The Trail of the Hawk: A Comedy of the Seriousness of LifeLewis, Sinclair
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The Trail of the Hawk: A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life
Lewis, Sinclair
City and town life -- Fiction; Minnesota -- Fiction
In turn she told of her ambition to do something modern and urban. She
had hesitated between dancing and making exotic jewelry; she was glad
she had chosen the former; it was so human; it put one in touch with
People.... She had recently gone to dinner with real Bohemians,
spirits of fire, splendidly in contrast with the dull plodders of
Joralemon. The dinner had been at a marvelous place on West Tenth
Street--very foreign, every one drinking wine and eating spaghetti and
little red herrings, and the women fearlessly smoking cigarettes--some
of them. She had gone with a girl from Mme. Vashkowska's school, a
glorious creature from London, Nebraska, who lived with the most
fascinating girls at the Three Arts Club. They had met an artist with
black hair and languishing eyes, who had a Yankee name, but sang
Italian songs divinely, upon the slightest pretext, so bubbling was he
with _joie de vivre_.
Carl was alarmed. "Gosh!" he protested, "I hope you aren't going to
have much to do with the long-haired bunch.... I've invented a name
for them--'the Hobohemians.'"
"Oh no-o! I don't take them seriously at all. I was just glad to go
once."
"Of course some of them are clever."
"Oh yes, aren't they clever!"
"But I don't think they last very well."
"Oh no, I'm sure they don't last well. Oh no, Carl, I'm too old and
fat to be a Bohemian--a Hobohemian, I mean, so----"
"Nonsense! You look so--oh, thunder! I don't know just how to express
it--well, so _real_! It's wonderfully comfortable to be with you-all
again. I don't mean you're just the 'so good to her mother' sort, you
understand. But I mean you're dependable as well as artistic."
"Oh, indeed, I won't take them too seriously. Besides, I suppose lots
of the people that go to Bohemian restaurants aren't really artists at
all; they just go to see the artists; they're just as bromidic as can
be----Don't you hate bromides? Of course I want to see some of that
part of life, but I think----Oh, don't you think those artists and all
are dreadfully careless about morals?"
"Well----"
"Yes," she breathed, reflectively. "No, I keep up with my church and
all--indeed I do. Oh, Carl, you must come to our church--St. Orgul's.
It's too sweet for anything. It's just two blocks from here; and it
isn't so far up here, you know, not with the subway--not like
commuting. It has the _loveliest_ chapel. And the most wonderful
reredos. And the services are so inspiring and high-church; not like
that horrid St. Timothy's at home. I do think a church service ought
to be beautiful. Don't you? It isn't as though we were like a lot of
poor people who have to have their souls saved in a mission.... What
church do you attend? You _will_ come to St. Orgul's some time, won't
you?"
"Be glad to----Oh, say, Gertie, before I forget it, what is Semina
doing now? Is she married?"
Apropos of this subject, Gertie let it be known that she herself was
not betrothed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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