position in the world, but for the moment, you see, I wanted this other
woman to be in my arms. She had worked her way into my being. On all
sides people were saying I was a big man who would do big things, and
there I was. That evening when I went to the theatre I walked home
because I knew I would be unable to sleep, and to satisfy the annoying
impulse in myself I went and stood on the sidewalk before the tobacco
shop. It was a two story building, and I knew the woman lived upstairs
with her husband. For a long time I stood in the darkness with my body
pressed against the wall of the building, and then I thought of the two
of them up there and no doubt in bed together. That made me furious.

"Then I grew more furious with myself. I went home and got into bed,
shaken with anger. There are certain books of verse and some prose
writings that have always moved me deeply, and so I put several books
on a table by my bed.

"The voices in the books were like the voices of the dead. I did not
hear them. The printed words would not penetrate into my consciousness.
I tried to think of the woman I loved, but her figure had also become
something far away, something with which I for the moment seemed to
have nothing to do. I rolled and tumbled about in the bed. It was a
miserable experience.

"On Thursday morning I went into the store. There stood the woman
alone. I think she knew how I felt. Perhaps she had been thinking of me
as I had been thinking of her. A doubtful hesitating smile played about
the corners of her mouth. She had on a dress made of cheap cloth and
there was a tear on the shoulder. She must have been ten years older
than myself. When I tried to put my pennies on the glass counter,
behind which she stood, my hand trembled so that the pennies made a