street to Dixieland, it was as if he devoured toy-town distances with a giant’s stride.
The Christmas was gray and chill. Helen was not there to give it warmth. Gant and Eliza felt the depression of her absence. Ben came and went like a ghost. Luke was not coming home. And he himself was sick with shame and loss.
He did not know where to turn. He paced his chill room at night, muttering, until Eliza’s troubled face appeared above her wrapper. His father was gentler, older than he had ever seen him; his pain had returned on him. He was absent and sorrowful. He talked perfunctorily with his son about college. Speech choked in Eugene’s throat. He stammered a few answers and fled from the house and the vacant fear in Gant’s eyes. He walked prodigiously, day and night, in an effort to command his own fear. He believed himself to be rotting with a leprosy. And there was nothing to do but rot. There was no cure. For such had been the instruction of the moralists of his youth.
He walked with aimless desperation, unable to quiet for a moment his restless limbs. He went up on the eastern hills that rose behind Niggertown. A winter’s sun labored through the mist. Low on the meadows, and high on the hills, the sunlight lay on the earth like milk.
He stood looking. A shaft of hope cut through the blackness of his spirit. I will go to my brother, he thought.
He found Ben still in bed at Woodson Street, smoking. He closed the door, then spun wildly about as if caged.
“In God’s name!” Ben cried angrily. “Have you gone crazy? What’s wrong with you?”
“I’m—I’m sick!” he gasped.
“What’s the matter? Where’ve you been?” asked Ben sharply. He sat up in bed.
“I’ve been with a woman,” said Eugene.
“Sit down,’Gene,” said Ben quietly, after a moment. “Don’t be a little idiot. You’re not going to die, you know. When did this happen?”
The boy blurted out his confession.
Ben got up and put on his clothes.
