A Dance of Folly and Pleasure: Stories

by O. Henry

  ‘Ain’t it a beaut?’ said Mrs Cassidy.

  She turned her face proudly for her friend Mrs Fink to see. One eye was nearly closed, with a great, greenish-purple bruise around it. Her lip was cut and bleeding a little and there were red fingermarks on each side of her neck.

  ‘My husband wouldn’t ever think of doing that to me,’ said Mrs Fink, concealing her envy.

  ‘I wouldn’t have a man,’ declared Mrs Cassidy, ‘that didn’t beat me up at least once a week. Shows he thinks something of you. Say! but that last dose Jack gave me wasn’t no homoeopathic one. I can see stars yet. But he’ll be the sweetest man in town for the rest of the week to make up for it. This eye is good for theatre tickets and a silk shirtwaist at the very least.’

  ‘I should hope,’ said Mrs Fink, assuming complacency, ‘that Mr Fink is too much of a gentleman ever to raise his hand against me.’

  ‘Oh, go on, Maggie!’ said Mrs Cassidy, laughing and applying witch hazel, ‘you’re only jealous. Your old man is too frapped and slow to ever give you a punch. He just sits down and practises physical culture with a newspaper when he comes home – now ain’t that the truth?’

  ‘Mr Fink certainly peruses of the papers when he comes home,’ acknowledged Mrs Fink, with a toss of her head; ‘but he certainly don’t ever make no Steve O’Donnell out of me just to amuse himself – that’s a sure thing.’

  Mrs Cassidy laughed the contented laugh of the guarded and happy matron. With the air of Cornelia exhibiting her jewels, she drew down the collar of her kimono and revealed another treasured bruise, maroon-coloured, edged with olive and orange – a bruise now nearly well, but still to memory dear.

  Mrs Fink capitulated. The formal light in her eye softened to envious admiration. She and Mrs Cassidy had been chums in the downtown paper-box factory before they had married, one year before. Now she and her man occupied the flat above Mame and her man. Therefore she could not put on airs with Mame.

  ‘Don’t it hurt when he soaks you?’ asked Mrs Fink curiously.

  ‘Hurt!’ – Mrs Cassidy gave a soprano scream of delight. ‘Well, say did you ever have a brick house fall on you? – well, that’s just the way it feels – just like when they’re digging you out of the ruins. Jack’s got a left that spells two matinees and a new pair of Oxfords – and his right! – well, it takes a trip to Coney and six pairs of openwork, silk lisle threads to make that good.’

  ‘But what does he beat you for?’ enquired Mrs Fink, with wide-open eyes.

  ‘Silly!’ said Mrs Cassidy, indulgently. ‘Why, because he’s full. It’s generally on Saturday nights.’

  ‘But what cause do you give him?’ persisted the seeker after knowledge.

  ‘Why, didn’t I marry him? Jack comes in tanked up; and I’m here, ain’t I? Who else has he got a right to beat? I’d just like to catch him once beating anybody else! Sometimes it’s because supper ain’t ready; and sometimes it’s because it is. Jack ain’t particular about causes. He just lushes till he remembers he’s married, and then he makes for home and does me up. Saturday nights I just move the furniture with sharp corners out of the way, so I won’t cut my head when he gets his work in. He’s got a left swing that jars you! Sometimes I take the count in the first round; but when I feel like having a good time during the week, or want some new rags, I come up again for more punishment. That’s what I done last night. Jack knows I’ve been wanting a black silk waist for a month, and I didn’t think just one black eye would bring it. Tell you what, Mag, I’ll bet you the ice cream he brings it tonight.’

  Mrs Fink was thinking deeply.

  ‘My Mart,’ she said, ‘never hit me a lick in his life. It’s just like you said, Mame; he comes in grouchy and ain’t got a word to say. He never takes me out anywhere. He’s a chair-warmer at home for fair. He buys me things, but he looks so glum about it that I never appreciate ’em.’

  Mrs Cassidy slipped an arm around her chum.

  ‘You poor thing!’ she said. ‘But everybody can’t have a husband like Jack. Marriage wouldn’t be no failure if they was all like him. These discontented wives you hear about – what they need is a man to come home and kick their slats in once a week, and then make it up in kisses and chocolate creams. That’d give ’em some interest in life. What I want is a masterful man that slugs you when he’s jagged and hugs you when he ain’t jagged. Preserve me from the man that ain’t got the sand to do neither!’

  Mrs Fink sighed.

  The hallways were suddenly filled with sound. The door flew open at the kick of Mr Cassidy. His arms were occupied with bundles. Mame flew and hung about his neck. Her sound eye sparkled with the love-light that shines in the eye of the Maori maid when she recovers consciousness in the hut of the wooer who has stunned and dragged her there.

  ‘Hello, old girl!’ shouted Mr Cassidy. He shed his bundles and lifted her off her feet in a mighty hug. ‘I got tickets for Barnum & Bailey’s, and if you’ll bust the string of one of them bundles I guess you’ll find that silk waist – why, good-evening, Mrs Fink, I didn’t see you at first. How’s old Mart coming along?’

  ‘He’s very well, Mr Cassidy – thanks,’ said Mrs Fink. ‘I must be going along up now. Mart’ll be home for supper soon. I’ll bring you down that pattern you wanted tomorrow, Mame.’

  Mrs Fink went up to her flat and had a little cry. It was a meaningless cry, the kind of cry that only a woman knows about, a cry from no particular cause, altogether an absurd cry; the most transient and the most hopeless cry in the repertory of grief. Why had Martin never thrashed her? He was as big and strong as Jack Cassidy. Did he not care for her at all? He never quarrelled; he came home and lounged about, silent, glum, idle. He was a fairly good provider, but he ignored the spices of life.

  Mrs Fink’s ship of dreams was becalmed. Her captain ranged between plum-duff and his hammock. If only he would shiver his timbers or stamp his foot on the quarterdeck now and then! And she had thought to sail so merrily, touching at ports in the Delectable Isles! But now, to vary the figure, she was ready to throw up the sponge, tired out, with a scratch to show for all those tame rounds with her sparring partner. For one moment she almost hated Mame – Mame, with her cuts and bruises, her salve of presents and kisses, her stormy voyage with her fighting, brutal, loving mate.

  Mr Fink came home at seven. He was permeated with the curse of domesticity. Beyond the portal of his cosy home he cared not to roam. He was the man who had caught the street-car, the anaconda that had swallowed its prey, the tree that lay as it had fallen.

  ‘Like the supper, Mart?’ asked Mrs Fink, who had striven over it.

  ‘M–m–m–yep,’ grunted Mr Fink.

  After supper he gathered his newspapers to read. He sat in his stockinged feet.

  Arise, some new Dante, and sing me the befitting corner of perdition for the man who sitteth in the house in his stockinged feet! Sisters of Patience who by reason of ties or duty have endured it in silk, yarn, cotton, lisle thread or woollen – does not the new canto belong?

  The next day was Labour Day. The occupations of Mr Cassidy and Mr Fink ceased for one passage of the sun. Labour, triumphant, would parade and otherwise disport itself.

  Mrs Fink took Mrs Cassidy’s pattern down early. Mame had on her new silk waist. Even her damaged eye managed to emit a holiday gleam. Jack was fruitfully penitent, and there was an hilarious scheme for the day afoot, with parks and picnics and Pilsener in it.

  A rising, indignant jealousy seized Mrs Fink as she returned to her flat above. Oh, happy Mame, with her bruises and her quick-following balm! But was Mame to have a monopoly of happiness? Surely Martin Fink was as good a man as Jack Cassidy. Was his wife to go always unbelaboured and uncaressed? A sudden, brilliant, breathless idea came to Mrs Fink. She would show Mame that there were husbands as able to use their fists and perhaps to be as tender afterward as any Jack.

  The holiday promised to be a nominal one with the Finks. Mrs Fink had the stationary washtubs in the kitchen filled with a t
wo weeks’ wash that had been soaking overnight. Mr Fink sat in his stockinged feet reading a newspaper. Thus Labour Day presaged to speed.

  Jealousy surged high in Mrs Fink’s heart, and higher still surged an audacious resolve. If her man would not strike her – if he would not so far prove his manhood, his prerogative and his interest in conjugal affairs, he must be prompted to his duty.

  Mr Fink lit his pipe and peacefully rubbed an ankle with a stockinged toe. He reposed in the state of matrimony like a limp of unblended suet in a pudding. This was his level Elysium – to sit at ease vicariously girdling the world in print amid the wifely splashing of suds and the agreeable smells of breakfast dishes departed and dinner ones to come. Many ideas were far from his mind; but the furthest one was the thought of beating his wife.

  Mrs Fink turned on the hot water and set the washboards in the suds. Up from the flat below came the gay laugh of Mrs Cassidy. It sounded like a taunt, a flaunting of her own happiness in the face of the unslugged bride above. Now was Mrs Fink’s time.

  Suddenly she turned like a fury upon the man reading.

  ‘You lazy loafer!’ she cried, ‘must I work my arms off washing and toiling for the ugly likes of you? Are you a man or are you a kitchen hound?’

  Mr Fink dropped his paper, motionless from surprise. She feared that he would not strike – that the provocation had been insufficient. She leaped at him and struck him fiercely in the face with her clenched hand. In that instant she felt a thrill of love for him such as she had not felt for many a day. Rise up, Martin Fink, and come into your kingdom! Oh, she must feel the weight of his hand now – just to show that he cared – just to show that he cared!

  Mr Fink sprang to his feet – Maggie caught him again on the jaw with a wide swing of her other hand. She closed her eyes in that fearful, blissful moment before his blow should come – she whispered his name to herself – she leaned to the expected shock, hungry for it.

  In the flat below, Mr Cassidy, with a shamed and contrite face, was powdering Mame’s eye in preparation for their junket. From the flat above came the sound of a woman’s voice, high-raised, a bumping, a stumbling and a shuffling, a chair overturned – unmistakable sounds of domestic conflict.

  ‘Mart and Mag scrapping?’ postulated Mr Cassidy. ‘Didn’t know they ever indulged. Shall I trot up and see if they need a sponge-holder?’

  One of Mrs Cassidy’s eyes sparkled like a diamond. The other twinkled at least like paste.

  ‘Oh, oh,’ she said softly and without apparent meaning, in the feminine ejaculatory manner. ‘I wonder if – I wonder if! Wait, Jack, till I go up and see.’

  Up the stairs she sped. As her foot struck the hallway above, out from the kitchen door of her flat wildly flounced Mrs Fink.

  ‘Oh, Maggie,’ cried Mrs Cassidy, in a delighted whisper; ‘did he? Oh, did he?’

  Mrs Fink ran and laid her face upon her chum’s shoulder and sobbed hopelessly.

  Mrs Cassidy took Maggie’s face between her hands and lifted it gently. Tear-stained it was, flushing and paling, but its velvety, pink-and-white, becomingly freckled surface was unscratched, unbruised, unmarred by the recreant fist of Mr Fink.

  ‘Tell me, Maggie,’ pleaded Mame, ‘or I’ll go in there and find out. What was it? Did he hurt you – what did he do?’

  Mrs Fink’s face went down again despairingly on the bosom of her friend.

  ‘For Gawd’s sake don’t open that door, Mame,’ she sobbed. ‘And don’t ever tell nobody – keep it under your hat. He – he never touched me, and – he’s – oh, Gawd – he’s washin’ the clothes – he’s washin’ the clothes!’

  Brickdust Row

  Blinker was displeased. A man of less culture and poise and wealth would have sworn. But Blinker always remembered that he was a gentleman – a thing that no gentleman should do. So he merely looked bored and sardonic while he rode in a hansom to the centre of disturbance, which was the Broadway office of Lawyer Oldport, who was agent for the Blinker estate.

  ‘I don’t see,’ said Blinker, ‘why I should be always signing confounded papers. I am packed, and was to have left for the North Woods this morning. Now I must wait until tomorrow morning. I hate night trains. My best razors are, of course, at the bottom of some unidentifiable trunk. It is a plot to drive me to bay rum and a monologueing, thumb-handed barber. Give me a pen that doesn’t scratch. I hate pens that scratch.’

  ‘Sit down,’ said double-chinned, gray Lawyer Oldport. ‘The worst has not been told you. Oh, the hardships of the rich! The papers are not yet ready to sign. They will be laid before you tomorrow at eleven. You will miss another day. Twice shall the barber tweak the helpless nose of a Blinker. Be thankful that your sorrows do not embrace a haircut.’

  ‘If,’ said Blinker, rising, ‘the act did not involve more signing of papers I would take my business out of your hands at once. Give me a cigar, please.’

  ‘If,’ said Lawyer Oldport, ‘I had cared to see an old friend’s son gulped down at one mouthful by sharks I would have ordered you to take it away long ago. Now, let’s quit fooling, Alexander. Besides the grinding task of signing your name some thirty times tomorrow, I must impose upon you the consideration of a matter of business – of business, and I may say humanity or right. I spoke to you about this five years ago, but you would not listen – you were in a hurry for a coaching trip, I think. The subject has come up again. The property—’

  ‘Oh, property!’ interrupted Blinker. ‘Dear Mr Oldport, I think you mentioned tomorrow. Let’s have it all at one dose tomorrow – signatures and property and snappy rubber bands and that smelly sealing-wax and all. Have luncheon with me? Well, I’ll try to remember to drop in at eleven tomorrow. Morning.’

  The Blinker wealth was in lands, tenements and hereditaments, as the legal phrase goes. Lawyer Oldport had once taken Alexander in his little pulmonary gasoline runabout to see the many buildings and rows of buildings that he owned in the city. For Alexander was sole heir. They had amused Blinker very much. The houses looked so incapable of producing the big sums of money that Lawyer Oldport kept piling up in banks for him to spend.

  In the evening Blinker went to one of his clubs, intending to dine. Nobody was there except some old fogies playing whist who spoke to him with grave politeness and glared at him with savage contempt. Everybody was out of town. But here he was kept in like a schoolboy to write his name over and over on pieces of paper. His wounds were deep.

  Blinker turned his back on the fogies, and said to the club steward who had come forward with some nonsense about cold fresh salmon roe: ‘Symons, I’m going to Coney Island.’ He said it as one might say: ‘All’s off; I’m going to jump into the river.’

  The joke pleased Symons. He laughed within a sixteenth of a note of the audibility permitted by the laws governing employees.

  ‘Certainly, sir,’ he tittered. ‘Of course, sir, I think I can see you at Coney, Mr Blinker.’

  Blinker got a paper and looked up the movements of Sunday steamboats. Then he found a cab at the first corner and drove to a North River pier. He stood in line, as democratic as you or I, and bought a ticket, and was trampled upon and shoved forward until, at last, he found himself on the upper deck of the boat staring brazenly at a girl who sat alone upon a camp stool. But Blinker did not intend to be brazen; the girl was so wonderfully good-looking that he forgot for one minute that he was the prince incog, and behaved just as he did in society.

  She was looking at him, too, and not severely. A puff of wind threatened Blinker’s straw hat. He caught it warily and settled it again. The movement gave the effect of a bow. The girl nodded and smiled, and in another instant he was seated at her side. She was dressed all in white, she was paler than Blinker imagined milkmaids and girls of humble stations to be, but she was as tidy as a cherry blossom, and her steady, supremely frank gray eyes looked out from the intrepid depths of an unshadowed and untroubled soul.

  ‘How dare you raise your hat to me?’ she asked, with a smile-re
deemed severity.

  ‘I didn’t,’ Blinker said, but he quickly covered the mistake by extending it to ‘I didn’t know how to keep from it after I saw you.’

  ‘I do not allow gentlemen to sit by me to whom I have not been introduced,’ she said, with a sudden haughtiness that deceived him. He rose reluctantly, but her clear, teasing laugh brought him down to his chair again.

  ‘I guess you weren’t going far,’ she declared, with beauty’s magnificent self-confidence.

  ‘Are you going to Coney Island?’ asked Blinker.

  ‘Me?’ She turned upon him wide-open eyes full of bantering surprise. ‘Why, what a question! Can’t you see that I’m riding a bicycle in the park?’ Her drollery took the form of impertinence.

  ‘And I am laying brick on a tall factory chimney,’ said Blinker. ‘Mayn’t we see Coney together? I’m all alone and I’ve never been there before.’

  ‘It depends,’ said the girl, ‘on how nicely you behave. I’ll consider your application until we get there.’

  Blinker took pains to provide against the rejection of his application. He strove to please. To adopt the metaphor of his nonsensical phrase, he laid brick upon brick on the tall chimney of his devoirs until, at length, the structure was stable and complete. The manners of the best society come around finally to simplicity; and as the girl’s way was that naturally, they were on a mutual plane of communication from the beginning.

  He learned that she was twenty, and her name was Florence; that she trimmed hats in a millinery shop; that she lived in a furnished room with her best chum, Ella, who was cashier in a shoe store; and that a glass of milk from the bottle on the windowsill and an egg that boils itself while you twist up your hair makes a breakfast good enough for anyone. Florence laughed when she heard ‘Blinker’.

  ‘Well,’ she said. ‘It certainly shows that you have imagination. It gives the “Smiths” a chance for a little rest, anyhow.’

  They landed at Coney, and were dashed on the crest of a great human wave of mad pleasure-seekers into the walks and avenues of Fairyland gone into vaudeville.