Short stories, American; United States -- Social life and customs -- 20th century -- Fiction
By now old Rogaum, who had seen her walking up the street alone, was
marveling at her audacity, but thought she would soon come back. It was
amazing that she should exhibit such temerity, but he would teach her!
Such a whipping! At half-past ten, however, he stuck his head out of
the open window and saw nothing of her. At eleven, the same. Then he
walked the floor.
At first wrathful, then nervous, then nervous and wrathful, he finally
ended all nervous, without a scintilla of wrath. His stout wife sat up
in bed and began to wring her hands.
“Lie down!” he commanded. “You make me sick. I know vot I am doing!”
“Is she still at der door?” pleaded the mother.
“No,” he said. “I don’t tink so. She should come ven I call.”
His nerves were weakening, however, and now they finally collapsed.
“She vent de stread up,” he said anxiously after a time. “I vill go
after.”
Slipping on his coat, he went down the stairs and out into the night.
It was growing late, and the stillness and gloom of midnight were
nearing. Nowhere in sight was his Theresa. First one way and then
another he went, looking here, there, everywhere, finally groaning.
“Ach, Gott!” he said, the sweat bursting out on his brow, “vot in
Teufel’s name iss dis?”
He thought he would seek a policeman, but there was none. Officer
Maguire had long since gone for a quiet game in one of the neighboring
saloons. His partner had temporarily returned to his own beat. Still
old Rogaum hunted on, worrying more and more.
Finally he bethought him to hasten home again, for she must have got
back. Mrs. Rogaum, too, would be frantic if she had not. If she were
not there he must go to the police. Such a night! And his Theresa----
This thing could not go on.
As he turned into his own corner he almost ran, coming up to the little
portico wet and panting. At a puffing step he turned, and almost fell
over a white body at his feet, a prone and writhing woman.
“Ach, Gott!” he cried aloud, almost shouting in his distress and
excitement. “Theresa, vot iss dis? Wilhelmina, a light now. Bring a
light now, I say, for himmel’s sake! Theresa hat sich _umgebracht_.
Help!”
He had fallen to his knees and was turning over the writhing, groaning
figure. By the pale light of the street, however, he could make out
that it was not his Theresa, fortunately, as he had at first feared,
but another and yet there was something very like her in the figure.
“Um!” said the stranger weakly. “Ah!”
The dress was gray, not white as was his Theresa’s, but the body was
round and plump. It cut the fiercest cords of his intensity, this
thought of death to a young woman, but there was something else about
the situation which made him forget his own troubles.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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