“Delightful boy—delicious boy,” she said, her voice trembling and growing fainter.
Martin tried to speak to her, but his mouth was dry. He lifted his arms and held on to the rail of the bed, trying to pull away from the searing. Then it overcame him. He rolled and pretended to fight, but in his brain there was only an exultant shouting.
As Deane knelt at the foot of the bed she looked down at Martin and thought of the White Peacock; of the Gargoyle; and of their relation to this man; and she felt the lustful brooding of this trilogy which was dominant in her life. Her breasts rubbed against the fine hair of his knees and each touch made her wilder. Pulling at him, she crawled up beside him, her fingernails scratching the sheets. Then, from her throat came a strange cry, a small cry, like the wail of a new-born child.
The snow kept piling against the windshield. Once, Roberts had to get out and wipe it off from the outside. As he stepped back into the car his foot slipped on something. Deane’s violets! He flung them into the snow. In his imagination he saw Martin and Deane together—saw her laughingly repeat their conversation of the afternoon. He visualized Martin’s shrug, and contemptuous remarks. Roberts’ cheeks burned in the dark and he drove more recklessly. At this very moment the woman was probably in Martin’s arms.... Martin, with his sultry gray eyes and tanned face. Martin, outlined like a flame before him.... Roberts breathed the cold wind and spoke aloud. “He deserves nothing but my hatred. If I could make him suffer as he has made me suffer! His picture before me always!—superior, contemptuous and desirable! The night he sat with me in my apartment, fresh from the sea—wind and salt in his eyes and hair, I thought I had found life. My happiness stretched into the horizon of his understanding. Solemn and patient, he spoke to me and laughed with me. Now, he speaks of me, and laughs at me—with her! I can hear him laughing—” Roberts voice rose more fiercely. “He is saying, ‘What?—tried to hold your hand? What the devil would he want with that?’” The irritating, superior tones rang in Roberts’ imagination. “Yes, I can hear them: ‘Poor old Roberts—what a pity—chap must lead an awful life—imagine going around with that handicap—not that there’s any moral application, just a matter of convenience—continually frustrated.’” Roberts pounded the steering wheel with his fist. “The cattle!” he whispered hoarsely. “As if they could understand—as if anyone could understand. Damn them—their laughter and their insufferable attitude! Damn their happiness.... Drink it, Roberts!—That I should measure my life in terms of one night! One night with Martin, with his young face and old eyes. With his laughter and his understanding. What agony to be born one night and die the same! Better not to be born at all.... Why, Martin, did you swagger through the door with your flapping dungarees and proud head?... Angels dancing in the eyes that hold only devils now. Such insolence! A bright, beautiful distillation of evil. Martin—the god of selfishness, salt to the desire. A blinding picture that grows with absence. A dust that burns the eyes and chokes the appetite.... Delete the image!—step upon it, crush it only to see it rise anew, more beautiful and vicious than before.” Hot tears distorted Roberts’ vision. He drew his hand across his face angrily. In a flashing, intolerable whiteness, he saw himself swinging on the tapestry of his heritage. “God!” he cried into the night. “Predestination—crucified in the womb!” The image grew more hateful in his mind. The cold wind dried his tears. Slowly his mouth narrowed into a fanatical line. “He has made me suffer. Moving relentlessly, superficially, over people and life—eating life and dripping its tantalizing crumbs from an overstuffed mouth—ruthless and immaculate, he has made me suffer.” Roberts’ face was white in the light from the windshield. White, unsmiling and purposeful.
CHAPTER XX
Martin met few people; but there was an atmosphere of tension everywhere he walked. It didn’t make any difference what color their eyes were—blue or brown or clay, there was action. Mostly it was antipathy engendered by something the fulcrum of this hate could not understand. Sometimes, however, it was love—a piercing, shrill movement that fell, ageless and sexless, over his shoulders.
He did well with his work at the printing plant and was finally transferred to a night shift where he found, to his relief, that the hours were shorter, thus giving him precious moments that he could spend with Deane or devote to the perfecting of his type design. He liked also the quality of concentrated activity during these working hours at the plant, occasioned in part by the darkness which enveloped the building and grounds. He had no contact with the men around him except at coffeetime; and they, in turn, sensed an indivisible chasm where their thoughts and his whirled in confusion above them.
Once, during the evening, a machine squirted. The operator, swearing loudly, kicked back his chair and was picking the lead from his trousers when Martin glanced up, a phrase from the copy still in his mind. He went to the man at once to help him; but the molten metal, already hardened into splinters, had entered the fleshy part of the operator’s leg, and the man, in considerable discomfort, nodded his thanks to Martin and still swearing, softly now to himself, limped out of the room and down the hall.