THE BUILDING OF THE BRIDGE

ROBERT ALLITSEN came to the old book-shop to see Zerviah Holme before returning to the mountains. He found him reading Gibbon. These two men had stood by Bernardine’s grave.

“I was beginning to know her,” the old man said.

“I have always known her,” the young man said. “I cannot remember a time when she has not been part of my life.”

“She loved you,” Zerviah said. “She was telling me so the very morning when you came.”

Then, with a tenderness which was almost foreign to him, Zerviah told Robert Allitsen how Bernardine had opened her heart to him. She had never loved any one before: but she had loved the Disagreeable Man.

“I did not love him because I was sorry for him,” she had said. “I loved him for himself.”

Those were her very words.

“Thank you,” said the Disagreeable Man. “And God bless you for telling me.”

Then he added:

“There were some few loose sheets of paper on the counter. She had begun her book. May I have them?”

Zerviah placed them in his hand.

“And this photograph,” the old man said kindly. “I will spare it for you.”

The picture of the little thin eager face was folded up with the papers.

The two men parted.

Zerviah Holme went back to his Roman History. The Disagreeable Man went back to the mountains: to live his life out there, and to build his bridge, as we all do, whether consciously or unconsciously. If it breaks down, we build it again.

“We will build it stronger this time,” we say to ourselves.

So we begin once more.

We are very patient.

And meanwhile the years pass.