Chapter 4 cops and hymns

Soapy lay restless on a Madison Square bench.When geese fly howling across the night, when women lacking sealskin coats make out to their husbands, and Soapy struggles to sleep on a park bench, you know winter is coming. A dead leaf fell on Soapy's lap. It was Mr. Frost's business card.He is very friendly to the regulars of Madison Square Garden, giving advance warning every year when he visits.At the cross street he handed his business card to Mr. Shufeng, who was originally the messenger of the open-air building, so that the tenants in the building could get ready. Soapy tossed and turned on the bench, knowing that the day had come for him to form a one-man action committee against the approaching cold.

Soapy's desire to escape the cold was not too high.He was not thinking of traveling around the Mediterranean, nor of the drowsy southern skies, or of touring the Gulf of Vesuvius.To live on the island for three months is enough.Three months without worrying about food and lodging, with the companionship of like-minded people, and Boreas, the god of the north wind, and the patrolmen will not bother, so for Soapy, everything is ready. The hospitable Blackwell Gaol had been his winter quarters for many years.Just like New Yorkers who are more fortunate than him buy a ticket to go to Palm Beach or the Riviera in the south every winter, Soapy is not demanding, as long as he can make arrangements and go to the island once a year, that is enough.Now is the time.The night before, he had slept on a bench by the fountain in the old square, three thick stacks of Sunday papers, one under his coat, two over his ankles and knees. come to mind.Soapy despised alms given to the helpless of the city in the name of charity.In his mind the law was more benevolent than charity.There are many institutions here, whether they are municipal government agencies or charitable organizations, he can apply to them, and then get board and lodging suitable for a simple life.But Soapy was arrogant by nature and regarded these handouts as a burden.Every favor received from charity, though not costing you a penny, is compensated in moral humiliation.There are gains and losses in everything.A charity offers you a berth, and you have to take a bath; it offers you a piece of bread, and you have to be questioned about your personal affairs.From this point of view, it is more cost-effective to be a guest of the law.Although the law does not care about human feelings, it will never interfere with the private affairs of a dignified man for no reason.

Now that he had decided to go to the island, Soapy immediately set out to realize his wish.It's easy, the most satisfying way is to go to a high-end restaurant to have a big meal, and after drinking and eating, you declare that you can't pay for the meal, you will be handed over to the police quietly, and the rest will be refreshing local officials to deal with. Soapy got off the bench, walked out of the plaza, and walked across the smooth asphalt to the intersection of Broadway and Fifth Avenue.He turned onto Broadway and stopped in front of a brightly lit restaurant where fine wines, satin dresses, and the elite of humanity gathered nightly.

Soapy is confident in his upper body.He was shaved, had a decent coat, and a clean black cravat that a nun had given him on Thanksgiving.As long as he could sneak in and sit at a table in the dining room without being suspected, he would be successful.The part that showed above the table top would not arouse the suspicion of the waiter.Soapy reckoned that a roasted duck and a bottle of white wine from Chablis would do the trick.Oh, and some French Caymansburg cheese, a small cup of coffee, and a cigar, and the cigars cost a dollar a piece.In this way, the total cost of the meal will not be too large to provoke vicious revenge from the restaurant proprietor, and the wild duck meat will fill his stomach and enjoy his journey to the winter refuge.

However, as soon as Soapy stepped into the restaurant door with one leg, the head waiter's eyes fell on his worn-out trousers and scruffy leather shoes, and a pair of powerful hands immediately turned him around and pushed him silently. onto the sidewalk, thereby turning the fate of the threatened mallard around. Soapy left Broadway.It seems that his road to the island he longs for is not smooth, and it cannot be achieved by a good meal.You have to think of another way to go to jail. On the corner of Sixth Avenue, the display of goods in the window of a store is dazzling under the electric light.Soapy picked up a stone and smashed the glass, and a crowd of people followed a policeman to the corner.Soapy stood still, with his hands in his pockets, smiling at the sight of the policeman's brass buttons.

"Where is the man who did this?" the policeman asked angrily. "You can't imagine I have anything to do with it," said Soapy, not without sarcasm, but kindly, like a man on his luck. The police refused to admit that Soapy was the culprit, and they didn't even want to find clues from him.A man who smashes a window does not stay to negotiate with the minions of the law, he must have fled long ago.The policeman saw a man running to get a ride half a street away, so he drew his baton and gave chase.Soapy slouched away, full of displeasure, and miscalculated a second time.

Across the street is an unremarkable, modest restaurant that caters to big eaters and small wallets.The pots and atmosphere here are thick while the soup and napkins are thin.Walking into this restaurant, Soapy's damn shoes and telltale trousers were unchallenged, he sat down to steak, pancakes, donuts and pie, and at the end he told the waiter the truth about his relationship with money On the one hand, he is penniless. "Come on, go and call the police," said Soapy, "don't keep my uncle waiting." "You don't need the police to wait on you," said the waiter, with a voice like brioche and eyes like cherries in a Manhattan.He shouted: "Come on, Akon!"

The two waiters threw Soapy out the door, and his left ear hit the rough pavement.Like a master carpenter opening a ruler, he propped himself up joint by joint, beating the dust off his clothes.It seemed like a rose-tinted dream to be arrested, the island was so far, so far away.A policeman stood upside down in front of a grocery store two doors away, smiled and walked away when he saw the scene. Soapy walked another five blocks before mustering up the courage to pursue arrest again.This time the chance was good, and he smugly thought that arrest would be easy.A young woman in modest attire and attractive features stood in a shop window, looking with interest at the shaving pitcher and inkwell, while two yards away a burly policeman leaned against a fire hydrant, his face stern.

Soapy's scheme was to play the role of a contemptible womanizer.The object of his hunt had a refined appearance, and the proximity of a dedicated policeman convinced him that he would soon have a delicious taste of the policeman's hand on his arm, which would guarantee his arrival on the island. I went to spend the winter in my little comfort home. Soapy straightened the tie the nun had given him, pulled out the tucked shirt cuffs, and pulled his hat at an attractive angle, leaning sideways to the young woman.First he winked at her, then suddenly coughed twice to clear his throat, and with a playful smile, he put on a shameless ugly look of a libertine.Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the policeman staring at him.The young woman moved away two or three steps, still concentrating on the beaker used for shaving.Soapy followed, and standing boldly beside her, raised his hat and said to her:

"Ah, beauty, would you like to come with me to my house to play?" The police are still watching.A gesture from the embarrassed young woman was all it took, and Soapy was almost on his way to island paradise.In his imagination he already felt the warmth and comfort of the police station.The young woman looked at him, and took Soapy's coat sleeve with her hand. "Of course, Mike," she said cheerfully, "if you'd take me for a beer. I'd have told you if the cop hadn't been watching." The young woman clings to him like ivy to an oak.Soapy walked past the policeman sullenly.He was presumably doomed to be a free man forever.

At the next bend he slipped away from his partner.He ran to a place where the brightest streets, the lightest moods, the lightest oaths, and the lightest operas were at night.Women in fur coats and men in frock coats trotted cheerfully through the winter night air.Soapy felt a sudden pang of terror: he had presumably fallen under a dreadful spell, and had escaped arrest.The thought troubled him for a while, and when he came across another cop strutting in front of a brightly lit theater, he jumped at the straw of “disorderly conduct.” Soapy was on the sidewalk screaming at the top of his voice like a drunken gibberish.He danced and yelled and made a scene, and he made the world turn upside down. The policeman swung his baton, turned his back on Soapy, and said to a citizen: "Here's a Yale guy, celebrating they made Hartford a duck. Noisy, but it's okay. We've been instructed to let them go." Soapy was very upset, so he stopped making unnecessary noise.Will there never be a policeman to catch him?The island he imagined has become an unreachable paradise.He buttoned up his thin coat against the cold wind. In front of a cigar shop he saw a well-dressed man lighting a cigar with a flickering fire.When he entered the shop, he left the silk umbrella at the door.Soapy went in, grabbed the silk umbrella and walked slowly away.The cigarette lighter hurried up. "That's my umbrella," he snapped. "Oh, is it?" Soapy sneered, adding insult to the charge of thief. "Okay, why don't you call a policeman? Let me take your umbrella, why don't you call a policeman? There's one standing on the street over there." The Umbrella owner slowed down, and Soapy slowed down, feeling that fate was against him again.The policeman looked at them both curiously. "Of course," said the umbrella owner, "I said—well, you know how these misunderstandings happen—and I hope you'll forgive me if that's your umbrella—I picked it up in a restaurant this morning. Arrived—if you recognize it's your umbrella, no, I hope you—” "Of course it's my umbrella," said Soapy maliciously. The previous owner of the umbrella retreated.The policeman hurried to help a tall blond woman in a dress across the street as a street car was approaching from the second intersection. Soapy walked east, passing a street that had been dug up for road repairs.In a fit of rage, he threw the umbrella into a big hole, muttering curses at the fellows with helmets and batons, because he wanted them to catch him, and they saw him as someone who never did anything wrong. king. Then Soapy came to a road on the east side, which was dimly lit and relatively quiet.He was facing the direction of Madison Square, because the home was hard to shake, even though the house was just a bench in the park. Walking to a very quiet corner in Suby, I stopped. There was an old church, quaint in style, with gables, not very neat, and a faint light from a violet window.Inside, no doubt, there was an organist fiddling with the keys in order to ensure that the next Sunday's hymn would be handy.The beautiful music drifted into Soapy's ears, moved him, and nailed him to the hooped iron railing. The bright moon is in the sky, the sky is clear, the cars and horses are sparse, the pedestrians are few, and the sparrows are chirping sleepily in the eaves - in an instant, this scene looks like a rural cemetery.The hymn played by the organist stuck Soapy to the iron bars, for he knew the tune of the hymn before, when his life was full of motherly love, roses, friendship, ambition, pure thoughts, and clean clothes. . Soapy's sensibility at the moment, combined with the influence of the old church, produced a sudden and miraculous change of mind.He recalled with sudden horror the mire into which he had fallen, the days of dishonor, the base desires, the disillusioned hopes, the marred talents and base motives--all that had made his life. It was at this moment that his heart reacted violently to this new feeling.A strong compulsion impelled him to struggle against his doom.He wants to pull himself out of the mud, he wants to live like a man, he wants to conquer the evil that holds him.There is still time, he is still young, and he wants to re-establish his old ambitions and pursue them bravely.That solemn and beautiful organ tune had caused a revolution in him, and tomorrow he was off to find a job in the hustle and bustle of the city.A fur importer once offered him a job as a driver.He will go to him tomorrow and ask for the job.He's going to be decent in the world, he's going to... Soapy felt a hand on his arm.He turned immediately and saw the broad face of a policeman. "What are you doing here?" asked the policeman. "Nothing," Soapy replied. "Then come with me," said the policeman. "Go to the island and be imprisoned for three months," said the prefect of the police court the next morning.

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