— But gee Mister Pivner. .
— And listen, Eddie. Here, Eddie, here there's something I want to give you. It may not seem. . but it's Christmas Eve and, here, please I, think you should have it.
— You can't imagine what a mess it was, but you got to expect that with a c.a.
— So you see it come out just like I foretold him, there's certain things which you can't escape them.
— But gee!… a watch? and it's, gold? A gold watch?
— I think you should have it, because. .
— But gee! sir. And gee, look it's almost twelve. You wouldn't want to come to Mass with me?
— But I don't think I'd know what to do.
— But if you're with me…
— It's that or religion.
— Or helping out to preform a c.a. — Yes, if I'm with you. . And Mr. Pivner blew his nose. He had almost thanked Eddie Zefnic for the robe.
Otto rounded a corner, walking the curb as though himself on the edge of a chasm, his back turned to the river whose wind followed him, momentarily dazzled by fire and pitch where a tub of asphalt stood in the street sentineled by kerosene flares. The snow had changed to sleet, to rain, and stopped; but his coat was wet, and hung heavy as lead from his shoulders.
— Otto!. . Stanley appeared as though risen from an exposure of pavement. He shivered, his eyes were red, his mustache looked lop-sided.
— Stanley, where are you going?. .
— Otto why did you do that? Did you know? did you know?
— What, what, did I know what?
— I've been arrested, all this time, I've been in the police station since the last time I saw you.
— But what? what for? what happened?
— And the police, do you know what they're like, the police? like machines, they're so bored, they don't listen, they don't know who you are, but you can't do anything, you can't do anything. .
— But what is this? what happened?
— You didn't know? That money you gave me, you didn't know? The money you lent me, that twenty-dollar bill, you didn't know it was no good?
— No good. .?
— That it was counterfeit?
— Counterfeit?
— If you didn't know, thank God if you didn't know. I shouldn't have thought what I did, I shouldn't have thought you'd do that to me, I'm sorry, forgive me, forgive me for thinking that about you.
— But no… Otto whispered: —No. No, not all that. .
— I'm sorry, forgive me, I'll pay it back to you. Forgive me, Otto. I have to go now.
— But wait, wait wait wait. .
— I can't stay, I have a toothache, I've had it all day, I have to go, I have to go to midnight Mass now, and then I have to go see my mother, they moved my mother to a new hospital today and she'll wonder where I've been, and then I think the police might. .
— The police, what did you tell them?
— About the money? I said I didn't know, I told them I didn't know where I got it, I don't know whether they believed me, they just look at you, maybe they're following me, I don't know, but it doesn't matter now, and forgive me, I'll pay you back. .
— But no, Otto whispered.
— What is it? I have to go, will you come with me now? Do you want to come to Mass with me?
— No. No. Otto rubbed his forehead, then dropped his hand to the sharp weight in his jacket. — He couldn't have done that. .
— Good night, good night. . and I'll pay you back. .
The wind from behind stood Otto's hair on end, and blew along before him an empty tin can, throwing it bounding over spots of snow, jingling it over bare stretches of pavement, to hurl it lost among the mutilated shadows as he turned the corner into her street and saw that he was not alone. He cried out loudly though the other figure was close upon him: they both halted before the encounter, but Otto came on instantly. — Thank God you're here, after all the… all that's happened, and now. . Yes everything will be all right now. I've been looking for you, I've been looking everywhere, I just went over to Horatio Street looking for you but there was nothing there, the whole place is burned down, and I should have come here, I should have come here first anyhow shouldn't I, because you knew her, and she. . you. .
— Where is she?
— Where is she? why, she. . she. . why? Look, why are you looking at me that way? And what's happened to you? your face, what is it? is it blood on your face?
— Where is she?
— You're just looking for her? It's. . her you came for, then? His arms were moving in the dark as though he could scarcely keep himself upright in the thick gloom which seemed to have risen about them. — But I've been looking for you! he burst out. And then he did go off balance on the ice, taking a step back from the eyes which had penetrated him and emptied his face. — And she. . he got out, recovering his balance with another step back, — I don't know. I don't know where she is, he said, and repeated it slowly, but as clear, — I don't know where she is… hesitated, and stood still. And when he raised his eyes, looking east toward the hospital, he was alone in the street. The wind had gone down, and the still cold was unbearable. He stood numb, surrounded by ice, among the frozen giants of buildings, as though to dare a step would send him head over heels in a night with neither hope of morning to come nor heaven's betrayal of its triumphal presence, in the stars.
IX
Vicisti, Galilæe.
The sun rose at seven, and its light caught the weathercock atop the church steeple, epiphanized it there above the town like a cock of fire risen from its own ashes. In the false dawn, the sun had prepared the sky for its appearance: but even now the horned moon hung unsuspecting at the earth's rim, before the blaze which rose behind it to extinguish the cold quiet of its reign.
In the daylight's embrace, objects reared to assert their separate identities, as the rising sun rescued villagers from the throbbing harmony of night, and laid the world out where they could get their hands on it to assail it once more on reasonable terms. Shapes recovered proper distance from one another, becoming distinct in color and extension, withdrawn and self-sufficient, each an entity because it was not, and with daylight could not be confused with, or be a part of, anything else. Eyes were opened, things looked at, and, in short, propriety was restored.
Nonetheless, for here and there one drawing breath, with a conscious taste now letting it run to every sensible part, even as the daylight reinvested the furniture of out-of-doors with meaning, the rankling assurance, that is, that if it did not belong to one's self it did at least belong to someone else, here and there breath stopped abruptly as the ear took up the hour, attention pinioned upon sounds, and left so, more distraught at each repetition as the church bell rang in sevenths, an unresolved tone which set the listening nerves alert, a-jangle, a lamed tone leaving lips open at ahh-, repeating ahh-, confirming desperately irresolute ahh- seven times and forsaken there, incomplete at the last, still waiting hymnal resolution in ahh-men.