The Best Short Stories of 1920 | Page 7

had worked her way into my
being. On all sides people were saying I was a big man who would do
big things, and there I was. That evening when I went to the theatre I
walked home because I knew I would be unable to sleep, and to satisfy
the annoying impulse in myself I went and stood on the sidewalk
before the tobacco shop. It was a two story building, and I knew the

woman lived upstairs with her husband. For a long time I stood in the
darkness with my body pressed against the wall of the building and
then I thought of the two of them up there, no doubt in bed together.
That made me furious.
"Then I grew more furious at myself. I went home and got into bed
shaken with anger. There are certain books of verse and some prose
writings that have always moved me deeply, and so I put several books
on a table by my bed.
"The voices in the books were like the voices of the dead. I did not hear
them. The words printed on the lines would not penetrate into my
consciousness. I tried to think of the woman I loved, but her figure had
also become something far away, something with which I for the
moment seemed to have nothing to do. I rolled and tumbled about in
the bed. It was a miserable experience.
"On Thursday morning I went into the store. There stood the woman
alone. I think she knew how I felt. Perhaps she had been thinking of me
as I had been thinking of her. A doubtful hesitating smile played about
the corners of her mouth. She had on a dress made of cheap cloth, and
there was a tear on the shoulder. She must have been ten years older
than myself. When I tried to put my pennies on the glass counter
behind which she stood my hand trembled so that the pennies made a
sharp rattling noise. When I spoke the voice that came out of my throat
did not sound like anything that had ever belonged to me. It barely
arose above a thick whisper. 'I want you,' I said. 'I want you very much.
Can't you run away from your husband? Come to me at my apartment
at seven to-night.'
"The woman did come to my apartment at seven. That morning she did
not say anything at all. For a minute perhaps we stood looking at each
other. I had forgotten everything in the world but just her. Then she
nodded her head and I went away. Now that I think of it I cannot
remember a word I ever heard her say. She came to my apartment at
seven and it was dark. You must understand this was in the month of
October. I had not lighted a light and I had sent my servant away.

"During that day I was no good at all. Several men came to see me at
my office, but I got all muddled up in trying to talk with them. They
attributed my rattle-headedness to my approaching marriage and went
away laughing.
"It was on that morning, just the day before my marriage, that I got a
long and very beautiful letter from my fiancée. During the night
before she also had been unable to sleep and had got out of bed to write
the letter. Everything she said in it was very sharp and real, but she
herself, as a living thing, seemed to have receded into the distance. It
seemed to me that she was like a bird, flying far away in distant skies,
and I was like a perplexed bare-footed boy standing in the dusty road
before a farm house and looking at her receding figure. I wonder if you
will understand what I mean?
"In regard to the letter. In it she, the awakening woman, poured out her
heart. She of course knew nothing of life, but she was a woman. She
lay, I suppose, in her bed feeling nervous and wrought up as I had been
doing. She realized that a great change was about to take place in her
life and was glad and afraid too. There she lay thinking of it all. Then
she got out of bed and began talking to me on the bit of paper. She told
me how afraid she was and how glad too. Like most young women she
had heard things whispered. In the letter she was very sweet and fine.
'For a long time, after we are married, we will forget we are a man and
woman,' she wrote. 'We will be human beings. You must remember
that I am ignorant and often I will be very stupid. You