Afterward, he would walk the city streets, asking God to help him in his struggle. Soon, he began sneaking into the tower at night to watch the woman. Only now he was longing to spy the woman’s bare neck and shoulders, as he tried desperately to repress his lustful thoughts and the growing resentment he felt toward his conservative wife. It was the 1890s after all, a time when women customarily wore long, high-necked dresses with bustles, and in Hartman’s eyes, the schoolteacher was a woman “far gone in secret sin.” Still, that didn’t stop him from his ritual of climbing to the top of the church tower. But one morning, as he gazed through the tower window into a neighboring home, he witnessed a shocking scene: a town schoolteacher sitting on her bed smoking a cigarette - her shoulders and throat bare. Curtis Hartman was a quiet, resolute man who went to a small room in the church tower each Sunday to pray and prepare his weekly sermon.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |