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Fei Yuan

Injection-Locking
in Mixed-Mode
Signal Processing
Injection-Locking in Mixed-Mode Signal
Processing
Fei Yuan

Injection-Locking
in Mixed-Mode Signal
Processing

123
Fei Yuan
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Ryerson University
Toronto, ON, Canada

ISBN 978-3-030-17362-3 ISBN 978-3-030-17364-7 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17364-7

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020

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Preface

The injection-locking or synchronization of an oscillator by an external periodic

signal hereafter referred to the injection signal whose frequency is in the proximity
of the natural frequency, more specifically the frequency of the first harmonic,
of the oscillator under injection shifts the frequency of the oscillator from its
natural frequency to the frequency of the injection signal. The frequency of the
injection-locking signal can also be either a superharmonic or a subharmonic of
the natural frequency of the oscillator under injection to realize frequency division
or frequency multiplication. First-harmonic injection-locking achieves frequency
synchronization by utilizing the frequency dependence of the amplitude and phase
of the output of the oscillators under injection, whereas superharmonic/subharmonic
injection-locking achieves frequency-locking by utilizing the internal nonlinear
mechanism of the oscillator to generate the desired frequency component and
the internal frequency selection mechanism of the oscillator to select the desired
frequency component generated by the nonlinear mechanism of the oscillator.
The absence of an explicit frequency detector, a charge pump, and a loop filter
that typically exist in a frequency-locked loop (FLL) greatly shortens frequency-
locking process and lowers power consumption. Injection-locking also provides
a better frequency accuracy as compared with conventional FLLs. Not only the
frequency of the oscillator under injection is shifted to that of the injection signal,
the phase noise of the oscillator under injection will also become comparable to that
of the injection signal once the oscillator is locked to the injection signal whose
phase noise is superior, thereby allowing low-cost oscillators whose phase noise is
typically inferior to function as oscillators with superior phase noise performance.
Injection-locking has found a broad range of emerging applications including the
pre-scalar of frequency synthesizers, forwarded-clock (FC) or source synchronous
parallel links, the frequency calibration of passive wireless microsytems (PWMs),
and low phase noise phase-locked loops, to name a few. The success of the injection-
locking of an oscillator critically depends upon the lock range of the oscillator,
which is the range of the difference between the frequency of the injection signal and
the natural frequency of the oscillator in which the establishment of the lock state
of the oscillator under injection is guaranteed. The lock range of an oscillator is not

v
vi Preface

only determined by the characteristics of the oscillator but also by the characteristics
of the injection-locking signal. Many novel design techniques to increase the lock
range of oscillators and analysis methods to quantify the characteristics of injection-
locking of oscillators have emerged since the inception of the synchronization of
oscillators using external signals approximately a century ago. A comprehensive
treatment of both the fundamentals of the injection-locking of oscillators and an in-
depth assessment of the pros and cons of the techniques that have been proposed
to increase the lock range of injection-locked oscillators are not available. This
monograph is an attempt to provide a comprehensive treatment of the principles
and design techniques of injection-locking in mixed-mode signal processing.
The book is organized as follows:
Chapter 1 provides an overview of injection-locking and its applications in
mixed-mode signal processing. The classification of oscillators is provided. It
browses through the development of the injection-locking of oscillators with
an emphasis on the characterization rather than the design of injection-locked
oscillators. First-harmonic methods for analyzing harmonic oscillators in weak
injection are presented. It is followed with the presentation of first-harmonic
methods for the analysis of harmonic oscillators in both weak and strong injection.
Frequency regenerative injection specifically tailored for frequency multiplication
and frequency division is explored. First-harmonic balance method capable of
analyzing harmonic oscillators in first-harmonic, superharmonic, and subharmonic
injections is studied. The progressive multiphase injection of ring oscillators with
multiple injections is examined. The effective injection signaling arising from the
nonlinearity of oscillators under injection and obtained by analyzing the Volterra
circuits of the oscillators under injection is described. The chapter also briefly
browses through the key representative applications of the injection-locking of
oscillators.
Chapter 2 presents the fundamentals of the oscillation of harmonic oscillators
first. It is followed with a close examination of the noise spectrum of harmonic
oscillators. The modeling of injection-locked harmonic oscillators using a nonlinear
system and the first-harmonic injection-locking of harmonic oscillators are investi-
gated. Both linear and nonlinear approaches capable of deriving the lock range of
harmonic oscillators are studied. The chapter also investigates the superharmonic
injection-locking of harmonic oscillators. Both the second-order and third-order
superharmonic injection-locking of harmonic oscillators are studied. Divide-by-2
and divide-by-3 injection-locked frequency dividers, which are the representative
applications of the superharmonic injection-locking of harmonic oscillators, are
studied in detail. The subharmonic injection-locking of harmonic oscillators is
investigated. The intrinsic relations among the lock range of harmonic oscillators
in first-harmonic, superharmonic, and subharmonic injection-locking are explored.
Finally, the phase noise of injection-locked harmonic oscillators is studied.
Chapter 3 explores the factors that affect the lock range of harmonic oscillators
and the techniques that increase the lock range of harmonic oscillators. Our focus is
on injection-locked frequency dividers where injection-locked harmonic oscillators
are mostly encountered. The chapter further investigates the dependence of the lock
Preface vii

range of harmonic oscillators on injection signaling. Specifically, we investigate

the lock range of harmonic oscillators with two unitone injections injected into
two symmetrical locations of the oscillators and the relation between the lock
range and the phase of the injection signals. Various techniques to increase the
lock range of harmonic oscillators including inductor series-peaking, transformer
series-peaking, inductor shunt-peaking, current-reuse direct injection, quality factor
reduction, resistor feedback, second harmonic extraction, transformer feedback, and
dual injections are studied.
Chapter 4 investigates the oscillation of ring oscillators, in particular, how
Barkhausen criteria can be used to analyze ring oscillators. The modeling of
harmonic oscillators is investigated. The modeling of relaxation oscillators is
explored with a special attention to the distinct nonlinear characteristics of these
oscillators as compared with ring oscillators. The representation of a nonharmonic
oscillator with a set of harmonic oscillators whose frequencies are harmonically
related so as to allow linear system analysis tools such as Laplace transform valid for
analysis of harmonic oscillators and the known knowledge of harmonic oscillators
to be fully utilized in analysis of nonharmonic oscillators. The fundamentals of
Volterra series are reviewed. Two representative nonlinearities widely encountered
in integrated circuits, specifically the channel current of MOS transistors and the
capacitance of pn-junctions, are studied. The concept of the Volterra elements of
a nonlinear element and the Volterra circuits of a nonlinear circuit are introduced,
and the process of how to obtain them is exemplified. The modeling of voltage
comparators is studied. We show that the nonlinear voltage transfer characteristics of
comparators can be depicted using a hyperbolic tangent function and the hyperbolic
tangent function can be approximated using its third-order Taylor series expansion
in the vicinity of the state transition of the comparator. The Volterra circuits of
an injection-locked nonharmonic oscillator are derived, and the characteristics of
the Volterra circuits are investigated. The chapter explores how the Volterra circuit
approach can be used to analyze the dual-comparator relaxation oscillator under the
injection of a pair of differential currents and how the high-order Volterra circuits of
the oscillator contribute to the effective injection signals of the first-order Volterra
circuit of the oscillator. Finally, the lock range of the dual-comparator relaxation
oscillator is investigated.
Chapter 5 deals with the techniques that increase the lock range of nonharmonic
oscillators. It studies the impact of the degree of the nonlinear characteristics of
nonharmonic oscillators on the lock range of these oscillators and investigates the
lock range of dual-comparator relaxation oscillators with single unitone injection
and that with dual unitone injections. The lock range of dual-comparator relaxation
oscillators with dual multitone injections is derived. It compares the lock range
of dual-comparator relaxation oscillators with single multitone injection and that
with dual multitone injections. The impact of the duty cycle of multitone injection
signals on the lock range of nonharmonic oscillators is investigated. The impact
of the frequency attenuation mechanism on the lock range of both harmonic and
nonharmonic oscillators is investigated and compared.
viii Preface

The monograph is intended to cover the state of the art of injection-locking

in mixed-mode signal processing. Readers are assumed to have the fundamental
knowledge of electric networks, semiconductor devices, microelectronic circuits,
signals and systems, analog and digital communication systems, and analog and
digital integrated circuits and systems. A rich collection of recently published work
on the injection-locking of oscillators is provided at the end of the monograph
for readers to seek further information on the subjects that are presented in the
monograph.
Although an immense effort was made in preparation of the manuscript, flaws
and errors will surely still exist due to both erring human nature and the limited
knowledge of the author on the presented subjects. Suggestions and corrections from
readers will be gratefully appreciated by the author.

Toronto, ON, Canada Fei Yuan

February 2019
Acknowledgments

I am grateful to the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of

Canada; CMC Microsystems, Kingston, ON, Canada; Ryerson University; and other
research partners for their financial support to our research. The support from
the Department of Electrical, Computer, and Biomedical Engineering of Ryerson
University, Toronto, ON, Canada, where I introduced and taught a number of
senior undergraduate and graduate courses on CMOS mixed-mode circuits, CMOS
circuits and systems for data communications over wire channels, and CMOS radio-
frequency circuits and systems is gratefully acknowledged. Special thanks go to
my former graduate students who worked with me on various research projects in
the field of the injection-locking of oscillators from which many of the original
contributions presented in this monograph emerged. The recently granted sabbatical
leave by the university gave me much needed time release to complete this long
overdue project.
The editorial staff of Springer, especially Mr. Charles Glaser, Editorial Director
for Electrical and Computer Engineering: Circuits and Systems, Design Automa-
tion, Embedded Systems, and Computer Architecture, and Ms. Brinda Megasya-
malan, Project Coordinator and Production Editor, have been warmly supportive
from the submission of the proposal to the publishing of the book. This is the fifth
book that I have published with Springer. It has been an enjoyable experience of
working with Springer.
Finally and most importantly, this book could not have been possible without
the unconditional support of my family. I am indebted to my wife Jing for her
love, patient, and understanding during the preparation of the manuscript and her
tolerance of my occasional bad temper due to the stress of the writing and proof-
reading of the manuscript.

ix
Contents

1 Injection-Locking of Oscillators: An Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

1.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Classification of Oscillators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.3 Injection-Locking of Oscillator: Before 1946 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.4 Adler: Weak First-Harmonic Injection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.5 Paciorek: General First-Harmonic Injection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.6 Miller: Frequency Regenerative Injection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.7 Schmideg: Superharmonic and Subharmonic Injection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.8 Progressive Multiphase Injection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.9 Effective Injection Signaling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
1.10 Applications of Injection-Locking of Oscillators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
1.10.1 Frequency Division . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
1.10.2 Parallel Links. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
1.10.3 Frequency Calibration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
1.10.4 Phase-Locked Loops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
1.11 Chapter Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2 Injection-Locking of Harmonic Oscillators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.2 Harmonic Oscillators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.3 Phase Noise of Oscillators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2.4 Modeling of Harmonic Oscillators. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
2.5 First-Harmonic Injection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
2.5.1 Nonlinear System Approach. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
2.5.2 Linear System Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
2.6 Superharmonic Injection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
2.6.1 Second-Order Superharmonic Injection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
2.6.2 Third-Order Superharmonic Injection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
2.6.3 Divide-by-2 Injection-Locked Frequency Dividers . . . . . . . . 68
2.6.4 Divide-by-3 Injection-Locked Frequency Dividers . . . . . . . . 76

xi
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xii Contents

2.7 Subharmonic Injection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

2.7.1 Second-Order Subharmonic Injection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
2.7.2 Third-Order Subharmonic Injection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
2.8 Lock Range Relation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
2.8.1 Lock Range Relation: Superharmonic Injection. . . . . . . . . . . . 85
2.8.2 Lock Range Relation: Subharmonic Injection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
2.9 Phase Noise of Injection-Locked Harmonic Oscillators . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
2.10 Chapter Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
3 Injection-Locking Techniques for Harmonic Oscillators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
3.2 Injection Signaling. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
3.3 Inductor Series-Peaking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
3.4 Inductor Shunt-Peaking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
3.5 Current-Reuse Direct Injection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
3.6 Quality Factor Reduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
3.7 Resistor Feedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
3.8 Second Harmonic Extraction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
3.9 Transformer Feedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
3.10 Dual Injections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
3.11 Chapter Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
4 Injection-Locking of Nonharmonic Oscillators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
4.2 Injection-Locking of Nonharmonic Oscillators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
4.3 Modeling of Ring Oscillators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
4.4 Modeling of Relaxation Oscillators. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
4.5 Representation of Nonharmonic Oscillators. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
4.6 Fundamentals of Volterra Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
4.7 Volterra Element and Volterra Circuits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
4.8 Modeling of Comparators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
4.9 Volterra Circuits of Relaxation Oscillator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
4.10 Effective Injection Signals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
4.11 Lock Range . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
4.12 Chapter Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
5 Injection-Locking Techniques for Nonharmonic Oscillators. . . . . . . . . . . . 179
5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
5.2 Degree of Nonlinearity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
5.2.1 Nonlinearity Factor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
5.2.2 Volterra Circuits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
5.2.3 Effective Injection Signals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
5.2.4 Lock Range. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
5.2.5 Relaxation Oscillators and Ring Oscillators:
A Comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
Contents xiii

5.3 Single Unitone Injection versus Dual Unitone Injections . . . . . . . . . . . 193

5.4 Dual Multitone Injections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
5.4.1 Multitone Signals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
5.4.2 Volterra Circuits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
5.4.3 Effective Injection Signals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
5.4.4 Lock Range. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
5.5 Single Multitone Injection Versus Dual Multitone Injections . . . . . . . 207
5.6 Duty Cycle of Multitone Injection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
5.7 Harmonic Attenuation Mechanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
5.8 Chapter Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
About the Author

Fei Yuan received the B.Eng. degree in electrical engineering from Shandong
University, Jinan, China, in 1985 and the M.A.Sc. degree in chemical engineering
and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Waterloo,
ON, Canada, in 1995 and 1999, respectively. During 1985–1989, he was a Lecturer
in the Department of Electrical Engineering, Changzhou Institute of Technology,
Jiangsu, China. In 1989, he was a Visiting Professor at Humber College of Applied
Arts and Technology, Toronto, ON, Canada, and Lambton College of Applied
Arts and Technology, Sarnia, ON, Canada. He was in Paton Controls, Sarnia,
ON, Canada, during 1989–1994 where he designed distributed process control
systems for petrochemical processes worldwide. Since 1999, he has been with
the Department of Electrical, Computer, and Biomedical Engineering, Ryerson
University, ON, Canada, where he is currently a Full Professor. He served as the
Chair of the Department during 2010–2015.
Dr. Yuan is the Editor of Low-Power Circuits for Emerging Applications in
Communications, Computing, and Sensing (CRC, 2018); the Editor and a lead
Contributor of CMOS Time-Mode Circuits: Principles and Applications (CRC,
2015); the Author of CMOS Circuits for Passive Wireless Microsystems (Springer,
2010), CMOS Active Inductors and Transformers: Principle, Implementation,
and Applications (Springer, 2008), and CMOS Current-Mode Circuits for Data
Communications (Springer, 2006); and the lead Coauthor of Computer Methods
for Analysis of Mixed-Mode Switching Circuits (Kluwer Academic, 2004). He is the
Author/Coauthor of 10 book chapters and over 230 research papers in refereed inter-
national journals and conference proceedings. He was awarded Dean’s Teaching
Award in 2017, Ryerson Research Chair Award in 2005, Dean’s Research Award in
2004, Early Tenure from Ryerson University in 2003, Doctoral Scholarship from the
Natural Sciences and Engineering. Research Council of Canada in 1997 and 1998,
Teaching Excellence Award from Changzhou Institute of Tech. in 1988, and Science
and Technology Innovation Award from Changzhou Municipal government in 1988.
He is a Fellow of IET, a Senior Member of IEEE, and a Registered Professional
Engineer in the province of Ontario, Canada.

xv
Symbols

Cox Gate capacitance per unit area of MOS transistors

Cgs Gate-source capacitance of MOS transistors
Cgd Gate-drain capacitance of MOS transistors
CJ Capacitance of an pn-junction
gm Transconductance of MOS transistors
gm,n Transconductance of NMOS transistors
gm,p Transconductance of PMOS transistors
gds Channel conductance of MOS transistors in triode
go Output conductance of MOS transistors in saturation
k Boltzmann’s constant
Kf Flicker noise coefficient of MOS transistors
Ho Open-loop transfer function
Hc Closed-loop transfer function
H (ωout , ωin ) Aliasing transfer function
iDS Channel current of NMOS transistors
IDS Channel current of NMOS transistors (DC)
ids Channel current of NMOS transistors (AC)
iSD Channel current of PMOS transistors
ISD Channel current of PMOS transistors (DC)
isd Channel current of PMOS transistors (AC)
L Channel length of MOS transistors
rds Channel resistance of MOS transistors in triode
ro Output resistance of MOS transistors in saturation
Q Quality factor
Sin Power spectral density of input
Sout Power spectral density of output
s Laplace variable (s = j ω)
VT n Threshold voltage of NMOS transistors
VTp Threshold voltage of PMOS transistors
vGS Gate-source voltage of NMOS transistors
VGS Gate-source voltage of NMOS transistors (DC)

xvii
xviii Symbols

vgs Gate-source voltage of NMOS transistors (AC)

vSG Source-gate voltage of PMOS transistors
VSG Source-gate voltage of PMOS transistors (DC)
vsg Source-gate voltage of PMOS transistors (AC)
vDS Drain-source voltage of NMOS transistors
VDS Drain-source voltage of NMOS transistors (DC)
vds Drain-source voltage of NMOS transistors (AC)
vSD Source-drain voltage of PMOS transistors
VSD Source-drain voltage of PMOS transistors (DC)
vsd Source-drain voltage of PMOS transistors (AC)
W Channel width of MOS transistor
μn Surface mobility of free electrons
μp Surface mobility of holes
γ Thermal noise coefficient of MOS transistors
ΔωL Lock range of injection-locked oscillator
ωo Natural or free-running frequency of an oscillator
ωinj Frequency of an injection signal
φinj Phase of an injection signal
 Perturbation constant for the use of Volterra series
Acronyms

ASK Amplitude-Shift Keying

BER Bit Error Rate
CDR Clock and Data Recovery
CMOS Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor
CML Current-Mode Logic
DAC Digital-to-Analog Converter
dB Decibel
DC Direct Current
DFF D Flip-Flop
DLL Delay-Locked Loop
EPC Electronic Product Code
FC Forwarded-Clock
FET Field-Effect Transistor
FF Flip-Flop
FFT Fast Fourier Transform
FIR Finite Impulse Response
FLL Frequency-Locked Loop
Gbps Gigabits per second
GHz Gigahertz
High-Q High-Quality factor
Hz Hertz
IBM International Business Machines Corporation
IC Integrated Circuit
IF Intermediate Frequency
IIR Infinite Impulse Response
ILFD Injection-Locked Frequency Divider
IoT Internet-of-Things
kHz Kilohertz
KCL Kirchhoff’s Current Law
KVL Kirchhoff’s Voltage Law
LC Inductor Capacitor

xix
xx Acronyms

MDLL Multiplying Delay-Locked Loop

MHz Megahertz
MIM Metal-Insulator-Metal
MOS Metal-Oxide Semiconductor
MOSFET Metal-Oxide Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistor
NMOS N-type Metal-Oxide Semiconductor
OPAMP Operational Amplifier
PFD Phase-Frequency Detector
PI Phase Interpolator
PLL Phase-Locked Loop
PMOS P-type Metal-Oxide Semiconductor
PSD Power Spectral Density
PVT Process, Voltage, and Temperature
PWM Passive Wireless Microsystem
RC Resistor Capacitor
RF Radio Frequency
RFID Radio Frequency Identification
RL Resistor Inductor
RLC Resistor Inductor Capacitor
UHF Ultra High Frequency
UI Unit Interval
V2I Voltage-to-Current
SR Set-Reset
SPICE Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis
VCO Voltage-Controlled Oscillator
Chapter 1
Injection-Locking of Oscillators: An
Overview

1.1 Introduction

The injection-locking or synchronization of an electronic oscillator by an external

periodic signal hereafter referred to as the injection signal whose frequency is
in the proximity of the natural or free-running frequency, more specifically the
frequency of the first harmonic, of the oscillator under injection shifts the frequency
of the oscillator from its natural frequency to the frequency of the injection signal
without a frequency-locked loop, which is more costly in terms of both silicon
area and power consumption. First-harmonic injection-locking achieves frequency
synchronization by utilizing the frequency dependence of the amplitude and phase
of the output of the oscillators under injection, whereas superharmonic/subharmonic
injection-locking achieves frequency-locking by utilizing the internal nonlinear
mechanism of the oscillator under injection that functions as a frequency mixer
to generate the desired frequency component and the internal frequency selection
mechanism of the oscillator to select the desired frequency component generated
by the nonlinear mechanism of the oscillator. In both cases, Barkhausen criteria
for oscillation must be satisfied. The absence of an explicit frequency detector, a
charge pump, and a loop filter that typically exist in a FLL not only greatly shortens
the frequency-locking process, but also significantly lowers power consumption.
Injection-locking is capable of achieving rapid frequency-locking pivotal to a broad
range of applications. Not only the frequency of the oscillator under injection is
shifted to that of the injection signal, the phase noise of the oscillator under injection
will also become comparable to that of the injection signal once the oscillator is
locked to the injection signal whose phase noise performance is superior. This
unique characteristic of injection-locked oscillators allows low-cost oscillators
whose phase noise is inferior typically to behave as oscillators with superior phase
noise performance once the oscillators are locked to a clean signal.
This chapter provides an overview of the injection-locking of oscillators and its
applications in mixed-mode signal processing. The classification of oscillators is

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 1

F. Yuan, Injection-Locking in Mixed-Mode Signal Processing,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17364-7_1
2 1 Injection-Locking of Oscillators: An Overview

provided in Sect. 1.2. Section 1.3 briefly browses through the development of the
synchronization of oscillators prior to 1946 in which the ground-breaking work of
Adler on the injection-locking of harmonic oscillators was published. Section 1.4
presents Adler’s first-harmonic method for analysis of harmonic oscillators in weak
injection. It is followed with the presentation of the first-harmonic method for anal-
ysis of harmonic oscillators in strong injection in Sect. 1.5. Frequency regenerative
injection specifically tailored for frequency multiplication and frequency division
is explored in Sect. 1.6. Section 1.7 studies the first-harmonic balance method
capable of analyzing harmonic oscillators in first-harmonic, superharmonic, and
subharmonic injections. The progressive multiphase injection of ring oscillators
with multiple injections is examined in Sect. 1.8. Further development of this
method for multiphase harmonic oscillators and injection-locked ring oscillator
frequency dividers is also referenced. Section 1.9 briefly presents a Volterra series-
based approach to investigate the impact of the degree of the nonlinearity of
an oscillator under injection on the lock range of the oscillator. Section 1.10
presents some key applications of the injection-locking of oscillators. The chapter
is summarized in Sect. 1.11.

1.2 Classification of Oscillators

Oscillators can be loosely classified into harmonic oscillators and nonharmonic

oscillators. The former have a sinusoidal output in the time domain and a unitone
spectrum in the frequency domain, whereas the latter have a non-sinusoidal output
in the time domain and a multitone spectrum in the frequency domain. The typical
examples of harmonic oscillators are LC (inductor-capacitor) oscillators with either
a spiral inductor/transformer resonator or an active inductor/transformer resonator.
The representative nonharmonic oscillators include ring oscillators and relaxation
oscillators.
Architecturally a harmonic oscillator is made of two distinct blocks, namely
(a) a nonlinear transconductor that functions as an amplitude limiter needed to
sustain oscillation and a frequency mixer where various frequency components
are generated from the injection signal and the output of the oscillator when the
oscillator is under the injection of an external signal and (b) a linear frequency
discriminator that functions as a high-Q band-pass filter to select the desired output
frequency. Figure 1.1a shows the simplified block diagram of a harmonic oscillator
under the injection of unitone external signal vinj . Similarly, a nonharmonic
oscillator is composed of a nonlinear transconductor that functions as both an
amplitude limiter and a frequency mixer when the oscillator is under injection of
an external signal and a linear RC block that functions as a low-pass filter, as shown
in Fig. 1.1b.
Harmonic oscillators distinct themselves from nonharmonic oscillators with a
small frequency tuning range and low phase noise, accredited mainly to the higher
quality factor of the frequency discriminator of the oscillators. The superior phase
1.3 Injection-Locking of Oscillator: Before 1946 3

Fig. 1.1 Block diagram of

oscillators under injection:
(a) harmonic oscillators. (b)
Nonharmonic oscillators

noise performance of harmonic oscillators allows them to be used in wireless com-

munication systems where a stringent constraint on the phase noise of oscillators
exists. Nonharmonic oscillators, on the other hand, are advantageous over their
harmonic counterparts in silicon area, power consumption, and frequency tuning
range. They are widely used in digital systems as clock generators.

1.3 Injection-Locking of Oscillator: Before 1946

The earliest observation of the synchronized oscillation of two oscillating systems

is perhaps the synchronized pendulums of two pendulum clocks by C. Huygens
(1629–1695), a Dutch physicist and the inventor of the pendulum clock, in 1665.
Huygens noticed that no matter how the pendulums on these clocks began, within
about half an hour, they ended up swinging in exactly the opposite directions from
each other. Perhaps the earliest reported work on the synchronization of oscillators
are those by J. Vincent in 1919 [84] and E. Appleton in 1922 [2]. One of the first
theoretical analyses of the nonlinear characteristics of oscillators was provided by
van der Pol in 1934 [81]. An early application of modulating the frequency of
an electronic oscillator by an external signal is the frequency-modulation receiver
by G. Beers in 1944 where the frequency of the oscillator of the receiver is
modulated in accordance with the frequency of an external modulating signal [6].
An in-depth study of forced oscillation in oscillator circuits was conducted by D.
Tucker in 1945 [79, 80]. In Tucker’s approach, an oscillator was partitioned into
two functionally distinct blocks, specifically a frequency discriminating block that
functions as a band-pass filter and a maintaining block whose transfer voltage ratio
is only dependent of the amplitude of the input and independent of the frequency of
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4 1 Injection-Locking of Oscillators: An Overview

the input of the block. Using the phasor representation of the injection signal, the
behavior of forced oscillators was analyzed.

1.4 Adler: Weak First-Harmonic Injection

In 1946, R. Adler, an American physicist (1913–2007), published his widely cited

theoretical work on locking phenomena in oscillators [1]. Adler’s approach was
developed for harmonic oscillators under the injection of a weak continuous-wave
injection signal. The following three constraints were imposed:
(a) The frequency of the injection signal is in the proximity of the natural also
known as free-running frequency of the oscillator under injection.
(b) The strength of the injection signal is significantly smaller as compared with the
output of the oscillator, i.e., weak injection.
(c) The feedback time from the output of the oscillator to the node at which
the output voltage of the oscillator is subtracted from the injection signal is
negligible as compared with beat period 1/(ωinj − ωo ) where ωinj and ωo are
the frequency of the injection signal and the natural frequency of the oscillator
under injection, respectively.
Although the derivation of Adler’s theoretical results was rigorous and correct,
no experimental validation of the theoretical results was provided in the paper.
Given the significance of Adler’s work on the injection-locking of oscillators
and its profound impact on the investigation of the injection-locking of oscillators,
a brief representation of Adler’s approach on the injection-locking of oscillators is
clearly warranted and well justified. In what follows we use the simple LC oscillator
shown in Fig. 1.2 to briefly present Adler’s approach on analysis of the injection-
locking of oscillators. As lock range is of our primary interest, we will focus on the
lock range of the oscillator.

Fig. 1.2 Injection-locking in harmonic oscillators

1.4 Adler: Weak First-Harmonic Injection 5

Consider the simplified schematic of the LC oscillator shown in Fig. 1.2. It is a

tuned common-source amplifier with the addition of an inverting amplifier of unity
gain. Since
√ the RLC network functions as a pure resistor at its resonant frequency
ωo = 1/ LC, the common-source tuned amplifier only provides a phase shift of
−180◦ at ωo . An additional −180◦ phase shift needed for oscillation is provided
by the unity-gain inverting amplifier. When the injection signal of frequency ωinj
is injected into the oscillator with ωinj in the close proximity of ωo , the frequency
of the oscillator will start to shift from its natural frequency ωo to ωinj . Let the
instantaneous frequency of the oscillator during the locking process be ω. The
instantaneous variation of the frequency also known as the beat frequency of the
oscillator is given by ω − ωo . Further let θ be the phase between the injection signal
Iinj and the output of the oscillator Io . Since when Iinj is absent, IT and Io will be
in phase, Iinj is therefore the cause of both frequency shift Δω and phase angle φ
between IT and Io . Referring to Fig. 1.2, the law of sine gives

Iinj Io
= (1.1)
sin φ sin θ

from which we obtain

Iinj
sin φ = sin θ. (1.2)
Io

If Iinj  Io , i.e., weak injection, φ will be small and

sin φ ≈ φ (1.3)

will hold. Equation (1.2) can be simplified to

Iinj
φ≈ sin θ. (1.4)
Io

As mentioned earlier, the injection signal causes the frequency of the oscillator
to deviate from its natural frequency ωo and gives rise to a phase angle between IT
and Io . Since the frequency of the injection signal is in the proximity of ωo , the rate
of the variation of φ with respect to frequency

dφ
A= (1.5)
dω
can be considered to be constant. We therefore have

φ ≈ A(ω − ωo )
= A (Δω + ΔωL ) . (1.6)
6 1 Injection-Locking of Oscillators: An Overview

where

Δω = ω − ωinj (1.7)

is the instantaneous beat frequency and

ΔωL = ωinj − ωo (1.8)

is the undisturbed beat frequency. Equating (1.4) and (1.6) and noting that

dθ
ω= + ωinj , (1.9)
dt
we arrive at
dθ 1 Iinj
+ ΔωL = sin θ. (1.10)
dt A Io

The impedance of the parallel RLC network is given by

1 s
Z(s) = . (1.11)
C s 2 + s RC
1
+ 1
LC

It can be shown that the phase of Z(j ω), denoted by  Z(j ω), is given by
 
R ωo2 − ω2
 Z(j ω) = − tan−1 . (1.12)
ωL ωo2

When the injection signal is absent,

Io = gm ZT (j ωo )IT , (1.13)

where gm is the transconductance of the transistor. Note Z(j ωo ) = R. Io and IT are

in phase in this case. When the injection current Iinj is present,

Io = gm ZT (j ωinj )IT . (1.14)

Io and IT in this case are not in phase but rather have a phase angle  Z(j ωinj ),
which is φ. We therefore have
 
R ωo2 − ω2
φ = − tan−1 . (1.15)
ωL ωo2

Since ω is in the vicinity of ωo ,

1.4 Adler: Weak First-Harmonic Injection 7

ωo2 − ω2 = (ωo + ω)(ωo − ω)

≈ 2ωo (ωo − ω). (1.16)

Further noting that the quality factor of the RLC network is given by1

ωL
Q= (1.17)
R
and making use of the identity of trigonometric functions
  π
tan−1 x −1 = − tan−1 x, (1.18)
2
we arrive at
2Q
tan φ ≈ − (ωo − ω). (1.19)
ωo

For weak injection, φ is small,

tan φ ≈ φ (1.20)

holds. Equation (1.19) can be approximated as

2Q
φ≈− (ωo − ω). (1.21)
ωo

It follows that
dφ 2Q
A= = . (1.22)
dω ωo

Equation (1.10) becomes

dθ ωo Iinj
+ ΔωL = sin θ. (1.23)
dt 2Q Io

When the frequency of the oscillator is the same as that of the injection signal,
i.e., the oscillator is locked to the injection signal, their phase difference will be
stationary. As a result,

1 The parallel RLC network in Fig. 1.2 is derived from the network consisting of a series RL

network depicting the spiral inductor and a parallel capacitor. The quality factor is dictated by
the RL network.
8 1 Injection-Locking of Oscillators: An Overview

dθ
= 0. (1.24)
dt
Equation (1.23) in this case becomes

ωo Iinj
ΔωL = sin θ. (1.25)
2Q Io

ΔωL is maximized when

π
θ= . (1.26)
2
The maximum lock range is given by

ωo Iinj
ΔωL,max = . (1.27)
2Q Io

ΔωL,max is termed the maximum lock range or simply the lock range of the
oscillator. Clearly the lock range of the oscillator is inversely proportional to the
quality factor of the oscillator and directly proportional to the relative injection
strength Iinj /Io of the oscillator.
Adler’s theoretical treatment of the injection-locking of oscillators was validated
experimentally by Huntoon and Weiss [31]. The theoretical results obtained by
Adler assumed that the injection signal was a continuous wave. Fraser extended
Adler’s theory on the injection-locking of oscillators to oscillators under the injec-
tion of a periodically interrupted wave [21]. Mackey demonstrated experimentally
that Adler’s theory of the injection-locking of oscillators also accurately describes
the locking phenomena of microwave X-band reflex klystron oscillators [49].

1.5 Paciorek: General First-Harmonic Injection

Alder’s formula on the lock range of injection-locked harmonic oscillators is valid

only if the strength of the injection signal is significantly smaller as compared with
the output of the oscillator, i.e., weak injection. The other two constraints upon
which Adler’s formula was derived are usually not of a concern. This is because
the frequency of the external injection signal is always chosen to be within the
lock range of the oscillator under injection for the given injection strength. For
applications where the strength of the injection signal is not small, is Adler’s formula
of lock range still valid? To answer this question, in this section we briefly present
Paciorek’s formula on the lock range of injection-locked oscillators that removes
the weak injection constraint imposed on Adler’s formula. Paciorek’s formula was
developed nearly 20 years after the inception of Adler’s formula [61].
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since you left college. You have made yourself beloved and
respected, dear, in the walk of life you have chosen... Don't shake
your head, you know it is true. Why Mrs. Appleby was telling me
only yesterday how highly Mr. Appleby thought of your work under
him. O, I was proud of you! And I shall be prouder yet, I know it, if I
live long enough... Yes, I shall. O, dear boy, when I was raising you,
and I had such trouble raising you, you were sickly, you know dear,
like I am now... I used to think how you'd be big and strong and a
comfort to me when I was old, just like you are. If God hadn't seen
fit to try me with this affliction, how happy we would be together."
"But, mother, you are going to get well, you know. This summer
maybe we'll be able to go abroad."
"Nice of you to say it, dearest.... Do you think you could make me a
cup of tea? I'd so like a cup of tea. These afternoons are so long."
"But, mother, you know you're not supposed to have tea."
All the little wrinkles about her eyes and the corners of her mouth
deepened. She patted her grey pompadour, that had slipped a little
to one side of her head, with a querulous hand.
"I didn't have any yesterday," she whined. "I'm so thirsty, Fanshaw."
"All right, I'll get Susan to make some."
When he came back from the kitchen, she said, her grey eyes wide,
staring with excitement:
"I was thinking, Fanshaw, supposing you married and some dreadful
woman won you away from your poor mother; what should I do?
You're so sweet to me; you take such care of me."
Fanshaw turned red to the roots of his sandy hair.
"Not much danger of that," he said stiffly. "We'll have a nice cup of
tea in a minute, very weak, so that we shan't get too nervous, shan't
we dear?"
"I know it's so, Fanshaw. Some girl has got a hold on you. Don't
trust her dear, don't trust her. Women are so wicked. She's after
your social position or thinks you make a good salary... O, I'd die, I'd
die if someone got you away from me." Mrs. Macdougan was sitting
bolt upright in the chair, beating on her knees with little puffy hands.
A wisp of grey hair had fallen down over her forehead, revealing a
bit of the black rat under the pompadour. "They are such scheming
creatures, so deceitful and wicked, and I so want you to have a
beautiful career and be a comfort to me."
"O, now please dear! O, now please dear!" Fanshaw was saying,
clenching and unclenching his hands, staring into the crowded
twilight of the library behind his mother's head.
Susan, tall, with genial horse teeth, came in with a tray of tea
things.
"O, your hair's acomin' down, mum. Can't I fix it for you, mum?"
"Do, Susan, please," said Mrs. Macdougan in a faint voice, drooping
against the pillow.
Fanshaw brought up a small table and poured out a cup of tea. His
lips were compressed and trembling. When Susan had gone he said
in a quiet, expressionless voice:
"Now, mother, you are getting yourself worked up over nothing. I
assure you there is nothing whatever between me and any girl."
"You always were a truthful boy, but no matter, no matter... There's
not enough sugar in this tea, dear. O, why don't people ever give me
things the way I like them?"
Fanshaw dropped another lump in her cup. She began to drink the
tea in little sips. The wrinkles in her face relaxed. Fanshaw was
looking out of the window at the snow, rosy with sunset, and the
intense purple shadows behind the barberry bushes. His mind was
all drawn hotly into the image of Nan that day at the Logans' with a
net of pearls over her hair like a girl by a Lombard painter. Against
the snow, the fervid rose and purple, how fine she would be.
"Well, I must leave you, mother," he said. "I must go over to
Cambridge."
"Don't be late this evening."
"No, dear."
****
The wind was nipping and frosty with a smell of mudflats on it and
salt-eaten piles. Fanshaw, walking up T Wharf between Wenny and
Nan, sniffed with relish the harbor air, looking at the agewarped
houses and the masts and tackle of the fishing schooners against
the grey sky. He had pulled his buff woolen muffler up until it
covered the lobes of his ears and had sunk his hands deep in his
overcoat pockets. In the forehead between the eyes the wind
pressed now and then like biting cold iron.
"If I had been a man," Nan was saying, "I should have gone to sea."
"But think of it in this weather... It's delightful to take a stroll and
look at the harbor and the shipping and go back to a warm room.
But think of being out in it always. Such beastly cold, grimy,
monotonous work." Fanshaw felt his teeth almost on edge as he
spoke. How differently made people must be who could stand that
sort of thing.
The wharf was empty. From the stubby stovepipes of the galleys of
the close-packed schooners came an occasional rift of blue smoke, a
whiff of bacon and pipes and stuffy bunks snatched away in a gust
of wind.
"I may go yet someday," said Wenny.
"But think," Fanshaw shuddered. "Think of handling frozen ropes in
a wind like this." He thought of gritty ropes cutting through gloves
and flesh, ripping the calloused flesh of men's palms. That story of
Jack London's he had read years ago. It must have been that that
put it in his head, the sight of blood on ice-jagged, tarry ropes.
The harbor was wide bright silver, tarnished where the wind made
catspaws. One tug steamed seaward, cutting into the wind with a
white rustle of foam about a bluff, grimy bow, dragging long coils of
brown smoke. They were standing beside some piles at the end of
the wharf.
"I have my chance now," said Wenny. "The bust-up was complete
this time."
"How do you mean?" Fanshaw and Nan said in unison.
"My chance to go to sea ... I've broken off relations ... with my
relations ... Bad pun, isn't it?"
"You mean you had a row with them?" said Fanshaw. "I can
understand that. Poor mother and I nearly came to blows.... It's the
holiday spirit. Christmas is a dreadful time. Don't you think so, Nan?"
"I like Christmas," said Wenny.
"But Wenny, you said complete." Nan put a hand on his arm.
"I mean it. I shall never have anything to do with them again... I
never have rows."
"But what on earth happened?" Nan's voice was very gentle.
"Absolutely nothing. My father and I had a little chat about life and
eternity. How silly, I'm getting all worked up talking about it. O, I
suppose I'd better tell you to get it off my system. It's not a bit
important. I laid on for life and he laid on for eternity ... Naturally,
being a clergyman eternity is his line of goods. We got sore. I'm
never going to take anything more from him, either his money or his
insolence."
"But how are you going to live?" cried Fanshaw.
"What the hell? I've got as much muscle as the next man."
"But you're so impractical, Wenny."
"It must have been more than that. How did it start?" said Nan,
tapping with her patent leather toe at a loose board.
"It started ..." There was a catch in Wenny's voice. Then gruffly: "He
said something unpleasant about a snapshot I had on my desk. It's
too ridiculous."
"But you'll have to give up your M. A.," went on Fanshaw.
"Damn good thing, too. I was just hanging round the Anthropology
department in the hope of getting in on an expedition to South
America."
And Wenny owes me a hundred dollars, the thought crept
unexpectedly into Fanshaw's mind. Never get it now.
"But Wenny," Nan was pleading, "I think you are probably
exaggerating the importance of the whole thing. I don't see that it's
necessary to get on your high horse like that."
"You would, Nan, if you knew them. You can't imagine how fearful it
is down there. A congregational minister's house in Washington. The
snobbery and the mealymouthedness ... God, it's stinking... You see
I never really lived with them. My mother's sister brought me up
mostly here in Boston. You see I had three brothers and a sister, and
I was the ugly duckling; and my aunt, who was an old maid, took
me off their hands. She was a fine woman. She died the year I went
to college. She lived on an annuity, and left me just enough money
to skimp through on till Junior year, when my father said he'd help...
I have nothing in common with those people down there, and now,
because they were giving me money, they decided I must do what
they wanted, and they hate me and I hate them. I was a filthy
coward to ever take a cent from him, anyway.... And so here I am at
twenty-three, penniless, ignorant, and full of the genteel paralysis of
culture... Silly, isn't it, Nan?"
The rising wind whined through the rigging of the fishing schooners
and the waves slapped noisily against their pitchy bows. Fanshaw's
feet were numb and his forehead ached.
"Let's walk along," he said. "I'm frozen. I'd like some hot chocolate,
would you, Nan?"
"But Wenny," Nan was saying, "You ought to stay on a little while to
get your breath as it were... You took your room in Conant for the
whole season."
"But, how am I going to pay the term bill, I'd like to know?" There
was a little tremor in Wenny's voice that made him cut off his words
sharp.
They turned and walked down the wharf again, the wind shoving
and nudging at them from behind. In the lea of the buildings were a
few old men with red faces sitting on boxes smoking pipes.
"Still," said Wenny with a sudden laugh. "I'm glad it happened. It
tears off this fearful cotton wadding I've been swaddled in all my
life. We'll see what the world is like now, won't we Fanshaw, old
duck?" He slapped Fanshaw hard between the shoulders.
"The trouble is; can one live without it?" said Nan.
Fearfully good looking the boy is, all excited and flushed like this,
Fanshaw thought.
"By God, I intend to!"
"I thought you looked different, Wenny, when you got off the train,"
Nan said.
"It was fearfully decent of you two to meet me... Makes me feel as if
I had somebody, no matter what happened."
"I've often thought," Fanshaw said, "That there was something that
cut us three off together, like people in a carnival in Venice who
might drift in their wonderfully carved state gondola down a dark
canal ..."
"And find themselves in the Charles ... Exactly!" cried Wenny
laughing.
They had left the wharves and were walking through the grey many-
angled buildings of the business section. It was the lunch hour, and
the streets were full of clerks and stenographers hustling from their
offices to their lunch; from out of the tiled caves of lunchrooms
came a smell of bacon and old coffee grounds.
"What sort of work are you going to do? I suppose you'll try a
newspaper; everybody does."
"Let's not talk about that now, Fanshaw. Where on earth are you
taking us?"
"To Thompson's Spa."
"Why not the Parker House, where we can have something to
drink?"
"I'd rather have hot chocolate. I am frozen," said Nan.
They rounded the old State House.
Thompson's Spa was like an aviary, full of shrill women's chatter,
bobbing hats, rows of powdered faces eating at narrow counters,
smell of chocolate and sandwiches and sarsaparilla.
"Look, there's Betty Thomas!... What are you doing here, Betty? Sit
here before somebody nabs the place," said Nan.
"O, just shopping. Dear, you should see the hats, straws at Filenes.
Why, how do you do, Mr. Macdougan, and ... you! Why, this is a
reunion!"
"Are they reasonable?"
"What, the hats?... Marvellous values, really."
Betty Thomas's nose was a little red from the cold. She held,
balanced between finger and thumb, a salad sandwich that dripped
mayonnaise into her plate; the three unoccupied fingers were arched
airily in space. There was something about her amiable chatter to
Nan, about the amiable fussy chattiness of the women all about
them that rasped on Fanshaw's nerves; the sum of it was shrill and
ominous.
"But Wenny, what are you going to do?... I'm fearfully worried," he
said in a low voice, leaning towards Wenny's ear. Like a haze about
them was Nan's and Betty Thomas's chirruping talk:
"My dear, have you heard the latest? Up at the conservatoire ..."
"Honestly, I don't give a damn, Fanshaw. I'm so sick of this hanging
on the outskirts of college ..."
"I think your department would get you a scholarship. You must go
put it up to them. It's ridiculous to let a thing like this wreck your
career."
"... And Mrs. Ambrose absolutely refused to sing a note ..."
"My dear Fanshaw, if you knew how utterly sick and fed up I was
with all that ... No, I'm going to live this time."
"... And Salinski said ..."
"But don't be a fool. Look, I'll try to scrape up some cash for the
term bill. I think I can do it."
"You mustn't. I don't want it paid... I'm not going to keep on with
this farce any longer."
"... A middle register, like an angel.... And she told Fitzie that he said
..."
"You make me tired, Wenny. You must be sensible."
"Don't you see that I'm trying to be, for the first time in my life?"
"... met a man who said Romoulet wasn't teaching the belcanto at
all.... O, I'm so afraid, dear, of ruining my voice.... So many people
..."
"Well, so long. I'm going to fetch my suitcase," said Wenny shortly.
"I'll see you people later." He threaded his way out through groups
of women and sallow men waiting for seats.
"I'm afraid your friend doesn't like me," said Betty Thomas pouting.
"He does, I assure you. He's a little diswrought today. He's often like
that, isn't he Nan?"
Nan laughed, as she began fitting her gloves on again.
"Poor child.... All too often."
"It's no use taking it too seriously," said Fanshaw.
"No, I don't suppose one ought to take Wenny seriously," Nan
whispered slowly, "And yet ..."
"Are we taking the car?" asked Betty Thomas.
"I'll come up as far as your place and then go on over to see
Mother... I haven't been there all day," said Fanshaw. Career, he was
thinking. Will Nan or this girl make careers? Career in music, diva,
prima donna, like Ethel Barrymore in Tante, Adelina Patti; Doris
Keene in Romance. Suites in hotels full of expensive flowers. For me
a career wouldn't be like that. Too absurd, poor dear mother wanting
me to have a lovely career. Epicurus would not have approved of a
career.
At Symphony Hall they got out of the car.
"Nan, you'll invite me to your first concert in there, won't you?" said
Betty Thomas.
"If you'll invite me first." They laughed to hide their eagerness.
They walked up a street of brick and brownstone houses with
narrow windows stuffed with fussy curtains on the parlor floors.
Occasionally a girl passed them with a folder of music under her
arm. From the houses came a perpetual sound of scales taken with
tenors, sopranos, contraltos, tinkled on pianos, scraped on 'cellos
and violins, toodled on flutes. From somewhere came occasionally
the muffled bray of an English horn.
"Fearful street, isn't it?" said Fanshaw.
"So Betty and I aren't the only ones ..."
"You mean who want to scale Symphony Hall? O, it's a common
disease, Nan.... Well, I must go back and get the car over to
Brookline. If Wenny goes to see you, do try and get him to be
sensible."
****
Fanshaw had marked the last paper in the test on Florentine
sculpture. He got up from his desk yawning. O Lord! he was
thinking, I'll never be able to look Donatello or the Ghiberti doors in
the face again. He leaned over, arranged the pencils in their tray, put
the papers away in the drawer, and slowly took off his tortoise-shell
spectacles. My eyes are smarting; I mustn't work any more tonight.
The case closed on his spectacles with a faint clack. Poor Wenny,
what a rotten shame; but if he would not learn tact, discretion, what
on earth was there to do? So idiotically childish. Fanshaw walked
with long, leisurely stride into his bathroom, where he hung his
dressing gown on the back of the door. He came back with
yellowstriped pajamas under his arm and sat on the edge of the bed
to take off his shoes. Fearful how this business upsets me, he
muttered aloud. Much too fond of Wenny, his dark skin, his
extraordinary bright eyes. One ought to have more control over
one's emotions, senses. At grade school in Omaha, there had been
that curlyhaired boy, Bunny Jones. Walking home from school one
day, they took the roundabout way beyond the railroad yards. Must
have been May, for the locusts were out. Mother never could abide
the smell of locusts, insisted they gave her a headache. Bunny had
suddenly put an arm round his neck and kissed him and run off
crying in a funny little voice, "Gee, I'm skeered." Curious the way
streaks like that turn up in one. Pico della Mirandola wouldn't have
been afraid of such an impulse if it had come to him. There were so
many scandalmongers about this place. How fearful anything like
that would be. He wasn't free like Wenny. He had his mother to take
care of, lovely career to make. How bitterly silly the idea was. He
folded his trousers over the back of the chair. And it was really Nan
he cared for. Love, he thought; the word somehow rasped in him.
When he had put on his pajamas he stood in front of the dim mirror
a second rubbing his fingers through his short sandy hair. Wonderful
it would be to have yellow curls like Dürer in his portrait. He turned
out the light and got into bed. O, the window! He got up, pushed
the window up half way and retreated hastily before the blast of cold
air that stung his flesh under the loose pajamas. Comfortable, this
bed; better than the one I have at mother's place. He closed his
eyes and drew the covers up about his chin. Streets, he thought of,
long streets of blind windows, dark, cold under arclights, and himself
and Wenny and Nan walking arm in arm, hurrying from corner to
corner. Can't seem to find that street, and on to the next corner
between endless rows of blind windows converging in a perspective
utterly black beyond the cold lividness of arclights. Must have lost
our way in these streets.
He opened his eyes with a jerk. The room was familiar and quiet
about him, the accustomed bulk of the desk opposite the bed. Out
on Mt. Auburn Street voices, occasional steps. He closed his eyes
again and fell asleep.
 IV
Wenny walked alone down a long street of arclights, memories
throbbing to the rhythm of his swift, nervous steps. Every instant he
seemed to walk from end to end the whole street of his life. Back in
his childhood it had been unaccountable and dark, overhung; where
was it he had walked down a narrow alley between towering blind
brick walls that trembled with a roar of hidden engines? The terror
of it had been like that. Then breaks of lollipop-colored sunlight, little
redroofed houses set back among lawns of green baize, set about
with toy evergreens, at doors varnished farmers' wives in Dutch
caps, tiny, like through the wrong end of the telescope, shepherding
Noah's animals out of the cardboard ark; and the smell of the
varnish scaling off toys, grain of wood grimed by the fingers, black
gleam of the floor under the bay window. Then streets to go out in
alone, runnings to the corner drugstore, vast, glittering, reeking with
dangerous smells, to buy aspirin for Auntie. Terror of faces looking
out through grated area windows. And now all that's over. I am
going to live. The uneven frozen slush on the pavement crunched
underfoot.
And the little funny store where they had candy canes striped like
barberpoles and toy trumpets; tin shiny through green and red
bright paint; and the feel of rough brown paper twisted funnel-
shape, cornucopias, horns of plenty, Auntie said they were. And the
smell of schoolrooms and ink on his fingers, and himself walking
home fast to get away from Pug Williams, who said he'd smash his
dirty mug in. Fire engines and bare, proud arms of firemen loafing in
the enginehouse. Muckers, bad-smelling in brown black clothes, who
threw snowballs at you and wrote dirty words on the pavement,
reckless, who had no aunts to scold them. And tonight I walk fast to
get away from all these memories, because tomorrow I am going to
live.
And there had been the time he had first discovered memories,
when he had held his life out at arms' length and looked at it. And
the streets had been full of girls then, the tilt of heels, ankles, calves
swelling under wind-yanked skirts; the hot blush and the sudden
trembling heartbeat when his eyes met a girl's eyes; the girls
giggling over sodas in corner drugstores. The smell of hot asphalt
and oil from a steam-roller puffing and clanking in front of the
house, the wonderfulness of engines and boats, whistles and the
churned harbor-water as the liner left the wharf. Ballantyne read
with smarting eyes after bedtime, black faces against blue sea and
chattering paraquets greener than an emerald and himself brownly
naked in the surf of lonely beaches. Now for all that. No more
dreams, I'm going live tomorrow.
The funny excited anticipation when he first saw the sign in the
subway: Out to Mass. Avenue and the College Yard; then the
intonations of arguing voices, hands knocking the ashes out of pipes,
card catalogues in the library, the dazzle of unimagined horizons
with phrases of all the philosophers going by like the transparencies
in a political parade. His aunt in a coffin, her grey face brittle under
glass like the imitation flowers in showcases in Peabody. His father
and mother bustling about. During the service he had run away and
locked himself in the bathroom and cried like when he had been in a
temper when he was very little. And now here I am, and what am I
going to do to live without dreams? Tomorrow and tomorrow ... how
silly that's Shakespeare.
He was walking down a straight deserted street through
Cambridgeport. A few trees cut the cold glint of light against
windows and scrawled shadows over the uneven snowpiles along
the gutters. He walked fast, staring at the arclights that were violet
in the center and gave off green and orange rays through the thin
mist. At a corner in front of a red A. P. store a group of boys
followed him with their eyes. Muckers.
"O, Algy!... It's late, Algernon," they taunted him in falsetto voices as
he passed. A snowball whizzed past his ear.
"How in hell do they know I'm in college? Must be the smell," he
muttered amusedly. A sudden tingle of curiosity went through him to
know about those boys on the corner. How he'd lain awake at night
thinking of muckers when he was a kid, making himself stories of
fights, things with girls, adventures he'd do if he were a mucker, if
he were to run away from Aunt Susan and be a mucker. He thought
of himself scuttling over roofs from the cops, shots twanging hard in
the zero-green night, dancing belly to belly with a painted girl in a
cellar. But enough of dreams. Tomorrow I'm going to live.
Busy his mind had been all the evening, urging his tired legs on to
its throb, clanking out memories raspingly, the way a press turns out
papers; all at once he knew why. He had to keep from thinking of
Nan.
"O Nan," he said between clenched teeth. For an instant he felt her
acutely walking beside him, leaning on his arm, her cheek against
his cheek. He trembled as he walked. His body was a funnel of
blackness in which his life was sucked away, whirling like water out
of a washbasin. He jerked himself to a stop. He was at a corner in
front of a drugstore. At the top of the greenly lit window his eyes
followed the letters of a Coca-Cola sign. That will be the first act, he
was thinking, I shall tell Nan. I can't go now. I'm too tired now...
And all at once a great wave of jollity bubbled up through him. Of
course I'll go and tell Nan. To love Nan, to walk arm in arm with her,
the ache of desiring all eased, to talk endlessly to her, touching her...
Now I'll go home and go to bed. In the morning early I'll go to see
her before she's up, arrive carrying the milk and the paper. His heart
pounding with anticipation, he started walking fast again down a
cross street. He had a feeling of suddenly scrambling on to a
mountain top from which he could see endless valleys radiating into
sunlight, full of gleam of roads and streams and beckoning woods,
and swift shine of rails taut about the bulging hills. From now on he
would burst through the stagnant film of dreams, his life would be a
headlong adventure. Tomorrow Nan and real living. They'd go away
from Boston, where they were caged by dead customs, where there
were ghosts at every corner, constricting ghosts.
At Massachusetts Avenue the wind was like a razor in his face. The
blundering yellow oblong of a car came towards him along the black
straight track through the rutted snow. He ran, slipped and with a
laugh landed on the step.
"Wait till the car stops," said the conductor mechanically. "Safety
first."
Wenny dropped into the seat beside a lean redfaced man with floppy
ears.
"Hullo, Wendell," the man said, "How's your museum work going?"
"It's gone. I'm chucking the whole shooting match."
"Why on earth?"
"I'm going abroad. I don't know what I'm going to do. I am going to
do something. This isn't anything."
"But why drop out now? Why not wait for your M. A.? You haven't
been fired, have you?"
Wenny laughed and laughed.
"No. Things have come to a jumping off place, that's all. I want
some more satisfactory ..." Wenny smothered an impulse to boast.
"I see," said the man with a queer look.
"No, you don't ... Because I don't either.... But that's how things are,
and to hell with the M. A."
It was good to pull off his heavy coat in his own room once the door
had slammed behind him. The warmth made him very drowsy.
"Tomorrow," he said aloud as he tugged at his necktie. "Gee, it's
lucky I had that row with Father. I'd never have waked up for years."
When he had his clothes off he stretched himself and yawned. Old
fool, Fanshaw, I wonder why I like him, he was thinking. We'll
outlive his old dusty Picos and Mirandolas, anyway. O, and Nan, Nan.
The thought of her body in his arms, of her slender body in the bed
beside him, made his head swim in a haze of throbbing lights sharp
like chirruping of crickets, sleepy like dryflies. He clicked off the
electricity and let himself crumple on to the bed. After a minute he
shivered and pulled the covers high about his face. And think that
we're going abroad. Out among islands in a pearly blue sea dolphins
danced, from the islands great gusts of fragrance came like music on
the wind, the plunk of an anchor in blue bay-water, pink and yellow
houses jostling each other on the sandy shore... He lay laughing
happily, so that the bedsprings shook.
When he woke up the hands of his piefaced alarm clock were at
seven. The sun was barely up. The poplars behind the dormitory
cast streaky shadows on the pitted snow where here and there a bit
of upturned crust glowed ruby and topaz color. Wenny reached out
of the window for an icicle that glittered from the gutter above his
head. It was cold against his tongue, tasted the way soot smells. He
threw it at a sparrow perched fluffily on a bush. "Top of the mornin',
Mr. Sparrow!" and closed the window. The sparrow was tiny and
violet black as he flew into the dazzle of the sun. Wenny dressed
hastily, wondering whether he should shave. I can't take the time;
what the hell does it matter anyway? An old woman was scrubbing
the stone steps. Cold, her hands must be, he thought as he rammed
his hands into his overcoat pockets.
The lunchroom was almost empty.
"Scrambled eggs and bacon on toast and a cup of coffee," he said to
the towhaired, pink-cheeked youth who was slipping into a white
jacket behind the counter. "Fine morning, isn't it?"
"Aint no fine mornings at this job. I call a fine mornin' a mornin' I
can lay in bed."
Wenny laughed. It'ld be fun to be a bussboy for a while, the
grotesque people telling you yarns over coffee. Not here with these
damn college snobs though, in a lunchwagon down in the North
End. How many existences. Walt Whitman had it in The Song of
Occupations. The toast and bacon crackled under his teeth. He
noticed the clock. Hell's bells, only half past seven. I can't help it, I'll
wake her up. She won't care. Nan asleep in her white bedroom, her
hair plaited, sitting up in a dressing gown, he leaning over her
talking to her, the smell of her hair in his nostrils. He would come up
from behind and put his hands on her breasts and kiss her.
He paid the fat cashier, whose eyes drooped sleepily on either side
of a spongy, pendulous nose. Wondered how long his money would
last; one day, two days, four days? The icy pavement flew under his
feet. Beside the Charles he stooped a moment to watch a rift
widening, very black in the ice. Behind him was the throb of the
power plant and the soaring brick chimneys. It would be fine to build
chimneys like that. I mustn't dawdle. I'll go crazy if I don't see Nan.
Kiss me Nan.
He was flushed and his ears and fingers tingled from the wind and
his eyes were jumpy from the dazzle of the snow through the
Fenway. The Swansea, the gilt letters, a little worn, slanted ornately
down the glass door. His throat felt tight, all the blood seemed to
have ebbed out of him. He wondered if he were going to faint. Miss
Taylor, said the visiting card above the bell. The little black button bit
into his finger he pushed it so hard. Again. Again. At last the thing in
the lock clicked. He pushed the door open and ran up the stairs. On
every landing papers, milk bottles. Cautiously Nan's door opened
under his knock.
"Why, Wenny, you startled me half out of my wits," she said in a
yawning voice. "I thought you were a telegram."
"I am."
She opened the door so that he could see half her face between the
tumbled pile of her hair and the green dressing gown clutched about
her chin.
"Wait a sec. Go into the library. I'll get something on. What on earth
is the matter?"
In the library Wenny fell into the Morris chair and buried his face in
his hands. He was trembling like a whipped dog. He was falling
through zone after zone of misery like in a nightmare.
"Had any breakfast? I'm putting on coffee," came Nan's voice from
the kitchenette.
"Fine!" Something unbearably false in his tone made him wince like
a lash.
He stared about the room terribly afraid of the moment when Nan
would come. Opposite him was the piano's great white complacent
grin.
She was in the room, between him and the piano. He was looking up
at her, at her oval face that capped the aloof slenderness of her
body in green clinging crepe with long sleeves. O God, to put my
hands on her breasts, to touch my lips to the richness of her neck.
"Well, you are an early bird this morning, Wenny."
She stopped beside the window. Behind her head clouds skidded
across a green patch of sky.
"It's cold this morning," he heard his voice say.
"I'm afraid we'll have a thaw before the day is out.... O, Wenny, I
hate this wretched climate. Why aren't we all millionaires so that we
could escape the Boston climate?"
"Why not escape?" The words stuck in his throat. You damn fool,
pull yourself together, a little furious voice was saying in his head.
"Ah, the coffee's boiling over.... Wenny, run and fetch the milk and
the paper, will you, please?"
He ran eagerly to the front door. The paper had a bitter diurnal smell
that smacked of his father. Black and white, stuffy-looking like his
father in black with his collar round backwards. He dropped the
paper again and slammed the door.
"Here's the milk."
The kitchenette was full of velvety warm coffeesteam.
"Do you mean to say those awful people downstairs have stolen my
Herald again?"
"I left it there. I want to talk ... I've got to talk to you, can't you
see?"
"What's the matter?"
Her eyes were in his. He couldn't see her, only her eyes, grey like
the sea.
"Well, Wenny, we must have breakfast first. Have you patched it up
with your family?" The words were elaborately emotionless, clinking,
rounded like the cups and saucers she was putting on the tray. He
was out of the trembling husk of his body looking at himself, hating,
out of her grey eyes. When she leaned to take the tray he could see
a faint coppery down on her neck under the dressing gown. To kiss
her there.
He let himself fall heavily into a chair. She set the tray on the little
table by the window.
"One or two? Of course you want two, don't you, Wenny? What fun
to breakfast like this, you and me."
Wenny took a gulp of coffee.
"For God's sake don't be so casual.... It's hideous." The coffee
choked him. He coughed. "Nan, I'm crazy about you."
"Now, Wenny, you haven't come here so bright and early to make
love to me," she said with a hurried, nervous laugh.
"Don't, Nan." He yanked at her hand.
"Wenny, you hurt me, you're spilling my coffee.... Look, are you
drunk?"
"I swear to God I've never been so serious in my life."
"Hold your horses, Wenny boy, we are too old friends to carry on
this way. It's too silly. Do talk sensibly."
"I've been holding myself in so long.... I can't do it any more. I'm
going to live like a human being, do you understand, Nan? From this
moment on you and I are going to live."
As he jumped to his feet his knee hit the table, bowling over the
cream pitcher.
"O, the carpet, Wenny," said Nan in a whining little voice. "Have you
no respect for my carpet?"
"Damn the carpet, Nan. I'm crazy about you. I want to kiss you."
He fell back into the chair and covered his face with his hands, his
fingers writhed in his hair that was curly with sweat. Nan ran out
into the kitchenette and was back with a cloth sopping up the white
puddle of milk. She rubbed the carpet tensely as if everything
depended on its being unspotted.
"Nan, I'm so sorry to give you all that trouble."
"You are such a little silly."
"O what can I do? Nan, for God's sake understand that I love you. I
must have you love me."
He went towards her blind with his arms out. She put her hands
roughly on his shoulders and shook him the way an angry school
teacher shakes a child. Her voice was full of shrill hatred.
"Be quiet, I tell you. You shall be quiet."
"You mean you don't love me."
"Of course not, you little fool.... Please go away, it's my time to
practice. I don't love anyone that way."
Her eyes were dilated and burning. The kimono had fallen from one
shoulder and showed the beginning of the curve of a breast. Her
long fingers dug into the flesh of his shoulder. His back was against
the door.
"O this is fearful, Nan."
The hat in his hand, red gleam of varnish on the door closing behind
him. Then stairs again, numbered doors, milk bottles, newspapers.
He brushed against the elevator man, whose eyes rolled white in a
black face, and through the glass door where climbed the letters of
Swansea in reverse, and out into the grey street. As he crossed a
truck nearly hit him. A man with a grease smudge on an unshaven
cheek under a shiny visored cap leaned out snarling: "Wanter git kilt
ye sonofabitch?"
Sure I want to git kilt, sure I want to git kilt.
... Wenny picked his way very carefully across a snowpile and sat
hunched on a bench under a skinny tree. Anything to forget Nan,
her ringing voice saying: Of course not, you little fool, the warm
curve of her breast, the down in the hollow of her back under the
green crepe. He beat against his forehead with his fists. O he'd go
mad if he didn't stop thinking of her. Anything to stop thinking of her.
Death to stop thinking of her, death a motortruck hurtling down the
frozen street and a voice shrieking: Wanter git kilt ye sonofabitch,
and hard blackness, eternal. To crawl into bed and draw the covers
up to your chin and sleep. That's what it would be like to git kilt. No
more agony of hands to touch, lips to kiss, so downy and warm it
would be asleep in a bed of blackness.
The back of the bench was hard against the nape of his neck. He
was shivering. He got to his feet. The sky had become overcast with
dovecolored mackerel clouds that cast a violet gloom over the
apartment houses and the etched trees and the rutted yellow slush
of the street. Wenny tugged at his watchfob. The familiar round
face, slender Roman numbers. God, only half past nine? How many
hours ahead. He walked on numbly.
****
"Some cold, aint it?" came a voice beside him. "Aint no time for
keepin' the benches warm." Wenny turned his head. Beside him on
the bench was a fellow without an overcoat of about his own age, a
compact, snubnosed face with lips blue and a little trembling from
the cold. It was afternoon; he was sitting on the Common.
"Of course it's cold," said Wenny testily. He was staring straight
before him through the trees at the dark shapes of people and
automobiles passing in front of the shopwindows, gay and glinting
along Tremont Street. Like that his thoughts passed and repassed,
miserable silhouettes against the shine and color of his memories. It
hurt him to leave the mood of processional sadness he had slipped
into at the end of dumb hours of walking. After a long silence the
man at the other end of the bench continued in the same
confidential tone.
"Aint no time for keeping the benches warm I can tell you.... Out of
a job, are you?"
Wenny nodded.
"Up against it?"
Wenny got to his feet.
"I guess I'll walk along," he said.
"Mind if I walk with you?" said the young man jumping up and
thrashing his arm about. "Bad onct you let yesself git cold this
weather. You don't never git warm agin. Got a flop for the night?"
Wenny nodded. They started walking down the path.
"I aint yet. I'll git one though. It's too tumble cold out."
"Are you flat?"
"Like a buckwheat cake."
"I mean, haven't you any money?"
"Money!" Wenny's companion stopped in his tracks shaking with
laughter. "Jumpin' jeeze, that's funny. That sure strikes me funny.
Why I aint had a piece of change the size of your little finger for so
damn long ..."
"How do you make out?"
"O, I make out fine, 'xceptin' when my luck goes back on me like
today."
"Been in Boston long?"
"Nope. Tumbled in here 'bout three days ago from Albany. Too cold
up there. I aint got the hang of it yet. Bum town, I'd say. Though
you can't tell about a town till you learn it."
A rolled up newspaper lay on the path before them. The young man
without an overcoat made a grab for it, shooting a skinny chapped
forearm out of the frayed sleeve of his coat.
"Useful things, newspapers," he said as they walked on. Then he
turned and looked at Wenny fixedly a minute. "Lost your job?... You
aint bummed much, have you? Lost your job?"
"I've hardly been out of Boston."
They were rounding the dry basin of one of the ponds that was piled
with muddy snow from the paths.
"Et today?"
"Of course.... Look, I've still got a couple of dollars. Suppose you
come and have a drink with me. Say, what's your name?"
"The guys called me Whitey down where I come from. And say, if
you want to set me up to something for Gawd's sake make it a
hamburger steak. Honest, I aint et a thing since I been in Boston
city."
"Gosh, come along. I'll take you to Jake's."
"Hell, it don't hurt you not to eat onct you git used to it. I kin go
days without eatin' an' never notice it."
"Gee, I'm hungry too. I forgot to eat any lunch."
In the German restaurant there was a thick smell of beer and fat
wurst and sawdust. Whitey took off his cap exposing a closely
cropped tow head and sat stiffly on the shiny reddish wooden bench.
Wenny ordered beer and hamburger and potatoes of a fat-faced
waiter who looked from one to the other out of suspicious pig eyes.
"Gee, you're treatin' me white. I guess you're millionaire on the
loose."
"I wish I was," said Wenny laughing. "No, I just had a fight with my
father."
"Like me when I left home."
"How long have you been bumming round like this?"
"'Bout a year an a half."
"Where do you come from?"
"Perkinville, a little jerkwater town back in South Dakota."
"Good beer, isn't it?"
"I'll tell the world it is.... So you had a fallin' out with the old man,
did ye too?"
"I sure did."
"Did he trun a flatiron after you?"
"No," said Wenny laughing, his mouth full of potato.
"Mine did. A red hot one too."
"How did it happen?"
"O, I dunno. Things was pretty rough round our shack anyway. I
used to run away for a week at a time an' stay with some guys I
knew an' the old man kep' sayin' how's I ought to be workin' to
support the family an' all that. He wasn't workin' but he always
wanted us kids to work.... An' I come home one night feelin' top
notch with a couple of drinks in me. We'd all been down the line, an'
I was tellin' myself how I was goin' to lay off that stuff an' hold down
a job. An' just as I gits to the house I hears em hollerin' blue
murder.... Ma took in washin' an' used to do the ironin' in the
evenin's.... Well, I looked through the kitchen winder and, jeeze,
there was Ma and the old man chasin' her around the kitchen with
the ironin' board an' beatin' at her with it, an' there was a tub full o'
clothes to soak by the stove, and Ma just picked up that tub an'
dumped it on the old man's head sayin': Take that, ye dirty beast,
an' ran out of the house. And, jeeze, I was mad at him... An' I runs
in and tells him to quit beatin' up Ma, and he had the clothes all
hangin' round his neck and the water pourin' off his neck. But he
was roarin' drunk though; jeeze it'd a been funny if I hadn't been so
scared. I always was scared of the old man. An' he stood up with his
eyes all red lookin' at me scoldin' an' cursin' at him. Curse at yer
father, you yellow-bellied bastard, he said. An' then he picked up two
flatirons, red hot on the stove, an' came after me... Honest to Gawd,
I couldn't move, I was so scared, like when you're scared in your
sleep. All I could do—jeeze, I remember it clear as anything—was
yell: They're red hot, they're red hot. One of 'em went through the
winder with an awful noise an' I ran out of the house and used my
legs till I fell down cryin' on the side of the road a mile out o'
town.... I jumped a freight an' went to Milwaukee, an' I aint been
back since. I'm goin' though in about a year an' plant myself among
the weeds. This aint no life for a white man."
"What about girls?"
"O, they don't bother me. I get it now and then. But I don't miss it."
"It bothers me."
"What I like is goin' round to new towns, hoppin' freights an' all that.
Jeeze, I been some places in the last year. I've worked in Akron an'
Cleveland, an' Chicago, an' Atlanta, Georgia. If I'd had the sense to
stay down south I wouldn't be freezin' to death at this minute.... An'
Tallahassee an' Key West. I passed up a chance to go to Havana.
'Count the lingo. An' Galveston an' South Bend an' Topeka an'
Pittsburgh. That's where they pick you up an' put you on the stone
crushers. An' Duluth an' Cairo an' Albany an' New Orleans. Ought to
see them high yallers down there if you're stuck on girls. I didn't get
to the coast but I was in New York and Philly...."
"Have some more beer?"
"No... Jeeze, I'm talkin' too much, I guess."
"Hell no, I like to hear you."
"Well, I'll beat it this time. Got to meet a friend o' mine on the
Common.... See you some time."
He pulled his cap over his eyes, put up his collar and slouched out
the door. Wenny sat sipping his beer. He wished Whitey had not
gone. His mind was fearfully empty and dark. Why couldn't I do
that, bum from town to town? That's the worst that can happen to
me anyway, and that sounds fun. That way I can forget her and all
this life. Start afresh as if I had just been born. He got to his feet
firmly, put his two dollars down beside the cheque and walked out
into the street. A sudden wild elation had seized him. He hadn't a
cent in the world. What should he do now, reborn without a cent?
It was already dark. The wind made his cheeks tingle. Of course he
knew what to do. He'd pawn his watch. Down the street a little way
three gold balls glinted above a show window in the full glare of an
arclight.
****
His forehead and eyes in the carmine ring of a Ward 8 becoming
oval as he tipped it to his mouth, half a slice of orange bobbing in
the midst of it, the lemony claret taste in his mouth and excitement
shooting in hot and cold shivers through his blood. Opposite a girl's
face, cheeks firm under powder giving way suddenly in loose
purplish skin under the eyes, hair fuzzy and yellow. Beyond, through
blue arabesques of tobacco smoke, tops of instruments from the
orchestra playing Goodby, Girls I'm Through, a chromo of George
Washington in a gold frame hung with a festoon of red frilled paper.
In his mind muddled the towns Whitey had told him about, Akron
and Cleveland and Chicago and Atlanta, Georgia, and Tallahassee
and Key West, and Fanshaw's delicately intoned voice saying: Like
beautiful leanfaced people of the Renaissance lost in their vermillion
barge.... Ellen wasn't leanfaced; plump cheeks, plump breasts. He
was living now. Now he'd forget how his father looked with his collar
round backwards, he'd forget Nan with Ellen, realer than old fool
Fanshaw's vermillion barge.