Page:I, Mary MacLane (1917).pdf/283

 To-morrow

AM Lonely. I am so Lonely that I can feel myself rattle inside my life like one live seed in a hollow gourd.

I am on fire with Loneliness.

I am living this month alone in this house. The solitude is pregnant: Doors and Door-knobs and Curtains and Tables have silently come alive in it and have taken on identities like those of tamed wild beasts.

I do housework—I dust window-sills and water flowers. I gather up newspapers and brush the floors with a dust-mop. I wash my dishes. I cook my breakfasts. I look out of windows. I linger at screen-doors.

I answer the telephone: I say, 'They're not at home.'

I change my frock and put on a hat and a cloak and gloves and go softly out the door and front gate on an errand.

I meet people on the street whom I know, whom I may speak to, whom I may avoid: who may speak to me: who may avoid me: for I am at best well hated in this Butte.

I come back again, softly unlock the door and come in. I come upstairs, take off the out-door things, give a hasty side-glance in my glass and go down-