Cane

Seventh Street is a bastard of Prohibition and the War. A crude-boned, soft-skinned wedge of nigger life breathing its loafer air, jazz songs and love, thrusting unconscious rhy...

John: —and then you shimmy. I’ll bet she can. Some good cabaret, with rooms upstairs. And what in hell do you think you’d get from it? Youre going wrong. Here’s right: get her t...

Halsey’s workshop. It is an old building just off the main street of Sempter. The walls to within a few feet of the ground are of an age-worn cement mixture. On the outside they...

Carma’s tale is the crudest melodrama. Her husband’s in the gang. And its her fault he got there. Working with a contractor, he was away most of the time. She had others. No one...

Crimson Gardens. Hurrah! So one feels. People ... University of Chicago students, members of the stock exchange, a large Negro in crimson uniform who guards the door .. had watc...

Kabnis: Sure, I should say so, sure. Dont think its because I dont like folks down this way. Just the opposite, in fact. Theres more hospitality and everything. Its diff—that is...

Esther sells lard and snuff and flour to vague black faces that drift in her store to ask for them. Her eyes hardly see the people to whom she gives change. Her body is lean and...

Halsey: Youre a queer feller, Lewis, I swear y are. Told y so, didnt I, girls? Just take him easy though, an he’ll be ridin just th same as any Georgia mule, eh, Lewis? (Laughs.)

The men fill the pit. Instruments run the scale and tune. The saxophone moans and throws a fit. Jim Clem, poised over the piano, is ready to begin. His head nods forward. Openin...