A large, matronly woman who lived near him, passed, carrying a pail of water. She stopped, set down her burden, and dropped a hand on Porgy’s shoulder.
“What de matter wid dis man, he ain’t gots nuttin’ tuh say?” she asked him kindly.
Porgy’s face contracted with emotion. He caught her hand and hurled it from him. “Lemme be,” he rasped, in a tight, husky voice. “Yuh done gots yuh own man. Ain’t yuh?”
“Oh, Lawd!” she laughed, as she turned away. “Yuh ain’t t’ink I wantin’ _yuh_, is yuh? Do listen tuh de man.”
Through the early night a woman had lain in the dust against the outer wall of Maria’s cook-shop. She was extremely drunk and unpleasant to look upon. Exactly when she had dropped, or been dropped there, no one knew. Porgy had not seen her when he had driven in at sunset. But he had heard some talk of her among those who had entered later. One of the men had come in laughing.
“I seen Crown’s Bess outside,” he said. “Must be she come aroun’ tuh look fur um.”
“She sho goin’ tuh hab one long res’, ef she goin’ wait dere fur um. Dat nigger gone f’om hyuh fas’ and far!” another had averred.
It was ten o’clock: and Maria was closing her shop. The great negress was in the act of fastening the window, when the tall, gaunt form of the woman lurched through the door into the faint illumination of the smoking lamp. The visitor measured the distance to the nearest bench with wandering and vacant eyes, plunged for it, and collapsed, with head and arms thrown across a table.
Maria was exasperated, but equal to the emergency. Catching the woman around the middle, she swung her easily to the door, dropped her into outer darkness, and returned to the window.
A crash caused her to turn suddenly. There was the woman again, sprawled across the table as before.
“I swear tuh Gawd!” exclaimed the provoked negress. “Ef yuh ain’t de persistentes’ nigger I ebber seen.” She went over, lifted the woman’s head, and looked into eyes in the far depths of which a human soul was flickering feebly.
“Somethin’ tuh eat,” the woman whispered. “Lemme hab somethin’ tuh eat, an’ I’ll go.”
Growling like an approaching equinoctial gale, Maria brought bread and fish; and emptying the dregs of the coffeepot into a cup, placed it before her.