There was a pause and they looked at each other with dislike.
“I don’t need your book,” she said. “But I have five dollars to spare. I suppose you are insulted now. You can put the five dollars in your pocket and spare me the trouble of breaking the back of my bookshelf with such a straw as Milton for Boys. Take it and hate me for it if you like. I am used to that.”
Edward held the flaccid money in his hand. He thought, “It pays to be pathetic.” He despised himself at the same time and thought, “Even Banner Hope would be shocked at this. Why haven’t I automatically evolved a proud personality like everyone else?”
She opened the door by way of dismissing him. “You will curse me whenever you think of this,” she said. “It will be a satisfaction to you. People always curse those who pity them.”
“I shan’t,” said Edward, putting the five dollar bill in his pocket. “I don’t believe anyone hates you or curses you. You deceive yourself.”
When he looked back from the street her affronted face was still turned towards him. With relief and irritation he decided never to think of her again.
He sold no books either that day or the next. He did not dare to use the provided formula—Say mother—. He had nothing definite to use instead. To one or two mothers who were too courteous to slam the door he murmured broken suggestions about the superiority of Milton to the movies. It was a false step. The movies, to the American middle class, are a substitute for religion. For uplift the home depends on the movies. Edward found himself guilty of blasphemy. Milton appeared in the light of a criminal heresy.
After two days Edward went, like Noah’s homing dove, to the office, Milton still in his beak.
“There’s something wrong with the district,” he complained to the young lady there. “The word book seems to mean nothing to them. All the artistic words have changed their meaning in California. Book means magazine, Music means jazz, Act means behaving, Picture means a snapshot. They haven’t even a place to keep books. They have nothing but old Ladies’ Home Journals on their dressers.”