_My Heart and My Flesh_ _By the same author_ THE TIME OF MAN _A Novel_—_Mcmxxvi_ UNDER THE TREE _Poems_—_Mcmxxii_ _My Heart and My Flesh_ “_My heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God._”—PSALMS 84.2 A NOVEL BY ELIZABETH MADOX ROBERTS [Illustration] _New York_ · THE VIKING PRESS · _Mcmxxvii_ COPYRIGHT, 1927, BY THE VIKING PRESS, INC. PRINTED IN U. S. A. _First Edition, October, 1927_ _Second printing before publication_ _Third printing, November, 1927_ _To My Sister_ L. R. B. MY HEART AND MY FLESH PROLOGUE As a child, Luce was running to the store to get a small can of oil, for it was growing dark and she had the lamp to fill. Across the street the lamp-lighter was lifting a burning swab of waste to the street-lamp, a gasoline lamp on the top of a high post. The lamp-lighter stood on a ladder to lift the brand, and when the lamp was lit he would take the ladder on his shoulder and walk away at an even step, the same yesterday and the same tomorrow. When he had new shoes the step was marked with crying leather. She ran past the lamp-lighter hardly giving a moment to look at him, for she knew all his ways and all his motions, all the rhythms of his feet. The street-lamp made a thin, feeble light when there was any day left in the air, but the lighter had to start on his rounds early to have all the lamps ready by the time the dark came to the last one at the end of Hill Street. The lamp flickered dimly in the light of day that was left in the air, but after a little a passer would be glad for the glow; it showed the way to the pump and helped one over the well-curb and over the stones at the crossing. On dark nights when there was a wind the mules in the livery stable cried out with great cries. There would be a wind that night making little wells of feeling pool up in one’s chest, and a thought of Mome, the city, came to her mind.