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"No," she said.

"It isn't only that," he said. "You remind me of all of it. I mean the night drives. I used to be a night bus driver. That's what you remind me of. The stars, I mean, and the grade crossings, and the cattle lined up along the fences. And the girls in the lunch counters. They always looked so pretty. But you never worked in a lunch counter."

"No," she said.

"You can have my play," he said. "I mean, I think you're right for the part. Sam Farley can have the play. Everything."

"Thank you, Evarts," she said.

"Will you do me a favor?" he asked.

"What?"

"Oh, I know it's foolish," he said. He got up and walked around the room. "But there's nobody here, nobody will know about it. I hate to ask you."

"What do you want?"

"Will you let me lift you?" he said. "Just let me lift you. Just let me see how light you are."

"All right," she said. "Do you want me to take off my coat?"

"Yes, yes, yes," he said. "Take off your coat."

She stood. She let her coat fall to the sofa.

"Can I do it now?" he said.

"Yes."

He put his hands under her arms. He raised her off the floor and then put her down gently. "Oh, you're so light!" he shouted. "You're so light, you're so fragile, you don't weigh any more than a suitcase. Why, I could carry you, I could carry you anywhere, I could carry you from one end of New York to the other." He got his hat and coat and ran out of the house.

Evarts felt bewildered and exhausted when he returned to the Mentone. Bitsey was in the room with Mildred-Rose and Alice. He kept asking questions about Mama Finelli. He wanted to know where she lived and what her telephone number was. Evarts lost his temper at the bellboy and told him to go away. He lay down on the bed and fell asleep while Alice and Mildred-Rose were asking him questions. When he woke, an hour later, he felt much better. They went to the Automat and then to Radio City Music Hall, and they got to bed early, so that Evarts could work on his play in the morning. He couldn't sleep.

After breakfast, Alice and Mildred-Rose left Evarts alone in the room and he tried to work. He couldn't work, but it wasn't the telephone that troubled him that day. The difficulty that blocked his play was deep, and as he smoked and stared at the brick wall, he recognized it. He was in love with Susan Hewitt. This might have been an incentive to work, but he had left his creative strength in Indiana. He shut his eyes and tried to recall the strong, dissolute voice of Mama Finelli, but before he could realize a word, it would be lost in the noise from the street.

If there had been anything to set his memory free—a train whistle, a moment of silence, the smells of a barn—he might have been inspired. He paced the room, he smoked, he sniffed the sooty window curtains and stuffed his ears with toilet paper, but there seemed to be no way of recalling Indiana at the Mentone. He stayed near the desk all that day. He went without lunch. When his wife and child returned from Radio City Music Hall, where they had spent the afternoon, he told them he was going to take a walk. Oh, he thought as he left the hotel, if I could only hear the noise of a crow!

He strode up Fifth Avenue, holding his head high, trying to divine in the confusion of sound a voice that might lead him. He walked rapidly until he reached Radio City and could hear, in the distance, the music from the skating rink. Something stopped him. He lighted a cigarette. Then he heard someone calling him. "Behold the lordly moose, Evarts," a woman shouted. It was the hoarse, dissolute voice of Mama Finelli, and he thought that desire had deranged him until he turned and saw her, sitting on one of the benches, by a dry pool. "Behold the lordly moose, Evarts," she called, and she put her hands, spaced like antlers, above her head. This was the way she greeted everyone in Wentworth.

"Behold the lordly moose, Mama Finelli," Evarts shouted. He ran to her side and sat down. "Oh, Mama Finelli, I'm so glad to see you," he said.