Читать книгу The Woman Gives - Owen Johnson - Страница 12

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One evening, the third after the party, Dangerfield came stamping into the Arcade, shaking from him the snow that lay clinging to his ulster. Inga Sonderson was already in the elevator, but beyond one of his characteristic, set looks, he paid no attention to her, to the active amazement of Sassafras, who stared hopefully from one to the other. Dangerfield was evidently in one of his worst moods, with furrowed lower face and brooding, far-distant glance. At the sixth floor he started to bolt out, and then, aware of her presence, drew back hastily, saying,

“I—I beg your pardon.”

“Thank you, Mr. Dangerfield,” she said, and inclined her head.

He started at the name, whirled about, and peered at her as she stood waiting for him to open the conversation. Then all at once he went past her rapidly, and was at his own door, with the key in the lock, before he became aware that she was back of him. He wheeled abruptly, stared at her, and in a moment came toward her curiously.

“Are you—I—I forget the name,” he said, after a moment’s attempt to recall it. “Are you the girl who took care of me—that night?”

She turned under the glare of the hall light, the snow glistening on her ulster where it had settled, her cheeks tingling, the dainty upper lip quivering with a faint smile.

“I suppose I am.”

It was characteristic of him that he did not at once thank her, but continued gazing down into the unfathomable eyes, now black-blue as the wintry sea.

“Why did you do it?” he said gruffly.

She leaned back, as though withdrawing defensively before his looming inspection, and the door swung open on the darkness of the studio, with its wan, gray spread above where the snow was sifting against the skylight.

“Some one had to—didn’t they?”

The voice, though not a cultured one, had something peculiarly soothing and pleasant in its low modulation that caught his ear and left him with the desire to listen further.

“I have seen you before, haven’t I?”

She shook her head.

“That’s strange—seemed to me I had,” he muttered, looking at her again so intently and so long that at last she repeated to recall him,

“No; never.”

“You have never posed for me?”

“I don’t pose.”

“What?” He looked startled. “Oh, I beg your pardon.”

“No offense. I shouldn’t mind,” she said, smiling. “Well, good night.”

“Wait.” He held out his hand, and she gave hers directly. “I have to thank you very deeply—though I don’t know at all why you should have done it,” he said, shaking his head as though seeking from her the answer.

Her shoulders moved in a little deprecatory gesture.

“It’s just my way—that’s all.”

He continued to hold her hand, looking at her as though he were straining his eyes to distinguish some object in the fog. She did not attempt to draw her hand away, as most women would, rather taken with this brusqueness and assumption that was, at heart, unconscious.

“Something restful about you—your voice, and the touch of your hand,” he said, as though to himself. “I remember now—that night. I thought it was an hallucination. Yes; I remember you now, quite distinctly—and the sound of your voice.” He added abruptly: “You haven’t told me your name.”

“Inga Sonderson.”

He repeated it.

“Really? Sounds like the sea rolling in—curious name. You’re not American?”

“I was born here.”

“Shouldn’t have thought it.”

At this moment a door opened down the hall, and, recalled to himself, he frowned, looked down, seemed suddenly to perceive that her firm, slender hand lay in his huge spreading one, and said hastily:

“Well, thank you, anyhow.”

He went into his room without having shown anything more than a little wonder, a starting curiosity, and much kindliness.

They did not meet again for several days. He made no attempt to advance the acquaintance, which was perhaps what led her to take the next step.

During this time, the Arcadians saw little of Dangerfield, though they knew of his presence by the unusual coming and going of men such as were rare visitors in those sequestered halls; men of that outer world that lies bound between the iron confines of the elevated and lives from Madison Square to the park. In particular there was one man who arrived in a resplendent car, accompanied by a young clerk with a black brief-bag under his arm. At such times loud voices rose in argument, and they could hear the restless fall of Dangerfield’s feet tramping the room. After these visits he would disappear, returning late in the night, unseen. At other times, at any hour, midnight or dawn, he would start from his studio and begin pacing up and down the hall in slippered feet that made a dismal, sifting iteration in the wee hours. Once, after quite a group had been in the studio, and the conversation had gone into such a high pitch that Tootles had heard him cry, against some lower-pitched remonstrance, “He’ll do it—by God, he’ll do it!” Dangerfield was left in such a state of excitement that he passed Flick in the hall literally without seeing him, his eyes absolutely blinded to objects about him, as though filled with the obsession of distant figures. That night he came in late, and wandered up and down the hall until almost four o’clock in the morning. Whether he was drunk or sober they had no way of telling—only twice, directly outside their door, in startling contrast to his silent moods, they heard him swearing to himself. It was not the oaths themselves, but the stark savagery with which he ripped them out that caused Tootles to whisper to Flick:

“Literature, it’s not nice to swear like that. It makes my blood run cold.”

“What the deuce is he going through?” said Flick, in wonder.

“Hell of some sort,” said Tootles laconically. “Suppose the Christian thing is to promenade with the chap.”

“Let him alone,” said King O’Leary, who had waked up also. “Fellows like that aren’t in the mood for coddling.”

Immediately the sifting slip-slip ceased. Probably Dangerfield had heard the sound of their voices and retired. At any rate, he had waked up the whole floor and scared Miss Quirley almost into hysterics. No one, however, reported the disturbance, though each had been gruesomely affected. There seemed to be a tacit understanding that the man was passing through some crisis and should be left alone.

One person, however, took active interest in all Dangerfield’s movements—the Portuguese-Yankee, Drinkwater, who was always prowling down toward that end of the floor. Twice, when conferences had been going on in the corner studio, Inga Sonderson had found him outside her door, ostensibly seeking a view of the snow-capped roofs of the tenements that rolled grimly toward the river. Each time he had mumbled some excuse and unwillingly shifted away. Meanwhile, the boxes still encumbered the passage, while within the studio the same heaped-up disorder must have prevailed.

Matters were thus when, on New Year’s eve, Inga Sonderson returned to the Arcade after a solitary supper at the Childs restaurant on the avenue. She had no sooner turned the hall than down the somber stretch she noticed with surprise a brilliant swath of light. She went on, wondering what this could portend, for since their chance meeting, she had not laid eyes on her neighbor. Through the opening of his studio door she could see boxes, furniture and bric-à-brac piled toward the ceiling like wreckage washed against the shore. At the grating of her key in the lock, Dangerfield loomed into the door-frame, dressed for the street, and saw her, with a swift, appealing light in the storm-ridden face.

“Come in,” he said, without preliminaries, as though he had been waiting in desperation for her return.

She rather liked this abruptness, so devoid of male coquetry, instinctively warned that the man must have called to her in his need. He had returned into the studio, as though sure of her coming. She entered, closed the door, and found him by the window that gave on the misery of the tenements, seated in a chair, his back bent, his fists doubled up and pressed under his chin.

“Talk to me,” he said, in abrupt demand.

She stood a little away from him, looking down at his suffering, divining the forces of doubt and despair wrestling within his soul. In the midst of the surging confusion of the studio, they were in a shallow clearing. She went over and laid her hand on his shoulder, holding it there until she forced him to look up.

“Let me help,” she said quietly.

The sound of her voice seemed to arrest his attention. He turned restlessly, his hand closing over her wrist.

“Bad night?”

He nodded, and his eyes wandered from her. All at once he rose with a great breath, stretched out his arms, and then, with a brusque turn, came back, looking at her with even a touch of suspicion in his eyes.

“Why do you want to?”

What thoughts might have been in his mind were dispelled by the frankness of her answer.

“Because you need help—don’t you?” she said, her eyes never swerving under the shock of his stare, that was not easy to encounter.

“Take off your hat.”

She saw that it was his curiosity that had been aroused, and lifted her two arms in that wholly feminine gesture which seems to accord the first note of intimacy to the man who witnesses it. He stared at her more intently, with the eye of the artist, quick to note values—the massed blacks of her hair and the odd contrast of the sea-blue eyes against the brown oval of her face that gave to the little teeth, when she smiled her serious smile, the lustrous flash of milky porcelain.

“No; that’s true,” he said abruptly.

“What?” she asked, after a moment’s waiting.

“You’ve never posed for me.”

“Do you want me to?”

“No, no; that’s all over,” he said moodily; and, as though the allusion had been unfortunate, he turned from her, bumping against the corner of a chest which protruded.

“Great Heavens! What a horror—what a nightmare of a hole!” he said, gazing about him.

“Then why not fix it up?”

If he heard the question he did not answer it, staring glumly into the disorder, his fist doubled against his teeth, biting at his nails, a convulsive, aggressive gesture characteristic of him.

“Let’s unpack things and fix up the studio,” she repeated.

He shook his head, plainly annoyed, and, after a moment, came back, as though some gust of emotion had whirled through him and left a lull of fatigue.

“Talk to me,” he said, sinking down limply. “Tell me about yourself.” But immediately he broke in upon his own mood, saying abruptly: “So you think I am down and out, don’t you?”

“No—I don’t think that,” she said gently. “That’s what you think.”

“Well, I am,” he said vehemently. “Do you know what’s wrong?” he added sharply, and, as she continued to watch him, he laughed and said: “No, no; I won’t tell you that. Find out.”

She laid her hand on his shoulder again, to still the rising excitement in his voice.

“Why didn’t you call me before?”

“Curious voice you have,” he said, without attention to her question, in his haphazard jumping way. “Wish you’d go on talking. It makes me drowsy—feeling of green fields, little swishing brooks, and multitudes of silver leaves sweeping the skies. I love your voice.”

“Let me take care of you to-night.”

“Why, what would you do?” he said, jerking up his head.

“Let’s start right by making a home out of this.”

“A home?”

The allusion was unfortunate, for he broke into a laugh, starting up and seizing her arm, while the excitement seemed to pile up within him.

“No, no; I’ll tell you what I’m going to do a night like this. I’m going to break loose—stop this eternal, maddening fighting to hold myself in—give way!” His voice had risen into rapid, shrill notes, and she noticed that his eyes had taken on the unseeing shimmer. “Give way—give way! Stop living as others want you—let the world roar about you. What’s it matter—whom does it hurt—who cares the slightest?”

He seized his hat, and, turning toward her, flung an arm around her, holding her to him as though to sweep her up and out in his breathless progress.

“Will you do that? Just to-night? Just for one night? Will you follow me to-night?”

“No, I will not,” she said firmly, though into her eyes leaped something untamed at the gusty, wild embrace in which he had caught her. “And you won’t go, either.”

“I won’t?” he said, laughing boisterously, looking down into her eyes that were so close to his. “That’s a good one! You think you can change me, do you? Well, you’ll see!”

He let go of her, and was starting toward the door when she said quickly,

“You’re right—do as you please.”

“Of course I shall,” he said angrily. Then a new thought seemed to strike him. He hesitated, came back on tiptoe, and said, with a curious smile:

“Aren’t you just a little bit afraid of me?”

“No; I am not afraid of you,” she said, and she kept her eyes on his so intently that, in a moment, his glance went away.

“Well, I’ll tell you something,” he said, in a whisper; “I am afraid of myself.”

He allowed her, without further resistance, to take his hat and draw off his coat.

At this moment, the sound of voices and the crashing chords of a piano broke in incongruously upon their mood.

“What’s that?” he said, startled.

“The studio next door,” she said. “They’ve gathered to see the old year out, I suppose.”

Down the hall they heard Flick calling:

“Every one this way! Greatest social function of the year!”

Then the sound of knocking, an imperative personal summons. She passed swiftly to the button and extinguished the light. Through the window a pale shadow made Dangerfield just discernible. She felt her way back and sat down near him, with a whispered caution to silence. Tootles’ and Schneibel’s voices could be heard outside in consultation.

“Oh, Miss Sonderson!”

“She’s oudt.”

“Thought I heard her coming back.”

The door of the room where they were shivered, and Tootles cried:

“I say there, friend Dangerfield, foregather!”

She put her hand quickly over his wrist to check a response. The knock was repeated.

“He’s oudt, too,” said Schneibel. “Can’t you see, you chump, dere’s no light?”

“My, but he’ll be off on a record bat to-night!”

“Well, you just bet he will.”

They moved away, and in the obscurity, Dangerfield began to laugh, a bitter, gloomy laugh.

“Don’t!” she said sharply.

Across the wall, O’Leary’s powerful hands awoke the piano. Sitting side by side, they heard laughter and the sounds of dancing. The man at Inga’s side was silent again. Music and the shuffling iteration of the dance seemed to act in a soothing way upon his nerves. He began to talk in a low, matter-of-fact voice, with a curious gift he had, even in the most soul-racking moments, of standing off and looking back at himself.

“How extraordinary to be ending the year like this! Last year and this! Up here, marooned, lost—ended! I certainly have seen queer turns in my life. Well, the last phase, and then Bonsoir—