"Excuse me, I am a stranger here, and know nothing of the sanitary
conditions," he replied, and stared at me with positive fear.
Oh, that alters the case! if he was a stranger.... Could I not render him
a service in any way? show him about? Really not? because it would be a
pleasure to me, and it would cost him nothing....
But the man wanted absolutely to get rid of me, and he sheered off, in all
haste, to the other side of the street.
I returned to the bench and sat down. I was fearfully disturbed, and the
big street organ that had begun to grind a tune a little farther away made
me still worse--a regular metallic music, a fragment of Weber, to which a
little girl is singing a mournful strain. The flute-like sorrowfulness of
the organ thrills through my blood; my nerves vibrate in responsive echo.
A moment later, and I fall back on the seat, whimpering and crooning in
time to it.
Oh, what strange freaks one's thoughts are guilty of when one is starving.
I feel myself lifted up by these notes, dissolved in tones, and I float
out, I feel so clearly. How I float out, soaring high above the mountains,
dancing through zones of light!...
"A halfpenny," whines the little organ-girl, reaching forth her little tin
plate; "only a halfpenny."
"Yes," I said, unthinkingly, and I sprang to my feet and ransacked all my
pockets. But the child thinks I only want to make fun of her, and she goes
away at once without saying a word.
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