Short Stories and Essays | Page 6

downward,
she looked exactly like the old woman. I thought I would have Nina
make her self-sacrifice rebelliously, as a girl like her would be apt to do,
and follow the cokecart with tears. This would catch Janssen's notice,
and he would wonder, perhaps with a little pang, what the old woman
was crying about, and then he would see that it was not the old woman.
He would see that it was Nina, and he would be in love with her at once,
for she would not only be very pretty, but he would know that she was
good, if she were willing to help her family in that way.
He would respect the girl, in his dull, sluggish, Northern way. He
would do nothing to betray himself. But little by little he would begin
to befriend her. He would carelessly overload his cart before he left the
yard, so that the coke would fall from it more lavishly; and not only
this, but if he saw a stone or a piece of coal in the street he would drive
over it, so that more coke would be jolted from his load.
Nina would get to watching for him. She must not notice him much at

first, except as the driver of the overladen, carelessly driven cart. But
after several mornings she must see that he is very strong and
handsome. Then, after several mornings more, their eyes must meet,
her vivid black eyes, with the tears of rage and shame in them, and his
cold blue eyes. This must be the climax; and just at this point I gave my
fancy a rest, while I went into a drugstore at the corner of Avenue B to
get my hands warm.
They were abominably cold, even in my pockets, and I had suffered
past several places trying to think of an excuse to go in. I now asked the
druggist if he had something which I felt pretty sure he had not, and
this put him in the wrong, so that when we fell into talk he was very
polite. We agreed admirably about the hard times, and he gave way
respectfully when I doubted his opinion that the winters were getting
milder. I made him reflect that there was no reason for this, and that it
was probably an illusion from that deeper impression which all
experiences made on us in the past, when we were younger; I ought to
say that he was an elderly man, too. I said I fancied such a morning as
this was not very mild for people that had no fires, and this brought me
back again to Janssen and Marina, by way of the coke-cart. The thought
of them rapt me so far from the druggist that I listened to his answer
with a glazing eye, and did not know what he said. My hands had now
got warm, and I bade him good-morning with a parting regret, which he
civilly shared, that he had not the thing I had not wanted, and I pushed
out again into the cold, which I found not so bad as before.
My hero and heroine were waiting for me there, and I saw that to be
truly modern, to be at once realistic and mystical, to have both delicacy
and strength, I must not let them get further acquainted with each other.
The affair must simply go on from day to day, till one morning Jan
must note that it was again the grandmother and no longer the girl who
was following his cart. She must be very weak from a long sickness--I
was not sure whether to have it the grippe or not, but I decided upon
that provisionally and she must totter after Janssen, so that he must get
down after a while to speak to her under pretence of arranging the
tail-board of his cart, or something of that kind; I did not care for the
detail. They should get into talk in the broken English which was the
only language they could have in common, and she should burst into
tears, and tell him that now Nina was sick; I imagined making this very

simple, but very touching, and I really made it so touching that it
brought the lump into my own throat, and I knew it would be effective
with the reader. Then I had Jan get back upon his cart, and drive
stolidly on again, and the old woman limp feebly after.
There should not be any more, I decided, except that one very cold
morning, like that; Jan should be driving through that street, and should
be passing the door of the tenement house where Nina had lived, just as
a little procession should be issuing from it.