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' he called. 'Are you awake, Louis?'

No answer. He put his elbows on the counter and held his

head in his hands. He moved his dark bearded jaw from side

to side and slowly his forehead lowered in a frown.

The riddle. The question that had taken root in him and would

not let him rest. The puzzle of Singer and the rest of them.

More than a year had gone by since it had started. More than a

year since Blount had hung around the place on his first long

drunk and seen the mute for the first time. Since Mick had

begun to follow him in and out. And now for a month Singer

had been dead and buried. And the riddle was still in him, so

that he could not be tranquil.306

307

There was something not natural about it all—something like

an ugly joke. When he thought of it he felt uneasy and in some

unknown way afraid.

He had managed about the funeral. They had left all that to

him. Singer's affairs were in a mess. There were installments

due on everything he owned and the beneficiary of his life

insurance was deceased. There was just enough to bury him.

The funeral was at noon. The sun burned down on them with

savage heat as they stood around the open dank grave. The

flowers curled and turned brown in the sun. Mick cried so

hard that she choked herself and her father had to beat her on

the back. Blount scowled down at the grave with his fist to his

mouth. The town's Negro doctor, who was somehow related to

poor Willie, stood on the edge of the crowd and moaned to

himself. And there were strangers nobody had ever seen or

heard of before. God knows where they came from or why

they were there.

The silence in the room was deep as the night itself. Biff stood

transfixed, lost in his meditations. Then suddenly he felt a

quickening in him. His heart turned and he leaned his back

against the counter for support. For in a swift radiance of

illumination he saw a glimpse of human struggle and of valor.

Of the endless fluid passage of humanity through endless

time. And of those who labor and of those who—one word—

love. His soul expanded. But for a moment only. For in him he

felt a warning, a shaft of terror. Between the two worlds he

was suspended. He saw that he was looking at his own face in

the counter glass before him. Sweat glistened on his temples

and his face was contorted. One eye was opened wider than

the other. The left eye delved narrowly into the past while the

right gazed wide and affrighted into a future of blackness,

error, and ruin. And he was suspended between radiance and

darkness. Between bitter irony and faith. Sharply he turned

away.

'Louis!' he called. 'Louis! Louis!'

Again there was no answer. But, motherogod, was he a

sensible man or was he not? And how could this terror throttle

him nice this when he didn't even know what caused it? And

would he just stand here like a jittery ninny or would he pull

himself together and be reasonable? For

after all was he a sensible man or was he not? Biff wet his

handkerchief beneath the water tap and patted his drawn,

tense face. Somehow he remembered that the awning had not

yet been raised. As he went to the door his walk gained

steadiness. And when at last he was inside again he composed

himself soberly to await the morning sun

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