Crazy Cock by Henry Miller Page B

were lots of young ladies who bought violets.
    Tony Bring described them—the long mane, the bare legs, the green face.
    â€œOh, those two! Sure . . . sure. Here, thees is eet!”
    A few hours later he went back and bought a bunch. He felt foolish walking along with a bouquet in his hand. He felt still more ridiculous when he stepped into the Caravan and presented them. It was the dinner hour and the place was jammed. Hildred had spotted him immediately; she had rushed up to him and squeezed his hand. She took him by the arm and ushered him outside. They stood in the little yard fenced in by the iron railing.
    He had two seats in his pocket for
Potemkin
. She was going to make an effort to get away, to give him an evening, as he had requested. He walked around the block a few times, as she had suggested. When she came out again he was met with a sorrowful look. “I can’t get away,” she said. “We’re short of girls tonight.”
    â€œBut can’t you take sick suddenly?”
    Nope. They were on to that game.
    He walked off dejectedly. At the corner he turned around. She was waving to him. She seemed to be genuinely disappointed, and yet she was smiling, too.
    He stood outside the lobby of the theater and watched the crowds pouring in. It was like a Zionist reunion. No one seemed to come alone. He saw a young couple, shabbily dressed, advancing eagerly toward the box office. He went up to them and offered them his tickets. As they were mumblingtheir thanks he turned his back and made off. He was swallowed up by the crowd and borne along at a ridiculous pace. They moved like an army of ants pushing through a crack in the sidewalk. As he drifted with the current, shunted here and there, rudderless, will-less, like a straw riding a whirlpool, he suddenly made up his mind to go back to the Caravan—no particular reason, just a blind impulse.
    Anchoring himself at the railing he gazed through the window. He saw the girls weaving in and out among the tables with the huge trays balanced in midair, stopping now and then to chat with some fresh Alec who knew how to put his arm around a girl’s waist or pinch her buttocks. But there was no sign of Hildred. He went inside and inquired for her. They said she had gone off.
    It was a strange coincidence, as things turned out. Hildred did go to see
Potemkin
after all. That very night. The Spaniard had hopped in—at the last minute—just when one of the girls who had been away ill returned for duty. And, strange as it may seem, he too had tickets for
Potemkin
. Extraordinary it was. Perfectly extraordinary. That’s how things happened in life. And, of course, there was no sense in refusing him. Besides, hadn’t she gone with the hope of seeing him somewhere in the audience?
    But when he admitted that he didn’t go she seemed amazed. “You didn’t go?” she repeated. She couldn’t understand. “Why, it was a marvelous picture! Marvelous! The way those Cossacks descended the stairs leading to the quay, the way they halted, like automatons, and fired into the mob. And the way that mob melted!” She described most vividly how a baby carriage had rolled down the long, white steps, how they dropped, the women and children, how they weretrampled on. It was magnificent. What gorgeous beasts those Cossacks were!
    She left off abruptly, lit herself a cigarette, and sat on the edge of the table, swinging her leg.
    â€œDo you know what a real pogrom is like?” she asked suddenly.
    He knew that the answer to this was no. He said no.
    She thought as much. He ought to hear Vanya talk. Vanya had taken part in more than one pogrom. . . .
    â€œWhere?” he demanded.
    In Russia, to be sure. Where did he suppose?
    â€œShe’s a Russian, then?”
    She was not only a Russian, he learned, but she was a princess, a Romanoff, a bastard Romanoff. So that’s how it was! Not only a genius, but a princess to