The woman of brilliance and audacity stayed behind,
taking up the bills and stuffing them into a deep,
irregularly-shaped pocket. A guttural snore
from the recumbent man caused her to turn and look
down at him.
She laughed. “What a damn fool,”
she said, and went.
The smoke from the lamps settled heavily down in the
little compartment, obscuring the way out. The
smell of oil, stifling in its intensity, pervaded
the air. The wine from an overturned glass dripped
softly down upon the blotches on the man’s neck.
In a room a woman sat at a table eating like a fat
monk in a picture.
A soiled, unshaven man pushed open the door and entered.
“Well,” said he, “Mag’s dead.”
“What?” said the woman, her mouth filled
with bread.
“Mag’s dead,” repeated the man.
“Deh hell she is,” said the woman.
She continued her meal. When she finished her
coffee she began to weep.
“I kin remember when her two feet was no bigger
dan yer t’umb, and she weared worsted boots,”
moaned she.
“Well, whata dat?” said the man.
“I kin remember when she weared worsted boots,”
she cried.
The neighbors began to gather in the hall, staring
in at the weeping woman as if watching the contortions
of a dying dog. A dozen women entered and lamented
with her. Under their busy hands the rooms took
on that appalling appearance of neatness and order
with which death is greeted.
Suddenly the door opened and a woman in a black gown
rushed in with outstretched arms. “Ah,
poor Mary,” she cried, and tenderly embraced
the moaning one.
“Ah, what ter’ble affliction is dis,”
continued she. Her vocabulary was derived from
mission churches. “Me poor Mary, how I
feel fer yehs! Ah, what a ter’ble affliction
is a disobed’ent chil’.”
Her good, motherly face was wet with tears.
She trembled in eagerness to express her sympathy.
The mourner sat with bowed head, rocking her body
heavily to and fro, and crying out in a high, strained
voice that sounded like a dirge on some forlorn pipe.
“I kin remember when she weared worsted boots
an’ her two feets was no bigger dan yer t’umb
an’ she weared worsted boots, Miss Smith,”
she cried, raising her streaming eyes.
“Ah, me poor Mary,” sobbed the woman in
black. With low, coddling cries, she sank on
her knees by the mourner’s chair, and put her
arms about her. The other women began to groan
in different keys.
“Yer poor misguided chil’ is gone now,
Mary, an’ let us hope it’s fer deh bes’.
Yeh’ll fergive her now, Mary, won’t yehs,
dear, all her disobed’ence? All her t’ankless
behavior to her mudder an’ all her badness?
She’s gone where her ter’ble sins will
be judged.”
The woman in black raised her face and paused.
The inevitable sunlight came streaming in at the
windows and shed a ghastly cheerfulness upon the faded
hues of the room. Two or three of the spectators
were sniffling, and one was loudly weeping. The
mourner arose and staggered into the other room.
In a moment she emerged with a pair of faded baby
shoes held in the hollow of her hand.
