PASSAGE:
1 Don Hedger had lived for four years on the top floor of
2 an old house on the south side of Washington Square,
3 and nobody had ever disturbed him. He occupied
4 one big room with no outside exposure except on the
5 north. His room was very cheerless, since he never
6 got a ray of direct sunlight; the south corners were
7 always in shadow. In the front corner, the one farther
8 from the window, was a sink, and a table with two
9 gas burners where he sometimes cooked his food.
10 There, too, in the perpetual dusk, was the dog's bed,
11 and often a bone or two for his comfort.
12 The dog was a Boston bull terrier, and Hedger
13 explained his surly disposition by the fact that he had
14 been bred to the point where it told on his nerves. His
15 name was Caesar III, and he had taken prizes at very
16 exclusive dog shows. When he and his master went
17 out to prowl about University Place, or to promenade
18 along West Street, Caesar III was invariably fresh and
19 shining. His pink skin showed through his mottled
20 coat, which glistened as if it had just been rubbed with
21 olive oil, and he wore a brass-studded collar, bought
22 at the smartest saddler's. Hedger, as often as not, was
23 hunched up in an old striped blanket coat, with a
24 shapeless felt hat pulled over his bushy hair, wearing
25 black shoes that had become gray, or brown ones
26 that had become black, and he never put on gloves
27 unless the day was biting cold.
28 Early in May, Hedger learned that he was to have a
29 new neighbor in the rear apartment. His studio was
30 shut off from these rooms by double doors, which,
31 though they were fairly tight, left him a good deal
32 at the mercy of the occupant. The rooms had been
33 leased, long before he came there, by a trained nurse
34 who considered herself knowing in old furniture. She
35 went to auction sales and bought up mahogany and
36 dirty brass and stored it away here, where she meant
37 to live when she retired from nursing. Meanwhile,
38 she sub-let her rooms, with the precious furniture, to
39 young people who came to New York to "write" or
40 "paint"--who proposed to live by the sweat of the
41 brow rather than of the hand, and who desired artistic
42 surroundings. When Hedger first moved in, these
43 rooms were occupied by a young man who tried to
44 write plays,--and who kept on trying until a week ago,
45 when the nurse had put him out for unpaid rent.
46
A few days after the playwright left, Hedger heard
47 an ominous murmur of voices through the bolted
48 double doors: the lady-like intonation of the nurse--
49 doubtless exhibiting her treasures--and another voice,
50 also a woman's, but very different; young, fresh,
51 unguarded, confident. All the same, it would be very
52 annoying to have a woman in there. The only bath-
53 room on the floor was at the top of the stairs in the
54 front hall, and he would always be running into her
55 as he came or went from his bath. He would have to
56 be more careful to see that Caesar didn't leave bones
57 about the hall, too; and she might object when he
58 cooked steak and onions on his gas burner.
59 As soon as the talking ceased and the women left,
60 he forgot them. He was absorbed in a study of para-
61 dise fish at the Aquarium, staring out at people through
62 the glass and green water of their tank. It was a
63 highly gratifying idea; the incommunicability of one
64 stratum of animal life with another,--though Hedger
65 pretended it was only an experiment with unusual
66 lighting. When he heard trunks knocking against the
67 sides of the narrow hall, then he realized that she was
68 moving in at once. Toward noon, groans and deep
69 gasps and the creaking of ropes, made him aware
70 that a piano was arriving. After the tramp of the
71 movers died away down the stairs, somebody touched
72 off a few scales and chords on the instrument, and
73 then there was peace. Presently he heard her lock her
74 door and go down the hall humming something; going
75 out to lunch, probably. He stuck his brushes in a can
76 of turpentine and put on his hat, not stopping to wash
77 his hands. Caesar was smelling along the crack
78 under the bolted doors.
79 Hedger encouraged him. "Come along, Caesar.
80 You'll soon get used to a new smell."
81 In the hall stood an enormous trunk, behind the
82 ladder that led to the roof, just opposite Hedger's
83 door. The dog flew at it with a growl of hurt amaze-
84 ment. They went down three flights of stairs and out
85 into the brilliant May afternoon.
86 Hedger strolled about the Square for the dog's health.
87 The fountain had but lately begun operations for the
88 season and was throwing up a mist of rainbow water.
89 Plump robins were hopping about on the soil; the
90 grass was newly cut and blindingly green. Looking
91 up the Avenue through the Arch, one could see the
92 young poplars with their bright, sticky leaves, and
93 shining horses and carriages,--occasionally an auto-
94 mobile, mis-shapen and sullen, like an ugly threat in
95 a stream of things that were bright and beautiful and
96 alive.
97 While Caesar and his master were standing by the
98 fountain, a girl approached them, crossing the Square.
99 Hedger noticed her because she wore a lavender cloth
100 suit and carried in her arms a big bunch of fresh lilacs.
101 He saw that she was young and handsome,--beautiful,
102 in fact. She, too, paused by the fountain and looked
103 back through the Arch up the Avenue. She smiled
104 rather patronizingly as she looked, and at the same
105 time seemed delighted. Her slowly curving upper lip
106 and half-closed eyes seemed to say: "You're gay,
107 you're exciting, you are quite the right sort of thing;
108 but you're none too fine for me!"
109 In the moment she tarried, Caesar stealthily ap-
110 proached her and sniffed at the hem of her lavender
111 skirt, then he ran back to his master and lifted a face
112 full of emotion and alarm, his lower lip twitching under
113 his sharp white teeth and his hazel eyes pointed with
114 a very definite discovery. He stood thus, motionless,
115 while Hedger watched the lavender girl go up the
116 steps and through the door of the house in which he
117 lived.
118 "You're right, my boy, it's she!"
QUESTION: The passage mainly serves to:
Select one of the following: