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Young Man Axelbrod
by
What an Ysaye was, Knute Axelbrod had no notion; but “Sure!” he boomed.
When they got to Hartford they found that between them they had just enough money to get dinner, hear Ysaye from gallery seats, and return only as far as Meriden. At Meriden Gil suggested:
“Let’s walk back to New Haven, then. Can you make it?”
Knute had no knowledge as to whether it was four miles or forty back to the campus, but “Sure!” he said. For the last few months he had been noticing that, despite his bulk, he had to be careful, but tonight he could have flown.
In the music of Ysaye, the first real musician he had ever heard, Knute had found all the incredible things of which he had slowly been reading in William Morris and “Idylls of the King. ” Tall knights he had beheld, and slim princesses in white samite, the misty gates of forlorn towns, and the glory of the chivalry that never was.
They did walk, roaring down the road beneath the October moon, stopping to steal apples and to exclaim over silvered hills, taking a puerile and very natural joy in chasing a profane dog. It was Gil who talked, and Knute who listened, for the most part; but Knute was lured into tales of the pioneer days, of blizzards, of harvesting, and of the first flame of the green wheat. Regarding the Atchisons and Gribbles of the class both of them were youthfully bitter and supercilious. But they were not bitter long, for they were atavisms tonight. They were wandering minstrels, Gilbert the troubadour with his man-at-arms.
They reached the campus at about five in the morning. Fumbling for words that would express his feeling, Knute stammered:
“Vell, it vas fine. I go to bed now and I dream about—”
“Bed? Rats! Never believe in winding up a party when it’s going strong. Too few good parties. Besides, it’s only the shank of the evening. Besides, we’re hungry. Besides—oh, besides! Wait here a second. I’m going up to my room to get some money, and we’ll have some eats. Wait! Please do!”
Knute would have waited all night. He had lived almost seventy years and traveled fifteen hundred miles and endured Ray Gribble to find Gil Washburn.
Policemen wondered to see the celluloid-collared old man and the expensive-looking boy rolling arm in arm down Chapel Street in search of a restaurant suitable to poets. They were all closed.
“The Ghetto will be awake by now,” said Gil. “We’ll go buy some eats and take ’em up to my room. I’ve got some tea there. ”
Knute shouldered through dark streets beside him as naturally as though he had always been a nighthawk, with an aversion to anything as rustic as beds. Down on Oak Street, a place of low shops, smoky lights and alley mouths, they found the slum already astir. Gil contrived to purchase boxed biscuits, cream cheese, chicken-loaf, a bottle of cream. While Gil was chaffering, Knute stared out into the street milkily lighted by wavering gas and the first feebleness of coming day; he gazed upon Kosher signs and advertisements in Russian letters, shawled women and bearded rabbis; and as he looked he gathered contentment which he could never lose. He had traveled abroad tonight.
The room of Gil Washburn was all the useless, pleasant things Knute wanted it to be. There was more of Gil’s Paris days in it than of his freshmanhood: Persian rugs, a silver tea service, etchings, and books. Knute Axelbrod of the tar-paper shack and piggy farmyards gazed in satisfaction. Vast bearded, sunk in an easy chair, he clucked amiably while Gil lighted a fire.