She
found comfort in a look, a cry, a whistle. The smiles of strange men
upon the road whom she would never see again became her social
intercourse. The lost smiles of kind Americans, the lost, mocking
whistles of Frenchmen, the scream of a nigger, the twittering surprise
of a Chinese scavenger.
Yet she was glad to have come, for half the world was here. There could
have been nothing like it since the Tower of Babel. The country around
her was a vast tract of men sick with longing for the four corners of
the earth.
"Have you _got_ to be here?" asked an American.
"No, I wanted to come."
The eye of the American said "Fool!"
"Are you paid to come here?" asked a Frenchman.
"No. In a sense, I pay to come." The eye of the Frenchman said,
"Englishwoman!"
Each day she drove in a wash of rain. Each night she returned long after
dark, and putting her car in the garage, felt her way up the inky road
by the rushing of the river at its edge, crossed the wooden bridge, and
entered the cell which she tried to make her personal haven.
But if personal, it was the personality of a dog; it had the character
of a kennel. She had brought no furnishings with her from England; she
could buy nothing in the town. The wooden floor was swamped by the rain
which blew through the window; the paper on the walls was torn by rats;
tarry drops from the roof had fallen upon her unmade bed.
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