The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1932-07-08
Life
g
By FANNIE HURST
&c by Mcclure Newspaper Syndicate.)
tWNU Servicel


X the largest city in the world
seems to take cruel, almost de-
liciOus delight, night work on
a new subway in the making was
taking place directly in front of one
of the metropolis most glittering
theaters.
That meant that the street itself
was converted into a 30-foot canyon
fenced off with improvised wooden
ratings, while the limousines and
vehicles which drove ur nightly
around performance time had to dis
gorge their furred and perfumed,
high-hatted and white-gloved occu-
pants on little wooden runway which
carried them over the subway abyss.
Sometimes in their furs and per-
fumes, their capes and high hats, the
theater goers stopped to peer down
into the curious, the grotesque, the
torch-lghted bowels of the earth,
where men swung from cranes, or
drilled into rock with rasping noises
that tore the ears, or sluiced great
streams of clayey water over gran
ite-colored earth so that it oozed into
black, viscous mud and flowed off to
reveal more rock that in it's turn
had to be blasted.
1t was a hideous, fantastic spec
tacle. Somewhat like the drawings
of Dore to illustrate Dante's Inferno.
The mems faces, as they labored, be-
came grimed in black so that their
teeth, barred with effort, sprang out
whitley. Even in the biting winter
cold, chests were bare because of the
pull and strain. Blowtorches tore out
into the night. 1t was indeed a scene
to invite the squeals of the fur
wrapped women and the interested
contemplation of the men.
A scene that made it all the pleas
anter, however, to continue along the
runway and into the warm, brilliant
ly lit foyer of the theater and then
on into the velvety auditorium and
the sound of an orchestra weaving
softly and bringing illusion and sur
cease from such grim reality as the
men outside, forging into rock that
lined the inners of the earth and
blasting nature out of place that men
might ride in subways the faster, the
better, the quicker, to their destina-
lions of gain and greed.
The theater was surcease, all right.
after one look down into the flicker
ing chamber Of horrors.
The men themselves. digging that
subway, minded at first. 1t made them
growl and grumble to lave these
warm, fed people stand and laugh
and comment 1t made ugly lines
come out in their faces. and ugly
words under their breath. But after
a while they became accustomed to
the runway and its traffic. Most of
the time they did not look up at all.
There was one, though, a fellow
named Olaf Wentski, who did.
They fascinated him, those furred
and perfumed people on the runway.
They fascinated him in rather ter
rible way. The women filled him with
an anger that was like warm water.
choking him, in his throat.
The men made his hands curl in
ward with desire to throttle.
1t fascinated him to infiict this pain
upon himself, and yet it terrorized
him.
Life was that way. To resent, to
hate, to suffer, got you nowhere. 1t
was said that the Reds in Russia
were worse off than before the revo-
luton There was no combating the
soci..l system, so he had been told
over and over again. 1t made it diff
ficult to belong to the union if you
voiced obstreperous views. The union
was to protect men from unfair advan
tage, but not to instill rebellion.
No, it got you nowhere. If you
voiced your hatred under your breath
to the other men, they answered in
kind under their breath, but it got
yon nowhere. And yet, for the life
of him, Olaf could not help hating.
Those women with furs that he
wanted for his Fania and his chill
dren.
Those men with position and wealth
and power that he wanted for himself.
The subway canyon became hell
to Olaf.
The strains of the music that some
times crept out between blasts and
blow torches and grindings and drill
ings were slow poison in his veins.
Great. slow, heroically built fellow
that he was, his moroseness came to
earn for him the name "Glum."
Olaf was glum. With the sense of
injustice that weighted down his
heart as he labored through the icy
nights to make possible masterpiece
of subway construction into which
his name would never be writ Olaf
was glum with hate, with resentment,
with smoldering ache that would
not leave him.
Life became a burden almost too
heavy for him to drag. He slept away
Exquisite Designs of