Diversion Ahead

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Diversion Ahead Edited By Ria Roy Choudhury Published By:

Typeset copyright © entoxo.com, 2017 Selection and The Brown Leather Bag copyright © Ria Roy Choudhury, 2017 Illustration of The Brown Leather Bag copyright © Susovan Ghosh, 2017 Published 2017 Published by All rights reserved. Copyright of this book and the arrangement is exclusively reserved for The Editor and The Publisher. No part of this book can be printed or published without the prior permission of the publisher. This book is brought to you by entoxo http://www.entoxo.com Strictly for personal use. Do not use this file for commercial purposes.

From the Editor Life is often wrought with epiphanies, bewilderments, and eye-openers. If the path that we tread along is not adorned with twists and turns, life becomes a bed of boredom. The intent behind this compilation has been to carry the readers through sudden tremors, unexpected turns, bone-chilling violence and everything else that would make them expect the unexpected. The authors, whose works have been chosen in this handpicked edition, need no introduction. Authors like O.Henry, Guy de Maupassant, Anton Chekov, Ruskin Bond, Edgar Allan Poe and so on, have been read profusely since ages. In this book, an attempt has been made to bring together the best of their contributions in Literature. In this literary bouquet of perfection, I have dared to place a short story of my own with an attempt to channelize the dormant desire in me to write. I hope the readers would accept my trembling courage with kindness and overlook my flaws, if any. Ria Roy Choudhury November, 2017



Contents 1. An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge 1 Ambrose Bierce 2. The Open Window 12 Saki 3. The Last Leaf 17 O. Henry 4. The Brown Leather Bag 24 Ria Roy Choudhury 5. Desiree’s Baby 30 Kate Chopin 6. The Lottery 37 Shirley Jackson 7. Harrison Bergeron 47 Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

8. The Thief 56 Ruskin Bond 9. The Tell-Tale Heart 62 Edgar Allan Poe 10. The Case Of Lady Sannox 68 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 11. The Diamond Necklace 79 Guy De Maupassant 12. The Catbird Seat 90 James Thurber 13. The Bet 98 Anton Chekov 14. Man From The South 107 Roald Dahl 15. The Sniper 120 Liam O’ Flaherty 16. Button Button 125 Richard Matheson

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge I A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, looking down into the swift water twenty feet below. The man's hands were behind his back, the wrists bound with a cord. A rope closely encircled his neck. It was attached to a stout cross-timber above his head and the slack fell to the level of his knees. Some loose boards laid upon the sleepers supporting the metals of the railway supplied a footing for him and his executioners—two private soldiers of the Federal army, directed by a sergeant who in civil life may have been a deputy sheriff. At a short remove upon the same temporary platform was an officer in the uniform of his rank, armed. He was a captain. A sentinel at each end of the bridge stood with his rifle in the position known as \"support,\" that is to say, vertical in front of the left shoulder, the hammer resting on the forearm thrown straight across the chest—a formal and unnatural position, enforcing an erect carriage of the body. It did not appear to be the duty of these two men to know what was occurring at the center of the bridge; they merely blockaded the two ends of the foot planking that traversed it. Beyond one of the sentinels nobody was in sight; the railroad ran straight away into a forest for a hundred yards, then, curving, was lost to view. Doubtless there was an outpost farther along. The other bank of the stream was open ground—a gentle acclivity topped with a stockade of vertical tree trunks, 1

loopholed for rifles, with a single embrasure through which protruded the muzzle of a brass cannon commanding the bridge. Midway of the slope between the bridge and fort were the spectators—a single company of infantry in line, at \"parade rest,\" the butts of the rifles on the ground, the barrels inclining slightly backward against the right shoulder, the hands crossed upon the stock. A lieu tenant stood at the right of the line, the point of his sword upon the ground, his left hand resting upon his right. Excepting the group of four at the center of the bridge, not a man moved. The company faced the bridge, staring stonily, motionless. The sentinels, facing the banks of the stream, might have been statues to adorn the bridge. The captain stood with folded arms, silent, observing the work of his subordinates, but making no sign. Death is a dignitary who when he comes announced is to be received with formal manifestations of respect, even by those most familiar with him. In the code of military etiquette silence and fixity are forms of deference. The man who was engaged in being hanged was apparently about thirty-five years of age. He was a civilian, if one might judge from his habit, which was that of a planter. His features were good—a straight nose, firm mouth, broad forehead, from which his long, dark hair was combed straight back, falling behind his ears to the collar of his well-fitting frock coat. He wore a mustache and pointed beard, but no whiskers; his eyes were large and dark gray, and had a kindly expression which one would hardly have expected in one whose neck was in the hemp. Evidently this was no vulgar assassin. The liberal military code makes provision for hanging 2

many kinds of persons, and gentlemen are not excluded. The preparations being complete, the two private soldiers stepped aside and each drew away the plank upon which he had been standing. The sergeant turned to the captain, saluted and placed himself immediately behind that officer, who in turn moved apart one pace. These movements left the condemned man and the sergeant standing on the two ends of the same plank, which spanned three of the cross-ties of the bridge. The end upon which the civilian stood almost, but not quite, reached a fourth. This plank had been held in place by the weight of the captain; it was now held by that of the sergeant. At a signal from the former the latter would step aside, the plank would tilt and the condemned man go down between two ties. The arrangement commended itself to his judgment as simple and effective. His face had not been covered nor his eyes bandaged. He looked a moment at his \"unsteadfast footing,\" then let his gaze wander to the swirling water of the stream racing madly beneath his feet. A piece of dancing driftwood caught his attention and his eyes followed it down the current. How slowly it appeared to move, What a sluggish stream! He closed his eyes in order to fix his last thoughts upon his wife and children. The water, touched to gold by the early sun, the brooding mists under the banks at some distance down the stream, the fort, the soldiers, the piece of drift—all had distracted him. And now he became conscious of a new disturbance. Striking through the thought of his dear ones was a sound which he could neither ignore nor understand, a sharp, distinct, metallic percussion like the stroke of a blacksmith's hammer upon the anvil; it had the same ringing quality. He wondered what it was, and whether immeasurably distant or near by—it seemed both. Its recurrence was regular, but as slow as the tolling of a death knell. He awaited each stroke with impatience and—he knew not why— apprehension. The intervals of silence grew progressively longer, the delays became maddening. With their greater infrequency the sounds increased in strength and sharpness. They hurt his ear like the thrust of a knife; he feared he would shriek. What he heard was the ticking of his watch. He unclosed his eyes and saw again the water below him. \"If I could free my hands,\" he thought, \"I might throw off the noose and spring into the stream. By diving I could evade the bullets and, swimming vigorously, reach the bank, take to the woods and get away home. My home, thank God, is as yet outside their lines; my wife and little ones are still beyond the invader's farthest advance.\" 3

As these thoughts, which have here to be set down in words, were flashed into the doomed man's brain rather than evolved from it the captain nodded to the sergeant. The sergeant stepped aside. II PEYTON Farquhar was a well-to-do planter, of an old and highly respected Alabama family. Being a slave owner and like other slave owners a politician he was naturally an original secessionist and ardently devoted to the Southern cause. Circumstances of an imperious nature, which it is unnecessary to relate here, had prevented him from taking service with the gallant army that had fought the disastrous campaigns ending with the fall of Corinth, and he chafed under the inglorious restraint, longing for the release of his energies, the larger life of the soldier, the opportunity for distinction. That opportunity, he felt, would come, as it comes to all in war time. Meanwhile he did what he could. No service was too humble for him to perform in aid of the South, no adventure too perilous for him to undertake if consistent with the character of a civilian who was at heart a soldier, and who in good faith and without too much qualification assented to at least a part of the frankly villainous dictum that all is fair in love and war. One evening while Farquhar and his wife were sitting on a rustic bench near the entrance to his grounds, a gray-clad soldier rode up to the gate and asked for a drink of water. Mrs. Farquhar was only toe, happy to serve him with her own white hands. While she was fetching the water her husband approached the dusty horseman and inquired eagerly for news from the front. \"The Yanks are repairing the railroads,\" said the man, \"and are getting ready for another advance. They have reached the Owl Creek bridge, put it in order and built a stockade on the north bank. The commandant has issued an order, which is posted everywhere, declaring that any civilian caught interfering with the railroad, its bridges, tunnels or trains will be summarily hanged. I saw the order.\" \"How far is it to the Owl Creek bridge?\" Farquhar asked. 4

\"About thirty miles.\" \"Is there no force on this side the creek?\" \"Only a picket post half a mile out, on the railroad, and a single sentinel at this end of the bridge.\" \"Suppose a man—a civilian and student of hanging—should elude the picket post and perhaps get the better of the sentinel,\" said Farquhar, smiling, \"what could he accomplish?\" The soldier reflected. \"I was there a month ago,\" he replied. \"I observed that the flood of last winter had lodged a great quantity of driftwood against the wooden pier at this end of the bridge. It is now dry and would burn like tow.\" The lady had now brought the water, which the soldier drank. He thanked her ceremoniously, bowed to her husband and rode away. An hour later, after nightfall, he repassed the plantation, going northward in the direction from which he had come. He was a Federal scout. III AS Peyton Farquhar fell straight downward through the bridge he lost consciousness and was as one already dead. From this state he was awakened— ages later, it seemed to him—by the pain of a sharp pressure upon his throat, followed by a sense of suffocation. Keen, poignant agonies seemed to shoot from his neck downward through every fiber of his body and limbs. These pains appeared to flash along well-defined lines of ramification and to beat with an inconceivably rapid periodicity. They seemed like streams of pulsating fire heating him to an intolerable temperature. As to his head, he was conscious of nothing but a feeling of fulness—of congestion. These sensations were unaccompanied by thought. The intellectual part of his nature was already effaced; he had power only to feel, and feeling was torment. He was conscious of motion. Encompassed in a luminous cloud, of which he was now merely the fiery heart, without material 5

substance, he swung through unthinkable arcs of oscillation, like a vast pendulum. Then all at once, with terrible suddenness, the light about him shot upward with the noise of a loud splash; a frightful roaring was in his ears, and all was cold and dark. The power of thought was restored; he knew that the rope had broken and he had fallen into the stream. There was no additional strangulation; the noose about his neck was already suffocating him and kept the water from his lungs. To die of hanging at the bottom of a river!—the idea seemed to him ludicrous. He opened his eyes in the darkness and saw above him a gleam of light, but how distant, how inaccessible! He was still sinking, for the light became fainter and fainter until it was a mere glimmer. Then it began to grow and brighten, and he knew that he was rising toward the surface—knew it with reluctance, for he was now very comfortable. \"To be hanged and drowned,\" he thought? \"that is not so bad; but I do not wish to be shot. No; I will not be shot; that is not fair.\" He was not conscious of an effort, but a sharp pain in his wrist apprised him that he was trying to free his hands. He gave the struggle his attention, as an idler might observe the feat of a juggler, without interest in the outcome. What splendid effort!—what magnificent, what superhuman strength! Ah, that was a fine endeavor! Bravo! The cord fell away; his arms parted and floated upward, the hands dimly seen on each side in the growing light. He watched them with a new interest as first one and then the other pounced upon the noose at his neck. They tore it away and thrust it fiercely aside, its undulations resembling those of a water snake. \"Put it back, put it back!\" He thought he shouted these words to his hands, for the undoing of the noose had been succeeded by the direst pang that he had yet experienced. His neck ached horribly; his brain was on fire; his heart, which had been fluttering faintly, gave a great leap, trying to force itself out at his mouth. His whole body was racked and wrenched with an insupportable anguish! But his disobedient hands gave no heed to the command. They beat the water vigorously with quick, downward strokes, forcing him to the surface. He felt his head emerge; his eyes were blinded by the sunlight; his chest expanded convulsively, and with a supreme and crowning agony his lungs engulfed a great draught of air, which instantly he expelled in a shriek! He was now in full possession of his physical senses. They were, indeed, preternaturally keen and alert. Something in the awful disturbance of his organic system had so exalted and refined them that they made record of things never before perceived. He felt the ripples upon his face and heard their separate sounds as they struck. He looked at the forest on the bank of the stream, saw the 6

individual trees, the leaves and the veining of each leaf—saw the very insects upon them: the locusts, the brilliant-bodied flies, the grey spiders stretching their webs from twig to twig. He noted the prismatic colors in all the dewdrops upon a million blades of grass. The humming of the gnats that danced above the eddies of the stream, the beating of the dragon flies' wings, the strokes of the water- spiders' legs, like oars which had lifted their boat—all these made audible music. A fish slid along beneath his eyes and he heard the rush of its body parting the water. He had come to the surface facing down the stream; in a moment the visible world seemed to wheel slowly round, himself the pivotal point, and he saw the bridge, the fort, the soldiers upon the bridge, the captain, the sergeant, the two privates, his executioners. They were in silhouette against the blue sky. They shouted and gesticulated, pointing at him. The captain had drawn his pistol, but did not fire; the others were unarmed. Their movements were grotesque and horrible, their forms gigantic. Suddenly he heard a sharp report and something struck the water smartly within a few inches of his head, spattering his face with spray. He heard a second report, and saw one of the sentinels with his rifle at his shoulder, a light cloud of blue smoke rising from the muzzle. The man in the water saw the eye of the man on the bridge gazing into his own through the sights of the rifle. He observed that it was a grey eye and remembered having read that grey eyes were keenest, and that all famous marksmen had them. Nevertheless, this one had missed. A counter-swirl had caught Farquhar and turned him half round; he was again looking into the forest on the bank opposite the fort. The sound of a clear, high voice in a monotonous singsong now rang out behind him and came across the water with a distinctness that pierced and subdued all other sounds, even the beating of the ripples in his ears. Although no soldier, he had frequented camps enough to know the dread significance of that deliberate, drawling, aspirated chant; the lieu. tenant on shore was taking a part in the morning's work. How coldly and pitilessly—with what an even, calm intonation, presaging, and enforcing tranquillity in the men—with what accurately measured inter vals fell those cruel words: \"Attention, company! . . Shoulder arms! . . . Ready! . . . Aim! . . . Fire!\" 7

Farquhar dived—dived as deeply as he could. The water roared in his ears like the voice of Niagara, yet he heard the dulled thunder of the volley and, rising again toward the surface, met shining bits of metal, singularly flattened, oscillating slowly downward. Some of them touched him on the face and hands, then fell away, continuing their descent. One lodged between his collar and neck; it was uncomfortably warm and he snatched it out. As he rose to the surface, gasping for breath, he saw that he had been a long time under water; he was perceptibly farther down stream nearer to safety. The soldiers had almost finished reloading; the metal ramrods flashed all at once in the sunshine as they were drawn from the barrels, turned in the air, and thrust into their sockets. The two sentinels fired again, independently and ineffectually. The hunted man saw all this over his shoulder; he was now swimming vigorously with the current. His brain was as energetic as his arms and legs; he thought with the rapidity of lightning. 8

The officer,\" he reasoned, \"will not make that martinet's error a second time. It is as easy to dodge a volley as a single shot. He has probably already given the command to fire at will. God help me, I cannot dodge them all!\" An appalling plash within two yards of him was followed by a loud, rushing sound, diminuendo, which seemed to travel back through the air to the fort and died in an explosion which stirred the very river to its deeps! A rising sheet of water curved over him, fell down upon him, blinded him, strangled him! The cannon had taken a hand in the game. As he shook his head free from the commotion of the smitten water he heard the deflected shot humming through the air ahead, and in an instant it was cracking and smashing the branches in the forest beyond. \"They will not do that again,\" he thought; \"the next time they will use a charge of grape. I must keep my eye upon the gun; the smoke will apprise me— the report arrives too late; it lags behind the missile. That is a good gun.\" Suddenly he felt himself whirled round and round—spinning like a top. The water, the banks, the forests, the now distant bridge, fort and men—all were commingled and blurred. Objects were represented by their colors only; circular horizontal streaks of color—that was all he saw. He had been caught in a vortex and was being whirled on with a velocity of advance and gyration that made him giddy and sick. In a few moments he was flung upon the gravel at the foot of the left bank of the stream—the southern bank—and behind a projecting point which concealed him from his enemies. The sudden arrest of his motion, the abrasion of one of his hands on the gravel, restored him, and he wept with delight. He dug his fingers into the sand, threw it over himself in handfuls and audibly blessed it. It looked like diamonds, rubies, emeralds; he could think of nothing beautiful which it did not resemble. The trees upon the bank were giant garden plants; he noted a definite order in their arrangement, inhaled the fragrance of their blooms. A strange, roseate light shone through the spaces among their trunks and the wind made in their branches the music of Æolian harps. He had no wish to perfect his escape—was content to remain in that enchanting spot until retaken. A whiz and rattle of grapeshot among the branches high above his head roused him from his dream. The baffled cannoneer had fired him a random farewell. He sprang to his feet, rushed up the sloping bank, and plunged into the forest. 9

All that day he traveled, laying his course by the rounding sun. The forest seemed interminable; nowhere did he discover a break in it, not even a woodman's road. He had not known that he lived in so wild a region. There was something uncanny in the revelation. By nightfall he was fatigued, footsore, famishing. The thought of his wife and children urged him on. At last he found a road which led him in what he knew to be the right direction. It was as wide and straight as a city street, yet it seemed untraveled. No fields bordered it, no dwelling anywhere. Not so much as the barking of a dog suggested human habitation. The black bodies of the trees formed a straight wall on both sides, terminating on the horizon in a point, like a diagram in a lesson in perspective. Overhead, as he looked up through this rift in the wood, shone great garden stars looking unfamiliar and grouped in strange constellations. He was sure they were arranged in some order which had a secret and malign significance. The wood on either side was full of singular noises, among which—once, twice, and again—he distinctly heard whispers in an unknown tongue. 10

His neck was in pain and lifting his hand to it found it horribly swollen. He knew that it had a circle of black where the rope had bruised it. His eyes felt congested; he could no longer close them. His tongue was swollen with thirst; he relieved its fever by thrusting it forward from between his teeth into the cold air. How softly the turf had carpeted the untraveled avenue—he could no longer feel the roadway beneath his feet! Doubtless, despite his suffering, he had fallen asleep while walking, for now he sees another scene—perhaps he has merely recovered from a delirium. He stands at the gate of his own home. All is as he left it, and all bright and beautiful in the morning sunshine. He must have traveled the entire night. As he pushes open the gate and passes up the wide white walk, he sees a flutter of female garments; his wife, looking fresh and cool and sweet, steps down from the veranda to meet him. At the bottom of the steps she stands waiting, with a smile of ineffable joy, an attitude of matchless grace and dignity. Ah, how beautiful she is! He springs forward with extended arms. As he is about to clasp her he feels a stunning blow upon the back of the neck; a blinding white light blazes all about him with a sound like the shock of a cannon—then all is darkness and silence! Peyton Farquhar was dead; his body, with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek bridge. 11

The Open Window \"MY aunt will be down presently, Mr. Nuttel,\" said a very self-possessed young lady of fifteen; \"in the meantime you must try and put up with me.\" Framton Nuttel endeavoured to say the correct something which should duly flatter the niece of the moment without unduly discounting the aunt that was to come. Privately he doubted more than ever whether these formal visits on a succession of total strangers would do much towards helping the nerve cure which he was supposed to be undergoing. \"I know how it will be,\" his sister had said when he was preparing to migrate to this rural retreat; \"you will bury yourself down there and not speak to a living soul, and your nerves will be worse than ever from moping. I shall just give you letters of introduction to all the people I know there. Some of them, as far as I can remember, were quite nice.\" Framton wondered whether Mrs. Sappleton, the lady to whom he was presenting one of the letters of introduction came into the nice division. \"Do you know many of the people round here?\" asked the niece, when she judged that they had had sufficient silent communion. 12

\"Hardly a soul,\" said Framton. \"My sister was staying here, at the rectory, you know, some four years ago, and she gave me letters of introduction to some of the people here.\" He made the last statement in a tone of distinct regret. \"Then you know practically nothing about my aunt?\" pursued the self- possessed young lady. \"Only her name and address,\" admitted the caller. He was wondering whether Mrs. Sappleton was in the married or widowed state. An undefinable something about the room seemed to suggest masculine habitation. \"Her great tragedy happened just three years ago,\" said the child; \"that would be since your sister's time.\" \"Her tragedy?\" asked Framton; somehow in this restful country spot tragedies seemed out of place. \"You may wonder why we keep that window wide open on an October afternoon,\" said the niece, indicating a large French window that opened on to a lawn. \"It is quite warm for the time of the year,\" said Framton; \"but has that window got anything to do with the tragedy?\" \"Out through that window, three years ago to a day, her husband and her two young brothers went off for their day's shooting. They never came back. In crossing the moor to their favourite snipe-shooting ground they were all three engulfed in a treacherous piece of bog. It had been that dreadful wet summer, you know, and places that were safe in other years gave way suddenly without warning. Their bodies were never recovered. That was the dreadful part of it.\" Here the child's voice lost its self-possessed note and became falteringly human. \"Poor aunt always thinks that they will come back someday, they and the little brown spaniel that was lost with them, and walk in at that window just as they used to do. That is why the window is kept open every evening till it is quite dusk. Poor dear aunt, she has often told me how they went out, her husband with his white waterproof coat over his arm, and Ronnie, her youngest brother, singing 'Bertie, why do you bound?' as he always did to tease her, because she said it got on her nerves. Do you know, sometimes on still, quiet evenings like this, I almost get a creepy feeling that they will all walk in through that window —” 13

She broke off with a little shudder. It was a relief to Framton when the aunt bustled into the room with a whirl of apologies for being late in making her appearance. \"I hope Vera has been amusing you?\" she said. \"She has been very interesting,\" said Framton. \"I hope you don't mind the open window,\" said Mrs. Sappleton briskly; \"my husband and brothers will be home directly from shooting, and they always come in this way. They've been out for snipe in the marshes today, so they'll make a fine mess over my poor carpets. So like you menfolk, isn't it?\" She rattled on cheerfully about the shooting and the scarcity of birds, and the prospects for duck in the winter. To Framton it was all purely horrible. He made a desperate but only partially successful effort to turn the talk on to a less ghastly topic, he was conscious that his hostess was giving him only a fragment of her attention, and her eyes were constantly straying past him to the open window and the lawn beyond. It was certainly an unfortunate coincidence that he should have paid his visit on this tragic anniversary. 14

\"The doctors agree in ordering me complete rest, an absence of mental excitement, and avoidance of anything in the nature of violent physical exercise,\" announced Framton, who laboured under the tolerably widespread delusion that total strangers and chance acquaintances are hungry for the least detail of one's ailments and infirmities, their cause and cure. \"On the matter of diet they are not so much in agreement,\" he continued. \"No?\" said Mrs. Sappleton, in a voice which only replaced a yawn at the last moment. Then she suddenly brightened into alert attention — but not to what Framton was saying. \"Here they are at last!\" she cried. \"Just in time for tea, and don't they look as if they were muddy up to the eyes!\" Framton shivered slightly and turned towards the niece with a look intended to convey sympathetic comprehension. The child was staring out through the open window with a dazed horror in her eyes. In a chill shock of nameless fear Framton swung round in his seat and looked in the same direction. In the deepening twilight three figures were walking across the lawn towards the window, they all carried guns under their arms, and one of them was additionally burdened with a white coat hung over his shoulders. A tired brown spaniel kept close at their heels. Noiselessly they neared the house, and then a hoarse young voice chanted out of the dusk: \"I said, Bertie, why do you bound?\" Framton grabbed wildly at his stick and hat; the hall door, the gravel drive, and the front gate were dimly noted stages in his headlong retreat. A cyclist coming along the road had to run into the hedge to avoid imminent collision. \"Here we are, my dear,\" said the bearer of the white mackintosh, coming in through the window, \"fairly muddy, but most of it's dry. Who was that who bolted out as we came up?\" \"A most extraordinary man, a Mr. Nuttel,\" said Mrs. Sappleton; \"could only talk about his illnesses, and dashed off without a word of goodby or apology when you arrived. One would think he had seen a ghost.\" \"I expect it was the spaniel,\" said the niece calmly; \"he told me he had a horror of dogs. He was once hunted into a cemetery somewhere on the banks of the Ganges by a pack of pariah dogs, and had to spend the night in a newly dug 15

grave with the creatures snarling and grinning and foaming just above him. Enough to make anyone lose their nerve.\" Romance at short notice was her speciality. 16

The Last Leaf IN a little district west of Washington Square the streets have run crazy and broken themselves into small strips called \"places.\" These \"places\" make strange angles and curves. One Street crosses itself a time or two. An artist once discovered a valuable possibility in this street. Suppose a collector with a bill for paints, paper and canvas should, in traversing this route, suddenly meet himself coming back, without a cent having been paid on account! So, to quaint old Greenwich Village the art people soon came prowling, hunting for north windows and eighteenth-century gables and Dutch attics and low rents. Then they imported some pewter mugs and a chafing dish or two from Sixth Avenue, and became a \"colony.\" At the top of a squatty, three-story brick Sue and Johnsy had their studio. \"Johnsy\" was familiar for Joanna. One was from Maine; the other from California. They had met at the table d'hôte of an Eighth Street \"Delmonico's,\" and found their tastes in art, chicory salad and bishop sleeves so congenial that the joint studio resulted. That was in May. In November a cold, unseen stranger, whom the doctors called Pneumonia, stalked about the colony, touching one here and there with his icy fingers. Over on the east side this ravager strode boldly, smiting his victims by 17

scores, but his feet trod slowly through the maze of the narrow and moss-grown \"places.\" Mr. Pneumonia was not what you would call a chivalric old gentleman. A mite of a little woman with blood thinned by California zephyrs was hardly fair game for the red-fisted, short-breathed old duffer. But Johnsy he smote; and she lay, scarcely moving, on her painted iron bedstead, looking through the small Dutch window-panes at the blank side of the next brick house. One morning the busy doctor invited Sue into the hallway with a shaggy, gray eyebrow. \"She has one chance in - let us say, ten,\" he said, as he shook down the mercury in his clinical thermometer. \"And that chance is for her to want to live. This way people have of lining-up on the side of the undertaker makes the entire pharmacopoeia look silly. Your little lady has made up her mind that she's not going to get well. Has she anything on her mind?\" \"She - she wanted to paint the Bay of Naples some day.\" said Sue. \"Paint? - bosh! Has she anything on her mind worth thinking twice - a man for instance?\" \"A man?\" said Sue, with a jew's-harp twang in her voice. \"Is a man worth - but, no, doctor; there is nothing of the kind.\" \"Well, it is the weakness, then,\" said the doctor. \"I will do all that science, so far as it may filter through my efforts, can accomplish. But whenever my patient begins to count the carriages in her funeral procession I subtract 50 per cent from the curative power of medicines. If you will get her to ask one question about the new winter styles in cloak sleeves I will promise you a one-in-five chance for her, instead of one in ten.\" After the doctor had gone Sue went into the workroom and cried a Japanese napkin to a pulp. Then she swaggered into Johnsy's room with her drawing board, whistling ragtime. Johnsy lay, scarcely making a ripple under the bedclothes, with her face toward the window. Sue stopped whistling, thinking she was asleep. 18

She arranged her board and began a pen-and-ink drawing to illustrate a magazine story. Young artists must pave their way to Art by drawing pictures for magazine stories that young authors write to pave their way to Literature. As Sue was sketching a pair of elegant horseshow riding trousers and a monocle of the figure of the hero, an Idaho cowboy, she heard a low sound, several times repeated. She went quickly to the bedside. Johnsy's eyes were open wide. She was looking out the window and counting - counting backward. \"Twelve,\" she said, and little later \"eleven\"; and then \"ten,\" and \"nine\"; and then \"eight\" and \"seven\", almost together. Sue look solicitously out of the window. What was there to count? There was only a bare, dreary yard to be seen, and the blank side of the brick house twenty feet away. An old, old ivy vine, gnarled and decayed at the roots, climbed half way up the brick wall. The cold breath of autumn had stricken its leaves from the vine until its skeleton branches clung, almost bare, to the crumbling bricks. \"What is it, dear?\" asked Sue. \"Six,\" said Johnsy, in almost a whisper. \"They're falling faster now. Three days ago there were almost a hundred. It made my head ache to count them. But now it's easy. There goes another one. There are only five left now.\" \"Five what, dear? Tell your Sudie.\" \"Leaves. On the ivy vine. When the last one falls I must go, too. I've known that for three days. Didn't the doctor tell you?\" \"Oh, I never heard of such nonsense,\" complained Sue, with magnificent scorn. \"What have old ivy leaves to do with your getting well? And you used to love that vine so, you naughty girl. Don't be a goosey. Why, the doctor told me this morning that your chances for getting well real soon were - let's see exactly what he said - he said the chances were ten to one! Why, that's almost as good a chance as we have in New York when we ride on the street cars or walk past a new building. Try to take some broth now, and let Sudie go back to her drawing, so she can sell the editor man with it, and buy port wine for her sick child, and pork chops for her greedy self.\" 19

\"You needn't get any more wine,\" said Johnsy, keeping her eyes fixed out the window. \"There goes another. No, I don't want any broth. That leaves just four. I want to see the last one fall before it gets dark. Then I'll go, too.\" \"Johnsy, dear,\" said Sue, bending over her, \"will you promise me to keep your eyes closed, and not look out the window until I am done working? I must hand those drawings in by to-morrow. I need the light, or I would draw the shade down.\" \"Couldn't you draw in the other room?\" asked Johnsy, coldly. \"I'd rather be here by you,\" said Sue. \"Besides, I don't want you to keep looking at those silly ivy leaves.\" \"Tell me as soon as you have finished,\" said Johnsy, closing her eyes, and lying white and still as fallen statue, \"because I want to see the last one fall. I'm tired of waiting. I'm tired of thinking. I want to turn loose my hold on everything, and go sailing down, down, just like one of those poor, tired leaves.\" \"Try to sleep,\" said Sue. \"I must call Behrman up to be my model for the old hermit miner. I'll not be gone a minute. Don't try to move 'til I come back.\" Old Behrman was a painter who lived on the ground floor beneath them. He was past sixty and had a Michael Angelo's Moses beard curling down from the head of a satyr along with the body of an imp. Behrman was a failure in art. Forty years he had wielded the brush without getting near enough to touch the hem of his Mistress's robe. He had been always about to paint a masterpiece, but had never yet begun it. For several years he had painted nothing except now and then a daub in the line of commerce or advertising. He earned a little by serving as a model to those young artists in the colony who could not pay the price of a professional. He drank gin to excess, and still talked of his coming masterpiece. For the rest he was a fierce little old man, who scoffed terribly at softness in any one, and who regarded himself as especial mastiff-in-waiting to protect the two young artists in the studio above. Sue found Behrman smelling strongly of juniper berries in his dimly lighted den below. In one corner was a blank canvas on an easel that had been waiting there for twenty-five years to receive the first line of the masterpiece. She told him of Johnsy's fancy, and how she feared she would, indeed, light and fragile as a leaf herself, float away, when her slight hold upon the world grew weaker. 20

Old Behrman, with his red eyes plainly streaming, shouted his contempt and derision for such idiotic imaginings. \"Vass!\" he cried. \"Is dere people in de world mit der foolishness to die because leafs dey drop off from a confounded vine? I haf not heard of such a thing. No, I will not bose as a model for your fool hermit-dunderhead. Vy do you allow dot silly pusiness to come in der prain of her? Ach, dot poor little Miss Yohnsy.\" \"She is very ill and weak,\" said Sue, \"and the fever has left her mind morbid and full of strange fancies. Very well, Mr. Behrman, if you do not care to pose for me, you needn't. But I think you are a horrid old - old flibbertigibbet.\" \"You are just like a woman!\" yelled Behrman. \"Who said I vill not bose? Go on. I come mit you. For half an hour I haf peen trying to say dot I am ready to bose. Gott dis is not any blace in which one so goot as Miss Yohnsy shall lie sick. Some day I vill baint a masterpiece, and ve shall all go away. Gott! yes.\" Johnsy was sleeping when they went upstairs. Sue pulled the shade down to the window-sill, and motioned Behrman into the other room. In there they peered out the window fearfully at the ivy vine. Then they looked at each other for a moment without speaking. A persistent, cold rain was falling, mingled with snow. Behrman, in his old blue shirt, took his seat as the hermit miner on an upturned kettle for a rock. When Sue awoke from an hour's sleep the next morning she found Johnsy with dull, wide-open eyes staring at the drawn green shade. \"Pull it up; I want to see,\" she ordered, in a whisper. Wearily Sue obeyed. But, lo! after the beating rain and fierce gusts of wind that had endured through the livelong night, there yet stood out against the brick wall one ivy leaf. It was the last one on the vine. Still dark green near its stem, with its serrated edges tinted with the yellow of dissolution and decay, it hung bravely from the branch some twenty feet above the ground. \"It is the last one,\" said Johnsy. \"I thought it would surely fall during the night. I heard the wind. It will fall to-day, and I shall die at the same time.\" 21

\"Dear, dear!\" said Sue, leaning her worn face down to the pillow, \"think of me, if you won't think of yourself. What would I do?\" But Johnsy did not answer. The lonesomest thing in all the world is a soul when it is making ready to go on its mysterious, far journey. The fancy seemed to possess her more strongly as one by one the ties that bound her to friendship and to earth were loosed. The day wore away, and even through the twilight they could see the lone ivy leaf clinging to its stem against the wall. And then, with the coming of the night the north wind was again loosed, while the rain still beat against the windows and pattered down from the low Dutch eaves. When it was light enough Johnsy, the merciless, commanded that the shade be raised. The ivy leaf was still there. Johnsy lay for a long time looking at it. And then she called to Sue, who was stirring her chicken broth over the gas stove. \"I've been a bad girl, Sudie,\" said Johnsy. \"Something has made that last leaf stay there to show me how wicked I was. It is a sin to want to die. You may bring me a little broth now, and some milk with a little port in it, and - no; bring me a hand-mirror first, and then pack some pillows about me, and I will sit up and watch you cook.\" An hour later she said: 22

\"Sudie, some day I hope to paint the Bay of Naples.\" The doctor came in the afternoon, and Sue had an excuse to go into the hallway as he left. \"Even chances,\" said the doctor, taking Sue's thin, shaking hand in his. \"With good nursing you'll win.\" And now I must see another case I have downstairs. Behrman, his name is - some kind of an artist, I believe. Pneumonia, too. He is an old, weak man, and the attack is acute. There is no hope for him; but he goes to the hospital to-day to be made more comfortable.\" The next day the doctor said to Sue: \"She's out of danger. You won. Nutrition and care now - that's all.\" And that afternoon Sue came to the bed where Johnsy lay, contentedly knitting a very blue and very useless woollen shoulder scarf, and put one arm around her, pillows and all. \"I have something to tell you, white mouse,\" she said. \"Mr. Behrman died of pneumonia to-day in the hospital. He was ill only two days. The janitor found him the morning of the first day in his room downstairs helpless with pain. His shoes and clothing were wet through and icy cold. They couldn't imagine where he had been on such a dreadful night. And then they found a lantern, still lighted, and a ladder that had been dragged from its place, and some scattered brushes, and a palette with green and yellow colors mixed on it, and - look out the window, dear, at the last ivy leaf on the wall. Didn't you wonder why it never fluttered or moved when the wind blew? Ah, darling, it's Behrman's masterpiece - he painted it there the night that the last leaf fell.\" 23

The Brown Leather Bag “THE question Joey, is not what’d I have done if I were you” said Harrison, “the question is what would you do now?” The veil of darkness grappled the room with its ravaging claws. Even the weather outside augmented the murkiness of the room as if the Devil himself had woven the ambience with his own craftsmanship. The scantily populated town of Lazonia had witnessed storms and squalls before but never one as violent as this. Harrison knew that Joey would let his passion outweigh his rationality and just as he expected, Joey fell prey to his wickedness when he pleaded, “C’mon Harris. You know that only you can help me here.” Harrison uncrossed his legs and then slowly leaning towards Joey, stared at him straight in the eye and said “If I were you, I would have killed Mrs. Margaret.” Joey, since his birth, had already been overburdened with a confounded mind, which was unsettled, flustered and brought to disquietude by Harrison’s insinuation. Joey looked up to Harrison as a big brother. His obedience towards Harrison and reverence for him were unquestionable. When Joey lost his father to leukemia, such a big man with a child’s brain was cradled by the generous hands of Harrison. But the idea of committing a murder perturbed Joey to the extent of stupefaction. His trembling hands could hardly ever hurt an insect; the very same 24

hands’ abducting a life was beyond the realm of his wildest reveries. But Joey knew that Harrison could never be wrong. In his thick and thin, Harrison had always paved an even way for him to glide through. He had the remedy for every trouble. Then how could such a sensible man shove him to a path of sin? Joey thought that perhaps it was Harrison’s unflinching love for him that made him emotional and that he doesn’t really want to harm Mrs. Margaret. Years ago, when Mr. Hudson, the ailing father of Joey was lying in his death bed, Harrison, the one who was considered to be the most trustworthy of all souls 25

that Mr. Hudson had come across, received an access to his cupboard. Mr. Hudson knew that his days were counted and after his demise, such an innocent and childish son as Joey wouldn’t be able to come to grips with the convulsive state that his life would be in. He was not sharp-witted enough to handle the legal formalities, and naturally, the responsibility was handed over to Harrison. Behind the mask of Harrison’s love for the Hudson family was hidden a man of hideous temperament whose sole purpose in life was to churn money; a nature inflated by his quick wit. He immediately sought ways to put Mr. Hudson’s will into his own money making business. The will was folded carelessly and put into a brown leather bag which had as its constituents, a heap of other useless documents, which were hardly ever touched. New papers were soon made and Mr. Hudson perished only after signing “SAMUEL HU”  suddenly his pen and pulse stopped altogether. Harrison had to make a quick decision and hatched a plan of forging the “DSON”, but little did he know that this skilful craft of his was going to bring his own misery in the near future. Joey’s inheritance was thus easily confiscated by Harrison which he eventually sold to Mrs. Margaret at a lump sum price. On the other hand, Mr. Hudson’s brown leather bag consisting of the original will of Mr. Hudson was taken away by Harrison and chucked at one of the murkiest corners of his house where no eye of the Hudson family could have fallen upon. Soon after, Mrs. Margaret brought into the premises of her newly gained property, a real estate lawyer. Thereafter, a local surveyor was called upon to comprehend the limits of the estate, but to Mrs. Margaret’s horror, a thorough examination of the papers by the surveyor gestured at Harrison’s forgery. “Don’t try to fool me, Missus”, exclaimed the surveyor. “Mr. Hudson had been a loyal customer of the bank I just retired from; I have known his signature by heart. I have always been a witness to those shivering hands and I assure you, this is a strict case of forgery.” Mrs. Margaret was at her wit’s end when the real estate lawyer too left her abandoned. The restless perspiring woman went back home with overwhelming anguish and vexation for the sly Harrison. Her desire to reach the truth provoked her to call Harrison right away. “Get me the real papers, you swine, or have a good luck spending the rest of your life behind the bars.” Mrs. Margaret screamed in an intimidating tone. 26

Since then, the very thought of Mrs. Margaret would pour the venom of wrath in Harrison’s mind. His abhorrence for this woman came overflowing as neither was he able to hand over the original documents to her, nor would she stop bugging him incessantly. He had travelled so far in the path of violating morality that retreating from it now would have been a tedious task. It occurred to him that the best solution the put an end to this fiasco could be brought about by putting Mrs. Margaret to an eternal sleep; to lead her towards the oblivion from where she would be quite helpless to reach the periphery of truth. Harrison knew that the best tool for his utility could be Joey’s blind faith in him. It was time to take undue advantage of that faith in meeting his ruthless end. Joey was the soft clay that he could carve into any mold. He was made to believe that Mrs. Margaret snatched away from him, what was rightfully his: his father’s last present that would make him his legal heir. For Joey, it was an emotional bereavement. The piece of land was not simply a materialistic gain for him. It was a thread by means of which he could have connected to the lost soul of his father. It was a means by which he could have picked up the smashed pieces of his father’s last remnants. Harrison was well aware of the fact that both in his love and hatred, Joey could reach the farthest possible end. His love for his father and the usurpation by Mrs. Margaret of the memories left behind by Mr. Hudson would move him to a state of insane outrage. As days passed by, Harrison kept instigating Joey to kill Mrs. Margaret, so that he himself could remain white and stain free while the blood of murder is splashed over Joey’s face. That night, the brutality of the storm ravaged the entire town. Its ferocity made the window panes strike against the walls relentlessly until as if the panes demanded freedom from their hinges. But Joey could lend only a deaf ear to the ongoing cacophony as the clamor inside his heart was unbelievably intense  more intense than the sound of blade running through flesh or the sound of the clattering thighs of a man, hanging mid air, embracing the gallows, amidst the tremor running through his veins. “If the trembling hands can bring tranquility to the mind and soul, if mere deceit of morality could bring a triumphant justice, then it ought to be done” Joey spoke to himself. The commotion inside his mind was abruptly interrupted by a piercing noise made by the doorbell, while on the other side of the door; the guest was hardly knowledgeable that this bell would lay down a funeral pyre for her own self. 27

Harrison arose reluctantly on hearing the bell, but before he could answer it, he got distracted by the thwacking window panes which had by now enfeebled the walls. The door was finally answered but instead of providing a refuge to the guest standing outside in the stormy night, Harrison himself went out to face the storm. Joey’s afflicted state of mind was aggravated by Harrison’s long absence from the room. He was inquisitive about the proceedings outside the door. In a stealthy pace, he moved towards the windows and looked through the rain- smeared panes.  It was Mrs. Margaret. As soon as he saw the face of the vicious lady, Joey’s blood boiled in rage. He knew what he had to do  he knew, he had to kill her  his hands trembled no more. He dashed upstairs to the store room where Harrison had secretly kept his pistol hidden. It was pitch-dark and Joey felt as if he was blind folded. He lit up his lighter, grabbed the lethal weapon and in a moment of urgency rushed downstairs. He forced the door open pointed the gun at his victim and pulled the trigger. A corpse fell on the ground with a thud. Blood gushed out of Harrison’s body like a mighty fountain. The sinner was thus punished and Joey’s hands didn’t tremble at all to deliver the justice. Mrs. Margaret stood thunder struck, however, she was soon seized by the epiphany that Harrison’s fate met what it deserved. “What in the name of Lord did you just do?” exclaimed Mrs. Margaret, “how could you kill him? Why did you…” “The brown leather bag! My father’s brown leather bag!” 28

Joey pointed upwards towards the store room. “What bag are you talking about? Wait a minute, aren’t you Joey Hudson?” Instead of answering her in affirmative, Joey pulled her by her hand and took her to the room upstairs where the old leather bag could be seen placed right in front, with its constituents scattered all over the floor of the murkiest room faintly lit up by Joey’s lighter. Mrs. Margaret stooped to pick up the papers lying on the floor. She found Mr. Hudson’s signature on those papers, one of which stated in bold: “I Mr. Samuel Hudson, hereby declare my son, Mr. Joey Hudson, as the rightful owner of all my properties after my demise.” 29

Desiree's Baby AS the day was pleasant, Madame Valmonde drove over to L'Abri to see Desiree and the baby. It made her laugh to think of Desiree with a baby. Why, it seemed but yesterday that Desiree was little more than a baby herself; when Monsieur in riding through the gateway of Valmonde had found her lying asleep in the shadow of the big stone pillar. The little one awoke in his arms and began to cry for \"Dada.\" That was as much as she could do or say. Some people thought she might have strayed there of her own accord, for she was of the toddling age. The prevailing belief was that she had been purposely left by a party of Texans, whose canvas-covered wagon, late in the day, had crossed the ferry that Coton Mais kept, just below the plantation. In time Madame Valmonde abandoned every speculation but the one that Desiree had been sent to her by a beneficent Providence to be the child of her affection, seeing that she was without child of the flesh. For the girl grew to be beautiful and gentle, affectionate and sincere,—the idol of Valmonde. It was no wonder, when she stood one day against the stone pillar in whose shadow she had lain asleep, eighteen years before, that Armand Aubigny riding by and seeing her there, had fallen in love with her. That was the way all the Aubignys fell in love, as if struck by a pistol shot. The wonder was that he had not 30

loved her before; for he had known her since his father brought him home from Paris, a boy of eight, after his mother died there. The passion that awoke in him that day, when he saw her at the gate, swept along like an avalanche, or like a prairie fire, or like anything that drives headlong over all obstacles. Monsieur Valmonde grew practical and wanted things well considered: that is, the girl's obscure origin. Armand looked into her eyes and did not care. He was reminded that she was nameless. What did it matter about a name when he could give her one of the oldest and proudest in Louisiana? He ordered the corbeille from Paris, and contained himself with what patience he could until it arrived; then they were married. Madame Valmonde had not seen Desiree and the baby for four weeks. When she reached L'Abri she shuddered at the first sight of it, as she always did. It was a sad looking place, which for many years had not known the gentle presence of a mistress, old Monsieur Aubigny having married and buried his wife in France, and she having loved her own land too well ever to leave it. The roof came down steep and black like a cowl, reaching out beyond the wide galleries that encircled the yellow stuccoed house. Big, solemn oaks grew close to it, and their thick- leaved, far-reaching branches shadowed it like a pall. Young Aubigny's rule was a strict one, too, and under it his negroes had forgotten how to be gay, as they had been during the old master's easy-going and indulgent lifetime. The young mother was recovering slowly, and lay full length, in her soft white muslins and laces, upon a couch. The baby was beside her, upon her arm, where he had fallen asleep, at her breast. The yellow nurse woman sat beside a window fanning herself. Madame Valmonde bent her portly figure over Desiree and kissed her, holding her an instant tenderly in her arms. Then she turned to the child. \"This is not the baby!\" she exclaimed, in startled tones. French was the language spoken at Valmonde in those days. \"I knew you would be astonished,\" laughed Desiree, \"at the way he has grown. The little cochon de lait! Look at his legs, mamma, and his hands and fingernails,—real finger-nails. Zandrine had to cut them this morning. Isn't it true, Zandrine?\" The woman bowed her turbaned head majestically, \"Mais si, Madame.\" 31

\"And the way he cries,\" went on Desiree, \"is deafening. Armand heard him the other day as far away as La Blanche's cabin.\" Madame Valmonde had never removed her eyes from the child. She lifted it and walked with it over to the window that was lightest. She scanned the baby narrowly, then looked as searchingly at Zandrine, whose face was turned to gaze across the fields. \"Yes, the child has grown, has changed,\" said Madame Valmonde, slowly, as she replaced it beside its mother. \"What does Armand say?\" Desiree's face became suffused with a glow that was happiness itself. \"Oh, Armand is the proudest father in the parish, I believe, chiefly because it is a boy, to bear his name; though he says not,—that he would have loved a girl as well. But I know it isn't true. I know he says that to please me. And mamma,\" she added, drawing Madame Valmonde's head down to her, and speaking in a whisper, \"he hasn't punished one of them—not one of them—since baby is born. Even Negrillon, who pretended to have burnt his leg that he might rest from work—he only laughed, and said Negrillon was a great scamp. oh, mamma, I'm so happy; it frightens me.\" What Desiree said was true. Marriage, and later the birth of his son had softened Armand Aubigny's imperious and exacting nature greatly. This was what made the gentle Desiree so happy, for she loved him desperately. When he frowned she trembled, but loved him. When he smiled, she asked no greater blessing of God. But Armand's dark, handsome face had not often been disfigured by frowns since the day he fell in love with her. When the baby was about three months old, Desiree awoke one day to the conviction that there was something in the air menacing her peace. It was at first too subtle to grasp. It had only been a disquieting suggestion; an air of mystery among the blacks; unexpected visits from far-off neighbors who could hardly account for their coming. Then a strange, an awful change in her husband's manner, which she dared not ask him to explain. When he spoke to her, it was with averted eyes, from which the old love-light seemed to have gone out. He absented himself from home; and when there, avoided her presence and that of her child, without excuse. And the very spirit of Satan seemed suddenly to take hold of him in his dealings with the slaves. Desiree was miserable enough to die. 32

She sat in her room, one hot afternoon, in her peignoir, listlessly drawing through her fingers the strands of her long, silky brown hair that hung about her shoulders. The baby, half naked, lay asleep upon her own great mahogany bed, that was like a sumptuous throne, with its satin-lined half-canopy. One of La Blanche's little quadroon boys—half naked too—stood fanning the child slowly with a fan of peacock feathers. Desiree's eyes had been fixed absently and sadly upon the baby, while she was striving to penetrate the threatening mist that she felt closing about her. She looked from her child to the boy who stood beside him, and back again; over and over. \"Ah!\" It was a cry that she could not help; which she was not conscious of having uttered. The blood turned like ice in her veins, and a clammy moisture gathered upon her face. She tried to speak to the little quadroon boy; but no sound would come, at first. When he heard his name uttered, he looked up, and his mistress was pointing to the door. He laid aside the great, soft fan, and obediently stole away, over the polished floor, on his bare tiptoes. She stayed motionless, with gaze riveted upon her child, and her face the picture of fright. Presently her husband entered the room, and without noticing her, went to a table and began to search among some papers which covered it. \"Armand,\" she called to him, in a voice which must have stabbed him, if he was human. But he did not notice. \"Armand,\" she said again. Then she rose and tottered towards him. \"Armand,\" she panted once more, clutching his arm, \"look at our child. What does it mean? tell me.\" He coldly but gently loosened her fingers from about his arm and thrust the hand away from him. \"Tell me what it means!\" she cried despairingly. \"It means,\" he answered lightly, \"that the child is not white; it means that you are not white.\" A quick conception of all that this accusation meant for her nerved her with unwonted courage to deny it. \"It is a lie; it is not true, I am white! Look at my hair, it is brown; and my eyes are gray, Armand, you know they are gray. And my skin is fair,\" seizing his wrist. \"Look at my hand; whiter than yours, Armand,\" she laughed hysterically. 33

\"As white as La Blanche's,\" he returned cruelly; and went away leaving her alone with their child. When she could hold a pen in her hand, she sent a despairing letter to Madame Valmonde. \"My mother, they tell me I am not white. Armand has told me I am not white. For God's sake tell them it is not true. You must know it is not true. I shall die. I must die. I cannot be so unhappy, and live.\" The answer that came was brief: \"My own Desiree: Come home to Valmonde; back to your mother who loves you. Come with your child.\" When the letter reached Desiree she went with it to her husband's study, and laid it open upon the desk before which he sat. She was like a stone image: silent, white, motionless after she placed it there. In silence he ran his cold eyes over the written words. He said nothing. \"Shall I go, Armand?\" she asked in tones sharp with agonized suspense. \"Yes, go.\" \"Do you want me to go?\" \"Yes, I want you to go.\" He thought Almighty God had dealt cruelly and unjustly with him; and felt, somehow, that he was paying Him back in kind when he stabbed thus into his wife's soul. Moreover he no longer loved her, because of the unconscious injury she had brought upon his home and his name. She turned away like one stunned by a blow, and walked slowly towards the door, hoping he would call her back. \"Good-by, Armand,\" she moaned. He did not answer her. That was his last blow at fate. 34

Desiree went in search of her child. Zandrine was pacing the sombre gallery with it. She took the little one from the nurse's arms with no word of explanation, and descending the steps, walked away, under the live-oak branches. It was an October afternoon; the sun was just sinking. Out in the still fields the negroes were picking cotton. Desiree had not changed the thin white garment nor the slippers which she wore. Her hair was uncovered and the sun's rays brought a golden gleam from its brown meshes. She did not take the broad, beaten road which led to the far-off plantation of Valmonde. She walked across a deserted field, where the stubble bruised her tender feet, so delicately shod, and tore her thin gown to shreds. She disappeared among the reeds and willows that grew thick along the banks of the deep, sluggish bayou; and she did not come back again. 35

Some weeks later there was a curious scene enacted at L'Abri. In the centre of the smoothly swept back yard was a great bonfire. Armand Aubigny sat in the wide hallway that commanded a view of the spectacle; and it was he who dealt out to a half dozen negroes the material which kept this fire ablaze. A graceful cradle of willow, with all its dainty furbishings, was laid upon the pyre, which had already been fed with the richness of a priceless layette. Then there were silk gowns, and velvet and satin ones added to these; laces, too, and embroideries; bonnets and gloves; for the corbeille had been of rare quality. The last thing to go was a tiny bundle of letters; innocent little scribblings that Desiree had sent to him during the days of their espousal. There was the remnant of one back in the drawer from which he took them. But it was not Desiree's; it was part of an old letter from his mother to his father. He read it. She was thanking God for the blessing of her husband's love:— \"But above all,\" she wrote, \"night and day, I thank the good God for having so arranged our lives that our dear Armand will never know that his mother, who adores him, belongs to the race that is cursed with the brand of slavery.\" 36

The Lottery THE morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green. The people of the village began to gather in the square, between the post office and the bank, around ten o’clock; in some towns there were so many people that the lottery took two days and had to be started on June 20th, but in this village, where there were only about three hundred people, the whole lottery took less than two hours, so it could begin at ten o’clock in the morning and still be through in time to allow the villagers to get home for noon dinner. The children assembled first, of course. School was recently over for the summer, and the feeling of liberty sat uneasily on most of them; they tended to gather together quietly for a while before they broke into boisterous play, and their talk was still of the classroom and the teacher, of books and reprimands. Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the other boys soon followed his example, selecting the smoothest and roundest stones; Bobby and Harry Jones and Dickie Delacroix—the villagers pronounced this name “Dellacroy”—eventually made a great pile of stones in one corner of the square and guarded it against the raids of the other boys. The girls stood aside, talking among themselves, looking over their shoulders at the boys, and the very small children rolled in the dust or clung to the hands of their older brothers or sisters. Soon the men began to gather, surveying their own children, speaking of planting and rain, tractors and taxes. They stood together, away from the pile of 37

stones in the corner, and their jokes were quiet and they smiled rather than laughed. The women, wearing faded house dresses and sweaters, came shortly after their menfolk. They greeted one another and exchanged bits of gossip as they went to join their husbands. Soon the women, standing by their husbands, began to call to their children, and the children came reluctantly, having to be called four or five times. Bobby Martin ducked under his mother’s grasping hand and ran, laughing, back to the pile of stones. His father spoke up sharply, and Bobby came quickly and took his place between his father and his oldest brother. The lottery was conducted—as were the square dances, the teen club, the Halloween program—by Mr. Summers, who had time and energy to devote to civic activities. He was a round-faced, jovial man and he ran the coal business, and people were sorry for him because he had no children and his wife was a scold. When he arrived in the square, carrying the black wooden box, there was a murmur of conversation among the villagers, and he waved and called. “Little late today, folks.” The postmaster, Mr. Graves, followed him, carrying a three-legged stool, and the stool was put in the center of the square and Mr. Summers set the black box down on it. The villagers kept their distance, leaving a space between themselves and the stool, and when Mr. Summers said, “Some of you fellows want to give me a hand?” there was a hesitation before two men. Mr. Martin and his oldest son, Baxter, came forward to hold the box steady on the stool while Mr. Summers stirred up the papers inside it. 38

The original paraphernalia for the lottery had been lost long ago, and the black box now resting on the stool had been put into use even before Old Man Warner, the oldest man in town, was born. Mr. Summers spoke frequently to the villagers about making a new box, but no one liked to upset even as much tradition as was represented by the black box. There was a story that the present box had been made with some pieces of the box that had preceded it, the one that had been constructed when the first people settled down to make a village here. Every year, after the lottery, Mr. Summers began talking again about a new box, but every year the subject was allowed to fade off without anything’s being done. The black box grew shabbier each year: by now it was no longer completely black but splintered badly along one side to show the original wood color, and in some places faded or stained. Mr. Martin and his oldest son, Baxter, held the black box securely on the stool until Mr. Summers had stirred the papers thoroughly with his hand. Because so much of the ritual had been forgotten or discarded, Mr. Summers had been successful in having slips of paper substituted for the chips of wood that had been used for generations. Chips of wood, Mr. Summers had argued, had been all very well when the village was tiny, but now that the population was more than three hundred and likely to keep on growing, it was necessary to use something that would fit more easily into he black box. The night before the lottery, Mr. Summers and Mr. Graves made up the slips of paper and put them in the box, and it was then taken to the safe of Mr. Summers’ coal company and locked up until Mr. Summers was ready to take it to the square next morning. The rest of the year, the box was put way, sometimes one place, sometimes another; it had spent one year in Mr. Graves’s barn and another year underfoot in the post office. and sometimes it was set on a shelf in the Martin grocery and left there. There was a great deal of fussing to be done before Mr. Summers declared the lottery open. There were the lists to make up–of heads of families, heads of households in each family, members of each household in each family. There was the proper swearing-in of Mr. Summers by the postmaster, as the official of the lottery; at one time, some people remembered, there had been a recital of some sort, performed by the official of the lottery, a perfunctory, tuneless chant that had been rattled off duly each year; some people believed that the official of the lottery used to stand just so when he said or sang it, others believed that he was supposed to walk among the people, but years and years ago this p3rt of the ritual had been allowed to lapse. There had been, also, a ritual salute, which the 39

official of the lottery had had to use in addressing each person who came up to draw from the box, but this also had changed with time, until now it was felt necessary only for the official to speak to each person approaching. Mr. Summers was very good at all this; in his clean white shirt and blue jeans, with one hand resting carelessly on the black box, he seemed very proper and important as he talked interminably to Mr. Graves and the Martins. Just as Mr. Summers finally left off talking and turned to the assembled villagers, Mrs. Hutchinson came hurriedly along the path to the square, her sweater thrown over her shoulders, and slid into place in the back of the crowd. “Clean forgot what day it was,” she said to Mrs. Delacroix, who stood next to her, and they both laughed softly. “Thought my old man was out back stacking wood,” Mrs. Hutchinson went on, “and then I looked out the window and the kids was gone, and then I remembered it was the twenty-seventh and came a-running.” She dried her hands on her apron, and Mrs. Delacroix said, “You’re in time, though. They’re still talking away up there.” Mrs. Hutchinson craned her neck to see through the crowd and found her husband and children standing near the front. She tapped Mrs. Delacroix on the arm as a farewell and began to make her way through the crowd. The people separated good-humoredly to let her through: two or three people said, in voices just loud enough to be heard across the crowd, “Here comes your, Missus, Hutchinson,” and “Bill, she made it after all.” Mrs. Hutchinson reached her husband, and Mr. Summers, who had been waiting, said cheerfully. “Thought we were going to have to get on without you, Tessie.” Mrs. Hutchinson said, grinning, “Wouldn’t have me leave m’dishes in the sink, now, would you, Joe?” and soft laughter ran through the crowd as the people stirred back into position after Mrs. Hutchinson’s arrival. “Well, now.” Mr. Summers said soberly, “guess we better get started, get this over with, so’s we can go back to work. Anybody ain’t here?” “Dunbar.” several people said. “Dunbar. Dunbar.” Mr. Summers consulted his list. “Clyde Dunbar.” he said. “That’s right. He’s broke his leg, hasn’t he? Who’s drawing for him?” “Me. I guess,” a woman said, and Mr. Summers turned to look at her. “Wife draws for her husband.” Mr. Summers said. “Don’t you have a grown boy to do it for you, Janey?” Although Mr. Summers and everyone else in the village knew the 40

answer perfectly well, it was the business of the official of the lottery to ask such questions formally. Mr. Summers waited with an expression of polite interest while Mrs. Dunbar answered. “Horace’s not but sixteen yet.” Mrs. Dunbar said regretfully. “Guess I gotta fill in for the old man this year.” “Right.” Sr. Summers said. He made a note on the list he was holding. Then he asked, “Watson boy drawing this year?” A tall boy in the crowd raised his hand. “Here,” he said. “I m drawing for my mother and me.” He blinked his eyes nervously and ducked his head as several voices in the crowd said things like “Good fellow, lack.” and “Glad to see your mother’s got a man to do it.” “Well,” Mr. Summers said, “guess that’s everyone. Old Man Warner make it?” “Here,” a voice said, and Mr. Summers nodded. A sudden hush fell on the crowd as Mr. Summers cleared his throat and looked at the list. “All ready?” he called. “Now, I’ll read the names–heads of families first–and the men come up and take a paper out of the box. Keep the paper folded in your hand without looking at it until everyone has had a turn. Everything clear?” The people had done it so many times that they only half listened to the directions: most of them were quiet, wetting their lips, not looking around. Then Mr. Summers raised one hand high and said, “Adams.” A man disengaged himself from the crowd and came forward. “Hi. Steve.” Mr. Summers said, and Mr. Adams said. “Hi. Joe.” They grinned at one another humorlessly and nervously. Then Mr. Adams reached into the black box and took out a folded paper. He held it firmly by one corner as he turned and went hastily back to his place in the crowd, where he stood a little apart from his family, not looking down at his hand. “Allen.” Mr. Summers said. “Anderson… Bentham.” “Seems like there’s no time at all between lotteries any more.” Mrs. Delacroix said to Mrs. Graves in the back row. “Seems like we got through with the last one only last week.” 41

“Time sure goes fast” Mrs. Graves said. “Clark… Delacroix.” “There goes my old man.” Mrs. Delacroix said. She held her breath while her husband went forward. “Dunbar,” Mr. Summers said, and Mrs. Dunbar went steadily to the box while one of the women said. “Go on, Janey,” and another said, “There she goes.” “We’re next.” Mrs. Graves said. She watched while Mr. Graves came around from the side of the box, greeted Mr. Summers gravely and selected a slip of paper from the box. By now, all through the crowd there were men holding the small folded papers in their large hand, turning them over and over nervously Mrs. Dunbar and her two sons stood together, Mrs. Dunbar holding the slip of paper. “Harburt… Hutchinson.” “Get up there, Bill,” Mrs. Hutchinson said, and the people near her laughed. “Jones.” “They do say,” Mr. Adams said to Old Man Warner, who stood next to him, “that over in the north village they’re talking of giving up the lottery.” Old Man Warner snorted. “Pack of crazy fools,” he said. “Listening to the young folks, nothing’s good enough for them. Next thing you know, they’ll be wanting to go back to living in caves, nobody work any more, live hat way for a while. Used to be a saying about Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon. ‘ First thing you know, we’d all be eating stewed chickweed and acorns. There’s always been a lottery,” he added petulantly. “Bad enough to see young Joe Summers up there joking with everybody.” “Some places have already quit lotteries,” Mrs. Adams said. “Nothing but trouble in that,” Old Man Warner said stoutly. “Pack of young fools.” “Martin.” And Bobby Martin watched his father go forward. “Overdyke… Percy.” 42