Louise was glad of a moment’s respite. She had taken the plunge; she was determined to go through to the end. But her heart would beat and her hands would tremble. She climbed up six flights of winding stairs, and found herself weak and dizzy when she reached the top and gazed around her. She was in a great half-story room, eighty feet square. The most of it was filled with heaps of old furniture and bedding, rolls of carpet, of canvas, of oilcloth, and odds and ends of discarded or unused household gear—the dust thick over all. A little space had been left around three sides, to give access to three rows of cell-like rooms, in each of which the ceiling sloped from the very door to a tiny window at the level of the floor. In each room was a bed, a bureau that served for wash-stand, a small looking-glass, and one or two trunks. Women’s dresses hung on the whitewashed walls. She found No. 11, threw off, desperately, her hat and jacket, and sunk down on the little brown tin trunk, all trembling from head to foot.
“Hello,” called a cheery voice. She looked up and saw a girl in a dirty calico dress.
“Just come?” inquired this person, with agreeable informality. She was a good-looking large girl, with red hair and bright cheeks. She leaned against the door-post and polished her finger-nails with a little brush. Her hands were shapely.
“Ain’t got onto the stair-climbing racket yet, eh? You’ll get used to it. ‘Louise Lévy,’” she read the name on the trunk. “You don’t look like a sheeny. Can’t tell nothin’ ’bout names, can you? My name’s Slattery. You’d think I was Irish, wouldn’t you? Well, I’m straight Ne’ York. I’d be dead before I was Irish. Born here. Ninth Ward an’ next to an engine-house. How’s that? There’s white Jews, too. I worked for one, pickin’ sealskins down in Prince Street. Most took the lungs out of me. But that wasn’t why I shook the biz. It queered my hands—see? I’m goin’ to be married in the Fall to a German gentleman. He ain’t so Dutch when you know him, though. He’s a grocer. Drivin’ now; but he buys out the boss in the Fall. How’s that? He’s dead stuck on my hooks, an’ I have to keep ’em lookin’ good. I come here because the work was light. I don’t have to work—only to be doin’ somethin’, see? Only got five halls and the lamps. You got a fam’ly job, I s’pose? I wouldn’t have that. I don’t mind the Sooprintendent; but I’d be dead before I’d be bossed by a woman, see? Say, what fam’ly did you say you was with?”
This stream of talk had acted like a nerve-tonic on Louise. She was able to answer:
“M—Mr. Rémy.”
“Ramy?—oh, lord! Got the job with His Tonsils? Well, you won’t keep it long. They’re meaner ’n three balls, see? Rent their room up here and chip in with eleven. Their girls don’t never stay. Well, I got to step, or the Sooprintendent’ll be borin’ my ear. Well—so long!”
But Louise had fled down the stairs. “His Tonsils” rang in her ears. What blasphemy! What sacrilege! She could scarcely pretend to listen to Mme. Rémy’s first instructions.
The household was parsimonious. Louise washed the caterer’s dishes—he made a reduction in his price. Thus she learned that a late breakfast took the place of luncheon. She began to feel what this meant. The beds had been made; but there was work enough. She helped Mme. Rémy to sponge a heap of faded finery—her dresses. If they had been his coats! Louise bent her hot face over the tawdry silks and satins, and clasped her parboiled little finger-tips over the wet sponge. At half-past three Mme. Rémy broke the silence.