«That's a lie!»

«I swear to you... I swear I never loved him. He was just a child to me.»

This was followed by a shrieking gale of laughter. Then a slight commotion, as if they were scuffling. Then a dead silence, as if their lips were glued together. Then it seemed as if they were undressing one another, licking one another all over, like calves in the meadow. The bed squeaked. Fouling the nest, that was it. They had gotten rid of me as if I were a leper and now they were trying to do the man and wife act. It was good I hadn't been lying in the corner watching this with my head between my paws. I would have barked angrily, perhaps bitten them. And then they would have kicked me around like a dirty cur.

I didn't want to hear any more. I closed the door gently and sat on the steps in total darkness. The fatigue and hunger had passed. I was extraordinarily awake. I could have walked to San Francisco in three hours.

Now I must go somewhere! I must get very definite—or I will go mad. I know I am not just a child. I don't know if I want to be a man—I feel too bruised and battered—but I certainly am not a child!

Then a curious physiological comedy took place. I began to menstruate. I menstruated from every hole in my body. When a man menstruates it's all over in a few minutes. He doesn't leave any mess behind either.

I crept upstairs on all fours and left the house as silently as I had entered it. The rain was over, the stars were out in full splendor. A light wind was blowing. The Lutheran Church across the way, which in the daylight was the color of baby shit, had now taken on a soft ochrous hue which blended serenely with the black of the asphalt. I was still not very definite in my mind about the future. At the corner I stood a few minutes, looking up and down the street as if I were taking it in for the first time.

When you have suffered a great deal in a certain place you have the impression that the record is imprinted in the street. But if you notice, streets seem peculiarly unaffected by the sufferings of private individuals. If you step out of a house at night, after losing a dear friend, the street seems really quite discreet. If the outside became like the inside it would be unbearable. Streets are breathing places...

I move along, trying to get definite without developing a fixed idea. I pass garbage cans loaded with bones and refuse. Some have put old shoes, busted slippers, hats, suspenders, and other worn-out articles in front of their dwellings. There is no doubt but that if I took to prowling around at night I could live quite handsomely off the discarded crumbs.

The life in the kennel is out, that's definite. I don't feel like a dog any more anyway...I feel more like a tom-cat. The cat is independent, anarchistic, a free-wheeler. It's the cat which rules the roost at night.

Getting hungry again. I wander down to the bright lights of Borough Hall where the cafeterias blaze. I look through the big windows to see if I can detect a friendly face. Pass on, from shop window to shop window, examining shoes, haberdashery, pipe tobaccos and so forth. Then I stand a while at the subway entrance, hoping forlornly that some one will drop a nickel without noticing it. I look the news stands over to see if there are any blind men about whom I can steal a few pennies from.

After a time I am walking the bluff at Columbia Heights. I pass a sedate brown stone house which I remember entering years and years ago to deliver a package of clothes to one of my father's customers. I remember standing in the big back room with the bay windows giving out on the river. It was a day of brilliant sunshine, a late afternoon, and the room was like a Vermeer. I had to help the old man on with his clothes. He was ruptured. Standing in the middle of the room in his balbriggan underwear he seemed positively obscene.

Below the bluff lay a street full of warehouses. The terraces of the wealthy homes were like overhanging gardens, ending abruptly some twenty or thirty feet above this dismal street with its dead windows and grim archways leading to the wharves. At the end of the street I stood against a wall to take a leak. A drunk comes along and stands beside me. He pees all over himself and then suddenly he doubles up and begins to vomit. As I walk away I can hear it splashing over his shoes.

I run down a long flight of stairs leading to the docks and find myself face to face with a man in uniform swinging a big stick. He wants to know what I'm about, but before I can answer he begins to shove me and brandish his stick.

I climb back up the long flight of stairs and sit on a bench. Facing me is an old-fashioned hotel where a school-teacher who used to be sweet on me lives. The last time I saw her I had taken her out to dinner and as I was saying good-bye I had to beg her for a nickel. She gave it to me—just a nickel—with a look I shall never forget. She had placed high hopes in me when I was a student. But that look told me all too plainly that she had definitely revised her opinion of me. She might just as well have said: «You'll never be able to cope with the world!»

The stars were very very bright. I stretched out on the bench and gazed at them intently. All my failures were now tightly bound up inside me, a veritable embryo of unfulfillment. All that had happened to me now seemed extremely remote. I had nothing to do but revel in my detachment. I began to voyage from star to star...

An hour or so later, chilled to the bone, I got to-my feet and began walking briskly. An insane-desire to repass the house I had been driven from took possession of me. I was dying to know if they were still up and about.

The shades were only partially drawn and the light from a candle near the bed gave the front room a quiet glow. I stole close to the window and put my ear to it. They were singing a Russian song which the big one was fond of. Apparently all was his bliss, in there.

I tiptoed out of the areaway and turned down Love Lane which was at the corner. It had been named Love Lane during the Revolution most likely; now it was simply a back alley dotted with garages and repair shops. Garbage cans strewn about like captured chess pieces.

I retraced my steps to the river, to that grim,, dismal street which ran like a shriveled urethra beneath the overhanging terraces of the rich. Nobody ever walked through this street late at night —it was too dangerous.

Not a soul about. The passageways tunneled through the warehouses gave fascinating glimpses of the river life—barges lying lifeless, tugs gliding by like smoking ghosts, the skyscrapers silhouetted against the New York shore, huge iron stanchions with cabled hawsers slung around them, piles of bricks and lumber, sacks of coffee. The most poignant sight was the sky itself. Swept clear of clouds and studded with fistsful of stars, it gleamed like the breast-plate of the high priests of old.

Finally I made to go through an archway. About halfway through I felt a huge rat race across my feet. I stopped with a shudder and another one slid over my feet. Then a panic seized me and I ran back to the street. On the other side of the street, close to the wall, a man was standing. I stood stock still, undecided which was to turn, hoping that this silent figure would move first. But he remained immobile, watching me like a hawk. Again I felt panicky, but this time I steeled myself to walk away, fearing that if I ran he would also run. I walked as noiselessly as possible, my ear cocked to catch the sound of his steps. I didn't dare to turn my head. I walked slowly, deliberately, barely putting my heels down.

I had only walked a few yards when I had the certain sensation that he was following me, not on the other side of the street, but directly behind me, perhaps only a few yards away. I hastened my steps, still however making no sound. It seemed to me that he was moving faster than I, that he was gaining on me. I could almost feel his breath on my neck. Suddenly I took a quick look around. He was there, almost within grasp. I knew I couldn't elude him now. I had a feeling that he was armed and that he would use his weapon, knife or gun, the moment I tried to make a dash for it.