The Cactus

by O. Henry
The most notable thing about Time is that it is so purely relative. Trysdale was standing by a table in his
bachelor apartments. On the table stood a singular-looking green plant in a red earthen jar. The plant was one of the
species of cacti, and was provided with long, tentacular leaves that perpetually swayed with the slightest breeze with
a peculiar beckoning motion.
Trysdale's friend, the brother of the bride, stood at a sideboard complaining at being allowed to drink alone.
Both men were in evening dress.
As he slowly unbuttoned his gloves, there passed through Trysdale's mind a swift, scarifying retrospect of
the last few hours. It seemed that in his nostrils was still the scent of the flowers, and in his ears the hum of a
thousand well-bred voices, the rustle of crisp garments, and the drawling words of the minister irrevocably binding
her to another.
From this last hopeless point of view he still strove, as if it had become a habit of his mind, to reach some
conjecture as to why and how he had lost her. Shaken rudely by the uncompromising fact, he had suddenly found
himself confronted by a thing he had never before faced --his own innermost, unmitigated, arid unbedecked self. He
saw all the garbs of pretence and egoism that he had worn now turn to rags of folly.
As she had slowly moved up the aisle toward the altar he had felt an unworthy, sullen exultation that had
served to support him. He had told himself that her paleness was from thoughts of another than the man to whom
she was about to give herself. But even that poor consolation had been wrenched from him. For, when he saw that
swift, limpid, upward look that she gave the man when he took her hand, he knew himself to be forgotten. Once that
same look had been raised to him, and he had gauged its meaning. Why had it ended thus? There had been no
quarrel between them, nothing…
For the thousandth time he remarshalled in his mind the events of those last few days before the tide had so
suddenly turned.
She had always insisted upon placing him upon a pedestal, and he had accepted her homage with royal
grandeur. It had been a very sweet incense that she had burned before him; so modest (he told himself); so childlike
and worshipful, and (he would once have sworn) so sincere. She had invested him with an almost supernatural
number of high attributes and excellencies and talents, and he had absorbed the oblation as a desert drinks the rain
that can coax from it no promise of blossom or fruit.
As Trysdale grimly wrenched apart the seam of his last glove, the crowning instance of his fatuous and
tardily mourned egoism came vividly back to him. During one of their conversation she had said:
"And Captain Carruthers tells me that you speak the Spanish language like a native. Why have you hidden
this accomplishment from me? Is there anything you do not know?"
Now, Carruthers was an idiot. No doubt he (Trysdale) had been guilty (he sometimes did such things) of
airing at the club some old, canting Castilian proverb dug from the hotchpotch at the back of dictionaries.
Carruthers, who was one of his incontinent admirers, was the very man to have magnified this exhibition of doubtful
erudition.
But, alas! the incense of her admiration had been so sweet and flattering. He allowed the imputation to pass
without denial. Without protest, he allowed her to twine about his brow this spurious bay of Spanish scholarship.
How glad, how shy, how tremulous she was! How she fluttered like a snared bird when he laid his
mightiness at her feet! He could have sworn, and he could swear now, that unmistakable consent was in her eyes,
but, coyly, she would give him no direct answer. "I will send you my answer to-morrow," she said; and he, the
indulgent, confident victor, smilingly granted the delay. The next day he waited, impatient, in his rooms for the
word. At noon her groom came to the door and left the strange cactus in the red earthen jar. There was no note, no
message, merely a tag upon the plant bearing a barbarous foreign or botanical name. He waited until night, but her
answer did not come. His large pride and hurt vanity kept him from seeking her. Two evenings later they met at a
dinner. Their greetings were conventional, but she looked at him, breathless, wondering, eager. He was courteous,
adamant, waiting her explanation. With womanly swiftness she took her cue from his manner, and turned to snow
and ice. Thus, and wider from this on, they had drifted apart. Where was his fault? Who had been to blame?
Humbled now, he sought the answer amid the ruins of his self-conceit.
The voice of the other man in the room, querulously intruding upon his thoughts, aroused him.
"I say, Trysdale, what the deuce is the matter with you? You look unhappy as if you yourself had been
married instead of having acted merely as an accomplice. Only little sister I had, too, and now she's gone. Come
now! Take something to ease your conscience."
"I don't drink just now, thanks," said Trysdale.
"Your brandy," resumed the other, coming over and joining him, "is abominable. Wherever did you rake up
this cactus, Trysdale?"
"A present," said Trysdale, "from a friend. Know the species?"
"Very well. It's a tropical concern. See hundreds of 'em around Punta every day. Here's the name on this tag
tied to it. Know any Spanish, Trysdale?"
"No," said Trysdale, with the bitter wraith of a smile--"Is it Spanish?"
"Yes. The natives imagine the leaves are reaching out and beckoning to you. They call it by this name--
Ventomarme. Name means in English, 'Come and take me.'"
The Necklace

By Guy de Maupassant

She was one of those pretty and charming girls, born by a blunder of destiny in a family of employees. She
had no dowry, no expectations, no means of being known, understood, loved, married by a man rich and
distinguished; and she let them make a match for her with a little clerk in the Department of Education.
She was simple since she could not be adorned; but she was unhappy as though kept out of her own class.
She suffered intensely, feeling herself born for every delicacy and every luxury. She suffered from the poverty of
her dwelling, from the worn walls, the abraded chairs, the ugliness of the stuffs. All these things, which another
woman of her caste would not even have noticed, tortured her and made her indignant.
When she sat down to dine, before a tablecloth three days old, in front of her husband, who lifted the cover
of the tureen, declaring with an air of satisfaction, “Ah, the good pot-au-feu. I don’t know anything better than that,”
she was thinking of delicate repasts, with glittering silver, with tapestries peopling the walls with ancient figures and
with strange birds in a fairy-like forest; she was thinking of exquisite dishes, served in marvelous platters, of
compliment whispered and heard with a sphinx-like smile, while she was eating the rosy flesh of a trout or the wings
of a quail.
She had no dresses, no jewelry, nothing. And she loved nothing else; she felt herself made for that only.
She would so much have liked to please, to be envied, to be seductive and sought after.
She had a rich friend, a comrade of her convent days, whom she did not want to go and see any more, so
much did she suffer as she came away. And she wept all day long, from chagrin, from regret, from despair, and from
distress.
But one evening her husband came in with a proud air, holding in his hand a large envelope.
“There,” said he, “there’s something for you.”
She quickly tore the paper and took out of it a printed card which bore these words:—
“The Minister of Education and Mme. Georges Rampouneau beg M. and Mme. Loisel to do them the honor to pass
the evening with them at the palace of the Ministry, on Monday, January 18.”
Instead of being delighted, as her husband hoped, she threw the invitation on the table with annoyance,
murmuring—
“What do you want me to do with that?”
“But, my dear, I thought you would be pleased. You never go out, and here’s a chance, a fine one. You will
see there all the official world.”
She looked at him with an irritated eye and she declared with impatience:—
“What do you want me to put on my back to go there?”
He had not thought of that; he hesitated: “But the dress in which you go to the theater. That looks very well
to me…”
He shut up, astonished and distracted at seeing that his wife was weeping. Two big tears were descending
slowly from the corners of the eyes to the corners of the mouth. He stuttered:
“What’s the matter? What’s the matter?”
But by a violent effort she had conquered her trouble, and she replied in a calm voice as she wiped her
damp cheeks: “Nothing. Only I have no clothes, and in consequence I cannot go to this party. Give your card to
some colleague whose wife has a better outfit than I.”
He was disconsolate. He began again: “See here, Mathilde, how much would this cost, a proper dress,
which would do on other occasions; something very simple?”
She reflected a few seconds, going over her calculations, and thinking also of the sum which she might ask
without meeting an immediate refusal and a frightened exclamation from the frugal clerk.
At last, she answered hesitatingly: “I don’t know exactly, but it seems to me that with four hundred francs I
might do it.”
He grew a little pale, but he said: “All right. I will give you four hundred francs. But take care to have a
pretty dress.”
The day of the party drew near, and Mme. Loisel seemed sad, restless, anxious. Yet her dress was ready.
One evening her husband said to her: “What’s the matter? Come, now, you have been quite queer these last three
days.”
And she answered: “It annoys me not to have a jewel, not a single stone, to put on. I shall look like distress.
I would almost rather not go to this party.”
He answered: “You will wear some natural flowers. They are very stylish this time of the year. For ten
francs you will have two or three magnificent roses.”
But she was not convinced.
“No; there’s nothing more humiliating than to look poor among a lot of rich women.”
But her husband cried: “What a goose you are! Go find your friend, Mme. Forester, and ask her to lend you
some jewelry. You know her well enough to do that.”
She gave a cry of joy: “That’s true. I had not thought of it.”
 The next day she went to her friend’s and told her about her distress.
Mme. Forester went to her mirrored wardrobe, took out a large casket, brought it, opened it, and said to
Mme. Loisel: “Choose, my dear.”
She saw at first bracelets, then a necklace of pearls, then a Venetian cross of gold set with precious stones
of an admirable workmanship. She tried on the ornaments before the glass, hesitated, and could not decide to take
them off and to give them up. She kept on asking: “You haven’t anything else?”
“Yes, yes. Look. I do not know what will happen to please you.”
All at once she discovered, in a box of black satin, a superb necklace of diamonds, and her heart began to
beat with boundless desire. Her hands trembled in taking it up. She fastened it round her throat, on her high dress,
and remained in ecstasy before herself.
Then, she asked, hesitating, full of anxiety: “Can you lend me this, only this?”
“Yes, yes, certainly.”
She sprang to her friend’s neck, kissed her with ardor, and then escaped with her treasure.
The day of the party arrived. Mme. Loisel was a success. She was the prettiest of them all, elegant,
gracious, smiling, and mad with joy. All the men were looking at her, inquiring her name, asking to be introduced.
All the attaches of the Cabinet wanted to dance with her. The Minister took notice of her.
She danced with delight, with passion, intoxicated with pleasure, thinking of nothing, in the triumph of her
beauty, in the glory of her success, in a sort of cloud of happiness made up of all these tributes, of all the
admirations, of all these awakened desires, of this victory so complete and so sweet to a woman’s heart.
She went away about four in the morning. Since midnight—her husband has been dozing in a little
anteroom with three other men whose wives were having a good time.
When they were in the street, leaving the party, they could not find a carriage, and they set out in search of
one, hailing the drivers whom they saw passing in the distance.
They went down toward the Seine, disgusted, shivering. Finally, they found on the Quai one of those old
night-hawk cabs which one sees in Paris only after night has fallen, as though they are ashamed of their misery in
the daytime.
It brought them to their door, rue des Martyrs; and they went up their own stairs sadly. For her it was
finished. And he was thinking that he would have to be at the Ministry at ten o’clock.
She took off the wraps with which she had covered her shoulders, before the mirror, so as to see herself
once more in her glory. But suddenly she gave a cry. She no longer had the necklace around her throat!
Her husband, half undressed already, asked—“What is the matter with you?”
She turned to him, terror-stricken: “I—I—I have not Mme. Forester’s diamond necklace!”
He jumped up, frightened: “What? How? It is not possible!”
And they searched in the folds of the dress, in the folds of the wrap, in the pockets, everywhere. They did
not find it.
He asked: “Are you sure you still had it when you left the ball?”
“Yes, I touched it in the vestibule of the Ministry.”
“But if you had lost it in the street, we should have heard it fall. It must be in the cab.”
“Yes. That is probable. Did you take the number?”
“No. And you—you did not even look at it?”
“No.”
They gazed at each other, crushed. At last Loisel dressed himself again.
“I’m going,” he said, “back the whole distance we came on foot, to see if I cannot find it.”
And he went out. She stayed there, in her ball dress, without strength to go to bed, overwhelmed, on a chair,
without a fire, without a thought.
Her husband came back about seven o’clock. He had found nothing.
Then he went to police headquarters, to the newspapers to offer a reward, to the cab company; he did
everything, in fact, that a trace of hope could urge him to.
She waited all day, in the same dazed state in face of this horrible disaster.
Loisel came back in the evening, with his face worn and white; he had discovered nothing.
“You must write to your friend,” he said, “that you have broken the clasp of her necklace and that you are
having it repaired. That will give us time to turn around.”
She wrote as he dictated.
At the end of a week they had lost all hope. And Loisel, aged by five years, declared: “We must see how
we can replace those jewels.”
The next day they took the case which had held them to the jeweler whose name was in the cover. He
consulted his books.
“It was not I, madam, who sold this necklace. I only supplied the case.”
Then they went from jeweler to jeweler, looking for a necklace like the other, consulting their memory,—
sick both of them with grief and anxiety.
In a shop in the Palais Royal, they found a diamond necklace that seemed to them absolutely like the one
they were seeking. It was priced forty thousand francs. They could have it for thirty-six.
 They begged the jeweler not to sell it for three days. And they made a bargain that he should take it back
for thirty-four thousand, if the first was found before the end of February.
Loisel possessed eighteen thousand francs which his father had left him. He had to borrow the remainder.
He borrowed, asking a thousand francs from one, five hundred from another, five here, three louis there. He
gave promissory notes, made ruinous agreements, dealt with usurers, with all kinds of lenders. He compromised the
end of his life, risked his signature without even knowing whether it could be honored; and, frightened by all the
anguish of the future, by the black misery which was about to settle down on him, by the perspective of all sorts of
physical deprivations and of all sorts of moral tortures, he went to buy the new diamond necklace, laying down on
the jeweler’s counter thirty-six thousand francs.
When Mme. Loisel took back the necklace to Mme. Forester, the latter said, with an irritated air: “You
ought to have brought it back sooner, for I might have needed it.”
She did not open the case, which her friend had been fearing. If she had noticed the substitution, what
would she have thought? What would she have said? Might she not have been taken for a thief?
Mme. Loisel learned the horrible life of the needy. She made the best of it, moreover, frankly, heroically.
The frightful debt must be paid. She would pay it. They dismissed the servant; they changed their rooms; they took
an attic under the roof.
She learned the rough work of the household, the odious labors of the kitchen. She washed the dishes,
wearing out her pink nails on the greasy pots and the bottoms of the pans. She washed the dirty linen, the shirts and
the towels, which she dried on a rope; she carried down the garbage to the street every morning, and she carried up
the water, pausing for breath on every floor. And, dressed like a woman of the people, she went to the fruiterer, the
grocer, the butcher, a basket on her arm, bargaining, insulted, fighting for her wretched money, sou by sou.
Every month they had to pay notes, to renew others to gain time.
The husband worked in the evening keeping up the books of a shopkeeper, and at night often he did
copying at five sous the page.
And this life lasted ten years.
At the end of ten years they had paid everything back, everything, with the rates of usury and all the
accumulation of heaped-up interest.
Mme. Loisel seemed aged now. She had become the robust woman, hard and rough, of a poor household.
Badly combed, with her skirts awry and her hands red, her voice was loud, and she washed the floor with splashing
water.
But sometimes, when her husband was at the office, she sat down by the window and she thought of that
evening long ago, of that ball, where she had been so beautiful and so admired.
What would have happened if she had not lost that necklace? Who knows? Who knows? How singular life
is, how changeable! What a little thing it takes to save you or to lose you.
Then, one Sunday, as she was taking a turn in the Champs Elysées, as a recreation after the labors of the
week, she perceived suddenly a woman walking with a child. It was Mme. Forester, still young, still beautiful, still
seductive.
Mme. Loisel felt moved. Should she speak to her? Yes, certainly. And now that she had paid up, she would
tell her all. Why not?
She drew near. “Good morning, Jeanne.”
The other did not recognize her, astonished to be hailed thus familiarly by this woman of the people. She
hesitated—“But—madam—I don’t know—are you not making a mistake?”
“No. I am Mathilde Loisel.”
Her friend gave a cry: “Oh!—My poor Mathilde, how you are changed.”
“Yes, I have had hard days since I saw you, and many troubles,—and that because of you.” “Of me?
—How so?”
“You remember that diamond necklace that you lent me to go to the ball at the Ministry?” “Yes.
And then?”
“Well, I lost it.”
“How can that be?—since you brought it back to me?”
“I brought you back another just like it. And now for ten years we have been paying for it. You will
understand that it was not easy for us, who had nothing. At last, it is done, and I am mighty glad.”
Mme. Forester had guessed.
“You say that you bought a diamond necklace to replace mine?”
“Yes. You did not notice it, even, did you? They were exactly alike?”
And she smiled with proud and naïve joy.
Mme. Forester, much moved, took her by both hands: “Oh, my poor Mathilde. But mine were false. At
most they were worth five hundred francs!”
The Storm by Katherine Chopin
The leaves were so still that even Bibi thought it was going to rain. Bobinôt, who was accustomed to converse on
terms of perfect equality with his little son, called the child's attention to certain sombre clouds that were rolling
with sinister intention from the west, accompanied by a sullen, threatening roar. They were at Friedheimer's store
and decided to remain there till the storm had passed. They sat within the door on two empty kegs. Bibi was four
years old and looked very wise.
"Mama'll be 'fraid, yes, he suggested with blinking eyes.
"She'll shut the house. Maybe she got Sylvie helpin' her this evenin'," Bobinôt responded reassuringly.
"No; she ent got Sylvie. Sylvie was helpin' her yistiday,' piped Bibi.
Bobinôt arose and going across to the counter purchased a can of shrimps, of which Calixta was very fond. Then he
retumed to his perch on the keg and sat stolidly holding the can of shrimps while the storm burst. It shook the
wooden store and seemed to be ripping great furrows in the distant field. Bibi laid his little hand on his father's knee
and was not afraid.
Calixta, at home, felt no uneasiness for their safety. She sat at a side window sewing furiously on a sewing machine.
She was greatly occupied and did not notice the approaching storm. But she felt very warm and often stopped to
mop her face on which the perspiration gathered in beads. She unfastened her white sacque at the throat. It began to
grow dark, and suddenly realizing the situation she got up hurriedly and went about closing windows and doors.
Out on the small front gallery she had hung Bobinôt's Sunday clothes to dry and she hastened out to gather them
before the rain fell. As she stepped outside, Alcée Laballière rode in at the gate. She had not seen him very often
since her marriage, and never alone. She stood there with Bobinôt's coat in her hands, and the big rain drops began
to fall. Alcée rode his horse under the shelter of a side projection where the chickens had huddled and there were
plows and a harrow piled up in the corner.
"May I come and wait on your gallery till the storm is over, Calixta?" he asked.
Come 'long in, M'sieur Alcée."
His voice and her own startled her as if from a trance, and she seized Bobinôt's vest. Alcée, mounting to the porch,
grabbed the trousers and snatched Bibi's braided jacket that was about to be carried away by a sudden gust of wind.
He expressed an intention to remain outside, but it was soon apparent that he might as well have been out in the
open: the water beat in upon the boards in driving sheets, and he went inside, closing the door after him. It was even
necessary to put something beneath the door to keep the water out.
"My! what a rain! It's good two years sence it rain' like that," exclaimed Calixta as she rolled up a piece of bagging
and Alcée helped her to thrust it beneath the crack.
She was a little fuller of figure than five years before when she married; but she had lost nothing of her vivacity. Her
blue eyes still retained their melting quality; and her yellow hair, dishevelled by the wind and rain, kinked more
stubbornly than ever about her ears and temples.
The rain beat upon the low, shingled roof with a force and clatter that threatened to break an entrance and deluge
them there. They were in the dining room—the sitting room—the general utility room. Adjoining was her bed room,
with Bibi's couch along side her own. The door stood open, and the room with its white, monumental bed, its closed
shutters, looked dim and mysterious.
Alcée flung himself into a rocker and Calixta nervously began to gather up from the floor the lengths of a cotton
sheet which she had been sewing.
lf this keeps up, Dieu sait if the levees goin' to stan it!" she exclaimed.
"What have you got to do with the levees?"
"I got enough to do! An' there's Bobinôt with Bibi out in that storm—if he only didn' left Friedheimer's!"
"Let us hope, Calixta, that Bobinôt's got sense enough to come in out of a cyclone."
She went and stood at the window with a greatly disturbed look on her face. She wiped the frame that was clouded
with moisture. It was stiflingly hot. Alcée got up and joined her at the window, looking over her shoulder. The rain
was coming down in sheets obscuring the view of far-off cabins and enveloping the distant wood in a gray mist. The
playing of the lightning was incessant. A bolt struck a tall chinaberry tree at the edge of the field. It filled all visible
space with a blinding glare and the crash seemed to invade the very boards they stood upon.
Calixta put her hands to her eyes, and with a cry, staggered backward. Alcée's arm encircled her, and for an instant
he drew her close and spasmodically to him.
"Bonté!" she cried, releasing herself from his encircling arm and retreating from the window, the house'll go next! If
I only knew w'ere Bibi was!" She would not compose herself; she would not be seated. Alcée clasped her shoulders
and looked into her face. The contact of her warm, palpitating body when he had unthinkingly drawn her into his
arms, had aroused all the old-time infatuation and desire for her flesh.
"Calixta," he said, "don't be frightened. Nothing can happen. The house is too low to be struck, with so many tall
trees standing about. There! aren't you going to be quiet? say, aren't you?" He pushed her hair back from her face
that was warm and steaming. Her lips were as red and moist as pomegranate seed. Her white neck and a glimpse of
her full, firm bosom disturbed him powerfully. As she glanced up at him the fear in her liquid blue eyes had given
place to a drowsy gleam that unconsciously betrayed a sensuous desire. He looked down into her eyes and there was
nothing for him to do but to gather her lips in a kiss. It reminded him of Assumption.
"Do you remember—in Assumption, Calixta?" he asked in a low voice broken by passion. Oh! she remembered; for
in Assumption he had kissed her and kissed and kissed her; until his senses would well nigh fail, and to save her he
would resort to a desperate flight. If she was not an immaculate dove in those days, she was still inviolate; a
passionate creature whose very defenselessness had made her defense, against which his honor forbade him to
prevail. Now—well, now—her lips seemed in a manner free to be tasted, as well as her round, white throat and her
whiter breasts.
They did not heed the crashing torrents, and the roar of the elements made her laugh as she lay in his arms. She was
a revelation in that dim, mysterious chamber; as white as the couch she lay upon. Her firm, elastic flesh that was
knowing for the first time its birthright, was like a creamy lily that the sun invites to contribute its breath and
perfume to the undying life of the world.
The generous abundance of her passion, without guile or trickery, was like a white flame which penetrated and
found response in depths of his own sensuous nature that had never yet been reached.
When he touched her breasts they gave themselves up in quivering ecstasy, inviting his lips. Her mouth was a
fountain of delight. And when he possessed her, they seemed to swoon together at the very borderland of life's
mystery.
He stayed cushioned upon her, breathless, dazed, enervated, with his heart beating like a hammer upon her. With
one hand she clasped his head, her lips lightly touching his forehead. The other hand stroked with a soothing rhythm
his muscular shoulders.
The growl of the thunder was distant and passing away. The rain beat softly upon the shingles, inviting them to
drowsiness and sleep. But they dared not yield.
The rain was over; and the sun was turning the glistening green world into a palace of gems. Calixta, on the gallery,
watched Alcée ride away. He turned and smiled at her with a beaming face; and she lifted her pretty chin in the air
and laughed aloud.
Bobinôt and Bibi, trudging home, stopped without at the cistern to make themselves presentable.
"My! Bibi, w'at will yo' mama say! You ought to be ashame'. You oughta' put on those good pants. Look at 'em! An'
that mud on yo' collar! How you got that mud on yo' collar, Bibi? I never saw such a boy!" Bibi was the picture of
pathetic resignation. Bobinôt was the embodiment of serious solicitude as he strove to remove from his own person
and his son's the signs of their tramp over heavy roads and through wet fields. He scraped the mud off Bibi's bare
legs and feet with a stick and carefully removed all traces from his heavy brogans. Then, prepared for the worst—
the meeting with an over-scrupulous housewife, they entered cautiously at the back door.
Calixta was preparing supper. She had set the table and was dripping coffee at the hearth. She sprang up as they
came in.
"Oh, Bobinôt! You back! My! but I was uneasy. W'ere you been during the rain? An' Bibi? he ain't wet? he ain't
hurt?" She had clasped Bibi and was kissing him effusively. Bobinôt's explanations and apologies which he had
been composing all along the way, died on his lips as Calixta felt him to see if he were dry, and seemed to express
nothing but satisfaction at their safe return.
"I brought you some shrimps, Calixta," offered Bobinôt, hauling the can from his ample side pocket and laying it on
the table.
"Shrimps! Oh, Bobinôt! you too good fo' anything!" and she gave him a smacking kiss on the cheek that resounded,
"J'vous réponds, we'll have a feas' to-night! umph-umph!"
Bobinôt and Bibi began to relax and enjoy themselves, and when the three seated themselves at table they laughed
much and so loud that anyone might have heard them as far away as Laballière's.
Alcée Laballière wrote to his wife, Clarisse, that night. It was a loving letter, full of tender solicitude. He told her not
to hurry back, but if she and the babies liked it at Biloxi, to stay a month longer. He was getting on nicely; and
though he missed them, he was willing to bear the separation a while longer—realizing that their health and pleasure
were the first things to be considered.
As for Clarisse, she was charmed upon receiving her husband's letter. She and the babies were doing well. The
society was agreeable; many of her old friends and acquaintances were at the bay. And the first free breath since her
marriage seemed to restore the pleasant liberty of her maiden days. Devoted as she was to her husband, their
intimate conjugal life was something which she was more than willing to forego for a while.
So the storm passed and every one was happy.
Clothes Make the Man
by Henri Duvernois

“I don’t like it,” Tango complained again, “I won't feel right, walking up and down in that.”
“Shut up and put it on.” Mireault told him, and so, of course, Tango obeyed. Mireault was half the size but was clever.
“Now, see?” Mireault said. “What did I tell you? Looks good, doesn't it? See, you've even got a whistle.”“Not bad,” Tango had to
admit, surveying himself in the mirror. He pushed out his mighty chest and threw back his broad shoulders. Even the Eel, the
quick silent one who was Mireault's working partner and who rarely opened his mouth, was stirred to speech. “Boy, ain't he
handsome!” he said.
No doubt about it, Tango made a noble sight. The policeman's uniform might have been cut to his measure by the best
tailor in Paris. His little eyes looked brighter beneath the visor of the jaunty cap; they almost looked intelligent.
“Stop gawking at yourself and wipe that dumb grin off your face,” Mireault said impatiently, “and listen. This is so
simple a halfwit could do it, so maybe if you try hard you can too.”
With regret Tango turned away from the mirror. His broad forehead wrinkled in the painful expression that meant he
was concentrating.
“All you do is walk up and down the street,” Mireault said. “Easy and slow, like a real cop on his beat. Then if anyone
hears us working in the house they won't get suspicious, seeing you. Keep walking until we come out, then hang around a few
minutes covering us. That's all there is to it. We'll meet back here. Now you understand?”
“Sure,” Tango said, his eyes straying to the mirror.
“Then get going!” Mireault snapped.
Tango was a little nervous walking to the street Mireault and the Eel had picked out, but nothing happened. Apparently
the old-fashioned family didn't believe in banks. Maybe they would, Mireault had said, after tonight.
He sauntered down the pavement, turned at the corner and came back. Halfway, he saw the two shadowy figures slip
over the garden wall and disappear. Mireault and the Eel were at work.
Tango fell to thinking of how he had looked in the mirror. With the impressive image vivid in his mind, he straightened
his shoulders and threw out his chest again. Standing erect, he tried a salute. It felt good. He grinned, oddly pleased, and walked
on.
It was while he was turning at the other corner that he saw the police lieutenant. Such a sight was usually enough to
send him traveling as rapidly as his feet would move. He stared in horror. With a tremendous effort he restrained the wild
impulse to plunge away. He shuddered. Then, stiffly, with the lieutenant no more than a few feet from him, he raised his arm and
saluted.
The lieutenant casually acknowledged the salute and passed by.
Tango stood peering after him. After a moment, he felt a peculiar gratification. “Say!, you see that? I salute, and he
salutes right back. Say, that - that's pretty fine!” It was extraordinary, the pleasure it gave him. He almost wanted to run up to the
lieutenant and salute again. He threw back his shoulders straighter than ever and, erect and proud, walked down the pavement.
After a few minutes, he found an old lady hesitating on the corner. He saw her make two or three false starts to get
across and each time nervously come back.
Tango did not even notice the plump-looking purse in her hand. He poised in front of her, saluted, and offered his arm.
She looked at him with a sweet smile. “Oh, thank you, officer!” she said.
With infinite dignity they crossed to the other side. It was a pretty picture indeed. “Thank you so much, officer!” she
said.
“Please, madam,“ Tango said, “doesn’t mention it.” He paused. “That's what we're here for, you know,” he added. And
gallantly, he saluted again.
He stood proudly watching her retreating figure. Before she had quite disappeared, she glanced back to regard him with
another smile. Tango stood so straight the cloth strained across his chest. With a flourish, he saluted once more.
A disheveled figure came weaving toward him out of the shadows. It was a man, waving his arms aggressively,
shuffling his feet and muttering savage but unintelligible epithets. His glazed eyes fell upon Tango and he scowled. “Yea!” he
cried. “Lousy cop!”
A deep sense of shock ran through Tango. “Big cowardly cop!” the drunk yelled. A mingled emotion of outrage and
anger grew in Tango. A flush rose to his face. Something popped in Tango's head. His face was purple. He seized the other with
one mighty hand, shook him ferociously, and, without any clear idea of what he was going to do with him, dragged him off down
the street. When, halfway down the block, two figures came skimming over the garden wall and landed on the pavement near
him, he was in no mood to stop.
“'You fool, what are you doing?” Mireault said in a furious whisper. “You want to ruin the whole job?” let go of him,
Blockhead!” And he stuck Tango across the cheek.
Indescribable emotions swirled in Tango's head. He remembered the lieutenant answering his salute; he remembered
the old lady's look of gratitude and admiration; he remembered the splendid figure of himself in the mirror. And he remembered
what the drunk had said.
He arose to the full pitch of a mighty fury. While Mireault and the Eel stared at him in sheer paralyzed horror, he
stuffed the shiny whistle in his mouth and blew a salvo of blasts loud and long enough to bring all the police in Paris.
“Crooks, robbers!” he bellowed. “I arrest you! I arrest you in the name of law!”
The Escape
By W. Somerset Maugham

I have always been convinced that if a woman once made up her mind to marry a man nothing but instant flight could
save him. Not always that; for once a friend of mine, seeing the inevitable loom menacingly before him, took ship from a certain
port (with a tooth–brush for all his luggage, so conscious was he of his danger and the necessity for immediate action) and spent
a year travelling round the world; but when, thinking himself safe (women are fickle, he said, and in twelve months she will have
forgotten all about me), he landed at the self-same port the first person he saw gaily waving to him from the quay was the little
lady from whom he had fled.
I have only once known a man who in such circumstances managed to extricate himself. His name was Roger Charing.
He was no longer young when he fell in love with Ruth Barlow and he had had sufficient experience to make him careful; but
Ruth Barlow had a gift (or should I call it a quality?) that renders most men defenseless, and it was this that dispossessed Roger
of his common-sense, his prudence, and his worldly wisdom. Mrs Barlow, for she was twice a widow, had splendid dark eyes
and they were the most moving I ever saw; they seemed to be ever on the point of filling with tears; they suggested that the world
was too much for her, and you felt that, poor dear, her sufferings had been more than anyone should be asked to bear.
If, like Roger Charing, you were a strong, hefty fellow with plenty of money, it was almost inevitable that you should
say to yourself: I must stand between the hazards of life and this helpless little thing, oh, how wonderful it would be to take the
sadness out of those big and lovely eyes! I gathered from Roger that everyone had treated Mrs Barlow very badly. She was
apparently one of those unfortunate persons with whom nothing by any chance goes right. If she married a husband he beat her; if
she employed a broker he cheated her; if she engaged a cook she drank.
When Roger told me that he had at last persuaded her to marry him, I wished him joy.
‘I hope you’ll be good friends,’ he said. ‘She’s a little afraid of you, you know; she thinks you’re callous.’ ‘Upon my
word I don’t know why she should think that.’ ‘You do like her, don’t you?’ ‘Very much.’ ‘She’s had a rotten time, poor dear. I
feel so dreadfully sorry for her.’ ‘Yes,’ I said.
I couldn’t say less. I knew she was stupid and I thought she was scheming. My own belief was that she was as hard as
nails.
Roger introduced her to his friends. He gave her lovely jewels. He took her here, there, and everywhere. Their marriage
was announced for the immediate future. Roger was very happy. Then, on a sudden, he fell out of love. I do not know why. It
could hardly have been that he grew tired of her conversation, for she had never had any conversation. Perhaps it was merely that
this pathetic look of hers ceased to wring his heart–strings. His eyes were opened and he was once more the shrewd man of the
world he had been. He became acutely conscious that Ruth Barlow had made up her mind to marry him and he swore a solemn
oath that nothing would induce him to marry Ruth Barlow.
Roger kept his own counsel. He gave neither by word nor gesture an indication that his feelings towards Ruth Barlow
had changed. He remained attentive to all her wishes; he took her to dine at restaurants, they went to the play together, he sent her
flowers; he was sympathetic and charming. They had made up their minds that they would be married as soon as they found a
house that suited them, and they set about looking at desirable residences. The agents sent Roger orders to view and he took Ruth
to see a number of houses. It was very hard to find anything that was quite satisfactory. They visited house after house. They
went over them thoroughly, examining them from the cellars in the basement to the attics under the roof. Sometimes they were
too large and sometimes they were too small; sometimes they were too expensive and sometimes they wanted too many repairs;
sometimes they were too stuffy and sometimes they were too airy; sometimes they were too dark and sometimes they were too
bleak. Roger always found a fault that made the house unsuitable. Of course he was hard to please; he could not bear to ask his
dear Ruth to live in any but the perfect house, and the perfect house wanted finding. House–hunting is a tiring and a tiresome
business and presently Ruth began to grow peevish. Roger begged her to have patience. They looked at hundreds of houses; they
climbed thousands of stairs; they inspected innumerable kitchens. Ruth was exhausted and more than once lost her temper.
‘If you don’t find a house soon,’ she said, ‘I shall have to reconsider my position. Why, if you go on like this we shan’t
be married for years.’ ‘Don’t say that,’ he answered, ‘I beseech you to have patience. I’ve just received some entirely new lists
from agents I’ve only just heard of. There must be at least sixty houses on them.’
They set out on the chase again. They looked at more houses and more houses. For two years they looked at houses.
Ruth grew silent and scornful: her pathetic, beautiful eyes acquired an expression that was almost sullen. There are limits to
human endurance. Mrs Barlow had the patience of an angel, but at last she revolted.
‘Do you want to marry me or do you not?’ she asked him. ‘Of course I do. We’ll be married the very moment we find
a house. By the way, I’ve just heard of something that might suit us.’
‘I don’t feel well enough to look at any more houses just yet.’
‘Poor dear, I was afraid you were looking rather tired.’
Ruth Barlow took to her bed. She would not see Roger and he had to content himself with calling at her lodgings to
inquire and sending her flowers. He was as ever assiduous and gallant. Every day he wrote and told her that he had heard of
another house for them to look at. A week passed and then he received the following letter:
Roger
I do not think you really love me. I have found someone who is anxious to take care of me and I am going to be married to him
today.
Ruth
He sent back his reply by special messenger:
Ruth
Your news shatters me. I shall never get over the blow, but of course your happiness must be my first consideration. I send you
herewith seven orders to view; they arrived by this morning’s post and I am quite sure you will find among them a house that will
exactly suit you.
Roger
The Happy Man
by W. Somerset Maugham
It is a dangerous thing to order the lives of others and I have often wondered at the self-confidence of politicians,
reformers and suchlike who are prepared to force, upon their fellows measures that must alter their manners, habits, and points of
view. I have always hesitated to give advice, for how can one advise another how to act unless one knows that other as well as
one knows oneself? But there are men who flounder at the journey's start, the way before them is confused and hazardous, and on
occasion, however unwillingly, I have been forced to point the finger of fate.
Once I know that I advised well. I was a young man and I lived in a modest apartment in London near Victoria Station.
Late one afternoon, when I was beginning to think that I had worked enough for that day, I heard a ring at the bell. I opened the
door to a total stranger. He asked me my name; I told him. He asked if he might come in.
'Certainly.' I led him into my sitting-room and begged him to sit down. He seemed a trifle embarrassed. 'I hope you
don't mind my coming to see you like this,' he said. 'My name is Stephens and I am a doctor. You're in the medical, I believe?'
'Yes, but I don't practise!
'No, I know. I've just read a book of yours about Spain and I wanted to ask you about it.'
'It's not a very good book, I'm afraid.'
'The fact remains that you know something about Spain and there's no one else I know who does. And I thought
perhaps you wouldn't mind giving me some information!
'I shall be very glad.'
He was silent for a moment.
'I hope you won't think it very odd for a perfect stranger to talk to you like this.' He gave an apologetic laugh. 'I'm not
going to tell you the story of my life.'
When people say this to me I always know that it is precisely what they are going to do. I do not mind. In fact I rather
like it.
'I was brought up by two old aunts. I've never been anywhere. I've never done anything. I've been married for six years.
I have no children. I'm a medical officer at the Camberwell Infirmary. I can't stick it any more.'
There was something very striking in the short, sharp sentences he used. They had a forcible ring. I had not given him
more than a cursory glance, but now I looked at him with curiosity. He was a little man, thick-set and stout, of thirty perhaps,
with a round red face from which shone small, dark and very bright eyes. His black hair was cropped close to a bullet-shaped
head. He was dressed in a blue suit a good deal the worse for wear. It was baggy at the knees and the pockets bulged untidily.
'You know what the duties are of a medical officer in an infirmary. One day is pretty much like another. And that's all
I've got to look forward to for the rest of my life. Do you think it's worth it?' 'It's a means of livelihood,' I answered.
`Yes, I know. The money's pretty good' 'I don't exactly know why you've come to me.'
“Well, I wanted to know whether you thought there would be any chance for an English doctor in Spain?' 'Why Spain?'
'I don't know, I just have a fancy for it. I heard by accident that there was no English doctor in Seville. Do you think I
could earn a living there? Is it madness to give up a good safe job for an uncertainty?'
'What does your wife think about it?' 'She's willing.'
'It's a great risk.' 'I know. But if you say take it, I will: if you say stay where you are, I'll stay.'
He was looking at me intently with those bright dark eyes of his and I knew that he meant what he said. I reflected for a
moment.
'Your whole future is concerned: you must decide for yourself. But this I can tell you: if you don't want money but are
content to earn just enough to keep body and soul together, then go. For you will lead a wonderful life.'
He left me, I thought about him for a day or two, and then forgot. The episode passed completely from my memory.
Many years later, fifteen at least, I happened to be in Seville and having some trifling indisposition asked the hotel porter whether
there was an English doctor in the town. He said there was and gave me the address. I took a cab and as I drove up to the house a
little fat man came out of it. He hesitated when he caught sight of me.
'Have you come to see me?' he said. 'I'm the English doctor.'
I explained my errand and he asked me to come in. He lived in an ordinary Spanish house, with a patio. We did our
business and then I asked the doctor what his fee was. He shook his head and smiled.
'There's no fee.' 'Why on earth not?'
'Don't you remember me? Why, I'm here because of something you said to me. You changed my whole life for me. I'm
Stephens.'
I had not the least notion what he was talking about. He reminded me of our interview, he repeated to me what we had
said, and gradually, out of the night, a dim recollection of the incident came back to me.
'I was wondering if I'd ever see you again,' he said, 'I was wondering if ever I'd have a chance of thanking you for all
you've done for me.' 'It's been a success then?'
I looked at him. He was very fat now and bald, but his eyes twinkled gaily and his fleshy, red face bore an expression
of perfect good-humour. He looked to me as though he knew a good bottle of wine when he saw it. He had a dissipated, though
entirely sympathetic, appearance. You might have hesitated to let him remove your appendix, but you could not have imagined a
more delightful creature to drink a glass of wine with.
'Surely you were married?' I said. `Yes. My wife didn't like Spain, she went back to Camberwell, She was more at
home there.'
'Oh, I'm sorry for that'
His black eyes flashed a bacchanalian smile. 'Life is full of compensations,' he murmured.
The words were hardly out of his mouth when a Spanish woman, no longer in her first youth, but still boldly and
voluptuously beautiful, appeared at the door. She spoke to him in Spanish, and I could not fail to perceive that she was the
mistress of the house.
As he stood at the door to let me out he said to me:
 'You told me when last I saw you that if I came here I should earn just enough money to keep body and soul together,
but that I should lead a wonderful life. Well, I want to tell you that you were right. Poor I have been and poor I shall always be,
but by heaven I've enjoyed myself. I wouldn't exchange the life I've had with that of any king in the world.'
The Christmas Present
by Richmal Crompton

Mary Clay looked out of the window of the old farmhouse. The view was dreary enough--hill and field and woodland,
bare, colourless, mist-covered--with no other house in sight. She had never been a woman to crave for company. She liked
sewing. She was passionately fond of reading. She was not fond of talking. She looked forward to quiet, peaceful, lamplit
evenings; and only lately, after ten years of married life, had she reluctantly given up the hope of them. For peace was far enough
from the old farm kitchen in the evening. It was driven away by John Clay's loud voice, raised always in orders or complaints, or
in the stumbling, incoherent reading aloud of his newspaper.
Mary was a silent woman herself and a lover of silence. But John liked to hear the sound of his voice; he liked to shout
at her; to call for her from one room to another; above all, he liked to hear his voice reading the paper out loud to her in the
evening. She dreaded that most of all.
She had borne it for ten years, so surely she could go on with it. Yet today, as she gazed hopelessly at the wintry
country side, she became acutely conscious that she could not go on with it. Something must happen. Yet what was there that
could happen?
It was Christmas next week. She smiled ironically at the thought. Then she noticed the figure of her husband coming up
the road. He came in at the gate and round to the side-door.
"Mary!" She went slowly in answer to the summons. He held a letter in his hand.
"Met the postman," he said. "From your aunt." She opened the letter and read it in silence. Both of them knew quite
well what it contained.
"She wants us to go over for Christmas again," said Mary. He began to grumble.
"She's as deaf as a post. She's 'most as deaf as her mother was. She ought to know better than to ask folks over when
she can't hear a word any one says."
Mary said nothing. He always grumbled about the invitation at first, but really he wanted to go. He liked to talk with
her uncle. He liked the change of going down to the village for a few days and hearing all its gossip.
The Crewe deafness was proverbial. Mary's great-grandmother had gone stone deaf at the age of thirty-five; her
daughter had inherited the affliction and her grand-daughter, the aunt with whom Mary had spent her childhood, had inherited it
also at exactly the same age.
"All right," he said at last, grudgingly, as though in answer to her silence, "we'd better go. Write and say we'll go."
It was Christmas Eve. They were in the kitchen of her uncle's farmhouse. The deaf old woman sat in her chair by the
fire knitting. Upon her sunken face there was a curious sardonic smile that was her habitual expression. The two men stood in the
doorway. Mary sat at the table looking aimlessly out of the window. Outside, the snow fell in blinding showers. Inside, the fire
gleamed on to the copper pots and pans, the crockery on the old oak dresser, the hams hanging from the ceiling.
Suddenly James turned.
"Jane!" he said. The deaf woman never stirred.
"Jane!" Still there was no response upon the enigmatic old face by the fireside.
"Jane!" She turned slightly towards the voice.
"Get them photos from upstairs to show John," he bawled. "What about boats?" she said.
"Photos!" roared her husband. "Coats?" she quavered.
Mary looked from one to the other. The man made a gesture of irritation and went from the room.
He came back with a pile of picture postcards in his hand.
"It's quicker to do a thing oneself," he grumbled.
John took them from his hand. "She gets worse?" he said nodding towards the old woman.
She was sitting gazing at the fire, her lips curved into the curious smile.
Her husband shrugged his shoulders. "Aye. She's nigh as bad as her mother was. It takes longer to tell her to do
something than to do it myself. And deaf folks get a bit stupid, too. They're best let alone."
The other man nodded and lit his pipe. Then James opened the door.
"The snow's stopped," he said. "Shall we go to the end of the village and back?"
The other nodded, and took his cap from behind the door. A gust of cold air filled the room as they went out.
Mary took a paper-backed book from the table and came over to the fireplace.
"Mary!"
She started. It was not the sharp, querulous voice of the deaf old woman, it was more like the voice of the young aunt
whom Mary remembered in childhood. The old woman was leaning forward, looking at her intently.
"Mary! A happy Christmas to 'ee."
And, as if in spite of herself, Mary answered in her ordinary low tones.
"The same to you, auntie."
"Thank 'ee. Thank 'ee."
Mary gasped.
"Aunt! Can you hear me speaking like this?"
The old woman laughed, silently, rocking to and fro in her chair as if with pent-up merriment of years.
"Yes, I can hear 'ee, child. I've allus heard 'ee."
Mary clasped her hand eagerly.
"Then--you're cured, Aunt--"
"Ay. I'm cured as far as there was ever anything to be cured."
"You--?"
"I was never deaf, child, nor never will be, please God. I've took you all in fine."
Mary stood up in bewilderment.
 "You? Never deaf?"
The old woman chuckled again.
"No, nor my mother--nor her mother neither."
Mary shrank back from her.
"I--I don't know what you mean," she said, unsteadily. "Have you been--pretending?"
"I'll make you a Christmas present of it, dearie," said the old woman. "My mother made me a Christmas present of it
when I was your age, and her mother made her one. I haven't a lass of my own to give it to, so I give it to you. It can come on
quite sudden like, if you want it, and then you can hear what you choose and not hear what you choose. Do you see?" She leant
nearer and whispered, "You're shut out of it all--of having to fetch and carry for 'em, answer their daft questions and run their
errands like a dog. I've watched you, my lass. You don't get much peace, do you?"
Mary was trembling.
"Oh, I don't know what to think," she said. "I--I couldn't do it."
"Do what you like," said the old woman. "Take it as a present, anyways--the Crewe deafness for a Christmas present,"
she chuckled. "Use it or not as you like. You'll find it main amusin', anyways."
And into the old face there came again that curious smile as if she carried in her heart some jest fit for the gods on
Olympus.
The door opened suddenly with another gust of cold air, and the two men came in again, covered with fine snow.
"I--I'll not do it," whispered Mary, trembling.
"We didn't get far. It's coming on again," remarked John, hanging up his cap.
The old woman rose and began to lay the supper, silently and deftly, moving from cupboard to table without looking
up. Mary sat by the fire, motionless and speechless, her eyes fixed on the glowing coals.
"Any signs o' the deafness in her?" whispered James, looking towards Mary. "It come on my wife jus' when she was
that age."
"Aye. So I've heered."
Then he said loudly, "Mary!"
A faint pink colour came into her cheeks, but she did not show by look or movement that she had heard. James looked
significantly at her husband.
The old woman stood still for a minute with a cup in each hand and smiled her slow, subtle smile.
 The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin

Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible
the news of her husband's death.
It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences. Her husband's friend Richards was there, too, near her. It
was he who had been in the newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard's
name leading the list of "killed." He had only taken the time to assure himself of its truth by a second telegram, and had hastened
to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message.
She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance.
She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to
her room alone. She would have no one follow her.
There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical
exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul.
She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The
delicious breath of rain was in the air. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless
sparrows were twittering in the eaves.
She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless, except when a sob came up into her
throat and shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams.
She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength. But now there was a
dull stare in her eyes. It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought.
There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too
subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color
that filled the air.
Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess
her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will--as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been. When she
abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: "free, free,
free!" The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses
beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body.
She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her. She knew that she would weep again when
she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead.
But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened
and spread her arms out to them in welcome.
There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful
will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a
fellow-creature.
And yet she had loved him--sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery,
count for in the face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being!
"Free! Body and soul free!" she kept whispering.
Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhole, imploring for admission. "Louise, open the
door! I beg; open the door--you will make yourself ill. What are you doing, Louise? For heaven's sake open the door."
"Go away. I am not making myself ill." No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window.
Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that
would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that
life might be long.
She arose at length and opened the door to her sister's importunities. There was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she
carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory. She clasped her sister's waist, and together they descended the stairs.
Richards stood waiting for them at the bottom.
Some one was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard who entered, a little travel-stained,
composedly carrying his grip-sack and umbrella. He had been far from the scene of the accident, and did not even know there
had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine's piercing cry; at Richards' quick motion to screen him from the view of his wife.
When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease--of the joy that kills.
 The Kiss by Kate Chopin

It was still quite light out of doors, but inside with the curtains drawn and the smouldering fire sending out a dim,
uncertain glow, the room was full of deep shadows.
Brantain sat in one of these shadows; it had overtaken him and he did not mind. The obscurity lent him courage to keep
his eves fastened as ardently as he liked upon the girl who sat in the firelight.
She was very handsome, with a certain fine, rich coloring that belongs to the healthy brune type. She was quite
composed, as she idly stroked the satiny coat of the cat that lay curled in her lap, and she occasionally sent a slow glance into the
shadow where her companion sat. They were talking low, of indifferent things which plainly were not the things that occupied
their thoughts. She knew that he loved her--a frank, blustering fellow without guile enough to conceal his feelings, and no desire
to do so. For two weeks past he had sought her society eagerly and persistently. She was confidently waiting for him to declare
himself and she meant to accept him. The rather insignificant and unattractive Brantain was enormously rich; and she liked and
required the entourage which wealth could give her.
During one of the pauses between their talk of the last tea and the next reception the door opened and a young man
entered whom Brantain knew quite well. The girl turned her face toward him. A stride or two brought him to her side, and
bending over her chair--before she could suspect his intention, for she did not realize that he had not seen her visitor--he pressed
an ardent, lingering kiss upon her lips.
Brantain slowly arose; so did the girl arise, but quickly, and the newcomer stood between them, a little amusement and
some defiance struggling with the confusion in his face.
"I believe," stammered Brantain, "I see that I have stayed too long. I--I had no idea--that is, I must wish you good-by."
He was clutching his hat with both hands, and probably did not perceive that she was extending her hand to him, her presence of
mind had not completely deserted her; but she could not have trusted herself to speak.
"Hang me if I saw him sitting there, Nattie! I know it's deuced awkward for you. But I hope you'll forgive me this
once--this very first break. Why, what's the matter?"
"Don't touch me; don't come near me," she returned angrily. "What do you mean by entering the house without
ringing?"
"I came in with your brother, as I often do," he answered coldly, in self-justification. "We came in the side way. He
went upstairs and I came in here hoping to find you. The explanation is simple enough and ought to satisfy you that the
misadventure was unavoidable. But do say that you forgive me, Nathalie," he entreated, softening.
"Forgive you! You don't know what you are talking about. Let me pass. It depends upon--a good deal whether I ever
forgive you."
At that next reception which she and Brantain had been talking about she approached the young man with a delicious
frankness of manner when she saw him there.
"Will you let me speak to you a moment or two, Mr. Brantain?" she asked with an engaging but perturbed smile. He
seemed extremely unhappy; but when she took his arm and walked away with him, seeking a retired corner, a ray of hope
mingled with the almost comical misery of his expression. She was apparently very outspoken.
"Perhaps I should not have sought this interview, Mr. Brantain; but--but, oh, I have been very uncomfortable, almost
miserable since that little encounter the other afternoon. When I thought how you might have misinterpreted it, and believed
things" --hope was plainly gaining the ascendancy over misery in Brantain's round, guileless face--"Of course, I know it is
nothing to you, but for my own sake I do want you to understand that Mr. Harvy is an intimate friend of long standing. Why, we
have always been like cousins--like brother and sister, I may say. He is my brother's most intimate associate and often fancies
that he is entitled to the same privileges as the family. Oh, I know it is absurd, uncalled for, to tell you this; undignified even,"
she was almost weeping, "but it makes so much difference to me what you think of--of me." Her voice had grown very low and
agitated. The misery had all disappeared from Brantain's face.
"Then you do really care what I think, Miss Nathalie? May I call you Miss Nathalie?" They turned into a long, dim
corridor that was lined on either side with tall, graceful plants. They walked slowly to the very end of it. When they turned to
retrace their steps Brantain's face was radiant and hers was triumphant.
Harvy was among the guests at the wedding; and he sought her out in a rare moment when she stood alone.
"Your husband," he said, smiling, "has sent me over to kiss you. "
A quick blush suffused her face and round polished throat. "I suppose it's natural for a man to feel and act generously
on an occasion of this kind. He tells me he doesn't want his marriage to interrupt wholly that pleasant intimacy which has existed
between you and me. I don't know what you've been telling him," with an insolent smile, "but he has sent me here to kiss you."
She felt like a chess player who, by the clever handling of his pieces, sees the game taking the course intended. Her
eyes were bright and tender with a smile as they glanced up into his; and her lips looked hungry for the kiss which they invited.
"But, you know," he went on quietly, "I didn't tell him so, it would have seemed ungrateful, but I can tell you. I've
stopped kissing women; it's dangerous."
Well, she had Brantain and his million left. A person can't have everything in this world; and it was a little
unreasonable of her to expect it.
 A Respectable Woman by Kate Chopin
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.
This was a man she had heard much of but never seen. He had been her husband's college friend; was now a journalist.
She had unconsciously formed an image of him in her mind. She pictured him tall, slim, cynical; with eye-glasses, 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. His manner
was as courteous toward 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.
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 piqued. In this mood
she left her husband and her guest, for the most part, alone together.
"When is he going--your friend?" she one day asked her husband. "For my part, he tires me frightfully."
"Not for a week yet, dear. I can't understand; he gives you no trouble."
Gaston took his wife's pretty face between his hands and looked tenderly and laughingly into her troubled eyes.
"You are full of surprises, ma belle," he said to her. "Even 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? Commotion, indeed! But, you know, you
said he was clever."
"So he is. But the poor fellow is run down by overwork now. That's why I asked him here to take a rest."
"You used to say he was a man of ideas," she retorted, unconciliated. "I expected 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 a bench that stood beneath a live oak tree at the edge of the gravel walk.
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.
"Your 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 the season.
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.
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 fingers 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, did 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.
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
are 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, chere amie, to know that you have finally overcome your dislike for him; truly he did not deserve it."
"Oh," she told him, laughingly, 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."
 Desiree’s Baby by Kate Chopin
As the day was pleasant, Madame Valmonde drove over to L'Abri to see Desiree and the baby.
It made her laugh to think of Desiree with a baby. Why, it seemed but yesterday that Desiree was little more than a
baby herself; when Monsieur in riding through the gateway of Valmonde had found her lying asleep in the shadow of the big
stone pillar.
The little one awoke in his arms and began to cry for "Dada." That was as much as she could do or say. Some people
thought that she had been purposely left by a party of Texans, whose canvas-covered wagon, late in the day, had crossed the ferry
just below the plantation. In time Madame Valmonde abandoned every speculation but the one that Desiree had been sent to her
by a beneficent Providence to be the child of her affection, seeing that she was without child of the flesh. For the girl grew to be
beautiful and gentle, affectionate and sincere,--the idol of Valmonde.
It was no wonder, when she stood one day against the stone pillar in whose shadow she had lain asleep, eighteen years
before, that Armand Aubigny riding by and seeing her there, had fallen in love with her.
Monsieur Valmonde grew practical and wanted things well considered: that is, the girl's obscure origin. Armand looked
into her eyes and did not care. He was reminded that she was nameless. What did it matter about a name when he could give her
one of the oldest and proudest in Louisiana? So they were married.
Madame Valmonde had not seen Desiree and the baby for four weeks. When she reached L'Abri she shuddered at the
first sight of it. It was a sad looking place, which for many years had not known the gentle presence of a mistress, old Monsieur
Aubigny having married and buried his wife in France.
The young mother was recovering slowly, and lay full length, in her soft white muslins and laces, upon a couch. The
baby was beside her, upon her arm, where he had fallen asleep, at her breast.
Madame Valmonde bent her portly figure over Desiree and kissed her, holding her an instant tenderly in her arms. Then
she turned to the child.
"This is not the baby!" she exclaimed, in startled tones.
"I knew you would be astonished," laughed Desiree, "at the way he has grown." And the way he cries," went on
Desiree, "is deafening. Armand heard him the other day as far away as La Blanche's cabin."
Madame Valmonde had never removed her eyes from the child. She lifted it and walked with it over to the window that
was lightest. She scanned the baby narrowly.
"Yes, the child has grown, has changed," said Madame Valmonde, slowly, as she replaced it beside its mother. "What
does Armand say?"
Desiree's face became suffused with a glow that was happiness itself.
"Oh, Armand is the proudest father in the parish. Oh, mamma, I'm so happy; it frightens me."
What Desiree said was true. Marriage, and later the birth of his son had softened Armand Aubigny's imperious and
exacting nature greatly. This was what made the gentle Desiree so happy, for she loved him desperately.
When the baby was about three months old, Desiree awoke one day to the conviction that there was something in the
air menacing her peace. It was at first too subtle to grasp. Then a strange, an awful change in her husband's manner, which she
dared not ask him to explain. When he spoke to her, it was with averted eyes, from which the old love-light seemed to have gone
out. He absented himself from home; and when there, avoided her presence and that of her child, without excuse. Desiree was
miserable enough to die.
She sat in her room, one hot afternoon. The baby, half naked, lay asleep. A Negro boy--half naked too--stood fanning
the child slowly with a fan of peacock feathers. She looked from her child to the boy who stood beside him, and back again; over
and over. "Ah!" It was a cry that she could not help; which she was not conscious of having uttered. The blood turned like ice in
her veins, and clammy moisture gathered upon her face.
She stayed motionless, with gaze riveted upon her child, and her face the picture of fright.
Presently her husband entered the room.
"Armand," she called to him, in a voice which must have stabbed him, if he was human. But he did not notice.
"Armand," she said again. Then she rose and tottered towards him. "Armand," she panted once more, clutching his arm, "look at
our child. What does it mean? Tell me."
"It means," he answered lightly, "that the child is not white; it means that you are not white." He went away leaving her
alone with their child.
When she could hold a pen in her hand, she sent a despairing letter to Madame Valmonde.
The answer that came was brief:
"My own Desiree: Come home to Valmonde; back to your mother who loves you. Come with your child."
She walked home with her child one October afternoon and she did not come back again.
Some weeks later there was a curious scene enacted at L'Abri. In the centre of the smoothly swept back yard was a
great bonfire in which Armand Aubigny threw all the things that belonged to Desiree and the baby.
The last thing to go was a tiny bundle of letters. There was a part of an old letter from his mother to his father. He read
it. She was thanking God for the blessing of her husband's love:--
"But above all," she wrote, "night and day, I thank the good God for having so arranged our lives that our dear Armand
will never know that his mother, who adores him, belongs to the race that is cursed with the brand of slavery."
 The Girl by O.Henry
In gilt letters on the ground glass of the door of room No. 962 were the words: "Robbins & Hartley, Brokers." The
clerks had gone. It was past five. Robbins, fifty, something of an overweight beau, and addicted to first nights and hotel palm-
rooms, pretended to be envious of his partner's commuter's joys.
"Going to be something doing in the humidity line to-night," he said. "You out-of-town chaps will be the people, with
your katydids and moonlight and long drinks and things out on the front porch."
Hartley, twenty-nine, serious, thin, good-looking, nervous, sighed and frowned a little.
"Yes," said he, "we always have cool nights in Floralhurst, especially in the winter."
A man with an air of mystery came in the door and went up to Hartley.
"I've found where she lives," he announced in the portentous half-whisper. "Here is the address," said the detective.
Hartley took the leaf torn out of the sleuth's dingy memorandum book. On it were penciled the words "Vivienne
Arlington, No. 341 East Street, care of Mrs. McComus."
"Moved there a week ago," said the detective.
Hartley paid the man and dismissed him. Then he left the office and boarded a Broadway car.
He came to the building that he sought and pressed the "McComus" button. The door latch clicked spasmodically.
Hartley entered and began to climb the stairs.
On the fourth floor he saw Vivienne standing in an open door. She invited him inside, with a nod and a bright, genuine
smile. She placed a chair for him near a window, and poised herself gracefully upon the edge of a sofa.
Hartley cast a quick, critical, appreciative glance at her before speaking, and told himself that his taste in choosing had
been flawless.
Vivienne was about twenty-one. She was of the purest Saxon type. Her hair was a ruddy golden. In perfect harmony
were her ivory-clear complexion and deep sea-blue eyes that looked upon the world with the ingenuous calmness of a mermaid.
Her frame was strong and yet possessed the grace of absolute naturalness.
"Vivienne," said Hartley, looking at her pleadingly, "you did not answer my last letter. Why have you kept me in
suspense when you knew how anxiously I was waiting to see you and hear from you?"
The girl looked out the window dreamily.
"Mr. Hartley," she said hesitatingly, "I hardly know what to say to you. I realize all the advantages of your offer, and
sometimes I feel sure that I could be contented with you. But, again, I am doubtful. I was born a city girl, and I am afraid to bind
myself to a quiet suburban life."
"My dear girl," said Hartley, ardently, "have I not told you that you shall have everything that your heart can desire that
is in my power to give you? You shall come to the city for the theatres, for shopping and to visit your friends as often as you care
to. You can trust me, can you not?"
"To the fullest," she said, turning her frank eyes upon him with a smile. "I know you are the kindest of men, and that
the girl you get will be a lucky one. I learned all about you when I was at the Montgomerys'."
"Ah!" exclaimed Hartley, with a tender, reminiscent light in his eye; "I remember well the evening I first saw you at the
Montgomerys'. I shall never forget that supper. Come, Vivienne, promise me. I want you. You'll never regret coming with me.
No one else will ever give you as pleasant a home."
The girl sighed and looked down at her folded hands.
"When do you want me?" she asked. "Now. As soon as you can get ready."
She stood calmly before him and looked him in the eye.
"Do you think for one moment," she said, "that I would enter your home while Héloise is there?"
"She shall go," he declared grimly. Drops stood upon his brow. "Why should I let that woman make my life miserable?
You are right, Vivienne. Héloise must be sent away before I can take you home. But she shall go. I have decided. I will turn her
from my doors."
"When will you do this?" asked the girl.
Hartley clinched his teeth and bent his brows together. "To-night," he said, resolutely. "I will send her away to-night."
"Then," said Vivienne, "my answer is 'yes.' Come for me when you will."
She looked into his eyes with a sweet, sincere light in her own. Hartley could scarcely believe that her surrender was
true, it was so swift and complete.
In an hour and forty minutes Hartley stepped off the train at Floralhurst. Halfway to the house he was met by a woman
with jet-black braided hair and flowing white summer gown, who half strangled him without apparent cause.
When they stepped into the hall she said: "Mamma's here. The auto is coming for her in half an hour. She came to
dinner, but there's no dinner."
"I've something to tell you," said Hartley. "I thought to break it to you gently, but since your mother is here we may as
well out with it." He stooped and whispered something at her ear.
His wife screamed. Her mother came running into the hall.
"Oh, mamma!" she cried ecstatically, "what do you think? Vivienne is coming to cook for us! She is the one that stayed
with the Montgomerys a whole year. And now, Billy, dear," she concluded, "you must go right down into the kitchen and
discharge Héloise. She has been drunk again the whole day long."
 Secret for Two by Quentin Reynolds
Montreal is a very large city. Like all large cities, it has small streets. Streets, for example, like Prince Edward Street –
only four blocks long. No one knew Prince Edward Street as well as Pierre Dupin. He had delivered milk to the families on the
street for thirty years.
For the past fifteen years a large white horse pulled his milk wagon. In Montreal, especially in the French part of the
city, animals and children are often given the names of saints. Pierre’s horse had no name when it first came to the milk
company. Pierre was told he could use the horse. He moved his hand gently and lovingly across the horse’s neck and sides.
He looked into the animal’s eyes.
“This is a gentle horse,” Pierre said. “I can see a beautiful spirit shining out of his eyes. I will name him after Saint
Joseph, who also was a gentle and beautiful spirit.”
After about a year, the horse Joseph got to know every house that received milk, and every house that did not.
Every morning at five, Pierre arrived at the milk’s company stables to find his wagon already filled with bottles of milk
and Joseph waiting for him. Pierre would call: “Bon jour, my old friend”, as he climbed into his seat, while Joseph turned his
head toward the driver.
The other drivers would smile. They said that the horse smiled at Pierre. Then Pierre would softly call to Joseph,
“Avance, monami.” And the two would go proudly down the street. Without any order from Pierre, the wagon would roll down
three streets. Then it turned right for two streets, before turning left to Saint Catherine Street. The horse finally stopped at the first
house on Prince Edward Street. There, Joseph would wait perhaps thirty seconds for Pierre to get down off his seat and put a
bottle of milk at the front door. Then the horse walked past the next two houses and stopped at the third. And without being told,
Joseph would turn around and come back along the other side. Ah, yes, Joseph was a smart horse.
Pierre would talk about Joseph. “I never touch the reins. He knows just where to stop. Why, a blind man could deliver
my milk with Joseph pulling the wagon.”
So it went on for years – always the same. Pierre and Joseph slowly grew old together. Pierre’s huge walrus moustache
was white now and Joseph didn’t lift his knees so high or raise his head quite so much. Jacques, the boss man of the stables,
never noticed that they both were getting old until Pierre appeared one morning carrying a heavy walking stick.
“Hey, Pierre,” Jacques laughed. “Maybe you got the gout, hey?”
“Mais oui, Jacques,” Pierre said. “One grows old. One’s legs get tired.”
“You should teach that horse to carry the milk to the front door for you,” Jacques told him. “He does everything else.”
Most of the drivers had to make out the weekly bills and collect the money. But Jacques, liking Pierre, never asked him
to do this. All Pierre had to do was arrive at five in the morning, walk to his wagon, which always was in the same place, and
deliver his milk. He returned about two hours later, got down from his seat, called a cheery “Au voir” to Jacques, then walked
slowly down the street.
One day the president of the milk company came to inspect the early morning milk deliveries. Jacques pointed to Pierre
and said: “Watch how he talks to that horse. See how the horse listens and how he turns his head toward Pierre? See the look in
that horse’s eyes? You know, I think those two share a secret. Pierre is a good man, Monsieur President, but he is getting old.
Maybe he ought to be given a rest and a small pension.”
“But of course,” the president laughed. “He has been on this job now for thirty years. Tell him it is time he rested. He
will get his pay every week as before.”
But Pierre refused to leave his job. He said his life would be nothing if he could not drive Joseph every day.
There was something about Pierre and his horse that made a man smile tenderly. Each seemed to get some hidden
strength from the other.
Then one cold morning Jacques had terrible news for Pierre. It was still dark. The air was like ice. Snow had fallen
during the night. Jacques said, “Pierre, your horse, Joseph, didn’t wake up. He was very old, Pierre. He was twenty-five and that
is like being seventy-five for a man.” “Yes,” Pierre said slowly. “Yes. I am seventy-five. And I cannot see Joseph again.”
“Of course you can,” Jacques said softly. “He is over in his stall. Go over and see him.”
Pierre took one step forward, then turned. “No… no…you…don’t understand, Jacques.”
“Take the day off, Pierre,” Jacques said. But Pierre was gone limping down the street. He walked to the corner and
stepped into the street. There was a warning shout from the driver of a big truck…and the screech of rubber tires as the truck tried
to stop. But Pierre heard nothing.
Five minutes later a doctor said, “He’s dead, killed instantly.” “I couldn’t help it,” the truck driver said. “He walked in
front of my truck. He walked as though he were blind.”
The doctor bent down. “Blind? Of course the man was blind. This man has been blind for five years.” He turned to
Jacques, “Didn’t you know he was blind?”
“No…no…” Jacques said softly. “None of us knew. Only one…only one knew, a friend of his, named Joseph. It was a
secret, I think, just between those two.”
 The Homecoming
Exhausted, he came back home – to that tiny town of thirteen families at the foot of the rugged mountains in the Lewis-
Clark national forest in Montana – dragging his feet in the mounds of snow. He thought he deserved an emotional welcome hug
and a shower of kisses from his wife. It was certainly homecoming to Adam Herculitius. Not just a mere homecoming to one
who has been away for one, two, three or ten years. Adam has been given as lost in time and space. Dead. There could be no
homecoming for one who was considered dead. Except as an airy, floating spirit.
He returned to his home in that cold foggy, dark and pitiless evening like a shadowy shapeless figure from that country
unknown to human beings.
For the first month when Adam disappeared, he was considered lost by his wife, Eva, and his two sons – the 13 year
old Ken and the 11 year old Eble – by his neighbours, and by the seven-member search party. Those days of January moved
heavily between anxiety and eagerness, between expectation and despair. Eva in particular thought she felt so. The surroundings,
snow-covered solid mountains, threatened her lingering hopes that slowly started to recede. Adam’s colour picture that sat on the
mantle in the living room assumed a remote lifelessness, perhaps just a fading memory of a certain past that was momentarily
frozen and stilled – a memory of the mind, a living being of the past.
She understood her new status of being without her husband by the beginning of February. She spent most of her days
adjusting to a new dawn of independence and sorting out the possible financial windfall that might flood her with one hundred
thousand dollars. They could move to Great Falls, Montana, and live in a newly-built condominium, instead of continuing to
exist in that ramshackle, 33 year-old house of peeling paint, cracking doors, leaking faucets.
“After all, life has to be lived, not tolerated,” Eva rationalized. “I have to live my life.” Her emotions of loss which had
resulted in a twisted life of grief and sorrow froze, metamorphosed into a rock. Now it was a thing of the past. She refused to be
buried in the debris of her present life. New ideas started springing in her, almost making her neighbours feel uneasy with her
passionate desire to overcome grief. They even suspected that perhaps she had looked forward to such a natural situation to
develop so she could do what she wanted from the beginning of her stay in that remote, small, vague, anonymous town.
The search party confirmed that Adam certainly had perished. During the mighty blizzard that battered the town after
Christmas, Eva gave birth to a strong will to explore every means of finding all possible resources for the present and future.
“After all, it is the society that goads me to love my husband, why should I, if he isn’t anymore? Why love and cherish
something that doesn’t exist? I love myself. I am alive with full life. The society doesn’t care one way or another. The society
doesn’t feed me, doesn’t care about my wishes, my life, my concerns. The society comes up with only empty words of sympathy.
That is all.” Her inner self started raising its ugly head like an untamed bear searching for its prey. She had suppressed it so long.
“Since I haven’t seen the remains of Adam, it’s possible that he may return in a strange shape. Or, even if he comes
back, why should I now accept him?”
Towards the end of February, Eva finally resolved not to think of Adam any more.
By the first week of March, the prudent insurance agent had already assured Eva of a fat check by the time she moved
into the condominium in Great Falls. The omnipotent Money would be her new husband, her security, her strength, her success,
her society and the new father to the boys. After all, what more did one want in this world? She finally decided to erase her 15
year marriage with Adam in a fleeting moment of robust decision immediately after the agent left her doorstep on that Friday
morning.
Despite her newborn strength of mind, Eva couldn’t sleep for the rest of the seven nights she was to spend in that eerie
house and the snow-covered town. Nights crept slowly but remained longer, tiresome. For protection, she let Ken and Eble sleep
beside her.
It was the last night she was to sleep in that house of terror and memory. The previous two days brought more snow,
more howling wind, more frequent power failures, more isolation from her neighbours, and more appetite.
Feeling hungry and realizing that there was no food in the refrigerator, Eva slowly stumbled towards the freezer with a
flickering candle to pick up the last piece of raw venison that Adam had stacked up during the hunting season in October. As she
lifted the freezer door and tumbled for that chunk of meat, she heard faint footsteps at the back of the kitchen. When she
confronted a grizzly, phantom-like figure of Adam beckoning to her from behind the glass door, she suppressed her scream and
her shock. Dictated more by instinct, she sprinted into her bedroom. Quickly, Eva returned with Adam’s handgun and pointed it
towards Adam’s figure and gently said: “Even if you are really alive, I want you to be dead now. Why do you deal a deathblow to
those who are alive? I want to live. You were dead. Be dead now. Be gone. Let no one know…Don’t you want Ken and Eble to
be prosperous with all the money I will get soon from your death?”
The words were like bullets to Adam. From out of the darkness that stretched endlessly beyond the mountains, he came
to the light of his home. Now, he left the house and went into his new home, the mountains, muttering, “Oh, Eva, have I lived
painfully so far only to see you dead?”
 Return to Paradise by Eliza Riley

Lisa gazed out over the Caribbean Sea, feeling the faint breeze against her face – eyes shut, the white sand warm
between her bare toes. The place was beautiful beyond belief, but it was still unable to ease the grief she felt as she remembered
the last time she had been here.
She had married James right here on this spot three years ago to the day. Dressed in a simple white shift dress,
miniature white roses attempting to tame her long dark curls. Lisa had been happier than she had ever thought possible. James
was even less formal but utterly irresistible in creased summer trousers and a loose white cotton shirt. His dark hair slightly
ruffled and his eyes full of adoration as he looked at his bride to be. The justice of the peace had read their vows as they held
hands and laughed at the sheer joy of being young, in love and staying in a five star resort in the Caribbean island of Dominican
Republic. They had seen the years blissfully stretching ahead of them, together forever. They planned their children, two she
said, he said four so they compromised on three (two girls and a boy of course); where they would live, the travelling they would
do together – it was all certain, so they had thought then.
But that seemed such a long time ago now. A lot can change in just a few years – a lot of heartache can change a person
and drive a wedge through the strongest ties, break even the deepest love. Three years to the day and they had returned, though
this time not for the beachside marriage the island was famous for but for one of its equally popular quickie divorces.
Lisa let out a sigh that was filled with pain and regret. What could she do but move on, find a new life and new dreams?
– the old one was beyond repair. How could this beautiful place, with its lush green coastline, eternity of azure blue sea and
endless sands be a place for the agony she felt now?
The man stood watching from the edge of the palm trees. He couldn’t take his eyes of the dark-haired woman who was
standing at the water’s edge, gazing out to sea as though she was waiting for something or someone. She was beautiful, with her
slim figure dressed in a loose flowing cotton dress, her crazy hair and bright blue eyes not far off the colour of the sea itself. It
wasn’t her looks that attracted him though; he came across many beautiful women in his work as a freelance photographer. It was
her loneliness and intensity that lured him. Even at some distance he was aware that she was different from any other woman he
could meet.
Lisa sensed the man approaching even before she turned around. She had been aware of him standing there staring at
her and had felt strangely calm about being observed. She looked at him and felt the instant spark of connection she had only
experienced once before. He walked slowly towards her and they held each other’s gaze. It felt like meeting a long lost friend –
not a stranger on a strange beach.
Later, sitting at one of the many bars of the resort, sipping the local cocktails, they began to talk. First pleasantries, their
hotels, the quality of the food and friendliness of the locals. Their conversation was strangely hesitant considering the naturalness
and confidence of their earlier meetings. Onlookers, however, would have detected the subtle flirtation as they mirrored each
other’s actions and spoke directly into each other’s eyes. Only later, after the alcohol had had its loosening effect, did the
conversation deepen. They talked of why they were here and finally, against her judgment, Lisa opened up about her heartache of
the past year and how events had led her back to the place where she had married the only man she believed she could ever love.
She told him of things that had been locked deep inside her, able to tell no one. She told him how she had felt after she had lost
her baby.
She was six months pregnant and the happiest she had ever been when the pains started. She was staying with her
mother as James was working out of town. He hadn’t made it back in time. The doctor had said it was just one of those things,
that they could try again. But how could she when she even couldn’t look James in the eye. She hated him then, for not being
there, for not hurting as much as her but most of all for looking so much like the tiny baby boy that she held for just three hours
before they took him away. All through the following months she had withdrawn from her husband, family, friends. Not wanting
to recover from the pain she felt – that would have been a betrayal of her son. At the funeral she had refused to stand next to her
husband and the next day she had left him.
Looking up, Lisa could see her pain reflected in the man’s eyes. For the first time in months she didn’t feel alone, she
felt the unbearable burden begin to lift from her, only a bit but it was a start. She began to believe that maybe she had a future
after all and maybe it could be with this man, with his kind hazel eyes, wet with their shared tears.
They had come here to dissolve their marriage but maybe there was hope. Lisa stood up and took James by the hand
and led him away from the bar towards the beach where they had made their vows to each other three years ago. Tomorrow she
would cancel the divorce; tonight they would work on renewing their promises.
 The Eskimo Widow by Louis Untermeyer
In the coldest part of the Arctic the Eskimos have a legend they tell when the long winter nights are at their worst. The
story is about a little old woman who lived in the northernmost part of Alaska and who lived alone. Unable to do her own hunting
and fishing, she lived on what her neighbours gave her. It was a poor village. The neighbours had little to spare. So most of the
time, she was as hungry as she was lonely.
One morning she heard a noise that sounded like a child crying. When she could no longer ignore it, she went outside
and found a bundle of matted fur on the ice. It was a baby polar bear whose mother had been killed by the hunters and managed
to crawl away before the hunters could kill him. The helplessness of the cub moved the old woman’s lonely heart. Without
thinking how she might care for him, she carried him in and gave him some scraps that she had been saving for her next meal. He
ate them eagerly, yawned, and fell asleep.
Now she was no longer alone. She cared for the cub as though he were her child. She gave him half of what little food
she got. As a result, she was hungrier than ever. But she was happy. Once in a while, when the Eskimos made a great catch,
everyone in the village would feast for a few days. Most of the time, though, everyone went hungry.
Somehow, the old woman survived, and somehow, the cub got fat. Then he grew lean and tall. One day, after he had
become the most important thing in her life, he disappeared. That night the old woman could not sleep. “My child! My child!”
she moaned. The next morning, she cried again, but this time it was a cry of joy. Her cub had returned with a fine catch of
salmon. He had taught himself how to fish.
As he grew up, he became a clever hunter. No longer a cub, the young bear caught not only fish but, once in a while,
small seals. There was plenty now for both of them soon there was enough to share with the neighbours. Everyone remarked
what a smart bear he was. “My child,” she repeated proudly.
But the good fays did not last long. Suddenly the weather changed. For weeks, blinding storms swept over the village.
Not a fish could be caught. The seals seemed to have swum away.
It was then that one of the villagers had a plan. “Why should we starve,” he said, “when we have food right here? The
old woman’s bear has plenty of flesh beneath that fur. He should make good eating.”
The others said nothing, but they plowed through shoulder-high snowdrifts to the old woman’s house. There they found
the widow weeping. The bear had disappeared again.
The villagers slowly walked back to their homes. There was nothing to say, nothing to do. The storm grew worse.
There seemed to be no hope for the starving village.
Then one day the wind changed, and the bear came back. Everyone stared at him. No one spoke. The widow, a little
bundle of bones, was too weal to call out, but she managed a cracked smile. The bear didn’t stir from where he stood. But he
lifted his head again and again.
“He’s trying to tell us something,” said a villager. “I think he wants us to go with him,” said one of the others. “He
seems to be pointing.”
The bear started to walk away. The villagers followed him. He led them over the hills of ice, skirting wide deep cracks.
Finally he stopped. A hundred yards in front of him there was a dark mass barely moving on a large piece of ice. As the villagers
went closer, they saw it was a wounded but still ferocious animal, a huge bull seal. The seal was larger than any one of them had
ever caught. Here was food to last a long, long time – plenty of meat and an endless supply of blubber, the fat that would put new
life into the people of the whole village.
It was a happy group that brought back the food and the bear. Both were welcomed, especially the bear.
“He knew what we needed,” the people told each other, “and he found it for us.”
“He didn’t just find it,” said one of the villagers. “He fought it for us. We owe everything to him.”
“We owe everything to him,” the people repeated. “And we will never forget him.”
The widow waited until the bear walked over and put his head in her hand. Then she patted the furry head. “My child,”
she said softly.
 Salvation by Langston Huges

I was saved from sin when I was going on thirteen. But not really saved. It happened like this. There was a big revival
at my Auntie Reed's church. Every night for weeks there had been much preaching, singing, praying, and shouting, and some
very hardened sinners had been brought to Christ, and the membership of the church had grown by leaps and bounds. Then just
before the revival ended, they held a special meeting for children, "to bring the young lambs to the fold." My aunt spoke of it for
days ahead. That night I was escorted to the front row and placed on the mourners' bench with all the other young sinners, who
had not yet been brought to Jesus.
My aunt told me that when you were saved you saw a light, and something happened to you inside! And Jesus came
into your life! And God was with you from then on! She said you could see and hear and feel Jesus in your soul. I believed her. I
had heard a great many old people say the same thing and it seemed to me they ought to know. So I sat there calmly in the hot,
crowded church, waiting for Jesus to come to me.
The preacher preached a wonderful rhythmical sermon, all moans and shouts and lonely cries and dire pictures of hell,
and then he sang a song about the ninety and nine safe in the fold, but one little lamb was left out in the cold. Then he said:
"Won't you come? Won't you come to Jesus? Young lambs, won't you come?" And he held out his arms to all us young sinners
there on the mourners' bench. And the little girls cried. And some of them jumped up and went to Jesus right away. But most of
us just sat there.
A great many old people came and knelt around us and prayed, old women with jet-black faces and braided hair, old
men with work-gnarled hands. And the church sang a song about the lower lights are burning, some poor sinners to be saved.
And the whole building rocked with prayer and song.
Still I kept waiting to see Jesus.
Finally all the young people had gone to the altar and were saved, but one boy and me. He was a rounder's son named
Westley. Westley and I were surrounded by sisters and deacons praying. It was very hot in the church, and getting late now.
Finally Westley said to me in a whisper: "God damn! I'm tired o' sitting here. Let's get up and be saved." So he got up and was
saved.
Then I was left all alone on the mourners' bench. My aunt came and knelt at my knees and cried, while prayers and
song swirled all around me in the little church. The whole congregation prayed for me alone, in a mighty wail of moans and
voices. And I kept waiting serenely for Jesus, waiting, waiting - but he didn't come. I wanted to see him, but nothing happened to
me. Nothing! I wanted something to happen to me, but nothing happened.
I heard the songs and the minister saying: "Why don't you come? My dear child, why don't you come to Jesus? Jesus is
waiting for you. He wants you. Why don't you come? Sister Reed, what is this child's name?"
"Langston," my aunt sobbed.
"Langston, why don't you come? Why don't you come and be saved? Oh, Lamb of God! Why don't you come?"
Now it was really getting late. I began to be ashamed of myself, holding everything up so long. I began to wonder what
God thought about Westley, who certainly hadn't seen Jesus either, but who was now sitting proudly on the platform, swinging
his knickerbockered legs and grinning down at me, surrounded by deacons and old women on their knees praying. God had not
struck Westley dead for taking his name in vain or for lying in the temple. So I decided that maybe to save further trouble, I'd
better lie, too, and say that Jesus had come, and get up and be saved.
So I got up.
Suddenly the whole room broke into a sea of shouting, as they saw me rise. Waves of rejoicing swept the place.
Women leaped in the air. My aunt threw her arms around me. The minister took me by the hand and led me to the platform.
When things quieted down, in a hushed silence, punctuated by a few ecstatic "Amens," all the new young lambs were
blessed in the name of God. Then joyous singing filled the room.
That night, for the first time in my life but one for I was a big boy twelve years old - I cried. I cried, in bed alone, and
couldn't stop. I buried my head under the quilts, but my aunt heard me. She woke up and told my uncle I was crying because the
Holy Ghost had come into my life, and because I had seen Jesus. But I was really crying because I couldn't bear to tell her that I
had lied, that I had deceived everybody in the church, that I hadn't seen Jesus, and that now I didn't believe there was a Jesus
anymore, since he didn't come to help me.
 If We had Hurried by Billy Rose

There once was a fellow who, with his dad, farmed a little piece of land. Several times a year they would load up
the old ox-drawn cart with vegetables and go into the nearest city to sell their produce. Except for their name and patch of
ground, father and son had little in common. The old man believed in taking it easy. The boy was usually in a hurry -- the go-
getter type.
One morning, bright and early, they hitched up the ox to the loaded cart and started on the long journey. The son
figured that if they walked faster, kept going all day and night, they'd make the market by early the next morning. So he kept
prodding the ox with a stick, urging the beast to get a move on.
"Take it easy, son" said the old man. "You'll last longer."
"But if we get to the market ahead of the others, we'll have a better chance of getting good prices," argued the
son.
No reply. Dad just pulled his hat down over his eyes and fell asleep on the seat. Itchy and irritated, the young
man kept goading the ox to walk faster. His stubborn pace refused to change.
Four hours and four miles down the road, they came to a little house. The father woke up, smiled and said,
"Here's your uncle's place. Let's stop in and say "hello."
"But we've lost an hour already," complained the hotshot.
"Then a few more minutes won't matter. My brother and I live so close, yet we see each other so seldom," the
father answered slowly.
The boy fidgeted and fumed while the two old men laughed and talked away almost an hour. On the move again,
the man took his turn leading the ox. As they approached a fork in the road, the father led the ox to the right.
"The left is the shorter way," said the son.
"I know it," replied the old man, "but this way is so much prettier."
"Have you no respect for time?: the young man asked impatiently.
"Oh, I respect it very much! That's why I like to look at beauty and enjoy each moment to the fullest."
The winding path led through graceful meadows, wildflowers and along a rippling stream - all of which the
young man missed as he churned within, preoccupied and boiling with anxiety. He didn't even notice how lovely the sunset was
that day.
Twilight found them in what looked like a huge, colorful garden. The old man breathed in the aroma, listened to
the bubbling brook, and pulled the ox to a halt. "Let's sleep here," he sighed.
"This is the last trip I'm taking with you," snapped his son. "You're more interested in watching sunsets and
smelling flowers then in making money!"
"Why, that's the nicest thing you've said in a long time," smiled the dad. A couple of minutes later he was
snoring - as his boy glared back at the stars. The night dragged slowly, the son was restless.
Before sunrise the young man hurriedly shook the father awake. They hitched up and went on. About a mile
down the road they happened upon another farmer - a total stranger - trying to pull his cart out of a ditch.
"Let's give him a hand," whispered the old man.
"And lose more time?" the boy exploded.
"Relax, son ... you might be in a ditch yourself. We need to help others in need - don't forget that." The boy
looked away in anger.
It was almost eight o'clock that morning by the time the other cart was back on the road. Suddenly, a great flash
split the sky. What sounded like thunder followed. Beyond the hills, the sky grew dark.
"Looks like big rain in the city," said the old man.
"If we had hurried, we'd be almost sold out by now," grumbled his son.
"Take it easy ... you'll last longer. And you'll enjoy life so much more," counseled the kind old gentlemen.
It was late in the afternoon by the time they got to the hill overlooking the city. They stopped and stared down at
it for a long time. Neither of them said a word. Finally, the young man put his hand on his father's shoulder and said, "I see what
you mean Dad."
They turned their cart around and began to roll slowly away from what had once been the city of Hiroshima.