A Thousand and One Afternoons in ChicagoHecht, Ben
General
A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago
Hecht, Ben
Chicago (Ill.) -- Literary collections; Hecht, Ben, 1893-1964 -- Homes and haunts -- Illinois -- Chicago
The slight crowd listens. Peace comes from the sun. The sun is the source
of light and of health. It is the eye of God. Terrible by day and watching
by night. It is the fire of life. The slight crowd grins and the
evangelist, his mind bubbling with a cabalistic jargon remembered out of
musty books, tries to explain something that seems vivid in his heart but
vague to his tongue.
They will drop away soon because the night is cold and the evangelist a
bit too nutty for serious attention. But here comes Tobias Wooden-Leg and
some of the listeners grin and nudge one another. Tobias, with his voice
hoarse and his blue eyes shining with wrath--wrath at himself and wrath at
the God who had abandoned him, unable to cope with the one on the window
sill.
Tobias listens. Terrible by day and ever watchful by night. The King of
Kings, the Great Majesty and secret symbol of the absolute. Tobias drinks
in the jargon of the soapbox man and then shouts: "I'll join, I'll join! I
want a strong God!"
* * * * *
So now Tobias Wooden-Leg is a sun-worshipper. The boys in the Elite
poolroom will tell you all about it. How he walks the street at dawn with
his head raised and bows every seven steps. And how in the evening he is
to be seen standing at his window bowing to the sun going down. And how he
has been around saying: "Well, I have found the big God at last. No more
monkey business for me. Listen to what it says in the book about him." And
how he will quote from the sea captain's Bible stolen forty years ago.
But the boys also say: "Just wait."
And they wink, meaning that another storm will blow up out of Stavanger in
Norway and old Tobias will come plowing down the street again howling that
fa'n ta mig the devil has him and that old Thor leaped on his window sill
and tossed the all-powerful sun out of the sky with his hammer.
FANTASTIC LOLLYPOPS
They will never start. No, they will never start. In another two minutes
Mr. Prokofieff will go mad. They should have started at eleven. It is now
ten minutes after eleven. And they have not yet started. Ah, Mr.
Prokofieff has gone mad.
But Mr. Prokofieff is a modernist; so nobody pays much attention.
Musicians are all mad. And a modernist musician, du lieber Gott! A Russian
modernist musician!
The medieval face of Mr. Boris Anisfeld pops over the rows of empty seats.
It is very likely that Mr. Anisfeld will also go mad. For Mr. Anisfeld is,
in a way, a collaborator of Mr. Prokofieff. It is the full dress rehearsal
of "The Love for Three Oranges." Mr. Prokofieff wrote the words and music.
Mr. Anisfeld painted the scenery.
"Mees Garden weel be hear in a meenute," the medieval face of Boris
whispers into the Muscovite ears of Serge.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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