BOOK ONE
REPATRIATION
I
Dan Failing stepped out of the elevator and was at once absorbed in the crowd that ever surged up and down Broad Street. Where the crowd came from, or what it was doing, or where it was going was one of the mysteries of Gitcheapolis. It appealed to a person rather as does a river: eternal, infinite, having no control over its direction or movement, but only subject to vast, underlying natural laws. In this case, the laws were neither gravity nor cohesion, but rather unnamed laws that go clear back to the struggle for existence and self-preservation. Once in the crowd, Failing surrendered up all individuality. He was just one of the ordinary drops of water, not an interesting, elaborate, physical and chemical combination to be studied on the slide of a microscope. No one glanced at him in particular. He was enough like the other drops of water not to attract attention. He wore fairly passable clothes, neither rich nor shabby. He was a tall man, but gave no impression of strength because of the exceeding spareness of his frame. As long as he remained in the crowd, he wasn't important enough to be studied. But soon he turned off, through the park, and straightway found himself alone.
The noise and bustle of the crowd—never loud or startling, but so continuous that the senses are scarcely more aware of them than of the beating of one's own heart—suddenly and utterly died almost at the very border of the park. It was as if an ax had chopped them off, and left the silence of the wild place. The gravel path that slanted through the green lawns did not lead anywhere in particular. It made a big loop and came out almost where it went in. Perhaps that is the reason that the busy crowds did not launch forth upon it. Crowds, like electricity, take the shortest course. Moreover, the hour was still some distance from noon, and the afternoon pleasure seekers had not yet come. But the morning had advanced far enough so that all the old castaways that had slept in the park had departed. Dan had the path all to himself.
Although he had plenty of other things to think about, the phenomena of the sudden silence came home to him very straight indeed. The noise from the street seemed wholly unable to penetrate the thick branches of the trees. He could even hear the leaves whisking and flicking together, and when a man can discern this, he can hear the cushions of a mountain lion on a trail at night. Of course Dan Failing had never heard a mountain lion. Except on the railroad tracks between, he had never really been away from cities in his life.
At once his thought went back to the doctor's words. Dan had a very retentive memory, as well as an extra fine imagination. The two always seem to go together. The words were still repeating themselves over and over in his ears, and the doctor's face was still before his eyes. It had been a kind face; the lips had even curled in a little smile of encouragement. But the doctor had been perfectly frank, entirely straightforward. Dan was glad that he had. At least, he was rid of the dreadful uncertainty. There had been no evasion in his verdict.
"I've made every test," he said. "They're pretty well shot. Of course, you can go to some sanitarium, if you've got the money. If you haven't—enjoy yourself all you can for about six months."