University of Wisconsin Madison - Badger Yearbook (Madison, WI)

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Emotions Actions Thoughts

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PEOPLE ARE MADE OF. . . ''J

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Outside, it was a bit cold, but not unpleasant. The evening lay protected under a shield of fog penetrated only by the heavy drops of a slow, sober rain. The street lamps coldly lit the wet cement floor of life, as their crystalline beams broke amidst the branches of barren trees into smoky shafts of light. I was passed, (almost forced off the sidewalk) by a businessman whose black hat and raincoat eagerly blended and disappeared into the darkness of some predetermined route. Having no desire to disappear ahead of myself. searched the mist rather casually as walked. At the end of Langdon. I noticed suddenly a young woman standing in a white raincoat. I was surprised by her beauty as she turned to look at me. Her hair was long, very blond and straight; her features were sharp, and, though I caught only a glance of her. they seemed possessed by that delicate grace which some women carry from childhood, which possesses all their movements and seems to flow through them as though through a poem. She seemed out of place here, on this corner, like a sad goddess. Her eyes flickered here and there as sporadic drops ran down the sides of night. As I crossed the street, she remained standing there, as if wailing for someone, with nothing to protect her marvellous hair from the damp. It seemed almost as if, though born in the clouds. Athena had been left here, stranded in a fog. I looked back to her a few times, and, feeling colder, fastened my raincoat, drawing the belt tight around me. Oddly enough, given the lateness of the hour, lights were on throughout the new insurance building that dominated the block. On the third floor was a man whose actions seemed nothing more than a pantomime. He seemed directed towards something beyond the window, something in the night which the window prevented his obtaining. He would scrape the glass clean, bend down to get a rag. then reach up and polish and polish, in furious little circles, as if trying desperately either to bore a hole through the window, or to eliminate it entirely. This, at least, is how his actions appeared to me. looking in. as it were, from the outside, but I suppose he was simply washing the windows. Tor he would soon move on to another, splash water on it, and repeat the whole process. Room after room, window after window, each held to view a different space of night. Each was merely cleaned; none were smashed or reached beyond. A ml, I wondered if he, not being able to feel it. knew just how heavy the rain outside had become. Moving on slowly. I looked down the street at the young woman, still waiting, then back to the man, still encaged by his actions. Both were isolated, in the night and my inability to bring these two out of their separateness, brought to mind my wanting and somewhere-waiting lover. Where would she lie on my path, where was she in the winter's rain? Would I pass her by chance, unspeaking, a shadow behind my steps? Would she start to wave, hesitate, and turn—afraid to attract my attention? I felt apart, thoroughly alone and the rain now fell as a fountain out of some minor demon’s hell. Searching my thoughts as I walked, I finally came to the front steps of my apartment. As I unlocked the door, felt certain that 1 would join my love only in a self-born sun; a morning created by a new unity of actions and the beauty of thought. 9 —Thomas Dreseller