Read "Cane" by Jean Toomer online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
On the school gymnasium floor, young men and women are drilling. They are going to be teachers, and go out into the world. thud, thud. and give precision to the movements of sick people who all their lives have been drilling. One man is out of step. In step. The teacher glares at him. A girl in bloomers, seated on a mat in the corner because she has told the director that she is sick, sees that the footfalls of the men are rhythmical and syncopated. The dance of his blue-trousered limbs thrills her.
Bona: He is a candle that dances in a grove swung with pale balloons.