PART III

WINGS

CHAPTER I

"Boom, boom," said the city of New York, "we have gone to war!"

And all the other cities, big and little, said a boom-boom of their own.

A mighty nation had gone to war.

A time of singing. Songs on the lips of crowds. Lights in their eyes.

High-pitched, garbled words, bra.s.s bands, flags, speeches.... Mine eyes have seen the coming of the glory of the Lord but we don't want the Bacon, All we Want is a Piece of the Rhine(d).... A bra.s.s monkey playing "Nearer, My G.o.d, to Thee" on a red banjo.... _Allons, les enfants_ ...

_le jour de gloire est arrive!_ You tell 'em, kid! Store fronts, cabarets, hotel lobbies, sign-boards, office buildings all become shining citadels of righteousness beleaguered by the powers of darkness.

Newspaper headlines exploding like firecrackers on the corners. A bonfire of faces in the streets. A bonfire of flags above the streets.

Boom, boom!... societies for the relief of martyred Belgium. Societies for Rolling Cigarettes, Bandages, Exterminating Hun Spies, Exterminating Yellow Dogs and Slackers.... Wah, don't let anybody be a slacker! A slacker is a dirty dog who does what I wanna do but am afraid to do.

Who lies down. Who won't stand up on his hind legs and cheer when he's supposed to.... Societies for Knitting Sweaters, Giving Bazaars, Spotting Hun Propaganda. A bonfire of committees, communes, Jabberwocks, clubs, Green Walruses, False Whiskers, Snickersnees, War Boards, and Eagles Shrieking from their Mountain Heights with an obligato by the Avon Comedy Four--I'm a Jazz Baby....

A mighty nation had gone to war. Humpty Dumpty and the March Hare wheeled out the Home Guards. Said the Debutante to her Soldier Boy in the moonlight, "To h.e.l.l with the chaperone, War is War...." Somebody lost Eighty Hundred Billion Dollars trying to build aeroplanes out of Flypaper and a new kind of Cement. And the Press, slapping Fright Wig No. 7 on its bald head, announced to the Four Winds, " ... once more glory, common cause, sacrifice, welded peoples of America, invincible host, lay common blood, altar liberty, sacred principle, government of the people by the people for the people perish earth" ... And the Pulpits obliged with an "O G.o.d who art in Heaven girthed in shining armor before Thee Thy cause Liberty Humanity Democracy Thy blessing inspire light of sacrifice brave women and hero men give us strength O Lord not falter see way of Righteousness stern hearts bear great burden Thou has given us carry on till powers of darkness routed virtue again triumphant. Thy will done on earth as it is in Heaven...."

And the soldiers entraining for the cantonments--clerks and salesmen, rail-splitters and window-washers with the curve of youth on their faces--the soldiers said, "Whasamatter with Uncle Sam? Rah ... Wow ...

Good-bye ... We'll treat 'em rough ... ashes to ashes and dust to dust if the Camels don't get you the Fatimas must...." And in the cantonments the soldiers said, " ... this lousy son of a badwoman of a shavetail can't put nothin' over on me ... say ... oh, I hate to get up in the morning, oh, how I long to remain in bed...." And in France the soldiers sang " ... there are smiles that make you happy there are smiles that make you sad.... The Knights of Columbus are all right but the Y. M. C.

A. is a son of a badwoman of a grafting mess...."

"Yanks Land in France ... Yanks in Big Battle ... Yanks Sink Submarines"

... bang banged the headlines. Don't eat meat on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Help the Red Cross buy Doughnuts for the Salvation Army and keep an eye on Your Austrian Janitor.... Elephants, tom-cats, and chorus-girls; a hallelujah with a red putty nose, Seventy-six Thousand Press Agents Walking on their Hands, Jabberwocks, Horned Toads, and Prima Donnas ...

here comes the Liberty Loan Drive ...

A mighty nation had gone to war. Boom! Boom!

And in a moon-lighted room overlooking a fanfare of roofs, Erik Dorn whispered one night to Rachel,

"You have given me wings!"

CHAPTER II

Time to get up. An oblong of sunlight squeezing through beneath the drawn blind and slapping itself boldly on the gloomy carpet ... "shame on all sleepy heads. Here's another day...."

Rachel smiled as she opened her eyes. She lay quietly, smiling. It was as it was yesterday--as the day before. One opened one's eyes and life came quickly back with a "h.e.l.lo, here I am--where you left me." So one lay, fearful to move, like a cup of wine that is too full and mustn't be joggled with even a kick at the bed sheets.

One lay and smiled. Thoughts and stockings side by side somewhere on the floor. Put on stockings in a minute. Put on thoughts in a minute. Dress oneself up in phrases, hats, skysc.r.a.pers, and become somebody.

Rachel's eyes livened slowly. Pleasant to be n.o.body--a bodyless, meaningless smile awake in the morning. Opened eyes on a pillow. A deep, deep sigh on a pillow. An oblong of sunshine on the floor. A happy bed.

A happy ceiling. A happy door. Nothing else. n.o.body else.

But a hat, a blue straw hat with a jauntily curved brim, sat on a candlestick and winked. Which reminded one that one was alive. After all, one was somebody. Time to get up. All the king's horses and all the king's men demanded of one to arise and get dressed and go out and be somebody. Rachel kicked at the sheets. Protest against the Decrees of Destiny. " ... those are my feet kicking. h.e.l.lo, here I am."

There was a note on the pillow adjacent. It read: "At eight o'clock to-night I'll return. Please don't get run over in the streets. ERIK."

Well, why not kiss the note, embrace the pillow and sigh? Why try to be anything but an idiot?... "Yes, Mr. Erik Dorn, I will be very careful and not let myself get run over in the streets."

Rachel's head fell on the adjacent pillow and she lay whispering, "I love you," until the sound of her voice caused her to laugh.... Time to get up. Dear me! She closed her eyes and rolled herself out of bed....

"Ouch!..." She sat up on the floor, legs extended, and stared at a shoe.

Alas! a shoe is a crestfallen memory. A crestfallen yesterday lurks in old shoes. Shoes are always crestfallen. Even the shoes of lovers waiting under the bed weep and snivel all night. But why sit naked on the floor, stark, idiotically naked on the floor with legs thrust out like a surprised ill.u.s.tration in _La Vie Parisienne_ and toes curling philosophically toward a shoe?... "I'll do as I please. Very well."

Sanity demanded clothes. But a sudden memory started her to her feet.

She stood up lightly and hurried toward the large oval mirror.... "Your b.r.e.a.s.t.s are white birds dreaming under the stars. Your body is like the Queens of China parading through the moon...."

She looked at herself in the mirror. Yes. But why not the Emperors of Afghanistan Walking on Their Hands? Thus ... "my Body is like the Presidents of the United States Riding Horseback...."

She placed her hands on her slim hips and tautened her figure. When Erik was away all one could do was play with the things he had said. Was she as beautiful as he thought? A joyousness flowed through her. The mirror gave her back a memory of Erik. She was a memory of Erik.

When she looked at herself in the mirror she saw only something that lived in the admiring eyes of Erik. Beautiful legs, beautiful body and "eyes like the courts of Solomon at night, like circles of incense." ...

All were memories of Erik.

She whispered softly to the figure in the mirror, "Erik knows your eyes.

They are the beckoning hands of dreams." Thus Erik spoke of them. "I mustn't laugh at myself. I am more beautiful than anything or anybody in the whole world. There is n.o.body as beautiful as the woman Erik Dorn loves."

If she were only in a forest now where she could run, jump in the air, scream at birds, and end by hurling herself into dim, cool water.

Instead, an absurd business of fastening her silk slip.

She seated herself on the bed, her stockings hanging from her hand, and fell again to listening to Erik. His word made an endless echo in her head.... "Perins a droll species. A sort of indomitable a.s.s. Refuses to succ.u.mb to his intelligence. If you think he's in love with your Mary you're a downright imbecile. The man adjusts his pa.s.sions to his phrases as neatly as a pretty woman pulling on her stockings...." She didn't like Erik to refer to pretty women pulling on their stockings. What an idiot! If Erik wanted to he could go out and help all the pretty women in New York pull on their stockings. As if that had anything to do with their love. Somebody else's stockings! A scornful exclamation point. Now her skirt, waist, shoes, and hat, and she was somebody.

Somebody walking out of a house, in a street, looking, smiling, swinging along. The beautiful one, the desired one out for a promenade, embarra.s.sed somehow by the fact that she was alive, that people looked at her and street-cars made frowning overtures to her. This was not her world. Yet she must move around in it as if she were a fatuous part of its grimacings and artifices. Shop windows that snickered into her eyes ... "shoes $8 to-day. Hats, $10.50.... Traveling-cases only $19...." She must be polite and recognize its existence by composing her features, wearing a hat, saying "pardon me" when she trod on anyone's feet or b.u.mped an elbow into a stomach. A stranger's world--gentlemen in straw hats; gentlemen in proud uniforms marching off to war; a fretwork of gentlemen, signs, windows, hats, and automobiles and a lot of other things, all continually tangling themselves up in front of her nose. A city pouring itself out of the morning sky and landing with a splash and a leap of windows around her feet. Thus the beautiful one, out for a promenade and moving excitedly through a superfluous world.

She plunged into a perilous traffic knot and emerged unscathed. But that was wasting time. Time--another superfluous element, a tick-tock for the little wingless ones to crawl by. Then she remembered--a moon-lighted room ... "you have given me wings!" Her thought traced itself excitedly about the memory. This had happened. That had been said. Yesterday, to-day and to-morrow--all the same. Memories mixing with dreams. Wings!

Yes, wings that beat, beat on the air and left one moving behind a blue dress, under a jaunty hat like all other jaunty hats. But something else moved elsewhere. There were two worlds for her. But not for Erik. One world for Erik. Where would his wings take him? Beyond life there was still life. A wall of life that never came to an end or a top. That was the one world for Erik. Hurl himself against it, higher, higher. Soar till the superfluous ones became little dots on a ribbon of streets.

Tears came into her eyes. The strange world drifted away--a flutter of faces. A silence seemed to descend upon the streets as if their roaring were not a noise but the opened mouth of a dumb man. Erik had come to her. Arm in arm, smiling tears at him she walked through the spinning crowd in a path hidden from all snickering windows and revolving faces.

A dream walk. These were her wings.

Consciousness returned. She rubbed her eyes with the knuckles of her hands and laughed softly. She must not excite herself with hysterical worries. Wondering about Erik. There had been days when she had moved like a corpse through the streets, a corpse always finding new and further deaths. Death days with her heart tearing at empty hours, with time like a disease in her veins. Days before he had come. Now all life was in her. Why invent new causes of grief? She must talk sane words to herself. But the sane words bowed a polite adieu and putting on their hats walked away and sat down behind the snickering windows.... Other words arrived quickly, breathlessly.... There was something in his eyes that frightened, something that did not rest with her but seemed to reach on further. In the midst of their ecstasies his eyes, burning, unsatisfied, making her suddenly chill with fear, would whisper to her, "There is something more." In each other's arms it was she who came to an ending, not he. His kisses, his "I love you," were the clawing of fingers high up on the wall. For her they were the obliteration, the ending beyond life.

The street unraveled itself about her with a bang of crowds and a whirl of flags, a zigzag of eyes like innumerable little tongues licking at the air. The tension of her thought relaxed. She remembered that when he walked in streets he was always making pictures. She thought of his words.... "It's a part of me that love hasn't changed, except to increase. A pestiferous sanity keeps demanding of me that I translate incoherent things into words. The city keeps handing itself to me like a blank piece of paper to write on. And I scribble away."

She would do as he did, scribble words over faces and buildings as she walked. The city was a ... a swarm of humanity. Swarm of humanity. My G.o.d, had she lost the power of thought? Imagine telling Erik, "A crowd of people I saw to-day reminded me of a swarm of humanity." There was no sanity in her demanding words. Because there was no incoherence outside.

Things weren't incoherent but non-existent. The city was no mystery.