“I won’t change it,” says Fanny. “I love that old rail. It’s pretty. Besides, if it wasn’t there some night you’d fall over into the airy-way.”
“Put another in its place.”
“Well, I won’t. And I won’t have the bricks painted either.”
“Yes, but you went and did the windows—“
“She did them herself,” says Clara.
“Don’t you think the blue goes nice with the red? It was fun.”
... An old house in which lived an old couple and a little maid dressed all in black, with an apron like a robin-white-breast. A big house: these two old persons: one young. She brought her lovers to her fourth-floor precincts. Creaking stair ... creaking bannister ... a mutter: the hard sweet adventure that became no lighter and no less sweet. Her masters listened for the clandestine footprints groping, mounting: for the swifter descent as if the man had left a burden above. They loved the love affairs of their pretty little maid. She made them young, she added zest to their evenings of Patience....—“We won’t need you any longer, Zoe. We’re going to bed. Good-night, dear....” their knowing her wickedness spiced their prim demeanor, brought them delight in the prim way of their maid. The old lady died. A month: then again the furtive mounting steps. The old man could not bear it. In his muffled reception of the loveplay overhead he learned how he missed his wife: how in the license of their maid now many years, he and his dried spouse had stolen fruit to themselves. In the gap between the guessed fulness above and the empty bed beside him, his nerves gave out. He withered and he died....
The paint of the windowsills and the Dutch net curtains are Fanny’s. Little else. The house has the plethoric gloom of its mahogany false-Empire chairs, its red brocades, its striped and flowered walls. The beds are new and all alike: bright brass, cheap, furnished with soft mattresses.
In the basement is the dining-room and the kitchen. Upon the first floor a sitting room and two partitioned cardrooms. On the second floor, Susan and Tessie each has her bedroom. Above, Clara has hers, and the back room is reserved for whatever friend be granted it for the night. On the top floor in back is the room of Lucy the maid and a storeroom: in the front, the home of Fanny, a room to sleep in, a room to stay in alone: for it is understood that no one enter. Here then she faced her life.
—My name is Frances. Frances Dirk. Frances Luve. Luve.... Fourteen years ago there was Harry. Nine years ago he went and there was Edith. Six years ... near seven ... a man came back in a black suit with white sharp lips, quoting the words of Jesus. Harry, that. Just a less Christian Harry ... whipping me out with the words of a Jew. And Edith has kept on growing. I see you! I feel you!