"In my opinion, such poetry is nothing but a ridiculous absurdity."

"Hm. I think differently."      

"How? I am surprised, too, for instance, that the author's fundamental idea is a true one. But how it's all expressed, distorted... Who can understand the original idea in this?"

Hamilton was sitting stretched out on the sofa, with a cup of tea in his hand. I seated myself beside him, unceremoniously tucking my legs up under me, and taking up more room on the divan than deference to the master should have allowed. On the table lay an open book. It was a collection of Hesiod's poems. The literary scheme was in full swing.

"Why," Hamilton moved aside with dignity. "In Europe, everyone supports this idea, because the whims and wishes of the proletariat there are put first. The peasantry is still held together somehow by God. In our country everybody has been rolling downhill, and everyone has known for ages that they have nothing to clutch at. That's why you don't get it.

"I believe in God."

"So be it. But Europe is different... Impoverished and dangerous. With paupers in its upper classes, she will be glad of any way of escape; you have only to present it to her. Europe, as she is, has no future.

"But you began about the proletariat. Tell me, how do you look at it?"     

"The proletariat has less power of resistance than anything in the world," said Hamilton, looking meaningfully at me. "I can't believe, for instance, that there was a rising in Russia. Although, according to the latest news, it turned out to be quite unreliable..."

I revived at once.

"And what about it? Yes, everyone looks at Russia with perplexity because they are frightened at the way things are... put there. I am persuaded of the success of those mysterious "things", only because Russia is now pre-eminently the place in all the world where anything you like may happen without any opposition."

Hamilton turned his head and looked at me with inexplicable surprise.

"Socialists openly unmask what is false and prove that we have nothing to lay hold of among us, and nothing to lean upon." I went on, reaching out for tea. "What is most effective about them is the incredible boldness with which they look the truth straight in the face. To look facts straight in the face is only possible to Russians. We are not yet so bold."

Hamilton's disappointment In me was too obvious — he turned his head from side to side and frowned. For the past week, he of course learned to bear with patience and almost without murmur anything, even this. But for the first minute, it was too bitter. He took a sip of tea and said indifferently with his tired voice:

"I thought you were a liberal."      

"Liberals say something quite different."

"I know it's nonsense."

"No, it isn't nonsense... But I am more of a socialist-liberal."      

Hamilton looked confused.

"What do you think of Communism?"

"I like Communism."

Silence.

"Alright."  

We have been reading for an hour or so. I read slowly and perhaps deliberately skipped certain parts. After a week, Greek books seemed to me impossibly boring. I would sometimes spend evenings on end silent, and when it came to the discussion I tried using general expressions in order not to seem uninterested. My manner to Hamilton was as attentive as ever, but there was a shade of reserve in it.

Now I am ready to admit that I was coming to him not because of the boring books or sweet tea; I was coming because of him.

He was a true middle-aged rough-neck insofar as that, though he could be lively and engaging when it suited him, he became insufferably dull and wearisome as soon as ever the need for being lively and engaging had passed. His trivial imagination always assumed a foolish, unnatural vein, for the reason that it was compounded of trite, hackneyed forms. Although he believed that he had a subtle, æsthetic temperament, and he always had leanings towards art. He neither sang nor played on any musical instrument, and was absolutely without an ear for music, but he attended all the symphonic and jazz concerts. He didn't write books nor poems, and his taste in literature was akin to that of an old essayist. He could not endure solitude and was always craving for amusement. One had always to repeat to him some anecdote, and every day a new one. In other words, I saw him as the most boring person alive.

However, there was something in those evenings that I positively liked. He spoke to me in a friendly voice, asked me questions, and listened to my answers. He allowed me to make jokes, and sometimes even laughed at them. His intentions remained a mystery: I hadn't forgotten about the incident and reminded myself of it every day before going to him. But could have possibly been the point in that? Hamilton did not show any symptoms of his illness for a week, and I had to accept that perhaps he had simply drunk himself out of his senses and confused me with a woman. I tried not to think about the forbidden pornography that I found in the library.

He, too, knew it all in some curious way; the thought that I was fully conscious of his inaccessibility and of the absurdity of the situation, afforded him, I am certain, the keenest possible pleasure. Otherwise, is it likely that he, the cautious and calculating man that he was, would have indulged in this familiarity and openness with a slave? Hitherto (I concluded) he had looked upon me in the same light that the old Empress did upon her servant—the Empress who hesitated not to unrobe herself before her slave, since she did not account a slave a man. (Yes, he must have taken me for something less than a man, even if he was pretending) .

I glanced up and saw altogether near me the dark, uncanny eyes. He scrutinized me intently, squinting. From time to time, in between conversations, he would start inspecting me from head to feet, as though through an imaginary lorgnette; directing over me a distracted glance which said nothing. I do not know where this habit of his came from. I could always point it out but my manners would not allow me. I was feeling upon myself, upon my face, upon my entire body, this intensely fixed gaze, which seemed to touch my face and tickle it, like the cobwebby contact of a comb, which you first rub against a tire. All of a sudden I felt as if something bit me and I went red.

"Ah... Eh, what are you reading?" I asked coarsely and clumsily.

Hamilton came to his senses and glanced at the book which lay on his lap.

"Works and Days," he answered absently. "Vox populi vox Dei, or something of the sort." 

"Sounds interesting".  

He looked at me in confusion.

"Why, you have read it before."    

"Me? When?"    

"Well, I don't know. You have told me that you read it in your teens. We just discussed it, did we not?"

The realization struck me; I got caught in a lie.

"Ah, right, Heysod..."

"Hesiod." 

I had begun my sage discourse partly to make an effect before him and was certainly somewhat mortified. I never read Hesiod and knew nothing of his poems.

"Right," muttered I. "Of course, I have read them. In school. Pardon me, I'm wandering. I'm sleepy."

Hamilton raised his eyebrows. It was an involuntary gesture; he evidently did not wish to betray his uneasiness.

"Yeah," said he, pressing the palms of both hands on his knees. "You are wandering. First Communism, now memory loss."

"What's wrong with Communism?"  

"Communism will never go further than making a joke," growled Hamilton, putting up a new candle in place of an end that had burnt out. "Men made of cardboard. It all comes from slaves."

"There are no slaves in Europe."     

"Slaves exist everywhere. If Europe could be suddenly reformed, if it accepted our Theory, it would become extraordinarily prosperous and happy. They'd have no one to hate then, no one to rebel against, nothing to find fault with. Now there is nothing but an immense animal hatred for the government which has eaten into their organism... It's the same in Russia and, for instance, in France. Our economy grows because our system is the only one that's right."

"Goodness only knows what you're saying," I laughed.

"Why? A Russian proletarian is a slave before everything, and is only looking for someone whose boots he can clean."

"What boots? What allegory is this?"  

"Allegory, indeed! You are laughing, I see... But the whole essence of the European revolutionary idea lies in the negation of honor."

As he talked he looked doggedly at my legs as he always did, even when he was excited. At this point, he suddenly raised his head.

"I have become American and I am proud of it."  

"God!" I broke down. My tone suddenly changed and became more and more insolently familiar and sneering. "Have you ever been to Europe? How do you know which system is better?"

Here I paused.

"And what does it mean, 'have become American?'"

Hamilton didn't respond; he got up, turned to his writing table, and began searching for something on it. I watched him silently for a minute. 

"Well," he said at last. "It's just a figure of speech. It means I became a patriot. And that's my advice to you."  

I had suddenly begun laughing—at first quietly and intermittently, but my laughter grew more and more violent, louder and more conspicuous. I flushed crimson.

"Please excuse me," I responded hurriedly. "But... But..."   

I laughed again.

"But I cannot be a patriot of the country that turned me into a slave."

Then I added automatically:

"Your Excellency."

Hamilton was standing motionless and with an austere face that seemed turned to stone. The light of the candle in thin gold spirals shone on his moist, yellow forehead and the tip of his nose.

"Your business. A boy made of cardboard."

He looked like he wanted to argue but decided against it. I made haste to leave– so the conversation wouldn't get even more absurd. Hamilton wished me a good night's sleep.

***

Man's basic needs are few. The first of them is fire.

"Henry! Wake up!"

Opening my eyes I saw Charles standing over me.

"Wha-at?"

"I said, wake up, before I pour water on you!"

I sat up slowly, gathering the sheet about me at first; but the room was unusually warm.

"What's happened?"

"Notice anything?"

Unable to stay mad at his affectionately indulgent smile, I looked around the room. Right next to my bed was a modern-looking stove, which emanated a low but steady wave of heat.

"You can't be serious."

Charles laughed. The hot gleam of the stove lit up his face.

"Now here's hoping you survive the winter with us! I had to beg Hamilton to get it. I told him Belcher was becoming particularly sensitive to the cold because of his bald head."

His amusement was contagious and I started laughing with him.

"You seriously didn't have to," I said. "I was getting used to it."

"Consider it a birthday gift."

I couldn't help but appreciate my friend's delicate memory. Things like birthdays are forgotten easily when life itself isn't taken seriously.

"Right... Four years to twenty-five and then I'm what a schoolboy calls a middle-aged man."

"You are getting old," Charles agreed at length. "The very first sign of senescence—you get too excited about house appliances. But Happy Birthday, nonetheless."

He could have put his arms around me and pulled me close with an almost family familiarity – already I knew the down on his neck, the very set of her backbone, the strength of his arms and how he breathed – the very texture of his worn out clothes.

"I don't think it counts as getting old," I said lightly, as I stared at the coals glowing in the stove; blessing on the fire which warms delinquents stranded in the country! "Certainly not in our position."

"I don't know what you mean 'counts.'"

"They say unloved people don't grow old– they wither away."

"Surely you don't claim to be unloved!"

"Well, I know I'll never marry."

"Sure you will," Charles insisted. "Not for a year maybe, but sooner or later. The laws ought to change someday. Besides, you don't have to marry to be loved. Haven't you ever had a girlfriend?"

I felt my face grow slightly red.

"I have, but it didn't last long. Women are just a little more trouble than I can deal with."

"You don't seem to have a very high opinion of women."

"Women are shallow. They are tempting, but they can be treacherous and dirty. And don't get me started on the nonsense of modern women, who run around thinking they are equal to men. They just got the right to vote."

"Not for long, it seems," Charles said, sitting down beside me. "I heard the State wants to abolish the popular vote altogether. Too many future criminals roaming free to let them decide anything."

I found myself shaken by this. Try as I might to strangle my reaction, some quality in Charles' words grasped at my imagination, and aroused my old aversion and horror toward all the life outside. The room had grown smothery. Life outside was like a sound, that ghastly reiterated female sound of my mother screaming.

"I wish I had a cigarette right now," I said quietly.

"You shall," Charles got a cigarette from under his bed and lit it for me.

"You know," he said, exhaling the blue smoke from his nostrils. "I am far more whithered than you are. And, among us two, I'm the only one who's married."

I stared at him in surprise.

"Are you?"

Again I looked him over completely, and, as I did, something drew me away from him. It was not envy, but rather spontaneous disappointment. It was a click.

"Yes. I was born near here, but went to Minneapolis to start my career, which has now reached a dead end. I met a girl there, very good-looking; in fact damn attractive. Her father was some sort of a business guy, or was a partner in some enterprise of that sort. He was jealous of every suitor she had, he didn't contemplate parting with her, and so he rejected me too. Well, I've managed to fool him, carried the girl off to New York and married her. There are cases of love like that, you know, Henry. Fugh!"

He groaned and spat noisily on the floor.

"She nearly loved me. Or maybe she just wanted freedom. I was OK with that, as long as she didn't mind that I loved her more than anything in this world. Well, at least until I got her pregnant."

I felt his body straining next to mine, and when I looked him in the face his guilt was more than I could bear looking at.

"Did you... Did you left for war because of it?" I asked carefully. Charlies nodded.

"I was scared. I needed time to think everything over. But when I came back, she wasn't waiting for me. For the rest of my life now I have to deal with the fact that I have a child out there that hates me."

I said nothing, but looked at him with a genuine liking that had overpowered my judgment over the weeks. Outside the horizon was beginning to lighten, turning from morning gray to purplish blue. I put my hand lightly on his shoulder.

"Coming to think of it," Charles said, turning to me. "I don't know anything about you. Where's your family from? What did you do?"

It never occurred to me that if one word from him could make me so elated, another could just as easily crush me, that if I didn't want to be careless, I should learn to beware of such small joys as well. Had this continued, I would have admitted things I didn't know I had it in me to admit. Or, worse, I would have blushed, and blushed because I had blushed for men before—and then where would I be? What would he say?

Better he should never know.

A a fine and overall uplifting morning, my day went as usual. From nine to twelve I was doing the laundry, after lunch I was beating the rugs and then spent the rest of the day till the evening ironing Hamilton's shirts. I stumbled upon Vella a couple of times. Oh, how I waited for her and how I wanted to talk to her! I dreamed that gradually, by systematic efforts, I would break down that constant fear in her soul, would make her appreciate her own value, and all in which she was actually superior to me, I would tell her the truth about Hamilton... But she didn't listen and ran away from me every time. She seemed to me to be suffering from some wasting, chronic disease that was gradually and relentlessly destroying her.

I tried hard to get up a conversation with Theodosia but bored her dreadfully. She was absent-minded to a degree, and answered at cross purposes, and sometimes not at all.

At nine o'clock I popped into the office unannounced. Seeing me, Hamilton frowned grimly and stood still at the table without welcoming me, his shirt-sleeve fitting his wrist and his coat sleeve encasing his shirt-sleeve like a sleeve valve, his collar molded plastically to his neck, clean shaven, his hand holding his small briefcase like a dandy.

"Your Excellency."

"John."   

He seemed like he was about to go out — his hat and his coat were on the divan.

"Are you... Leaving, sir?" I asked politely.      

"Yes, I am. I've got work."     

I glanced at the clock.

"So late?"  

"A most unpleasant and bothersome business," he answered almost angrily.

"What kind of business? In the middle of the night?"      

Hamilton made a wry face.

"You... You are taking too many liberties. Watch your mouth."  

There was a glow of real annoyance in his face. I was even surprised: he led a mode of life sufficiently queer for a politician. While his colleagues employed themselves by turns with politics, love, and a little in study, he preferred to stay at home. He was Thomas Jefferson's private secretary but sometimes practiced law; he himself did not conceal his confidence that toward fifty he would knock together a million, exclusively through his practice as a civil lawyer. (At least he believed in that). He knew well the value of his talent, and even if he did look upon people with a certain contempt, from above, still he never showed this. So, he was either going to see Jefferson– who, I am positively sure, stayed in Virginia at the time– or he was going to court. But trials don't happen at night.

"I'm sorry, sir." 

I was bitter all of a sudden; that's not how I expected to spend my birthday. This bitterness must have shown itself in my face.

"And what about it? Do you need me for something?"      

"I was hoping that I could... Read."    

Hamilton softened at once.

"Read, then."

I was confused: where did such kindness come from?

"Am I to read while you're away?"

"It is merely a suggestion." smiled Hamilton evasively. "Well, so long."

He went to the door, on his way slapping me benignly on the back, between my shoulder blades.

"Alright," I answered with a voice that quavered strangely.

"Don't stay here, though," added Hamilton before vanishing from the doorway.

Left alone I wandered about the room and tried to reconstruct Hamilton's 'business' from the absolute emptiness of his desk. There were a good many books, but I sat for five minutes or more, and did not choose anything. I was angered—and angered with a petty, useless vexation—by the fact that I did not wish to read without him. I nervously fidgeted with my apron, reached out for the books, and picked one at random. "What, this tediousness again? Even now, when nobody's watching?" I thought angrily.

However, it was not a Greek piece nor was it a land map with a brief recapitulation of the events of the Great War (Hamilton owned such a map). In my hands there was Dumas-fils' beautiful work, La Dame aux Camélias. I read it before. The charm of the tale, the originality of the heroine's situation, all that alluring world, so subtly dissected, and of course, all those charming little details scattered through the book (for instance, the significance of alerting white camellias and red)... My sister adores this book, and I adore it even more. I hold this feminine sentimentality close to my heart.

I sat on the divan and opened the book.

"IN my opinion , it is impossible to create characters until one has spent a long time in studying men, as it is impossible to speak a language until it has been seriously acquired. Not being old enough to invent , I content myself with narrating, and I beg the reader to assure himself of the truth of a story in which all the characters, with the exception of the heroine, are still alive."

"The Lady of the Camellias?"

I shuddered, dropped the book, and hurriedly made a dash to pick it up. Then I straightened up, hot all over and squirming from shame.

"It's... It's not it. I picked at random."     

Hamilton stood in the doorway and looked at me with a strange crooked grin. Again I was struck by the somber fire in his deep eyes, that seemed fallen in underneath the dark eyebrows.

"Why, there is no need. Read whatever you like. You take no interest in my collection after all."      

He put his briefcase on the floor by the door, entered the office, and began rummaging in the desk drawer. "I forgot something."

"What do you mean I take no interest? I do take interest!" I shot out in rapid pattern.

"Perhaps you are bored with me, and you would like ... not to come and see me at all?" he said in that tone of pale composure which usually precedes some extraordinary outburst.

"No," answered I dully looking down at my fingers, trembling on my knees. "Why do you think so?"

Why he should be angry I did not know, and indeed I did not attach much significance to the words; I put it all down to his nerves. My terror, however, was remarkable.

"Do you know what, John?" Hamilton shook his head. "It's strange for me to look at you. I don't understand how it is that you come to me every day, read and then cannot say anything on the topic of the book." 

He straightened up and looked at me with a challenge.

"Do you not like me?"

I don't know to this day what was in his mind, but evidently, he was in some agitation at the time. But those words, "do you like me," were so unexpected and uttered so earnestly, and with such a strange and far from playful expression, that it gave me a nervous shudder.

"I like you... A lot, your Excellency."    

I scratched the back of my neck, not knowing what to do with my eyes for shame.

"But I do not like... Greek literature."

Hamilton did not look surprised. I went on.

"A work of fiction is only significant and valuable when there are some serious social problems contained in its central idea. For instance, If the author takes up arms against money bags from Wall Street, the work is significant and valuable. The books I enjoy are... Silly. I thought you would laugh at me."

Hamilton sat down and drew his chair up so close that he almost pressed against the coffee table.
"What kind of books do you enjoy, then?"

His eyes, set too near the humped, nervous, very handsome nose, were sparkling. "I promise I won't laugh."

I felt more and more awkward.

"Well... About love."

I expected to be laughed at and felt humiliated. In our world, only women–so mealy-mouthed, so over-nice– are allowed to openly speak about love. We are supposed to be callous and cold, and I am convinced that every man will soon have to provide himself with a certificate of sufficient manhood in order to prove his worth. If one acts like a woman he will inevitably be accused of pæderasty. 

Still, does one regret having read about love—the only thing worth living for? No.

Hamilton did not laugh at me. Moreover, his expression was so entirely free from even a suspicion of mockery.

"Interesting."  

He got up; mechanically I got up too.

"Are you angry with me?"     

"Why would I be angry?"      

"I lied. About literature."  

Hamilton shrugged and picked up his briefcase.

"You lie all the time anyway." 

Almost before I had grasped his meaning my attention bound itself to a certain detail: something was sticking out of his briefcase, some sort of cloth– black and white. Hamilton followed after my gaze and, before I could ask an obvious question, shoved the dress back in.

"This is for the tailor," explained he, somewhat confused.

Then, before going out of the office, he rapidly and with deep significance pointed the door out to me with his eyes. I understood, lowered my eyelashes as a sign of consent, and, when I again raised them, he wasn't there. Having waited for five minutes I got up and left.

***

Hamilton returned in the early morning, disheveled, pale, but sober; ordered to leave him undisturbed. I decided not to bother him with questions (for a while).

Yet I could not overcome my sense of repugnance and during breakfast began bothering Theodosia. Vella was also there and did not speak, but still, she kept her eyes fixed upon me, full of alarm.

"Ah, how clingy you are," muttered Theodosia. This conversation must have afforded her unspeakable displeasure. "He leaves, he comes back. Why do you care?"

"It's just weird," said I, settling back in my place, and taking up my portion of oatmeal. "How come he went to court in the middle of the night? With my dress?"

Theodosia did not say anything.

"And you know what he said?" I went on, after sipping five spoonfuls of oatmeal. "He said it's for the tailor. I wonder what the tailor would do with a dress that's not ripped! Well, that's nothing, I'll know all the ins and outs of his affairs soon..."

Vella cleared her throat nervously.

"Interesting!" I did not mind their silence. I was in a sort of gloomy ecstasy. "Jefferson definitely has something to do with it..."  

"Enough!"

The cook stroked her hand upon the table. Vella and I both flinched. "Aren't you tired of talking? I'm done with your cockeyed guesses!"

"No, listen: I told you something is wrong with him, but no one had ever thought of it before me, no one! No one can see that but me!"

Though I looked at Vella as I said this, I no longer cared whether she understood or not. I certainly had been too long without talking to her.

"Shut up for once!" cried Theodosia. "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.." 

"By the way, Miss Smith, do you know what actually happened when Jefferson visited? Do you know?"

"Hush, don't talk, blasphemer! You don't understand, you don't understand! Oh, God! He won't understand!"

"Miss Smith..." 

But Vella did not and perhaps could not answer; she started crying.

I had always studied Theodosia with extraordinary attentiveness and almost respected her for her abrupt, refractory, and impudently mocking character. And now, by her flaming eyes, by the vividly and unevenly red of her cheeks, I felt that the great, long ripening rancor was heavily surging within her. At the same instant, I realized that I had never seen her in such violent rage. Her dark face was almost blue. Her lips were pressed tightly together and twitching at the corners. For ten full seconds she looked me in the eyes with a firm relentless gaze.
"Get out of here."
"But.. But..."
"Get the hell out of here!"

She looked like she was about to fly at me. I stood up slowly. I glanced at Vella, who burst into hysterical crying; her shoulders and breast were heaving with sobs. I left.

"Why am I not to speak with Miss Smith?"

"I am doing fine, thank you very much for asking, John."

It was three o'clock. Hamilton sat at the desk wearing a dark blue velvet jacket and a sulfur-colored necktie. He was writing something. The midday half-light, watery and drowsy, filled the room through the slits of the blinds. Hamilton's face was pale with fatigue; two wan dark spots in his cheek marked where the color was by day. He seemed to just have woken up.

"Eh... Good afternoon, Your Excellency, how are you doing?"

He nodded, put a pencil aside, and turned to look at me. A smile strayed on his lips, and nervous impatience could be seen through his smile. I closed the door behind me.

Hamilton clasped his hands and looked at me intently.

"Well? What do you want? It's a bit early for reading."

"You see," I went on, getting more and more nervous, and unable to take the right tone, "I can see for myself that something is wrong. First Jefferson with his mysterious influence over you; then the mystery with Smith; now your overnight business... You are hiding something."

"So that's how it is. Well, let me tell you, " he began deliberately but frowning. "It is your first duty to understand here that you are in servitude and you have no right to be asking questions."

Haughtiness and determination were evident in his manner and a certain very threatening assumption of argumentative calm. But I had no time to realize the danger.

"According to the Theory?"

"Yes."

"That's no matter, then. I never understood your stupid theory, but I am positively sure that slaves are not allowed to read. And I read."

I was crossing a precipice on a thin plank without a rail, and I was pleased at my position.

"Your reading is my full will. "

"Of course, of course, you are perfectly free, and the rules do not as long as your will is carried out. If so, order me to ask a question."

Hamilton's eyes gleamed, but he restrained himself.

"It's quite different, you don't get it."  

"You are an absurd fellow."

"That may be; I am very glad to amuse you."

I stood for a time, thinking, and then said without hiding a sneer:

"Perhaps this is why you are trying to appease me with books."    

"That's stupid."

"I care not whether it be wise or stupid. I lose all conceit when I am with you, and everything ceases to matter. Will you tell me at last what's happening? " 

"Is anything happening?"

"Do not ask me questions; return me answers."

"Of course, mon garçon."

Though his face was full of brightness and gaiety, I noticed that when he was taking the cigar out of his breast pocket his hands trembled, and his fingers refused to obey him. But I encountered this though nothing whatever were the matter, and sat down on the sofa with a free-and-easy air and began passing my hand through my hair, probably to display my independence. As for Hamilton, I knew, of course, that he should never have disgraced himself; but what was my amazement when I caught on his face a hopeless, miserable, and vindictive look directed at me. He seemed to be too tired to argue.

"You want to cross-examine me officially in due form?" Hamilton asked sharply. He looked closely at me as if he expected the statement to be challenged. Then with an aghast laugh, he raised the cigar toward his mouth.

"You know, John, I'll be honest with you: if someone else were to torment me like that, I would have already torn their head off by now."

Not only was there no trace of his former irony, of his old hatred and enmity, the very recollection of which sends a cold chill down my back to this very day; but he seemed really glad to have the opportunity of talking seriously with me for once in a way. Perhaps Hamilton changed his views of things and recognized that some things must change in spite of the feelings of the heart. It is true that it was hard for him, and yet he treated me rather differently. I might have seen him as a friend, too, but only If I were to believe in the firmness of his interest; I would not forgive him, I decided until I felt persuaded that on his part there did not exist any sort of concealed suspicions as to myself.

If I accepted this apology it was not to be considered as indemnification for pain and suffering, but merely as compensation for my ruined life.

"But you will not rip my head off?"

Not only was I crossing a precipice on a thin plank without a rail now, but I was also looking down into the abyss now.

"Of course not."  

"And if I ask why you lie to Vella? Will you rip it off?"

He was silent for a while, contemplating. Then he said with a weirdly transfigured face:

"You cannot call that a lie."

I saw that he was fearfully exhausted and making a great effort. But he evidently was eager to answer my question. He seemed to have some special object of his own.

"I start from the position that you are concealing the truth. The truth about... Who did it.  And not from her only."

"Do you know why? Because when one tells a lie, if one insists on something predictable and obvious, you know—the more expected the thing is, the more plausible does the lie sound. There is nothing in it that Smith would not be able to handle. Oh, only if you knew what she's been through!"

"You are very unfair to her, and you speak in such dreadful terms that I cannot understand you."

"Because I know all, all—and that is why I speak so. The poor girl is convinced that she is the vilest, the most forsaken creature on earth. She has suffered too much already in the consciousness of her own undeserved shame. And she is not guilty—oh God!"

Hamilton broke off in terrible anxiety. I particularly remember him at that moment; at first, he turned pale, but suddenly his eyes flashed. He drew himself up in his chair with an air of extraordinary determination. "Every moment she says that she does not admit any guilt, that she is the victim of circumstances—the victim of a villain and a sadist; but whatever she may say, remember that she does not believe it herself,—remember that she will believe nothing but that she is a guilty creature."

He stopped short, as though his voice had failed him.

"I... I truly do not understand, sir,"  said I, doing my best to control myself. "Guilty of what?"

Hamilton nervously scratched his temple and bit on his extinct cigar.

"You must know," said he. "Miss Smith was born in servitude. A nice girl, indeed, yet her upbringing was slavish – she always allows herself to be treated with disrespect. When her former master treated her crudely she allowed it. He used to beat her at the end. For that's Mr. Jefferson's character, he falls to a beating at once."

"Jefferson? How do you mean Jefferson?" I interposed, turning cold. "You bought her from Jefferson?"  

Hamilton nodded.

"Two years ago. I was visiting him in Virginia at the time and offered him great money – for I could not bear the sight of such suffering. I stood up for her. You can judge the extremity of her calamities, that Vella cannot bear to hear his name to this day."

I was thunderstruck. I was expecting to hear something unimaginable, something mysterious, something that I, perhaps, would not have been able to grasp; but instead, it turned out to be so obvious. I should have known! But, If I had ever suspected the rotted old truth, the real reason for Vella's reactions, I had certainly determined to deny it to myself, shoving it back in a dusty closet like a painting bought by mistake. Why? At once I saw Hamilton in a different light.

"I tried to rid her soul of this gloomy fallacy," Hamilton went on. "Now and then I was able to persuade her almost to see light around her again; the poor girl sees in me a hero... A benefactor, of sorts.  She has a pure, thankful heart; she mustn't know that I am as evil as he. The truth will kill her."

I was aghast.

"And that's why you don't allow me to speak with her? So I don't tell her the truth?"

Hamilton nodded.

"You have nothing to do with it. But I implore you, don't tell her that."

He spoke almost pleadingly, a thing he rarely allowed himself to do. My heart shook.

"I won't tell her, Please, just... Allow me to speak with her again." 

Hamilton looked at me with a heavy, intent gaze through his narrowed lids.

"Do you promise?" 

"I swear."

"Alright."

The literary readings that day began earlier than usual. What was in my heart would be hard to describe and I will not undertake to explain beforehand all the incongruities which weighed upon me. When Hamilton was pouring out tea at the table I looked for a long while intently at him and, perhaps for the twentieth time reevaluated my prejudices.

"What I'm saying is that novels about love are useless." Hamilton sat next to me on the divan. "One describes a love scene; another, a betrayal; and the third, meeting again after separation. Are there no other subjects? Why, there are many people sick, unhappy, to whom reading all that must be distasteful."

"If novels do not solve questions that seem so important," said I, "you should turn to works on technical subjects, criminal law, or finance, read scientific pamphlets. What need is there to discuss in 'Little Women,' for instance, the racial equality, instead of love, when you can find all that in special articles and textbooks?"

"That's pushing it to the extreme," Hamilton interrupted. "We are not talking of giants of literature; we are talking of the hundreds of mediocre writers, who would be infinitely more valuable if they would let love alone, and would employ themselves in spreading knowledge and humane ideas among the masses."

I really didn't like the way Hamilton–being a stale bachelor–  spoke of love. All of a sudden he began telling me about a book he had finished reading recently. I was absent and did not understand why he was telling me this.

"You know what they say?"  he said in conclusion of a series of remarkable utterances. "Beautiful people tend to read beautiful books."

"Nobody says so."   

"I say so. What is your favorite book?"  

"Jane Air." 

"Well, here it is. A beautiful book, indeed."

Just another senseless compliment. Even my own mother never called me beautiful. This did not bother me. I had only recently been allowed to learn that I was even personable; so that my ugliness seemed exactly my own, like my French. I couldn't help but be flustered.

"Well, I don't know about that," answered I bashfully and started laughing and turned red, covering my mouth with the elbow of my free arm. Took a sip of tea. Made haste to change the subject.

"The position of a novelist, in this case, would be perfectly definite, sure; but even in the romantic form, it is possible to depict a multitude of extremely unattractive details! It is possible so to fascinate the reader indeed that he will take the romantic picture for the possible and the actual. Such a work, if executed with great talent, would belong not so much to sentimental as to socially significant literature.

"You read very much, it seems?"

"No, not very much."

"And nothing in the way of foreign literature?"

I mused.

"Let me see, I have read something... Dickinson, Austin..." 

Hamilton stood up and went to his desk.

"Listen," there was something nervous in his voice. "It's your birthday today, is it not?

My face flared up with an unexpected color. Something seemed to strike upon my brain as I heard these words. Indeed, in what he had said there was something so friendly and familiar as to pass all bounds.

"Yes... It was yesterday."

"Right. Yesterday."

As if vexed Hamilton said irritably, in a loud voice:

"Happy late birthday, I suppose."  

"Thank you." 

From the tone of his words, I had gathered that there was something on his mind, some objective; one does not simply congratulate a slave. 

"Well, there you go," Hamilton hastily took something out of the desk drawer. "Take this as a gift."   

I was positively sure at the moment that he had lost his mind.

"Mister Hamilton," muttered I, suddenly and excitedly. "There is no need... I have nothing to repay you with."

He seemed surprised and at the same time extremely awkward. But there appeared to be something gentle, something soft in his eyes. 

"See, John, just see how proud you are," said he, going up to me and sitting down beside me on the divan. "It's disagreeable to you to take the smallest present from me. You want to repay it at once, to pay for it by work. But I am doing it as a friend."

I did not answer, my lips trembled. It is impossible to describe how I was moved by this.

Hamilton now rose solemnly from her seat.

"We are friends, are we not?"
At such words, my heart began beating faster. My blood seemed to have become warmer and thicker. There were so many answers to this question that I should have decided to leave it in the air, to buzz victoriously in Hamilton's ears. I instinctively bit on my tongue so the improper response wouldn't slip out.

"Perhaps..."

Hamilton handed me the gift. It was a book, carefully wrapped in newsprint paper and tied up with a ribbon.

"There you go. Happy Birthday."   

I weighed the book in my hand.

"What is it?"

"Open it and you shall see," he smiled mysteriously. "My being a provincial makes me worthy of pity, certainly, but perhaps I know some things about literature. I bought it especially for you. Something about love.

Happiness trembled in my chest.

"Thank you so much," I blurted out. "You are so kind... Thank you."     

Hamilton waved his hand weakly to me to cut short the flow of warm and incoherent words of gratitude. It revealed an emotion agonizingly poignant, and at the same time something immovable, almost insane.

I cannot help continually recalling everything that has happened next. I want to write it all down. All these impressions of the past excite me sometimes to the pitch of anguish, of agony. They will grow more soothing, more harmonious as I write them.

I ripped the newsprint, took the book out, and read its name:   

"Teleny, or the reverse of the medal"

O. Wilde

For a minute or so I seemed to forget myself. I experienced a genuine terror; just as though I were still standing in the dusk upon a shaking little board, bending over some dark, malodorous well, and just barely distinguish how there, at the bottom, reptiles are stirring. The only difference was that this very reptile sat beside me and watched me intently. In a monstrous fashion, blasphemy entwined in his soul with scoffing at sacred things, with some repulsive passion, with sadism. For a moment consciousness returned completely and suddenly flooded my mind with light; I jumped up in horror: Of course, Hamilton tricked me in the most treacherous way possible. There was a certain note of ambiguity about all my conversations with him, or more simply, strange innuendos on his part. He succeeded in remaining impenetrable. Besides, he had certain wonderful and irresistible ways which I did not know how to deal with. He behaved to me as though I were the greenest of raw youths, in order to deceive and disarm. A calculated and disgusting indecency—and therefore a premeditated, painful, and utterly brutal insult to my dignity.

I dashed to the door.

"Hey! What's the matter? Wait!"

Hamilton rose up.

"I want to get out, I want to go away! Let me out, don't keep me... A fiend! Encule!"

Confused Hamilton froze.
"What... What did you just say to me?"  

"You heard it!" I shook all over. "Read this pornography yourself! And If you touch me, I shall... I shall throw you off the stairs!" 

A sinister pause. In his face I could see how slowly and with terror he realized what happened– and how simultaneously he realized that he had made some mistake in the playing of his trump and still he did not suspect that the card was at fault.

He straightened up, clenched his fists, and asked with the affectation of calm:

"So you must be familiar with Oscar Wilde's work, then?"      

I clutched the doorknob convulsively.

"If you are that vicious, at least be frank about it! Do not play with me..." 

"Enough, John, enough!" interrupted Hamilton. "Don't excite yourself; you seem very ill, and I am sorry for that..."

"Ill, my ass!" I cried. "At least I'm not as ill as you are." 

"Foo, damn it all, there's no talking to you. I dare say this book is peculiar... But you mustn't think me mental for liking it! Oh, it's a misunderstanding. You see, I don't really like the main idea , but overall...

This was really unbearable. I could not help glancing at him with a flash of vindictive anger.

"If you don't like it, explain to me about the party. Do you remember the party? Well, I do. I remember everything even to the slightest detail. "

Hamilton turned as white as a handkerchief.

"Did I do something?"

I smiled awkwardly, doing my very utmost to look him straight in the face.

"Why, you weren't yourself." 

"What did I do? Please, tell me!" 

"You know what... Look at you! Do you fear for your secret?" suddenly I felt a malignant enjoyment of his fright. "Drunkard!"

"How dare you speak to me in such language?" flared up Hamilton. "Another word and I'll box your ears."

I was ready to murder him.

"Do it! Do it!" answered I, with a sort of hysterical rage. "What do you need, then? 'Come to my bed', that's what you wanted, and I can't even say a word to you now? You harassed me, you touched me, what now? Have you forgotten? The tea, the books– you expect me to thank you for it, don't you? Oh, if so, I've got nothing against your will. You may undress me. Do you want it? Do you want me to undress? I shall! All for the books..."

I started laughing and laughed for a long while.

"John..."

Hamilton's voice gave way.

"I do not care," I continued. "Also, do you know that I can murder you? Often I have a feeling that I should like to strike you, to disfigure you, to strangle you. Are you certain that it will never come to that? Am I afraid of a scandal, or of your anger? Why should I fear your anger? Touch me once and you're dead! You shall go to hell, you shall burn for your sodomy..."

"Wait!" cried Hamilton. "Do me the favor to concentrate all your attention if you can. Listen. Insult me however you'd like, I don't care. I feel that I am very guilty. I'm sorry."

"But as if that is enough!" cried I, indignantly. "As if it is enough simply to say: 'I know I am very guilty! You are guilty and yet you are giving me the stupid book!"

"Well... It was not the reason..."

"What was the reason?"

"For the love of God, listen. I shall speak with you frankly: It is true that I would like to try this with you... Wait!"

Noticing that I was about to leave, he took a step forward. There was a look of despair in his eyes; I shall never forget that terrible look. I was overcome by horror, too. I saw that only now he realized all the awfulness of what he was doing. His hands were shaking, his temples and forehead were moist, his eyes had dimmed, and over his cheeks had mantled a blush, mottled like marble.

"You are smart, John; smarter than me. Excuse me, but we had better make this matter clear, once for all. We have just agreed that with regard to our relationship there is not much to be said, though, of course, it would have been very delightful to us to feel that such relationship– romantic, that is, should never exist; therefore, perhaps—"

He was in terrible confusion.

"Therefore we must organize... An exchange. Tell me, what would you like to have? Your own room? More books? A bath?  You shall do no work at all. Everything you want that's possible shall be got for you. You shall pray, go where you like, and do what you like. I won't touch you. If you like, I won't speak to you all my life, or if you like, you can tell me your stories every evening. Well, what do you think?

I saw only too well what he was driving at, and the mere thought made me feel sick. "Shut up, shut up!" I begged in my head. But still, I was in his power. I could not get away without hearing what he intended to say, and he knew that very well.

"And you, on your part, shall be visiting my bedroom... Perhaps even by a schedule. Let us say, every Wednesday."

This vile proposal insulted me to such a degree that I felt for a moment as though a fog had fallen before me. As if a drink were acting on me, warming the lining of my stomach, throwing a flush up into my brain. Hamilton's face seemed to contract; he threw a weird glance at me, and smiled so stupidly that I took a sudden step forward, went up to him, and muttered, trembling all over and unable to finish my words (I believe my teeth were chattering):

"I'd rather die than come to your bed. You... Fag."  

I was quite capable of ruining myself, for the mere pleasure of injuring a man for whom I had developed so inhuman a sense of loathing and contempt.

I literally spat in his face – spat and rushed away. He yelled something, but I didn't come back. All my trust was ruined from that moment, and my life in this house was broken in half. I felt that poignantly...

"Piece of shit!" Hamilton roared so loud that I could hear him all the way down the hall.    "Unthankful piece of shit! Come back here!" 

But I had already run downstairs. My thoughts were numb; my legs were giving way beneath me.

Sometimes it happens that the most insane thought, the most impossible conception, will become so fixed in one's head that at length one believes the thought or the conception to be reality. Whether by this there is connoted something in the nature of a combination of presentiments, or a great effort of will, or a self-annulment of one's true expectations, and so on, I do not know; Yet why did my naivete take such a hold upon me at the time, made me believe that Hamilton could actually see me as a friend? I kept thinking bitterly that Hamilton was capable of entertaining such an idea about me and was, perhaps, glad of the opportunity of teasing me by reminding him of his inferiority and the great difference between us.

I flew into the barrack. If I had been asked I could not have said why I had hastened there; I had better not come there at all.

When I entered the room I saw Belcher who was saying something to Lee in an excited manner. The news was apparently bad, for Lee looked morose, with a sort of sadness of expression. Belcher gazed at me for some seconds in amazement, and Lee in terror; as though there was something alarmingly extraordinary in the fact that anyone could come to see them. Lee grew so pale that he looked like a woman about to have hysterics.

"What has happened? What is the matter?" muttered I. 

Lee and Belcher exchanged glances.

"You will know!" Belcher said menacingly, ran out of the barack–and was gone.

Charles made no answer; he didn't even look at me.

"Why do you...  say nothing... What's the meaning of it?"    

My voice broke and I seemed unable to articulate the words clearly. Charles raised his eyes this time and turned a gloomy sinister look at me.

"Murderer," he said suddenly in a quiet but clear and distinct voice.

My legs felt suddenly weak, a cold shiver ran down my spine.

"What do you mean... What is... Who is a murderer?" muttered I hardly audibly.

"You are a murderer," Lee answered still more articulately and emphatically.

He moved away from the table and I saw a stack of papers laying on it. My rage had retreated into me a little and I felt immense fear.

What had happened was so awful that nothing could make any difference unless I could choke it to death, and, as this was unlikely, I was hopeless. I would be a different person henceforward, and in my raw state, I had bizarre feelings of what the new self would be. The matter had about it the impersonal quality of an act of God: Hamilton had finally thrown out the old newspapers.

With slow faltering steps, with shaking knees, I made my way to the table and took one of the papers. I read the first page twice.

When I had finished reading, I handed the paper to Charles, and retired silently to a corner of the room, hiding my face in my hands. I was overcome by a feeling of inexpressible shame; my boyish sensitiveness was wounded beyond endurance. It seemed to me that something extraordinary, some sudden catastrophe had occurred and that I was almost the cause of it. But Charles, too, seemed to be experiencing the same feeling.

I will omit the details of the conversation that I may not be wearisome to the reader.

I instantly became quiet, doing my utmost not to betray myself by the slightest gesture. At the same instant, however, I tried justifying myself.

"You murdered twelve people, Henry," said Charles, slowly, dryly, and almost indifferently. "But excuse me, what am I saying? You are not Henry. You are John."

Then he added:

"Liar. I thought we were friends."

What I said then, I don't remember at all, and I doubt whether any of it was coherent, I doubt whether I even pronounced a word clearly; but Charles listened very attentively. What I am sure about is that I came up with a terrible, disgusting insult. It all went like this:

"After all that has passed...and what you've said about me...that I am dishonorable. I can't possibly take it. We're all criminals." said I. 

"You've been lying to me for the last month, though."

"I had different reasons...and, in fact, I was going to tell you!"

Lee did not say anything.

"Oh, I'll beg your pardon..." I gave up. "If you like...all right, forgive me!..."

"Henry– John. I have always liked you, and if you feel the same..."

"I do; Forgive me..."  

His chin was trembling.

"Well," muttered Charles, with an embarrassed smile, but he bent down and kissed me. I shuddered;  he kissed me. He kissed me. I felt hot and cold run down my spine by turns. And at the instant he was kissing me I caught on his face an unmistakable look of aversion.     

"We are all criminals," he said in my ear. "But there is no crime worse than betrayal. I cannot forgive you."

Ungovernable rage and madness took entire possession of me, and my fury burst out without the least attempt at restraint.

"Oh! that's it, is it!" I yelled, forgetting about our kiss at once. "So abandoning one's pregnant wife is not that much of a crime, huh?" 

It was the last thing I said that day.

Charles swung round and in a flash struck me on the cheek with all his might. Then there was the thud of a second blow, a third, then a fourth. We fought. Charles was like a falcon with claws and sharp beak, struggling with might and main, scratching and biting my hands. I was thumping him with all my strength.

After many stifled cries, after much tugging and tearing, scratching and biting, I broke free and dashed to the exit; Charles followed me.

The rest of the slaves were already waiting for me behind the door. They surged about me, threatening, waving their arms, trying to close in on me.

"Murderer!"
"Sodomite!"
"Murderer, murderer!"

I was forcing my way through the crowd, seeing and noticing nothing round me, like one in a delirium, like a patient escaped from a hospital. Someone bawled out, "Get him!" And on the other side, "Beat him! Beat him!" I heard a fearful scream from Charles as he dashed to my assistance. But at that instant someone seized me with both arms from behind, making me slip and fall into the sticky mud. I believe I got up but was knocked down by another blow. "No, no, don't do this, leave him!" screamed Lee. This was that general fit of grand hysterics, which takes possession of those confined in prisons, or that elemental insanity, which envelops unexpectedly and epidemically an entire lunatic asylum. They were kicking me, they were pulling my hair while I screamed, wallowing in mud. Someone kicked me right under my ribs, and I stopped breathing.

This horrible carnage lasted five minutes or more before Charles had finally managed to calm the men down. Suddenly there was a new voice, and the group opened up. They got me on my feet. Only just now I had had a hysterical fit, ending in a faint. "Who started it? Who started it?" roared this new voice.

The last thing I saw was Charles' face. He looked at me with wet, widely open and guilty eyes. That day comes back to me now in innumerable detail–a detail that overlays my memory of similar moments when my love for Charles was fresh and intact. I prefer to slight that love so that it seems to have been tinged with sentimental habits and nothing more.

All this time I had been lying for absolutely no reason, and the remorse for this moment of betrayal, which so cavalierly belittled our friendship, burns me to this very day.

I have never seen Charles Lee ever since.

END OF PART 1