A DANGLING MAN
407
and the nngainly door which clanked on the mailboxes, the
sad cavern of the hall.
Upstairs, I worked energetically on the old man. I dosed
him with the medicine, had Mrs. Almstadt make a pitcher of
orange juice and rubbed him down with alcohol. He grunted
with pleasure during the massage and said that I was stronger
than I looked. We were on better terms by this time. But I
did not reply. Silent, I could not make another mistake and,
moreover, if I began to talk I would soon find myself explain–
ing my position and defending my idleness. Old Almstadt did
not bring the subject up. My own father, I must say, treats me
less considerately in that respect. He would have asked me,
but Mr. Almstadt said nothing about it.
Relieved that the subject had been avoided, I rolled down
my sleeves and was preparing to go when my mother-in-law
reminded me that she had poured a glass of orange juice for me
in the kitchen. That was not lunch but it was better than noth–
ing. I went to get it and fonnd on the . kitchen sink a half
cleaned chicken its yellow claws rigid, its head bent as though
to examine its entrails which ravelled over the sopping draining
board and splattered the enamel with blood. Beside it stood
the orange juice, a brown feather floating in it. I poured it
down the drain. In my hat and scarf, I wandered to the living
room where I had left my coat. Mr. and Mrs. Almstadt were
conversing in the bedroom. I looked out of the window.
The snn had been covered up; snow was beginning to fall.
It was sprinkled on the black pores of the gravel and lying in
thin slips on the slanting roofs. I could see a long way from
this third floor height. Not far off there were chimneys, their
smoke a lighter gray than the grey of the sky; and straight
before me, ranges of poor dwellings, warehouses, billboards,
culverts, electric signs blankly burning, parked cars and moving
cars and the occasional bare plan of a tree. These I surveyed,
pressing my forehead on the glass. It was my painful obliga–
tion to look and to submit to myself the invariable question:
Where was there a particle of what, elsewhere, or in the past,
spoke in Man's favor? There could be no doubt that these
billboards, streets, tracks and houses, ugly, crude and blind,
