Winesburg, Ohio: Death

Already the woman's naturally tall figure had begun to droop and to drag itself listlessly about.

Ostensibly she went to see the doctor because of her health, but on the half dozen occasions when she had been to see him the outcome of the visits did not primarily concern her health.

Sometimes the doctor made philosophic epigrams. Then he chuckled with amusement.

You must not try to make love definite. It is the divine accident of life.

If you try to be definite and sure about it and to live beneath the trees, where soft night winds blow, the long hot day of disappointment comes swiftly and the gritty dust from passing wagons gathers upon lips inflamed and made tender by kisses.

Her girlhood had been lived in the most haphazard manner imaginable.

When a guest complained of the fare in the hotel dining room or one of the girls who made up the beds got married and went away, he stamped on the floor and swore.

...she had never entered upon an adventure prompted by desire alone.

Her father was ill and near death at the time and she was perplexed because of the meaningless outcome of an affair in which she had just been involved.

The father talked of his life and advised the daughter to avoid being led into another such muddle.

Again the sick man's voice became querulous.

She walked as Doctor Reefy thought he had never seen anyone walk before. To her whole body there was a swing, a rhythm that intoxicated him.

The thing that had come to life in her as she talked to her one friend died suddenly. She was hysterical, as was also Doctor Reefy, and did not want to continue the talk.

She personified the figure of death and made him now a strong black-haired youth running over hills, now a stern quiet man marked and scarred by the business of living.

When Aunt Elizabeth Swift, who had come to watch over the body, came out of an adjoining room he put his hand into hers and began to sob, shaking his head from side to side, half blind with grief.