Page:Storm Over Paris.pdf/154

Shortly after she had lighted the candles Yurek came in. He was a stout young man, with rounded shoulders. His neat clothing and well-kept hands immediately marked him as an office worker. He had, as a matter of fact, studied bookkeeping back in Warsaw and worked at it there. The whole family boasted of it, but Yurek himself had very little to say. He turned over all his earnings to his mother, never had any complaints or demands. "A quiet lad," people said of him. Other mothers would always hold him up as an example for their own offsprings, but Madame Mintz herself was somehow distressed about him. Why, she wondered, didn't such a desirable young man make the acquaintance of some girl, or go out with fellows of his own age? Why was he letting life pass him by? Why was he becoming as hard and insensitive as an oak? That the oak was rotting within, neither she nor anyone else knew. He was an oak in the blasted forest, and he was rotting in the general decay.

The first mortal blow that struck him, going straight to his heart, came from the hands of Miss Ada, who sat at the stamp window of the Glavna post-office where he, Yurek, worked. She was a pale girl, but good looking. Her eyes seemed to glow with an internal flame. They were black and restless, and it wasn't long before they bored so deep into Yurek's soul that even later, after she was dead, he found it impossible to free himself from the magic of that remembered gaze. So it stayed within him, and, like all dead things, began to rot. After her death Yurek began to avoid people, especially women, and locked himself away to live only with the memory of the girl he had loved. In time, the lively fellow underwent sharp physical changes. His slim body expanded. His cheeks grew fat and pale. His fingers always seemed to be trembling. It was as though the beloved image he had been carrying around within him had begun to fade, and it