登陆注册
5406400000176

第176章

"Anyhow, I reckon Mrs.Reardon's taking-off was a mercy.""She's better dead," said Susan.She had abhorred the old woman, even as she pitied and sheltered her.She had a way of fawning and cringing and flattering--no doubt in well meaning attempt to show gratitude--but it was unendurable to Susan.

And now that she was dead and gone, there was no call for further pretenses.

"You ain't going right away?" said Mrs.Tucker.

"Yes," said Susan.

"You ought to stay to supper."

Supper! That revolting food! "No, I must go right away,"replied Susan.

"Well, you'll come to see me.And maybe you'll be back with us.You might go farther and do worse.On my way from the morgue I dropped in to see a lady friend on the East Side.Iguess the good Lord has abandoned the East Side, there being nothing there but Catholics and Jews, and no true religion.

It's dreadful the way things is over there--the girls are taking to the streets in droves.My lady friend was telling me that some of the mothers is sending their little girls out streetwalking, and some's even taking out them that's too young to be trusted to go alone.And no money in it, at that.And food and clothing prices going up and up.Meat and vegetables two and three times what they was a few years ago.And rents!"Mrs.Tucker threw up her hands.

"I must be going," said Susan."Good-by."

She put out her hand, but Mrs.Tucker insisted on kissing her.

She crossed Washington Square, beautiful in the soft evening light, and went up Fifth Avenue.She felt that she was breathing the air of a different world as she walked along the broad clean sidewalk with the handsome old houses on either side, with carriages and automobiles speeding past, with clean, happy-faced, well dressed human beings in sight everywhere.It was like coming out of the dank darkness of Dismal Swamp into smiling fields with a pure, star-spangled sky above.She was free--free! It might be for but a moment; still it was freedom, infinitely sweet because of past slavery and because of the fear of slavery closing in again.She had abandoned the old toilet articles.She had only the clothes she was wearing, the thirty-one dollars divided between her stockings, and the two-dollar bill stuffed into the palm of her left glove.

She had walked but a few hundred feet.She had advanced into a region no more prosperous to the eye than that she had been working in every day.Yet she had changed her world--because she had changed her point of view.The strata that form society lie in roughly parallel lines one above the other.The flow of all forms of the currents of life is horizontally along these strata, never vertically from one stratum to another.

These strata, lying apparently in contact, one upon another, are in fact abysmally separated.There is not--and in the nature of things never can be any genuine human sympathy between any two strata.We _sympathize_ in our own stratum, or class; toward other strata--other classes--our attitude is necessarily a looking up or a looking down.Susan, a bit of flotsam, ascending, descending, ascending across the social layers--belonging nowhere having attachments, not sympathies, a real settled lot nowhere--Susan was once more upward bound.

At the corner of Fourteenth Street there was a shop with large mirrors in the show windows.She paused to examine herself.

She found she had no reason to be disturbed about her appearance.Her dress and hat looked well; her hair was satisfactory; the sharp air had brought some life to the pallor of her cheeks, and the release from the slums had restored some of the light to her eyes."Why did I stay there so long?" she demanded of herself.Then, "How have I suddenly got the courage to leave?" She had no answer to either question.Nor did she care for an answer.She was not even especially interested in what was about to happen to her.

The moment she found herself above Twenty-third Street and in the old familiar surroundings, she felt an irresistible longing to hear about Rod Spenser.She was like one who has been on a far journey, leaving behind him everything that has been life to him; he dismisses it all because he must, until he finds himself again in his own country, in his old surroundings.

She went into the Hoffman House and at the public telephone got the _Herald_ office."Is Mr.Drumley there?""No," was the reply."He's gone to Europe."

"Did Mr.Spenser go with him?"

"Mr.Spenser isn't here--hasn't been for a long time.

He's abroad too.Who is this?"

"Thank you," said Susan, hanging up the receiver.

She drew a deep breath of relief.

She left the hotel by the women's entrance in Broadway.It was six o'clock.The sky was clear--a typical New York sky with air that intoxicated blowing from it--air of the sea--air of the depths of heaven.A crescent moon glittered above the Diana on the Garden tower.It was Saturday night and Broadway was thronged--with men eager to spend in pleasure part of the week's wages or salary they had just drawn; with women sparkling-eyed and odorous of perfumes and eager to help the men.The air was sharp--was the ocean air of New York at its delicious best.And the slim, slightly stooped girl with the earnest violet-gray eyes and the sad bitter mouth from whose lips the once brilliant color had now fled was ready for whatever might come.She paused at the corner, and gazed up brilliantly lighted Broadway.

"Now!" she said half aloud and, like an expert swimmer adventuring the rapids, she advanced into the swift-moving crowd of the highway of New York's gayety.

同类推荐
热门推荐
  • 寻缘三生石之倾城皇后

    寻缘三生石之倾城皇后

    纳尼?!好玩不玩玩穿越?虽然在现代没什么值得眷恋的,但是这不符合逻辑啊,拜托拜托,我只是在做梦,老天啊,你别耍我了,有没有人能告诉我回现代的方法啊。冷酷王子?这是校园小说里才会出现的情节吧,不对,貌似这个冷酷男好像不是天生就是冷酷的,既然一时半会回不去,就现在这里研究一下这个冷酷男吧。什么,居然有个神秘的老奶奶告诉我这里是我的家乡?怎么回事?难道我本来就是一个古代人?这么说,回不去了,好吧,顺其自然吧。谁知一波未平一波又起,这个该死的冷酷男干什么啊!居然把我召入宫女扮男装当乐师?告诉我,到底还会发生多少荒唐至极的事情?
  • 佛说圣庄严陀罗尼经

    佛说圣庄严陀罗尼经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 医妃嫁到,邪王轻点宠

    医妃嫁到,邪王轻点宠

    风萧萧作为超现代的天才古医学的领军人物,命中注定有此一劫!待她穿越而来,便被迫替嫁出嫁给最最恐怖的九王。他们达成共识,在相处的时间慢慢的推移,两个人开始心有灵犀。时间推移,当他的脸被治好之后,他们的合作已然结束,但是他们的关系该何去何从呢?【情节虚构,请勿模仿】
  • 唐朝的四季

    唐朝的四季

    没有重生,没有穿越,没有改变自己和改变世界,只想缅怀一下曾经的那段时光。唐朝是一个名字,他的四季代表着他的初中、高中、大学以及工作以后的事情。一个人要经历多少,才能学会多少,也许还不一定能学到多少。不是每个人都能像葫芦娃那样一出生就能打妖怪的,毕竟,是人,不是神,而且是很真实的人。慢慢成长,慢慢学会成长,在不同的季节,看到不同的风景。
  • 中国赫哲族

    中国赫哲族

    本书围绕赫哲族文化从古至今发展的脉络,纵横式的叙述了赫哲族的历史、社会、人文、经济、政治等。具体、系统、全面地展示了赫哲族有史以来的文化生活,是一部反映赫哲族的翔实而有价值的历史资料。
  • 神山

    神山

    天仁寻梦来到神山,遇到来这里终生默默办学的李校长。李校长希望能在有生之年为孩子们建一间阅览室。天仁回到浦东,协助神山的县政府赴上海召开一场招商引资会,引诱发财痣到神山投资。发财痣发现神山脚下是金矿,大肆开发,还引进国外资金准备修建神山机场。天仁趁机吞并了发财痣和瘦老板的两家工厂,再与美国3W集团公司合资组建起浦东神山集团公司。集团董事局成立后的第一项决议就是捐建一所神山小学。玲儿组织了神山捐书会为山里的孩子们募集书籍,准备跟天仁一起到神山同时举行捐书仪式和捐书会集体婚礼。临行前夕,玲儿遇难,天仁毅然决然率领神山捐书会的年轻人前往神山……
  • 林徽因画传

    林徽因画传

    林徽因,1904-1955,原名林徽音,福建闽侯人。中国著名建筑学家、新月派女诗人,为中国第一位女性建筑学家,同时也被胡适誉为中国一代才女。
  • 心猿问道

    心猿问道

    参考《大话西游》,一名冒险家经历了离奇事故,来到西游的世界里,成为了情圣—至尊宝或名妙善。心猿问道千回百转难自弃,一生只为那一梦。锋火战烟江湖险,铭心刻骨锁情门。步步血水泪长流,踏入圣途意坚韧。天下风云由我辈, 新作《百花秦河》已经开启 QQ书友1群:315306571不问苍天听心猿。
  • 狩猎者游戏

    狩猎者游戏

    看巫蛊高手如何利用动物作案;看众目睽睽下如何实施完美绝杀;看传国玉玺、乾陵金简等被史海淹没的千年遗码;看女真和契丹两个失落民族的绝密档案;看大辽和大清难以置信的血统怪圈;看蒋介石、汪精卫、婉容、溥仪等历史名人的家族秘史;看操盘者滴水不漏令人拍案的狩猎计划;看超越心理极限的紧张情节;看突破想象空间的诡秘场景;看颠覆逻辑思维的反转结局
  • 向往的城市

    向往的城市

    她、他和她、她、他,本是毫无交集的陌生人,却因为一场特殊的缘分走到一起,变成一家人,时间让他们情义相融,爱让他们成长改变。在这个人不为己、天诛地灭的现实社会,书中男主人公,陆岩,这个成大器又心存大爱的男人既不浮夸,也不聒噪,默默的成就了一方净土,无声、无怨、无悔。这是我的第一部现代家庭都市情感小说,希望也会成为你的第一步人生导航。此书既现实也不失浪漫,生动有趣,是一部有意义和正能量的原创作品,欢迎各位看官宝宝们赏脸阅读!期待在书中遇见懂你的我和懂我的你。祝大家幸福美满,身体健康,万事如意!另此故事纯属虚构。