The man was beautiful, that is what most residents of these particular American slums would admit had anyone bothered to ask their opinion on the matter afterwards. The man was beautiful, but not beautiful in the way of a whore or your sweetheart. There was no astounding aesthetic beauty there, he was handsome enough but it wasn't his greatest feature. Not beautiful in the way the man who got down on his knees and asked to marry you, not because you were beautiful yourself, but because he loved you; or beautiful in the way of a parent who foreswears their own rumbling stomach to make sure their child ate is. There was no pity, no kindness, or goodness in the sour expression of the man.

No, what made this man beautiful, was that as he stepped through the abject poverty around him, through the narrow street piled high with trash and the remains of a broken sewer system; past the under fed children who crowded into the thin doorways of their tenement buildings and one room apartments, his own well fed stomach and wide face almost made him seem to glow in comparison. It was his suit and the silver shine of his cufflinks at his wrists. It was his hat, tall as a chimney pot, and his red cravat tied ever so elegantly at his throat. It was the opera cape draped around his shoulders.

It was in short, his wealth. His wealth made him beautiful, especially to those who had so little. And in the end perhaps what made him truly beautiful, in that most terrible and ugly of ways, was that when he looked back at those children. And their parents and their neighbours and their houses and the street they called home all he saw was how ugly it all was. How ugly they all were. He saw none of the love, or the hope, or the joy they could rake out of even the most terrible of circumstances - he just saw the trash, and the sewage, and the tiny ugly buildings. And when he saw this his heart was not moved to pity, or motivated to help, no when the man saw this all he thought was how utterly ridiculous it was that anyone, anyone he loved could call a place like this home.

For this beauty was cruelty.

The wealthy plump man stopped at one of the more wretched looking houses, the kind that looked like it might fall down at the barest gust of wind even from the outside. He would stop in front of its cracked and almost broken looking door, he would raise one of his meaty looking fists, the one still covered in a shiny black leather glove and he would slam it against that door so hard and for so long, little splinters came alive and fell around him.

The knocking became so loud and so long it woke everyone in the street, and finally when it seemed like every head was pushed out of its tiny window, or peering from its narrow doorway, the cracked door opened at last and another man stood in that open doorway.

This man was not beautiful, mainly because he was familiar to his neighbours. He was remarkably tall true, but that was the only remarkable thing about this man. He was dressed in an old coat even at night, and his shirt was so threadbare it was practically rags. He was thin, so thin for his height making him look even more gaunt and starving than his neighbours. He was nothing like the man before him, and yet they still looked at one another now with that old kind of hate that relied on familiarity to thrive. They knew each other, which seemed the strangest thing of all.

"You're still living here then," said the shiny plump man.

"Yes," said their too tall neighbour.

"You have not received my letters then?" Said the beauty in the opera coat.

"I've received them." Said the gaunt man in the doorway.

"But clearly not read them if you're still here. Come home James, all will be forgiven if you just come home. Our Mother is still dead, our Father is still gone and you and I are our only family. And we can't turn our backs on family."

The man in the doorway almost looked thoughtful at that, almost looked like he was about to step back and let the beautiful stranger into his home. And the world, at least in one aspect would have been a very different place indeed… but the beautiful stranger didn't notice the thoughtful look on the other man's face and he kept talking.

"Just give up the Girl, James, and you can come home."

"No." Said 'James' his face hardening into a look beyond anger, into a look of hate. "I have found love Thomas, and if you had ever felt such a feeling you would not dare to ask me to turn my back on it now."

"I love you, James. I am your brother, your only family. You cannot turn your back on your family. What will you do without one?"

Suddenly as if answering the question, from inside the house came a cry of an infant. And for a moment, half a moment, the man in the doorway still looked torn but his mouth firmed and he scowled at the man who still dared to call himself his brother.

"I have a family. Goodbye, Thomas."

And then he shut the door, right in the beautiful man's face. And no amount of hammering would make him open it again. His neighbours could attest to this alright.