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Updated: May 4, 2025
In the streets I sometimes find myself actually thinking: "I'll bump into him when I turn the corner." I have managed to discover the secret of this feeling. It is Winkelberg's smile. Winkelberg's smile was the interpretation of the world's attitude toward him, including my own. And thus whenever his name comes to mind his smile appears as if it were the thought in my head.
He would shake his head and then he would nod his head understandingly and his smile would say: "Yes, yes. I understand. You don't want to get involved with me. Because you don't want me to have any more claims on your sympathy than I've got. I'm sorry." Toward the end Winkelberg's visits grew more frequent. And he became suddenly garrulous. He wished to discuss things. The city.
And somehow, although they really felt that way toward Winkelberg, they preferred not to believe it. But Winkelberg's smile was a mirror which would not let them escape this truth. And eventually Winkelberg's smile became for them one of those curious mirrors which exaggerate images grotesquely.
I became poignant and moving on the subject of Winkelberg's misfortunes, his trials, sufferings and, above all, his Spartan stoicism. It pleased me to do this. I felt that I was making some amends and that the thing reflected credit upon my character. So she went to the room on the South Side where Winkelberg sleeps. And they told her there that Winkelberg was dead. He had died last week.
It was one of Winkelberg's worst habits to appear at unexpected moments. But perhaps any appearances poor Winkelberg might have made would have had this irritating quality of unexpectedness. One was never looking forward to Winkelberg, and thus the sight of his wan, determined smile, his lusterless eyes and his tenacious crawl was invariably an uncomfortable surprise. I will be frank.
And the aggravating thing was that people looked at Winkelberg's smile as into a mirror. They saw in it a reflection of their own attitude toward the man. They felt that Winkelberg understood what they thought of him. And they didn't like that.
And in Winkelberg's smile I hear myself saying: "He is better off dead." "Over there," said Judge Sabath, "is a man who has been a juror in criminal cases at least a dozen times." His honor pointed to a short, thin man with a derby on the back of his head and a startling mustache, concealing almost half of his wizened face.
It was Winkelberg's misfortune which first attracted me. I listened to his story avidly. He talked in slow words and there was intelligence in the man. He was able to perceive himself not only as a pain-racked, starving human, but he glimpsed with his large, tired eyes his relation to things outside himself. I remember he said, and without emotion: "There is nobody to blame. Not even myself.
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