ONE Brass Gas Chandelier

THE door opened against the drawn chain, grating against it.

In the grey strip a woman’s face, very grey, very unexpectant, suddenly was bright.

It measured a man, young, standing at ease. The chain clicked free. “O it’s you, Mr. Samson.” The door opened wide, shut them in.

The hall was a long shadow beyond the glow of them standing. He was quiet waiting, not sheer against her: his shaggy coat poured the street’s coldness. She was a dim thing about eyes.

“I’m so glad it’s you, Mr. Samson.”

She walked noiseless through shadow, she took no space from it, she was infinitesimal within a mood. He followed.

“I was taking it right easy ... reading.”

In the gaslight she turned and fronted him. She took his coat. He was a fair boy, gentle, somewhat plump. He sat down, she stood.

—I have been in this room before, I have seen this woman before. It is not the sort of room, she is not the sort of woman I want to see for I am here for neither.... Why strangely now this sense of her reality upon me?

It was her room, there they were after all, the woman in her room touching upon him.—Let me see in this silence the woman in her room.

Her quiet words did not obtrude upon a silence whose margin he caught as it waved. He saw her a battered creature. He saw her absurdity of painted cheeks, two imitation flowers stuck in the ruts of a road. He sat in a room whose dinginess enarmed him. He sat in the misery of this woman. He sat deep.

“Still so cold out?” Over her head a chandelier ... brass gas, hideous brutal under the flecked ceiling. His feet glowed with renewing warmth. In his eye beneath his shoes a carpet of acid green.

—We sit.... She sits in a cloud of dinginess. Sharp spirit veiled in a cloudy flesh. Now: centers of glow, thrown from the woman, solid like her spirit. He was aware of loveliness.

Under the blow of the chandelier a delicate Pembroke table ... book and a glass of whisky.

—Under my arms, pressing against my back, a high arched Windsor chair.

In the break of her hip, standing, a Hepple—white desk.

—We have no furniture like this at home!

She spoke. He peered into the form of her words. His eyes took the gloss of the subtle table, it was one with her words’ accent. Futile words ... grammatical, well-ordered. A subtle table, and beyond a virulent huge sideboard. A faint quaint accent in her pointless words curling like heat of hidden flame above the table, against the sideboard: whispers in how she spoke, like these glowing poems in wood, of a day distant from his New York where there had been leisure and when from the dung of human misery America grew flowers.

A quiet pain in the table and her words ... a distant pain. He did not put his immediate question.

She felt his pause; in it drew up her chair. She sat he thought with grace athwart him at the table. The whisky glass was gone, he had not noticed her hide it. The book was there with her hand. Black little book. Bible! He felt her feeling him feel her. Now she was silent.

They were silent upon each other. Heavily.

His brow twitched.—Let me see her! She was cold and helpless. He understood he could not understand. She seemed a chaste woman with burnt eyes. She drew him.

Words to pull him aloof: “I am afraid we don’t read that book ... half enough.... I don’t I mean,” he blushed. “Do we, Mrs. Luve?”

—Wrong. Wrong! A delicate line left ... he felt left ... under her folded thin lip. Lip folded away.

“It’s a rattling good book.”

“O but you do.”

“I?”

“You read it enough.... You’re a Jew.”

“I’m a Jew,” he repeated. Above her and the table the flourishes and bulgings of the chandelier ... brass gas ... were lewd. “I’m a Jew. If there’s any soul in me worth speaking of, it’s in that book.” She leaned forward upon the table with elbows drawn tight back. “Yet I can’t read a word of it, except in English.... I’m ashamed of that.”

She laughed embarrassed. He was understanding deeper he could not understand. She was up swiftly. She took the Bible, opened a door in the sideboard. Glint of glasses, plush, odor of liquors. She placed the Bible within them.

“I suppose,” a smile to her face, the first: as sudden again her face was grey,” ...you came for Thelma?”

“Why ... yes.”—Of course for that I came, for that only I come ever to your dirty flat.... She has delicate fingers.... How else did I come at first? Dirty? There was a silence fringing his questions, veiling them, making them false. In the silence the presence of strangeness.

“I am afraid I may not be able to get her ... right away.”

Her fingers curled up. He felt how they had drooped from the hard square palms like shoots frozen in a cold Spring.

“There’s just a chance. If you’ll ... excuse me I’ll phone.”

The door shut him in.

He sat quiet because he wanted to get up, hunt for something. Bible? He walked up and down because he wanted to stay, hoped she would find Thelma.

He needed Thelma to-night.... He knew this.

—I do not feel it now. For only a sharp need brought him to this flat he despised. Where alone Thelma would meet him.—I am here again. I must need Thelma. Mrs. Luve was back.

“I’m sorry. Thelma’s gone to a Show, with some friends. There’s just a chance ... later ... she might possibly go after eleven to the Garden Cafe. I could phone there, then.” Mrs. Luve stood in the door, her face was bright, she smiled again it was grey. “You——“

He shook his head, not getting up. She did not stir also. Her face was bright. Her mouth trembled. He said: “Have you any beer, Mrs. Luve? We might have a drink?”

He could not help seeing her, seeing her more and more. Frail slain fingers resting upon a table warmer than her hand. She all a sapling broken in frost ... standing seasons dead.

—What is there here to see? He pulled a bill from his pocket. As his hand went toward hers, a hot wind stopped it. He felt them both cold. Under her eyes he saw a shadow like a whip’s mark.

He put his money away.

She left the room.

She returned, she carried a silver platter. Upon it a bottle of wine. Two slim glasses.

It was long silence now, with them less heavy against it. Silence full with its own mood, its own blood, strong to live.

The wine stood erect on the subtle table. Mrs. Luve leaned and poured of it, a drop first in her glass, then his glass full, then her glass full. Her bare arm pouring red wine came from a dim kimona.

... In the face of a worn woman black eyes burning: eyes blazing against the face, leaping from face and woman: eyes touching the red of the wine.