“You lie!”
The scullery held its breath.
The steward, with purple face, started forward with raised fist and then paused. He was puzzled at that still figure. It wouldn’t do to be mauled or killed before scullions. …
“All right, nigger—I’ll attend to you later. Get to work, all of you,” he growled.
Matthew sat down and began paring, paring, again. But now the dreams had gone. His head ached. His soul felt stripped bare. He kept pondering dully over this room, glancing at the shifty eyes, the hunches and grins; smelling the smells, the steam, the grease, the dishwater. There was so little kindness or sympathy for each other here among these men. They loved cruelty. They hated and despised most of their fellows, and they fell like a pack of wolves on the weakest. Yet they all had the common bond of toil; their sweat and the sweat of toilers like them made one vast ocean around the world. Waves of world-sweat droned in Matthew’s head dizzily, and naked men were driven drowning through it, yet snapping, snarling, fighting back each other as they wallowed. Well, he wouldn’t fight them. That was idiotic. It was human sacrilege. If fight he must, he would fight stewards and cabin gentry—lackeys and gods.
He walked stiffly to his berth and sat half-dressed in a corner of the common bunk room, hating to seek his hot, dark, ill-ventilated bunk. The men were growling, sprawling, drinking, and telling smutty stories. They had, it seemed to Matthew, a marvelous poverty of capacity to enjoy—to be happy and to play.
The door opened. The kitchen steward came in, followed by a dozen men and women, evidently from the first cabin—fat, sleek persons in evening dress, the women gorgeous and bare, the men pasty-faced and swaggering. All were smoking and flushed with wine. Towns started and stared—My God! If one face appeared there—if the Princess came down and saw this, saw him here! He groaned and stood up quickly, with the half-formed design of walking out.
“A ring, men!” called the steward. The scullery glowered, smirked, and shuffled; backed to one side, torn by conflicting motives, hesitating.
“These ladies and gentlemen have given a purse of two hundred dollars to have this fight out between the darky and the dago. Strip, you—but keep on your pants. This gentleman is referee. Come, Towns. Now’s the chance for revenge.”
The Italian rose, lounged forward, and looked at Towns truculently, furtively. His anger was gone now, and he was not sure Towns had wronged him. Towns looked at him, smiled, and held out his hand. The Italian stared, hesitated, then almost ran and grabbed it. Towns turned to the steward, still watching the door:
“We won’t fight,” he said.
“We ain’t gonna fight,” echoed the Italian.
“Throw them into the ring.”
“Try it,” cried Towns.
“Try it,” echoed the Italian.
The steward turned red and green. He saw a fat fee fading.
“So we can’t make you rats fight,” he sneered.
“Oh, yes, we’ll fight,” said Matthew, “but we won’t fight each other. If rats must fight they fight cats—and dogs—and hogs.”
“Wow!” yelled the scullery, and surged.
“Home, James,” squeaked a shrill voice, “they ain’t gonna be no fight tonight.” She had the face of an angel, the clothes of a queen, and the manners of a prostitute. The guests followed her out, giggling, swaying, and swearing.
“S’no plash f’r min’ster’s son, nohow,” hiccuped the youth in the rear.
The steward lingered and glanced at Matthew, teetering on heel and toe.
“So that’s your game. Trying to stir up something, hey? Planning Bolshevik stuff! D’ye know where I’ve half a mind to land you in New York? I’ll tell you! In jail! D’ye hear? In jail!”
The room was restless. The grumbling stopped gradually. The men looked as though they wanted to talk to him, but Matthew crept to his bunk and pretended to sleep. What was going to happen? What would they do next? Were they going to make him fight his way over? Must he kill somebody? Of all the muddles that a clean, straight life can suddenly fall to, his seemed the worst. He tossed in his narrow, hot bed in an agony of fear and excitement. He slept and dreamed; he was fighting the world. Blood was spurting, heads falling, ghastly estate bulging, but he slew and slew until his neighbor yelled:
“Who the hell you hittin’? Are youse crazy?” And the man fled in fear.
Matthew rose early and went to his task—paring, peeling, cutting, paring. Nothing happened. The steward said no further word. The scullery growled, but let Matthew alone. The Italian crept near him like a lost dog, trying in an inarticulate way to say some unspoken word.
So Matthew dropped back to his dreams.
He was groping toward a career. He wanted to get his hand into the tangles of this world. He wanted to understand. His revolt against medicine became suddenly more than resentment at an unforgivable insult—it became ingrained distaste for the whole narrow career, the slavery of mind and body, the ethical chicanery. His sudden love for a woman far above his station was more than romance—it was a longing for action, breadth, helpfulness, great constructive deeds.
And so, rising and falling, working and writhing, dreaming and suffering, he passed his week of days of weeks. He hardly knew when it ended. Only one day, washing dishes, he looked out of the porthole; there was the Statue of Liberty shining. …
And Matthew laughed.
II
There is a corner in High Harlem where Seventh Avenue cuts the dark world in two. West rises the noble façade of City College—gray and green. East creeps the sullen Harlem, green and gray. There Matthew stood and looked right and left. Left was the world he had left—there were some pretty parlors there, conventional in furniture and often ghastly in ornament, but warm and homelike in soul. There was his own bedroom; Craigg’s restaurant with its glorious biscuit; churches whose music often brushed his ears sweetly, afar; crowded but neat apartments, swaggering but well-dressed lodgers, workers, visitors. He turned from
