It was a new Harlem she now saw, or rather, though she did not realize it, it was a new Mimi through whose eyes she saw it. Gone were the morose, the worried, the unhappy, the untranquil faces she had been seeing down town for years. Here there was light and spontaneous laughter, here there was real joyfulness in voices and eyes. Here was leisureliness, none of the hectic dashing after material things which brought little happiness when gained. She lingered near a crowd that chatted with frequent outbursts of spontaneous laughter. A wizened little Negro was being bantered by another as the first one sought to prove his nonexistent prowess as a fighter.
“I hit him three or four times and he only hit me once,” he boasted loudly.
“Go on, Mushmouth, that’s all David hit Goliath,” his tormentor cheerfully answered. A third man who had seen the fight completed the boastful one’s rout when he described pungently the expression on the face of the defeated one: “He made a face like a nigger tasting his first olive!” …
As Mimi sat in the roaring subway on her way home, she felt