American fiction -- 20th century; Chicago (Ill.) -- Fiction; Journalists -- Fiction; Marriage -- Fiction
On the train he took out his money and counted it again, though he knew
quite definitely how much he had. But it was reassuring to feel the
crisp bills in his hand. Well, he would not starve for three or four
weeks anyway. He considered the advisability of putting away separately
enough to pay his fare back home, but decided against it. “I am not
going back home,” he said to himself.
He went over his plans once more. From the station he would go to a
certain cheap hotel that Tom had suggested. Tom had stayed there once
when he was nearly broke. Then he would look about for a cheap room.
That secured, he would spend a day wandering about the city and
familiarizing himself with its streets. The third day he would go to
look for a job. And the fourth day—and all the other days—he would
continue to look for a job: until he got one.
There was no use in going over his plans any more. He took a book from
his suitcase to read.
He had taken along only one book.... He had smiled ironically when
choosing it, remembering the old literary discussions as to what book
one would choose to have along when cast away on a desert island. Here
was a more practical problem: what book one should choose for solace
when cast alone into the midst of a complex and difficult civilization.
On a desert island one would want something to remind one of people, of
civilization—perhaps Henry James; or more likely the Arabian Nights. But
for his Chicago campaign he had chosen H. G. Wells’ “First and Last
Things.”
He opened the book and began to read.... He discovered after a while
that he had been reading the same sentence over and over:
“_It seems to me one of the heedless errors of those who deal in
philosophy, to suppose all things that have simple names or
unified effects are in their nature simple and may be discovered
and isolated as a sort of essence by analysis._”
Under ordinary circumstances that sentence was doubtless perfectly
clear; but on the train to Chicago it was strangely hard to understand.
And when he recalled his wandering thoughts, put aside his emotions of
expectation and fear, and looked at the sentence again, its meaning was
singularly comfortless. That simple things are not so simple after
all—yes, that was just the trouble!
Going to Chicago, for instance. Thousands of young men did it every
year; his journey was merely one of the items of those broad
sociological generalizations which the university extension lecturers
were fond of uttering. From the outside it was simple enough. It had
apparently been taken for granted by his family and friends for the last
two or three years that Felix would go to Chicago. Certain people, it
seemed, inevitably went. Being one of those people, he had gone.
But _why_?
He restlessly put aside the book and stared out the window. Why? He
hadn’t the least idea, and he rather wished he were back in Port Royal,
with time and leisure to work out the answer to that question
satisfactorily....
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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