Collected Stories of Carson McCullers by Carson Mccullers Read Free Book Online

that tumbled over each other helter skelter like a handful of marbles dropped downstairs. Stepping down to the room with the music he stood for a moment just outside the door. A wobbly lettered notice was pinned there by a thumbtack.
Poldi Klein
Please Do Not Disturb While Practicing
    The first time he had seen that, he recalled, there had been an E before the ING of practicing.
    The heat seemed to be very low; the folds of his coat smelted wet and let out little whiffs of coldness. Crouching over the half warm radiator that stood by the end window did not relieve him.
    Poldi—I've waited for a long time. And many times I've walked outside until you're through and thought about the words I wish to say to you. Gott! How pretty—like a poem or a little song by Schumann. Start like that. Poldi—
    His hand crept along the rusty metal. Warm, she always was. And if he held her it would be so that he would want to bite his tongue in two.
    Hans, you know the others have meant nothing to me. Joseph, Nikolay, Harry—all the fellows I've known. And this Kurt
only three times she couldn't
that I've talked about this last week—Poof! They all are nothing.
    It came to him that his hands were crushing the music. Glancing down he saw that the brutally colored back sheet was wet and faded, but that the notation inside was undamaged. Cheap stuff. Oh well—
    He walked up and down the hall, rubbing his pimply forehead. The cello whirred upward in an unclear arpeggio. That concert—the Castelnuovo-Tedesco—How long was she going to keep on practicing? Once he paused and stretched out his hand toward the door knob. No, that time he had gone in and she had looked—and looked and told him—
    The music rocked lushly back and forth in his mind. His fingers jerked as he tried to transcribe the orchestral score to the piano. She would be leaning forward now, her hands gliding over the fingerboard.
    The sallow light from the window left most of the corridor dim. With a sudden impulse he knelt down and focussed his eye to the keyhole.
    Only the wall and the corner; she must be by the window. Just the wall with its string of staring photographs—Casals, Piatigorsky, the fellow she liked best back home, Heifetz—and a couple of valentines and Christmas cards tucked in between. Nearby was the picture called Dawn of the barefooted woman holding up a rose with the dingy pink paper party hat she had gotten last New Year cocked over it.
    The music swelled to a crescendo and ended with a few quick strokes. Ach! The last one a quarter tone off. Poldi—
    He stood up quickly and, before the practicing should continue, knocked on the door.
    "Who is it?"
    "Me—H-Hans."
    "All right. You can come in."
    She sat in the fading light of the court window, her legs sprawled broadly to clench her cello. Expectantly she raised her eyebrows and let her bow droop to the floor.
    His eyes fastened on the trickles of rain on the window glass. "I—I just came in to show you the new popular song we're playing tonight. The one you suggested."
    She tugged at her skirt that had slid up above her stocking rolls and the gesture drew his gaze. The calves of her legs bulged out and there was a short run in one stocking. The pimples on his forehead deepened in color and he stared furtively at the rain again.
    "Did you hear me practicing outside?"
    "Yes."
    "Listen, Hans, did it sound spiritual—did it sing and lift you to a higher plane?"
    Her face was flushed and a drop of perspiration dribbled down the little gully between her breasts before disappearing under the neck of her frock. "Ye-es."
    "I think so. I believe my playing has deepened much in the last month." Her shoulders shrugged expansively. "Life does that to me—it happens every time something like this comes up. Not that it's ever been like this before. It's only after you've suffered that you can play."
    "That's what they claim."
    She stared at him for a moment as