John Passos - The 42nd Parallel

Feeling a little faint she stopped at a drugstore and had some aromatic spirits of ammonia in water. Then she took a car down to Grant Park. A tremendous northwest wind was blowing grit and papers in whirls along the lakefront.

She went into the Art Institute and up into the Stickney Room to see the Whistlers. She liked the Art Institute better than anything else in Chicago, better than anything else in the world, the quiet, the absence of annoying men, the smooth smell of varnish from the paintings. Except on Sundays when the crowd came and it was horrid. Today there was no one in the Stickney Room but another girl welldressed in a gray fox neckpiece and a little gray hat with a feather in it. The other girl was looking fixedly at the portrait of Manet. Eleanor was interested; she rather pretended to look at the Whistlers than look at them. Whenever she could she looked at the other girl. She found herself standing beside the other girl also looking at the portrait of Manet. Suddenly their eyes met. The other girl had palebrown almondshaped eyes rather far apart. “I think he’s the best painter in the world,” she said combatively as if she wanted somebody to deny it. “I think he’s a lovely painter,” said Eleanor, trying to keep her voice from trembling. “I love that picture.” “You know that’s not by Manet himself, that’s by Fantin-Latour,” said the other girl. “Oh, yes, of course,” said Eleanor.

There was a pause. Eleanor was afraid that would be all, but the other girl said, “What other pictures do you like?” Eleanor looked carefully at the Whistler; then she said slowly, “I like Whistler and Corot.” “I do, too, but I like Millet best. He’s so round and warm… Have you ever been to Barbizon?” “No, but I’d love to.” There was a pause. “But I think Millet’s a little coarse, don’t you?” Eleanor ventured. “You mean that chromo of the Angelus? Yes, I simply loathe and despise religious feeling in a picture, don’t you?” Eleanor didn’t quite know what to say to that, so she shook her head and said, “I love Whistler so; when I’ve been looking at them I can look out of the window and everything looks, you know, pastelly like that.”

“I have an idea,” said the other girl who had been looking at a little watch she had in her handbag. “I don’t have to be home till six. Why don’t you come and have tea with me? I know a little place where you can get very good tea, a German pastry shop. I don’t have to be home till six and we can have a nice long chat. You won’t think it’s unconventional of me asking you, will you? I like unconventionality, don’t you? Don’t you hate Chicago?”

Yes, Eleanor did hate Chicago and conventional people and all that. They went to the pastryshop and drank tea and the girl in gray, whose name was Eveline Hutchins, took hers with lemon in it. Eleanor talked a great deal and made the other girl laugh. Her father, Eleanor found herself explaining, was a painter who lived in Florence and whom she hadn’t seen since she was a little girl. There had been a divorce and her mother had married again, a business man connected with Armour and Company, and now her mother was dead and she had only some relatives at Lake Forest; she studied at the Art Institute but was thinking of giving it up because the teachers didn’t suit her. She thought living in Chicago was just too horrible and wanted to go East. “Why don’t you go to Florence and live with your father?” asked Eveline Hutchins.

“Well, I might some day, when my ship comes in,” said Eleanor.

“Oh, well, I’ll never be rich,” said Eveline. “My father’s a clergyman

… Let’s go to Florence together, Eleanor, and call on your father. If we arrived there he couldn’t very well throw us out.”

“I’d love to take a trip some day.”

“It’s time I was home. By the way, where do you live? Let’s meet tomorrow afternoon and look at all the pictures together.”

“I’m afraid I’ll be busy tomorrow.”

“Well, maybe you can come to supper some night. I’ll ask mother when I can have you. It’s so rare to meet a girl you can talk to. We live on Drexel Boulevard. Here’s my card. I’ll send you a postcard and you’ll promise to come, won’t you?”

“I’d love to, if it’s not earlier than seven… You see I have an occupation that keeps me busy every afternoon except Sunday, and Sundays I usually go out to see my relatives in…”

“In Lake Forest?”

“Yes… When I’m in town I live at a sort of Y.W.C.A. place, Moody House; it’s plebeian but convenient… I’ll write down the address on this card.” The card was of Mrs. Lang’s, “Imported Laces and Hand-Embroidered Fabrics.” She wrote her address on it, scratched out the other side and handed it to Eveline. “That’s lovely,” she said, “I’ll drop you a card this very night and you’ll promise to come, won’t you?”

Eleanor saw her onto the streetcar and started to walk slowly along the street. She had forgotten all about feeling sick, but now that the other girl had gone she felt let down and shabbily dressed and lonely picking her way through the windy evening bustle of the streets.

Eleanor made several friends through Eveline Hutchins. The first time she went to the Hutchinses she was too awed to notice much, but later she felt freer with them, particularly as she discovered that they all thought her an interesting girl and very refined. There were Dr. and Mrs. Hutchins and two daughters and a son away at college. Dr. Hutchins was a Unitarian minister and very broadminded and Mrs. Hutchins did watercolors of flowers that were declared to show great talent. The elder daughter, Grace, had been at school in the East, at Vassar, and was thought to have shown ability in a literary way, the son was taking postgraduate Greek at Harvard and Eveline was taking the most interesting courses right there at Northwestern. Dr. Hutchins was a softvoiced man with a large smooth pinkish face and large smooth white deadlooking hands. The Hutchinses were all planning to go abroad next year which would be Dr. Hutchins’ sabbatical. Eleanor had never heard talk like that before and it thrilled her.

Then one evening Eveline took her to Mrs. Shuster’s. “You mustn’t say anything about Mrs. Shuster at home, will you?” said Eveline as they were coming down from the Elevated. “Mr. Shuster is an art dealer and my father thinks they’re a little too Bohemian… It’s just because Annie Shuster came to our house one night and smoked all through dinner…. I said we’d go to the concert at the Auditorium.”

Eleanor had made herself a new dress, a very simple white dress, with a little green on it, not exactly an evening dress, but one she could wear any time, for the occasion, and when Annie Shuster, a dumpy little redhaired woman with a bouncy manner of walking and talking helped them off with their wraps in the hall she exclaimed how pretty it was. “Why, yes, it’s lovely,” said Eveline. “In fact, you’re looking pretty as a peach tonight, Eleanor.” “I bet that dress wasn’t made in this town… Looks like Paris to me,” said Mrs. Shuster. Eleanor smiled deprecatingly and blushed a little and looked handsomer than ever.

There were a great many people packed into two small rooms and cigarette smoke and coffeecups and smell of some kind of punch. Mr. Shuster was a whitehaired grayfaced man with a head too large for his body and a tired manner. He talked like an Englishman. There were several young men standing round him; one of them Eleanor had known casually when she had studied at the Art Institute. His name was Eric Egstrom and she had always liked him; he was tow-haired and blue-eyed and had a little blond mustache. She could see that Mr. Shuster thought a lot of him. Eveline took her around and introduced her to everybody and asked everybody questions that seemed sometimes disconcerting. Men and women both smoked and talked about books and pictures and about people Eleanor had never heard of. She looked around and didn’t say much and noticed the Greek silhouettes on the orange lampshades and the pictures on the walls which looked very odd indeed and the two rows of yellowbacked French books on the shelves and felt that she might learn a great deal there.