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Summary
III. Nine Days’ Wonder
Stan turns up at Jimmy’s apartment looking for alcohol. Jimmy warns him that he’ll end up dead if he doesn’t change his ways. As he gets ready for the day, Jimmy rehearses quitting his job so that he can go abroad as a reporter, although he never actually quits. Stan tells Jimmy that he’s been fired from college, which he’s thrilled about, and comments on Jimmy’s poor accommodations. He tells Jimmy that he should have been born a capitalist, like himself. Jimmy and Stan discuss how everyone in the city is obsessed with success. Beyond agreement on this point, the two have very different views of the world. Everything seems easy and accessible for Stan, and for Jimmy everything is a struggle. He doesn’t know which move to make, and he doesn’t have the money to make a move. Stan spots Ellen and Jojo when he and Jimmy enter a café. Upset, Stan leaves, followed by Jojo. Ellen asks Jimmy to stay and keep her company.
Joe Harland is in a diner. A drunk older woman comes in. She starts talking about how much she misses her husband who perished on the General Slocum. Joe, now homeless, loses his patience with her.
Ellen attends a party with Harry Goldweiser, a Broadway producer. She’s unhappy at the party.
George Baldwin married Cecily primarily for her social position. Cecily tries to end the marriage because she has found out that George is seeing Ellen. He downplays the fact that he occasionally sees Ellen and convinces the miserable Cecily to hold off on divorcing him.
Cassie visits Ellen in her new apartment. She’s preoccupied and fidgety and finally tells Ellen that she’s pregnant. She has to go on the road for a show in three weeks and doesn’t want anything to get in the way of her dancing. Ellen assures her there’s no reason to get upset over the situation and that she will bring her to a woman who will take care of it.
Joe has a job as a nightwatchman and is visited one night by Joe O’Keefe, a union member. O’Keefe tries to get Joe to join the union in the name of solidarity. Joe tells him he’s too old for that and he’s also determined to keep this job.
Stan shows up at Jimmy’s apartment again and asks if he can bring a girl to the back room. Jimmy obliges and Ellen later comes into his room wrapped in a sheet looking for somewhere to hide. Jimmy is asked to go talk to Jojo who accuses Jimmy of being a yellow journalist.
Ed sits in his New Jersey home reading about Ellen’s divorce and relationship with Stan in the newspaper. This is happening just as Ellen is getting bigger roles on Broadway. When Ellen arrives, she downplays her divorce, even though it is no small matter for Ed. He doesn’t enjoy seeing his daughter’s name in the gossip pages, and he socializes with churchgoing people whom Ellen’s lifestyle will scandalize.
IV Fire Engine
Ellen walks in the park with Harry Goldweiser. He wants a relationship with her and tells her how different she is from other New York actresses. Ellen only spends time with Harry for professional reasons. He shares how he has spent his adult life working hard and pushing down his feelings. Now, he’s a success and wants to enjoy his life with Ellen. Ellen leads him on, avoiding the truth that she never intends to have a relationship with him.
Lawyer George Baldwin is sitting in his office with Gus McNeil. George’s career began when he won Gus a settlement against the railroad, and they are now colleagues and friends. The two men discuss an injunction that they believe is unwarranted, and Gus says he will leave the whole situation to George to figure out. George assures Gus that he has always operated within the law, but George knows that Gus is not completely honest. Gus reminds George that he has always been loyal and expects everyone to be loyal in return. The two men are visited by Joe O’Keefe, who briefs them on what the union is up to. The Contractors and Builders Association plans to declare a lockout to demand better working conditions. Gus, a Tammany Hall politician, hates what he calls the reform gang. George wishes that Gus would stay out of labor relations.
Joe O’Keefe visits Joe Harland. O’Keefe is deeper into the politics of the union than he anticipated. He genuinely wants to help his fellow union members and feels he’s being dishonest by reporting to Gus.
Stan and Ellen arrive in her dressing room, and Stan is drunk. Ellen tells Stan that he needs to sober up. Milly, the older woman who dresses Ellen, arrives and is disappointed that Stan is drunk. The women decide to put Stan in the bathtub during the show. When the show is over, Harry and his colleague visit Ellen in her dressing room. Harry tells Ellen that when he first met her, he did not expect her to be so talented. When the men leave, Ellen checks on Stan and finds him asleep in the bathtub that is now full of water. Milly warns Ellen not to bring Stan around the theater anymore because she has seen careers end over matters like this. Milly helps Ellen change Stan into one of her dresses so that she can get him in a cab and get home.
Analysis
These chapters see the characters doubling down on bad habits and choices. Some choices revolve around the overuse of alcohol and becoming more personally involved with people for the wrong reasons. Some choices have to do with the ever-present corruption that runs through business and industry in New York City. The nature of the city is a double-edged sword for the characters. Their bad decisions often come as a result of the high expectations placed on them because they live in New York. They are expected to be wealthy, successful, and ever-youthful. These demands cloud their judgment. At the same time, the results of their poor decisions easily get lost in the dizzying, constant rush of the city, making it an ideal place to make bad decisions. The characters rarely learn lessons from their mistakes since they can move on so quickly. In addition to hurling grit in their faces and drowning out their conversations, this is one more way in which the city antagonizes its residents.
Jimmy and Stan represent two opposite ends of the class structure in New York City, where Jimmy is the struggling writer unimpressed by material things, and Stan was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. They become unlikely friends even though Jimmy is uncomfortable with how easy things seem to be for Stan. It is ironic when Stan tells Jimmy he should have been born a capitalist, because Jimmy is part of a wealthy New York family. He could have all kinds of opportunities like Stan, but he chooses a different path. When Jimmy chooses to be a journalist, he knows he will not have the same kind of wealth as his uncle, but he hopes to be a successful writer. Failing to achieve this goal, Jimmy becomes stagnant and unhappy in New York. Compounding Jimmy’s unhappiness, he falls in love with Ellen. In spite of his alcohol-fueled existence, Stan is the one who is dating her. After the episode where Stan brings Ellen back to Jimmy’s apartment and Jimmy has to deal with an enraged Jojo, Jimmy is angry. The anger stems not only from Jimmy’s embarrassment from being pulled into the ridiculous situation, but because he is jealous that Stan is with Ellen.
Joe Harland continues eking out a brutal existence in the city. In an uncharacteristic move, he snaps at the woman in the diner who misses her dead husband. Even when he is drunk, Joe has never been impatient or angry with anyone. Joe lives an unforgiving hand-to-mouth existence. He is penniless and homeless when he sits in the diner listening to the woman. Later, Joe is working again, though it is not revealed how he came by the work. As long as Joe is able to get by, he might be miserable, but he does not have to take responsibility for his failures. Joe O’Keefe has the benefit of knowing Joe and knowing how quickly one’s good fortune can go bad. Joe knows how the city works, and he tries to warn O’Keefe not to get involved in union politics. Even though O’Keefe has the benefit of Joe’s advice, he makes the poor choice of ignoring it. O’Keefe finds himself entangled in Gus’s Tammany Hall politics. When O’Keefe gives Joe some change for food, Joe initially intends to spend it this way, but he too is a slave to his addiction and bad choices. He gives into his weaker impulses, choosing to continue his downward spiral by heading into a corner saloon instead of buying food.
Even while she is dating Stan, Ellen goes out on dispassionate dates with Harry Goldweiser because of his professional connections. The scene that finds Ellen at an industry party with Harry is a metaphor for Ellen’s existence. She is lonely and unhappy despite being surrounded by people. As when she was a little girl, the sights and sounds around her become part of her daydream. She objectifies the people at the party and uses her imagination to build a mental wall around herself. It’s a protective wall to shield her, especially from the glare of men. Ellen does not think highly of most of the people in her orbit. This is true even of people who are not in positions of power. When Cassie visits Ellen, pregnant and desperate, the visit exposes Ellen’s hatred of all the women in her life. Ellen implies that she, too, has been pregnant, but she is disgusted by Cassie finding herself in the same position. The fact that Ellen has surrounded herself with people she does not like makes it easy to assume that she has no idea what it feels like to be happy. She is motivated solely by improving her career and status in New York.
In his blind pursuit of personal and professional success, George consistently makes bad choices. In spite of constant rebuffs, he loves Ellen and pursues to her to the point of looking foolish. She is no longer married to Jojo, but Ellen will not take George up on his offers of marriage. While he does not let go of his ambitions of marrying Ellen, George shamelessly uses Cecily to create the public impression that he is a stable family man in a high social position. When Cecily wants to leave George, he manipulates her into staying, not because he cares for her, but because he cannot professionally afford the bad publicity a divorce would bring. George pays no attention the fact that Cecily gets nothing by being married to him. She already has money and social standing and knows that he is not faithful.
Stan continues his downward spiral into alcohol addiction in “Fire Engine.” While his falling asleep in a bathtub full of water should alarm Ellen, she finds it funny and covers for him. Stan and Ellen epitomize the theme of self-destruction at this point in the book. They are in love with each other but will not help themselves or each other. They have the opportunity to have a happy relationship, but Stan cannot stop drinking and Ellen does not try to help him. This is arguably Ellen’s worst decision of all. By not confronting Stan about his alcohol abuse, Ellen plays an implicit role in his coming death, after which she is ruined. In a tragic aside, while drunk one night Stan mentions that he doesn’t understand why people have children. He considers it an admission of defeat, confirmation that a person is incomplete. He then then refers to himself as incomplete. Throughout the stories in the book, Stan and Ellen’s baby Martin is the only baby born besides Ellen, and Stan will never meet him due to his deadly vices.
