Atlantic City.

CHAPTER 5. The Egotist Becomes a Personage

"A fathom deep in sleep I lie
With old desires, restrained before,
To clamor lifeward with a cry,
As dark flies out the greying door;
And so in quest of creeds to share
I seek assertive day again...
But old monotony is there:
Endless avenues of rain.

Oh, might I rise again! Might I
Throw off the heat of that old wine,
See the new morning mass the sky
With fairy towers, line on line;
Find each mirage in the high air
A symbol, not a dream again...
But old monotony is there:
Endless avenues of rain."

Under the glass portcullis of a theatre Amory stood, watching the first
great drops of rain splatter down and flatten to dark stains on the
sidewalk. The air became gray and opalescent; a solitary light suddenly
outlined a window over the way; then another light; then a hundred more
danced and glimmered into vision. Under his feet a thick, iron-studded
skylight turned yellow; in the street the lamps of the taxi-cabs sent
out glistening sheens along the already black pavement. The unwelcome
November rain had perversely stolen the day's last hour and pawned it
with that ancient fence, the night.

The silence of the theatre behind him ended with a curious snapping
sound, followed by the heavy roaring of a rising crowd and the
interlaced clatter of many voices. The matinee was over.

He stood aside, edged a little into the rain to let the throng pass. A
small boy rushed out, sniffed in the damp, fresh air and turned up the
collar of his coat; came three or four couples in a great hurry; came
a further scattering of people whose eyes as they emerged glanced
invariably, first at the wet street, then at the rain-filled air,
finally at the dismal sky; last a dense, strolling mass that depressed
him with its heavy odor compounded of the tobacco smell of the men and
the fetid sensuousness of stale powder on women. After the thick crowd
came another scattering; a stray half-dozen; a man on crutches; finally
the rattling bang of folding seats inside announced that the ushers were
at work.

New York seemed not so much awakening as turning over in its bed. Pallid
men rushed by, pinching together their coat-collars; a great swarm of
tired, magpie girls from a department-store crowded along with shrieks
of strident laughter, three to an umbrella; a squad of marching
policemen pas