The Undiscovered Country. William Dean Howells

      I.

      SOME years ago, at a time when the rapid growth of the city was changing the character of many localities, two young men were sitting, one afternoon early in April, in the parlor of a house on one of those streets which, without having yet accomplished their destiny as business thoroughfares, were no longer the homes of the decorous ease that once inhabited them. The young men held their hats and canes in their hands, and they had that air of having just been admitted and of waiting to be received by the people of the house which rests gracefully only on persons of the other sex. One was tall and spare, and he sat stiffly expectant; the other, who was much shorter and stouter, with the mature bloom which comes of good living and a cherished digestion, was more restless. As he rose from his chair, after a few moments, and went to examine some detail of the dim room, he moved with a quick, eager step, and with a stoop which suggested a connoisseur's habit of bending over and peering at things. He returned to his seat, and glanced round the parlor, as if to seize the whole effect more accurately.

      "So this is the home of the Pythoness, is it?" he said.

      "If you like to call her a Pythoness," answered the other.

      "Oh, I don't know that I prefer it: I'm quite willing to call her a test-medium. I thought perhaps Pythoness would respectfully idealize the business. What a queer, melancholy house; what a queer, melancholy street! I don't think I was ever in a street before where quite so many professional ladies, with English surnames, preferred Madame to Mrs. on their door-plates. And the poor old place has such a desperately conscious air of going to the deuce. Every house seems to wince as you go by, and button itself up to the chin for fear you should find out it had no shirt on,—so to speak. I don't know what's the reason, but these material tokens of a social decay afflict me terribly: a tipsy woman isn't dreadfuller than a haggard old house, that's once been a home, in a street like this."

      "The street's going the usual way," said the other. "It will be all business in a few years."

      "But in the meantime, it causes me inexpressible anguish, and it will keep doing it.

      If I know where there's a thorn, I can't help going up and pressing my waistcoat against it. I foresee that I shall keep coming. This parlor alone is poignant enough to afford me the most rapturous pain; it pierces my soul. This tawdry red velvet wall-paper; the faded green reps of that sofa; those family photographs in their oval papier-mâché frames; that round table there in the corner, with its subscription literature and its tin-type albums; and this frantic tapestry carpet! I know now why the ghost-seers affect this sort of street and this sort of parlor: the spirits can't resist the deadly fascination! No ghost, with any strength of character, could keep away. I suppose that this apartment is swarming now, with disembodied ladies and gentlemen of the first distinction. Well, I like your going into this.

      I respect everybody's superstition—except my own; I can't respect that, you know."

      " Do you think I believe in these people's rubbish?"

      "I didn't know. A man must believe in something. I couldn't think of anything else you believed in. I'm not sure I don't believe in it a trifle, myself; my nerves do. May I ask why you come here, if you refuse the particular rubbish afforded by the establishment? You're not a curious man."

      "Why did you come?"

      "You asked me. Besides, I have no occasion for a reason. I am an emotional, not a rational being, as I've often told you."

      The taller man laughed drily. "Very well, then, you don't need a reason from me. You can wait and see why I came."

      The short man gave a shrug. " I hope I shan't have to wait long. An emotional being has a right to be unreasonably impatient."