The world of working husbands was more tender than that of shopping wives: even in all their business, they had left space and quietness for the dead.Sunken among the crags he found two graveyards.They were cups of placid brightness.Here, looking upward, it was like being drowned on the floor of an ocean of light.Husbands had built their offices half-way to the sky rather than disturb these.Perhaps they appreciate rest all the more, Gissing thought, because they get so little of it? Somehow he could not quite imagine a graveyard left at peace in the shopping district.It would be bad for trade, perhaps? Even the churches on the Avenue, he had noticed, were huddled up and hemmed in so tightly by the other buildings that they had scarcely room to kneel.If I ever become a parson, he said (this was a fantastic dream of his), I will insist that all churches must have a girdle ofgreen about them, to set them apart from the world.The two little brown churches among the cliffs had been gifted with a dignity far beyond the dream of their builders.Their pointing spires were relieved against the enormous facades of business.What other altars ever had such a reredos? Above the strepitant racket of the streets, he heard the harsh chimes of Trinity at noonday--strong jags of clangour hurled against the great sounding-boards of buildings; drifting and dying away down side alleys.There was no soft music of appeal in the bronze volleying: it was the hoarse monitory voice of rebuke.So spoke the church of old, he thought: not asking, not appealing, but imperatively, sternly, as one born to command.He thought with new respect of Mr.Sealyham, Mr.Mastiff, Mr.Dachshund, all the others who were powers in these fantastic flumes of stone.They were more than merely husbands of charge accounts--they were poets.They sat at lunch on the tops of their amazing edifices, and looked off at the blue.
Day after day went by, but with a serene fatalism Gissing did nothing about hunting a job.He was willing to wait until the last dollar was broken: in the meantime he was content.You never know the soul of a city, he said, until you are down on your luck.Now, he felt, he had been here long enough to understand her.She did not give her secrets to the world of Fifth Avenue.Down here, where the deep crevice of Broadway opened out into greenness, what was the first thing he saw? Out across the harbour, turned toward open sea--Liberty! Liberty Enlightening the World, he had heard, was her full name.Some had mocked her, he had also heard.Well, what was the gist of her enlightenment? Why this, surely: that Liberty could never be more than a statue: never a reality.Only a fool would expect complete liberty.He himself, with all his latitude, was not free.If he were, he would cook his meals in his room, and save money--but Mrs.Purp was strict on that point.She had spoken scathingly of two young females she ejected for just that reason.Nor was Mrs.Purp free--she was ridden by the Gas Company.So it went.
It struck him, now he was down to about three dollars, that a generous gesture toward Fortune might be valuable.When you are nearly out of money, he reasoned, to toss coins to the gods--i.e., to buy something quiteunnecessary--may be propitiatory.It may start something moving in your direction.It is the touch of bravado that God relishes.In a sudden mood of tenderness, he bought two dollars' worth of toys and had them sent to the children.He smiled to think hoer they would frolic over the jumping rabbit.He sent Mrs.Spaniel a postcard of the Aquarium.
There is a good deal more to this business than I had realized, he said, as he walked uptown through the East Side slums that hot night.The audacity, the vitality, the magnificence, are plain enough.But I seem to see squalor too, horror and pitiful dearth.I believe God is farther off than I thought.Look here: if the more you know, the less you know about God, doesn't that mean that God is really enjoyed only by the completely simple--by faith, never by reason?
He gave twenty-five cents to a beggar, and said angrily: "I am not interested in a God who is known only by faith."When he got uptown he was very tired and hungry.In spite of all Mrs.Purp's rules, he smuggled in an egg, a box of biscuits, a small packet of tea and sugar, and a tin of condensed milk.He emptied the milk into his shaving mug, and used the tin to boil water in, holding it over the gas jet.He was getting on finely when a sudden knock on the door made him jump.He spilled the hot water on his leg, and uttered a wild yell.
Mrs.Purp burst in, but she was so excited that she did not notice the egg seeping into the clean counterpane.
"Oh, Mr.Gissing," she exclaimed, "I've been waiting all evening for you to come in.Purp and I wondered if you'd seen this in the paper to- night? Purp noticed it in the ads., but we couldn't understand what it meant."She held out a page of classified advertising, in which he read with amazement:
PERSONAL
If MR.GISSING, late floorwalker at Beagle and Company, will communicate with Mr.Beagle Senior, he will hear matters greatly to his advantage.
