Steven Millhauser - Martin Dressler - The Tale of an American Dreamer

Now two lines appeared between her dark eyebrows, she looked at him with sleepy reproachful eyes. “I fell asleep,” she said. In her white nightdress, with her sleepy pouting gaze and her hair falling over one shoulder, she looked to him like a little girl, a sullen mischievous little girl who was trying to tease him and make him lose his temper. But it was all a game, and in the spirit of the game he reached out and put his hand on her hair-covered sharp-round shoulder. The shoulder pulled away. “I’m tired,” she said irritably and slid down under the covers. Turning away, she pulled the covers tightly about her. Martin sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the mirrored doors of the wardrobe. The Vernons had traveled with their wardrobes, even though the Bellingham had built-in closets. After a while he rose to prepare for bed. But at the dresser a new problem confronted him, for he did not know whether the stylish new pajamas he had purchased for the occasion might strike her as immodest, might perhaps alarm her by thrusting before her gaze the outline of a pair of legs, and after standing in doubt before the open drawer with the folded pajamas in his hands, he replaced them in a corner of the drawer and removed his new striped nightshirt, with its embroidered collar and cuffs.

When he returned from the bathroom he lay down on his side of the bed and listened to the angry thudding of his heart, which reminded him of the sound of heavy rain on the awning of his father’s store, when he stood under it on rainy mornings. And a desolation seized him: she was not treating him right, she was slipping away into the sleep of girlhood and leaving him out in the rain. Under the covers he slipped toward her until his leg touched hers. All along his leg he felt a sharp burning, his head felt hot, he was about to burst, and rolling heavily against her he began shaking her shoulder, but struggling into half-waking she pushed away his hand, she pushed at him and pressed the side of her face into the pillow as if he were burning a light in her eyes.

Angrily Martin got up and went out of the room.

He walked up and down the unfamiliar parlor in his morocco slippers, he threw himself into his armchair and tried to remember his first sight of Caroline, but it was no use, nothing was any use, and for some reason he thought of the corridor in the Vanderlyn, the actors and actresses, the naked foot on the bed seen through the half-opened door. He rose from the chair, for he needed to walk, to move about; and making his way to the entrance hall, he took down his black overcoat from the hall tree and put it on. Then a remorse came over him, for after all it was his wedding night, and with his coat still on he returned to the bedroom and stopped in the doorway. “I’m going out, Caroline,” he said, in a whisper so soft that it was as if he had only thought the words, while he stared at shadowy Caroline lying in the bed, lying so motionless that one might have thought he had plunged a knife deep into her chest. “I’m going out, Caroline,” he said again, but she lay silent in the coffin-bed. Then he turned and made his way from the too-still room into a small hall that led him astray, for he found himself in the library, where glints of dark glass concealed dolls bowed down with sadness, and passing through a door he saw that he was in the dark parlor, of all places, which led to another hall, and seeing his hat on a hook he placed it on his head, opened a door, and stepped into the dim-lit corridor.

He walked briskly past neighboring doors and turned into the longer corridor. At the end he pushed open a door that gave onto the landing. Martin began to climb the stairs, pulling himself up faster by holding onto the rail. At the eighth floor he looked down over the railing and saw the sharp-turning stair-flights dropping away in smaller and smaller rectangles, as if the stair-flights were parts of a swiftly unfolding telescope. He pushed open a door and climbed a final flight of stairs, pushed open another door, and found himself in a narrow dark corridor lit by two gas brackets with murky globes. Some of the doors were without numbers, he could barely see, suddenly he was standing before number 7. He knocked lightly and then sharply, not caring, but looking around anyway to see whether any doors were opening, inside he heard a noise, and then the door opened. Marie looked at him with weary startled eyes. Gently she took his arm and led him into the small black room, where he knocked his foot against a wooden chair that scraped on the floor. In blackness she drew him to the bed, in silence she waited while he removed his coat and hat, in silence and blackness he lay down with Marie Haskova and celebrated his wedding night, thinking for a moment of Louise Hamilton on her fever-couch and then of Caroline’s unbound hair, her sharp-round shoulder, her sullen sleepy look, the white sleeve of her nightdress, so that it seemed to him, as he lay back on the black bed beside Marie, whom he could hear breathing as if she had already fallen asleep, that if he had been unfaithful to Caroline by coming here on his wedding night, he had also been unfaithful to Marie, who had taken him in without a word, without a reproach, only to find herself secretly replaced, in her own bed, by Caroline.

It was still dark when Martin returned a little while later to his apartment. He hung his hat on the hall tree and stepped into the parlor, where the mantel clock showed that it was not yet three in the morning. When he pushed open the door of the bedroom he saw Caroline sitting up in bed in the dark. “Where were you?” she said. “I was frightened.” And a tenderness came over him: she wasn’t angry, he had abandoned her, he longed to ask her to forgive him. “I couldn’t sleep,” Martin said. “I can’t sleep either,” Caroline said, in a tone so forlorn that Martin sat down beside her and put an arm around her stiffening shoulders, as if to comfort a child. “It will be all right,” Martin said, stroking her hair, and now there came to him, looming out of nowhere, the face of little Alice Bell, with her yellow hair and serious eyes, her trembling shoulders. But already he could feel desire rising in him, a scent of blossoms streamed from her hair or her nightdress, he noticed that he was still wearing his coat, and dropping his hand to the front of her nightdress he touched her breast. Caroline stiffened and pushed away his hand. “Don’t do that,” she said. Rage flamed in him. “Damn it,” he said, and struck the bed with his fist. Then he stood up and strode from the room, strode through room after room, until it seemed to him that he was rushing through hundreds of rooms, until he came to a door that he jerked open.

He strode across the corridor and knocked loudly on the door across the way. “I’ll knock it down if they don’t open,” he said to himself, or maybe aloud, the words sounded very clear and distinct, so perhaps he had spoken them. It was Emmeline who opened the door.

“What is it? God! Are you all right?”

“Get your mother,” Martin said as he stalked into the parlor, barely able to see Emmeline for the rage in his heart. He could feel blood beating in his temples and in his eyes. Emmeline returned with Margaret Vernon, in a flowery dressing gown that she clasped at the throat; she looked up at him in fearful bewilderment, as if she were about to cry. Martin felt like slapping her face; his arm was trembling, he wanted to lie down.

“Tell her,” he said in a kind of hushed shout.

“I don’t understand,” wailed Mrs. Vernon.

Martin took a deep breath. “Instruct your daughter. Tell her about marriage. Tell her. Tell her.” He pointed to the door.

A confused, pained look crossed Margaret Vernon’s face, as if he had struck her, but to Martin’s surprise she said nothing and, lowering her eyes, obediently opened the door and went out. Martin sat in a chair and closed his eyes; when he opened them he was puzzled to see Emmeline sitting across from him. He had been dreaming of his old room over the cigar store. Behind him the door opened. “It’s all right now,” Mrs. Vernon said, with dignity. “You can go back.”