Driven by the Spirit
95
as he moves away from the three-way mirror — a symbol of Nucky’s move
away from his social self, towards his inner one. In addition, he removes a party
mask that he had been trying on — a veritable shedding of camouflage. Lastly,
he crosses the room to Mrs. Schroeder and sits beside her — closing physical
distance as well as the emotional distance between them. Nucky then tells Mrs.
Schroeder that which defines him utterly. According to Nucky, after his child
was bom, he did not hold him until after a week had passed. On the day he
finally did take his child in his arms, his baby was dead, and he had been so for
days. His wife, Nucky says, having suffered from melancholia, cared for the
baby as a corpse. “I took him from her,” he tells Mrs. Schroeder about his baby,
“and I cradled him in my arms. That was the only time I ever held him”
{Boardwalk). Nucky Thompson o