SOLITUDE D

I imagined that it would last a long time, and wondered in a daze how I

could get home in a rain like that—for I should have to face it. I could see

that in a few seconds the gutters had begun to race, the road where I lay

was a stream, and then—then the rain ceased. Never was anything so

astonishing. The sky came out blue, tattered rags of cloud raced across it,

and I had time to conclude that, whipped and almost breathless though I

was, I was still alive.

And then I saw a curious sight. Down the street in every direction came

rushing hatless men and women. Here and there a wild-eyed horse was

being lashed along. All the town was coming. They were in their work

clothes, in their slippers, in their wrappers—they were in anything and

everything. Some of them sobbed as they ran, some called aloud names that

I knew. They were fathers and mothers looking for their children.

And who was that—that woman with a white face, with hair falling about

her shoulders, where it had fallen as she ran—that woman whose breath

came between her teeth strangely and who called my name over and over,

bleatingly, as a mother sheep calls its lamb? At first I did not recognise her,

and then, at last, I knew. And that creature with the rolling eyes and the

curious ash-coloured face who, mumbling something over and over in his

throat, came for me, and snatched me up and wiped my face free of mud,

and felt of me here and there with trembling hands—who was he?

And breaking out of the crowd of men who had come running from the

street of stores and offices, was another strange being, with a sort of battle

light in his eyes, who, seeing me, gathered me to him and bore me away

toward home. Looking back, I could see the woman I knew following, leaning

on the arm of the boy with the rolling eyes, whose eyes had ceased to roll,

and who was quite recognisable now as Toot.

A happiness that was almost as terrible as sorrow welled up in my heart. I

did not weep, or laugh, or talk. All I had experienced had carried me beyond

mere excitement into exultation. I exulted in life, in love. My conceit and

sulkiness died in that storm, as did many another thing. I was alive. I was

loved. I said it over and over to myself silently, in "my heart's deep core,"

while mother washed me with trembling hands in my own dear room, bound

up my hurts, braided my hair, and put me, in a fresh night-dress, into my

bed. I do not recall that we talked to each other, but in every caress of her hands as she worked I felt the unspoken assurances of a love such as I had

not dreamed of.