Futurist Stories Part 12

IT had been a moment of triumph.

THEN, out of nothing--with no tie to the absorbing pa.s.sing moment, the image of her mother rose in her thought.

THE triumph gave way to a new compelling mood. She was choosing between two loves--

WITH cold, calculating eyes he had watched her as she moved across the floor--

A GRACEFUL figure in pink.

NO one saw her as she slipped home--sad--the depths of her soul in burning conflict. The flowers she held fell unnoticed.

THE greatest struggle of her life.

DAWN found her still fighting against the overpowering yearning.

FOR months she struggled.

HER art increased.

A DYING part of Lydia gave power to a new-born personality--strong deep-seeing character grew up from the ashes of her former light self.

THIS afternoon, sitting on the great divan, she reflected and understood.

PERHAPS she had overcome months before.

TILL now she had not known.

AT last--only ashes--where once had been love--

HE stood there--looking at her.

SHE saw him only as a stranger--

SHE did not know him--save his name--

THE new Lydia--the artist--could find nothing in common, no union of thought.

WHAT strange lost element in her had once loved this man--

LYDIA--risen from the ashes--walked out into the snow and cold. She felt her release to a new freedom. She could meet him again--without harm--

ANYWHERE--

AT any time--

HE was a stranger.

NANCY TURNER

NANCY TURNER, Teacher of Dancing.

THIS inscription engraved on a bra.s.s plate had become as familiar to me as the grim row of terraces and the solemn-looking door to which it was nailed. How many times had I not pa.s.sed it, as I walked from my house to my place of business. Pa.s.sed it on snowy mornings and gray misty evenings, or in the summer time when birds chirruped and sang and the sun smiled down upon the earth. I had read it over and over again, as I was wont to do the names of the streets and squares, especially on my homeward walk. L---- Street--a turn to the right, the inscription on the door, B---- square--and I was already half-way home to my cheerful fireside, to my books and my violin; where Shakespeare, Milton and Beethoven would be ready at my whispered call to help me while away the hours of the evening.

BUT once as I pa.s.sed this certain row of terraces, something, hitherto unknown, seemed to take possession of me. I began to see the sign in a new light and wondered why I had taken it for granted all these years,--and never once thought that indeed Nancy Turner must be a real person. It was true that I had never seen anyone enter the house, but then I pa.s.sed it at hours when people would not be likely to be taking dancing lessons. I began to wonder at my being so absent-minded that I could for years read these five words and never have them leave more than a slight impression.

AND suddenly I found myself wondering what sort of person this dancing teacher was. Surely young and talented, perhaps even beautiful. I mused about her half the way home. I even wove some strange and fanciful day dreams about her--when to my sorrow I remembered I was no longer young!

AND therefore Nancy Turner was also middle-aged. For had not the inscription bearing her name been on that door ever since I was a young boy--perhaps long before my time.

FOR days I thought about her and failed in explanations to myself, of my sudden strange fascination for an unknown name.

THE days flew by, and my curiosity to meet and talk with her only increased.

SO one cold and gloomy evening I took courage and knocked at her door.

TO my surprise the gruff voice of a man bade me enter. I found myself in a small room, blue with smoke and poorly furnished. An old man was cooking supper, as he hummed some weird old gypsy tune. He seemed scarcely to notice me and displayed neither surprise nor dissatisfaction at my sudden appearance. I murmured some excuse about being in the wrong house, that I was looking for Nancy Turner in order to learn about some of the newest dance steps.

AND now you know the story of my life, of hers, and of your own, he said with a sigh. Strange that I should have asked your name. And stranger still that you came here as if led by the hand of Fate. But now that we have discovered that we are half brothers I hope you will come often to chat with me, here in this house where we were both born. I will tell you more about our beautiful mother, of her fame when she danced at the opera, of the days long ago when she and my father and I lived here so happily, of the tragedy--but no--let us forget the past. She forgave--therefore our friends.h.i.+p must be without shadow from the start.

THE p.a.w.n-SHOP KEEPER

I am an old man and life has long since lost the glamor it once held for me. The thrills of youth are no more, novelty is a forgotten word, and things that once would have made my heart leap now leave me cold. Old age indeed is in itself a punishment for the follies of youth and sad is it to await alone the coming of death without some loved face near. For one by one the friends of bygone days have dropped by the roadside and I have been left alone to follow my weary way. Happy they who die while still young and do not know the solitude of a lonely old man.

Day after day, as I sit behind my counter, or warm my old hands by the cheerful blaze of the fire, do customers come to me to buy something or perhaps to sell some loved relic in order that they may live.

ALL of them faces strange and new. They look at me as if to say Why this one dried leaf of another year left on this tree? Aye, and why am I left--Why among these young, green leaves am I the only withered one?

Why were no companions left to cheer me?

But these are questions I can not answer, for I know not the ways of G.o.d.

As I sit here musing over the past, faces I have known come back to me and I love to wonder what fate held in store for them, as advancing, the filmy mists of their futures were slowly lifted until the last veil was drawn back and the story of their lives was told.

The snow is falling and covering in white the grim rows of houses opposite my little shop, the streets are deserted save by a few hurrying pedestrians and some merry school children going down to the frozen river for an hour's skating before dusk--