elieve what I
say, just listen and believe, that's all there is to
it."

It was past eleven o'clock that evening when old Enoch,
talking to George Willard in the room in the Heffner
Block, came to the vital thing, the story of the woman
and of what drove him out of the city to live out his
life alone and defeated in Winesburg. He sat on a cot
by the window with his head in his hand and George
Willard was in a chair by a table. A kerosene lamp sat
on the table and the room, although almost bare of
furniture, was scrupulously clean. As the man talked
George Willard began to feel that he would like to get
out of the chair and sit on the cot also. He wanted to
put his arms about the little old man. In the half
darkness the man talked and the boy listened, filled
with sadness.

"She got to coming in there after there hadn't been
anyone in the room for years," said Enoch Robinson.
"She saw me in the hallway of the house and we got
acquainted. I don't know just what she did in her own
room. I never went there. I think she was a musician
and played a violin. Every now and then she came and
knocked at the door and I opened it. In she came and
sat down beside me, just sat and looked about and said
nothing. Anyway, she said nothing that mattered."

The old man arose from the cot and moved about the
room. The overcoat he wore was wet from the rain and
drops of water kept falling with a soft thump on the
floor. When he again sat upon the cot George Willard
got out of the chair and sat beside him.

"I had a feeling about her. She sat there in the room
with me and she was too big for the room. I felt that
she was driving everything else away. We just talked of
little things, but I couldn't sit still. I wanted to
touch her with my fingers and to kiss her. Her hands
were so strong and her face was so good and she looked
at me all the time."

The trembling voice of the old man became silent and
his body shook as from a chill. "I was afraid," he
whispered. "I was terribly afraid. I didn't want to let
her come in when she knocked at the door but I couldn't
sit still. 'No, no,' I said to myself, but I got up and
opened the door just the same. She was so grown up, you
see. She was a woman. I thought she would be bigger
than I was there in that room."

Enoch Robinson stared at George Willard, his childlike
blue eyes shining in the lamplight. Again he shivered.
"I wanted her and all the time I didn't want her," he
explained.