I'll Never Be Young Again Read Free Page A

should continue after I had left them, as though when turning a corner with the stream hidden from view, a mist must fall about them, shrouding them carefully, until I should pass again.
    It was like this now, with the traffic and the moving people. Impossible that they should live while I was no more a part of existence.
    Once more I looked down upon the swirling water beneath the bridge. I threw away my paper and watched it twirl slowly, caught in a sudden eddy, and then, limp and tragic, float from me, borne by the current. A crinkled edge stared up at me, as yet unsodden, like a faint protest.
    I resolved that I would not wait any more. The dust and the noise of humanity, the nearness of men and women, were urging some claim upon me that was robbing me of my strength and will.
    They were united in a conspiracy to keep me from the peace I had promised myself.
    It was not thus I had imagined it would be.
    I wanted it to be made easier for me. In my preparations for this moment I had been overcome by a great weariness, my eyes had seen nothing but the wide placid sheet of water ready to receive me, my ears had heard nothing but the soft, steady ripple of the wash against the archway of the bridge.
    There was no throb of traffic then, no hum of city, no smell of dust, and body, and life, no shouts of men, nor the clear whistle of a boy with his hands in his pockets.
    I wanted to be tired, I wanted to be old, I wanted to lose myself and not be reminded of things I had never done.
    I looked up at the sky and saw a great dark-edged cloud hover over the distant spire of St Paul’s. Where the west had been golden was a shadowed blanket, a grim reflection of the murky buildings by the water’s edge. Soon the million lights that belonged to London would cast a halo of light into the sky, and one faint star would flicker against the purple.
    There seemed no reason for staying any longer. I would not even be dramatic and make a gesture of farewell. There should be no sentimentality where I was concerned. It was not worth the trouble of tears, not my life, anyway. I would make a ripple upon the water for a moment, not much more than a stone thrown by a child from a bank. Nothing mattered very much. I wondered why my heart felt so heavy and afraid, why the sweat clung to my hands and could not be wiped away.
    I swung my legs over, holding on to the bridge with desperate fingers. An odd snatch of breeze blew across my hair. I supposed that this was the very last thing of the world to come to me.
    I breathed deeply, and I felt as though the waiting water rose up in front of me and would not let me go.
    This was my final impression of horror, when fear and fascination took hold upon me, and I knew that I should have no other moment but this before the river itself closed in upon me. My fingers slackened, and I lowered myself for the fall.
    It was then that someone laid his hands upon my shoulder, and turning to clutch him instinctively as a means of safety, I saw Jake for the first time, his head thrown back, a smile on his lips.

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    ‘ Y ou don’t want to do that,’ he said; ‘it doesn’t do any good really, you know. Because nobody has ever proved that there isn’t something beyond. The chances are you might find yourself up against something terrific, something too big for you, and you wouldn’t know how to get out of it. Besides - wait until you’re sixty-five if you must finish that way.’
    I was ready to break down like a boy and cry. I kept my hand on his arm as though it afforded me some measure of protection. Yet somewhere inside me there was a feeling of revolt, a stupid sense of frustration. This fellow had not any right to stop me from making a fool of myself. And, anyway, I did not care a damn for his opinion. Mechanically I heard myself speaking in a small tired voice I scarcely recognized as my own.
    ‘You don’t understand,’ I kept saying, ‘you don’t understand - I’m not going to explain to you or to