 I never heard of any true affection, but twizz nipped with care that, like the caterpillar, eats the leaves of Spring's sweetest book, The Rose, Middleton. It is a common practice with those who have outlived the susceptibility of early feeling, or have been brought up in the gay heartlessness of dissipated life, to laugh at all love stories, and to treat the tales of romantic passion as mere fictions of novelists and poets. My observations on human nature have induced me to think otherwise. They have convinced me that, however the surface of the character may be chilled and frozen by the cares of the world, or cultivated into mere smiles by the arts of society, still there are dormant fires lurking in the depths of the coldest bosom, which, when once incandled, become impetuous, and are sometimes disolating in their effects. Indeed, I am a true believer in the blind deity, and go to the full extent of his doctrines. Shall I confess it? I believe in broken hearts, and the possibility of dying of disappointed love. I do not, however, consider it a malady often fatal to my own sex, but I firmly believe that it withers down many a lovely woman into an early grave. Man is the creature of interest and ambition. His nature leads him forth into the struggle and bustle of the world. Love is but the embellishment of his early life, or a song piped in the intervals of the acts. He seeks for fame, for fortune, for space in the world's thought, and dominion over his fellow man. But a woman's whole life is a history of the affections. The heart is her world. It is there her ambition strives for empire. It is there her avarice seeks for hidden treasures. She sends forth her sympathies on adventure, and embarks her whole soul in the traffic of affection. And if shipwrecked, her case is hopeless, for it is a bankruptcy of the heart. To a man the disappointment of love may occasion some bitter pangs. It wounds some feelings of tenderness. It blasts some prospects of felicity. But he is an active being. He may dissipate his thoughts in a whirl of varied occupation, or may plunge into the tide of pleasure. Or if the scene of disappointment be too full of painful associations, he can shift his abode at will, and taking, as it were, the wings of the morning can fly to the utmost parts of the earth, and be at rest. But woman's is a comparatively fixed, a secluded, and meditative life. She is more the companion of her own thoughts and feelings, and if they are turned to ministers of sorrow, where shall she look for consolation? Her lot is to be wooed in one, and if unhappy in her love, her heart is like some fortress that has been captured, sacked, and abandoned, and left desolate. How many bright eyes grow dim, how many soft cheeks grow pale, how many lovely forms fade away into the tomb, and none can tell the cause that blighted their loveliness. As the dove will clasp its wings to its side, and cover and conceal the arrow that is preying on its vitals. So it is the nature of woman to hide from the world the pangs of wounded affection. The love of a delicate female is always shy and silent. Even when fortunate, she scarcely breathes it to herself, but when otherwise she buries it in the recesses of her bosom, and there lets it cower and brood among the ruins of her peace. With her, the desire of her heart has failed, the great charm of existence is at an end. She neglects all the cheerful exercises which gladden the spirits, quicken the pulses, and send the tide of life in heartful currents through the veins. Her rest is broken, the sweet refreshment of sleep is poisoned by melancholy dreams. Dry sorrow drinks her blood, until her enfeebled frame sinks under the slightest external injury. Look for her after a little while, and you will find friendship weeping over her untimely grave, and wondering that one who but lately glowed with all the radiance of health and beauty should so speedily be brought down to darkness and the worm. You will be told of some wintery chill, some casual indisposition that laid her low, but no one knows of the mental malady which previously sapped her strength and made her so easy a prey to the spoiler. She is like some tender tree, the pride and beauty of the grove, graceful in its form, bright in its foliage, but with the worm praying at its heart. We find it suddenly withering, when it should be most fresh and luxuriant. We see it drooping its branches to the earth, and shredding, leaf by leaf, until wasted and perished away, it falls, even in the stillness of the forest. As we muse over the beautiful ruin, we strive in vain to recollect the blast, or thunderbolt, which could have smitten it with decay. I have seen many instances of women running to waste and self-neglect, and disappearing gradually from the earth, almost as if they had been exhaled to heaven, and have repeatedly fancied that I could trace their deaths through the various declensions of consumption, cold, debility, languor, melancholy, until I reached the first symptom of disappointed love. But an instance of the kind was lately told to me. The circumstances are well known in the country where they happened, and I shall but give them in the manner in which they were related. Everyone must recollect the tragical story of young Yi, the Irish patriot. It was too touching to be soon forgotten. During the troubles in Ireland, he was tried, condemned, and executed on a charge of treason. His fate made a deep impression on public sympathy. He was so young, so intelligent, so generous, so brave, so everything that we are apt to like in a young man. His conduct, under trial, too, was so lofty and intrepid. The noble indignation with which he repelled the charge of treason against his country, the eloquent vindication of his name, and his pathetic appeal to posterity in the hopeless hour of condemnation. All these entered deeply into every generous bosom, and even his enemies lamented the stern policy that dictated his execution. But there was one heart whose anguish it would be impossible to describe. In happier days and fairer fortunes, he had won the affections of a beautiful and interesting girl, the daughter of a late celebrated Irish barrister. She loved him with the disinterested fervor of woman's first and early love, when every worldly maxim arrayed itself against him. When blasted in fortune and disgrace and danger darkened his name, she loved him the more ardently for his very sufferings. If then, his fate could awaken the sympathy even of his foes, what must have been the agony of her whose whole soul was occupied by his image. Let those tell who have had the portals of the tomb suddenly closed between them and the being they most loved on earth, who have sat at its threshold, as one shut out in a cold and lonely world, whence all that was most lovely and loving had departed. But then the horrors of such a grave, so frightful, so dishonored, there was nothing for memory to dwell on that could soothe the pang of separation, none of those tender, though melancholy circumstances, which endear the parting scene, nothing to melt sorrow into those blessed tears sent like the do's of heaven, to revive the heart in the parting hour of anguish. To render her widowed situation more desolate, she had incurred her father's displeasure by her unfortunate attachment, and was in exile from the parental roof. But could the sympathy and kind offices of friends have reached a spirit so shocked and driven in by horror she would have experienced no want of consolation, for the Irish are a people of quick and generous sensibilities. The most delicate and cherishing attentions were paid to her by families of wealth and distinction. She was led into society, and they tried all kinds of occupation and amusement to dissipate her grief and wean her from the tragical story of her loves. But it was all in vain. There are some strokes of calamity that scath and scorch the soul, which penetrate it to the vital seat of happiness, and blast it, never again to put forth bud or blossom. She never objected to frequent the haunts of pleasure, but was as much alone there as in the depths of solitude, walking about in a sad reverie, apparently unconscious to the world around her. She carried with her an inward woe that mocked at all the blandishments of friendship, and he did not the song of the charmer, charm he never so wisely. The person who told me her story had seen her at a masquerade. There can be no exhibition of far gone wretchedness more striking and painful than to meet it at such a scene, to find it wandering like a spectre, lonely and joyless, where all around it is gay, to see it dressed out in the trappings of mirth and looking so wane and woe-begone, as if it had tried in vain to cheat the poor heart into momentary forgetfulness of sorrow. After strolling through the splendid rooms and giddy crowds with an air of utter abstraction, she sat herself down on the steps of an orchestra, and, looking about for some time with a vacant air that showed her insensibility to the garish scene, she began with the preciousness of a sickly heart to warble a little plaintiff air. She had an exquisite voice, but on this occasion it was so simple, so touching. It breathed forth such a soul of wretchedness that she drew a crowd, mute and silent around her, and melted everyone into tears. The person who told me her story had seen her at a masquerade. There can be no exhibition of far-gone wretchedness more striking and painful than to meet it at such a scene, to find it wandering like a spectre, lonely and joyless, where all around it is gay, to see it dressed out in the trappings of mirth and looking so wane and woe-begone, as if it had tried in vain to cheat the poor heart into momentary forgetfulness of sorrow. After strolling through the splendid rooms and giddy crowds with an air of utter abstraction, she sat herself down on the steps of an orchestra, and, looking about for some time with a vacant air that showed her insensibility to the garish scene, she began with the preciousness of a sickly heart to warble a little plaintiff air. She had an exquisite voice, but on this occasion it was so simple, so touching. It breathed forth such a soul of wretchedness that she drew a crowd, mute and silent around her, and melted everyone into tears. The story of one so true and tender could not but excite great interest in a country remarkable for enthusiasm. It completely won the heart of a brave officer, who paid his addresses to her, and thought that one so true to the dead could not but prove affectionate to the living. She declined his attentions, for her thoughts were irrevocably engrossed by the memory of her former lover. He, however, persisted in his suit. He solicited not her tenderness, but her esteem. He was assisted by her conviction of his worth, and her sense of her own destitute and dependent situation, for she was existing on the kindness of friends. In a word he at length succeeded in gaining her hand, though with the solemn assurance that her heart was unalterably in others. He took her with him to Sicily, hoping that a change of scene might wear out the remembrance of early woes. He was an amiable and exemplary wife, and made an effort to be a happy one, but nothing could cure the silent and devouring melancholy that had entered into her very soul. She wasted away in a slow but hopeless decline, and at length sunk into the grave the victim of a broken heart. It is on her that Moore, the distinguished Irish poet, composed the following lines. She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps, and lovers round her are sighing. But coldly she turns from their gaze and weeps, for her heart in his grave is lying. She sings the wild song of her dear native plains, every note which he loved awaking, all little they think who delight in her strains how the heart of the minstrel is breaking. He had lived for his love for his country he died, they were all that to life had entwined him, nor soon shall the tears of his country be dried, nor long will his love stay behind him. O make her aggrave where the sunbeams rest, when they promise a glorious morrow, they'll shine o'er her sleep like a smile from the west, from her own loved island of sorrow. End of THE BROKEN HEART Dr. Chevalier's Lie by Kate Chopin The quick report of a pistol rang through the quiet autumn night. There was no unusual sound in the unsavory quarter where Dr. Chevalier had his office. Screams commonly went with it. This time there had been none. Midnight had already rung in the old cathedral tower. The doctor closed the book over which he had lingered so late, and awaited the summons that was almost sure to come. As he entered the house to which he had been called, he could not but note the ghastly sameness of detail that accompanied these oft-recurring events, the same scurrying, the same group of tawdry frightened women bending over banisters, hysterical some of them, morbidly curious others, and not a few shedding womanly tears, with a dead girl stretched somewhere, as this one was. And yet it was not the same. Certainly she was dead. It was the hole in the temple where she had sent the bullet through. Yet it was different. Other such faces had been unfamiliar to him, except so far as they bore the common stamp of death. This one was not. Like a flash he saw it again amid other surroundings. The time was little more than a year ago. The place, a homely cabin down in Arkansas, in which he and a friend had found shelter and hospitality during a hunting expedition. There were others beside—a little sister or two, a father and mother, coarse and bent with toil, but proud as archangels of their handsome girl, who was too clever to stay in an Arkansas cabin, and who was going away to seek her fortune in the big city. The girl is dead, said Dr. Chevalier. I knew her well, and charged myself with her remains and decent burial. The following day he wrote a letter, one doubtless to carry sorrow but no shame, to the cabin down there in the forest. It told that the girl had sickened and died. A lock of hair was sent, and other trifles with it. Tender last words were even invented. Of course it was noise about that Dr. Chevalier had cared for the remains of a woman of doubtful repute. Shoulders were shrugged. Society thought of cutting him. Society did not, for some reason or other, so the affair blew over. End of Dr. Chevalier's Lie by Kate Chopin Red for LibriVox.org by Alan Davis Drake A Good Match by Guy DeMont-Possant Strauss's band was playing in the salons of the Horticultural Society, which was so full that the young cadet who saw Sergeant Max B., who had nothing better to do on an afternoon when he was off duty than to drink a glass of good beer, and to listen to a new Waltz tune, had already been looking about for a seat for some time, when the head waiter, who knew him, quickly took him to an unoccupied place, and without waiting for his orders, brought him a glass of beer. A very gentlemanly looking man and three elegantly dressed ladies were sitting at the table. The cadet saluted them with military politeness and sat down, but almost before he could put the glass to his lips he noticed that the two elder ladies, who appeared to be married, turned up their noses very much at his taking a seat at their table, and even said a few words which he could not catch, but which no doubt referred unpleasantly to him. I am afraid I am in the way here, the cadet said, and he got up to leave, when he felt a pull at his saber-tash beneath the table, and at the same time the gentleman felt bound to say with some embarrassment. Oh, not at all. On the contrary, we are very pleased that you have chosen this table. Thereupon the cadet resumed his seat. Not so much because he took the gentleman's invitation as sincere, but because the silent request to remain, which he had received under the table, and which was much more sincerely meant, had raised in him one of those charming illusions which are so frequent in our youth, and which promised so much happiness with electrical rapidity. He could not doubt for a moment that the daring invitation came from the third, the youngest and prettiest of the ladies, into whose company a fortunate accident had thrown him. From the moment that he had sat down by her, however, she did not deem to bestow even another look on him, much less a word, and to the young who saw her, who was still rather inexperienced in such matters. This seemed rather strange, but he possessed enough natural tact not to expose himself to her buff by any hasty advances, but to quietly wait further developments of the adventure on the part of the heroine of it. This gave him the opportunity of looking at her more closely, and for this he employed the moments when their attention was diverted from him and was taken up by conversation among themselves. The girl, whom the others called Angelica, was a thorough Viennese beauty, not exactly regularly beautiful, for her features were not Roman or Greek, and not even strictly German, and yet they possessed every female charm and were seductive in the fullest sense of the word. Her strikingly small nose, which in a lady's maid might have been called impudent, and her little mouth with its voluptuously full lips, which would have been called lustful in a street walker, imparted an indescribable peckant charm to her small head, which was surmounted by an imposing tower of that soft brown hair which is so characteristic of Viennese women. Her bright eyes were full of good sense, and the merry smile lurked continually in the most charming little dimples near her mouth and on her chin. In less than a quarter of an hour our cadet was fettered with no more will of his own than a slave has, to the triumphal chariot of this delightful little creature, and, as he hoped and believed, forever. And he was a man worth capturing, he was tall and slim, but muscular, and looked like an athlete, and at the same time he had one of those handsome open faces which women liked so much. His honest dark eyes showed strength of will, courage and strong passions, and that women also like. During an interval in the music, an elderly gentleman with the ribbon of an order in his buttonhole came up to the table and from the manner in which he greeted them, it was evident that he was an old friend. From their conversation, which was carried on in a very loud tone of voice, and with much animation in the bad Viennese fashion, the cadet gathered that the gentleman who was with the ladies was a counselor of legation, and that the elderly lady was his wife, while the second lady was his married and the youngest his unmarried sister-in-law. When they at last rose to go, the pretty girl, evidently unintentionally, put her velvet jacket, trimmed with valuable sable, very loosely over her shoulders. Then she remained standing at the exit, and slowly put it on so that the cadet had an opportunity to get close to her. Follow us, she whispered to him, and then ran after the others. The cadet was only too glad to obey her directions, and followed them at a distance without being observed, to the house where they lived. A week passed without his seeing the pretty angelica again, or without her giving him any sign of life. The waiter, in the horticultural society's grounds, whom he asked about them, could tell him nothing more than that they were people of position. And a few days later the cadet saw them all again at a concert. But he was satisfied with looking at his ideal from a distance. She, however, when she could do so without danger, gave him one of those coquettish looks which inexperienced young men, imagine expressed the innermost feelings of a pure, virgin heart. On that occasion she left the grounds with her sisters much earlier, and as she passed the handsome cadet, she let a piece of small rolled up paper fall, which only contained the words, come at ten o'clock tonight, and ring the bell. He was outside the house at the stroke of tan and rang, but his astonishment knew no bounds when, instead of angelica or her confidential maid, the housekeeper opened the door. She saw his confusion, and quickly put it into it by taking his hand and pulling him into the house. Come with me, she whispered, I know all about it, the young lady will be here directly, so come along. Then she led him through the kitchen into a room which was shut off from the rest of the house, in which she had apparently furnished for similar meetings on her own account, and left him there by himself. And the cadet was rather surprised to see the elegant furniture, a wide, soft couch, and some rather obscene pictures in broad gilt frames. In a few minutes the beautiful girl came in, and without any further ceremony threw her arms round the young soldier's neck. In her negligee she appeared to him much more beautiful than in her elegant outdoor dress, but the virginal fragrance which then pervaded her had given way to that voluptuous atmosphere which surrounds a young, newly married woman. Angelica, whose little feet were encased in blue velvet slippers lined with ermine, and who was wrapped in a richly embroidered, white dressing gown that was trimmed with lace, drew the handsome cadet down on the couch with graceful energy, and almost before he exactly knew what he had come for, she was his. And the young soldier, who was half days at his unexpected victory in good fortune, did not leave her until after twelve o'clock. He returned every night at ten, rang the bell, and was admitted by the girl's slyly smiling confidant, and a few moments later was clasping his little goddess, who used to wrap her delicate white limbs sometimes in dark sable, and at others in princely ermine in his arms. Every time they partook of a delicious supper, laughed and joked and loved each other like only young, good-looking people do love, and frequently they entertained one another until morning. Once the cadet attempted definitively to pay the housekeeper for his services, and also for the supper. But she refused his money with a laugh, and said that everything was already settled. And the young soldier had rubbled in this manner in boundless bliss for four months, when, by an unfortunate accident, he met his mistress in the street one day. She was alone, but in spite of this she contracted her delicate, finely arched eyebrows angrily when he was about to speak to her, and turned her head away. This hurt the honest young fellow's feelings, and when that evening she drew him to her bosom, that was rising and falling tempestuously under the black velvet that covered it, he remonstrated with her quietly but emphatically. She made a little grimace and looked at him coldly and angrily. She said it last shortly, I forbid you to take any notice of me out of doors. I do not choose to recognize you, do you understand? The cadet was surprised and did not reply, but the harmony of his pleasures was destroyed by a harsh discord. For some time he bore his misery in silence and with resignation, but at last the situation became unendurable. His mistress's fiery kisses seemed to mock him and the pleasure which she gave him to degrade him, so at last he summoned up courage, and in his open way he came straight to the point. What do you think of our future, Angelica? She wrinkled her brows a little. Do not let us talk about it, at any rate, not today. Why not? We must talk about it sooner or later, he replied. And I think it is high time for me to explain my intentions to you, if I do not wish to appear as a dishonorable scoundrel in your eyes. She looked at him in surprise. I look upon you as one of the best and most honorable of men, Max, she said, soothingly, after a pause. And do you trust me also? Of course I do. Are you convinced that I love you honestly? Quite. Then do not hesitate any longer to bestow your hand upon me, her lover said in conclusion. What are you thinking about? She cried quickly in a tone of refusal. What is to be the end of our connection? What is at any rate not permissible with a woman is wrong and dishonorable with a girl. You yourself must feel lowered if you do not become my wife as soon as possible. What a narrow-minded view, Angelica replied angrily. But as you wish it, I will give you my opinion on the subject, but by letter. No, no, now, directly. The pretty girl did not speak for some time and look down, but suddenly she looked at her lover and a malicious mocking smile lurked in the corners of her mouth. Well, I love you, Max. I love you really and ardently, she said carelessly. But I can never be your wife. If you are an officer I might perhaps marry you, yes, I certainly would. But as it is, it is impossible. Is that your last word, the cadet said, in great excitement? She only nodded and then put her full, white arms round his neck with all the security of a mistress who was granting some favor to her slave. But on that occasion she was mistaken. He sprang up, seized his sword, and hurried out of the room. And she let him go, for she felt certain that he would come back again. But he did not do so, and when she wrote to him he did not answer her letters, and still did not come. So at last she gave him up. It was a bad, a very bad experience for the honorable young fellow. The high-born frivolous girl had trampled on all the ideals and illusions of his life with her small feet, for he then saw only too clearly that she had not loved him, but that he had only served her pleasures and her lust, while he, he had loved her so truly. About a year after the catastrophe with the charming Angelica, the handsome cadet happened to be in his captain's quarters, and accidentally saw a large photograph of a lady on his writing table, and in going up and looking at it he recognized Angelica. What a beautiful girl, he said, wishing to find how the landlay. That is a lady I am going to marry, the captain whose vanity was flattered, said. And she is as pure and as good as an angel, just as she is as beautiful as one, and into the bargain she comes of a very good and very rich family. In short, in the fullest sense of the word, she is a good match. End of A Good Match. Juanita, by Kate Chopin. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information and to learn how to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. To all appearances and according to all accounts, Juanita is a character who does not reflect credit upon her family or her native town of Rock Springs. I first met her there three years ago in the little back room behind her father's store. She seemed very shy and inclined to efface herself. A heroic feat to attempt, considering the narrow confines of the room, and a hopeless one, in view of her five foot ten and more than two hundred pounds of substantial flesh, which on that occasion and every subsequent one when I saw her was clad in a soiled calico mother-hubbered. Her face and particularly her mouth had a certain fresh and sensuous beauty. So I would rather not say beauty if I might say anything else. I often saw Juanita that summer, simply because it was so difficult for the poor thing not to be seen. She usually sat in some obscure corner of their small garden or behind an angle of the house, preparing vegetables for dinner or sorting her mother's flower seed. It was even at that day, said, with some amusement, that Juanita was not so unattractive to men as her appearance might indicate, that she had more than one admirer and great hopes of marrying well, if not brilliantly. Upon my return to the springs this summer, in asking news of the various persons who had interested me three years ago, Juanita came naturally to my mind and her name to my lips. There were many ready to tell me of Juanita's career since I had seen her. The father had died, and she and the mother had had ups and downs, but still continued to keep the store. Whatever else happened, however, Juanita had never ceased to attract admirers, young and old. They hung on her fence at all hours. They met her in the lanes. They penetrated to the store and back to the living room. It was even talked about that a gentleman in a plaid suit had come all the way from the city by train for no other purpose than to call upon her. It was not astonishing, in the face of these persistent attentions, that speculations grew rife in Rock Springs, as to whom and what Juanita would marry in the end. For a while she was said to be engaged to a wealthy South Missouri farmer, though no one could guess when or where she had met him. Then it was learned that the man of her choice was a Texas millionaire who possessed a hundred white horses, one of which spirited animals Juanita began to drive about that time. But in the midst of speculation and counter-speculation on the subject of Juanita and her lovers, there suddenly appeared upon the scene a one-legged man, very poor and shabby and decidedly one-legged man. He first became known to the public through Juanita's soliciting subscriptions towards buying the unhappy individual a cork leg. Her interest in the one-legged man continued to show itself in various ways, not always apparent to a curious public, as was proven one morning when Juanita became the mother of a baby, whose father she announced was her husband, the one-legged man. The story of a wandering preacher was told, a secret marriage in the state of Illinois, and a lost certificate. However that may be, Juanita has turned her broad back upon the whole race of masculine bipeds and lavishes the wealth of her undivided affections upon the one-legged man. I caught a glimpse of the curious couple when I was in the village. Juanita had mounted her husband upon a dejected looking pony, but she herself was apparently leading by the bridal, and they were moving up the lane towards the woods. Wither I am told, they often wander in this manner. The picture which they presented was a singular one. She with a man's big straw hat shading her inflamed moon-face, and the breeze bellying her soiled mother hubbored into monstrous proportions. He, puny, helpless, but apparently content with his fate, which had not even vouched saved him the coveted cork leg. They go off thus to the woods together, where they may love each other away from all prying eyes, save those of the birds and squirrels. But what do the squirrels care? For my part I never expected Juanita to be more respectable than a squirrel, and I don't see how anyone else could have expected it. End of Juanita by Kate Chopin. Read for LibriVox.org by Alan Davis Drake. On The Divide by Willa Cather. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. On The Divide by Willa Cather. Near Rattlesnake Creek, on the side of a little draw, stood Canute Shanti. North, east, south stretched the level Nebraska plain of long, rust-red grass that undulated constantly in the wind. To the west the ground was broken and rough, and a narrow strip of timber wound along the turbid, muddy little stream that had scarcely ambition enough to crawl over its black bottom. If it had not been for the few stunted cotton woods and elms that grew along its banks, Canute would have shot himself years ago. The Norwegians are a timber-loving people, and if there is even a turtle pond with a few plum bushes around it they seem irresistibly drawn toward it. As to the Shanti itself, Canute had built it without aid of any kind, for when he first squatted along the banks of Rattlesnake Creek there was not a human being within twenty miles. It was built of logs split in halves that shanks stopped with mud and plaster. The roof was covered with earth and was supported by one gigantic beam curved in the shape of a round arch. It was almost impossible that any tree had ever grown in that shape. The Norwegians used to say that Canute had taken the log across his knee and bent it into the shape he wished. There were two rooms, or rather there was one room with a partition made of ash saplings interwoven and bound together like big straw basket work. In one corner there was a cookstove rusted and broken. In the other a bed made of unplanned planks and poles. It was fully eight feet long, and upon it was a heap of dark bed clothing. There was a chair and a bench of colossal proportions. There was an ordinary kitchen cupboard with a few cracked dirty dishes in it and beside it on a tall box a tin wash basin. Under the bed was a pile of pint flasks. Some broken, some whole, all empty. On the wood box lay a pair of shoes of almost incredible dimensions. On the wall hung a saddle, a gun, and some ragged clothing. Conspicuous among which was a suit of dark cloth apparently new with a paper collar carefully wrapped in a red silk handkerchief and pinned to the sleeve. Over the door hung a wolf and a badger-skin, and on the door itself a brace of thirty or forty snake-skins whose noisy tales rattled ominously every time it opened. The strangest things in the shanty were the wide window-sills. At first glance they looked as though they had been ruthlessly hacked and mutilated with a hatchet, but on closer inspection all the notches and holes in the wood took form and shape. There seemed to be a series of pictures. They were, in a rough way, artistic, but the figures were heavy and labored as though they had been cut very slowly and with very awkward instruments. There were men plowing with little horned imps sitting on their shoulders and on their horse's heads. There were men praying with a skull hanging over their heads and little demons behind them mocking their attitudes. There were men fighting with big serpents and skeletons dancing together. All about these pictures were blooming vines and foliage such as never grew in this world, and coiled among the branches of the vines there was always the scaly body of a serpent, and behind every flower there was a serpent's head. It was a veritable dance of death by one who had felt its sting. In the wood box lay some boards, and every inch of them was cut up in the same manner. Sometimes the work was very rude and careless and looked as though the hand of the workmen had trembled. It would sometimes have been hard to distinguish the men from their evil geniuses but for one fact. The men were always grave, and were either toiling or praying, while the devils were always smiling and dancing. Several of these boards had been split for kindling, and it was evident that the artist did not value his work highly. It was the first day of winter on the divide, Canute stumbled into a shanty carrying a basket of cobs, and after filling the stove sat down on a stool and crouched his seven foot frame over the fire, staring drearily out the window at the wide gray sky. He knew by heart every individual clump of bunch grass in the miles of red shaggy prairie that stretched before his cabin. He knew it in all the deceitful loveliness of its early summer, in all the bitter barrenness of its autumn. He had seen it smitten by all the plagues of Egypt. He had seen it parched by drought and sogged by rain, beaten by hail and swept by fire, and in the grasshopper years he had seen it eaten as bare and clean as bones that the vultures have left. After the great fires he had seen it stretch for miles and miles black and smoking as the floor of hell. He rose slowly and crossed the room, dragging his big feet heavily as though they were burdens to him. He looked out of the window into the hog-coral and saw the pigs burying themselves in the straw before the shed. The leaden gray clouds were beginning to spill themselves, and the snowflakes were settling down over the white, leprous patches of frozen earth where the hogs had gnawed even the sod away. He shuddered and began to walk, trampling heavily with his ungainly feet. He was the wreck of ten winters on the divide, and he knew what that meant. Men fear the winters of the divide as a child fears night, or as men in the North Seas fear the still, dark cold of the polar twilight. His eyes fell upon his gun and he took it down from the wall and looked it over. He sat down on the edge of his bed and held the barrel towards his face, letting his forehead rest upon it and laid his finger on the trigger. He was perfectly calm. There was neither passion nor despair in his face but the thoughtful look of a man who was considering. Presently he laid down the gun and reaching into the cupboard drew out a pint bottle of raw white alcohol. Lifting it to his lips he drank greedily. He washed his face in the tin basin and combed his rough hair and shaggy blonde beard. Then he stood in uncertainty before the suit of dark clothes that hung on the wall. For the fiftieth time he took them in his hands and tried to summon courage to put them on. He took the paper collar that was pinned to the sleeve of the coat and cautiously slipped it under his rough beard, looking with timid expectancy into the cracked, splashed glass that hung over the bench. With a short laugh he threw it down on the bed and pulling on his old black hat he went out, striking off across the level. It was a physical necessity for him to get away from his cabin once in a while. He had been there for ten years digging and plowing and sowing and reaping what little the hail and the hot winds and the frosts left him to reap. Insanity and suicide are very common things on the divide. They come on like an epidemic in the hot wind season. Those scorching, dusty winds that blow up over the bluffs from Kansas seem to dry up the blood in men's veins as they do the sap in the corn leaves. Whenever the yellow scorch creeps down over the tender inside leaves about the ear, then the coroners prepare for active duty, for the oil of the country is burned out, and it does not take long for the flame to eat up the wick. It causes no great sensation there when a dain is found swinging to his own windmill tower, and most of the poles after they have become too careless and discouraged to shave themselves keep their razors to cut their throats with. It may be that the next generation on the divide will be very happy, but the present one came too late in life. It's useless for men that have cut hemlocks among the mountains of Sweden for forty years to try to be happy in a country as flat and gray and naked as the sea. It's not easy for men that have spent their youth fishing in the northern seas to be content with following a plow, and men that have served in the Austrian army hate hard work and coarse clothing on the loneliness of the plains, and long for marches and excitement and tavern company and pretty barmaids. After a man has passed his fortieth birthday, it is not easy for him to change the habits and conditions of his life. Most men bring with them to the divide only the dregs of the lives that they have squandered in other lands and among other peoples. Luke Knutson was as mad as any of them, but his madness did not take the form of suicide or religion, but of alcohol. He had always taken liquor when he wanted it, as all Norwegians do, but after his first year of solitary life he settled down to it steadily. He exhausted whiskey after a while and went to alcohol because its effects were speedier and surer. He was a big man and with a terrible amount of resistant force, and it took a great deal of alcohol even to move him. After nine years of drinking the quantities he could take would seem fabulous to an ordinary drinking man. He never let it interfere with his work. He generally drank at night and on Sundays. Every night, as soon as his chores were done, he began to drink. While he was able to sit up he would play on his mouth harp or hack away at his window-sills with his jackknife. When the liquor went to his head he would lie down in his bed and stare out the window until he went to sleep. He drank alone and in solitude, not for pleasure or good cheer, but to forget the awful loneliness and level of the divide. Milton made a sad blunder when he put mountains in hell. Mountains postulate faith and aspiration. All mountain peoples are religious. It was the cities of the plains that, because of their utter lack of spirituality and the mad caprice of their vice, were cursed of God. Alcohol is perfectly consistent in its effects upon man. Drunkenness is merely an exaggeration. A foolish man drunk becomes maudlin. A bloody man, vicious. A coarse man, vulgar. Canute was none of these, but he was morose and gloomy, and liquor took him through all the hells of Dante. As he lay on his giant's bed all the horrors of this world and every other were laid bare to his chilled senses. He was a man who knew no joy, a man who toiled in silence and bitterness. The skull and the serpent were always before him, the symbols of eternal futleness and eternal hate. When the first Norwegians, near enough to be called neighbors came, Canute rejoiced and planned to escape from his bosom vice. But he was not a social man by nature and had not the power of drawing out the social side of other people. His new neighbors rather feared him because of his great strength and size, his silence and his lowering brows. Perhaps too they knew that he was mad, mad from the eternal treachery of the plains which every spring stretch green and rustle with the promises of Eden, showing long, grassy lagoons full of clear water and cattle whose hooves are stained with wild roses. Before autumn the lagoons are dried up, and the ground is burnt dry and hard until it blisters and cracks open. So instead of becoming a friend and neighbor to the men that settled about him, Canute became a mystery and a terror. They told awful stories of his size and strength and of the alcohol he drank. They said that one night when he went out to see to his horses just before he went to bed, his steps were unsteady, and the rotten planks of the floor gave way and threw him behind the feet of a fiery young stallion. His foot was caught fast in the floor, and the nervous horse began kicking frantically. When Canute felt the blood trickling down into his eyes from a scalp wound on his head, he roused himself from his kingly indifference, and with the quiet, stoical courage of a drunken man leaned forward and wound his arms around the horse's hind legs and held them against his breast with crushing embrace. All through the darkness and cold of the night he lay there, matching strength against strength. When little Jim Peterson went over the next morning at four o'clock to go with him to the blue to cut wood, he found him so, and the horse was on its four knees, trembling and winneying with fear. This is the story the Norwegians tell of him, and if it is true, it is no wonder that they feared and hated this holder of the heels of horses. One spring there moved to the next eighty a family that made a great change in Canute's life. Oli Jensen was too drunk most of the time to be afraid of any one, and his wife Mary was too garrulous to be afraid of any one who listened to her talk, and Lena, their pretty daughter, was not afraid of man nor devil. So it came about that Canute went over to take his alcohol with Oli, oftener than he took it alone. After a while the report spread that he was going to marry Jensen's daughter, and the Norwegian girls began to tease Lena about the great bear she was going to keep house for. No one could quite see how the affair had come about, for Canute's tactics of courtship were somewhat peculiar. He apparently never spoke to her at all. He would sit for hours with Mary chattering on one side of him, and Oli drinking on the other, and watch Lena at her work. She teased him and threw flour in his face and put vinegar in his coffee, but he took her rough jokes with silent wonder, never even smiling. He took her to church occasionally, but the most watchful and curious people never saw him speak to her. He would sit staring at her while she giggled and flirted with the other men. Next spring Mary Lee went to town to work in a steam laundry. She came home every Sunday and always ran across to Jensen's to start a Lena with stories of ten-cent theatres, firemen's dances, and all the other aesthetic delights of metropolitan life. In a few weeks Lena's head was completely turned, and she gave her father no rest until he let her go to town to seek her fortune at the ironing board. From the time she came home on her first visit she began to treat Canute with contempt. She had bought a plush cloak and kid gloves, had her clothes made by the dressmaker, and assumed heirs and graces that made the other women of the neighborhood cordially detest her. She generally brought with her a young man from town who waxed his moustache and wore a red necktie, and she did not even introduce him to Canute. The neighbors teased Canute a good deal until he knocked one of them down. He gave no sign of suffering from her neglect except that he drank more, and avoided the other Norwegians more carefully than ever. He lay around in his den, and no one knew what he felt or thought. But little Jim Peterson, who had seen him glowering at Lena in church one Sunday when she was there with the town man, said that he would not give an acre of his wheat for Lena's life, or the townchaps either. And Jim's wheat was so wondrously worthless that the statement was an exceedingly strong one. Canute had bought a new suit of clothes that looked as nearly like the town man as possible. They had cost him half a millet-crop, for tailors are not accustomed to fitting giants, and they charge for it. He hung those clothes in his shanty two months ago and had never put them on—partly from fear of ridicule, partly from discouragement, and partly because there was something in his own soul that revolted at the littleness of the device. Lena was at home just at this time. Work was slack in the laundry, and Mary had not been well, so Lena stayed at home, glad enough to get an opportunity to torment Canute once more. She was washing in the side-kitchen, singing loudly as she worked. Mary was on her knees, blacking the stove, and scolding violently about the young man who was coming out from town that night. The young man had committed the fatal error of laughing at Mary's ceaseless babble, and had never been forgiven. He is no good, and you will come to a bad end by running with him. I do not see why a daughter of mine should act so. I do not see why a lurch visits such a punishment upon me as to give me such a daughter. There are plenty of good men you can marry." Lena tossed her head and answered curtly, "'I don't happen to want to marry any man right away, and so long as Dick dresses nice, and has plenty of money to spend, there is no harm in my going with him.'" "'Money to spend, yes, and that is all he does with it, I'll be bound. You think it very fine now, but you will change your tune when you have been married five years and see your children running naked in your cupboard empty. Did Anne Hermanson come to any good by marrying a townman?" "'I don't know anything about Anne Hermanson, but I know any of the laundry girls would have Dick quick enough if they could get him.'" "'Yes, and a nice lot of close hussies you are too. Now there is Knutson, who has an eighty, proved up, and fifty head of cattle, and hair that ain't been cut since he was a baby, and a big dirty beard, and he wears overalls on Sundays and drinks like a pig. Besides, he will keep. I can have all the fun I want, and when I am old and ugly like you, he can have me and take care of me. The Lord knows there ain't nobody else going to marry him.'" Knut drew his hand back from the latch as though it were red-hot. He was not the kind of man to make a good eavesdropper, and he wished he had knocked sooner. He pulled himself together, and struck the door like a battering ram. Mary jumped and opened it with a screech. "'God, Knut, you scared us! I thought it was crazy Lou. He's been tearing around the neighborhood, trying to convert folks. I am afraid as death of him. He ought to be sent off, I think. He's just as libelous not to kill us all, or burn the barn, or poison the dogs. He has been worrying even the poor minister to death, and he laid up with the rheumatism, too. Did you notice that he was too sick to preach last Sunday? But don't stand there in the cold. Come in. Jensen isn't here. But he just went over to Sorenson's for the mail. He won't be gone long. Walk right in the other room and sit down." Knut followed her, looking steadily in front of him, and not noticing Lena as he passed her. But Lena's vanity would not allow him to pass on molested. She took the wet sheet she was wringing out, and cracked him across the face with it, and ran giggling to the other side of the room. The blow stung his cheeks, and the soapy water flew in his eyes, and he involuntarily began rubbing them with his hands. Lena giggled with delight at his discomforture, and the wrath in Knut's face grew blacker than ever. A big man humiliated is vastly more undignified than a little one. He forgot the sting of his face in the bitter consciousness that he had made a fool of himself. He stumbled blindly into the living-room, knocking his head against the door-jam because he forgot to stoop. He dropped into a chair behind the stove, resting his big feet back helplessly on either side of him. Oli was a long time in coming, and Knut sat there still, and silent, with his hands clenched over his knees, and a skin of his face seemed to have shriveled up into little wrinkles that trembled when he lowered his brows. His life had been one long lethargy of solitude and alcohol. But now he was awakening, and it was as when the dumb, stagnant heat of summer breaks out into thunder. And Oli came staggering in, heavy with liquor, Knut rose at once. Jensen, he said quietly, I have come to see if you will let me marry your daughter to-day. To-day! gasped Oli. Yes, I will not wait until to-morrow. I am tired of living alone. Oli braced his staggering knees against the bed-stead and stammered eloquently. Do you think I will marry my daughter to a drunkard, a man who drinks raw alcohol, a man who sleeps with rattlesnakes? Get out of my house, or I will kick you out for your impudence! And Oli began looking anxiously for his feet. Knut answered not a word, but he put on his hat and went out into the kitchen. He went up to Lena and said without looking at her, Get your things on and come with me. The tone of his voice startled her, and she said angrily dropping the soap. Are you drunk? If you do not come with me, I will take you. You had better come, said Knut quietly. She lifted a sheet to strike him, but he caught her arm roughly and wrenched the sheet from her. He turned to the wall and took down a hood and shawl that hung there, and began wrapping her up. Lena scratched and fought like a wild thing. Oli stood in the door cursing, and Mary howled and screeched at the top of her voice. As for Knut, he lifted the girl in his arms, and went out of the house. She kicked and struggled, but the helpless wailing of Mary and Oli soon died away in the distance, and her face was held down tightly in Knut's shoulder so that she could not see whether he was taking her. She was conscious only of the north wind whistling in her ears, and of rapid, steady motion, and of a great breast that heaved beneath her in quick, irregular breaths. The harder she struggled, the tighter those iron arms that had held the heels of horses crushed about her, until she felt as if they would crush the breath from her, and lay still with fear. Knut was striding across the level fields at a pace at which man never went before, drawing the stinging north winds into his lungs in great gulps. He walked with his eyes half-closed and looking straight in front of him, only lowering them when he bent his head to blow away the snowflakes that had settled on her hair. So it was that Knut took her to his home, even as his bearded barbarian ancestors took the fair, frivolous women of the south in their hairy arms and bore them down to their warships. Forever and anon the soul becomes weary of the conventions that are not of it, and with a single stroke shatters the civilized lies with which it is unable to cope, and the strong arm reaches out and takes by force what it cannot win by cunning. When Knut reached his shanty he placed the girl upon a chair where she sat sobbing. He stayed only a few minutes. He filled the stove with wood and lit the lamp, drank a huge swallow of alcohol, and put the bottle in his pocket. He paused a moment staring heavily at the weeping girl. Then he went off and locked the door and disappeared in the gathering gloom of the night. Wrapped in flannels and soaked with turpentine, the little Norwegian preacher sat reading his Bible, when he heard a thundering knock at his door, Knut entered, covered with snow, and his beard frozen fast to his coat. Come in, Knut, you must be frozen! said the little man, shoving a chair towards his visitor. Knut remained standing with his hat on and said quietly, I want you to come over to my house tonight to marry me to Lena Jensen. Have you got a license, Knut? No, I don't want a license, I want to be married. But I can't marry you without a license, man, it would not be legal. A dangerous light came in the big Norwegian's eye. I want you to come over to my house to marry me to Lena Jensen. No, I can't, it would kill an ox to go out in a storm like this, and my rheumatism is bad tonight. Then if you will not go, I must take you, said Knut with a sigh. He took down the preacher's bare skin coat and bade him put it on while he hitched up his buggy. He went out and closed the door softly after him. Presently he returned and found the frightened minister crouching before the fire with his coat lying beside him. Knut helped him put it on and gently wrapped his head in his big muffler. Then he picked him up and carried him out and placed him in his buggy. As he tucked the buffalo-robes around him he said, Your horse is old, he might flounder or lose his way in this storm. I will lead him. The minister took the reins feebly in his hands and sat shivering with the cold. Sometimes when there was a lull in the wind he could see the horse struggling through the snow with the man plotting steadily beside him. Again the blowing snow would hide them from him altogether, and he had no idea where they were or what direction they were going. He felt as though he were being whirled away in the heart of the storm, and he said all the prayers he knew. Not at last the long four miles were over, and Knut set him down in the snow while he unlocked the door. He saw the bride sitting by the fire with her eyes red and swollen as though she had been weeping. Knut placed a huge chair for him and said roughly, Warm yourself. Lena began to cry and moan afresh begging the minister to take her home. He looked helplessly at Knut. Knut said simply, If you are warm now you can marry us. My daughter, do you take the step of your own free will?" asked the minister in a trembling voice. No, sir, I don't, and it's disgraceful that he should force me into it. I won't marry him. Then Knut, I cannot marry you, said the minister, standing as straight as his rheumatic limbs would let him. Are you ready to marry us now, sir? Said Knut, laying one iron hand on his stooped shoulder. The little preacher was a good man, but like most men of weak body he was a coward and had a horror of physical suffering, although he had known so much of it. So with many qualms of conscience he began to repeat the marriage service. Lena sat sullenly in her chair, staring at the fire. Knut stood beside her, listening with his head bent reverently and his hands folded on his breast. When the little man had prayed and said on men, Knut began bundling him up again. I will take you home now," he said, as he carried him out and placed him in the buggy, and started off with him through the fury of the storm, floundering among the snowdrifts that brought even the giant himself to his knees. After she was left alone, Lena ceased weeping. She was not of a particularly sensitive temperament, and had little pride beyond that of vanity. After the first bitter anger wore itself out, she felt nothing more than a healthy sense of humiliation and defeat. She had no inclination to run away, for she was married now, and in her eyes that was final and all rebellion was useless. She knew nothing about a license, but she knew that a preacher married folks. She consoled herself by thinking that she had always intended to marry Knut some day anyway. She grew tired of crying and looking into the fire, so she got up and began to look about her. She had heard queer tales about the inside of Knut's shanty, and her curiosity soon got the better of her. One of the first things she noticed was the new black suit of clothes hanging on the wall. She was dull, but it did not take a vain woman long to interpret anything so decidedly flattering, and she was pleased in spite of herself. As she looked through the cupboard, the general air of neglect and discomfort made her pity the man who lived there. Poor fellow! No wonder he wants to get married to get somebody to wash up his dishes. Batchen's pretty hard on a man. It's easy to pity when one's vanity has been tickled. She looked at the windowsill and gave a little shudder and wondered if the man were crazy. Then she sat down again, and sat a long time wondering what her dick and ollie would do. It's queer Dick didn't come right over after me. He surely came, for he would have left town before the storm began, and he might just as well come right on as go back. If he'd hurried he would have gotten here before the preacher came. I suppose he was afraid to come, for he knew Knutsen would pound him to jelly, that cowered. Her eyes flashed angrily. The weary hours wore on, and Lena began to grow horribly lonesome. It was an uncanny night, and this was an uncanny place to be in. She could hear the coyotes howling hungrily a little away from the cabin, and more terrible still were all the unknown noises of the storm. She remembered the tales they told of the big log overhead, and she was afraid of those snakey things on the window-sills. She remembered the man who had been killed in the draw, and she wondered what she would do if she saw a crazy lose white face glaring into the window. The rattling of the door became unbearable. She thought the latch must be loose, and she took the lamp to look at it. Then for the first time she saw the ugly, brown snake-skins whose death-rattle sounded every time the wind jarred the door. "'Canute! Canute!' she screamed in terror. Outside the door she heard a heavy sound as of a big dog getting up and shaking himself. The door opened, and Canute stood before her, white as a snow-drift. "'What is it?' he asked kindly. "'I-I-I am cold,' she faltered. He went out and got an armful of wood and a basket of cobs and filled the stove. Then he went out and lay in the snow before the door. Presently he heard her calling again. "'What is it?' he said, sitting up. "'I'm so lonesome. I'm afraid to stay in here all alone. I will go over and get your mother.' And he got up. "'She won't come.' "'I'll bring her,' said Canute grimly. "'No, no, I don't want her. She will scold all the time. "'Well, I will bring your father.' She spoke again, and it seemed as though her mouth was close up to the keyhole. She spoke lower than he had ever heard her speak before, so low that he had to put his ear up to the lock to hear her. For a moment she heard no noise at all. Then something like a groan. With a cry of fear she opened the door and saw Canute stretched in the snow at her feet, his face in his hands, sobbing on the doorstep. End of On The Divide. And he, too, as he followed her into the studio, seemed very, very happy to have come. Not busy. No, just going to have tea. And you're not expecting anybody? Nobody at all. Ah, that's good. He laid aside his coat, and had gently, lingeringly, as though he had time and to spare for everything, or as though he were taking leave of them forever, and came over to the fire, and held out his hands to the quick leaping flame. Just for a moment, both of them stood silent, that leaping light. Still, as it were, they tasted on their smiling lips the sweet shock of their greeting. Their secret cells whispered, Why should we speak? Isn't this enough? More than enough. I never realized, until this moment, how could it is just to be with you? Like this? It's more than enough. But suddenly he turned, and looked at her, and she moved quickly away. Have a cigarette. I'll put a kettle on. Are you longing for tea? No, not longing. Well, I am. Oh, you! He thumped at the Romanian cushion, and flung on to the sumye. You're a perfect little Chinese. Yes, I am. She laughed. I long for tea, a strong man long for wine. She lighted the lamp under its broad orange shade, pulled the curtains, and drew up the tea table. Two birds sang in the kettle, the fire fluttered. He set up, clasping his knees. It was delightful, this business of having tea, and she always had delicious of things to eat, little sharps sandwiches, short, sweet almond fingers, and a dark rich cake tasting of rum. But it was an interruption. He wanted it over, the table pushed away, the two chairs drawn up to the light, and the moment came when he took out his pipe, filled it, and said, pressing the tobacco tide into the bow, I have been thinking over what you said last time, and it seems to me, yes, that was what he waited for, and so did she. Yes, while she shook the teapot, hot and dry, over the spirit flame, she saw those other two, him leaning back, taking his ease among the cushions, and her, and her, curled up on escargot in the blue-shell armchair. The picture was so clear, and so minute, it might have been painted on the blue teapot lid. And yet she couldn't hurry. She could almost have cried, give me time. She must have time in which to grow calm. She want a time in which to free herself from all these familiar things with which she lived so vividly. For all these gay things round her were part of her, her offspring, and they knew it, and made the largest, most vehement claims. But now they must go, they must be swept away, shewed away, like children, sent up the shadowy stairs, packed into bed, and commanded to go to sleep at once without a murmur. For the special thrilling quality of their friendship was in their complete surrender. Like two open cities in the midst of some vast plain, the two minds lay open to each other. And it wasn't as if he rode into hers like a conqueror, armed to the owl-brows, and seeing nothing but a gay silk-and-flutter. Nor did she enter his like a queen, walking soft on paddles. No, they were eager, serious travellers, absorbed in understanding what was to be seen, and discovering what was hidden, making the most of this extraordinary, absolute chance, which made it possible for him to be utterly truthful to her, and for her to be utterly sincere with him. And the best of it was, they were both of them all enough to enjoy their adventure to the full, without any stupid emotional complication. Passion would have ruined everything, if they cried so that. Besides, all that sort of thing was over and done with, for both of them. He was a thirty-one, she was a thirty, they had had their experiences, and very rich and varied, if they had been. But now was the time for harvest, harvest. Weren't his novels to be very big novels indeed, at her place, who else had her exquisite sense of real English comedy? Carefully, she cut the cake into thick, little wards, and he reached across for a piece. Do you realise how good it is? she implored. Eat it, imaginatively. Roll your eyes, if you can, and taste it on the breath. It's not a sandwich from the Hatter's bag, it's the kind of cake that might have been mentioned in the Book of Genesis. And God said, let there be cake, and there was cake, and God saw that it was good. You needn't treat me, said he, really, you needn't. It's a queer thing, but I always do notice what I eat here, and never anywhere else. I suppose it comes of living alone so long, and always reading while I feed, my habit of looking upon food as just food, something that's there at certain times, to be devoured, to be not there, he laughed. That shocks you, doesn't it? Do the bone, said she, but look here. He pushed away his cup, and began to speak very fast. I simply haven't got any external life at all. I don't know the name of things a bit, trees and so on, and I never notice places of furniture, what people look like. One room is just like another to me, a place to sit and read or talk in, except—and here he paused, smiled in a strange naïve way, and said, except this studio. He looked round him, and then at her. He laughed in his astonishment and pleasure. It was like a man who wakes up in a train to find that he has arrived already at the journey's end. Here's another queer thing. Have I shut my eyes? I can see this place down to every detail, every detail. Now I come to think of it, I've never realized it this consciously before. Often when I am away from here, I revisit it in spirit. Wander about among your red chairs, stare at a bowl of fruit on the black table, and just touch very lightly that marvel of a sleeping boy's head. He looked at it as he spoke. It stood on the corner of the manther-piece, the head to one side down drooping, the lips parted, as though in a sleep the little boy listened to some sweet sound. I loved that little boy, he murmured. And then they both were silent. The new silence came between them. Nothing in the least, like the satisfactory pause that had followed their greetings, the — well, here we are together again, and there's no reason why we shouldn't go on from just where we left off last time. That silence could be contained in the circle of warm delightful fire and lamplight. How many times haven't they flung something into it, just for the fun of watching the ripples break on the easy shores? But into this unfamiliar pool, the hat of the little boy sleeping his timeless sleep dropped, and the ripples flowed away, away, boundlessly far into deep, glittering darkness. And then both of them broke it. She said, I must make up the fire. And he said, I have been trying anew — both of them escaped. She made up the fire and put the table back. The blue chair was wheeled forward. She curled up, and he lay back among the cushions. Quickly, quickly, they must stop it from happening again. Well, I read the book you left last time. Oh, what do you think of it? They were off, and all was as usual. But was it? When they just a little too quick, too prompt with their replies, too ready to take each other up? Was it really anything more than a wonderfully good imitation of other occasions? It's hard beat, her cheek burned, and the stupid thing was she could not discover where exactly they were, or what exactly was happening. She hadn't time to glance back, and just as she had got so far, it happened again. They faltered, wavered, broke down, were silent. Again they were conscious of the boundless questioning dark. Again there they were, two hunters, banding over their fire, but hearing suddenly from the jungle beyond a shake of wind, and a loud, questioning cry. She lifted her head. It's raining, she murmured, and her voice was like his, when he had said. I love that little boy. Well, why didn't they just give way to it, yield, and see what will happen then? But no. Fake and troubled, though they were, they knew enough to realize the precious friendship was in danger. She was the one who would be destroyed, not they, and they'd be no party to that. He got up, knocked out his pipe, ran his hand through his hair, and said, I have been wondering very much lately whether the novel of the future will be a psychological novel or not. How sure are you that psychology, qua psychology, has got anything to do with literature at all? Do you mean you feel this quite a chance that the mysterious non-existent creatures, young writers of today, are trying simply to jump the psychoanalyst's claim? Yes, I do. And I think it's because this generation is just wise enough to know that it is sick, and to realize that its only chance of recovery is by going into its symptoms, making an exhaustive study of them, tracking them down, trying to get at the root of the trouble. But oh, she wailed, what a dreadfully dismal outlook. Not at all, said he. Look here, on the talk-end, and now it seemed they really had succeeded. She turned in a chair to look at him while she answered. Her smile said, we have won. And he smiled back, confident, absolutely. But the smile and did them. It lasted too long. It became a grin. They saw themselves as two little grinning puppets jinging away in nothingness. What have we been talking about, thought he? He was so utterly bored, he almost groaned. What a spectacle we have made of ourselves, thought she. And she saw him laborsly, oh, laborsly, laying out the ground and herself, groaning after, putting here a tree and there a flowery shrub, and here a handful of glittering fish in a pool. They were silent this time, from sheer dismay. The clock struck six merry little pings, and the fire made a soft flutter. What fools they were, heavy, stodgy, elderly, with positively upholstered minds! And now the silence put a spell upon them like a sullen music. It was anguish, anguish for her to bear it. And he would die, he'd die if it were broken, and yet he longed to break it. Not by speech, at any rate, not by their ordinary maddening chatter. There was another way for them to speak to each other, and in the new way he wanted to murmur, do you feel this too? Do you understand it at all? Instead, to his horror, he heard himself say, I must be off, I'm eating brand at six. What devil made him save that, instead of the other? She jumped, simply jumped out of her chair, and he heard her crying, you must rush then, he's so punctual, why didn't you say so before? You've hurt me, you've hurt me, we've failed, said a secret self while she handed him his hat and stick, smiling gaily, she wouldn't give him a moment for another word, but ran along the passage and opened the big outer door. Could they leave each other like this? How could they? He stood on the step and she, just inside, holding the door, it was not raining now, you've hurt me, hurt me, said her heart, why didn't you go? No, don't go, stay, no, go, and she looked out upon the night. She saw the beautiful fall of the steps, the dark garden ringed with glittering ivy, on the other side of the road, the huge bare willows and above them the sky, big and bright with stars. And of course you would see nothing of all this, he was superior to it all, he with his wonderful spiritual vision. She was right, he did see nothing at all. Misery, he'd missed it, it was too late to do anything now. Was it too late? Yes, it was, a cold snatch of hateful wind blew into the garden, cursed life, he heard her cry, au revoir, and the door slammed. Running back into the studio, she behaved so strangely, she ran up and down, lifting her arms and crying, oh, oh, how stupid, how imbecile, how stupid. And then she flung herself down on the sommier, thinking of nothing, just lying there in her rage. All was over. What was over? Oh, something was, and she'd never see him again, never. After long, long time, or perhaps ten minutes, had passed him that black gulf, her bell rang, a sharp quick jingle. It was he, of course, and equally of course she oughten to have paid the slightest attention to it, but just let it go on, ringing and ringing, she flew to answer. On the doorstep there stood an elderly virgin, a pathetic creature who simply idolised her, have a nose why, and had this habit of turning up and ringing the bell and then saying when she opened the door, my dear, send me away. She never did. As a rule, she asked her in and let her admire everything, and accepted the bunch of slightly soiled-looking flowers, more than graciously. But today— Oh, I am so sorry, she cried, but I've got someone with me. We are working on some woodcuts. I'm hopelessly busy all evening. It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter at all, darling, said the good friend. I was just passing, and I thought I'd leave you some violets. She fumbled down among the rips of a large old umbrella. I put them down here, such a good place, if flowers out of the wind. Here they are, she said, shaking out little dead bunch. For a moment she did not take the violets. But while she stood just inside, holding the door, a strange thing happened. Again she saw the beautiful fall of the steps, the dark garden ringed with glittering ivy, the willows, the big bright sky. Again she felt the silence that was like a question. But this time she did not hesitate. She moved forward, very softly and gently, as though fearful of making a ripple in dead boundless pool of quiet. She put her arms round a friend. My dear, murmured her happy friend, quite overcome by this gratitude. There are really nothing, just a simplest little tree-penny bunch. But as she spoke she was enfolded, more tenderly, more beautifully embraced, held by such a sweet pressure for so long that a poor deer's mind positively reeled, and she just had the strength to quaver. Then you really don't mind me too much? Good night, my friend, whispered the other. Come again soon. Oh, I will, I will. This time she walked back to the studio slowly. And standing in the middle of the room with harsh her eyes, she felt so light, so arrested, as if she had woken up out of a childish sleep. Even the act of breathing was joy. The sommelier was very untidy. All the cushions like furious mountains, as she said. She put them in order before going over to the writing-table. I have been thinking over our talk about the psychological novel she dashed off. It really is intensely interesting. And so on, and so on. At the end she wrote, Good night, my friend. Come again soon. End of psychology. Recording by Julie van Wallachem. A Respectable Woman by Kate Chopin. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information and to learn how to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Mrs. Baroda was a little provoked to learn that her husband expected his friend, Gouvernail, up to spend a week or two on the plantation. They had entertained a good deal during the winter. Much of the time had also been passed in New Orleans in various forms of mild dissipation. She was looking forward to a period of unbroken rest now, an undisturbed teta-teta with her husband, when he informed her that Gouvernail was coming up to stay a week or two. This was a man she had heard much of, but never seen. He had been her husband's college friend, was now a journalist, and in no sense a society man or a man about town, which were, perhaps, some of the reasons she had never met him. But she had unconsciously formed an image of him in her mind. She pictured him tall, slim, cynical, with eyeglasses, and his hands in his pockets, and she did not like him. Gouvernail was slim enough, but he wasn't very tall nor very cynical. Neither did he wear eyeglasses nor carry his hands in his pockets, and she rather liked him when he first presented himself. But why she liked him, she could not explain satisfactorily to herself when she partly attempted to do so. She could discover in him none of those brilliant and promising traits which Gaston, her husband, had often assured her that he possessed. On the contrary, he sat rather mute and receptive before her chatty eagerness to make him feel at home, and in face of Gaston's frank and wordy hospitality. His manner was as courteous towards her as the most exacting woman could require. But he made no direct appeal to her approval or even esteem. Once settled at the plantation, he seemed to like to sit upon the wide portico in the shade of one of the big Corinthian pillars, smoking his cigar lazily and listening attentively to Gaston's experience as a sugar planter. This is what I call living, he would utter with deep satisfaction, as the air that swept across the sugar field caressed him with its warm and scented velvety touch. It pleased him also to get on familiar terms with the big dogs that came about him, rubbing themselves sociably against his legs. He did not care to fish, and displayed no eagerness to go out and kill grossbecks when Gaston promised doing so. Gouvernail's personality puzzled Mrs. Baroda, but she liked him, indeed he was a lovable inoffensive fellow. After a few days when she could understand him no better than at first, she gave over being puzzled and remained peaked. In this mood she left her husband and her guest for the most part alone together. Then finding that Gouvernail took no manner of exception to her action, she imposed her society upon him, accompanying him in his idle strolls to the mill and walks along the batcher. She persistently sought to penetrate the reserve in which he had unconsciously enveloped himself. When is he going, your friend? She one day asked her husband, for my part he tires me frightfully. Not for a week, dear, I can't understand, he gives you no trouble. No, I should like him better if he did, if he were more like others, and I had to plan somewhat for his comfort and enjoyment. Gaston took his wife's pretty face between his hands, and looked tenderly and laughingly into her troubled eyes. They were making a bit of toilet sociably together in Mrs. Baroda's dressing room. You are full of surprises, Mabel, he said to her. And I can never count upon how you are going to act under given conditions. He kissed her and turned to fasten his cravat before the mirror. Here you are, he went on, taking poor Gouvernail seriously and making a commotion over him, the last thing he would desire or expect. Commotion? She hotly resented. Nonsense! How can you say such a thing? Indeed. But, you know, you said he was clever. So he is, but the poor fellow was run down by overwork now. That's why I asked him here to take a rest. You used to say that he was a man of ideas, she retorted, unconciliated. I expect him to be interesting, at least. I'm going to the city in the morning to have my spring gowns fitted. Let me know when Mr. Gouvernail is gone. I shall be at my aunt Octavie's. That night she went and sat alone upon the bench that stood beneath a live oak tree at the edge of the gravel wall. She had never known her thoughts or her intentions to be so confused. She could gather nothing from them but the feeling of a distinct necessity to quit her home in the morning. Mrs. Baroda heard footsteps crunching the gravel, but could discern in the darkness only the approaching red point of a lighted cigar. She knew it was Gouvernail, for her husband did not smoke. She hoped to remain unnoticed, but her white gown revealed her to him. He threw away his cigar and seated himself upon the bench beside her, without a suspicion that she might object to his presence. The husband told me to bring this to you, Mrs. Baroda. He said, handing her a filmy white scarf, with which she sometimes enveloped her head and shoulders. She accepted the scarf from him with a murmur of thanks, and let it lie in her lap. He made some commonplace observation upon the baneful effect of the night air at that season. Then, as his gaze reached out into the darkness, he murmured half to himself. Night of south winds, night of a large few stars, still nodding night. She made no reply to this apostrophe to the night, which indeed was not addressed to her. Gouvernail was in no sense a diffident man, for he was not a self-conscious one. His periods of reserve were not constitutional, but the result of moods. Being there beside Mrs. Baroda, his silence melted for the time. He talked freely and intimately in a low hesitating drawl that was not unpleasant to hear. He talked of the old college days, when he and Gaston had been a good deal to each other, of the days of keen and blind ambitions and large intentions. Now there was left with him at least a philosophic acquiescence to the existing order, only a desire to be permitted to exist, with now and then a little whiff of genuine life, such as he was breathing now. Her mind only vaguely grasped what he was saying. Her physical being was for the moment predominant. She was not thinking of his words, only drinking in the tones of his voice. She wanted to reach out her hand in the darkness and touch him with the sensitive tips of her finger upon the face, or the lips. She wanted to draw close to him and whisper against his cheek. She did not care what, as she might have done if she had not been a respectable woman. The stronger the impulse grew to bring herself near him, the further, in fact, that she draw away from him. As soon as she could do so, without an appearance of too great rudeness, she rose and left him there alone. Before she reached the house, Gouvernail had lighted a fresh cigar and ended his apostrophe to the night. Mrs. Baroda was greatly tempted that night to tell her husband, who was also her friend, of this folly that had seized her. But she did not yield to the temptation. Beside being a respectable woman, she was a very sensible one, and she knew there were some battles in life which a human being must fight alone. When Gaston arose in the morning, his wife had already departed. She had taken an early morning train to the city. She did not return till Gouvernail was gone from under her roof. There was some talk of having him back during the summer that followed. That is, Gaston greatly desired it. But this desire yielded to his wife's strenuous opposition. However, before the year ended, she proposed, wholly from herself, to have Gouvernail visit them again. Her husband was surprised and delighted with the suggestion coming from her. I am glad, Cherami, to know that you have finally overcome your dislike for him. Truly, he did not deserve it. Oh! She told him, laughing, after pressing a long, tender kiss upon his lips. I have overcome everything. You will see. This time I shall be very nice to him. And of A Respectable Woman, by Kate Chopin. Read for LibriVox.org by Alan Davis-Strake.