“Ach, I thought those writing notions were out of your head,” cried Mrs. Felman. “Who will buy your good-for-nothing stuff? I can’t understand a word of it myself! Writing again! Will my miseries never end?”
Mr. Felman glared at his son and the old hostility fell opaquely between them.
“Between you and your mother I’ll be in the grave soon!” he shouted. “I’m done with you!”
He arose and stalked out of the apartment, muttering and producing a loud period of sound as he closed the door.
Al Levy strolled into the dining-room, triumphantly tinkering with one of the points of his small black moustache; lightly whistling a tune from some latest musical comedy; and bearing upon his face the look of bored patience which he assumed when in the presence of an inferior being. After he and Carl had exchanged constrained “helloes” he sat at the table and nervously interested himself in his cigar, as though silently signaling for future words.
“See here, Carl, I don’t want to butt in, and of course, it’s none of my business, but I couldn’t help hearing some of the argument that you’ve just had with your parents and I want to give you a little advice, purely for your own good. You’re on the wrong track, old boy. You’re living in a world that wasn’t made to order for you and you can’t change it. If you don’t bow to the world the old steam-roller will get you, and what satisfaction is that going to bring you? This poetry of yours is all very well as a side-line, something to fill in the time when you’re not working, and of course it’s very pretty stuff. I like to read poetry myself sometimes. But really you shouldn’t take it more seriously than that. I’m telling you all this because you’ve really got a fairly good head on you and I hate to see you go wrong.”
The sleekly loquacious man in front of him, offering his shop-worn little adulterations of worldly wisdom, aroused Carl to a lightly vicious mood.
“You’ve wandered away from your natural field, Levy,” he said. “Talk about the cheap jewelry that you sell, or the physical merits of a woman, or the next candidate for mayor, or the latest prize-fight, but don’t speak about something that’s simply an irritating mystery to you. You know as much about poetry as I do about credits and discounts, but you’re a swaggering, muddy fool who imagines that the wisdom of the world has kissed his head. I’m not interested in you or your words—you’re simply five crude senses dressed in a blue serge suit and trying to scoop in as much drooling pleasure as they can before they decay. Go out to your poolroom or down-town theater and leave me in peace!”
Levy gasped blankly for a moment and then frowned with an enormous hatred.
“Why, you stupid fool, this is the thanks I get for giving you a little sensible advice!” he cried. “You think that you’re better than everyone else with all the rot you write about roses and love, but let me tell you something, a common bricklayer is more important than you are, any day in the year! A man like that is helping the progress of the world while you’re nothing but a puffed-up little idler! And even you have got to do manual labor because you’re not fit for anything else. You’re just a bag of easy words. If it wasn’t for your parents I’d punch you in the face and teach you a lesson!”