Complete Stories - Dorothy Parker Part 23

The Waltz.

Why, thank you so much. I'd adore to.

I don't want to dance with him. I don't want to dance with anybody. And even if I did, it wouldn't be him. He'd be well down among the last ten. I've seen the way he dances; it looks like something you do on Saint Walpurgis Night. Just think, not a quarter of an hour ago, here I was sitting, feeling so sorry for the poor girl he was dancing with. And now I'm going to be the poor girl. Well, well. Isn't it a small world?

And a peach of a world, too. A true little corker. Its events are so fascinatingly unpredictable, are not they? Here I was, minding my own business, not doing a st.i.tch of harm to any living soul. And then he comes into my life, all smiles and city manners, to sue me for the favor of one memorable mazurka. Why, he scarcely knows my name, let alone what it stands for. It stands for Despair, Bewilderment, Futility, Degradation, and Premeditated Murder, but little does he wot. I don't wot his name, either; I haven't any idea what it is. Jukes, would be my guess from the look in his eyes. How do you do, Mr. Jukes? And how is that dear little brother of yours, with the two heads?

Ah, now why did he have to come around me, with his low requests? Why can't he let me lead my own life? I ask so little-just to be left alone in my quiet corner of the table, to do my evening brooding over all my sorrows. And he must come, with his bows and his sc.r.a.pes and his may-I-have-this-ones. And I had to go and tell him that I'd adore to dance with him. I cannot understand why I wasn't struck right down dead. Yes, and being struck dead would look like a day in the country, compared to struggling out a dance with this boy. But what could I do? Everyone else at the table had got up to dance, except him and me. There was I, trapped. Trapped like a trap in a trap.

What can you say, when a man asks you to dance with him? I most certainly will not dance with you, I'll see you in h.e.l.l first. Why, thank you, I'd like to awfully, but I'm having labor pains. Oh, yes, do let's dance together-it's so nice to meet a man who isn't a scaredy-cat about catching my beri-beri. No. There was nothing for me to do, but say I'd adore to. Well, we might as well get it over with. All right, Cannonball, let's run out on the field. You won the toss; you can lead.

Why, I think it's more of a waltz, really. Isn't it? We might just listen to the music a second. Shall we? Oh, yes, it's a waltz. Mind? Why, I'm simply thrilled. I'd love to waltz with you.

I'd love to waltz with you. I'd love to waltz with you. I'd love to have my tonsils out, I'd love to be in a midnight fire at sea. Well, it's too late now. We're getting under way. Oh. Oh, dear. Oh, dear, dear, dear. Oh, this is even worse than I thought it would be. I suppose that's the one dependable law of life-everything is always worse than you thought it was going to be. Oh, if I had any real grasp of what this dance would be like, I'd have held out for sitting it out. Well, it will probably amount to the same thing in the end. We'll be sitting it out on the floor in a minute, if he keeps this up.

I'm so glad I brought it to his attention that this is a waltz they're playing. Heaven knows what might have happened, if he had thought it was something fast; we'd have blown the sides right out of the building. Why does he always want to be somewhere that he isn't? Why can't we stay in one place just long enough to get acclimated? It's this constant rush, rush, rush, that's the curse of American life. That's the reason that we're all of us so-Ow! For G.o.d's sake, don't kick, you idiot; this is only second down. Oh, my shin. My poor, poor shin, that I've had ever since I was a little girl!

Oh, no, no, no. Goodness, no. It didn't hurt the least little bit. And anyway it was my fault. Really it was. Truly. Well, you're just being sweet, to say that. It really was all my fault.

I wonder what I'd better do-kill him this instant, with my naked hands, or wait and let him drop in his traces. Maybe it's best not to make a scene. I guess I'll just lie low, and watch the pace get him. He can't keep this up indefinitely-he's only flesh and blood. Die he must, and die he shall, for what he did to me. I don't want to be of the oversensitive type, but you can't tell me that kick was unpremeditated. Freud says there are no accidents. I've led no cloistered life, I've known dancing partners who have spoiled my slippers and torn my dress; but when it comes to kicking, I am Outraged Womanhood. When you kick me in the shin, smile.

Maybe he didn't do it maliciously. Maybe it's just his way of showing his high spirits. I suppose I ought to be glad that one of us is having such a good time. I suppose I ought to think myself lucky if he brings me back alive. Maybe it's captious to demand of a practically strange man that he leave your shins as he found them. After all, the poor boy's doing the best he can. Probably he grew up in the hill country, and never had no larnin'. I bet they had to throw him on his back to get shoes on him.

Yes, it's lovely, isn't it? It's simply lovely. It's the loveliest waltz. Isn't it? Oh, I think it's lovely, too.

Why, I'm getting positively drawn to the Triple Threat here. He's my hero. He has the heart of a lion, and the sinews of a buffalo. Look at him-never a thought of the consequences, never afraid of his face, hurling himself into every scrimmage, eyes shining, cheeks ablaze. And shall it be said that I hung back? No, a thousand times no. What's it to me if I have to spend the next couple of years in a plaster cast? Come on, Butch, right through them! Who wants to live forever?

Oh. Oh, dear. Oh, he's all right, thank goodness. For a while I thought they'd have to carry him off the field. Ah, I couldn't bear to have anything happen to him. I love him. I love him better than anybody in the world. Look at the spirit he gets into a dreary, commonplace waltz; how effete the other dancers seem, beside him. He is youth and vigor and courage, he is strength and gaiety and-Ow! Get off my instep, you hulking peasant! What do you think I am, anyway-a gang-plank? Ow!

No, of course it didn't hurt. Why, it didn't a bit. Honestly. And it was all my fault. You see, that little step of yours-well, it's perfectly lovely, but it's just a tiny bit tricky to follow at first. Oh, did you work it up yourself? You really did? Well, aren't you amazing! Oh, now I think I've got it. Oh, I think it's lovely. I was watching you do it when you were dancing before. It's awfully effective when you look at it.

It's awfully effective when you look at it. I bet I'm awfully effective when you look at me. My hair is hanging along my cheeks, my skirt is swaddled about me, I can feel the cold damp of my brow. I must look like something out of "The Fall of the House of Usher." This sort of thing takes a fearful toll of a woman my age. And he worked up his little step himself, he with his degenerate cunning. And it was just a tiny bit tricky at first, but now I think I've got it. Two stumbles, slip, and a twenty-yard dash; yes. I've got it. I've got several other things, too, including a split shin and a bitter heart. I hate this creature I'm chained to. I hated him the moment I saw his leering, b.e.s.t.i.a.l face. And here I've been locked in his noxious embrace for the thirty-five years this waltz has lasted. Is that orchestra never going to stop playing? Or must this obscene travesty of a dance go on until h.e.l.l burns out?

Oh, they're going to play another encore. Oh, goody. Oh, that's lovely. Tired? I should say I'm not tired. I'd like to go on like this forever.

I should say I'm not tired. I'm dead, that's all I am. Dead, and in what a cause! And the music is never going to stop playing, and we're going on like this, Double-Time Charlie and I, throughout eternity. I suppose I won't care any more, after the first hundred thousand years. I suppose nothing will matter then, not heat nor pain nor broken heart nor cruel, aching weariness. Well. It can't come too soon for me.

I wonder why I didn't tell him I was tired. I wonder why I didn't suggest going back to the table. I could have said let's just listen to the music. Yes, and if he would, that would be the first bit of attention he has given it all evening. George Jean Nathan said that the lovely rhythms of the waltz should be listened to in stillness and not be accompanied by strange gyrations of the human body. I think that's what he said. I think it was George Jean Nathan. Anyhow, whatever he said and whoever he was and whatever he's doing now, he's better off than I am. That's safe. Anybody who isn't waltzing with this Mrs. O'Leary's cow I've got here is having a good time.

Still if we were back at the table, I'd probably have to talk to him. Look at him-what could you say to a thing like that! Did you go to the circus this year, what's your favorite kind of ice cream, how do you spell cat? I guess I'm as well off here. As well off as if I were in a cement mixer in full action.

I'm past all feeling now. The only way I can tell when he steps on me is that I can hear the splintering of bones. And all the events of my life are pa.s.sing before my eyes. There was the time I was in a hurricane in the West Indies, there was the day I got my head cut open in the taxi smash, there was the night the drunken lady threw a bronze ash-tray at her own true love and got me instead, there was that summer that the sailboat kept capsizing. Ah, what an easy, peaceful time was mine, until I fell in with Swifty, here. I didn't know what trouble was, before I got drawn into this danse macabre. I think my mind is beginning to wander. It almost seems to me as if the orchestra were stopping. It couldn't be, of course; it could never, never be. And yet in my ears there is a silence like the sound of angel voices. . . .

Oh, they've stopped, the mean things. They're not going to play any more. Oh, darn. Oh, do you think they would? Do you really think so, if you gave them fifty dollars? Oh, that would be lovely. And look, do tell them to play this same thing. I'd simply adore to go on waltzing.

The New Yorker, September 2, 1933.

The Road Home.

The girl in the deep right-hand corner of the taxicab seat looked steadily at the young man reclining against the left-hand wall of the cab. It was a fine dramatic glare that she was executing, but it went wasted. The rhythmic streaks of light from the street lamps showed only the young man's profile turned toward her; a large and handsome profile, the lips of which moved freely. Music, in an elemental form, issued from them and presently words came along with the gay and simple tune, and filled the dark s.p.a.ces of the taxi.

"Oh, Lord Jeffrey Amherst was a soldier of the king.

And he came from acraw-woss the sea;

To the Frenchmen and the Indians he didn't do a thing

In the wilds of this wild coun-tree,

In the WILDS of this WILD-"

The girl spoke. Her voice was low, but it struck across the song and stopped it there where it was.

"If I have to hear that again," she said, "if I have to hear that song just one more time, I'm going right smack out of my mind."

"What's the matter with that song?" the young man said. "That's a good song. That's the best song in the world, that's all that is. Shows how much you care about music. What's the matter with that song? What's the matter with you? What?"

"The matter with me?" she said. "Oh, there's nothing the matter with me, I a.s.sure you. Let me a.s.sure you of that. Not with me."

"Then what's the matter with you?" he said.

"Nothing whatever," she said. "What should be? Everything's been perfectly splendid, hasn't it? You had a wonderful time, didn't you?"

"When?" he said.

"Oh, 'when'!" she said. " 'When'! Why, tonight, of course. When did you think? Listen. I hate to ask you to strain yourself, but you might be so good as to recall that you took me to a party this evening. Can you remember that?"

"Certainly I can," he said. "What's the matter with it?"

"I'm so glad," she said, "that you are able to recollect that it was me you brought with you. That it was I you brought with you. It more or less seemed, all during the evening, as if that little matter had more or less slipped your memory."

"What little matter?" he said. "What's the matter with what?"

"But of course," she said, "as long as you were enjoying yourself, I'm sure n.o.body has any right to say anything. Just as long as you're having a good time, everything's perfectly all right. Naturally."

"Didn't you have a good time?" he said.

"Oh, perfect," she said. "Ideal. What girl wouldn't have, in my place? Naturally, it's my idea of a marvelous evening to sit in a corner all by myself, while a lot of loud-mouthed drunks go into a huddle and sing for four solid hours. Why, I had the time of my life. Logically."

"Who's a lot of loud-mouthed drunks?" he said.

"Oh, several people I could name," she said. "If I cared to."

"You didn't have to go sit in any corner," he said. "Why didn't you come over and sing?"

"Well, since you're so anxious to know," she said, "it was because n.o.body asked me to."

"My G.o.d, do you have to be asked to come on over and sing with a crowd of people?" he said.

"I most certainly do," she said. "And what do you think of that?"

"n.o.body asked anybody," he said. "What's the matter with you, anyway, Marjorie?"

"Oh, n.o.body asked anybody?" she said. "Really? Well, you gave an awfully realistic imitation of begging that little Cronin girl to come over and join the singing. If you could call what she does 'singing,' and not be struck dead."

"She hasn't got a bad voice," he said. "Knows all the words, too."

"She certainly does," she said. "And of course, you had to stand close to her to hear them, because it would be terrible if you missed a syllable of 'Lord Jeffrey Amherst' or 'The Caissons Go Rolling Along.' Naturally, you had to put your arm around her so you could hear better. Of course."

"Oh, so that's what's the matter," he said. "Oh, G.o.d."

"I'm sure," she said, "that it doesn't make any difference to me who you put your arm around. Whom you put your arm around. Let me a.s.sure you of that. If you prefer someone like that hard, cheap, common little Cronin girl to someone that has a certain amount of depths and sensitiveness and has occasionally read a book, why, that's what you prefer. That's all."

"Oh, G.o.d," he said. "Oh, G.o.d."

"The only thing that hurts me," she said, "is absolute neglect. Doubtless that would seem strange to you and the little Cronin girl, but it just so happens that it absolutely kills me to be absolutely neglected. I just happen to be that sort of person, that's all. And there I sat, all evening, without anyone saying one word to me. Charming manners some people have, I must say. Why, when I wanted a drink, I had to go way into the other room and get it for myself."

"You seem to have made the trip quite a few times," he said.

"Well, I had to do something, didn't I?" she said. "Just sitting there, alone in a corner. While you sang. The only bit of attention you paid me the entire evening was when you spilled your entire drink all over my dress. I don't mean that I minded that. Of course, it's the first new dress I've had in ages, and there isn't the least sense in sending it to the cleaner's, because the kind of liquor those people have never comes out. I'll just have to go on wearing it the way it is, that's all. Miss Marjorie Reeves was in white satin trimmed with bathtub gin. Yes. But I certainly don't care anything about that."

"Ah, I'm sorry about that, Marjie," he said. "I feel like the devil about spoiling your dress."

"Oh, please don't think of it," she said. "That isn't what troubles me. What hurts me is to have you take me to a party, and then never give another darn about me all evening. And that's what happens, night after night-I sit, while you sing. Well, I can spare myself any such humiliation in future, thank heaven. I'm sorry, but this is the last time I'll ever go out with you, my dear!"

"You haven't said that since Tuesday," he said.

"Yes, and I had every right to say it Tuesday!" she said. "It was exactly the same thing Tuesday night. Me sitting in a corner alone, and you singing 'Lord Jeffrey Amherst' with your arm around people."

"And it was exactly the same thing coming home in the taxi Tuesday night," he said. "My G.o.d, can't we ever have a regular evening, like anybody else? We go to a party, and I keep looking forward to it all day, and then we go, and I think we're having a swell time, and you know d.a.m.n well I'd rather be out with you than anybody in the world, and then there's always something I've done or something I haven't done, and then there's always this stuff on the way home. Good G.o.d!"

"Well, you'll be spared it in future, my dear," she said. "You don't ever have to see me again. That's what you want, isn't it? I'll keep out of your way-you don't have to trouble about that. Of course, there are people that might think of all the time I'd given them, when I'd never even looked at anyone else, but don't think about that. Everything is perfectly fine for you now. You can go right ahead and have a glorious time with the little Cronin girl, every night. Go singing with her, or whatever else you want to do. If that's what you want."

"Oh, shut your face!" he said.

"Listen to me, you big louse!" she said. "Please remember who you're talking to. Whom. You're not with the little Cronin girl now, you know. It just so happens that you're with somebody who happens to have a little sensitiveness, G.o.d help her, and a little breeding and a few depths, instead of a hard, ordinary little rat that you'd much rather be out singing with than-"

"Oh, nuts!" he said.

The girl swung her left arm back and struck him across the mouth with the back of her hand. As if by a reflex, his right hand sprang up, and its palm slapped her face, hard.

There was silence. After a while, there was a little shuffling sound, as the young man left his wall and edged along the seat toward the girl. Slowly and timidly he put his arms around her, and she could feel them tremble. If she had been looking, the streaks of light from the street lamps would have shown her the concern in his large and handsome face.

"Ah, I'm so sorry, Marjie," he said. "I'm so sorry. Gee, I-I never did a thing like that before in my life."

"I didn't, either," she said, and her voice was broken. "I-it wasn't very nice. I won't ever do a thing like that again."

"I won't, either," he said. "I-I can be different, Marjie. Honestly I can. If-well, if you'd ever see me again, maybe I could show you."

"I can be different, too," she said. "I guess."

After a minute she raised her face from his shoulder.

"But you see," she said, "it really was awful for me tonight. And Tuesday night. And all the nights. All you want to do is sing. But-well, you see, I wanted to sing, too. And you never asked me."

"But, baby, it never occurred to me," he said. "I thought you'd know that whatever I was doing, I'd want you there, too. And I never knew you liked to sing."

"I love it," she said.

"I love it, too," he said.

"I know all the words, too," she said.

"Why, of course you do," he said.

"You see," she said, "I don't mind you singing. Or even who you sing with. Whom you sing with. It's just the feeling of being left out of things. Anybody hates that. You would, too. I guess that's what's made me this way on the way home, every time."

"But I never knew you liked to sing," he said.

"Well, you know now," she said. "And maybe some time we could work up some other songs. I counted tonight, on account of not having anything else to do, and 'Lord Jeffrey Amherst' was thirteen times, and 'The Caissons Go Rolling Along' was eight."

"It must have been great for you!" he said.

"And she didn't have the words of 'The Caissons' right, either," she said. "She had them all bugged up."

"Really?" he said. "Why, that's terrible. Why, that's awful. Why, the dumb little cluck. And what a good song, too. That's one of the best songs in the world, that's what that is.