She did not rouse. I went from the stateroom to
find the physician. He came hurriedly. But Dorothy was dead. That word
of endearment was her last.
Without, the sea and the sky were as black as a sunless cave. The water
rolled around us, pitching the boat forward and sideways. The timbers
creaked, lamps jiggled, the hallways seemed to undulate like snakes. But
the heart of the _Persia_ pumped with rhythmic regularity. The
passengers were asleep, or in various festivities, in cabins or in the
dining room. Nothing was stayed for this tragedy which had come to me.
On we went through the darkness! Dorothy was lying where I had placed
her, her head turned to one side, her face pale in the last sleep. I
aroused little Reverdy. He looked at his mother, kneeled by the berth,
and sobbed. The physician took us out of the cabin, locked the door, and
put us in another. I tucked little Reverdy in bed again; then I went out
to look, at the storm, the dark water, the impenetrable sky.
Back of me was America, flattened out like a map in my imagination, lost
and sunk like old Atlantis. I sent my mind across it from New York to
Chicago, from Chicago to California. What was it? Earth, a continent
containing an embattled and disappointed Douglas, millions of struggling
people. Ahead of me, over thousands of miles of water, an unknown Italy.
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