The poet, of course, was pleased. He rapped at a door marked "Editor."
A young woman's head in a mob-cap came into view. She wore a green and purple smock, and a cigarette hung loosely from her mouth. She looked at me at first as if I were an old-fashioned poem or a bundle of modest drawings, but cheered when I told my errand. There was a cup of steaming soup on an alcohol burner, and half a loaf of bread. On a string across the window handkerchiefs and stockings were hung to dry. A desk was littered with papers.
I paid my money and was enrolled. I was given a current number of the Shriek, and was told not to miss a poem by Sillivitch.
"Sillivitch?" I asked.
"Sillivitch," the lady answered. "Our greatest poet—maybe the greatest of all time. Writes only for the Shriek. Wonderful! Realistic!"
"Snug little office," I said to the poet, when we were on the stairs. "She lives in there, too?"
"Oh, yes," he said. "Smart girl, that. Never compromises. Wants reality and all that sort of thing. You must read Sillivitch. Amazing! Doesn't seem to mean anything at first. But then you get it in a flash."
We had now come to the top of the building.
"There isn't much smell up here," I said.
"You don't mind the smell. You come to like it," he replied. "It's bracing."