AN
INSIDE STORY
279
And even
if
I could, my explanation might very well be wrong."
"Just be patient," said Paddles to Gabriel,
"I
will explain the
story to you, but not right now," he added, looking at Tobias who
had withdrawn suddenly, although he stood at the bar holding his
glass.
"I guess we better call it a night," said Gabriel, responding to
the mood and the silence of Tobias and Paddles. "How about one
for the road?"
Tobias extended his glass and Paddles said that he had enough
of a load for the time being.
One for the road, one for the sphinx, one for the jinx, said
Tobias to himself, one for the fog, one for the past and one for
the future, one for self-pity and two for resentment, one for cow–
ardice and brandy for courage, but dutch courage is better than
none at all. One for love, one for frustration, and one for despera–
tion, brandy for hope and beer for nervousness, Martinis to eat and
whisky to sleep, one to be calm, two to be gay, one to be warm and
a few to have something to say.
A
pint to make love and a case to
get away from the guilt one cannot face after the great wild flower
of the sunset has gone down and left one alone in the isolation and
condemnation of the night, the darkness of fear amid electric light.
One for the strength never to despair, one to be near the hope which
is
born of desperate fear, one to remember all ways that the great–
est
courage is born of the greatest danger, that courage is born of
fear, one never to forget how hope is a way of being alive and
living with the real people. One for Emma, one for Ethel, one for
Arabel, one for the Danish girl, one for Isabel, one for the power that
moves the sun, and the other stars, and the dancing daemons of
heaven and hell. This is the doctrine of the master of joy: God
is
love. Hatred is death. The kingdom of love is within you; also the
kingdom of death.
"Are you going my way?" asked Paddles who saw that Tobias
had just finished his drink and who had been regarding him with
curiosity and sympathy, for Tobias' lips had been moving as
in
unmeant prayer, and he had been looking at his own drawn face
in
the broad looking-glass above the long bar.
"I don't know where I am going," said Tobias, remaining at
a distance, "but thanks anyway," he added absent-mindedly. "I
think
that I'd better walk home."
