PASSING STRANGER

clarkson crane

First a Mexican stopped to watch the thin, long nosed man painting care-

fully on the inside of the bar window, next two Filipinos, then a man carrying a brief case, finally a dreamy-looking boy in a red, zipper-fronted shirt that he wore tunic-like outside his jeans. Probably just a high school student, but he was like a medieval page adrift from another century. The loiterers stood before the window of the bar and followed the painter's brush, which glided over the inner side of the pane, up, down, then suddenly around, smearing flesh-tint between the black lines that formed the woman's body. Slender, with one arm raised and hips curved, she would soon be there on the glass-a hula dancer about a foot high, with something flimsy around her middle.

The painter, tensely occupied with his work, seemed admirably unaware of the spectators: behind the plate glass he had something of the superior indifference of fish in an aquarium. He applied the paint evenly, never glancing at his audience, the veins emerging on his brow when he leaned forward and vanishing when he straightened up. His blue eyes, aloof and impersonal, had contact with nothing save the figure; they widened and contracted; the pupils were tiny and black against the light: they were not like ordinary eyes, which usually reflect a little the mood of the person who sees them and who is seen. These eyes were slightly inhuman, like those of a busy insect. The painter was about forty-five; his hair was beginning to wear out, leaving the scalp partly visible.

Busses and automobiles moved along the street; the sky was gray, the sidewalk wet from earlier rain. The boy glanced at the sky, as though fearing the rain might begin again. Then his gaze, indolent and thoughtful, returned to the half-formed painting on the window.

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