After a long time she rose ... gave a sigh ... brushed her hand over her
hair.
Fascination held me close as she stooped over ... began leisurely to
untie her shoes ... set them, removed, aside, toe to toe and heel to
heel, equal, as if for mathematical exactness ... paused a moment ...
lifted her skirts, drew off her garters with a circular downward sweep
... drew down her stockings....
She sat with her stockings off, stuffed into her shoes,--her skirt up to
her hips, gazing meditatively at her naked legs held straight before
her.
I was close enough to hear her breathing--or so keen in my aroused
senses that I thought I heard it. She wiggled her toes to herself as she
meditated.
She paused as if hesitating to go on with her undressing. A twig
snapped. She came to her knees and looked about, startled, then
subsided again, tranquil and sure of her solitude.
* * * * *
She stood in the moonlight, naked. My gaze grew fat with pleasure as it
fed on her nakedness....
She stepped down to the water's edge, dabbling her outstretched toes in
the flow.
Ankle-deep, she stood and stooped. She scooped up water and dashed it
over her breasts. She rose erect a moment and gazed idly about.
Then, binding her hair in a careful knot, she went in with a plunge and
I saw that she could swim well.
My heart shook and thundered so that its pulse pervaded all my body with
its violence. I held in curb a mad, almost irresistible impulse to rush
in after her, crying out that I was a poet ... that this was the true
romance ... that we must throw aside the conventions ... that no one
would ever know.
Then I thought of my skinniness and ugliness in comparison with her
slight but perfect beauty. And I knew that it would repel her. And I
held still in utter shame, not being good-looking enough to join her in
the river.
I lay prone, almost fainting, dizzy, not having the strength to creep
away, as I now considered I must do.
I saw her return and watched her as she slowly resumed her clothes,
piece by leisurely piece. She folded her camp stool, packed her small
easel in a case and started off toward town.
Shouldn't I now intercept her, explain who I was, and offer to escort
her along the tracks back to town? For it was surely dangerous for her
to come so far into the night, alone. There were tramps ... and the
stray criminal negro from the Bottoms ... God knows what else, in her
path!
But my timidity let her pass on alone.
I needed the coolness of the water about me, as I swam out to my tent. I
forgot my clothes on my head and they soused in the water as I swam. All
night I tossed, sleepless. I lay delirious with remembrance of her ...
imagined myself with her as I lay there, and whispered terms of love and
endearment into the dark.
Who was she? One thing I knew--she must be a student, and an art
student under Professor Grant in the Fine Arts Department.
This was the incident that decided me to enroll again as regular
student, and to fold my tent, leave my solitary island, and return to
town ... where I sought out Frank Randall, and he again offered me the
room I had given up. And he gave me work as his bookkeeper, several
hours of the day ... which work I undertook to perform in return for my
room. In addition he gave me two dollars a week extra.
* * * * *
One afternoon soon after my enrollment, I met Ally Merton coming down
hill.
"Well, here I am, as I said I'd be," said he.
He was, as usual, dressed to perfection--not a minute ahead of the
style, not a minute behind ... gentle-voiced and deferential, learning
to be everywhere without being noticed anywhere.
"I see you're still eccentric in dress ... sandals ... shirt open at the
neck ... denim too ... cheap brown socks ... corduroys...."
"Yes, but look," I jested in reply, "I wear a tie ... and the ends pull
exactly even. That's the one thing you taught me about correct dressing
that I'll never forget."
"If I could only persuade you, Johnnie, of the importance of little
things, of putting one's best foot forward ... of personal appearance
... why create an initial prejudice in the minds of people you meet,
that you'll afterward have to waste valuable time in trying to remove?"
"Where are you putting up, Ally?"
"At the Phi Nus" (the bunch that went in the most for style and society)
"I'm a Phi Nu, keep in touch with me, Johnnie."
"Keep in touch with me," was Merton's stock phrase....
"Mr. Mackworth asked me particularly to look you up, and 'take care of'
you ... you made a hit with him ... but he's very much concerned about
you--thinks you're too wild and erratic."
* * * * *
The tinshop was a noisy place, as I have said before. It was as
uproarious as a boiler factory. All day long there was hammering,
banging, and pounding below ... but I was growing used to it ... as you
do to everything which must be.
Keeping Randall's books occupied a couple of hours each morning or
afternoon, whenever I chose. All the rest of the day I had free....
* * * * *
I had almost come to the conclusion that the girl I had seen in the
moonlight had been an apparition conjured up by my own imagination, when
I glimpsed her, one afternoon, walking toward Hewitt Hall, where the art
classes held session, in the upper rooms. I followed the girl, a long
way behind. I saw her go in through the door to a class where already a
group of students sat about with easels, painting from a girl-model ...
fully clothed ... for painting from the nude was not allowed. They had
threshed that proposition out long before, Professor Grant explained to
me, once,--and the faculty had decided, in solemn conclave, that the
farmers throughout the state were not yet prepared for that step....
I sought Grant's friendship. He had studied in the Julian Academy at
Paris, in his youth. He invited me to his house for tea, often; where I
met many of his students, but never, as I had hoped, the girl of the
moonlight....
But by careful and guarded inquiry I found out who she was ... a girl
from the central portion of the state, named Vanna Andrews.
When Grant asked me to pose for his class, sandals, open shirt,
corduroys, and all ... I agreed ... almost too eagerly ... he would pay
me twenty-five cents an hour.
My first day Vanna was not there. On the second, she came ... late ...
her tiny, white face, crowned with its dark head of hair ... "a star in
a jet-black cloud," I phrased, to myself. She sailed straight in like a
ship.
When she had settled herself,--beginning to draw, she appraised me
coolly, impartially, for a moment ... took my dimensions for her paper,
pencil held at arm's length....
Slowly, though I fought it back, a red wave of confusion surged over my
face and neck. I turned as red as ochre. I grew warm with perspiration
of embarrassment. I gazed fixedly out through the window....
"You're getting out of position," warned Professor Grant.
Vanna still observed me with steadfast, large, blue eyes. She started
her sketch with a few, first, swift lines.
"Excuse me," I rose, "I feel rather ill." I posed, "I've been up all
night drinking strong coffee and writing poems," I continued, my voice
rising in insincere, noisy falsetto.
"Step down a minute and rest, then, Mr. Gregory," advised Professor
Grant, puzzled, a grimace of distaste on his face.
"Isn't he silly," I overheard a girl student whisper to a loud-dressed
boy, whose easiness of manner with the female students I hated and
envied him for....
I resumed my pose. I blushed no more. I endured the cool, level,
impersonal glances of the girl I had fallen in love with....
"The model's a little wooden, don't you think, professor?" she observed,
to tease me, perhaps. She could not help but sense the cause of my
agitation. But then she was used to creating a stir among men. Her
beauty perturbed almost the entire male student body.
* * * * *
I noticed that her particular chum was a very homely girl. I straightway
found charms in this girl that no one had ever found before. And Alice
and I became friends. And, while posing, I came before the time, because
she, I discovered, was always beforehand, touching up her work.
Alice was a stupid, clumsy girl, but she adored Vanna and liked nothing
better than to talk about her chum and room-mate. She took care of Vanna
as one would take care of a helpless baby.
"Vanna is a genius, if there ever was one ... she doesn't know her hands
from her feet in practical affairs ... but she's wonderful ... all the
boys," and Alice sighed with as much envy as her nature would
allow--"all the boys are just crazy about her ... but she isn't in love
with any of them!"
My heart gave a great bound of hope at these last words.
"Professor Grant's students--about two-thirds of them--have enrolled in
his classes, because she's there."
And then I went cold with jealousy and with despair ... one so popular
could never _see_ me ... if it were only later, when my fame as a poet
had come!
* * * * *
"Vanna has to be waited on hand and foot. I don't mind though,"
continued Alice, "I hang up her clothes for her ... make her bed ...
sweep and dust our rooms ... it makes me happy to wait on anything so
beautiful!" and the face of the homely girl glowed with joy....
* * * * *
I was poor and miserable. I bent my head forward, forgetful of my
determination to walk erect and proud, with a pride I did not possess.
Langworth was coming behind me. He slapped me on the back. I whirled,
full of resentment. But changed the look to a smile when I perceived who
it was....
"Why, Johnnie, what's the matter? you're walking like an old man. Brace
up. Is anything wrong?"
"No, I was just thinking."
* * * * *
The first cold blasts of winter howled down upon us. No snow yet, but
winds that rushed about the buildings on the hill, full of icy rain, and
with a pushing strength like the shoulders of invisible giants out of
the fourth dimension ... we men kept on the sidewalks when we could ...
but the winds blew the girls off into the half-hardened mud, and, at
times, were so violent, that the girls could not extricate themselves,
but they stood still, waiting for help, their skirts whirling up into
their very faces.