NOTES ON THE WORKING DAY
463
the machine would be turned down for one moment to catch the slow
whistle and the long sound.
The slow whistle and the long sound. The clock gave him five
more minutes, yet he knew that this dream of death would be with
him always, carefully plotted out, stamped within him like an eco–
nomist's chart, rising higher and higher each day, yet never touching
the heights of marginal utility. He crossed the street and began to
walk back to the building. He passed the subway entrance, and he
saw several boys and girls emerge, carrying college textbooks under
their arms. He wanted to link his fingers with theirs, grip hard, till he
lost touch with his own flesh, run down the st:r:eets, past the avenues
and the buses, sing the songs he had once known with them, tell them
the books to be read yet, but warn them, warn them to run quickly
down the streets and the ·avenues, past the tower where time sneered
at him.
As
they turned the comer he wanted to run after them, and
give warning that their laughter might end in one hot note of cinder.
He breathed quickly and deeply as the elevator doors opened,
for he knew that the laughter waited for him somewhere in the streets
of the city. He knew that he must run, naked, as in a dream, to clasp
it.
CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS ISSUE
ELIZABETH HARDWICK is a frequent contributor to PR. Her first novel,
The
Ghostly Lover,
was published by Harcourt Brace last year.
C. WRIGHT MILLS, a Guggenheim fellow this year, is writing a book on
The
New Middle Classes,
from which this article is an excerpt.
ST.-J. PERSE, whose
Eloges
were published in 1944 by Norton, has been living
in this country since 1940.
ANTHONY HARRIGAN is a young poet living in New York City.
R. P. BLACKMUR is now teaching at Princeton.
ROBERT LOWELL's new book of poems will be published soon by Harcourt
Brace.
RAYNER HEPPENSTALL, an English writer, is the author of a recent book,
Blaze of Noon.
WALLACE MARKFIELD is a young writer now attending Brooklyn College.
MAURICE MERLEAU-PONTY is one of the editors of
Les Temps Modernes,
the Paris review.
RANDALL JARRELL is now Acting Literary Editor of
The Nation.
His book
of poems,
Little Friend, Little Friend,
was published last year by Dial Press.
NEWTON ARVIN has edited a collection of Hawthorne's short stories published
recently by Knopf.
CARLO LAURENZ! is an Italian journalist, now living in Rome, who took an
active part in the Resistance movement.
