The bright searing bud of light swells in the center of the ceiling, sprays razorsharp nickel, enamel, a dazzling sharp glass case of sharp instruments. She takes off her hat and lets herself sink shuddering sick on a little enamel chair. Then she gets stiffly to her feet and undoes the band of her skirt.
The roar of the streets breaks like surf about a shell of throbbing agony. She watches the tilt of her leather hat, the powder, the rosed cheeks, the crimson lips that are a mask on her face. All the buttons of her gloves are buttoned. She raises her hand. “Taxi!” A fire engine roars past, a hosewagon with sweatyfaced men pulling on rubber coats, a clanging hookandladder. All the feeling in her fades with the dizzy fade of the siren. A wooden Indian, painted, with a hand raised at the streetcorner.
“Taxi!”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Drive to the Ritz.”
Section III
I
Rejoicing City That Dwelt Carelessly
There are flags on all the flagpoles up Fifth Avenue. In the shrill wind of history the great flags flap and tug at their lashings on the creaking goldknobbed poles up Fifth Avenue. The stars jiggle sedately against the slate sky, the red and white stripes writhe against the clouds.
In the gale of brassbands and trampling horses and rumbling clatter of cannon, shadows like the shadows of claws grasp at the taut flags, the flags are hungry tongues licking twisting curling.
Oh it’s a long way to Tipperary … Over there! Over there!
The harbor is packed with zebrastriped skunkstriped piebald steamboats, the Narrows are choked with bullion, they’re piling gold sovereigns up to the ceilings in the Subtreasury. Dollars whine on the radio, all the cables tap out dollars.
There’s a long long trail awinding … Over there! Over there!
In the subway their eyes pop as they spell out Apocalypse, typhus, cholera, shrapnel, insurrection, death in fire, death in water, death in hunger, death in mud.
Oh it’s a long way to Madymosell from Armenteers, over there! The Yanks are coming, the Yanks are coming. Down Fifth Avenue the bands blare for the Liberty Loan drive, for the Red Cross drive. Hospital ships sneak up the harbor and unload furtively at night in old docks in Jersey. Up Fifth Avenue the flags of the seventeen nations are flaring curling in the shrill hungry wind.
O the oak and the ash and the weeping willow tree
And green grows the grass in God’s country.
The great flags flap and tug at their lashings on the creaking goldknobbed poles up Fifth Avenue.
Captain James Merivale D.S.C. lay with his eyes closed while the barber’s padded fingers gently stroked his chin. The lather tickled his nostrils; he could smell bay rum, hear the drone of an electric vibrator, the snipping of scissors.
“A little face massage sir, get rid of a few of those blackheads sir,” burred the barber in his ear. The barber was bald and had a round blue chin.
“All right,” drawled Merivale, “go as far as you like. This is the first decent shave I’ve had since war was declared.”
“Just in from overseas, Captain?”
“Yare … been making the world safe for democracy.”
The barber smothered his words under a hot towel. “A little lilac water Captain?”
“No dont put any of your damn lotions on me, just a little witchhazel or something antiseptic.”
The blond manicure girl had faintly beaded lashes; she looked up at him bewitchingly, her rosebud lips parted. “I guess you’ve just landed Captain. … My you’ve got a good tan.” He gave up his hand to her on the little white table. “It’s a long time Captain since anybody took care of these hands.”
“How can you tell?”
“Look how the cuticle’s grown.”
“We were too busy for anything like that. I’m a free man since eight o’clock that’s all.”
“Oh it must have been terr … ible.”
“Oh it was a great little war while it lasted.”
“I’ll say it was … And now you’re all through Captain?”
“Of course I keep my commission in the reserve corps.”
She gave his hand a last playful tap and he got to his feet.
He put tips into the soft palm of the barber and the hard palm of the colored boy who handed him his hat, and walked slowly up the white marble steps. On the landing was a mirror. Captain James Merivale stopped to look at Captain James Merivale. He was a tall straightfeatured young man with a slight heaviness under the chin. He wore a neat-fitting whipcord uniform picked out by the insignia of the Rainbow Division, well furnished with ribbons and service-stripes. The light of the mirror was reflected silvery on either calf of his puttees. He cleared his throat as he looked himself up and down. A young man in civilian clothes came up behind him.
“Hello James, all cleaned up?”
“You betcher. … Say isnt it a damn fool rule not letting us wear Sam Browne belts? Spoils the whole uniform. …”
“They can take all their Sam Browne’s belts and hang them on the Commanding General’s fanny for all I care. … I’m a civilian.”
“You’re still an officer in the reserve corps, dont forget that.”
“They can take their reserve corps and shove it ten thousand miles up the creek. Let’s go have a drink.”
“I’ve got to go up and see the folks.” They had come out on Fortysecond Street. “Well so long James, I’m going to get so drunk … Just imagine being free.” “So long Jerry, dont do anything I wouldnt do.”
Merivale walked west along Fortysecond. There were still flags out, drooping from windows, waggling lazily from poles in the September breeze. He looked in the shops as he walked along; flowers, women’s stockings, candy, shirts and neckties, dresses, colored draperies through glinting plateglass, beyond a stream of faces, men’s razorscraped faces, girls’ faces with
