The Promenade

Only a few saw the episode, so perhaps I shouldn't record it. It's a small town here and many of us recognise some passers-by. The times are good now and most of us who work hard, seem to prosper. In the daytime the main street holds little groups of friends arm in arm and circles of mothers with children running around. Short straight lines of businessmen in a preoccupied hurry advance towards one. At the end of the afternoon we are in the habit of closing up promptly at five, walking home to clean the day off our bodies, then changing for our promenading which will occur a little later, after which we wait and set off individually for the lights of our seaside boulevard. The evening promenade is part of our routine. We put on our finery then dress the street with our leisurely walking. The men, in formal wear, flick their coat-tails and develop straight backs, while the women bend small greetings to one another, and fuss with shawls about their necks. Children are often brought along in tow and they walk stiff-armed looking up at their parents and the others slightly open-mouthed. A slow constant movement is usually kept up, the stops and occasional bows limited to brief moments. Then after an hour, we disperse. Perhaps we are, in our parochial way, trying to show our informal 'out of work-hours' side, though heaven knows this does not come easily to us.

Gregory has never married. His complexion is too pale and he is fat in a slightly uneven way. I know him by sight for he is an office-clerk in a place I have reason to visit upon occasion, where his long face wider at the bottom than at the top, gazes at us in a pleading way despite the too confident boom of his voice which is anyway too loud. Some enjoy a kind of conversation with him, in truth only a form of information exchange if they but had the insight to see its limitations, for doubtless he does have quite a pleasing way about him. He is liked by some of the women and desired by none of them. His life of bachelordom, like that of many of the men in this town, is probably scarcely ever considered.

One evening I guess he overslept because his footsteps were heard running about the streets after we had done with our promenading, indeed after it had in fact grown dark. I can imagine what it must have looked like to him - the streets closed up and unfriendly I guess. Glimpses of people through half-curtained windows or closing carriage doors in preparation for a journey, people talking or reading beneath warm yellow lights. He began to make a commotion. Knocking on several doors in a rush; calling out a few names he thought he knew, to get them to return to the seaside boulevard. Outside our houses he stood dressed in his finery in the dark. A few of us opened our doors to look. "I know I'm late" he called, "but you must come out - you see it's still a beautiful evening; a little breezy perhaps, but if .  .  ."  He ran a little further on and even beat upon the windows of complete strangers. A few of us stepped out - myself among them, I do not know why, perhaps because I had not yet divested myself of my finery - and promenaded about him for ten minutes up to the end and back again. Then he went away into the dark, apparently satisfied.

Later, as I turned on my half-landing to get to bed, I happened to glance through the thin window and was sure I caught sight of his angled legs which were disappearing round a corner no doubt trying to keep pace with a forward-leaning body, and therefore I guess that he must have ventured out a second time.