His voice rose to a scream. “Don’t you remember? I tell you, you are dead, Ben.”
“Fool,” said Ben fiercely. “I am not dead.”
There was a silence.
“Then,” said Eugene very slowly, “which of us is the ghost, I wonder?”
Ben did not answer.
“Is this the Square, Ben? Is it you I’m talking to? Am I really here or not? And is this moonlight in the Square? Has all this happened?”
“How should I know?” said Ben again.
Within Gant’s shop there was the ponderous tread of marble feet. Eugene leaped up and peered through the broad sheet of Jannadeau’s dirty window. Upon his desk the strewn vitals of a watch winked with a thousand tiny points of bluish light. And beyond the jeweller’s fenced space, where moonlight streamed into the ware— room through the tall side-window, the angels were walking to and fro like huge wound dolls of stone. The long cold pleats of their raiment rang with brittle clangor; their full decent breasts wagged in stony rhythms, and through the moonlight, with clashing wings the marble cherubim flew round and round. With cold ewe-bleatings the carved lambs grazed stiffly across the moon-drenched aisle.
“Do you see it?” cried Eugene. “Do you see it, Ben?”
“Yes,” said Ben. “What about it? They have a right to, haven’t they?”
“Not here! Not here!” said Eugene passionately. “It’s not right, here! My God, this is the Square! There’s the fountain! There’s the City Hall! There’s the Greek’s lunch-room.”
The bank-chimes struck the half hour.
“And there’s the bank,” he cried.
“That makes no difference,” said Ben.
“Yes,” said Eugene, “it does!”
I am thy father’s spirit, doomed for a certain term to walk the night—
“But not here! Not here, Ben!” said Eugene.
“Where?” said Ben wearily.
“In Babylon! In Thebes! In all the other places. But not here!”
