Arrived at Louisville, we walked about to see the sights. There had been a great tornado a few days before, and the tremendous damage was still very much in evidence. Then we went to the principal hotel for dinner. My friend, with an effrontery which to me passed over into the realm of the unbelievable, registered for the four of us, taking two rooms. I never even saw the form of registration. Then we went up, and my girl companion, having by now concluded that I was a stick, went into the room whither W—— and his sweetheart had retired. W—— came to my room for me, and we went down to dinner. He even urged more boldness on my part.

After dinner, which passed heavily enough for me, for I was conscious of failure, we had five hours before our train should be due to return. That time was spent in part by myself and this girl idling in the general parlors, because W—— and his mate had mysteriously disappeared. Then after an hour or more they sought us out and suggested a drive. Since we had brought bags, we had to return to the hotel to get them and pay the bill. There was still three quarters of an hour. After perfecting her toilet in the room belonging to my friend, my girl came downstairs to the parlor and, a half hour later, just in time to make the train, W—— and his charmer appeared. The day was done. The opportunity gone. As in the previous cases, I heaped mounds of obloquy upon my head. I told myself over and over that never again would I venture to make overtures to any woman—that it would be useless. “I am doomed to failure,” I said. “No girl will ever look at me. I am a fool, a dunce, homely, pathetic, inadequate.”

Back in Bloomington I parted from them in a black despair, concealing my chagrin under a masque of pseudo-gaiety. But when I was alone I could have cried. I never saw that maiden any more. Afterwards W—— took me to see his girl again. He had no feeling of disappointment in me, apparently, or rather he was careful to conceal it. He seemed to like me quite as much as ever, but he proposed no more outings of that kind.

And there were C. C. Hall, who lived in a small hall bedroom over me, and used to insist, for policy’s sake, I fancy, that he thought better in a small room, and that too much heat was not very healthy; and Short Bill Haughey, expert on the violin and a seeker after knowledge in connection with politics and taxation; Arthur Pendleton, solemn delver into the intricacies of the law; Russell Ratliff, embryo metaphysician and stoic—a long company. I can see them now, all life before them, the old, including men and women, merely so much baggage to be cleared away—’their careers, their loves, their hopes all that was important in life. And life then felt so fresh and good, so inviting.

After this came the university, wholly changed, but far more attractive than it had been in my day—a really beautiful school. I could find only a few things—Wylie Hall, the brook, a portion of some building which had formerly been our library. It had been so added to that it was scarcely recognizable. I ran back in memory to all those whom I had known here—the young men, the women, the professors. Where were they all? Suddenly I felt dreadfully lonely, as though I had been shipwrecked on a desert island. Not a soul did I know any more of all those who had been here; scarcely one could I definitely place. What is life that it can thus obliterate itself, I asked myself. If a whole realm of interests and emotions can thus definitely pass, what is anything?

CHAPTER LXI
THE END OF THE JOURNEY

We sped north in the gathering dusk, and I was glad to go. It was as though I had been to see something that I had better not have seen—a house that is tenantless, a garden that is broken down and ravished and run to weeds and wild vines, naked and open to the moon—a place of which people say in whispers that it is haunted. Yes, this whole region was haunted for me.

I took small interest in the once pleasing and even dramatic ravine where, in my college year, I had so often rambled, and which then seemed so beautiful. Now I was lonely. If I were to add one chamber to Dante’s profound collection in the Inferno, it would be one in which, alone and lonely, sits one who contemplates the emotions and the fascinations of a world that is no more.

For a little way the country had some of the aspects of the regions south of French Lick, but we were soon out of that, at a place called Gosport, and once more in that flat valley lying between the White and Wabash rivers. At Gosport, though it was almost dark, we could see an immense grassy plain or marsh which the overflowing river had made for itself in times past, a region which might easily be protected by dykes and made into a paradise of wheat or corn. America, however, is still a young and extravagant country, not nearly done sowing its wild oats, let alone making use of its opportunities, and so such improvements are a long time off.

At Gosport, a very poorly lighted town, quite dark, we were told that the quickest way to Martinsville, which was on our route to Indianapolis, was to follow the river road, and because the moon had not risen yet, we were halloing at every crossroads to find out whether we were on the right one.