tenderness
and without explanations, to take up with other men and boys in the
same spirit of serious recklessness. She had for the time lost hope,
and therefore, of course, care for herself, and her intense and
passionate nature strove to live itself out to the limit: an instinct
for life and at the same time for destruction.

From this period of her life comes a story which she wrote for me, and
which I quote as being typical of her attitude and as throwing light on
her personality.

"The Southwest corner of State and Madison Streets is the regular
rendezvous of all sorts of men. They can be seen standing there every
afternoon and evening, gazing at the surging crowd which passes by. One
sees day after day the same faces, and one wonders why they are there,
for what they are looking. Some of these men have brutal, sensual faces;
others are cynical-looking and sneer. These, it seems, nothing can move
or surprise. They have a look which says: 'Oh, I know you, I have met
your kind before. You do not move me, nothing can. I have tried
everything, there is nothing new for me.' And yet they cannot tear
themselves away from this corner, coming day after day and night after
night, hoping against hope for some new adventure.

"Others stand there like owls, stupidly staring at the rushing tide of
faces. They see nothing, and yet are seemingly hypnotised by the
panorama of life. Here, too, pass the girls with the blond hair and the
painted faces; they ogle the men, and as they cross the street raise
their silken skirts a trifle, showing a bit of gay stocking. Here, too,
is the secret meeting-place of lovers, who clasp hands furtively,
glancing around with stealth. All this is seen by the sensual men, who
glance enviously at the lovers, and by the cynical men whose cold smiles
seem to say: 'Bah! how tiresome! wait, and your silly meetings will not
be so charming!'

"On my evenings off I had sometimes stopped to gaze at this, to me,
strangely moving sight. I saw in it then what I could not have seen a
few months before; but not as much as I can see now. Then it excited me
with the sense of a possible adventure. Strange, but I never went there
when I was happy, only when I was uncommonly depressed.

"On a chilly Sunday evening in October I was waiting on this corner to
take a car to the furnished room of a factory girl, named Alice, whom I
knew was out of town. As I was out of a job and did not want to go home,
I had availed