Youth and the Bright Medusa | Page 6

who had worked so much from the figure,
and he continued to look, simply because he had never seen a woman's
body so beautiful as this one,--positively glorious in action. As she
swung her arms and changed from one pivot of motion to another,
muscular energy seemed to flow through her from her toes to her
finger-tips. The soft flush of exercise and the gold of afternoon sun
played over her flesh together, enveloped her in a luminous mist which,
as she turned and twisted, made now an arm, now a shoulder, now a
thigh, dissolve in pure light and instantly recover its outline with the
next gesture. Hedger's fingers curved as if he were holding a crayon;
mentally he was doing the whole figure in a single running line, and the
charcoal seemed to explode in his hand at the point where the energy of
each gesture was discharged into the whirling disc of light, from a foot
or shoulder, from the up-thrust chin or the lifted breasts.

He could not have told whether he watched her for six minutes or
sixteen. When her gymnastics were over, she paused to catch up a lock
of hair that had come down, and examined with solicitude a little
reddish mole that grew under her left arm-pit. Then, with her hand on
her hip, she walked unconcernedly across the room and disappeared
through the door into her bedchamber.
Disappeared--Don Hedger was crouching on his knees, staring at the
golden shower which poured in through the west windows, at the lake
of gold sleeping on the faded Turkish carpet. The spot was enchanted; a
vision out of Alexandria, out of the remote pagan past, had bathed itself
there in Helianthine fire.
When he crawled out of his closet, he stood blinking at the grey sheet
stuffed with laundry, not knowing what had happened to him. He felt a
little sick as he contemplated the bundle. Everything here was different;
he hated the disorder of the place, the grey prison light, his old shoes
and himself and all his slovenly habits. The black calico curtains that
ran on wires over his big window were white with dust. There were
three greasy frying pans in the sink, and the sink itself--He felt
desperate. He couldn't stand this another minute. He took up an armful
of winter clothes and ran down four flights into the basement.
"Mrs. Foley," he began, "I want my room cleaned this afternoon,
thoroughly cleaned. Can you get a woman for me right away?"
"Is it company you're having?" the fat, dirty janitress enquired. Mrs.
Foley was the widow of a useful Tammany man, and she owned real
estate in Flatbush. She was huge and soft as a feather bed. Her face and
arms were permanently coated with dust, grained like wood where the
sweat had trickled.
"Yes, company. That's it."
"Well, this is a queer time of the day to be asking for a cleaning woman.
It's likely I can get you old Lizzie, if she's not drunk. I'll send Willy
round to see."

Willy, the son of fourteen, roused from the stupor and stain of his fifth
box of cigarettes by the gleam of a quarter, went out. In five minutes he
returned with old Lizzie,--she smelling strong of spirits and wearing
several jackets which she had put on one over the other, and a number
of skirts, long and short, which made her resemble an animated
dish-clout. She had, of course, to borrow her equipment from Mrs.
Foley, and toiled up the long flights, dragging mop and pail and broom.
She told Hedger to be of good cheer, for he had got the right woman for
the job, and showed him a great leather strap she wore about her wrist
to prevent dislocation of tendons. She swished about the place,
scattering dust and splashing soapsuds, while he watched her in
nervous despair. He stood over Lizzie and made her scour the sink,
directing her roughly, then paid her and got rid of her. Shutting the
door on his failure, he hurried off with his dog to lose himself among
the stevedores and dock labourers on West Street.
A strange chapter began for Don Hedger. Day after day, at that hour in
the afternoon, the hour before his neighbour dressed for dinner, he
crouched down in his closet to watch her go through her mysterious
exercises. It did not occur to him that his conduct was detestable; there
was nothing shy or retreating about this unclad girl,--a bold body,
studying itself quite coolly and evidently well pleased with itself, doing
all this for a purpose. Hedger scarcely regarded his action as conduct at
all; it was something that had happened to him. More than once he
went out and tried to stay