During that burning day when we were crossing Iowa, our talk kept
returning to a central figure, a Bohemian girl whom we had known long ago
and whom both of us admired. More than any other person we remembered,
this girl seemed to mean to us the country, the conditions, the whole
adventure of our childhood. To speak her name was to call up pictures of
people and places, to set a quiet drama going in one's brain. I had lost
sight of her altogether, but Jim had found her again after long years, had
renewed a friendship that meant a great deal to him, and out of his busy
life had set apart time enough to enjoy that friendship. His mind was full
of her that day. He made me see her again, feel her presence, revived all
my old affection for her.
"I can't see," he said impetuously, "why you have never written anything
about Antonia."
I told him I had always felt that other people--he himself, for one--knew
her much better than I. I was ready, however, to make an agreement with
him; I would set down on paper all that I remembered of Antonia if he
would do the same. We might, in this way, get a picture of her.
He rumpled his hair with a quick, excited gesture, which with him often
announces a new determination, and I could see that my suggestion took
hold of him. "Maybe I will, maybe I will!" he declared. He stared out of
the window for a few moments, and when he turned to me again his eyes had
the sudden clearness that comes from something the mind itself sees.
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