After the doctor left, as the nurse was with him, she walked up and down the halls, too restless to be quiet.
At the end of one hall she could look down on the fragrant leafy park. Yes, summer was nigh. Where a little while before had been only white blossoms, there were fewer white now, more pink, some red, many to match the yellow of the sun. The whole hillside of swaying; boughs seemed to quiver with happiness. Her eyes wandered farther down to the row of houses at the foot of the park. She could see the dreadful spot on the street, the horrible spot. She could see her shattered window-panes up above. The points of broken glass still seemed to slit the flesh of her hands within their bandages.
She shrank back and walked to the end of the transverse hall. Across the road was the cathedral. The morning service was just over. People were pouring out through the temporary side doors and the temporary front doors so placidly, so contentedly! Some were evidently strangers; as they reached the outside they turned and studied the cathedral curiously as those who had never before seen it. Others turned and looked at it familiarly, with pride in its unfolding form. Some stopped and looked down at the young grass, stroking it with the toes of their fine shoes; they were saying how fresh and green it was. Some looked up at the sky; they were saying how blue it was. Some looked at one another keenly; they were discussing some agreeable matter, being happy to get back to it now after the service. Not one of them looked across at the hospital. Not a soul of them seemed to be even aware of its existence. Not a soul of them!
Particularly her eyes became riveted upon two middle-aged ladies in black who came out through a side door of the cathedral—slow-paced women, bereft, full of pity. As they crossed the yard, a gray squirrel came jumping along in front of them on its way to the park. One stooped and coaxed it and tried to pet it: it became a vital matter with both of them to pour out upon the little creature which had no need of it their pent-up, ungratified affection. With not a glance to the window where she stood, with her mortal need of them, her need of all mothers, of everybody—her mortal need of everybody! Why were they not there at his bedside? Why had they not heard? Why had not all of them heard? Why had anything else been talked of that day? Why were they not all massed around the hospital doors, tearful with their sympathies? How could they hold services in the cathedral—the usual services? Why was it not crowded to the doors with the clergy of all faiths and the lay men of every land, lifting one outcry against such destruction? Why did they not stop building temples to God, to the God of life, to the God who gave little children, until they had stopped the massacre of children, His children in the streets!
Yes; everybody had been kind. Even his little rivals who had fought with him over the sale of papers had given up some of their pennies and had bought flowers for him, and one of them had brought their gift to the main hospital entrance. Every day a shy group of them had gathered on the street while one came to inquire how he was. Kindness had rained on her; there was that in the sight of her that unsealed kindness in every heart.
She had been too nearly crazed to think of this. Her bitterness and anguish broke through the near cordon of sympathy and went out against the whole brutal and careless world that did not care—to legislatures that did not care, to magistrates that did not care, to juries that did not care, to officials that did not care, to drivers that did not care, to the whole city that did not care about the massacre in the streets.
Through the doors of the cathedral the people streamed out unconcerned. Beneath her, along the street, young couples passed, flushed with their climb of the park hillside, and flushed with young love, young health. Sometimes they held each other's hands; they innocently mocked her agony with their careless joy.
One last figure issued from the side door of the cathedral hurriedly and looked eagerly across at the hospital—looked straight at her, at the window, and came straight toward the entrance below—the choir-master. She had not sent word to him or to any one about the accident; but he, when his new pupil had failed to report as promised, had come down to find out why. And he, like all the others, had been kind; and he was coming now to inquire what he could do in a case where nothing could be done. She knew only too well that nothing could be done.
The bright serene hours of the day passed one by one with nature's carelessness about the human tragedy. It was afternoon and near the hour for the choral even-song across the way at the cathedral, the temporary windows of which were open.