"I don't know," said Jack hoarsely. "Do you mean for her coffin?" He was filled with horror.
"Well, I should say I do. I should say so. You don't see no sewing-machine here, do you, for sewing her shroud. I suppose I do mean her coffin, being joiner and carpenter, and J. P. and coroner as well when required."
Jack fled, horrified. But as he lit his sulky candles, and set off at a slow trot out of the town, he laughed a bit to himself. He felt it was rather funny. Why shouldn't it be rather funny? He hoped it would be a bit funny when he was dead too, to relieve matters. He sat in the easy sulky driving slowly down the washed-out road, in the dark, alien night. The night was dark and strange. An animal ran along the road in front of him, just discernible, at the far edge of the dim yellow candle glow. It was a wild grey thing, running ahead into the dark. On into the dark.
Why should one care? Beyond a certain point, one didn't care about anything, life or death. One just felt it all. Up to a certain point, one had to go through the mill, caring and feeling bad. One had to cry out to the Lord, and fight the ugly brutes of life. And then for a time it was over, and one didn't care, good or bad, Lord or no Lord. One paid one's whack of caring and then one was let off for a time. When one was dead, one didn't care any more. And that was death. But life too had its own indifference, its own deep, strong indifference: as the ocean is calm way down, under the most violent storm.
When he got home, Tom came out to the sulky. Tom's face was set with that queer Australian look, as if he were caught in a trap, and it wasn't any use complaining about it. He unharnessed the horse in a rough, flinging fashion. Jack didn't know what to say to him, so he thought he'd better keep quiet.
Lennie came riding in on Lucy. He slid to the ground and dragged the mare's bridle roughly.
"Come on, yer blasted old idjut, can't ye!" he blubbed, dragging her to the stable door. "Blasted idjut, my Uncle Joe!" he continued, between the sniffs and gulps of his blub-bing. "Questions! Questions! How c'n I answer questions when I don't know myself!" A loud blub as he dragged the saddle down on top of himself, in his frenzy of untackling Lucy. "Rackett says to me, Len,' he says,"—blub and a loud sniff—"'y' father's took bad and pore ol' Gran's gone,' he says"—blub! blub! blub—"'Be off an' fetch y' Uncle Joe an' tell him to come at onst'—an' he can go to hell." Lennie ended on a shout of defiance as he staggered into the stable with the saddle. And from the dark his voice came: "An' when I ask our Tom what's amiss wi'm' Dad," blub! blub! "blasted idjut looks at me like a blasted owl—like a blasted owl!" And Lennie sobbed before he sniffed and came out for the bridle.
"Don't y' cry, Lennie," said Jack, who was himself crying for all he was worth, under the cover of the dark.
"I'm not crying, y' bloomin' fool, you!" shouted Len. "I'm gain' in to see Ma, I am. Get some sense outta her."
He walked off towards the house, and then came back.