It was mid-afternoon when they began to pass through that series of
suburbs which the city has flung like a single tentacle northward for
a hundred miles along the eastern banks of the Hudson.
A smooth road of bluestone with a surface like velvet, rarely broken
by badly paved or badly worn sections, ran straight south. Past
mansions standing amid spacious lawns all ablaze with late summer and
early autumn flowers they sped; past parks, long stretches of walls,
high fences of wrought iron through which brief glimpses of woodlands
and splendid gardens caught Rue's eye. And, every now and then,
slowing down to traverse some village square and emerging from the
further limits, the great river flashed into view, sometimes glassy
still under high headlands or along towering parapets of mountains,
sometimes ruffled and silvery where it widened into bay or inland sea,
with a glimmer of distant villages on the further shore.
Over the western bank a blinding sun hung in a sky without a cloud--a
sky of undiluted azure; but farther south, and as the sun declined,
traces of vapours from the huge but still distant city stained the
heavens. Gradually the increasing haze changed from palest lavender
and lemon-gold to violet and rose with smouldering undertones of fire.
Beneath it the river caught the stains in deeper tones, flowing in
sombre washes of flame or spreading wide under pastel tints of
turquoise set with purple.
Now, as the sun hung lower, the smoke of every river boat, every
locomotive speeding along the shores below, lay almost motionless
above the water, tinged with the delicate enchantment of declining
day.
And into this magic veil Rue was passing already through the calm of a
late August afternoon, through tree-embowered villages and towns, the
names of which she did not know--swiftly, inexorably passing into the
iris-grey obscurity where already the silvery points of arc-lights
stretched away into intricate geometrical designs--faint traceries as
yet sparkling with subdued lustre under the sunset heavens.
Vast shadowy shapes towered up ahead--outlying public buildings,
private institutions, industrial plants, bridges of iron and steel,
the ponderous bowed spans of which crossed wildernesses of railroad
tracks or craft-crowded waters.
Two enormous arched viaducts of granite stretched away through
sparkling semi-obscurity--High Bridge and Washington Bridge. Then it
became an increasing confusion of phantom masses against a fading
sky--bridges, towers, skyscrapers, viaducts, boulevards, a wilderness
of streets outlined by the growing brilliancy of electric lamps.
Brandes, deftly steering through the swarming maze of twilight
avenues, turned east across the island, then swung south along the
curved parapets and spreading gardens of Riverside Drive.
Perhaps Brandes was tired; he had become uncommunicative, inclined to
silence. He did point out to her the squat, truncated mass where the
great General slept; called her attention to the river below, where
three grey battleships lay. A bugle call from the decks came faintly
to her ears.