food, the beautiful women, the well-dressed, prosperous and worldly-looking men and the pleasant weary languor of fading day, the huge nameless thrill and prophecy of oncoming night touched him with a feeling of joy and nameless anticipation. He felt, as he had never felt before, that strange, seductive promise which the city has at evening, at the end of a day of terrible summer’s heat, and which is so strangely mixed of sorrow and delight, of desolation and the promise of a wild and nameless joy.
And suddenly, all the horror, heat and desolation of the day were forgotten. He forgot the blind horror of the man-swarm thrusting through the mazes of the furious streets. He forgot the drowning flood of humid flesh, the pale, wet, suffering faces that thrust from nowhere out of sweltering heat, that were engulfed again into the heat-hazed distances of swarming streets in which man’s life seemed more uncountable than the sands of the sea, and more blind, lost and horribly forsaken than the lives of those eyeless crawls and gropes that scuttle blindly and for ever through murky ooze upon the sea’s vast floor.
The old red light of evening filled his heart again with its wild prophecy, its huge and secret joy, and the great stride of oncoming night revived again, in all their magic, his childhood dreams of the enchanted city, the city of great men and glorious women, the city of unceasing joy, of power, triumph and success, and of the fortunate, good, and happy life.
As Mr. Pierce sat there with his air of quiet and urbane authority, studying the menu with a little frowning smile through the lenses of a pince-nez that dangled fashionably and casually from a black silk cord when he was not using it, the boy felt an indescribable sense of wealth and power and prosperous ease. It seemed to him that everything in the world was his for the asking, and the suave service of the waiter, hovering over Mr. Pierce with poised pencil and an attitude of devoted respect, the rich designs of snowy linen, the heavy silver, the thick carpets, the handsome women and distinguished-looking men, all added to this feeling of wealth and happiness.
Mr. Pierce kept studying the menu with an air of good-natured seriousness, quizzing his son from time to time with gruff but genial banter:
“Joel,” he would say, “what do you want? Have you any preference of your own or will you leave it to me to decide?”
