Book One The Broken Chysalis Chapter 3 The Hornets' Nest

It was dusk when I left Helen. My head was buzzing.

Out of her presence what I had seen was unthinkable, unbelievable. I could do nothing but walk, walk--a man in a dream.

I rushed ahead, jostling people in silly haste; I dawdled. I carefully set my feet across the joinings of paving blocks; I zigzagged; I turned corners aimlessly. Once a policeman touched me as I blinked into the roaring torches of a street-repairing gang. Once I found myself on Brooklyn Bridge, looking down at big boats shaped like pumpkin seeds, with lights streaking from every window. Once I woke behind a noisy group under the coloured lights of a Bowery museum.

It rained, for horses were rubber-blanketed, and umbrellas dripped on me as I passed. I was hungry, for I smelled the coffee a sodden woman drank at the side of a night lunch wagon. But how could I believe myself awake or sane?

Again and again I found my way back to the bench on Union Square, from which I could gaze at Helen's window, now dark and forbidding. Across an open space was a garish saloon. When the door swung open, I saw the towels hanging from the bar. Two men reeled across the street and sat down by me.

"Oo-oo!" one gurgled.

"Dan's goin' t' kill 'imself 'cause 'is wife's gone," blubbered the other. "Tell 'm not ter, can't ye, matey? Tell 'im' t's 'nough fer one t' die!"