"Шервуд Андерсен. Триумф яйца (engl) " - читать интересную книгу автора

He was a sentimental fellow and took hold of her hand. When she began
to cry he was alarmed and arose. He put a hand on her shoulder and
tried to explain, but under the touch of his fingers her whole body
shook with terror. "Don't touch me," she cried, "don't let your hands
touch me!" She began to scream and people passing in the street stopped
to listen. The drygoods clerk was alarmed and ran upstairs to his own
room. He bolted the door and stood listening. "It is a trick," he
declared in a trembling voice. "She is trying to make trouble. I did
nothing to her. It was an accident and anyway what's the matter? I only
touched her arm with my fingers."

Perhaps a dozen times LeRoy has spoken to me of the experience of the
Iowa woman in the west-side house. The men there began to hate her.
Although she would have nothing to do with them she would not let them
alone. In a hundred ways she continually invited approaches that when
made she repelled. When she stood naked in the bathroom facing the
hallway where the men passed up and down she left the door slightly
ajar. There was a couch in the living room down stairs, and when men
were present she would sometimes enter and without saying a word throw
herself down before them. On the couch she lay with lips drawn slightly
apart. Her eyes stared at the ceiling. Her whole physical being seemed
to be waiting for something. The sense of her filled the room. The men
standing about pretended not to see. They talked loudly. Embarrassment
took possession of them and one by one they crept quietly away.

One evening the woman was ordered to leave the house. Someone, perhaps
the drygoods clerk, had talked to the landlady and she acted at once.
"If you leave tonight I shall like it that much better," LeRoy heard
the elder woman's voice saying. She stood in the hallway before the
Iowa woman's room. The landlady's voice rang through the house.

LeRoy the painter is tall and lean and his life has been spent in
devotion to ideas. The passions of his brain have consumed the passions
of his body. His income is small and he has not married. Perhaps he has
never had a sweetheart. He is not without physical desire but he is not
primarily concerned with desire.

On the evening when the Iowa woman was ordered to leave the west-side
house, she waited until she thought the landlady had gone down stairs,
and then went into LeRoy's room. It was about eight o'clock and he sat
by a window reading a book. The woman did not knock but opened the
door. She said nothing but ran across the floor and knelt at his feet.
LeRoy said that her twisted foot made her run like a wounded bird, that
her eyes were burning and that her breath came in little gasps. "Take
me," she said, putting her face down upon his knees and trembling
violently. "Take me quickly. There must be a beginning to things. I
can't stand the waiting. You must take me at once."

You may be quite sure LeRoy was perplexed by all this. From what he has