left her eyes. A little melancholy
settled upon her, and she discovered she was lonely. But the town had
seen her, and henceforth the town took charge of her. It sent its
angels to her. One might wonder what the town used her for, this
inarticulate one--it made her a teacher because of her good memory.
Then it regarded her as "good material." It sent its angels, those
voluntary servants of the state, the acquaintances who call themselves
friends. These at first approved of her, always misunderstood her, and
at length despised her. They misunderstood her, because a person truly
inarticulate was incomprehensible to them. Her naivete they mistook
for insolence, her dreaminess for disrespect. They confused her memory
with her understanding. They gave her books to read, brought her to
lectures, sat her at the theatre, took her to hear sermons, prayed
with her and drank with her the holy wine. And some would say,
"Isn't she coming on?" or "Isn't she developing?" and others, more
perceiving, would say, "Well, even if she isn't getting anything from
it, at least she's seeing life"; while others, more perceiving still,
gave her up as past hope. "She has no brains," they said. Others,
still more perceiving, said she had no soul, no love; she cared for no
one, understood nothing. She, for her part, went on almost as ever,
and remained next to inarticulate. Only now and again the hubbub of
battle in the schoolroom would awaken her to some sort of conscious
exasperation. She would appeal to her class, staring at them with eyes
from which all gentleness and affection had merged into astonishment
and indignation. For the rest, lack of life, lack of sun, lack of life
influence told upon her beauty. She did not understand the influence
of the ill-constituted around her, and did not understand the pain
which now and again thrilled through her being, provoking sighs and
word-sighs. Then those friend-acquaintances, ever on the alert for an
expression of real meaning, interpreted her sighs and longings for
week-ends in the country.

Verily it is true, one cannot serve God and mammon. There was no
health forthcoming through this compromise with life. She merely felt
more pain. She continued her work in the town, and was enrolled and
fixed in many little circles where little wheels moved greater wheels
in the great state-machine. Ostensibly, always now, whatever new she
did was a step toward saving her soul. I met her one January night;
she