“Well,” he said, “All I can do is hope that nothing breaks down. Its obvious to me that you’re not going to listen.”

  “Congratulations on one statement I can agree with,” said Chris. He looked at his watch. “And now if you’ll excuse me I’ll go and listen to saddle-shoed cretins stumble over passages they haven’t the slightest ability to assimilate.”

  They got up.

  “I’ll take it,” said Morton but Chris slapped a dime on the counter and walked out. Morton followed, putting his change into his pocket slowly.

  In the street he patted Chris on the shoulder.

  “Try to take it easy,” he said. “Look, why don’t you and Sally come out to the house tonight? We could have a few rounds of bridge.”

  “That’s impossible,” Chris said.

  The students were reading a selection from King Lear. Their heads were bent over the books. He stared at them without seeing them.

  I’ve got to resign myself to it, he told himself. I’ve got to forget her, that’s all. She’s gone. I’m not going to bewail the fact. I’m not going to hope against hope that she’ll return. I don’t want her back. I’m better off without her. Free and unfettered now.

  His thoughts drained off. He felt empty and helpless. He felt as though he could never write another word for the rest of his life. Maybe, he thought, sullenly displeased with the idea, maybe it was only the upset of her leaving that enabled my brain to find words. For, after all, the words I thought of, the ideas that flourished, though briefly, were all to do with her—her going and my wretchedness because of it.

  He caught himself short. No!—he cried in silent battle. I will not let it be that way. I’m strong. This feeling is only temporary, I’ll very soon have learned to do without her. And then I’ll do work. Such work as I have only dreamed of doing. After all haven’t I lived eighteen years more? Haven’t those years filled me to overflowing with sights and sounds, ideals, impressions, interpretations?

  He trembled with excitement.

  Someone was waving a hand in his face. He focused his eyes and looked coldly at the girl.

  “Well?” he said.

  “Could you tell us when you’re going to give back our mid-term papers, Professor Neal?” she asked.

  He stared at her, his right cheek twitching. He felt about to hurl every invective at his command into her face. His fists closed.

  “You’ll get them back when they’re marked,” he said tensely.

  “Yes, but …”

  “You heard me,” he said.

  His voice rose at the end of the sentence. The girl sat down. As he lowered his head he noticed that she looked at the boy next to her and shrugged her shoulders, a look of disgust on her face.

  “Miss . . ”

  He fumbled with his record book and found her name.

  “Miss Forbes!”

  She looked up, her features drained of color, her red lips standing out sharply against her white skin. Painted alabaster idiot. The words clawed at him.

  “You may get out of this room,” he ordered sharply.

  Confusion filled her face.

  “Why?” she asked in a thin, plaintive voice.

  “Perhaps you didn’t hear me,” he said, the fury rising. “I said get out of this room!”

  “But . . ”

  “Do you hear me!” he shouted.

  Hurriedly she collected her books, her hands shaking, her face burning with embarrassment. She kept her eyes on the floor and her throat moved convulsively as she edged along the aisle and went out the doorway.

  The door closed behind her. He sank back. He felt a terrible sickness in himself. Now, he thought, they will all turn against me in defense of an addle-witted little girl. Dr. Ramsay would have more fuel for his simple little fire.

  And they were right.

  He couldn’t keep his mind from it. They were right. He knew it. In that far recess of mind which he could not cow with thoughtless passion, he knew he was a stupid fool. I have no right to teach others. I cannot even teach myself to be a human being. He wanted to cry out the words and weep confessions and throw himself from one of the open windows.

  “The whispering will stop!” he demanded fiercely.

  The room was quiet. He sat tensely, waiting for any signs of militance. I am your teacher, he told himself, I am to be obeyed, I am …

  The concept died. He drifted away again. What were students or a girl asking about mid-term papers? What was anything?

  He glanced at his watch. In a few minutes the train would pull into Centralia. She would change to the main line express to Indianapolis. Then up to Detroit and her mother. Gone.

  Gone. He tried to visualize the word, put it into living terms. But the thought of the house without her was almost beyond his means. Because it wasn’t the house without her; it was something else.

  He began to think of what John had said.

  Was it possible? He was in a mood to. accept the incredible. It was incredible that she had left him. Why not extend the impossibilities that were happening to him?

  All right then, he thought angrily. The house is alive. I’ve given it this life with deadly outpourings of wrath. I hope to God that when I get back there and enter the door, the roof collapses. I hope the walls buckle and I’m crushed to pulp by the crushing weight of plaster and wood and brick. That’s what I want. Some agency to do away with me. I cannot drive myself to it. If only a gun would commit my suicide for me. Or gas blow its deadly fumes at me for the asking or a razor slice my flesh upon request.

  The door opened. He glanced up. Dr. Ramsey stood there, face drawn into a mask of indignation. Behind him in the hall Chris could see the girl, her face streaked with tears.

  “A moment, Neal,” Ramsay said sharply and stepped back into the hall again.

  Chris sat at the desk staring at the door. He felt suddenly very tired, exhausted. He felt as if getting up and moving into the hall was more than he could possibly manage. He glanced at the class. A few of them were trying to repress smiles.

  “For tomorrow you will finish the reading of King Lear” he said. Some of them groaned.

  Ramsay appeared in the doorway again, his cheeks pink.

  “Are you coming, Neal?” he asked loudly.

  Chris felt himself tighten with anger as he walked across the room and out into the hall. The girl lowered her eyes. She stood beside Dr. Ramsey’s portly frame.

  “What’s this I hear, Neal?” Ramsey asked.

  That’s right, Chris thought. Don’t ever call me professor. I’ll never be one, will I? You’ll see to that, you bastard.

  “I don’t understand,” he said, as coolly as possible.

  “Miss Forbes here claims you ejected her from class for no reason at all.”

  “Then Miss Forbes is lying quite stupidly,” he said. Let me hold this anger, he thought. Don’t let it flood loose. He shook with holding it back.

  The girl gasped and took out her handkerchief again. Ramsay turned and patted her shoulder.

  “Go in my office, child. Wait for me.”

  She turned away slowly. Politician!—cried Neal’s mind. How easy it is for you to be popular with them. You don’t have to deal with their bungling minds.

  Miss Forbes turned the comer and Ramsay looked back.

  “Your explanation had better be good,” he said. “I’m getting a little weary, Neal, of your behavior.”

  Chris didn’t speak. Why am I standing here?—he suddenly wondered. Why, in all the world, am I standing in this dimlit hall and voluntarily, listening to this pompous boor berate me?

  “I’m waiting, Neal.”

  Chris tightened. “I told you she was lying,” he said quietly.

  “I choose to believe otherwise,” said Dr. Ramsay, his voice trembling.

  A shudder ran through Chris. His head moved forward and he spoke slowly, teeth clenched.

  “You can believe anything you damn well please.”

  Ramsay’s mouth twitched.

  “I think it’s time you appeared before the board,” he muttered.

  “Fine!” said Chris loudly. Ramsay made a move to close the classroom door. Chris gave it a kick and it banged against the wall. A girl gasped.

  “What’s the matter?” Chris yelled. “Don’t you want your students to hear me tell you off? Don’t you even want them to suspect that you’re a dolt, z. windbag, an ass!”

  Ramsay raised shaking fists before his chest. His lips trembled violently.

  “This will do, Neal!” he cried.

  Chris reached out and shoved the heavy man aside, snarling, “Oh, get out of my way!”

  He started away. The hall fled past him. He heard the bell ring. It sounded as though it rang in another existence. The building throbbed with life; students poured from classrooms.

  “Neal!” called Dr. Ramsay.

  He kept walking. Oh, God, let me out of here, I’m suffocating, he thought. My hat, my briefcase. Leave them. Get out of here. Dizzily he descended the stairs surrounded by milling students. They swirled about him like an unidentifiable tide. His brain was far from them.

  Staring ahead dully he walked along the first floor hall. He turned and went out the door and down the porch steps to the campus sidewalk. He paid no attention to the students who stared at his ruffled blonde hair, his mussed clothes. He kept walking. I’ve done it, he thought belligerently. I’ve made the break. I’m free!

  I’m sick.

  All the way down to Main Street and out on the bus he kept renewing his stores of anger. He went over those few moments in the hallway again and again. He summoned up the vision of Ramsay’s stolid face, repeated his words. He kept himself taut and furious. I’m glad, he told himself forcibly. Everything is solved. Sally has left me. Good. My job is done. Good. Now I’m free to do as I like. A strained and angry joy pounded through him. He felt alone, a stranger in the world and glad of it.

  At his stop he got off the bus and walked determinedly toward the house pretending to ignore the pain he felt at approaching it. It’s just an empty house, he thought. Nothing more. Despite all puerile theories, it is nothing but a house.

  Then, when he went in, he found her sitting on the couch.

  He almost staggered as if someone had struck him. He stood dumbly, staring at her. She had her hands tightly clasped. She was looking at him.

  He swallowed.

  “Well,” he managed to say.

  “I …” Her throat contracted. “Well …”

  “Well what!” he said quickly and loudly to hide the shaking in his voice.

  She stood up. “Chris, please. Won’t you … ask me to stay?” She looked at him like a little girl, pleading.

  The look enraged him. All his day dreams shattered; he saw the growing thing of new ideas ground under foot.

  “Ask you to stay!” he yelled at her. “By God, I’ll ask you nothing!”

  “Chris! Don’t!”

  She’s buckling, cried his mind. She’s cracking. Get her now. Get her out of here. Drive her from these walls!

  “Chris,” she sobbed, “be kind. Please be kind.”

  “Kind!”

  He almost choked on the word. He felt a wild heat coursing his body.

  “Have you been kind? Driving me crazy, into a pit of despair. I can’t get out. Do you understand? Never. Never! Do you understand that! I’ll never write. I can’t write! You drained it out of me! You killed it! Understand that? Killed it!”

  She backed away toward the dining room. He followed her, hands shaking at his sides, feeling that she had driven him to this confession and hating her the more for it.

  “Chris,” she murmured in fright.

  It seemed as if his rage grew cell-like, swelling him with fury until he was nothing of bone and blood but a hating accusation made flesh.

  “I don’t want you!” he yelled. “You’re right, I don’t want you! Get out of here!”

  Her eyes were wide, her mouth an open wound. Suddenly she ran past him, eyes glistening with tears. She fled through the front doorway.

  He went to the window and watched her running down the block, her dark brown hair streaming behind her.

  Dizzy suddenly, he sank down on the couch and closed his eyes. He dug his nails into his palms. Oh God, I am sick, his mind churned.

  He twitched and looked around stupidly. What was it? This feeling that he was sinking into the couch, into the floorboards, dissolving in the air, joining the molecules of the house. He whimpered softly looking around. His head ached; he pressed a palm against his forehead.

  “What?” he muttered. “What?”

  He stood up. As though there were fumes he tried to smell them. As though it were a sound he tried to hear it. He turned around to see it. As though there were something with depth and length and width; something menacing.

  He wavered, fell back on the couch. He stared around. There was nothing; all intangible. It might only be in the mind. The furniture lay as it did before. The sunlight filtered through the windows, piercing the gauzelike curtains, making gold patterns on the inlaid wooden floor. The walls were still creamy, the ceiling was as it was before. Yet there was this darkening, darkening …

  What?

  He pushed up and walked dizzly around the room. He forgot about Sally. He was in the dining room. He touched the table, he stared at the dark oak. He went into the kitchen. He stood by the sink and looked out the window.

  Far up the block he saw her walking, stumbling. She must have been waiting for the bus. Now she couldn’t wait any longer and she was walking away from the house, away from him.

  “I’ll go after her,” he muttered.

  No, he thought. No, I won’t go after her like a …

  He forgot what like. He stared down at the sink. He felt drunk. Everything was fuzzy on the edges.

  She’s washed the cups. The broken saucer was thrown away. He looked at the nick on his thumb. It was dried. He’d forgotten about it.

  He looked around suddenly as if someone had sneaked behind him. He stared at the wall. Something was rising. He felt it. It’s not me. But it had to be; it had to be imagination. .

  Imagination!

  He slammed a fist on the sink. I’ll write. Write, write. Sit down and drain it all away in words; this feeling of anguish and terror and loneliness. Write it out of my system.

  He cried, “Yes!”

  He’ ran from the kitchen. He refused to accept the instinctive fear in himself. He ignored the menace that seemed to thicken the very air.

  A rug slipped. He kicked it aside. He sat down. The air hummed. He tore off the cover on the typewriter. He sat nervously, staring at the keyboard. The moment before attack. It was in the air. But it’s my attack!—he thought triumphantly, my attack on stupidity and fear.

  He rolled a sheet into the typewriter. He tried to collect his throbbing thoughts. Write, the word called in his mind. Write—now.

  “Now!” he cried.

  He felt the desk lurch against his shins.

  The flaring pain knifed open his senses. He kicked the desk in automatic frenzy. More pain. He kicked again. The desk flung back at him. He screamed.

  He’d seen it move.

  He tried to back off, the anger torn from him. The typewriter keys moved under his hands. His eyes swept down. He couldn’t tell whether he was moving the keys or whether they moved by themselves. He pulled hysterically, trying to dislodge his fingers but he couldn’t. The keys were moving faster than his eye could see. They were a blur of motion. He felt them shredding his skin, peeling his fingers. They were raw. Blood started to ooze out.

  He cried out and pulled. He managed to jerk away his fingers and jump back in the chair.

  His belt buckle caught, the desk drawer came flying out. It slammed into his stomach. He yelled again. The pain was a black cloud pouring over his head.

  He threw down a hand to shove in the drawer. He saw the yellow pencils lying there. They glared. His hand slipped, it banged into the drawer.

  One of the pencils jabbed at him.

  He always kept the points sharp. It was like the bite of a snake. He snapped back his hand with a gasp of pain. The point was jammed under a nail. It was imbedded in raw, tender flesh. He cried out in fury and pain. He pulled at the pencil with his other hand. The point flew out and jabbed into his palm. He couldn’t get rid of the pencil, it kept dragging over his hand. He pulled at it and it tore black, jagged lines on his skin. It tore the skin open.

  He heaved the pencil across the room. It bounced on the wall. It seemed to jump as it fell on the eraser. It rolled over and was still.

  He lost his balance. The chair fell back with a rush. His head banged sharply against the floorboards. His out-clutched hand grabbed at the window sill. Tiny splinters flashed into his skin like invisible needles. He howled in deathly fear. He kicked his legs. The mid-term papers showered down over him like the beating wings of insane bird flocks.

  The chair snapped up again on its springs. The heavy wheels rolled over his raw, bloody hands. He drew them back with a shriek. He reared a leg and kicked the chair over violently. It crashed on the side against the mantelpiece. The wheels spun and chattered like a swarm of furious insects.

  He jumped up. He lost his balance and fell again, crashing against the window sill. The curtains fell on him like a python. The rods snapped. They flew down and struck him across the scalp. He felt warm blood trickle across his forehead. He thrashed about on the floor. The curtains seemed to writhe around him like serpents. He screamed again. He tore at them wildly. His eyes were terror-stricken.

  He threw them off and lurched up suddenly, staggering around for balance. The pain in his hand assailed him. He looked at them. They were like raw butcher meat, skin hanging down in shreds. He had to bandage them. He turned toward the bathroom.

  At his first step the rug slid from under him, the rug he had kicked aside. He felt himself rush through the air. He reached down his hands instinctively to block the fall. The white pain made his body leap. One finger snapped. Splinters shot into his raw fingers, he felt a burning pain in one ankle.

  He tried to scramble up but the floor was like ice under him. He was deadly silent. His heart thudded in his chest. He tried to rise again. He fell hissing with pain.