Ceremony of the Innocent Read Free

lawns and with trees plated with dusty gold. There were water troughs for horses here, and carriage blocks, and narrow gardens behind the houses. Ellen would look at the houses with pleasure, and without envy, for she knew nothing of envy and was incapable of it. Somewhere, she insistently believed, there was a house like these waiting for her, with cool dim interiors, portieres, lace-covered windows, rich carpets and polished floors and carved doors.
    She came on a lawn in which little white daisies crouched in the grass. She immediately knelt to examine them, and was filled with delight. She touched one or two flowers with the gentle finger of love and awe. The satin petals immediately conveyed to her the euphony of music, infinite dulcitude; the diapason of perfection. She gazed, marveling, at the minute golden hearts, powdered with an infinitude of almost microscopic points. It never occurred to her to pick one, to ravish one with death. They had their being, which no one should violate. She could not put these thoughts into actual words, but the emotion was there.
    As she knelt there on the grass, her hair a tumbling effulgence in the sunlight, a handsome carriage rolled along the street, containing a middle-aged man and a youth of about twenty-two. The latter was holding the reins of two black horses with gleaming hides. He pulled the horses almost to a halt as he saw the girl. “What a beauty!” he exclaimed to his companion, who looked past him at the girl.
    “Yes,” said the older man with admiration. “I wonder who she is. Never saw her before in this misbegotten town. Perhaps a newcomer. But a little too gaudy, isn’t she? Like a young actress.”
    The young man laughed. “Look at her clothes. Hardly an actress. I wonder how old she is.”
    The older man said with indulgence, “Now, now, Francis. Every pretty girl takes your eye; it’s your age. She’s probably a servant; maybe sixteen or fifteen years old. We can ask my dear brother, the Mayor, today. Look at her, indeed. What an elegant face; I wonder if that color on her mouth and cheeks is real. You can’t tell with servant girls these days. Their mistresses are too lenient with them. There was a time when servants had a half day off a month; now they have two whole days, and that can lead to—paint.”
    “That face is of neither a servant nor a girl of a brothel—if there is any brothel in this town.” The young man was inexplicably annoyed. The carriage rolled away. Ellen got to her feet, not knowing she had been thoroughly inspected and commented upon. Her face was alight; she felt that she had received a revelation from eternity and she no longer heard the hymns whining from the houses. She began to run again; the street was pervaded with the robust smells of roasting beef and pork, and the delicious effluvia of frying chicken. She experienced a pang of hunger, and only smiled. She had a secret: The world was infinitely beautiful, infinitely alive, infinitely moving. Winged with this knowledge, her running feet seemed to fly over the pavement, to dance on the cobbles of the road. She wanted to impart what she knew to someone, but there was no someone and she had no words. She had no real destination.
    She came to the end of the long street and there was an open place before her, unmarred by houses or people. Now she could see the distant Pocono Mountains, all mauve and gold with an opalescent mist floating over them against a sky the color of delphiniums. This was her favorite spot, wide, uncluttered, uninhabited except for high wild grass and trees, butterflies and birds and rabbits. She gazed at the far mountains and again that sensation of exalted joy came to her, the hidden joy with a hidden promise. Here she could pretend that there were no human beings about her but only peace and intimations of rapture, of poetry and music. When, as she sighed with bliss and her eyes fell on a sign which read, “Lots for Sale,” she felt a deep and