out of
the large window at the flying landscape, and again that sense of
pleasure in the midst of pain was over her. The motion itself was
exhilarating. She seemed to be speeding past herself and her own
anxieties, which suddenly appeared as petty and evanescent as the
flying telegraph-poles along the track. "It has to be over some
time," she reflected. "Nothing matters." She felt comforted by a
realization of immensity and the continuance of motion. She
comprehended her own atomic nature in the great scheme of things. She
had never done so before. Her own interests had always loomed up
before her like a beam in the eye of God. Now she saw that they were
infinitesimal, and the knowledge soothed her. She leaned her head
back and dozed a little. She was awakened by the porter thrusting a
menu into her hands. She ordered something. It was not served
promptly, and she had no appetite. There was some tea which tasted of
soap.

Chapter XXXVII

There were very few people in this car, for the reason that there had
recently been a terrible rear-end collision on the road, and people
had flocked into the forward cars. There were three young girls who
filled the car with chatter, and irritated Maria unreasonably. They
were very pretty and well dressed, and with no reserve. They were as
inconsequently confidential about their own affairs as so many
sparrows, but more intelligible. One by one the men left and went
into the smoker, before this onslaught of harsh trebles shrieking
above the roar of the train, obtruding their little, bird-like
affairs, their miniature hoppings upon the stage of life, upon all in
the car.

Finally, there were none left in the car except Maria, these young
girls, an old lady, who accosted the conductors whenever they entered
and asked when the train was due in New York (a tremulous, vibratory
old lady in antiquated frills and an agitatedly sidewise bonnet, and
loose black silk gloves), and across the aisle a tiny, deformed
woman, a dwarf, in fact, with her maid. This little woman was richly
dressed, and she had a fine face. She was old enough to be Maria's
mother. Her eyes were dark and keen, her forehead domelike, and her
square, resigned chin was sunken in the laces at her throat. Her maid
was older than she, and waited upon her with a faithful solicitude.
The little woman had some tea, which the maid produced from a small
silver caddy in a travelling-bag, and the porter, with an obsequious