They sent me up to bed. I put out the lamp at once, lest I should see
too much. I went to sleep quickly. I was as quickly awakened. Being a
man of strategies and divertisements, I reached through the blackness
to the lamp that was covered with leaked oil. I rubbed this on my
hands, and thence, thinly over my whole body. Coal oil too thick makes
blisters; thin enough, brings peace.
I remember breakfast as a thing apart. Although the table held only
what we had for supper, warmed over, although the morning light was
grey, and the room the worse for the grey light, the thing I cannot
help remembering was the stillness and tenderness of that time.
Father and mother spoke in subdued human voices. They had not yet had
occasion to shout against the alarums and excursions of the day. And
the sensitive faces of the boys, and the half-demon, half-angel light
of their eyes stirred me with marvelling and reverence for the curious,
protean ways of God.
And now I was walking down the steeps of Avernus into Shickshinny,
toward the smoke of torment that ascends forever. Underfoot was spread
the same dark leprosy that yesterday had stunted flower and fruit and
grass-blade.