Never had the pulse beat stronger in my veins then at
that moment. There were little living things all around me, joying in the
warm sun; tiny insects that crawled, unrebuked, over my gown, so busy, so
happy in their way, with their petty affairs all prospering, that I
wondered why I should be so out of tune with the world. And then a rain of
tears gushed from my eyes. I do not think that any one who should have
seen me there could have guessed that the prone and weeping woman was the
most beautiful of created things; I do not think I have an enemy so bitter
that she would not have pitied me.
I tried to think, but I was too tired. I had a vision of myself returning
to the narrow round of farm life, to Ma's reproaches, to dreary, grinding
toil that I might win back dollar by dollar the money I had squandered--my
back bent, my face seamed, my hands marred, like Aunt Emily's; and I
shuddered and wept and grovelled before fate.
Then I saw myself remaining in the city, seeking work and finding nothing.
Teach I could not; every door was barred except--I saw myself before the
footlights, coarsened, swallowing greedily the applause of a music hall
audience, taking a husband from that audience perhaps--a brute like
Bellmer! Better die!
But as the vision passed, a great desire of life grew upon me.
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