You meet some rare
fish in those waters--Jews, Turks, infidels, and heretics. They'll amuse
you--give you bones to pick. I don't get on with 'em myself--too simple, I
am, you know. They talk their politics, or domestic afflictions, and I
feel so delicate I don't know what to do. There was one chap I remember--
Golowicz his name was--big, red-whiskered, conspiracy chap ... told me
all about his mother--tears running down his cheeks. I didn't know her
from Adam, you know, but still--Oh, you'll like Aunt Wenman. She'll want
you to live with her, and you might do much worse." Sanchia listened,
smiled, and pondered. It was not her way to be disposed of so simply.
What was impressive to her about this conversation was the real reticence
underlying the chatter of her friend. She could feel his conviction of her
want of tone; she was convinced of it herself. Her purpose in life seemed
gone. Once it had been love, next it had been the ordering of affairs. The
second had been so absorbing that she had not missed the first; indeed,
she had believed it there until the very end, when she had called it up,
and had no answer. But now--what aim had she, in this lonely, empty life
she was leading, whose hours were so many that she had to fill them up
with Italian got out of books? Without knowing it, it was life she wanted,
not books.
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