When he was near her they didn't have to talk or hold hands. They came together in a different way. She was so beautiful....
"I love her," he said quietly. He wanted to be quiet so he spoke quietly. She was marvelous. He would like to cut himself up into bits and give himself that way to her. He would like to die a thousand different ways and say, "Here, I destroy everything I am in order to become a gift for you." That was like placing oneself on a burning altar--the ecstacy of the sacrificed one. That was it.
Some nights like this the world became too small to live in. The city swept away from his senses and everything in the city seemed like a room full of cheap little broken toys he had outgrown. He would sit in a room within this bigger room, a lamp on his table and write. Or he would strike out like this time and walk to her--miles across streets.
"I want her," he said. His thought paused. "But what do I want of her?"
he asked. "I don't know. But I want to give myself to something."
And he began thinking over how many ways there were to die as a gift.
This lighted window was her house. The curtains were down but light spurted through the sides. The sight of the house with its light-fringed windows depressed him. It was a disillusionment. She wasn't a woman then like he was a man but she was a part of things. He saw her as he walked up the stone steps, saw her talking to people. She had parents. In his mind she lived as an entity. A beautiful one without background or lighted windows or stone steps. Someone for him. Nobody else.
He rang. The door opened. A man like himself stood blinking in the lighted hall.
"Good evening," said Lindstrum. His voice was deep for his age. He spoke in a drawl that seemed edged with anger. "Is Doris in?"
"Oh, hello," Basine exclaimed. "Yes, she's in. Come right in."
People were talking in the next room.
"Company?" said Lindstrum. He didn't want to go in. But Basine was leading the way. The supper had ended ten minutes ago. The company looked up at him. They were all dressed well. Their faces were dressed well, too. They wore carefully tailored satisfactions in their eyes.
When they smiled their mouths postured like ballet dancers in a finale.
They were rich people. Their hands were soft.
The room blurred before Lindstrum. There was no reason for it now because he wasn't thinking or caring but a rage crept into his senses.
He breathed in deep with his mouth opened and the feel of the air on his teeth and tongue made his jaw set. Because he would have to be careful what he said. Because he was saying inside to himself, "Damn 'em. The scum!"
His eyes brought pictures into his anger. They stared with deliberation into other eyes and brought back messages. He was being introduced. He was saying to himself deep down, "They're all alike. Like peas in a pod.
They smirk and talk alike. And they're all stuck on themselves alike.
And they're all liars--damn liars, all alike."
He would have to take care and not argue. He would sit down. Doris was upstairs and she would appear in a minute. Then they would go for a walk and shake this room out of their eyes.
They chattered like monkeys. Satisfied with themselves. Yes, know-it-alls, tickled to death with themselves. An old man with a heavy pink face and sleepy eyes, a well dressed old man they called Judge--if he could punch this guy in the face, let his fist smash into his jellyface, God! what a thrill! A flushed girl, Doris' sister, wiggling her body in a chair. What she needed was somebody to grab hold of her and say, "Come on kid." A square, hard-faced old woman talking of society. What she needed was someone to walk up behind her and kick her hard. And when she raised her glasses to look, laugh like Hell and spit in her eye. That would make her human! And this smart-aleck Basine....
Hm! What he needed was somebody to tie him to a stake in a dark prairie and let the wind and rain go over him till he got hungry and began to whine. That's what they all needed--wind and rain to bring them back to life.
But he must be careful and say nothing. There was Doris' mother. She wasn't so bad. But this other guy, this writing guy, talking about books! God! Why didn't somebody choke the life out of him! What did he know about books? And he talked about writing! What was good writing? He asked that, this guy did! He would have to be careful what he said to this guy and keep himself from jumping up and murdering him. Hell take all of them and make 'em burn. That's what they needed. He hated all of them. They were rich. Damn 'em! He must sit and grin at them, these jellyfish who wiggled in their graves and called their wiggles by great names, who were dead ... dead.... How dead they were! And happy about it! Happy.... Didn't they know how dead they were?
Doris was like them. He was a fool for coming to see her. As if she were any different from them. She belonged with this filthy crew. She was a filthy little tart like the rest of them. Let her go to Hell. He'd tell her to go to Hell when he saw her. She was one he could talk to.
Uh huh, they were giving him the up and down. His shoes were dirty. His collar soiled. His clothes weren't pressed. That was the way with these dead ones, they made standards of their clothes because clothes were all they had. And their idea was to make people feel inferior who were inferior to their clothes or to their manners or to their other artificialities. But he didn't have to feel inferior if he didn't want to. He was the kind who could stand up in a graveyard like this and say "Go to Hell" to the pack of them and grin and walk away and forget all about it.
He noticed they looked at him not quite as they looked at each other.
That was right. They knew he had their number. Mrs. Basine, too, was looking. She asked:
"I understand you write, Mr. Lindstrum?"
Books all bound and pretty standing in a row with your name in the papers as a young writer of note and invitations to speak at women's clubs--was what she meant. That was what writing was to people, to jellyfish.
"I try to write," he answered, making the correction softly so that his words purred.
"You should know Aubrey Gilchrist," said Basine. "Do you know his work?"
"I do not," said Lindstrum still purring. "What does he write?"
Basine chuckled inside. His unaccountable aversion for Aubrey was growing.
"Novels," said Basine.
"Oh," said Lindstrum dragging the syllable out and placing a huge granite period after it.
"What writers do you like?" Fanny inquired with a successful attempt at social artlessness. She was looking for something in this friend of Doris'. She was in awe of him because he was dirty looking and because he swayed as he sat in his chair. He kept swaying as if he were on secret springs and would jump up any minute. He frightened Fanny.
"I read good books," said Lindstrum, "books written by men."
Mrs. Gilchrist sat up stiffly. Her husband peered out of his glasses. He liked Lindstrum. He wanted to talk to him. But he got no further than clearing his throat several times. The judge interrupted with a glower.
He was given the floor, eyes turning to him. A defender. But he merely glowered. That was his decision, that settled it. If he glowered this moujik was done for. He glowered Lindstrum off the face of the earth.
But Lindstrum turned full on him and thrust his face forward as if he were going to come closer.
"What kind of books do you read?" he asked the glowerer. The snap in his voice startled Henrietta. She was afraid for a minute this strange looking creature waiting for Doris would do something and she turned appealingly to Basine.
"All kinds, sir," the judge answered in his most effective baritone.
Lindstrum nodded his head slowly and a grin came into his eyes. He kept looking at the judge and grinning and nodding his head and just as the judge was going to say something Lindstrum abandoned him. He had turned to Aubrey. Aubrey had grown eager. A confusion inspired by an impulse toward garrulity was in his eyes. He wanted to talk to this Lindstrum and discuss things beyond everybody in the room. Lindstrum thought he was a soda-water clerk. One of those radicals with unbalanced ideas. But he wanted to talk to him. Perhaps they had something in common? Aubrey felt himself growing angry. But it was not an anger of silences. An anger of words. He wanted to talk, to reason with Lindstrum and put himself over with Lindstrum. Lindstrum was like a conscience.
"Hello!" The arrival stood up and looked at Doris. He forgot about calling her names. She was smiling at him like a fresh wind blowing through his heart. The roomful dropped out of sight.
"Do you want to go for a walk?" he asked slowly. "It's nice and cold outside."
She nodded and Lindstrum, with a long, deliberate stare at the company spoke to them.
"Good night," he said. When he had said it he continued to stare as if he were weighing the matter over carefully and should say something more. The pause grew embarassing but not to him. Without nodding his head he repeated the result of his deliberations.
"Good night," he said in the same voice. That was enough.
He left them sitting in their chairs--a general calmly marching off the field of victory. He left behind a silence. The company was uncomfortable.
Mrs. Gilchrist and the judge stared hard at the doorway through which Lindstrum had passed. They wanted to insult the doorway. Lindstrum's visit had had a curious effect upon Ramsey. He had sat silent and avoided the young man's eyes. But he had felt himself becoming animated as if something were exciting him. When the young man had glanced at him for a moment he had blushed and an odd nervousness had made his thin body tremble. Now that Lindstrum was gone he felt the room had become empty and entirely lacking in interest.
"How do you like him?" Mrs. Basine whispered at his side. She was worried.
"Him? Oh yes, the young man," Ramsey muttered. "He ... he has nice eyes."
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