“So that’s where you’ve been?”
The great weight of blood and tears had lifted completely out of the boy’s heart, leaving him dizzily buoyant, wild, half-conscious only of his rushing words.
He opened the door and went into the outer room.
Ben got up quickly and nervously.
“Well,” he said, “how much longer has he got to live?”
Seriously, in a low voice, he added: “There’s nothing wrong with him, is there?”
“No,” said McGuire,
“I think he’s a little off his nut.
But, then, you all are.”
When they came out on the street again, Ben said:
“Have you had anything to eat?”
“No,” said Eugene.
“When did you eat last?”
“Some time yesterday,” said Eugene.
“I don’t remember.”
“You damned fool!” Ben muttered.
“Come on — let’s eat.”
The idea became very attractive.
The world was washed pleasantly in the milky winter sunshine.
The town, under the stimulus of the holidays and the returning students, had wakened momentarily from its winter torpor: warm brisk currents of life seethed over the pavements.
He walked along at Ben’s side with a great bounding stride, unable to govern the expanding joy that rose yeastily in him.
Finally, as he turned in on the busy avenue, he could restrain himself no longer: he leaped high in the air, with a yelp of ecstasy:
“Squee-ee!”
“You little idiot!” Ben cried sharply.
“Are you crazy!”
He scowled fiercely, then turned to the roaring passersby, with a thin smile.
“Hang on to him, Ben!” yelled Jim Pollock. He was a deadly little man, waxen and smiling under a black mustache, the chief compositor, a Socialist.
“If you cut off his damned big feet,” said Ben, “he’d go up like a balloon.”
They went into the big new lunch-room and sat at one of the tables.
“What’s yours?” said the waiter.
“A cup of coffee and a piece of mince pie,” said Ben.
“I’ll take the same,” said Eugene.
“Eat!” said Ben fiercely.
“Eat!”
Eugene studied the card thoughtfully.
“Bring me some veal cutlets breaded with tomato sauce,” he said, “with a side-order of hash-brown potatoes, a dish of creamed carrots and peas, and a plate of hot biscuits.
Also a cup of coffee.”
Eugene got back his heart again.
He got it back fiercely and carelessly, with an eldritch wildness.
During the remainder of his holiday, he plunged recklessly through the lively crowds, looking boldly but without insolence at the women and young girls.
They grew unexpectedly out of the waste drear winter like splendid flowers.
He was eager and alone.
Fear is a dragon that lives among crowds — and in armies.
It lives hardly with men who are alone.
He felt released — beyond the last hedge of desperation.
Freed and alone, he looked with a boding detachment at all the possessed and possessing world about him.
Life hung for his picking fingers like a strange and bitter fruit. THEY— the great clan huddled there behind the stockade for warmth and safety — could hunt him down some day and put him to death: he thought they would.
But he was not now afraid — he was content, if only the struggle might be fruitful.
He looked among the crowds printed with the mark of his danger, seeking that which he might desire and take.
He went back to the university sealed up against the taunts of the young men: in the hot green Pullman they pressed about him with thronging jibe, but they fell back sharply, as fiercely he met them, with constraint.