On each landing five doors opened—three toward the back, two toward the front of the building: most of them ajar, for purposes of ventilation and publicity4. It was a question which was the louder, the clatter5 of tongues or the conflict of odours from things cooking and things that would doubtless have been the better for purification by fire.
At the top conditions were a little more endurable: and when Joan had shut behind her the door giving access to her home, the clatter and squalling came from below, a familiar and not unpleasant blend of dissonances. And within the smells were individual: chiefly of boiled cabbage and fried pork, with a feebly contending flavour of cheap tobacco-smoke.
She was in the dining-room of the Thursby flat. Behind it lay the kitchen; forward, three small cubicles7 successively denominated on the architect's plans as "bedchamber," "alcove8," and "parlour." They were all, however, sleeping-rooms. The nearest was occupied by Joan's brother; the next, the alcove, contained a double-bed dedicated9 to Joan and her young sister; while the parlour held a curiosity called a folding-bed, which had long since ceased to fold, and on which slept Anthony Thursby and his wife.
Mrs. Thursby was now in the kitchen, preparing dinner with the assistance of her fifteen-year-old daughter, Edna. "Butch," the son of the house, was not at home.
Anthony Thursby sat at the dining-table, head bent10 over a ragged11 note-book and a well-thumbed collection of white and pink newspaper clippings.
It was the sight of him that checked Joan in her explicit12 intention. She had meant to enter dramatically to her mother, blurt13 out the news, with the cause, of her misfortune, and abandon herself to the luxury of self-pity soothed14 by sympathy. But she had also meant to have it understood that nobody was to tell "the Old Man"—at least not until she should have established herself in a new job. In short, she had not thought to find Thursby at home.
Hesitating beside the table, she removed the long pins from her hat while she stared with narrowed eyes at her father. She was wondering whether she hadn't better confess and have it out with him first as last. The only thing, indeed, that made her pause was the knowledge that there would be no living with him until she was once more "earning good money" behind a counter. And she was firmly determined15 not again to seek employment in a department store.
Regarding fixedly16 the round but unpolished bald head with its neglected fringe of grey hair, she asked herself if the bitterness in her heart for her father were in truth hatred17 or mere18 premonitory resentment19 of the opposition20 he would unquestionably set against her plans for the future....
He was a man of nearly fifty, who looked more, in spite of a tendency to genial21 corpulence. At thirty he had been a fair and handsome man; today his round red face was mottled, disfigured by a ragged grey moustache, discoloured by several days' growth of scrubby beard, and lined and seamed with the imprint22 of that consuming passion whose sign was also set in his grey, passionate23, haunted eyes. Shabbily dressed in a soiled madras shirt and shoddy trousers, he wore neither tie nor collar: his unkempt chin hung in folds upon his chest. Fat and grimy forearms protruded24 from his rolled-up sleeves; fat and mottled hands trembled slightly but perceptibly as they rustled25 the pink and white clippings and with a stubby pencil scrawled26 mysterious hieroglyphics27 in the battered28 note-book.
Thursby was intent upon what he, and indeed all his family, knew as his "dope": checking and re-checking selections for tomorrow's races. This pursuit, with its concomitants, its attendant tides of hope and disappointment, was his infatuation, at once the solace29 and the terror of his declining years.
Now and again he muttered unintelligibly30.
There rose a sound of voices in the kitchen. Annoyed by the interruption, he started, looked up, and discovered Joan.
She offered to his irritated gaze a face of calm, with unsmiling features.
"Hello!" he growled31. "How the h—how long've you been in?"
"Only a few minutes, pa," the girl returned quietly.
"Well—what're you standing32 there—staring!—for, anyhow?"
"I didn't mean anything: I was just taking off my hat."
"Well"—his face was now purple with senseless anger—"cut along! Don't bother me. I'm busy."
"I see."
There was a damnable superciliousness33 in the tone of the girl as she turned away. Thursby meditated34 an explosion, but refrained at discretion35: Joan had taught him that, unlike her browbeaten36 mother and timid sister and her sleek37, loaferish brother, she could give as good as he could send. He bent again, grumbling38, over his dope. Instantly it gripped him, obliterating39 all else in his cosmos40. He frowned, moistened the pencil at his mouth, and scrawled another note in the greasy41 little book.
Joan slipped quietly away to her bedroom. She found it stifling42; ventilated solely43 from the parlour and the open door to Butch's kennel44, it reeked45 with the smell of human flesh and cheap perfume. She noted46 resentfully the fact that her sister had neglected to make up the bed: its rumpled47 sheets and pillows, still retaining the impression of over-night, lent the cubicle6 the final effect of sordid48 poverty.
Hanging up her hat and coat, she sat for a time on the edge of the bed, thinking profoundly.
Such an existence, she felt, passed human endurance. And a gate of escape stood ajar to her, with a mundane49 paradise beyond, if only she had the courage to adventure....
In any event, conditions as they were now with the Thursbys could not obtain much longer. If the Old Man continued to follow the races through the poolrooms, he would soon be forced out of his small business and his family dispossessed of their mean lodgings50; and there was no longer any excuse for hope that he would ever shake off the bondage51 of his infatuation. As it was, he gave little enough toward the support of his family, and grudged52 that little; almost all his meagre profits went to the poolrooms; it was only when he won (or seldom otherwise) that he would spare his wife a few dollars. Furthermore, his business was heavily involved in an intricate meshing53 of debt.
Thursby, at least, persisted in calling it a business; though Joan's lips shaped scornfully at mention of that mean and insignificant54 newspaper shop, crowded in between a saloon and a delicatessen shop, in the shadow of the Third Avenue Elevated Railway. In her understanding it was chiefly remarkable55 as the one place where one could be certain of not finding Thursby during the afternoon or Butch at night. They were seldom there together: it was as if father and son could not breathe the same atmosphere for long at a time.
Nominally56, Butch was his father's assistant; actually, he alone kept the business alive; had it not been for his supervision58 of the morning and evening paper deliveries, it would long since have wasted inconspicuously away. By way of compensation, Butch, shrewdly alive to signs of a winning day, would now and again wheedle59 a dollar or two out of the Old Man. Wages he neither received nor expected, being well content with a nominal57 employment which served to cover many an hour of unlicensed liberty; and he seemed to have access to some mysterious if occasionally scanty60 fund, for he was never without some little money in pocket. After dinner, if Butch elected to eat the evening meal at home, he invariably disappeared; and his return was a matter of his personal convenience. He had been known not to sleep at home at all; his favourite bedtime was between one and two in the morning—after the saloons had closed. Yet no one had ever seen him drunk.
He was younger than Joan by a year. Born to the name of Edgar, he had been dubbed61 Butch in the public schools, and the name had stuck; even his mother and father employed it. And yet it could not be said to suit him; rather, the boy suggested a jocky. He was short, slender, and wiry; with a strong, emaciated62 nose flanked by small eyes sunk deep in sallow cheeks—his mouth set in a perpetually sardonic63 curve. He dressed neatly64, whatever the straits and necessities of the family (to the mitigation of which he contributed nothing whatever) and had a failing for narrow red neckties and flashy waistcoats. His hard, thin lips were generally tight upon a cigarette; they were forever tight upon his personal affairs: if he opened them at home it was to "kid" the girls, which he did with a slangy, mordant65 wit, or to drop some casually66 affectionate word to his mother. His conversation with his father, whom he seemed always to be watching with a narrow, grim suspicion, was ordinarily confined to monosyllables of affirmation or negation67.
He went his secret ways, self-sufficient, wary68, reserved; a perpetual subject of covert69 speculation70 to the women of his family.
Joan had heard it whispered that he was a member of the "Car-barn Gang." But she never dared question Butch, though she trembled every time she came upon newspaper headlines advertising71 some fresh hooliganism on the part of the gang—a policeman "beaten up," a sober citizen "held up and frisked" in the small hours, or a member of some rival organization found stabbed and weltering on the sawdust floor of a grisly dive.
Between this girl and her brother there existed a strange harmony of understanding, quite tacit and almost unrecognized by either. Joan's nearest approach to acknowledgment of it resided in infrequent admissions to friends that she could "get on with Butch," whereas "the rest of the bunch made her weary."
Almost all the vigour72 and vitality73 of the mother seemed to have been surrendered to Butch and Joan; there had been little left for Edna. The girl was frail74, an?mic, flat-chested, pretty in an appealing way: fit only for one of two things, tuberculosis75 or reconstruction76 in the country. As it was, in the busy seasons she found underpaid employment in the workrooms of Sixth Avenue dressmaking establishments; between whiles she drudged at housework to the limits of her small strength.
As for Mrs. Thursby.... It was singularly difficult for Joan to realize her mother. There was about the woman something formless and intangible. She seemed to fail to make a definite impression even upon the retina of the physical eye. She had the faculty77 of effacing78 herself, seemed more a woman that had been than a woman who was. The four boundary walls of the flat comprehended her existence; she seldom left the house; she never changed her dress save for bed. It might have been thought that she would thus dominate her world: to the contrary, she haunted it, more a wraith79 than a body, a creature of functions rather than of faculties80. She had a way of being in a room without attracting a glance, of passing through and from it without leaving an impression of her transit81.
When Joan made herself look directly at her mother, she was able to detect traces of ravaged82 beauty. A living shell in which its tenant83 lay dormant84, her subjective85 will to live alone kept this woman going her sempiternal rounds of monotony. Capacity for affection she apparently86 had none; she regarded her children with as little interest as her husband. Nor had she the power to excite or sustain affection.
Joan believed she loved her mother. She did not: she accepted her as a convention in which affection inhered through tradition alone....
Seated on the edge of the bed, her face flushed with the heat of the smouldering evening, sombre eyes staring steadfastly87 at the threadbare carpet, the girl shook her head silently, in dreary88 wonder.
She stood at crossroads. She could, of course, go on as she had gone—bartering youth and strength for a few dollars a week. But every fibre of her being, every instinct of her forlorn soul, was in vital mutiny against such servitude. In fact, doubt no longer existed in Joan's mind as to which way she would turn: dread89 of the inevitable90 rupture91 alone deterred92 her from the first steps.
From the rear of the flat Edna called her fretfully: "Joan! Jo-an! Ain't you coming to eat?"
Joan rose. She answered affirmatively in a strong voice. Her mind was now made up: she would tell them after supper—after the Old Man had gone back to the shop.
She posed before a mirror, touching93 her hair with deft94 fingers while she stared curiously95 at the face falsified in the depths of the uneven96 sheet of glass.
Then placing her hands on her hips97, at the belt-line, thumbs to the back, she lifted her shoulders, at one and the same time smoothing out the wrinkles in her waist and settling her belt into place.
"Oh," she said, as casually as if there had been any one to hear, "I guess I'll do, all right, all right!"
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1
fabric
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| n.织物，织品，布；构造，结构，组织 | |
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2
linoleum
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| n.油布，油毯 | |
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twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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publicity
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| n.众所周知，闻名；宣传，广告 | |
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5
clatter
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| v./n.(使)发出连续而清脆的撞击声 | |
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cubicle
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| n.大房间中隔出的小室 | |
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cubicles
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| n.小卧室，斗室( cubicle的名词复数 ) | |
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8
alcove
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| n.凹室 | |
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dedicated
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| adj.一心一意的；献身的；热诚的 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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12
explicit
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| adj.详述的，明确的；坦率的；显然的 | |
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13
blurt
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| vt.突然说出，脱口说出 | |
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14
soothed
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| v.安慰( soothe的过去式和过去分词 )；抚慰；使舒服；减轻痛苦 | |
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15
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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fixedly
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| adv.固定地；不屈地，坚定不移地 | |
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17
hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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18
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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genial
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| adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的 | |
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imprint
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| n.印痕，痕迹；深刻的印象；vt.压印，牢记 | |
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23
passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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24
protruded
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| v.（使某物）伸出，（使某物）突出( protrude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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25
rustled
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| v.发出沙沙的声音( rustle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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scrawled
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| 乱涂，潦草地写( scrawl的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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hieroglyphics
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| n.pl.象形文字 | |
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28
battered
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| adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损 | |
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solace
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| n.安慰；v.使快乐；vt.安慰(物)，缓和 | |
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unintelligibly
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| 难以理解地 | |
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31
growled
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| v.（动物）发狺狺声， （雷）作隆隆声( growl的过去式和过去分词 )；低声咆哮着说 | |
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32
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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superciliousness
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| n.高傲，傲慢 | |
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34
meditated
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| 深思，沉思，冥想( meditate的过去式和过去分词 )； 内心策划，考虑 | |
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discretion
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| n.谨慎；随意处理 | |
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36
browbeaten
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| v.（以言辞或表情）威逼，恫吓( browbeat的过去分词 ) | |
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sleek
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| adj.光滑的，井然有序的；v.使光滑，梳拢 | |
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grumbling
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| adj. 喃喃鸣不平的, 出怨言的 | |
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obliterating
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| v.除去( obliterate的现在分词 )；涂去；擦掉；彻底破坏或毁灭 | |
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40
cosmos
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| n.宇宙；秩序，和谐 | |
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greasy
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| adj. 多脂的，油脂的 | |
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stifling
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| a.令人窒息的 | |
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solely
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| adv.仅仅，唯一地 | |
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kennel
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| n.狗舍，狗窝 | |
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45
reeked
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| v.发出浓烈的臭气( reek的过去式和过去分词 )；散发臭气；发出难闻的气味 (of sth)；明显带有（令人不快或生疑的跡象） | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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rumpled
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| v.弄皱，使凌乱( rumple的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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48
sordid
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| adj.肮脏的，不干净的，卑鄙的，暗淡的 | |
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49
mundane
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| adj.平凡的；尘世的；宇宙的 | |
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50
lodgings
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| n. 出租的房舍, 寄宿舍 | |
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51
bondage
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| n.奴役，束缚 | |
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52
grudged
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| 怀恨（grudge的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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53
meshing
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| 结网，啮合 | |
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54
insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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55
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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56
nominally
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| 在名义上，表面地； 应名儿 | |
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nominal
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| adj.名义上的；(金额、租金)微不足道的 | |
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58
supervision
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| n.监督，管理 | |
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59
wheedle
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| v.劝诱，哄骗 | |
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60
scanty
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| adj.缺乏的，仅有的，节省的，狭小的，不够的 | |
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61
dubbed
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| v.给…起绰号( dub的过去式和过去分词 )；把…称为；配音；复制 | |
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62
emaciated
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| adj.衰弱的，消瘦的 | |
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63
sardonic
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| adj.嘲笑的，冷笑的，讥讽的 | |
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64
neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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65
mordant
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| adj.讽刺的；尖酸的 | |
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casually
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| adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地 | |
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67
negation
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| n.否定；否认 | |
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68
wary
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| adj.谨慎的，机警的，小心的 | |
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covert
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| adj.隐藏的；暗地里的 | |
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70
speculation
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| n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机 | |
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71
advertising
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| n.广告业；广告活动 a.广告的；广告业务的 | |
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72
vigour
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| （=vigor）n.智力，体力，精力 | |
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73
vitality
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| n.活力，生命力，效力 | |
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74
frail
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| adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的 | |
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75
tuberculosis
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| n.结核病，肺结核 | |
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76
reconstruction
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| n.重建，再现，复原 | |
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77
faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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78
effacing
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| 谦逊的 | |
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79
wraith
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| n.幽灵；骨瘦如柴的人 | |
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80
faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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81
transit
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| n.经过，运输；vt.穿越，旋转；vi.越过 | |
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82
ravaged
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| 毁坏( ravage的过去式和过去分词 )； 蹂躏； 劫掠； 抢劫 | |
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83
tenant
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| n.承租人；房客；佃户；v.租借，租用 | |
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84
dormant
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| adj.暂停活动的；休眠的；潜伏的 | |
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85
subjective
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| a.主观(上)的，个人的 | |
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86
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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87
steadfastly
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| adv.踏实地，不变地；岿然；坚定不渝 | |
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88
dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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89
dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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90
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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91
rupture
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| n.破裂；(关系的)决裂；v.(使)破裂 | |
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92
deterred
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| v.阻止，制止( deter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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93
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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94
deft
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| adj.灵巧的，熟练的（a deft hand 能手） | |
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95
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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96
uneven
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| adj.不平坦的，不规则的，不均匀的 | |
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97
hips
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| abbr.high impact polystyrene 高冲击强度聚苯乙烯，耐冲性聚苯乙烯n.臀部( hip的名词复数 )；[建筑学]屋脊；臀围（尺寸）；臀部…的 | |
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