to recognize this thing coming to posses her, she tried to "beat it back with her will" (13). Only she was powerless to do so. Then giving herself over to it, the "vacant stare and look of terror" left her eyes (13). Then she breathed, "Free, free, free!" (13). Her eyes became bright, pulses beat fast, and blood flowed warm causing her body to relax completely. She knew that she would weep again, but she saw beyond the grief toward the years to come, to " spring days and summer days, and all sorts of days" (13), as she drank in the essence of life through the window opened to blue skies. The third story, "The Storm," happens during a storm. Due to the threat of a storm, a young man sought the shelter of a former sweetheart's gallery. She had not seen him very often since her marriage five years earlier to someone else, and then never alone. The driving force of the rain soon compelled them inside. As "the rain beat upon the low shingle roof," he was conscious that she had lost none of her vivaciousness, and as the storm increased in intensity, he is aware of that "old-time infatuation and desire for her flesh" (28). Even though there was fear in her eyes, it soon gives way to an unconscious "sensuous desire" (28). Soon this tension of repressed attractions escalates, and her flesh was "knowing for the first time its birthright" (28), and his sensuous nature had penetrated depths never before reached. Then "the rain beat softly upon the shingles" and the "thunder was distant and passing away" (29). The rain was over. The sun shown upon a glistening green world" (29). When he rode away, he turned a "beaming face" to her, and "she lifted her pretty chin in the air" (29). There was no sign of remorse in either of them for what they had done. They were captivated by a moment in time during which the forces of nature were unleashed both within and without. In comparison of these three short stories, one can find in each an awakening created b...
