The Swing of the Pendulum by Adriana Spadoni

Through the crowd waiting for tables, Herrick pushed his way and Jean followed closely. Greasy waiters rushed about with great platters of spaghetti, increasing the noise and confusion by their violent gestures and frantic efforts to serve every one at once. As Jean and Herrick made their way among the small tables that took up three-quarters of the long room, people looked at them and made comments which came to Jean in broken sentences of no meaning. Suddenly the air of the Marseillaise rose above the din. Instantly the crowd waiting about the door pushed forward, and those already seated got on chairs and craned their necks toward the end of the room.

Herrick bent to Jean. "Don't be frightened. We're really not a bit dangerous."

Jean did not have time to answer before they passed through the outer rim of the crowd and came into a cleared space before a long table, from which the deafening din arose. Mounted on a chair, a fat man, in a khaki hunting suit and an enormous Windsor tie of peacock blue satin, was bellowing a song set to the tune of the Marseillaise. The burden of the song was, "Bring on the Food! Bring on the Food! " A girl in a dull green crêpe dress that hung from the shoulders like a kimono, stood in the center of the table and carried the air high above the rest in a shrill soprano. The men and women about the table beat time with forks and spoons.

As Herrick and Jean came forward the man in khaki saw them, stopped, appraised Jean in a glance, and silenced his chorus with a wave of his fat hand.

"I hereby fine him, Franklin Herrick, twenty-five cents for tardiness, said fine to be paid in United States silver coin, not later than ten o'clock this evening, and to be used for the sole purpose of aiding the complete debauch of The Bunch."

He jumped down and came forward with both hands outstretched in generous welcome. He appropriated Jean, separated her from Herrick and swept her into the empty chair between a pudgy woman in a black skirt and soiled white waist, and a heavy-browed young man who did not move or glance at Jean as she took the place. With a wave that included the entire table, Flop announced:

"Jean, Jean Norris, and on with the dance! " He seemed to find this funny, and laughed immoderately. A tall, very thin man next to the pudgy woman bent forward, leered at Jean for a second in maudlin earnestness, and then yelled:

"We want Jean! We want Jean!"

The table took it up, and all down the length, glasses were raised and they drank to Jean in the sour, red wine. Across the table, from what was evidently his accustomed place next to the girl in the green crêpe, Herrick smiled reassuringly. The girl had come down from the table at Flop's introduction of Jean and sat with her elbows on the cloth and her chin in her palms, staring at Jean, with no acknowledgment of the latter's existence in her eyes. Now that she looked at her more closely, Jean saw that the woman was not really young, only her smallness made her seem so. Her blue eyes were netted with fine wrinkles and the skin of her hands was faintly withered. The youngest thing about her was her neck, beautifully modeled, and her black hair which was thin but wavy. Jean was just wondering whether the woman was expressing a genuine mood, or resenting a stranger, when the pudgy woman said in a reassuring tone:

"You mustn't be afraid of us. We say and do anything that pleases us, but really we're not the least bit dangerous."

"But I'm not. Not the least bit. Do I look so -- so green, that I need protection? " Jean smiled, but this insistence that there was nothing to fear, annoyed her.

The woman thrust her face close to Jean's and scrutinized her carefully. "An azalea! That's it, an azalea! Listen, listen, all ye present, I've got it. Azalea, that's her Bunch name."

"Azalea! Azalea! " Above the noise, Flop's bass bellowed and he beat the table in a frenzy of approval, as if he could not have endured another moment without knowing the right name for Jean. Through the uproar, Herrick's smile reached like a cool touch. They drank Jean's baptism in the sour, red wine and the next moment the interrupted arguments were going on more violently than before. The name was adopted with voracious enthusiasm and complete indifference.

Rather exhausted by the suddenness of the proceeding, Jean drew back and tried to separate the mass before her into its elements. She wondered which were Harcourt and Tolletson and whether they had been "baptized" in wine. She scanned the faces along the opposite side, where Herrick was now listening with a frown to the girl in green; and then, as no one claimed her attention, leaned a little forward. There was a heavy-set young man with a swarthy skin, who talked with an Oxford accent and made Jewish gestures: a middle-aged man, with sleek hair and a Van Dyke, which he was continually stroking with a very white hand. He seemed to carry on his side of the argument with the swarthy person, in a series of grunts and inner explosions, as if his opinions were so violent that they erupted before he could bind them in words. There was also a woman with gray hair framing a young face and sad, kind brown eyes. She seemed interested, but said little, and Jean liked her. And there was a pale, tall girl, with black eyes and hair, who smoked cigarettes faster than the two men beside her could roll them, and who stared in smoldering hate at these men when she had to wait, as if they had mortally injured her. Jean laughed quietly to herself, but instantly the woman beside her turned.

"I'm not so sure 'Azalea' was right. You sound exactly like a dove when you do that, a deep-breasted, soft, blue dove -- Paloma. I believe that's it! I say -- -- "

"Oh, no, please don't. I like the other one better. But I do want to know something. Which is Mr. Harcourt and which is Mr. Tolletson?"