But the next day,
while he was walking in Michigan Avenue, the idea he had had about the
mirror trotted along beside him like some homeless Hector pup that he
couldn't shake. He looked up eagerly into the faces of the crowd on the
street, searching the many different eyes that moved by him for a "lead."
What the newspaper reporter wanted was to be able to begin his fiction
story by saying something like this: "People are so and so. The city is so
and so. Everybody feels this and this. No matter who they are or where
they live, or what their jobs are they can't escape the mark of the city
that is on them."
It was after 7 o'clock and the people in Michigan Avenue were going home
or sauntering back and forth, looking into the shop windows, with nothing
much to do. The street was still light, although the sun had gone. Hidden
behind the buildings of the city, the sun flattened itself out on an
invisible horizon and spread a vast peacock tail of color across the sky.
In Grant Park, opposite the Public Library, men lay on their backs with
their hands folded under their heads and stared up into the colors of the
sky. The newspaper reporter stood abstractedly on the corner counting the
automobiles that purred by to see if more taxicabs than privately owned
cars passed a given point in Michigan Avenue.
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