OF TIME AND THE RIVER. Thomas Wolfe

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      He visited Genevieve frequently over a period of several months. As his acquaintance with the family deepened, the sharpness of his appetite for seduction dwindled, and was supplanted by an ecstatic and insatiable glee. He felt that he had never in his life been so enormously and constantly amused: he would think exultantly for days of an approaching visit, weaving new and more preposterous fables for their consumption, bursting into violent laughter on the streets as he thought of past scenes, the implication of a tone, a gesture, the transparent artifice of mother and daughter, the incredible exaggeration of everything.

      He was charmed, enchanted: his mind swarmed daily with monstrous projects — his heart quivered in a tight cage of nervous exultancy as he thought of the infinite richness of absurdity that lay stored for him. His ethical conscience was awakened hardly at all — he thought of these three people as monsters posturing for his delight. His hatred of cruelty, the nauseating horror at the idiotic brutality of youth, had not yet sufficiently defined itself to check his plunge. He was swept along in the full tide of his adventure: he thought of nothing else.

      Through an entire winter, and into the spring, he went to see this little family in a Boston suburb. Then he got tired of the game and the people as suddenly as he had begun, with the passionate boredom, weariness, and intolerance of which youth is capable. And now that the affair was ending, he was at last ashamed of the part he had played in it and of the arrogant contempt with which he had regaled himself at the expense of other people. And he knew that the Simpsons had themselves at length become conscious of the meaning of his conduct, and saw that, in some way, he had made them the butt of a joke. And when they saw this, the family suddenly attained a curious quiet dignity, of which he had not believed them capable and which later he could not forget.

      One night, as he was waiting in the parlour for the girl to come down, her mother entered the room, and stood looking at him quietly for a moment. Presently she spoke:

      “You have been coming here for some time now,” she said, “and we were always glad to see you. My daughter liked you when she met you — she likes you yet —” the woman said slowly, and went on with obvious difficulty and embarrassment. “Her welfare means more to me than anything in the world — I would do anything to save her from unhappiness or misfortune.” She was silent a moment, then said bluntly, “I think I have a right to ask you a question: what are your intentions concerning her?”

      He told himself that these words were ridiculous and part of the whole comic and burlesque quality of the family, and yet he found now that he could not laugh at them. He sat looking at the fire, uncertain of his answer, and presently he muttered:

      “I have no intentions concerning her.”

      “All right,” the woman said quietly. “That is all I wanted to know. . . . You are a young man,” she went on slowly after a pause, “and very clever and intelligent — but there are still a great many things you do not understand. I know now that we looked funny to you and you have amused yourself at our expense. . . . I don’t know why you thought it was such a joke, but I think you will live to see the day when you are sorry for it. It’s not good to make a joke of people who have liked you and tried to be your friends.”

      “I know it’s not,” he said, and muttered: “I’m sorry for it now.”

      “Still, I can’t believe,” the woman said, “that you are a boy who would wilfully bring sorrow and ruin to anyone who had never done you any harm. . . . The only reason I am saying this is for my daughter’s sake.”

      “You don’t need to worry about that,” he said. “I’m sorry now for acting as I have — but you know everything I’ve done. And I’ll not come back again. But I’d like to see her and tell her that I’m sorry before I go.”

      “Yes,” the woman said, “I think you ought.”

      She went out and a few minutes later the girl came down, entered the room, and he said good-bye to her. He tried to make amends to her with fumbling words, but she said nothing. She stood very still as he talked, almost rigid, her lips pressed tightly together, her hands clenched, winking back the tears.

      “All right,” she said finally, giving him her hand. “I’ll say good-bye to you without hard feelings. . . . Some day . . . some day,” her voice choked and she winked furiously —“I hope you’ll understand — oh, good-bye!” she cried, and turned away abruptly. “I’m not mad at you any longer — and I wish you luck. . . . You know so many things, don’t you? — You’re so much smarter than we are, aren’t you? . . . And I’m sorry for you when I think of all you’ve got to learn . . . of what you’re going through before you do.”

      “Good-bye,” he said.

      He never saw any of them again, but he could not forget them. And as the years went on, the memory of all their folly, falseness, and hypocrisy was curiously altered and subdued and the memory that grew more vivid and dominant was of a little family, one of millions huddled below the immense and timeless skies that bend above us, lost in the darkness of nameless and unnumbered lives upon the lonely wilderness of life that is America, and banked together against these giant antagonists, for comfort, warmth, and love, with a courage and integrity that would not die and could not be forgotten.