472
PARTISAN REVIEW
They went up to his room and he locked the door. He was merry
no longer; this was going to be serious work, not play. He took off
his coat, and she was waiting for him-in the darkness, for they had
not switched on the light and the windows were shuttered. As he
approached she swung out a leg and hit him on the loins. He sank
down and she sprang upon him and they grappled but not a cry es–
caped their shut lips. They battled grimly, silently, rolling up and down
the floor, oozing sweat and bleeding from bruises; the hiss of their
breath and the clatter of a chair as they knocked it down the only
sounds in the dark room. She broke loose and tried to stagger up
but he was clutching her strap and the dress ripped across her bosom
as she jumped on his face. He suddenly rolled away and she bounced
onto the floor but as he dived at her she kicked up both feet at his face
and scrambled under a chair. She grabbed the chair and hurled it at
him
as he was groggily kneeling up and the chair knocked him down flat
again. But as, bolting for the door, she leaped over him he reached
out and caught her ankle and down she went, hitting her mouth on
the floor. She jerked her leg off and clutched at a table's edge to
pull herself up but he was dragging himself up too over the other
side of the table and they confronted each other, panting and dripping
tears and sweat, but still game. He tipped the table over and she swerved
but he was upon her before she could run, pinning her neck to the
wall. She grabbed his hair and pulled; he tore free; she shot out a fist
but he ducked; and when his fist exploded against her jaw she dropped
to the floor and stayed there, stretched out stiff.
He groped round the wall to the washbowl and washed his face
and drank some water. His shirt hung in tatters, his face smarted
with scratches; and he wanted to just lie down somewhere and die–
but he groped back and stooped over her. She did not move but was
conscious, for her sly eyes gleamed up at
him,
waiting what he would
do. Blood trickled from the corners of her mouth and her dress had
been tom off her breasts and shoulders. He had only to reach down
and rip the dress some more if he would discover her kinship with her
monstrous idol-but as he stood over her in the dark room, her sly
eyes gleaming up at
him,
his hot flesh went clammy with the feeling
that there were other eyes peering out at them, eyes avidly fastened
upon them, eyes that had been watching them all that night and all
the other nights before and he could not doubt whose eyes they were.
He felt the roots of his hair straining tautly, his guts bloating; and
as the warm vomit sourly flooded up his throat, the girl on the floor
saw him shudder and double up (like that young man she had seen
