New York · THE VIKING PRESS · Mcmxxvii
Copyright, 1927, by The Viking Press, Inc.
PRINTED IN U. S. A.
First Edition, October, 1927
Second printing before publication
Third printing, November, 1927
To My Sister
L. R. B.
My Heart and My Flesh
PROLOGUE
As a child, Luce was running to the store to get a small can of oil, for it was growing dark and she had the lamp to fill. Across the street the lamp-lighter was lifting a burning swab of waste to the street-lamp, a gasoline lamp on the top of a high post. The lamp-lighter stood on a ladder to lift the brand, and when the lamp was lit he would take the ladder on his shoulder and walk away at an even step, the same yesterday and the same tomorrow. When he had new shoes the step was marked with crying leather. She ran past the lamp-lighter hardly giving a moment to look at him, for she knew all his ways and all his motions, all the rhythms of his feet. The street-lamp made a thin, feeble light when there was any day left in the air, but the lighter had to start on his rounds early to have all the lamps ready by the time the dark came to the last one at the end of Hill Street. The lamp flickered dimly in the light of day that was left in the air, but after a little a passer would be glad for the glow; it showed the way to the pump and helped one over the well-curb and over the stones at the crossing. On dark nights when there was a wind the mules in the livery stable cried out with great cries. There would be a wind that night making little wells of feeling pool up in one’s chest, and a thought of Mome, the city, came to her mind.
There, in Mome, all the lights were electric, and there was one great light over all the place, a high great light like a sun. It shone down on the streets and on the tall house where Mr. Preston, the richest man in the world, kept his money—the money house—and on the fountains in the square. It made a great sheet of light that spread over Mome as a sunset would spread over a hill. But there were dark alleyways for all that, and dark doorways, and at the thought deep wells of feeling would pool up in one’s chest, dark roadways and deep doorways and dark lanes where wheels had cut deep tracks. There would be houses standing high above lanes and late wagons going down into the dark. There would be a little light at the corner, electric but very little, blinking in the fog. A thief would be slipping down a dark lane with—what? one could never think what—in his hand.