It seemed to Peter that there was a
certain similarity between the two events; both were sudden and
desolating. And just as his mother had vanished utterly from his reach,
so now it seemed Cissie was no more. Cissie the clear-eyed, Cissie the
ambitious, Cissie the refined, had vanished away, and in her place stood
a thief.
The thing was grotesque. Peter began a sudden shuddering in the cold.
Then he began moving toward the empty cabin where he slept and kept his
things. He moved along, talking to himself in the dusty emptiness of the
crescent. He decided that he would go home, pack his clothes, and
vanish. A St. Louis boat would be down that night, and he would just
have time to pack his clothes and catch it. He would not take his books,
his philosophies. He would let them remain, in the newspapered room,
until all crumbled into uniform philosophic dust, and the teachings of
Aristotle blew about Niggertown.
Then, as he thought of traveling North, the vision of the honeymoon he
had just planned revived his numb brain into a dismal aching.
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