Short Fiction O. Henry (comprehension books TXT) 📖

“I suppose I am an incorrigible,” said Ives. “I am opposed to the doctrine of predestination, to the rule of three, gravitation, taxation, and everything of the kind. Life has always seemed to me something like a serial story would be if they printed above each instalment a synopsis of succeeding chapters.”

Mary laughed merrily.

“Bob Ames told us once,” she said, “of a funny thing you did. It was when you and he were on a train in the South, and you got off at a town where you hadn’t intended to stop just because the brakeman hung up a sign in the end of the car with the name of the next station on it.”

“I remember,” said Ives. “That ‘next station’ has been the thing I’ve always tried to get away from.”

“I know it,” said Mary. “And you’ve been very foolish. I hope you didn’t find what you wanted not to find, or get off at the station where there wasn’t any, or whatever it was you expected wouldn’t happen to you during the three years you’ve been away.”

“There was something I wanted before I went away,” said Ives.

Mary looked in his eyes clearly, with a slight, but perfectly sweet smile.

“There was,” she said. “You wanted me. And you could have had me, as you very well know.”

Without replying, Ives let his gaze wander slowly about the room. There had been no change in it since last he had been in it, three years before. He vividly recalled the thoughts that had been in his mind then. The contents of that room were as fixed, in their way, as the everlasting hills. No change would ever come there except the inevitable ones wrought by time and decay. That silver-mounted album would occupy that corner of that table, those pictures would hang on the walls, those chairs be found in their same places every morn and noon and night while the household hung together. The brass andirons were monuments to order and stability. Here and there were relics of a hundred years ago which were still living mementos and would be for many years to come. One going from and coming back to that house would never need to forecast or doubt. He would find what he left, and leave what he found. The veiled lady, Chance, would never lift her hand to the knocker on the outer door.

And before him sat the lady who belonged in the room. Cool and sweet and unchangeable she was. She offered no surprises. If one should pass his life with her, though she might grow white-haired and wrinkled, he would never perceive the change. Three years he had been away from her, and she was still waiting for him as established and constant as the house itself. He was sure that she had once cared for him. It was the knowledge that she would always do so that had driven him away. Thus his thoughts ran.

“I am going to be married soon,” said Mary.

On the next Thursday afternoon Forster came hurriedly to Ive’s hotel.

“Old man,” said he, “we’ll have to put that dinner off for a year or so; I’m going abroad. The steamer sails at four. That was a great talk we had the other night, and it decided me. I’m going to knock around the world and get rid of that incubus that has been weighing on both you and me⁠—the terrible dread of knowing what’s going to happen. I’ve done one thing that hurts my conscience a little; but I know it’s best for both of us. I’ve written to the lady to whom I was engaged and explained everything⁠—told her plainly why I was leaving⁠—that the monotony of matrimony would never do for me. Don’t you think I was right?”

“It is not for me to say,” answered Ives. “Go ahead and shoot elephants if you think it will bring the element of chance into your life. We’ve got to decide these things for ourselves. But I tell you one thing, Forster, I’ve found the way. I’ve found out the biggest hazard in the world⁠—a game of chance that never is concluded, a venture that may end in the highest heaven or the blackest pit. It will keep a man on edge until the clods fall on his coffin, because he will never know⁠—not until his last day, and not then will he know. It is a voyage without a rudder or compass, and you must be captain and crew and keep watch, every day and night, yourself, with no one to relieve you. I have found the Venture. Don’t bother yourself about leaving Mary Marsden, Forster. I married her yesterday at noon.”

The cities are full of pride,
Challenging each to each⁠—
This from her mountainside,
That from her burdened beach.

Fancy a novel about Chicago or Buffalo, let us say, or Nashville, Tennessee! There are just three big cities in the United States that are “story cities”⁠—New York, of course, New Orleans, and, best of the lot, San Francisco.⁠—Frank Norris.

East is East, and West is San Francisco, according to Californians. Californians are a race of people; they are not merely inhabitants of a State. They are the Southerners of the West. Now, Chicagoans are no less loyal to their city; but when you ask them why, they stammer and speak of lake fish and the new Odd Fellows Building. But Californians go into detail.

Of course they have, in the climate, an argument that is good for half an hour while you are thinking of your coal bills and heavy underwear. But as soon as they come to mistake your silence for conviction, madness comes upon them, and they picture the city of the Golden Gate as the Bagdad of the New World. So far, as a matter of opinion, no refutation is necessary. But, dear cousins all (from Adam and Eve descended), it is a rash one who will