Whereupon all manner of strange
things happened in his head and heart and flesh and spirit as he sat there
alone, his hands in his pockets, his feet braced against the legs of the
stove.
It was a cold winter night, and the snow and sleet beat against the windows.
He looked about the ugly room: at the washstand with its square of oilcloth in
front and its detestable bowl and pitcher; at the rigors of his white iron
bedstead, with the valley in the middle of the lumpy mattress and the darns in
the rumpled pillowcases; at the dull photographs of the landlady's hideous
husband and children enshrined on the mantelshelf; looked at the abomination
of desolation surrounding him until his soul sickened and cried out like a
child's for something more like home. It was as if a spring thaw had melted
his ice-bound heart, and on the crest of a wave it was drifting out into the
milder waters of some unknown sea. He could have laid his head in the kind lap
of a woman and cried: "Comfort me! Give me companionship or I die!"
The wind howled in the chimney and rattled the loose window-sashes; the snow,
freezing as it fell, dashed against the glass with hard, cutting little blows;
at least, that is the way in which the wind and snow flattered themselves they
were making existence disagreeable to Justin Peabody when he read the letter;
but never were elements more mistaken.
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