'Come with me, if you like.'
She walked on. He went beside her.
How could he tell her? How could he make her see?
He said, 'Catherine, the machines are dangerous.'
'They can be. That's why you must be careful.'
'Even if you are careful.'
'Well, being careful is the best we can do, isn't it?'
'You mustn't go to work anymore.'
'Where should I go, then, my darling?'
'You could sew at home, couldn't you? You could take in piece-work.'
'Do you know what that pays?'
He didn't know what anything paid except his own work, and he had learned that only by being paid. He walked on beside her. They passed together through Washington Square. He didn't come often to the square. It lay beyond the limits of his realm; it wasn't meant for a boy like him. Washington Square, like Broadway, was part of the city within the city, cupping its green and dappled quietude, ringed by the remoter fires a place where men and women strolled in dresses and greatcoats, where a lame beggar played on a flute; where the leaves of the trees cut shapes out of the sky and an old woman sold ices from a wooden cart; where a child waved a scarlet pennant that snapped and rippled in countertime to the flute player, who in his turn produced a little point of ginger-colored beard as answer to the pennant. Lucas tried not to be distracted by the beauty of the square. He tried to remain himself.
He asked Catherine, 'Where are we going?'
'To someone I know of.'
He went with her through the square, to a shop on Eighth Street. It was a modest place, half below the street, called Gaya's Emporium. Its window showed two hats floating on poles. One was pink satin, the other stiff black brocade. Under the hats were bracelets and earrings, arranged on a swatch of faded blue velvet, gleaming like brave little gestures of defeat.
Catherine said, 'Wait here.'
'Can't I come in with you?'
'No. It's best if I go in alone.'
'Catherine?'
'Yes?'
'May I see the bowl again, first?'
'Of course you may.'
She opened her reticule and removed the bowl. It was bright in the evening light, almost unnaturally so. It might have been carved from pearl. Its line of strange symbols, its blue curls and circles, stood out boldly, like a language that insisted on its own cogency in a world that had lost the skill to decipher its message.
'You mustn't sell it.' Lucas was briefly host to an urge to snatch it away from her, to hold it to his breast. It seemed for a moment that if the bowl was lost something else would be lost as well, something he and Catherine needed and would not be offered again.
She said, 'Sell it is exactly what I must do. I won't be long.'
She went inside. Lucas waited. What else could he do? He stood before the shop window, watching the hats and jewelry live their silent lives.
Presently, Catherine returned. She wearily mounted the stairs to the street. Lucas thought of his mother's weariness. He wondered if she would improve, with the music box gone.
Catherine said, 'I could get fifty cents. It's all she would give me.'
She held out the coins to him. He wanted the money, he needed the money, but he couldn't bring himself to take it. He stood dumb, with his hands at his sides.
Catherine said, 'It can't be what you paid for it. It's the best I could do.'
He couldn't move or speak.
'Don't reproach me,' she said. 'Please. Take the money.'
He stood helpless. His ears roared.
'Lucas, you begin to try my patience,' she said. 'It was difficult in there. I don't like being treated as a thief.'
So he had done that to her. He had forced her to demean herself. He imagined Gay a of the emporium. He thought she'd be skeletally thin, with skin the color of candle wax. He thought he knew she'd have taken the bowl and examined it greedily and disdainfully. She'd have named her price with the superior finality of those accustomed to dealing in stolen goods.
He said, 'The spinning-girl retreats and advances to the hum of the big wheel.' He could not be certain how loudly he'd spoken.
Catherine faltered. She said, 'You've never repeated yourself before.'
How could she know that? Had she been listening to him, all this time, when he spoke as the book? If so, she'd given no sign.
He couldn't control himself. He said, 'The bride unrumples her white dress, the minute-hand of the clock moves slowly.'
Catherine blinked. Her eyes were bright. She asked, 'What did Simon tell you?'
What had Simon told him? Nothing. Simon sang the old songs, teased Lucas for being small, went to Emily's room in secret.
Lucas said, 'The nine months' gone is in the parturition chamber.'
Catherine dropped the money at Lucas's feet. One of the coins rolled and stopped against the toe of his boot.
'Pick it up and take it home,' she said. 'I have no more patience for you.'
He said, 'The prostitute draggles her shawl, her bonnet bobs on her tipsy and pimpled neck.'
Catherine began to weep. It took her like a spasm. She stood one moment erect, with a single tear meandering down her cheek, and the next moment her face sagged, and the tears came coursing out. She put her face into her hands.
He couldn't think what to do or say. He put his fingers gently on her shoulder. She shrugged him away.
'Leave me alone, Lucas,' she sobbed. 'Please, just leave me alone.'
He couldn't leave her weeping on Eighth Street, with people passing by. He said, 'Come with me. You must sit down.'
To his surprise, she obeyed. She had lost herself to weeping. She had become someone who wept and walked with him as he led her back to Washington Square, where the child's pennant snapped against the sky and the flute player hopped nimbly from foot to foot.
He found a bench and sat on it. She sat beside him. Timidly, he put his arm over her shaking shoulders. She didn't seem to mind.
He said, 'I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you. I don't know what I said.'
Her weeping diminished. She raised her head. Her face was red and haggard. He had never seen her so.
'Would you like to know something?' she said. 'Would you?'
'Yes. Oh, yes.'
'I'm going to have a baby.'
Again he paused in confusion over something that was true but could not be true. She hadn't married.
He said, 'I see,' because it seemed what he ought to say.
'They won't keep me at work. I'll be too big to hide it in a month or so.'
'How could you get too big to go to work?'
'You don't know
She made as if to rise but sank down again on the bench. Lucas said, 'I want you to talk to me. I'll try to understand.'
She went away again, into her weeping. Lucas put his arm again across her shoulders, which shook violently. The people who passed looked at them and then looked politely away, to help deliver Lucas and Catherine from their own shamefulness. The people who passed were intricately made, with gold buckles and little clocks on
