溫馨夜讀II PART3 12.Detour to Romance
[00:06.39]Harry came in the station two years ago and waited at the head of the stairs for his girl from the 9:05 train.
[00:12.60]He was all dressed up and they would be married twenty minutes after she arrived.
[00:17.17]All the passengers had left and she didn’t show up.
[00:20.87]She didn’t come on the 9:18 either, nor on the 9:40, and when the passengers from the 10:02 had all arrived and left,
[00:29.26]Harry was looking pretty desperate.
[00:31.65]I asked him what she looked like.
[00:33.50]“She’s small and dark,” he said, “and her eyebrows come to a little point in the middle.”
[00:39.60]He showed me the telegram he’d received: ARRIVE THURSDAY. MEET ME AT STATION. LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE. MAY.
[00:49.73]“Well,” I finally said, “why don’t you phone to your home?
[00:54.96]She’s probably called there if she got in ahead of you.”
[00:57.67]He gave me a sick look. “I’ve only been in town two days.
[01:02.47]She hasn’t any address for me.” He touched the telegram.
[01:06.06]Harry met every train for the next three or four days.
[01:10.42]One day, after about two weeks, Harry was behind the counter of Tony’s magazine and he began to work as a clerk for Tony.
[01:19.13]I noticed that Harry always saw every person who came up the stairs.
[01:23.37]One year passed, and another, then came yesterday. I heard a cry.
[01:30.45]The cry was from Harry and he was grabbing a girl.
[01:34.48]She was small and dark and her eyebrows came to a little point in the middle.
[01:38.73]For a while they just hung there laughing and crying.
[01:42.43]He told her the many things he had done to find her.
[01:45.48]What apparently had happened two years before was that May had come by bus, not by train,
[01:51.90]and in her telegram she meant “bus station,” not “railroad station.”
[01:56.16]She had waited at the bus station for days and had spent all her money trying to find Harry.
[02:01.71]Finally she got a job typing.
[02:04.10]“What?” said Harry, “Have you been working in town? All the time?”
[02:08.78]She nodded.
[02:10.09]“Well, Heavens. Didn’t you ever come down here to the station?”
[02:13.90]He pointed across to his magazine stand, “I’ve been there all the time and watched everybody that came up the stairs.”
[02:20.33]She began to look a little pale.
[02:22.83]Pretty soon she looked over at the stairs and said in a weak voice, “I never came up the stairs before.
[02:28.51]I went out of town yesterday on a short business trip. Oh, Harry!”
[02:33.00]Then she threw her arms around his neck and really began to cry.
[02:37.69]After a minute she backed away and pointed toward the north end of the station.
[02:42.29]“Harry, for two years, for two solid years,
[02:45.90]I’ve been right over there working right in this very station, typing, in the office of the stationmaster.”
