Nothing That Meets the Eye Read Online Free PDF Page B

town? His mysterious fault seemed to date farther back even than New York, and to be something over which he had no control, and could never grasp and cast out of himself. Then, in an instant, his half vision was cut off, and he felt the guilt and its cause both sealed in him once more.
    He faced about and began walking with fast weak steps. He went back to the quiet dirt road that led almost to the factory before it turned and went northward beside the river, away from Clement.
    What hurt was the sense that it had been almost avoidable, the sense of the destruction in the very act of his leaving. The town was crumbling at every step, the facade of Trevelyan Boulevard, the Dandy Diner, all the fine trees that grew among the houses, Mrs. Hopley’s house and his room, all the fine things he had somehow ruined. And Freya, his best friend. The thought of never seeing Freya again made him waggle his head like a drunken man. The river, the railroad, the men climbing in slow strides up the slope from the factory, the noonday whistle, the good meals served by Mac’s hands, the mornings in his big room and with them the joy in his existence and the sense of the eternal potential.
    He walked until he had lost the river, until the sun changed its position, not knowing where he walked except that the town was at his back. His feet swished dismally through high grass. Then he tripped and was too tired to catch himself. The stillness was delicious. The river, the railroad, the facade of Trevelyan Boulevard passed in pictures before his eyes. The grizzled old men, the church and the hymnals, the railroad, Freya, the knife factory, the bud on the rosebush, the mornings of the eternal potential and the eternal nothing.

UNCERTAIN TREASURE

    T he khaki utility bag was sitting by itself on the subway platform near a post that had a slot machine. He looked at it for almost a minute over the top of the Daily News comic strip, and gave finally a convulsive wriggle that ended in a bobble of his large head. Slowly, ingenuously, he examined each of the seven or eight persons who stood on the platform awaiting their trains. A train pulled in, changed the pattern of the people, but when it was gone, the khaki bag was still unclaimed. He drew closer, limping deeply on his crooked left leg, rising tall again on the other, like a running-down piece of machinery, holding the forgotten newspaper before him.
    A soldier strode in front of him, dropped a penny in the gum slot and leaned there, his shoes crossed beside the bag, which was the same color as his trousers. The cripple edged away, shuffling his big feet sideways. When the next train came in, the soldier got on it without a glance at the bag.
    Then as the cripple came forward he saw a man strolling toward him, a smallish man in a green felt hat and a polo coat unbuttoned over a royal blue suit. His eyes were small and green, and as they fixed on him, the cripple kept shuffling forward in timid fascination. They passed so closely their sleeves touched, and when the bag lay between them again, both turned, the one slow, the other foxlike, and looked at each other.
    The little man’s eyes were steady, but around them the wizened, unshaven face turned this way and that. He sized up the cripple, took in the simple, ugly face, the seedy overcoat. He looked straight ahead, sauntered toward the khaki bag, and stopped with one tan shoe touching its side. He bounced on his toes, and the wooden heels made assertive thock-thocks on the cement. The cripple retreated a few feet. The smaller man went quickly to the edge of the platform, looked first into the black tunnel and then at his wristwatch.
    When he turned around, the bag was gone, and the cripple was on his way down the platform, rising, falling, scraping toward the Third Street exit. He did not hurry, but his face was bent into the upturned lapels of his coat with the effort of walking, and one arm threshed the air at his side.
    The man in the