The Lottery and Other Stories

The Intoxicated

HE WAS JUST TIGHT ENOUGH and just familiar enough with the house to be able to go out into the kitchen alone, apparently to get ice, but actually to sober up a little; he was not quite enough a friend of the family to pass out on the living-room couch. He left the party behind without reluctance, the group by the piano singing “Stardust,” his hostess talking earnestly to a young man with thin clean glasses and a sullen mouth; he walked guardedly through the dining-room where a little group of four or five people sat on the stiff chairs reasoning something out carefully among themselves; the kitchen doors swung abruptly to his touch, and he sat down beside a white enamel table, clean and cold under his hand. He put his glass on a good spot in the green pattern and looked up to find that a young girl was regarding him speculatively from across the table.

“Hello,” he said. “You the daughter?”

“I’m Eileen,” she said. “Yes.”

She seemed to him baggy and ill-formed; it’s the clothes they wear now, young girls, he thought foggily; her hair was braided down either side of her face, and she looked young and fresh and not dressed-up; her sweater was purplish and her hair was dark. “You sound nice and sober,” he said, realizing that it was the wrong thing to say to young girls.

“I was just having a cup of coffee,” she said. “May I get you one?”

He almost laughed, thinking that she expected she was dealing knowingly and competently with a rude drunk. “Thank you,” he said, “I believe I will.” He made an effort to focus his eyes; the coffee was hot, and when she put a cup in front of him, saying, “I suppose you’d like it black,” he put his face into the steam and let it go into his eyes, hoping to clear his head.

“It sounds like a lovely party,” she said without longing, “everyone must be having a fine time.”

“It is a lovely party.” He began to drink the coffee, scalding hot, wanting her to know she had helped him. His head steadied, and he smiled at her. “I feel better,” he said, “thanks to you.”

“It must be very warm in the other room,” she said soothingly.

Then he did laugh out loud and she frowned, but he could see her excusing him as she went on, “It was so hot upstairs I thought I’d like to come down for a while and sit out here.”

“Were you asleep?” he asked. “Did we wake you?”

“I was doing my homework,” she said.

He looked at her again, seeing her against a background of careful penmanship and themes, worn textbooks and laughter between desks. “You’re in high school?”

“I’m a Senior.” She seemed to wait for him to say something, and then she said, “I was out a year when I had pneumonia.”

He found it difficult to think of something to say (ask her about boys? basketball?), and so he pretended he was listening to the distant noises from the front of the house. “It’s a fine party,” he said again, vaguely.

“I suppose you like parties,” she said.

Dumbfounded, he sat staring into his empty coffee cup. He supposed he did like parties; her tone had been faintly surprised, as though next he were to declare for an arena with gladiators fighting wild beasts, or the solitary circular waltzing of a madman in a garden. I’m almost twice your age, my girl, he thought, but it’s not so long since I did homework too. “Play basketball?” he asked.

“No,” she said.

He felt with irritation that she had been in the kitchen first, that she lived in the house, that he must keep on talking to her. “What’s your homework about?” he asked.

“I’m writing a paper on the future of the world,” she said, and smiled. “It sounds silly, doesn’t it? I think it’s silly.”

“Your party out front is talking about it. That’s one reason I came out here.” He could see her thinking that that was not at all the reason he came out here, and he said quickly, “What are you saying about the future of the world?”

“I don’t really think it’s got much future,” she said, “at least the way we’ve got it now.”

“It’s an interesting time to be alive,” he said, as though he were still at the party.

“Well, after all,” she said, “it isn’t as though we didn’t know about it in advance.”

He looked at her for a minute; she was staring absently at the toe of her saddle shoe, moving her foot softly back and forth, following it with her eyes. “It’s really a frightening time when a girl sixteen has to think of things like that.” In my day, he thought of saying mockingly, girls thought of nothing but cocktails and necking.

“I’m seventeen.” She looked up and smiled at him again. “There’s a terrible difference,” she said.

“In my day,” he said, overemphasizing, “girls thought of nothing but cocktails and necking.”

“That’s partly the trouble,” she answered him seriously. “If people had been really, honestly scared when you were young we wouldn’t be so badly off today.”

His voice had more of an edge than he intended (“When I was young!”), and he turned partly away from her as though to indicate the half-interest of an older person being gracious to a child: “I imagine we thought we were scared. I imagine all kids sixteen—seventeen—think they’re scared. It’s part of a stage you go through, like being boy-crazy.”

“I keep figuring how it will be.” She spoke very softly, very clearly, to a point just past him on the wall. “Somehow I think of the churches as going first, before even the Empire State building. And then all the big apartment houses by the river, slipping down slowly into the water with the people inside. And the schools, in the middle of Latin class maybe, while we’re reading Cæsar.” She brought her eyes to his face, looking at him in numb excitement. “Each time we begin a chapter in Cæsar, I wonder if this won’t be the one we never finish. Maybe we in our Latin class will be the last people who ever read Cæsar.”

“That would be good news,” he said lightly. “I used to hate Cæsar.”

“I suppose when you were young everyone hated Cæsar,” she said coolly.

He waited for a minute before he said, “I think it’s a little silly for you to fill your mind with all this morbid trash. Buy yourself a movie magazine and settle down.”

“I’ll be able to get all the movie magazines I want,” she said insistently. “The subways will crash through, you know, and the little magazine stands will all be squashed. You’ll be able to pick up all the candy bars you want, and magazines, and lipsticks and artificial flowers from the five-and-ten, and dresses lying in the street from all the big stores. And fur coats.”

“I hope the liquor stores will break wide open,” he said, beginning to feel impatient with her, “I’d walk in and help myself to a case of brandy and never worry about anything again.”

“The office buildings will be just piles of broken stones,” she said, her wide emphatic eyes still looking at him. “If only you could know exactly what minute it will come.”

“I see,” he said. “I go with the rest. I see.”

“Things will be different afterward,” she said. “Everything that makes the world like it is now will be gone. We’ll have new rules and new ways of living. Maybe there’ll be a law not to live in houses, so then no one can hide from anyone else, you see.”

“Maybe there’ll be a law to keep all seventeen-year-old girls in school learning sense,” he said, standing up.

“There won’t be any schools,” she said flatly. “No one will learn anything. To keep from getting back where we are now.”

“Well,” he said, with a little laugh. “You make it sound very interesting. Sorry I won’t be there to see it.” He stopped, his shoulder against the swinging door into the dining-room. He wanted badly to say something adult and scathing, and yet he was afraid of showing her that he had listened to her, that when he was young people had not talked like that. “If you have any trouble with your Latin,” he said finally, “I’ll be glad to give you a hand.”

She giggled, shocking him. “I still do my homework every night,” she said.

Back in the living-room, with people moving cheerfully around him, the group by the piano now singing “Home on the Range,” his hostess deep in earnest conversation with a tall, graceful man in a blue suit, he found the girl’s father and said, “I’ve just been having a very interesting conversation with your daughter.”

His host’s eye moved quickly around the room. “Eileen? Where is she?”

“In the kitchen. She’s doing her Latin.”

“‘Gallia est omnia divisa in partes tres,’” his host said without expression. “I know.”

“A really extraordinary girl.”

His host shook his head ruefully. “Kids nowadays,” he said.

The Daemon Lover

SHE HAD NOT SLEPT WELL; from one-thirty, when Jamie left and she went lingeringly to bed, until seven, when she at last allowed herself to get up and make coffee, she had slept fitfully, stirring awake to open her eyes and look into the half-darkness, remembering over and over, slipping again into a feverish dream. She spent almost an hour over her coffee—they were to have a real breakfast on the way—and then, unless she wanted to dress early, had nothing to do. She washed her coffee cup and made the bed, looking carefully over the clothes she planned to wear, worried unnecessarily, at the window, over whether it would be a fine day. She sat down to read, thought that she might write a letter to her sister instead, and began, in her finest handwriting, “Dearest Anne, by the time you get this I will be married. Doesn’t it sound funny? I can hardly believe it myself, but when I tell you how it happened, you’ll see it’s even stranger than that….”

Sitting, pen in hand, she hesitated over what to say next, read the lines already written, and tore up the letter. She went to the window and saw that it was undeniably a fine day. It occurred to her that perhaps she ought not to wear the blue silk dress; it was too plain, almost severe, and she wanted to be soft, feminine. Anxiously she pulled through the dresses in the closet, and hesitated over a print she had worn the summer before; it was too young for her, and it had a ruffled neck, and it was very early in the year for a print dress, but still….

She hung the two dresses side by side on the outside of the closet door and opened the glass doors carefully closed upon the small closet that was her kitchenette. She turned on the burner under the coffeepot, and went to the window; it was sunny. When the coffeepot began to crackle she came back and poured herself coffee, into a clean cup. I’ll have a headache if I don’t get some solid food soon, she thought, all this coffee, smoking too much, no real breakfast. A headache on her wedding day; she went and got the tin box of aspirin from the bathroom closet and slipped it into her blue pocketbook. She’d have to change to a brown pocketbook if she wore the print dress, and the only brown pocketbook she had was shabby. Helplessly, she stood looking from the blue pocketbook to the print dress, and then put the pocketbook down and went and got her coffee and sat down near the window, drinking her coffee, and looking carefully around the one-room apartment. They planned to come back here tonight and everything must be correct. With sudden horror she realized that she had forgotten to put clean sheets on the bed; the laundry was freshly back and she took clean sheets and pillow cases from the top shelf of the closet and stripped the bed, working quickly to avoid thinking consciously of why she was changing the sheets. The bed was a studio bed, with a cover to make it look like a couch, and when it was finished no one would have known she had just put clean sheets on it. She took the old sheets and pillow cases into the bathroom and stuffed them down into the hamper, and put the bathroom towels in the hamper too, and clean towels on the bathroom racks. Her coffee was cold when she came back to it, but she drank it anyway.

When she looked at the clock, finally, and saw that it was after nine, she began at last to hurry. She took a bath, and used one of the clean towels, which she put into the hamper and replaced with a clean one. She dressed carefully, all her underwear fresh and most of it new; she put everything she had worn the day before, including her nightgown, into the hamper. When she was ready for her dress, she hesitated before the closet door. The blue dress was certainly decent, and clean, and fairly becoming, but she had worn it several times with Jamie, and there was nothing about it which made it special for a wedding day. The print dress was overly pretty, and new to Jamie, and yet wearing such a print this early in the year was certainly rushing the season. Finally she thought, This is my wedding day, I can dress as I please, and she took the print dress down from the hanger. When she slipped it on over her head it felt fresh and light, but when she looked at herself in the mirror she remembered that the ruffles around the neck did not show her throat to any great advantage, and the wide swinging skirt looked irresistibly made for a girl, for someone who would run freely, dance, swing it with her hips when she walked. Looking at herself in the mirror she thought with revulsion, It’s as though I was trying to make myself look prettier than I am, just for him; he’ll think I want to look younger because he’s marrying me; and she tore the print dress off so quickly that a seam under the arm ripped. In the old blue dress she felt comfortable and familiar, but unexciting. It isn’t what you’re wearing that matters, she told herself firmly, and turned in dismay to the closet to see if there might be anything else. There was nothing even remotely suitable for her marrying Jamie, and for a minute she thought of going out quickly to some little shop nearby, to get a dress. Then she saw that it was close on ten, and she had no time for more than her hair and her make-up. Her hair was easy, pulled back into a knot at the nape of her neck, but her makeup was another delicate balance between looking as well as possible, and deceiving as little. She could not try to disguise the sallowness of her skin, or the lines around her eyes, today, when it might look as though she were only doing it for her wedding, and yet she could not bear the thought of Jamie’s bringing to marriage anyone who looked haggard and lined. You’re thirty-four years old after all, she told herself cruelly in the bathroom mirror. Thirty, it said on the license.

It was two minutes after ten; she was not satisfied with her clothes, her face, her apartment. She heated the coffee again and sat down in the chair by the window. Can’t do anything more now, she thought, no sense trying to improve anything the last minute.

Reconciled, settled, she tried to think of Jamie and could not see his face clearly, or hear his voice. It’s always that way with someone you love, she thought, and let her mind slip past today and tomorrow, into the farther future, when Jamie was established with his writing and she had given up her job, the golden house-in-the-country future they had been preparing for the last week. “I used to be a wonderful cook,” she had promised Jamie, “with a little time and practice I could remember how to make angel-food cake. And fried chicken,” she said, knowing how the words would stay in Jamie’s mind, half-tenderly. “And Hollandaise sauce.”

Ten-thirty. She stood up and went purposefully to the phone. She dialed, and waited, and the girl’s metallic voice said, “…the time will be exactly ten-twenty-nine.” Half-consciously she set her clock back a minute; she was remembering her own voice saying last night, in the doorway: “Ten o’clock then. I’ll be ready. Is it really true?”

And Jamie laughing down the hallway.

By eleven o’clock she had sewed up the ripped seam in the print dress and put her sewing-box away carefully in the closet. With the print dress on, she was sitting by the window drinking another cup of coffee. I could have taken more time over my dressing after all, she thought; but by now it was so late he might come any minute, and she did not dare try to repair anything without starting all over. There was nothing to eat in the apartment except the food she had carefully stocked up for their life beginning together: the unopened package of bacon, the dozen eggs in their box, the unopened bread and the unopened butter; they were for breakfast tomorrow. She thought of running downstairs to the drugstore for something to eat, leaving a note on the door. Then she decided to wait a little longer.

By eleven-thirty she was so dizzy and weak that she had to go downstairs. If Jamie had had a phone she would have called him then. Instead, she opened her desk and wrote a note: “Jamie, have gone downstairs to the drugstore. Back in five minutes.” Her pen leaked onto her fingers and she went into the bathroom and washed, using a clean towel which she replaced. She tacked the note on the door, surveyed the apartment once more to make sure that everything was perfect, and closed the door without locking it, in case he should come.

In the drugstore she found that there was nothing she wanted to eat except more coffee, and she left it half-finished because she suddenly realized that Jamie was probably upstairs waiting and impatient, anxious to get started.

But upstairs everything was prepared and quiet, as she had left it, her note unread on the door, the air in the apartment a little stale from too many cigarettes. She opened the window and sat down next to it until she realized that she had been asleep and it was twenty minutes to one.

Now, suddenly, she was frightened. Waking without preparation into the room of waiting and readiness, everything clean and untouched since ten o’clock, she was frightened, and felt an urgent need to hurry. She got up from the chair and almost ran across the room to the bathroom, dashed cold water on her face, and used a clean towel; this time she put the towel carelessly back on the rack without changing it; time enough for that later. Hatless, still in the print dress with a coat thrown on over it, the wrong blue pocketbook with the aspirin inside in her hand, she locked the apartment door behind her, no note this time, and ran down the stairs. She caught a taxi on the corner and gave the driver Jamie’s address.

It was no distance at all; she could have walked it if she had not been so weak, but in the taxi she suddenly realized how imprudent it would be to drive brazenly up to Jamie’s door, demanding him. She asked the driver, therefore, to let her off at a corner near Jamie’s address and, after paying him, waited till he drove away before she started to walk down the block. She had never been here before; the building was pleasant and old, and Jamie’s name was not on any of the mailboxes in the vestibule, nor on the doorbells. She checked the address; it was right, and finally she rang the bell marked “Superintendent.” After a minute or two the door buzzer rang and she opened the door and went into the dark hall where she hesitated until a door at the end opened and someone said, “Yes?”

She knew at the same moment that she had no idea what to ask, so she moved forward toward the figure waiting against the light of the open doorway. When she was very near, the figure said, “Yes?” again and she saw that it was a man in his shirtsleeves, unable to see her any more clearly than she could see him.

With sudden courage she said, “I’m trying to get in touch with someone who lives in this building and I can’t find the name outside.”

“What’s the name you wanted?” the man asked, and she realized that she would have to answer.

“James Harris,” she said. “Harris.”

The man was silent for a minute and then he said, “Harris.” He turned around to the room inside the lighted doorway and said, “Margie, come here a minute.”

“What now?” a voice said from inside, and after a wait long enough for someone to get out of a comfortable chair a woman joined him in the doorway, regarding the dark hall. “Lady here,” the man said. “Lady looking for a guy name of Harris, lives here. Anyone in the building?”

“No,” the woman said. Her voice sounded amused. “No men named Harris here.”

“Sorry,” the man said. He started to close the door. “You got the wrong house, lady,” he said, and added in a lower voice, “or the wrong guy,” and he and the woman laughed.

When the door was almost shut and she was alone in the dark hall she said to the thin lighted crack still showing, “But he does live here; I know it.”

“Look,” the woman said, opening the door again a little, “it happens all the time.”

“Please don’t make any mistake,” she said, and her voice was very dignified, with thirty-four years of accumulated pride. “I’m afraid you don’t understand.”

“What did he look like?” the woman said wearily, the door still only part open.

“He’s rather tall, and fair. He wears a blue suit very often. He’s a writer.”

“No,” the woman said, and then, “Could he have lived on the third floor?”

“I’m not sure.”

“There was a fellow,” the woman said reflectively. “He wore a blue suit a lot, lived on the third floor for a while. The Roysters lent him their apartment while they were visiting her folks upstate.”

“That might be it; I thought, though….”

“This one wore a blue suit mostly, but I don’t know how tall he was,” the woman said. “He stayed there about a month.”

“A month ago is when—”

“You ask the Roysters,” the woman said. “They come back this morning. Apartment 3B.”

The door closed, definitely. The hall was very dark and the stairs looked darker.

On the second floor there was a little light from a skylight far above. The apartment doors lined up, four on the floor, uncommunicative and silent. There was a bottle of milk outside 2C.

On the third floor, she waited for a minute. There was the sound of music beyond the door of 3B, and she could hear voices. Finally she knocked, and knocked again. The door was opened and the music swept out at her, an early afternoon symphony broadcast. “How do you do,” she said politely to this woman in the doorway. “Mrs. Royster?”

“That’s right.” The woman was wearing a housecoat and last night’s make-up.

“I wonder if I might talk to you for a minute?”

“Sure,” Mrs. Royster said, not moving.

“About Mr. Harris.”

“What Mr. Harris?” Mrs. Royster said flatly.

“Mr. James Harris. The gentleman who borrowed your apartment.”

“O Lord,” Mrs. Royster said. She seemed to open her eyes for the first time. “What’d he do?”

“Nothing. I’m just trying to get in touch with him.”

“O Lord,” Mrs. Royster said again. Then she opened the door wider and said, “Come in,” and then, “Ralph!”

Inside, the apartment was still full of music, and there were suitcases half-unpacked on the couch, on the chairs, on the floor. A table in the corner was spread with the remains of a meal, and the young man sitting there, for a minute resembling Jamie, got up and came across the room.

“What about it?” he said.

“Mr. Royster,” she said. It was difficult to talk against the music. “The superintendent downstairs told me that this was where Mr. James Harris has been living.”

“Sure,” he said. “If that was his name.”

“I thought you lent him the apartment,” she said, surprised.

“I don’t know anything about him,” Mr. Royster said. “He’s one of Dottie’s friends.”

“Not my friends,” Mrs. Royster said. “No friend of mine.” She had gone over to the table and was spreading peanut butter on a piece of bread. She took a bite and said thickly, waving the bread and peanut butter at her husband. “Not my friend.”

“You picked him up at one of those damn meetings,” Mr. Royster said. He shoved a suitcase off the chair next to the radio and sat down, picking up a magazine from the floor next to him. “I never said more’n ten words to him.”

“You said it was okay to lend him the place,” Mrs. Royster said before she took another bite. “You never said a word against him, after all.”

“I don’t say anything about your friends,” Mr. Royster said.

“If he’d of been a friend of mine you would have said plenty, believe me,” Mrs. Royster said darkly. She took another bite and said, “Believe me, he would have said plenty.”

“That’s all I want to hear,” Mr. Royster said, over the top of the magazine. “No more, now.”

“You see.” Mrs. Royster pointed the bread and peanut butter at her husband. “That’s the way it is, day and night.”

There was silence except for the music bellowing out of the radio next to Mr. Royster, and then she said, in a voice she hardly trusted to be heard over the radio noise, “Has he gone, then?”

“Who?” Mrs. Royster demanded, looking up from the peanut butter jar.

“Mr. James Harris.”

“Him? He must’ve left this morning, before we got back. No sign of him anywhere.”

“Gone?”

“Everything was fine, though, perfectly fine. I told you,” she said to Mr. Royster, “I told you he’d take care of everything fine. I can always tell.”

“You were lucky,” Mr. Royster said.

“Not a thing out of place,” Mrs. Royster said. She waved her bread and peanut butter inclusively. “Everything just the way we left it,” she said.

“Do you know where he is now?”

“Not the slightest idea,” Mrs. Royster said cheerfully. “But, like I said, he left everything fine. Why?” she asked suddenly. “You looking for him?”

“It’s very important.”

“I’m sorry he’s not here,” Mrs. Royster said. She stepped forward politely when she saw her visitor turn toward the door.

“Maybe the super saw him,” Mr. Royster said into the magazine.

When the door was closed behind her the hall was dark again, but the sound of the radio was deadened. She was halfway down the first flight of stairs when the door was opened and Mrs. Royster shouted down the stairwell, “If I see him I’ll tell him you were looking for him.”

What can I do? she thought, out on the street again. It was impossible to go home, not with Jamie somewhere between here and there. She stood on the sidewalk so long that a woman, leaning out of a window across the way, turned and called to someone inside to come and see. Finally, on an impulse, she went into the small delicatessen next door to the apartment house, on the side that led to her own apartment. There was a small man reading a newspaper, leaning against the counter; when she came in he looked up and came down inside the counter to meet her.

Over the glass case of cold meats and cheese she said, timidly, “I’m trying to get in touch with a man who lived in the apartment house next door, and I just wondered if you know him.”

“Whyn’t you ask the people there?” the man said, his eyes narrow, inspecting her.

It’s because I’m not buying anything, she thought, and she said, “I’m sorry. I asked them, but they don’t know anything about him. They think he left this morning.”

“I don’t know what you want me to do,” he said, moving a little back toward his newspaper. “I’m not here to keep track of guys going in and out next door.”

She said quickly, “I thought you might have noticed, that’s all. He would have been coming past here, a little before ten o’clock. He was rather tall, and he usually wore a blue suit.”

“Now how many men in blue suits go past here every day, lady?” the man demanded. “You think I got nothing to do but—”

“I’m sorry,” she said. She heard him say, “For God’s sake,” as she went out the door.

As she walked toward the corner, she thought, he must have come this way, it’s the way he’d go to get to my house, it’s the only way for him to walk. She tried to think of Jamie: where would he have crossed the street? What sort of person was he actually—would he cross in front of his own apartment house, at random in the middle of the block, at the corner?

On the corner was a newsstand; they might have seen him there. She hurried on and waited while a man bought a paper and a woman asked directions. When the newsstand man looked at her she said, “Can you possibly tell me if a rather tall young man in a blue suit went past here this morning around ten o’clock?” When the man only looked at her, his eyes wide and his mouth a little open, she thought, he thinks it’s a joke, or a trick, and she said urgently, “It’s very important, please believe me. I’m not teasing you.”

“Look, lady,” the man began, and she said eagerly, “He’s a writer. He might have bought magazines here.”

“What you want him for?” the man asked. He looked at her, smiling, and she realized that there was another man waiting in back of her and the newsdealer’s smile included him. “Never mind,” she said, but the newsdealer said, “Listen, maybe he did come by here.” His smile was knowing and his eyes shifted over her shoulder to the man in back of her. She was suddenly horribly aware of her over-young print dress, and pulled her coat around her quickly. The newsdealer said, with vast thoughtfulness, “Now I don’t know for sure, mind you, but there might have been someone like your gentleman friend coming by this morning.”

“About ten?”

“About ten,” the newsdealer agreed. “Tall fellow, blue suit. I wouldn’t be at all surprised.”

“Which way did he go?” she said eagerly. “Uptown?”

“Uptown,” the newsdealer said, nodding. “He went uptown. That’s just exactly it. What can I do for you, sir?”

She stepped back, holding her coat around her. The man who had been standing behind her looked at her over his shoulder and then he and the newsdealer looked at one another. She wondered for a minute whether or not to tip the newsdealer but when both men began to laugh she moved hurriedly on across the street.

Uptown, she thought, that’s right, and she started up the avenue, thinking: He wouldn’t have to cross the avenue, just go up six blocks and turn down my street, so long as he started uptown. About a block farther on she passed a florist’s shop; there was a wedding display in the window and she thought, This is my wedding day after all, he might have gotten flowers to bring me, and she went inside. The florist came out of the back of the shop, smiling and sleek, and she said, before he could speak, so that he wouldn’t have a chance to think she was buying anything: “It’s terribly important that I get in touch with a gentleman who may have stopped in here to buy flowers this morning. Terribly important.”

She stopped for breath, and the florist said, “Yes, what sort of flowers were they?”

“I don’t know,” she said, surprised. “He never—” She stopped and said, “He was a rather tall young man, in a blue suit. It was about ten o’clock.”

“I see,” the florist said. “Well, really, I’m afraid….”

“But it’s so important,” she said. “He may have been in a hurry,” she added helpfully.

“Well,” the florist said. He smiled genially, showing all his small teeth. “For a lady,” he said. He went to a stand and opened a large book. “Where were they to be sent?” he asked.

“Why,” she said, “I don’t think he’d have sent them. You see, he was coming—that is, he’d bring them.”

“Madam,” the florist said; he was offended. His smile became deprecatory, and he went on, “Really, you must realize that unless I have something to go on….”

“Please try to remember,” she begged. “He was tall, and had a blue suit, and it was about ten this morning.”

The florist closed his eyes, one finger to his mouth, and thought deeply. Then he shook his head. “I simply can’t,” he said.

“Thank you,” she said despondently, and started for the door, when the florist said, in a shrill, excited voice, “Wait! Wait just a moment, madam.” She turned and the florist, thinking again, said finally, “Chrysanthemums?” He looked at her inquiringly.

“Oh, no,” she said; her voice shook a little and she waited for a minute before she went on. “Not for an occasion like this, I’m sure.”

The florist tightened his lips and looked away coldly. “Well, of course I don’t know the occasion,” he said, “but I’m almost certain that the gentleman you were inquiring for came in this morning and purchased one dozen chrysanthemums. No delivery.”

“You’re sure?” she asked.

“Positive,” the florist said emphatically. “That was absolutely the man.” He smiled brilliantly, and she smiled back and said, “Well, thank you very much.”

He escorted her to the door. “Nice corsage?” he said, as they went through the shop. “Red roses? Gardenias?”

“It was very kind of you to help me,” she said at the door.

“Ladies always look their best in flowers,” he said, bending his head toward her. “Orchids, perhaps?”

“No, thank you,” she said, and he said, “I hope you find your young man,” and gave it a nasty sound.

Going on up the street she thought, Everyone thinks it’s so funny: and she pulled her coat tighter around her, so that only the ruffle around the bottom of the print dress was showing.

There was a policeman on the corner, and she thought, Why don’t I go to the police—you go to the police for a missing person. And then thought, What a fool I’d look like. She had a quick picture of herself standing in a police station, saying, “Yes, we were going to be married today, but he didn’t come,” and the policemen, three or four of them standing around listening, looking at her, at the print dress, at her too-bright make-up, smiling at one another. She couldn’t tell them any more than that, could not say, “Yes, it looks silly, doesn’t it, me all dressed up and trying to find the young man who promised to marry me, but what about all of it you don’t know? I have more than this, more than you can see: talent, perhaps, and humor of a sort, and I’m a lady and I have pride and affection and delicacy and a certain clear view of life that might make a man satisfied and productive and happy; there’s more than you think when you look at me.”

The police were obviously impossible, leaving out Jamie and what he might think when he heard she’d set the police after him. “No, no,” she said aloud, hurrying her steps, and someone passing stopped and looked after her.

On the coming corner—she was three blocks from her own street—was a shoeshine stand, an old man sitting almost asleep in one of the chairs. She stopped in front of him and waited, and after a minute he opened his eyes and smiled at her.

“Look,” she said, the words coming before she thought of them, “I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m looking for a young man who came up this way about ten this morning, did you see him?” And she began her description, “Tall, blue suit, carrying a bunch of flowers?”

The old man began to nod before she was finished. “I saw him,” he said. “Friend of yours?”

“Yes,” she said, and smiled back involuntarily.

The old man blinked his eyes and said, “I remember I thought, You’re going to see your girl, young fellow. They all go to see their girls,” he said, and shook his head tolerantly.

“Which way did he go? Straight on up the avenue?”

“That’s right,” the old man said. “Got a shine, had his flowers, all dressed up, in an awful hurry. You got a girl, I thought.”

“Thank you,” she said, fumbling in her pocket for her loose change.

“She sure must of been glad to see him, the way he looked,” the old man said.

“Thank you,” she said again, and brought her hand empty from her pocket.

For the first time she was really sure he would be waiting for her, and she hurried up the three blocks, the skirt of the print dress swinging under her coat, and turned into her own block. From the corner she could not see her own windows, could not see Jamie looking out, waiting for her, and going down the block she was almost running to get to him. Her key trembled in her fingers at the downstairs door, and as she glanced into the drugstore she thought of her panic, drinking coffee there this morning, and almost laughed. At her own door she could wait no longer, but began to say, “Jamie, I’m here, I was so worried,” even before the door was open.

Her own apartment was waiting for her, silent, barren, afternoon shadows lengthening from the window. For a minute she saw only the empty coffee cup, thought, He has been here waiting, before she recognized it as her own, left from the morning. She looked all over the room, into the closet, into the bathroom.

“I never saw him,” the clerk in the drugstore said. “I know because I would of noticed the flowers. No one like that’s been in.”

The old man at the shoeshine stand woke up again to see her standing in front of him. “Hello again,” he said, and smiled.

“Are you sure?” she demanded. “Did he go on up the avenue?”

“I watched him,” the old man said, dignified against her tone. “I thought, There’s a young man’s got a girl, and I watched him right into the house.”

“What house?” she said remotely.

“Right there,” the old man said. He leaned forward to point. “The next block. With his flowers and his shine and going to see his girl. Right into her house.”

“Which one?” she said.

“About the middle of the block,” the old man said. He looked at her with suspicion, and said, “What you trying to do, anyway?”

She almost ran, without stopping to say “Thank you.” Up on the next block she walked quickly, searching the houses from the outside to see if Jamie looked from a window, listening to hear his laughter somewhere inside.

A woman was sitting in front of one of the houses, pushing a baby carriage monotonously back and forth the length of her arm. The baby inside slept, moving back and forth.

The question was fluent, by now. “I’m sorry, but did you see a young man go into one of these houses about ten this morning? He was tall, wearing a blue suit, carrying a bunch of flowers.”

A boy about twelve stopped to listen, turning intently from one to the other, occasionally glancing at the baby.

“Listen,” the woman said tiredly, “the kid has his bath at ten. Would I see strange men walking around? I ask you.”

“Big bunch of flowers?” the boy asked, pulling at her coat. “Big bunch of flowers? I seen him, missus.”

She looked down and the boy grinned insolently at her. “Which house did he go in?” she asked wearily.

“You gonna divorce him?” the boy asked insistently.

“That’s not nice to ask the lady,” the woman rocking the carriage said.

“Listen,” the boy said, “I seen him. He went in there.” He pointed to the house next door. “I followed him,” the boy said. “He give me a quarter.” The boy dropped his voice to a growl, and said, “‘This is a big day for me, kid,’ he says. Give me a quarter.”

She gave him a dollar bill. “Where?” she said.

“Top floor,” the boy said. “I followed him till he give me the quarter. Way to the top.” He backed up the sidewalk, out of reach, with the dollar bill. “You gonna divorce him?” he asked again.

“Was he carrying flowers?”

“Yeah,” the boy said. He began to screech. “You gonna divorce him, missus? You got something on him?” He went careening down the street, howling, “She’s got something on the poor guy,” and the woman rocking the baby laughed.

The street door of the apartment house was unlocked; there were no bells in the outer vestibule, and no lists of names. The stairs were narrow and dirty; there were two doors on the top floor. The front one was the right one; there was a crumpled florist’s paper on the floor outside the door, and a knotted paper ribbon, like a clue, like the final clue in the paper-chase.

She knocked, and thought she heard voices inside, and she thought, suddenly, with terror, What shall I say if Jamie is there, if he comes to the door? The voices seemed suddenly still. She knocked again and there was silence, except for something that might have been laughter far away. He could have seen me from the window, she thought, it’s the front apartment and that little boy made a dreadful noise. She waited, and knocked again, but there was silence.

Finally she went to the other door on the floor, and knocked. The door swung open beneath her hand and she saw the empty attic room, bare lath on the walls, floorboards unpainted. She stepped just inside, looking around; the room was filled with bags of plaster, piles of old newspapers, a broken trunk. There was a noise which she suddenly realized as a rat, and then she saw it, sitting very close to her, near the wall, its evil face alert, bright eyes watching her. She stumbled in her haste to be out with the door closed, and the skirt of the print dress caught and tore.

She knew there was someone inside the other apartment, because she was sure she could hear low voices and sometimes laughter. She came back many times, every day for the first week. She came on her way to work, in the mornings; in the evenings, on her way to dinner alone, but no matter how often or how firmly she knocked, no one ever came to the door.

Like Mother Used to Make

DAVID TURNER, who did everything in small quick movements, hurried from the bus stop down the avenue toward his street. He reached the grocery on the corner and hesitated; there had been something. Butter, he remembered with relief; this morning, all the way up the avenue to his bus stop, he had been telling himself butter, don’t forget butter coming home tonight, when you pass the grocery remember butter. He went into the grocery and waited his turn, examining the cans on the shelves. Canned pork sausage was back, and corned-beef hash. A tray full of rolls caught his eye, and then the woman ahead of him went out and the clerk turned to him.

“How much is butter?” David asked cautiously.

“Eighty-nine,” the clerk said easily.

“Eighty-nine?” David frowned.

“That’s what it is,” the clerk said. He looked past David at the next customer.

“Quarter of a pound, please,” David said. “And a half-dozen rolls.”

Carrying his package home he thought, I really ought not to trade there any more; you’d think they’d know me well enough to be more courteous.

There was a letter from his mother in the mailbox. He stuck it into the top of the bag of rolls and went upstairs to the third floor. No light in Marcia’s apartment, the only other apartment on the floor. David turned to his own door and unlocked it, snapping on the light as he came in the door. Tonight, as every night when he came home, the apartment looked warm and friendly and good; the little foyer, with the neat small table and four careful chairs, and the bowl of little marigolds against the pale green walls David had painted himself; beyond, the kitchenette, and beyond that, the big room where David read and slept and the ceiling of which was a perpetual trouble to him; the plaster was falling in one corner and no power on earth could make it less noticeable. David consoled himself for the plaster constantly with the thought that perhaps if he had not taken an apartment in an old brownstone the plaster would not be falling, but then, too, for the money he paid he could not have a foyer and a big room and a kitchenette, anywhere else.

He put his bag down on the table and put the butter away in the refrigerator and the rolls in the breadbox. He folded the empty bag and put it in a drawer in the kitchenette. Then he hung his coat in the hall closet and went into the big room, which he called his living-room, and lighted the desk light. His word for the room, in his own mind, was “charming.” He had always been partial to yellows and browns, and he had painted the desk and the bookcases and the end tables himself, had even painted the walls, and had hunted around the city for the exact tweedish tan drapes he had in mind. The room satisfied him: the rug was a rich dark brown that picked up the darkest thread in the drapes, the furniture was almost yellow, the cover on the studio couch and the lampshades were orange. The rows of plants on the window sills gave the touch of green the room needed; right now David was looking for an ornament to set on the end table, but he had his heart set on a low translucent green bowl for more marigolds, and such things cost more than he could afford, after the silverware.

He could not come into this room without feeling that it was the most comfortable home he had ever had; tonight, as always, he let his eyes move slowly around the room, from couch to drapes to bookcase, imagined the green bowl on the end table, and sighed as he turned to the desk. He took his pen from the holder, and a sheet of the neat notepaper sitting in one of the desk cubbyholes, and wrote carefully: “Dear Marcia, don’t forget you’re coming for dinner tonight. I’ll expect you about six.” He signed the note with a “D” and picked up the key to Marcia’s apartment which lay in the flat pencil tray on his desk. He had a key to Marcia’s apartment because she was never home when her laundryman came, or when the man came to fix the refrigerator or the telephone or the windows, and someone had to let them in because the landlord was reluctant to climb three flights of stairs with the pass key. Marcia had never suggested having a key to David’s apartment, and he had never offered her one; it pleased him to have only one key to his home, and that safely in his own pocket; it had a pleasant feeling to him, solid and small, the only way into his warm fine home.

He left his front door open and went down the dark hall to the other apartment. He opened the door with his key and turned on the light. This apartment was not agreeable for him to come into; it was exactly the same as his: foyer, kitchenette, living-room, and it reminded him constantly of his first day in his own apartment, when the thought of the careful home-making to be done had left him very close to despair. Marcia’s home was bare and at random; an upright piano a friend had given her recently stood crookedly, half in the foyer, because the little room was too narrow and the big room was too cluttered for it to sit comfortably anywhere; Marcia’s bed was unmade and a pile of dirty laundry lay on the floor. The window had been open all day and papers had blown wildly around the floor. David closed the window, hesitated over the papers, and then moved away quickly. He put the note on the piano keys and locked the door behind him.

In his own apartment he settled down happily to making dinner. He had made a little pot roast for dinner the night before; most of it was still in the refrigerator and he sliced it in fine thin slices and arranged it on a plate with parsley. His plates were orange, almost the same color as the couch cover, and it was pleasant to him to arrange a salad, with the lettuce on the orange plate, and the thin slices of cucumber. He put coffee on to cook, and sliced potatoes to fry, and then, with his dinner cooking agreeably and the window open to lose the odor of the frying potatoes, he set lovingly to arranging his table. First, the tablecloth, pale green, of course. And the two fresh green napkins. The orange plates and the precise cup and saucer at each place. The plate of rolls in the center, and the odd salt and pepper shakers, like two green frogs. Two glasses—they came from the five-and-ten, but they had thin green bands around them—and finally, with great care, the silverware. Gradually, tenderly, David was buying himself a complete set of silverware; starting out modestly with a service for two, he had added to it until now he had well over a service for four, although not quite a service for six, lacking salad forks and soup spoons. He had chosen a sedate, pretty pattern, one that would be fine with any sort of table setting, and each morning he gloried in a breakfast that started with a shining silver spoon for his grapefruit, and had a compact butter knife for his toast and a solid heavy knife to break his eggshell, and a fresh silver spoon for his coffee, which he sugared with a particular spoon meant only for sugar. The silverware lay in a tarnish-proof box on a high shelf all to itself, and David lifted it down carefully to take out a service for two. It made a lavish display set out on the table—knives, forks, salad forks, more forks for the pie, a spoon to each place, and the special serving pieces—the sugar spoon, the large serving spoons for the potatoes and the salad, the fork for the meat, and the pie fork. When the table held as much silverware as two people could possibly use he put the box back on the shelf and stood back, checking everything and admiring the table, shining and clean. Then he went into his living-room to read his mother’s letter and wait for Marcia.

The potatoes were done before Marcia came, and then suddenly the door burst open and Marcia arrived with a shout and fresh air and disorder. She was a tall handsome girl with a loud voice, wearing a dirty raincoat, and she said, “I didn’t forget, Davie, I’m just late as usual. What’s for dinner? You’re not mad, are you?”

David got up and came over to take her coat. “I left a note for you,” he said.

“Didn’t see it,” Marcia said. “Haven’t been home. Something smells good.”

“Fried potatoes,” David said. “Everything’s ready.”

“Golly.” Marcia fell into a chair to sit with her legs stretched out in front of her and her arms hanging. “I’m tired,” she said. “It’s cold out.”

“It was getting colder when I came home,” David said. He was putting dinner on the table, the platter of meat, the salad, the bowl of fried potatoes. He walked quietly back and forth from the kitchenette to the table, avoiding Marcia’s feet. “I don’t believe you’ve been here since I got my silverware,” he said.

Marcia swung around to the table and picked up a spoon. “It’s beautiful,” she said, running her finger along the pattern. “Pleasure to eat with it.”

“Dinner’s ready,” David said. He pulled her chair out for her and waited for her to sit down.

Marcia was always hungry; she put meat and potatoes and salad on her plate without admiring the serving silver, and started to eat enthusiastically. “Everything’s beautiful,” she said once. “Food is wonderful, Davie.”

“I’m glad you like it,” David said. He liked the feel of the fork in his hand, even the sight of the fork moving up to Marcia’s mouth.

Marcia waved her hand largely. “I mean everything,” she said, “furniture, and nice place you have here, and dinner, and everything.”

“I like things this way,” David said.

“I know you do.” Marcia’s voice was mournful. “Someone should teach me, I guess.”

“You ought to keep your home neater,” David said. “You ought to get curtains at least, and keep your windows shut.”

“I never remember,” she said. “Davie, you are the most wonderful cook.” She pushed her plate away, and sighed.

David blushed happily. “I’m glad you like it,” he said again, and then he laughed. “I made a pie last night.”

“A pie.” Marcia looked at him for a minute and then she said, “Apple?”

David shook his head, and she said, “Pineapple?” and he shook his head again, and, because he could not wait to tell her, said, “Cherry.”

“My God!” Marcia got up and followed him into the kitchen and looked over his shoulder while he took the pie carefully out of the breadbox. “Is this the first pie you ever made?”

“I’ve made two before,” David admitted, “but this one turned out better than the others.”

She watched happily while he cut large pieces of pie and put them on other orange plates, and then she carried her own plate back to the table, tasted the pie, and made wordless gestures of appreciation. David tasted his pie and said critically, “I think it’s a little sour. I ran out of sugar.”

“It’s perfect,” Marcia said. “I always loved a cherry pie really sour. This isn’t sour enough, even.”

David cleared the table and poured the coffee, and as he was setting the coffeepot back on the stove Marcia said, “My doorbell’s ringing.” She opened the apartment door and listened, and they could both hear the ringing in her apartment. She pressed the buzzer in David’s apartment that opened the downstairs door, and far away they could hear heavy footsteps starting up the stairs. Marcia left the apartment door open and came back to her coffee. “Landlord, most likely,” she said. “I didn’t pay my rent again.” When the footsteps reached the top of the last staircase Marcia yelled, “Hello?” leaning back in her chair to see out the door into the hall. Then she said, “Why, Mr. Harris.” She got up and went to the door and held out her hand. “Come in,” she said.

“I just thought I’d stop by,” Mr. Harris said. He was a very large man and his eyes rested curiously on the coffee cups and empty plates on the table. “I don’t want to interrupt your dinner.”

“That’s all right,” Marcia said, pulling him into the room. “It’s just Davie. Davie, this is Mr. Harris, he works in my office. This is Mr. Turner.”

“How do you do,” David said politely, and the man looked at him carefully and said, “How do you do?”

“Sit down, sit down,” Marcia was saying, pushing a chair forward. “Davie, how about another cup for Mr. Harris?”

“Please don’t bother,” Mr. Harris said quickly, “I just thought I’d stop by.”

While David was taking out another cup and saucer and getting a spoon down from the tarnish-proof silverbox, Marcia said, “You like homemade pie?”

“Say,” Mr. Harris said admiringly, “I’ve forgotten what homemade pie looks like.”

“Davie,” Marcia called cheerfully, “how about cutting Mr. Harris a piece of that pie?”

Without answering, David took a fork out of the silverbox and got down an orange plate and put a piece of pie on it. His plans for the evening had been vague; they had involved perhaps a movie if it were not too cold out, and at least a short talk with Marcia about the state of her home; Mr. Harris was settling down in his chair and when David put the pie down silently in front of him he stared at it admiringly for a minute before he tasted it.

“Say,” he said finally, “this is certainly some pie.” He looked at Marcia. “This is really good pie,” he said.

“You like it?” Marcia asked modestly. She looked up at David and smiled at him over Mr. Harris’ head. “I haven’t made but two, three pies before,” she said.

David raised a hand to protest, but Mr. Harris turned to him and demanded, “Did you ever eat any better pie in your life?”

“I don’t think Davie liked it much,” Marcia said wickedly, “I think it was too sour for him.”

“I like a sour pie,” Mr. Harris said. He looked suspiciously at David. “A cherry pie’s got to be sour.”

“I’m glad you like it, anyway,” Marcia said. Mr. Harris ate the last mouthful of pie, finished his coffee, and sat back. “I’m sure glad I dropped in,” he said to Marcia.

David’s desire to be rid of Mr. Harris had slid imperceptibly into an urgency to be rid of them both; his clean house, his nice silver, were not meant as vehicles for the kind of fatuous banter Marcia and Mr. Harris were playing at together; almost roughly he took the coffee cup away from the arm Marcia had stretched across the table, took it out to the kitchenette and came back and put his hand on Mr. Harris’ cup.

“Don’t bother, Davie, honestly,” Marcia said. She looked up, smiling again, as though she and David were conspirators against Mr. Harris. “I’ll do them all tomorrow, honey,” she said.

“Sure,” Mr. Harris said. He stood up. “Let them wait. Let’s go in and sit down where we can be comfortable.”

Marcia got up and led him into the living-room and they sat down on the studio couch. “Come on in, Davie,” Marcia called.

The sight of his pretty table covered with dirty dishes and cigarette ashes held David. He carried the plates and cups and silverware into the kitchenette and stacked them in the sink and then, because he could not endure the thought of their sitting there any longer, with the dirt gradually hardening on them, he tied an apron on and began to wash them carefully. Now and then, while he was washing them and drying them and putting them away, Marcia would call to him, sometimes, “Davie, what are you doing?” or, “Davie, won’t you stop all that and come sit down?” Once she said, “Davie, I don’t want you to wash all those dishes,” and Mr. Harris said, “Let him work, he’s happy.”

David put the clean yellow cups and saucers back on the shelves—by now, Mr. Harris’ cup was unrecognizable; you could not tell, from the clean rows of cups, which one he had used or which one had been stained with Marcia’s lipstick or which one had held David’s coffee which he had finished in the kitchenette—and finally, taking the tarnish-proof box down, he put the silverware away. First the forks all went together into the little grooves which held two forks each—later, when the set was complete, each groove would hold four forks—and then the spoons, stacked up neatly one on top of another in their own grooves, and the knives in even order, all facing the same way, in the special tapes in the lid of the box. Butter knives and serving spoons and the pie knife all went into their own places, and then David put the lid down on the lovely shining set and put the box back on the shelf. After wringing out the dishcloth and hanging up the dish towel and taking off his apron he was through, and he went slowly into the living-room. Marcia and Mr. Harris were sitting close together on the studio couch, talking earnestly.

“My father’s name was James,” Marcia was saying as David came in, as though she were clinching an argument. She turned around when David came in and said, “Davie, you were so nice to do all those dishes yourself.”

“That’s all right,” David said awkwardly. Mr. Harris was looking at him impatiently.

“I should have helped you,” Marcia said. There was a silence, and then Marcia said, “Sit down, Davie, won’t you?”

David recognized her tone; it was the one hostesses used when they didn’t know what else to say to you, or when you had come too early or stayed too late. It was the tone he had expected to use on Mr. Harris.

“James and I were just talking about….” Marcia began and then stopped and laughed. “What were we talking about?” she asked, turning to Mr. Harris.

“Nothing much,” Mr. Harris said. He was still watching David.

“Well,” Marcia said, letting her voice trail off. She turned to David and smiled brightly and then said, “Well,” again.

Mr. Harris picked up the ashtray from the end table and set it on the couch between himself and Marcia. He took a cigar out of his pocket and said to Marcia, “Do you mind cigars?” and when Marcia shook her head he unwrapped the cigar tenderly and bit off the end. “Cigar smoke’s good for plants,” he said thickly, around the cigar, as he lighted it, and Marcia laughed.

David stood up. For a minute he thought he was going to say something that might start, “Mr. Harris, I’ll thank you to…” but what he actually said, finally, with both Marcia and Mr. Harris looking at him, was, “Guess I better be getting along, Marcia.”

Mr. Harris stood up and said heartily, “Certainly have enjoyed meeting you.” He held out his hand and David shook hands limply.

“Guess I better be getting along,” he said again to Marcia, and she stood up and said, “I’m sorry you have to leave so soon.”

“Lots of work to do,” David said, much more genially than he intended, and Marcia smiled at him again as though they were conspirators and went over to the desk and said, “Don’t forget your key.”

Surprised, David took the key of her apartment from her, said good night to Mr. Harris, and went to the outside door.

“Good night, Davie honey,” Marcia called out, and David said “Thanks for a simply wonderful dinner, Marcia,” and closed the door behind him.

He went down the hall and let himself into Marcia’s apartment; the piano was still awry, the papers were still on the floor, the laundry scattered, the bed unmade. David sat down on the bed and looked around. It was cold, it was dirty, and as he thought miserably of his own warm home he heard faintly down the hall the sound of laughter and the scrape of a chair being moved. Then, still faintly, the sound of his radio. Wearily, David leaned over and picked up a paper from the floor, and then he began to gather them up one by one.

Trial by Combat

WHEN EMILY JOHNSON came home one evening to her furnished room and found three of her best handkerchiefs missing from the dresser drawer, she was sure who had taken them and what to do. She had lived in the furnished room for about six weeks and for the past two weeks she had been missing small things occasionally. There had been several handkerchiefs gone, and an initial pin which Emily rarely wore and which had come from the five-and-ten. And once she had missed a small bottle of perfume and one of a set of china dogs. Emily had known for some time who was taking the things, but it was only tonight that she had decided what to do. She had hesitated about complaining to the landlady because her losses were trivial and because she had felt certain that sooner or later she would know how to deal with the situation herself. It had seemed logical to her from the beginning that the one person in the rooming-house who was home all day was the most likely suspect, and then, one Sunday morning, coming downstairs from the roof, where she had been sitting in the sun, Emily had seen someone come out of her room and go down the stairs, and had recognized the visitor. Tonight, she felt, she knew just what to do. She took off her coat and hat, put her packages down, and, while a can of tamales was heating on her electric plate, she went over what she intended to say.

After her dinner, she closed and locked her door and went downstairs. She tapped softly on the door of the room directly below her own, and when she thought she heard someone say, “Come in,” she said, “Mrs. Allen?,” then opened the door carefully and stepped inside.

The room, Emily noticed immediately, was almost like her own—the same narrow bed with the tan cover, the same maple dresser and armchair; the closet was on the opposite side of the room, but the window was in the same relative position. Mrs. Allen was sitting in the armchair. She was about sixty. More than twice as old as I am, Emily thought, while she stood in the doorway, and a lady still. She hesitated for a few seconds, looking at Mrs. Allen’s clean white hair and her neat, dark-blue house coat, before speaking. “Mrs. Allen,” she said, “I’m Emily Johnson.”

Mrs. Allen put down the Woman’s Home Companion she had been reading and stood up slowly. “I’m very happy to meet you,” she said graciously. “I’ve seen you, of course, several times, and thought how pleasant you looked. It’s so seldom one meets anyone really”—Mrs. Allen hesitated—“really nice,” she went on, “in a place like this.”

“I’ve wanted to meet you, too,” Emily said.

Mrs. Allen indicated the chair she had been sitting in. “Won’t you sit down?”

“Thank you,” Emily said. “You stay there. I’ll sit on the bed.” She smiled. “I feel as if I know the furniture so well. Mine’s just the same.”

“It’s a shame,” Mrs. Allen said, sitting down in her chair again. “I’ve told the landlady over and over, you can’t make people feel at home if you put all the same furniture in the rooms. But she maintains that this maple furniture is clean-looking and cheap.”

“It’s better than most,” Emily said. “You’ve made yours look much nicer than mine.”

“I’ve been here for three years,” Mrs. Allen said. “You’ve only been here a month or so, haven’t you?”

“Six weeks,” Emily said.

“The landlady’s told me about you. Your husband’s in the Army.”

“Yes. I have a job here in New York.”

“My husband was in the Army,” Mrs. Allen said. She gestured at a group of pictures on her maple dresser. “That was a long time ago, of course. He’s been dead for nearly five years.” Emily got up and went over to the pictures. One of them was of a tall, dignified-looking man in Army uniform. Several were of children.

“He was a very distinguished-looking man,” Emily said. “Are those your children?”

“I had no children, to my sorrow,” the old lady said. “Those are nephews and nieces of my husband’s.”

Emily stood in front of the dresser, looking around the room. “I see you have flowers, too,” she said. She walked to the window and looked at the row of potted plants. “I love flowers,” she said. “I bought myself a big bunch of asters tonight to brighten up my room. But they fade so quickly.”

“I prefer plants just for that reason,” Mrs. Allen said. “But why don’t you put an aspirin in the water with your flowers? They’ll last much longer.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know much about flowers,” Emily said. “I didn’t know about putting an aspirin in the water, for instance.”

“I always do, with cut flowers,” Mrs. Allen said. “I think flowers make a room look so friendly.”

Emily stood by the window for a minute, looking out on Mrs. Allen’s daily view: the fire escape opposite, an oblique slice of the street below. Then she took a deep breath and turned around. “Actually, Mrs. Allen,” she said, “I had a reason for dropping in.”

“Other than to make my acquaintance?” Mrs. Allen said, smiling.

“I don’t know quite what to do,” Emily said. “I don’t like to say anything to the landlady.”

“The landlady isn’t much help in an emergency,” Mrs. Allen said.

Emily came back and sat on the bed, looking earnestly at Mrs. Allen, seeing a nice old lady. “It’s so slight,” she said, “but someone has been coming into my room.”

Mrs. Allen looked up.

“I’ve been missing things,” Emily went on, “like handkerchiefs and little inexpensive jewelry. Nothing important. But someone’s been coming into my room and helping themselves.”

“I’m sorry to hear it,” Mrs. Allen said.

“You see, I don’t like to make trouble,” Emily said. “It’s just that someone’s coming into my room. I haven’t missed anything of value.”

“I see,” Mrs. Allen said.

“I just noticed it a few days ago. And then last Sunday I was coming down from the roof and I saw someone coming out of my room.”

“Do you have any idea who it was?” Mrs. Allen asked.

“I believe I do,” Emily said.

Mrs. Allen was quiet for a minute. “I can see where you wouldn’t like to speak to the landlady,” she said finally.

“Of course not,” Emily said. “I just want it to stop.”

“I don’t blame you,” Mrs. Allen said.

“You see, it means someone has a key to my door,” Emily said pleadingly.

“All the keys in this house open all the doors,” Mrs. Allen said. “They’re all old-fashioned locks.”

“It has to stop,” Emily said. “If it doesn’t, I’ll have to do something about it.”

“I can see that,” Mrs. Allen said. “The whole thing is very unfortunate.” She rose. “You’ll have to excuse me,” she went on. “I tire very easily and I must be in bed early. I’m so happy you came down to see me.”

“I’m so glad to have met you at last,” Emily said. She went to the door. “I hope I won’t be bothered again,” she said. “Good night.”

“Good night,” Mrs. Allen said.

The following evening, when Emily came home from work, a pair of cheap earrings was gone, along with two packages of cigarettes which had been in her dresser drawer. That evening she sat alone in her room for a long time, thinking. Then she wrote a letter to her husband and went to bed. The next morning she got up and dressed and went to the corner drugstore, where she called her office from a phone booth and said that she was sick and would not be in that day. Then she went back to her room. She sat for almost an hour with the door slightly ajar before she heard Mrs. Allen’s door open and Mrs. Allen come out and go slowly down the stairs. When Mrs. Allen had had time to get out onto the street, Emily locked her door and, carrying her key in her hand, went down to Mrs. Allen’s room.

She was thinking, I just want to pretend it’s my own room, so that if anyone comes I can say I was mistaken about the floor. For a minute, after she had opened the door, it seemed as though she were in her own room. The bed was neatly made and the shade drawn down over the window. Emily left the door unlocked and went over and pulled up the shade. Now that the room was light, she looked around. She had a sudden sense of unbearable intimacy with Mrs. Allen, and thought, This is the way she must feel in my room. Everything was neat and plain. She looked in the closet first, but there was nothing in there but Mrs. Allen’s blue house coat and one or two plain dresses. Emily went to the dresser. She looked for a moment at the picture of Mrs. Allen’s husband, and then opened the top drawer and looked in. Her handkerchiefs were there, in a neat, small pile, and next to them the cigarettes and the earrings. In one corner the little china dog was sitting. Everything is here, Emily thought, all put away and very orderly. She closed the drawer and opened the next two. Both were empty. She opened the top one again. Besides her things, the drawer held a pair of black cotton gloves, and under the little pile of her handkerchiefs were two plain white ones. There was a box of Kleenex and a small tin of aspirin. For her plants, Emily thought.

Emily was counting the handkerchiefs when a noise behind her made her turn around. Mrs. Allen was standing in the doorway watching her quietly. Emily dropped the handkerchiefs she was holding and stepped back. She felt herself blushing and knew her hands were trembling. Now, she was thinking, now turn around and tell her. “Listen, Mrs. Allen,” she began, and stopped.

“Yes?” Mrs. Allen said gently.

Emily found that she was staring at the picture of Mrs. Allen’s husband; such a thoughtful-looking man, she was thinking. They must have had such a pleasant life together, and now she has a room like mine, with only two handkerchiefs of her own in the drawer.

“Yes?” Mrs. Allen said again.

What does she want me to say, Emily thought. What could she be waiting for with such a ladylike manner? “I came down,” Emily said, and hesitated. My voice is almost ladylike, too, she thought. “I had a terrible headache and I came down to borrow some aspirin,” she said quickly. “I had this awful headache and when I found you were out I thought surely you wouldn’t mind if I just borrowed some aspirin.”

“I’m so sorry,” Mrs. Allen said. “But I’m glad you felt you knew me well enough.”

“I never would have dreamed of coming in,” Emily said, “except for such a bad headache.”

“Of course,” Mrs. Allen said. “Let’s not say any more about it.” She went over to the dresser and opened the drawer. Emily, standing next to her, watched her hand pass over the handkerchiefs and pick up the aspirin. “You just take two of these and go to bed for an hour,” Mrs. Allen said.

“Thank you.” Emily began to move toward the door. “You’ve been very kind.”

“Let me know if there’s anything more I can do.”

“Thank you,” Emily said again, opening the door. She waited for a minute and then turned toward the stairs to her room.

“I’ll run up later today,” Mrs. Allen said, “just to see how you feel.”

The Villager

MISS CLARENCE stopped on the corner of Sixth Avenue and Eighth Street and looked at her watch. Two-fifteen; she was earlier than she thought. She went into Whelan’s and sat at the counter, putting her copy of the Villager down on the counter next to her pocketbook and The Charterhouse of Parma, which she had read enthusiastically up to page fifty and only carried now for effect. She ordered a chocolate-frosted and while the clerk was making it she went over to the cigarette counter and bought a pack of Koolsbought a pack of Kools. Sitting again at the soda counter, she opened the pack and lit a cigarette.

Miss Clarence was about thirty-five, and had lived in Greenwich Village for twelve years. When she was twenty-three she had come to New York from a small town upstate because she wanted to be a dancer, and because everyone who wanted to study dancing or sculpture or book-binding had come to Greenwich Village then, usually with allowances from their families to live on and plans to work in Macy’s or in a bookshop until they had enough money to pursue their art. Miss Clarence, fortunate in having taken a course in shorthand and typing, had gone to work as a stenographer in a coal and coke concern. Now, after twelve years, she was a private secretary in the same concern, and was making enough money to live in a good Village apartment by the park and buy herself smart clothes. She still went to an occasional dance recital with another girl from her office, and sometimes when she wrote to her old friends at home she referred to herself as a “Village die-hard.” When Miss Clarence gave the matter any thought at all, she was apt to congratulate herself on her common sense in handling a good job competently and supporting herself better than she would have in her home town.

Confident that she looked very well in her gray tweed suit and the hammered copper lapel ornament from a Village jewelry store, Miss Clarence finished her frosted and looked at her watch again. She paid the cashier and went out into Sixth Avenue, and began to walk briskly uptown. She had estimated correctly; the house she was looking for was just west of Sixth Avenue, and she stopped in front of it for a minute, pleased with herself, and comparing the building with her own presentable apartment house. Miss Clarence lived in a picturesque brick and stucco modern; this house was wooden and old, with the very new front door that is deceptive until you look at the building above and see the turn-of-the-century architecture. Miss Clarence compared the address again with the ad in the Villager, and then opened the front door and went into the dingy hallway. She found the name Roberts and the apartment number, 4B. Miss Clarence sighed and started up the stairs.

She stopped and rested on the third landing, and lit another one of her cigarettes so as to enter the apartment effectively. At the head of the stairs on the fourth floor she found 4B, with a typed note pinned on the door. Miss Clarence pulled the note loose from the thumbtack that held it, and took it over into the light. “Miss Clarence—” she read, “I had to run out for a few minutes, but will be back about three-thirty. Please come on in and look around till I get back—all the furniture is marked with prices. Terribly sorry. Nancy Roberts.”

Miss Clarence tried the door and it was unlocked. Still holding the note, she went in and closed the door behind her. The room was in confusion: half-empty boxes of papers and books were on the floor, the curtains were down, and the furniture piled with half-packed suitcases and clothes. The first thing Miss Clarence did was go to the window; on the fourth floor, she thought, maybe they would have a view. But she could see only dirty roofs and, far off to the left, a high building crowned with flower gardens. Someday I’ll live there, she thought, and turned back to the room.

She went into the kitchen, a tiny alcove with a two-burner stove and a refrigerator built underneath, with a small sink on one side. Don’t do much cooking, Miss Clarence thought, stove’s never been cleaned. In the refrigerator were a bottle of milk and three bottles of Coca Cola and a half-empty jar of peanut butter. Eat all their meals out, Miss Clarence thought. She opened the cupboard: a glass and a bottle opener. The other glass would be in the bathroom, Miss Clarence thought; no cups: she doesn’t even make coffee in the morning. There was a roach inside the cupboard door; Miss Clarence closed it hurriedly and went back into the big room. She opened the bathroom door and glanced in: an old-fashioned tub with feet, no shower. The bathroom was dirty, and Miss Clarence was sure there would be roaches in there too.

Finally Miss Clarence turned to the crowded room. She lifted a suitcase and a typewriter off one of the chairs, took off her hat and coat, and sat down, lighting another one of her cigarettes. She had already decided that she could not use any of the furniture—the two chairs and the studio bed were maple; what Miss Clarence thought of as Village Modern. The small end-table bookcase was a nice piece of furniture, but there was a long scratch running across the top, and several glass stains. It was marked ten dollars, and Miss Clarence told herself she could get a dozen new ones if she wanted to pay that price. Miss Clarence, in a mild resentment of the coal and coke company, had done her quiet apartment in shades of beige and off-white, and the thought of introducing any of this shiny maple frightened her. She had a quick picture of young Village characters, frequenters of bookshops, lounging on the maple furniture and drinking rum and coke, putting their glasses down anywhere.

For a minute Miss Clarence thought of offering to buy some books, but the ones packed on top of the boxes were mostly art books and portfolios. Some of the books had “Arthur Roberts” written inside; Arthur and Nancy Roberts, Miss Clarence thought, a nice young couple. Arthur was the artist, then, and Nancy…Miss Clarence turned over a few of the books and came across a book of modern dance photographs; could Nancy, she wondered affectionately, be a dancer?

The phone rang and Miss Clarence, on the other side of the room, hesitated for a minute before walking over and answering it. When she said hello a man’s voice said, “Nancy?”

“No, I’m sorry, she’s not home,” Miss Clarence said.

“Who’s this?” the voice asked.

“I’m waiting to see Mrs. Roberts,” Miss Clarence said.

“Well,” the voice said, “this is Artie Roberts, her husband. When she comes back ask her to call me, will you?”

“Mr. Roberts,” Miss Clarence said. “Maybe you can help me, then. I came to look at the furniture.”

“Who are you?”

“My name is Clarence, Hilda Clarence. I was interested in buying the furniture.”

“Well, Hilda,” Artie Roberts said, “what do you think? Everything’s in good condition.”

“I can’t quite make up my mind,” Miss Clarence said.

“The studio bed’s as good as new,” Artie Roberts went on, “I’ve got this chance to go to Paris, you know. That’s why we’re selling the stuff.”

“That’s wonderful,” Miss Clarence said.

“Nancy’s going on back to her family in Chicago. We’ve got to sell the stuff and get everything fixed up in such a short time.”

“I know,” Miss Clarence said. “It’s too bad.”

“Well, Hilda,” Artie Roberts said, “you talk to Nancy when she gets back and she’ll be glad to tell you all about it. You won’t go wrong on any of it. I can guarantee that it’s comfortable.”

“I’m sure,” Miss Clarence said.

“Tell her to call me, will you?”

“I certainly will,” Miss Clarence said.

She said good-bye and hung up.

She went back to her chair and looked at her watch. Threeten. I’ll wait till just three-thirty, Miss Clarence thought, and then I’ll leave. She picked up the book of dance photographs, slipping the pages through her fingers until a picture caught her eye and she turned back to it. I haven’t seen this in years, Miss Clarence thought—Martha Graham. A sudden picture of herself at twenty came to Miss Clarence, before she ever came to New York, practicing the dancer’s pose. Miss Clarence put the book down on the floor and stood up, raising her arms. Not as easy as it used to be, she thought, it catches you in the shoulders. She was looking down at the book over her shoulder, trying to get her arms right, when there was a knock and the door was opened. A young man—about Arthur’s age, Miss Clarence thought—came in and stood just inside the door, apologetically.

“It was partly open,” he said, “so I came on in.”

“Yes?” Miss Clarence said, dropping her arms.

“You’re Mrs. Roberts?” the young man asked.

Miss Clarence, trying to walk naturally over to her chair, said nothing.

“I came about the furniture,” the man said. “I thought I might look at the chairs.”

“Of course,” Miss Clarence said. “The price is marked on everything.”

“My name’s Harris. I’ve just moved to the city and I’m trying to furnish my place.”

“It’s very difficult to find things these days.”

“This must be the tenth place I’ve been. I want a filing cabinet and a big leather chair.”

“I’m afraid…” Miss Clarence said, gesturing at the room.

“I know,” Harris said. “Anybody who has that sort of thing these days is hanging on to it. I write,” he added.

“Really?”

“Or, rather, I hope to write,” Harris said. He had a round agreeable face and when he said this he smiled very pleasantly. “Going to get a job and write nights,” he said.

“I’m sure you won’t have much trouble,” Miss Clarence said.

“Someone here an artist?”

“Mr. Roberts,” Miss Clarence said.

“Lucky guy,” Harris said. He walked over to the window. “Easier to draw pictures than write any time. This place is certainly nicer than mine,” he added suddenly, looking out the window. “Mine’s a hole in the wall.”

Miss Clarence could not think of anything to say, and he turned again to look at her curiously. “You an artist, too?”

“No,” Miss Clarence said. She took a deep breath. “Dancer,” she said.

He smiled again, pleasantly. “I might have known,” he said. “When I came in.”

Miss Clarence laughed modestly.

“It must be wonderful,” he said.

“It’s hard,” Miss Clarence said.

“It must be. You had much luck so far?”

“Not much,” Miss Clarence said.

“I guess that’s the way everything is,” he said. He wandered over and opened the bathroom door; when he glanced in Miss Clarence winced. He closed the door again without saying anything and opened the kitchen door.

Miss Clarence got up and walked over to stand next to him and look into the kitchen with him. “I don’t cook a lot,” she said.

“Don’t blame you, so many restaurants.” He closed the door again and Miss Clarence went back to her chair. “I can’t eat breakfasts out, though. That’s one thing I can’t do,” he said.

“Do you make your own?”

“I try to,” he said. “I’m the worst cook in the world. But it’s better than going out. What I need is a wife.” He smile again and started for the door. “I’m sorry about the furniture,” he said. “Wish I could have found something.”

“That’s all right.”

“You people giving up housekeeping?”

“We have to get rid of everything,” Miss Clarence said. She hesitated. “Artie’s going to Paris,” she said finally.

“Wish I was.” He sighed. “Well, good luck to both of you.”

“You, too,” Miss Clarence said, and closed the door behind him slowly. She listened for the sound of his steps going down the stairs and then looked at her watch. Three-twenty-five.

Suddenly in a hurry, she found the note Nancy Roberts had left for her and wrote on the back with a pencil taken from one of the boxes: “My dear Mrs. Roberts—I waited until three-thirty. I’m afraid the furniture is out of the question for me. Hilda Clarence.” Pencil in hand, she thought for a minute. Then she added: “P.S. Your husband called, and wants you to call him back.”

She collected her pocketbook, The Charterhouse of Parma, and the Villager, and closed the door. The thumbtack was still there, and she pried it loose and tacked her note up with it. Then she turned and went back down the stairs, home to her own apartment. Her shoulders ached.

My Life With R. H. Macy

AND THE FIRST THING THEY DID was segregate me. They segregated me from the only person in the place I had even a speaking acquaintance with; that was a girl I had met going down the hall who said to me: “Are you as scared as I am?” And when I said, “Yes,” she said, “I’m in lingerie, what are you in?” and I thought for a while and then said, “Spun glass,” which was as good an answer as I could think of, and she said, “Oh. Well, I’ll meet you here in a sec.” And she went away and was segregated and I never saw her again.

Then they kept calling my name and I kept trotting over to wherever they called it and they would say (“They” all this time being startlingly beautiful young women in tailored suits and with short-clipped hair), “Go with Miss Cooper, here. She’ll tell you what to do.” All the women I met my first day were named Miss Cooper. And Miss Cooper would say to me: “What are you in?” and I had learned by that time to say, “Books,” and she would say, “Oh, well, then, you belong with Miss Cooper here,” and then she would call “Miss Cooper?” and another young woman would come and the first one would say, “13-3138 here belongs with you,” and Miss Cooper would say, “What is she in?” and Miss Cooper would answer, “Books,” and I would go away and be segregated again.

Then they taught me. They finally got me segregated into a classroom, and I sat there for a while all by myself (that’s how far segregated I was) and then a few other girls came in, all wearing tailored suits (I was wearing a red velvet afternoon frock) and we sat down and they taught us. They gave us each a big book with R. H. Macy written on it, and inside this book were pads of little sheets saying (from left to right): “Comp. keep for ref. cust. d.a. no. or c.t. no. salesbook no. salescheck no. clerk no. dept. date M.” After M there was a long line for Mr. or Mrs. and the name, and then it began again with “No. item. class. at price. total.” And down at the bottom was written ORIGINAL and then again, “Comp. keep for ref., and “Paste yellow gift stamp here.” I read all this very carefully. Pretty soon a Miss Cooper came, who talked for a little while on the advantages we had in working at Macy’s, and she talked about the salesbooks, which it seems came apart into a sort of road map and carbons and things. I listened for a while, and when Miss Cooper wanted us to write on the little pieces of paper, I copied from the girl next to me. That was training.

Finally someone said we were going on the floor, and we descended from the sixteenth floor to the first. We were in groups of six by then, all following Miss Cooper doggedly and wearing little tags saying BOOK INFORMATION. I never did find out what that meant. Miss Cooper said I had to work on the special sale counter, and showed me a little book called The Stage-Struck Seal, which it seemed I would be selling. I had gotten about halfway through it before she came back to tell me I had to stay with my unit.

I enjoyed meeting the time clock, and spent a pleasant half-hour punching various cards standing around, and then someone came in and said I couldn’t punch the clock with my hat on. So I had to leave, bowing timidly at the time clock and its prophet, and I went and found out my locker number, which was 1773, and my time-clock number, which was 712, and my cash-box number, which was 1336, and my cash-register number, which was 253, and my cash-register-drawer number, which was K, and my cash-register-drawer-key number, which was 872, and my department number, which was 13. I wrote all these numbers down. And that was my first day.

My second day was better. I was officially on the floor. I stood in a corner of a counter, with one hand possessively on The Stage-Struck Seal, waiting for customers. The counter head was named 13-2246, and she was very kind to me. She sent me to lunch three times, because she got me confused with 13-6454 and 13-3141. It was after lunch that a customer came. She came over and took one of my stage-struck seals, and said “How much is this?” I opened my mouth and the customer said “I have a D. A. and I will have this sent to my aunt in Ohio. Part of that D. A. I will pay for with a book dividend of 32 cents, and the rest of course will be on my account. Is this book price-fixed?” That’s as near as I can remember what she said. I smiled confidently, and said “Certainly; will you wait just one moment?” I found a little piece of paper in a drawer under the counter: it had “Duplicate Triplicate” printed across the front in big letters. I took down the customer’s name and address, her aunt’s name and address, and wrote carefully across the front of the duplicate triplicate “1 Stg. Strk. Sl.” Then I smiled at the customer again and said carelessly: “That will be seventy-five cents.” She said “But I have a D. A.” I told her that all D. A.’s were suspended for the Christmas rush, and she gave me seventy-five cents, which I kept. Then I rang up a “No Sale” on the cash register and I tore up the duplicate triplicate because I didn’t know what else to do with it.

Later on another customer came and said “Where would I find a copy of Ann Rutherford Gwynn’s He Came Like Thunder?” and I said “In medical books, right across the way,” but 13-2246 came and said “That’s philosophy, isn’t it?” and the customer said it was, and 13-2246 said “Right down this aisle, in dictionaries.” The customer went away, and I said to 13-2246 that her guess was as good as mine, anyway, and she stared at me and explained that philosophy, social sciences and Bertrand Russell were all kept in dictionaries.

So far I haven’t been back to Macy’s for my third day, because that night when I started to leave the store, I fell down the stairs and tore my stockings and the doorman said that if I went to my department head Macy’s would give me a new pair of stockings and I went back and I found Miss Cooper and she said, “Go to the adjuster on the seventh floor and give him this,” and she handed me a little slip of pink paper and on the bottom of it was printed “Comp. keep for ref. cust. d.a. no. or c.t. no. salesbook no. salescheck no. clerk no. dept. date M.” And after M, instead of a name, she had written 13-3138. I took the little pink slip and threw it away and went up to the fourth floor and bought myself a pair of stockings for $.69 and then I came down and went out the customers’ entrance.

I wrote Macy’s a long letter, and I signed it with all my numbers added together and divided by 11,700, which is the number of employees in Macy’s. I wonder if they miss me.