This frightful volume had been published five years
ago.
A wave of pity swept over Jimmy. He did not blame her now. She
had been a mere child five years ago, scarcely old enough to
distinguish right from wrong. You couldn't blame her for writing
sentimental verse at that age. Why, at a similar stage in his own
career he had wanted to be a vaudeville singer. Everything must
be excused to Youth. It was with a tender glow of affectionate
forgiveness that he turned the pages.
As he did so a curious thing happened to him. He began to have
that feeling, which every one has experienced at some time or
other, that he had done this very thing before. He was almost
convinced that this was not the first time he had seen that poem
on page twenty-seven entitled "A Lament." Why, some of the lines
seemed extraordinarily familiar. The people who understood these
things explained this phenomenon, he believed, by some stuff
about the cells of the brain working simultaneously or something.
Something about cells, anyway. He supposed that that must be it.
But that was not it. The feeling that he had read all this before
grew instead of vanishing, as is generally the way on these
occasions. He _had_ read this stuff before. He was certain of it.
But when? And where? And above all why? Surely he had not done it
from choice.
It was the total impossibility of his having done it from choice
that led his memory in the right direction.
Pages:
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245