James Oppenheim

“ They were both silent, until finally Frances left him, dropped on the sand, and played with three dirty little children.
They had supper in a small city restaurant that stands a little beyond the noise of Coney; the meal consisted of peppery clam-chowder, crackers, and coffee, and neither enjoyed it. They felt more and more miserable and wished they hadn't come. They could not look each other in the face now.
Then after supper they went back to the empty sands. Shadows were lengthening on the sea, and a large, serene evening, full of cool air, began to deepen into twilight. ”

“ Crossing City Hall Park, he felt as if he were drugged; as if, in spite of his reason, Nature had opened his skull and charged his brain-cells, so that he acted for her and against himself. But seated in the Broadway car, he felt free again, and the fierce debate went on, only to end in a foolish outburst of joy that made him want to laugh and shout. ”

“ Was she not young herself? Could she condemn herself to a life of addressing envelopes, washing clothes, and eating in cheap restaurants? She could understand why lonely girls went to dance-halls and destruction. Anything seemed better than this. Better to live, she thought, whether in clean joy or downright sin, than to go on in this dead, unpulsing twilight.
And so, when she glanced into Edward's sad brown eyes, and felt the power of his unspoiled youth, there was nothing to do but follow where he led. ”

“ The crowd at the Bridge was suffocating, the trains jammed, and when at last they found seats and were borne over the Bridge and down through Brooklyn and out over the glaring Long Island flats, the car seemed to sweat with humanity. Yet Edward, gazing at the view, and seeing only Frances's black hat, her soft hair, and her determined profile, felt subtly thrilled. ”

“ And the next morning he wondered why the people in the cars and street seemed as usual, why they were not as amazingly alive as he was. He felt as if, by accident, he had stumbled on a new force of nature, that was to transform human life as soon as it became known among men. ”

“ At Coney Island they descended into a fighting blackness of people hemmed in by glittering plaster walls, noisy restaurants, merry-go-rounds, scenic railways, and the beating of bells and drums and blowing of brass. ”

“ He came no closer to the mystery for four years more; and then it came to him. It was a noon in spring when he was lunching in a large side-street restaurant, where clerks, stenographers, and office workers were cheaply and plenteously fed. He was one of four at table; two were girls, the other a pert and pleasant young salesman, seated opposite. The restaurant was overcrowded, and two made-up beauties, ten-dollar-a-week imitations of the newspaper pictures of "society" women, stood waiting and watching for seats. ”

“ They both ordered the same lunch, but neither ate much.
He noticed then that her dark-green dress became her, that her face was a little thin, that she was well proportioned of body. He could not conclude that she was beautiful, nor did it matter. It was no detail of eye or nose or mouth, but the whole wonderful personality, the woman, the something flaming in her that came and went in her expression and gesture. ”

“ Why, we couldn't have children on that, and we'd have to live in some cheap flat, and stint and slave and be miserable. Twenty a week is nothing in New York. I've seen enough of it. There's that Spaniard, Marcellus, lives in Hoboken—wife sick all the time—no children. How'd I come to be such a fool?"
But even then the car swung a long Curve and began to crawl up the incline of Brooklyn Bridge. Soon the roofs of Brooklyn sank lower, and beyond them the East River lay sunken between two cities, and all the night was strung and pierced by the lights ”

“ My father at fifty-five is getting forty a week—that's the limit. It's not fair to either of us to marry, and we can't have children. Suppose a child should come, though? We'd have to live in a tenement, and the kid wouldn't have a chance in the world. Besides, I want to break loose from clerking. I want to see the world."
And so the car passed Twenty-sixth Street, and he did not get out. ”