“ Rue Pigalle in the early evening has a sombre beauty—gray as are most Paris streets and other-worldish. To those who know the district it is the Harlem of Paris and rue Pigalle is its dusky Seventh Avenue. Most of the colored musicians that furnish Parisians and their visitors with entertainment live somewhere in the neighborhood of rue Pigalle. Some time during every day each of these musicians makes a point of passing through rue Pigalle. Little wonder that almost any day will find Paul Watson going his shuffling way up the same street. ”

“ If you ask a member of the Intelligentsia he will probably sneer at you and ask who wants to know. The Intelligentsia are very particular about observing the admonition against putting a herd of swine on an oyster diet, so particular in fact that they have become much more adept at discovering pigpens than they are at digging pearls. But if you ask a truly intelligent person he will tell you in a jiffy that intelligence is simply the ability to solve a new problem, nothing more, nothing less. ”

“ One can admire truly intellectual types like Sinclair Lewis, Dreiser, H.L.M., and Shaw, men who are in every respect creative critics and thinkers. What one cannot swallow is this carrion prostrated at the altar of Liberalism when as a matter of fact their lying hearts are as faint as they are insipid. ”

“ It seems strange that anything so horrible as that wholesale slaughter could bring about any good and yet there was something of a smoothing quality about even its baseness. There has never been such equality before or since such as that which the World War brought. Rich men fought by the side of paupers; poets swapped yarns with dry-goods salesmen, while Jews and Christians ate corned beef out of the same tin. Along with the general leveling influence came France’s pardon of her prisoners in order that they might enter the army. Paul Watson became free and a French soldier. ”

“ Group criticism of current writings, morals, life, politics, or religion is always ridiculous, but what could be more ridiculous than the wholesale condemnation of a book which only one-tenth of the condemnators have or will read. And even if the book was as vile, as degrading, and as defamatory to the character of the Harlem Negro as the Harlem Negro now declares, his criticisms would not be considered valid by an intelligent person as long as the critic had had no reading contact with the book. ”

“ There are exits in each end of the car—right and left.
Action.—Before the curtain goes up there is the sound of a locomotive whistle and a stopping engine, loud laughter, many people speaking at once, good-natured shrieks, strumming of stringed instruments, etc. The ascending curtain discovers a happy lot of Negroes boarding the train dressed in the gaudy, tawdry best of 1900. They are mostly in couples—each couple bearing a covered-over market basket which the men hastily deposit in the racks as they scramble for seats. ”

“ Van Vechten will be spoken of as a kindly gent rather than as a moral leper exploiting people who had believed him to be a sincere friend.
I for one, and strange as it may sound, there are others, who believe that Carl Van Vechten was rendered sincere during his explorations and observations of Negro life in Harlem, even if he remained characteristically superficial. Superficiality does not necessarily denote a lack of sincerity, and even superficiality may occasionally delve into deep pots of raw life. What matter if they be flesh pots? ”

“ According to the ultra-advanced notions of the great majority of this secret order if it were not for the Intelligentsia this crippled old world would be compelled to kick up its toes and die on the spot. ”

“ In writing Nigger Heaven the author wavered between sentimentality and sophistication. That the sentimentality won out is his funeral. That the sophistication stung certain Negroes to the quick is their funeral.
The odds are about even. Harlem cabarets have received another public boost and are wearing out cash register keys, and entertainers’ throats and orchestra instruments. The so-called intelligentsia of Harlem has exposed its inherent stupidity. And Nigger Heaven is a best seller. ”

“ The rattler is a ventriloquist. His whirr sounds to the right, to the left, straight ahead, behind, close under foot—everywhere but where it is. Woe to him who guesses wrong unless he is prepared to hold up his end of the argument! Sometimes he strikes without rattling at all.
Inside, Sykes heard nothing until he knocked a pot lid off the stove while trying to reach the match safe in the dark. He had emptied his pockets at Bertha’s.
The snake seemed to wake up under the stove and Sykes made a quick leap into the bedroom. ”

“ Again there has been no realization that Mary Love is the least life-like character in the book, or that it is she who suffers most from her creator’s newly acquired seriousness and sentimentality, she who suffers most of the whole ensemble because her creator discovered, in his talented trippings around Manhattan, drama at which he could not chuckle the while his cavalier pen sped cleverly on in the same old way yet did not—could not spank. ”

“ The people are laughing and talking for the most part and pay no attention. Effie is laughing and talking to those around her and does not hear the tirade. The eating is over and everyone is going behind the curtain. John and Emma put away their basket like the others, and sit glum. Voice of Master-of-ceremonies can be heard from beyond curtain announcing the pas-me-la contest. The contestants, mostly girls, take the floor. There is no music except the clapping of hands and the shouts of “Parse-me-lah” in time with the hand-clapping. ”

“ In other words if the Intelligentsia were to stick their divinely appointed noses a little higher into the ethereal regions and withdraw themselves completely from the tawdry field of life that field would soon become a burial ground for the rest of humanity. ”

“ The place as we entered seemed to be a chaotic riot of raucous noise and clashing color all rhythmically merging in the red, smoke filled room. And there I saw Cordelia savagely careening in a drunken abortion of the Charleston and surrounded by a perspiring circle of handclapping enthusiasts. ”

“ One young lady, prominent in Harlem collegiate circles, spoke forth in a public forum (oh yes, they even have public forums where they spend their time announcing that they have not read the book, and that the author is a moral leper who also commits literary sins) , that there was only one character in Nigger Heaven who was true to type. This character, the unwitting damsel went on, was Mary Love. It seems as if all the younger Negro women in Harlem are prototypes of this Mary Love, and it is pure, poor, virtuous, vapid Mary, to whom they point as a typical life model. ”

“ They are by far more to be despised than the “morons” whom they single out with such avidity; for the latter do at least make an attempt to earn their salt, and to express themselves honestly, while the Intelligentsia steal all they can get away with and never do anything unless it be in the attitude of a dethroned prince who suddenly has to go to work. ”

“ The world owes about as much to the rank and file of this society as a Negro slave owes to Georgia. Besides a few big words added to the lexicon and one or two hifalutin’ notions about the way the world should be run, the contribution of Intelligentsia to society is as negligible as gin at a Methodist picnic. This is not to discount the many notable contributions by really intelligent men and women who didn’t know that such a society existed until insignificant nincompoops with their eyes set towards enhancing their own positions in society, made them honorary members. ”

“ Delia never looked up from her work, and her thin, stooped shoulders sagged further.
“Ah aint for no fuss t’night Sykes. Ah just come from taking sacrament at the church house.”
He snorted scornfully. “Yeah, you just come from de church house on a Sunday night, but heah you is gone to work on them clothes. You ain’t nothing but a hypocrite. One of them amen-corner Christians—sing, whoop, and shout, then come home and wash white folks clothes on the Sabbath.” ”

“ He reads H. L. M. and George Jean Nathan, knows his Freud from cover to cover, and has an ability for spotting morons which is positively as uncanny as the ability of a Texas bloodhound to sniff a nigger. If he’s a man he is as incapable of attending to his own affairs and doing something once in a while, as a hobo is incapable of paying a month’s rent. All this goes for the feminine Intelligentsia, with this added distinction—they sneer at every homely virtue, including taking care of babies and frying eggs without breaking the yolks. ”

“ They mull over best sellers and can call authors’ names by the scores. Literature for them is measured by its mystic qualities or its pornographical settings; music by its aberrations from generally accepted forms; art by its illusiveness. ”

“ Negroes are alleging that Carl Van Vechten has not told the truth. It really makes no difference to the race’s welfare what such ignoramuses think, and it would seem that any author preparing to write about Negroes in Harlem or anywhere else (for I hear that DuBose Heyward has been roundly denounced by Charlestonian Negroes for his beautiful Porgy) should take whatever phases of their life that seem the most interesting to him, and develop them as he pleases. ”

“ John (applauding loudly) . If dat Effie can’t step nobody can.
Emma. Course you’d say so cause it’s her. Everything she do is pretty to you.
John (caressing her) . Now don’t say that, Honey. Dancing is dancing no matter who is doing it. But nobody can hold a candle to you in nothing.
(Some men are heard tuning up—getting pitch to sing. Four of them crowd together in one seat and begin the chorus of “Daisies Won’t Tell.” John and Emma grow quite affectionate.)
John (kisses her) . Emma, what makes you always picking a fuss with me over some yaller girl. [Pg 9] What makes you so jealous, nohow? ”

“ Certainly there is more excuse for innocent idiocy and moronesia than there is for the sophisticated bigotry of these fair folk who, in the secret recesses of their inner consciousness, lay claim to membership in the Intelligentsia. ”

“ John. It was Emmaline nearly made us get left. She says I wuz smiling at Effie on the street car and she had to get off and wait for another one.
Emma (removing the hatpins from her hat, turns furiously upon him) . You wuz grinning at her and she wuz grinning back jes lake a ole chessy cat!
John (positively) . I wuzn’t.
Emma (about to place her hat in rack) . You wuz. I seen you looking jes lake a possum.
John. I wuzn’t. I never gits a chance tuh smile at nobody—you won’t let me.
Emma. Jes the same every time you sees a yaller face, you takes a chance. ”

“ He crept an inch or two toward her—all that he was able, and she saw his horribly swollen neck and his one open eye shining with hope. A surge of pity too strong to support bore her away from that eye that must, could not, fail to see the tubs. ”

“ The heat streamed down like a million hot arrows, smiting all things living upon the earth. Grass withered, leaves browned, snakes went blind in shedding and men and dogs went mad. Dog days!
Delia came home one day and found Sykes there before her. She wondered, but started to go on into the house without speaking, even though he was standing in the kitchen door and she must either stoop under his arm or ask him to move. He made [Pg 43] no room for her. She noticed a soap box beside the steps, but paid no particular attention to it, knowing that he must have brought it there. ”

“ They simply give art and artists a black eye with their snobbery and stupidity; and their false interpretations and hypocritical evaluations do more to heighten suspicion against the real artist on the part of the ordinary citizen than perhaps any other single factor in the clash of art and provincialism. ”

“ Look heah, you cake walkers—y’all oughter git up and limber up yo’ joints. I heard them folks over to St. Augustine been oiling up wid goose-grease, and over to Ocala they been rubbing down in snake oil.
A Woman’s Voice. You better shut up, Wesley, you just joined de church last month. Somebody’s going to tell the pastor on you.
Wesley. Tell it, tell it, take it up and smell it. Come on out you John and Emma and Effie, and limber up.
John. Naw, we don’t wanta do our walking steps—-nobody won’t wanta see them when we step out at the hall. But we kin do something else just to warm ourselves up. ”

“ It was the talk of Montmartre. Paul Watson takes a woman to Gavarnni’s every night for dinner. He comes to the Flea Pit less frequently, thus giving the other musicians plenty of opportunity to discuss him.
“How times do change. Paul, the woman-hater, has a Jane now.”
“You ain’t said nothing, fella. That ain’t all. She’s white and an ’merican, too.”
“That’s the way with these spades. They beat up all the white men they can lay their hands on but as soon as a gang of golden hair with blue eyes rubs up close to them they forget all they ever said about hatin’ white folks.” ”

“ Ah aint got a whole lot lake you. Nobody don’t git rich in no white-folks’ kitchen, nor in de washtub. You know Ah aint no school-teacher an’ nothin’ lak dat.
(John puts his arm about her.)
John. It’s all right, Emma. But our daughter is bad off—run out an’ git a doctor—she needs one. Ah’d go if Ah knowed where to find one—you kin git one the quickest—hurry, Emma.
Emma (looks from John to her daughter and back again.) She’ll be all right, Ah reckon, for a while. John, you love me—you really want me sho’ nuff? ”

“ Beauty ... her breath had been perfumed ... Beauty ... Beauty ... the sands had been silver ... Beauty ... Beauty ... they left the train ... Melva walked music ... Melva said ... don’t make me blush again ... and kissed him ... Alex stood on the steps after she left him and the night was black ... down long streets to ... Alex lit a cigarette ... and his heels clicked ... Beauty ... Melva ... Beauty ... Melva ... and the smoke made the night blue....
Melva had said ... don’t make me blush again ... and kissed him ... and the street had been blue ... one can love two at the same time ... ”

“ It is the custom of certain men and boys who frequent these places to idle up and down the aisle until some female is seen sitting alone, to slouch down into a seat beside her, to touch her foot or else press her leg in such a way that it can be construed as accidental if necessary, and then, if the female is wise or else shows signs of willingness to become wise, to make more obvious approaches until, if successful, the approached female will soon be chatting with her baiter about the picture being shown, lolling in his arms, and helping to formulate plans for an after-theatre rendezvous. ”

“ If we is spatting we done had our last one. (She stands and clenches her fists.) Ah, mah God! He’s in there with her—Oh, them half whites, they gets everything, they gets everything everybody else wants! The men, the jobs—everything! The whole world is got a sign on it. Wanted: Light colored. Us blacks was made for cobble stones. (She muffles a cry and sinks limp upon the seat.)
Voice Inside. Miss Effie Jones will walk for Jacksonville with Mr. John Turner in place of Miss Emmaline Beazeley.
Scene III—Dance Hall
Emma springs to her feet and flings the curtains wide open. ”

“ Orchestra consists of guitar, mandolin, banjo, accordion, church organ and drum.
Master (on platform) . Couples take yo’ places! When de music starts, gentlemen parade yo’ ladies once round de hall, den de walk begins. (The music begins. Four men come out from behind the platform bearing a huge chocolate cake. The couples are “prancing” in their tracks. The men lead off the procession with the cake—the contestants make a grand slam around the hall.)
Master. Couples to de floor! ”