35u3 B836SE Guido Bruno Sentimental Studies ^T^llp I nf-:V I gf Ji i. !Fw^ 1 rr^l^f w? WJs 7 THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES Ui. at OALIF. LIBKAKY. LOS ANOELtS Sentimental Studies Stories of Life and Love NEW YORK. 1920 Copyright 1920 by Guldo Bruno Table of Contents 332>3 The Madonna of Our Square Midnight in a Pawnshop Tragedy in a Birdhouse A Woman s Revenge Three Dollars and Sixty Cents Dead Man s Eyes Liars 665839 The Madonna of Our Square YOU, perhaps, have never taken a walk down Thompson Street right round the corner of Washington Square and, therefore, are not familiar with the row of a dozen or more small wooden houses which the irony of fate has left there among brick mansions and tene ment buildings, a stone s throw away from the thundering Elevated; a sad memento of the Greenwich Village of yore. But if you ever strolled past these houses you must have noticed the one whose door was painted white, which looked so clean amidst the ugliness of a neglected side street. Its windows shon in the sun; a couple of geraniums were on the window sill, and white muslin curtains swinging rythmically with the blowing wind permitted now and then a peep into the rooms. The sidewalk was always well swept, and most likely a baby carriage would be standing before the open house door; a white baby carriage with netting spread all over it, a fat little baby slumbering peacefully in it, or playing with its tiny feet, searching with big black eyes for its mother. Often when I passed the little house I felt happy because there was such an idyll in this noisy side street. And we all are glad to see love in a little white cottage with a baby car riage standing in front of the door. It is one of the tragedies of a big city that we live next to people who could be our friends and whose friends we could be, but whom we never meet. We pass them daily; a change in the familiar surroundings would cause us to wonder and be curious, but we rarely take the initia tive or trouble to inquire. We know we should lend our help if needed, but don t want to proffer it, and, therefore, we walk on and don t turn to the right or the left: ships that pass in the night. A time came when every morning I had to go out quite early. Then I saw the mother of the baby. She was a young girlish thing, very slender, very pale, with dark glowing eyes, her black hair combed in madonna fashion, to both sides covering the ears. She stood in front of her little house, evidently waiting for someone, and then crossed over to the other side of the street and approached the letter carrier. She was all expectancy. There was a faint smile on her lips. She looked pretty. The letter carrier had nothing for her. Slowly she returned to the house and disappeared through the white door. The next day I witnessed the same scene. One evening I came home quite late; the square was de serted only the cross glowing above the Judson Hotel ; the busses had ceased buzzing, and the night wind rustled in the trees. Her house was dark; she was seated at a window, with both arms on the window sill, resting her face in her hands, like one of the angel-children of the Sis- 6 SENTIMENTAL STUDIES tine Madonna. She looked sad, her eyes had a faraway look. I remem ber that I wanted to call to her "Hallo, Neighbor!" and later on in my rooms I felt that she, perhaps, would have liked me to say a word to her; she seemed so lonely in that little house in the quiet deserted street. An hour later I went out to mail a letter. She was busy preparing some food for her baby. Days passed and I only saw her silhouetted against her curtain hug ging the baby in her arms, walking up and down in the small room. In the morning she would watch the letter carrier from her window; she would watch him until he had passed her door. I went out to the country for a few days, and by habit looked up at her windows upon my return. They were shut, the curtains drawn tightly. The letter carrier came round the corner just them and gave me a bunch of bills. "How about our neighbor?" I asked. "She doesn t seem to be anxious to get a letter from you to-day." "She got one yes terday," he replied. "It was the first one in four weeks, the first one since she came down to live in the village." My bills kept me busy all day and worrying all nighth, and I didn t even notice that there was no light in my neighbor s windows until I recollected it the next morning. An unusual crowd of people had assembled in our street. Tom, the cop on the beat, was posted in front of the white door of the little house. He looked like a giant, leaning against the low narrow door. "What s the matter, Tom?" I called out of the window. "Come and see for yourself," was his answer. And I hurried out as I was, in shirt sleeves, without a collar, just in time to enter with the coroner who emerged from his motor car. Both were dead, the baby in its white painted little carriage and the mother on her cot. A happy smile seemed to linger on both faces. There wasn t a drop of milk in the house, not a crumb of bread and not a penny of money. On the table lay about a dozen pawn rickets, the last dated four days before. She had pawned some sheets and table clothes for fifty cents. A letter lay on the table addressed to her. Some man up-state told her on one page that he was married now and that she must "Hustle for herself and the i J a* n>e// as she could. And not to trouble him any more, as everything mas over between them noiv forever." Tom , big husky Tom, who had got honorable mention only re cently from the department for running in that Hester Street gang of gunmen, sounded quite hoarse: "If I had only known this. I saw her almost every evening." I do think there were tears in his eyes. You SENTIMENTAL STUDIES 7 know Tom got married only fourteen days ago to a fine healthy girl, just such a girl as this one must have been. "Starvation and a broken heart" was the coroner s verdict. I remembered the night I saw her at her window staring up to the glowing cross over the Judson. But wasn t I nearer than that cross? That is the tragedy of the big city. We see without seeing. Con ventions kill our spontaneous impulses, and we continue selfishly on our own road. 8 SENTIMENTAL STUDIES Midnight in a Pawn Shop MIDNIGHT. Midnight of the New Year. The town hall clock tolls the last hours of the old year. Serenely as ever. In a matter of fact way. Clocks know no sentiment. Time is eternal. New Year s midnight is as any other midnight, is as any noon. Patient and impassionate. The last twelve o clock of 1919. The bells of Trinity rang into the hilarious noise of the crowds on City Hall Square and lower Broadway; rang through the hoarse voice of fog horns, of ferryboats and steamers in the harbor. Rang into the chatter of merry men and women who wished each other a Happy New Year loudly and shriekingly; rang over the graves of Trinity s church yard, high over the tops of houses, of bridgeheads, of skyscrapers, rang out across the river into the ocean ; rang high to the heavens, to the passing clouds, to the stars, strewn like tiny sparkling diamonds on the dark velvet far, far behind the moon ; rang out merrily and imposingly : "Time is eternal, but we ring it in. Men come and stay and go, but our ringing marks the high spots of their lives. "We ring and they laugh in joy. We ring, and they cry in sorrow. We ring in revolutions. We ring in peace. We rang for the Presi dent s inauguration. We rang in peace a year ago. We rang while the crowds made merry in Bowling Green. We ring over the Stock Ex change. "We are the bells of Trinity." Park Row on the other side of the Pulitzer Building is dark and quiet. An elevated train thunders at intervals over its structures, a Bow ery car whizzes around the corner and is gone. Solitary figures slouch along the deserted buildings, with collars upturned, hats drawn over their faces, hands deep in their pockets. No warming light of saloons beckons. The "ten cents a night" lodging houses have given way one by one. A mission house is lighted amidst a row of pawnshops. It is a harbor. But most of the men prefer the sea of the street. Aimlessly they roam. Like the shadows of an old New York that has passed on into storyland . . . when the Bowery was the Bowery, and Five Points the haven of gangland. The twelfth solemn stroke from the town hall. The hour of the pawns has come. The one hour in the whole long year when the lifeless objects in the pawnbroker s safe are given voice. "Your hour has come," began the old black safe in the pawnshop on the corner, that proudly started the hundred and ninth year of its SENTIMENTAL STUDIES 9 money-lending career. "Most of you are new here. Others were here before. Thy know, and they will agree with me. Please, don t all of you try to talk. Listen to some who really have something to say. You all are hostages. You all were put here because your masters needed money. You all can tell pathetic and interesting stories. The masters of some of you needed the money for bread, others for luxuries. You come from old mothers and young sweethearts, from wayward sons, and from husbands in trouble. All of you were bought for money, and pawned for money. Be unselfish for once. Forget yourself and your sorrows, that might be ended to-morrow, should your master care to come and take you out. Tell me about the strange world that I have never seen. For sixty-two years now, I am here in this Park Row pawn shop, parts of me, still longer. My back is part of the original safe, in stalled about ninety years ago. Hundreds of thousands such as you have passed in and out and I have sheltered them. Some come for a short while, others for a year. A year is my limit. Then your owner has to show his affection for you. He has to pay up his interest. If he doesn t, out you go. To an auction room, where you are sold to the highest bidder. But how times must have changed! I see no more the people that used to come in here. Working men out of work, widows with little children in their arms, gamblers, sports, gay women, crooks, they all used to come here, leaving the spoil of evil nights to take with them cash enough to go on with their merry lives. Nice people used to come in, too, stealthily, as into a place of shame. A visit to the pawn broker s was their last refuge." The hundreds of various things of adornment, wrapped up in brown paper and properly numbered, seemed to discuss the safe s little speech for a while, and to agree with the proposition. "You re right," said a gold watch with Swiss movement, "what s the use of talking. Take my case for instance. If I am not here, I am in my master s pocket. I know he misses me because he gets me back the very moment his check arrives. He is paid on the fifteenth. On the third or fourth he takes me down here. I am here every month now, for almost ten years. He is getting more money for me now than ever before. Swiss movements have gone up in price. And I am afraid some day he won t have enough money to take me out. I d like to be sold at auction. Life is too monotonous. I am still young, and I am tired of my old master. . . ." "Hush up," said the safe, "the large diamond over there wishes to talk." All turned toward the six-carat solitaire that sparkled pure blue and seemed so out of place in the brown packing paper. "I come from South Africa," the diamond began; "I won t tire you with my uninteresting youth. I passed through many 10 SENTIMENTAL STUDIES hands before I ended up on the Strand in London. A young man pre sented me to the wife of his friend. A little later she followed him here to the States. One day he left her, but she wore me on the gold finger of her right hand. On a certain evening we took dinner with some friends; we hailed a taxi to take us back to our apartment. The taxi driver took us into the park, knocked my mistress senseless, took me off her finger, and I lived in his waist pocket until he sold me one day to some man for a ridiculously small price. I was taken out of my set ting and sold again to a jeweler. From the jeweler s safe I went to a workshop where they put me into platinum. From there into the show case. An elderly man bought me and gave me to a young woman. He gave me to her one evening, and on the following morning the girl brought me down here. She must have gotten a handsome sum for me." Everybody seemed disappointed. Such a divinely sparkling stone, and what a trivial story. A necklace of well-matched pearls laughed ironically and so loudly that every one turned to it. "It s always that way with diamonds," the pearl necklace said, "especially here in this country. I, of course, come from England. I mean that my last place of residence was in England. But my pearls were chosen from all over the world. A selection of the best there were. The two in the middle, for instance, belonged to an Indian Rajah. They had to be stolen. They couldn t be bought for any money. I would never have sunk to this," and she made a gesture of contempt toward her companions, "if it hadn t been for that American so-called Heiress. Of course, I was in pawn before. The old duchess had to pawn me once, after the duke s death. There were large tailors and florists bills to be paid. Later the young duke married the grocer king s daughter. She came to London, became the duchess, and, of course, paid all his debts. In fact, she paid the debts before she became the duchess, because she wore me on her wedding day. She paid up the banker who had loaned money on me, and then I remember she went to an undertaking establishment and paid there the funeral bill of her husband s last sweetheart. I knew that the duke would not get on with his wife. They had awful rows. All about money. And one day she packed up everything of value, including myself, and left for America. She wore me very much and I really was admired by her friends. "During a reception some one told her that if she would put all her money in Bethlehem Steel she could increase her income fabulously. She complained that she hadn t enough cash on hand to go into any speculation. That was in 1914. But you have your pearls. Why not pawn them? The money will bring you 400 per cent, interest a year, and the pawnbroker will charge you only 20. That s why I am here SENTIMENTAL STUDIES 11 for the last five years. She pays her interest regularly, and I don t doubt that one of these days she ll sell her stock and take me back home. People here lack reverence of tradition. Imagine, to pawn one s family jewels in order to make money! Oh, how I do wish I were back in England. Where jewels such as myself are family heirlooms. I was born an aristocrat, brought up among aristocrats, and I can t get used to your democratic ways." "I like your nerve," interrupted the Alderman s badge, a big golden star with many sparkling diamonds, that had been given to the Tam many Hall district leader by his admiring voters. "What do pou know about democracy? My master was a Democrat for years, in fact, he got me because he was a Democrat, and I love the ways of democracy. Now he is in disgrace. He had a scrap with the big chief and so they cut off his graft and he is down and out. I was the last thing of value he had. I was given him in 1912. The same year they cleaned up vice in New York. He did his best for the saloon keepers of his district. It kept him on the jump from night till morning, believe me. The police lost their head; places were raided everywhere. Pull or no pull, the cops got scared and pinched places that had never before been molested. My master helped his friends. He always did. Right or wrong, he stuck to them. And so, after the scare was over, and things settled down again to normal conditions, they chipped in and bought him the badge. He got $400 on me. He s going to come to the top again, and by golly! I ll be proud of the day when he pins me for the first time on his coat. It won t be long either. The district ball is on St. Pat rick s Day and I will as surely be on his breast on that day, as my master s colors are green. See! that s democracy, you poor aristocrat! Ups and downs, but in the end, you come out on top." The pearl necklace was not the only one shocked by the outburst of the professional politician s honor badge. A croix de guerre raised itself to its full height: "Don t profane the sacred word democracy.* The brave lad whom I am proud to call master received me because of his daring deeds, that made the world safe for democracy. He left his wife at home, his little kids, too. He gave up a position offering him a promising career and followed the call of democracy. What dread ful privations he had to endure hunger, thirst, a hateful life but in the end the foe was conquered, and my master did his share. The French Government decorated the brave American democrat, who joined President Wilson s fight for the famous fourteen points. "Shut up," screamed the cheap little stickpin, that couldn t be worth more than a dollar or two, out of a heap of similarly worthless jewelry. "Don t mention your precious fourteen points again, and your 12 SENTIMENTAL STUDIES Wilson democracy. What are you here for? Why don t you adorn the chest of your hero? Where is he now? I ll tell you where he is: sitting on some park bench, waiting for the dawn of another miserable day. His landlord dispossessed his wife and children while he was mak ing democracy safe, in Europe; his job has been given to a woman who works for a hundred dollars a year less, and he is tramping the streets looking for work. He held on to you until the very last, then he pawned you for a dollar and a half." "There is a good deal of truth in what you say," replied the croix de guerre. "My master met with bad luck when he returned to America, but he is too much of a patriot to blame anybody else for his misfortune than himself. He don t seem physically fit to do hard work, and he is too just to think that people will employ him when they can get stronger and fitter men. But who might you come from? You sound like a Bolsheviki." "My master is in jail, which accounts for my being here. His friends found me in his tie, pawned me, bought some tobacco for the money they got for me, and sent him the tobacco. I wonder if he got it? He is a conscientious objector. I was in jail with him at the time they arrested him. I think he accused some magistrate or somebody of being a fool. They arrested him and in court it came out that his conscience objected to killing people, war or no war. He also said that we ought to love each other, and that most of the people tried to get the best of their fellow men. And many other things. The District Attorney made out that he was a "red" and dangerous to democracy, and they sent him to jail. For twenty years. He had been a student in a theological seminary, a nice sort of man. So gentle! ; I could feel his gentleness each time he put me in his tie in the morning and took me out again in the evening. Your proud wearer of a war cross will get arrested one of these days for vagrancy, then he will be in jail, too. Democracy or no democracy." "Oh, this dreadful war," said the little amethyst ring, with a timid thin voice. "Much has happened to me in two years." A little rose was engraved on the surface of the amethyst, and the ring looked very deli cate. "I had gone through many hands and lay for years, unobserved, in a little jewelry shop. One evening a girl bought me, and gave me to her sweetheart, who was about to depart for France. He was a sol dier. He wore me on his little finger. How weary were his hands in camp during training time! I pitied him so often, on stormy nights on the Russian border. How often we thought we should never survive. But we did. Trenches, attacks, over the top, dangerous patrols, several times captured, we always got away. Until one night in Flanders. We SENTIMENTAL STUDIES 13 had been very happy because his sweetheart had written to him. One of those long letters he carried in his tobacco-pouch. A bullet killed him and we lay, forgotten, several days, until they found us. They put me, together with his watch, in a little envelope. I went from office to office, from safe to safe. They sent me across the water to his mother. She recognized the watch, but not me. She had never seen me, knew nothing of her son s sweetheart. One day she brought me down here. I often wonder if the little sweetheart knows he is dead. I know I ll never see her again. That s how it is with us. We are bought as tokens of faith and sold because of adverse fate, and rarely do we see again the people who bought and sold us." There was silence in the safe for several minutes. Melancholy looks passed from jewel to jewel. They all seemed sad and pensive. The safe spoke finally. "Things surely have changed, and I am glad that I am not in pawn like you." "Gloat over our misfortune!" rang out the clear voice of a wedding ring. "You are the jailer, and you know it, and your master is the worst of all of them. He cracks the whip over our masters who have to pay his blood money. Don t you see how he is profiting because of our masters mistakes and misfortunes? Don t tell me that he is their friend and helper who gives them money in time of need, when no one else is willing to come to their rescue. I know all about your old pawn broker who is sitting here for one hundred and seven years, lending half of our actual value and receiving thirty-six per cent, for his kindness to humanity. On the day that my mistress handed me with tears in her eyes to her husband, I heard him say several things that seem to be true, after listening to all your stories. I had been on her finger ever since the day she had been married. Next to me was a sparkling diamond. That was the engagement ring. One day, after breakfast, the husband lingered over his cup of coffee, though he wouldn t dare to speak. AH at once she took off the diamond ring from her finger and handed it to him. Take it, dear, she said, and pawn it. That ought to pay our rent and keep us going for awhile. He took it with a heavy heart. I remember what he said: That s the curse of a poor man and of our system of banking. If I had real estate and had been in the same finan cial straights as I am now, I d go to the banker and he would lend me money on my home. He d give me a mortgage which would protect me against being swindled. If I don t pay interest or capital, common law compels him to give me due notice, and time of grace. In case of fire or accident, insurance policies cover the loss. In the meantime, my wife could enjoy the possession of her home and live on in comfort as before. The interest the bank would charge me would not be more than eight 14 SENTIMENTAL STUDIES or nine per cent, a year. But I have no real estate. AH we have is movable property. I am out of work, in bad luck. I have to pawn your engagement ring. The pawnbroker is going to give me two-thirds of the value. You will miss your ring, which he will keep in his pos session. I will not get a mortgage in which my property is specified, but a pawn ticket that reads: "A diamond ring, $220.00." If the pawn broker is a crook he can change the stone. In case of fire and accident I am not protected. He is not compelled by law to notify me when the pawn will be forfeited. If I am sick and don t show up on the last day he is going to sell my property. It isn t respectable to go to a pawn broker s shop, but highly creditable to borrow from a bank. Our neigh bors will miss your diamond ring. It will embarrass you. And for all this humiliation I have to pay three per cent, a month to this banker of the poor. "That s what my master said," continued the wedding ring. "Ever since he s paying interest on the diamond ring, three per cent, each month, and in order to pay last month s interest he had to pawn his wife s wedding ring. "And you big, fat safe, taking us in, seeing us go out again, try ing to tell us that you know the everyday tragedies and miseries of our masters. Some day they ll lose their respect for your grave protected jaws and your burglar alarms, and then they ll storm you and take what s theirs, and they won t pay you any interest, either." "What a dreadful smell," said the wrist-watch, rather annoyed by the loud and vulgar talk of the wedding ring. "They used to take their overcoats out of here in the fall. They must have forgotten them this year, and the moth-balls make me ill. Isn t it cold enough for overcoats? Oh, dear, why don t they call for them?" "It s insolent, I tell you. Insolent!" screeched the signet ring, with the pompous crest engraved on its face, excitedly. "This wedding ring with his insane revolutionary ideas. "I don t know!" "I don t know!" "There seems to be lots of truth in it." "Of course, the wedding ring spoke rather excitedly, made a good many overstatements," exclaimed many voices, here and there. Many more pawns joined in the murmur; the noise grew louder and louder. The safe that had regained its composure made vain efforts to pacify them. A few dinner rings, and jewelled earrings lent their sup port to the safe. Hundreds of threatening voices seemed to try uniting into one har monious cry. . . . SENTIMENTAL STUDIES 15 . . . The town hall clock struck one. All voices ceased. The safe was black, and heavy, and massive. The pawns lay in it in neat rows, carefully numbered. One electric bulb diffused an insufficient but steady light. .The burglar alarm was in it* place at the window panes. Another long year of silence. . . . 16 SENTIMENTAL STUDIES Tragedy in a Birdhouse HE was pearl-gray. He had white wing-feathers and he carried his head like a king. His feet were purple and the cream- colored down on his legs resembled silk stockings of a page proud to bear the train of his mistress. His eyes were red-brown. They gazed disgustedly at a flock of sparrows that had forced themselves into the birdhouse and had begun to pick up the yellow corn that lay on the pale gold of the gravel. "Enjoy yourselves, you vagabonds!" he cried. His voice was scornful but sad. "It must be dreadful to live outside where it is so dusty and where men with great brooms are always sweeping you aside. But how greedy you are! Always eating and eating and paying no attention to the beautiful scenery that they have built for me here and the little lake as real as life where I can bathe to my heart s content. Plebeians! First you stuff yourselves and then you creep away and sleep and sleep until you are hungry again." And the pearl-gray bird moved his wings up and down like a dainty blonde coquette that smooths not existing wrinkles out of her gown, looks at her hands and thinks: "What beautiful hands I have!" Meanwhile the sparrows hopped about on the sand and helped themselves to the tidbits generously. A small dark rogue with a white spot on his breast fixed his eyes on a brown little lady that very bodly kept within speaking distance of him. He chirped to her right gayly and encouraged her to come nearer. If she appeared to be indifferent, he made signs that she would be very welcome. At last she approached him very shyly. But the nearer she came, the more animated she grew and soon had progressed as far as a great crust of bread that lay be tween them. The sparrow had been watching his sweetheart with pride and joy and now he was struck with a daring thought. "Suppose we both took hold of this piece of bread," he said, "you on one side and I on the other and we carried it over there you know where under the roof of the white house with many statues." She appeared to take the matter into consideration. She knew exactly what the bold fellow meant. They had often sat on a perch there together and he had talked about love and had stroked her wing feathers with his bill, very tenderly. And she had made no objections. She knew they had fallen in love with each other and that each was thinking of building a nest. Both wanted to set up housekeeping right there where they had acknowledged their love and had had such happy times. SENTIMENTAL STUDIES 17 The ardent lover grew more and more determined. He took hold of the crust and jerked it here and there so vigorously that he raised a littl storm of crumbs and dust. "How strong he is," thought the little lady. And she noticed with satisfaction that the performance was being watched by other feathered folk. What she really wanted to do was to hop up to him- quite close to him and lay her head on the white spot on his breast. But that was a thing that really ought not to be done in public. So she only looked at him meaningly and took hold of the crust in a very determined fashion. Then they flew with it a little way just to show that they had not undertaken too much together. And they got on very well with it. They stopped to take breath and the sparrow deeply impressed with a sense of responsibility of which he had never dreamed, said: "Now we have enough provisions for the first few days. And there is still plenty of water in the troughs under the eaves left from the last rain so we need not worry about our living while we are building our nest. I know also where there is a stable filled with sweet-scented hay and in the window of an old house there lies every morning a beautiful eider bolster from which we can take down to make a soft bed." "Oh, look at the lovers! Just see the lovers!" shrilled all the other sparrows in chorus. Then they hopped about excitedly, jostling one an other. For this was a real event in such a quiet community. The beautiful bird with the purple feet had left off polishing his toes, watching the carrying on of the sweethearts. "What a great fuss they are making over a piece of bread!" he thought. And then with a bored expression he gazed at the other sparrows that were picking up from the ground the scattered grains and crumbs. He began to think about the nest of which the pair had spoken. What might it look like? And then it occurred to him that he knew nothing about anything out there behind the iron netting of the birdhouse. Should he ask the chattering sparrows? That would certainly be the simplest thing to do. But . . . speak with them! No! Better perish with curiosity! One ought not to ask questions of beggars that eat the crumbs in the gravel. "Out with you, you silly mob!" he croaked in such a disagreeable voice that it was hard to believe that it could come from such a beauti ful bird. Then he spread his wonderful wings and swung them as if he would fan away the brown- feathered host. There was a loud chirp ing either in anger or fear and swish swish they flew straight through the netting to the trees in the hedge, yonder in the mysterious land outside. 18 SENTIMENTAL STUDIED "They are growing quite impudent," observed the yellow pelican, passing by. And he sniffed with his long bill at the edge of the little pond built in the plot covered with smooth pebble stones. It seemed quite convenient to the gray bird who was not really so bad at heart after all and who was terribly lonely and sad, that the pelican who always ap peared so stupid, was in a talkative mood. "Look here, Mr. Pelican," he said, "you are wiser than I and know a great deal more about things than I because you are very much older. What is there outside behind the wire netting from which poor little birds come and where there are such strange things? And what is a nest? All the creatures kept teasing two little sparrows that wanted to build a nest." The pelican shook his head thoughtfully for a while and then whetted his bill on a stone. He drew one of his legs out of sight and looked critically at his dainty gray companion. "You were born in this place and you are very young," he began, "and I suppose I ought not to destroy your peace of mind by enlighten ing you. But I feel so lonesome to-day that it will do me good to talk to you. "Far, far from here there is a lake a million times bigger than this wretched puddle arranged here for my bath. Over this lake arches a wide sky across which hurry white clouds filled with the most refreshing crystal clear rain drops. All around this lake grow green trees and reeds. Further out are stretches of meadow where the lushest of grasses are to be found. You really ought to have lived there in order to be able to picture it. "In the thickest of reeds, quite close to the water, my parents had a nest. Oh, you asked just now what a nest is! A nest is a comfort able little house that looks very much like the house they built here for us. But it is really very different. And one could not speak of a nest as if it had been ordered, paid for and delivered. My father and mother were quite young when they first met each other. They were beautiful white birds with broad bands of yellow in their wings. They dove deep into the water, chased each other across the broad meadows and played games high in the air. Then they would go hunting and bring back fruit and little fishes and my father always carried to mother the best of what he found. And these were his happiest hours when he saw how good the thing tasted that he had brought. "And then one day it occurred to them how pleasant it would be if they did not have to separate in the evening and each go to a dif ferent home. So they decided to build themselves a nest. SENTIMENTAL STUDIES 19 "I remember how my mother was accustomed to speak of it. Each piece of reed that they fetched in their bills was admired and then laid Carefully in just the right place. And when everything was ready father dove deep in the lake and that was at the risk of his life for he had to make the plunge headfirst and tore away a whole bushel of seaweed and lined the nest with it to make a soft bed for my mother. And then they moved in there and were happy! During the day they romped in the water and scurried about for food, sharing the tidbits. Sometimes father had bad luck and then mother was very proud to be able to give him something from her store or catch. "And then mother had to remain at home and father always kept coming with something good in his bill. One day I was born. How both of them caressed me and how proud mother and father were." Tears stood in the eyes of the old pelican and ran in great drops down to the yellow sand. He could not speak for a while, he was so deeply moved. "One morning," he continued, a soft sob choking his voice, "I was separated from my parents and my home. The sun shone bright in the sky, the air was clear and fresh and the lake lay peaceful there as smooth as glass and glittering silvery like a mirror. I thought I would venture out to find something to eat for myself. I went to the green, lonely meadow. Then suddenly I saw some great thin thing coming to ward me. I did not know at that time that there were such things as men that were mightier than we and who could catch us. Father and mother had not explained that to me, doubtless out of a desire to pre serve my childish innocence. Suddenly, however, I felt myself violently seized from behind and I lost consciousness. "When I came to myself, I was in a little cage and later they brought me here. That was years ago and I have continued to remain here and grown accustomed to everything and only on days like this when the sun is hidden by clouds and I know that it is shining away off there on my meadows and on my like I find myself very homesick. "It is true that I have everything that I need. I do not have to think of food. I do not have to battle with the wild elements and have nothing to fear from the raging storms. But my wings are lame and my eyes are weak and I would prefer to be one of the little sparrows that come here to steal the crumbs." The pelican stood there pensive. He slowly stretched out the leg that had been drawn up and pointed his bill in the opposite direction. "But, Mr. Pelican," answered the little gray bird who had listened eagerly to the recital, "why couldn t we build a nest even here? Haven t 20 SENTIMENTAL STUDIES you Mrs. Pelican? And think of the beautiful little pelicans that you had last summer and that were taken away!" "Yes, we can build nests. We have to build nests," the pelican said over his shoulder in a bitter tone. "Even you will build one. And they will bring you a mate and you must suffer it- do you hear? You must suffer it! And when you have children they will let you keep them while they are little and helpless and then they will take them from you and use them for other purposes." The pelican walked solemnly over to the other side of the bird- house where his wife was lying and fell asleep. The gray bird had grown serious. He looked up at the iron meshes of the cage. He thought of the little sparrow that was building a nest somewhere and he wondered what the little mate would look like that they were going to bring to him. Then he felt a sharp pain the anguish of a longing that he had never before experienced. He felt disgust and loathing for the puddle of water and for the yellow gravel and the pelican and the other birds that lived in the house with him. And he wanted to go away. Far away where there were soft grasses and broad lakes and where the water was clear and where the sky was not parceled off by iron netting. He wanted to fly and to bathe in a lake and to dive into deep water, head first, and to tear away seaweed. . . . And he wanted to build a nest. Summoning all his strength, he lifted himself as high as possible. He was frightened when he felt himself hovering in mid air and strik ing against the iron meshes of the bird house. "Sometime I am going to beat against the iron barriers with such force," he determined, "that they will break and I shall fly away." And he made this decision after he had flown to the top of the cage two or three times had collided with the iron netting suffering great pain. The other birds, however, who had cuddled up comfortably in their favorite corners awaiting the oncoming of the night, whispered to each other: "He must have become blind. Else he would have seen the netting." Others shrugged their shoulders and said: "He is crazy." SENTIMENTAL STUDIES 21 A Woman s Revenge THE thin shadows of the dying day groped in hungry waves into the room. Their pointed tongues reached after the color of the pictures and the glitter of the polished furniture. The bevelled edges of the mirror gleamed steel blue and reflected the moving shadows of the wall ghostly long and distorted. A table with bric-a-brac seemed a miniature graveyard with tomb stones and monuments and hovering clouds above. The slender pine trees out the window and the dark heavens with the yellow shimmer of the departing sun, suggested a fantastic painting by some Japanese artist. She stood at the window. She pressed her forehead against the glass till it became clouded from her breath and she looked at the sky. She observed how the deep yellow of the farthest horizon changed into a violet gray, how it was losing constantly its color; how the oncoming darkness defined itself; and the clear deep blue of the heavens stood out creating for the constellations a fabulous Oriental background And the evening star blazed up and sparkled like a solitary diamond in the black hair of a beautiful woman. She observed hurrying mists like zealous couriers rushing hither and thither, and she waited until a great misshapen cloud that had completely covered the entire picture swept away and was gone. She listened to the murmuring voices of the physicians in the next room where her husband lay dying. She felt that they were consulting together how to break the truth to her as gently as possible. The little watch in her girdle ticked on and the beat of each second meant to her a step nearer the realization of her one desire nearer the moment for which she had been longing a lifetime. Often at night, lying in bed, she had folded her hands like a pious child and had prayed: "Dear God! Let me be with him in his last hour and let me reckon with him!" It had happened just as she had imagined it would in her torment ing dreams. He lay in the next room wounded to death by one of the many husbands that he had betrayed. And again she folded her hands and prayed: "Let me reckon with him, Oh Lord! Don t let him die without my telling everything! Let me tell him how I hate him!" "I hate him, I hate him," thrilled every nerve of her excited brain. Her ears listened enviously for the sound of steps in the next room and her eyes were fixed on the door knob which would turn before they could come out. Would she be able to speak to him to the man that had destroyed her body, that had tormented her soul, that in every act of his life had offended her? Would he regain consciousness if only for 22 SENTIMENTAL STUDIES a little while? Yes! Yes! ... He must! It would be too ter rible; she had waited a lifetime for just this moment. She knew what she was going to say. In many sleepless nights she had rehearsed it; like a part in a play she had repeated it over and over again. And she hated him! A thousand times more than she had ever loved him. And how she had loved him! She was ashamed of this love and her hate and the consciousness of her rejected devotion mounted to fury. The physicians had pressed her hand, had spoken to her in a quiet, professional way. The door stood open. She crossed the threshold. She closed the door behind her. She thrust the portiere aside. The clear light of the five-branched chandelier flooded peacefully over the white bed. The Smyrna carpet that served as a plumeau softened the severity of the linen sheet. The long, high-bred fingers of his blue-veined hands played with the knotted fringe of the rug. He raised his head from the pillow; she saw how he tried to hide the signs of acute suffering. He even forced himself to smile and nodded to her. "Come! Come nearer to me," he breathed, scarcely audibly. He was conscious! She could speak! The lines about his eyes that had always fasci nated her were more strongly marked than ever. He was very hand some. She looked away, up to the white ceiling. "For the others he had had love. For her indifferent aloofness, polite rejection . . ." She stepped nearer to the bed. She did not see the hand extended to her. She looked straight in his eyes. He drew back as the helpless one does when he gazes in the eyes of his merciless, determined murderer. Her voice sounded deep and quiet. "You are dying. You know it and I know it. We have been married ten years. Nine years we have been living together as strangers. You have taken my youth and destroyed my faith in humanity. You have made me poorer and more pitiable than the beggar on the street, for he has perhaps somewhere a heart that beats with love for him. And now that you are going going for ever I will tell you how I hate you. "I despise you ... I loathe you . . . Don t speak! I know everything and I have known everything all along. I could name them to you, one by one, the women through whom you have shame lessly betrayed me. There was the wife of your friend, Hans. There was the circus-rider who bore you a child, there was the young sales woman who because of you drowned herself, there was my chambermaid. SENTIMENTAL STUDIES 23 I discharged her and you settled her in quarters hired with my money, the money on which you lived and that chained you to me. Then came the teacher. She was the only one for whom I felt any sympathy. She loved you honestly, and when she found out that you had a wife at home she gave you up. And then others followed in motley, quick succession. You took whatever crossed your path: decent women that suffered for their sin all their lives and girls whose customer you were. You led astray the wives of your friends and dishonored the daughters of your acquaintances. "And now Fate has overtaken you . . . how coarse and re lentless! No beauty and none of the romance that you always loved and for which you lived. Oh, yes! ... I know that, too! The last one the very last! The beautiful wife of a motorman attracted you. You overlooked her labor-hardened hands and you took her. And for that the motorman burst open your head with his crank. Ha! Ha! Ha! I must laugh, must laugh at your prosaic finish." Like gloating of the Furies when they laugh over a misfortune that they have passed and done with, sounded the laugh of this woman who was taking revenge for nine heart-breaking years. Imperturbable had become the face of the dying man. But the more excitably, the more harshly, the more maliciously the woman spoke the tenderer and the more loving grew his look. He embraced her body with his eyes. He saw the girdle between skirt and blouse, the watch chain with the gold locket hanging to it. He had given it to her during their honey moon. His picture was in that locket and half of a four-leaved clover. He looked in her eyes ,in the wonderful, deep violet eyes that were true, so true. What he had not known for years he realized now: "Mia! Mia! I have loved you always. You did not understand me. You did not try to understand me. I sought forgetfulness with the others. I drifted from one to the other. I was always searching for you and you were lost to me. Forgive me . . . Mia! . . . Mia, I love you dear . I ... always loved only you "Harry, you lie! Tell me that you are lying! God in heaven! Don t go from me with a lie on your lips! That cannot be the truth!" She sobbed. She wept. She fell on her knees beside the bed and threw her arms about the lifeless body. A soft rain beat against the window panes. The silver scissors and knives that lay on the dressing table and waited in vain to care for the hands of the master glittered nobly. The blue and yellow vials on the medicine table sparkled like oddly-cut semi-precious stones. 24 SENTIMENTAL STUDIES The quiet of an unchangeable misery lay over every object in the room. Soundless tunes of an unplayed sonata of Beethoven diffused through the air. A woman had taken revenge. SENTIMENTAL STUDIES 25 Dead Man s Eyes EMPTY bottles cluttered the mantel. Books, newspapers and black bread were jumbled together on a chair near the fireless grate. Cigarette stumps, ashes and letters covered the floor. Two gas- jets beside the dresser with the broken looking-glass lighted the big, square room. Three walls were bare, soot-stained and ugly. The one against which the easel leaned was covered with illustrations from magazines, with color prints and with smeared half-tone sketches. On a hook in the door hung a man s hat, an overcoat and some men s underwear. Maxim Medak sat at the round table in the middle of the room. His head was buried in his hands. In the wooden bed which showed its torn straw mattress lay a dead man. The sheet that had covered the body was dragged aside. The trunk was coarsely bandaged. The bandages were stained and stiffened with dried blood. The head had fallen to one side. Trie eyes stood open. They were glassy, big, blue bulbs opalescing in the yellow light of the gas. Two deep wrinkles leading from his nostrils to the corners of his graciously curved lips made him look serious and regretful. The hair was black and close-cut. The ears were small and well-shaped. A new white shirt slit through the center of the back lay on the bed beside the corpse. The man at the table lifted his head. He looked at the corpse. He looked a long time. He approached the bed, unsteadily with heavy feet. He lifted the body and took up the shirt. He slipped the lifeless arms into the sleeves of the shirt. The head of the dead man tilted to the other side, fell back and the staring eyes fastened themselves on the ceiling. Medak drew the sheet up over the bosom and shoulders of the dead man and sat on the bed beside him. He studied the quiet face before him feature by feature, trying to understand what had happened. He remembered the dreary, foggy October afternoon he had met him on the bench in Madison Square. He himself was homeless, penni less. The other one, though he still had the credit of his landlord, was not much better off. And they began talking. About hard luck, about beauty, about freedom, about the deserts of Ukraina. They sang to gether in subdued voices the long-forgotten, melancholy songs of their Cossack ancestors. Finally it had grown dark, a fine rain was drizzling and it was time to go home. He came home with the stranger and since that evening they had lived together and shared whatever they had. And one day Tomek sold a picture. He himself had never done anything all that time, but Tomek never asked him a question. They 26 SENTIMENTAL STUDIES sat together nights and days, damning life and women, denying God and truth. And drinking. Drinking whiskey and rum. And one day their isolation was broken by a blue-coated mail-man delivering a registered letter. Tomek read it. He was very quiet for hours and then he lold the most impossible tales of his Paris life. And they laughed and were hilariously happy. After that Tomek went out and bought more bottles. They were there on the mantel, empty. "Let us drink drink for days," Tomek had said. "Let us be senseless and sleep." And they drank. At first absinthe mixed with water. And then absinthe straight. And then whiskey and rum again. And they talked and dozed and slept. He could not remember how many days. When he v/oke up Tomek was sitting in the chair at the table, hif head resting on his arms. He was sobbing, crying like a child. "I was wrong," he said after looking for a long time at Medak, and his voice was the saddest voice that a human ever used. "We all are wrong. There is truth. And there is love. But now it is too late." And he walked over to the bed and sank down on it. He breathed heavily for awhile and everything was quiet. They both must have slept again. The next Medak remembered was the discharge of a gun. It sounded like an explosion of dynamite in the closed room. The bed was soaked with blood. A lot of people came in. A physician was called. The wound was washed and the bandage put on, but no one paid any attention to him lying on the mattress in the other corner of the room. A policeman with some other officers came in. Tomek raised up in bed and whispered something in the ear of the policeman. Then he fell back dead. "Who is going to take charge of the body?" some one asked. Medak got up. He showed them that there was money in the empty coffee can. He told them he was going to watch all night and to morrow order a burial. It would soon be to-morrow. The gas-light had already begun to look lifeless. Medak staggered over to the washstand and poured the water over his head. Then he turned back to the dead man. He passed the broken looking-glass and stared at his own unshaven face with the dark rings under his eyes. Was that himself? He looked at his shirt that he had worn for days ever since the picture was sold. His shoes were torn, his trousers fringed. What had he done yester day last week all those long months? How long must it have been? Four years impossible! SENTIMENTAL STUDIES 27 But surely he must have done something those four years. He thought and thought. But there was nothing he could remember. Room ing houses, lodging houses, benches in the parks, cells in the police sta tions, saloons and meeting halls and talk. Talk and talk and talk. But didn t they want to make the world better? Didn t they want to destroy the present order of things? . . . The present order of things these words began to make things grow clearer in his mind. He shuddered. What had the dead man said before he threw himself down on the bed? "There is ... truth and love." He said it was too late. "There is truth and love," Medak repeated and shuddered again. Was it possible that he had been mistaken? He never doubted that there was love. But was there truth? For four years he had told himself "Everything is a lie and she is the worst of liars." He looked in the broken mirror again. What had these four years made of a man full of ideals, full of energy and who knew what he wanted and why he wanted it? Was it too late? He closed his eyes. He saw a brilliantly lighted ballroom. Hundreds of candles reflected their light in pendant crystals of Venetian glass. He saw himself. How different he looked! And he saw the dark-haired woman and the other man. He saw himself asking the woman a question. The blood flamed in her cheeks. He insisted on her answering. She refused. He flung at her a terrible word and went out into the darkness. He left the city and they never heard from him again. "There is truth!" He could not forget what Tomek had said. He turned to the dead man. "You know what the Cossacks do when they want to find out the truth? They go into the dead man s chamber and pull down the lids of the dead man s eyes and they put the question to him. You know that, Tomek. You have heard them tell it in the evening when you were a boy and went in where the women spin. And if the eyes re main closed it is a lie. And if they open again it is the truth." He went to the bed. He drew the lids down over the big, bulging eyeballs. He looked at the placid white face. "Dead men do not lie," he said. His voice quaivered and his knees shook. At last he was to know if there is truth on earth. "Dead man, tell me the truth. Was she guilty? Was I right? Did she betray me?" His hands fell with a convulsive grip to the shoulders of the dead man. He watched the eyes. The tenth of a second that the lids re mained motionless was a long stretch of years, involving crises, intro ducing epochs. Then they began slowly to open. He watched them. They rose until half the pupil was exposed. They glared at him those 28 SENTIMENTAL STUDIES sightless eyeballs. He sprang to his feet and stood motionless. He felt the senseless misery of four years engulf him. He fought with it. He had only one weapon in his struggle to regain himself. She was innocent. She was innocent. He said it over and over again, each time realizing it more and more. Finally he became calm. His body lost its rigidity. He walked steadily over to the window and let the sweet fresh air of the new born day drive the smell of lodoform and clotted blood from the room. He turned out the gas. Then he opened Tomek s trunk. From out a jumble of papers, cravats, caps and soiled handkerchiefs in the top tray he selected the cleanest collor. In the bottom of the trunk he found decent shoes, a well- made suit of clothes and everything that he needed. He fitted a blade to Tomek s razor and started to shave himself before the broken looking- glass. He lathered his face and began to feel like a human again. When one side of his face was clean he was able to look himself straight in the eye. And he saw at the same time in the smaller portion of the broken mirror the image of Tomek lying dead in the bed with the sheet pulled up to his chin. And the staring eyeballs. He paused in his vigorous strokes of the razor over his face. "I m going to take care of you," he said looking back over his shoul der. "And then I m going to take care of myself. There is love. There is truth. And she is innocent." SENTIMENTAL STUDIES 29 Three Dollars and Sixty Cents THE air was crisp and biting cold. Every breath formed a misty cloud of vapor. The newly fallen snow crunched musically at each step. The sky above was a dome of dark blue clear and boundless. Two or three stars twinkled far apart. Trees along the avenue hung their branches heavy and spectre-like in the bridal attire of winter. Everyone enjoyed the first real winter evening. He was peaceful and contented as he strolled along the avenue. It was one of Nature s novelties, he thought, loved by all because of it* newness. He turned to cross the street. Some carriages were passing, carrying women, cloaked for the first time in their heavy winter furs. He waited while they passed. Some one touched him gently upon the arm. A young girl poorly but prettily dressed. Perhaps she desired his assistance in crossing the street. He raised his hat to her. "Will you take me with you please?" the girl asked. He turned, surprised at the request, but more astonished at the seri ously sad. yet happily expectant eyes that gazed up to him. "Take you with me? I don t quite understand what you mean," he added in an apologetic tone. "Take me anywhere you d like to," she said, flushing, her eyes evading his gaze. An understanding began to dawn upon him. "I live only a short distance from here," he answered. "If you wish to come with me I have a few paintings and rugs you might like to see." So together they went to his apartment. On the way he made sev eral attempts at conversation but won no response from the girl. At the door he stopped and drew his latch-key. "Will you please give me three dollars and sixty cents if I go in with you?" she asked timorously. "Certainly, certainly," he cried in surprise while he stepped aside to admit her into the vestibule. She removed her hat and gazed curiously about her. "Do you like my paintings?" he asked. "Yes, sir, I do," she answered, looking blankly about the room, though only little interested in what she saw. He could not explain the girl s peculiar actions. Her queer conduct was so different. * * * * * 30 SENTIMENTAL STUDIES She had refused a gold piece, but insisted on receiving only three dollars and sixty cents. He counted out the exact change for her. She left him in a quandary. He opened the window just in time to hear the door below creak and see her tripping down the steps out onto the snowy walk. The slender girlish form was hurrying along, childlike and innocent. He was curious. He wanted to know more about this girl. Why had she acted so differently? Who was she and where had she gone? An impulse seized him. He dashed downstairs, took overcoat and hat and ran out into the street after the figure vanishing in the darkness. He spied her nearly a block and a half away. He followed. She turned a corner and turned, with him in pursuit. He found himself in a strange neighborhood. Finally the girl entered a dimly lighted drug store. He waited for her. What a surprise! Such a neighborhood close to his apartments. Tall tenement buildings with ragged, dirty curtains at the windows. The drug store was old-fashioned. Modern things had not made their mark here. Flickering gas lights burned behind two small, green and red globes in the window. An old stove stood near the door and the glass in two of the show cases was broken. The mystery girl remained a short time only. She reappeared and hurried along. He followed but lost her. She must have slipped into one of the many buildings. He entered the store and addressed the greasy proprietor behind the prescription counter. "Pardon me, sir, is the girl who left a few minutes ago known to you?" "A girl?" the druggist answered. "Oh, yes, the little girl? I think she lives in the neighborhood somewhere close by. You know how they are in this district. They think the druggist, the physician and the undertaker are charitable institutions. They buy very little and only when they are in need. Then they come to me and ask for crdit. Why should I trust them? If I do, they don t come back with the money. "Take this girl for instance. She came this morning with a prescrip tion for her mother, who is sick. An expensive prescription three dol lars and sixty cents. She wanted me to trust her. I refused. She left the prescription and promised to call for the medicine to-night. These people always find a way to get a little money when the need is vital. I told her she could get it if she only tried. You see I was right." SENTIMENTAL STUDIES 31 Liars A WARM July evening in the little park near the railroad station. Half an hour before the arrival of the Twentieth Century Lim ited. Under a wide-spreading tree Pearl and Bill nestled in the shadow of darkness. Pearl embraces Bill gently, tenderly, clings to him, kisses his lips and eyes repeatedly. From a nearby amusement park the sound of music borne by the wind. And now, clearly distinguished the strain: Glow, little glow-worm, glimmer, glimmer " "Bill," sobs Pearl, "if you ever hear this strain again, remember me and our parting of to-day." (Sobbing softly). "I cannot live without you. . . . Let me go with you. Take me with you." "Be sensible, Pearl," Bill persuades. "You can t leave your mother just now and I have to go back to that miserable little city. How unhappy you would be out there if I couldn t always be with you! "And you know I could not. "Come, sweetheart, walk over with me to the train so I may have you until the last second and at Christmas time I ll come again. "That is not far off. Just five months. "And we ll write to each other and not forget each other. "Won t you, Pearl, my dearling, my only one?" And he kisses her in the shadows of the trees. The far off music plays: "Glow, little glow-worm, glimmer, glimmer " She follows him, step by step, to the ticket office, to the baggage agent, to the station platform, to the coach. A last embrace. The train moves. Pearl waves her tear-wet handkerchief and the music plays: "Glow, little glow-worm, glimmer, glimmer " II. TWO days later in the city. Bill lounges on the couch of his hotel room. Nestled up to him Mae. Her black hair is disheveled. The brown, hazel eyes are laughing. The little white teeth, the fresh red lips, the dimples in the cheek everything cheer and happiness. 32 SENTIMENTAL STUDIES And she kisses him again and again: "Finally you came! I didn t know what to do with myself in that lonely, lonesome town and so I came up here to meet you. And to-morrow we shall travel home to gether and if the sun shines as to-day it will be glorious! "Billy, my Billy " She kisses him madly. And from the din ing room through the open window: "Glow, little glow-worm, glimmer, glimmer " III. IN the parlor of Pearl s mother. It is evening. The light is not turned on. Pearl leans against the window sill. At her side Arthur cheek against cheek. "Your mother stays away long to-day and in the meantime I can caress . . . can kiss you." He kisses her: "Do you really care for me?" "If you could only feel how I love you, Pearl, my darling! "And you really love me?" She throws her arms about him, looks in his eyes, whispers in his ear and kisses him. In the adjoining room her sister plays on the piano: "Glow, little glow-worm, glimmer, glimmer " The One Missive TWO days later, Pearl receives a postal from Bill. "Dearest: I am sitting in this desolate hotel waiting for the train that will take me farther away from you. Downstairs in the dining room the music plays: " Glow, little glow-worm, glimmer, glimmer "I think of you and love you. Your Bill." The Other Missive AND among the mail awaiting him. Bill found a little letter. "Billy Dear: You have been away two days and it seems an eternity. In the adjoining room my sister plays: " Glow, little glow-worm, glimmer, glimmer "She doesn t know how that air tortures me. I love only you and long for you. Pearl." THE UttKAK i UNIVERSITY OF CAUFOKNU LOS ANGELES A 000917328 7