The Journal of a Disappointed Man

After conscientiously carrying out her programme but with the distracted, uncomfortable air of some one scurrying over a painful task--like a tired child gabbling its prayers before getting into bed--she at length produced from her skirt pocket a small canvas money bag which she started to hand around. This was the climax to this harrowing incident--for each time she held out the bag, she smiled, which stretched the skin still more tightly down over her malar prominence and said something--an inarticulate noise in a very high pitch. "A woman," I whispered to R----, "She claims to be a woman." If any one hesitated a moment or struggled with a purse she would wait patiently with bag outstretched and head turned away, the smile vanishing at once as if the pinched face were but too glad of the opportunity of a rest from smiling. She stood there, gazing absently--two lifeless eyes at the bottom of deep socket holes in a head which was almost a bare skull. She was perfunctorily carrying out an objectionable task because she could not kill the will to live. As she looked away and waited for you to produce the copper, she thought, "Why trouble? Why should I wait for this man's aid?" The clink of the penny recalled her to herself, and she passed on, renewing her terrible grimacing smile. Why didn't I do something? Why? Because I was bent on hearing Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, if you please.... And she may have been a well-to-do vagrant--well got up for the occasion--a clever simulator?...