Triumph of the Egg, and Other StoriesAnderson, Sherwood
General
Triumph of the Egg, and Other Stories
Anderson, Sherwood
Ohio -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; United States -- Social life and customs -- 20th century -- Fiction
There was a procession of people always going away from her. Sometimes
she lay on her belly at the edge of a ravine. Well it was not a ravine.
It had two walls of marble and on the marble face of the walls strange
figures were carved. Broad steps led down--always down and away. People
walked along the steps, between the marble walls, going down and away
from her.
What people! Who were they? Where did they come from? Where were they
going? She was not asleep but wide awake. Her bedroom was dark. The
walls and ceiling of the room receded. She seemed to hang suspended in
space, above the ravine--the ravine with walls of white marble over
which strange beautiful lights played.
The people who went down the broad steps and away into infinite
distance--they were men and women. Sometime a young girl like herself
but in some way sweeter and purer than herself, passed alone. The young
girl walked with a swinging stride, going swiftly and freely like a
beautiful young animal. Her legs and arms were like the slender top
branches of trees swaying in a gentle wind. She also went down and
away.
Others followed along the marble steps. Young boys walked alone. A
dignified old man followed by a sweet faced woman passed. What a
remarkable man! One felt infinite power in his old frame. There were
deep wrinkles in his face and his eyes were sad. One felt he knew
everything about life but had kept something very precious alive in
himself. It was that precious thing that made the eyes of the woman who
followed him burn with a strange fire. They also went down along the
steps and away.
Down and away along the steps went others--how many others, men and
women, boys and girls, single old men, old women who leaned on sticks
and hobbled along.
In the bed in her father's house as she lay awake Rosalind's head grew
light. She tried to clutch at something, understand something.
She couldn't. The noises of the house cut across her waking dream. Her
father was at the pump by the kitchen door. He was pumping a pail of
water. In a moment he would bring it into the house and put it on a box
by the kitchen sink. A little of the water would slop over on the
floor. There would be a sound like a child's bare foot striking the
floor. Then her father would go to wind the clock. The day was done.
Presently there would be the sound of his heavy feet on the floor of
the bedroom above and he would get into bed to lie beside Rosalind's
mother.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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