Somewhere, far away, across the cool sweet silence of the night, Helen heard the sound of a train. For a moment she could hear the faint and ghostly tolling of its bell, the short explosive blasts of its hard labour, now muted almost into silence, now growing near, immediate as it laboured out across the night from the enclosure of a railway cut down by the river’s edge; and for an instant she heard the lonely wailing and receding cry of the train’s whistle, and then the long heavy rumble of its wheels; and then nothing but silence, darkness, the huge hush and secrecy of night again.

And still plucking at her chin, thinking absently, but scarcely conscious of her thinking, like a child in reverie, she thought:

“There is a freight-train going west along the river. Now, by the sound, it should be passing below Patton Hill, just across from where Riverside Park used to be before the flood came and washed it all away. . . . Now it is getting farther off, across the river from the casket factory. . . . Now it is almost gone, I can hear nothing but the sound of wheels . . . it is going west toward Boiling Springs . . . and after that it will come to Wilson City, Tennessee . . . and then to Dover. . . . Knoxville . . . Memphis — after that? I wonder where the train is going . . . where it will be tomorrow night? . . . Perhaps across the Mississippi River, and then on through Arkansas . . . perhaps to St. Louis . . . and then on to — what comes next?” she thought absently, plucking at her chin —“to Kansas City, I suppose . . . and then to Denver . . . and across the Rocky Mountains . . . and across the desert . . . and then across more mountains and then at last to California.”

And still plucking at her chin, and scarcely conscious of her thought — not THINKING, indeed, so much as reflecting by a series of broken but powerful images all cogent to a central intuition about life — her mind resumed again its sleepless patient speculation:

“How strange and full of mystery life is. . . . Tomorrow we shall all get up, dress, go out on the streets, see and speak to one another — and yet we shall know absolutely nothing about anyone else. . . . I know almost everyone in town — the bankers, the lawyers, the butchers, the bakers, the grocers, the clerks in the stores, the Greek restaurant man, Tony Scarsati the fruit dealer, even the niggers down in Niggertown — I know them all, as well as their wives and children — where they came from, what they are doing, all the lies and scandals and jokes and mean stories, whether true or false, that are told about them — and yet I really know nothing about any of them. I know nothing about anyone, not even about myself —” and, suddenly, this fact seemed terrible and grotesque to her, and she thought desperately:

“What is wrong with people? . . . Why do we never get to know one another? . . . Why is it that we get born and live and die here in this world without ever finding out what anyone else is like? . . . No, what is the strangest thing of all — why is it that all our efforts to know people in this world lead only to greater ignorance and confusion than before? We get together and talk, and say we think and feel and believe in such a way, and yet what we really think and feel and believe we never say at all. Why is this? We talk and talk in an effort to understand another person, and yet almost all we say is false: we hardly ever say what we mean or tell the truth — it all leads to greater misunderstanding and fear than before — it would be better if we said nothing. Tomorrow I shall dress and go out on the street and bow and smile and flatter people, laying it on with a trowel, because I want them to like me, I want to make ‘a good impression,’ to be a ‘success’— and yet I have no notion what it is all about. When I pass Judge Junius Pearson on the street I will smile and bow and try to make a good impression on him, and if he speaks to me I shall almost fawn upon him in order to flatter my way into his good graces. Why? I do not like him, I hate his long pointed nose, and the sneering and disdainful look upon his face: I think he is ‘looking down’ on me — but I know that he goes with the ‘swell’ social set and is invited out to all the parties at Catawba House by Mrs. Goulderbilt and is received by them as a social equal. And I feel that if Junius Pearson should accept me as HIS social equal it would help me — get me forward somehow — make me a success — get ME an invitation to Catawba House. And yet it would get me nothing; even if I were Mrs. Goulderbilt’s closest friend, what good would it do me? But the people I really like and feel at home with are working people of Papa’s kind. The people I really like are Ollie Gant, and old man Alec Ramsay, and big Mike Fogarty, and Mr. Jannadeau, and Myrtis, my little nigger servant girl, and Mr. Luther, the fish man down in the market, and the nigger Jacken, the fruit and vegetable man, and Ernest Pegram, and Mr. Duncan and the Tarkintons — all the old neighbours down on Woodson Street — and Tony Scarsati and Mr. Pappas. Mr. Pappas is just a Greek luncheon-room proprietor, but he seems to me to be one of the finest people I have ever known, and yet if Junius Pearson saw me talking to him I should try to make a joke out of it — to make a joke out of talking to a Greek who runs a restaurant. In the same way, when some of my new friends see me talking to people like Mr. Jannadeau or Mike Fogarty or Ollie or Ernest Pegram or the Tarkintons or the old Woodson Street crowd, I feel ashamed or embarrassed, and turn it off as a big joke. I laugh about Mr. Jannadeau and his dirty fingers and the way he picks his nose, and old Alec Ramsay and Ernest Pegram spitting tobacco while they talk, and then I wind up by appearing to be democratic and saying in a frank and open manner —‘Well, I like them . . . I don’t care what anyone says’ (when no one has said anything!), ‘I like them, and always have. If the truth is told, they’re just as good as anyone else!’— as if there is any doubt about it, and as if I should have to justify myself for being ‘democratic.’ Why ‘democratic’? Why should I apologize or defend myself for liking people when no one has accused me?

“I’m pushing Hugh ahead now all the time; he’s tired and sick and worn out and exhausted — but I keep ‘pushing him ahead’ without knowing what it is we’re pushing ahead toward, where it will all wind up. What is it all about? I’ve pushed him ahead from Woodson Street up here to Weaver Street: and now this neighbourhood has become old-fashioned — the swell society crowd is all moving out to Grovem............