In spite of the hymn, dejection fastened on him as he
remembered this and a great deal more about his wife.
If she could only be brought to see the light their marriage and life
might still be crowned with triumph. But Bella, pointing out the
resulting poverty of his own conviction and struggle, said freely that
she had no confidence in promises; she demanded fulfillment now. She
regarded him as more than a little affected in the brain. Yet there had
been no deep change in him--from the very first he had felt a growing
uneasiness at the spectacle of the world and the flesh. The throb of
the Salvation Army drum at the end of an alley, the echo of the fervent
exhortations and holy songs, had always filled him with a surging
emotion like homesickness.
Two impulses, he recognized, held a relentless warfare within him; he
pictured them as Christ and Satan; but the first would overthrow all
else. "Glory!" he cried mechanically aloud. He put down the hairbrush
and inspected the razors on their shelf. The bright morning light
flashed along the rubbed fine blades; they were beautiful, flawless,
without a trace of defilement. He felt the satin smoothness of the
steel with an actual thrill of pleasure; his eyes narrowed until they
were like the glittering points of knives; he held the razor firmly and
easily, with a sinewy poised wrist.
Finally, his suspenders in position over a collarless striped shirt, he
moved out to the bare sharp descent before his house and poured water
onto the roots of a struggling lilac bush.
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