New-York tribune., 1918-08-20
A Greenwich
Village Going
By Ralph Block
"HEY had quality that singled them
out from the rest Of the room. 1t

"HEY had quality that singled them
out from the rest of the room. It
was Chanti table d'h5te in Bleecker
Street, and against the last years ladies
and the heavy men with pouched eyes they
shone like golden chldren-whch they
were Yet, being golden, they could not
escape something metallic about them
Selves and you found yourself turning
with relief to the human beings who sat
to stupidity over their wine and stalled the
air with cigarettes. These had signs of
being alive, at least. You knew that they
had moments in which they laughed loudly
and ungracefully, wcpt and ragged against
circumstances, swore roundly and defed the
gods. And, after ALL they were human. It
was what you wanted.
But these children--they seemed some
how to have discovered a shaded acre where
reality could be avoided, and to have spent
slumbrous hours there in ease and dreams.
Sleep remained with them, in the softness
of their eyes and the tossed splendor of
their hair. There were three of them. The
boy--for he was only boy, in spite Of the
tall scarlet glass he slipped from at inter-
walls in front Of him--had a fine, thin face,
with gray eyes that viewed the scene calmly
and bcncvoently The girls were much
less complaisant. One had bobbed hair and
piquant, inquisitlve nose On her COM
panion's head the hair was gathered up
loosely and pinned so swiftly that you
could see the gesture that had gone along
with 1t. Her lips were thin red line.
She seemed a little imperious about life, and
you were not sure but that all her gestures
we're like that startling and swift. She
drew on her cigarette with assurance and
looked around at all the rest of US curiously
and with not a little disdain. One felt hum
Bile before her it seemed so much
more important for the moment to be beau
tiful than alive.
"Do you think they ever had a mother 2"
said the Voice, meditativey, from across
the table. 1t was what the Voice would ask
There was only one answer to that There
was nothing quite so human as that about
them. mere Mother would never have
allowed them to scale such heights, to look
down from such superior hills on the eddy
ing rest of us. A Mother predicated life,
and they weren't, by any measure we knew,
the least bit alive.
ooh, you think they're intelligent" per-
sisted the Voice, "just because they've got
bobbed hair"
How could one explain that, explain
that one didn't want them to be intelligent?
1t would be disappointing to find them in
telligent; surely it was just enough that
they existed
Outside, hurdygurdy ground it's plain
tive way through "Rose Marie" and "The
Wearn' of the Green" and suddenly was
full into the "Marsellaise. The diners
moved uneasily, held by doubt; but at the
table at the far end, where the Olympians
sat, falling chair pistoed the silence. The
boy was standing, straight and pale and
stern, and in his eyes brightness
perilously like tears. The three of them
stood together until that cracked strain out
side had been wheedlcd to it's glorious end
Maybe it was theatrical. Perhaps it was
what the Village was bound to offer YOU.
But now one did not mind, for while the
heavy men and the last years ladies con-
tinued to look uncomprehendingly at their
wine and their food, the impcrious child
drew little flag from hidden pocket and
leaned over the table to pin it to his lapel.
nen SHe TOOK MS mead between her hands
and kissed him.
One understood it was her fare
we'll to him. He was going.
The little interlude came to an end; the
sounds Of drinking and eating and lighting
fire seemed all the sharper for the silence
that had gone before. But they had lost
their attraction. The music had come and
gone, but it had left something behind.
Out of the distance where it had with
drawn, came the Voice.
"1m sure now they had Mother" it
ventured softly
And to that one could only agree.