A wide mile of opal water, pulsatile, thrilling to itself in a languorous ancient way. And so indifferent! Indifference was its immemorial character. I watched the things that walked upon it—four-eyed, double-ended ferryboats with no fore or aft, like those monsters of the myth that never turned around; tugs like mighty Percherons, dragging sledges in a string; a loitering hyena, marked dynamite, much to be avoided; behemoths of the deep, helpless in this thoroughfare, led by hawsers from the nose; sore-footed scows with one pole rigs, and dressy, high-heeled pleasure craft. The river was as unregardful of all these tooting, hooting, hissing improvisations as of the natural fish, the creaking gulls, or those swift and ceaseless patterns woven of the light which seem to play upon its surface and are not really there.
Beyond was that to which all this hubbub appertained. The city!... Sudden epic!... Man’s forethought of escape ... his refuge ... his self-overwhelming integration. Anything may happen in a city. Career is there, success is there, failure, anguish, horror, women, hell, and heaven. One has the sense of moral fibres loosening. Lust of conquest stirs. The spirit of adventure flames. A city is a tilting field. Unknown, self-named, anyone may enter, cast his challenge where he will, and take the consequences. The penalties are worse than fatal. The rewards are what you will.
“New York!” I said.
It stood against the eastern sky, a pure illusion, a rhythmic mass without weight or substance, in the haze of a May-day evening. The shadows of twilight were rising like a mist. Everything of average height already was submerged. Some of the very tall buildings still had the light above, and their upper windows were a-gleam with reflections of the sunset.
Seething city!... So full of life transacting potently, and yet so still! A thin gray shell, a fragile show, a profile raised in time and space, a challenge to the elements. They take their time about it.... Lovely city!... Ugly city!... Never was there one so big and young and hopeful all at once.
“New York!” I said again, out loud.
A man who must have been standing close beside me for some time spoke suddenly, without salutation or word of prelude.
“You were with Coxey’s Army?”
“Yes,” I said, turning to look at him. I recognized him as a man who sat in one corner of the smoking compartment, listening in an attentive though supercilious manner, and never spoke.
“Wasn’t there plenty to eat?” he asked, in a truculent tone.