William Jordan, Junior

by J. C. Snaith

“For a whole year the delicate and youthful creature stayed in this little room; yet all through those wonderful months her great eyes were ever haunted by fear. Sometimes in the midnight hours she would listen there against the shutters, as so many times, Achilles, you have also listened, at the wind in the chimneys and the great roar of London, and she would say in a voice that thrilled with terror, yet half-choked by the beatings of her heart, ‘I am thinking of that night in which the streets of the great city will call to me. For I was born in the streets of the great city, and my blood must ever obey their cry.’

“To myself, Achilles, that year in which the woman remained with me in the little room was crowded with an experience that was rich and rare, which my mind, widely furnished as it was with the ancient and modern authors, and fortified also with the infinite wisdom of the Book of the Ages, had never known before. But as the months passed, and the delicate and frail creature grew beautiful in my sight—so beautiful that I would pray sometimes that I might die before her beauty faded—I began to understand that it was not in the power even of this little room of ours to retain the possession of a thing so exquisite.

“I would lie with her all night with her hand in mine, fearful lest all unknown to me she should hear the cry of the streets in the never-ceasing voice of the great city, and that I should awake in the morning and find her gone. And many times did I turn to the Book for solace and counsel; and the Book declared that he who would retain his treasure must first write his page therein.

“Now although I kept my knees unceasingly to the floor of this little room, polished smooth by many kneelings, it was not given to me to write in the Book. And the fear mounted in my heart that when the streets of the great city uttered their cry, this little room would not be able to resist it. And the frail and delicate creature knew it also; for she would sit there in that old chair in which you, my beloved Achilles, have been wont to sit so long at the ancient authors, and I have seen the grey tears course down her thin and pale cheeks. ‘The cry of the streets of the great city will soon be heard now,’ she would say mournfully, ‘it may summon me at any moment now.’

“As her time came near, in my despair and my anguish I took a vainglorious vow. I swore upon the Book of the Ages that my child should be born here in this little room. Night and day I kept vigil over that frail and beautiful form, lest it should be spirited away with that cry which it could not resist. As each new day seemed about to herald the pangs of her labour, only to postpone them ere it was out, I sought by all the means in my power not to fail for a single instant in my vigil. I took potent drugs to banish sleep from my eyes. For I came to know that the instant sleep overpowered me, the streets of the great city would utter their cry.

“And so it was. For more than a week had I with my frantic vigilance kept my weariness at bay, when one night as I was still conning the Book for the sustenance in which I had never stood in such dire need, and the frail, unhappy creature sat there in the chair weeping softly, with her eyes haunted by an ever-deepening terror, she cried out despairingly, ‘Hark, I hear the voice of the streets rising above the roar of the great city. I must go, I must go; I can never bear a man-child in this little room of yours. It is written in my heart that I must bear it in the streets.’

“The wildly terrified creature rose from the chair. Her eyes were such that I dare not look upon.

“‘The streets are calling to me,’ she wailed piteously. ‘I must bear my man-child in the streets of the great city.’

“And as I rose to take her in my arms, and to withhold her by main force from her purpose, for her slender fingers were already upon the door, I was overcome by the decree of nature. Stupefied by the fatigues of many days, I sank back in my chair, with my head sunk upon the open pages of the Book, asleep.

“When I awoke the sun was high in the heavens of a bright and beautiful winter’s day. There was a thick mantle of snow on the tiles and the chimney-stacks, and the untrodden pavement of the little yard without the door. I found myself to be shivering in every limb; the fire had passed many hours from the grate in the little room; but the chill that was upon everything was as nought to that which bound the strings of my heart. For the unhappy creature had gone forth into the snow of the streets of the great city, so that her man-child might there be born.