Full text of "Porgy"
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THE TRAVELLER S* LIB R A R Y
PORGY
A selection of the volumes of
THE TRAVELLERS' LIBRARY
CAN SUCH THINGS BE by Ambrose Bierce
THE BLACK DOG by A. E. Coppard
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SUPER-TRAMP
by W. H. Davies
BABBITT by Sinclair Lewis
EARLHAM by Percy Lubbock
WIDE SEAS AND MANY LANDS by Arthur Mason
SELECTED PREJUDICES by H. L. Mencken
THE MIND IN THE MAKING by James Harvey Robinson
THE WAY OF ALL FLESH by Samuel Butler
EREWHON by Samuel Butler
DUBLINERS by James Joyce
KAI LUNG'S GOLDEN HOURS by Ernest Bramah
TWILIGHT IN ITALY by D. H. Lawrence
THE DREAM by H. G. Wells
MARIUS THE EPICUREAN by Walter Pater
THE WHITE SHIP by Amo Kallas
MULTITUDE AND SOLITUDE by John Masefield
SPRING SOWING by Liam O'Flaherty
WILLIAM by E. H. Young
WUTHERING HEIGHTS by Emily Bronte
THE CONQUERED by Naomi Mitchison
IN MOROCCO by Edith Wharton
OUT OF THE EAST by Lafcadio Hearn
ASPECTS OF SCIENCE by J. W. N. Sullivan
THE EVOLUTION OF AN INTELLECTUAL
by J. Middleton Murry
MASTRO-DON GESUALDO by Giovanni Verga
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY of Mark Rutherford
HORSES AND MEN by Sherwood Anderson
THE TRAVELS of MarCO Polo
THE BAZAAR by Martin Armstrong
SHORT TALKS WITH THE DEAD by Hilaire BelloC
NAPOLEON: THE LAST PHASE by Lord Rosebery
THE MARTYRDOM OF MAN by Winwoo'l Rea^e
A complete list of all volumes now ready will be found at
the end of this volume
PORGY
by
DU BOSE HEYWARD
LONDON
JONATHAN CAPE jo BEDFORD SQUARE
FIRST ISSUED 11^ THE TRAVELLERS' LIBRARY 1928
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
FOR
DOROTHY HEYWARD
Porgy, Maria, and Bess,
Robfrins, and Peter, and Crown;
Life was a three-stringed harp
Brought from the woods to town.
Marvellous tunes you rang
From passion, and death, and birth,
You who had laughed and wept
On the warm, brown lap of the earth.
Now in your untried hands
An instrument, terrible, new,
Is thrust by a master who frowns,
Demanding strange songs of you.
God of the White and Black,
Grant us great hearts on the way
That we may understand
Until you have learned to play.
PART I
PART I
*
PORGY lived in the Golden Age. Not the
Golden Age of a remote and legendary past;
nor yet the chimerical era treasured by every
man past middle life, that never existed except
in the heart of youth; but an age when men,
not yet old, were boys in an ancient, beauti-
ful city that time had forgotten before it
destroyed.
In this city there persisted the Golden Age
of many things, and not the least among them
was that of beggary. In those days the pro-
fession was one with a tradition. A man
begged, presumably, because he was hungry,
much as a man of more energetic tempera-
ment became a stevedore from the same
cause. His plea for help produced the
simple reactions of a generous impulse, a
movement of the hand, and the gift of a coin,
instead of the elaborate and terrifying pro-
cesses of organized philanthropy. His ante-
cedents and his mental age were his own
affair, and, in the majority of cases, he
was as happily oblivious of one as of the
other.
ii
PORGY
Had it all been otherwise, had Porgy come
a generation, or even a score of years, later,
there would have been a repetition of the old
tragedy of genius without opportunity. For,
as the artist is born with the vision of beauty,
and the tradesman with an eye for barter, so
was Porgy equipped by a beneficent provi-
dence for a career of mendicancy. Instead of
the sturdy legs that would have predestined
him for the life of a stevedore on one of the
great cotton wharves, he had, when he en-
tered the world, totally inadequate nether
extremities, quick to catch the eye, and touch
the ready sympathy of the passer-by. Either
by birth, or through the application of a
philosophy of life, he had acquired a person-
ality that could not be ignored, one which at
the same time interested and subtly disturbed.
There was that about him which differen-
tiated him from the hordes of fellow practi-
tioners who competed with him for the notice
of the tender-hearted. Where others bid
eagerly for attention, and burst into voluble
thanks and blessings, Porgy sat silent, rapt.
There was something Eastern and mystic
12
PORGY
about the intense introspection of his look.
He never smiled, and he acknowledged gifts
only by a slow lifting of the eyes that had odd
shadows in them. He was black with the
almost purple blackness of unadulterated
Congo blood. His hands were very large and
muscular, and, even when flexed idly in his
lap, seemed shockingly formidable in con-
trast with his frail body. Unless one were un-
usually preoccupied at the moment of drop-
ping a coin in his cup, he carried away in
return a very definite, yet somewhat disquiet-
ing, impression : a sense of infinite patience,
and beneath it the vibration of unrealized,
but terrific, energy.
No one knew Porgy's age. No one re-
membered when he first made his appearance
among the ranks of the local beggars. A
woman who had married twenty years before
remembered him because he had been seated
on the church steps, and had given her a turn
when she went in.
Once a child saw Porgy, and said suddenly,
* What is he waiting for?' That expressed him
better than anything else. He was waiting,
13
PORGY
waiting with the concentrating intensity of a
burning-glass.
As consistent in the practice of his profes-
sion as any of the business and professional
men who were his most valued customers,
Porgy was to be found any morning, by the
first arrival in the financial district, against
the wall of the old apothecary shop that
stands at the corner of King Charles Street
and The Meeting House Road. Long cus-
tom, reinforced by an eye for the beautiful,
had endeared that spot to him. He would sit
there in the cool of the early hours and look
across the narrow thoroughfare into the green
freshness of Jasper Square, where the chil-
dren flew their kites, and played hide-and-
seek among the shrubs. Then, when the
morning advanced, and the sun poured its
semi-tropical heat between the twin rows
of brick, to lie impounded there, like a
stagnant pool of flame, he would experience
a pleasant atavistic calm, and would doze
lightly under the terrific heat, as only a full-
blooded negro can. Toward afternoon a
slender blue shadow would commence to grow
14
PORGY
about him that would broaden with great
rapidity, cool the baking flags, and turn the
tide of customers home before his empty
cup.
But Porgy best loved the late afternoons,
when the street was quiet again, and the sun-
light, deep with colour, shot level over the
low roof of the apothecary shop to paint the
cream stucco on the opposite dwelling a
ruddy gold and turn the old rain-washed tiles
on the roof to burnished copper. Then the
slender, white-clad lady who lived in the
house would throw open the deep French
windows of the second story drawing-room,
and sitting at the piano, where Porgy could
see her dimly, she would play on through the
dusk until old Peter drove by with his wagon
to carry him home.
Porgy had but one vice. With his day re-
duced to the dead level of the commonplace,
he was by night an inveterate gambler. Each
evening his collections were carefully divided
into a minimum for room and food, and the
15
PORGY
remainder for the evening's game. Seen in
the light of the smoking kerosene lamp, with
the circle of excited faces about him, he was
no longer the beggar in the dust. His stag-
nant blood leaped to sudden life. He was the
peer of the great, hulking fellows who swung
cotton bales and stank intolerably from
labour in the fertilizer mills. He even knew
that he had won their grudging respect, for he
had a way of coaxing and wheedling the little
ivory cubes that forced them to respond. The
loud 'Oh, my Baby/ and explosive 'Come
seben,' of his fellow-gamesters seldom
brought silver when he experienced that
light, keen feeling and thought of the new,
soft-spoken words to say. In those hours he
lost his look of living in the future. While
the ivories flew, he existed in an intense and
burning present.
One Saturday night in late April, with the
first premonitory breath of summer in the
air, Porgy sat in the gaming circle that had
gathered before his door in Catfish Row, and
murmured softly to his gods of chance. All
day he had been conscious of a vague unrest.
16
PORGY
There had been no breeze from the bay, and
from his seat outside the apothecary shop
the sky showed opaque blue-grey and bore
heavily upon the town. Towards evening, a
thunder-head had lifted over the western
horizon and growled ominously; but it had
passed, leaving the air hot, vitiated, and
moist. The negroes had come in for the
night feeling irritable, and, instead of the
usual Saturday night of song and talk, the
rooms were for the most part dark and silent,
and the court deserted.
The game started late, and there were few
players. Opposite Porgy, sitting upon his
haunches, and casting his dice in moody
silence, was a negro called Crown. He was
a stevedore, had the body of a gladiator, and
a bad name. His cotton-hook, hanging from
his belt by a thong, gleamed in the lamplight,
and rang a clear note on the flags when he
leant forward to throw. Crown had been
drinking with Robbins, who sat next to him,
and the air was rank with the effluvium of
vile corn whisky. Robbins was voluble, and
as usual, when in liquor, talked incessantly of
17
PORGY
his wife and children, of whom he was in-
ordinately proud. He was a good provider,
and, except for his Saturday night drink and
game, of steady habits.
*Dat lady ob mine is a born white-folks
nigger,' he boasted. 'She fambly belong tuh
Gob'ner Rutledge. Ain't yer see Miss Rut-
ledge sheself come tuh visit she when she
sick? An' dem chillen ob mine, dem is raise
wid ways. 9
'Yo' bes sabe yo' talk for dem damn dice.
Dice ain't gots no patience wid 'oman!' cut
in a young negro of the group.
'Da's de trut',' called another. 'Dey is all
two after de same nigger money. Dat mek
um can't git 'long.'
*Shet yo' damn mout' an' t'row!' growled
Crown.
Robbins, taken aback, rolled the dice
hastily. Scarcely had they settled before
Crown scooped them fiercely into his great
hand, and, swearing foully at them, sent
them tumbling out across the faintly illumi-
nated circle, to lose them on the first cast.
Then Porgy took them up tenderly, and held
18
PORGY
them for a moment cupped in his muscular,,
slim-fingered hand.
'Oh, little stars, roll me some light!' he
sang softly; made a pass, and won. 'Roll me
a sun an* moon!' he urged; and again the
cubes did his bidding.
'Porgy witch dem dice/ Crown snarled, as
he drained his flask and sent it shattering
against the pavement.
Under the beetling walls of the tenement
the game went swiftly forward. In a remote
room several voices were singing drowsily, as
though burdened by the oppression of the
day. In another part of the building some one
was picking a guitar monotonously, chord
after chord, until the dark throbbed like an
old wound. But the players were oblivious of
all except the splash of orange light that fell
upon the flags, and the living little cubes that
flashed or dawdled upon it, according to the
mood of the hand that propelled them. Peter,,
the old wagoner, sat quietly smoking in
Porgy's doorway, and looked on with the
indulgent smile of tolerant age. Once when
Crown lost heavily, and turned snarling upon
19
PORGY
Robbins with, "Trow dem damn dice fair,
nigger/ he cautioned mildly, 'Frien' an'licker
an' dice ain't meant tuh 'sociate. Yo' mens
bes* go slow/
Then, in a flash, it happened.
Robbins rolled again, called the dice, and
retrieved them before Crown's slow wits got
the count, then swept the heap of coins into
his pocket.
With a low snarl, straight from his
crouching position, Crown hurled his tremen-
dous weight forward, * shattering the lamp,
and bowling Robbins over against the wall.
Then they were up and facing each other.
The oil from the broken lamp settled be-
tween two flags and blazed up ruddily.
Crown was crouched for a second spring,
with lips drawn from gleaming teeth. The
light fell strong upon thrusting jaw, and
threw the sloping brow into shadow. One
hand touched the ground lightly, balancing
the massive torso. The other arm held the
cotton-hook forward, ready, like a prehensile
claw. In comparison Robbins was pitifully
slender and inadequate. There was a single
20
PORGY
desperate moment of indecision; then he took
his only chance. Like a thrown spear, he
hurled his lithe body forward under the ter-
rifying hook, and clinched. Down, down,
down the centuries they slid. Clothes could
not hold them. Miraculously the tawny,
ridged bodies tore through the thin coverings.
Bronze ropes and bars slid and wove over
great shoulders. Bright, ruddy planes leaped
out on backs in the fire flare, then were gulped
by sliding shadows, A heady, bestial stench
absorbed all other odours. A fringe of sha-
dowy watchers crept from cavernous door-
ways, sensed it, and commenced to wail eerily.
Backward and forward, in a space no larger
than a small room, the heaving, inseparable
mass rocked and swayed. Breath laboured
like steam. At times the fused single body
would thrust out a rigid arm, or the light
would point out, for one hideous second, a
tortured, mad face. Again the mass would
rise as though propelled a short distance from
the earth, topple, and crash down upon the
pavement with a jarring impact.
Such terrific expenditure of human energy
21
PORGY
could not last. The end came quickly, and
with startling suddenness. Crown broke his
adversary's weakening hold, and held him
the length of one mighty arm. The other
swung the cotton-hook downward. Then he
dropped his victim, and swaggered drunk-
enly toward the street. Even to the most
inexperienced the result would have been
obvious. Robbins was dead: horribly dead.
A scream rose to a crescendo of unendur-
able agony, and a woman broke through the
circle of spectators and cast herself upon the
body. The fire flickered to a faint, blue flame,
unearthly, terrifying.
Porgy shivered violently, whimpered in
the gloom; then drew himself across his
threshold and closed the door.
Catfish Row, in which Porgy lived, was
not a row at all, but a great brick structure
that lifted its three stories about the three
sides of a court. The fourth side was partly
closed by a high wall, surmounted by jagged
edges of broken glass set firmly in old lime
22
PORGY
plaster, and pierced in its centre by a wide
entrance-way. Over the entrance there still
remained a massive grill of Italian wrought
iron, and a battered capital of marble sur-
mounted each of the lofty gate-posts. The
court itself was paved with large flag-stones,
which even beneath the accumulated grime of
a century, glimmered with faint and varying
pastel shades in direct sunlight. The south
wall, which was always in shadow, was lich-
ened from pavement to rotting gutter; and
opposite, the northern face, unbroken except
by rows of small-paned windows, showed
every colour through its flaking stucco, and,,
in summer, a steady blaze of scarlet from
rows of geraniums that bloomed in old veget-
able tins upon every window-sill.
Within the high-ceilinged rooms, with their
battered colonial mantels and broken decora-
tions of Adam designs in plaster, governors
had come and gone, and ambassadors of
kings had schemed and danced. Now before
the gaping entrance lay only a narrow, cob-
bled street, and beyond, a tumbled wharf
used by negro fishermen. Only the bay
23
PORGY
remained unchanged. Beyond the litter of
the wharf, it stretched to the horizon, taking
its mood from the changing skies; always
different - invariably the same.
Directly within the entrance of the Row,
and having upon the street a single bleary
window, wherein were displayed plates of
fried fish, was the 'cook-shop' which catered
to the residents of the tenement.
Porgy's room was opposite the shop and
enjoyed the great advantage of having a front
window that commanded the street and
harbour, and an inner door where he could
sit and enter into the life of the court. To
him, the front window signified adventure,
the door - home.
It was Porgy's custom, when the day's
work was done and he had exchanged a part
of his collections for his evening meal of fish
and bread, to sit at his front window and
watch the world pass by. The great cotton
wharves lay up the river, beyond the Row;
and when the cotton season was on, he loved
24
PORGY
to sit in the dusk and see the drays go by.
They would sweep into view with a loud
thunder of wheels on the cobbles; and from
his low seat they loomed huge and mysterious
in the gathering dark. Sometimes there
would be twenty of them in a row, with great
swiftly-stepping mules, crouched figures of
drivers, and bales piled toweringly above
them. Always Porgy experienced a vague
and not unpleasant fear when the drays swung
past. There was power, vast, awe-inspiring;
it could so easily crush him were he in its
path. But here, safe within his window, he
could watch it with perfect safety. At times
when the train was unusually long, the sus-
tained, rhythmic thunder and the sweep of
form after form past his window produced an
odd pleasurable detachment in his mind, and
pictures of strange things and places would
brighten and fade. But the night follow-
ing the killing, the window was closed,
and through the open door behind him
beat the rhythm of a dirge from Robbins'
room.
'What de matter, chillen?' came the
PORGY
strophe. And the antistrophe swelled to the
answer :
Tain gots de body, an' I can't stan' still.'
Porgy sat upon his floor counting the day's
collection: one dollar and twenty cents. It
had been a good day. Perhaps the sorrow
that had brooded over his spirit had quick-
ened the sympathy of the passers-by.
'What de matter. Sister?'
'Jedus gots our brudder, an' I can't stan'
still.'
Ever since Porgy had come home the air
had swung to the rhythm of the chant. He
divided his pile into equal portions, and com-
menced to pocket one. The burden swayed
out again.
Tain gots de body, an' I can't stan' still/
He hesitated a moment, poured all the
coins together again, selected a twenty-five-
cent piece which he put into his pocket, and,
taking the remainder in his hand, went out
and drew himself across the short distance to
the room of mourning.
The body lay upon a bed in the corner of
the room, sheeted to the eyes, and upon its
26
PORGY
breast rested a large blue saucer. Standing
in a circle about the bed, or seated upon
the floor, backs to the wall, were a score of
negroes, some singing, and others swaying,
patting the floor with their large feet. For
not a single moment since the body had been
laid out had the rhythm slackened. With
each hour it gathered weight until it seemed
to swing the massive structure.
Porgy had heard that Robbins had left no
burial insurance, the customary Saturday
night festivities having consumed the slender
margin between daily wage and immediate
need. Now, at sight of the saucer, he knew
that rumour had not erred. It had been
an old custom among penniless negroes to
prepare the corpse thus, then to sing dirges
until neighbourhood sympathy provided the
wherewithal for proper interment. Recent
years had introduced the insurance agent
and the 'buryin' lodge/ and the old custom
had falleft into disuse. It had even become
a grievous reproach to have a member of
the family a 'saucer-buried nigger/
At the foot of the bed, bowed by the
27
PORG Y
double weight of sorrow and disgrace, the
widow sat swaying to the rhythm like a beach
palm in the ebb and flow of a bleak sea wind.
The sight of her grief, the close room, the
awful presence beneath the sheet, and the
unceasing pulse of sound that beat against
his ears, all contributed to stir a strange de-
sire into being within Porgy. Suddenly he
threw his head back and wailed long and
quaveringly. In rushed a vast feeling of
relief. He wailed again, emptied his handful
of small coins into the saucer, and sank to the
floor at the head of the bed. Presently he
commenced to croon with the others, and a
sense of exaltation flooded his being, com-
pelling him from the despair of the dirge to a
more triumphant measure.
'Oh, I gots a little brudder in de new
grabe-yahd. What outshine de sun/ he sang.
Without missing the beat, the chorus
shifted: *An* I'll meet um in the primus
Ian'.'
Then came a rude interruption. A short
yellow negro bustled into the room. His
voice was low, oily, and penetrating. He was
28
PORGY
dressed entirely in black, and had an air of
great importance. The song fell away to
scarcely more than a throbbing silence. The
man crossed the room to where the widow
sat huddled at the foot of the bed, and
touched her on the shoulder. She raised a
face like a burned out ember.
'How de saucer stan' now, my sister?' he
whispered, at the same time casting an ap-
praising glance toward the subject of his
inquiry.
'Dere ain't but fifteen dollar,' she replied
in a flat, despairing voice.
'An' he gots tuh git buried termorrer,'
called an awed voice, 'or de boahd ob healt'
will take um, an' give um tuh de students.'
The widow's scream shrilled wildly. She
rose to her knees and clutched the man's hand
between both of hers. 'Oh, fuh Gawd's sake
bury um in de grabe-yahd. I goin' tuh work
Monday, and I swear tuh Gawd I goin' tuh
pay yuh ebery cent.'
For a second even the rhythm ceased, leav-
ing an aching suspense in the air. Watchers
waited tensely. Wide eyes, riveted on the
29
PORGY
man's face, pleaded silently. Presently his
professional manner slipped from him. 'All
right. Sister,' he said simply. 'Wid de box,
an' one ca'age it will cost me more dan
twenty-five. But I'll see yuh t'rough. Yuh
can all be ready at eight tumorruh. It's a
long trip tuh de cemetery.'
The woman relaxed silently across the foot
of the bed, her head between her outflung
arms. Then from the narrow confines of the
room, the song beat up and out triumph-
antly :
'Oh, I gots a little brudder in de new
grabe-yahd. What outshine de sun!'
The rhythm swelled, and voices in the
court and upper rooms took it up, until the
deeply-rooted old walls seemed to rock and
surge with the sweep of it.
In the cool of the early morning, the pro-
cession took its departure for the cemetery
that lay beyond the city limits to the north.
First went the dilapidated hearse, with its
.rigid jyooden plumes, and faded black velvet
30
PORGY
draperies that nodded and swayed inside the
plate-glass panels. Then followed the soli-
tary carriage, in which could be seen massed
black accentuated by several pairs of white
cotton gloves held to lowered eyes. Behind
the carriage came the mourners in a motley
procession of wagons and buggies that had
been borrowed for the occasion.
Porgy drove with Peter, and four women,
seated on straight chairs in the wagon behind
them, completed their company. From time
to time a long-drawn wail would rise from
one of the conveyances, to be taken up and
passed back from wagon to wagon like a
dismal echo.
Moving from the negro district into the
wide thoroughfare of Meeting House Road,
with its high buildings and its white faces
that massed and scattered on the pavements,
the cortege appeared almost grotesque, with
the odd fusion of comedy and tragedy so
inextricably a part of negro life in its deep
moments.
The fat German who kept the shop on the
corner of King Charles Street and Sunyner
31 B
PORGY
Road, called his clerk from the depths of the
building, and their stomachs shook with
laughter. But the little, dark Russian Jew in
the next shop, who dealt in abominably
smelling clothing, gave them a reproving
look, and disappeared indoors.
The cemetery lay several miles beyond the
city limits. The lot was bare of trees, but
among the graves many bright flowering
weeds masked the ugliness of the troubled
earth. To the eastward a wide marsh
stretched away to a far, bright line of sea.
Westward, ploughed fields swept out to a
distant forest of yellow pine. From the sea
to the far tree-tops, the sky swung a dizzy
arch of thin blue, high in the centre of
which several buzzards hung motionless,
watching.
In the vast emptiness of the morning the
little procession crawled out to the edge of
the broken wooden fence that marked the
enclosure, and stopped.
By the time the last wagon had arrived, the
cheap pine casket was resting upon battens
over the grave, and the preacher, robed in
32
PORGY
white, was preparing to commence the ser-
vice.
The mourners gathered close about the
grave.
'Death, ain't yuh gots no shame?' called a
clear, high, soprano voice; and immediately
the mortal embodiment of infinite sorrow
broke and swayed about the grave in the
funeral chant. Three times the line swung its
curve of song, shrill, keen, agonizing; then it
fell away to a heart-wrenching minor on the
burden :
'Take dis man an' gone gone.
Death, ain't yuh gots no shame?'
When the singing ceased, the burial
service commenced, the preacher extemporiz-
ing fluently. Taking his rhythm from the
hymn, he poured his words along its inter-
minable reiteration until the cumulative effect
rocked the entire company.
The final moment of the ritual arrived.
The lid was removed from the casket, and the
mourners were formed into line to pass and
look upon the face of the dead. A very old,
33
PORGY
bent negress went first. She stooped, then
suddenly, with a shriek of anguish, cast her-
self beside the coffin.
'Tell Peter tuh hold de do' open fuh me.
I's comin' soon!' she cried.
'Yes, Gawd, goin' soon,' responded a voice
in the crowd. Others pressed about the grave,
and the air was stabbed by scream on scream.
Grief spent itself freely, terrifyingly.
Slowly the clashing sounds merged into
the regular measure of a spiritual. Beautiful
and poignant it rose, swelling out above the
sounds of falling earth as the grave was filled:
'What yuh goin' ter do when yuh
come out de wilderness,
Come out de wilderness,
Come out de wilderness;
What yuh goin' ter do when yuh
come out de wilderness
Leanin' on my Lord.
'Leanin* on my Lord,
Leanin' on my Lord,
Leanin' on my Lord
Who died on Calvary/
34
PORGY
The music faded away in vague, uncertain
minors. The mood of the crowd changed
almost tangibly. There was an air of restless
apprehension. Nervous glances were directed
toward the entrance. Peter, always sagacious,
unless taken unawares, had conferred in
advance with Porgy about this moment.
When he had helped him from the wagon,
he had stationed him just inside the fence,
where he could be lifted quickly into the
road.
'De las' man in de grabe-yahd goin' tuh be
de nex' one tuh git buried,' he had reminded
his friend.
Now, as the final shovelful of earth was
thrown upon the grave, he came running to
Porgy, and lifted him quickly into the road.
Behind them broke a sudden earth-shaking
burst of sound, as of the stampeding of many
cattle, and past them the mourners swept,
stumbling, fighting for room; some assisting
weaker friends, others fighting savagely to be
free of the enclosure. In the centre of the
crowd, plunging forward with robes flying,
was the preacher. In an incredibly short time
35
PORGY
the lot was cleared. Then, from a screening
bush near the grave, arose the old negress
who had been the first to wail out her grief.
She had lain there forgotten, overcome by the
storm of her emotion. She tottered feebly
into the road.
'Nebber you min', Sister,' the preacher
assured her comfortingly. 'Gawd always lub
de righteous/
Dazed, and much pleased at the attention
that she was receiving, while still happily
unmindful of its cause, the old woman smiled
a vague smile, and was hoisted into the
wagon.
During the funeral the sun had disappeared
behind clouds that had blown in swiftly from
the sea, and now a scurry of large drops swept
over the vehicles, and trailed away across the
desolate graves.
'Dat's all right now fer Robbins,' com-
mented Porgy. 'Gawd done sen' he rain
already fuh wash he feet-steps offen dis
cart'/
'Oh, yes, Brudder !' contributed a woman's
voice; and, 'Amen, my Jedus!' added another.
36
PORGY
In the early afternoon of the day of the
funeral, Porgy sat in his doorway communing
with Peter. The old man was silent for
awhile, his grizzled head bowed, and an ex-
pression of brooding tenderness upon his
lined face.
'Robbins war a good man,' he reflected at
length, 'an' dat nigger, Crown, war a killer,
an' fuhebber gettin' intuh trouble. Yet, dere
lie Robbins, wid he wife an' fadderless chil-
len ; an' Crown done gone he ways tuh do de
same t'ing ober again somewheres else.'
'Gone fuh true. I reckon he done lose now
on Kittiwar Islan', in dem palmettuh t'icket;
an' de rope ain't nebber make fuh ketch um
an' hang um.' Porgy stopped suddenly, and
motioned with his head toward some one who
had just entered the court. The new arrival
was a white man of stocky build, wearing a
wide-brimmed hat, and a goatee. He was
swinging a heavy cane, and he crossed the
court directly and paused before the two.
For a moment he stood looking down at them
37
PORGY
with brows drawn fiercely together. Then he
drew back his coat, exhibiting a police badge,
and a heavy revolver in a breast holster.
'You killed Robbins,' he shot out suddenly
at Peter. 'And I'm going to hang you for
it. Come along now!' and he reached out
and laid a firm hand upon the old man's
shoulder.
Peter shook violently, and his eyes rolled
in his head. He made an ineffectual effort to
speak, tried again, and finally said, "Fore
Gawd, Boss, I ain't nebber done it.'
Like a flash, the pistol was out of its
holster, and pointing between his eyes. 'Who
did it, then? 'snapped the man,
'Crown, Boss. I done see him do um/
Peter cried in utter panic.
The man laughed shortly. 'I thought so/
he said. Then he turned to Porgy.
'You saw it too, eh?'
There was panic in Porgy's face, and in his
lap his hands had clinched upon each other.
But his eyes were fixed upon the paving. He
drew a deep breath, and waited.
A flare of anger swept the face above him.
38
PORGY
*Come. Out with it. I don't want to have to
put the law on you.'
Porgy's only answer was a slight tremor
that shook the hands in his lap. The detec-
tive's face darkened, and sweat showed under
his hat-brim. Suddenly his temper bolted.
'Look at me, you damned nigger!' he
shouted.
Slowly the sitting figure before him re-
laxed, almost it seemed, muscle by muscle.
At last the hands fell apart, and lay flexed and
idle. Finally Porgy raised eyes that had
become hard and impenetrable as onyx.
They met the angry glare that beat down
upon them without flinching. After a long
moment, he spoke slowly, and with great
quietness.
'I ain't know nuttin' 'bout um. I been
inside, asleep on my bed, wid de do' closed.'
'You're a damn liar,' the man snapped.
He shrilled a whistle, and two policemen
entered.
'He saw the killing,' the detective said,
indicating Peter. 'Take him along, and lock
him up as a material witness.'
39
PORGY
'How about the cripple?' asked one of the
officers.
'He could not have helped seeing it/ the
man said sourly. 'That's his room right
there. But I can't make him come through.
But it don't matter. One's enough to hang
Crown, if we ever get him. Come, get the
old man in the wagon.'
The policeman lifted the shaking old negro
to his feet. 'Come along, Uncle. It ain't
going to be as bad for you as Crown, anyway/
encouraged one of them. Then the little
party passed out of the entrance, leaving
Porgy alone.
From the street sounded the shrill gong
of the patrol wagon, followed by the beat of
swiftly receding hoofs upon the cobbles.
Ten days had passed since the detective
had taken Peter away. For a week the wagon
had waited under the tottering shed, and the
dejected old horse had subsisted upon a
varied diet brought to him by the friends of
his absent master. Then a man had come and
40
PORGY
taken the outfit away. In answer to the pro-
tests of the negroes, he had exhibited a con-
tract, dated three years previous, by which
Peter was to pay two dollars a week for an
indefinite period, on an exorbitant purchase
price. Failure to pay any instalment would
cause the property to revert to the seller. It
all looked thoroughly legal. And so the dila-
pidated old rig rattled over the cobbles and
departed.
Then the man from the instalment furni-
ture house came. He was a vile-mouthed,
bearded Teuton, and swore so fiercely that no
one dared to protest when he loaded Peter's
furniture on his truck and drove away.
Now there remained in a corner of Porgy's
room, where he had taken them into custody,
only a battered leather trunk, a chromo of
'The Great Emancipator/ and a bundle of old
clothes ; mute reminders of their kindly and
gentle old owner.
PART II
PART II
*
THE languor of a Southern May was in the
air. It was a season dear to the heart of a
negro. Work on the wharves was slowing
down, and the men were putting in only two
or three days a week. There were always
some of them lying about the court, basking
in the sun, laughing, and telling stories while
they waited for their wonen to come from the
'white folks' ' kitchens, with their full dinner
pails.
Near the entrance, the stevedores usually
lounged, their great size differentiating them
from most of the other men. They had bright
bandanas about their thick necks, and under
their blue cotton shirts moved broad, flat
backs that could heft a five hundred pound
cotton bale. Earning more money than the
others, and possessing vast physical strength
in a world of brute force, they lorded it swag-
ger ingly about the court; taking the women
that they wanted, and dressing them gorge-
ously in the clashing crimsons and purples
that they loved.
Grief over the loss of Robbins had stormed
45
PORGY
itself out at the funeral. Peter's ill fortune
still occasioned general comment, but slight
concern to the individual. There was an air
of gaiety about. The scarlet of the geraniums
was commencing to flicker in a run of windy
flame on each window sill; and from the bay
came the smell of salt air blown across young
marsh-grass.
At the wharf, across the narrow street, the
fishermen were discharging strings of gleam-
ing whiting and porgy. Vegetable sloops,
blowing up from the Sea Islands, with
patched and tawny sails, broke the flat cobalt
of the inner harbour with the cross-wash of
their creamy wakes.
Through the back door of the cook-shop
Maria, the huge proprietress, could be seen
cutting shark-steaks from a four-foot hammer-
head that one of the fishermen had given her.
All in all, it was a season for the good things
of life, to be had now for scarcely more than
the asking.
Only Porgy sat lonely and disconsolate in
his doorway and watched the sunlight creep
up the eastern wall until it faded to a faint red
PORGY
at the top, then the blue dusk grew under the
wharf, and swirled through the street and
court. He had not been able to get to his
stand since Peter's departure; and the small
store of coins, which he kept under a loose
brick in his hearth, was nearing exhaustion.
Also, he missed his old friend keenly and
could not enter into the light-hearted life
about him.
Presently two women entered. Porgy saw
that they were Robbins' widow, and her
sister, who now shared her room. He had
been awaiting their coming eagerly, as they
had left in the early afternoon to carry bed-
clothing and food to the jail for Peter.
'How yuh fin* um, Sister?' he hailed.
The younger woman paused, standing in
the shadow, and the widow lowered herself to
a seat beside Porgy. She had put her grief
aside, and gone resolutely about her task of
earning a living for the three children.
'I can't puzzle dis t'ing out,' she said after
a while, 'De old man ain't done nuttin', an'
dey done gots um lock up like a chicken-t'ief.
Dey say dey gots tuh keelp um till dat nigger
47
PORGY
Crown get ketch; an' Gawd knows when
dat debble ob a t'ing goin' tuh happen.'
'It sho pay nigger tuh go blin' in dis
world,' contributed the young woman.
'Porgy ain't gots much leg, but he sho got
sense.'
After a moment of reflection, Porgy re-
plied: 'Sense do berry well; but he can't lift
no weight.'
A big stevedore was crossing the court, his
body moving easily with the panther-like flow
of enormous muscular power under absolute
control.
The beggar's eyes became wistful.
* Sense gots power tuh take a t'ing atter yuh
gits dere,' he said. 'But he nebber puts bittle
in a belly what can't leabe he restin' place.
What I goin' do now sence Peter gone, an' I
can't git on de street?'
'Pray, Brudder, pray,' said the widow
devoutly. 'Ain't yuh see Gawd done soffen
de haht of dat yalluh buryin' ondehtakuh
attuh I done pray tuh him fuh a whole
day an' night? Gawd gots leg fuh de
cripple.'
PORGY
'Bless de Lord!' ejaculated the young
woman.
'An' he gots comfort fuh de widder.'
'Oh, my Jedus!' crooned Porgy, beginning
to sway.
'An* food fuh de fadderless.'
'Yes, Lord!'
'An' he goin' raise dis poor nigger out de
dusV
'Allelujah!'
'An' set um in de seat ob de righteous.'
'Amen, my Sister!'
For a little while the three figures, showing
now only as denser shadows in a world of
shade, swayed slowly from side to side. Then,
without saying a word, Porgy drew himself
across his threshold, and closed the door very
softly.
It was not yet day when Porgy awakened
suddenly. His eyes were wide, and his face
was working with unwonted emotion. In the
faint light that penetrated his bleared window
from a street lamp, he made his way to the
49
PORGY
hearth, and removed the brick from his secret
depository. With feverish haste he counted
his little store, placing the coins in a row
before him. Then with the utmost care he
recounted them, placing them in little piles,
one for the coppers, one for the nickels, and
one for the dimes. When he had fully satis-
fied himself as to the extent of his wealth, his
tension relaxed, and, tying the money in a rag
which he tore from his bed-clothing, he
closed his hand firmly upon it, crawled back
into bed, and immediately fell asleep.
Two days later, Porgy drove his chariot
out through the wide entrance into a land of
romance and adventure. He was seated with
the utmost gravity in an inverted packing-
case that proclaimed with unconscious irony
the virtues of a well-known toilet soap.
Beneath the box two solid lop-sided wheels
turned heavily. Before him, between a pair of
improvised shafts, a patriarchal goat tugged
with the dogged persistence of age which has
been placed upon its mettle, and flaunted an
5
PORGY
intolerable stench in the face of the com-
plaisant and virtuous soap box.
As oblivious of the mirth-provoking qual-
ity of his appearance, as he was of a smell to
which custom had inured him, Porgy turned
his equipage daringly into a new thorough-
fare, and drove through a street where high,
bright buildings stood between wide gardens,
and where many ladies passed and re-passed
on the sidewalks, or in glittering carriages.
But the magic that had come to pass, even
in the triumph of that first morning, stirred
vague doubts and misgivings within him. He
noticed that while he occasioned slight com-
ment in the negro quarter, no sooner had he
entered the white zone, than people com-
menced to pass him with averted faces, and
expressions that struggled between pity and
laughter. When he finally reached his old
stand before the apothecary shop, these mis-
givings crystallized into a definite fear.
Several of his clients happened to be pass-
ing the shop together. One of them was clerk
to an apothecary farther down the street. He
seized his nose with one hand, while he
PORGY
pointed at Porgy with the other. Then all
seized their noses, shaking with laughter, and
waited to see what would happen.
Porgy looked his outfit over carefully.
Certainly it was working with the utmost
satisfaction. Somewhat mystified, he tied the
ancient animal to a post, and, with great
gravity, swung himself out of his wagon,
across the pavement, and to his old stand.
The boys who had laughed stood near by,
and were joined by others, until soon there
was quite a group.
Presently there issued from the shop the
loud voice of the proprietor: 'Oh, Mary,
come quick, and bring the broom. Some-
thing has died again/ Then followed the
sound of boxes being overturned, while dust
from a prodigious sweeping bellied in clouds
from the door. Then the apothecary, very red
in the face, came out for air, and found the
goat. The burst of laughter that greeted him
increased his irritation. Brandishing the
broom, and in no uncertain language, he
drove Porgy from his door.
But the bystanders had so enjoyed the joke
PORGY
at the apothecary's expense, and were feeling
in such high good humour, that when Porgy
had an opportunity to appraise his collections,
he found that they amounted to more than he
frequently got from a whole day of patient
waiting.
It is impossible to conceive of a more
radical change than that brought about in
Porgy's life by his new emancipation. From
his old circumstances which had conspired to
anchor him always to one spot, he was now
in the grip of new forces that as inevitably
resulted in constant change of scene. Soon he
became quite a metropolitan, and might have
been seen in any part of the city, either sitting
in his wagon at the curb or, if the residents
of the locality seemed lenient in their attitude
toward goats, disembarking, and trying his
luck in the strip of shade along the wall.
In those days, every one tolerated Porgy -
for a while. He had become 'a character/
The other beggars gnashed their teeth, but
were powerless.
53
PORGY
On certain days he would turn to the south
when he left the court, and soon would emerge
into a land of such beauty that he never lost
the illusion that it was unreal. No one seemed
to work in that country, except the happy,
well-clothed negroes who frequently came to
back gates when he passed, and gave him
tender morsels from the white folks' kitchens.
The great, gleaming houses looked out at him
with kindly eyes that peered between solid
walls of climbing roses. Ladies on the deep
piazzas would frequently send a servant run-
ning out to give him a coin and speed him on
his way.
Before the houses and the rose-trellises
stretched a broad drive, and beyond its daz-
zling belt of crushed shell the harbour lay
between its tawny islands, like a sapphire
upon a sailor's weathered hand. Sometimes
Porgy would steal an hour from the daily
rounds, pause there, and watch a great, blunt-
nosed steamer heave slowly out of the un-
known, to come to rest with a sigh of spent
steam, and a dusty thundering of released
anchor chains.
54
PORGY
'Gawd sho gots a long arm/ he would
murmur; or, 'Porgy, yo* sho is a little some-
thin* aftuh all/
Then there would be other days when he
would repair to the narrow retail street, with
its unbelievable windows, and drawing near
to the curb, between the tall carriages of the
shoppers would fall heir to the pennies which
they got with their change, and which were of
no value to such as they.
Always kind hands dropped coins in his
cup, and sped him on. They were great days
for Porgy. And great were the nights when
he would tell of his adventures to the envious
circle that gathered in the dusk of the court.
But Porgy was by nature a dreamer, and
there were times even in those days, when his
mind returned with wistful longing to the
old uninterrupted hours when he used to sit,
lost in meditation, under the unmarked drift
of time. Some day, he would tell himself,
there would come one with a compassion so
great that he would give both Porgy and the
goat place by his doorstep. Then life would
be perfect indeed.
55
PORGY
June, and the cotton season was over. The
last tramp steamer had faded into the horizon.
Great sheds that linked land and sea lay
empty and dark, and through their cavernous
depths echoed the thud and suck of waves
against the bulkheads. The last of the steve-
dores had departed, some to the plantations,
others to the phosphate mines, and still others
to the river barges.
The long, hot days, so conducive to indo-
lence, brought a new phase of life to Catfish
Row. The loud talk and noisy comings and
goings diminished. Men came in earlier in
the evenings, and spent more time with their
women.
Porgy sat alone in his doorway. In a room
overhead a man and his wife were engaged
in a friendly quarrel that ended in laughter.
From an open window near by came the
sound of drowsy child voices. In the crowded
dark about him, Life, with cruel preoccupa-
tion, was engrossed with its eternal business.
A large, matronly woman who lived near
PORGY
him, passed, carrying a pail of water. She
stopped, set down her burden, and dropped a
hand on Porgy's shoulder.
'What de matter wid dis man, he ain't gots
nuttin' tuh say?' she asked him kindly.
Porgy's face contracted with emotion. He
caught her hand and hurled it from him.
'Lemme be/ he rasped, in a tight, husky
voice. 'Yuh done gots yuh own man. Ain't
yuh?'
'Oh, Lawd!' she laughed, as she turned
away. 'Yuh ain't t'ink I wantin* j#A, is yuh?
Do listen tuh de man/
_
Through the early night a woman had lain
in the dust against the outer wall of Maria's
cook-shop. She was extremely drunk and
unpleasant to look upon. Exactly when she
had dropped, or been dropped there, no one
knew. Porgy had not seen her when he
had driven in at sunset. But he had heard
some talk of her among those who had
entered later. One of the men had come in
laughing.
57
PORGY
'I seen Crown's Bess outside/ he said.
'Must be she come aroun' tuh look fur urn.*
'She sho goin' tuh hab one long res*, ef she
goin' wait dere fur um. Dat nigger gone f 'om
hyuh fas' and far!' another had averred.
It was ten o'clock; and Maria was closing
her shop. The great negress was in the act of
fastening the window, when the tall, gaunt
form of the woman lurched through the door
into the faint illumination of the smoking
lamp. The visitor measured the distance to
the nearest bench with wandering and vacant
eyes, plunged for it, and collapsed, with head
and arms thrown across a table.
Maria was exasperated, but equal to the
emergency. Catching the woman around the
middle, she swung her easily to the door,
dropped her into outer darkness, and returned
to the window.
A crash caused her to turn suddenly.
There was the woman again, sprawled across
the table as before.
'I swear tuh Gawd!' exclaimed the pro-
voked negress. 'Ef yuh ain't de persistentes'
nigger I ebber seen.' She went over, lifted
PORGY
the woman's head, and looked into eyes in the
far depths of which a human soul was flicker-
ing feebly.
'Somethin' tuh eat/ the woman whispered.
'Lemme hab somethin' tuh eat, an' I'll go.'
Growling like an approaching equinoctial
gale, Maria brought bread and fish; and
emptying the dregs of the coffee-pot into a
cup, placed it before her.
'Now, eat an' trabble, Sister,' she advised
laconically.
The woman raised her head. An ugly scar
marked her left cheek, and the acid of utter
degradation had etched hard lines about her
mouth ; but eyes into which human conscious-
ness was returning looked fearlessly into the
determined face of the big negress. For a
moment she ate wolfishly; then asked sud-
denly:
'Who lib in dat room 'cross de way?'
Torgy,' she was informed, 'but such as yuh
ain't gots no use fuh he. He a cripple, an' a
beggar.'
'He de man wid goat?'
'Yes, he gots goat.'
59
PORGY
The woman's eyes narrowed to dark, un-
fathomable slits.
*I hyuh say he gits good money fum de
w'ite folks,' she said slowly.
In silence the meal was finished. Then the
woman steadied herself a moment with hands
against a table, and, without a word to Maria,
walked quickly, with an almost haughty car-
riage, from the room.
She crossed the narrow drive with a deci-
sive tread, opened the door of Porgy's
room, entered, and closed the door behind
her.
It was late afternoon, Serena Robbins
entered the court, paused at Porgy's door, and
gave a sharp rap on the weathered panel. The
door was opened by a woman. The visitor
looked through her, and spoke directly to
Porgy, who sat within.
'I gots good news,' she announced. 'I done
been tuh see my w'ite folks 'bout Peter; an'
dey say dey gots a frien' who is a lawyer, an'
he kin git um out. I tell um tuh sen' um tuh
60
PORGY
see you 'bout urn, 'cause yuh gots so much
sense when yuh talks tuh w'ite folks.'
Having delivered her message, Serena
turned a broad back upon the woman who
stood silently in the doorway, and with the
bearing of an arbiter of social destinies, strode
to her corner of the court.
Across the drive, Maria, vast and moist,
hung over her stove in a far corner of her
cook-shop. Several negroes sat at the little
tables, eating their early suppers, laughing
and chaffing.
'Yuh sho got good-lookin' white gals in dis
town/ drawled a slender young octoroon. He
was attired in sky-blue, peg-top trousers,
yellow spats, and in the centre of a scarlet
bow-tie gleamed an immense paste horse-
shoe.
'Do listen tuh Sportin' Life!' said a black,
loutish buck admiringly. 'Ef he ain't lookin*
at de rollin' bones, he always gots he eye on
de women.'
Maria's heavy tread shook the room as she
crossed and stood, with arms akimbo, scowl-
ing down at her iridescent guest. The man
61
PORGY
looked up, lowered his eyes quickly, and
shifted uneasily in his chair.
'Nigger!' she finally shot at him, and the
impact almost jarred him from his chair. 'I
jus' tryin' ter figger out wedder I bettuh kill
yuh decent now, wid yuh frien's about yuh; or
leabe you fuh de w'ite gentlemens tuh hang
attuh a while.'
'Come now, old lady, don't talk like dese
old-fashioned lamp-oil niggers what have had
no adwantage. Why, up in New York, where
I been waitin' in a hotel -'
But he got no further.
'Noo Yo'k,' she shouted. 'Don't yuh try
any Noo Yo'kin' aroun' dis town. Ef I had
my way, I'd go down tuh dat Noo Yo'k boat,
an' take ebbery Gawd's nigger what come up
de gang plank wid er Joseph coat on he back
an' a glass headlight on he buzzom and drap
um tuh de catfish befo' he foot hit decent
groun' ! Yas ; my belly fair ache wid dis Noo
Yo'k talk. De fus t'ing dat dem nigger fuhgit
is dat dem is nigger. Den dem comes tuh
dese decent country mens, and fills um full ob
talk wut put money in de funeral ondehtakuh
62
PORGY
pocket.' Breathless, she closed her arraign-
ment by bringing a fist the size of a ham
down upon the table with such force that her
victim leapt from his chair and extended an
ingratiating hand toward her.
*Dat' all right, Auntie. Le's you an' me
be frienY
'Frien' wid yuh?' and her tone dripped
scorn. 'One ob dese days I might lie down wid
er rattlesnake, and when dat time come, yuh
kin come right along an' git intuh de bed. But
till den, keep yuh shiny carcase in Noo Yo'k
till de debbil ready tuh take chaage ob um!'
Suddenly the anger left her eyes, and her
face became grave. She leaned over, and
spoke very quietly into his face.
'Fuh Gawd's sake, don't talk dat kind ob
talk tuh dese hyuh boys. Dis county ain't
nebber yit see a black man git lynch. Dese
nigger knows folks, an' dey knows nigger.
Fer Gawd' sake keep yuh mout'. off w'ite
lady. Yuh gots plenty ob yuh own colour
fuh talk 'bout. Stick tuh dem, an' yuh ain't
git inter no trouble.'
During Maria's attack upon her guest, the
63 c
PORGY
court had been full of the many-coloured
sounds that accompanied its evening life.
Now, gradually the noise shrunk, seeming to
withdraw into itself. All knew what it meant.
A white man had entered. The protective
curtain of silence which the negro draws about
his life when the Caucasian intrudes hung
almost tangibly in the air. No one appeared
to notice the visitor. Each was busily pre-
occupied with his task. Yet the new-comer
made no move that was not noted by fifty
pairs of inscrutable eyes.
The man wore a soft hat drawn well down
over his face. He was slender and tall, and
walked with his body carried slightly forward,
like one who is used to meeting and over-
coming difficulties.
A young woman passed him. He reached
out and touched her on the arm. She stopped,
and turned immediately toward him, her eyes
lowered, her manner submissive, but utterly
negative.
*I am looking for a man by the name of
Porgy,' he said in a clear, pleasant voice.
'Can you direct me to his room?*
PORGY
'Porgy?' she repeated slowly, as though
trying to remember. Then she called aloud :
'Anybody hyuh know a man by de name ob
Porgy?'
Several of the silent bystanders looked up.
'Porgy?' they repeated, one after another,
with shakes of the head.
The white man laughed reassuringly, as
though quite used to the proceeding. 'Come,*
he urged, *I am his friend, Mr. Alan Arch-
dale; I know that he lives here, and I want to
help him.'
From behind her tubs, Serena advanced,
knocking the ashes from her clay pipe as she
came. When she was quite close, she stopped,
and peered up into the face above her. Then
she turned upon the girl.
'Go 'long an' call Porgy,' she commanded.
'Can't yuh tell folks when yuh see um?'
A light broke over the young woman's
face.
'Oh, yuh means Porgy?' she cried, as
though she had just heard the name for the
first time; 'I ain't understan' wut name yuh
say, Boss,' and echoes arose from different
6?
PORGY
parts of the court. 'Oh, yes, de gentleman
mean Porgy. How come we ain't understan'.'
Then the tension in the air broke, and life
resumed its interrupted flow.
The young woman stepped to Porgy's
door, and called. Presently the door opened,
and a woman helped the beggar out to his
seat upon the sill, then seated herself behind
him in the deep gloom of the room.
Archdale crossed the short distance, and
seated himself on the sill beside the negro.
'Tell me about your friend who got locked
up on account of the Robbins murder,' he
asked, without preamble.
In the dim light, Porgy leaned forward and
looked long into the keen, kindly face of his
questioner.
Archdale gave a surprised exclamation:
'Why, you're the old man who used to beg in
front of the apothecary shop on King Charles
Street!' he said. Then, after a moment of
scrutiny: 'But you are not old, after all, are
you?' and he studied the face intently. There
was a touch of grey in the wool above the
ears, and strong character lines flared down-
66
PORGY
ward from the nose to corners of a mouth that
was, at once, full-lipped and sensuous, yet set
in a resolute line most unusual in a negro.
With the first indications of age upon it, the
face seemed still alive with a youth that had
been neither spent nor wasted.
'But, tell me about your friend/ said the
visitor, breaking a silence that was commenc-
ing to become tense.
Porgy's face still wore its mask. 'How
come yuh tuh care, Boss?' he queried.
'Why, I am the Rutledge's lawyer; and I
look after their coloured folks for them. I
think they must have owned half the slaves in
the county. A woman here, Serena Robbins,
is the daughter of their old coachman, or
something; and she asked them to help her
friend out.'
'Peter ain't gots no money, yuh know,
Boss. An' I jes begs from do' to do'.' There
was still a shade of suspicion in Porgy's
voice.
Archdale laughed reassuringly. 'It will
not take any money. At least, not much; and
I am sure that Mrs. Rutledge will take care of
PORGY
that. So you can go right ahead and tell me
all about it.'
Fully satisfied at last, Porgy told the tale of
the killing and the subsequent arrest of Peter.
When he had finished the recital, Archdale
sat silent for a while. 'The dirty hounds!' he
said under his breath. Finally he turned
wearily to Porgy, and explained slowly:
'Of course we can go to law about this; but
it will take no end of time. There is an easier
way. He must have some one, who is accept-
able to the magistrate, to go his bond. Do
you know a man by the name of Huysenberg,
who keeps a corner-shop down by the West-
end wharf?'
Porgy, listening intently, nodded.
Archdale handed him a bill. 'Take this ten
dollars to him, and tell him that you want him
to go Peter's bond. He hasn't any money of
his own, and his shop is in his wife's name;
but he has an arrangement with the magis-
trate that makes him entirely satisfactory.'
He handed Porgy a card with an address
pencilled under a printed name. 'You will
find me here,' he said. 'If Peter is not out in
68
PORGY
two days after you hand over the ten, let
me know.' Then, with a brisk, but friendly
'Good night/ he left the court.
There was great rejoicing in Catfish Row.
Peter had returned. The ten dollar bill which
Archdale had given Porgy had worked the
miracle. Except for the fact that the old
negro's shoulders drooped, and his grip on
actualities seemed weakened by his confine-
ment, there was no evidence to show that he
had been absent. He had gone to the horse-
dealer, and had found his ancient beast still
awaiting a purchaser. Another contract had
been signed which had started him off again
on the eternal weekly payment. The German
had driven back with the furniture, which
Peter had docilely purchased for the second
time. Again 'The Great Emancipator' had
been hung in his accustomed place above the
mantel. Now, each morning, the old wagon
rattled out over the cobbles, with the usual
number of small, ecstatic, black bodies pen-
dant from its dilapidated superstructure.
PORG Y
'De buckra sho gots nigger figgered out
tuh a cent!' said Peter philosophically, and
even with a note of admiration in his voice.
'Dem knows how much money wagon make
in er week; an' de horse man, de furniture
man, an* de lan'lo'd mek dey 'rangement'
accordin'. But I done lib long 'nough now tuh
beat 'em all, 'cause money ain't no use tuh
a man attuh he done pass he prime, nohow.'
When the old man had settled firmly back
into his nook, and had an opportunity to look
about him, he noticed a change in Porgy.
'I tell yuh dat nigger happy,' he said to
Serena, one evening while they were smoking
their pipes together on her washing bench.
'Go 'long wid yuh!' she retorted. 'Dat
'oman ain't de kin' tuh mek man happy. It
tek a killer like Crown tuh hoi' she down.'
'Dat may be so,' agreed the old man sagely.
'But Porgy don' know dat yit. An' 'side, ef a
man is de kin' wut needs er 'oman, he goin' be
happy regahdless. Him dress she up in he
own eye till she look lak de Queen of Sheba
tuh um. Porgy t'ink right now dat he gots a
she-gawd in he room.'
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PORGY
'He sho' gots de kin* wut goin' gib um
hell/ Serena commented cynically. 'Dat
'oman ain't fit tuh 'sociate wid. Much as I
like Porgy, I wouldn't swap t'ree wo'd wid
she.'
'Dat's all so. Sister,' conceded Peter. 'But
yuh keep yo' eye on Porgy. He usen tuh hate
all dese chillen. Ain't he? Now watch um.
Ebery day w'en he come home he gots candy-
ball fuh de crowd. An' wut mo', yistuhday I
hyuh he an' she singin' tuhgedduh in dey
room.'
Serena motioned to him to be quiet.
Porgy's woman crossed the court to draw a
bucket of water from the common tap near
Serena's corner. She was neatly dressed, and
passed them as though they did not exist.
Filling her pail, she swung it easily to her
head, and, steadying it lightly with one hand,
returned close to them with an air of cool
scorn that produced entirely different effects
upon her two observers. Serena watched her
departure in silence.
'Dat de t'ing!' said Peter, a note of admira-
tion in his voice. 'She sho ain't axin' no visit
PORGY
offen none of she neighbour.' And he emitted
an indiscreet chuckle, which was too much for
his friend.
'Yuh po', ole, wall-eyed, sof -headed gran'-
daddy! Ain't yuh 'shame' tuh set dey befo'
me, an' talk sweet-mout' 'bout dat murderin'
Crown's Bess? Ef I wuz yo' age, an* er man,
I'd sabe my sof wo'd fer de Gawd-farin'
ladies.'
'Ef yuh wuz my age, an' a man -' com-
menced Peter. He hesitated, and looked long
at her with his dim, kindly eyes; then he
shook his head. 'No; it ain't no use. Yuh
wouldn't onderstan'. Dat somet'ing shemale
sense ain't goin' tuh help yuh none wid.'
And, still shaking his head, he knocked out
his pipe, and departed in the direction of the
stable, where he was presently greeted by a
soft, comprehending whinny.
Bess entered Porgy's room and swung her
pail of water to its place beside the new wood
stove that had superseded the old, open
hearth, and busied herself with preparations
for supper.
Porgy was seated in a low chair near the
72
PORGY
door. He was smoking contentedly, and the
odd tension that had characterized him, even
in his moments of silent thought, had given
place to a laxed attitude of body and an
expression of well-being.
An infinitesimal negro passed with a
whistle and a double shuffle.
'Look hyuh, sonny!' called Porgy.
The boy paused, hesitated, and advanced
slowly. Porgy held out a large round ball,
striped red and white. 'How 'bout er sweet?'
he said a little self-consciously. The boy took
the candy, and shuffled uneasily from foot to
foot.
'Dat's right,' said Porgy, with a burst of
sudden, warm laughter, that somehow startled
the child. 'Now yuh come again an' see
Porgy an' Bess.'
73
PART III
PART III
*
PORGY drove slowly down King Charles
Street, and appraised the prospects for hitch-
ing and settling awhile in the narrow strip of
shade against the walls of the buildings. The
day was sweltering, and both cripple and goat
were drooping beneath the steady pressure of
the sun.
A man passed, walking briskly. Porgy at
once recognized the long, easy stride, and the
soft felt hat drawn rather low over the eyes.
He reached out and gave a slight twist to the
tail of his somnambulant animal, which re-
sulted in a shambling trot that brought the
vehicle abreast of the pedestrian. But at that
moment the gentleman stopped, produced a
key, and opening the door of an office, passed
in without looking round.
Porgy eyed the office and its environs with
evident satisfaction. The building stood very
near the old apothecary shop ; and between it
and its neighbour to the east was an entrance
way several feet in width, which breathed
forth an inviting coolness from its deep shade.
No one was passing at the moment. Porgy
77
PORGY
turned the head of his beast toward the en-
trance, gave a sudden twist to the tail, and
drove audaciously across the pavement, and
into the retreat. Then he hitched his wagon
a few feet from the street, and seated himself,
cup in hand, at the pavement's inner edge.
'Yuh bes' git along out of Mr. Alan'
do'way wid dat goat befo' he fin' yuh. Ain't
yuh onduhstan' gentlemen ain't likes tuh
smell goat?'
Porgy looked up and met the threatening
gaze of Simon Frasier.
Frasier was a practising attorney-at-law.
He was well past fifty years of age, and his
greying wool looked very white in compari-
son with his uncompromisingly black skin.
He had voted the democratic ticket in the
dark period of reconstruction, when such
action on his part took no little courage, and
accordingly enjoyed the almost unlimited
toleration of the aristocracy. Without pos-
sessing the official sanction of the State for
the practice of his profession, he was, by com-
mon consent among the lawyers, permitted
to represent his own people in the police and
78
PORGY
magistrates' courts and to turn his hand to
other small legal matters into which it was
thought inadvisable to inquire too deeply.
Porgy regarded his accuser stonily.
'Ob course gentlemen ain't likes tuh smell
goat/ he replied.
The door opened, and Archdale looked
out. From where Porgy sat he could have
touched him with his hand; yet the cripple's
gaze never wavered from the face of the
negro, and his expression remained un-
changed. Forestalling an interruption, he
hastened on, in a voice that had become
mildly incredulous, as he continued, 'But it
can't be dat attuh knowing buckra long as
yuh been know um, yuh ain't onduhstan' um
any better dan tuh t'ink dey would dribe
away po' cripple in de heat/
Archdale made a movement that actually
crossed Porgy 's line of vision; but the beg-
gar's face gave no sign of recognition. His
voice rose to a pitch of indignation :
'Yuh might be a lawyuh, an' all dat; but
I ain't goin' tuh hab yuh stan' dey an' tell me
dat Mistuh Archdale gots dem po' w'ite-
79
PORGY
trash ways. Ob course he don't likes de smell
ob goat; but he gots er haht in he breas' fuh
de po' cripple nigger/
A wry smile tugged at the corner of Arch-
dale's mouth.
'All right, Porgy,' he said, 'I got it all; but,
gentleman or no gentleman, I can't have a
goat on my doorstep. I would not have one
client left in a week.'
At the sound of Archdale's voice, Porgy
looked around. His entire body seemed to
express amazement.
'Why, hyuh's de Boss now!' he cried.
Then he turned triumphantly to the negro,
and added, 'Wut I done tells yuh 'bout de
real quality; ain't yuh done see he say I kin
stay?'
Archdale became desperate. 'I did not
say you could,' he cried, with the manner of
one who puts his foot in the crack of a closing
door. 'You can wait there to-day, as I will be
in court all morning; but to-morrow you must
find somewhere else.'
'By tuhmorruh I goin' hab dis goat wash
till yuh can't tell um from one of dem rose-
So
PORGY
bush in de pahkP Porgy assured him with an
ingenuous smile. 'Yuh is goin' to be mighty
lubbin' of dis goat attuh a while. Boss.'
'No; goats don't wash, Porgy. Away you
go after to-day.' But the power of absolute
conviction was not in Archdale's voice. His
foot was still in the crack; but he knew that
the door was closing.
'All right, Frasier; I'll see you now about
your divorce business,' he said to the other
negro, and showed him into the office.
Presently through an open window behind
Porgy came the sound of Archdale's voice :
'All right, Frasier. Out with it. The gen-
tleman who has come down to improve moral
conditions among the negroes thinks you are
a menace. He is going to have you indicted
for granting divorces illegally.'
In a voice very different from the one in
which he had arraigned Porgy, Frasier began :
'I fin' so much nigger onsattify wid dere
marriage, an' I hyuh tell ob a t'ing dey calls
divorce.'
'Yes?' encouraged his questioner.
'So fuh a long time now I been separate
81
PORGY
dem wid a divorce wut I mek up fuh de
pu'pose. An' he go fine. Boss. I done mek
too much nigger happy.'
'Have you one of the papers with you?'
Silence; and then Archdale's voice again.
' "I, Simon Frasier, hereby divorce Rachel
Smalls and Columbus Devo for the charge of
one dollar; signed, Simon Frasier." Well,
that is simple enough. Where did you get
this seal?'
'I done buy um from de junk-shop Jew,
Boss.'
'Don't you know there is no such thing as
divorce in this State?'
'I hyuh tell dere ain't no such t'ing fuh de
w'ite folks ; but de nigger need um so bad, I
ain't see no reason why I can't mek up one
wut sati'fy de nigger? He seem tuh work
berry well, too, till dat sof ' mout' gentleman
come 'roun' an' onsettle all my client.'
A groan floated through the window to
Porgy's ears, causing him to indulge in a
slow, malicious smile. Then in a pained voice
the negro lawyer proceeded : 'He been keepin'
me alibe, Boss. An' wut mo', he keep de
82
PORGY
nigger straight. Dis gentleman say dat dey
gots tuh lib tuhgedduh anyhow till dey done
dead. Dat's de law, he say. But nigger ain't
mek dataway. I done get um all properly
moralize, and dis same gentleman tell um dat
my paper ain't no mo' dan a license tuh
'dulterate. So now dey just leabe each odduh
anyhow, and I ain't gets no dollar. An' now
he say he goin' jail me, wut mo'!'
There was a moment of silence, then Porgy
heard Archdale's voice calling a number;
then: 'Hello! Is that the Solicitor's office?
Mr. Dennis, please.
'Oh - this is Archdale, Dennis. Yes, an-
other negro. This time it is Frasier, you
know, the divorce decree case. Yes, I have
him here in my office. Look here; you have
a terrifically heavy docket this term. There
is no use taking the State's money and your
valuable time on this case.'
There followed a pause; then Archdale
said hastily, 'Oh, no; I am not trying any-
thing; but he is perfectly innocent of any deli-
berate wrongdoing. Yes, of course; it would
be serious if he were responsible; but you
83
PORGY
know no one takes old Frasier seriously. A
no-bill from the grand jury would save no end
of time and trouble.
'Yes; I will guarantee that he will stop.'
Porgy listened intently; and after a mo-
ment he heard Archdale say, 'Thank you,'
and turn his chair toward his client. Then he
heard him address the negro.
'We are not going to lock you up this time,
Simon. But you will have to stop divorcing
your people. I have given my word. If you
do it again, snap! to jail we both go. Do you
understand?'
A relieved gasp greeted the announcement,
followed by 'Gawd bless yuh, Boss!' and a
moment later Frasier stood blinking in the
white glare of the street.
Porgy looked up, and in an exact imitation
of Frasier's professional manner, said testily,
'Mobe on, please; mobe on. I gots a berry
perlite goat hyuh wut objec* tuh de smell ob
de jail-bird.'
A chuckle sounded from Archdale's office.
Immediately the light of victory, carefully
veiled, but bright, shone in Porgy's eyes. He
PORGY
reached behind him and tweaked the goat
by the ear. The dejected animal mistook the
signal, and started forward.
'No, no, bubber,' whispered Porgy. 'Ain't
yuh hear de Boss laugh? When nigger mek de
buckra laugh, den he know he done won. Dis
wey we goin' spen' we libe. You watch. 1
The change in Porgy, which Peter had
been the first to notice, was now apparent to
all who knew him. The defensive barrier of
reserve that he had built about his life was
down. The long hours when he used to sit
fixed and tense, with the look of introspection
upon his face, were gone. Even the most
sceptical of the women were beginning to
admit that Bess was making him a good mate.
Not that they mingled freely with the other
residents of the court. On the contrary, they
seemed strangely sufficient unto 1 themselves
in the midst of the intensely gregarious life
that was going on about them. Porgy's earn-
ings were adequate to their modest needs, and
Bess was always up and out with the first of
PORGY
the women, and among them all there was
none who could bargain more shrewdly with
the fishermen and hucksters who sold their
wares on the wharf.
Like Porgy, Bess had undergone a subtle
change that became more evident from day
to day. Her gaunt figure had rounded out,
bringing back a look of youthful comeliness,
and her face was losing its hunted expression.
The air of pride that had always shown in her
bearing, which had amounted almost to dis-
dain, that had so infuriated the virtuous dur-
ing her evil days, was heightened, and, in her
bettered condition, forced a resentful respect
from her feminine traducers.
One morning while she was doing her
marketing on the wharf, one of the river men
who had known her in the past, hailed her too
familiarly. He was at that moment stepping
from the top round of a ladder on to the wharf.
'How 'bout ternight?' he asked with a leer.
She was holding a string of whiting in her
left hand, and was hanging upon the final
penny of a bargain with the fishman. She
half turned, and delivered a resounding slap
86
PORGY
with her right hand. The man staggered
backward, hung for a moment, then van-
ished. There was a tremendous splash from
the shallow water.
'Twenty cent fuh dis string, an 1 not one
cent moV Bess continued coolly to the fish-
man.
He accepted the price. Bess gave him
eighteen cents, and a hard look. He counted
the money, glanced at the hand that now hung
innocently against her apron, then laughed.
'Just as yuh say, Sister. I ain't quarrellin*
none wid yuh dis morninV
Bess gave him one of the faint, cryptic
smiles that always made men friends and
women enemies for her, and departed for
Catfish Row, as if nothing had happened to
break the dull routine of the morning's chores*
Saturday night, and the court had flung off
its workaday clothes and mood. In the corner
by Serena's wash bench a small intimate circle
had gathered about a smoking kerosene
lamp. Several women sat on the bench with
8?
PORGY
drowsy little negroes in their laps. A man
near the light leaned over a guitar, with a
vague wistfulness in his face, and plucked
successive chords with a swift, running
vibrance of sound. Then a deep baritone
hummed for a second and raised an air:
'Ain't it hahd tuh be a nigger;
Ain't it hahd tuh be a nigger;
Ain't it hahd tuh be a nigger;
'Cause yuh can't git yo' rights w'en yuh do.
*I was sleepin' on a pile ob lumber,
Jus' as happy as uh man kin be,
W'en a w'ite man come wake me from my
slumber,
An' he say, "Yuh gots tuh work now, 'cause
yuh free!"'
Then they were all in on the chorus :
'Ain't it hahd tuh be a nigger,'
and the gloom hummed with the low, close
harmonies.
In another corner the crap circle had gath-
ered. Porgy's delight in the game had not
88
PORGY
waned with his increasing interests, and he
sat fondling the small white cubes, and whis-
pering to them in his old confidential manner.
'Little w'ite babies,' he crooned, 'come sing
fuh dis nigger/
He cast and won.
Gathering the little heap of pennies and
nickels, he passed them behind him to Bess,
who squatted in the shadows. She took the
money in silence, counted it, dropped it into
her apron pocket, and continued to watch
the game intently, smiling her cryptic smile
when Porgy won, but saying scarcely anything
at all.
The negro known as Sportin' Life had
come in just as the game was commencing,
and had sat in. That he was not altogether
above suspicion was evidenced by the fact
that the little circle of men refused to allow
him to use his own dice, and told him so
frankly. He scowled at them, dropped the
dice back into his pocket, and started to
leave. Then he seemed to think better of it,
and joined the circle.
As the game proceeded it became evident
89
PORGY
that Porgy's luck was with him ; he was the
most consistent winner, and Sportin' Life was
bearing most of the burden. But the mulatto
was too good a gambler to evince any discom-
fiture. He talked steadily, laughed much, and
missed no opportunity to drop a sly word of
suspicion when Porgy drew in a pot. There
was nothing that could be taken up and re-
sented, but Porgy was mystified, and Bess's
face was dark with anger more than once. He
had a way of leaning over just as Porgy cast,
and placing his face almost on the flags so
that he could see under the dice when they
struck. Then he would look up, laugh mean-
ingly into Porgy's face, and sometimes clap
his hands as though the cripple had managed
something very cleverly.
When the game finally broke up it was
clear that he had poisoned the minds of the
company, and the good nights lacked their
usual warmth.
Bess reached into her apron pocket, and
drew out the evening's winnings. The coins
made quite a little weight in her hand. A late
fragment of moon swung over the wall and
90
PORGY
poured its diminished light into her open
palm. She commenced to count the money.
Porgy left her, and drew himself into his
room. She proceeded to count, absorbed in
her task.
'Porgy lucky/ said a low voice beside her.
'Mus' be yer gots two dollar dere fer um.'
Sportin' Life lifted his elegant trousers, so
that the knees would not bag, and squatted on
the flags at her side. He removed his stiff
straw hat, with its bright band, and spun it
between his hands. The moonlight was full
upon his face, with its sinister, sensuous
smile.
She looked at him squarely a moment, then
said in a cold, level voice:
*I can't 'member ebber meetin' a nigger
dat I like less dan I does you/
'Thank yer kindly/ he replied, not in the
least degree daunted. 'But jus' de same, I
wants ter be frien' wid yer. Me and you ain't
usen ter dese small-town slow ways. We ain't
been above seein' night-life what is night-life,
91
PORGY
an' I jus' wants ter talk to you now and den ;
dat's all.'
'I gots no time fuh talk/ she told him. 'An'
wut mo', I t'rough wid de kin' ob nights you
is t'inking 'bout.'
4 No mo' red-eye; none 'tall?' he queried.
'Nebber gits t'irsty, eh?'
'Yes, Gawd knows, I does git t'irsty now
and den/ she said impulsively; then added
sharply, 'But I done t'rough now, I tells yer;
I done t'rough.'
She arose to go. 'Yo' kin' mek me sick/
she told him, 'an' I ain't wants tuh hab no
mo' talk wid yuh.'
He got spryly to his feet, and stood beside
her. 'Oh, come on, le's let bygone be bygone,
an' be frienY Then his voice became low and
ingratiating: 'Come; gimme yer han', Sister/
he said.
Acquiescent, but mystified, she held out
her open palm.
He poured a little pile of white powder into
it. There it lay in the moonlight, very clean
and white on her dark skin. 'Happy dus'!'
she said, and her voice was like a gasp. 'Take
92
PORGY
dat t'ing away, nigger. I t'rough wid urn, I
tells yuh.' But she did not turn her hand over
and let it fall upon the ground.
'Jus' a little touch fer ole time sake,' he
whispered. "Tain't 'nough ter hurt er fly.
An' it ain't goin' ter cos' yer one cent/
She stood a moment longer, and her hand
trembled, spilling a few grains between her
fingers. Then suddenly she clapped her palm
over her mouth. When she took it away it
was quite empty.
Sportin' Life heaved a sigh of relief,
turned and leant against the wall and
waited.
In the corner by Serena's bench the party
was breaking up. Only a few women were
left, and instead of the blur of general talk,
remarks leapt clear. They were discussing
the crap game that had just closed.
'Dey is somet'ing berry queer 'bout de way
de money always go tuh de same place,' a
voice was saying.
The moonlight ebbed from the corner
where Bess and Sportin' Life stood. Five
minutes had passed since she had made her
93
PORGY
sudden decisive gesture. She stood oddly
rigid, with her hands clenched at her sides.
Abruptly she spun around. *Yuh gots mo'
ob dat?' Her voice was low and taut.
'Sho' I has!' came the answer, with a con-
fident laugh. 'But it don't come cheap.
Gimme dat money yer got dere.'
Silently she held out her hand, and poured
the coins into his palm.
He gave her a small folded paper.
'I got more ob dat when yer needs it,' he
said, as he turned away.
But she did not hear him. She snatched
the paper, opened it, and threw the contents
into her mouth.
The court was sinking to sleep. One by
one the lighted windows went blank. The
women at the washbench got to their feet.
One yawned noisily, and another knocked her
clay pipe out on the flags in a shower of
sparks. Then a voice came clearly the one
that had complained before about the crap
game.
'I ain't sayin' ef it conjer, er jus' plain
loaded dice. All I gots tuh say is dat dam
94
PORGY
nigger, Porgy, steal my Sam' wages off him
now t'ree week runninY
Out of the shadows and across the moonlit
square a figure flashed, gesturing wildly.
The women leapt back. The one who had
done the talking screamed once, the shrill
note echoing around the walls. The advanc-
ing figure closed convulsive hands upon her
shoulders and snatched her body forward.
Wide, red-lit eyes glared into her face. A
voice half sobbed, half screamed, 'Yuh say
dat 'bout Porgy? Yuh say Porgy is t'ief?'
The victim was young and strong. She
tore the hands from her shoulders and raised
her arms before her face. One of the other
women reached out to seize the intruder, but
was met with a glare so insanely malignant
that she retreated screaming.
Above them windows were leaping to
light. Dark bodies strained from sills. Feet
sounded, running down clapping dilapi-
dated stairways. A shrill, long, terrifying
shriek cut across the growing noise, and the
women clinched and fell. Bystanders rushed
to intervene, and became involved. Always
95 D
PORGY
in the centre of the storm a maddened
woman whirled like a dervish and called
horribly upon her God, striking and clawing
wildly.
The babel became terrific. The entire
population of the court contributed to the
general confusion. In the rooms above, chil-
dren wailed out a nameless terror.
Suddenly over the tumult sounded the
gong of the patrol wagon, and through the
gateway half-a-dozen policemen advanced
with pistols out, and clubs ready.
The uproar stopped suddenly at its peak.
Shadows dropped back and were gulped by
deeper shadow. Feet made no sound in re-
treating. Solid bodies became fluid, sliding.
Yawning doorways drew them in. Miracu-
lously the court was converted into a vacant,
walled square, in which stood six erect
figures, looking a little theatrical and foolish
with their revolvers and clubs, and a woman
who shook menacing hands at nothing at all
and swore huskily at phantoms.
'No trouble finding the cause of the dis-
turbance/ said an authoritative voice. 'Get
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her, men. Better use bracelets. Can't tell
about dope cases/
The squad closed quickly. For a moment
a grotesque shadow tumbled and shifted in
the centre of the court; then a voice said,
'Steady now/ The mass broke into indivi-
dual figures, and, under the ebbing moonlight,
moved toward the entrance with a manacled
woman in their midst.
Porgy had opened his door at the first
outcry and sat on the sill trying to get the
import of the disturbance. Now, as the group
passed closed to him, he looked up. The
woman had ceased her outcry, and was look-
ing about with vague, unseeing eyes. As they
walked past his doorway, so close that he could
have touched the nearest officer with his hand,
she looked down, and her gaze focussed upon
the sitting figure. Her body stiffened, and
her head lifted with the old, incongruous
gesture of disdain,
'Bess!' called Porgy once very loudly; and
again, in a voice that sagged, 'Bess!'
One of the policemen paused and looked
down upon the speaker. But the woman
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turned deliberately away, and he hastened to
rejoin the party. Then the wagon clanged
down the darkened street.
Under the gas light that supplemented a
far, dusty window in the Recorder's Court,
stood Bess. She swayed, and her face
twitched occasionally; but her glance was
level, and her head erect.
Behind a high desk sat a man well past
middle age. His florid complexion caused his
long grey moustache to appear very white.
His eyes were far apart and suggested a kind-
ness that was born of indolence, rather than
of wide compassion. His hands were slender
and beautifully made, and he sat with elbows
on desk, and finger-tips touching. When he
spoke it was in a drawl that suggested
weariness.
What is the charge, Officer?' he asked.
'Bein' under the influence of dope, an*
creatin' a disturbance in Catfish Row, yer
Honour,' replied the policeman who stood by
the prisoner.
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'Anybody hurt?'
'Not as we was able to see, yer Honour.'
The judge turned to the prisoner.
'Have you ever been here before?'
'No, suh,' came the reply in a low, clear
tone.
'The officer of the day thinks she has,
yer Honour,' put in the policeman, 'but he
can't swear to it. She looks like a hundred
others, he says, scar and all; an' they change
names so fast you get nothing from the
records.'
The judge regarded the prisoner with
amiability. The thermometer on the wall
beside him registered ninety. It was asking
too much of good-nature to require it to
subvert itself in such heat.
'I suppose we will have to give you the
benefit of the doubt,' he said. Then he
turned to the officer.
'After all, it's the man who sold her the
poison we want. I was kept here three
hours yesterday by dope cases. I want it
put a stop to.'
He contracted his brows in a weak attempt
99
PORGY
at sternness, and directed a steady gaze at
Bess.
'Who sold you that dope?'
She met his eyes squarely.
'I don't t'ink I know um again/ she said in
a low, even tone. *I buy from um in de dark,
las' night, an' he gone off right away.'
'It's no use, Your Honour,' put in the
policeman. 'They won't give each other away.'
The judge fixed the culprit with a long
scrutiny. Then he asked:
'Have you any money to pay a fine?'
'No, suh. Yuh'll jus' hab tuh gib' me my
time/
A man entered the room.
'I beg your pardon, Your Honour,' he
said, 'but there is a cripple outside in a goat-
cart who says he is prepared to pay the
woman's fine.'
'Eh ; what's that?' exclaimed the judge. 'Is
it that black scoundrel, Porgy, the beggar?'
'That's him, yer Honour,' replied the
man, with a grin.
'Why, the highwayman takes a dime from
me every time I venture on King Charles
100
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Street. And here he has the audacity to come
and offer to pay a fine/
'Don't tek he money. Boss/
The prisoner said the words steadily, then
caught her lower lip with her strong, white
teeth.
'Address the Court as "Your Honour,"
not "Boss," ' ordered the judge.
'Yo' Honuh,' amended the culprit.
For a long moment the Recorder sat, his
brow contracted. Then he drew a large, cool,
linen handkerchief from his pocket and
mopped his face.
'Go out and take ten dollars from the
beggar,' he told the policeman. 'It's a small
fine for the offence.' Then turning to the
woman, he said:
'I am going to lock you up for ten days;
but any time you give the name of that dope
peddler to the jailer you can leave. Do you
understand?'
Bess had nothing to say in reply, and after
a moment the policeman took her by the arm.
'This way to the wagon,' he directed, and
led her from the court room.
101
PORGY
The street was a blaze of early morn-
ing sun, and the woman covered her eyes
with her hand. The wagon stood, step
to curb, and the officer hurried her across
the narrow pavement and into the convey-
ance.
The bell clanged, and the heavy horse
flung its weight against the collar.
Something impelled Bess to remove her
hand and to look down.
Below the high side of the patrol, looking
rather like a harbour tug beside an ocean
liner, stood the goat-cart. For a moment she
looked into Porgy's face. It told her nothing,
except that he seemed suddenly to have
grown older, and that the real Porgy, who
had looked out at her from the eyes for a
little while, had gone back into his secret
places and closed the door.
The wagon lunged forward.
Then Porgy spoke.
'How long?' he called.
The incessant clamour of the gong com-
menced, and the hoofs beat their noisy tattoo
upon the stones.
102
PORGY
Bess raised both hands with fingers ex-
tended.
The wagon rounded a corner and dis-
appeared.
The jail in which Bess was incarcerated
was no better, and no worse, than many
others of its period, and the score of negro
women with whom she found herself could
not be said to suffer acutely under their im-
prisonment. When life reaches a certain level
of misery, it envelops itself in a protective
anaesthesia which deadens the senses to ex-
tremes; and having no tasks to perform, the
prisoners awaited the expiration of their brief
sentences with sodden patience, or hastened
the passage of time with song.
By day they were at liberty to exercise in
the jail yard, a square of about half an acre
surrounded by a high brick wall, containing
not so much as a single blade of grass. Like a
great basin, the yard caught and held the heat
which poured from the August sun until it
seemed to overflow the rim, and quiver, as
103
PORGY
though the immense vessel had been jarred
from without. But the soaring walls gave
always a narrow strip of shade to which the
prisoners clung, moving around the sides as
the day advanced, with the accuracy of the
hand of a sundial.
Before nightfall the prisoners were herded
into the steaming interior of the building, and
Bess and the other women were locked in a
steel cage, which resembled a large dog-
pound and stood in the centre of a high,
square room, with a passage-way around it. A
peculiarly offensive moisture clung to the
ceiling, and streamed in little rivulets down
the walls. An almost unbreathable stench
clogged the atmosphere.
The jailers were not vindictive. They were
not even unkind. Some of them evidenced a
mild affection for their charges, and would
pause to exchange greetings with them on
their rounds. But it would have meant effort
to better the living conditions, and effort on
the part of a white warden in August was not
to be considered. They locked them up, gave
them a sufficiency of hominy and white pork
104
PORGY
to sustain life, allowed them to see their
visitors, talk, and sing to their heart's content.
If they were suffering from tuberculosis, or
one of a hundred nameless and communi-
cable diseases, when they entered, it was none
of the County's affair. And if they left show-
ing that ash-pallor so unmistakable in a negro,
it was as lamentable as it was unavoidable.
But when all was said and done, what must
one expect if one added to the handicap of
a dark skin the indiscretion of swallowing
cocaine and indulging in a crap game?
Bess received but one visitor during her
imprisonment. When the callers were ad-
mitted, on the day following her arrival,
Maria loomed in the centre of the small,
timid group. She went directly to Bess where
she sat by the wall, with her eyes closed
against the glare. The big negress wore an
expression of solicitude, and her voice was
low and surprisingly gentle as she said:
Torgy ask me tuh bring yer dis blanket
fuh lie on, an' dese fish an' bread. How yuh
is feelin' now?' Then she bent over and
placed a bundle in the prisoner's lap.
105
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Bess opened her eyes in surprise.
'I ain't been expectin' no fabors off none ob
you folks/ she replied. 'How come yuh tuh
care ef I lib er die, attuh dat row I mek?'
Maria lowered herself to a seat beside her.
'I lubs dat nigger, Porgy, lak he been my
chile/ she told her. 'An 1 wut mo', I t'ink I
know what done happen tuh yuh/
'Wut yuh know?'
'I been in my do' dat night; an' I seen dat
skunk, Sportin' Life, sell yuh dat stuff. Ef I
had er known den wut it wuz, I'd a been
hyuh long side ob yuh now fuh murder.'
After a moment, she asked : 'Wut mek yuh
don't tell de jailluh who done um, an' come
on home?'
Bess remained silent for a moment; then
she raised her head and looked into the eyes
of the older woman.
*I's a 'oman grown. Ef I tek dope, dat muh
own business, Ef I ebber gits muh han' on
dat nigger, I goin' fix um so he own mammy
ain't know um ! But I ain't goin' gib um 'way
tuh de w'ite folks.'
The hard lines about her mouth softened,
106
PORGY
and, in scarcely more than a whisper, she
added :
'I gots tuh be decent 'bout something, 'less
I couldn't go back an' look in Porgy face.'
Maria got heavily to her feet. The other
visitors were leaving, and she longed to be
free of the high, brick walls. She dropped a
hand on Bess's shoulder.
'Yuh do right, Sister. But ef dat yalluh
nigger come tuh Catfish Row agin leabe
him fuh me dat's all !' Then the big negress
joined the departing group, and passed out
through the small steel doorway that pierced
the massive gate.
Bess sat for a long while without moving.
The sun lifted over the high wall, and drove
its white-hot tide into her lap, and upon her
folded hands.
'Wut mek yuh ain't mobe intuh de shade?'
a neighbour asked curiously.
Bess looked up and smiled.
'I jes' settin' hyuh t'inkin' 'bout muh
frien',' she said. 'Yuh done hear um call me
"Sister," ain't yuh? Berry well den. Dat
mean me and she is frien'.'
107
PORGY
Bess lay upon the bed in Porgy's room and
stared at the celling with hard, bright eyes.
From time to time she would pluck at the
sheet that covered her and utter hurried, in-
distinct sentences that bore not the slightest
relation to existing circumstances. A week
had passed since her release, and its seven
interminable days had been spent in this
fashion.
Porgy was out upon the day's rounds.
Occasionally the door to the sick-room would
open, and an awed, black face peer in. The
mystery of delirium frightened and perplexed
the negroes, and limited the manifestations
of kindness and sympathy that they usually
bestowed upon unfortunate friends. Even
Maria was not proof against this dread, and
the irrelevant observations that greeted her
when she went in with the daily lunch sent
her hurrying wide-eyed from the room.
Porgy returned early in the evening. His
face was deeply marked, but the lines were
those of anxiety, and his characteristic firm-
108
PORGY
ness of mouth and jaw was gone. He closed
the door on the curious glances of his neigh-
bours, and lifted himself to a seat upon the
bed.
'How Bess now?' he asked softly.
She shifted her gaze from the ceiling to his
face.
'Eighteen miles tuh Kittiwar!' she mut-
tered. 'Rattlesnake', palmettuh bush, an'
such.'
Her eyes were suddenly fearful, and she
closed her hand tightly upon his.
Porgy cast a hurried glance over his shoul-
der. Then, reassured, stroked her brow, and
comforted her in his deep, gentle voice.
'Yuh hyuh wid Porgy now; an' nuttin'
can't hurt yuh. Soon de cool wedder comin'
an' chill off dese febers. Ain't yuh 'member
how dat cool win* come tuh town wid de smell
ob pine tree; an' how de star is all polish up
lak w'ite folks' silber? Den ebbery body git
well. Ain't yuh know? Yuh jus* keep still,
an' watch wut Porgy say.'
She was silent after that, and closed her
eyes. Presently, to his relief, he saw that she
109
PORGY
was sleeping. This was the moment for which
he had been waiting. He went out, closing
the door very gently, and joined a group of
sympathizers in the court.
'Wut we goin' do now? 1 he asked. *A week
gone, an' she ain't none better.'
Peter knocked out his clay pipe on a flag-
stone, with three staccato little raps, thus
gaining the attention of the circle.
'Ef yuh wants tuh listen tuh me,' he re-
marked weightily, 'I adwise yer tuh sen' she
tuh de w'ite folk' hospital.'
His words were received with a surprise
amounting to incredulity.
'Fuh Gawd sake, Daddy Peter!' an awed
voice said at last. 'Ain't yuh knows dey lets
nigger die dey, so dey kin gib um tuh de
student?'
But the old negro stood his ground.
'De student ain't gits um 'til he done dead.
Ain't dat so? Den he can't hurt um none.
Ain't dat so, too? An' I gots dis tuh say. One
ob my w'ite folks is er nuss tuh de hospital ;
and dat lady is er pure angel wid de sick
nigger. Ef I sick tuhmorruh I goin' tuh she;
no
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an' wut she say is good wid me. I wants dis
carcase tek care ob w'ile he is alibe. Wen he
done dead, I ain't keer.'
'Yuh ain't keer whedder yuh is cut up an 1
scatter, 'stead of bein' bury in Gawd own
grabe-yahd?' someone asked the iconoclast.
Under this direct attack, the old man
weakened.
'Well, mebbe I ain't sayin' I jus' as
lief,' he compromised. 'But I t'ink Gawd
onduhstan' de succumstance, an' mek allow-
ance.'
Serena Robbins broke the silence which
followed.
'How come yuh ain't ax me fuh pray ober
um?' she inquired in a slightly offended voice.
'Mus' be yuh is done fergit how Gawd done
answer we las' prayeh, and sen' dat goat tuh
sabe yu' life, when starbation done stan' dey
an' look yuh in de eye.'
Porgy brightened at that, and turned
eagerly from the dark horror of Peter's sug-
gestion.
'Dat so, my Sister,' he commenced; but
her eyes were already closed, and her body
in
PORGY
was swaying from side to side, as she sat
cross-legged on the flags. Presently she began
to intone:
'Oh, Jedus, who done trouble de wateh in
de sea ob Gallerie -'
'Amen!' came the chorus, led by Porgy.
4 An' likewise who done cas' de Debbil out
ob de afflicted, time an* time agin -'
'Oh, Jedus!'
'Wut mek yuh ain't lay yo' han' on dis
sister* head?'
'Oh, my fadder!'
'An' sen* de Debbil out ob she, down er
steep place intuh de sea, lak yuh use' tuh do,
time an' time agin?'
'Time an' time agin!'
'Ain't dis po' cripple done IIP up out de
dus' by we prayeh?'
'Da's de trut', Jedus,'
'Eben so, lif up he woman, an' mek she
well, time an' time agin!'
'Time an' time agin! Allelujah!'
After the prayer the group scattered, each
going silently away in the late dusk, until
there remained only Porgy, who sat with
112
PORGY
bowed head, and Maria, massive and inscrut-
able, beside him.
When the last retreating footstep died
away, the great negress bent her turbaned
head over until it almost touched Porgy's face.
'Listen tuh me/ she whispered. 'Yuh
wants dat 'oman cure up ; ain't yuh?'
'Yuh knows I does.' And, already suffer-
ing from the reaction from religious enthu-
siasm, his voice was flat and hopeless.
'Berry well den. De ribber boat leabe fum
de wharf at sebben o'clock, tuhmorruh
mo'nin'. Yuh knows dat deck-han' by de
name Mingo?'
Porgy nodded assent, his eyes intent upon
her face.
'Well; git on de wharf early, an' gib um
two dollar. Tell um w'en de boat done git
tuh Ediwander Islan' at eight tuhmorruh
night, tuh go right tuh Lody cabin, an' tell
she tuh mek a conjer tuh cas' de debbil out
Bess/
'Yuh t'ink dat cure she?' asked Porgy,
with a glimmer of new hope in his eyes.
'I ain't t'ink. I knows,' came in tones of
PORGY
absolute conviction. 'Now, min'; an' do wut
I say.'
The big negress shuffled away to her room,
leaving Porgy alone in the gloom.
The bent, solitary figure raised its eyes to
the square of sky, with its bewildering pro-
fusion of stars, that fitted like a lid over the
high rim of the court. There were no sounds
except a weary land breeze that fingered the
lichens on the south wall, and a whisper from
the bay, as the tide lifted its row of shells and
pebbles a notch farther up the littered beach.
Now that all human companionship had
been withdrawn, the watcher felt strangely
alone, and smaller than the farthest star or
most diminutive shell. Like a caged squirrel,
his tired mind spun the rounds of his three
alternatives: First, the white man's science,
gaunt, clean, and mysterious, with the com-
plete and awful magistracy which it assumed
over the luckless bodies that fell into its
possession. He knew that it returned some
healed in body. He knew that others had
passed into its portals, and had been oblit-
erated utterly. Then his second alternative:
114
PORGY
the white man's God, vague and abstract as
the wind that moved among the lichens, with
his Jesus, who could stir him suddenly to his
most beautiful songs and make his heart
expand until, for a moment, it .embraced all
mankind with compassionate love, but who
passed, as the wind passes, leaving him cold
and disillusioned. One of these he must
choose, or else turn his face back to the old
blurred trail that receded, down, down, down
to the beginning of things : to the symbols one
might hold, tangible and terrifying; to the
presciences that shuddered like dawn at the
back of the brain and told one what to do
without the process of thought.
As though bent beneath a great physical
weight, Porgy sat without moving, until the
pattern on his glittering ceiling had changed
and shifted. Then he lifted his face slowly,
drew his sleeve across his moist forehead, and
entered his room.
Just before sunrise Porgy left his room and
hitched up his goat. In the upper air over
PORGY
Catfish Row a single buzzard hung poised.
Slowly it careened to a current of air, and its
belly and under-wings lit to a ruddy glory
from the sun, which was still below the hori-
zon. Porgy saw it and winced. But as he
went about his task there was no indecision in
his face. He harnessed the goat with steady
hands, drove out of the court and to the pier-
head.
He experienced no difficulty in finding his
man. Mingo accepted the mission and the
handful of pennies and nickels; and Porgy,
having closed the bargain, returned at once to
the court.
Maria was opening her shop as he entered,
and paused with a shutter in her hands. She
could scarcely believe her eyes. The beggar's
face was bright, and he was humming a tune.
'Wut de news?' she asked. 'Bess done git
well?'
'Not jus' yit,' he replied. 'But I done had
me a dream las' night; an' de dream say tuh
sen' tuh de conjer 'oman; an' Bess goin'
break she feber tuhnight.'
'Da's right, my Brudder,' Maria responded
116
PORGY
heartily. 'Dat 'oman good as well now. You
watch!'
All day, sitting by Archdale's office, Porgy
hummed his tune, and counted off the hours
of the steamboat's voyage. Now she would
be passing Kittiwar, and, in only a few hours
more, she would be coming to rest for the
night at Ediwander.
The counting off continued after he went
to bed, and he was strangely undisturbed by
Bess's mutterings. Now the boat had arrived,
he finally told himself. Maria had said that
the cabin was near the landing. Surely it
would not take the woman long to brew the
spell. His excitement increased to a mood of
exaltation. He lay with his hand upon Bess's
forehead, waiting.
Far away St. Christopher struck the hour.
The mellow bells threw the quarter hours out
like a handful of small gold coins to ring
down upon the drowsy streets. Then, very
deliberately, they dropped ten round, heavy
notes into the silence.
This should be the moment. Porgy pressed
his hand harder, and sweat broke out upon
117
PORGY
his brow. For a moment it seemed to him that
life hung suspended.
Torgy,' said a weak, flat voice beside him.
Torgy, dat you dey, ain't it? Why you ain't
talk tuh me?'
The cripple's answer was a sudden high
laugh that broke to a sob.
*T'ank Gawd!' he said; and again, 'T'ank
Gawdl'
On the evening following the day upon
which Bess had taken her turn for the better,
Maria was alone in her shop. The supper
hour was over, and her patrons had departed.
She was busy at her stove, and did not turn
immediately when some one entered. When
she finally looked over her shoulder, her cus-
tomer had buried his face in his hands, and
she failed to recognize him. Of one fact
there could be little doubt: the man was
drunk, for the close, little room was already
heavy with the exhalations of vile corn
whisky.
She crossed the room, and touched the
118
PORGY
man on the shoulder. He lowered his hands
and attempted to focus his eyes on her face.
'Oh, it's you, Mingo?' she said, and even
then she did not grasp the significance of his
presence in the city at that time.
'Gimme some supper,' he growled; and,
with an uncertain movement, drew some
change from his pocket and spilled it in a
small pile on the table.
Maria looked at the money. There was
about half a dollar in all, but there were only
two nickels, and the remainder was in pen-
nies. It looked suspiciously like the currency
in which Porgy paid his debts. Then, as she
stood looking down at the little heap of
copper, the full import of the man's presence
dawned upon her.
*Wut yuh doin' here now?' she demanded
of him in a tense whisper; 'when de ribber
boat ain't due back fuh annoder day?'
The question stirred her customer's con-
sciousness to a faint gleam of life; but it did
not vitalize it sufficiently for adroit prevari-
cation.
'I miss de boat dis trip,' he managed to
119
PORGY
articulate. 'I take er drink wid er frien', and
when I git tuh de wharf, de boat done gone/
Two powerful hands gripped his shoul-
ders and flung him back against the wall.
He opened his eyes wide and looked into
a face of such cold ferocity that his loose lips
emitted a sudden 'Oh, JedusF and he became
immediately sober, and very much afraid.
Then Maria poured into his ears words
that had the heat and dead weight of molten
lead.
'Now I goin' lock yuh up in dat closet till
de ribber boat is back at de wharf,' she con-
cluded. 'Den I goin' let yuh loose. But I all
de time goin' be where I kin git my hand on
yuh again. Ef yuh ebber tells Porgy, or any
libbin' soul, dat yuh ain't deliber dat message
tuh Lody, I goin' tuh hab nigger blood on my
soul w'en I stan' at de jedgement. Now yuh
gots dat straight in yuh head?'
Mingo nodded assent. He was beyond the
power to speak.
The big negress jerked him suddenly to
his feet, propelled him across the room and
into the Stygian recesses of the closet. Then
120
PORGY
she slammed the door, turned the immense
iron key in the lock, and dropped it in her
pocket.
'Well, dat's dat!' she remarked, as she
wiped a moist, mystified face upon a corner of
her apron. 'Mus' hab been Jedus done um
atter all/ Then, as though to dishriss the
matter, she added: 'No, I be damn ef he did.
He ain't gots it in um.'
121
PART IV
PART IV
*
IT was the day set for the grand parade and
picnic of 'The Sons and Daughters of Repent
Ye Saith the Lord/ and, with the first light of
morning, Catfish Row had burst into a fever
of preparation. Across the narrow street, the
wharf, from which the party was to leave,
bustled and seethed with life. A wagon rattled
out to the pier-head and discharged an entire
load of water-melons. Under the vigilant
eyes of a committee a dozen volunteers lifted
the precious freight from the vehicle, and
piled it ready for the steamer.
From behind the next pier, with a frenzied
threshing of its immense stern paddle, came
the excursion boat. Tall open exhaust fun-
nels flanked the walking-beam, and coughed
great salmon-coloured plumes of steam into
the faint young sunlight. A fierce torrent of
wood-smoke gushed from the funnel and
went tumbling away across the harbour.
Painters were hurled, missed, coiled, and
hurled again. Then, amid a babblement of
advice and encouragement, the craft was
finally moored in readiness for the Lodge.
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PORGY
The first horizontal rays of the sun were
painting the wall a warm claret, when Porgy
opened his door, to find Peter already
dressed for the parade, and perched upon the
back of his gaily blanketed horse. He wore a
sky-blue coat, white pants which were thrust
into high black leggings, and a visored cap,
from beneath which he scowled fiercely down
upon the turmoil around the feet of his
mount. Across his breast, from right shoul-
der to left hip, was a broad scarlet sash, upon
which was emblazoned, 'Repent Ye Saith the
Lord!' and from his left breast fluttered a
white ribbon bearing the word 'MARSHAL/
From time to time, he would issue orders in
hoarse, menacing gutturals, which no one
heeded; and twice, in the space of half an hour,
he rode out to the pier-head, counted the water-
melons, and returned to report the number
to an important official who had arrived in
a carriage to supervise the arrangements.
Momently the confusion increased, until at
eight o'clock it culminated in a general exodus
toward the rendezvous for the parade.
The drowsy old city had scarcely com-
126
PORGY
menced its day when, down through King
Charles Street, the procession took its way.
Superbly unselfconscious of the effect that
it produced, it crashed through the slow, re-
strained rhythm of the city's life like a wild,
barbaric chord. All of the stately mansions
along the way were servantless that day, and
the aristocratic matrons broke the ultimate
canon of the social code and peered through
front windows at the procession as it swept
flamboyantly across the town.
First came an infinitesimal negro boy,
scarlet-coated, and aglitter with brass buttons.
Upon his head was balanced an enormous
shako; and while he marched with left hand
on hip and shoulders back, his right hand
twirled a heavy gold-headed baton. Then the
band, two score boys attired in several varia-
tions of the band-master's costume, strode by.
Bare, splay feet padded upon the cobbles ;
heads were thrown back, with lips to instru-
ments that glittered in the sunshine, launching
daring and independent excursions into the
realm of sound. Yet these improvisations
returned always to the eternal boom, boom,
127 E
PORGY
boom of an underlying rhythm, and met with
others in the sudden weaving and ravelling of
amazing chords. An ecstasy of wild young
bodies beat living into the blasts that shook
the windows of the solemn houses. Broad,
dusty, blue-black feet shuffled and danced
on the many-coloured cobbles and the grass
between them. The sun lifted suddenly over
the housetops and flashed like a torrent of
warm, white wine between the staid buildings,
to break on flashing teeth and laughing eyes.
After the band came the men members of
the lodge, stepping it out to the urge of the
marshals who rode beside them, reinforcing
the marching rhythm with a series of staccato
grunts, shot with crisp, military precision
from under their visored caps. Breast cross-
slashed with the emblems of their lodge, they
passed.
Then came the carriages, and suddenly the
narrow street hummed and bloomed like a
tropic garden. Six to a carriage sat the sisters.
The effect produced by the colours was
strangely like that wrought in the music;
scarlet, purple, orange, flamingo, emerald;
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wild, clashing, unbelievable discords; yet, in
their steady flow before the eye, possessing
a strange, dominant rhythm that reconciled
them to each other and made them unalter-
ably right. The senses reached blindly out for
a reason. There was none. They intoxicated,
they maddened, and finally they passed, seem-
ing to pull every ray of colour from the dun
buildings, leaving the sunlight sane, flat, dead.
For its one brief moment out of the year
the pageant had lasted. Out of its fetters of
civilization this people had risen, suddenly,
amazingly. Exotic as the Congo, and still
able to abandon themselves utterly to the wild
joy of fantastic play, they had taken the reti-
cent, old Anglo-Saxon town and stamped
their mood swiftly and indelibly into its heart.
Then they passed, leaving behind them a
wistful envy among those who had watched
them go, - those whom the ages had rendered
old and wise.
When the exodus from the Row was
completed, Bess helped Porgy out to the boat
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PORGY
and established him in an angle of the main-
deck cabin, where he could see and enjoy the
excursion to the full. Below them on the
wharf, Maria, who had the direction of the
refreshment committee in hand, moved about
among the baskets and boxes, looking rather
like a water-front conflagration, in a volumi-
nous costume of scarlet and orange. Bess left
Porgy and descended the ladder.
'I gots a ready hand wid bundle/ she
announced diffidently.
The immense negress paused, and looked
her up and down.
'Well, well, it looks like yer tryin' ter be
decent,' she commented.
Instantly the woman chilled. 'Yuh kin go
tuh Hell!' she said deliberately. 'I ain't axin'
fuh no sermon. I want a job. Does yuh want
a han' wid dem package, or not?'
For a moment their eyes met. Then they
laughed suddenly, loudly together, with com-
plete understanding,
'All right, den,' the older woman said.
'Ef yuh is dat independent, yuh kin tek dem
basket on board.'
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PORGY
After that they worked together, until the
procession arrived, without the interchange
of further remarks.
Down the quiet bay, like a great, frenzied
beetle, the stern-wheeler kicked its way. On
the main deck the band played without ces-
sation. In a ring before it, a number of
negroes danced, for the most part shuffling
singly. The sun hurled the full power of an
August noon upon the oil-smooth water,
and the polished surface cast it upward
with added force under the awnings. The
decks sagged with colour, and repeated
explosions of laughter rode the heat waves
back to the drowsing, lovely old city long
after the boat had turned the first bend in
the narrow river and passed from view on its
way to the negro picnic grounds on Kittiwar
Island,
Thrashing its way between far-sweeping
marshes and wooded sea islands, the boat
would burst suddenly into lagoon after
lagoon, that lay strewn along the coast, that
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blazed in the noon like great fire-opals held
in silver mesh.
Finally a shout went up. Kittiwar lay
before them, thrusting a slender wharf from
its thickly wooded extremity into the slack
tide.
The debarkation over, Maria took pos-
session of a clearing that stood in a dense
forest of palmettos and fronted on the beach,
and marshalled her committee to prepare the
lunch. From the adjacent beach came the
steady, cool thunder of the sea and the un-
remitting hum of sand, as tireless winds
scooped it from the dunes and sent it in low,
flat-blown layers across the hard floor of the
beach.
The picnickers heard it, and answered with
a shout. Soon the streaming whiteness of the
inner surf was dotted with small, glistening
black bodies; the larger figures, with skirts
hoisted high, were wading in the shallows.
Porgy sat with a large myrtle bush in one
hand, with which he brushed flies from several
sleeping infants. The sun lay heavy and com-
forting upon him. One of the children stirred
132
PORGY
and whimpered. He hummed a low, bumb-
ling song to it. There was a new contentment
in his face. After a while he commenced to
nod.
*I go an' git some palmettuh leaf fuh table-
cloth,' Bess told Maria; and, without waiting
for an answer, she took a knife from a basket,
and entered the dense tangle of palm and vine
that walled the clearing.
Almost immediately she was in another
world. The sounds behind her became faint,
and died. A rattler moved its thick body
sluggishly out of her way. A flock of wood
ibis sprang suddenly up, broke through the
thick roof of palm leaves, and streamed away
over the tree-tops toward the marsh with their
legs at the trail.
She cut a wide fan-shaped leaf from the
nearest palmetto. Behind her some one
breathed - a deep interminable breath.
The woman's body stiffened slowly. Her
eyes half closed and were suddenly dark and
knowing. Some deep ebb or flow of blood
133
PORG Y
touched her face, causing it to darken heavily,
leaving the scar livid. Without turning, she
said slowly:
'Crown!'
'Yas, yuh know berry well, dis Crown.'
The deep sound shook her. She turned
like one dazed, and looked him up and down.
His body was naked to the waist, and the
blue cotton pants that he had worn on the
night of the killing had frayed away to his
knees. He bent slightly forward. The great
muscles of his torso flickered and ran like
the flank of a horse. His small wicked eyes
burned, and he moistened his heavy lips.
Earth had cared for him well. The marshes
had provided eggs of wild fowl, and many
young birds. The creek had given him fish,
crabs and oysters in abundance, and the
forest had fed him with its many berries, and
succulent palmetto cabbage.
'I seen yuh land,' he said, 'an' I been
waitin* fuh yuh. I mos' dead ob lonesome on
dis damn island, wid not one Gawd's person
to swap a word wid. Yuh gots any happy-
dus' wid yuh?'
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PORGY
'No/ she said; then with an effort, 'Crown,
I gots somethin* tuh tell yuh. I done gib up
dope; and beside dat, I sort ob change my
way.'
His jaw shot forward, and the huge shoul-
der muscles bulged and set. His two great
hands went around her throat and closed like
the slow fusing of steel on steel. She stopped
speaking. He drew her to him until his face
touched hers. Under his hands her arteries
pounded, sending fierce spurts of flame
through her limbs, beating redly behind her
eyeballs. His hands slackened. Her face
changed, her lips opened, but she said no-
thing. Crown broke into low, shaken laugh-
ter, and threw her from him.
'Now come wid me/ he ordered.
Into the depths of the jungle they plunged;
the woman walking in front with a trance-like
fixity of gaze. They followed one of the
narrow hard-packed trails that had been
beaten by the wild hogs and goats that
roamed the island.
On each side of them, the forest stood like
a wall, its tough low trees and thick-bodied
135
PORGY
palmettos laced and bound together with
wire-strong vines. Overhead the foliage met,
making the trail a tunnel as inescapable as
though it had been built of masonry.
The man walked with a swinging, effortless
stride, but his breath sounded in long, audible
inhalations, as though he laboured physically.
When they had journeyed for half an hour
they crossed a small cypress swamp. The
cypress-knees jutted grotesquely from the
yellow water, and trailing Spanish moss ex-
tended drab stalactites that brushed their
faces as they threaded the low, muddy trail.
Finally Bess emerged into a small clearing,
in the centre of which stood a low hut with
sides of plaited twigs and roof of palmetto
leaves laid on top of each other in regular
rows like shingles.
Crown was close behind her. At the low
door of the hut she paused and turned toward
him. He laughed suddenly and hotly at
what he saw in her face.
*I know yuh ain't change,' he said. *Wid
yuh an' me it always goin* tuh be de same.
See?'
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PORGY
He snatched her body toward him with
such force that her breath was forced from
her in a sharp gasp. Then she inhaled deeply,
threw back her head, and sent a wild laugh out
against the walls of the clearing.
Crown swung her about and threw her face
forward into the hut.
The sun was so low that its level rays shot
through the tunnels of the forest and bronzed
its ceiling of woven leaves when Bess returned
to the clearing. She paused for a moment.
Behind her, screened by the underbrush, stood
Crown.
'Now 'member wut I tells yuh,' he said.
'Yuh kin stay wid de cripple 'til de cotton
come. Den I comin'. Davy will hide we on
de ribber boat fur as Sawannah. Den soon de
cotton will be comin' in fas', an' libbin' will
be easy. Yuh gits dat?'
For a moment she looked into the narrow,
menacing eyes, then nodded.
'Go 'long den, an' tote fair, les yuh wants
tuh meet yo' Gawd.'
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P O R G Y
She stepped into the open. Already most
of the party were on the boat. She crossed the
narrow beach to the wharf.
Maria stood by the gang-plank and looked
at her with suspicious eyes. *Wuh yuh been
all day?" she demanded.
'I git los' in de woods, an' I can't git my
bearin's 'til sundown. But dat ain't nobody'
business 'cep' me an' Porgy, ef yuh wants
tuh know.'
She found Porgy on the lower deck near
the stern, and seated herself by him in silence.
He was looking into the sunset, and gave no
evidence of having noticed her arrival.
Through the illimitable, mysterious night,
the steamer took its way. Presently it swung
out of one of the narrow channels and wal-
lowed like an antediluvian monster into the
stillness of a wide lagoon. Out of the dark-
ness, low, broad waves moved in upon it,
trailing stars along their swarthy backs to
shatter into silver dust against the uncouth
bows.
To Porgy and Bess, still sitting silent in
the stern, came only the echoes of drowsy
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conversations, sounds of sleeping, and the
rhythmic splash and drip of the single great
wheel behind them. The boat forged out into
the centre of the lagoon, and the shore line
melted out behind it. Where it had shown
a moment before, could now be seen only
the steady climb of constellations out of the
water's rim, and the soft, humid lamps of low,
near stars. The night pressed in about the
two quiet figures.
Porgy had said no word since their depar-
ture. His body had assumed its old, tense
attitude. His face wore again its listening
look. Now, he said slowly:
'Yuh nebber lie tuh me, Bess.*
'No,' came an even, colourless voice, 'I
nebber lie tuh yuh. Yuh gots tuh gib me dat.'
Another interval, then:
'War it Crown?'
A sharp, indrawn breath beside him, and a
whisper:
'How yuh know?'
'Gawd gib cripple many t'ings he ain't gib
strong men.' Then again, patiently, 'War it
Crown?'
139
PORGY
'Yes, it war,'
'Wut he say?'
'He comin' fuh me when de cotton come
tuh town.'
'Yuh goin'?'
'I tell um - yes/
After a while the woman reached out a
hand and closed it lightly about the man's
arm. Under the sleeve she felt the muscles
go rigid. What power! She tried to circle
it with her hand. It was almost as big as
Crown's. It was strange that she had not
noticed that before. She opened her mouth
to speak, but no sound came. Presently she
sighed, and withdrew her hand.
Through the immense emptiness of sea and
sky the boat forged slowly toward the distant
city's lights.
'I gots er feelin' yistuhday,' announced
Maria to Serena Robbins, as she took a batch
of wet clothing from the latter's tub, gave it
one twist with her enormous hands, and set
it aside to go upon the line.
140
PORGY
'Wut yuh gots er feelin' 'bout?'
'I gots er feelin' w'en Porgy 'oman come
out de wood on de picnic, she done been wid
Crown/
At the mention of the murderer's name
Serena stepped back, and her usual expres-
sion of sanctimonious complacency slowly
changed. Her lower lip shot forward, and
her face darkened.
'Yuh t'ink dat nigger on Kittiwar?' she
asked.
'I allus figgered he bin dey in dem deep
palmetters,' Maria replied. 'But w'en I look
in Bess's eye las' night, I sho ob two t'ing:
one, dat he is dey, an' two, dat she been
wid um.'
'Yuh b'lieb she still run wid dat nigger?'
'Dem sort ob mens ain't need tub worry
'bout habin' 'omen,' Maria told her. 'Dey
kin lay de lash on um, an' kick um in de
street; den dey kin whistle w'en dey ready,
an' dere dey is ag'in lickin' dey han'.'
'She goin* stay wid Porgy, ef she know
wut good fuh she.'
'She know all right, an' she lub Porgy.
141
PORGY
But ef dat nigger come attuh she, dey ain't
goin' tuh be noboddy roun' hyuh but Porgy
an' de goat.'
A sudden dark flame blazed in Serena's
face, sweeping the acquired complacency be-
fore it, and changing it utterly. She leant
forward, and spoke heavily:
'Dat nigger bes' t'ank he Gawd dat I gots
my Jedus now fuh hoi' back my han'P
'Yuh ain't means dat yuh is goin' tuh gib
um up tuh de w'ite folks ef he come back to
town, 'stead ob settle wid um yu'self?' Maria
asked incredulously.
'I ain't know wut fuh do,' the other replied,
the hatred in her face giving way to a look of
perplexity. 'Ef dat nigger come tuh town he
sho tuh git kill' sooner er later. Den de w'ite
folks goin' lock me up. Dey gots it on de
writin's now dat I been Robbins' wife; an*
dey goin' figger I like as not kill um. I knows
two people git lock up dat way, an' dey ain't
do one Gawd t'ing.'
'Nigger sho' gots fuh keep he eye open in
dis worl',' the big negress observed. 'But we
can't turn no nigger ober tuh de police.'
142
PORGY
A man paused before the entrance of the
court, and looked in. To the two women he
was only a silhouette standing under the arch
against a dazzling expanse of bay; but the
foppish outlines of the indolent, slender figure
were unmistakable.
A smile of pleased anticipation grew about
Maria's wide mouth. She dried her hands
upon her apron.
*Jus' like I been tellin' yuhP she remarked
to Serena. 'T'ank Gawd, Jedus ain't gots me
yit wuh he gots you ; an' I still mens enough
tuh straighten out a crooked nigger. See dat
yalluh snake wrigglin' in de do 'way? He de
one wut sell Bess dat happy-dusV
Drying her hands and bared forearms with
ominous thoroughness, she crossed to her
shop. The room was empty when she entered.
She went at once to the stove which stood in
its corner, with its legs set upon four bricks.
She bent forward, placed a shoulder against
one of its corners, gave a heave, and drew out
a brick. Then she straightened up, spat first
on one hand, then on the other, and, carrying
the brick in her immense right, lightly, and
H3
PORGY
with a certain awful fondness, stepped out of
her door.
Sportin' Life was now within the entrance,
and presented an unsuspecting profile to the
cook-shop.
With frightful deliberation, Maria swung
her long arm back; then, like the stroke of a
rattler, it shot forward. The brick caught the
mulatto full on the side of the head. He
crumpled among his gaudy habiliments like
a stricken bird.
After a space of time the victim blinked
feebly, then opened his eyes upon Maria's
face. She was mopping his head with a wet
rag, and his first glance discovered an expres-
sion of gentleness on her heavy features.
Reassured, he opened his eyes wide. But the
gentleness was gone. He felt himself gripped
by the shoulders, and suddenly snatched up-
ward to be placed upon unsteady legs. Then
he was propelled rapidly toward the gate.
At the pavement's edge Maria swung her
victim around until his wandering and reluct-
ant gaze met hers.
*De las' time yuh wuz aroun' hyuh, I ain't
144
PORGY
hab nuttin' on yuh but my eyes. Now I knows
yuh - yuh damn, dirty, dope-peddler, wreckin'
de homes ob dese happy niggers!'
Her arms shot forward and back like loco-
motive pistons. The man's head snapped to
an acute angle, and righted itself with diffi-
culty.
'Now, w'en I done flingin' yuh out dis
gate/ she proceeded, 'it's de las' time yuh is
goin' tuh leabe it erlibe. Eberybody say I is
er berry t'orough nigger, an' ef yuh ebber
comes roun' hyuh agin, drunk or sobuh, I
ain't goin' to be t'rough wid yuh carcase ontil
I t'row yuh bones out tuh de buzza'd one
by one.'
Abruptly she reversed the luckless man and
placed a foot in the small of his back. Then
with a heave that seemed to bring into play
every muscle of her huge bulk, she catapulted
him once and for all out of Catfish Row and
the lives of its inhabitants.
PART V
PART V
*
'FiSH runnin' well outside de bar, dese days/
remarked Jake one evening to several of his,
sea-going companions.
A large, bronze-coloured negro paused in
his task of rigging a line, and cast an eye to
sea through the driveway.
'An* we mens bes' make de mores ob it,' he
observed. 'Dem Septumbuh storm due soon,
an' fish ain't likes eas' win' an' muddy watuh.'
Jake laughed reassuringly.
'Go 'long wid yuh. Ain't yuh done know
we hab one stiff gale las' summer, an' he
nebber come two yeah han' runnin','
His wife came toward him with a baby in
her arms, and, giving him the child to hold,
took up the mess offish which he was cleaning
in a leisurely fashion.
'Ef yuh ain't mans enough tuh clean fish no
fastuh dan dat, yuh bes' min' de baby, an' gib
um tuh a 'oman fuh clean!' she said scorn-
fully, as she bore away the pan.
The group laughed at that, Jake's some-
what shamefaced merriment rising above the
others. He rocked the contented little negro
149
PORGY
in his strong arms, and followed the retreating
figure of the mother with admiring eyes.
'All right, mens,' he said, returning to the
matter in hand. 'I'm all fuh ridin' luck fer as
he will tote me. Turn out at fo' tuhmorruh
mornin', and we'll push de Seagull clean tuh
de blackfish banks befo' we wets de anchor. I
gots er feelin' in my bones dat we goin' be
gunnels undeh wid de pure fish when we
comes in tuhmorruh night.'
The news of Jake's prediction spread
through the negro quarter. Other crews got
their boats hastily in commission and were
ready to join the * Mosquito Fleet' when it put
to sea.
On the following morning, when the sun
rose out of the Atlantic, the thirty or forty
small vessels were mere specks teetering upon
the water's rim against the red disc that
forged swiftly up beyond them.
Afternoon found the wharf crowded with
women and children, who laughed and joked
each other as to the respective merits of their
men and the luck of the boats in which they
went to sea.
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PORGY
Clara, Jake's wife, sought the head of the
dock long before sundown, and sat upon the
bulkhead with her baby asleep in her lap.
Occasionally she would exchange a greeting
with an acquaintance; but for the most part
she gazed toward the harbour mouth and said
no word to anyone.
'She always like dat,' a neighbour informed
a little group. 'A conjer 'oman once tell she
Jake goin' git drownded; an* she ain't hab no
happiness since, 'cept when he feet is hittin r
de dirt.'
Presently a murmur arose among the
watchers. Out at the harbour mouth, against
the thin greenish-blue of the horizon, ap-
peared the 'Mosquito Fleet.' Driven by a
steady breeze, the boats swept toward the city
with astonishing rapidity.
Warm sunlight flooded out of the west,
touched the old city with transient glory, then
cascaded over the tossing surface of the bay to
paint the taut, cupped sails salmon pink, as
the fleet drove forward directly into the eye of
the sun.
Almost before the crowd realized it, the
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boats were jibing and coming about at their
feet, each jockeying for a favourable berth.
Under the skilful and daring hand of Jake,
the Seagull took a chance, missed a stern by a
hairbreadth, jibed suddenly with a snap and
boom, and ran in, directly under the old rock
steps of the wharf,
A cheer went up from the crowd. Never
had there been such a catch. The boat seemed
floored with silver which rose almost to the
thwarts, forcing the crew to sit on gunnels, or
aft with the steersman.
Indeed the catch was so heavy, that as boat
after boat docked, it became evident that the
market was glutted, and the fishermen vied
with each other in giving away their surplus
cargo, so that they would not have to throw it
overboard.
By the following morning the weather had
become unsettled. The wind was still coming
out of the west; but a low, solid wall of cloud
had replaced the promising sunset of the even-
ing before, and from time to time the wind
152
PORGY
would wrench off a section of the black mass,
and volley it with great speed across the sky,
to accumulate in unstable pyramids against
the sunrise.
But the success of the day before had so
fired the enthusiasm of the fishermen that
they were not easily to be deterred from fol-
lowing their luck, and the first grey premoni-
tion of the day found the wharf seething with
preparation.
Clara, with the baby in her arms, accom-
panied Jake to the pier-head. She knew the
futility of remonstrance; but her eyes were
fearful when the heavy, black clouds swept
overhead. Once, when a wave slapped a pile,
and threw a handful of spray in her face, she
moaned and looked up at the big negro by her
side. But Jake was full of the business in
hand, and besides, he was growing a little
impatient at his wife's incessant plea that he
sell his share of the Seagull 'and settle on land.
Now he turned from her, and shouted:
'All right, mens!'
He bestowed a short, powerful embrace
upon his wife, with his eyes looking over
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PORGY
her shoulder into the Atlantic's veiled face,
turned from her with a quick, nervous move-
ment, and dropped from the wharf into his
boat.
Standing in the bow, he moistened his
finger in his mouth, and held it up to the^wind.
'You mens bes' git all de fish yuh kin tuh-
day,' he admonished. 'Win' be in de eas' by
tuhmorruh. It gots dat wet tas' ter um now/
One by one the boats shoved off, and lay in
the stream while they adjusted their spritsails
and rigged their full jibs abeam, like spin-
nakers, for the free run to sea. The vessels
were similar in design, the larger ones attain-
ing a length of thirty-five feet. They were
very narrow, and low in the waist, with high,
keen bows, and pointed sterns. The hulls
were round-bottomed, and had beautiful run-
ning lines, the fishermen, who were also the
designers and builders, taking great pride in
the speed and style of their respective craft.
The boats were all open from stem to stern
and were equipped with tholepins for rowing,
an expedient to which the men resorted only
in dire emergency.
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PORGY
Custom had reduced adventure to com-
monplace; yet it was inconceivable that men
could put out, in the face of unsettled weather,
for a point beyond sight of land, and exhibit
no uneasiness or fear. Yet bursts of loud,
loose laughter, and snatches of song, blew
back to the wharf long after the boats were
in mid-stream.
The wind continued to come in sudden
flaws, and, once the little craft had gotten
clear of the wharves, the fleet made swift but
erratic progress. There were moments when
they would seem to mark time upon the
choppy waters of the bay; then suddenly a
flaw would bear down on them, whipping the
water as it came, and, filling the sails, would
fairly lift the slender bows as it drove them
forward.
By the time that the leisurely old city was
sitting down to its breakfast, the fleet had dis-
appeared into the horizon, and the sun had
climbed over its obstructions to flood the
harbour with reassuring light.
The mercurial spirits of the negroes rose
with the genial warmth. Forebodings were
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forgotten. Even Clara sang a lighter air as
she rocked the baby upon her lap.
But the sun had just lifted over the eastern
wall, and the heat of noon was beginning to
vibrate in the court, when suddenly the air of
security was shattered. From the centre of
town sounded the deep, ominous clang of a
bell.
At its first stroke life in Catfish Row was
paralysed. Women stopped their tasks, and,
not realizing what they did, clasped each
other's hands tightly, and stood motionless,
with strained, listening faces.
Twenty times the great hammer fell, send-
ing the deep, full notes out across the city
that was holding its breath and counting them
as they came.
'Twenty!' said Clara, when it had ceased to
shake the air.
She ran to the entrance and looked to the
north. Almost at the end of vision, between
two buildings, could be seen the flagstaff that
surmounted the custom-house. It was bare
when she looked -just a thin, bare line
against the intense blue, but even as she stood
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there, a flicker of colour soared up its length ;
then fixed and flattened, showing a red square
with a black centre.
'My Gawd!' she called over her shoulder.
'It's de trut'. Dat's de hurricane signal on
top de custom-house.'
Bess came from her room, and stood close
to the terrified woman.
'Dat can't be so,' she said comfortingly.
'Ain't yuh 'member de las' hurricane, how it
tek two day tuh blow up. Now de sun out
bright, an' de cloud all gone.'
But Clara gave no sign of having heard her.
'Come on in!' urged Bess. 'Ef yuh don't
start tuh git yuh dinner, yuh won't hab nut-
tin' ready fuh de mens w'en dey gits in/
After a moment the idea penetrated, and
the half-dazed woman turned toward Bess,
her eyes pleading.
'You come wid me, an' talk a lot. I ain't
likes tuh be all alone now/
'Sho' I will,' replied the other comfort-
ingly. 'I min* de baby fuh yuh, an' yuh kin
be gittin' de dinner/
Clara's face quivered; but she turned from
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the sight of the far red flag and opened her
door for Bess to pass in.
After the two women had remained to-
gether for half an hour, Bess left the room for
a moment to fetch some sewing. The sun
was gone, and the sky presented a smooth,
leaden surface. She closed the door quickly
so that Clara might not see the abrupt change,
and went out of the entrance for a look to sea.
Like the sky, the bay had undergone a
complete metamorphosis. The water was
black, and strangely lifeless. Thin, intensely
white crests rode the low, pointed waves ; and
between the opposing planes of sky and sea
a thin westerly wind roamed about like a
trapped thing and whined in a complaining
treble key. A singularly clear half-light per-
vaded the world, and in it she could see the
harbour mouth distinctly, as it lay ten miles
away between the north and south jetties that
stretched on the horizon like arms with the
finger-tips nearly touching.
Her eyes sought the narrow opening.
Guiltless of the smallest speck, it let upon
utter void.
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'It'd take 'em t'ree hour tuh mek harbour
from de banks wid good win',' said a woman
who was also watching. 'But dere ain't no
powuh in dis breeze, an' it a head one at dat.'
'Dey kin row it in dat time,' encouraged
Bess. 'An' de storm ain't hyuh yit.'
But the woman hugged her forebodings,
and stood there shivering in the close, warm
air.
Except for the faint moan of the wind, the
town and harbour lay in a silence that was
like held breath.
Many negroes came to the wharf, passed
out to the pier-head, and sat quietly watching
the entrance to the bay.
At one o'clock the tension snapped. As
though it had been awaiting St. Christopher's
chimes to announce 'Zero Hour,' the wind
swung into the east, and its voice dropped an
octave, and changed its quality. Instead of
the complaining whine, a grave, sustained
note came in from the Atlantic, with an under-
tone of alarming variations, that sounded
159 F
PORGY
oddly out of place as it traversed the inert
waters of the bay.
The tide was at the last of the ebb, and
racing out of the many rivers and creeks
toward the sea. All morning the west wind
had driven it smoothly before it. But now,
the stiffening eastern gale threw its weight
against the water, and the conflict immedi-
ately filled the bay with large waves that leapt
up to angry points, then dropped back sullenly
upon themselves.
'Choppy water,' observed a very old negro
who squinted through half-closed eyes. 'Dem
boat nebbuh mek headway in dat sea.'
But he was not encouraged to continue by
the silent, anxious group.
Slowly the threatening undertone of the
wind grew louder. Then, as though a curtain
had been lowered across the harbour mouth,
everything beyond was blotted by a milky
screen,
'Oh, my Jedus !' a voice shrilled. 'Here he
come, now! Le's we go!'
Many of the watchers broke for the cover
of buildings across the street. Some of those
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whose men were in the fleet crowded into the
small wharf-house. Several voices started to
pray at once, and were immediately drowned
in the rising clamour of the wind.
With the mathematical precision that it
had exhibited in starting, the gale now moved
its obliterating curtain through the jetties, and
thrust it forward in a straight line across the
outer bay.
There was something utterly terrifying
about the studied manner in which the hurri-
cane proceeded about its business. It clicked
off its moves like an automaton. It was Des-
tiny working nakedly for the eyes of men to
see. The watchers knew that for at least
twenty-four hours it would stay, moving its
tides and winds here and there with that in-
vincible precision, crushing the life from those
whom its preconceived plan had seemed to
mark for death.
With that instant emotional release that is
the great solace of the negro, the tightly
packed wharf-house burst into a babblement
of weeping and prayer.
The curtain advanced to the inner bay and
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narrowed the world to the city, with its
buildings cowering white and fearful, and the
remaining semi-circle of the harbour.
And now from the opaque surface of the
screen came a persistent roar that was neither
of wind or water, but the articulate cry of the
storm itself. The curtain shot forward again
and became a wall, grey and impenetrable^
that sunk its foundations into the tortured
sea and bore the leaden sky upon its soaring
top.
The noise became deafening. The narrow
strip of water that was left before the wharves
seemed to shrink away. The buildings hud-
dled closer and waited.
Then it crossed the strip, and smote the
city.
From the roofs came the sound as though
ton after ton of ore had been dumped from
some great eminence. There was a dead
weight to the shocks that could not conceiv-
ably be delivered by so unsubstantial a sub-
stance as air, yet which was the wind itself,
lifting abruptly to enormous heights, then
hurling its full force downward.
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These shocks followed the demoniac plan,
occurring at exact intervals, and were suc-
ceeded by prying fingers, as fluid as ether, as
hard as steel, that felt for cracks in roofs and
windows.
One could no longer say with certainty,
'This which I breathe is air, and this upon
which I stand is earth.' The storm had pos-
sessed itself of the city and made it its own.
Tangibles and intangibles alike were whirled
in a mad, inextricable nebula.
The waves that moved upon the bay could
be dimly discerned for a little distance. They
were turgid, yellow, and naked; for the
moment they lifted a crest, the wind snatched
it and dispersed it, with the rain, into the
warm semi-fluid atmosphere with which it
delivered its attack upon the panic-stricken
city.
Notch by notch the velocity increased.
The concussions upon the roofs became
louder, and the prying fingers commenced to
gain a purchase, worrying small holes into
large ones. Here and there the wind would
get beneath the tin, roll it up suddenly, whirl
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it from a building like a sheet of paper, and
send it thundering and crashing down a
deserted street.
Again it would gain entrance to a room
through a broken window, and, exerting its
explosive force to the full, would blow all of
the other windows outward, and commence
work upon the walls from within.
It was impossible to walk upon the street.
At the first shock of the storm, the little group
of negroes who had sought shelter in the
wharf-house fled to the Row. Even then, the
force of the attack had been so great that only
by bending double and clinging together
were they able to resist the onslaughts and
traverse the narrow street.
Porgy and Bess sat in their room. The slats
had been taken from the bed and nailed across
the window, and the mattress, bundled into
a corner, had been pre-empted by the goat.
Bess sat wrapped in her own thoughts,
apparently unmoved by the demoniac din
without. Porgy's look was one of wonder,
not unmixed with fear, as he peered into the
outer world between two of the slats. The
164
PORGY
goat, blessed with an utter lack of imagina-
tion, revelled in the comfort and intimacy of
his new environment, expressing his content-
ment in suffocating waves, after the manner
of his kind. A kerosene lamp without a
chimney, smoking straight up into the un-
natural stillness of the room, cast a faint,
yellow light about it, but only accentuated
the heavy gloom of the corners.
From where Porgy sat, he could catch
glimpses of what lay beyond the window.
There would come occasional moments when
the floor of the storm would be lifted by a
burrowing wind, and he would see the high,
naked breakers racing under the sullen pall
of spume and rain,
Once he saw a derelict go by. The vessel
was a small river sloop, with its rigging blown
clean out. A man was clinging to the tiller.
One wave, larger than its fellows, submerged
the little boat, and when it wallowed to the
surface again, the man was gone, and the tiller
was kicking wildly.
'Oh, my Jedus, hab a little pity!' the
watcher moaned under his breath.
165
PORGY
Later, a roof went by.
Porgy heard it coming, even above the
sound of the attack upon the Row, and it
filled him with awe and dread. He turned
and looked at Bess, and was reassured to see
that she met his gaze fearlessly. Down the
street the roar advanced, growing nearer and
louder momentarily. Surely it would be the
final instrument of destruction. He held his
breath, and waited. Then it thundered past
his narrow sphere of vision. Rolled loosely,
it loomed to the second story windows, and
flapped and tore at the buildings as it swept
over the cobbles.
When a voice could be heard again, Porgy
turned to his companion.
'You an' me, Bess/ he said with convic-
tion. 'We sho* is a little something attuh
all/
After that, they sat long without exchang-
ing a word. Then Porgy looked out of the
window and noticed that the quality of the
atmosphere was becoming denser. The spume
lifted for a moment, and he could scarcely see
the tormented bay,
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PORGY
'I t'ink it mus' be mos' night/ he observed.
*Dey ain't much light now on de outside ob
dis storm.'
He looked again before the curtain de-
scended, and what he saw caused his heart to
miss a beat.
He knew that the tide should be again at
the ebb, for the flood had commenced just
after the storm broke. But as he looked, the
water, which was already higher than a nor-
mal flood, lifted over the far edge of the
street, and three tremendous waves broke in
rapid succession, sending the deep layers of
water across the narrow way to splash against
the wall of the building.
This reversal of nature's law struck terror
into the dark places of Porgy's soul. He
beckoned to Bess, his fascinated eyes upon
the advancing waves.
She bent down and peered into the gloom.
'Oh, yes,' she remarked in a flat tone. 'It
been dis way in de las' great storm. De win'
hoi 1 de watuh in de jetty mout' so he can't
go out. Den he pile up annoder tide on
him/
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PORGY
Suddenly an enormous breaker loomed
over the backs of its shattered and retreating
fellows. The two watchers could not see its
crest, for it towered into, and was absorbed
by, the low-hanging atmosphere. Yellow,
smooth, and with a perpendicular, slightly
concave front, it flashed across the street, and
smote the solid wall of the Row. They heard
it roar like a mill-race through the drive, and
flatten, hissing in the court. Then they
turned, and saw their own door give slightly
to the pressure, and a dark flood spurt beneath
it, and debouch upon the floor.
Bess took immediate command of the situ-
ation. She threw an arm about Porgy, and
hurried him to the door. She withdrew the
bolt, and the flimsy panels shot inward. The
court was almost totally dark. One after
another now the waves were hurtling through
the drive and impounding in the walled
square.
The night was full of moving figures, and
cries of fear; while, out of the upper dark, the
wind struck savagely downward.
With a powerful swing, Bess got Porgy to
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PORGY
a stairway that providentially opened near
their room, and, leaving him to make his way
up alone, she rushed back, and was soon at
his heels with an armful of belongings.
They sought refuge in what had been the
great ball-room of the mansion, a square,
high-ceilinged room on the second story,
which was occupied by a large and prosperous
family. There were many refugees there
before them. In the faint light cast by several
lanterns, the indestructible beauty of the
apartment was evident, while the defacing
effects of a century were absorbed in shadow.
The noble open fireplace, the tall, slender
mantel, with its Grecian frieze and intricate
scrollwork, the high panelled walls were all
there. And then, huddled in little groups on
the floor, or seated against the walls, with
eyes wide in the lantern-shine, the black, fear-
stricken faces.
Like the ultimate disintegration of a civi-
lization-there it was; and upon it, as
though to make quick work of the last, tragic
chapter, the scourging wrath of the Gods -
white, and black.
169
PORGY
5
The night that settled down upon Catfish
Row was one of nameless horror to the in-
habitants, most of whom were huddled on the
second floor in order to avoid the sea from
beneath, and deafening assaults upon the
roof above their heads.
With the obliteration of vision, sound as-
sumed an exaggerated significance, and the
voice of the gale, which had seemed by day
only a great roar, broke up in the dark into
its various parts. Human voices seemed to
cry in it; and there were moments when it
sniffed and moaned at the windows.
Once, during a silence in the room, a
whinny was distinctly heard.
'Dat my ole horse P wailed Peter. 'He done
dead in he stall now, an' dat he woice goin'
by. Oh, my Gawd!'
They all wailed out at that; and Porgy,
remembering his goat, whimpered and turned
his face to the wall.
Then some one started to sing:
'I gots uh home in de rock, don't yuh see?'
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PORGY
With a feeling of infinite relief, Porgy
turned to his Jesus. It was not a charm that
he sought now for the assuaging of some
physical ill, but a benign power, vaster per-
haps even than the hurricane. He lifted his
rich baritone above the others:
'Oh, between de eart' an' sky,
I kin see my Sabior die.
I gots uh home in de rock,
Don't yuh see?'
Then they were all in it, heart and soul.
Those who had fallen into a fitful sleep,
awoke, rubbed their eyes, and sang.
Hour after hour dragged heavily past.
Outside, the storm worked its will upon the
defenceless city. But in the great ball-room
of Catfish Row, forty souls sat wrapped in an
invulnerable garment. They swayed and
patted, and poured their griefs and fears into
a rhythm that never missed a beat, which
swept the hours behind it into oblivion, and
that finally sang up the faint grey light that
penetrated the storm, and told them that it
was again day.
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At about an hour after daybreak the first
lull came. Like the other moves of the hur-
ricane, it arrived without warning. One mo-
ment the tumult was at its height. The next,
there was utter suspension. Abruptly, like an
indrawn breath, the wind sucked back upon
itself, leaving an aching vacuum in its place.
Then from the inundated water-front arose
the sound of the receding flood.
The ebb-tide was again overdue, and with
the second tide piled upon it, the whole im-
measurable weight of the wind was required
to maintain its height. Now, with the pres-
sure removed, it turned and raced beneath
the low-lying mist toward the sea, carrying its
pitiful loot upon its back.
To the huddled figures in the great room
of the Row came the welcome sound, as the
court emptied itself into the street. The
negroes crowded to the windows, and peered
between the barricades at the world without.
The water receded with incredible speed.
Submerged wreckage lifted above the surface.
172
PORGY
The street became the bed of a cataract that
foamed and boiled on its rush to the sea. Pres-
ently the wharf emerged, and at its end even
a substantial remnant of the house could be
descried. How it had survived that long was
one of the inexplicable mysteries of the storm.
Suddenly Peter, who was at one of the
windows, gave a cry, and the other negroes
crowded about him to peer out.
The sea was still running high, and as a
large wave lifted above the level of the others,
it thrust into view the hull of a half-submerged
boat. Before the watchers could see, the wave
dropped its burden into a trough, but the old
man showed them where to look, and pres-
ently a big roller caught it up, and swung it,
bow on, for all to see. There was a flash of
scarlet gunnel, and, beneath it, a bright blue
bird with open wings.
'De SeagullV cried a dozen voices together.
'My Gawd! dat Jake' boat!'
All night Clara had sat in a corner of the
room with the baby in her arms, saying no
word to anyone. She was so still that she
seemed to be asleep, with her head upon her
173
PORGY
breast. But once, when Bess had gone and
looked into her face, she had seen her eyes,
wide and bright with pain.
Now the unfortunate woman heard the
voices, and sprang to the window just in time
to see the craft swoop into a hollow at the
head of the pier.
She did not scream out. For a moment she
did not even speak. Then she spun around
on Bess with the dawn of a wild hope in her
dark face.
'Tek care ob dis baby 'til I gits back/ she
said, as she thrust the child almost savagely
into Bess's arms. Then she rushed from the
room.
The watchers at the window saw her cross
the street, splashing wildly through the knee-
deep water. Then she ran the length of the
wharf, and disappeared behind the shelter-
ing wall of the house.
It was so sudden, and tired wits move
slowly. Several minutes had passed before it
occurred to anyone to go with her. Finally
Peter turned from the window.
'Dat 'oman ain't ought tuh be out dey by
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sheself,' he said. 'Who goin* out dey wid me,
now?'
One of the men volunteered, and they
started for the door.
A sound like the detonation of a cannon
shook the building to its foundations. The
gale had returned, smashing straight down-
ward from some incredible height to which it
had lifted during the lull.
The men turned and looked at one another.
Shock followed shock in rapid succession.
Those who stood by the windows felt them
give inward, and instinctively threw their
weight against the frames. The explosions
merged into a steady roar of sound that sur-
passed anything that had yet occurred. The
room became so dark that they could no
longer see one another. The barricaded win-
dows were vaguely discernible in bars of
muddy grey and black. Deeply rooted walls
swung from the blows, and then settled slowly
back on the recoil.
A confused sound of praying filled the
room. And above it shrilled the terror of the
women.
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PORGY
For an appreciable space of time the spasm
lasted. Then, slowly, as though by the gra-
dual withdrawing of a lever, the vehemence of
the attack abated. The muddy grey bars at
the windows became lighter, and some of the
more courageous of the negroes peered out.
The wharf could be seen dimly extending
under the low floor of spume and mist. The
breakers were higher than at any previous
time, but instead of smashing in upon the
shore, they raced straight up the river and
paralleled the city. As each one swung by it
went clean over the wharf, obliterating it for
the duration of its passage.
Suddenly from the direction of the lower
harbour a tremendous mass appeared, show-
ing first only a vast distorted stain against the
grey fabric of the mist. Then a gigantic wave
took it, and drove it into fuller view.
'Great Gawd A'mightyP some one whis-
pered. 'It's dat big lumbuh schooner bruck
loose in de harbor/
The wave hunched its mighty shoulders
under the vessel and swung it up - up, for
an interminable moment. The soaring bow-
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sprit lifted until it was lost in mist. Tons of
water gushed from the steep incline of the
deck, and poured over the smooth, black
wall of the side, as it reared half out of the
sea. Then the wave swept aft, and the bow
descended in a swift, deadly plunge.
A crashing of timbers followed that could
be heard clearly above the roaring of the
storm. The hull had fallen directly across
the middle of the wharf. There was one
cataclysmic moment when the whole view
seemed to disintegrate. The huge timbers of
the wharf up-ended, and were washed out like
straws. The schooner rolled half over, and
her three masts crashed down with their rig-
ging. The shock burst the lashings of the
vessel's deck load, and as the hull heeled, an
avalanche of heavy timbers took the water.
The ruin was utter.
Heavy and obliterating, the mist closed
down again.
Bess turned from the window holding the
sleeping infant in her arms, raised her eyes
and looked full at Porgy.
With an expression of awe in his face, the
177
PORGY
cripple reached out a timid hand and touched
the baby's cheek.
The windows of the great ball-room were
open to the sky, and beyond them, a busy
breeze was blowing across its washed and
polished expanse, gathering cloud-remnants
into little heaps, and sweeping them in
tumbling haste out over the threshold of
the sea.
Most of the refugees had returned to their
rooms, where sounds of busy salvaging could
be heard. Porgy's voice arose jubilantly an-
nouncing that the goat had been discovered,
marooned upon the cook-stove; and that
Peter's old horse had belied his whinny, and
was none the worse for a thorough wetting.
Serena Robbins paused before Bess, who
was gathering her things preparatory to leav-
ing the room, placed her hands upon her
hips, and looked down upon her.
'Now, wut we all goin' do wid dis po*
mudderless chile?' she said, addressing the
room at large.
PORGY
The other occupants of the room gathered
behind Serena, but there was something about
Bess's look that held them quiet. They stood
there waiting and saying nothing.
Slowly Bess straightened up, her face low-
ered and pressed against that of the sleeping
child. Then she raised her eyes and met the
gaze of the complacent older woman.
What Serena saw there was not so much
the old defiance that she had expected, as it
was an inflexible determination, and, behind
it, a new-born element in the woman that
rendered the scarred visage incandescent.
She stepped back, and lowered her eyes.
Bess strained the child to her breast with an
elemental intensity of possession, and spoke
in a low, deep voice that vested her words
with sombre meaning.
'Is Clara come back a'ready, since she
dead, an' say somet'ing 'bout "we" tuh yuh
'bout dis chile?'
She put the question to the group, her
eyes taking in the circle of faces as she
spoke.
There was no response ; and at the sugges-
179
PORGY
tion of a possible return of the dead, the circle
drew together instinctively.
'Berry well den,' said Bess solemnly. 'On-
tell she do, I goin' stan' on she las' libbin'
word an' keep dis chile fuh she 'til she do
come back.'
Serena was hopelessly beaten, and she
knew it.
'Oh, berry well,' she capitulated. 'All I
been goin' tuh do wuz jus' tuh puhwide urn
wid er propuh Christian raisin'. But ef she
done gib um tuh yuh, dere ain't nuttin' mo'
I kin do, I guess.'
1 80
PART VI
PART VI
*
OCTOBER blew down from the north, bracing,,
and frosty-clear. It sent a breeze racing like
mad over the bay and bouncing into the court
to toss the clothes-lines like lanyards of signal-
flags. The torpid city and wide, slumbrous
marshes were stung to sudden life and laughed
up at the far, crisp blue of the sky.
Out in the harbour mouth, a faint wisp of
smoke grew and blackened, and presently
beneath it the rusty hull of a tramp lifted from
the Atlantic, and thrust its blunt nose into the
waters of the bay.
Summer had gone. Soon the cotton would
be coming through.
It was nine o'clock, and still Porgy lingered
in the court. His blood leapt swiftly in his
veins, and he experienced that sweet upsurge
of life that the North knows with the bursting
of spring, but that comes most kqenly to the
sultry lands with the strong breath of autumn.
Yet, when he looked up at the sky, a vague
prescience of disaster darkened his spirit. He
sat beside Bess in the doorway, with his eyes
upon the child in her lap. After a while he
183
PORGY
took the baby into his arms, and then the
foreboding suddenly became pain.
He looked up and met the gaze of the
woman. It was there in her eyes also, plain
for him to see.
Out in the silence of the street a sound
commenced to grow. Only a faint, far mur-
mur at first, it gathered weight until it became
a steady rumble, with a staccato clip, clip, clip
running through it.
There were a few women and children
about, and they ran to the entrance to see.
But Porgy and Bess sat and looked fixedly at
the bay, where it lay beyond the gate.
Then the drays came, and the bay was
blotted out by the procession.
The great mules, fat and strong from their
summer in pasture, moved swiftly with a
sharp click of shoes, and the drivers cracked
their whips and laughed down at the crowd.
The low platforms of the vehicles seemed
almost to brush the ground; and, upon them,
clear to the top of the entrance arch, the
bales towered, with the fibre showing in
dazzling white patches where the bagging
184
PORGY
was torn. Twenty or more in the train they
passed.
Scarcely had the rumble receded in the
distance, than a burst of heavy laughter
sounded in the street, and two tall figures
strode through the entrance and into the
group of women and children. There was a
bright flash from bandanas, and one of the
men swung a child to his shoulder. Loud
greetings followed, and another burst of
laughter, heavy, deep-chested and glad.
From an upper window a woman's voice
called, 'Come on, Sister; le's we go down. De
stevedore is comin' back.'
Porgy turned toward Bess, and moistened
his lips with his tongue. Then he spoke in a
low husky voice:
'Us ain't talk much sence de picnic,
Bess, you an* me. But I gots tuh talk
now. I gots tuh know how yqu an' me
stan'.'
Bess regarded him dumbly. For a moment
the look which Serena had seen when she had
tried to take the baby brushed her face, then
it passed, leaving it hopeless.
PORG Y
Porgy leaned forward. * Yuh is wantin' tuh
go wid Crown w'en he come?'
Then she answered : Wen I tek dat dope,
I know den dat I ain't yo' kin'. An 1 w'en
Crown put he han' on me dat day, I run tuh
he like water. Some day dope comin' agin.
An' some day Crown goin' put he han' on
my t'roat. It goin' be like dyin' den. But I
gots tuh talk de trut' tuh yuh. W'en dem
time come, I goin' tuh go.'
'Ef dey warn't no Crown?' Porgy whis-
pered. Then before she could answer, he
hurried on : 'Ef dey wuz only jes' de baby an'
Porgy, wut den?'
The odd incandescence flared in her face,
touching it with something eternal and beau-
tiful beyond the power of human flesh to
convey. She took the child from Porgy with
a hungry, enfolding gesture. Then her com-
posure broke.
'Oh, fuh Gawd sake, Porgy, don't let dat
man come an' handle me ! Ef yuh is willin'
tuh keep me, den lemme stay. Ef he jus'
don't put dem hot han' on me, I kin be good,
I kin 'member, I kin be happy.'
186
PORGY
She broke off abruptly, and hid her face
against that of the child.
Porgy patted her arm. 'Yuh ain't needs
tuh be 'fraid,' he assured her. 'Ain't yuh
gots yo' man? Ain't yuh gots Porgy? Wut
kin' of a nigger yuh t'inks yuh gots any-
way, fuh let annuduh nigger carry he 'oman?
No, suh! yuh gots yo' man now; yuh gots
Porgy.'
s
From behind a sea island the full October
moon lifted its chill disc and strewed the bay
with cold, white fire. The lights were out in
Catfish Row, except for a shaft of firelight
that fell across the dark from Serena's room,
and a faint flicker in the cook-shop, where
Maria was getting her fire laid in readiness
for the early breakfast.
A cry sounded in the court, which was
quickly muffled; then followed low, insolent
laughter.
Maria was at her door instantly. Across
the court, a man could be seen for one mo-
ment, seated on Serena's wash-bench; then
PORGY
behind him the door closed with a bang,
shutting off the shaft of firelight.
Maria crossed the court, and when she had
reached the man's side he looked up. The
moonlight fell upon his face. It was Crown.
'What yuh doin' hyuh?' she asked him.
'Jus' droppin' in on a few ole frienY
'Come tuh de shop/ she commanded. 'I
gots tuh hab talk wid yuh.'
He arose obediently, and followed her.
Maria turned up the lamp and faced about
as Crown entered the room. He had to bend
his head to pass under the lintel, and his
shoulders brushed the sides of the opening.
The big negress stood for a long moment
looking at him. Her gaze took in the straight
legs with their springing thighs straining the
fabric of the cotton pants, the slender waist,
and the almost unbelievable outward flare of
the chest to the high, straight span of the
shoulders.
A look of deep sadness grew in her sombre
face.
'Wid uh body like datP she said at last,
'why yuh is goin* aroun' huntin' fuh deat'?'
188
PORGY
Crown laughed uneasily, stepped into the
room, and sat at a table. He placed his
elbows upon it, hunched his shoulders for-
ward with a writhing of muscle beneath the
shirt, then dropped his chin in his hands, and
regarded the woman.
'I know dese hyuh niggers/ he replied.
'Dey is a decent lot. Dey wouldn't gib no
nigger away tuh de w'ite folks/
'Dat de Gawd' trut'. Only dey is odder
way ob settlin' up er debt.'
'Serena?' he asked, with a sidelong look,
and a laugh. 'Dat sister gots de fear ob Gawd
in she heart. I ain't 'fraid none ob she.'
After a moment of silence he asked
abruptly:
'Bess still libbin' wid de cripple?'
'Yes; an' she a happy, decent 'oman. Yuh
bes' leabe she alone.'
'Fer Gawd' sake! Wut yuh t'ink I come
tuh dis damn town fuh? I ain't jus' huntin'
fuh deat' ! I atter my 'oman/
Maria placed her hands on the table op-
posite the man and bent to look into his
face.
189
PORGY
"Oman is all berry much de same,' she said
in a low, persuasive voice. 'Dey comes an'
dey goes. One sattify a man quick as an-
nuduh. Dey is lots ob bettuh lookin' gal dan
Bess. She fix fuh life now wid dat boy. I ax
yuh go an' lef she. Gib she uh chance.'
'It tek long time tuh learn one 'oman,' he
said slowly. 'Me an' Bess done fight dat all
out dese fibe year gone/
'Yuh ain't goin' leabe she den?' There was
an unusual note of pleading in the heavy
voice.
'Not till Hell freeze,'
After a moment he arose and turned to
her.
*I gots tuh go out now. I ain't sho' wedder
I goin' away tuhnight or wait fuh tuhmorruh
night. I goin' look aroun' an' see how de
Ian' lay; but I'll be seein' yuh agin befo' I
goes.'
Maria regarded him for a long moment;
the look of sadness in her face deepened to a
heavy melancholy; but she said nothing.
Crown started for the street with his long,
swaggering stride. The big woman watched
190
PORGY
him until he turned to the north at the en-
trance and passed from view. Then she locked
the door and, with a deep sigh, walked to her
own room.
Porgy opened his eyes suddenly. The win-
dow, which had been luminous when he went
to sleep, was now darkened. He watched it
intently. Slowly he realized that parts of the
little square still showed the moonlit waters of
the bay, and that only the centre was blocked
out by an intervening mass. Then the mass
moved, and Porgy saw that it was the torso
and shoulders of a man. The window was
three feet in width, yet the shoulders seemed
to brush both sides of it as the form bent
forward. The sash was down, and presently
there came a sound as though hands were
testing it to see whether it could be forced up.
Porgy was lying on his back. He reached
his left hand over the covers and let the
fingers touch ever so lightly the sleeping
faces of first the baby, then the woman. His
right hand slid beneath his pillow, and his
191 G
PORGY
strong, slender fingers closed about the handle
of a knife.
At the window the slight, testing noise
continued.
It was certainly after midnight when Maria
looked from her doorway; for the moon was
tottering on the western wall, and while she
stood looking, slowly it dropped over and
vanished.
The vague forebodings that she had felt
when she talked to Crown earlier in the even-
ing had kept sleep from her; with each pass-
ing hour her fears increased, and with them a
sense of imminence that finally forced her to
get up, slip on a wrapper, and prepare to
make the rounds of the court.
But on opening her door, she was at once
reassured. The square stood before her like
a vast cistern brimmed with misty dark and
roofed with a lid of sky. A cur grovelled for-
ward on its belly from a near-by nook, and
licked one of her bare feet with its moist,
warm tongue.
192
PORGY
Above her, in the huge honeycomb of the
building, some one was snoring in a slow,
steady rhythm.
The big negress drew a deep sigh of relief
and turned back toward her room.
A sound of cracking wood snapped the
silence. Then, like a flurry of small bells,
came a shiver of broken glass on the stones.
Maria spun around, and tried to locate the
sound; but no noise followed. Silence flowed
back over the court and settled palpably into
its recesses. The faint, not unpleasant rhythm
of the snoring came insistently forward.
Suddenly Maria turned, her face quick
with apprehension. She drew her wrapper
closely about her, and crossed to Porgy's
door. With only half of the distance tra-
versed, she heard a sound from the room. It
was more of a muffled thump than anything
else, and with it, something very like a gasp.
When her hand closed over the knob all
was silent again, except that she could hear a
long, slightly shuddering breath.
Then came a sound that caused her flesh to
prickle with primal terror. It was so unex-
PORGY
pected, there in the chill, silent night. It was
Porgy' s laugh, but different. Out of the still-
ness it swelled suddenly, deep, aboriginal,
lustful. Then it stopped short.
Maria heard the baby cry out; then Bess's
voice, sleepy and mystified : 'Fuh Gawd' sake,
Porgy, what yuh laughin' 'bout?'
*Dat all right, honey,' came the answer,
'Don't yuh be worryin'. Yuh gots Porgy
now, an' he look atter he 'oman. Ain't I done
tells yuh: Yuh gots er man now.'
Maria turned the knob, entered the room,
and closed the door quickly behind her.
Night trailed westward across the city. In
the east, out beyond the ocean's rim, essential
light trembled upward and seemed to absorb
rather than quench the morning stars. Out
of the sliding planes of mist that hung like
spent breath above the city, shapes began to
emerge and assume their proper values.
Far in the upper air over Catfish Row a
speck appeared. It took a long, descending
spiral, and became two, then three. Around a
wide circle the specks swung, as though hung
by wires from a lofty pivot. The light bright-
194
PORGY
ened perceptibly. The specks dropped to a
lower level, increased in size, and miraculously
became a dozen. Then some of them dropped
in from the circumference of the circle, cut-
ting lines across like the spokes of a wheel,
and from time to time flapping indolent
wings. Dark and menacing when they flew
to the westward, they would turn easily to-
ward the east, and the sun, still below the
horizon, would gild their bodies with ruddy
gold, as they sailed, breast on, toward it.
Down, down they dropped, reaching low,
and yet lower levels, until at last they seemed
to brush the water-front buildings with their
sombre wings. Then gradually they narrowed
to a small circle that patrolled the air directly
over a shape that lay awash in the rising tide,
across the street from Catfish Row.
Suddenly from the swinging circle a single
bird planed down and lit with an awkward,
hopping step directly before the object. For
a moment he regarded it with bleak, preda-
tory eyes; then flew back to his fellows. A
moment later the whole flock swooped down,
and the shape was hidden by flapping wings
PORGY
and black awkward bodies that hopped about
and fought inward to the centre of the group.
A negro who had been sleeping under an
overturned bateau awoke and rubbed his eyes;
then he sprang up and, seizing an oar, beat
the birds away with savage blows.
He bent over the object for a moment, then
turned and raced for the street with eyes
showing white.
'Fuh Gawd' sake, folks,' he cried, 'come
hyuh quick! Hyuh Crown, an* he done
dead.'
A group of three white men stood over the
body. One was the plain-clothes man with
the goatee and stick who had investigated the
Robbins murder. Behind him stood a uni-
formed policeman. The third, a stout, lei-
surely individual, was stooping over the body,
in the act of making an examination.
'What do you make of it, Coroner?' asked
the plain-clothes man.
'Knife between fifth and sixth ribs; must
have gone straight through the heart.'
196
PORGY
'Well, he had it comin' to him/ the detec-
tive observed. 'They tell me he is the nigger.
Crown, who killed Robbins last April. That
gives us the widow to work on fer a starter,
by the way; and Hennessy tells me that he
used to run with that dope case we had up last
August. She's livin' in the Row, too. Let's
go over and have a look/
The Coroner cast an apprehensive glance
at the forbidding structure across the way.
'Can't be so sure,' he cautioned. 'Corpse
might have been washed up. Tide's on the
flood.'
'Well, I'm goin' to have a look at those two
women, anyway/ the plain-clothes man an-
nounced. 'That place is alive with crooks.
I'd like to get something on it that would
justify closing it up as a public nuisance, and
throwing the whole lot of 'em out in the
street. One murder and a happy-dust riot
already this summer; and here we are again.'
^Then turning to the policeman, he gave
his orders.
'Get the wagon and take the body in. Then
you had better come right back. We might
197
PORGY
have some arrests. The Coroner and I'll
investigate while you're gone/
He turned away toward the Row, assuming
that he would be followed.
'All right. Cap ; what do you say?' he called.
The Coroner shook his ponderous figure
down into his clothes, turned with evident
reluctance, and joined him.
'All right,' he agreed. 'But all I need is a
couple of witnesses to identify the body at the
inquest.'
Across the street a small negro boy de-
tached himself from the base of one of the
gateposts and darted through the entrance.
A moment later the white men strode into
an absolutely empty square. Their heels
made a sharp sound on the flags, and the
walls threw a clear echo down upon them.
A cur that had been left napping in the sun
woke with a start, looked about in a bewild-
ered fashion, gave a frightened yelp, and
bolted through a doorway.
It was all clearly not to the taste of the
Coroner, and he cast an uneasy glance about
him.
198
PORGY
'Where do we go?' he asked.
'That's the widow's room over there, if she
hasn't moved. We'll give it a look first,' said
the detective.
The door was off the latch, and, without
knocking, he kicked it open and walked in.
The room was small, but immaculately
clean. Beneath a patched white quilt could be
seen the form of a woman. Two other women
were sitting in utter silence beside the bed.
The form under the covers moaned.
'Drop that,' the detective commanded.
'And answer some questions.*
The moaning stopped.
'Where were you yesterday and last night? 1
The reply came slowly, as though speaking
were great pain:
*I been sick in dis bed now t'ree day an'
night.'
'We been settin' wid she, nursin' she, all
dat time,' one of the women said.
And the other supplemented: 'Dat de
Gawd' trutV
'You would swear to that?' asked the
Coroner.
199
PORGY
Three voices answered in chorus:
'Yes, Boss, we swear tuh dat.'
'There you are/ said the Coroner to the
plain-clothes man, 'an air-tight alibi.'
The detective regarded him for a moment
with supreme contempt. Then he stepped
forward and jerked the sheet from Serena's
face, which lay upon the pillow as immobile
as a model done in brown clay.
'You know damn well that you were out
yesterday!' he snapped. 'I have a good mind
to get the wagon and carry you in.'
Silence followed.
'What do you say to that?' he demanded.
But Serena had nothing to say, and neither
had her handmaidens.
Then he turned a menacing frown upon
them, as they sat motionless with lowered
eyes.
'Well!'
They jumped slightly, and their eyes
showed white around the iris. Suddenly they
began to speak, almost in unison.
'We swear tuh Gawd, we done been hyuh
wid she t'ree day/
200
PORGY
'Oh, Hell!' said the exasperated detective.
'What's the use? You might as well argue
with a parrot-cage,'
'That woman is just as ill at this moment
as you are,' he said to his unenthusiastic as-
sociate when they were again in the sunlight.
'Her little burlesque show proves that, if no-
thing else. But there is her case all prepared.
I don't believe she killed Crown ; she doesn't
look like that kind. She is either just playing
safe, or she has something entirely different
on her chest. But there's her story ; and you'll
never break in without witnesses of your own ;
and you'll never get 'em.'
The Coroner was not a highly sensitized
individual ; but as he moved across the empty
court, he found it difficult to control his
nerves under the scrutiny which he felt
levelled upon him from behind a hundred
shuttered windows. Twice he caught himself
looking covertly over his shoulders; and, as
he went, he bore hopefully away toward the
entrance.
But the detective was intent upon his task,
and presently called him back.
201
PORGY
'This is the cripple's room/ he said. 'He
ain't much of a witness. I tried to break him
in the Robbins case; but he wouldn't
talk. I want to have a look at the woman,
though.'
He kicked the door open suddenly. Porgy
and Bess were seated by the stove, eating
breakfast from tin pans. On the bed in the
corner the baby lay.
Porgy paused, with his spoon half-way to
his mouth, and looked up. Bess kept her eyes
on the pan, and continued to eat.
The Coroner stopped in the doorway, and
made a businesslike show of writing in a note-
book.
"What's your name?' he asked Porgy.
The cripple studied him for a long mo-
ment, taking in the ample proportions of the
figure and the heavy, but not unsympathetic,
face. Then he smiled one of his fleeting,
ingenuous smiles.
'Jus' Porgy/ he said. 'Yuh knows me,
Boss. Yuh is done gib me plenty ob penny
on King Charles Street.'
'Of course, you're the goat-man. I didn't
202
PORGY
know you without your wagon,' he said
amiably. Then, becoming businesslike, he
asked :
'This nigger, Crown. You knew him by
sight. Didn't you?'
Porgy debated with himself for a moment,
looked again into the Coroner's face, was
reassured by what he saw there, and replied :
'Yes, Boss; I 'member um w'en he usen
tuh come hyuh, long ago.'
'You could identify him, I suppose?'
Porgy looked blank.
'You'd know him if you saw him again?'
'Yes, Boss; I know um.'
The Coroner made a note in his book,
closed it with an air of finality, and put it in
his pocket.
During the brief interview, the detective
had been making an examination of the room.
The floor had been recently scrubbed, and
was still damp in the corners. He gave the
clean, pine boards a close scrutiny, then
paused before the window. The bottom of
the lower sash had been broken, and several
of the small, square panes were missing.
203
PORGY
'So this is where you killed Crown, eh?' he
announced.
The words fell into the silence and were
absorbed by it, causing them to seem theatri-
cal and unconvincing. Neither Porgy nor
Bess spoke. Their faces were blank and
non-committal.
After a full moment, the woman said :
'I ain't onduhstan', Boss. Nobody hyuh
ain't kill Crown. My husban' he fall t'rough
dat winduh yisterday when he leg gib 'way.
He er cripple.'
'Anyone see him do it?' inquired the
Coroner from the door.
'Oh, yes, Boss,' replied Bess, turning to
him. 'T'ree or four ob de mens was in de
street; dey will tell yuh all 'bout um.'
'Yes, of course; more witnesses,' sneered
the detective. Then turning to the Coroner,
he asked with a trace of sarcasm in his tone :
'That satisfies you fully, I suppose?'
The Coroner's nerves were becoming edgy.
'For God's sake,' he retorted, 'do you
expect me to believe that a cripple could kill
a two-hundred pound buck, then tote him a
204
PORGY
hundred yards? Well, I've got what I need
now anyway. As far as I'm concerned, I'm
through.'
They were passing the door of Maria's
shop when the detective caught sight of some-
thing within that held his gaze.
'You can do as you please,' he told his
unwilling companion. 'But I'm going to have
a look in here. I have never been able to get
anything on this woman; but she is a bad
influence in the neighbourhood. I'd trust her
just as far as I could throw her.'
The Coroner heaved a sigh of resigna-
tion, and they stepped back, and entered the
shop.
Upon the flooring, directly before the door,
and not far from it, was a pool of blood.
Standing over the pool was a table, and upon
it lay the carcass of a shark. Maria sat on a
bench behind the table. As the men entered
she swung an immense cleaver downward. A
cross-section of the shark detached itself and
fell away on a pile of similar slices. A thin
stream of blood dribbled from the table, aug-
menting the pool upon the floor.
205
PORGY
Maria did not raise her eyes from her task.
Again the cleaver swung up, and whistled
downward.
From the street sounded the clatter of the
returning patrol.
Til wait for you in the wagon/ said the
Coroner hastily, and stepped back into the
sunlight.
But he was not long alone. The uninter-
rupted swing of the dripping cleaver was de-
pressing, and the enthusiasm of his associate
waned.
The bell clanged. Hoofs struck sparks
from the cobbles, and the strong but uncer-
tain arm of the law was withdrawn, to attend
to other and more congenial business.
The sound from the retreating wagon
dwindled and ceased.
For a moment Catfish Row held its breath ;
then its windows and doors flew open, and
poured its life out into the incomparable
autumn weather. The crisis had passed.
There had been no arrests.
206
PORGY
Serena stepped forth, her arms filled with
the morning's wash.
* "Ain't it hahd tuh be er nigger!" ' some
one sang in a loud, clear voice. And every-
body laughed.
Down the street, like an approaching
freight train, came the drays, jarring the
building and rattling the windows, as the
heavy tires rang against the cobbles.
Bess and Porgy came out with the others,
and seated themselves against the wall in the
gracious sunlight. Of the life, yet apart from
it, sufficient unto each other, they did not join
in the loud talk and badinage that was going
on about them. Like people who had come
on a long, dark journey, they were content to
sit, and breathe deeply of the sun. The baby
was sleeping in Bess's arms, and from time to
time she would sing a stave to it in a soft,
husky voice.
Into the court strode a group of stevedores.
Their strong white teeth flashed in the sun-
shine, and their big, panther-like bodies
moved easily among the women and children
that crowded about them.
207
PORGY
'Wey all de gals?' called one in a loud,
resonant voice. 'Mus' be dey ain't know dat
dis is pay-day.'
Two women who were sitting near Porgy
and Bess rose and went forward, with their
arms twined about each other's waists. In a
few minutes they were out of the crowd again,
each looking up with admiring eyes into the
face of one of the men.
'Mens an' 'omans ain't de same,' said
Porgy. 'One mont' ago dem gals been libbin'
wid dey own mens. Den de storm tek um.
Now dey is fuhgit um a'ready, an' gibbin' dey
lub tuh de nexY
'No ; dey is diff 'rent fuh true,' replied Bess.
'An' yuh won't nebber onduhstan'. All two
dem gal gots baby fuh keep alibe.' She
heaved a deep sigh ; and then added, 'Dey is
jus' 'oman, an' nigger at dat. Dey is doin' de
bes' dey kin - dat all.'
She was looking down at the baby while
she spoke, and when she raised her eyes and
looked at Porgy, he saw that they were full of
tears.
'But you, Bess; you is diff 'rent f'om dat?'
208
PORGY
he said, with a gently interrogating note in
his voice.
'Dat 'cause Gawd ain't mek but one
Porgy!' she told him. 'Any 'oman gots tuh
be decent wid you. But I gots fuh tell yuh de
trut'; widout Porgy I is jus' like de res'.'
A shadow drifted across their laps, and
they lifted their faces to the sky.
A solitary buzzard had left the circle that
had hung high in the air all morning, and was
swinging back and forth over the Row, almost
brushing the parapet of the roof as it passed.
While Porgy and Bess looked, it suddenly
raised the points of its wings, reached tenta-
tive legs downward, spread its feet wide, and
lit on the edge of the roof directly over their
room.
'My Gawd!' exclaimed Maria, who was
standing near. 'Crown done sen' he buzzud
back fuh bring trouble. Knock um off,
Porgy. Per Gawd' sake, knock um off befo*
he settle!'
The cripple reached out and picked up a
brick-bat. The happiness had left his face,
and his eyes were filled with fear. With a
209
PORGY
swing of his long, powerful arm, he sent the
missile on its errand.
It struck the parapet directly beneath the
bird.
With a spasmodic flap of wings, the black
body lifted itself a few feet from the building,
then settled suddenly back. For a moment it
hopped awkwardly about, as though the roof
were red-hot beneath its feet, then folded its
wings, drew its nude head in upon its breast,
and surveyed the court with its aloof, male-
volent eyes.
'T'row agin,' Maria called, handing Porgy
another brick-bat. But he seemed not to hear,
His face quivered, and he hid it in his hands.
'Sonny,' the big negress called to a small
boy who was standing near, looking at the
bird with his mouth open. 'Git out on de
roof wid uh stick, an' run dat bird away/
But Porgy plucked at her skirt, and she
looked down.
'Let um be/ he said in a hopeless voice.
'It too late now. Ain't yuh see he done settle,
an' he pick my room fuh light ober? It ain't
no use now. Yuh knows dat. It ain't no use.'
210
PORGY
The next morning Porgy sat in his accus-
tomed place by Archdale's door. Autumn
had touched the oaks in the park across the
way, and they brushed the hard, bright sky
with a slow circling motion, and tossed hand-
fuls of yellow leaves down upon the pedes-
trians who stepped briskly along.
King Charles Street was full of hurrying
men on their way to the cotton offices and the
big wholesale warehouses that fronted on the
wharves. Like the artery of a hale old man
who has lain long asleep, but who wakens
suddenly and springs into a race, the broad
thoroughfare seemed to pound and sing with
life.
The town was in a generous mood. Again
and again the bottom of Porgy's cup gave
forth its sharp, grateful click as a coin struck
it and settled. But the cripple had not even
his slow glance of thanks for his benefactors
on that flashing autumn morning. Always he
kept veiled, apprehensive eyes directed either
up or down the street, or lifted frightened
211
PORGY
glances to the sky, as though fearing what he
might see there.
At noon a white man stopped before him.
But he did not drop a coin and pass on.
After a moment, Porgy brought his gaze
back, and looked up.
The white man reached forward, and
handed him a paper.
'Dat fuh me?' asked Porgy, in a voice that
shook.
'You needn't mind takin' it,' the man
assured him with a laugh. 'It's just a sum-
mons as witness to the Coroner's inquest.
You knew that nigger, Crown, didn't you?'
He evidently took Porgy's silence for
assent, for he went on :
'Well, all you got to do is to view the body
in the presence of the Coroner, tell him who
it is, and he'll take down all you say.'
Porgy essayed speech, failed, tried again,
and finally whispered :
'I gots tuh go an' look on Crown' face wid
all dem w'ite folks lookin' at me. Dat it?'
His voice was so piteous that the constable
reassured him:
212
PORGY
'Oh, cheer up; it's not so bad. I reckon
you've seen a dead nigger before this. It will
all be over in a few minutes.'
'Dey ain't goin' be no nigger in dat room
'cept me?' Porgy asked.
'Just you and Crown, if you still call him
one.'
After a moment Porgy asked:
'I couldn't jus' bring a 'oman wid me? I
couldn't eben carry my - my 'oman?'
'No,' said the white man positively. 'Now
I've got to be gettin' along, I reckon. Just
come over to the Court House in half an
hour, and I'll meet you and take you in. Only
be sure to come. If you don't show up it's
jail for you, you know.'
For a moment after the man had gone,
Porgy sat immovable, with his eyes on the
pavement. Then a sudden change swept over
him. He cast one glance up and down the
hard, clean street, walled by its uncompromis-
ing, many-eyed buildings. Then in a panic
he clambered into his cart, gave a cruel twist
to the tail of his astonished goat, and com-
menced a spasmodic, shambling race up
213
PORGY
Meeting House Road in the direction in
which he knew that, miles away, the forests
lay.
To many, the scene which ensued on the
upper Meeting House Road stands out as an
exquisitely humorous episode, to be told and
retold with touching up of high lights and
artistic embellishments. To these, in the eyes
of whom the negro is wholly humorous,
per se> there was not the omission of a single
conventional and readily recognizable stage
property.
For, after all, what could have been funnier
than an entirely serious race between a negro
in a dilapidated goat-cart, and the munici-
pality's shining new patrol wagon, fully
officered and clanging its bell for the crowds
to hear as it came.
The finish took place in the vicinity of the
railway yards and factories, and the street
was filled with workmen who smoked against
the walls, or ate their lunch, sitting at
the pavement's edge - grand-stand seats, as
214
PORGY
they were quite accurately described in the
telling.
The street cars ran seldom that far out ; and
Porgy had the thoroughfare almost entirely
to himself. His face wore a demented look,
and was working pitifully. In his panic, he
wrung the tail of his unfortunate beast with-
out mercy. The lunchers along the pavement
saw him coming, and called to friends further
along; so that as he came, he was greeted
with shouts of laughter and witty sallies from
the crowd.
Then the wagon appeared, a mere speck in
the distance, but sending the sound of its bell
before it as an advertisement of its presence.
It grew rapidly until it reached the cheering
crowds. Then it seemed that even the sedate
officers of the law were notabovea sly humour
of their own, for the vehicle slackened its pace
perceptibly and prolonged the final moment
of capture.
The big buildings had been left behind,
and there lay before Porgy only the scattered,
cheap bungalows of the labour quarters ; and
beyond, as elusive and desirable as the white
215
PORGY
man's heaven, glimmered the far line of the
woods, misty and beautiful in the pink autumn
haze.
The patrol forged ahead and came to a
clanging stop. The officers leapt out and,
amid shouts of laughter from the crowd, lifted
wagon, goat and man into the vehicle. The
driver jerked the horse back into its breech-
ings, swung the wagon with a dramatic snap
that was not wasted upon his gallery, and sent
it clanging and rocking back in the direction
from which it had come.
Porgy fell forward, with his arms thrown
out upon the back of the goat, and buried his
face between them in the shaggy, evil-smelling
hair.
The workmen upon the sidewalks cheered
and shouted with mirth. Surely it had been a
great day. They would not soon have another
laugh to match it.
When the wagon reached the down-town
district, the inquest was over. It had been a
simple matter to secure another witness for
216
PORG Y
the identification of the body. The jury had
made short work of their task, and had found
that Crown had come to his death as the
result of a chest wound at the hands of person
or persons unknown.
Porgy was taken at once to the station
house, where the charge of 'Contempt of
Court' was formally entered against him on
the blotter, and he was locked up to await
trial early the following morning.
Under the wheezing gas-jet, the Recorder
looked Porgy over with his weary glance,
brought the tips of his slender fingers to-
gether; gave him 'five days/ in his tired drawl,
and raised his eyes to the next negro on the
morning's list.
They hoisted the outfit, goat and all, into
the patrol for the trip to the jail, thus again
brightening a day for a group of light-hearted
Nordics upon the pavement.
A large, red-faced policeman took his seat
at the rear of the wagon.
'You sure beat all!' he confided to Porgy,
with a puzzled frown. 'Runnin' away like the
devil was after you, from bein* a witness; an'
217
PORGY
now goin' to jail with a face like Sunday
mornmY
In the fresh beauty of an early October
morning, Porgy returned home. There were
few of his friends about, as work was now
plentiful, and most of those who could earn
a day's wage were up and out. He drove
through the entrance, pulled his goat up short,
and looked about him.
Serena was seated on her bench with a baby
in her arms.
Porgy gave her a long look, and a question
commenced to dawn in his eyes. The child
turned in her arms, and his suspicions were
confirmed. It was his baby - his and Bess's.
Then Serena looked up and saw him. She
arose in great confusion, clasped the infant
to her ample bosom, and, without a word
of greeting, stepped through her doorway.
Then, as though struck by an afterthought,
she turned, thrust her head back through the
opening, and called loudly:
'Oh, Maria! hyuh Porgy come home.'
218
PORGY
Then she disappeared and the door
slammed shut.
Mystified and filled with alarm, Porgy
turned his vehicle toward the cook-shop and
arrived at the door just as Maria stepped over
the threshold.
She seated herself on the sill and brought
her face level with his. Then she looked into
his eyes.
What Porgy saw there caused him to call
out sharply:
'Where's Bess? Tell me, quick, where's
Bess?'
The big negress did not answer, and after
a moment her ponderous face commenced to
shake.
Porgy beat the side of his wagon with his
fist.
'Where, where -' he began, in a voice
that was suddenly shrill.
But Maria placed a steadying hand over his
frantic one and held it still.
'Dem dutty dogs got she one day w'en I
gone out,' she said in a low, shaken voice.
'She been missin' yuh an' berry low in she
219
PORG Y
min' 'cause she can't fin* out how long yuh is
lock up fuh. Dat damn houn' she knock off
de wharf las' summer fin' she like dat an' git
she tuh tek er swalluh ob licker. Den half
a dozen of de mens gang she, an' mek she
drunk/
'But wuh she now?' Porgy cried. 'I ain't
keer ef she wuz drunk. I want she now.'
Maria tried to speak, but her voice refused
to do her bidding. She covered her face with
her hands, and her throat worked convul-
sively.
Porgy clutched her wrist. 'Tell me,' he
commanded. 'Tell me, now.'
'De mens all carry she away on de ribber
boat,' she sobbed. 'Dey leabe word fuh me
dat dey goin' tek she all de way tuh Sawannah,
an' keep she dey. Den Serena, she tek de
chile, an' say she is goin' gib' um er Christian
raisin'.'
Deep sobs stopped Maria's voice. For a
while she sat there, her face buried in her
hands. But Porgy had nothing to say. When
she finally raised her head and looked at him,
she was surprised at what she saw.
220
PORGY
The keen autumn sun flooded boldly
through the entrance and bathed the droop-
ing form of the goat, the ridiculous wagon,
and the bent figure of the man in hard,
satirical radiance. In its revealing light,
Maria saw that Porgy was an old man. The
early tension that had characterized him, the
mellow mood that he had known for one
eventful summer, both had gone ; and in their
place she saw a face that sagged wearily, and
the eyes of age lit only by a faint reminiscent
glow from suns and moons that had looked
into them, and had already dropped down
the west.
She looked until she could bear the sight no
longer; then she stumbled into her shop and
closed the door, leaving Porgy and the goat
alone in an irony of morning sunlight.
THE END
221
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1. CAN SUCH THINGS BE ? A volume of Stories
by Ambrose Bierce
3 * Bierce never wastes a word, never coins a too startling phrase ;
he secures his final effect, a cold thrill of fear, by a simple, yet
subtle, realism. No anthology of short stories, limited to a score
or so, would be complete without an example of his unique
artistry.' Morning Post
2. THE BLACK DOG. A volume of Stories
by A. E. Coppard
3 * Mr. Coppard is a born story-teller. The book is filled with
a variety of delightful stuff: no one who is interested in good
writing in general, and good short stories in particular, should
miss it.' Spectator
3. THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY of a SUPER-TRAMP
by W. H. Davies. With a preface by G. Bernard Shaw
9 Printed as it was written, it is worth reading for its literary style
alone. The author tells us with inimitable quier modesty of how
he begged and stole his way across America and through England
and Y/ales until his travelling days were cut short by losing his
right foot while attempting to ' jump ' a tram.
4 . BABBITT A Novel
by Sinclair Lewis
3 ' One of the greatest novels I have read for a long time.
H. G. Wells * Babbitt is a triumph.' Hugh Walpole
' His work has that something extra, over and above, which
makes the work of art, and it is signed in every line with the
unique personality of the author.' Rebecca West
5. THE CRAFT OF FICTION
by Percy Lubbock
3 ' No more substantial or more charming volume of criticism
has been published in our time.' Observer
1 To say that this is the best book on the subject is probably true ;
but it is more to the point to say that it is the only one.'
Times Literary Supplement
6. EARLHAM
by Percy Lubbock
3 * The book seems too intimate to be reviewed. We want to be
allowed to read it, and to dream over it, and keep silence about
it. His judgment is perfect, his humour is true and ready ; his
touch light and prim; his prose is exact and clean and full
of music.' Times
7. WIDE SEAS fcf MANY LANDS A Personal Narrative
by Arthur Mason.
With an Introduction by MAURICE BARING
3 * This is an extremely entertaining, and at the same time, moving
book. We are in the presence of a born writer. We read with
the same mixture of amazement and delight that fills us through-
out a Conrad novel.' New Statesman
8. SELECTED PREJUDICES A book of Essays
by H. L. Mencken
3 ' He is exactly the kind of man we are needing, an iconoclast,
a scoffer at ideals, a critic with whips and scorpions who does
not hesitate to deal with literary, social and political humbugs
ii the one stashing fashion.' English Review
9. THE MIND IN THE MAKING An Essay
by James Harvey Robinson
3 * For me, I think James Harvey Robinson is going to be almost
as important as was Huxley in my adolescence, and William
James in later years. It is a cardinal book. I question whether
in the long run people may not come to it, as making a new
initiative into the world's thought and methods.* From the
Introduction by H. c. WELLS
10. THE WAY OF ALL FLESH A Novel
by Samuel Butler
3 'It drives one almost to despair of English Literature when one
sees so extraordinary a study of Englishlife as Butler's posthumous
Way of dll Flesh making so little impression. Really, the
English do not deserve to have great men.' George Bernard Shaw
11. EREWHON A Satire
by Samuel Butler
3 ' To lash the age, to ridicule vain pretension, to expose hypo-
crisy, to deride humbug in education, politics and religion, are
tasks beyond most men's powers ; but occasionally, very
occasionally, a bit of genuine satire secures for itself more than a
passing nod of recognition. Erewkon is such a satire. . . . The
best of its kind since Gullivers Travels. 9 Augustine Birrefl
12. EREWHON REVISITED A Satire
by Samuel Butler
3 ' He waged a sleepless war with the mental torpor of the pros-
perous, compkcent England around him ; a Swift with the
soul of music in him, and completely sane ; a liberator of
humanity operating with the wit and malice and coolness of
Mephistopheles.' Manchester Guardian
13. ADAM AND EVE AND PINCH ME Stories
by A. E. Coppard
3 Mr. Coppard's implicit theme is the closeness of the spiritual
world to the material ; the strange, communicative sympathy
which strikes through two temperaments and suddenly makes
them one. He deals with those sudden impulses under which
secrecy is broken down for a moment, and personality revealed
as under a flash of spiritual lightning.
14. DUBLINERS A volume of Stories
by James Joyce
3 A collection of fifteen short stories by the author of U/ysses.
They are all of them brave, relentless, and sympathetic pictures
of Dublin life ; realistic, perhaps, but not crude ; analytical, but
not repugnant. No modern writer has greater significance than
Mr. Joyce, whose conception and practice of the short story is
certainly unique and certainly vital.
15. DOG AND DUCK
by Arthur Machen
3 ' As a literary artist, Mr. Arthur Machen has few living equals,
and that is very far indeed from being his only, or even his
greatest, claim on the suffrages of English readers.' Sunday
Times
16. KAI LUNG'S GOLDEN HOURS
by Ernest Bramah
3 ' It is worthy of its forerunner. There is the same plan, exacti-
tude, working-out and achievement ; and therefore complete
satisfaction in the reading.* From the Preface by HILAIRE BELLOC
17. ANGELS & MINISTERS, AND OTHER PLAYS
by Laurence Housman
Imaginary portraits of political characters done in dialogue
Queen Victoria, Disraeli, Gladstone, Parnell, Joseph
Chamberlain, and Woodrow Wilson.
3 ' It is all so good that one is tempted to congratulate Mr.
Housman on a true masterpiece.' Times
18. THE WALLET OF KAI LUNG
by Ernest Bramah
3 * Something worth doing and done. ... It was a thing in*
tended, wrought out, completed and established. Therefore
it was destined to endure, and, what is more important, it was
a success.' Hilaire Belloc
19. TWILIGHT IN ITALY
by D. H. Lawrence
3 This volume of travel vignettes in North Italy was first published
in 1916. Since then Mr. Lawrence has increased the number
of his admirers year by year. In Twilight in Italy they will find
all the freshness and vigour of outlook which they have come to
expect from its author.
20. THE DREAM A Novel
by H. G. Wells
3 ' It is the richest, most generous and absorbing thing that Mr.
Wells has given us for years and years.' Dally News
' I find this book as close to being magnificent as any book that
I have ever read. It is full of inspiration and life.'
Daily Graphic
21. ROMAN PICTURES
by Percy Lubbock
3 Pictures of life as it is lived or has been or might be lived
among the pilgrims and colonists in Rome of more or less
English speech.
' A book of whimsical originality and exquisite workmanship,
and worthy of one of the best prose writers of our time.'
Sunday Times
22. CLORINDA WALKS IN HEAVEN
by A. E. Coppard
5 * Genius is a hard-ridden word t and has been put by critics at
many puny ditches, but Mr. Coppard sets up a fence worthy of
its mettle. He shows that in hands like his the English language
is as alive as ever, and that there are still infinite possibilities in
the short story.' Outlook
23. MARIUS THE EPICUREAN
by Walter Pater
3 Walter Pater was at the same time a scholar of wide sympathies
and a master of the English knguage. In this, his best known
work, he describes with rare delicacy of feeling and insight the
religious and philosophic tendencies of the Roman Empire at
the time of Antoninus Pius as they affected the mind and life of
the story's hero.
24. THE WHITE SHIP Stories
by Aino Kallas
With an Introduction by JOHN GALSWORTHY
3 ' The writer has an extraordinary sense of atmosphere.'
Times Literary Supplement
* Stories told convincingly and well, with a keen perceptive for
natural beauty.' Nation
25. MULTITUDE AND SOLITUDE A Novel
by John Masefield
3 ' As well conceived and done, as rich in observation of the
world, as profound where it needs to be profound, as any novel
of recent writing.' Outlook
'This is no common book. It is a book which not merely
touches vital things. It is vital.' Daily News
26. SPRING SOWING Stories
by Liam O'Flaherty
3 * Nothing seems to escape Mr. O'Flaherty's eye ; his brain
turns all things to drama ; and his vocabulary is like a river in
spate. Spring Sawing is a book to buy, or to borrow, or, yes,
to steal.' Bookman
27. WILLIAM A Novel
by E. H. Young
3 'An extraordinary good book, penetrating and beautiful.*
Allan Monkhouse
* All its characters are very real and alive, and William himself
is a masterpiece.' May Sinclair
28. THE COUNTRY OF THE POINTED FIRS
by Sarah Orne Jewett
3 * The young student of American literature in the far distant
future will take up this book and say " a masterpiece ! " as
proudly as if he had made it. It will be a message in a universal
language the one message that even the scythe of Time spares.'
From the Preface by WILLA GATHER
29. GRECIAN ITALY
by Henry Tames Forman
3 ' It has been said that if you were shown Taormina in a vision
you would not beJieve it. If the reader has been in Grecian
Italy before he reads this book, the magic of its pages will revive
old memories and induce a severe attack of nostalgia.' From
the Preface by H. TESTING JONES
30. WUTHERING HEIGHTS
by Emily Bronte
5 * It is a very great book. You may read this grim story of lost
and thwarted human creatures on a moor at any age and come
under its sway.' From the Introduction by ROSE MACAULAY
31. ON A CHINESE SCREEN
by W. Somerset Maugham
5 A collection of sketches of life in China. Mr. Somerset
Maugham writes with equal certainty and vigour whether his
characters are Chinese or European. There is a tenderness
and humour about the whole book which makes the reader turn
eagerly to the next page for more.
32. A FARMER'S LIFE
J by George Bourne
The life story of a tenant-farmer of fifty years ago in which the
author of The Bettesworth Book and The Memoirs of a Surrey
Labourer draws on his memory for a picture of the every-day
life of his immediate forebears, the Smiths, farmers and handi-
craft men, who lived and died on the border of Surrey and
Hampshire.
33. TWO PLAYS. The Cherry Orchard & The Sea Gull
by Anton TchekofF. Translated by George
Calderon
3 TchekofF had that fine comedic spirit which relishes the incon-
gruity between the actual disorder of the world with the under-
lying order. He habitually mingled tragedy (which is life seen
close at hand) with comedy (which is life seen at a distance).
His plays are tragedies with the texture of comedy.
34. THE MONK AND THE HANGMAN'S
DAUGHTER
by Ambrose Bierce
3 * They are stories which the discerning are certain to welcome.
They are evidence of very unusual powers, and when once
they have been read the reader will feel himself impelled to
dig out more from the same pen. 1 Westminster Gazette
35. CAPTAIN MARGARET A Novel
by John Masefield
5 ' His style is crisp, curt and vigorous. He has the Stevensonian
sea-swagger, the Stevensonian sense of beauty and poetic spirit.
Mr. Masefield's descriptions ring true and his characters carry
conviction.' The Observer
36. BLUE WATER
by Arthur Sturges Hildebrand
3 This book gives the real feeling of life on a small cruising yacht ;
the nights on deck with the sails against the sky, long fights with
head winds by mountainous coasts to safety in forlorn little island
ports, and constant adventure free from care.
37. STORIES FROM DE MAUPASSANT
Translated by Elizabeth Martindale
3 ' Hi3 " story " engrosses the non-critical, it holds the critical too
at the first reading. . . . That is the real test of art, and it is
because of the inobtrusiveness of this workmanship, that for once
the critic and the reader may join hands without awaiting the
verdict of posterity. 1 From the Introduction v FORD MADOX
FORD
38. WHILE THE BILLY BOILS First Series
by Henry Lawson
3 These stories are written by the O. Henry of Australia. They
tell of men and dogs, of cities and plains, of gullies and ridges,
of sorrow and happiness, and of the fundamental goodness that
is hidden in the most unpromising of human soil.
39. WHILE THE BILLY BOILS Second Series
by Henry Lawson
3 Mr. Lawson has the uncanny knack of making the people he
writes about almost violently alive. Whether he tells of jackeroos,
bush children or drovers' wives, each one lingers in the memory
long after we have closed the book.
41. IN MOROCCO
by Edith Wharton
5 Morocco is a land of mists and mysteries, of trailing silver veils
through which minarets, mighty towers, hot palm groves and
Atlas snows peer and disappear at the will of the Atlantic cloud-
drifts.
42. GLEANINGS IN BUDDHA-FIELDS
by Lafcadio Hearn
5 A book which is readable from first page to last, and is full of
suggestive thought, the essays on Japanese religious belief calling
for special praise for the earnest spirit in which the subject is
approached.
43. OUT OF THE EAST
by Lafcadio Hearn
5 Mr. Hearn has written many books about Japan ; he is saturated
with the essence of its beauty, and in this book the light and
colour and movement of that land drips from his pen in every
delicately conceived and finely written sentence.
44. K WAI DAN
by Lafcadio Hearn
5 The marvellous tales which Mr. Hearn has told in this volume
illustrate the wonder-living tendency of the Japanese. The
stories are of goblins, fairies and sprites, with here and there an
adventure into the field of unveiled supernaturalism.
45. THE CONQUERED
by Naomi Mitchison
A story of the Gauls under Caesar
3 ' With The Conquered Mrs. Mitchison establishes herself as the
best, if not the only, English historical novelist now writing.
It seems to me in many respects the most attractive and poignant
historical novel I have ever read/ New Statesman
4 6. WHEN THE BOUGH BREAKS
by Naomi Mitchison
Stories of the time when Rome was crumbling to ruin
5 ' Interesting, delightful, and fresh as morning dew. The
connoisseur in short stories will turn to some pages in this
volume again and again with renewed relish.' Times Literary
Supplement
47. THE FLYING BO'SUN
by Arthur Mason
5 ' What makes the book remarkable is the imaginative power
which has recreated these events so vividly that even the
supernatural ones come with the shock and the conviction
with which actual supernatural events might come.' From the
Introduction by EDWIN MUIR
48. LATER DAYS
by W. H. Davies
A pendant to The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp
5 *The self-portrait is given with disarming, mysterious, and
baffling directness, and the writing has the same disarmingness
and simpleness.' Observer
49. THE EYES OF THE PANTHER Stories
by Ambrose Bierce
5 It is said that these tales were originally rejected by virtually
every publisher in the country. Bierce was a strange man;
in 1914 at the age of seventy-one he set out for Mexico and
has never been heard of since. His stones are as strange as
his life, but this volume shows him as a master of his art.
50. IN DEFENCE OF WOMEN
by H. L, Mencken
3 ' All I design by the book is to set down in more or less plain
form certain ideas that practically every civilized man and
woman holds in petto t but that have been concealed hitherto
by the vast mass of sentimentalities swathing the whole woman
question.* From the Author's Introduction
51. VIENNESE MEDLEY A Novel
by Edith O'Shaughnessy
3 ' It is told with infinite tenderness, with many touches of grave
or poignant humour, in a very beautiful book, which no lover
of fiction should allow to pass unread. A book which sets its
writer definitely in the first rank of living English novelists.'
Sunday Times
52. PRECIOUS BANE A Novel
by Mary Webb
3 ' She has a style of exquisite beauty ; which yet has both force
and restraint, simplicity and subtlety ; she has fancy and wit,
delicious humour and pathos. She sees and knows men aright
as no other novelist does. She has, in short, genius.' Mr.
Edwin Pugh
53. THE INFAMOUS JOHN FRIEND
by Mrs. R. S. Garnett
5 This book, though in form an historical novel, claims to rank
as a psychological study. It is an attempt to depict a character
which, though destitute of the common virtues of every-day
life, is gifted with qualities that compel love and admiration.
54. HORSES AND MEN
by Sherwood Anderson
3 ''Hones and Men confirms our indebtedness to the publishers who
are introducing his work here. It has a unity beyond that of
its constant Middle- west setting. A man of poetic vision, with
an intimate knowledge of particular conditions of life, here
looks out upon a world that seems singularly material only
because he unflinchingly accepts its actualities.' Morning Post
55. SELECTED ESSAYS
by Samuel Butler
3 This volume contains the following essays:
The Humour of Homer How to Make the Best of Life
Quis Desiderio . . .? The Sanctuary of Montrigone
Ramblings in Cheapside A Medieval Girl's School
The Aunt, the Nieces, and Art in the Valley of Saas
the Dog Thought and Language
56. A POET'S PILGRIMAGE
by W. H. Davies
5 A Poet's Pilgrimage recounts the author's impressions of his
native Wales on his return after many years' absence. The author
tells of a walking tour he went through Wales. He stayed
in cheap rooms and ate in the small wayside inns. The result
is a vivid picture of the Welsh people, the towns and countryside.
57. GLIMPSES OF UNFAMILIAR JAPAN. First
Series
by Lafcadio Hearn
5 Nearly all the books which have been written about Japan have
either been compiled from official records, or have been
superficial sketches of a passing traveller. Of the inner life
of the Japanese we know practically nothing, their religion,
superstitions, ways of thought. In this book Lafcadio Hearn
reveals something of the people and their customs as they are.
58. GLIMPSES OF UNFAMILIAR JAPAN. Second
Series
by Lafcadio Hearn
5 These are sketches by an acute observer and a master of English
prose, of a Nation in transition of the lingering remains of
Old Japan, to-day only a memory, of its gardens, its beliefs,
customs, gods and devils, of its wonderful kindliness and
charm and of the New Japan, struggling against odds towards
new ideals.
59. THE TRAVELS OF MARCO POLO
Edited by Manuel Komroff
5 When Marco Polo arrived at the court of the Great Khan,
Pekin had just been rebuilt and made the capital of China. Kublai
Khan was at the height of his glory. Marco Polo rose rapidly
in favour and became governor of an important district. In
this way he gained first-hand knowledge of a great civilization
and described it in his travels with astounding accuracy and detail.
60. SELECTED PREJUDICES. Second Series
by H. L. Mencken
5 ' What a master of the straight left in appreciation ! Everybody
who wishes to see how common sense about books and authors
can be made exhilarating should acquire this delightful book.'
Morning Post
61. THE WORLD'S BACK DOORS
by Max Murray
With an introduction by HECTOR BOLITHO
J This book has been never before published. It is not an
account so much of places as of people. The journey round
the world was begun with about enough money to buy one
meal, and continued for 66,000 miles. There are periods as
a longshore man and as a sailor, and a Chinese guard and a
night watchman, and as a hobo.
62. THE EVOLUTION OF AN INTELLECTUAL
by J. Middleton Murry
5 These essays were written during and immediately after the
Great War and published in 1920. The author says that
they record the painful stages by which he passed from the
so-called intellectual state to the state of being what he now
considers to be a reasonable man.
63. THE RENAISSANCE
by Walter Pater
3 This English classic contains studies of those * supreme
. artists,' Michekngelo and Da Vinci, and of Botticelli, Delia
Robia, Mirandola, and others, who * have a distinct faculty of
their own by which they convey to us a peculiar quality of
pleasure which we cannot get elsewhere.' There is no
romance or subtlety in the work of these masters too fine for
Pater to distinguish in superb English.
64. THE ADVENTURES OF A WANDERER
by Sydney Walter Powell
5 The author has described the story of his roving years.
Throwing up a position in the Civil Service in Natal because
he preferred movement and freedom to monotony and
security, he started his wanderings by enlisting in an Indian
Ambulance Corps in the South African War. Afterwards he
wandered all over the world.
65. 'RACUNDRA'S' FIRST CRUISE
by Arthur Ransome
5 This is the story of the building of an ideal yacht which
would be a cruising boat that one man could manage if need
be, but on which three people could live comfortably. The
adventures of the cruise are skilfully and vividly told.
66. THE MARTYRDOM OF MAN
by Winwood Readc
JJ ' Few sketches of universal history by one single author have
been written. One book that has influenced me very strongly
is The Martyrdom of Man. This " dates," as people say, now-
adays, and it has a fine gloom of its own ; but it is still an
extraordinarily inspiring presentation of human history as one
consistent process.* H. G. Wells in The Outline of History.
67. THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MARK
RUTHERFORD With an introduction by
H. W. Massingham
5 Because of its honesty, delicacy and simplicity of portraiture,
this book has always had a curious grip upon the affections
of its readers. Every student must feel ' Ah, I have passed
that way, have thought thus. 1 An English Amiel, inheriting
to his comfort an English Old Crome landscape, he freed and
strengthened his own spirit as he will his reader's.
68. THE DELIVERANCE
by Mark Rutherford
5 Once read, Hale White [Mark Rutherford] is never forgotten.
But he is not yet approached through the highways of English
letters. To the lover of his work, nothing can be more attrac-
tive than the truth and delicacy of his art, and the pure and
serene atmosphere of thought in which it moves.
69. THE REVOLUTION IN TANNER'S LANE
by Mark Rutherford
3 ' Since Bunyan, English Puritanism has produced one imagina-
tive genius of the highest order. To my mind, our fiction
contains no more perfectly drawn pictures of English life in its
recurring emotional contrast of excitement and repose more
valuable to the historian, or more stimukting to the imaginative
reader.' H. W. Massingham
70. ASPECTS OF SCIENCE. First Series
by J. W. N. Sullivan
3 The papers which make up this volume have been selected
because, although they deal with different aspects of various
scientific ideas, yet they do illustrate, more or less, one point
of view. This book tries to show one or two of the many
reasons why science may be interesting for people who are
not specialists as well as for those who are.
71. M ASTRO-DON GESUALDO
Giovanni Verga. Translated by D. H. Lawrence
3 Verga, who died in 1922,13 recognized in Italy as the greatest
of Italian writers of fiction except Manzoni. He can claim
a place beside Hardy and the Russians. ' It is a fine, full tale,
a fine full picture of life, with a bold beauty of its own which
Mr. Lawrence must have relished greatly as he translated it.'
Observer
72. THE MISSES MALLETT
by E. H. Young
3 The virtue of this quiet and accomplished piece of writing
lies in its quality and in its character-drawing ; to summarize
it would be to give no idea of its charm. Neither realism nor
romance, it is a book by a writer of insight and sensibility.
73. SELECTED ESSAYS. First Series
by Sir Edmund Gosse, C.B.
3 * The prose of Sir Edmund Gosse makes no concession to the
passing of years. It is as rich in the colour of young imagina-
tion as in the mellow harmony of judgment. No living
critic has so sympathetically revealed the art in the artist, and
the artist in his art. For his rare and invaluable gift Sir Ed-
mund Gosse's literary kit-kats will continue to be read with
avidity long after the greater part of the academic criticism of
the century is swept away upon the lumber-heap.' Daily
Telegraph
74- WHERE THE BLUE BEGINS
by Christopher Morley
3 A delicious satirical fantasy, in which humanity wears a dog-
collar.
' Mr. Morley is a master of consequent inconsequence. His
humour and irony are excellent, and his satire is only the more
salient for the delicate and ingenuous fantasy in which it is set.*
Manchester Guardian
75. JAVA HEAD
by Joseph Hergesheimer
3 Mr. Hergesheimer has explored the European literary tradi-
tion and made of it something distinctively American. In his
art he has created a connoisseur's world of his own ; a world of
colourful bric-a-brac of ships and rustling silks and old New
England houses a world in which the rarest and most per-
plexing of emotions are caught and expressed for the perceptible
moment as in austerely delicate porcelain. Java Head is a
novel of grave and lasting beauty.
76. CONFESSIONS OF A YOUNG MAN
by George Moore
3 * Mr. Moore, true to his period and to his genius, stripped
himself of everything that might stand between him and the
achievement of his artistic object. He docs not ask you to
admire this George Moore. He merely asks you to observe
him beyond good and evil as a constant plucked from the
bewildering flow of eternity.' Humbert Wolfe
77. THE BAZAAR. Stories
by Martin Armstrong
3 * These stories have considerable range of subject, but in general
they are stay-at-home tales, depicting cloistered lives and deli-
cate finely fibred minds. . . . Mr. Armstrong writes beauti-
fully.' Nation and Athenaum
;8. SIDE SHOWS. Essays
by J. B. Atkins
With an Introduction by JAMES BONE
j Mr. J. B. Atkins, war correspondent in four wars, the London
editor of a great English paper, then Paris correspondent of
another, and latterly the editor of the Spectator, has long been
known by his colleagues as one of the most informed and refresh-
ing of writers. Side Shows^ which was published in 1908, con-
tained many inimitable sketches and fancies that had appeared
in the press. His subjects are briefly London and the sea.
79. SHORT TALKS WITH THE DEAD
by Hilaire Bclloc
j In this series of twenty-nine essays Mr. Hilaire Belloc succeeds
in attaining his usual high level of pungent and witty writing.
The subjects vary widely and include an imaginary talk with
the spirits of Charles I, the barber of Louis XIV, Napoleon,
bad verse, Venice, fakes, eclipses, Byron and the famous
dissertation on the Nordic Man.
80. ORIENT EXPRESS
by John dos Passes
5 The fact that the tracks led East is accidental ; the real thing is
that tracks lead. The chief thing that will make this book of
interest to people is that, as well as being the temperature chart
of an unfortunate sufferer from the travelling disease, it deals
with places shaken by the heavy footsteps of History, manifest-
ing itself as usual by plague, famine, murder, sudden death and
depreciated currency. But underneath the book is an ode to
railroad travel.
81. SELECTED ESSAYS. Second Series
by Sir Edmund Gosse, C.B.
5 A second volume of essays personally chosen by Sir Edmund
Gosse from the wide field of his literary work. One is de-
lighted with the width of his appreciation which enables him
to write with equal charm on Wye her ley and on How to
Itead the Bible.
82. ON THE EVE
by Ivan Turgenev. Translated by Constance
Garnett
5 To the large humanity of Turgenev criticism may yield. His
is the art which intensifies and enlarges men's sympathies on
a universal scale. In his characters is something of the width
and depth which so astounds us in the creations of Shakespeare.
On the Eve is a quiet work, yet over which the growing con-
sciousness of coming even ts casts its heavy shadow. Turgenev,
even as he sketched the ripening love of a young girl, has made
us feel the dawning aspirations of a nation.
83. FATHERS AND CHILDREN
by Ivan Turgenev. Translated by Constance
Garnett
3 * As a piece of art Fathers and Children is the most powerful of
all Turgenev's works. The figure of Bazarov is not only the
political centre of the book, against which the other characters
show up in their respective significance, but a figure in which
the eternal tragedy of man's impotence and insignificance is
realized in scenes of a most ironical human drama.' Edward
Garnett
84. SMOKE
by Ivan Turgenev. Translated by Constance
Garnett
5 In this novel Turgenev sees and reflects, even in the shifting
phases of political life, that which is universal in human nature.
We are shown the permanent attitude behind its changing
expression in thought and in action ; in the pictured individual
we see the recurrent type. His work is compassionate, beau-
tiful, unique ; in the sight of his fellow-craftsmen always
marvellous and often perfect.
85. PORGY. A Tale
by du Bose Heyward
3 This fascinating book gives a vivid and intimate insight into tha
lives of a group of American negroes, from whom Porgy stands
out, rich in humour and tragedy. The author's description of
a hurricane is reminiscent in its power.
86. FRANCE AND THE FRENCH
by Sisley Huddleston
3 'There has been nothing of its kind published since the War.
His book is a repository of facts marshalled with judgment ;
as such it should assist in clearing away a whole maze of mis-
conceptions and prejudices, and serve as a sort of pocket
encyclopaedia of modern France.' Times Literary Supplement
88. CLOUD CUCKOO LAND. A Novel of Sparta
by Naomi Mitchison
3 ' It is nothing short of genius that Mrs. Mitchison displays in
her romance. She seems indeed by imaginative insight to have
got into Greece.' Sunday Times
* Rich and frank in passions, and rich, too, in the detail
which helps to make feigned life seem real.' Times Literary
Supplement
89. A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS
by Stephen Graham
3 In his own experiences as a soldier Stephen Graham has con-
served the half-forgotten emotions of a nation in arms. Here
in all its tragedy is mindless courage, faith born of a great
emotion. Above all he makes us feel the stark brutality and
horror of actual war, the valour which is more than valour,
and the disciplined endurance which is human and therefore
the more terrifying.
90. THUNDER ON THE LEFT
by Christopher Morley
3 * It is personal to every reader, it will become for every one a
reflection of himself. I fancy that here, as always where work
is fine and true, the author has created something not as he
would but as he must, and is here an interpreter of a world more
wonderful than he himself knows.' Hugh Walpole
91. THE MOON AND SIXPENCE
by Somerset Maugham
5 A remarkable picture of a genius.
' Mr. Maugham has given us a ruthless and penetrating study
in personality with a savage truthfulness of delineation and an
icy contempt for the heroic and the sentimental.' The Times
92. THE CASUARINA TREE
by W. Somerset Maugham
j A set of six intensely dramatic stories in which the stain of the
East falls deeply on the lives of English men and women. Mr.
Maugham remains cruelly aloof from his characters. On
passion and its culminating tragedy he looks with unmoved
detachment, ringing the changes without comment and yet
with little cynicism. These talcs are brilliant and hard.
93. A POOR MAN'S HOUSE
by Stephen Reynolds
3 Vivid and intimate pictures of a Devonshire fisherman's life,
on sea and land.
' Compact, harmonious, without a single I won't say false
but uncertain note, true in aim, sentiment and expression,
precise and imaginative, never precious, but containing here
and there an absolutely priceless phrase. . . .' Joseph Conrad
94. WILLIAM BLAKE
by Arthur Symons
5 When Blake spoke the first word of the nineteenth century
there was none to hear it ; and now that his message has pene-
trated the world, and is slowly remaking it, few are conscious
of the man who first voiced it. This lack of knowledge w
remedied in Mr. Symons' work.
95. A LITERARY PILGRIM IN ENGLAND
by Edward Thomas
5 A book about the homes and resorts of English writers, from
John Aubrey, Cowper, Gilbert White, Cobbett, Wordsworth,
Burns, Borrow and Lamb, to Swinburne, Stephenson, Mere-
dith, W. H. Hudson and H. Belloc. Each chapter is a minia-
ture biography and at the same time a picture of the man and
his work and environment.
96. NAPOLEON : THE LAST PHASE
by The Earl of Rosebery
3 The idolatry and hatred which Napoleon inspired survived
him too long to allow the play of reason. Even now it is not
easy to gaze dispassionately at this dazzling luminary. Of
books and memoirs about Napoleon there is indeed no end, but
of the veracious books such as this book by Lord Rosebery
there are remarkably few. This book does not deal with the
speculation, it aims to penetrate the deliberate darkness which
surrounds the last act of the Napoleonic drama.
97. THE POCKET BOOK OF POEMS AND
SONGS FOR THE OPEN AIR
Compiled by Edward Thomas
5 This anthology is meant to please those lovers of poetry and the
country who like a book that can always lighten some of their
burdens or give wings to their delight, whether in the open air
by day, or under the roof at evening ; in it is gathered much of
the finest English poetry, and that poetry, at its best can hardly
avoid the open air. It is a book that will endure the sunshine
and the firelight and give out an equal sweetness on the table
and on the sward.
98. SAFETY PINS : ESSAYS
by Christopher Morley
With an Introduction by H. M. TOMLINSON
3 Very many readers will be glad of the opportunity to meet Mr
Morley in the role of the gentle essayist. He is an author who
is content to move among his fellows, to note, to reflect, and to
write genially and urbanely ; to love words for their sound as
well as for their value in expression of thought
99. THE BLACK SOUL : A Novel
by Liam O'Flaherty
5 The Black Soul of the story is a man shattered mentally and
physically by war and despairing of life. Nature brings him
back step by step to health and vigour. It is the fight of Nature
against the evil of civilization
1 The Black Soul overwhelms one like a storm. . . . Nothing
like it has been written by any Irish writer.' K. in The Irish
Statesman
ioo. CHRISTINA ALBERTA'S FATHER:
Novel
by H. G. Wells
5 ' The best living writer of imaginative fiction in England. . . .
As first reading the book is utterly beyond criticism ; all the
characters are delightfully genuine/ Spectator
' Brimming over with Wcllsian insight, humour and invention.
No one but Mr. Wells could have written the whole book and
given it such verve and sparkle.' Westminster Gazette
Beginning with 1928 The Traveller? Library will be pub-
lished as a joint enterprise by Jonathan Cape Ltd. and William
Heinemann Ltd. The new volumes announced to appear
during the spring of 1928 include also those to be published
by both firms. The series as a whole or any tide in the
scries can be ordered from either William Heinemann or
Jonathan Cape. Booksellers' only care must be not to dupli-
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Made and Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner Ltd., Frome and London
