The galop moves faster, wilder. The chain in the center is flung together in a heap, those at the end are almost scattered. The last one waves his arm in the air. The noise sickens me.
The floor of my room quivers. I will go down, I will go down to them....
But not yet....
III
It is done....
How shall I bring myself to believe it, how tell myself it is true, that it is done, that it is an accomplished fact? And why is it that an absurd recollection obsesses me instead of the thing that has just taken place? Recollections are not considerate. They thrust themselves upon you willy-nilly.... It was one day when I was still little and wore my hair in a plait down my back tied with a red ribbon. An idea struck me and set me all a-quiver, to surprise my mother by secretly filling her vase with flowers, the beautiful blue vase with the band of gold, erect on its massive pedestal like a slim thing on a throne. I was very careful, I held my breath, my movements were sedulously controlled.... The vase toppled and made a clear, ringing sound. I can still hear it. My father came in unexpectedly. He stopped—he always was severe—took me by the shoulder, and shook me like a wind-tossed sapling. Then he dragged me to my room and on the threshold gave me a slap which sent me staggering. There was a whistling in my ears. I was drunk, dazed, completely bewildered.... Then he shut the door.
When I came to my senses, I ran to the glass, I don't know why, for nothing, "just to see." A wine-colored mark streaked with red was spreading over my cheek. I held the back of my hand up and felt the glow even without touching it.
It was burning, but, oddly enough, it did not hurt. I was conscious of not suffering pain, and instantly a sadness filled me, utter and sudden as a bitter flood. I didn't know why I was sad. Even now I only glimpse the reason imperfectly. Children who are simple are also more subtle than we. It was my fate to be defrauded, not to have a definite reason for shedding tears over myself, not to suffer in real earnest from an undeserved punishment, not to be able to cherish the compensation or possess the impregnable asylum, the inexhaustible resource that grief always is. It was when I touched my cheek which did not hurt that I threw myself on my bed crying, alone, yes really alone for the first time. And to-night it is just the same way.
I have run away from home. Here I am cast out on the street in the night. There is a fine blinding sleet; I do not know as yet where I am going to spend the night, but that doesn't hurt any more than the slap on my cheek hurt. Am I unfeeling? I push on straight ahead, the houses follow one another, the streets meet and cross, the separate shadows are only one and the same shadow. I stop now and then arrested by the consciousness of having forgotten to suffer.
I have been walking a good hour.