Of Time and the River (99 page)

Such were the faces that he now saw waiting on the station platform of this little Hudson River town—two dozen faces from the mongrel and anonymous compost of like faces that made up America—and with a sudden blinding flash of horror and of recognition, it now came to him that they were just the faces he had seen everywhere, at a thousand times and places in “the last few years.”

He had seen them in their last and greatest colony—the huge encampment of the innumerable submerged, the last and largest colony of the great mongrel and anonymous compost that makes up America: he had seen them there, hurtling for ever, from the roaring arch of the great bridge, with their unceasing flight, projectile roar, unnumbered flood, in their great and desolate beetles of glittering machinery—boring for ever through the huge and labyrinthine horror of that trackless jungle of uncounted ways, beneath the grime and rust and swarm and violence and horror of Fulton Street, past all the vast convergences, the threat and menace of the empty naked corners, the swarming and concentric chaos of Borough Hall, and with beetling and unceasing flight through Clinton Street, on Henry Street, through the Bedford section, out through the flat and limitless swelter known as “the Flatbush section,” beneath the broad and humid light of solid skies, through ten thousand rusty, grimy, nameless streets that make up that huge and trackless swelter—and most horrible of all, a flood of nameless faces, rootless and unnumbered lives, hurtling blindly past for ever in hot beetles of machinery along those broad, wide, and splendidly desolate “avenues,” that were flanked upon each side by the cheap raw brick, the gaudy splendour, of unnumbered new apartment houses, the brick and stucco atrocities of unnumbered new cheap houses, and that cut straight and brutal as a spoke across the labyrinthine chaos of the Brooklyn jungle—and that led to God knows where—to Coney Island, to the beaches, to the outer districts of that trackless web, the unknown continent of Long Island—but that, no matter where or how they led, were always crowded with the blind horror of those unnumbered, hurtling faces, the blind horror of those great glittering beetles of machinery drilling past for ever in projectile flight, unceasing movement and unending change, the blind horror of these unknown nameless lives hurtling on for ever, lost for ever, going God knows where!

Yes, this was the thing—blindly, desperately, unutterably though he felt it—this was the thing that had put this look—the “new look”—the horrible, indefinable, and abominably desolate and anonymous look into the face of people. This was the thing that had taken all the play and flash of passion, joy, and instant, lovely and mercurial life out of their living faces, and that gave their faces the look of something blunted, deadened, stunned, and calloused.

This was the thing that had given people “the new look”—that had made man what he had become—that had made all these people waiting on the platform for the train what they were—and now that he had to face this thing again, now that he had to be thrust back in it, now that, after these three days of magic and enchantment, he must leave this glorious world that he had just discovered—and be thrust brutally back again into the blind and brutal stupefaction, the nameless agony and swelter of that life from which he came—it seemed to him he could not face it, he could not go back to it again, it was too hard, too full of pain and sweat and agony and terror, too ugly, cruel, futile, and horrible, to be endured.

No more! No more! And not to be endured! To discover for three days—three magic swift-winged days—that enchanted life that had held all his visions as a child in fee—to be for just three brief and magic days a lord of life, the valued friend, the respected and well-loved companion of great men and glorious women, to discover and to possess for three haunting and intolerable lovely days the magic domain of his boyhood’s “America”—the most fortunate, good and happy life that men had ever known—the most true and beautiful, the most RIGHT—and now to have it torn from him at the very instant of possession—and to come to this:—a nameless cipher hurtled citywards in the huge projectile of a train, with all his fellow-ciphers, towards this blind and brutal stupefaction. A voice sounded far off, thundering in his ears through the battle- roar and rock of that stunned universe, as he cried:

“Joel! Joel! It was good to be here with you—Joel—”

And suddenly he saw his friend’s tall form recoil, shrink back, the look of something instant, startled, closed and final in his face and eye, and heard the swift incisive whisper saying quickly—

“Yes! . . . It was good that you could come! . . . And now, good- bye! . . . I shall see you—”

And so heard no more, and knew that that good-bye was final and irrevocable and could not be altered, no matter now how much or how often they should “see” each other in the future.

And at the same moment, as that door swung shut between them, and he saw that it never could be opened any more, he felt, with the knowledge of that irrevocable loss, a moment’s swift and rending pity for his friend. For he saw somehow that he was lost—that there was nothing for him now but shadows on the wall—Circean make-believe—that world of moonlight, magic and painted smoke that “the river people” knew. For three days he himself had breathed the poppied fumes of all its glorious unreality, and in those three short days the world from which he came—his father’s earth of blood and sweat and stinking day and bitter agony—this world of violence and toil and strife and cruelty and terror, this swarming world of nameless lives and mongrel faces, with all its ugliness— had become phantasmal as an evil dream, until now he could scarcely endure the hot and savage swelter, the savage fury, of the unceasing city. To grope and sweat and thrust and curse his way again among the unceasing flood-tides of the grimy swarming pavements; to be buffeted, stunned, bewildered, deadened, and exhausted by the blind turmoil, the quenchless thirst and searching, the insatiate hunger and the black despair of all that bleak and fruitless struggle, that futile and unceasing strife—and to come to this! To come to this!

It was too hard, too painful, too much to be endured, he could not go!—and even as his life shrank back in all the shuddering revulsion and loathing of his desolate discovery—he heard the great train thunder on the rails—and he knew that he MUST go!

For a moment, as the train pulled out, he stood looking out of the window, waved good-bye to Joel standing on the platform, and for a moment watched his tall retreating form. Then the train gained speed, was running swiftly now along the river’s edge, swept round a bend, the station and the town were left behind him, and presently, just for a few brief moments as it swept along below the magic and familiar hill, he caught a vision of the great white house set proudly far away up on the hill and screened with noble trees. Then this was gone: he looked about him, up and down the grimy coach, which was dense with smoke and pungent with the smell of cheap cigars and strong tobacco.

They were all there, and instantly he knew that he had seen each one of them a million times, and had known all of them for ever; the Greek from Cleveland with his cheap tan suit, his loud tan shoes, his striped tan socks, his cheap cardboard suitcase with its tan shirts and collars and its extra pair of pants, and with his hairy, seamed and pitted nighttime face, his swarthy eyes, his lowering finger-breadth of forehead bent with painful, patient, furrowed rumination into the sensational mysteries of tabloid print. They were all there—two deaf-mutes talking on their fingers; a young Harlem negro and his saffron wench, togged to the nines in tan and lavender; two young Brooklyn Jews and their two girl friends grouped on turned seats; a little chorus girl from the burlesque with dyed hair of straw-blade falseness, a false, meagre, empty, painted little prostitute’s face, and a costume of ratty finery false as all the rest of her; a young Italian with grease- black hair sleeked back in faultless patent-leather pompadour, who talked to her, eyes leering and half-lidded, with thick pale lips fixed in a slow thick smile of sensual assurance, the jaws slow- working on a wad of gum; a man with the strong, common, gaunt-jawed and anonymous visage of the working man, wearing neat, cheap, nameless clothing, and with a brown-paper parcel on the rack above him; and a young dark Irishman, his tough face fierce with drink and truculence, his eyes glittering with red points of fire, his tongue snarling curses, threats, and invitations to the fight that rasped and cut with naked menace through the smoke-blue air.

The young Jews slouched with laughter, filled the car with noisy clamour, sparred glibly, swiftly, with quick, eager, and praise- asking repartee, with knowing smirk and cynic jest, with acrid cynic wit that did not hit the mark. The little blondined prostitute listened to the hypnotic, slit-eyed, thick-lipped seductions of the young Italian with a small coy-bawdy smirk upon her painted face: she did not know what he meant, she had no idea what he was talking about, and with coy-bawdy smirk she rose, edged past his slow withdrawn knees and minced down the corridor towards the little cupboard at the end that housed the women’s toilet, while with lidded sly eyes and thick, slow-chewing and slow-smiling lips his calculating glance pursued her. The lady entered, closed the door upon a stale reek, and was gone some time. When she emerged she arranged her clothing daintily, smoothed out her rumpled dress across her hips and came mincing down the corridor again with faint coy-bawdy smirk, and was greeted again by her gallant suitor, who welcomed her in the same manner, with lidded eyes, thick, pallid and slow-chewing lips and slow withdrawn knees. The two deaf-mutes surveyed the scene with loathing: one was large and heavy, with the powerful shoulders of the cripple, a brutal face, a wide and cruel mouth; the other small and dark and ferret- faced—but both surveyed the scene with loathing. They looked at each and all the passengers and they dismissed each in turn upon their fingers. As they did so their faces writhed in vicious snarls, in sneering smiles, in convulsions of disgust and hatred; they looked upon the objects of their hate and jerked cruel thumbs towards earth in gestures eloquent of annihilation and destructive sudden death, and they drew swift fingers meaningly across their gullets with the deadly move of men who slit a throat—and all was as he had known it would be.

The working man with the strong and common face, the cheap, neat clothes, sat quietly, and looked quietly out of the window, with seamed face and quiet worn eyes, and the young Irishman sweltered in strong drink and murder; the taste of blood was thick in him, his little eyes glittered with red points of fire, and ever as the train rushed on he sowed that smoke-blue air with rasping curse and snarling threat, with all the idiotic stupefaction of a foul and idiotic profanity, an obscene but limited complaint:—

“Yuh ----- Kikes! . . . Yuh ----- Jews! . . . I’ll kick duh ----- s—t outa duh ----- lot of yuh, yuh ----- bastards, you. . . . Hey-y! You! . . . Yuh ----- dummies up deh talkin’ on yer ----- fingers all duh time. . . . Hey-y! You! Inches! You ----- bastard, I don’t give a s—t for duh whole ----- lot of yuh.”

It was all as it had always been, as he had known it would be, as he never could have foreseen it: the young dark Irishman sowed the air with threats and foulness, he finished up his bottle, and the foulness and the old red light of murder grew. And the mongrel compost laughed and snickered as they always did, and at length grew silent when he lurched with drunken measure towards them, and the old guard with the sour, seamed face then stopped the Irishman, and he cursed him.

And the slant light steepened in the skies, the old red light of waning day made magic fire upon the river, and the train made on for ever its tremendous monotone that was like silence and for ever—and now there was nothing but that tremendous monotone of time and silence and the river, the haunted river, the enchanted river that drank for ever its great soundless tides from out the inland slowly, and that moved through all man’s lives the magic thread of its huge haunting spell, and that linked his life to magic kingdoms and to lotus-land and to all the vision of the magic earth that he had dreamed of as a child, and that bore him on for ever out of magic to all the grime and sweat and violence of the city, the unceasing city, the million-footed city, and into America.

The great river burned there in his vision in that light of fading day and it was hung there in that spell of silence and for ever, and it was flowing on for ever, and it was stranger than a legend, and as dark as time.

BOOK V

JASON’S VOYAGE

LXVIII

Smoke-gold by day, the numb exultant secrecies of fog, a fog-numb air filled with the solemn joy of nameless and impending prophecy, an ancient yellow light, the old smoke-ochre of the morning, never coming to an open brightness—such was October in England that year. Sometimes by night in stormy skies there was the wild, the driven moon, sometimes the naked time-far loneliness, the most-oh!- most familiar blazing of the stars that shine on men for ever, their nameless, passionate dilemma of strong joy and empty desolation, hope and terror, home and hunger, the huge twin tyranny of their bitter governance—wandering for ever and the earth again.

They are still-burning, homely particles of night, that light the huge tent of the dark with their remembered fire, recalling the familiar hill, the native earth from which we came, from which we could have laid our finger on them, and making the great earth and home seem near, most near, to wanderers; and filling them with naked desolations of doorless, houseless, timeless, and unmeasured vacancy.

And everywhere that year there was something secret, lonely, and immense that waited, that impended, that was still. Something that promised numbly, hugely, in the fog-numb air, and that never broke to any open sharpness, and that was almost keen and frosty October in remembered hills—oh, there was something there incredibly near and most familiar, only a word, a stride, a room, a door away—only a door away and never opened, only a door away and never found.

At night, in the lounging rooms of the old inn, crackling fires were blazing cheerfully, and people sat together drinking small cups of the black bitter liquid mud that they called coffee.