The One Woman: A Story of Modern UtopiaDixon, Thomas, Jr.
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The One Woman: A Story of Modern Utopia
Dixon, Thomas, Jr.
Utopian fiction; Utopias -- Fiction
At length he stood before the old church that had been the arena of
his struggles and triumphs for the past ten years, and was destined
to be for him the scene of a drama more thrilling than any he had
known or dreamed in the past.
He passed into the auditorium, ascended the pulpit, and sat down
in the armchair where but a few hours before he had held the gaze
of thousands. The electric lights glimmering through the windows
of the gable showed the empty pews in sharp outline.
"I wonder if they know when they go they sometimes leave my soul
as empty and as lonely as those vacant pews? I give, give, give
forever of thought, sympathy and life and never receive, until
sometimes my heart cries to a passing dog for help!
"I'd build here to God a temple whose sheer beauty and glory would
stop every huckster on the street, lift his eyes to heaven and melt
his soul into tears. It must--it shall come to pass!"
He sat there for nearly two hours, dreaming of his plans of uplifting
the city, and through the city as a centre reaching the Nation and
its millions with pen and tongue of fire. Gradually the sense of
isolation from self enveloped him, and the thought of human service
challenged the highest reach of his powers.
He opened the face of his watch and felt the hands, a habit he had
formed of telling the time in the dark. It was one o'clock.
He thought of his wife and their quarrel. He had forgotten it in
larger thoughts, and his heart suddenly went out in pity to her.
He had not meant what he said. He loved her in spite of all harsh
words and bitter scenes. She was the mother of his two lovely
children, a girl of ten and a boy of four. The idea of a night
apart from her, he, and theirs came with a painful shock. He felt
his strength and was ashamed that he had left her so cruelly. He
hurried to the Twenty-third Street elevated station and boarded a
car for his home.
When his wife recovered from the first horror of his leaving, she
was angry. With a nervous laugh she went into the nursery, kissed
the sleeping chil-dren and went to bed. She tossed the first hour,
thinking of the quarrel and many sharp thrusts she might have
given him. Perhaps she would renew the attack when he came in and
attempted to make up. The clock struck eleven and she sprang up,
walked to her window and looked out.
A great new fear began to brood over her soul.
"No, no, he could not have meant it--he is not a brute!" she cried,
as she began to nervously clasp her hands and turn her wedding ring
over and over again on her tapering finger, until it seemed a band
of fire to her fevered nerves.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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