Martin met few people; but there was an atmosphere of tension everywhere he walked. It didn’t make any difference what color their eyes were—blue or brown or clay, there was action. Mostly it was antipathy engendered by something the fulcrum of this hate could not understand. Sometimes, however, it was love—a piercing, shrill movement that fell, ageless and sexless, over his shoulders.
He did well with his work at the printing plant and was finally transferred to a night shift where he found, to his relief, that the hours were shorter, thus giving him precious moments that he could spend with Deane or devote to the perfecting of his type design. He liked also the quality of concentrated activity during these working hours at the plant, occasioned in part by the darkness which enveloped the building and grounds. He had no contact with the men around him except at coffeetime; and they, in turn, sensed an indivisible chasm where their thoughts and his whirled in confusion above them.
Once, during the evening, a machine squirted. The operator, swearing loudly, kicked back his chair and was picking the lead from his trousers when Martin glanced up, a phrase from the copy still in his mind. He went to the man at once to help him; but the molten metal, already hardened into splinters, had entered the fleshy part of the operator’s leg, and the man, in considerable discomfort, nodded his thanks to Martin and still swearing, softly now to himself, limped out of the room and down the hall.
It was two o’clock in the morning and time for the men to knock off. In the awkward blue light Martin wiped a smear of oil from his cheek. The mirror was so distorted and the light so penetrating that his face seemed one sided and all the lines about his mouth and eyes were pulling in the wrong directions. He washed his hands and face, glanced again into the crazy mirror, buttoned his pea-jacket and headed for his room in Greenwich Village.
His street was in a dimly lighted section made up of rooming houses occupied chiefly by small tradesmen. He had walked several blocks before he stopped to light a cigarette. It was very quiet and through the shabby elms the night seemed beautiful and lonely. As he started on he heard someone behind him. From the sound of the step, it was a woman. Vaguely, he wondered about her; but he walked on briskly, enjoying this brief, cold freedom, then stopped again, looking with interest straight overhead at the same stars he had watched move in different latitudes and from different ships. For the second time he heard the steps behind him and turned round. At this, they broke off sharply, but not before Martin had caught a distinctive note in them. They had a giddy pitch that was not purely feminine. His curiosity was aroused. He started down the street once more, walking slowly now, with a precise, even stride. Then he stopped abruptly. The feet behind him tapped on for a second, fluttered, hesitated and stopped again. Suddenly, in Martin’s mind, the unmusical gait gathered motif, meaning and form. He remembered a repulsively ardent smile.... “Carol!” he shouted. There was no answer. Again he tried. “Hi! Carol!” This time his follower ran quickly toward him.