THE STATUES
13
or evil, was involved. The children, to whom I paid especial attention
during this first day, delighted for a time in the comic-strip character
of some of the statues, but later some of them became annoyed that
snowballs could not be fashioned out of the hard snow, and in their
frustration they threw other available objects at each other, one boy
of fourteen going so far as to open his brother's skull with a hockey
stick. Faber Gottschalk walked from the apartment (which consti-
tuted both home and office to him) to the Battery. Since his apart-
ment was at 640 W. 184 Street, on Washington Heights, this walk
was one of about ten miles, from one end to the other of Manhattan's
long and narrow spine. Then he walked back again along the same
route, sur prised to find that the statues which studded his route dis–
closed new and even more interesting aspects when they were re–
garded for the second time. By evening he was in his apartment, seated
by his radio in the living room, and attempting to understand the
emotion which had overwhelmed him at the sight of so many of the
snow's statues.
As
he turned the whole day over in his mind, he
smoked one cigar after another, gratified by the tobacco and yet able
to distinguish in"his mind between the pleasure of the cigar and the
great happiness which had suddenly come upon
him
since waking up
eMly in the morning and discovering the strange snow below the
window. In seeking an explanation for his emotion, Faber Gotts–
chalk thought of his past life, of the pattern or fate or host of acci–
dents which had brought him to this day.
As
he told me later, he
had been persuaded to study dentistry by the uncle with whom he
lived after his mother's death. His great ambition had been to be an
athlete and, lacking that, a sports writer. In fact, he was not quite
sure whether he wanted the one activity or the other the most. It
was the whole context of the sporting world, especially that of major
league baseball, which interested him above all things. His physical
equipment was such as to prevent him from being very good at any
sport, so that soon he had become merely a spectator. To be truly a
~pectator,
however, is a great deal, for it involves the most intense
partisanship. In major league baseball, for example, one who is a
fan follows the odyssey of one's team- in Gottschalk's instance, it was
the New York Giants- for six months and more of each year, be–
ginning with the spring training camps and culminating at times in
the vast excitement of the World Series, through various stages of
hope and despair at the team's fortunes as it travels again and again
to the eight cities of the league. At any rate, his uncle had pointed out
to
him
that as a dentist he would have a modest income and would
be able to arrange his hours of work in such a way as to permit him
to attend the various sports which absorbed his attention throughout
