times before you become a man.) I can’t! I can’t! Not now— later, more slowly. (No. Now, it said.) I am afraid. I have nowhere to go. (You must find the place, it said.) I am lost. (You must hunt for yourself, it said.) I am alone. Where are you? (You must find me, it said.)
Then, as the bright thing twisted about in him, Eugene heard the whine of the bleak wind about the house that he must leave, and the voice of Eliza calling up from the past the beautiful lost things that never happened.
“—and I said,’Why, what on earth, boy, you want to dress up warm around your neck or you’ll catch your death of cold.’”
Eugene caught at his throat and plunged for the door.
“Here, boy! Where are you going?” said Eliza, looking up quickly.
“I’ve got to go,” he said in a choking voice. “I’ve got to get away from here.”
Then he saw the fear in her eyes, and the grave troubled child’s stare. He rushed to where she sat and grasped her hand. She held him tightly and laid her face against his arm.
“Don’t go yet,” she said. “You’ve all your life ahead of you. Stay with me just a day or two.”
“Yes, mama,” he said, falling to his knees. “Yes, mama.” He hugged her to him frantically. “Yes, mama. God bless you, mama. It’s all right, mama. It’s all right.”
Eliza wept bitterly.
“I’m an old woman,” she said, “and one by one I’ve lost you all. He’s dead now, and I never got to know him. O son, don’t leave me yet. You’re the only one that’s left: you were my baby. Don’t go! Don’t go.” She laid her white face against his sleeve.
It is not hard to go (he thought). But when can we forget?
It was October and the leaves were quaking. Dusk was beginning. The sun had gone, the western ranges faded in chill purple mist, but the western sky still burned with ragged bands of orange. It was October.
Eugene walked swiftly along the sinuous paved curves of Rutledge Road. There was a smell of fog and supper in the air: a warm moist blur at window-panes, and the pungent sizzle of cookery.
