Emily Hahn

“ No nice girl will admit the possibility of harm. She ignores your remark, therefore, by rising and starting for the dining car. It is seven cars away, and some of the long passages are difficult to manage without staggering from side to side. Hold her elbow in a firm grasp, squeezing it as she stumbles against you, and laugh a good deal. You are much better friends when you reach the diner.
She looks out of the window at the sweeping darkness and you watch her and she knows it. The speed of the train and the feeling of not belonging anywhere are very exciting. ”

“ We find ourselves in a restless age, a time of experiment; when almost everyone is urged by the same desire to revise and improve.
It is the Golden Age of good living, consequently it is the age of impending boredom. In such an atmosphere we would expect to find a development of parlour pastimes. These conditions, this pleasant leisure, this much vaunted, generally diffused prosperity, this impatience for hallowed tradition and the time-honoured devices for improving one’s time, have given rise to crossword puzzles, introspection, and modern seduction. ”

“ Tonight there is a tension in the air between you, and you do not know what to do about it. She has been quarreling with her family and you have discussed it backwards and forwards and all around; there was no more to say.
“I don’t understand you at all,” repeat for the twentieth time. “You’re so intelligent about everything but your own affairs. Can’t you see that you must attack your own problem with an impersonal sort of attitude? It’s the only sensible way to do anything.” ”

“ Her shining eyes are fixed on something invisible that hovers in the room just over your head. Mystery, or the answer to all mystery? A new confidence, a new belief, are coming into her life. It is like being kissed in a dream ”

“ You’re such a decent kid, and I don’t think you know a thing about life.”
“Oh,” she cries pettishly, “there you go again! I guess I can take care of myself!”
“Yes, but this is what worries me. I don’t like the idea of these long-haired kids filling your mind up with free love theories and all that. You’re an intelligent kid too, and youngsters like you are sort of experimental.”
“But——”
“Wait a minute. You don’t know; you can’t tell now how you might feel one of these days. It’s dangerous, this stuff. You may not know it, but we’re a pretty rotten lot. Most men are out for what they can get.” ”

“ A co-ed is a well-protected person, in spite of what may be read in the newspapers about her freedom. She is so hemmed in by public opinion—not the opinion of the outside world, but that of her own public, the campus—that it is with a distinct sense of guilt that she associates with anyone so foreign as an out-of-town visitor, be his appearance ever so distinguished. Not that Dorothy isn’t thrilled as well as apprehensive. ”

“ My dear child, you’ve been going to the movies. The natives are really dark—much more so than you seem to suspect. Of course once in a while you do find people, and if they are people at all, you understand, they mean much more to you than they would here, at home. That mode of life has given me a distressingly intense way of taking my friends, I find. You children with your great circles of acquaintances wouldn’t understand my attitude. ”

“ Eloise shakes her head quickly and decisively. “I didn’t ask you over!” she reminds you. It is a warning that she is on her guard; that she is a difficult proposition; that she is a Nice Girl.
“Well, gee, can’t a guy try to be human?” Your voice should be petulant and youthful. “I was just trying to be human. I was lonesome.” It is a plaintive speech, and you look plaintive. But nevertheless you are a masculine being, strong and undefeated. Probably it is the bathing suit, or perhaps the air with which you light your cigarette. Eloise gazes at your profile in uncertainty. ”

“ Two of the boys are working; talking in low tones to their customers; and the third is drowsing in the corner, behind the two-foot square bootblacking establishment. He has long since read all the ancient Libertys and Colliers and newspapers that are lying on the chairs. The air is full of gentle boredom.
Then through the door comes a stranger. She looks about the shop hesitantly; the two men that are sprawled out having haircuts glance at her apathetically through the mirror. Not you, however. You leap to position behind your chair and wave your towel encouragingly, almost lovingly. ”

“ Stop the car on the edge of the Hawk Bluff, which in the sober light of common day looks out over a not-very-far-down golf course, but which now hangs over mysterious abysses.
“Dorothy,” you say.
It has come at last; she knows it and turns to you with the fatal feeling of one for whom circumstance has been too strong. ”

“ There is another silence. Some perverse shyness keeps her from saying anything. It is almost as if, against her own will, she waits for something fateful. But say no more. Pat her hand and settle back, looking up at the top of the car.
Slowly, followed by a mysterious growth of little green cabins, the porter approaches you, slamming down chair-covers, manipulating linen. ”

“ An ugly old thing like me....”
“Oh, Arthur!” She cries out in pain. “Arthur, how could you think of such a thing! Look at me!”
But don’t. She turns your face toward hers by gripping your ears. You are crying, and looking at you she begins to cry too, in pity.
“Arthur, how could you? How could you hurt me so?”
Put your arm around her and pat her on the shoulder.
“Never mind, Ann. Never mind, old girl, it’s all right.” ”

“ The growth of the Church, with its set ideas of these subjects and its zeal to catalogue the sins of mankind and to deal out punishment accordingly, gave to seduction its greatest impetus. At no other time in history has such a vast amount of time and thought been expended on one idea. It became a sin, and therefore a necessity.
Added to the stimulation of the churchly attitude was that of the caste system, which made seduction the only means of communication between the classes. The Renaissance introduced a new fashion, persuasion by means of bribery. ”

“ She is curled up among the cushions—she is a supple little thing, and seems to be comfortable, but you are leaning forward with your hands clasped between your knees, which are rather ludicrously raised from the floor because the couch sags. Anyway, it is never becoming to you to argue; your face grows red and you look more clumsy than ever. She is enjoying the new sensation of seeing you ill at ease, and because of her. In the office it is so often the other way around. ”

“ They are in a canoe, and the sun has just set, leaving behind it streaks of fading pink in the sky and on the water. It is spring, and the woods in the distance are losing their starkness. There is no breeze; the air is full of a premature languor that is not quite warmth. ”

“ Silence lives on the beach, except for the tiny wailing of the ukelele. Silently the water undulates and the moon creeps over the edge of it.
“Quit it!” says Eloise, giggling nervously. Do not answer. “Aw, quit!” Still you do not answer. “Please! You’re too strong. Oh, quit!”
The other ukelele still plays, spreading over the night a sweet layer of romance; singing of exotic love on a whiter, warmer beach in a more delicate world; singing of love, as though love were a thing to be sung.
4. YOU’RE NOT THE DOMESTIC TYPE
TYPE:
The sensitive young man with a predilection for virtuous married women. ”

“ You have a beautiful nature, Martha. You have a splendid mind that your family weren’t able to spoil. As soon as you are strong enough to cast off all the deadly conventions that they’ve tied you with, you’ll be able to do real things for the world. ”

“ Get up and fix the fire to hide your pleasure.
“You’re a sweet girl, Barbara. You’ve always been the only one of Emma’s friends I had any use for. You’re the only mutual friend we’ve ever had, I may say.”
“Thanks, Ben. Anyway I’m flattered that you’ve told me so much.”
“I wonder why I did. There’s something about you that makes people talk. What is it?”
“Is there?”
“I think it must be that you’re so honest, yourself. How do you happen to be so honest?”
“Why not? Most people are.”
“No they aren’t. Most women aren’t. Emma wasn’t. ”

“ You can’t work any conviction into your speeches if there are a lot of materialists around all the time. Oh, I ought to starve! How can I go on pretending like this?”
“Never mind. You’re getting there. There’s nothing wrong with a person that could get away from her environment as completely as you have. But I can see that it’s a struggle.”
“Thank you,” she says, gratefully. You walk on in silence.
“Martha,” you say at last, “I know one way out.” ”

“ You must drive a good way before the Sunday traffic is at last left behind.
“You drive well for not being used to the city,” she ventures.
“It’s good fun,” you explain. “Much more dangerous than the life out there. And you mean to say that you do a lot of driving? In streets like those in town? Brave girl!”
Safe from the eyes of any university official, she takes a cigarette. Your silence and proximity are very thrilling; there will be a lot to tell the room mate when she gets back. ”

“ A crude exhibition of brute strength is fascinating to most of us, deny it as we will. The psychological basis for the reaction of the subject is probably a feeling that she will not have to bear the responsibility for whatever may happen.
FEEL MY MUSCLE
The holiday crowd is thinning out. Dusk shrouds the less decorative elements of the beach—the ragged holes left by children and the empty, soiled paper lunch boxes. Those revelers who are left see only the long curving line of the shore and a mysterious intermittent foaming as the lazy waves crash slowly against the sand. ”

“ Walking home from the meeting of the Social Science Club, you are more quiet than usual. It is strange that you should be quiet at all; you aren’t that type. Both of you love to talk; your intimacy has grown up in spite of, rather than because of this tendency. ”

“ I should be distinctly annoyed with anyone who plucked my sleeve when I was busy, no matter how many hyacinths he might wish to call to my attention. No, the true sense of beauty thrives only where it is not watched. ”

“ Sunk in the crack of the chair is a discarded College Comics. She doesn’t want to buy another magazine; she wishes the man with the cap would stop bothering her with Eskimo Pies and perfume, and bananas and paper-backed novels. The train smells sooty. Large hard balls of soot keep falling into her lap. Outside the window is the same yellowed field that she has been watching all day. It twists and presents various corners to the passing train, but it’s the same field just the same, with the same wheat lining up into orderly ranks that fall apart into chaos as the train passes on. ”

“ Among the cars is one that goes a little more slowly even than the rest. It is a middle-aged Dodge touring car with two boys in the front seat, very much on the lookout. They pass the two little girls and call out experimentally cheerful and more or less expectant of rebuff. One of the girls looks oblivious and yet slightly more scornful, but the other smiles a little. On the chance of success, the driver of the car goes around the block and passes them again. As he disappears around the corner for the second time, the scornful girl suddenly relaxes. ”

“ Ever since then you have been seeing a good deal of each other, at little Russian restaurants where each pays his own check, at concerts where you each firmly buy your own tickets, and even at her home, where her family gazes upon you with disfavor and tries to persuade her to wear a hat when she goes out with you. ”

“ No one in the train is a real person; they are all simply part of an adventure, like the armies and mobs in the background of a moving picture. Even the man across the table—isn’t he simply part of it too? ”

“ It’s impossible for you to have a really earthly emotion.
She (somewhat irritated) : Why, how can you say such a thing?
You: You’re a strangely aloof child, you know.
She (after a pleased little silence) : That’s not nice of you.
You: Why not? It’s so nice of you, you know.
She: Oh, do you really think so? I’m sure I don’t try to be. No.... (with a charming smile) —you’re quite wrong. It’s the rest of them that are different. I’m really very normal.
You: Normal? Oh, my dear! And yet, after all, it’s not very funny. Perhaps it’s a tragedy.
She: What is?
You: Your attitude toward life. ”

“ Slowly she stands and picks up her suitcase as the porter reaches her chair in his constructive progress. Slowly she walks down the aisle to the Ladies’ Room. A sudden flush of thought as she gets there—she drops the bag and looks into the mirror, horror-stricken. Why didn’t she say something? What should she do now? Then as she thinks, she feels better. He’s simply coming to say good-night. Sure, he’ll probably try to kiss her, but—oh, well, stop thinking. Just the same she’ll wear her dressing gown to bed; no use giving him ideas. Everything seems so different on a train ”