Authors -- Fiction; Ghosts -- Fiction; Love stories; World War, 1914-1918 -- Veterans -- Fiction
Twilight had settled down; had become dusk; had become night. New York
was so brilliant that it almost hurt. It was deep dusk and yet the
atmosphere was like a purple river flowing between stiff cañon-like
buildings. Everywhere in that purple river glittered golden lights. And,
floating through it, were mermaids and mermen of an extreme beauty.
Susannah passed from Fifth Avenue to Broadway. She stopped under one of
the most brilliant palace-fronts of light, and bought a ticket in the
front row. The curtain was just rising on the second act of a musical
comedy. Susannah would have been hazy about the plot anyway, for the
simple reason that there was no plot. But tonight she was peculiarly
hazy, because she enjoyed the dancing so much that she became oblivious
to everything else. Indeed, at times she seemed to be dancing with the
dancers. The illusion was so complete that she grew dizzy; and clung to
the arm of her seat. She did not want to divide into two people again.
After a while, though, this sensation disappeared in a more intriguing
one. For suddenly she discovered that the audience consisted entirely of
her and the Carbonado Mining Company. H. Withington Warners, by the
hundred, filled the orchestra seats. Byans, by the score, filled the
balcony. O'Hearns, by the dozen, filled the gallery. But this did not
perturb her. "You're only a pack of cards," she accused them mentally.
And she stayed to the very end.
"I thought so," she remarked contemptuously as she turned to go out. For
the Carbonado Mining Company had vanished into thin air. She was the
only real person who left the theater.
When she came out on the street again, her headache had stopped and the
languor was over. There was a beautiful lightness to her whole body.
That lightness impelled her to walk with the crowd. But--she suddenly
discovered--she was not walking. She was _floating_. She even flew--only
she did not rise very high. She kept an even level, about a foot above
the pavement; but at that height she was like a feather. And in a
wink--how this extraordinary division happened, she could not guess--she
was two people once more.
New York was again blooming; but this time with its transient, vivacious
after-the-theater vividness. Crowds were pouring up; pouring down,
deflecting into side streets; emerging from side streets. Everywhere was
light. Taxicabs and motors raced and spun and backed and turned; they
churned, sizzled, spluttered, and foamed--scattering light. Tram-cars,
the low-set, armored cruisers of Broadway, flashed smoothly past,
overbrimming with light. The tops of the buildings held great
congregations of dancing stars. Light poured down their sides.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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