He felt her earnestness beneath her awkward banter.
He struggled in a chaos of confused fury, trying for silence.
At last he spoke in a low voice, filled with his passion:
“We’ve got to have something, mama.
We’ve got to have something, you know.
We can’t go on always alone — alone.”
It was dark.
No one could see.
He let the gates swing open.
He wept.
“I know!” Eliza agreed hastily.
“I’m not saying —”
“My God, my God, where are we going?
What’s it all about?
He’s dying — can’t you see it?
Don’t you know it?
Look at his life.
Look at yours.
No light, no love, no comfort — nothing.”
His voice rose frantically: he beat on his ribs like a drum.
“Mama, mama, in God’s name, what is it?
What do you want?
Are you going to strangle and drown us all?
Don’t you own enough?
Do you want more string?
Do you want more bottles?
By God, I’ll go around collecting them if you say so.”
His voice had risen almost to a scream.
“But tell me what you want.
Don’t you own enough?
Do you want the town?
What is it?”
“Why, I don’t know what you’re talking about, boy,” said Eliza angrily.
“If I hadn’t tried to accumulate a little property none of you would have had a roof to call your own, for your papa, I can assure you, would have squandered everything.”
“A roof to call our own!” he yelled, with a crazy laugh.
“Good God, we haven’t a bed to call our own.
We haven’t a room to call our own.
We have not a quilt to call our own that might not be taken from us to warm the mob that rocks upon this porch and grumbles.”
“Now, you may sneer at the boarders all you like —” Eliza began sternly.
“No,” he said.
“I can’t.
There’s not breath or strength enough in me to sneer at them all I like.”
Eliza began to weep.
“I’ve done the best I could!” she said.
“I’d have given you a home if I could.
I’d have put up with anything after Grover’s death, but he never gave me a moment’s peace.
Nobody knows what I’ve been through.
Nobody knows, child.
Nobody knows.”
He saw her face in the moonlight, contorted by an ugly grimace of sorrow.