The sadness of sophistication has come to the boy. If he be an imaginative boy a door is tom open and for the first time he looks out upon the world, seeing, as though they marched in procession before him, the countless figures of men who before his time have come out of nothingness into the world, lived their lives and again disappeared into nothingness.
From being quite sure of himself and his future he becomes not at all sure. Ghosts of old things creep into his consciousness the voices outside of himself whisper a message concerning the limitations of life. Suddenly something happens he stops under a tree and waits as for a voice calling his name. He is thinking of the future and of the figure he will cut in the world. The boy is walking through the street of his town. Perhaps that is the moment when he crosses the line into manhood. There is a time in the life of every boy when he for the first time takes the backward view of life. He wanted someone to understand the feeling that had taken possession of him after his mother's death. To his mind his new sense of maturity set him apart, made of him a half- tragic figure. The mood that had taken possession of him was a thing known to men and unknown to boys. He was about to leave Winesburg to go away to some city where he hoped to get work on a city newspaper and he felt grown up. All that day, amid the jam of people at the Fair, he had gone about feeling lonely. George Willard, the Ohio village boy, was fast growing into manhood and new thoughts had been coming into his mind. "Well, is she going to stay with him all day? Have I done all this waiting for nothing?" he muttered. He stamped impatiently on the wooden steps and looked sharply about. Thoughts kept coming into his head and he did not want to think. With feverish eyes he watched the faces drifting past under the store lights. Pushing his way through the crowds in Main Street, young George Willard concealed himself in the stairway leading to Doctor Reefy's office and looked at the people. Night came on, horses whinnied, the clerks in the stores ran madly about, children became lost and cried lustily, an American town worked terribly at the task of amusing itself. In the main street of Winesburg crowds filled the stores and the sidewalks. The dust rolled away over the fields and the departing sun set it ablaze with colors. Their hair was full of dust and their fingers black and sticky. Children, curled into little balls, slept on the straw scattered on wagon beds. On the Trunion Pike, where the road after it left town stretched away between berry fields now covered with dry brown leaves, the dust from passing wagons arose in clouds. The day had been clear and the night came on warm and pleasant. IT WAS EARLY evening of a day in, the late fall and the Winesburg County Fair had brought crowds of country people into town. Previous Chapter Next Chapter Sophistication
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