I shall die. I shall never come back. Inside Paul was like a light
growing dim to itself, going on forever in invisible distance. When he
contemplated leaving everything he knew, he followed the disappearing
light, and when it died away he belonged to the strange lands which
wanted him like dreams. The river and the city, dim and harsh at the
same time, had the indefiniteness which allowed him to give himself to
them. He was in them, in smoke and endless distance. He listened to the
hoarse startling whistles of tugs, the shrill whistles of factories
blowing the noon hour on land, the confusion of voices that rose from
the small boats clustered about the ship's stern.
Going away. Dying. I shall be dead of light, not known. Fear of the
unknown. There is only fear of the known, he said to himself, the known
outside. The unknown is in me. He wondered what he was saying, growing
up. Mature. He felt as if he had already gone far, far away, beyond the
touch of the familiar things one never understood. The strange was
close. It was his.
* * * * *
May felt herself lost in pale endless beauty of which Aunt Julia was a
part. Love in the darkness. Love in her own room at night when she was
alone and hugged her pillow to her wet face. Through the window she saw
the trees in the street leaning together and mingling their odd shadows.
An arc light was a blurred circle through the branches and the stiff
leaves shaking and dropping occasionally to earth. When she was unseen
she could give herself. If they saw her, they shut her in. Now she was
everywhere, wanted, dark in the dark street. She could see a star above
the roof and she was in the star filled with thin light. She felt as if
she were dying of love, dying of happiness. Happy over a world which was
beautiful because she loved it. She loved Paul, but he was only a part
of the secret city--a part of everything. She did not want to think of
him too much. Jesus, everything, she said. I'm Jesus. She shivered at
her blasphemy, and was glad. I'm Jesus! I'm Jesus! The leaves rattled
against the window pane and fell into the dark street. It was too
bright. She drew herself up in a knot and hid her face.
* * * * *
It was a hot night. Bobby was excited and cross. He was going away to
school the next day. His two trunks stood open on the floor of his room.
Outside the windows the dry leaves rustled in the murky night. Some rain
drops splattered against the lifted glass. Then there was silence, save
for the occasional rattle of twigs in the darkness. An automobile
slipped by with the long soft sound of rubber tires sucking damp
asphalt. When the branches of the trees parted, the lights in the house
opposite seemed to draw nearer. Bobby disliked their spying.
He clattered up and down the stairs and through the halls in the still
house where one could hear the clocks tick.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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