The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [260]
“All right,” he answered, as if it were an important decision.
He turned her on to Michigan Avenue. Behind them the avenue was brilliantly lit, and the street seemed like a fog of electricity and mist between the massive piles of stone. Ahead of them, way down at Twelfth, they saw the lighted advertising signs in the distance and the warm mist deflecting the electric rays.
“Isn’t it grand, dear? And you know, I don’t think I’ll ever forget tonight and this walk,” she said.
“Yes,” Studs said, still striving to keep a lever of control on his excited feelings.
“And we’ll have a cosy apartment all our own, won’t we? Let’s go looking for apartments next Sunday.”
“We’ll have lots of time for that.”
“I know, but it’ll be fun.”
“We’ll have lots of time for that.”
“But Bill, maybe your mother will be angry and not like our engagement,” Catherine said after they had walked along silent for nearly a block.
“She and my dad both like you, and they are kind of expecting me to get married. and say, anyway, I’m not a kid anymore.”
“I like them,” she said, squeezing his hand, “and I like their son too.”
“Well, that’s me, I’m their son, William,” he said with intended humor.
“And you know we’re engaged, and you haven’t kissed me. Now is that right, or is that the way it is done in the movies?” she laughed.
“Well, we’re in public,” he said, serious in self-defense.
“There’s a big park across the street,” she said, nodding toward the expanse of Grant Park.
“Come on, let’s take a walk,” he said, anticipation hidden behind his level voice.
She clutched his arm firmly.
IV
Ahead of them was the wide, cement driveway, flanked with brightly lit electric lamps, and in the distance, surrounded by a waste of hard, snow-patched earth, the Buckingham Fountain, with the lively spray of water drenched in colored lights. Strolling over the bridge to the right of the Art Institute, he saw these objects in the panoramic scene before him, as if for the first time. A high-powered automobile shot by and he watched its moving red tail-light until the car swerved onto the right.
“Gee, a few years ago there wasn’t any of this here, and just think, when I was a kid, the Masonic Temple was the biggest building in town,” he said, stimulated by the sudden and surrounding sense of the city’s growth which he was experiencing.
A stiff lake wind blew against them, and they heard, from the railroad tracks below, the approach of a train.
“Isn’t it so, and you know I can remember when North Michigan was not at all built up like it is now. They certainly have built up Chicago, and with the World’s Fair coming in a couple of years, it’s certainly going to be the most wonderful city in the world.”
The railroad engine chugged under them, and a flurry of hot cinders struck Studs’ face, causing him to grumble. “What’s the matter, Bill?”
“Oh a chunk of cinder hit me,” he said, wiping his face with his handkerchief.
“Yes, isn’t it a shame to have smoke in such a beautiful city. I was reading an editorial in the paper only the other day about it, and my boss, Mr. Breckenbridge, was speaking of it, too.”
“Yeah, the I. C. ought to hurry up with the rest of its electrification programme. Look,” Studs said, showing her the soot-streaked handkerchief.
“It’s not right to have a smoke nuisance spoiling a beautiful city like Chicago,” she said as they strolled on.
“You know, I haven’t seen any other big cities, but I guess there isn’t any of them to match Chicago,” Studs said.
“Me for Chicago every time. That’s what I say. And Mr. Breckenbridge, my boss, he’s been all over, in the big cities like Indianapolis, and New York, Detroit, Cleveland, Minneapolis, all the big cities, and even in Toronto and Montreal in Canada, and he says the same thing. He always calls it Chicago Beautiful, and says there isn’t another city like it in the world. It has the real city spirit he says, and he’s interested in the plan they have, the Chicago Plan, to make it even more beautiful. He keeps saying that instead of there being so much graft, the money should be spent in improvements, particularly now in bad times when everything is so cheap. He even dictated a letter I typed the other day, showing how if the city would do that, there wouldn