So I dragged myself out again into the spring air and walked wearily toward the park. There, reaching a bench, I sank down and thought at last I could relax undisturbed. But a drunken man came and sat beside me and nudged my elbow, so I rose and moved away and wondered if there were any place in the whole wide world where one could be really alone and unimbittered.

Friendship, art and all the things I cherished seemed to have failed me. Suddenly I thought of death!

Then, meditating on the last long sleep, a sense of great peace and the solitude I had longed for came over me....

But only for a brief instant, because I remembered with anguish that, even in death, one could not be alone; and the thought of overcrowded and congested cemeteries filled my soul with horror; and I shuddered!

JOY

I looked out of the window at the snow on the ground and something in the sunlight made me throw aside my books and go out.

I do not recall how I reached there, but I found myself in the heart of the park, and maybe because it was so early, or I do not know quite why,-- it seemed empty,--I looked across the white stretch of glistening snow and my heart beat with joy at being alone. Suddenly something very odd happened to me:

Everything and everyone in my life seemed to drop away from me; I felt as though my spirit had been freed and as if no harm could ever come to me again.

So I laughed and blew my breath out in the cold air and waved it good-bye, and I shouted aloud and tossed the snow from side to side with my feet. I knew you would be waiting for me and be angry, but that and all things else seemed very remote and far away, so I dismissed it from my mind and did not think of it again.

Then I pretended I was Columbus discovering America and I called out “land ahead.” But after, I changed and pretended I was Jeanne d’Arc leading the French army, and all the while sang the Marseillaise because it thrilled me so and I waved my arms and danced.

Then I decided to be the wind, and I ran as fast as I could and fell down in the snow, jumped up again and laughed some more.

I threw kisses and made faces at the sun and I tried to catch the little diamonds that gleamed on the snow,--but each one lured me on to another, until it seemed like an eternal mirage,--so I stood still, drew a long breath and thanked God for Life!

Then as I walked on I felt that I possessed everything, because I had youth, health and ambition.

And the whole world seemed to be stretching out its alluring hands before me with wonderful rose-tipped fingers!

DESPAIR

One day I said, “There is no such thing as love,” and something closed up within me; and although I looked upon people I knew I did not see them. Some horrible apprehension seemed to grip at my heart with ice-boned hands. I felt nauseated and sick.

I went home and closed my door and, for the first time in my life, threw my books into a corner and broke my pens and pencils.

After that outburst I sat down and tried to think, but all my thoughts seemed draped in long garbs of black crepe that, stealing in and out through my mind like phantoms on tiptoe, gave me no peace.

I thought what a failure my life had been and I believed every one had deserted me. I longed to die!

I saw your roses, but I threw them on the floor and stepped on them because they seemed fresh and gay; and a thousand sad thoughts rushed through my mind, while I felt as if I were being oppressed by all the nightmares of the world and beating my soul against a closed iron door.

Then I remembered that people said “tears soothe the heart;” so I prayed to be allowed to weep, but instantly cursed myself for praying and cried aloud, “There is no God!”

And all night long I sat in darkness, staring into space with clenched hands, repeating the words over and over again, “No love, no hope”-- “No love, no hope”....

TENDERNESS

They always said of her that she was selfish and spoiled and that, although she lived in a big house and had everything in the world money could buy, no one really cared about her for herself.

They admitted she had beauty, but they said her face was hard and bitter and that her only power lay in her worldly prosperity, which had a certain empty, insincere following,--but that she had no real influence because she did not have a heart and no one loved her.

I used to hear them talking about her rudeness and her detached indifference, and they seemed to excite themselves greatly about her, and grow angry and shrug their shoulders; then they would always end by thanking God they were not like her.

After these discussions--in which I took no part--I always went home and thought about her.

And then one day I went to hear Kreisler play. I think he played more exquisitely than I had ever heard him before; perhaps it was the music of Beethoven that moved me so or, more likely, the mingling of both their spirits that tore so plaintively at my soul.

Whatever the cause, I felt a great spell upon me, and I saw nothing and was not conscious where I was until, suddenly and accidentally, my eyes fell upon her face; I was brought back to my surroundings,--and all the things I had heard about her came to me, and went crowding through my mind.

She was not alone in the box, although she sat apart in a corner, separated from the other people as it seemed to me she always was. She was leaning a bit forward with her hands clasping her knees, her lips a trifle apart and seeming singularly pale; but what I noticed most was the expression in her eyes, which had an entreaty and a pathos in them I had never seen in any face before,--and her mouth was strangely soft with a look of sweetness about its corners.

She was not looking at Kreisler, but gazing out before her as though at something we others could not see, and I was filled with a peculiar sensation that she understood and felt things which were remote from other people.

Then I looked away because somehow I felt as if I were spying at her with her mask off, and looking upon her soul!

The violin stopped and, as the last notes vibrated and died away and were swallowed up in the applause, I looked at her again.

Once more the hard look was on her face and the bitter pain in her eyes. I saw the people she was with exchange a casual remark with her, and then draw a little aside and talk among themselves.

All at once a great wave of tenderness came over me, and I longed with sudden eagerness to put my arms about her and draw her to me. I wanted to tell her not to be lonely and sad and bitter, because I knew she was not all they said she was, and all they had made her with their idle talk.

I wanted to hold her hand and tell her I understood and sympathized with her, and that I knew she only seemed all the things they said, simply because no one ever kissed her.

HURT FEELINGS

You remember of course the day I acted so queerly in your studio? How happy we were going up the stairs, and how we laughed and vowed it would be the most wonderful day we had ever spent!

“The day of days,” you called it.

And do you remember how I tripped and dropped the tea and sugar packages, and you dropped the cake in an effort to steady me--and how we sat down on the steps and laughed and laughed as though it was the funniest thing in the whole wide world?

And then in the corridor you would not let me open the door until you had kissed my hands.

But as soon as we were in the studio something seemed to snap within me, my mood changed entirely and I ceased to laugh; I put the packages on the table and was very quiet.

Of course you thought I had one of my old-time headaches, and you took out that absurd headache cologne--which never does the slightest bit of good-- and insisted upon spraying it over me.

And you tried to make me laugh again and kissed my neck, but in spite of the fact that you looked like an injured little child, I stood looking out of the window and, when you asked me what was the matter, I merely replied “nothing.”

Then in the face of all your desperate entreaties I left the studio, and went down the stairs out into the street....

I am sorry now I did it and, although I never meant to tell you the reason--now, because it all seems so trivial, I think I shall:

Do you remember how I stopped laughing the instant you opened the door? That was because I noticed at once the little plant I gave you was placed in a dark corner, withered and dead.

WEARINESS

No, I do not want to dance tonight, nor talk nor play. You think I am foolish because I want to sit here and stare into the night? I wonder! You say I am lazy? I wonder at that too. Well, no matter.

You go and dance and leave me here alone; then when you return you will tell me what you have accomplished by your dancing, and if you feel any the happier for it,--but no, do not bother-- I think I shall be too tired even to listen.

It is true you will be exercising your legs, but I shall sit here and travel far and wide among the stars-- and exercise my soul.

Do you know my body seems strangely lax tonight? I think I must be quite exhausted; and I am sure that I could sit here for years and years and never move a muscle or enter into life at all again. So tired am I.