A porter shoved her bags into one of these, the driver leaning
an ear down off his box.
"Where to, miss?"
"Hudson Hotel," she said, sitting back against the leather tufting.
CHAPTER XVI
They rattled over the cobblestones until her very flesh shivered, and
she bit into her tongue and her hands bounced as they lay in her lap,
and, trying to peer out of the window, she bumped her head, and finally
sat back, forced to be inert as she bumbled over the deep narrow streets
of lower Manhattan which at night become deserted runways to slaughter,
ghostly with the silent thunder of a million stampeding feet.
It was ten o'clock when they finally drew up at the side entrance of the
hotel in a street disappointingly narrow, but which seemed to burst,
just a few feet beyond, into a wildly tossed stream of light,
pedestrians, and, above all, a momentum of traffic that was like the
fast toss of a mountain stream. The cab fare was overwhelmingly large.
Her bags disappeared; she followed them, immediately enveloped in an
atmosphere of upholstery, mosaic floors that seemed to slide from under
her, palms that leaned out of corners, crystal chandeliers, uniforms,
rivulets of music.
Pages:
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160