Thomas Wolfe, page 502
He immediately pushed back the big sofa and all other objects of furniture; pushed back the carpet and then ruthlessly began to take books from the shelves and dump them on the floor. He then fastened up in the vacant spaces big circus posters which, in addition to the familiar paraphernalia of lions, elephants, and clowns, bore such descriptive legends as “Barnum & Bailey—May 7th and 8th,” or “Ringling Brothers—July 31st.”
When he had finished he came back to his valises, and began to take out a great variety of objects. There were miniature circus rings made of rounded strips of tin. There were trapezes made of wire. And in addition there was a great variety of wire figures: clowns and trapeze performers, acrobats and tumblers, bareback lady riders and wire horses. There was almost everything, in fact, that a circus would need.
He got down upon his kneepads and for some time he was extremely busy with his work. At length he signified his willingness to begin by a gesture to his hostess. At the same moment, the doorbell rang and a host of new and uninvited guests were ushered in by Molly. The new arrivals were, for the most part, young people and obviously they belonged to Mr. Piggy Hartwell’s “social set.” The young women had that unmistakable appearance of having gone to Miss Spence’s School for Girls and the young men, by the same token, seemed to have gone to Yale and Harvard and one was also sure that some of them were members of the Racquet Club and were not connected with a firm of “investment brokers” in downtown New York. All these people streamed in noisily, headed by an elegant young gentleman whose name, curiously, was Hen Walters, and who was Mr. Hartwell’s bosom friend.
Mrs. Jack looked rather overwhelmed at this invasion, but was dutifully murmuring greetings when all the new people swarmed right past her, ignoring her completely, and stormed into the room shouting vociferous gaieties at Mr. Hartwell. They paid absolutely no attention to any of the other invited guests, except for a greeting here and there to Amy Van Leer, who, apparently they considered one of them, even though a fallen angel.
Hen Walters greeted her quite cordially, with all the gleeful elations of his burbling voice: “Oh, hello, Amy! I haven’t seen you for an age. What brings you here?”—in a tone that somehow indicated, with all the unconscious arrogance of his kind, that the company was beyond the pale of things accepted.
The tone and implication stung her sharply. As for herself, she had received the slander of her name with beautiful good nature. But an affront to someone that she loved was more than she could endure. And she loved Mrs. Jack.
Almost before she was aware of what she was saying, she was repeating quickly: “What brings me here—of all places! Well, first of all it’s a very good place to be—the best I know . . . And I mean! You know! . . .” she tossed her head with furious impatience. “I mean! After all, I was invited, you know—which is more than you can say—” Unconsciously, with a gesture of protective warmth, she slipped her arm around Mrs. Jack.
“Alice, darling,” Amy said, “this is Mr. Walters—and some of his friends”—but for a moment she looked at the cluster of debutantes and their escorts, and then turned away, saying with no effort to subdue her tone: “God, aren’t they simply dreadful! . . . I mean! . . . You know!”
Meanwhile, Hen Walters was burbling to Mrs. Jack: “. . . So nice of you to let us all come in . . . Piggy told us it would be all right. . . I hope you don’t mind . . .”
“But no-o—not at all!” she protested earnestly, “. . . Any friends of Mr. Hartwell’s . . . but won’t you all have a drink or something to eat? . . .”
“Oh, heavens, no!” cried Mr. Walters, in a tone of burblesome glee: “We’ve all been to Tony’s and we simply gorged ourselves!”
“—Well, then, if you’re sure—” she began.
“Oh, absolutely!” cried Mr. Walters rapturously. “But we’re holding up the show!”
“Oh, Piggy,” he cried to his friend, who now, cheerfully grinning, was crawling on his kneepads on the floor—“Do begin! Everyone’s simply dying to see it! . . . I’ve seen it a dozen times myself,” he announced gleefully to the general public, “and it becomes more fascinating every time . . . So if you’re ready, please begin!”
Mr. Hartwell was ready and began.
IX
The performance began, as all good circuses should, with a grand procession of the performers and the animals in the menagerie. Mr. Hartwell accomplished this by taking the wire figures in his hands and walking them around the circus ring. This took some time, but was greeted at its conclusion with vociferous applause. Then Mr. Hartwell galloped his wire horses into the ring and round and around with movements of his hands. Then he put his bareback riders on top of the wire horses, and galloped these around too. After this there was a procession of the wire elephants, etc. This performance gained particular applause because of the clever way in which Mr. Hartwell made the figures imitate the swaying, ponderous lurch of the elephants.
People were not always able to identify each act, but when they were, they applauded vigorously. There was now an act by the trapeze performers. This occupied a long time, largely because Mr. Hartwell was not able to make it work. First of all the little wire figures swung and dangled from their flying trapezes. Then Mr. Hartwell tried to make one little figure swing through the air and catch the other figure by its down-swept hands. This wouldn’t work. Again and again the little wire figure soared through the air, caught at the outstretched hands of the other doll—and missed ingloriously. It became painful: people craned their necks and looked embarrassed—all, indeed, except Mr. Hartwell, who giggled happily with each new failure and tried again. At length, he settled the whole matter himself by taking one of the little figures and carefully hanging it to the other’s arms. When he had finished he looked up at his audience and giggled with cheerful idiocy. And the gathering, after a brief and somewhat puzzled pause, broke into applause.
Mr. Hartwell was now ready for what might be called the pièce de résistance of the entire occasion. This was the celebrated sword-swallowing act on which he prided himself a great deal. He picked up a small rag doll, and with the other hand he took a long hairpin and began to work it down the throat of the doll.
It was a horrible exhibition. Mr. Hartwell kept working the hairpin down with thick, probing fingers and when some impediment of wadding got in his way he looked up and giggled foolishly. Halfway down he struck an obstacle, but he persisted—persisted horribly. He kept pressing with his hairpin while people looked at one another with distressed faces, and suddenly a gap appeared in the side of the bulging doll and some of the stuffing began to ooze out shockingly. At this manifestation some people gave up utterly. Miss Lily Mandell placed one hand against her stomach in a gesture of nausea, said “Ugh!” and made a hasty exit.
The young “society people,” however, applauded everything enthusiastically. In fact, as the stuffing in the doll began to ooze out, one of the young women turned to the young man who was standing beside her, and said: “I think it’s frightfully interesting—the way he does that. Don’t you?”
To which the young man said briefly, “Eh—,” an ejaculation that might have been indicative of almost anything, but which was here obviously taken for assent.
People had now begun to go out into the halls, and a few of the more cynical could be heard talking to each other ironically with little laughs. Even Mrs. Jack, who had seated herself cross-legged on the floor, like a dutiful child, squarely before the maestro and his puppets, had got up and gone out into the hall, where a number of her guests were now assembled. Here she found Lily Mandell and approaching her, with a bright affectionate little smile, she queried, hopefully: “Are you enjoying it, Lily? And you, darling”—she now turned fondly to her young lover—“are you having a good time?”
Lily Mandell answered in a tone of throaty protest and disgust: “When he started pushing that long pin into the doll, and all its insides began oozing out—ugh!” she put a hand upon her stomach—“I simply couldn’t stand it any longer!”
Mrs. Jack’s shoulders shook, her face reddened, and she gasped in a hysterical whisper: “I know! Wasn’t it awful?”
But now there was the sound of voices in the living room. The performance had ended and there was a ripple of perfunctory applause. The fashionable young people of Mr. Hartwell’s own group clustered around him, chattering congratulations, and then, without a word of thanks to their hostess, they began to leave.
X
The happy confusion, the thronging tumult of the great party had now ended. The guests had all departed, excepting Lily Mandell and Webber. The place had grown back into its wonted quiet, and the unceasing city now closed in upon these lives again, pervaded these great walls.
Outside, there was the sound of a fire truck, the rapid clanging of a bell. It turned the corner into Madison and thundered excitingly past the big building. Mrs. Jack went to the window and looked out. Other trucks now appeared from various directions until four or five had gone by.
“I wonder where the fire can be,” she remarked presently. “It must be quite a big one, too—six trucks have driven past. It must be somewhere in this neighborhood.”
For a moment the location of the fire absorbed the idle speculation of the group, but presently they began to look again at Mr. Hartwell. His labors were now almost over. He began to close his big valises and adjust the straps. At this moment Lily Mandell turned her head with an air of wakened curiosity in the direction of the hall, sniffed sharply, and suddenly said: “Does anyone smell smoke?”
“What?”—said Mrs. Jack with a puzzled air. And then, she cried excitedly: “But yes! There is quite a strong smell of smoke out there. I think it would be just as well if we got out of the. building until we find out what is wrong.”
Mrs. Jack’s rosy face was now burning with excitement. “But isn’t it queer?” she appealed to everyone—“I mean, to think that it should be in this building—I mean—” She looked around her rather helplessly. “Well, then—” she said indefinitely, “I suppose we’d better, until we find out what it is. Oh those girls!” cried Mrs. Jack suddenly, and snapping the ring on and off her finger, she walked quickly toward the dining room. “Molly!—Janie!—Lily! Girls! There’s a fire somewhere in the building. You’ll have to get out until we find out where it is!”
The news obviously upset the girls. They looked helplessly at one another, then they began to move aimlessly around, as if no longer certain what to do.
“Will we have time to pack, Mrs. Jack?” said Molly, looking at her stupidly. “—I mean,” she gulped, “will we need anything?”
“Oh, Molly, no, in heaven’s name!” cried Mrs. Jack. “Nothing except your coats. Tell all the girls and Cook to wear their coats!”
“Yes’m,” said Molly, dumbly, and in a moment she went uncertainly through the dining room to the kitchen.
Mr. Jack meanwhile had gone out into the hall and was ringing the elevator bell. The others joined him there. He rang persistently and presently the voice of Herbert was heard shouting up the shaft. “All right! All right! I’ll be right up, folks, as soon as I take down this load!” The sound of people’s voices, excited, chattering, could be heard down the shaft, and then the elevator went away.
Presently the sound of the elevator could be heard again as it came up. It mounted and then suddenly paused a flight or two below them. Herbert could be heard working his lever and in a moment more shouted up: “Mr. Jack, will you all please use the service entrance? The elevator’s out of order: I can’t go any further.”
At this moment all the lights went out. The place was plunged in inky blackness. There was just a brief, a rather terrifying moment, when the women caught their breaths sharply. In the darkness, the smell of the smoke was more acrid and biting than it had ever been. Molly moaned a little and the maids began to mill around like stricken cattle. But they quieted down when they heard the comforting assurance of Mr. Jack’s quiet voice: “Alice, we’ll have to light candles. Can you tell me where they are?”
She told him. He went back into the kitchen and reappeared with a box of tallow candles. He gave everyone a candle and lighted them. The women lifted their candles and looked at each other with an air of bewildered surmise. Mrs. Jack turned questioningly to her lover. “Isn’t it strange?” she whispered—“Isn’t it the strangest thing? I mean the party . . . all the people . . . and then this”—and holding up her candle she looked about her at that ghostly company. And suddenly he was filled with love for her, because he knew the woman like himself had the mystery and strangeness of all life, all love in her heart.
The others were now gathered on the service landing waiting while Mr. Hartwell tested the bell of the service elevator. There was no response to his repeated efforts and in a few moments he remarked: “Well, I suppose there’s nothing for us to do now except to walk down.” Mr. Jack had apparently reached this conclusion on his own account and had started down the nine flights of concrete stairs that led to the ground floor and safety. In a moment all the others followed him.
The electric lights in the service hallways were still burning dimly. But the smoke now filled the air with floating filaments and shifting plumes that made breathing acrid and uncomfortable.
And the service stairs from top to bottom were providing an astounding spectacle. Doors were opening now on every floor and other tenants of the building, and their servants and their guests, were coming out to swell the tide of refugees which now marched steadily downstairs. It was an astounding aggregation. There were people fully attired in splendid evening dress, and people in pyjamas, dressing gowns, or whatever convenient garment they could snatch up. There were young people and there were old people. There were people of every kind and quality and age and physical variation.
And in addition to these there was a babel of strange tongues, the excited jargons of a dozen races. There were German cooks and there were French maids. There were English chauffeurs and there were Irish serving girls. There were Swedes and Italians and Norwegians. There were Poles and Czechs and Austrians, and Negroes; and all of these were poured out in a noisy tide to join in with their lords and masters, their interests all united now in their common pursuit of safety.
As the refugees neared the ground floor, helmeted and coated firemen began to come up the stairs. A few policemen came up after them and these men tried in various ways to allay any panic that anyone may have felt.
“It’s all right, folks! Everything’s okay!” one big policeman cried cheerfully as he came up past the members of Mrs. Jack’s party. “The fire’s over now.”
These words, spoken really for the sake of expediting the orderly progress of the tenants from the building, had an opposite effect from the one which the big policeman wanted to produce. One of the male members of Mrs. Jack’s party, the young man who was bringing up the end of the procession, paused upon hearing the policeman’s reassuring words, and turned, about to retrace his way upstairs again.
As he did so, he saw that the effect upon the policeman had been alarming. The man was now stationed half a flight above him on the landing, and was making frantic gestures to entreat him to leave the building as quickly as possible. So warned, the young man turned again and hastened down the stairs. As he did so, he could hear some tapping and hammering noises from the service-elevator shaft. He paused and listened for a moment: the tapping began, then stopped . . . began again . . . and stopped again.
XI
The space outside the great apartment building, or rather between it—for it was constructed in the shape of a hollow square—was now a wonderful spectacle. The sides of the tremendous building the whole way around were spanned by arches which gave the whole place something of the appearance of an enormous cloister—a cloister vaster and more modern than any other one which had been seen, a cloister whose mighty walls soared twelve flights into the air. Here, around the four sides of this great cloister, a horde of people were now constantly flooding out of the huge honeycomb. Seen so, the tremendous pageantry of the scene was overwhelming. It was really like the scene of an appalling shipwreck—like a great liner, her life gored out upon an iceberg, keeling slowly with her whole great company of people—the crew, the passengers, the rich, the poor, the mighty, and the lowly—assembled now, at this last hour of peril, in a living fellowship—the whole family of earth, and all its classes, at length united on these slanting decks.
This scene here now in this great cloister was like this—except that the ship was this enfabled rock beneath their feet, the ship’s company the whole company of life, and of the swarming and unceasing city.
As yet few people seemed fully to have comprehended the full significance of the event which had thus unceremoniously dumped them out of their sleek nests into the open weather. For all of them it was undoubtedly the first time that they had had the opportunity of appraising at first hand, so to speak, unprepared, the full personnel of the great building. People who would never, under any ordinary circumstances, mingle with one another were now seen laughing and talking together with the familiarity of long acquaintanceship. A famous courtesan, wearing a chinchilla coat which her fabulously wealthy lover had given her, now took off this magnificent garment and, walking over to an elderly woman with a delicate and patrician face, she threw the coat over this woman’s thinly covered shoulders, at the same time saying in a tough but somehow kindly voice: “You wear this, darling. You look cold.” And the woman smiled graciously and thanked her tarnished sister; then the two women stood talking together like old friends.
Elsewhere, a haughty old Bourbon of the Knickerbocker type was seen engaged in earnest conversation with a Tammany policeman, whose companionship the Bourbon would have spurned indignantly an hour before. And so it went, everywhere one looked: one saw haughty Gentiles with rich Jews; stately ladies with musical-comedy actresses; a woman famous for her charities with a celebrated whore.
