Public Square

Excerpt: “A girl of nineteen had just arrived in New York, with one fat bag. She turned into the curving silence of Harrow Street, which is only three minutes’ walk from Washington Square, but some trick to find. Several times she changed her bag from one hand to the other, sometimes putting it down and stepping around it, until she came to a door with a room-to-rent sign. This house was painted fresh green, the only thing that distinguished it from all the other houses of the block, except the number, which was Fifty-four. “Here goes me!” she said, starting up the stone steps. She rang. The door before her didn’t open, but the basement door below did. A woman’s voice called, “Yes?” in rising inflection. The girl trailed her bag down to the walk and around the railing to the lower entrance where a dark-faced woman stood, regarding her with almost concerned attention—dark eyes that saw too much, the girl decided. The face was un-American, but its foreign suggestion was vague. It might even have been East Indian. If her skin was natively white, it had certainly known the darkening of much sunlight. As the girl drew near she sensed a curious freshness from the woman; something hard to name, having to do with the garments as well as the shadowy olive skin."