New
York like a mantle of mist. A moment later we made out
Long Island Sound, laid out with all its little bays and harbors 20
just like a pattern of white paper fallen on the extreme
edge of a Persian carpet. There were a few specks on it,
and from them whisps of smoke drifted up, many times
smaller than pipe smoke.

Bump! A slight jar. I looked at Francis. He was 25
gazing ahead unconcernedly.

Air pockets. We had dropped twenty feet on two
separate occasions within the space of a moment. Great!

The machine was still intact. Good old machine! Nice
old craft! . . . I felt like patting it on the nose and stroking 30
its sleek fabric back--that is, if it remained constant.
If ever I craved constancy in anything, it was then.

Suddenly I relaxed. A feeling of delightful content
surged through me. Approaching New York. Above the
haze, out of all the hustle and bustle of the human maelstrom.
That look of absolute futility I had seen on the
faces in the subway, on the streets, in the early hours of 5
morning--these receded from memory. Life was good,
after all. It was a wonderful thing if you viewed it correctly.
And this was the way to view it.

Reflections of a bright young man being smeared all
over the island were things of the past now, as on the right, 10
as far as we could see, the Bronx stretched away, monotonously,
endlessly. I thought how much happier I was up
there, looking at the Bronx, than if I were in the Bronx
down there, looking up at me.

Straight down I made out a Sound steamer. Hell Gate 15
Bridge, a tiny thing like the toys in shop windows.

But the Bronx got me. I had heard much of the Bronx
and once or twice had visited the Zoo. But I never conceived
the Bronx as a few bushels of building blocks thrown
down on a wide green lawn and tumbled about promiscuously. 20
They were blocks, too, whole city squares, miles
and miles of squares.

And there was the Harlem River--and Harlem. I
looked for the homes of the cliff dwellers. They were not
there. The scenery was as flat as the side of a house. 25

Veering slightly to the left, a mere touch from Francis
of the auto wheel in front of him, and we were speeding
over the upper East Side. Now I knew, or thought I knew,
the millions who reside there, more or less in a state of
perp