that,” said Robert, with a troubled laugh—“you’ll be sorry tomorrow for what you said, you know you will: oh, Emmet, shut up!” Robert said again with a protesting and embarrassed laugh.
For Blake was now sobbing horribly in his cell: as Eugene stood leaning against the wall next to him, he could hear him sobbing and pounding his thin fist savagely into the grey-slate substance of the wall, while he went on:
“The whore! The dirty whore!” he wept. “I know that she’s just waiting for me to die! I know that’s what she wants! I know that’s all she’s waiting for!… That’s what you want, you bitch, isn’t it? You’d like that, wouldn’t you? That would just suit you, wouldn’t it?… Ah, I’ve fooled you! I’ve fooled you, haven’t I?” he panted, with a savage and vindictive triumph in his voice. “You’ve been waiting for it for the last two years, haven’t you? And I’ve fooled you every time,” he gasped. “And I’ll fool you yet—you bitch, you dirty bitch!”
And they sat there, saying nothing, listening with desolation in their hearts to the man’s naked shame, and now hearing nothing but his gasping sobs and the slow grey wear and waste of time around them. And then his sobbing breath grew quieter, they could hear him panting feebly, like an exhausted runner, and presently he went over and sat down upon his cot, and there was nothing but time and silence all about them.
Finally Blake spoke again, and now in a voice that was quiet, lifeless, and curiously sober, as if this outlet and easement of his grief had also quenched the drunkenness in him.
“Gant?” he said, in a quiet and lifeless tone that penetrated curiously the grey silence all around them.
“Yes,” said Eugene.
“I never met you till today,” said Blake, “and I want you to know I’ve got no grudge against you.”
“Why, Eugene never did anything to you, Emmet,” said Robert at this point, in a tone of protest. “Why should you have anything against him?”
“Now, wait a minute!” said Blake pugnaciously. “Eugene,” he went on in a maudlin tone of voice, “I’m friends with everyone, I haven’t got an enemy in the world…. There’s just one man in this world I hate,” he went on sombrely, “and I hate his guts—I hate his life—Goddamn him! I hate the air he breathes!” he snarled, and then was silent for a moment. “Eugene,” he went on in a moment, in a low voice, and with
