This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
252
MAGDALEN

ing waters would carry her down, and then far away, somewhere near the dam.

Fright and terror chilled her bones.

“This is something temporary, something temporary, and it does not make much difference how I end it,” she thought, strengthening herself.

“Oh, that terrible, terrible water!” And again she was frightened.

The streets crossed each other, and everywhere, everywhere that life. . . .

“See their faces, forms, voices, motions, and dresses, their cares and their joys,—and they live, they live, they live. . . .

Then she entered the tangle of narrow streets.

Moisture is borne through the air; ill odors, growing more intense, are wafted through the short, narrow, crooked streets. The pulse of life is beating here in more boisterous measure. A variegated crowd of people surges past the old, grey houses, talking, laughing, jesting; laborers who come in their