servant problem was not simple. He knew what was disturbing him now. Today was November eleventh, in the year eighteen hundred and eighty-seven.
III
The Judge turned back the covers, let his feet dangle over the side of the bed for a moment, then wriggled his feet into the slippers. He went to the window and looked out into the sunny Chicago morning. November in Chicago is a good month, cold and fine and clean. Most of the leaves are gone from the trees, and those of the tree birds who havenât gone south are alive and brisk. Already, at this hour, still somewhat before seven, people were on their way to work. A policeman stood not far away, and a brewery wagon clattered by. All was right in the world. The Judge shivered a moment, found a bathrobe, and wrapped it around him.
This morning, the Judge was uncommonly alive to sounds, smells, to heat and cold, to the compass of the four walls of his room, to all the sensations which usually the body accepts so readily and unconcernedly. Irritation was ready and waiting, and many things contributed to it, a picture of Daniel Webster on the wallâWhat a stupid, ridiculous decoration for a bedroom wall! Why donât I throw it out! Black Daniel, black as his own ignorance!âan ugly carved curl in the back of a chair, the wallpaper, the rug on the floor. But he knew that he was consciously irritating himself, and he fought the feeling. He paced the room, back and forth, several times, stretched his arms, revolved them once or twice, opened the window, and breathed deeply of the cold morning air. But the chill was depressing rather than exciting, and he closed the window hurriedly, seating himself on the bed and rubbing his beard. He was not yet fully awake, and a drowsy reminiscence of sleep still lingered, expressing itself as a thoughtfulness, a slowly revolving wonder and meditation which could be shattered in a basin of cold water and soap, but which the Judge did not choose to shatter yet. Rathèr was he concerned with his irritation, his state of mind on this special day; and letting his thoughts drift, he sought to recover himself.
He took refuge in an old and reliable counterpoint; he was a judge and he despised judges, more so now than ever, and with that idea he smiled for the first time this morning. A case he had tried outlined itself, and for at least the fifth time he considered the sardonic and clever remark he might have and should have made at a certain point, a remark which would have been repeated for weeks all over ChicagoâJudge Altgeld said that the other dayâbut which he did not make simply because he did not think of it until a good deal too late. And then, annoyed at himself for returning to this egotism so readily, he wrenched his thoughts away and dropped back into a vague trend of recollection.
Some things always stood out, leaped into silhouette effect, presented themselves as a matter of habit. A miserable and unhappy rainy day during his army service always recalled itself, although there was nothing so very special about it; it was just a lasting and well-remembered discomfort, and it stood out more sharply than anything else. Also, there was a consideration of chance and purposefulness which presented itself whenever he was in such a mood as this; he was a great believer in purposefulness: didnât the thread of his own proud ego run back into the mistiest memories of childhood, so that when he was the miserable, ugly child, standing before the father, he nevertheless felt within him his destiny, and knew so surely that it could not elude him? But in his recollection of his fever-blurred walk northward from the railroad, there was not so much certainty of destiny. He was a tramp, a dirty, ill-smelling, sick tramp, when he came to a farm and pleaded for shelter and work.
âBut a sick man canât work,â Cam Williams, the farmer protested.
How well he remembered Cam Williams! No, a sick man canât work; so
III
The Judge turned back the covers, let his feet dangle over the side of the bed for a moment, then wriggled his feet into the slippers. He went to the window and looked out into the sunny Chicago morning. November in Chicago is a good month, cold and fine and clean. Most of the leaves are gone from the trees, and those of the tree birds who havenât gone south are alive and brisk. Already, at this hour, still somewhat before seven, people were on their way to work. A policeman stood not far away, and a brewery wagon clattered by. All was right in the world. The Judge shivered a moment, found a bathrobe, and wrapped it around him.
This morning, the Judge was uncommonly alive to sounds, smells, to heat and cold, to the compass of the four walls of his room, to all the sensations which usually the body accepts so readily and unconcernedly. Irritation was ready and waiting, and many things contributed to it, a picture of Daniel Webster on the wallâWhat a stupid, ridiculous decoration for a bedroom wall! Why donât I throw it out! Black Daniel, black as his own ignorance!âan ugly carved curl in the back of a chair, the wallpaper, the rug on the floor. But he knew that he was consciously irritating himself, and he fought the feeling. He paced the room, back and forth, several times, stretched his arms, revolved them once or twice, opened the window, and breathed deeply of the cold morning air. But the chill was depressing rather than exciting, and he closed the window hurriedly, seating himself on the bed and rubbing his beard. He was not yet fully awake, and a drowsy reminiscence of sleep still lingered, expressing itself as a thoughtfulness, a slowly revolving wonder and meditation which could be shattered in a basin of cold water and soap, but which the Judge did not choose to shatter yet. Rathèr was he concerned with his irritation, his state of mind on this special day; and letting his thoughts drift, he sought to recover himself.
He took refuge in an old and reliable counterpoint; he was a judge and he despised judges, more so now than ever, and with that idea he smiled for the first time this morning. A case he had tried outlined itself, and for at least the fifth time he considered the sardonic and clever remark he might have and should have made at a certain point, a remark which would have been repeated for weeks all over ChicagoâJudge Altgeld said that the other dayâbut which he did not make simply because he did not think of it until a good deal too late. And then, annoyed at himself for returning to this egotism so readily, he wrenched his thoughts away and dropped back into a vague trend of recollection.
Some things always stood out, leaped into silhouette effect, presented themselves as a matter of habit. A miserable and unhappy rainy day during his army service always recalled itself, although there was nothing so very special about it; it was just a lasting and well-remembered discomfort, and it stood out more sharply than anything else. Also, there was a consideration of chance and purposefulness which presented itself whenever he was in such a mood as this; he was a great believer in purposefulness: didnât the thread of his own proud ego run back into the mistiest memories of childhood, so that when he was the miserable, ugly child, standing before the father, he nevertheless felt within him his destiny, and knew so surely that it could not elude him? But in his recollection of his fever-blurred walk northward from the railroad, there was not so much certainty of destiny. He was a tramp, a dirty, ill-smelling, sick tramp, when he came to a farm and pleaded for shelter and work.
âBut a sick man canât work,â Cam Williams, the farmer protested.
How well he remembered Cam Williams! No, a sick man canât work; so
Similar Books
