Fanny sat shaken in a mother’s storm. Help for her child. Could her child flow first alone? Where was the mother to help her? Father? Fanny sat trembling. She saw him, as he oldens in the cant moulds of his ideals. Harry, pious, weak, stale ... leading the life of her child. What did she have of her father?—If she is like her father let her rot! But now would she not surely be like him? She alone could save her child from that. She alone could, who could not. ... The train ran.... Fanny saw the Town, it would be the world of her child growing, of her child learning to live in the world. World of such women! Edith’s blue eyes, open beneath the dimpled softness of her brows, behold a world of such women ... the only world! Stiff brittle creatures, floating upon the viscid surface of a stream they have no weight to pierce. And their Laws: “Have no weight, have no thrust that might pierce the viscid surface of our stream.” World of such men! Liars, builders of lies, men taught to pray to Christ and to cheat their fellows, to cheat their women and wear them ... trim them then wear them ... taught to ignore half of the aching world that was black.—Let me go back to Edith! O let me go back!... The train ran smooth.—You may not.
Fanny faced the dead of her heart. She felt the world of her child clear, how it stank, how it swarmed like an evil stinking weed sucking the soil of God. She saw the blue eyes of her girl. They stood upon a body, white and clear like a flower: and all about, the Weed, swarming and purulent with its harsh roots sucking soil, with its hot leaves stealing sun.—What can I do? She faced she could do nothing. Yet reasonably something. Fight ... pursuade. There was reason with the cry of her mangled heart that there was much she could do. Turn back. The train, racing, swept her eyes upon a world lying folded in myriad skies, a world solid, a world one with space and stars ... space solid joined her to the stars as her white body joined her eyes to her limbs. One. And Edith within it, flowing her way. Ruthlessly hers....—Let her blood flow for her.
Fanny facing the dead of her heart faced the life of failure. She knew at last she could live.
The train swam into a strewing of neat flat houses, cut across asphalt. A marble Dome in sun rose above smoke of roofs. Washington!... Leon’s home.—I must change here. Every hour New York trains every ... get there by day, though.
Fanny walked through a city incredibly neat.—Very fine. Government world. Fine and dead. It has not started to grow, it has not started to be. It is easy and fine, like a nonexistence.
Her feet were heavy as if she were walking in space.
“When, God,” she said aloud, “do I begin to think?”
* * *
She stood halted by a building. She knew which building it was.—— He is inside! Of course perhaps he is inside no longer. It was a gray pile rising in numberless piddling columns to the white of the sky. It was cold. She looked at it. “I am not going in.”
He was perfect in her. Why should she go in to take from him perfection? She was afraid for his perfection.—How can he be this holy man in this grave? The Government Building stood like an insolent lackey fending her off. It glared at her and was very insecure and stupid within its ruffles of marble. It strutted its turrets before her like a vain proud bird.—He is perfect. He is done. He is no more. He is buried here. She felt a great need to see him.