It must make old Lindau feel like
he was back behind those barricades at Berlin. Well, he's a splendid old
fellow; pity he drinks, as I remarked once before."
When March left the office he did not go home so directly as he came,
perhaps because Mrs. March's eye was not on him. He was very curious
about some aspects of the strike, whose importance, as a great social
convulsion, he felt people did not recognize; and, with his temperance in
everything, he found its negative expressions as significant as its more
violent phases. He had promised his wife solemnly that he would keep away
from these, and he had a natural inclination to keep his promise; he had
no wish to be that peaceful spectator who always gets shot when there is
any firing on a mob. He interested himself in the apparent indifference
of the mighty city, which kept on about its business as tranquilly as if
the private war being fought out in its midst were a vague rumor of
Indian troubles on the frontier; and he realized how there might once
have been a street feud of forty years in Florence without interfering
materially with the industry and prosperity of the city. On Broadway
there was a silence where a jangle and clatter of horse-car bells and
hoofs had been, but it was not very noticeable; and on the avenues,
roofed by the elevated roads, this silence of the surface tracks was not
noticeable at all in the roar of the trains overhead.
Pages:
879
880
881
882
883
884
885
886
887
888
889
890
891
892
893
894
895
896
897
898
899
900
901
902
903