Bambi Part 16

"Jarvis! Sit down! You silly thing! He's only in fun. It's the spirit of the place."

"I won't have you toasted by strange men," he thundered.

"All right. I'll make a face at him next time," she said, soothingly; but somewhere, down in the depths of her being, where her cave ancestor lurked, she was pleased. As they finished their coffee, Bambi picked up the check, which the waiter laid beside Jarvis's plate.

"Do you mind my paying it? Would you rather do it?"

"Certainly not. It's your money. Why should I pretend about it?"

She could have hugged him for it. Instead, she overfed the waiter.

"It's too heavenly, out of doors, for pictures, after all," she said, as they came out on to the drive. "What shall we do?"

"Let's get that double-decker again, and ride until we come to the end of the world."

"Righto. Here it comes, now."

Downtown they went, to Washington Square, where they dismounted, to wander off at random. All at once they were in another world. It was like an Alice in Wonderland adventure. They stepped out of the quiet of the green, shady quadrangle into a narrow street, swarming with life.

Innumerable children, everywhere, shrieking and running at games. Fat mothers and babies along the curb, bargaining with pushcart men. A wheezing hurdy-gurdy, with every other note gone to the limbo of lost chords, rasped and leaked jerky tunes. All the shops had foreign names on the windows--not even an "English spoken here" sign. The fresh wind blew down the dirty street, and peppered everything with dust.

Newspapers increased their circulation in a most irritating manner under foot. The place was hideous, lifting its raucous cry to the fair spring sky.

Jarvis looked at Bambi, silenced, for once. Her face registered a loud protest.

"Well?" he challenged her.

"Oh, I hate ugliness so. It's like pain. Is it very weak of me to hate ugliness?" she begged.

"It's very natural, and no doubt weak."

"I wouldn't mind the thought of poverty so much--not hunger, nor thirst, nor cold--but dirt and hideousness--they are too terrible."

"This is life in the raw. You like it dressed for Fifth Avenue better,"

he taunted.

"Do you prefer this?"

"Infinitely."

She looked about again, with a sense of having missed his point.

"Because it's fight, hand-to-throat fight?"

"Yes. You can teach these people. They don't know anything. They are dumb beasts. You can give them tongue. It's too late to teach your Upper End."

A woman pa.s.sed close, with a baby, covered with great sores. Bambi caught at Jarvis's sleeve and tottered a step.

"I feel a little sick," she faltered.

He caught her hand through his arm, and hurried her quickly back the way they had come. As they mounted the stage, he looked at her white face.

"We will have to expurgate life for you, Miss Mite."

"No, no. I want it all. I must get hardened."

Back at the club, she hurried into her hot bath, with a vague hope of washing off all traces of that awful street. But their talk at dinner was desultory and rather serious. Jarvis talked for the most part, elaborating schemes of social reform and the handling of our immigrant brothers.

They started off to the theatre, with no definite plan. Bambi's spirits rose to the lights of Broadway, like a trout to a silver shiner. There is a hectic joyousness on Broadway, a personification of the "Eat, drink and be merry, for to-morrow we die" spirit which warms you, like champagne, or chills you, like the icy hand of despair, according to your mood. Bambi skipped along beside Jarvis, twittering gayly.

"People are happy, aren't they?"

"Surface veneer."

"Jarvis, you old bogie-man, hiding in the dark, to jump out and say 'Boo!'"

"That's my work--booing frauds. Let's go in here," he added.

"'Damaged Goods,'" Bambi read on the theatre poster. "Do you know anything about it?"

"I've read it. It is not amusing," he added.

She followed him without replying. The theatre was packed with a motley audience of unrelated people. Professors and their wives, reformers, writers, mothers with adolescent sons, mothers with young daughters--what, in Broadway parlance, is called a "high-brow"

audience--a striking group of people gathered together to mark a daring experiment of our audacious times; a surgical clinic on a social sore, up to this moment hidden, neglected, whispered about.

Bambi came to it with an open mind. She had heard of Brieux, his dramatic tracts, but she had not seen the text of this play, nor was she prepared for it. The first act horrified her into silence during the whole intermission. The second act racked her with sobs, and the last act piled up the agony to the breaking point. They made their way out to the street, part of that quiet audience which scarcely spoke, so deep was the impression of the play.

Broadway glared and grinned and gambolled, goat-like. Bambi clung to Jarvis tightly. He looked down at her swollen face, red eyes, and bewildered mouth without a word. He put her into a taxicab and got in after her. In silence she looked out at the glittering white way.

"The veneer is all rubbed off. I can see only bones," she said, and caught her breath in a sob.

Jarvis awkwardly took her hand and patted it.

"I am sorry we went to that play to-night. You must not feel things so,"

he added.

"Didn't you feel it?"

"I felt it, didactically, but not dramatically. It's a big sermon and a poor play."

"I feel as if I had had an appendicitis operation, and I am glad it is over."

"I must meet young Richard Bennett. He has contributed to the big issues of the day. He's a fine actor. He must be an intelligent man."

For the rest of the way they drove in silence.

"Tired?" Jarvis asked as they neared the club.

She looked so little and crumpled, with all the shine drowned in her eyes.