142
PARTISAN REVIEW
"Aw shut up Hobie," Jimmy said. "This ain't no time to talk
like that."
"Hell do ] keer," Hobe said.
«]
hain't been to Confession yet."
But he started on down the steps without saying anything more.
"What happened?" Richard asked.
"Jis trine wake up Jimmy," Hobe said. "God All Mighty
Christ, can't even wake nobody up in this friggin School-"
Richard followed them down the steps. He was glad he had
learned hardly even to think of saying anything.
If
Jimmy told
Hobie to shut up and quit cussing Robie would take it off of him,
they were buddies; but by now he knew enough to keep
his
mouth
shut. He felt uneasy, though, because he was glad he had not sworn.
That was like being thankful you were not as other men and that
was one of the worst sins of all; the Pharisee.
He had forgotten all about the shoes he carried and now that
unexpectedly, for the first time this year, he felt the ground against
the bare soles of his feet it was as if, fumbling among clothes in a
dark closet, he had put his hand on living flesh. Even though the
ground in this schoolyard was skimmed with dusty gravel, its aliveness
soared through him like a sob and lifted his eyes in wonder upon
the night. There was no moon and what few stars were out,
were made faint by a kind of smiling universal milky silence, not
fog, or even the lightest kind of mist, but as if the whole air and
sky were one mild supernal breath. Downhill in the Chapel a line
of small windows meekly smoldered, dark orange; he followed his
companions and saw that they too were carrying their shoes. When
they came to the lawn beyond their building they left the gravel;
the ground, with its scarce new grass, felt like a fish. There was a
thick oak near the center of the lawn and Hobe and Jimmy, as they
passed, stung it several times expertly with gravel. It had not oc–
curred to Richard to pick up gravel and now he was glad, for he was
sure he would have missed as often as hit.
II
The night smelled like new milk; the air which exhaled
upon them when they opened the side door of the Chapel was as
numb and remote as the air of a cave. Without knowing it they
