I
Scene, a saloon where both men and women are drinking. One of them, a girl, thinks she sees at the window the face of Christ with his tender eyes. She leaves and will not permit the others to go with her.
At a little distance she comes upon the stranger waiting for her. He tells her that when she wakes it will be to a new life and she will be his, bidding her go to a house he points out and remain for the night. She obeys, and the man passes into the shadow.
Introductory sentence in the original, giving the atmosphere of the story: "This was the story the mystic told." Concluding sentence in the original, connecting it with our sense of unfathomable mysteries: "And this the listener gravely asked, 'One was chosen, the others left. Were the others less in need of grace?'"
Divisions of the story. 1. Visualizing description of the saloon and of the street outside through which the stranger passes.
2. Appearance of the face at the pane and its effect on the young girl (m3 "effect"). This is the difficult part of the story, and the reader can be made to believe in it only through sympathy with the girl's feeling.
3. The talk of her companions and her answers (m3).
4. Her search for the stranger in the night (m3).
5. His talk to her when she finds him.
This story in the original contains a little less than two thousand words. It will be seen at once that unless handled in such fashion as to appeal vividly to the imagination, a story with this for its theme will seem weak and unreal. It must be made as suggestive as possible or it will fail. It preaches, but it must avoid the air of preaching. Consider carefully how you would present the stranger—whether first at the window or before—so as to affect the reader with a sense of something more than human in him.