Chapter XI: Paradise Lost

ON Sunday morning he found a small room on the North side, not far away, a narrow hall bedroom on the top floor--a hole in the wall that cost him only four dollars a week.

He went back to Mrs. Case’s to pack up. Mr. Victor came in. He had heard, he said, that Norman was leaving.

Nobody else came in. They seemed to be avoiding him.

He asked Mr. Victor to tell Mrs. Case that the corner expressman would come for his trunk. He looked around the room regretfully, and wondered again at that inexplicable kiss which had forfeited for him this comfort.... Well, unless he got a job right away, he couldn’t have stayed there anyway.

“Say good-by for me to Mrs. Case, and Mrs. Czermak--and Monica,” he bade Mr. Victor. “Tell them how grateful I am and always will be to them, for the way they’ve looked after my child.”

Mr. Victor raised his eyebrows. “But you’ll be coming here regularly to see the boy, won’t you?” he asked.

Norman felt rather foolish. To Mr. Victor, of course, it was not a farewell to a lost paradise.

“My work is going to keep me terribly busy for a while,” he said stiffly. “I shan’t be able to get here very often.”

“You’ve been almost one of the family,” said Mr. Victor regretfully.

Just a little too darned near, thought Norman.... That kiss still astonished him whenever he thought of it.

But he didn’t like to go away as though he were sneaking off in disgrace. He wished he could see Monica for a moment.... An idea occurred to him.

He unlocked his trunk. In the till were all sorts of trifles which his mother had collected from his chiffonier. He searched among them, looking for something appropriate.... Yes, girls wore cuff-links sometimes. He selected a handsome green jade pair with silver mountings.

“May I entrust you with a little commission?” he asked Mr. Victor formally. “I would like you to give these to little Monica.”

“She’ll be pleased as Punch,” said Mr. Victor, admiring them.

“I don’t know when I’ll be here again,” said Norman, “so I’ll say good-by,” and shook hands with Mr. Victor.

He went over to his new room and awaited the trunk. He was afraid at first that there would be no room for it. But he found that if it were set at the end of the narrow iron bedstead, it left space enough for the door to open half way--and that was enough.... He reflected that if the worst came to the worst, all those suits of clothes his mother had sent him ought to fetch something at a pawnshop.

But that was no way to be thinking at a time like this....

He dined as inexpensively as possible, and came back to his hole in the wall.... At Mrs. Czermak’s there had been a tree in front of the house. Here he looked out over a chaos of grimy roofs. Well, he might as well get used to it! This might be his life for some time now.

All the rest of the day he stayed in his tiny room. He remembered that he had promised Dr. Zerneke to write to his mother. But he did not want her to come while he was out of a job. He would have to postpone that indefinitely.

Well, what was he going to do? Look for a job, of course. But suppose he couldn’t find one?

But he could. He would. He must!

He hadn’t been discouraged when he started in to look for a job three weeks before. But this was different, somehow. Being a father, with a baby to support--that had been then a strange dream, a daring wish, a rebellious aspiration. Now it was a grim reality. He had to keep on paying that twelve dollars a week.... And he began with pencil and paper to figure out how long his money would last, computing his own expenses at the lowest rate. Less than three weeks! Scarcely more than two, in fact. He had that much time to find a job in. Then there was that trunkful of clothes to pawn.... Of course, his father’s money was there in the bank, waiting for such emergencies as this. But that would be a confession of failure....

Why was he thinking of failure now? Three weeks ago he hadn’t worried about that possibility.... But three weeks ago he hadn’t just been fired from a job that he thought he was doing pretty well at.

Yesterday he had formally adopted his and Isabel’s child. He, a man without a job, who could assure a child no more than three weeks’ food and shelter. What would Isabel think, if she knew? Would she be sorry she hadn’t given her baby to some well-to-do strangers?

He found it difficult to get to sleep that night. The future stretched out before him, grim and frightening.