May 20, 2023 • 19 mins
https://www.solgood.org - Check out our Streaming Service for our full collection of audiobooks, podcasts, short stories, & 10 hour sounds for sleep and relaxation at our website
Naguib Mahfouz, Egyptian literature, existentialism, identity, love, relationships, social commentary, cultural norms, social class, personal growth, literary style, literary legacy, literary analysis, literary adaptation, literary criticism, Cairo, modernity, cultural influence, societal expectations, individualism, human nature, psychological analysis, Arab culture, family, urbanization
Naguib Mahfouz, Egyptian literature, existentialism, identity, love, relationships, social commentary, cultural norms, social class, personal growth, literary style, literary legacy, literary analysis, literary adaptation, literary criticism, Cairo, modernity, cultural influence, societal expectations, individualism, human nature, psychological analysis, Arab culture, family, urbanization
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Chapter seven. He had passed thequarters of the Signal Corps before the thought
of the letter he had just writtencame to his mind. Then he stopped
short, gave one agonizing glance towardhis barracks only a few feet Awagh realized
that it was nearly time for bedcall, and that he could not possibly
make it if he went back.Then whirled about and started out on a
(00:22):
wild run, like a madman overthe ground he had just traveled. He
was not conscious of carrying on atrain of thought as he ran. His
only idea was to get to they m c A Hut before the man
had left with the letter. Nevershould his childhood's enemy have that letter to
sneer over All the pleasant phrases whichhad flowed from his pen so easily but
(00:44):
a few moments before, seemed toflare now in letters of fire before his
bloodshot eyes as he bounded over theground, to think he should have lowered
himself and weakened his position so asto write to the girl who was soon
to be the wife of that contemptiblepup. The bugles began to sound taps
here and there in the barracks ashe flew past but they meant nothing to
(01:06):
him. Breathless, he arrived atthe y MCA Hut just as the last
light was being put out. Adark figure stood on the steps as he
halted, entirely winded, and triedto gasp out where is mister Hathaway to
the assistant who was locking up.Oh, he left five minutes after you
did, said the man, witha yawn. The rector came by in
(01:30):
his car and took him along.Say you'll be late getting in. Corporal
taps sounded almost five minutes ago.With a low exclamation of disgust and dismay,
Cameron turned and started back again ina long, swinging stride, his
face blushing hotly in the dark overhis double predicament. He had gone back
for nothing and got himself subject toa calling down, a thing which he
(01:53):
had avoided scrupulously since coming to camp. But he was so miserable over the
other matter that it seemed a thingof no moment to him. Now.
He was altogether occupied with metaphorically kickinghimself for having answered that letter, for
having mailed it so soon without everstopping to read it over or give himself
a chance to reconsider. He mighthave known. He might have remembered that
(02:16):
Ruth MacDonald was no comrade for him, that she was a neighbor of the
Wainwrights, and in all probability bea friend of the lieutenants. Not for
all that he owned in the world, or hoped to own, would he
have thus laid himself open to thepossibility of having Wainwright know any of his
inner thoughts. He would rather havelived and died unknown, unfriended, than
(02:38):
that this should come to pass.And she the promised wife of a Wainwright,
could it be she must have writtenhim that letter merely from a fine
friendly patronage, all right, ofcourse, from her standpoint, but from
his gall and wormwood to his proudspirit. Oh, that he had not
(02:58):
answered it. He might have known. He should have remembered that she had
never been in his class, notthat his people were not as good as
hers, and maybe better so faras intellectual attainments were concerned. But his
had lost their money, had liveda quiet life, and in her eyes
and in the eyes of her family, were very likely as the mere dust
(03:19):
of the earth. And now,just now, when war had set its
seal of sacrifice upon all young menin uniform, he as a soldier,
had risen to a kind of deifiedclass set apart for hero worship. Nothing
more. It was not her faultthat she had been brought up that way,
and that he seemed so to her, and nothing more. She had
shown her beautiful spirit in giving himthe tribute that seemed worthiest to her view.
(03:45):
He would not blame her nor despiseher, but he would hold himself
aloof as he had done in thepast, and show her that he wanted
no favors, no patronage. Hewas sufficient to himself. What galled him
most was to think that, perhaps, in the intimacy of their engagement,
she might show his letter to Wainwright, and they would laugh together over him,
(04:05):
a poor soldier presuming to write ashe had done to a girl in
her station. They would laugh together, half pitifully. At least the woman
would be pitiful. The man waslikely to sneer. He could see his
hateful mustache curl now with scorn,and his little eyes twinkle, and he
would tell her all the lies hehad tried to put upon him in the
(04:27):
past. He would give her awrong idea of his character. He would
rejoice and triumph to do so.Oh, the bitterness of it. It
overwhelmed him, so that the littlematter of getting into his bunk without being
seen by the officer in charge wasutterly overlooked by him. Perhaps some good
angel arranged the way for him sothat he was able to slip past the
(04:48):
guards without being challenged. Two ofthe guards were talking at the corner of
the barracks with their backs to himat the particular second when he came in
sight. A minute later, theyturned back to their monotonous march, and
the shadow of the vanishing corporal hadjust disappeared from among the other dark shadows
of the night landscape inside the barracks. Another guard welcomed him eagerly, without
(05:13):
questioning his presence there at that hour. Say Cam, how about day after
tomorrow? Are you free? Willyou take my place on guard? I
want to go up to Philadelphia andsee my girl, and I'm sure of
a pass, but i'm listed forguard duty. I'll do the same for
you sometime. Sure, said Cameronheartily, and swung upstairs with a sudden
realization that he had been granted astreak of good luck. Yet somehow he
(05:38):
did not seem to care much Hetiptoed over to his bunk among the rows
of sleeping forms, removed from ita pair of shoes, three books,
some newspapers, and a mess kitwhich some lazy comrades had left there,
and threw himself down with scant underdressing. It seemed as though a great calamity
had befallen him, although when hetried to reason it out, he could
(06:00):
not understand how things were so muchchanged from what they had been that morning
before he received the letter. RuthMacDonald had never been anything in his life
but a lovely picture. There wasno slightest possibility that she would ever be
more. She was like a distantstar to be admired, but never come
near. Had he been fool enoughto have his head turned by her writing
(06:21):
that kind of letter to him,had he even remotely fancied she would ever
be anything nearer to him than justa formal friend who occasionally stooped to give
a bright smile or do a kindness. Well, if he had he needed
this knockdown blow. It might bea good thing that it came so soon
before he had let this thing growin his imagination. But oh, if
(06:45):
it had come but a bit sooner. If it had only been on the
way over to the y m cA Hut instead of on the way back,
that letter would never have been written. She would have set him down
as a bore perhaps, but whatmatter? What was she to him or
to her? Well? Perhaps hewould have written a letter briefly to thank
her for her offering of knitting,but it would have been an entirely different
(07:08):
letter from the one he did write. He ground his teeth as he thought
out the letter he should have written, my dear miss McDonald, no friend
about that. It certainly was kindof you to think of me as a
possible recipient of a sweater. ButI feel that there are other boys who
perhaps need things more than I do. I am well supplied with all necessities.
(07:30):
I appreciate your interest in an oldschool friend. The life of a
soldier is not so bad, andI imagine we shall have no end of
novel experiences before the war is over. I hope we shall be able to
put an end to this terrible strugglevery soon when we get over, and
make the world a safe and happyplace for you and your friends. Here's
(07:50):
hoping the men who are your specialfriends will all come home safe and sound
and soon, Sincerely J. Cameron. He wrote that letter over and over
mentally as he tossed on his bunkin the dark, changing phrases and whole
sentences. Perhaps it would be betterto say something about her officer friends and
(08:11):
make it very clear to her thathe understood his own distant position with her.
Then suddenly he kicked the big blueblanket off and sat up with a
deep sigh. What a fool hewas. He would not write another letter.
The letter was gone, and asit was written, he must abide
by it. He could not getit back or unwrite it. Much as
he wished it. There was noexcuse or way to make it possible to
(08:35):
write and refuse those sweaters and things. Was there. He sat, staring
into the darkness, while the manin the next bunk roused to toss back
his blanket, which had fallen superfluouslyacross his face, and to mutter some
sleepy imprecations. But Cameron was offon the composition of another letter. My
dear miss mc donald, I havebeen thinking it over and have decided that
(08:58):
I do not need a sweater orany of those other things you mention.
I really am pretty well supplied withnecessities, and you know they don't give
us much room to put anything aroundthe barracks. There must be a lot
of other fellows who need them more. So I will decline that you may
give your work to others who havenothing, or to those who are your
personal friends. Very truly. J. Cameron, having convinced his turbulent brain
(09:24):
that it was quite possible for himto write such a letter as this,
he flung himself miserably back on hishard cot and realized that he did not
want to write it, that itwould be almost an insult to the girl,
who, even if she had beenpatronizing him, had done it with
a kind intent. And after all, it was not her fault that he
was a fool. She had aright to marry whom she would. Certainly
(09:46):
he never expected her to marry him. Only he had to own to himself
that he wanted those things she hadoffered. He wanted to touch something she
had worked upon and feel that itbelonged to him. He wanted to keep
this much of human friendship for himself, even if she was going to marry
another man. She had always beenhis ideal of a beautiful lovable woman,
(10:11):
and as such she should stay his, even if she married a dozen enemy
officers. It was then that hebegan to see that the thing that was
really making him miserable was that shewas giving her sweet young life to such
a rotten, little, mean naturedman as Wainwright. That was the real
pain. If some fine noble manlike well like Captain LaRue, only younger,
(10:33):
of course, should come along,he would be glad for her.
But this excuse for a man,Oh, it was outrageous. How could
she be so deceived? And yet, of course women knew very little of
men. They had no standards bywhich to judge them. They had no
opportunity to see them except in plainsight of those they wished to please.
(10:54):
One would not expect them to havediscernment in selecting their friends. But what
a pity. Things were all wrong. There ought to be some way to
educate a woman so that she wouldrealize the dangers all about her and be
somewhat protected. It was worse forRuth MacDonald because she had no men in
her family who could protect her.Her old grandfather was the only near living
(11:18):
male relative, and he was ahopeless, invalid, almost entirely confined to
the house. What could he knowof the young men who came to court
his granddaughter? What did he rememberof the ways of men, having been
so many years shut away from theirhaunts? The corporal tossed on his hard
caught and sighed like a furnace.There ought to be someone to protect her,
(11:39):
Someone ought to make her understand whatkind of a fellow Wainwright was.
She had called him her night,and a knight's business was to protect.
Yet what could he do. Hecould not go to her and tell her
that the man she was going tomarry was rotten and utterly without moral principle.
He could not even send someone elseto warn her. Who could he
(12:01):
send his mother? No, hismother would feel shy and afraid of a
girl like that. She had alwayslived a quiet life. He doubted if
she would understand herself how utterly unfita mate Wainwright was for a good,
pure girl. And there was noone else in the world that he could
send. Besides, if she lovedthe man, and incomprehensible as it seemed,
(12:24):
she must love him, or whyshould she marry him? If she
loved him, she would not believean angel from heaven against him. Women
were that way, that is,if they were good women like Ruth.
Oh to think of her tied upto that beast. He could think of
no other word. In his agony. He rolled on his face and groaned
aloud. Oh God, his soulcried out, Why does such things have
(12:48):
to be? If there really isa God, why does he let such
awful things happen to a pure,good girl? The same old bitter question
that had troubled the hard young daysof his own life. Could there be
a God who cared when bitterness wasin so many cups? Why had God
let the war come? Sometime inthe night, the tumult in his brain
and heart subsided, and he fellinto a profound sleep. The next thing
(13:13):
he knew, the kindly roughness ofhis comrades wakened him with shakes and wet
sponges flying through the air, andhe opened his consciousness to the world again
and heard the bugle blowing for rollcall. Another day had dawned grayly,
and he must get up. Theyset him on his feet and bantered him
into action, and he responded withhis usual wit that put them all in
(13:33):
howls of laughter. But as hestumbled into place in the line in the
five o'clock dawning, he realized thata heavy weight was on his heart,
which he tried to throw off.What did it matter what Ruth MacDonald did
with her life. She was nothingto him, never had been, and
never could be. If only hehad not written that letter, all would
(13:54):
now be as it always had been, if only she had not written her
letter. Or no. He puthis hand to his breast pocket with a
quick movement of protection. Somehow hewas not yet ready to relinquish that one
taste of bright girl friendliness, eventhough it had brought a stab in its
wake. He was glad when theorders came for him and five other fellows
(14:16):
to tramp across the camp to thegas school and go through two solid hours
of instruction, ending with a practicalillustration of the gas mask and a good
dose of gas. It helped himto put his mind on the great business
of war, which was to behis only business now until it or he
were ended. He set his lipsgrimly and went about his work vigorously.
(14:39):
What did it matter anyway what shethought of him. He need never answer
another letter, even if she wrotehe need not accept the package from the
post office. He could let themsend it back, refuse it and let
them send it back. That waswhat he could do. Then she might
think what she liked. Perhaps shewould suppose him already gone to France.
(15:01):
Anyhow, he would forget her.It was the only sensible thing to do.
Meanwhile, the letter had blown onits way with more than ordinary swiftness,
as if it had known that aforce was seeking to bring it back
again. The YMCA man was carriedat high speed in an automobile to the
nearest station to the camp, andarrived in time to catch the Baltimore train.
(15:24):
Just stopping in the Baltimore station,he went to mail the letter just
as the letter gatherer arrived with hiskeys to open the box. So the
letter lost no time, but wassorted and started northward before midnight, and
by some happy chance, arrived atits destination in time to be laid by
Ruth MacDonald's plate at lunch time thenext day. Some quick sense must have
(15:48):
warned Ruth, for she gathered hermail up and slipped it unobtrusively into the
pocket of her skirt before it couldbe noticed. Dotty Weatherall had come home
with her for lunch, and thebright red imc a triangle on the envelope
was so conspicuous. Dottie was crazyover soldiers and all things military. She
would be sure to exclaim and askquestions. She was one of those people
(16:11):
who always found out everything about youthat you did not keep under absolute lock
and key. Every day since shehad written her letter to Cameron, Ruth
had watched for an answer, hercheeks glowing sometimes with the least bit of
mortification that she should have written atall to have received his rebuff. Had
he, after all, misunderstood her, or had the letter gone astray,
(16:33):
or the man gone to the front. She had almost given up expecting an
answer now, after so many weeks, and the nice, warm, olive
drab's sweater and neatly knitted socks withextra long legs and bright lines of color
at the top, with the wristletsand muffler lay wrapped in tissue paper at
the very bottom of a drawer inthe chiffonier, where she would seldom see
(16:56):
it, and where no one elsewould ever find it and question her.
Probably by and by, when thecolored draftees were sent away, she would
get them out and carry them downto the headquarters to be given to some
needy man. She felt humiliated,and was beginning to tell herself that it
was all her own fault and agood lesson for her. She had even
(17:17):
decided not to go and see JohnCameron's mother again, lest that too might
be misunderstood. It seemed that thefrank, true instincts of her own heart
had been wrong, and she wasgetting what she justly deserved from departing from
Aunt Rhoda's strictly conventional code. Nevertheless, the letter in her pocket, which
she had not been able to lookat carefully enough to be sure if she
(17:40):
knew the writing, crackled and rustled, and set her heart beating excitedly and
her mind to wondering what it mightbe. She answered Dotty Wetherall's chatter with
distraught monosyllables and absent smiles, hopingthat Dotty would feel it necessary to go
home soon after lunch. But itpresently became lane that Dotty had no intention
(18:00):
of going home soon, that shehad come for a purpose, and that
she was plying all her arts toaccomplish it. Ruth presently roused from her
reverie to realize this, and setherself to give Dotty as little satisfaction as
possible out of her task. Itwas evident that she had been sent to
discover the exact standing and relation inwhich Ruth held Lieutenant Harry Wainwright. Ruth
(18:26):
strongly suspected that Dottie's brother Bob,had been the instigator of the mission,
and she had no intention of givinghim the information. So Ruth's smile came
out, and the inscrutable twinkle grewin her lovely eyes. Dotty chattered on
sentence after sentence, paragraph after paragraph, theme after theme, always rounding up
(18:47):
at the end with some perfectly obviousleading question. Ruth answered in all apparent
innocence and sincerity, yet with anutterly different turn of the conversation from what
had been expected, and with anindifference was hopelessly baffling unless the young ambassador
asked a point blank question, whichshe hardly dared to do of Ruth MacDonald
(19:07):
without more encouragement. And so,at last, a long two hours dragged
thus away, and finally Dotty Weatherallat the end of her small string,
and at a loss for more themeson which to trot around again to the
main Idea reluctantly accepted her defeat andtook herself away, leaving Ruth to her
long delayed letter, end of chapterseven.
Chapter seven. He had passed thequarters of the Signal Corps before the thought
of the letter he had just writtencame to his mind. Then he stopped
short, gave one agonizing glance towardhis barracks only a few feet Awagh realized
that it was nearly time for bedcall, and that he could not possibly
make it if he went back.Then whirled about and started out on a
(00:22):
wild run, like a madman overthe ground he had just traveled. He
was not conscious of carrying on atrain of thought as he ran. His
only idea was to get to they m c A Hut before the man
had left with the letter. Nevershould his childhood's enemy have that letter to
sneer over All the pleasant phrases whichhad flowed from his pen so easily but
(00:44):
a few moments before, seemed toflare now in letters of fire before his
bloodshot eyes as he bounded over theground, to think he should have lowered
himself and weakened his position so asto write to the girl who was soon
to be the wife of that contemptiblepup. The bugles began to sound taps
here and there in the barracks ashe flew past but they meant nothing to
(01:06):
him. Breathless, he arrived atthe y MCA Hut just as the last
light was being put out. Adark figure stood on the steps as he
halted, entirely winded, and triedto gasp out where is mister Hathaway to
the assistant who was locking up.Oh, he left five minutes after you
did, said the man, witha yawn. The rector came by in
(01:30):
his car and took him along.Say you'll be late getting in. Corporal
taps sounded almost five minutes ago.With a low exclamation of disgust and dismay,
Cameron turned and started back again ina long, swinging stride, his
face blushing hotly in the dark overhis double predicament. He had gone back
for nothing and got himself subject toa calling down, a thing which he
(01:53):
had avoided scrupulously since coming to camp. But he was so miserable over the
other matter that it seemed a thingof no moment to him. Now.
He was altogether occupied with metaphorically kickinghimself for having answered that letter, for
having mailed it so soon without everstopping to read it over or give himself
a chance to reconsider. He mighthave known. He might have remembered that
(02:16):
Ruth MacDonald was no comrade for him, that she was a neighbor of the
Wainwrights, and in all probability bea friend of the lieutenants. Not for
all that he owned in the world, or hoped to own, would he
have thus laid himself open to thepossibility of having Wainwright know any of his
inner thoughts. He would rather havelived and died unknown, unfriended, than
(02:38):
that this should come to pass.And she the promised wife of a Wainwright,
could it be she must have writtenhim that letter merely from a fine
friendly patronage, all right, ofcourse, from her standpoint, but from
his gall and wormwood to his proudspirit. Oh, that he had not
(02:58):
answered it. He might have known. He should have remembered that she had
never been in his class, notthat his people were not as good as
hers, and maybe better so faras intellectual attainments were concerned. But his
had lost their money, had liveda quiet life, and in her eyes
and in the eyes of her family, were very likely as the mere dust
(03:19):
of the earth. And now,just now, when war had set its
seal of sacrifice upon all young menin uniform, he as a soldier,
had risen to a kind of deifiedclass set apart for hero worship. Nothing
more. It was not her faultthat she had been brought up that way,
and that he seemed so to her, and nothing more. She had
shown her beautiful spirit in giving himthe tribute that seemed worthiest to her view.
(03:45):
He would not blame her nor despiseher, but he would hold himself
aloof as he had done in thepast, and show her that he wanted
no favors, no patronage. Hewas sufficient to himself. What galled him
most was to think that, perhaps, in the intimacy of their engagement,
she might show his letter to Wainwright, and they would laugh together over him,
(04:05):
a poor soldier presuming to write ashe had done to a girl in
her station. They would laugh together, half pitifully. At least the woman
would be pitiful. The man waslikely to sneer. He could see his
hateful mustache curl now with scorn,and his little eyes twinkle, and he
would tell her all the lies hehad tried to put upon him in the
(04:27):
past. He would give her awrong idea of his character. He would
rejoice and triumph to do so.Oh, the bitterness of it. It
overwhelmed him, so that the littlematter of getting into his bunk without being
seen by the officer in charge wasutterly overlooked by him. Perhaps some good
angel arranged the way for him sothat he was able to slip past the
(04:48):
guards without being challenged. Two ofthe guards were talking at the corner of
the barracks with their backs to himat the particular second when he came in
sight. A minute later, theyturned back to their monotonous march, and
the shadow of the vanishing corporal hadjust disappeared from among the other dark shadows
of the night landscape inside the barracks. Another guard welcomed him eagerly, without
(05:13):
questioning his presence there at that hour. Say Cam, how about day after
tomorrow? Are you free? Willyou take my place on guard? I
want to go up to Philadelphia andsee my girl, and I'm sure of
a pass, but i'm listed forguard duty. I'll do the same for
you sometime. Sure, said Cameronheartily, and swung upstairs with a sudden
realization that he had been granted astreak of good luck. Yet somehow he
(05:38):
did not seem to care much Hetiptoed over to his bunk among the rows
of sleeping forms, removed from ita pair of shoes, three books,
some newspapers, and a mess kitwhich some lazy comrades had left there,
and threw himself down with scant underdressing. It seemed as though a great calamity
had befallen him, although when hetried to reason it out, he could
(06:00):
not understand how things were so muchchanged from what they had been that morning
before he received the letter. RuthMacDonald had never been anything in his life
but a lovely picture. There wasno slightest possibility that she would ever be
more. She was like a distantstar to be admired, but never come
near. Had he been fool enoughto have his head turned by her writing
(06:21):
that kind of letter to him,had he even remotely fancied she would ever
be anything nearer to him than justa formal friend who occasionally stooped to give
a bright smile or do a kindness. Well, if he had he needed
this knockdown blow. It might bea good thing that it came so soon
before he had let this thing growin his imagination. But oh, if
(06:45):
it had come but a bit sooner. If it had only been on the
way over to the y m cA Hut instead of on the way back,
that letter would never have been written. She would have set him down
as a bore perhaps, but whatmatter? What was she to him or
to her? Well? Perhaps hewould have written a letter briefly to thank
her for her offering of knitting,but it would have been an entirely different
(07:08):
letter from the one he did write. He ground his teeth as he thought
out the letter he should have written, my dear miss McDonald, no friend
about that. It certainly was kindof you to think of me as a
possible recipient of a sweater. ButI feel that there are other boys who
perhaps need things more than I do. I am well supplied with all necessities.
(07:30):
I appreciate your interest in an oldschool friend. The life of a
soldier is not so bad, andI imagine we shall have no end of
novel experiences before the war is over. I hope we shall be able to
put an end to this terrible strugglevery soon when we get over, and
make the world a safe and happyplace for you and your friends. Here's
(07:50):
hoping the men who are your specialfriends will all come home safe and sound
and soon, Sincerely J. Cameron. He wrote that letter over and over
mentally as he tossed on his bunkin the dark, changing phrases and whole
sentences. Perhaps it would be betterto say something about her officer friends and
(08:11):
make it very clear to her thathe understood his own distant position with her.
Then suddenly he kicked the big blueblanket off and sat up with a
deep sigh. What a fool hewas. He would not write another letter.
The letter was gone, and asit was written, he must abide
by it. He could not getit back or unwrite it. Much as
he wished it. There was noexcuse or way to make it possible to
(08:35):
write and refuse those sweaters and things. Was there. He sat, staring
into the darkness, while the manin the next bunk roused to toss back
his blanket, which had fallen superfluouslyacross his face, and to mutter some
sleepy imprecations. But Cameron was offon the composition of another letter. My
dear miss mc donald, I havebeen thinking it over and have decided that
(08:58):
I do not need a sweater orany of those other things you mention.
I really am pretty well supplied withnecessities, and you know they don't give
us much room to put anything aroundthe barracks. There must be a lot
of other fellows who need them more. So I will decline that you may
give your work to others who havenothing, or to those who are your
personal friends. Very truly. J. Cameron, having convinced his turbulent brain
(09:24):
that it was quite possible for himto write such a letter as this,
he flung himself miserably back on hishard cot and realized that he did not
want to write it, that itwould be almost an insult to the girl,
who, even if she had beenpatronizing him, had done it with
a kind intent. And after all, it was not her fault that he
was a fool. She had aright to marry whom she would. Certainly
(09:46):
he never expected her to marry him. Only he had to own to himself
that he wanted those things she hadoffered. He wanted to touch something she
had worked upon and feel that itbelonged to him. He wanted to keep
this much of human friendship for himself, even if she was going to marry
another man. She had always beenhis ideal of a beautiful lovable woman,
(10:11):
and as such she should stay his, even if she married a dozen enemy
officers. It was then that hebegan to see that the thing that was
really making him miserable was that shewas giving her sweet young life to such
a rotten, little, mean naturedman as Wainwright. That was the real
pain. If some fine noble manlike well like Captain LaRue, only younger,
(10:33):
of course, should come along,he would be glad for her.
But this excuse for a man,Oh, it was outrageous. How could
she be so deceived? And yet, of course women knew very little of
men. They had no standards bywhich to judge them. They had no
opportunity to see them except in plainsight of those they wished to please.
(10:54):
One would not expect them to havediscernment in selecting their friends. But what
a pity. Things were all wrong. There ought to be some way to
educate a woman so that she wouldrealize the dangers all about her and be
somewhat protected. It was worse forRuth MacDonald because she had no men in
her family who could protect her.Her old grandfather was the only near living
(11:18):
male relative, and he was ahopeless, invalid, almost entirely confined to
the house. What could he knowof the young men who came to court
his granddaughter? What did he rememberof the ways of men, having been
so many years shut away from theirhaunts? The corporal tossed on his hard
caught and sighed like a furnace.There ought to be someone to protect her,
(11:39):
Someone ought to make her understand whatkind of a fellow Wainwright was.
She had called him her night,and a knight's business was to protect.
Yet what could he do. Hecould not go to her and tell her
that the man she was going tomarry was rotten and utterly without moral principle.
He could not even send someone elseto warn her. Who could he
(12:01):
send his mother? No, hismother would feel shy and afraid of a
girl like that. She had alwayslived a quiet life. He doubted if
she would understand herself how utterly unfita mate Wainwright was for a good,
pure girl. And there was noone else in the world that he could
send. Besides, if she lovedthe man, and incomprehensible as it seemed,
(12:24):
she must love him, or whyshould she marry him? If she
loved him, she would not believean angel from heaven against him. Women
were that way, that is,if they were good women like Ruth.
Oh to think of her tied upto that beast. He could think of
no other word. In his agony. He rolled on his face and groaned
aloud. Oh God, his soulcried out, Why does such things have
(12:48):
to be? If there really isa God, why does he let such
awful things happen to a pure,good girl? The same old bitter question
that had troubled the hard young daysof his own life. Could there be
a God who cared when bitterness wasin so many cups? Why had God
let the war come? Sometime inthe night, the tumult in his brain
and heart subsided, and he fellinto a profound sleep. The next thing
(13:13):
he knew, the kindly roughness ofhis comrades wakened him with shakes and wet
sponges flying through the air, andhe opened his consciousness to the world again
and heard the bugle blowing for rollcall. Another day had dawned grayly,
and he must get up. Theyset him on his feet and bantered him
into action, and he responded withhis usual wit that put them all in
(13:33):
howls of laughter. But as hestumbled into place in the line in the
five o'clock dawning, he realized thata heavy weight was on his heart,
which he tried to throw off.What did it matter what Ruth MacDonald did
with her life. She was nothingto him, never had been, and
never could be. If only hehad not written that letter, all would
(13:54):
now be as it always had been, if only she had not written her
letter. Or no. He puthis hand to his breast pocket with a
quick movement of protection. Somehow hewas not yet ready to relinquish that one
taste of bright girl friendliness, eventhough it had brought a stab in its
wake. He was glad when theorders came for him and five other fellows
(14:16):
to tramp across the camp to thegas school and go through two solid hours
of instruction, ending with a practicalillustration of the gas mask and a good
dose of gas. It helped himto put his mind on the great business
of war, which was to behis only business now until it or he
were ended. He set his lipsgrimly and went about his work vigorously.
(14:39):
What did it matter anyway what shethought of him. He need never answer
another letter, even if she wrotehe need not accept the package from the
post office. He could let themsend it back, refuse it and let
them send it back. That waswhat he could do. Then she might
think what she liked. Perhaps shewould suppose him already gone to France.
(15:01):
Anyhow, he would forget her.It was the only sensible thing to do.
Meanwhile, the letter had blown onits way with more than ordinary swiftness,
as if it had known that aforce was seeking to bring it back
again. The YMCA man was carriedat high speed in an automobile to the
nearest station to the camp, andarrived in time to catch the Baltimore train.
(15:24):
Just stopping in the Baltimore station,he went to mail the letter just
as the letter gatherer arrived with hiskeys to open the box. So the
letter lost no time, but wassorted and started northward before midnight, and
by some happy chance, arrived atits destination in time to be laid by
Ruth MacDonald's plate at lunch time thenext day. Some quick sense must have
(15:48):
warned Ruth, for she gathered hermail up and slipped it unobtrusively into the
pocket of her skirt before it couldbe noticed. Dotty Weatherall had come home
with her for lunch, and thebright red imc a triangle on the envelope
was so conspicuous. Dottie was crazyover soldiers and all things military. She
would be sure to exclaim and askquestions. She was one of those people
(16:11):
who always found out everything about youthat you did not keep under absolute lock
and key. Every day since shehad written her letter to Cameron, Ruth
had watched for an answer, hercheeks glowing sometimes with the least bit of
mortification that she should have written atall to have received his rebuff. Had
he, after all, misunderstood her, or had the letter gone astray,
(16:33):
or the man gone to the front. She had almost given up expecting an
answer now, after so many weeks, and the nice, warm, olive
drab's sweater and neatly knitted socks withextra long legs and bright lines of color
at the top, with the wristletsand muffler lay wrapped in tissue paper at
the very bottom of a drawer inthe chiffonier, where she would seldom see
(16:56):
it, and where no one elsewould ever find it and question her.
Probably by and by, when thecolored draftees were sent away, she would
get them out and carry them downto the headquarters to be given to some
needy man. She felt humiliated,and was beginning to tell herself that it
was all her own fault and agood lesson for her. She had even
(17:17):
decided not to go and see JohnCameron's mother again, lest that too might
be misunderstood. It seemed that thefrank, true instincts of her own heart
had been wrong, and she wasgetting what she justly deserved from departing from
Aunt Rhoda's strictly conventional code. Nevertheless, the letter in her pocket, which
she had not been able to lookat carefully enough to be sure if she
(17:40):
knew the writing, crackled and rustled, and set her heart beating excitedly and
her mind to wondering what it mightbe. She answered Dotty Wetherall's chatter with
distraught monosyllables and absent smiles, hopingthat Dotty would feel it necessary to go
home soon after lunch. But itpresently became lane that Dotty had no intention
(18:00):
of going home soon, that shehad come for a purpose, and that
she was plying all her arts toaccomplish it. Ruth presently roused from her
reverie to realize this, and setherself to give Dotty as little satisfaction as
possible out of her task. Itwas evident that she had been sent to
discover the exact standing and relation inwhich Ruth held Lieutenant Harry Wainwright. Ruth
(18:26):
strongly suspected that Dottie's brother Bob,had been the instigator of the mission,
and she had no intention of givinghim the information. So Ruth's smile came
out, and the inscrutable twinkle grewin her lovely eyes. Dotty chattered on
sentence after sentence, paragraph after paragraph, theme after theme, always rounding up
(18:47):
at the end with some perfectly obviousleading question. Ruth answered in all apparent
innocence and sincerity, yet with anutterly different turn of the conversation from what
had been expected, and with anindifference was hopelessly baffling unless the young ambassador
asked a point blank question, whichshe hardly dared to do of Ruth MacDonald
(19:07):
without more encouragement. And so,at last, a long two hours dragged
thus away, and finally Dotty Weatherallat the end of her small string,
and at a loss for more themeson which to trot around again to the
main Idea reluctantly accepted her defeat andtook herself away, leaving Ruth to her
long delayed letter, end of chapterseven.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!