CHAPTER SIX

Leonard Bast was a fairly poor young man. Not hopelessly poor, but not far from it. What saved him from hopelessness was his ability to pretend he was a gentleman. He did not feel that he was less a man than any of those true gentlemen with lots of money. In fact, however, he was not as polite, healthy, or as intelligent as the true gentleman.

He was hurt and angry with the Schlegel sisters. They had embarrassed him, so he did his best to think of them as unkind and cold. He told himself that they were not proper women, for proper women would never have behaved as they had, stealing umbrellas and inviting strangers into their home for 'tea'.

He arrived at his home and looked nervously about before going to his door. His street was full of ugly, cheaply constructed apartment buildings. And further down the road the older homes were being torn down in order to build newer, uglier homes. This was the way most of London looked at the time.

He walked into his building and went down the stairs into the basement. When he came to his door he opened it, saying, "Hello?" He was happy to hear no one answer. He went inside and sat down on a chair in the living room. His home was quite small. The living room had only a piano, three chairs and a table. It did not look too bad with the lights lowly lit, but it had that cheap feeling so common in the newly built apartments those days.

He accidentally knocked a picture off of the little table as he was trying to remove his boots. Bending down to pick up the broken pieces of glass, he cut himself and said a string of bad words in sudden anger. The picture was of a young woman with a beautiful smile, full of healthy, white teeth.

Leonard went into the kitchen and washed his hands and then sat down in the chair again, only this time with a book in his hands. It was a wonderfully written book, by one of England's best writers. He studied the sentences and tried to imitate them in his everyday speech. But it did not work. It did not sound right, nor was it natural for him to talk that way. He only knew how to say things in the simplest ways. Leonard hoped that by reading such books, and going to the concerts like the one today, he could one day become a proper gentleman, a man of culture. However, he tended to believe that the change would happen quite suddenly one day. He could not understand slow processes. He was terribly envious of the Schlegels' wealth and knowledge.

Then he heard the sound of someone coming down the stairs. He placed Margaret's address in his book, closed it, and went to see who was at the door. A woman then came into his apartment, dressed in such a way that it was obvious she was the kind who sold her body for money. Her face was the same face in the broken picture, only now she had fewer teeth and they were not nearly as healthy or white.

"Hey, Jacky!" Leonard cried.

She returned the greeting with, "Hey, Len."

"Where have you been?" he asked.

"I had tea with a girlfriend," she answered, not saying anything else. She did not usually like to talk much.

Then, sitting on his knee, Jacky began to ask him the same questions she always did.

"Do you love me, Len?"

"Yes, of course."

"Are you going to make things better for us, Len?"

Leonard suddenly became upset. "I've told you a hundred times, Jacky, we'll marry once I'm twenty-one years old. Next November. I promised you that, and I intend to keep my promise! Please don't ask me that again! And let me stand up so that I can start cooking dinner for us."

Jacky did as he asked and went into the bedroom, while Leonard started the fire going on the stove.

"You should trust me by now, Jacky. Just think about all that I've done for us: renting this expensive apartment, buying you that ring, lying to everyone and telling them we're already married. Nobody would approve of this. They would all tell me to run away, but that's not the kind of man I am, Jacky! I'm trying to become a proper gentleman. That's why I love reading great literature and going to classical concerts."

They had dinner, which was quite small and unhealthy. Then after hearing the family upstairs begin singing a common Sunday church song, Leonard got up from the table and told Jacky that he would show her what truly good music sounded like. He went over to his piano and began to play a famous classical work very badly. As soon as he had finished, Jacky yawned and went into the bedroom to sleep.

Leonard sat in his living room thinking about the Schlegels and their lucky situation. He knew that he would never be able to live like them. Some people were just born into that kind of life. Unfortunately, he was not. He would always feel that something was missing in his life.

"Len? It's time for bed!" called Jacky from the bedroom.

"I'm just reading now, dear."

"What?"

"I'm reading."

"What's that?"

He gave up on communicating with her. She was losing her hearing more and more every day. As he read some of the book the author's words made him suddenly aware that he was quite alone in the world and that the world was not at all moved by his own sadness.

(end of section)