The Collected Short Stories of Conrad Aiken

THE ANNIVERSARY

Ciharles Cleghorn and his friend Jackson were playing billiards in the smoky billiard room in the basement of their club. They were both middle-aged, both bald, and neither of them played well. They walked a little heavily round the table, chalked their cues with unnecessary frequency, laughed a good deal at shots fantastically bad, and occasionally paused for passages of laconic conversation. It was Cleghorn who had suggested the game of billiards. He was fond of Jackson (a doctor) but knew from long experience that a whole evening in Jackson’s company became fatiguing unless they “did something.” Usually, when they arranged to dine together, they went afterwards to the Casino, which could always be relied upon for a vivid burlesque show. They both enjoyed a good burlesque show, one with plenty of legs, laughter, smut, and “snappy music,” the sort of show in which the brilliantly blonde heroine comes out to the footlights dressed in the star-spangled banner—and dressed, as it turns out at the end of the cheap patriotic song, to which her gilded slippers have been beating time, only in the star-spangled banner. This sort of thing always pleased them; they nudged each other. Cleghorn, fiddling with the end of his grayish mustache, felt that he would like to know a girl like that. He entertained fleeting thoughts of meetings at stage-doors, taxi rides late at night, perhaps a champagne party in a secretly kept flat, or in a shabby hotel. The idea of the expense, however, always frightened him. Taxis, flats, champagne, little suppers at hotels—one couldn’t indulge in these unless one were rich, or unmarried. Also, he had always been very respectable, and he was afraid of being seen. And also, he wasn’t sure that he would know how to go about it. He suspected that Jackson knew a great deal—but Jackson never talked freely of his own adventures with women, had always assumed that Cleghorn was, in this regard, inviolably respectable. This understanding had existed between them for seventeen years, and had become sacred.

“I wonder if it’s still snowing,” said Cleghorn, sitting down for a moment with his cue between his knees.

“Sure, it’s snowing. It’s going to snow all night.”

“I hope to God the cars are running. I’d hate to walk all the way from the Square in this.”

“Good for you.… You don’t get enough exercise anyway.”

Jackson stooped beside the table, flushing, to get the cue-bridge. He arose with the bridge clutched in a plump pink hand, tight-skinned. He gave a puff, blowing out his cheeks. Cleghorn laughed.

“Well, I don’t lose my wind when I stoop for a bridge, anyway,” he said. “You’re getting fat, Henry.”

“Don’t be personal.”

“I know why it is, too.” He gave a sly smile, which had the effect of pushing his gray mustache up toward his spectacles. Jackson, calm, absorbed, leveled his cue along the bridge and began aiming it at the white ball. Cleghorn knew that he was listening, and went on. “It’s all this high living. All these little parties.”

Jackson made his stroke sharply, and snorted, following the balls with an angry eye.

“What parties?… You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Ha! don’t I! … My detectives inform me, Henry, of your every gesture.”

“Oh! they do, do they? A lot of good may it do them.”

Cleghorn sighed, rose, walked heavily round the lighted table, peered closely and near-sightedly at each ball in turn.

“Ah! I wish to God I wasn’t married,” he said. “I’d show you some tricks, Henry!”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.… Have a lemonade?”

Cleghorn gave a violent shot which made the cue-ball leap off the table. It crashed to the floor, and rolled to the wall.

“If I couldn’t play billiards any better than that,” Jackson continued evenly, “I’d sell out and keep pigs. I’d be ashamed of myself.”

“Well, I’ll bet you I can pick it up without losing my wind, anyway. And that’s something.”

He picked up the ball and dropped it with a little thump on the green baize. Then, by a tacit agreement they sat down, somewhat wearily, in two chairs by the wall, both holding their cues between their knees.

“Some women,” said Jackson after a moment, “are damn fools.”

“You surprise me, Henry.… Have a cigarette.”

“No, thanks.… Yes.… A patient telephoned me this morning at ten o’clock, to say that she had started to have a hemorrhage, and what should she do. It’s a childbirth case with a threat of abruptio. We’ve been expecting it to happen. I told her to get a taxi and run straight to the hospital—not to stop a minute. I telephoned to the hospital and had everything ready. Thomas was there. I was there myself in twenty minutes. And that woman took three hours to get to the hospital—three hours! As a result of which she’s dying.”

“What on earth made her do that?”

Jackson stared at the green lights over the billiard table.

“Oh, she wanted the proper clothes with her—did a regular packing up, as if she was going for a holiday at Palm Beach.… Lots of them do that.… They’ve got to have their best Sunday-go-to-meeting nighties.… And there she is.”

“Really dying?”

“I think so. A transfusion didn’t help. I’m expecting a call any time tonight. Thomas is there.”

Cleghorn felt depressed. Seeing people die was no joke. Supposing he had, at this hour, on such a night, to go slopping through a foot of snow and slush to a hospital, all to watch a foolish woman die?… All the same he envied Jackson. Jackson had more experience in a day than he himself had in a decade. All sorts of queer intimacies and insights. Intimacies with young women. The nurses, too, of course. The doctors weren’t supposed to know the nurses. But then—! … Besides, was it any worse for Jackson to trot off to a hospital on a winter night than for himself to trot home, every night in the year, to Clara?…

“I wonder if it’s still snowing,” he said, morosely.

“Sure, it’s snowing. Snowing like hell, probably. Thank God, I put the chains on my car this morning.”

“Tomorrow’s the fifteenth anniversary of my wedding.”

“Go on!” … Jackson was surprised, goggled at Cleghorn with round protruding eyes, apoplectic.

“What does that make it—brass?” … Cleghorn was sardonic. “The twenty-fifth is silver.”

“I don’t know. It ought to be something pretty good after fifteen.”

Jackson took a slow deep breath and, seeming to become absent-minded, stared at the floor, inclining his head against his cue, and rubbing his forehead against the cool polished wood. He moved his head softly from side to side, staring.

“Well,” he said with a kind of abstracted gentleness, “I think that deserves a little drink.” He turned and pressed a button in the wall. “A health drunk in near-beer never hurt anyone.”

“Beer is thicker than water,” Cleghorn replied, “but not much.”

The two men sighed almost simultaneously and became silent. Cleghorn, leaning his head back on the chair, blew a turbulent cloud of smoke toward the ceiling, propelling into it, at the end, a rapid succession of small swimming rings. He watched them admiringly. Wedding rings. Wedding rings of smoke. Smoke, but horribly binding, just the same. What a simple solution if Clara had only, like this woman at the hospital—what was it Henry called it?…

“I sometimes wonder why it was you never married, Henry.” His expression was a little malicious.

The boy brought their drinks on a tray, pulled the little table near to them, and carried away their cues. Jackson lifted his glass.

“I would have, Charlie, if I’d been as lucky as you. Here’s how—happy returns!”

“Well, I’d swap with you for nothing—for an old doughnut and a pair of emasculated garters.”

Jackson growled, frowning into his beer, where he seemed to see something that annoyed him.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. Swap? By God, I’d swap, let me tell you.”

“All right then—you go home to Clara tonight, and I’ll take your case at the hospital. Also the key to your secret flat.” Cleghorn gave a peculiar self-conscious laugh. Over the rim of his beer glass he eyed Jackson with an uneasy challenge.

“You make me tired when you talk like that. You ought to know better.… What the devil do you mean by the key to my secret flat?”

“Don’t be so coy, Henry. The nice little flat where you entertain your chorus-girl friends.… Ah, I wish to God I wasn’t married! I’d show you some tricks.”

“Phhhh! You make me sick. Chorus girls! What do you think I am?”

“My detectives watch you night and day, Henry. You’ve been seen putting your bald head out of your car window in the alley behind the Casino. Lulu, the star-spangled queen, was seen to leap in beside you, giving a loud parrot scream of delight, and scattering diamonds. At the oyster house, later, it was observed that you devoured two dozen oysters and a hen lobster, while Lulu worshiped.… Introduce me to Lulu, Henry. I’d like to know her.”

“Who the devil is Lulu?… You’re crazy.…”

Cleghorn laughed, and then sighed.

“I like to talk through my hat,” he said. “If I’m not crazy already I’d as lief be.… You can talk till all is blue about the sacred joys of married life, but I’m sick of it.”

Jackson, at this, gave a quick startled look at Cleghorn, who was staring at the ceiling. He opened his lips as if to say something, but then, instead, lifted his glass, turned it meditatively around, and took a deep drink.

“Funny I haven’t heard from the hospital,” he murmured. He looked at his watch. “Nine o’clock.”

There was a pause, during which the two men stared across the smoky room, watching three players who moved about a table at the other side, having a noisy game of cowboy pool. “Put the five in the corner pocket,” one of them shouted. “Ah, he’s got a glass eye and a wooden arm,” said another. The shot was made, and all three shrieked with laughter, thumping the butts of their cues against the floor. “The boy has brains! The boy’s clever!”…

“I think I’ll get drunk tonight,” said Cleghorn, reflectively smiling, and pushing his gray mustache up towards his spectacles. “At that place on Atlantic Avenue.”

“Don’t be a fool. That rot-gut whisky!”

“That’s all right—it’s got plenty of kick.”

“It’ll kick you over the fence into eternity one of these days.”

“So much the better.… You think I’m joking, Henry, but I’m perfectly serious.”

“Serious about what?”

“Married life.…”

“Are you still worrying about that?”

“Worrying? No. I’ve made up my mind, that’s all.”

“Oh.”

“It’s a queer thing, you know, how deep a disgust can go. Right into the most vital and living part of your consciousness.… So that you hate the physical with a hatred—” He broke off, making a tense, spasmodic clawlike gesture with his hand. His eyes were opened rather wide. “If only we could get rid of the whole thing!”

Jackson goggled angrily at Cleghorn.

“What’s eating you?… What do you say, shall we finish the game?”

He was still staring at Cleghorn when the page came into the room with a slip of paper in his hand. “Dr. Jackson!” he bawled, walking. “Dr. Jackson!”

“Here!” said Jackson, rising. “Good night, Charlie.… Take my advice and go home like a good boy. See you Tuesday.” He rested his plump pink hand on Cleghorn’s shoulder for a second, beamed, and walked briskly away.

For a few minutes, Cleghorn sat perfectly still, staring at the green-shaded lights and watching the tobacco smoke coil into them in lazy clouds. He felt miserably a sense of defeat. He had hoped to draw out Jackson, or at any rate to compel him to listen, and had for some reason felt a peculiar need for a heart-to-heart discussion. It had been useless to attempt it. With Jackson, the attempt was always useless. Jackson always growled and changed the subject, or became inarticulate, or pretended to misunderstand.… Good old Henry.… The three young men began arguing loudly at the table on the far side of the room, flourishing their cues. “Of course, I put it up—you were seventy-nine before and now you’re eighty-four—what could be simpler?… Solid ivory!”… Cleghorn felt angry with them, rose, and walked heavily out of the room and up the stairs. He went and looked out from the reading-room window, lifting the shade, to see if it was still snowing. It was snowing hard. Long white diagonals flew in straight lines under the arc light at the corner. A horse-drawn newspaper wagon went by, the horse plodding slowly in deep snow, his head down, his hoofs not making a sound. A taxi stood opposite the club, with white-drifted roof and a blanket flung over the radiator. It had a derelict look. “Escape!” it seemed to say—“Adventure! Mystery!”… He recalled stories of men who had engaged cabs simply saying to the driver, “If you know a good place, take me to it. Here’s a dollar. Here’s five dollars. Here’s a thousand dollars.… Take me to the Queen of Sheba. Take me to the number of numbers in the street of streets. 1770 Washington Street. No. 2,876,452 Eternity Street. Minus seven Insanity Street.… Anywhere you like.”… Dropping the window shade, Cleghorn went to the coat room for his hat and coat. A young man came in, stamping snow off his feet on the marble floor. “A taxi,” said Cleghorn to Peters, the doorman. “There’s one at the door now, sir.” “Oh, is there? Thanks.”… A large snowflake crashed coldly into his left ear. “Rowe’s Wharf!” he shouted to the driver, who as he inclined his face to listen reached a hand to turn down the flag.

The taxi bumped softly through the snow, while Cleghorn smoked a cigarette. Swarms of flakes flew past the windows. The streets were almost deserted. They passed an electric snowplow moaning along the car tracks with slipping wheels. Delightful, to be running away like this—not a soul in the world knew where he was. Old Henry, bungling stupidly off to the hospital in Brookline to watch the death of Mrs. Feldeinsamkeit; Clara, reading a magazine before a fire of wet logs; Lulu, the star-spangled queen coming down to the footlights, rubbing one pink knee rhythmically, caressingly against the other, and singing “Come on, take a chance, and we’ll dance to that syncopated mellow-dee”; while he, in a taxi, smoking, escaped through the wild, wild night, soundless and trackless. Was Henry in love with Clara? Ha, ha! what an idea. Let him have her, then. A good solution.… “Are you dying, Mrs. Feldeinsamkeit?…” “Dying, doctor, dying.”… “Give me your rings then, and your gold watch with the lock of hair in it, and the twenty-dollar gold-piece which you wear round your neck. Sign your name along the dotted line, or, if you cannot see, make a cross. You hereby solemnly declare that you are about to die; that you are already dead from the soles of your feet to your breastbone; that you have no longer a heart, or any of the grosser appetites, or a digestive system; that you have only the signal beauty of your face and the waning light of your brain, and these, too, presently being dead, you will be dead forever. You give me your solemn oath that you will not again countenance existence in the flesh or in the spirit, in this world or in any other. In witness whereof you affix hereto your name, FELDEINSAMKEIT.”… “I swear.”… “Nurse, remove the pillow from beneath her head. Feldeinsamkeit is dead. Strip the sheet from this emaciated corpse. She died young.…” The funeral comes next. Died: Clara Feldeinsamkeit, of a loss of blood. The corpse, corrupt, is hermetically sealed to prevent botulism. The horses are lashed, they gallop, an endless procession of galloping black horses. Farewell, Feldeinsamkeit! Up the vast pyramid of eternity you go, the rain-maned horses silhouetted galloping against the sky, hoofs crashing against rock. Poise the coffin on the pinnacle—she is lost in the Feldewigkeit.… And Clara turns the page, sighing, looks at the clock, looks at her watch, and reads on. “Darling! Your violet eyes! Your eyes which are pools in which irises have been drowned! Speak to me! Tell me that it is not true, that it is only a hideous dream, a fearful nightmare!… Speak!… SPEAK!…” It was the bronzed young engineer who was thus imploring the heroine to speak. Ah—it was only too true.… Among the drowned irises something moved, it was there that the alligator had laid her eggs. The little alligators swarmed, grinning.… Bong, bong; half-past nine, and Clara, lifting her left leg off her right leg, and then the right leg onto the left leg, rustling, reads on.… And the star-spangled Lulu undulates in the purple and green light, undulates, oscillates, swaggles, singing, “The world goes round, to the sound, of a syncopated mellow-dee.”…

Rowe’s Wharf. The elevated was a fantastic structure of iron and snow. The taxi stood in the snow like a sinking ship—snowflakes swirled about it as Cleghorn fished out the dollar and a half for the driver. “Good night!” he shouted, and began plunging through drifts of slushy snow toward the brightly lighted Bar, before the steamed windows of which he could see that the sidewalk had been partially cleared and strewn with wet sawdust. The word Bar on the left window had lost its white enamel R, and become a bleat. Bar—bar—black sheep, come and have a pull. Yes, sir, yes, sir, three barrels full.

At the long bar of polished wood, on which at regular intervals were small potted palm trees, a straggling line of men leaned or stood in the various stages of lifting up or putting down their glasses, their feet on the railing, hats pushed back on backs of heads. At the farther end he could see Tom, shaking something in a cocktail shaker. He was talking, and shaking as he talked, and making, as he always did, a ritual of it; the glittering shaker was moved not only back and forth, but rose and fell in graceful curves from white stomach to blue chin, from blue chin to white stomach, twinkling. Moving nearer, he heard the cold rattle of the ice in it. And he saw that Tom was talking to Jerry Zimmerman, a disreputable young lawyer.

“Hello, Tom and Jerry!” he said, slapping Jerry on the back.

“Well, if it isn’t old Charlie-horse,” cried Jerry. Cleghorn shook hands solemnly with Tom.

“How’re they hanging, Tom?”

“Oh, up and down, up and down,” said Tom with a grin. “How is it by you?”

“Dry,” said Cleghorn. “Let me have one of those, Tom. Well seasoned.”

“Seasoned is the word.”

“Have one, Jerry?”

“Don’t mind if I do.”

Tom produced a small flask from his hip pocket, seasoned the ginger ale, and they drank. “To crime,” said Jerry. “Happy days,” said Cleghorn, and gave a loud smack over the emptied glass.… “Another?” Jerry’s dishonest face twinkled. “A hundred more.” said Cleghorn.… Tom produced the flask again, extracted the loose cork with his teeth, poured the ginger ale, poured the whisky, smiled wearily. “It’s a great life if you don’t weaken,” he murmured. “Snowing still?”

“Snowing like hell. Snowing like the devil. And I’m a long, long way from home.”

“It’s the wrong way to tickle Mary,” said Jerry, swaying against the bar.

“Hello! I believe Jerry’s got a little slant on!”

“He’d oughter have,” said Tom, “the amount he carries. A regular watering cart.”

Jerry beamed, dishonestly affectionate, subtly oscillating. “You said it, Tom. Strong waters run deep.”

“Well, I’ll soon be with you,” said Cleghorn. “Wait for me there. Have another?”

“Now don’t you tempt me, Charlie.”

“No, I wouldn’t think of it. Make it two, Tom.”

Ten minutes later, Cleghorn felt the blood swarm suddenly against his temples, something changed in his ears, and the whole hot smoky room seemed to be singing with a sound like telephone wires in a wind. He smiled at his glass.

“There’s a wind blowing here,” he said, “with furies in it.”

“You don’t say so,” said Tom, wiping a glass. “There’s a lot of them round this year. Good-sized ones, too.”

“From Brookline, I don’t doubt. There’s a funeral there today.”

Jerry hiccoughed, candidly. Then, smiling loosely:

“A funeral? Who’s dead?”

“Clara.… Feldeinsamkeit.”

“Oh? Hup. No friend of mine. Never even heard of her.”

“She died at curfew. Of botulism. I had a vision of it when I was in the taxi.”

“Acute or chronic?”

“Acute.”

“I hope she had an easy passage. Must be a rough night on the Styx.”

“She gave her oath she’d never live again. Swore on the telephone directory.”

Jerry closed his narrow eyes, rubbed his forehead. “Something’s wrong with me,” he said. “I can’t understand a word you’re saying. What was that?”

“Acute bottleism,” said Tom. “You’ve both got it.”

“And the doctor was a brute,” said Cleghorn. “Told the nurse to pull the pillow out from under her head! I distinctly heard him. And then they stripped the sheet off.… Still, there was nothing left of her anyway.”

“No, there wouldn’t be,” said Tom. “Them furies” (he winked at Jerry) “eat out a man from the inside, like. There’s nothing will stop them once they get a hold of you. And they’re particularly bad this winter. I hear they come from New Jersey.”

“It’s mosquitoes,” said Jerry, pawing a vague foot vainly at the rail.

“Nothing left but the head, which was shining, but dimming, if you see what I mean, like a lamp going out. The doctor said something to her about her waning brain. When it went out, they had the funeral.”

“As quick as that!” said Tom, laconically.

Jerry got his foot onto the rail. “I’m damned if I like this conversation,” he said, and put the bottom of his empty glass against his forehead.

“Thousands of black horses. Millions of black horses. All galloping. Up the edge of a pyramid. They poised her coffin on the pinnacle; Mrs. Feldeinsamkeit.”

“Was she a friend of yours?” Tom wiped the counter, lifting the glasses. He refilled the glasses, and Jerry put down a dollar and a half. Cleghorn smiled, pushing up his gray mustache toward his spectacles. He wagged a mysterious finger, leaning forward on the bar. His hat was over his left ear.

“Ah! Now you’re asking a question. The question of questions.… Where’s Jerry?”

“Here,” said Jerry, disembodied, in a voice which went round and round the room like a planet, whizzing and ringing.

“I thought you’d gone.… And I want you both to hear this; I want your advice.”

“Good advice,” murmured Tom, looking toward the other end of the room with a jaded eye, “is what I don’t give nothing else except.”

“This Feldeinsamkeit,” pursued Cleghorn, confidingly, “is really my wife.”

Tom looked surprised.

“What!” he said.

“But she’s not dead. Not yet.”

“Not yet!…” Jerry set his glass down rather hard. “What’s the idea?”

“Feldeinsamkeit is just a name I chose for her.”

“An affectionate little nickname,” said Tom.

“A disguise.… It means I want to kill her.”

“Oh, is that all! Why didn’t you say so?”

“It’s what I’ve been telling you all this time, only you’re so slow.…”

Cleghorn became morose. He looked down at his wet feet, which he saw standing all by themselves in wet sawdust. He felt baffled. There was something locked, which he couldn’t open. He moved his right foot over a dead match. The idea went up like a kite, swooping, with a long tail of jingling sleigh bells, and darted out of sight.

“Yes; I’m going to do it tonight. A bath of blood. The hateful body must be deposed. Down with the digestive organs!”

Jerry gave a sudden whoop of laughter, stared, and gave another whoop.

“A padded cell,” he said, “and meals in paper saucers, through a little window.… Ha, ha!”

“Don’t be an idiot,” said Cleghorn. Then he shouted: “Don’t be an idiot!”

He became absorbed in a strange weaving and unweaving network of sounds, sounds which seemed to be visible as little shivering evanescent cords. The knots gleamed and dissolved. Jink—jink went the cash register. A lot of words were all spoken at once. Tom and Jerry were talking to each other very far away. Tom looked at him, then back at Jerry, shaking his head. “No!” said a voice. “I tell you—” said another. The front door opened, a draft came in, a man went out. Snow.

“I’ll think I’ll go out”—his own voice—“and stand on my head in the snow. Keep my hat.”

He put his hat over his glass on the counter. Jerry took his arm.

“You stay here, Charlie. You’re all right—I’ll look after you.”

“No!”

“Yes!”

Jerry was putting his hat back on his head, a little uncertainly. Cleghorn felt like crying.

“You’re a good scout, Zimmerman, even if you are a crook.”

“Sure I am.… You come along with me, now.”

“I want to talk to Tom!” cried Cleghorn despairingly. “I want to tell him about Lulu, star-spangled queen!”

“Tom’ll wait for us.”

“Sure I’ll wait for you.” Tom grinned, rattling his knuckles on the counter. “You just walk round the block.”

… Outside, he tried to get away from Jerry’s arm and slipped in the half-melted snow. They both floundered. He took a series of deep drinks of cold air, and the snowflakes, touching his cheeks and forehead, made him feel intelligent. He threw back his head and laughed.

“Drunk as a fish! But I’m beginning to feel sober now.… I understand everything.”

“This air’ll do us both good.”

“Lots of air tonight, like sherbet. Have a quart, Jerry. Eat it.… Was that a clock striking?”

“No—signal on a ferryboat.”

“I thought it was midnight—the beginning of my anniversary.”

“What anniversary?”

Jerry spoke absent-mindedly—he was looking for a cab. Not a cab in sight. He dragged Cleghorn along toward the South Station, where there would be sure to be one. Cleghorn slipped again and lunged violently against him, gasping. The snow was beginning to stop.

“Wedding,” said Cleghorn. “Married life—take my advice—don’t ever marry!”

“I’m married already.”

“Well, then, you fool, don’t marry again.… Where are we? On the Great White Way? Ha! I know. What we want to go to is No. 8,756,432 Infinity Street. Or minus seven Insanity Street.… One of those houses where cab drivers take you if you give them five dollars.… This isn’t the way!”

“Don’t be an ass, Charlie—come on!”

“Don’t you call me an ass, you cheap shyster!… Where are we going?”

“If you don’t shut up and behave yourself I’ll leave you right here.”

“Leave me, then!… Oh, God, how rotten I feel … like the bottom of a bird-cage.”

They walked for several blocks in silence, plunging and slipping in the soft snow. Water dripped heavily from eaves, pitting the sodden white banks. Drops flashed slowly from rims of arc lamps. The ferries could be heard hooting in the harbor, and a train, casting brilliant lights on the snow, rattled along the elevated, rhythmically clanking.

“There’s a cab,” said Zimmerman. “Come on—make an effort. Farthest north.”

They plunged across the wide square filled with brown slush. Cleghorn was half pushed, half lifted into the cab, and sank back on the seat. An effort, he thought, an effort. Zimmerman, outside, murmured something to the driver. Mumble, mumble. The driver took something out of his pocket and gave it to Zimmerman.… “Ta-ta!” shouted Zimmerman, but Cleghorn, staring, made no reply. Zimmerman vanished from the window, the dark world swirled, water swashed, and Cleghorn shut his eyes. Zimmerman had gone. Where? Into the Feldewigkeit.… Surprising.… Gone down like a ship in a fog.… Clara Feldewigkeit, with violet eyes, bleeding to death, smiled while she read a magazine. She rustled and tinkled. “Why, Charlie! What have you—”

… He was suddenly aroused by the opening of the cab door. The driver was looking in at him.

“Here you are,” he said—“Want to get out?”

Cleghorn stared. It was his own house. It was dark—Clara had gone to bed. He let himself in and stood in the hall—not a sound. Removing his wet shoes he went softly up the stairs, holding to the banisters. Clara’s door was shut. He went into his own room, undressed in the dark, and went to bed. Midnight began to strike on Clara’s clock.… No, it wasn’t a bell—it was the ringing, the clashing of hoofs. A parade. A warm sunny day in spring. The escort came galloping first on black horses, their swords flashing. Then came a white horse. It was being ridden by a girl—but she was enclosed in a glass case which was strapped to the horse’s back. Then he noticed that she was only a head and arms—she had no body. She wore an enormous wide-rimmed black hat, and her face was beautiful. Her arms were bare, and she held the reins in her hands. She looked neither to left nor right, the horse galloped, and she was gone. Farewell, Feldeinsamkeit!