In its startled rhythm David’s mind wandered aimlessly. He forgot about the car: when it moved with any respite it loped like a weary and whipped horse. The broken rhythm made openings for his mind: patches of his past came through the interstices of moving, came torn and poignant. He saw himself in his easy greasy clothes at work at home: he felt the shoulders of plain men beside his shoulders: eyes of brothers looked into his eyes and his hands, black with oil, clasped other hands that were warm. His hands and theirs were near each other--far, equally far from himself now moving through a city. He saw not patches of his past but of himself, as if he had been looking through this clot of men at a man beyond them. He had a vision, harried by the car’s toss, of a young man alive with many others. They marched along a hooded way into a shadowy house. Their loose clothes, the grease of their hands, the smile of their eyes was going to be cleansed away. He saw his hands clasping, so far from his hands now, hands of men who were brothers and who were losing hold of a warmth held in the clasp of hands.... His drifting mind touched a book he had loved: _The Tale of Two Cities_. He saw a tumbril with its sodden burden moving through the Terror of Paris. He saw the death-claimed gaze of men moving through crowded streets. He heard the groan of wheels. Seeing these far things, when his uncle jerked his sleeve--“Here we are”--he was not far away.... “That’s the East River yonder.” David’s mood changed.... They walked down a narrow street whose name was a legend. David was walking on Wall Street. Glass casements fronting heavy buildings, huge masonry pillared by slender stone--the grace and loom, the hypocrisy of Power. Spawn of the buildings: men with naked singing nerves like wires in storm, and women with dead eyes, women with soft breasts against a hard tiding world. Furious streets. A street wide and delirious with men shouting and waving their straw-hats like banners. Streets narrow and somber that curled like smoke across his feet. Streets eaten with secret moods. Streets cluttered and twisting with pent power. Streets pulsant like hose. Streets slumberous like pythons. Streets writhing and locked. A wide gash of sky. The sun was a stranger. The blue was a burn. They went toward the River. Black houses were lost among masts of ships. Black herded houses crawled towards the wharves. Men were nervous like rats feeding on grain. David walked on Wall Street. Walked toward his uncle’s office that was to swallow him up. Walked down to where it waited him, a block from Wall Street. Life was sea-yearning. Shops sold sails and compasses and binnacles. In the smart of the salt a scent and a sense of spices. Coffee and wines were at home here in the grime of the North, had brought with them the linger of their homes. Tobacco. Musty housings for jagged yellow leaves. A brooding, reeking, murmurous street.