A deplorable street--a cement and plate glass Circe. We walk--a long
procession of us. It is curious to note how we adjust ourselves to
backgrounds. In other streets we are hurried, flurried, worried. We summon
portentous frowns to our faces. Our arms swinging at our sides proclaim,
"Make way, make way! We are launched upon activities vital to the
commonwealth!"
But here--the sun bursts a shower of little golden balloons from the high
windows. The green of a park makes a cool salaam to the beetle-topped
traffic of automobiles. Rubber tires roll down the wide avenue and make a
sound like the drawn-out striking of a match. Marble columns, fountains,
incompleted architectural elegancies, two sculptured lions and the
baffling effulgence of a cinder-veiled museum offer themselves like
pensively anonymous guests. And we walk like Pierrots and Pierrettes, like
John Drews and Jack Barrymores and Leo Ditrichsteins; like Nazimovas,
Patricia Collinges and Messalinas on parole.
* * * * *
I have squandered an afternoon seduced from labors by this Pied Piper of a
street. And not only I but everybody I ever knew or heard of was in this
street, strutting up and down as if there were no vital projects demanding
their attention, as if life were not a stern and productive routine.
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