He stood there for some time, his shoulder pressed against the
door-jamb, his eyes blinking.
His slow attention moved from the face to the satin pillows that wedged
it in, and then to the woman that must have been his mother, kneeling
beside the casket with her arms crooked on the shining cover and her
head down between them. And across from her leaned "Ugo," the 'cello,
come down from his chamber to stand vigil at the other shoulder of the
dead.
The first thing that came into his groping mind was a bitter sense of
abandonment. The little core of candle-light hanging in the gloom left
him out. Its unstirring occupants, the woman, the 'cello, and the clay,
seemed sufficient to themselves. His mother had forgotten him. Even
"Ugo," that had grown part and parcel of his madness, had forgotten him.
Bruised, sullen, moved by some deep-lying instinct of the clan, his eyes
left them and sought the wall beyond, where there were those who would
not forget him, come what might, blood of his blood and mind of his own
queer mind. And there among the shadowed faces he searched for one in
vain. As if that candle-lit tableau, somehow holy and somehow
abominable, were not for the eyes of one of them, the face of Daniel,
the wedded husband, had been turned to the wall.
Here was something definite, something Christopher could take hold of,
and something that he would not have.
His mother seemed not to have known he was near till he flung the door
back and came stalking into the light with the rusty bread-knife in his
hand.
Pages:
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69