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I
go too fast. Not everything
about Wash was unclean. He took
care of his hands. His fingers
were fat, but there was something sensitive and shapely in the hand that lay
on the table by the instrument in the telegraph office.
In his youth Wash Williams had been called the best telegraph
operator in the state, and in spite of his degradement to the obscure office
at Winesburg, he was still proud of his ability.
Wash
Williams did not associate with the men of the town in which he lived.
"I'll have nothing to do with them," he said, looking with
bleary eyes at the men who walked along the station platform past the
telegraph office. Up along Main
Street he went in the evening to Ed Griffith's saloon, and after drinking
unbelievable quantities of beer staggered off to his room in the New Willard
House and to his bed for the night.
Wash
Williams was a man of courage. A
thing had happened to him that made him hate life, and he hated it
wholeheartedly, with the abandon of a poet.
First of all, he hated women. "Bitches,"
he called them. His feeling
toward men was somewhat different. He pitied them. "Does
not every man let his life be managed for him by some bitch or
another?" he asked.
In
Winesburg no attention was paid to Wash Williams and his hatred of his
fellows. Once Mrs. White, the
banker's wife, complained to the telegraph company, saying that the office
in Winesburg was dirty and smelled abominably, but nothing came of her
complaint. Here and there a man
respected the operator. Instinctively
the man felt in him a glowing resentment of something he had not the courage
to resent. When Wash walked
through the streets such a one had an instinct to pay him homage, to raise
his hat or to bow before him. The
superintendent who had supervision over the telegraph operators on the
railroad that went through Winesburg felt that way.
He had put Wash into the obscure office at Winesburg to avoid
discharging him, and he meant to keep him there.
When he received the letter of complaint from the banker's wife, he
tore it up and laughed unpleasantly. For
some reason he thought of his own wife as he tore up the letter.
Wash
Williams once had a wife. When
he was still a young man he married a woman at Dayton, Ohio. The woman was
tall and slender and had blue eyes and yellow hair.
Wash was himself a comely youth. He loved the woman with a love as
absorbing as the hatred he later felt for all women.
In
all of Winesburg there was but one person who knew the story of the thing
that had made ugly the person and the character of Wash Williams.
He once told the story to George Willard and the telling of the tale
came about in this way:
George
Willard went one evening to walk with Belle Carpenter, a trimmer of women's
hats who worked in a millinery shop kept by Mrs. Kate McHugh.
The young man was not in love with the woman, who, in fact, had a
suitor who worked as bartender in Ed Griffith's saloon, but as they walked
about under the trees they occasionally embraced. The night and their own
thoughts had aroused something in them.
As they were returning to Main Street they passed the little lawn
beside the railroad station and saw Wash Williams apparently asleep on the
grass beneath a tree. On the
next evening the operator and George Willard walked out together. Down the
railroad they went and sat on a pile of decaying railroad ties beside the
tracks. It was then that the
operator told the young reporter his story of hate.
Perhaps
a dozen times George Willard and the strange, shapeless man who lived at his
father's hotel had been on the point of talking. The young man looked at the hideous, leering face staring
about the hotel dining room and was consumed with curiosity.
Something he saw lurking in the staring eyes told him that the man
who had nothing to say to others had nevertheless something to say to him.
On the pile of railroad ties on the summer evening, he waited
expectantly. When the operator
remained silent and seemed to have changed his mind about talking, he tried
to make conversation. "Were
you ever married, Mr. Williams?" he began.
"I suppose you were and your wife is dead, is that it?"
Wash
Williams spat forth a succession of vile oaths. "Yes, she is dead," he agreed.
"She is dead as all women are dead.
She is a living-dead thing, walking in the sight of men and making
the earth foul by her presence." Staring into the boy's eyes, the man
became purple with rage. "Don't
have fool notions in your head," he commanded.
"My wife, she is dead; yes, surely.
I tell you, all women are dead, my mother, your mother, that tall
dark woman who works in the millinery store and with whom I saw you walking
about yesterday--all of them, they are all dead.
I tell you there is something rotten about them. I
was married, sure. My wife was
dead before she married me, she was a foul thing come out a woman more foul.
She was a thing sent to make life unbearable to me.
I was a fool, do you see, as you are now, and so I married this
woman. I would like to see men a little begin to understand women.
They are sent to prevent men making the world worth while.
It is a trick in Nature. Ugh!
They are creeping, crawling, squirming things, they with their soft hands
and their blue eyes. The sight
of a woman sickens me. Why I
don't kill every woman I see I don't know."
Half
frightened and yet fascinated by the light burning in the eyes of the
hideous old man, George Willard listened, afire with curiosity.
Darkness came on and he leaned forward trying to see the face of the
man who talked. When, in the
gathering darkness, he could no longer see the purple, bloated face and the
burning eyes, a curious fancy came to him. Wash Williams talked in low even
tones that made his words seem the more terrible.
In the darkness the young reporter found himself imagining that he
sat on the railroad ties beside a comely young man with black hair and black
shining eyes. There was
something almost beautiful in the voice of Wash Williams, the hideous,
telling his story of hate.
The
telegraph operator of Winesburg, sitting in the darkness on the railroad
ties, had become a poet. Hatred had raised him to that elevation.
"It is because I saw you kissing the lips of that Belle
Carpenter that I tell you my story," he said.
"What happened to me may next happen to you.
I want to put you on your guard.
Already you may be having dreams in your head.
I want to destroy them."
Wash
Williams began telling the story of his married life with the tall blonde
girl with the blue eyes whom he had met when he was a young operator at
Dayton, Ohio. Here and there
his story was touched with moments of beauty intermingled with strings of
vile curses. The operator had
married the daughter of a dentist who was the youngest of three sisters.
On his marriage day, because of his ability, he was promoted to a
position as dispatcher at an increased salary and sent to an office at
Columbus, Ohio. There he
settled down with his young wife and began buying a house on the installment
plan.
The
young telegraph operator was madly in love. With a kind of religious fervor
he had managed to go through the pitfalls of his youth and to remain
virginal until after his marriage. He
made for George Willard a picture of his life in the house at Columbus,
Ohio, with the young wife. "in
the garden back of our house we planted vegetables," he said, "you
know, peas and corn and such things. We
went to Columbus in early March and as soon as the days became warm I went
to work in the garden. With a
spade I turned up the black ground while she ran about laughing and
pretending to be afraid of the worms I uncovered.
Late in April came the planting. In the little paths among the seed
beds she stood holding a paper bag in her hand.
The bag was filled with seeds. A
few at a time she handed me the seeds that I might thrust them into the
warm, soft ground."
For
a moment there was a catch in the voice of the man talking in the darkness.
"I loved her," he said.
"I don't claim not to be a fool.
I love her yet. There in the dusk in the spring evening I crawled
along the black ground to her feet and groveled before her.
I kissed her shoes and the ankles above her shoes.
When the hem of her garment touched my face I trembled.
When after two years of that life I found she had managed to acquire
three other lovers who came regularly to our house when I was away at work,
I didn't want to touch them or her. I just sent her home to her mother and
said nothing. There was nothing to say.
I had four hundred dollars in the bank and I gave her that.
I didn't ask her reasons. I
didn't say anything. When she
had gone I cried like a silly boy. Pretty
soon I had a chance to sell the house and I sent that money to her."
Wash
Williams and George Willard arose from the pile of railroad ties and walked
along the tracks toward town. The
operator finished his tale quickly, breathlessly.
"Her
mother sent for me," he said. "She
wrote me a letter and asked me to come to their house at Dayton.
When I got there it was evening about this time."
Wash
Williams' voice rose to a half scream.
"I sat in the parlor of that house two hours.
Her mother took me in there and left me.
Their house was stylish. They
were what is called respectable people. There were plush chairs and a couch
in the room. I was trembling all over.
I hated the men I thought had wronged her. I was sick of living alone and wanted her back.
The longer I waited the more raw and tender I became.
I thought that if she came in and just touched me with her hand I
would perhaps faint away. I
ached to forgive and forget."
Wash
Williams stopped and stood staring at George Willard. The boy's body shook as from a chill. Again the man's voice became soft and low.
"She came into the room naked," he went on.
"Her mother did that. While
I sat there she was taking the girl's clothes off, perhaps coaxing her to do
it. First I heard voices at the door that led into a little
hallway and then it opened softly. The
girl was ashamed and stood perfectly still staring at the floor.
The mother didn't come into the room.
When she had pushed the girl in through the door she stood in the
hallway waiting, hoping we would--well, you see-waiting."
George
Willard and the telegraph operator came into the main street of Winesburg.
The lights from the store windows lay bright and shining on the
sidewalks. People moved about
laughing and talking. The young
reporter felt ill and weak. In
imagination, he also became old and shapeless.
"I didn't get the mother killed," said Wash Williams,
staring up and down the street. "I
struck her once with a chair and then the neighbors came in and took it
away. She screamed so loud you
see. I won't ever have a chance
to kill her now. She died of a
fever a month after that happened."
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