“Your husband, my Dear, has found Christ.
“It happened in New York. Never mind, my child, where ... and who shall ever say How? He has found Christ and like Him he has risen. More, my daughter. Like Him, he is walking the ways of men bringing God’s word. Who has found Christ truly, in every respect must act like Him. I am very gratified ... very grateful. I have come to you, my daughter, ... you have neglected our Church, never mind, Dear, the strayed sheep is the dearest to the Lord and to the humblest Pastor ... to pray with you Thanksgiving and rejoicing. Your husband will be here soon. You know from his dear father what he’s doing?... He goes from College to College telling young men how he slipped down the pleasant path to Hell—and at its gate found Christ.... I have had word from colleagues in Princeton, Yale, Williams ... elsewhere. His effect on the student bodies is amazing, electrifying. A true evangel. He is eloquent, simple ... rather his message is, that speaks through his lips. The students learn how he ... as they do ... played a little, drank a little, smoked—all the little innocent indulgences ... and what horror happened. They flock up, after his visit, and sign the pledge of Purity, join fellowship in Christ. He has received invitations from dozens of Christian institutions to come with his message, to help save our Christian youth. He has found a true work, indeed.... And you, daughter, have been worthy of him ... waiting. Prepare yourself now for the return of your Bridegroom.”
* * *
Face clawed close by myriad tiny fears and horrors. Hot eyes. Feet stumbling. As Harry’s body lurched forward, his feet stumbled faster to support it. Hands dead white leaves, dry, crackling at his sides.... A saloon swings open, his head bowed above thin shoulders twitches in, away from the crash of an impending train above on its swinging iron rail. Wave of acrid beer, soiled flesh, wet clothes. Above it, his head a moment is still.... Sober. Harry steps up to the bar, with sharp feet and hands marshalling sudden to his head against the lazy swing of his body within the fetid wave. He grasps a glass of whiskey, carries it untouched before him to a corner. Bodies huddled like hulks of beef or pork, covered with rags. He floats above them, finds a seat, bowing to a naked wooden table. Invitation. Glass elbows on the naked table. Head on the table? No!—One gulp to swing my body free with my sharp head ... to soberness.... So....—What am I? ...
Harry Howland Luve gazed on his world. A man snoring near him blew a spray of blood from his mashed nose. A man, beside a barrel, let his fingers trail like grey worms through the sawdust ... a red tongue broke through the muck of his mouth, licked the grey worms of his hands, he slept again. At the bar, careening like ships on a wave of the world, heads dipped into huge glasses, swung against mirrors, broke thudding upon a window upon a wall that was a grin of hardness.—What am I? Harry Howland Luve laboriously counted his fingers....—One two three four ... one two three four ... one two: my God! where is my fifth finger? “I lack a finger! I lack a finger!” Body with head feet hands was one ... a toss, a catapult from the stinking Harp House into a darkness clear, biting, without, beneath the surge of the “L.” He flew. “I lack a finger.” He stopped. “What else do I lack?” Again a train. He was caught. He could not move.—It is coming over! He was clamped; the train’s murmur rose to a beat, a roar, a crash. Iron and wood and steam shrieked and stampeded, mountained on his head. He was clamped. He was a silence of horror under a mountain of noise, crushing against the eggshell of his skull.... It passed....—I am alive. He walked quiet now, looking on the pavement tracks for his lost finger.
“You have lost something?” A black form rose from the street like smoke on a clear night. “Yes ... I have lost ... have lost....” “Perhaps,” said the smokey man, “I can help you to find. Come along, Brother.” He clasped his arm. The smokey man of God, the white seeker of color moved down the cavern of Chatham Square where the high houses dimmed away like stalactytes and the “L” thrust its lance into the belly of a world too weary to cry, too worn to bleed. Before him Harry Luve held his white dry hand. “My finger,” he muttered. “Yes,” said the man of God. “I see ... your pointing finger....”
He sat in a quiet room. Coffee and a sandwich rolled in his raw stomach. “That tastes good, eh?” said the man of smoke. “Hot, eh? Whiskey makes you shiver, I’ll bet.” Luve held his hands together and began to cry. “Heat is the best thing in the world. Good heat is God. False heat is the Devil ... and makes you shiver,” he said. “Another cup of coffee?”
“My finger ... my finger!” “Brace up, man. You’re a gentleman. You were. I can see that. See clear, and you’re whole....” “How can I see clear when I lack ... I lack—” ... “Hush—listen.”
There was a sound like a soft white quiet on a red wound. Music.
“Bow your head, Brother.... Listen.”