Albert Edwards

“ It sounded as if no one of the many bearings in the room had been oiled, as if each of the innumerable cogs in the machines were a misfit. The sound seemed like a tangible substance which could be felt. There was no room left in the shop for the noises of the street. If Gabriel had blown his horn on the sidewalk below, the silent women bent over the speeding machines would not have heard—they would have missed the Resurrection.
Dazed by this strange and fearsome environment, Yetta caught tight hold of her cousin's hand. ”

“ But the reality is necessary. I love you, Walter, and I'm not afraid of the word. You know what it means to me—all that it ever meant to any woman—and more. It means thinking only and above everything else of the other—and more than that. It means giving one's self without any 'if's'—and more than that too. I can't tell you what love is—just because the reality is so much bigger than any words. But of one thing I am sure. There can't be any regrets in love. Are you sorry it isn't Mabel who loves you? ”

“ But to the naïve listener, like Yetta, music is decorative. It appeals solely to the emotions. It is never interesting—it is either pleasing or displeasing. Yetta sat dreamily through the concert—half the time with closed eyes—and found it wonderful. There was too little chance for the play of sentiments in her life. Every waking hour she had to think. Tchaikovsky laid a caressing hand over the tired eyes of her intellect and showed beautiful things to her heart.
The next morning as Yetta went to the office she thought with some uneasiness of meeting Isadore. ”

“ The cases were full and so was the table and so were some of the chairs and there were books on the floor. Knowledge was a goal which her father had set before Yetta as almost synonymous with "goodness" and "happiness." It was a thing she had forgotten about in the sweat-shop, but for which her recent experience had given her an all-consuming hunger. No one who has been "sent to college," who has had an education thrust upon him, can realize how much she venerated books. When Longman brought her to his room, it seemed to her as if she had entered the home of her dreams. ”

“ I'm through pleading for you, Yetta. Let me plead a little for myself. What is it that makes me talk to you like this? It's not romance. Perhaps it isn't what you would call love. But I would call it that. It's a very desperate desire to forget all about myself and—as Isadore said—'be good to you.' Get up, darling, and sit here beside me. Let us talk over again all our plans of work. After all, work is more important than romance. ”

“ No Wise Man of all the ages has learned the trick of keeping her always at his side.
The memories of the day's stark realities would submerge Yetta. Back of her was the squalid flat, the snores of her loveless relatives. In her dark bedroom her one frayed dress was hung over the back of a chair, waiting for her to put it on and hurry through the dawn to Jake Goldfogle's Vest Shop. Routine—hopeless monotony! A prison tread—from the vitiated air and uneasy sleep of the tenement, so many steps to the cruel speed and inhumanity of the Machine. ”

“ She had heard Pick-Axe talk before. The girls had told her that the worst thing they had suffered during their imprisonment was what they had had to listen to, insults and obscenity and the mad ravings of the "drunks."
Although Yetta was not afraid nor surprised, her whole being shuddered under it. Her flesh seemed to contract in an effort to escape the contagion of such loathsomeness. For years she would turn suddenly pale at the barest memory of that torrent of abuse. Once Pick-Axe came close as if he was going to strike her, but the detective pulled him away. Yetta was almost sorry. ”

“ She was not reason's choice, for the intellect is colorless and Yetta was resplendent.
To admit the dominance of this irrational emotion was to abandon all his gods, to turn his back on his only religion. It is hard for most of us to realize the deep tragedy of Isadore's position. Few of us believe ardently in anything. We have a comfortable ability to keep our faith in things we know are false, a lazy credulity for exploded theories. We go on burning our incense at shrines the gods have deserted. We pretend to a love of liberty we do not feel. ”

“ But don't let books hypnotize you, Yetta. Schopenhauer said once that the learning of the West crumples up against the wisdom of the East like a leaden bullet against a stone wall. There's nothing in books but 'learning.' And you've got some of the Eastern wisdom, Yetta. It's part of your Semitic heritage. Treasure it. Don't ever let books come between you and your intimacy with life. One pulse beat of a live heart is worth all the printed words in a thousand books. ”

“ The first two years on The Clarion were a desperate struggle for Yetta. But after all, struggle is the surest sign of life. To herself she seemed dead. The collapse of her romance had left a hollow place in her spirit, which could not be filled by work—not even the frenzy of work by which each issue of The Clarion was achieved. But all this time life was gathering force within her, preparing to assert itself once more.
Our literature is full of the idea of Man, the Protector—a proposition which crumbles before the slightest criticism. The protective element in life is overwhelmingly feminine. ”

“ Isadore said, jumping at a point of attack, "is, I guess, the fundamental difference between us. You're a sort of mediævalist, living in a realm of romance and fairy stories—ruled over by your instinctive sense of life. You forget that we live in the age of reason. You said liberty consisted in abilities. Well, I believe that abilities bring obligations. Instead of jeering at reason and dialectics, I think it's our preeminent ability. We, reasoning animals, have a duty to use and perfect—and trust—our intellects. And the Socialist theory is the biggest triumph of the human mind. ”

“ In the months that followed Rachel's departure Yetta began to lose hope. She could see no promise of escape, and lethargic time gradually faded the colors of her dream. The flame of holy discontent which had blazed for a while in her soul threatened to go out. Sometimes she wondered what had happened to Rachel. But "Speed" eats up a person's power of wondering.
Yetta had been at the machine for a long time now. Her muscles had become hardened. She did not often suffer from weariness any more, but she had, without knowing it, commenced to go downhill. ”

“ If Yetta had asked him point-blank how long it was since he had been in love with Mabel, he would not have tried to deceive her. But the telling of it would only distress her.
"It may not sound to you like a pretty story," he ended. "I'm not proud of it. But I'm not exactly ashamed either. It's a sick sort of a world we live in. There are better days coming when the relations between men and women will be saner and sweeter—and finer. But I don't think more lightly of Beatrice because of this. She's a remarkable woman. Life has not been very kind to her. ”

“ His only non-Socialist friends were Mabel Train and Walter Longman. When he first took up the work of the Woman's Trade Union League, he had had a sweeping contempt for "bourgeois reformers." Gradually Mabel had forced him to abandon his hostility and at last to give her a high degree of respect. He was unable to understand her. But it was equally impossible for him to withhold his admiration for her consistency of purpose, her dogged persistence in a far from pleasurable career, her great ability, and her strong, straight intellect. He knew no other woman who was more steadfast than Mabel. ”

“ Most of the young men who tried to court her—and there was a constant stream of them, for she was a very attractive woman—fared badly. She was distressingly illusive. Her intellect was so lively that it was hard to admire her manifold charms. She wanted the people who talked to her to think. And she checked sentimentality with scornful laughter.
Things were further complicated for her would-be suitors by the fact that Mabel, when she was not very busy, was always accompanied by her room-mate Eleanor Mead. Eleanor did not look like a formidable duenna. ”

“ He paced the room aimlessly for several minutes, then filled his pipe and, turning out the light, went back to the window-seat. He was not exactly suffering. He felt himself miserably inert and dead.
But one thing he saw clearly—and it made him glad. Yetta's romance had come while she was still young. She was only twenty-two. Life would pick her up again. It might be Isadore, it might be some one else. But her pulse was too strong to let her decay. There are many real joys in life if you get rid of romance early enough. ”

“ With the fairest look of truth the whole muddle straightened out. That note on Mabel's desk had been Walter's definite break with her, an announcement of his new love. It was as plain as day. A letter like that would explain Mabel's raw humor. She would find Walter waiting for her on her doorstep. They would have supper together and never, never separate again. She began to smile at the thought of all the dumb, gratuitous misery of these last two days. She ran down the stairs of the Ninth Street station, dashed through the chaos of Sixth Avenue cars, and walked her fastest to Waverly Place. ”

“ Don't let's wreck things over a word, Yetta. 'Love' means so many things. Tell me what it is I feel for you. What is it that makes me thrill so to your kisses? What is it that makes me want you, Yetta, for all time and always? What is it makes me know I can win to usefulness, if you will help me? What is it that makes me risk losing what I want most in the world, for fear I may not be true and just to you? ”

“ Unless you people who are here this evening—and all the working people—make up your mind to make it impossible for some people to get fat off your misery, unless you get together to overthrow Capitalism, to establish Socialism, some of your babies are going to die of impure milk, others of adulterated food, more of T. B. Unless we can put these murderers out of business there will never be an end to this horrible, needless, inexcusable slaughter. ”

“ A function unused surely turns into an ache. Because Yetta felt no one dependent on her, life seemed barren and painful. The outer wrapper of herself—the hands with which she banged out copy on her typewriter, the feet which carried her about, the eyes and ears with which she watched and listened to the conflict of labor, the tongue with which she argued and [Pg 410] pleaded for money, the brain with which she pondered and planned—all were busy. But this hurrying activity did not touch the subtle inner substance of herself. ”

“ Broadway she was nearly blown off her feet. All the winds of heaven—the biting, penetrating winds of a late spring storm—were caught in Washington Square as in a funnel, and escaped through the narrow cañon of East Fourth Street. Although Yetta was late, she was surprised to find no other picket before the Crown Vest Company. They were always assigned in couples. Her surprise turned to distress when she recognized the "private detective" in the doorway. His real name nobody knew. He called himself Brennan, but the girls called him "Pick-Axe." He was the one they dreaded more than any other. ”

“ From every field of human knowledge Bergson was gathering his evidence, from the microscopic data of biology to the gigantic stellar facts beyond our vision, with merciless logic he was proving that the instrument with which we reason is not divine. "The God which has failed you," he said to Isadore, "is a false god. The brain, with which you created it, is only a faulty animal instrument, as liable to error as your eyes, for which you have been compelled to buy rectifying glasses." ”

“ The coal-miner, the lace-maker, the farm-laborer, the clerk—every one who worked for wages—was in the same manner being cheated out of some of the product of his labor. Individually the workingman is powerless. When men or women get together in a union, they are stronger and can sometimes win improvements in the conditions of their trade. But if they would all get together in one immense organization, if they would also vote together, they would be an overwhelming force in politics. They would rule society. They could install a new civilization based on Justice and Brotherhood. ”

“ I went away—stop and think a moment how very little you know of me—and you made a romance about me. Romance is a very dangerous thing. It's a sort of Lorelei song, Yetta. After all, our business is to push on down the River, not to stop and play with the fairies on the rocks. It's a real world we must live in, Yetta dear, not a dream, and the facts must be faced. Youth is worth more than anything else. Your kisses made me forget to think of you—Isadore reminded me."
"What are you trying to do, Walter?" ”

“ A man needs something more than routine work to keep him going. In all the idle moments scattered through his busy, exciting life—the minutes before he fell asleep, the times some jackal's cry had waked him in the night, all the intervals of waiting—he had thought of Mabel. And always he had asked himself if their long intimacy was to lead to nothingness. It seemed impossible. Surely she would feel his absence, miss him from her life and want him back. ”

“ Now and then shadows flit eastward—women, night workers, who [Pg 61] scrub out the great Broadway office buildings. They would be shadows even in broad daylight. Towards six one begins to hear sharper, hurrying footfalls—coming westward. The tide has begun to flow. It grows in volume with the increasing light. The congested tenements have awakened; by six the flood is at its height. So dense is the rush that it is hard to make way against it, eastward. So fast the flow that the observer can scarcely note the faces. It is the backs which catch the eye and leave an impress on the memory. ”