American fiction -- 20th century; Georgia -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Married women -- Fiction
The other passengers in the coach stared at him. People always did.
Impressive looking man, must be somebody, they decided. No one would
have dared drop his bag in that section and sit down opposite such an
oppressively prosperous looking person, not even if he had a ticket for
the “upper.” He would have glanced at his ticket, at Cutter; then he
would have gone on to the “smoker” and arranged with the porter to let
him know when he might climb into his berth, which, of course, would be
after the great man had gone to bed in the lower one.
This is the professional pose of the recent-rich man. Every one who
rides in sleepers and parlor cars is familiar with the type. Sometimes
a shoe drummer can put it on to perfection; but as a rule it is a
fellow like Cutter, whose character and tastes and manners have been
developed by the shock of wealth, a diseased man morally who receives
more involuntary respect than any really distinguished man could bear.
A man in mental, moral or financial distress will frequently pace the
floor all night. But women never do, because the forms of grief and
anxiety to which they are subject weaken them physically so that they
immediately take to their beds in anticipation of this prostration.
Therefore I hold that it is a circumstance worth mentioning that Helen
did not retire that night. She remained seated as he had left her until
she heard the express go by. Then she went through the house turning
out the lights.
Maria, she observed by the seam of light under the kitchen door, was
still in there. If all her faculties had not been concentrated on
something else, she might have wondered why Maria was later than usual
in clearing up after dinner. She passed back up the hall without so
much as a look at her bed through the open door of her room, and sat
down again in the same chair in the parlor, as you go back to the place
where you left off in a book or to a train of thought when you have
been interrupted.
There could never be real darkness in Shannon any more, because the
city had “water and electric lights” now. Still the room was nearly
dark, with only a faint reflection of the street light far below
through the window. Helen sat like the ghost of herself in this dimness
and silence. She was not thinking nor feeling. She had literally been
drugged by the horror of this last hour. She was numb--past all pain.
Presently she must return to consciousness; but she instinctively
prolonged this trance. Sometimes she changed her position in her chair,
but never once did she languish or cover her face with her hands or
address her Father in heaven.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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