Didactic fiction; Political fiction; Social problems -- Fiction
Levine's querulous voice rose above the din of the machines--finding
fault with something. A stenographer in a far corner began to count,
"One! Two! Three!" Every one in the office, even the linotypers and
printer's devil beyond the partition took up the slogan.
"O-o-oh! Cut it out and work for Socialism."
The tense expression on Isadore's face relaxed into a confident grin.
"That's it. You think we need money to run this paper? We're doing it on
enthusiasm. And nothing is going to stop us."
"I'll think it over," Yetta said. "If I can't see any chance of helping,
I won't stay on the Committee to discourage you. I've got to go up to
the League now and make peace with Mabel. I was so busy in Brooklyn last
night I forgot all about a speaking engagement she'd made for me."
As she rode uptown Yetta was surprised by a strange revulsion towards
her old work and workmates. Why the shattering of her romance should
have changed her outlook on life she could not determine. She seemed
somehow to have graduated from it all. Even with wings broken a
butterfly does not want to crawl back into the chrysalis. All her old
life had become abhorrent to her. She hated the steps in front of the
League office as she walked up them. She realized that she was
dangerously near hating Mabel. More sharply than ever before she felt
the chasm between this finely bred upper-class woman and herself. No
matter how hard she tried she would never be able to climb entirely out
of her sweat-shop past. Jealousy made her unjust. She attributed
Walter's preference--which was purely a matter of chance--to this
difference in breeding.
Mabel, sitting within at her desk, was in no more cordial a mood. Walter
had not called the night before. This had affected her more than she
would have believed possible. It seemed typical of the way she was being
deserted. A hungry loneliness had been gathering within her of late. The
process of growing old seemed to be a gradual sloughing off of the
relationships which really counted. Old age with Eleanor was a dreary
outlook. She had not had many suitors this last year--none that
mattered. As she had sat at home waiting for Walter to call, realizing
minute by minute that he was not coming, the loneliness which had been
only a hungry ache had changed to an acute pain. She was no more in love
with him than before. But--although she had not admitted it to herself
in so many words--if he had come, still seeking her, she knew she would
have married him out of sheer fright at the doleful prospect of being
left alone.
At the office that morning she had found a letter, which he had written
the day before. He was sorry to have missed her. He was to be in the
country only a few days, was leaving that afternoon for Boston--a
collection he wanted to look over in the Harvard Museum--and was sailing
from there to England. He told of the Oxford professorship he was
accepting, and he was "Very truly yours." He did not even give his
Boston address.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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