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By Root 5005 0

him was their canceled savings-account bank-book. He wandered around the house in the dim light. There was nothing here that she had not touched or rearranged, marked with her person and her tastes, and in the dusty light he seemed to feel a premonition of death, he seemed to hear Betsey’s voice. He put on a hat and took a walk. But Remsen Park was not much of a place to walk in. Most of its evening sounds were mechanized and the only woods was a little strip on the far side of the army camp and Coverly went there. When he thought of Betsey he thought of her against scenes of travel—trains and platforms and hotels and asking strangers for help with her bags—and he felt great love and pity. What he could not understand was the heaviness of his emotional investment in a situation that no longer existed. Making a circle around the woods and coming back through the army camp and seeing the houses of Remsen Park he felt a great homesickness for St. Botolphs—for a place whose streets were as excursive and crooked as the human mind, for water shining through trees, human sounds at evening, even Uncle Peepee pushing through the privet in his bare skin. It was a long walk, it was past midnight when he got back, and he threw himself naked onto their marriage bed that still held the fragrance of her skin and dreamed about West Farm.

Now the world is full of distractions—lovely women, music, French movies, bowling alleys and bars—but Coverly lacked the vitality or the imagination to distract himself. He went to work in the morning. He came home at dark, bringing a frozen dinner which he thawed and ate out of the pot. His reality seemed assailed or contested; his gifts for hopefulness seemed damaged or destroyed. There is a parochialism to some kinds of misery—a geographical remoteness like the life led by a grade-crossing tender—a point where life is lived or endured at the minimum of energy and perception and where most of the world appears to pass swiftly by like passengers on the gorgeous trains of the Santa Fe. Such a life has its compensations—solitaire and star-wishing—but it is a life stripped of friendship, association, love and even the practicable hope of escape. Coverly sank into this emotional hermitage and then there was a letter from Betsey.

“Sweetie,” she wrote, “I’m on my way back to Bambridge to see Grandma. Don’t try to follow me. I’m sorry I took all the money but as soon as I get work I’ll pay it all back to you. You can get a divorce and marry somebody else who will have children. I guess I’m just a wanderer and now I’m wandering again.” Coverly went to the telephone and called Bambridge. Her old grandmother answered. “I want to speak with Betsey,” Coverly shouted. “I want to speak with Betsey.” “She ain’t here,” the old lady said. “She don’t live here any more. She done married Coverly Wapshot, and went to live with him somewheres else.” “I’m Coverly Wapshot,” Coverly shouted. “Well, if you’re Coverly Wapshot what you bothering me for?” the old lady asked. “If you’re Coverly Wapshot why don’t you speak to Betsey yourself? And when you speak to her you tell her to get down on her knees to say her prayers. You tell her it don’t count unless she gets down on her knees.” Then she hung up.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

And now we come to the unsavory or homosexual part of our tale and any disinterested reader is encouraged to skip. It came about like this. Coverly’s immediate superior was a man named Walcott but in charge of the whole Taping Department was a young man named Pancras. He had a sepulchral voice, beautifully white and even teeth and he drove a European racing car. He never spoke to Coverly beyond a good morning or an encouraging smile when he passed through the long Tapers’ room. It may be that we over-estimate our powers of concealment and that the brand of loneliness and unrequital is more conspicuous than we know. In any case, Pancras suddenly approached Coverly one evening and offered him a ride home. Coverly would have been grateful for any company, and the low-slung racing car had a considerable