Chapter 10
A windy day, we had said in the grimy recesses of Cliff and Dover streets. (Approaching this sentiment for the third time, perhaps we may be permitted to accomplish our thought and say what we had in mind.) But up on the airy decking of the Brooklyn Bridge, where we repaired with G---- W---- for a brief stroll, the afternoon seemed mild and tranquil. It is a mistake to assume that the open spaces are the windier. The subway is New York's home of Æolus, and most of the gusts that buffet us on the streets are merely hastening round a corner in search of the nearest subway entrance so that they can get down there where they feel they belong. Up on the bridge it was plain to perceive that the March sunshine had elements of strength. The air was crisp but genial. A few pedestrians were walking resolutely toward the transpontine borough; the cop on duty stood outside his little cabin with the air of one ungrieved by care. Behind us stood the high profiles of the lower city, sharpened against the splendidly clear blue sky which is New York's special blessing. On the water moved a large tug, towing barges. Smoke trailed behind it in the same easy and comfortable way that tobacco reek gushes over a man's shoulder when he walks across a room puffing his pipe.
The bridge is a curiously delightful place to watch the city from. Walking toward the central towers seems like entering a vast spider's web. The footway between the criss-cross cables draws one inward with a queer fascination, the perspective diminishing the network to the eye so that it seems to tighten round you as you advance. Even when there is but little traffic the bridge is never still. It is alive, trembling, vibrant, the foot moves with a springy recoil. One feels the lift and strain of gigantic forces, and looks in amazement on the huge sagging hawsers that carry the load. The bars and rods quiver, the whole lively fabric is full of a tremor, but one that conveys no sense of insecureness. It trembles as a tree whispers in a light air.
And of the view from the bridge, it is too sweeping to carry wholly in mind. Best, one thinks, it is seen in a winter dusk, when the panes of Manhattan's mountains are still blazing against a crystal blue-green sky, and the last flush of an orange sunset lingers in the west. Such we saw it once, coming over from Brooklyn, very hungry after walking in most of the way from Jamaica, and pledged in our own resolve not to break fast until reaching a certain inn on Pearl Street where they used to serve banana omelets. Dusk simplifies the prospect, washes away the lesser units, fills in the foreground with obliterating shadow, leaves only the monstrous sierras of Broadway jagged against the vault. It deepens this incredible panorama into broad sweeps of gold and black and peacock blue which one may file away in memory, tangled eyries of shining windows swimming in empty air. As seen in the full brilliance of noonday the bristle of detail is too bewildering to carry in one clutch of the senses. The eye is distracted by the abysses between buildings, by the uneven elevation of the summits, by the jumbled compression of the streets. In the vastness of the scene one looks in vain for some guiding principle of arrangement by which vision can focus itself. It is better not to study this strange and disturbing outlook too minutely, lest one lose what knowledge of it one has. Let one do as the veteran prowlers of the bridge: stroll pensively to and fro in the sun, taking man's miracles for granted, exhilarated and content.
THREE HOURS FOR LUNCH
Hudson Street has a pleasant savour of food. It resounds with the dull rumble of cruising drays, which bear the names of well-known brands of groceries; it is faintly salted by an aroma of the docks. One sees great signs announcing cocoanut and whalebone or such unusual wares; there is a fine tang of coffee in the air round about the corner of Beach Street. Here is that vast, massy brick edifice, the New York Central freight station, built 1868, which gives an impression of being about to be torn down. From a dilapidated upper window hangs a faded banner of the Irish Republic. At noontime this region shows a mood of repose. Truckmen loll in sunny corners, puffing pipes, with their curved freight hooks hung round their necks. In a dark smithy half a dozen sit comfortably round a huge wheel which rests on an anvil, using it as a lunch table. Near Canal Street two men are loading ice into a yellow refrigerator car, and their practiced motions are pleasant to watch. One stands in the wagon and swings the big blocks upward with his tongs. The other, on the wagon roof, seizes the piece deftly and drops it through a trap on top of the car. The blocks of ice flash and shimmer as they pass through the sunshine. In Jim O'Dea's blacksmith shop, near Broome Street, fat white horses are waiting patiently to be shod, while a pink glow wavers outward from the forge.
At the corner of Hudson and Broome streets we fell in with our friend Endymion, it being our purpose to point out to him the house, one of that block of old red dwellings between Hudson and Varick, which Robert C. Holliday has described in "Broome Street Straws," a book which we hope is known to all lovers of New York local colour. Books which have a strong sense of place, and are born out of particular streets--and especially streets of an odd, rich, and well-worn flavour--are not any too frequent. Mr. Holliday's Gissingesque appreciation of the humours of landladies and all the queer fish that shoal through the backwaters of New York lodging houses makes this Broome Street neighbourhood exceedingly pleasant for the pilgrim to examine. It was in Mr. Holliday's honour that we sallied into a Hudson Street haberdashery, just opposite the channel of Broome Street, and adorned ourself with a new soft collar, also having the pleasure of seeing Endymion regretfully wave away some gorgeous mauve and pink neckwear that the agreeable dealer laid before him with words of encouragement. We also stood tranced by a marvellous lithograph advertising a roach powder in a neighbouring window, and wondered whether Mr. Holliday himself could have drawn the original in the days when he and Walter Jack Duncan lived in garrets on Broome Street and were art students together. Certainly this picture had the vigorous and spirited touch that one would expect from the draughting wrist of Mr. Holliday. It showed a very terrible scene, apparently a civil war among the roaches, for one army of these agile insects was treasonously squirting a house with the commended specific, and the horrified and stricken inmates were streaming forth and being carried away in roach ambulances, attended by roach nurses, to a neighbouring roach cemetery. All done on a large and telling scale, with every circumstance of dismay and reproach on the faces of the dying blattidæ. Not even our candour, which is immense, permits us to reprint the slogan the manufacturer has adopted for his poster: those who go prowling on Hudson Street may see it for themselves.
In the old oyster and chop house just below Canal Street we enjoyed a very agreeable lunch. To this place the Broome Street garreteers (so Mr. Holliday has told us) used to come on days of high prosperity when some cheque arrived from a publisher. At that time the tavern kept an open fireplace, with a bright nest of coals in the chilly season; and there was a fine mahogany bar. But we are no laudator of acted time; the fireplace has been bricked up, it is true; but the sweet cider is admirable, and as for the cheesecake, we would back it against all the Times Square variety that Ben De Casseres rattles about. It is delightful and surprising to find on Hudson Street an ordinary so droll and Dickensish in atmosphere, and next door is a window bearing the sign WALTER PETER. We feel sure that Mr. Holliday, were he still living in those parts, would have cajoled the owner into changing that E to an A.
Our stroll led us north as far as Charlton Street, which the geographers of Greenwich Village claim as the lower outpost of their domain. Certainly it is a pleasing byway, running quietly through the afternoon, and one lays an envious eye upon the demure brick houses, with their old-fashioned doorways, pale blue shutters, and the studio windows on the southern side. At the corner of Varick Street is a large house showing the sign, "Christopher Columbus University of America." Macdougal Street gives one a distant blink of the thin greenery of Washington Square.
An unexpected impulse led us eastward on Grand Street, to revisit Max Maisel's interesting bookshop.--We had never forgotten the thrill of finding this place by chance one night when prowling toward Seward Park. In bookshops of a liberal sort we always find it advisable to ask first of all for a copy of Frank Harris's "The Man Shakespeare." It is hardly ever to be found (unfortunately), so the inquiry is comparatively safe for one in a frugal mood; and it is a tactful question, for the mention of this book shows the bookseller that you are an intelligent and understanding kind of person, and puts intercourse on good terms at once. However, we did find one book that we felt we simply had to have, as it is our favourite book for giving away to right-minded people--"The Invisible Playmate," by William Canton. We fear that there are still lovers of children who do not know this book; but if so, it is not our fault.
Grand Street is a child at heart, and one may watch it making merry not only along the pavement but in the shop windows. Endymion's gallant spirit was strongly uplifted by this lively thoroughfare, and he strode like one whose heart was hitting on all six cylinders. Max Maisel's bookshop alone is enough to put one in a seemly humour. But then one sees the gorgeous pink and green allurements of the pastry cooks' windows, and who can resist those little lemon-flavoured, saffron-coloured cakes, which are so thirst-compelling and send one hastily to the nearest bar for another beaker of cider? And it seems natural to find here the oldest toyshop in New York, where Endymion dashed to the upper floor in search of juvenile baubles, and we both greatly admired the tall, dark, and beauteous damsel who waited on us with such patience and charity. Endymion by this time was convinced that he was living in the very heart and climax of a poem; he became more and more unreal as we walked along: we could see his physical outline (tenuous enough at best) shimmer and blur as he became increasingly alcaic.
Along the warm crowded pavement there suddenly piped a liquid, gurgling, chirring whistle, rising and dropping with just the musical trill that floats from clumps of creekside willows at this time of year. We had passed several birdshops on our walk, and supposed that another was near. A song sparrow, was our instant conclusion, and we halted to see where the cage could be hung. And then we saw our warbler. He was little and plump and red-faced, with a greasy hat and a drooping beer-gilded moustache, and he wore on his coat a bright blue peddler's license badge. He shuffled along, stooping over a pouch of tin whistles and gurgling in one as he went. There's your poem, we said to Endymion--"The Song-Sparrow on Grand Street."
We propose to compile a little handbook for truants, which we shall call "How to Spend Three Hours at Lunch Time." This idea occurred to us on looking at our watch when we got back to our kennel.
PASSAGE FROM SOME MEMOIRS
How long ago it seems, that spring noonshine when two young men (we will call them Dactyl and Spondee) set off to plunder the golden bag of Time. These creatures had an oppressive sense that first Youth was already fled. For one of them, in fact, it was positively his thirtieth birthday; poor soul, how decrepitly he flitted in front of motor trucks. As for the other, he was far decumbent in years, quite of a previous generation, a perfect Rameses, whose senile face was wont to crack into wrinklish mirth when his palsied cronies called him the greatest poet born on February 2, 1886.
It was a day--well, it is fortunate that some things do not have to be described. Suppose one had to explain to the pallid people of the thither moon what a noonday sunshine is like in New York about the Nones of May? It could not be done to carry credence. Let it be said it was a Day, and leave it so. You have all known that gilded envelopment of sunshine and dainty air.
These pitiful creatures arose from the subway at Fourteenth Street and took the world in their right hands. From this revolving orb, said they, they would squeeze a luncheon hour of exquisite satisfactions. They gazed sombrely at Union Square, and uttered curious reminiscences of the venerable days when one of them had worked, actually toiled for a living, upon the shores of that expanse. Ten years had passed (yes, at least ten--_O edax rerum!_). Upon a wall these observant strollers saw a tablet to the memory of William Lloyd Garrison. Strange, said they, we never noticed this before. Ah, said one, this is hallowed ground. It was near here that I used to borrow a quarter, the day before pay-day, to buy my lunch. The other contributed similar recollections. And now, quoth he, I am grown so prosperous that when I need money I can't afford to borrow less than two hundred dollars.
They lunched (one brushes away the mist of time to recall the details) where the bright sunlight fell athwart a tablecloth of excellent whiteness. They ate (may one be precise at so great a distance?)--yes, they ate broiled mackerel to begin with; the kind of mackerel called (but why?) Spanish. Whereupon succeeded a course of honeycomb tripe, which moved Dactyl to quoting Rabelais, something that Grangousier had said about tripes. Only by these tripes is memory supported and made positive, for it was the first time either had tackled this dish. Concurrent with the tripes, one inducted the other into the true mystery of blending shandygaff, explaining the first doctrine of that worthy draught, which is that the beer must be poured into the beaker before the ginger ale, for so arises a fatter and lustier bubblement of foam. The reason whereof they leave no testament. While this portion of the meal was under discussion their minds moved free, unpinioned, with airy lightness, over all manner of topics. It seemed no effort at all to talk. Ripe, mellow with long experience of men and matters, their comments were notable for wisdom and sagacity. The waiter, overhearing shreds of their discourse, made a private notation to the effect that these were Men of Large Affairs. Then they embarked upon some salty crackers, enlivened with Camembert cheese and green-gage jam. By this time they were touching upon religion, from which they moved lightly to the poems of Louise Imogen Guiney. It is all quite distinct as one looks back upon it.
Issuing upon the street, Dactyl said something about going back to the office, but the air and sunlight said him nay. Rather, remarked Spondee, let us fare forward upon this street and see what happens. This is ever a comely doctrine, adds the chronicler. They moved gently, not without a lilac trailing of tobacco fume, across quiet stretches of pavement. In the blue upwardness stood the tower of the Metropolitan Life Building, a reminder that humanity as a whole pays its premiums with decent regularity. They conned the nice gradations of tint in the spring foliage of Gramercy Park. They talked, a little soberly, of thrift, and of their misspent years.
Lexington Avenue lay guileless beneath their rambling footfalls. At the corner of Twenty-second Street was a crowd gathered, and a man with the customary reverted cap in charge of a moving picture machine. A swift car drew up before the large house at the southeast corner. Thrill upon thrill: something being filmed for the movies! In the car, a handsome young rogue at the wheel, and who was this blithe creature in shiny leather coat and leather cap, with crumpling dark curls cascading beneath it? A suspicion tinkled in the breast of Spondee, in those days a valiant movie fan. Up got the young man, and hopped out of the car. Up stood the blithe creature--how neatly breeched, indeed, a heavenly forked radish--and those shining riding boots! She dismounted--lifted down (so unnecessarily it seemed) by the rogue. She stood there a moment and Spondee was convinced. DOROTHY GISH, said he to Dactyl. Miss Gish and her escort darted into the house, the camera man reeling busily. At an upper window of the dwelling a white-haired lady was looking out, between lace curtains, with a sort of horror. Query, was she part of the picture, or only the aristocratic owner of the house, dismayed at finding her home suddenly become part of a celluloid drama? Spondee had always had a soft spot in his heart for Miss Dorothy, esteeming her a highly entertaining creature. He was disappointed in the tranquil outcome of the scene. He had hoped to see leaping from windows and all manner of hot stuff. Near by stood a coloured groom with a horse. The observers concluded that Miss Gish was to do a little galloping shortly. Dactyl and Spondee moved away. Spondee quoted a poem he had once written about Miss Dorothy. He recollected only two lines:
She makes all the rest seem a shoal of poor fish So _we_ cast _our_ ballot for Dorothy Gish.
Peering again into the dark backward and abysm, it seems that the two rejuvenated gossips trundled up on Lexington Avenue to Alfred Goldsmith's cheerful bookshop. Here they were startled to hear Mr. Goldsmith cry: "Well, Chris, here are some nice bones for you." One of these visitors assumed this friendly greeting was for him, but then it was explained that Mr. Goldsmith's dog, named Christmas, was feeling seedy, and was to be pampered. At this moment in came the postman with a package of books, arrived all the way from Canada. One of these books was "Salt of the Sea," a volume of tales by Morley Roberts, and upon this Spondee fell with a loud cry, for it contained "The Promotion of the Admiral," being to his mind a tale of great virtue which he had not seen in several years. Dactyl, meanwhile, was digging out some volumes of Gissing, and on the faces of both these creatures might have been seen a pleasant radiation of innocent cheer. Mr. Goldsmith also exhibited (it is still remembered) a beautiful photo of Walt Whitman, which entertained the visitors, for it showed old Walt with his coat-sleeve full of pins, which was ever Walt's way.
How long ago it all seems. Does Miss Dorothy still act for the pictures? Does Chris, the amiable Scots terrier, still enjoy his bones? Does old Dactyl still totter about his daily tasks? Queer to think that it happened only yesterday. Well, time runs swift in New York.
FIRST LESSONS IN CLOWNING
A medley of crashing music, pungently odd and exhilarating smells, the roaring croon of the steam calliope, the sweet lingering savour of clown-white grease paint, elephants, sleek barking seals, trained pigs, superb white horses, frolicking dogs, exquisite ladies in tights and spangles, the pallid Venuses of the "living statuary," a whole jumble of incongruous and fantastic glimpses, moving in perfect order through its arranged cycles--this is the blurred and ecstatic recollection of an amateur clown at the circus.
It was pay day that afternoon and all the performers were in cheerful humour. Perhaps that was why the two outsiders, who played a very inconspicuous part in the vast show, were so gently treated. Certainly they had approached the Garden in some secret trepidation. They had had visions of dire jests and grievous humiliations: of finding themselves suddenly astride the bare backs of berserk mules, or hoisted by blazing petards, or douched with mysterious cascades of icy water. Pat Valdo had written: "I am glad to hear you are going to clown a bit. I hope you both will enjoy the experience." To our overwrought imaginations this sounded a little ominous. What would Pat and his lively confrères do to us?
We need not have feared. Not in the most genial club could we have been more kindly treated than in the dressing room where we found Pat Valdo opening his trunk and getting out the antic costumes he had provided. (The eye of a certain elephant, to tell the truth, was the only real embarrassment we suffered. We happened to stand by him as he was waiting to go on, and in his shrewd and critical orb we saw a complete disdain. He spotted us at once. He knew us for interlopers. He knew that we were not a real clown, and his eye showed a spark of scorn. We felt shamed, and slunk away.)
A liberal coating of clown-white, well rubbed into the palms before applying; a rich powdering of talcum; and decorations applied by Pat Valdo with his red and black paint-sticks--these give an effect that startles the amateur when he considers himself in the mirror. Topped with a skull-cap of white flannel (on which perches a supreme oddity in the way of a Hooligan hat) and enveloped in a baggy Pierrot garment--one is ready to look about and study the dressing room, where our fellows, in every kind of gorgeous grotesquerie, are preparing for the Grand Introductory Pageant--followed by the "Strange People." (They don't call them Freaks any more.) Here is Johannes Joseffson, the Icelandic Gladiator, sitting on his trunk, with his bare feet gingerly placed on his slippers to keep them off the dusty floor while he puts on his wrestling tights. As he bends over with arched back, and raises one leg to insert it into the long pink stocking, one must admire the perfect muscular grace of his thighs and shoulders. Here is the equally muscular dwarf, being massaged by a friend before he dons his pink frills and dashing plumed hat and becomes Mlle. Spangletti, "the marvel equestrienne, darling of the Parisian boulevards." Here is the inevitable Charley Chaplin, and here the dean of all the clowns, an old gentleman of seventy-four, in his frolicsome costume, as lively as ever. Here is a trunk inscribed _Australian Woodchoppers_, and sitting on it one of the woodchoppers himself, a quiet, humorous, cultivated gentleman with a great fund of philosophy. A rumour goes the rounds--as it does behind the scenes in every kind of show. "Do you know who we have with us to-day? I see one of the boxes is all decorated up." "It's Mrs. Vincent Astor." "Who's she?" interjects the Australian woodchopper, satirically. "It's General Wood." "Did you hear, Wood and Pershing are here to-day?" Charley Chaplin asserts that he has "a good gag" that he's going to try out to-day and see how it goes. One of the other clowns in the course of dressing comes up to Pat Valdo, and Pat introduces his two pupils. "Newspaper men, hey?" says the latter. "What did you tell me for? I usually double-cross the newspaper men when they come up to do some clowning," he explains to us. We are left wondering in what this double-crossing consists. Suddenly they all troop off down the dark narrow stairs for the triumphal entry. The splendour of this parade may not be marred by any clown costumes, so the two novices are left upstairs, peering through holes in the dressing-room wall. The big arena is all an expanse of eager faces. The band strikes up a stirring ditty. A wave of excitement sweeps through the dingy quarters of the Garden. The show is on, and how delirious it all is!