CHAPTER II
ONE morning, after breakfast, when I was about to leave the house and Mrs. Levinsky was detaining me, trying to exact a promise that I should get somebody to share the lounge with me, I said: "I'll see about it. I must be going. Good-by!" At this I took her hand, ostensibly in farewell.
"Good-by," she said, coloring and trying to free herself
"Good-by," I repeated, shaking her hand gently and smiling upon her.
She wrenched out her hand. I took hold of her chin, but she shook it free
"Don't," she said, shyly, turning away
"What's the matter?" I said, gaily.
She faced about again. "I'll tell you what the matter is," she said. "If you do that again you will have to move. If you think I am one of those landladies—you know the kind I mean—you are mistaken."
She uttered it in calm, rather amicable accents. So I replied: "Why, why, of course I don't! Indeed you are the most respectable and the most sweet-looking woman in the world!"
I stepped up close to ner and reached out my hand to seize hold of her bare arm
"None of that, mister!" she flared up, drawing back. "Keep your hands where they belong. If you try that again I'll break every bone in your body. May both my hands be paralyzed if I don't!"
"'S-sh," I implored. Which only added fuel to her rage
"'S-sh nothing! I'll call in all the neighbors of the house and tell them the kind of pious man you are. Saying his prayers three times a day, indeed!"
I sneaked out of the house like a thief. I was wretched all day, wondering how I should come to supper in the evening. I wondered whether she was going to deliver me over to the jealous wrath of her husband. I should have willingly forfeited my trunk and settled in another place, but Mrs. Levinsky had an approximate knowledge of the places where I was likely to do business and there was the danger of a scene from her. Maximum Max's theory did not seem to count for much. But then he had said that one must know "how to go about it." Perhaps I had been too hasty.
Late in the afternoon of that day Mrs. Levinsky came to see me. Pretending to be passing along on some errand, she paused in front of my cart, accosting me pleasantly
"I'll bet you are angry with me," she said, smiling broadly
"I am not angry at all," I answered, with feigned moroseness. "But you certainly have a tongue. Whew! And, well, you can't take a joke."
"I did not mean to hurt your feelings, Mr. Levinsky. May my luck be as good as is my friendship for you. I certainly wish you no evil. May God give me all the things I wish you. I just want you to behave yourself. That's all. I am so much older than you, anyhow. Look for somebody of your own age. You are not angry at me, are you?" she added, suavely
She simply could not afford to lose the rent I paid her
Since then she held herself at a respectful distance from me
I called on smiling Mrs. Dienstog, my former landlady, in whose house I was no stranger. I timed this visit at an hour when I knew her to be alone
In this venture I met with scarcely any resistance at first. She let me hold her hand and caress it and tell her how soft and tender it was.
"Do you think so?" she said, coyly, her eyes clouding with embarrassment. "I don't think they are soft at all. They would be if I did not have so much washing and scrubbing to do." Then she added, sadly: "America has made a servant of me. A land of gold, indeed! When I was in my father's house I did not have to scrub floors."
I attempted to raise her wrist to my lips, but she checked me. She did not break away from me, however. She held me off, but she did not let go of the index finger of my right hand, which she clutched with all her might, playfully. As we struggled, we both laughed nervously. At last I wrenched my finger from her grip, and before she had time to thwart my purpose she was in my arms. I was aiming a kiss at her lips, but she continued to turn and twist, trying to clap her hand over my mouth as she did so, and my kiss landed on one side of her chin
"Just one more, dearest," I raved. "Only one on your sweet little lips, my dove. Only one. Only one."
She yielded. Our lips joined in a feverish kiss. Then she thrust me away from her and, after a pause, shook her finger at me with a good-natured gesture, as much as to say, "You must not do that, bad boy, you."
I went away in high feather
I called on Mrs. Dienstog again the very next morning. She received me well, but the first thing she did after returning my greeting was to throw the door wide open and to offer me a chair in full view of the hallway
"Oh, shut the door," I whispered, in disgust. "Don't be foolish."
She shook her head
"Just one kiss," I begged her. "You are so sweet."
She held firm
I came away sorely disappointed, but convinced that her inflexibility was a mere matter of practical common sense
I kept these experiences and reflections to myself. Nor did an indecent word ever cross my lips. In the street, while attending to my business, I heard uncouth language quite often. The other push-cart men would utter the most revolting improprieties in the hearing of the women peddlers, or even address such talk to them, as a matter of course. Nor was it an uncommon incident for a peddler to fire a volley of obscenities at a departing housewife who had priced something on his cart without buying it. These things scandalized me beyond words. I could never get accustomed to them
"Look at Levinsky standing there quiet as a kitten," the other peddlers would twit me. "One would think he is so innocent he doesn't know how to count two. Shy young fellows are the worst devils in the world."
They were partly mistaken, during the first few weeks of our acquaintance, at least. For the last thread that bound me to chastity was still unbroken.
It was rapidly wearing away, though.