Nineteen Gramercy Park was a house I'd seen before. It still exists, far into the twentieth century, and I'd occasionally walked past it and the other fine old houses around the little square of park. As well as I could remember, it looked the same now: a plain three-story brownstone with white-painted window frames and a short flight of scrubbed stone steps with a black wrought-iron railing. In a corner of a first-floor window a small blue-and-white sign said BOARD AND LODGING.

I stood on the walk looking up at the house, holding my packed carpetbag, and I was like a man on a diving board far higher than any oilier he's ever dared. I was about to begin something much more than addressing a few words to a stranger and moving on. However cautiously and tentatively, I was about to participate in the life of these times, and I stood looking at that sign, enormously excited and curious but not quite able to find the nerve to start.

I had to move; that door might open, and someone step out to see me loitering here. I made myself step forward, climb the stairs quickly, and before I could hesitate I reached out and twisted the polished brass knob at the center of the door, a bell jangled on the other side, and then I heard steps. I'd done it now; for better or worse, I'd joined this time.

I watched the knob turn, saw the door move back as it opened, made myself look up. In the doorway, looking inquiringly at me, stood a girl in her early twenties wearing a gray cotton dress and a long green apron; a white dustcloth folded into a turban covered her upswept hair, and she held a cloth in her hand. "Yes?"

Once again the wonder of what was happening seized me, and I stood staring at her. She started to frown, about to speak again, and I said quickly, "I'm looking for a room."

"And board? That's all we offer."

"Yes. And board." I made myself nod and smile.

"Well, we have two vacancies," she said doubtfully, as though not sure she shouldn't get rid of me. "One at the front overlooking the park at nine dollars a week. The other's at the back; it's seven dollars and twenty-five cents. Both with breakfast and supper."

I said I'd like to see them, and she stepped aside to gesture me into the black-and-white-tiled hall; it was wallpapered and dominated by an enormous hatrack and umbrella stand, the middle section of which was a full-length mirror. In it, as she turned to close the door, I glimpsed the slim back of her neck and a wisp of dark hair escaping her turban. Nervous as I was, I smiled; there's something innocent and appealing about the back of a girl's neck when her hair is up. She was pretty, I realized.

I followed her up the carpeted stairs at the end of the hall. In order to climb them, she gathered her skirts at the knees, raising them to the ankles, and I saw that she wore black button shoes with slightly run-down heels, and thick cotton stockings striped blue and white. I glimpsed her calves, full and rounded, and, in spite of the handicap of those shoes and stockings, realized that she had very handsome legs. She's dead, you know — the thought spoke itself in my mind. Dead and gone for decades past I shook my head hard, trying to force the thought away; then she turned at the top of the stairs to gesture me into a room, and as I walked past her she smiled, and I saw — very close — the living reality of her complexion, the slight crinkles at the corners of her eyes, the split-second motion of her eyelashes as she blinked, and she was so clearly young and alive that the thought lost all meaning.

I stood looking around the room, and she waited, standing just inside the doorway. It was big and clean, well lighted from two tall rectangular windows at the front. The room was furnished in an old-fashioned… but of course it wasn't old-fashioned. The wooden rocking chair, heavy carved-wood bedstead, the little table between the windows with a green felt tassel-fringed cloth, were probably no more than a dozen years old. There was a green-and-pink carpet, worn in a few places, and patterned with huge roses or cabbages, take your choice. Under one window was a window seat cushioned in red velvet, and the windows were hung with starched lace curtains, mended here and there. A gilt-framed engraving of a shepherd in a smock, knee-deep in sheep, hung beside the door, and the wallpaper was a ferocious brown-and-green pattern of tormented doodads. There was a dark-wood dresser with porcelain knobs and a white marble top on which stood a pitcher in a bowl. The bathroom, shared with other roomers, was down the hall, she said. I said, "I like it. Very much. I'll take it, if I may."

"Would you have references?"

"I'm awfully sorry, but I haven't. I just arrived in New York, and don't know a soul. Except you." I smiled but she didn't smile back. She stood hesitating, and I said, "It's true that I'm an escaped convict, an active counterfeiter, and occasional murderer. And I howl during the full of the moon. But I'm neat."

"In that case, welcome." Now she smiled. "Your name?"

"Simon Morley, and very pleased to meet you."

"I am Miss Julia Charbonneau." She was suddenly reserved, almost cool, but I knew we were friends. "This house belongs to my great-aunt; you will meet her at suppertime, which is six." She turned to leave, hand on the knob to pull it closed behind her; then she stopped, and turned to look back at me. "Since you're from out of town, remember these are gaslights" — she nodded at the globed overhead lights, and at the gas jet projecting from the wall over the bed — "not kerosene or candle. Don't ever blow them out; turn the flame off."

"I'll remember." She nodded, stood looking about the room for a moment longer, found nothing more to add, and turned toward the doorway. "Miss Charbonneau." She looked back, and for a moment I had nothing to say, then I found something. "Please excuse any ignorance. This is my first visit to New York, and I don't know the customs."

"I don't expect they're much different from anywhere else." She smiled again, a little mockingly now. "Anyhow, you don't look as though you'd stay a greeny for long." She walked out, pulling the door closed.

Over at the window I stood looking down at little Gramercy Park a story below, its benches, bushes and grass covered with snow. I couldn't recall when it was that I'd seen the park last, and couldn't tell whether it looked the same; it seemed to. Around the park three sides of the square were just as I'd always seen them; old old houses of brownstone, brick, gray stone. But on the fourth side, Twenty-First Street, there were no apartments now, just more old houses. The sidewalks and paths of the park were shoveled clear, but the snow was piled high in the gutters at the far sides of the street beside the park. It was speckled black with soot; this was still a dirty city, especially in the winter, I supposed, with tens of thousands of coal and wood fires pouring carbon into the air. At least it wasn't radioactive. Before every house stood hitching posts of black-painted cast iron; the tops of some were horses' heads with rings through the noses. Before each post stood a broad stone block for stepping up into carriages, every one clean of snow and ready for use. Otherwise it was the Gramercy Park I was used to.

A movement caught my eye across the square, and I located it through the intervening bare black branches: A door had opened, and a woman stepped out. Now she was pulling the door closed. Now she reached for the railing and, cautiously for fear of ice, walked down the steps. She turned left on the walk, and at Twentieth Street turned the corner, walking toward me. Free of the intervening trees, I saw her clearly now, Her shoulders, under a dark cape, were hunched against the cold, her hands deep in a glossy fur muff; her pillbox bonnet was tied under her chin; her brown cutaway coat was edged with a broad band of black lamb's wool; and the tips of her shoes appeared and disappeared under her skirt hem as she walked. And once more the truth welled up in me; this was New York City, January 1882, and I was here and a part of it.