Broken Necks/Depths

Crowds began to come out of the buildings.

They came in streams and broad waves, breaking in a black sweep over the pavements and spreading into a thick, long mass that moved forward. The glassy lights cut the twilight drizzle with their yellow fire. The tumult grew until up and down the street an unceasing din sounded—shrieking, roaring, clanging noises.

Moisse, the young dramatist, stood against one of the office buildings as the throngs spilled past him on their ways home. His eyes were fixed on the distant gloom of the sky, which hung beyond the drizzle and the fuzzy glare of light like a vast black froth.

"It is so silent,"? mused Moisse. "Millions of miles without a sound. Man and his accomplishments are infinitesimal,"? went on the young dramatist, as the swelling throng brushed and buffeted against him, "but his ego is infinite. Only by thought can he reach the stars."

He was thoughtless for a moment, holding his position with difficulty as the crowds pressed past. Then he resumed:

"None of them looks at me. None of them imagine I am thinking of the stars. How startled these fat, evil-smelling men and women would be if they could see my thought for a moment, as they crashed along their tiny ways. But nevertheless I don't eat tonight," he murmured suddenly, as if awakening.

And the idea plunged him into a series of reflections, from which he emerged with a frown and looked about him.

A short thick man, with an unshaven face was shuffling past. His skin was broken with red and purple sores under his growth of beard. His mouth hung open, his eyes stared ahead of him and his head was bent forward. Moisse thought of the body concealed by the layers of caked rags which covered the man, and shuddered.

"He never bathes," mused the young dramatist. "I wonder what a creature like that does." And he followed him slowly.

At the corner the man stopped and blew his nose violently into his fingers. Another block and he stopped again, bending over in the midst of the crowd and straightening with a cigar butt in his hand. He eyed the thing critically. It was flattened at the end where feet had passed over it. The man thrust it between his lips and shuffled on.

In a vestibule he extracted a blackened match from his pocket and with shaking fingers lighted the butt. When it burned he blew a cloud of smoke, and taking it out of his mouth regarded it with satisfaction.

Several in the throng noticed him, their eyes resting with disapproval, and sometimes hate, upon the figure. Once a crossing policeman spied him and followed him with his gaze until he was lost to view.

Moisse kept abreast of him and together they turned into an alley that led behind a hotel. The man's eyes never wavered, but remained fixed in the direction he was moving.

The alley was dark. In the court that ran behind the hotel were several large, battered cans that shone dully against the black wall. Debris littered the ground. Looking furtively at the closed doors the man made his way to one of the cans.

He lifted the cover cautiously and thrust his arm into its depths. For several minutes he remained with his arm lost inside the refuse can.

"He's found something," whispered Moisse.

The man straightened. In his hand he held an object on which sparks seemed to race up and down like blue insects.

He raised his find to his face and then thrust it into his pocket and resumed his shuffle down the alley.

"To think," mused Moisse, "of a man eating out of a garbage can. Either he is inordinately hungry or careless to a point of . . . of . . ."

He searched for a word that refused to appear, and he followed slowly after the man. In the dim light of a side street the man paused and took out his booty.

It was evidently the back of a fowl.

Standing still the man thrust it into his mouth, gnawing and tearing at its bones. After he had eaten for several minutes he held it up to the light and started picking at shreds of meat with his fingers. These he licked off his hand.

The meal was at length finished. The man threw the gleaned bones way, blew his nose and walked on.

Through the dark tumbled streets Moisse followed. The shuffling figure fascinated him. He noted the gradually increasing degradation of the neighborhood, the hovels that seemed like torn, blackened rags, the broken streets piled with refuse and mud.

In front of a lighted house the man stopped. The curtains which hung over the two front windows of the house were torn. One of them was half destroyed, and Moisse saw into the room, in which a gas jet flickered, and which was empty.

The man walked up the steps and knocked at the door. It was opened.

"A woman," whispered Moisse.

She vanished, and the man followed her. The two appeared in a moment in the room with the gas light.

The woman was tall and thin, her hair hung down her back in skimpy braids. Her face was coated with paint and deep hollows were under her eyes.

The man walked to her, his open mouth widened in a grin.

"They're talking," murmured the young dramatist as he watched their haggard faces move strangely. He noted the woman was dressed in a wrapper, colorless and streaked.

"I wonder," he began, but the scene captured his attention. He watched, absorbed. The woman was shaking her head and backing away from the man, who finally halted in the center of the room.

He lifted a foot from the floor and removed its shoe. Standing with the shoe in his hand his eyes glistened at the woman, who watched him with her neck stretched forward and a sneer on her lips.

The man put his hand in the shoe and brought out a coin.

"A twenty-five cent piece," muttered Moisse.

The man held it up in his fingers and laughed. His face distorted itself into strange wrinkles when he laughed. Moisse, who could not hear the laugh, saw only an imbecilic grimace. The woman took the coin, and left the room.

She returned in a moment holding out her arms to the man.

He seized her, crushing her body against him until she was bent backward. He pressed his face over her, his mouth still open, his eyes staring.

The woman stared back and laughed, fastening her lips suddenly to his.

Losing his balance, the man staggered and the woman broke from his grasp. He pounced on her, seizing her hand and jerking her against him.

As she held back he raised his fist and struck her fiercely in the face. She swayed for an instant and then stood quiet.

Her lips began to smile and move in speech. The man shook his head rapturously, rubbing his nose with a finger, and panting.

Moisse turned away and walked slowly toward the town.

"Good God," he murmured, "he'll take his clothes off and she. . ."

His emotions began to trouble him. An unrest stirred his body.

"I could have gone in there and taken her away from him," he mused, and then, with a shudder, he walked on—smiling.