Читать книгу The Beautiful and Damned / Прекрасные и обреченные. Уровень 4 - Френсис Скотт Фицджеральд, Френсис Фицджеральд - Страница 8

Afterward they bought tickets for a new musical comedy called “High Jinks[12].” In the foyer of the theatre they waited a few moments to see crowd.

After the play they parted – Maury was going to dance, Anthony homeward and to bed.

He found his way slowly over the evening mass of Times Square. Faces swirled about him, a kaleidoscope of girls, ugly, ugly as sin – too fat, too lean, floating upon this autumn. Anthony inhaled, swallowing into his lungs perfume and the not unpleasant scent of many cigarettes. He caught the glance of a dark young girl sitting alone in a taxicab.

Two young Jewish men passed him, talking in loud voices. They were wore gray spats and carried gray gloves on their cane handles.

An old lady borne between two men passed. Anthony heard a snatch of their conversation:

“There’s the Astor, mama!”

“Look! See the chariot race sign!”

“There’s where we were today. No, there!”

“Good gracious!”

He turned down the hush, passed a bakery-restaurant. From the door came a smell that was hot, and doughy. Then a Chinese laundry, still open, steamy and stifling. All these depressed him; reaching Sixth Avenue he stopped at a corner cigar store.

Once in his apartment he smoked a last cigarette, sitting in the dark by his open front window. For the first time he thought New York was not bad. A lonesome town, though. Oh, there was a loneliness here.