Property:Has text
From Off the Road Database
This is a property of type Text.
T
<div class="poem">
<p><span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 4em;">She bent close, she moved the pegs in the holes, and called and called, until her voice rose almost to a shriek, and her heart hammered. It was as if she had heard the last flicker of creation, and the evil was silence. Her voice dropped to a sob. She sat stupidly staring into the black and sarcastic mouthpiece, and the thought came again. Hope lay dead within her. Yes, the cable and the rockets remained; but the world––she could not frame the thought or say the word. It was too mighty––too terrible! She turned toward the door with a new fear in her heart. For the first time she seemed to realize that she was alone in the world with a stranger, with something more than a stranger,––with a man alien in blood and culture––unknown, perhaps unknowable. It was awful! She must escape––she must fly; he must not see her again. Who knew what awful thoughts––</span>
</p>
</div> +
<div class="poem">
<p>He stood a moment on the steps of the bank, watching the human river that swirled down Broadway. Few noticed him. Few ever noticed him save in a way that stung. He was outside the world—"nothing!" as he said bitterly. Bits of the words of the walkers came to him.<br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 4em;">"The comet?"</span><br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 4em;">"The comet–––"</span><br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 4em;">Everybody was talking of it. Even the president, as he entered, smiled patronizingly at him, and asked:</span><br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 4em;">"Well, Jim, are you scared?"</span><br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 4em;">"No," said the messenger shortly.</span><br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 4em;">"I thought we'd journeyed through the comet's tail once," broke in the junior clerk affably.</span><br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 4em;">"Oh, that was Halley's," said the president; "this is a new comet, quite a stranger, they say—wonderful, wonderful! I saw it last night. Oh, by the way, Jim," turning again to the messenger, "I want you to go down into the lower vaults today."</span><br />
The messenger followed the president silently. Of course, they wanted him to go down to the lower vaults. It was too dangerous for more valuable men. He smiled grimly and listened.<br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 4em;">"Everything of value has been moved out since the water began to seep in," said the president; "but we miss two volumes of old records. Suppose you nose around down there,—it isn't very pleasant, I suppose."</span><br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 4em;">"Not very," said the messenger, as he walked out.</span><br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 4em;">"Well, Jim, the tail of the new comet hits us at noon this time," said the vault clerk, as</span><br />
he passed over the keys; but the messenger passed silently down the stairs. Down he went beneath Broadway, where the dim light filtered through the feet of hurrying men; down to the dark basement beneath; down into the blackness and silence beneath that lowest cavern. Here with his dark lantern he groped in the bowels of the earth, under the world.
</p>
</div>
<div class="poem">
<p><span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 4em;">He was gone but a moment. Then he returned, and his face was gray. She did not look, but said:</span><br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 4em;">"You have lost––somebody?"</span><br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 4em;">"I have lost––everybody," he said, simply––" unless––––"</span><br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 4em;">He ran back and was gone several minutes––hours they seemed to her.</span><br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 4em;">"Everybody," he said, and he walked slowly back with something film-like in his hand which he stuffed into his pocket.</span>
</p>
</div> +
<div class="poem">
<p><span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 4em;">In fascinated silence the man gazed at the heavens and dropped his rockets to the floor. Memories of memories stirred to life in the dead recesses of his mind. The shackles seemed to rattle and fall from his soul. Up from the crass and crushing and cringing of his caste leaped the lone majesty of kings long dead. He arose within the shadows, tall, straight, and stern, with power in his eyes and ghostly scepters hovering to his grasp. It was as though some mighty Pharaoh lived again, or curled Assyrian lord. He turned and looked upon the lady, and found her gazing straight at him.</span>
</p>
</div> +
<div class="poem">
<p><span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 4em;">"Have you had to work hard?" she asked softly.</span><br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 4em;">“Always," he said.</span><br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 4em;">"I have always been idle," she said. "I was rich."</span><br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 4em;">"I was poor," he almost echoed.</span><br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 4em;">"The rich and the poor are met together," she began, and he finished:</span><br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 4em;">"The Lord is the Maker of them all."</span><br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 4em;">"Yes," she said slowly; "and how foolish our human distinctions seem––now," looking down to the great dead city stretched below, swimming in unlightened shadows.</span><br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 4em;">"Yes––I was not––human, yesterday," he said.</span>
</p>
</div> +
<div class="poem">
<p><span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 4em;">She stopped. She was alone. Alone! Alone on the streets––alone in the city––perhaps alone in the world! There crept in upon her the sense of deception––of creeping hands behind her back––of silent, moving things she could not see,––of voices hushed in fearsome conspiracy. She looked behind and sideways, started at strange sounds and heard still stranger, until every nerve within her stood sharp and quivering, stretched to scream at the barest touch. She whirled and flew back, whimpering like a child, until she found that narrow alley again and the dark, silent figure silhouetted at the top. She stopped and rested; then she walked silently toward him, looked at him timidly; but he said nothing as he handed her into the car. Her voice caught as she whispered:</span>
</p>
</div> +
<div class="poem">
<p><span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 4em;">"Come," she cried nervously. "We must search the city."</span>
</p>
</div> +
<div class="poem">
<p><span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 4em;">She lifted her head and looked at her late companion curiously and then dropped her eyes with a sigh.</span>
</p>
</div> +
<div class="poem">
<p><span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 4em;">"He has dared––all, to rescue me," she said quietly, "and I––thank him––much." But she did not look at him again. As the couple turned away, the father drew a roll of bills from his pockets.</span>
</p>
</div> +
<div class="poem">
<p><span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 4em;">"Not––that."</span><br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 4em;">And he answered slowly: "No––not that!"</span><br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 4em;">They climbed into the car. She bent forward on the wheel and sobbed, with great, dry, quivering sobs, as they flew toward the cable office on the east side, leaving the world of wealth and prosperity for the world of poverty and work. In the world behind them were death and silence, grave and grim, almost cynical, but always decent; here it was hideous. It clothed itself in every ghastly form of terror, struggle, hate, and suffering. It lay wreathed in crime and squalor, greed and lust. Only in its dread and awful silence was it like to death everywhere.</span>
</p>
</div> +
<div class="poem">
<p><span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 4em;">When he arose, he gave no glance at the still and silent forms on the benches, but, going to a fountain, bathed his face; then hiding himself in a corner away from the drama of death, he quietly gripped himself and thought the thing through: The comet had swept the earth and this was the end. Was everybody dead? He must search and see.</span>
</p>
</div> +
<div class="poem">
<p><span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 4em;">He awoke with a sense of horror, leaped from the body, and groped up the stairs, calling to the guard. The watchman sat as if asleep, with the gate swinging free. With one glance at him the messenger hurried up to the sub-vault. In vain he called to the guards. His voice echoed and re-echoed weirdly. Up into the great basement he rushed. Here another guard lay prostrate on his face, cold and still. A fear arose in the messenger's heart. He dashed up to the cellar floor, up into the bank. The stillness of death lay everywhere and everywhere bowed, bent, and stretched the silent forms of men. The messenger paused and glanced about. He was not a man easily moved; but the sight was appalling! "Robbery and murder," he whispered slowly to himself as he saw the twisted, oozing mouth of the president where he lay half-buried on his desk. Then a new thought seized him: If they found him here alone––with all this money and all these dead men––what would his life be worth? He glanced about, tiptoed cautiously to a side door, and again looked behind. Quietly he turned the latch and stepped out into Wall Street.</span>
</p>
</div> +
<div class="poem">
<p><span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 4em;">He knew that he must steady himself and keep calm, or he would go insane. First he must go to a restaurant. He walked up Fifth Avenue to a famous hostelry and entered its gorgeous, ghost-haunted halls. He beat back the nausea, and, seizing a tray from dead hands, hurried into the street and ate ravenously, hiding to keep out the sights.</span>
</p>
</div> +
<div class="poem">
<p><span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 4em;">"What has happened?" she cried. "Tell me! Nothing stirs. All is silence! I see the dead strewn before my window as winnowed by the breath of God,––and see––––" She dragged him through great, silken hangings to where, beneath the sheen of mahogany and silver, a little French maid lay stretched in quiet, everlasting sleep, and near her a butler lay prone in his livery.</span>
</p>
</div> +
<div class="poem">
<p><span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 4em;">Then he stopped.</span><br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 4em;">"No," he said firmly––"first, we must go––to Harlem."</span><br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 4em;">"Harlem!" she cried. Then she understood. She tapped her foot at first impatiently. She looked back and shuddered. Then she came resolutely down the steps.</span><br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 4em;">"There's a swifter car in the garage in the court," she said.</span><br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 4em;">"I don't know how to drive it," he said.</span><br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 4em;">"I do," she answered.</span>
</p>
</div> +
<div class="poem">
<p><span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 4em;">So a moment each paused and gauged the other; then the thought of the dead world without rushed in and they started toward each other.</span>
</p>
</div> +
<div class="poem">
<p><span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 4em;">She looked at him. “And your people were not my people," she said; "but today––––" She paused. He was a man,–no more; but he was in some larger sense a gentleman,—sensitive, kindly, chivalrous, everything save his hands and–his face. Yet yesterday–– </span><br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 4em;">"Death, the leveler!" he muttered.</span>
</p>
</div> +
<div class="poem">
<p><span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 4em;">He did not glimpse the glory in her eyes, but stood looking outward toward the sea and sending rocket after rocket into the unanswering darkness. Dark-purple clouds lay banked and billowed in the west. Behind them and all around, the heavens glowed in dim, weird radiance that suffused the darkening world and made almost a minor music. Suddenly, as though gathered back in some vast hand, the great cloud-curtain fell away. Low on the horizon lay a long, white star––mystic, wonderful! And from it fled upward to the pole, like some wan bridal veil, a pale, wide sheet of flame that lighted all the world and dimmed the stars.</span>
</p>
</div> +
<div class="poem">
<p><span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 4em;">She gathered her silken skirts deftly about her young, smooth limbs––listened, and glided into a sidehall. A moment she shrank back: the hall lay filled with dead women; then she leaped to the door and tore at it, with bleeding fingers, until it swung wide. She looked out. He was standing at the top of the alley,––silhouetted, tall and black, motionless. Was he looking at her or away? She did not know––she did not care. She simply leaped and ran––ran until she found herself alone amid the dead and the tall ramparts of towering buildings.</span>
</p>
</div> +
