“What can I say of Losha? She was the one woman whom I never knew. My intuition failed me. I never understood. Was she ugly or beautiful? stupid or wise? base or noble? I cannot tell. I only could know her simple and undivided love, which never forsook me. It was those fires in which I became as ashes. “As ashes, ashes.... One cold morning she coughed a great big racking spasm.... Then she whispered to me: “‘Trudo, I love you.’ “And she died.... I closed the shop.... I did not need the shop. I needed only my own soul, which began to dawn in me like the sun in spring.... And being quite insane, I came here....” We were silent. He fussed about among his papers and murmured: “I suppose it isn’t much of a story.” I smiled at him, but said nothing. Then he showed me a portrait he had made of Losha. She was dark and thin, even gaunt, and a look almost of madness in the eyes.... The tears rolled down the Doctor’s cheeks.... A little later I said goodby to him. We stood, facing each other and he held my hand. “I am insane,” he said, “do not forget that. And out there--” he waved his other hand in the direction of New York, “live the sane ones. Losha is dead, and Dr. Farraday is dead. You know the ancients,” he smiled quaintly, “thought the insane were close to the gods. But that’s a fable, isn’t it?” I closed the door on him very softly, troubled in spirit. [18] Copyright, 1921, by _Broom_. Copyright, 1923, by James Oppenheim. IN THE METROPOLIS[19] By BENJAMIN ROSENBLATT (From _Brief Stories_) She sat in a show window of a large department store. “A prize to those who make her laugh,” read a conspicuous sign over her head. An American flag was wrapped around her slim figure; a sword which she clutched with both hands rested on her lap with its point towards a placard announcing a bargain sale. She sat motionless, her eyes wide open, her face hardly betraying a trace of life. All day long she sat there, while multitudes passing on the sidewalk turned their heads towards her and wondered: “Is it a living woman or a wax figure?” It was this puzzle which held the pedestrian, and caused the manager of the store to chuckle at his own cleverness. When he saw in the morning this bashful country girl shuffling into the store and asking inaudibly for a job, he caught at the chance for novelty in the advertising of his sale. Her features were so immobile; she appeared, on the whole, so lifeless that his agile mind had promptly pictured her in her present setting.