milk. I just had to eat, Froggy.”
Pete took Snacker by the arm and pushed him up the stairway. When they had got away from the crowd downstairs, Pete began slapping Snacker on the back. On the way to Pete’s room, Snacker kept on trying to tell them that he was nearly starved and just had to eat.
Tom and Jack Phillips were waiting for them at the door. Before any of the other fellows could come up from downstairs to hear Snacker tell how it all had happened, Pete pushed him inside the room with Tom and Jack. They locked the door with the key and shoved the thumb bolt all the way across the slot.
(First published in Cosmopolitan )
The Empty Room
T HE FIRST TIME I saw her was something more than a year after they had become married. The funeral was over and all the people had left and we were in the house alone. There was nothing I could say to her, and she had not spoken since the morning before. She and Finley had been married only a little more than a year, and she was still far from being twenty. Her body was in the beauty of girlhood, but she was only a child.
She had sat by the window, looking out at the gathering dusk until late in the evening, and night was coming. I had not turned on the lights, and she had not moved from her chair for several hours. From where I was, I could see her darkly framed profile motionless against the gray evening like an ebony cameo. It was then that I knew that there could be beauty even in sorrow.
Finley was the only brother I had ever had, and before his death he was the only kinsman I had left in the world, and now she was his widow.
Her name was Thomasine, but I had not yet called her by it. I had not become used to it, and there is something about an unfamiliar name that guards itself against a stranger’s thoughtless intrusion. When the time came for me to call her by her name, I knew I would be speaking a sound that was hers alone.
I was a stranger in the house and we had not yet spoken to each other. Finley had been her husband, and my brother, and I was not then certain what our relationship became thereby. I knew, though, that we could not for long stay in the house alone without an understanding of her place and mine becoming clear.
The twilight was chill, and the dark room was an expanding void, receding into its wall-less immensity. Her profile was becoming softer as the gray dusk fell away to the obscurity of night. The walls retreated and the room became a place made without them. The room was immense and her profile against the gray dusk melted into the growing darkness of the house.
While she sat across the room she had not fully realized her loneliness. The curve of her head and shoulders drooped with the enveloping shadows, but she was not thinking of even her own presence. Finley had been dead such a short time.
When she got up to go, I got up also, and walked across the room towards her. I went to her side and stood at arm’s length from her, but the distance between us could only have been measured by the bounds of the room’s infinite space. I wished to put my arms around her and comfort her as I would have comforted the one I loved, but she was Finley’s widow, and the room with its walls made distance immeasurable. The room in which we stood was hollow and wide, and it swam in the darkness of its vast space. A spark from a flint would have struck us blind with the intensity of its light, and the certain conflagration would have consumed us to ashes.
Before I came to the house I had given no thought to a girl whose name would be Thomasine, and now she was my brother’s widow.
Some of the flowers in the room had curled for the night, but petals from the roses fell gently to the floor.
Suddenly she whispered, turning in the darkness towards me.
“Did you feed Finley’s rabbits tonight?”
“Yes, I fed them,” I told her. “I gave them all they can eat. They have everything they want for the night.”
Her hair had fallen over her shoulders,
Pete took Snacker by the arm and pushed him up the stairway. When they had got away from the crowd downstairs, Pete began slapping Snacker on the back. On the way to Pete’s room, Snacker kept on trying to tell them that he was nearly starved and just had to eat.
Tom and Jack Phillips were waiting for them at the door. Before any of the other fellows could come up from downstairs to hear Snacker tell how it all had happened, Pete pushed him inside the room with Tom and Jack. They locked the door with the key and shoved the thumb bolt all the way across the slot.
(First published in Cosmopolitan )
The Empty Room
T HE FIRST TIME I saw her was something more than a year after they had become married. The funeral was over and all the people had left and we were in the house alone. There was nothing I could say to her, and she had not spoken since the morning before. She and Finley had been married only a little more than a year, and she was still far from being twenty. Her body was in the beauty of girlhood, but she was only a child.
She had sat by the window, looking out at the gathering dusk until late in the evening, and night was coming. I had not turned on the lights, and she had not moved from her chair for several hours. From where I was, I could see her darkly framed profile motionless against the gray evening like an ebony cameo. It was then that I knew that there could be beauty even in sorrow.
Finley was the only brother I had ever had, and before his death he was the only kinsman I had left in the world, and now she was his widow.
Her name was Thomasine, but I had not yet called her by it. I had not become used to it, and there is something about an unfamiliar name that guards itself against a stranger’s thoughtless intrusion. When the time came for me to call her by her name, I knew I would be speaking a sound that was hers alone.
I was a stranger in the house and we had not yet spoken to each other. Finley had been her husband, and my brother, and I was not then certain what our relationship became thereby. I knew, though, that we could not for long stay in the house alone without an understanding of her place and mine becoming clear.
The twilight was chill, and the dark room was an expanding void, receding into its wall-less immensity. Her profile was becoming softer as the gray dusk fell away to the obscurity of night. The walls retreated and the room became a place made without them. The room was immense and her profile against the gray dusk melted into the growing darkness of the house.
While she sat across the room she had not fully realized her loneliness. The curve of her head and shoulders drooped with the enveloping shadows, but she was not thinking of even her own presence. Finley had been dead such a short time.
When she got up to go, I got up also, and walked across the room towards her. I went to her side and stood at arm’s length from her, but the distance between us could only have been measured by the bounds of the room’s infinite space. I wished to put my arms around her and comfort her as I would have comforted the one I loved, but she was Finley’s widow, and the room with its walls made distance immeasurable. The room in which we stood was hollow and wide, and it swam in the darkness of its vast space. A spark from a flint would have struck us blind with the intensity of its light, and the certain conflagration would have consumed us to ashes.
Before I came to the house I had given no thought to a girl whose name would be Thomasine, and now she was my brother’s widow.
Some of the flowers in the room had curled for the night, but petals from the roses fell gently to the floor.
Suddenly she whispered, turning in the darkness towards me.
“Did you feed Finley’s rabbits tonight?”
“Yes, I fed them,” I told her. “I gave them all they can eat. They have everything they want for the night.”
Her hair had fallen over her shoulders,
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