And ev'n with Paradise devise the Snake:
For all the Sin wherewith the Face of Man
Is blacken'd--Man's forgiveness give--and take!


Ever hear a man like that say a thing like that? No? Well,
it's--it's different. It's as if the river had spoken--or a
tree--it's so--it's so different.

That saved me--that verse that I remembered. I said it over and
over and over again to myself. I fitted it to the ferry whistles
on the bay--to the cop's steps as they passed again--to the roar
of the L-train and the jangling of the surface cars.

And right in the middle of it--every drop of blood in my body
seemed to leak out of me, and then come rushing back to my
head--I heard Tom's whistle.

Oh, it's easy to say "run," and I really meant it when I
promised Tom. But you see I hadn't heard that whistle then. When
it came, it changed everything. It set the devil in me loose.
I felt as if the world was tearing something of mine away from me.
Stand for it? Not Nance Olden.

I did run--but it was toward the house. That whistle may have
meant "Go!" To me it yelled "Come!"

I got in through the window Tom had left open. The place was
still quiet. Nobody inside had heard that whistle so far as I
could tell.