Part 3

In the PINE LEAF, next morning, his eyes were clear, his skin bright in the sun; but with all of it, he counted every measure of his heart. This was a dead passage—a ship without wings—men beside him shaving without faces. There was no hastiness in his action, though; and with impassible restraint he left the Bowery, its fretful entrances and lanterns thick with sickness.

He went uptown to the Relief Employment Station and stood in line again. Behind and before him, such pitiful neatness would formerly have brought the thought of laughter or poor tears. No more.

A counselor interviewed them quickly. There was a card on his desk marked MR. ROBERTS. Martin studied him with concentration, knowing that this man through whom he might be placed demanded understanding, subtle coyness and perhaps, beauty; for he saw a person hesitant in sex and yet requiring it; a man lurid of cheek, yet pale; a contradiction with a flush abnormal as its pallor. The look of Roberts was more theory than fact; although Martin thought, amusedly, that certainly this personage, most elegant, existed almost regally. The counselor’s eyebrows, alert and thin and dark, commanded all his face. His deep-set cheeks and bold, firm chin absolved too bright, too wide a pouting lower lip. His hair, compressed and black, cut strongly in his temples and took away the color from his eyes. “This masterpiece,” thought Martin, “should be done in platinum; with alabaster, ebony and careful points of gold.” And then, he found that he was next.

Roberts glanced at him.

“Sit down,” he said. “Are you waiting for a ship?” His eyes opened wide, closed intimately, then opened wide again.

“No,” said Martin. “I want a job ashore.”

“Have you had college experience?”

“Yes. Five years.”

Roberts grew cautious.

“Really! Post-graduate work?”

“No. I was never graduated. It was off and on.”

“Why?”

Martin hesitated a moment.

“I suppose because the electives interested me much more than the requisites.”

Roberts spoke impersonally.

“A diploma is quite valuable in getting a job,” he said.

Martin smiled.

“That’s right.”

The adviser looked at him questioningly.

“I wasn’t trying to be rude,” said Martin, “but the situation appeared somewhat ridiculous.”

“I can well imagine,” answered Roberts, smiling back at him. “I wish everyone out of a job could develop the same sense of humor.”

“It isn’t a sense of humor,” replied Martin. “It’s a form of embarrassment. I used to see little girls act this way in school.”

The counselor nodded.

“An acute analysis,” he said.

“I didn’t mean that,” Martin added quickly.

“Of course not.” Roberts was thoughtful. His eyes had assumed a knowing look. His voice was unprofessional and the color in his cheeks had become more prominent. At last, he picked up a card. “What kind of work do you prefer?” he asked.

“I’ve done a good many things.”

“Have you specialized in anything?”

“No.”

“That’s curious. One would think that a young man with your intelligence would——”

Martin interrupted him.

“I’m not intelligent,” he said. “I’m imaginative. Sometimes it gives the illusion of intelligence.” Then, slightly bewildered by his own statement, Martin reflected on this uncalled-for abstraction until he forgot where he was and sat absently, with an appearance so unusual that Roberts, who was watching him keenly, spoke one word half under his breath; and Martin, taken from his musing by the unexpected character of the exclamation, said sharply, “What was that?”

But the adviser, disregarding the question, shrugged his shoulders—basilisk in state once more.

“Are you really ingenuous,” he asked, “or are you kidding me? One would think that a young man of your—education—then, would have prepared himself to meet inevitable economic problems.”

“No.” Martin shook his head. “I’m not ingenuous, either. I’m conscious. I’m too conscious; it makes me brittle. Nor am I kidding you. I told you the truth. It is curious that I didn’t adjust myself. I tried to think about it occasionally but it didn’t do any good. Other things seemed more important.”

Roberts was listening intently.

“What other things?” he asked.

“Oh—pretending. Sometimes other things; but mostly just pretending.”

“Pretending what?”

“Pretending that I was everything except what I am—that things were different from what they are. I thought that life would move on and somehow carry me with it. I have no way to substantiate this; but all my life I’ve known that the finish was illusive—that it was best for me to float with the current until an eddy whirled me into my right course.”

“Have you struck the eddy?”

Again Martin felt the intimacy of Roberts’ tone and frowned.

“Perhaps you misinterpreted my question,” said the adviser coolly. “I asked if you were in your proper medium.”

Martin flushed and started to rise; but Roberts lifted his hand in a gesture of restraint.

“I really know how you feel,” he said gently. “Perhaps that’s why I spoke as I did. In your capacity as a job hunter, however, there can be no room for individual conflict; particularly in your relationship with one who, understanding, offers both his professional facilities and,” he said more slowly, “his friendship—” all the time looking directly at Martin with the strange color coming and going as he spoke.

“Cheeks—like a lost woman,” said Martin, trying to stop the sentence before it was out of his mouth.

Roberts stared at him for a second in astonishment. Then he went into uncontrollable laughter.

But Martin remained unsmiling.

“I’m sorry I said that,” he remarked severely. “I really can’t excuse it or explain it.”

“Well, I’m not sorry,” said Roberts, leaning forward. “It’s the first genuine fun I’ve had in a long time. I’d like more of it. But I’ll confess—it’s disruptive to the morale of the office.” Still amused, he glanced around him. His speech was high and unbalanced. “However,” he went on, becoming more practical, “I’m going to get you a job.”

“Well—” said Martin.

“No, no,” insisted Roberts. “I’m glad I’m in a position to help you.” Once more, he looked swiftly around him and continued in a lower voice. “I think it’s wonderful to be able to help people. Don’t you?”

“Yes.”

Roberts hesitated.

“It’s about the only thing there is in the world,” he said in a still lower tone. “Isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

He wrote his address on the card and handed it to Martin.

“I want you to come to my residence this evening. There, we’ll work out your economic destiny.” He smiled faintly.

Martin accepted the card, smiling also, wondering if he really looked this subjective and, if not, why Roberts’ obvious attitude.

“Very well,” he said, facing with curiosity a phenomenon before its occurrence. “What hour?”

“Nine.”

Martin stood up and nodded slightly. It seemed to him that the employees were watching him evasively as he left.

* * * * *

The great city arose with Martin and marched to its hysteria of noon. Then, slowly falling till evening, burst into flame, quieted and slept. Gigantic presses told of her neurosis. In this immutable turning flashed black lines of the growth of the disease. Its people, wooden-eyed, marionette, accepted with grimness; their minds numb and evasive. They held their buildings higher in the air—pointed them like caricatures of things that had gone, of things still to come. But their thoughts were buried. Hidden under music and dust and smothered in light, the precious balance died....

* * * * *

The moon, free of clouds, shone through the blinds and into the living-room of Roberts’ apartment. A crystal vase, without flowers, directed the dim light into a corner. Small ebon figures held out their arms. Roberts was wearing a dark Russian blouse. To Martin, he appeared more fabulous and crystalline than in his office. His flush was constant—so determinate that Martin guessed it artificial, noticing however, that the native, restless color had moved into his eyes. There it remained, fluctuating and searching until it seemed disturbingly like the luminant phosphorus of uncertain, yet violent leaves and shadows Martin had avoided in the tropics. Roberts had been ambiguous throughout the evening and Martin felt that he knew him no better. But he watched the adviser closely—watched each apparent banality for a _double entendre_ and speculated upon the inevitable. He countered each triviality; and made no attempt to acquiesce in a secretive understanding.

Roberts now grew silent for long intervals. With a compelling, but a quiet vision, he observed his young friend. The room had become warmer and frost was forming on the window panes. Once, Roberts arose and ran his finger across the glass, leaving a clear, narrow trail from which fell small drops of moisture.

“It’s colder outside,” he said.

“Much colder,” replied Martin.

Roberts came over and sat down near him.

“Then I take it the warmth of our civilization has its appeal after all?”

In a different fashion Martin confused the scene in as remote and complex a pattern as his friend. Deeply muscled by the sea, he nevertheless was finely drawn as a lady’s slipper and as quick of kicking to the notice. Roberts was aware of this and other features that, to him, were more demanding and elemental; for in his bleached eyes Martin carried the ocean; there was the smell of salt about him—and, Roberts thought, in a sort of painful hysteria, probably sand in his hair. His face, out of the Indies, with its stain from the sun and from his youth, should not hold dignity; and yet it did, in such a steady, high intensity that Roberts caught his breath on it. Martin rubbed his foot over the rug.

“‘Warmth’—of your civilization?” he repeated. “I’m astonished.”

“Perhaps the word was ill-chosen,” answered Roberts. “But whatever our qualities may be, I hope that you prefer them to those which emanate from the fo’c’sle of a West Indian freighter. Now, it is my turn to be astonished. Why did you say ‘_your_ civilization’? Are you not—” Roberts hesitated, “one of us?”

“I’m a seaman. We don’t fit in anywhere on land.” Roberts changed—seemed more severe in the passing light.

“This bold and masterful deception of all seamen is, to me, Martin, a shabby thing. I see it as a trite avoidance of each standard which, although sometimes unbeautiful, is present in the world. Such life, irrelevant and irreverent of all doctrine, is but a switching of responsibilities—a turning of the back that’s shielded by mere boastfulness. In honesty to myself, I must admit that there’s a careless beauty in its physical, sweet shape—the wrap of dungarees—and forgetfulness in song. And yet, it’s impotent. Quite sterile in its loveliness.... And finally, I see the man—the dungarees—the very songs in pity.” The color surged into Roberts’ cheeks and he leaned nearer. “You’ve abused yourself, Martin. There’s been dishonesty in plenty for yourself. And what, dear boy, quite comes of it?”

“Perhaps I do it to hear you drain yourself,” said Martin dryly.

Roberts answered with immediate fierceness.

“I don’t believe I’ve ever talked this way before. But I’ll use your method now, Martin. You need a job. From your card I noticed that you’ve been a printer. Can you operate a linotype?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll arrange things. Now, in heaven’s name—let’s leave this miserable economic status. It’s impossible.”

Martin frowned slightly.

“But isn’t that why I’m here? You said—”

Roberts’ blue eyes became darker.

“Why not quote our professional introduction literally?” he asked. “You were trying to amuse yourself, not help yourself. Why did you do it? Why do you do it now?” With difficulty he restrained his anger. “A job should be considered first, before this premature folly.” He stopped, put out his cigarette and waited, only to be startled by Martin’s sudden laughter. He raised his shoulders arrogantly. “You are entertained then, by emotion?”

“No,” said Martin. “Rather, by a grotesque episode.”

“Grotesque?” Roberts seemed more contemptuous than indignant.

“Indeed,” said Martin, inflamed by this dry attitude. “Grotesque. Absurd. A farcical horse-opera of a lost decade revived in different ribbons, different sex. This renovated melodrama is enough to make one sick!—a pale girl with a stack of mortgage documents fastened in her long, blonde hair, arguing for her virtue with a Russian blouse!”

Roberts listened with fascination. His eyes became solicitous. The tenor of the room altered swiftly.

“You _could_ have been, Martin,” he said in a breath and quite excitedly. “Yes, you could have been.” And then, between his lips, and with no intended insult, Roberts spoke the same one word that he had whispered to Martin that afternoon.

Martin looked at the man and knew this exclamation had never been so used. Without changing his expression he reconstructed Roberts’ face from the fragments of thought that had suddenly charged the room. The pink, hairless mask moved closer—without eyes, without nose, with a single hole in the lower part and a single, dreadful sound protruding.

Along the blinds lay a few ravelings of light. The face regained its natural shape. Only an undermovement of greediness and a distant, crying sound remained.

Roberts walked over to a cabinet and brought back a colored liqueur which he offered to Martin, pouring it slowly and meticulously into Holland glass. He was once more the host, aloof, charming, courteous.

“How do you think you will like your job?” he asked. “I’m sending you to a friend of mine—a Mr. Jackson. He’ll see that you get along.”

“There’s no reason to lie,” Martin answered. “I won’t like it. It’ll be wretched—sitting there, pounding a machine that is more efficient than I am.”

“Then tell me—why do you want a job ashore? Why don’t you go back to sailoring? Or, do you really like that sort of thing after all?”

“It’s a free life,” Martin answered slowly.

“And this is not?”

“I don’t know. But your evaluations interest me.”

Roberts became genuinely curious. All of the coldness left his face and only the deeper lines of his integrity remained.

“What is it that disturbs you, Martin?” he asked gently. “The past or the future? Or the shadow behind the lamp?”

“I imagine the shadows are worst.”

“You intensify them, don’t you?”

“Perhaps I even create some of them. We demand contrast.”

“Mmm.” Roberts, his head nodding loosely, studied him. “You have something in your eyes, Martin,” he said. “If you were a woman I would forget my business, my complacency. I would want to run away with you—if you were a woman.”

Martin hesitated a moment before answering.

“If I were a woman—you would not be interested,” he said at last.

Roberts’ face grew white under the rouge.

“You are candid. But my temperament should not disturb our friendship.”

Martin leaned over, closing his hand about the adviser’s wrist and holding it tightly.

“What do you mean by ‘temperament’?” he asked.

The insolent red came back into Roberts’ cheeks.

“That was young, Martin, my lad. It was cruel.” Then, sensing the flux of blood upon his wrist more keenly, he felt curiously strong. Happiness, nostalgia and strength merged and fused until his mind turned slowly and hung staring down upon the stages of his life. Two pale stars drifted upward and dimmed. Roberts looked into his mother’s eyes.

_CHAPTER V_

Rio lay on a bed in a room on Fourteenth Street. He was in a bad humor. A back tooth ached and he sucked hot smoke from a cigarette against it. The Relief authorities had told him that Martin had signed up, but had disappeared without report. Had he left New York, or had he found a job? Had he changed his mind and caught a ship—Martin was too slippery for an idea to hold on to. Rio’s irritation increased.

“He never was solid,” he said to the girl sitting across the room.

“What do you care?” she answered. “You ain’t in love with him.”

Rio dropped the cigarette butt, pressed his thumb on the coal and rubbed it into the floor.

“Don’t get mad now, sweetheart,” the girl said. “I try to be funny. And that’s more than you done.”

Rio sat up, took his coat and left. There was another chance. Martin might have registered at the Employment Station. Rio walked along Third Avenue, watching faces, stopping frequently to glance inside the saloons. A long line of men, waiting outside one of the Relief restaurants, attracted him. One of the men held out his hand.

“Two for a nickel, buddy,” he said, holding his fingers over the meal-tickets.

“Three for a nickel, pisan,” said Rio, walking on.

It was late afternoon when he reached the Employment Station. Roberts was at his desk when Rio approached. He was turning over the cards in some files and did not look up immediately. Rio, a rollicking expression in his eyes, put his hands on his hips and began to pose slightly. He looked like a male bear under morphine. The adviser glanced at him briefly, saw the attitude and dismissed it.

“Come back to-morrow. It’s five o’clock,” he said.

“I don’t want to sign up,” answered Rio, grinning now. “I’m lookin’ for a shipmate.”

Roberts shook his head.

“They’ll help you at Central Relief Headquarters. This is Employment.” He spoke peremptorily.

“I know,” said Rio. “He signed up over there and never checked out, but he ain’t around. I thought maybe he found a job here.”

“Five o’clock,” Roberts repeated, looking annoyed. “My secretary will check over the list for you.”

“His name is Devaud,” insisted Rio. “Martin Devaud. He’s a sort of young guy.”

“Devaud?” Roberts’ eyes were round. “Have I heard the name? A thin, crippled fellow?”

“No.”

Roberts took a pencil and filled in a blank card.

“We aren’t permitted to give information concerning these men, but if such a person should ever come in, I’ll give him your name.”

“My name’s Rio.”

“What shall I tell him you wanted—if I see him?”

Rio stuck his thumb against his chin.

“You don’t need to tell him nothin’.” He leaned on the desk.

Roberts looked at him stiffly. The color surged into his cheeks.

“Is that all? I’m accustomed to accepting, not giving information. Unless you give me the particulars I need, it will be impossible to coöperate with you. Is this boy wanted for any misdemeanor?”

Rio’s face turned a heavy red.

“This boy ain’t wanted for ‘any misdemeanor.’ This boy’s a friend of mine. He’s on the beach. I want to see him.”

Roberts dropped the card on his desk. He showed the stamp of discipline.

“Have you ever been thrown out of anywhere?”

“Not by ten like you.”

“Fortunately there are gentlemen here vested with that privilege.” The adviser nodded across the room at several policemen.

Rio laughed.

“Fortunately? Gentlemen?” He walked away, then turned. “I’ll see you later, Mister!”

Roberts watched him leave. Powerful brute, he thought. Rio! A shipmate. A friend. How good a friend? Roberts put his finger to his lips. Certainly not a good contact for Martin. Damn the intimacy of the sea—like prison, like Devil’s Island, holding men together, destroying all the niceties of camaraderie.... Were those stories true about men on ships? A sordid subject exaggerated out of all proportion—still, some of it must be true. That big fellow. Was he? He had been unwarrantedly excited.

Rio left the Station. Mr. Fish inside would look good with his teeth out. Strictly fruit, huh? By God, these governors! Well, what of it?... Where to look now? Martin wasn’t trying to ship. He wasn’t at the Hall or on the docks. He wasn’t on Relief. He hadn’t got a job at the Station—or was Roberts lying. “Gentlemen here vested with that privilege!”

Rio took a train to Forty-second Street. The bright, flashing lights of Broadway shut out the early stars. The hurrying expanse of faces had less individuality than waves. There was no bond between their eyes and his, impassionate. They were as eternal, as indestructible as ants. They passed him, died, were born and passed again; a long, driving throng, pale and imperishable, typed and counterparted into immortality. Rio turned away, disgusted. Martin wasn’t there. He’d die in such a sea. God bless sailors and their drifted lives.

Rio returned to his room and lay down on the bed, nervous from its quiet. He saw the unused pitcher—one of dignity; with whiteness and good height. It made him slightly sick. There was a girl’s bag on a chair; and one article, too intimate, beside it. He rolled over. Suddenly the doorknob rattled.

“What is it?” he called out, impatiently.

Two girls walked in, smiling, red-cheeked.

“Hello, Rio,” one of them said. “Did you find your buddy?”

“No.”

“That’s too bad, Rio.”

“Look here,” said Rio, unsmiling. “This is amateur night. Now beat it.”

_CHAPTER VI_

Martin worked into the routine of the printing plant. There were thirty linotypes around him, shielding him with their clamor. He found retreat in their noise and liked to feel that he was a lever or cam, bending or turning inconspicuously in the tide of words. He hid his revulsion as an automaton and mixed his sweat with the oil of the machinery. There was an acrid taste of hot lead in the air, a taste of ink, the taste and rattle of matrices. Martin could feel his shoulders bend into the machine—could see the horizon shrink to the area of light on his copy. Type, type, type—up with the line. Feel the grinding of the fellow, pressing, digesting. Out with the slug, searing hot and good to calloused fingers.

When evening came and work was over, Martin straightened his back and went to the wash-trough. The gritty soap smelled good, like candy. He associated it with freedom. Outside, he felt like running—jumping a hydrant, racing a car. He wanted to shout at the slanting sunlight.

He lived uptown, at one of the most inexpensive club-hotels for men. The rooms were clean and, from the standpoint of his present earnings, the cost was reasonable. Most of the residents were hard-working fellows who needed a place to sleep. Martin read the recreational program; but women were not included in its itinerary, so he remained in his room or walked up and down the street.

He sat in his room, thinking to a point and back. The period seemed interminable. The break, the nervous ejaculation that would throw him out of this treadmill seemed further away than before. He remembered the sea and ships upon it, hot rain, salt and rust and bubbling, rising life. The memory filled his nose and lungs and mind.

“God damn,” he said, and struck the wall with his hand.

The buzzer in his room sounded and he went to the house-phone in the hall to answer.

“Hello, Martin. How are you?”

“Hello, Roberts.”

“I have a surprise, Martin. There’s a little party and I’d like you to come with me. Just a few people. Would you like to?”

“Yes. Yes, I’d like to.”

“Good. I’ll come by for you. It will all be very informal, very casual.”

“Indeed it will,” said Martin.

“What’s that?”

“I said, indeed it will.”

“What do you mean?”

Martin could feel Roberts’ eyes over the wire, slightly protruding, and his eyebrows moving gently up and down.

“I meant nothing. When will you be here?”

“Oh. Soon. It’s unexpected.”

“Thanks,” said Martin. “Till then.”

He went back to his room and shaved. Next he put on one black sock and one gray one—not for style’s sake, nor to be eccentric. When he was dressed he looked earnestly in the mirror.

“Pale,” he said. He sat down on the bed and stared at the wall. It seemed a long time to him before Roberts rapped on the door.

“I’m glad to see you,” Martin exclaimed with relief. “It’s you all right—you and your intolerable verve.”

Roberts laughed.

“Good heavens! What finery!” he cried, looking at Martin’s suit, which was pressed.