An Experiment in Misery
It was late at night, and a fine rain was swirling softly down, causingthe pavements to glisten with hue of steel and blue and yellow in therays of the innumerable lights. A youth was trudging slowly, withoutenthusiasm, with his hands buried deep in his trousers' pockets, towardthe downtown places where beds can be hired for coppers. He was clothedin an aged and tattered suit, and his derby was a marvel of dust-coveredcrown and torn rim. He was going forth to eat as the wanderer may eat,and sleep as the homeless sleep. By the time he had reached City HallPark he was so completely plastered with yells of "bum" and "hobo," andwith various unholy epithets that small boys had applied to him atintervals, that he was in a state of the most profound dejection. Thesifting rain saturated the old velvet collar of his overcoat, and as thewet cloth pressed against his neck, he felt that there no longer couldbe pleasure in life. He looked about him searching for an outcast ofhighest degree that they too might share miseries, but the lights threwa quivering glare over rows and circles of deserted benches thatglistened damply, showing patches of wet sod behind them. It seemed thattheir usual freights had fled on this night to better things. There wereonly squads of well-dressed Brooklyn people who swarmed towards thebridge.The young man loitered about for a time and then went shuffling off downPark Row. In the sudden descent in style of the dress of the crowd hefelt relief, and as if he were at last in his own country. He began tosee tatters that matched his tatters. In Chatham Square there wereaimless men strewn in front of saloons and lodging-houses, standingsadly, patiently, reminding one vaguely of the attitudes of chickens ina storm. He aligned himself with these men, and turned slowly to occupyhimself with the flowing life of the great street.Through the mists of the cold and storming night, the cable cars went insilent procession, great affairs shining with red and brass, moving withformidable power, calm and irresistible, dangerful and gloomy, breakingsilence only by the loud fierce cry of the gong. Two rivers of peopleswarmed along the sidewalks, spattered with black mud, which made eachshoe leave a scarlike impression. Overhead elevated trains with a shrillgrinding of the wheels stopped at the station, which upon its leglikepillars seemed to resemble some monstrous kind of crab squatting overthe street. The quick fat puffings of the engines could be heard. Downan alley there were somber curtains of purple and black, on which streetlamps dully glittered like embroidered flowers.A saloon stood with a voracious air on a corner. A sign leaning againstthe front of the door-post announced "Free hot soup to-night!" The swingdoors, snapping to and fro like ravenous lips, made gratified smacks asthe saloon gorged itself with plump men, eating with astounding andendless appetite, smiling in some indescribable manner as the men camefrom all directions like sacrifices to a heathenish superstition.Caught by the delectable sign the young man allowed himself to beswallowed. A bartender placed a schooner of dark and portentous beer onthe bar. Its monumental form upreared until the froth a-top was abovethe crown of the young man's brown derby."Soup over there, gents," said the bartender affably. A little yellowman in rags and the youth grasped their schooners and went with speedtoward a lunch counter, where a man with oily but imposing whiskersladled genially from a kettle until he had furnished his two mendicantswith a soup that was steaming hot, and in which there were littlefloating suggestions of chicken. The young man, sipping his broth, feltthe cordiality expressed by the warmth of the mixture, and he beamed atthe man with oily but imposing whiskers, who was presiding like a priestbehind an altar. "Have some more, gents?" he inquired of the two sorryfigures before him. The little yellow man accepted with a swift gesture,but the youth shook his head and went out, following a man whosewondrous seediness promised that he would have a knowledge of cheaplodging-houses.On the sidewalk he accosted the seedy man. "Say, do you know a cheapplace to sleep?"The other hesitated for a time, gazing sideways. Finally he nodded inthe direction of the street, "I sleep up there," he said, "when I've gotthe price.""How much?""Ten cents."The young man shook his head dolefully. "That's too rich for me."At that moment there approached the two a reeling man in strangegarments. His head was a fuddle of bushy hair and whiskers, from whichhis eyes peered with a guilty slant. In a close scrutiny it was possibleto distinguish the cruel lines of a mouth which looked as if its lipshad just closed with satisfaction over some tender and piteous morsel.He appeared like an assassin steeped in crimes performed awkwardly.But at this time his voice was tuned to the coaxing key of anaffectionate puppy. He looked at the men with wheedling eyes, and beganto sing a little melody for charity."Say, gents, can't yeh give a poor feller a couple of cents t' git abed? I got five, and I gits anudder two I gits me a bed. Now, on th'square, gents, can't yeh jest gimme two cents t' git a bed? Now, yehknow how a respecter'ble gentlem'n feels when he's down on his luck, an'I--"The seedy man, staring with imperturbable countenance at a train whichclattered overhead, interrupted in an expressionless voice--"Ah, go t'h----!"But the youth spoke to the prayerful assassin in tones of astonishmentand inquiry. "Say, you must be crazy! Why don't yeh strike somebody thatlooks as if they had money?"The assassin, tottering about on his uncertain legs, and at intervalsbrushing imaginary obstacles from before his nose, entered into a longexplanation of the psychology of the situation. It was so profound thatit was unintelligible.When he had exhausted the subject, the young man said to him:"Let's see th' five cents."The assassin wore an expression of drunken woe at this sentence, filledwith suspicion of him. With a deeply pained air he began to fumble inhis clothing, his red hands trembling. Presently he announced in a voiceof bitter grief, as if he had been betrayed--"There's on'y four.""Four," said the young man thoughtfully. "Well, look here, I'm astranger here, an' if ye'll steer me to your cheap joint I'll find theother three."The assassin's countenance became instantly radiant with joy. Hiswhiskers quivered with the wealth of his alleged emotions. He seized theyoung man's hand in a transport of delight and friendliness."B' Gawd," he cried, "if ye'll do that, b' Gawd, I'd say yeh was adamned good fellow, I would, an' I'd remember yeh all m' life, I would,b' Gawd, an' if I ever got a chance I'd return the compliment"--he spokewith drunken dignity--"b' Gawd, I'd treat yeh white, I would, an' I'dallus remember yeh."The young man drew back, looking at the assassin coldly. "Oh, that's allright," he said. "You show me th' joint--that's all you've got t' do."The assassin, gesticulating gratitude, led the young man along a darkstreet. Finally he stopped before a little dusty door. He raised hishand impressively. "Look-a-here," he said, and there was a thrill ofdeep and ancient wisdom upon his face, "I've brought yeh here, an'that's my part, ain't it? If th' place don't suit yeh, yeh needn't gitmad at me, need yeh? There won't be no bad feelin', will there?""No," said the young man.The assassin waved his arm tragically, and led the march up the steepstairway. On the way the young man furnished the assassin with threepennies. At the top a man with benevolent spectacles looked at themthrough a hole in a board. He collected their money, wrote some names ona register, and speedily was leading the two men along a gloom-shroudedcorridor.Shortly after the beginning of this journey the young man felt his liverturn white, for from the dark and secret places of the building theresuddenly came to his nostrils strange and unspeakable odors, thatassailed him like malignant diseases with wings. They seemed to be fromhuman bodies closely packed in dens; the exhalations from a hundredpairs of reeking lips; the fumes from a thousand bygone debauches; theexpression of a thousand present miseries.A man, naked save for a little snuff-colored undershirt, was paradingsleepily along the corridor. He rubbed his eyes, and, giving vent to aprodigious yawn, demanded to be told the time."Half-past one."The man yawned again. He opened a door, and for a moment his form wasoutlined against a black, opaque interior. To this door came the threemen, and as it was again opened the unholy odors rushed out like fiends,so that the young man was obliged to struggle as against an overpoweringwind.It was some time before the youth's eyes were good in the intense gloomwithin, but the man with benevolent spectacles led him skilfully,pausing but a moment to deposit the limp assassin upon a cot. He tookthe youth to a cot that lay tranquilly by the window, and showing him atall locker for clothes that stood near the head with the ominous air ofa tombstone, left him.The youth sat on his cot and peered about him. There was a gas-jet in adistant part of the room, that burned a small flickering orange-huedflame. It caused vast masses of tumbled shadows in all parts of theplace, save where, immediately about it, there was a little grey haze.As the young man's eyes became used to the darkness, he could see uponthe cots that thickly littered the floor the forms of men sprawled out,lying in deathlike silence, or heaving and snoring with tremendouseffort, like stabbed fish.The youth locked his derby and his shoes in the mummy case near him, andthen lay down with an old and familiar coat around his shoulders. Ablanket he handed gingerly, drawing it over part of the coat. The cotwas covered with leather, and as cold as melting snow. The youth wasobliged to shiver for some time on this affair, which was like a slab.Presently, however, his chill gave him peace, and during this period ofleisure from it he turned his head to stare at his friend the assassin,whom he could dimly discern where he lay sprawled on a cot in theabandon of a man filled with drink. He was snoring with incrediblevigor. His wet hair and beard dimly glistened, and his inflamed noseshone with subdued lustre like a red light in a fog.Within reach of the youth's hand was one who lay with yellow breast andshoulders bare to the cold drafts. One arm hung over the side of thecot, and the fingers lay full length upon the wet cement floor of theroom. Beneath the inky brows could be seen the eyes of the man exposedby the partly opened lids. To the youth it seemed that he and thiscorpse-like being were exchanging a prolonged stare, and that the otherthreatened with his eyes. He drew back, watching his neighbor from theshadows of his blanket edge. The man did not move once through thenight, but lay in this stillness as of death like a body stretched outexpectant of the surgeon's knife.And all through the room could be seen the tawny hues of naked flesh,limbs thrust into the darkness, projecting beyond the cots; uprearedknees, arms hanging long and thin over the cot edges. For the most partthey were statuesque, carven, dead. With the curious lockers standingall about like tombstones, there was a strange effect of a graveyardwhere bodies were merely flung.Yet occasionally could be seen limbs wildly tossing in fantasticnightmare gestures, accompanied by guttural cries, grunts, oaths. Andthere was one fellow off in a gloomy corner, who in his dreams wasoppressed by some frightful calamity, for of a sudden he began to utterlong wails that went almost like yells from a hound, echoing wailfullyand weird through this chill place of tombstones where men lay like thedead.The sound in its high piercing beginnings, that dwindled to finalmelancholy moans, expressed a red and grim tragedy of the unfathomablepossibilities of the man's dreams. But to the youth these were notmerely the shrieks of a vision-pierced man: they were an utterance ofthe meaning of the room and its occupants. It was to him the protest ofthe wretch who feels the touch of the imperturbable granite wheels, andwho then cries with an impersonal eloquence, with a strength not fromhim, giving voice to the wail of a whole section, a class, a people.This, weaving into the young man's brain, and mingling with his views ofthe vast and sombre shadows that, like mighty black fingers, curledaround the naked bodies, made the young man so that he did not sleep,but lay carving the biographies for these men from his meagreexperience. At times the fellow in the corner howled in a writhing agonyof his imaginations.Finally a long lance-point of grey light shot through the dusty panes ofthe window. Without, the young man could see roofs drearily white in thedawning. The point of light yellowed and grew brighter, until the goldenrays of the morning sun came in bravely and strong. They touched withradiant color the form of a small fat man, who snored in stutteringfashion. His round and shiny bald head glowed suddenly with the valor ofa decoration. He sat up, blinked at the sun, swore fretfully, and pulledhis blanket over the ornamental splendors of his head.The youth contentedly watched this rout of the shadows before the brightspears of the sun, and presently he slumbered. When he awoke he heardthe voice of the assassin raised in valiant curses. Putting up his head,he perceived his comrade seated on the side of the cot engaged inscratching his neck with long finger-nails that rasped like files."Hully Jee, dis is a new breed. They've got can-openers on their feet."He continued in a violent tirade.The young man hastily unlocked his closet and took out his shoes andhat. As he sat on the side of the cot lacing his shoes, he glanced aboutand saw that daylight had made the room comparatively commonplace anduninteresting. The men, whose faces seemed stolid, serene or absent,were engaged in dressing, while a great crackle of banteringconversation arose.A few were parading in unconcerned nakedness. Here and there were men ofbrawn, whose skins shone clear and ruddy. They took splendid poses,standing massively like chiefs. When they had dressed in their ungainlygarments there was an extraordinary change. They then showed bumps anddeficiencies of all kinds.There were others who exhibited many deformities. Shoulders wereslanting, humped, pulled this way and pulled that way. And notable amongthese latter men was the little fat man who had refused to allow hishead to be glorified. His pudgy form, builded like a pear, bustled toand fro, while he swore in fishwife fashion. It appeared that somearticle of his apparel had vanished.The young man attired speedily, and went to his friend the assassin. Atfirst the latter looked dazed at the sight of the youth. This faceseemed to be appealing to him through the cloud wastes of his memory. Hescratched his neck and reflected. At last he grinned, a broad smilegradually spreading until his countenance was a round illumination."Hello, Willie," he cried cheerily."Hello," said the young man. "Are yeh ready t' fly?""Sure." The assassin tied his shoe carefully with some twine and cameambling.When he reached the street the young man experienced no sudden relieffrom unholy atmospheres. He had forgotten all about them, and had beenbreathing naturally, and with no sensation of discomfort or distress.He was thinking of these things as he walked along the street, when hewas suddenly startled by feeling the assassin's hand, trembling withexcitement, clutching his arm, and when the assassin spoke, his voicewent into quavers from a supreme agitation."I'll be hully, bloomin' blowed if there wasn't a feller with anightshirt on up there in that joint."The youth was bewildered for a moment, but presently he turned to smileindulgently at the assassin's humor."Oh, you're a d--d liar," he merely said.Whereupon the assassin began to gesture extravagantly, and take oath bystrange gods. He frantically placed himself at the mercy of remarkablefates if his tale were not true."Yes, he did! I cross m' heart thousan' times!" he protested, and at themoment his eyes were large with amazement, his mouth wrinkled inunnatural glee."Yessir! A nightshirt! A hully white nightshirt!""You lie!""No, sir! I hope ter die b'fore I kin git anudder ball if there wasn't ajay wid a hully, bloomin' white nightshirt!"His face was filled with the infinite wonder of it. "A hully whitenightshirt," he continually repeated.The young man saw the dark entrance to a basement restaurant. There wasa sign which read "No mystery about our hash"! and there were other age-stained and world-battered legends which told him that the place waswithin his means. He stopped before it and spoke to the assassin. "Iguess I'll git somethin' t' eat."At this the assassin, for some reason, appeared to be quite embarrassed.He gazed at the seductive front of the eating place for a moment. Thenhe started slowly up the street. "Well, good-bye, Willie," he saidbravely.For an instant the youth studied the departing figure. Then he calledout, "Hol' on a minnet." As they came together he spoke in a certainfierce way, as if he feared that the other would think him to becharitable. "Look-a-here, if yeh wanta git some breakfas' I'll lend yehthree cents t' do it with. But say, look-a-here, you've gota git out an'hustle. I ain't goin' t' support yeh, or I'll go broke b'fore night. Iain't no millionaire.""I take me oath, Willie," said the assassin earnestly, "th' on'y thing Ireally needs is a ball. Me t'roat feels like a fryin'-pan. But as Ican't get a ball, why, th' next bes' thing is breakfast, an' if yeh dothat for me, b'Gawd, I say yeh was th' whitest lad I ever see."They spent a few moments in dexterous exchanges of phrases, in whichthey each protested that the other was, as the assassin had originallysaid, "a respecter'ble gentlem'n." And they concluded with mutualassurances that they were the souls of intelligence and virtue. Thenthey went into the restaurant.There was a long counter, dimly lighted from hidden sources. Two orthree men in soiled white aprons rushed here and there.The youth bought a bowl of coffee for two cents and a roll for one cent.The assassin purchased the same. The bowls were webbed with brown seams,and the tin spoons wore an air of having emerged from the first pyramid.Upon them were black mosslike encrustations of age, and they were bentand scarred from the attacks of long-forgotten teeth. But over theirrepast the wanderers waxed warm and mellow. The assassin grew affable asthe hot mixture went soothingly down his parched throat, and the youngman felt courage flow in his veins.Memories began to throng in on the assassin, and he brought forth longtales, intricate, incoherent, delivered with a chattering swiftness asfrom an old woman. "--great job out'n Orange. Boss keep yeh hustlin'though all time. I was there three days, and then I went an' ask 'im t'lend me a dollar. 'G-g-go ter the devil,' he ses, an' I lose me job.""South no good. Damn niggers work for twenty-five an' thirty cents aday. Run white man out. Good grub, though. Easy livin'.""Yas; useter work little in Toledo, raftin' logs. Make two or threedollars er day in the spring. Lived high. Cold as ice, though, in thewinter.""I was raised in northern N'York. O-a-ah, yeh jest oughto live there. Nobeer ner whisky, though, way off in the woods. But all th' good hot grubyeh can eat. B'Gawd, I hung around there long as I could till th' ol'man fired me. 'Git t' hell outa here, yeh wuthless skunk, git t' hellouta here, an' go die,' he ses. 'You're a hell of a father,' I ses, 'youare,' an' I quit 'im."As they were passing from the dim eating place, they encountered an oldman who was trying to steal forth with a tiny package of food, but atall man with an indomitable moustache stood dragon fashion, barring theway of escape. They heard the old man raise a plaintive protest. "Ah,you always want to know what I take out, and you never see that Iusually bring a package in here from my place of business."As the wanderers trudged slowly along Park Row, the assassin began toexpand and grow blithe. "B'Gawd, we've been livin' like kings," he said,smacking appreciative lips."Look out, or we'll have t' pay fer it t'night," said the youth withgloomy warning.But the assassin refused to turn his gaze toward the future. He wentwith a limping step, into which he injected a suggestion of lamblikegambols. His mouth was wreathed in a red grin.In the City Hall Park the two wanderers sat down in the little circle ofbenches sanctified by traditions of their class. They huddled in theirold garments, slumbrously conscious of the march of the hours which forthem had no meaning.The people of the street hurrying hither and thither made a blend ofblack figures changing yet frieze-like. They walked in their goodclothes as upon important missions, giving no gaze to the two wanderersseated upon the benches. They expressed to the young man his infinitedistance from all that he valued. Social position, comfort, thepleasures of living, were unconquerable kingdoms. He felt a sudden awe.And in the background a multitude of buildings, of pitiless hues andsternly high, were to him emblematic of a nation forcing its regal headinto the clouds, throwing no downward glances; in the sublimity of itsaspirations ignoring the wretches who may flounder at its feet. The roarof the city in his ear was to him the confusion of strange tongues,babbling heedlessly; it was the clink of coin, the voice if the city'shopes which were to him no hopes.He confessed himself an outcast, and his eyes from under the lowered rimof his hat began to glance guiltily, wearing the criminal expressionthat comes with certain convictions.
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