… But there was no peace — they wanted no peace. Oh, who wanted peace? She caught the excitement in her own blood — no peace, no peace — how could there be peace if one were alive? Only let life flow in upon her — let all life come, O God! She flung out her heart in the cry. Suddenly she thought of Francis. Was that life, too? He had found a sort of life here. She looked over the crowd quickly. No, she was glad she knew no one among them all. Suddenly she felt she could do nothing for them — nothing for any of them. Let them live — let them live — let all life go on. She did not listen to anything her father said.
When he sat down she rose and went out quickly. Behind her the people crowded out of the chapel, hurrying to laugh and to talk. They overtook her and she saw that they had taken off their shoes and were walking barefoot down the dusty road, carrying their tied shoes in their hands. They were laughing, and bursting into fragments of singing, and by twos and threes they stopped at cheap ruined houses. She went on out of the town and into the country road. On her way home Mrs. Mark tapped on the windowpane and she went in.
“Where’ve you been?” said Mrs. Mark from the bed.
“I told Father I’d help him at the mission — but I think I just can’t,” she said. She couldn’t keep from answering Mrs. Mark straightly.
“What you want to help for?” said Mrs. Mark. “They don’t need help — they have a grand time. Go on home and find something to make you half as happy as they are.”
She looked at Joan crossly. She could no longer move her right leg. Now, before she could get onto her crutches, she must shift her leg like a log with both hands.
“Get along and do as I say,” she said.
“Yes, Mrs. Mark,” said Joan.
She hesitated, hating as she always did to leave a creature so helpless. “Go along,” said Mrs. Mark. “I’ve got to get up and stir up my supper.” No one ever saw Mrs. Mark get up. And so Joan went away. She went away down the road, the sun smoldering crimson among the vivid trees.
The air was completely still, cold without chill. Next Sunday, she thought suddenly, it would surely be too cold to sit upon the porch. She would have to light the fire in the square sitting room and let him come in. She had not wanted him to come in. One excuse after another she had made to keep him waiting.
She did not want to open the door of the house to him. But since it was so cold now, if he came into the front sitting room, and if she said to her father, “Come in to the fire, where we are,” if her father sat there, then the man could not touch her lips. He would have planned to touch her lips. She withdrew from the imagination of his thick pale mouth, wind-cracked, dry. She felt again the hard coarse pressure of his great arms about her. That was last time. … But if her father were there, she would be safe. But perhaps she did not really want to be safe. She pushed away decision, recklessly. Whatever came, let it come.
Yes, Mrs. Mark was right. She must tell her father that she could not help him — not at the mission. The people were stronger than she. They would sweep her into themselves, as they absorbed into their own richer rhythm the tunes of the hymns. If she stayed among them, if she were often near them, hearing them sing, soon she would be singing with them and not against them. She laughed softly, remembering, walking down the road alone, with what determination her father had held to time and tune, his look absorbed, his thin, high voice steadfast against the rush of throbbing other voices. Through the deep November dusk she heard again the beat and rhythm, the beat and crying, of the dark crowd. Her body fell into the measure of the beat and movement as she walked, and in her ears her blood pulsed — no use, no use for her to try to save someone when she could not save herself. She wanted earth, not heaven; life, not salvation from it. Her feet stepped the dusty country road to the tune of old desire. She was as light as air, striding through the potent windless night.
… She became aware of a horse’s cantering step, and she paused and stood aside among the weeds and the rhythm paused a moment in her, waiting. She looked through the dusk and saw an awkward sturdy man astride a thick-boned farm beast. She knew at once who it was.
“Well, look who’s here!”
It was the phrase he used every time he saw her. She drew back a little farther from his path.
“Good evening, Bart!” she answered. She was the more fastidious in her own speech because his speech repelled her. But he did not notice her withdrawal. He leaped down from his horse and came near. In the twilight she noticed suddenly, unwillingly, upon the open roadway, the fields about them, that he looked better than she had ever seen him. He wore his work clothes, blue jeans and a coarse blue shirt open at the collar, the sleeves rolled above his elbows. The twilight hid his stiff dry lips, his thick nose, squat along the bridge. There was only his outline — his square shoulders, his thighs, his limbs. He looked huge, magnificent as a bull. The turn of his head was set well upon his strong thick neck. Here, where he belonged, he was a handsome man, a fine animal. When he came near her she could smell an odor of hay and earth — a clean, hearty smell. She leaned away from him, breathless.
“Where you been?” he cried at her. “It’s luck, meeting up with you like this!”
She felt his instinctive movement to touch her, to put his arms around her waist. She felt his arms about her waist. Now his hand was creeping toward her breast. He had not touched her breast before. She stood still, despising herself, and unwillingly longing for his hand to touch her breast. Yet when the touch came, she sprang away from it.
“I must go home,” she said, her voice stifled, her blood roaring in her ears. “I must go home. Let me go!”
“Well, well, well!” he exclaimed in mock surprise. “Who’s holding you?”
“You are,” she answered desperately. But she had not moved.
“Who — me?” He pressed her breast slowly.
“Yes,” she whispered, sick, and longing.
He dropped his hand suddenly.
“Who — me?” he said again and laughed.
She turned her look on him and unwillingly she saw him, a big handsome man, handsome in his own place. Without a word she started to run into the dusk, desperately, home.
Inside the front door she stood motionless, her hand upon the door she had just closed. The house was utterly silent about her. The familiar rooms, the furniture, the clock in the hall, everything was as she had always known it. It was intolerably still, intolerably shabby, empty, hopeless. Under her stare the familiar rooms grew strange and aloof from her.
“How could I let him touch me?” she asked herself wildly. The house remained silent about her. She was shut off from all of life in this house.
“Hannah!” she screamed suddenly. “Hannah — Hannah!”
From the attic Hannah’s voice dropped down thin and distant. “What you want?”
“Where’s Father? Isn’t he home yet?” She had no one else left.
“No, not yet.”
“I’m going to find him,” she cried.
She darted from the house again, and at the instant his old car drew up at the door and he stepped backward out of it in his absurd careful way. He was never quite used to the car.
“Father — Father,” she cried at him.
He turned his head. “Yes, what is it, Joan?” He began collecting his books.
She wanted to go to him and lean against him. She wanted to feel someone near her. She had never so leaned against him, but being now impelled by need she took his hand. “I’m glad you’re home. I was worrying a little.”