Around the World with Josiah Allen's WifeHolley, Marietta
General
Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife
Holley, Marietta
Women travelers -- Fiction
But I methought to myself she's got to be careful, Liberty has, or
that torch will light up more'n she wants it to. Liberty is sometimes
spelt license in France and in our own country, but they don' mean the
same thing, no, indeed! We hung round there in that vicinity seein'
the different sights, and Josiah took it in his head that we should
take our supper outdoors; he said he thought it would be real
romantic, and I shouldn't wonder if it wuz. 'Tennyrate, that is one of
the sights of Paris to see the gayly dressed throngs happy as kings
and queens, seemin'ly eatin' outdoors. Lights shinin' over 'em, gay
talk and laughter and music sparklin' about 'em.
Well, Josiah enjoyed the eppisode exceedingly, but it made it ruther
late when we started back to the tarven through the brightly lighted
streets and anon into a more deserted and quiet one, and on one of
these last named we see a man, white-headed and bent in figger,
walkin' along before us, who seemed to be actin' dretful queer. He
would walk along for quite a spell, payin' no attention to anybody
seemin'ly, when all at once he would dart up clost to some young girl,
and look sharp at her, and then slink back agin into his old gait.
Thinkses I is he crazy or is he some old fool that's love sick. But
his actions didn't seem to belong to either of the classes named. And
finally right under a lamp post he stopped to foller with his eager
eyes a graceful, slim young figger that turned down a cross street and
we come face to face with him.
It wuz Elder Wessel--it wuz the figger I had seen at the morgue--but,
oh, the change that had come over the poor creeter! Hair, white as
snow; form, bowed down; wan, haggard face; eyes sunken; lookin' at us
with melancholy sombry gaze that didn't seem to see anything. Josiah
stepped up and held out his hand, and sez: "Elder, I'm glad to see
you, how do you do? You don't look very rugged."
He didn't notice Josiah's hand no more than if it wuz moonshine. He
looked at us with cold, onsmilin', onseein', mean, some like them same
moonbeams fallin' down on dark, troubled waters, and I hearn him
mutter:
"I thought I had found her! Where is Lucia?" sez he.
The tears run down my face onbeknown to me, for oh the hunted, haunted
look he wore! He wuz a portly, handsome man when we see him last, with
red cheeks, iron-gray hair and whiskers and tall, erect figger. Now he
had the look of a man who had kep' stiddy company with Death,
Disgrace, Agony and Fear--kep' company with 'em so long that he wuz a
stranger to anybody and everybody else.
He hurried away, sayin' agin in them same heart-breakin' axents:
"Where is Lucia?"
Arvilly turned round and looked after him as he shambled off.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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