and advertising. For his personal satisfaction, Eugene then muttered over the names of 21 geniuses who wrote poetry, and 37 more who devoted themselves to the drama and the novel. After this, he felt quite relieved.
What, he thought, can I be, besides a genius? I’ve been one long enough. There must be better things to do.
Over that final hedge, he thought, not death, as I once believed— but new life—and new lands.
Erect, with arm akimbo on his hip, he stood, his domed head turned out toward the light: sixty, subtle and straight of body, deep— browed, with an old glint of hawk-eyes, lean apple-cheeks, a mustache bristle-cropped. That face on which the condor Thought has fed, arched with high subtle malice, sophist glee.
Below, benched in rapt servility, they waited for his first husky word. Eugene looked at the dull earnest faces, lured from the solid pews of Calvinism to the shadowland of metaphysics. And now his mockery will play like lightning around their heads, but they will never see it, nor feel it strike. They will rush forward to wrestle with his shadow, to hear his demon’s laughter, to struggle solemnly with their unborn souls.
The clean cuffed hand holds up an abraded stick. Their stare follows obediently along its lustre.
“Mr. Willis?”
White, bewildered, servile, the patient slave’s face.
“Yes, sir.”
“What have I here?”
“A stick, sir.”
“What is a stick?”
“It’s a piece of wood, sir.”
A pause. Ironic eyebrows ask their laughter. They snicker smugly for the wolf that will devour them.
“Mr. Willis says a stick is a piece of wood.”
Their laughter rattles against the walls. Absurd.
“But a stick IS a piece of wood,” says Mr. Willis.
“So is a tree or a telephone-pole. No, I’m afraid that will not do. Does the class agree with Mr. Willis?”
