Читать книгу A Book About Myself онлайн

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But as spring wore on and I grew so restless I began to think not so much less of Alice as more of myself. I never saw her as anything but beautiful, tender, a delicate, almost perfect creature for some one to love and cherish. Once we went hand-in-hand over the lawns of Jackson Park of a Sunday afternoon. She was enticing in a new white flannel dress and dark blue hat. The day was warm and clear and a convoy of swans was sailing grandly about the little lake. We sat down and watched them and the ducks, the rowers in green, blue and white boats, with the white pagoda in the center of the lake reflected in the water. All was colorful, gay.

“Oh, Dorse,” she said at one place, with a little gasping sigh which moved me by its pathos, “isn’t it lovely?”

“Beautiful.”

“We are so happy when we are together, aren’t we?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, I wish we were married! If we just had a little place of our own! You could come home to me, and I could make you such nice things.”

I promised her happy days to come, but even as I said it I knew it would not be. I did not think I could build a life on my salary ... I did not know that I wanted to. Life was too wide and full. She seemed to sense something of this from the very beginning, and clung close to me now as we walked, looking up into my eyes, smiling almost sadly. As the hours slipped away into dusk and the hush of evening suggested change and the end of many things she sighed again.