8
PARTISAN REVIEW
back, his black hat pulled down over his face. She saw thousands of
him-multiplied.
"We're going in there tomorrow," he was saying.
She wanted to penetrate, to destroy him. "That's hideous,'' she cried.
"That's dastardly, where's all your fine words, the right of free speech,
assemblage, the right to unionize, what's come of it all. You know they
don't get much.: I know how much they get. I've known it all
my
life
"
He looked at her coldly, "You'd better go to your room," he said.
"I won't," she cried.
Then he said in a low cutting voice, "You'd be in that mess yourself
if I hadn't married you."
"Yes," she said coldly. The room seemed to dissolve in worm eaten
wood. The three fishermen still sat in the dusk, waiting. They might get
up in anger and come towards the house. All the figures from the wine
cart might spring out and come stealthily up the hill imd surround the
house.
She said to him, jeering, "Are you really going down there tomorrow,
all you business men to fight the strikers?"
"Yes," he said, "We are."
"Then you'll get hurt." She said with satisfcation.
"Why do you think so?"
"I know so," she said, "You ·can't beat them."
"We'll be at them all right," he said. "We've got equipment. We're
going to buy arms and tear gas." It angered her bitterly that he should
be excited about this destruction as he had never been about anything before.
"You'll get hurt," she said bitterly, "you better mind. You'll get
hurt."
"We'll show them," he said.
"Yes, you'll show them," she said and an awful laughter tore through
her, for she knew the curious deep life in those many men, how all the
many hungers could rise up .. . Why had she given up her many hungers
for this . .. "You ..." she cried in contempt knowing his pale body as ii
it had been dead under water and she shook with humiliation and grief
to know how she had been with him, born him a child, "You're through,"
she cried, "You're through, there's no wine in your cart . . ." The fisher·
men started to row towards shore.
"Stella," he said, shaking her.
"That's all right," she said, "I know now ... And you're lost, you're
lost already. You better not go down there tomorrow, if you care for
your poor hide ..."
"I'll go," he said with his little courage.
"You'll get hurt," she said and she thought ... I hope he is killed ...
I hope he can die..."
