almost inaudible whisper would find his aunt bent double, clutching a knife in one hand, with her small bright eyes glaring madly at us.
“Oh no, my dear, oh no,” said Uncle Bascom, with astonishing, unaccustomed sadness, with almost exquisite gentleness. And, his vibrant passionate voice thrilling suddenly with emotion, he added:
“The triumphant music of one of the mightiest of earth’s poets: the sublime utterance of a man for whom God had opened the mysteries of heaven and hell.”
He paused a moment, then quietly in a remote voice—in that remote and magnificent voice which could thrill men so deeply when it uttered poetry, he continued: “’I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end’—the mightiest line, my dear boy, the most magnificent poetry, that was ever written.” And suddenly Uncle Bascom threw his gaunt hands before his face, and wept in strong hoarse sobs: “Oh, my God, my God!—the beauty, the pity of it all!… You must pardon me,” he whispered after a moment, drawing his faded sweater sleeve across his eyes. “You must pardon me. It brought back—memories.”
Aunt Louise, who had been stricken with a kind of fear and horror when he began to weep, now looked at Eugene with an expression of strong physical disgust, almost of nausea, shaking her head slightly in an affronted and ladylike manner as might one who, having achieved healthy and courageous discipline over all the excesses of emotion, feels only contempt for him who gives way to them.
She retired now with exaggerated dignity to the kitchen, served the meal, and addressed Eugene for some time thereafter with absurd quietness and restraint of manner, and a kind of stiff primness about her backbone. She was an excellent cook; there was magic in her treatment of food, and on the occasions when Eugene was coming out, she insisted that Bascom get her a decent piece of meat to work with.
There would be a juicy fragrant piece of lamb, or a boiled leg of mutton with currant jelly, or perhaps a small crisply browned roast of beef, with small flaky biscuits, smoking hot, two or three vegetables, and rich coffee. Uncle Bascom, quite unperturbed by his outbreak, would stamp into the kitchen, where he could be heard swearing and muttering to himself, as he searched for various things. Later he would appear at the table bearing a platter filled with some revolting mess of his own concoction—a mixture of raw vegetables, chopped up—onions, carrots, beans,
