“I can't tell you anything definite about it,” he said. “I want to submit it to the firm. I wouldn't undertake to accept any such unusual thing for the magazine without consulting them, and especially seeing if they will bring it out afterward—”
“You are thinking of using it in the magazine!” I cried.
“As I tell you, I can't say positively. I can only tell you what I think of it. I will have them read it at once—”
“I will take it to them to-day!” I put in.
“No,” he said, “you need not, for I am going there this afternoon, and I will take it, and ask them to read it immediately.”
I can't remember what else he said. I was deaf, crazy! I rushed home, talking to myself incoherently. I remember sitting here in a chair and saying aloud, “Oh, it can't be! It is impossible! That it should be good enough to publish in a magazine like that! It is some mistake—it will all come to nothing. It's absurd!”
So I sat, and I thought what such a thing would mean to me—it would make my reputation in a day—I should be free—free! But I thought of it and it did not make me happy; I only sat staring at myself, shuddering. The endless mournfulness that is in my heart surged up in me like a tide, and suddenly I began to cry like a child.
“It has come to me too late,” I exclaimed, “too late! I can't believe it—it doesn't mean anything to me. I don't care anything about it—I mean the poem! I don't believe in it myself!”
God, do you know I said that, and meant it? I said more—I sat and whispered it to myself: “Let them take it, yes, let them! I don't care—it will set me free—I shall have some money! But they're fools to do it, they're fools!”