K01 0010 #THIRTY-THREE# SCOTTY did not go back to school. His parents K01 0020 talked seriously and lengthily to their own doctor and to a specialist K01 0030 at the University Hospital- Mr& McKinley was entitled to a K01 0040 discount for members of his family- and it was decided it would be K01 0050 best for him to take the remainder of the term off, spend a lot of time K01 0060 in bed and, for the rest, do pretty much as he chose- provided, of K01 0070 course, he chose to do nothing too exciting or too debilitating. His K01 0080 teacher and his school principal were conferred with and everyone agreed K01 0090 that, if he kept up with a certain amount of work at home, there was K01 0100 little danger of his losing a term. Scotty accepted the decision K01 0110 with indifference and did not enter the arguments. He was K01 0120 discharged from the hospital after a two-day checkup and he and his K01 0130 parents had what Mr& McKinley described as a "celebration lunch" K01 0140 at the cafeteria on the campus. Rachel wore a smart hat and, because K01 0150 she had been warned recently about smoking, puffed at her cigarettes K01 0160 through a long ivory holder stained with lipstick. Scotty's father K01 0170 sat sprawled in his chair, angular, alert as a cricket, looking about K01 0180 at the huge stainless-steel appointments of the room with an expression K01 0190 of proprietorship. Teachers- men who wore brown suits and K01 0200 had gray hair and pleasant smiles- came to their table to talk shop K01 0210 and to be introduced to Scotty and Rachel. Rachel was polite, Scotty K01 0220 indifferent. They ate the cafeteria food with its orange sauces K01 0230 and Scotty gazed without interest at his food, the teachers, the heroic K01 0240 baronial windows, and the bright ranks of college banners. His father K01 0250 tried to make the food a topic. "The blueberry pie is good, K01 0260 Scotty. I recommend it". He looked at his son, his face worried. K01 0270 Scotty murmured, "No, thanks", so softly his father had to K01 0280 bend his gaunt height across the table and turn a round brown ear to him. K01 0290 Scotty regarded the ear and the grizzled hair around it with a moment K01 0300 of interest. He said more loudly, "I'm full, old Pop". He K01 0310 had eaten almost nothing on the crested, three-sectioned plate and K01 0320 had drunk about half the milk in its paper container. "He's K01 0330 all right, Craig", Rachel said. "I can fix him something later K01 0340 in the afternoon when we get home". Since his seizure, Scotty K01 0350 had had little appetite; yet his changed appearance, surprisingly, K01 0360 was one of plumpness. His face was fuller; his lips and the usually K01 0370 sharp lines of his jaw had become swollen-looking. He breathed now K01 0380 with his mouth open, showing a whitely curving section of lower teeth; K01 0390 he kept his eyes, with their puffed blurred lids, always lowered, K01 0400 though not, apparently, focusing. Even his neck seemed thicker and K01 0410 therefore shorter. His hands, which had been as quick as a pair of fluttering K01 0420 birds, were now neither active nor really relaxed. They lay K01 0430 on his lap, palms up, stiffly motionless, the tapered fingers a little K01 0440 thick at the joints. Altogether he had, since the seizure, the appearance K01 0450 of a boy who overindulged in food and took no exercise. He looked K01 0460 lazy, spoiled, a little querulous. Rachel had little to say. K01 0470 She greeted her husband's colleagues with smiling politeness, offering K01 0480 nothing. Mr& McKinley, for all his sprawling and his easy familiarity, K01 0490 was completely alert to his son, eyes always on the still K01 0500 face, jumping to anticipate Scotty's desires. It was a strained, silent K01 0510 lunch. Rachel said, "I'd better get him to bed". K01 0520 The doctors had suggested Scotty remain most of every afternoon K01 0530 in bed until he was stronger. Since Mr& McKinley had to K01 0540 give a lecture, Rachel and Scotty drove home alone in the Plymouth. K01 0550 They did not speak much. Scotty gazed out at ugly gray slums and K01 0560 said softly, "Look at those stupid kids". It was a Negro section K01 0570 of peeling row houses, store-front churches and ragged children. Rachel K01 0580 had to bend toward Scotty and ask him to repeat. He said, "Nothing". K01 0590 And then: "There are lots of kids around here". K01 0600 Scotty looked at the children, his mouth slightly opened, his eyes K01 0610 dull. He felt tired and full and calm. #THIRTY-FOUR# THE K01 0620 days seemed short, perhaps because his routine was, each day, almost K01 0630 the same. He rose late and went down in his bathrobe and slippers to K01 0640 have breakfast either alone or with Rachel. Virginia treated him with K01 0650 attention and tried to tempt his appetite with special food: biscuits, K01 0660 cookies, candies- the result of devoted hours in the tiled kitchen. K01 0670 She would hover over him and, looking like her brother, anxiously K01 0680 watch the progress of Scotty's fork or spoon. "You don't K01 0690 eat enough, honey. Try to get that down". Rachel, observing, K01 0700 would say, "He has to rediscover his own capacity. It'll K01 0710 take time". Virginia and Rachel talked to each other quietly K01 0720 now, as allies who are political rather than natural might in a war K01 0730 atmosphere. Both watched Scotty constantly, Rachel without seeming K01 0740 to, Virginia openly, her eyes filled with concern. Scotty was neutral. K01 0750 He did not resent their supervision or Virginia's sometimes tiring K01 0760 sympathy. He ate what he felt like, slept as much or as little as K01 0770 he pleased, and moved about the draughty rooms of the house, when he K01 0780 was not in bed, with slow dubious steps, like an elderly tourist in a K01 0790 cathedral. His energy was gone. He was able, now, to sit for hours K01 0800 in a chair in the living room and stare out at the bleak yard without K01 0810 moving. His hands lay loosely, yet stiffly- they were like wax hands: K01 0820 almost lifelike, not quite- folded in his lap; his mouth hung K01 0830 slightly open. When he was asked a question or addressed in such a way K01 0840 that some response was inescapable, he would answer; if, as often K01 0850 happened, he had to repeat because he had spoken too softly, he would K01 0860 repeat his words in the same way, without emphasis or impatience, only K01 0870 a little louder. He had not mentioned Kate. He had not even K01 0880 thought about her much except once or twice at night in bed when his K01 0890 slowly ranging thoughts would abruptly, almost accidentally, encounter K01 0900 her. At these times he felt a kind of pain in his upper chest, but K01 0910 it was an objective pain, in no way different from others in intensity K01 0920 and not different in kind; it was like the bandaged wound on the back K01 0930 of his head which occasionally throbbed; it was merely another part K01 0940 of his weakness. He was calm, drugged, and lazy. He did not care. K01 0950 Rachel mentioned Kate. She said, "I notice the girl from K01 0960 across the street hasn't bothered to phone or visit". Scotty K01 0970 said, "That's all right. Kate's all right". He thought K01 0980 about it briefly, then deliberately turned the talk to something else. K01 0990 Once, sitting at the front window in his parents' room, he K01 1000 saw Kate come out of her house. She was with Elizabeth. They were K01 1010 far off and looked tiny. The heavy branches in his front yard would hide K01 1020 and then reveal them. They turned at the bottom of Kate's steps K01 1030 and moved off in the direction of the park. He thought he saw- it K01 1040 awakened and, for a moment, interested him- that Elizabeth held a K01 1050 leash in her hand and that a round fuzzy puppy was on the end of the leash. K01 1060 Then they disappeared and Scotty got up and went into his own K01 1070 room and got into bed. By the time he was under the covers he had forgotten K01 1080 about seeing Kate. The doctor, since Scotty was no longer K01 1090 allowed to make his regular trips into town to see him, came often K01 1100 and informally to the house. He would sit, slim-waisted and spare, K01 1110 on the edge of Scotty's bed, his legs crossed so elaborately that the K01 1120 crossed foot could tap the floor. Scotty did not mind the doctor's K01 1130 unsmiling teasing as he used to. "Husky young man", he K01 1140 said with mock distaste. "I imagine you're always battling in school". K01 1150 "I don't go to school any more". "Pardon"? K01 1160 The doctor had to bend close to hear; his delicate hand, as K01 1170 veined as a moth's wing, rested absently on Scotty's chest. Scotty K01 1180 said the same words more loudly. "Oh. Well, we're taking a K01 1190 little vacation, that's all". He turned unsmilingly to Rachel. "I K01 1200 think by the end of next week he could get out in the air a little. K01 1210 He could now but the weakness is very definite; it would exhaust K01 1220 him further and unnecessarily. He'll be stronger soon". His stethoscope K01 1230 was on the table by Scotty's bed and he picked it up and wagged K01 1240 it at Scotty. He said fussily, "Just keep the cap on those K01 1250 strong emotions". The stethoscope glinted silver in the darkening room. K01 1260 "I'll drop by again in a few days". Rachel stayed K01 1270 on after the doctor had gone. She smoothed the covers on Scotty's K01 1280 bed and picked things up from the floor. She did not touch him. Scotty K01 1290 watched with disinterest. He did not speak. He had no desire to. K01 1300 She said, "Do you think you'll miss school"? He K01 1310 had noticed how formal and irritably exact Rachel had grown. He did K01 1320 not care. He felt her irritability did not concern him, yet he knew K01 1330 he would not care even if it did. He shook his head. "We've K01 1340 had any number of calls about you. You could win a popularity contest K01 1350 at that school without any trouble. Miss Estherson called twice. K01 1360 She wants to pay you a visit. She says the children miss you. Apparently K01 1370 you were the light of their lives". Scotty shrugged K01 1380 slightly. Rachel came close to the bed, bent as if she would kiss him, K01 1390 then moved away. She was frowning. "That doctor annoys me". She K01 1400 seemed to speak to herself. "Do you suppose his self-consciousness K01 1410 is characteristic of the new Negro professionals or merely of doctors K01 1420 in general"? She turned to him again. "Well, Mrs& K01 1430 Charles- Sally- has phoned too. She was very worried". Rachel's K01 1440 tone was dry. "She didn't really say"- She glanced K01 1450 away at the floor, then swooped gracefully and picked up one of Scotty's K01 1460 slippers. "I mean, do you feel like seeing Kate"? K01 1470 Scotty said, "I don't know". It was true. He did not. There K01 1480 was the slight pain, but it was no different from the throbbing in K01 1490 his head. "Well, there's time, in any case. We'll wait K01 1500 till you're stronger and then talk about it". She put the slipper K01 1510 neatly K01 1520 by its mate at the foot of the bed. Scotty said, "Okay". K01 1530 This time Rachel kissed him lightly on the forehead. Scotty K01 1540 was pleased. His father was a constant visitor. Scotty K01 1550 would hear the front door in the evening and then his father's deep K01 1560 slow voice; it floated up the stairs. "How's Scotty"? K01 1570 And Rachel's or Virginia's reply: "Better. He's K01 1580 getting plenty of rest". "Is his appetite improved"? K01 1590 Or: "Does he get exercise"? The exchange was almost K01 1600 invariable, and Scotty, in his bed, could hear every word of it. He K01 1610 never smiled. It required an energy he no longer possessed to be satirical K01 1620 about his father. His father would come upstairs and stand self-consciously K01 1630 at the foot of the bed and look at his son. After a pause, K01 1640 during which he studied Scotty's face as if Scotty were not there K01 1650 and could not study him too, Mr& McKinley would ask the same K01 1670 questions he had asked downstairs. Scotty would reply softly and K01 1680 his father, apologetically, would ask him to repeat. "I'm K01 1690 eating more", he would say. Or: "I walk around the house a K01 1700 lot". "Perhaps you should get out a little". "I'm K01 1710 not supposed to yet". He was not irritated. He did not mind K01 1720 the useless, kindly questions. He looked at the lined face with vague K01 1730 interest; he felt he was noting it, as if it were something he might K01 1740 think about when he grew stronger. Mr& McKinley examined K01 1750 everything with critical care, seeking something material to blame for K01 1760 his son's illness. "Have you got enough blankets"? And K01 1770 another time, without accusation: "You never wore that scarf K01 1780 I bought you". K02 0010 Where their sharp edges seemed restless as sea waves thrusting themselves K02 0020 upward in angry motion, Papa-san sat glacier-like, his smooth solidity, K02 0030 his very immobility defying all the turmoil about him. "Our K02 0040 objective", the colonel had said that day of the briefing, "is Papa-san". K02 0050 There the objective sat, brooding over all. Gouge, burn, K02 0060 blast, insult it as they would, could anyone really take Papa-san? K02 0070 Between the ponderous hulk and himself, in the valley over which K02 0080 Papa-san reigned, men had hidden high explosives, booby traps, and K02 0090 mines. The raped valley was a pregnant womb awaiting abortion. On K02 0100 the forward slope in front of his own post stretched two rows of barbed K02 0110 wire. At the slope's base coils of concertina stretched out of eye K02 0120 range like a wild tangle of children's hoops, stopped simultaneously, K02 0130 weirdly poised as if awaiting the magic of the child's touch to K02 0140 start them all rolling again. Closer still, regular barricades of barbed K02 0150 wire hung on timber supports. Was it all vain labor? Who would K02 0160 clean up the mess when the war was over? Smiling at his quixotic K02 0170 thoughts, Warren turned back from the opening and lit a cigarette before K02 0180 sitting down. Tonight a group of men, tomorrow night he himself, K02 0190 would go out there somewhere and wait. If he were to go with White, K02 0200 he would be out there two days, not just listening in the dark at some K02 0210 point between here and Papa-san, but moving ever deeper into enemy K02 0220 land- behind Papa-san itself. Was this what he had expected? He K02 0230 hadn't realized that there would be so much time to think, so many K02 0240 lulls. Somehow he had forgotten what he must have been told, that combat K02 0250 was an intermittent activity. Now he knew that the moment illuminated K02 0260 by the vision on the train would have to be approached. It could K02 0270 take place tomorrow night, or it might occur months from now. There K02 0280 was just too much time. Time to become afraid. White's suggestion K02 0290 flattered, but he did not like the identity. He did not spill over with K02 0300 hatred for the enemy. He hadn't even seen him yet **h Pressing K02 0310 his cigarette out in the earth, Warren walked to the slit and K02 0320 scanned the jagged hills. He saw no life, but still stood there for K02 0330 a time peering at the unlovely hills, his gaze continually returning to K02 0340 Papa-san. He had come here in order to test himself. While most of K02 0350 his beliefs were still unsettled, he knew that he did not believe in K02 0360 killing. Yet, he was here. He had come because he could not live out K02 0370 his life feeling that he had been a coward. ## There were ten men K02 0380 on the patrol which Sergeant Prevot led out that next night. The K02 0390 beaming ~ROK was carrying a thirty-caliber machine gun; another K02 0400 man lugged the tripod and a box of ammunition. Warren and White each K02 0410 carried, in addition to their own weapons and ammo, a box of ammo for K02 0420 the ~ROK's machine gun. Others carried extra clips for the K02 0430 Browning Automatic Rifle, which was in the hands of a little Mexican K02 0440 named Martinez. Prevot had briefed the two new men that afternoon. K02 0450 "We just sit quiet and wait", Prevot had said. "Be sure the K02 0460 man nearest you is awake. If Joe doesn't show up, we'll all be K02 0470 back here at 0600 hours. Otherwise, we hold a reception. Then we pull K02 0480 out under our mortar and artillery cover, but nobody pulls out until K02 0490 I say so. Remember what I said about going out to get anybody left K02 0500 behind? That still holds. We bring back all dead and wounded". K02 0510 At 2130 hours they had passed through the barbed wire at the K02 0520 point of departure. Then began the journey through their own mine fields. K02 0530 Mines. Ours were kinder than theirs, some said. They set bouncing K02 0540 betties to jump and explode at testicle level while we more mercifully K02 0550 had them go off at the head. Mines. Big ones and little. The crude K02 0560 wooden boxes of the enemy, our nicely turned gray metal disks. But K02 0570 theirs defied the detectors. Mines. A foot misplaced, a leg missing. K02 0580 Mines. All sizes: big ones, some wired to set off a whole field, K02 0590 little ones, hand grenade size. Booby traps to fill the head with K02 0600 chunks of metal. Warren tried to shake off the jumble of his fears by K02 0610 looking at the sky. It was dark. Prevot had said that the searchlights K02 0620 would be bounced off the clouds at 2230 hours, "which gives us time K02 0630 to get settled in position". Because they were new men and K02 0640 to be sure that they didn't get lost, Prevot had placed Warren K02 0650 and White in the center of the patrol as it filed out. His eyes now K02 0660 fixed on White's solid figure, Warren could hear behind him the tread K02 0670 of another. He could also hear the stream which he had seen from K02 0680 his position. They were going to follow it for part of their journey. K02 0690 "It's safe", Prevot had said, "and it provides cover for our K02 0700 noise". Soon they were picking their way along the edge of K02 0710 the stream which glowed in the night. On their right rose the embankment K02 0720 covered with brush and trees. If a branch extended out too far, K02 0730 each man held it back for the next, and if they met a low overhang, each K02 0740 warned the other. Thus, stealthily they advanced upstream; then K02 0750 they turned to the right, climbed the embankment, and walked into the K02 0760 valley again. There was no cover here, only grass sighing against K02 0770 pant-legs. And with each sigh, like a whip in the hand of an expert, K02 0780 the grass stripped something from Warren. The gentle whir of each footstep K02 0790 left him more naked than before, until he felt his unprotected K02 0800 flesh tremble, chilled by each new sound. The shapes of the men ahead K02 0810 of him lacked solidity, as if the whip had stripped them of their very K02 0820 flesh. The dark forms moved like mourners on some nocturnal pilgrimage, K02 0830 their dirge unsung for want of vocal chords. The warped, broken K02 0840 trees in the valley assumed wraith-like shapes. Clumps of brush that K02 0850 they passed were so many enchained demons straining K02 0860 in anger to tear and gnaw on his bones. Looming over all, Papa-san K02 0870 leered down at him, threatening a hundred hidden malevolencies. Off in K02 0880 the distance a searchlight flashed on, its beam slashing the sky. The K02 0890 sharp ray was absorbed by a cloud, then reflected to the earth in a K02 0900 softer, diffused radiance. Somewhere over there another patrol had need K02 0910 of light. Warren thought of all the men out that night who, like K02 0920 himself, had left their protective ridge and- fear working at their K02 0930 guts- picked their way into the area beyond. From the east to the west K02 0940 coast of the Korean peninsula was a strip of land in which fear-filled K02 0950 men were at that same moment furtively crawling through the night, K02 0960 sitting in sweaty anticipation of any movement or sound, or shouting K02 0970 amidst confused rifle flashes and muzzle blasts. White's arm went K02 0980 up and Warren raised his own. The patrol was stopping. Prevot K02 0990 came up "Take that spot over there", he whispered, pointing to K02 1000 a small clump of blackness. "Give me your machine gun ammo". Warren K02 1010 handed him the metal box and Prevot quietly disappeared down the K02 1020 line. Lying in the grass behind the brush clump, Warren looked K02 1030 about. The others likewise had hidden themselves in the grass and K02 1040 the brush. Over his shoulder he could see Prevot with the machine gun K02 1050 crew. Even at this short distance they were only vague shapes, setting K02 1060 up the machine gun on a small knoll so that it could fire above the K02 1070 heads of the rest of the patrol. Warren eased his rifle's K02 1080 safety off and gently, slowly sneaked another clip of ammunition from K02 1090 one of the cloth bandoleers that marked the upper part of his body with K02 1100 an ~X. This he placed within quick reach. The walk and his fears K02 1110 had served to overheat him and his sweaty armpits cooled at the touch K02 1120 of the night air. Although the armored vest fitted the upper part K02 1130 of his body snugly, he felt no security. Figures seemed to crouch in K02 1140 the surrounding dark; in the distance he saw a band of men who seemed K02 1150 to advance and retreat even as he watched. Certain this menace was K02 1160 only imaginary, he yet stared in fascinated horror, his hand sticky against K02 1170 the stock of his weapon. He was aware of insistent inner beatings, K02 1180 as if prisoners within sought release from his rigid body. K02 1190 Above, the glowing ivory baton of their searchlight pointed at the clouds, K02 1200 diluting the valley's dark to a pallid light. Then the figures K02 1210 which held his attention became a group of shattered trees, standing K02 1220 like the grotesques of a medieval damnation scene. Even so, he could K02 1230 not ease the tension of his body; the rough surface of the earth itself K02 1240 seemed to resist every attempt on his part to relax. Sensing the K02 1250 unseen presence of the other men in the patrol, he felt mutely united K02 1260 to these nine near-strangers sharing this pinpoint of being with him. K02 1270 He sensed something precious in the perilous moment, something akin K02 1280 to the knowledge gained on his bicycle trip through the French countryside, K02 1290 a knowledge imprisoned in speechlessness. - In France K02 1300 he had puzzled the meaning of the great stone monuments men had thrown K02 1310 up to the sky, and always as he wandered, he felt a stranger to their K02 1320 exultation. They were poems in a strange language, of which he could K02 1330 barely touch a meaning- enough to make his being ache with the desire K02 1340 for the fullness he sensed there. Brittany, that stone-gray mystery K02 1350 through which he traveled for thirty days, sleeping in the barns of K02 1360 farmers or alongside roads, had worked some subtle change in him, he K02 1370 knew, and it was in Brittany that he had met Pierre. Pierre K02 1380 had no hands; they had been severed at the wrists. With leather cups K02 1390 fitted in his handlebars, he steered his bicycle. He and Warren had K02 1400 traveled together for four days. They visited the shipyards at Brest K02 1410 and Pierre had to sign the register, vouching for the integrity of K02 1420 the visiting foreigner. He took the pen in his stumps and began to K02 1430 write. "Wait! Wait"! cried the guard who ran from the K02 1440 hut to shout to other men standing about outside. They crowded the small K02 1450 room and peered over one another's shoulders to watch the handless K02 1460 man write his name in the book. "C'est formidable", K02 1470 they exclaimed. "Mais, oui. C'est merveilleux". K02 1480 And then the questions came, eager, interested questions, and many compliments K02 1490 on his having overcome his infirmity. "Doesn't it K02 1500 ever bother you", Warren had asked, "to have people always asking K02 1510 you about your hands"? "Oh, the French are a very curious K02 1520 people", Pierre had laughed. "They are also honest seekers K02 1530 after truth. Now the English are painfully silent about my missing K02 1540 hands. They refuse to mention or to notice that they are not there. The K02 1550 Americans, like yourself, take the fact for granted, try to be helpful, K02 1560 but don't ask questions. I'm used to all three, but I think K02 1570 the French have the healthiest attitude". That was the day K02 1580 that Pierre had told Warren about the Abbey of Solesmes. "You K02 1590 are looking tired and there you can rest. It will be good for you. K02 1600 I think, too", he said, his dark eyes mischievous, "that you will K02 1610 find there some clue to the secret of the cathedrals about which you K02 1620 have spoken". Within two weeks Warren was ringing the bell K02 1630 at the abbey gate. The monk who opened the door immediately calmed his K02 1640 worries about his reception: "I speak English", the old man K02 1650 said, "but I do not hear it very well". He smiled and stuck a large K02 1660 finger with white hairs sprouting on it into his ear as though that K02 1670 might help. Smiling at Warren's protestations, the old monk took K02 1680 his grip from him and led him down a corridor to a small parlor. "Will K02 1690 you please wait in here. K03 0010 MICKIE SAT over his second whisky-on-the-rocks in a little bar next K03 0020 to the funeral parlor on Pennsylvania Avenue. Al's Little Cafe K03 0030 was small, dark, narrow, and filled with the mingled scent of beer, K03 0040 tobacco smoke, and Italian cooking. Hanging over the bar was an oil K03 0050 painting of a nude Al had accepted from a student at the Corcoran K03 0060 Gallery who needed to eat and drink and was broke. The nude was small K03 0070 and black-haired and elfin, and was called "Eloise". This K03 0080 was one place where Moonan could go for a drink in a back booth without K03 0090 anyone noticing him, or at least coming up and hanging around and K03 0100 wanting to know all the low-down. The other patrons were taxi drivers K03 0110 and art students and small shopkeepers. The reporters had not yet K03 0120 discovered that this was his hideaway. His friend Jane was with K03 0140 him. She was wise enough to realize a man could be good company even K03 0150 if he did weigh too much and didn't own the mint. She was the widow K03 0160 of a writer who had died in an airplane crash, and Mickie had found K03 0170 her a job as head of the historical section of the Treasury. This K03 0180 meant sorting out press clippings and the like. Jane sat receptive K03 0190 and interested. Mickie had a pleasant glow as he said, "You see, K03 0200 both of them, I mean the President and Jeff Lawrence, are romantics. K03 0210 A romantic is one who thinks the world is divinely inspired and K03 0220 all he has to do is find the right key, and then divine justice and K03 0230 altruism will appear. It's like focusing a camera; the distant ship K03 0240 isn't there until you get the focus. You know what I'm talking K03 0250 about. I'm sure all girls feel this way about men until they live K03 0260 with them. "But when it comes to war, the Colonel knows what K03 0270 it is and Jeff doesn't. Mr& Christiansen knows that a soldier K03 0280 will get the Distinguished Service Medal for conduct that would land K03 0290 him in prison for life or the electric chair as a civilian. He had K03 0300 a mean, unbroken sheer bastard in his outfit, and someone invented the K03 0310 name Trig for him. That's to say, he was trigger happy. He'd K03 0320 shoot at anything if it was the rear end of a horse or his own sentry. K03 0330 He was a wiry, inscrutable, silent country boy from the red clay of K03 0340 rural Alabama, and he spoke with the broad drawl that others normally K03 0350 make fun of. But not in front of Trig. I heard of some that tried K03 0360 it back in the States, and he'd knock them clear across the room. K03 0370 There'd been a pretty bad incident back at the Marine base. A New K03 0380 York kid, a refugee from one of the Harlem gangs, made fun of Trig's K03 0390 accent, and drew a knife. Before the fight was over, the Harlem K03 0400 boy had a concussion and Trig was cut up badly. They caught Trig K03 0410 stealing liquor from the officers' mess, and he got a couple of girls K03 0420 in trouble. The fear of punishment just didn't bother him. It wasn't K03 0430 there. It was left out of him at birth. This is why he made such K03 0440 a magnificent soldier. He wasn't troubled with the ordinary, rank-and-file K03 0450 fear that overcomes and paralyzes and sends individual soldiers K03 0460 and whole companies under fire running in panic. It just didn't K03 0470 occur to Trig that anything serious would happen to him. Do you get K03 0480 the picture of the kind of fellow he was"? Jane nodded K03 0490 with a pleasant smile. "All right. There was a sniper's nest K03 0500 in a mountain cave, and it was picking off our men with devilish accuracy. K03 0510 The Colonel ordered that it be wiped out, and I suggested, K03 0520 'You ask for volunteers, and promise each man on the patrol a quart K03 0530 of whisky, ten dollars and a week-end pass to Davao'. Trig was K03 0540 one of the five volunteers. The patrol snaked around in back of the cave, K03 0550 approached it from above and dropped in suddenly with wild howls. K03 0560 You could hear them from our outpost. There was a lot of shooting. K03 0570 We knew the enemy was subdued, because a flare was fired as the signal. K03 0580 So we hurried over. Two of our men were killed, a third was wounded. K03 0590 Trig and a very black colored boy from Detroit had killed or put K03 0600 out of action ten guerrillas by grenades and hand-to-hand fighting. When K03 0610 we got there, Trig and the Negro were quarreling over possession K03 0620 of a gold crucifix around the neck of a wounded Filipino. The colored K03 0630 boy had it, and Trig lunged at him with a knife and said, 'Give K03 0640 that to me, you black bastard. We don't 'low nigras to walk on K03 0650 the same sidewalk with white men where I come from'. "The K03 0660 Negro got a bad slice on his chest from the knife wound". "What K03 0670 did the Colonel do about the men"? Jane asked in her placid, K03 0680 interested way. Mickie laughed. "He recommended both of K03 0690 them for the ~DSM and the Detroit fellow for the Purple Heart, K03 0700 too, for a combat-inflicted wound. So you see Mr& Christiansen K03 0710 knows what it's all about. But not Jeff Lawrence. When he was in K03 0720 the war, he was in Law or Supplies or something like that, and an K03 0730 old buddy of his told me he would come down on Sundays to the Pentagon K03 0740 and read the citations for medals- just like the one we sent in for K03 0750 Trig- and go away with a real glow. These were heroes nine feet K03 0760 tall to him". ## Jefferson Lawrence was alone at the small, perfectly K03 0770 appointed table by the window looking out over the river. He K03 0780 had dinner and sat there over his coffee watching the winding pattern K03 0790 of traffic as it crossed the bridge and spread out like a serpent with K03 0800 two heads. Open beside him was . He thought how K03 0810 this dainty, fragile older woman threading her way through the streets K03 0820 of Westminster on a day in June, enjoying the flowers in the shops, K03 0830 the greetings from old friends, but never really drawing a deep, passionate K03 0840 breath, was so like himself. He, and Mrs& Dalloway, too, K03 0850 had never permitted themselves the luxury of joys that dug into the K03 0860 bone marrow of the spirit. He had not because he was both poor K03 0870 and ambitious. Poverty imposes a kind of chastity on the ambitious. K03 0880 They cannot stop to grasp and embrace and sit in the back seat of cars K03 0890 along a dark country lane. No, they must look the other way and climb K03 0900 one more painful step up the ladder. He made the decision with his K03 0910 eyes open, or so he thought. At any cost, he must leave the dreary Pennsylvania K03 0920 mining town where his father was a pharmacist. And so he K03 0930 had, so he had. At State College, he had no time to walk among the K03 0940 violets on the water's edge. From his room he could look out in springtime K03 0950 and see the couples hand in hand walking slowly, deliciously, K03 0960 across the campus, and he could smell the sweet vernal winds. He was K03 0970 not stone. He was not unmoved. He had to teach himself patiently that K03 0980 these traps were not for him. He must mentally pull the blinds and K03 0990 close the window, so that all that existed was in the books before him. K03 1000 At law school, the same. More of this stamping down of human emotion K03 1010 as a young lawyer in New York. By the time he was prosperous enough- K03 1020 his goals were high- he was bald and afraid of women. The only K03 1030 one who would have him was his cripple, the strange unhappy woman K03 1040 who became his wife. Perhaps it was right; perhaps it was just. He K03 1050 had dared to defy nature, to turn his back to the Lorelei, and he was K03 1060 punished. Like Mrs& Dalloway, with her regrets about Peter Walsh, K03 1070 he had his moments of melancholy over a youth too well spent. If K03 1080 he had had a son, he would tell him, "Gather ye rosebuds while ye K03 1090 may **h This same flower that smiles today tomorrow will be dying". K03 1100 But then his son could afford it. Lawrence was waiting for Bill K03 1110 Boxell. The Vice President had called and asked if he could see K03 1120 the Secretary at his home. He said the matter was urgent. The Secretary K03 1130 was uneasy about the visit. He did not like Boxell. He suspected K03 1140 something underhanded and furtive about him. Lawrence could not K03 1150 put his finger on it precisely, and this worried him. When you disliked K03 1160 or distrusted a man, you should have a reason. Human nature was K03 1170 not a piece of meat you could tell was bad by its smell. Lawrence stared K03 1180 a minute at the lighted ribbon of traffic, hoping that a clue to his K03 1190 dislike of the Vice President would appear. It did not. Therefore, K03 1200 he decided he was unfair to the young man and should make an effort K03 1210 to understand and sympathize with his point of view. A half K03 1220 hour later the Vice President arrived. He looked very carefully at K03 1230 every piece of furnishing, as though hoping to store this information K03 1240 carefully in his mind. He observed the Florentine vase in the hall, K03 1250 the Renoir painting in the library, as well as the long shelves of well-bound K03 1260 volumes; the pattern of the Oriental rug, the delicate cut-glass K03 1270 chandelier. He said to the Secretary, "I understand K03 1280 you came from a little Pennsylvania town near Wilkes-Barre. How did K03 1290 you find out about this"? He waved his arm around at the furnishings. K03 1300 It was not a discourteous question, Lawrence decided. K03 1310 This young man had so little time to learn he had to be curious; K03 1320 he had to find out. The Secretary did not tell him at what cost, at K03 1330 what loneliness, he learned these things. He merely said, "Any good K03 1340 decorator these days can make you a tasteful home". The Vice K03 1350 President said, "If you hear of any names that would fix me cheap K03 1360 in return for advertising they decorated the Vice President's K03 1370 home, let me know. I can do business with that kind". Again, K03 1380 Lawrence thought a little sadly, these were the fees of poverty and K03 1390 ambition. Boxell did not have the chance to grow up graciously. He K03 1400 had to acquire everything he was going to get in four years. They K03 1410 had brandy in the library. Boxell looked at Lawrence with a searching K03 1430 glance, the kind that a prosecuting attorney would give a man on trial. K03 1440 What are your weaknesses? Where will you break? How best to K03 1450 destroy your peace? The Vice President said with a slight K03 1460 bluster, "There isn't anyone who loves the President more than K03 1470 I do. Old Chris is my ideal. At the same time, you have to face facts K03 1480 and realize that a man who's been in the Marine Corps all his K03 1490 life doesn't understand much about politics. What does a monk know K03 1500 about sex"? Lawrence listened with the practiced, deceptive K03 1510 calm of the lawyer, but his face was in the shadow. "So, K03 1520 we have to protect the old man for his own good. You see what I mean. K03 1530 Congress is full of politicians, and if you want to get along with K03 1540 them, you have to be politic. This is why I say we just can't go ahead K03 1550 and disarm the Germans and pull down our own defenses. Let me tell K03 1560 you what happened to me today. A fellow came up to me, a Senator, K03 1570 I don't have to tell you his name, and he told me, 'I love the K03 1580 President like a brother, but God damn it, he's crucifying me. I've K03 1590 got a quarter of a million Germans in my state, and those krautheads K03 1600 tune in on Father Werther every night, and if he tells them to K03 1610 go out and piss in the public square, that's what they do. He's K03 1620 telling them now to write letters to their Congressmen opposing the disarmament K03 1630 of Germany'. And another one comes to me and he says, 'Look K03 1640 here, there's a mill in my state employs five thousand people K03 1650 making uniforms for the Navy. K04 0010 The Bishop looked at him coldly and said "Take it or leave it"! K04 0020 Literally, there was nothing else to do. He was caught in K04 0030 a machine. But Sojourner was not easily excited or upset and said quite K04 0040 calmly: "Let's go and see what it's like". Annisberg K04 0050 was about seventy-five miles west of Birmingham, near the Georgia K04 0060 border and on the Tallahoosa River, a small and dirty stream. The K04 0070 city was a center of manufacture, especially in textiles, and also K04 0080 because of the beauty of some of its surroundings, a residence for many K04 0090 owners of the great industries in north Alabama. But it had, as was K04 0100 usual in southern cities of this sort, a Black Bottom, a low region K04 0110 near the river where the Negroes lived- servants and laborers huddled K04 0120 together in a region with no sewage save the river, where streets K04 0130 and sidewalks were neglected and where there was much poverty and crime. K04 0140 Wilson came by train from Birmingham and looked the city K04 0150 over; the rather pleasant white city was on the hill where the chief K04 0160 stores were. Beyond were industries and factories. Then they went down K04 0170 to Black Bottom. In the midst of this crowded region was the Allen K04 0180 African Methodist Episcopal Church. It was an old and dirty K04 0190 wooden structure, sadly in need of repair. But it was a landmark. It K04 0200 had been there 50 years or more and everybody in town, black and white, K04 0210 knew of it. It had just suffered a calamity, the final crisis in a K04 0220 long series of calamities. For the old preacher who had been there twenty-five K04 0230 years was dead, and the city mourned him. He was a K04 0240 loud-voiced man, once vigorous but for many years now declining in strength K04 0250 and ability. He was stern and overbearing with his flock, but obsequious K04 0260 and conciliatory with the whites, especially the rich who partly K04 0270 supported the church. The Deacon Board, headed by a black man K04 0280 named Carlson, had practically taken over as the pastor grew old, and K04 0290 had its way with the support of the Amen corner. The characteristic K04 0300 thing about this church was its Amen corner and the weekly religious K04 0310 orgy. A knot of old worshippers, chiefly women, listened weekly to a K04 0320 sermon. It began invariably in low tones, almost conversational, and K04 0330 then gradually worked up to high, shrill appeals to God and man. And K04 0340 then the Amen corner took hold, re-enacting a form of group participation K04 0350 in worship that stemmed from years before the Greek chorus, spreading K04 0360 down through the African forest, overseas to the West Indies, K04 0370 and then here in Alabama. With shout and slow dance, with tears and K04 0380 song, with scream and contortion, the corner group was beset by hysteria K04 0390 and shivering, wailing, shouting, possession of something that seemed K04 0400 like an alien and outside force. It spread to most of the audience K04 0410 and was often viewed by visiting whites who snickered behind handkerchief K04 0420 and afterward discussed Negro religion. It sometimes ended in K04 0430 death-like trances with many lying exhausted and panting on chair and K04 0440 floor. To most of those who composed the Amen corner it was a magnificent K04 0450 and beautiful experience, something for which they lived from week K04 0460 to week. It was often re-enacted in less wild form at the Wednesday K04 0470 night prayer meeting. Wilson, on his first Sunday, witnessed K04 0480 this with something like disgust. He had preached a short sermon, K04 0490 trying to talk man-to-man to the audience, to tell them who he was, what K04 0500 he had done in Macon and Birmingham, and what he proposed to do here. K04 0510 He sympathized with them on the loss of their old pastor. But then, K04 0520 at mention of that name, the Amen corner broke loose. He had no K04 0530 chance to say another word. At the very end, when the audience was silent K04 0540 and breathless, a collection was taken and then slowly everyone K04 0550 filed out. The audience did not think much of the new pastor, and what K04 0560 the new pastor thought of the audience he did not dare at the time to K04 0570 say. During the next weeks he looked over the situation. First K04 0580 of all there was the parsonage, an utterly impossible place for civilized K04 0590 people to live in, originally poorly conceived, apparently not K04 0600 repaired for years, with no plumbing or sewage, with rat-holes and rot. K04 0610 It was arranged that he would board in the home of one of the old K04 0620 members of the church, a woman named Catt who, as Wilson afterward found, K04 0630 was briefly referred to as The Cat because of her sharp tongue K04 0640 and fierce initiative. Ann Catt was a lonely, devoted soul, K04 0650 never married, conducting a spotless home and devoted to her church, but K04 0660 a perpetual dissenter and born critic. She soared over the new pastor K04 0670 like an avenging angel lest he stray from the path and not know all K04 0680 the truth and gossip of which she was chief repository. Then K04 0690 Wilson looked over the church and studied its condition. The salary K04 0700 of the pastor had for years been $500 annually and even this was in arrears. K04 0710 Wilson made up his mind that he must receive at least $2,500, K04 0720 but when he mentioned this to the Deacons they said nothing. The church K04 0730 itself must be repaired. It was dirty and neglected. It really K04 0740 ought to be rebuilt, and he determined to go up and talk to the city banks K04 0750 about this. Meanwhile, the city itself should be talked to. The K04 0760 streets in the colored section were dirty. There was typhoid and malaria. K04 0770 The children had nowhere to go and no place to play, not even sidewalks. K04 0780 The school was small, dark and ill-equipped. The teacher was K04 0790 a pliant fool. There were two liquor saloons not very far from the K04 0800 church, one white, that is conducted for white people with a side entrance K04 0810 for Negroes; the other exclusively Negro. Undoubtedly, there K04 0820 was a good deal of gambling in both. On the other side of the K04 0821 church K04 0830 was a quiet, well-kept house with shutters and recently painted. Wilson K04 0840 inquired about it. It was called Kent House. The deacon of the K04 0850 church, Carlson, was its janitor. One of the leading members of the K04 0860 Amen corner was cook; there were two or three colored maids employed K04 0870 there. Wilson was told that it was a sort of hotel for white people, K04 0880 which seemed to him rather queer. Why should a white hotel be set K04 0890 down in the center of Black Bottom? But nevertheless it looked respectable. K04 0900 He was glad to have it there. The rest of Black K04 0910 Bottom was a rabbit warren of homes in every condition of neglect, disrepair K04 0920 and careful upkeep. Dives, carefully repaired huts, and nicely K04 0930 painted and ornamented cottages were jumbled together cheek by jowl K04 0940 with little distinction. The best could not escape from the worst and K04 0950 the worst nestled cosily beside the better. The yards, front and back, K04 0960 were narrow; some were trash dumps, some had flower gardens. Behind K04 0970 were privies, for there was no sewage system. After looking K04 0980 about a bit, Wilson discovered beyond Black Bottom, across the river K04 0990 and far removed from the white city, a considerable tract of land, K04 1000 and it occurred to him that the church and the better Negro homes might K04 1010 gradually be moved to this plot. He talked about it to the Presiding K04 1020 Elder. The Presiding Elder looked him over rather carefully. K04 1030 He was not sure what kind of a man he had in hand. But there was one K04 1040 thing that he had to stress, and that was that the contribution to the K04 1050 general church expenses, the dollar money, had been seriously falling K04 1060 behind in this church, and that must be looked after immediately. In K04 1070 fact, he intimated clearly that that was the reason that Wilson had K04 1080 been sent here- to make a larger contribution of dollar money. K04 1090 Wilson stressed the fact that clear as this was, they must have a K04 1100 better church, a more business-like conduct of the church organization, K04 1110 and an effort to get this religious center out of its rut of wild worship K04 1120 into a modern church organization. He emphasized to the Presiding K04 1130 Elder the plan of giving up the old church and moving across the K04 1140 river. The Presiding Elder was sure that that would be impossible. K04 1150 But he told Wilson to "go ahead and try". And Wilson tried. K04 1160 It did seem impossible. The bank which held the mortgage on the K04 1170 old church declared that the interest was considerably in arrears, and K04 1180 the real estate people said flatly that the land across the river was K04 1190 being held for an eventual development for white working people who K04 1200 were coming in, and that none would be sold to colored folk. When it K04 1210 was proposed to rebuild the church, Wilson found that the terms for K04 1220 a new mortgage were very high. He was sure that he could do better if K04 1230 he went to Atlanta to get the deal financed. But when this proposal K04 1240 was made to his Deacon Board, he met unanimous opposition. The K04 1250 church certainly would not be removed. The very proposition was sacrilege. K04 1260 It had been here fifty years. It was going to stay forever. K04 1270 It was hardly possible to get any argument on the subject. As for K04 1280 rebuilding, well, that might be looked into, but there was no hurry, no K04 1290 hurry at all. Wilson again went downtown to a different banker, K04 1300 an intelligent young white man who seemed rather sympathetic, but K04 1310 he shook his head. "Reverend", he said, "I think you don't K04 1320 quite understand the situation here. Don't you see the amount K04 1330 of money that has been invested by whites around that church? Tenements, K04 1340 stores, saloons, some gambling, I hope not too much. The colored K04 1350 people are getting employment at Kent House and other places, and K04 1360 they are near their places of employment. When a city has arranged K04 1370 things like this you cannot easily change them. Now, if I were you I K04 1380 would just plan to repair the old church so it would last for five or K04 1390 ten years. By that time, perhaps something better can be done". K04 1400 Then Wilson asked, "What about this Kent House which you K04 1410 mention? I don't understand why a white hotel should be down here". K04 1420 The young banker looked at him with a certain surprise, and K04 1430 then he said flatly: "I'm afraid I can't tell you anything K04 1440 in particular about Kent House. You'll have to find out about it K04 1450 on your own. Hope to see you again". And he dismissed the colored K04 1460 pastor. It was next day that Sojourner came and sat beside K04 1470 him and took his hand. She said, "My dear, do you know what Kent K04 1480 House is"? "No", said Wilson, "I don't. I was K04 1490 just asking about it. What is it"? "It's a house of prostitution K04 1500 for white men with white girls as inmates. They hire K04 1510 a good deal of local labor, including two members of our Trustee Board. K04 1520 They buy some supplies from our colored grocers and they are patronized K04 1530 by some of the best white gentlemen in town". Wilson stared K04 1540 at her. "My dear, you must be mistaken". "Talk to K04 1550 Mrs& Catt", she said. And after Wilson had talked to Mrs& K04 1560 Catt and to others, he was absolutely amazed. This, of course, was K04 1570 the sort of thing that used to take place in Southern cities- putting K04 1580 white houses of prostitution with colored girls in colored neighborhoods K04 1590 and carrying them on openly. But it had largely disappeared on K04 1600 account of protest by the whites and through growing resentment on the K04 1610 part of the Negroes as they became more educated and got better wages. K04 1620 But this situation of Kent House was more subtle. The wages K04 1630 involved were larger and more regular. The inmates were white and K04 1640 from out of town, avoiding local friction. The backing from the white K04 1650 town was greater and there was little publicity. Good wages, patronage K04 1660 and subscription of various kinds stopped open protest from Negroes. K04 1670 And yet Wilson knew that this place must go or he must go. And K04 1680 for him to leave this job now without accomplishing anything would mean K04 1690 practically the end of his career in the Methodist church, if not K04 1700 in all churches. K05 0010 Payne dismounted in Madison Place and handed the reins to Herold. K05 0020 There was a fog, which increased the darkness of the night. Two gas K05 0030 lamps were no more than a misleading glow. He might have been anywhere K05 0040 or nowhere. The pretence was that he was delivering a prescription K05 0050 from Dr& Verdi. Secretary of State Seward was a sick man. K05 0060 The idea had come from Herold, who had once been a chemist's clerk. K05 0070 The sick were always receiving medicines. No one would question K05 0080 such an errand. The bottle was filled up with flour. Before Payne K05 0090 loomed the Old Clubhouse, Seward's home, where Key had once K05 0100 been killed. Now it would have another death. From the outside it K05 0110 was an ordinary enough house of the gentry. He clomped heavily up the K05 0120 stoop and rang the bell. Like the bell at Mass, the doorbell was pitched K05 0130 too high. It was still Good Friday, after all. A nigger K05 0140 boy opened the door. Payne did not notice him. He was thinking chiefly K05 0150 of Cap. If their schedules were to synchronize, there was no point K05 0160 in wasting time. He pushed his way inside. For a moment K05 0170 the hall confused him. This was the largest house he had ever been in, K05 0180 almost the largest building, except for a hotel. He had no idea where K05 0190 Seward's room would be. In the half darkness the banisters gleamed, K05 0200 and the hall seemed enormous. Above him somewhere were the bedrooms. K05 0210 Seward would be up there. He explained his errand, but without K05 0220 bothering much to make it plausible, for he felt something well K05 0230 up in him which was the reason why he had fled the army. He did not K05 0240 really want to kill, but as in the sexual act, there was a moment when K05 0250 the impulse took over and could not be downed, even while you watched K05 0260 yourself giving way to it. He was no longer worried. Everything would K05 0270 be all right. He knew that in this mood he could not be stopped. K05 0280 Still, the sensation always surprised him. It was a thrill he K05 0290 felt no part in. He could only watch with a sort of gentle dismay while K05 0300 his body did these quick, appalling, and efficient things. He K05 0310 brushed by the idiotic boy and lumbered heavily up the stairs. They K05 0320 were carpeted, but made for pumps and congress gaiters, not the great K05 0330 clodhoppers he wore. The sound of his footsteps was like a muffled K05 0340 drum. At the top of the stairs he ran into somebody standing there K05 0350 angrily in a dressing gown. He stopped and whispered his errand. K05 0360 Young Frederick Seward held out his hand. Panting a little, Payne K05 0370 shook his head. Dr& Verdi had told him to deliver his package in K05 0380 person. Frederick Seward said his father was sleeping, and then K05 0390 went through a pantomime at his father's door, to prove the statement. K05 0400 "Very well", Payne said. "I will go". He smiled, K05 0410 but now that he knew where the elder Seward was, he did not intend K05 0420 to go. He pulled out his pistol and fired it. It made no sound. It K05 0430 had misfired. Reversing it, he smashed the butt down on Frederick K05 0440 Seward's head, over and over again. It was the first blow K05 0450 that was always difficult. After that, violence was exultantly easy. K05 0460 He got caught up into it and became a different person. Only afterwards K05 0470 did an act like that become meaningless, so that he would puzzle over K05 0480 it for days, whereas at the time it had seemed quite real. K05 0490 The nigger boy fled down the stairs, screaming, "Murder". K05 0500 It was not murder at all. Payne was more methodical than that. He K05 0510 was merely clearing a way to what he had to do. He ran for the K05 0520 sick room, found his pistol was broken, and threw it away. A knife would K05 0530 do. From childhood he had known all about knives. Someone blocked K05 0540 the door from inside. He smashed it in and tumbled into darkness. K05 0550 He saw only dimly moving figures, but when he slashed them they yelled K05 0560 and fled. He went for the bed, jumped on it, and struck where he could, K05 0570 repeatedly. It was like finally getting into one's own nightmares K05 0580 to punish one's dreams. Two men pulled him off. Nobody K05 0590 said anything. Payne hacked at their arms. There was a lady there, in K05 0600 a nightdress. He would not have wanted to hurt a lady. Another man K05 0610 approached, this one fully dressed. When the knife went into his chest, K05 0620 he went down at once. "I'm mad", shouted Payne, as K05 0630 he ran out into the hall. "I'm mad", and only wished he had been. K05 0640 That would have made things so much easier. But he was not mad. He K05 0650 was only dreaming. He clattered down the stairs and out of K05 0660 the door. Somewhere in the fog, the nigger boy was still yelling murder. K05 0670 One always wakes up, even from one's own dreams. The clammy air K05 0680 revived him. Herold, he saw, had fled. Well, one did not expect K05 0690 much of people like Herold. He unhitched his horse, walked K05 0700 it away, mounted, and spurred it on. The nigger boy was close K05 0710 behind him. Then the nigger boy turned back and he was alone. He rode K05 0720 on and on. He had no idea where he was. After some time he came to K05 0730 an open field. An open field was better than a building, that was for K05 0740 sure, so he dismounted, turned off the horse, and plunged through the K05 0750 grass. He felt curiously sleepy, the world seemed far away; K05 0760 he knew he should get to Cap, but he didn't know how. He was sure, K05 0770 for he had done as he was told, hadn't he? Cap would find him K05 0780 and take care of him. So choosing a good tree, he clambered up into it, K05 0790 found a comfortable notch, and curled up in it to sleep, like the tousled K05 0800 bear he was, with his hands across his chest, as though surfeited K05 0810 with honey. Violence always made him tired, but he was not K05 0820 frightened. ## In Boston, Edwin Booth was winding up a performance K05 0830 of . It was a part so familiar K05 0840 to him that he did not bother to think about it any more. Acting soothed K05 0850 him. On a stage he always knew what to do, and tonight, to judge K05 0860 by the applause, he must be doing it better than usual. As K05 0870 Sir Giles Overreach (how often had he had to play that part, who did K05 0880 not believe a word of it), he raised his arm and declaimed: "Where K05 0890 is my honour now"? That was one of the high spots of the K05 0900 play. The audience, as usual, loved it. He was delighted to see them K05 0910 so happy. If he had any worries, it was only the small ones, about K05 0920 Mother in New York, and his daughter Edwina and what she might be K05 0930 doing at this hour, with her Aunt Asia, in Philadelphia. Everyone K05 0940 is ambivalent about his profession, if he has practised it long K05 0950 enough, but there were still moments when he loved the stage and all K05 0960 those unseen people out there, who might cheer you or boo you, but that K05 0970 was largely, though not entirely, up to you. They made the K05 0980 world seem friendly somehow, though he knew it was not. #/7,# Wilkes K05 0990 was quite right about one thing. Laura Keene had been in the K05 1000 green room. The commotion had brought her into the wings. Since she K05 1010 could not act, one part suited her as well as any other, and so she was K05 1020 the first person to offer Mr& Lincoln a glass of water, holding K05 1030 it K05 1040 up to the box, high above her head, to Miss Harris, who had asked for K05 1050 it. She had been one of the first to collect her wits. K05 1060 It was not so much that the shot had stunned the audience, as that K05 1070 they had been stunned already. Most of them had seen before, and unless Miss Keene was on stage, there was not K05 1090 much to it. The theatre was hot and they were drugged with boredom. K05 1100 The stage had been empty, except for Harry Hawk, doing his star K05 1110 monologue. The audience was fond of Harry Hawk, he was a dear, K05 1120 in or out of character, but he was not particularly funny. At the end K05 1130 of the monologue the audience would applaud. Meanwhile it looked at K05 1140 the scenery. "Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside K05 1150 out, you sockdologizing old mantrap"! said Trenchard, otherwise K05 1160 Hawk. There was always a pause here, before the next line. K05 1170 That was when the gun went off. Yet even that explosion did not mean K05 1180 much. Guns were going off all over Washington City these days, because K05 1190 of the celebrations, and the theatre was not soundproof. Then K05 1200 the audience saw a small, dim figure appear at the edge of the Presidential K05 1210 box. "", it said mildly. Booth K05 1220 had delivered his line. Behind him billowed a small pungent cloud K05 1230 of smoke. They strained forward. They had not heard what had K05 1240 been said. They had been sitting too long to be able to stand up easily. K05 1250 The figure leapt from the box, almost lost its balance, the flag K05 1260 draped there tore in the air, the figure landed on its left leg, fell K05 1270 on its hands, and pressed itself up. Harry Hawk still had his K05 1280 arm raised towards the wings. His speech faltered. He did not lower K05 1290 his arm. The figure was so theatrically dressed, that it was K05 1291 as though K05 1300 a character from some other play had blundered into this one. The K05 1310 play for Saturday night was to be a benefit performance of . K05 1320 This figure looked like the slave dealer from that. But it K05 1330 also looked like a toad, hopping away from the light. There was something K05 1340 maimed and crazy about its motion that disturbed them. Then K05 1350 it disappeared into the wings. Harry Hawk had not shifted K05 1360 position, but he at last lowered his arm. Mrs& Lincoln screamed. K05 1380 There was no mistaking that scream. It was what anyone who had ever K05 1390 seen her had always expected her to do. Yet this scream had a different K05 1400 note in it. That absence of an urgent self-indulgence dashed them K05 1410 awake like a pail of water. Clara Harris, one of the guests K05 1420 in the box, stood up and demanded water. Her action was involuntary. K05 1430 When something unexpected happened, one always asked for water if K05 1440 one were a woman, brandy if one were a man. Mrs& lincoln screamed K05 1450 again. In the Presidential box someone leaned over the K05 1460 balustrade and yelled: "He has shot the President"! That K05 1470 got everybody up. On the stage, Harry Hawk began to weep. Laura K05 1471 Keene K05 1480 brushed by him with the glass of water. The crowd began to move. K05 1490 In Washington City everyone lived in a bubble of plots, and one death K05 1500 might attract another. It was not exactly panic they gave way to, K05 1510 but they could not just sit there. The beehive voices, for no one could K05 1520 bear silence, drowned out the sound of Mrs& Lincoln's weeping. K05 1530 At the rear of the auditorium, upstairs, some men tried to K05 1540 push open the door to the box corridor. It would not give. A K05 1550 Dr& Charles Taft clambered up on the stage and got the actors to K05 1560 hoist him up to the box. In the audience a man named Ferguson lost K05 1570 his head and tried to rescue a little girl from the mob, on the same principle K05 1580 which had led Miss Harris to demand water. Someone K05 1590 opened the corridor door from the inside, and called for a doctor. Somehow K05 1600 Dr& Charles Leale was forced through the mob and squeezed out K05 1610 into the dingy corridor. He went straight to the Presidential box. K05 1620 As usual, Mrs& Lincoln had lost her head, but nobody blamed K05 1630 her for doing so now. There was a little blood on the hem of her dress, K05 1640 for the assassin had slashed Miss Harris's companion, Major K05 1650 Rathbone, with a knife. Rathbone said he was bleeding to death. By K05 1660 the look of him he wasn't that far gone. K06 0010 With a sneer, the man spread his legs and, a third time, confronted them. K06 0020 Once more, Katie reared, and whinnied in fear. For a moment, K06 0030 boy and mount hung in midair. Stevie twisted and, frantically, K06 0040 commanded the mare to leap straight ahead. But the stranger was nimbler K06 0050 still. With a bold arm, he dared once more to obstruct them. Katie K06 0060 reared a third time, then, trembling, descended. The stranger K06 0070 leered. Seizing the bridle, he tugged with all his might and forced K06 0080 Katie to her knees. It was absurd. Stevie could feel himself toppling. K06 0090 He saw the ground coming up- and the stranger's head. With K06 0100 incredible ferocity, he brought his fists together and struck. The blow K06 0110 encountered silky hair and hard bone. The man uttered a weird cry, K06 0120 spun about, and collapsed in the sand. Katie scrambled to her K06 0130 feet, Stevie agilely retaining his seat. Again Katie reared, and now, K06 0140 wickedly, he compelled her to bring her hooves down again and again K06 0150 upon the sprawled figure of the stranger. He could feel his own feet, K06 0160 iron-shod, striking repeatedly until the body was limp. He gloated, K06 0170 and his lips slavered. He heard himself chortling. They rode K06 0180 around and around to trample the figure into the sand. Only the top K06 0190 of the head, with a spot bare and white as a clamshell, remained visible. K06 0200 Stevie was shouting triumphantly. A train hooted. Instantly, K06 0210 he chilled. They were pursuing him. He was frightened; his fists K06 0220 clutched so tightly that his knuckles hurt. Then Katie stumbled, K06 0230 and again he was falling, falling! "Stevie! Stevie"! K06 0231 His mother was nudging him, but he was still falling. His head hung K06 0250 over the boards of Katie's stall; before it was sprawled the K06 0260 mangled corpse of the bearded stranger. "Stevie, wake up now! K06 0270 We're nearly there". He had been dreaming. He was safe K06 0280 in his Mama's arms. The train had slowed. Houses winked K06 0290 as the cars rolled beside a little depot. "Po' Chavis"! the K06 0291 trainman K06 0300 called. He came by and repeated, "Po' Chavis"! #CHAPTER K06 0310 6# startled him awake. The room vibrated as K06 0320 if a giant hand had rocked it. a dull boom and a throbbing K06 0330 echo. The walls bulged, the floor trembled, the windowpanes rattled. K06 0340 He stared at the far morning, expecting a pendulum to swing across the K06 0350 horizon. He raced to the window and yanked at the sash. K06 0360 the wood was old, the paint alligatored. A K06 0370 fresh breeze saluted him. o'clock! He put his his K06 0380 head out. There was the slate roof of the church; ivy climbed the K06 0390 red brick walls like a green-scaled monster. The clock which had struck K06 0400 presented an innocent face. In the kitchen Mama was wiping K06 0410 the cupboards. "There's a tower and a steeple on the church K06 0420 a million feet high. And the loudest clock in the whole world"! K06 0430 "I know, Stephen", she smiled. "They say that our K06 0440 steeple is one hundred and sixty-two feet high. The clock you heard strike- K06 0450 it's really the town clock- was installed last April by K06 0460 Mrs& Shorter, on her birthday". He dressed, and sped outdoors. K06 0470 He crossed Broome Street to Orange Square. The steeple leaned K06 0480 backward, while the church advanced like a headless creature in a K06 0490 long, shapeless coat. The spire seemed to hold up the sky. Port K06 0500 Jervis, basking in the foothills, was the city of God. The Dutch K06 0510 Reformed Church, with two steeples and its own school was on Main K06 0520 Street; the Episcopal Church was one block down Sussex Street; K06 0530 the Catholic Saint Mary's Church, with an even taller steeple K06 0540 and a cross on top, stood on Ball Street. The Catholics had the K06 0550 largest cemetery, near the Neversink River where Main Street ran south; K06 0560 Stevie whistled when he passed these alien grounds. God K06 0570 was everywhere, in the belfry, in the steeple, in the clouds, in the K06 0580 trees, and in the mountains hulking on the horizon. Somewhere, beyond, K06 0590 where shadows lurked, must be the yawning pit of which Papa preached K06 0600 and the dreadful Lake of Fire. So, walking in awe, he became K06 0610 familiar with God, who resided chiefly in Drew Centennial Church K06 0620 with its high steeple and clock. There was no church like Drew Church, K06 0630 no preacher like Papa, who was intimate with Him, and could consign K06 0640 sinners to hellfire. To know God he must follow in Papa's K06 0650 footsteps. He was fortunate, and proud. The veterans, idling K06 0660 on their benches in the Square, beneath the soldiers' monument, got K06 0661 to K06 0670 their feet when Papa approached: "Morning, Reverend"! His K06 0680 being and His will- Stevie could not divide God from his Papa- K06 0690 illumined every parish face, turned the choir into a band of angels, K06 0700 and the pulpit into the tollgate to Heaven. "We have nine K06 0710 hundred and eleven members in our charge", Mama announced, "and three K06 0720 hundred and eighty Sunday-school scholars". When Papa K06 0730 went out to do God's work, Stevie often accompanied him in the buggy, K06 0740 which was drawn by Violet, the new black mare. Although they journeyed K06 0750 westerly as far as Germantown, beyond the Erie roundhouse and K06 0760 the machine shop, and along the Delaware and Hudson Canal, and northward K06 0770 to Brooklyn, below Point Peter, he could see the church spire K06 0780 wherever he looked back. Sometimes they went south and rolled past K06 0790 the tollhouse- "Afternoon, Reverend"!- and crossed the suspension K06 0800 bridge to Matamoras; that was Pennsylvania. In the K06 0810 Delaware River, three long islands were overgrown with greening trees K06 0820 and underbrush. South of Laurel Grove Cemetery, and below the K06 0830 junction of the Neversink and the Delaware, was the Tri-State Rock, K06 0840 from which Stevie could spy New Jersey and Pennsylvania, as well K06 0850 as New York, simply by spinning around on his heel. On these K06 0860 excursions, Papa instructed him on man's chief end, which was his K06 0870 duty to God and his own salvation. However, a boy's lively eyes might K06 0880 rove. Where Cuddleback Brook purled into the Neversink was a magnificent K06 0890 swimming hole. Papa pointed a scornful finger at the splashing K06 0900 youth: "Idle recreation"! Stevie saw no idols; it troubled K06 0910 him that he couldn't always see what Papa saw. He was torn between K06 0920 the excitement in the sun-inflamed waters and a little engine chugging K06 0930 northward on the Monticello Branch. "Where you been K06 0940 today"? Ludie inquired every evening, pretending that he did not K06 0950 care. "He'll make a preacher out of you"! "No, he K06 0960 won't"! Stevie flared. "Not me"! "Somebody's K06 0970 got to be a preacher in the family. He made a will and last testament K06 0980 before we left Paterson. I heard them! Uncle and Aunt Howe were K06 0990 the witnesses". "Will he die"? "Everybody K06 1000 does". Ludie could be hateful. To speak of Papa dying was K06 1010 a sin. It could never happen as long as God was alert and the Drew K06 1020 steeple stood guard with its peaked lance. Stevie was constantly K06 1030 slipping into the church. He pulled with all his strength at the K06 1040 heavy, brass-bound door, and shuffled along the wainscoted wall. The K06 1050 cold, mysterious presence of God was all around him. At the end of a K06 1060 shaft of light, the pews appeared to be broad stairs in a long dungeon. K06 1070 Far away, standing before a curtained window in the study room, was K06 1080 his father, hands tucked under his coattails, and staring into the dark K06 1090 church. The figure was wreathed in an extraordinary luminescence. K06 1100 The boy shuddered at the deathly pale countenance with its wrinkles K06 1110 and gray hair. Would Papa really die? The mouth was thin-lipped K06 1120 and wide, the long cleft in the upper lip like a slide. When Papa's K06 1130 slender fingers removed the spectacles, there were red indentations K06 1140 on the bridge of the strong nose. "It's time you began K06 1150 to think on God, Stephen. Perhaps one day He will choose you as K06 1160 He chose me, long ago. Therefore, give Him your affection and store K06 1170 up His love for you. Open your heart to Him and pray, Stephen, pray! K06 1180 For His mercy and His guidance to spare you from evil and eternal K06 1190 punishment in the Lake of Fire". Stevie had heard these K06 1200 words many times, yet on each occasion they caused him to tremble. K06 1210 For he feared the Lake of Fire. He strove to think of God and His K06 1220 eternal wrath; he must pray to be spared. Papa was disappointed K06 1230 that none of the brothers had heard the Call. Not George, Townley, K06 1240 or Ted, certainly not Ludie. Burt was at Hackettstown and K06 1250 Will at Albany Law School, where they surely could not hear it. Someday K06 1260 God would choose . He would hear the Call and would run K06 1270 to tell Papa. The stern face would relax, the black-clad arms would K06 1280 embrace him, "My son"! Yet how might he know the Call when K06 1290 it came? Probably, as in Scriptures, a still, small voice would whisper. K06 1300 It would summon him once; if he missed it, never again. What K06 1310 if it came when he was playing, or was asleep and dreaming? K06 1320 He must not fail to hear it. He was Papa's chosen; therefore, K06 1330 nothing but good could happen to him, even in God's wrathful storms. K06 1340 When the skies grew dark and thunder rolled across the valley, he K06 1350 was unafraid. Aggie might fly into a closet, shut the door and bury her K06 1360 head in the clothes; he dared to wait for the lightning. Lightning K06 1370 could strike you blind if you were a sinner! But he was good. K06 1380 He clenched his fists and faced the terror. Thunder crashed; K06 1390 barrels tumbled down the mountainsides, and bounced and bounced till their K06 1400 own fury split them open. Lightning might strike the steeples of K06 1410 the other churches; not of Drew Church. A flash illumined the trees K06 1420 as a crooked bolt twigged in several directions. Violet whinnied K06 1430 from the stable. He ran out into the downpour, sped across the K06 1440 yard and into the buggy room. "Don't be afraid, Violet"! he K06 1450 shouted, and was aghast at the echoes. "Don't you be afraid"! K06 1460 He would save her. If there was a fire or a flood he would save Mama K06 1470 first and Violet next. Drenched and shaking, he stood near the sweet-smelling K06 1480 stall and dared to pat her muzzle. "Don't you be afraid, K06 1490 Violet"! After the storm, the sky cleared blue and cool, K06 1500 and fragrant air swept the hills. When the sun came out, Stevie K06 1510 strode proudly into Orange Square, smiling like a landlord on industrious K06 1520 tenants. The fountain had brimmed over, the cannon were wet, the K06 1530 soldiers' monument glistened. Even before the benches had dried, K06 1540 the Civil War veterans were straggling back to their places. The great K06 1550 spire shone as if the lightning had polished it. He jumped. The K06 1560 pointed shadow had nearly touched him. He trailed Ludie to the K06 1570 baseball game in the lot on Kingston Street near the Dutch Reformed. K06 1580 "Go on home"! Ludie screeched at him. "Someone'll K06 1590 tell Papa"! No one told on Ludie, not even when he K06 1600 slipped live grasshoppers into the mite-box. Ludie did as he pleased. K06 1610 Ludie took his slingshot and climbed to the rooftop to shoot K06 1611 at K06 1620 crows. Ludie chewed roofer's tar. Ludie had a cigar box full of K06 1630 marbles and shooters, and a Roman candle from last Fourth of July. K06 1640 Ludie hopped rides on freight cars, and was chased by Mr& Yankton, K06 1650 the railroad guard. He came home overheated, ran straight to the ice-chest, K06 1660 and gulped shivery cold water. Stevie envied him. That K06 1670 Ludie! He, too, cocked his cap at a jaunty angle, jingled marbles K06 1680 in his pocket, and swaggered down Main Street. On the Christophers' K06 1690 lawn, little girls in white pinafores were playing grownups at K06 1700 a tea party. A Newfoundland sat solemnly beside a doghouse half his K06 1710 size. Stevie yearned for a dog. He wondered whether God had a dog in K06 1720 the sky. He meandered down Pike Street, past the First National K06 1730 Bank with its green window shades. He crossed the tracks to K06 1740 Delaware House, where ladies in gay dresses and men in straw boaters K06 1750 and waxed mustaches crowded the verandah. A tall lady, with a ruffled K06 1760 collar very low on her bosom, turned insolent green eyes upon him. She K06 1770 was taller than Aggie. She was so beautiful with her rosy mouth K06 1780 and haughty air that she had to be wicked. Fiddles screeched; a piano K06 1790 tinkled. "P& J&"- as Ludie called the town- was K06 1800 crowded with summer people who came to the mountains to escape the K06 1810 heat in the big cities. They stayed at hotels and boardinghouses, or K06 1820 at private homes. Rich people went to Delaware House, Opera House, K06 1830 American House or Fowler House. K07 0010 That's how it should be. K07 0020 K07 0030 Nigger pussy. He thought of sweet wet nigger pussy. K07 0060 He thought of her, the first one. He had caught her coming out of the K07 0070 shack. She was a juicy one. Fresh, warm, K07 0080 sweet and juicy, sweet lovin sixteen, she was. The snow came a little faster now, he noted. He thought K07 0100 of Joe Harris, the nigger who had gone after his sister. He chuckled, K07 0110 the memory vivid. The snow again. **h His thoughts turned to other things K07 0170 **h The big shock everybody had when they found ol Slater and those K07 0180 others done for. . He had been pretty scared K07 0190 himself, wondering what the hell was coming off. But he soon saw which K07 0200 way the ball was bouncing. Soon came back to his senses. "I soon K07 0210 came back to my senses", he said, aloud, to the young blizzard, proudly, K07 0220 drawing himself up, as if making a report to some important superior K07 0230 **h . "I told him", K07 0270 he said aloud **h . Normal, . They'll get the guys that done it **h There K07 0320 was something troubling him though: as yet **h K07 0330 Five days **h **h Prickly twinges of annoyance ran through K07 0340 him. His eyes blinked hard, snapping on and squashing some bad things K07 0350 that were K07 0360 trying to push their way into him. A tune began to whirl K07 0370 inside his head. One of his favorites: "Guitar Boogie". It K07 0380 always came on, faithfully, just like a radio or juke box, whenever he K07 0390 started to worry too much about something, when the bad things tried K07 0400 to push their way into him. The music drove them off, or away, and he K07 0410 was free to walk on air in a very few moments, humming and jiving within, K07 0420 beating the rhythm within. He glowed with anticipation about what K07 0430 would happen to the culprits when they caught them **h - reactionary bastards **h. He had never heard K07 0460 the word reactionary before his life as a ~POW began. It was K07 0470 a word he was proud of, a word that meant much to him, and he used it K07 0480 with great pleasure, almost as if it were an exclusive possession, and K07 0490 more: he sensed himself to be very highly educated, four cuts above K07 0500 any of the folks back home **h "", he chuckled K07 0510 to himself, "". The word also K07 0520 made him feel hate, sincere hate, for those so labeled. He used it very K07 0530 effectively when he wanted to get his squad on the ball. It came up K07 0540 again and again in the discussion sessions **h K07 0580 **h He heard himself haranguing them. He saw himself before them K07 0590 delivering the speech. He laughed, suddenly, feeling a surge of power K07 0600 telling him of his hold over them, seeing himself before them, receiving K07 0610 utmost respect and attention. One day, Ching had told him (smiling, K07 0620 patting him on the back) as they walked to the weekly conference K07 0630 of squad leaders, "Keep it up, your squad is good, one of the best, K07 0640 keep it up, keep up the good work". He would! That was really K07 0650 something, coming from Ching **h "Really something", he said, aloud K07 0660 **h . "They'll K07 0680 get them by God and let them bring them down here to me, just let them, K07 0690 God I'll slice their balls right off **h" His arm moved swiftly, K07 0700 violently, once, twice. He felt intense satisfaction. He was K07 0710 tingling within. Before him, mutilated, bleeding to death, they lay. K07 0720 It was as if it had been done. "Bastards", he said aloud, spitting K07 0730 on them. He halted, and looked around. Rivers of cold sweat were K07 0740 suddenly unleashed within him. The thought came back, the one nagging K07 0750 at him these past four days. He tried to stifle it. But the words were K07 0760 forming. He knew he couldn't. He braced himself **h **h He fought it, seeking to kill the last K07 0780 few words, but on they came **h - **h He was K07 0790 trembling, a strange feeling upon him, fully expecting some catastrophe K07 0800 to strike him dead on the spot. But it didn't. And he took heart; K07 0810 the final word came forth **h **h Now he heard it, fully: K07 0820 "**h **h" He listened, waited, nothing K07 0830 happened. He felt good. His old self. The music arrived, taking K07 0840 him **h its rhythm stroked him, snaked all through him, the lyrics K07 0850 lifted him, took him from one magic isle to another, stopping briefly K07 0860 at each **h K07 0920 **h He looked over at him, lying there, asleep, and he felt a wave of K07 0930 revulsion. How he loathed him. Sleepy-eyed, soft-spoken Johnson **h K07 0940 **h He was K07 0950 the guy what always goofed at Question Time **h **h Like a particle K07 0980 drawn to a magnet he returned to that which was pressing so hard K07 0990 in his mind. The music surged up, but it failed to check it. . Most K07 1010 on the Ball. K07 1020 **h With a supreme effort, he broke it off. He turned to the K07 1030 window again. A gnawing and gnashing within him. The snow was tumbling K07 1040 down furiously now. Huge glob-flakes hitting the ground, piling higher K07 1050 and higher. He stared at it, amazed, alarmed **h . He was K07 1110 again tingling with pleasure, seeing himself clearly in Slater's shoes. K07 1120 **h He whirled about suddenly. It was nothing, though K07 1160 his heart was thumping wildly. Somebody was up. That was all. K07 1170 "Boy, you're stirrin early", a sleepy voice said. "Yehhh", K07 1180 said Coughlin, testily, eyeing him up and down. "Lookit K07 1190 that come down, willya", said the man, scratching himself, yawning. K07 1200 "Yehhh", said Coughlin, practically spitting on him. K07 1210 The man moved away. he's K07 1300 **h Coughlin grinned, feeling supremely on top of things **h He watched K07 1310 the snow once again. It infuriated him. It made no sense to him K07 1320 **h He whirled around, suddenly hot all over, finding the man who had K07 1330 been standing before him a few moments back, nailing him to the spot K07 1340 on which he now stood, open-mouthed- "You- Listen!- K07 1350 name William Foster's Four Internal Contradictions in Capitalism. K07 1360 Quick- Quick- NOW"! The man shrank before K07 1370 the hot fury, searching frantically for the answer **h Finnegan K07 1380 woke up. There was a hell of a noise this time of morning. He stared K07 1390 out the window. He looked for the source of the noise that had awakened K07 1410 him **h It was that prick Coughlin. What the hell was he up K07 1420 to now? Why didn't he drop dead? How did they miss him when they K07 1430 got Slater? **h Then he was asking himself the usual K07 1440 early morning questions: K07 1460 **h From somewhere in the hut came Coughlin's voice. K07 1470 "How long did you study? How long, buddy"? "For K07 1480 Christ's sake"! a voice pleaded. "Don't Christsake K07 1490 me, buddy! Just answer. C'mon- " K07 1500 **h **h He K07 1610 rolled over and tried to shut out the noise, now much louder. He snuggled K07 1620 into the blanket **h ## Brandon dreamed. . So what? Why should I be spinning just K07 1660 because the goddamn log is spinning? (he asked this out loud, but K07 1670 no one heard it over the other noise in the hut). ? K08 0010 Rousseau is so persuasive that Voltaire is almost convinced that K08 0020 he should burn his books, too. But while the two men are riding into K08 0030 the country, where they are going to dinner, they are attacked in K08 0040 the dark of the forest by a band of thieves, who strip them of everything, K08 0050 including most of their clothes. "You must be a very learned K08 0060 man", says Voltaire to one of the bandits. "A learned K08 0070 man"? the bandit laughs in his face. But Voltaire perseveres. K08 0080 He goes to the chief himself. "At what university did you K08 0090 study"? he asks. He refuses to believe that the bandit chief never K08 0100 attended a higher institution. "To have become so corrupt", he K08 0110 says, "surely you must have studied many arts and sciences". K08 0120 The chief, annoyed by these questions, knocks Voltaire down and shouts K08 0130 at him that he not only never went to any school, but never even K08 0140 learned how to read. When finally the two bedraggled men reach K08 0150 their friend's home, Voltaire's fears are once again aroused. K08 0160 For it is such a distinguished place, with such fine works of art and K08 0170 such a big library, that there can be little doubt but that the owner K08 0180 has become depraved by all this culture. To Voltaire's surprise, K08 0190 however, their host gives them fresh clothes to put on, opens his K08 0200 purse to lend them money and sits them down before a good dinner. K08 0210 Immediately after dinner, however, Rousseau asks for still another K08 0220 favor. Could he have pen and paper, please? He is in a hurry K08 0230 to write another essay against culture. Such was the impromptu K08 0240 that Voltaire gave to howls of laughter at Sans Souci and that was K08 0250 soon circulated in manuscript throughout the literary circles of Europe, K08 0260 to be printed sometime later, but with the name of Timon of Athens, K08 0270 the famous misanthrope, substituted for that of Rousseau. K08 0280 How cruel! But at the same time how understandable. How could K08 0290 the rich, for whom life was made so simple, ever understand the subterfuges, K08 0300 the lies, the frauds, the errors, sins and even crimes to K08 0310 which the poor were driven in their efforts to overcome the great advantages K08 0320 the rich had in the race of life? How, for example, K08 0330 could a Voltaire understand the strange predicament in which a Rousseau K08 0340 would find himself when, soon after the furor of his first K08 0350 he acquired still another title to fame? This time K08 0360 as a musician. As a composer. Ever since he had first begun K08 0370 to study music and to teach it, Rousseau had dreamed of piercing through K08 0380 to fame as the result of a successful opera. But his facility in K08 0390 this genre was not great. And his efforts to get a performance for his K08 0400 invariably failed. And for good reasons. His K08 0410 operatic music had little merit. But then one day, while on a K08 0420 week's visit to the country home of a retired Swiss jeweler, Rousseau K08 0430 amused the company with a few little melodies he had written, to which K08 0440 he attached no great importance. He was really amazed to discover K08 0450 the other guests so excited about these delicate little songs. K08 0460 "Put a few such songs together", they urged him. "String them K08 0470 onto some sort of little plot, and you'll have a delightful operetta". K08 0480 He didn't believe them. "Nonsense", he said. "This K08 0490 is the sort of stuff I write and then throw away"! "Heaven K08 0500 forbid"! cried the ladies, enchanted by his music. "You K08 0510 must make an opera out of this material". And they wouldn't K08 0520 leave off arguing and pleading until he had promised. Oh, K08 0530 the irony and the bitterness of it! That after all his years of effort K08 0540 to become a composer, he should now, now when he was still stoutly K08 0550 replying to the critics of his K08 0560 be so close to a success in music and have to reject it. K08 0570 Or at least appear to reject it! But what else could he do? K08 0580 You couldn't on the one hand decry the arts and at the same time K08 0590 practice them, could you? Well, yes, perhaps in literature, since K08 0600 you could argue that you couldn't keep silent about your feelings against K08 0610 literature and so were involved in spite of yourself. But now music K08 0620 too? No. That would be too much! And the fault, of K08 0630 course, was Rameau's. The fault was Rameau's and that of the whole K08 0640 culture of this Parisian age. For it was Rameau's type of music K08 0650 that he had been trying to write, and that he couldn't write. These K08 0660 little songs, however, were sweet nothings from the heart, tender K08 0670 memories of his childhood, little melodies that anyone could hum and K08 0680 that would make one want to weep. But no. He couldn't appear K08 0690 as a composer now. That glory, craved for so long, was now forbidden K08 0700 to him. Still, just for the ladies, and just for this once, for this K08 0710 one weekend in the country, he would make a little piece out of his K08 0720 melodies. The ladies were delighted and Jean Jacques was applauded. K08 0730 And everyone went to work to learn the parts which he wrote. K08 0740 But then, after the little operetta had been given its feeble K08 0750 amateur rendering, everyone insisted that it was too good to be lost K08 0760 forever, and that the Royal Academy of Music must now have the manuscript K08 0770 in order to give it the really first-rate performance it merited. K08 0780 Rousseau was aware that he must seem like a hypocrite, standing K08 0790 there and arguing that he could not possibly permit a public performance. K08 0800 The ladies especially couldn't understand what troubled him. K08 0810 A contradiction? Bah, what was a contradiction in one's life? K08 0820 Every woman has had the experience of saying no when she meant yes, K08 0830 and saying yes when she meant no. Rousseau had to admit that K08 0840 though he couldn't agree to a public performance, he would indeed, K08 0850 just for his own private satisfaction, dearly love to know how his work K08 0860 would sound when done by professional musicians and by trained voices. K08 0870 "I'd simply like to know if it is as good as you kind people K08 0880 seem to think", he said. Duclos, the historian, pointed K08 0890 out to Jean Jacques that this was impossible. The musicians of the K08 0900 Royal Opera would not rehearse a work merely to see how it would sound. K08 0910 Merely to satisfy the author's curiosity. Rousseau agreed. K08 0920 But he recalled that Rameau had once had a private performance K08 0930 of his opera behind closed doors, just for himself alone. K08 0940 Duclos understood what was bothering Rousseau: that the writer K08 0950 of the Prosopopoeia of Fabricius should now become known as the K08 0960 writer of an amusing little operetta. That would certainly be paradoxical. K08 0970 But Duclos thought he saw a way out. "Let me do the K08 0980 submitting to the Royal Academy", he suggested. "Your name will K08 0990 never appear. No one will even suspect that it is your work". K08 1000 To that Rousseau could agree. But now what crazy twists K08 1010 and turns of his emotions! Afraid at one and the same time K08 1020 that his work might be turned down- which would be a blow to his pride K08 1030 even though no one knew he was the author- and that the work would K08 1040 be accepted, and then that his violent feelings in the matter would K08 1050 certainly betray how deeply concerned he was in spite of himself. And K08 1060 how anxious this lover of obscurity was for applause! And thus torn K08 1070 between his desire to be known as the composer of a successful opera K08 1080 and the necessity of remaining true to his proclaimed desire for anonymity, K08 1090 Rousseau suffered through several painful weeks. All these K08 1100 emotions were screwed up to new heights when, after acceptance and K08 1110 the first rehearsals, there ensued such a buzz of excitement among Parisian K08 1120 music lovers that Duclos had to come running to Rousseau to K08 1130 inform him that the news had reached the superintendent of the King's K08 1140 amusements, and that he was now demanding that the work be offered K08 1150 first at the royal summer palace of Fontainebleau. Imagine the honor K08 1160 of it! "What was your answer"? Jean Jacques asked, K08 1170 striving to appear unimpressed. "I refused", Duclos said. K08 1180 "What else could I do? Monsieur de Cury was incensed, of course. K08 1190 But I said I would first have to get the author's permission. K08 1200 And I was certain he would refuse". How infuriating all K08 1210 this was! Why had not this success come to him before he had plunged K08 1220 into his and before he had committed himself to a life K08 1230 of austerity and denial? Now, when everything was opening up to K08 1240 him- even the court of Louis /15,!- he had to play a role of K08 1250 self-effacement. Back and forth Duclos had to go, between M& K08 1260 de Cury and Jean Jacques and between the Duke d'Aumont and Jean K08 1270 Jacques again, as his little operetta, K08 1280 though still unperformed, took on ever more importance. And K08 1290 of course the news of who the composer was did finally begin to get K08 1300 around among his closest friends. But they, naturally, kept his secret K08 1310 well, and the public at large knew only of a great excitement in musical K08 1320 and court circles. How titillating it was to go among people K08 1330 who did not know him as the composer, but who talked in the most K08 1340 glowing terms of the promise of the piece after having heard the first K08 1350 rehearsals. The furor was such that people who could not possibly have K08 1360 squirmed their way into the rehearsals were pretending that they were K08 1370 intimate with the whole affair and that it would be sensational. And K08 1380 listening to such a conversation one morning while taking a cup of K08 1390 chocolate in a cafe, Rousseau found himself bathed in perspiration, K08 1400 trembling lest his authorship become known, and at the same time dreaming K08 1410 of the startling effect he would make if he should proclaim himself K08 1420 suddenly as the composer. He felt himself now, as he himself K08 1430 says in his at a crucial point of his life. And that K08 1440 was why, on the day of the performance, when a carriage from the royal K08 1450 stables called to take him to the palace, he did not bother to shave. K08 1460 On the contrary, he was pleased that his face showed a neglect of K08 1470 several days. Seeing him in that condition, and about to enter K08 1480 the hall where the King, the Queen, the whole royal family and all K08 1490 the members of the highest aristocracy would be present, Grimm and the K08 1500 Abbe Raynal and others tried to stop him. "You can't K08 1510 go in that way"! they cried. "Why not"? Jean Jacques K08 1520 asked. "Who is going to stop me"? "You haven't dressed K08 1530 for the occasion"! they pointed out to him. "I'm K08 1540 dressed as I always am", Rousseau said. "Neither better nor worse". K08 1550 "At home, yes", they argued. "But here you are K08 1560 in the palace. There's the King. And Madame de Pompadour". K08 1570 "If they are here, then surely I have the right to be here", K08 1580 Rousseau said. "And even more right. Since I am the composer"! K08 1590 "But in such a slovenly condition". "What K08 1600 is slovenly about me"? Rousseau asked. "Is it because of my slovenliness K08 1610 that hair grows on my face? Surely it would grow there K08 1620 whether K08 1630 I washed myself or not. A hundred years ago I would have worn K08 1640 a beard with pride. And those without beards would have stood out as K08 1650 not dressed for the occasion. Now times have changed, and I must pretend K08 1660 that hair doesn't grow on my face. That's the fashion. And K08 1670 fashion is the real king here. Not Louis /15,, since even he obeys. K08 1680 Now, if you don't mind, I should like to hear my own piece performed". K08 1690 But of course behind his boldness he didn't feel bold K08 1700 at all. He trembled lest his piece should fail. And this in addition K08 1710 to his usual fear of being among people of high society. His fear K08 1720 of making some inane or inappropriate remark. And even deeper than K08 1730 that: his fear lest in this closed hall he should suddenly itch to K08 1740 relieve himself. Could he walk out in the midst of his piece? Here, K08 1750 before the court? Before the King? K09 0010 It was the first time any of us had laughed since the morning began. K09 0020 ## The rider from Concord was as good as his word. He came spurring K09 0030 and whooping down the road, his horse kicking up clouds of dust, K09 0040 shouting: "They're a-coming! By God, they're a-coming, K09 0050 they are"! We heard him before he ever showed, and we K09 0060 heard him yelling after he was out of sight. Solomon Chandler hadn't K09 0070 misjudged the strength of his lungs, not at all. I think you could K09 0080 have heard him a mile away, and he was bursting at every seam with K09 0090 importance. I have observed that being up on a horse changes the whole K09 0100 character of a man, and when a very small man is up on a saddle, he'd K09 0110 like as not prefer to eat his meals there. That's understandable, K09 0120 and I appreciate the sentiment. As for this rider, I never saw K09 0130 him before or afterwards and never saw him dismounted, so whether he stood K09 0140 tall or short in his shoes, I can't say; but I do know that K09 0150 he gave the day tone and distinction. The last thing in the world that K09 0160 resembled a war was our line of farmers and storekeepers and mechanics K09 0170 perched on top of a stone wall, and this dashing rider made us feel K09 0180 a good deal sharper and more alert to the situation. We came K09 0190 down off the wall as if he had toppled all of us, and we crouched behind K09 0200 it. I have heard people talk with contempt about the British regulars, K09 0210 but that only proves that a lot of people talk about things of K09 0220 which they are deplorably ignorant. Whatever we felt about the redcoats, K09 0230 we respected them in terms of their trade, which was killing; and K09 0240 I know that I, myself, was nauseated with apprehension and fear and K09 0250 that my hands were soaking wet where they held my gun. I wanted to wipe K09 0260 my flint, but I didn't dare to, the state my hands were in, just K09 0270 as I didn't dare to do anything about the priming. The gun would K09 0280 fire or not, just as chance willed. I put a lot more trust in my two K09 0290 legs than in the gun, because the most important thing I had learned K09 0300 about war was that you could run away and survive to talk about it. K09 0310 The gunfire, which was so near that it seemed just a piece up the K09 0320 road now, stopped for long enough to count to twenty; and in that K09 0321 brief K09 0330 interval, a redcoat officer came tearing down the road, whipping K09 0340 his horse fit to kill. I don't know whether he was after our rider, K09 0350 who had gone by a minute before, or whether he was simply scouting conditions; K09 0360 but when he passed us by, a musket roared, and he reared his K09 0370 horse, swung it around, and began to whip it back in the direction K09 0380 from which he had come. He was a fine and showy rider, but his skill K09 0390 was wasted on us. From above me and somewhere behind me, a rifle cracked. K09 0400 The redcoat officer collapsed like a punctured bolster, and the K09 0410 horse reared and threw him from the saddle, except that one booted foot K09 0420 caught in the stirrup. Half crazed by the weight dragging, the dust, K09 0430 and the heat, the horse leaped our wall, dashing out the rider's brains K09 0440 against it, and leaving him lying there among us- while the horse K09 0450 crashed away through the brush. It was my initiation to war K09 0460 and the insane symphony war plays; for what had happened on the common K09 0470 was only terror and flight; but this grinning, broken head, not K09 0480 ten feet away from me, was the sharp definition of what my reality had K09 0490 become. And now the redcoats were coming, and the gunfire was K09 0500 a part of the dust cloud on the road to the west of us. I must state K09 0510 that the faster things happened, the slower they happened; the passage K09 0520 and rhythm of time changed, and when I remember back to what happened K09 0530 then, each event is a separate and frozen incident. In my recollection, K09 0540 there was a long interval between the death of the officer and K09 0550 the appearance of the first of the retreating redcoats, and in that interval K09 0560 the dust cloud over the road seems to hover indefinitely. Yet K09 0570 it could not have been more than a matter of seconds, and then the front K09 0580 of the British army came into view. It was only hours since K09 0590 I had last seen them, but they had changed and I had changed. In K09 0600 the very front rank, two men were wounded and staggered along, trailing K09 0610 blood behind them. No drummers here, no pipers, and the red coats K09 0620 were covered with a fine film of dust. They marched with bayonets fixed, K09 0630 and as fixed on their faces was anger, fear, and torment. Rank after K09 0640 rank of them came down the road, and the faces were all the same, K09 0650 and they walked in a sea of dust. "Committeemen, hold your fire! K09 0660 Hold your fire"! a voice called, and what made it even more K09 0661 terrible K09 0670 and unreal was that the redcoat ranks never paused for an instant, K09 0680 only some of them glancing toward the stone wall, from behind which K09 0690 the voice came. The front of their column had already passed K09 0700 us, when another officer came riding down the side of the road, not K09 0710 five paces from where we were. My Cousin Simmons carried a musket, K09 0720 but he had loaded it with bird shot, and as the officer came opposite K09 0730 him, he rose up behind the wall and fired. One moment there was a man K09 0740 in the saddle; the next a headless horror on a horse that bolted through K09 0750 the redcoat ranks, and during the next second or two, we all of K09 0760 us fired into the suddenly disorganized column of soldiers. One moment, K09 0770 the road was filled with disciplined troops, marching four by four K09 0780 with a purpose as implacable as death; the next, a cloud of gun smoke K09 0790 covered a screaming fury of sound, out of which the redcoat soldiers K09 0800 emerged with their bayonets and their cursing fury. In the course K09 0810 of this, they had fired on us; but I have no memory of that. I K09 0820 had squeezed the trigger of my own gun, and to my amazement, it had K09 0830 fired and kicked back into my shoulder with the force of an angry mule; K09 0840 and then I was adding my own voice to the crescendo of sound, hurling K09 0850 more vile language than I ever thought I knew, sobbing and shouting, K09 0860 and aware that if I had passed water before, it was not enough, K09 0870 for my pants were soaking wet. I would have stood there and died K09 0880 there if left to myself, but Cousin Simmons grabbed my arm in his K09 0890 viselike grip and fairly plucked me out of there; and then I came K09 0900 to some sanity and plunged away with such extraordinary speed that I K09 0910 outdistanced Cousin Simmons by far. Everyone else was running. Later K09 0920 we realized that the redcoats had stopped their charge at the wall. K09 0930 Their only hope of survival was to hold to the road and keep marching. K09 0940 ## We tumbled to a stop in Deacon Gordon's cow hole, a low-lying K09 0950 bit of pasture with a muddy pool of water in its middle. A dozen K09 0960 cows mooed sadly and regarded us as if we were insane, as perhaps K09 0970 we were at that moment, with the crazy excitement of our first encounter, K09 0980 the yelling and shooting still continuing up at the road, and the K09 0990 thirst of some of the men, which was so great that they waded into the K09 1000 muddy water and scooped up handfuls of it. Isaac Pitt, one of the K09 1010 men from Lincoln, had taken a musket ball in his belly; and though K09 1020 he had found the strength to run with us, now he collapsed and lay on K09 1030 the ground, dying, the Reverend holding his head and wiping his hot brow. K09 1040 It may appear that we were cruel and callous, but no one had time K09 1050 to spend sympathizing with poor Isaac- except the Reverend. I know K09 1060 that I myself felt that it was a mortal shame for a man to be torn K09 1070 open by a British musket ball, as Isaac had been, yet I also felt K09 1080 relieved and lucky that it had been him and not myself. I was drunk K09 1090 with excitement and the smell of gunpowder that came floating down from K09 1100 the road, and the fact that I was not afraid now, but only waiting K09 1110 to know what to do next. Meanwhile, I reloaded my gun, as the K09 1120 other men were doing. We were less than a quarter of a mile from the K09 1130 road, and we could trace its shape from the ribbon of powder smoke and K09 1140 dust that hung over it. Wherever you looked, you saw Committeemen K09 1150 running across the meadows, some away from the road, some toward it, some K09 1160 parallel to it; and about a mile to the west a cluster of at least K09 1170 fifty militia were making their way in our direction. Cousin K09 1180 Joshua and some others felt that we should march toward Lexington K09 1190 and take up new positions ahead of the slow-moving British column, but K09 1200 another group maintained that we should stick to this spot and this K09 1210 section of road. I didn't offer any advice, but I certainly did not K09 1220 want to go back to where the officer lay with his brains dashed out. K09 1240 Someone said that while we were standing here and arguing about it, K09 1250 the British would be gone; but Cousin Simmons said he had watched K09 1260 them marching west early in the morning, and moving at a much brisker K09 1270 pace it had still taken half an hour for their column to pass, what with K09 1280 the narrowness of the road and their baggage and ammunition carts. K09 1290 While this was being discussed, we saw the militia to the west K09 1300 of us fanning out and breaking into little clusters of two and three K09 1310 men as they approached the road. It was the opinion of some of us that K09 1320 these must be part of the Committeemen who had been in the Battle K09 1330 of the North Bridge, which entitled them to a sort of veteran status, K09 1340 and we felt that if they employed this tactic, it was likely enough K09 1350 the best one. Mattathias Dover said: "It makes sense. If K09 1370 we cluster together, the redcoats can make an advantage out of it, K09 1380 but there's not a blessed thing they can do with two or three of K09 1390 us except chase us, and we can outrun them". That settled it, K09 1400 and we broke into parties of two and three. Cousin Joshua Dover K09 1401 decided K09 1410 to remain with the Reverend and poor Isaac Pitt until life passed away- K09 1420 and he was hurt so badly he did not seem for long in this world. K09 1430 I went off with Cousin Simmons, who maintained that if he didn't K09 1440 see to me, he didn't know who would. "Good heavens, Adam", K09 1450 he said, "I thought one thing you'd have no trouble learning K09 1460 is when to get out of a place". "I learned that now", K09 1470 I said. ## We ran east for about half a mile before we turned back K09 1480 to the road, panting from the effort and soaked with sweat. There K09 1490 was a clump of trees that appeared to provide cover right up to the road, K09 1500 and the shouting and gunfire never slackened. Under the trees, K09 1510 there was a dead redcoat, a young boy with a pasty white skin and K09 1520 a face full of pimples, who had taken a rifle ball directly between the K09 1530 eyes. Three men were around him. They had stripped him of his musket K09 1540 and equipment, and now they were pulling his boots and jacket off. K09 1550 Cousin Simmons grabbed one of them by the shoulder and flung him away. K09 1560 "God's name, what are you to rob the dead with the fight K09 1570 going on"! Cousin Simmons roared. They tried to outface K09 1580 him, but Joseph Simmons was as wide as two average men, and it would K09 1590 have taken braver men than these were to outface him. K10 0010 That summer the gambling houses were closed, despite the threats K10 0020 of Pierre Ameaux, a gaming-card manufacturer. Dancing was no longer K10 0030 permitted in the streets. The Bordel and other places of prostitution K10 0040 were emptied. The slit breeches had to go. Drunkenness was no K10 0050 longer tolerated. In defiance, a chinless reprobate, Jake Camaret, K10 0060 marched down the aisle in St& Peter's one Sunday morning, followed K10 0070 by one of the women from the Bordel, whose dress and walk plainly K10 0080 showed the lack of any shame. Plunking themselves down on the front K10 0090 bench, they turned to smirk at those around them. John's first K10 0100 impulse was to denounce their blasphemy. But the thought occurred K10 0110 that God would want this opportunity used to tell them about Him. Calmly K10 0120 he opened the Bible and read of the woman at the well. He finished K10 0130 the worship service as if there had been no brazen attempt to dishonor K10 0140 God and man. The next morning, as the clock struck nine, K10 0150 he appeared at the Council meeting in the Town Hall and insisted K10 0160 that the couple would have to be punished if the Church was to be respected. K10 0170 "I have told you before, and I tell you again", Monsieur K10 0180 Favre said rudely. "Stick to the preaching of the Gospel"! K10 0190 John stiffened in anger. "That is the answer the ungodly K10 0200 will always make when the Church points its fingers at their sins. K10 0210 I say to you that the Church will ever decry evil"! John's K10 0220 reply was like a declaration of war. Monsieur Favre sat down K10 0230 in his high-backed stall, lips compressed, eyes glinting. Ablard Corne, K10 0240 a short man with a rotunda of stomach, rose. Every eye was on him K10 0250 as he began to speak. "What Master Calvin says is true. K10 0260 How can we have a good city unless we respect morality"? Abel K10 0270 Poupin, a tall man with sunken cheeks and deep-set eyes, got to K10 0280 his feet. "We all know that Jake Camaret and the woman are brazenly K10 0290 living together. It would be well to show the populace how we deal K10 0300 with adulterers". Philibert Berthelier, the son of the famous K10 0310 patriot, disagreed. "Do not listen to that Frenchman. He is throttling K10 0320 the liberty my father gave his life to win"! John K10 0330 was quietly insistent. "There can be no compromise when souls are K10 0340 in jeopardy". A week later the sentence of the Council was K10 0350 carried out: Jake Camaret and the woman were marched naked through K10 0360 the streets past a mocking populace. Before them stalked the beadle, K10 0370 proclaiming as he went, "Thus the Council deals with those who break K10 0380 its laws- adulterers, thieves, murderers, and lewd persons. Let K10 0390 evildoers contemplate their ways, and let every man beware"! ## K10 0400 John's thoughts raced painfully into the past as he read the letter K10 0410 he had just received from his sister Mary. Charles had died two K10 0420 weeks before, in early November, without being reconciled to the Church. K10 0430 The canons, in a body, had tried to force him on his deathbed to K10 0440 let them give him the last rites of the Church, but he had died still K10 0450 proclaiming salvation by faith. Burial had taken place at night in K10 0460 the ground at the public crossroads under the gibbet, so that his enemies K10 0470 could not find his body and have it dug up and burned. The Abbot K10 0480 of St& Eloi, Claude de Mommor, had been a good friend, but not K10 0490 even he thought Charles deserved burial in hallowed ground. John K10 0500 closed his eyes and saw once again the little niche in his mother's K10 0510 bedroom, where she had knelt to tell the good Virgin of her needs. K10 0520 The blue-draped Virgin was still there, but no one knelt before her K10 0530 now. Not even Varnessa; she, too, prayed only to God. For an K10 0540 instant John longed for the sound of the bells of Noyon-la-Sainte, K10 0550 the touch of his mother's hand, the lilt of Charles's voice in the K10 0560 square raftered rooms, his father's bass tones rumbling to the canons, K10 0570 and the sight of the beloved bishop. But he had to follow the light. K10 0580 Unless God expected a man to believe the Holy Scriptures, why K10 0590 had He given them to him? ## The white-clad trees stood like K10 0600 specters in the February night. Snow buried the streets and covered K10 0610 the slanting rooftops, as John trudged toward St& Peter's. A carriage K10 0620 crunched by, its dim lights filtering through the gloom. The K10 0630 sharp wind slapped at him and his feet felt like ice as the snow penetrated K10 0640 the holes of his shoes, his only ones, now patched with folded parchment. K10 0650 The city had recently given him a small salary, but it was not K10 0660 enough to supply even necessities. As he neared the square, a K10 0670 round figure muffled in a long, black cape whisked by. John recognized K10 0680 Ablard Corne and called out a greeting. How grateful he was to such K10 0690 men! There were several on the Council who tried to live like Christians. K10 0700 Despite their efforts, the problems seemed to grow graver K10 0710 all the time. Quickening his steps, John entered the vast church and K10 0720 climbed the tower steps to the bells. Underneath the big one, in the K10 0730 silent moonlight, lay a dead pigeon, and on the smaller bell, the , K10 0740 two gray and white birds slept huddled together in the cold K10 0750 winter air. John leaned upon the stone balustrade. He brushed K10 0760 back his black hair, shoving it under his pastor's cap to keep it K10 0770 from blowing in his eyes. Below the moon-splashed world rolled away K10 0780 to insurmountable white peaks; above him the deep blue sky glittered K10 0790 with stars. He stood very still, his arms at his sides, staring up K10 0800 at the heavens, then down at the blinking lights below. "How K10 0810 long, my Lord? How long? I have never asked for an easy task, K10 0820 but I am weary of the strife". Sleep was difficult these days. K10 0830 Indigestion plagued him. Severe headaches were frequent. Loneliness K10 0840 tore through him like a physical pain whenever he thought of Peter K10 0850 Robert, Nerien, Nicholas Cop, Martin Bucer, and even the compromising K10 0860 Louis du Tillet. An occasional traveler from Italy brought K10 0870 news of Peter Robert, who was now distributing his Bible among the K10 0880 Waldensian peasants. Letters came regularly from Nerien, Nicholas, K10 0890 and Martin. He had Anthony and William to confide in and consult. K10 0900 But William continued to find a bitter joy in smashing images and K10 0910 tearing down symbols sacred to the Old Church. John found it difficult, K10 0920 but he held him in check. And Anthony was busy most of the time K10 0930 courting this girl and that. His easy good looks made him a favorite K10 0940 with the ladies. Geneva, instead of becoming the City of God, K10 0950 as John had dreamed, had in the two years since he had been there, K10 0960 continued to be a godless place where all manner of vice flourished. K10 0970 Refugees poured in, signing the Confession and rules in order to remain, K10 0980 and then disregarding them. Dice rolled, prostitutes plied their K10 0990 trade, thieves stole, murderers stabbed, and the ungodly blasphemed. K10 1000 Catholics who were truly Christians longed for the simple penance of K10 1010 days gone by. Libertines recalled the heroism of the past and demanded: K10 1020 "Are we going to allow the Protestant Pope, Master Calvin, K10 1030 to curtail our liberty? **h Why, oh why, doesn't he stick to preaching K10 1040 the Gospel, instead of meddling in civic affairs, politics, K10 1050 economics, and social issues that are no concern of the Church"? K10 1060 And John's reply was always the same: "Anything that affects K10 1070 souls is the concern of the Church! We will have righteousness"! K10 1080 Tears burned behind his eyes as he prayed and meditated tonight. K10 1090 Unless the confusion cleared, he would not be coming here much K10 1100 longer. Monsieur Favre's threat would become a reality, for he continued K10 1110 to proclaim loudly that the city must rid itself of "that Frenchman". K10 1120 The slow tapping of a cane on the stone steps coming K10 1130 up to the tower interrupted his reverie. Faint at first, the tapping K10 1140 grew until it sounded loud against the wind. Eli Corault! John K10 1150 thought. What is he doing here at this hour? He started down the K10 1160 steps to meet the near-blind preacher, who had been one of the early Gospelers K10 1170 in Paris. "John? Is that you? I came to warn K10 1180 you of a plot"! John stood above him, his face ashen. What K10 1190 now? Slowly, like a man grown old, he took Eli's hand and led K10 1200 him below to the tower study, guiding him to a chair beside the little K10 1210 hearth where a fire still burned. "Plot"? John asked K10 1220 tiredly. "Monsieur Favre just paid me a visit. I went to K10 1230 your rooms, and Anthony told me you were here. Two Anabaptists, Caroli K10 1240 and Benoit, are to challenge you and William to a debate before K10 1250 the Council. It is to be a trap. You know the law: if you lose the K10 1260 debate after accepting a challenge, you will be banished"! K10 1270 "What will be the subject"? "You are to be accused K10 1280 of Arianism to confuse the religious who remain loyal". Anger K10 1290 and fear fused in John. Ever since the fourth century a controversy K10 1300 had raged over the person of Christ. Those who refused to believe K10 1310 that He was the eternal Son of God were termed Arianists. Peter K10 1320 Caroli had come to Geneva, saying that he had been a bishop of the K10 1330 Church of Rome and had been persecuted in Paris for his Reformed faith. K10 1340 He asked to be appointed a preacher. But Michael Sept had unmasked K10 1350 him, revealing he had never been a bishop, but was an Anabaptist, K10 1360 afraid to state his faith, because he knew John Calvin had written K10 1370 a book against their belief that the soul slept after death. So John K10 1380 had refused to agree to his appointment as a preacher, and now Caroli K10 1390 sought revenge. John sighed. "If William agrees, we should K10 1400 insist on a public debate", he said at length. "There K10 1410 is more to the conspiracy. Bern demands that the Lord's Supper be K10 1420 administered here as it used to be, with unleavened bread. Furthermore, K10 1430 Bern decrees that we must do as we are ordered by the Council, K10 1440 preach only the word of God and stop meddling in politics"! K10 1450 "It was always the spirit with Christ; matters such as leavened K10 1460 or unleavened bread are inconsequential. Geneva must remain a sovereign K10 1470 state. We will not yield to the demands of Bern"! The K10 1480 firelight played over Eli's flowing white locks and rugged features. K10 1490 "Monsieur Favre indicated that if I would co-operate, after you K10 1500 and William are banished, following the debate, I will be given a K10 1510 place of influence". "What was your reply to that"? K10 1520 "That I would rather be banished with two such Christians than K10 1530 be made the Chief Syndic"! ## The following morning, as K10 1540 John entered the Place Molard on his way to visit a sick refugee, K10 1550 he had a premonition of danger. Then suddenly a group of men and dogs K10 1560 circled him. He wanted to run, but he knew that if he did, he would K10 1570 be lost. He stood very still, his heart thumping wildly. On the outskirts K10 1580 of the rabble the Camaret brothers and Gaspard Favre shook their K10 1590 fists. "Are you going to comply with the demands of Bern"? K10 1600 the chinless Jake called. "Arianist"! a rowdy with K10 1610 a big blob of a nose roared. "Heretic"! John lifted K10 1620 his hand for silence. "Know this: the ministers will not yield to K10 1630 the demands of Bern". His voice shook a little. Somebody K10 1640 heaved a stone. For an instant John was stunned. When he felt K10 1650 the side of his head, his fingers came away covered with blood. Before K10 1660 he could duck, another stone struck him. And another. "Let K10 1670 him be now"! Pierre Ameaux, the gaming-card manufacturer said, K10 1680 his little pig eyes glaring. "We have taught him a lesson". K10 1690 The crowd moved back and John started dizzily down the hill. Fists K10 1700 pummeled him as he staggered forward. Then he slipped and went K10 1710 down on his hands and knees in the melting snow. At once a bevy of dogs K10 1720 was snapping and snarling around him. One, more horrible than the K10 1730 rest, lunged, growling deep in his throat, his hair bristling. With great K10 1740 difficulty John clambered to his feet and started to run, sweat K10 1750 pouring down his face. K11 0010 Standing in the shelter of the tent- a rejected hospital tent K11 0020 on which the rain now dripped, no longer drumming- Adam watched his K11 0030 own hands touch the objects on the improvised counter of boards laid K11 0040 across two beef barrels. There was, of course, no real need to rearrange K11 0050 everything. A quarter inch this way or that for the hardbake, or K11 0060 the toffee, or the barley sugar, or the sardines, or the bitters, or K11 0070 the condensed milk, or the stationery, or the needles- what could it K11 0080 mean? Adam watched his own hands make the caressing, anxious movement K11 0090 that, when rain falls and nobody comes, and ruin draws close like K11 0100 a cat rubbing against the ankles, has been the ritual of stall K11 0110 vendors, forever. He recognized the gesture. He knew its meaning. K11 0120 He had seen a dry, old, yellowing hand reach out, with that painful K11 0130 solicitude, to touch, to rearrange, to shift aimlessly, some object K11 0140 worth a pfennig. Back in Bavaria he had seen that gesture, and at K11 0150 that sight his heart had always died within him. On such occasions he K11 0160 had not had the courage to look at the face above the hand, whatever K11 0170 face it might be. Now the face was his own. He wondered what K11 0180 expression, as he made that gesture, was on his face. He wondered if K11 0190 it wore the old anxiety, or the old, taut stoicism. But there was no K11 0200 need, he remembered, for his hand to reach out, for his face to show K11 0210 concern or stoicism. It was nothing to him if rain fell and nobody came. K11 0220 Then why was he assuming the role- the gesture and the suffering? K11 0230 What was he expiating? Or was he now taking the role- the gesture K11 0240 and the suffering- because it was the only way to affirm his K11 0250 history and identity in the torpid, befogged loneliness of this land. K11 0260 This was Virginia. He looked out of the tent at the K11 0270 company street. The rain dripped on the freezing loblolly of the street. K11 0280 Beyond that misty gray of the rain, he saw the stretching hutment, K11 0290 low diminutive log cabins, chinked with mud, with doorways a man would K11 0300 have to crouch to get through, with roofs of tenting laid over boughs K11 0310 or boards from hardtack boxes, or fence rails, with cranky chimneys K11 0320 of sticks and dried mud. The chimney of the hut across from him was K11 0330 surmounted by a beef barrel with ends knocked out. In this heavy air, K11 0340 however, that device did not seem to help. The smoke from that chimney K11 0350 rose as sluggishly as smoke from any other, and hung as sadly in the K11 0360 drizzle, creeping back down along the sopping canvas of the roof. K11 0370 Over the door was a board with large, inept lettering: HOME K11 0380 SWEET HOME. This was the hut of Simms Purdew, the hero. K11 0390 The men were huddled in those lairs. Adam knew the names of some. He K11 0400 knew the faces of all, hairy or shaven, old or young, fat or thin, suffering K11 0410 or hardened, sad or gay, good or bad. When they stood about K11 0420 his tent, chaffing each other, exchanging their obscenities, cursing command K11 0430 or weather, he had studied their faces. He had had the need to K11 0440 understand what life lurked behind the mask of flesh, behind the oath, K11 0450 the banter, the sadness. Once covertly looking at Simms Purdew, the K11 0460 only man in the world whom he hated, he had seen the heavy, slack, K11 0470 bestubbled jaw open and close to emit the cruel, obscene banter, and had K11 0480 seen the pale-blue eyes go watery with whisky and merriment, and suddenly K11 0490 he was not seeing the face of that vile creature. He was seeing, K11 0500 somehow, the face of a young boy, the boy Simms Purdew must once K11 0510 have been, a boy with sorrel hair, and blue eyes dancing with gaiety, K11 0520 and the boy mouth grinning trustfully among the freckles. In that K11 0530 moment of vision Adam heard the voice within himself saying: . His K11 0550 heart suddenly opened to joy. He thought that if once, only K11 0560 once, he could talk with Simms Purdew, something about his own life, K11 0570 and all life, would be clear and simple. If Simms Purdew would turn K11 0580 to him and say: "Adam, you know when I was a boy, it was a funny K11 0590 thing happened. Lemme tell you now"- If only Simms K11 0600 Purdew could do that, whatever the thing he remembered and told. It K11 0610 would be a sign for the untellable, and he, Adam, would understand. K11 0620 Now, Adam, in the gray light of afternoon, stared across at the K11 0630 hut opposite his tent, and thought of Simms Purdew lying in there K11 0640 in the gloom, snoring on his bunk, with the fumes of whisky choking the K11 0650 air. He saw the sign above the door of the hut: HOME SWEET HOME. K11 0660 He saw the figure of a man in a poncho coming up the company street, K11 0670 with an armful of wood. It was Pullen James, the campmate K11 0680 of Simms Purdew. He carried the wood, carried the water, did the K11 0690 cooking, cleaning and mending, and occasionally got a kick in the butt K11 0700 for his pains. Adam watched the moisture flow from the poncho. It K11 0710 gave the rubberized fabric a dull gleam, like metal. Pullen James humbly K11 0720 lowered his head, pushed aside the hardtack-box door of the hut, K11 0730 and was gone from sight. Adam stared at the door and remembered K11 0740 that Simms Purdew had been awarded the Medal of Honor for gallantry K11 0750 at Antietam. The street was again empty. The drizzle was K11 0760 slacking off now, but the light was grayer. With enormous interest, K11 0770 Adam watched his hands as they touched and shifted the objects on the K11 0780 board directly before him. Into the emptiness of the street, and his K11 0790 spirit, moved a form. The form was swathed in an army blanket, K11 0800 much patched, fastened at the neck with a cord. From under the shapeless K11 0810 huddle of blanket the feet moved in the mud. The feet wore army K11 0820 shoes, in obvious disrepair. The head was wrapped in a turban and on K11 0830 top of the turban rode a great hamper across which a piece of poncho K11 0840 had been flung. The gray face stared straight ahead in the drizzle. K11 0850 Moisture ran down the cheeks, gathered at the tip of the nose, and at K11 0860 the chin. The figure was close enough now for him to see the nose twitching K11 0870 to dislodge the drop clinging there. The figure stopped and one K11 0880 hand was perilously freed from the hamper to scratch the nose. Then K11 0890 the figure moved on. This was one of the Irish women who had K11 0900 built their own huts down near the river. They did washing. Adam recognized K11 0910 this one. He recognized her because she was the one who, in K11 0920 a winter twilight, on the edge of camp, had once stopped him and reached K11 0930 down her hand to touch his fly. "Slice o' mutton, bhoy"? K11 0940 she had queried in her soft guttural. "Slice o' mutton"? K11 0950 Her name was Mollie. They called her Mollie the Mutton, and laughed. K11 0960 Looking down the street after her, Adam saw that she had again K11 0970 stopped and again removed one hand from the basket. He could not make K11 0980 out, but he knew that again she was scratching her nose. Mollie the K11 0990 Mutton was scratching her nose. The words ran crazily in his K11 1000 head: . K11 1010 Then the words fell into a pattern: "". K11 1040 The pattern would not stop. It came K11 1050 again and again. He felt trapped in that pattern, in the repetition. K11 1060 Suddenly he thought he might weep. "What's the matter with K11 1070 me"? he demanded out loud. He looked wildly around, at the now K11 1080 empty street, at the mud, at the rain. "Oh, what's the matter with K11 1090 me"? he demanded. ## When he had stored his stock in the great K11 1100 oak chest, locked the two big hasps and secured the additional chain, K11 1110 tied the fly of the tent, and picked up the cash box, he moved up K11 1120 the darkening street. He would consign the cash box into the hands of K11 1130 Jed Hawksworth, then stand by while his employer checked the contents K11 1140 and the list of items sold. Then he- Then what? He did K11 1150 not know. His mind closed on that prospect, as though fog had descended K11 1160 to blot out a valley. Far off, in the dusk, he heard voices K11 1170 singing, muffled but strong. In one of the huts a group of men were K11 1180 huddled together, singing. He stopped. He strained to hear. He heard K11 1190 the words: "Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me K11 1200 hide myself in Thee! Let the water and the blood From Thy riven K11 1210 side **h" He thought: . He was standing there, he thought, in Virginia, K11 1230 in the thickening dusk, in a costly greatcoat that had belonged to another K11 1240 Jew. That other Jew, a young man too, had left that greatcoat K11 1250 behind, in a rich house, and marched away. He had crossed the river which K11 1260 now, beyond the woods yonder, was sliding darkly under the mist. K11 1270 He had plunged into the dark woods beyond. He had died there. K11 1280 What had that man, that other young Jew, felt as he stood in the twilight K11 1290 and heard other men, far away, singing together?. Adam K11 1300 thought of the hutments, regiment after regiment, row after row, the K11 1310 thousands of huts, stretching away into the night. He thought of the K11 1320 men, the nameless thousands, huddling in them. He thought of Simms K11 1330 Purdew snoring on his bunk while Pullen James crouched by the hearth, K11 1340 skirmishing an undershirt for lice, and a wet log sizzled. He thought K11 1350 of Simms Purdew, who once had risen at the edge of a cornfield, K11 1360 a K11 1370 maniacal scream on his lips, and swung a clubbed musket like a flail K11 1380 to beat down the swirl of Rebel bayonets about him. He thought K11 1390 of Simms Purdew rising up, fearless in glory. He felt the sweetness K11 1400 of pity flood through him, veining his very flesh. Those men, lying K11 1410 in the huts, they did not know. They did not know who they were or K11 1420 know their own worth. In the pity for them his loneliness was gone. K11 1430 Then he thought of Aaron Blaustein standing in his rich house K11 1440 saying: "God is tired of taking the blame. He is going to let K11 1450 History take the blame for a while". He thought of the old K11 1460 man laughing under the glitter of the great chandelier. He thought: K11 1470 . ## K11 1480 Adam rose from the crouch necessary to enter the hut. He saw Mose K11 1490 squatting by the hearth, breaking up hardtack into a pan. A pot was K11 1500 boiling on the coals. "Done give Ole Buckra all his money"? K11 1510 Mose asked softly. Adam nodded. "Yeah", Mose murmured, K11 1520 "yeah. And look what he done give us". Adam looked K11 1530 at the pot. "What is it"? he asked. "Chicken", Mose K11 1540 said, and theatrically licked his lips. "Gre't big fat chicken, K11 1550 yeah". He licked his lips again. Then: "Yeah. A chicken K11 1560 with six tits and a tail lak a corkscrew. And hit squealed for K11 1570 slop". Mose giggled. "Fooled you, huh? It is the same ole same, K11 1580 tell me hit's name. It is sowbelly with tits on. It is salt po'k. K11 1590 It is salt po'k and skippers. That po'k, it was so full of K11 1600 skippers it would jump and run and not come when you say, 'Hoo-pig'. K11 1610 Had to put my foot on it to hole it down while I cut it up fer K11 1620 the lob-scuse". He dumped the pan of crumbled hardtack into K11 1630 the boiling pot of lobscouse. "Good ole lob-scuse", he mumbled, K11 1640 and stirred the pot. He stopped stirring and looked over his shoulder. K11 1650 "Know what Ole Buckra et tonight"? he demanded. "Know what K11 1660 I had to fix fer Ole Him"? Adam shook his head. K11 1670 "Chicken", Mose said. K12 0010 She was a child too much a part of her environment, too eager to grow K12 0020 and learn and experience. Once, they were at Easthampton for the summer K12 0030 (again, Fritzie said, a good place, even though they were being K12 0031 robbed). K12 0040 One soft evening- that marvelous sea-blessed time when the K12 0050 sun's departing warmth lingers and a smell of spume and wrack haunts K12 0060 everything- Amy had picked herself off the floor and begun to walk. K12 0070 Fritzie was on the couch reading; Laura was sitting in an easy chair K12 0080 about eight feet away. The infant, in white terry-cloth bathrobe, K12 0090 her face intense and purposeful, had essayed a few wobbly steps toward K12 0100 her father. "Y'all wanna walk- walk", he said. Then, gently, K12 0110 he shoved her behind toward Laura. Amy walked- making it halfway K12 0120 across the cottage floor. She lost not a second, picking herself up K12 0130 and continuing her pilgrimage to Laura. Then Laura took her gently K12 0140 and shoved her off again, toward Fritzie: Amy did not laugh- this K12 0150 was work, concentration, achievement. In a few minutes she was making K12 0160 the ten-foot hike unaided; soon she was parading around the house, K12 0170 flaunting her new skill. Some liar's logic, a wisp of optimism K12 0180 as fragile as the scent of tropical blossoms that came through the K12 0190 window (a euphoria perhaps engendered by the pill Fritzie had given K12 0200 her), consoled her for a moment. Amy to be safe, to K12 0210 come back to them- if only to reap that share of life's experiences K12 0220 that were her due, if only to give her parents another chance to do K12 0230 better by her. Through the swathings of terror, she jabbed deceit's K12 0240 sharp point- Amy would be reborn, a new child, with new parents, K12 0250 living under new circumstances. The comfort was short-lived, yet she K12 0260 found herself returning to the assurance whenever her imagination forced K12 0270 images on her too awful to contemplate without the prop of illusion. K12 0271 Gazing at her husband's drugged K12 0280 body, his chest rising and falling in mindless K12 0290 rhythms, she saw the grandeur of his fictional world, that lush K12 0300 garden from which he plucked flowers and herbs. She envied him. She K12 0310 admired him. In the darkness, she saw him stirring. He seemed K12 0320 to be muttering, his voice surprisingly clear. "Y'all should K12 0321 have K12 0330 let me take that money out", Andrus said. "'Nother minute K12 0331 I'd have been fine. Y'all K12 0340 should have let me do it". Laura touched K12 0350 his hand. "Yes, I know, Fritzie. I should have". #TUESDAY# K12 0360 The heat intensified on Tuesday. Southern California gasped K12 0370 and blinked under an autumn hot spell, drier, more enervating, more K12 0380 laden with man's contrived impurities than the worst days of the summer K12 0390 past. It could continue this way, hitting 106 and more in the Valley, K12 0400 Joe McFeeley knew, into October. He and Irvin Moll were sipping K12 0410 coffee at the breakfast bar. Both had been up since 7:00- K12 0411 Irv K12 0420 on the early-morning watch, McFeeley unable to sleep during his four-hour K12 0430 relief. The night before, they had telephoned the Andrus maid, K12 0440 Selena Masters, and she had arrived early, bursting her vigorous K12 0450 presence into the silent house with an assurance that amused McFeeley K12 0460 and confounded Moll. The latter, thanking her for the coffee, had K12 0470 winked and muttered, "Sure 'nuff, honey". Selena was the wrong K12 0480 woman for these crudities. With a hard eye, she informed Moll: "Don't K12 0490 me, officer. I'm only to my husband, K12 0500 understand"? Sergeant Moll understood. The maid was very K12 0510 black and very energetic, trim in a yellow pique uniform. Her speech K12 0520 was barren of southernisms; she was one of Eliot Sparling's neutralized K12 0530 minorities, adopting the rolling ~ and constricted K12 0540 vowels of Los Angeles. Not seeing her dark intelligent face, one K12 0550 would have gauged the voice as that of a Westwood Village matron, ten K12 0560 years out of Iowa. After she had served the detectives coffee and K12 0570 toast (they politely declined eggs, uncomfortable about their tenancy), K12 0580 she settled down with a morning newspaper and began reading the stock K12 0590 market quotations. While she was thus engaged, McFeeley questioned K12 0600 her about her whereabouts the previous day, any recollections she K12 0610 had of people hanging around, of overcurious delivery boys or repairmen, K12 0620 of strange cars cruising the neighborhood. She answered him precisely, K12 0630 missing not a beat in her scrutiny of the financial reports. Selena K12 0640 Masters, Joe realized, was her own woman. She was the only kind K12 0650 of Negro Laura Andrus would want around: independent, unservile, K12 0660 probably charging double what ordinary maids did for housework- and K12 0670 doubly efficient. When the parents emerged from the bedroom K12 0680 a few minutes later, the maid greeted them quietly. "I'm awful sorry K12 0690 about what's happened", Selena said. "Maybe today'll be K12 0700 a good-news day". She charged off to the bedrooms. Moll K12 0701 took his coffee K12 0710 into the nursery. During the night, a phone company technician K12 0720 had deadened the bells and installed red blinkers on the phones. Someone K12 0730 would have to remain in the office continually. McFeeley greeted K12 0740 the parents, then studied his notebook. He wanted to take the mother K12 0750 to headquarters at once and start her on the mug file. "Sleep K12 0760 well"? he asked. Andrus did not answer him. His face was K12 0770 bloated with drugging, redder than normal. The woman had the glassy K12 0780 look of an invalid, as if she had not slept at all. "Oh- we managed", K12 0790 she said. "I'm a little groggy. Did anything happen during K12 0800 the night"? "Few crank calls", McFeeley said. "A K12 0810 couple of tips we're running down- nothing promising. We can K12 0820 expect more of the same. Too bad your number is in the directory". K12 0830 "Didn't occur to me my child would be kidnaped when I had K12 0840 it listed", Andrus muttered. He settled on the sofa with his coffee, K12 0850 warming his hands on the cup, although the room was heavy with heat. K12 0860 The three had little to say to each other. The previous night's K12 0870 horror- the absolute failure, overcast with the intrusions of K12 0880 the press, had left them all with a wan sense of uselessness, of play-acting. K12 0890 Sipping their coffee, discussing the weather, the day's shopping, K12 0900 Fritzie's commitments at the network (all of which he would K12 0910 cancel), they avoided the radio, the morning ~TV news show, even K12 0920 the front page of the , resting on the kitchen K12 0930 bar. KIDNAPER SPURNS RANSOM; AMY STILL MISSING. Once, K12 0940 Andrus walked by it, hastily scanned the bold black headline and K12 0950 the five-column lead of the article (by Duane Bosch, staff correspondent- K12 0960 age not given), and muttered: "We a buncha national celebrities". K12 0970 McFeeley told the parents he would escort them to K12 0980 police headquarters in a half hour. Before that, he wanted to talk to K12 0990 the neighbors. He did not want to bring the Andruses to the station K12 1000 house too early- Rheinholdt had summoned a press conference, and he K12 1010 didn't want them subjected to the reporters again. He could think K12 1020 of nothing else to tell them: no assurances, no hopeful hints at great K12 1030 discoveries that day. When the detective left, Andrus phoned his K12 1040 secretary to cancel his work and to advise the network to get a substitute K12 1050 director for his current project. Mrs& Andrus was talking to K12 1051 the K12 1060 maid, arranging for her to come in every day, instead of the four days K12 1070 she now worked. Outside, only a handful of reporters remained. K12 1080 The bulk of the press corps was covering Rheinholdt's conference. K12 1090 In contrast to the caravan of the previous night, there were only K12 1100 four cars parked across the street. Two men he did not recognize were K12 1110 sipping coffee and munching sweet rolls. He did not see Sparling, or K12 1120 DeGroot, or Ringel, or any of the feverish crew that had so harassed K12 1130 him twelve hours ago. However, the litter remained, augmented by K12 1140 several dozen lunchroom suppers. The street cleaner had not yet been K12 1150 around. One of the reporters called to him: "Anything new, K12 1160 Lieutenant"? And he ignored him, skirting the parked cars and K12 1170 walking up the path to the Skopas house. When McFeeley was halfway K12 1180 to the door, the proprietor emerged- a mountainous, dark man, his K12 1190 head thick with resiny black hair, his eyes like two of the black olives K12 1200 he imported in boatloads. McFeeley identified himself. The master K12 1210 of the house, his nourished face unrevealing, consented to postpone K12 1220 his departure a few minutes to talk to the detective. Inside, K12 1230 as soon as Mr& Skopas had disclosed- in a hoarse whisper- the K12 1240 detective's errand, his family gathered in a huddle, forming a mass K12 1250 of dark flesh on and around a brocaded sofa which stood at one side of K12 1260 a baroque fireplace. Flanked by marble urns and alabaster lamps, they K12 1270 seemed to be posing for a tribal portrait. It was amazing how K12 1280 they had herded together for protection: an enormous matriarch in K12 1290 a quilted silk wrapper, rising from the breakfast table; a gross boy K12 1300 in his teens, shuffling in from the kitchen with a sandwich in his hands; K12 1310 a girl in her twenties, fat and sullen, descending the marble K12 1311 staircase; K12 1320 then all four gathering on the sofa to face the inquisitor. K12 1330 They answered him in monosyllables, nods, occasionally muttering K12 1340 in Greek to one another, awaiting the word from Papa, who restlessly K12 1350 cracked his knuckles, anxious to stuff himself into his white Cadillac K12 1360 and burst off to the freeway. No, they hadn't seen anyone around; K12 1370 no, they didn't know the Andrus family; yes, they had read K12 1380 about the case; yes, they had let some reporters use their phone, K12 1390 but they would no longer. They offered no opinions, volunteered nothing, K12 1400 betrayed no emotions. Studying them, McFeeley could not help make K12 1410 comparison with the Andrus couple. The Skopas people seemed to him K12 1420 of that breed of human beings whose insularity frees them from tragedy. K12 1430 He imagined they were the kind whose tax returns were never examined K12 1440 (if they were, they were never penalized), whose children had no K12 1450 unhappy romances, whose names never knew scandal. The equation was K12 1460 simple: K12 1470 wealth brought them happiness, and their united front to the world K12 1480 was their warning that they meant to keep everything they had, let K12 1490 no one in on the secrets. By comparison, Fritzie and Laura Andrus K12 1500 were quivering fledglings. They possessed no outer fortifications, no K12 1510 hard shells of confidence; they had enough difficulty getting from K12 1520 day to day, let alone having an awful crime thrust upon them. Skopas K12 1530 expressed no curiosity over the case, offered no expression of sympathy, K12 1540 made no move to escort McFeeley to the door. All four remained K12 1550 impacted on the sofa until he had left. He had spoken to Mrs& K12 1560 Emerson the previous day. There remained a family named Kahler, K12 1570 owners of a two-story Tudor-style house on the south side of the Andrus K12 1580 home. Their names had not come up in any discussions with Laura, K12 1590 and he had no idea what they would be like. McFeeley noted the immaculate K12 1600 lawn and gardens: each blade of grass cropped, bright and firm; K12 1610 each shrub glazed with good health. The door was answered K12 1620 by a slender man in his sixties- straight-backed, somewhat clerical K12 1630 in manner, wearing rimless glasses. When Joe identified himself, he K12 1640 nodded, unsmiling, and ushered him into a sedate living room. Mrs& K12 1650 Kahler joined them. She had a dried-out quality- a gray, lean woman, K12 1660 not unattractive. Both were dressed rather formally. The man wore K12 1670 a vest and a tie, the woman had on a dark green dress and three strands K12 1680 of pearls. "Funny thing", Mr& Kahler said, when they K12 1690 were seated, "when I heard you ringing, I figured it was that guy K12 1700 down the block, Hausman". McFeeley looked puzzled. Kahler continued: K12 1710 "I fixed his dog the other day and I guess he's sore, K12 1720 so I expected him to come barging in". Mr& Kahler went on to explain K12 1730 how Hausman's fox terrier had been "making" in his flower K12 1740 beds. The dog refused to be scared off, so Kahler had purchased some K12 1750 small firecrackers. He would lay in wait in the garage, and when the K12 1760 terrier came scratching around, he'd let fly with a cherry bomb. "Scared K12 1770 the hell out of him", Kahler grinned. "I hit him in the K12 1780 ass once". Both grinned at the detective. "Finally, all I needed K12 1790 was to throw a little piece of red wood that looked like a firecracker K12 1800 and that dumb dog would run ki-yi-ing for his life". K13 0010 In the dim underwater light they dressed and straightened up the room, K13 0020 and then they went across the hall to the kitchen. She was intimidated K13 0030 by the stove. He found the pilot light and turned on one of the burners K13 0040 for her. The gas flamed up two inches high. They found the teakettle K13 0050 and put water on to boil and then searched through the icebox. K13 0060 Several sections of a loaf of dark bread; butter; jam; a tiny K13 0070 cake of ice. In their search for what turned out to be the right breakfast K13 0080 china but the wrong table silver, they opened every cupboard door K13 0090 in the kitchen and pantry. While she was settling the teacart, he went K13 0100 back across the hall to their bedroom, opened one of the suitcases, K13 0110 and took out powdered coffee and sugar. She appeared with the teacart K13 0120 and he opened the windows. "Do you want to call Eugene"? K13 0130 He didn't, but it was not really a question, and so he K13 0140 left the room, walked down the hall to the front of the apartment, hesitated, K13 0150 and then knocked lightly on the closed door of the study. A sleepy K13 0160 voice answered. "Le petit dejeuner", Harold said, in K13 0170 an accent that did credit to Miss Sloan, his high-school French teacher. K13 0180 At the same time, his voice betrayed uncertainty about their K13 0190 being here, and conveyed an appeal to whatever is reasonable, peace-loving, K13 0200 and dependable in everybody. Since ordinary breakfast-table K13 0210 conversation was impossible, it was at least something that they were K13 0220 able to offer Eugene the sugar bowl with their sugar in it, and the K13 0230 plate of bread and butter, and that Eugene could return the pitcher K13 0240 of hot milk to them handle first. Eugene put a spoonful of powdered K13 0250 coffee into his cup and then filled it with hot water. Stirring, he K13 0260 said: "I am sorry that my work prevents me from doing anything with K13 0270 you today". They assured him that they did not expect or K13 0280 need to be entertained. Harold put a teaspoonful of powdered coffee K13 0281 in K13 0290 his cup and filled it with hot water, and then, stirring, he sat back K13 0300 in his chair. The chair creaked. Every time he moved or said something, K13 0310 the chair creaked again. Eugene was not entirely silent, K13 0320 or openly rude- unless asking Harold to move to another chair and K13 0330 placing himself in the fauteuil that creaked so alarmingly was an act K13 0340 of rudeness. It went right on creaking under his own considerable weight, K13 0350 and all it needed, Harold thought, was for somebody to fling himself K13 0360 back in a fit of laughter and that would be the end of it. K13 0370 Through the open window they heard sounds below in the street: cartwheels, K13 0380 a tired horse's plodding step, voices. Harold indicated the K13 0390 photograph on the wall and asked what church the stone sculpture was K13 0400 in. Eugene told him and he promptly forgot. They passed the marmalade, K13 0410 the bread, the black-market butter, back and forth. Nothing was said K13 0420 about hotels or train journeys. Eugene offered Harold his K13 0430 car, to use at any time he cared to, and when this offer was not accepted, K13 0440 the armchair creaked. They all three had another cup of coffee. K13 0450 Eugene was in his pajamas and dressing gown, and on his large feet he K13 0460 wore yellow Turkish slippers that turned up at the toes. "Ex-cuse K13 0470 me", he said in Berlitz English, and got up and left them, K13 0480 to bathe and dress. The first shrill ring of the telephone brought K13 0490 Harold out into the hall. He realized that he had no idea where K13 0500 the telephone was. At that moment the bathroom door flew open and K13 0510 Eugene came out, with his face lathered for shaving, and strode down K13 0520 the hall, tying the sash of his dressing gown as he went. The telephone K13 0530 was in the study but the ringing came from the hall. Between the telephone K13 0540 and the wall plug there was sixty feet of cord, and when the K13 0550 conversation came to an end, Eugene carried the instrument with him the K13 0560 whole length of the apartment, to his bathroom, where it rang three K13 0570 more times while he was shaving and in the tub. Before he left the apartment K13 0580 he knocked on their door and asked if there was anything he could K13 0590 do for them. Harold shook his head. "Sabine called a few K13 0600 minutes ago", Eugene said. "She wants you and Barbara to have K13 0610 dinner with her tomorrow night". He handed Harold a key to K13 0620 the front door, and cautioned him against leaving it unlocked while K13 0630 they were out of the apartment. When enough time had elapsed so K13 0640 that there was little likelihood of his returning for something he had K13 0650 forgotten, Harold went out into the hall and stood looking into one K13 0660 room after another. In the room next to theirs was a huge cradle, of K13 0670 mahogany, ornately carved and decorated with gold leaf. It was the K13 0680 most important-looking cradle he had ever seen. Then came their bathroom, K13 0690 and then a bedroom that, judging by the photographs on the walls, K13 0700 must belong to ~Mme Cestre. A young woman who looked like Alix, K13 0710 with her two children. Alix and Eugene on their wedding day. Matching K13 0720 photographs in oval frames of ~Mme Bonenfant and an elderly man K13 0730 who must be Alix's grandfather. ~Mme Vienot, considerably younger K13 0740 and very different. The schoolboy. And a gray-haired man whose K13 0750 glance- direct, lifelike, and mildly accusing- was contradicted by K13 0760 the gilt and black frame. It was the kind of frame that is only put K13 0770 around the photograph of a dead person. Professor Cestre, could it K13 0780 be? With the metal shutters closed, the dining room was so dark K13 0790 that it seemed still night in there. One of the drawing-room shutters K13 0800 was partly open and he made out the shapes of chairs and sofas, which K13 0810 seemed to be upholstered in brown or russet velvet. The curtains K13 0820 were of the same material, and there were some big oil paintings- portraits K13 0830 in the style of Lancret and Boucher. Though, taken K13 0840 individually, the big rooms were, or seemed to be, square, the apartment K13 0850 as a whole formed a triangle. The apex, the study where Eugene slept, K13 0860 was light and bright and airy and cheerful. The window looked out K13 0870 on the Place Redoute- it was the only window of the apartment that K13 0880 did. Looking around slowly, he saw a marble fireplace, a desk, a low K13 0890 bookcase of mahogany with criss-crossed brass wire instead of glass K13 0900 panes in the doors. The daybed Eugene had slept in, made up now with K13 0910 its dark-brown velours cover and pillows. The portable record player K13 0920 with a pile of classical records beside it. Beethoven's Fifth was K13 0930 the one on top. Da-da-da-dum **h Music could not be Eugene's passion. K13 0940 Besides, the records were dusty. He tried the doors of the bookcase. K13 0950 Locked. The titles he could read easily through the criss-crossed K13 0960 wires: works on theology, astral physics, history, biology, political K13 0970 science. No poetry. No novels. He moved over to the desk and K13 0980 stood looking at the papers on it but not touching anything. The clock K13 0990 on the mantel piece was scandalized and ticked so loudly that he glanced K13 1000 at it over his shoulder and then quickly left the room. #@# K13 1010 THE CONCIERGE CALLED OUT to them as they were passing through K13 1011 the foyer. K13 1020 Her quarters were on the right as you walked into the building, and K13 1030 her small front room was clogged with heavy furniture- a big, round, K13 1040 oak dining table and chairs, a buffet, with a row of unclaimed letters K13 1050 inserted between the mirror and its frame. The suitcases had come K13 1060 while they were out, and had been put in their room, the concierge said. K13 1070 He waited until they were inside the elevator and then said: K13 1080 "Now what do we do"? "Call the Vouillemont, I K13 1090 guess". "I guess". Rather than sit around waiting K13 1100 for the suitcases to be delivered, they had gone sight-seeing. They K13 1110 went to the Flea Market, expecting to find the treasures of Europe, K13 1120 and found instead a duplication of that long double row of booths in K13 1130 Tours. Cheap clothing and junk of every sort, as far as the eye could K13 1140 see. They looked, even so. Looked at everything. Barbara bought K13 1150 some cotton aprons, and Harold bought shoestrings. They had lunch K13 1160 at a sidewalk cafe overlooking the intersection of two broad, busy, K13 1170 unpicturesque streets, and coming home they got lost in the Metro; K13 1180 it took them over an hour to get back to the station where they should K13 1190 have changed, in order to take the line that went to the Place Redoute. K13 1200 It was the end of the afternoon when he took the huge key out of K13 1210 his pocket and inserted it into the keyhole. When he opened the door, K13 1220 there stood Eugene, on his way out of the apartment. He was wearing K13 1230 sneakers and shorts and an open-collared shirt, and in his hand he carried K13 1240 a little black bag. He did not explain where he was going, and K13 1250 they did not ask. Instead, they went on down the hall to their room. K13 1260 "Do you think he could be having an affair"? Barbara asked, K13 1270 as they heard the front door close. "Oh no", Harold K13 1280 said, shocked. "Well, this is France, after all". K13 1290 "I know, but there must be some other explanation. He's probably K13 1300 spending the evening with friends". "And for that he needs K13 1310 a little bag"? They went shopping in the neighborhood, K13 1320 and bought two loaves of bread with the ration coupons they had been given K13 1330 in Blois, and some cheese, and a dozen eggs, and a bag of oranges K13 1340 from a peddler in the Place Redoute- the first oranges they had K13 1350 seen since they landed. They had Vermouth, sitting in front of a cafe. K13 1360 When they got home Harold was grateful for the stillness in the apartment, K13 1370 and thought how, under different circumstances, they might have K13 1380 stayed on here, in these old-fashioned, high-ceilinged rooms that K13 1390 reminded him of the Irelands' apartment in the East Eighties. They K13 1400 could have been perfectly happy here for ten whole days. He K13 1410 went down the hall to Eugene's bathroom, to turn on the hot-water K13 1420 heater, and on the side of the tub he saw a pair of blue wool swimming K13 1430 trunks. He felt them. They were damp. He reached out and felt the K13 1440 bath towel hanging on the towel rack over the tub. Damp also. He looked K13 1450 around the room and then called out: "Come here, quick"? K13 1460 "What is it"? Barbara asked, standing in the doorway. "I've K13 1470 solved the mystery of the little bag. There it is **h and there K13 1480 is what was in it. But where do people go swimming in Paris? K13 1490 That boat in the river, maybe". "What boat"? "There's K13 1500 a big boat anchored near the Place de la Concorde, with K13 1510 a swimming pool in it- didn't you notice it? But if he has time K13 1520 to go swimming, he had time to be with us". She looked at K13 1530 him in surprise. "I know", he said, reading her mind. K13 1540 "I don't know what I'm going to do with you". "It's K13 1550 because we are in France", he said, "and know so few people. K13 1560 So something like this matters more than it would at home. Also, K13 1570 he was so nice when he nice". "All because I didn't K13 1580 feel like dancing". "I don't think it was that, really". K13 1590 "Then what was it"? "I don't know. I K13 1600 wish I did. The tweed coat, maybe. The thing about Eugene is that K13 1610 he's very proud". And the thing about hurt feelings, the K13 1620 wet bathing suit pointed out, is that the person who has them is not quite K13 1630 the innocent party he believes himself to be. For instance- what K13 1640 about all those people Harold Rhodes went toward unhesitatingly, K13 1650 as if this were the one moment they would ever have together, their one K13 1660 chance of knowing each other? Fortunately, the embarrassing K13 1670 questions raised by objects do not need to be answered, or we would K13 1680 all have to go sleep in the open fields. And in any case, answers may K13 1690 clarify but they do not change anything. K14 0010 **h he brought with him a mixture of myrrh and aloes, of about a hundred K14 0020 pounds' weight. They took Jesus's body, then, and wrapped it K14 0030 in winding-clothes with the spices; that is how the Jews prepare a K14 0040 body for burial. Listed as present at the Descent were Mary, K14 0050 Mary's sister, Mary Magdalene, John, Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus. K14 0060 Search as he might, he could find no place where the Bible K14 0070 spoke of a moment when Mary could have been alone with Jesus. Mostly K14 0080 the scene was crowded with mourners, such as the dramatic Dell'Arca K14 0090 Lamentation in Bologna, where the grief-stricken spectators had K14 0100 usurped Mary's last poignant moment. In his concept there could K14 0110 be no one else present. His first desire was to create a K14 0120 mother and son alone in the universe. When might Mary have had that K14 0130 moment to hold her child on her lap? Perhaps after the soldiers had K14 0140 laid him on the ground, while Joseph of Arimathea was at Pontius Pilate's K14 0150 asking for Christ's body, Nicodemus was gathering his mixture K14 0160 of myrrh and aloes, and the others had gone home to mourn. Those K14 0170 who saw his finished Pieta would take the place of the biblical witnesses. K14 0180 They would feel what Mary was undergoing. There would be no K14 0190 halos, no angels. These would be two human beings, whom God had chosen. K14 0200 He felt close to Mary, having spent so long concentrating K14 0210 on the beginning of her journey. Now she was intensely alive, anguished; K14 0220 her son was dead. Even though he would later be resurrected, K14 0230 he was at this moment dead indeed, the expression on his face reflecting K14 0240 what he had gone through on the cross. In his sculpture therefore K14 0250 it would not be possible for him to project anything of what Jesus felt K14 0260 for his mother; only what Mary felt for her son. Jesus' inert K14 0270 body would be passive, his eyes closed. Mary would have to carry the K14 0280 human communication. This seemed right to him. It was a relief K14 0290 to shift in his mind to technical problems. Since his Christ was K14 0300 to be life size, how was Mary to hold him on her lap without the relationship K14 0310 seeming ungainly? His Mary would be slender of limb and K14 0320 delicate of proportion, yet she must hold this full-grown man as securely K14 0330 and convincingly as she would a child. There was only one K14 0340 way to accomplish this: by design, by drawing diagrams and sketches K14 0350 in which he probed the remotest corner of his mind for creative ideas K14 0360 to carry his concept. He started by making free sketches to loosen K14 0370 up his thinking so that images would appear on paper. Visually, K14 0380 these approximated what he was feeling within himself. At the same time K14 0390 he started walking the streets, peering at the people passing or shopping K14 0400 at the stalls, storing up fresh impressions of what they looked K14 0410 like, how they moved. In particular he sought the gentle, sweet-faced K14 0420 nuns, with head coverings and veils coming to the middle of their foreheads, K14 0430 remembering their expressions until he reached home and set them K14 0440 down on paper. Discovering that draperies could be designed K14 0450 to serve structural purposes, he began a study of the anatomy of folds. K14 0460 He improvised as he went along, completing a life-size clay figure, K14 0470 then bought yards of an inexpensive material from a draper, wet the K14 0480 lightweight cloth in a basin and covered it over with clay that Argiento K14 0490 brought from the bank of the Tiber, to the consistency of thick K14 0500 mud. No fold could be accidental, each turn of the drapery had to serve K14 0510 organically, to cover the Madonna's slender legs and feet so that K14 0520 they would give substantive support to Christ's body, to intensify K14 0530 her inner turmoil. When the cloth dried and stiffened, he saw what K14 0540 adjustments had to be made. "So that's sculpture", commented K14 0550 Argiento wryly, when he had sluiced down the floor for a week, "making K14 0560 mud pies". Michelangelo grinned. "See, Argiento, K14 0570 if you control the way these folds are bunched, like this, or made to K14 0580 flow, you can enrich the body attitudes. They can have as much tactile K14 0590 appeal as flesh and bone". He went into the Jewish quarter, K14 0600 wanting to draw Hebraic faces so that he could reach a visual understanding K14 0610 of how Christ might have looked. The Jewish section was K14 0620 in Trastevere, near the Tiber at the church of San Francesco a Ripa. K14 0630 The colony had been small until the Spanish Inquisition of 1492 K14 0640 drove many Jews into Rome. Here, for the most part, they were well K14 0650 treated, as a "reminder of the Old Testament heritage of Christianity"; K14 0660 many of their gifted members were prominent in the Vatican K14 0670 as physicians, musicians, bankers. The men did not object to K14 0680 his sketching them while they went about their work, but no one could K14 0690 be persuaded to come to his studio to pose. He was told to ask for K14 0700 Rabbi Melzi at the synagogue on Saturday afternoon. Michelangelo found K14 0710 the rabbi in the room of study, a gentle old man with a white beard K14 0720 and luminous grey eyes, robed in black gabardine with a skullcap on K14 0730 his head. He was reading from the Talmud with a group of men from his K14 0740 congregation. When Michelangelo explained why he had come, Rabbi K14 0750 Melzi replied gravely: "The Bible forbids us to bow down K14 0760 to or to make graven images. That is why our creative people give their K14 0770 time to literature, not to painting or sculpture". "But, K14 0780 Rabbi Melzi, you don't object to others creating works of art"? K14 0790 "Not at all. Each religion has its own tenets". K14 0800 "I am carving a Pieta from white Carrara marble. I wish to make K14 0810 Jesus an authentic Jew. I cannot accomplish this if you will not K14 0820 help me". The rabbi said thoughtfully, "I would not want K14 0830 my people to get in trouble with the Church". "I am working K14 0840 for the Cardinal of San Dionigi. I'm sure he would approve". K14 0850 "What kind of models would you prefer"? "Workmen. K14 0860 In their mid-thirties. Not bulky laborers, but sinewy men. With K14 0870 intelligence. And sensitivity". Rabbi Melzi smiled at K14 0880 him with infinitely old but merry eyes. "Leave me your address. K14 0890 I will send you the best the quarter has to offer". Michelangelo K14 0900 hurried to Sangallo's solitary bachelor room with his sketches, K14 0910 asked the architect to design a stand which would simulate the K14 0920 seated Madonna. Sangallo studied the drawings and improvised a trestle K14 0930 couch. Michelangelo bought some scrap lumber. Together he and Argiento K14 0940 built the stand, covering it with blankets. His first K14 0950 model arrived at dusk. He hesitated for a moment when Michelangelo asked K14 0960 him to disrobe, so Michelangelo gave him a piece of toweling to K14 0970 wrap around his loins, led him to the kitchen to take off his clothes. K14 0980 He then draped him over the rough stand, explained that he was supposed K14 0990 to be recently dead, and was being held on his mother's lap. The K14 1000 model quite plainly thought Michelangelo crazy; only the instructions K14 1010 from his rabbi kept him from bolting. But at the end of the sitting, K14 1020 when Michelangelo showed him the quick, free drawings, with the K14 1030 mother roughed in, holding her son, the model grasped what Michelangelo K14 1040 was after, and promised to speak to his friends **h. He worked for K14 1050 two hours a day with each model sent by the rabbi. Mary presented K14 1060 quite a different problem. Though this sculpture must take place K14 1061 thirty-three K14 1070 years after her moment of decision, he could not conceive K14 1080 of her as a woman in her mid-fifties, old, wrinkled, broken in body and K14 1090 face by labor or worry. His image of the Virgin had always been that K14 1100 of a young woman, even as had his memory of his mother. Jacopo K14 1110 Galli introduced him into several Roman homes. Here he sketched, K14 1120 sitting in their flowing gowns of linen and silk, young girls not yet K14 1130 twenty, some about to be married, some married a year or two. Since K14 1140 the Santo Spirito hospital had taken only men, he had had no experience K14 1150 in the study of female anatomy; but he had sketched the women of K14 1160 Tuscany in their fields and homes. He was able to discern the body K14 1170 lines of the Roman women under their robes. He spent concentrated K14 1180 weeks putting his two figures together: a Mary who would be young K14 1190 and sensitive, yet strong enough to hold her son on her lap; and K14 1200 a Jesus who, though lean, was strong even in death **h a look he remembered K14 1210 well from his experience in the dead room of Santo Spirito. K14 1220 He drew toward the composite design from his meticulously accurate memory, K14 1230 without need to consult his sketches. Soon he was ready K14 1240 to go into a three-dimensional figure in clay. Here he would have free K14 1250 expression because the material could be moved to distort forms. When K14 1260 he wanted to emphasize, or get greater intensity, he added or subtracted K14 1270 clay. Next he turned to wax because there was a similarity of K14 1280 wax to marble in tactile quality and translucence. He respected each K14 1290 of these approach techniques, and kept them in character: his quill K14 1300 drawings had a scratchiness, suggesting skin texture; the clay he used K14 1310 plastically to suggest soft moving flesh, as in an abdomen, in a reclining K14 1320 torso; the wax he smoothed over to give the body surface an K14 1330 elastic pull. Yet he never allowed these models to become fixed in his K14 1340 mind; they remained rough starting points. When carving he was charged K14 1350 with spontaneous energy; too careful or detailed studies in clay K14 1360 and wax would have glued him down to a mere enlarging of his model. K14 1370 The true surge had to be inside the marble itself. Drawing and K14 1380 models were his thinking. Carving was action. #10.# The arrangement K14 1390 with Argiento was working well, except that sometimes Michelangelo K14 1400 could not figure who was master and who apprentice. Argiento had K14 1410 been trained so rigorously by the Jesuits that Michelangelo was unable K14 1420 to change his habits: up before dawn to scrub the floors, whether K14 1430 they were dirty or not; water boiling on the fire for washing laundry K14 1440 every day, the pots scoured with river sand after each meal. K14 1450 "Argiento, this is senseless", he complained, not liking to work K14 1460 on the wet floors, particularly in cold weather. "You're too clean. K14 1470 Scrub the studio once a week. That's enough". "No", K14 1480 said Argiento stolidly. "Every day. Before dawn. I was taught". K14 1490 "And God help anyone who tries to unteach you"! K14 1500 grumbled Michelangelo; yet he knew that he had nothing to grumble K14 1510 about, for Argiento made few demands on him. The boy was becoming acquainted K14 1520 with the families that brought produce into Rome. K14 1530 On Sundays he would walk miles into the to visit with K14 1540 them, and in particular to see their horses. The one thing he missed K14 1550 from his farm in the Po Valley was the animals; frequently he would K14 1560 take his leave of Michelangelo by announcing: "Today K14 1570 I go see the horses". It took a piece of bad luck to show K14 1580 Michelangelo that the boy was devoted to him. He was crouched over his K14 1590 anvil in the courtyard getting his chisels into trim, when a splinter K14 1600 of steel flew into his eye and imbedded itself in his pupil. He stumbled K14 1610 into the house, eyes burning like fire. Argiento made him lie K14 1620 down on the bed, brought a pan of hot water, dipped some clean white linen K14 1630 cloth and applied it to extract the splinter. Though the pain was K14 1640 considerable Michelangelo was not too concerned. He assumed he could K14 1650 blink the splinter out. But it would not come. Argiento never left K14 1660 his side, keeping the water boiled, applying hot compresses throughout K14 1670 the night. By the second day Michelangelo began to worry; K14 1680 and by the second night he was in a state of panic: he could see nothing K14 1690 out of the afflicted eye. At dawn Argiento went to Jacopo Galli. K14 1700 Galli arrived with his family surgeon, Maestro Lippi. The surgeon K14 1710 carried a cage of live pigeons. He told Argiento to take a bird K14 1720 out of the cage, cut a large vein under its wing, let the blood gush K14 1730 into Michelangelo's injured eye. The surgeon came back at K14 1740 dusk, cut the vein of a second pigeon, again washed out the eye. K15 0010 Beth was very still and her breath came in small jerking gasps. K15 0020 The thin legs twitched convulsively once, then Kate felt the little K15 0030 body stiffening in her arms and heard one strangled sound. The scant K15 0040 flesh grew cool beneath her frantic hands. The child was gone. K15 0050 When Juanita awoke, Kate was still rocking the dead child, still K15 0060 crooning in disbelief, "No, no, oh, " They put K15 0070 Kate to bed and wired Jonathan and sent for the young Presbyterian K15 0080 minister. He sat beside Kate's bed with the others throughout the K15 0090 morning, talking, talking of God's will, while Kate lay staring angrily K15 0100 at him. When he told her God had called the child to Him, she K15 0110 rejected his words rebelliously. Few of the neighbors came, but K15 0120 Mrs& Tussle came, called by tragedy. "It always comes in K15 0130 threes", she sighed heavily. "Trouble never comes but in threes". K15 0140 They held the funeral the next morning from the crossroads K15 0150 church and buried the little box in the quiet family plot. Kate moved K15 0160 through all the preparations and services in a state of bewilderment. K15 0170 She would not accept the death of such a little child. "God called K15 0180 her to Him", the minister had said. God would not that, K15 0190 Kate thought stubbornly. Jonathan's letter came, as she knew K15 0200 it would, and he had accepted their child's death as another judgment K15 0210 from God against both Kate and himself. In blind panic of grief K15 0220 she accepted Jonathan's dictum, and believed in her desperation that K15 0230 she had been cursed by God. She held Jonathan's letter, his words K15 0240 burning like a brand, and knew suddenly that the bonds between them K15 0250 were severed. She had nothing left but her duty to his land and his K15 0260 son. Joel came and sat mutely with her, sharing her pain and anguish, K15 0270 averting his eyes from the ice packs on her bosom. Juanita and K15 0280 Mrs& Tussle kept Kate in bed a week until her milk dried. When K15 0290 she returned to life in the big house she felt shriveled of all emotion K15 0300 save dedication to duty. She disciplined herself daily to do what K15 0310 must be done. She had even steeled herself to keep Juanita upstairs K15 0320 in the nurse's room off the empty nursery, although the girl tried K15 0330 to insist on moving back to the quarters to spare Kate remembrance of K15 0340 the baby's death. Juanita drooped about the place, wearing K15 0350 a haunted, brooding look, which Kate attributed to the baby's death, K15 0360 until the day a letter came for her addressed to "Miss Juanita Fitzroy", K15 0370 bearing a Grafton postmark. Seeing the slanting hand, Kate K15 0380 knew uneasily that it was from the Yankee colonel. The Federal K15 0390 forces had taken Parkersburg and Grafton from the Rebels and were moving K15 0400 to take all the mountains. Kate tried to contain her curiosity K15 0410 and foreboding at what the letter portended, at what involvement existed K15 0420 for Juanita. Uncle Randolph and Joel had replanted the bottom K15 0430 lands with difficulty, for more of the slaves, including Annie, K15 0440 had sneaked off when the soldiers broke camp. Joel worked like a field K15 0450 hand in the afternoons after school. He had been at lessons in the K15 0460 schoolhouse since they returned from Harpers Ferry. Kate felt she K15 0470 had deserted the boy in her own loss. She loved him and missed his company. K15 0480 Uncle Randolph had been riding out every evening on some K15 0490 secret business of his own. What it was Kate could not fathom. He K15 0500 claimed to be visiting the waterfront saloon at the crossroads to play K15 0510 cards and drink with his cronies, but Kate had not smelled brandy K15 0520 on him since Mrs& Lattimer's funeral. Joel knew what he was about, K15 0530 however. "You're gonna get caught", she heard Joel K15 0540 say to Uncle Randolph by the pump one morning. "Not this old K15 0550 fox", chuckled Uncle Randolph. "Everybody knows I'm just K15 0560 a harmless, deaf old man who takes to drink. I aim to keep a little whisky K15 0570 still back in the ridge for my pleasure". "Whisky still, K15 0580 my foot", said Joel. "You're back there riding with the K15 0590 guerrillas, the Moccasin Rangers". "Hush", said Uncle K15 0600 Randolph, smiling, "or I'll give you another black eye". He K15 0610 patted the eye Joel had had blackened in a fight over being Rebel at K15 0620 the crossroads some days back. Kate had no idea what they were K15 0630 talking of, although she had seen the blue lights and strange fires K15 0640 burning and winking on the ridges at night, had heard horsemen on the K15 0650 River Road and hill trails through the nights till dawn. Stranger, K15 0660 Uncle Randolph began riding home nights with a jug strapped to his saddle, K15 0670 drunkenly singing "Old Dan Tucker" at the top of his voice. K15 0680 Hearing his voice ring raucously up from the road, Kate would await K15 0690 him anxiously and watch perplexed as he walked into the house, cold K15 0700 sober. What he was about became clear to her with the circulation of K15 0710 another broadside proclamation by General McClellan, threatening K15 0720 reprisals against Rebel guerrillas. She was taken up in worry for the K15 0730 reckless old man. Kate drew more and more on her affection for K15 0740 Joel through the hot days of summer work. She had taken him out of K15 0750 the schoolhouse and closed the school for the summer, after she saw K15 0760 Miss Snow crack Joel across the face with a ruler for letting a snake K15 0770 loose in the schoolroom. Kate had walked past the school on her morning K15 0780 chores and had seen the whole incident, had seen Joel's burning K15 0790 humiliation before Miss Snow's cold, bespectacled wrath. He had K15 0800 the hardest pains of growing before him now, as he approached twelve. K15 0810 These would be his hardest years, she knew, and he missed his father K15 0820 desperately. She tried to find some way to draw him out, to K15 0830 help him. Whenever she found time, she went blackberry picking with K15 0840 him, and they would come home together, mouths purple, arms and faces K15 0850 scratched, tired enough to forget grief for another day. He tended the K15 0860 new K15 0870 colts Beau had sired. He helped Kate and Juanita enlarge the flower K15 0880 garden in the side yard, where they sometimes sat in the still evenings K15 0890 watching the last fat bees working against the summer's purple dusk. K15 0900 No one went much to the crossroads now except Uncle Randolph. K15 0910 They stayed in their own world on the bluff, waiting for letters K15 0920 and the peddler, bringing K15 0930 the news. Jonathan wrote grimly of the destruction K15 0940 of Harpers Ferry before they abandoned it; of their first K15 0950 engagement at Falling Waters after Old Jack's First Brigade K15 0960 had destroyed all the rolling stock of the ~B+O Railroad. The men K15 0970 were restive, he wrote, ready to take the battle to the enemy as Jackson K15 0980 wished. The peddler came bawling his wares and told them K15 0990 of the convention in Wheeling, Which had formed a new state government K15 1000 by declaring the government at Richmond in the east illegal because K15 1010 they were traitors. Dangling his gaudy trinkets before them, he told K15 1020 of the Rebel losses in the mountains, at Cheat and Rich mountains K15 1030 both, and the Federal march on Beverly. "Cleaned all them K15 1040 Rebs out'n the hills, they did! They won't never git over inter K15 1050 loyal western Virginia, them traitors! The Federals is making K15 1060 everybody take the oath of loyalty around these parts too", he crowed. K15 1070 After he had gone, Kate asked Uncle Randolph proudly, "Would K15 1080 you take their oath"? And the old man had given a K15 1090 sly and wicked laugh and said, "Hell, yes! I think I've taken K15 1100 it about fifty times already"! winking at Joel's look of shock. K15 1110 Her mother wrote Kate of her grief at the death of Kate's K15 1120 baby and at Jonathan's decision to go with the South "And, dear K15 1130 Kate", she wrote, "poor Dr& Breckenridge's son Robert K15 1140 is now organizing a militia company to go South, to his good father's K15 1150 sorrow. Maj& Anderson of Fort Sumter is home and recruiting volunteers K15 1160 for the U&S& Army. In spite of the fact that the state K15 1170 legislature voted us neutral, John Hunt Morgan is openly flying K15 1180 the Confederate flag over his woolen factory"! Rumor of a K15 1190 big battle spread like a grassfire up the valley. Accounts were garbled K15 1200 at the telegraph office when they sent old George down to Parkersburg K15 1210 for the news. "All dey know down dere is it were at Manassas K15 1220 Junction and it were a fight", the old man told them. K15 1230 In the next few days they had cause to rejoice. It had been K15 1240 a big battle, and the Confederate forces had won. Jonathan and Ben K15 1250 were not on the lists of the dead or on that of the missing. Kate and K15 1260 Mrs& Tussle waited for letters anxiously. Joel went to the crest K15 1270 of a hill behind the house and lit an enormous victory bonfire to celebrate. K15 1280 When Kate hurried in alarm to tell him to put it out, she K15 1290 saw other dots of flames among the western Virginia hills from the few K15 1300 scattered fires of the faithful. They all prayed now that the North K15 1310 would realize that peace must come, for Virginia had defended her land K15 1320 victoriously. The week after Manassas the sound of horses K15 1330 in the yard brought Kate up in shock from an afternoon's rest when K15 1340 she saw the Federal soldiers from her upstairs window. They had already K15 1350 lost most of their corn, she thought. Were they to be insulted again K15 1360 because of the South's great victory? She remembered McClellan's K15 1370 last proclamation as she hurried fearfully down the stairs. K15 1380 At the landing she saw Juanita, her face flushed pink with excitement, K15 1390 run down the hall from the kitchen to the front door. Juanita K15 1400 stopped just inside the open door, her hand to her mouth. As Kate K15 1410 came swiftly down the stairs to the hall she saw Colonel Marsh framed K15 1420 in the doorway, his face set in the same vulnerable look Juanita wore. K15 1430 Kate greeted him gravely, uneasy with misgivings at his visit. K15 1440 "What brings you here again, Colonel Marsh"? she asked, K15 1450 taking him and Juanita into the parlor where the shutters were closed K15 1460 against the afternoon sun. "I stopped to say goodbye, Mrs& K15 1470 Lattimer, and to tell you how sorry I was to hear about your baby. K15 1480 I wish our doctor could have saved her". "It was a terrible K15 1490 loss to me", said Kate quietly, feeling the pain twist again K15 1500 at the mention, knowing now that Juanita must have written to him at K15 1510 Grafton. "Where will you go now that you're leaving Parkersburg"? K15 1520 she asked him, seeing Juanita's eyes grow bleak. "As K15 1530 you know, General McClellan has been occupying Beverly. He has K15 1540 notified me that he has orders to go to Washington to take over the K15 1550 Army of the Potomac. I am to go to Washington to serve with him". K15 1560 "When are you to leave"? Kate asked, watching them both K15 1570 now anxiously. Their eyes betrayed too much of their emotions, she K15 1580 thought sadly. "Tomorrow. Would you permit Juanita to walk K15 1590 about the grounds with me for a short spell, Mrs& Lattimer"? K15 1600 "Stay here in the parlor where it's cool", she said, trying K15 1610 to be calm. It would be better for Joel and Uncle Randolph and K15 1620 Mrs& Tussle not to see them. Kate went back and reminded K15 1630 the kitchen women of the supper preparations. Then she took iced lemonade K15 1640 to Marsh's young aide where he sat in the cool of the big trees K15 1650 around the flower garden. When Marsh called to his aide and the pair K15 1660 rode off down the River Road where the gentians burned blue, Juanita K15 1670 was shaken and trying not to cry. She sought Kate out upstairs, K15 1680 her lips trembling. "He wants me to go with him tomorrow", K15 1690 she told Kate. "What do you want to do"? Kate asked, K15 1700 uneasy at the gravity of the girl's dilemma. "I could go K15 1710 with him. He knows me as your niece, which, of course, I am. But I K15 1720 am a slave! You me. It's your decision", said Juanita, K15 1730 holding her face very still, trying to contain the bitterness of her K15 1740 voice as she enunciated her words too distinctly. "No, the K15 1750 decision is yours. I have held your papers of manumission since I K15 1760 married Mr& Lattimer". K16 0010 The red glow from the cove had died out of the sky. The two in K16 0020 the bed knew each other as old people know the partners with whom they K16 0030 have shared the same bed for many years, and they needed to say no K16 0040 more. The things left unsaid they both felt deeply, and with a sigh they K16 0050 fell back on the well-stuffed pillows. Anita put out the remaining K16 0060 candles with a long snuffer, and in the smell of scented candlewick, K16 0070 the comforting awareness of each other's bodies, the retained pattern K16 0080 of dancers and guests remembered, their minds grew numb and then empty K16 0090 of images. They slept- Mynheer with a marvelously high-pitched K16 0100 snoring, the damn seahorse ivory teeth watching him from a bedside table. K16 0110 ## In the ballroom below, the dark had given way to moonlight K16 0120 coming in through the bank of French windows. It was a delayed moon, K16 0130 but now the sky had cleared of scudding black and the stars sugared K16 0140 the silver-gray sky. Martha Schuyler, old, slow, careful of foot, came K16 0150 down the great staircase, dressed in her best lace-drawn black silk, K16 0160 her jeweled shoe buckles held forward. "Well, I'm here K16 0170 at last", she said, addressing the old portraits on the walls. "I K16 0180 don't hear the music. I am getting deaf, I must admit it". K16 0190 She came to the ballroom and stood on the two carpeted steps that K16 0200 led down to it. "Where is everyone? I say, where is everyone? K16 0210 Peter, you lummox, you've forgot to order the musicians". K16 0220 She stood there, a large old woman, smiling at the things she would K16 0230 say to him in the morning, this big foolish baby of a son. There were K16 0240 times now, like this, when she lost control of the time count and moved K16 0250 freely back and forth into three generations. Was it a birthday ball? K16 0260 When Peter had reached his majority at eighteen? Or was it K16 0270 her own first ball as mistress of this big house, a Van Rensselaer bride K16 0280 from way upstate near Albany, from Rensselaerwyck. And this handsome K16 0290 booby, staring and sweating, was he her bridegroom? Martha K16 0300 picked up the hem of her gown and with eyes closed she slowly began K16 0310 to dance a stately minuet around the ballroom. ## David Cortlandt K16 0320 was tired beyond almost the limits of his flesh. He had ridden K16 0330 hard from Boston, and he was not used to horseback. Now, driving the K16 0340 horse and sulky borrowed from Mynheer Schuyler, he felt as if every K16 0350 bone was topped by burning oil and that every muscle was ready to dissolve K16 0360 into jelly and leave his big body helpless and unable to move. K16 0370 The road leading south along the river was shaded with old trees, K16 0380 and in the moonlight the silvery landscape was like a setting for trolls K16 0390 and wood gods rather than the Hudson River Valley of his boyhood K16 0400 memories. He slapped the reins on the back of the powerful gray horse K16 0410 and held on as the sulky's wheels hit a pothole and came out with K16 0420 a jolt and went on. He would cross to Manhattan, to Harlem Heights, K16 0430 before morning. There a certain farmhouse was a station for the K16 0440 Sons of Liberty. He would send on by trusted messenger the dispatches K16 0450 with their electrifying news. And he would sleep, sleep, and never K16 0460 think of roads and horses' sore haunches, of colonial wars. K16 0470 Strange how everything here fitted back into his life, even if he had K16 0480 been away so long. Mynheer, Sir Francis, the valley society, the very K16 0490 smell of the river on his right purling along to the bay past fish K16 0500 weirs and rocks, and ahead the sleepy ribbon of moon-drenched road. A K16 0510 mist was walking on the water, white as cotton, but with a blending K16 0520 and merging grace. Ahead there was a stirring of sudden movement K16 0530 at a crossroads. David reached for the pair of pistols in the saddlebags K16 0540 at his feet. He pulled out one of them and cocked it. A strange K16 0550 wood creature came floating up from a patch of berry bushes. It was K16 0560 a grotesque hen, five or six feet tall. It had the features of a man K16 0570 bewhiskered by clumps of loose feathers. It ran, this apocalyptic beast, K16 0580 on two thin legs, and its wings- were they feathered arms?- K16 0590 flapped as it ran. Its groin was bloody. Black strips of skin hung K16 0600 from it. The horse shied at the dreadful thing and flared its K16 0610 nostrils. David took a firm hand with it. The creature in feathers K16 0620 looked around and David saw the mad eyes, glazed with an insane fear. K16 0630 The ungainly bird thing ran away, and to David its croaking sounded K16 0640 like the crowing of a tormented rooster. Then it was gone. He drove K16 0650 on, wary and shaken. The Sons were out tonight. #CHAPTER 10# New K16 0660 York lay bleaching in the summer sun, and the morning fish hawk, flying K16 0670 in the heated air, saw below him the long triangular wedge of Manhattan K16 0680 Island. It was thickly settled by fifteen thousand citizens K16 0690 and laid out into pig-infested streets, mostly around the Battery, going K16 0700 bravely north to Wall Street, but giving up and becoming fields K16 0710 and farms in the region of Harlem Heights. From there it looked across K16 0720 at Westchester County and the Hudson River where the manor houses, K16 0730 estates, and big farms of the original (non-Indian) landowners K16 0740 began. On the east side of the island of Manhattan the indifferent K16 0750 hawk knew the East River that connected New York Bay with Long K16 0760 Island Sound. On the western tip of Long Island protruded Brooklyn K16 0770 Heights. It commanded a view over Manhattan and the harbor. K16 0780 A fringe of housing and gardens bearded the top of the heights, and K16 0790 behind it were sandy roads leading past farms and hayfields. Husbandry K16 0800 was bounded by snake-rail fences, and there were grazing cattle. On K16 0810 the shores north and south, the fishers and mooncursers- smugglers- K16 0820 lived along the churning Great South Bay and the narrow barrier K16 0830 of sand, Fire Island. The morning hawk, hungry for any eatable, K16 0840 killable, digestible item, kept his eyes on the ring of anchored ships K16 0850 that lay off the shores in the bay, sheltered by the Jersey inlets. K16 0860 They often threw tidbits overboard. The larger ships were near Paulus K16 0870 Hook, already being called, by a few, Jersey City. These were K16 0880 the ships of His Majesty's Navy, herding the hulks of the East K16 0890 Indies merchants and the yachts and ketches of the loyalists. The K16 0900 news of battle on Breed's Hill had already seeped through, and New K16 0910 York itself was now left in the hands of the local Provincial Congress. K16 0920 The fish hawk, his wings not moving, circled and glided lower. K16 0930 The gilt sterns of the men-of-war becoming clearer to him, the sides K16 0940 of the wooden sea walls alternately painted yellow and black, the bronze K16 0950 cannon at the ports. The captain's gig of H&M&S& K16 0960 was being rowed to H&M&S& . ## On shore K16 0970 "the freed slaves to despotism"- the town dwellers- watched K16 0980 the ships and waited. The , those sharp stakes K16 0990 and barriers around the fort at the Battery, pointed to a conflict between K16 1000 the town and sea power rolling in glassy swells as the tide came K16 1010 in. Across the bay the Palisades were heavy in green timber; their K16 1020 rock paths led down to the Hudson. Below in the open bay facing Manhattan K16 1030 was Staten Island, gritty with clam shells and mud flats behind K16 1040 which nested farms, cattle barns, and berry thickets. Along Wappinger K16 1050 Creek in Dutchess County, past the white church at Fishkill, K16 1060 past Verplanck's Point on the east bank of the Hudson, to the white K16 1070 salt-crusted roads of the Long Island Rockaways there was a watching K16 1080 and an activity of preparing for something explosive to happen. K16 1090 Today, tomorrow, six months, even perhaps a year **h The fish K16 1100 hawk flew on and was lost from sight. The British ships rolled at K16 1110 anchor, sent out picket boats and waited for orders from London. Waited K16 1120 for more ships, more lobster-backed infantry, and asked K16 1130 was to be done with a war of rebellion? ## David Cortlandt, having K16 1140 slept away a day and a night, came awake in a plank farmhouse on K16 1150 the Harlem River near Spuyten Duyvil. He looked out through windowpanes K16 1160 turned a faint violet by sun and weather, looked out at King's K16 1170 Bridge toward Westchester. The road seemed animated with a few more K16 1180 wagons than usual; a carriage raising up the choking June dust, K16 1190 and beyond, in a meadow, a local militia company drilling with muskets, K16 1200 Kentuck' rifles, every kind of horse pistol, old sword, or cutlass. K16 1210 The wraith-like events of the last few days flooded David's K16 1220 mind and he rubbed his unshaved chin and felt again the ache in his K16 1230 kidneys caused by his saddle odyssey from Boston. Pensive, introspective, K16 1240 he ached. He had sent the dispatches downtown to the proper K16 1250 people and had slept. Now there was more to do. Orders not written down K16 1260 had to be transmitted to the local provincial government. He scratched K16 1270 his mosquito-plagued neck. From the saddlebags, hung on K16 1280 a Hitchcock chair, David took out a good English razor, a present from K16 1290 John Hunter. He found tepid water in a pitcher and a last bit of K16 1300 soap, and he lathered his face and stood stropping the razor on his K16 1310 broad leather belt, its buckle held firm by a knob of the bedpost **h. K16 1320 He hoped he was free of self-deception. Here he was, suddenly K16 1330 caught up in the delirium of a war, in the spite and calumny of Whigs K16 1340 and Tories. There would be great need soon for his skill as surgeon, K16 1350 but somehow he had not planned to use his knowledge merely for war. K16 1360 David Cortlandt had certain psychic intuitions that this rebellion K16 1370 was not wholly what it appeared on the surface. He knew that many were K16 1380 using it for their own ends. But it did not matter. He stropped the K16 1390 razor slowly; what mattered was that a new concept of Americans was K16 1400 being born. That some men did not want it he could understand. The K16 1410 moral aridity of merchants made them loyal usually to their ledgers. K16 1420 Yet some, like Morris Manderscheid, would bankrupt themselves for K16 1430 the new ideas. Unique circumstances would test us all, he decided. Injury K16 1440 and ingratitude would occur. No doubt John Hancock would do well K16 1450 now; war was a smugglers' heaven. And what of that poor tarred K16 1460 and feathered wretch he had seen on the road driving down from Schuyler's? K16 1470 Things like that would increase rather than be done away K16 1480 with. One had to believe in final events or one was stranded in the abyss K16 1490 of nothing. He saw with John Hunter now that the perfectability K16 1500 of man was a dream. Life was a short play of tenebrous shadows. David K16 1510 began to shave with great sweeping strokes. Time plays an K16 1520 essential part in our mortality, and suddenly for no reason he could imagine K16 1530 (or admit) the image of Peg laughing filled his mind- so desirable, K16 1540 so lusty, so full of nuances of pleasure and joy. He drove sensual K16 1550 patterns off, carefully shaving his long upper lip. It is harder, K16 1560 he muttered, to meditate on man (or woman) than on God. David K16 1570 finished shaving, washed his face clean of lather, and combed and K16 1580 retied his hair. He was proud that he had never worn a wig. More and K16 1590 more of the colonials were wearing their own hair and not using powder. K16 1600 He felt cheerful again, refreshed; presentable in his wide-cut brown K16 1610 suit, the well-made riding boots. It is so easy to falsify K16 1620 sentiment **h. In the meadow below, militia officers shouted at their K16 1630 men and on King's Bridge two boys sat fishing. The future would K16 1640 happen; he did not have to hurry it by thinking too much. A man could K16 1650 be tossed outside the dimension of time by a stray bullet these days. K16 1660 He began to pack the saddlebags. it came to him out of some dim corner of memory from a church K16 1680 service when he was a boy- yes, in a white church with a thin spur K16 1690 steeple in the patriarchal Hudson Valley, where a feeling of plenitude K16 1700 was normal in those English-Dutch manors with their well-fed squires. K17 0010 Burly leathered men and wrinkled women in drab black rags carried on K17 0020 in a primitive way, almost unchanged from feudal times. Peasants puzzled K17 0030 Andrei. He wondered how they could go on in poverty, superstition, K17 0040 ignorance, with a complete lack of desire to make either their land K17 0050 or their lives flourish. Andrei remembered a Bathyran meeting K17 0060 long ago. Tolek Alterman had returned from the colonies in Palestine K17 0070 and, before the national leadership, exalted the miracles of drying K17 0080 up swamps and irrigating the desert. A fund-raising drive to buy tractors K17 0090 and machinery was launched. Andrei remembered that his own reaction K17 0100 had been one of indifference. Had he found the meaning too K17 0110 late? It aggravated him. The land of the Lublin Uplands was rich, K17 0120 but no one seemed to care. In the unfertile land in Palestine humans K17 0130 broke their backs pushing will power to the brink. He had K17 0140 sat beside Alexander Brandel at the rostrum of a congress of Zionists. K17 0150 All of them were there in this loosely knit association of diversified K17 0160 ideologies, and each berated the other and beat his breast for K17 0170 his own approaches. When Alexander Brandel rose to speak, the hall K17 0180 became silent. "I do not care if your beliefs take you along K17 0190 a path of religion or a path of labor or a path of activism. We are K17 0200 here because all our paths travel a blind course through a thick forest, K17 0210 seeking human dignity. Beyond the forest all our paths merge into K17 0220 a single great highway which ends in the barren, eroded hills of Judea. K17 0230 This is our singular goal. How we travel through the forest is for K17 0240 each man's conscience. Where we end our journey is always the same. K17 0250 We all seek the same thing through different ways- an end to this K17 0260 long night of two thousand years of darkness and unspeakable abuses K17 0270 which will continue to plague us until the Star of David flies over K17 0280 Zion". This was how Alexander Brandel expressed pure Zionism. K17 0290 It had sounded good to Andrei, but he did not believe it. In his K17 0300 heart he had no desire to go to Palestine. He loathed the idea of K17 0310 drying up swamps or the chills of malaria or of leaving his natural birthright. K17 0320 Before he went into battle Andrei had told Alex, "I K17 0330 only want to be a Pole. Warsaw is my city, not Tel Aviv". K17 0340 And now Andrei sat on a train on the way to Lublin and wondered K17 0350 if he was not being punished for his lack of belief. Warsaw! He K17 0360 saw the smug eyes of the Home Army chief, Roman, and all the K17 0361 Romans and K17 0370 the faces of the peasants who held only hatred for him. They had let K17 0380 this black hole of death in Warsaw's heart exist without a cry of K17 0390 protest. Once there had been big glittering rooms where Ulanys K17 0400 bowed and kissed the ladies' hands as they flirted from behind their K17 0410 fans. Warsaw! Warsaw! "Miss Rak. I am a K17 0420 Jew". Day by day, week by week, month by month, the betrayal K17 0430 gnawed at Andrei's heart. He ground his teeth together. I hate K17 0440 Warsaw, he said to himself. I hate Poland and all the goddamned mothers' K17 0450 sons of them. All of Poland is a coffin. The terrible K17 0460 vision of the ghetto streets flooded his mind. What matters now? K17 0470 What is beyond this fog? Only Palestine, and I will never live to K17 0480 see Palestine because I did not believe. By late afternoon K17 0490 the train inched into the marshaling yards in the railhead at Lublin, K17 0500 which was filled with lines of cars poised to pour the tools of war K17 0510 to the Russian front. At a siding, another train which was a K17 0520 familiar sight these days. Deportees. Jews. Andrei's skilled eye K17 0530 sized them up. They were not Poles. He guessed by their appearance K17 0540 that they were Rumanians. He walked toward the center of the K17 0550 city to keep his rendezvous with Styka. Of all the places in Poland, K17 0560 Andrei hated Lublin the most. The Bathyrans were all gone. Few K17 0570 of the native Jews who had lived in Lublin were still in the ghetto. K17 0580 From the moment of the occupation Lublin became a focal point. K17 0590 He and Ana watched it carefully. Lublin generally was the forerunner K17 0600 of what would happen elsewhere. Early in 1939, Odilo Globocnik, K17 0610 the Gauleiter of Vienna, established ~SS headquarters for all K17 0620 of Poland. The Bathyrans ran a check on Globocnik and had only to K17 0630 conclude that he was in a tug of war with Hans Frank and the civilian K17 0640 administrators. Globocnik built the Death's-Head Corps. K17 0650 Lublin was the seed of action for the "final solution" of the Jewish K17 0660 problem. As the messages from Himmler, Heydrich, and Eichmann K17 0670 came in through Alfred Funk, Lublin's fountainhead spouted. K17 0680 A bevy of interlacing lagers, work camps, concentration camps erupted K17 0690 in the area. Sixty thousand Jewish prisoners of war disappeared K17 0700 into Lublin's web. Plans went in and out of Lublin, indicating K17 0710 German confusion. A tale of a massive reservation in the Uplands to K17 0720 hold several million Jews **h A tale of a plan to ship all Jews to K17 0730 the island of Madagascar **h Stories of the depravity of the guards K17 0740 at Globocnik's camps struck a chord of terror at the mere mention K17 0750 of their names. Lipowa 7, Sobibor, Chelmno, Poltawa, Belzec, Krzywy-Rog, K17 0760 Budzyn, Krasnik. Ice baths, electric shocks, lashings, wild K17 0770 dogs, testicle crushers. The Death's-Head Corps took in K17 0780 Ukrainian and Baltic Auxiliaries, and the waded K17 0790 knee-deep in blood and turned into drunken, dope-ridden maniacs. K17 0800 Lublin was their heart. In the spring of 1942 Operation Reinhard K17 0810 began in Lublin. The ghetto, a miniature of Warsaw's, was emptied K17 0820 into the camp in the Majdan-Tartarski suburb called Majdanek. K17 0830 As the camp emptied, it was refilled by a draining of the camps and K17 0840 towns around Lublin, then by deportees from outside Poland. In and K17 0850 in and in they poured through the gates of Majdanek, but they never K17 0860 left, and Majdanek was not growing any larger. What was happening K17 0870 in Majdanek? Was Operation Reinhard the same pattern for the K17 0880 daily trains now leaving the Umschlagplatz in Warsaw? Was there K17 0890 another Majdanek in the Warsaw area, as they suspected? Andrei K17 0900 stopped at Litowski Place and looked around quickly at the boundary K17 0910 of civil buildings. His watch told him he was still early. Down K17 0920 the boulevard he could see a portion of the ghetto wall. He found an K17 0930 empty bench, opened a newspaper, and stretched his legs before him. K17 0940 Krakow Boulevard was filled with black Nazi uniforms and the dirty K17 0950 brownish ones of their Auxiliaries. "Captain K17 0951 Androfski"! K17 0960 Andrei glanced up over the top of the paper and looked into the K17 0970 mustached, homely face of Sergeant Styka. Styka sat beside him and K17 0980 pumped his hand excitedly. "I have been waiting across the street K17 0990 at the post office since dawn. I thought you might get in on a morning K17 1000 train". "It's good to see you again, Styka". K17 1010 Styka studied his captain. He almost broke into tears. To him, Andrei K17 1020 Androfski had always been the living symbol of a Polish officer. K17 1030 His captain was thin and haggard and his beautiful boots were worn K17 1040 and shabby. "Remember to call me Jan", Andrei said. K17 1050 Styka nodded and sniffed and blew his nose vociferously. "When K17 1060 that woman found me and told me that you needed me I was never so happy K17 1070 since before the war". "I'm lucky that you were still K17 1080 living in Lublin". Styka grumbled about fate. "For a time K17 1090 I thought of trying to reach the Free Polish Forces, but one thing K17 1100 led to another. I got a girl in trouble and we had to get married. K17 1110 Not a bad girl. So we have three children and responsibilities. I K17 1120 work at the granary. Nothing like the old days in the army, but I K17 1130 get by. Who complains? Many times I tried to reach you, but I never K17 1140 knew how. I came to Warsaw twice, but there was that damned ghetto K17 1150 wall **h" "I understand". Styka blew his nose K17 1160 again. "Were you able to make the arrangements"? Andrei K17 1170 asked. "There is a man named Grabski who is the foreman in K17 1180 charge of the bricklayers at Majdanek. I did exactly as instructed. K17 1190 I told him you are on orders from the Home Army to get inside Majdanek K17 1200 so you can make a report to the government in exile in London". K17 1210 "His answer"? "Ten thousand zlotys". K17 1220 "Can he be trusted"? "He is aware he will not live K17 1230 for twenty-four hours if he betrays you". "Good man, Styka". K17 1240 "Captain **h Jan **h must you go inside Majdanek? K17 1250 The stories **h Everyone really knows what is happening there". K17 1260 "Not everyone, Styka". "What good will it really K17 1270 do"? "I don't know. Perhaps **h perhaps **h there K17 1280 is a shred of conscience left in the human race. Perhaps if they know K17 1290 the story there will be a massive cry of indignation". "Do K17 1300 you really believe that, Jan"? "I have to believe it". K17 1310 Styka shook his head slowly. "I am only a simple soldier. K17 1320 I cannot think things out too well. Until I was transferred into K17 1330 the Seventh Ulanys I was like every other Pole in my feeling about K17 1340 Jews. I hated you when I first came in. But **h my captain might K17 1350 have been a Jew, but he wasn't a Jew. What I mean is, he was a K17 1360 Pole and the greatest soldier in the Ulanys. Hell, sir. The men of K17 1370 our company had a dozen fights defending your name. You never knew about K17 1380 it, but by God, we taught them respect for Captain Androfski". K17 1390 Andrei smiled. "Since the war I have seen the way K17 1400 the Germans have behaved and I think, Holy Mother, we have behaved K17 1410 like this for hundreds of years. Why"? "How can you K17 1420 tell an insane man to reason or a blind man to see"? "But K17 1430 we are neither blind nor insane. The men of your company would not K17 1440 allow your name dishonored. Why do we let the Germans do this"? K17 1450 "I have sat many hours with this, Styka. All I ever wanted K17 1460 was to be a free man in my own country. I've lost faith, Styka. K17 1470 I used to love this country and believe that someday we'd win our K17 1480 battle for equality. But now I think I hate it very much". K17 1490 "And do you really think that the world outside Poland will care K17 1500 any more than we do"? The question frightened Andrei. K17 1510 "Please don't go inside Majdanek". "I'm still K17 1520 a soldier in a very small way, Styka". It was an answer that K17 1530 Styka understood. Grabski's shanty was beyond the bridge K17 1540 over the River Bystrzyca near the rail center. Grabski sat in a sweat-saturated K17 1550 undershirt, cursing the excessive heat which clamped an uneasy K17 1560 stillness before sundown. He was a square brick of a man with a K17 1570 moon-round face and sunken Polish features. Flies swarmed around the K17 1580 bowl of lentils in which he mopped thick black bread. Half of it dripped K17 1590 down his chin. He washed it down with beer and produced a deep-seated K17 1600 belch. "Well"? Andrei demanded. Grabski K17 1610 looked at the pair of them. He grunted a sort of "yes" answer. "My K17 1620 cousin works at the Labor Bureau. He can make you work papers. K17 1630 It will take a few days. I will get you inside the guard camp as a K17 1640 member of my crew. I don't know if I can get you into the inner camp. K17 1650 Maybe yes, maybe no, but you can observe everything from the roof K17 1660 of a barrack we are building". Grabski slurped his way to the K17 1670 bottom of the soup bowl. "Can't understand why the hell anyone K17 1680 wants to go inside that son-of-a-bitch place". "Orders from K17 1690 the Home Army". "Why? Nothing there but Jews". K17 1700 Andrei shrugged. "We get strange orders". "Well- K17 1710 what about the money"? Andrei peeled off five one-thousand-zloty K17 1720 notes. Grabski had never seen so much money. His broad flat K17 1730 fingers, petrified into massive sausages by years of bricklaying, snatched K17 1740 the bills clumsily. "This ain't enough". "You K17 1750 get the rest when I'm safely out of Majdanek". "I ain't K17 1760 taking no goddamned chances for no Jew business". Andrei K17 1770 and Styka were silent. K18 0010 She was getting real dramatic. I'd have been more impressed K18 0030 if I hadn't remembered that she'd played Hedda Gabler in her K18 0040 highschool dramatics course. I didn't want her back on that broken K18 0050 record. "Nothing's free in the whole goddam world", was K18 0060 all I could think of to say. When I'd delivered myself of that K18 0070 gem there was nothing to do but order up another drink. "I K18 0080 am", she said. I'd forgotten all about Thelma and the Kentucky K18 0090 Derby and how it was Thelma's fifty dollars I was spending. K18 0100 It was just me and Eileen getting drunk together like we used to in K18 0110 the old days, and me staring at her across the table crazy to get my K18 0120 hands on her partly because I wanted to wring her neck because she was K18 0130 so ornery but mostly because she was so wonderful to touch. Drunk K18 0140 or sober she was the most attractive woman in the world for me. I was K18 0150 crazy about her all over again. It was the call of the wild all right. K18 0160 That evening turned out to be hell like all the others. We K18 0170 moved down Broadway from ginmill to ginmill. It was the same old routine. K18 0180 Eileen got to dancing, just a little tiny dancing step to a hummed K18 0190 tune that you could hardly notice, and trying to pick up strange K18 0200 men, but each time I was ready to say to hell with it and walk out she'd K18 0210 pull herself together and talk so understandingly in that sweet K18 0220 husky voice about the good times and the happiness we'd had together K18 0230 and there I was back on the hook. I did have the decency to K18 0240 call up Thelma and tell her I'd met old friends and would be home K18 0250 late. "I could scratch her eyes out", Eileen cried and stamped K18 0260 her foot when I came back from the phone booth. "You know I K18 0270 don't like my men to have other women. I hate it. I hate it". K18 0280 She got so drunk I had to take her home. It was a walk up on K18 0290 Hudson Street. She just about made me carry her upstairs and then K18 0300 she clung to me and wouldn't let me go. There was a man's K18 0310 jacket on the chair and a straw hat on the table. The place smelt of K18 0320 some kind of hair lotion these pimplike characters use. "What about K18 0330 Ballestre"? I had to shake her to make her listen. "Precious. K18 0340 What about him"? Suddenly she was very mysterious and dramatic. K18 0350 "Precious and I allow each other absolute freedom. We are K18 0360 above being jealous. He's used to me bringing home strange men. I'll K18 0370 just tell him you're my husband. He can't object to that". K18 0380 "Well I object. If he pokes his nose in here I'll slug K18 0390 him". "That really would be funny". She began K18 0400 to laugh. She was still laughing when I grabbed her and started rolling K18 0410 her on the bed. After all I'm made of flesh and blood. I'm K18 0420 not a plaster saint. Waking up was horrible. Never in my life K18 0430 have I felt so remorseful about anything I've done as I did about K18 0440 spending that night with my own wife. We both had hangovers. K18 0450 Eileen declared she couldn't lift her head from the pillow. She K18 0460 lay under the covers making jabbing motions with her forefinger telling K18 0470 me where to look for the coffeepot. I was stumbling in my undershirt K18 0480 trying to find my way around her damn kitchenette when I smelt that K18 0490 sickish sweet hairtonic smell. There was somebody else in the apartment. K18 0500 I stiffened. Honest I could feel the hair stand up on the K18 0510 back of my neck like a dog's that is going to get into a fight. I K18 0520 turned around with the percolator in my hand. My eyes were so bleary K18 0530 I could barely see him but there he was, a little smooth olivefaced K18 0540 guy in a new spring overcoat and a taffycolored fedora. Brown eyes, K18 0550 eyebrow mustache. Oval face without an expression in the world. K18 0560 We didn't have time to speak before Eileen's voice was screeching K18 0570 at us from the bed. "Joseph Maria Ballestre meet Francis Xavier K18 0580 Bowman. Exboyfriend meet exhusband". She gave the nastiest laugh K18 0590 I ever heard. "And don't either of you forget that I'm not K18 0600 any man's property. If you want to fight, go down on the sidewalk". K18 0610 She was enjoying the situation. Imagine that. Eileen K18 0620 was a psychologist all right. Instead of wanting to sock the poor bastard K18 0630 I found myself having a fellowfeeling for him. Maybe he felt the K18 0640 same way. I never felt such a lowdown hound in my life. First thing K18 0650 I knew he was in the kitchenette cooking up the breakfast and I was K18 0660 handing Eileen her coffeecup and she was lying there handsome as a K18 0670 queen among her courtiers. I couldn't face Thelma after that K18 0680 night. I didn't even have the nerve to call her on the telephone. K18 0690 I wrote her that I'd met up with Eileen and that old bonds had proved K18 0700 too strong and asked her to send my clothes down by express. Of K18 0710 course I had to give her Eileen's address, but she never came near K18 0720 us. All she did was write me a pleasant little note about how it was K18 0730 beautiful while it lasted but that now life had parted our ways and K18 0740 it was goodbye forever. She never said a word about the fifty dollars. K18 0750 She added a postscript begging me to be careful about drinking. I K18 0760 must know that that was my greatest weakness underlined three times. K18 0770 Afterwards I learned that Eileen had called Thelma on the telephone K18 0780 and made a big scene about Thelma trying to take her husband K18 0790 away. That finished me with Thelma. Trust Eileen to squeeze all the K18 0800 drama out of a situation. And there I was shacked up with Eileen K18 0810 in that filthy fourth floor attic on Hudson Street. I use the K18 0820 phrase advisedly because there was something positively indecent about K18 0830 our relationship. I felt it and it ate on me all the time, but I K18 0840 didn't know how right I was till later. What I did know was K18 0850 that Precious was always around. He slept in the hall bedroom at the K18 0860 head of the stairs. "Who do you think pays the rent? You wouldn't K18 0870 have me throw the poor boy out on the street", Eileen said when K18 0880 I needled her about it. I said sure that was what I wanted her K18 0890 to do but she paid no attention. Eileen had a wonderful way of not listening K18 0900 to things she didn't want to hear. Still I didn't think K18 0910 she was twotiming me with Precious right then. To be on the safe side K18 0920 I never let Eileen get out of my sight day or night. Precious K18 0930 had me worried. I couldn't make out what his racket was. I'd K18 0940 thought him a pimp or procurer but he didn't seem to be. He was smooth K18 0950 and civil spoken but it seemed to me there was something tough under K18 0970 his selfeffacing manner. Still he let Eileen treat him like a valet. K18 0980 Whenever the place was cleaned or a meal served it was Precious K18 0990 who did the work. I never could find out what his business was. K18 1000 He always seemed to have money in his pocket. The phone had been K18 1010 disconnected but telegrams came for him and notes by special messenger. K18 1020 Now and then he would disappear for several days. "Connections" K18 1030 was all he would say with that smooth hurt smile when I put leading K18 1040 questions. "Oh he's just an international spy", Eileen would K18 1050 shout with her screechy laugh. Poor devil he can't have been K18 1060 too happy either. He got no relief from drink because, though sometimes K18 1070 Precious would buy himself a drink if he went out with us in the K18 1080 evening, he'd leave it on the table untouched. When I was in K18 1090 liquor I rode him pretty hard I guess. Occasionally if I pushed K18 1100 him too far he'd give me a look out of narrowed eyes and the hard cruel K18 1110 bony skull would show through that smooth face of his. "Some day", K18 1120 I told Eileen, "that guy will kill us both". She just wouldn't K18 1130 listen. Getting drunk every night was the only way I K18 1140 could handle the situation. Eileen seemed to feel the same way. We still K18 1150 had that much in common. The trouble was drinking cost money. The K18 1160 way Eileen and I were hitting it up, we needed ten or fifteen dollars K18 1170 an evening. Eileen must have wheedled a little out of Precious. K18 1180 I raised some kale by hocking the good clothes I had left over from K18 1190 my respectable uptown life, but when that was gone I didn't have a K18 1200 cent. I don't know what we would have done if Pat O'Dwyer hadn't K18 1210 come to town. Pat O'Dwyer looked like a heavier Jim. K18 1220 He had the same bullet head of curly reddish hair but he didn't have K18 1230 Jim's pokerfaced humor or his brains or his charm. He was a big K18 1240 thick beefy violent man. Now Pat may have been a lecher and a plugugly, K18 1250 but he was a good churchgoing Catholic and he loved his little K18 1260 sister. Those O'Dwyers had that Irish clannishness that made them K18 1270 stick K18 1280 together in spite of politics and everything. Pat took Eileen K18 1290 and me out to dinner at a swell steak house and told us with tears K18 1300 in his eyes how happy he was we had come together again. "Whom God K18 1310 hath joined" etcetera. The O'Dwyers were real religious people K18 1320 except for Kate. Now it would be up to me to keep the little girl K18 1330 out of mischief. Pat had been worried as hell ever since she'd lost K18 1340 her job on that fashion magazine. It had gone big with the Hollywood K18 1350 girls when he told them his sister was an editor of . K18 1360 How about me trying to help her get her job back? All K18 1370 evening Eileen had been as demure as a little girl getting ready K18 1380 for her first communion. It just about blew us both out of the water K18 1390 when Eileen suddenly came out with what she came out with. "But brother K18 1400 I can't take a job right now", she said with her eyes on her K18 1410 ice cream, "I'm going to have a baby, Francis Xavier's baby, K18 1420 my own husband's baby". My first thought was how had it K18 1430 happened so soon, but I counted back on my fingers and sure enough we'd K18 1440 been living together six weeks. Pat meanwhile was bubbling over with K18 1450 sentiment. Greatest thing that ever happened. Now Eileen really K18 1460 would have to settle down to love honor and obey, and she'd have to K18 1470 quit drinking. He'd come East for the christening, by God he would. K18 1480 When we separated that evening Pat pushed a hundred dollar bill K18 1490 into Eileen's hand to help towards a layette. Before he left K18 1500 town Pat saw to it that I was fixed up with a job. Pat had contacts K18 1510 all over the labor movement. A friend of Pat's named Frank Sposato K18 1520 had just muscled into the Portwatchers' Union. The portwatchers K18 1530 were retired longshoremen and small time seafarers off towboats K18 1540 and barges who acted as watchmen on the wharves. Most of them were K18 1550 elderly men. It was responsible and sometimes dangerous work because K18 1560 the thieving is awful in the port of New York. They weren't as K18 1570 well paid as they should have been. One reason the portwatchers let K18 1580 Sposato take them over was to get the protection of his musclemen. K18 1590 Sposato needed a front, some labor stiff with a clean record to K18 1600 act as business agent of the Redhook local. There I was a retired K18 1610 wobbly and structural iron worker who'd never gouged a cent off a fellow K18 1620 worker in my thirty years in the movement. For once radicalism was K18 1630 a recommendation. Sposato couldn't wait to get me hired. K18 1640 With my gray hair and my weatherbeaten countenance I certainly looked K18 1650 the honest working stiff. The things a man will do for a woman. K19 0010 There was one fact which Rector could not overlook, one truth which K19 0020 he could not deny. As long as there were two human beings working together K19 0030 on the same project, there would be competition and you could no K19 0040 more escape it than you could expect to escape the grave. No matter K19 0050 how devoted a man was, no matter how fully he gave his life to the Lord, K19 0060 he could never extinguish that one spark of pride that gave him definition K19 0070 as an individual. All of the jobs in the mission might be equal K19 0080 in the eyes of the Lord, but they were certainly not equal in the K19 0090 eyes of the Lord's servants. It was only natural that Fletcher would K19 0100 strive for a position in which he could make the decisions. K19 0110 Even Rector himself was prey to this spirit of competition and he K19 0120 knew it, not for a more exalted office in the hierarchy of the church- K19 0130 his ambitions for the bishopry had died very early in his career- K19 0140 but for the one clear victory he had talked about to the colonel. He K19 0150 was not sure how much of this desire was due to his devotion to the church K19 0170 and how much was his own ego, demanding to be satisfied, for the two K19 0180 were intertwined and could not be separated. He wanted desperately K19 0190 to see Kayabashi defeated, the Communists in the village rooted out, K19 0200 the mission standing triumphant, for in the triumph of the Lord he K19 0210 himself would be triumphant, too. But perhaps this was a part of the K19 0220 eternal plan, that man's ambition when linked with God would be a driving, K19 0230 indefatigable force for good in the world. He sighed. K19 0240 How foolish it was to try to fathom the truth in an area where only faith K19 0250 would suffice. He would have to work without questioning the motives K19 0260 which made him work and content himself with the thought that the K19 0270 eventual victory, however it was brought about, would be sweet indeed. K19 0280 His first move was to send Hino to the village to spend a few days. K19 0290 His arm had been giving him some trouble and Rector was not enough K19 0300 of a medical expert to determine whether it had healed improperly or K19 0310 whether Hino was simply rebelling against the tedious work in the print K19 0320 shop, using the stiffness in his arm as an excuse. In any event Rector K19 0330 sent him to the local hospital to have it checked, telling him to K19 0340 keep his ears open while he was in the village to see if he could find K19 0350 out what Kayabashi was planning. Hino was elated at the prospect. K19 0360 He was allowed to spend his nights at an inn near the hospital K19 0370 and he was given some extra money to go to the parlor- K19 0380 an excellent place to make contact with the enemy. He left with all K19 0390 the joyous spirit of a child going on a holiday, nodding attentively K19 0400 as Rector gave him his final instructions. He was to get involved in K19 0401 no K19 0410 arguments; he was to try to make no converts; he was simply to listen K19 0420 and report back what he heard. It was a ridiculous situation K19 0430 and Rector knew it, for Hino, frankly partisan, openly gregarious, K19 0440 would make a poor espionage agent. If he wanted to know anything, he K19 0450 would end up asking about it point-blank, but in this guileless manner K19 0460 he would probably receive more truthful answers than if he tried to K19 0470 get them by indirection. In all of his experience in the mission field K19 0480 Rector had never seen a convert quite like Hino. From the moment K19 0490 that Hino had first walked into the mission to ask for a job, any job- K19 0500 his qualifications neatly written on a piece of paper in a precise K19 0510 hand- he had been ready to become a Christian. He had already been K19 0520 studying the Bible; he knew the fundamentals, and after studying K19 0530 with Fletcher for a time he approached Rector, announced that he wanted K19 0540 to be baptized and that was that. Rector had never been able K19 0550 to find out much about Hino's past. Hino talked very little about K19 0560 himself except for the infrequent times when he used a personal illustration K19 0570 in connection with another subject. Putting the pieces of K19 0580 this mosaic together, Rector had the vague outlines of a biography. Hino K19 0590 was the fourth son of an elderly farmer who lived on the coast, in K19 0600 Chiba, and divided his life between the land and the sea, supplementing K19 0610 the marginal livelihood on his small rented farm with seasonal employment K19 0620 on a fishing boat. Without exception Hino's brothers turned K19 0630 to either one or both of their father's occupations, but Hino showed K19 0640 a talent for neither and instead spent most of his time on the beach K19 0650 where he repaired nets and proved immensely popular as a storyteller. K19 0660 He had gone into the Japanese navy, had been trained as an officer, K19 0670 had participated in one or two battles- he never went into detail K19 0680 regarding his military experience- and at the age of twenty-five, K19 0690 quite as a bolt out of the blue, he had walked into the mission as if K19 0700 he belonged here and had become a Christian. Rector was often curious; K19 0710 often tempted to ask questions but he never did. If and when Hino K19 0720 decided to tell him about his experiences, he would do so unasked. K19 0730 Rector had no doubt that Hino would come back from the village K19 0740 bursting with information, ready to impart it with his customary gusto, K19 0750 liberally embellished with his active imagnation. When the telephone K19 0760 rang on the day after Hino went down to the village, Rector had K19 0770 a hunch it would be Hino with some morsel of information too important K19 0780 to wait until his return, for there were few telephones in the village K19 0790 and the phone in Rector's office rarely rang unless it was important. K19 0800 He was surprised to find Kayabashi's secretary on the other K19 0810 end of the line. He was even more startled when he heard what Kayabashi K19 0820 wanted. The was entertaining a group of dignitaries, the K19 0830 secretary said, businessmen from Tokyo for the most part, and Kayabashi K19 0840 wished to show them the mission. They had never seen one before K19 0850 and had expressed a curiosity about it. "Oh"? Rector K19 0860 said. "I guess it will be all right. When would the like K19 0870 to bring his guests up here"? "This afternoon", the K19 0880 secretary said. "At three o'clock if it will be of convenience to K19 0890 you at that time". "All right", Rector said. "I will K19 0900 be expecting them". He was about to hang up the phone, but K19 0910 a note of hesitancy in the secretary's voice left the conversation K19 0920 open. He had something more to say. "I beg to inquire if the back K19 0930 is now safe for travelers", he said. Rector laughed despite K19 0940 himself. "Unless the has been working on it", he said, K19 0950 then checked himself and added: "You can tell Kayabashi- K19 0960 that the back road is in very good condition and will be quite safe for K19 0970 his party to use". "". The secretary K19 0980 sighed with relief and then the telephone clicked in Rector's K19 0990 hand. Rector had no idea why Kayabashi wanted to visit the mission. K19 1000 For the to make such a trip was either a sign of great K19 1010 weakness or an indication of equally great confidence, and from all K19 1020 the available information it was probably the latter. Kayabashi must K19 1030 feel fairly certain of his victory in order to make a visit like this, K19 1040 a trip which could be so easily misinterpreted by the people in the K19 1041 village. K19 1050 At the same time, it was unlikely that any businessmen would spend K19 1060 a day in a Christian mission out of mere curiosity. No, Kayabashi K19 1070 was bringing his associates here for a specific purpose and Rector K19 1080 would not be able to fathom it until they arrived. When he had K19 1090 given the call a few moments thought, he went into the kitchen to ask K19 1100 Mrs& Yamata to prepare tea and for the visitors, using K19 1110 the formal English china and the silver tea service which had been K19 1120 donated to the mission, then he went outside to inspect the grounds. Fujimoto K19 1130 had a pile of cuttings near one side of the lawn. Rector asked K19 1140 him to move it for the time being; he wanted the mission compound K19 1150 to be effortlessly spotless. A good initial impression would be important K19 1160 now. He went into the print shop, where Fletcher had just finished K19 1170 cleaning the press. "How many pamphlets do we have in stock"? K19 1180 Rector said. "I should say about a hundred thousand", K19 1190 Fletcher said. "Why"? "I would like to enact K19 1200 a little tableau this afternoon", Rector said, He explained about K19 1210 the visit and the effect he wished to create, the picture of a very busy K19 1220 mission. He did not wish to deceive Kayabashi exactly, just to display K19 1230 the mission activities in a graphic and impressive manner. Fletcher K19 1240 nodded as he listened to the instructions and said he would arrange K19 1250 the things Rector requested. Rector's next stop was at K19 1260 the schoolroom, where Mavis was monitoring a test. He beckoned to her K19 1270 from the door and she slipped quietly outside. He told her of the visitors K19 1280 and then of his plans. "How many children do you have present K19 1290 today"? he said. She looked back toward the schoolroom. K19 1300 "Fifteen", she said. "No, only fourteen. The little Ito girl K19 1310 had to go home. She has a pretty bad cold". "I would K19 1320 like them to appear very busy today, not busy exactly, but joyous, exuberant, K19 1330 full of life. I want to create the impression of a compound K19 1340 full of children. Do you think you can manage it"? Mavis K19 1350 smiled. "I'll try". As Rector was walking back toward K19 1360 the residential hall, Johnson came out of the basement and bounded up K19 1370 to him. The altercation in the coffee house had done little to dampen K19 1380 his spirits, but he was still a little wary around Rector for they K19 1390 had not yet discussed the incident. "I think I've fixed the pump K19 1400 so we won't have to worry about it for a long time", he said. "I've K19 1410 adjusted the gauge so that the pump cuts out before the water K19 1420 gets too low". "Fine", Rector said. He looked out over K19 1430 the expanse of the compound. It was going to take a lot of activity K19 1440 to fill it. "Have you ever operated a transit"? he said. K19 1450 "No, sir", Johnson said. "You are about to become a K19 1460 first-class surveyor", Rector said. "When Konishi gets back with K19 1470 the jeep, I want you to round up two or three Japanese boys. Konishi K19 1480 can help you. You'll find an old transit in the basement. The K19 1490 glass is out of it, but that won't matter. It looks pretty efficient K19 1500 and that's the important thing". He went on to explain what he K19 1510 had in mind. Johnson nodded. He said he could do it. Rector K19 1520 was warming to his over-all strategy by the time he got back to the residential K19 1530 hall. It was rather a childish game, all in all, but everybody K19 1540 seemed to be getting into the spirit of the thing and he could not K19 1550 remember when he had enjoyed planning anything quite so much. He was K19 1560 not sure what effect it would have, but that was really beside the point K19 1570 when you got right down to it. He was not going to lose the mission K19 1580 by default, and whatever reason Kayabashi had for bringing his little K19 1590 sight-seeing group to the mission, he was going to be in for a surprise. K19 1600 He found Elizabeth in the parlor and asked her to make K19 1610 sure everything was in order in the residential hall, and then to take K19 1620 charge of the office while the party was here. When everything had been K19 1630 done, Rector went back to his desk to occupy himself with his monthly K19 1640 report until three o'clock. At two thirty he sent Fujimoto K19 1650 to the top of the wall at the northeast corner of the mission to K19 1660 keep an eye on the ridge road and give a signal when he first glimpsed K19 1670 the approach of Kayabashi's party. Then Rector, attired in his best K19 1680 blue serge suit, sat in a chair out on the lawn, in the shade of a K19 1690 tree, smoking a cigarette and waiting. The air was cooler here, and the K19 1700 lacy pattern of the trees threw a dappled shadow on the grass, an effect K19 1710 which he found pleasant. K20 0010 She concluded by asking him to name another hour should this one K20 0020 be inconvenient. The fish took the bait. He replied that he K20 0030 could not imagine what importance there might be in thus meeting with K20 0040 a stranger, but- joy of joys, he would be at home at the hour mentioned. K20 0050 But when she called he had thought better of the matter K20 0060 and decided not to involve himself in a new entanglement. She was told K20 0070 by the manservant who opened the door that his lordship was engaged K20 0080 on work from which he had left strict orders he was not to be disturbed. K20 0090 Claire was bitterly disappointed but determined not to let the rebuff K20 0100 daunt her purpose. She wrote again and now, abandoning for the moment K20 0110 the theme of love, she asked for help in the matter of her career. K20 0120 She could act and she could write. His lordship was concerned in the K20 0130 management of Drury Lane but, if there were no opportunities there, K20 0140 would he read and criticize her novel? At last he consented K20 0150 to meet her, and following that brief interview Claire wrote him a K20 0160 yet more remarkable proposal: Have you any objection to the K20 0170 following plan? On Thursday evening we may go out of town together K20 0180 by some stage or mail about the distance of ten or twelve miles. There K20 0190 we shall be free and unknown; we can return the following morning K20 0200 **h She concluded by asking for a brief interview- "to settle K20 0210 with you "- and she threw in a tribute to his "gentle K20 0220 manners" and "the wild originality of your countenance". K20 0230 She opened his reply with trembling fingers **h he agreed! And K20 0240 he would see her that evening. Victory at last! At their K20 0250 meeting he told her not to bother about "where"- he would attend K20 0260 to that. There was one of the new forte-pianos in the room and, as K20 0261 Claire K20 0270 rose to go, he asked her to sing him one song before she left. K20 0280 She sang him Scott's charming ballad "Rosabelle", which was the K20 0290 vogue of the moment. She had never sung better. "Your voice K20 0300 is delightful", he approved with a warm smile. "Tomorrow will K20 0310 be a new experience- I have never before made love to a nightingale K20 0320 **h. There have been cooing doves, chattering magpies, thieving jackdaws, K20 0330 a proud peacock, a silly goose, and a harpy eagle- whom I was K20 0340 silly enough to mate with and who is now busy tearing at my vitals". K20 0350 And so they went, he choosing of all places an inn near Medmenham K20 0360 Abbey, scene a generation ago of the obscene orgies of the Hellfire K20 0370 Club. He regaled Claire with an account of the mock mass performed K20 0380 by the cassocked bloods, which he had had at firsthand from old K20 0390 Bud Dodington, one of the leaders of the so-called "Order". Each K20 0400 wore the monkish scourge at his waist but this, it seems, was not K20 0410 employed for self-flagellation **h. Naked girls danced in the chancel K20 0420 of the Abbey, the youngest and seemingly the most innocent being chosen K20 0430 to read a sermon filled with veiled depravities. The jaded K20 0440 amorist conjured up pictures of the blasphemous rites with relish. Alas, K20 0450 all that belonged to the age of "Devil Dashwood" and "Wicked K20 0460 Wilkes", abbot and beadsman of the Order! The casual seduction K20 0470 of a seventeen-year-old bluestocking seemed tame by comparison. K20 0480 They passed close by the turn to Bishopsgate. A scant half mile K20 0490 away Shelley and Mary were doubtless sitting on their diminutive terrace, K20 0500 the air about them scented with stock, and listening to the nightingale K20 0510 who had nested in the big lime tree at the foot of the garden. Charming K20 0520 and peaceful- but what were charm and peace compared to high adventure? K20 0530 Alone with the fabulous Byron! How many women had longed K20 0540 for the privilege that was hers. How was she to behave, Claire K20 0550 wondered. To be passive, to be girlishly shy was palpably absurd. K20 0560 She was the pursuer as clearly as was Venus in Shakespeare's poem. K20 0570 And while her Adonis did not suffer from inexperience, satiety might K20 0580 well be an equal handicap. No, she would not pretend modesty, but K20 0590 neither must she be crudely bold. Mystery- that was the thing. In K20 0600 the bedroom she would insist on darkness. With his club foot he might K20 0610 well be grateful. At the inn, which was situated close to a K20 0620 broad weir, Byron was greeted by the landlord with obsequious deference K20 0630 and addressed as "milord". The place was evidently a familiar K20 0640 haunt and Claire wondered what other illicit loves had been celebrated K20 0650 in the comfortable rooms to which they were shown. The fire K20 0660 in the sitting room was lighted. "What about the bedroom"? K20 0670 Byron inquired. "Seems to me last time I was here the grate bellowed K20 0680 out smoke as it might have been preparing us for hell". K20 0690 "We found some owls had built a nest in the chimney, milord, but K20 0700 I promise you you'll never have trouble of that sort again". K20 0710 So, not only had he been here before, but it seemed he might well K20 0720 come again. Claire felt suddenly small and cheap, heroine of a trivial K20 0730 episode in the voluminous history of Don Juan. A cold supper K20 0740 was ordered and a bottle of port. When Napoleon's ship had borne K20 0750 him to Elba, French wines had started to cross the Channel, the first K20 0760 shipments in a dozen war-ridden years, but the supplies had not yet K20 0770 reached rural hostelries where the sweet wines of the Spanish peninsula K20 0780 still ruled. As they waited for supper they sat by the K20 0790 fire, glasses in hand, while Byron philosophized as much for his own K20 0800 entertainment as hers. "Sex is overpriced", he said. "The K20 0810 great Greek tragedies are concerned with man against Fate, not K20 0820 man against man for the prize of a woman's body. So don't see yourself K20 0830 as a heroine or fancy this little adventure is an event of major K20 0840 importance". "The gods seemed to think sex pretty important", K20 0850 she rebutted. "Mars and Venus, Bacchus and Ariadne, Jupiter K20 0860 and Io, Byron and the nymph of the owl's nest. That would be K20 0870 Minerva, I suppose. Wasn't the owl her symbol"? Byron K20 0880 laughed. "So you know something of the classics, do you"? K20 0890 "Tell me about Minerva, how she behaved, what she did to please K20 0900 you". "I'll tell you nothing. I don't ask you who 'tis K20 0910 you're being unfaithful to, husband or lover. Frankly, I don't K20 0920 care". For a moment she thought of answering with the truth K20 0930 but she knew there were men who shied away from virginity, who demanded K20 0940 some K20 0950 degree of education in body as well as mind. "Very well", K20 0960 she said, "I'll not catechize you. What matter the others so long K20 0970 as I have my place in history". She was striking the right K20 0980 note. No man ever had a better opinion of himself and indeed, with K20 0990 one so favored, flattery could hardly seem overdone. Brains and beauty, K20 1000 high position in both the social and intellectual worlds, athlete, K20 1010 fabled lover- if ever the world was any man's oyster it was his. K20 1020 The light supper over, Claire went to him and, slipping an arm K20 1030 about his shoulder, sat on his knee. He drew her close and, hand on K20 1040 cheek, turned her face to his. Her lips, moist and parted, spoke his K20 1050 name. "Byron"! His hand went to her shoulder and K20 1060 pushed aside the knotted scarf that surmounted the striped poplin gown; K20 1070 then, to better purpose, he took hold of the knot and with dextrous K20 1080 fingers, untied it. The bodice beneath was buttoned and, withdrawing K20 1090 his lips from hers, he set her upright on his knee and started to K20 1100 undo it, unhurriedly as if she were a child. But, kindled by K20 1110 his kiss, his caressing hand, her desire was aflame. She sprang up and K20 1120 went swiftly to the bedroom. Lord Byron poured himself another glass K20 1130 of wine and held it up to the candle flame admiring the rich color. K20 1140 He drank slowly with due appreciation. It was an excellent vintage. K20 1150 He rose and went to the bedroom. Pausing in the doorway he said: K20 1160 "The form of the human female, unlike her mind and her spirit, K20 1170 is the most challenging loveliness in all nature". ## When Claire K20 1180 returned to Bishopsgate she longed to tell them she had become K20 1190 Byron's mistress. By odd coincidence, on the evening of her return K20 1200 Shelley chose to read , which was the latest of the titled K20 1210 poet's successes. As he declaimed the sonorous measures, it was K20 1220 as much as Claire could do to restrain herself from bursting out with K20 1230 her dramatic tidings. "Although it is not the best of which K20 1240 he is capable", said Shelley as he closed the book, "it is still K20 1250 poetry of a high order". "If he would only leave the East", K20 1260 said Mary. "I am tired of sultans and scimitars". K20 1270 "The hero of his next poem is Napoleon Bonaparte", said Claire, K20 1280 with slightly overdone carelessness. "How do you know that"? K20 1290 demanded Mary. "I was told it on good authority", K20 1300 Claire answered darkly. "I mustn't tell, I mustn't tell", K20 1310 she repeated to herself. "I promised him I wouldn't". #CHAPTER K20 1320 9# WINTER CAME, and with it Mary's baby- a boy as she K20 1330 had wished. William, he was called, in honor of the man who was at once K20 1340 Shelley's pensioner and his most bitter detractor. With a pardonable K20 1350 irony Shelley wrote to the father who had publicly disowned his K20 1360 daughter: "Fanny and Mrs& Godwin will probably be glad K20 1370 to hear that Mary has safely recovered from a very favorable confinement, K20 1380 and that her child is well". At the same time another K20 1390 child- this one of Shelley's brain- was given to the world: K20 1400 , a poem of pervading beauty in which the reader may gaze K20 1410 into the still depths of a fine mind's musings. was published K20 1420 only to be savagely attacked, contemptuously ignored. Shelley K20 1430 sent a copy to Southey, a former friend, and another to Godwin. Neither K20 1440 acknowledged the gift. Only Mary's praise sustained him K20 1450 in his disappointment. She understood completely. Not a thought nor K20 1460 a cadence was missed in her summary of appreciation. "You K20 1470 have made the labor worth while", he said to her, smiling. "And in K20 1480 the future, since I write for a public of one, I can save the poor K20 1490 publishers from wasting their money". "A public of one", K20 1500 Mary echoed reprovingly. "how can you say such a thing? There K20 1510 will be thousands who will thrill to the loveliness of . There K20 1520 are some even now. What about that dear, clever Mr& Thynne? K20 1530 I am sure he is in raptures". "Poor Mr& Thynne, he K20 1540 always has to be trotted out for my encouragement". "There K20 1550 are other Mr& Thynnes. Not everyone is bewitched by Byron's K20 1560 caliphs and harem beauties". Mary's supercritical attitude K20 1570 toward Byron had nothing to do with his moral disrepute. She was resentful K20 1580 of his easy success as compared with Shelley's failure. The K20 1581 same K20 1590 month that was published, Murray sold twenty thousand K20 1600 copies of , a slovenly bit of Byronism that K20 1610 even Shelley's generosity rebelled at. ## The lordly poet was K20 1620 at low-water mark. The careless writing was in keeping with his mood K20 1630 of savage discontent. On all sides doors were being slammed in his K20 1640 face. The previous scandals, gaily diverting as they were, had only K20 1650 served to increase his popularity. Now, under the impact of his wife's K20 1660 disclosures, he was brought suddenly to the realization that there K20 1670 was a limit to tolerance, however brilliant, however far-famed the offender K20 1680 might be. He tried defiance and openly flaunted his devotion K20 1690 to his half sister, but he soon saw, as did she, that this course if persisted K20 1700 in would involve them in a common ruin. For the moment there K20 1710 was no woman in his life, and it was this vacuum that had given Claire K20 1720 her opportunity. But the liaison successfully started in the K20 1730 last days of autumn was now languishing. Byron, since the separation K20 1740 from his wife had been living in a smallish house in Piccadilly Terrace. K20 1750 He refused to bring Claire to it even as an occasional visitor, K20 1760 claiming that his every move was watched by spies of the Milbankes. K21 0010 Beckworth handed the pass to the colonel. He had thought that K21 0020 the suggestion of taking it himself would tip the colonel in the direction K21 0030 of serving his own order, but the slip of paper was folded and absently K21 0040 thrust into the colonel's belt. Despite his yearning, the colonel K21 0050 would not go down to see the men come through the lines. He would K21 0060 remain in the tent, waiting impatiently, occupied by some trivial K21 0070 task. -Beckworth. -Sir? -Fetch me the K21 0080 copies of everything ~B and ~C companies have requisitioned in the K21 0081 last K21 0090 six months. -The last months, sir? -You K21 0100 heard me. There's a lot of waste going on here. It's got to stop. K21 0110 I want to take a look. This is no damned holiday, Beckworth. Get K21 0120 busy. -Yes, sir. Beckworth left the tent. Below K21 0130 he could see the bright torches lighting the riverbank. He glanced back. K21 0140 The colonel crouched tensely on one of the folding chairs, methodically K21 0150 tearing at his thumbnail. #@ 9 @# THE BOMBPROOF was K21 0160 a low-ceilinged structure of heavy timbers covered with earth. It K21 0170 stood some fifty paces from the edge of the bank. From the outside, it K21 0180 seemed no more than a low drumlin, a lump on the dark earth. A crude K21 0190 ladder ran down to a wooden floor. Two slits enabled observers to watch K21 0200 across the river. The place smelled strongly of rank, fertile earth, K21 0210 rotting wood and urine. The plank floor was slimed beneath Watson's K21 0220 boots. At least the Union officer had been decent enough to provide K21 0230 a candle. There was no place to sit, but Watson walked slowly K21 0240 from the ladder to the window slits and back, stooping slightly to avoid K21 0250 striking his head on the heavy beams. In the corner was the soldier K21 0260 with the white flag. He stood stiffly erect, clutching the staff, his K21 0270 body half hidden by the limp cloth. Watson hardly looked at him. The K21 0280 man had come floundering aboard the flat-bottomed barge at the last K21 0290 instant, brandishing the flag of truce. Someone had hauled him over K21 0300 the side, and he had remained silent while they crossed. An officer K21 0310 with a squad of men had been waiting on the bank. The men in the K21 0320 boats had started yelling happily at first sight of the officer, two K21 0330 of them calling him Billy. When the boat had touched, the weaker ones K21 0340 and the two wounded men had been lifted out and carried away by the K21 0360 soldiers. Watson had presented his pouch and been led to the bombproof. K21 0370 The officer had told him that both lists must be checked. Watson K21 0380 had given his name and asked for a safe-conduct pass. The officer, surprised, K21 0390 said he would have to see. Watson had nodded absently and muttered K21 0400 that he would check the lists himself later. He had peered through K21 0410 the darkness at the rampart. The men he would take back across K21 0420 the river stood there, but he turned away from them. He wanted no part K21 0430 of the emotions of the exchange, no memory of the joy and gratitude K21 0440 that other men felt. He had hoped to be alone in the bombproof, but the K21 0450 soldier had followed him. Though Watson carefully ignored the man, K21 0460 he could not deny his presence. Perhaps it would be better to speak K21 0470 to him, since silence could not exorcise his form. Watson glanced briefly K21 0480 at him, seeing only a body rigidly erect behind the languid banner. K21 0490 -We won't be too long. If my pass is approved, I may K21 0500 be a half hour. The soldier answered in a curious, muffled voice, K21 0510 his lips barely moving. Watson turned away and did not see the man's K21 0520 knees buckle and his body sag. -Yes, sir. He K21 0530 had acknowledged the man. It was easier to think now, Watson decided. K21 0540 The stiff figure in the corner no longer blocked his thoughts. He K21 0550 paced slowly, stooping, staring at the damp, slippery floor. He tried K21 0560 to order the words of the three Union officers, seeking to create some K21 0570 coherent portrait of the dead boy. But he groped blindly. His lack K21 0580 of success steadily eroded his interest. He stopped pacing, leaned K21 0590 against the dank, timbered wall and let his mind drift. A feeling of K21 0600 futility, an enervation of mind greater than any fatigue he had ever known, K21 0610 seeped through him. What in the name of God was he doing, crouched K21 0620 in a timbered pit on the wrong bank of the river? Why had he crossed K21 0630 the dark water, to bring back a group of reclaimed soldiers or K21 0640 to skulk in a foul-smelling hole? He grew annoyed and at the K21 0650 same time surprised at that emotion. He was conscious of a growing sense K21 0660 of absurdity. Hillman had written it all out, hadn't he? Wasn't K21 0670 the report official enough? What did he hope to accomplish here? K21 0680 Hillman had ordered him not to leave the far bank. Prompted by K21 0690 a guilty urge, he had disobeyed the order of a man he respected. For K21 0700 what? To tell John something he would find out for himself. K21 0710 The figure in the corner belched loudly, a deep, liquid eruption. Watson K21 0720 snorted and then laughed aloud. Exactly! The soldier's K21 0730 voice was muffled again, stricken with chagrin. He clutched the K21 0731 staff, K21 0740 and his dark eyes blinked apologetically. -'Scuse me, K21 0750 sir. -Let's get out of here. Watson ran up the ladder K21 0760 and stood for a second sucking in the cool air that smelled of mud K21 0770 and river weeds. To his left, the two skiffs dented their sharp bows K21 0780 into the soft bank. The flat-bottomed boat swung slowly to the pull K21 0790 of the current. A soldier held the end of a frayed rope. Three K21 0800 Union guards appeared, carrying their rifles at ready. Watson stared K21 0801 at them K21 0810 curiously. They were stocky men, well fed and clean-shaven, with K21 0820 neat uniforms and sturdy boots. Behind them shambled a long column of K21 0830 weak, tattered men. The thin gray figures raised a hoarse, cawing cry K21 0840 like the call of a bird flock. They moved toward the skiffs with shocking K21 0850 eagerness, elbowing and shoving. Four men were knocked down, but K21 0860 did not attempt to rise. They crept down the muddy slope toward the K21 0870 waiting boats. The Union soldiers grounded arms and settled into healthy, K21 0880 indifferent postures to watch the feeble boarding of the skiffs. K21 0890 The crawling men tried to rise and fell again. No one moved to them. K21 0900 Watson watched two of them flounder into the shallow water and listened K21 0910 to their voices beg shrilly. In a confused, soaked and stumbling K21 0920 shift of bodies and lifting arms, the two men were dragged into the K21 0930 same skiff. The third crawling man forced himself erect. He swayed K21 0940 like a drunkard, his arms milling in slow circles. He paced forward unsteadily, K21 0950 leaning too far back, his head tilted oddly. His steps were K21 0960 short and stiff, and, with his head thrown back, his progress was a K21 0970 supercilious strut. He appeared to be peering haughtily down his nose K21 0980 at the crowded and unclean vessel that would carry him to freedom. He K21 0990 stalked into the water and fell heavily over the side of the flat-bottomed K21 1000 barge, his weight nearly swamping the craft. Watson looked for K21 1010 the fourth man. He had reached the three passive guards; he crept K21 1020 in an incertain manner, patting the ground before him. The guards did K21 1030 not look at him. The figure on the earth halted, seemingly bewildered. K21 1040 He sank back on his thin haunches like a weary hound. Then he began K21 1050 to crawl again. Watson watched the creeping figure. He felt a spectator K21 1060 interest. Would the man make it or not? If only there was a K21 1070 clock for him to crawl against. If he failed to reach the riverbank K21 1080 in five minutes, say, then the skiffs would pull away and leave him groping K21 1090 in the mud. Say three minutes to make it sporting. Still the guards K21 1100 did not move, but stood inert, aloof from the slow-scrambling man. K21 1110 The figure halted, and Watson gasped. The man began to creep in K21 1120 the wrong direction, deceived by a slight rise in the ground! He turned K21 1130 slowly and began to crawl back up the bank toward the rampart. Watson K21 1140 raced for him, his boots slamming the soft earth. The guards K21 1150 came to life with astonishing menace. They spun and flung their rifles K21 1160 up. Watson gesticulated wildly. One man dropped to his knee for K21 1170 better aim. -Let me help him, for the love of God! K21 1180 The guards lowered their rifles and their rifles and peered at Watson K21 1190 with sullen, puzzled faces. Watson pounded to the crawling man and K21 1200 stopped, panting heavily. He reached down and closed his fingers on K21 1210 the man's upper arm. Beneath his clutch, a flat strip of muscle surged K21 1220 on the bone. Watson bent awkwardly and lifted the man to his feet. K21 1230 Watson stared into a cadaverous face. Two clotted balls the color K21 1240 of mucus rolled between fiery lids. Light sticks of fingers, the tips K21 1250 gummy with dark earth, patted at Watson's throat. The man's voice K21 1260 was a sweet, patient whisper. -Henry said that he'd take K21 1270 my arm and get me right there. But you ain't Henry. -No. K21 1280 -It don't matter. Is it far? How far could K21 1290 it be, Watson thought bleakly, how far can a blind man crawl? Another K21 1300 body length or all the rest of his nighted life? -Not K21 1310 far. -You talk deep. Not like us fellas. It raises the voice, K21 1320 bein in camp. You Secesh? -Yes. Come on, now. Can K21 1330 you walk? -Why, course I can. I can walk real good. K21 1340 Watson stumbled down the bank. The man leaned his frail body K21 1350 against Watson's shoulder. He was no heavier than a child. Watson K21 1360 paused for breath. The man wheezed weakly, his fetid breath beating K21 1370 softly against Watson's neck. His sweet whisper came after great effort. K21 1380 -Oh, Christ **h. I wish you was Henry **h. He promised K21 1390 to take me. -Hush. We're almost there. Watson K21 1400 supported the man to the edge of the bank and passed the frail figure K21 1420 over the bow of the nearest skiff. The man swayed on a thwart, turning K21 1430 his ruined eyes from side to side. Watson turned away, sickened for K21 1440 the first time in many months. He heard the patient voice calling. K21 1450 -Henry? Where are you, Henry? -Make him lie K21 1460 down! Watson snatched a deep breath. He had not meant to shout. K21 1470 He stood with his back to the skiff. The men mewed and scratched, K21 1480 begging to be taken away. Watson spoke bewilderedly to the dark night K21 1490 flecked with pine-knot torches. - Intelligence jabbed at him accusingly. K21 1510 He was angry, sickened. He had not felt that during the afternoon. K21 1520 No, nor later. All his emotions had been inward, self-conscious. In K21 1530 war, on a night like this, it was only the outward emotions that mattered, K21 1540 what could be flung out into the darkness to damage others. Yes. K21 1550 That was it. He was sure of it. John's type of man allowed K21 1560 this sort of thing to happen. What a fool he had been to think of K21 1570 his brother! So Charles was dead. What did it matter? His name K21 1580 had been crossed off a list. Already his cool body lay in the ground. K21 1590 What words had any meaning? What had he thought of, to go to John, K21 1600 grovel and beg understanding? To confess with a canvas chair as K21 1610 a , gouging at his heart until a rough and stupid hand bade K21 1620 him rise and go? Men were slaughtered every day, tumbled into eternity K21 1630 like so many torn parcels flung down a portable chute. What made K21 1640 him think John had a right to witness his brother's humiliation? K21 1650 What right had John to any special consideration? Was John better, K21 1660 more deserving? To hell with John. Let him chafe with impatience K21 1670 to see Charles, rip open the note with trembling hands and read K21 1680 the formal report in Hillman's beautiful, schoolmaster's hand. John K21 1690 would curse. He believed that brave boys didn't cry. Watson K21 1700 spat on the ground. He was grimly satisfied. He had stupidly thought K21 1710 himself compelled to ease his brother's pain. Now he knew perfectly K21 1720 that he had but longed to increase his own suffering. K22 0010 I WOULD not want to be one of those writers who begin each K22 0011 morning K22 0020 by exclaiming, "O Gogol, O Chekhov, O Thackeray and Dickens, K22 0030 what would you have made of a bomb shelter ornamented with four K22 0031 plaster-of-Paris ducks, K22 0040 a birdbath, and three composition gnomes with K22 0050 long beards and red mobcaps"? As I say, I wouldn't want to K22 0060 begin a day like this, but I often wonder what the dead would have done. K22 0070 But the shelter is as much a part of my landscape as the beech and K22 0080 horse-chestnut trees that grow on the ridge. I can see it from this K22 0090 window where I write. It was built by the Pasterns, and stands on K22 0100 the acre of ground that adjoins our property. It bulks under a veil of K22 0110 thin, new grass, like some embarrassing fact of physicalness, and I K22 0120 think Mrs& Pastern set out the statuary to soften its meaning. It K22 0130 would have been like her. She was a pale woman. Sitting on her terrace, K22 0140 sitting in her parlor, sitting anywhere, she ground an axe of self-esteem. K22 0150 Offer her a cup of tea and she would say, "Why, these cups K22 0160 look just like a set I gave to the Salvation Army last year". K22 0170 Show her the new swimming pool and she would say, slapping her ankle, K22 0180 "I suppose this must be where you breed your gigantic mosquitoes". K22 0190 Hand her a chair and she would say, "Why, it's a nice imitation K22 0200 of those Queen Anne chairs I inherited from Grandmother Delancy". K22 0210 These trumps were more touching than they were anything else, K22 0220 and seemed to imply that the nights were long, her children ungrateful, K22 0230 and her marriage bewilderingly threadbare. Twenty years ago, she would K22 0240 have been known as a golf widow, and the sum of her manner was perhaps K22 0250 one of bereavement. She usually wore weeds, and a stranger watching K22 0260 her board a train might have guessed that Mr& Pastern was dead, K22 0270 but Mr& Pastern was far from dead. He was marching up and down K22 0280 the locker room of the Grassy Brae Golf Club shouting, "Bomb Cuba! K22 0290 Bomb Berlin! Let's throw a little nuclear hardware at them K22 0300 and show them who's boss". He was brigadier of the club's locker-room K22 0310 light infantry, and at one time or another declared war on Russia, K22 0320 Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and China. It all began K22 0330 on an autumn afternoon- and who, after all these centuries, can describe K22 0340 the fineness of an autumn day? One might pretend never to have K22 0350 seen one before, or, to more purpose, that there would never be another K22 0360 like it. The clear and searching sweep of sun on the lawns was like K22 0370 a climax of the year's lights. Leaves were burning somewhere and K22 0380 the smoke smelled, for all its ammoniac acidity, of beginnings. The K22 0390 boundless blue air was stretched over the zenith like the skin of a drum. K22 0400 Leaving her house one late afternoon, Mrs& Pastern stopped to K22 0410 admire the October light. It was the day to canvass for infectious K22 0420 hepatitis. Mrs& Pastern had been given sixteen names, a bundle of K22 0430 literature, and a printed book of receipts. It was her work to go among K22 0440 her neighbors and collect their checks. Her house stood on a rise K22 0450 of ground, and before she got into her car she looked at the houses below. K22 0460 Charity as she knew it was complex and reciprocal, and almost every K22 0470 roof she saw signified charity. Mrs& Balcolm worked for the brain. K22 0480 Mrs& Ten Eyke did mental health. Mrs& Trenchard worked for K22 0490 the blind. Mrs& Horowitz was in charge of diseases of the nose K22 0500 and throat. Mrs& Trempler was tuberculosis, Mrs& Surcliffe was K22 0510 Mothers' March of Dimes, Mrs& Craven was cancer, and Mrs& K22 0520 Gilkson did the kidney. Mrs& Hewlitt led the birthcontrol league, K22 0521 Mrs& K22 0530 Ryerson was arthritis, and way in the distance could be seen the slate K22 0540 roof of Ethel Littleton's house, a roof that signified gout. K22 0550 Mrs& Pastern undertook the work of going from house to house K22 0560 with the thoughtless resignation of an honest and traditional laborer. K22 0570 It was her destiny; it was her life. Her mother had done it before K22 0580 her, and even her old grandmother, who had collected money for smallpox K22 0590 and unwed mothers. Mrs& Pastern had telephoned most of her neighbors K22 0600 in advance, and most of them were ready for her. She experienced K22 0610 none of the suspense of some poor stranger selling encyclopedias. Here K22 0620 and there she stayed to visit and drink a glass of sherry. The contributions K22 0630 were ahead of what she had got the previous year, and while K22 0640 the money, of course, was not hers, it excited her to stuff her kit K22 0650 with big checks. She stopped at the Surcliffes' after dusk, and had K22 0660 a Scotch-and-soda. She stayed too late, and when she left, it was K22 0670 dark and time to go home and cook supper for her husband. "I got a K22 0680 hundred and sixty dollars for the hepatitis fund", she said excitedly K22 0690 when he walked in. "I did everybody on my list but the Blevins K22 0700 and the Flannagans. I want to get my kit in tomorrow morning- would K22 0710 you mind doing them while I cook the dinner"? "But I K22 0720 don't know the Flannagans", Charlie Pastern said. "Nobody K22 0730 does, but they gave me ten last year". He was tired, he K22 0740 had his business worries, and the sight of his wife arranging pork chops K22 0750 in the broiler only seemed like an extension of a boring day. He K22 0760 was happy enough to take the convertible and race up the hill to the K22 0770 Blevins', thinking that they might give him a drink. But the Blevins K22 0780 were away; their maid gave him an envelope with a check in it and K22 0790 shut the door. Turning in at the Flannagans' driveway, he tried K22 0800 to remember if he had ever met them. The name encouraged him, because K22 0810 he always felt that he could the Irish. There was a glass K22 0820 pane in the front door, and through this he could see into a hallway K22 0830 where a plump woman with red hair was arranging flowers. "Infectious K22 0840 hepatitis", he shouted heartily. She took a good look K22 0850 at herself in the mirror before she turned and, walking with very K22 0860 small steps, started toward the door. "Oh, please come in", she said. K22 0870 The girlish voice was nearly a whisper. She was not a girl, he K22 0880 could see. Her hair was dyed, and her bloom was fading, and she must K22 0890 have been crowding forty, but she seemed to be one of those women who K22 0900 cling to the manners and graces of a pretty child of eight. "Your wife K22 0910 just called", she said, separating one word from another, exactly K22 0920 like a child. "And I am not sure that I have any cash- any , K22 0930 that is- but if you will wait just a minute I will write you K22 0940 out a check if I can find my checkbook. Won't you step into the K22 0950 living room, where it's cozier"? A fire had just been lighted, K22 0960 he saw, and things had been set out for drinks, and, like any K22 0970 stray, his response to these comforts was instantaneous. Where was & K22 0980 Flannagan, he wondered. Travelling home on a late train? K22 0990 Changing his clothes upstairs? Taking a shower? At the end of the K22 1000 room there was a desk heaped with papers, and she began to riffle these, K22 1010 making sighs and and noises of girlish exasperation. "I am terribly K22 1020 sorry to keep you waiting", she said, "but won't you make K22 1030 yourself a little drink while you wait? Everything's on the table". K22 1040 "What train does Mr& Flannagan come out on"? K22 1050 "Mr& Flannagan is away", she said. Her voice dropped. K22 1060 "Mr& Flannagan has been away for six weeks **h". "I'll K22 1070 have a drink, then, if you'll have one with me". "If K22 1080 you will promise to make it weak". "Sit down", he said, K22 1090 "and enjoy your drink and look for your checkbook later. The only K22 1100 way to find things is to relax". All in all, they had six drinks. K22 1110 She described herself and her circumstances unhesitatingly. Mr& K22 1120 Flannagan manufactured plastic tongue depressors. He travelled K22 1130 all over the world. She didn't like to travel. Planes made her feel K22 1140 faint, and in Tokyo, where she had gone that summer, she had been given K22 1150 raw fish for breakfast and so she had come straight home. She and K22 1160 her husband had formerly lived in New York, where she had many friends, K22 1170 but Mr& Flannagan thought the country would be safer in case K22 1180 of war. She would rather live in danger than die of loneliness and boredom. K22 1190 She had no children; she had made no friends. "I've seen K22 1200 you, though, before", she said with enormous coyness, patting his K22 1210 knee. "I've seen you walking your dogs on Sunday and driving by K22 1220 in the convertible **h". The thought of this lonely woman sitting K22 1230 at her window touched him, although he was even more touched by K22 1240 her plumpness. Sheer plumpness, he knew, is not a vital part of the K22 1250 body and has no procreative functions. It serves merely as an excess K22 1260 cushion for the rest of the carcass. And knowing its humble place in K22 1270 the scale of things, why did he, at this time of life, seem almost ready K22 1280 to sell his soul for plumpness? The remarks she made about the sufferings K22 1290 of a lonely woman seemed so broad at first that he didn't K22 1300 know what to make of them, but after the sixth drink he put his arm around K22 1310 her and suggested that they go upstairs and look for her checkbook K22 1320 there. "I've never done this before", she said later, K22 1330 when he was arranging himself to leave. Her voice shook with feeling, K22 1340 and he thought it lovely. He didn't doubt her truthfulness, although K22 1350 he had heard the words a hundred times. "I've never done this K22 1360 before", they always said, shaking their dresses down over their white K22 1370 shoulders. "I've never done this before", they always said, K22 1380 waiting for the elevator in the hotel corridor. "I've never done K22 1390 this before", they always said, pouring another whiskey. "I've K22 1400 never done this before", they always said, putting on their stockings. K22 1420 On ships at sea, on railroad trains, in summer hotels with mountain views, K22 1430 they always said, "I've never done this before". ## "Where K22 1440 have you been"? Mrs& Pastern asked sadly, when he came K22 1450 in. "It's after eleven". "I had a drink with the Flannagans". K22 1460 "She told me he was in Germany". "He K22 1470 came home unexpectedly". Charlie ate some supper in the K22 1480 kitchen and went into the ~TV room to hear the news. "Bomb them"! K22 1490 he shouted. "Throw a little nuclear hardware at them! Show K22 1500 them who's boss"! But in bed he had trouble sleeping. He thought K22 1510 first of his son and daughter, away at college. He loved them. K22 1520 It was the only meaning of the word that he had ever known. Then he K22 1530 played nine imaginary holes of golf, choosing his handicap, his irons, K22 1540 his stance, his opponents, and his weather in detail, but the green of K22 1550 the links seemed faded in the light of his business worries. His money K22 1560 was tied up in a Nassau hotel, an Ohio pottery works, and a detergent K22 1570 for window-washing, and luck had been running against him. His K22 1580 worries harried him up out of bed, and he lighted a cigarette and went K22 1590 to the window. In the starlight he could see the trees stripped of their K22 1600 leaves. During the summer he had tried to repair some of his losses K22 1610 at the track, and the bare trees reminded him that his pari-mutuel K22 1620 tickets would still be lying, like leaves, in the gutters near Belmont K22 1630 and Saratoga. Maple and ash, beech and elm, one hundred to win on K22 1640 Three in the fourth, fifty to win on Six in the third, one hundred K22 1650 to win on Two in the eighth. Children walking home from school would K22 1660 scuff through what seemed to be his foliage. Then, getting back into K22 1670 bed, he thought unashamedly of Mrs& Flannagan, planning where they K22 1680 would next meet and what they would do. There are, he thought, so few K22 1690 true means of forgetfulness in this life that why should he shun the K22 1700 medicine even when the medicine seemed, as it did, a little crude? K23 0010 It was not as though she noted clearly that her nephews had not been K23 0020 to see her for ten years, not since their last journey eastward to witness K23 0030 their Uncle Izaak being lowered into the rocky soil; that aside K23 0040 from due notification of certain major events in their lives (two marriages, K23 0050 two births, one divorce), Christmas and Easter cards of the K23 0060 traditional sort had been the only thin link she had with them through K23 0070 the widowed years. Her thoughts were not discrete. But there was K23 0080 a look about her mouth as though she were tasting lemons. She K23 0090 grasped the chair arms and brought her thin body upright, like a bird K23 0100 alert for flight. She turned and walked stiffly into the parlor to the K23 0110 dainty-legged escritoire, warped and cracked now from fifty years in K23 0120 an atmosphere of sea spray. There she extracted two limp vellum sheets K23 0130 and wrote off the letters, one to Abel, one to Mark. Once K23 0140 her trembling hand, with the pen grasped tight in it, was pressed against K23 0150 the paper the words came sharply, smoothly, as authoritatively as K23 0160 they would dropping from her own lips. And the stiffly regal look of K23 0170 them, she saw grimly, lacked the quaver of age which, thwarting the efforts K23 0180 of her amazing will, ran through her spoken words like a thin ragged K23 0190 string. "Please come down as soon as you conveniently can", K23 0200 the upright letters stalked from the broad-nibbed pen, "I have an K23 0210 important matter to discuss with you". To Abel: "I am afraid K23 0220 there is not much to amuse small children here. I should be obliged K23 0230 if you could make other arrangements for your daughters. You may stay K23 0240 as long as you wish, of course, but if arranging for the care of the K23 0250 girls must take time into account, I think a day or two should be enough K23 0260 to finish our business in". To Mark: "Please give my regards K23 0270 to Myra". She signed the letters quickly, stamped them, and K23 0280 placed them on the hall table for Raphael to mail in town. Then she K23 0290 went back to the wicker chair and resolutely adjusted her eyes to the K23 0300 glare on the water. "My nephews will be coming down", she K23 0310 said that evening as Angelina brought her dinner into the dining room, K23 0320 the whole meal on a vast linen-covered tray. She looked at the girl K23 0330 speculatively from eyes which had paled with the years; from the K23 0340 early evening lights of them which had first startled Izaak to look K23 0341 at K23 0350 her in an uncousinly way, they had faded to a near-absence of color which K23 0360 had, possibly from her constant looking at the water, something of K23 0370 the light of the sea in them. Angelina placed the tray on the K23 0380 table and with a flick of dark wrist drew off the cloth. She smiled, K23 0390 and the teeth gleamed in her beautifully modeled olive face. "That K23 0400 will be so nice for you, Mrs& Packard", she said. Her voice was K23 0410 ripe and full and her teeth flashed again in Sicilian brilliance before K23 0420 the warm curved lips met and her mouth settled in repose. K23 0430 "Um", said the old lady, and brought her eyes down to the tray. K23 0440 "You remember them, I suppose"? She glinted suspiciously at the K23 0450 dish before her: "Blowfish. I hope Raphael bought them whole". K23 0460 Angelina stepped back, her eyes roaming the tray for omissions. K23 0470 Then she looked at the old woman again, her eyes calm. "Yes", K23 0480 she said, "I remember that they came here every summer. K23 0490 I used to play with the older one sometimes, when he'd let me. Abel"? K23 0500 The name fell with lazy affectionate remembrance from her lips. K23 0510 For an instant the old aunt felt something indefinable flash through K23 0520 her smile. She would have said triumph. Then Angelina turned and K23 0530 with an easy grace walked toward the kitchen. Jessica Packard K23 0540 lifted her head and followed the retreating figure, her eyes resting K23 0550 nearly closed on the unself-conscious rise and fall of the rounded hips. K23 0560 For a moment she held her face to the empty doorway; then she snorted K23 0570 and groped for her fork. There's no greater catastrophe K23 0580 in the universe, she reflected dourly, impaling tender green beans K23 0590 on the silver fork, than the dwindling away of a family. Procreation, K23 0600 expansion, proliferation- these are the laws of living things, with K23 0610 the penalty for not obeying them the ultimate in punishments: oblivion. K23 0620 When the fate of the individual is visited on the group, then (the K23 0630 warm sweet butter dripped from her raised trembling fork and she pushed K23 0640 her head forward belligerently), ah, then the true bitterness of K23 0650 existence could be tasted. And indeed the young garden beans were brackish K23 0660 in her mouth. She was the last living of the older generation. K23 0670 What had once been a widespread family- at one time, she knew, K23 0680 there were enough Packards to populate an entire county- had now K23 0690 narrowed down to the two boys, Abel and Mark. She swung her eyes up K23 0700 to the blue of the window, her jaws gently mashing the bitter beans. K23 0710 What hope lay in the nephews, she asked the intensifying light out there, K23 0720 with one married to a barren woman and the other divorced, having K23 0730 sired two girl children, with none to bear on the Packard name? K23 0740 She ate. It seemed to her, as it seemed each night, that the gloom K23 0750 drew itself in and became densest at the table's empty chairs, K23 0760 giving her the frequent illusion that she dined with shadows. Here, too, K23 0770 she talked low, quirking her head at one or another of the places, K23 0780 most often at Izaak's armchair which faced her across the long table. K23 0790 Or it might have been the absent nephews she addressed, consciously K23 0800 playing with the notion that this was one of the summers of their early K23 0820 years. She thought again of her children, those two who had K23 0830 died young, before the later science which might have saved them could K23 0840 attach even a label to their separate malignancies. The girl, her K23 0850 first, she barely remembered. It could have been anyone's infant, for K23 0860 it had not survived the bassinet. But the boy **h the boy had been K23 0870 alive yesterday. Each successive movement in his growing was recorded K23 0880 on the unreeling film inside her. He ran on his plump sticks of K23 0890 legs, K23 0900 freezing now and again into the sudden startled attitudes which the K23 0910 camera had caught and held on the paling photographs, all carefully placed K23 0920 and glued and labeled, resting in the fat plush album in the bottom K23 0930 drawer of the escritoire. In the cruel clearness of her memory the K23 0940 boy remained unchanged, quick with the delight of laughter, and the pain K23 0950 with which she recalled that short destroyed childhood was still unendurable K23 0960 to her. It was one with the desolate rocks and the alien water K23 0970 on those days when she hated the sea. ## The brothers drove K23 0980 down together in Mark's small red sports car, Mark at the wheel. They K23 0990 rarely spoke. Abel sat and regarded the farm country which, spreading K23 1000 out from both sides of the road, rolled greenly up to where the K23 1010 silent white houses and long barns and silos nested into the tilled fields. K23 1020 He saw the land with a stranger's eyes, all the old familiarness K23 1030 gone. And it presented itself to him as it would to any stranger, K23 1040 impervious, complete in itself. There was stability there, too- a K23 1050 color which his life had had once. That is what childhood is, he told K23 1060 himself. Solid, settled **h lost. In the stiff neutral lines of the K23 1070 telephone poles he saw the no-nonsense pen strokes of Aunt Jessica's K23 1080 letter. What bad grace, what incredible selfishness he and Mark K23 1090 had shown. The boyhood summers preceding their uncle's funeral might K23 1100 never have been. They had closed over, absolutely, with the sealing K23 1110 of old Izaak's grave. The small car flew on relentlessly. The old K23 1120 woman, stubbornly reigning in the house above the crashing waters took K23 1130 on an ominous reality. Abel moved and adjusted his long legs. K23 1140 "I suppose it has to do with the property", Mark had said over K23 1150 the telephone when they had discussed their receipt of the letters. K23 1160 Not until the words had been spoken did Abel suddenly see the old house K23 1170 and the insistent sea, and feel his contrition blotted out in one K23 1180 shameful moment of covetousness. He and Mark were the last of the family, K23 1190 and there lay the Cape Ann property which had seemed to have no K23 1200 end, stretching from horizon to horizon, in those golden days of summer. K23 1210 Now Abel turned his head to look at his brother. Mark held K23 1220 the wheel loosely, but his fingers curved around it in a purposeful K23 1230 way and the deliberate set of his body spoke plainly of the figure he'd K23 1240 make in the years to come. His sandy hair was already beginning K23 1250 to thin and recede at the sides, and Abel looked quickly away. Mark K23 1260 easily looked years older than himself, settled, his world comfortably K23 1270 categorized. The vacation traffic was becoming heavier as they K23 1280 approached the sea. "She didn't mention bringing Myra", Mark K23 1290 said, maneuvering the car into the next lane. "She's probably K23 1300 getting old- crotchety, I mean- and we figured uh-uh, better not. K23 1310 They've never met, you know. But Myra wouldn't budge without K23 1320 an express invitation. I feel kind of bad about it". He gave Abel K23 1330 a quick glance and moved closer to the wheel, hugging it to him, and K23 1340 Abel caught this briefest of allusions to guilt. "I imagine K23 1350 the old girl hasn't missed us much", Mark added, his eyes on the K23 1360 road. Abel ignored the half-expressed bid for confirmation. He smiled. K23 1370 It was barely possible that his brother was right. He could K23 1380 tell they were approaching the sea. The air took on a special strength K23 1390 now that they'd left the fecund warmth of the farmland behind. K23 1400 There was the smell of the coast, like a primeval memory, composed K23 1410 of equal parts salt water, clams, seaweed and northern air. He turned K23 1420 from the flying trees to look ahead and saw with an inward boy's eye K23 1430 again the great fieldstone house which, built on one of the many acres K23 1440 of ancestral land bordering the west harbor, had been Izaak's bride-gift K23 1450 to his cousin-wife as the last century ended. Mark's K23 1460 thoughts must have been keeping silent pace beside his own, climbing K23 1470 the same crags in dirty white sneakers, clambering out on top of the K23 1480 headland and coming upon the sudden glinting water at the same instant. K23 1490 "Remember the " Mark asked, and Abel lifted his K23 1500 eyes from the double lines in the middle of the road, the twin white K23 1510 ribbons which the car swallowed rapidly as it ascended the crest of K23 1520 the hill and came down. "The " Abel said. There K23 1530 was the day Uncle Izaak had, in an unexpected grandiose gesture, K23 1540 handed over the pretty sloop to Abel for keeps, on condition that K23 1550 he never fail to let his brother accompany him whenever the younger boy K23 1560 wished. The two of them had developed into a remarkable sailing team K23 1570 **h all of this happening in a time of their lives when their youth K23 1580 and their brotherhood knitted them together as no other time or circumstance K23 1590 could. They seemed then to have had a single mind and body, a K23 1600 mutuality which had been accepted with the fact of their youth, casually. K23 1610 He saw the as she lay, her slender mast up and gently K23 1620 turning, its point describing constant languid circles against a cumulus K23 1630 sky. Both of them had known the feeling of the small life in her K23 1640 waiting, ready, for the two of them to run up her sails. The K23 1650 had been long at the bottom of the bay. They came unexpectedly K23 1660 upon the sea. Meeting it without preparation as they did, robbed K23 1670 of anticipation, a common disappointment seized them. They were K23 1680 climbing the hill in the night when the headlights abruptly probed solid K23 1690 blackness, became two parallel luminous tubes which broadened out into K23 1700 a faint mist of light and ended. Mark stopped the car and switched K23 1710 off the lights and they sat looking at the water, which, there being K23 1720 no moon out, at first could be distinguished from the sky only by an K23 1730 absence of stars. K24 0010 His eyes were old and they never saw well, but heated with whisky they'd K24 0020 glare at my noise, growing red and raising up his rage. I decided K24 0030 I hated the Pedersen kid too, dying in our kitchen while I was away K24 0040 where I couldn't watch, dying just to entertain Hans and making K24 0050 me go up snapping steps and down a drafty hall, Pa lumped under the K24 0060 covers at the end like dung covered with snow, snoring and whistling. K24 0070 Oh he'd not care about the Pedersen kid. He'd not care about getting K24 0080 waked so he could give up some of his whisky to a slit of a kid K24 0090 and maybe lose one of his hiding places in the bargain. That would make K24 0100 him mad enough if he was sober. I didn't hurry though it was cold K24 0110 and the Pedersen kid was in the kitchen. He was all shoveled K24 0120 up like I thought he'd be. I pushed at his shoulder, calling K24 0130 his K24 0140 name. I think his name stopped the snoring but he didn't move except K24 0150 to roll a little when I shoved him. The covers slid down his skinny K24 0160 neck so I saw his head, fuzzed like a dandelion gone to seed, but K24 0170 his face was turned to the wall- there was the pale shadow of his nose K24 0180 on the plaster- and I thought, Well you don't look much like K24 0190 a pig-drunk bully now. I couldn't be sure he was still asleep. He K24 0200 was a cagey sonofabitch. I shook him a little harder and made some noise. K24 0210 "Pap-pap-pap-hey", I said. I was leaning too far over. K24 0220 I knew better. He always slept close to the wall so you had to lean K24 0230 to reach him. Oh he was smart. It put you off. I knew better but K24 0240 I was thinking of the Pedersen kid mother-naked in all that dough. K24 0250 When his arm came up I ducked away but it caught me on the side of K24 0260 the neck, watering my eyes, and I backed off to cough. Pa was on his K24 0270 side, looking at me, his eyes winking, the hand that had hit me a fist K24 0280 in the pillow. "Get the hell out of here". I didn't K24 0290 say anything, trying to get my throat clear, but I watched him. K24 0300 He was like a mean horse to come at from the rear. It was better, though, K24 0310 he'd hit me. He was bitter when he missed. "Get the K24 0320 hell out of here". "Big Hans sent me. He told me to wake K24 0330 you". "A fat hell on Big Hans. Get out of here". K24 0340 "He found the Pedersen kid by the crib". "Get the K24 0350 hell out". Pa pulled at the covers. He was tasting his mouth. K24 0360 "The kid's froze good. Hans is rubbing him with snow. K24 0370 He's got him in the kitchen". "Pedersen"? K24 0380 "No, Pa. It's the Pedersen kid. The kid". "Nothing K24 0390 to steal from the crib". "Not stealing, Pa. He was just K24 0400 lying there. Hans found him froze. That's where he was when Hans K24 0410 found him". Pa laughed. "I ain't hid nothing in K24 0420 the crib". "You don't understand, Pa. The Pedersen K24 0430 kid. The kid"- "I god damn well understand". Pa K24 0440 had his head up, glaring, his teeth gnawing at the place where he'd K24 0450 grown a mustache once. "I god damn well understand. You K24 0460 know I don't want to see Pedersen. That cock. Why should I? What K24 0470 did he come for, hey? God dammit, get. And don't come back. K24 0480 Find out something. You're a fool. Both you and Hans. Pedersen. K24 0490 That cock. Don't come back. Out. Out". He was shouting K24 0500 and breathing hard and closing his fist on the pillow. He had long K24 0510 black hairs on his wrist. They curled around the cuff of his nightshirt. K24 0520 "Big Hans made me come. Big Hans said"- "A K24 0530 fat hell on Big Hans. He's an even bigger fool than you are. K24 0540 Fat, hey? I taught him, dammit, and I'll teach you. Out. You K24 0550 want me to drop my pot"? He was about to get up so I got K24 0560 out, slamming the door. He was beginning to see he was too mad to sleep. K24 0570 Then he threw things. Once he went after Hans and dumped his pot K24 0580 over the banister. Pa'd been shit-sick in that pot. Hans got an K24 0590 axe. He didn't even bother to wipe himself off and he chopped part K24 0600 of Pa's door down before he stopped. He might not have gone that K24 0610 far if Pa hadn't been locked in laughing fit to shake the house. K24 0620 That pot put Pa in an awful good humor whenever he thought of it. I K24 0630 always felt the memory was present in both of them, stirring in their K24 0640 chests like a laugh or a growl, as eager as an animal to be out. I K24 0650 heard Pa cursing all the way downstairs. Hans had laid steaming K24 0660 towels over the kid's chest and stomach. He was rubbing snow on K24 0670 the kid's legs and feet. Water from the snow and water from the towels K24 0680 had run off the kid to the table where the dough was, and the dough K24 0690 was turning pasty, sticking to the kid's back and behind. "Ain't K24 0700 he going to wake up"? "What about your pa"? K24 0710 "He was awake when I left". "What'd he say? K24 0720 Did you get the whisky"? "He said a fat hell on Big K24 0730 Hans". "Don't be smart. Did you ask him about the whisky"? K24 0740 "Yeah". "Well"? "He said K24 0750 a fat hell on Big Hans". "Don't be smart. What's K24 0760 he going to do"? "Go back to sleep most likely". K24 0770 "You'd best get that whisky". "You go. Take the axe. K24 0780 Pa's scared to hell of axes". "Listen to me, Jorge, K24 0790 I've had enough to your sassing. This kid's froze bad. If I don't K24 0800 get some whisky down him he might die. You want the kid to die? K24 0810 Do you? Well, get your pa and get that whisky". "Pa K24 0820 don't care about the kid". "Jorge". "Well K24 0830 he don't. He don't care at all, and I don't care to get my head K24 0840 busted neither. He don't care, and I don't care to have his shit K24 0850 flung on me. He don't care about anybody. All he cares about is K24 0860 his whisky and that dry crack in his face. Get pig-drunk- that's K24 0870 what he wants. He don't care about nothing else at all. Nothing. K24 0880 Not Pedersen's kid neither. That cock. Not the kid neither". K24 0890 "I'll get the spirits", Ma said. I'd wound Big K24 0900 Hans up tight. I was ready to jump but when Ma said she'd get the K24 0910 whisky it surprised him like it surprised me, and he ran down. Ma K24 0920 never went near the old man when he was sleeping it off. Not any more. K24 0930 Not for years. The first thing every morning when she washed her face K24 0940 she could see the scar on her chin where he'd cut her with a boot K24 0950 cleat, and maybe she saw him heaving it again, the dirty sock popping K24 0960 out as it flew. It should have been nearly as easy for her to remember K24 0970 that as it was for Big Hans to remember going after the axe while K24 0980 he was still spattered with Pa's yellow sick insides. "No K24 0990 you won't", Big Hans said. "Yes, Hans, if they're K24 0991 needed", K24 1000 Ma said. Hans shook his head but neither of us tried K24 1010 to stop her. If we had, then one of us would have had to go instead. K24 1020 Hans rubbed the kid with more snow **h rubbed **h rubbed. "I'll K24 1030 get more snow", I said. I took the pail and shovel and went K24 1040 out on the porch. I don't know where Ma went. I thought she'd K24 1050 gone upstairs and expected to hear she had. She had surprised Hans K24 1060 like she had surprised me when she said she'd go, and then she surprised K24 1070 him again when she came back so quick like she must have, because K24 1071 when I K24 1080 came in with the snow she was there with a bottle with three K24 1090 white feathers on its label and Hans was holding it angrily by the throat. K24 1100 Oh, he was being queer and careful, pawing about in the K24 1110 drawer and holding the bottle like a snake at the length of his arm. K24 1120 He was awful angry because he'd thought Ma was going to do something K24 1130 big, something heroic even, especially for her **h I know him **h K24 1140 I know him **h we felt the same sometimes **h while Ma wasn't thinking K24 1141 about K24 1150 that at all, not anything like that. There was no way of getting K24 1160 even. It wasn't like getting cheated at the fair. They were always K24 1170 trying so you got to expect it. Now Hans had given Ma something of K24 1180 his- we both had when we thought she was going straight to Pa- K24 1190 something valuable; but since she didn't know we'd given it to her, K24 1200 there was no easy way of getting it back. Hans cut the foil K24 1210 off finally and unscrewed the cap. He was put out too because there K24 1220 was only one way of understanding what she'd done. Ma had found one K24 1230 of Pa's hiding places. She'd found one and she hadn't said a K24 1240 word while Big Hans and I had hunted and hunted as we always did all K24 1250 winter, every winter since the spring that Hans had come and I had K24 1260 looked in the privy and found the first one. Pa had a knack for hiding. K24 1270 He knew we were looking and he enjoyed it. But now Ma. She'd K24 1280 found it by luck most likely but she hadn't said anything and we didn't K24 1290 know how long ago it'd been or how many other ones she'd found, K24 1300 saying nothing. Pa was sure to find out. Sometimes he didn't K24 1310 seem to because he hid them so well he couldn't find them himself or K24 1320 because he looked and didn't find anything and figured he hadn't K24 1330 hid one after all or had drunk it up. But he'd find out about this K24 1340 one because we were using it. A fool could see what was going on. If K24 1350 he found out Ma found it- that'd be bad. He took pride in his K24 1360 hiding. It was all the pride he had. I guess fooling Hans and me took K24 1370 doing. But he didn't figure Ma for much. He didn't figure her K24 1371 at all, and if he found out K24 1380 **h a woman **h it'd be bad. Hans K24 1390 poured some in a tumbler. "You going to put more towels on him"? K24 1400 "No". "Why not? That's what he needs, K24 1410 something warm to his skin, don't he"? "Not where K24 1420 he's froze good. Heat's bad for frostbite. That's why I only K24 1430 put towels on his chest and belly. He's got to thaw slow. You ought K24 1440 to know that". Colors on the towels had run. Ma poked K24 1450 her toe in the kid's clothes. "What are we going to do K24 1460 with these"? Big Hans began pouring whisky in the kid's K24 1470 mouth but his mouth filled without any getting down his throat and in K24 1480 a second it was dripping from his chin. "Here, help me prop K24 1490 him up. I got hold his mouth open". I didn't want to touch K24 1500 him and I hoped Ma would do it but she kept looking at the kid's K24 1510 clothes piled on the floor and the pool of water by them and didn't K24 1520 make any move to. "Come on, Jorge". "All right". K24 1530 "Lift, don't shove **h lift". "O&K&, K24 1540 I'm lifting". I took him by the shoulders. His head flopped K24 1550 back. His mouth fell open. The skin on his neck was tight. He K24 1560 was cold all right. "Hold his head up. He'll choke". K24 1570 "His mouth is open". "His throat's shut. He'll K24 1580 choke". "He'll choke anyway". "Hold his K24 1590 head up". "I can't". "Don't hold him like K24 1600 that. Put your arms around him". "Well Jesus". K24 1610 He was cold all right. I put my arm carefully around him. Hans had K24 1620 his fingers in the kid's mouth. "Now he'll choke for sure". K24 1630 "Shut up. Just hold him like I told you". He K24 1640 was cold all right, and wet. I had my arm behind his back. K25 0010 He was in his mid-fifties at this time, long past the establishment of K25 0020 his name and the wish to be lionized yet once again, and it was almost K25 0030 a decade since he had sworn off lecturing. There was never a doubt K25 0040 any more how his structures would be received; it was always the same K25 0050 unqualified success now. He could no longer build anything, whether K25 0060 a private residence in his Pennsylvania county or a church in Brazil, K25 0070 without it being obvious that he had done it, and while here and there K25 0080 he was taken to task for again developing the same airy technique, K25 0090 they were such fanciful and sometimes even playful buildings that the K25 0100 public felt assured by its sense of recognition after a time, a quality K25 0110 of authentic uniqueness about them, which, once established by an K25 0120 artist as his private vision, is no longer disputable as to its other K25 0130 values. Stowey Rummel was internationally famous, a crafter of a genuine K25 0140 Americana in foreign eyes, an original designer whose inventive K25 0150 childishness with steel and concrete was made even more believably sincere K25 0160 by his personality. He had lived for almost thirty years in this K25 0170 same stone farmhouse with the same wife, a remarkably childish thing K25 0180 in itself; he rose at half-past six every morning, made himself some K25 0190 French coffee, had his corn flakes and more coffee, smoked four cigarettes K25 0200 while reading last Sunday's and yesterday's K25 0210 Pittsburgh , then put on his high-topped farmer's K25 0220 shoes and walked under a vine bower to his workshop. This was an enormously K25 0230 long building whose walls were made of rocks, some of them brought K25 0240 home from every continent during his six years as an oil geologist. K25 0250 The debris of his other careers was piled everywhere; a pile of K25 0260 wire cages for mice from his time as a geneticist and a microscope lying K25 0270 on its side on the window sill, vertical steel columns wired for support K25 0280 to the open ceiling beams with spidery steel cantilevers jutting K25 0290 out into the air, masonry constructions on the floor from the time he K25 0300 was inventing his disastrous fireplace whose smoke would pass through K25 0310 a whole house, visible all the way up through wire gratings on each K25 0320 floor. His files, desk, drafting board and a high stool formed the only K25 0330 clean island in the chaos. Everywhere else his ideas lay or hung in K25 0340 visible form: his models, drawings, ten-foot canvases in monochromes K25 0350 from his painting days, and underfoot a windfall of broken-backed books K25 0360 that looked as though their insides had been ransacked by a maniac. K25 0370 Bicycle gear-sets he had once used as the basis of the design for K25 0380 the Camden Cycly Company plant hung on a rope in one corner, and over K25 0390 his desk, next to several old and dusty hats, was a clean pair of roller K25 0400 skates which he occasionally used up and down in front of his house. K25 0410 He worked standing, with his left hand in his pocket as though he K25 0420 were merely stopping for a moment, sketching with the surprised stare K25 0430 of one who was watching another person's hand. Sometimes he would K25 0440 grunt softly to some invisible onlooker beside him, sometimes he would K25 0450 look stern and moralistic as his pencil did what he disapproved. It K25 0460 all seemed- if one could have peeked in at him through one of his windows- K25 0470 as though this broken-nosed man with the muscular arms and wrestler's K25 0480 neck was merely the caretaker trying his hand at the boss's K25 0490 work. This air of disengagement carried over to his apparent attitude K25 0500 toward his things, and people often mistook it for boredom in him K25 0510 or a surrender to repetitious routine. But he was not bored at K25 0511 all; K25 0520 he had found his style quite early in his career and he thought it quite K25 0530 wonderful that the world admired it, and he could not imagine why he K25 0540 should alter it. There are, after all, fortunate souls who hear everything, K25 0550 but only know how to listen to what is good for them, and Stowey K25 0560 was, as things go, a fortunate man. He left his home the K25 0570 day after New Year's wearing a mackinaw and sheepskin mittens and K25 0580 without a hat. He would wear this same costume in Florida, despite his K25 0590 wife Cleota's reminders over the past five days that he must take K25 0600 some cool clothes with him. But he was too busy to hear what she was K25 0610 saying. So they parted when she was in an impatient humor. When he K25 0620 was bent over behind the wheel of the station wagon, feeling in his trouser K25 0630 cuffs for the ignition key which he had dropped a moment before, K25 0640 she came out of the house with an enormous Rumanian shawl over her K25 0650 head, which she had bought in that country during one of their trips abroad, K25 0660 and handed him a clean handkerchief through the window. Finding K25 0670 the key under his shoe, he started the engine, and while it warmed up K25 0680 he turned to her standing there in the dripping fog, and said, "Defrost K25 0690 the refrigerator". He saw the surprise in her face, and K25 0700 laughed as though it were the funniest expression he had ever seen. K25 0710 He kept on laughing until she started laughing with him. He had a deep K25 0720 voice which was full of good food she had cooked, and good humor; K25 0730 an explosive laugh which always carried everything before it. He would K25 0740 settle himself into his seat to laugh. Whenever he laughed it was K25 0750 all he was doing. And she was made to fall in love with him again there K25 0760 in the rutted dirt driveway standing in the cold fog, mad as she was K25 0770 at his going away when he really didn't have to, mad at their both K25 0780 having got older in a life that seemed to have taken no more than a K25 0790 week to go by. She was forty-nine at this time, a lanky woman of breeding K25 0800 with an austere, narrow face which had the distinction of a steeple K25 0810 or some architecture that had been designed long ago for a stubborn K25 0820 sort of prayer. Her eyebrows were definite and heavy and formed two K25 0830 lines moving upward toward a high forehead and a great head of brown hair K25 0840 that fell to her shoulders. There was an air of blindness in her K25 0850 gray eyes, the startled-horse look that ultimately comes to some women K25 0860 who are born at the end of an ancestral line long since divorced from K25 0870 money-making and which, besides, has kept its estate intact. She was K25 0880 personally sloppy, and when she had colds would blow her nose in the K25 0890 same handkerchief all day and keep it, soaking wet, dangling from her K25 0900 waist, and when she gardened she would eat dinner with dirt on her calves. K25 0910 But just when she seemed to have sunk into some depravity of peasanthood K25 0920 she would disappear and come down bathed, brushed, and taking K25 0930 breaths of air, and even with her broken nails her hands would come to K25 0940 rest on a table or a leaf with a thoughtless delicacy, a grace of history, K25 0950 so to speak, and for an instant one saw how ferociously proud she K25 0960 was and adamant on certain questions of personal value. She even spoke K25 0970 differently when she was clean, and she was clean now for his departure K25 0980 and her voice clear and rather sharp. "Now drive carefully, K25 0990 for God's sake"! she called, trying to attain a half humorous K25 1000 resentment at his departure. But he did not notice, and was already K25 1010 backing the car down to the road, saying "Toot-toot"! to the K25 1020 stump of a tree as he passed it, the same stump which had impaled the K25 1030 car of many a guest in the past thirty years and which he refused to K25 1040 have removed. She stood clutching her shawl around her shoulders until K25 1050 he had swung the car onto the road. Then, when he had it pointed K25 1060 down the hill, he stopped to gaze at her through the window. She had K25 1070 begun to turn back toward the house, but his look caught her and she stood K25 1080 still, waiting there for what his expression indicated would be K25 1090 a K25 1100 serious word of farewell. He looked at her out of himself, she thought, K25 1110 as he did only for an instant at a time, the look which always surprised K25 1120 her even now when his uncombable hair was yellowing a little and K25 1130 his breath came hard through his nicotine-choked lungs, the look of the K25 1140 gaunt youth she had suddenly found herself staring at in the Tate K25 1150 Gallery on a Thursday once. Now she kept herself protectively ready K25 1160 to laugh again and sure enough he pointed at her with his index finger K25 1170 and said "Toot"! once more and roared off into the fog, his foot K25 1180 evidently surprising him with the suddenness with which it pressed K25 1190 the accelerator, just as his hand did when he worked. She walked back K25 1200 to the house and entered, feeling herself returning, sensing some kind K25 1210 of opportunity in the empty building. There is a death in all partings, K25 1220 she knew, and promptly put it out of her mind. She enjoyed K25 1230 great parties when she would sit up talking and dancing and drinking K25 1240 all night, but it always seemed to her that being alone, especially K25 1250 alone in her house, was the realest part of life. Now she could let out K25 1260 the three parakeets without fear they would be stepped on or that Stowey K25 1270 would let them out one of the doors; she could dust the plants, K25 1280 then break off suddenly and pick up an old novel and read from the K25 1290 middle K25 1300 on; improvise cha-chas on the harp; and finally, the best part of K25 1310 all, simply sit at the plank table in the kitchen with a bottle of wine K25 1320 and the newspapers, reading the ads as well as the news, registering K25 1330 nothing on her mind but letting her soul suspend itself above all wishing K25 1340 and desire. She did this now, comfortably aware of the mist running K25 1350 down the windows, of the silence outside, of the dark afternoon K25 1360 it was getting to be. She fell asleep leaning on her hand, hearing the K25 1370 house creaking as though it were a living a private life of its own K25 1380 these two hundred years, hearing the birds rustling in their cages and K25 1390 the occasional whirring of wings as one of them landed on the table and K25 1400 walked across the newspaper to perch in the crook of her arm. Every K25 1410 few minutes she would awaken for a moment to review things: Stowey, K25 1420 yes, was on his way south, and the two boys were away in school, and K25 1430 nothing was burning on the stove, and Lucretia was coming for dinner K25 1440 and bringing three guests of hers. Then she fell asleep again as soddenly K25 1450 as a person with fever, and when she awoke it was dark outside K25 1460 and the clarity was back in her eyes. She stood up, smoothing her hair K25 1470 down, straightening her clothes, feeling a thankfulness for the enveloping K25 1480 darkness outside, and, above everything else, for the absence of K25 1490 the need to answer, to respond, to be aware even of Stowey coming in K25 1500 or going out, and yet, now that she was beginning to cook, she glimpsed K25 1510 a future without him, a future alone like this, and the pain made her K25 1520 head writhe, and in a moment she found it hard to wait for Lucretia K25 1530 to come with her guests. She went into the living room and turned on K25 1540 three lamps, then back into the kitchen where she turned on the ceiling K25 1550 light and the switch that lit the floods on the barn, illuminating K25 1560 the driveway. She knew she was feeling afraid and inwardly laughed at K25 1570 herself. They were both so young, after all, so unready for any final K25 1580 parting. How could it have been thirty years already, she wondered? K25 1590 But yes, nineteen plus thirty was forty-nine, and she was forty-nine K25 1600 and she had been married at nineteen. She stood still over the leg K25 1610 of lamb, rubbing herbs into it, quite suddenly conscious of a nausea K25 1620 in her stomach and a feeling of wrath, a sensation of violence that started K25 1630 her shivering. K26 0010 But they all said, "No, your time will come. Enjoy being a K26 0020 bride while you can". There was no room for company in the K26 0030 tiny Weaning House (where the Albright boys always took their brides, K26 0040 till they could get a house and a farm of their own). So when the K26 0050 Big House filled up and ran over, the sisters-in-law found beds for K26 0060 everyone in their own homes. And there was still not anything that Linda K26 0070 Kay could do. So Linda Kay gave up asking, and accepted K26 0080 her reprieve. Without saying so, she was really grateful; for to K26 0090 attend the dying was something she had never experienced, and certainly K26 0100 had not imagined when she thought of the duties she would have as Bobby K26 0110 Joe's wife. She had made curtains for all the windows of her K26 0120 little house, and she had kept it spotless and neat, shabby as it was, K26 0130 and cooked good meals for Bobby Joe. She had done all the things she K26 0140 had promised herself she would do, but she had not thought of this. K26 0150 People died, she would have said, in hospitals, or in cars on the highway K26 0160 at night. Bobby Joe was gone all day now, not coming in K26 0170 for dinner and sometimes not for supper. When they first married he K26 0180 had been working in the fields all day, and she would get in the car and K26 0190 drive to wherever he was working, to take him a fresh hot meal. Now K26 0200 there was no work in the fields, nor would there be till it rained, K26 0210 and she did not know where he went. Not that she complained, or had any K26 0220 cause to. Four or five of the cousins from East Texas were about K26 0230 his age, so naturally they ran around together. There was no reason K26 0240 for her to ask what they did. Thus a new pattern of days began K26 0250 to develop, for Granny Albright did not die. She lay still on the K26 0260 bed, her head hardly denting the pillow; sometimes she opened her eyes K26 0270 and looked around, and sometimes she took a little milk or soup. They K26 0280 stopped expecting her to die the next minute, but only in the next K26 0290 day or two. Those who had driven hundreds of miles for the burial would K26 0300 not go home, for she might die any time; but they might as well K26 0310 unpack their suitcases, for she might linger on. So the pattern K26 0320 was established. When Linda Kay had put up her breakfast dishes K26 0330 and mopped her linoleum rugs, she would go to the Big House. There K26 0340 was not anything she could do there, but that was where everyone was, K26 0350 or would be. Bobby Joe and the boys would come by, say "How's Granny"? K26 0360 and sit on the porch a while. The older men would be there K26 0370 at noon, and maybe rest for a time before they took their guns off K26 0380 to the creek or drove down the road towards town. The women and K26 0390 children stayed at the Albrights'. The women, keeping their voices K26 0400 low as they worked around the house or sat in the living room, sounded K26 0410 like chickens shut up in a coop for the night. The children had to K26 0420 play away from the house (in the barn loft or the pasture behind the K26 0430 barn), to maintain a proper quietness. Off and on, all day, someone K26 0440 would be wiping at the powdery gray dust that settled over everything. K26 0450 The evaporative cooler had been moved to Granny's room, and K26 0460 her door was kept shut; so that the rest of the house stayed open, K26 0470 though there was a question as to whether it was hotter or cooler that K26 0480 way. The dust clogged their throats, and the heat parched them, K26 0490 so that the women were always making ice water. They had cleaned K26 0500 up an old ice box and begun to buy fifty-pound blocks of ice in town, K26 0510 as the electric refrigerator came nowhere near providing enough ice for K26 0520 the crowds who ate and drank there. One afternoon, as the women K26 0530 sat clucking softly, a new carload of people pulled up at the gate. K26 0540 It was a Cadillac, black grayed with the dust of the road, its windows K26 0550 closed tight so you knew that the people who climbed out of it would K26 0560 be cool and unwrinkled. They were an old fat couple (as Linda Kay K26 0570 described them to herself), a thick middle-aged man, and a girl about K26 0580 ten or twelve. There was much embracing, much exclaiming. "Cousin K26 0590 Ada! Cousin John"! "Cousin Lura"! "Cousin K26 0600 Howard"! "And how is she"? "About the same, John, K26 0601 about K26 0610 the same". All the women got up and offered their chairs, and K26 0620 when they were all seated again, the guests made their inquiries and K26 0630 their explanations. "We were on our vacation in Canada", K26 0640 Howard explained, in a muffled voice that must have been used to booming, K26 0650 "and the news didn't catch up with us till we were nearly home. K26 0660 We came on as soon as we could". There was the suggestion K26 0670 of ice water, and- in spite of the protest "We're not really K26 0680 thirsty"- Linda Kay, to escape the stuffy air and the smothering K26 0690 soft voices, hurried to the kitchen. She filled a big pitcher K26 0700 and set it, with glasses, on a tray. Carrying it to the living room, K26 0710 she imagined the picture she made: tall and roundly slim, a bit sophisticated K26 0720 in her yellow sheath, with a graceful swingy walk that she K26 0730 had learned as a twirler with the school band. Almost immediately she K26 0740 was ashamed of herself for feeling vain, at such a time, in such a K26 0750 place, and she tossed back her long yellow hair, smiling shyly as she K26 0760 entered the room. Howard (the thick middle-aged man) was looking K26 0770 at her. She felt the look and looked back because she could not help K26 0780 it, seeing that he was neither as old nor as thick as she had at first K26 0790 believed. "And who is this"? he asked, when she passed K26 0800 him a glass. "Oh that's Linda Kay", Mama Albright K26 0810 said fondly. "She married our baby boy, Bobby Joe, this summer". K26 0820 "Let's see", Cousin Ada said. "He's a right smart K26 0830 younger than the rest"? "Oh yes", Mama laughed. "He's K26 0840 ten years younger than Ernest. We didn't expect him to come K26 0850 along; thought for the longest he was a tumor". This joke K26 0860 was not funny to Linda Kay, and she blushed, as she always did; K26 0870 then, hearing the muffled boom of Howard's laughter, blushed redder. K26 0880 "Who is Howard, anyway"? she asked Bobby Joe that K26 0890 night. "He makes me uncomfortable". "Oh he's a second K26 0900 cousin or something. He got in the oil business out at Odessa and K26 0910 lucked into some money". "How old is he"? "Gosh, K26 0920 I don't know. Thirty-five, I guess. He's been married and K26 0930 got this half-grown kid. If he bothers you, don't pay him any mind. K26 0940 He's just a big windbag". Bobby Joe was thinking about something K26 0950 else. "Say, did you know they're fixing to have a two-day antelope K26 0960 season on the Double ~X"? He was talking about antelope K26 0970 again when they woke up. "Listen, I never had a chance to K26 0980 kill an antelope. There never was a season before, but now they want K26 0990 to thin 'em out on account of the drouth". "Did he ever K26 1000 visit here when he was a kid"? Linda Kay asked. "Who"? K26 1010 "Howard". "Hell, I don't know. When he K26 1020 was a kid I wasn't around". Bobby Joe took a gun from behind K26 1030 the door, and with a quick "Bye now" was gone for the day. K26 1040 Almost immediately Howard and his daughter Debora drove up in K26 1050 the Cadillac. "We're going after ice", Howard said, K26 1051 "and K26 1060 thought maybe you'd go along and keep us company". There K26 1070 was really no reason to refuse, and Linda Kay had never ridden in K26 1080 a Cadillac. Driving along the caliche-topped road to town, Howard K26 1090 talked. Finally he said, "Tell me about yourself", and Linda K26 1100 Kay told him, because she thought herself that she had had an interesting K26 1110 life. She was such a well-rounded teenager, having been a twirler, K26 1120 Future Farmers sweetheart, and secretary of Future Homemakers. K26 1130 In her sophomore year she had started going steady with Bobby Joe, K26 1140 who was a football player, Future Homemakers sweetheart, and president K26 1150 of Future Farmers. It was easy to see that they were made for K26 1160 each other, and they knew what they wanted. Bobby Joe would be a senior K26 1170 this year, and he planned to graduate. But there was no need for K26 1180 Linda Kay to go on, since all she wanted in life was to make a home K26 1190 for Bobby Joe and (blushing) raise his children. Howard sighed. K26 1200 "You lucky kids", he said. "I'd give anything if I could K26 1210 have found a girl like you". Then he told Linda Kay about himself. K26 1220 Of course he couldn't say much, really, because of Debora, but K26 1230 Linda Kay could imagine what kind of woman his wife had been and K26 1240 what a raw deal he had got. It made her feel different about Howard. K26 1250 She was going to tell Bobby Joe about how mistaken she had K26 1260 been, but he brought one of the cousins home for supper, and all they K26 1270 did was talk about antelope. Bobby Joe was trying to get Linda K26 1280 Kay to say she would cook one if he brought it home. "Cook K26 1290 a whole antelope"? she exclaimed. "Why, I couldn't even cook K26 1300 a piece of antelope steak; I never even saw any". "Oh, K26 1310 you could. I want to roast the whole thing, and have it for the boys". K26 1320 Linda Kay told him he couldn't do anything like that K26 1330 with his Grandma dying, and he said well they had to eat, didn't K26 1340 they, they weren't all dying. Linda Kay felt like going off to the K26 1350 bedroom to cry; but they were going up to the Big House after supper, K26 1360 and she had to put on a clean dress and fix her hair a little. K26 1370 Every night they all went to Mama and Papa Albright's, and K26 1380 sat on the open front porch, where they could get the breeze. It was K26 1390 full-of-the-moon (or a little past), and nearly light as day. They all K26 1400 sat around and drank ice water, and the men smoked, and everybody had K26 1410 a good time. Once in a while they said what a shame it was, with Granny K26 1420 dying, but they all agreed she wouldn't have wanted it any other K26 1430 way. That night the older men got to talking about going possum-hunting K26 1440 on a moonlight night. Bobby Joe and two or three of the K26 1450 other boys declared they had never been possum-hunting, and Uncle Bill K26 1460 Farnworth (from Mama Albright's side of the family) said he would K26 1461 just get K26 1470 up from there and take them, right then. After they K26 1480 had left, some of the people moved around, to find more comfortable places K26 1490 to sit. There were not many chairs, so that some preferred to sit K26 1500 on the edge of the porch, resting their feet on the ground, and others K26 1510 liked to sit where they could lean back against the wall. Howard, K26 1520 who had been sitting against the wall, said he needed more fresh air, K26 1530 and took the spot on the edge of the porch where Bobby Joe had been K26 1540 sitting. "You'll be a darn sight more comfortable there, Howard", K26 1550 Ernest said, laughing, and they all laughed. Linda K26 1560 Kay felt that she was not exactly more comfortable. Bobby Joe had K26 1570 been sitting close to her, touching her actually, and holding her hand K26 1580 from time to time, but it seemed at once that Howard sat much closer. K26 1590 Perhaps it was just that he had so much more flesh, so that more of K26 1600 it seemed to come in contact with hers; but she had never been so aware K26 1610 of anyone's flesh before. Still she was not sorry he sat K26 1620 by her, but in fact was flattered. He had become the center of the K26 1630 company, such stories he had to tell. He had sold oil stock to Bob Hope K26 1640 and Bing Crosby in person; he had helped fight an oil-well fire K26 1650 that raged six days and nights. K27 0010 "But tell me, doctor, where do you plan to conduct the hatching"? K27 0020 Alex asked. "That will have to be in the hotel", K27 0030 the doctor retorted, confirming Alex's anticipations. "What I K27 0040 want you to do is to go to the market with me early tomorrow morning K27 0050 and help smuggle the hen back into the hotel". The doctor paid K27 0060 the bill and they repaired to the hotel, room number nine, to initiate K27 0070 Alex further into these undertakings. The doctor opened K27 0080 the smallest of his cases, an unimposing straw bag, and exposed the contents K27 0090 for Alex's inspection. Inside, carefully packed in straw, K27 0100 were six eggs, but the eye of a poultry psychologist was required to detect K27 0110 what scientifically valuable specimentalia lay inside; to Alex K27 0120 they were merely six not unusual hens' eggs. There was little enough K27 0130 time to contemplate them, however; in an instant the doctor was stalking K27 0140 across the room with an antique ledger in his hands, thoroughly K27 0150 eared and big as a table top. He placed it on Alex's lap. K27 0160 "This is my hen ledger", he informed him in an absorbed way. "It's K27 0170 been going since 1908 when I was a junior in college. That first K27 0180 entry there is the Vermont Flumenophobe, the earliest and one of K27 0190 the most successful of my eighty-three varieties- great big scapulars K27 0200 and hardly any primaries at all. Couldn't take them near a river, K27 0210 though, or they'd squawk like a turkey cock the day before Thanksgiving". K27 0220 The ledger was full of most precise information: K27 0230 date of laying, length of incubation period, number of chicks reaching K27 0240 the first week, second week, fifth week, weight of hen, size of rooster's K27 0250 wattles and so on, all scrawled out in a hand that looked more K27 0260 Chinese than English, the most jagged and sprawling Alex had ever seen. K27 0270 Below these particulars was a series of alpha-beta-gammas connected K27 0280 by arrows and crosses which denoted the lineage of the breed. Alex's K27 0290 instruction was rapid, for the doctor had to go off to the Rue K27 0300 Ecole de Medecine to hear more speeches with only time for one sip K27 0310 of wine to sustain him through them all. But after the doctor's return K27 0320 that night Alex could see, from the high window in his own room, K27 0330 the now familiar figure crouched on a truly impressive heap of towels, K27 0340 apparently giving its egg-hatching powers one final chance before it K27 0350 was replaced in its office by a sure-enough hen. A knocking at K27 0360 Alex's door roused him at six o'clock the following morning. It K27 0370 was the doctor, dressed and ready for the expedition to the market, and K27 0380 Alex was obliged to prepare himself in haste. The doctor stood about, K27 0390 waiting for Alex to dress, with a show of impatience, and soon they K27 0400 were moving, as quietly as could be, through the still-dark hallways, K27 0410 past the bedroom of the , and so into the street. The K27 0420 market was not far and, once there, the doctor's sense of immediacy K27 0430 left him and he fell into a state of harmony with the birds around him. K27 0440 He stroked the hens and they responded with delighted clucks, he gobbled K27 0450 with the turkeys and they at once were all attention, he quacked K27 0460 with the ducks, and cackled with a pair of exceedingly flattered geese. K27 0470 The dawn progressed and it seemed that the doctor would never be K27 0480 done with his ministrations when quite abruptly something broke his revery. K27 0490 It was a fine broody hen, white, with a maternal eye and a striking K27 0500 abundance of feathers in the under region of the abdomen. The doctor, K27 0510 with the air of a man whose professional interests have found scope, K27 0520 drew Alex's attention to those excellences which might otherwise K27 0530 have escaped him: the fine color in comb and wattles, the length and K27 0540 quality of neck and saddle hackles, the firm, wide spread of the K27 0550 toes, and a rare justness in the formation of the ear lappets. All search K27 0560 was ended; he had found his fowl. The purchase was effected and K27 0570 they made their way towards the hotel again, the hen, with whom some K27 0580 sort of communication had been set up, nestling in the doctor's arms. K27 0590 The clocks struck seven-thirty as they approached the hotel K27 0600 entrance; and hopes that the chambermaid and would still K27 0610 be abed began to rise in Alex's well exercised breast. The doctor K27 0620 was wearing a long New England greatcoat, hardly necessary in the K27 0630 June weather but a garment which proved well adapted to the sequestration K27 0640 of hens. Alex entered first and was followed by the doctor who, K27 0650 for all his care, manifested a perceptible bulge on his left side where K27 0660 the hen was cradled. They advanced in a line across the entrance K27 0670 hall K27 0680 to the stairway and up, with gingerly steps, towards the first landing. K27 0690 It was then that they heard the tread of one descending and, in K27 0700 some perturbation glancing up, saw the coming towards them K27 0710 as they gained the landing. "Bonjour, messieurs, vous etes K27 0720 matinals", she greeted them pleasantly. Alex explained that they had K27 0730 been out for a stroll before breakfast while the doctor edged around K27 0740 behind him, attempting to hide the protuberance at his left side behind K27 0750 Alex's arm and back. "Vous voulez vos petits dejeuners K27 0760 tout de suite alors"? their hostess enquired. Alex told her that K27 0770 there was no hurry for their breakfasts, trying at the same time to K27 0780 effect a speedy separation of the persons before and behind him. The K27 0790 doctor, he noticed, was attempting a transverse movement towards the stairs, K27 0800 but before the movement could be completed a distinct and audible K27 0810 cluck ruffled the air in the hollow of the stair-well. Eyes swerved K27 0820 in the head, Alex coughed loudly, and the doctor, K27 0830 with a sforzando of chicken noises floating behind him, took to the stairs K27 0840 in long-shanked leaps. "Comment"? ejaculated the surprised K27 0850 woman, looking at Alex for an explanation but he, parting from K27 0860 her without ceremony, only offered a few words about the doctor's K27 0870 provincial American speech and a state of nerves brought on by the demands K27 0880 of his work. With that he hurried up the stairs, followed by her K27 0890 suspicious K27 0900 gaze. When Alex entered his room, the doctor was already K27 0910 preparing a nest in the straw case, six eggs ready for the hen's K27 0920 attentions. There was no reference to the incident on the stairs, his K27 0930 powers being absorbed by this more immediate business. The hen appeared K27 0940 to have no doubts as to her duties and was quick to settle down K27 0950 to the performance of them. One part of her audience was totally engaged, K27 0960 the connoisseur witnessing a peculiarly fine performance of some K27 0970 ancient classic, the other part, the guest of the connoisseur, attentive K27 0980 as one who must take an intelligent interest in that which he does K27 0990 not fully understand. The spectacle progressed towards a denouement which K27 1000 was obviously still remote; the audience attended. Time elapsed K27 1010 but the doctor was obviously unconscious of its passage until an unwelcome K27 1020 knock on the door interrupted the processes of nature. Startled, K27 1030 he jumped up to pull hen and case out of view, and Alex went to the K27 1040 door. He opened it a crack and in doing so made as much shuffling, K27 1050 coughing, and scraping noise as possible in order to drown emanations K27 1060 from the hen who had begun to protest. It was Giselle, the , come to clean the room, and while she stood before him with K27 1080 ears pricked up and regard all curiosity, explaining her errand, Alex K27 1090 could see from the corner of his eye the doctor doing all he could K27 1100 to calm the displeased bird. Giselle was reluctant but Alex succeeded K27 1110 in persuading her to come back in five minutes and the door was shut K27 1120 again. "Who was that, young feller"? the doctor instantly K27 1130 asked. "That was the , the one you thought K27 1140 couldn't get the eggs out. She looked mighty interested, though. K27 1150 Anyhow she's coming back in five minutes to do the room". K27 1160 The doctor's mind was working at a great speed; he rose to put K27 1170 his greatcoat on and addressed Alex in a muted voice. "Have K27 1180 you got our keys handy"? "Right in my pocket". K27 1190 "All right. Now you go outside and beckon me when it's safe". K27 1200 The hall was empty and Alex beckoned; they climbed the stairs K27 1210 which creaked, very loudly to their sensitive ears, and reached the next K27 1220 floor. A guest was locking his room; they passed behind him and K27 1230 got to Alex's room unnoticed. The doctor sat down rather wearily, K27 1240 caressing the hen and remarking that the city was not the place for a K27 1250 poultry-loving man, but no sooner was the remark out than a knock at this K27 1260 door obliged him to cover the hen with his greatcoat once more. At K27 1270 the door Alex managed to persuade the increasingly astonished to return in ten minutes. It was evident that a second K27 1290 transfer had to be effected, and that it had to take place between the K27 1300 time the finished the doctor's room and the time she began K27 1310 Alex's. They waited three minutes and then crept out on tip-toe; K27 1320 the halls were empty and they passed down the stairs to number nine K27 1330 and listened at the door. A bustle of sheets being smoothed and pillows K27 1340 being arranged indicated the presence inside; K27 1350 they listened and suddenly a step towards the door announced K27 1360 another important fact. The doctor shot down to the lavatory and turned K27 1370 the doorknob, but to no effect: the lavatory was occupied. Although K27 1380 a look of alarm passed over his face, he did not arrest his movements K27 1390 but disappeared into the shower room just as the chambermaid emerged K27 1400 from number nine. Alex suppressed those expressions of relief which K27 1410 offered to prevail in his face and escape from his throat; unwarranted K27 1420 they were in any case for, as he stood facing the , K27 1430 his ears were assailed by new sounds from the interior of the shower K27 1440 room. The events of the last quarter of an hour, mysterious to K27 1450 any bird accustomed only to the predictable life of coop and barnyard, K27 1460 had overcome the doctor's hen and she gave out a series of cackly wails, K27 1470 perhaps mourning her nest, but briefly enjoyed. The doctor's K27 1480 wits had not left him, however, for all his sixty-eight years, and the K27 1490 wails were almost immediately lost in the sound of water rushing out K27 1500 from the showerhead. Alex nodded to the maid as though nothing unusual K27 1510 were taking place and entered the doctor's room. Shortly, the doctor K27 1520 himself entered, his hair somewhat wet from the shower, but evidently K27 1530 satisfied with the outcome of their adventures. Without comment he K27 1540 opened the closet and from its shelves constructed a highboard around K27 1550 the egg case which he had placed on the floor inside. Next, the hen K27 1560 was nested and all seemed well. The two men sat for some time, savoring K27 1570 the pleasure of escape from peril and the relief such escape brings, K27 1580 before they got up and left the hotel, the doctor to go to the conference K27 1590 house and Alex to go to the main post office. Alex returned K27 1600 to the hotel, rather weary and with no new prospects of a role, K27 1610 in the late afternoon, but found the doctor in an ebullient mood. At K27 1620 the time Alex arrived he was engaged in some sort of intimate communication K27 1630 with the hen, who had settled herself on the nest most peacefully K27 1640 after the occurrences of the morning. "Chickens have short K27 1650 memories", the doctor remarked, "that's why they are better company K27 1660 than most people I know", and he went on to break some important K27 1670 news to Alex. "Well", he began, "It seems like some people K27 1680 in Paris want to hear more from me than those fellers over at the conference K27 1690 house do. They've got a big vulture from Tanganika at the K27 1700 zoo here, with a wife for him, too, very rare birds, both of them, the K27 1710 only Vulturidae of their species outside Africa. Seems like K27 1720 she's K27 1730 willing, but the male just flops around all day like the bashful boy K27 1740 who took Jeannie May behind the barn and then didn't know what to K27 1750 do, and the people at the zoo haven't got any vulture chicks to show K27 1760 for their trouble. K28 0010 Going downstairs with the tray, Winston wished he could have K28 0020 given in to Miss Ada, but he knew better than to do what she said when K28 0030 she had that little-girl look. There were times it wasn't right K28 0040 to make a person happy, like the times she came in the kitchen and asked K28 0050 for a peanut butter sandwich. "You know we don't keep peanut butter K28 0060 in this house", he always told her. "Why, Winston", she'd K28 0070 cry, "I just now saw you eating it out of the jar"! But he K28 0080 knew how important it was for her to keep her figure. ## In the K28 0090 kitchen, Leona, his little young wife, was reading the morning paper. K28 0100 Her legs hung down long and thin as she sat on the high stool. K28 0110 "Here", Winston said gently, "what's these dishes doing not K28 0120 washed"? The enormous plates which had held Mr& Jack's four K28 0130 fried eggs and five strips of bacon were still stacked in the sink. K28 0140 "Leave me alone", Leona said. "Can't you see I'm K28 0150 busy"? She looked at him impudently over the corner of the paper. K28 0160 "This is moving day", Winston reminded her, "and I bet K28 0170 you left things every which way upstairs, your clothes all over the K28 0180 floor and the bed not made. Leona"! His eye had fastened on her K28 0190 leg; bending, he touched her knee. "If I catch you one more time K28 0200 down here without stockings"- She twitched her leg away. K28 0210 "Fuss, fuss, old man". She had an alley cat's manners. K28 0220 Winston stacked Miss Ada's thin pink dishes in the sink. Then he K28 0230 spread out the last list on the counter. "To Be Left Behind" K28 0240 was printed at the top in Miss Ada; fine hand. Winston took out K28 0250 a pencil, admired the point, and wrote slowly and heavily, "Clothes K28 0260 Stand". Sighing, Leona dropped the paper and stood up. "I K28 0270 guess I better get ready to go". Winston watched her fumbling K28 0280 to untie her apron. "Here". Carefully, he undid the bow. K28 0290 "How come your bows is always cockeyed"? She turned and K28 0300 put her arms around his neck. "I don't want to leave here, Winston". K28 0310 "Now listen to that". He drew back, embarrassed K28 0320 and pleased. "I thought you was sick to death of this big house. Said K28 0330 you wore yourself out, cleaning all these empty rooms". "At K28 0340 least there is room here", she said. "What room is there going K28 0350 to be in an apartment for any child"? "I told you what K28 0360 Miss Ada's doctor said". "I don't mean Miss Ada! K28 0370 What you think I care about that? I mean our children". She K28 0380 sounded as though they already existed. In spite of the hundred K28 0390 things he had on his mind, Winston went and put his arm around her K28 0400 waist. "We've got plenty of time to think about that. All the K28 0410 time in the world. We've only been married four years, January". K28 0420 "Four years"! she wailed. "That's a long time, waiting". K28 0430 "How many times have I told you"- he began, and K28 0440 was almost glad when she cut him off- "Too many times"!- K28 0450 and flounced to the sink, where she began noisily to wash her hands. K28 0460 Too many times was the truth of it, Winston thought. He hardly K28 0470 believed his reason himself any more. Although it had seemed a good K28 0480 reason, to begin with: no couple could afford to have children. K28 0490 "How you going to work with a child hanging on you"? he asked K28 0500 Leona. "You want to keep this job, don't you"? He doubted K28 0510 whether she heard him, over the running water. He sat for a K28 0520 while with his hands on his knees, watching the bend of her back as she K28 0530 gathered up her things- a comb, a bottle of aspirin- to take upstairs K28 0540 and pack. She made him sad some days, and he was never sure why; K28 0550 it was something to do with her back, the thinness of it, and the K28 0560 quick, jerky way she bent. She was too young, that was all; too young K28 0570 and thin and straight. "Winston"! It was Mr& K28 0580 Jack, bellowing out in the hall. Winston hurried through the swinging K28 0590 door. "I've been bursting my lungs for you", Mr& Jack K28 0600 complained. He was standing in front of the mirror, tightening his tie. K28 0610 He had on his gray tweed overcoat and his city hat, and his brief K28 0620 case lay on the bench. "I don't know what you think you've been K28 0630 doing about my clothes", he said. "This coat looks like a rag heap". K28 0640 There were a few blades of lint on the shoulder. Winston K28 0650 took the clothesbrush out of the closet and went to work. He gave Mr& K28 0660 Jack a real going-over; he brushed his shoulders and his back K28 0670 and his collar with long, firm strokes. "Hey"! Mr& Jack cried K28 0680 when the brush tipped his hat down over his eyes. Winston K28 0690 apologized and quickly set the hat right. Then he stood back to look K28 0700 at Mr& Jack, who was pulling on his pigskin gloves. Winston enjoyed K28 0710 seeing him start out; he wore his clothes with style. When he was K28 0720 going to town, nothing was good enough- he had cursed at Winston K28 0730 once for leaving a fleck of polish on his shoelace. At home, he wouldn't K28 0740 even wash his hands for supper, and he wandered around the yard K28 0750 in a pair of sweaty old corduroys. The velvet smoking jackets, pearl-gray, K28 0760 wine, and blue, which Miss Ada had bought him hung brushed and K28 0770 unworn in the closet. "Good-by, Winston", Mr& Jack said, K28 0780 giving a final set to his hat. "Look out for those movers"! K28 0790 Winston watched him hurry down the drive to his car; a handsome, K28 0800 fine-looking man it made him proud to see. ## After Mr& Jack K28 0810 drove away, Winston went on looking out the window. He noticed a speck K28 0820 of dirt on the sill and swiped at it with his finger. Then he looked K28 0830 at his finger, at the wrinkled, heavy knuckle and the thick nail he K28 0840 used like a knife to pry up, slit, and open. For the first time, he K28 0850 let himself be sad about the move. That house was ten years off his life. K28 0860 Each brass handle and hinge shone for his reward, and he knew how K28 0870 to get at the dust in the china flowers and how to take down the long K28 0880 glass drops which hung from the chandelier. He knew the house like K28 0890 a blind man, through his fingers, and he did not like to think of all K28 0900 the time and rags and polishes he had spent on keeping it up. K28 0901 Ten years K28 0910 ago, he had come to the house to be interviewed. The tulips and the K28 0920 big pink peonies had been blooming along the drive, and he had walked K28 0930 up from the bus almost singing. Miss Ada had been out back, in a straw K28 0940 hat, planting flowers. She had talked to him right there, with the K28 0950 hot sun in his face, which made him sweat and feel ashamed. Winston K28 0960 had been surprised at her for that. Still, he had liked the way she K28 0970 had looked, in a fresh, neat cotton dress- citron yellow, if he remembered. K28 0980 She had had a dignity about her, even barefoot and almost too K28 0990 tan. Since then, the flowers she had planted had spread all K28 1000 over the hill. Already the jonquils were blooming in a flock by the front K28 1010 gate, and the periwinkles were coming on, blue by the porch steps. K28 1020 In a week the hyacinths would spike out. And the dogwood in early K28 1030 May, for Miss Ada's alfresco party; and after that the Japanese K28 1050 cherries. Now the yard looked wet and bald, the trees bare under their K28 1060 buds, but in a while Miss Ada's flowers would bloom like a marching K28 1070 parade. She had dug a hole for each bulb, each tree wore a tag with K28 1080 her writing on it; where would she go for her gardening now? Somehow K28 1090 Winston didn't think she'd take to window boxes. Sighing, K28 1100 he hurried to the living room. He had a thousand things to see K28 1110 to. Still, he couldn't help thinking, we're all getting old, getting K28 1120 small; the snail is pulling in her horns. In the living K28 1130 room, Miss Ada was standing by the window with a sheaf of lists in K28 1140 her hand. She was looking out at the garden. "Winston", K28 1150 she said, "get the basket for the breakables". Winston had K28 1160 the big straw basket ready in the hall. He brought it in and put K28 1170 it down beside her. Miss Ada was looking fine; she had on her Easter K28 1180 suit, blue, with lavender binding. Halfway across the house, he K28 1190 could have smelled her morning perfume. It hung in all her day clothes, K28 1200 sweet and strong; sometimes when he was pressing, Winston raised K28 1210 her dresses to his face. Frowning, Miss Ada studied the list. K28 1220 "Well, let's see. The china lemon tree. The alabaster cockatoo". K28 1230 Winston followed her around the room, collecting the small frail K28 1240 objects (Christmas, birthday, and anniversary) and wrapping them K28 1250 in tissue paper. Neither of them trusted the movers. When they K28 1260 came to Mr& Jack's photograph, twenty by twelve inches in a curly K28 1270 silver frame, Miss Ada said, "By rights I ought to leave that, K28 1280 seeing he won't take my clotheshorse". She smiled at Winston, K28 1290 and he saw the hateful hard glitter in her eyes. He picked up the photograph K28 1300 and began to wrap it. "At least you could leave it K28 1310 for the movers", Miss Ada said. "What possessed you to tell me K28 1320 a clotheshorse would be a good idea"? Winston folded the K28 1330 tissue paper carefully. "He's used it every day; every morning, K28 1340 I lay out his clothes on it". "Well, that's over now. K28 1350 And it was his main present! Leave that fool picture out", she added K28 1360 sharply. Winston laid it in the basket. "Mr& Jack sets K28 1370 store by that". "Really, Winston. It was meant to be K28 1380 present". But she went on down the list. Winston was K28 1390 relieved; those presents had been on his mind. He had only agreed K28 1400 with Miss Ada about getting the valet, but he had actually suggested K28 1410 the photograph to Mr& Jack. "You know what she likes, Winston", K28 1420 he had said wearily, one evening in November when Winston was K28 1430 pulling off his overshoes. "Tell me what to get her for Christmas". K28 1440 "She's been talking about a picture", Winston had told K28 1450 him. "Picture! You mean picture of me"? But Winston K28 1460 had persuaded him. On Christmas night, they had had a disagreement K28 1470 about it. Winston had heard because he was setting up the K28 1480 liquor tray in the next room. Through the door, he had seen Mr& Jack K28 1490 walking around, waiting for Miss Ada. Finally she had come down; K28 1500 Winston had heard her shaking out the skirt of her new pink silk K28 1510 hostess gown. "How do you like it"? she had asked. K28 1520 Mr& Jack had said, "You look about fifteen years old". K28 1530 "Is that a compliment"? "I don't know". He had K28 1540 stood at a little distance, studying her, as though he would walk around K28 1550 next and look at the back of her head. "Lovie, you make K28 1560 me feel naked". Miss Ada had giggled, and she went sweeping and rustling K28 1570 to the couch and sank down. "You look like that picture K28 1580 I have at the office", Mr& Jack had started. "Not a line, K28 1590 not a wrinkle. I look like an old man, compared", and he had picked K28 1600 up his photograph with the red Christmas bow still on it. "Look, K28 1610 an old man. Will you wear pink when you're sixty"? "Darling, K28 1620 I love that photograph. I'm going to put it on my dresser". K28 1630 "I guess it's children make a woman old. A man gets K28 1640 old anyhow". After a minute he went on, "People must think the K28 1650 curse is on me, seeing you fresh as an apple and me old and gray". K28 1660 "I'll give you a medical certificate, framed, if you like", K28 1670 Miss Ada had said. "No. All I want is a picture- with K28 1680 a few lines. Make the man put them in if he has to". After K28 1690 that they had sat for five minutes without saying a word. Then Miss K28 1700 Ada had stood up, rustling and rustling, and gone upstairs. K29 0010 Was it love? I had no doubt that it was. During the rest of the summer K29 0020 my scholarly mania for making plaster casts and spatter prints of K29 0030 Catskill flowers and leaves was all but surpassed by the constantly K29 0040 renewed impressions of Jessica that my mind served up to me for contemplation K29 0050 and delight. ## Nothing in all the preceding years had K29 0060 had the power to bring me closer to a knowledge of profound sorrow than K29 0070 the breakup of camp, the packing away of my camp uniforms, the severing K29 0080 of ties with the six or ten people I had grown most to love in the K29 0090 world. In final separation from them, in the railroad terminal across K29 0100 the river from New York, I would nearly cry. My parents' welcoming K29 0110 arms would seem woeful, inadequate, unwanted. But that year was K29 0120 different, for just as the city, in the form of my street clothes, had K29 0130 intruded upon my mountain nights, so an essential part of the summer K29 0140 gave promise of continuing into the fall: Jessica and I, about to K29 0150 be separated not by a mere footbridge or messhall kitchen but by the K29 0160 immense obstacle of residing in cruelly distant boroughs, had agreed K29 0170 to correspond. These letters became the center of my existence. K29 0180 I lived to see an envelope of hers in the morning mail and to lock K29 0190 myself in my room in the afternoon to reread her letter for the tenth K29 0200 time and finally prepare an answer. My memory has catalogued for easy K29 0210 reference and withdrawal the image of her pink, scented stationery and K29 0220 the unsloped, almost printed configurations of her neat, studious handwriting K29 0230 with which she invited me to recall our summer, so many sentences K29 0240 beginning with "Remember when **h"; and others concerning K29 0250 camp friends who resided in her suburban neighborhood, and news of her K29 0260 commencing again her piano lessons, her private school, a visit to K29 0270 Boston to see her grandparents and an uncle who was a surgeon returned K29 0280 on furlough, wounded, from the war in Europe. In my letters K29 0290 I took on a personality that differed from the self I knew in real K29 0300 life. Then epistolatory me was a foreign correspondent dispatching exciting K29 0310 cables and communiques, full of dash and wit and glamor, quoting K29 0320 from the books I read, imitating the grand styles of the authors recommended K29 0330 by a teacher in whose special, after-school class I was enrolled. K29 0340 The letters took their source from a stream of my imagination K29 0350 in which I was transformed into a young man not unlike my bunkmate Eliot K29 0360 Sands- he of the porch steps anecdotes- who smoked cigarettes, K29 0370 performed the tango, wore fifty dollar suits, and sneaked off into K29 0380 the dark with girls to do unimaginable things with them. Like Eliot, K29 0390 in my fantasies, I had a proud bearing and, with a skill that was vaguely K29 0400 continental, I would lead Jessica through an evening of dancing K29 0410 and handsome descriptions of my newest exploits, would guide her gently K29 0420 to the night's climax which, in my dreams, was always represented K29 0430 by our almost suffocating one another to death with deep, moist kisses K29 0440 burning with love. The night after reading her letter about her surgeon K29 0450 uncle- it must have been late in September- I had a vision K29 0460 of myself returned in ragged uniform from The Front, nearly dying, K29 0470 my head bandaged and blooded, and Jessica bending over me, the power K29 0480 of her love bringing me back to life. For many nights afterward, the K29 0490 idea of her having been so close to me in that imagined bed would return K29 0500 and fill me with obscure and painful desires, would cause me to lie K29 0510 awake in shame, tossing with irresolution, longing to fall into a deep K29 0520 sleep. The weeks went by, and the longer our separation grew, K29 0530 the more unbounded and almost unbearable my fantasies became. They K29 0540 caused my love for Jessica to become warmer and at the same time more K29 0550 hopeless, as if my adolescent self knew that only torment would ever K29 0560 bring me the courage to ask to see her again. As it turned out, K29 0561 Jessica took matters K29 0570 into her own hands. Having received permission K29 0580 to give a camp reunion-Halloween party, she asked that I come and K29 0590 be her date. I went and, mum and nervous, all but made a fool of myself. K29 0600 Again among those jubilantly reunited bunkmates, I was shy with K29 0610 Jessie and acted as I had during those early Saturday mornings when K29 0620 we all seemed to be playing for effect, to be detached and unconcerned K29 0630 with the girls who were properly our dates but about whom, later, in K29 0640 the privacy of our bunks, we would think in terms of the most elaborate K29 0650 romance. I remember standing in a corner, watching Jessica act the K29 0660 hostess, serving soft drinks to her guests. She was wearing her dark K29 0670 hair in two, thick braids to attain an "American Girl" effect K29 0680 she thought was appropriate to Halloween. It made her look sweet and K29 0690 schoolgirlish, I was excited to be with her, but I did not know how K29 0700 to express it. Yet a moment did come that night when the adventurous K29 0710 letter writer and fantasist seemed to stride off my flashy pages, out K29 0720 of my mind, and plant himself in reality. It was late, we were playing K29 0730 kissing games, and Jessica and I were called on to kiss in front K29 0740 of the others. We blushed and were flustered, and it turned out to K29 0750 be the fleetest brush of lips upon cheek. The kiss outraged our friends K29 0760 but it was done and meanwhile had released in me all the remote, exciting K29 0770 premonitions of lust, all the mysterious sensations that I had K29 0780 imagined a truly consummated kiss would convey to me. It was K29 0790 at that party that, finally overcoming my timidity, inspired by tales K29 0800 only half-understood and overheard among older boys, I asked Jessie K29 0810 to spend New Year's Eve with me. Lovingly, she accepted, and so K29 0820 great was my emotion that all I could think of saying was, "You're K29 0830 amazing, you know"? Later, we agreed to think of how we wished K29 0840 to spend that night. We would write to one another and make a definite K29 0850 plan. She was terribly pleased. Among my school and neighborhood K29 0860 friends, during the next months, I bragged and swaggered and K29 0870 pompously described my impending date. But though I boasted and gave K29 0880 off a dapper front, I was beneath it all frightened. It would be the K29 0890 first time I had ever been completely alone with a girl I loved. K29 0900 I had no idea of what subjects one discussed when alone with a girl, K29 0910 or how one behaved: Should I hold her hand while walking or only K29 0920 when crossing the street? Should I bring along a corsage or send K29 0930 one to her? Was it preferable to meet her at home or in the city? K29 0940 Should I accompany her to the door of her home, or should I ask to K29 0950 be invited in? In or out, should I kiss her goodnight? All this K29 0960 was unknown to me, and yet I had dared to ask her out for the most K29 0970 important night of the year! When in one letter Jessica informed K29 0980 me that her father did not like the idea of her going out alone K29 0990 on New Year's Eve, I knew for a moment an immense relief; but K29 1000 the letter went on: she had cried, she had implored, she had been miserable K29 1010 at his refusal, and finally he had relented- and now how happy K29 1020 she was, how expectant! Her optimism gave me heart. I forced K29 1030 confidence into myself. I made inquiries, I read a book of etiquette. K29 1040 In December I wrote her with authority that we would meet K29 1050 on the steps of the Hotel Astor, a rendezvous spot that I had learned K29 1060 was the most sophisticated. We would attend a film and, later on, K29 1070 I stated, we might go to the Mayflower Coffee Shop or Child's K29 1080 or Toffenetti's for waffles. I set the hour of our meeting for seven. K29 1090 ## At five o'clock that night it was already dark, and behind K29 1100 my closed door I was dressing as carefully as a groom. I wore a new K29 1110 double-breasted brown worsted suit with a faint herringbone design K29 1120 and wide lapels like a devil's ears. My camp-made leather wallet, bulky K29 1130 with twisted, raised stitches around the edges, I stuffed with money K29 1140 I had been saving. Hatless, in an overcoat of rough blue wool, K29 1150 I was given a proud farewell by my mother and father, and I set out K29 1160 into the strangely still streets of Brooklyn. I felt superior to the K29 1170 neighborhood friends I was leaving behind, felt older than my years, K29 1180 and was full of compliments for myself as I headed into the subway that K29 1190 was carrying its packs of passengers out of that dull borough and K29 1200 into the unstable, tantalizing excitement of Manhattan. Times K29 1210 Square, when I ascended to it with my fellow subway travellers (all K29 1220 dressed as if for a huge wedding in a family of which we were all distant K29 1230 members), was nearly impassable, the sidewalks swarming with celebrants, K29 1240 with bundled up sailors and soldiers already hugging their girls K29 1250 and their rationed bottles of whiskey. Heavy-coated, severe-looking K29 1260 policemen sat astride noble horses along the curbside to prevent the K29 1270 revellers from spilling out in front of the crawling traffic. The night K29 1280 was cold but the crowd kept one warm. The giant electric signs and K29 1290 marquees were lit up for the first time since blackout regulations had K29 1300 been instituted, and the atmosphere was alive with the feeling that K29 1310 victory was just around the corner. Cardboard noisemakers, substitutes K29 1320 for the unavailable tin models, were being hawked and bought at makeshift K29 1330 stands every few yards along Broadway, and one's ears were continually K29 1340 serenaded by the horns' rasps and bleats. An old gentlemen K29 1350 next to me held a Boy Scout bugle to his lips and blasted away at K29 1360 every fourth step and during the interim shouted out, "~V for Victory"! K29 1370 His neighbors cheered him on. There was a great sense of K29 1380 camaraderie. How did one join them? Where were they all walking K29 1390 to? Was I supposed to buy a funny hat and a rattle for Jessica? K29 1400 It was a quarter of seven when the crowd washed me up among the K29 1410 other gallants who had established the Astor steps as the beach-head K29 1420 from which to launch their night of merrymaking. I looked over their K29 1430 faces and felt a twinge: they all looked so much more knowing than K29 1440 I. I looked away. I looked for Jessica to materialize out of the K29 1450 clogging, curdling crowd and, as the time passed and I waited, a fiend K29 1460 came to life beside me and whispered in my ear: How was I planning K29 1470 to greet Jessica? Where exactly would we go after the movie? K29 1480 Suppose the lines in front of the movie houses were too long and we K29 1490 couldn't get in? Suppose I hadn't brought along enough money? K29 1500 I felt for my wallet. Its thick, substantial outline calmed me. K29 1510 But when I saw that it was already ten past seven, I began to K29 1520 wonder if something had gone wrong. Suppose her father had changed his K29 1530 mind and had refused to let her leave? Suppose at this very moment K29 1540 her father was calling my house in an effort to cancel the plans? K29 1550 I grew uneasy. All about me there was a hectic interplay of meetings K29 1560 taking place, like abrupt, jerky scenes in old silent movies, joyous K29 1570 greetings and beginnings, huggings and kissings, enthusiastic forays K29 1580 into the festive night. Whole platoons were taking up new positions on K29 1590 the steps, arriving and departing, while I stayed glued, like a signpost, K29 1600 to one spot. At 7:25 two hotel doormen came thumping K29 1610 down the steps, carrying a saw-horse to be set up as a barricade in front K29 1620 of the haberdashery store window next to the entranceway, and as I K29 1630 watched them in their gaudy red coats that nearly scraped the ground, K29 1640 their golden, fringed epaulets and spic, red-visored caps, I suddenly K29 1650 saw just over their shoulders Jessica gracefully making her way through K29 1660 the crowd. My heart almost stopped beating.