O. Henry

                    The Social Triangle


Файл с книжной полки Несененко Алексея
OCR: Несененко Алексей июнь 2002


AT THE STROKE OF SIX Ikey Snigglefritz laid down his goose. Ikey was a 
tailor's apprentice. Are there tailor's apprentices nowadays?
   At any rate, Ikey toiled and snipped and basted and pressed and 
patched and sponged all day in the steamy fetor of a tailor-shop. But 
when work was done Ikey hitched his wagon to such stars as his 
firmament let shine.
   It was Saturday night, and the boss laid twelve begrimed and 
begrudged dollars in his hand. Ikey dabbled discreetly in water, 
donned coat; hat and collar with its frazzled tie and chalcedony pin, 
and set forth in pursuit of his ideals.
   For each of us, when our day's work is done, must seek our ideal, 
whether it be love or pinochle or lobster a la Newburg, or the sweet 
silence of the musty bookshelves.
   Behold Ikey as he ambles up the street beneath the roaring `El' 
between the rows of reeking sweatshops. Pallid, stooping, insignif 
icant, squalid, doomed to exist for ever in penury of body and mind, 
yet, as he swings his cheap cane and projects the noisome inhalations 
from his cigarette, you perceive that he nurtures in his narrow bosom 
the bacillus of society.
   Ikey's legs carried him to and into that famous place of 
entertainment known as the Cafe Maginnis - famous because it was the 
rendezvous of Billy McMahan, the greatest man, the most wonderful man, 
Ikey thought, that the world had ever produced.
   Billy McMahan was the district leader. Upon him the Tiger purred, 
and his hand held manna to scatter. Now, as Ikey entered, McMahan 
stood, llushed and triumphant and mighty, the centre of a huzzaing 
concourse of his lieutenants and constituents. It seems there had been 
an election; a signal victory had been won; the city had been swept 
back into line by a resistless besom of ballots.
   Ikey slunk along the bar and gazed, breath-quickened, at his idol.
   How magnificent was Billy McMahan, with his great, smooth, laughing 
face; his grey eye, shrewd as a chicken hawks; his diamond ring, his 
voice like a bugle call, his prince's air, his plump and active roll 
of money, his clarion call to friend and comrade -oh, what a king of 
men he was! How he obscured his lieutenants, though they themselves 
loomed large and serious, blue of chin and important of mien, with 
hands buried deep in the pockets of their short overcoats! But Billy - 
oh, what small avail are words to paint for you his glory as seen by 
Ikey Snigglefritz!
   The Cafe Maginnis rang to the note of victory. The white-coated 
bartenders threw themselves featfully upon bottle, cork and glass. 
From a score of clear Havanas the air received its paradox of clouds. 
The leal and the hopeful shook Billy McMahan's hand. And there was 
born suddenly in the worshipful soul of Ikey Snigglefritz an 
audacious, thrilling impulse.
   He stepped forward into the little cleared space in which majesty 
moved, and held out his hand.
   Billy McMahan grasped it unhesitatingly, shook it and smiled. Made 
mad now by the gods who were about to destroy him, Ikey threw away his 
scabbard and charged upon Olympus.
   `Have a drink with me, Billy,' he said familiarly, `you and your 
friends?'
   `Don't mind if I do, old man,' said the great leader, `just to keep 
the ball rolling.'
   The last spark of Ikey's reason fled.
   `Wine,' he called to the bartender, waving a trembling hand. The 
corks of three bottles were drawn; the champagne bubbled in the long 
row of glasses set upon the bar. Billy McMahan took his and nodded, 
with his beaming smile, at Ikey. The lieutenants and satellites took 
theirs and growled `Here's to you.' Ikey took his nectar in delirium. 
All drank.
   Ikey threw his week's wages in a crumpled roll upon the bar.   
   `C'rect,' said the bartender, smoothing the twelve one-dollar 
notes. The crowd surged around Billy McMahan again. Someone was 
telling how Brannigan fixed 'em over in the Eleventh. Ikey leaned 
against the bar a while and then went out.
   He went down Hester Street and up Chrystie, and down Delancey to 
where he lived. And there his womenfolk, a bibulous mother and three 
dingy sisters, pounced upon him for his wages. And at his confession 
they shrieked and objurgated him in the pithy rhetoric of the 
locality.
   But even as they plucked at him and struck him, Ikey remained in 
his ecstaric trance of joy. His head was in the clouds; the star was 
drawing his wagon. Compared with what he had achieved the loss of 
wages and the bray of women's tongues were slight affairs.
He had shaken the hand of Billy McMahan.

                        *   *   *   *   *

   Billy McMahan had a wife, and upon her visiting cards was engraved 
the name `Mrs. William Darragh McMahan.' And there was a certain 
vexation attendant upon these cards; for, small as they were, there 
were houses in which they could not be inserted. Billy McMahan was a 
dictator in politics, a four-walled tower in business, a mogul: 
dreaded, loved and obeyed among his own people. He was growing rich; 
the daily papers had a dozen men on his trail to chronicle his every 
word of wisdom; he had been honoured in caricature holding the Tiger 
cringing in leash.
   But the heart of Billy was sometimes sore within him. There was a 
race of men from which he stood apart but that he viewed with the eye 
of Moses looking over into the Promised Land. He, too, had ideals, 
even as had Ikey Snigglefritz; and sometimes, hopeless of attaining 
them, his own solid success was as dust and ashes in his mouth. And 
Mrs. William Darragh McMahan wore a look of discontent upon her plump 
but pretty face, and the very rustle of her silks seemed a sigh.
   There was a brave and conspicuous assemblage in the dining-saloon 
of a noted hostelry where Fashion loves to display her charms. At one 
table sat Billy McMahan and his wife. Mostly silent they were, but the 
accessories they enjoyed little needed the endorsement of speech. Mrs. 
McMahan's diamonds were outshone by few in the room. The waiter bore 
the costliest brands of wine to their table. In evening dress, with an 
expression of gloom upon his smooth and massive countenance, you would 
look in vain ~or a more striking figure than Billy's.
   Four tables away sat alone a tall, slender man, about thirty, with 
thoughtful, melancholy eyes, a Van Dyke beard and peculiarly white, 
thin hands. He was dining on filet mignon, dry toast and apollinaris. 
That man was Cortlandt Van Duyckink, a man worth eighty millions, who 
inherited and held a sacred seat in the exclusive inner circle of 
society.
   Billy McMahan spoke to no one around him, because he knew no one. 
Van Duyckink kept his eyes on his plate because he knew that every eye 
present was hungry to catch his. He could bestow knighthood and 
prestige by a nod, and he was chary of creating a too-extensive 
nobility.
   And then Billy McMahan conceived and accomplished the most 
startling and audacious act of his life. He rose deliberately and 
walked over to Cortlandt Van Duyckink's table and held out his
   `Say, Mr. Van Duyckink,' he said. `I've heard you was talking
about starting some reforms among the poor people down in my
district. I'm McMahan, you know. Say, now, if that's straight I'll
do all I can to help you. And what I says goes in that neck of the
woods, don't it? Oh, say, I rather guess it does.'
   Van Duyckink's rather sombre eyes lighted up. He rose to his
lank height and grasped Billy McMahan's hand.
   `Thank you, Mr. McMahan,' he said in his deep, serious tones.
`I have been thinking of doing some work of that sort. I shall be
glad of your assistance. It pleases me to have become acquainted
you.'
   Billy walked back to his seat. His shoulder was tingling from the
accolade bestowed by royalty. A hundred eyes were now turned
upon him in envy and new admiration. Mrs. William Darragh
McMahan trembled with ecstasy, so that her diamonds smote the
eye almost with pain. And now it was apparent that at many tables
there were those who suddenly remembered that they enjoyed Mr
McMahan's acquaintance. He saw smiles and bows about him. He became 
enveloped in the aura of dizzy greatness. His campaign coolness 
deserted him.
   `Wine for that gang!' he commanded the waiter, pointing with his 
finger. `Wine over there. Wine to those three gents by that green 
bush. Tell 'em it's on me. D - n it! Wine for everybody!'
   The waiter ventured to whisper that it was perhaps inexpedient to 
carry out the order, in consideration of the dignity of the house and 
its custom.
   `All right,' said Billy, `if it's against the rules. I wonder 
if'twould do to send my friend Van Duyckink a bottle. No? Well, it'll 
flow all right at the caffy to-night, just the same. It'll be rubber 
boots for anybody who comes in there any time up to 2 a.m.'
   Billy McMahan was happy.
   He had shaken the hand of Cortlandt Van Duyckink.

                           *   *   *   *   *

The big pale-grey auto with its shining metal work looked out of place 
moving slowly among the push-carts and trash-heaps on the lower East 
Side. So did Cortlandt Van Duyckink, with his aristocratic face and 
white, thin hands, as he steered carefully between the groups of 
ragged, scurrying youngsters in the streets. And so did Miss Con-
stance Schuyler, with her dim, ascetic beauty, seated at his side.
   `Oh, Cortlandt,' she breathed, `isn't it sad that human beings have 
to live in such wretchedness and poverty? And you - how noble it is of 
you to think of them, to give your time and money to improve their 
condition!'
   Van Duyckink turned his solemn eyes upon her.
`It is little,' he said sadly, `that I can do. The question is a large 
one, and belongs to society. But even individual effort is not thrown 
away. Look, Constance! On this street I have arranged to build soup 
kitchens, where no one who is hungry will be turned away. And down 
this other street are the old buildings that I shall cause to be torn 
down, and there erect others in place of those death-traps of fire and 
disease.'
   Down Delancey slowly crept the pale-grey auto. Away from it toddled 
coveys of wondering, tangle-haired, barefooted, unwashed children. It 
stopped before a crazy brick structure, foul and awry.
   Van Duyckink alighted to examine at a better perspective one of the 
leaning walls. Down the steps of the building came a young man who 
seemed to epitomize its degradation, squalor and infelicity - a 
narrow-chested, pale, unsavoury young man, puffing at a cigarette.
   Obeying a sudden impulse, Van Duyckink stepped out and warmly 
grasped the hand of what seemed to him a living rebuke.
   `I want to know you people,' he said sincerely. `I am going to help 
you as much as I can. We shall be friends.
   As the auto crept carefully away Cortlandt Van Duyckink felt an 
unaccustomed glow about his heart. He was near to being a happy
man He had shaken the hand of Ikey Snigglefritz.