chapter 12

This time, walking out of the Dakota onto Seventy-second Street, carpetbag in hand, I knew. I turned left immediately, toward Central Park just across the street ahead, and there was no difference in the park that I could see, but—I knew. And a moment later when a wagon full of baled hay, drawn by two horses, crossed the intersection just ahead, I felt no surprise. But I'd remembered something, and at the corner I didn't cross the street into the park; I turned north. I remembered the incredible open space I had stared across from the balcony outside my apartment window several nights ago: the dark emptiness I'd seen between the Dakota and the Museum of Natural History five blocks ahead to the north. Now I wanted to see it in daylight, and thirty seconds later when I'd walked the block along the face of the Dakota, I suddenly saw it and stopped, staring and flabbergasted; then I began to laugh. I don't know what I'd expected—anything but this—and still smiling, shaking my head, I dug a small sketch pad out of my carpetbag as I walked along. Then I made a rough but detailed and accurate sketch, which I finished up later. The opposite page shows it. Standing a dozen yards off the sidewalk and facing the Dakota, just south of the corner at Seventy fourth Street and Central Park West, this is what I saw, except that I've given the trees a few leaves so that you can see them. Those people werefarming—I mean it—raising actual crops and livestock, living in shanties and sheds that they'd obviously made themselves.
Here they are—the farmers and livestock raisers beside the elegant Dakota doing their chores, the kids playing, the animals foraging for whatever they could find among patches of half-melted snow. I could hardly believe it, and when my rough was done, I walked on a block or so toward the Museum—now, in daylight, I could see that it was only a single building—and I stared out over a strange astonishing view of farm after tiny farm clear to the Hudson. Even stranger, the streets were all here; in places they were a great raised gridiron of block after block of new streets all graded up to uniform level, the land between the streets lying far below. And down in those uniformly rectangular block-square hollows lay hundreds of acres of farmlands. From here at street level I could see the regular lines of old cultivations under the thin layer of snow. On a few of these miniature farms, people were desultorily scratching at the wet ground with hoes, I don't know why. I sketched that scene, too, of course: That's Seventy-fifth Street there at the left, and you can see the Ninth Avenue El in the background, and as I stood sketching I heard the lowing of cows, the baaing of sheep, heard pigs squeal, geese honk, and at the same time the distant, familiar, incongruous clatter of the El. Then I left, to cross Central Park toward the Third Avenue El, then on downtown to Gunnery Park.
Nineteen Gramercy Park was a house I'd seen before. It still exists, far into the twentieth century, and I'd occasionally walked past it and the other fine old houses around the little square of park. As well as I could remember, it looked the same now: a plain three-story brownstone with white-painted window frames and a short flight of scrubbed stone steps with a black wrought-iron railing. In a corner of a first-floor window a small blue-and-white sign said BOARD AND LODGING. I stood on the walk looking up at the house, holding my packed carpetbag, and I was like a man on a diving board far higher than any oilier he's ever dared. I was about to begin something much more than addressing a few words to a stranger and moving on. However cautiously and tentatively, I was about to participate in the life of these times, and I stood looking at that sign, enormously excited and curious but not quite able to find the nerve to start. I had to move; that door might open, and someone step out to see me loitering here. I made myself step forward, climb the stairs quickly, and before I could hesitate I reached out and twisted the polished brass knob at the center of the door, a bell jangled on the other side, and then I heard steps. I'd done it now; for better or worse, I'd joined this time. I watched the knob turn, saw the door move back as it opened, made myself look up. In the doorway, looking inquiringly at me, stood a girl in her early twenties wearing a gray cotton dress and a long green apron; a white dustcloth folded into a turban covered her upswept hair, and she held a cloth in her hand. "Yes?" Once again the wonder of what was happening seized me, and I stood staring at her. She started to frown, about to speak again, and I said quickly, "I'm looking for a room." "And board? That's all we offer.""Yes. And board." I made myself nod and smile. "Well, we have two vacancies," she said doubtfully, as though not sure she shouldn't get rid of me. "One at the front overlooking the park at nine dollars a week. The other's at the back; it's seven dollars and twenty-five cents. Both with breakfast and supper." I said I'd like to see them, and she stepped aside to gesture me into the black-and-white-tiled hall; it was wallpapered and dominated by an enormous hatrack and umbrella stand, the middle section of which was a full-length mirror. In it, as she turned to close the door, I glimpsed the slim back of her neck and a wisp of dark hair escaping her turban. Nervous as I was, I smiled; there's something innocent and appealing about the back of a girl's neck when her hair is up. She was pretty, I realized. I followed her up the carpeted stairs at the end of the hall. In order to climb them, she gathered her skirts at the knees, raising them to the ankles, and I saw that she wore black button shoes with slightly run-down heels, and thick cotton stockings striped blue and white. I glimpsed her calves, full and rounded, and, in spite of the handicap of those shoes and stockings, realized that she had very handsome legs. She's dead, you know—the thought spoke itself in my mind. Dead and gone for decades past I shook my head hard, trying to force the thought away; then she turned at the top of the stairs to gesture me into a room, and as I walked past her she smiled, and I saw—very close —the living reality of her complexion, the slight crinkles at the corners of her eyes, the split-second motion of her eyelashes as she blinked, and she was so clearly young and alive that the thought lost all meaning. I stood looking around the room, and she waited, standing just inside the doorway. It was big and clean, well lighted from two tall rectangular windows at the front. The room was furnished in an old-fashioned... but of course it wasn't old-fashioned. The wooden rocking chair, heavy carved-wood bedstead, the little table between the windows with a green felt tassel-fringed cloth, were probably no more than a dozen years old. There was a green-and-pink carpet, worn in a few places, and patterned with huge roses or cabbages, take your choice. Under one window was a window seat cushioned in red velvet, and the windows were hung with starched lace curtains, mended here and there. A gilt-framed engraving of a shepherd in a smock, knee-deep in sheep, hung beside the door, and the wallpaper was a ferocious brown-and-green pattern of tormented doodads. There was a dark-wood dresser with porcelain knobs and a white marble top on which stood a pitcher in a bowl. The bathroom, shared with other roomers, was down the hall, she said. I said, "I like it. Very much. I'll take it, if I may." "Would you have references?" "I'm awfully sorry, but I haven't. I just arrived in New York, and don't know a soul. Except you." I smiled but she didn't smile back. She stood hesitating, and I said, "It's true that I'm an escaped convict, an active counterfeiter, and occasional murderer. And I howl during the full of the moon. But I'm neat.""In that case, welcome." Now she smiled. "Your name?" "Simon Morley, and very pleased to meet you." "I am Miss Julia Charbonneau." She was suddenly reserved, almost cool, but I knew we were friends. "This house belongs to my great-aunt; you will meet her at suppertime, which is six." She turned to leave, hand on the knob to pull it closed behind her; then she stopped, and turned to look back at me. "Since you're from out of town, remember these are gaslights"—she nodded at the globed overhead lights, and at the gas jet projecting from the wall over the bed—"not kerosene or candle. Don't ever blow them out; turn the flame off." "I'll remember." She nodded, stood looking about the room for a moment longer, found nothing more to add, and turned toward the doorway. "Miss Charbonneau." She looked back, and for a moment I had nothing to say, then I found something. "Please excuse any ignorance. This is my first visit to New York, and I don't know the customs." "I don't expect they're much different from anywhere else." She smiled again, a little mockingly now. "Anyhow, you don't look as though you'd stay a greeny for long." She walked out, pulling the door closed. Over at the window I stood looking down at little Gramercy Park a story below, its benches, bushes and grass covered with snow. I couldn't recall when it was that I'd seen the park last, and couldn't tell whether it looked the same; it seemed to. Around the park three sides of the square were just as I'd always seen them; old old houses of brownstone, brick, gray stone. But on the fourth side, Twenty-First Street, there apartments now, just more old houses. The sidewalksandpathsoftheparkwereshoveled(were) cle(no) ar, but the snow was piled high in the gutters at the far sides of the street beside the park. It was speckled black with soot; this was still a dirty city, especially in the winter, I supposed, with tens of thousands of coal and wood fires pouring carbon into the air. At least it wasn't radioactive. Before every house stood hitching posts of black-painted cast iron; the tops of some were horses' heads with rings through the noses. Before each post stood a broad stone block for stepping up into carriages, every one clean of snow and ready for use. Otherwise it was the Gramercy Park I was used to. A movement caught my eye across the square, and I located it through the intervening bare black branches: A door had opened, and a woman stepped out. Now she was pulling the door closed. Now she reached for the railing and, cautiously for fear of ice, walked down the steps. She turned left on the walk, and at Twentieth Street turned the corner, walking toward me. Free of the intervening trees, I saw her clearly now, Her shoulders, under a dark cape, were hunched against the cold, her hands deep in a glossy fur muff; her pillbox bonnet was tied under her chin; her brown cutaway coat was edged with a broad band of black lamb's wool; and the tips of her shoes appeared and disappeared under her skirt hem as she walked. And once more the truth welled up in me; this was New York City, January 1882, and I was here and a part of it.
In almost that moment it began to snow, the flakes tiny and scarce. But within half a minute, in only the time it took the woman walking toward me to reach Irving Place and turn into it, disappearing from my sight, the flakes had thickened. Then they flew fast, swirling, beginning to cover the walks, the paths, the stone steps and stoops, beginning to mound on the heads of the iron horses. It was too much, I can't really say why, and I turned from the window and lay down on the long single bed, careful to keep my feet off the plain white bedspread. And I closed my eyes, suddenly more homesick than any child. It occurred to me that I literally did not know a single person on the face of the earth, and that everything and everyone I knew was impossibly far away. For an hour, maybe a little less, I was asleep. Then occasional voices, the sounds of doors opening, closing, and footsteps in the hall pulled me awake. The room was dark now, but the slim rectangles of the windows beyond the foot of my bed were luminous from the new snow outside. I knew where I was, swung my legs to the floor, and crossed the room to the windows. Streetlamps glowed around the square, the snow sparkling in the circles of light at their bases. To my right and just around the corner of the square a carriage door slammed, and I turned to see the reins flick on the backs of two slim gray horses. Then the carriage started toward me, its sides shiny-black in the light of its own side lamps. Almost immediately, its high thin wheels leaving blade-thin tracks, it entered a cone of lamplight, bursting into black-enamel and plate-glass glitter. Through the glass of my windowpane I heard the faint jingle of harness and the muffled clippetyclop of shod hoofs in new snow. The carriage turned the corner, and I stared down at the foreshortened figure of the driver, high on the open front seat, neatly blanket-wrapped to the waist, reins and whip in his gloved hands. Horses, driver, and carriage passed directly under my window; I looked straight down onto the harnessed gray backs, the jiggling top of the driver's silk hat, and the dull black of the carriage roof. Once again horses and carriage moved glitteringly through a cone of yellow light, and I watched then-shadows thin to nothingness on the new snow. The shadows reappeared, thickened, turned solidly blue-black, then raced on ahead of the carriage, lengthening and distorting. Now, in the oval rear window, two heads were framed, a man's under a top hat, and a woman's bare head; I saw her hair bound up in a bun at the back. The man turned to the woman, said something—I could see the movement of his beard—then the carriage turned the corner, and I saw its side light, saw the horses disappear; then the carriage itself was gone, except for its thin double tracks. And an exultance at being here in this time and this city raced through me. I swung away from the window, pulling off my coat, walked to the dresser, poured water from pitcher to bowl, and washed. I put on a clean shirt, tied my tie, combed my hair, and walked quickly to the door, the hall, the house, and its people. A thin young man in shirt-sleeves carrying a shallow pan of water came walking along the hall toward me from the bathroom. He had dark hair parted on one side, and a brown Fu Manchu mustache. The instant he saw me he grinned. "You the new boarder?" He stopped. "I can't shake hands"—smiling, he gestured with his chin at the pan he held—"but allow me to introduce myself. I'm Felix Grier. Today's my birthday; I'm twenty-one."I congratulated him, told him my name, and he insisted I conic to his room and see the new camera his parents had sent him for his birthday. It had arrived yesterday, and with a light stand he showed me—a horizontal gas pipe on a stand, punctured for a dozen flames and backed by a reflector—he'd taken portraits of everyone in the house, and even photographed some of the rooms by daylight. He developed and printed his own films; there were a couple dozen of them strung out on a line like a washing, drying, and I saw that he'd printed them in circles, rectangles, ovals, and every other style, having a great time. I looked his camera over, a big affair weighing seven or eight pounds, I judged, holding and examining it. It was all polished wood, brass, glass, and red leather, wonderfully handsome. I told him so, said I was a camera bug, too, and he offered to lend it to me sometime, and I said I might take him up on it. Then he made me pose, and took my picture—a shorter exposure than I'd have thought, only a few seconds—and promised me a full set, too. I didn't particularly want them then, though I was glad to have them later. I left Felix washing more prints, and that night when I got back to my room I found a full set under my door; everyone's portrait including my own, plus some of the house. On the following page is one of them, Felix's own picture, and a good likeness except much more sober than I saw him; he was grinning and excited every moment I talked to him, While I'm at it, I'll include the portrait he made of me: the one on the right. I'm not sure how good a likeness it is, but all in all I expect that's what I look like, beard and all; I never said I was handsome. I left Felix, and went downstairs into the big front parlor that opened off the hall; a fire was moving behind the mica windows of a large black nickel-plated stove standing on a sheet of metal against one wall. Surmounting the stove stood a foot-high, nickel-plated knight in armor, and I walked over to look at it, reached out to touch it, and yanked my hand back; it was hot. Behind apair of sliding doors I heard the clink of china and silver, and a murmur of voices. One was Julia's, I was sure, the other an older woman's. I imagined they were setting a table, and I coughed. The doors rolled open, and Julia stepped in. She was wearing a maroon wool dress with white collar and cuffs, not the one Felix had photographed her in. This is his portrait of her, and tonight she wore her hair as you see it here, loosely arranged, covering the tops of her ears, and arranged at the back in a bun. Behind her I saw an oval table partly set; then a slim middle-aged woman stepped into the parlor after Julia. Above right is Felix's portrait of her, and a very good one; this is just how she looked. Julia said, "Aunt Ada, this is Simon Morley, who arrives without reference or much luggage. But with an abundance of soft sawder with which he is most generous. Mr. Morley, Madam Huff." I didn't know what "soft sawder" was, but learned later that "soft solder" was the phrase and that it meant exaggerated speech or flattery or both. Smiling at what Julia had said, her aunt actually curtsied; I'd never seen it done before. "How do you do, Mr. Morley." It seemed only natural, as though I'd done it always, to bow in response. "How do you do, Madam Huff. Miss Julia leaves me nothing to reply except that I'm happy to be here. This is a charming room." Listening to myself, I had to suck in my cheeks to keep my face straight. "May I show it to you?" Aunt Ada gestured at the room, and I glanced around it with genuine interest. This is the view Felix took of part of the room with his birthday camera; it doesn't show all of it by any means. It was carpeted and wallpapered, and at the windows, in addition to white lace curtains, there were purple velvet drapes fringed with little balls. There were two large brocaded settees, two wood-and-black-leather rockers, three upholstered chairs, a desk, gilt-framed pictures on the walls.
But Aunt Ada was walking to a glass fronted what not in a corner, and I followed. "These are some of the things Mr. Huff and I brought home from our tour of Europe and the Holy Land." She pointed. "That vial contains water from the River Jordan. And those are marble fragments we picked up at the Forum." She gave me a brief account of everything on the shelves: a tiny folding fan from France that was a souvenir of the Revolution, a little gilt slipper enclosing a velvet-covered pincushion she'd bought in Belgium, a sea-shell her husband, "my late husband," had picked up from the beach at the English resort at which they'd stayed. And she ended with the prize of her collection: a daisy, brown and pressed flat, from Shelley's grave. Young Felix came bouncing down the stairs and into the room. He had a clean collar on now, and a tie, vest, gold watch-chain, a short black coat, and black-and-white-checked pants. When he saw I was being given the tour, he caught my eye and winked. Then he sat down at the front windows and began to read a newspaper he'd brought with him, the New York Express. Julia was back in the dining room, setting the table, and Aunt Ada and I moved to the white marble mantelpiece and a row of Christmas cards there. On cards as shiny as though they'd been varnished, there were frowzy-haired little-girl angels extending flowers; a few thin Santa Clauses in red-and-white garments like monks' habits, with attached hoods, and skirts to the ground; and quite a few humorous cards, one of them, for example, showing a Christmas dinner at which a quarreling family was throwing plates and glasses. I was even more startled by the "agony" cards, her name for them. One showed a sobbing little girl lost in a howling blizzard; another offered us a child's footprints in the snow, ending at the edge of a river; another a dead bird flat on its back, claws in the air, the caption reading Hark! hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings! I didn't know how I ought to react till Aunt Ada cued me. She said, "They're absurd, of course, ridiculous, but all the go nowadays," and I smiled. A man in his middle thirties came down now, and Aunt Ada introduced us; this is Felix's photo of him.
He was a tall thin man named Byron Keats Doverman, and he wore a mustache, the tips of which flowed into little explosions of whiskers overhanging his jaw. His hair was thick, wavy, red-brown. He sat down, congratulated Grier on his birthday, borrowed part of his newspaper, and ignored the tour, which continued. I inspected and admired a bamboo easel on which stood a framed painting of some fruit and a dead rabbit. Aunt Ada led me to a small table with porcelain casters, then stood waiting, hands demurely clasped, while I bent over to examine a large sepia photograph propped against a vase filled with cattails. It was a full-length portrait of a woman in tights and wearing a peaked felt hat from which trailed a long feather; she had an elbow planted on a marble pillar and, chin in hand, stood in profile staring off into space. The caption, in gilt script, was The Jersey Lily, and in the opposite corner was what I took to be the name of the photographer, Sarony. She saved the best for the last. Beside a small handsome organ of dark wood, on the mantelpiece of the fireplace, stood a yard-high set of plaster figures that must have weighed a hundred pounds. The title, cut into the base, was Weighing the Baby, and the figures were of a bearded frock-coated doctor and a mobcapped midwife examining the reading on the balance arm of a scale, in the scoop-tray of which lay a wailing baby. On one side of this plaster tableau stood a glass dome under which sprouted a formal bouquet of strange flowers. Looking closely, I saw that they were made of dyed feathers. Aunt Ada had to leave before we were finished; supper was nearly ready, and Julia signaled her. But there were plenty of other things to see: family portraits, framed pictures, a giant fern in a corner by the front windows. I told her I liked her parlor very very much, which was true. I think it's the most pleasant room I've ever been in. Sitting there waiting for supper, then Felix Grier handed me a section of his paper, and I glanced at it but didn't read it—I sat looking around that crowded, interesting room again, listening to the crackle of the fire in the stove, feeling the heat ofit on the side of my face, watching the wind fling an occasional scatter of snow past the front windows, and I felt at peace. I sat facing the stairs, watching for the man I'd come to see, and presently Miss Maud Torrence came down and joined us: a small, plain, sweet-faced woman of about thirty-five. She wore a blue-serge skirt, a white blouse buttoned high around the neck, and a small gold watch on a necklace chain. She worked in an office, I learned later, and this was the way she dressed for work. Byron Doverman introduced us, then she stood by the windows watching the night outside, and I saw a wooden pencil stuck into the bun of tight-rolled hair at the base of her neck. She asked me politely if I didn't think the weather had been "fierce" lately, and I agreed but said it was what you'd expect in New York at this time of year; then Julia spoke in the doorway behind us to say that supper was ready. I was too excited to eat much, too conscious of being here at this table under the almost silent hiss of the gaslights of the overhead chandelier, and beginning to feel worried because my man hadn't appeared. We sat, six of us, with one empty chair, Aunt Ada at the head of the oval table carving the breast of a turkey, then passing our plates to us. For a time we were silent except for murmurs of thanks as dishes were passed. I sat looking around a little, not too obviously. There were half a dozen large framed pictures on the walls. One was a sepia head-and-shoulders of a stern middle-aged man, a family portrait, I supposed; the others were black-and-white engravings of the Roman Forum, pastoral scenes, and the like. Then, all of us served, we began eating, and Byron Doverman tossed in the conversational ball by announcing that he'd just finished reading Ben Hur. Julia and Felix said they were surprised he hadn't read it long since. There was a little talk about Ben Hur then, especially about its "message," and Aunt Ada asked if I'd read it. I never had but I'd seen the movie, so I said yes, adding something or other about the excitement of the chariot race. Then Byron Doverman said casually that he'd once seen the author, General Lew Wallace, ride past his regiment when he'd been a soldier encamped near Washington during thewar. As I stared across the table at this still-young, reddish-brown-haired man whose face was almost unlined, it took me a moment to realize that he meant the Civil War. "Heard the latest about Guiteau?" Felix was asking the table in general. "Someone took a shot at him through his cell window—" "That was in the papers," Julia said. "Yes, but this wasn't—the story was all over town this afternoon. The bullet hit the wall and flattened into an absolutely perfect profile of Guiteau as the wretch looks when frightened." I glanced cautiously around the table but they were all nodding soberly, accepting this as fact without a smile. Then I realized that Aunt Ada was speaking to me, asking my opinion about the trial verdict. I sat looking thoughtful, as though considering, trying to remember what little I knew about Guiteau. I hadn't read much about him, but knew he'd been found guilty, and executed. I wasn't here to reform social attitudes, and I told Aunt Ada that since he was clearly guilty I felt sure he'd be hanged. Down the table Felix was discussing the ice crop; they'd begun cutting near Bordentown, New Jersey, he said. Then there was a little talk about the Metropolitan Elevated scandal, whatever that was. I smiled at Julia and said the turkey was wonderful; I've always thought of turkey as dry and nearly flavorless but this was succulent. It was wild turkey, Julia said, and when I looked surprised, and asked where she'd got it, she looked surprised. "At the market, of course." I asked about that, and found that they also sold quail, grouse, partridges, tame squabs, wild ducks including canvasbacks, redheads, and mallards, and hares and rabbits. I'd always thought hare was another name for rabbit, and started to ask about that but didn't; Julia's eyes were narrowed, and she was staring across the table at me wonderingly. I turned to Felix beside me, and just to be saying something asked if he were interested in baseball. He said he was, a little. He'd gone to the polo grounds a few times last summer when they weren't playing polo, to see the Mets play. I said, "Who?" He said, "The Metropolitans." I nodded, and said I thought that's what he said. "How did they do?" I asked. He said, "Not so well; they had bad pitching," and I said I wasn't a bit surprised. For dessert we had a birthday cake, Felix blowing out the candles. And then we had a birthday party! Julia and her aunt stayed in the dining room, closing the sliding doors, to clear the table. In the parlor Maud Torrence sat down at the organ and began looking through the sheet music on the rack. Felix Grier and Byron Doverman stood behind her, and when I sat down with the paper, they called me, and I knew there was no escape, and walked over. I was able to join in on the first song, "I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen," and when we finished young Felix said, "If only Jake were home we'd have a quartet!" That was my chance to ask, "Jake who?" and Felix said, "Jake Pickering, our other boarder," and now I knew his name, and felt I'd made some progress.
The next number was "If I Catch the Man Who Taught Her to Dance," or something like that, and all I could do was try to follow along. Then Julia and her aunt came in, and we all sang "In the Evening by the Moonlight" and "Oh, Dem Golden Slippers." Aunt Ada did pretty well, but Julia was a little off the beat occasionally. Byron Doverman said, " 'Cradle's Empty, Baby's Gone!' " Julia said, "Oh, no," but the others insisted. Maud found the music, and—all reading the words over her shoulders—we sang what is probably the most lugubrious song I've ever heard, about this poor dead baby, and including lines like "Baby's gone to join the angels, peaceful evermore." Julia smiled at me, shrugging; she seemed to think it was ridiculous. But when Maud finished she turned from the organ saying she'd played enough, and her eyes were bright, she was on the edge of tears, and I remembered that this was a time when babies died easily; maybe the song meant something to her. The doorbell rang, and again I wondered if it were my man. But Julia answered the bell and came back sorting through four or five envelopes, one of which she handed Byron; the others were birthday greetings for Felix. It was a mail delivery at very nearly seven in the evening, and when I said I was surprised, Julia answered with a touch of big-city smugness that mail was delivered five times a day in New York City. "Byron," she said then, "will you favor us with some magic?" He nodded, took the stairs to his room two at a time, came back down just as fast, then walked around the room pulling coins from our ears, and asking people to "pick a card, any one at all." The truth is that he was pretty good, and everyone, including me, actually enjoyed the performance. He finished, put the deck in his pocket, and sat down. Aunt Ada said, "My uncle sent me a fan from China, and I fan like this." She began waggling her hand under her chin as though fanning herself, and everyone copied her. At her right, in a chair next to the windows, Maud Torrence said, "My uncle sent me a fan from China, and I fan like this." With her left hand she began waving an imaginary fan at her left ear, and—our right hands still waggling—we all did the same. It was my turn and I said, "My uncle sent me a fan from Czechoslovakia and I fan like this." I exposed my teeth as though I had a fan in my mouth, and began nodding my head, everyone imitating. Felix was next and he ended the game with twin fans from the Sandwich Islands, lifting both feet from the floor and fanning away. As we all copied the movement everyone burst into laughter, and it was funny, all of us reared back in our chairs, heads, hands and feet simultaneously waggling away. Aunt Ada said, "Where is Czechoslovakia, Mr. Morley?" "Why, I believe it's south of Germany." She nodded, accepting this, and I think Maud Torrence did, too. But the two men and Julia were looking at me. I knew what was wrong; there was no Czechoslovakia, wouldn't be for decades yet, and I grinned to show I'd only been joking. Felix's face was flushed, his eyes bright; he was having a great twenty-first birthday, and he said, "Julia? Tableaux vivants!""All right." Whatever it was, she liked the idea. "Shall I choose first?" He nodded, and she said, "Then I'll need you and Byron." They walked into the dining room, pulling the sliding doors closed after them, and Aunt Ada got up and turned the lights of the parlor chandelier very low. Then she and Maud sat smiling expectantly at the closed doors of the dining room, and when they glanced at me I was doing the same. Julia called, "Ready!" and Aunt Ada, who was nearest, got up and rolled open the doors. The dining-room lights were turned up high and bright, and the three of them stood in the doorway almost silhouetted as though on a stage; they were posed and motionless. Byron and Julia were facing Felix, who stood on one foot, the other slightly raised. Wedged under one arm he held a long stick of some sort like a crutch; his mouth was open as though speaking, his eyes wide. Julia's head was thrown back, her mouth open, her eyes as wide as Felix's. Byron looked stricken, too, the back of one fist pressed to his forehead. They stood there, swaying slightly; we all sat and stared. Then Maud, voice frustrated, said, "Oh, I know it, I know it so well!" Suddenly, triumphant, Aunt Ada cried, "The Soldier's Return!" and the tableau vivant broke up, chattering, heads nodding in confirmation. Aunt Ada stood; apparently it was her turn now. "I'll need you, Mr. Morley," she said, and I followed her into the dining room, closing the sliding doors behind us. "Do you know The Slave Auction?" she said eagerly. I stood frowning as though trying to remember, then said I was afraid I didn't. "Never mind, I'll pose you. We'll need a gavel." She stood looking around the room, then hurried to a cabinet against one wall, opened a drawer, and brought out a big soup ladle. "This'll do; hold it like a gavel." She pulled a straight-backed chair up to the closed doors, turning its back to the door. "Climb up; this will be the auctioneer's stand." I got up on the chair, facing the doors. "Raise your gavel; you're saying, 'Going, going, gone!' " I did, and Aunt Ada knelt before the chair facing the parlor, crossing one wrist over the other as though her arms were bound. "Ready!" she called, all excited, then she dropped her head, chin on her chest. The doors began sliding open, and though I didn't move—gavel hand upraised, my mouth open—I felt my face flush. But they all knew this one instantly, yelling, "The Slave Auction!" almost simultaneously. Then they were gabbling congratulations, the gist of them being that they'd guessed instantly only because we'd done it so well. By the time we'd had a couple more tableaux vivants—The Wounded Scout and Lovers ' Retreat—I found out through various references what we were doing. We were imitating the poses of figures in statuary groups made by a man named Rogers who duplicated them in plaster by the thousands. Apparently every home had Rogers group—Weighing the Baby on Aunt Ada's mantelpiecewasone—andeveryonewasfam(a) iliar with most of them. I sat like the others, trying to look as though I were recalling titles that might match the poses in the dining room. Across from me Maud sat absently scratching her initials in the frost on the windowpane beside her. It occurred to me that I hadn't seen genuine frost on a windowpane since I'd written on my grandfather's farmhouse window when I was a child. In the final tableau—Julia was one of the lovers, sitting ona bench and looking sad—I saw her flick a glance at me, and I thought I could read her mind; I was the only person in the room who hadn't once been able to call out a title, even a wrong guess. Byron suggested charades next; I could tell from his manner that he must be good at them. But Felix—and I thought maybe he wasn't so good—said charades were too much like tableaux vivants. Julia was sitting over by the whatnot cabinet now, still looking at me a little curiously, and now she said, "Perhaps Mr. Morley will entertain us. It's your turn, Mr. Morley; we're all agreed!" Everyone else did agree instantly, and I nodded. In Julia's voice, I thought, there'd been a hint of challenge as though she were saying, Who are you? Prove yourself! Well, I wanted to, and sat wondering what to do, and felt a sudden flicker of panic. I looked over at Julia again; she was waiting, smiling a little mockingly. Then I grinned at her and held up both hands, palms toward her, thumbs touching, framing her head and shoulders. "Hold still." She sat motionless, eyes suddenly bright with interest. "Turn your head only; just a little. No, the other way, toward the cabinet." She turned her head slowly, and when the light from the overhead chandelier slanted across her face, side-lighting it and silhouetting her profile against the dark wallpaper just behind her, I said, "Don't move, don't breathe." I'd already found the key to my Dakota apartment in my vest pocket, and now I turned to the window beside me, and scraping through the thin white layer of frost with a sharp corner of the key, I set down the outline of her cheekbone. I glanced back at Julia, then in one swift clean curve put down the angle of her jaw. The lines showed up well, the blackness of the outside night sharply exposed against the rime, and I worked fast. Everyone else was on his feet now, standing respectfully beside my window to watch. It turned out well, a good sketch; in no more than two minutes I'd caught the likeness. The prominent cheekbone, the slightly too-sharp jawline, a suggestion of the small firm chin—all were there in three quick lines. The precise tilt of the eyes and—I even managed this—a feeling of the faint shadows beneath them lay there on the white of the windowpane in a few sure-handed squiggles. So did the dark straight brows and fine straight nose, I nodded, releasing Julia, and she hurried over to join the others. She didn't like it. She didn't say so, and after a long few moments, bent forward to stare at the sketch on the windowpane, she began to nod, pretending politely to be pleased. But the nods were too rapid, and she didn't look up at me, and I knew she was hiding disappointment in her eyes. The others, too, were only murmuring polite approval. "What's wrong with it?" I said quietly. "Nothing!" She looked up at me now, eyes widening, simulating surprise at the question. "It's beautiful! I'm astonished!" But I was shaking my head. This was an ability I took pride in, and I wanted to know. "No, tell the truth. You can't fool me; you don't like it." "Well." She straightened, and stood looking at the floor, a finger at her chin as though thinking; she was embarrassed. "It is not that I don't like it, but..." She glanced at the sketch again,then back at me, her eyes distressed, sorry she'd begun this. "But what is it?" she burst out, then quickly added, "I mean it's not finished, is it? I can see it's a face, or would be if it were finished, but..." I was nodding rapidly, eagerly, cutting her off; now I understood what was wrong. We're trained from infancy to understand that black lines on white can somehow represent a living human face. I've read that savages can't do it; they make no sense of a drawing or even a photograph until they're taught to translate it as we do. And this sketch on the frosted window— quick suggestive fragments, allowing the mind to fill in the rest—was a technique of the twentieth century as incomprehensible here as though it had been in code, as in fact it was. To Julia I said, "Stand right here, don't move, give me five minutes, no more.'' I didn't wait for an answer but stepped quickly to the middle window and, working as fast as I could go, began sketching with my key point in a technique I'd occasionally tried for the fun of it, working with Martin Lastvogel. It was the technique of the woodcut, every line there, nothing omitted; the entire shape of the face, eyes, nose, lips, all fully drawn, then carefully shaded in a firm delicate crosshatching. I was taking up the entire pane; with this technique I needed the space. The glass was frosted completely except for the upper corners. These were clear, as shiny black against the night outside as a mirror. But working this close, I could see through them, see the streetlamps, the snow-covered walks and street, the vague black bulk of Gramercy Park's shrubbery and trees. And now suddenly, walking briskly along the walk toward the house, I saw him; the short, stout, familiar hurrying figure, stubby plug hat on the back of his head. I paused, my hand motionless, watching him. Then he turned onto our steps, disappearing from my view, and I glanced over at Julia to continue the sketch. As well as she could while holding the pose, she was watching what I was doing; now as I looked over at her she lifted her arms, fumbled at the back of her neck for a second, then her hair tumbled down, falling to below her shoulders, and her chin lifted slightly and there was a flash of pride in her eyes. Her hair was dark dark brown, wonderfully thick now that it was released, long and lustrous. It was magnificent, and so was she. I'm certain my face showed what I felt, and I murmured, "Beautiful, beautiful," and saw her lips quirk with pleasure, and she flushed. No one else had noticed, but because I'd been expecting it I'd heard the small sounds of the opening and closing front door, and from a corner of my eye had seen him stop in the hall doorway. Now, not really even attempting to catch the splendor of Julia's hair but at least suggesting the length and weight of it, I quickly finished my windowpane sketch. But the kind of drawing I'd attempted takes longer than I'd given it and more practice than I'd had, and of course it didn't turn out well. I stepped back, studying it as the others crowded around, and all you could really say was that it showed the face of a girl—that was clear enough—who was pretty and had long hair. It was any girl, not this one in particular, though it bore a vague generalized resemblance. But Julia stood studying it for five or six seconds, which is a long time, then she cried out with unmistakably genuine pleasure. "Oh, it's lovely!" She swung around to me, delighted. "Do I reallylook like that? Oh, of course not! But it's beautiful! My goodness, you are talented!" Her eyes were shining, she stood looking at me now with genuine admiration, even a little awe, and I responded: The feeling leaped up in me like a flame and I wanted to kiss her; it was all I could do to keep from stepping forward and grabbing her. I saw her eyes flick to the doorway. She'd suddenly seen him, and her face flushed instantly. But her voice seemed calm, she sounded fully at ease. "Jake, we have a new boarder! And a very talented one, it seems! Come see what he's—" "Put—your—hair—up," he said between his teeth, giving each word the same cold and equal emphasis. "But, Jake, we—" He spoke softly. "I said ... put it up," and Julia's hands moved quickly to the back of her neck to obey. I'd turned to the doorway—everyone had—and now Pickering walked toward me, his brown eyes so drained of expression they were as menacing as the empty gaze of a shark. He stopped before me, and for a long moment, as long as three or four seconds, we stood staring at each other, the room entirely silent. I was fascinated: Here he was, the man who'd actually mailed the long blue envelope. Then suddenly he smiled, his face alight with friendliness, eyes warm and welcoming—an instantaneous transformation—and his hand moved out to shake mine as he spoke. "I'm Jacob Pickering, a boarder here like yourself." He was shaking my hand vigorously, his face entirely amiable, and all the time his grip was tightening I smiled back just as amiably, tightening my own grip with all the strength I had. We were fighting, there in that pleasant room, no one else knowingit, our forearms beginning to tremble slightly as we stood smiling at each other while I spoke my own name in return, our gripped, white-knuckled hands moving slowly up and down as though we'd forgotten to stop. Then my grip reached its maximum strength but his continued to grow, and I felt the long bones of my hand coming together. My fingers flew open in his fist, suddenly strengthless; I was hanging onto my smile, teeth grinding silently, and I knew I was going to have to cry out but wouldn't and didn't. Then, literally just short of actually fracturing the bones of my hand, he suddenly let his grip relax, gave my hand one final quick excruciating squeeze, and still smiling warmly he nodded toward my window-pane drawing. "You are talented, Mr. Morley. Talented indeed." He had turned and was walking quickly toward the window. "But I hope it hasn't scratched Madam Huff's pane." He leaned forward and, his open mouth an inch from the glass, drew quick deep breaths, expelling them full force, and at the center of the pane a melting circle grew quickly to the size of a plate. Except for its outer and now meaningless portions the drawing was gone. "No," he said, examining the clear glass, "fortunately it isn't scratched at all." He gave an utterly contemptuous glance at the sketch on the other window, then turned, his back to the windows, and smiled around at us all. Julia said, "I didn't like that, Mr. Pickering. I didn't like that at all." She turned to me. Her eyes were blazing, her hands still busy at the back of her neck, putting up her hair. "Perhaps you will do another of me, Mr. Morley?" she said. "On paper. One I can keep. I'll be pleased to pose for you at any time!" My hand was in my pocket, hiding it. I knew it must be red and starting to swell; it hurt badly. "I'll be glad to, Miss Julia. Very, very glad.'' I was turning my head as I spoke so that I finished while looking into Pickering's eyes. "In fact, I insist on it." He only smiled: at me; at everyone. "Perhaps I was wrong," he said, dropping his head a little in mock humility. "Sometimes I ... act precipitately." Then he raised his head to look me in the eye. "When my fiancée is concerned." Aunt Ada, Maud, Byron, and Felix began talking, almost chattering, covering and burying an awkward incident. Julia turned and walked quickly into the dining room and on into the kitchen, where she made tea. Byron Doverman said something to Pickering, who responded. Aunt Ada came over to me, and I asked her about something in the whatnot cabinet: a thin glass vial stopped with a cork. It turned out to be sand from the Sahara Desert. We had tea, Julia carrying it in on a large wooden tray. Sipping it, we all talked for a few minutes, finishing the evening with a semblance of propriety, though neither Pickering nor I spoke to or even looked at the other. Then everyone shook hands with Felix in final birthday good wishes, and the party was over. Upstairs in my room, standing in the dark unbuttoning my shirt and staring down into the empty darkness of Gramercy Park, I knew that Rube, Oscar, Danziger, Esterhazy, and I had forgotten the obvious: that simply being with people is to become involved with them. I was to have been only an observer here, strictly enjoined from interfering with events, and certainly fromcausing them. Yet I'd done just the opposite. About to pull off my shirt, I stopped and stood motionless, staring down at a hitching post mounded with snow. It might be that I ought to leave as fast as I could. That I ought to pack now, sneak downstairs, out, and back to the Dakota before I could do any more harm. But my mind was yelling, Thursday! Tomorrow is Thursday! Tomorrow "at half past twelve," said the note I'd seen Jake Pickering mail, "appear in City Hall Park." I had to be there, had to; somehow invisibly, and interfering with nothing, but I had to be there. Just one more day; half a day! I was saying to myself. For only those few hours I could certainly retreat to the role of observer only, couldn't I? Lifting my hand into the faint light reflected up to my window from the snow outside, I looked at it, then compared it with the other, my hands side by side. The right hand was puffy, and all four finger knucklebones ached steadily. Staring at my hand, I flexed it slowly, then tried closing it into a fist. I couldn't do it, but as it began to close, an involuntary picture popped up in my mind in which that fist was punching Pickering in the mouth. I had to laugh at that, silently, and I dropped my hand; but it worried me. Yet it was a fact that I needn't even encounter Pickering in the morning. I could wait to come downstairs till he'd left the house, and then never see him face to face again. As for Julia—well, what about Julia? After a few moments I nodded; in a way I wasn't able to analyze, I was somehow involved with her, too. But that didn't matter, either; we were of separate times, and I'd be leaving hers very soon. I tested something; I thought about Kate, and stood there in the dark examining my feelings about her. Nothing had changed. As soon as I returned, I knew I'd want to see her, and I felt a sense of relief, and then started to wonder about that. Instead, I turned away from the window, unbuttoning my shirt—it buttoned only partway down, the lower part being a single wide shirttail —undressed, and got into my nightgown. Lying in bed, I smiled; it had been quite a day. Then, within a minute or so, I fell asleep, knowing I might be terribly wrong to stay here but knowing also that I was going to; that I had to see what happened in City Hall Park at half past twelve, Thursday, January 26, 1882—tomorrow.