 Humorasque by Fanny Hearst. On either side of the bowery, which cuts through like a drain to catch its sewage, every man's land, a reeking march of humanity and humidity, steams with the excrement of 17 language, flung and patois, from tenement windows, fire escapes, curbs, stoops and cellars, whose walls are terrible and spongy with fungi. By that impregnable chemistry of race, whereby the red blood of the Mongolian and the red blood of the Caucasian become as oil and water in the mingling, mulberry street, bounded by 16 languages, runs its intact, Latin length of push carts, clothes lines, naked babies, drying vermicelli, black-eyed women in rhinestone combs, and perennially big with child. Whole families of buttonhole-makers, who first saw the blue and gold light of Sorrento, bent at homework, round a single gas flare, pomaded barbers of a thousand Neapolitan Amores, and then, just as suddenly, almost without osmosis, and by the mirrors stepping down from the curb, mulberry becomes Mott Street, hung in grill-work balconies, the moldy smell of poverty touched up with incense, orientals whose feet shuffle and whose faces are carved out of satin wood, forbidden women their white drugged faces behind upper windows, yellow children in Congress enough in Western clothing, a draughty area way with an oblique of gaslight and a black well of descending staircase, show windows of jade and tea and Chinese porcelains. More streets emanating out from Mott like a handful of crooked, rheumatic fingers than suddenly the bowery again, cowering beneath elevated trains, where men burned down to the butt-end of soiled lives, pass in and out and out and in of the knee-high, swinging doors, a veiny-nosed, acid-eaten race in themselves. Allen Street, too, still more easterly, and half as wide, is straddled its entire width by the steely, long-legged skeleton of elevated traffic, so that its third-floor windows no sooner shudder into silence from the rushing shock of one train than they are shaken into chatter by the passage of another. Indeed, third-floor dwellers of Allen Street, reaching out, can almost touch the serrated edges of the elevated structure, and in summer the smell of its hot rails becomes an actual taste in the mouth. Counters in turn look in upon this horizontal of life as they whiz by. Once in fact the blurry figure of what might have been a woman leaned out as she passed to toss into one Abram Cantor's apartment a short-stemmed pink carnation. It hit softly, unlittle Leon Cantor's crib, brushing him frequently across the mouth and causing him to pucker up. Where even in August noonday the sun cannot find its way by a chink, and babies lie stark-naked in the cavernous shade, Allen Street presents a sort of submarine and greenish gloom, as if its humanity were actually moving through a sea of aqueous shadows, faces rather bleached and shrunk from sunlessness as water can bleach and shrink, and then, like a shimmering background of orange vent and copper-flagged marine life, the brass shops of Allen Street, whole rows of them burn flamelessly and without benefit of fuel. To enter Abram Cantor's brasses was three steps down, so that his casement show window at best filmed over with a constant rain of dust ground down from the rails above was obscure enough, but crammed with copied loot of Kadive and Tsar. The seven-branch candlestick, so biblical and supplicating of arms, and urn shaped like Rebecca's of brass all beaten over with little pox, things, cups, trays, knockers, icons, gargoyles, bowls, and teapots, a symphony of bells in graduated sizes, jardinaires with fat sides, a pot-bellied samovar, a swinging lamp for the dead, star-shaped, against the door an octave of tubular chimes, prisms of voiceless harmony and of heatless light. Opening this door they rang gently like melody heard through water and behind glass. Another bell rang, too, in tilted sing-song from a pulley operating somewhere in the catacomb, rear of this lambent veil of things and things and things. In turn this pulley set in toll, still another bell, two flights up an Abram Cantor's tenement, which overlooked the front of whizzing rails and a rear wilderness of gibbet-looking clothes-lines, dangling perpetual specters of flapping union suits, and a mid-air flaky with soot. Often at lunch, or even the evening meal, this bell would ring in on Abram Cantor's digestive well-being, and while he hurried down, napkin-offened bib-fashion, still about his neck, and into the smoldering lanes of copper, would leave an eloquent void at the head of his well-surrounded table. The bell was ringing now, jingling in upon the slumber of his still-newer Cantor, snugling peacefully enough within the ammonia-depths of a cradle recently evacuated by Leon, here to pour impinged upon you. On her knees, before an oven that billowed forth hotly into her face, Mrs. Cantor, fairly fat and not yet forty, and at the immemorable task of plumbing a delicately swelling layer-cake with broom-straw, raised her face reddened and faintly moist. Isidore, run down and say your papa is out until six. If it's a customer, remember the first asking price is the two middle figures on the tag, and the last asking price is the two outside figures. See once with your papa, out to buy your little brother his birthday present, and your mother in a cake. If you can't make a sale for a first price, Isidore Cantor, aged eleven, and hunched with a younger Cantor over an oil-cloth-covered table, hunched himself still deeper in a border for a large crystal marble with a candy-stripe down its center. Isy, did you hear me? Yes, I'm—go down this minute. Do you hear? Rudolph, stop always letting your big brother get the best of you on marbles. Isy, don't let me have to ask you again. Isidore Cantor, I get some rhythmic tick to do. Let Esther go. Always Esther. Your sister stays right in the front room with her spelling. I get spelling too. Every time I ask that boy he should do me one thing. Right away he gets lessons. With me, that lessons talk. Don't go no more. Every time you get put down in school, I'm surprised there's a place left lower where they can put you. Working papers for such a boy like you. I awake. How I've worried myself. Violin lessons yet. Thirty cents a lesson out of your papa's pants while he slept. That's how I wanted to have in the family a profession. Maybe a musician on the violin. Lessons for you out of money I had to lie to your papa about. Honest, when I think of it, my own husband. It's a wonder I don't punch you just for remembering it. Rudolph, will you stop licking that cake pan? It's safe for your little brother Leon. Ain't you ashamed even on your little brother's birthday to steal from him? Ma, give me the spoon. I'll give you the spoon, Isidore Cantor, where you don't want it. If you don't hurry down, the way that bell is ringing, not one bite do you get out of your little brother's birthday cake tonight. I'm going, ain't I? Always on my children's birthdays, I mean the sets into this house. Rudolph, will you put down that bowl? Easy, for the last time, I ask you, for the last time. Erect now, Mrs. Cantor, lifted an expressive hand, letting it hover. I'm going, ma, for golly's sake, I'm going. Said her, recalcitrant one, shuffling off toward the staircase, shuffling, shuffling. Then Mrs. Cantor resumed her plumbing, and through the little apartment, its middle and only bedroom of three beds and a crib, lighted vicariously by the front room and kitchen, began to wind the warm, the golden-brown fragrance of cake in the rising. By six o'clock the shades were drawn against the dirty dusk of Allen Street, and the oil cloth-covered table dragged out there, and spread by Esther Cantor nine in years, in the sturdy little legs bulging over shoe-tops, in the pink chicks that sagged slightly of plumpness, and in the utter roundness of face and gaze, but mysteriously older in the little mother-lore of crib and knee-dantling ditties, and in the ropey length and thickness of the two brown plates down her back. There was an eloquence to that waiting table, laid out table, the print of the family already gathered about it. The dynastic high chair, thrown of each succeeding Cantor, an armchair drawn up before the paternal moustache cup, the ordinary kitchen chair of Manny Cantor, who spilled things, an oil cloth sort of bib dangling from its back, the little chair of Leon Cantor, cushioned in an old family album that raised his chin above the table. Even in cutlery the Cantor family was not lacking in variety, surrounding a centerpiece of thick Russian lace where Russian spoons washed in washed-off guilt. Forks of one, two, and three tines, steel knives with black handles, a heartshorn carving-knife, thick-lipped china in stacks before the armchair, a round four-pound loaf of black bread waiting to be torn, and a night on the festive mat of cotton lace, a cake of pinkly gleaming icing encircled with five pink little candles. At slightly after six Abram Cantor returned, leading by a resisting wrist, Leon Cantor, his stem-like little legs hit midship, as it were, by not sufficiently cut-down trousers and so narrow and bird-like of face that his eyes quite obliterated the remaining map of his features like those of a still-wet nesting, all except his ears. They poised at the sides of Leon's shaved head of black bristles, as if butterflies had just lighted their whispering, with very spread wings, their message, and presently would fly off again. By some sort of muscular contraction he could wiggle these ears at will, and would do so for a penny or a whistle, and upon one occasion for his brother Rudolph's dead rat so devised as to dangle from string and window before the unhappy passer-by. They were quivering now, these ears, but because the entire little face was twitching back tears and gulps of sobs. Abram, Leon, what is it? Her hands and her forearms instantly out from the business of kneading something meaty and flowery. Miss Cantor rushed forward, her glance quick from one to the other of them. Abram, what's wrong? I'll fiddle him. I'll fiddle him. The little pulling wrist still in clutch, Mr. Cantor, regarded his wife, the lower half of his face, well covered with reddish bristles, undershot, his free hand, and even his eyes violently lifted, to those who see in a man a perpetual kinship to that animal kingdom of which he is supreme, there was something undeniably anthropoidal about Abram Cantor, a certain simian width between the eyes and long rather agile hands with hairy backs. Hush it, cried Mr. Cantor, his free hand raised in threat of descent, and covering his small son to still more undersized proportions. Hush it, or by golly, I'll... Abram? Abram? What is it? Then Mr. Cantor gave vent in acridity of word and feature. Shlameel, he cried, Monser, Ganeth, Nibbish, by which, in smiting mother tongue, he branded his offspring with attributes of apostate and ne'er-dwell of idiot and thief. Abram? Shlameel, repeated Mr. Cantor, swinging Leon so that he described a large semicircle that landed him into the meaty and waiting embrace of his mother. Take him, you should be proud of such a little Monser for a son. Take him, and here you got back his birthday dollar, a fetal honest, when I think of it, a fetal. Such a rush of outrage seemed fairly to strangle Mr. Cantor, that he stood, hands still upraised, choking and inarticulate above the now frankly howling huddle of his son. Abram, you should just once touch this child, how he trembles. Leon, mama's baby, what is it? Is this how you come back when Papa takes you out to buy your birthday present? Ain't you ashamed? Mouth distended to a large and blackly hollow, oh, Leon, between terrifying spells of breath-holding, continued to howl. All the way to Naftal's toy store I drank him, a birthday present for a dollar his mother wants he should have, all right, a birthday present. I give you my word, till I am ashamed for Naftal. Every toy in his shelves is pulled down. Such a cow that shakes with his head. No, no, no. This from young Leon, beating at his mother's skirts. Again the upraised, but never quite descending hand of his father. Like golly, I'll no-know you! Abram, go away, baby, what did Papa do? Then Mr. Cantor broke into an actual tarantella of rage, his hands palms up and dancing. What did Papa do? she asked. She's got easy asking. What did Papa do? The whole shop, I tell you, is sheep with a bow inside when you squeeze on him. Games, I'll horn so he can holler my head off, such a knife like Izzy's with a scissors in it. Leon, I said, ashamed for Naftal. That's a fine knife like Izzy's so you can cut up with. All right, then. When I see how he hollers, such a box full of soldiers to have war with. $75 says Naftal. All right, then. I says, when I see how he keeps hollering, keep you $1.15 for him. I should make myself small for $0.15 more. $1.15, I says. Anything so he should shut up with his hollering for what he's seen in the window. He's seen something in the window he wanted, Abram? Didn't I tell you? A fetal, a $4 fetal, a musicur. So we should have another fetaler in the family for some $0.30 lessons. Abram, you mean he, our Leon, wanted a violin? Wanted, she says. I could punch him again this minute for how he wanted it. Do you little bum you chammer, mom, sir, I'll fiddle you. Across Mrs. Cantor's face, as she knelt there in the shapeless cotton-stuff uniform of poverty, through the very tenement of her body, a light had flashed up into her eyes. She drew her son closer, crushing his puny cheek up against hers, cupping his bristly little head in her, by no means, immaculate palms. He wanted a violin? It's come, Abram, the dream of all my life, my prayers, it's come. I knew it must be one of my children if I waited long enough and prayed enough. A musician, he wants a violin. He cried for a violin, my baby, why, darling, mama'll sell her clothes off her back to get you a violin. He's a musician, Abram. I should have known it the way he's fooling always around the chimes and the bells in the store. Then Mr. Cantor took to rocking his head between his palms. Oi, oi, the mother is crazier as her son. A musician, a fresher, you mean. Such an eater. It's a wonder he ain't twice too big instead of twice too little for his age. That's a sign, Abram. Geniuses, they all eat big. For all we know he's a genius. I swear to you, Abram, all the months before he was born I prayed for it. Each one before they came. I prayed it should be the one. I thought that time the way our Isidore ran after the organ grinder he would be the one. How could I know it was the monkey he wanted? When Isidore wouldn't take to it I prayed my next one, and then my next one should have the talent. I've prayed for it, Abram. If he wants a violin, please he should have it. Not with my money. With mine I've got enough saved, Abram. Them three extra dollars right here inside my own weights. Just that much for that cape down on Grand Street. I wouldn't have it now the way they say. The one blows up them. I tell you the woman's crazy. I feel it. I know he's got talent. I know my children so well. A father don't understand. I'm so next to them. It's like I can tell always everything that will happen to them. It's like a pen somewhere here, like in back of my heart. A pen in the heart she gets. For my own children I'm always a prophet I tell you. You think I don't know that. That terrible night after the pogrom, after we got out of Kyiv to across the border. You remember, Abram, how I predicted it to you then. How our money would be born too soon and not right for my suffering. Did it happen on the ship to America? Just the way I said it what? Did it happen just exactly how I predicted our life would break his leg that time playing on the fire escape. I tell you, Abram, I get a real pain here under my heart that tells me what comes to my children. Didn't I tell you how Esther would be the first in her confirmation class and our baby Boris would be redheaded? At only five years our Leon all by himself cries for a fiddle. Get it for him, Abram. Get it for him. I tell you, Sarah, I got a crazy woman for a gift. It ain't enough we celebrate eight birthdays a year with $1 presents each time and copper goods every day higher. It ain't enough that right tomorrow I got a $50 note over me from Saul Ginsburg. A $4 present she wants for a child that don't even know the name of a fiddle. Leon, baby, stop hollering. Papa will go back and get the fiddle for you now before supper. See, there's money here in her waist. Papa will go back for the fiddle, not $3 she save for herself. You can holler out of her for a fiddle. Abram, he's screaming so he he'd have a fit. He should have two fits. Darling, I tell you the way you spoil your children it will someday come back on us. It's his birthday night, Abram. Five years since his little head first lay on the pillow next to me. All right, all right, drive me crazy because he's got a birthday. Leon, baby, if you don't stop hollering you'll make yourself sick. Abram, I never saw him like this. He's green. I'll green him. Where is that old fiddle for Isidore? That's $0.75 one. I never thought of that. You broke it that time you got mad at Isidore's lessons. I'll run down. Maybe it's with the junk behind the store. I never thought of that fiddle. Leon, darling, wait. Mama'll run down and look. Wait, Leon, tell Mama finds you a fiddle. The rock screams, stopped then, suddenly, and on their very lustiest crest, leaving an echoing gash across silence. On willing feet of haste, Mrs. Cantor wound down backward the high, ladder-like staircase that led to the brass shop. Meanwhile, to a gnawing consciousness of dinner-hour, had assembled the house of Cantor. Attuned to the intimate atmosphere of the tenement, which is so constantly rent with cry of child, child-bearing, delirium, delirium tremens, Leon Cantor had held no impression into the motley den of things. There were Isidore already astride his chair, leaning well into center-table, for first vociferous tear at the four-pound loaf. Esther old at chores, settling an infant into the high chair, careful of tiny fingers and lowering the wooden bib. Easy's eating first again. Put down that loaf and wait until your mother dishes up, or you'll get a potch you won't soon forget. Say pop. Don't say pop me. I don't want no street-bump freshness from you. I mean pop. There was an uptown swelling and she brought one of them seventy-five cents candlesticks for the first price. Shlamil, chammer said Mr. Cantor, rinsing his hands at the sink. Didn't I always tell you it's the first price? Times two. When you see uptown business come in, haven't I learned it to you often enough? A slumber must pay for her nosiness. He entered then on poor shuffling feet. Manny Cantor so marred in the mysterious and ceramic process of life that the brain and the soul had stayed back sooner than inhabited him. Seventeen in years, in the down upon his face, and in growth, unretarded by any great nervosity of system, his vacuity of face was not that of childhood, but rather as if his light eyes were peering out from some hinterland and wanting so terribly and so dumbly to communicate what they beheld to brain cells closed against himself. At sight of Manny, Leon Cantor, the tears still wetly and dirtily down his cheeks, left off his black, fierce-eyed stare of waiting long enough to smile darkly. It is true, but sweetly. Get he up! he cried. Get he up! And then Manny, true to habit, would scamper and scamper. Up out of the trap-like stare-opening came the head of Mrs. Cantor, disheveled and a smudge of soot across her face, but beneath her arm, triumphant, a violin of one string and a broken back. See, Leon, what mama got? A violin, a fiddle. Look, the boat too I found. It ain't much, baby, but a fiddle. Ah, ma, that's my old violin. Gimme, I want it. Where'd you find— Hush up, Aisy. This ain't yours no more. See, Leon, what mama brought you? A violin. Now, you little chama, you got a fiddle. And if you ever let me hear you holla again for a fiddle, buy golly if I don't. From his corner Leon Cantor reached out, taking the instrument holding it beneath his chin, the bow immediately feeling, surely and lightly, for string. Look, Abram, he knows how to hold it. What did I tell you? A child that never in his life seen a fiddle, except a beggars on the street. Little Esther suddenly countered down-floor, clapping her chubby hands. Lucky, lucky, Leon! The baby ceased, clattering his spoon against the wooden bib. A silence seemed to shape itself. So black and so bristly of head, his little claw-like hands hovering over the bow, Leon Cantor withdrew a note, strangely round and given up, almost sobbingly, from the single string. A note of warmed, whining quality, like a baby's finger. Leon, da-link! Fumbling for string and for notes the instrument could not yield up to him, the bird-like mouth began once more to open widely and terribly under the orificial o-o. It was then Abram Cantor came down with a large hollow resonance of palm against that aperture, lifting his small son and depositing him plop upon the family album. Take that, by golly, one more whimper out of you, and if I don't make you black and blue, birthday or no birthday, dish up, Sarah, quick, or I'll give him something to cry about. The five pink candles had been lighted, burning pointedly and with slender little-smoke wisps. Regarding them owlishly, the tears dried on Leon's face, his little tongue licking up at them. Look how solemn he is, like he was thinking of something a million miles away, except how lucky he is he should have a birthday cake. Ah, ah, ah, don't you begin to holler again. Here, I'm putting the fiddle next to you. Ah, ah, ah. To a mill, plentily ladled out directly from stove to table, the Cantor family drew up, dipping first into the rich black soup of the occasion. All except Mrs. Cantor. Esther, you dish up. I'm going somewhere. I'll be back in a minute. Where are you going, Sarah? Won't it keep until— But even in the face of query Sarah Cantor was two flights down and well through the lambent aisles of the copper shop. Outside she broke into a run, along two blocks of the indescribable, bizarre atmosphere of Grand Street, then one block to the right. Before Mattel's show window, a jet of bright gas burned into a gibberwock land of toys. There was that in Sarah Cantor's face that was actually lyrical as, bumbling at the bosom of her dress, she entered. To Leon Cantor, by who knows what symphonic scheme of things, life was a chromatic scale, yielding up to him, through throbbing, living nerves of sheep-gut, the sheerst semitones of man's emotions. When he talked his Stradivarius beneath his chin, the book of life seemed suddenly translated to him in melody. Even Sarah Cantor, who still brewed for him on a portable stove carried from city to city and surreptitiously unpacked in hotel suites, the blackest of soups, and despite his protestation, would encase his ears of knights in an old homemade device against their flightiness, would oftentimes bleed inwardly at this sense of his isolation. There was a realm into which he went alone, leaving her as attached as the mirror's ticket purchaser at the box-office. At seventeen, Leon Cantor had played before the crowned heads of Europe, the aching heads of American capital, and even the shaved head of a South Sea prince. There was a layout of anecdotal gifts, from the molar tooth of the South Sea prince set in a South Sea pearl, to a blue enameled snuff-box encrusted with a rearing lion coat of arms of a very royal house. At eighteen came the purchase of a king's strativarius for a king's ransom, and acclaimed by Sunday supplements to repose of knights in an ivory cradle. At nineteen, under careful auspices of press agent, the ten singing digits of the son of Abram Cantor were insured at ten thousand dollars the finger. At twenty he had emerged surely and safely from the perilous quicksands which have sucked down whole little pollution worlds of infant prodigies. At twenty-one, when Leon Cantor played a Sunday night concert, there was a human queue curling entirely around the square block of the opera house, waiting its one, two, even three and four hours for the privilege of standing-room only. Usually these were Leon Cantor's own people pouring up from the lowly lands of the East Side to the white lands of the way, parched for music. These burning brethren of his, old men in that line, frequently carrying their own little folding camp-shares, not against weariness of the spirit, but of the flesh. Youth with slavic eyes and cheekbones. These were the six deep human failings which would presently slant down at him from tears of steepest balconies and stand frankly emotional and jammed in the unreserved space behind the railing which shut them off from the three-dollar seats of the reserved. At a very special one of these concerts, dedicated to the meager purses of just these, and held in New York's super opera house, the Amphitheater, a great bowl of humanity, the metaphor made perfect by tears of seats placed upon this stage rose from orchestra to dome, a gigantic cup of a coliseum lined in stacks and stacks of faces. From the door of his dressing-room, leaning out, Leon Cantor could see a great segment of it buzzing down into adjustment, orchestra twitting and tuning into it. In the bare little room, illuminated by a sheaf of roses just arrived, Mrs. Cantor drew him back by the elbow. Leon, you're in a draught. The amazing years had dealt kindly with Mrs. Cantor. Stouter, softer, apparently even taller, she was full of small new authorities that could shut out cranks, newspaper reporters, and autographed fiends. It fitted over corsets. Black Tavada and a high comb in the graying hair had done their best with her. Pride, too, had left its flesh upon her cheeks, like two round spots of fever. Leon, it's thirty minutes till your first number, close that door. Do you want to let your papa and his excitement in on you? The son of Sarah Cantor obeyed, leaning his short, rather narrow form in silhouette against the closed door. In spite of slimly dark evening clothes worked out by an astute manager to the last detail in boyish effects, there was that about him which defied long-haired precedent. Slimly and straightly he had shot up into an unmannered, a short, even a bristly-haired young manhood, disqualifying by a close shave for the older school of her suit virtuosity. But his nerves did not spare him. On concert nights they seemed to emerge almost to the surface of him and shriek their exposure. Just feel my hands, mom, like ice! She dived down into her large soak, what not, of a reticule. I've got your fleece-length gloves here, son. No, no, for God's sake, not those things. No! He was back at the door again, opening it to a slit, peering through. They're bringing more seats on the stage. If they crowd me in, I won't go on. I can't play if I hear them breathe. Hi! Out there! No more chairs. Pa! Hancock! Leon! Leon! Ain't you ashamed to get so worked up? Close that door! Have you got a manager who has paid just to see to your comfort? When Papa comes, I'll have him go out and tell Hancock, you don't want chairs so close to you. Leon, will you mind mama and sit down? It's a bigger house than the Royal Concert in Madrid, ma. Why, I never saw anything like it. It's a stampede. God! This is real. This is what gets me. Playing for my own. I should have given a concert like this three years ago. I'll do it every year now. I'd rather play before them than all the ground heads on earth. It's the biggest night of my life. They're rioting out there, ma. Rioting to get in. Leon, Leon, won't you sit down if mama begs you to? He sat then, strumming with all ten fingers upon his knees. Try to get quite, son. Count like you always do. One, two, three. Please, ma, for God's sake, please, please! Look, such beautiful roses from Saul Gensburg and old friend the Papas used to buy brasses from eighteen years ago. Six years he's been away with his daughter in Munich. Such a beautiful metzel, they say, engaged already for Metropolitan next season. I hate it, ma, if they breathe on my neck. Leon, darling, did mama promise to fix it? Have I ever let you play a concert when you wouldn't be comfortable? His long, slim hands suddenly prehensile and cutting a streak of upward gesture. Leon Cantor rose to his feet, face whitening. Do it now, now I tell you. I won't have them breathe on me. Do you hear me now, now, now? Risen also, her face soft and tremulous for him. Mrs. Cantor put out a gentle, a sedative hand upon his sleeve. Son, she said, with an edge of authority even behind her smile, don't holler at me. He grasped her hand with his two and immediately quiet, lay a close string of kisses along it. Mama, tch, tch, tch, mama, mama. I know son eats nurse. They eat me, ma. Feel, I'm like ice, I didn't mean it. You know I didn't mean it. My baby, she said, my wonderful boy, it's like I can never get used to the wonder of having you. The greatest one of them all should be mine, a plain woman's like mine. He teased her, eager to conciliate and to ride down his own state of quivering. Now, ma, now, now, don't forget Rensky. A man three times your edge was playing concert before you were born. Is that a comparison? From your clippings books, I can show you Rensky, who the world considers the greatest violinist. Rensky, he rubs into me. I'll write then, the press clippings. But did Elsa's, the greatest manager of them all, bring me a contract for 30 concerts at 2,000 a concert? Now I've got you, now. She would not meet his laughter. Elsa's, believe me, he'll come to you yet. My boy should worry if he makes 50,000 a year more or less. Rensky should have that honor for so long as he can hold it. But he won't hold it long. Believe me, I don't rest easy in my bed till Elsa's comes after you. Not for so big a contract like Rensky's, but bigger. Not for 30 concerts, but for 50. Bravo! Bravo! There's a woman for you. More money than she knows what to do with, and then not satisfied. Still, she was still too tremulous for banter. Not satisfied? Well, Leon, I never stopped playing my things for you. All right then, he cried, laying his icy fingers on her cheek. Tomorrow we'll call it a mignon, a regular old-fashioned Alan Street prayer party. Leon, you mustn't make fun. Make fun of the sweetest girl in this room? Girl, ah, if I could only hold you by me this way, Leon, always a boy with me, your poor old mother, your only girl. That's a fear I suffer with you, Leon, to lose you to a girl. That's how selfish the mother of such a wonder-child like mine can get to be. All right, trying to get me married off again. Nice, fine. Is it any wonder I suffer, son, 21 years to have kept you by me a child, a boy that never in his life was out after midnight except to catch trains, a boy that never has so much as looked at a girl, and could have looked at princesses, who have kept you all these years. Mine, is it any wonder, son? I never stop praying my thanks for you. You don't believe Hancock, son, the way he keeps always teasing you that you should have what he calls a fair, a love affair. Such talk is not nicely on an affair. Love affair, Poppycock, said Leon Cantor, lifting his mother's face and kissing her on eyes about ready to tear. Why, I've got something, ma, right here in my heart for you that... Leon, be careful, your shirt front. That's so, so what you call tender, for my best sweetheart that I... Oh, love affair, Poppycock. She would not let her tears come. My boy, my wonder boy. There goes the overture, ma. Here, darling, your glass of water. I can't stand it in here, I'm suffocating. Got your mute in your pocket, son? Yes, ma, for God's sake, yes. Yes, don't keep asking things. Ain't you ashamed, Leon, to be in such an excitement? For every concert you get worse. The chairs, they'll breathe on the neck. Leon, didn't mama promise you those chairs would be moved? Where's Hancock? Say, I'm grateful if he stands out. It took me enough work to get this room cleared. You know, your papa, how he likes to drag an old world to show you off. Always, just before you play. The minute he walks in the room, right away he gets everybody to trembling, just from his own excitement. I dare him this time he should bring people. No dignity has that man got the way he brings everyone. Even upon her words came a rattling of door, of doorknob, and a voice through the clamor. Open quick, Sarah. Leon is stiffening, raced over Mrs. Cantor, so that she sat rigid on her chair edge, lips compressed, eye darkly upon the shivering door. Open, Sarah. With a narrowing glance, Mrs. Cantor laid to her lips a forefinger of silence. Sarah, it's me, quick, I say. Then Leon Cantor sprang up, the old prehensile gesture of curving fingers shooting up. For God's sake, ma, let him in. I can't stand that infernal battering. Abram, go away. Leon's got to have quiet before his concert. Just a minute, Sarah, open quick. With a spring his son was at the door, unlocking and flinging it back. Come in, pa. The years had weighed heavily upon Abram Cantor, an avid dupla only. He was himself plus eighteen years, fifty pounds, and a new sleek pomposity that was absolutely only agnus. It shone roundly in his face, doubling of Chen in the bulge of waistcoat, heavily gold chain, and in eyes that behind the gold-rimmed glasses gave sparkling forth his estate of well-being. Abram, didn't I tell you not to dare to? Unexcited balls of feet that fairly bounced him. Abram Cantor burst in. Leon, mama, I got out here an old friend, Saul Ginsburg. You remember mama from brasses? Abram, not now. Go away with your not now. I want Leon to meet him. Saul, this is him. A little grown up from such a navage like you remember him. No? Sarah, you remember Saul, Ginsburg. Say, I should ask you if you remember your right hand. Ginsburg and Essel, the firm. This is his girl, a five-year contract signed yesterday. Five hundred dollars, an opera for a beginner. Six roles, not bad, no? Abram, you must ask Mr. Ginsburg, pleased to excuse Leon until after his concert. Shake hands with him, Ginsburg. He said his hands shook enough in his life, and by gings, to shake it once more with an old bouncer like you. Mr. Ginsburg, not unlike his colleague and rotundities, held out a short, adimpled hand. It's a proud day, he said, for me to shake the hands from my old friend's son and the finest violinist living today, my little daughter. Yes, yes, Gina. Here, shake hands with him, Leon. They say a voice like a fountain. Gina Berg, eh? Ginsburg. Is how you'd stage-named her? You hear, Mama. How fancy. Gina Berg. We go hear her, eh? There was about Miss Gina Berg, whose voice could soar to the Terellera of a lark and then deepen to Mezzo, something of the actual slimness of the poor, maligned Elsa, so long-buried beneath the buxomness of Divas. She was like a little flower that in its granite nook keeps Dewey longest. How do you do, Leon Cantor? There was a whir through her English of three acquired languages. How do you do? We, Father and I, travelled once all the way from Brussels to Dresden to hear you. It was worth it. I shall never forget how you played the Homeresque. It made me laugh and cry. You like Brussels? She laid her little hand to her heart, half-closing her eyes. I will never be so happy again as with the sweet little people of Brussels. I, too, love Brussels. I studied there for years with Aaron Fest. I know you did. My teacher, Lindahl, and Berlin was his brother-in-law. You have studied with Lindahl? He is my master. I, will I some time hear you sing? I am not yet great. When I am foremost like you, yes. Gina, Gina Berg, that is a beautiful name to make famous. You see how it is done. Ginsburg, Gina Berg, Clever. They stood then, smiling across chasm of the diffidence of youth. She fumbling at the great fur pelt out of which her face flowered so duly. I, well, we are in the fourth box. I guess we had better be going. Fourth box, left. He wanted to find words, but for consciousness of self could not. It's a wonderful house they are waiting for you, Leon Cantor. And you, you're wonderful, too. The flowers, thanks. My father, he sent them. My father, quick. Suddenly there was a tight intensity, seemed to crowd up the little room. Abram, quick, get handcuffed. That first roll of chairs has got to be moved. There he is, in the wings. See that piano and drag down too far. Leon, got your mute in your pocket. Please, Mr. Gensburg, you must excuse. Here, Leon, is your glass of water? Drink it, I say. Shut that door out there, boy. Get a draught in the wings. Here, Leon, you're violin. Got your neck your chief? Listen how they're shouting. It's for you, Leon, darling. Go. The center of that vast human bowl, which had shouted itself out, slim, boy-like, and in his supreme isolation, Leon Cantor drew bow, and a first, then, palucid, and perfect note into a silence breathless to receive it. Throughout the arduous flexuosities of the Mendelssohn E minor concerto, singing, winding from tonal to tonal climax, and out of the slow movement, which is like a tourniquet, twisting the heart into the spirited, allegro, moto, vivace. It was as if beneath Leon Cantor's fingers the strings were living vein cords, youth, vitality, and the very foam of exuberance racing through them. That was the power of him, the visci, and the sparkle of youth, so that, playing, the melody poured round him like wine, and went down-seething and singing into the hearts of his hearers. Later, and because these were his people, and because they were dark and slavic, with his slavic darkness, he played, as if his very blood were weeping, the kol nedre, which is the prayer of his raise for atonement. And then the super-apotheater, filled with those whose emotions lie next to the surface, and whose pores have not been closed over with a water-type veneer, burst into its cheers and its tears. There were fifteen recalls from the wings, Abram Cantor standing, counting them off on his fingers, and trembling to receive the strataverias. Then, finally, and against the frantic, negative pantomime of his manager, a scherzo played so lazily that it swept the house in the lightest laughter. When Leon Cantor finally completed his program, they were loathed to let him go, crowding down the aisles upon him, applauding up, down, around him, until the great disheveled house was like the roaring of a sea, and he would laugh and throw out his arm in widespread helplessness, and always his manager in the background gesticulating against too much of his precious product for the money, ushers already slamming up chairs, his father's arms out for the strataverias, and deepest in the gloom of the wings, Sarah Cantor, in a rocker especially dragged out for her, and from the depths of the black silk reticule darning his socks. Bravo, bravo, give us the humoresque, Chopin, no turn, Polonaise, humoresque, bravo, bravo, bravo, bravo, bravo. And even as they stood, had it, and coated, importuning and pressing in upon him, and with a wisp of a smile to the fourth left box, Leon Cantor played them, the humoresque, of Dvorak, skedaddly, plucking, quirking, that laugh unlife with a tear behind it, then suddenly because he could escape no other way, rushed straight back for his dressing room, bursting in upon a flood of family already there, already there. Isidore Cantor, blue-shaped, aquiline, and already graying at the temples. His five-year-old son Leon, a soft little powder-pigeon of a wife, too, enormous of bust, ink-littering eardrops, and a wrist-watch of diamonds, half-buried in a chubby wrist. Miss Esther Cantor, pink and pretty. Rudolf. Borus, not yet done with growing pains. At the door Miss Cantor met her brother, her eyes as sweetly moist as her kiss. Leon, darling, you surpassed even yourself. Quit crowding, children. Let him sit down. Here, Leon, let mama give you a fresh color. Look how the child's perspired. Pull down that window, Borus. Rudolf, don't let no one in. I give you my word, if tonight wasn't as near as I ever came to see a house called crazy, not even that time in Milan. Darling, when they broke down the doors, was it like to-night? ought to be seen, ma, the row of police outside. Hush up, Rudi. Don't you see your brother's trying to get his breath? From Mrs. Isidore Cantor. You should have seen the balcony's mother. Isidore and I went up just to see the jam. Six thousand dollars in the house tonight, if there was a cent, said Isidore Cantor. Give me my violin, please, Esther. I must have scratched it the way they pushed. No, son, you didn't. I've already rubbed it up. Seeth quite, darling. He was limply white, as if the vitality had flowed out of him. God, wasn't it tremendous? Six thousand, if there was a cent, repeated Isidore Cantor, more than Mrimski ever played to in his life. Oh, you see, you make me sick. Always counting, counting. Your sister's right, Isidore. You got nothing to complain of if there was only six hundred in the house. A boy his fiddle has made already enough to set you up in such a fine business. His brother bore us in such a fine college. Automobiles. Style. And now because Vladimir Mrimski, three times his age, gets signed up with Elsas for a few thousand more a year, right away the family gets a long face. Ma, please, Isidore didn't mean it that way. Pause knocking, ma. Shall I let him in? Let him in, Rudy. I'd like to know what good it would do to try to keep him out. In an actual rain of perspiration his ties slid well under one ear. Abram Cantor burst in, mouthing the words before his acute state of strangulation would let them out. Elsas, is Elsas outside? He wants to sign Leon. Fifty concerts, coast to coast, two thousand. Next season he's got the papers already drawn up, the pin outside waiting. Abram! Pa! In the silence that followed Isidore Cantor, a poppiness of stare and a violent redness set in, suddenly turned to his five-year-old son, sticky with lollipop, and came down soundly and with smack against the infantile, the slightly outstanding and unsuspecting ear. Mom, sir, he cried. Chamer, lump, ganif, you hear that? Two thousand, two thousand, didn't I tell you, didn't I tell you to practice? Even as Leon Cantor put pen to this princely document, Franz Ferdinand of Serbia, the assassin's bullet, cold, lay dead in state, and let's slip where the dogs at war. In the next years men, forty deep, were to die in piles, hayricks of fields to become human hayricks of battlefields. Belgium disemboweled, her very entrails dragging, to find all the civilized world her champion, and between the poppies of Flanders crosses thousand upon thousand of them, to mark places where the youth of her allies fell, avenging outrage. Seas, even when calmest, were to become terrible, and men's heartbeats, a bit sluggish with the fattie degeneration of a sluggard piece, to quicken and then to throb with the ratatatatat, the ratatatatat of the most peremptory, the most reverberating call to arms in the history of the world. In June 1917, Leon Cantor, answering that ratatatat, enlisted. In November, honed by the interim of training to even a new leanness, and sailing orders heavy and light in his heart, Lieutenant Cantor, on two days home-leave, took leave of home, which can be crudest when it is tenderest. Standing there in the expensive, the formal, the enormous French parlor of his uptown apartment deluxe, from not one of whose chairs would his mother's feet touch floor, a wall of living flesh, mortared in blood was throbbing and hedging him in. He would pace oven down the long room, having with faces of those who mourn, with a laugh too ready, too facetious in his fear for them. Well, well, what is this anyway? Awake? Where's the coffin? Who's dead? His sister-in-law shot out her plump watch-encrusted wrist. Don't, Leon, she cried. Such talk is a sin. It might come true. Rosy posy butter-ball, he said, pausing beside her chair to pinch her deeply soft cheek. Cry, baby, rolly-poly, you can't shove me off in a wooden kimono that way. From his place, before the white and gold mantel, staring steadfastly at the floor tiling, Isidore Cantor turned suddenly, a bit whiter and older, at the temples. I don't get your comedy, Leon. Wooden kimono, Leon? That's the way the followers at camp joke about Coffin's maw. I didn't mean anything but fun. Great Scott, can't anyone take a joke? Oh, God, oh, God! His mother fell, dissuading, softly, hugging herself against shivering. Did you sign over power of attorney to paw, Leon? All fix easy. I'm so afraid, son, you don't take with you enough money in your pockets. You know how you lose it. If only you would let mama sew that little bag inside your uniform with a little place for bills and a little place for the asafoetida. Now, please, ma, please, if I needed more, wouldn't I take it? Wouldn't I be a pretty joke among the followers, tied up in that smelling stuff? Orders are orders, ma. I know what to take and what not to take. Please, Leon, don't get mad at me. But if you will let me put in your suitcase just one little box of that self for your fingertips so they don't crack. Pausing. As he paced to lay cheek to her hair, he patted her. Three boxes, if you want. Now, how's that? And you won't take it out so soon as my back is turned. Cross my heart. His touch seemed to set her trembling again, all her ill-concealed emotions rushing up. I can't stand it. Can't, can't take my life, take my blood, but don't take my boy, don't take my boy! Mama, mama, is that the way you're going to begin all over again after your promise? She clung to him, heaving against the rising storm of sobs. I can't help it. I can't. Cut out my heart from me, but let me keep my boy, my wonder boy. Aren't you ashamed of yourself? Just listen to her, Esther. What will we do with her? Talks like she had a guarantee I wasn't coming back. Why, I wouldn't be surprised if by spring I wasn't tuning up again for a coast-to-coast tour. Spring! That talk don't fool me. Without my boy, the springs in my life are over. Why, ma, you talk like every soldier who goes to war was killed. There's only the smallest percentage of them die in battle. Spring, he says. Spring! Crossing the seas from me, to live through months with that sea between us. My boy, maybe shot. My mama, please. I can't help it, Leon. I'm not one of those fine mothers that can be so brave. Cut out my heart, but leave my boy, my wonder boy, my child I prayed for. There's other mothers, ma, with sons. Yes, but not wonder sons, a genius like you could so easy get excused. Leon, give it up. Genius, it should be the last to be sent to the slaughter-pin. Leon, darling, don't go. Ma, ma, you don't mean what you're saying. You wouldn't want me to reason that way. You wouldn't want me to hide behind my violin. I would. I would. You should wait for the draft, with my ruling and even my baby-borders enlisted, 80% enough for one mother. Since they got to be in camp, all right, I say let them be there, if my heart breaks for it, but not my wonder child. You can get exemption, Leon, right away for the asking. Stay with me, Leon. Don't go away. The people at home got to be kept happy with music. That's being a soldier, too. Playing their troubles away. Stay with me, Leon. Don't go leave me. Don't. Don't. He suffered her to lie, tear-drenched, back into his arms, holding her close in his compassion for her, his own face twisting. God, ma, this, this is awful. Please, you make us ashamed, all of us. I don't know what to say. Esther, come quiet her. For God's sake, quiet her. From her place in that sobbing circle Esther canter crossed to kneel beside her mother. Mama, darling, you're killing yourself. What if every family went on this way? You want Papa to come in and find us all crying? Is this the way you want Leon to spend his last hour with us? Oh, God, God! I mean his last hour until he comes back, darling. Didn't you just hear him say, darling, it may be by spring. Spring, spring, never no more springs for me. Just think, darling, how proud we should be, our Leon, who could so easily have been excused, not even to wait for the draft. It's not too late yet. Please, Leon. Arudi and Boris, both in camp two, training to serve the country. Why, Mama, we ought to be crying for happiness, as Leon says. Surely the cat or family who fled out of Russia to escape a massacre should know how terrible slavery can be. That's why we must help our boys, Mama, in their fight to make the world free. Right, Leon? Trying to smile with her red-rimmed eyes. We've got no fight with no one. Not a child of mine was ever raised to so much as lift a finger against no one. We've got no fight with no one. We have got a fight with someone. With autocracy. Only this time it happens to be hundish autocracy. You should know it, Mama. Oh, you should know it deeper down in you than any of us. The fight our family right here has got with autocracy. We should be the first to want to avenge Belgium. Leon's right, Mama, darling. The way you and Papa were beaten out of your country. There's not a day in your life you don't curse it without knowing it. Every time we three boys look at your son and our brother Manny, born an Ampusel, because of autocracy. We know what we're fighting for. We know. You know, too. Look at him over there, even before he was born, ruined by autocracy. Know what I'm fighting for? Why this whole family knows. What's music? What's art? What's life itself in a world without freedom? Every time, Ma, you get to thinking we've got a fight with no one. All you have to do is look at our poor Manny. He's the answer. He's the answer. In a foaming sort of silence, Manny Cantor smiled softly from his chair beneath the pink and gold shade of the piano lamp. The heterogeneous sounds of women weeping had ceased. Straight in her chair, her great shelf of bust heaving sat Rosa Cantor, suddenly dry of eye. Isidore Cantor, head up, erect now, and out from the embrace of her daughter. Sarah looked up at her son. What time do you leave, Leon? She asked, actually firm of lip. Any minute, Ma, getting late. This time she pulled her lips to a smile, waggling her forefinger. Don't let them little devils of French girls fall in love with my dude in his uniform. Her pretence at Pleasantry was almost more than he could bear. Here, here, our mother thinks I'm a regular lady-killer. Hear that, Esther? Pinching her cheek. You are, Leon. Only, only you don't know it. Don't you bring down too many bows while I'm gone, either, Miss Cantor? I won't, Leon. Soto voce to her. Remember, Esther, while I'm gone. The royalties from the discophone records are yours. I want you to have them for pen money. And maybe a dowry? She turned from him. Don't, Leon. Don't. I like him. Nice fellow, but too slow. Why, if I were in his shoes, I'd have popped long ago. She smiled with her lashes doing. There entered then, in a violet-scented little world, Miss Jeana Berg. Rosie with the sting of a winter's night, and as usual swathed in the high-napped furs. Jeana! She was, for greeting everyone, a wafted kiss to Mrs. Cantor, and then, arms-wide, a great bunch of violets and one outstretched hand, her glance straight, sure, and sparkling for Leon Cantor. Surprise, everybody! Surprise! Why, Jeana, we thought you were singing in Philadelphia tonight. So did I, Esther Darling, until a little bird whispered to me that Lieutenant Cantor was home and farewell-leave? He advanced to her down the great length of the room, lowering his head over her hand, his putty-clad legs clicking together. You mean Miss Jeana? Jeana, you didn't sing? Of course I didn't. Hasn't every prima donna a larynx to hide behind? She lifted off her fur cap, spilling curls. Well, I'll be hanged! said Lieutenant Cantor, his eyes, legs of her reflected loveliness. She let her hand linger in his. Leon, you, really going? How terrible! How wonderful! How wonderful you're coming! I—you think it was not nice of me to come? I think it was the nicest thing that ever happened in the world. All the way here in the train I kept saying, crazy, crazy, running to tell Leon, Lieutenant Cantor, goodbye, when you haven't even seen him three times in three years. But each, each of those three times we, we've remembered, Jeana. But that's how I feel toward all the boys, Leon, our fighting boys, just like flying to them, to kiss them, each one, goodbye. Come over, Jeana, you'll be a treat to our mother. I—well, I'm hanged, all the way from Philadelphia. There was even a sparkle to talk, then, and a let-up of pressure. After a while, Sarah Cantor looked up at her son, tremulous, but smiling. Well, son, you're going to play for your own mother before you go. It'll be many a month, spring, maybe longer, before I hear my boy again, except on the disco-phone. He shot a quick glance to his sister. Why, I—I don't know. I'd, I'd love to. I'd love it, Ma, if, if you think, Esther, I better. You don't need to be afraid of me, darling. This nothing can give me the strength to bear. What's before me like, like my boy's music? That's my life, his music. Why, yes, if Mama is sure she feels that way, play for us, Leon. He was already at the instrument, where it lay, swabbed, up top, the grand piano. What'll it be, folks? Something to make me laugh, Leon. Something light, something funny. Humoresque, he said, with a quick glance from Miss Berg. Humoresque, she said, smiling back at him. He capered through, cutting, and playful of Beau, the melody of Dvorak's, which is as ironic as a grinning mask. Finished, he smiled at his parent, her face still untearful. How's that? She nodded. It's like life, son, that peace, crying to laugh its laughing, and laughing to hide its crying. Play that new piece, Leon, the one you said to music. You know, the words by that young boy in the war who wrote such grand poetry before he was killed. The one that always makes poor money laugh. Play it for him, Leon. Her plump, little, unlined face, innocent of fault, Mrs. Isidore Cantor ventured her request. Her smile, tired with tears. No, no, Rosa, not now. Ma wouldn't want that. I do, son. I do. Even many should have a share of good-bye. To Gina Berg. They want me to play that little arrangement of mine from Alan Cigar's poem. I have a rendezvous. It's—it's beautiful, Leon. I was to have sung it on my program tonight. Only, I'm afraid, you had better not. Here, now. Please, Leon. Nothing you play can ever make me as sad as it makes me glad. Many should have, too. Here's good-bye. All right, then, Ma. If you're sure you want it. Will you sing it, Gina? She had risen. Why, yes, Leon. She sang it, then. Quite purely, her hands clasped simply together, and her glance, mistily off, the beautiful, the heroic, the lyrical prophecy of a soldier-poet and a poet-soldier. But I, a rendezvous with death, on some guard-slope of battered hill, when spring comes round again this year, and the first meadow-flowers appear. In the silence that followed, a sob burst out, stifled from ester counter. This time, her mother holding her in arms that were strong. That, Leon, is the most beautiful of all your compositions. What does it mean, son? That word, rendezvous. Why, I—I don't exactly know. A rendezvous—it's a sort of meeting—an engagement, isn't it, Miss Gina? Gina, you're up on languages. You're up on languages, as if I had an appointment to meet you someplace, at the opera-house, for instance. That's it, Leon, an engagement. Have I an engagement with you, Gina? She let her lids droop. Oh, how? How I hope you have, Leon. When? In the spring? That's it, in the spring. Then they smiled, these two, who had never felt more than the mirror's butterfly wings of love brushing them, light as lashes. No word between them, only an unfinished sweetness, waiting to be linked up. Suddenly, their burst in, Abram counter, and a carefully rehearsed gale of bluster. Quickly on, I got this car downstairs, just fifteen minutes to make the ferry. Quick! The sooner we get him over there, the sooner we get him back. I'm right, Mama. Now, now, no waterworks. Get your brother's suitcase, he's adored. Now, now, no nonsense. Quick, quick! With a deftly, maneuvered round of goodbyes, a grip laden dash for the door, a throbbing moment of turning back when it seemed as though Sarah, Cantor's arms, could not unlock their deadlock of him. Leon Cantor was out and gone. The group of faces point-etched into the silence behind him. The poor, mute face of many. Laughing softly, Rosa Cantor, crying into her hands. Esther, grief crumpled, but rich in the enormous hope of youth. The sweet Gina, to whom the waiting months had already begun their reality. Not so, Sarah Cantor, in a bedroom adjoining its high-sailing vastness, as cold as a cathedral to her loneness of stature. Sobs, dry and terrible, were rumbling up from her, only to dash against lips, tightly restraining them. On her knees, beside a chest of drawers, and unwrapping it from swaddling clothes, she withdrew what at best had been a sorry sort of fiddle. Cracked of back and solitary as string, it was as if her trembling arms, raising it above her head, would make of themselves and her swaying body the tripod of an altar. The old, twisting and prophetic pain was behind her heart. Like the painted billows of music that the old Italian masters loved to do, there wand'd and wreat'd about her clouds of song. But I've a rendezvous with death, on some scarred slope of battered hill, when spring comes round again this year, and the first meadow flowers appear. End of Humerusk by Fanny Hurst A Warrior's Daughter from American Indian Stories This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Corrie Samuel American Indian Stories by Zitkala Sa A Warrior's Daughter In the afternoon shadow of a large tepee, with red painted smoke lapels, sat a warrior father with crossed shins. His head was so poised that his eye swept easily the vast, level land to the eastern horizon line. He was the chieftain's bravest warrior. He had won by heroic deeds the privilege of staking his wigwam within the great circle of tepees. He was also one of the most generous gift-givers to the toothless old people. For this, he was entitled to the red painted smoke lapels on his cone-shaped dwelling. He was proud of his honours. He never worried of rehearsing nightly his own brave deeds. Though by wigwam fires he praded much of his high rank and widespread fame, his great joy was a wee black-eyed daughter of eight sturdy winters. Thus, as he sat upon the soft grass, with his wife at his side bent over her beadwork, he was singing a dance-song, and beat lightly the rhythm with his slender hands. His shrewd eyes softened with pleasure, as he watched the easy movements of the small body dancing on the green before him. Tussi is taking her first dancing lesson. Her tightly braided hair curves over both brown ears, like a pair of crooked little horns, which glisten in the summer sun. With her snugly moccasin' feet close together, and wee hand at her belt to stay the long string of beads which hang from her bare neck, she bends her knees gently to the rhythm of her father's voice. Now she ventures upon the earnest movement, slightly upward and sideways in a circle. At length the song drops into a closing cadence, and the little woman, clad in beaded deerskin, sits down beside the elder one. Like her mother, she sits upon her feet. In a brief moment the warrior repeats the last refrain, again Tussi springs to her feet, and dances to the swing of the final few measures. Just as the dance was finished, an elderly man, with short thick hair loose about his square shoulders, rode into their presence from the rear, and leaped lightly from his pony's back. Dropping the rawhide rain to the ground, he tossed himself lazily on the grass. Ahi, you have returned soon, said the warrior, while extending a hand to his little daughter. Quickly the child ran to her father's side, and cuddled close to him, while he tenderly placed a strong arm about her. Both father and child, eyeing the figure on the grass, waited to hear the man's report. It is true, began the man, with a strangest accent, this is the night of the dance. Ha-ha! muttered the warrior, with some surprise. Propping himself upon his elbows, the man raised his face. His features were of the southern type. From an enemy's camp he was taken captive long years ago by Tussi's father, but the unusual qualities of the slave had won the Sue warrior's heart, and for the last three winters the man had had his freedom. He was made real man again, his hair was allowed to grow. However, he himself had chosen to stay in the warrior's family. Ha! again ejaculated the warrior father. Then, turning to his little daughter, he asked Tussi, do you hear that? Yes, father, and I am going to dance to-night. With these words she bounded out of his arm and froliced about in glee. Hereupon the proud mother's voice rang out in a chiding laugh. My child, in honour of your first dance your father must give a generous gift. His ponies are wild, and roam beyond the great hill. Pray, what has he fit to offer? She questioned. The pair of puzzled eyes fixed upon her. A pony from the herd, mother, a fleet-footed pony from the herd, Tussi shouted, with sudden inspiration. Pointing a small forefinger toward the man lying on the grass, she cried, Uncle, you will go after the pony to-morrow. And pleased with her solution of the problem, she skipped wildly about. Her childish faith in her elders was not conditioned by a knowledge of human limitations, but thought all things possible to grown-ups. Ha-ha! exclaimed the mother, with a rising inflection, implying by the expletive that her child's buoyant spirit be not weighted with a denial. Quickly to the hard request the man replied, How? I go if Tussi tells me so. This delighted the little one, whose black eyes brimmed over with light. Standing in front of the strong man, she clapped her small brown hands with joy. That makes me glad. My heart is good. Go, Uncle, and bring a handsome pony! she cried. In an instant she would have frisked away, but an impulse held her tilting where she stood. In the man's own tongue, for he had taught her many words and phrases, she exploded. Thank you, good Uncle, thank you! Then tore away from sheer excess of glee. The proud warrior father, smiling and narrowing his eyes, muttered approval, How? oh, he should too. Like her mother, Tussi has finely penciled eyebrows and slightly extended nostrils, but in her sturdiness of form she resembles her father. A loyal daughter, she sits within her tipi making beaded dearskins for her father, while he longs to stave off her every suitor as all unworthy of his old heart's pride. But Tussi is not alone in her dwelling. Near the entranceway a young brave is half reclining on a mat. In silence he watches the petals of a wild rose growing on the soft buckskin. Quickly the young woman slips the beads on the silvery sinew thread and works them into the pretty flower design. Finally, in a low, deeper voice, the young man begins. The sun is far past the zenith. It is now only a man's height above the western edge of land. I hurried hither to tell you tomorrow I join the war-party. Pauses for reply, but the maid's head drops lower over her dearskin, and her lips are more firmly drawn together. He continues, Last night, in the moonlight, I met your warrior father. He seemed to know I had just stepped forth from your tipi. I fear he did not like it, for though I greeted him, he was silent. I halted in his pathway, with what boldness I dared, while my heart was beating hard and fast, I asked him for his only daughter. Drawing himself erect to his tallest height, and gathering his loose robe more closely about his proud figure, he flashed a pair of piercing eyes upon me. Young man, said he, with a cold, slow voice, that chilled me to the marrow of my bones. Hear me! Not but an enemy's scalplock, plucked fresh with your own hand, will buy to see for your wife. Then he turned on his heel, and stalked away. To see thrusts her work aside. With earnest eyes she scans her lover's face. My father's heart is really kind. He would know if you were brave and true, murmured the daughter, who wished no ill-will between her two loved ones. Then, rising to go, the youth holds out a right hand. Grasp my hand once, firmly, before I go, hoi. Pray tell me, will you wait and watch for my return? To see only nods are sent, for mere words are vain. At early dawn the round campground awakes into song. Men and women sing of bravery and of triumph. They inspire the swelling breasts of the painted warriors, mounted on prancing ponies, bedecked with the green branches of trees. Riding slowly around the great ring of cone-shaped tepees, here and there, a loud singing warrior swears to avenge a former wrong, and thrusts a bare brown arm against the purple east, calling the great spirit to hear his vow. All having made the circuit, the singing war-party gallops away southward. Astride their ponies laden with food and dearskins, brave elderly women follow after their warriors. Among the foremost rides a young woman in elaborately beaded buckskin dress. Proudly mounted, she curbs with a single rawhide loop a wild-eyed pony. It is to see on her father's war-horse. Thus the war-party of Indian men and their faithful women vanish beyond the southern skyline. A day's journey brings them very near the enemy's borderland. Nightfall finds a pair of twin tepees, nestled in a deep ravine. Within one lounge the painted warriors, smoking their pipes and telling weird stories by the fire-light, while in the other watchful women crouch uneasily about their centre-fire. By the first gray light in the east the tepees are banished, they are gone. The warriors are in the enemy's camp, breaking dreams with their tomahawks. The women are hid away in secret places in the long-thicketed ravine. The day is far spent. The red sun is low over the west. At length, struggling warriors return, one by one, to the deep hollow. In the twilight they number their men. Three are missing. Of these absent ones, two are dead. But the third one, a young man, is a captive to the foe. He, he, lament the warriors, taking food in haste. In silence each woman with long strides hurries to and fro, tying large bundles on her pony's back. Under cover of night the war-party must hasten homeward. Motionless, with bowed head, sits a woman in her hiding-place. She grieves for her lover. In bitterness of spirit she hears the warriors murmuring words. With set teeth she plans to cheat the hated enemy of their captive. In the meanwhile, low signals are given, and the war-party, unaware of Tussi's absence, steal quietly away. The soft thud of pony-hooves grows fainter and fainter. The gradual hush of the empty ravine wears noisily in the ear of the young woman. Alert for any sound of footfall's nigh, she holds her breath to listen. Her right hand rests on a long knife in her belt. Ah, yes, she knows where her pony is hid, but not yet has she need of him. Satisfied that no danger is nigh, she prowls forth from her place of hiding. With a panthers tread and pace, she climbs the high ridge beyond the low ravine. From thence she spies the enemy's campfires. Rooted to the barren bluff, the slender woman's figure stands on the pinnacle of night, outlined against a starry sky. The cool night breeze wafts to her burning ear, snatches of song and drum. With desperate hate she bites her teeth. Tussi beckons the stars to witness. With impassioned voice and uplifted face she pleads, great spirit, speed me to my lover's rescue. Give me swift cunning for a weapon this night. All powerful spirit, grant me my warrior father's heart, strong to slay a foe, and mighty to save a friend. In the midst of the enemy's campground, underneath a temporary dance-house, are men and women in gala-day dress. It is late in the night, but the merry warriors bend and bow their nude painted bodies before a bright centre-fire. To the lusty men's voices and the rhythmic throbbing drum, they leap and rebound with feathered headgears waving. Women with red-painted cheeks and long braided hair sit in a large half-circle against the willow railing. They too join in the singing, and rise to dance with their victorious warriors. Amid this circular dance arena stands a prisoner bound to a post, haggard with shame and sorrow. He hangs his dishevelled head. He stares with unseeing eyes upon the bare earth at his feet. With cheers and smirking faces the dancers mock the Dakota captive, rowdy braves and small boys hoot and yell in derision. Silent among the noisy mob, a tall woman, leaning both elbows on the round willow railing, peers into the lighted arena. The dancing centre-fire shines bright into her handsome face, intensifying the night in her dark eyes. It breaks into myriad points upon her beaded dress. Unmindful of the surging throng jostling her at either side, she glares in upon the hateful scoffing men. Suddenly she turns her head, tittering maid's whisper near her ear. There! There! See him now, sneering in the captive's face! It is he who sprang upon the young man and dragged him by his long hair to yonder post. See! He is handsome! How gracefully he dances! The silent young woman looks towards the bound captive. She sees a warrior, scarce older than the captive, flourishing a tomahawk in the Dakota's face. A burning rage darts forth from her eyes and brands him for a victim of revenge. Her heart mutters within her breast. Come! I wish to meet you, vile foe, who captured my lover and tortures him now with a living death. Here the singers hush their voices, and the dancers scatter to their various resting places along the willow ring. The victor gives a reluctant last twirl of his tomahawk. Then, like the others, he leaves the centre ground. With heads and shoulders swaying from side to side, he carries a high-pointing chin towards the willow railing. Sitting down upon the ground with crossed legs, he fans himself with an outspread turkey wing. Now and then he stops his haughty blinking to peep out of the corners of his eyes. He hears someone clearing her throat gently. It is unmistakably for his ear. The wing-fan swings irregularly to and fro. At length he turns a proud face over a bare shoulder and beholds a handsome woman smiling. Ah! she would speak to a hero. Thumps his heart wildly. The singers raise their voice in unison. The music is irresistible. Again lunges the victor into the open arena. Again he leers into the captive's face. At every interval between the songs he returns to his resting place. Here the young woman awaits him. As he approaches, she smiles boldly into his eyes. He is pleased with her face and her smile. Waving his wing-fans basmodically in front of his face, he sits with his ears pricked up. He catches a low whisper. A hand taps him likely on the shoulder. The handsome woman speaks to him in his own tongue. Come out into the night. I wish to tell you who I am. He must know what sweet words of praise the handsome woman has for him. With both hands he spreads the meshes of the loosely woven willows and crawls out unnoticed into the dark. Before him stands the young woman. Beckoning him with a slender hand, she steps away, away from the light and the restless throng of onlookers. He follows with impatient strides. She quickens her pace. He lengthens his strides. Then suddenly the woman turns from him and darts away with amazing speed. Clinching his fists and biting his lower lip, the young man runs after the fleeing woman. In his maddened pursuit he forgets the dance arena. Beside a cluster of low bushes the woman halts. The young man, panting for breath and plunging headlong forward, whispers loud, Pray tell me, are you a woman or an evil spirit to lure me away? Turning on heels firmly planted in the earth, the woman gives a wild spring forward, like a panther for its prey. In a husky voice she hissed between her teeth. I am a Dakota woman. From her unerring long knife the enemy falls heavily at her feet. The great spirit heard Toosie's prayer on the hilltop. He gave her a warrior's strong heart to lessen the foe by one. A bent, old woman's figure, with a bundle like a grandchild slung on her back, walks round and round the dance-house. The wearied onlookers are leaving in twos and threes. The tired dancers creep out of the willow railing, and some go out at the entrance way, till the singers too rise from the drum and a trudging drowsily homeward. Within the arena the centre fire lies broken in red embers. The night no longer lingers about the willow railing, but hovering into the dance-house covers here and there a snoring man whom sleep has overpowered where he sat. The captive, in his tight-binding raw-hide ropes, hangs in hopeless despair. Close about him the gloom of night is slowly crouching. Yet the last red, crackling embers cast a faint light upon his long black hair, and, shining through the thick mats, caress his face with undying hope. Still about the dance-house the old woman prowls. Now the embers are gray with ashes. The old bent woman appears at the entrance way. With a cautious, groping foot she enters, whispering between her teeth a lullaby for her sleeping child in her blanket. She searches for something forgotten. Noisily snored the dreaming men in the darkest parts. As the lisping old woman draws nigh the captive again opens his eyes. A forefinger she presses to her lip. The young man arouses himself from his stupa. His senses belie him. Before his wide-open eyes the old bent figure straightens into its youthful stature. Tussi herself is beside him. With a stroke upward and downward she severs the cruel cords with her sharp blade. Dropping her blanket from her shoulders, so that it hangs from her girdled waist like a skirt, she shakes the large bundle into a light shawl for her lover. Quickly she spreads it over his bare back. Come, she whispers, and turns to go. But the young man, numb and helpless, staggers nigh to falling. The sight of his weakness makes her strong. A mighty power thrills her body. Stooping beneath his outstretched arms, grasping at the air for support, Tussi lifts him upon her broad shoulders. With half-running, triumphant steps, she carries him away into the open night. End of A Warrior's Daughter by Zitkala Sa. Now you are gone. A wilderness of sad streets, where gaunt walls hide nothing to desire. Sunshine falls eerie, distorted as it long had shown on white dead faces, tuned in halls of stone. The whir of motors, stricken through with calls of playing boys, floats up at intervals. But all these noises blur to one long moan. What quest is worth pursuing? And how strange that other men still go accustomed ways. I hate their interest in the things they do. A specter horde repeating without change in old routine. Alone I know the days are stillborn, and the world stopped, lacking you. End of From One Who Stays Sheltered Garden This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit LibriVox.org. Sheltered Garden by Hill to Do Little I have had enough. I gasp for breath. Every way ends. Every road, every footpath leads at last to the hill-crest. Then you retrace your steps or find the same slope on the other side, precipitate. I have had enough. Border pinks, clove pinks, wax lilies, herbs, sweetcress. Oh, for some sharp swish of a branch! There is no scent of rosin in this place. No taste of bark, of coarse weeds, aromatic, astringent. Only border on border of scented pinks. Have you seen fruit under cover that wanted light, pears wadded in cloth protected from the frost, melons almost ripe smothered in straw? Why not let the pears cling to the empty branch? All your coaxing will only make a bitter fruit. Let them cling, ripen of themselves, test their own worth, nipped, shriveled by the frost, to fall at last but fair with a russet coat. Or the melon, let it bleach yellow in the winter light, even tart to the taste. It is better to taste a frost, the exquisite frost, than of wadding and dead grass. For this beauty, beauty without strength, chokes out life. I want wind to break, scatter these pink stalks, snap off their spiced heads, fling them about with dead leaves, spread the paths with twigs, limbs broken off, trail great pine branches hurled from some far wood, right across the melon patch, break pear and quints, leave half-trees, torn, twisted, but shelling the fight was valiant. Oh, to blot out this garden, to forget, to find a new beauty and some terrible, wind-tortured place. The end of sheltered garden, by hell to do little. A Windy Day by Eleanor Wiley This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. A Windy Day by Eleanor Wiley Oh, shameless day, a daring stress, a sweet but insufficient dress, of windy hair in billows piled, lock too bright, lock unreconciled. Is round your virgin nakedness? Oh, shameless day, we might expect you must confess some rosy blushes, soft distress. Your clear regard is like a child. Oh, shameless day, your self-possession in the press, a sunbeam struggling with success. To kiss you by blue eyes beguiled, your eyes so innocently wild. Is like some maiden sorceress. Oh, shameless day. End of A Windy Day by Eleanor Wiley