THE MOHAMMEDANS
215
pointless questions which no one bothered to answer. Once he
launched into a half-serious harangue on the relation of the races,
attributing to a "dear but misguided friend" some notions of his
own about Negroes, which he now attacked with a curious mixture
of subtlety and offensive buffoonery. He ended with an almost
ribald joke and was so thunderstruck by Wiley Bey's black look
that he fell silent for several minutes. On the other hand, Simon
felt a real and profound sadness as the second floor apartment
took on the shape and appearance of a home. Something real
was ending, something which he had transformed and played with,
as he did with all real things-but which, no matter how, had
been part of him. His "consternation" became resentment, directed
not at Wiley Bey, but at the World and Time which thus buried
his chosen, half-serious, secretly cherished past under a pile of
ugly and malodorous furniture.
When it had all been brought up and he had stood for a
moment, morosely watching these people move busily about, put–
ting clothes away, adjusting chairs and tables, he suddenly clapped
his hand to his head and cried:
"But look here! You can't go through with this!"
"What's that?" said Wiley Bey, looking up from a trunk.
He had been silent and preoccupied all evening, a man who
exuded authority and power. The tall woman, who was lighting
some candles on the mantelpiece, turned around. The other two
came out of the kitchen and stood in the doorway.
"You don't know what this house means to me," said Simon,
his voice breaking. "I was born in this room. There used to be
a big armchair in this corner, next to a black walnut bookcase."
"I'm sorry," said Wiley Bey, bending again to his trunk.
"Nobody told us anything about that."
There followed a long silence. It became in the end so un–
bearable that Simon blurted out the first things that came to his
mind.
"Forgive my behaving like Banquo's ghost," he said. "Or
rather like the spectre at the banquet, or whatever it was. But you
must admit, it's all very odd. Not intrinsically odd, perhaps, but
the effect is, if you know what I mean. And a Negro no less!
An
American instance! Do you know, my grandfather owned a
slave? Not that he needed one, but just to show he was a copper-
