In his sleep, as if it had nothing
fresher to work upon, his mind went back
and tortured itself with something years and
years away, an old, long-forgotten sorrow
of his childhood.
When Alexander awoke in the morning,
the sun was just rising through pale golden
ripples of cloud, and the fresh yellow light
was vibrating through the pine woods.
The white birches, with their little
unfolding leaves, gleamed in the lowlands,
and the marsh meadows were already coming to life
with their first green, a thin, bright color
which had run over them like fire. As the
train rushed along the trestles, thousands of
wild birds rose screaming into the light.
The sky was already a pale blue and of the
clearness of crystal. Bartley caught up his bag
and hurried through the Pullman coaches until he
found the conductor. There was a stateroom unoccupied,
and he took it and set about changing his clothes.
Last night he would not have believed that anything
could be so pleasant as the cold water he dashed
over his head and shoulders and the freshness
of clean linen on his body.
After he had dressed, Alexander sat down
at the window and drew into his lungs
deep breaths of the pine-scented air.
He had awakened with all his old sense of power.
He could not believe that things were as bad with
him as they had seemed last night, that there
was no way to set them entirely right.
Even if he went to London at midsummer,
what would that mean except that he was a fool?
And he had been a fool before.
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