138
PARTISAN R'EVIEW
of unhabitual light through all the sleepless night of spring; while
in the dark porchway, even at this moment, the servant
girl
persist–
ently enquired of Peter and he in fury and in terror denied his Lord:
now the bitter terrible weeping and now, saluting this mortal morn–
ing, the cock's triumphal and reproaching cry. A deep, deep hour.
Soon now the sentence and the torment, the scourging, the mocking
robe, the wreathed, wretched Crown: King of the Jews.
o
God, he silently prayed, in solemn and festal exaltation:
make me to know Thy suffering this day. 0 make me to know
Thy dear Son's suffering this day.
Within Thy Wounds hide me.
Suffer me not to be separated from Thee.
From the Malicious Enemy defend me.
By a habit of their own, meanwhile, his hands searched and
tested along the undersheet, and now they told him that this
time
he had wet the bed so little that by morning nobody would know.
He let out a long thankful breath and looked down along his bed.
All he could see at first throughout the long room was a kind
of gelatin glimmer at the alcoved windows, and the aisled ends of the
iron cots at right angles to his own: but when the foot which had
awakened him lifted from the yielding board and it creaked again he
saw in his mind's eye, large and close, the coarse-ribbed shambling
stocking, flecked with lint, and knew that Father Whitman must be
very tired; for to judge by the hissing sound, his feet scarcely left
the floor. He wondered whether Father Whitman was sleeping at
all, tonight.
Father Whitman touched a foot and whispered: "Quarter of
four."
"Okay Fathuh," Hobe Gillum said in his clear hard voice.
"Quiet," Father Whitman said sharply.
"Okay Fathuh," Hobe whispered:
Now that the priest came near as silently as he could between the
ends of the cots, Richard could see the tall ghostly moving of his
white habit.
Father Whitman stopped at Jimmy Toole's cot, touched his
foot, and whispered: "Quarter of ,four." Jimmy mumbled some–
thing in a light sad rapid voice and stuck his head under his pil–
low.
