Penrod
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CHAPTER VI EVENING
The sun was setting behind the back fence (though at a considerabledistance) as Penrod Schofield approached that fence and lookedthoughtfully up at the top of it, apparently having in mind some purposeto climb up and sit there. Debating this, he passed his fingers gentlyup and down the backs of his legs; and then something seemed to decidehim not to sit anywhere. He leaned against the fence, sighed profoundly,and gazed at Duke, his wistful dog.
The sigh was reminiscent: episodes of simple pathos were passing beforehis inward eye. About the most painful was the vision of lovelyMarjorie Jones, weeping with rage as the Child Sir Lancelot was dragged,insatiate, from the prostrate and howling Child Sir Galahad, after anonslaught delivered the precise instant the curtain began to fall uponthe demoralized "pageant." And then--oh, pangs! oh, woman!--she slappedat the ruffian's cheek, as he was led past her by a resentful janitor;and turning, flung her arms round the Child Sir Galahad's neck.
"PENROD SCHOFIELD, DON'T YOU DARE EVER SPEAK TO ME AGAIN AS LONG ASYOU LIVE!" Maurice's little white boots and gold tassels had done theirwork.
At home the late Child Sir Lancelot was consigned to a lockedclothes-closet pending the arrival of his father. Mr. Schofield cameand, shortly after, there was put into practice an old patriarchalcustom. It is a custom of inconceivable antiquity: probably primordial,certainly prehistoric, but still in vogue in some remaining citadels ofthe ancient simplicities of the Republic.
And now, therefore, in the dusk, Penrod leaned against the fence andsighed.
His case is comparable to that of an adult who could have survived asimilar experience. Looking back to the sawdust-box, fancy pictures thiscomparable adult a serious and inventive writer engaged in congenialliterary activities in a private retreat. We see this period markedby the creation of some of the most virile passages of a Work dealingexclusively in red corpuscles and huge primal impulses. We seethis thoughtful man dragged from his calm seclusion to a horrifyingpublicity; forced to adopt the stage and, himself a writer, compelledto exploit the repulsive sentiments of an author not only personallydistasteful to him but whose whole method and school in belles lettreshe despises.
We see him reduced by desperation and modesty to stealing a pair ofoveralls. We conceive him to have ruined, then, his own reputation,and to have utterly disgraced his family; next, to have engaged inthe duello and to have been spurned by his lady-love, thus lost to him(according to her own declaration) forever. Finally, we must behold:imprisonment by the authorities; the third degree and flagellation.
We conceive our man decided that his career had been perhaps tooeventful. Yet Penrod had condensed all of it into eight hours.
It appears that he had at least some shadowy perception of a recentfulness of life, for, as he leaned against the fence, gazing upon hiswistful Duke, he sighed again and murmured aloud:
"WELL, HASN'T THIS BEEN A DAY!"
But in a little while a star came out, freshly lighted, from the highestpart of the sky, and Penrod, looking up, noticed it casually anda little drowsily. He yawned. Then he sighed once more, but notreminiscently: evening had come; the day was over. It was a sigh of pureennui.