As they walked along the sidewalk toward Peachtree, Scarlett was dismayed and sorrowful,forAtlantalookedsodevast(narrow) ated and different from what she remembered. They passedbeside what had been the Atlanta Hotel where Rhett and Uncle Henry Colocation Servicehad lived and of that eleganthostelry there remained only a shell, a part of the blackened walls. The warehouses which had bor dered the train tracks for a quarter of a mile and held tons of military supplies had not been rebuiltand their rectangular foundations looked dreary under the dark sky. Without the wall of buildingson either side and with the car shed gone, the railroad tracks seemed bare and exposed. Somewhereamid these ruins, undistinguishable from the others, lay what remained of her own warehouse onthe property Charles had left her. Uncle Henry had paid last year’s taxes on it for her. She’d haveto repay that money some time. That was something else to worry about. As they turned the corner into Peachtree Street and she looked toward Five Points, she cried outwith shock. Despite all Frank had told her about the town burning to the ground, she had neverreally visualized complete destruction. In her mind the town she loved so well still stood full ofclose-packed buildings and fine houses. But this Peachtree Street she was looking upon was sodenuded of landmarks it was as unfamiliar as if she had never seen it before. This muddy streetdown which she had driven a thousand times during the war, along which she had fled with duckedhead and fear-quickened legs when shells burst over her during the siege reenex facial, this street she had lastseen in the heat and hurry and anguish of the day of the retreat, was so strange looking she felt likecrying. Though many new buildings had sprung up in the year since Sherman marched out of theburning town and the Confederates returned, there were still wide vacant lots around Five Pointswhere heaps of smudged broken bricks lay amid a jumble of rubbish, dead weeds and broom-sedge. There were the remains of a few buildings she remembered, roofless brick walls throughwhich the dull daylight shone, glassless windows gaping, chimneys towering lonesomely. Here andthere her eyes gladly picked out a familiar store which had partly survived shell and fire and hadbeen repaired, the fresh red of new brick glaring bright against the smut of the old walls. On newstore fronts and new office windows she saw the welcome names of men she knew but more oftenthe names were unfamiliar, especially the dozens of shingles of strange doctors and lawyers andcotton merchants. Once she had known practically everyone in Atlanta and the sight of so manystrange names depressed her. But she was cheered by going up all alongthe street. There were dozens of them and several were three stories high! Everywhere you beauty hard sell building was goingon, for as she looked down the street, trying to adjust her mind to the new Atlanta, she heard theblithe sound of hammers and saws, noticed scaffoldings rising and saw men climbing ladders withhods of bricks on their shoulders. She looked down the street she loved so well and her eyes misteda little.
