296
PARTISAN REVIEW
and cafeterias, the dime stores, the tearooms, the bakeries, the beauty
parlors, the reading rooms and club rooms. Among these old people
at the Gloriana Wilhelm felt out of place. He was comparatively
young, in his middle forties, large and blond, with big shoulders; his
back was heavy and strong, if already a little stooped or thickened,
too.
Mter breakfast the old guests sat down on the green leather
armchairs and sofas in the lobby and began to gossip and look
into the papers; they had nothing to do but wait out the day. But
Wilhelm was used to an active life and liked to go out energetically
in
the morning. And for several months, because he had no position,
he had kept up his morale by rising early; he was shaved and in
the lobby by eight o'clock. He bought the paper and some cigars
and drank a Coca-Cola or two before he went in to breakfast with
his father. After breakfast: out, out, out to attend to business. The
getting out had in itself become the chief business. But he had
realized that he could not keep this up much longer, and today
he was afraid. He was aware that his routine was about to break up
and he sensed that a huge trouble long presaged but till now formless
was due. Before evening he'd know.
Nevertheless he followed his daily course, and crossed the lobby.
Rubin, the man at the newsstand, had poor eyes. They may
not have been actually weak but they were poor in expression, with
lacy lids that furled down at the corners. He dressed well. It didn't
seem necessary, he was behind the counter most of the time, but
he dressed very well. He had on a rich brown suit; the cuffs embar–
rassed the hairs on his small hands. He wore a Countess Mara
painted necktie.
As
Wilhelm approached Rubin did not see him;
he was looking out dreamily at the Hotel Ansonia, which was visible
from his corner several blocks away. The Ansonia, the neighbor–
hood's great landmark, was built by Stanford White. It looks like a
baroque palace from Prague or Munich enlarged a hundred times,
with towers, domes, huge swells and bubbles of metal gone green
from exposure, iron fretwork and festoons. Black television antennae
are densely planted on its round summits. Under the changes of
weather it may look like marble or like sea water, black as slate in
the fog, white as tufa
in
sunlight. This morning it looked like the
image of itself reflected in deep water, white and cumulous above,
