their faces smiling behind shut eyes, the hands clasp-
ing and duelling gently.
They talked again after a little while. He per-
sisted in this single vein of remembering certain
things, singing "America the Beautiful" in P. S.
83 in the auditorium, the boys in blue trousers and
white shirts and the girls in blouses and skirts, with
black ties under the collars of the blouses, singing
all together, "and going out after school, graduat-
ing, going downtown after looking at the ads." He
tried to capture that ardor, the ardor of boys with
shined faces and pressed suits, each of them with a
paper under his arm, streaming into Manhattan by
train, trains crossing bridges and showing skyscrap-
ers misty blue in the distance. "And in the after-
noons," he said, "without a job, you wander and
wander through the streets and look up at windows
and look at boats pulling out on the Hudson and
take a ferry maybe and come home in the afternoon
and fight with the old lady, she cursing and you
cursing-"
Remembering, a harmony of remembering, she
could recall her father coming home bloody during
the LR.T. strike and her mother's face washed out,
her mother's eyes lighting up once in a while to let
. her see something of a dream left of ....
something.
"I never knew that she wanted to do anything in
particular, but the shameful thing is ~that there
could have been something for her, some kind of
work into which she could have thrown herself, and
now she asks me questions about the League and
the Soviet Union cautiously and so afraid-"
It was the ardor that he remembered, the ardor
and the sureness of crowds of boys, the edge of
poverty ruthlessly dictating and guiding and drilling
into the sureness as you passed into manhood ....
l
And talking this way the afternoon passed, yet
hung still over them blue and yellow with still white
clouds.
They went along the lawns again with the after-
noon receding, shadows sliding along trees, in the
little stretch of woods the gray nymphs shadowed
mournfully over a dry fountain j!nd they had some-
thing to eat and some beer at the tavern near the
Pelham Bay Station. She got off at Hunt's Point
and Harry went down to the Section and she stood
at the station for a moment thinking about him.
She knew it would be pleasant to live with him, be-
cause he had work to do. There were things for her
to do, too. From work fertile as the earth the free
hours must bloom upward. Like this afternoon
there would be other afternoons, few and magni-
ficent, against the sober, fighting background. She
went upstairs and walked, the years and the after-
noons sparkling in her and before her, forming an
inward smile which dimpled her face faintly and
the wind played the blue dotted dress about her full
figure as she walked.
In Asturias
PRUDENCIO DE PEREDA
WE PUT the can out on to the middle of the dirt
floor of the cell and we could all sit along the walls
and be away from the smell of it. Then when the
guards brought the three of them in, he walked
right over to it and sat on the top without taking
the cover off. The other two went and sat around
the wall but he put himself quickly down on the can
and stayed there facing the door with his head held
up straight and his hands working between his
knees, looking at the door as if he was waiting for
them to come and take him, and after a moment he
said out loud, "\Vhatever they do to me, I am still
an honest man."
"Hear
I
Hear
I"
somebody with a tired voice said.
"I-Iear !"
Everyone was watching him. Some of them had
been sleeping with their heads let down on their
chests and now they raised them up and looked at
him. It was not very light but you could make him
out on the can with his shoulders held up like that.
Next to me Garcia moved and I thought that he
was going to scratch. I moved away but he was only
straightening himself out to look at the man on the
can and I moved back. Garcia brought up his knees
and folded his arms.
"Are you still a faithful friend, Villegas?" he
said suddenly to the man on the can. His voice
sounded very quiet in the big room. I saw Villegas
turn around quickly and his face brighten up. He
seemed very happy to hear Garcia's voice.
"I am, Comrade Garcia," he said in an excited
voice. "I am."
"Good
I
That is the only thing that is important,"
Garcia said. He kept looking out at Villegas but he
did not say any more and after a while Villegas
turned his head and began to sit looking at the
door again. He did not look so lonely now. I turned
around to Garcia.
"Y oU know him?" I said.
"Yes, don't you?"
"I have seen him somewhere," I said, "but I don't
remember."
"It is not very long since he came with us. Prob.
ably because of that you don't recognize him."
"Oh
I"
I said.
"J
a."
We did not say anything for a while then. Garcia
seemed to be thinking of something. He sat
very
still. After a moment he bent his head over to me
and said, "How do you feel, Mickey?"
"I? I feel fine, hombre. I'm calm. I feel very
calm."
"Y ou want to do me a favor, then?"
"Yes," I said, "sure."
12
MAY,
