"Beyond the Line" by Rex Stout, summary Automatic translate

The story "Beyond the Line" is an early short story by Rex Stout, best known as the creator of the Nero Wolfe detective series. It’s an intimate tale about a single night in the life of a wealthy New York widow, encompassing a decade of unrequited love.

Agatha Rossington wakes up on the morning of her thirty-first birthday in an apartment on West End Avenue. Lying in bed with a cup of hot chocolate, she reflects on the years gone by without much pleasure. Her marriage to Sam Rossington was a bargain: she got money and comfort, he got a wife. Sam died of a fever contracted at a festival in Havana, and Agatha, by her own admission, even missed him.

Among the memories that haunt her is the image of a certain John Carter, pale and suffering. She can’t decide if she can banish him from her memory.

In a conversation with her maid, Jeanie, Agatha complains of loneliness and the emptiness of her usual social circle. She asks Jeanie — jokingly calling her "the grand vizier" — to think of a way to spend the day. Jeanie suggests something unexpected, and Agatha, inspired, decides for the first time in her life to try to make someone else happy.

The line on Tenth Street

At eleven thirty at night, Agatha and Jeanie climb into a limo and drive to Tenth Street and Broadway. There, at the corner, in the darkness and the cold wind, a line of eighty to ninety people in shabby clothes stands waiting for midnight to get bread and hot coffee.

Agata explains her plan to the police officer on duty. He announces to the line that a woman is celebrating her birthday and is handing out money. Agata walks down the line, handing each person a crisp bill. For the first time in her life, she experiences something resembling true happiness — the tears of gratitude on their exhausted faces overwhelm her.

Three-quarters of the way through the line, she looks into the face of the next person — and recoils. John Carter stands before her.

Meeting

Agatha pulls herself together, hands him a bill, and whispers a request to come to her house that night. Carter initially refuses, but seeing her desperation, he agrees and takes the address.

Returning home, Agatha waits for him for over half an hour. When Carter finally appears, the bright light reveals just how shabby he is: a threadbare suit that doesn’t fit, worn-out shoes, a rumpled hat. But his face — a square chin, sunken cheeks, steel-gray eyes with a bitter, mocking glint — makes everything else vanish.

Carter says he only came to stop her from doing something stupid: she was out of her mind and could have caused trouble. He asks her directly: what does she want, curiosity or pity?

Agatha kneels before him, presses herself against his shoulder and admits that she has never forgotten him and has always loved him.

Carter’s response

Carter barely restrains himself. He stands, pushes her away, and tells her he once wanted the same thing — but now it’s too late. The man she needed died ten years ago, and she knows who killed him. He says they are too different, that they would hate each other in a week, that the past cannot be restored. He denies loving her or feeling pity for her, calling her feelings a lie — a longing for the past, a desperate attempt to turn dreams into reality.

Carter leaves. Agatha rises with difficulty from her knees and notices a bill on the floor — the very one she handed him in line. He left the money.

She calls Genie and, looking at the paper, says the last words of the story: “He could have taken her, after all,” she said out loud, plaintively and lost. “He could have taken her, at least.”