IN the twenties, years slip by with the flimsy rapidity of soap-bubbles blown from the breath of time, unless the person experiencing them has found an unusually cloistered or passionless existence. As Blanche sat in the Beauty Parlor where she worked as a hair-curler, she remembered that she was twenty-two and that her birthday was only twenty-four hours distant.
The year which had elapsed since her brother’s expulsion as a prize-fighter seemed to be little more than a crowded and instructive month. As she sat in the Parlor, during an afternoon’s pause between patrons, she said to herself: “Gee, here I am, already twenty-two! I’ll be ’n old dame before I know it. It’s enough to give you the jimjams, it is.” Something that was not wisdom but rather an engrossed search for wisdom rested on the smooth plumpness of her face. Again, a light within her eyes came near to the quality of self-possessed skepticism and shifted against the survival of former hesitations and faiths. Life to her was no longer a conforming welter of sexual advances and retreats, with moments of self-disapproval bearing the indistinct desire “to get somewhere”—thoughts and emotions had snapped within her; problems were assuming a more unmistakable shape; the people in life were displaying to her more indisputable virtues and faults; and a spirit of revolt was simply waiting for some proper climax. Her past year of argument and contact with Rosenberg had given her a more assured tongue and a more informed head. The books that he had supplied her with had now crystallized to specific inducements—tales about men and women whose lives were brave, or distressed, pursuits of truth, and an ever keener knowledge of each other, and a sexual freedom that was not merely the dodging of lust to an eventual marriage ceremony, and a dislike for the shams and kowtowings of other men and women. Frequently, she invited the scoffing of her family by remaining at home and reading some novel until well after midnight, with her eyes never leaving the pages. Her sister and brothers, and her parents, felt that she was getting “queer in the dome,” wasting her time like that when she might have been picking up some fellow with serious intentions, or enjoying herself, and though she still went out with men three or four nights of every week, the family were beginning to fear that she was not a “regular” girl and that silly, unwomanly ideas had gotten into her head. In their opinion twenty-two was the age at which a woman should either be married or be moving toward that end, and they couldn’t understand her apathy in this matter. They cast most of the blame on Rosenberg—that dopey mut that she was always afraid to bring around had evidently turned her against her family and filled her with junk from the foolish books he loaned her.
Even her mother had begged her to stop going with him and had complained: “It’s you that’s not me own sweet girl any more. You oughta stop traipsin’ around with that Jew boy, you oughta. He won’t never marry you, and it’s I that wouldn’t let you, anyways. He’s got no money and he’s not right in his head, he’s not!”
Harry had threatened to “beat up” Rosenberg, if he ever saw him, and her father had railed at her, but she had seemed to look upon their objections as a huge joke, which had angered them all the more but left them powerless to do anything except to lock her in her room at night—an expedient that could hardly be tried on a twenty-two-year-old daughter who earned her own living and could leave the family roof whenever she pleased.
On her own part, Blanche had treated their railings with a perverse resentment. “I’ll go on seeing him just to spite them—who’re they to boss me around,” she had said to herself. In reality, she had lost much of her old respect for Rosenberg’s mind and verbal talents, and she was beginning to see flaws in his make-up.
“He never does anything but talk—he’s a wonder there,” she had said to herself once. “He takes it all out in wind. I’ll bet you he’ll be working in that library for the rest of his life, ’r in some other place just like it. ’N’ again, he always says he’s going to write big things, but I never see him doing it. I’d like to meet a fellow that’s doing something—making a name for himself. Gee, ’f I could ever run across one of those nov’lists, for instance. That man, Ronald Urban, who wrote Through The Fields—wouldn’t it be all to the mustard to talk to him! He could tell me all kinds of things I’ve never dreamt of.”
Still, she continued to see Rosenberg because he was the best prospect at hand, and because she pitied his longings for her, and to show her family that she could not be intimidated.
Harry was still barred from the ring, and the family had lapsed back to its old tilts with poverty. Both Blanche and Philip had to give part of their earnings toward the maintenance of the apartment, as well as Mabel, who had gone to work as a dress-model for a wholesale cloak-and-suit firm. She pronounced it “cluck ’n soot,” and affected a great disdain for her environs and her Jewish employers, but she was not at all averse to dining and dancing with some of the more prosperous buyers who frequented her place. Harry had become more of a wastrel, and did little except loaf around during the day, with an occasional bootlegging venture and sojourns with women, while the father loitered about poolrooms and complained of his son’s persecution, or sat in poker and pinochle games.
As Blanche lolled in the Beauty Parlor, tinkering with her nails, the image of Joe Campbell was in her head. He had ignored her for six months and then had bobbed up again on the previous day, and she had an engagement with him for the coming night. “It’s no use—I can’t get you out of my head,” he had told her over the telephone. “I stopped seeing you because I thought you were playing me for a sucker, but go right ahead, girlie, I’ll bite again. You’re deuces wild and the sky for a limit with me!” “You didn’t get hoarse telling me that for the last few months,” she had replied, amused and a little flattered. “Sure not, I was trying to forget you,” he had responded. “It can’t be done, little girl. Come on now, let daddy act like a millionaire to-night—he’s good that way.”
When she had mentioned his call to her family, they had all urged her to “make a play for him” and angle for a proposal of marriage.
“He must be nuts about you ’r else he wouldn’t always come back for more,” Mabel had said. “I’ll bet you’re always freezin’ him out, that’s the trouble. You’ll be a fool ’f you don’t try to land him this time. He’s loaded with jack, and he’s got a rep, and he’s not so bad-lookin’ at that. What more d’you want, I’d like to know—you’re no Ziegfeld Follies girl yourself.”
Now, as she sat and polished her finger-nails, Blanche wondered whether it might not be best to marry Campbell after all. Most of his past glamor to her had been rubbed away, and she saw him as a second-rate actor, always laughing to hide what he wanted to get from a girl, and drinking and spending his money because he wanted people to believe that he was much more important than he really was, and caring nothing for the “fine” part of life which she had begun to realize—books, and paintings, and such things. Still, if she married him he would give her a leisure and an independence in which she could find out whether anything was in her or not, and whether she was gifted for something better than marcelling hair or punching registers. Then she would be able to sit most of the day and just read and think, or maybe go to some school and learn something, and meet new kinds of people. How could she ever make something out of herself if she had to work hard every day, and give half of her limited dollars to her family, and listen to their naggings and pesterings? Of course, she did not love Campbell, and the thought of continuous physical relations with him was not as pleasant as it had once been—somehow, when you began to “see through” a man’s blusterings and boastings, his hands and his kisses lost part of their thrill—but still, he was physically agreeable to her, and it might be idle to hope for more than that from any man. He wouldn’t talk about the new things that she was interested in, or sympathize with her desires for knowledge and expression, but when, oh, when, would she ever find a man who had these responses? Such men lived and moved in a different world, and were hardly likely to meet, or to care for, a questioning Beauty Parlor girl—they could easily procure women who were more their equals. Besides, it was silly to sit and mope around and wait for your “ideal” to arrive. You might wind up by becoming a dull old maid, with nothing accomplished.
The one thing that counseled against marriage to Campbell was her unfounded but instinctive distrust of him. She could never rid herself of the feeling that he was secretly cruel and heartless, and that there was something “phony” about all of his smiles and laughters, and that he was not nearly as intelligent as he seemed to be, but knew how to manipulate an all-seeing pose.
The Beauty Parlor was a sweetly smirking, pink and whitish, overdraped place, trying so hard to look femininely dainty and insipidly refined and still preserve something of a business-like air. Cream-colored satin panels were nailed to the walls and pink rosebud arrangements shaded all of the electric lights except the green-shaded, practical ones placed beside the tables and the chairs where the work was done. There were Persian rugs on the hardwood floor, and amateurishly piquant batiks, and the reek of cheap incense and dryly dizzy perfume was in the air. Outside of three prosaic, ordinary barber-chairs, the place had several dressing-tables with long mirrors, enameled in shades of ivory and pink with thin, curved legs. Bottles of perfume and jars of paste and powder were scattered over the place, and many framed photographs of actresses were on the walls, most of them signed: “With affection (or with regards) to my dear friend, Madame Jaurette” (some of them had cost Madame a nice penny). These picture-testimonials had a potent effect upon the Beauty Parlor’s clientele, owing to the humorous misconception on the part of many women that actresses and society queens alone are acquainted with the mysteries and abracadabras of remaining physically young, beautiful, and unwrinkled. Photographs of society women were much more difficult for Madame to procure—money was of no avail in their case, ah, mais non!—but she did have one of Mrs. Frederick Van Armen, one of the reigning upper-hostesses of the day, which she had secured after a year of plotting, and of pleading notes.
The entire shop had an air of sex running to an artificial restoration place to repair the ravages of time, or to add an irresistible exterior to its youth, but there was something hopeless and thickly pathetic attached to the atmosphere. It was sex that had lost its self-confidence and its unashamed hungers—sex that hunted for tiny glosses and protections, and had a partly mercenary fear and precision in all of its movements.
Blanche’s thoughts of Campbell were interrupted by the advent of the proprietress, Madame Jaurette, and a young patroness. Madame was fat, and too short for her weight, but through the use of brassieres, bodices, reducing exercises, and diets, she had kept her curves from emulating a circus side-show effect. It was a strain on her nerves, however, and she had that persecuted but uncomplaining look on her face. Like a great many middle-class, nearly middle-aged French women, with very moderate educations, she was a preposterous mixture of dense cupidities and romantic sentiments, and while the cupidities had their way with her most of the time, they were always apt to be knocked galley-west by some gentleman with an aquiline nose, or the destitution of some weeping girl. She had a round, almost handsome face, with the wretched hint of a double chin that was never allowed to go any further, and bobbed, black hair—it didn’t become her but it had to be mutilated for business reasons—and she dressed in dark, lacy, expensive gowns.
“Ah, Ma’m’selle Palmaire, you will take so good care of Mees White, she is vairy fine lady,” she babbled. “Mees White, she always have Nanette to feex her hair, but Nanette she is here no more. Ma’m’selle Palmaire, she is really ex-pert, Mees White. She will geeve you, what you call it?—the curl that won’ come off!”
“’F I’m so good, why don’t you raise my wages once in a while,” Blanche thought to herself, but she said: “Sure, I guess I know my work all right. I’ll do the best I can for her.”
The patroness was a slim girl with a disproportionately plump bosom, a dumbly child-like, near-pretty face, and a great shock of blonde, bobbed hair. As Blanche heated the curling-irons, the other girl said: “It’s just the hardest thing to keep my hair wavy. It never does last more than two or three days. I’ll spend a fortune on it before I’m through.”
“Why don’t you get a permanent wave—it’s cheaper in the end,” Blanche answered.
“Oh, I’m never able to afford it when I do get the impulse, and then I might want it straight again any time. It’s all so much a question of what you’re wearing and how you feel, you know. D’you think I look good in curls?”
Blanche had no opinion whatever on the subject, but she replied: “Yes, indeed, I think they go well with your face.” Patronesses, to her, were simply blanks to be dealt with in rotation, unless they exhibited an ill-temper or an impatience. A spell of silence came as Blanche bent to her task, and then the other girl said: “Don’t you get tired of working all day in this stuffy place? I know I could never stand it myself.” Blanche was used to this question—women who tried hard to show an interest in the beauty-parlor workers but rarely ever really felt it.
“It’s no worse than lots of other things,” she answered. “I’ve got to earn my living some way. I won’t be here all my life though, believe me.”
The conversation continued in this casual strain, with neither woman caring much about what the other said, but with both desiring to lessen the tedium of an hour. Two-thirds of all the words that human beings talk to each other are merely unaffected protections and tilts against an impending boredom.
When Blanche came home from work that night, the members of her family were seated at the supper-table. After she joined them they began to twit her about her approaching engagement with Campbell.
“Gonna make him buy the license, Blanche?” Harry asked.
“Yes, a dog license,” she answered.
“That’s a fine crack to make against a fellow like Joe,” Harry replied. “You’re not good enough f’r him, ’f you ask me.”
“’F you give me one of your hankies I’ll cry about it,” she said. “Maybe that’ll suit you.”
Harry looked at her dubiously—it sure was hard to “get her goat” these days.
“You’re gettin’ sillier ev’ry day,” Mabel said to her sister. “You’ll never find another chance like Joe Campbell—they don’t grow round on bushes. S’pose you’d rather sit all night ’n’ read one of those no-ovuls uh yours. It’s hard to figure you out.”
“In the first place he hasn’t asked me to marry him yet,” Blanche answered, “and besides, I don’t see why all of you have to butt into my affairs so much. I never tell any of you people what to do.”
“Well, don’t forget, I’m your father, and I’m gonna have somethin’ to say ’bout who you hitch up with,” Will Palmer said.
“Nobody’ll stop you from saying it, but I’m no good at being bossed around,” she retorted coolly.
“We’ll see ’bout that, we’ll see,” her father responded with a heavy emphasis.
This daughter of his was becoming too high-handed, and he would probably have to use harsh measures to her for her own good, but as long as the matter remained one of verbal exchanges there was nothing that he could do about it. Just let her start something, though!
“We’re all jes’ tryin’ to look out f’r you, Blanie dear,” her mother said. “You shouldn’t get so uppity about it, you shouldn’t.”
“I can take care of myself—I’ve had to do it long enough, ma,” Blanche responded.
“We’ll, I’m with you all the time, and that’s no lie,” Philip said.
He did not understand Blanche to any great extent, but he liked her independence (“spunk”) because it spoke to the similar feeling within himself which he was too cowardly to express.
“You’re about the only one in this fam’ly who leaves me alone,” Blanche answered, with a little dolorous affection.
She knew that Philip was weak and hedging but she was grateful for his lack of hard interference and pitied his spineless spirit.
As she dressed to meet Campbell she had a don’t-care, tired-out mood. Let them all talk their heads off—they couldn’t prevent her from doing what she wanted to do.
When Campbell came up, the rest of her family had departed, with the exception of her mother, who greeted him with a timid cordiality. How she wished that her daughter would marry this good-natured, prosperous man! She herself would have been much better off if she had been more prudent in her youth and not so much concerned with this “lovin’ and mushin’” thing. Why, any woman could get to lovin’ a man if he took care of her, and acted kind and true, and didn’t bother with other women, and had a nice, jolly nature. Of course, Campbell did go around with a fast, booze-lapping crowd—she knew what those Broadway people were, but leave it to Blanche to tame him down if she married him. Well, maybe Blanche would come to her senses before it was too late.
When they reached the street, Campbell said to Blanche: “What’s on your mind, to-night, old dear? You’ve said about six words since I came up. You haven’t gone back on me, have you?”
“I don’t feel much like gabbing to-night,” she answered. “I guess I won’t be very entertaining to you.”
“Just be yourself, that’s all I want,” he said, as he squeezed her arm. He sensed that something might be “going wrong” with her at home, and after they had entered a cab he asked: “What’s the matter, your family been razzing you any?”
“Oh, they’re always doing that,” she responded. “They’re great ones on telling me what I should do.”
“Why don’t you make a break?” he queried. “I’ve always thought you were a fool to stay in that rotten dump of yours. It’s no place for a girl with any class to be living in, you know that. You could get a couple of rooms of your own and do as you please, and sit on the top of the world.”
He had an idle sympathy for her, and he felt that she would be much more accessible if she were removed from the guardian eyes of her family. Funny, how he couldn’t get this girl out of his mind. She had a “thoroughbred” touch, a high-headed, brave, exclusive something that he had rarely found in women and could scarcely define. It wasn’t her looks and she certainly wasn’t particularly talented in any way—it was a straightness in conduct and word, and an untouched, defiant essence that seemed to cling to the physical part of her. Some women were like that—their affairs with men never left any impress upon them. Guess they never really gave in to any man—that was it.... Should he ever ask this girl to marry him? Marriage—brr! Wasn’t he still paying alimony on the first one that he had contracted? No, he’d be willing to live with Blanche and give other women “the air,” for some time at least, but no more marrying for him. Even this would be quite an important concession for a man of his kind, who could have his pick of pretty girls every night. His first wife had attracted him just as Blanche did, and what had happened? Everything sweet and snug for the first six months, and then a first quarrel because she caught him kissing a girl in his show—nothing but handcuffs and a prison cell ever satisfied them—and then more quarrels about where they should eat, and what kind of ties he ought to buy, and a dozen more trivial frictions. And money—two hundred a week for her expenses got to be like two dollars in her estimation. Then he had felt the gradual letting down of his desire for her—she had not become less attractive but less imperative and more a matter of pleasant convenience. He had returned to unfaithfulness, after drunken parties—how could any man help it?—and he’d certainly never forget the cheap, blah-blahing night when she had burst into a hotel room, with two private detectives, and found him with a woman. No more of that kind of joke for him.
These thoughts occurred to him irregularly as he talked to Blanche in the cab, and afterwards as they sat in a corner of The Golden Mill.
“You’re a simp to work like a nigger all the time,” he said. “What’s it bring you, anyway? Three dimes and a crook in your pretty back, that’s about all.”
“It’s easy for you to talk,” she replied. “Tell me how I’d ever get along without working?”
“I’ll keep you up any time you say,” he responded, caressing her hand that rested on the table, “and don’t think I’m spoofing you, either. I’ll give you anything you want, and no strings tied to it. I mean it. Don’t think I hand this spiel around ev’ry night! You’ve had me going ever since I first saw you—you’ve got the class and I know it.”
She looked at him meditatively—it would be necessary to “call him down” for this open proposal, but—just saying it to herself—why shouldn’t she be supported by a man? How would she ever get a breathing spell otherwise?
“When I take money from any man I’m going to be married to him first,” she replied, “and don’t think I’m giving you any hints, either. ’F I wanted to be free and easy with men, I’ve had plenty of chances before this—plenty. I hate to work at something I don’t care much for, sure, ev’ry girl does, but it’s better than living with some fellow till he gets tired of you and then passing on to some one else. They’ll never play baseball with yours truly ’f she can help it.”
He was divided between admiration for her “spunk” and candor, and a suspicion that she might be testing him.
“I’ll stop dealing from the bottom of the deck,” he said, slowly. “I’ve known you for two years, now, Blanche, and it’s time that we came to some understanding. This loving stuff’s all apple-sauce to me—you always think you’re nuts about a girl till she falls for you, and then you change your eyesight. I’ve had one bum marriage in my life, and I never was fond of castor-oil and carbolic acid on the same spoon. If you’ll hook up with me, old girl, I’ll treat you white, but I can’t hand out any signed testimonials about how long it’ll last, for you ’r me. What’s the use of all this worrying about next week and next year? It’s like not sitting down to your meal, ’cause you don’t know what you’re going to have for dessert.”
“Well, what’s the proposition?” she asked, surprised at her own lack of indignation, and liking his unveiled attitude.
“I’ll get you a swell apartment up in the West Seventies,” he said, “and you can put up a bluff at studying something—music ’r acting ’r something like that—just a stall to keep your folks in the dark. I’ll get a wealthy dame I know to take an interest in you, see? She’ll be the blind. She’s a good sport and she’ll do anything for me. You’ll be known as a protégée of hers, and your family’ll never know I’m putting up the coin. Why, it’s done ev’ry day in the year.”
“So, I’m to be your miss-tress, like they say in the novels,” Blanche answered, with a struggle of irritation and tired assent going on within her. “I suppose I ought to bawl you out for your nerve, but I won’t take the trouble. I’d like to really study something, and get somewheres, but I’m not so sure I want to take it like that.”
“What’s the matter, don’t you like my style?” he asked.
“You’re not so bad ’s far as you go,” she replied, “but I don’t happen to be in love with you.”
“What of it?” he asked. “You know you like to be with me—that’s what counts. Most of this love stuff’s a lot of hokum, that’s all. I never saw a couple in my life that stayed crazy about each other for more than two years, and that’s a world’s record. If they stick to each other after that it’s because they haven’t got nerve enough to make a break, ’r for the sake of their kid, ’r a hundred other bum reasons. But they’ve lost the first, big kick ev’ry time—don’t fool yourself.”
“I don’t know about that,” she said slowly. “’F a girl finds a man that loves her for what she is—her ways of acting and talking—I don’t see why they can’t get along even ’f they do get tired of hugging and kissing all the time. They’ve got to have the same kind of minds, that’s it.”
“We-ell, how’s my mi-ind diff’rent from yours?” he asked, amused and not quite comprehending (she sure had acquired a bunch of fancy ideas since his last meeting with her).
“It’s this way, you don’t like to read much, real good books, I mean,” she replied, “and you never go to swell symf’ny concerts where they play beautiful music, and you don’t care for paintings and statues and things like that. I never thought much of them myself, once upon a time, but I’m beginning to get wise to what I’ve been missing. I mean it. I’ve been going around for a long time with a fellow that likes those things, and I’m not as dumb’s I used to be.”
Campbell laughed inwardly—doggone if she hadn’t become “highbrow” since their last time together! This was an interesting, though absurd, turn of affairs. She had probably been mixing with some writer or painter, who had stuffed her head with “a-artistic” poppycock, which she didn’t understand herself, but which she valued because it was her idea of something grand and elegant. Girls like Blanche were often weathercocks—not satisfied with their own lack of talent and ready to be moved by any outburst of novel and impressive hot air that came along. Well, it would be easy to simulate a response to her new interests and captivate her in that way, unless the other man had already captured her.
“How do you know I don’t like those things?” he asked. “I’ve never talked much about them because I never knew they mattered to you. I thought you believed that this guy, Art, was a second cousin to artesian wells. How was I to know?”
She caught the presence of an insincerity in his glibness.
“’F they’d been first on your mind, you couldn’t have helped talking about them,” she replied. “Anyway, ’f I ever went to live with you, I’d never do it roundabout, like the thing you had in mind. I’m not much on lies and hiding things. When I leave home it’ll be a clean break, and anybody that doesn’t like it’ll have to mind his own business.”
“Well, I only wanted to make it easier for you,” he said. “If you don’t care whether your family gets sore, or not, it’s all the same to me.”
“Say, you talk as though I’d said yes to you,” she answered. “Don’t take so much for granted, Joe. I’ve listened to you like a good sport, instead of bawling you out, but I’m not going to rush off with you this week.”
“Now, now, I’m not trying to force myself on you,” he said, soothingly.
She was a wary one, and no mistake, but it looked as though he finally had her on the run, and it was all a question of whether he cared to exert a little more patience and persuasiveness in the matter. Of course, he’d continue the game—he had nothing to lose, and it would be a distinction to have her lovingly in his arms, and he really liked her defiance and her immunity from ordinary wiles and blandishments. She was somebody worth capturing—no doubt of that. A degree of cruelty also moved within his reactions. Just wait till he had her where he wanted her—he’d do a little bossing around himself then, and if she didn’t like it....
When they departed from The Golden Mill, the whisky that she had had played tiddledywinks with her head, aided by the abrupt change from the heated cabaret to the cooler street air, and she felt an Oh-give-in-to-him-what’s-the-dif’ mood, and her thoughts grew mumbling and paralyzed. She swayed a bit on the sidewalk and he put an arm around her waist, to steady her.
“Say, Blanche, don’t pass out on me,” he said, anxiously. “We’ll go over to my shack now, that’s a good girlie. I won’t eat you up, don’t be afraid.”
“I’ll go anywheres ... give my he-ead a rest ... feels like a rock ... that’s funny ... like a ro-ock,” she answered, mistily.
He hailed a cab, and on the way over to his apartment, she leaned her head on his shoulder and passed into a semidrowsy state, while he caressed her with a careful audacity and smiled to himself. Well, well, Blanche Palmer in the little old net at last—what a blessing liquor was, if you kept your own head.
When they reached his apartment—two ornate, untidy rooms with mahogany furniture, and signed theatrical photographs, and an air of cheaply ill-assorted luxury—he wanted her to rest upon one of the couches, but her head had grown a bit clearer by this time, and admonishings were once more faintly stirring within it. Where was she? Where?... In Campbell’s apartment.... So, he’d gotten her there at last. Damn, why was everything trying to revolve around her? This wouldn’t do at all.... She must ... must ... must get herself together. Tra, la, la, what on earth was the dif’? It would be nice to let the whole world go hang for one night, and feel a man’s body against hers, and stop all of this fighting and objecting. Sweet, all right, sweet, but no ... no ... no ... he’d be getting her too easy ... and all he wanted was ’nother party with ’nother girl ... she knew ... and she just didn’t love ... oh, love, nothing ... better to feel good and be yourself ... but she didn’t trust him and she wouldn’t have him ... just wouldn’t have ... yes, she would ... no-o ... she’d simply have to pull herself toget