Young Peoples Pride | Page 9

only thing that mattered was that she had been hurt on his
account--was being hurt now on his account--would be hurt, and still
and always on his account, not because he wanted to hurt her but
because it was not within his power, but Life's, to hurt her in that
respect or not.
"Oh, felicitous Nancy!" the pen began to scratch. "Your letter--"
Stupid to be so tired when he was writing to Nancy. Stupid not to find
the right things to say at once when you wanted to say them so much.
He dropped the pen an instant, sat back, and tried to evoke Nancy
before him like a small, clear picture seen in a lens, tried to form with
his will the lifeless air in front of him till it began to take on some
semblance and body of her that would be better than the tired
remembrances of the mind.
Often, and especially when he had thought about her intensely for a
long time, the picture would not come at all or come with tantalizing
incompleteness, apparently because he wanted it to be whole so
much--all he could see would be a wraith of Nancy, wooden as a
formal photograph, with none of her silences or mockeries about her till
he felt like a painter who has somehow let the devil into his paintbox so
that each stroke he makes goes a little fatally out of true from the vision
in his mind till the canvas is only a crazy-quilt of reds and yellows.
Now, perhaps, though, she might come, even though he was tired. He
pressed the back of a hand against his eyes. She was coming to him
now. He remembered one of their walks together--a walk they had
taken some eight months ago, when they had been only three days
engaged. Up Fifth Avenue; Forty-second Street, Forty-third,
Forty-fourth, the crosstown glitter of lights, the reflected glow of
Broadway, spraying the sky with dim gold-dust, begins to die a little
behind them. Past pompous expensive windows full of the things that
Oliver and Nancy will buy when Oliver's novel has gone into its first
fifty thousand, content with the mere touch of each other's hands, they
are so sure of each other now. Past people, dozens of people, getting
fewer and fewer as Forty-sixth Street comes, Forty-seventh,
Forty-eighth, always a little arrogantly because none of the automatic
figures they pass have ever eaten friendly bread together or had fire that
can burn over them like clear salt water or the knowledge that the only
thing worth having in life is the hurt and gladness of that fire. Buses

pass like big squares of honeycomb on wheels, crowded with pale, tired
bees--the stars march slowly from the western slope to their light
viewless pinnacle in the center of the heavens, walking brightly like
strong men in silvered armor--the stars and the buses, the buses and the
stars, either and both of as little and much account--it would not really
surprise either Oliver or Nancy if the next green bus that passes should
start climbing into the sky like a clumsy bird.
The first intoxication is still upon them--they have told nobody except
anyone who ever sees them together--they walk tactfully and never too
close, both having a horror of publicly amatory couples, but like the
king's daughter--or was it Solomon's Temple?--they are all glorious
within. Fifty-fifth, Fifty-sixth, Fifty-seventh--the square in front of the
Plaza--that tall chopped bulky tower lit from within like a model in a
toyshop window--motors purring up to its door like thin dark cats,
motors purring away. The fountain with the little statue--the pool a cool
dark stone cracked with the gold of the lights upon it, and near the trees
of the Park, half-hidden, gold Sherman, riding, riding, Victory striding
ahead of him with a golden palm.
Ahead of them too goes Victory, over fear, over doubt, over littleness,
her gold shoes ring like the noise of a sparkling sword, her steps are
swift. They stand for an instant, hands locked, looking back at the long
roller-coaster swoop of the Avenue, listening to the roll of tired wheels,
the faint horns, the loud horns. They know each other now--their hands
grip tighter--in the wandering instant the whole background of streets
and tall buildings passes like breath from a mirror--for the instant
without breath or clamor, they exist together, one being, and the being
has neither flesh to use the senses too clumsily, nor human thoughts to
rust at the will, but lives with the strength of a thunder and the
heedlessness of a wave in a wide and bright eternity of the unspoken.
"All the same," says Nancy, when the moment passes, lifting a shoe
with the concern of a kitten that has