Bodenheim demimonde of the day: Book browsers

February 15, 2010

Tables stood in front of their windows on the sidewalk and spread the silent, hieroglyphic appeal of books to the sordidly marching unconcern of men and women. Worn, and with half of their color slain, the books perched together on the tables, like dead symbols waiting for the rare resurrections--symbols of stupidity, love, hatred, and fancy, begging some mind to seize them and elevate them once more to an illusionary importance. Sometimes men and women stepped out of the heedless procession and lingered at the tables, as though they were reprehensible deserters, fleeing from their ranks in the commonplace army. They picked up the books and dropped them, with an idle and defrauded air. Sometimes one of these people selected a book and hurried into the shop, with the elation of one whose prejudices had shaken hands with their reflections.

(From Crazy Man by Maxwell Bodenheim, 1924, Harcourt, Brace)