City and town life -- Fiction; Immigrants -- Fiction; Poor -- Fiction; Short stories, American; Slums -- Fiction
"I wisht to God we was back in our little flat on a Hundred and
Thirty-seventh Street. We was happy then. It's your success has lost you
for me. I ought to known it, but--I--I wanted things so for you and the
boy. It's your success has lost you for me. Back there, not a supper we
didn't eat together like clockwork, not a night we didn't take a walk or--"
"There you go again! I tell you, Millie, you're going to nag me with
that once too often. Then ain't now. What you homesick for? Your
poor-as-a-church-mouse days? I been pretty patient these last two years,
feeling like a funeral every time I put my foot in the front door--"
"It ain't often you put it in."
"But, mark my word, you're going to nag me once too often!"
"O God! Harry, I try to keep in! I know how wild it makes you--how busy you
are, but--"
"A man that's give to a woman heaven on earth like I have you! A man that
started three years ago on nothing but nerve and a few dollars, and now
stands on two feet, one of the biggest spectacle-producers in the business!
By Gad! you're so darn lucky it's made a loon out of you! Get out more.
Show yourself a good time. You got the means and the time. Ain't there no
way to satisfy you?"
"I can't do things alone all the time, Harry. I--I'm funny that way. I
ain't a woman like that, a new-fangled one that can do things without her
husband. It's the nights that kill me--the nights. The--all nights sitting
here alone--waiting."
"If you 'ain't learned the demands of my business by now, I'm not going
over them again."
"Yes; but not all--"
"You ought to have some men to deal with. I'd like to see Mrs. Unger try to
dictate to him how to run his business."
"You've left me behind, Harry. I--try to keep up, but--I can't. I ain't
the woman to naturally paint my hair this way. It's my trying to keep up,
Harry, with you and--and--Edwin. These clothes--I ain't right in 'em,
Harry; I know that. That's why I can't stand it. The suspense. The waiting
up nights. I tell you I'm going crazy. Crazy with knowing I'm left behind."
"I never told you to paint up your hair like a freak."
"I thought, Harry--the color--like hers--it might make me seem younger--"
"You thought! You're always thinking."
She stood behind him now over the couch, her hand yearning toward but not
touching him.
"O God! Harry, ain't there no way I can please you no more--no way?"
"You can please me by acting like a human being and not getting me home on
wild-goose chases like this."
"But I can't stand it, Harry! The quiet. Nobody to do for. You always gone.
Edwin. The way the servants--laugh. I ain't smart enough, like some women.
I got to show it--that my heart's breaking."
"Go to matinées; go--"
"Tell me how to make myself like Alma Zitelle to you, Harry. For God's
sake, tell me!"
He looked away from her, the red rising up above the rear of his collar.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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