Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories

ed in Willow Springs there was a cornfield. When Rosalin

he way. The creek had made a slight depression in the level contour of the land and she sat with her back against an old apple tree and with her bare feet almost touching th

lace was like lying awake in bed at night only in some way sweeter and better. There were no dull household sounds and the air she breathed was sweeter, cleaner. The child played a little game. All the apple trees in the orchard were old and gnarled and she had given all the trees names. There was one fancy that frightened her a little but was delicious too. She fancied that at night when she had gone to bed and was asleep and when all the town of Willow Springs had gone

he place beyond human sounds. After a time her desire was accomplished. There was a low sweet sound like the murmuring of voices far away. Now the thing was happening. With a kind of tearing sound the trees came up to stand on top of the ground. They moved with stately tread toward each other. Now the mad bushes and the flowering weeds came running, dancing madly, now the joyful grasses hopped. Rosalind could not stay long in her world of fancy. It was too mad, too joyful. She opened her eyes and jumped to her feet. Everything was all right. The trees stood solidly rooted in the ground, the weeds and bushes had gone back to their places by the fence, the grasses lay

een reading novels and had talked with other young women. She knew many things that after all she did not know. In the attic of her mother's house there was a cradle in which she and her brother had slept when they were babies. One day she went up there and found it. Bedding for the cradle w

others bold. There was one, a thin girl who had no breasts. Her body was flat like a door and she had a thin sharp voice and a thin sharp face. She began to cry out strangely. "How sweet, how sweet, how sweet," she cried over and over. The voice was not like a human voice. It was like something being hurt, an animal in the forest, fa

a young man on the street. He clerked in a store and Rosalind did not know him. However her

r back against the apple tree and took off her shoes and stockings just as she had when sh

her that her mind, her fancy, all the life within her, except just her physical life, went away. The earth pressed upwards against her body. Her body was pressed against the earth. There was darkn

ng to do with the ground beneath her or the trees or the clouds in the sky, th

her appear to others a rather dull stupid young woman. Where was the wonder of life? It was not within herself, not in the ground. It must be in the sky overhead. Presently it would be night and the stars would come out. Perhaps the wonder did not really exist in life. It had something to do with God. She wanted to ascend upwards, to go at onc

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l perhaps there was no such thing as the white wonder of life. It might be just a thing of the mind. There was something essentially dirty about life. The dirt was on her and in her. Once as she walked at evening over the Rush Street bridge to her room on the North Side she looked up suddenly and saw the chrysoprase river running inland from the lake. Near at hand stood a soap factory. The men of the city had turned the river about, made it flow inland from the lake. Someone had erected a great soap factory there near the river's entrance to the city, to t

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ther and mother. None of the three people ate. They fussed about with the food Ma Wescott

little, eh? I would tell what you have been thinking this afternoon while you walked here on this railroad track

me home from Chicago? What did mothers think in regard to the lives led by their daughters? Had mothers somet

lying on a slab of ice in the window of a city meat market. The daughter was a little frightened by what she saw in her mother's face and something caught in

her if I am to do what I want to do," she thought. It was strange-in fancy she saw the lean bird-like face of Melville Stoner and the eager tired face of Walter Sayers floating above the head of

en washed the dishes he put on his hat and going into the back yard began chopping wood. Rosalind went to sit on the front porch. The dishes were all washed and dried but for a half hour her mother would putter about in the kitchen. She always did

was, at the moment, a complete, a lovely daughter of the cornlands, a being to be loved passionately, completely by some son of the cornlands-had there been in the land a son as alive as this daughter it had thrown aside. The father had hoped to escape from the house unnoticed. "I'm going up town a little while," he said hesitatingly. S

in her by her talk with Melville Stoner had returned. Was it possible that her father also felt as Melville Stoner sometimes did? Did lone

he gate and into the street. "I'll go sit by the tree in the orchard

s trade, was unmarried and lived with his mother. He was himself nearing the age of sixty but his mother was still alive. It was a thing to be wondered about. When in the evening the house painter was a trifle late at the rendezvous a mild flurry of speculation arose, floated in the air for a moment and then settled like dust in an empty house. Did the old house painter do the housework in his own house, did he wash the dishes, cook the food, sweep and make the beds or di

beautiful woman. Why had he never before noticed her beauty? Why had she come from Chicago, there by the lake, to Willow Springs, in the hot month of August? Had she come home from Chicago because she really wanted to see her father and mother? For a moment he was a

hat separated her from life. The sun had disappeared and the grey shadows of night were creeping over the grass, lengthening the shadows cast by the trees. The orchard had long been neglected and many of the trees were dead and without foliage. The shadow

have owned the land for several generations now and although they have built towns everywhere, dug coal out of the ground, covered the land with railroads, towns and cities, they do not own an inch of the land in the whole continent. It still belongs to a race who in their physical life are now dead. The red men, although they are practically all gone still own the American continent. Their fancy has peopled it with ghosts, with gods and devils. It is because in their time they loved the land. The proof o

ce, did she raise her voice to call. What did they want her of her? Had she suddenly begun to love two men, both older than herself? The shadows of the branches of trees made a carpet on the floor of the orchard, a soft carpet spun of some delicate material on which the footsteps of men could make no sound. T

d to offer herself to him but before doing so had felt the call to come home to her mother. She had thought she would be bold and would tell her mother the story of her love. She would tell her and then take what the older woman offere

ter? She put the figure of him out of her mind. In the figure of the other man, Wa

herself she was so intense, so excited that she wanted to rub her cheeks against the bark of the tree

re fence and crossing the yard of the widowed chicken raiser. A profound silence reigned over the orchard and when she had crawled under the fence and reached

off dead old sounds heard at night," she thought. When she got to the Wescott house she threw herself down on the porch and lay on her back with her arms stretched above her head. Her mother sat on a rocking chair beside her. There was a street lamp at t

by a hubbub that arose in the house across the street. Two boys playing some game ran from room to room through the house, slamming doors, shouting. A baby began to cr

good many years older than myself and is already married. He has two children. I love him and I think he loves me-I know he does. I want him to have me too

salind had come from Chicago to say to her mother were said and she felt relieved and almost happy. The silence between the two women went on and on. Rosalind's mind wandered away. Presently there would be some sort of reac

garden, her mind seemed to float away, out of her bo

r! The talk had gone on and on. In her presence the man was relieved, he relaxed out of the tenseness that had become the habit of this body. He had told her of how he had wanted to be a singer and had given up the notion. "It isn't my wife's fault nor the children's fault," he had said. "They could have lived without me. The trouble i

had suddenly begun to sing. He had opened a farm gate and had driven the car silently along a grass covered lane and

yself he can sing now," she had thought proudly. How intensely, at the moment she loved the man, and yet perhaps the thing she felt was not love after all. There was pride in

ndered if it could be quite true. She was a woman and her mother was a woman. What would her mother have to say to her? What did mothers say to daughters? The male element in life-what did it want? Her own desires and impulses were not clearly realized within herself. Perha

topped before her as she sat on the porch and there had been something in his eyes. A fire had burned in his old eyes as it had sometimes burned in

men, Melville Stoner and Walter Sayers coming toward her, walki

r truth of her. The street and the town of Willow Springs were covered with a mantle of silence. Was it th

stared into the darkness toward the Stoner house remembering her girlhood. The man was too physically close. The faint light from the distant street lamp that had lighted her mother's face crept between branches of trees and over the tops of bushes and she could see dimly the figure of Melville Stoner sitting before his house. She wished it were possible with a thought to destroy him, wipe him out, cause him to cease to exist. He

laughter ringing through the silent house, the sound rising above the dreadful commonplace sounds of everyday life there. She did not want that to happen. The sudden death of Melville Stoner would bring sweet silence. She wished it possi

she had got out of her bed in the room upstairs and had taken the man by the arm

in. In imagination she was with Walter in the car on the summer evening in the pasture and he was sing

for her mother to speak. In her presence Walter Sayers had broken his long sil

because of her presence. Song was the true not

denly become! It was at that moment she had decided definitely, finally, that she wanted to come closer to the man, that she want

sy and crude girl, she had dreamed as she lay on the grass in the orchard. Through the body of the singer she would approac

ng Walter Sayers had sung in the field, in the presence of the cattle was in a tongue she had n

ushed the mocking spirit of Melville Stoner aside. What things had not the mind of Walter Sayers already done to her mind, to the awakening woman within her. Now it was telling her the story of the song.

on a bridge in the heart of the city and she had become entirely convinced of the filth and ugliness of l

d. In a moment more she would throw herself into the river and then the birds would fall straight down in a long graceful line. The body of her would be gone, swept

in the ground beneath all towns and cities, life went on singing, it persistently sang. The song of life was in th

he story of life and of death, life forever def

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Rosalind tried to tear herself away from the spirit

into the western

feated

efeated

neys had become

feated

efeated

g, believing. There was a conspiracy. Men made words, they wrote books and sang songs about a thing called love. Young girls believed. They married or entered into close relationships with men without marriage. On the marriage night there was a brutal assault and after that the woman had to try to save herself as best she could. She withdrew within herself,

own way. Her daughter dressed with a certain air, walked with a certain a

o it, don't do it," she

rried life she had stayed in her own house, in the kitchen of her own house, but in her own way she had watched, she had seen how things went with women. Her man had known how to make money, he had always housed he

e was a dim, terrible time. Why had she wanted to marry? She tried to tell Rosalind about it. "I saw him on the Main Street of town here, one Saturday evening when I had come to town with father, and two weeks after that I met him again at

say concerning the relationship of men and women? All through her married life she had stayed in h

all through the years

ie in life, the whole

no marrying or giving in marriage, a sexless quiet windless place where mankind lived in a state of bliss. For some unknown reason man

marry. Why else did she do it? Men and women were condemned to commit the sin t

oon moved across the sky. The stars did not sin. They did not touch one another. Each star was a thing apart from all other stars, a sacred inviolate thing. On the earth, under the stars everything was corrupt, the trees, flowers, grasses, the beasts of the field, m

an you are telling me about wants you for the purpose of

s so strong in her that she felt choked. To the daughter it seemed that her mother standing in the darkness behind her had become a great spider, striving to lead her down i

oward the stairway that led to the bedroom above. She was weeping in the peculiar half choked way in which old fat women weep. The heavy feet that had begun to mount the stair stopped and there was silence. Ma Wescott had said nothing of what was in her m

sit a friend about to be married. With the others she stood in a room where white dresses lay on a bed. One of her companions, a thin, flat breasted girl fell on her knees beside th

o which Rosalind gazed. The tenseness within her relaxed and she tried again to think. There was a th

the lips of Walter Sayers

onqueror o

conqueror

o put myself to a test. Is it the test of life and death?" she asked herself

ing within Ro

onqueror o

conqueror

s of the man Walter and she had left him and had come to her mother. Then Melville Stoner, another male, had come to her. In him also was singing the son

an who knew of all that had passed between mother and daughter. Rosalind thought of the bridge over the river near the factory in the city and of the gulls floating in the air high above the river. She wished herself there, standing on the bridge. "It would be sweet now to throw my b

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pump. There was the slow creaking sound of the pump working and then he came into the house and put the pail of water on the bo

ide. Her bag was in a closet but she had forgotten it. Quickly she took off her shoes and holding them in her hands went out into the hall in h

the morning. She would not wait for it. She would walk the eight miles to the next town to the east. That would get her out of town. I

ing. Rosalind did not know how much of the conversation between herself and her mother he had heard. It did not matter. He knew all Ma Wescott had said, all she could say and all Rosalind could say or understand. The thought was infinitely sweet

ome with me?" she asked, but he shook his head and laughed. "No," he said, "I'll stay here. My

st. Rosalind stood to watch him go and something in his long loping gait again suggested to her mind the figure of a gigantic bird. "He is like the gulls that float above the river in C

re no dreadful significant human sounds, the sounds made by those who lived physically but who in spirit were dead, had accepted death, believed only in death. The corn blades rubbed a

stood between her body and nudity. She wanted to be naked, new born. Two miles out of town a bridge crossed Willow Creek. It was now empty and dry but in the darkness she imagined it

forward into a faint streak of light. The darkness unfolded before her. There was joy in the running and with every step she took she achieved a new sense of escape. A delicious notion came into her mind. As she ran she thought the light under her feet became more distinct. It was, she thought, as though the darkness had grown afraid in her presence and sprang aside, out of her path. There was

tely as I could. I wa

es like me, an

hair and said it as

I might have plunged through walls, gone outward into nights and days, gone into prairies, into distanc

trying to

their minds fl

them as clear and straig

ht build temple

s at faces floa

like stones, like

rds in alleywa

ew my words in empty roo

men in streets and cities migh

rds at night i

life was sweet, t

might be built, that do

harried minds I

ht build temple