Voice of the City , livre ebook

The Floating Press - O. Henry

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

112 pages

English

Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

O. Henry is most widely recognized for his stories' dry wit and plot twists. But another major element in his fiction is his love of the American urban environment, as well as a keen appreciation of the rapid diversification that occurred in many cities in the early twentieth century. The collection The Voice of the City brings together an array of tales about humble people trying to survive in a major metropolis.

Sujets

Short story

Informations

Publié par	The Floating Press
Date de parution	01 octobre 2016
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781776672691
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0134€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

THE VOICE OF THE CITY
FURTHER STORIES OF THE FOUR MILLION
* * *
O. HENRY

*
The Voice of the City Further Stories of the Four Million First published in 1919 Epub ISBN 978-1-77667-269-1 Also available: PDF ISBN 978-1-77667-270-7 © 2014 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
*
I - The Voice of the City II - The Complete Life of John Hopkins III - A Lickpenny Lover IV - Dougherty's Eye-Opener V - "Little Speck in Garnered Fruit" VI - The Harbinger VII - While the Auto Waits VIII - A Comedy in Rubber IX - One Thousand Dollars X - The Defeat of the City XI - The Shocks of Doom XII - The Plutonian Fire XIII - Nemesis and the Candy Man XIV - Squaring the Circle XV - Roses, Ruses and Romance XVI - The City of Dreadful Night XVII - The Easter of the Soul XVIII - The Fool-Killer XIX - Transients in Arcadia XX - The Rathskeller and the Rose XXI - The Clarion Call XXII - Extradited from Bohemia XXIII - A Philistine in Bohemia XXIV - From Each According to His Ability XXV - The Memento
I - The Voice of the City
*
Twenty-five years ago the school children used to chant theirlessons. The manner of their delivery was a singsong recitativebetween the utterance of an Episcopal minister and the drone of atired sawmill. I mean no disrespect. We must have lumber and sawdust.
I remember one beautiful and instructive little lyric that emanatedfrom the physiology class. The most striking line of it was this:
"The shin-bone is the long-est bone in the hu-man bod-y."
What an inestimable boon it would have been if all the corporealand spiritual facts pertaining to man had thus been tunefully andlogically inculcated in our youthful minds! But what we gained inanatomy, music and philosophy was meagre.
The other day I became confused. I needed a ray of light. I turnedback to those school days for aid. But in all the nasal harmonieswe whined forth from those hard benches I could not recall one thattreated of the voice of agglomerated mankind.
In other words, of the composite vocal message of massed humanity.
In other words, of the Voice of a Big City.
Now, the individual voice is not lacking. We can understand thesong of the poet, the ripple of the brook, the meaning of the manwho wants $5 until next Monday, the inscriptions on the tombs ofthe Pharaohs, the language of flowers, the "step lively" of theconductor, and the prelude of the milk cans at 4 A. M. Certainlarge-eared ones even assert that they are wise to the vibrations ofthe tympanum produced by concussion of the air emanating from Mr. H.James. But who can comprehend the meaning of the voice of the city?
I went out for to see.
First, I asked Aurelia. She wore white Swiss and a hat with flowerson it, and ribbons and ends of things fluttered here and there.
"Tell me," I said, stammeringly, for I have no voice of my own, "whatdoes this big—er—enormous—er—whopping city say? It must have avoice of some kind. Does it ever speak to you? How do you interpretits meaning? It is a tremendous mass, but it must have a key."
"Like a Saratoga trunk?" asked Aurelia.
"No," said I. "Please do not refer to the lid. I have a fancy thatevery city has a voice. Each one has something to say to the one whocan hear it. What does the big one say to you?"
"All cities," said Aurelia, judicially, "say the same thing. Whenthey get through saying it there is an echo from Philadelphia. So,they are unanimous."
"Here are 4,000,000 people," said I, scholastically, "compressed uponan island, which is mostly lamb surrounded by Wall Street water. Theconjunction of so many units into so small a space must result in anidentity—or, or rather a homogeneity that finds its oral expressionthrough a common channel. It is, as you might say, a consensus oftranslation, concentrating in a crystallized, general idea whichreveals itself in what may be termed the Voice of the City. Can youtell me what it is?"
Aurelia smiled wonderfully. She sat on the high stoop. A sprayof insolent ivy bobbed against her right ear. A ray of impudentmoonlight flickered upon her nose. But I was adamant, nickel-plated.
"I must go and find out," I said, "what is the Voice of this City.Other cities have voices. It is an assignment. I must have it. NewYork," I continued, in a rising tone, "had better not hand me a cigarand say: 'Old man, I can't talk for publication.' No other city actsin that way. Chicago says, unhesitatingly, 'I will;' I Philadelphiasays, 'I should;' New Orleans says, 'I used to;' Louisville says,'Don't care if I do;' St. Louis says, 'Excuse me;' Pittsburg says,'Smoke up.' Now, New York—"
Aurelia smiled.
"Very well," said I, "I must go elsewhere and find out."
I went into a palace, tile-floored, cherub-ceilinged and square withthe cop. I put my foot on the brass rail and said to Billy Magnus,the best bartender in the diocese:
"Billy, you've lived in New York a long time—what kind of asong-and-dance does this old town give you? What I mean is, doesn'tthe gab of it seem to kind of bunch up and slide over the bar to youin a sort of amalgamated tip that hits off the burg in a kind of anepigram with a dash of bitters and a slice of—"
"Excuse me a minute," said Billy, "somebody's punching the button atthe side door."
He went away; came back with an empty tin bucket; again vanished withit full; returned and said to me:
"That was Mame. She rings twice. She likes a glass of beer forsupper. Her and the kid. If you ever saw that little skeesicksof mine brace up in his high chair and take his beer and— But,say, what was yours? I get kind of excited when I hear them tworings—was it the baseball score or gin fizz you asked for?"
"Ginger ale," I answered.
I walked up to Broadway. I saw a cop on the corner. The cops takekids up, women across, and men in. I went up to him.
"If I'm not exceeding the spiel limit," I said, "let me ask you. Yousee New York during its vocative hours. It is the function of you andyour brother cops to preserve the acoustics of the city. There mustbe a civic voice that is intelligible to you. At night during yourlonely rounds you must have heard it. What is the epitome of itsturmoil and shouting? What does the city say to you?"
"Friend," said the policeman, spinning his club, "it don't saynothing. I get my orders from the man higher up. Say, I guess you'reall right. Stand here for a few minutes and keep an eye open for theroundsman."
The cop melted into the darkness of the side street. In ten minuteshe had returned.
"Married last Tuesday," he said, half gruffly. "You know how theyare. She comes to that corner at nine every night for a—comes to say'hello!' I generally manage to be there. Say, what was it you askedme a bit ago—what's doing in the city? Oh, there's a roof-garden ortwo just opened, twelve blocks up."
I crossed a crow's-foot of street-car tracks, and skirted the edgeof an umbrageous park. An artificial Diana, gilded, heroic, poised,wind-ruled, on the tower, shimmered in the clear light of hernamesake in the sky. Along came my poet, hurrying, hatted, haired,emitting dactyls, spondees and dactylis. I seized him.
"Bill," said I (in the magazine he is Cleon), "give me a lift. I amon an assignment to find out the Voice of the city. You see, it's aspecial order. Ordinarily a symposium comprising the views of HenryClews, John L. Sullivan, Edwin Markham, May Irwin and Charles Schwabwould be about all. But this is a different matter. We want a broad,poetic, mystic vocalization of the city's soul and meaning. You arethe very chap to give me a hint. Some years ago a man got at theNiagara Falls and gave us its pitch. The note was about two feetbelow the lowest G on the piano. Now, you can't put New York into anote unless it's better indorsed than that. But give me an idea ofwhat it would say if it should speak. It is bound to be a mighty andfar-reaching utterance. To arrive at it we must take the tremendouscrash of the chords of the day's traffic, the laughter and musicof the night, the solemn tones of Dr. Parkhurst, the rag-time, theweeping, the stealthy hum of cab-wheels, the shout of the pressagent, the tinkle of fountains on the roof gardens, the hullabalooof the strawberry vender and the covers of Everybody's Magazine ,the whispers of the lovers in the parks—all these sounds must gointo your Voice—not combined, but mixed, and of the mixture anessence made; and of the essence an extract—an audible extract, ofwhich one drop shall form the thing we seek."
"Do you remember," asked the poet, with a chuckle, "that Californiagirl we met at Stiver's studio last week? Well, I'm on my way to seeher. She repeated that poem of mine, 'The Tribute of Spring,' wordfor word. She's the smartest proposition in this town just atpresent. Say, how does this confounded tie look? I spoiled fourbefore I got one to set right."
"And the Voice that I asked you about?" I inquired.
"Oh, she doesn't sing," said Cleon. "But you ought to hear her recitemy 'Angel of the Inshore Wind.'"
I passed on. I cornered a newsboy and he flashed at me prophetic pinkpapers that outstripped the news by two revolutions of the clock'slongest hand.
"Son," I said, while I pretended to chase coins in my penny pocket,"doesn't it sometimes seem to you as if the city ought to be able totalk? All these ups and downs and funny business and queer thingshappening every day—what would it say, do you think, if it couldspeak?"
"Quit yer kiddin'," said the boy. "Wot paper yer want? I go