Wilella Sibert Cather
Youth and the Bright Medusa
About the print version
Youth and the Bright Medusa
Willa Cather
Fourth Printing, First American Edition
Alfred A. Knopf
New York
1921
Note: The cover, endpapers, and title page of the 1925 (Pocket Book) edition
have been created as digital images, as the 1921 text edition used to create the
electronic text was not available for scanning.
Published: 1920
YOUTH AND THE BRIGHT MEDUSA
BY
WILLA CATHER
"We must not look at Goblin men,
We must not buy their fruits;
Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry, thirsty roots?"
Goblin Market
NEW YORK
ALFRED A KNOPFMXMXX
COPYRIGHT, 1920 , BY WILLA
CATHER
First Printing, September, 1920
Second Printing, December, 1920
Third Printing, April, 1921
Fourth Printing, June, 1921
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CONTENTS
COMING, APHRODITE!
THE DIAMOND MINE
A GOLD SLIPPER
SCANDAL
PAUL'S CASE
A WAGNER MATINEE
THE SCULPTOR'S FUNERAL
"A DEATH IN THE DESERT"
The author wishes to thank McClure's Magazine, The Century Magazine and
Harper's Magazine for their courtesy in permitting the re-publication of
three stories in this collection.
The last four stories in the volume, Paul's Case, A Wagner Matinee, The
Sculptor's Funeral, "A Death in the Desert," are re-printed from the
author's first book of stories, entitled "The Troll Garden," published in
1905.
Coming, Aphrodite!
I
DON HEDGER had lived for four years on the top floor of an old house on
the south side of Washington Square, and nobody had ever disturbed him. He
occupied one big room with no outside exposure except on the north, where he
had built in a many-paned studio window that looked upon a court and upon
the roofs and walls of other buildings. His room was very cheerless, since
he never got a ray of direct sunlight; the south corners were always in
shadow. In one of the corners was a clothes closet, built against the
partition, in another a wide divan, serving as a seat by day and a bed by
night. In the front corner, the one farther from the window, was a sink, and
a table with two gas burners where he sometimes cooked his food. There, too,
in the perpetual dusk, was the dog's bed, and often a bone or two for his
comfort.
The dog was a Boston bull terrier, and Hedger explained his surly
disposition by the fact that he had been bred to the point where it told on
his nerves. His name was Caesar III, and he had taken prizes at very
exclusive dog shows. When he and his master went out to prowl about University Place or to promenade
along West Street, Caesar III was invariably fresh and shining. His pink
skin showed through his mottled coat, which glistened as if it had just been
rubbed with olive oil, and he wore a brass-studded collar, bought at the
smartest saddler's. Hedger, as often as not, was hunched up in an old
striped blanket coat, with a shapeless felt hat pulled over his bushy hair,
wearing black shoes that had become grey, or brown ones that had become
black, and he never put on gloves unless the day was biting cold.
Early in May, Hedger learned that he was to have a new neighbour in the
rear apartment -- mdash; two rooms, one large and one small, that faced the
west. His studio was shut off from the larger of these rooms by double
doors, which, though they were fairly tight, left him a good deal at the
mercy of the occupant. The rooms had been leased, long before he came there,
by a trained nurse who considered herself knowing in old furniture. She went
to auction sales and bought up mahogany and dirty brass and stored it away
here, where she meant to live when she retired from nursing. Meanwhile, she
sub-let her rooms, with their precious furniture, to young people who came
to New York to "write" or to "paint" -- mdash; who proposed to live by the
sweat of the brow rather than of the hand, and who desired artistic
surroundings. When Hedger first moved in, these rooms were occupied by a young man who
tried to write plays, -- mdash; and who kept on trying until a week ago,
when the nurse had put him out for unpaid rent.
A few days after the playwright left, Hedger heard an ominous murmur of
voices through the bolted double doors: the lady-like intonation of the
nurse -- mdash; doubtless exhibiting her treasures -- mdash; and another
voice, also a woman's, but very different; young, fresh, unguarded,
confident. All the same, it would be very annoying to have a woman in there.
The only bath-room on the floor was at the top of the stairs in the front
hall, and he would always be running into her as he came or went from his
bath. He would have to be more careful to see that Caesar didn't leave bones
about the hall, too; and she might object when he cooked steak and onions on
his gas burner.
As soon as the talking ceased and the women left, he forgot them. He was
absorbed in a study of paradise fish at the Aquarium, staring out at people
through the glass and green water of their tank. It was a highly gratifying
idea; the incommunicability of one stratum of animal life with another, --
mdash; though Hedger pretended it was only an experiment in unusual
lighting. When he heard trunks knocking against the sides of the narrow
hall, then he realized that she was moving in at once. Toward noon, groans
and deep gasps and the creaking of ropes, made him aware that a piano was arriving. After
the tramp of the movers died away down the stairs, somebody touched off a
few scales and chords on the instrument, and then there was peace. Presently
he heard her lock her door and go down the hall humming something; going out
to lunch, probably. He stuck his brushes in a can of turpentine and put on
his hat, not stopping to wash his hands. Caesar was smelling along the crack
under the bolted doors; his bony tail stuck out hard as a hickory withe, and
the hair was standing up about his elegant collar.
Hedger encouraged him. "Come along, Caesar. You'll soon get used to a new
smell."
In the hall stood an enormous trunk, behind the ladder that led to the
roof, just opposite Hedger's door. The dog flew at it with a growl of hurt
amazement. They went down three flights of stairs and out into the brilliant
May afternoon.
Behind the Square, Hedger and his dog descended into a basement oyster
house where there were no tablecloths on the tables and no handles on the
coffee cups, and the floor was covered with sawdust, and Caesar was always
welcome, -- mdash; not that he needed any such precautionary flooring. All
the carpets of Persia would have been safe for him. Hedger ordered steak and
onions absent-mindedly, not realizing why he had an apprehension that this dish might be less readily at hand hereafter. While he ate,
Caesar sat beside his chair, gravely disturbing the sawdust with his tail.
After lunch Hedger strolled about the Square for the dog's health and
watched the stages pull out; -- mdash; that was almost the very last summer
of the old horse stages on Fifth Avenue. The fountain had but lately begun
operations for the season and was throwing up a mist of rainbow water which
now and then blew south and sprayed a bunch of Italian babies that were
being supported on the outer rim by older, very little older, brothers and
sisters. Plump robins were hopping about on the soil; the grass was newly
cut and blindingly green. Looking up the Avenue through the Arch, one could
see the young poplars with their bright, sticky leaves, and the Brevoort
glistening in its spring coat of paint, and shining horses and carriages, --
mdash; occasionally an automobile, mis-shapen and sullen, like an ugly
threat in a stream of things that were bright and beautiful and alive.
While Caesar and his master were standing by the fountain, a girl
approached them, crossing the Square. Hedger noticed her because she wore a
lavender cloth suit and carried in her arms a big bunch of fresh lilacs. He
saw that she was young and handsome, -- mdash; beautiful, in fact, with a
splendid figure and good action. She, too, paused by the fountain and looked back through the Arch up the Avenue. She smiled
rather patronizingly as she looked, and at the same time seemed delighted.
Her slowly curving upper lip and half-closed eyes seemed to say: "You're
gay, you're exciting, you are quite the right sort of thing; but you're none
too fine for me!"
In ...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Go to the beginning of the document
Go to previous page
Go to next page
Go to the end of document
