VI
Jimmie found that it was with romance as with martyrdom--there was
a lot of trouble about it which the romancers did not mention. He
really felt quite dreadful, for he had a deep regard for this mother
of his little ones, and he would not have made her suffer for
anything. And she was right, too, he had to admit--her shots went
deep home. "How'd you feel, if you was to find out I'd been walkin'
home with some man?" When it was put to him that way, he realized
that he would have felt very badly indeed.
A flood of old emotions came back to him. He went in memory with his
group of roystering friends to the house of evil where he had first
met Elizabeth Huszar, pronounced Eleeza Betooser. She had taken him
to her room, and instead of making herself agreeable in the usual
way, had burst into tears. She had been ill-treated, and was
wretchedly lonely and unhappy. Jimmie asked why she did not quit the
life, and she answered that she had tried more than once, but she
could not earn a living wage; and anyhow, because she was big and
handsome, the bosses would never let her alone, and what was the
difference, if you couldn't keep away from the men?
They sat on the bed and talked, and Jimmie told her a little about
his life, and she told about hers--a pitiful and moving story. She
had been brought to America as an infant; her father had been killed
in an accident, and her mother had supported several children by
scrub-work. Lizzie had grown up in a slum on the far east side of
New York, and she could not remember a time when she had not been
sexually preyed upon; lewd little boys had taught her tricks, and
men would buy her with candy or food. And yet there had been
something in her struggling for decency; of her own volition she had
tried to go to school, in spite of her rags; and then, when she was
thirteen she had answered an advertisement for work as a nursemaid.
That story had made an especial impression upon Jimmie--it was truly
a most pitiful episode.
Her place of employment had been a "swell" apartment, with a
hall-boy and an elevator--the most wonderful place that Lizzie had
ever beheld; it was like living in Heaven, and she had tried so hard
to do what she was told, and be worthy of her beautiful mistress and
the lovely baby. But she had been there only two days when the
mistress had discovered vermin on the baby, and had come to Lizzie
and insisted on examining her head. And of course she had found
something. "Them's only nits!" Lizzie had said; she had never heard
of anybody who did not have "nits" in their hair. But the beautiful
lady had called her a vile creature, and ordered her to pack up her
things and get out of the house at once. And so Lizzie had had to
wait until she became an inmate of a brothel before anybody took the
trouble to teach her how to get the "nits" out of her hair, and how
to bathe, and to clean her finger-nails and otherwise be physically
decent.
Jimmie recalled all that, and he fell on his knees before his wife,
and caught her two hands by main force, and swore to her that he had
not done any wrong; he went on to tell her exactly what wrong he had
done, which was the best way to convince her that he had not done
any worse. He vowed again and again that he would never, never dally
with Cupid again--he would see Comrade Baskerville at once and tell
her it was "all off".
And so Lizzie looked up through her tears. "No," she said, "you
don't need to see her at all!"
"What shall I do, then?'"
"Just let her alone--don't tell her nothin'. She'll know it's off
all right."
