"Bye bye,
"B.S."
Nance's breath caught in her throat. The bubble was so radiant, so
fragile, so unbelievable, that she was afraid to stir for fear of
breaking it. She waited until she heard Mrs. Snawdor's heavy feet
descending the stairs, and then she crept across the hall and sat on the
side of Fidy's bed, waiting to give her the next dose of medicine. Her
eyes were fixed on the bare lathes over the headboard where she had once
knocked the plaster off tacking up a tomato-can label. But she did not
see the hole or the wall. Calvary Alley and Cemetery Street had ceased to
exist for her. She was already transported to a region of warmth and
gaiety and song. All that was ugly and old and sordid lay behind her,
and she told herself, with a little sob of joy, that at last the
beautiful something for which she had waited so long was about to happen.
CHAPTER XVII
BEHIND THE TWINKLING LIGHTS
The gaiety, with its flamboyant entrance, round which the lights flared
enticingly at night, had always seemed to Nance an earthly paradise into
which the financially blessed alone were privileged to enter. At the
"Star" there were acrobats and funny Jews with big noses and Irishmen who
were always falling down; but the Gaiety was different. Twice Nance had
passed that fiery portal, and she knew that once inside, you drifted into
states of beatitude, which eternity itself was too short to enjoy. The
world ceased to exist for you, until a curtain, as relentless as fate,
descended, and you reached blindly for your hat and stumbled down from
the gallery to the balcony, and from the balcony to the lobby, and thence
out into the garish world, dazed, bewildered, unreconciled to reality,
and not knowing which way to turn to go home.
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