Withered Skin of Berries.

- Jean Toomer.

1

Men listen to her lispings and murmurs. Black souls steal back to Georgia canefields, soft and misty, underneath a crescent moon. The mystery of their whispered promises seems close to revelation, seems tangibly incarnate in her. Black souls, tropic and firery, dream of love. Sing joyful codas to forgotten folk-songs. Spin love to the soft weaving of her arms. Men listen to her lispings and murmurs. White souls awake to adolescent fantasies they thought long buried with the dead leaves along the summer streets of mid-western towns. Solvents of melancholy burn through their bitten modes of pioneer aggressiveness to a southern repose. They too, spin love to the soft weaving of her arms. White men, black men, only in retrospective kisses, know the looseness of her lips..pale withered skin of berries...

* * * * *

Departmental buildings are grey gastronomic structures, innocuously coated with bile. They pollute the breath of Washington. Washington's breath is sickish and stale because of them. With the slow, retarded process of dyspeptics, they suck the life of mediocrities. They secrete a strange preservative that keeps flesh and bones intact after the blood is dry.. Vera is a typist. She is a virgin. A virgin whose notion of purity tape-worms her. Men sense her corporeal virginity. Her slim body, her olive skin, clear as white grapes held to the sun, are pure. Sandalwood odor of her thick brown hair, the supplication of her eyes, her lifeless lips, all pure. Men like to paw pure bodies. They adore them. So Vera came to find out. "They only want to paw me." She blamed the beast in men, black men especially. Pure bodies tease. So the men found out. "Vera is a tease." The thought found its way to her. She set up her creed: Tease the beast.. Vera is a typist. She is neither more nor less palitable than the other morsels that come in from South Carolina, Illinois, or Oregon. But there is a condiment-like irritability in the process of her digestion. Unquestionably, Vera is white. Routine segregates niggers. Black life seems more soluble in lump. White life, pitiably agitated to superiority, is more palitable. Black life is pepper to the salt of white. Pepper in the nose of white. Sneezes are first-rate aids to digestion. Unquestionably, Vera is white. Her fellow workers sneeze about the niggers. Niggers are all right as janitors, as messengers, in fact, anywhere where they keep their place. Niggers, despite their smell and flat feet aren't so bad. They are good to joke about. Sneezes over colored girls using powder and straightening their kinky hair to look like white. But it is a different thing when niggers try to pass for white. They are slick at it. You've got to watch out. But there is always a way of telling: finger-nails, and eyes, and odor, and oh, any number of things. Vera listens to them, smiles, jokes, laughs, sometimes with a curious gurgle-like flutter, says goodby to them of evenings outside the office door, and rides uptown to the respite of a nigger home.

Carl. A fellow in the office. From a small town across the lake from Chicago where his father is an independent dealer in oil. Carl got in the government service to earn a little money against the coming of a dream he had. He would be rich some day- when his uncle died. He had plans for the conquest of the Argentine. He had studied agriculture at

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Wisconsin. He read books, and even took a correspondence course in foreign trade. Spanish he was learning from Cortina. He went out of his way to pick acquaintances with South Americans, Spaniards, and Portuguese. This trait it was that first led him to Vera. She looked like Spanish. Casual remarks led to their having lunch together. Carl was sincere. He held roseate and chivalrous notions of womanhood. His enthusiasm bid well to hold out, for a time, against the stale utilitarian atmosphere of governmental Washington. In the office, and during the brief strolls they had after lunch, the inward anemia of Vera fed on it. She liked him. She established a sort of moral equilibrium and dulled a growing sense of deciet by resolving not to tease him. Carl wanted to take her home, to call on her, to take her to the movies, to Penn Gardens, to the dances the office gave. She put him off. Her soft reticence and sly evasions implied purity, evoked an aura of desirability and charm. Carl was buying a car, a Dodge. One afternoon in early spring the departments were given a holiday. It was unexpected. Vera could not possibly have any plans for it, and Carl told her so. He insisted on the falsity of the reasons she gave for refusing to drive with him. Vera was more than usually nervous that day. Carl's stubbornness irritated her. She felt herself getting hot, as of her nerves were heated pins and needles pricking her. That would not do. Carl's friendship made the office tolerable. He took hold her arm. Vera went with him.

Driving down Seventeenth Street, Carl only spoke to call the name of buildings. That was the Corcoran Gallery of Art, that, the Pan-American building. Negroes were working on the basin of an artificial lake that was to spread its smoothe glass surface before Lincoln's Memorial. The shadow of their emancipator stirred them neither to bitterness nor awe. The scene was a photograph on Vera's eye-balls. Carl was concentrated on the road. He squirmed skillfully in the traffic that was getting dense. The exotic fragrance of cherry blossoms reached them, slightly rancid as it mingled with the odor of exploded gasoline. As they passed the crescent line of blossomed trees, a group of Japanese, hats off, were seen, reverently lost in race memories of reed lutes, jet black eyebrows, and jeweled palanquins. Consciously, the episode meant nothing to Vera. But an unprecedented nostigilia, a promise of awakening, making her feel faint, clutched her throat almost to stricture, and made her swallow hard. Her face was pallid. Carl noticed it and said he guessed it was the heat from the engine and the motion of the car. A word was struggling with her throat. They swung into the speedway. Potomac's water was muddy, streaked with sea-weed. A tug, drawing a canal barge from miles in the interior, blew its whistle for the bridge to turn and let it by. Across the river, the green, and white marble splotches of Virginia's hills. Curious for her, lines of a poem came unbidden to her mind:

> far-off trees
> Whose gloom is rounded like the hives of bees
> All humming peace to soldiers who have gone.

She was trying to think where she had heard them. They hadn't impressed her at the time. No poems ever did. She would not let them. A word was struggling with her throat. Carl called her attention to the superb grace of a Pierce Arrow that glided by. They had reached the point. A hydroplane was humming high above the War College. -That man, what was his name? who Arthur Bond introduced to me the other night. Who hardly noticed me, he was so stuck up. Whom Art called a genius, and the poet

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of Washington. The lines, she felt sure, were his. Yes, Art had recited them. -What was his name? He had irritated her. He was closed up in himself. She had felt she could not tease him. -Well, so much the worse for Art Bond. What was his name? Men were fishing, casting their lines from the river wall. Straight ahead, between low banks of trees, the Potomac rolled its muddy course, and, miles away, emptied into the Chesapeake. Smoke from Alexandria was blown up-stream by the river breeze.

"What do you say we run out the Conduit Road to Cabin John's and make a day of it?"

Vera answered automatically

"Sorry I cant to-day. I have an engagement at eight."

"Youve broken what should have been mine enough to break one date with him."

The almost perfect white of his skin was flushed, and rubbed to glowing by the wind. The hair he brushed so smoothe was free and rumbled. His grey eyes were eagerly expectant. Vera's seemed to be glowing with prana. The coils of her hair threatened to uncurl and stream out backward like loose waves of silken bunting. Her skirt, rustling and flapping, was pressed close to her thighs.

"What do you say? We'll have dinner there, and afterwards go on to Great Falls. It would be a crime to waste a day like this."

Bud of a word was bursting in her throat

"Beautiful!"

"Good. I knew youd go. Come on, lets get on our way."

"It is a word I've never said before."

"You bet it is. But youve said it now- no more holding off like you used to do. 'Yes' is a word that once said can be said again. Oh I knew you would someday, Vera, but what made you wait so long? Look at the good times we have already missed. Come on. Lets make up for lost time."

Carl held her hand and was propelling her. At little startled, she looked at him.

"Where are you pulling me, Carl?"

That was a good move on Vera's part. Carl had never seen her playful. Good. He'd play the game.

"To the sand-dunes of Lake Michigan where two loves build a bungalow."

"Really, Carl, I mean it. Where are you pulling me to?"

A fly-like shadow of doubt lit on Carl. He tossed his head, and drove it off.

"Just where I said: to the sand-dunes, where rippling waves make music all the time."

Vera realized that she must have promised something. Well, why not. She let herself be pulled. She'd cover herself with play. Her hair uncurled.

"Beautiful Michigan's azure waves-"

"Fine! Sweet! O pottess of Benton Harbor!"

"How many rooms will the bungalow be?"

Carl was completely red

"Three."

Shadows of clouds, lazy-like, were gliding over the canopy-trees of the Potomac palisades. Below, the river, eddying in shallows, churn-ing to a cream foam against mud colored rocks, was carrying the brown burden of a wasted sediment...John Brown's body...from Harper's Ferry to the Chesapeake and the sea. Carl and Vera spun along the smoothe asphalt of Conduit Road. The country beside the pike was dotted now and

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then by clustered shanties- poor white homes. Carl was quite happily absorbed in the handling of his car. It was vaguely good to have her there beside him. Vera, since she had come with him, would have been hurt to know her temporary relegation to the position of a pleasant accessory. Silence released her for the uncertain attempt at recapturing a mood which, save as an unreal memory, was new and strange to her. -Art Bond.. what was his name? What dreams she had had, always swerved up from the concrete image of a man. The mood that had struggled to a hesitant and spattered ecstacy, that had forced some unused cravice of her soul to a vocalization of beauty, came from- what was his? She could not tease him. That hurt her. She had thrust him from her mind. Even his image would not come. The mood lay fallow before the unfound symbol of its evocation.

Carl was chatting over his cigarettes and chesse and coffee.

"You are sympathetic, Vera, and you'll understand. America, now the war is over, dont give a young fellow with push and brains and energy half a chance. Of course you can make money with a million. It makes itself. But what I want is not to loaf around and see it grow, or get tied down to some machine where even if you are a captain of industry you're no more than a petty officer in the army. Thats not what America stands for; but its what it is. And going to be more so in the future. The spirit of the country is one of individual enterprise. But unless it be in the oil-fields- and there the Standard gets you- its dying out, or, rather, its passing on to new lands. Now the Argentine is virginal. Or if not the Argentine, then some of those smaller countries. Theyre now just where this country was when Vanderbilt and Carnegie and Rockefeller first came up. Why a young fellow with go can go down there and clean up. But he's got to be quick about it. Ford and other men are pushing out over the world.. It sounds hard to say it, but I wish the Uncle would hurry up- and do whatever he's going to do. I'm studying hard- and say, Vera, heres where you can help me if you will. Lets talk Spanish when we're together. I dont know so much yet, but you can help me."

"I'd like to Carl, but I dont know any more Spanish than you do."

"But I thought-"

"If someone has told you that I am of Spanish descent, its true. My great grandfather was a Spaniard, but I was born in America, just like you. English is the only language that I know. Except for the smattering of others that I've picked up in school."

"I didn't think that you acted like a foreigner. Theyre all right, you know. I'm not prejudiced against them like I am against the niggers. A couple of them are friends of mine. Foreigners, I mean. But they do act a little different."

"Why do you hate niggers?"

"Hang if I know. Dont you?"

"Sometimes."

"Of course I dont hate them like these southern fellows do. And not as much as I hate Jews. The kikes are spreading all over the country; you see their names everywhere. There was one I remember at Wisconsin. He went out for Football. We tried to break him up. And then there was Bugger- thats what we called the nigger- he was a good sort of fellow, and we had good fun with him. A good linesman- tackle he was- but he didn't make the team. Ever been to Madison, Vera? Swell place. I deal location for a college town. A few snobs like there are everywhere, but most of the men came from the middle-west- good fellows Vera. Youd like them. And there was one colored fellow I remember- say, did you ever see

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Sang Osmond run? Conference quarter miler from Chicago. I ran against him once. Clean cut fellow, good sport, - I liked him. Niggers aren't so bad, if only they didn't look so."

"All colored people aren't disagreeable-"

"No, of course not. Theres Osmond. But you cant judge people by their exceptions. Look what we would have come to if we'd tried to believe that all Germans toed the mark of a mank, say, like Beethoven."

"Why judge at all."

"Good lord Vera, you've got to have something to go by. Take me, when I go down into South America. I'll feel superior to those greasers, - all Americans do. And that's the reason why we're running things. . . Come on, lets get out of here and run up to the falls before it gets too dark."

"Dont forget that I have an engagement at eight."

"Hang it, Vera, I thought youd broken it."

"That wouldnt be right Carl. You wouldnt want me to break one with you. I've been with you all day. And there are other times."

She had meant to make this the first and last.

"All right. Its a go. We'll make it Friday. Dance some place, and then take a drive. Thats closed. Come on, lets hurry up."

Carl paid the waiter.

The Dodge was purring along towards Great Falls.

Parked. They crossed a narrow springy toll-bridge into the clump of wood that vibrates like a G string to the deep bass of the falls. Dusk, subtly scented violet, sprayed through the scant foliage of clustered trees. Carl's skin was of a greenish pallor. Vera's, almost as purple as the duskk. The agitation of the ground, the fall's thunder, conjured the sense of an impending lightning. Vera shivered. Carl drew her close to him. As they walked, she began to fancy she saw things behind the trunks and rocks, hiding in the bushes. A twig cracked. Vera's jumping upset Carl. But only for a moment. The heavy pounding of the falls was getting nearer. Quarter heaven in the west, the evening star. "Queer thing," said Carl, "only a few minutes ago we were comfy in the car." She pressed his arm. He was holding her waist. Slender, supple waist, trembling at unseen terrors in the forest. Carl would walk in many forests. Across great wastes and plains. The pampa grass, great stationary sea. Villiages of untamed Indians. Stealthy marauding savages. This little wood near Washington was tame. Vera, for no reason, vaguely thought of Africa. She shivered. Carl stopped in their now winding path, and kissed her. Her lips were cool. Carl did not think of them as pale withered skin of berries. They reached the high-piled rocks. Footing was insecure. Vera stumbled. Carl lifted her in his arms. Carrying her, he almost fell over lovers hidden in the alcove of a giant mk boulder. With apologies, he moved on some paces, and set her down. The falls were below them. The foam, the dark suggestion of whirlpools, were wierd, wildly arush. One's shouting voice was barely heard above a whisper. Vera leaned against him. Her mind was blank. It was just good to be held in his arms. A flickering light, a torch perhaps, flared up on the other bank. An intangibly phosphorescent glow gave light. Sandalwood odor of mk hair. Carl's conscious mind had not planned on love. With a million coming, things could wait. It came. Love was a tender joy, protective-like, that gave soft scents of sandalwood above the din of churning waters, beneath the chaste fire of the evening star.

They too had found a boulder. One's voice could be heard. Vera, seated Indian fashion, responding, perhaps, to some folk persuasion of the place, rested Carl's head in her lap. Carl had been talking brokenly, trying to tell himself just how he felt. Her holding him made it easier

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to think. If it was love, it was curiously without passion. Passion was not love; but it was a part of it. One should pretend not to feel too much until one was married. But hiding it, and not feeling it at all, were two different things. "Once at Madison," he said aloud to Vera, "I felt like this." Her mind wanted Vera to listen. She must not tease or play with him. -Tease Art Bond though. Its almost time, it must be time, for my date with him. What was his name? I wont you come to me. Poet. I will not admit that he did or ever could hurt me. Oh yes and just you wait, I'll tease him too. Him whom I cannot tease. Who put beauty, a senseless warm thing like a sucking baby, in my mouth.

"I have never said it before."

"Said what Vera?"

"Oh nothing."

"As I was saying, he was an odd sort of chap. Peculiar, and most of the fellows resented it. It wasnt that he was stuck up. We couldnt see any reason why he should be. Enough money, but not too much at that. And I dont guess his folks were anything to brag about. He never mentioned them. In fact he never mentioned anything unless you sort of forced him to it. It looked as though he was acting up to mystery, and all that sort of thing. And then he was dark, and that made some difference. I gave him the duck until it came to summer school and myself and two other fellows from the frat moved over to the Y and on the sleeping porch I found myself in the bed next to him. We got to talking, and walking up the hill together. One day he asked me if I'd like to sail with him, him and two girls. He was strong for girls. That started it. And say, you should have seen him with that boat, as neat as I can handle a six-horse plow. We went to dances, and swam around a bit. One night he took me in his canoe. Just him and I. The moon was shinning. When we got out in the middle of the lake, he slid down on the bottom, on the cushions, and began to humming. Yodels and singing were coming from canoes all over the water. I didnt notice him at first. And then, something like a warm finger seemed to touch my heart. I cant just explain it. I looked around and saw him. His eyes, set in that dark face, looked like two stars. 'Put the paddle in,' he said, 'we'll drift.' I did. 'Turn around and slide over the bar, theres a cushion on the bottom for you,' he then said. He saw me try, tip the canoe, and hesitate. 'Come on, dont be afraid, youre with an Indian pale face friend.' Saying that, way out in the middle of the lake, surrounded by shores that were once the homex of Indians, made me feel strange and queer, you bet. Lights gleaming from the boat-house were far to shore. I made it, and again he started humming. "Are you an Indian, really?' I asked. He kept on humming. And God if it didnt raise a lump the size of an apple in my throat. 'Whats that?' I asked. 'A negro folk-song,' he stopped long enough to say. 'God, I didnt know niggers could sing like that.' An answer, I guess, wasnt necessary. Abruptly he stopped singing, and I could feel him quiver-like-"

-He does not paw me. His arms embrace the shadow of a dream. I cannot tease him. His dream is a solvent of my resolution. He has taken something from me. It will be harder to face the office. I'd like to hate him for it. Easier to face the office because I share his dream. Will it melt something in me? Why cant I feel? If Art Bond should dream I could not tease him. Time to go. What was his name? Will no one ever awake a dream in me? Poet. He must be like the fellow Carl is talking about. Him whom I cannot tease. What is his name? Who put beauty, a senseless warm thing like a sucking baby, in my mouth.

"I have never said that before."

"There you go again. Said what Vera? Youre not listening."

"Oh nothing. Yes I am. Go on Carl."

"I could feel him quiver-like. 'Carl,' he said, his eyes were

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gleaming, 'the wonder and mystery of it.' I had a quick foolish notion that he was trying to play up to the role we'd given him. Then I think I began to feel like he did. 'Dead leaves of northern Europe, Carl, have decayed for roots tangled here in America. Roots thrusting up a strak fresh life. Thats you. Multi-colored leaves, tropic, temperate, have decayed for me. We meet here where a race has died for both of us. Only a few years ago, forests and fields, this lake, Mendota, heard the corn and hunting songs of a vanished people. They have resolved their individualism to the common stream. We live on it. We live on them. And we are growing. Life lives on itself and grows.. The mystery and wonder of it.' He paused. And then, 'Deep River spreads over Mendota. Whirl up and dance above them new world soul!' God if he hadn't stirred me. Songs, and young girl's voices yodelling, cris-crossed on the waters. He turned to me and asked, 'Carl, you are a field man, have you ever felt overpowered by the sum of something, of which plowed fields, blue sky, and sunset were a part, overpowered till you sank choking with wonder and reverence?' I had, almost, once. I told him. He closed his hand over mine. Me, a football man, holding hands with a man on the lake. If that had ever got out it would have done for me. But it never did. I could never tell it. Only to you. You are the first. And that's the point of all I've told you. I feel like that with you, here by the falls, in the shadow of a boulder where some Indian made love."

Carl's words were strange to him.

Vera shivered.

"Chilly?"

"A little."

Carl shifted positions and took her in his arms. He kissed her lips.. pale withered skin of berries, puckered a little tight..and drew her to him with a tension that was more muscular than passionate...

John Brown's body, rumbles in the river,
John Brown's body, thunders down the falls..

"What was that Carl?"

"I didn't hear a thing, sweetheart."

It would be good to fall in love with Carl, really. With anybody. Tease? Her mind said that because no man torrental enough- but there had been men, men with swift brutal passions- they didn't love. They bruised her with their instincts, bruised and frightened and disgusted her.. she must keep her body pure.. Carl didn't care. He loved as she had long wanted men to. Why couldn't she feel? She recalled that she had not had a genuine emotion in the presence of a man.. at night, when she was alone.. since her last affair at home. Ugly. Why were men so callous? Brutal in insisting on her sacrifice. Then they wouldn't want her. She must keep her body pure. Why couldn't she feel? This was pure love. Why couldn't she feel to return it? Feel for him the emotion that had spattered in beautiful. Perhaps- Vera, lead in her heart, faced the possibility, that, for some unknown reason, maybe she really couldn't love. Some shameful defect made her incapable of it. She pressed Carl close to her. Held him to her lips. Tensioned thighs. Her heart beat faster. She strained. Carl's strength was tender. Why couldn't she feel? Something in her felt like it was empty. Men poured themselves into her because she was empty..

"It's time to go, now, Carl."

"I had forgotten. Of course, sweetheart."

Deep bass of the falls seemed coming from a throat that had been turned the other way. ..John Brown's body... They crossed the toll-bridge and found their car.

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Withered Skin of Berries.

Jean Toomer.

As Carl swung into S Street from Sixteenth, Vera saw Art Bond come out her gate, and walk their way. The car passed. He did not see them. With a hasty goodby she ran up the steps and waited in the vestibule until Carl had gone. Coming down, Vera called to Art who was standing, undecided, on the corner. He seemed impersonalized, a shadow, beneath the great bulk of the Masonic Temple.

"I had a car, and everything," Art was irritably saying.

"I'm sorry Art, I tried to be on time. Is it so very late?"

"How'd you get in anyway? Was that you in that car?"

"I dropped from the stars."

"It was a Dodge. Whose was it? Dave Teyy's?"

"What a simple name!"

Her eyes were sparkling.

"I dont guess its too late yet, that is, if you really want to go."

"And I have been searching, Oh how I have been searching all afternoon."

Vera seemed talking to the apex of the Temple.

"Now what's the use of lying Vera? You could have found me easy enough if you wanted to."

"David Teyy."

"Oh hang him Vera. Youre with me now. That is, if you want to go."

Vera looked down into a dark serious face, mobile and expressive, like shifting, sun-shot dusk.

"Of course I want to go, Art. Where's the car?"

"Can I use your phone a minute?"

Vera was hard to talk to, hard to touch to-night. It was to love her into a mood for loving when they reached the park that Art hired a car. The Cadillac had hummed up Sixteenth Street, like a shuttle, between the Castle and Meridian Hill, past the portentious embassies. Turning, it had followed the curve of Park Road, across the board bridge blanketed in a chill, leyden vapor. Down the hill, hemmed in by the quickening life of Rock Creek Park. The driver had been dismissed, and told to return within an hour. During the whole ride Vera seemed absorbed in herself, and kept to her corner of the car. The wind whistled on the sharp edge of an invisible partition that was between them. Now they sat, Vera hugging her knees, on the slope of a knoll within earshot of the curling of the creek. Great curved mass trees in sharp planes of shadow and moonlight. Mountain clouds, fleecy silver. Massive undulations, barely perceptible:- earth's respiration, earth breathing to life. Vera felt dwarfed. She felt that Art could be of no aid to her. Dwarfed by the great heaving blocks of nature. By the shadow of a man. David Teyy. He should be riding the backs of trees, spurring them to swing up and trumpet. Him whom she could not tease. Who put beauty, a senseless warm thing like a sucking baby- Suppose I cannot love him? The thought gave her a sinking feeling, and made her shiver.

"Chilly."

"A little."

Art tucked a robe around her shoulder. He stretched out, lit a cigarette. Women were like that; you had to wait for them. Vera was thankful for the glow of Art's cigarette. It was a small point one could look at. Narrowing her eyes, Art's face looked like a far-off mountain, faintly ruddy, beneath the supernal glowing of a red star. Black man, white man, lips seeking love, souls dreaming. Man of the multi-colored leaves, dreaming, will your lips seek love? Vera raised her hand, delicate, tapering olive fingers, and pressed it against her lips..pale withered skin of Berries.. The contact was loose and cool. Her heart sank. She

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shivered. Art reached up and pulled her down beside him.

"What's the matter, sugar?"

"Nothing, only I don't feel so well to-night."

"Driving all afternoon should have done better for you than that.
And with Dave Teyy."

"I wasnt with him Art."

"Now what's the use of lying Vera?"

"I tell you I wasnt."

"Oh well, dont lets scrap about it. He's my friend. But I've got
to bar him with my girls. He doesn't believe in letting them out."

"What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean."

"Well, he let me out."

"I thought you wasnt with him."

"Art, you are so stupid when you fuss. Why don't you sing, or..love
me?"

"You irritate me. You wont let me."

"There, there. Thats a good sweet boy."

Vera, softly weaving arms. Sandalwood odor of hair. Murmurs. Lispings
Art's arms tightened around her. Vera averted her lips. He kissed her
throat. Caught a soft fold in his teeth and bit it.

"You mustnt Art."

"Mustnt love you?"

"Not that way... O cant you see I'm empty.. Art, Art I'm empty, fill
me with dreams."

"With love."

"No, with dreams. Dreams of how life grows, feeding on itself.
Dreams of dead leaves, multi-colored leaves. Dreams of leaves decaying
for a vernal stalk, phosphorescent in the dusk, flaming in dawn. O Art,
in that South from which you come, under its hates and lynchings, have
you no lake, no river, no falls to sit beside and dream..dream?"

"Red X dust roads are our rivers, the swishing of the cane, our
falls. I am an inland man."

"Then you have choked with the sum- O tell me Art, tell me, I know
you have."

"Beside the syrup-man?"

"Beside the syrup-man."

"He comes to boil the cane when the harvest is through. He pitches
X camp in a clearing of the wood. You smell only the pines at first,
and saw-dust smoke. Then a mule, circling with a beam, begins to grind.
The syrup, toted in a barrel, is poured on the copper boiling stove. Then
you begin to smell the cane. It goes to your head like wine. Men are
seated round. Some chewing cane-stalk, some with snuff. They tell tales,
gossip about the white folks, and about moonshine licker. The syrup-man
(his clothes look like a crazy-quilt and smell sweetish) with his laddle
is the center of them. His face is lit by the glow. He is the ju-ju-man.
Sometimes he sings, and then they all commence to singing. But after a
while you don't notice them. Your soul rises with the smoke and songs
above the pine-trees. Once mine rose up, and, instead of travelling
about the heavens, looked down. I saw my body there, seated with the
other men. As I looked, it seemed to disolve, and melt with the others
that were disolving too. They were a stream. They flowed up-stream from
Africa and way up in a hight where the light was so bright I could
hardly see, burst into a multi-colored X spraying fountain. My throat
got tight. I guess it was that that pulled me back into myself-"

-This black man from the South has coked with beauty. He does not
paw me. His arms embrace the shadow of a dream. I cannot tease him. Why
cant I feel? David Teyy. Can I love him? Vera shivered. Art drew her

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Withered Skin of Berries.

Jean Toomer.

closer to him. Her arms tightened like strong slender vines across his back. Lips met. Something was taunting her lip-strings to the firmness of a bow. Their thighs were vines. Her heart beat faster. She strained. Art was a wedge..she tried to push loose..a black wedge of hot red life, cleaving. Arms strained against his chest. Wedge..cleaving.. Trees whirl! Stab. Stampede. Spinning planes, shadow, silver. Night thrust back before a burning light. They were rolling, over, over, down the hill.. Trees stand still, glowering, in a stationary sky. Trees continuing to whirl. Art's lips still clung to her. She clawed his face. Pushed at his eye. Her face was wet and grass streaked. Weeds tangled in her uncurled hair. She clawed his face.

"You are a beast. O let me go."

Wedge trying to cleave her.

"Black nigger beast."

Art swung loose, and like a lash had cut him, groaned. Whip him lash! Art groaned, choked, groaned. Shrinking on a slave-block black man groan! His head swung loose as if his neck had been wrenched. Sob. Groan. Vera couldnt think what she had done to him. Her eyes were dizzy pendulums of her soul.

"Art.."

"...Go way...go way..groan."

"Art, what have I-"

"...Go way,...go way..groan..Go way...O why dont you go way..."

"Art, Art, have I hurt you so? O Art have I hurt you so?"

He sprang to his feet. Vera hoped he would hit her. Swung off across the road, crashed through the bushes, going towards the creek. John Brown's body..she heard him splashing through the creek..thunders down the falls.

Vera burried her teeth in ground to steady the convulsions of her sobbing.

## II

Vera was walking down Sixteenth Street to work. Young green leaves looked yellow in the thick flood of sunlight. Morning, clover-sweet and ruddy; melancholy morning. Vera's bouyancy seemed to rest on a nervous and slightly unreal basis. She tried to rid herself of this curious haze by walking. The muscles of her limbs were firm, the skin of her face, flushed and tight. Men passing in sleek expensive cars turned to look at her. Memory of Art was a stinging insect, a flutter, pinned down, that it was not dead denied by her will. Carl. Carl had proposed to her. She'd put him off. Vera tried to write to her mother. That she could not bring herself to do it, gave her a sense of isolation so swift and intolerable that she had rushed from the house, impotently dreading, like in a bad dream. She hid from herself in desperately trivial details of office work. And then, a vicarious peace was vouchsafed her by the innocent lovliness of external Washington. The well-paved streets, the rows of comfortable, inconspicuous houses, the men and women that walked and lived in them, established a perfect sympathy with her in her attempt to defer a settlement with life. If life would only let her alone- save when she beckoned to it. Vera was too aware of her physical lovliness to desire a complete negation. Walking to work helped her to put off. Moving pictures, dances, men whom she could handle. David Teyy. She feared to see him. As a dream, he could be evoked, a final recourse, in dispelling the evil of a too insistent nightmare. This morning, Vera had no need of David Teyy. The young green leaves looked yellow. The air was sweet

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Withered Skin of Berries.

Jean Toomer.

with clover. The Masonic Temple, receeding over her left shoulder, was
a granite chrysalis that had emerged from the mystery of moonlight and
shadow into the solid implications of day. A car, full of young girls
in brilliant scarfs and sport shoes, drew up to the curb. Vera heard
someone call her name. One or two, she slightly recognized. Just a bunch
driving to office. Would she go long? They were happy about nothing.
Vera caught their spirit. She reached the office tingling and aglow.
Anemic thin odor of stale tobacco. She went from sash to sash, throwing
up the windows. A digested fellow came in, changed his street-coat for
one that had been worn glossy and thread-bare, grumbled at the draft
that was coming in, cancelled Vera's efforts for fresh air with quick
successive bangs, went to his desk, opened a draw from which exuded a
musty smell, drew out some papers, sharpened his pencils, and, with an
habitual show of infinite diligence, virtue, and purpose, started work.
Younger voices greeted her upon their arrival. Carl entered, flushed as
if just from a shower-bath. He threw up the windows. He and the digested
fellow had a fuss. In gloriously routed, he whispered something into
the dark coil that covered Vera's ear. She laughed. The gong rang.
Flutter of those almost late. A few stragglers. Tick, tick, tick, tick,
pounding of typewriters, metalic slide of files, rustle of starched
paper, and the day began. Young girls who worked all month to imitate
liesure class flappers. Young girls from South Carolina, Illinois, Oregon,
waiting. Widows of improvident men who had been somebody in their day.
Boys who had left school. Men dreaming of marriage and bungalows in
Chevy Chase. Old digested fellows. Negro messengers. Something was up.
The girls were whispering. A group gathered around Vera. The head-clerk
looked up uneasily and scowled at them.

"What do you know about it?" one was saying.

"Shows you how slick they are."

"How'd they find out?"

"Oh she left a note-book in her desk. Somebody was looking for
papers and came across it."

"What was in it?"

"Nothing, except a date she had to go to the Howard Theatre. Thats
a nigger place, you know. It looked suspicious. So somebody followed her
home, and saw her go out with a nigger. The chief was told, and he had her
up about it. And they say she stood there brazen as anything, and said
yes she was a nigger and proud of it. What dox you think of that?"

"You could never have told."

"Oh yes you could. Some of them had been suspicious for a long time.
And nigger blood wills out. Its like Lincoln said, you can fool some of
the people some of the time, but you cant fool all of the people all the
time."

"But they are slick at it."

"I dont see what they want to be white for anyway. They way they
boast about progress and all that youd think theyd be satisfied with
their own race. But theyre not, theyre always trying to push into ours."

"Its because these northern politicians- I dont mean the President
of course-coddle them. Theyd never even think of having such notions
down South. In the South they know where their place is, and they keep it!"

"Well, its good we caught her. It'll be a lesson to others."

"Oh, we always do. Sometimes its long, sometimes its short, but
we catch up to them. You cant fool all of the people all of the time.
I wonder if they know that saying of Lincoln's? Somebody ought to write
it on a slip of paper and put it in their desks."

"Lets do."

"Here, Vera, you make some carbon copies."

"Are there as many as that?"

"Well, you cant tell. We've got our eyes on any number."

12

Withered Skin of Berries.

Jean Toomer.

"Oh I cant see how anyone can be so decietful."

Carl had drifted up.

"Whats all the row about?"

"Oh just another nigger we caught passing."

"What is it? a game or something?"

"You wouldnt think it was a game if you had been decieved and imposed upon."

"Serious as all that?"

"They'll think so by the time we get through with them."

Carl winked at Vera. The head-clerk came up, smiling behind his scowl.

"And now what's occupying the governments time?"

"Oh nothing, just something about that Preston person."

"Yes, well, um, well better settle that at lunch. Run along now."

"Yes, Mr Darby."

"Just as you say, Mr Darby."

"Aurwewar, Mr Darby."

Vera, left to herself plunged into work. Carl took her out to lunch. He insisted that she go out with him that night. Vera knew that he wanted an answer. Pressure was becoming intense, almost to suffocation. Not tonight, Carl, she had managed to say only by promising the next morning evening. He assured her that if she didn't give it to him, he would come after her. The afternoon, hugely unreal, ticked away. Reaching home, she plunged into a bath bath and tried to vaporize herself, one with its fumes. The flesh towel but accentuated life. She had a banal observation: now I see why men drink. She tried to sleep. She exhausted herself with the tangled covers. Tossed out of bed and ran down to the phone. Yes, David Teyy would come around to see her, fortunately, he had no date. Vera, dressed, a triffle drawn, but with eyes brilliant in their searching sparkle, compounded of pain and hope and wistfullness, had the sincere impression that for the first time in her life she was really beautiful.

Something from David Teyy ran down the steering-gear, down the brakes and clutches, and gave flesh and blood life to the car. Vera was curled, like she was in the dark enclosure of a womb. She could drive on forever. Covered by life that flowed up the blue veins of the city. Up Sixteenth Street. David was a red blood center flowing down. She sucked his blood. Go on forever with David flowing down. He had hardly spoken to her. She wished he would never speak. Life flowed away from her to gestate his words.

"What is that, Vera?"

His face, a bronze plate engrossed in sharp lines and curves, emerged from a blood-shot dusk. His words tasted of blood and copper. Why could he not let her be?

"The Masonic Temple, David."

"I mean to you."

"To me?"

"Who live under the shadow of it."

"I have never thought."

"Who live under the shadow of it. Under life."

"How do you know?"

"I have been told that you tease-"

"Men who are not strong enough-"

"-yourself."

"I am pure."

"You are a living profanation of the procreative principle of Diety."

Smile, which she could not see in the dark. dusk.

"Because black children are repulsive to me?"

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Withered Skin of Berries.

Jean Toomer.

"Because you hold a phallus to the eye, and tease yourself."

"I do not understand."

"That is a rite of profanation."

"Your words cannot make me bad."

"My words were not used in your making."

Smile, she feels.

"You give me sarcasm when what I need is love."

"The necessary complement of giving is the capacity to take."

Smile.

"I cannot understand your words. Let me be."

"You wanted me?"

"After a while. O dont talk now. Please. Let me be."

...David flowing down. Vera had wanted to pass the cherry trees.
And on out to the point. A word might struggle with her throat.

"Look, the cherry trees. I have seen them bloom. I have seen
Japanese in reverence beneath them."

-Would it come?

"Lafcadio Hearn-"

"'Lafcadio,' that is a soft word, David."

"You are sensitive-"

"Oh to so many things if I would only let myslef be."

"Lafcadio Hearn tells of how the Japanese visit regions where the
trees are blooming, much as we go to the mountains or the sea, drawn by
their fragrance. It is hard to think of them succumbing to gaudy show
and blare like our Americans at Atlantic City."

"You do not like Americans, David?"

"Do you feel Americans apart from you?"

"Answer my question first."

"One does not dislike when one is living. Life is inconcievable
except in relation to its surrounding forms. I love."

"People?"

"The process and mystery of life. Life feeding on itself..

Deep River, Mendota. Vera saw souls drifting to the rhythm of
forgotten cadences, whirlied up. ..and
growing. The inexplicable wonder of it! And our scientists, who can
name more strangely minute exceptions than anyone, believing that they
have caught it in a formula. Churchmen and scientists contending over
formulas, over beliefs! Could anything be more militantly superstitious,
more doggedly naive?"

...David flowing down. David flowing out. David like mass undulations
of shadow-silver trees. She wished he would light a cigarette. They were
curving into the Potomac Speedway.

-Would it come?

".... far-off trees

All humming peace to soldiers who have gone.."

"Echoes."

"They are yours?"

"Mine two years ago. Now, more yours than mine? Where did you hear
them?"

Potomac swishes and gurgles in the crevices of the river wall. Cars
parked beneath the willows are more frequent. Lovers, swift receding
oval faces, float in the gloom of back seats.

"Art Bond. He is a friend of yours?"

Vera, restless.

"One of the best. The best, here, perhaps, except for his habit of
fastening on the ghosts of my dead selves. Ghosts, the spiritualists
tell us, should be allowed to depart, with a bon voyage for the way.

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Withered Skin of Berries.

Jean Toomer.

"That is a servicable truth that should be brought from from the cheap tappings and illogic of the seance room to the practice of broad day."

Smile; serious.

"You belive in ghosts?"

"Your meaning of the word is beside the question. Things die, transmute. Their memory lingers. A preoccupation with them clogs creative life. People who are forever fastening on them give tangibility to the clogs. They can very easily slip from friends to nuisances."

"But do you believe in the ghosts I mean?"

"In the ghosts of hysterical women, their fortune-tellers, ouja-boards, and cards? Perfectly valid as symptoms."

"I do not understand."

"Apis, stear god, cock your ears and listen to the rite of profana-
tion. Vera, you wanted me?"

"I do not understand your words. Let me be. After a while. Lets stop here and run out to the point." -And plunge in the river. Lord, I want to cross over into camp ground.

Mobile river, scintilant beneath the moon.. John Brown's Body.. River flowing from Harper's Ferry to the Chesapeake and the sea. Open ocean for brown sediment of the river. Tide in, send your tang. Resist-ent ripples. Wave in, send your waves. Wash back. John Brown's body rumbles in the sea. Mobile river, scintilant beneath the moon... Lights twinkle on the warves of Seventh Street. Wash red blood. Search-lights play on Lincoln Memorial and the Monument. Wash red blood. Blue blood clots in the veins of Washington. Wash red blood. John Brown's body.. Mobile river, carrying brown sediment, scintilant beneath the moon.

They were standing on the point. David's face seemed unreal, and high above her. The line of his nose was a thin rim of silver. -You have teased me. Your easy phrases when they turned on me, were teasing. Yours is a sin, Not mine. I cannot help it. You whom I turn to, tease me. Whom I love. Who carry solution within you. Who could, but by a touch, make me feel the world not so utterly dreadful, so sinking, without bottom, so utterly outside, and me alone. You tease me. O you do not know my need. It is not in you to so callously sin. You are here..why will you not touch me?: the dream vanishes, the floor slips, and I dangle, dangle. O you do not know my need. Tease you? You know I cannot, and you play with me. O dreamer of Life why do you tease your dream? Do you not see that I have never wanted to tease? You place my compulsions to your eye, and play with me. What vision is it that lets you be blinded by the eye? You sing of rivers. O cant you see? Beneath the scum I am a river. You who plunge and cause stale drifts to stampede, releasing the river, will you not even touch me? You cannot sin so. O Christ forgive him if he sins. Virgin Mother, you will under-stand if I drown in the river. Forgive him Christ. O God, I dangle. Lord God I want to cross over into camp ground.

David was humming.

"David, it would be a Godsend for the river to overflow and sweep me under."

...David flowing down. -Was that his hand that touched me? Are these his eyes bending over mine? Christ eyes, do not let me cry for loving you.

"Emptiness desires Nirvana. At best, I thought that that was what you would want."

"-Words, do not take him from his eyes. Glow, Christ eyes."

"Living from herself."

"-Christ eyes, do not let me cry for loving you."

Perfect within yourself, incarnate mystery.

"I kneel in reverence before the wonder of it."

David's hand was almost crushing hers. It must have been a tear she

15

Withered Skin of Berries.

Jean Toomer.

felt, so hot it was. Her free hand tingled to the electric of his bent
head.

"I am not worthy that you should kneel to me."

Vera shivered. Shook with a strange convulsion.

Roll river!

Something so complete and overpowering came over her that she sank,
almost senseless, to her knees on the grass beside him.

***

"David," she was leaning against him, trembling, "what was it?"

Mobile river, scintilant, flowing to the sea.

"You ask me, who could but kneel before it?"

"I almost sinned, and then God struck me."

They were rolling over the smoothe asphalt of Conduit Road, going
towards the Falls. Head-lights of approaching cars glared at them. Rushed
swiftly by. Across the river, Potomac palisades, great wavy outlined
masses, glided liersurely with them. John Brown's body rumbles up the
river...

"I have nothing to say to him but 'No'."

"People, Vera, unless you insult them, are insistent for reasons
of refusal. Now Art-"

"It is unkind of you to remind me of him- after to-night."

"Ghosts of our dead selves-"

"And yet, if I have gained any strength at all, I should be able to
face him. That wont be a ghost until it had been faced. I will sometime.
But it will be purely selfish. People cant really forgive. Yet in this
case there is nothing to forgive. I dont know how I shall meet him."

"Carl, first. He will want reasons."

"That I love you."

"Will that satisfy your own integrity? It was a half-truth up till
to-night."

"It has been a whole truth, always."

"But you see, sweetheart-"

"You do not say that like you would say it if you loved.me."

"-your tendency is to make of love a sort of sublimated postpone-
ment. Love solves inner complications for a while. It holds little or
no solution for the outside world. Perhaps in a better day... Especially
is this true of the two worlds you dangle over. Love is inoperative
here."

"Then what is?"

"A burning integrity of vision."

"You have it, man of the multi-colored leaves.. O knew it was you
Carl dreamed about. I seemed to love him when the dreams he poured into
me were you. I could not feel,-

Vera looked at David, and grew frightened.

-not with him. I guess I led him on.
But it was you that were struggling to birth in a word beneath the
cherry trees, you along the river, at the point, above the falls, you.
David, David, I love you... You have it, man of the multi-colored
leaves, but I?.."

"When you knelt beside me at the point?"

"I saw only a wonderful glow, that I was too afraid to really look
at."

"You have never, not once, succeeded in facing yourself?"

"I have run."

"Where?"

"What is it you say? Nirvana. To you."

"Before me?"

"Men's arms, up to a point. And my bed at night."

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Withered Skin of Berries.

Jean Toomer.

"Before that?"

"Before my father died, his arms. Before him, mother's."

"And now mine?"

"Now yours, ... if you will let me."

"I seem then, to be in the direct descent of varied and sundry prehensiles-"

"How can you joke."

"Once learn to laugh at arms and you will find that they will release you. Hasnt your experience taught you that?"

"You are cruel, cruel. Why do you torment me so?"

"Art's spirit working through me, perhaps."

"David."

Tears, by the motion of the car, were shaken from her eyes.

"Seriously, I want you to see this thing through. Answer Carl, and his look will lead you to an answer for the world."

"That I love you."

Clump of wood that vibrates like a G string to the deep bass of the falls. Night, furtive and shifting where shafts of moonlight stab in quick succession through the veering leaves. Ground trembles to the storm and lightning from clouds of trees. John Brown's body...John Brown's body thunders up the falls...

"I always feel nervous and unreal in these woods."

"They are under a spell."

"Hold me, David."

David slipped his arm around her, and, bending over, chanted:

Court-house tower,
Bell-bouy of the Whites,
Charting the MIZEX white-man's channel,
Bobs on the agitated crests of pines
And sends its mellow monotone,
Satirically sweet,
To guide the drift of barges..
Black barges...

African Guardian of Souls,
Drunk with rum,
Feasting on a strange cassava,
Yielding to new words and a weak palabra
Of a white-faced sardonic God-

"Oh dont, David."

"You who would mate with me-"

"Not that way, David."

"-quail at such a simple evocation? What would you do, if a whole troupe of souls who love the earth-sphere too well to go MIZ away, were to suddenly materialize before you? You who are still neither in nor out yourself."

"You are only trying to frighten me."

"Well, so I am. Here, see the good fairy beckoning to you from my lips? Do you wish her?"

"David."

Lips that but a few moments ago were the pale withered skin of berries, who tauted you with dew, brushed you with the sweet scent of cane?

"Now, - let us hurry to the falls, David."

17

Withered Skin of Berries.

Jean Toomer.

John Brown's body was below them. ..Lovers let your dreams fly out the moon.. The golden flare of torches was diluted by the cold white light. Torches flare! It was wonderful to be in his arms.

"Do you know what I say of you, David?"

"I cannot hear you."

"Come, I know a rock."

David smiled at this girl leading him to secret places in his boulders.

"Carl will come to this place."

"How do you know, David? Oh lets not think of him. Tell me, do you know what I say of you? I will tell you. I say that you, man of the multi-colored leaves, put beauty, a senseless warm thing like a sucking baby, in my mouth."

"How did that come to you?"

"It just came, O man, who knows better yet cant help seeking solutions of mysteries. Wouldnt you love, sometimes, to get rid of your mind?"

"Ask me if I would love to postpone."

"Must you ever refer to it?"

"The western world demands of us that we not escape. The implication of fresh life is its use. Monastaries and sepulchres are the habituaries of shades."

"Not even in love? O David I love you."

"For yourself; for me?"

"Your questions chill me. Your words. O do not talk to me David. Love."

Lips that but a few moments ago were the pale withered skin of berries, who tauted with you dew, brushed you with the sweet scent of cane? Sandalwood odor of hair. Murmurs. Lisplings. Love spinning to the tight pressure of tensioned arms. David..wedge..cleaving. Bronze sun, hammered to a sharp wedge..cleaving.. His lips tasted of copper and blood.

"O David, David, not that. Not that, David. How could you- after-to-night, your kneeling at the point?"

"Passion?"

"No, David, O no,- love."

"Young girl asking for the moon."

"What do you mean? O David you cannot sin so. Love."

"David, you are killing something in me. You cannot sin so. Mother of Christ, forgive him."

Hands that tauted with dew, brushed with the sweet scent of cane, you are Indian-givers.

* *

Vera lay, a limp, damp thing, like a young bird fallen from its nest, found in the morning, in David's arms. John Brown's body rumbles in the river...

"Cry."

"I cant, David. I want to go home."

A shadowy shape was shilouetted above them.

"Beg pardon," it said.

"Carl."

"Is that you, Vera? I cant see. What are you doing here? Oh, beg pardon."

"Its all right Carl. Sit with us. He is a friend of yours."

"Hello Carl."

"I cant quite see- well I'll be damned if it isn't Dave Teyy. Where did you come from? I didn't know that you were in town. Vera, you didn't

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Withered Skin of Berries.

Jean Toomer.

tell me you knew Dave Teyy. How long you been here? Working? Well I'll
be damned, Pardon, Vera. And out here at the falls. What on earth ever
brought you out here? This is a surprise. Damn, Pardon, Vera."

"Sit down, Carl. I have something I want to tell you."

Carl crouched down, Indian fashion. The three of them seemed as
though gathered round an improbable fire.

"Dave Teyy. Old man I havent seen you since that summer at Wisconsin.
But I've thought of you. Havent I, Vera? Its good to see you. Recalls
old days, and everything. Hows the world using you? Piled up a fortune
I bet. But no, as I remember it, that wasnt your line. Man of the multi-
colored leaves. What was that x you used to get off about faces that
chiseled dreams? from American marble? or something like that? Like the
fellows used to say, you were a queer duck, but they couldnt help
liking you. Damn."

"Carl, this is as good a time as any other. I want to tell you that
I cannot marry you."

"But not here, Vera. You cant mean it. Wait till another time.
Hell's bells."

"But I do mean it Carl. And I want to get it over with."

"Cant marry me? Oh this is an h of a time to tell a fellow. Pardon,
Dave. But it sort of upsets a feller."

"Deep down in your heart you really dont care, Carl. You think you
do. But someday you'll find the right girl. Then you'll see."

"You dont love me. Thats it. But thats no reason- what is it Vera,
tell me. I thought you did- up till to-night. What x is it?"

David was trying to whip her with his will.

"I love David Teyy."

"Oh- well- congratulat ions, Dave. Hell's bells. Pardon. Guess I'd
better be running on."

Something held him.

"Vera, Carl, both of you will sit as you are."

Life was thrashing in David. He would stampede these pale ghost
people. He gathered wood, built a fire. Its flare disturbed nearby lovers
who grubled at it and moved away. Carl and Vera could not believe them-
selves. Fingers pulled down their stomachs. They shivered. Drew nearer
the flames. David, holding them with his eyes, was crouching.

"Know you, people, that you sit beside the boulder where Tiacomus
made love. Made love, do you understand me? Know you, people, that you
are above a river, spattered with blood. John Brown's blood. With blood,
do you understand me? White red blood. Black red blood. Know you, people,
that you are beneath the stars of wonder, of reverence, of mystery. Know
you that you are boulders of love, rivers spattered with blood, stars of
wonder and mystery. Roll river. Flow river. Roll river. Flow river.
River, river, roll, Roll!

The river was empty, flowing to the sea,
From Harper's Ferry to the Chesapeake and the sea-
...They hung John Brown..

The river was empty, flowing to the sea,
From Harper's Ferry to the Chesapeake and the sea-
...They hung John Brown.. Roll river..

River was empty, flowing to the sea,
From Harper's Ferry to the Chesapeake and the sea-
...They hung John Brown.. Roll river roll!

John Brown's body, rumbles in the river,
John Brown's body, thunders down the falls-
...Roll river roll!

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Withered Skin of Berries.

Jean Toomer.

"Know you, people, that you sit beside the boulder where Tiacomus made love. Made love, you understand me? Know you, people, that you are above a river, spattered with blood. With blood, you understand me? John Brown's blood. Know you, people, that you are beneath the stars of wonder, of reverence, of mystery. Know that you are bolders of love, rivers spattered with blood, white red blood, black red blood, that you are stars of wonder and mystery. Roll river! Flow river! Roll river! Flow river! River, river, roll, Roll!!

The boulder seemed cleft by a clap of thunder. That the falls had risen and were thundering its fragments away...

Tick, tick, tick, pounding of typewriters, letalic slide of files, rustle of starched paper. Young girls who work all month to imitate liesure-class flappers. Young girls from South Carolina, Illinois, Oregon, waiting. Widows of improvident men who had been somebody in their day. Boys who have left school. Men dreaming of marriage and bungalows in Chevy Chase. Old digested fellows. Negro messengers. Carl but little changed. The slow process of digestion. Black life pepper to the salt of white. Sneezes. Tick, tick, tick, tick. Vera listless, nervous...

* * * * *

Men listen to her lispings and murmurs. Black souls steal back to Georgia canefields, soft and misty, underneath a crescent moon. The mystery of their whispered promises seem close to revelation, seem tangibly incarnate in her. Black souls, tropic and firery, dream of love. Sing joyful codas to forgotten folk-songs. Spin love to the soft weaving of her arms. Men listen to her lispings and murmurs. White souls awake to adolescent fantasies they thought long buried with the dead leaves along the summer streets of mid-western towns. Solvents of melancholy burn through their bitten modes of pioneer aggressiveness to a southern repose. They too, spin love to the soft weaving of her arms. White men, black men, only in retrospective kisses, know the looseness of her lips..pale withered skin of berries...

May, 1922.