Place in the City by Howard Fast Read Free Book Online Page A

love you, and we are happy, yes?”
    â€œYes.”
    A little later, she was alone in her room. Looking at herself in her mirror, she tried to smile. When she smiled, she was as beautiful as they all said; her face was clean and open, the large space between her eyes giving her an appearance of simple honesty.
    â€œOnly because I love him,” she said. “God forgive me, because I know that it’s wrong.”
    She walked to the window and looked out into the night; she tried to think, but it was hard to measure right and wrong. Before, always before, right and wrong had appeared as simple as day and night, but now—
    She slipped back quietly, but when she opened the door to the front room, and heard him at the piano again, she stopped. When he sat at the piano, it appeared to be alive. The piano was part of him, part of his soul, part of his body; and it seemed to her that if she went away the piano would join in his madness. But wasn’t he mad already?
    Then she hated herself for even thinking that, when she of all people should have understood him. She didn’t love him, and most of the time, she was afraid of him, but at least she understood him.
    The more she thought, the more it hurt her. Her head ached, and she felt her nervousness throughout her body. But whether she was afraid or not, she would go through with it. Right or wrong, she had to. Life had suddenly extended itself out of the small, dark rooms of the music master. Outside, the snow and the beating cold wind was calling to her just as it called to the poet.
    If this was love, it was real and terrible, strong, too; in that way, it made her strong.

O ’LACY thumped his hand with his nightstick, kicked at the snow with the square toe of his boot. “Now, father, wouldn’t you say that there is a judgment coming on this city of ours, a great judgment to pay for its wickedness?”
    â€œWickedness,” murmured the priest. “Then is it more wicked than another city?—I don’t know. What man is doing, he has always done, and you wonder why—why?”
    â€œIt will be a judgment, sure,” said O’Lacy. “When women paint themselves, and then parade the streets openly to sell what they have, when they live in such a house as that with a man of my race selling their bodies and souls—I think, and I say to myself, Marcus O’Lacy, it is time to make your peace for a great judgment that is coming.”
    The priest smiled, very slowly, but the officer, staring straight in front of him, saw nothing of the smile. He hardly heard him say, softly: “The air is clean and the snow is cold. Tomorrow, you will see your children, O’Lacy, and then you will not be so hard on them. If they believed—”
    â€œIn the dollar and the gut!”
    â€œNo—not all. Sometimes there’s a light, and then they stagger out with the burden still on their shoulders. If they only knew which way to go; if I only knew. But if I have faith, I still don’t know.”
    â€œThey are rotten already. Look how Timy has the whole ward under his thumb, and if I were to say this to any other man, where would my job be tomorrow? Heelers—they’re all heelers, and cursed with it.”
    â€œYes—”
    â€œNow I am with two boys growing up, and what shall I say to them when they go to Shutzey’s house to take in the disease and the women?”
    â€œYou will tell them that it is wrong—”
    â€œAnd will they believe me, when they see Shutzey riding around in his big shiny car, and living in one of them places uptown? Will they believe me?”
    â€œThey’ll believe you.” But there was no conviction in the priest’s voice, and when he left the officer to go to his mission, he was wondering how long his faith would last, how long he could stand up in his cassock and tell people that he believed.
    On the next block, next door to Kraus’ saloon, was