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YOUTH AND THE BRIGHT MEDUSA
by
WILLA CATHER
1920
"We must not look at Goblin men,
We must not buy their fruits;
Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry, thirsty roots?"
CONTENTS
COMING, APHRODITE!
THE DIAMOND MINE
A GOLD SLIPPER
SCANDAL
PAUL'S CASE
A WAGNER MATINÉE
THE SCULPTOR'S FUNERAL
"A DEATH IN THE DESERT"
The author wishes to thank McClure's Magazine, The CenturyMagazine and Harper's Magazine for their courtesy in permittingthe re-publication of three stories in this collection.
The last four stories in the volume, Paul's Case, A Wagner Matinée,The Sculptor's Funeral, "A Death in the Desert," are re-printed fromthe author's first book of stories, entitled "The Troll Garden,"published in 1905.
Coming, Aphrodite!
I
Don Hedger had lived for four years on the top floor of an old house onthe south side of Washington Square, and nobody had ever disturbed him.He occupied one big room with no outside exposure except on the north,where he had built in a many-paned studio window that looked upon a courtand upon the roofs and walls of other buildings. His room was verycheerless, since he never got a ray of direct sunlight; the south cornerswere always in shadow. In one of the corners was a clothes closet, builtagainst the partition, in another a wide divan, serving as a seat by dayand a bed by night. In the front corner, the one farther from the window,was a sink, and a table with two gas burners where he sometimes cookedhis food. There, too, in the perpetual dusk, was the dog's bed, and oftena bone or two for his comfort.
The dog was a Boston bull terrier, and Hedger explained his surlydisposition by the fact that he had been bred to the point where it toldon his nerves. His name was Caesar III, and he had taken prizes at veryexclusive dog shows. When he and his master went out to prowl aboutUniversity Place or to promenade along West Street, Caesar III wasinvariably fresh and shining. His pink skin showed through his mottledcoat, which glistened as if it had just been rubbed with olive oil, andhe wore a brass-studded collar, bought at the smartest saddler's. Hedger,as often as not, was hunched up in an old striped blanket coat, with ashapeless felt hat pulled over his bushy hair, wearing black shoes thathad become grey, or brown ones that had become black, and he never put ongloves unless the day was biting cold.
Early in May, Hedger learned that he was to have a new neighbour in therear apartment—two rooms, one large and one small, that faced the west.His studio was shut off from the larger of these rooms by double doors,which, though they were fairly tight, left him a good deal at the mercyof the occupant. The rooms had been leased, long before he came there, bya trained nurse who considered herself knowing in old furniture. She wentto auction sales and bought up mahogany and dirty brass and stored itaway here, where she meant to live when she retired from nursing.Meanwhile, she sub-let her r