he had no prospects. If, then, Winifred had no money, how could she as his wife have all the luxuries to which she was accustomed, and which had now become necessities? Of course she did not admit that Winifred was in any way interested in him. In fact, she hoped and trusted that the girl's affections were in no way engaged; and she relied on Mr. Grant's good sense and on his unwillingness to be so brutally selfish. After all, Winifred was a mere child, and had seen nothing of the world as yet.

Harry Grant had made no promises to Mrs. Winston-Smith, but he had felt the force of some of her arguments. Plainly he had no right to ask the woman he loved to give up everything for his sake; and as plainly he had no wish to live on any money her grandmother might give her. He meant, more than ever, to win her for his wife; but he saw clearly that he must make himself independent first. To be able to give her a home not unworthy of her he had worked hard all these years. At last he had succeeded, and he was in a position to ask her to marry him without at the same time asking her to surrender the most of the little comforts which made her life easy. With the salary he had now he could make her comfortable, even if her grandmother chose to take offence and cut her off without a cent. There was no false pride about the young fellow, and he did not pretend to himself that he did not care whether or not the grandmother carried out her threat. He was well aware that life would be very much pleasanter if Mrs. Winston-Smith should accept the situation and make the best of it, and give her granddaughter an adequate allowance.

Then, as these thoughts ran through his head, he smiled at his own fatuity in taking Winifred's consent for granted in this summary fashion. What Mrs. Winston-Smith said or did mattered little. What was of vital importance was Winifred's own answer to his question. He could not but recognize that to call on a young lady after a year's separation and to ask her in marriage, suddenly, without warning, was an unusual proceeding. And yet that was just what he was going to do; and he found himself musing over schemes for getting her away from her grandmother and from any chance visitors. He tried to devise a means of luring her into the library or of coaxing her into the conservatory. He cared not how soon they might be interrupted; he knew what he had to say, and he was prepared to say it briefly. Five minutes would be time enough——five minutes, if he could but have them clear. When a man has been wanting for years to be able to put a simple question, it ought not to take him long to say the needful words; and he knew that Winifred would not keep him waiting for his answer. Whether it was to be yes or no, she would know her own mind, and be ready and willing to accept him at once or to reject him with as little hesitation.

He had been keeping pace with the throng that was sweeping massively up-town, but as the fear seized him that, after all, he had little right to think she might love him, he lengthened his stride in futile impatience to get his answer sooner. He glanced up at Tiffany's clock, then almost over his head, and he slackened his speed as he saw that it was not yet five minutes past four. He had at least half an hour to wait before he could hope to find her at home.

Then, most unexpectedly, he was favored with fortune. The foremost of the carriages drawn up in Fifteenth Street alongside the jeweller's was a handsome coupé, in which a young lady was sitting alone. As Harry Grant drew near to the corner his glance fell on this coupé, and at that moment the young lady looked up. He saw that it was Winifred. As their eyes met a swift blush bloomed in her face, and faded as speedily. She smiled and held out her hand and laughed happily as he sprang to the door of the carriage.

"Winifred!" he cried.

"Harry!" she answered.

"I didn't expect to see you here!" he declared.

"Is that the reason you are here, then?" she returned.

He made no reply. He could not take his eyes from her. In his delight at seeing her again he had nothing to say.

"Well?" she asked, when she thought he had stared enough.

"Well," he answered, "I couldn't help it. You are prettier than ever."

Again a flush flitted across her face, fainter this time, and fleeting sooner.

"That's a very direct compliment, don't you think?" she retorted, withdrawing her hand, which he had kept clasped in his own. "And you are looking well, too. Your life out West there is good for you. I don't wonder you prefer it to this noisy old New York of ours."

"But I don't prefer it," he declared, hotly. "A week of New York is worth a year of the whole wide West put together. And I've done with all that now. I've come back here for good now——"

"Have you really?" she responded, as he hesitated, having so much to say that he did not know where to begin.

"I got back this morning," he explained, "and I was coming to see you this afternoon. I've——I've so many things to tell you."

She looked at him for a second, and then she glanced away, as she said: "You will have to talk very fast, then, if you have so many things to tell me. We are going to sail on Tuesday morning, and this afternoon we are off to Tuxedo for over Sunday."

"You sail on Tuesday?" he cried, despairingly. "Just when I have come back on purpose to see you again!"

"You didn't telegraph grandma that you were coming, or she might have made other arrangements," the young woman retorted, with a little laugh.

"'WINIFRED!' HE CRIED"

"And if you are going to Tuxedo to-night," he continued, paying no heed to this ironic suggestion, "then you won't be at home this afternoon?"

"No," she answered; "we shall be back just in time to dress and get away to the train. Grandma has two or three errands to do first——she's inside there arranging about some silver things she wants to take over with us."

"But I must see you to-day," he pleaded.

"Aren't you seeing me now?" she returned, as the blush rose again and fell.

"But I've got something I want to say to you!" he urged.

"Won't it keep till Monday afternoon?" she asked, with another light laugh; but beneath the levity there was more than a hint of feeling.

"No," he declared; "it won't keep an hour longer, for it's been kept too many years already. I've come here on purpose to tell you something——and I must do it to-day!"

"If it's something you want to tell grand-ma——" she began, as if to gain time.

"But it isn't," he returned, leaning his head almost inside the open window of the carriage. "It's you I want to talk to——not to your grandmother."

"Then," said she, with a subtle change of manner, "if it is something you don't want grandma to hear, don't try to say it now, for here she comes."

Harry Grant gave a hasty glance behind him, and he recognized the stately figure of Mrs. Winston-Smith in conversation with one of the salesmen just inside the door of the great store.

"Winifred," he said, pleadingly, taking her hand again, "where can I see you again, if only for a minute——only a minute? That's enough for what I want!"

Winifred looked at him and then down at her fingers. She hesitated, and finally she answered:

"I think I heard grandma say she was going to the florist's before she went home——that florist in Broadway near Daly's, you know. She has a lot of things to order there, and I shall sit in the carriage."

"I'll take the cable-car and be there waiting for you," he responded.

"Don't let grandma see you," she cried; "that is——well——"

Then she sank back on the cushions of the carriage, for Mrs. Winston-Smith was about to leave the store.

Harry Grant had caught sight of the old lady in time. He stepped away from the carriage, and, passing behind it, crossed to the other side of the street without giving Winifred's grandmother a chance to recognize him.

He waited on the opposite corner until Mrs. Winston-Smith took her place in the coupé beside her granddaughter, and until the carriage was turned and had started towards Fifth Avenue.

Then he crossed the broad space nearly to the edge of the park and jumped on the first car that came rushing around the curve. The platform was crowded, but he took no heed of the men who were pressed against him.

His thoughts were elsewhere and his heart was full of hope; it was attuned to the gladness of the spring-time. He did not see the young men and maidens who flocked thickly up Broadway; he saw Winifred only; he saw her face, her eyes, her smile of welcome. He was to see her again, at once almost, and he could tell her then how he loved her, and he could ask her if she would not try to love him. What if the only chance he should have was in the street itself? Only the proposal itself was of importance, the place mattered nothing. Perhaps the unconventionality of the proceeding even added zest to it. There was unconventionality in the frankness with which she had made the appointment. It was this frankness partly which made his heart leap with hope, and partly it was the welcome he thought he had read in her eyes when their glances met first.

The car sped on its way, stopping at almost every corner to take on and to let off men and women, who brushed against Harry Grant and whom he did not see, so absorbed was he in going over every word of his brief dialogue with the girl he loved. On the sidewalks were thick throngs of brightly dressed women looking into the windows of the shops, where were displayed brilliant parasols and trim yachting costumes and summer stuffs in lightsome colors.

As the car crossed Fifth Avenue he saw the carriage of Mrs. Winston-Smith only a block away. He recognized the coachman upright on the box, and then all at once he wondered what the coachman must have thought of his talk through the open window, and of his abrupt appearance. He smiled——indeed he laughed gently——for what did he care what the coachman might think, or anybody else? It was what she thought which was of importance, and nothing else mattered at all. And again he was seized with impatience to see her once and to tell her that he loved her, and to get her answer. The car was going swiftly, but it seemed to him to crawl. The coachman on the avenue was driving briskly, but Harry Grant was ready to rebuke the man for his sluggishness.

At last the car passed the door of the florist's Winifred had described. Its window was filled with azaleas massed with an artistic instinct almost Japanese. Harry Grant rode to the corner above and walked back very slowly, loitering before a shop window, but wholly unconscious of the spring neck-wear therein displayed. Two minutes later he saw Mrs. Winston-Smith's carriage coming down Twenty-ninth Street. It turned into Broadway and stopped before the florist's wide window. Mrs. Winston-Smith got out and ordered the coachman to wait at the corner.

She had disappeared inside the florist's before the coupé drew up in the side street.

As the coachman reined in his horses Harry Grant stepped up to the open window.

"Winifred——" he began.

"Oh!" she cried, "you are here already?" and again the blush crossed her face.

"Winifred," he repeated, leaning his head inside the carriage, "I may have only a minute to say what I have to say, and I know this isn't the right place to say it, either, but I have no choice, for I may not have another chance. I have waited so long that I simply must speak now."

He paused for a moment. She said nothing, but she rubbed the back of her glove as though to wear away a speck of dirt.

"Winnie," he went on, "what I want to say is simple enough. I love you. Surely you must know that?"

"Yes," she answered, raising her eyes to his, "I know that."

"Then it's easier for me to go on. You know me; you know all about me; you know all my faults, or most of them anyway; you know I love you. Do you think you could ever love me a little in return? I will try so hard to deserve it. I've been working ever since I was seventeen to make money enough to be able to ask you to marry me. I've got a good position now, one that I'm not ashamed to ask you to share. Will you? Will you marry me, Winnie?"

Before she could make any answer, Harry Grant heard the voice of Mrs. Winston-Smith behind him saying to the coachman, "Home!"

He stepped back and found himself face to face with her.

"It's Mr. Grant, isn't it?" she said, with a haughty inclination of her head. "It's very good of you to amuse Winifred while I was in the shop. I'd ask you to come and have a cup of tea with us, but we are off to Tuxedo. And we sail on Tuesday; perhaps Winifred told you."

She stood there, expecting him to open the carriage door for her. It was the least he could do, and he did it. But he could find no words to respond to her conventional conversation. He looked at Winifred, and he saw that the color was deepening on her cheeks, and that her eyes were very bright.

"Grandma," she said, when at last Mrs. Winston-Smith was seated beside her——"Grandma," she repeated, loud enough for the young man to hear as he stood by the open window, "Harry has asked me to marry him——and you came out just before I had time to tell him that I would!"

(1895.)

THE VIGIL OF McDOWELL SUTRO

OR the third time that afternoon the young man stood before the window of the post-office to ask the same question and to receive the same answer:

"Has any letter come for McDowell Sutro?"

"No."

This time he persisted, for he could not take no for an answer at that late hour of the day.

"Are you sure?" he asked, urgently.

"Certain sure," was the answer that came through the window.

"Will there be another mail from California to-night?" he inquired, clutching a last hope.

"Not to-night," responded the clerk.

The young man stood there for a second, staring unconsciously into the window, and not seeing anybody or anything. Then he turned slowly to go.

The clerk knew that look on the face of men who asked for letters, and he had a movement of kindness.

"Say, young feller!" he called, brusquely.

McDowell Sutro faced about instantly, with a swift flash of hope.

"If you're expecting money in that letter, maybe it's registered," suggested the clerk. "Ask over there in the corner."

"Thank you," the young man answered, gratefully; and he walked to the window in the corner with expectation again lighting his face.

But there was no registered letter for McDowell Sutro, and there could none arrive before the next morning. And as the handsome young Californian left the post-office he knew that he had hardly a right even to hope that the letter he was asking for should ever arrive.

He stepped out on Fifth Avenue; and though a warm June wind blew balmily up from Washington Square, his heart was chill within him. He shivered as he wondered what he was to do now. He knew no one in New York, and he had not a cent in his pocket.

In his youth he had expected to inherit a fortune, and so he learned no trade and studied no profession. He had taught himself how to be idle elegantly; he had never planned how to earn his own living. Perhaps this was the reason why he had failed to find any work to do during the two gliding weeks since he had suddenly been brought face to face with his final ten-dollar bill.

He had no more resources than he had friends. His trunk, with the little clothing he owned, was still at the boarding-house he had left ten days before; it was held by the landlady till he paid her what he owed. His modest jewelry had been pawned, bit by bit.

It was now about seven in the evening, and he had had no food since the coffee and cakes taken perhaps twelve hours earlier, and bought with the last dime left him after he had paid for his night's lodging. Having walked all day, he was weary and hungry, and he had no idea how he could get a roof over his head once again or fill his stomach once more. He had heard of men and women starving to death in the streets of New York, and he found himself inquiring if that were to be his fate.

Not guiding his steps consciously, he went up Fifth Avenue to the corner of Fourteenth Street, and then turned towards Broadway. The long June day was drawing to an end. Behind his back the red sun was settling down slowly. The street was crowded with cars and with carts; and people hurried along, eager to be with their families, and giving no attention to the homeless young man they brushed against.

When he came to Broadway it seemed to him as though the rush and the tumult redoubled, and as though the men and the women who passed him were being tossed to and fro by invisible breakers. The roar of the city rose all about him; it smote on his tired ears like the deafening crash of the surf after a northeaster. He likened himself to a spent swimmer about to have the life beaten out of him by the pounding of the waves, and certain sooner or later to be cast up on the beach, a stripped and bruised corpse.

So vividly did he picture this that involuntarily he straightened himself and drew a long breath. He was a good-looking young fellow, with a graceful brown mustache curling over his weak mouth. As he stood there, erect as though ready to fight for his life, more than one woman passing briskly along the street let his figure fill her eye with pleasure.

The cable-cars whisked around the curves before him, and beyond them he beheld the green fairness of Union Square. The freshness of its foliage as he saw it through the darksome twilight attracted him. He crossed cautiously, keeping a sharp lookout for the cars, and smiling as he noted how careful he was of his life, now he did not know how he was to sustain it.

As he stood at last in the verdant oasis in the centre of the square, suddenly the electric light whitewashed the pavement, and his unexpected shadow lay black and sprawling under his feet. He looked up, startled, and he saw the infinite arch of the sky curving over him——clear, cloudless, and illimitable. The faint sickle of the new moon hung low on the horizon. A towering building thrust its thin height into the air, and the yellow lights in its upper windows seemed like square panels inlaid in the deep blue of the sky. The beauty of the moment lifted him out of his present misery, and he was glad to be alive. The plash of the fountain fell on his ears and charmed them. The broad leaves of the aquatic plants swayed languidly as a gentle breeze blew across the surface of the water.

With a sigh of relief, McDowell Sutro dropped upon one of the park benches. Until he sat down he did not know how tired he was. His feet ached, and his stomach cried for food. And yet he was stout of heart. "If I've got to spend a night à la belle étoile," he said to himself, "I could have no better luck. There are beautiful stars a-plenty this evening. It's like that night in Venice when Tom Pixley and I took the two Morton girls out in our gondolas, and their aunt couldn't find us. I remember we had had a good dinner at Florian's, with an immense dish of risotto milanese——so big we had to leave some. I wish I had the chance again. I could finish it now if it was twice as much."

Over on Fourth Avenue, behind the equestrian statue of George Washington, there was a Hungarian restaurant, and from his bench at the edge of the grass McDowell Sutro could see the table right in the window at which an old man and a young woman were having dinner. He could follow every movement of their hands; he could count every mouthful they ate. At last he could bear it no longer, and he changed his seat to a bench nearer Broadway. Here he found himself facing another eating-room, in the broad windows of which many kinds of food were alluringly displayed. Men came out and lingered in the door-way long enough to light a cigarette.

When McDowell Sutro noted this, the craving for tobacco seized him. A smoke would not stay his stomach, but it would be a solace none the less. He rose to his feet and felt in all his pockets, in the vain hope that his fingers might touch some overlooked fragment of a cigar. There was something at the bottom of one of the pockets of his coat, but it mocked him by revealing itself as a match. He sank down on the bench and turned his eyes away from the restaurant, for he could not bear to gaze on the cakes and pies piled up behind the plate-glass, or to observe the smoke curling up from the lips of men who had eaten and drunk abundantly.

There was a bar-room under the hotel on the corner of Broadway, and every now and then two or three men pushed inside the swinging doors, to reappear five or ten minutes later. Farther down Broadway stood a theatre, and there was now a throng about its broad door-way. Another theatre faced the square, gay with prismatic signs and besprinkled with electric lights. McDowell Sutro watched men and women step up to the box-office of this place of amusement and buy their tickets and disappear within. He wondered why these men and women should have money to spare on a show, when he had not enough to pay for a meal and a night's lodging.

Perhaps it was the fatigue of his useless day, and perhaps it was the hypnotic influence of the revolving lights before the variety theatre, which caused the lonely young man to fall asleep. How long he slept he did not know, nor what waked him at last. But he had a doubtful memory of a human touch upon his body, and three of his pockets were turned inside out. When he discovered this, he laughed outright. The attempt to rob him then struck him as the funniest thing that had ever happened.

He must have slept for two or three hours at least, for the appearance of the square had changed. It was no longer evening; it was now night. While he looked about him he saw the doors of the theatre in Broadway pushed open, and the audience began to pour forth. A few moments later little knots of the play-goers passed him, still laughing with remembrance of the farce they had been witnessing. In another quarter of an hour the people began to come out of the other theatre, the variety show on the square, and the lights that flared above the door-way went out, all at once.

It was nearly midnight when two men sat down on the bench of which McDowell Sutro had been the sole occupant hitherto. They were tall and thin, both of them; they were clean-shaven; their clothes were shabby; and yet they carried themselves with an indescribable air, as though they were accustomed to brave the gaze of the world.

"No," said the elder of the two, continuing their conversation, "she's no good. She has a figure like a flat-iron and a voice like a fog-horn, hasn't she? Well, there's no draft in that, is there? She's a Jonah, that's what she is, and she'd hoo-doo any show. Why, the last time I was on the road she tried to queer my act. I called her down right there and then, and when the star backed her up, I was going to give my two weeks' notice; and I'd have done it, too, but I was playing cases then, and I didn't want to come back here walking on my uppers. But if I had quit, they'd have closed in a month, I tell you! They didn't know who was drawing the money to their old show; but I did! You ought to have been in the one-night towns on the oil circuit and heard me do Shamus O'Brien. That used to fetch 'em every night——I tell you it did! And it used to make her tired!"

"Did you ever see me play Laertes?" asked the younger. "I did it first in 'Frisco in '72, when Larry Barrett came out there. Well, while I was on the stage with him, Hamlet didn't get a hand. I've got a notice here now that said I was the Greatest Living Laertes."

"I played Iago once with Larry Barrett," said the first speaker, "and I gave them such a realistic impersonation they used to hiss me off the stage almost."

"Have a cigarette?" asked the other, holding out a package.

"Don't care if I do," was the answer. "I've got a match."

"That's lucky, for I haven't," said the owner of the cigarettes.

"Well, I haven't, after all," the elder actor had to confess, after a vain search in his pockets.

"Let me provide the match," broke in McDowell Sutro. "I've only one, but it's at your service."

"Thank you," was the response. "Can I not offer you a cigarette?"

"I don't care if I do," the young man answered, involuntarily repeating the phrase he had just heard, as he thrust out his hand eagerly.

The first whiff of the smoke was like meat and drink to him; and in the sensuous enjoyment of the luxury he almost neglected to respond to the remark addressed to him. But in a minute he found himself chatting with the two actors pleasantly. Although they had been to California more than once, they knew none of his friends; but it cheered merely to hear again the names of familiar landmarks. There was more than a suggestion of haughtiness in the way they both condescended to him; but he did not resent this, even if he remarked it. Human companionship was sweet to him; and to drop into a chat with casual strangers on a bench in Union Square at midnight, even this diminished the desolation of his loneliness.

The talk lasted perhaps a quarter of an hour, and then the two other men rose to go. McDowell Sutro stood up also, as though he were at home and they were his guests.

"Come over and have a drink," said the elder of the two.

And again the young man answered, "I don't care if I do."

He would rather have had food than drink, but he could not tell two strangers that he was hungry.

As they passed before the statue of Lafayette and crossed the car tracks, he wondered whether the saloon where they were going to was one of those which set out a free lunch.

When they entered the bar-room his eyes swept it wolfishly, and then fixed themselves at the end of the counter, where there were broad dishes with cheese and crackers and sandwiches. He could hardly control himself; he wanted to rush there and snatch the food and devour it. But shame kept him standing near the door with the two actors, though his gaze was fastened on the dishes only a few feet from him.

The barkeeper set the bottle before them, and they poured out the liquor. Then they looked at each other and said, "How!"

The elder actor half finished his drink at a single gulp. As he set down his glass he caught McDowell Sutro staring at the free lunch.

"That's not a bad idea," he said, moving along the bar——"not half bad. I'll take a sandwich myself. I feel a bit hollow to-night. I got three encores after I gave them the 'Pride of Battery B,' and I need something to build me up. Have a sandwich?"

"I don't care if I do," responded the hungry man, as his fingers closed on the bread. Yet when he took the first mouthful it almost choked him.

Five minutes later he had said good-night to his two chance acquaintances and he was again back in the square. The scant food he had been able to take lay hard in his stomach, and the liquor he had drunk, little as that was also, was yet enough to make his head whirl. He did not walk unsteadily, although he was conscious that it took an effort for him to carry himself without swerving.

The bench on which he had been sitting was now occupied by four very young men in evening dress, who were gravely smoking pipes, as though they were trying to acquire a taste for this novel pastime. So he went to the centre of the square, where he stood for a while looking at the aquatic plants and listening to the spurtle of the fountain.

All the seats around the fountain were occupied by men and women, most of whom seemed to have settled themselves for the night, as though they were used to sleeping there. McDowell Sutro found himself speculating whether he, too, would soon be accustomed to spending his nights in the open air, without a roof over him.

One solid German had fallen into a slumber so heavy that his snore became a loud snort. Then a gray-coated policeman waked the sleeper by smiting the soles of his feet with the club.

"This park ain't no bedroom," said the policeman, "and I ain't goin' to have you fellows goin' to sleep here either! See?"

After walking three or four times around on the outer circle of the little park, the young man found a vacant seat on a bench near the corner of Broadway and Seventeenth Street. The brilliantly lighted cable-cars still glided swiftly up and down Broadway with their insistent gongs, but they were now fewer and fewer; and the cross-town horse-cars passed only two or three an hour. The long day of the city was nearly over at last, and for the two or three hours before dawn there would be peace and a cessation of the struggle.

As he sat back on the bench, sick with weariness, the occupant of the seat next to him aroused herself. She was an elderly woman, with grizzled hair.

"I beg your pardon——if I waked you up?" said the young man.

"You did wake me up," she answered, "but I forgive you. It's only cat-naps I get anyway nowadays. I haven't stretched my legs out between the sheets and had my fill of sleep for a month of Sundays. And I'm a glutton for sleeping if I've the chance. But I'm getting used to sitting up late," and she laughed without bitterness. "What time is it now?" she asked.

McDowell Sutro involuntarily lifted his hand to the pocket of his waistcoat, and then he dropped it quickly. Blushing, he answered, "I don't know——I——"

"Time's up, isn't it?" she returned, with a laugh of understanding. "I haven't got my watch with me either; I left it in my other clothes at my uncle's. But Mr. Tiffany is a kind-hearted man, and he keeps a clock all lighted up for us to see. Your eyes are younger than mine——what time is it now?"

McDowell Sutro looked intently for half a minute before he could make out the hour. At last he answered, "It's almost half-past one, I think."

"Then I've a couple of hours for another nap before the sparrows wake us all up," she returned. "Is it the first night you have come to this hotel of ours?"

"Yes," he replied.

"I thought so," she continued, "by your feeling for your watch. You'll get out of the way of doing that soon."

His face blanched with fear that she might be predicting the truth. Would the time ever come when he should be used to sleeping in the open air?

The old woman turned a little, so that she could look at him.

"It's a handsome young fellow you are," she went on; "there's more than one house in town where they'd take you in on your looks——and tuck you up in bed, too, and keep you warm."

"Perhaps I'm better off here," he remarked, feeling that he was expected to say something.

"This isn't a bad hotel of ours, this isn't," she returned; "it's well ventilated, for one thing. Of course you can go to the station-house if you want. I don't. I've tried it, and I'd sooner sleep in the snow than in the station-house, with the creatures you meet there. This hotel of ours here keeps open all night; and it's on the European plan, I'm thinking——leastwise you can have anything you can pay for. When the owl-wagon is here, you can get a late supper——if you have the price of it. I haven't."

"Neither have I," he answered.

"Then there's two of us ready for an invite to breakfast," she responded, cheerily. "If any one asks us, it's no previous engagement will make us decline, I'm thinking."

He made no answer, for his heart sank as he looked into the future.

"Are you hungry now?" she asked.

"Yes," he answered, simply.

"So am I," she replied, "and I can't get used to it. Hunger is like pain, isn't it? It don't let go of you; it don't get tired and let up on you. It's a stayer, that's what it is, and it keeps right on attending strictly to business. Sometimes, when I'm very hungry, I feel like committing suicide, don't you?"

"No," he responded——"at least, not yet; I haven't had enough of life to be tired of it so soon."

"Neither have I," was her answer. "Sometimes I'm ready to quit, but somehow I don't do it. But it would be so easy; you throw yourself in front of one of those cable-cars coming down Broadway now——and you'll get rapid transit to kingdom come. But they don't sell excursion tickets. Besides, being crunched by a cable-car is a dreadful mussy way of dying, don't you think? And to-day's Friday, too——and I don't believe I'd ever have any luck in the next world if I was to commit suicide on a Friday."

"This isn't Friday any longer," he suggested; "it's Saturday morning."

"So it is now," she rejoined; "then we'd better be getting our beauty-sleep as soon as we can, for the flower-market here will wake us up soon enough, seeing it's Saturday. And so, good-night to you!"

"Good-night!" he responded.

"And may you dream you've found a million dollars in gold, and then wake up and find it true!" she continued.

"Thank you," he replied, wondering what manner of woman his neighbor might be.

She said nothing more, but settled herself again and closed her eyes. She was dressed in rusty black, and she had a thin black shawl over her head. She had been a very handsome woman——so she impressed the young man by her side——and he was wholly at a loss to guess how she came to be here, in the street, at night, without money and alone. She seemed out of place there; for her manner, though independent, was not defiant. There was no rasping harshness in her tones; indeed, her talk was dashed with joviality. Her speech even puzzled him, although he thought that showed her to be Irish.

Turning these things over in his mind, he fell asleep. He dreamed the same dream again and again——a dream of a barbaric banquet, where huge outlandish dishes were placed on the table before him. The savor of them was strange to his nostrils, but it brought the water to his mouth. Then, when he made as though to help himself and stay his appetite, the whole feast slid away beyond his reach, and finally faded into nothing. The dream differed in detail every time he dreamed it; and the last time the only dish on the board before him was a gigantic pasty, which he succeeded in cutting open, only to behold four-and-twenty blackbirds fly forth. The birds circled about his head, and then returned to the empty shell of the pasty, and perched there, and sang derisively.

So loudly did they sing that McDowell Sutro awoke, and he heard in the trees above him and behind him the chirping and twittering of countless sparrows.

He recalled what the old woman had said——that the birds would wake them up. Probably they had aroused her first, for the place on the bench next to him was empty.

He rose to his feet and looked about him. It was almost daybreak, and already there were rosy streaks in the eastern sky. A squirrel was running up and down a large tree in the middle of the grass-plot behind the bench on which he had been sleeping. In the open space at the northern end of the square there were a dozen or more gardeners' wagons, thick with growing flowers in pots, and men were arranging these plants in rows upon the pavement. Another heavy wagon, loaded with roses only, rolled across the car track and disturbed a flock of pigeons that swirled aloft for a moment and then settled down again. A moist breeze blew up from the bay, and brought a warning of rain to come later in the day.

The sleepers on the other benches here and there throughout the square were waking, one by one. McDowell Sutro saw one of them go to the drinking-fountain and wash his hands and face. He followed this example as best he could. When he had made an end of this his eye fell on Tiffany's clock, which told the hour of half-past four. A few minutes later the first rays of the sun began to gild the cornices of the tall buildings which towered above the Lincoln statue.

Within the next hour and a half the cable-cars began to pass down-town more frequently, and the cross-town cars from the ferries also came closer together. The gardeners' wagons and the plants taken from them filled the broad space at the upper end of the square. Milk-carts rattled across the car tracks that bounded the square on all four sides. The signs of the coming day multiplied, and McDowell Sutro noted them all, one after another, with unfailing interest, despite the gnawing pain in his stomach. It was the first time he had ever seen the awakening of a great city.

He walked away from Union Square as far as Fifth Avenue and Twenty-third Street, and again as far as Third Avenue and Fourteenth Street; but he found himself always returning to the flower-market. At last a hope sprang up within him. Among the purchasers were ladies not strong enough to carry home the heavy pots, and perhaps he might pick up a job. This was not the way he wanted to earn his daily bread, but never before had he felt the want of the daily bread so keenly.

When he came back to the line of gardeners' wagons he found other men out of work also hanging about in the hope of making an honest penny; and more than once he saw one or another of these others sent away, burdened with tall plants.

At last he took his courage in his hand, and went up to a little old lady whom he had seen going from row to row. She had bright eyes and a gentle manner and a kindly smile. He asked her, if she bought anything, to let him carry it home for her. She looked at the handsome young fellow, and her glance was as shrewd as it seemed to him sympathetic.

"Yes," she answered, "I think I can trust you."

A minute or two later she bargained with a Scotch gardener for two azaleas in full bloom. Then she turned to McDowell Sutro:

"Will you take those to the Post-Graduate Hospital, corner of Second Avenue and Twentieth Street, for half a dollar?"

"Yes," he answered, eagerly.

"Very well," she responded. "They are for the Babies' Wards. Say that they are from Miss Van Dyne. The Babies' Wards, you understand? And here is your money. I've got to trust you; but you have an honest face, and I don't believe that you would rob sick children of the sight and smell of the flowers they love."

"No," said McDowell Sutro, "I wouldn't." He picked up the heavy pots, and held one in the hollow of each arm. "The Babies' Wards of the Post-Graduate Hospital, from Miss Van Dyne? Is that it?"

"That's it," she answered, with her illuminating smile.

He walked off with the plants. Having the money in his pocket to break his fast, it seemed as though he could not get to the hospital swiftly enough. But when he had handed in the flowers, and was on his way back again to the square, he remembered suddenly the woman who had sat by him on the bench, and who had been hungry also. He had fifty cents in his pocket now, and in the window of an eating-house on Fourth Avenue he saw the sign, "Regular Breakfast, 25 cts." He had money enough to buy two regular breakfasts, one for himself and one for her.

He made the circle of the little park three times, besides traversing it in every direction, and then he had to confess that she was beyond his reach.

So he went to the restaurant alone, and had a regular breakfast all to himself.

When he came forth he felt refreshed, and the people who were now hurrying along the streets struck him as happier than those he had seen in the gray dawn. The long sunbeams were lighting the side streets. The workmen with their dinner-pails were giving place to the shop-girls with their luncheons tied up in paper.

The roar of the great city arose once more as the mighty tide of humanity again swept through its thoroughfares.

He went back to the gardeners' wagons, believing that he might earn another half-dollar. But when he saw other men waiting there hungrily, he turned away, thinking it only fair to give them a chance too.

He found a seat in the sun, and looked on while the flower-market was stripped by later purchasers. He wondered where the plants were all going, and then he remembered that the same flowers serve for the funeral and for the wedding. For the first time it struck him as strange that the plant which dresses a dinner-table to-day may gladden a sick-room to-morrow, and be bedded on a grave the day after.

At last he thought the hour had come when the post-office would be open again, and he set off for Fifth Avenue and Thirteenth Street.

When he reached the station he checked his walk. He did not dare go in, although the doors were open, and he could see other men and women asking questions at the little square windows. What if his questions should meet with the same answer as yesterday? What if he should have to spend another night in Union Square?

He nerved himself at last and entered. As he approached the window the clerk looked at him with a glance of recognition.

"McDowell Sutro, isn't it? Yes——there is a letter for you. Overweight, too——there's four cents extra postage to pay."

The young man's hand trembled as he put down the quarter left after paying for his regular breakfast. He seized the envelope swiftly, and almost forgot to pick up his change, till the clerk reminded him of it.

He tore the letter open. It was from Tom Pixley; it contained a post-office order for fifty dollars; and it began:

"MY DEAR MAC,——Go and see Sam Sargent, 78 Broadway, and he will get you a place on the surveyor's staff for the new line of the Barataria Central. I'm writing to him by this mail, and——"

But for a minute McDowell Sutro could read no further. His eyes had filled with tears.

(1895.)

AN IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT

HE summer sun had blazed down all day on the low wooden roof of the old shed lately used as an ice-cream saloon, and now hastily altered to accommodate a post of the Salvation Army. Placards at the wide doorway proclaimed that All were Welcome, and besought the stranger to Come in and be Saved. The tall tenements that lined the side-streets east and west had emptied their hundreds of inhabitants out into the avenue that evening, and the sidewalks were thronged with men and women languid from the heat of the day, and longing for the lazy breeze that sometimes creeps into the city with nightfall; but few of them cared to enter the stifling hall where the song-service was about to begin, and that night especially there were many counter-attractions out-doors. Already were the rockets beginning to burst far above the square where the fireworks were to be displayed; and now and again a boy (who had more than boyish self-control) produced a reserve pack of fire-crackers, and dropped them into a barrel, and capered away with delight as the owner of the barrel was called to his door by the rattle of their explosion.

A pale and thin young woman, in the uniform of the Salvation Army, stood wearily in the entrance, proffering the War Cry to all those who came near. She looked as though she had been pretty when she was a girl. Now she was obviously worn and weak, like one recovering from a long illness. High up over her head appeared a shower of colored stars shot forth from a bomb; and then she remembered how she had seen the fireworks on the last Fourth of July, only a year before, lying on her bed which Jim had pulled to the window before he went down to conduct the meeting. She had lain there peacefully with her two-weeks-old baby in her arms, and it had seemed to her as though the glowing wheels that revolved in the air, and the curving lines of fire that rose and fell again, were but a prefiguration of a golden future where all would be splendor and glory. How that vision had faded into blackness in the months that followed!——when the baby sickened because they had not proper food for him, and when Jim broke down also; and she had had to get up, feeble as she was, and nurse them both until they died, one after another. When she let herself think of those days of despair, she had always to make a resolute effort if she did not wish to give way and go into a fit of sobbing that left her exhausted for the next twenty-four hours.

She mastered her rising emotion and turned for relief to the duty of the moment. For five minutes no one had bought a paper from her, and the time had come to go into the hall to take part in the service of song.

She pushed inside the swinging-door and found that perhaps a score of visitors had gathered, and that already half a dozen members of the Salvation Army had taken their seats at the edge of the low platform at the end of the shallow hall. Captain Quigley was standing there, with his shiny black hair carefully curled and his pointed beard carefully combed. He was waiting, ready to begin, with his accordion in his hands.

She wondered why it was that she was always sorry to have Captain Quigley lead the service. She would not deny that he led well, giving a swing to the tunes he played that carried all the people off their feet; he sang sweetly and he spoke feelingly. But she did not altogether like his manner, which was almost patronizing; and then he had a way of bringing her suddenly into his remarks and of calling her forward needlessly. Even after her two years' service she shrank from personalities and from self-exhibition. Yet there was no doubt that he meant to be kind to her, and she knew that he had allowed her special privileges more than once. With motherly kindness Adjutant Willetts had asked her only a week before if she really liked Captain Quigley, telling her that if she did not like him, she ought to be careful not to encourage him, and since that talk with the adjutant her distaste for the captain had been intensified.

It was as though Captain Quigley had been waiting for her to appear, for he began to speak as soon as he saw her. In a high nasal voice and with an occasional elided aspirate, he welcomed those present and told them he was glad that they had come. He asked them all to take part in singing the grand old hymn, "There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood." He set the tune with his accordion, and lined out the first stanza and led in the singing. Only three or four of the chance visitors joined in the song, the burden of which was borne by the members of the Salvation Army.

Then the captain told his hearers that there was a new War Cry published that very morning full of interesting things, and containing the words of the songs they would all sing later, so he wanted everybody in the hall to buy one, that they could all follow the music.

The thin young woman with the saddened face began to move down the aisles offering her papers right and left.

"That's the way, Sister Miller," called out the captain, as though to encourage her; but she winced as she heard her name thus thrown to the public. "I want you all to buy Sister Miller's papers, so that she can come up here and join us in the singing. You don't know what a sweet voice Sister Miller has——but we know."

He continued to talk thus familiarly as she made the circuit of the seats. When she had taken her place on the platform by the side of Adjutant Willetts, who smiled at her with maternal affection in her eye, then suddenly the captain changed his tone. "Now we will ask the Lord to bless us——to bless us all, to bless this meeting. I don't know why any of you have come here to-night, but I do know this: if you have come here for God's blessing, you will get it. If you have come here for something else, I don't know whether you will get it; but if you have come here for that you will surely get it. God always gives His blessing to all who ask for it. Brother Higginson, will you lead us in prayer?"

The men and women on the platform fell on their knees, and the most of those scattered about the hall bowed their heads reverently, while Brother Higginson prayed that the blessing of God might descend upon them that night. Sister Miller had heard Brother Higginson lead in prayer many times and she knew almost to a word what he was likely to say, for the range of his appeal was limited; but she always thrilled a little at the simple fervor of the man. It annoyed her, as usual, to have the captain punctuate the appeal of Brother Higginson with an occasional "Amen! Amen!" or "Hallelujah!"

After the prayer there was another gospel song, and then the captain laid aside his accordion and took up a Bible. He read a passage from the Old Testament describing the advance of the Children of Israel into the desert, guided by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. He held the book in his hand while he expounded his text. The Children of Israel had their loins girded to fight the good fight, he said. That is what every people has to do; the Israelites had to do it, the English had to do it, the Americans had to do it. They all knew what the Fourth of July stood for and how well Americans fought then, more than a hundred years ago; and so saying he seized the flag which had been leaning against the wall behind him, by the side of the blood-red banner of the Salvation Army.

As he was waving the Stars and Stripes Sister Miller felt her dislike accentuated, for she knew that the captain was an Englishman who had been here but a few years, and it seemed to her mean of him to be taking sides against his native land. She wondered if he was really ignorant enough to think that one of the great battles of the Revolution had been fought on the Fourth of July.

Then her mind went back to her girlhood, and she recalled the last celebration of the Fourth that had taken place in the old school-house at home the summer before she graduated. She remembered how old Judge Standish read the Declaration of Independence with a magnificent air of proprietorship, as though he had just dashed it off. Other incidents of that day came floating back to her memory as she sat there in the thick air of the little hall, and she ceased to hear Captain Quigley calling urgently on all those present to be Soldiers of God. In her ears there echoed, instead, the pleading words of young Dexter Standish, telling her that he was going to the Naval Academy and that he wanted her to wait for him till he should come back. She had given her promise, and why had she not kept her word? Why had she been foolishly jealous when she heard that he was the best dancer in his class at Annapolis, and that all the Baltimore girls were wild to dance with him. She had long ago discovered that her reason for breaking off the engagement was wholly inadequate; and, in her folly, she had not foreseen that Dexter could not leave the Academy and come to her and explain. If only he had presented himself and told her he loved her she would have forgiven him, even if he had really deserved punishment. But he was a cadet, and he would not have a leave of absence for another year. Before that year was out, she had married James Miller, a theological student, who soon threw up all his studies in his religious zeal to join the Salvation Army, as though craving martyrdom. Jim had loved her, and he had thought she loved him. It was with a swift pang of reproach that she found herself asking whether it was not better for Jim that he had died before he found out that his wife did not love him as he loved her.

With the ingenuity that came of long experience, Captain Quigley had ended his address with a quotation from "Onward, Christian Soldiers," and Sister Miller was roused from her reverie to take part in the chorus. When they had sung three stanzas the captain stopped abruptly and turned to the gray-haired woman who sat beside Sister Miller, and called on Adjutant Willetts to say a few words of loving greeting to the souls waiting to be saved.

To Sister Miller it was a constant delight to be with the adjutant, to be comforted by her motherly smile and to be sustained by her cheerful faith. There was a Quaker simplicity about Sister Willetts, and a Quaker strength of character that the wan and worn Sister Miller had found she could always rely upon. And another characteristic of the elder woman's endeared her also to the younger: her religious fervor was as fresh as it was sincere, and she gave her testimony night after night with the same force and the same feeling that she had given it the first time. Too many of the others had reduced what they had to say to a mere formula, modified but little and delivered at last in almost mechanical fashion. But Sister Willetts stood forward on the platform and bore witness to her possession of the peace of God which passeth all understanding; and she did this most modestly, with neither shyness nor timidity, merely as though she were doing her duty gladly in declaring what God had done for her.

When the adjutant had made an end of speaking and had taken her seat by the side of the pale young woman, who smiled back at her again, Captain Quigley grasped his accordion once more.

"Now you shall have a solo," he said. "Sister Miller will sing that splendid old hymn, 'Rock of Ages.' Come, Sister Miller."

Her voice had no great power, but it sufficed for that little hall. She did not like to stand forward conspicuously, but the singing itself she always enjoyed. Sometimes she was almost able to forget herself as she poured out her soul in song.

On that Fourth of July evening she had not more than begun when she became conscious that somebody was staring at her with an intensity quite different from the ordinary gaze of curiosity to which she was accustomed. She obeyed the impulse, and looked down into the eyes of Dexter Standish fixed upon her as though he had come to claim possession of her at once.

So unexpected was this vision, and so enfeebled was her self-control, that her voice faltered, and she almost broke off in the middle of a line. But she stiffened herself, and though she felt the blood dyeing her face, she sang on sturdily. Her first thought was to run away——to run away at once and hide herself, somewhere, anywhere, so that she were only out of his sight. He had not seen her for six years and more, and in those weary years she had lost her youth and her looks. She knew that she was no longer the pretty girl he had loved, and she shrank from his scrutiny of her faded features and of her shrunken figure.

She could not run away and she could not hide; she had to stand there and let him gaze at her and discover how old she looked and how worn. She met his eyes again——he never took them from her——and it seemed to her that they were full of pity. She resented this. What right had he to compassionate her? She drew her thin frame up and sang the louder in mere bravado. Yet she was glad when she came to the end, and was able to sink back into the seat by the side of Sister Willetts.

The captain spoke up at once, and said that the time had come to take up a collection. Let every man give a little, in proportion to his means, no more and no less. Would Sister Willetts and Sister Miller go about among the people to collect the offerings?

As she picked up her tambourine she turned impulsively to the elder woman.

"Let me go to those near the platform, please," she begged. "Won't you take the outside rows?"

The adjutant looked down on her a little surprised, but agreed at once.

The younger woman went only a few steps down the aisles, keeping as far away from him as possible. Whenever she glanced towards him she found his eyes fixed upon her, following her everywhere; and now it was not pity she thought she saw in his look, but love——the same love she had seen in those eyes the last time they two had stood face to face.

When the tambourines had been extended towards everybody in the hall, the two women went back to the platform and the adjutant counted up the money——coppers and nickels, most of it, and not two dollars in all.

The captain kept on steadfastly. He gave out another hymn. When that had been sung, he turned to a portly man who had come in late and who was sitting on the platform behind Brother Higginson.

"Brother Jackman," he asked, with unction, "how is your soul to-night? Can't you tell us about it?"

While the portly man, standing uneasily with his hands on the chair before him, was briskly setting forth the circumstances of his assured salvation, Sister Miller was silent on the platform.

She could not help seeing Dexter Standish, who was straight in front of her. She noted how erect he was, and how resolutely his shoulders were squared. She saw that he was older, too; and she observed that his face had a masterful look, wanting there the last time she had seen him.

He had always been a fine-looking fellow, and the training at Annapolis had done him good. He was no mere youth now, but a man, bronzed and bearded, and bearing himself like one who knew what he wanted and meant to get it. She realized that the woman he chose to guard from the world would be well shielded. A weary woman might find rest under the shelter of his stalwart protection. Involuntarily she contrasted the man she had promised to marry with the man she had married——the manly strength of the one with the gentle weakness of the other. Then she blushed again, for this seemed to her disloyalty to the dead. Jim had been very good to her always; he was the father of her child; he never did any wrong. But the thought returned again——perhaps if he had had more force of character the child need not have died as it did.

Brother Jackman was rattling along glibly, but Sister Miller did not heed him. She did not hear him even. She did not hear anything distinctly during the rest of the service. She rose to her feet with the rest of them, and she sat down again automatically, and she knelt like one in a trance. When the meeting was over and the people began to disperse she saw that he did not move. He stood there silently, waiting for her to come to him, ready to bear her away. Without a word Sister Miller knew what it was her old lover wanted; he wanted to pick up their love-story where it had been broken off four years before.

When the hall was nearly empty he started towards her.

She turned to the gray-haired woman by her side.

"Tell me what to do," she cried. "He is coming to take me away with him."

Sister Willetts saw the young man advancing slowly, as those last to go made a path for him.

"Is he in love with you, too?" she asked.

"Yes," the younger woman answered.

"And do you love him?"

"Yes——at least, I think so. Oh yes!"

"And is he a good man?" was the last question.

"Yes, indeed," came the prompt reply, "the best man I ever knew!"

The sturdy figure was drawing nearer and the elder woman rose.

"If you love him better than you love your work with us, go to him, in God's name," she said. "We seek no unwilling workers here. If you cannot give yourself to the service joyfully, putting all else behind you, go in peace——and may the blessing of God be with you!"

She bent forward and kissed the younger woman and left her, as Dexter Standish came and stood before her.

"Margaret," he said, firmly, "I have come for you."

Without a word she stepped down from the platform and went with him.

When they came to the door a hansom happened to pass and he called it.

"Where are you taking me?" she asked, glad to be under the shelter of his devotion and ready to relinquish all right to decide upon her future for herself.

"To my mother," he answered, as he lifted her into the vehicle. "She's at a hotel here. She'll be glad to see you."

"Will she?" the girl asked, doubtfully.

"Yes," was the authoritative answer, "she knows that I have always loved you."

(1897.)

THE SOLO ORCHESTRA

HE air was thick and heavy, as it sometimes is in the great city towards nightfall after a hot spell has lasted for ten days. There were sponges tied to the foreheads of the horses that wearily tugged at the overladen cross-town cars. The shop-girls going home fanned themselves limply. The men released from work walked languidly, often with their coats over their arms. The setting sun burned fiery red as it sank behind the hills on the other side of the Hudson. But the night seemed likely to be as hot as the day had been, for the leaves on the trees were motionless now, as they had been all the afternoon.

We had been kept in town all through July by the slow convalescence of our invalid, and with even the coming of August we could not hope to get away for another ten days yet. The excessive heat had retarded the recovery of our patient by making it almost impossible for her to sleep. That evening, as it happened, she had dropped off into an uneasy slumber a little after six o'clock, and we had left her room gently in the doubtful hope that her rest might be prolonged for at least an hour.

I had slipped down-stairs and was standing on the stoop, with the door open behind me, when I heard the shrill notes of the Pan-pipes, accompanied by the jingling of a set of bells and the dull thumping of a drum. I understood at once that some sort of wandering musician was about to perform, and I knew that with the first few bars the needful slumber of our invalid would be interrupted violently.

I closed the door behind me softly and sprang down the steps, and sped swiftly to the corner around which the sounds seemed to proceed. If the fellow is a foreigner, I thought, I must give him a quarter and so bribe him to go away, and then he will return every evening to be bought off again, and I shall become a subscriber by the week to the concerts I do not wish to hear. But if the itinerant musician is an American, of course I can appeal to him, as one gentleman to another, and we shall not be troubled with him again.

"THE AIR WAS THICK AND HEAVY"

When I turned the corner I saw a strange figure only a few yards distant——a strange figure most strangely accoutred——a tall, thin, loose-jointed man, who had made himself appear taller still by wearing a high-peaked hat, the pinnacle of which was surmounted by a wire framework, in which half a dozen bells were suspended, ringing with every motion of the head. He had on a long linen duster, which flapped about his gaunt shanks encased in tight, black trousers. Between his legs he had a pair of cymbals, fastened one to each knee. Upon his back was strapped a small bass-drum, on which there was painted the announcement that the performer was "Prof. Theophilus Briggs, the Solo Orchestra." A drumstick was attached to each side of the drum and connected with a cord that ran down his legs to his feet, so that by beating time with his toes he could make the drum take part in his concert. The Pan-pipes that I had heard were fastened to his breast just at the height of his chin, so that he could easily blow into them by the slightest inclination of his head. In his left hand he held a fiddle, and in his right hand he had a fiddle-bow. Just as I came in sight, he tapped the fiddle with the bow, as though to call the attention of the orchestra. Then he raised the fiddle; not to his chin, for the Pan-pipes made this impossible, but to the other position, not infrequent among street musicians, just below the shoulder. Evidently I had just arrived in time.

He was not a foreigner, obviously enough. It needed only one glance at the elongated visage, with its good-natured eyes and its gentle mouth, to show that here was a native American whose parents and grandparents also had been born on this side of the Atlantic.

"I beg your pardon for interrupting you before you begin," I said, hastily, "but I shall be very much obliged indeed if you would kindly consent to give your performance a little farther down this street——a little farther away from this corner."

I saw at once that I had not chosen my words adroitly, for the kindly smile faded from his lips, and there was more than a hint of stiffness in his manner as he responded, slowly:

"I don't know as I quite catch your meaning," he began. "I ain't——"

"I'm sorry to have to ask you to go away," I interrupted, wishing to explain; "I'd like to hear your concert myself; but the fact is, there's a member of my family slowly recovering from a long sickness, and she's only just fallen asleep now for the first time since midnight."

"Why didn't you say so at first?" was Professor Briggs's immediate response, and the genial smile returned to his thin face. "Of course, I don't want to worry no one with my music. And I'd just as lief as not go over the other side of the city if it will be any more agreeable to a sick person. I know myself what it is to have sickness in the house; there ain't no one knows what that is better than I do——no one don't."

"It is very kind of you, I'm sure," I said, as he walked back with me to the corner.

"Oh, that's all right," he returned. "It don't make any differ to me. Now you just show me which house it is, so I can keep away from it."

I pointed out the door to him.

"The third one from the corner, is it?" he repeated. "Well, that's all right. And I am much obliged to you for telling me about it, for I should have hated to wake up a sick person; and these pipes and this drum ain't exactly soothing to the sick, are they?"

Then the smile ripened to a laugh, and after I had thanked him once more and shaken hands, he turned back and walked away, accompanied by the bevy of children who had encircled us expectantly ever since I had first spoken to him.

Before daybreak the next morning a storm broke over the city, and the heavy rain kept up all day, cooling the streets at last and washing the atmosphere. With the passing of the hot wave sleep became easier for us all. Men walked to their offices in the morning with a brisker step, and the shop-girls were no longer listless as they went to their work. Our invalid improved rapidly, and we could count the days before we should be able to take her out of the city.

The rain-storm had brought this relief on a Thursday, and the skies did not clear till Friday evening. The air kept its freshness over Saturday and Sunday.

On the latter day, towards nightfall, I had taken my seat on the stoop, as is the custom of New-Yorkers kept in town during the summer months. I had brought out a cushion or two, and I was smoking my second after-supper cigar. I felt at peace with the world, and for the moment I had even dispensed with the necessity of thinking. It satisfied me to watch the rings of tobacco-smoke as they curled softly above my head.

Although I was thus detached from earth, I became at last vaguely conscious that a man had passed before the house for two or three times, and that as he passed he had stared at me as though he expected recognition. With his next return my attention was aroused. I saw that he was a tall, thin man, of perhaps fifty years of age, with a lean face clean-shaven, plainly dressed in black, and in what was obviously a Sunday suit, so revealing itself by its odd wrinkles and creases. As he came abreast of me, he slackened his gait and looked up. When he caught my eye he smiled. And then I recognized him at once. It was Professor Theophilus Briggs, the Solo Orchestra.

When he discovered that I knew him again he stood still. I rose to my feet and greeted him.

"I thought this was the house," he began, "but I wa'n't sure for certain. You see, my memory ain't any longer than a toad's tail. Still, I allowed I hadn't ought to disremember anything as big as a house——now had I?" and he laughed pleasantly. "And I thought that was you, too, setting up there on the porch," he went on, cheerfully. "And I'm glad it is, because I wanted to see you again to ask after the lady's health. Did she have her sleep out that evening? And how is she getting on now?"

I thanked him again for his considerate action the first time we had met, as well as for his kindly inquiries now, and I was glad to give him good news of our patient. Then I recognized the duties of hospitality, and I asked my visitor if he would not "take something."

"No, thank you," he returned——"that is, if there ain't no offence. Fact is, I've quit. I don't look on the wine when it is red now, for it biteth like an adder and it stingeth like a serpent, and I don't want any more snakes in mine. I've had enough of them, I have. Croton extra dry is good enough for me now, I guess; and I ain't no use now for a happy family of blue mice and green rats and yellow monkeys. I've had whole menageries of them, too, in my time——regular Greatest Show on Earth, you know, and me with a season ticket. But it's like all these continuous performances, you get tired of it pretty soon——leastways, I did, and so I quit, and I don't touch a drop now."

"Sworn off?" I suggested, as I made room for him on the cushion by my side.

"Oh no," he said, simply, as he sat down; "I hadn't no need to swear off. I just quit; that's all there was to it."

"Some men do not find it so very easy to give up drinking," I remarked.

"That's so, too," he answered, "and I didn't either, for a fact. But I just had to do it, that's all. You see, I'd given drinking a fair show, and I'd found it didn't pay. Well, I don't like no trade where you're bound to lose in the long-run——seems a pretty poor way to do business, don't it? So I quit."

This seemed to call for a commonplace from me, and I was equal to the occasion. "It's easier to get into the way of taking a drop now and then than it is to get out of it."

"I got into it easy enough, I know that," he returned, smiling genially. "It was when I was in the army. After a man has been laying out in the swamp for a week or so, a little rum ain't such a bad thing to have in the house."

Then it was that for the first time I noticed the bronze button in his coat.

"So you were in the army?" I said, with the ever-rising envy felt by so many of my generation who lived through the long years of the Civil War mere boys, too young to take part in the struggle.

"I was a drummer-boy at Gettysburg," he answered; "and it warn't mighty easy for me, either."

"How so?" I asked.

"Well, it was this way," he explained. "Father, he was a Maine man, and he was a sea-captain. And when mother died, after a spell father he up and married again. Now that second wife of father's she didn't like me; and I didn't like her either, not overmuch. I guess there warn't no love lost between us. She liked to make a voyage with father now and then, and so did I. We was both with him on a voyage he made about the time the war broke out. We cleared for Cowes and a market, and along in the summer of '62 we was in the Mediterranean. It was towards the end of that summer we come into Genoa, and there we got a chance at the papers, all filled chock-full of battles. And it didn't seem as though things was going any too well over here, either, and so I felt I'd like to come home and lend a hand in putting down the rebellion. You see, I was past fourteen then, and I was tall for my age——'most as tall as I am now, I guess. I was doing a man's work on the ship, and I didn't see why I couldn't do a man's work in helping Uncle Sam, seeing he seemed to be having a hard time of it. And I don't mind telling you, too, that she had been making me have considerable of a hard time of it, too; and there warn't no way of contenting her, she was so all-fired pernicketty. There was another ship in the harbor near us, and the captain was a sort of a kind of a cousin of mother's, and so I shipped with him and we come straight home from Genoa to Portsmouth. And when I wanted to enlist they wouldn't have me, saying I was too young, which was all foolishness. So I went for a drummer-boy, and I was in the Army of the Potomac from Gettysburg to Appomattox."

"You were only a boy even when the war was over," I commented.

"Well, I was seventeen, and I felt old enough to be seventy," he returned, as a smile wrinkled his lean features. "At any rate, I was old enough to get married the year after Lee surrendered, and my daughter was born the year after that——she'd be nearly thirty now if she was living to-day."

"Did you stay in one of the bands of the regulars after the war?" I asked, wondering how the sailor-lad who had become a drummer-boy had finally developed into a solo orchestra.

"No," he answered. "Not but what I did think of it some. But after being at sea so long and in the army, camping here and there and always moving on, I was restless, and I didn't want to settle down nowhere for long. So I went into the show business. I'd always been fond of music, and I could play on 'most anything, from a fine-tooth comb to a church-organ with all the stops you please. So I went out with the side-show of a circus, playing on the tumbleronicon."

"The tumbleronicon?" I repeated, in doubt.

"It's a tray with a lot of wineglasses on it and goblets and tumblers, partly filled with water, you know, so as to give different notes. Why, I've had one tumbleronicon of seven octaves that I used to play the 'Anvil Chorus' on, and always got a double encore for it. I believe it's what they used to call the 'musical glasses'——but tumbleronicon is what it's called now in the profession."

I admitted that I had heard of the musical glasses.

"It was while I was playing the tumbleronicon in that side-show that I met the lady I married," he went on. "She was a Circassian girl then. Most Circassian girls are Irish, you know, but she wasn't. She was from the White Mountains. Well, I made up to her from the start, and when the circus went into winter-quarters we had a lot of money saved up and we got married. My wife hadn't a bad ear for music, so that winter we worked up a double act, and in the spring we went on the road as Swiss Bellringers. We dressed up just as I had seen the I-talians dress in Naples."

Again I asked for an explanation.

"Oh, you must have seen that act?" he urged, "though it has somehow gone out of style lately. It's to have a fine set of bells, three or four octaves, laying out on a table before you, and then you play tunes on them, just as you do on the tumbleronicon. There's some tunes go better on the bells than on anything else——'Yankee Doodle' and 'Pop Goes the Weasel.' It's quick tunes like them that folks like to have you pick out on the bells. Why, Mrs. Briggs and I used to do a patriotic medley, ending up with 'Rally Round the Flag,' that just made the soldiers' widows cry. If we could only have gone on, we'd have been sure of our everlasting fortunes. But Mrs. Briggs went and lost her health after our daughter was born the next summer. We kept thinking all the time she'd get better soon, and so I took an engagement here in New York, at Barnum's old museum in Broadway, to play the drum in the orchestra. You remember Barnum's old museum, don't you?"

I was able to say that I did remember Barnum's old museum in Broadway.

"I didn't really like it there; for the animals were smelly, you know, and the work was very confining, what with two and three performances a day. But I had to stay here in New York somehow, for my wife wa'n't able to get away. The long and short of it is, she was sick a-bed nigh on to thirty years——not suffering really all the time, of course, but puny and ailing, and getting no comfort from her food. There was times I thought she never would get well or anything. But two years ago she up and died suddenly, just when I'd most got used to her being sick. Women's dreadful uncertain, ain't they?"

I had to confess that the course of the female of our species was more or less incalculable.

"My daughter, she died the year before her mother; and she'd never been sick a day in her life——took after me, she did," Professor Briggs went on. "She and her husband used to do Yankee Girl and Irish Boy duets in the vaudevilles, as they call them now."

I remarked that variety show, the old name for entertainments of that type, seemed to me more appropriate.

"That's what I think myself," he returned, "and that's what I'm always telling them. But they say vaudeville is more up to date——and that's what they want now, everything up to date. Now I think there's lots of the old-fashioned things that's heaps better than some of these new-fangled things they're so proud of. Take a three-ringed circus, for instance——what good is a three-ringed circus to anybody, except the boss of it? The public has only two eyes apiece, that's all——and even a man who squints can't see more than two rings at once, can he? And three rings don't give a real artist a show; they discourage him by distracting folk's attention away from him. How is he to do his best if he can't never be certain sure that the public is looking at him?"

Here again I was able to express my full agreement with the professor.

"I'd never do in a three-ring show, no matter what they was to give me," he continued. "And I've got an act nearly ready now that there's lots of these shows will be wanting just as soon as they hear of it. I"——here he interrupted himself and looked up and down the street, as though to make sure that there were no concealed listeners lying in wait to overhear what he was about to say——"I don't mind telling you about it, if you'd like to know."

I declared that I was much interested, and that I desired above all things to learn all about this new act of his.

"Well," he began, "I think I told you awhile ago that my granddaughter's all the family I got left now? She's nearly eight years old, and as cunning a little thing as ever you see anywhere——and healthy, too, like her mother. She favors me, just as her mother did. And she takes to music naturally——can't keep her hands off my instruments when I put them down——plays 'Jerusalem the Golden' on the pipes now so it would draw tears from a graven image. And she sings too——just as if she couldn't help it. She's a voice like an angel——oh, she'll be a primy donny one of these days. And it was her singing gave me the idea of this new act of mine. It's Uncle Tom's Cabin arranged just for her and me. I do Uncle Tom and play the fiddle, and she doubles Little Eva and Topsy with a lightning change. As Little Eva, of course, she'll sing a hymn——'Wait Till the Clouds Roll By,' or the 'Sweet By-and-By,' or something of that sort; and as Topsy she'll do a banjo solo first, and then for the encore she'll do a song and dance, while I play the fiddle for her. It's a great scheme, isn't it? It's bound to be a go!"

I expressed the opinion that it seemed to me a most attractive suggestion.

"But I've made up my mind," he went on, "not to bring her out at all until I can get the right opening. I don't care about terms first off, because when we make our hit we can get our own terms quick enough. But there's everything in opening right. So I shall wait till fall, or maybe even till New Year's, before I begin to worry about it. And in the meantime my own act in the street goes. The Solo Orchestra is safe for pretty good money all summer. You didn't hear me the other evening, and I'm sorry——but there's no doubt it's a go. I don't suppose it's as legitimate as the tumbleronicon, maybe, or as the Swiss bells——I don't know for sure. But it isn't bad, either; and in summer, wherever there's children around, it's a certain winner. Sometimes when I do the 'Turkish Patrol,' or things like that, there's a hundred or more all round me."

"From the way the little ones looked at me the other evening, when I asked you to move on," I said, "it was obvious enough that they were very anxious to hear you. And I regret that I was forced to deprive myself also of the pleasure."

He rose to his feet slowly, his loose-jointed frame seeming to unfold itself link by link.

"I tell you what I'll do," he responded, cordially; "isn't your lady getting better?"

I was able to say that our invalid was improving steadily.

"Well, then," he suggested, "what do you say to my coming round here some evening next week? I'll give a concert for her and you, and any of your friends you like to invite? And you can tell her there isn't any of the new songs or waltzes or marches or selections from operas she wants I can't do. She's only got to give it a name and the Solo Orchestra will play it."

Of course I accepted this proffered entertainment; and with that Professor Briggs took his leave, bidding me farewell with a slightly conscious air as though he were accustomed to have the eyes of a multitude centred upon him.

And one evening, in the middle of the week, the Solo Orchestra appeared on the sidewalk in front of our house and gave a concert for our special benefit.

Our invalid had so far regained her strength that she was able to sit at the window to watch the performance of Professor Briggs. But her attention was soon distracted from the Solo Orchestra itself to the swarm of children which encompassed him about, and which took the sharpest interest in his strange performance.

"Just look at that lovely little girl on the stoop opposite, sitting all alone by herself, as though she didn't know any of the others," cried our convalescent. "She's the most elfinlike little beauty I've ever seen. And she is as blasée about this Solo Orchestra of yours as though it was Tannhäuser we were listening to, and she was the owner of a box at the Metropolitan."

When the concert came to an end at last, as the brief twilight was waning, when the Solo Orchestra had played the "Anvil Chorus" as a final encore after the "Turkish Patrol," when Professor Theophilus Briggs, after taking up the collection himself, had shaken hands with me when I went down to convey to him our thanks, when it was so plainly evident that the performance was over at last that even the children accepted the inevitable and began to scatter——then the self-possessed little girl on the opposite side of the way rose to her feet with dignity. When the tall musician, with the bells jingling in his peaked hat, crossed the street, she took his hand as though he belonged to her. As he walked away she trotted along by his side, smiling up at him.

"I see now," I said; "that must be his granddaughter, the future impersonator of the great dual character, Little Eva and Topsy."

(1896.)

THE REHEARSAL OF THE NEW PLAY

HEN Wilson Carpenter came to the junction of the two great thoroughfares he stood still for a moment and looked at his watch, not wishing to arrive at the rehearsal too early. He found that it was then almost eight o'clock, and he began at once to pick his way across the car-tracks that were here twisted in every direction. A cloud of steam swirled down as a train on the elevated railroad clattered along over his head; the Cyclops eye of a cable-car glared at him as it came rushing down-town; from the steeple of a church on the corner, around which the mellow harvest-moon peered down on the noisy streets, there came the melodious call to the evening service; over the entrance to a variety show a block above a gaudy cluster of electric lights illuminated the posters which proclaimed for that evening a Grand Sacred Concert, at which Queenie Dougherty, the Irish Empress, would sing her new song, "He's an Illigant Man in a Scrap, My Boys." As the young dramatist sped along he noted that people were still straggling by twos and threes into the house of worship and into the place of entertainment; and he could not but contrast swiftly this Sunday evening in a great city with the Sunday evenings of his boyhood in the little village of his birth.

He wondered what his quiet parents would think of him now were they alive, and did they know that he was then going to the final rehearsal of a play of which he was half author. It was not his first piece, for he had been lucky enough the winter before to win a prize offered by an enterprising newspaper for the best one-act comedy; but it was the first play of his to be produced at an important New York house. When he came to the closed but brilliantly lighted entrance of this theatre, he stood still again to read with keen pleasure the three-sheet posters on each side of the doorway. These parti-colored advertisements announced the first appearance at that theatre of the young American actress, Miss Daisy Fostelle, in a new American comedy, "Touch and Go," written expressly for her by Harry Brackett and Wilson Carpenter, and produced under the immediate direction of Z. Kilburn.

When the author of the new American comedy had read this poster twice, he took out his watch again and saw that it was just eight. He threw away his cigarette and walked swiftly around the corner. Entering a small door, he went down a long, ill-lighted passage. At the end of this was a small square hall, which might almost be called the landing-stage of a flight of stairs leading to the dressing-rooms above and to the property-room below. This hall was cut off from the stage by a large swinging-door.

As Carpenter entered the room this door swung open and a nervous young man rushed in. Catching sight of the dramatist, he checked his speed, held out his hand, and smiled wearily, saying, "That's you, is it? I'm so glad you've come!"

"The rehearsal hasn't begun, has it?" Carpenter asked, eagerly.

"Star isn't here yet," answered the actor, "and she's never in a hurry, you know. She takes her own time always, Daisy does. I know all her little tricks. I've told you already that I never would have accepted this engagement at all if I hadn't been out since January. I don't see myself in this part of yours. I'll do my best with it, of course, and it isn't such a bad part, maybe; but I don't see myself in it."

Carpenter tapped the other on the back heartily and cried: "Don't you be afraid, Dresser; you will be all right! Why, I shouldn't wonder if you made the hit of the whole piece!"

And with that he started to open the door that led to the stage.

But Dresser made a sudden appeal: "Don't go away just as I've found you. I've been wanting to see you all day. I've got to have your advice, and it's important."

"Well?" the dramatist responded.

"Well," repeated the young actor, "you know that bit of mine in the third act, where I have the scene with Jimmy Stark? He has to say to me, 'I think my wife's mind is breaking,' and I say, 'Are you afraid she is going to give you a piece of it?' Now, how would you read that?"

After the author had explained to the actor what seemed to him the obvious distribution of the emphasis in this speech, he was able to escape and at last to make his way upon the stage.

The scene of the first act of "Touch and Go" was set, and the stage itself was brilliantly lighted, while the auditorium was in absolute darkness. It was at least a minute before Carpenter was able to discern the circle of the balcony, shrouded in the linen draperies that protected its velvet and its gilding from the dust. Here and there in the orchestra chairs were little knots of three or four persons, perhaps twenty or thirty in all. The proscenium boxes yawned blackly. Although it was a warm evening in the early fall, the house struck Carpenter as chill and forbidding. He peered into the darkness to discover the face he was longing to see again.

Two men were talking earnestly, seated at a table in the centre of the stage near the footlights. One of these was a short man, with grizzled hair and a masterful manner. This was Sherrington, the stage-manager who had been engaged to produce the play. The other was Harry Brackett, Carpenter's collaborator in its authorship.

Just as the new-comer had made out in the dark house the group he was seeking and had bowed to the two ladies comprising it, Harry Brackett caught sight of him.

"Well, Will," he cried, "the Stellar Attraction is late, as usual——and we've got lots of work before us to-night, too. Sherrington isn't at all satisfied with the way they do either of the big scenes in the second act; and we've got to look out and keep them all up to their work if we want this to be anything more than a mere 'artistic success.'"

"'Artistic success!'" said Sherrington, emphatically; "why, there's money in this thing of yours——big money, too, if we can get all the laughs out of those two scenes of Daisy's in the second act. But it will take good work to get out all the laughs there ought to be, legitimately——and we've got to do it! Every laugh is worth a dollar and a half; that's what I say."

"The two scenes in the second act?" inquired Carpenter. "The one with Stark and the one with Miss Marvin, you mean?"

"The one with Marvin will be all right, I think," said the stage-manager.

"I'm not so sure of that," Harry Brackett interjected; "you insisted on her being engaged, Will, but she is very inexperienced, and I don't know how she'll get through that long scene."

"Miss Marvin is very clever," Carpenter declared, eager to defend the girl he was in love with; "and she will look the part to perfection!"

"Looking is all very well," Brackett responded, "but it is acting she will have to do in that scene in the second act."

"And she will do it too," asserted the stage-manager. "You see, she's got her mother here to-night, and there isn't a sharper old stager anywhere than Kate Shannon Loraine."

"That's so," Harry Brackett admitted; "I suppose Loraine can show her daughter how to get out of that scene all there is in it."

"Shannon'll see the whole play to-night," said Sherrington, "and she'll be able to give Marvin lots of pointers to-morrow. The little girl will be all right; it's Daisy I'm more afraid of in that scene. It ought to be played high comedy, 'Lady Teazle,' way up in G——and high comedy isn't altogether in Daisy's line."

"That can't be helped now," Brackett replied; "and if the Stellar Attraction can't reach that scene it's the Stellar Attraction's own fault, isn't it? You remember, Will, how she kept telling us all the time we were writing the play that she wanted as high-toned a part as we could give her. We gave it to her, and now she's just got to stretch up to it, if she can."

"I am not afraid of that scene," Carpenter declared, "for I've always doubted whether she could really do high comedy, and that scene is written so that it will go almost as well if it's played broadly. You know there are two ways of doing Lady Teazle."

"There are no two ways about Daisy's being a great favorite," said the stage-manager. "She's accepted, and that's enough. After all, I don't suppose it matters much how she takes that scene; high or broad, the public will accept her. The part fits her like a glove, and all we've got to do is to keep everybody up to concert-pitch and get all the laughs we can. You took my advice and cut that talky scene in the third act, and now the whole act will go off like hot cakes——see if it don't. I tell you what it is, I'll teach you two boys how to write a real farce before I've done with you!"

Harry Brackett was standing almost behind Sherrington as the stage-manager made this speech. He winked at Carpenter.

"Yes," he said, a moment later, "I think it is a pretty good piece of the kind, and I hope it will fetch them. At any rate, I don't believe even our worst enemies will praise it for its 'literary merit.'"

Carpenter laughed a little bitterly. "No," he assented, "we've got it into shape now, and I doubt if anybody insults us by saying that 'Touch and Go' is 'well written.'"

"Do you remember our joke while we were working on it last winter, Will?" asked Harry Brackett. Then turning to Sherrington he explained: "We used to say that the managers wouldn't 'touch' it, so the people couldn't 'go.'"

"It's harder to touch the manager than it is to make the public go," added Carpenter. "I believe that any fool can write a play, but that only a man of great genius ever succeeds in getting his play produced."

A handsome young woman with snapping black eyes walked on the stage briskly.

"Here's the Stellar Attraction at last," said Harry Brackett; "now we can get down to business."

"Am I late?" the handsome young woman asked, as she came forward. "Everybody waiting for me?"

"You are just twenty minutes late, my dear," said the stage-manager, looking at his watch, "and we are all waiting for you."

"That's all right, then," she replied, laughing lightly; "we've got all night before us, haven't we?"

The prompter clapped his hands and called out "First act!" Two clean-shaven men of indefinite age who had been sitting in the wings rose and came forward. Mr. Dresser joined them, and his manner suggested a certain increase of his ordinary nervous tension. A well-preserved elderly lady left her seat on one side of the aisles under the proscenium box and came through the door which led from the auditorium to the stage. She was followed by a slight, graceful girl, a blonde with clear gray eyes.

"Mrs. Castleman——Miss Marvin," said the prompter, seeing them; "now we are all ready."

And then the serious business of the rehearsal began. Mrs. Castleman came down to the centre of the stage and took up a newspaper and read the date of it aloud, and remarked that it was just five years since master and mistress had parted in anger, adding that neither of them had put foot inside the old house in all the five years, and yet it was not an hour from New York. Then one of the minor actors, an awkward young fellow, one of the two who had been standing in the wings, entered with a telegram, which he gave to Mrs. Castleman. She tore it open and read it aloud; the master would arrive early that evening. Then Miss Marvin, the girl with the clear blue eyes, came forward with an open letter in her hand and told Mrs. Castleman that the mistress of the house would be home again at last late that afternoon. And thus the rehearsal went on gravely, every one intent upon the business in hand. The speeches of the actors were interrupted now and then by the stage-manager. "Take the last scene over again," he might command, whereupon the performers would resume their places as before and begin again. "Don't cross till he takes the stage, my dear. And when he says, 'What is the meaning of this?' don't be in a hurry. Wait, and then say your aside, 'Can he suspect?' in a hoarse whisper. See?"

Finally there was a jingle of sleigh-bells, and the orchestra, beginning faintly and slowly, soon worked up to a swift forte, and then Miss Daisy Fostelle made her first appearance through the broad door at the back of the stage. Finding that she had taken everybody by surprise, she smiled sweetly, and said, "You didn't expect me, I see——but I hope you are all glad to see me once more."

A thin, cadaverous man with a heavy, black mustache here stepped forward to face the wife he had not seen for five years. "We are all glad to see you once more," he had to say, "very glad indeed, and we are gladder still to see that you seem to be in such excellent health and such high spirits! The separation has not dimmed the brightness of your eyes, nor——" Here the tall, gaunt actor stopped and hesitated. "I don't know what's the matter with that speech," he said, impatiently, "but I can't get it into my head. I never had such tricky lines!"

The prompter gave him the word he needed, and no one else paid any attention to this out-break.

The two authors were seated at the table in the centre of the footlights, and Harry Brackett whispered to Carpenter: "Stark is getting the big head, isn't he? The idea of a mere cuff-shooter like that taking himself seriously!"

Then there followed an important scene in which the wife gave her husband a witty and vivacious account of all her doings during the five years of their separation, ending with the startling announcement that she had spent six weeks in South Dakota and had there procured a divorce from him! But there is no need to disclose here in detail the plot of "Touch and Go," as the new American comedy unfolded itself scene by scene. As the end of the act approached Sherrington pressed the actors to play more briskly so as to bring the curtain down swiftly on an unexpected but carefully prepared tableau.

When the act was over the stage manager had the final passages repeated twice, to make sure of its going smoothly at the first performance; and then the stage was cleared so that the scene might be set for the second act.

Carpenter watched the graceful, gray-eyed girl go back into the dim auditorium and take a seat beside her mother; and his heart thumped suddenly as he found himself wondering when he would dare to tell her that he loved her and to ask her to be his wife. Then he also left the stage and dropped into the chair behind mother and daughter.

"It was very good of you to come this evening, Mrs. Loraine," he began. "I feel as if having your daughter act in this play of mine will bring me luck somehow."

"The idea!" said Miss Marvin, smilingly.

"Mary had told me how clever the piece was," the elder actress responded, "but it is really better than she said. The dialogue is very brilliant at times, and the characters are excellently contrasted——and, what is more important, the whole thing will act! The parts carry the actors; they've got something to do which is worth while doing. It will go all right to-morrow night!"

"It's a beautiful piece," Mary Marvin declared, "and I think my part is just lovely!"

And before he could say anything in fit acknowledgment, Mrs. Loraine went on: "Yes, Mary's part is charming. And I think she will play it very well, too!"

"I'm sure of it!" he cried, unhesitatingly.

"I think there is more in it than I thought at first," said Mary's mother, "now I've seen the play, and I'll go over Mary's part with her to-night and show her what can be done with it. I'm waiting for that scene in the second act with Fostelle. I think that Mary ought to share the call after that. In fact, I'm not sure that she can't take the scene away from Fostelle."

"Oh, mother," the daughter broke in, "that would never do! I should get my two weeks' notice the next morning, shouldn't I? And I don't want to be out of an engagement just at the beginning of the season when all the companies are made up."

"Are you sure that the ghost will walk every week with this Fostelle company, if you strike bad business for a month or so?" asked Mrs. Loraine, with a suggestion of anxiety in her voice.

"I think Zeke Kilburn is all right," the dramatic author responded; "he made a pile of money last year on that imported melodrama, the 'Doctor's Daughter'; and, besides, he has a backer."

Mrs. Loraine laughed gently, showing her beautifully regular teeth. She was still a handsome woman, with a fine figure and a crown of silver hair.

"A backer?" she rejoined; "but who backs the backer? I've heard your friend, Mr. Brackett, there, say that a jay and his money are soon parted."

Carpenter answered her earnestly. "I really think Kilburn is pretty solid, but I suppose that a great deal does depend on the way that the play draws. They've got open time here in New York, and if 'Touch and Go' catches on they can stay here till Christmas. So it comes down to this, that if our piece is a go the ghost will walk regularly."

"I hope it will make a hit," Mrs. Loraine answered, "for your sake, too. You haven't sold it outright, have you?"

"No, indeed," the young dramatist replied. "Harry Brackett is too old in the business for that. We've got a nightly royalty, with a percentage on the gross whenever it plays to more than four thousand dollars a week. We stand to make a lot of money——if it makes a hit. What do you think of its chances, Mrs. Loraine?"

"The first act is all right," she responded. "That's the most I can say now. But come and ask me after I've seen the third act and I'll tell you what I think, and I believe I can then prophesy its fate pretty well."

By this time the scene of the second act had been set. It represented a stone summer-house on the top of a hill overlooking the Hudson just below West Point. It was picturesque in itself, and it was ingeniously arranged to provide opportunities for effective stage business.

Carpenter accompanied Miss Marvin back to the stage when the time drew nigh for the second act to begin.

As he was passing through the door between the auditorium and the stage, he found himself face to face with Dresser, who was fidgeting to and fro.

"Oh, Mr. Carpenter," he cried, "I'm so glad to see you! I want to ask your opinion about this. After all, you know, you wrote the play, and you ought to be able to decide. In my scene with Marvin in this act, am I really in love with her then, or ain't I? Sherrington says I am, but I think it's a great deal funnier if I'm not in love with her then——it helps to work up the last act better. Now what do you think? Sherrington insists that his way of playing it is more dramatic. Well, I don't say it ain't, but it isn't half as funny, is it?"

After Carpenter had given his opinion upon this question, Dresser allowed him to escape. But he had not advanced ten yards before he was claimed by Mrs. Castleman.

"Mr. Carpenter," the elderly actress began, in her usual haughtily dignified manner, "how do you think I ought to dress this part in the first act? She's a house-keeper, isn't she? So I suppose I ought to wear an apron."

The young dramatist expressed his belief that perhaps an apron would be a proper thing for the house-keeper to wear in the first act.

"But not a cap, I hope?" urged Mrs. Castleman.

Carpenter doubted if a cap would be necessary.

"Thank you," said Mrs. Castleman. "You see, I have always hitherto been associated with the legitimate, and I really don't quite know what to do with this sort of thing." Then she suddenly paused, only to break out again impetuously: "Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr. Carpenter, really I did not mean to imply that this charming play of yours is not legitimate——"

The dramatic author laughed. "You needn't apologize," he declared; "I'm inclined to think that 'Touch and Go' is so illegitimate now that its own parents can't recognize it!"

At last the rehearsal of the second act began, the two authors sitting at the little table with the stage-manager.

Sherrington consulted them once or twice in regard to the omission of a line here and there.

"Cut it down to the bone when you can——that's what I say," he explained; "what you cut out can't make people yawn."

But once he stopped the rehearsal to suggest that a speech be written in. "You've got to make that complication mighty clear," he declared, "and this is the place to do it, I think. If you want them to understand that Dresser here is going to mistake Marvin for Fostelle in the next scene, you had better give him another line now to lead up to it."

The two authors consulted hastily, and Carpenter, drawing out a note-book and a pencil, hurriedly wrote a sentence, which he showed to Brackett.

"That'll do it," said Sherrington; and he read it aloud to Dresser, who borrowed Carpenter's pencil and wrote in the line on the manuscript of his part, wondering aloud whether he should ever remember it on the first night.

A few minutes later Sherrington again interrupted the actors to insist that the sunset effect should be adjusted carefully to accompany the spoken dialogue.

"I want a soft, rosy tinge on Fostelle in this scene," he explained.

"Quite right," laughed the black-eyed star; "that ought to be becoming to my style of beauty."

"And I want it to contrast with the blue moonlight in the scene with Marvin," said the stage-manager.

"Quite right again," Miss Daisy Fostelle commented. "I'll take the centre of the stage, and you will order calciums for one!"

"We had better go back to your entrance, I think," Sherrington decided, "and take the whole scene over."

The actors and actresses obediently resumed the positions they had occupied when Miss Daisy Fostelle made her first appearance in that act. The cue for her entrance was given, and she came forward with a burst of artificial laughter.

"That laugh was very good," Sherrington declared——"better than it was last time; but you must make it as hollow as you can. Remember the situation: your best young man has gone back on you and you are trying to keep a stiff upper-lip——but your heart is breaking all the same. See?"

The star repeated the laugh, and it was more obviously artificial.

"That's it, my dear," said the stage-manager. "Now keep it up till you cross, and then drop into that chair there, and then you let the laugh die away into a sob."

The star went back to the rustic gate by which she had entered, laughed again, and came forward; then she crossed the stage, sank upon a seat, and choked with a sob.

Carpenter stepped forward and whispered into Sherrington's ear, whereupon Miss Fostelle sat upright instantly and very suspiciously asked, "What's that? I'd rather have you say it out loud than whisper it!"

The young dramatist explained at once.

"I was only suggesting to Sherrington that perhaps it would be better if that seat were turned a little so that you were not so sideways: then the audience would get a full view of your face here."

"It would be a pity to deprive them of that, I'll admit," said the mollified actress, as she and the stage-manager slightly turned the rustic chair.

Then she dropped into the seat and repeated her sob.

Miss Marvin stepped upon the stage, and remarked to space, "What a lovely evening, and how glorious the sunset!" Then she stood silently watching.

Miss Daisy Fostelle sobbed again, and, in tones heavy-laden with tears, she said, "What have I to live for now?" Looking back at the other actress she remarked, in her ordinary voice, "You will give me time to pick myself up here, won't you?" Then she went on, in the former tear-stained accents, "What have I left to live for now? My heart is broken! My heart is broken!" Again she resumed her every-day tones to ask the stage-manager: "Is that all right? Am I far enough around now?"

Thus they came to perhaps the most important scene of the play——that between the Stellar Attraction (as Brackett liked to call her) and the girl Carpenter was in love with. Both actresses were well fitted to the characters they had to perform. Carpenter, who had no liking for Daisy Fostelle, was a little surprised at the judgment and skill with which she carried off the bravura passages of her part; and he was not a little charmed with the delicate force the gentle Mary Marvin revealed in the contrasting character.

And so the rehearsal proceeded laboriously, Sherrington directing it autocratically, ordering certain scenes to be played more rapidly and seeing that others were taken more slowly, so that the spectators might have time to understand the situation. Now and then either Carpenter or Brackett made a suggestion or a criticism, but both yielded to Sherrington, if he was insistent. The stage-manager kept the whole company of actors up to their work, and imposed on them his understanding of that work, much as the conductor of an orchestra leads his musicians at the performance of a symphony.

When the whole act had been rehearsed, and the final scene was repeated three or four times until it ran like well-oiled clockwork, the stage was cleared so that the scenery of the third act might be set.

Sherrington accompanied Miss Marvin through the door behind the proscenium box into the dark auditorium.

"You will play that scene very well," he said, "but you've got to have confidence."

"It is a beautiful part, isn't it?" she responded, with enthusiasm. "I never had a part I could enjoy playing so much."

Carpenter was about to leave the stage to tell Mary what a delight it was to him to hear her speak the words he had written, when his collaborator tapped him on the shoulder. As he turned Harry Brackett whispered in his ear:

"Look out for the Stellar Attraction. I'm afraid she has just dropped on Marvin's part. If she once suspects that the little girl may get that scene away from her, she can make herself mightily disagreeable all round. I guess we had better go up and tell her she is a greater actress than Charlotte Cushman."

Carpenter laughingly answered: "Take care she doesn't drop on you! It would be worse if she thought you were guying her."

"There's no danger of that," Harry Brackett returned. "That Stellar Attraction of ours is a boa-constrictor for flattery——there isn't anything she won't swallow."

The two dramatic authors found Miss Daisy Fostelle standing in the wings and discussing with Dresser the personal peculiarities of another member of the dramatic profession.

As Carpenter and Brackett came up the actress was saying: "Why, she had the cheek actually to tell me I was more amusing off the stage than on——the cat! But I got even with her. I told her I was sorry I couldn't return the compliment, for she was even less amusing on the stage than off!"

The two dramatists joined in the laugh, and then Harry Brackett began.

"Is it your hated rival you are having fun with?" he asked. "Well, if she comes to see you in this play to-morrow they'll have to put a waterproof carpet into the private box, for she will weep bitter tears of despair while she's watching you in this second act of ours."

Miss Daisy Fostelle snapped her big black eyes at him and smiled with pleasure.

"Yes," she admitted. "I don't believe she will really enjoy that scene——and yet she'll have to give me a hand at the end of the act."

"She'll go through the motions, perhaps," Brackett returned, "but she won't burst a hole in her gloves." Then he slyly nudged his collaborator.

"The fact is," began Carpenter, thus admonished, "I was just going to tell Harry Brackett here that maybe we have made a mistake in writing you a high-comedy part like this——"

The actress flashed a suspicious glance at him, but he went on as if unconscious of this.

"We can see now," he continued, "that you are going to play this part so well that you will make a great hit in it, and then the critics will all be after you to play Lady Teazle and Rosalind. They'll tell you that you are only wasting your talents in modern plays and that you ought to devote yourself to the legitimate."

The suspicion faded from Miss Daisy Fostelle's face and the smile of pleasure reappeared.

"That's so," Harry Brackett declared. "You will make such a hit in this part, I'm afraid, that Sheridan and Shakespeare will be good enough for you next season. Now that would be taking the bread out of our mouths!"

The actress laughed easily. "I don't think you would starve," she returned; "and I might, maybe——if I took to the legitimate. Not that it would be my first attempt, either, for I played Ariel in the 'Tempest' when I was a mere child. And it wasn't easy, I can tell you. Ariel's a real hard part, I think; there's a certain swing to the words, too, and you can't make up a line of your own if you get stuck, as I could in this piece of yours."

"No," Brackett confessed, solemnly, "the dialogue of 'Touch and Go' is not as rhythmic as the dialogue of the 'Tempest.'"

"And I've played François in 'Richelieu,' too," continued Miss Fostelle. "But I don't think I really like any of those Shakespearian parts."

"No," Brackett confessed again, with fearless gravity, "François is not one of Shakespeare's best parts. It wasn't worthy of you, no matter how inexperienced you were. But Rosalind, now, as Carpenter suggests, and Beatrice——"

Carpenter here guessed from Dresser's spasmodic manner that the actor was about to intervene in the conversation, and not knowing what might be the result, the younger of the dramatists dropped out of the group and managed to draw Dresser away with him.

After they had exchanged a few words Carpenter looked into the auditorium to discover where Mary Marvin might be. He saw that she was by the side of her mother, and that Mrs. Loraine and Sherrington were still engaged in an earnest conversation. He made a movement as if to leave Dresser, whereupon the comedian begged him for a moment's interview.

"It's about that speech of mine in the third act that I want to make a suggestion," said the actor. "It's a very good speech, too, and I think I can get three laughs out of it, easy. You know the speech. I mean the one about the three old maids: 'There were three old maids in our town; one was as plain as a pikestaff, and the other was as homely as a hedge fence, and the third was as ugly as sin; and whenever they all three walked out together every clock in the place stopped short. Their parents had christened them Faith and Hope and Charity; but the boys always called them Battle and Murder and Sudden Death.' Now, don't you think it would help to ring out the point more if the orchestra was to play 'Grandfather's Clock' very gently just as I say that 'every clock in the place stopped short'? What do you think? That's my own idea!"

The dramatist said nothing for a second or two, and then told the actor to consult the stage-manager, who was just returning to begin the rehearsal of the third act.

The new scene had been set swiftly and the furniture was already in place. The first of the actors to enter was the cadaverous and irritable Stark. He began glibly enough, but soon hesitated for a word, and then broke out impatiently, regardless of the presence of the two authors: "Oh, I can't get that line into my head! And I don't know what it means, either! How can you expect a man to speak such rubbish?"

As before, nobody paid any attention to this petulance, and the actor went on with his part without further comment.

Dresser then entered, and the two men proceeded to misunderstand each other in the most elaborate fashion. The character which Stark represented had reason to believe that the character that Dresser represented was the uncle of the character that Daisy Fostelle represented and was also a soldier. In like manner Dresser had reason to believe that Stark was the lady's uncle and also a sailor. They addressed each other, therefore, in sailor talk and in soldier talk; and the fun waxed fast and furious. At the height of the misunderstanding Daisy Fostelle entered unexpectedly and found herself instantly immeshed in the humorous complication, with no possibility of plausible explanation.

Once the stage-manager reminded Dresser that he had omitted a phrase. "You left out 'Confound it, man!'" he said.

"I know it," the actor explained, "but I wanted to save it to use in my next speech. It goes better there——you see if it does not."

And Sherrington decided that "Confound it, man!" was more effective in the later speech; so the transposition was authorized, to Dresser's satisfaction.

The stage-manager had this important scene of mutual misunderstanding between Stark and Dresser and Daisy Fostelle repeated twice, until every word fell glibly and every gesture seemed automatic. And so the rehearsal went to the end, Sherrington applying the finishing touches, and seeming at last to be fairly well satisfied with the result of his labors.

The final lines of the comedy were, of course, to be delivered by the star; but when the cue was given to her Miss Fostelle simply said "Tag!" everybody being aware that it is very unlucky to speak the last speech of a play at a rehearsal——as unlucky as it is to put up an umbrella on the stage, or to quote from "Macbeth."

"That will do," said the stage-manager; "I think it will be all right to-morrow night."

And with that the rehearsal concluded and the company began to disperse.

"I hope it is all right," Harry Brackett remarked to Carpenter, "and I think it is. But I shall have a great deal more confidence after the man in the box-office shakes hands with me cordially, say, next Wednesday or Thursday, and inquires about my health. He'll know by that time whether we've got a good thing or not!"

Carpenter helped Miss Marvin to put on her light cape. Then, after her mother had joined them, they said good-night to the others and left the theatre together.

When they came out into the warm night the street was quieter than it had been when Carpenter entered the theatre. There were fewer cable-cars passing the door, and the trains on the elevated road in the avenue were now infrequent. The lights had been turned out in front of the variety show across the way, and evidently the grand sacred concert was over. The moon had sunk, and before they had gone a block the bell of the church tolled the hour of midnight.

The young man who was walking by the side of Mrs. Loraine broke the silence at last.

"Well," he asked, "what do you think of the play now?"

"I think it is a good piece of its kind," the elder actress answered——"a very good piece of its kind; and it is well staged; and it will be well acted, too. Sherrington knows how to get his best work out of everybody. Yes, it will be a success."

"Is it good for three months here now?" the young author asked, "and for the rest of the season on the road?"

"Oh yes, indeed," replied Mrs. Loraine; "yes, indeed. It's safe for a hundred nights here at least!"

They paused at the corner to wait for a cable-car, and Sherrington joined them.

This gave Carpenter a chance to lead the daughter away from the mother half a dozen steps.

"I'm so glad mother thinks the play will go," the girl began. "And mother is a very good judge, too. You ought to make a lot out of it."

The young dramatist felt that he had his chance at last.

"I've wanted to make money mainly for one reason," he returned; "I wanted to ask you to take half of it."

"Half of it?" she echoed, as though she did not understand.

"Oh, well——all of it," he responded, swiftly; "and me with it."

"Mr. Carpenter!" she cried, and her blushes made her look even lovelier than before.

"Won't you marry me?" he asked, ardently.

"Oh, I suppose I've got to say yes," she answered, "or else you'll go down on your knees here in the street!"

(1895.)

A CANDLE IN THE PLATE

ITTLE Miss Peters had given a last look to the dinner-table with its effective decoration of autumn leaves, and she had made sure that the cards were in their proper places. She had glanced at herself in the mirror of the music-room as she passed through, and she had smiled to see the little spot of color burning in her cheek. She had taken her place modestly behind her employer, the portly hostess, and she had seen the guests arrive one by one. She had remarked the cheerful eagerness of the young Irishman for whose sake the company had gathered, and she had frankly admired his good looks. Now she was sitting silently in her seat at the table, and she was wondering what the stranger would think of them all.

It would not be quite fair to the worthy widow to say that Mrs. Canton's dinners were always ponderous; but it might be admitted that, although the cooking was ever excellent and the guests were selected from the innermost circle of Society, the bill of fare was monotonous and the conversation often lacked variety. That evening, however, there were several present who had not before been honored with invitations to dine in that exclusive mansion. Few people of fashion were back in town so early in October, and it had not been easy for Mrs. Canton to make up her complement of guests when she found that she had suddenly to honor a letter of introduction Lord Mannington had given to the Honorable Gilbert Barry, brother of Lord Punchestown. She had heard that the handsome Irishman had been a great success at Lenox, and that all the girls were wild about him. In Mannington's letter she was informed that the young man went in for slumming and all that sort of thing, and that he had been living in Toynbee Hall; she was besought, therefore, to make him acquainted with the people in New York most interested in the elevation of the lower classes.

This sentence of Lord Mannington's letter it was that had caused Mrs. Canton to invite Rupert de Ruyter, the novelist, for she happened to have read one of his stories about the wretched creatures living down in the Italian quarter, and she was sure he would be able to tell Mr. Barry all that the young Irishman might want to know about the slums of New York. She had been fortunate enough to get the Jimmy Suydams, too; and she knew that Mrs. Jimmy took such an interest in the poor, acting as patroness so often, and all that. Then when little Miss Peters had come in to write the invitations and to balance the check-book and to answer the accumulated notes, Mrs. Canton, having gone over the list, looked at the pretty young secretary for a minute without speaking, and then said, "It won't be easy to get just the people one wants. Why shouldn't you come, Miss Peters? You belong to one of those things, you know, what do you call them——Working Girls' Clubs——don't you?"

"I'm a working girl myself, am I not?" Miss Peters answered. "And I reckon I'm very glad I've gotten the work to do."

"Then you can tell him anything Mr. de Ruyter doesn't know about these sort of people. How absurd for the younger brother of a peer to bother himself about such things over here, isn't it?" Mrs. Canton had returned. "Then that's settled."

Although the Southern girl had not relished the way the invitation had been proffered, she had not declined it, glad to get a glimpse again of the life of luxury to which she had been a stranger since she had been earning her own living; and thus it was that she was sitting silently in her seat at the dinner-table that evening in October, with Gilbert Barry and Rupert de Ruyter opposite to her. She did not seem to notice how the young Irishman glanced across the table at her more than once with obvious admiration, or how he tried to lure her into the conversation.

It irritated Miss Peters to have Rupert de Ruyter monopolize the talk. His rather rasping voice sawed her nerves, and she detested the way he thrust forward his square chin. She listened while he chattered along, not boasting exactly, yet managing to convey the impression that he knew more than any one else. Now and again he did bring forth a picturesque fact, for which he had the kodak eye of a reporter. He had the happy-go-lucky facility of the newspaper man, and he rattled away with more than one absurd misapprehension of the reality, until he reminded her of a singer with a fine voice but unable to avoid false notes.

"I don't pretend to know New York inside-out and upsidedown," he was saying; "but it is a most fascinating study, this polyglot city of ours, and the more you push your investigations the more likely you are to make surprising discoveries. You know we have an Italian quarter here?"

This was addressed, perhaps, to the British guest, but it was Mrs. Jimmy Suydam who answered it.

"Of course we do," she said; "haven't we all read that thrilling story you wrote about it?——the story with the startling title——A Vision of Black Despair."

The author flushed with pride that so handsome a woman and so exclusive a leader of Society should thus praise one of his writings.

Mr. Jimmy Suydam leaned over to Mrs. Canton, at whose left he was sitting, and said, "I don't see how my wife does it, do you? She keeps up with everything, you know——reads all the books——and all that."

"I didn't mean to remind you of that little thing of mine," continued De Ruyter, with a self-satisfied air that made little Miss Peters feel as though she would like to stick a pin in him. "That's neither here nor there, though I spent two days down in the Italian quarter getting up the local color for it. But what you didn't know, any of you, I am certain, is that part of the soil of this city was imported from Italy."

"Really, now," commented the British guest, "that is very interesting, indeed. It would be from a religious motive, I suppose——just as some of the mediæval cemeteries had earth brought from the Holy Land?"

"That would be a more romantic reason, no doubt," the story-teller explained. "But the real one is very prosaic, I fear. The Italian soil here in New York was brought over as ballast by the ships that were going to take back our bread-stuffs. There is lot after lot upon the Harlem that has been filled in with this ballast——stones mostly, but some of it is earth."

"Genoa the superb providing a foundation for imperial New York," said the young Irishman, with a little flourish——and Miss Peters guessed that De Ruyter made a mental note of the figure for future elaboration. "And has New York a volcano under the city like Naples, now?——like every great town in Europe for the matter of that. Have you a seething mass of want and misery and discontent, such as boiled over in Paris under the Commune? That's what I'm wanting to find out."

"We have a devil's cauldron of our own, if that's what you mean," responded De Ruyter; "and we have people from every corner of the globe here now helping to keep the pot a-boiling. We have Russian Jews by the thousand, living just as they did in the Pale. We have Chinese enough to support a Chinese theatre. We have so many Syrians now that they are pre-empting certain blocks for themselves. We have Irish peasants so timid and suspicious that they won't go to the hospital when they are almost dying, because they believe the doctors keep a Black Bottle to be administered to troublesome patients."

"I should think they would be ever so much more comfortable in a roomy hospital than in their stuffy little tenement-house rooms," said Mrs. Jimmy; "and they can't get decent nursing in their own homes, can they?"

"The poor are a most unreasonable lot——and ungrateful, too," added Mr. Suydam; "that's what I think."

"They are not so badly off in their tenement-houses as you might think," explained De Ruyter. "They help each other with the children when there's sickness."

"The universal freemasonry of motherhood," commented Gilbert Barry; and again Miss Peters suspected the story-teller of making a mental record of the phrase.

"They are impossible to understand," De Ruyter declared.

"Why?" asked Miss Peters, suddenly, across the table, to the surprise of everybody. The young Irishman smiled encouragingly, as though he had been regretting that this pretty girl refused to talk.

"Why are they impossible to understand?" repeated the American story-teller. "I don't know, I'm sure. They are conundrums, all of them, and I am ready to give them up."

"Isn't it because you persist in approaching them as though they were strange, wild beasts?" the young woman went on. "You speak of them just as if they were different from us. But they are not, are they? They have their feelings just like we have; they fall in love and they get married and they quarrel and they die, just like we do. There is not more crime in the tenement-houses than there is in the rest of the city——not if you remember how many more people live in the tenement-houses. There isn't less joy there, or less sorrow either. There is quite as much happiness, I reckon, and a good deal more fun. They are not the lower animals; and it just makes me mad all over when I hear them spoken of in that way. They are human beings, after all——and if you can't understand them it's because you're not ready to go to them as your equals."

"That's what I say," the Irishman agreed; "we must approach them on the plane of human sympathy——that's the only way to get them to open their hearts."

"Why should we expect them to open their hearts to us?" Miss Peters continued. "We don't open ours to strangers, do we?"

"That's quite true," admitted Barry. "Sometimes I wonder if it isn't impertinent we are when we thrust ourselves into a poor man's room. I doubt we should like him to thrust himself into ours."

"I think that is a most amusing suggestion of yours," Mrs. Jimmy declared. "I shall look forward with delight to the day when the Five Points send missionaries up to Fifth Avenue."

"What an absurd idea!" cried Mrs. Canton, in disgust.

"Come now," the Irishman returned, "I deny that the suggestion is mine; but it is not so absurd——really, it isn't. There's lots of things they can teach us. I don't know but what we have more to learn from them than they have from us——really I don't. Christianity, now——practical Christianity——'inasmuch as ye did it to one of the least of these,' and all that sort of thing——well, there's more of that among the poor than there is among the rich, I'm thinking."

"If you want to pick up picturesque bits of low life in New York," broke in De Ruyter, "you must get a chance to see a candle in the plate."

"A candle in the plate?" echoed Barry. "I've never heard of it."

"It sounds like the title of a tale of superstition transplanted from Europe and surviving here in America," said Mrs. Jimmy.

"It's not a superstition, it's only a custom," De Ruyter explained; "and whether it's a transplanted survival or not I can't say. You see I've never seen the thing myself, but I've been told about it. I hear that down in the tenement-house region, when a family can't pay the rent and the landlord puts their scant furniture out on the sidewalk, and they don't know where to lay their heads that night, then one of the neighbors takes a candle and lights it and sticks it up on a plate, and takes his stand on the sidewalk; and this is a sign to everybody that there is a family in sore distress, and so the passers-by drop in a penny or two until there is enough to pay the arrears of rent and let the poor mother and children go back."

Mrs. Jimmy Suydam laughed a little bitterly. "That sort of thing may be possible on Cherry Hill," she said, "but it would never do on Murray Hill, would it? Just imagine how absurd a broken millionaire would look standing at a street corner with a little electric light on a silver salver, expecting the multi-millionaires going by to drop in a check or two to pay his rent for him!"

"I thought I had a quaint little silhouette of metropolitan life for you," De Ruyter responded, smiling back; "but you spoil the picture if you guy it like that."

"Very curious it is," said Barry——"very curious, indeed. 'How far a little candle throws its beams.' I don't think that the custom was exported from Ireland or from England——at least, I do not recall anything analogous."

"I've heard an old Irishwoman complain that the law was harder here on the tenant than it was in the old country," Miss Peters asserted; and then she appended an imitation of the old Irishwoman's speech: "'Sure, they'd boycott the landlord there, that's what they'd do, or they'd shoot the agent, maybe; but here ye can't——there's the police, bad cess to 'em!'"

"Have you ever seen the candle in the plate?" Barry asked her, across the table.

"Never," she answered.

"But you have heard of it?" De Ruyter inquired.

"Never before to-night," was her reply.

"You don't mean to say you don't believe that there is any such custom?" Mrs. Jimmy asked. "Thus all our illusions are shattered one by one."

"Of course, I don't know," the girl responded; "I haven't been working down there very long——only since last February. But it sounds like it was a fake, as we used to say in the newspaper office when I was a reporter."

Mrs. Jimmy Suydam had never met Miss Peters before, and now she examined the girl curiously, wondering what sort of being a woman was who had been a reporter and was now living among the poor, and who happened also to be dining at Mrs. Canton's.

The hostess was just then explaining to Mr. Suydam in a whisper that Miss Peters was a Southern girl of excellent family, who used to write those "Polly Perkins" articles for the Dial on Sunday, but who had given it up last winter, and now acted as her secretary.

"A fake?" repeated the Irishman, gleefully; "that's one of your Americanisms, isn't it? I must remember that. A fake——what does it mean exactly?"

"It means the thing that is not," De Ruyter explained, with a trace of acerbity in his voice. "Miss Peters disbelieves in the existence of the candle in the plate, and she was too polite to call my story a lie, so she said it was a fake."

"Oh, Mr. De Ruyter," was her retort, "and you used to be a newspaper man yourself once!"

"Your newspapers, now," Barry broke in, "I confess they puzzle me. They are so clever, you know, and so up-to-date, and all that; but you never know what to believe in them, do you? And then they do such dreadful things."

"I fear you will find few Americans prepared to defend our newspapers," said the story-teller, always a little ashamed that he had once been a reporter. "But what sort of a dreadful thing have you in mind just now?"

"Things quite inconceivable, you know," the Irishman explained; "a thing like this, for example. A year or two ago a man gave me a copy of one of your New York papers——the Dial, I think it was. I read it with great interest, as one would the writing of some strange tribe of savages, don't you know? It was so very extraordinary."

As the guest made this plain statement, little Miss Peters happened to catch the eye of the handsome Mrs. Jimmy Suydam, and they exchanged an imperceptible smile.

"What shocked me the most," Barry continued, "was a long article from some special commissioner, with headings in huge letters——"

"Scare-heads they call them," explained De Ruyter.

"Scare-heads?" repeated the Irishman. "That's the very name for them. Scare-heads——delicious! This article, then, had scare-heads galore, and it described how a suicide had been identified. It seems some poor girl of the working-class had got into trouble, and sooner than bring disgrace on her family she had jumped into the river here——Hudson's River, isn't it? She had carefully arranged so that there was no clew by which she could be traced. But she had not counted on the devilish ingenuity of the special commissioner, a woman, too——at least I suppose it was a woman, since the thing was signed 'Polly Perkins.'"

Mrs. Jimmy saw the blood rise in the cheeks of Miss Peters, until the little Southern girl was as red as any of the maple-leaves that decked the cloth between the two women. She noticed that Rupert De Ruyter was staring into his plate with ill-concealed embarrassment, and that Mrs. Canton seemed a little uneasy.

"It seems that the poor creature's body was sent to the Morgue," Barry continued, "and no one claimed it, so it was buried at the cost of the county. And there's where the diabolical cunning of this reporter was exercised. She guessed that the girl's family would want to see the body laid away in holy ground, and so she went to the burying. And she hit it, for there were two women there in deep black, the mother of the poor wretch and the sister, not afraid to show their bitter grief when they thought they were unknown and unwatched. The spy tracked them to their house and she found out their names, and she put the whole story in the paper! I suppose it broke the mother's heart, and the sister's, to see the dead girl's shame brought home to her and to them when they thought it was buried in the grave with her body. I don't deny that the female detective showed a deal of skill; but what a pitiful thing! To risk breaking two loving hearts——and for what purpose?"

There was a moment's silence when the Irishman asked this unanswerable question. Then Miss Peters raised her head and looked him in the eye.

"That was what is called a 'beat.' No other paper had the news," she said; "and the reporter who wrote that story got a raise of five dollars a week."

"Faith, she deserved it," Barry returned. "It was blood-money she was taking, I'm thinking."

"That's what I think now," Miss Peters replied. "I wish I had thought so then. I wrote that article, and that is one reason why I am living down there among the poor, to try and make it up to them. Of course, I can't undo the wrong I did; but I mean to do my best."

Then there was another silence, broken by Mrs. Jimmy, who turned to Mrs. Canton and asked if she was going to take a box at the horse-show.

When the ladies left the dining-room Barry took the chair by the side of Suydam.

"What's the name of that pretty little girl?" he asked. "Peters, isn't it? I say, it was awfully plucky of her to tell us that she was 'Polly Perkins,' wasn't it, now? I like her; she's a trump! And that fair hair of hers is very fetching, isn't it?"

(1897.)

MEN AND WOMEN AND HORSES

ERRYMOUNT MORTON walked briskly down Madison Avenue that warm November evening, when there was never a foretaste of winter in the intermittent breezes that blew gently across the city from river to river; and as he crossed the side streets one after another he saw the full moon in the east, low and large and mellow. On the brow of Murray Hill he checked his pace for a moment in frank enjoyment of the vista before him, differing in so many ways from the scenes which met his vision in the little college town of New England where he earned his living, and where he had spent the most of his life. The glow of the great town filled the air, and the roar of the city arose all about him. It seemed to him almost as though he could feel the heart of the metropolis throbbing before him. He caught himself wondering again whether he had not erred in accepting the professorship he had been so glad to get when he came back from Germany, and whether his life would not have been fuller and far richer had he come to New York, as once he thought of doing, and had he resolutely struck out for himself in the welter and chaos of the commercial capital of the country.

Down at the foot of the slope a cluster of electric lights spelled out the name of a trivial extravaganza then nearing its hundredth performance in the lovely Garden Theatre, and the avenue hereabouts had a strange, unnatural brilliance. High up in the pure dark blue the beautiful tower rose in air, its grace made visible by many lights of its own. The avenue was clogged with carriages, and the arcade before the theatre and under the tower was thick with men who carried under their arms folded card-board plans of the great amphitheatre, and who vociferously proffered tickets for the horse-show. So far remote from the current of fashion was Merrymount Morton that he had not been aware that the horse-show week was about to come to a glorious end. But he was familiar enough with New York to know that the horse-show was also an exhibition of men and women, and that the human entries were quite as important as the equine, and rather more interesting. He had never happened to be in the city at this season of the year; and although he had intended to spend the evening at the College Club, he seized the occasion to see a metropolitan spectacle which chanced to be novel to him.

From one of the shouting and insistent venders he bought a ticket, and he walked through the broad entrance-hall, the floor of which slanted upwards. He passed the door of a restaurant on his right, and he glanced down a staircase which led to the semi-subterranean stalls where the horses were tethered. A pungent, acrid, stable odor filled his nostrils. Then he found himself inside the immense amphitheatre, under the skeleton ribs of its roof picked out with long lines of tiny electric bulbs. Morton had a first impression of glittering hugeness, and a second of restless bustle. From a gallery behind him there came the blare and crash of a brass band playing an Oriental march; but even this did not drown the buzz and murmur of many thousand voices. The vast building seemed to Morton to be filled with men and women, all of them talking and many of them in motion. He found himself swept along slowly in the dense crowd that circled steadily around the high fence which guarded the arena wherein the horses were exhibited. This crowd was too compact for him to approach the railing, and he could not discover for himself whether or not anything was to be seen.

A thin line of more or less horsy fellows fringed the fence, and seemed to be interested in what was going on. The most of the men and women who filled the broad promenade between the railing and the long tier of private boxes paid little or no attention to the arena; they gave themselves up to staring at the very gayly dressed ladies in the boxes. It struck the New England college professor that the most of those present made no pretence of caring for the horses, as though horses could be seen any day; while they frankly devoted themselves to gazing at the people of fashion penned side by side in the boxes, and not often placing themselves so plainly on exhibition. Some of those who were playing their parts on this narrow and elevated stage had the self-consciousness of the amateur, and some had the ease that comes of long practice. These latter looked as though they were accustomed to be stared at, as though they expected it of right, as though they were there on purpose to be seen. They seemed to know one another; and it struck Morton that they were apparently all members of a secret fraternity of fashion, with their own signs and passwords and their own system of private grips; and they wholly ignored the people who had not been initiated and who were not members of their society. They nodded and smiled brightly to belated arrivals of their own set. They kept up a continual chatter among themselves, the women leaning across to talk to acquaintances in the adjoining compartments, and the men paying visits to the boxes of their friends. Now and again some one in a box would recognize some one in the circling throng below; but for the most part there was no communication between the two classes.

EXPLANATIONS

To Morton the spectacle had the attraction of novelty; it was so novel, indeed, that he did not quite know what to make of it. It disconcerted him not a little to see people, of position presumably, and obviously of wealth, willing thus to show themselves off, dressed, many of them, as though with special intent to attract attention. As a student of sociology, he found this inspection of Society——in the narrowest sense of the word——almost as instructive as it was interesting. At times the vulgarity of the whole thing shocked him, more especially once when he could not but hear the loud voices of one over-dressed group of women, who were discussing the characteristics of one "Willie."

"He's a wretched little beast!" cried one of these ladies.

"You mustn't say that," rejoined another, a tall woman with gray hair; "you know he's my corespondent." And at this stroke of wit the rest of the party laughed repeatedly.

But few of those on exhibition were as common as the members of this group. Indeed, Morton was struck with the fact that the most of the men and women who were being stared out of countenance were apparently people of breeding, and he wondered that they were willing to place themselves in what seemed to him so false a position. Many of the girls, for example, who wore striking costumes and extravagant hats, were themselves refined in face and retiring in bearing; they were stylish, no doubt, but they were well bred also. It seemed to Morton that style was perhaps the chief characteristic of these New York girls——style rather than beauty.

The average of good looks was high, and yet, as it happened, he was able to walk half around the huge building without seeing half a dozen women whom he was prepared to declare handsome. The girls appeared to be strong, healthy, lively, quick-witted, and charming, but rarely beautiful. They seemed to him, moreover, to be emphatically superior to the men who accompanied them, superior not only in looks, but in manners and intelligence.

Morton noted, to his surprise, that some of these men were quite as conscious of their clothes as any of the women were; and he caught also more than one remark showing that the appreciation of the women's clothes was not confined to the women themselves.

As he was nearing the Fourth Avenue end of the edifice he saw in a box just above him——for he found himself staring like the rest——a lady of striking beauty, with a look of sadness on her face, that gave place to a factitious smile when she spoke to one or another of the three or four young men who stood on the steps at the side of her chair. The face interested Morton, and it was recognized by two young men just behind him.

"Hello!" said one of them, "there's Mrs. Cyrus Poole. Smart gown, hasn't she?"

"Always has," answered the other. "Best-groomed woman in New York."

"She is pretty well turned out generally, for a fact," the first speaker responded. "But Cyrus Poole's made money enough out of the widow and the orphan this summer to pay for all the gowns his wife can wear this winter, at any rate."

It was only when Merrymount Morton had threaded his way half around the horse-show that he first saw a horse there. As he came to the Fourth Avenue end the crowd before him fell away, and a gate in the railing swung back across the promenade, while grooms led out of the arena five or six beautiful stallions. The New England college professor had a healthy liking for a fine horse, and his eyes followed these superb creatures till they were out of sight. Then in the clear space at the far end of the building he saw three coaches, one of them already equipped with its four-in-hand, while the horses were being harnessed to the others.

He stood there for a minute or two looking at them with interest. Then he turned his back, and once more began circling about the arena in the thick of the crowd, with no chance of seeing a horse again until he could get to the seat to which his ticket entitled him. He took out the bit of pasteboard and examined it again, and he saw that his place was very near the entrance, only he had gone to the right when he came in instead of to the left. By this time the men and women on exhibition in the boxes had begun to lose the attraction of novelty; and Morton walked on as swiftly as he could make his way through the crowd, wishing to get his seat in time to see the competition of the coaches.

He had come almost to the foot of the little flight of steps by which he could reach his seat when he happened to look up, and he caught sight of a familiar face. In a box only a score of feet before him there sat a lady about whose high-bred beauty there could hardly be two opinions. She was probably nearly thirty years old, but she looked fresher than either of the girls by her side. She wore a costume combining studied simplicity and marked individuality; and yet no one who saw her took thought of her attire, for her beauty subdued all things, and made any adornment she might adopt seem as though it were necessary and inevitable.

There was a suggestion of stiffness in her carriage, and perhaps a hint of haughtiness; but when she smiled she was as charming as she was handsome.

As his eyes first fell upon her Morton's heart gave a sudden thump, and then beat swiftly for a minute or two. Although he had not seen her for nearly ten years, he recognized her instantly. She had changed but little since they had met for the last time. He would have known her anywhere and at once.

And if he had been in any doubt as to her identity, it would have been dispelled by the conversation of the two young men who had been walking around the arena just behind him.

"Devilish pretty Mrs. Jimmy Suydam looks to-night, doesn't she?" asked one of them.

"She's had a good summer's rest," the other answered. "She was at St. Moritz with her mother while Jimmy was off with Lord Stanyhurst."

"Drove from Paris to Vienna, didn't he?" the first speaker queried. "I'd rather do it in a sleeper——wouldn't you?"

"I don't know," the second responded. "It's very swagger to drive your own coach all over Europe with a man like Stanyhurst, who knows everybody. I guess Jimmy thought it was cheap at the price. Besides, Punch called him the 'Wandering Jehu,' and they thought that was a great joke over there."

"The joke was at Jimmy's expense, of course," was the next remark. "They say Lord Stanyhurst never pays a bill himself when he can get an American to do it."

"Well, Jimmy made by the bargain," the other rejoined, "and he can afford it. Old man Suydam left a good business, and Jimmy knows enough to let it alone."

There had been a congestion of the crowd in front of Morton, but now there was a path opened before him. He drew back and let the two young men pass. He could not look away from the beautiful woman in the box before him. He wondered if he had courage to go up and speak to her. He remembered her so sharply, he recognized every turn of her head and every dainty gesture of her hands, he recalled so distinctly every word of their conversation the last time they met that it did not seem possible to him that she might have forgotten him. And yet it was not impossible. Why should she remember what he could not forget?

While he was hesitating, the party in her box broke up. One of the young ladies who were sitting with her arose and came down the steps, escorted by two young men, and as they passed Morton he caught from their conversation that they were going to the stables below to see a certain famous horse in his stall. The other young lady had changed her seat to the back of the box, where she was deep in conversation with a young man who had taken the chair beside hers. Mrs. Suydam was left alone in the front of the box.

She sat there apparently not bored with her own society, and obviously indifferent to the frank staring of the men and women who passed along the promenade a few feet below her. She sat there calm in her cold beauty, unmoved and uninterested, almost as though her thoughts were far away.

Morton made up his mind, and pressed forward again.

When he was within a yard or two of the steps leading to her box she happened to glance down, and she caught his eye fixed upon hers. She was about to glance away, when she looked again, and then a smile of recognition lighted her face, followed by the faintest of blushes.

She bowed as Morton raised his hat, and she held out her hand cordially when he climbed the steps to her box.

"I hardly dared to hope that you would remember me, Mrs. Suydam," he said, as he shook hands gently. "It is so long since I saw you last."

"How could you think I should ever forget the pleasant month I spent in your mother's house?" she returned. "We do not have so many pleasant months in life, do we, that we can afford to let any one of them slip out of memory? You haven't forgotten me, have you? Well, then, why should I forget you and your mother and the lovely little college town?"

"That month I can't forget," he responded; "but it was a long while ago, and my existence is uneventful always, while yours is full——and then so many things have happened since."

"Yes," she admitted, "so many things have happened. I'm married, for one thing. But that hasn't made me forget how kind you all were to me. Can't you sit down here for a few minutes and give me all the news of the college and the town?"

"I shall be only too glad," he said, taking the chair by her side. "Where shall I begin?"

"Tell me about yourself," she commanded.

"That won't take me long," he returned. "Very little has happened to me. I was going to Germany——perhaps you remember——that fall, after you left us. Well, I went, and I stayed two years, and I took my Ph.D. there, and I came back to the old college, and they gave me a professorship——and that's all."

"That's enough, I think," she answered, looking at him frankly with her dark eyes. "You have your work to do, and you do it. I don't believe there is anything better in life than to be sure what you ought to work at and to be able to work at it."

"I suppose you are right," Morton acknowledged. "I find hard labor is often the best fun, after all. But I can get solid enjoyment out of loafing, too. I don't recall that we worked very steadily that month that you were with us, and we certainly had a very good time. At least I did!"

"And so did I," she declared, unbending a little, and with a laugh of pleasant recollection. "I enjoyed every minute of my visit. I wish I could have such good times now!"

"Don't you?" he asked.

"Not often," she answered. "Perhaps never."

"You surprise me," he replied. "I supposed you were being entertained by day and by night, week in and week out, from one year's end to another."

"So we are," she explained. "But being entertained isn't always being interested, is it?"

"That's the theory, isn't it?" he rejoined.

"It may be the theory," she confessed, "but I'm sure it isn't the practice."

"I know that little college town of ours is remote from the path of progress," he went on, "but sometimes we behold those messengers of civilization, the New York Sunday newspapers. And whenever I do get one I am certain to see that you have been to a dinner-dance here, to a bal poudré there. I should judge that you lived in an endless merry-go-round of gayety."

She smiled again, and there was no sadness in her smile, only a vague, detached weariness. "Dinner-dances are the fashion just now," she said; "and if there is anything more absurd than the fashion it's to waste one's strength struggling against it."

"That is very end-of-the-century philosophy," he commented.

"It's philosophical not to want to be left out of things, isn't it?" she inquired. "Even if one doesn't care to go, one doesn't like not to be asked, and so one goes often when one would rather stay at home."

"I should think that if many people had motives like that, your parties here in New York might be rather dull," he retorted, with a little laugh.

"They are dull," she returned, calmly. "Sometimes they are very dull. But, of course, it doesn't do not to go."

"I suppose not," he agreed.

"But I find myself wondering sometimes," she continued, "where all the dull people in society were dug up. Sometimes after a long month of dinners I get desperate and almost wish I could renounce the world. Why, at the end of last winter I told my husband that we had not spent a single evening home since we got back from Florida, and we hadn't had a single pleasant evening, not one. He didn't think it was as bad as that, and perhaps it wasn't for him either, for I don't believe the women are as stupid as the men. Of course now and then there was a dinner I thought I should enjoy, but I never did. I'd see the clever man I'd have liked to talk to; I'd see him far down at the other end of the table, and that was all I did see of him. Some dreary old man would take me in, and then after dinner I'd have perhaps two or three little boys come up and try to pay compliments, and succeed in keeping away the men who might possibly have had something to say."

"And yet yours is the set that so many people seem to be trying so hard to enter," he suggested; "that is, if I understand aright what I read in New York novels."

"Yes," she answered, "I suppose that's the chief satisfaction we have——we know we are envied by the people who want to visit us, and to have us visit them. I suppose the desire to get into Society fills the emptiness in many a woman's life; it gives her something to live for."

"They don't seem to have much of the stern joy that foemen feel," Morton commented. "They take life desperately hard. Over there in the other corner I saw a handsome woman, and I overheard a man call her by name——she's the wife of Cyrus Poole, the Wall Street operator. And when I saw the unsatisfied aspiration in her face, I wondered whether she was one of those social strugglers I had read about."

"Mrs. Poole?" echoed Mrs. Suydam, indifferently. "I don't know her: I've met her, of course——one meets everybody——but I don't know her. She is good-looking, and she is in the thick of the social struggle. Upward and outward is her motto——Excelsior! They used to say that all last winter you could positively hear her climb. But then they have said that of so many people! She is clever, they say, and she entertains lavishly, so I shouldn't wonder if she succeeded sooner or later; and then she will be so disappointed."

Morton smiled. "From your account," he said, "the social struggle is rather a tragedy than a comedy; and I confess it has hitherto struck me as not without a suggestion of farce."

"It is absurd, isn't it?" she returned, smiling back. "And are we not a very snobbish lot? Jimmy declares that society in New York is almost as snobbish as it is in London even."

There was a moment of silence, and then Morton asked, a little stiffly, "How is Mr. Suydam? You know I have never had the pleasure of meeting him."

"Haven't you?" Mrs. Suydam responded. "You can see him soon. He's to drive George Western's coach. There they come now!"

A trumpet sounded; a gate in the railing at the Fourth Avenue end of the building was opened; and a coach was driven into the arena. A very stout man sat on the box alone.

Mrs. Suydam raised her long-handled eye-glass and looked at the approaching coachman.

"Oh, that's not Jimmy," she said, quickly; "of course not. That's the man they call The Adipose Deposit."

The trumpet sounded again, and a second coach was turned into the arena. The four horses were beautifully matched bays. The driver was a tall, thin, youngish man, who sat impassible on the box, and gave no sign of annoyance when a wheel of the vehicle rasped the gate-post.

"That's Mr. Suydam," said the lady to whom Morton was talking, as the bays trotted briskly past them, the man on the box holding himself rigidly and handling the ribbons skilfully.

"He is quite a professional," Morton remarked.

"Isn't he?" Mrs. Suydam replied. "You know he drove the Brighton coach out of London for three years. He really does it very well, they all say. I've told him that if we ever lost our money he would make a very superior coachman."

"Those bays go together admirably," the college professor declared, "and Mr. Suydam handles them superbly. But how pitiful it is to see their tails docked!"

"Oh, they do that in England," she explained, "so it's fashionable. But it is ugly, isn't it? Do you remember what a lovely long tail that Kentucky mare had, the one I rode that day——"

Then Mrs. Suydam paused suddenly.

"Yes," answered Morton, not looking at her, "I remember it."

Mrs. Suydam conquered her slight embarrassment and gave a light little laugh.

"How rude I have been!" she said. "Here I've been talking about myself and about my husband, and I haven't asked about you. Are you married yet?"

"No," he answered, and now he looked at her, and she blushed again; "and I am not likely ever to marry, I think. There was only one woman in the world for me, and I told her so, but she didn't care for me at all, and she told me so——and then she touched up that Kentucky mare and rode away with my heart hanging at her saddle-bow."

"You can find a better woman than she is," was her response; "a woman who will make you a better wife than she would ever have done."

Before Morton could reply to this, the girl and the two young men who had been in the box at first returned from their visit to the stables. The trumpet sounded again, and the judges made the drivers of the four coaches——for two more had entered after Mr. Suydam's——repeat their evolutions around the arena. And then, after protracted consultation together, the awards were made, and grooms ran to attach rosettes to the leaders of the team driven by the stout gentleman, who took the first prize, and then to the leaders of the team driven by Suydam, who took the second prize. The numbers of the winning coaches were displayed on the wide sign-boards at each end of the hall. The coaches were driven around again, and then out. The trumpets were silent for a while; and the brass band crashed forth again.

"Jimmy won't like not getting the first prize, will he?" asked the girl who had just returned to the box.

"I don't think it will worry him," answered his wife, with a return of her haughty manner.

She had not introduced Morton to any of the others in the box.

In the presence of so many it was impossible to resume their conversation on the old friendly basis. It seemed to Morton that since the girl and the young men had come back there was a difference in Mrs. Suydam's manner towards him; he could not define it to himself, but he felt it. Perhaps she was conscious of this herself.

When he made a movement preparatory to going, she said: "Must you go? I wanted you to meet my husband. Can't you drop in and lunch with us to-morrow?"

Morton thanked her and regretted that he might have to take a midnight train, and expressed his pleasure at having met her again. Then she held out her hand once more; and a minute later he was again in the thick of the throng circling along the promenade.

Before he reached the entrance the music was checked suddenly and the trumpet blared out, and then the voice of a man in the centre of the building was heard, intermittently, hopelessly endeavoring to inform the thousands packed in the splendid edifice that the fastest trotter in the world would now be shown. The crowd which was staring steadily at the men and women in the boxes paid little attention to this proclamation; to it the men and women in the boxes were far more interesting than any horses could be, even if any one of these could trot a mile in two minutes without a running mate.

(1895.)

IN THE WATCHES OF THE NIGHT

T was still snowing solidly as the carriage swung out of the side street and went heavily on its way up the avenue; the large flakes soon thickened again upon the huge fur collars of the two men who sat on the box bolt-upright; the flat crystals frosted the windows of the landau so that the trained nurse could see out only on one side. She sat back in the luxurious vehicle. She had on the seat beside her the bag containing her change of raiment; and she wondered, as she always did when she was called unexpectedly to take charge of an unknown case, what manner of house it might be that she was going to enter, and what kind of people she would be forced to associate with in the swift intimacy of the sick-room and for an unknown period. That the patient was wealthy and willing to spend his wealth was obvious——the carriage, the horses, the liveried servants, were evidence enough of this. That his name was Swank she also knew; and she thought that perhaps she had heard about the marriage of a rich old man named Swank to a pretty young wife a year or two ago. That he had been taken sick suddenly, and that the case might be serious, she had gathered from the note which the doctor had sent to summon her, and which had been brought by the carriage that was now returning with her.

She had ample time for speculation as they drove up the avenue in the early darkness of the last day of the year. The Christmas wreaths still decked the windows of the hotels, although through the steady snow she could see little more than a blur of reddish-yellow light as she sped past. There were few people in the avenue, except as they crossed the broader side streets, now beginning to be filled with the throng of workers returning home after the day's labor. They passed St. Patrick's Cathedral, already encrusted with snow whiter than its stone. They came to Central Park, and they kept on, with its broad meadows on their left gray in the descending darkness. At last the carriage drew up before a house on a corner——a very large house it seemed to the trained nurse; and its marble front struck her as cold, not to call it gloomy. Workmen were hastily erecting the frame of an awning down the marble steps, and a path had been made across the snowy sidewalk.

The footman carried her bag up the stoop and rang the bell for her.

The door was opened promptly by a very British butler.

"This is the nurse for Mr. Swank," said the footman. "Is he any better?"

"'E's about the same, I'm thinkin'," the butler responded. "This way, please," he said to the owner of the bag, which the footman deposited just inside the door. "I'll take you up to Mr. Swank's room, and I'll send your bag up to you afterwards."

The trained nurse followed the butler up the massive wooden stairs, heavy with dark carving. She noticed that the house was now dimly lighted, and that there was a going and a coming of servants, as though in preparation for an entertainment of some sort.

"We 'ave a dinner on this evening," the butler explained; "only twenty-four; but it's 'ard Mr. Swank ain't goin' to be able to come down. We're keepin' the 'ouse dark now, so it won't get too 'ot at dinner-time."

Whatever the reason for the absence of adequate illumination, it made the upper hall even more dismal than the one below——so the trained nurse thought.

"That's Mr. Swank's room there; and 'ere's 'is dressin'-room, that you're to 'ave——so the doctor said," the butler declared, leading the stranger into a small room with a lofty ceiling, and with one window overlooking Central Park. The shades had not been drawn; the single gas-jet was burning dimly; there was no fireplace; and a sofa on one side had had sheets and blankets put on it to serve as her bed.

She almost shivered, the place seemed to her so cheerless. But her training taught her not to think of her own comfort.

"This will do very well," she asserted.

"I'll tell them to fetch up your bag," the butler said, as he was about to withdraw. "Would you be wantin' any dinner later?"

"Yes," she answered, "I would like something to eat later——whenever it is convenient."

The butler left the room, only to reappear almost immediately.

"'Ere's the doctor now," he announced, holding the door open.

A tall, handsome man, with a masterful mouth, walked in with a soft, firm tread.

"So this is the nurse," he began. "Miss Clement, isn't it? I'm glad you were able to follow my note so quickly. If you will come into the next room, where the patient is, as soon as you have changed your dress, I'll tell you what I wish you to do."

With that he left her; and in less than ten minutes she followed him into the large bedroom on the corner of the house. It was an unusually spacious room, with a high ceiling and four tall windows.

There was a dull-red fire, which seemed insufficient to warm even the elaborate marble mantel. Almost in one corner stood a large bed, with thick curtains draped back from a canopy.

The doctor was sitting by the side of the bed as the nurse came into the room.

"SHE ALMOST SHIVERED, THE PLACE SEEMED TO HER SO CHEERLESS"

"This is Miss Clement, Mr. Swank," he said, in a cheerful voice, to the old man, who lay in the bed motionless. "She will look after you during the night."

Mr. Swank made no answer, but he opened his eyes and looked at the woman who had come to nurse him. She used to say afterwards that she had never felt before so penetrating a gaze.

The doctor turned to her, and in the same professionally cheery tones he said: "I sent for you, nurse, because Mrs. Swank has an important dinner to-night, and it might therefore be difficult for her to give Mr. Swank the attention he may require."

The physician was addressing the nurse, but it seemed to her that his words were really intended for the patient, whose eyes were still fixed on her.

All at once the sick man sat up in bed and began to cough violently. When the paroxysm had passed he sank back on the pillow again and closed his eyes wearily.

"I think that was not as severe as the last one," the doctor remarked; "I can leave you in Miss Clement's hands now. Perhaps, if I happen to be up this way about midnight, I may drop in again just to see that you are getting on all right. In the mean time, nurse, you will see that he takes these capsules every two hours——he had the last at half-past five. And you will take his temperature every hour if he is awake."

He said good-night to Mr. Swank in the same cheering tone, and then he went to the door. The nurse knew that she was to follow him.

When they stood alone in the hall, the doctor said to her: "If there is any change in the pulse or the temperature, send for me at once. Ring for the butler, and tell him I am to be sent for; he will know what to do. Mr. Swank has influenza only, but his heart is weak, and he needs careful attention. I shall be here again the last thing to-night."

When the nurse returned to the corner room the patient had fallen into a heavy doze, and she took advantage of this to prepare for the long vigil. She arranged her own belongings ready to her hand in the dressing-room set aside for her use. In that room she did not lower the shade, and she even stood at the window for a minute, trying to look out over Central Park, hidden from her by a swaying veil of swirling snow. The workmen had completed the canvas tunnel down the stoop to the edge of the sidewalk, and the lanterns hung inside the frame-work revealed grotesquely its striped contortions. As the nurse gazed down on it an old man without any overcoat sought a temporary shelter from the storm in the mouth of the awning, only to be ordered away almost immediately by the servant in charge.

The nurse went back into the larger room. She looked at her patient asleep in the warm bed. She wondered why life was so unequal; why the one man should spend the night in the snowy street, while the other had all that money could buy——shelter, warmth, food, attendance. She recalled how her father used to declare that the inequalities we see all around us are superficial only, and that there are compensations, did we but know them, for all deprivations, and that all apparent advantages are to be paid for, somehow, sooner or later. More than ever to-night she doubted the wisdom of her father's saying. How could there be anything but inequality between the old man in the street there below and the old man here in the bed? The thing seemed to her impossible.

As she became accustomed to the dim light of the room she was able to note that the furniture was heavy and black, that the carpet was unusually thick, that the walls had large paintings hanging on them, that the ceiling was frescoed in sombre tints. On all sides of her she saw the evidences of wealth and of the willingness to spend it; and yet the room and the house seemed to her strangely uninviting, and almost repellent. She asked herself why the sick man lying there asleep in the huge bed had not used his money to better advantage, and had not at least made cheerful his own sick-room. Then she smiled at her own foolishness. Of course the owner of the room had not expected to be stricken down; of course he had no thought of illness when he had furnished.

She moved gently about the room and tried to look at the pictures, but the illumination was insufficient. All that she could make out clearly were the names of the artists carved on tiny tablets attached to the broad frames; and although she knew little about painting, she had read the newspapers enough to be aware that pictures by these artists must have cost a great deal of money——thousands of dollars each, very likely. If she had thousands to spend, she believed that she could lay them out to better advantage than the owner of the house had done here. It struck her again as though the sick man had more than his share of the good things of life. She had not yet heard him speak, and she had not really had a good look at him; but she could not help thinking that a man who had so much, who had the means of doing so much, who was absolutely his own master, and who could spend a large fortune just as he pleased——she could not help thinking that he ought to be happy. It was true that he was ill now, but the influenza wears itself out at last; and when he was well he had so much money that he must be happier than other men——far happier than poor men, certainly.

When she came to this conclusion she was standing near the foot of the bed, looking at the man lying there asleep. It was on the stroke of half-past seven, and she had come to let him have his medicine again. Then she noticed that his eyelids were parted, and that he was looking at her.

"It is time to take one of these capsules now," she said, gently moving to his side and offering it to him.

He took it without a word, and gulped it down with a swallow of water. Then he sank back on the pillow, only to raise himself at once, as he was again shaken by a severe fit of coughing.

At last he lay back on the bed once more, still breathing heavily.

A fresh, young voice was heard at the door leading to the hall, saying, "May I come in, John?" and then a graceful young figure floated into the room with a birdlike motion.

The sick man opened his eyes wide as his wife came near him, and a smile illumined his face.

"How beautiful you are!" he said, faintly, but proudly.

"Am I?" she answered, laughing a little. "I tried to be to-night, because there will be the smartest women in New York at Mrs. Jimmy Suydam's dance, and I wanted to be as good as any of them."

The nurse had withdrawn towards the window as the wife came forward, and she did not believe that any woman at Mrs. Jimmy Suydam's, wherever that might be, could well look more beautiful than the one who now stood smiling by the side of the sick husband.

She was a blonde, this young wife of an old man, a mere girl, and the vaporous blue dress was cut low on a slender neck girt about by a single strand of large pearls, while a diamond tiara high on her shapely head flashed light into every corner of the darkened sick-room.

"I thought I'd just run in and see how you were before anybody came," she said, lightly. "Dinner is at quarter to eight, you know. I do wish you could be down. We shall miss you dreadfully. Of course I sent out at the last minute and got a man to fill your place, so we shall sit down with twenty-four all right; but then——"

Here she broke off, having caught sight of the third person in the room.

"So this is the nurse Dr. Cheever sent for?" she went on. "I'm sure she'll take good care of you, John——the doctor is always so careful. And if you hadn't had somebody with you I shouldn't have liked to leave you all alone——really I shouldn't!"

With that she circled about the bed again, turning towards the door.

"I must be off now," she explained. "I can't be wasting my time on you in this way. I really ought to be down in the drawing-room now; and first, I've got to see if the flowers are all right on the table."

Her husband's eyes had followed her wistfully about the room, watching every one of her easy and graceful movements; and when at last she slipped out of the door, it was a moment before he turned an inquiring glance on the nurse, as though to discover what she thought of the brilliant vision.

The nurse came to the side of the bed with her clinical thermometer in her hand.

"You are awake now," she said, with a pleasant smile. "May I take your temperature?"

Five minutes later, when she was entering in her note-book the high degree shown by the thermometer, and when the patient had again dropped off to sleep, the first guests began to arrive for the wife's dinner party.

The thick snow made the wheels inaudible, but the nurse heard the doors of the carriages slam as those who had been invited passed through the canvas tunnel one after another. In the room next to the dressing-room assigned to her for her own use there was a rustling of silken stuffs, and there were fragments of conversation now and again so loudly pitched as to reach the ear of the young woman who sat silent in the sick-chamber. Then, when all the guests were come, the house sank again into silence, and a tall clock in a corner of the stairs chimed forth the hour of eight.

So long as her patient slept the nurse had little or nothing to do; but though her body was motionless, her thoughts were busy. She was country-bred herself; she had left her home in a little New England village by the sea to make her way in the world. She had now been a trained nurse for nearly two years; and yet, as it happened, her work had been either in hotels or in families of only moderate means. This was the first time she had been in so handsome a house or with people of so much wealth. She could not help being conscious of her surroundings, and she caught herself wishing that she too were rich. She confessed that she would like to be a guest at the dinner below. She wondered what a dinner-table for twenty-four must be. To be able to entertain as lavishly as that, and not to have to worry about the arrangement, or the cost, or anything——well, that would be an existence any woman must delight in. She felt herself capable of expanding, and of being equal to the enjoyment of any degree of luxury. She liked her occupation, for she had chosen her own calling. She had been successful in it too; and yet she was beginning to be a little afraid that she had miscalculated her strength. The work was very laborious and confining, and more than once of late she had felt overtaxed. It might be that in a year or two her reserve force would be exhausted, and she would have to give up the struggle and go back home, where she would be welcome, of course, but where she would add to the burdens her mother was already laden with.

There was an alternative, and never before had it seemed to her so tempting as when she was sitting there alone with the sick man in the darkened corner room of his great house. She might marry. More than once she had been asked in marriage; and one man had asked her more than once. He was persistent, and he still declined to accept her refusal as final. He was not an old man yet, although he was twice her age. He was a rich man, even if he was not as wealthy as the owner of the splendid but depressing home where she now sat silently musing. She did not love him, that was true, and there was no doubt about it; but she did respect him, and she had heard that sometimes love comes after marriage. He could let her have all she longed for, and he was ready to give her everything he had. If she married him she too could have dinners of twenty-four, and wear a rope of pearls and a diamond tiara; and then, too, she could do so much good with money if she had it.

In the course of her services in the hospital, and afterwards among the poor, she had seen many a case of sore distress which she had been unable to relieve. If she had riches she could accomplish much that was now impossible; she could do good in many ways; she could relieve suffering and aid the impoverished and help the feeble far more adroitly and skilfully than could any woman who had always been wealthy, and who had not had her experience of life and of its misfortunes and its miseries. She thought that she knew her own character, and she believed that she had strength to withstand the temptations which beset the rich. Thinking herself unselfish, she held herself incapable of keeping for herself alone any good fortune that might come to her. And she made a solemn resolve that if she should marry the man who stood ready to take her to wife she would devote to good works the greater part of her money and of her time. She would dress as became her station, of course, and she would entertain sumptuously too; but no old man should ever be turned shivering from her door when she was giving a dinner of twenty-four.

Her revery was interrupted half a dozen times by the fits of coughing which shook her patient, and which seemed to her to become more and more frequent and more violent. At half-past nine she gave him his medicine again, and took his temperature once more. Then she made up the fire, which burned badly; and she straightened the sheets on his bed, and turned the pillows.

He soon sank to slumber again, breathing heavily and turning uneasily in his sleep. The house was singularly still, and no sound of the dinner party below reached the nurse in the corner room above. When she happened to go into the dressing-room she found there awaiting her a tray with several dishes from the dinner table. She was glad to have something to eat, and she sat down by the window to enjoy it. The thick, soft snow had silenced nearly all the usual street sounds. The carriages that went up and down the avenue were as inaudible as though they were rolling on felt. But sleighing parties became more frequent, and she found a suggestion of pleasant companionship and of human activity in the jingle of the bells. Once a fire-engine sped swiftly past the house, its usual roar deadened by the heavy snow, and its whistle shrilling forth as it neared the side streets, one after another; ten minutes later it came slowly back. The nurse was glad that there was only a false alarm, for she knew how terrible a fire would be in a crowded tenement-house on such a night.

She finished her belated dinner a few minutes after the deep tones of the clock in the hall had told her that it was ten, and that there were left of the old year but two hours more. Except when the sick man waked with a cough, the next hour was wholly eventless.

And yet, when it had drawn to an end, the nurse thought that it would count in her life as important beyond most others, for it was between ten and eleven that she made up her mind to marry the rich man who wanted her for his wife, and whom she did not love. The resolution once determined, she let her mind play about the possibilities of the future. She would not be married till the spring, of course, and they would go to Europe for their wedding-trip. Then, in the fall, she would persuade him to move to New York. He was fond of his own town, but he would get used to the city in time; and they could buy a new house, overlooking Central Park——perhaps in the same neighborhood as the one where she was sitting in the hazy light of the sick-room. She smiled unconsciously as she found herself wondering whether her patient's beautiful young wife would call on her if she purchased the house next door.

It was a little after eleven o'clock when she again heard a rustling of silken stuffs in the room by the side of hers, followed shortly by the voice of the servant in the street below calling the carriages of the departing guests. But some of the diners still lingered, for it was nearly half an hour later before the door of the sick-room opened and the sick man's wife came gliding in again with her languorous grace.

He fixed his eyes upon her at once, and smiled with contentment as she came towards him.

"You've been asleep, haven't you?" she began. "I'm so glad, for of course that's so good for you. We all missed you down-stairs, and everybody asked about you and said they were so sorry you were not there. You must hurry up and get well; and I'll give another dinner like this, for it was a great success. The flowers were superb——and I don't think any of the women had a handsomer gown than I did. And I know all of them together hadn't as elegant diamonds. I don't believe anybody at the dance will have as many either."

"Sit down by me here and tell me all about the dinner," said the sick husband.

"Oh, I can't wait now," the young wife answered. "I must be off at once. I've simply got to be there in time to see the old year out and the new year in. They say Mrs. Jimmy has a surprise for us, and nobody at dinner had the slightest idea what it could possibly be!"

"Are you going to the dance to-night?" asked the man in the bed; and the nurse saw the pleading look in his eyes, even if his wife failed to perceive it.

"Of course I am," was the wife's reply. "I wouldn't miss it for anything. I think it's a lovely idea to have a dance on New-Year's Eve, don't you? I do wish you were well enough to go, and I'm certain sure Mrs. Jimmy will ask about you——she's always so polite. You won't miss me——you will be asleep again in five minutes, won't you?"

"Perhaps," he answered, still clinging to her fingers. "I'll try to sleep."

"That's right," she responded, withdrawing her hand and going towards the door. "I'll trust you to the nurse. She'll take better care of you than I should, I'm afraid. I never was any good when people were sick. Now good-bye. I do hope you'll be better when I get back. I'll come in and say good-night, of course. I sha'n't be late, either——I'll be home by three——or before four, anyway."

And with that she glided away, smiling back at her husband as she left the room. He followed her with his eyes, and he gazed at the door fixedly after she had gone. There was a hungry look in his face, so it seemed to the nurse, as of one starving in the midst of plenty. With the vain hope that the vision of beauty might yet return, he lay silent, but listening intently, until he heard the sharp slam of the carriage doors. Then he relaxed and turned restlessly in bed.

It was then half-past eleven, and the nurse took his temperature and administered another capsule, as the doctor had ordered. It seemed to her that he was more feverish and that he was coughing more frequently; and even as she saw the patient sink into a broken sleep, she wished that the physician would come soon.

The arrival of the doctor was delayed till a few minutes before midnight, and the nurse had time to reconsider, once and forever, her decision to marry for money and without love. Her mind had been made up slowly and with great deliberation; it was unmade suddenly and unhesitatingly and irrevocably. It was the sight of the mute pleading in the sick man's eyes which made her change her mind. After seeing that look she felt that it would be impossible for her to make a loveless marriage——not for her own sake only, but also for the sake of the man she should marry. If he loved her and she did not love him, there would be no fair exchange; she would be cheating him. When she beheld clearly the meaning of the transaction her honesty revolted. She had refused to marry him more than once, and now her refusal was final.

She stood for a moment at the window and looked out. The snow had ceased falling, and there was already a clearing of the clouds, which let the moonlight pierce them fitfully. The wind blew steadily across the broad meadows of the Park, bending the whitened skeletons of the trees.

Three immense sleighs filled with a joyous and laughing party went down the avenue, bandying songs from one sleigh to the other. A horn was tooted repeatedly in one of the side streets, and there were louder and more frequent whistles from the river craft on both sides of the city. A pistol-shot rang out now and again. It was almost midnight on the last day of the old year; and the new year was to be greeted with the customary chorus of wild noises.

As the nurse turned from the window the doctor entered the room. She made her report briefly, and she told him that the old man's cough was worse, and that he seemed weaker.

While they were standing at the foot of the bed, the patient was seized with another paroxysm. He sat up, shaken by the violent effort——far more violent than any that had preceded it. He seemed to struggle vainly for relief, and then he dropped back limply on the pillows. The physician was at his side instantly, and laid a hand on his heart. There was a moment of silence, and the clock on the stairs began to strike twelve, its chimes mingling with the uproar made by the pistols and the horns and the steam-whistles out-doors.

"That's what I was afraid of," said the doctor at last. "I suspected that he had fatty degeneration of the heart."

"Is he——is he dead?" asked the nurse.

"Yes, he is dead."

But it was not for five or ten minutes that the shrill noises outside ceased.