32
PARTISAN REVIEW
I picked out a girl in a pale saffron dress, a kid about eighteen years
old. She was standing with her hands clasped quietly in front of her,
in a corner. She gave me a bright friendly smile when I went up to her,
but I danced halfway round the floor before I entered into conversation.
I wanted her to get the hang of my American dancing ,and also wanted
her to get used to me as a person so that her talk would be free.
"Well, this is a big crowd," I finally opened and then made some
comment on the quality of the band.
Her first few ans·wers were centrifugal, that is, working away from
the middle towards nothing. She began to take on charm in a few more
minutes, however. She told me she liked American movies {"Our own
pictures move so slowly!"), liked American slang and thought American
men were interesting. "I'd like to pay a visit to the United States," she
said, "especially New York and California." After she had asked me all
the customary questions about America, I guided the conversation skill·
fully back to herself.
Drawing out an English working girl, or girls, is simple, if you are
friendly and patient. Unaware, they tell you, in a few simple sentences,
the story of their lives. I do not mean that they fall upon your neck with
a full confession, but if one is patient one will hear things that are
astonishing. And all told with frankness, with candid words and quiet
honesty. My God, how honest these English girls are. And fine.
After dancing three entire numbers with the girl
(I
saw the girl I
had brought up was dancing with a partner, so I did not trouble myself
over her) , I knew all one can expect to learn in a single session about how
to run a paying English five-and-ten-cent business. In half-humorous,
(and do not make the mistake of thinking that the English have no
humor) -in half-humorous, half-bitter phrases, answering my queries, the
girl told me things, data about herself, her background and her salary.
First of all, she was getting nineteen shillings {$4.75) a week. She
had started with seventeen-and-six ($4.40). I did not ask her how
~he
lived. Anyone who has been in London a few months knows the countless
gray granite streets lined with monotonous brick houses which have
primitive plumbing, no central heating and downright unsanitary lavatory
conditions. From the doorways of these homes and rooming houses, every
morning, you can see the shop girls emerge. In the fog which seems always
to be drifting from the river you can see them hurry to the trams and
buses. And transportation in dear old London is not cheap. Transporta–
tion is charged by the mile, so if a girl lives three or four miles from her
employment, she has to pay six or eight cents for a one-way fare. Food
is
not cheap either. But the English, with true British tenacity, have tried to
solve the matter. Most young men bike to work, also some women. In
