38 MY AMERICAN FRIENDS

be noticed. Everybody is a nonentity to every-
body else. Equality at the zero level.

The exception is that of the numercrus young

men and women, the latter much painted and

beauty-shopped, who seem to have met by

appointment and to be carrying on some sort of

sex adventure. They, at all events, are not

nonentities one to the other. I once asked an

American friend, " What is it that makes life

in this hell of a city tolerable to the young

people?" His answer was, "Sex"; and I

remembered, a saying of M. Bergson, " Toute

notre -civilisation esi aj&rodiriaque" " And what

makes it tolerable to people like you ?" I con-

tinu d, "It isn't tolerable," he answered, " we

all want to escape from it as soon as we have made

enough money to buy our freedom "—the first

intimation I had of " the philosophy of escape "

which I was afterwards to hear much spoken of

inlother American cities.

On Sunday the sidewalk population on the
thoroughfares (though not in the back
s) thins down and it becomes possible to
your way with tolerable ease and without
ig at every step the smoke of a questionable
tte blown out by the Jew just in front.
But ilyou go on a fine Sunday to Coney Island
or to flhe parks, Central Park or the Bronx Park
farther Wt, or Prospect Park in Brooklyn, you
will sea an astonishing sight—crowds whose
multitude can only be compared with the sand