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Author: Sinclair 吊りくさび
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Kingsblood 王室の

by

Sinclair 吊りくさび

一時期／支部 1

Mr. Blingham, and may he fry in his own cooking-oil, was assistant treasurer of the Flaver-Saver Company. He was 運動ing from New York to Winnipeg, …を伴ってd by Mrs. Blingham and their horrible daughter. As they were New Yorkers, only a 商売／仕事 trip could have dragged them into this wilderness, and they 設立する everything west of Pennsylvania contemptible. They laughed at Chicago for daring to have 超高層ビルs and at Madison for pretending to have a university, and they stopped the car and shrieked when they entered Minnesota and saw a billboard advertising "Ten Thousand Lakes."

行方不明になる Blingham, whom they called "Sister," commented, "Unless you had a New York sense of humor, you would never be able to understand why that 調印する is so funny!"

When they （機の）カム to their first prairie hamlet in Minnesota, six cottages, a garage, a 蓄える／店 and a tall red 穀物 elevator, Mrs. Blingham giggled, "Why, they've got an Empire 明言する／公表する Building here!"

"And all the Svensons and Bensons and Hensons go up to the Rainbow Room every evening!" gurgled Sister.

Their laughter ブイ，浮標d them for a hundred miles, till it was time to think of lunch. 行方不明になる Blingham looked at the 地図／計画する. "Grand 共和国, Minnesota. That seems to be about forty miles from here, and it's やめる a village—85,000 people."

"Let's try it. They せねばならない have some sort of a hotel to eat at," yawned Mr. Blingham.

"All the best people there eat at the 救済 Army 避難所!" yelped Mrs. Blingham.

"Oh, you 殺す me!" said Sister.

When, from the bluffs of the Sorshay River, they looked 負かす／撃墜する to the 石灰岩 軸 of the Blue Ox 国家の Bank Building and the welter of steel and glass sheds that had been 築くd for the Wargate 支持を得ようと努めるd 製品s 会社／団体 since 1941, Mr. Blingham said, "Fair-sized war 工場／植物 they got there."

Since the beginning of World War II, Grand 共和国 had grown from 85,000 to 90,000. To some ninety thousand immortal souls, it was the 中心 of the universe, and all distances were to be 手段d from it; Moscow was defined as a place 6,100 miles from Home, and Saudi Arabia as a market for Wargate wallboard and huts and プロペラs. The Blinghams, who knew that the true 中心 of the solar system is the corner of Fifth Avenue and Fifty-seventh Street, would have been irritated to find out how many of the simpletons in the valley below them believed that New York 含む／封じ込めるd nothing but hotels, burlesque shows, a ghetto and 塀で囲む Street.

Mrs. Blingham 勧めるd, "Come on. We can't waste all day looking at this 捨てる. The hotel-guide gives the Pineland as the best place for chow. Let's try it."

They did not notice them, but on the way to the Pineland they must have passed scrollwork palaces of 1880, an Italian カトリック教徒 Church, a pawn-shop in which a Lithuanian lumberjack had recently pawned the Luger ピストル with which he had 殺人d a Siamese 採掘-（軍の）野営地，陣営 cook, the best women's dress-shop between Fort William and Dallas, a Victoria Cross aviator, and a Negro clergyman who was a Doctor of Philosophy.

In 前線 of the tapestry-brick, nine-storied Hotel Pineland (designed by Lefleur, O'Flaherty, and Zipf of Minneapolis), Mr. Blingham said doubtfully, "井戸／弁護士席, I suppose we can get some 肉親，親類d of grub here."

They thought it very funny that the more choosy of the two restaurants in the Pineland should presumptuously be 指名するd "The Fiesole Room," though they would not have 設立する it funny if they had known that 地元で it was pronounced "Feesoly," because that was how the Blinghams pronounced it, also.

The Fiesole Room had, for cinquecento atmosphere, Pompeian-red 塀で囲むs, majolica dishes, a Spanish ワイン-jar on either 味方する of the doorway, and a frieze of antique Grecian 走者s done by a 地元の portrait-painter.

"My, my, don't they put on the dog in—what's the 指名する of this town again?" mocked Sister.

"Grand 早いs," said Mr. Blingham.

"No, that's the furniture, where Aunt Ella comes from. This," said Mrs. Blingham authoritatively, after looking at the 地図／計画する, "is Grand 共和国."

"What a silly 指名する!" pronounced Sister. "Sounds like Fourthajuly. Oh, God, these hicks!"

They were elaborately 護衛するd to a （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する by the headwaiter, a dignified, 築く colored man whose 長，率いる 似ているd a brown billiard ball. They did not know that he was Drexel Greenshaw, the leader of the 保守的な wing of the Negro Community. He looked like a bishop, like a general, like a 上院議員, any of whom he might have been if he had chosen another calling than （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する-waiting and another color.

Mr. Blingham had the Hungarian goulash. Mrs. Blingham was bold in the 事柄 of roast lamb. Sister took the chicken salad, snapping at the colored waiter, "And do try to have a little chicken in it, will yuh?"

They 設立する it 高度に comic that the waiter 屈服するd, and said, "Yes, 行方不明になる." They could not have explained why they 設立する it comic. As they said, "You have to be a New Yorker to understand our Sense of Humor. A nigger hash-hustler in a 捨てる like this making like he was at the Ritz!"

It is true that in New York, on their evenings of festival, they did not dine at the Ritz but at a Schrafft's.

Toying delicately with her chicken salad, but finishing all of it 同様に as all the rolls, Sister looked cynically about the Fiesole Room.

"Mm, mm! 尊敬（する）・点d parents, will you look at the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する to my 権利? Please buy him for me—the young one."

The person whom she had thus 好意d was an amiable man of thirty with solid shoulders and freckled paws and the （疑いを）晴らす 肌 that often goes with red hair like his. You thought of football, later tempered by tennis. But what you most noticed was the singular innocence of his blue 注目する，もくろむs and the innocence and enthusiasm of his smile.

"He looks like a Scotch army officer," 認可するd Sister. "He せねばならない be wearing kilts."

"Sister! And he looks to me like a shoe-clerk," 匂いをかぐd Mrs. Blingham.

With that, they forgot the young man, who was neither a shoe-clerk nor more than a ４半期/4分の1 Scotch. He was a junior bank officer 指名するd Neil Kingsblood, recently a captain of infantry.

On their way north, after lunch, the Blinghams got off their proper 大勝する. They were too proud to ask questions of the 野蛮な natives, and they circled through the expensive 住居 地区 of Ottawa 高さs and a new, gray-shingle and stucco and asphalt-roof and picture-window real-広い地所 開発 called Sylvan Park. As they turned from Linden 小道／航路 upon Balsam 追跡する, they did not 公式文書，認める a "植民地の cottage," new and neat and painty, with 幅の広い white clapboards and blue shutters, on the northwest corner; nor did they look at the きびきびした and handsome young woman and the four-year-old girl, all pink and pale gold, who were coming out of the cottage. Yet this was the house of Captain Neil Kingsblood, and these were his wife, Vestal, and Biddy, his lively daughter.

"I guess we'll have to ask the way. Do you s'提起する／ポーズをとる the folks out here speak English?" said Mrs. Blingham irritably.

That evening, as they were approaching Crookston, where they were to spend the night, Mr. Blingham mused, "What was the 指名する of that burg where we had lunch today—where we got lost, leaving town?"

"Funny, I can't remember it," said Mrs. Blingham. "Big River or something."

"Where the good-looking young man was," said Sister.

一時期／支部 2

Neil and Vestal Kingsblood were having an 量 of servant trouble that seemed improbable with so tolerant a couple, and it was not 完全に a comedy of 国内の 事故s. 悲劇 in wry forms may come even to the 植民地の 住居 of a Young 銀行業者.

You would have said of Neil Kingsblood that he would not 遭遇（する） either 悲劇 or remarkable success. Red-長，率いるd, curly-長，率いるd, blue-注目する，もくろむd, stalwart, cheerful, and as 解放する／自由な of scholarship as he was of malice, Neil was, in November, 1944, an assistant cashier in the Second 国家の Bank of Grand 共和国, of which Mr. John William Prutt was 大統領，／社長.

He was 充てるd to his family, his friends, his 職業, to 狙撃 and fishing and ゴルフ, and to the guns, 棒s, canoes and other enchanting and childish 反対するs associated with those sports. But he was now unfitted for excursions の中で the forests and lakes of Northern Minnesota. A year ago, when he was a captain of infantry, his 権利 脚 had been 難破させるd in the 逮捕（する） of an Italian village.

That 脚 would always be half an インチ shorter than the other, but he could limp briskly now, and by spring of 1945, he was sure, he would be able to hitch about the 法廷，裁判所 in a sort of tennis. The limp did not 損失 his position as one of the best-looking men in town; it gave an almost humorous lurch to his gait, and his chest and 武器 were as powerful as ever.

Last Christmas he had spent in agony in an army hospital in England; this Christmas, he would be with his beloved Vestal, a tall, gay, affectionate but sensible matron, and his daughter Elizabeth, 老年の four and always known as "Biddy"—the enchanting, the good-tempered Biddy, with her 肌 of strawberries and cream, her hair like シャンペン酒.

Neil was born in 1914, during the fever-symptoms of the First World War; he had believed in the sanctity of the Second World War; and over highballs at the Sylvan Park Tennis Club, he 明言する／公表するd bravely and he almost believed that there would not be a Third World War arriving just in time to catch the son whom the benevolent gods (his God was Baptist and Vestal's was Episcopal) might send them.

His father, still blessedly alive and in practice, was Dr. Kenneth M. Kingsblood, the popular dentist (office in the Professional and Arts Building, Chippewa Avenue at West Ramsey Street) and his maternal grandfather was Edgar Saxinar, retired telephone 公式の／役人 living in Minneapolis. He had, thus, a 科学の and 産業の background, very solid, but it must be owned that for wealth and social standing, his family could not touch the gentility of Vestal's father, who was Morton Beehouse, 大統領，／社長 of the Prairie 力／強力にする and Light 会社／団体, brother of Oliver Beehouse, 長，指導者 counsel for the Wargate 産業s. In Grand 共和国, we say "Beehouse" as you say Adams or Cecil or Pignatelli.

Vestal had been 大統領，／社長 of the Junior League, women's ゴルフ-支持する／優勝者 of the Heather Country Club, 最高の，を越す war-社債 saleswoman of the 郡, 長官 of the St. Anselm's Altar Guild, chairman of the Program 委員会 of the Women's Club, and 勝利者 of the after-dinner coffee-始める，決める at the Cosmopollies' 橋（渡しをする）-tournament. She was, however, human.

She was a 卒業生（する） of 甘い Briar College in Virginia, and it was understood that she was 所有するd of rather better taste than Neil, who had had a 搭乗-house and beer 存在 at the University of Minnesota. But she said, "I'm no highbrow. At heart, I'm a Hausfrau."

Her 直面する was 狭くする, a bit long, but lightened by humorous gray 注目する，もくろむs, and her hair, of an 普通の／平均（する） chestnut, was remarkably 厚い. Her 手渡すs were squarer than Neil's, which were strong but 次第に減少するd to slender fingers. Vestal laughed easily and not too much. She loved Neil, she 尊敬（する）・点d him, she liked him; she often held his 手渡す at the movies, and in the bedroom she was serious about him. She had, before his 脚 was 負傷させるd, enjoyed canoeing with him all through the lonely 国境 Lakes; and she 株d with him his Sound 保守的な 共和国の／共和党の Beliefs about banking, 税金s, and the perfidy of labor unions. They were truly a Happy Young American Married Couple.

*

Though she had been 後部d in a Beehouse mansion of gray 石／投石する, in the old faubourg of Beltrami Avenue, Vestal liked coming home to the artful 簡単s of Sylvan Park. Here were forests 古代の as the hills enclosing sunny 位置／汚点／見つけ出すs of 青葉, all laid out in curves and 三日月s, 関わりなく expense, by Mr. William Stopple, Realtor and Developer.

Vestal was friendly with her own white cottage and the smart 半分-circular stoop and its わずかな／ほっそりした 中心存在s. Inside, the living-room was modest enough but 有望な as a gold purse, with バーレル／樽-議長，司会を務めるs in dark-blue corduroy, maroon curtains, a ship's-clock, an ardent hearth-解雇する／砲火／射撃 (electric, with glass coals), and on the mantel a German helmet which Neil was supposed to have 逮捕（する）d in 戦闘. But even more indicative of their 繁栄 was the "sun-porch," with green wicker furniture and red-tile 床に打ち倒す and a portable 妨げる／法廷，弁護士業 and, for grandeur, a 見解（をとる） of the 塚 on which was "Hillhouse," the fabulous 住居 of Berthold Eisenherz.

No ordinary bank teller could have afforded such richness, and Neil had been only a teller until a couple of months ago. His father-in-法律 had helped to make this splendor possible, and to enable them to have a maid of all work, that last and dearest 高級な in a pattern of American civilization in which you own a Cadillac but 黒人／ボイコット your own shoes; and a sound civilization it is, too, in which you may いじめ（る） only the servants that are made of steel.

In Sylvan Park there are 非，不，無 of the brick-塀で囲むd gardens and brick-直面するd chauffeurs which adorn Ottawa 高さs. Neil's neighbors rejoice in Cape Cod cottages, seven-room chalets, and plain 木造の boxes with 偽の half-木材／素質ing. Along the halfmoon 小道／航路s and 追跡するs are fountains, and the 長，指導者 square, 指名するd "The Carrefour," is surrounded by smart shops with 非合法の Spanish arcading. But all over this plaster Granada children are passionately running, mothers are wheeling baby-carriages, and fathers are raking leaves.

Mr. William Stopple (and remember that not long ago he was 市長 of Grand 共和国) 個人として advises you that Sylvan Park is just as 解放する／自由な of Jews, Italians, Negroes, and the exasperatingly poor as it is of noise, mosquitoes, and rectangularity of streets. 公然と, he 発表するs:

"Where are boyhood's dreams and the maiden's fancy, where are old-time romance and the lily-white maid beside the mirroring pool under the 影をつくる／尾行する of the 城 tower 飛行機で行くing its gallant gonfalon? you can 再度捕まえる that dream today. Sylvan Park is where gracious living, artistic landscaping, the American Way of Life, and up-to-the-minute conveniences are exemplified in Dream o' 地雷 Come True, at surprisingly reasonable prices and 自由主義の 条件, phone or 令状, two offices, open 'til 'ten P.M. Wedns.'"

Neil and Vestal jeered at this true modern poetry, but they did consider Sylvan Park a 楽園 and a 高度に sensible 楽園—and their house was almost paid for.

支援する of their own 二塁打 bedroom (it had a tiled bathroom adorned with seahorses and lotos blossoms) was Biddy's apartment, bunnies and Mickey Mouses, and behind that a 閉じ込める／刑務所, all angles and eaves, with things tucked behind other things, which they called Neil's "den," and which could serve as guest-room. Here Neil （機の）カム to gloat over his 棒s and clubs, the Arrowhead ライフル銃／探して盗む Marksmanship Cup, which he had won in 1941, and his beloved collection of guns. He had a Hudson's-Bay 貿易（する） ライフル銃／探して盗む, a .45 (a)自動的な／(n)自動拳銃 ピストル which had belonged to the 王室の 機動力のある, and half a dozen 同時代の ライフル銃／探して盗むs. He had always 手配中の，お尋ね者 to be a frontiersman, an Astor Company 仲買人 of 1820 on the Minnesota 国境, and he liked calendars portraying canoemen and the habits of the moose.

And here were his own not-very-非常に／多数の 調書をとる／予約するs. The 始める，決める of Kipling, the 始める，決める of O. Henry, the 始める，決める of Sherlock Holmes, a history of banking, and the bound 容積／容量s of the 国家の Geographic Magazine, with Beasley on tennis and Morrison on ゴルフ. の中で these solid wares, 押し進めるd 支援する on a shelf, was a 容積／容量 of Emily Dickinson, which a girl, whose 指名する and texture he had now forgotten, had given to him in college, and いつかs Neil 選ぶd at it and wondered.

*

The rooms to which they gave the most nervous care were at the end of a constricted hall: the bedroom and 私的な bath of their maid, 行方不明になる Belfreda Gray, a young lady of color.

In the hope of keeping a maid at all in these war days, they had made Belfreda's 控訴 as pretty as they could afford. The bedroom was 完全にする with 無線で通信する, candlewick spread, and copies of Good Housekeeping, and in an 完全に insane moment, Vestal had bought a real English loofah for the bathroom. Belfreda had considered it some form of mummified bug, and had almost やめる when Vestal 現在のd it to her.

Also, Belfreda 拒絶する／低下するd to use the cake of pink bathsoap, in the 形態／調整 of a duck, which Vestal 供給するd, explaining that her dark 肌 was delicate and she could 許容する only Gout de Rose, at a dollar a cake...Vestal got that for her, too, and still Belfreda thought about quitting. She was a good cook, when she 手配中の，お尋ね者 to be, but just now she did not want to be.

Belfreda was twenty-one, and beautiful in her わずかな／ほっそりした elastic way. She 堅固に preferred not to wear stockings, even when waiting on （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する, and her voluptuous 脚s of warm, satin-finished bronze, not much 隠すd by her flirting skirts, bothered Neil and his masculine 訪問者s continually, though they didn't do anything about it.

It is to be 恐れるd that, after putting more spiritual agony into 持つ／拘留するing a maid than it would have taken to do the 家事 themselves, Neil and Vestal had a 際立った anti-Ethiopian bias in the 事柄 of Belfreda, along with no very remarkable プロの／賛成の-Semitism or love for the Hindus, the Javanese, or the Finns.

一時期／支部 3

"No," Neil said to Vestal, "I've always considered Mr. Prutt too 保守的な. He thinks that only people like us, from British and French and Heinie 在庫／株, 量 to anything. He's prejudiced against Scandinavians and the Irish and Hunkies and Polacks. He doesn't understand that we have a new America. Still and all, even hating prejudice, I do see where the Negroes are inferior and always will be. I realized that when I saw them 荷を降ろすing ships in Italy, all 安全な, while we white 兵士s were under 解雇する／砲火／射撃. And Belfreda 推定する／予想するing to get paid like a Hollywood 星／主役にする—and still out, at midnight!"

They were having a highball in their wondrous kitchen, with its white enamel electric stove and refrigerator and dishwasher and garbage-disposer, seated on crimson metal 議長，司会を務めるs at the 深い-blue metal （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する—the Model Kitchen that had 取って代わるd the buffalo and the スピードを出す／記録につける cabin as a symbol of America.

It was one of Vestal's nights for 存在 前進するd and 人道的な.

"I don't see that, Neil. I don't see that Belfreda is any more 需要・要求するing than these white bobby-soxers that are only fifteen years old and have to have the family car every evening. I wouldn't like it if I had to spend all day in somebody else's kitchen, in the grease and cabbage-smell. Would you like it, you bloated financier?"

"No, I don't guess I would. But still: 私的な bath, and no six in a room, like I hear there are in the nigger ４半期/4分の1, on Mayo Street; chance to sleep 静かな and alone. At least, I hope Belfreda sleeps alone, but I always wonder about those 支援する stairs. And a 残り／休憩（する） every afternoon from two to four-thirty, just when we're going crazy in the bank over the 調書をとる／予約するs. 解放する／自由な board and room and eighteen dollars a week to put away."

"井戸／弁護士席, you make eighty!"

"But I've got to support you—and Belfreda!"

"But she tells me she has to help her granddad—you know, that old colored bootblack at the Pineland, old Wash."

"Oh, I know." Neil was reasonably tender-hearted. "She probably doesn't have much fun, always taking care of some other girl's baby. Charley Sayward （人命などを）奪う，主張するs the time will come when nobody will do 国内の work for strangers except as a specialist, at fifty dollars a week, and go home every night like a 銀行業者—or a plumber. But I wouldn't like it! I liked it when the 雇うd girl worked all week for eight dollars and did the washing and baked cookies for the little massa—that was me. Won't it be a hell of a joke on the returned heroes if all the 支配する peoples that we fought to 解放する／自由な, get 解放する／自由な, and 得る，とらえる our 職業s? Oh, Vestal, this world is getting too much for a poor rifleman!"

She had been 検査／視察するing a cupboard. She wailed, "That dratted girl has gone and made two pies again, to save herself trouble, and the second one will get soggy before we eat it! I 断言する, I'm going to 解雇する／砲火／射撃 her and do my own work."

"Aren't you 破産した／（警察が）手入れするing 負かす／撃墜する in your 弁護 of the downtrodden?"

"Grrrr! Let's take a look at her room, while she's out."

Feeling like 秘かに調査するs, they tiptoed upstairs and into Belfreda's boudoir. Her bed was not made—it never was made—and over it were scattered shoes and pink-略章d underwear and movie magazines, and the pillow was 黒人／ボイコット with hair-grease. Upon her Bible, on the night-（米）棚上げする／（英）提議する, was a 小冊子 labeled, "High John the 征服者／勝利者 魔法 目録: Lodestones, Hoodoo 捕らえる、獲得するs, Jickey Perfume, Mo-Jo Salts, Adam and Eve Roots, 古代の 調印（する） of Shemhamforas." An odor of incense and perfume was solid in the room.

"And it was such a 甘い room when we gave it to her," 嘆く／悼むd Vestal.

"Let's get out of this. I feel as if we were in a conjuh den and somebody's likely to こそこそ動く out from under the bed and start cutting."

As they （機の）カム to the 長，率いる of the 支援する stairs, Belfreda was skipping up. She stopped to 星／主役にする at them, malevolently.

"Oh, uh—good evening," said Neil, with a sound of 犯罪 and idiocy.

Belfreda's 直面する was very dark, with 一連の会議、交渉／完成する little cheeks and a mouth of humor, but it was rigid as she looked at them, and they fled to their bedroom.

Neil mumbled, "She was plenty sore at our snooping. Do you suppose she'll 燃やす a wax image of us? The lives and ideas of these niggers are certainly 理解できない to our 肉親，親類d of people."

"Neil, I think they like you to say 'Negro,' not 'nigger.'"

"Okay, okay! Anything to 強いる. These Negresses, then."

"But Belfreda says that 'Negress' is the one word that you must never use."

"Oh, for God's sake! Why are all these—uh—Negroes so touchy? What difference does it make what they're called? As I say: we don't know where Belfreda goes or what she does—rug-cutting or witchcraft or maybe she belongs to some colored leftwing political ギャング（団） that's planning to take this house away from us. One thing is obvious: the whole 生物学の and psychological make-up of the Negroes is different from that of white people, 特に from us Anglo-Saxons (course I have some French 血, too).

"It's too bad, but you have to 直面する facts and it's evident that the niggers—all 権利, the Negroes—don't やめる belong to the same human race with you and me and Biddy. I used to laugh at the Southern fellows in the Army who said that, but I guess they were 権利. Look at that 罠にかける-animal glare that Belfreda gave us. Still, I'm glad that in the North there's no 差別 against 'em—going to the same public schools with our own white kids. Some day I suppose Biddy might have a desk 権利 next to a little pickaninny."

"I don't know that it will 傷つける that little snob 特に!" 匂いをかぐd Vestal.

"No, no, sure it won't, as long as it's only in school, but how would you like it if your own daughter married a Negro?"

"井戸／弁護士席, so far, even at the enticing age of four, I don't notice that she's bothered by any very big ギャング（団） of dusky suitors!"

"Sure—sure—I just mean—I mean—"

The struggle of the honest and innocent Neil to 表明する his racial ideas was 複雑にするd by the fact that he had no notion what these ideas were.

"I mean, up North here, we been 訴訟／進行 on the idea that a Negro is just as good as we are and has just as much chance to be 大統領 of the 部隊d 明言する／公表するs. But maybe we've been on the wrong 跡をつける.

"I met a doctor from Georgia in the Army, and he 保証するd me—and good Lord, he certainly せねばならない know, he's lived 負かす／撃墜する there の中で the darkies all his life, and him a doctor and a scientist—and he told me that it's been proven that all Negroes have smaller brain-capacity than we have, and the sutures in their skulls の近くに up earlier, so even if they start 井戸／弁護士席 in school, pretty soon they 減少（する） out and spend the 残り／休憩（する） of their lives loafing, and if that isn't inferior—Oh, nuts! I guess the fact is I hate to hate anybody. I never hated the Italians or the Krauts, but I do hate Belfreda. Damn her, she's always laughing at me, 権利 here in our own house. Doing as little as she can and getting as much as she can out of us, and sneering at us for giving it to her; never taking any pride in cooking decent meals, but just thinking how many evenings she can get off, and always watching us, and snickering at us and trying to get something on us, hating us!"

He meditated, after Vestal had gone to sleep:

—That colored fellow in my class all through school—what was his 指名する?—Emerson Woolcape, was it?—he always seemed 静かな and decent enough and yet it always irritated me to see that 黒人／ボイコット 直面する of his の中で all the nice white girls.

—Come to think of it, his 直面する wasn't 黒人／ボイコット. It was as fair as 地雷; we'd 've all thought he was white if they hadn't told us he was part Negro. Still and all, when you knew that, you thought of him as 存在 黒人／ボイコット, and it made you sore to see him showing off and answering questions when Judd and Eliot had failed on 'em.

—Those 黒人／ボイコット roustabouts in uniform in Italy—I never really talked to any of 'em, but they always seemed so different—the standoffish way they 星／主役にするd at us—I wouldn't 've stood for a three-星／主役にする general looking at me like those boogies did. Yessir, if we want to 保存する our 基準s of civilization, we got to be 会社／堅い and keep the niggers in their place. Though I guess I'm not so hot in 存在 会社／堅い with Belfreda, the little monkey!

*

The 広大な／多数の／重要な young 銀行業者-軍人, 合法的 相続人 of the sword-swallowers of Dumas, the princely puzzlers of Tolstoy, the 勇敢に立ち向かう young gentlemen of Kipling, 新たな展開d in bed, not altogether happy.

一時期／支部 4

They were finding again the Christmas spirit that had been lost through the war years. All of his intimates were still fighting in Europe or the 太平洋の, and it was as much for the thought of them as for Biddy that Neil and Vestal bustled all over town, buying a Christmas tree a 十分な month 早期に.

They hoped to have Belfreda as a 甘い and 信用ing member of the Yuletide family, and Vestal throbbed at her, "Mr. Kingsblood and I have already 設立する the jolliest tree, and the expressman is bringing it here tonight. We'll keep it in the garage. Wouldn't you like to help us—you know, make a little 儀式 of it? The tree is just as much for you as it is for us, of course."

"We got our own tree, at home."

"Oh, do you have Christmas trees on Mayo Street?"

"Yes, we got Christmas trees on Mayo Street! And we got families on Mayo Street!"

Vestal was more furious with herself than with the girl. She perceived that she had been assuming that Christmas was a holiday invented by the 巡礼者 Fathers at Plymouth, along with Santa Claus and yule-スピードを出す／記録につけるs and probably the winter solstice, and must all be delightful novelties to persons of African 降下／家系. She stuttered:

"Yes, I meant—I didn't mean—I just thought it might amuse you—"

Belfreda said airily, "No, thanks. I'm going out with my boyfriend this evening," and she 出発／死d, leaving Vestal and Neil flat in the kitchen which they had once loved, but which Belfreda had turned into an 外国人 and 敵意を持った 洞穴.

"Oh, let's get out of here! The place reeks of her," Neil 激怒（する）d. "Yes, I've got so I hate to come in here. She 行為／法令／行動するs as if I were an 侵入者—as though I was going to snoop into the refrigerator and see if she keeps it clean."

"井戸／弁護士席, you do. And she doesn't."

"What gets me is the way she just looks at you, if you ask her to do anything unusual. She always does what you tell her, but she always makes you think she's going to 辞退する, and then you wonder what you'll do—解雇する／砲火／射撃 her or わびる. Oh, dear!"

Neil 誇るd, "I've got so I can laugh off that look, but what gets me is the way she never empties all the ash-trays. By God, she'll leave one of them dirty, even if it kills her. I'll bet she makes a 覚え書き to do it."

"That doesn't worry me as much as that sullen look, as though she's going to get out a かみそり."

"I believe the ice 選ぶ is preferred now, by the better smokes," said Neil. "Oh, I'm sorry. That sounds snooty. Poor Belfreda—dirty dishes all day. We've got a phobia on the dinges."

But after dinner, the next evening, Neil again 見解（をとる）d with alarm:

"We've got to do something about our Topsy. Maybe it's time to 解雇する／砲火／射撃 her. That was the worst meal she's ever given us. She managed to fry the meat hard as leather and—I thought all zigs were wonderful at 甘い potatoes, to which they're believed to be 関係のある, but she does something to them that makes 'em taste like squash. And I 断言する, this is the fourth time this week she's given us that same pudding."

"Second. But I do hope I can 説得する her to do something different for the Havocks tomorrow evening. I dislike Curtiss so much that we 簡単に have to give him a wonderful spread."

For the 準備 of that wonderful spread, Belfreda did do something different. She failed to appear at all.

*

Curtiss, son of the lusty 請負業者, Boone Havock, had always been a mistake. He had probably been 混乱させるd in the cradle by the boisterousness of his father, the 叫び声をあげるing humor of his mother. He was a large lout, good-looking in a sulky way, and he had a large allowance, but he had never been popular with the girls whose love he had tried to buy or the boys with whom he sought companionship in boozing.

In the 選び出す／独身 month of January, 1942, Curtiss had married Nancy Pzort, who （機の）カム from a family of inconsiderable market-gardeners, their daughter, Peggy, had been born, and Curtiss had run off to join the 海洋s. When he was 無効のd out, as a corporal, his father, though he noisily disapproved of his son's having married a dollarless Slav, arranged for Curtiss a 一時しのぎの物，策 職業 in the Blue Ox 国家の Bank, and bought for the young couple a fancy 郊外住宅 of stucco and green tiles, next-door to Neil.

As a 退役軍人 of four, Biddy considered the Havocks' Peggy, at two and three-４半期/4分の1s, a mere child, but they played together all day. Curtiss assumed that as a fellow-銀行業者 and old schoolmate, Neil must love him and 願望（する） to listen to his damp stories about chasing stenographers. Curtiss was, in fact, a nuisance.

He dropped in at any time from before breakfast to after midnight, 推定する／予想するing coffee, 推定する／予想するing a highball, 推定する／予想するing an audience, and Neil and Vestal were so annoyed by him that they were extra careful to be cordial. And they were sorry for little Nancy Pzort Havock, that poor child of nature inducted into a family of bank-robbers.

The Kingsbloods were having the Curtiss Havocks in for dinner, this 中央の-December evening.

Vestal looked 今後 to it calmly and resolutely. She went to the market for squabs, chestnuts, and mushrooms, and on the morning of the ordeal, she begged of Belfreda, in the manner of a new captain 演説（する）／住所ing an old 最高の，を越す-sergeant, "Look, uh, honey, I'll be away for lunch—just give Biddy her cereal. Now see if you can't run up a dinner that'll knock the Havocks' 注目する，もくろむs out tonight. You'll have all day for it. Use the good silver and the lace tablecloth."

Belfreda only nodded, and Vestal went off merrily. Neil would come home by bus; it was her day to have the car; and she was a gallant spectacle as she sped to the Women's Club for 橋（渡しをする）-昼食.

She won.

She went with Jinny Timberlane out to the 裁判官's smart house in the Country Club 地区. Jinny had a new moleskin winter 控訴 that was a sight 価値（がある） traveling for, and Vestal did not go home till after six. She hoped that Belfreda would have the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する 始める，決める as 井戸／弁護士席 as the squabs cleaned, and that Biddy would be lenient with a tardy mother.

She bounced into a curiously still house that smelled empty. No one answered her "Oo-hoo!" and there was no one upstairs, downstairs, in the kitchen. The squabs remained nakedly in the refrigerator, and on the kitchen （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する was a 公式文書，認める in Belfreda's 令状ing, which was the smooth machine-made script of a 商売／仕事-college:

"My grandpa sick, I had to go to him, I took Biddy to Grandma Kingsblood's, maybe 支援する this evening, Belfreda."

Vestal said one 簡潔な／要約する and extraordinarily unladylike word and went into 活動／戦闘. She telephoned to Neil's sister, Joan, to bring the baby over, she 丸天井d into working dress, she cleaned the squabs and mixed the dressing. When Neil （機の）カム in, she said only, "The dinge has walked out on us for the evening. I knew she was a tart. 始める，決める the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する. The vulgar lace cloth and all the agony."

His long and freckled 手渡すs were deft, and he did a worthy 職業, calling to her, "When I get 解雇する／砲火／射撃d, we can 雇う out as cook and butler."

"Yes, and don't think we may not have to, if these 民主党員s and 共産主義者s keep on jacking up the 所得税."

Curtiss and Nancy Havock （機の）カム in, 叫び声をあげるing, at five minutes to seven. If they were late for everything else, they were always a little beforetime for drinks. That good-natured wench, Nancy, dipped the French-fried 甘い potatoes into the kettle of fat, while Curtiss volunteered to mix the cocktails, which was unfortunate, as his favorite recipe was ninety per cent. gin, five per cent. vermouth, and five per cent. white mule. By the time they sat 負かす／撃墜する, not later than twenty-five minutes past seven, Curtiss was already 十分な of jollity and viciousness.

"You got to 解雇する／砲火／射撃 that nigger tonight. I always told you they were dogs. If you don't whip 'em, they don't 尊敬（する）・点 you. God, I hate the whole 黒人／ボイコット mess of 'em. I know a fellow from Washington that's 権利 on the inside, and he （人命などを）奪う，主張するs 議会 is going to bring 支援する slavery. That would be the smartest thing they ever done. Wouldn't I like to see one of these nigger college professors sent 支援する to making cotton, and laid over a バーレル／樽 and getting fifty 攻撃するs if he bellyached!"

"Nuts, you got mixed up," said his wife genially. "What the fellow said was, the big guns in 議会 are thinking about moving all the darkies to Africa. That would be a dandy idea."

Curtiss was 十分に plastered now to 叫び声をあげる at his wife, "So I'm a liar, am I, you little Polack bitch!"

Neil heaved up his 広大な／多数の／重要な shoulders, 準備するing to 発言／述べる, "Havock, I'd like to have you shut up and go home," but Nancy was rather pleased by such ardent attention, and she crooned, "Why, dearie, I don't think that's a nice way to talk." She beamed on Vestal with, "Yeh, why don't you can the zig?" (In English, this meant 発射する／解雇する the Negro.) "I know where I can get you a 雇うd girl—my cousin, Shirley Pzort. She's been working at Wargate's and they 解雇する／砲火／射撃d her for just necking the least little bit with a foreman."

That 負傷させるd Curtiss's ever-現在の pride of gentility, and he 観察するd, "Bad enough for you to have a manure-shoveler for a father and a chippy like Shirley for a cousin, without having her work as a hash-hustler 権利 next door to us—for the son of a tooth-jerker!"

Before Neil could say anything, Vestal had them all out in the kitchen, washing the dishes, and 近隣 友好 was 保存するd, even at the cost of a platter which Curtiss broke.

It must have been by voodoo and clairvoyance that Belfreda （機の）カム flirting in at the second when Neil had wiped the last saucepan. "Howdy!" she chirruped, and it seemed to Neil that she winked at Curtiss. "My granddad was sick. Sorry. 井戸／弁護士席, good night, folks!"

If there was gin on her breath, and there probably was, 非，不，無 of them was in a 条件 to know it. She frisked off to bed without so much as breaking out the ice-cubes which would 明白に be needed, if Curtiss was to be kept in the 明言する／公表する of imbecility 需要・要求するd by the Havock idea of 歓待—in their house or anybody else's. Neil 星／主役にするd after her, but Vestal 警告するd him with, "Hush! After all, she does save me a little work."

"But she 推定する／予想するd us to 解雇する／砲火／射撃 her! She was waiting for it! She had a good come-支援する all ready. Shame to 略奪する her of the chance. The way she gloated—I've got to 割れ目 負かす／撃墜する on her."

"You leave her alone till after the Christmas 元気づける, if any, and then I really will hustle and find somebody else," 約束d Vestal.

一時期／支部 5

Always Neil felt that the malign small presence of Belfreda was in the room, making his large, ruddy, Caucasian strength seem bloated. When he was shaving, he fancied that she was standing behind him, snickering. When he learnedly answered Biddy's questions and explained to her that God wants us to go to Sunday School (up to and 含むing age eighteen), he could hear Belfreda's tiny jeer.

And it was this time, when her flea-like insignificance had 減ずるd his St. Bernard 本体，大部分／ばら積みの to quivering ridiculousness, that Belfreda 選ぶd out for 存在 a race-conscious 改革運動家.

For years they had had a 黒人／ボイコット cocker spaniel which they had 指名するd "Nigger" without any thought except that 黒人／ボイコット dogs do get called Nigger. He was an imploring, mournful-注目する，もくろむd hound, and Biddy's best friend—next to Belfreda.

On a 雪の降る，雪の多い evening, with Christmas の近くに, Neil （機の）カム home from the bank with cheerfulness. When Vestal let him in, she stood on the stoop calling, "Nigger, Nigger, here Nigger, here Nig!" The dog dashed up in a 複雑にするd and happy waltz and almost upset Biddy in an 超過 of affection, while the young parents looked on 情愛深く. It was altogether a model family scene, until Belfreda, a 黒人／ボイコット rose, much too pretty in a much too short 黒人／ボイコット skirt, 発言／述べるd from behind them, "I guess you folks just despise all the colored people, don't you!"

It was the first time that either of them had ever heard a Negro について言及する the race; and there was feebleness and 当惑 in Vestal's plaint, "Why, what do you mean?"

"Calling Nigger, Nigger, Nigger at the 前線 door that way."

"But my dear, it's the dog's 指名する. Always has been."

"Makes it worse, calling a dog that. We colored people don't like the word 'nigger,' and when you 行為／法令／行動する like dogs and us are just the same—"

Neil was angry. "All 権利, all 権利, we'll change it! Anything to please you! We'll call the mutt 'Prince'!"

Untouched by the 成果／努力 at sarcasm, blissful in her missionary zeal, Belfreda 認めるd, "That'll be nice," and sailed off, while the prancing Biddy, a flitting white moth of a child, yelped, "I don't want his 指名する to be changed! Nigger, Nigger, Nigger!" Her chirp made the word so enchanting that her 訂正する parents were betrayed into smiling, and that was enough; the little prima donna had a 攻撃する，衝突する, and she knew it.

Though they called after her, she went through the house 叫び声をあげるing "Nigger, Nigger!" while the spaniel followed her 情愛深く, a little surprised by all this attention to his 指名する but considering it an excellent idea.

An expressman （機の）カム with a Christmas 一括, and Biddy 迎える／歓迎するd (and 感情を害する／違反するd) that high Caucasian with a hearty, "Hello, Mr. Nigger!"

"Oh, now, darling, you mustn't use that word!" said Vestal.

Biddy was always willing to co-operate, but this seemed to her a lot of nonsense. "Then why do you and Daddy use it? Why did you call Nigger 'Nigger'?" she said reasonably, looking friendly but 会社／堅い.

"We don't, any more. We just decided that maybe, after all, it isn't a pretty word." Vestal was rather too 甘い about it.

"Oh, I think it's a lovely word!" Biddy said with enthusiasm.

Uncle Robert Kingsblood, Neil's older brother, dropped in then for a 解放する／自由な drink, and Biddy yelled at him, "It's Uncle Nigger!"

"What's the big idea!" 抗議するd Uncle Robert, while Vestal 主張するd, "Biddy! You stop it now!" But, 完全に excited by this attention, and わずかに hysterical, as all good and energetic children are bound to be at the wrong time, Biddy flashed off to the kitchen, and in horror they heard her 演説（する）／住所 Belfreda, "Hello, 行方不明になる Nigger!"

To make 災害 utterly distraught, they 耐えるd Belfreda cackling with laughter.

They had to explain everything to Brother Robert, who was as curious as a cat, and about as literate.

He commented on the 危機 from his experience as 副／悪徳行為-大統領 in 告発（する），告訴（する）／料金 of Sales of the Osterud Baking 会社／団体, 製造者s of Vitavim Bread, Crisp Crunchy Crusts Jammed with Health and Yumyum:

"You kids want to know how to 扱う the niggers and not have any trouble? I'll tell you how to 扱う the niggers and not have any trouble. At My 会社／堅い, we never have any trouble with the niggers, and we never have to 解雇する／砲火／射撃 them, because we never 雇う any of 'em in the first place! That's the way to 扱う 'em and not have any trouble. See how I mean? Same time, I don't know as I 非難する Belfreda much, getting sore when you called her a nigger 権利 to her 直面する."

"But （頭が）ひょいと動く, we didn't call her that. It was the dog that we called 'Nigger,'" Vestal 明らかにするd it.

"井戸／弁護士席, same 原則, ain't it? The girl got sore, didn't she? She wouldn't of been here to get sore if you hadn't never of 雇うd her in the first place, would she? That shows the difference in what we call the inherent mental capacities of the two races. I wouldn't never get sore if somebody called me a nigger. See how I mean? That's the trouble with you two, going to college instead of getting 権利 into a 商売／仕事 career, like I done. Never 雇う 'em in the first place. So now do I get a drink?"

That was Brother and Uncle Robert Kingsblood, v.p. in c. of s.

At dinner, the Belfreda who had laughed at Biddy's "行方不明になる Nigger" looked evangelical and unforgiving again, but toward the end of the meal they heard boisterousness from the kitchen: the giggles of Belfreda and a masculine barking.

"My, my, what's all this! I'm going out and get a glass of water," 申し立てられた／疑わしい Vestal, who had a 十分な glass of water in 前線 of her. She scouted into the kitchen. There, by the gay metal （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する, standing upright yet seeming to lounge, was a Negro of perhaps thirty-five. His color was dark, his hair frizzly, his lips not thin, yet his nose was a thin blade. He did not 示唆する cotton-fields but the musical comedy, the race 跡をつける, the 甘い 狙撃 of craps; and he wore 有望な-blue trousers, a sports-jacket in wide checks, and a shrimp-colored 屈服する tie. He had 罰金 手渡すs and the 均衡を保った shoulders of a middleweight prizefighter; there was in him an animal beauty made devilish by his 星／主役にする at Vestal, a bold and amused 星／主役にする, as though he had known every woman from Sappho to Queen Marie and had understood them all perfectly. His 注目する，もくろむs did not 単に undress Vestal; they hinted that, in a flustered and hateful way, she was enjoying it.

She was at once 説 to herself, "I've never in my life seen such a circus-clown get-up," and wishing that her 相当な Neil could wear 着せる／賦与するs like that and still look romantic.

Belfreda smiled as though they were just girls together, and cooed, "Oh, Mis' Kingsblood, this is Mr. Borus Bugdoll. He owns the Jumpin' Jive Night Club—it's a lovely place. He's a friend of 地雷. He come to see how I was getting along."

Borus spoke with only the smallest musky taste of Southern Negro accent. "I have heard of Mrs. Kingsblood, often. This is an 栄誉（を受ける）. May I hope that it will be repeated?"

"He's laughing his を回避する at me!" Vestal 地震d, and with a mumbled something which did no especial credit to her 知識人 優越, she bolted from the kitchen—without the glass of water. She grinned at Neil and quavered, not displeased, "I've just been 侮辱d, I think, and I think the gentleman got away with it."

"Who's this? Curtiss?"

"No, a person of color 指名するd Borus or Boreas Bugdoll, Mister Bugdoll, and don't leave out the Mister, or else. Borus and Belfreda! I tell you, the darkies are comic! And what a 嘘（をつく） that is! Don't look now, but I imagine I've just been 特権d to gaze upon the most attractive and horrid heel I ever saw."

"What is all this? Some one in the kitchen?" Neil said mildly.

"Now for Heaven's sake, don't be your brother Robert!"

"But who is the brash boy-friend? I'm going out and take a look."

With Vestal に引き続いて and in a lively way wondering whether Neil or Borus would do the 殺人ing, he marched into the kitchen. But Borus was gone, and so was Belfreda, and so was the red クーデター that had been parked behind the house, and the dishes lay there in the 沈む, 哀れな and untouched.

*

Neil's sister, the pleasant Kitty, three years older, had always been closest to him of the whole family. She was married to Charles Sayward, a very decent young lawyer who for a 称する，呼ぶ／期間／用語 had been city 弁護士／代理人／検事. Kitty and Charles （機の）カム in this evening, to その上の their lifework, which was 契約 橋（渡しをする）.

Serenely playing, forgetting the horrors of 国内の insurrection, Vestal looked up, late in the evening, to see Belfreda crooking a finger from the half-不明瞭 of the hall. Behind her was the sardonic Borus Bugdoll.

"You 支援する? What is it?" said Vestal crossly.

"Oh, Mis' Kingsblood, I'm sorry but I got to やめる. 権利 away. We got sickness in the family."

The grim 軍人-woman snapped, "You mean やめる now, for good, at this hour, with the dishes unwashed?"

Borus said 滑らかに, "You might ドッキングする／減らす／ドックに入れる her four bits for failing to do the dishes."

Not Vestal alone but all the others felt uncomfortably that Borus was laughing at them.

"Oh, I'll wash 'em," Belfreda said sulkily.

"No you won't! I want you to get out 権利 now, and get out quick. I'll 支払う／賃金 you at once." Vestal stalked to her little cream-colored desk and slammed open her efficient small account-調書をとる／予約する. "With what I've 前進するd you this month deducted, I 借りがある you $63.65, Belfreda. Oh. I 港／避難所't got that much."

To the 橋（渡しをする）-（米）棚上げする／（英）提議する: "Anybody got any money?"

From Neil and Charles Sayward, she was able to 獲得する sixty-four dollars, but they had not enough silver for change.

"You might make it the even sixty-four," purred Borus.

Neil sprang up, 十分な of the most romantic notions about ordering this 強盗 out of the house, but as he looked at Borus's amused 緩和する, it was 明らかにする／漏らすd to him that, for his own sport, this was what Borus hoped for.

"Good idea. Make it even," said Neil. "Good luck, Belfreda. Good-bye, Mr.—Bugdoll, is it?"

He resolutely moved over, like a small but very select company, to shake Borus's 手渡す. There was a moment's 裁判，公判 of strength, Borus's steel claw against Neil's 握りこぶし, and then Borus smiled. Neil liked that smile so much that half a minute passed before he remembered to be a superior white man and to say, with the 墓／厳粛／彫る／重大な 儀礼 which is the essence of 侮辱, "Would you care to sit 負かす／撃墜する in the kitchen, Mr. Bugdoll, while Belfreda packs?"

"Yes, thank you, Mr. Kingsblood. Yes, I'll sit 負かす／撃墜する in the kitchen...while 行方不明になる Gray packs." And 消えるd.

*

Vestal （機の）カム 支援する with laughter from 監督するing Belfreda's packing.

"Damn those tramps, they 勝利，勝つ!"

"How come?" they all said.

"I was 簡単に delighted that Belfreda had up and やめる. I felt so 解放する／自由な. And I thought I'd show 'em what a grand white-lady I am by 存在 cordial and 許すing. I thought they'd slink off repentantly in his car (which is やめる a bus, by the way; I wish we could afford one like it). But they didn't. They drove off yelling 'Good-bye, honey' like hyenas. Because while Belfreda was up packing, Borus washed all the dishes and put 'em away, neater than I ever saw, and he's left for us, 権利 in the middle of the kitchen （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する, a jorum of シャンペン酒! My God, I never saw a jorum of シャンペン酒 before, outside of an 宣伝!"

"What a man!" admired Kitty Sayward. "I thought he had the most 素晴らしい build I ever laid 注目する，もくろむs on."

"Yes, やめる a man," murmured Vestal absently.

But Charles Sayward, most genial of husbands, 抗議するd, "What 肉親，親類d of white women do you two think you are, 落ちるing for a 悪名高い, booze-peddling, slot-machine-owning, white-slaving 黒人／ボイコット ギャング（個々）! At least half of this country has plumb gone to hell—the women!"

一時期／支部 6

The breakfasts were better, now that Vestal made them, and there was always an ash-tray on the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する, and the morning 旗，新聞一面トップの大見出し／大々的に報道する. Now and then Neil danced a jig on the kitchen 床に打ち倒す, and gloated "This is all ours again!"

But, with the perversity of children and animals, Biddy and Prince kept 嘆く／悼むing for Belfreda, coming in to search for her, looking reproachfully at Neil and Vestal, and 説, if only with their 注目する，もくろむs, "What did you do to our friend?"

Within a week Vestal engaged Nancy Havock's cousin, Shirley Pzort, as maid.

Shirley was 高度に willing to 株 the 元気づける of the coming Christmas; she was even friendlier than Vestal 願望（する）d, and always 演説（する）／住所d her as "sweetie." She was what at that period was known as a "bobby-soxer"; an almost pure young woman, innocent and graceful as a kitten, 充てるd to 泡-gum and dancing.

As December grew colder, Neil's 負傷させるd 脚 began to ache again, and he thought of the war, of companions who had been killed, of the lonely hospital Christmas a year ago. The Englishwomen had been so 肉親，親類d, but he had longed for the 発言する／表明するs of the Middlewest, for his mother and Vestal and Biddy, his sisters Joan and Kitty. He had them all now; it would be their first Christmas together in three years.

He wondered what 影響 the war had had on him. Had there been any at all?

Lying in the hospital, he had been 確かな that all of the young 兵士s would get together when they returned and shut up that one 選び出す／独身 回転するing door called "the 共和国の／共和党の and Democratic Parties," and 投票（する） for righteousness and 繁栄 and no more wars. But when he had been in the bank for six weeks, as he heard nothing from the 銀行業者s and lawyers and merchants except the prophecy that That Man Roosevelt would be 独裁者 of the country by 1950, he slipped 支援する into his normal 約束 in the 安全 of 無s.

But lately, at the 連邦の and Sylvan Park Tennis clubs, he had 設立する himself irritated by the たびたび（訪れる） sneers at "kikes." He meditated:

—I don't suppose the Jews like 存在 called "kikes" any more than my French-Canadian ancestors liked 存在 called "frog-eaters." I 認める that fellow 中尉／大尉／警部補 Rosen who got killed by the land-地雷. Sure, lots of Jews are just like us—I guess. I せねばならない get the 自由主義の point of 見解（をとる） while I'm still young, and then 持つ／拘留する の上に it, or I might turn mean, when I'm fat and middle-老年の and 大統領，／社長 of this bank—or maybe of the First 国家の of St. Paul.

*

These meditations were 行為／行うd at his desk, under the marble 丸天井d 天井 of the Second 国家の's banking-room. He had been busy with Small 貸付金s all morning, 特に with returned 兵士s who 手配中の，お尋ね者 to start 商売／仕事s, and he had tried to 連合させる generosity with 警告を与える. It is not true that every 銀行業者 lies awake days plotting to 廃虚 all 設立s belonging to small indignant men with 手足を不自由にする／（物事を）損なうd daughters. The banking 商売／仕事 is usually not so good in a community with no money whatever.

He had before him a pile of folders with 複雑にするd 財政上の 声明s, and as he 解任するd his 夜明け-thoughts during the war, the folders looked dreary. He sighed over a cigarette and ちらりと見ることd suspiciously at the 罰金 厚かましさ／高級将校連 plate with "N. Kingsblood, Asst. Cashier."

When he had 卒業生（する）d from the University of Minnesota, in 1935, he had planned to 熟考する／考慮する 薬／医学. But in the summer he went 一時的に to work as a messenger in the Second 国家の. Nothing happened that would 爆破 him out of that smug 霊廟, and when he had married Vestal and begot Biddy, he was caught, and not at all unhappy about it. He read 調書をとる／予約するs on banking; he rose to be teller; he was popular with women 顧客s who saw his smile and his red hair through the 妨げる／法廷，弁護士業s that he did not know were there. He was a favorite of 大統領 John William Prutt for his steadiness and good-humor and honesty, and this year, after his return from the service, he had been made an assistant cashier.

Mr. Prutt believed in training his young men in all 支店s of banking, and Neil, even now, was 転換d about from "接触するing prospects" and the nursing of old 顧客s through overdrafts to 調書をとる／予約する-work, to 調印 cashier-checks, and the 移転 of 基金s, and Prutt kept him familiar with the depositors by having him sit in as teller for an hour or two every day.

He was as much in 好意 with the cashier, S. Ashiel Denver, who was a neighbor in Sylvan Park, as he was with Mr. Prutt.

There were eight banks in Grand 共和国, of which the largest was the Blue Ox 国家の: Norton Trock, 大統領，／社長, Boone Havock, chairman of the board, Curtiss Havock, general nuisance. But Mr. Prutt considered that 会・原則 and its twelve-story building 単に utilitarian. He felt that the Second 国家の (there was no First) was in the true Morgan or Tellson's tradition. In its two-story marble 寺, with 大規模な bronze gates, at Chippewa Avenue and Sibley Street, there were no offices to rent, and it did not house 外国人 chiropractors and 機械／機構-スパイ／執行官s.

In the banking-room, under the arched ecclesiastic vastness of its 天井, which was upheld by ponderous 中心存在s of green Italian marble, upon the glossy sea-向こうずねing 床に打ち倒す of 黒人／ボイコット marble inlaid with squares and diamonds of polished granite and pink quartz, where there was 欠如（する）ing only a 式服d choir of High-Church bookkeepers to 完全にする the （一定の）期間 of sanctity and of solvency, Neil considered himself a minor canon.

現実に, he was another schoolboy in a 列／漕ぐ／騒動 of schoolboy desks.

For all its slanted 厚かましさ／高級将校連 指名する-plate and its onyx combination clock-inkstand-calendar-温度計-晴雨計, his was a small desk, a 脚-cramping desk, and his only personal treasures were the silver-でっちあげる，人を罪に陥れるd photograph of Vestal and Biddy, his 麻薬を吸う and タバコ pouch, a copy of True 探偵，刑事 Stories, and a begging letter from his alumni 長官.

*

If Neil had any singular virtue, it was his 忠義 to his friends.

He was thinking that at Christmas most of the dozen or so men whom he called his "の近くに friends" would still be in 危険，危なくする abroad, his three intimates, Eliot and Judd and 棒, の中で them.

Eliot Hansen, the flashing, the dance-mad, the party-giver, was the inheritor from his plain Norwegian father of the 甘い Scent 酪農場 and Ice Cream Company, of which the symbol, to be seen on billboards along every 主要道路 into Grand 共和国, was a マリファナ of honey and a penny-piece.

Judd Browler, the sturdy, the careful, son of Duncan Browler who was the first 副／悪徳行為-大統領，／社長 of Wargate's, had sold prunes and 薄焼きパン／素焼陶器s in carload lots before the war.

The 広大な／多数の／重要な man in that gallery was Rodney Aldwick.

Five years older than Neil, Princeton cum Harvard 法律-school, now a 井戸／弁護士席-decorated major in the 戦車／タンク 軍団, 棒 Aldwick was the 広大な／多数の／重要な Gentleman, the High Adventurer. He was a polo-player, he was a ski-stunter, he was a quick-memorizing genius who had only to look at a page of print to know it. He had the 基準 Anglo-Prussian specifications for a hero: crisp hair, 幅の広い shoulders, わずかな／ほっそりした waist, and 6' 2". Major Aldwick would never seduce any woman in the limbo between countess and chambermaid, and if he had had slaves, he would have 切り開く／タクシー／不正アクセスd them to death, but he would never have nagged them. Probably he will some day be 設立する dead in bed, not やむを得ず his own bed, with either a dagger in his 肺s or a laurel-花冠, わずかに 新たな展開d, on his 罰金 white brow.

Neil 反映するd that if these intimates were here, he would be able to discuss such personal puzzles as why he had recently enjoyed hating Belfreda. Then he 認める that all three of them had shied away from any 支配する more spiritual than the 脚s of their stenographers, any topic more embarrassing than the 共和国の／共和党の Party. Only once in his life had Neil 所有するd a friend with whom he could talk about 恐れる and love and God, and that friend he had known for only two weeks.

He had been young Captain Ellerton, whom Neil had met on the 輸送（する） to Italy. All day, all night, they had talked. Ellerton was a designer of 機械／機構, with a taste for Mozart and Eugene O'Neill and Toulouse-Lautrec and Veblen, and he had not seemed to be impertinent when he had asked, "Do you ever think about personal immortality?" and "Do you love your Vestal out of love or out of 忠義?"

Ellerton was killed by a 狙撃者, forty-two minutes after they had landed in Italy.

Neil had forgotten, by now, just what he had answered when, under the Mediterranean 星／主役にするs, Tony Ellerton had 推測するd, "Since you have only one life that you know of, do you enjoy 充てるing most of it to banking?"

一時期／支部 7

"We'll have an honest-to-God 伝統的な Christmas, carols and bellyaches and everything. We'll celebrate, because the war will be over by next year, and the boys will be coming home...and we'll get more butter," Vestal rejoiced.

Their tree was a tall spruce from a northern 押し寄せる／沼地, but when she （機の）カム to decorate it she 抗議するd that the war was indeed terrible, for in the Five-and-Tens and Tarr's Emporium there were only a few silver balls and 新たな展開d sticks of colored glass.

She resolutely 調査するd her father-in-法律's attic and in a lurching pasteboard carton, like Captain Kidd's treasure in a shoe-box, she 設立する the trinkets remaining from the good old days of 1940: a 広大な／多数の／重要な silver 星／主役にする, a silver-and-gold angel, glass oranges and grapes and cherries, a handful of tinsel rain, and a jocose little plaster statue of Santa Claus with a red coat and a red nose and a lighted 麻薬を吸う.

She （機の）カム home like a walking Christmas 先頭, and that evening the tree was ridden from the garage into the living-room on Neil's stout 支援する, and Vestal, Neil, Biddy, Prince, and Shirley danced 一連の会議、交渉／完成する it, squealing.

It was Neil's turn, this year, to entertain the whole Kingsblood tribe on Christmas Day. So, with all of her womanly genius 激怒（する）ing, Vestal coursed through Tarr's, 許すing herself a strict 予算 of seven 現在のs to every ten dollars, and she 遂行するd a fabulous wonder by finding, at Bozard's, a four-立ち往生させる almost-real pearl necklace for Mother Kingsblood for eleven dollars. With a not-even-almost-real diamond pendant 大（公）使館員d to it.

It was at Tarr's that Vestal snatched up the gifts for Biddy: the lovely, old-fashioned, starry-注目する，もくろむd, flaxen-長，率いるd doll which 似ているd a plumper Biddy, and the lovely, new-fashioned machine gun which, in the 1940's, had become just the 権利 記念品 of the Christchild for a nice little girl. And at Tarr's she got the new collar and the rubber bone for Prince, the scarf for Shirley, and the rosewood 麻薬を吸う for Neil's father, which the good dentist would admire extravagantly and never use.

For themselves, Neil and Vestal put Biddy to bed 早期に and spent Christmas Eve dancing at the Pineland.

"It's a 罪，犯罪 that you have to 料金d my whole hungry tribe tomorrow," murmured Neil.

"Sweetie, anybody that you manage to get 関係のある to, even if it's that second cousin of yours that runs the filling-駅／配置する in Hiawatha, Wisconsin, is my pal, and always will be."

"And I love you very much, and I'm praying that we'll have fifty more happy Christmases together."

"I drink to that!" cried Vestal, 持つ／拘留するing up her tiny glass of the white creme de menthe, frappe, which in Grand 共和国 is considered the most elegant cordial.

Drexel Greenshaw, the dark-brown, stately headwaiter of the Fiesole Room, with his small white mustache like that of a Haitian general trained in フラン, smiled to see his young people still so much in love. It elevated his 封建的 soul to hover 近づく Captain Kingsblood, 未来 大統領，／社長 of the Second 国家の, and his young wife, a real lady, daughter of the Prairie 力／強力にする and Light.

Drexel thought to himself, "It's just as I told that little fool, Belfreda: if she didn't get along with a 罰金 lady and gentleman like that, it was all her fault. My race will never have any trouble with high-class white people. I keep telling these colored agitators like Clem Brazenstar that they do more 害（を与える） to my race than any mean buckra, and then they laugh at me and call me an 'Uncle Tom'! Those 過激な scum don't know nothing about aristocratic society. I'm tickled to death to serve a gentleman like Captain Kingsblood, that couldn't never be nothing but a gentleman, nohow."

Thus did the magisterial old Tory take his 勝利 all by himself, though he seemed to be considering nothing profounder than napkins. When Neil and Vestal rose, Drexel 謙虚に 影をつくる／尾行するd them to the door, and 詠唱するd, "We always feel it's a 広大な／多数の／重要な 栄誉（を受ける） to have you here in the Feesoly Room, Captain and Madam, and we hope we shall be 特権d to serve you again soon."

Drexel was almost 傷つける when Neil answered the 尊敬の印 with a dollar, but he controlled himself.

*

支援する home, Neil telephoned a Merry Christmas to his father and mother, at midnight, and they brought out the 現在のs. Vestal had dug up wrinkled wrappings from pre-war Christmases, scarlet and silver and crocus-yellow, and アイロンをかけるd them out, and the 半端物-形態／調整d boxes under the tree were a sparkling heap.

"It's so pretty!" she exulted. "Oh, my dear lover, it's been Christmas now for seventeen minutes, and you're 支援する from the war all 安全な, and everybody loves us, and we're going to be happy forever."

They clung together and trembled.

They were a handsome, 確信して and parental couple, in flannel dressing-gowns and purple scarves, when they （機の）カム 負かす／撃墜する before breakfast on Christmas morning, to help open the 現在のs; and Biddy was a 向こうずねing butterball in her tiny blue-and-white 式服, Shirley a small dark Eskimo, and Prince a barking whirligig of excitement as they dragged the 有望な boxes out of the pile under the tree. Vestal was pleased by her own major gift, the fur-piece, because it was handsomer than Nancy Havock's. They had waffles for breakfast, all of them—含むing Prince, and what a mistake that was—and Christmas carols on the 無線で通信する, and they dressed and bustled into 準備s for the family feast at two o'clock.

*

長，率いる of the family was Neil's father, Dr. Kenneth M. Kingsblood, whom the community esteemed 平等に for his bridgework, for his Adult Bible Class at the Baptist Church, for his 罠（にかける）-狙撃, and for the jig-saw puzzles which he 削減（する） out on a 私的な lathe. He was a ginger-colored man, tall and thin and kindly and hesitating.

Neil's mother, 約束, was small and slight and brown-haired, and she always seemed to be a little afraid of life, a little surprised that the four powerful children were really hers. Yet her dark 注目する，もくろむs were as hot as those of her own mother, Julie Saxinar, that piquant and bawdy Frenchwoman, who 欠如（する）d only a scarlet kerchief and a tambourine to become a gipsy. 約束's 注目する，もくろむs seemed to have a life of their own, while all the 残り／休憩（する） of her was gentle and 完全に vague, and she never listened to anybody at all.

Next in the family were Brother Robert, the Vitavim Bread salesman, the joker and total-recaller, and his wife Alice and their three children, 含むing Biddy's pal, Ruby. But it must be understood that Alice was not 単に the wife of Robert Kingsblood. She was nothing いっそう少なく than sister of Harold W. Whittick, the poetic bull-frog of advertising.

After them were Neil's sister, Kitty Sayward, with her Charles. And youngest of Dr. Kenneth's children was Joan, who was still living at home. Joan was ten years younger than Neil; reasonably pretty, reasonably intelligent, reasonably uninteresting. She thought that she 手配中の，お尋ね者 to go to Chicago and 熟考する／考慮する dress-designing and she knew that she 手配中の，お尋ね者 to stay here and be married, preferably to her fiance, an affable young man who was now a 中尉／大尉／警部補 in the 海軍.

The tribe gathered, nine adults and six children—not to 含む Shirley and Prince—and though they talked about Russia and chemotherapy, they gave the feeling of the farmhouse-kitchen from which 非，不，無 of them was ancestrally far distant. The younger women all bustled about the stove and 始める，決める the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する (含むing the 削減（する）-glass dish of brandied peaches), while Neil elaborately served cocktails to the men, and Mother 約束 was 王位d in the blue wing-議長，司会を務める by the fireplace, smiling and vague.

Dr. Kenneth took the 長，率いる of the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する of fifteen. (Under the linen （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する-cloths, there were 隠すd two cardtables, eking out the mahogany.) He looked 負かす／撃墜する the two 強健な lines of people, loving them all, surprised at how beautiful and buoyant they were. He 屈服するd his 長，率いる, and in his thin 肉親，親類d 発言する／表明する he said grace:

"Dear Father in Heaven, through all these perilous days Thou hast 保存するd us, to celebrate again the birthday of Thy dear son. God keep us together all this wondrous coming year, and bless these, my children, bless them, oh, bless them!"

Neil remembered the hospital 区 of a year ago. He looked past those beloved 直面するs to the worn 直面する of his father, and his breath caught はっきりと.

"Gee, two turkeys!" reverently whispered Robert's Ruby.

*

After dinner, children and dogs and aunties were sleeping all over the house. Vestal's father, Morton Beehouse, …を伴ってd by his brother Oliver—they were widowers and they had dined at Oliver's—栄誉（を受ける）d the house by dropping in, 耐えるing unnecessary things in leather and synthetic ivory. Dr. Kenneth was pleased to see how 平易な his son Neil was with the fabulous Beehouses.

"He's a 英貨の／純銀の young man," gloated Dr. Kenneth. "He will go far. Maybe it's time to tell him The Secret."

He watched his son through the 静かな supper, the games of Monopoly and gin-poker and charades, and in 中央の-evening he said to Neil 情愛深く, "Young fellow, you seem to think so 非難する 井戸／弁護士席 of your trifling house and family, but your old man has to take you up to your den and tell you the facts of life."

He was a man whose fancies いつかs ran away, and Neil followed him upstairs with a degree of nervous surprise.

一時期／支部 8

Dr. Kenneth M. Kingsblood (the M. was for his Scotch mother, Jennie McCale) had puttered contentedly through life. He was proud of having once seen Ex-大統領 Herbert Hoover on a train, and of having bought a new X-ray machine, and to him each of his four children was a golden filling. He was more often tired than he should be, at sixty, and his heart ぱたぱたするd, and he thought that perhaps Mother and he せねばならない go to Florida next March, when it would be raw in Minnesota.

He was 特に pleased that Neil, the 奇蹟 child, was going to be a financier and a 市民の leader, who would carry out all the 改革（する）s—larger schools and a new water-貯蔵所—of which Dr. Kenneth had dreamed, but which he had been too busy with dentistry and gardening and scrollwork to carry out.

As they sat with 膝s の近くに together in Neil's "den," smoking cigars that 調和させるd only with Christmas or a dinner for the 知事, Dr. Kenneth puffed:

"Boy, it's curious, your changing your dog's 指名する to Prince, because our family might have a special 推論する／理由 to be 利益／興味d in princes."

"How's that, Dad?"

"井戸／弁護士席, maybe it's all foolishness. I like to call it The Secret to myself and here I am 事実上の／代理 mysterious—guess the fact is, I don't やめる believe it myself, and I'll only tell you and not the 残り／休憩（する） of the family, because you're the only one that's got enough imagination so you won't laugh at me. Just the same, there's one chance in ten thousand that the story might be true, and if it was, I guess the Beehouses would be mighty proud to be intermarried with the Kingsbloods, and not the other way around."

"Dad, what is this big mystery?"

"Son, my dad and his dad before him believed that we have sure-enough 王室の 血 in our veins."

"How do you mean?"

"Just what I say. Maybe we're kings. No joke. And not any of these French or German 支配者s, either—Looeys and Ferdinands and that lot, but real 王室の British kings. Some people think the 指名する Kingsblood is 肉親，親類d of unusual. 井戸／弁護士席, it is, and for a very good 推論する／理由. によれば my dad's theory (if he ever really believed it, of which I ain't too sure), 'Kingsblood' was 初めは a 肉親，親類d of 愛称 for our forbears, 示すing that they had the 血 of kings—as you and I have! Now what do you think of that?"

"I don't know as I'd care so much, Dad. I'd rather live in Grand 共和国 than in a drafty old palace."

"井戸／弁護士席, so would I, for that 事柄. I bet 非，不，無 of them have (a)自動的な／(n)自動拳銃 furnaces. But I just mean it would be 肉親，親類d of nice if, while we went 権利 on sticking to 商売／仕事 here, we could know that by 権利s—maybe—we're really the kings of England. It would tickle your mother and Joan and Vestal and some day Biddy. And I don't guess it would 傷つける your position in the bank one bit if Mr. Prutt realized what 肉親，親類d of a high-born guy he had working for him. if it's true!

"The theory is that by the true line of 降下／家系, I'm the king of Britain, and you would be my 後継者. Of course I suppose your brother could （人命などを）奪う，主張する to be Prince of むちの跡s, but (if the thing were true), I don't know but what I'd ask Robert to step aside, as he certainly せねばならない, fellow with no imagination like that, and I do wish to God he would やめる referring to my really very 罰金 collection of Florida seashells, as 'that junk'!

"井戸／弁護士席, here's the 麻薬. I was told about it by my father, William, who may not have been any 広大な／多数の／重要な shakes as a 王室の 君主 but he certainly was the smartest 農業者 and horsetrader in Blue Earth 郡. He had the story from his father, Daniel Kingsblood, the Civil War one, and he had it in turn from his father, Henry Aragon Kingsblood, who was born in Kent, England, in 1797, and emigrated to New Jersey, after having been 逮捕（する）d for 公然と （人命などを）奪う，主張するing, at a 明言する／公表する fair or whatever they had in those days in England, that he was the 合法的 君主 of 広大な／多数の／重要な Britain and Ireland—and I suppose all these Realms Beyond the Sea, whatever they are. He'd of been King Henry the Ninth. And born 権利 there in England that way, maybe he knew—maybe it's true! How's that?"

"井戸／弁護士席, it's 利益／興味ing, but I don't suppose we could 証明する it, even if it was true."

"That's what I'm coming to. I notice that, now your 脚 keeps you from going out for sports, you read a lot more than you used to. So maybe it would amuse you to look into this. I'd 肉親，親類d of like to know about it, before I pass on.

"We 港／避難所't a 捨てる of written proof. I always ーするつもりであるd to try and check the facts, but I've been awful busy, and 世帯 cares and so on, and all of us dentists overworked, with so many of the profession in the 武装した services, and here lately it seems as if people have no consideration about a dentist's schedule and think you can work 'em in any time, 特に these young punks home from school on vacation. If you let 'em, they'd 簡単に work a dentist to death, and then never 支払う／賃金 their 法案s, and so—I never got the time. But here's what happened, the way I got it.

"This Henry Aragon Kingsblood （人命などを）奪う，主張するd he was descended from a son of Henry the Eighth and Catherine of Aragon, who would be the real 相続人. But when Henry got sore at Catherine and kicked her out, he 隠すd the 存在 of this son, who's supposed to have been 指名するd Julian, Prince Julian, and who was brought up by faithful cottagers who called him 'Julian of the King's 血'—hence our 指名する.

"Now of course, him 存在 the son of Catherine, that makes us part Spanish, and I don't know as I like that so much—I've always been proud of our English and Scotch 血; you know my mother was very distantly 関係のある to Bruce and Wallace and all those famous kilties, and that's a real fact! But still, when you think that Catherine's folks were Ferdinand and Isabella, that told Columbus to go and discover America, that makes her just about as high-born as the English, and you can see from our red hair, yours and 地雷, that the Spanish 血 hasn't done us any 害（を与える）.

"井戸／弁護士席, there's the story. Maybe there isn't a word of truth in it, but do you suppose you could make a little 成果／努力 to find out, boy?"

He looked so wistful. Neil was fond of his gentle father, and he 公約するd, "You bet I will, Dad."

"I'd 高く評価する／（相場などが）上がる it. Just remember that it's not plumb impossible. There was this fellow out West, in Alberta, I think it was, or it might have been Wyoming—I don't believe he was a Mormon, but very likely he was—and he 設立する out he was the rightful earl of something or other—just a plain ranchman! So you see."

"Anyway, be 肉親，親類d of nice to know," Neil agreed. "And you may think it's a joke, but when Biddy put on that gilt 栄冠を与える in 前線 of the tree, she sure looked like a real queen. Yes, I'll take a 発射 at it."

And in January of the new year, he did.

一時期／支部 9

He had read enough of pretenders to 肩書を与えるs and lands to be 確かな that his father's （人命などを）奪う，主張する was fool's gold. But the arrogant nonsense of it amused him, and he 手配中の，お尋ね者 a new hobby.

Since his 脚 would not let him ski, or go wallowing through the snowdrifts after rabbits, swimming at the 連邦の Club was his only sport. He had bored himself with 橋（渡しをする）, with crossword puzzles, with an aimless reading of travel and biographies and the novels, the spiritual flowering of the war, in which Elizabethan tarts delighted several million respectable readers by doing things which would be considered 望ましくない in a young lady of Elizabeth, New Jersey.

He was glad that it was England of which he was to be king. He had seen little of it beyond ドッキングする／減らす／ドックに入れるs, trains and a Tudor manor house which had been turned into a hospital, but he had felt that the 肉親，親類d and 疲れた／うんざりした Englishwomen who had nursed him had been veritably his own people. From his room of convalescence he had looked out all day at a flint church with a battlemented tower and long harp-strings of winter-bleached ivy, and coming and going through its pointed door he had seen Tess and Jude and Little Nell and Lorna Doone—and J. G. Reeder and Henry Baskerville. There was no building in Grand 共和国, not even the bit of スピードを出す／記録につける stockade from 1862 which was built into the Fashion Livery Stable Garage, which was to him so admirable a proof of the 耐えるing courage of mankind.

He had a much shrewder notion than his father of what would happen if the London newspapers were to be 知らせるd that an American banking gentleman had decided to be their king. Yet if there were that one-millionth chance, if it could be true—

Why not look into the history 調書をとる／予約するs and find out whether his father's Secret was 完全に absurd, or only ninety-nine per cent. so? It would be exciting for Biddy to be able to say that she was the king's daughter. From what he knew of that 独裁的な young lady, he would not think it beyond her to 一連の会議、交渉／完成する up all the 近隣 children and yelp, "Oyez, oyez, you canst now approach my 王室の person." He remembered the Christmas 栄冠を与える of gilt paper, which she had worn proudly though sidewise.

At the kitchen （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する, over gin-and-ginger-ale, he explained it all to Vestal. It was on a winter Sunday afternoon. They had gorged on turkey, napped, listened to the broadcast of the Philharmonic Orchestra, 熟考する／考慮するd the sports and fashions in the Sunday Frontier-旗，新聞一面トップの大見出し／大々的に報道する. On the sun-porch, Biddy, with her cousin Ruby and Peggy Havock, was playing with the 破片 of her Christmas 現在のs. As children of the final Anglo-Saxon civilization, they were machine-gunning a sad-注目する，もくろむd brown woolen pup and a doll with a glass necklace and a broken nose.

"So look who's a king!" Vestal jeered. "Your dad certainly is an old darling, and the craziest dreamer in town. Isn't that nice! If we ever save up enough money, which with the 現在の price of meat is 高度に ありそうもない, we might go over to the Old Country and look at Our palace, and then get the hell 支援する here, where we understand the dialect. But may I say, Captain, that I couldn't love you better if you were not only King of Britain but Exalted 支配者 of the Elks. Anyway, I bet I play a 詐欺師 game of gin-rummy than any other queen living. Come here."

In the sun-room she dug Biddy's 栄冠を与える out from the Christmas 廃虚s and 厳粛に placed it on Neil's brow, adjusting it as she would a new hat, and she 需要・要求するd of the three delighted babies, "Now tell me, chicks, what is he?"

"He's a king!" they all shrieked.

Vestal curtsied to him.

"You are both very silly," said Biddy.

In that world of war-未亡人d wives and of babies who had never seen their fathers, Biddy was proud of having a 明白な and proven father.

"How would you like it if I were a sure-enough king?" asked Neil.

His daughter admired, "I think you'd be a dandy king, and then maybe you could be an actor in the movies!"

It was Shirley's Sunday night off. As Neil and Vestal got the supper, she meditated, "I love trying to think of you as a king, but I can't do it. You're so 明白に just what you are: a one-hundred per cent. normal, white, Protestant, male, middle-class, efficient, ゴルフ-loving, bound-to-後継する, wife-pampering, Scotch-English Middlewestern American. I wouldn't believe that you were anything else, not if you brought me papers 調印するd by General Eisenhower to 証明する it. Oh, didums want to be a king, in a 城? 井戸／弁護士席, you shall be king in my heart."

"Maybe there's a lot of girls that would like me to be king in their hearts."

"Are there now! Isn't that lovely. Slice those potatoes as 罰金 as you can, will you, sire?"

*

He would never have begun the 広大な／多数の／重要な genealogical 研究 if his father had not twice begged, "Started to look up our ancestors yet?" Suddenly, on a Saturday afternoon when Vestal had the car and was off playing 橋（渡しをする）, he 決定するd, "Why not? At least it would be nice, now that I'll never get much credit in ゴルフ or tennis again, if I got to be known as a good historian. Why not?"

He went up to his den, and sat 負かす／撃墜する at his （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する, a scholar, 献身的な and immovable, the 公約するs taken, his lifework （疑いを）晴らす and vigorously begun, while Vestal and 棒 Aldwick and Mr. Prutt and his one-time professor of European History all stood behind him, in awe.

There was one trouble: Now that he had begun his 研究, just how did you begin a 研究?

His 長，率いる slowly turned as he peered speculatively about the room. There seemed to be no very 関連した 構成要素 except Dickens's A Child's History of England, a World Almanac, and The Yankee 全世界の／万国共通の Cyclopedia, in four 容積／容量s.

Resolutely he opened the cyclopedia to look up Catherine of Aragon. All that he learned was that she had been married to Henry, had had a daughter but no son, and that it had taken the 破壊 of the True Church to get rid of her.

—井戸／弁護士席, if she didn't have a son, then her son could have been our ancestor. No, that doesn't sound 権利.

A Child's History was no more helpful.

What did you do with this 研究 stuff?

Probably, you first wrote and bothered some 当局. But which 当局? His university history professor had never 示すd that he longed for correspondence with tennis players. Was there some fellow in the 政府 whose 職業 it was to explain how you got historical facts? And who was this writer who knew so much about all 肉親，親類d of history and wrote these 広大な／多数の／重要な, big 調書をとる／予約するs—five dollars a throw?

How did all these professors chase out and get all this （警察などへの）密告，告訴（状） about some guy who had been dead for a couple hundred years? In the university, he had had no singular 尊敬（する）・点 for professors; they had seemed to him oppressive and 十分な of 汚い tricks to catch a fellow who had been out on a bock-beer party last evening.

"Those guys may have it harder than I realized. How do you suppose they decide what Shakespeare meant in some line when chances are he was cockeyed when he wrote it, and didn't know himself? I probably 行方不明になるd a lot of chances when I was in college. I'll （不足などを）補う for them now."

It is to be said for Neil Kingsblood that the hardness of a 仕事 did not repel him. Now that he saw the disinterring of his 王室の ancestors as arduous digging, he really began to work.

He hobbled 速く to Sylvan Circle, took the bus 負かす／撃墜する to Rita Kamber's 先導 調書をとる／予約する Shop, and bought Trevelyan's History of England. In the second-手渡す 貯蔵所s he saw two treasures which could not help him 大いに, he knew, but which he could not resist: Lady Montressor's Memoirs of 法廷，裁判所, （軍の）野営地，陣営, and Stately 住居s of Our Fair 小島, two 容積／容量s, bound in white buckram with heraldic stampings, extra-illustrated, a 広大な／多数の／重要な 取引, 示すd 負かす／撃墜する from $22.50 to $4.67, and Metaphrastic Documentation of Feoffments under Henry VIII, a doctoral 論題／論文 by J. Humboldt Spare, Ph.D., published at $2.50, now fifteen cents.

His arm ached as he lugged them 支援する to the bus, and he wondered, "Will I ever really go through them?" He was having the first, 広大な／多数の／重要な, 暗い／優うつな disillusionment in his career as a scholar.

He also bought Hard-Hitting ホッケー, by Sandy Gough, and this, later, he 現実に read.

*

When his father heard that the 研究 was begun, he 追跡（する）d through old trunks and gave Neil a holograph letter from Daniel Kingsblood, the carpenter-農業者 who had been in the Civil War, son of the Henry Aragon who had been driven out of England. Neil tasted it avidly:

Agst 7, 1864

My dr wfe:

I take my pen in 手渡す to tell you all 井戸／弁護士席 so far hope Wm & you same. We are somewhere in Va or Car not sure which the sarjent will not tell us. Food is very bad am not complaining I suppose somebody has to fight this damn war but no place for man of almost 40 officers very mean and stuck up reumatism comes 支援する when damp do not like these mts too hard to go up & 負かす／撃墜する much prefer our Mich farm even if in wild & wooly west 井戸／弁護士席 there is no special news （軍の）野営地，陣営 was attacked other night but halfharted do not think the graybellies like this War any better than us so getting along alright hope you all 井戸／弁護士席. Must の近くに now, your affct husband

Daniel R. Kingsblood

Dr. Kenneth, nervously trotting his fingers in 空気／公表する, 勧めるd, "Wonderful letter, eh! Can't you just see the old boy? Golly, those fellows were 愛国的な! Took things like they （機の）カム—耐える anything for the sake of 保存するing the nation. Wonderful letter. I bet a historian would 支払う／賃金 a lot to see that letter, but I'm not going to let one of those fellows even take a look at it, and don't you ever show it to 'em if they come snooping around. 井戸／弁護士席, that せねばならない be an inspiration to you, eh?"

"Oh yes—yes—sure, Dad."

"井戸／弁護士席 now, this is going to be a 広大な／多数の／重要な surprise to you. I think I know where there's a lot of letters from not only my father and old Daniel but maybe Henry Aragon himself! Think of that! My cousin, Abby Kiphers, was a 広大な／多数の／重要な 手渡す to save papers, in Milwaukee, the 金物類／武器類-売買業者's wife, and I've already written to her. How'll that be for honest-to-God treasure-trove, eh?"

"Grand," said Neil feebly. "初めの 文書s. I guess they're what you want for 研究."

*

From Cousin Abby （機の）カム the letters from William, Daniel, and Henry Aragon Kingsblood, and Neil fell upon them like a kitten upon a catnip-mouse.

He learned a good 取引，協定 about the price of wheat in 1852, the voraciousness of pigs in 1876, and the health of a whole gallery of Emmas, Abigails, and Lucys, but all of it was singularly unilluminating about 王族. Even in Henry Aragon's letters, written in New Jersey between 1826 and 1857, there was only one 宣告，判決 that might be of 指導／手引:

"These Jerseyites can never seem to decide whether they prefer a Fool or a Scoundrel for 知事, and if I were King of this ignorant Land, I would hang the whole pack of them."

Neil unhappily 結論するd that his father's ancestors were an industrious, sober, and dreary lot, and that if he ever did reach 支援する to the putative son of Catherine, the fellow would probably 証明する to have become a pious gravedigger. He sighed, "I never did think I'd have much luck at getting to be 王室の. It was just a chore I 約束d to do for Dad. I believe I'll chuck it and think about Biddy and the 未来, not about Lord High Prince Whoozit. Hell with him."

But he had been 誘発するd to enough 利益／興味 in his family to consider now his mother's line. He hoped that they would be spicier.

He knew little of them, though as a student at the university he had often seen his mother's mother Julie Saxinar, who was still living. His mother and Gramma Julie had never been harmonious, and for five years now Neil had not seen her, but he remembered her as a 誘発する-注目する，もくろむd, tiny, scoffing old Frenchwoman, whose childhood had been struggled through on the Wisconsin frontier. The next time he saw his mother, late one afternoon, he 示唆するd:

"I've been reading about Dad's family, Mom, but what about yours?"

They were in the "支援する parlor" of Dr. Kenneth's lean and 高齢化 house, an ill-ventilated room, all brown and dark-gray, jammed with a decrepit roll-最高の，を越す desk and imitation-ebony 議長，司会を務めるs carved with dragons. 約束 Kingsblood was small and 柔軟な, and in her there was a curious stillness. She said little; she seemed always to be waiting for something of which she was apprehensive. Her 注目する，もくろむs were bead-黒人／ボイコット, but her 直面する pale and her lips a faded pink. She 信用d Neil and 認可するd of him, and she never gave him advice nor anything more demonstrative than a pat on the arm.

She mused as though she was trying to remember something pleasant but dusty with time.

"I don't really know much about my folks. My father's folks, the Saxinars, were about like your father's: Scotch and English 在庫／株, good 安定した 農業者s and little 商売／仕事s. All I know about Mama's family is, they were French, and I understand that in the old days they were in the fur 貿易（する） in Canada. But those frontiersmen, I don't suppose they ever wrote 負かす／撃墜する much about themselves. One time when I asked Mama about them, she just laughed, and she said, 'Oh, they were a terrible lot of boozy canoemen—nobody for a clean little girl to hear about.' You know, Mama is a funny woman. I think she always 肉親，親類d of 反対するd to my having so much Saxinar in me, and 存在 so neat and 整然とした, and clean pinnies. Ain't that strange!"

She slipped 支援する into her silent waiting, and the 追求（する），探索（する） of his ancestors became to Neil わずかに absurd.

*

In so 広大な a universe as Grand 共和国, with nearly a hundred thousand people, there are many worlds unknown to one another. One of the worlds least known to Neil was the feverish one of music: violin teachers giving lessons in the "前線 parlors" of red-brick houses in 列／漕ぐ／騒動s; little girls learning the saxophone; the Symphony 協会 which, once a year, managed to bring the Duluth Orchestra to town.

This year, with the 地元の Finnish Choral Society, the orchestra appeared at the Wargate 記念の Auditorium, in late January. Along with such ordinary 国民s as Neil and Vestal, the fabulously 広大な／多数の／重要な appeared at the concert: Webb and Louise Wargate, Dr. Henry Sparrock, Madge Dedrick with her daughter, Eve Champeris, Oliver and Morton Beehouse, Greg and Diantha Marl, 裁判官 and Mrs. Cass Timberlane—she a frail, excited sparkle. Even Boone and Queenie Havock were there, both わずかに drunk, as that was the only 明言する／公表する in which they could 耐える the enjoyment of music.

(There were also 現在の, but unmarked by the Frontier society reporter, a number of people who liked music.)

It amused Neil to think of how they would all turn from the 穏やかな magnificence of Hannikainen on the podium to him, if they knew that he was a 王室の Personage...He might wear his 栄冠を与える and ermine 負かす／撃墜する to work on the Sylvan Park bus, and 始める，決める up 法廷，裁判所 at his desk at the Second 国家の.

He forgot these splendors as the orchestra and the chorus marched into Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. He was borne into a place he had never seen. It was a spacious prospect across ornamental waters and oak-影をつくる／尾行するd lawns to the 中心存在s of a 広大な／多数の／重要な house whose windows were 花冠d with 石／投石する flowers. Behind it was a hill of heather, and over all a tower, broken and 古代の. And it seemed to him that this was all his own.

"Is this some ancestral memory?" he wondered. "Did some 広大な／多数の／重要な-広大な／多数の／重要な-something, that is me now, own that once? Is it maybe true that I could be a king?

"Or duke?

"Oh, settle for a baron!"

一時期／支部 10

He was developing a new idea in banking, and it had been gratifyingly 認可するd by Mr. Prutt and Cashier S. Ashiel Denver.

He was 設立するing a 退役軍人s' （a）忠告の／（n）警報 中心 where, as they were 発射する／解雇するd from the Army or 海軍, Neil's former companions in 武器 could come for （警察などへの）密告，告訴（状） about finding 職業s and renting houses, about 政府 補償（金） and 教育の 認めるs—and it would be all 権利 if they started new accounts in the Second 国家の, or took out wholesome mortgages.

Neil was to be in 告発（する），告訴（する）／料金, with a salary 増加する to three hundred and fifty a month, and if the 中心 grew enough, he was to have an assistant. Now, in that Northern April that was not spring but a 薄めること of winter, he was 確かな that the war in Germany would be over in a few months, and he 急いでd to get ready the 中心's corner, which 似ているd a handsome mahogany horse-立ち往生させる, with Neil's desk and two velvet 議長，司会を務めるs and a かなり いっそう少なく velvety （法廷の）裁判, all fit for heroes.

He bustled all day and 泡d every evening. Vestal was pleased with his 業績／成就 and his 進歩, and Biddy started a bank of her own, in which her cousin Ruby, Uncle Robert's daughter, deposited six pins, the very first day, and Prince a 損失d dog-薄焼きパン／素焼陶器. This bank （機の）カム to no good, however, because Ruby, whose 倫理学 were not up to Prutt banking 基準s, managed to 身を引く eleven out of her six pins, and Biddy, after counsel from Uncle Oliver Beehouse, 宣言するd 破産.

Mr. Prutt was 用心深い in his hopes for the 退役軍人s' 中心, but Neil saw no 限界s to it, and late in April he went by train to St. Paul and Minneapolis, to 協議する 銀行業者s, 明言する／公表する 公式の／役人s, and the 長，率いるs of the American Legion and the other organizations of 退役軍人s.

*

As a banking 専門家, he took the 議長，司会を務める-car Borup.

To the chronic globe-trotters of Grand 共和国 and Duluth, the Borup had for many years been an ambulatory home. It was so old that its familiars 主張するd it was not 建設するd of steel but of 支持を得ようと努めるd 常習的な by winter 嵐／襲撃するs and the prairie July, when the 温度計 goes to a hundred and ten. Its 内部の was decorated with inlaid 支持を得ようと努めるd, olive-green and rose and gray. It had been laid out with such pleasant 不正行為 that you might have known it for years before you opened a door and discovered another compartment with a （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する for card-players and four 老年の 議長，司会を務めるs covered with prickly green hair-shirting.

On the Borup Old Mr. Sparrock, Hiram Sparrock, Dr. Henry's father, still alive though somewhat retired at ninety-four, keeps spare 始める，決めるs of his five pills and three tonics and two dentures, with a 徹底的に捜す and a stick of mustache-brilliantine. Hiram, that genial old cutthroat who knew John D. Rockefeller, Sr., and Cecil Rhodes, still has, にもかかわらず the 所有物／資産／財産s he made over to his son, a million acres of land in the 部隊d 明言する／公表するs, and his holdings in Mexico are 手段d not by miles but by airplane time. It is 一般に believed in Grand 共和国 that Hiram is richer even than the Wargates or the Eisenherzes, but he invariably 会談 about his poverty, and he never gives Mac, the colored porter on the Borup, more than a ４半期/4分の1.

His son, Dr. Henry Sparrock, keeps on the Borup a Modern Library 版 of Karl Marx, which for five years he has been trying to read, in the hope that he will find out "what all these leftwing congressmen and these 過激な labor leaders are up to," but for five years an 招待 to play 橋（渡しをする） has always interrupted him just as he has started to read page two again.

And on the Borup, Madge Dedrick keeps her pack of monogrammed cards for solitaire, and Oliver Beehouse a crossword puzzle 調書をとる／予約する, and Diantha Marl a 調書をとる／予約する on psycho-分析, a 調書をとる／予約する on etiquette, and a 瓶／封じ込める of brandy.

Mac the porter, fat and very dark and nearly seventy and professionally genial, knows all of them. He shepherds the college-going daughters of couples whose wedding 旅行 he remembers, and calls them "行方不明になる," even though all through younger years he has known them as "Toots" or "Kay." He finds their lost compacts and candy-boxes, and tries to keep them from 存在 too chummy with handsome strangers met on the train. He knows which husbands say 別れの（言葉，会） to which wives at one end of the run, and which husbands 会合，会う and kiss them at the other.

Mac is the Almanach de Gotha, the sexless maid-valet, the fichuless chaperon of Duluth and Grand 共和国 and all the towns along the D. & T. C.; it were better socially to be 削減（する） by Dr. Sparrock and ignored by Mrs. Dedrick than to be unrecognized by Mac; and to call him "George" instead of "Mac" is to be admittedly an outer barbarian; and so far as Neil or his friends had ever known, he has no surname.

He 迎える／歓迎するd Neil with, "Mighty nice to have you traveling with us, Captain Kingsblood, sir. I hope to hear your 負傷させるd 四肢 is ameliorating, sir."

"Yes, thanks, it's a lot better, Mac."

—肉親，親類d of flattering to have Mac remember me. Mustn't forget to tip him two bits.

"Would you like to see the Minneapolis morning paper, Captain, sir?"

"Oh, thank you, Mac."

—No, four bits. There's an old darky that knows his place. Why can't these young fools like Belfreda be considerate that way? Be just too bad if I 手渡す Mac fifty or even seventy-five cents!

—And of course it would go on my expense-account.

*

At the end of the 旅行, when Mac had 小衝突d him off as though he was 小衝突ing him off, and had caressed him with, "Hope we're going to have the 栄誉（を受ける） of having you with us on your return trip, Captain, sir," Neil solemnly 手渡すd him a dollar.

さらに先に 負かす／撃墜する the car, as they （機の）カム into the 駅／配置する, Old Hiram Sparrock growled at Mac, "Hey, you Machiavellian bastard, aren't you going to hope you'll have the 栄誉（を受ける） of my riding 支援する with you?"

"No, sir, General. You always make too much trouble—you and those ole pills."

"Why, you gold-digging, uncle-tomming, old, 黒人／ボイコット he-courtesan! Here's a ４半期/4分の1, and you're mighty lucky to get it."

"I sure am, General. Big lot of money for doing nothing but look at you. Usually ain't but fifteen cents. You make another 在庫／株-market 殺人，大当り, General?"

"非，不，無 of your damn intrusive 商売／仕事. How many newspapers do you 秘かに調査する for?"

"All of 'em, General. See you soon."

Neither of them について言及するd the fact that Old Hiram gave Old Mac fifty dollars every Christmas. The two 遺物s of the 板材-land-アイロンをかける feudalism of 1900 grinned at each other, and young Neil Kingsblood looked approvingly at their 在庫／株-company 業績／成果.

一時期／支部 11

Neil had fancied that the vague estrangement between his mother and her parents had come from Gramma Julie Saxinar's habit of diminutively managing every one within 範囲 of her cackling and cheery 発言する／表明する. There had never been real 敵意, but the family coolness had kept Neil from any 広大な／多数の／重要な custom of intimacy with his grandparents.

But he did take one evening during his four-day 公式の／役人 使節団 in Minneapolis to go out to Lake Minnetonka and call on the Saxinars.

At sixty-five, when he had retired from the telephone company (he was still living, at eighty-five), Edgar Saxinar had 購入（する）d something very tidy in the way of a one-story house. He had admirably 述べるd it in a letter:

"We have settled 負かす／撃墜する in a 石／投石する bungalow 権利 on the romantic waters of old Lake Minnetonka, with 見解（をとる）s. There is no city as large as Minneapolis that has as large not to say lovely a lake as Minnetonka within so small a 類似の distance. Mrs. Saxinar and I often talk about the romantic Indians who used to canoe on these romantic waters."

The bungalow was not 現実に of 石／投石する, but of 固く結び付ける 封鎖するs so 圧力（をかける）d as to look somewhat like 石／投石するs, and the Saxinars' 見解（をとる） did not 現実に 含む the 正確に，正当に celebrated expanse of Minnetonka, three 封鎖するs away from them, but only an eight-flat でっちあげる，人を罪に陥れる apartment house, a Seventh-Day Adventist chapel, and a grove of cotton-支持を得ようと努めるd. But it was as snug a 避難 for two happily querulous old parties as could have been contrived, and Neil felt content as he sat on a tufted yellow plush 議長，司会を務める in the small living-room, whose yellow wallpaper was bedecked with a pattern of cat-tails and water lilies.

Though he had had a steak dinner at the Hotel Swanson-Grand, Gramma Julie 主張するd on taking him out to the kitchen and stuffing chocolate brownies into him. Hers was no glass-and-enamel magazine-宣伝 kitchen. She cooked on an 老年の, not-too-井戸／弁護士席-polished coal-stove, and kept her treasures in a 一連の broken-nosed blue teapots and tin cracker-cans and her 磁器 （機の）カム out of an antique shop and should have stayed there. Neil remembered that while his mother and Grampa Edgar had always 主張するd that they were neat (usually it was pins that they were as neat as), the gay little 黒人／ボイコット beetle, Julie, was a genius of gipsy disorder.

But he 公式文書，認めるd that in this mess of crockery Gramma Julie could find anything she 手配中の，お尋ね者, while his mother and Grampa, proud of arranging everything geometrically, of 適切に とじ込み／提出するing away 演説（する）／住所s and letters and laundry 法案s and not-やめる-wornout shoelaces, could never remember their own systems.

He returned with Julie to the living-room, to be grand-filial to that squat, bald, cheerful and complaining 愛国者, Grampa Edgar Saxinar.

He dutifully made the 規則 queries about Edgar's 見解（をとる）s on the 明言する／公表する 所得税, the last-season Minneapolis baseball team and 未来 models of telephone 器具s. (Edgar thought very little of any of them.) Then Neil 需要・要求するd the one thing he really 手配中の，お尋ね者 to know:

"Gramma Julie, something Dad told me has got me 利益／興味d in my ancestors. Tell me about your family, and Grampa's."

The little, 半端物, old lady, eighty-three now by the calendar and forty-three by the clock of her taut わずかな／ほっそりした throat and the obsidian 注目する，もくろむs that needed no spectacles, half gipsy and half Irish 妖精／密着させる with a trace of Yankee stringency for preservative, knitting and 激しく揺するing in the untidy old 茎-seated 議長，司会を務める that her husband detested, while he, with old-fashioned half-moon eyeglasses clerkly in his 一連の会議、交渉／完成する red 直面する, smoked a long stogie and 絶えず grunted in 不信—Gramma Julie clucked like a nesting 女／おっせかい屋:

"Your Grampa Saxinar—that solid 反対する there, smoking the stinkeroo—was born in Wisconsin and he worked for a sawmill, as bookkeeper, and he was a clerk and a telegrapher for the Chicago, Milwaukee before he got a 職業 in the telephone office. And his folks, as far as he knows 'em, were like everybody else: cheese-製造者s and mouse-罠（にかける） salesmen—nice stupid people."

Edgar spouted like a pond-sized 鯨. "Now that's all 権利 now! Saxinars good people, and so was Neil's father's folks. I had good, solid antecedents, 共和国の／共和党のs and Calvinist Presbyterians, almost without an exception, thank God!"

Julie snickered, "That's what I said. Nice and stupid. But my own folks, they were French. The women all wore 略章s and the men all took 'em off!"

Neil cajoled her, "Now Granny, I learned in the Army that the French aren't a bit wicked, as their funny papers make out. They're the carefullest 農業者s in Europe, and the tightest shop-keepers."

"Maybe one 肉親，親類d of French are. But my ancestors were the light-footed 産む／飼育する that skipped off from Europe because it was too tame, and settled in Quebec, and skipped off from there, too, because it was too pious, and they drank high ワインs and wouldn't have any トラックで運ぶ with anybody that was tamer than the wolves and lynxes and Assiniboins."

She looked inward on a red-lit girlhood, and mused aloud: "I was born in Wisconsin, too, in Hiawatha, and my, it was a 堅い lumbertown, then, and I danced with the raftsmen—I could dance awful light and they wore red caps."

Edgar snorted, "Isn't that 肉親，親類d of mixed-up?"

"井戸／弁護士席, it was mixed up—more 'n you'll ever know, old man! Even then, when it was all tarpaper shanties and pine clearings, you Saxinars read your Sabbath 抽出するs for Little Christians. But my folks—My father, Alexandre Payzold, he died when I was ten, and so did my mama, it was a small-pox 疫病／流行性の."

Neil was wondering how Vestal, Old Bay 植民地 out of Dorset, would 受託する this たいまつ-glaring wilderness origin, as Julie clucked on, in tune to her knitting-needles:

"Yes, Alexandre Payzold. I don't guess I recollect him very good, except he was a 罰金, big man, with a 抱擁する, enormous 黒人／ボイコット 耐えるd—it tickled!—and he sang lots. He was a mail-走者 and he worked some in the Big 支持を得ようと努めるd and he drove the first coach—oh, he spoke English good, I remember that, but he'd yell at the horses in French. When him and Mama died, I was only ten, and I was raised by Mama's brother, Uncle Emil Aubert. He was a fur-仲買人. He never told me much about Papa's folks, the Payzolds.

"But I know my Papa's papa, Louis Payzold, was a 農業者 and a trapper and he dug some 巡査 on Lake-Superior, and he married a girl 指名するd Sidonie Pic, and her father was Xavier Pic—let's see—Xavier would be your 広大な／多数の／重要な-広大な／多数の／重要な-広大な／多数の／重要な-grandfather.

"Uncle Emil knew a little about Xavier, because Xavier was a wonderful fellow that got around all over the frontier. I don't suppose there's anything about him in history—he never got rich, and of course they never kept many 記録，記録的な／記録するs or had any newspapers in the wilderness. From what I 解任する of what Uncle Emil told me—oh dear, it's maybe seventy years ago now since I heard his stories!—Xavier was the best 肉親，親類d of French voyageur. Maybe there was some bad things about him, too, but I guess Uncle Emil wouldn't tattle about them to a little girl like I."

"I don't think I'd talk about Pic," 勧めるd Grampa Edgar.

"I will so! I'm proud of him. 井戸／弁護士席, Xavier Pic, he must of been born around 1790. Uncle Emil said that some folks （人命などを）奪う，主張するd he was born on Mackinac Island and some on Lake Pepin and some in New Orleans or even 支援する in the Old Country, in フラン, and they all said Xavier wasn't a tall man, but awful strong and 勇敢に立ち向かう, and he could sing 罰金 and he drank too much, and languages, my! they （人命などを）奪う，主張する he spoke all the languages there are—French and English and Spanish and Chippewa and Sioux and Cree—Xavier spoke them all, Uncle Emil told me, and my Uncle Emil was a truthful man, except about furs. Oh, Edgar would have hated Xavier Pic!"

"Always did. If you didn't just make him up," explained Grampa Edgar.

"Yes, like I said. So Xavier—they say he was a voyageur for the Hudson's Bay Company, but afterwards he was a coureur de bois for himself, a 解放する／自由な 仲買人 and a fur-買い手. He was 悪賢い at 狙撃 the 早いs. Prob'ly when he was young, he wore a sash, like the voyageurs did, and he sang—

"Why, Neil, I think I must of told you a little about Xavier when you were only as high as my kitchen stove. You would forget it now, but do you remember the little song I taught you of the voyageurs, Dans Mon Chemin?"

"Yes, by golly I do begin to remember it now, Gramma."

*

From his anecdotal Minnesota history in high school, from lost tales of his mother and Gramma Julie, Neil could see the 輪郭（を描く）s now of his ancestor, Xavier Pic.

While Gramma Julie nodded in silence, he sketched that 強健な and jovial French adventurer.

Xavier was not 骨折って進むing dun English fields, like the worthy forbears of Dr. Kenneth, who were doubtless as rustic as they 申し立てられた／疑わしい themselves to be 王室の. Xavier belonged not to evening and もや and gossiping cowbells but to 警報 morning on the glittering 早いs of unknown rivers. Neil saw him coming out of Montreal on a spring morning, with the 騎兵大隊 of canoes bound away for the pine-darkened fort at the mouth of the Kaministikwia.

Xavier Pic. He would be a pink-cheeked and ribald roisterer with a short and curly golden 耐えるd, and he would be wearing a 一面に覆う／毛布-cloth capote of morning blue, thrown 支援する, with his タバコ pouch and his agile knife swung from his scarlet sash. His moccasins and leggins were of elkskin, and in his knitted cap was the feather of a Nor'wester.

Challenging the 早いs and the wolf-haunted night in the 巨大な loneliness of the Northern forest, laughing 支援する at the monstrous 嵐／襲撃するs of Lake Superior, scoffing at 冷淡な and hunger and the malign Indians, Xavier would be singing with his mates, at the gay start of the 旅行:

Dans mon chemin j'ai rencontre
Trois cavaliers bien montes—
Lon, Lon, laridon daine.

Thus, not in words but in images, 有望な and strong, Neil 解任するd the springtime hero who was his source.

*

All that would have been when Xavier was young. When Gramma Julie roused from her catnap and went on, she surmised, from the 影をつくる／尾行するs of 広大な／多数の／重要な legends she had heard in girlhood, that Xavier became an 独立した・無所属 仲買人. She knew that he lived on till 1850, always a mover, and she was 確かな that he had been the first white man to 調査する dark leagues of wasteland where now there are farms and villages that were 設立するd on the 激しく揺する of Xavier's 技術 and bravery.

It was unquestionable, she stridently 持続するd against her husband's grunting, that this 開拓するing Frenchman had been one of the 建設業者s, the 原始の 軍人-kings, of the new 州s of the Americans and the British: Minnesota and Wisconsin, Ontario and Manitoba.

But, Neil improvised, Xavier's service to the Anglican visky-guzzlers must have been involuntary. He must still have borne in his heart the Lilies of the Sun, not the beef-red 旗，新聞一面トップの大見出し／大々的に報道する of the British nor the candy-（土地などの）細長い一片d bunting of the Yanks. Might not this valorous Gaul, more than some lanky English lordling, have been the ancestor who 設立するd for him a valid （人命などを）奪う，主張する to the 血 王室の?

This would not gratify Dr. Kenneth, who had 非，不，無 of Xavier's 解雇する／砲火／射撃 in his brittle veins, but some day it would enchant a Biddy who was as venturesome as Xavier.

Why not? Who could tell? Perhaps this singular Xavier Pic was the 追放するd offspring of some half-王室の Duc of Picardie!

But the ducal 旗，新聞一面トップの大見出し／大々的に報道する was 即時に taken from Neil's 手渡す.

*

"You understand," said Gramma Julie, "that Xavier may not have been pure French? I wouldn't wonder if he was part Indian. We may be part Chippewa ourselves, you and me."

"Chippewa?" said Neil, not very brightly.

"Why, you 港／避難所't got any prejudice against our having some Indian 血?" said the old lady, with a foxy ちらりと見ること at her husband.

"No, no, certainly not!" 宣言するd Neil, with an 驚くべき／特命の／臨時の 欠如（する） of 有罪の判決. "I 港／避難所't any prejudices against any race. After all, I was in the War Against Prejudice!"

Grampa Edgar complained, "'Tain't a question of the boy having prejudices against 存在 a nekkid, baby-scalping Indian. You just don't have to advertise everything you know!"

Julie 注目する，もくろむd her man. "Don't talk like you got the simples! I ain't afraid to advertise what my folks were! They never peddled 木造の clocks, like some! If anybody （機の）カム up to me and asked, 'Are you a tomahawking Indian?' I'd say, Sure. And tomahawk 'em!"

While the old ones bickered, with the 技術 of sixty years' practice, Neil was in a small 明言する／公表する of shock. In a general way, he believed that Indians were very 罰金 people—they were good at canoeing and the tanning of deerskins. But it was a 宙返り／暴落する from the 城 of a Duc de Picardie to a bark 宿泊する, smoke-encrusted.

After some spirited 公式文書，認めるs on Edgar's ancestors as Yankee skinflints, Julie was going on:

"Anyway, the only time that I ever heard of Xavier's getting careless and marrying, the girl was a Chippewa squaw, so I guess we got Indian 血 from her, even if Xavier wasn't part Indian himself. And me, I'd rather have 肉親，親類 that et berries and fresh pickerel than Edgar's folks, that never had anything but codfish—乾燥した，日照りのd—and that's how they all come to look so 乾燥した，日照りの themselves."

"地雷 didn't eat boiled dog, like you Chippewas," said Edgar. "And far's Neil's 関心d, my folks are his folks, codfish and all, just as much as your folks is, ain't they?"

"That's what you think! Anyway, if you like it or not, Neil, whether you're a wild Injun or not, you're descended from Xavier Pic, the smartest man on the frontier, and that's pretty good, hey?"

"Oh, yes, Gramma, that's 罰金!"

But his new-設立する Indian 血 impressed him more than M. Pic's "smartness."

He was 解任するing that, as a small boy, from some forgotten hint or other of Gramma Julie, he had for a while considered himself to have a warlike Indian streak in him. He had 誇るd of it to Ackley Wargate, and that pale scion had been envious. Yes, a 王室の 遺産, Chippewa bravery; a people unafraid of 激しく揺するs and nightfall and creeping enemies.

But still—

That might be 罰金 for most people, but not for the conformable husband of Vestal Beehouse. And he was unhappy to 嫌疑者，容疑者／疑う that his rare Biddy, that 有望な 存在 of 水晶 and rose and silver, was いっそう少なく certainly cousin to English princesses and to demoiselles in 式服s broidered with the golden lilies than to unbathed squaws in shirts of branded flour-解雇（する）ing.

—Wonder how many Indian kids running around 保留（地）／予約s and 選ぶing nits out of their hair can （人命などを）奪う，主張する to be Biddy's cousins?

—Oh, let 'em （人命などを）奪う，主張する it! Might be good for her and me to have some honest-to-God 原始の American in us!...Mr. and Mrs. Neil Injunblood 発表する the 約束／交戦 of their daughter, Elizabeth Running Mink, to John Pierpont Morgan Wargate, and damn lucky that little prig would be to get her!

He remembered a Christmas grocery calendar and the portrait of an Indian maid with whom, in boyhood, he had been in love: a わずかな／ほっそりした maid 完全にする with riband, beaded doeskin jacket, canoe, waterfall, pine forest, and moonlight, and she seemed not too feeble a symbol beside the fair but weak-minded Elaine simpering over the Camelot traffic.

At last he spoke, and briskly.

"Okay, Gramma, I'm a Chippewa. Do Chippewas get a drink?"

Grampa Edgar cackled, "They do not. They ain't 安全な, after firewater, and they get nothing but fried beaver-tails. But any grandson of Ed Saxinar gets a drink—gets two drinks!"

一時期／支部 12

He said nothing about Chippewas when he returned to Grand 共和国. What had seemed a cheery topic with Gramma Julie did not go 井戸／弁護士席 with Vestal's Junior League airiness. He tried to pump his parents, and he guessed that neither of them knew anything about his mother's 家系. If 約束 had ever known, in her gentle estrangement from Gramma Julie she had conveniently forgotten.

And Julie had given no proof that either Xavier Pic or his wife was Indian, Neil 主張するd. He 主張するd a little too often and too 堅固に.

He kept wondering about the sacred Biddy as a 大型船 for Indian 血. He had a new, anxious way of watching that Saxon child, and comparing her with her playmates. He decided that Biddy was rougher and more practical than the other children, and in a sidelight, at dusk, he imagined a 巡査 shade on her camellia cheeks.

Biddy, he 公式文書，認めるd, was abnormally good at playing that the living-room couch was a canoe and paddling it with a tennis ゆすり—with no especial advantage to the ゆすり; she was masterful at walking stealthily, at breaking out in ungodly whoops; and when she and he built a bonfire to celebrate the 雪解け at the end of April, he 公式文書，認めるd that both of them were competent with hatchet and bark kindling.

—Maybe this isn't just a game. I really do see Indian traits in both of us.

Then, as he watched Vestal sewing beads in a small pair of moccasins for Biddy, he absent-mindedly 観察するd, "Only an Indian would think up patterns like that." He remembered then it was not the Beehousely Vestal who was to be 熟考する／考慮するd and （悪事，秘密などを）発見するd as an Indian, and he saw how sumptuously spurious all his 発見s had been. And he most illogically 勝利d, 証明するd that neither he nor Biddy really did have "Indian 血."

But even if they had—井戸／弁護士席, he now remembered 審理，公聴会 that the admirable 裁判官 Cass Timberlane was part Sioux, and that it was something or other called the "遺伝子s" which carried racial 外見s, not the 血.

Learnedly summing it all up, Neil decided that (1), he probably had no Indian 血 or Indian 遺伝子s or whatever it was and (2), it wouldn't 事柄 if he had, but (3), he wouldn't について言及する it to Vestal and (4), 解任するing Gramma Julie's swarthy gracefulness, he was sure that Biddy and he were as Indian as Sitting Bull, and (5), he had now 完全に lost 利益／興味 in the 支配する and (6), he was going to find out for 確かな , as soon as he could, whether he did have any Indian 血 and/or 遺伝子s.

*

His second 商売／仕事 trip to Minneapolis was on Monday, May 7th, and on that day 爆発するd the premature 告示, 確認するd a day later, of peace with Germany. While the モーター-horns and the flat-発言する／表明するd church bells were strident in prairie villages along the 鉄道, the car Borup was 炎ing with jubilation. Strangers shook 手渡すs and drank from pocket-flasks together and patted Mac the porter on the shoulder and, all standing, they sang "Auld Lang Syne."

Judd and Eliot and 棒 Aldwick would be coming 支援する now, Neil rejoiced. He would no longer be friendless and unadvised. It was only, he 保証するd himself, because he had been lonely that he had "taken this Indian nonsense so 本気で."

But Jamie Wargate would not be coming 支援する. No one would find out where he lay in Germany, under an airplane engine, his 罰金 手渡すs a 低俗雑誌 that was one with the 乱打するd steel.

Neil's friend of the 輸送（する）, Captain Ellerton, would not be coming 支援する. He, least prim of all young men, was prim now under a prim cross in a graveyard like a 郊外の lawn.

*

His 会談 with the Minneapolis 銀行業者s and 政治家，政治屋s done, Neil marched himself over to St. Paul, on Wednesday morning, to see Dr. Werweiss, 公式の／役人 in the Minnesota Historical Society, whose building was beside the 広大な／多数の／重要な 泡 of the （ワシントンの）連邦議会議事堂 ドーム.

Dr. Werweiss was in his office, a friendly and learned-looking man, and Neil spoke to him casually, without やめる knowing that he was planning to 嘘（をつく）.

"I served as a captain in Italy, and one of my men has returned, 負傷させるd, and he's been begging me to ask somebody here about a 開拓する ancestor of his—a 仲買人 指名するd Xavier Pic, 一連の会議、交渉／完成する 1830."

"I don't 解任する the 指名する just now. Was it （一定の）期間d P-E-A-K-E?"

"No, P-I-C, I believe. I suppose it could be a 汚職 of Picardy?" Neil said hopefully.

"Ye-es, I suppose it could be."

"井戸／弁護士席, this G.I., this 兵士, would like to find out if there's any 権威のある 記録，記録的な／記録する of old Xavier in your 文書s. He was born about 1790, this fellow thinks, maybe born in フラン. I gather he'd 特に like to know whether Xavier was pure French, or part Indian, also—that is, what race it would make this fellow himself."

"Did you feel that your 兵士 would be pleased if he 証明するd to be part Indian, Mr. Kingsblood, or is he one of these simple-minded Croix de Feu racialists?"

"A—? Oh, yes, he—What? Oh, I don't know. I don't believe I went into that with him—not 完全に, I mean."

"If you'll wait a few moments, Mr. Kingsblood?"

Dr. Werweiss returned with an 老年の manuscript 調書をとる／予約する. "I'm on Monsieur Pic's 追跡する, I think."

"You are?" It was the second of waiting before the 裁判官's 宣告，判決.

Dr. Werweiss was casual. "I've 設立する him here in Taliaferro's diary. Yes. 'X. Pic.' May be the same one—helped 逮捕（する） a bad Indian, it seems. But Major Taliaferro doesn't say whether Pic had any Indian 血 himself or not. Of course, if he was born in フラン, he wouldn't have, unless his father had brought a squaw wife home from Canada, which did happen, but not frequently."

Neil was relieved, and ashamed of 存在 relieved, and relieved again that Biddy and Biddy's father were uncorrupted Caucasians.

"But," Dr. Werweiss went on, "whether Pic had Indian 血 or not, he did marry a Chippewa wife."

—Oh, 爆破 it! I forgot all about 広大な／多数の／重要な-広大な／多数の／重要な-広大な／多数の／重要な-grandmama, bless her tanned hide! Why didn't Xavier stay home in フラン or New Orleans or wherever he belonged, 悪口を言う／悪態 his itching feet! What did I ever do to him, a century and a ４半期/4分の1 ago, to make him do this to me?

Then, all unconscious and benign, Dr. Werweiss let him have it:

"No, I think it's very doubtful that Xavier Pic was part Indian, because—now I don't know whether you'll consider it wise to tell your 問い合わせing 退役軍人 or not; so many people do have vulgar superstitions about race; but the fact is that your friend's ancestor, Xavier, is について言及するd by Major Taliaferro as 存在 a 十分な-血d Negro."

Neil's 直面する could not have changed, for Dr. Werweiss went on, やめる cheerfully, "Of course you know that in most Southern 明言する／公表するs and a few Northern ones, a 'Negro' is defined, by 法令, as a person having even 'one 減少（する） of Negro 血,' and によれば that 野蛮な psychology, your 兵士 friend and any children he may have, no 事柄 how white they look, are 合法的に one-hundred-パーセント Negroes."

Neil was thinking いっそう少なく of himself than of his golden Biddy.

一時期／支部 13

He 設立する himself sitting at a lunch-反対する, 厳粛に 星／主役にするing at the wet 厚板 of 支持を得ようと努めるd, the catsup 瓶／封じ込める, the tricky nickel 支えるもの／所有者 of paper napkins. He was vague, but he did remember that Dr. Werweiss was to make その上の search for him, that he was to return to the Society at two, and that he had not 認める anything.

He was in a still horror, beyond surprise now, like a man who has learned that last night, walking in his sleep, he 殺人d a man, that the police are looking for him.

He was 明らかに eating a 挟む. He regarded it with astonishment. How had he ever ordered a thing like that, dirty hunks of bread piled around flat-tasting ham? And the lunchroom was stinking, an 罪／違反 against God and the 甘い May afternoon.

—Why did I ever come in here? But I better try and like it. This is the 肉親，親類d of 捨てる I'll get 今後. Or worse. Probably even this 共同の thinks it's too elegant to serve us niggers.

It was the first time that he had put what he was into a word, and he was too sick to 軟化する it to "Negroes," and anyway, the word seemed so trivial beside the fact. He was 抗議するing that he should be called a 黒人／ボイコット man or a green man or any 肉親，親類d of a man except the plain human and multicolored 肉親，親類d of man that, as Neil Kingsblood, he always had been and always would be.

But they would say that he was a 黒人／ボイコット man, a Negro.

To Neil, to be a Negro was to be a Belfreda Gray or a Borus Bugdoll; to be Mac the porter, obsequious to white pawnbrokers; to be a leering 黒人／ボイコット stevedore on the ドッキングする／減らす／ドックに入れるs at Naples, wearing an American uniform but not 許すd to have a gun, 許すd only to stagger and ache with shouldering enormous boxes; to be a field-手渡す under the Delta sun, under the torchlight in 救済 orgies, an animal with 非，不，無 of the animal freedom from shame; to be an 暗殺者 on Beale Street or a clown dancing in a saloon for pennies and humiliation.

To be a Negro was to live in a decaying shanty or in a でっちあげる，人を罪に陥れる tenement like a foul egg-crate, and to wear either slapping old shoes or the shiny toothpicks of a procurer; to sleep on 不変の bedclothes that were like funguses, and to have for spiritual leader only a howling and lecherous 詐欺師.

There were 事実上 no other 肉親，親類d of Negroes. Had he not heard so from his Georgia army doctor?

To be a Negro, once they 設立する you out, no 事柄 how pale you were, was to work in kitchens—always in other people's thankless kitchens—or in choking laundries or fever-hot foundries or at shoeshine stands where the disdainful white gentry thought about spitting 負かす／撃墜する on you.

To be a Negro was to be unable—biologically, fundamentally, unchangeably unable—to しっかり掴む any science beyond 新規加入 and plain cooking and the 運動ing of a car, any philosophy beyond comic dream-調書をとる／予約するs. It was to be mysteriously unable ever to take a bath, so that you were more 不快な／攻撃 than the animals who clean themselves.

It was to have such unpleasant manners, invariably, that you were never 認める to the dining-（米）棚上げする／（英）提議する of any decent house nor to the 議会s of most labor unions which, objectionable though they were to a conscientious 銀行業者 like himself, still did have enough sense to see that all Negroes are scabs and 秘かに調査するs and loafers.

It was to be an animal 肉体的に. It was to be an animal culturally, deaf to Beethoven and St. Augustine. It was to be an animal ethically, unable to keep from stealing and 暴力／激しさ, from lying and treachery. It was literally and altogether to be an animal, somewhere between human 存在s and the ape.

It was to know that your children, no 事柄 how much you loved them or strove for them, no 事柄 if they were fair as Biddy, were doomed to be just as ugly and 背信の and brainless and bestial as yourself, and their children's children beyond them forever, under the 悪口を言う／悪態 of Ezekiel.

—But I'm not like that—Mum isn't—Biddy isn't—old Julie isn't. We're decent, 正規の／正選手 people. So there's some mistake. We aren't Negroes, not one 減少（する）, and there were two Xavier Pics.

—You know that's phony, Kingsblood. Somehow, you know, way 負かす／撃墜する, that he was your ancestor. Oh, damn him for 存在 黒人／ボイコット! Poor 甘い Biddy!

—All 権利. If 企て，努力，提案 is a Negro, then everything I've ever heard about the Negroes—yes, and maybe everything I've heard about the Jews and the Japs and the ロシアのs, about 宗教 and politics—all of that may be a 嘘（をつく）, too.

—If you are a Negro, you be one and fight as one. See if you can grow up, and then fight.

—But I've got to learn what a Negro is; I've got to learn, from the beginning, what I am!

Behind his struggle to think rationally there was a picture of the pert and candid 直面する of Biddy—the little Duchess of Picardy, 王室の 相続人 of Catherine of Aragon—and of her 存在 unmasked by jeering neighbors as a Negro—a nigger, a zigaboo, a disgusting imitation of a real human child, flat-長，率いるd and obscenely capering, something to be driven around to the 支援する door.

—She's not like that. We're not like that. Negroes are not like that. Are we?

*

Dr. Werweiss, he 知らせるd Neil, had 設立する an 初めの letter from Xavier Pic to General Henry Sibley, and he 手渡すd it over.

The paper had turned brown, but the 署名／調印する was unfaded and the script delicate and 正確な, the 令状ing of a literate man. Neil wondered if he was not the first, except for Dr. Werweiss and his assistant and General Sibley, who had touched this letter since Xavier had written it, by candlelight or northern sun, on a puncheon （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する or the 味方する of a birch canoe, a hundred dead years ago:

"When you were here, 栄誉（を受ける）d General, and I had the priviledge to entertain you with a little fish and tea, more worthy fare 存在 beyond my 力／強力にするs in the wilderness, I told you I am to all 意図 a 十分な-血d negro born in Martinique, though maybe I have a very little French and Portuguese and Spanish 血, too, not much.

"My wife was a good Ojibway woman and now my dear dauter Sidonie has married a Frenchman, Louis Payzold, and while I am proud of the negroes, they are such a 勇敢に立ち向かう passionat people, the Southern 明言する／公表するs have made a 悪口を言う／悪態 of life to the dark people and I do not want to have Sidonie or her children to be known as 黒人／ボイコットs and to 苦しむ as my people do 苦しむ there and planely told they are beasts. I ask for her little ones only a chance. So please always 言及する to me now as French.

"I am getting a little old for wilderness work and my 目的s are almost done and do not want to think of my grandchildren under the 攻撃する, so please not say anything about my color and how 黒人／ボイコット it is, 栄誉（を受ける）d General Sibley.

"Though Indian ladies seem to admire the color very much and all the 軍人s say I am first white man ever come to their country. Mes estimes les 加える distinguees.

"X. Pic."

Dr. Werweiss spoke:

"He sounds like a grand old fellow—lot nobler than the Sieur de Saint Lusson or any of the other Parisian courtiers who showed up on the frontier. If your 兵士 friend has the guts to take it, and the imagination, he can be pretty proud of his ancestor.

"You know, it's true, what he says. Only red men and white men were 認めるd by the Indians on the Northern frontier, and so Negroes like Xavier and the Bongas were the first 'white men' to carry civilization—meaning the 瓶／封じ込める, the 爆弾, and the Bible—to the poor heathen. They were like Perry 開始 up Japan, and if the results have been just as 悲惨な, that wasn't their fault.

"What a kingly 始める，決める of 指名するs the whole bunch of them had: Sidonie marrying a Louis, and we 設立する that their son, though we 設立する nothing more about him, was royally 指名するd Alexandre!"

It was the chain as Gramma Julie had given it to him: Xavier, Sidonie, Louis Payzold, Alexandre, and, if he told the world of it, that chain bound him, bound Biddy.

If he told.

*

—And I was so 確かな (he thought on the interurban car 支援する to Minneapolis) that Xavier had a short, golden 耐えるd!

—Me, with my red hair, even a 減少（する） of blackness? Or Biddy? Still, Gramma Julie is dark enough. O God, even to have to think about it!

—What's this about colored people "passing," if they're light enough? I certainly shall. Why should I be so conceited as to imagine that God has 特に called me to be a 殉教者? And pretty vicious 肉親，親類d of a 殉教者, that would sacrifice his mother and his daughter to his 宗教上の vanity! Everything can be just as it was. It has to be, for Biddy's sake. You wouldn't deliberately turn your own mother into an outcast, would you?

—A man couldn't do that!

—But what if a lot of people know it already? Or can （悪事，秘密などを）発見する the Negro in me? I hear lots of Southerners （人命などを）奪う，主張する they can do that. That man goggling at me 負かす／撃墜する the car—can he see I'm part Negro? Has everybody always guessed it?

一時期／支部 14

He crossed the ロビー of his hotel in Minneapolis with his 注目する，もくろむs rigidly held on the 黒人／ボイコット-and-white marble of the 床に打ち倒す, irritably 公式文書，認めるing that it was 黒人／ボイコット and white, careful as a drunk who betrays himself by 存在 too careful in his gait. He was wondering who might be 星／主役にするing at him, 嫌疑者，容疑者／疑うing the Negro in him. Wilbur Feathering, who was a food-売買業者 in Grand 共和国 but who had been born in Mississippi, frequently 主張するd that he could catch any "Nigra" who passed for white, even if he was but a sixty-fourth 黒人／ボイコット. If Wilbur did （悪事，秘密などを）発見する it, he would be 汚い about it.

権利 in the 中心 of the ロビー he 手配中の，お尋ね者 to stop and look at his 手渡すs. He remembered 審理，公聴会 that a Negro of any degree, though pale of 直面する as Narcissus, is betrayed by the blue halfmoons of his fingernails. He wildly 手配中の，お尋ね者 to 診察する them. But he kept his 武器 rigidly 負かす／撃墜する beside him (so that people did wonder at his angry stiffness and did 星／主役にする at him) and marched into the elevator. He managed, with what he felt to be the most ingenious casualness, to 支え（る） himself with his 手渡す against the 味方する of the cage, and so to look at his nails.

No! The halfmoons were as （疑いを）晴らす as Biddy's.

—But I know now how a Negro who has just passed must feel all the time, when he's staying at a hotel like this: hoping that 非，不，無 of these high-and-mighty traveling men will notice him and ask the 経営者／支配人 to throw him out. Does it keep up? All the time?

*

In the 広大な hidden lore of 存在 a Negro which he was to 反対／詐欺, Neil was to learn that in many Northern 明言する／公表するs, 含むing his own, there is a "civil 権利s 法律" which forbids the 除外 of Negroes and members of the other 非，不，無-country-club races from hotels, restaurants, theaters, and that this 法律 worked fully as 井戸／弁護士席 as had 国家の 禁止.

White hotel guests snorted, "Why can't these niggers stay where they're 手配中の，お尋ね者, の中で their own people, and not come horning in where they don't belong?" These 監視するs did not explain how a Negro, arriving in a strange city at midnight, was to find out 正確に where he was 手配中の，お尋ね者. Whenever they had been 汚染するd and almost destroyed by the presence of a Negro sleeping two hundred feet away, they 脅すd the hotel 経営者／支配人, who assumed that he had to earn a living and therefore 工夫するd a technique of 扱う／治療するing the Negroes with 神経-氷点の civility and with evasiveness about "accommodations."

Even on this, his first night of 存在 a Negro, Neil knew that the night assistant-経営者／支配人 of the hotel might telephone up, "I'm terribly sorry, sir, but we find that the room we gave you is reserved."

He knew it already. He knew it more sensitively and acutely than he had ever known any of the コンビナート／複合体 etiquette of 存在 an officer-and-gentleman.

He looked bulky enough and straight-shouldered enough in the 避難 of his hotel room, but he felt bent and cowering as he listened for the telephone. He did not hear it, yet he heard it a hundred times.

And if he did not belong in this hotel, he thought, he would be no more welcome on the Pullman Borup. They could not 逮捕（する） him for taking it, but he would not again be able to patronize genially the 黒人／ボイコット Mac, who was now his uncle and his superior. In his 危険な 未来, it might be he who would hope for a condescending dollar from Mac.

He belonged with the other lepers in a day-coach—in a Southern jimcrow day-coach, foul and broken, so that his simian odor might not 感情を害する／違反する the delicate white nostrils of Curtiss Havock.

All this he thought, but he did not dare think of going 支援する to Vestal and telling her that he had given her a Negro daughter.

He had planned to get his hair 削減（する） at the Swanson-Grand barbershop, this late afternoon.

He sat at the small desk in his room, （電話線からの）盗聴 his teeth with his fingernail, occasionally looking suddenly at that nail again, a 熟考する／考慮する in brooding. Whether or not he needed a haircut to the point of social 危険，危なくする, he had to go 負かす／撃墜する to the shop, as a 事柄 of manliness. He wasn't going to let any barber jimcrow him! He was a 国民 and a guest; he paid his 税金s and his hotel 法案s; he had as much 権利 to be served in a barbershop as any white man—He stood up wrathfully, but the wrath was against himself.

—Now for God's sake, Kingsblood, 港／避難所't you got enough real trouble in 存在 a Negro, and having to tell Vestal, without making up imaginary troubles? That Svenska barber is no more likely to 扱う／治療する you as colored than anybody else ever has, these thirty-one years! やめる 事実上の／代理 like a white boy trying to pretend to be a Negro. You are Negro, all 権利, and Chippewa, and West Indian spig, and you don't have to pretend. Funny, though, if I'm 存在 too imaginative. Always thought I was too 事柄-of-fact. Everybody thought so.

—It couldn't be, could it, that what I needed, what Grand 共和国 needs, is a good dash of sun-warmed 黒人／ボイコット 血?

He 設立する a streak of humor in the astonishing 崩壊（する） of everything that had been Neil Kingsblood; in 公式文書，認めるing that a 黒人／ボイコット boy like himself could never conceivably be a 銀行業者, a ゴルフ-club member, an army captain, husband of the 安全な・保証する and placid Vestal, son of a Scotch-porridge dentist, intimate of the arrogant Major Rodney Aldwick. Suddenly he was nothing that he was, only he still was, and what he was, he did not know.

That the #3 barber in the Swanson-Grand Salon de Coiffeur would 現実に 扱う／治療する Mr. Kingsblood just as he always had 扱う／治療するd Mr. Kingsblood was so obvious that Neil scarcely noticed that while he was still wondering whether #3 would 辞退する to 削減（する） his hair, #3 was already contentedly cutting it. But even in the soporific 決まりきった仕事 of the barber's shears and 冷静な／正味の, damp 手渡すs, Neil could not 緩和する his disquiet.

The 長，率いる-barber, the girl cashier, the Negro bootblack, his #3 barber—had they guessed that he was a Negro, had they known it for years? Were they waiting for the proper time to 脅す him, to ゆすり，恐喝 him—waiting, lurking, laughing at him?

"Mighty hard to 削減（する） that curly hair of yours smooth, Captain," said the barber.

Now what was he referring to? Curly hair. Kinky hair. Negro wool.

Was his barber, standing 支援する of him, winking at the barber at the next 議長，司会を務める? Why had he yanked a lock of hair that way? Was the 信じられない social night already 製図／抽選 in, and the 黒人／ボイコット winter of blackness?

With the most itching carefulness, Neil crept one 手渡す out from under the 淡褐色 sheet covering him, scratched his nose, let the 手渡す 減少（する） into his （競技場の）トラック一周, and so was able to 熟考する／考慮する his nails again. Was it this 水銀柱，温度計 vapor light, or was there really a blue tinge in the half moons?

He 手配中の，お尋ね者 to jump from the 議長，司会を務める, 逃げる to his 安全な room—no, 逃げる to yet-unknown Negro friends who would sympathize with him, hide him, 保護する him.

It was no elegant green-and-ivory barber 議長，司会を務める but the electric 議長，司会を務める from which he was finally 解放（する）d. In his room, he quivered:

—Vestal's always loved to run her fingers through my hair. Will she, if she finds out what 肉親，親類d of hair it is? Same color as my dad's used to be, but his isn't curly. What would Vestal think? She mustn't find out, ever.

He thought 絶えず of new things, pleasant and customary, from which his status as Negro might 妨げる／法廷，弁護士業 him: Biddy's adoration. The lordly 連邦の Club. Dances and stag-drinking at the Heather Country Club, where once he had been chairman of the Bengali pool tournament. His college fraternity. His career in the bank. His friendship with Major Rodney Aldwick.

He repeated a slice of English doggerel that 棒 Aldwick used to 引用する with unction:

All the white man's memories:
Hearths at eventide,
The twinkling lights of Christmas nights
And our high 皇室の pride.

What had been his own picture, his own 観察s, of the Negroes?

—Come on, you high 皇室の white man, what are we? Let's have it, Mister!

—井戸／弁護士席, the Negroes are all sullen and 背信の, like Belfreda.

—Nonsense! Mac the porter isn't and I'm not and I'm no longer so sure about Belfreda.

—They're all 黒人／ボイコット, flat-nosed, puff-lipped.

He went to the mirror, and laughed.

—What a lot I used to know that I didn't know! What a clack-mouthed parrot I was! 引用するing that fool of a Georgia doctor. Negroes not やめる human, eh? Kingsblood, Congoblood, you deserve anything you get—if it's bad enough. I think God turned me 黒人／ボイコット to save my soul, if I have any beyond ledgers and college yells. I've got to say, "You're as blind and mean and ignorant as a white man," and that's a 堅い thing to take, even from myself.

—Oh, don't be so prejudiced against the white people. No 疑問 there's a lot of them who would be just as good as anybody else, if they had my chance of redemption.

—Captain, aren't you 肉親，親類d of overdoing your glee in becoming a colored boy?

—Okay. I am.

*

Under a decayed newspaper in the desk he 設立する one sheet of Swanson-Grand letter-paper, with a half-トン of the hotel and the 指名する of the proprietor in 繁栄するing 1890 type, but with 事実上 no space for 令状ing, an 業績／成就 明らかに not 推定する／予想するd of the guests. He turned it over, took out his bankerish gold-機動力のある fountain pen, and drew up an altogether bankerish （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する of one 支店 of his ancestors:

Xavier Pic, possible French and Spanish elements but counts as 100% Negro

Sidonie, his daughter, who married Louis Payzold, was 1/2 Chippewa and 1/2 Negro

Alexandre Payzold, their son, Gramma Julie's father, 1/4 Negro

My Grandmother, Julie Saxinar, an octoroon, 1/8 Negro

Her daughter, my mother, 1/16 Negro

Myself, 1/32 Negro

Biddy, 1/64 Negro

—井戸／弁護士席, I finally do have something 利益／興味ing about our 王室の 王室の 家系 to 報告（する）／憶測 to Dad!

一時期／支部 15

It was late, but he did not go 負かす／撃墜する to dinner at the Swanson-Grand Coffee Shop. He could not 耐える sitting there and wondering whether he was 存在 星／主役にするd at. He had already discovered that the Negroes do not stay by themselves so much because they love the other Negroes as because they cannot stand the sheep-直面するd whites and their sheep-like gawking.

In a stilled panic he 棒 out to Excelsior and to the decent bungalow of Grampa Edgar Saxinar. As he （機の）カム in, the old gentleman, in a 発言する／表明する like the squeak of his 特許 rocker, 迎える／歓迎するd him, "Welcome, young man! 'Tain't often we get a chance to see your cheerful 直面する twice in one season!"

It was Gramma Julie who 需要・要求するd, "What's 事柄, boy?"

Standing rigid and large in the 中心 of the room, which smelled of pine-needle cushions, Neil said 真面目に, "Gramma, are you sure that your forbears, going 支援する to Pic, were just French and Chippewa?"

"I told you not to talk about Pic!" Grampa Edgar wailed.

She looked drawn into herself. She knew!

Neil 圧力（をかける）d it, "Are you sure we 港／避難所't a little Negro 血, too?"

She 叫び声をあげるd, "What do you mean, you young scamp? I never heard such a thing in my life!" But her wrath was too facile, and too facile was Grampa Edgar's fury. He was no longer a comic old griper sitting by the 解雇する／砲火／射撃. His 直面する was terrible, the unsparing and murderous 直面する of a lyncher. Neil had once seen a German 捕虜 look like that, and once, a drunken American 軍の policeman. Edgar 激怒（する）d, "Just 正確に／まさに what do you think you're hinting at, heh? Mean to say you've got some crazy idea your gramma's folks had nigger 血? Or are you stinking drunk? Are you trying to make me out the father of part-nigger kids—make your Uncle Emery and your own mother into niggers?"

Neil had always been chatty and tender with his grandfather, as he was with all pleasant old people, but there was no 雑談（する） nor tenderness in him now. "I hope not, but I'd like a little truth, for once. What is the truth?"

Grandpa Edgar looked pitifully old, and his passion drained out in futility. "Don't you ever 支払う／賃金 the least bit of attention to stories and dirty lies like that, Neil. It ain't true, not a word of it, but even if it was, there'd be no need for anybody but us to know it. For God's sake, boy, let's never について言及する it again."

Gramma Julie was very shrill. "絶対の 嘘（をつく）, Neilly. Some folks in Hiawatha got it up because they was jealous of how 井戸／弁護士席 Ed and I done."

It was intolerable to watch the two 古代の and withered householders （土地などの）細長い一片 themselves naked, and Neil 退却／保養地d, but with a brusqueness he could not 避ける. "All 権利, all 権利, forget it. 井戸／弁護士席, got to be getting 支援する. Night."

On the train into Minneapolis he was irritable.

—I'm sick of all this Gone With the 勝利，勝つd and Thomas Nelson Page stuff! massa on de ole 農園—massa in de 冷淡な, 冷淡な counting-house—swords and roses, and lick the damn nigger. If I'm a Negro—all 権利, I'll be one.

—I never needed a drink as bad as I do now.

But in the 妨げる／法廷，弁護士業 at the Hotel Swanson-Grand, he had orangeade, and dared not take so much as one highball. He wondered if he would ever drink another one, though highballs and he had been good friends. He looked at his many fellow-drinkers and thought of how they would turn into wolves and foxes and hyenas if his tongue were oiled enough to say what he could say.

*

All the way home, on the Borup, he resented the attentions of Mac. He 手配中の，お尋ね者 to growl, "Oh, chuck it. I belong with you." He was exasperated by Mac's obsequious laughter at the not-very-good jokes of Orlo Vay of Grand 共和国, who was a lovely man when he stuck to fitting 注目する，もくろむ-glasses, but only then.

Neil 手配中の，お尋ね者 to 需要・要求する of Mac, "How can you stand listening to that white flannel-mouth? Our people must have dignity."

Not till he had almost reached home did it occur to him that his twenty-eight hours as a Negro was かもしれない too 簡潔な／要約する a training for him to take over all of his people's manners.

*

Vestal usually saw through his 失敗ing 成果／努力s to look cheerful when things had gone wrong, but when he （機の）カム にわか景気ing into the house with "Your husband has just bought all the banks in the Twin Cities!" when he kissed her and tousled Biddy's hair in the best manner of the hearty young husband, she was not 怪しげな, and she said only, "Glad you had a nice trip. Isn't it glorious about the end of the war! Can you stand a giddy 一連の会議、交渉／完成する of 橋（渡しをする） at Curtiss Havock's tonight?"

"Yes, sure."

Curtiss, son of Boone, would be the first to yelp at him.

*

He could decide nothing at all, since he could not decide the one 支配的な question: was he going to tell the world, would he even tell Vestal?

If he kept silence, it was likely that no one would know, aside from Gramma Julie and Edgar, who most vigorously would say nothing. Dr. Werweiss would have no 推論する／理由 to trace Pic and the Payzolds to the Kingsbloods.

He had no accuser except himself. But that 孤独な accuser was so 執拗な that いつかs he fancied himself blurting, "Certainly I'm part Negro. Do you think I'm the 肉親，親類d of Judas who would 否定する the race of his mother?"

But whenever he had agreed to do something bold and 即座の, a more 冷笑的な self always jeered:

—Listen to the 勇敢に立ち向かう captain! Going to be 反抗的な, is he, the little man! Going to put yourself in the clutches of a bunch of Southern 副s, with their fishy 注目する，もくろむs and their red 握りこぶしs, when you don't have to, when it wouldn't do any good, when nobody's asking you to? You armchair 殉教者!

*

It was this slice of hell that Neil was carrying in his pocket as he 監督するd the 協定 of the 退役軍人s' 中心 booth at the bank. Mr. John William Prutt coughed his way up to him, having in 牽引する Mrs. John William Prutt, who had an astringent 直面する but what would have been a voluptuous bosom if it had not also been a 完全に Christian bosom.

The lady gurgled, "It seems to me that Mr. Prutt and you are making a mistake in having this booth so 厳しい in color. As you know, I never intrude on banking 商売／仕事—I know how many marriages have been 廃虚d by the wife's doing that, even with the best 意向s—but I do feel I have a real instinct for Decoration—I know how many women （人命などを）奪う，主張する to have that, with their silly chatter about 'curtains 選ぶing up the mauve of the couch,' but I feel I really do have it—and after all, so many of the 退役軍人s will be coming in here with their sweethearts or brides or whatnot, and you can 控訴，上告 to them by a deft dash of color—say, a lovely cushion of crocus-yellow on the （法廷の）裁判—so spring-like and 控訴，上告ing. I think that might be very important, don't you—one of these things that's often neglected, but is really important!"

Then Mr. Prutt, in his more jovial mood, rich joviality with just a splash of vinegar: "Now Neil, you don't have to agree with my good lady, you know. Are you really sold on the idea that it's important?"

"I'm not sure that I know what is important, sir," said Neil.

—What would they say if I told them?

*

And "What would they say if I told them?" 脅すd him and depressed him and devilishly tempted him to speak up whenever he met Wilbur Feathering, that Southerner who was now reconciled to Northern cash-登録（する）s and who sang "Bringing in the Sheaves" to the tune of "Dixie." Or whenever, at the Sylvan Park Tennis Club, he listened to W. S. Vander, the lumberman, Cedric Staubermeyer, 売買業者 in rugs and anti-Semitism, and Orlo Vay, the political optician, who agreed, between 始める，決めるs, that our American liberties, 含むing the 権利s to chew タバコ and to 告発（する），告訴（する）／料金 顧客s whatever you damn 井戸／弁護士席 pleased, were 脅すd.

They were all good neighbors, ready to lend Neil the lawnmower or a 瓶／封じ込める of gin, all good 顧客s at the bank, speaking 井戸／弁護士席 of his 儀礼 and steadiness, and they were all lynchers, of the Northern or inoperative variety, who had "built up good 商売／仕事s by their own unaided 産業 and 成果／努力s, and didn't for one by God second ーするつもりである to let any sentimental love for the lazy bums of 労働者s stand in the way of their 持つ／拘留するing の上に what they got."

With them, there was no question of what they would say if he told.

*

Vestal had gone up to bed. He was alone on the sun-porch, that bland May midnight, restless in his chintz-and-wicker armchair, trying to read an article on "The Use of 法案s of Lading in International Credit under 一時的な 地位，任命する-War 財政上の Structures." It was very 有望な and 井戸／弁護士席 written, and it had a picture of the Paris Bourse for illustration, but he laid it 負かす／撃墜する, he laid it 負かす／撃墜する 堅固に, and heard the 郊外の 静かな flow over him.

He looked about the airy room, at the ivy on the indoor trellis, the glass-and-nickel-cocktail shaker on the little green 妨げる／法廷，弁護士業. He thought of Vestal's 直面する serene on her pillow, and Biddy curled in a golden ball. Next month, Biddy would have her fifth birthday, and she 手配中の，お尋ね者 to know why she couldn't be of age to 投票（する） then. She 明言する／公表するd that she wished to 投票（する） for her father for 大統領, and she would not be put off by her mother's frivolous 推論する／理由, "Oh, no, dear; your father is much too good-looking to be 大統領."

All this simple happiness—

He would say something that would betray him; some Wilbur Feathering would 選ぶ it up; he would be 不名誉d, lose their modest 安全, this true home that was his love and Vestal's made 明白な. He pictured the ruthless second-手渡す-furniture 売買業者s and grinning neighbors （人が）群がるing in here to buy this furniture—cheap—while Vestal and Biddy stood weeping like a 中央の-Victorian 未亡人 and 孤児 with shawl.

"No! I'll 保存する our home with my life!"

—Sounds like old-fashioned melodrama. 井戸／弁護士席, I feel like melodrama!

It （機の）カム to him, slyly, shockingly, that he could best 保存する that home by his death. From the 冷淡な tombs he could say nothing that would give him away. As a Sylvan Park 商売／仕事 man would, he carried large life 保険. There must be some way of committing 自殺 so that it would not be 設立する out—something about a car running off an 堤防 and 燃やすing?

That day in the bank had been hard and fussy with Pruttery and he was tired in a way that he had not known he could be, drained-out by the 見通し of what might happen to him. If he could 静かに pass out, 安全な・保証する Biddy's 未来—

Then he laughed.

—I seem to be learning a lot of new 可能性s. I despise the rich 投資家s who jumped out of windows during the last 不景気—poor white leeches who couldn't take it unless they had two chauffeurs to bleed. We Negroes don't do that.

He laughed again, not affectedly, not for any audience, not even for his own audience.

*

Randy Spruce, (n)役員／(a)執行力のある 長官 of the Grand 共和国 議会 of 商業, was a chum of Wilbur Feathering who, though born in Stote, Mississippi, on a red clay hill, was now a 国民 of Minnesota and a patron of skiing, a sport which he gave the impression of having invented, though he did not 現実に practise it. Mr. Feathering was 創立者 and 大統領，／社長 of "The Hot on the 位置／汚点／見つけ出す Home Food 供給（する） Company—hot meals in your own dinette—everything from a 挟む to a banquich—linen & silver if 願望（する）d—run, 儀式, or fone."

That was Wilbur Feathering. The meals were not bad, the 利益（をあげる）s were enormous, and he was popular throughout Grand 共和国 except の中で people who did not like race-憎悪 or noises of the mouth.

He had been useful in giving ideas to the 議会 of 商業, and Randy Spruce often said, "I often say a man in my position as a professional booster of all 今後-looking 企業s and the American Way of Life has ideas as his 長，指導者 在庫／株 in 貿易（する）. I make a practice of not 単に reading the magazines and listening to all the 一連の会議、交渉／完成する-（米）棚上げする／（英）提議するs on the 無線で通信する, but I am not above taking suggestions from the humblest—as I often say, like a Polack or a union member."

Randy was glad to have from one of the Featherings of Stote the Real Lowdown on the Negro Problem.

The 利益 of this Lowdown was felt second-手渡す by Neil, when Randy and he served on a 委員会 of nine to arrange a citywide welcome to the returning 退役軍人s.

Randy was fretting, "Of course there's やめる a few nigger G.I.'s, and we got 直す／買収する，八百長をする it so they don't horn in on the parade of our white heroes."

"Couldn't the 黒人／ボイコット 退役軍人s be heroes, too?" 示唆するd Dr. Norman Kamber.

"Hell, no!" Randy explained. "As I often say, all the nigger 軍隊／機動隊s were insubordinate and afraid of 冷淡な steel. The high 命令（する） just 手渡すd out a few decorations to 'em to keep 'em from 反乱（を起こす）, so we wouldn't have to shoot the whole bunch. A 陸軍大佐 told me that. But Wilbur Feathering has a 罰金 suggestion. We'll cook up a separate homecoming for the zigaboos, on Mayo Street; parade and 花火s and 旗，新聞一面トップの大見出し／大々的に報道するs and some 部分 of a horse like 下院議員 Oberg to make an oration. We'll tell 'em that we didn't want to have 'em get lost in the white shuffle, so we're 栄誉（を受ける）ing 'em special. Those niggers are so dumb they'll believe it."

"Are all Negroes dumb?" Neil 手配中の，お尋ね者 to know.

"All of 'em!"

"What about the ones that are just part Negro?"

"My boy, as I often say, if a man has one 減少（する） of nigger 血, he's a phony. Uncreative, that's the idee. You don't think a circus dog is intelligent because his owner has trained him to ride a bicycle and 行為／法令／行動する drunk like a scholar, do you? That's why no nigger can 持つ／拘留する 負かす／撃墜する a responsible position. Doc, you can call me a liar if you can show me one nigger that could be a 部隊d 明言する／公表するs 上院議員."

"Hiram Revels or B. K. Bruce," said Dr. Kamber.

"Who? What makes you think those niggers could be 上院議員s?"

"They were!"

"Oh, I get you. Wasn't that in 再建 days? Feathering explains that. It was because those niggers were just out of slavery, where they'd been trained in 産業 and obedience. But since then, with all this loose freedom, the colored folks have 簡単に gone to hell in a 切り開く／タクシー／不正アクセス intellectually, to say nothing of their immorality, and today there isn't one of them that's fit to 持つ／拘留する 負かす／撃墜する any 任命 higher than cityhall 管理人."

Neil was brooding:

—What's the use? I shall never tell anybody. That's settled! It was as simple as that.

一時期／支部 16

June the twelfth was all brightness and lilacs and new leaves, as was 要求するd, for June the twelfth was Biddy's fifth birthday. It was fit for the birthday of a little white lady, with white blossoms, white dresses, and all the white children in the 封鎖する admiring her and the new roller skates and the toy theater, gold and white.

Neil （機の）カム home 早期に. The half-dozen girls and the four 叫び声をあげるing but attentive young gentlemen of Biddy's age were playing hide-and-捜し出す in the 支援する yard, around the 固く結び付ける fish-pond and Biddy's playhouse, of white clapboards 厚い-covered with vines. All the children, 特に Peggy Havock, were fond of Neil, and they danced about him affectionately, crying, "Oh, Mister Capten Kingsblood—oh Mister Capten Kingsblood!"

Vestal （機の）カム out of the house, tall and benign as an angel, in a long 下落する-green dress, gold-girdled, and she bore the maple 層-cake of the day, on which, in white on yellow icing, was handsomely engrossed, "Our Biddy—5." The six pink candles (one to grow on) were 安定した in the 静める, happy summer afternoon.

To receive the cake, the histrionic Biddy popped into her playhouse and （機の）カム out wearing her gilt Christmas 栄冠を与える. But if she 主張するd on 存在 a queen, she was a popular 憲法の 君主, and she 削減（する） and 分配するd the slices of cake with 王室の 司法（官）. Neil watched her, and remembered that not for many days had he thought of the 血 王室の. She had it, 明確に, but was it from the old lecher, Henry VIII, or from Xavier Pic, regent of the wilderness?

Biddy romped up to him, her 注目する，もくろむs diamonds for happiness. She reached up to 抱擁する his waist. "Daddy, I never did have such a lovely birthday, not in all my life. Am I always going to have lovely birthdays like this?"

He kissed her 概略で.

Prince, erstwhile "Nigger," who all along had assumed that this was his birthday party and that it was his social 義務 to welcome his little friends by yelping at them and 押し進めるing them over, （機の）カム hysterically bounding up, licking Biddy's 直面する, knocking off her 栄冠を与える and laughing at her, and Biddy forgot her 王室の dignity in a shrill, "Now you bad ole dog, you stop it and be good now or I'll 支配する you 権利 out of my cas-tel, you bad ole dog you, nigger!"

Neil was irritated.

*

To Neil at his desk in the bank, （機の）カム Dr. Ash Davis, and Dr. Davis was a Negro, his 直面する the color of 乾燥した，日照りの brown 有望な autumn leaves in the sun. Neil had heard that one of the 狼狽ing exigencies of the war had been that the Wargate 実験の 研究室／実験室 had had to 雇う this colored fellow, Davis—oh, a good enough 化学者／薬剤師, a Doctor of Science from the University of Chicago, but still and all, just a darky. That certainly showed, didn't it (agreed everybody at the Boosters Club 昼食), how hard-up we were for 動員可能数. Though it was a question whether any 考えられる 出資／貢献 to the war 成果／努力 could 正当化する a precedent like that, of giving a white man's 職業 to a 堅い dinge. God knows what it might lead to!

Oh, yes, Neil had heard of Ash Davis.

For the first time in his life he really looked at a "colored man." He had never looked at Belfreda, at the Emerson Woolcape who had been in his class all through school, at Mac, at the Negro 兵士s; he had not looked at them but only been impatiently aware of them, as though in Arabia he were searching for a road-調印する in English or French or some human language, and 設立する nothing but an absurd 調印する in Arabic. Certainly he had never looked at the Negro 報知係s who had arranged with him for bank 貸付金s. They had been 単に dark 手渡すs 持つ／拘留するing papers, dark 発言する／表明するs that were over-ingratiating.

He looked now at Ash Davis, but he did not see a "Negro," a "colored man." He saw a curiously charming man of the world who seemed also to be a scholar. He was pricked by the familiar feeling, "Where have I known him before?" He realized that here, 加える an extra tan, was Captain Tony Ellerton of the army 輸送（する）, his one 完全に ungrudging friend.

Dr. Davis was a man of forty, わずかな／ほっそりした, compact, very 平易な, not tall, wearing a small 黒人／ボイコット mustache without foppishness. His 注目する，もくろむs were 安定した. He was dressed like any other 井戸／弁護士席-to-do professional man, but he wore his gray lounge-控訴 with a ばく然と European 空気／公表する. Had Neil been Sherlock Holmes, he might have （悪事，秘密などを）発見するd in Dr. Davis's accent an Ohio boyhood, three years in England and フラン and Russia, friendships with tennis-partners and piano-teachers and 研究室／実験室-mates. But he knew only that Dr. Davis spoke 明確に and pleasantly, rather like Rodney Aldwick, but more 正確に.

He was, in fact, deciding, "This Davis is a 有望な-looking fellow. I didn't know there were any Negroes like him. 井戸／弁護士席, how could I? I've never even had the chance to see them."

(As a 事柄 of fact, a few months before, Neil had sat opposite Dr. Ash Davis in a bus, had heard him talking to a large Negro with a clerical collar, and had never looked at either of them.)

Dr. Davis had, he said, come to beg.

With the war over, hundreds of Negroes would be 解任するd from 地元の factories, and the leaders of the Negro community were working with the 都市の League in trying to 説得する 地元の 商売／仕事 会社／堅いs to give them 職業s. Could the Second 国家の 雇う one or two? He could produce a number of colored 商売／仕事-school 卒業生（する）s who in 戦時 had been clerks, bookkeepers. How about it?

"How do you happen to come to me?" fretted Neil. "I'd like to do anything I can, but I'm only an assistant cashier."

Ash Davis had a smile that 招待するd companionship. "Dr. Norman Kamber, who is a good friend of my race, told me you were one 銀行業者 who could be やめる human. I'm afraid that doesn't sound too complimentary!"

"For Doc Kamber it does. 井戸／弁護士席, I'll see what can be done. I really will!"

He tried to think of something that would 持つ／拘留する Dr. Davis in talk. He acutely needed someone who understood this Thing that he had become. And the thoughts that had been growing pallidly in the 不明瞭 of his brooding became fresh and strong in the （疑いを）晴らす light of Ash Davis's presence. He 反映するd, "This seems to be a very agreeable fellow and he has to beg white men for a chance for his people. It makes me mad that he should have to be almost obsequious to a louse of a bank clerk like me. He's a lot smarter than I am. 井戸／弁護士席, Kingsblood, there is a chance for you, if you can 認める your superiors."

He made talk, so far as he could, about 職業s for Negroes, but he shyly did not know whether to say "Negro" or "colored people" or neither. Dr. Davis 緩和するd away and, for the second time in his life (the first was Borus Bugdoll), in this 手渡す-mauling land, Neil was shaking 手渡すs with a Negro.

He seemed to 苦しむ no 傷害s from it.

*

He put it cunningly to John William Prutt that, as they had several 繁栄する Negro depositors, and some day they might have more, perhaps they せねばならない 雇う one or two Negro clerks. Prutt looked at him pityingly.

"My boy, I'm pleased that you take a 自由主義の 態度 toward the Negro. I long for the day when they'll get a decent education and be able to take their stand 権利 と一緒に white 労働者s—in their own Southland. But they don't belong up here, and the kindest thing to do is to let 'em 餓死する till it 侵入するs their 厚い 長，率いるs that they せねばならない hustle 支援する South...Besides, our 顧客s would kick like hell!"

*

On his way home, he stopped for a cocktail with his father. That gentle fusser fussed gently, "Got any furtherer on our 王室の path, Neilly?"

"I think maybe I have, Dad."

*

He thought of Dr. Ash Davis by contrast that evening, for it was 棒 Aldwick's 広大な／多数の／重要な homecoming party—行う／開催する／段階d by 棒 himself, since no one else could 行う／開催する／段階 it so 井戸／弁護士席.

Major Rodney Aldwick of the 戦車／タンク 軍団, in 私的な life lawyer and 投資家, 卒業生（する） of Princeton and of Harvard 法律, trained in 国家の Guard 作戦行動s, tanned and tall and lean, with cropped Prussian hair, was a 兵士, a gentleman adventurer, a 強硬派, a handsaw, a hero. To Neil, five years his junior, 棒 in high-school days had always been the hero. 棒 could do his algebra, 訂正する his tango step, show him where the best pickerel （軍の）野営地，陣営d in Dead Squaw Lake, coach him in ホッケー, 増強する him in wars with ギャング（団）s of 政治家s and Italians, 慰安 him when Ellen Havock turned him 負かす／撃墜する, lend him fifty cents, and explain the mysteries of 税金s and the Trinity and why decent men like their fathers never 投票（する）d the Democratic ticket. Not that 棒 did do any of these heroic things for Neil, who had gone through boyhood pretty 刻々と on his own feet, but Neil had felt fervently that he would do them if he were asked.

In his Eastern college days, as Neil learned from afar, 棒 had been 平等に deft at 審議ing and at polo, and while he sozzled with the rowdies he 選ぶd up in New York 妨げる／法廷，弁護士業s and took the 誓い of the Brother in 血 in pretzels and in salt, he seduced 非，不，無 but girls of families above or below the ゆすり，恐喝 line, and said with the humorous clarity typical of him even in 青年, "When I get ready to run for the 上院, there won't be any little bastards on the 壇・綱領・公約."

棒 lived not in the 甘い neighborliness of Sylvan Park but next door to Dr. Roy Drover, in the grandeur of Ottawa 高さs. He was now on 終点 leave from the Army, a 人物／姿／数字 of romantic war, given to 特に tailored 戦う／戦い-jackets. For his own welcome, the wide oaken 床に打ち倒すs of his large house had been waxed, his collection of 水晶 vases and bowls, new-washed and glittering, had been filled with daffodils, and behind a Chinese 審査する, 解放するd from the unlawful 手渡すs of German 略奪者s, a four-piece orchestra played Delius and Copland. It was the first warm summer evening in that Northern land, and the men were out in white-flannel dinner jackets (and damn 冷淡な they were, too) and the flower of 地元の womanhood were in white 逮捕する with Mexican shawls.

棒 moved like a 候補者 from admiring knot to knot, and to Neil and Vestal he said 簡単に, "You two—now I know I'm home! Neilly, I've heard how gallantly you took your 負傷させる, and I heard it from some pretty high-最高位の 厚かましさ／高級将校連 on the Other 味方する. I said to them, 'He's about my oldest friend, that boy, and am I proud of him!'"

Neil's stomach 燃やすd with pride, and he was annoyed later to hear Dr. Drover 推測する, "Looks to me like 棒 is going in for 人気 and politics when he gets out of the Army."

棒's wife, Janet was just a little taller than Vestal and a little better made-up and a little chattier about horse-shows, and 棒's son and daughter were as 冷静な／正味の and decorative as the wide house, and Neil felt that he was where he せねばならない be. When 棒 could detach himself from 広まる like a first 長官 of 大使館 and 交流 with Neil precious recollections of juvenile basketball and of beer in the high-school locker room, Neil decided that they were two gentlemen and officers and responsible men of 事件／事情／状勢s, standing together, shoulder to shoulder, for the higher ideals and 企業 of America.

The thought of Xavier Pic was but a ghost haunting a ghost, and Ash Davis was a fellow who worked in a 研究室／実験室.

*

Captain Kingsblood asked in a high manner of Major Aldwick, "Did you see any colored 軍隊／機動隊s in 活動／戦闘? Didn't happen to, myself."

"I certainly did! A 黒人／ボイコット 戦車／タンク outfit 旅団d with 地雷, and they were terrible: sullen and undisciplined and we had to keep 押し進めるing 'em ahead of us into 戦闘. There was a colored sergeant in that outfit that was an 絶対の Bolshevik. Instead of going through proper channels, he was always こそこそ動くing （民事の）告訴s to the general 命令（する）ing, through crooked 整然としたs—危うくするing our whole 意気込み／士気 with a lot of bellyaching about the Negroes 存在 segregated in transportation and Red Cross 供給（する）s. If our staff could have managed it, there was one dusky gentleman that would never have come home to his hot mama in the 甘い land of liberty!"

Suddenly, to Neil, it wasn't so; the 黒人／ボイコット 兵士s had not been like that; and as to the 反抗的な sergeant whom 棒 had sportingly 手配中の，お尋ね者 to 殺人—"It could be me!" thought Neil.

He was most civil to 棒 at parting.

一時期／支部 17

If he could not believe that many of his own race were as 棒 Aldwick had 設立する them, he had to see something of what they 現実に were. Where could he look at a 集会 of them? In a movie theater? In a church?

There must be a Negro church in Grand 共和国, now that it had a couple of thousand 黒人／ボイコット inhabitants; there must be Negroes who went to church, wouldn't you think? (His mother did!)

When he was having his shoes 向こうずねd in the 地階 washroom of the Hotel Pineland, he looked 負かす／撃墜する more gently than had been his custom at old Wash, the 向こうずね-boy, whose 指名する was not Wash, but George Gray, and who was not a boy but a man 老年の and tiny and infinitely 患者. He was the one Negro whom Randy Spruce most 好意d, as "knowing his place and taking his cap off to us white gents." He was also the grandfather of Belfreda Gray.

There was something shameful in Wash, bent and spiderlike and more gray than 黒人／ボイコット. He peered up at Neil and out of his 古代の dusty memories he 選ぶd an unclean one about Belfreda, and he sniggered tinily, "井戸／弁護士席, Cap'n, suh, you suttinly done 権利 when you kicked Belfreda's tail outa yo' house. She's a little slut. I can't do nothin' with huh." He giggled. "She sleeps with every no-count niggah in town. Can't do nothin' with these biggity young No'th'n niggahs, no suh!"

Neil said genially, as the young prince, "Oh, Belfreda wasn't so bad. She's just young. Uh, Wash—uh—where is there a colored church in this town?"

Wash turned rigid. He looked up painfully, his filmy 注目する，もくろむs were grim and discerning, and most of his "cullud" 行う／開催する／段階 dialect dropped as he 需要・要求するd, "What you want to know for?"

"I'd like to …に出席する one."

"We don't like white folks coming to laugh at us—not when we're praying."

"Honestly, Wash, I had no idea of laughing."

"What else man like you want to come for?"

"I just felt I せねばならない understand your part of town better."

"We don't like ギャング（団） of people slumming."

"I'd be alone, and perfectly reverent, I hope."

Neil was not conscious of how humble he had become to this venerable 年上の of his race. Wash said grudgingly, "井戸／弁護士席, Mister, they's fo' or five, but you might try the Ebenezer Baptist—Reverend Brewster's church—in the Five Points, Mayo Street and Omaha Avenue. I go there. We think Reverend Brewster is real smart."

Neil knew ばく然と that the Darktown of Grand 共和国 was called the "Five Points," and had Mayo Street as its 主要な／長／主犯 thoroughfare. His bank held mortgages there, and he had driven through it, but eyelessly. Of "Reverend Brewster" he had never heard, and with a white man's matey joviality, as Wash returned to 向こうずねing his shoes, Neil crowed, "Isn't Brewster 肉親，親類d of a Yankee 指名する, for a colored preacher?"

"He is a Yankee."

"Oh!"

"He's what they call a Doctor of Philosophy."

Neil could not but chuckle at this darky malapropism. "You mean Doctor of Divinity."

Something of Wash's professional Dixie dialect crept 支援する into humble speech as he 主張するd, "No, Suh! He got one these Doctor Philosophy degrees from this Columbia University, in Harlem."

"And Doctor Davis. Has everybody on Mayo Street got a college degree?"

"No, suh, there's a few of us come along too 早期に."

The white man in Captain Kingsblood wondered, "Is this old devil kidding me?"

*

He had lied to Vestal.

On that June Sunday morning he had told her that he was going to lunch with a 退役軍人s' 協会 in the South End. He 解任するd the fictions he had produced at the 明言する／公表する Historical Society, and 反映するd that he was becoming only too good a liar.

He went by bus to the Five Points, and walked 西方の on Mayo Street. It was like any other lower-middle-class shopping 中心, in its flabby look, its tawdry 木造の 蓄える／店 buildings plastered with home-painted 調印するs. In the 封鎖する between Denver Avenue and Omaha, there were two drugstores not so unlike the 国内の treasure-houses of Sylvan Park in their 陳列する，発揮するs of waterbottles, 祈り-調書をとる／予約するs, aspirin, douches, and piles of the Sunday Frontier-旗，新聞一面トップの大見出し／大々的に報道する. The Co-op Food 蓄える／店, the Old English Grocery, the Electric Shop, with "reconditioned 無線で通信するs" in the show-window, all reminded him of that Anglo-Saxon city, Grand 共和国, and so did the Lustgarten Meat Market, which was in an old 住居 with a new shop-前線 carelessly slapped on the ground 床に打ち倒す and family washing still 繁栄するing above. Yet this familiar 密談する／（身体を）寄せ集める became strange to Neil as he realized that he did not see one white 直面する on the （人が）群がるd sidewalk.

In 前線 of shuttered doors, over each of which was the 調印する "Beds 75 cents," were groups of burly Negro 労働者s 星／主役にするing at him as though he was the 侵入者 that he was, and most of them were talking in dialect from the 深い South so 厚い that he could not understand them. He saw a young blade in a zoot-控訴: yellow sports jacket, ゆらめくing lavender trousers, toothpick-toed shoes, and a 幅の広い 黒人／ボイコット hat 辛勝する／優位d with white. He saw a couple rolling up the middle of the street, 武器 entwined, singing, and, as advertised, he saw one "colored mammy," fat ebon 直面する grinning under a red and yellow bandanna.

And when he looked 負かす／撃墜する a 味方する street he saw that behind neat stucco cottages, with tidy small lawns, there was such a diminutive ジャングル slum as he had not known could 存在する in the enlightened Northern 明言する／公表するs: shacks one behind another, three 深い, in the 中心 of the 封鎖する, 攻撃するd doghouses such as no truly 企業ing dog would have 耐えるd, each with a couple of インチs of stove 麻薬を吸う for chimney. The whole ground between the shacks was a maggot-heap of dogs, chickens, and 明らかにする brown babies.

That 脅すd him. "How would I like turning 黒人／ボイコット, and having to bring Vestal and Biddy 負かす／撃墜する here?"

And he was more 確かな that he could never become "colored" when he passed the Beale Street 妨げる／法廷，弁護士業-B-Q and saw the dark cloud of Negroes looking hatefully through the steamy window at the slumming white man; when he （機の）カム to the Jumpin' Jive night club which, he thought, belonged to Belfreda's friend, the sardonic Borus Bugdoll, who had made light of the Kingsbloods in their own kitchen. It had been a 蓄える／店; the show-window was now filled with a gilded plaster seashell decked with silvered pine-反対／詐欺s and 毒（薬）-green 略章s, でっちあげる，人を罪に陥れるing the blown-up photograph of an almost naked 黒人／ボイコット dancing-girl.

The street was more 外国人 to Neil than Italy in 戦時, and it seemed to him that every dusky 直面する, every rickety 塀で囲む, hated him and would always hate him, and he might 同様に go home.

But all of this had taken only five minutes of slow walking, and in the sixth minute the sorcery was 解除するd and he was の中で people who, though their 直面するs were more beloved of the sun, were like any other group of middle-class church-going Americans.

They were Dr. Brewster's congregation, enjoying their 週刊誌 gossip before the church bell should 召喚する them in: placid and 井戸／弁護士席-shaven men, wearing the 肉親，親類d of Sunday 着せる／賦与するs that people do wear on Sunday; Mothers in Zion, nervously thin or comfortably buxom, talking about their sons in the service; supernaturally Sunday-neatened small boys restless in tight shoes and little girls flaunting Sunday splendor; 年上のs with a long good life 記録，記録的な／記録するd in their etched 直面するs; voluble babies who had not yet heard that they were Negroes and who assumed that they were babies.

The 発言する／表明するs of that half of them who were Northern-born sounded like the 発言する／表明するs of any other Minnesotans; and while they looked at Neil with a slight doubtfulness, they did not make him feel like an 侵入者 as had the derisive loafers at the 妨げる／法廷，弁護士業-B-Q.

The Ebenezer Baptist Church was a small tidy oblong of brick, with an absurd dwarf steeple. The （疑いを）晴らす glass windows, rather 狭くする, with 木造の でっちあげる，人を罪に陥れるs rising to 頂点（に達する）s that tried to 示唆する Gothic arches, had 挿入するs of colored glass 陳列する，発揮するing Bible texts in script. With that, the Gothic 復活 ended.

The little bell quacked, and the amiable （人が）群がる bobbed slowly up the steps, shyly followed by Neil.

Inside, the church seemed to Neil いっそう少なく like a place of worship than a 宿泊する room. It was lined with gray wallboard, neatly fastened with red-topped thumb-tacks, and neat and gray the straight lines of pews. Texts, gold-embossed on 黒人／ボイコット 掲示s, were on the 塀で囲むs, with a portrait of a 黒人／ボイコット St. Augustine of Carthage. On a 壇・綱領・公約 in 前線 was a choir of nine girls in 黒人／ボイコット gowns and 迫撃砲 boards. Two of them were creamy white.

The surprise to Neil, himself a Baptist and brought up to 公然と非難する the heathen gauds of Rome, was that against a pathetic little reredos of 木造の latticework stood a home-made altar with a lace-辛勝する／優位d cloth on which was an imitation jeweled cross.

He had been standing as awkwardly as a new 患者 in a doctor's waiting-room. Would they resent him; ask him to get out? But the 勧める who tiptoed toward him, a man 黒人／ボイコット-silk 黒人／ボイコット, with a flat nose and 激しい lips, smiled at him as though in the House of God they were friends. He was wearing a blue-gray herring-bone 控訴 正確に／まさに like the newest pride of Neil's father. He touched Neil's arm politely, led him halfway 負かす／撃墜する, 厳粛に 動議d, and Neil had another First in his career as a Negro. He sat 負かす／撃墜する between two colored people and they seemed to him very much like people.

On his left was a small woman who ignored him, as her lips moved in 早い silent 祈り; on the other 味方する was a large man, 黒人／ボイコット as a cellar, who was probably a carpenter or a painter and who 屈服するd good-naturedly in answer to Neil's flustered nod.

He looked over the mimeographed church 公式発表, and wondered about the 肩書を与える of the 牧師's sermon: "配達するd from 汚職." Would it be something funny and inferior and Negroid, for all that doubtful pastoral Ph.D. degree, or would it be just another of the Baptist sermons that all these years (once a month or so) he had been chewing without tasting?

Then, through a 狭くする 味方する door to the chancel, the Reverend Dr. Evan Brewster made 入り口. For a moment he seemed to be showing off, as he 停止（させる）d to look over his flock, to 星／主役にする doubtfully at Neil. But the theatricality, if it was such, lasted only a moment; then Dr. Brewster chatted with the choir, muttered something to an 勧める—Neil was afraid that it might be a scurrility about himself—and moved to the reading stand, a priest in his 寺, 確信して and serene.

Evan Brewster was a large man, 黒人／ボイコット as a japanned 行為-box, with the shoulders of a roustabout and just the kinks of hair, the 押し進めるd-in nose, bulbous mouth, sloping forehead, thin 脚s that Neil had seen in every picture of a 黒人／ボイコット ドッキングする／減らす／ドックに入れる-walloper, every primeval brute who 定期的に 強襲，強姦s fatherly white policemen. He was everything that would give a petal-pale white lady a shock, and if Neil was いっそう少なく delicate, still he was disapproving that this bruiser should mock the 宗教上の Baptist pulpit by wearing, over his rather shiny blue 控訴, the canonical primness of a Geneva gown.

Dr. Brewster was silent, looking at them, and Neil slowly permitted himself to see that never, in any human 直面する, had he known such gentleness, such 親切, such honest and manly sweetness, such outpouring love for all living 存在s and all life. And when he spoke, his 発言する／表明する was that of any vigorous and scholarly man who had gone from a literate family to a shrewd university, the 発言する／表明する of a man who could also be intolerably eloquent.

"Friends—and 特に the new friends whom we welcome here this morning—may we start with singing How 会社／堅い a 創立／基礎, Ye Saints of the Lord? It is a 戦う／戦い Hymn of the 共和国 for these days of 戦う／戦い."

*

Evan Brewster—and he really was a Ph.D. of Columbia—had also …に出席するd Harvard College and the Union Theological Seminary, where the students believe in a trinity of Father, Son and Sociology—the Father as a symbol, the Son as a poetic myth, and Sociology with a pink halo. But after that, Evan got 宗教 and race.

He had been born in a Massachusetts village of elms and white steeples, his father a tailor with white patrons. He was something over forty now, with a 静かな wife, a daughter 指名するd Thankful, and a son 指名するd Winthrop, who now in high school was showing talent for physics. When he had first come to Grand 共和国, as a missionary to his people, his church had been a shanty in Swede Hollow. In his dozen years here he had seen the Negro island 拡大する from three or four hundred to two thousand; had seen over-timid or over-bumptious dark 移民，移住（する）s from the Carolinas and Texas turn into 国民s; seen the young people going to college, becoming army officers, 令状ing for the Defender, the 特使, the 広報担当者.

Swede Hollow became overcrowded with Finns and 政治家s and Scandinavians; rents were grossly raised (by favorite 顧客s of the Second 国家の Bank); and Dr. Brewster led his own flock and most of the other Negroes from Swede Hollow to the brick-fields and 押し寄せる／沼地s where the Five Points was to rise. When his new church was built, he worked with his members in laying brick, while his doe-like wife, Corinne, served coffee and brought the hymn-調書をとる／予約するs to the men and lent her lipstick to the sisters.

裁判官 Cass Timberlane had once said that Dr. Evan Brewster was the most intelligent person in Grand 共和国. That was doubtful, when you considered Sweeney Fishberg or Dr. and Mrs. Kamher or a couple of Wargate 化学者／薬剤師s 指名するd Ash Davis and 対処する Anderson, or かもしれない 裁判官 Timberlane himself. But 非，不，無 of these competent people had Evan Brewster's love for all 苦しむing human 存在s.

Neil Kingsblood's friends had never heard of Dr. Brewster.

*

During the hymn, which the congregation sang with neither a comic swing nor any of the richness fictionally associated with spirituals, but like any other evangelical Americans, Neil looked at the people about him.

Except for four or five of whom he was in 疑問, they all seemed "colored." He 認めるd only two: Wash, the bootblack-下落する, who now, in a 二塁打-breasted blue jacket, looked like a tiny, secret, fatherly old ユダヤ人の international 銀行業者, and 裁判官 Timberlane's cook-general, Mrs. Higbee.

When they had finished singing and sat listening to the gospel, Neil discovered that his sense of their 存在 "colored," 存在 外国人, 存在 fundamentally different from himself, had evaporated. Their similarity to one another in duskiness and fuzzy hair was so much いっそう少なく than their individual differences that they had already 中止するd 存在 Negroes and become People, to wonder about, to love and hate.

Evan Brewster was no longer ugly to him, in his 厚い virility, but noble as a grizzly is noble, and Neil saw dimly what a piece of impertinence it had been for the Caucasians to 始める，決める up their own anemic dryness as the 訂正する 基準 of beauty.

He was not an amused tourist; it was desperate for him to know his own people. His 見通し was magnified, and he was able to see how these Negroes 変化させるd in complexion, from 黒人／ボイコット-glass to vellum and cream and 巡査 and lemon-yellow; and there was one man, pale and ひどく freckled and almost as red-長，率いるd as Neil himself, about whom you にもかかわらず felt 確かな that he was a "Negro."

He began to identify them with the white people he knew. The large and probably bad-tempered woman who had been singing with such powerful unction was unquestionably Mrs. Boone Havock. The dashing lady, slender, amiable but aloof, whose 直面する was 影をつくる／尾行するd by a 攻撃するd 黒人／ボイコット hat dripping with lilac 逮捕する, with pearl earrings （疑いを）晴らす against her dark neck, was Mrs. Don Pennloss, and a proud woman who was more white than any white person and yet 明白に was not "white," could be no one but the 排除的 Eve Champeris.

The workman beside him, who had smiled and 申し込む／申し出d him an opened hymn-調書をとる／予約する, was the old Scotch-Irish carpenter who used to give him, as a small boy, the long 甘い shavings for use as 耐えるd and wigs and kindling for Indian （軍の）野営地，陣営-解雇する／砲火／射撃s.

Neil had never seen how beautiful 手渡すs can be till now, when he was sensitively aware of the carpenter's palms. The 支援するs of his 手渡すs were dark gray, a 疲れた／うんざりした color, but the palms were worn pink as Neil's own, except in the creases, where there still clung a dark 色合い, and his nails were pink as Neil's. They were 手渡すs competent to 引き裂く off old boards, to しっかり掴む a 大打撃を与える, to guide a chisel, to bless a child.

"Maybe 手渡すs like that do something better than make 人物／姿／数字s in ledgers," sighed Neil.

*

He tried to find out whether they did smell like that.

Like most Americans, he had always touchingly believed that all Negroes have an especial and detestable savor, and he could be seen now 真面目に 匂いをかぐing. He did catch a 際立った odor, but it was the aroma of soap, moth balls, and laundry which is peculiar to all church congregations, white, 黒人／ボイコット, yellow, or magenta, on any warm Sunday morning. Indeed his 探検 into the mysteries of his own people was a 失敗 insofar as he 推定する／予想するd to find them different from that other caste, 平等に his own people, who were called whites.

He, the customary even if not very credulous Baptist, felt at home in this Baptist church.

As he had begun to find in Dr. Brewster the 厳しい beauty of a rough bronze statue and the spiritual beauty of a Coptic saint beneath the 砂漠 sun, so he began to relish the ヒョウ beauty in the woman with the pearl earrings, and the healthy, flapper-and-bobby-sox beauty of these appallingly typical American schoolgirls about him.

一時期／支部 18

The sermon of Dr. Brewster was long and stately. Under divine 法律 and divine love, he lectured, there can be no 汚職 save by the will of the corrupted.

It did not mean very much to a young man who 手配中の，お尋ね者 to know what was the 権利 course for a person whom God had made white but whom the 法律を制定する （法の）制定s of many God-恐れるing 明言する／公表するs of the Union had made 黒人／ボイコット. It was such a sermon as might have been preached in any Rockefeller-Gothic church on Fifth Avenue, Michigan Avenue, or Hollywood Boulevard. In Neil's waxing 願望（する） to know how real was reality, it was too collegiate and cultured and 一般に white. He could have done with more tom-toms and ジャングル-dancing, more 見本s of what his darker ancestors might have been, and through the whole sermon, the congregation showed unction with not more than two or three dehydrated Hallelujahs and one "賞賛する God, ain't it de trufe!"

Neil was rather 慰安d when the Harvard-Columbia-Union Seminary 優越 broke 負かす／撃墜する, and Dr. Brewster was 有罪の of "My brethrens" and of "cherubims," and not only confided that for one summer he had "牧師d" a church in St. Joe, but that its members had enthusiastically "brotherhooded."

That was more like it, Neil thought gleefully. That was getting nearer to the Southern darky sermons 報告（する）／憶測d by the Southern-gent-新聞記者／雑誌記者s and joyfully 引用するd by 棒 Aldwick, in which all 色合いd Men of God invariably spout, "Mah bretherens and sisterens, Ah absqualulates dat dis-here congoleum of crapshooters is powuhful lakly to 死なせる／死ぬ in dat ole lake of 解雇する／砲火／射撃."

—If I am going to be a Negro, I want my sermons hot. I might 同様に enjoy getting away from certifying checks and playing 橋（渡しをする）, and roll the bones in the jook.

—やめる 存在 sentimental, Kingsblood. If you get caught and 公然と turn Negro, you're going to play it just as 安全な and respectable as you can, and hope that the 肉親，親類d white folks won't mind your 汚い little Biddy 存在 in school with their darlings.

—And it comes to me that I've heard my own white Baptist preacher, Doc Buncer, say "cherubims" and "to 牧師." This is plain hell, to get myself 神経d up to 存在 a Negro and then find there aren't any special Negro things to be. Wouldn't it be flat for an enthusiastic 殉教者 to find that the 解雇する／砲火／射撃 just warmed him pleasantly?

—Don't worry. It won't feel flat when Biddy and I get kicked off a Tennessee bus by a Mick conductor and a hillbilly 警官，（賞などを）獲得する breaks my jaw while a Wop 探偵，刑事 得る，とらえるs Biddy and snickers and begins—Oh, stop tormenting yourself. Stop it!

*

If he had 非難するd Dr. Brewster for an 演説（する）／住所 that was pretentious in that humble chapel, he was stirred when Brewster read the Scripture. Neil was no 裁判官 of 演劇, but he felt a high moment like King Lear's madness as the 牧師 read, tenderly and movingly, the eternal cry of all dark peoples, all Orientals, all women, all men sick and bewildered and lame with poverty:

"I did 嘆く／悼む as a dove; 地雷 注目する，もくろむs fail with looking 上向き. O Lord, I am 抑圧するd; 請け負う for me...I shall go softly all my days in the bitterness of my soul...Behold, for peace I had 広大な／多数の／重要な bitterness, but thou hast in love to my soul 配達するd it from the 炭坑，オーケストラ席 of 汚職...The 墓／厳粛／彫る／重大な cannot 賞賛する thee, death cannot celebrate thee; they that go 負かす／撃墜する into the 炭坑，オーケストラ席 cannot hope for thy truth. The living, the living, he shall 賞賛する thee, as I do this day."

*

The audience were softly moaning, "Were you there when they crucified my Lord?" and they leaped to sudden cheerful jazz in "Just a little talk with Jesus makes it 権利, all 権利!" and Neil saw a turpentine （軍の）野営地，陣営 and men molded in 巡査 and ebony singing slow and stopping to laugh under the chains of the white men as they swaggered, bound, into the 押し寄せる／沼地s, into the sunrise.

—This is my history, thought Neil; this is my people; I must come out.

一時期／支部 19

During the sermon, Neil had noticed, in the pew across the aisle, a family of father, who was a man of sixty or so, mother, a son who was in uniform as a captain, a young woman 持つ／拘留するing a baby who was 存在 extraordinarily good, and a girl of perhaps seventeen. All of them were serious, 有能な-looking people, and all of them, except for the darkish young wife and her baby, might unquestionably have been taken for white, if they had not seemed so habitual here.

Where had he seen that captain?

He realized that this was the "colored boy" who had been in his class all through school, 尊敬（する）・点d and ignored. Some of the white girls had even pretended to like him, and he had once been elected class 長官. Now what was his 指名する? Oh. Emerson Woolcape.

Neil had heard that the fellow had become a dentist, with an office in the Five Points, with a 正規の／正選手 議長，司会を務める and X-ray outfit and even a 制服を着た girl assistant, just like a 正規の／正選手 practitioner. As the son of a real dentist, Neil had 設立する this わずかに comic.

He did not, just now, find it so comic, nor the fact that Woolcape should be pretending to be a captain, like himself, and that on his collar there was no suggestion of gentlemanly guns for 殺人，大当り people, but 単に the caduceus with a D which 示すd nothing more warlike and noble than saving their teeth.

Neil 解任するd that as a boy he had once seen the whole Woolcape family picnicking on the bluffs of the Sorshay River, about a red and white tablecloth spread on the 激しく揺するs. They had all been singing, and he had enviously thought that they were having more fun than his family ever had. He was sure that he had seen the Woolcape father around that crazy Mermaid Tavern Building, with its phony half-木材／素質ing, as 管理人 and handyman. But there was nothing 明らかな of the mop and furnace-dust about him now. His gray 控訴 was 平易な, his tie was 井戸／弁護士席 knotted, and his 直面する of a Roman 上院議員, 栄冠を与えるd with gray-発射 sable hair, was proudly 支援する as he listened to the sermon.

星／主役にするing at the 墓／厳粛／彫る／重大な competence of John Woolcape, Neil felt a premonitory 冷気／寒がらせる about his own 未来 in a world, his own world of Pruttery, which had nothing more than a dirty and half-servile 職業 for a man who looked like that. He 温かく 保証するd himself that however 同情的な he might be with these Negroes, it would not be a very 有望な notion financially to 発表する himself as one. But, "I wish I had that man's dignity," he sighed.

Mrs. Woolcape had an especial look of familiarity that perplexed Neil until he realized that she was surprisingly like his own mother. He 否定するd it, and shivered, and looked again. She seemed older than "Mum," and at once more 静める and more resolute, yet in her color of pale honey, her chiseled-負かす／撃墜する nose, her small shy mouth, her 注目する，もくろむs that asked nothing for herself, she was so like his mother that he felt bound to her and to her family by something more than a tale about a moccasined frontier rover. This was a woman whose questions he would answer 喜んで, and in her smile and tenderness he could find solace.

*

"The Lord be with us, while we are parted one from another, the Lord wash us clean of 汚職, the Lord dwell in loving 親切 の中で us—"

Evan Brewster paused, he looked straight at Neil, he had a wonderful smile of friendship, and he ended, "loving 親切 の中で us all, rich or 貧困の, 黒人／ボイコット and white—His children."

The African girls in the choir, who were American girls, were 詠唱するing "Blessed be the tie that 貯蔵所d," but the （一定の）期間 was 粉々にするd as everyone rose—everyone but Neil, who sat enchanted.

When he moved toward the door with the last of the congregation, he felt their 疑問 whether he was friendly or just curious; whether they should 屈服する or ignore him. But all of them who had come from the South had learned that it was safer to do both, and get away quick.

At the door, Dr. Brewster was shaking 手渡すs, and he spoke to Neil not さもなければ than to the others: "It has been pleasant to have you with us this morning, Brother."

The conventionality of it irritated Neil, yet was that not just what his own Dr. Buncer said?

Seen の近くに, as they shook 手渡すs—and by now Neil had enough training so that he no longer made a 生産／産物 of it—Dr. Brewster had tiny 倍のs of flesh over the inner corners of his 注目する，もくろむs, he was moist as a fieldhand and had the 狼狽ing 支配する of one, and in his 注目する，もくろむs was every 悲しみ since Golgotha.

When Neil was rather confusedly out on the sidewalk, he was not glad that the ordeal was finished; he was lost and puzzled in a ありふれた world where neither the hard-直面するd whites whom he saw now on the street nor the 堅い and lounging Negro gamblers could conceivably have any of Evan Brewster's patience for his quandary.

For a long time he 星／主役にするd at the Ethiopia 動議 Picture Playhouse, across the way, as though it were Chartres Cathedral. He did not realize that he was standing beside the Woolcape family, who were in after-church gossip with neighbors. Captain Emerson Woolcape looked as though he 認めるd Neil but did not 推定する／予想する to be 認めるd himself, and he was surprised when Neil half 屈服するd, and babbled, "I thought that was you, o' man. 港／避難所't seen you since high school."

The Woolcapes 星／主役にするd at him with a silence that could become either welcome or 敵意. He 急ぐd on, longing, for 推論する／理由s not too （疑いを）晴らす to him, to be 受託するd by them:

"In fact, years ago, I saw all of you having a grand picnic together, and I wished I were with you."

They all 広げるd their mouths in forbidding politeness, and Neil 勧めるd, as one who would be loved even if he had to kill them for it, "Sorry I never had the 楽しみ of 審理，公聴会 Dr. Brewster before. Uh—did you get over to the other 味方する, Captain—Emerson?"

"I saw a little of the show there." Reluctantly, Emerson did what was necessary. "Captain Kingsblood, this is my wife—I imagine you know her father, Drexel Greenshaw of the Fiesole Room—and our baby. My father and mother, and this young lady is my niece, Phoebe...Mother, you've heard me speak of Mr. Kingsblood—we were in school together."

The Woolcapes all looked like children who have done their politenesses to the nosey 助祭 and feel that they may こそこそ動く away now and be happy. But, at whatever 危険 of 存在 snubbed, Neil wasn't having it. This family had become immensely important to him. When a man is born a Negro at thirty-one, he needs a family.

He had never done much in the youthfully-beseeching line; yet, he was solicitous now with Emerson.

"Which way you going, Captain? I don't know this part of town very 井戸／弁護士席."

It was not Emerson but his mother who rose to a hearty, "Oh, wouldn't you like to walk along with us, Captain?"

John and Mary Woolcape lived a 封鎖する from the church, with Emerson next door. As they trudged, John pointed out the dwarf parsonage of Evan Brewster, and tried, "Did you enjoy the sermon, Captain Kingsblood? We think やめる 高度に of Dr. Brewster."

The Woolcapes were surprised by the ardor with which this white 銀行業者—probably 負かす／撃墜する here on some 残念な piece of 財政上の 秘かに調査するing—answered, "本気で, I thought he had a remarkable combination of 力／強力にする and gentleness. A saint—but smart!"

"He's too good a bowler and much too good a cook to be classed as a saint, but we're very fond of Dr. Brewster," said Mrs. Woolcape, and Neil felt that she was faintly laughing at him and his status of amateur critic. But he would not be smiled 負かす／撃墜する. He 熟考する／考慮するd the parsonage, shabby white, one-story, three or four small rooms, the whole thing not much larger than his own modest living-room. There were prim curtained windows, and on the pocket-handkerchief porch were three jars of geraniums.

"Rather small house for a man as big as he is. And I suppose he's married?"

"Yes, and two children. Dr. Brewster says they manage by sleeping on 最高の，を越す of the cook-stove and keeping the bathtub and the cat underneath it, and his library—both 調書をとる／予約するs!" said Mr. Woolcape.

His wife rose to it. "Now John, you know perfectly 井戸／弁護士席 that Evan has a splendid library for a man on his salary—hundreds of 調書をとる／予約するs—all the important new ones—Myrdal and Wright and Langston Hughes and Alain Locke and everything!"

They laughed at her like a family who love one another.

Neil 設立する some more conversation to 申し込む／申し出: "Small church—don't suppose you can かもしれない 支払う／賃金 him a high salary. Seems a shame."

John said proudly, "No, we can't. 非，不，無 of us make very much ourselves, you know. So Evan—Dr. Brewster—has to work nights in the 地位，任命する office, to make both ends 会合，会う, as his children are still young. But he just laughs about it. He says we're lucky to have a preacher that's a civil-service 従業員 and not a panhandler. And," boastfully, "he's a 監督者, and he has やめる a few white men working under him!"

"Yet for a man like that," 申し込む／申し出d Neil, "college degrees and all, to have to waste his time sorting circulars—"

"We don't think so," Mr. Woolcape 主張するd. "We're glad Reverend Brewster is willing to work with ありふれた people like ourselves, and not soak away in dreams in a 牧師's 熟考する／考慮する. 特に my son Ryan feels that—he's home on leave from the Army but he didn't come with us today. He's a little leftwing, I'm afraid."

"My, my, my, Captain Kingsblood must be 簡単に fascinated by our family history. Do tell him about the pup we had once that had six toes on each foot!" Mary Woolcape scoffed, and stretched out her 手渡す to Neil in 別れの（言葉，会）.

He wilfully did not see it.

They were standing in 前線 of the Woolcape house, which was not much larger than Evan Brewster's, one-storied, white, immaculate; they were standing there, and Neil just stood there, till John Woolcape could 不十分な escape 説, "Won't you come in?" And Neil did come in; he stepped 権利 in after them, like it or not, and he was 決定するd that nothing so petty as good manners should keep him from a chance of enlightenment.

He saw the 株d ちらりと見ること of Emerson and his father which meant, "What does this 貸付金-shark from the bank want? What sort of a crooked white-man's trick is he up to?"

He tried to 始める，決める up an old-schoolmates-together atmosphere with, "Do you remember that funny old 女／おっせかい屋 we had in algebra, Captain?"

Emerson chuckled. "She was a crank, all 権利."

"But she had a good heart. One time after class she said to me, 'Neil, if you would do your algebra better, you might become 知事 of the 明言する／公表する.'"

"Did she, Captain?" Emerson spoke with a drawl that was on the 侮辱ing 味方する. "What she said to me, one time after class, was that she was considering only my 福利事業, and for a boy of my race to learn algebra instead of short-order cooking was 'my, such a waste of time!'"

All the classmate 真心 was frozen. The Woolcapes were looking at Neil bleakly, they were waiting for his real 使節団...Did bank clerks sell burial 保険?

"Please, I don't ーするつもりである to intrude. I know that you want to get your Sunday dinner, and I'm going to skip 権利 along, but there's a few things I 真面目に want to know about—I mean, I don't know much of anything about—uh—about this part of town, and I 簡単に must have a better understanding of—of this part of town."

What Neil was trying to say, without 罪／違反, was "better understanding of Negroes." But did one say to them "Negroes" or "colored people" or "Ethiopians" or that cumbersome "Afro-Americans" or what? What would 感情を害する／違反する them least? Once, in Italy, he had heard a Negro 兵士 bawl at another, "Hustle up, nigger," and yet he knew now that they were not fond of the word. It was 混乱させるing.

They looked more cordial. "What can we tell you, Captain Kingsblood?" asked Emerson.

(How did they know he had been a captain? Was it true, as some people said, that the whole dark world was a 共謀 planning the 破壊 of all the white people, viciously clever yet ジャングル-mad, wild as smoke-blackened midnight 解雇する／砲火／射撃s for human sacrifice; a cabal that 秘かに調査するd on every white person's 行為／法令／行動するs and 公式文書，認めるd them in little 調書をとる／予約するs audited by witch-doctors and 共産主義者 スパイ／執行官s?)

Now the one thing he yearned to say was "Shall I, who am a Negro, become a Negro?" While he struggled to phrase it, he looked about.

There was no 推論する／理由 why a man of 普通の／平均（する） perception should have been astonished that the house of middle-class Negroes with ordinary good taste and neatness should be 正確に／まさに like the house of any other middle-class Americans with ordinary taste and neatness. What, Neil 税金d himself, did he 推定する／予想する? A voodoo altar? 派手に宣伝するs and a ヒョウ 肌? A crap-game and a demijohn of corn アルコール飲料? Or an Eldzier Cortor 絵 and 調印するd photographs of あられ／賞賛する Selassie, Walter White and Pushkin? Yes, probably he had 推定する／予想するd something freakish.

But, if they were 管理人s, instead of lawyers and salesmen, he and all of his friends would have living-rooms 正確に／まさに like this: the same worn carpet-rug, tapestry 議長，司会を務める with foot-残り／休憩（する）, love seat, ornamented ash-trays, satinwood 無線で通信する-閣僚, women's magazines, and not very good reproductions of not very good floral pieces!

—Vestal would 認可する of this room and point out that Mrs. Woolcape keeps it better than Shirley does ours.

Then he stopped lying to himself and with a pang he 認める how impossible it would be to conceive of Vestal as ever 存在 here and 存在 natural with these, his own people.

井戸／弁護士席, they were waiting, and he tried to speak out.

"What I 手配中の，お尋ね者 to ask—I don't やめる know how to 表明する it, but 確かな things have happened, and they make me feel that I せねばならない know you, uh—"

"'Negroes' is the word," said John Woolcape.

"Or 'colored people.' We don't mind either," said his wife, and they were both suave about it and rather tolerant.

"What Mother means," Emerson explained, "is that we dislike both 条件 intensely, but we consider them わずかに いっそう少なく ruffling than 'nigger' or 'coon' or 'jig' or 'spade' or 'smoke' or any of the other labels by which white 溝へはまらせる／不時着する-diggers 示す their 優越 to Negro bishops. We 推定する／予想する it to take a few more １０年間s before we're 簡単に called 'Americans' or 'human 存在s.'"

"Don't be so damn smug!" Emerson's father threw at him. "You're 権利 about the unpleasantness of the labels, but when did a 溝へはまらせる／不時着する-digger get to be so inferior to a bishop? I'm an ash-shoveler myself! But if Captain Kingsblood would like to ask about the Negroes—that's the word that I happen to use—we'd be glad to tell him anything we can."

Emerson 急いでd, "Of course we will. I didn't mean to be smug. I just don't like 存在 branded as a 肉親，親類d of barnyard animal. But Captain, if you'd really enjoy a red-hot race-talk, wait till my brother Ryan comes in. He's only twenty-three, but he can be as wonderful and wrong as if he were ninety. He's on leave—hopes to be out soon, but he's still in the service, as I am; he's a sergeant, and how he does look 負かす／撃墜する on us captains! Ryan's been out in India, and way he tells it, he was hobnobbing with Gandhi and Nehru, though they may not have noticed it. And Burma."

The 言及／関連 to foreign service sent the two 兵士s off on the shop-talk of 退役軍人s. Captain and Doctor Emerson Woolcape looked like a 兵士, sounded like a 兵士, had the very tune of it, and Neil 反映するd that if Emerson had little of the 魔法 of that 広大な／多数の／重要な leader, Major Rodney Aldwick, he seemed no いっそう少なく professional, as they 貿易（する）d opinions of B-29's, rations, 陸軍大佐s and seasickness.

They were all seated now, though only Neil looked settled and comfortable.

Emerson's niece, Phoebe, who had not yet been explained, was as bored by the droning of these venerable 兵士s as any other seventeen-year-old American girl would have been. She was a graceful thing, breathless with 青年; she was as gilt-長，率いるd as Biddy, as pink-and-white as Neil's sister, Joan, and more restless. She sprang up now as a boy of her own age burst in.

He was 完全に 黒人／ボイコット, his features Negroid, yet in his blue Sunday 控訴 and his beige sweater 辛勝する／優位d with maroon at the neck, he was 完全に the American High School Boy, shoulders proudly 支援する, 解放する／自由な and 独立した・無所属—probably too 解放する／自由な and too 独立した・無所属, like his white classmates, who were the despair of their clucking teachers.

"This is Winthrop Brewster, our 牧師's boy. Phoebe and he are 運動ing to Duluth for lunch," said Mrs. Woolcape, as though that flight, seventy-半端物 miles each way, were a step across to the park.

Winthrop said How was he, Phoebe said Sorryhaftrunaway, with decently 隠すd joy at escaping from an old man of thirty-one, and they were gone in a blur, the same blur of ガソリン ガス／煙s in which two other American children, Neil and Vestal, had flickered, only a dozen years ago.

And in just the トン of Vestal's mother then, Mrs. Woolcape lamented, "I'm worried about that child. Our granddaughter Phoebe. Her mother and father have passed on, and we're 責任がある her. I'm sure I didn't 行為／法令／行動する like that when I was in high school and Oberlin. She seems to be 同時に in love with Winthrop Brewster—he's a wonderful boy; he'll be a 広大な／多数の／重要な 専門家 in electronics or something after he goes to college, but Phoebe thinks Winthrop is too sober and fussy, and so, if you please, our young lady calmly up and 発表するs that she is also in love with Bobby Gowse, who's a wild 行う／開催する／段階 ダンサー here, and with our 隣接地の boy, Leo Jensing. But Leo is white, so of course we wouldn't like that."

"Are you prejudiced against white people, then?" wondered Neil. Her husband 激怒（する）d, "She certainly is, and I keep telling her that with her education—I only finished grade school, myself—she has no excuse for 非難するing a whole race. I tell her that if she is 患者 and looks for it, she'll find just as many 肉親，親類d-hearted and understanding people の中で the whites as in our own race...But I'm also somewhat …に反対するd to intermarriage, though only because there are so many people, both white and 黒人／ボイコット, who have been 否定するd the 力／強力にする to love and so they are envious and do all the 害（を与える） they can when they see a mixed couple who love each other so much that they are willing to stand social 追放する. Of course this whole color code is nonsense, but it's so tied up with the old aristocratic class myth, like the D.A.R. or the English nobility (so I read), that you can't ignore it any more than you can syphilis, which it 大いに 似ているs."

"John!" said Mrs. Woolcape.

"And so," her husband continued, "I would—井戸／弁護士席, to tell the truth, Captain Kingsblood, I'm hanged if I know whether, if Phoebe 手配中の，お尋ね者 to marry a white boy, I would lock her in, or throw up my 管理人's cap and shoot anybody who tried to 干渉する with her 権利s!"

"Now John, stop 存在 so racial," said Mrs. Woolcape, but in a 厳密に 決まりきった仕事 way.

Emerson's wife had taken the baby and gone home—somewhat pointedly. Neil knew that they were waiting for him to leave.

"I mustn't stay any longer but—Tell me. Is it hard to be a Negro? Here in the North, I mean—in Grand 共和国? I'm not just 存在 curious. I want terribly to know."

The older Woolcapes and Emerson took wordless counsel, and Emerson answered for them:

"Yes, it is hard, unceasingly."

His mother 訂正するd him, "Not always. Most of the time we forget we are classed as pariahs, and go about our 商売／仕事 without thinking of race, without thinking of ourselves as anything special. But occasionally it is intolerable, not so much for yourself as for the people you love, and I can understand the young men who talk so wildly about machine guns—wicked talk, but I understand."

Neil worried it, "But—I'm honestly not trying to argue, Mrs. Woolcape, but I want to know. I have no 疑問 it's 堅い in the South, but here in the North there's certainly no prejudice—oh, maybe some individuals, but no 合法的な 妨げる／法廷，弁護士業s. Why," with pride, "I even understand there's a Civil 権利s 法律 in this 明言する／公表する, so Negroes can go into any restaurant! And your son and Phoebe, the way they look, they don't seem to have 苦しむd from any 差別!"

"Captain," said Emerson, "we were classmates. I thought then, and I see now I was 権利, that you were a frank, good-hearted fellow. You made a point of 存在 pleasant to most of the boys, and you and I had ありふれた 利益／興味s—跡をつける, mathematics, 市民のs—and yet in twelve years, you almost never spoke to me except to say 'Good morning' as if you were doubtful about it."

Neil nodded. "Yes. And too late to わびる. I wish I could. But Phoebe, her 世代 is different. She seems as unself-conscious as my sister."

The 静かな mother, Mary Woolcape, cried out, "That child is just beginning to learn the humiliation that every Negro feels every day, 特に in our self-満足させるd North Middlewest. In the South, we're told we're dogs who 簡単に have to get used to our kennels, and then we'll get a nice bone and a 肉親，親類d word. But up here we're told that we're 完全にする human 存在s, and encouraged to hope and think, and as a consequence we feel the incessant little 思い出の品s of supposed inferiority, the careless humiliations, more than our Southern cousins do the 恐れる of lynching. Humiliation! That's a word you white people せねばならない know about!

"特に we who look white get humiliated here. We're 絶えず 会合 people who don't know about It and who take to us, so that we 減少（する） our 弁護s—like fools. Then one day they 無視する，冷たく断わる us or glare at us or run away from 会合 us, and we know that they know, and the pleasant times with them are over.

"But those who are visibly 黒人／ボイコット—No 差別 in the North? No, 単に looked at like rattlesnakes by all the mean-tempered people on trains and buses and in 蓄える／店s. Rarely get 職業s better than the kitchen, no 事柄 what our ability. Ambitious colored boys becoming gamblers or hoboes because no one will try them at responsible work. 認める grudgingly to restaurants because of the 法律, and then 侮辱d or neglected there, so that next time we'd rather go hungry—so that we'd rather walk the streets all of a winter night than ask for a room in what you'd call a good hotel. So that John and I, who would be 認める, hate to take a hotel room when we travel, with our own brothers driven to the streets.

"Humiliated till we get broken or else, like John and me, prefer to stay home, always, always, and not take a chance on 会合 any white man, any time. And we're not bad, oh, we're not, and when I think how good and 勇敢な my husband is, and my children, and my father, the zoologist that—

"Oh, sorry. 存在 sentimental. I know you white people think it's very funny for a 黒人／ボイコット woman to 賞賛する her men like that!"

"No—please!" Neil was extraordinarily moved and 不安定な.

"Don't you read the humorous stories about pretentious darkies in the magazines, hear the jokes about Mandy and Rastus at 祝宴s? And Phoebe—you spoke of her new 世代. Just the other day, a fifty-year-old white garage attendant, and Phoebe is much whiter than he is, told her that he would be willing to sleep with her, if he could only get used to her 存在 a nigger. That's not as bad as the South, where a friend of ours, a colored woman, was 傷つける in an automobile 事故, bleeding to death, and they turned her away from white hospital after hospital, and she died in the street—殺人d.

"But still, when Phoebe went out for the school play, at your own Hamilton High, before she had a chance to read at the try-out, they told her the cast was already chosen, but they told a white friend of hers that nobody had been chosen. And one of her teachers this year keeps looking at her and at the Greek and Italian and ロシアの youngsters, and then she says something like 'those of us who have New England ancestors will not need to be told that so-and-so is a point of 栄誉（を受ける）.'

"But that won't break her bones, as it did her father's. He was our oldest son, Bayard. He would have become a 罰金 経済的なs teacher. He 卒業生（する）d from Carleton—earned his way through, doing chores, but he was summa cum 称讃する—and he married a wonderful girl.

"He was brought up 完全に in the North—yes, yes, I know I'm inconsistent; I 収容する／認める the South is worse, even worse! He was brought up here, and he'd never experienced one minute of 合法的な segregation, and he just couldn't believe that a decent, educated Negro would ever run into 暴力／激しさ in the South.

"He went to teach in a Negro college in Georgia, where his 広大な／多数の／重要な-grandfather had been a slave. The first time he saw that hideous 調印する 'For colored only,' he wrote me, he felt so angry and so 脅すd, as if a man were coming at him with a knife, that he had to draw the car up beside the road and be sick.

"But he tried to do what his Southern 知識s advised and to 'play the game'—a game in which the other 味方する always makes the 支配するs. Then when he'd been there only a month, a policeman stopped his car and 行為／法令／行動するd as if he'd stolen it. This man had seen Bayard around the college—he knew that though he was so pale, he was classed as 'colored.' He was so vicious that Bayard forgot and talked 支援する, and they took him to the police-駅／配置する and said he was drunk—he never even touched beer—and he got angry and they （警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域 him. They （警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域 him to death. My son.

"They （警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域 him a long time. Till he died there on the 固く結び付ける 床に打ち倒す. He was a handsome boy. And they told his wife that she'd better keep still or she'd never get to 耐える her baby—who was our Phoebe.

"After the baby （機の）カム, she escaped North, all day and all night in the jimcrow coach, and she died within a year. He really was a handsome boy, and they kept kicking his 長，率いる, on the 固く結び付ける 床に打ち倒す, all dirty and 血まみれの, and he died there."

Mary Woolcape was crying, and it was the more racking that she was not hysterical but hopeless. Neil 手配中の，お尋ね者 to make her the greatest 申し込む／申し出ing he could, and he heard himself 説, "I understand, because I've 設立する out that I am part Negro myself."

—Good Lord, I've done it! How could I be such a fool?

一時期／支部 20

"You say you're part Negro? That's not our idea of a joke."

John Woolcape, who was いっそう少なく ruddy than Neil and therefore more "white," was 厳しい.

"It's not my idea of a joke, either! I never knew it till recently." He felt 罠にかける. Oh, these Woolcapes were admirable people, but he did not want to be in their 力／強力にする. He 勧めるd them, "Maybe I shouldn't have blurted it out. Nobody knows it, not even my parents or my wife, but I'm afraid it's true. Only a small 百分率, but 合法的に, so many places, I'm afraid I'm a colored man."

He was surprised that they did not look more surprised. They looked, indeed, rather hard. He tried to be airy:

"井戸／弁護士席, I suppose I'll just have to 直面する it."

John Woolcape said 平等に, "Don't be so sorry for yourself. Don't be so childish. I've '直面するd' 存在 a Negro for sixty-five years now, and my wife and children and a few million other decent folks have managed to '直面する it'!"

They glared at each other, but it was Neil's arrogance that was broken.

"You're 完全に 権利, Mr. Woolcape. I guess I'll have to わびる again. It's just that the idea is so new that I 港／避難所't been able to get used to it. Not even Dad and Mum know it. I was looking up my 家系 and I ran into a—井戸／弁護士席—"

"You white folks would call it a 'touch of the tar 小衝突,'" Emerson said sardonically. "Not so 平易な, eh?"

"井戸／弁護士席, God Almighty, you two せねばならない know whether it's 平易な or not!" Neil snarled.

"John and you, Emerson, both of you, you やめる badgering that boy!" Mary Woolcape's 発言する／表明する had a mother's tenderness and a mother's sharpness. "Of course he's upset. Poor boy!" Her arm was about Neil's shoulder and she lightly kissed his cheek. It was his own mother 慰安ing him.

"How old are you, son?" she murmured.

"Thirty-one, nearly, Mrs. Woolcape."

He had almost said "Mum."

"It's 堅い to wake up to what the world's really like as late as that. We colored have to understand both our own world and the white folks' world, to be 安全な. But I tell you what!" Mrs. Woolcape sounded practical and bustling. "You stay and have dinner with us. Will your wife let you? You sit 権利 負かす／撃墜する and telephone her."

Vestal said Okay, and was he enjoying his spree with the 退役軍人s?

*

He 設立する that Mary Woolcape carried out the myth of the "typical Negress" in one 詳細（に述べる）: she was an excellent cook. But he was still novice enough to marvel that they did not have fried chicken and watermelon for Sunday dinner, but a やめる Aryan roast of beef.

Emerson had gone to his own house for dinner. He had said, "I won't repeat anything at all about—uh—about what you told us, Captain, unless or until you want me to. But welcome to our club. Swell 会員の地位, even if we 港／避難所't a pool." They shook 手渡すs. They were friends, as they might have been twenty years before.

John sighed, "Ryan late again. These young revolutionists are going to be late at the バリケードs. We'll start without him...Mary! Let's 料金d!"

So for the first time Neil sat 負かす／撃墜する and ate with his new friends: that most 古代の and 全世界の／万国共通の symbol of equality.

He thought that it was to make him feel at home that the Woolcapes told him their stories.

John Woolcape was a "colored man," and he was 完全に "white," which means pink and brown and gray, and he had never in his life been south of Iowa or east of Chicago. He was born in North Dakota, his family the only "Negroes" in their 郡. His father was a 鉄道／強行採決する section-ギャング（団） foreman; his father's father had been a slave in Georgia and, after the Civil War, had been a farmhand in Florida, which he had 明らかに not 見解（をとる）d as a 楽園 of roulette wheels and beach umbrellas.

John himself had worked on farms, had hoped for college or school of 農業, but when he was a freshman in the village high school, his father had been killed by a runaway box car, and he had 見習い工d himself to the 地元の barber. As a barber, he had come to Grand 共和国, in 1902, and there, at twenty-two, he had first learned what it is to be a Negro.

Till then he had known little more of the 外交の art of 存在 colored than had a Neil Kingsblood. Perceiving that his father was a good Baptist and a good boss of Irish and Swedish section-手渡すs, John had never heard the news that he was biologically inferior, and his untutored white playmates, boys and girls, had not known that the touch of his 手渡すs was 汚染.

特に the girls.

There had been a few people in that Dakota village who had muttered something unpleasant about "tar-小衝突s," but they had been "cranks" and "grouches," and to John their venom had been 理解できない.

受託するd in Grand 共和国 as a white man and a sound barber, he had forgotten the infrequent hints from his father that connected with his family was a mystery called "the race problem." At that time it would have seemed to John just as reasonable for anyone to say to him "You're a Hydrangean Polypus" as to say "You're a 黒人／ボイコット man." Not 存在 黒人／ボイコット. And not caring a hang whether he was "黒人／ボイコット" or "white," so long as his 顧客s and his スイスの sweetheart liked him.

But a man moved in from his boyhood village in North Dakota and whispered something to the boss barber, who said to John, "Why, you're part nigger, ain't you?"

"I suppose so. What of it?"

"Don't know 's it makes any difference to me, 本人自身で, but the 顧客s don't like it. They'll all kick, and leave me."

"Have any of them kicked yet?"

"No, but they might. Can't take no chances. I will say for you, you're the best barber I got, but can't take no chances."

支援する in 1904 they were already using this 決まり文句／製法 of 警告を与える which, 不変の in its 大規模な dignity, imbecility and cowardice, was to go 負かす／撃墜する to the middle of the Century of 僕主主義 and Enlightenment.

John was 発射する／解雇するd from shop after shop, and never because he was incompetent or because the 顧客s disliked him—at least, they never disliked him till the 広大な／多数の／重要な Fact was whispered to them. いつかs John himself flung the Fact at them, for he had no taste for the rancid butter of uncle-tomming, and in that two minutes of 告訴，告発 by the first boss barber who had 解雇する／砲火／射撃d him, he had become "Negro" and "race-conscious."

His スイスの girl, a rosy chambermaid to whom he had been teaching English, had thought nothing about it when she learned the 広大な／多数の／重要な Fact, but her Irish and Scandinavian 同僚s taught her that if she was to belong to this Land of 僕主主義, she must 運動 him away.

John was the first raceman in Grand 共和国 to hear of the 設立するing of the N.A.A.C.P.—the 国家の 協会 for the 進歩 of Colored People, the Grand Army of the Negroes—and at its 条約 in Minneapolis, he met Mary, who, like himself, was imperceptibly "colored."

She was a 卒業生（する） of Oberlin College, the daughter of a 繁栄する and rather 科学の experimenter with turkeys and chickens and geese in Iowa. John and Mary disliked each other when they met, because they were both white and resented the swank of whiteness. But the fact that both of them 辞退するd to be anything so tyrannical as white drew them together. What had kept them together since was a ありふれた liking for 正直さ and humor.

John 始める，決める up his own barber shop, and it failed, not because he was a Negro, since few of the 顧客s seemed to 反対する to his Ethiopian touch, but because he would not jimcrow it and 妨げる／法廷，弁護士業 out Negro 顧客s, and the whites felt they had a social 義務 to be 汚い about that.

Then, with his natural 技術 with 道具s, John had tried to become a mechanic. But he had little training, and technical schools then were distant and segregated. Mary and he 手配中の，お尋ね者 to go off to a larger, more 機械化するd city, where he could learn, but they had been so foolish as to believe the white real-広い地所 men's スローガン that a community 栄誉（を受ける）s any 労働者 who shows his 約束 in it by buying his own home and having a nice little family.

They had bought the home, and they had the nice little family in the person of Bayard, and so they were stuck here, and always would be, and John became a 管理人 and was glad to get the 職業, and Mary helped him out by baking cakes for sale and by working as extra-waitress at party-dinners.

"Yes, I've seen you several times, Captain, when I've helped wait on （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する at the Havocks' and Mrs. Dedrick's, but you never saw me, I imagine," she said, and though she was too maternal and sensible to mean it that way, Neil was shamed.

He was 確かな that with white for a label and some Morton Beehouse as father-in-法律, John Woolcape might now be 大統領，／社長 of the Second 国家の Bank, and that with an equal 調整, John William Prutt might be a 管理人. But while it would work out admirably, in so far as Mr. Prutt would be a methodical furnace-tender and a 熱烈な 掃海艇 and remover of old 瓶／封じ込めるs, Mr. Woolcape would be いっそう少なく happy and certainly いっそう少なく dignified in flattering large depositors than he was now.

Through most of dinner, they discussed, with few reticences, the propriety of the Negro Neil becoming a Negro.

"The only thing I'm sure of is that you mustn't do anything 迅速な, Mr. Kingsblood," said John.

Neil felt as 近づく to them as to his own father and mother, of whose lives and 目的s he now knew いっそう少なく than of the Woolcapes'. He would have been 慰安d if they had called him "Neil," but they had only 軟化するd the Captain to Mister, with an 時折の affectionate Son.

"Don't take 殉教／苦難 as a game," John 主張するd. "Before you can know what you せねばならない do, or at least want to do, you must read the 広大な／多数の／重要な 調書をとる／予約するs about my race, as I've been trying to do, with my 欠陥のある education, these thirty years. But I reckon I'm lucky. A 管理人's 議長，司会を務める by the furnace is the perfect place for 熟考する／考慮する.

"When you have read a lot and thought a lot, you may decide you don't want to come over. It might not do any good to our race, and it might be horrible for your mother and wife and little girl. I'm proud of 存在 a Negro. I know so many plain, ordinary folks の中で my race that are like the 広大な／多数の／重要な poets and heroes in the Bible. But white businessmen don't like it when humble people are heroic—黒人／ボイコット or white. They claw us 負かす／撃墜する. Anyway, you have no 権利 to 推定する／予想する your ladies to enjoy 株ing your sacrifices. I wonder do many women enjoy 殉教／苦難? Maybe they got too much sense."

Mary complained, "I never can make John understand about Joan of Arc—or, to take a much more sensible person, Harriet Tubman. He just won't get the feminist point of 見解（をとる）. It's that old barbershop training."

Neil meditated, "As a 事柄 of fact, I never have thought of coming out as a Negro. Do you despise Negroes that give up the fight and pass?"

The 年上のs sighed. John pondered, "No. We're sorry to lose them, but we know how hard they've 設立する it, and I'd say there's a general 支配する that if your old friend goes by you on the street, with white folks, and doesn't know you, you don't even wink—not public. Just as we'd 削減（する） our tongues out before we gave your 信用／信任 away. So will my younger son, Ryan, if you 会合，会う him and feel like telling him. Yes, he'd be the loyalest of us all, even if he is the most leftwing and gets awful ornery, いつかs, with you white folks!

"Maybe you'd like to come here next Friday evening. Clement Brazenstar of the 都市の League will be here, and Ash Davis, a 化学者／薬剤師—"

"I've met Dr. Davis. In the bank."

"And maybe Sophie Concord. She's a very pretty colored lady, a city nurse, real smart. Those folks are all terrific race-talkers, even worse than I am. Maybe, for an evening, it might be more 利益／興味ing than pinochle, or whatever game of cards it is you play."

"橋（渡しをする）!" said the more 流行の／上流の Mary.

"I'll come," said Neil.

John went on, "You won't need to tell 'em you're colored. In fact, Mr. Kingsblood, I don't know as I'd go around 説 that, except here with us, who feel 肉親，親類d of like your family—Emerson used to tell us about you, when you and him were in school together. He admired you so much.

"If you come next Friday, you'll learn something from Clem Brazenstar. He's as 黒人／ボイコット as Tophet; by birth, he's a real, low-負かす／撃墜する Mississippi Delta Nigra fieldhand, and he never went to college, but I 疑問 if there's any of these fancy college professors that reads as much as him.

"And then Ash and Martha Davis, they're 肉親，親類d of betwixt and between. They aren't 黒人／ボイコット and born between the cotton bolls, like Clem, nor yet white and born in a blizzard, like Mary and me. They're high yella in color and 国境-明言する／公表する by family, and you know how these 国境 white folks, Tennessee and Kentucky, never やめる （不足などを）補う their minds. They 任命する a colored fellow to the police 軍隊 one day and lynch him the next and have a lovely obituary about him in the 特使-定期刊行物 the third."

Neil sighed, "I'm not sure my own 記録，記録的な／記録する with the Negroes is any too good."

"Hm?"

"We recently had a colored maid, Belfreda Gray, and I got awfully prejudiced against her. I thought she was slovenly and sullen—I almost hated her, almost hated all Negroes, because of her. Do you know her?"

"Oh, yes, we know the little tart," Mrs. Woolcape said serenely, and Neil was as shocked as if his 公式の／役人 mother had said it.

Mr. Woolcape was 平等に placid. "Yes, Belfreda is bad 薬／医学, a bad example for our young people. I don't think we'll 持つ／拘留する that prejudice against you, except as, like most white folks, you 結論するd that all of us are like her. And there's some excuse for Belfreda. Her parents are dead, her grandfather, Wash, is pretty weak, and her grandmother is a 堅い old devil. Belfreda is a real 悪賢い-chick. She likes to tell the ポーランドの（人） girls how much smarter she is than they are. Still, that's better than 存在 a Topsy and clowning around and eating dirt to amuse the white folks. Or getting sloppy and lazy and thieving, as the Southerners （人命などを）奪う，主張する their colored servants do. (Why wouldn't they, when they have no hope at all except the kitchen!) Oh, there's a lot of excuse for Belfreda."

"You," said his wife, "make me tired! I'm sick of all these 環境の excuses. A 原因（となる） isn't an excuse. All these 殺害者s, 黒人／ボイコット and white, smirking, 'It's not my fault, because my parents didn't understand me.' Whose parents ever did understand them? Everybody excusing themselves that way for drinking and whoring, even here in the Five Points. I'm sick of it! I don't think Borus Bugdoll, who sells 麻薬 and girls, is 正当化するd by having been born on a 破産者／倒産した farm!"

Her husband ゆらめくd 支援する, "Even Borus feels the 差別 against him—"

It was the first of the 審議s, the "race-会談," that Neil was to hear in the Five Points: 審議s that continued all night, contradictory and emotional, learnedly and いつかs ungrammatically carried on by Negro tailors and waiters and oilers who never, like Oliver Beehouse or John William Prutt, bought a 階級d 連隊 of 調書をとる／予約するs and put them up on oak 棚上げにするs, but borrowed them, one at a time, from the public library.

Neil tried to get into the talk with an 申し込む／申し出ing of "I don't think many white people are really vicious. I don't believe most of them know there is any 差別."

Behind him, an unknown 発言する／表明する, somewhat youthful but somewhat basso, jeered, "Then who are the mysterious guys that start the 差別?"

"Mr. Kingsblood, this is our son, Ryan," said Mrs. Woolcape.

"Our son Ryan, who is always late," said Mr. Woolcape.

"Your loving son Ryan, who is damn 近づく always 権利 on racial 問題／発行するs too. And who may our friend be?"

一時期／支部 21

Sergeant Ryan Woolcape, in uniform, could have been taken for a typical Anglo-Saxon collegian in the Army. He was six-two or -three, with a proud 支援する and a 長，率いる 後部ing as haughtily as his father's. He was snarling, "What is all this junk about you pinks not wanting 差別?"

John spoke はっきりと: "That'll do, Ryan. This is a friend of ours—Captain Kingsblood, of the Second 国家の Bank."

"I'm aware of that noble fact, Dad. I've seen him captaining in the bank...Cap, excuse me for my bumptiousness. I have some 推論する／理由 for 存在 in a temper. I've just been in God's 宗教上の 寺, listening to the Reverend Dr. Jat Snood, that Kansas 根本主義 Evangelist and all-around bastard. I 疑問 if I'd ever have gotten in if the 勧めるs had known I'm a spook, 爆破 their worm-eaten souls and slimy handshakes. But I did, and I heard Snood explain that Jesus wants the frozen-toed Christians up here in Minnesota to chase all us niggers 支援する to Georgia. So the Captain must excuse me if I get rough when I find one of the pious ofays here in this low shack."

"Ryan," said Mr. Woolcape, "shut up!"

"Ryan," said Mrs. Woolcape, "Mr. Kingsblood is not a white man, 合法的に."

(—I knew I shouldn't 've told!)

"He is one of us, Ryan. He's just 設立する it out. You're under 誓約（する） of 完全にする secrecy, by the way. He （機の）カム to us for advice and friendship, and then you go and talk like a Texas 郡保安官!"

Ryan held out his 激しい paw to Neil, smiled like a happy 巨大（な）, and grunted, "I don't know whether to be pleased or 同情的な, but I always thought you looked like a good guy, for an officer, and now I understand why. Welcome! Sure, I'll say nothing, and I'm sorry I 発射 my mouth off. But in the Army you get to hate all white officers."

Neil 需要・要求するd, "Why? Did you really run into much 差別? It happens I didn't serve with any colored 軍隊／機動隊s."

"I'll tell you, Cap. One （軍の）野営地，陣営 where I was in the South, the white G.I.'s had movies or U.S.O. shows every night, in a big theater, and swell rooms for playing cards and 令状ing letters, and all the buses they 手配中の，お尋ね者 into town, and dozens of 妨げる／法廷，弁護士業s. We had movies only once a week, no place to 令状 letters, and we had to walk two miles to a bus, and not enough buses and no 妨げる／法廷，弁護士業s, and the white M.P.'s watching you, making you feel like a 犯罪の.

"And our colored officers had no 力／強力にする—they were just 記念品 officers, to keep the 黒人／ボイコット 投票（する） happy. Colored 陸軍大佐s on 不安定な old jimcrow cars. One colored captain, in uniform, traveling on 公式の／役人 商売／仕事, was thrown into a 非軍事の 刑務所，拘置所 because there was no phone in the colored waiting-room, so he had to step into the white waiting-room to telephone—to his 命令（する）ing officer!

"But I did get one thing out of it: a trip to Burma and Java, where I learned what the 地元の boys thought about their 存在 jimcrowed and how glad they'll be to join us American untouchables against the whole damn world oligarchy of whites!"

Ryan stopped, a stricken 巨大（な）. "I've been hypnotized into another race-tirade! 非難する it on Reverend Snood!"

He beamed at Neil as at his best friend, while Neil was appalled at so 破滅的な a 憎悪 of the whites. He 手配中の，お尋ね者 to get out of this. It wasn't his race-problem!

Mrs. Woolcape tried to soothe everybody by purring, "We ran into Mr. Kingsblood at church, this morning, Ryan. He thinks Evan is a 罰金 preacher."

Ryan grinned. "Any dinner left? I will not be 罠にかける into my Number 5B speech—about all the Negro churches 存在 even deader than the white ones. The young spooks that would have taught Sunday school a 世代 ago are working for the N. 二塁打-A C.P., and all the hot ones, that would have become hell-roaring 助祭s once, have joined the 共産主義者 Party. Brewster is a nice guy, but he's still the favorite of a lot of foot-kissing Uncle Toms, and he's 有能な of preaching a sermon where a sinful white man—but smart and rich—is 変えるd by a dumb woolly-長，率いる that can't 支払う／賃金 his 投票-税金. No, Mum, you shouldn't have told me the news about Simon Legree, if you 手配中の，お尋ね者 me to stick to Christianity and 穏やかな manners."

*

While the affable 暗殺者 gobbled 冷淡な roast beef, Mrs. Woolcape explained that Ryan's particular hope was to 組織する a Negro 協同組合 farm. But Neil could not be 利益／興味d, could not take any more 革命 and race-doctrine that day.

He 約束d that he would come 支援する on Friday. Ryan said heartily, "I'm not sure we'll let you join us Senegambians. You'll be too shocked when you find out what our real opinions are—the ones we don't tell any white man. Why, we don't even believe in dressing for dinner every evening!"

Neil decided that Ryan was 存在 humorous, and that it was but manners to smile and look gratified. But as he walked to the bus, loathing the Sunday-afternoon colored loafers strutting their stuff on Mayo Street, he was 激怒（する）ing.

"So, my 罰金 young sergeant, you're not sure whether you're going to 許す me to join your race! Oh, I might 've known! Why am I such a fool? 井戸／弁護士席, here I am 支援する in the unfortunate 苦境 of 存在 a 未来 bank-大統領，／社長—white!"

It was no go. He could not escape. The 注目する，もくろむs of Mary Woolcape were sorrowfully rebuking him now, as they had 慰安d him when he had been a new-設立する son in tribulation.

He （機の）カム into his house unknowing what and where and how Neil Kingsblood was going to be.

*

Vestal was 平易な on him. "How were the 退役軍人s? Did you boys all tell one another how 勇敢に立ち向かう you were?"

"Now I want to tell you I learned something!" he said stoutly. "The Negro 軍隊／機動隊s never got enough credit—building 離着陸場s and 運動ing トラックで運ぶs under 解雇する／砲火／射撃, and no decorations."

"My, my, did I 落ちる 負かす／撃墜する on that, too, and not give 'em any メダルs? I'll call in 議会 and tell 'em to 直す／買収する，八百長をする that up 権利 away. The poor darkies! I'll give 'em all Purple Hearts and Rosy Crosses and Orders of the Emerald Watermelon, Second Class."

"You せねばならない take 'em more 本気で, and I'm going to take a nap," he complained.

"Take it 本気で?" she jeered.

Before he slept, he had to look at Biddy's new design for a 爆弾-carrying airplane.

*

He had forgotten to open the windows, that afternoon in 早期に summer, and he slept ひどく.

He was running in terror through a midnight 支持を得ようと努めるd, staggering through bogs, 衝突する／食い違うing with tree-trunks, 支店s 削除するing at his 今後-thrust 直面する. He was panting so that his 肺s were seared, and a cavern of かわき was in his mouth. He did not know who were 続けざまに猛撃するing after him, but they loathed him, they would 膝 him in the groin, 粉砕する his jaw, 涙／ほころび out his 注目する，もくろむs.

He was stopped by a circle of small flashing lights. He saw that they were the 注目する，もくろむs of bloodhounds, on their haunches. Behind the hounds he made out, as たいまつs were kindled, a semicircle of men, such horrible men as he had never seen, wrinkled like the bloodhounds, puckered of neck, snake-冷淡な of 注目する，もくろむ, and these men were moving toward him, moving, coming, の近くに.

Somebody said, やめる conversationally, "God damned 強姦ing nigger, I bet this 小衝突-hook will go 権利 through his shinbone, one 阻止する."

He was on the ground, and a big boot—he could distinctly catch its reek of manure—was kicking him in the 味方する of the 長，率いる, but he was no longer lying on the forest leaf-mold, he was lying on a 固く結び付ける 床に打ち倒す, dirty and 血まみれの, and the boot was going 強くたたく, 強くたたく, and the intolerable 苦痛 went through to the 中心 of his skull.

They were 解除するing him up, while he struggled; a rope was 解除するing him up, slowly up, choking him; then he was standing in a boggy 支持を得ようと努めるd aisle and looking up at himself, hanging and kicking, and he saw that while his 直面する was his own white-man's 直面する, ruddy and freckled, his naked 団体／死体 was アイロンをかける-黒人／ボイコット, 黒人／ボイコット アイロンをかける radiant with sweat in the jagged たいまつ-light, while his 黒人／ボイコット 四肢s kicked, mechanically, grotesquely, and he and all the other white men stood and laughed, "Look at the nigger kick, will yuh! He looks like a damn frog kicking, 黒人／ボイコット frog, lookit him kick, the 黒人／ボイコット nigger. And they （人命などを）奪う，主張する to be human, like us! Haw—haw!"

*

He lay in unrelieved terror.

—This could be me. They have lynched Negroes, even in Minnesota. They would hate me even more than they do fellows that have always been colored. I could feel that rope.

—I can't come out and take that. But if it's that 緊急の with my people, I've got to.

—But I can't do that to Biddy. She mustn't be sick with remembering a 殺人d father, way Phoebe Woolcape is. But maybe she wants to fight for her own. Maybe even the small girls are like that now, designers of 爆撃機s, ruthless.

—Look at the nigger frog kicking, and they （人命などを）奪う，主張する to be human! He caught himself wanting to run to the Woolcapes, to Mary Woolcape, but most of all to Ryan.

一時期／支部 22

Dr. Kenneth Kingsblood winked at his son, to show that they had a secret from the womenfolks, and led him aside to chuckle, "Got any furtherer with your 研究? We the rightful kings of Britain?"

The question so belonged to the antiquity of six months ago that he might 同様に have asked, "Have you finally decided to 投票（する） for Rutherford B. Hayes?"

With the 圧迫 of that afternoon's dream still on him, Neil had gone to his father's for Sunday Evening Supper—hot soup, 冷淡な chicken, potato 半導体素子s, 麻薬-蓄える／店 ice cream. Biddy was asleep on a couch upstairs, and Vestal was talking Servants & Children with Neil's mother and his sister, Joan, as nice women must have talked in the 原始の 洞穴s, in the Norman 城s, under the tinkling eaves of 中国's first 王朝. It was a maid's-night-out evening of sweetness and 安全 and affection.

To his father, Neil could answer only, "港／避難所't got much さらに先に with the 法廷，裁判所 文書s, Your Majesty," and あわてて skip it.

He 熟考する／考慮するd his mother and 設立する Negro 家系 in her dark 注目する，もくろむs, then reminded himself that he had once 設立する Chippewa traits in Vestal.

He mustn't, in his 勧める toward Africa, forget that he had Indian bravery in him 同様に. Tonight, when he was restless, he'd like to be out on a 嵐の lake in a Chippewa canoe. It excited him to think that he had in him canoes and Kaffir knives 同様に as account-調書をとる／予約するs and plowshares.

If that bland Sabbath domesticity did not soothe him, neither did the effervescence of the next evening dazzle him.

This was another of the 事実上 incessant 一連の "Welcome home, Major Rodney Aldwick, 井戸／弁護士席 done, sir!" parties which had adorned 棒's 終点 leave. He was going 支援する to （軍の）野営地，陣営 now, to get demajorized, and he would come 支援する a 退役軍人, with an honorable 記録，記録的な／記録する; he would let the newspapers 発表する that he had 再開するd his practice at the 妨げる／法廷，弁護士業.

Through this 前向きに／確かに last final party, Neil heard 棒 keeping to his high 主題:

"We vets must stand together against all the elements which produced the Fascism which we have 征服する／打ち勝つd: that is, the inferior races, which turned disloyal and 弱めるd the British and American and French and Dutch Empires, and so gave mongrels like Hitler a chance to 選ぶ on Winston Churchill."

Neil was in an empty daze as he realized that his hero was not only vicious but a bore. No man could have been more 哀れな than Neil in the unmasking of a friend.

*

He did not 嘘（をつく） awake, the two nights after his dream of terror. Very few things could make Neil Kingsblood 嘘（をつく） awake. His best period for brooding was during his morning shave, when he was in the thoughtful mood produced by the manifold beauties of his electric かみそり, that lovely 団体／死体 of nickel and ivory (imitation) which, without the 封建的 superstitions of soap and shaving-小衝突, 素早い行動d like the 手渡す of love across his solid jaw, nipping off the shiny hairs and 証明するing that there may be something to modern civilization.

He thought that his curly hair, 明らかにする／漏らすd in the 一連の会議、交渉／完成する shaving-mirror on a bracket-arm beside the 薬／医学 閣僚, was as kinky as Dr. Brewster's. He thought of Evan Brewster, and his earnestness, his simple goodness. And, since Brewster was a Baptist, like himself, Neil 熟視する／熟考するd the special, 知恵 and glory of Baptist preachers and their divine program.

He 需要・要求するd of himself: What was his actual creed? Did he believe in a definable God? In personal immortality? What, except to remain in love with Vestal and to give Biddy a chance to grow up happily, was his 目的 in life? And why had God punished Vestal by making her husband a Negro? Or was it no 罰 at all, but a noble 発覚?

He held the かみそり 静止している as he 認める that for a dozen years, except with Tony Ellerton, he had given no more thought to theological guesses than he had to Washington and the cherry-tree.

He had an 公式の／役人 牧師, the Reverend Dr. Shelley Buncer of the Sylvan Park Baptist Church, a sensible and friendly man. Why shouldn't he for once make himself believe that this learned 牧師 did 現実に know things about God and Immortality that were hidden from the ありふれた 労働者 or 銀行業者, and assume that the church had 雇うd Dr. Buncer for that 推論する／理由, and not because he was a companionable golfer, a skillful (n)役員／(a)執行力のある at weddings and children's birthday-parties, and a dependable extemporaneous （衆議院の）議長 at 社債-運動s?

So on Tuesday evening Neil called on Dr. Buncer, and かなり embarrassed him by asking what he knew about God and Truth.

*

It was a pleasant summer-evening walk の中で the maples and fresh-watered lawns of Sylvan Park. The Baptist Church was a bulky pile of red and gray 石／投石する in 層s, and next door to it was the parsonage, a hungry-looking old white 木造の house which Mrs. Buncer (she （機の）カム from the East, from Ohio) had made as worldly as possible with blue-and-gold Tunisian curtains.

The 牧師's office—he called it his "studio," and いつかs gaily spoke of it as "the sanctum sanctorum," poor fellow—was at once reverent and dashing. On the morose dark-red desk were roses in an etched Swedish vase, and on the 塀で囲む, between the portraits of Adoniram Judson and Harry Emerson Fosdick, was a print labeled "Kids and 道具s."

Dr. Buncer was rotund but enthusiastic, a 製品 of Brown University and Yale Theological, twenty years older than Neil. He had thin hair and an Episcopal 発言する／表明する, he wore tweeds and a red tie, and he gave Neil a good cigar—井戸／弁護士席, good within 推論する／理由.

"My boy," he pronounced, "my feeling is that to prefer the pulpy cigarette to the mellow and manly 少しのd is a 調印する of degeneracy in the age, so sit ye doon and light up, and I shall lay aside my 容積／容量 of Saki. I must 自白する I have been escaping from the sordid problems of the day into that 財務省 of wit and abandong."

And with that he deftly slid into a desk drawer his 調書をとる／予約する—殺人 Most Foul.

To the 牧師's 狼狽, instead of having come to ask him to 演説（する）／住所 the Boosters Club or the Young (n)役員／(a)執行力のあるs 協会, Neil 手配中の，お尋ね者 to know something, and 手配中の，お尋ね者 to know something the doctor couldn't look up in that 罰金 言及／関連-library. He would have gone mad and barked if he had guessed the real 目的s of this simple parishioner.

"Dr. Buncer, I've had some letters from a 兵士 who served under me, and he （人命などを）奪う，主張するs he's learned something that makes him 嫌疑者，容疑者／疑う that he has a little Negro 血. So he's asked me about an 倫理的な problem that you can solve better than I can. I understand he's married, 明らかに 公正に／かなり happily, and has a couple of sons, and 非，不，無 of them have any idea of this Negro 家系—which, I deduce, must be very distant. Now he wants to know what's the honorable thing to do. Ought he to tell his family, and maybe his friends, or shut up about the whole thing?"

Dr. Buncer gave an 展示 of thinking 深く，強烈に, an 演習 at which he was rusty. Then, "Tell me, Neil, does anyone 嫌疑者，容疑者／疑う his 苦境?"

"I 裁判官 not, from his letter."

"Has he associated much with Negroes?"

"I 疑問 it."

"And by the way, Neil, have you ever associated much with Negroes?"

The 冷気／寒がらせる was 絶対の.

Neil tried to sound uninterested as he droned, "Afraid I've never known any n—"

No! He would not say "niggers," not even if he was betrayed by it, and he finished up: "—never known any Negroes except maids and Pullman porters."

"推論する／理由 I ask is, in that 事例／患者 you can hardly understand this poor fellow's quandary in all its 深遠な and I may even say 宗教的な 面s."

—God, what a 救済!

"Now it just happens that I've had a good 取引，協定 to do with the darkies, Neil, one time and another. In Brown, I roomed 権利 近づく one, and many's the time, oh, half a dozen times at least, when I've dropped in at his room and tried to 行為／法令／行動する as if he were my equal in every way. But those fellows, even the ones that go through the 動議s of getting a college education, are uneasy with us whites, who've 相続するd our culture and so take it 自然に.

"We know and rejoice that they too are the sons of an all-慈悲の God, and maybe some day, a hundred years from now or two hundred, they'll be scarcely distinguishable from us, psychologically. But now they all feel so inferior, no 事柄 how small a 株 of the taint they have in their veins, that unfortunately it's impossible for us to sit 負かす／撃墜する for even half an hour and talk 率直に and manfully with them, as you and I are doing.

"Then here in Grand 共和国, I've served with darkies on several different 委員会s, sat at the 会議 （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する with them and so come to know them intimately. But where I really learned to understand the darkies was in the South, on their home ヒース／荒れ地. As a sort of a—ha, ha—internship I spent an entire month working in a 解決／入植地 house in Shreveport, Louisiana, where I learned that segregation in the South was 学校／設けるd not to 差別する against the Negroes, but to 保護する them, from the evil-minded men of both races, until such time as they grow up mentally and are able to 直面する reality like you and I and other white men do.

"Understand me, I don't 容赦する it as a 永久の 協定. There is no 推論する／理由 under heaven why American 国民s should be compelled to travel in jimcrow cars and have to eat 分かれて, 供給するd they are Americancitizensinthefullestsenseoftheword, and that, I am very much afraid, 非，不，無 of even the more intelligent の中で our colored friends would even pretend to be!

"There is no one more eager than myself to 認める any slight 前進するs toward civilization on the part of the darkies—like 回転／交替ing their 刈るs and more hogs and diet—but a parson has to を取り引きする the profoundest reality—and how folks do hate us for 存在 so honest and forthright; 井戸／弁護士席, let 'em, I say; it's really a compliment to us, I always say, ha, ha!

"Now to come 支援する to your 兵士 and his problem. If he never has been taken for a Negro, I don't see that he would be committing any moral 罪／違反 if he just kept silent and remained technically a white man. After all, 非，不，無 of us has to tell everything he knows, ha, ha!

"I do think, though, if you're 井戸／弁護士席 enough 熟知させるd with him to tell him this without 傷つけるing his feelings, you might advise him to stay away as much as he can from the white folks because さもなければ the cloven hoof of his genetic 突然変異 would be sure to show its 手渡す. With my Southern training, I'm sure I'd 位置／汚点／見つけ出す him at once.

"So, in all solicitude, tell him to go slow, lay low, keep his own counsel, and play the game! Ha, ha. See how I mean?"

"Yes, I guess that might—" Neil was uninterested now in any doctrine that Buncer might have. But he fell into the 誘惑, that menaces all of us, to ask priests and 裁判官s and doctors and 上院議員s and traffic policemen what they really think when they are in their baths, unfortified by their uniforms.

"Dr. Buncer, I suppose you serve on 委員会s not only with Negroes but with Jews?"

"Often! I've even had a rabbi here for dinner once, with Mrs. Buncer and Sister and Junior at the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する. I think you may say I'm an out-and-out 自由主義の."

"But you take a Negro, Doctor. Would you feel that it was wise to have a Negro for dinner, if he was a qualified preacher?"

"Now, now, Neil, don't try to pin me 負かす／撃墜する! As I told you, I belong to the New School. I wouldn't in the least mind, say at a 条約, sitting 負かす／撃墜する with Negro 知識人s. But to have one for dinner in my house—oh no, my friend! That would not be 肉親，親類d to them! They aren't used to our way of living and thinking. Can you imagine any Negro, no 事柄 what theological training he might pretend to have, 存在 comfortable with Mrs. Buncer, who is 高度に 利益／興味d in Scarlatti and the harpsichord, and who 熟考する／考慮するd at the Fort Wayne 温室 of Music? No, Neil—no!"

"What do you think of this 地元の colored Baptist preacher, Dr. Brewster—some such a 指名する?"

"I've met Doctor Brewster. Oh, he seems a very decent, humble man."

"Why is it that we don't seem to have any colored members in our church, and so few even 減少（する） in for services?"

"When they do 減少（する） in, as you somewhat lightly put it, I've told our 勧めるs to explain that while any darky is perfectly welcome to fellowship with us, still we feel that he would be much happier with his own people, 負かす／撃墜する in the Five Points. I imagine the 勧めるs make that point やめる （疑いを）晴らす—as, indeed, they should.

"There are some young 大臣s who 同意しない with me. They 行為／法令／行動する as if they were the paid スパイ／執行官s of the labor unions and a lot of ユダヤ人の and Negro organizations. Even birth-支配（する）／統制する! 井戸／弁護士席, we are told that Our Lord broke bread with thieves and sinners, but there is no hint that He sat 負かす／撃墜する with doubters and trouble-製造者s and 破壊者s of the Christian home and self-捜し出すing agitators, white, 黒人／ボイコット, or yellow, do you see, my boy?"

"I see more 明確に now, and many thanks, Doctor," said Neil.

一時期／支部 23

Mr. Prutt noticed his mooning at the bank, and in his joky, つつく／ペックing way he tittered, "You look so absent-minded, you must be in love, Neil." Yet through these days of wandering 運命, Neil was still one of our most trusty young (n)役員／(a)執行力のあるs, and the 退役軍人s' 中心 was bringing in 望ましい new accounts of 発射する／解雇するd 兵士s, who might be wearing greasy tunics now, but later might become obstetricians or juke-box lessees or 製造業者s of candy 妨げる／法廷，弁護士業s.

An 予期しない number of the 退役軍人s who 協議するd him were Negroes, and Neil wondered uneasily if Ryan had sent them, and what Ryan had told them, and just how 安全な he was. But he dared ask nothing.

All this meditation was 序幕 to his Friday evening の中で the colored 知識人s.

*

He 主張するd on Vestal's taking the car that evening, because "he was going to another 退役軍人s' organization," and by bus and foot, he went to John Woolcape's.

Emerson had gone 支援する to army 義務, but Neil was 迎える／歓迎するd by John, Mary, Ryan, and by Ash and Martha Davis. To the surprise of everybody, 含むing himself, he あられ／賞賛するd Dr. Davis as a friend long 信用d and 熱望して 設立する again.

With his fluid way of moving, with the woven gold chain of his wrist-watch against a 肌 dark-brown and smooth, Ash Davis had more an 空気／公表する of Parisian boulevards than of anything American, and his small 黒人／ボイコット mustache 示唆するd the French artillerist. You saw him in horizon blue. If his fellow 研究室／実験室-労働者s considered Ash a somewhat fancy fellow in his tastes for tennis, the piano, and amateur botanizing, they 認める that he was a solid 研究 化学者／薬剤師, with a respectable knowledge of plastics. He had had three years in 研究室／実験室s in Paris, Zurich, and Moscow, and in Europe he had almost forgotten that he was a Colored Man and come to consider himself a Man.

If he had hated to return to the 広大な／多数の／重要な gray 共和国, yet he had returned resolutely. He was no rhapsodist about the joys of 存在 an 追放する の中で the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議するs of the Cafe Select and the white hobohemians. The 不足 of 化学者／薬剤師s in the war had given him the chance of a superior 職業 at the Wargate 会社／団体. He had naively believed that he could stay there 永久的に, and instead of going on living out of a trunk, Martha and he had bought an ugly cottage on Canoe 高さs and remodeled it.

His was a busy, useful and innocent life, and, except for Martha and their daughter Nora, he was a little lonely. He 尊敬（する）・点d the Woolcapes and Evan Brewster as 闘士，戦闘機s and solid 国民s, but they had no liking for the frivolous and learned conversation that was his cake.

Martha, the plump and lovely Martha with the radiant, dark-brown 肌, was Kentucky-born, daughter of a Negro lawyer. In college she had been earnest about the 演劇, and her Nora was 指名するd in memory of A Doll's House. Martha never could understand that her husband was a Fresh Nigger Who Didn't Know His Place. To her he was the most exact scholar, the most honorable man, the gayest companion, and the tenderest lover of whom she had ever heard.

She gave some 成果／努力 to trying to keep the poorer members of the Negro Community from considering them as just another family of social 登山者s. For this 疑惑 the poor had some precedent. In every city they had seen too many Negroes who, 繁栄する with hair-tonics or portentous with 職業s in the 法廷，裁判所 house, forgot the cabins of their grandfathers and chased something called the Best Colored Society, with its coffee-colored debutantes and coffee-colored リムジンs, its sweetmen and kept poets and white pansies in the salon of Mme. Noire-Mozambique, and its 追跡（する）-breakfasts 完全にする with red jackets and について言及する in the society columns (colored).

But Neil did not know that there was any Best Colored Society for Martha Davis to dislike. He was making the 必然的な mistake of all 変えるs and assuming that Negroes cannot be as smug and trivial as the whites. Why, bless their souls, they can put on frilled shirts and a thirty per cent. 解答 of a London accent and be just as tedious as Park Avenue any time. Neil had so much to learn about colored people and then, under this 発覚, about white people.

*

The Woolcapes and the Davises and Neil sat around and sat around and 選ぶd up pieces of conversation and looked at them and dropped them. Everyone was 存在 too polite for 慰安 when the door banged and into the room （機の）カム a man like a 技術d and enchanting little comedian, and they all yelled, "Hey, Clem!"

Clement Brazenstar, the 悪名高い field-スパイ／執行官 of the 都市の League, was the son of a dirt-ありふれた, 黒人／ボイコット, Mississippi Delta sharecropper, whose very surname （機の）カム from that of a 農園. Clem had had no college. He snatched his 調書をとる／予約するs (but so many of them!) out of the 空気／公表する when, as a youngster, he had flashed all over the country as bell-boy, cook, fertilizer-salesman, newspaperman, 組織者. His 使節団 now was to find more tolerable 職業s for Negroes, to 公然と非難する 黒人／ボイコット 農業者s who were too lazy to 熟考する／考慮する gas モーターs and co-operative buying and (the office did not 割り当てる him to this; it was just his own notion) to bedevil white college 大統領，／社長s who 認可するd of jimcrowing. He was a lover of whisky, peanuts, Tolstoy, and prizefighting. His French, which he got in Marseilles during World War I, was fair, but his Italian and Yiddish were only utilitarian.

If the Woolcapes were de-ebonized Northerners and the Davises just pleasantly brown, 示唆するing Arabs and the Alhambra gardens, in Clem Brazenstar the astonished Neil saw everything that the missionaries of hate meant by "a little Delta nigger clown." He was a small man, grinning, monkey-直面するd, popping up like a jack-in-the-box. He was midnight-黒人／ボイコット; he was 黒人／ボイコット and lustrous like a fresh sheet of 黒人／ボイコット 炭素 paper; he seemed to be 黒人／ボイコット not just on the surface, like Evan Brewster, but （疑いを）晴らす through to his bones. His lips were almost purple, there was a 向こうずね of 黒人／ボイコット inside his ears, to his 注目する，もくろむs there was a 色合い of yellow, and even the palms of his 手渡すs were darker than pink. His 直面する was always comic, 特に when he was serious, because then he laughed at himself 同様に as at the world.

His small but puffy mouth was always moving in derisive parentheses, his forehead was an agitated whirlpool of wrinkles. He was as enchantingly ugly as a Boston bull, yet his 肌 was so darkly brilliant, he had so gay and 確信して a manner, that he was as beautiful as a blackbird airy on a swaying reed.

His accent was a mixture of Mississippi, Harlem and the twangy Middlewest. He frequently used the word "nigger" for himself and his friends, but he never let the enemy use it without 報復s. To most people he seemed unbelievable, because he was a perfectly natural and normal man who had never been fettered by an ambitious family, a busy school or any 肉親，親類d of a bank-調書をとる／予約する.

*

"This is Captain Kingsblood, a new white friend, and a good one," said John Woolcape.

Clem 迎える／歓迎するd Neil with the smile of a friendly workman, but he gave little 成果／努力 to it. He was as accustomed to soothing or 公然と非難するing whites as he was to spurring or slapping 負かす／撃墜する 黒人／ボイコットs.

"How are you, Captain? 井戸／弁護士席, my 戦う／戦いing brethren, it's always good to get 支援する to Grand 共和国, the 開発 Dainty with no 差別s. Coming up on the bus, I sit 負かす／撃墜する next to a handsome gal from Miteuropa, with her 罰金 young Nazi boy, and he 熟考する／考慮するs me and yells, 'Maw, lookit the funny dinge!' and she says in one of the warmest coloraturas I ever heard, 'Id's an outraitch and I'm goink to 令状 to the bus company how ve Americans get crowtet in vit all 肉親，親類d riff and raff.' Mr. Riff, 会合，会う Mr. Raff!"

Clem was beaming, he was laughing audibly, at his own discomfiture. The astonished Neil was to learn that this was a habit of the most incorrigible of race-支持する／優勝者s. They 設立する nothing やめる so funny as their own 敗北・負かすs.

*

They were merry enough, but 必然的に they told the "new white friend" about 確かな 裁判，公判s in 存在 a second-class 国民. Talking of his own 国境 明言する／公表するs, Ash Davis said cheerfully:

"It's the inconsistency of 差別 that gets the poor Sambo 負かす／撃墜する. In one town in the South he can shop in any department 蓄える／店 and ride on the 前線 elevators and his wife can try on the 着せる／賦与するs; and in the next one, forty miles away, he isn't 許すd to enter any decent white 蓄える／店 at all, and gets pinched if he tries it, and the elevators are jimcrowed even in twenty-story office buildings. For years we pariahs may buy magazines in the white waiting room of a 駅／配置する, then suddenly we're 逮捕（する）d by a big peckerwood 警官，（賞などを）獲得する for going in there at all.

"Captain Kingsblood, it isn't only the humiliation of segregation that riles us. It's the impossibility of telling when the simplest thing, like raising your hat to a 修道女, will be considered 犯罪の, and you'll get slugged for it. It's that 疑問 that makes so many timid fellows go 得る，とらえる a かみそり.

"Oh, some cullud brethren 賞賛する the South because, under segregation, a 確かな number of sepia merchants get rich on the 残り／休憩（する） of us chosen people. In fact there's a 論争 now in the colored 圧力（をかける） about whether to go North and get frozen out or stay South and get 燃やすd out. 井戸／弁護士席, either way, there's always 罰金 conversation about 存在 rooked."

Clem Brazenstar 激怒（する）d, "Say, for God's sake, are we going to start another all-night race-discussion?" and settled comfortably on the couch for same.

"Not for me. I never want to hear about our 爆破d race again!" 布告するd Ryan Woolcape, also making himself comfortable.

Neil said あわてて, "Before you get 完全に off the 支配する—" Somebody laughed. "—I would like to have your comments on a letter I got, months ago, from a classmate serving in the South 太平洋の. May I read part of it?"

Their grunts 明らかに meant Yes, he might, and he droned:

"I've been having a sticky 職業 as an army 犯罪の 捜査官／調査官 lately and I've been surprised to find how 異なって I feel now about Negroes. They are very 人気がない. The white G.I. has more friendliness toward the members of any 外国人 race, because the Negro does not 延長する to white 兵士s the same cheerful 儀礼 that the whites 延長する to one another, and that is important where men live so の近くに together. No 疑問 there are excellent Negro 兵士s. But in every stockade the Negro 囚人s より数が多い the whites three to one, on a 百分率 basis, and they are in for AWOL, disobeying direct orders, sex 罪，犯罪s, stabbings, and stealing from other 兵士s, and in all these 事例／患者s they are given to lying, 自由に and volubly. So our boys who before the war had no 接触する with Negroes will go 支援する into 非軍事の life with a 広大な／多数の／重要な 取引，協定 of prejudice."

*

Neil 推定する／予想するd 激怒（する）, but he was answered only by a silence with no particular 強調 in it, and the belligerent Sergeant Ryan Woolcape commented uninterestedly:

"Your friend is a typical 警官，（賞などを）獲得する. He isn't 利益／興味d in finding good 兵士s, only bad ones. He doesn't know one thing about the innumerable colored outfits—like, say, the 761st 戦車／タンク 大隊—that had 広大な／多数の／重要な 記録，記録的な／記録するs. But I will 手渡す it to him he probably knows the 影響 of the story that guys like him spread all over Asia and Europe—that all of us colored fellows have tails! Did that make us cheerfully courteous!"

They laughed, and Clem Brazenstar 支配するd, "Come off the soapbox, Ryan, and let a professional talk!...Cap, what that fellow said is part true, and the truer it is, the more you whites have to do something 激烈な, for your own sake.

"The old Uncle Toms 解除するd up their 発言する／表明するs in hallelujahs if they got 扱う／治療するd 同様に as the livestock, but not the young tribesmen. They've read a 調書をとる／予約する. Get it （疑いを）晴らす—the New Negro 需要・要求するs every 権利 of the New White Man, every one, and he doesn't whine for them now; he'll fight for them. You white iagos have built up a 革命の army of thirteen million Othellos, male and 女性（の）. Of course the colored boys are impolite to the white gemmuns, in a war they never 手配中の，お尋ね者 to fight. Their own war was closer.

"The boys that were brought up as I was, in shacks beside cricks where dead dogs and human waste floated, shacks without even a privy, where the 農園 storekeepers or the cotton-買い手s all stole from us and wouldn't even let us look at our accounts—some of these boys steal 支援する. What a haunt you whites have built up!

"Segregated! John and Mary, Ash and Martha, segregated just as much as an old boot like me. Segregated! Told that we're like hogs, not fit to mix with human 存在s, and then your 軍の gumshoe friend 推定する／予想するs us to be obedient—and chummy!

"Segregated! 'Separate but equal accommodations'—new coaches for the whites and pest-houses on wheels for the happy jigs! New brick schools for your kids—see pictures in the Atlanta Sunday paper—and unpainted barns for us, and （法廷の）裁判s without 支援するs and no desks, no desks at all, for our pickaninnies, as you would call 'em. Let the little bastards 令状 on their 膝s, if they have to 令状—which sensible folks 厳粛に question.

"Segregated! School buses for your darling chicks, but ours can hoof it five miles. Marble-床に打ち倒すd hospitals for you and slaughterhouses for us. No 職業s except the hard work, the dirty work, the dangerous work, and the white 警官，（賞などを）獲得するs making their own 法律s to use against us and 事実上の／代理 as provocateurs and our 裁判官s and our executioners all put together. And then your classmate complains that we won't whisper our secrets in his dainty ears! I'll say!"

And Clem yelled with laughter and looked at Neil affectionately. And affectionately Martha Davis crooned at Neil:

"Mr. Kingsblood, the Southern white man invariably tells you that when he was a boy, his best friend was a lil 黒人／ボイコット rascal who was his guide and bootlegger and pimp and pal. Good Ole Jim! He never tells you he was friendly with a 黒人／ボイコット boy who was studious and sober. He didn't know there were any colored boys like that—he still doesn't!

"And really 肉親，親類d, 甘い Southern women who give the tenderest care to a cullud wench if she takes typhoid but are 感情を害する／違反するd if she takes psychology.

"It isn't 単に the major horrors that 抑圧する us in the South—the 恐れる of 存在 lynched, burnt, beaten. We can forget those things, except on 蒸し暑い nights with heat 雷 like the flash of guns. Then you 嘘（をつく） rigid in the dark and listen and you're terrified when you hear a car, a footstep, a whisper, terrified that the whites may be coming, and they never come for any good.

"But it's not that 恐れる so much as the constant, 静かな 非難するs. It's the little things, in a South that 心にいだくs the little things—roses and Grandfather's sword and Lanier's 詩（を作る）s and the joyful 論争 between bruising and 鎮圧するing the 造幣局 for a julep. It's the 調印するs 'For colored only,' that tell a pretentious Negro 女性（の） like me that she's unclean.

"I taught for a year in the 深い South, after college. I believed the story that the whites liked to have the colored teachers be extra clean and neat as an example to the children. I had a funny, rickety little old car, and I painted it white, myself. One Saturday I was coming into town, and I washed the car—it was like glass—and I was so proud of my new white 控訴 and white shoes. And new white gloves! I got out at a drugstore, and there was a horrible old peckerwood 農業者—yellow as an angleworm—and he walked over and deliberately spat a 抱擁する gob of タバコ juice 権利 on the door of my clean car. And the other white men all laughed. Then I knew that Hell has the 調印する 'For colored only.'"

一時期／支部 24

Clem Brazenstar 主張するd that if they spoke only of these trivialities, if they did not について言及する the more lusty 暴力／激しさ in the South, such as a returned Negro 兵士's having his 注目する，もくろむs gouged out with a policeman's night-stick, their new white friend would be bored, and Clem's own virility as a Southerner would be slighted.

They all laughed again, but now Neil shuddered.

He 主張するd, "But there's no such 暴力／激しさ against the Negroes in any Northern 明言する／公表する."

"Sure there is, in race 暴動s," Clem said placidly. "But the 職業-天井 is more important; trained brownskin teachers and stenographers きっぱりと told they can't have the 職業, not because they're incapable but because they're beige. And restaurants that, in this 明言する／公表する, are compelled by 法律 to 収容する／認める Negroes, so a lot of them either keep the smokes waiting or else salt their food so much that they can't eat it. And Negroes doing war-work in factories not 許すd to drink from the same 泡ing fountains as the sacred whites. It certainly makes an ardent 愛国者 out of a guy who happens to like bathing every night to be told he can't even 株 the same running stream of water with a Yankee 農業者 or a Tennessee hillbilly who 真面目に believes that a bath-tub was invented to keep angleworms in.

"No, get it straight, Little White Father; in this democratic Northern town, they don't lynch Negroes—not often—but they tell us every day that we're all 病気d and filthy and 犯罪の. And do they believe it? Hell, no! But they make themselves believe it and then they make other people believe it and so they get rid of us as 競争相手s for the good 職業s that they'd like themselves.

"But what 奮起させるs us here in Grand 共和国 is that the vile Ethiope is not 許すd to join the Y.M.C.A., the very 井戸／弁護士席-endowed 協会 to spread the example of Christ, so that his brown 団体／死体 won't 汚染する the swimming pool and 毒（薬） the feeble little sons of sons of so and so of white contributors to African 使節団s. The Y.M.C.A.! The Yes-Men's はうing 円形競技場!"

"I didn't know there were 差別s like that in Grand 共和国," said Neil meekly.

*

"The thing that got me most," said Ryan, "was that when I was a little kid in school here, I was friendly with all the whites, boys and girls; swam with 'em and built mud forts and skated and went on the same toboggan, and so I （機の）カム to believe they really were my chums, and then when we got to puberty, they discovered I was 'colored,' and said so 率直に, and when I went to see a girl with whom I've played for years, 権利 in their 前線 yard, I was told she 'wasn't home,' and then I saw her come out of the house with a white pimple-直面する that we all despised. Segregation here, Cap? No. Just 検疫!"

*

John Woolcape said gently, "Mary and I don't run into much 差別. It does irritate me いつかs, in my 地階, to have some twelve-year-old white child bellow, 'Here you, Johnny, where the hell are you?' But that's what any 管理人 推定する／予想するs. And as far as having our feelings 傷つける in restaurants and movie theaters goes, we just feel it's better not to take a chance on them. We stay home evenings and read or listen to the 無線で通信する or play cards with our friends, and never, never go outside. Mary and I don't like squabbling and 叫び声をあげるing, and we feel it's safer so. Then nobody can say we're bad people, and try to run us out of our home. Yes, we love our home, and here we're 安全な."

"So far you are!" said Clem rudely. "But the South is getting better—いっそう少なく lynching, more of us 投票（する）ing, equal 支払う／賃金 for teachers in some places. So the North is getting worse, very obligingly, just to keep my 職業 going."

"Yes," said Ash Davis, "the Northerner has a 広大な／多数の／重要な 未来 as a synthetic 物陰／風下. Take Mr. Pete Snitch, of the Snitch Brothers Steel Company of Illinois. He buys a winter home in South Carolina, and inside of two years he is more Southern-born than any born Southerner.

"He's been an アイロンをかける-puddler but now he has a million, and so he and the little woman long for an aristocratic tradition, the real Walter Scott pawing charger and ivy. And there in the South he has it—magnolias and mocking birds and white columns and the glen where the gallants used to duel and the respectful poor—at least they sound respectful. The only known living 子孫 of the family whose house the Snitches cuckooed into is working on a newspaper in Birmingham, so Mr. Snitch feels he's taken over the family ghosts, in crinoline, along with the 肩書を与える-行為.

"He's a gent by 購入（する） and a Southerner by linguaphone. But he has to 証明する his gentility, and the best way to do that, 明白に, is to be 侮辱ing to his inferiors, and as we Africans 欠如（する） his 罰金, Anglo-Saxon beer-紅潮／摘発する, we're elected as the inferiors, and he yells at us even louder than a Carolina jailer, and in any conversation at Bollington Hall, 陸軍大佐 Peterborough Snitch will be the first to be heard 叫び声をあげるing, 'You wouldn't want your daughter to marry a nigger, would you?' Oh, yes, you Northerners have a 広大な／多数の／重要な 未来 in the chivalry and blacksnake 商売／仕事.

"And I have 改訂するd the old 支配する, to read, 'In Rome, do as the Romans do, but you don't have to （人命などを）奪う，主張する that you invented it.'"

*

Then the race-talk became a little hysterical, to Neil a little 混乱させるing. It was broken by the arrival of Sugar Gowse, with lunch-pail.

Sugar had been born to the Louisiana canefields, but he had 選ぶd up a knowledge of 道具s and lathes. He was on his way now to the Wargate 工場／植物, where he was a machinist on the graveyard 転換. Since his work was faultless, he believed that Wargate's would keep him on in peace time and, as naive as Ash Davis, he had bought a two-room shack where he "bached it" with his motherless son, Bobby, the (n)艦隊／(a)素早い-footed and antic ダンサー, the boogie-woogie wizard of the Five Points.

His 黒人／ボイコット Belt accent was like blackjack molasses and Neil could but half understand him. He looked like an Indian, with thin lips, thin 黒人／ボイコット 強硬派 nose; tall and straight; an impression of 裁判官 Cass Timberlane 削減（する） in basalt. He was wearing now the blue-denim blouse and 全体にわたるs that were romantic as all work-着せる／賦与するs are.

When they tried to drag him into the race-talk, Sugar said, no, he knew nothing about 差別, except that here or any other place, the colored folks were always the last to be 雇うd and the first to be 解雇する／砲火／射撃d, so why worry?

Neil wondered, "But can you stand our 冷淡な winters?"

"Mister, it's colder in a Louisiana shack, 十分な of 穴を開けるs, at forty above than it is here in my plastered house at forty below."

"Sugar just wants room to 残り／休憩（する） his hat. He's sensible enough not to have the constant feeling of insecurity and futility that gets Martha and me 負かす／撃墜する," said Ash.

"You educated fellows are too touchy, Doc. You don't know how a 労働者 feels," said Sugar.

"労働者!" Ash 抗議するd. "When I got out of college, I was cook on a 私的な car—that ineffable 公式の／役人 and his booze!—and when I finished 卒業生（する） work in chemistry, my first 職業 was in a 特許-薬／医学 捨てる, where I packed boxes and 負担d 'em on トラックで運ぶs when I wasn't making up 決まり文句／製法."

Clem Brazenstar argued with Sugar, "You get touchy, too, when some woman changes her seat because you sit next to her in a bus. Sophie! My eagle!"

A brownskin girl had slipped into the room, and Mary 発表するd to Neil, "This is Sophie Concord. She's a 地区 nurse...Mr. Kingsblood, a new friend."

"I've seen Mr. Kingsblood in the bank," said Sophie, and 追加するd, as though she was trying not to, "存在 efficient and handsome!" She looked at him with no 調印するs of anesthesia, and he was 確かな that she was the most beautiful young woman he had ever seen and the least frigid.

*

Sophie Concord, Alabama-born and Neil's own age, was tall, like Vestal, and frank-直面するd like her, but more endowed with curves and long 甘い lines that 利益／興味d even a sober carthorse like Neil. She had a generous mouth and a 肌 nearly as dark as Ash Davis's, a rich brown 肌 that was incredibly satin-smooth, and her 明らかにする 武器 were the color of a polished 乾燥した，日照りの fig against the white rayon of her rather 古代の party-dress.

Sophie had once been a たいまつ-singer in minor night clubs in New York; she had been 受託するd in sequin and シャンペン酒 circles in Harlem; but she had resented having to clown for gap-mouthed white patrons. She had turned flippantly pious, taken a knight's 誓い sung to jazz, and after three hard years had become a nurse, 井戸／弁護士席 trained, 根気よく consecrated, and very pert.

She preferred, she mockingly 主張するd, the care of 幼児s afflicted with nits to the care of white gentlemen patrons with leers. The exacting Ryan Woolcape 認める, "Sophie is a hardboiled nurse even if she does look like Cobra perfume and lace pillows."

*

"Our new white friend seems to be a good guy," Clem explained 公然と to Sophie. "We've been giving him Second Year 破壊分子 Doctrine, and he hasn't blinked yet. He must have a little 減少（する） of chocolate in him, I guess!"

Everybody laughed—except the Woolcapes, and Neil, who felt frozen.

"You would drag out the 宣伝, to entertain a poor man that wants to know about Joe Louis. He must by this time be as sick of your racial soapboxing as I am," 抗議するd Sophie, climbing on her own soapbox. "Tell me, Mr. Kingsblood, are you another white slummer, or a real friend of our race?"

"You have no idea how real!" said Neil.

"He is a 甘い, 罰金 man," 主張するd Mother Woolcape.

"Goody, goody!" Sophie's 発言する／表明する, Neil thought, even when she was lamentably trying to be 削減（する）, was like summer dusk quick with fireflies. "Lots of white people think we're 怪しげな and hard to get 熟知させるd with. And maybe we are. We've all had the most shaming experiences with 明らかに friendly whites who come around and tell us 'You're just dandy' and then go home and make a funny story out of it.

"For one white like Sweeney Fishberg or 対処する Anderson, that never even notices your color if you're a friend, any more than he 特に notices whether you're 黒人／ボイコット-長，率いるd or red-長，率いるd, there's ten ofays who pretend they want to be chummy but are either on the make, trying to sell us something—a sewing machine or a church or 共産主義者 doctrine—or else they're taking up Social Equality for the Poor Colored Brethren, in between Bundles for Britain and Thomas Wolfe, between Dali and Monsignor Sheean. Or else they're 失敗s in their own white world, 失望させるd women and reporters without a 職業 and preachers without pews, who believe they can be important and get loved hot in our world, which they think is just panting to be patronized by some gray that once read a life of Booker T. Washington. They make us awful leery of our dear white friends. So you see, Mr. Kingsblood, we'll be 診察するing you as 慎重に as you will us."

While she was lecturing as a missionary, Neil was looking at her as a woman. She was a soft-moving cat, a bronze cat whose bronze would turn into soft flesh under the fingertips. Her breasts were 会社／堅い like bronze and softer, he 推測するd, than the 味方するs of a cat.

Then he shook his 長，率いる fretfully.

—Don't you think you could love the race without wanting to pet its 代表者／国会議員, Kingsblood, you 失望させるd white man?

Sugar Gowse got up, lunch-pail in 手渡す, and drawled, "I reckon I like the white fellows I work with better than the biggety guys 行方不明になる Sophie 会談 about. At the factory, they either divvy their beer and bolony with you, or they hate you and tell you so with a crowbar. Good night."

Sugar's pronunciation was as 厚い as gumbo; he said "excusing" for "except," and he 発言／述べるd that when the foreman "lowrated him," he had "paid him no mind." But Neil saw that Sugar had 中止するd to be a Nigra, a half-human creature who, had he remained in the South, would by even the kindliest whites have been 率d as "pretty decent, for a darky." He had become a human 存在 here, like Webb Wargate or John Woolcape. Only, more gay!

Neil noticed that he had not heard tonight the wild picturesqueness of speech that he had 設立する in fiction about Southern Negroes, nor the gilded perversions of the stories about Harlem and 麻薬 and creepers. Except for an 時折の self-consciously used word like "ofay," these people—it was another shock—talked like the people he knew, like all the people he had ever known, in the bank or the army or the university. Only, more gaily!

*

Clem was 持つ／拘留するing 前へ／外へ:

"Uncle Bodacious—I want to tell Mr. Kingsblood about Uncle Bodacious. He's the guy—he's white but he has some cullud cousins across the 跡をつけるs—he's the clothhead that first invented 'Some of my best friends are Jews' and 'I'm all for unions but I hate these outside agitators.' And Uncle Bodacious is the 当局 who explains that the 推論する／理由 for segregation is that さもなければ the blues would marry all the white women, and with a jackass like that, there's no use pointing out that most of us sables would rather marry a gal like Sophie than a chalkette.

"My own frau, bless her, is 非，不，無 of your high yallas. She's a high 特許-leather. But if I 手配中の，お尋ね者 to marry a pink who 手配中の，お尋ね者 to marry me, I sure would.

"When anybody hollers that there's any importance to the 量 of marriage between 黒人／ボイコットs and whites, you can be sure that he's trying to find a good, pious, obscene 推論する／理由 for low-grading his colored help, so he'll feel virtuous in underpaying them.

"But Uncle Bodacious's prime cackle is, 'There is no 解答 of the Negro Problem.' That sounds learned and ethnological as hell, but all it means is that there is no 解答, this 味方する of a nice tomb in Forest Lawn, for Uncle Bodacious!...And now, for the Lord's sake, Mary, do we get coffee and doughnuts?"

And coffee and doughnuts were what Mary did serve. They were wonderful.

*

持つ／拘留するing his cup and leaning over a youngish colored woman, Neil may not have appeared as a man in a 劇の 危機, but Sophie Concord and her 事情に応じて変わる 注目する，もくろむs and her tawny 発言する／表明する 具体的に表現するd for him all the tempting strangeness of a mythical Africa, and he felt that she should be 詠唱するing a voodoo charm instead of 存在 emphatic about 基金s for the 治療 of infantile paralysis.

As a 最近の 変える, Neil longed to be の近くに to these 始めるs; he wished they would call him by his first 指名する as they did one another, but they went on 厳粛に Mistering him. Even when he slipped and absently spoke to Dr. Davis as "Ash," he was put in his place by a Mister. He politely said "行方不明になる Concord," but that way of 演説（する）／住所ing her seemed like the damp saucer of a women's club teacup, as he watched her throw 支援する her 長，率いる, shake her dark hair, and mutter "De 法律d!" He longed to see her in the steaming lushness of her Broadway night-位置／汚点／見つけ出すs, not eating doughnuts on Mayo Street.

Talking to her alone, he got out, "How do you feel about the 未来 of the race?" and was 公正に／かなり proud of himself for 存在 professional.

Sophie was as crisp as Vestal. "Just what does that mean, Mr. Kingsblood? That's one of those 保険-man-on-the-telephone questions, like 'How did you sleep last night?' or '井戸／弁護士席, 井戸／弁護士席, 井戸／弁護士席, how's every lil thing this morning?'"

"Maybe it is, except I do want to know."

"Why?"

"It's—行方不明になる Concord, I have such a liking for your friends here—and you."

"Mister, I 港／避難所't had a white 銀行業者 so attentive since I worked in the Tiger Divan, in Harlem, and an ofay high financier, a jig-chaser from Bismarck, 手配中の，お尋ね者 to come up to my flat and look at etchings, and he was willing to bring the etchings, done by the 政府, and—"

"Stop that!"

"What?"

"I really want to learn about Negroes. I'm a humble student."

"法律s amassy, listen at the man!"

"What was your college, Sophie?"

"Hm?"

"You're just another educated Alabama girl trying to be African."

"Mister, you're learning! I only had a year, and I spent all my time 熟考する／考慮するing French history, God help me!"

"I didn't 推定する／予想する tonight that I'd find やめる so many of your race that are better-read than I am."

"Don't get fooled. Mostly, they ain't!"

"The bunch here are. Don't make fun of the poor dumb whites like me. Tell me about yourself."

"Mister, don't you realize what I am? I'm that beautiful convent-trained New Orleans octoroon, that 熱烈な slave-girl with the lambent 注目する，もくろむs and long raven tresses, standing on the 封鎖する with hot blushes, and 事実上 nothing else on, before the leering planters (or theatrical スパイ／執行官s) with their beaver hats and beaver watch-chains. But one young man there, young Nevil Calhoun Kingsblood of Kingsblood Corners, Kentucky, pities her, and soon, along the gal'ry of a mysterious old mansion nigh Lexington, there is to be seen a 隠すd 人物／姿／数字 gliding—lookit her glide, lookit her, the nebig!

"Now, dear Mr. Kingsblood, don't try to find any of us romantic. We're a bunch of hard-working people who believe in just one thing—getting the 職業 天井 raised for the whole race, so that a 高度に competent colored girl will have a chance at a $32.75 職業 as a とじ込み／提出するing-clerk instead of working in the laundry all her life. That's all we are!"

But as she said it, they were friends.

He was at last noticing what she wore: a white long dress with a 野蛮な gold jacket, a 抱擁する topaz （犯罪の）一味 that questioned her plain-talk.

"I must be sure and remember what she has on, to tell Vestal," he had dutifully 記録，記録的な／記録するd before he realized that he was ありそうもない to tell Vestal about Sophie's 衣装 or anything else regarding that 統計に基づく hoyden.

*

When the race-talk, which was resistless to them as a ball of paper to a kitten, started all over again, Neil learned that whenever a 井戸／弁護士席-meaning white asks, "Wouldn't the Negroes be 満足させるd with—" the answer is No. He learned that a Southern 自由主義の is a man who explains to a Northern 自由主義の that Beale Street has been re-christened Beale Avenue.

He heard of colored 裁判官s, 外科医s, war 特派員s for the Negro 圧力（をかける）. 半端物 things he heard of: 黒人／ボイコット Buddhists and 黒人／ボイコット 正統派の Jews, colored 共産主義者s and colored Masons and 半端物-fellows and Elks and Greek-letter fraternities, lowly Negroes who hated all ユダヤ人の shopkeepers and Negroes so 高度に placed that they hated all lowly Negroes.

They （機の）カム, 必然的に, to the Second Question, and Neil said awkwardly to Dr. Davis, "It's probably old stuff to you, but what about this argument that the Negroes must be inferior because they didn't build a lot of cathedrals and Parthenons in Africa?"

Everybody laughed, but Dr. Davis answered 厳粛に:

"Did you ever try building a Parthenon の中で the tse-tse 飛行機で行くs? As a 事柄 of fact, our people have built their 株—along with the other slaves in Egypt and Rome. And who do you suppose built our 農園 houses? The owners? And do you know how many young colored architects there are now?

"Mr. Kingsblood, you can't count on the Negroes remaining いっそう少なく architectural than the whites, にもかかわらず the eloquence of the peckerwood preacher who 会談, in an unpainted plank chapel, about 'The Nigras that the myster'ous han' of God done 直す／買収する，八百長をする so they cain't nevuh build no Pa'thenonses.' It's one o'clock! I'm going home!"

*

He felt that he had come on a new world that was stranger than the moon, darker than the night, brighter than morning hills, a world exciting and dangerous.

"I love these people!" he thought.

一時期／支部 25

"I wouldn't know about you millionaires, but I'm a working woman and I have to go home," said Sophie Concord.

—I've heard Vestal say that!

Martha Davis was to 運動 Sophie home. Ash 示唆するd, "I'll walk over and put Mr. Kingsblood on a bus...Just 同様に not to wander around here alone, after one in the morning. Some bad actors—not all colored. I'll 約束 to keep off the race-talk, though there is no 完全にする cure for it. The other day, in the bathroom, I read a label 'facial tissues' as 'racial 問題／発行するs.'"

To Mary Woolcape, Neil said 個人として, "This evening has been exciting but I still don't know that I can tell even our friends here that I am a Negro."

"I'm not even sure you せねばならない, not sure at all. Why 危険 the humiliations we've been talking about tonight?"

There were late-燃やすing lights behind dark curtains along Mayo Street, and from the rooms over a 蓄える／店 （機の）カム a high cackle of laughter. The alleys were filled with 影をつくる／尾行するs—they may have been men lurking and they may have been バーレル／樽s, but in neither 事例／患者 did Neil like them. Ash had nothing to say, and Neil saw how attentively he watched every 事情に応じて変わる alley cat, every dusky loafer squatted on his heels on a grating.

Neil 主張するd on their walking from the bus stop up to Canoe 高さs, and Ash's house.

It was a small house and low-roofed, but Neil saw from its 広大な／多数の／重要な window, which made one whole corner a cage of glass, that this was what was called a "modern house," in 反乱 from all the Cape Cod and Tudor of Sylvan Park. He had heard Mr. Prutt 非難する such structures as anarchistic, but he had never been inside one.

Ash murmured, "You must come in for a drink," and Neil entered a room that repelled him and fascinated him by its conscious bareness, its freedom from all silver-boxery. It had two 中心s: the 抱擁する corner window, through which he could see a 逮捕する of pale lights far 負かす／撃墜する below them in the Five Points, and a 厳しい fireplace, of polished 石／投石する, without a mantel. The few 議長，司会を務めるs, covered with rough-woven 構成要素, were of 慣習に捕らわれない 形態／調整s, more attentive to the human form than to Chippendale; and on the 塀で囲む, which was lined with something that seemed at once to be wallpaper and metal, there was just one picture, an orgy of reeling triangles. On the small piano was a lump of ぎこちない 黒人／ボイコット sculpture.

"井戸／弁護士席—so this is a Modern House," Neil marveled, as Ash mixed a highball at a competent closet-妨げる／法廷，弁護士業.

"So they call it."

"Who was your architect?"

"Me, so far as there was one. This was a 肉親，親類d of shed, and Martha and I made it over. But you know, I think this house is the symbol of my shame. I'm afraid I really did it to spite Lucian Firelock, and keeping up with the highbrows is worse than keeping up with the Joneses. You know Firelock?"

"Advertising 経営者／支配人 at Wargate's—Southern guy? Yes, a little."

"He's a Southern 自由主義の—Vanderbilt University—the 肉親，親類d that wants both to keep us evil darkies in our place and get credit for 存在 very tolerant—wants us to 熟考する／考慮する the same things as a white man, but do it under the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する. Firelock lives two doors from here in a dreadful old Noah's Ark with trimmings like fungus—only place he could get, in the war 不足, poor gentleman!

"He was agitated when he 設立する I was a neighbor. He's used to having 'darkies' in the 近隣, only they're supposed to remain poor and humble and 感謝する. He looked 負かす／撃墜する his nose at me when he first saw me. Then his kids got to playing with my Nora, and we got half 熟知させるd, and the worst of it is, the poor devil likes me better than anybody else around here, and he can't 収容する／認める it.

"When I made over this place, I didn't realize at first that I was going out for this Modern Style, which is, of course, a Freudian form of Puritanism, just ーするために impress Firelock. The worst of it is, I 後継するd, and every time I see him go by, he's looking envious. Can you （警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域 that for a low human 動機 on my part? And this room is so 爆破d chaste that I long for a golden-oak rocker under a picture of the old church by moonlight. I'm a Rotarian in professor's 着せる／賦与するing.

"No, that's not true. (God, I am talking so much tonight! That's because almost every evening I stay home.) I'm not in the least either an affable 実業家 or a heated race-agitator.

"I'd like to live in an ivory tower, play Bach, read Yeats and Melville, be an 当局 on the history of chemistry and alchemy instead of a plodding 研究室／実験室 切り開く／タクシー／不正アクセス. But the white scholars won't 受託する me, so I try to become an ardent race-改革運動家. But it's a 役割, and I'm not a good actor.

"I have an affection for our friends tonight, but I find Clem too emphatic, Ryan too ridden by 共産主義者 Jesuitism, Sophie too imitative of the white Talking Women, and John and Mary, whom I honestly love, too smug. My notion of an agreeable evening would be to sit by the fireplace with George Moore, 説 nothing. Oh, it's not 平易な for me to bellow for our '権利s'—even though I do emphatically believe that they are our 権利s.

"I think I'm telling you this so that you may know that neither we nor our 宣伝 are as simple as we seem. Nor are you!

"I think you have some やめる special 利益／興味 in the race. You certainly are not a philanthropic dabbler. What is it?"

—Here's the man that really might have something to tell me, that might become the friend I need. I don't want to go on blabbing this, but—

"Ash, I think かもしれない I have some Negro 血 myself, way 支援する."

There was no sympathy from Ash nor surprise but only a 静かな, "Oh. 井戸／弁護士席, perhaps it's something to be proud of. Perhaps you're in a better war now."

"But I'm 脅すd of 存在 設立する out—and by people for whose opinions I don't really care a damn."

"If you need a 避難, at least 言葉の, Mr. Kingsblood, I shall be glad if you'll come here."

"I certainly shall. Good night, Ash."

Dr. Davis distinctly hesitated before he said, "Good night—Neil."

*

As he tramped on home, a good-looking but stolid-looking youngish man, through streets where clerks and foremen lived, streets like the aisles between boxes in a dark 倉庫／問屋, there was more hope than 逮捕 in him. If he was still nervous about a 考えられる 未来 as a Negro, he no longer hated anything in it; in spirit he was on the 味方する of the 妨げる／法廷，弁護士業s with Ash and Sophie and Ryan and Clem.

When he （機の）カム dubiously into the bedroom, Vestal woke only to jeer, affectionately, "Some evening you vets must have had!" and went 支援する to sleep.

It was astonishing, he thought, that his beloved wife did not 即時に perceive that this evening had been the most 批判的な in his history. Would Sophie have seen it?

*

Vestal and Neil were off for their two-weeks summer vacation in a rented cottage on the North Shore of Lake Superior. Before they went, Mr. S. Ashiel Denver, cashier of the Second 国家の, gave them a dinner at the Pineland Hotel, to celebrate the glory and profitableness of the 退役軍人s' 中心. In the pink glow from the rose-形態／調整d 塀で囲む-brackets against the Pompeian frescoes of the Fiesole Room, they were 勧めるd to their （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する, handsome with silver and roses, by the senatorial Drexel Greenshaw, with his dark-brown ドーム, his clipped white mustache.

As they toyed with sardines lying exhausted on little couches of 冷淡な toast, Vestal looked after Mr. Greenshaw's majestic 支援する, and admired, "He's やめる the old-fashioned darky, isn't he! I bet he loves pork chops and watermelon and 狙撃 craps."

Mr. Denver agreed, "Yes, he's a 罰金 old fellow. Never gets fresh or tries to 行為／法令／行動する like he was white. He knows his place and does just what he's told and says 'Thank you,' instead of trying to make you think he owned the hotel, like some of these flip young niggers would."

But Mrs. Denver was not やめる sure that she could 認める Drexel a license to live. "He gets a little too friendly, for my taste. I do think one has to keep up 基準s in these 批判的な days, with the 決裂／故障 of 意気込み／士気 and all, and I can't say I enjoy seeing a colored waiter 事実上の／代理 like he belonged to the family. I don't see why they don't get rid of all the nigger help, in a place that （人命などを）奪う，主張するs to be so highclass, and 雇う some nice waitresses—but American ones, not all these 厚い Scandinavians."

"Oh, I think all these darky waiters mean 井戸／弁護士席. Only thing that bothers me about them is, I 簡単に can't tell them apart," Vestal said broadmindedly, looking at the three waiters now in sight, one squat and 黒人／ボイコット, one わずかな／ほっそりした and coffee-colored, one very tall, very pale, and spectacled. "Can you, Neil?"

"Oh, yes, they seem like individuals to me."

Mrs. Denver wheezed on—there was always a sound of corsets in her 発言する／表明する—"But Neil, even if you can tell 'em apart, you don't like that old fussbudget of a headwaiter, do you?"

"Yes, I do. I think he's a 罰金 old gentleman."

"Gentleman? My, what a funny word to use about a darky!"

After the festal dinner, they drove to the Denver abode, just 支援する of Neil's house, and in （機の）カム a 洪水／多発 of neighbors: Don and Rose Pennloss, and Cedric Staubermeyer, the much-traveled 売買業者 in paints, wallpaper, linoleum, and other 反対するs of art, with wife. There was pleasant but 知識人 conversation, and Neil was able to compare the 繁栄する white man's 範囲 of cultural 利益／興味s with the 原始の 見通し of the Negroes to whom he had listened, three evenings before, at the house of a colored 管理人:

"I think it's getting やめる a bit warmer."

"Yes, but June was awfully 冷淡な."

"Oh, did you think so? I didn't think it was colder than usual. Not 特に, I mean."

"Wasn't it? 井戸／弁護士席, I felt like it was colder."

Flashes like that, thrown off without 成果／努力.

But Mrs. Cedric Staubermeyer was more 熟考する／考慮するd and, it might be said, 教育の:

"My, my, doesn't seem like ten years ago, just seems like yesterday we were in Rome. We saw the Eternal City through and through, and the 廃虚s, very 古代の, and the Vatican and the 離着陸場, and the lady at the English teashop, she was English, and she said my! we seemed like old inhabitants to her, and of course we had a 広大な／多数の／重要な advantage, not staying at a hotel but at a 年金 where we met the native Italians, we met several, and they explained everything to us, and such an 利益／興味ing Frenchman, my! he spoke the most beautiful English, just like Cedric's and 地雷, and imagine! he told us he had a cousin living 権利 here in Grand 共和国!"

But Mr. Staubermeyer put in a sour 公式文書，認める:

"We never looked his cousin up when we got 支援する here, because I 嫌疑者，容疑者／疑う this French guy was a Jew, and you know what I think of Jews, and so would you, if you had to do 商売／仕事 with them, and so I said to my wife, 'Oh, the hell with him! I can stand foreigners in foreign parts,' I said, 'and I like the natives all 権利, except for the way they live and do 商売／仕事, but let's just keep 'em abroad, where they belong.'"

*

Their 範囲 of 利益／興味s was by no means 限られた／立憲的な to travel. They went 完全に into the prospects for pheasant-追跡（する）ing this coming 落ちる, the crookedness of their 下院議員—for whom, however, they would continue to 投票（する）, lest a 農業者-Labor-民主党員 get in, and the facts that Mr. Jones was buying the house of Mr. Brown and Mr. Brown was drinking too much. They skillfully compared the prices for women's stockings in Tarr's Emporium, the Beaux Arts, and the shops in Duluth, Minneapolis and St. Paul, until Mrs. Denver cried, "My gracious, we've been chatting away so that I never realized it was so late, but you don't mean to say that you're going home, Neil?"

He was.

一時期／支部 26

The waves of Lake Superior splashed の中で the 明らかにする dark roots of the birch and cedar and white pine, and their スピードを出す／記録につける cabin smelled damp and fresh. They dived into the 冷淡な water and （機の）カム out blissfully 叫び声をあげるing, and on the warmer small lakes, 支援する in the solid forest of the Arrowhead, they canoed, they fished for small-mouth bass, and made a whole 戦争 of 狙撃 at tin cans floating. And in all this peace, Neil never stopped fretting.

This was old Chippewa country. Xavier Pic must have driven his canoe through the 影をつくる／尾行する of these cliffs on his 旅行s to 雷鳴 Bay. There was, indeed, still a Chippewa 保留（地）／予約 近づく their cabin, and Neil had prickly ideas about getting his Biddy to love the redskin brethren and 徐々に becoming able to tell her that she—though, of course, a very 甘い little white girl, too—was part Chippewa, part Negro, and wasn't it all nice and natural!

Like every thoughtful parent in every age of history, Neil consoled himself, "My 世代 failed, but this new one is going to change the entire world, and go piously to the 投票s even on 雨の 選挙-days, and never drink more than one cocktail, and end all war."

He sat in the car with Biddy at a small 野営 of Chippewa women and children, who were 宿泊するd in bark huts for the summer, selling baskets and toy canoes of birchbark to the tourists.

"Biddy! Look at the Indian pickaninnies, or whatever they call em. Aren't they 削減（する）! Wouldn't you like to play with them, play scouts and make campfires and everything?"

"No."

"Why not, dear?"

"They're dirty."

"The little Indian children? Dirty?"

"Yes."

"井戸／弁護士席, maybe they are, but think of beaver-dams and, uh, war-bonnets. Aren't they wonderful?"

"No."

"But why do you 反対する to their 存在 a little dirty? It's just smoke from cooking. After all, Daddy's little girl gets pretty dirty, too, いつかs!"

"They look like niggers."

"And what's the 事柄 with—Negroes?"

"I don't like 'em."

"Did you ever know one?"

"Yes."

"And just who, now, besides Belfreda?"

"Little Eva."

"She wasn't a Negro. She was white."

"I didn't like her."

"May I put it to you, Elizabeth, that you are 存在 a horrid little girl?"

"With a curl in the middle of my forehead?"

"Oh, hell!"

"Oh, Daddy, you said it, you did—you said 'Hell.' Hell, hell, hell, hell, hell!"

In the 中央 of her feminine 掴むing of an advantage, Biddy was so enchantingly pink and white and gleeful that he loved her despairingly and realized, like 冷淡な dough in his brain, that all the cheerful little viciousnesses of ありふれた belief の中で nice people are more 破滅的な than 爆弾s and 広大な／多数の／重要な wings.

Because he had a fortnight of leisure, because it occurred to him that Vestal was "the white wife of a colored man," he 熟考する／考慮するd her as they loafed on the lichen-cushioned 激しく揺するs. She was いっそう少なく intelligent and worldly-wise than Nurse Concord, he thought, いっそう少なく warm and beautiful, but 所有するd of more clarity and 支配（する）／統制する. She was a "罰金 type of young American matron," clean, 運動競技の, 井戸／弁護士席 read—井戸／弁護士席, 井戸／弁護士席-enough read—and 利益／興味d in What Goes on in the World. She had a piety 適する for Sylvan Park, and derision of sentimentality. She had, indeed, everything, except any individuality どれでも.

In a 事柄 of weeks, he had learned that without 苦しむing and 疑問, there can be no whole human 存在. Vestal had never known 苦しむing except in child-birth, nor any upsetting surprise and 疑問 except on her wedding-night.

In one thing she was 明確に superior to a good many virtuous women: she did not enjoy intentional cruelty. But Neil was discovering that unconscious cruelty can be very 効果的な.

Vestal, remembering old days, kept singing, "Coon, coon, coon, how I wish my color would fade."

—That's what I am. What Biddy is. A coon. A moke. A boogie. Something so grotesque that a 罰金 lady like Vestal couldn't imagine 傷つけるing its feelings.

Prince trotted up, shaking off a にわか雨 of mud, and Vestal scolded him, "We shouldn't have changed your 指名する, dog! You're no prince. You're nothing but a dirty, good-for-nothing nigger!"

And smiled at Neil so trustingly.

*

He saw that, to Vestal, his devotion to the Negroes would be half insanity and half naughtiness, if she knew. Why take on such a silly character? And two weeks can do an 広範囲にわたる 傷をいやす／和解させるing, in a Northern 魔法 of gray 激しく揺するs and orange lichens and 甘い pines and 事情に応じて変わる red canoes and blade-blue distances across the tremendous lake. He bathed with her in shock-冷淡な water and, for all his hobbling, they raced like children, and he （機の）カム 支援する to town cured of his frenzy.

He （機の）カム 支援する to it an energetic young 銀行業者—white.

一時期／支部 27

That Neil was going to be a bank-大統領，／社長, but with a salary ten times that of Mr. Prutt, was too obvious for Vestal to talk about it. What 利益／興味d her was the house that would then dignify their position. Neil was amused by her ambition to buy half of The Hill from Berthold Eisenherz and build the perfect house that every woman wants.

Could he, Neil teased, 利益／興味 her in a "modern type" house, all windows and plaster, such as he had seen when—oh, 井戸／弁護士席, he'd seen one some place.

He could not! She would patronize nothing so 冷淡な and queer. She had decided on a 石／投石する Norman manor house, only with sleeping-porches, a pine-パネル盤d Rumpus Room with a built-in 妨げる／法廷，弁護士業, and a doll's-house for Biddy which should have—or am I too crazy? Vestal 手配中の，お尋ね者 to know—a doll's-bathroom with real running water!

"Is that important for her?" Neil asked.

"Nothing could be more important, because she'll be a little girl only once, you know."

They had gone so far toward the assemblage of this Norman dungeon as to have planned to buy a new gas-stove.

The war with Japan had ended, and while Vestal was 適切に glad that their friends would be coming home from the South 太平洋の, she 自白するd to an equal delight that now the 製造業者s would turn from 武器 to unimaginable 国内の treasures: plastic dressing-（米）棚上げする／（英）提議するs and 水晶 coffee-マリファナs and (a)自動的な／(n)自動拳銃 dish-washers. She was already thinking of the wardrobe, in fabrics still uninvented, which she would 準備する for Biddy when she went to Bryn Mawr, a dozen years from now.

At breakfast she 示唆するd to Neil, "I'll come downtown today, and you buy me a lunch and we'll look at the gas-stove that I've 始める，決める my girlish heart on. It's a jewel of a stove, a rose, an eagle, a Bedlington of a stove, a 石／投石する, a leaf, a door, and I love it more than I do virtue—at least, it's more practical."

When he saw it, the stove did 所有する most of the splendors that Vestal had advertised, and she gloated, "That'll make even our 現在の 捨てる of a kitchen look like the manorhouse of our 運命."

He sighed, "But you still do like our house, don't you?"

"Oh, Neil, no 事柄 how I rave about 未来 palaces, I love our little shack violently—our own place, that not even a crazy, wild-haired 民主党員 政府 can take away from us. Comes the 不景気, we'll retire there and grow onions in the bathrooms and be happy as grigs—how happy is an 普通の／平均（する）-size grig, do you suppose? Oh." She nodded toward the arm-倍のd and wearily 支援する-攻撃するd salesman. "I think you can jew him 負かす／撃墜する five dollars on the price. Try it."

—I wonder if a Jew likes that phrase, "jew him 負かす／撃墜する," any better than my people like "sweating like a nigger"? Oh, やめる it! You're the possessor of a beautiful wife, a beautiful gas-stove, and you were going to forget all this race-hysteria.

It was on that same afternoon that Ash Davis （機の）カム to sit by his desk and say 正式に, lest anyone be listening, "Mr. Kingsblood, may I 乱す you for a minute?"

"Nobody around, Ash."

"Neil, again I'm here begging. Bad news. Several colored returned 兵士s 逮捕（する）d in South Carolina for a 殺人 they couldn't have committed. Sophie and I are raising a 基金 for lawyers. I want all the money you can spare. And I 警告する you that if you're so simple as to give me one cent, it will be only the beginning of the leech's daughters yelling, 'Give, give!'"

Neil decided what he could afford, and made out a check for わずかに more than that. He was longing for the 冷静な／正味の, humorous, 破滅的な talk of Ash and Clem and Sophie.

"When can I sit in with all of you again?" he 勧めるd.

"Clem won't be 支援する in town for weeks. But would you like to have dinner with Martha and me at my place—maybe Sophie, if I can get her? What about tonight?"

His 嘘（をつく） to Vestal was almost (a)自動的な／(n)自動拳銃, this time. But he felt pitifully that he would not again be able to glow with her over her beloved gas-stove. She was a 広大な／多数の／重要な lady in her 仮定／引き受けることs; she was a poor child in her 信用ing heart.

When he sat with the Davises and Sophie at the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する which had popped out from beneath a bookcase and turned all that end of the 厳しい room into a dining-room, he had nothing to say. They belonged to a world that was の近くにd to Our Mr. Kingsblood of the Second 国家の; and the more タブー Sophie was, the more tempting were her soft, 調印（する）-brown 手渡すs, moving surely as a cabinetmaker's or lying in peace.

He played with his food (which was plain hamburger steak, after excellent mushroom soup), and he 需要・要求するd, "What are you three arguing about? Who is 'the Turk' and why is he a stinker?"

Sophie said, rather wearily, "He's a colored fellow 指名するd Vanderbilt Litch—a usurer—the only 嫌疑者，容疑者／疑うd colored Quisling in town. But you wouldn't be 利益／興味d."

"Why wouldn't I?"

"How could you take any 利益／興味 in the fussing of us 地元の busybodies? Our 調印する is 'For colored only,' and that lets you out, Captain."

—Don't say it! Don't tell her you're colored! Shut up! Don't say anything! You've already told Ash and the Woolcapes—too many. Wait now, wait!

And with that he babbled, "That lets me in, Sophie, because I've discovered, here recently, that I'm part colored."

Her mouth stayed open, her fingers, like brown reeds, stayed motionless in 空気／公表する, 持つ／拘留するing a cigarette, her breast pulsed, and then her astonishment 深くするd into a look of 悲劇の commiseration for him. The nurse who had been a small-town-近隣 girl was tenderly 関心d for him, but it was the Broadway singer who spoke:

"No foolin'?"

*

He heard himself discussed, genially but 堅固に.

"Why, you smart little devil," crowed Sophie, "to think that you passed and got away with it, and I never guessed!"

"But I didn't know till just recently, I tell you!"

"Really he didn't," said Ash, like a schoolmaster.

"Come off it!" Sophie gloated. "How could you help feeling that rhythm, little Neil? Why, I tell you, when you're 黒人／ボイコット, you're in the groove, you're in the grove, you got reet, you got meat, you got feet, you can feel that ole mumbo-jum 権利 out of Africa zizzing 権利 through you!"

"That's enough, Sophie!" from Ash.

"井戸／弁護士席, you get the idea, anyway. Maybe I was trying to strut a little Harlem stuff, but honest to God, I don't see how anybody could have Congo 遺伝子s in him and think he belonged to those hot-握りこぶしd, 冷淡な-hearted freaks that call themselves the white race! Anyway, congratulations, pal!"

"Stop it!" said Ash. "Neil, her ジャングル 血 is pure 偽の, and so is her aversion to the whites—a heterogeneous group with many virtues. Sophie is a conscientious uplifter and 記録，記録的な／記録する-keeper. But—"

There was a "But" in everything Ash and Sophie said—not in what Martha said, because Martha didn't say anything. The nearer Neil （機の）カム to them, the more コンビナート／複合体 they seemed in their 二重の 態度 toward him as a friend to be 保護するd and as a 変える to be 偉業／利用するd as publicity for the race. Without much 言及／関連 to his feelings, they 推測するd whether "Even though it might be hard—just a little hard—just at first—might it not be a good thing if you did come out 率直に as a Negro?"

But they thought they might let him off for a while.

It had not occurred to him that the news that he was a Negro, with its public branding or 栄冠を与えるing, could come from anyone save himself. He realized that the words had gone out of his mouth, swift and unrecapturable, and that it depended only on the whim of these three and of the Woolcapes—any Woolcape—whether he should be betrayed. But if he was わずかに in 恐れる, he was also relaxed in 受託するing Sophie and Ash and Martha as his own people. When Sophie rose, he said, "I'll trot out to your car with you."

He sat with her in her 不安定な クーデター and held her 手渡す, warmer than any 手渡す he had ever known, with the curious warmth that has nothing to do with the 温度計, that is 冷静な／正味の and smooth while it is hot and seamed.

But the Sophie who had just been advertising the unrestrained joys of the ジャングル was 気が進まない. When he 勧めるd, "If I do get known all over as a Negro, can I count on you to （不足などを）補う for the people I'll lose?" she burst into shrill scolding:

"Damn it, you won't lose anybody that's 価値（がある） keeping! Man, don't 推定する／予想する us brownskins to be sorry for a person who's lucky enough to become a brownskin!" She relented: "There, there, mother's baby!" It was too 正確に／まさに the wifely トン of Vestal. "Didums get crestfallen—crest 発射 to pieces? Mother make it 井戸／弁護士席!"

She kissed him. He had not known a kiss like that, the closeness of it and the softness and the frankness of what it said. But she あわてて drew 支援する.

"Sorry! I don't kiss white men, and even if your heart is good and 黒人／ボイコット, your poor brains are still white, like a baby's. Good night!"

He looked after her car as it 動揺させるd off.

—I can't do this to Vestal—so excited about her little gas-stove! I've got to get out of this African world. It's too コンビナート／複合体 for country-folks like Vestal and me. Prutt, I'm coming home!

一時期／支部 28

They were all 支援する from the wars, all his friends: 棒 Aldwick, the sturdy Judd Browler, "Elegant Eliot" Hansen. They were 支援する, and they powerfully assumed that no 事柄 how rackety the 残り／休憩（する） of the world, Good Old Neil would not have changed.

Day on day he never saw Ash or Sophie. Vestal and he had Judd or Eliot and their wives for dinner, and insensibly he again became the 英貨の／純銀の Young 銀行業者 in every part. His racial adventure had been a dream, perhaps a nightmare. The good sense of The Boys made his fancies seem sentimental, and he 嫌疑者，容疑者／疑うd that the Rodney Aldwick who had been his model in dancing-class, in ホッケー, in the 陳列する，発揮する of loose silk 関係, could not have been as vicious about colored 軍隊／機動隊s as he remembered.

At the 連邦の Club, he heard 棒 審議ing those colored 軍隊／機動隊s with another returned officer, 陸軍大佐 Levi Tarr. Now 棒 was only a major, but he seemed to Neil so much more of a major than Tarr was of a 陸軍大佐.

Levi Tarr had been assistant general 経営者／支配人 of his father's department 蓄える／店, the Emporium. He was tall, scant, spectacled, and while he was 報告（する）／憶測d to have led a 広大な／多数の／重要な 反対する-attack in the Bulge, no one could see this professional 略章-販売人 waving a sword or doing anything else with a sword, while you pictured 棒 Aldwick eating his shredded wheat with a dirk, scratching himself with a bayonet, 令状ing love-letters with a saber.

Neil had to agree, however uneasily, when 棒 laughed at 陸軍大佐 Tarr's nervous 賞賛する of the 黒人／ボイコット 兵士s. Then he was 混乱させるd all over again when he 設立する a 同志／支持者 of the Negroes in his own cousin, Patricia, daughter of his mother's brother, Uncle Emery Saxinar, the energetic 売買業者 in pumps and 弁s. Pat had always been a comely girl but peering and 孤立した. 支援する now after serving as ensign in the waves, she was noisy and 利益／興味d. She 賞賛するd the colored sailors, and one evening she astonished Neil by extemporizing:

"I want to 否定する this 噂する that the Daughters of the American 革命 are the women's auxiliary of the Ku Klux Klan, because there are no Negroes in the Klan, but there must be a lot of them in the D.A.R., since the first man killed in the American 革命 was a Negro."

Vestal 抗議するd, "A 罰金, ribald barroom louse you got to be in this woman's war, Pat!"

Neil was troubled.

*

棒 Aldwick （機の）カム to dinner, with his handsome, fresh-直面するd wife, Janet. Biddy had been 許すd to stay up long enough to 迎える／歓迎する her "Uncle 棒," and she 群れているd all over him. She made a 提案 that if she was 許すd to stay up half-an-hour longer to talk things over with him, she would not be naughty at all for two and a half days.

"You're wonderful with children, and I bet you were with your 軍隊／機動隊s," said Vestal to 棒.

At dinner, 棒 volunteered his 計画（する）s for the whole 未来 of his son, Graham, 老年の nine but already doomed. Graham would, like his father, go to Lawrenceville with a couple of summers at Culver 軍の 学院, go joyfully on to Princeton and Harvard 法律, enter his father's 会社／堅い, enter the 国家の Guard, be a gentleman, marry a lady and, when his time （機の）カム, defend Anglo-American Civilization and the 妨げる／法廷，弁護士業 協会 against Spigs, Wops, Kikes, Chinks, Bolos, and the Pan-Islamic Union. And with any luck, he せねばならない be not just a major but a major-general.

*

The emotions have their own logic, swift and 理解できない, and it was by that logic that Neil thought of Winthrop Brewster, son of the Reverend Evan. Winthrop was lucky; he would not be sent in a plush-lined 棺 through Princeton and the officers' club; he could honorably be 独立した・無所属 and poor.

And by that same logic, 解任するing his 約束 to himself that he would play 安全な, next afternoon Neil drove 負かす／撃墜する to the little house of Dr. Brewster, off Mayo Street.

He had not thought out the whole 推論する／理由 for his going; he had nothing pertinent to say when he walked in on a surprised Evan, his wife Corinne, who was いっそう少なく dark and a good 取引，協定 いっそう少なく cordial, and the children, Winthrop and Thankful, those true Yankees whose family had been in Massachusetts ever since a very 黒人／ボイコット 巡礼者 ancestor had fled there, if not by the Mayflower, at least by the 地下組織の, which is the same thing.

He had not lied to Vestal, this time; he had telephoned Shirley to explain that he might not be able to get home for dinner.

商売／仕事.

一時期／支部 29

It was not that Winthrop and Thankful were much いっそう少なく 黒人／ボイコット than their father, or had straighter hair or beakier noses, but they had even more 保証／確信 as American 国民s. The 平易な 信用／信任 with which they looked at Neil, the straightness with which they carried their shoulders, made them seem not like 製品s of the slave-封鎖する and the cotton-field, but like what they were—American school children, unusual only in unusual gentleness.

You cannot hear 絶えず at school that Americans are the bravest, richest and most generous people in history without 吸収するing a 確かな pride, which is not too objectionable if it be tempered by a more serene and 知らせるd culture at home.

Neil 板材d in, explaining that he had never forgotten Dr. Brewster's sermon. "Just thought—coming past this way—might 減少（する） in and say hello." Winthrop took to him as to a 強健な older brother, and Thankful rather considered him the type of man she had been thinking of marrying but hadn't noticed around here anywhere.

Out of pulpit 着せる／賦与するs, in a brown jacket, a soft white shirt and an insignificant blue 屈服する-tie, Dr. Brewster was as much the 地位，任命する-office 労働者 as he was the clergyman, and if his grammar 固執するd in 存在 more 正確な than Neil's (or 棒 Aldwick's) and his vocabulary more 柔軟な, he was much jollier. His laughter （機の）カム from a 抱擁する chest, a large mouth, a tolerant heart. His wife was more watchful of the intruding white man, more 怪しげな, いっそう少なく willing to 危険 the 安全 of the family. She was a more delicate image than Dr. Brewster, with a thin nose carved in brown agate.

Neil 嫌疑者，容疑者／疑うd that both of them nervously 手配中の，お尋ね者 to know what he had come for, and he understood that very 井戸／弁護士席, since he rather 手配中の，お尋ね者 to know it himself. They chatted about the 天候 and city politics, in that small room that was the more cramped with a venerable typewriter sitting on a homemade and unpainted （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する, and 調書をとる／予約するs of history and theology and anthropology on seismographic old 議長，司会を務めるs.

Winthrop was glad to see a male 訪問者 who might know something about electricity. He 需要・要求するd, "Were you ever a 無線で通信する ham?"

"No, but I used to sit in with a friend who was."

"Come 負かす／撃墜する to the 地階 and see my 始める，決める."

Neil regretted that to him the collection of wires and tubes in that tiny cellar looked like a junk pile, and when Winthrop 誇るd, "I get Miami, 権利 along!" he was impressed.

"Have you any favorite ham that you talk to?"

"Yeh, a fellow in Dallas, Texas."

"Is he colored?"

"I've never asked! I guess maybe he's white—anyway, he's silly about the Civil War. But what difference does it make?" Winthrop rebuked, and Neil felt humble.

"What do you and he 雑談（する） about?"

"Mostly about jai alai. I want to learn it, some day. But 自然に, what I'm really 利益／興味d in now is レーダ. Don't you think that's the coming thing?"

"I certainly do," said Neil, who knew of レーダ only that it had something to do with fooling icebergs.

Winthrop 動揺させるd, "I want to get into electricity as soon as they'll let me, at the U. I'm going there this 落ちる."

"I went to the University, too," said Neil.

"Swell!"

"Aren't you a little young for it?"

"Golly no! Why, I'm seventeen! Did you know I was salutatorian in high school this spring?" Winthrop spoke not priggishly but with artless pride. "But of course I was lucky, having Dad to coach me. We did four years math in two. Say, look, Mr. Kingsblood, you must do a lot of fishing in the Arrowhead country."

"I used to. Northern pike in Sawbill Lake."

"If I could only do that—（軍の）野営地，陣営 and swim and fish—zowie! Instead of having to sit around and listen to all this race-talk. What's the use of it? These days, everybody except a hillbilly knows that colored and white folks are 正確に／まさに alike, same as 黒人／ボイコット and white kittens are. Didn't you always know that?"

"No, not—uh—not 完全に." Neil あわてて tried to get out of his examination with an enthusiastic, "Why don't you spend a summer in the Arrowhead? I could tell you some 罰金 places."

The boy turned his 直面する away, and muttered, "You forget. 非，不，無 of these summer places will take in colored folks. Not even Dad and Mother. Oh, gee, I guess we still do have to go on with this race-商売／仕事 and all the talk, talk...And then, we 港／避難所't much money. I have to work all summer, and save for the U."

"What are you doing, 勝利，勝つ?"

"井戸／弁護士席—it was all I could get—I asked at the electric company but they turned me 負かす／撃墜する hard—same at the 無線で通信する 蓄える／店s. I'm scrubbing 床に打ち倒すs in the waiting-room and the men's 洗面所 at the 鉄道 駅／配置する."

*

Neil had to knock together some explanation of his 侵入占拠. When he （機の）カム up with Winthrop, he said to Mrs. Brewster, "Will you let me tell you something you already know? 勝利，勝つ has most unusual talent. I'm proud to know him. And he 代表するs something I'm trying to find out, on に代わって of both the bank and myself: the 進歩 of all the いわゆる 少数，小数派s here—the Finns and 政治家s and Negroes and, uh, the Lithuanians and—" His 地理学 was running out. "And everybody! I hope you'll 受託する me as a student."

Evan Brewster had 受託するd him before he was born. Corinne Brewster began to look as if she might 受託する him after he was grown up.

"I wish you'd let me do something: get 持つ／拘留する of Dr. Ash Davis and Mrs. Davis and maybe 行方不明になる Sophie Concord, and let me take you all to dinner at this 妨げる／法廷，弁護士業-B-Q place I've noticed. I'm afraid it's a little impertinent to ask you so late, but if you could manage it—"

They could but encourage so earnest a disciple.

On their way to the 妨げる／法廷，弁護士業-B-Q, Winthrop and Thankful, the raceless and young, each clung to an arm of their burly new 銀行業者 friend, and interrupted each other in stories about their collie pup, Algernon C. Swinburne.

—But what would happen if we met 棒 Aldwick on the way?

The 妨げる／法廷，弁護士業-B-Q was almost filled with a long lunch-反対する, but there were （米）棚上げする／（英）提議するs, like card-（米）棚上げする／（英）提議するs, with 新たな展開d-wire 議長，司会を務めるs. The napkins were of paper. The 法案 of fare featured spare-ribs, ham, hamburg steak, and tenderloin—which was out; and the waitresses were young women with good will, gum, and no training. It was like any other cheap restaurant in the entire land, where 僕主主義 has begun with food and 着せる／賦与するing and adjectives, and often 約束s to end there.

Most of the diners were 黒人／ボイコット workmen, a few of them in 全体にわたるs. But, with a feeling of having neighbors now in the Negro world, Neil saw John and Mary Woolcape and 迎える／歓迎するd them more readily than he ever had S. Ashiel Denver & wife. And in the village talk with the Brewsters and Sophie and Ash and Martha, over the ham and cabbage, he could join more familiarly now.

It is not, perhaps, a remarkable fact that a good 取引，協定 of that talk should have been 関心d with the woes of Negroes. 井戸／弁護士席, and if Neil had heard a good 取引，協定 of it before, he had also 繰り返して heard everything that Mr. Prutt and Mr. Denver had to say about the woes of 銀行業者s and 棒 Aldwick about the woes of serious lawyers and duck-hunters.

The liveliest topic tonight was the Reverend Dr. Jat Snood, who was probably the nastiest piece of goods in Grand 共和国.

With the drifting of the 広大な／多数の／重要な denominations, the Methodists and Baptists and Presbyterians, from moaning and hallelujahs to 間接に-lighted Gothic and pulpit 調書をとる／予約する-reviews, the 職業-拷問d 集まりs in America had dribbled into new churches which 約束d that they should have 救済 if they could not have larger paychecks, and which encouraged them to howl 公然と at the Devil, the ローマ法王, and 塀で囲む Street, in recompense for not daring to howl 公然と at the Boss. In lofts and empty 蓄える／店-buildings there had been 組織するd such wondrous new creeds as The Church of God in Christ Through Bible 救済, and The 議会 of the Divinely 任命するd Saints, which 示す ten tired men and women, eight hymn-調書をとる／予約するs, and four （法廷の）裁判s.

With true American 企業, spiritual leaders who in いっそう少なく cultivated days would have been Indian-薬／医学 showmen or itinerant lady milliners had seen that they could make a tidy living by 任命するing themselves 大臣s or even bishops, renting a hall and setting up a church, with no annoying work except yelling loud and 嘆く／悼むing low, and taking up three collections at every 会合.

の中で these latter-day Barnums in Grand 共和国 was one Jat Snood, who had not finished high school but who was a Doctor of Divinity. He was the owner and 長，指導者 ballyhooer of a 広大な shed 負かす／撃墜する on South Champlain Avenue and East Winchell Street, in the South End, and he had romantically 指名するd it "God's Prophecy Tabernacle: 設立するd on the 調書をとる／予約する: Christ for All and All for Christ."

It is true that the Reverend Doctor had never been able to stay in any one town for more than five years, because he knew only fifteen sermons and fifty vaudeville tricks, and even his faded and gnarled and gum-chewing audiences got sick of him. But while it lasted, he did very 井戸／弁護士席 financially, because he titillated his （人が）群がるs with ginger and hell-解雇する／砲火／射撃 and made Swedish 雇うd girls and German grocery-clerks and Yankee linemen feel that if they could not 会合，会う Hiram Sparrock at the 連邦の Club, they could 会合，会う God and His angels and the souls of the elect at God's Prophecy Tabernacle: 出資／貢献s voluntary (but たびたび（訪れる）). Jat 叫び声をあげるd at them, in high-トンd polysyllables flavored with jazz and slang, that, if they were ill-used by the snobs の中で the Old Americans, still they could be snobs themselves, and he 招待するd them to look 負かす／撃墜する, contemptuously, upon all Jews, Negroes, カトリック教徒s, and 社会主義者s.

Ash Davis explained to Neil, at the 妨げる／法廷，弁護士業-B-Q, "There's two or three Snoods in this town, though Jat runs the biggest crap-game of them all, and they've trained their congregations as perfect 新採用するs for the Ku Klux Klan. They aren't so comic when their ギャング（団）s of Christian knights （警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域 up 脅すd little brownskins and 燃やす their houses. As a friend of our race, do you think there's anything you can do with Mr. Snood?"

"I'll certainly try," said Neil.

And knew that he certainly would do nothing at all.

*

A young man in uniform as captain in the army 空気／公表する 軍団, cinnamon-colored, 築く and smiling, joined their （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する. He was, they explained, Captain Philip Windeck, who had been a 上級の in the University of Minnesota 工学 school when he had enlisted, and who had flown on many 使節団s over Italy.

"You know," he said to Neil, "I really 港／避難所't the 権利 to be wearing this uniform any more, but I had a 再会 with the fellows tonight. Tomorrow, I go 支援する to 全体にわたるs."

"What doing?"

"I'd like to earn a little money and get married and take my wife 支援する to school with me. I thought, with some 工学 and a little 航空 experience, I might get a 職業. 井戸／弁護士席, the 離着陸場 here and the automobile 売買業者s all turned me 負かす／撃墜する, but I've been lucky enough to get 支援する the 職業 I had before I ever went to 工学 school—washing and greasing cars at the O'道具 削減（する） 率 Garage. Drex Greenshaw—I'm engaged to his daughter—thinks he could get me on as a bus-boy. But I feel it's better for my 戦争の vanity—the returned hero that was going to be so modest when he was 迎える／歓迎するd by the 市長 and two 禁止（する）d—to have white ex-私的なs yelling at me, 'Here you, boy, get a hustle on, you 黒人／ボイコット bastard!'"

As always, all of them, 含むing Phil Windeck, roared at his 苦境. It was better to laugh at the Thankless 共和国 than to grow faint and whining. Only Neil looked angry. He was rather gratified when he was 受託するd by this fellow 退役軍人 of the Italian （選挙などの）運動をする as a friend, and it was as a friend that he 迎える／歓迎するd Ryan Woolcape when he （機の）カム in—out of uniform, out of the Army.

Neil was in 深い now, deeper than he knew.

*

Like any good woman pleased that her new beau is welcomed by the family circle, Sophie Concord watched Neil in his approach to Phil, to Ryan, to Evan's children, and looked proud. It was Sophie who 示唆するd to Neil, "The Brewsters and Davises have to go to a 委員会 会合—自然に. They couldn't get through a night without one. 委員会s are the most habit-forming 麻薬 that 存在するs. But let's Ryan and Phil and you and I go to the Jumpin' Jive and see the brownskins at their most uncommitteeized. You're a typical good-hearted slummer. You 会合，会う Ash and Evan and 結論する that all of us are 知識人s with pure hearts, who just lead hell out of the race. Let's go take a look at the ones that get led—and do they hate it! I don't know whether the dumb fieldhand or the city hep-cat or the rich sepia professional man like Dr. Melody most hates getting taken in 手渡す and 存在 led into the Ethiopian spiritual 連邦／共和国. Anyway, let's go see the flick-chicks."

*

The Jumpin' Jive was noisy enough and tinseled enough, but it was not as evil as the romantic heart of Neil had hoped. It was a large, L-形態／調整d room decorated with pink and gilt lattice-work with 人工的な orchids. An orchestra of 派手に宣伝する, piano and clarinet, manhandled by three fat merry Negroes in plum-colored dress-coats with gold derbies, gave Grand 共和国 見解／翻訳／版s of Duke Ellington. Colored sailors and 兵士s were dancing, some of them with white factory girls, as の近くに-packed as though this were the most expensive 訴える手段／行楽地 of gaiety and sweat in New York. With dark or ashen colored girls, laughing but not talking much, danced young Negroes with the elegance and suavity that seem natural to them.

Neil belatedly realized that at another （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する was Borus Bugdoll, proprietor of the Jive, and that the girl with him, pert in filmy green tulle, was Belfreda Gray, and that they were grinning at him. He complained to his （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する, "There's a girl that used to work for us and that hates me—Belfreda. She's a 堅い baby. Now don't go and get socialistic on me, Ryan, and tell me she's a 犠牲者 of 環境."

"Why not? Let's all go over and talk to her. I've known her since she was a kid. You've probably never had the cultural advantage of 存在 slapped by a 雇うd girl."

And Neil, vastly surprised, 設立する himself really looking at the Belfreda who for months had slept just 負かす／撃墜する the hall from him, and discovering that she was a Nell Gwyn in ebony, 注目する，もくろむs and smile and ruffles and spirited 柔軟性 of morals. With the languidness of that lovely orange-販売人 侮辱ing a lord, she drawled:

"Why, if it isn't Mr. Kingsblood! I'm surprised, seeing you in a 捨てる like this. I thought you never went no place except to teach Sunday school."

"You know I never taught a Sunday-school class!" 抗議するd Neil, his manhood as a duck-hunter 侮辱d.

"I heard diff'rent."

"What are you doing now, Belfreda?"

Belfreda and Borus ちらりと見ることd at each other as though this was a very funny question, but she took pity on the untutored white burgher, and condescended, "I sort of got my own beauty-parlor. Me and another girl are partners. We only got choosy 顧客s—high-class ladies and preachers' wives—and there ain't a bit of use your trying to date 'em up just because you know me. They already got sharp fellows, with real dough."

She looked at Neil with 反抗, she looked at Sophie with dislike, she looked at Borus and giggled.

Neil begged, "I hope you don't remember us too 不正に, Belfreda."

Airily, "Oh, that's all 権利. You were dumb, but Mrs. Kingsblood, she was swell. She's got savvy. Nobody can 非難する a white man like you for 存在 slow, but her, she's so smart she could almost be colored. 井戸／弁護士席, glad to seen you, Mister."

"Uh—Belfreda—I'm sorry we didn't get along better. Maybe a good 取引，協定 of it was my fault."

"Yes, it was! You always 行為／法令／行動するd like you was 推定する／予想するing me to be mean, and so I'd get mean. Jesus! I wasn't raised in no parlor! I was raised in a shoeshine 捨てる, with all the white guys trying to make me when I was thirteen. First, at you folks' house, I thought I had such a nice room, but you and Vestal used to こそこそ動く in there and laugh at my stuff and the way I kept it. Listen, Mister, when you make enough beds for other people, you're so sick of it you ain't got much pep left for making your own, and you 人物／姿／数字 there's one place where you せねばならない be 許すd to be just as God-damn sloppy as you want to. But even there I wasn't 安全な. And whisper about me—whisper, whisper, whisper!"

"Belfreda, I'm 極端に sorry."

"Okay, forget it. 井戸／弁護士席, glad to seen you."

*

Our Mr. Kingsblood had the sensation of having been 解任するd, and he choked and meekly followed a muted Sophie, a smiling Phil Windeck, a derisive Ryan 支援する to their （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する. But before they could 発言する／表明する the "井戸／弁護士席?" that was arching their lips, he burst out, "She's magnificent!"

行方不明になる Sophie Concord did not tease him for having been snubbed by his ex-cook. やめる the contrary. She snapped matrimonially, "Just how intimate were your relations with 行方不明になる Belfreda Blackbird, my friend? Eh? That's what I want to know!"

*

In an alcove of the Jive was a （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する at which gathered habitually the sardonic sires of the colored 植民地: Drexel Greenshaw, Wash the bootblack and, when he stopped over in town to see his sister, Mac, the porter of the Borup. Sugar Gowse, the machinist, was with them tonight. Since Drexel was to be his father-in-法律, Phil Windeck 許容するd the handsome old Squire of the Damask Tablecloths, and he 誘惑するd Neil over to the Uncle Toms' Stammtisch.

They looked uncomfortable at having one of the people who tipped them intrude on their 私的な conversation as gentlemen.

"Mr. Greenshaw Captain Kingsblood is getting to be a real friend of the race, and he wants to know whether Mac and Wash and you, who have such a chance to 熟考する／考慮する the white man when he's showing off, really think all white men are stupid."

Drexel ちらりと見ることd 慎重に at Neil, and hemmed, "No, no, Phil. They just don't have much chance to get on the other 味方する of the swinging door."

Mac the porter 星／主役にするd at Neil almost as at a fellow man, and held 前へ／外へ:

"I'm sure Captain Kingsblood will excuse me if I say—he's one of the few smart people that can afford to travel on the Borup—and the way I look at it, as the fellow says, white folks are awful nice, but of course they're all babies, and have to be taken care of. They never look things over real sharp, way we colored folks have, since we were 膝-high to a traveling-man. They're like some Delta colored fellows that we all know—believe what the preachers and the 法律 tell 'em. You can't 非難する 'em, poor things."

Drexel commented, "I think higher of the whites than you do, Mac. Now take a man like Mr. Hiram Sparrock. No colored fellow ever made as many millions as he has, and that takes brains...And he give me a five-dollar tip once!"

—Already they've almost forgotten that I'm white. Only, I'm not! Can they see the colored 血 in me?

Mac said scornfully, "Mr. Sparrock? He's the worst baby of all. Why, them pills he takes all the time, they ain't nothing but sugar—his doctor told me so, Dr. Drover—and he said I could give him all he 手配中の，お尋ね者."

Sugar Gowse 投機・賭けるd, "You older gentlemen got to excuse a machine-手渡す for butting in, but way I see the white gentlemen, they're always playing big. My foreman, he asks me can I 直す／買収する，八百長をする a machine, and I does, and then he takes hisself a chew of タバコ and struts hisself around like a turkey gobbler and he says to the 最高の, 'Look what I done!' But they ain't so mean to you and don't 嘘（をつく） about you so much if you help 'em. I'm always 熟考する／考慮するing on how to 扱う 'em, the bastards—oh, excuse me, Captain, sir."

They looked at Neil like solemn 黒人／ボイコット フクロウs in a circle; they 転換d to politics; but presently, fascinated by the unforgettable topic, Drexel went on. He had been magnificently trained in servility to white men, but also he had seen too many of them drunk and lecherous in his restaurant to have any awe of their Mumbo 巨大な; and if a white man deliberately asked for the truth—let him have it!

"扱う 'em? Ain't but one way to 扱う a white man: uncle-tom him. Be humble, tell him how smart he is, tickle his shoulder-blades and 選ぶ his pockets...I mean, that's what some fellows says, Captain!"

Mac 抗議するd, "I don't like this uncle-tomming. Course I can do it—"

The venerable Wash cackled, "You can and I does! They's just like babies—got to have a sugar-tit. Only they's got awful big shotguns and awful strong ropes, so I says, 'Uncle-tomming, here we is,' and I uncle-toms their silly, grinning 長，率いるs off...Course I don't mean you, Mister!"

"Oh, we darkies are all 悪名高い for humor and humility!" said Captain Philip Windeck, U.S.A.A.F. But with his smile he looked to Neil for forgiveness.

*

He walked with Sophie to her tenement, two 封鎖するs from Mayo Street. He said, "Lot of life and color there tonight. It makes me feel more like a real member of the race. They're so—I don't know anything as 勇敢に立ち向かう as the way they laugh at themselves."

"My benevolent but sophomoric friend, there isn't any They の中で human 存在s, only We!"

He was not やめる sure, at her door, whether or not he was to kiss her. She was. He was not. As he limped away, for a time he thought いっそう少なく about Sophie than about Winthrop Brewster versus the 好意d son of Rodney Aldwick. Which 味方する was he on, which 味方する 需要・要求するd the 忠義 he had once sworn as a 兵士? With a 目的 限定された but not 認める, he marched 支援する to Evan Brewster's parsonage. Through a window, he could see the 抱擁する shoulders humped over a desk.

Dr. Brewster （機の）カム to the door looking, in his dressing-gown, like Othello played by Paul Robeson. Inside, Neil said 平等に—you didn't 嘘（をつく） to a man like this as you did to a Buncer—"Something I would like to tell you, Dr. Brewster. I must get it off my chest quick, or I'll turn 慎重な. I've 設立する I have some Negro 血 in me, way 支援する. I've told Ash, Sophie, the Woolcapes—no whites. In your opinion, is it my 義務 to come out and 認める it to the world?"

He 推定する／予想するd Evan to snarl, "Certainly!" その結果 he could turn angry and defend himself, but Evan gasped, "I don't know—I don't know." He 星／主役にするd, looking more like the warlike Moor than any neat Doctor of Philosophy, in that small house of learning and 地位，任命する-office 職業s, while Neil told about Xavier Pic, and ended with a curt, "Now how does it strike you I せねばならない 行為／法令／行動する?"

"I'm not sure at all." Evan was moving his 広大な 手渡すs curiously, as though he 手配中の，お尋ね者 to give a blessing. "I believe I'd say that there is no 推論する／理由 at all for your 認めるing something that doesn't really 存在する but is just an American superstition—a theoretical kinship to my people."

"Oh." Neil was disappointed that no one 手配中の，お尋ね者 him to volunteer, disappointed and markedly relieved.

"But Neil, when I think of the growing attacks on my people by swine like Jat Snood, when I picture men lighting our 拷問 解雇する／砲火／射撃s with the cross of Christ, then I'm moved to say, 'Yes, certainly, you must give up wife and father and 緩和する and good repute and join us.' But I don't know!...Confound it, let me think, before I butt in on your life, will you! Come again in a few days and—you might try praying, mightn't you?"

Neil 試みる／企てるd to look as though he piously agreed, but he could hear Ryan Woolcape chuckling.

When he was 安全に 支援する in Sylvan Park, where monsters of holiness like Evan Brewster were as improbable as lizards like Jat Snood, Neil tried to be 反抗的な.

—That was the silliest thing I ever heard of: a man with some 責任／義務 going to a 黒人／ボイコット 宗教的な fanatic to whimper, "Please, sir, may I give up my wife and my daughter and my home, in order to hoist gin with Belfreda at the Jumpin' Jive?"

It did not work. He 解任するd, from university days, …に出席するing a storefront church and 審理，公聴会 a white Okie preacher shout, "When the Lord ketches holt on you, you can kick and 叫び声をあげる and holler, but He ain't never going to let you go!"

一時期／支部 30

He would hear this Reverend Dr. Jat Snood and see whether the fellow was as eloquent or as evil as the admiring world 宣言するd, and he would take Vestal with him into this obscure 郊外 of the dark city of man. For however jumpily Sophie might attract him, it did not occur to Neil that his devotion to Vestal could ever 減らす—a 現象 which has been the 原因（となる） of 激怒（する） to 解放する／自由な women in their contest with 安全な・保証する wives throughout history.

When he 示唆するd the spiritual slumming, the joke was that Vestal 抗議するd, "Why, I'm surprised at you, wanting to hear a vicious Ku Kluxer like Snood and his race-prejudices!"

"Oh, I'm all against him. I have a かなりの 尊敬（する）・点 for Negroes," said Neil, affably.

"Since when?"

—Could she really stand it if I （機の）カム out and told her? Oh, don't be a fool, Kingsblood!

His cousin, Patricia Saxinar, former officer of the 海軍, was about the house that evening of 早期に 落ちる, and they took her along. "Though," said Pat, "I never did like to hear little dogs yap."

"God's Prophecy Tabernacle" was as humble as the stable in which the Savior was born, but much better publicized. It was a shed 持つ／拘留するing eight or nine hundred people, built of secondhand boards so cheaply painted over that you saw the old nail-穴を開けるs. As you crossed the weedy and stinking waste-lot, scattered with 古代の tires and decayed shoes, on the 味方する of the tabernacle you read a 調印する in three-foot letters, "Low-負かす／撃墜する on the international 共謀, 明らかにする／漏らすd by God's Word & Dr. Snood."

The unplastered 塀で囲むs inside were scrofulous with red 調印するs 描写するing both the Soviet 首相 and the ローマ法王 as demons leering through the 炎上s—"which seems fair enough," said Pat Saxinar. Hung at the far end was a diagram 示すing that Napoleon, Tom 苦痛 and all the Rockefellers and Vanderbilts were in hell, which 約束d a 高度に コースを変えるing show, 継続している through eternity with tickets 解放する／自由な, for the poor パン職人s and butchers and factory-労働者s who filled the hall. They gave the place a pleasant 国内の flavor: hard-working fathers and mothers, in Sunday best, with children sucking lollipops. They were the salt of the earth; also, when used by 独裁者s, they could become the saltpeter of the earth.

Pat ぱたぱたするd, "Nice, plain folks, and my word, how they would enjoy a nice, plain lynching to break up the monotony. As a worshipper of Abe Lincoln, I love 'em, but I'd be terrified of this Old Testament ギャング（団）, led by a Snood, if I were a Jew or an Italian or a Negro."

Neil remembered that Pat's 関係 to Xavier Pic was of the same degree as his own. He could see these neighborly 直面するs, these worn, bleached 直面するs, horrible in the torchlight of his dream.

Before the service, the audience strolled at the 支援する of the tabernacle, gossiped, agreed that the rain and the machinations of the Vatican had been somethin' 猛烈な／残忍な here lately. Children ran after dogs and dogs ran after 黒人／ボイコット beetles. Mrs. Jat Snood, a 脅すd and shriveled woman, stood behind a 調書をとる／予約する-反対する, which had 以前は been an アイロンをかけるing-board, selling copies of a magazine called Trumpet on High, which was illustrated with half-トンs of Jerusalem and 陸軍大佐 Charles Augustus Lindbergh.

The 勧めるs, solid men who looked like 石／投石する-masons, wearing solid blue 控訴s which looked like 石／投石する, affably patted the human 迫撃砲 into vibratory 倍のing 議長，司会を務めるs, and on the 壇・綱領・公約, the All for Christ Silver Trumpet Orchestra played "Hello, Central, Give Me Heaven," and 機動力のある frantically to "Hark, the 先触れ（する） Angels Sing" as that modern 見解／翻訳／版 of a 先触れ（する） angel, the Reverend Dr. Jat Snood, bounced across the 壇・綱領・公約, knelt 中心-行う／開催する／段階, with 長，率いる 屈服するd but not so 屈服するd that he could not count the audience, and raised his tremendous 発言する／表明する in 祈り, 保証するing God Almighty that if He listened this evening, He would hear a lot of 極端に perplexing mysteries solved.

Snood leaped up then, as きびきびした as though he had not just been engaged in the 推定では startling experience of chatting with God, and skipped to the pulpit, on which were a Bible, a 投手 of water, and a bunch of ロシアの thistles. But before he got 負かす／撃墜する to the sermon of 発覚 which (except for the collection) was the 長，指導者 商売／仕事 of the evening, he led them in three hymns, flapping his 武器 as though he were 脅すing away crows, and he gave them the devil for not coming through better with the hard cash (his phrase) in the collection box.

Snood looked like neither a mystic priest, a dangerous demagogue, nor a scoundrel, but like an ambitious small-town 実業家 who is ingenious about window-陳列する，発揮するs and a little hard on delinquent debtors. He could be dynamite to his 信奉者s, yet he was a short, square, bushy-haired merchant with the 最新の thing in octagonal rimless spectacles.

He was droning, he was 無学の, he was dull. But he had two gifts of genius: a magnificent 発言する／表明する, on which he played as on a mouth-組織／臓器, and a yet more magnificent 欠如（する） of scruples. He was indifferent as to who got lynched, so long as he made six thousand dollars a year. He had a very 甘い, natural little pride in making so much, for in the barbed-wire line, to which he had been trained, he had never got above $22.75 a week, and plenty of the barbed-wire fraternity had laughed at him and 主張するd that he never would make good.

He often said playfully, after 私的な 祈り-circles, "Mother and me have no yen for caviere and シャンペン酒 ワイン, but we do want to see 大西洋 City and make a trip to the 宗教上の Land before we die, and stay at the best hotels."

He has often been compared to Abraham Lincoln and Huey Long, as a 可能性のある leader of the ありふれた People. Jat is young yet; he was born in the 早期に 1890's, and he may still have some very 利益／興味ing things to show the 冷笑的な 新聞記者／雑誌記者s who think he is funny and unimportant.

He began his gospel with the zest of a man who takes 冷淡な にわか雨s:

"This ain't any sermon that I'm going to give you! It's a plain bellyache! I'm getting good and sick and tired, and God 広大な／多数の／重要な Almighty is getting good and sick and tired, of having the ギャング（団） of Jew 共産主義者s that run our 政府 in Washington を引き渡す our 給料 and the education of our dear prog-geny to the hell-hound スパイ／執行官s of Rome and Moscow!"

He explained things. Essentially, he explained them just as the fastidious Major Rodney Aldwick did. He explained that there was an International 共謀 of ユダヤ人の 銀行業者s, British noblemen like Sir Cripps, Soviet plotters, Mohammedan priests, Hindu agitators, カトリック教徒s, and American labor leaders ("though not the union 階級 and とじ込み／提出する, my brethren, for you and me belong there; it's the big bums of 汚職，収賄ing leaders that I'm gunning for").

He explained that the English are the lost tribes of イスラエル. He explained that the dimensions of the 広大な／多数の／重要な Pyramid can be used to prophesy almost anything you want—though probably not whether it will rain tomorrow and spoil the picnic—he did not think the Pyramid would do that for you, though he certainly had heard some awful amazing things about that ole Pyramid.

Even handier for prophetic use, he said, were 発覚s and Ezekiel, 一時期／支部s thirty-eight and thirty-nine. The Biblical Rosh, he told them, is 明確に Russia, and Mesheck is Moscow. He rasped:

"The 部隊d 明言する／公表するs 上院, the old boys there fuss and ガス／煙 and get in a sweat under the 武器, not on their foreheads, because they ain't got anything behind their foreheads, and all because the old goats are trying to 人物／姿／数字 out what's going to happen between Russia and Uncle Sam. 井戸／弁護士席, if them 上院議員s would come to me and say, 'Doctor, what is going to happen?' I would say to them, 'Boys,' I would say, 'I'll just open the old 調書をとる／予約する and tell you just 正確に／まさに what will happen!'

"But do you suppose the people would have the sense to elect me a 上院議員? Not on your tintype—not them—though there is a dear old lady out here on a farm in Tamarack 郡, a dear old Christian lady who is a 正規の／正選手 contributor to our work, God bless her, and she 令状s me that she gets 負かす／撃墜する on her 膝s every night and prays that I will be 指名するd and elected to the 上院 and go to Washington and so give God a chance to take a 手渡す in running the 政府.

"But I wrote 支援する and told her, 'No, Sister,' I wrote her, 'I think maybe my work here in dear old Grand 共和国, with its gamblers and agnostics and pimps, is more necessary, and God willing, and 供給するing some of you milk-and-water Christians, that keep your hearts and your pocket-調書をとる／予約するs buttoned up so tight, will occasionally come across with something sweeter unto the Lord than a 薄暗い or two-bits, we will get the devil and the Jews and the 過激なs on the run, and start the Kingdom of God 権利 here in this small city, like once it was started in the hick town of Bethlehem—in the 宗教上の Land, I mean.'"

Toward the end, after a happy interlude 充てるd to the collection, Snood's 発言する／表明する became hard, rhythmical, 深い, like a brazen clock striking:

"I 港／避難所't said so much about our colored friends tonight, but you come tomorrow night and I'll 明らかにする／漏らす something about those 黒人／ボイコット and accursed Sons of Baal, whom God turned 黒人／ボイコット for their 古代の sins and made into the eternal servants of the white man. I'll tell you about the ユダヤ人の 陰謀（を企てる） to put all of us under the 黒人／ボイコット heel of these degenerates—something the newspapers are afraid to print, and that'll make you sit up in your seats and shiver.

"The time hasn't come yet to 生き返らせる the Klan, but when we do, I want all of you, my dear saints in Christ, to realize what it means to 築く in high places the cross that regenerates, the 解雇する／砲火／射撃 that purifies, the 調書をとる／予約する that gives 知恵, and the whip and rope that were used by our Lord himself upon the money-changers in the 寺, and that we shall use upon the fiends, in the 黒人／ボイコット image of Satan, who have run away from the kindly Southland to 軍隊 themselves, by the thousands, into our factories, our restaurants, our very homes and beds! You bet! You come tomorrow night, and you'll learn something!

"And now, O loving master, gentle Jesus, send that our message tonight shall, not by our 力／強力にする and eloquence but by Thy grace, have touched the hearts of all 苦しむing mankind let us pray."

*

On their way home, under the generous September moon, Neil drove in silence, Pat was silent, after 不平（をいう）ing, "As an 問題／発行する-confuser, that Snood is a magician; he managed to make me 同時に love the 共産主義者s and the Roman カトリック教徒s."

Vestal rambled, "I didn't like him, did you? I thought he was very vulgar—as ignorant as these clowns of nigger preachers that 棒 Aldwick is always taking off—you know: 'Brebben, you is done been stealin' moh watuh-melonses dan is rightfully comin' even to Massa God's 黒人／ボイコット chilluns!'"

She laughed boisterously, and Neil thought that it was いっそう少なく the horrors of Snood than the pleasantries of wives like Vestal that would make him join forever that "clown of a nigger preacher," Evan Brewster.

*

When, after banking-hours, he went again to the Brewsters', he had to wait till Evan （機の）カム home from his 地位，任命する-office 職業. In an old sweater, he looked like any other working-man. His 手渡す 残り／休憩（する）d 静かに on Neil's shoulder, and his 注目する，もくろむs had the look, tender and unwaveringly 安定した and not 完全に sane, of a saint of Byzantium.

"Please sit 負かす／撃墜する, Neil. I 投機・賭けるd to do something—to slip out to Sylvan Park and walk past your house a couple of times. I saw Mrs. Kingsblood and your little daughter in the yard. I'm sure they never noticed me. I was careful not to 乱す them. They just saw another darky who probably had a girl in some 近隣 kitchen.

"I thought they were both 異常に 罰金 people—indeed, since they were yours, I 投機・賭けるd to love them. And I asked myself, have I the 権利 to do anything that would help drag them into the 戦う／戦い of Humiliation?

"I don't think so. It's my 戦う／戦い, but I can't see that it's theirs—or yours either! Maybe you 借りがある that child and that 有望な, lovely, 確信して-looking young woman something more than you 借りがある the race—if you 借りがある it anything. I can't even tell you that the Lord will guide you. Either you believe that already, or you will never believe it. Neil! Don't tell!"

Winthrop galloped into the room, which was his normal gait of 入り口 anywhere, and he yelled, "Hey, will you teach me gin-rummy, Captain?"

"Sure I will, if you'll call me Neil!"

"井戸／弁護士席, okay. But couldn't I call you 'Captain'? I'm nuts about 軍の 肩書を与えるs!" said the reactionary young American scientist.

一時期／支部 31

It was 事故—there had been no conscious 計画（する） in it. He met Sophie Concord on the street, 招待するd her to lunch, and she nodded Yes. He did not feel that they were "妥協d" till he had hesitated, "Where do you suppose we can go?"

Then he saw all that his question meant, and that it was horrible to him to have said, to a woman more intelligent and better-bred than any he knew, what 量d to, "You must not forget that you are a colored wench, and what dive is so slatternly that it will 収容する／認める a monstrosity like you? And it is probable that even my asking you 量s to 強姦."

But there was no 有罪の coyness in her 事柄-of-fact "We might go to the Shaker Shicken Shack. That's a sepia 共同の—out on the Old North 軍の Road—on the left-手渡す 味方する just after you turn away from the Big Eagle River. 会合，会う you there? One o'clock tomorrow?"

There was no 推論する／理由 why he should have been as jittery as though he were going to be married or hanged the next day. He was a 安定した man, a married man, and a 銀行業者 sans peur, and he was 単に going to take lunch with a high-minded 地区 nurse. Yet all afternoon, all evening, he felt 有罪の toward Vestal, he felt that he would probably be 解雇する／砲火／射撃d if he were seen at a colored 訴える手段／行楽地, he felt as sickeningly loose as Curtiss Havock.

When he put it to himself 率直に, "Just what are your 意向s toward this young woman, if you can get away with them?" he had no answer except a 不安定な explanation that if he ever did come out as a Negro, he would need some one more friendly than Ash Davis, more 勇敢な than Vestal.

Would, in fact, need Sophie.

*

The Shicken Shack was a streakily whitewashed shanty of old boards, low and unsteady, and when this white man parked his car and 投機・賭けるd in, the small old Negro proprietor, the two bulky Negro waiters, the half-dozen Negro guests, all 星／主役にするd at him, waiting for something unpleasant. To their 原始の experience, the white man's 重荷（を負わせる） always consisted of 法案s, 令状s, and trouble.

"Uh—I'm to 会合，会う 行方不明になる Sophie Concord here," he tried.

"You know 行方不明になる Concord?" the proprietor said grudgingly.

"Why, yes."

"The nurse?"

"That's it."

"Dark-brown girl?"

"Yes, I suppose—"

"Never heard of her. You got the wrong place, Mister!"

There was a hissing of small laughter around him, behind him, all through the place, but before he had time to get angry at this 甚だしい／１２ダース instance of race-prejudice, Sophie blew in, panting with 存在 late, throwing "H'are you, Punty?" at the proprietor, and having for Neil nothing more 妥協ing than "Wonderful September day."

Punty reluctantly gave them a （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する in a distinctly segregated corner at the far end of the 妨げる／法廷，弁護士業, in an alcove with portraits of Count Basie and Kid Chocolate, and assumed, "You'll have the Fresh Southern Terrapin, folks?"

"Two Maryland fry and （警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域 it, Punt," said Sophie. To Neil, then, "This is a horrible little 穴を開ける, isn't it?"

"It's not so bad."

"Oh, yes, it is. It's worse. But I'm used to it, and anyway, this is the sort of place where you white gentlemen 推定する／予想する to work your will on us poor, beautiful girls."

"Sophie! I know you're 存在 高度に humorous and so on, but you don't 本気で mean that you think I 招待するd you to lunch with any—uh—"

"Evil 意向s? I have some such skittish idea."

"Honestly, you make me sore! Why should you think that?"

"Isn't it the only thing that would bring the two of us together? We don't belong in the same room. Oh, I don't mean any nonsense about difference in shades. Only a bumpkin with a mental age of ten thinks anything about that, nowadays. I mean, I'm the working woman and I'm the uplifter, worse than a nobody—I'm the pest that 絶えず buzzes around and annoys the 繁栄する somebodies like you. We don't 調和させる. Any more than a cat and a dog."

"Cats and dogs do いつかs like each other and even 嘘（をつく） 負かす／撃墜する together, Sophie."

"Hey, いっそう少なく of that discussion of lying 負かす／撃墜する together, my worldly friend!"

"Worldly, hell! I'm a 支援する-street suburbanite, with much いっそう少なく experience of the 有望な lights than you have. I'm so unworldly and such a backwoodsman that, I give you my word, I hadn't thought about it till now. But I see no basic 推論する／理由 why I shouldn't 落ちる in love with you, and make all the low gentlemanly 提案s. What 推論する／理由 is there?"

"Let's see. One: you don't know me."

"You and I knew each other five minutes after we'd met."

"Two: I don't 特に like you."

"That's another 嘘（をつく）. You look 権利 now as if you liked me."

"Oh, that? That's just playing the game—sort of 表現 a good-natured gal is 推定する／予想するd to put on, in a 飛行機で行く-by-night 共同の like this."

"Oh, God, Sophie, you know I'd much rather take you to the Fiesole Room—"

"Or to your home?"

A metallic silence, before he said, rather coldly, "You know that would take me a little time—完全に aside from the 倫理学 of introducing one's love to one's wife. I can't jump from 存在 a cash-登録（する） to 存在 a raceman on a soap-box in six months. It took too long to build the 登録（する）. I can't take you home till I can take my own self there."

"And how would Vestal like it? Aah, you see! You wince when I call that woman 'Vestal!' Of course you do, Neil. Poor baby, you've been brought up to the strongest superstitions since Feudalism. I think maybe I could be reasonably in love with you, because you're 幅の広い and red and white and meaty and honest, just as I loved my last man because he was わずかな／ほっそりした and dark and devious. But no more 穴を開ける-and-corner loves for me. I'm a nurse, and a good one. And I'm an American and blatantly proud of it. When I look at Lake Superior or the Root River Valley or the Mississippi bluffs below Red Wing, I get all trembly, and I mutter, 'Breathes there a girl with soul so dead!' And I remember that I've been an American for eight 世代s! And we Old Families are very snooty about our loves.

"If you did have the courage to come out as a Negro, and so got turned 負かす／撃墜する by that ice-water woman, Vestal—oh, I've seen her, at public-health 会合s, at a distance—and if you （機の）カム running to me, 傷つける, then I might love you—hot, baby! But you'll never do it. Something will give you a 脅す, and you'll yell for Mother Vestal, and go 支援する to 存在 a 最高の-銀行業者 and whiter than Stonewall Jackson on Sunday."

"You may be 権利—you may be 権利, Sophie."

He was 星／主役にするing at her dark-red lips, at the curve of her bosom under the jacket of her utilitarian 控訴. He thought of her as a woman, warm and enveloping; he thought of her as a ひどく competent human 存在 who knew the evil of the world and fought it with laughter. He admired the humor of her mouth, which was never tight with meanness, admired the cinnamon of her cheeks, which made the women of Sylvan Park seem washed-out sacrifices. But more than her bodily 魔法, he admired her resoluteness.

"No," he was 不平（をいう）ing, "I don't know that I can come out. The cards are stacked against me. And you're 権利. I do love Vestal."

"You're telling me!"

"But maybe she won't be able to stand by, if I get in trouble. How could she? She's been educated to believe that God's 目的 in creating the universe was to lead gently up to the Junior League. But—so—when—if I need you, will you be there?"

"I 疑問 it."

"Hm?"

"Darling, the 忠義 to the good white massa during his 批判的な struggle to get elected 代表者／国会議員 from Plantagenet 郡 is clean gone out of me. I could love you like a lady Casanova—I even like to 熟視する／熟考する kissing you and having those Norse God 武器 around me—but I don't get any さらに先に with such unworthy thoughts than you do with a like fancy for Nurse Concord. Our last 広大な／多数の／重要な kiss has done been kissed. Oh, Neil, darling, darling one-per-cent-解答 lover, you might have been a grand New Negro if you hadn't been brought up as a 郊外の Christian white gentleman! But as it is—別れの（言葉，会） forever, for maybe a couple of weeks."

"Rot!"

"I beg your 容赦, Mr. Kingsblood!"

"The fact that we've been honest—and I think やめる caddish—about Vestal has pulled 負かす／撃墜する the blinds between you and me. You'll always have me on your 良心 now."

"No, just on my phone-名簿（に載せる）／表（にあげる）. Dear Neil, good luck...Hang it, I wonder if I ever will 落ちる in love with you, you 爆破d Yorktown 演習-sergeant!"

*

Fondness for Sophie and Ash had 直す／買収する，八百長をするd in him a 同志／支持者 見解（をとる） of the whites' mouthings about the Negro, and he heard plenty of such mouthings now, with the 増加するing dislike の中で the 国民s of Grand 共和国 for the colored factory-労働者s who, during the war, had been 許容するd as 愛国者s.

These were the 広大な／多数の／重要な days of gold and crimson October 天候 before the long Northern winter 始める，決める in. Once, Neil would have 充てるd the enchanted season to ゴルフ and 狙撃, but now he 掴むd the last 解放する／自由な afternoons before the 侵略 of ice to hobble 速く about the 法廷，裁判所s of the Sylvan Park Tennis Club with Vestal, the (n)艦隊／(a)素早い and silver-武装した.

There was no real clubhouse but only a cabin like a white country schoolhouse, for balls and ゆすりs and lockers of アルコール飲料.

That afternoon gave pure zest of living—the white flannels and shorts of the players, the twang of the ゆすりs, the lively 得点する／非難する／２０ing, sun and 空気／公表する and 動議 and the autumn leaves. After the game they sat beside the 法廷，裁判所s on （軍の）野営地，陣営 議長，司会を務めるs, attentive to highballs: the 退役軍人s Eliot Hansen and Judd Browler, with wives, Curtiss Havock, Neil's brother, Robert, and his Alice, Rita Kamber, wife of the cranky doctor, and 中尉／大尉／警部補-陸軍大佐 Tom Crenway, who had recently returned to his printing-商売／仕事, with his Violet, who took her melting 注目する，もくろむs into all sorts of 改革（する）s and charities and then froze them.

They were generous friends and neighbors, 反映するd Neil, and he was 感謝する for the loving 親切 with which they had let his lameness cramp their games. Nowhere in the world was there such neighborliness as here in the Middlewest. There was 非，不，無 of the obsequiousness of the humble toward the gentry, of the fight for 優先 の中で the wives of doctors and lawyers and merchants that staled the 空気／公表する of Europe and 広大な／多数の／重要な Britain and the British 植民地s—含むing New England. These were his affectionate friends, and the 基準-持参人払いのs of 僕主主義.

They について言及するd the newspaper account of a 穏やかな stabbing at the Jumpin' Jive, last evening, and the 増加するd Negro 移住 to Grand 共和国. 陸軍大佐 Crenway said that he 手配中の，お尋ね者 to define the 現在の place of the Negroes in our civilization, and they were glad to help him. Curtiss Havock had learned "the real truth about the niggers" from fellow-海洋s who （機の）カム from the South, and 陸軍大佐 Crenway, 招待するd to dinners at 農園-houses 近づく his training-（軍の）野営地，陣営 in Mississippi, had acquired such secrets as are rarely divulged to Northerners.

Most of the neighbors 受託するd the Crenway-Havock 報告（する）／憶測, though Rita Kamber and Neil Kingsblood said nothing at all, and Violet Crenway flirtatiously questioned a few 条項s. Violet often 観察するd, looking into the bulging 注目する，もくろむs of philanthropic and さもなければ 有罪の old gentlemen, that she just couldn't help 存在 a 自由主義の and a highbrow. She was on all known 委員会s, for and against 事実上 any 原因（となる）, though she was not distinguished so much for 活動／戦闘 as for 陳列する，発揮するing her neat little 破産した／（警察が）手入れする and 溺死するing 注目する，もくろむs. Violet also explained that she "knew the Negroes first-手渡す, 完全に," which meant that she had once had a colored cook.

Thus the group worked out an American Credo about the Negroes which is here 現在のd in 要約:

No person has the 権利 to 裁判官 or even to talk about Negroes except a born Southerner or a Northerner who owns a winter home in the South. But all Southerners, whether they be professors at Chapel Hill or pious 未亡人s in Blackjack Hollow, are 当局 upon all 段階s of Negro psychology, biology and history. But the 称する，呼ぶ／期間／用語 "all Southerners" does not 含む any Southern Negroes.

As 幼児s, all (white) Southerners, 含むing cotton-mill 手渡すs, had colored Mammies, of whom they and their fathers, all of whom were 陸軍大佐s, were almost 過度に fond.

All Negroes, without exception, however pale, are lazy but good-natured, thieving and lecherous and murderous but very 肉親，親類d to children, and all of them are given to singing merry lyrics about slavery. These are called Spirituals, and they are beautiful but funny.

All Negroes so 深い尊敬の念を抱く the godlike white man that no Negro wants to be mistaken for a white man, and all Negroes (which is pronounced Nigras) want to pass and be taken for white. This is called Logic, a favorite 支配する in Southern (white) colleges.

Any Southern white man, upon 会合 any Negro, 含むing 裁判官s and congressmen, invariably says, "Here's a dollar, Jim, you 黒人／ボイコット rascal, and you go around to my 支援する door and get a big meal of vittles." Indeed, Negro 福利事業 is the 単独の 利益／興味 of all white Southerners, and since it is also the 長，指導者 願望（する） of the Negroes, we have the agreeable spectacle of the Southern Negroes as the best-paid, best-housed, and most extensively and intensively educated group in all history. This is known as the New Industrialism in the Sunny South.

Negroes are not human 存在s but a cross between the monkey and the 陸軍大佐. This is proven by their invariably having skulls so 厚い that, as 実験s at the University of Louisiana have conclusively shown, cocoanuts, sledge-大打撃を与えるs and very large 激しく揺するs may be dropped upon their 長，率いるs without their noticing anything except that they have been kissed by バタフライs. This is called Science.

(But what it really all comes 負かす／撃墜する to is, would you want your daughter to marry a nigger?)

All Negroes, 含むing college 大統領，／社長s and bio-physicists, spend all of their lives, when they are not hanging around white folks' kitchens, in drunkenness, dice, funny （軍の）野営地，陣営-会合s, and the sale of marihuana.

Persons who 持続する, that, psychologically, socially, industrially, Negroes are 正確に／まさに like the whites are technically called "troublemakers," and their heresies are "a lot of 混乱させるd, half-baked ideas," and all pretty women should answer them by 説, "If my husband were here, he would horsewhip you for trying to give the Nigras a lot of 誤った ideas." This is 公式に known as 忠義, or The 遺産 of Our Gallant Defenders, and is 特に prized by the 物陰／風下s and Jacksons who produce our 愛国的な Confederate films in Hollywood.

Even if these cranks that go 一連の会議、交渉／完成する 非難するing the white 態度 toward the darkies are partly 権利, they don't 供給する any 解答, and I make it a 支配する to never 支払う／賃金 any attention to these cynics that don't Furnish a Practical 解答 to the Whole Problem. "You're very smart," I always tell them, "but what do you 推定する／予想する me to do?"

All Negroes 絶えず indulge in ferocious fighting with knives, but all Negro 兵士s are afraid of and 棄権する from ferocity, fighting and all forms of 冷淡な steel. This is the 支店 of 知恵 called Folk Ways.

Since they are all indolent, no Negro ever earns more than eleven dollars a week, but since they are all extravagant, out of that sum each of them spends eighty dollars every week in the 購入（する） of silk shirts, 無線で通信するs, and the 賞与金s of the Big Creek & Hallelujah Burial Society.

(It ain't a question of prejudice; it's just a 事柄 of freedom to choose your own associates; and let me ask you this: would you like your daughter, sister or aunt to marry a colored man, now answer me honestly.)

All Negroes who move to Chicago are perpetually chilly there, 特に on July afternoons in the rolling-mill, and they are ceaselessly homesick for the warmth, cotton blossoms, pecans, magnolias, grits, 黒人／ボイコット-注目する，もくろむd peas, pork chops, watermelons, corn bread, banjos, 刑務所，拘置所s and congressmen of the Southland, and whenever they see any real Southern white man, they 急ぐ up to him and volunteer a 自白 that they should never have left the South and their God-given, natural, Caucasian, meridional 後見人s.

All Negro males have such wondrous 性の 力／強力にするs that they unholily fascinate all white women and all Negro males are such uncouth monsters that no white woman どれでも could かもしれない be attracted by one. This is called Biology.

All Negroes who reside in 押し寄せる／沼地s are 極端に happy, and laugh their 長，率いるs off at the pretentiousness of Negro would-be doctors, lawyers and them phony highbrows in general.

(And just what would you do if some big 黒人／ボイコット Nigra 微風d up to you and said, "I've been necking with your daughter, and so what?" And believe me, that's what we'd have, if them mokes made just as good dough as you or me.)

All mixed 産む／飼育するs are bad. This （警察などへの）密告，告訴（状） we 借りがある to the British, to whom we also 借りがあるd the 初めの 輸入 of a good 株 of our slaves. Thus, a mulatto invariably 欠如（する）s both the 栄誉（を受ける） and creativeness of the whites, and the patience and merriment of the 黒人／ボイコットs. So, the 推論する／理由 why so many mulattoes 陳列する，発揮する talent and high morality is because they have so much white 血, and the 推論する／理由 why so many 極端に dark Negroes show just as much talent and morality is because it 簡単に ain't so. This is called Ethnology, Eugenics, or Winston Churchill.

The Nigra 圧力（をかける） is 十分な of lies about 不正s to the darkies, and 負かす／撃墜する my way we would 訂正する the editors by gently showing them a rope. This is called Good 産む／飼育するing.

All Negroes, 含むing Walter White, Richard Wright, and 准將-General Benjamin Davis, have very funny 指名するs, like Sim Sowbelly, Cleopatra Gutch, and I Will Arise Pipsqueak, which 証明するs that all negroes are ridiculous, and how would you like your daughter to become Mrs. I. W. A. Pipsqueak? This is called Genealogy.

Any writer who portrays any Negro as 事実上の／代理 like a normal American is either an ignorant Northerner or a 反逆者 who is trying to destroy civilization.

In discussing the education of Negroes, it shows both profundity and originality if you start by 説, "They got to learn to walk before they learn to 飛行機で行く," and, later, when the 事柄 of 遺伝 has 微風d into the conversation, to look pretty 深遠な and explain "Water can't rise higher than its source." This is a 支店 of Dialectics called Argument-by-Metaphor, as 好意d by women and clergymen.

All Negroes are inefficient, which is the 推論する／理由 why, during the war, they were able to 組織する so efficient a movement to jostle white persons every Wednesday afternoon at 3:17, and to 運動 white women into the appalling horror of doing their own 家事, that it was the envy of the German General Staff. For seven months, all Negro women incessantly shouted at white ladies, "You'll be in my kitchen, by Christmas." I know that this is true, because my Aunt Annabel, a woman of probity, told me so.

There may be a little 差別 against Negroes in backward sections of the South, but nowhere in the North is there any 差別 whatever.

In fact, to be 権威のある about it, the Negro Problem Is Insoluble.

Did I ever tell you the story about the nigger preacher that was bawling out his congregation—

*

When the American Credo had thus been 輪郭（を描く）d, Judd Browler 疑問d, "I think some of that goes a little too far."

But Vestal Kingsblood, who had gone to college in Virginia, 主張するd, "No, I think it's a fair picture 一般に."

Brother Robert, 広大な／多数の／重要な-広大な／多数の／重要な-広大な／多数の／重要な-grandson of Xavier Pic of the islands, exulted, "I'd be for a 法律 to make it a 罪，犯罪 for any man with a 選び出す／独身 減少（する） of nigger 血 in him to pass for a white man. If one of my girls was deceived into marrying a fellow like that, I'd kill him with my 明らかにする 手渡すs!"

But the 手渡すs that Robert held up were better fitted for 調印 letters than for garroting.

Neil silently looked at him, looked at his neighbors, good and 肉親，親類d and generous and literate.

Violet Crenway 麻薬を吸うd up then, with some enthusiasm for herself as a thinker:

"All of you 行方不明になる the point. The darkies aren't really so bad. Some of the educated ones are just like us—事実上. But where they are all going haywire is in wanting to 急ぐ their 進歩 too 急速な／放蕩な, instead of taking it 自然に and depending on their own honest, unaided 成果／努力s to so develop that 結局, some day, they'll make us whites 認める their 進化.

"I always say to my colored friends, 'Yes, yes, I know there are some talented members of your race who don't get their 予定. I'm a 正規の／正選手 反逆者／反逆する myself, and I believe in you coons grabbing all you can get. But let me remind you of something maybe you 港／避難所't noticed. There's just been a war on. Europe isn't settled yet, and there's a lot of labor trouble and so on and so 前へ／外へ in the 部隊d 明言する／公表するs, and so, while I'm all for equal 権利s and maybe social equality some day for you darkies, when the time is 権利, can't you see that now isn't the time for it?"

Neil knew, without having been 教えるd, that this was the most vicious thing that had been said, and the most foolish.

一時期／支部 32

The gold was gone, the streets were mud, and November was 近づく, when Neil lunched with Randy Spruce of the 議会 of 商業, Lucian Firelock, who had come from a Georgia newspaper to be advertising 経営者／支配人 of Wargate's, and Wilbur Feathering, who had also migrated North, but more after the fashion of Morgan's raiders.

Wilbur was the newest 商売／仕事 sensation in town; small, 削減する, forty-five and 十分な of twenty-dollar 法案s. He had been born in Mississippi, the son of a 破産者／倒産した grocer, but he thought that it would be much nicer if you supposed him to be the scion of a 農園-owner. Randy said, in a Boosters Club speech, "Wilbur may be as Southern as a hot tamale but he's also Northern as a blizzard and as 簡素化するd as a 飛行機で行くing torpedo."

After six years in Grand 共和国, Wilbur had 追加するd to his Delta accent the virile phrases of Chippewa Avenue, and he was now more likely to say "That's for sure" than "Ah 宣言する," and not Randy himself more often 栄冠を与えるd a 宣告，判決 with "Or what have you."

Wilbur had a 使節団, even aside from the 養育する of his bank-account, a 使節団 to enlighten Grand 共和国 about the danger of race 暴動s that, he said, was inherent in the growth, since 1939, of its Negro 植民地 from eight hundred to two thousand—to nearly two and a ４半期/4分の1 per cent. of the total 全住民, which, by Wilbur's arithmetic, was ninety-eight and a ４半期/4分の1 per cent.

Neil met them in the maple-パネル盤d Green Mountain Cocktail Lounge of the Pineland for a quick one, and they lunched in the Fiesole Room. The presence of the colored waiters started them talking Negro Problem.

"Where you boys got it wrong," said Mr. Wilbur Feathering, "is in looking on the Nigras here as a 貯蔵所 of labor to use in breaking strikes and 破産した／（警察が）手入れするing the unions. Used to could, but the damn unions are some of 'em beginning to 入会させる the niggers just like human 存在s."

"I believe he's 権利," said Randy.

They heard their friend, Glenn Tartan, 経営者／支配人 of the Pineland, asking a waiter, "Where is Mr. Greenshaw?"

Wilbur wailed, "That's 正確に／まさに what I mean about you Northerners! Mister Greenshaw! For a nigger headwaiter! 非，不，無 of you know how to 扱う／治療する the 黒人／ボイコット apes."

Lucian Firelock 反対するd, "On 委員会s, I've often said 'Mister' to Nigras."

"Aw, you're just trying to show off, Firelock," said Feathering. "Me, I have never in my whole life called any colored person Mister, Missus, or 行方不明になる, and I never shall, so help me God! Here's what you might call the philosophy of it. The minute you call one of the bastards Mister, you're admitting that they're as good as you are, and bang goes the whole God-damn White 最高位 ゆすり!"

Lucian Firelock, once 高度に thought of in Georgia university circles, 抗議するd, "Do you always have to talk of the Nigras with 憎悪?"

"I don't hate the 向こうずねs. Fact, they tickle me to death. They're such sly, thievish monkeys, and they all dance good, and when they find a white man that's の上に 'em, like me, they just laugh like hell and 収容する／認める they'd all be a damn sight better off under slavery. But you're one of these New Southern 自由主義のs that （人命などを）奪う，主張する it's okay to have niggers 権利 at your house for dinner!"

Lucian said 真面目に, "No, I believe 完全に in Segregation. It 妨げるs 衝突s. But I also believe in scrupulously seeing that the Nigras get accommodations 正確に／まさに as good as ours. For example, there is a Nigra 化学者／薬剤師 here 指名するd Dr. Ash Davis, and while I don't want to intrude on his home or have him intrude on 地雷, he deserves the best of everything."

Feathering snorted, "I've heard of that guy, and I wouldn't worry about his equal accommodations 存在 so damn equal! Fact, his having his 任命 at all is a stinking 不正 to some young white scientist that's toiled and sacrificed and 用意が出来ている himself for a good position, and then he finds this fat, greasy, four-紅潮／摘発するing nigger has plotted and connived and grabbed it! Don't that make your 血 boil?

"And take this nigger headwaiter here. Does he have the decency to ask Glenn, 'Please, boss, don't mister me no misters! It makes me ashamed befo' de white 質'? Not him! You Yankees—"

And then he said it, he really did say it: "Iwastwelveyearsold-beforeIknewdamnYankeewastwowords."

"You Yankees have spoiled him and he'll stay spoiled till he gets a little 肉親，親類d-hearted flick of the bull-whip."

Neil was saved from bursting out by Lucian's abrupt, "Oh, don't talk like a Mississippi 上院議員!"

"Now that's all 権利 now! Those 上院議員s may be hicks, but they talk sense on this one 支配する! Say! I hear this headwaiter has a daughter that's married to a nigger dentist! Can you imagine that—poking around in people's mouths with his big 黒人／ボイコット fingers! He せねばならない be run out of town. Yes, and maybe we'll do it. Some day you boys may be glad that one man come here and stirred up a little 活動／戦闘 before any nigger trouble could start!"

Neil was choking inside.

—God 悪口を言う／悪態 all white people, all of them! When shall I speak up? When shall I come out?

Uncle Bodacious Feathering was going on, "Used to be in the South we had a lot of dignified colored waiters that said 'Sir' to every white man even if he was a night watchman or what have you, but we had to kick out a good 株 of 'em and put in white waitresses, because those 無煙炭s were getting corrupted by 審理，公聴会 the educated Nigras talk about what they called 'the wrongs of the race'—lot of stuff that never happened. I'd like to hang every buttinsky that helps any nigger to go to college, and 深い 負かす／撃墜する in your heart, Firelock, so would you."

"I would not!"

"Oh, I'm 自然に a tolerant guy, myself. I love dogs. But when my dog has been rolling in manure and comes parading in and （人命などを）奪う，主張するs a 権利 to sit 権利 負かす／撃墜する at the same （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する with me—"

Neil heard nothing more. He had risen and walked out.

*

He sat in the Green Mountain Cocktail Lounge, with its 手渡す-pegged maple furniture, its glass icicles on cartwheel chandeliers. He attentively drank one glass of water, throbbing, "I must come out—I must come out," in a rhythm that （警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域 and （警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域 on endlessly. As he 慎重に went 支援する into the ロビー, he saw that a Negro, dark-brown, handsome, わずかな／ほっそりした, in tweeds, was standing at the desk. Neil guessed that he was a doctor or a teacher, and that, with his dove-like brown wife, he had been daring to モーター and look at his own country.

The room-clerk was yelling, "Oh, Mr. Tartan, could you step this way?"

A year ago, Neil would certainly not have stopped, would have seen nothing, would have heard nothing. Now, he heard Glenn Tartan explain to the unknown, "Yes, sure, Doc, I know it's the Minnesota 法律—and a most 不正な and 差別的な 法律 it is, and the 立法議員s who passed it would be sore as goats if there were a 法律 説得力のある them to 避難所 people they don't like in their own homes. It's the 法律, but I want you to understand—you look 公正に／かなり intelligent—that there has been a lot of （民事の）告訴 の中で our decent guests at you people horning in. So if you could go some place else, we would be very much 強いるd."

The husband and wife turned away, silent. Neil caught them at the door, with, "I think you can find 公正に／かなり clean accommodations at the Blackstone, at Astor and Omaha, in the Five Points."

The man answered, "If it's not rude, may I say that my people don't ordinarily 推定する／予想する such 儀礼 from a white man!"

"I'm not white. I'm colored, thank God!"

He heard himself 説 it.

一時期／支部 33

He saw his father 広範囲にわたる up the last of the fallen leaves, only a 封鎖する away. He strolled over, with his mind blank, as though he had been 説 good-bye to a number of people.

Dr. Kenneth Kingsblood's house was an antiquity in Sylvan Park: thirty years old! It was of brown 支持を得ようと努めるd, faded, and it had a lot of assorted architecture that you could never remember, though you might 解任する the 飛行機で行くing balcony on the third story, and a fern in a glazed brown jar between the lace curtains of a plate-glass window looking on the 前線 porch. It was as homelike as the minor poems of Longfellow.

Dr. Kenneth puffed briskly, "井戸／弁護士席, my boy, glad to have you 減少（する） by and 報告（する）／憶測 that you're still alive. You living up North there, in Grand 共和国?"

"If you can call it living, with the 温度計 dropping this way."

"Somebody said you were in the banking line now. You must 令状 and tell me about it."

"I don't think you could stand the スキャンダル."

"本気で, what you been doing with the 研究? I don't take the 王室の 商売／仕事 too much to heart, but I do feel there's 確かな 義務s inherent in your blue 血—your red, white and blue 血. Noblesse 強いる!"

Neil spoke tonelessly, with no 願望（する） to be cruel but no particular passion to be 肉親，親類d.

"Dad, maybe you have red, white and blue 血, but, （許可，名誉などを）与えるing to your own 分類, my 血 is plain 黒人／ボイコット, and I want it that way."

"What the—"

"I find that Mom's family was part Negro, and I've decided that goes for me, too."

"What is this joke? I don't like it!"

"Mom is descended on her mother's 味方する from a frontiersman who was a 十分な-血d Negro—incidentally, married to a Chippewa. Do you mean she's never told you?"

"Your mother has never told me a word of any such a cock-and-bull story, and I never heard such a vicious 告発（する），告訴（する）／料金 in all my life, and I don't want to hear it! She's descended from a 罰金 French family, on her mother's 味方する, and that's all I want to know. Why, good God Almighty, are you trying to make out your own mother—my wife—is a nigger?"

"I'm not trying to make her out anything, Dad."

"The whole story is a dirty 名誉き損, and if anybody but you dared to repeat it, he'd get himself clapped into 刑務所，拘置所 pretty darn quick, let me tell you, and you can 引用する me on that. There's not one 減少（する） of 血 in you that's either Chippewa or nigger!"

"Can't you say negro?"

"No, I can't and I won't and I don't ーするつもりである to, and I'll tell you 権利 now—My God, boy, your own father せねばならない know something about your ancestors, and I can tell you, you 港／避難所't one iota of inferior or 野蛮な 血 in you and I ought to know, hadn't I—I've 熟考する／考慮するd bacteriology! Oh, Neil, my dear boy, in the 指名する of all that's 宗教上の, try to understand the 恐ろしい 真面目さ of this! Even if it were true, you'd have to 隠す it, for your mother's sake—your daughter's. Got to!"

"Dad, I've been trying to, but I don't know how much longer I can do it. And I'm not sure I 完全に want to. I'm not sure but that I have more affection for a lot of supposed colored folks than I do for most of the whites."

"You can't say that! It's insane, it's treachery, it's 背信 to your own race and country and 宗教—and it would be very bad for you in your 職業 at the bank! Say, uh—Who was this frontier impostor?"

"Xavier Pic. P-I-C."

"How did you ever get the idea this fellow was colored?"

"From Gramma Julie, from the Historical Society, from Xavier's own letters."

He 手配中の，お尋ね者 to spare this kindly, rustic man, his father, but he had to enlist against Wilbur Feathering, and he could not see that his mother would do ill to consort with Mary Woolcape more than with Mrs. Feathering.

Dr. Kenneth was 不安定な, at the end; he begged of Neil, "You've 簡単に got to keep all this dark till I can think it over and get my 長，率いる around it."

This, Neil realized, meant Forever, but he gave what sounded even to himself like a 約束.

*

On that 冷淡な 落ちる evening in Neil's living-room, a room dark-blue and maroon, with the formal ship's-clock that was the denomination of Grand 共和国 respectability, Biddy 削減（する） out paper dolls and stayed up much later than was 許すd—as usual, Vestal wrote letters and listened to a ホッケー game on the 無線で通信する, and Neil looked at the 商売／仕事 & 財政／金融 公式文書，認めるs in Time and perceived, in the 紅潮／摘発するing and paling quiver of the electric 解雇する／砲火／射撃, that 非，不，無 of this Negro nonsense need 存在する, 非，不，無 at all, and that he had been monstrous not to have known better how his father would take it.

The doorbell. Vestal answered. She （機の）カム 支援する with a casual, "There's a colored woman here wants to see you—something about some 救済 委員会." She went 支援する to her letters with no 直感的に 恐れる in her, though she had let in Sophie Concord.

Sophie was 緊急の:

"No, we'll just stand here in the hall. Speak low. I've been talking to Evan Brewster. We—your friends—we don't think you should come out as a Negro, and we're 脅すd you're up to something melodramatic. With us, it's been ground into us from birth, but we don't see why you should have to take it, and as a white man you can do just as much for the race. How we will milk you for 出資／貢献s! Neil, don't say anything! I could have telephoned you this, but I did want to see your house and your baby and see your wife again. She's beautiful, like a race-horse. They're your sort, all 権利. Good night, my dear, and shut up!"

Sophie was gone, into a filtering of gray snow.

In the living-room, Vestal mumbled, "Who was the gal?"

"A city nurse. 行方不明になる Concord."

"Oh...Oh, Neil, did I tell you that Jinny Timberlane has the cutest embroidered blue-wool 控訴 from an Austrian shop in New York? I think I'll get one like it."

That seemed to Neil altogether reasonable.

And so, without communicating his 推論する／理由, without 協議するing Neil, Dr. Kenneth Kingsblood in 中央の-November 召喚するd a 会議 of the entire family.

一時期／支部 34

Neil was at an evening 会合 of the 財政上の 委員会 at the 連邦の Club when his father telephoned, "Your mother and I want to see you すぐに. It's important. Can you stop by at the house in not over forty minutes? Good."

That there was to be a 会議, even that Vestal was to be there, Neil did not guess. He （機の）カム into the 狭くする, Brussels-carpeted hall of his father's house, into the "前線-parlor," whistling, and stopped at the spectacle of the entire family, beneath the pictures of 巡礼者 Fathers and sleigh-rides and Venice, sitting on the imitation-petit-point 議長，司会を務めるs, on the egg-yolk-yellow couch, on the 床に打ち倒す, looking at one another and at souvenir ash-trays and an Album of the New York World's Fair.

含むing Vestal and Neil and his parents, there were fifteen worriers gathered, 非，不，無 of them except Dr. Kenneth knowing why they had been 召喚するd: Brother Robert and Alice, with her brother, who was 非，不，無 other than Harold W. Whittick, the entrepreneur of 無線で通信する and advertising; Sister Kitty and her husband, Charles Sayward, the 弁護士／代理人／検事; Joan, Neil's unwed sister; the tribe of Saxinar—Uncle Emery and Aunt Laura and Pat. To make it all 合法的な, Dr. Kenneth had also gathered in the portly presences of Vestal's father, Morton Beehouse, and his brother Oliver, dean of the Grand 共和国 妨げる／法廷，弁護士業 and the only connoisseur of Napoleon brandy and of the odes of Pindar in town.

Oliver Beehouse was short and solid, with a fringe of 罰金, sand-colored hair about his 抱擁する freckled tonsure. He was always pouting all over his pale but freckled 直面する at the contemplation of the perfidious attacks on capitalism. Brother Morton, taller and four years younger, 代用品，人d a small 肝臓-位置／汚点／見つけ出す on his 権利 cheek for Oliver's freckles.

Pat Saxinar and Vestal and Joan giggled together, thinking how old-fashioned were the house and their 年上のs, who were muttering about the 推論する／理由 for this 議会, while Neil's mother sat reserved and frail, and Dr. Kenneth ambled about with mystery and lemonade.

Such was the 大陪審 when Neil （機の）カム in.

They smiled upon him, for if there really was trouble ahead, no one could be more depended upon for ありふれた sense than good old Neil.

Dr. Kenneth, ぱたぱたするing his 手渡すs, looking 脅すd, cried, "Now you young people please get up off the 床に打ち倒す and all be 適切に seated. Oliver, you take that big green-plush 議長，司会を務める. Now please let me have your の近くに attention.

"My son Neil, who hitherto has been a boy to be proud of and with a lovely wife and daughter, has astonished me by wanting to do something of which I violently disapprove, in fact you might say it appals me, something of which, as I understand it, even Vestal hasn't the slightest idea, and which I shall certainly not 許容する without his first asking all your advice, and which he will now 自白する to you. Neil!"

Dr. Kenneth sank on a frail gilt 議長，司会を務める, and Neil was sick with pity for his father, but he stood out and spoke 厳粛に, like a man on the scaffold with no more hope of （死）刑の執行猶予（をする）:

"I have learned that my mother—she may not even know it—is descended from one Xavier Pic, who lived from about 1790 to 1850, and who was a 勇敢に立ち向かう and honorable 開拓する on the Northern Minnesota 国境, an ancestor to be proud of, and who was also a 十分な-血d Negro. Which makes every one of us, technically, either a Negro or the の近くに 親族 of one."

He got only so far before he was whelmed by the fury, the 否定s, the shouts that he was insane. Vestal was 燃やすing with an unspoken astonishment that he had told her nothing, 燃やすing and rigid. Only his mother and Pat were altogether 静かな. He held up his 手渡す and the hecklers slowly stopped. He chronicled the story of Gramma Julie, the 発見s of Dr. Werweiss, and he 負傷させる up:

"A few months ago I would have been 脅すd or apologetic about telling you this, but now I see that the only 陳謝 is to the Negroes, the Indians, the Orientals, for the wrongs that have been done to them for hundreds of years—"

Oliver Beehouse, not even rising, took 告発（する），告訴（する）／料金:

"So, young man, you 提案する to 訂正する those wrongs by hideously wronging all of us, your friends and family, who have never given you anything but loving 援助—to 廃虚 even your wife, my own niece! Will you kindly stop your self-pity and your self-dramatization? I think you've been shameless enough, for one evening!"

Neil 示唆するd, "Will you go to hell?"

"What?"

"You heard me. やめる 事実上の／代理 最高の 法廷，裁判所. Maybe I would have shut up and never told, if Dad hadn't 召喚するd this inquisition and you hadn't 任命するd yourself 審判（をする）, but since you have, the question is, shall I be plain honest and tell the world the truth about what we are? Oh, Mom, I'm so sorry you got dragged into this!"

*

The comments of the 苦しめるd tribe did not come so 明確に and patly as they are here given, but together, and all mixed with wails, 悪口を言う／悪態s, 抗議するs, interdicts from Oliver, something like laughter from Pat Saxinar. Dr. Kenneth 主張するd, "Neil, I think we are all agreed that if you continue to say nothing to 部外者s, we'll try to ignore this whole 商売／仕事."

Since he had already told the Woolcapes, Ash, Sophie, Evan, Neil had nothing handy with which to answer, and his father 急に上がるd on, "You （人命などを）奪う，主張する you 深い尊敬の念を抱く the truth, but do you call it the truth to make your own mother, that bore you, into a nigger, when 明白に she isn't?"

"I don't—"

"Why, her and your daughter and your grandmother and your brothers and sisters are the last people living that any intelligent man would ever call niggers," Dr. Kenneth 主張するd. "I suppose it would tickle you to see your own Biddy a low-負かす／撃墜する nigger tramp!"

"Negro! And she wouldn't be low-負かす／撃墜する; she'd be just what she is now. She won't change; it's your ideas that have to change. And will you please やめる 説 nigger? Least you can do!"

"And the least you can do, that want to 拷問 your own family, is not to be frivolous and quibble about mere words!" snapped Oliver Beehouse.

Dr. Kenneth was laboring on, "Boy, 非，不，無 of us has to tell all he knows. Suppose I were a 麻薬-fiend. I wouldn't 推定する／予想する you to go around blabbing that I—"

Pat Saxinar 麻薬を吸うd, "But you aren't, Uncle Kenneth. Or are you?"

"Shut up!" 与える／捧げるd her father, Uncle Emery, son of Gramma Julie, who was in no exhilarated mood at having been 指名するd a Negro. Pat's mother (a Pedick of Winona) 追加するd, "This is no time for you to be impertinent and saucy, Patricia. I wish I'd never let you join the waves."

Neil's brother, Robert, simple-heartedly 否定するd the whole thing.

Neil, he 投機・賭けるd to say, had gone batty from his war-傷害, and even if this disgusting story could be true—but it was 単に the addled recollection of an old woman like Gramma Julie—there was no proof. Nobody could pin it on them. A letter from Xavier Pic? Why, a 偽造!

Charles Sayward 示唆するd, Forget the whole thing. 元気づける up. There was no 法律 that they had to 罪を負わせる themselves. He led thus to a 始める，決める speech by Oliver Beehouse:

"Neil, I've been thinking it over, and I was wrong and you were やめる 権利, my boy, in 主張するing upon our having the 儀礼 to 言及する to this nation's darker 区s as Negroes, not niggers. We 高く評価する／（相場などが）上がる the finer 質s of the better class of Negroes, and have since long before you were born! Didn't T.R., when he was 大統領, have Booker T. Washington to lunch? (That's more than F.D.R. would 've done, let me tell you!) But hot-長，率いるs like you, by 需要・要求するing more for these unfortunates than they're able to digest, more than the decent ones would even think of asking for, are 単に 干渉するing with the 整然とした 過程s of 進化, and—And so shut up about the whole thing, Neil, and try to have the sense of a moron at least! And while, as an 違法な 行為／法令／行動する, 非，不，無 of us would take any personal part in it, I think some day those 文書s about Xavier Pic may be 設立する 行方不明の from the とじ込み／提出するs of the Historical Society, and then 非，不，無 of us need worry!"

Oliver's cheery smile 勧めるd, "Have courage, my young friend," and Neil 推定する／予想するd to hear an archangelic 裁判官 say, "動議 認めるd." But the 法廷，裁判所-room silence was 廃虚d by Harold Whittick, brother of Robert's wife. He was 叫び声をあげるing, "The hell with Neil and his 'truth'! It's outrageous that my own sister should be dragged into this and wake up and find she's married to a nigger like （頭が）ひょいと動く. And what the スキャンダル may do to my advertising 商売／仕事, I hesitate to even 熟視する／熟考する!"

Alice yelled in 協定, "乱暴／暴力を加える is 権利!" She turned upon Robert a glare of extreme dislike, and hissed, "I see now why you always make such noises in the bathroom!"

Robert, a dull man but fond of home and slippers, 嘆く／悼むd, "広大な／多数の／重要な God, it's not my fault if I have some queer 血. Besides—you heard me—I 否定する the story, lock, 在庫／株 and バーレル／樽, and I think Neil has gone plumb crazy!"

"Something worse than crazy," said Morton Beehouse.

Aunt Laura Saxinar looked sniffy at all this vulgarity, and 明言する／公表するd, "This is a vile mess, with which I 簡単に do not care to be associated. My husband will tell you whether or no he considers himself a 黒人／ボイコット man. But as for my daughter, Patricia, I have not 単に a mother's heart to feel but a mother's 注目する，もくろむ to see that she is most certainly no—no Negro, or whatever you prefer to call those freaks—and I am told that 非，不，無 of them can ever learn to speak a foreign language, 反して Patricia speaks French like a native!"

Her husband, Uncle Emery, looked at her with no tenderness, and snarled, "Very 肉親，親類d of you to 許す me to define my own racial status! 井戸／弁護士席, Neil says that his mother, his own mother, is a coon, but it just happens that she is also my sister, and let me tell you 権利 here and now that she is no nigger, or me either, and if I'm descended from any Xavier Pic, and who the hell he was I don't know a thing about it, but I can tell you beyond the peradventure of a 疑問, he was no nigger, and unfortunately that goes for Neil, too, though just now nothing would give me more 楽しみ, you young stinker, than to have you exposed as the blackest 向こうずね in Christendom, if it wasn't that it dragged in all the 残り／休憩（する） of us, you hear me? But as for my family—"

He was 削減（する） off by Neil's young sister, Joan:

"Oh, for God's sake, Uncle Emery, shut up about your family. They're has-beens. You're married, and Aunt Laura has got to stand for you. But what about me—what about me? Johnny will never marry me now, and he'll bawl me out plenty for deceiving him about my race, and I never meant to, I never did!

"Oh, Neil, what made you do this to me? I've never 傷つける you, never! You've turned me into an outcast for my whole life, just to 満足させる some silly idea of 司法（官）. Why? How could you deliberately make me queer like this, hiding from people all my life, never daring to have a friend, not one boy-friend, not my whole ife now, when I was so happy with Johnny? Oh, why—how could you?"

But his sister Kitty Sayward, his loyal playmate all through childhood, was 意図 on him with unspoken horror that he should have destroyed her when she had loved him so.

He was 脅すd, ready to cry out that it had all been a maniac joke, when 弁護 （機の）カム from the still woman who was his mother.

They had been 特に tender of her, because she was so 壊れやすい and out of the ありふれた world. Her husband had been keeping a 手渡す of affirmation and love on her shoulder, Joan had been smoothing her hair, Neil had peeped at her wretchedly. But she spoke more 明確に than anyone else in the room. They stopped squabbling as she raised her 手渡す, and so they got it 十分な:

"Please! I think maybe Neil is 権利."

The chorus was tremendous, but it 中止するd in agonized attention.

"I never could see why there is all this fuss about whether you're 'white' or '黒人／ボイコット,' so long as your folks love you, but you all seem to be so worried about it, so I must tell you.

"Once or twice when I was very little, there was an uncle of 地雷, my mother's brother, Uncle Benoit Payzold, that used to come calling on us, but only when Daddy was away. I always thought he looked like a light-complected darky. My mother never talked about him. He was a gambler, and he drifted off somewheres and I don't know if he's alive today or dead.

"I asked my mother wasn't Uncle Benoit a colored man, and she slapped me and told me to be still, and I went and forgot it till just now. I guess maybe I made myself forget it, and I think my mother did, too. I think she knows about us, about our 存在—You know.

"She had a voodoo lodestone that, she told me one time, （機の）カム from Martinique, maybe a hundred and fifty years ago, and then long afterwards I couldn't find it, and I asked her where it was, and she got mad and said there never had been such a 石／投石する. I don't know. Maybe I just imagined it. But you mustn't punish Neil if he tried to tell the truth."

Dr. Kenneth was 勝利ing, "There, you see, Neil? Your mother's had the sense and the magnificent will-力／強力にする to 簡単に forget evil and only look upon the good, like the Bible says...Mother, I want you to 簡単に forbid Neil to go around trying to 納得させる himself and everybody else that this 哀れな 商売／仕事 is true."

His wife wondered, "I don't know, Kenny. If it is true—"

Robert turned hysterical then. "Mother! God is going to 悪口を言う／悪態 you for making a nigger out of me, when I'm really white and decent, and I'm getting so successful—I'm going insane! You and Neil have driven me 絶対 dotty, and it's a dirty 偽の, and all because of a damn-fool lodestone that could of come from anywheres and you don't even know for sure it 存在するd!...Alice! Don't you see I'm white, darling? It's a 嘘（をつく） and I'm white and our kids are white! They are! I'm not going to be 廃虚d by any lunatic like Neil! I'm white, and God help any bastard that comes around trying to 証明する different. Look at me, Alice!"

She did.

*

Pat Saxinar's 発言する／表明する was 正確な and frigid.

"All of you are assuming that you are superior to the 'colored people,' which isn't obvious to me at all. I've been infuriated by 差別 against 極端に nice colored sailors, and I've 手配中の，お尋ね者 to do something about it, and now that I'm colored myself, I shall!"

The chorus, this time, was 壊滅的な, and it lasted for many minutes, while Neil turned toward Vestal.

She had ardently said nothing at all. When he had a chance to mutter "井戸／弁護士席?" she answered, "I must think it over. 自然に, I'm a little surprised."

After one o'clock, her 注目する，もくろむs told Neil that it was time to go home, and, with nothing whatever settled, with even his father 決定するd to stay up all night and exclaim, it was hard for Neil and Vestal to break away.

They did, by the admirable feint of sudden deafness, and now the unknown Negro, Neil, 直面するd his white wife, and he had no 同盟（する）s.

一時期／支部 35

There was but a three-minute walk to their own house. Vestal was silent, her 手渡す trustingly on his arm, till they were on their doorstep, and she spoke then 自然に, not 怒って nor too carefully:

"My dear, why didn't you tell me before? I'd 've tried to understand and help."

"I was going to. Dad sprang this on me before I'd worked out what I 手配中の，お尋ね者 to say. Now you can help me. The biggest question is: must I 収容する／認める this 公然と? It is the truth!"

"Hush now. Be 静かな. I know what you're going to do, because I know you!" She touched his lips to silence, and drew him into the house. 持つ／拘留するing his 手渡す as though they were young lovers again, she led him up to the pink-and-white room where Biddy was sleeping, curled tight, very earnest about it, with Prince curled and asleep at the foot of the low bed.

"Look at her, Neil. I know you wouldn't let anyone 傷つける or shame her, and even if the story about Pic 存在 a colored man were true, you wouldn't tell the world, you wouldn't 拷問 her, to 満足させる your vanity about 存在 so truthful. But I'm as sure as I ever can be of anything, as sure as I am of your love or of our immortality, that the story is not true! There's some mistake in what Gramma Julie told you—she's old and forgetful—and she always was a malicious old pixie, 悪口を言う／悪態 her! We'll find out there was some other Xavier Pic or 選ぶ or 頂点（に達する） or whatever his horrible 指名する was—and how I hate him! So! You'll see! It'll come out all 権利. Neil! Will you look at that child—all rose and satin and gold. There's no Negro 血 in her!"

But Neil remembered Phoebe Woolcape, all rose and satin and gold, and a Negro.

"We'll wait and see," was all he could manage.

*

Next morning, his father telephoned that, under the （議長，司会の）地位，能力 of 助言者／カウンセラー Beehouse, the family had 解決するd that it was the sense of this 議会 that Neil would please shut up.

It was weeks later when Neil received from Dr. Werweiss of the 明言する／公表する Historical Society a copy of a letter from Xavier Pic to Major Joseph Renshaw Brown which had been 設立する in the society's とじ込み／提出するs:

"The castors you ask about are not plentiful this winter. The white men have been stripping our forests. I have been thinking about you whites. Of course to the Ojibways I am white too as they 認める only white & Indian, but I think I would rather be counted as Indian then.

"You said to me, 'Why don't you 反抗する them all and wear your 黒人／ボイコット visage as a badge of 栄誉（を受ける）?' But why should I explain it or excuse it or think about it at all? Why should a man with red hair excuse it to men with 黒人／ボイコット hair & brown & straw color?

"You white men 始める，決める yrselves up as the image of God, but which of you have seen Him? You have seen Genl Sibley & you have seen Govr Ramsey but which of you has seen God? Maybe He is dark, like the Indians and me, and maybe He is all colors, or no color at all, like a 激しく揺する in the moonlight.

"I have been reading the Scriptures a gd 取引，協定 lately & 設立する a text to tell you whites, He that hateth Me hateth my Father also. Excuse 令状ing as my 手渡すs are stiff I froze them last week getting a missionary out of some 早いs when his canoe upset, he asked me, Can you or the heathen Indians read & 令状?"

*

Neil admired, "There is 血 王室の for Biddy to be proud of." Then he laughed. He could hear Clem Brazenstar jeering, "That's the trouble with all you mulattoes. You got to be so high and biggety, while the 残り／休憩（する） of us only want good 職業s and a good seegar!"

*

As December froze its way toward Christmas, the family 避けるd Neil except for 緊急の 私的な 会議／協議会s at which only Charles Sayward seemed やめる human—and 堅固に 敵意を持った. The 残り／休憩（する） of the tribe were either touchy or 猛烈に respectful.

Pat Saxinar was 絶えず running in. To an extent which did not at all please Vestal, Pat assumed that Neil and she were 地下組織の conspirators, and she had tales for him of how frantically Harold Whittick and Alice were 匂いをかぐing at Brother Robert to see if he really had done the foul 罪，犯罪 of getting himself born a Negro.

Vestal did not again speak of "that other Xavier Pic," and Neil guessed that while consciously she would not believe in his piebald origin, 深い 負かす／撃墜する and hopelessly she was 確かな . She held Biddy on her （競技場の）トラック一周 and looked at her so long.

He remembered how she had skipped through the sacred chores of Christmas a year ago, while now she sighed, "There's still such a 戦後の 不足 of all the pretty things; let's not try to get any new Christmas-tree ornaments this year, but use the old junk." In pity he saw that her zest in life was 存在 wiped out, saw that he and his social 司法（官） had done this to her.

They did try to make a festival of Christmas shopping. They lunched together at the Fiesole Room, looking at the unconscious Drexel Greenshaw as at an unwelcome 親族. They struggled through the human surf at Tarr's Emporium. Levi Tarr, who had been a 陸軍大佐 four months ago, was now trying to learn again how to rub his 手渡すs and be piously attentive to women who 手配中の，お尋ね者 an electric refrigerator for forty-nine ninety-five. He shepherded them through the toy-department, calling them Neil and Vestal, and when with わずかに 激しい secrecy they parted, to shop for each other, he murmured to Neil that he could get a very 罰金 thing for Vestal in the way of matching bracelet, earrings, necklace, in brilliants.

When they （機の）カム out of the 蓄える／店, they plodded to the grim parking-lot, and Vestal's cheeriest Yuletide comment was, "My, the traffic is 厚い! I thought the cars were all worn-out, but seems as if these 名付ける／吹き替えるs have just as many as ever. Look at that lavender sports-職業. My, my, and who is that 運動ing it but that awful nigger, Borus Bugdoll. Oh! Sorry! Honestly, darling, I am sorry! I forgot that—井戸／弁護士席, it's hard for me to realize."

*

It was tacitly understood by the whole family that he was to say nothing until. Just when until would arrive had not been について言及するd. He was 絶えず afraid, 合間, that the news of his honorable 明言する／公表する would 精査する out through Brother Robert's 混乱 or Uncle Emery's fury or Pat Saxinar's 超過 of courage or the conniving spite of Harold Whittick. How many people 現実に knew It? Fifteen in the family, eight or ten colored people—oh, too many! And who else knew, who 嫌疑者，容疑者／疑うd, who was watching and leering, 持つ／拘留するing a match to blow him up?

At Eliot Hansen's buffet supper, when Violet Crenway tittered at Neil, "Oh, you red-長，率いるs are always peculiar," what did she 暗示する? How could she かもしれない know of Xavier's letter about red hair and 黒人／ボイコット?

At Ackley Wargate's 年次の snow-party, what was Pomona Browler getting at when she sang the voyageur's song, "Dans mon chemin"? That whole fiesta gave Neil a depressed feeling of leaving forever the 平易な white-man's life: the cheerful guests 運動ing in 切断機，沿岸警備艇s through the 広大な／多数の／重要な stand of white pine to Ackley's enormous スピードを出す／記録につける 宿泊する on frozen Lake Riflestock; old friends, pine たいまつs, the frail afterglow at the end of a forest 追跡する, girls, hot rum punch, rapturous singing of 伝統的な songs like "Seeing Nellie Home" and "I've Been Working on the 鉄道／強行採決する."

Yes, that was all very nice, but wasn't Ackley watching him in a curious way?

Neil felt safer when he went 負かす／撃墜する to the Five Points, one afternoon just before the holidays, with small gifts for the Brewsters, Davises, Woolcapes—but not for Sophie, lest he slip.

He talked for an hour with Mary Woolcape, as he had every week or two. With her he had the 慰安 and 安心 of 株ing in little things that once he had treasured with his mother and Vestal: meditatively gnawing a doughnut, really getting 権利 負かす／撃墜する 深い into a discussion of whether the 温度計 had gone 負かす／撃墜する to seventeen above this morning or only eighteen.

"Don't worry too much, son," said Mary, the eternal. "You have more people that love you than you know."

*

At the Brewsters', that afternoon, only Winthrop, 支援する for vacation from his first year in the University, was at home. That typical 有望な-young-college-man in sweater and moccasin-shoes was 十分な of yells and welcome.

"Neil! I just heard you've come over to my race! Oh, boy, am I glad!"

"Where did you hear that?"

"Listened to Dad and Mother doing a 罰金 職業 of worrying about you."

As, with overstrained 真心, he shook 手渡すs with his youthful admirer, Neil was fretful. So many others could have been listening. It could all pop out so easily. His "Okay—let it!" was not 高度に spirited. But he was proud that this ambitious boy turned to him as a friend with whom he could 減少（する） the parboiled cynicism with which his 肉親，親類d 保護するd themselves against a dull and 極端に （a）忠告の／（n）警報 adult world.

"Neil! Maybe you'll really get into the race-struggle and be able to give us some new slants. I wish you could do something with the racemen that are too touchy, and 主張する that the colored 圧力（をかける） （一定の）期間 That Word as n-blank-r, and have a cat-fit when they hear a bunch of innocent white kids doing some corny old song like 'You could hear those darkies singing.' I'll bet some of 'em 主張する that Niggardly せねばならない be pronounced Negrodly. Couldn't you make fun of them? Gee, you know, you could maybe become one of the leaders of the race."

Neil was gratified by such 約束, after days when he had been creepily conscious of the Family muttering, 内密に telephoning to one another late at night.

The Family stood there looking at him, no 事柄 where he was. The Charles Sayward who had always been the most cheerful and reasonable and decent of his in-法律s was most 堅固に 疎遠にするd. He had 静かに 廃止するd Neil along with any silly 噂するs that Kitty might have "Negro 血." Charles had the simple-hearted immobility of the small man who knows his small 職業 perfectly, and Kitty turned to him now for the sweetness she had once 設立する in a brother 指名するd Neil, who had died here recently—very 残念な, but let's not talk about it.

He 設立する a 手段 of sympathy only in his mother and Vestal and Pat. And his mother, though she was tender, though she was not 報復の, was now 主張するing that she had thought it all over and received a new 発覚, to the 影響 that Uncle Benoit had been neither colored nor a gambler, but a respectable Caucasian in the 法案-collecting line.

So they （機の）カム to a Christmas that was a caricature of Christmases past, with more Topsies than Tiny Tims. No Saywards or Beehouses appeared at the holiday dinner, held at Robert's this year, and the 残り／休憩（する） of the Family 注ぐd a horrid sweetness upon a self-十分な young woman to whom they could not help referring as "poor Biddy."

Snow was 落ちるing all day, and from time to time somebody would say brightly, "罰金! It's a real white Christmas," and every time he heard it, Neil thought, "So even Christmas gets jimcrowed."

The Family did not, as of old, stay on for a rackety supper, but managed to get themselves gone by three. When he had 護衛するd Vestal and Biddy home, Neil muttered, "I think I'll get a little fresh 空気／公表する," and 急いでd to Ash Davis's for a taste of 安全.

Not only was Sophie there, patting his 手渡す, placidly fond of him, but also there was that jittery and courteous Southern 自由主義の, Mr. Lucian Firelock, of Wargate's, discussing the part of Negro sculptors in a 黒人／ボイコット world that had once seemed to Neil a 集まり of dark pathos or of dark 毒（薬） but that seemed now as lively and multicolored and 予測できない as a tropic aviary.

Lucian was apologetic: "The Davises and Nora have been so nice to my kids that I thought I'd 減少（する） in and—and so I'll be running along."

Neil 手配中の，お尋ね者 to stay with Sophie in the warmth, but he could feel Vestal and Biddy alone at Christmas twilight. As he limped home through the snow, he meditated that he could conceivably have for Sophie a love that was altogether spiritual, but that he had for Vestal a fleshly love, and that of the two, it was the flesh that was likely to 耐える.

Sophie was his sister, his other self. As he had once 株d toys and all the small 反乱s against their father with Kitty, so with Sophie he 株d the greatest 反乱 he had known. But Vestal—she was his love. Every thought that the brownskin Alabama girl might have was natural to him and familiar; every thought of the woman with whom he had gone to high school, played tennis, 株d a bedroom for seven years, was exotic and amazing, and so he loved her most of all and hoped some day to captivate her and even to understand her.

Oh, he had understood her once, had known everything that she would do and would say, but that had been in a day when she had nothing to do that was not perfectly scheduled, when she had not been called upon to say anything upon the topic of a man who seemed 用意が出来ている to 廃虚 her and 廃虚 himself for the love of a God in whom he did not very ardently believe.

Vestal looked 有望な as a candle at his return. She seemed to Neil little older than Biddy and more defenseless. That child would always attack life and 脅す it into obedience; the humble and unexacting Sophie would always get along, in hospital or nunnery or low cabaret; but the きびきびした Vestal, pride of the Junior League, would always be forlorn and bewildered without a man: a father, a husband, a son, a priest.

He kissed her 公正に／かなり, and they were happy cooking their supper. Shirley had gone off to a Balkan carnival. They put Biddy to bed and sat at the shiny kitchen （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する, eating 緊急発進するd eggs and agreeing about the viciousness of Curtiss Havock and the virtues of Father Kenneth, and the putative cost of a "picture-window" in the living-room.

Yes, they really might get the new window, they said joyfully, on this 黒人／ボイコット night after a 黒人／ボイコット Christmas.

一時期／支部 36

No Jew, no musician, no teacher and very few 民主党員s had ever belonged to the 連邦の Club. Not that there was any bylaw against them. There was no need of one.

Here the 退役軍人 millionaires of Grand 共和国, like Hiram Sparrock, played 橋（渡しをする） or backgammon every evening, with a hot toddy 正確に／まさに at eleven. If the club servants were not English by origin nor baronially trained, the Tudor architecture of the members' 直面するs turned them so within six months, and when any old-enough member saw a stranger in those crypts, he would 召喚する Jeems and puff, "Who's that fella? Throw him out." The inner （犯罪の）一味 of the club regarded the coming of new 産業s to town as vulgar, and felt placidly that there was enough money in Grand 共和国 already.

They owned most of it.

No one had ever dared 提案する the 指名するs of Randy Spruce or Wilbur Feathering for 会員の地位; Curtiss Havock had been ignored, にもかかわらず his father's solidity; and Neil Kingsblood had been elected 主として because he was the son-in-法律 of Morton Beehouse. It was only by a rare slip that his brother Robert had been elected also.

Nothing in the higher social events of the year in Grand 共和国 was more 重要な than the 連邦の Club's Auld Lang Syne Holiday Stag, holden 毎年 between Christmas and New Year's, which enabled the members to escape from the young 親族s who are so 特に 現在の and flippant at Yuletide, and to bask in the （疑いを）晴らす sun of male conversation. Dinner-jackets were obligatory, mutton chops were 規則, and they were never affronted by salads or ice cream. The whole 事件／事情／状勢 似ているd a bachelor-dinner given by J. P. Morgan the 年上の to King Edward VII, but it was called Supper, and spread in the Pillsbury 取調べ／厳しく尋問する, which had a bold atmosphere of oak （米）棚上げする／（英）提議するs, Flemish tiles and pewter 襲う，襲って強奪するs.

The Stag this year had a distinguished array of Sparrocks, Wargates, Beehouses, Grannicks, Tarrs, a Havock, a Timberlane, a Drover, a Marl, a Prutt, a Trock, a general, a 指揮官, and an Episcopal bishop.

Neil, with his feeling of walking 絶えず on an icy roof-slope, did not want to go, but he had to please Mr. Prutt. He carefully brought his gold cigarette 事例／患者 and carefully left outside his new opinions. During the conversation before the supper, he had to skate around somewhat 速く to 避ける Brother Robert and Hal Whittick, and he took 避難 with Rodney Aldwick.

After supper, they worshipped with church-warden 麻薬を吸うs and with tankards of old bitter ale, which most of them disliked and changed for highballs as soon as it seemed reverent. Then—feet upon the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する, which was also obligatory except for the sixty per cent. or so of members with arthritis—they began the canonical Auld Lang Syne Hy-Syne, an 年次の 贈呈 of short, funny 会談, occasionally with an important 財政上の 告示, to be held confidential. This secrecy was almost 保証（人）d by the presence and the 同意 of Gregory Marl, the large, 静かな man who had 相続するd both of the two newspapers published in Grand 共和国.

The 大統領，／社長 of the club, Dr. Roy Drover, introduced 棒 Aldwick as （衆議院の）議長.

Usually, Dr. Drover was humorous, but tonight he said with 強調, "I'm not going to 保証（人） that we'll get to any short Hy-Synes this evening. Major Aldwick, our friend Rodney, has something so important to say that I've given him the green light to take as long as he wants."

Looking at 棒's curt hair, wide shoulders, 形態／調整d waist, you thought of all sorts of Kipling words: sirdar, sahib, polo, tiffin, pukka—義務, 力／強力にする—beggar, native—pure 産む／飼育する, outcast, 血—lightly answered the 陸軍大佐's son, I 持つ／拘留する by the 血 of my 一族／派閥; your son I'll take and we shall make a Quisling of the man. And 棒's 発言する／表明する, as he spoke, had the true parade-ground bark, with 合法的な refinements.

He was very happy, or so he said, about the 行為 of all our white 軍隊／機動隊s in Europe. "The commonest 商品／必需品 in our outfit wasn't beans or 弾丸s but sheer courage!" But he had to tell them that there had been one 失望: the 行為 of our ユダヤ人の and Negro 兵士s.

He 充てるd ten spirited minutes to the Jews, and carried on:

"Those 少数，小数派 laddies like to dish it out, in their seditious 圧力（をかける）, but on the field of 栄誉（を受ける）, those bellyachers can't take it, 特に the darker brothers. If you will 許す a rude 兵士 to use the 表現—they stink!"

(Neil looked at his wincing brother; at Webb and Ackley Wargate, who 雇うd Negro 技術d labor. Webb was an eyeglassed, medium-sized bookkeeper worrying about the balance, and Ackley a small-sized bookkeeper who had not yet learned to worry.)

棒 grew 手段d and 会社／堅い:

"I have no prejudices, the Army and 海軍 have no prejudices, I 推定する God has no prejudices. We had hoped that these 色合いd gentry had learned their lesson of playing the game in the former war. We gave them every chance in this—even made a Negro general and a number of 陸軍大佐s! And if there was any segregation, it was always and only at the request of their own colored leaders, who 率直に 認める that their 黒人／ボイコット lambs were not up to the 緊張する of associating with the whites.

"I have seen a 穏やかな-mannered and spectacled little Caucasian sergeant keeping a ギャング（団） of 黒人／ボイコット 兵士s, 長，率いるd by a big buck with the 神経 to wear two 妨げる／法廷，弁護士業s on his shoulders, from running away during an 強襲，強姦, and when that 'captain' saw me, he just snickered foolishly. But they were all 勇敢に立ち向かう enough when it （機の）カム to 軍隊ing their ill-odored attentions on ignorant French 小作農民 girls!

"The worst 出来事/事件 connected with the Negro monstrosities and 残虐（行為）s that I saw 本人自身で, however, was when one of them, and he must have been drunk, had the 神経 to say to a big Irish-American sergeant of M.P.'s, 'I'm going to get 無効のd home, and when I do, I'll service your girl for you.' Now I don't know how 合法的な it was, and I shall never 問い合わせ, but that buck had a funeral without 栄誉（を受ける）s!"

(Laughter and 賞賛.)

"What's the answer? 井戸／弁護士席, I think our new friend and member here, Lucian Firelock, has the only answer, 完全にする segregation, so successful in the South and some day soon, God willing, to be universally 需要・要求するd throughout the North. In the next war, I'd like to see the Negroes not even called 兵士s, not given any uniforms except 全体にわたるs, and kept by 軍隊 in a work 軍団."

(Neil looked at Lucian Firelock, who sat next to Duncan Browler, 副／悪徳行為-大統領，／社長 of Wargate's. He did not think that Lucian was comfortable over either 棒's compliments or putting his feet up on the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する.)

"But now," said 棒, "I have a few things to tell you about the Negroes 権利 here in Grand 共和国. When we 国民s-in-武器 went off to fight for our homes, there were only a few of the 黒人／ボイコット folk here, and the predominant element の中で them were 井戸／弁護士席-trained old-timers like Wash, who has 黒人／ボイコットd all our shoes since we were kids, and enjoyed it, bless his dear old ebony hide, and whom we all loved and 尊敬（する）・点d!

"But we G.I.'s （機の）カム 支援する to find that hundreds of the worst type of colored men have 軍隊d their way in here, and are 存在 followed by all their unwashed and unwanted and lice-infested 親族s from the South—which is powerful glad to get rid of them—and so we are on our way to 蓄積する such a 悪意のある darktown that race-暴動s are going to be 必然的な—and all because of a 誤った liberalism, an ignorant 寛容 of the Negro."

(Major Rodney Aldwick never said "nigger." He would not have said it even at a lynching.)

"We already have だいたい two thousand of these Sons and Daughters of Mumbo-巨大な here, and soon there will be twenty thousand, and a fair city will be fouled and smirched and 廃虚d—if we don't do something about it!

"On my own 率先, I have been having an 調査 made of some Negro agitators who are trying to corrupt our labor picture, and I'm going to tell you about these fancy fellows, of whom most of you have never heard, but who are getting ready to take over your own 商売／仕事, gentlemen, and have a pretty fair chance to do it, too, if you don't wake up and get very, very busy!"

(At this line of the 秘かに調査する-melodrama, all their 長，率いるs went up.)

"They are plotting to 強要する the unions, most of which have hitherto 閉めだした out 黒人／ボイコット members, or hamstrung them by keeping them in phony auxiliary unions, to open their 階級s, so that any ignorant, 黒人／ボイコット 溝へはまらせる／不時着する-digger can come in and even take office.

"Soon you will have the spectacle of a big, 黒人／ボイコット union 公式の／役人 coming into your 私的な office and sitting 負かす／撃墜する with his hat on, puffing a fifty-cent cigar in your 直面する and telling you how to run your 商売／仕事, that you've given the best years of your life to building up. Yes, and you'll have coal-黒人／ボイコット wenches 需要・要求するing the '権利' to 株 the 洗面所s with your own daughters and delicately bred 長官s!

"And you professional men, you doctors and my fellow-lawyers and even the clergy—don't think that you will escape! If you don't do something, there will be 圧力 to 強要する you to 雇う swarthy 長官s and cashiers—and all of you clever leaders of the community have been letting this 陰謀（を企てる） go on under your very noses!"

(It was a sensation. They had known that 棒 Aldwick was a good fellow, a swell 兵士, a smart lawyer, but not that he was a thinker and orator like this. Say! How about him for 知事 or 部隊d 明言する／公表するs 上院議員 some day?)

"And now, confidentially, so that you may defend yourselves and your most sacred 栄誉（を受ける） and 商売／仕事s, I'm going to give you the 指名するs of the ringleaders in this 陰謀（を企てる）—educated Negroes with soft 職業s and 非，不，無 of them having the smallest show of 権利 to intrude on labor organizations.

"The worst of them is one Clement Brazenstein, a professional agitator with shady antecedents. He does not live here, but he comes こそこそ動くing in here by night to 注ぐ his devil's brew of sedition into the, I must say, 高度に 有能な 地元の 反逆者s. These 含む one Ryan Woolcape, a 退役軍人 who was kicked out for insubordination, and Susan, いつかs known as Sophia, Concord, who is 現実に a city nurse, paid out of 税金s, out of your money and 地雷, to （種を）蒔く 破壊分子 宣伝 in every decent Negro shanty in town!

"Plotting with them are a 飛行機で行く-by-night 黒人／ボイコット preacher and spellbinder known to his dupes as 'Evangelist' Brewster, who uses the sanctity of his pulpit to spread the red doctrines of slave 反乱, and a former handy-man in a 特許-薬／医学 共同の who got in here on the pretense that he is a qualified 化学者／薬剤師, and calls himself 'Doctor' Asher Davis.

"All these delightful playmates are in constant touch with the ユダヤ人の bureaucrats in Washington, who are 内密に 計画／陰謀ing to make the F.E.P.C.—the 未来 Enemy 力／強力にする 共謀—the basic 法律 of the land, to 取って代わる our American Way of Life and to 軍隊 every industrialist to 雇う a ギャング（団） of 黒人／ボイコット men, whether or not he needs anybody at all. All over America they are 組織するing this titanic 革命, from the fish-canneries of old New England to the studios of Hollywood—and don't take my word for it, gentlemen, but read the Negroes' own outrageous 週刊誌 newspapers!

"But here in Grand 共和国 they are 特に insidious, and 会合 nightly with 確かな white men—and not Jews, not tramps and crooks, but 現実に of our own class!"

(As 棒's 勝利を得た ちらりと見ること swept over the listeners, it flickered on Neil, who answered it with an unspoken, "All 権利, 棒. I'm ready.")

棒 続けざまに猛撃するd on, "The Wargates and Dunc Browler, who are with us tonight, deserve our heartiest 賞賛 for their generosity in affording a 広大な number of 黒人／ボイコット gentlemen a chance to show what they can really do.

"Now the starry-注目する，もくろむd leftwing boys in Washington 持続する that the colored brethren have made just as good a showing as white machinists in punctuality, discipline, and 質 of work done. But I am 権限を与えるd to 明言する／公表する that Webb and Ackley and Dunc have arrived at an 完全に different 結論, and at Wargate's we shall see 今後 an 経済的な picture in which there will be a lot いっそう少なく of grinning slaty 直面するs!"

(Neil looked at Ackley, in whose forest （軍の）野営地，陣営 he had had so lively a party, two weeks ago. Ackley and his father seemed self-conscious, but they were not 否定するing anything.)

"So, gentlemen, I have not given you the 伝統的な comic Hy-Syne, because those of us who 直面するd the enemy guns cannot feel very comic until we are 保証するd that you are going to 保存する for us what we fought to 保存する for you—the pure, clean, square-取引，協定ing, 企業ing, 自由に-競争の激しい America of the 設立するing Fathers!"

*

They 続けざまに猛撃するd their tankards on the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議するs and broke their clay 麻薬を吸うs in 賞賛.

Neil was thinking, "This is it. Come on. That's the warden and the chaplain coming."

Dr. Drover was asking for silence, to thank the （衆議院の）議長, when Neil stood up. He spoke as unemotionally as an 公式の／役人 making a 決まりきった仕事 告示, and they all listened. Nice, sensible boy, 罰金 未来, young Kingsblood—you know, in the Second 国家の—son-in-法律 of Mort Beehouse.

"I was junior to Major Aldwick as an officer," Neil said, "but I must 訂正する him."

He saw the 注目する，もくろむs of Rodney shrewd upon him.

"Gentlemen, what Aldwick said about Negro 兵士s was half 花火s and half 偽の. It was poisonous nonsense."

棒 was rising to interrupt, but Neil 主張するd, "You've had your chance, 棒." Dr. Drover made sounds like a chairman, but Dr. Henry Sparrock yelped, "Let the boy talk!" Through the room there were mutters of "Give him a chance," and a more 悪意のある "This sounds 利益／興味ing!"

But Robert Kingsblood, on his feet but hunched over, was wailing, "Shut up, Neil! Oh, God!" as Neil 板材d on:

"Aldwick never について言及するd Negro gallantry, nor the seditious 成果／努力s of officers and 非，不，無-coms from the 深い South to corrupt our army by prejudice. I wouldn't 推定する／予想する that, from a political 登山者. But I will say that his 声明s about Dr. Davis and Dr. Brewster and 行方不明になる Concord are plain untrue—and he didn't even have their 指名するs 権利. I'm ashamed of myself for having sat and listened, because—"

Robert's agonized 発言する／表明する—perhaps he did not know that he spoke aloud—was beseeching, "Don't do it, boy!"

"—because," Neil went on, "I have some of what you call 'Negro 血' myself."

They were 麻ひさせるd and still.

"I am only one thirty-second Negro, but によれば the 基準s of Lucian Firelock and his friend Mr. Wilbur Feathering—"

Lucian's 発言する／表明する was even: "No friend of 地雷, Neil!"

"井戸／弁護士席, によれば the general Southern myth, which they have sold to simple careerists like Aldwick, that makes me one hundred per cent. Negro. All 権利! I 受託する it! And I have no friends whom I 栄誉（を受ける） more than Dr. Davis and Dr. Brewster and 行方不明になる Concord and Mr. Brazen星／主役にする! I'm very cheerful about 存在 a Negro, gentlemen, and about the 未来 of our race, and I think that's enough."

Boone Havock drawled, "I'll say it's enough—plenty!"

In the babble, Neil heard Prutt's 叫び声をあげる that this was all an ill-advised joke, caught Robert's hysterical 否定s, and part of an argument between Firelock and Dunc Browler about Ash Davis's competence. All such chatter was 鎮圧するd by the fury of Boone Havock, the vasty 鉄道／強行採決する-請負業者, who was roaring at Browler:

"You boys talking about whether some nigger knows a 実験（する）-tube from his finger, while this terrible thing has happened: a member of this club 自白するs he's a nigger and covers us all with shame! Who cares anything about nigger 兵士s—"

陸軍大佐 Levi Tarr began, "I care! The 差別 against them—"

Dr. Roy Drover 一面に覆う／毛布d him: "The hell with that! As 大統領，／社長 of this club, I 示唆する that we 受託する Mr. Neil Kingsblood's 辞職 権利 here and now—this minute."

Neil looked not at Drover but at 棒 Aldwick, relaxed, smiling, malicious.

Greg Marl was standing. "Roy! Before we do that or anything else, I 示唆する that we go home and think about it, and tomorrow you can 任命する a 委員会 to talk this over with Neil. 合間, I can 約束 that nothing will appear in my papers, nor in the 圧力（をかける） services, if I can help it—and if all of you will keep 静かな."

裁判官 Cass Timberlane 主張するd, "Whether he was wise or not, Neil has been 勇敢な, and we must keep our 長，率いるs."

Ackley Wargate—Neil used to play checkers with him—and 勝利，勝つ—Ackley shouted, "Sure we'll keep our 長，率いるs, but I know what my 態度 is, 権利 now. I have always considered Neil a good friend and been glad to entertain him in my home. I think I have always been nice to him. And I resent his having pretended to be a white man—こそこそ動くing in and 会合 my wife and children on a basis of equality. I just want to 保証する him and all of you that that will not happen again."

Judd Browler, bless him, solidest and oldest of friends, stood up to 布告する, "I think that's nonsense! We all of us know that Neil is the swellest guy and the most loyal friend in town. What's a mere thirty-second part Negro 血? He's the whitest man here, and I stand by him."

There were 議論の的になる 激怒（する）s, and Neil walked out on them. He was tired. He could no longer hear their 発言する／表明するs. A curtain had been lowered between him and these white men. To have 辞職するd from the white race was more important than to have 辞職するd from the 連邦の Club.

Judd Browler caught him in the ロビー, and grunted, "God, I think you were an awful fool to 流出／こぼす the beans like that, old man, but we'll 支援する you up. You and Ves come in for dinner—say next Tuesday, New Year's Day—and we'll talk it all over. Okay? Swell!"

一時期／支部 37

When he walked into their living-room Vestal was in fluffy negligee and was knitting, no usual domesticity for her. "I'm afraid you've caught me. I've been making a scarf for you, but I didn't get it done in time for Christmas, drat it, so I'm finishing it up for New Year's and—What is it? Neil! Why are you standing there? Oh! Neil! No! It hasn't come out?"

"棒 Aldwick made such an attack on Negroes that I had to tell them—公然と—I'm one. Sounds curious to say 'I'm a Negro'!"

"Curious. Yes. Yes, it does sound curious. It sounds curious to say that I'm the wife of a colored man. That Biddy is colored—and damned forever now. Yes. Curious. And we have to do something quick, to （不足などを）補う for your delightful public 自白. I don't know what."

She was at the telephone, calling Dr. Kenneth, begging him to 会合，会う them at Morton Beehouse's. She called her father and Brother Robert at the 連邦の Club. As she dressed, upstairs, with Neil blankly watching, she moaned, "If you just won't say anything!"

"I'm not 説 anything!"

She tried to smile. "井戸／弁護士席 then, if you just won't not say anything, or something! I think I'm going to stand by you—or maybe you don't want me to, any longer? Maybe I'm not even good enough to be a colored man's wife."

"Don't be silly."

"What can I think? You could do this to me. I'm pretty 堅い, or I thought I was, but to Biddy—"

"Vestal, there's no use. I guess it's simple. If I'm a Negro, then I'm a Negro. And Judd Browler—probably a lot of others, too—支援する me in wanting to be honest about it."

"I could hate you, I believe, if I put my mind to it, and yet I don't, not now, and when I look at you, just as ruddy and red-長，率いるd and decent as ever, I don't seem to have any revulsion, and yet—Suppose Uncle Oliver could 証明する that there's been some mistake—you're not even a tiny bit Negro?"

"Then I'd volunteer. I prefer Ash and Evan and Phil and Sophie and the Woolcapes to 棒 Aldwick and Doc Drover and Oliver Beehouse."

"Who are all these weird people? Coons?"

Surely it was impossible that she should not know these, the most important persons living. "They are Negroes whom I prize for their 親切 and courage and 知能 and—"

"Oh nuts! You've become impossible!"

*

The 住居 of Mr. Morton Beehouse needs only one word: Solidity.

Thirty thoughtful years had been 充てるd to selecting the final place for his slippers, and to finding a buffet of the 権利 solidity. In this 要塞, where the 空気／公表する seemed composed of the same oak as the パネル盤s of the 塀で囲むs, Dr. Kenneth, with a 控訴 and a plaid overcoat over his pajamas, was waiting like a ぱたぱたするing stork when Neil 追跡するd in, while Brother Robert was a bumptious bull, and their host was altogether motionless, except for his 注目する，もくろむs.

Robert 布告するd, "Neil, I've been talking to Mother on the phone, and she 絶対 否定するs the whole story. She 主張するs on your getting the 連邦の Club members together again, and telling them you had a 一打／打撃."

Morton Beehouse said, "That would be very much like a 私的な 国民 ordering 議会 to 組立て直す. It's too late. After all, I was there, and I may tell you, Neil, that you might better have 殺人d my daughter than have done this obscene thing to her. She will, of course, leave you すぐに, in mere self-尊敬（する）・点."

"I will not," said Vestal.

"Think so? Wait till Lorraine Wargate and Janet Aldwick 削減（する） you on the street," her father said solidly.

"I won't wait. I'll 削減（する） them first."

Morton was 静める. "Go ahead, my dear. Get it out of your system. I would 推定する／予想する you to be loyal. The Beehouses are a loyal folk. But when you have done enough for 栄誉（を受ける）, you will agree with me that this fellow, your husband—一時的に—is the most unspeakable, selfish, exhibitionistic, vile, brawling sot and bounder that ever 不名誉d this city!"

Robert was 脅すd, but he was a decent clansman, and he rumbled at Morton, "We've had enough of your sauce, Beehouse!"

"We certainly have!" said Dr. Kenneth, and Robert kept it up with, "My father and I love this boy, even if he is as crazy as a loon, and I guess maybe your daughter does, and seems like there's nothing more to say."

But there was, oh, there was, and Neil and Vestal were not home till after three. When they （機の）カム in, Biddy awoke, crying. They wretchedly tried to 慰安 her, and はうd to their sleepless twin beds. Vestal 公約するd, "I do love you very much and I'm going to stand by you—as long as I can. I'm not a professional 殉教者, though. 明らかに I'm not even 知識人 enough to be one of your fancy niggers."

"Don't!"

"How can I help it?"

Till 夜明け, a 夜明け of sleet and metallic gray.

The next day, the courteous Verne Avondene, 長官 of the 連邦の Club, telephoned to Neil that a 委員会 had met that noon and "受託するd his 辞職." Verne hoped that "your good lady and 行方不明になる Elizabeth are having joyful holidays."

"Not half!" said Vestal, who had been eavesdropping on the 拡張 phone.

*

As husbands do, he believed that his victory had been 平易な and sure, that she had forgiven him for the bad taste of 存在 born a Negro. As wives do, even very good wives, she let him 減少（する） his guard and then she 攻撃する，衝突する. Late in the 薄暗い December afternoon, a defenseless time, when they had cheerfully agreed that, yes, they'd better not go to Norton Trock's party, she turned on him with:

"And don't think, because I'm not kicking and 叫び声をあげるing, that I don't resent not 存在 許すd to go anywhere, nowheres again ever, because of this idiotic stand of yours. いつかs I begin to see the Negro in you—I hope I'll forget it again, but I see you shambling and grinning foolishly—"

"Is that really the way you think you see all Negroes?"

"That's the way I know I see them, all of 'em. And I imagine a 肉親，親類d of horrible 影をつくる／尾行する over your 直面する. Oh, I've always hated all darkies, and their beastly simpering, that gives them away. They know they're inferior!"

He 需要・要求するd, not too cherubically, "Did you ever know any Negro, besides Belfreda?"

"Yes! You and your dumb brother, Robert, and your sisters—Oh, I'm sorry, dear, I'm truly sorry. I'm upset. I could 非難する myself for 説 that."

"説 what? It's true, isn't it?"

"Honestly, Neil, I'll 耐える anything except your getting 静める and strong and wise on me! I can't stand that."

But they escaped—this time—from the more ardent 拷問s of quarreling.

*

The 連邦の Club Smoker had been on Thursday, December 27th. Neil's bank was open all day Friday and half of Saturday; it was also open on Monday, the day before New Year's. An automaton called Our Mr. Kingsblood was in busy 出席 upon those days, sitting in at a teller's window, giving advice to 退役軍人s whose advice to himself he would have been afraid to hear, talking to Mr. Prutt about the window-きれいにする service.

Prutt did a lot of throat-（疑いを）晴らすing and quick, unnecessary smiling during their talk, and Neil wondered if the 奇蹟 had come: if Prutt was going to be so heroic as to decide that this Negro myth was 非，不，無 of his 商売／仕事. He saw Prutt's ちらりと見ること craftily hitch-引き上げ（る）ing all over the place, and he realized that the good man was trying to look 負かす／撃墜する at his fingernails...to see if the halfmoons were blue.

He sat as chilly as a palace guard at whom the 独裁者 peeps too meditatively. There was the smell of death in the 空気／公表する. But he was 安全な until some 顧客 should complain about having to do 商売／仕事 with this colored fellow Kingsblood.

At the 年次の 特別手当-giving, when all the 従業員s were supposed to be surprised and pleased by the bank's fatherliness (and once in a while some of them were かなり surprised), when they were all lined up like a daisy-chain in the 大統領，／社長's office, Neil seemed to be still on the payroll. But just before Mr. Prutt should have 手渡すd him his envelope and his cliche, Prutt coughed, "I'll be 支援する, just a minute," and Neil received the 年次の gilded 脚-chain not from the pale, aseptic 手渡す of the 大統領，／社長 but from the 幅の広い 握りこぶし of Mr. S. Ashiel Denver.

—I'm still working here, but I begin to get an idea I'm not going to be first 副／悪徳行為-大統領，／社長.

*

Of course it got out. Though slowly.

Of course every one 現在の at the 連邦の Club's スキャンダル in High Life had 約束d to keep silence; and of course every one of them confided in someone else. In New Year's week there was nothing in print, but 無線で通信する 駅／配置する KICH, the 所有物／資産／財産 of the 高度に disaffected Mr. Harold W. Whittick, on its chatty Home News Hour 約束d that within a few days it would be able to give to its far-flung audience—the KICH staff were の中で the most horrible far-flungers in the country—the 詳細（に述べる）s of a shameful 出来事/事件 which had 明らかにする／漏らすd that a 井戸／弁護士席-known financier in the North Middlewest had been 主要な a shocking 二塁打 life.

Neil and Vestal listened and looked at each other and were 脅すd.

The day before New Year's, Judd Browler telephoned, "Look, old man, I'm in 肉親，親類d of an embarrassing position. My wife and my dad are 簡単に raising Cain about my wanting to 公然と stand 支援する of you for—you know. So I guess you better not come here for dinner tomorrow evening. Might be uncomfortable for you. But 個人として, I agree with you. I'll call you for lunch, this week."

Judd did not call again.

*

They had planned gaily to go to the big New Year's Eve Party at the Heather Country Club. They stayed home and were reasonably 荒涼とした. Neil worried, "I don't think I could lose my 職業, could I? What would we do, if I did?"

"I don't know. We've always been so sort of sure of a decent living. You don't suppose Papa Morton, the old clubman, would 削減（する） off my pocket-money, do you?"

"Oh, what if he does! We'll get along somehow." It did not sound like a bugle-call of courage.

"I suppose," she 推測するd, startled by the 革命の 観察, "that there's やめる a 割合 of American families that, every New Year's Eve, worry about whether their 職業s will 停止する through the coming year."

"Yes, I 疑問 if my friend John Woolcape, the 管理人, is spending this New Year's Eve wondering whether he'll switch his 投資s from General モーターs to real 広い地所."

"Oh, don't be so damned smug! You and your crusading friends! I don't see that is took any special virtue in you to get yourself born colored. Can't you forget it, while you're with me? I'm trying hard enough to!"

"You're 権利 I'll probably become as self-righteous as Corinne Brewster."

"And just who may 行方不明になる Corinne be? I don't know any of these new people you seem to have been seeing. Neil, you're drifting pretty far away from me. I say!" Her wistfulness turned to sharpness. "Was she that 極端に good-looking colored woman that こそこそ動くd in here to see you, one evening?"

"No, that was another girl. I'm very popular. Are you 支払う／賃金ing me the compliment of 存在 jealous, puss?"

He tried to make it airy and 国内の.

All of New Year's Eve, the only person who （機の）カム in was Pat Saxinar, and she was so profusely enthusiastic about 存在 colored—she had just discovered Harriet Tubman and the 国家の 協会 for the 進歩 of Colored People—that she annoyed that 退役軍人 race-改革運動家, Neil, as much as he had ever annoyed Corinne Brewster.

At one minute after midnight, Dr. Kenneth telephoned to them, and his 発言する／表明する was very old. "My dear boy, I do hope everything will go all 権利 with you and yours, this coming year. I'm trying to get things straight, and God bless you, anyway!"

—It would be hard on Dad and his practice if his 手渡す got 不安定な. Maybe I shouldn't—Too late.

*

Vestal was carefully careless with Biddy, these days; everything in her manner said breezily, "Oh, yes, dear, Mother is ever so happy." But the child caught something of the 影をつくる／尾行する of horror that was moving through the house, and with it some notion that Negroes were aggravatingly important here. With the innocent hellishness of all Dear Little Ones, she 回復するd Prince's 指名する, and went through the house calling "Nigger, Nigger, Nigger!"

Vestal was trembling with something like fury when she whispered to Neil, "Suppose Curtiss Havock heard that from next door? He probably knows, from his father. But if I try to shut the baby up, I'll just make her worse."

Late on a January night they heard that thin wailing, "Nigger, Nigger, Nigger" woven with the snow-勝利，勝つd.

"I am going up and make her stop that," sighed Vestal.

Neil said, "Are you sure that was Biddy?"

一時期／支部 38

It broke suddenly.

Neil was at his desk in the bank on Tuesday, a week after New Year's, when honest Judd Browler, whose house was 井戸／弁護士席 within sight of Neil's but whom he mysteriously never seemed to 遭遇（する） now, marched up and said, "Neil, as you know, I 港／避難所't got any prejudices myself, but everybody seems to think I せねばならない 保護する my wife and daughter, so maybe it would look better if you and I just didn't see each other 今後, when we can 避ける it." And lumped off without waiting for an answer.

Then, while Neil was chafed by Prutt's constant watching, all the old friends attacked. Curtiss Havock shouted to his wife, when he saw Neil in the yard, twenty feet away, "Christ, there's that nigger!" Elegant Eliot Hansen telephoned to Vestal a message that, translated from hints into English, meant that when she got tired of the shame of living with a colored man, he would 喜んで take her out for cocktails and see what he could do. (She told Neil.)

But the worst was passing Rodney Aldwick and having him croon like an 復活祭 benediction, "Good morn-ing, Neil!"

Then, like a 冷淡な 霧雨, （機の）カム certainty that the news was slipping all through the city. A stranger, dark and 劇の, bent over Neil's lonely （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する at the cafeteria which he たびたび（訪れる）d these days and muttered, "You don't know me; I'm supposed to be a Greek fruit-売買業者, but I'm part colored, like you. But I've kept my mouth shut about it. You take my tip and do the same, Brother."

The openest 侮辱 （機の）カム from Ed Fleeron, who was now 市長 of Grand 共和国, in succession to William Stopple. He owned a big 削減（する）-率 drugstore which sold 挟むs, rubber bathing-caps, gritty candy, velocipedes, electric fans, and some 麻薬s, all in dirty piles incompetently …に出席するd by girls who should have been 支援する on the farm.

市長 Fleeron （機の）カム like a one-man parade into Neil's living-room, when Vestal was away, and blurted, "I'm the 市長 of this city, and a neighbor of yours—unfortunately!"

Neil was adequately angry. "Oh, are you, Ed? I thought you lived in Swede Hollow."

"I don't want any of your lip, Kingsblood! I'm the 市長 of this city—"

"Still?"

"—and I tell you we don't want any of you niggers horning into decent white 近隣s, corrupting the kids and 脅すing the women.

"And bringing 負かす／撃墜する real-広い地所 values? That's the usual line, Ed."

"Yes, and it's a damn good line, too, and you'll hear a lot more about it, and if my policemen get awful 利益／興味d in you and your 活動／戦闘s, don't come bellyaching to me, as 市長!"

"Before I'd come to you for—Oh, all 権利. Get out!"

市長 Fleeron's chronic 競争相手, Ex-市長 Stopple, who as スパイ／執行官 for Berthold Eisenherz had been the 初めの developer of Sylvan Park, （機の）カム calling the next evening. But his was the affable ゆすり.

He did not について言及する Negroes; he chirped, "Neil—Mrs. Kingsblood—I've got a 顧客 that's crazy to move out here to the Park and likes the look of your house, and same time, I have a lovely little house in Canoe 高さs, 権利 近づく that wonderful fellow, Lucian Firelock." He did not 示唆する that this would also make it 近づく to Dr. Ash Davis, and not far from Sugar Gowse. "While it isn't as (a)手の込んだ／(v)詳述する as this house, it has a much better 見解（をとる）—talk about your 魔法 beauty, why, say, that 見解（をとる） across the South End is 簡単に breath-taking. If I could 説得する you folks to think about a 交換（する）, with something その上, I could get you a nice 申し込む／申し出 for this place, and I guess you like to make a 利益（をあげる） '一区切り／（ボクシングなどの）試合 as much as most folks, ha, ha, ha."

Neil said, "No. This is our home."

Vestal said, "Certainly not. It's a silly idea. Why Canoe 高さs? There's a terrible mixed 全住民 there—Jews and Italians and even—Oh. I see."

Mr. Stopple put it gently: "Do you think this is a time for you to be haughty, Mrs. Kingsblood? And the price won't be anything like so good, next time. But I'll 持つ／拘留する the 申し込む／申し出 open for a few days. Good night."

*

Neil said, "He knows."

Vestal said, "Of course he does, my good man. Maybe everybody does, by now...Do all the high-トンd darkies live on Canoe 高さs? Like this Dr. Melody?"

"I have no idea."

"Don't any of your—don't you know any Negroes on Canoe 高さs?"

"I didn't say that! I didn't say anything of the 肉親，親類d! I didn't say I didn't know any Negroes on Canoe 高さs! I just said—all I said was that I didn't know where Dr. Melody lives, and I don't!"

"Oh, Neil, you never used to talk to me like that!"

"I know, and—I'm sorry. Yes, let's not squabble." (He realized that superhumanly she was 差し控えるing from 説, "I wasn't squabbling," and that encouraged him.) "Let's not let Them （警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域 us by dividing us."

"We won't!...I don't think we will."

They wondered, then and every evening, how many of Them knew and what They were 説. It was a gasping 救済 to Vestal that as yet the 近隣 children were not taking it out on Biddy but continuing to see her only as the charming and ingenious imp who had always led them in producing incredible 量s of noise. All but Peggy Havock, next door. She had been Biddy's acolyte, but now she rarely （機の）カム out when Biddy clamored, and Vestal was sick as she watched Biddy, after yelling for Peggy, stand puzzled, slowly tracing a circle with her small red boot in the snow, 星／主役にするing at the Havock house, vainly waiting.

Most of the neighbors were extra cordial, and extra 簡潔な／要約する, on the street. From their look it was evident that they were finding something new and objectionable in Neil, even in Vestal. The frankest was their gentle neighbor, Mr. Topman, who at over fifty was still a teller in the Merchants & 鉱夫s Bank.

He stopped Neil, to say 謙虚に, "I am told that you have Negro 血, Neil. I must say I was surprised. I always thought that all Negroes were big and 黒人／ボイコット and did a lot of thieving. Could I have been wrong?"

He spoke as to a tremendous 当局, and authoritatively Neil put it, "You could be."

"Now isn't that 利益／興味ing! Tell me, do the Negroes like it, when they go 支援する to Africa?"

"I don't suppose they go 支援する."

"They don't? I never realized that. But I know a Swedish fellow that went 支援する to the Old Country."

"I think that's different."

"Is it? I just 手配中の，お尋ね者 to know. Tell me, Neil, do you know a Negro preacher 負かす／撃墜する in Atlanta, Georgia—I read about him—his 指名する was—井戸／弁護士席, I don't 解任する it 正確に／まさに, but it was something like George Brown—do you know who I mean?"

"I'm afraid I don't."

"Or it might have been Thomas. I thought you might know about him. Say, tell me—here's something I've always been curious about. How much do these 最高の，を越す-notch colored orchestra-leaders, say like Duke Ellington—how much do they make a year, 逮捕する?"

"I'm afraid I can't tell you that."

"Oh, don't you know? 井戸／弁護士席 say, do all Negroes want to marry white women?"

"I 疑問 it very much, but I couldn't say definitely."

"That's funny! I thought all you colored fellows knew all about such 支配するs like that."

If there was anything comic in Mr. Topman's 成果／努力 to find a ありふれた ground with this Ethiopian, Kingsblood (whom he had known for only thirty-one years), the comedy 滞るd when he solicitously asked:

"If Vestal and you have another child, is there very much danger that it will be coal-黒人／ボイコット?"

*

Considering Biddy's pellucidness, the question was funny, then, and わずかに exasperating, but later, when he had heard it put half a dozen times and hinted at a hundred times, it was 極端に exasperating and not funny at all. Neil had asked Ash Davis for the exact genetic facts, and learned, as 限定された, that with the union of a "colored" and a "white" person, the children will not have one chance in ten thousand of 存在 darker than the darker parent. But he was to find that the 全世界の／万国共通の folk belief, の中で such 小作農民s as college-大統領，／社長s and sewing-machine salesmen and popular lecturers, was that if anyone with .000001 per cent. of Negro 遺伝子s married anyone fair as alabaster (which is 悪名高くも fair), their children were more than likely to be all of them as 黒人／ボイコット as the heart of a 独裁者. The fact that 非，不，無 of these 市民の worriers had ever heard of such a 事例／患者 was unimportant, because they all had heard of somebody who had heard of it!

Not for a time did it come to Neil that if such parents could have such an ebon child, it would still be their child to love.

*

Orlo Vay said to W. S. Vander, a fellow 中心存在 of Sylvan Park, "He's a 次第に損なう, but he's always been a good neighbor of 地雷, 権利 across the street, and I'm not sure you could really call him a nigger, if he's only one thirty-second."

Mr. Vander growled, "My 鮮明度／定義 of a nigger is a fellow that 公然と 収容する／認めるs it and means it and so kicks himself 権利 out of the human race, even if he ain't but one-hundred and thirty-second part 黒人／ボイコット."

"I guess maybe you're 権利," 認める Orlo, not unwillingly.

Presently, throughout Grand 共和国, the belief was 直す／買収する，八百長をするd that Neil was—"if you want to know 正確に／まさに"—one-４半期/4分の1 Negro.

*

Now, when he fled to the Davises and the Woolcapes, he pleasantly felt that he need not 嘘（をつく） to Vestal about them. By grapevine, all of Mayo Street knew of his 証言 at the club smoker, and they loved him—or just laughed. Without realizing how often, he was in a way of slipping out to John and Mary's late in the afternoon, before he went home. And often, in an uneasy friendliness, as though he was waiting for something, he saw Sophie at Ash's.

He needed their 慰安, for no day in late January went by without someone, with a feeling of 存在 very 初めの about it, reminding him that he was "colored."

Tom Crenway, as he could not think of anything reproving to say, just looked it. Cedric Staubermeyer tried to 星／主役にする like a white man 星／主役にするing at a Negro. But Rose Pennloss, in the next 封鎖する, waved her 手渡す with a timid 真心. Shirley Pzort, in the kitchen, got a little mixed-up and thought it was Vestal who was the Negro, and was extra friendly to her, as to a fellow 移民，移住（する）. Dr. 対処する Anderson, a 化学者／薬剤師 同僚 of Ash, （機の）カム calling, with the Reverend Lloyd Gadd, 自由主義の clergyman; while in the bank, Lucian Firelock went out of his way to be seen shaking 手渡すs with Neil in public.

Then he saw the person who for years had been known to the 世帯 only as "the little man who comes to the 支援する door." He frequently showed up with a basket in the 早期に evening, to sell them a juicy chicken, cherry marmalade, eggs, or a rococo coffee cake that his wife had made at their farm, out beyond Dead Squaw Lake. This time his fumbling （犯罪の）一味 at the 支援する door （機の）カム after eleven, and they heard it anxiously, thinking of Curtiss Havock drunk, of the 敵意を持った 市長 Fleeron and his policemen. Vestal went to the door with Neil, as stoutly as though she were two 護衛s with (a)自動的な／(n)自動拳銃s.

The Little Man, standing in half-不明瞭 on the 固く結び付ける 支援する porch, 麻薬を吸うd, "Mr. Kingsblood—Neil—I 港／避難所't brought anything to sell tonight, but I've just heard about how much 神経 you showed, and I want to thank you."

But again: on a bus, a small and unknown old woman ゆらめくd at Neil, "My young nigger friend, do you know what God is going to do to you for having 始める，決める yourself up against His plain commandment that Ethiopia shall stay in perpetual bondage in the kitchen and not go riding in no public buses with no decent white folks? Oh, he that heedeth not the words of God, he shall go 負かす／撃墜する to hell and gnashing, and that's the Bible-truth, that's God's truth, 賞賛する His 慈悲の 指名する!"

That was the 序幕 to the letters.

Grandfather Edgar Saxinar wrote from Minneapolis that Neil was a lying ingrate, that there never had been a Xavier Pic.

Berthold Eisenherz, lord of the manor, wrote from his winter 郊外住宅 at Palm Beach that while he prized his acquaintanceship, he could make it to Neil's 財政上の advantage if he would move away.

Drexel Greenshaw wrote regretting that a white gentleman like Mr. Kingsblood should call any attention at all to his unfortunate race, and so 単に make it the harder for them.

Then the 匿名の／不明の letters, those wry 尊敬の印s to glory, written in painful ecstasy by neurotics who spend the 残り／休憩（する） of their time in こそこそ動くing along 支援する alleys, after midnight, 毒（薬）ing small cats.

They began with a sheet of 支配するd tablet-paper, inscribed in a rheumatic 手渡す, mailed in a characterless envelope, with the 指名する and 演説（する）／住所 clumsily lettered.

Dear Mister Smart Nigger Kingsblood:

I guess you never thought I would here about how you come out and 認める all these years you been pertending to be a decent white man and now they caught you with your pants 負かす／撃墜する and you are nothing but a nigger and you are trying to get away with it and （人命などを）奪う，主張する where niggers are just as good as white men and if you red your Bible you would know different it says there 計画（する） God made niggers to be white man's servants and if God had 意向d to have niggers same as us white men and become doctors and lawyers and so on and so 前へ／外へ would he made them different color of course he wouldn't. He gave them that disgusting 黒人／ボイコット color like yours to show they inferior dont you see that now you just never thought about that.

The trouble with you fellows you never try and use your socalled branes and if you would stop and think once you would see what I mean and go 支援する to the cabin where God ーするつもりであるd you to be.

井戸／弁護士席 thats a good joke on you, Mr. Dinge, and come now be a good sport and see how ridiculous you make yourself when you open your mouth and show your igorance and so I had a good laugh and if you 収容する／認める now that the joke is on you I will 許す you and let byguns be byguns. I 自由に 認める just my luck I had good education while you niggers are all igorant but dont you ever dare say anything about the Mississippi & Louisiana 上院議員s they are 罰金 gentlemen and 黒人／ボイコット beggars like you are not fit to 黒人／ボイコット their boots and so you can just put that in your 麻薬を吸う and smoke it, Mister Educated Nigger and thank

An unknown Friend

P.S. The next time you wont get off so 平易な we dont give you coons a second 詠唱するs trying to look like a white man you better watch your step you dont know how many people got there 注目する，もくろむ on you and you never know beforehand when blow will 落ちる.

Vestal received only one 匿名の／不明の letter, to Neil's dozen, but hers was 正確に typed, on linen paper, scented:

Dear Vestal (or Virgin):

This socially 貧窮化した community 借りがあるs a 広大な／多数の／重要な 取引，協定 to you and your handsome "hubby" for 供給するing it with a スキャンダル that will amuse us all for years to come. But please do let us know whether your darling spouse will run for 議会, as a Colored Gempman, and thus enable you to flaunt your "charms" and your fifty-dollar hats in the higher (colored) circles in Washington as you have in G.R. Your fairy daughter, so "superior" to all the normal brats—we have long 設立する her childish swank and parading very funny—will in Washington be able to associate with 幼児s worthy of her, the precocious offspring of Negro professors, ユダヤ人の "専門家s" and Haitian 外交官／大使s.

Doubtless any 失敗 now on the part of your "better half" to earn a living will, as hitherto, be 補償するd for by the charity 手渡すd out by your impressive, even if わずかに dreary, Papa.

You might tell your husband—did you ever chance to think of what a pretty "chorus boy" he would make?—that we are fed up with the arrogance of the niggers. The deah boy could not have 選ぶd a worse time to have 連合した himself with these gentry. So the niggers now 需要・要求する the 権利 to mix with the D.A.R., and the nigger wenches will not work in kitchens or laundries, because they are all ex-中尉／大尉／警部補s, forsooth!

The Negroes—tell your delightful but singularly unalphabet sweetie—will not get along until they perceive that we are not one bit "prejudiced" against their enchanting complexions and noses, but against their preventable 病気s, their parasites, their idleness and utter filth and abysmal ignorance. Of course all of us know that you 高く評価する／（相場などが）上がる all this about that ilk, and we are duly impressed by your 忠義 in sticking to a member of that Neanderthal tribe. Gracious, what a good time he must give you when you cuddle and 叫び声をあげる!!

Oh, don't について言及する it, my dear Mrs. K., and I hope—and the 非常に／多数の ladies whom I have heard discussing it all hope—that the 利益／興味 which dear Mr. Eliot Hansen has always shown in you will develop into another "利益／興味ing 状況／情勢." We are all really very jealous of the neat arts and wrigglings you 雇う to attract these 疑わしい types of males, and we shall 観察する your 二重の activities with impressment.

Or will Neilly and you get wise to yourselves and get out of town? The 発言する／表明する of Thersites is the 発言する／表明する of Truth.

A Friend Indeed

As she 手渡すd this 事例／患者-history to Neil, Vestal said wildly, "Is there any chance of my 証明するing that I have decent Negro 血, too?"

一時期／支部 39

New Year's Day prophecy and hangovers were finished with, and Neil was まず第一に／本来 a man with a 職業, at the bank, in the 現実主義の world of 社債s and marble and Pruttery.

On Friday morning, ten days after New Year's, Mr. Prutt called him into his office.

Mr. Prutt was a virtuous and thrifty man, though an Episcopalian, and he was motherly in his manner of 説, "Neil, sit 負かす／撃墜する, my boy." He made a テント of his fingers, and looked over the ridgepole.

"I have 結論するd that your 声明 about your 家系, at the club smoker, was not a joke—that you were not drunk, as I had hoped. Of course you 悔いる having made it, and you see how shockingly it will 影響する／感情 your career, but what I don't know is whether you comprehend how 本気で it 影響する／感情s me, since I am 責任がある the credit and 安定 of this bank.

"As a born Yankee, I have always had 広大な／多数の／重要な commiseration for you colored people, and have always 持続するd that it would be more charitable not to educate you beyond the fourth grade, so that you will not get 誤った ideas and realize how unhappy you are. But in your 事例／患者, I suppose your white 血 outweighs any inferior 在庫／株, so I imagine that you have always been truly loyal to this 会・原則, as certainly this 会・原則 has always been loyal to its 従業員s.

"In this unfortunate 状況／情勢, and you will 公式文書，認める that I do not 調査する unduly into your 動機s, we shall 同意して署名する you to the 限界, and try our best to find out if there is any way in which we can keep from letting you go. But.

"For a time, as you will 高く評価する／（相場などが）上がる, it will be much better if the public don't come into 接触する with you 直接／まっすぐに. We can scarcely afford to be known as an 会・原則 that 雇うs a lot of colored people when so many of our white 退役軍人s are beginning to look for work.

"So I am afraid I shall have to make other 手はず／準備 about the managership of our 退役軍人s' 中心, and I'll find 調書をとる／予約する-work for you, inside, where 非，不，無 of our 顧客s need see you and misunderstand. People are so inconsiderate! But I shall try to get our Board of Directors not to 減ずる your salary...yet.

"Now, Neilly," very brightly, "I'm sure you see my philosophy!"

"Yes."

And that was all that this colored man 与える／捧げるd to helping out poor Mr. Prutt.

*

He had gone 支援する to his desk in the 退役軍人s' 中心, which he had planned and 組織するd, and he was 集会 up his 私的な souvenirs, the photograph of Vestal and Biddy, and his 麻薬を吸う and an Italian coin he had 設立する on a 戦場.

The telephone called him. It was Dr. Norman Kamber.

"Neil, can you come 権利 over to your father's office? I am phoning from there. Your father dropped dead, just a few minutes ago."

*

He thought, "This is just silly. This is just melodrama." There was even a not unpleasurable excitement at so much happening. It was only slowly that he took in the 激しい fact that he would never be able to talk with his father again; never see his anxious, sandy smile or hear his chirping little jokes; never be able to make it 権利 with him for having become a Negro.

He remembered that his father had 手配中の，お尋ね者 to live on to be the 創立者 of a line of kings; remembered how handy around the house his father had been; and wondered whether the funeral would be on Sunday or on Monday; and if it was to be on Monday, would he be 推定する／予想するd to come 支援する to the bank that afternoon? The 退役軍人s' 中心 would certainly need him.

And remembered that his 中心 would never need him again.

These distractions were gone in tenderness for his mother, who would be so alone now. No, she would not be alone. She would have Joan with her. And he had just seen fit to turn them both into Negroes, with the loneliness that all Negroes have in a white community.

He plodded out of the bank in a 見通し of his mother alone, not daring to talk to her closest neighbor, even in this 緊急 of death.

一時期／支部 40

The office of Dr. Kenneth Kingsblood was on Chippewa Avenue, only a 封鎖する from the Second 国家の, in the Professional and Arts Building, known as the P. & A.

The ロビー was so （人が）群がるd with men on crutches, men with 包帯d 武器, blank-直面するd mothers with babies in their 武器, that he had to wait for a third elevator. The elevator girl was pretty. She flirted with a young man in a white coat, but she smiled at Neil and said "Fifth 床に打ち倒す—your 床に打ち倒す," caressingly. He marveled that she probably did not know what was を待つing him on that 床に打ち倒す, a few feet from her cage.

It was shocking to go into the neat triviality of Dr. Kenneth's waiting-room—the two ruddy maple 議長，司会を務めるs with tartan cushions, the maple （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する with a stack of picture-magazines and the always-lighted electric lamp with a shade picturing a フリゲート艦 in 十分な sail—and to see, on the maple couch with the tartan cushions, his father lying dead. His stilled 長，率いる was in the 影をつくる／尾行する of the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する, on which lay his 約束／交戦 調書をとる／予約する, open to this morning, with a 指名する neatly 始める，決める 負かす／撃墜する for half an hour from now. On the 調書をとる／予約する 残り／休憩（する）d his old spectacles, idle. The righthand ear-piece of the spectacles was mended with adhesive tape grown gray now, and Neil remembered that, looking gaily at him through those streaky レンズs, his father had 約束d to step 負かす／撃墜する the hall in the P. & A. and have the でっちあげる，人を罪に陥れる mended.

The girl assistant was looking 負かす／撃墜する at the lax thin 団体／死体 and crying, her 直面する red with amazement and loss.

As Neil turned to Dr. Kamber for the 慰安 of the 薬／医学 man, Brother Robert bumbled in, with, "Good thing you caught me at the bank, Doc. I was just going to leave for the パン屋 and maybe I wouldn't of been able to get here for a long time and—Oh, Pop, Pop! I can't believe it, Pop! That you won't be with us now!"

He turned on Neil: "And you killed him! Your crazy lies were too much for him. You're 責任がある his death, and I won't forget it!"

Dr. Kamber ordered, "Chuck it, （頭が）ひょいと動く. Your dad 明らかに died of a coronary. Neil had nothing to do with it. Your dad was probably proud of Neil's courage."

Dr. Roy Drover, 大統領，／社長 of the 連邦の Club, and Dr. Cortez Kelly, duck-追跡（する）ing neighbor of Neil, who both had their offices in the P. & A., seemed to have （人が）群がるd into that small room now, and Drover, after a good strong look of dislike at Neil, commented to Kamber, "井戸／弁護士席, you can't tell now, Doctor. The way Neil was cutting up may have had a had 影響 on the old man. How can we be sure?"

Dr. Kelly 抗議するd, "Oh, for Pete's sake, やめる it, Roy. Neil is a fool, and I hope to see him driven out of my 近隣, like any other nigger, but he didn't kill the old man. Come on, Roy, let's scram."

The two 医療の gentlemen argued off 負かす／撃墜する the hall, and Neil and Robert and Dr. Kamber and the 不安定な girl assistant silently gazed 負かす／撃墜する at the unnatural silence of the man on the couch.

Neil thought of his father happily raking the leaves, last October, and prosing, "The 落ちる is the best time of the year. It's so 平和的な. I've always been a busy man, even if collections are so bad, and I look 今後 to a lot of peace and enjoyment in the autumn of my life. I like it when I can be 平和的な."

But not 平和的な like this, lying in a waiting-room, nervous 手渡すs rigid.

—Am I his 殺害者? He'll never know about the Catherine of Aragon line now, and maybe it was true. Did I kill that for him, too?

Dr. Kamber's 手渡す was on his shoulder, but Neil wished that Vestal were here...And Sophie. And Mary Woolcape.

Robert was blubbering. Oldest of Dr. Kenneth's children, he was yet the most childish and most likely to run to his father with troubles, even after he had himself become a father. He was an overgrown farm-boy, awed and afraid now, and Neil realized what his 告示 of Negro kinship must have done to this simple, loving and mercenary family-man.

Then Robert Hearth, the undertaker, arrived, and from that second till the 棺 sank in the January earth, the two Roberts took 告発（する），告訴（する）／料金 of everything. They were so much alike: 平等に solemn, 平等に efficient in the superb 業績／成就 of utterly childish ends, 平等に sure that it must be a 慰安 to Dr. Kenneth in the 棺 to have a little, clean soft pillow under his 長，率いる.

And 平等に 確かな that Neil had killed him.

*

The once lean and hearty 直面する of his father at the funeral had been painted to a horrible 外見 of a waxwork pretty-boy. Neil edgily wondered if the dainty padding of the 棺, 陳列する，発揮するd through the open trapdoor at the 最高の，を越す, thriftily stopped there, and he hated the whole sparkling 商売／仕事 of death without annoyance to friends & family; hated the two whispering Roberts, whose stately manner said, "Grieve not—see how bravely we take it—costs surprisingly low—24 hr. service."

They both managed to make Neil feel like a stranger, here in his father's house.

His mother was only a wisp of 霧, she was 静かな, she did not sob, she would not take advantage of her one 広大な／多数の／重要な day and show off. She 謙虚に did whatever the two Roberts told her. They were so manly with her, and so 強いるing in their butterfingered 申し込む／申し出s to take from her a 重荷（を負わせる） of 悲しみ that neither of them could understand.

What most flattered the two Roberts was the 出席 of both 市長 Fleeron and Ex-市長 法案 Stopple, hats in 手渡すs, looking 政治上 at Neil with an unworded leering 約束 that they would let him off for today.

And the 棺 lay in the 中心 of the parlor, and there were strangers all around, people who, Neil could have sworn, had never seen Dr. Kenneth before, and the frescoed 人物／姿／数字 in the 棺 seemed waiting, and they all seemed waiting, sitting around on 雇うd 議長，司会を務めるs, and there was a stink of improbable 集まりd flowers, and over Dr. Kenneth's crayon portrait hung a 黒人／ボイコット 棺／かげり あわてて 削減（する） out of an old 空気／公表する-（警察の）手入れ，急襲 curtain. But the two Roberts had failed to put away Dr. Kenneth's corncob 麻薬を吸う, which still 残り／休憩（する）d on 最高の，を越す of the piano, the only thing there that was honest and not waiting.

Robert Hearth pontifically raised his 手渡す, and Robert Kingsblood raised his 手渡す, and turned to his mother, who now first sobbed. The 棺／かげり-持参人払いのs looked self-conscious as they moved in like automata. の中で them were Cedric Staubermeyer and W. S. Vander, the neighbors who most hated the reborn Neil.

At no time did any of the attendants speak to him, and they only 屈服するd to the blank, polite Vestal and the 利益／興味d Biddy.

The 棺, sloping as it passed 負かす／撃墜する the 前線 steps, slowly moved out of the house. Then Neil first understood how final was death. This was the last time when his father would ever use these steps, up and 負かす／撃墜する which he had trotted, so fussily, so happily, for so many years; and on this last passage, he could not go by himself. He had to be carried, and he could not look 支援する at the house one last time.

Hearth 勧めるd them to their proper places in the funeral cars, in a 複雑にするd order of 法廷，裁判所 優先 as though Death were a 君主 touchy and 需要・要求するing of propriety. There were words between Alice Whittick Kingsblood and Kitty Kingsblood Sayward as to which of them せねばならない sit with Mother. Robert Hearth solved it soothingly, with a きびきびした bland piety that said, This too shall pass away and you will be surprised and gratified by the reasonableness of my 法案.

The cars, when they started, all had their lights on, to 示す that this was a funeral. It was by 明言する／公表する 法律 an 罪／違反 罰せられるべき by 罰金 to cross the line of the 行列, lest Dr. Kenneth's feelings be 傷つける.

Then the 棺 was swaying up the steps into the Sylvan Park Baptist Church, and Dr. Shelley Buncer, in Geneva gown, was waiting as though he had never played rummy, but always in shadowy cloisters had meditated upon the resurrection. His sermon was consoling, and he 約束d all of them that they would soon see their friend again, but he did not seem excited about it.

Neil wondered again at the strangers who had come to 嘆く／悼む his father. Who were they all? 患者s? Perhaps some of them knew his father better than he did now. He felt lonely, and suddenly Vestal's intelligent 手渡す was 安心させるing him.

He realized how many were 星／主役にするing at him rather than at the 牧師; he remembered that to half of them he was a masquerading 黒人／ボイコット man who had been caught and was going to be driven out of town. Then he noticed two 予期しない guests whose 注目する，もくろむs, as they sat in the 支援する 列／漕ぐ／騒動, tried to tell him their 耐えるing friendship—Evan Brewster, and Dr. Emerson Woolcape, a fellow-dentist to whom Dr. Kenneth had never spoken.

*

It was 冷淡な at the 墓／厳粛／彫る／重大な, out at Forest Lawn 共同墓地 on Ottawa 高さs, and over the shivering few who had stayed, Dr. Buncer's 勇敢に立ち向かう words seemed to hang and tremble like gray snowflakes.

Then they all turned away and left his father there alone.

*

When they were home, the Vestal who had been so 患者 became sharp.

"Oh, やめる 存在 sentimental about your father. There's nothing you can do for him now. But it occurs to me that there's a lot of things you can do for me and our child. Do you ever stop and think that she is very much your child, too, and so like you in her thoughtlessness? Now that your 悪名高い love of truth and 司法（官） has 奮起させるd you to turn us into Negroes, just what are your 計画（する）s for us outcasts? I wasn't 協議するd about your public 展示（する） of yourself, and now I'm waiting to be told what to do!"

"Why, Ves, when you were so wonderful at the funeral—"

"Maybe I've been too wonderful. Just what do you ーするつもりである to do, if that old horsehair sofa, Prutt, turns you out of the bank?"

"I don't know."

"Don't you think you better begin to know?"

He nodded.

一時期／支部 41

They were alone in the evening, sadly reading. At the doorbell's sound, Vestal 推測するd, "After ten—what gives? It's probably Brother Robert, come over to enjoy a little knitting and worry. I better go. I'll tell him we're just off to bed."

There was a jangle of 発言する／表明するs when the door opened, and high laughter, rough and derisive. Neil rose, ready for 戦う／戦い, but he heard Vestal, like a flute too shrill, 招待するing, "Certainly, come 権利 in. Enchanted to see you...Now that was very thoughtful of you!"

At the living-room door there were three 黒人／ボイコット 直面するs and one plastered dead-white, all maliciously merry, and they were Borus Bugdoll of the Jumpin' Jive, 切り開く／タクシー／不正アクセス Riley, a dark ex-兵士, a white ポーランドの（人） girl called Faydis—surname forever unknown—and the 黒人／ボイコット rose, Belfreda Gray, 泡ing, "I always swore I'd come in the 前線 door here, and by God, I have!"

"And, by God, so you have!" Vestal said sweetly.

Self-保証するd yet languid, hard as a flyer, his thin nose dark and bold above a race-跡をつける tie, a 黒人／ボイコット 強硬派 that liked to kill little birds, Borus winked at Vestal, ちらりと見ることd derisively at the jangled Neil, and said 滑らかに, "Good evening. My 指名する is Bugdoll. I am a saloonkeeper. I heard there was a new mixed couple in town, and I always call and welcome them to our ギャング（団）."

Faydis crowed, "Yeh, him and me are mixed. He used to go with Bel, but her and 切り開く／タクシー／不正アクセス have clicked, and Borus is my fellow, and I'm just as white as you folks, maybe more so, but do I love my little brown dumpling! Yeh, I'm just like you, Vestal, living with a colored boy, and is it good cuddling—I'll say!"

Neil drew the breath of one about to repel boarders, but Vestal's 発言する／表明する, （疑いを）晴らす, low, only to be caught by a husband, 主張するd, "No. I want you to see what your 知識人 friends are like!" Then, cheerily, "Do sit 負かす／撃墜する, everybody. Belfreda—if I'm not 存在 too intimate—how is everything going?"

She was so placid, so merry, that already she had taken the fuse out of their joke. Borus, an 専門家 in social relations, stood easily, a little taller than Vestal, and he condescended, "You know, you're a good guy, lady."

He 星／主役にするd at her with such amusement, as though he knew all her thoughts and snobbishnesses and generosities, knew her in ball-gown or bathing 控訴, that she 紅潮／摘発するd and lost the lead. She said あわてて, "Neil, I'll get some drinks for your friends. Will you make them at home?"

He thought how taut, quick, knife-事情に応じて変わる, Borus looked, and he said carefully, with the 期待 of trouble, "What do you mean by butting in here?"

"Maybe just to needle you, and maybe to see whether you're an honest-to-God raceman or another gravy-sermon, race-relations highbrow. We was wondering if you can take it with us coalheavers, Neil?"

He felt that 適切に he せねばならない be 感情を害する／違反するd, and 設立する that he was not at all 感情を害する／違反するd; that a lot of 罰金, high social 盗品故買者s which he had supposed to 存在する between Captain Kingsblood (of the Kingsbloods) and Borus the 黒人／ボイコット bartender had been 影をつくる／尾行するs, and that he might be lucky to have the friendship of a Borus, when all the Featherings 始める，決める upon him.

"I hope so, Borus," he said, very 厳粛に. "But I'm green. I'll have to count on you, if I can."

"You bet!" said 切り開く／タクシー／不正アクセス Riley, and Borus drawled, "Maybe you can," as one who meant it, or would mean it some day, or would very nearly mean it.

Vestal （機の）カム in with a 抱擁する maple tray with drinks and ice and soda. 切り開く／タクシー／不正アクセス clumsily rose, reaching out his 手渡すs to take it, but the deft Borus was ahead of him, and he began to mix, while 切り開く／タクシー／不正アクセス and Faydis looked shyly about the serenity and 保証／確信 of the room. They all had highballs, and everything was changed, and these were no longer 黒人／ボイコット invaders resented by lofty whites, but just six young people, fond of ribaldry and laughter, having a surprisingly good time together. They laughed at Borus's stories of greedy white policemen, at 切り開く／タクシー／不正アクセス's opinion of white sergeants, at Vestal's first surprise at their 入り口.

Belfreda 手配中の，お尋ね者 to know, "How's Biddy?"

"Getting so big now!" said Mother Vestal.

"You せねばならない give her more broccoli."

"That's so."

"And how is Nigger—Prince, I mean!" said Belfreda:

There was a trace, 必然的に, of race-talk.

Borus agreed 完全に with Mr. Feathering about Negro culture. "What does a smoke want of drayma when he can get a bankroll and a nice piece—pink or tan?" he scoffed.

切り開く／タクシー／不正アクセス Riley 申し込む／申し出d, "I meant to kid the pants off you, Cap, but you're all 権利. I guess you'll have a mean time with the ofays. So what? I've had one, all my life! I'd like to see you stowing 貨物, or pearl-飛び込み!"

It is almost 確かな that Vestal supposed "pearl-飛び込み" to mean 飛び込み for pearls. She replied 堅固に, "I'm sure he'll do it splendidly. He's such a wonderful swimmer."

She wondered why they laughed so flatteringly.

They stayed not an hour. At 別れの（言葉，会）, Belfreda patted Vestal's 手渡す, and the 軍隊／機動隊 of the gay enchanted went 事情に応じて変わる off in Borus's sumptuous car, with shrieks of "You two guys are okay! Come see us at the Jive." Once, their people had plodded the Carolina roads while Massa galloped, but a Negro in a car goes as 急速な／放蕩な as a white man.

Neil crowed, "They're roughnecks, but they're fun. They'd be swell friends, if you ever needed them. Can't you see why I take them 本気で?"

Vestal 診察するd him coldly. "Those clowns? My dear boy, have you gone やめる mad?"

"I thought you rather liked them."

"井戸／弁護士席, I didn't want our throats 削減（する）."

"Oh, nonsense!" Neil 抗議するd. "They're much decenter than Curtiss Havock, and much smarter."

"Who isn't! You mean to say you could ever 許容する the way that horrible Bugdoll leers? I could have him whipped! I'm not Southern, but I'm awful white."

"Oh, I liked it as much as I do the way Eliot Hansen simpers at you and always manages to touch you! And Borus has courage. Some day we might be very glad to have a house next to him."

"You might. Not me. I won't be there!"

"No? 井戸／弁護士席, I think I'll walk a few 封鎖するs before I turn in."

He rather 手配中の，お尋ね者 to be unfaithful to his oppressive wife, as regularized young husbands often do when they are sorely puzzled, when they feel that new and surprising caresses of warmer 武器 might 供給する a 合理的な／理性的な explanation of everything. He very much 手配中の，お尋ね者 to telephone to Sophie Concord.

And so, after five minutes of 冷淡な 空気／公表する and loneliness, he （機の）カム home and argued with Vestal till midnight.

*

February had come in, and the sidewalks were perilously icy under the shifty covering of snow. Cars 立ち往生させるd and slipped backward when they tried to run up the hills, and the chains about the tires as they 攻撃する，衝突する the fenders flapped all day long in an irritable chorus.

In the 資本／首都 of the Nation, a few Southern 上院議員s 辞退するd to let their fellow 巨人s even 投票（する） upon a 法案 to 妨げる 雇用者s from 辞退するing 職業s on the grounds of an applicant's color.

Fort Sumter had been 解雇する／砲火／射撃d on again, and the 深い South had again 脱退するd from the American 憲法, and this time they were supported by more Northern Copperheads. The new Jefferson Davis was yet to be chosen, but a （疑いを）晴らす 声明 of Southern ideals and a bugle-call to 武装した 反乱 had been 問題／発行するd by that aristocratic old planter, Mr. David L. Cohn, who in the 強いるing 大西洋 月毎の had recently 明言する／公表するd:

"There are whites and Negroes who would 試みる／企てる to break 負かす／撃墜する segregation in the South by 連邦の fiat. Let them beware. I have no 疑問 that in such an event every Southern white man would spring to 武器 and the country would be swept by civil war."

There was no Lincoln now to call for 軍隊／機動隊s and, eighty-five years after it had started, the War Between the 明言する／公表するs was won by the South. And in a small frozen city in the North Central 明言する／公表するs, a Negro 指名するd Neil Kingsblood was having trouble in keeping his 職業, not because of any 無資格／無能力 or incivility but because of his color—even though he did not have that color, and God still 統治するd and everything was mysterious in its wondrous 欠如（する） of any sense whatever.

一時期／支部 42

"Considering the British, French, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese and their excursions in the shadier 部分s of their empires and the handmaidens they brought home, considering the wanderings of the Moors southward in Africa and north in Europe, considering human nature on warm evenings in the South, it is probable that every 'white person' in Europe and the Americas, from British dukes up to Georgia 政治家，政治屋s, has some trace of 'Negro 血.'"

It was Clement Brazenstar 持つ／拘留するing 前へ／外へ, 支援する in town and staying at the Woolcapes'. Neil was delighted to see that dark clown 直面する again, but at this outrageous theory, he was 感情を害する／違反するd. What would happen to the whole careful structure of his unhappiness if Vestal and John William Prutt and Wilbur Feathering and Rodney Aldwick could also be 公然と非難するd as "colored"?

That evening, Clem had a few other 爆弾s:

If the whites in such 部分s of the South as have seventy or eighty per cent. of colored 全住民 are 乱すd by 存在 so より数が多いd, there is one thing they might do besides 装備する all 法律 and 政府 ーするために keep 支配（する）／統制する. They might take the same 特権 they have often and generously 認めるd to discontented Negroes, and move away.

With mechanical cotton-pickers and rice-cultivators, four or five million Negro farmhands will probably move to the North in the next fifteen years, and the righteous 国民s of the North will have a chance to see whether they 構成する a White Problem.

Whenever Negroes break loose and viciously start fighting white merchants and policemen, their viciousness is in exact 割合 to the viciousness with which they have been 扱う／治療するd. This is an 古代の 支配する from the biology of 革命s.

Prejudice is the most precious birthright of the ignorant, and if the seven wisest men in the world, in person and sober, were for seven straight hours to argue that a Negro like Ash Davis is as admirable a 投票者 and dinner-companion as the 普通の／平均（する） white bootlegger, any 適切に 後部d Southerner, 特に if a woman, would at the end only smile politely and answer, "You boys don't understand the Nigras like I do, and how would you like to have Nigras marry your seven daughters?"

So Clem laughed jovially.

*

Neil had to leave at midnight, which is 単に tuning-up time in a race-discussion. When he （機の）カム out of the Woolcapes' little house, he 設立する Wilbur Feathering strolling by, unabashed.

Wilbur said genially, "How are you, Kingsblood? Have a good time tonight? I see you're like me; you enjoy coming 負かす／撃墜する here and 熟考する／考慮するing the downtrodden 黒人／ボイコットs."

It was from Feathering, then, that 棒 Aldwick had his （警察などへの）密告，告訴（状） about the "agitators"?

Neil grunted, and left him.

Next morning, in the bank, he saw Mr. Feathering talking to S. Ashiel Denver. Afterward, Mr. Denver 召喚するd him.

"Neil, I want you to do your best to please Mr. Prutt. He's a very 罰金 man, and the most 訂正する moral code. He told me how, when he was a boy in Maine, he once had no penny to put in the Sunday-school collection, and as soon as he got one, by raking a lawn, he tramped five miles to give it to the Sunday-school superintendent, a shoe-売買業者, who was so moved by the little fellow's piety that he gave him a pair of rubber boots, only わずかに shopworn! And of course Mr. Prutt's fidelity to those of us who are his fellow-servants in the bank is unimpeachable."

"What's the trouble, S.A.?"

"井戸／弁護士席, there have been （民事の）告訴s from 確かな of our 相当な depositors about our 雇うing a 非，不，無-Caucasian. But you know us, Neil. Mr. Prutt and I will do our best for you. But."

One depositor seemed unoffended by Neil's presence, and that was Lucian Firelock, who sent word to him, in his 孤立するd 閉じ込める／刑務所, that he would like to take him out to lunch. Neil was pleased. For two weeks now he had been creeping off to lunch alone, at some dog-wagon.

They went to the pretentious Oscar's Montparnasse, a 訴える手段／行楽地 of fashion and of wit which was even more elegant than the Fiesole Room. As they walked in, Neil thought that the patrons were 星／主役にするing at him with contempt or 敵意, and he felt more uncomfortable for Lucian than for himself.

They were amiably received, and shown to an excellent （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する, but he すぐに saw Randy Spruce and Boone Havock peep at him and speak to the headwaiter. Was he imagining it, or did their own waiter become impertinent now? He was standing on one foot and sucking his teeth, and he threw at them, "How's about some veal chops?"

"That would be all 権利," said Lucian, while Neil 設立する himself not liking to answer. The waiter 需要・要求するd of him, "What about you, Brother?"

"All 権利."

"You boys せねばならない like 'em. Our best 顧客s do!"

Or was the waiter 単に friendly and untrained? Lucian looked annoyed, and Neil 解決するd:

—I wouldn't care, if I were alone. But I'll never go with any of my white friends to a restaurant again and 支配する them to this 当惑. And you can't even explain it to them. They wouldn't understand. They'd say "Why don't you complain?"

*

They did not talk, till the end of lunch, of Negro lore, but of Diantha, consort of the newspaper-owner, Gregory Marl. With singular 軍隊 and 簡単, Diantha tried to 支配する all the polite arts in town, from the little theater to the Foreign 政策 協会, and she might have 後継するd if she could only have stopped after three cocktails.

(It is a fact that Neil 設立する himself wondering if it was proper for him to discuss a white lady like this.)

Then Lucian blurted, "I know you've been 避けるing the 連邦の Club. Why don't you march 権利 in there?"

"I'm not a member!"

"They couldn't throw you out."

"What would it 証明する?"

"I don't know," Lucian 認める. "Maybe it would 証明する something 権利 against my whole argument for segregation, which is that there is an inherent difference between Nigras and whites. Oh, Neil, my good friend, you have led me into strange heresies, even though I scarcely know you. Maybe it's just 同様に I don't know you better. I might find myself a Rosicrucian or a sun-worshipper!"

Neil returned to the bank stepping high.

In 中央の-afternoon, Mr. Prutt called him in and said, with no fond fussing this time, "I don't want you to ever 原因（となる） talk again by going to lunch 公然と with a white man. Will you give me your 約束 to that 影響?"

"What? No! Certainly not!"

"I have been very generous, Neil, keeping you on, after the （民事の）告訴s from our depositors. And have you 高く評価する／（相場などが）上がるd it? The other evening you went to the house of a colored man 指名するd Woolcape and met a group of Negro trouble-製造者s who are plotting to destroy our entire 商売／仕事 system."

Neil stood up. "If you believe that, you'll believe anything. I 辞職する."

"That will be rather of a 救済 all 一連の会議、交渉／完成する, Kingsblood, and I shall try to 耐える you no ill will for having taken advantage of our 寛容." Mr. Prutt held out a 乾燥した，日照りの 手渡す to be shaken, but Neil sighed:

"That's やめる all 権利, sir, but I don't like to shake 手渡すs with white men. Good day, sir."

He looked for S. Ashiel Denver, to say good-bye. He saw him hiding in the 丸天井.

So, with the silver-でっちあげる，人を罪に陥れるd photograph of Vestal and Biddy under his arm, Neil walked out of the bank, a Negro out of a 職業.

The final 支払い（額） on his house was 予定, but this would be only a couple of hundred dollars, and he had a bank-balance of $1127.79, and a loyal wife.

He was sure about the bank-balance.

一時期／支部 43

Vestal, as the 相続人 of a thousand Beehouses, had no more experience with the men of her family looking for work than with their turning into Chippewas and Hottentots. But she had been fifteen years old in the Panic of 1929, and she could remember やめる respectable men, 卒業生（する）s of Yale and Dartmouth, who had lost 仲買業 houses and courageously gone on 直面するing life on incomes of いっそう少なく than ten thousand a year.

She was not worried about Neil's 欠如（する） of income. It was only a question of whether he would 受託する a position, probably at a better salary, in the Blue Ox 国家の Bank, or 好意 the smaller Merchants & 鉱夫s.

Nor, except when he was a schoolboy and had borrowed a lawn-mower from Uncle Emery Saxinar and 始める，決める up in the jobbing-gardener 商売／仕事 (over the summer he got three lawns to do, at thirty-five cents apiece, but there was no 未来 in it, because he squandered his 伸び（る）s on 黒人／ボイコット-and-white sodas), had Neil himself ever looked for work. His 任命 to the Second 国家の, after college, had come as 自然に as the wrist-watch that was his father's 開始／学位授与式 gift.

He did not understand that the world 簡単に does not care what happens to 用心深い 反逆者／反逆するs, once they have 中止するd to play the 安全な game of Pruttery. It does not 迫害する them; it 単に sends out word that it is not at home, when they call to say that they are 餓死するing.

Neil would not gratify the Blue Ox 国家の by 申し込む／申し出ing to join it, not he, for he disapproved of the Havocks. No, he would go help out the Merchants & 鉱夫s and his mousy teller friend, Mr. Topman. But Vestal said that he must do it grandly; he must take the car. No, no, she was only going to the women's club for a little 橋（渡しをする）, and she could just 同様に take the bus.

He 微風d into the brown diminutiveness of the Merchants & 鉱夫s, but Mr. Topman, behind the 妨げる／法廷，弁護士業s, jerked 支援する as though Neil were known to bite. He reluctantly took Neil to the bank's 大統領，／社長, who once had 賞賛するd his tennis at a Heather Club tournament but could not やめる 解任する him now, and mumbled, "Sorry, doesn't seem to be any 肉親，親類d of 開始."

いっそう少なく confidently—いっそう少なく and いっそう少なく confidently—Neil went on to the other banks, to a 仲買業 house, to Scott Zago's Northern 保険 仲買業.

Mr. Zago was grievously busy, or so Neil was 知らせるd by Verne Avondene, the office 経営者／支配人, a courtly old man who had once been rich himself. Mr. Avondene's lawn had been one of those mowed by the 企業ing young 会社／堅い of Neil & Co., and Mr. Avondene had then said to him, "What 広大な／多数の／重要な thing in life do you ーするつもりである to discover? The golden fleece or the cabin at Innisfree?"

"I'm not sure if I'm going to be a doctor or an aviator," Neil had said.

It had been Verne Avondene who, as 長官 of the 連邦の Club, had telephoned to Neil a few days ago that he was resignated. Now, listening to Neil's fumbling hints about wanting a 職業, he looked at Neil as at a light colored man whose effrontery was amusing. He did not take the trouble to say No. He just smiled it.

At the Emporium, Levi Tarr said that the accounting and credit departments were already overstaffed, but would Neil care to be a salesman? "I wish you'd try it. The 支払う／賃金 isn't much, but you might work up to a position as 買い手, 公正に／かなり quickly. I'd like to have you, both as an intelligent man and because I want to get my father to let me use some Negro clerks. You'd be a wedge."

Neil was very polite, and lied about "other 開始s."

—Me a wedge! Me waiting on old women! Selling 'em 略章s or whatever it is you do sell 'em.

He went reluctantly to the 力／強力にする & Light Company, to his father-in-法律, Morton Beehouse, whom he had stringently not seen since New Year's and who had stopped the intermittent income he had given to Vestal. To that oak facade he 明言する／公表するd, "I don't want a 職業 as charity. I think I'm a 公正に／かなり good (n)役員／(a)執行力のある."

"And no 疑問 you also think that you can support my daughter adequately, after you have antagonized every decent 実業家 in town. 井戸／弁護士席, let me tell you, if you get any 職業 whatever with this organization, it will be nothing but charity!"

"Okay," said Neil as he went.

This was on his second sleety day of 職業-追跡（する）ing, and in the afternoon he drove 負かす／撃墜する to the South End, to talk with a Home 貸付金 協会. The streets were slippery enough for chains, and he drove into a garage to have them put on. On the wet 床に打ち倒す, gouging the ice off a fender, was a greasy Negro car-washer in torn 全体にわたるs, who grinned at him and half waved his 手渡す. Slowly, aghast, Neil 認めるd in this gnome the Captain Philip Windeck whom he had seen at the Jumpin' Jive, 正確な and 権威のある in his uniform as a flyer.

"Phil!" he cried, with an affection that surprised both of them.

"How are you, Captain—Neil?" the grub hesitated.

When they had trudged over the necessary 橋（渡しをする）-approaches of conversation, Neil 手配中の，お尋ね者 to know: "How about 工学 school? Going to be able to go 支援する?"

"I 港／避難所't had the 神経 to 取り組む it—to start all over again on that magnificent career that 作品 up through 熟考する／考慮する to officer-and-gentleman to chamois-rag. I feel too segregated. When I started to look for a 職業, I 設立する that my having been an officer was against me. The white engineers said it had been an impertinence.

"So I took the long 追跡する of the Negroes. I hope you never have to follow it: city to city—Omaha to Dallas to Seattle to Pittsburgh—always 審理，公聴会 that in the next town they're 雇うing the brown-肌s, hustling there by boxcar and finding that they aren't. I got lonely for Garnet and the home town. You know it's my home, too, and I love the hills and the rivers. So I'm 支援する, and I'll save up a few dollars and start off again—school or the 追跡する.

"You know, in every machine shop I had one 実験（する） 需要・要求する: will you give me the chance to 始める，決める up any 職業 you 選ぶ out on a turret lathe? And they always said the same thing: do you think we're going to 廃虚 an expensive 装備する like that to please a nigger garage-man? Oh, 井戸／弁護士席, so geht's."

He was looking at Neil resentfully, but when Neil said 簡単に, "Phil, I'm also a Negro, and I've also been 解雇する／砲火／射撃d for it," the 反抗 went out of him and, after most carefully wiping his 手渡す on a piece of waste, Phil shook 手渡すs with his fellow captain, his fellow penniless 職業-hunter, his friend.

After work-hours, after Neil had been 辞退するd another 職業, Phil and he went out for a cup of coffee at an Automobile 列／漕ぐ／騒動 diner, where the proprietor, with so many greasy-直面するd 顧客s, had given up trying to decide which of them were "colored" and which were "white."

Phil said, "You must have seen my dad, old Cloat Windeck, running an elevator at the Blue Ox 国家の Building. The poor old boy is broken-hearted about my 拒絶する／低下する and 落ちる. He always 主張するd that I 相続するd my 飛行機で行くing technique from him—running his elevator up to a twelve-story 高度."

And, "I had one 罰金 week in Denver, on my trek. Monday, I got a 職業 切り開く／タクシー／不正アクセスing, lovely new purple cab, and I was good. I taught myself to say 'Yes, sir' and 'Yes, ma'am' perfectly and to take tips just as cheerfully as I'd taken an officer's 支払う／賃金. No 事故s or 列／漕ぐ／騒動s or anything, not even a 警官，（賞などを）獲得する looking cross-注目する，もくろむd, but on Tuesday some white friend kicked to the office about having been driven by an ignorant colored man, and so I was 解雇する／砲火／射撃d on Wednesday. On Thursday, I got a 職業 運動ing a トラックで運ぶ. Four white drivers waylaid me and （警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域 me up and 始める，決める 解雇する／砲火／射撃 to my トラックで運ぶ, and you know, it just didn't seem 価値（がある） while 報告（する）／憶測ing to the office, so I climbed a freight for Cheyenne. 'America, I love thy friendships, strong men, camerados, 援助（する） each to each in labors.' Whitman."

Neil pondered, "I must 会合，会う some white people some day. Phil, when you get very mad, do you think about machine-guns?"

"I start to, and then I won't let myself. God, these whites will never know the patience the colored peoples have shown, all over the world. It's like the patience of God himself."

Neil had never been able to talk thus, 自由に, passionately, romantically, profanely, with Judd Browler or Elegant Eliot Hansen. But he realized, as he drove home, that his Vestal would welcome Judd or Eliot, but not Phil Windeck, not the dripping car-washer, not a man called "Hey you, boy!"

*

He had made the last 支払い（額） on their house.

"It's sure-enough ours, forever!" he rejoiced, and they danced through the blue and maroon living-room, the sunporch, the small 水晶 and mahogany dining-room.

"Honestly, Neil, wouldn't you think it was a perfectly charming house, even if you had no idea who it belonged to?" she cried with loving enthusiasm.

"I certainly would!"

It did not seem the moment to 知らせる her that they now had only $767.61 in the bank, with his war 年金 not large enough to make a 広大な difference, and that his masquerade, as a young white gentleman pretending to be a 職業-追跡（する）ing Negro, was losing its romance with rapidity.

But he had to tell her, in a few days, that he had no prospects of work whatever.

"I guess you'll have to help me find something—anything," he 自白するd.

Vestal went into 活動／戦闘. She let Shirley go, but so gracefully that Shirley left with a kiss for Biddy and a warm 別れの（言葉，会） to Vestal as to a fellow-犠牲者 of them guys in 塀で囲む Street.

Vestal 削減（する） 負かす／撃墜する on their food, 拒絶するd the almost obligatory movie, menacingly 注目する，もくろむd Prince's 衰えていない appetite, and 突然の told Biddy that, no, she could not have a pony.

Then they sold the car. In the 部隊d 明言する／公表するs, that is the same as 説, "Then they sold their four daughters into slavery."

They got a 満足な price, in the 戦後の 不足. But not to own any sort of car was an acknowledgment of social death, for a 繁栄する American 商売／仕事 Man, for a Busy and Popular Young Matron who was trying to keep up her 階級 while her oldest friends were 星／主役にするing at her as though they had just met her and didn't think they liked her.

As a 代用品，人 for the other gifts which Biddy 手配中の，お尋ね者 from moment to moment, Vestal had bought for her a fifteen-cent 調書をとる／予約する of "comic （土地などの）細長い一片s." Looking through this 企業ing literature, which in America had 取って代わるd the Brothers Grimm and The 勝利，勝つd in the Willows, Neil 設立する that no few of the 風刺漫画s dealt with Negro characters, clownish and vile.

But, in weariness with sermons, he said nothing; he 単に stole the opus from his own daughter and threw it into the furnace and sat 負かす／撃墜する to a season of agitation about Biddy's 未来 as a Negro. What school, what 職業, what marriage would she have when It was 公然と 認める?

He could hear Vestal けん責（する），戒告ing him, "You should have thought of all this before you went off half-cocked."

He could hear Wilbur Feathering wallow, "H.w.y.l.y.d.t.m.a.N.?" And how, he interrogated himself, would he like to have Biddy marry a boy like Winthrop Brewster?

—Why not, if 勝利，勝つ would stand for anything so 独裁的な and bouncing as Biddy! He's the most charming and intelligent boy I know.

—How incorrigibly the white man I am—Nature's most 破滅的な freak, after the 地震 and the bubonic 疫病／悩ます; 審議ing whether Winthrop is as good as his obvious inferiors, and thinking I'm such a 勇敢な soul for 審議ing it!

Of that 審議 he did not tell Vestal.

*

When Orlo Vay started off for his 光学の shop in the morning in his 井戸／弁護士席-heated car and saw that nigger, Kingsblood, a beggar who hadn't even a car or a 雇うd girl, はう off 負かす／撃墜する the 風の強い street to start his daily search for a 職業, and when the fellow つまずくd on the snow-upholstered ice and danced and waved his 武器 like a human 最高の，を越す in his 成果／努力 to keep his balance, then Orlo laughed with moral joy.

But Virga, Mrs. Orlo Vay, nervously brought a maple-層 cake across the street to Vestal who, as she furiously vacuumed and dusted the house, did not know whether to feel touched or 侮辱d. For Mrs. Vay had belonged to a distinctly lower 層 in that creamy social cake that was Sylvan Park—till now she had.

一時期／支部 44

Vestal did not care for this hermit 商売／仕事. She loved parties, all 肉親，親類d of parties. She did not 持つ／拘留する with sitting around at home and having noble 原則s.

Her father, who was one of the most high-minded inventors of 市民の 義務s, who believed that both matrimonial and electric-lighting 契約s were drawn up in Heaven, was にもかかわらず 勧めるing her to leave her wedded husband, come home, and be 離婚d. Then she would again be able to go, panoplied in Caucasian 優越, to evening carnivals where you ate lobster Newburg and played "Who am I?" If it did not work out, he 約束d, he would send her off to live in some scenic locality where the taint in Biddy was unknown.

When she dropped in to see her father, he looked up from his desk as though the desk itself were looking up, and said 刻々と, "Why duck your 運命／宿命, Vessy? I have talked it over with your Uncle Oliver and with Reverend Yarrow, than whom there are no greater 信奉者s in the sanctity of marriage—when it's a real marriage. But they agree with me that you cannot look at it as a 本物の 社債 when you were betrayed into wedlock with a homicidal maniac, a degenerate, or a Negro, and when a man is more or いっそう少なく all three—We don't want a 離婚 from this fella Kingsblood; we want an 取り消し."

"Nuts."

"What did you say?"

"I said 'Nuts.'"

"Do you think that's respectful?"

"I'm 極端に fond of Neil. He's good fun—or he used to be, before he became a 集まり-会合. Besides, I don't want to let him 負かす／撃墜する."

"You're letting me 負かす／撃墜する, aren't you?"

"Could be."

"Then you certainly can't 推定する／予想する me—"

"We don't. We won't. We won't take another cent from you. Besides, Neil has the 拒絶 of the most wonderful position in—I won't tell you anything about it, till it's made public. Oh, Dad, you don't want to 迫害する me, do you?"

"No, I want to save you."

Repeat.

*

Elegant Eliot Hansen, whatever he might think of Neil Kingsblood, that 反逆者 to his class and race, made it （疑いを）晴らす to Neil's wife that he, Eliot, was 単に the more loyal to her, and that he stood 謙虚に ready to serve her with advice, sympathy, petty cash, discussion of the オペラ, brotherly handshakes, or anything of his that she could use. That resourceful 乗り気, 連合させるd with Eliot's fresh, thin good looks and his habit of 攻撃するing his 長，率いる at her like a worshipping dachshund, made him a more dangerous escape for Vestal than you would have thought.

Except for Eliot and Curtiss Havock, the men in what, till a few weeks ago, had been Neil and Vestal's "bunch" were not a lecherous lot. They were solid homecomers who would have been embarrassed in strange bedrooms and impotent at the sight of a pink valence. They would have defined "venery" (if they had ever tried to define any words besides 貿易（する）-balance, torque, and this-here-Fascism) as "sports of the 追跡（する）ing-field," not as "sports of the boudoir." But Eliot made up for the timidity of his peers. He was the specialist in goatishness as Judd Browler was the master of trout 飛行機で行くs and Tom Crenway of salad-dressing. Just to be seen smiling privily with Eliot was enough to give a bored wife a 第２位 thrill and an 利益／興味ing 評判. In the cosmos of Grand 共和国, you can find everything, even if in miniature, and Eliot Hansen was Casanova and Solomon and the purer parts of the Marquis de Sade as condensed for newsstand sale in a reprint magazine.

Even to be in Eliot's house, alone with his wife Daisy, was considered suggestive, and Vestal 設立する herself there only because she was on the flower 委員会 of the church, along with Daisy, Pomona Browler and Violet Crenway. They had tea at Daisy's and, to their fury, were given tea at the tea, and as they all disliked one another, they concentrated on Vestal and hinted that they would be glad to receive any 信用／信任s about her troubles with Neil.

"What's this I hear—that Neil is going to a bigger bank?" chirruped Violet, 明白に meaning (or so the agitated Vestal 嫌疑者，容疑者／疑うd), "What's the poor zany going to do, now that he's 解雇する／砲火／射撃d?"

"Is Neil's 脚 going to be strong enough for him to play tennis, next summer?" soothed Pomona, probably meaning "Will he dare to poke his nose into our dear little club and take a chance on having big, strong, indignantly family-保護の aristocrats like my husband 粉砕する that 黒人／ボイコット, flat, intrusive snout?"

Daisy Hansen 調査（する）d, "I 宣言する, I'm crazy about your husband. When you see so much of him, can he かもしれない go on 存在 just as wonnerful as the 残り／休憩（する） of us girls think he is?" and Vestal 解釈する／通訳するd this one as "Come on and tell us about 辞退するing to sleep with that horrible 詐欺師, now that you've 設立する out he's a—you know."

Vestal answered all of them with nothing more than a modest 贈呈 of Neil as the new Apollo with touches of Ajax and St. Sebastian.

Whether the things they said did have these secret meanings, whether their glee in her 悲劇 was real or a sick imagining, made no difference in Vestal's uneasiness at 存在 調査／捜査するd, 存在 the eccentric wife of a Negro, and she felt relieved when Eliot （機の）カム in with a humming-bird sound of "What, you girls not getting any cocktails? Come on, Ves, help me make one."

The 井戸／弁護士席-任命するd butler's pantry in that select modern 住居, with its special white-enamel miniature refrigerator for ice-cubes, was Eliot's 私的な cafe on the boulevards, and scene of the inception of many of his happiest seductions, over the swizzle-stick and the わずかに gummy 瓶／封じ込める of Italian vermouth. Solemnly pumping up and 負かす／撃墜する the silver-plated shaker, which had a dent in it from the time Daisy had thrown it at him, he looked up at Vestal, who was half an インチ taller, and purred, "Have you heard the story yet about the 操縦する that had a studio-couch put in his 計画（する）?"

"No—I mean yes—I mean I don't want to hear it!"

"No? You're 行方不明の something good, baby. Say, you remember Bradd Criley, the lawyer that used to live here—moved to New York?"

"Yes, I knew him."

"Doc Kelly was in New York here recently, and he says Criley has a real, sure-enough New York actress for girl-friend now, and does he give her a good time! He blew her to a bed six feet wide with a sponge-rubber mattress—baby!"

Eliot referred, with no greater relevance, to 兵士s and their amours in Europe, to a cabin that he owned up the Big Eagle River and that was, の中で his friends, in the appalling argot of the day, referred to as a "love nest." Vestal 結論するd that he was trying, with all the subtlety inherent in the ice-cream 商売／仕事 (卸売), to get over to her the news that people were still doing it, so why not?

She 手配中の，お尋ね者 to choke on a mixture of finding it funny and finding it atrocious.

—He'd never dare to hint this way if I weren't married to a colored gentleman. Now I know Eliot's 正規の／正選手 approach, how he goes to work when the love-bells tinkle in that boy-sized brain...Mr. Hansen, if you touch my wrist again, I'm going to sock you over the 長，率いる with your own cocktail-shaker.

—You know what's funny? Borus Bugdoll would do this so much better. He's a swine, Borus is, but he's much more educated than this amateur barkeep; he's lived in Harlem.

—I will have this out with Neil—things like this happening all because of him. I 港／避難所't complained much, but I've got to go to town on the whole 商売／仕事. We've got to move away and change our 指名する and I'd see to it that Neil never pulled the 勇敢に立ち向かう-Negro-開拓する junk again. And this morning I woke up 混乱させるd and tried to think what 罪，犯罪 I'd committed and then I realized that I'm married to a Negro, that I'm up against it. Oh, dear God!

Thus, while the delightful Eliot shook and tasted and babbled and smiled.

一時期／支部 45

He had not known that to a 広大な／多数の／重要な many people 職業-追跡（する）ing was a heavier part of life than 職業-持つ／拘留するing; more nervous, more humiliating and 完全に 未払いの.

On foot, to save bus fares, he trudged from office building to factory to 倉庫／問屋, slipping on the glassy pavements. It had been so 冷淡な, this late February, that the First 義務 of the high-minded 国民 and householder—to clean his walks—was 逆転するd, for if he shoveled them off instead of leaving them in soft lumps of snow for a 地盤, after the slightest melting of the snow-banks along them the walks became sheets of （疑いを）晴らす ice through which you could see the 固く結び付ける, and on them everybody in town, 事実上, broke an ankle or at least sat 負かす／撃墜する hard and looked around indignant.

As the 温度計 was depressed to fifteen below, seventeen below, twenty-five below, the 国民s appeared in voluminous buckled overshoes, and earmuffs below felt hats, and wished that they had not 産する／生じるd to fashion and given away the scrofulous sealskin caps they had 相続するd from their warmer and worthier sires.

Chippewa Avenue, the Corso of the town, which had seemed busy and almost stately in October, was 床に打ち倒すd with streaky ice, and at each 抑制（する） was a low 塀で囲む of caked and dirty snow turning to a gray 障壁 over which you had to climb, after you had unhappily left the warm bus. There were no crimson awnings now, nor window-陳列する，発揮するs of summery dresses and red canoes, but just stoves and flannel and cough-薬／医学. Grand 共和国 had lost the 空気／公表する of a きびきびした and confidently growing city, and the buildings seemed low and shabby and scattered, under a drained sky that would never 向こうずね blue again. There were sleds and skis and healthy children in red caps, but not in the dolorous 産業の 地区s where Neil looked for work.

Never had he so longed for spring to come again, for the soft 空気／公表する, the friendly sun. He was like an old man wondering how many more times he will see the blessed summer.

As he plodded through this limbo of unrelieved gray, from door to unwelcoming door, he did now and then have an 申し込む／申し出 of work, but always of such lowly clerical labor that (or so he thought) to take it would prejudice his 未来. "I'm no longer ashamed of any 肉親，親類d of work, but this would be a bad precedent," he 保証するd himself, as he trudged on.

職業-追跡（する）—職業-追跡（する）—職業-追跡（する）—two 封鎖するs—冷淡な 封鎖するs—職業-追跡（する）.

No longer grandly willing-to-受託する-an-任命. No longer 捜し出すing-a-position-with-suitable-進歩. No longer salary-no-反対する. Salary a 鯨 of an 反対する! Salary. Money coming in again—money every week!

職業-追跡（する）, 職業-追跡（する）, 職業-追跡（する）, all day, 続けざまに猛撃する the pavements, through the slush, through the 冷淡な, feet sore on lumps of ice, blackening ice, feet tired in overshoes, tired feet that squushed in snow, to a wretched tune of 職業-追跡（する）, 職業-追跡（する）, 職業-追跡（する）.

And 職業-追跡（する） no more as a 銀行業者 but as a tired Negro who assumed that he had to live.

When he had 警告するd himself, a month ago, that to be a penniless Negro in this Christian land would be difficult, that just to get through one day of the 脅し and actuality of 無視する，冷たく断わるs would be hard, he had not やめる known that it would be hell in the 冷淡な, hell in the 雇用者s' 侮辱s, hell in the pocketbook so flat that you took coffee or soup at your grubby lunch, hell in the 叫び声をあげるing tendons of the lame, jarring 脚 he had almost lost in defending the freedom of white Americans to 辞退する 職業s to 黒人／ボイコット Americans.

Even if some day the 政府 should give him a vastly larger allowance for having been 負傷させるd, he did not think that he could 耐える settling 負かす／撃墜する as an idle pensioner, with all life a dreary poor-farm, and Vestal and Biddy a 用心深い meagerness beside an ambitionless loafer.

He asked himself, "Would I have been so brash and 発表するd myself as a Negro if I had known how hard it would be to get a 職業 without 隠すing my race?"

The 疑問 made him stubbornly angry.

"I couldn't do anything else. I had to come out. 職業-追跡（する）. I had to come out. 職業-追跡（する）. I had to...This 脚 傷つけるs so, and I am so 冷淡な!"

But with it all, whenever he had to fill out an 使用／適用 blank with the query "Race?" he put 負かす／撃墜する "colored."

*

He had, 必然的に, asked for work at Wargate's, but he would not bother Lucian Firelock, and the stranger in the 雇用 office had nothing for him but a place as timekeeper at twenty-six dollars a week—an old man's 地位，任命する.

The stories that Vestal's friend, Mrs. Timberlane, had told about Fliegend, the toy-製造者, sent Neil there, and the old man welcomed him, but there seemed to be nothing in the toy-factory that he could do. He realized that though he had been assuming that he was a 井戸／弁護士席-trained and 価値のある member of society, he had no 技術s outside of （軍の）野営地，陣営ing and 組織するing ゴルフ-tournaments and working in a bank. Even in the bank, he had no knowledge outside of 決まりきった仕事 仕事s, and he had been an ornament in the Second 国家の 主として because he had a smile and was the son-in-法律 of Morton Beehouse and was so unquestionably 保守的な and Gentile and white.

He could, he considered, steer a canoe, but not so 井戸／弁護士席 as any Indian; he could 扱う a car, but not so 井戸／弁護士席 as any taxi-driver; and while his technique in cooking muskalonge steaks on an open 解雇する／砲火／射撃 was sound, it was not 商業の.

He had a new 見解（をとる） of Sophie and Ash. With all his fondness for them, he had been a little condescending. He 認める now that while he might conceivably 餓死する, Sophie was very competent, thank you, even in a white world, as nurse and as singer, and Ash Davis could serenely make some sort of rough way not only as 化学者／薬剤師 but as a packer, musician, waiter, cook, linguist, teacher, and probably, Neil sighed, as a Shakespearean actor or the chairman of the board of a steel company.

When he next saw Sophie, with Ash and Martha, it was with noticeably 増加するd humility that this simple child of midwestern nature asked these sophisticated big-city dwellers where he could get a 職業.

"Child, I've got to take you in 手渡す. You'd do all 権利 for yourself if you'd ever been around," sighed Sophie. "You go 負かす／撃墜する to Mayo Street and 得る，とらえる off a fat 職業 with Vanderbilt Litch. He's an undertaker and an 保険-man and a money-貸す人 and a very smart egg, and the only 秘かに調査する and tattler in our Bronzeville, and maybe he'd 支払う／賃金 big to have a high yalla who is 肉親，親類 to the 地元の squirearchy working for him."

"Oh—I—don't—think—so," said Neil.

To himself he 公約するd, "I won't go 負かす／撃墜する that far," and then, かなり shocked, understood that Mayo Street and Negro businessmen still were far-負かす／撃墜する, to him, and that 切り開く／タクシー／不正アクセス Riley had been 権利 in scolding that he was playing at 存在 a Negro.

But he was not playing, even if he was わずかに 混乱させるd as to what he 手配中の，お尋ね者 to do, in the unceasing 職業-追跡（する）.

*

He had tried the printing-工場／植物 of his neighbor, Tom Crenway, who 小衝突d him off. At the Laverick Flour Mills, his old poker companion, Jay Laverick, 申し込む／申し出d him a drink and 問い合わせd whether there was any good love-making to be had on Mayo Street, but when Neil asked for work, Jay shouted, "You? A 職業 here? Hell, no! 事柄 of 原則 not to 雇う you folks."

Then he was 雇うd by the Beaux Arts, but that was all chance.

He was about to walk past that stylish and expensive "women's specialty shop"—dresses, perfume in gold and 水晶 flasks, 衣装 宝石類, sweaters like the breath of a virtuous baby—when it occurred to him to go in and try his former ゴルフ partner, Harley Bozard, the proprietor, a plump, active, eyeglassed man who was proud of 存在 認めるd at the 21 Club in New York, and who knew something about pictures.

Neil had 辞退するd to take a salesman's 職業 from Levi Tarr, but he was still naive enough to suppose that it would be more soothing to sell Nylon stockings to the wives of large lumbermen, on the fawn-colored carpets of the Beaux Arts, than to gingham-覆う？ housewives on the clattering 明らかにする 床に打ち倒すs of Tarr's Emporium.

Grand 共和国 was small enough so that, except at factories like Wargate's, the owner of a 商売／仕事 did his own 雇うing instead of leaving it to a Ph.D. with aptitude 実験（する）s instead of 注目する，もくろむs. Harley Bozard welcomed Neil in his silk-パネル盤d office, with greetings manly but 厳密に 精製するd:

"How are you, how are you, old man? 港／避難所't seen you in a month of Sundays. What are you doing now?"

"That's what I'd like to find out, Harley. You know I'm 公正に／かなり good at 人物／姿／数字s—"

"Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait!"

Harley waved his 磁器 cigarette-支えるもの／所有者 in a 魔法 circle and の近くにd his 注目する，もくろむs in 宗教上の dread, for he on honey dew had fed and been demoniacally 所有するd of an Idea. He looked like an advertising man, like an 内部の decorator. "Neil! I've never developed my sports department adequately; always been waiting for a big Idea-Man, and maybe you could be him! Put the department in 告発（する），告訴（する）／料金 of a 広大な／多数の／重要な golfer, 広大な／多数の／重要な tennis-player, 広大な／多数の／重要な スキーヤー, 広大な／多数の／重要な fisherman, with a 記録，記録的な／記録する as a high-class war hero—oh, boy! 'Captain Kingsblood brings you the breath of the 広大な／多数の／重要な outdoors—his 専門家 sports-advice at your service!' It's a natural! I see you as 買い手 and 長，率いる, 拡大するing the department to 控訴 yourself, but I suppose you'd better start in learning the technique of selling, and during your 見習いの身分制度 I don't know that I could 支払う／賃金 you over forty a week—no, we'll raise it to forty-five! But I don't see why you shouldn't be making two hundred a week before long, and maybe a partner! Neil, it's a go!"

Neil said, yes, it was a go, and went out to telephone to Vestal, "I've got it—I've got a 職業!"

"Oh, darling, I am so pleased. You have had the hardest time and—What is the 職業?"

"Sort of 再編成するing the sports department for Harley Bozard."

"Oh."

"Of course, just at first, I'll have to start in as a sort of clerk—"

"Oh."

It was the flattest sound he had ever heard. Not much more buoyant was her query, "What did he say about 雇うing—uh—colored help?"

"What? By golly, he never spoke of it, and I plumb forgot I was 'colored help.'"

"And you aren't, either! You're the wonderful Captain K. and my only love, and I'm sorry I sounded unenthusiastic. I was a bit surprised, that was all. Harley is such a 支援する-slapper and shoulder-blade tickler. But I'm sure it will be splendid."

Neil was not at all sure of that, now. He remembered that he had never 特に liked Harley. The man had been to him only a 集まり of tweeds bending over an ill-行為／行うd mashie. And Neil realized that he was not a 広大な／多数の／重要な-enough 兵士 or explorer to be sought out by a congregation of worshipping virgins for 奮起させるd counsel about lunch-baskets.

—Not on the level? I should worry about that. I'm at work again. That's important!

*

He went to work on Monday. In the newspaper on Sunday there had been a box in the Beaux Arts page-宣伝 confiding that Mr. Harley Bozard had the 栄誉（を受ける） of 発表するing that Captain Neil Kingsblood, the famous 兵士 and sportsman, had 同意d to associate himself with the distinguished Beaux Arts English Games & Sports Shop, and would be pleased to give all lovers of out-o'-doors the 利益 of his experience in many lands.

On Sunday evening, 対処する Anderson, the 化学者／薬剤師, and the Reverend Lloyd Gadd, Congregational 大臣, telephoned to Neil that Harley Bozard and his 長，指導者s of staff were buzzing about town, whispering, "Come in and get waited on by our Gentleman Negro and see the fun. Ask him any questions you want to."

On his first morning at the Beaux Arts, Neil was not received in any office by any Harley, but at the damp, slaty 従業員s' 入り口, by a greasy-haired misanthrope in an alpaca coat, who said 激しく, "You got to check in on time and punch the clock same as anybody else, Kingsblood. 報告（する）／憶測 to the sports department and 行方不明になる Garr will show you how to make out a sales-slip and try to teach you, if you can learn it, how to be respectful to the 顧客s. Now here's your locker, and for God's sake keep it locked. And stay 厳密に away from other folks' lockers. And how the hell they ever let one of you dinges dress with decent people is beyond me, but don't you for one minute think that if the 管理／経営 has gone haywire, we boys have!"

His look dared Neil to 攻撃する，衝突する him.

行方不明になる Garr, Neil's 指導者, was a thin and indignant lady, and she kept Neil waiting for ten minutes while she finished her conversation with three other salesladies. They peeped at Neil and giggled, and he heard the word "nigger." When 行方不明になる Garr （機の）カム to 教える him in the higher mathematics of sales-slips and the art of distinguishing a canoe-cushion from a tennis-ball, she kept 縮むing 支援する from his 汚染するing touch.

Negroes do learn silence.

*

If the sales-軍隊 did not welcome Neil's starred expertness, that monster known as the 女性（の） Buying Public welcomed him with writhing and with humorous squeals. It seemed to him that every woman in Grand 共和国, 含むing a few that he knew, dashed in to peer at him and to say things that 表面上は had to do with sports but that 現実に 示す, "Are you really a Negro and do you really have these superior sex-力／強力にするs that I've heard about and is there anything I can do besides look skittish and be ready to yell for help?" Their panting bosoms, their 直す／買収する，八百長をするd looks, their horrible little wriggling shoulders spoke a superstitious and obscene language.

They 星／主役にするd at his Negro hair (sorrel-red), at his Negro 直面する (of winter-tanned morocco), his big Negro 手渡すs (terracotta and freckled-sown), his long Negro 脚s and his powerful Negro middle. And since a Negro is always 厚い-witted and enjoys 存在 laughed at, they discussed his funny traits not too far from his 審理，公聴会.

They asked him a menagerie of questions. Do you use a 飛行機で行く for salmon-fishing in Nova Scotia, and which 飛行機で行く? Could Joe Louis have beaten Jack Dempsey? Did he know anything about the tennis-率ing of my cousin, William V. Getch of the South Milwaukee Country Club? Are Chinese checkers anything like Mahjong? How much did a chess 始める，決める cost—oh, you know—just any chess 始める，決める. How much would it cost per week for family of self, husband, two boys (老年の 9 1/2 and 11), one daughter (6, going on 7), and father-in-法律 who enjoys pitching horseshoes, at the Nippisag Fishing （軍の）野営地，陣営 on Lake Winnigigonabash next summer, and will the 率s be higher than in 1939?

But the question that really passed through the guarded portal of his ears was that of a don't-try-to-pull-that-on-me matron of forty, who jeered at him in a 発言する／表明する like a cow-bell, "I suppose all you colored G.I.'s were just crazy to get at them little French girls!"

And one old young woman, not of reasonable architecture, 主張するd on his showing sweaters to her, though they were not in his department, and leered at him as she smoothed an astragal which he now 嫌疑者，容疑者／疑うd to be partly 建設するd of handkerchiefs. Still he did not vomit.

When he had been a white 銀行業者, a person to be careful with, he had never 遭遇（する）d women who reeked like these. He 警告するd himself that they were not normal; they were only the sort who skittered to see the dark house of a 殺人. But he was not 希望に満ちた about his 未来 as a freak attraction.

A good many of them 圧力（をかける）d too の近くに to him, and a good many more flinched away when he 単に held out a croquet mallet. Whatever their physical 現在のs, they agreed in never calling him Mister. He was Captain, he was Uh, he was, in Chinese fashion, Say Look.

As 狼狽ing as the women were their infrequent husbands, who could distinctly be heard 抗議するing, "No, I don't want to talk to the bastard," and worse than these was dear old friend Harley Bozard, hovering, mentally 手渡す-rubbing. And more disheartening than Harley were the ex-私的なs with their girls, rejoicing in the abasement of a former officer and gloating, "Say, Cap, you know anything about fitting the girl-friend here with a pair of ski-pants? I want you to be doggone careful about the fit around her fanny, get me?"

At さまざまな painful times he saw Violet Crenway, Rose Pennloss and Diantha Marl, curving 一連の会議、交渉／完成する the （人が）群がる to 避ける his department and 持つ／拘留するing up their spiritual skirts as they 匂いをかぐd past. And when he was looking after Diantha, he saw Major Rodney Aldwick, standing by one of the big white 中心存在s, 築く, 武器 倍のd, watching him, not sneering but just amused. Neil knew then the 膝-緩和するing inferiority that comes to the virtuous slave and turns him to 激怒（する）ing 殺人.

But his 激怒（する） faded into gray. Sell sweaters and fishing-lines all his life? He was not angry but only washed-out when, at home, Vestal met him with a frigid "井戸／弁護士席?"

*

The sensation-licking （人が）群がる did not continue all week. After two days, Neil had to spend a good 取引，協定 of his time leaning against a 反対する, which was sharp against his 脚s.

Saturday morning, Harley Bozard （機の）カム to fuss, "Can't you do a little better selling your 顧客s? I notice a lot of 'em （機の）カム in, thanks to the generous way in which we supported you by our advertising, but your sales-報告（する）／憶測 is most unsatisfactory. You got to think いっそう少なく about how handsome you are, Kingsblood, and more about getting the sales-message over to the public."

Neil went home to a Vestal who was not fretful now, but savage.

"I hear you're 完全に enjoying chumming up to a lot of loud-mouthed young women at the 蓄える／店, laughing with them and humiliating me by talking to them about me!" she 観察するd.

"Now who—"

"Somebody we both know perfectly 井戸／弁護士席 told me. I won't tell you who. She was sorry for me. She saw you in the 蓄える／店, all 権利."

"But you didn't come to see how I was getting along."

"I most certainly did not!"

"It didn't occur to you that it may not be 平易な for me to learn how—"

"Oh, for Heaven's sake, don't go getting high-minded on me about the social 不正s of sock-selling, too!"

He walked out, with no words. He did not come home for dinner. He 長，率いるd for the 武器 of Sophie Concord.

He walked through the 冷淡な to Mayo Street, and a good 取引，協定 of his 追放する's fury against Vestal was 軟化するd.

—It's been hard on her. She really cares for what she calls "social position." As I guess I did, once. Maybe it would be better for her if she やめる me and took Biddy and went 支援する to her father. He'd retire, and move to California with her, maybe, and nobody would know. Why should she and Biddy have to （問題を）取り上げる my fight? It might be better so, before Vestal gets any more irritated, says anything worse. Dear Vestal, I did love you a lot!

*

Sophie's tenement-house was like a cheerful little hotel, with whole Negro families （軍の）野営地，陣営d out in one room and making merry over a マリファナ of gumbo. In a hall-room, preaching aloud to an audience of himself, was 年上の Mies, a 黒人／ボイコット and meaty freelance prophet who was at once a cobbler and the proprietor of The Inspiration 寺 of the Divine 議会 of High Holiness, which did not happen to have any 会合-place just now. Along the hall, as Neil （機の）カム in at six, airy gamblers of the eventide, who by day were porters and 穀物-loaders, were 陳列する，発揮するing their fawn overcoats and green hats with feathers.

When Sophie sang out "Come in" to his knock, he 板材d into her one 孤独な housekeeping-room. He had been there before, but only for uneasy moments at parting.

The room was square, on a corner, a mixture of poverty and reminiscent 高級な. The studio couch was a rickety cot covered with a scarlet-dyed deerskin, 辛勝する／優位d with worn and somewhat ratty shreds of ヒョウ, taken from a 消滅した／死んだ theatrical 衣装. A two-burner kerosene stove, a nurse's cap, a miniature city of cosmetic 瓶／封じ込めるs, and the major writings of John Dewey were on a long （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する. On the 塀で囲む were a Vermont valley painted by Lucioni, a やめる outrageous abstractionism, the photograph of a Negro girl, naked and shameless and 向こうずねing, and a 抱擁する calendar 現在のing the portrait of a kitten in a basket, with the days of the month 示すd with a nurse's notations. In the 中央 of this litter of a woman too busy for housewifery, too 利益／興味d in everything alive to arrange her surroundings so that they would 始める，決める off her own loveliness, Sophie sat buffing her nails, at a dressing-（米）棚上げする／（英）提議する made out of a golden-oak とじ込み／提出するing-閣僚.

She rose to look at Neil, serene, unafraid, as tall as Vestal, a loose 式服 of gold-発射 purple open on her autumnal brown bosom. She ちらりと見ることd at him more はっきりと as she saw how he swayed; she murmured, "Ah, poor baby!" and held out her 武器, and he 残り／休憩（する）d his cheek on the smoothness of her breast.

As they sat trustingly on the couch, 武器 about each other, she spoke tenderly: "甘い, it's been hell, at that goldfish shop, hasn't it! I stayed away, for 恐れる I'd make it worse for you. But you're as far 負かす／撃墜する now as you'll ever go. It's the first time you've had to 直面する the evil-注目する，もくろむs. They won't be able to 傷つける you again. Oh, I could love you, now. But—you said it yourself. There isn't enough ジャングル left in me.

"I've sold all that, to be a missionary. But so have you. So kiss me and go home. Oh, I do get so tired of 存在 so 爆破d virtuous and hard-working. So tired!"

It had not occurred to this やめる typical male that Sophie could also be discouraged. With a 確かな surprise, he put her 長，率いる on his shoulder instead of 崩壊（する）ing on hers, and petted her, "You're all in."

She changed from divine mother to child. She whimpered, "Why wouldn't I be?...Why do you love that woman so much?"

"Oh, 井戸／弁護士席, for one thing, she's so beautiful—you said it yourself—like a race horse."

"She hasn't got 脚s like that!" Sophie spoke demurely, and stretched out one bronze, 有望な, stockingless 脚 like a ballet-ダンサー, curling her toes.

"She does all 権利!"

"本気で, why?"

"The word I think of for Vestal is 'gallant.' She's square; she tried to give everybody a square 取引，協定."

"含むing herself!"

"Why not?"

"Listen, my sturdy little man, I'm not complaining because you 心にいだく Vestal. If she's going to take you away from me, as she 明らかに goes 権利 on doing, I want her to be good. I don't want to be frozen out by an 絶対の marmoset." Sophie nestled against his shoulder. "All 権利, all 権利. She's the wonder of the ages. The only trouble with her is, she went to school instead of getting educated. She's never 配達するd a baby in a taxicab, or had to chase a cafe-owner out of her room without losing the cafe 職業. Maybe she'll be all 権利 for you and—"

Sophie paused; her 発言する／表明する then was, at first, almost timid.

"Neil, I'd really like to know her, some day. I don't suppose that'll be possible, but bless her and bless you, and you stick to her...you congenital white 銀行業者!...You Yale man!"

"Why, I didn't go to Yale."

"Oh God!"

"But Sophie, suppose she won't stay with me?"

"Then make her stay, damn it! Don't come to old Aunty Concord for advice to the love-lorn! There's too much of that 高度に inflammable girl Sophie around this place. Go on 支援する to your 巡礼者 mother, Vestal, and may you be elected to the Sons of the American 革命, you schlemiehl!"

He kissed her with quietness and propriety. As he walked home he most ungratefully did not think of Sophie or Vestal or any other woman, but of a good, clean, dirty fight with men like Harley Bozard and Wilbur Feathering and Major Rodney Aldwick, D.S.C.

When he （機の）カム in, Vestal said 厳粛に, "I think I behaved very 不正に to you, and I'm sorry—I think I am. But I don't like the way things are going. There has to be some change."

The newly grown-up Neil answered her with an unemphasized kiss and no chatter. He had to be about his 商売／仕事 of swords and trumpets.

一時期／支部 46

All Sunday he brooded on his Beaux Arts 職業, his week of humiliation as a large crested bird in a very small gilded cage surrounded by tittering bird-fanciers. He 決定するd that as a Negro 労働者 he would neither drift nor put up with insolence. He would look for the pattern and learn it.

He did not punch the time-clock on Monday morning, but walked into Harley's 私的な office and said breezily, "That certainly was a phony 職業, Harley. Let me know, next summer, anything I can do to 改善する your ゴルフ, and good luck till then!"

It was a time for a Negro, even one so newly born, to be 反抗的な or be broken. The first かなりの race-暴動 since the end of World War II had 爆発するd, in Tennessee; the typical war of 制服を着た policemen against terrified plain tanned 国民s and their women and children.

It seemed to Neil that he would have かなりの solace if he could have one more good lunch before he started the 冷淡な 職業-追跡（する） again. He marched into the Fiesole Room at the Pineland, 明言する／公表するing to himself, "I'm not looking for any trouble here, 非，不，無 at all; I'm just standing on my 権利s." In other words, he was looking for trouble, and doing a dance on his 権利s.

Drexel Greenshaw seemed to hesitate about admitting him to that Pompeian sanctity but, 単に nodding, he 護衛するd Neil to a third-率 （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する by a 支援する 中心存在, the 肉親，親類d that was reserved for 農業者s, small-town 大臣s, saints, and such riffraff. But the colored waiter served Neil quickly and politely, and Neil contentedly thought about ordering a large cigar. Then Glenn Tartan, 経営者／支配人 of the hotel, had materialized out of some garlanded Orient jar, and was standing beside him, pleasantly 問い合わせing, "Was everything all 権利? Service all 権利?"

Neil said heartily, "Why, 罰金, Glenn, just 罰金."

"Then please 公式文書，認める that we have fully 従うd with the 法律. Our 正規の／正選手 clientele complain vigorously about you colored gentlemen coming in here and spoiling their lunch, but we have served you. And now may I ask you never to come in here again?"

Glenn went away quickly.

While Neil was still gasping, the Drexel Greenshaw who had so recently been so humble to the young 銀行業者, Mr. Kingsblood, moved up and said blankly, "Let me give you a little friendly advice, Neil. You せねばならない get a 安定した 職業 and be humble to white folks and know your place and not step out of it, and stay away from 排除的 places like this. The whites have the 力／強力にする, and it's much wiser not to antagonize them. I know 正確に／まさに how to get along with them; I never have the slightest trouble. I'll never lose my 職業—as you did, at the Beaux Arts."

"How did you know that?"

"We Negroes have to know everything, ーするために get along in a mean white world. So get wise to yourself, boy, and stay where you belong. Maybe, in time, if you get a 評判 as a sensible darky, your daughter will go ahead of you, as my daughters have, and be able to get a nice clean 職業. There's certainly got to be a change in the colored position, but this isn't the time for it. All this 革命 talk is wicked and foolish—and by the way, I want you to やめる putting a lot of 反抗的な ideas in Phil Windeck's 長，率いる. He's to be my son-in-法律, and I don't want you corrupting him!"

"Me cor—"

"Yes, sure. You been 事実上の／代理 very bad. Neil, it don't make no difference what you were once. Now, you're nothing but another colored man. Play 安全な, like me. Now scram. I'm taking a chance on even 存在 seen talking to you."

—My daughter, my 向こうずねing, light-footed Biddy, in a "nice, clean 職業"—maybe in 棒 Aldwick's kitchen!

*

On Sophie's 主張, he finally went 負かす／撃墜する to Mayo Street, to see Mr. Vanderbilt Litch, who was a 目だつ Colored Elk and who did very 井戸／弁護士席 with 請け負うing, 保険 and roulette. Mr. Litch, in a scarlet-and-chromium office with a smart colored stenographer, frigidly explained that he did not care to 雇う a white man who only pretended to be a Negro ーするために get in on the 政策 ゆすり.

—井戸／弁護士席, I'm glad to know that some of the colored boys have reached such a high point of culture that they can 無視する，冷たく断わる you just as 静かに as Uncle Oliver Beehouse!

He did find, in the Five Points, enough spare-time bookkeeping to keep him from 餓死するing, and that with the most successful two Negro businessmen in town: Axel Skagstrom of the Gunflint 追跡する Canoe 会社／団体, and Albert Woolcape of the Ne 加える Ultra Laundry, men who did not belong in the Feathering picture of the Shiftless Darky.

Mr. Skagstrom, who was married to a white Finnish woman and who was half Swede, ４半期/4分の1 Negro, ４半期/4分の1 Chinese, with traces of Choctaw and Mexican—which made him one hundred per cent. African—製造（する）d excellent canoes. He was a pious Lutheran and he disapproved of what he called "all this 副／悪徳行為 and laziness that you find の中で so many colored folks." He felt pretty 井戸／弁護士席 about his generosity in 雇うing as many Negroes as whites in his factory. He was a typical American 実業家, except that he was いっそう少なく 利益／興味d in race-questions than most of them, and he was glad to have Neil step into his accounting-room every Friday—at 削減（する） 率s.

Albert Woolcape was the brother of John, the uncle of Ryan, but no friend of either. They were too 過激な for him. In his busy laundry on Chicago Avenue, he was willing to 雇う Negroes, but as most of his 顧客s were white, he 主張するd that all of his drivers and collectors be white also. When he took on Neil for part-time accounting, Albert 認めるd, "I guess maybe this race-ideal stuff is all 権利, but a fellow has got to think of himself first, ain't he? Look at the difference between my bank-account and John's! And that Ryan, with all his education, got nothing but a 職業 on a farm!"

Working on Albert's and Skagstrom's 調書をとる／予約するs, with the telephone always querulous just behind him and the light never やめる 権利, Neil felt 正確に／まさに as he had in his hours of 調書をとる／予約する-work at the Second 国家の, except that his two 雇用者s were more anxious to please him, as one who, after all, might be "white." He was not sure but that he preferred the suspiciousness of Mr. Vanderbilt Litch.

When he indignantly 報告（する）／憶測d his 雇用者s' 不信 of Negroes to Ash and Martha, they laughed. Said Ash, "You're a 約束ing ethnologist. The only thing you've 行方不明になるd is the whole point. We've told you 権利 along that there isn't any difference. It's only you and 過激な Harlem who 主張する that everything in ebony must be better than anything in birchwood. やめる 存在 a race-fancier! Besides, there's a lot of our race and a lot of our white friends who believe that the way for us to be popular and 勧めるd to join the 連邦の Club is to have a 目だつ number of our boys who become rich and own apartment houses. True, the Irish and Jews have tried the method for centuries and failed at it, but what of that!"

*

Neil had had only a month of 職業-追跡（する）ing, but he had stumped his way to so many places that it seemed a year. Through it all, they had their home, sacred and 安全な・保証する—and paid for! To Neil it was the more important, now that he had no office, no club, no houses of old-time friends where he could be sure of welcome, and he did not think that, without it, Vestal would have been able to stand by him.

On most evenings, they stayed home, and when they did not, they usually regretted it. As:

Louise Wargate, Mrs. Webb Wargate, had always seemed to Neil 伝統的に the 広大な／多数の／重要な Lady; gentle, literate, thoughtful, not altogether human. (She was born an Osthoek of Utica, and met Webb when he was in Harvard. Her position was so ducal that she could afford to look like a farm-wife: in gardening-gloves, freckled, without lipstick. We are on a high 計画（する） here, and know nothing of Nurse Concord or Albert the Laundryman or white cottages bought on the 分割払い-計画（する）.) As the mother of his old playmate, Ackley, Mrs. Wargate had been to Neil an even smile, a 冷静な／正味の 手渡す, and chocolate peppermints in a silver box, but never singing or cookies or 事情に応じて変わる 負かす／撃墜する hill, never.

Now, when Neil and Vestal were in a social 集中 （軍の）野営地，陣営, they had from Mrs. Wargate a civil 招待 to dinner, the first they had ever had from her. Neil, after a 誤った 夜明け of exultation, decided that they had been 招待するd because Louise Wargate felt 有罪の over not having done for the Negroes all that she had ーするつもりであるd when she had first encouraged Webb to 雇う more of them at the 工場／植物. Neil was beginning to see a good 取引，協定 of that uncomfortable 犯罪 の中で the worthier clergy and 合法的な gentlemen.

Vestal said, "I don't think I'm very crazy to go."

"I'm not, either. It'll be like tea at the morgue. But I do think we せねばならない 認める her 成果／努力. I do know it's been hell on you, getting dropped out of everything that we used to consider decent society—"

"Used to?"

"—and having to become a hermit. Won't you believe that I've 苦しむd about you, in my dumb way?"

"Oh, I know. And I don't want to be a Christian 殉教者 詠唱するing. I'll learn to take it. Only いつかs I wonder if it wouldn't be better for you if—Neil, isn't there some awfully nice colored gal that could help you more than I can?"

"Conceivably, but I have 献身的な my life to you, and I'd like to try and keep that dedication straight."

She beamed, though what she said, since this was Grand 共和国, was "Okay, Romeo, let's go!"

*

The Webb Wargate house, on Varennes Boulevard overlooking the Sorshay Valley, was a red-roofed Touraine chateau, larger than Bertie Eisenherz's manorial Hillhouse, and with more ells, eaves, gables, ornamental chimneys, portes-cocheres, 近づく-marble 近づく-fauns, fountains 含む／封じ込めるing nothing but old 手渡す-法案s, 飛行機で行くing buttresses, 静止している buttresses, 強姦d intaglios, hanging gardens, 天候 先頭s, xats, and Keep-er-Klosed Kasement Windows, but with いっそう少なく 調書をとる／予約するs and いっそう少なく pictures. Altogether high-class and European, with 開拓する Yankee-lumberman trimmings.

Neil and Vestal were received with gray-silk 儀礼 by Mrs. Wargate and with jittery incredulity by Webb, who as usual looked like the Second Bookkeeper and Gravedigger, like a saver of paper clips and rubber 禁止（する）d—問い合わせing but mute, and always apprehensive lest somebody take it away from him.

They had cocktails in the Small 製図／抽選 Room, and as Webb passed them to the guests, he was a little taut, as though he were not at all sure but that these ravening 黒人／ボイコット fieldhands might bite him. He had played 橋（渡しをする） with Vestal's father for centuries, but he seemed to be 説, "I know so little about you colored people that I don't even know whether it is considered etiquette to 申し込む／申し出 you a cocktail."

The Wargate dining-room was 広大な, with exposed beams painted in gold and crimson, and a 床に打ち倒すing of 人物／姿／数字d tiles. They were waited upon by an 老年の Swedish woman who evidently had been prewarned and held out platters to Vestal and Neil as though she were 扱うing baskets of hot coals. The food was all hardnesses covered with floury sauces. And there were no other guests. Son Ackley and his consort were so conspicuously absent and unmentioned that they were 圧倒的に 現在の.

The talk tried to keep itself away from the 支配する of Negroes. It was Vestal who deliberately yanked up the curtain.

"You know, it's been funny, the number of 混乱させるd people who assume that somehow I have magically become a Lady of Color—oh, yes, people we all know, who are 有望な enough to 調印する checks and go 一連の会議、交渉／完成する in eighty-four. The poor Junior Leaguers are in a quandary, one of the deepest quandaries this 味方する of the Grand Canyon. They don't like to kick out the daughter of Morton the Magnificent, and maybe the easiest thing for the poor darlings would be to 解散する the League. Don't you think so, Mr. Wargate?"

"Yes—yes—I see how you mean," 滞るd Webb.

He had a 疑惑 that she was 存在 humorous, and however powerful Webb Wargate was at selling wallboard and plastic 小衝突s in Chicago and Venice and on 開始する Kaimakischalan, he always had vertigo and 苦痛s behind the eyeballs in the presence of humor. But he also had his 義務 as a 主要な member of the 国家の 協会 of 製造業者s, and now that these guinea pigs had themselves brought up the embarrassing 支配する of vivisection, he felt that he せねばならない encourage them, he せねばならない Get in Touch with Changing 条件s. He turned quakingly to Neil:

"Tell me—I'm perhaps inexcusably ignorant—but is the 願望（する） for political 参加 making much 前進 の中で the, uh, colored 全住民?"

"I 港／避難所't much （警察などへの）密告，告訴（状） on it, sir, but I imagine so."

"You mean, from your own personal experience, you would, on the whole, be inclined to think so?"

"Yes, I—井戸／弁護士席—I might say that I think I have been somewhat aware of it."

The conversation never rose again to such 劇の 高さs.

As they drooped 負かす／撃墜する the Italian marble 前線 steps, Vestal sighed to Neil, "井戸／弁護士席, there's another place we'll never go again."

"Looks that way."

"Who cares? Webb's grandfather used to saw 支持を得ようと努めるd for my grandfather, 支援する in Maine."

"Is that so?"

"No, but it might be."

"I wonder how the Wargates ever made so much money and got such a big house?" said Neil.

"I don't. I wonder what makes them think Brussels sprouts are a food...Oh, 甘い, Webb wasn't trying to highhat you. He's just a smug, ignorant man. He doesn't 事柄—非，不，無 of them 事柄—just you and me."

一時期／支部 47

He was alone in the house, after the daily 職業-追跡（する）. Vestal and Biddy and Prince were out at the Timberlanes', one of the houses where they would not be resented nor yet greased with the tactful 親切 that was worse than jeering. He stood at the western window of the sunroom, meditating.

Why not 逃げる to a metropolis or to the wilderness, and 捜し出す anonymity? No. Vestal and Biddy (and Prince) were too gregarious for any forest （疑いを）晴らすing, and New York or Chicago would be too hard and rectangular and grim. A flat would seem too constricted, after this house where there was space to dance and freedom to yell and this 見解（をとる） up Eisenherz Hill in the last 許すing light of the frozen March afternoon.

Against the gold-leaf of the sunset, Hillhouse was a proud brick hulk with 石灰岩-でっちあげる，人を罪に陥れるd Tudor windows, and a flat, balustraded roof instead of the 急襲するs of the Wargates' roofs and rooflets. The pines on the hillside were against an apple-green （土地などの）細長い一片 of sky with a tapestry of apricot and purple draped above it. Pines and sunset 解任するd to him old canoe 旅行s on the Northern lakes so 近づく to this, his own city. If his one-time friends here seemed to hate him, at least they gave him that much attention, while in Megalopolis there would be no one even to wish him bad luck. No, they would 勇敢に立ち向かう it out in Grand 共和国.

He remembered that once he had longed to be able to buy Hillhouse. Then, he was to have become a 最高の-銀行業者. Biddy would be coming home from Farmington and Bryn Mawr, and Hillhouse would be 十分な of her young 始める，決める, Wargates and Sparrocks and Prutts and Drovers. Yes, he marveled, once he had longed for all this! 井戸／弁護士席, he had a livelier fight now. He would be lucky if he could keep the cottage. But to guarding that, he swore, he would 充てる the patience and ferocity of his Chippewa ancestors, whose bark 宿泊するs must have stood up on that hillside, only a hundred years ago.

Vestal （機の）カム in gaily, started supper. They were 井戸／弁護士席 content. Neil 知らせるd Biddy, after supper, that once upon a time there were some 驚くべき／特命の／臨時の people called the Ojibways, or Chippewas, who used to （軍の）野営地，陣営 権利 up there on our hill, and 権利 here where we're sitting, maybe they used to fight with 屈服するs and arrows の中で the 激しく揺するs. Biddy was so 入り口d that she brought all her dolls and her velocipede and the わずかに mutinous Prince to sit in a half-circle and listen to him.

While Vestal was putting Biddy to bed, under 戦争の 法律, he wandered again into the sunroom. In the bold moonlight, the 影をつくる／尾行するs of 支店s were inky on the snow-patches that were webbed with Biddy's 跡をつけるs. It was all his, his and Vestal's and 企て，努力，提案's. Here they would stay, every evening, all their lives.

Yet they did 投機・賭ける out once more, to an interracial and tolerant and ひどく 知識人 party given by Diantha Marl, at Brian Angle's studio. After that, they really did stay home.

Diantha, as the wife of Gregory Marl, who owned both of the newspapers in Grand 共和国, was a social leader. But all on her own she was, at forty-five, an 当局 on 中国, which she had never seen, James Joyce, whom she had never read, the 資格s of all political 候補者s, 特に of those who were 完全に unqualified, and the sulfa 麻薬s, which she ever so faintly mixed up with ビタミンs. As a Talking Woman, she could currycomb a 私的な audience as violently as any leaderess in New York or Washington.

On Race-Relations, she was tremendous. She had once sat 負かす／撃墜する at the same 昼食 （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する with a colored woman, and had been so 肉親，親類d to her that the poor soul had talked up just like a human 存在. (There had been sixteen other people at that （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する, and the 反対する of Diantha's charity had been a professional lecturer for the Nigerian Anthropological 創立／基礎.) Whenever Negroes were について言及するd, Diantha always told this story of her own 寛容; a hundred times she had told it.

Her husband's papers were very 自由主義の about Negroes, and 明言する／公表するd editorially that there was no 推論する／理由 why they should not be 雇うd at any work どれでも, 供給するd they could do it 同様に as any white man.

These newspapers had never 雇うd any Negro.

Diantha was giving the party to show that whites and Negroes can mix socially without any 害（を与える）, but she was not so 無謀な as to have it 権利 in her own home. She had borrowed the studio of Brian Angle, who was the 地元の art-world and who still went on believing that Diantha was really going to order that portrait of herself.

Nor was she so 不快な／攻撃 to the social code as to 招待する any such ill-条件d Negroes as John Woolcape, who was 単に 管理人 in this same Mermaid Tavern Building in which was Mr. Angle's studio. The Mermaid was half-木材／素質d, or anyway it looked half-木材／素質d, and it 含む／封じ込めるd a photographer's 設立, a music shop, a twittering of 発言する／表明する teachers, and Rita Kamber's 先導 Bookshop.

The Negroes whom Diantha did decide to 招待する could be counted upon for 公正に／かなり civil 行為／行う. They were Ash Davis and Neil Kingsblood.

She had also 召喚するd Martha Davis, whom she had never met. But, by 辞退するing to come, the woman had shown how ungrateful these darkies really are. Diantha bore up gallantly and explained to everybody who was 利益／興味d, "Probably it's just 同様に she's not coming. You never know what 肉親，親類d of 無学の hoydens these half-educated colored 登山者s like this Davis will have 選ぶd up along the way."

Diantha was surprisingly cordial in the social 人身保護（令状） which she 問題／発行するd to Neil, by whom, when he had been a white 銀行業者, she had been bored, but who had now become as 利益／興味ing as Gargantua the gorilla, and in the same way. Neil had not 手配中の，お尋ね者 to go, but Diantha had 主張するd with pretty petulance, "Don't be silly! Don't tell me you're going to 行方不明になる this chance to do something for your race. Why, you'll 会合，会う the best people in town, Kingsblood!"

Vestal said, "You bet I'm going with you, Neil! Think I'd have Diantha 調査（する）ing into what she'd call our 'love-life' without 存在 there to 保護する you?"

*

In the long studio, which was furnished 主として with stacks of unsold pictures, there were sixty guests. They who did not know Neil and Ash made several unfortunate errors in 選ぶing out the Negroes at whom they were to 星／主役にする, and 原因（となる）d 陸軍大佐 Crenway to go home 早期に and indignant.

Their host-by-圧力, Brian Angle, was a young man with a 試験的な 耐えるd and too much mother, who was にもかかわらず not a bad painter. He considered Neil undistinguished, but he told Ash that he looked like a 厳しい and youthful doge. Lorenzo Gristad, a dark and nervous little man, a photographer, whispered to Ash, "These white guys can't do a thing in the world for you except give you a 職業, can they?"

Dr. 対処する Anderson, the 化学者／薬剤師, and Peace, his wife, astonished the slummers, the rich 無学のs, by talking to Neil and Ash as they would to any other reasonable human 存在s, and so did Dr. and Mrs. Kamber and Lloyd Gadd, the Congregational 大臣, though they still thought of Negroes as people whom you 会合，会う on 委員会s. But fifty out of the sixty guests just watched Ash and Neil and waited for them to do something dirty or funny.

Nor was Neil 元気づけるd by Vestal's first 会合 with Ash.

She had never 遭遇（する）d him; she had heard of him only as a man whom Neil 尊敬（する）・点d. All she saw now, in the man with whom Neil shook 手渡すs so affectionately, was what she 述べるd to herself as "a やめる nice-looking darky, very neatly dressed, maybe an 専門家 valet." She gaped when Neil glowed, "Vestal, this is my 広大な／多数の／重要な friend, Dr. Davis."

She 反映するd, "A doctor? Could be. I've heard there are some colored doctors."

She 観察するd, "How d' you do," and she made it extraordinarily plain to Ash that she did not really care how he did, and did not want to hear how he did, and why introduce her to colored chiropractors?

Ash 屈服するd, not too 深い, and that was all of the joyous 会合 of Neil's wife and Neil's friend.

*

There was a 量 of whisky and a fair 供給（する） of chicken salad, but the tourists got tired of looking at the 展示（する）s. The party had not been going at all, and what made it go now and go vigorously and go very 不正に was Wilfrid Spode.

There is a 指名する and a talent to 示す: Wilfrid Spode, known to thousands, and most unhappily, as Friddy Spode: a man who has been intimate with all the most 破滅的な geniuses, the most obscene drunks, and the most 決定するd Lesbians in Taos, Taxco, Woodstock, Minorca, Munich, Carmel, Chelsea, Greenwich Village, and the Left Bank of the Seine. There is a man as 外国人 to Grand 共和国 as an ornithorhynchus, a man who by contrast makes Curtiss Havock seem decent and Dr. Drover gentle.

Friddy Spode was born in Kansas City, but he was an author. Nor, mind you, was he an unpublished author. His novels, which were catalogs of fornication, in style very much like mail-order catalogs, with the four-letter words all （一定の）期間d out, had, till World War II, been 個人として published in Paris and paid for by his wife.

Friddy had a seamed and rather dirty 直面する, the 直面する of an evil old horse; his neck was always dirty and his nails an 展示（する） of dirt and his hair not so much worn long as always needing to be 削減（する）. He usually wore a corduroy jacket that was rather on the boyish 味方する for a man of forty, and the only 推論する／理由 he did not wear the 伝統的な Rive Gauche 幅の広い 黒人／ボイコット hat was that people 推定する／予想するd it of him, and he loved to disappoint them. He did better. He wore a cap—very dirty.

Yet his wife, Susan, half a dozen years younger, was as plump and clean a little pigeon as you could find outside a マリファナ-pie. She was a painter, except that she did not paint and could not paint. And she was Vestal Kingsblood's own cousin. She was the 合法的 daughter of 助言者／カウンセラー Oliver Beehouse.

When she met Friddy, she had been doing something exciting but phony which she called "熟考する／考慮するing art in Paris." She was lonely there, and she could speak no French and not much of anything else. Friddy 選ぶd her up at the Cafe Select. He lived by borrowing money; he was as painstaking at begging as he was sloppy in composition; no sum was too large to whine for and 非，不，無 too small to take. He asked visiting American businessmen for five hundred dollars and 受託するd fifty; he asked little students of singing for ten フランs and got fifteen.

He borrowed a hundred フランs from 告訴する, on sight, and that night he negligently seduced her. He 設立する out that her father was rich, and yawningly he married her. He never had any 利益／興味 in her afterward, nor any especial aversion to her, while she adored him and never noticed the dirt, and believed his sour jealousies to be wit and his lore of the privy to be literature.

When the Germans were about to enter Paris, the Spodes fled, and since then they had been able to live in California by ゆすり，恐喝ing Oliver Beehouse with the 脅し that if he did not come through, they would come home. いつかs, as now, they did come, just to show how 苦しめるing it would be if they remained in Grand 共和国.

For a month they had had a studio-flat in the Mermaid Tavern Building. 告訴する cheerfully did the cooking and the 財政／金融ing and made their bed whenever she could get Friddy out of it.

It had been the 存在 of Friddy as his own son-in-法律 that had 原因（となる）d Oliver to be so agitated when his brother Morton 設立する that he had a Negro for son-in-法律. To Oliver's classic 合法的な mind, Negroes and Hindus and American Indians and 犯罪のs were all alike, and the only worse menace than Friddy was Neil.

As soon as the food got better, Friddy and 告訴する would be 支援する in Paris. 合間 they 耐えるd the bestial American tiled bathroom by finding their fun where they could. They 設立する a lot of it tonight, in taking over the 管理／経営 of the helpless 黒人／ボイコット barbarians, Neil and Ash.

It was not that Friddy cared a hang about Negroes, but he got a lot of innocent 楽しみ out of annoying Diantha's friends.

He was in superb, international form, tonight. He had a drink and あられ／賞賛するd Vestal as his cousin and tried to kiss her on the cheek. He had a drink and most audibly congratulated his happy and humming wife, 告訴する, on having in the Negro Neil one 関係 who was not a fool. Then he had another drink, a lot more drinks, and 配達するd an unscheduled public lecture.

He 明言する／公表するd that all Negro music, sculpture, 事実上の／代理, pugilism and 性の hypnosis were superior to the 業績／成就s of the whites, and he 負傷させる up, "If you'll all shut your 罠（にかける）s, maybe I can get one of our colored guests to explain why it is that his race is so much subtler and more 極度の慎重さを要する than you white bourgeois."

Ash muttered to Neil, "That jackass knows his 商売／仕事. Usually, it's a woman who does this to us. The only 絶対 保証（人）d way to 廃虚 us is for some exhibitionist to overpraise us. He's making me anti-Negro myself!"

But Friddy Spode was not forever to take over the bedeviling of the guests. The hostess, Mrs. Marl, may not have been trained on the Left Bank, but her natural capacity for making reasonableness sound disgusting was even greater than Friddy's. It was just that she had been slow in starting, tonight, but, after enough drinks, she caught up.

In Grand 共和国 we do not say that a lady is a 悪名高い drunkard. We say that she "enjoys a little 阻止する now and then." Diantha had enjoyed a number of 阻止するs, big and little, and she suddenly took the lead over Friddy.

She managed to annoy the two guests, 裁判官 Cass Timberlane and Mrs. Shelley Buncer, who, by talking together in a corner and not listening to Friddy, had escaped going mad. Diantha （機の）カム up to them and 嘆く／悼むd, with all the woe of the world in her 発言する／表明する, "Really, I did think I could count on you two to show a little ありふれた 儀礼 to our poor guests of 栄誉（を受ける）! There's Mr. Kingsblood and poor Dr. Dash having to stand up, while you two 独占する these 議長，司会を務めるs!"

Cass got his wife and went home at once. Mrs. Buncer （警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域 him by two stairs and one yelp.

Then Diantha got Ash to herself, and cozily complained to him, for the 利益 of twenty onlisteners, "Dr. Dash, I have a bone to 選ぶ with you! Why don't you tell these colored women not to try and talk like us? It's too 混乱させるing. When I got your wife on the phone—and I must say she took her own 甘い time answering it!—I thought she must be some white lady, and I got all balled up. Of course you know I adore Negresses and think they're very artistic, but honest-物陰／風下, they 港／避難所't got any 権利 to throw us off like that!"

She took in Neil then:

"All you colored people sing spirituals so beautifully. It's the high point of American art. So now you two boys go ahead and sing us some spirituals...Shut up everybody, will you! These colored fellows are going to do some spirituals."

"Don't know any," growled Neil.

Ash Davis had a wistful love for spirituals, and he did not ーするつもりである to parade them for drunken whites. To him they meant that half of his ancestors who had been Negro and Indian limping on the old 追跡する of かわき and horror, singing low that they might not whimper. He said, "Thank you, but I'm rather ignorant of them, and I'm afraid I'll have to slip away now, Mrs. Marl."

Diantha broke into a 広大な and アル中患者 pity for herself, and her cultured accent slipped 支援する into the ancestral shanty across the 跡をつけるs, as she wept, "I wonner if you preshate what I—tried—oh—tried s' hard do f' you darkies, sevenin'?"

*

Lucian Firelock and his wife were there, and it was she who ぱたぱたするd, "I'm a real Southern woman, Mr. Kingsblood, but I want to shout 権利 out that Dr. Davis has been our best neighbor in Grand 共和国, the nicest to our children, and I'm just mad—I'm not sure what I'm わびるing about, but I sure am doing it!"

What worried Neil was that after their introduction, Vestal and Ash had not spoken again. On the way home, he said anxiously to Vestal, "What did you think of Dr. Davis?"

"Who? Dr. Davis? Which one was he?"

If there was any sequel at all to the 事例／患者 of the Drunken Hostess, it was that Neil was driven into violently embracing his crusade. It was his bride, his sword, his 栄冠を与える, his 天罰（を下す）, his victory, his 敗北・負かす. It was his busy little fad and it was his 祈り and his madness, his crucifixion and his glory.

一時期／支部 48

They were at home, snug against the evening of March 勝利，勝つd, and Biddy was singing herself to sleep upstairs, when the 近隣 委員会 rang and marched in. They were four solid 国民s and their resolute look 示すd that they preferred to be courteous, but they were going to be hard.

They were Former 市長 Stopple, Former Friends Don Pennloss and Judd Browler, and Mr. W. S. Vander, ex-lumberjack, who had carried into his 卸売 板材-商売／仕事 the good old methods of 注目する，もくろむ-gouging and spiked boot, and who was as 厳しい and honest as 法案 Stopple was 悪賢い and crooked.

All of them arranged their grins and, except the 堅い Mr. Vander, sat on the 辛勝する／優位s of their 議長，司会を務めるs. In that cheerful room, they seemed as out of place as so many shiny-黒人／ボイコット bull-fish. Neil stood by the fireplace and Vestal, at her small white desk, frigidly played with a lavender quill-pen.

As Gruppenfuhrer, Honorable Stopple emitted, between throat-struggles, "Folks, some time ago I told you about a dandy little house I could show you on Canoe 高さs. My, is that a 見解（をとる）!"

"What do you want? Come to the point!" Vestal snapped.

"At your service, Ma'am, and may I say that there is no one who has a greater 賞賛 for your father than I have?"

"You may, if you feel you have to."

Honorable Stopple was becoming irritated by this ingratitude. Was he not here unselfishly, on に代わって of the public weal? Nobody loved a public weal more than Honorable Stopple, but he did want a little credit for it. On the surface, however, he still held that noble 静める of a man who is always looking for 投票（する）s and quick turnovers.

"I shall always 受託する your judgment, Ma'am. Now I have been somewhat 関心d over the thought that you folks may not be altogether happy here." Vander grunted. "I think we may call Sylvan Park the highest type of 居住の 新規加入, without 過度の valuations, but I must say, 残念に, that there is a lot of social prejudice here. 本人自身で, my motto is live and let live. Whether the 原因（となる） of this 地元の prejudice is some 欠如（する） in our 宗教的な training, I would not 推定する to say. As a layman, I feel that it is impossible for us to comprehend the 仕事 of the clergyman, and it ill behooves us—"

"Will you please stop admiring your philosophy, and get to work?" Vestal was snarling now. Neil was looking appraisingly at a large and chunky vase.

"I certainly will, Ma'am! Lots of folks around here don't want colored neighbors, and that's the clux or the 手がかり（を与える） or whatever it is of the whole 事柄! They can't understand that it isn't Neil's fault that he's colored. But there you are: a sort of what you might call a growing 憤慨 against you folks. And so maybe you would be happier in some other 近隣...and a whole lot safer!"

He was too level-発言する／表明するd for Vestal to go on 存在 pert, and he continued more blandly:

"Mr. Berthold Eisenherz, who once owned all this 所有物／資産／財産, a very 罰金 man, is willing to take your place 支援する at just what Neil paid for it, 人物／姿／数字ing that 価値低下 on the house and any 評価 on the lot will just about balance. This seems to me a very generous 申し込む／申し出, very, and may I 投機・賭ける to advise you—"

"Mr. Stopple, we had this all out before," said Vestal. "You don't 本気で 推定する／予想する us to listen, do you?"

Don Pennloss （機の）カム in. "Look, Vestal, we are here more as friends of yours than as 権限を与えるd 代表者／国会議員s of the 所有物／資産／財産-支えるもの／所有者s. But we are that, too."

Judd Browler blurted, "Neil, you got no idea how we've worked to keep 確かな neighbors from—井戸／弁護士席—論証するing. They're fed up. You can't go on fooling with them. They 簡単に will not 許容する a 非，不，無-Caucasian living here and lowering the social トン of the community."

Honorable Stopple said, "I hate to think of what some of the hotheads might do—charivaris that would 脅す your 甘い little girl—and worse."

"市長, I just don't like ゆすり，恐喝. Or blackmailers," said Neil, and Vestal nodded.

Then Vander got to work. Mr. Vander had not gone to school with dear Neil nor gone to parties nor played ホッケー with him. He was twenty years older, and all his salad days had been pork-and-beans days and he had been in the Big 支持を得ようと努めるd, 氷点の half the time and getting warm by fighting with axe-扱うs the other half. He loved both his family and his 投資s and he did not love Negroes or anybody who was not a Vander. He had a flat 長，率いる, a 嵐の jaw, a 安定した, blue 注目する，もくろむ, and no sentimental 反対s to clubs, ropes, 解雇する／砲火／射撃, or 後援s under the nails. He was a good 卸売-板材 売買業者, but he might have been a good sea captain, 首相, executioner or 中尉／大尉／警部補-general, and he barked now as one with 当局, so that Prince woke up, under the couch, and barked 支援する, and Vestal rose, to walk across the room and stand beside Neil.

"ゆすり，恐喝, hell!" said Mr. Vander. "It's going to be a lot worse than ゆすり，恐喝. You folks 明らかに got no idea how sore people are at having niggers 権利 in their 前線 yard. I know I am! I get damn sick and tired of 支払う／賃金ing my 税金s 権利 on the dot and then finding some Christ-forsaken Spig or Wop or Kike or Dinge—"

"Careful of the language, ol' man!" tittered Stopple.

"Oh, these niggers are used to any 肉親，親類d of language."

Vestal, her 手渡す on Neil's arm, 抑制するd him, and now she laughed at a 確かな wistfulness in Mr. Vander:

"Honestly, I'm getting fed to the gills on having the boys downtown rib me all the time! 'So you're living in a nigger 近隣, now—ain't a nigger yourself, are you?' they say—you know, kidding. One time in Chicago, I heard a workman—some 肉親，親類d of city work he was on, where they had some 向こうずねs doing clerical work, and he was grousing, 'It just 自然に makes me sore to see a nigger sitting at a desk while I have to stand up with a shovel.' Say, I know just how he felt! Makes me sore and it ain't 権利 to see you darkies living as nice as I do myself, after all the hard work I put in to get where I am. By God, that ain't 司法（官） and by God I ain't going to have it!"

Stopple ballooned up again, lovely silken pear-形態／調整, glittering and yellow, 十分な of gas, always going up and 崩壊（する）ing and surprised about it. "Now, now, Brother Vander, you must of got out of bed on the wrong 味方する, this morning. But Neil, it was pretty foolish of you to talk about 'ゆすり，恐喝.' I must say, I never heard of a blackmailer that did the 支払う／賃金ing!

"Nothing could be more friendly than we are. I said to my wife, 'Pauline, I never 推定する／予想するd Mr. Eisenherz to be that generous. He's a 外交官 and a swell,' I told her, 'but just the same,' I said, 'you scratch an Eisenherz and you find a tightwad, no 事柄 how many French 絵s he buys, or what have you,' I said, and to tell you the truth, Neil, I was 簡単に astonished, and I hope my 影響（力） may have had something to do with it, when he come 権利 out and was willing to refund the 十分な 購入（する）-price, cash on the nail, and no if and or but about it. So, if you take his 申し込む／申し出, you won't be one cent out of pocket. But mind you, the next time a 委員会 calls on you, maybe it won't be this same 委員会, and maybe they won't be so friendly, and maybe you'll be only too glad to sell for one 鯨 of a lot いっそう少なく dough."

Vander growled, "Maybe you'll be glad to get away with a whole hide, and no dough at all!"

"I am going to 攻撃する，衝突する him!" Neil 明言する／公表するd to Vestal.

"No! That's what this fellow wants!"

Vander chuckled. "Sure, let's have a little hitting, Kingsblood, a little 活動／戦闘!"

Vestal's 手渡す was 会社／堅い on Neil's arm.

Stopple oiled them, "Now, now, you boys be good. We're talking 商売／仕事! So, Neil, after another twenty-four hours, my 申し込む／申し出 will be lower, a lot lower, but 一方／合間 you can get me on the phone any time, night or day...井戸／弁護士席, gentlemen, I think it's all perfectly （疑いを）晴らす now, but I don't want to go without 保証するing Neil and his good lady that they have our heartiest good wishes. Good night—good night! This way, gentlemen."

*

Vestal embraced him. "Oh, my darling, darling Neil! I'm getting it through my 厚い 長，率いる now what it's all about. Never mind those shirttail Nazis. We'll stick 権利 here."

"You realize 堅い things could happen?"

"Hallelujah!"

The ghost of Sophie Concord smiled on Neil with a wistful benediction and was gone.

He complained, "Why didn't you let me 攻撃する，衝突する Vander?"

"They'd have had you 逮捕（する）d, and that would get in the papers and make a lovely 事例／患者 against us. Besides," judiciously, "I think probably Mr. Vander would have licked you, and I don't want to have you beaten up. I need you around. Oh, Neil, we'll live now, even if we die from it!"

一時期／支部 49

But next morning Neil felt low and 冷淡な as he tramped the streets, trying not to slip on the ice. He could not afford to break his 脚s now; they had to carry him until he could find a 職業.

And suddenly, that March day, he had a 職業.

He had gone into the 設立 of Brandl: The Beltrami Avenue Florist to see if he could buy a crocus or two for Vestal. The little old Bavarian, Ulrich Brandl, who in grander days had sold him orchids (white scarf and white kid gloves and Vestal's smile and glitter and all the white man's memories), あられ／賞賛するd him cozily:

"Ah, Captain, let me have the 楽しみ to give you this small bunch of crocuses. I have heard about your braveness. I understand it, for I was born a German and, though I hated Hitler and all 圧迫, and though I have been a good American for thirty-five years, when I come in a saloon for my glass of beer, I hear 確かな fellows say, 'The only good German is a dead German.' All prejudice is one. Could I shake your 手渡す?"

"You wouldn't happen to have a 職業 for me, would you?"

"That also, perhaps. I would be flattered if you worked for me."

So Neil became a florist's clerk, probably knowing いっそう少なく about flowers and the freshening of them and their packing than anybody except 切り開く／タクシー／不正アクセス Riley of Mayo Street. But he was 熱心な, and the 顧客s did not 示す that they were を受けるing any horrors in 存在 waited upon by a Negro. The ジャングル dampness of the shop, the gilded tinfoil, the piles of unwrinkled tissue paper, were relaxing, after miles of factories and the hard 議長，司会を務めるs outside the boss's office.

All day long he argued mildly with Mr. Brandl, who inveighed against all prejudices and superstitions, and himself, it 証明するd, was prejudiced against nothing except Englishmen, Jews, Brazilians, Irishmen, Presbyterians, Mormons, chewing-gum, sunflowers, Heinrich Heine, and two-door クーデターs.

But Neil could not, on his 年金 and his 試験的な salary at Brandl's, keep up the home which had become his extreme symbol of dignity and independence. He must turn to—what?

Then he was betrayed from inside.

*

He had never, of late, やめる known what to do about his family, and he regarded them with a wry mixture of humor and deepest 犯罪. He dropped in to see his mother and Joan two or three times a week and 設立する them becoming hermits. He told himself that it was not he but superstition that had made them "Negroes," but the argument did not relieve him much nor relieve them at all.

His sister, Kitty Sayward, had nothing for him now but a "Yes, what is it?" One member of the family, Cousin Pat Saxinar, had taken the whole 商売／仕事 adventurously, perhaps 喜んで. She had gone to live in a 解決／入植地-house in the 南西 End, and was busy there and seemingly content—a good woman as only a good woman can be good.

But Neil had to 避ける Brother Robert's house, because of the 憤慨 of his sister-in-法律, Alice, 支援するd by her brother Harold W. Whittick. She was a bad woman as only a good woman can be bad. In March, she 告訴するd Robert for 離婚, for cruelty, humiliation, and deceit in not having, before their marriage, told her that he was "colored."

When Neil brought the news to Vestal, she hesitated. She did not look so disgusted as a man would have liked, but finally she 達成するd:

"Oh, 井戸／弁護士席, Alice always was one of these what-do-I-get-out-of-it wives. And all her 親族s were 大打撃を与えるing at her to leave him. I know. My father and sister 行為／法令／行動する as if I were a 反逆者 to them because I don't leave you. But so far, I've 続けざまに猛撃するd them 負かす／撃墜する. I can't seem to get you out of my heart and soul and flesh. Oh, Neil!"

It was like one of the moments 早期に in marriage when, without 予選, they had suddenly 手配中の，お尋ね者 each other. He could feel the intensity in her, and while her 注目する，もくろむs were smiling on him, utterly concentrated on him, she panted and her lips were わずかに open. He moved の近くに to her, and the two 団体／死体s 圧力（をかける）d together, as though they had wills of their own.

He knew that she had unconsciously eaten up the myth that all Negroes, even deskmen and 緊張するd and nervous scholars, are superior 性の animals and that her 新たにするd passion was all self-deception, that she was 存在 侵害する／違反するd by a son of Xavier Pic who did not really 存在する. But he could not feel that this was the moment for disquisitions on psychology, as he kissed her and she slowly sighed.

*

If she was going to be loyal, he thought, she must take her place with Martha Davis and Corinne Brewster. With a 完全にする wife, an adoring child, a friend like Ash, and with Vestal and Martha become friends, what more could a man have?

He 前進するd his 願望（する） to have Ash and Martha here for dinner. Vestal moved uneasily. "Do you think that would be wise? I have no 疑問 they're very 罰金 people, but wouldn't they be embarrassed? Would it be 肉親，親類d to them?"

"Ash is a distinguished 化学者／薬剤師, and after dining with Sorbonne professors at the Ritz, in Paris, I guess they won't wilt before the 高級なs of this house!"

"Don't roar at me! By all means have them, if you 主張する. But how do you know they ever dined with any professors at any Ritz? Do they 誇る of things like that?"

"Ash and Martha have never 誇るd about anything! About the Ritz—I'm just imagining—"

"Why should your Sorbonne professors want to dine with Dr. Davis? Is he that big a 化学者／薬剤師? And if he is, why should he want to dine with us? All the chemistry we know is that salt isn't any good in coffee."

"I tell you, I'm not thinking of him as a 化学者／薬剤師."

"You didn't tell me, but never mind that."

"I think of him as about the most charming man I know."

"You forget that I met him. He seemed a nice, civil person, but I didn't notice that he was so reeking with charm."

"井戸／弁護士席, maybe you would have, if you'd looked at him carefully."

"N' 疑問, n' 疑問. 井戸／弁護士席, we'll have them here, and I'll look at 'em both carefully!"

No, the augury was not good. And Ash said, when he was 招待するd by telephone, "Are you 確かな that Mrs. Kingsblood would like to have us?"

*

The Davises （機の）カム, 井戸／弁護士席-dressed, soft-発言する／表明するd, attentive, everything perfect except that they never were really there. Most of the time, they spoke only in 返答 to whatever Vestal might 申し込む／申し出, and as there was very little 申し込む／申し出ing, there was very little 答える／応じるing. Neil had to make talk for all of them, but he was not 特に inventive.

Vestal was dreadful. She was too polite; she agreed with everything, without listening to what she was agreeing with.

"I guess the 大統領 is having やめる a little trouble with all these strikes," Neil tried.

"Yes, that's so and—Strikes, did you say?" mumbled Vestal.

"Oh, yes—strikes," Ash 達成するd.

Before dinner, Ash and Martha had obediently taken cocktails, but they never やめる finished them. "Just like poor relations—懐柔的な," Vestal spitefully muttered to Neil. He had done the ordering and laid the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する, but she had cooked the dinner herself and, not listening to Martha's shy 申し込む／申し出 to help, she served it, with a look which said to Neil, "Are you 満足させるd, my lord, now that you see me 謙虚に waiting on these dark 侵入者s?"

When the conversation had almost swooned and died, and no one took up any of Neil's 発言／述べるs about airplane service and the Junior College basketball team, Ash straightened up and began to talk, as an 専門家, about the 未来 of plastics.

"They're almost too practical," he said. "We shall have bedrooms for a fairy princess, with 隠すd lights and transparent beds and cupboards—it will make all the previous 目だつ waste look utilitarian."

"I take it you don't 認可する of people having pretty things," said Vestal, and that killed that.

When they were drinking coffee in the living-room and everybody was 苦しむing and waiting for the end of the bad farce, Biddy （機の）カム 負かす／撃墜する in pajamas, やめる illicitly. She stood in 前線 of Ash, looked polite and solicitous, and 詠唱するd, "Oh, your 直面する is dirty!"

Even Vestal was shocked, but Ash smiled, with "No, that's just my tan, young lady."

"Did you go to Florida and get tanned? My dolls have just been to Florida. They stayed at Palm Beach and they said it was very expensive. Or did you drink too much coffee? My mummy says if I drink coffee before I'm sixteen, I'll get all brown, too. My, I wouldn't like to be all brown. Don't you mind 存在 all brown?"

She said it with the liveliest 利益／興味 and, ignoring the signals from her mother's shaking 長，率いる, she はうd into Martha's （競技場の）トラック一周 and 残り／休憩（する）d her 長，率いる against Martha's shoulder.

So Vestal was altogether too 有望な and jolly about it.

Ash looked at her more 刻々と than before, then ちらりと見ることd at Biddy with a 質 of pure love, and Ash said, "No, baby, I wouldn't mind 存在 永久的に tanned if there weren't so many people that can't seem to stand the sun. They like cellars and anemia better."

"What's denemia?" 需要・要求するd Biddy.

Vestal did a Viennese operetta in the jocundity with which she caroled, "Now dearest, you skip up to bed and don't bother Dr. and Mrs.—uh—Davis."

*

The guests managed to get away without 暴力／激しさ.

Vestal sobbed, "Oh, I know, I know I was horrid, but Neil, I just can't do it. I don't mind your 存在 a Negro—because I don't think you really are—I think there's a trick in it. But I can't stand them, or any other colored people, and there's no use my trying."

"You listen here!"

"Don't 叫び声をあげる."

"How can I help it? Nobody could have been more 井戸／弁護士席 bred and intelligent than Ash and Martha, if you'd given them a chance—"

"That's the trouble! I've been brought up to believe that darkies are funny people, dancing and laughing and 説, 'Oh, thank you, 行方不明になる Vestal, ma'am, you white folks is sure wonderful to us poor coons.' But this Davis sketch thinks I'm just another 女性（の） that's dumb about chemistry and 経済的なs. Cellar and anemia indeed! Oh, I know I'm 不当な, but my heart isn't in it. And my heart has to be in anything I do now, because I'm going to have another baby."

*

When Neil had 完全に betrayed all his 苦悩 by trying to sound delighted, Vestal said 厳粛に, "Let's not have any guff about welcoming this little stranger. I hate it, oh, I 簡単に hate it! I've been longing all day to escape somewhere where nobody knows me. I can't stand giving birth to a Negro baby! Somehow Biddy doesn't seem like one—I'm sure she isn't. But now to have a 黒人／ボイコット baby—I can't do it. I want an abortion, and I don't want one and I won't have one, and I'm nearly crazy!"

She sobbed all night. Biddy （機の）カム anxiously in to see "what she could do for poor Mummy," and Neil lay on the other bed and 星／主役にするd at the rolling films of light thrown on the 天井 by passing cars.

一時期／支部 50

She was the Little Woman of the Ages, very pleasant and 肉親，親類d, helpful to the ambitions of her husband and the boys, and many of them were very bad ambitions. She made cookies for the 近隣 children and listened 情愛深く to foolish serials on the 無線で通信する; she was a good church-労働者 and a willing neighbor. She believed everything that her 大臣, her 下院議員 and the secret anarch who invents the fashions in shoes and cosmetics told her, and it is she who has licensed and 正当化するd all the ravenous armies, all the pompous churches and 法廷，裁判所s and universities and good society, all the wars and 悲惨 since time was.

The Little Woman of the Ages spoke, and she said, "I don't know anything about anthropology and ethnology and biology and all that silly highbrow junk, and you can say what you like and 引用する all these long 調書をとる／予約するs, but I tell you there's a darky family lives 権利 負かす／撃墜する the alley from us where they keep goats, and I know and I'm telling you that the darkies are inferior to us, and I'm not going to have 'em working in any 蓄える／店 or bank or office where I have to go. I'm sure I wish 'em all the good luck in the world, as long as they stay in their places. And folks that say the colored folks are just like you and me—why should I 支払う／賃金 any attention to ignorant talk like that—they don't really believe a word they say.

"I am the Little Woman of the Ages, and my dainty foot is upon all 王位s and swords and mitres; for my nice little 発言する／表明する are all songs made, and for my delight on lonely evenings all stories told; nations shall not 組み立てる／集結する nor men and women love nor labor save by such 社債s and 儀式s and complexions as are 認可するd in the 宗教上の 法律s that I learned from my father, who was a wonderful man, and if he were alive today, he 簡単に would not stand for all this nonsense that a lot of irresponsible people seem to be spreading around, and who learned the 法律s from his mother who had them from her 牧師 who had them from his bishop who had them from his mother who had them from her spiritualist medium to whom they were 手渡すd during a trance in which the medium talked with God in person.

"You can say what you like, but Italians are tricky and Okies are shiftless and Negroes are lazy and Jews are too smart and a world-政府 is against human nature and against all the 原則s laid 負かす／撃墜する by George Washington, and I don't want to hear any more such wicked nonsense, and I, who am Hertha and Isis and Ashtaroth and the 記録，記録的な／記録するing 長官 of the D.A.R., 布告する that when all civilization flattens out in the 全世界の／万国共通の propriety of death, then everything will be nice and respectable everywhere, and there won't be any more of this trying to be smart and show off with such silly talk, and now let's have another nice cup of coffee and say nothing more about it."

一時期／支部 51

Ash said on the telephone, "No, I thought your wife was very pleasant, last evening—trying her best to be natural with us. You must 推定する／予想する her to take a long time before she 受託するs Negroes as normal. I've tried to do the same thing for forty years, and I'm still a little bewildered to find that I'm not an American 国民 or a father or a 化学者／薬剤師 but a Negro. And now, forget all that, because something very dangerous is starting."

So Ash gave him the first news of the Sant Tabac.

When Neil had 急ぐd home after work, to 問い合わせ how Vestal felt—she just felt like Vestal, and she was irritated that he should 主張する on her feeling any other way—he telephoned to Evan Brewster, to 対処する Anderson, and put together his （警察などへの）密告，告訴（状）:

The Sant Tabac was a new organization, 設立するd in Grand 共和国 and likely to spread to other Northern cities. It was a 共謀 to 運動 as many Negroes as possible 支援する South. To 見込みのある members who thought that it 似ているd the Ku Klux Klan, the 組織者s explained, "No, there is to be no 暴力／激しさ whatever. In fact, we want to 保護する the colored people—from their own leaders, who'd like to get them into 暴動s, to please the Kremlin. We won't stand for any lynchings, or even any beatings—not unless the mokes 行為／法令／行動する 汚い and rile the 警官，（賞などを）獲得するs. Our 政策 is 完全に benevolent and 建設的な: to get all the niggers that have grabbed off white men's 職業s in the North 解雇する／砲火／射撃d, and no new ones 雇うd."

There was a 広大な／多数の／重要な 取引，協定 of wit and archness in this （選挙などの）運動をする for 経済的な 殺人. The 指名する Sant Tabac was made from the 初期の letters in their スローガン: "Stop all Negro trouble, take 活動／戦闘 before any comes." The first 始める，決める of officers were Mr. Wilbur Feathering, who was "Big Havana," Mr. William Stopple, "Little Havana," Mr. Randy Spruce, "Penatela"—not Panatela—while the treasurer, or "Ole Leather Pouch," was Mr. Norton Trock of the Blue Ox 国家の Bank. の中で the directors were 市長 Ed Fleeron, Dr. Cortez Kelly, and the Reverend Dr. Jat Snood.

The Peter the Hermit of the order was Feathering, but the whimsy in the 肩書を与えるs and 指名する were from Randy and that 支持する of Modern Art in Advertising, Mr. Harold W. Whittick, whose merry notion it had been to invent a Portuguese island called Sant Tabac, where タバコ had been discovered and all colored peoples had been banned.

Many of the 改革運動家s were wearing a button 描写するing a 麻薬を吸う-smoking 修道士, but their 業績／成就s were いっそう少なく playful than their ritual, for the members were solid men of 事件／事情／状勢s, and if the 地元の peerage, as 会社にする／組み込むd in the 連邦の Club, were above joining, they did 与える／捧げる. The leaders were trusty, swift and 隠しだてする men, given to 戦略. And everything they did was known to the Negro world before it was known to the members. Randy Spruce's office, where the 計画（する）s were made, was in the Blue Ox Bank Building, and Cloat Windeck, the father of Phil, was 長，率いる elevator man at that building and in 告発（する），告訴（する）／料金 of all waste paper.

Evan Brewster 示唆するd to Randy Spruce that the members would save money if Negroes were 受託するd as 労働者s instead of 存在 expensively 刑務所，拘置所d or 入院させるd, but Randy had no time to waste in listening to a blatherskite preacher.

The Sant Tabac, however earnest, cannot be credited with all the 発射する／解雇するs of Negroes in Grand 共和国. The return of the white 兵士s, the strikes, the 転換 of factories from 戦車／タンクs to suspender buckles, and the general 有罪の判決, richly cultivated by the 無線で通信する and the comic （土地などの）細長い一片, that all Negroes are amusing but bungling fools, were greater elements, but all of them worked sweetly together to start the 疫病／流行性の of 解雇する／砲火／射撃ing Negro 労働者s, which began on All Fools Day.

It began at Wargate's, with the letting out of two hundred brown-肌 労働者s.

The 管理／経営 explained to them that they were 存在 sent 支援する to the breadlines 単独で because, with war 製造（する） ended, Wargate's had to の近くに several departments 完全に.

Some of these departments were opened again in a couple of weeks, with new 任命s and with all-white 労働者s.

The Five Points was 確かな that, by the end of the year, all of the Negroes working for Wargate's would be 解任するd. The 発射する／解雇するd men stood about on corners, not parading, homeless, 脅すd, swapping （警察などへの）密告，告訴（状） about mythical towns in which, "fellow told me they're 雇うing spooks now."

One of the six hundred Negroes working for Wargate's was a 化学者／薬剤師 指名するd Ash Davis.

*

Ash said cheerfully to Martha and Neil, "If I get 解雇する／砲火／射撃d, I can probably get twenty a week 前線ing for some hair-straightener."

The naive Neil marveled, "Wargate's can't let you go. Why, they'll make hundreds of thousands of dollars out of your 発見s."

"They will, but they don't know it. They think I'm just fooling around at pure 研究. The South made tens of millions out of Carver's 発見s about the lowly peanut, but they still made him use the 支援する door. You whites are idealists. You put 原則 above mere money-grubbing—the 原則 of hate of the unknown. However. Wargate's might keep me on as a 床に打ち倒す-掃海艇. I'm a neat 掃海艇."

"Or," Martha said cheerfully, "you might become a red cap and carry baggage, like most of our people that finish 卒業生（する） school."

"Not a chance. The Ph.D.'s that get taken on as red caps have to speak at least seven languages, and I speak only three."

Then Drexel Greenshaw walked in on them. "Heard about the 解雇する／砲火／射撃ing at Wargate's?" said Ash.

Drexel was pontifical. "自然に, but I'm not as worried as you young people. I've seen too many 始める，決める-支援するs for our race. And you must ask yourselves if this really is as unfortunate as some say. Remember that the folks who are 存在 let out are mostly these new colored fieldhands that have just come up from the Southern backwoods—lot of ignorant, rude, money-wasting hicks—typical 移民，移住（する）s, I'd call 'em. All the old-timers, like Al Woolcape and me, have 苦しむd a lot from having the white folks think we're like those cattle. Oh, I'm sorry for them, but they better go 支援する South, where they belong."

"I'm an 移民，移住（する）, too," Ash pointed out.

"You're different. You belong."

"To what? I'd like to find out!"

Drexel 拡大するd, "The white folks are only too glad to have colored gentlemen like you and me working for 'em. Mr. Tartan says to me, 'Mister Greenshaw, I don't know how we could ever run the Feesoly Room and 満足させる our high-class clienteel without you. 'I try to do my best,' I says to him, and he says, 'I know you do, and we 高く評価する／（相場などが）上がる it.'

"Why, I 人物／姿／数字 some of my best friends are white folks. Mind you, I'm no Uncle Tom. They got to 扱う／治療する me dignified. You young people don't understand white psychology. If you make yourself 価値のある to 'em, they'll 扱う／治療する you more than square, and if they been getting 肉親，親類d of prejudiced against us, it's the fault of the 黒人／ボイコット trash. Why, years ago here, we all got along real nice with the whites. My girls were brought up to play with real nice white kids, and when I went to church, I was 扱う／治療するd like any other communicant. But the white folks are disgusted with these rug-切断機，沿岸警備艇s and 悪賢い-chicks that try to 行為／法令／行動する like they're the same as white folks. All the whites ask of us is humility, and that's one of the best Bible virtues, ain't it?"

They did not listen; they had heard it all from Drexel Greenshaw before. They were fond of the 築く old man, the father of their friend Cynthia Woolcape; the gentlemen's gentlemen's gentleman, the Southern 陸軍大佐s' Southern sergeant.

*

That week a Negro 退役軍人 was lynched in the 深い South.

From the Mississippi Delta to the Howard 法律 School to the clubs of Harlem ran a shudder and a mutter, "Next time it could be me," and dark 共産主義者 and 根本主義 were 部隊d as they looked quickly 支援する on the streets at night. Ash Davis as despairingly as Sugar Gowse, Drexel Greenshaw and Dr. Darius Melody along with 切り開く／タクシー／不正アクセス Riley, heard the horror within hours after it had happened, and they cried "How long, O Lord?" and not meekly. And a Negro 指名するd Neil Kingsblood looked at his wife in honest terror and shivered, "It could be us and here and now."

*

More of the 黒人／ボイコット 労働者s were 解任するd every day by Wargate's and the smaller 会社／堅いs. Every day the Mayo Street corners were more packed, the 不平（をいう）ing いっそう少なく amiable, and so the canny 当局 sent in more policemen—and so the policemen were 石／投石するd now and then—and so they sent in still more policemen—and so one Negro was 発射 and four were 逮捕（する）d—and so a two-by-four was dropped from a third story upon a policeman's 長，率いる—and so Feathering said, "I told you so; join the Sant Tabac"—and so there were 加速するd 解雇／（訴訟の）却下s of Negroes from Wargate's, from the Aurora Coke Company, from the Kippery Knitting 作品, from the 穀物-負担ing ギャング（団）s at the elevators, from the 鉄道／強行採決する car-shops—and so the street-corner ギャング（団）s became more ugly—and so more policemen were sent in per omnia saecula saeculorum.

の中で the white labor-union leaders, a third 抗議するd, a third said nothing, and a third rejoiced.

And then, with a handsome letter from Duncan Browler about his work, Ash Davis was 解雇する／砲火／射撃d.

There had been no 警告. The letter was を待つing him when he （機の）カム home on a Friday evening. When he had read it, Ash lost, for an hour, his 宙に浮く as a skeptical man of the world, and became a 脅すd and belligerent workman out of work.

He wrote to a number of 会社／堅いs in the East which knew his ability. They answered that there were so many white 化学者／薬剤師s returning from the wars and, besides, maybe their 現在の staff might 反対する to working with a 非，不，無-Caucasian.

Anyway, chirped he to Martha, he would prefer teaching to working in another 商業の house.

He could get no 任命 in any white college, 含むing one that had ーするつもりであるd to give him an 名誉として与えられる degree. There were a few, an 増加するing group, of Negroes on university staffs, but Ash did not have that luck. The college 大統領，／社長s lovingly answered—when they answered at all—that while they had no "prejudices," not one prejudice, all of their 現在の 禁止（する）d of hope and light were likely to 反対する to working with a brownskin.

Months later, after he had gone to New York, Ash was sold 負かす／撃墜する the river to a small Negro college in the 深い South, salary $1800 a year and a house, only there wasn't any house yet.

Then Phil Windeck lost his 職業 at the garage.

Then Drexel Greenshaw lost his 職業.

一時期／支部 52

Glenn Tartan called in Drexel Greenshaw, and tittered, "I've got some bad news to tell you, old man, and I want you to know that it isn't in any way my fault. The owners have decided to change our 政策 and 雇う only white help in the dining-rooms and so I'm afraid—But we all wish you the very best of luck, and I've dictated a letter of 推薦 that'll knock your 注目する，もくろむ out."

If the oratorical Drexel said anything now, it was not heard.

He tried to see the 長，指導者 owners of the Hotel Pineland, but they were too busy. They were Dr. Henry Sparrock and Mrs. Webb Wargate, who was everywhere known as a 広大な／多数の／重要な Friend of the Negro. Dr. Sparrock was busy （選挙などの）運動をするing for the Red Cross, and Mrs. Wargate for the 苦しむ the Little Children League.

Drexel こそこそ動くd 支援する to the three-room cottage which he 株d with his daughter Garnet, and for a week he was ashamed to leave it. The 堅い boys from Texas and Arkansas, kicked out of Wargate's and loafing around the 妨げる／法廷，弁護士業-B-Q, would have laughed at him.

Garnet said good-bye to Phil Windeck and went off to work in Chicago. Drexel sold his house, and lived with his other daughter, Mrs. Emerson Woolcape.

He tried not to, but he could not help 非難するing her cooking, her bed-making, and her care of the baby. He told himself—she did not tell him—that he would have to stay away from her house by day. He got a waiter's 職業 in a very 汚い hash-house, from which he was 発射する／解雇するd within a week, for 非難するing everything in sight, 含むing the overcharges. Albert Woolcape was willing to 始める，決める him up in a chicken-共同の of his own, but Drexel was suddenly afraid of 責任／義務.

For some months he sat on Emerson's porch, wondering whether the no-count white waiters now at the Fiesole Room would understand that Mr. Randy Spruce had to have four lumps in his coffee—things like that, which only Drexel understood.

Drexel died alone, suddenly, during a summer 雷雨. Garnet （機の）カム 支援する for his funeral, and gave up all notion of marrying Phil Windeck, who was running whisky into Oklahoma, in 共同 with Sugar Gowse. Garnet is now a civil-service stenographer in Chicago, lonely and chaste, she who was so 熟した for love.

When the Fiesole Room had changed to white waiters, Randy Spruce had made another 入ること／参加（者） in the Sant Tabac 調書をとる／予約するs, and chuckled. Poor dear fuzzy Randy, who was some day to be caught in a スキャンダル with a telephone 操作者 and to skip town. He did such a lot of evil, but all so innocently. If he had ever asked himself why he hated Negroes, he would probably have 設立する that he did not hate them. He had never really met one. He meant so 井戸／弁護士席. They say he has a wonderful 職業 now with the 原子の 爆弾 Perfume Company.

*

Select 部分s of that April might have been called spring, even in Grand 共和国. As he made pyramids of 早期に daffodils in the showcase, Neil whistled, with a feeling that he had never been anything but a 充てるd florist.

Mr. Brandl looked anxious over his morning mail and over a couple of unexplained telephone calls, during which he answered nothing but "Yes" and "I see." After scratching his 手渡すs and worrying his soft gray bush of hair, he trembled, "Neil, I keep 審理，公聴会 where you are a friend of a Dr. Davis, that is a very bad Negro agitator. I would like to stand by you, but I know from the war what tattle and 噂する can be like. I could lose all my 商売／仕事, and I have an old wife."

Neil sighed, "Okay, Ulrich, I やめる. Tell the Sant Tabac boys that you 解雇する／砲火／射撃d me."

Mr. Brandi 嘆く／悼むd, "I want to give you a lovely 言及／関連 for your next 職業."

What next 職業?

*

Vestal was not too astonished when he walked into the house before eleven in the morning, a man out of work. "元気づける up. I knew it would come. Now I'M going to get a 職業 myself, and keep it till Booker T. is about ready to arrive."

"How?"

"I've already talked with Levi Tarr, at the Emporium. I won't be on the 反対する at first, but in the 場内取引員／株価-room. And don't go getting proud and uxorious on me, and be 感情を害する／違反するd by my working. We have to have the money."

"I'm not going to get proud and what-is-it! I know we do."

After seeing 戦時 women in uniform, in 全体にわたるs, he was not so ashamed of letting her go to work as his father would have been, but he still had his young-white-gentleman worries:

"Will it be all 権利 for Booker T.?"

(They had never agreed on this working 肩書を与える for the coming baby, and neither of them really 認可するd of anything so flippant. It had chosen itself and it 固執するd.)

"Sure, he's a healthy little brute. And they have a doctor's office 権利 in the 蓄える／店."

"The other clerks will 疫病／悩ます you, as the wife of a colored man."

"Not me they won't! I'll 疫病／悩ます 支援する. I'm not tolerant like you, Captain! And your mother—she does 直面する things, when she has to—she's 約束d to fetch Biddy from 幼稚園 and keep her afternoons till I get 支援する. Oh, it won't be so bad. And some day—I've been thinking; all this prejudice against you 簡単に must 中止する. Isn't this the Land of the Noble 解放する／自由な? I hear so. In a couple years you'll be in the dough again, and I can stay home with Biddy and Booker and recline on my new chaise longue and say to my maid, very languid, 'Bring me my nail-polish, Anzolette, and just pop your 長，率いる out of the window, will you, and see if little Master Booker is playing around in his ヘリコプター.' Oh, Neil, Neil, he will be white then, when all this is over, he will be white, won't he!"

She did go to work at Tarr's. 明らかに she was quick and competent, and soon she was selling furniture, on which she was an 専門家—by a Sylvan Park 基準. 明らかに no one dared to mock her, twice.

Neil rose before seven, got her breakfast, いじめ（る）d Biddy into 再開するing the 重荷（を負わせる）s of life, waved good-bye to the family 行う-earner when she hurried off, washed the dishes and swept the house, took Biddy to 幼稚園. But instead of feeling degraded and made small, he was pleased that he could do this little for Vestal, and pleased that there was this one place where he could work without rebuke for 存在 黒人／ボイコット.

It was when he trudged out to look for more virile labor, like making 人物／姿／数字s in large 調書をとる／予約するs and 説, "The 割引 率 is one and a ４半期/4分の1 per cent.," that he was dreary; it was when he abandoned the 避難 of home to go and be dutiful to the other members of his family that he was helpless. His brother Robert hated him, had 辞職するd his 職業 and was going off to anonymity in Chicago even before he should be 離婚d.

いつかs Neil could work up a little 激怒（する） in his own 弁護. Why couldn't his family 収容する／認める that they were, by the very 鮮明度／定義s they had all 持続するd, Negroes, and 直面する the world with Negro courage, not with the white mythology about the delights of 排除的 clubs and polite churches and 招待s to dull houses? Was this structure of anxious jealousies, this "good society," so precious that, in losing it, his family had 苦しむd very picturesquely?

いつかs, aside from his mother, these people seemed not 関係のある to him at all. Much closer were not only Ash and Phil and Sophie but a youngster like Winthrop Brewster who, in the university, was 熟考する／考慮するing electricity and manners, teleology and basketball, Sibelius symphonies and dancing with girls of all colors, and who at 麻薬を吸う-fogged "bull 開会／開廷／会期s" spoke up as briskly as any of the collegians who were the sacred 子孫s of Norfolk hedgers, Killarney potato-diggers, Welsh 鉱夫s and French skunk-skinners. Why could Kitty and Charley Sayward not be as 現実主義の as this boy?

It was hard to be so 現実主義の himself as to 需要・要求する that Vestal 受託する the fact that her two children would be "colored," and learn to see all "colored" people as human. He was joyful when, on a Sunday morning, Vestal said 熱望して, "Know what I'm going to do? I'm going to take Biddy and go call on Dr. and Mrs. Davis." (She never did come to call them Ash and Martha.) "I want to have their little girl come play with Biddy some day."

"But Nora is almost ten years older than 企て，努力，提案."

She was touchy. "Of course if you don't want me to call on your—"

"No, no, no, no, I'd be delighted, and I do hope you'll come to like them. You know, don't you, that Ash has been 解雇する／砲火／射撃d?"

"So?"

She had no notion, 明確に, that Ash's 発射する／解雇する meant anything more to him than a like 当惑 to a white 化学者／薬剤師. Ash was still in town only to sell his house, with a choice between 存在 cheated by Frank Brightwing and gypped by William Stopple. He might not be in a mood to be patronized by Vestal, but she was so pleased with her own 決意／決議 that Neil tried to 元気づける it.

She would not let him go with them. She was 十分な of 企業 and benevolence, though Biddy did ruffle her by a 確かな over-enthusiasm about going to see "Uncle Ash and Aunt Martha and darling, darling Nora." Biddy had made 詳細（に述べる）d 計画（する）s for the 贈呈 of a play and a grand オペラ by herself and Nora (whom she had never seen), this coming summer, and when Neil explained that Nora would no longer be here, Biddy waved all such triviality away, as blithely arrogant as her mother.

—I guess that's all to the good. 企て，努力，提案 will be like Winthrop. She'll say, "Certainly I'm colored. I also have one crooked toe. So what!"

On that 冷淡な April afternoon, after lunch, Vestal started beamingly off for the bus, with Biddy prancing under the 骸骨／概要 maple trees. They were to be home at five. At a ４半期/4分の1 past four, they returned, silent.

"Don't be such a baby—take your own coat off, and skip upstairs and play," Vestal ordered Biddy, while Neil was rigid. His "井戸／弁護士席?" was 用心深い.

"If you must know, it didn't go so 井戸／弁護士席. Oh, they were just as pleasant as they could be, and they do have a nice house, but—Maybe it had nothing to do with their 存在 colored, maybe they're just too intelligent for me, but I caught myself wishing that I were at Judd Browler's, talking about vegetable gardens. And Nora was just too darned nice and patronizing to our poor moron child. Neil, are you so sure you really want me to try and feel natural with your highbrow buddies—all these Hindus and Koreans and Zionists and Nigerians? I do get so sick of 宣伝. I'm not sure I can do it, my dear. I'm not sure it will go. At all."

Neither was Neil.

*

Ash had not yet 設立する his teaching 職業 (he had given up calling it a college position), but he had sold his house through Frank Brightwing, who was very jovial about "you darkies" and had willingly 説得するd the purchaser to 支払う／賃金 almost half the value. Ash believed that 職業s would be more easily 設立する in the 教育の slave-market of New York, and he was leaving Grand 共和国—probably forever, lamented Neil.

Vestal said 突然の, No, she did not think she 手配中の，お尋ね者 to go with him to see the Davises off. Besides, she couldn't run away from her 職業 that way! Whether she meant to or not, it seemed to Neil that she was reminding him that she, the 悲劇の white woman, was toiling to support a 浮浪者 Negro, and that such heroism was too uncomfortable to last.

Grand 共和国 was proud of its new Union 駅／配置する and the waiting-room the 広大な／多数の／重要な Hall, of gray 石灰岩 with murals of the explorers Radisson and Groseilliers, David Thompson, Le Sueur, 中尉／大尉／警部補 Pike, the Sieur Dulhut. Neil plumed himself, "Xavier was one of those fellows. Biddy and I belong with them, not with the Prutts and Wargates—those parvenus!"

Not the 出発／死ing Ash himself had more greeters の中で the Negro （人が）群がる than Neil. How many of them he had come to know on first-指名する 条件 in these six months: all the Woolcapes and Davises and Brewsters, Phil Windeck—who was now a bootlegger and overdressed in zoot-控訴 fanciness, Axel Skagstrom, Borus Bugdoll, Wash, 切り開く／タクシー／不正アクセス Riley, Dr. Darius Melody, Sugar Gowse. As for Sophie, Neil twined his arm with hers so 自然に that he did not know he was doing it.

They were all crying to the Davises, "Gosh, we're going to 行方不明になる you, Professor," and "Kiss Harlem for me, Ash," and "Oh, Martha, we need you!" and "Oh, come 支援する soon, Nora." But as Ash turned away from them to go through the train gate, the portal through which he would never return, his 注目する，もくろむs had no hope in them. He was leaving not only his friends but the one place—in America—where, for a time, the whites had permitted him to pretend that he was a scientist and a responsible 国民.

The last thing Neil saw of Ash, as he started 負かす／撃墜する the stairs to the train-壇・綱領・公約 below, his 手渡す in Nora's, was the 陳謝 in his 直面する as a fat white woman 悪口を言う／悪態d him because she had jostled him.

Behind him Neil heard a white man explaining to a friend, "That guy they were 説 good-bye to was this educated nigger that was a draftsman or something at Wargate's. 井戸／弁護士席, every nigger that leaves here makes this burg just that much better!"

The two men laughed, for they did not hear the earth moving.

*

When the telephone rang, at home that evening, a woman's 発言する／表明する, 完全に unknown to him, said "Neilly?"

"Yes?"

"So your friend Ash has こそこそ動くd out of town and your friend Drexel got the axe. It'll be your turn soon, sweetie!"

"Who is this?"

"Don't you wish you knew! But I wouldn't want a bunch of niggers and perverts to know my nice 指名する! Say, is it true that Vestal has nigger 血, too, on her mother's 味方する? Why don't you two unspeakable 偽のs get out of town? Nobody wants you here!"

Neil hung up; he told Vestal nothing.

Later in the evening, when they were reading, he heard Vestal say, low and 緊急の, "Don't look up, but there's somebody 星／主役にするing in through the window."

He sprang up, he hobbled 速く outside, but he 設立する no one.

*

Mr. Cedric Staubermeyer 需要・要求するd of Dr. Cortez Kelly, his neighbor, "Wouldn't you say that Kingsblood 絶対 broke his father's heart, and killed him by his misbehavior?"

The Kelly who had once 否定するd that 罰金 theory agreed: "Yuh, you might put it that way."

Long 憎悪 of the Jews had given Mr. Staubermeyer both training and professional delight in the art of Rumorizing. Evening after evening, when other 居住（者）s of Sylvan Park said, "I don't see anything 特に objectionable about Kingsblood; seems a nice 静かな fellow," Mr. Staubermeyer gave 前へ／外へ, "You know he not only got 解雇する／砲火／射撃d from the bank for 使い込み，横領 but had a fight with his own father and yelled at him so outrageously that the poor old fellow dropped dead from a heart attack. I heard that from old Doc Kingsblood's own assistant, who was 権利 there at the time."

"What? Is that so? 井戸／弁護士席!"

一時期／支部 53

The 疫病／流行性の of 解雇する／砲火／射撃ing went on, but not everything was evil for the lost people in dark Egypt. 確かな returned 兵士s said that if a man could die with them in Europe, he could dine with them in Minnesota, and they had Phil Windeck elected to the American Legion.

Yet they were いっそう少なく friendly than their fathers might have been. Thirty years before, the Negroes had seemed to be 伸び（る）ing so much more of what they 手配中の，お尋ね者 because they had 明らかに 手配中の，お尋ね者 so much いっそう少なく. They had 需要・要求するd then only a roof and sidemeat and not to be lynched. Now, they were 需要・要求するing every human 権利, and whites who were self-admiringly willing to give them a dish of 冷淡な potatoes were いつかs unwilling to give them room at the workbench and the 投票ing-booth, and muttered, "We've been too 平易な. We got to clamp 負かす／撃墜する on these apes before they （人命などを）奪う，主張する they can do our 職業 just as good as we can." The 黒人／ボイコット crusade had never seemed so risky as now, but any 伸び（る） that was made was a real 増加する in human dignity, not a pink 屈服する tied on inescapable chains.

Neil might have been 慰安d by Phil's small laurels—he did not know how doubtful Phil himself was about 受託するing them—but he was 苦しむing from 国内の twinges. Vestal was doing so 井戸／弁護士席 at Tarr's that she began to see herself not just as husband's little helper but, やめる 適切に, as on her way to a lively career of her own in what she had come to consider "the art of 商品／売買するing." She was turning from a Popular Young Matron into a woman. She exulted to Neil that, after Booker T. arrived, she could 雇う a nurse for him and become a 買い手, a department-長，率いる, at Tarr's, with her own office, her trips to New York, 製図／抽選-room on the train, hotel 控訴, handsome dinners.

—Maybe some day she'll own a 商売／仕事 and give me a 職業 as colored porter. Am I doing her any 親切 by sticking to her? Why not give up this house, this way of living? Could I be a man on my own? Can I get the education that enables a Sugar Gowse to live alone? Ought I to go? I will if it seems best for her.

But that 穏やかな 決意／決議 did not help him a couple of days later when he walked in on the 利益／興味ing scene of Morton Beehouse, 支援するd by Brother Oliver and by Vestal's sister from Duluth, making his most 決定するd 成果／努力 to save his poor daughter.

"Ah, good evening, Neil. Do sit 負かす／撃墜する," said Morton—in Neil's own house. "We are 直面するd by no pleasant 義務 this afternoon, but I give you credit, whatever faults of 回避 of 責任／義務 you may have shown, for 所有するing good 意向s. We feel you don't realize how you have permitted Vestal and Biddy to drift into a position of ignominy."

Vestal was 単に listening. Either she agreed, or she had 約束d to keep still.

"If you did realize it," Morton went on, "you would take steps to end it すぐに. It isn't their fault, it isn't their doing, that you are a colored man, and I can't see why you should 推定する／予想する them to 耐える the 刑罰，罰則."

Neil wondered, "You 推定する／予想する me to encourage them to leave me?" Uncle Oliver jumped in, splashing. "My dear boy, isn't that obvious? It still isn't too late to save their 評判, but if you 延期する much longer—"

"No."

"What?"

"I said No. I'm 完全に 充てるd to Vestal; I do realize her 不快; I shan't try to 支配（する）／統制する her; she must do what she wants—which may not be what you want, by the way. I did not marry you."

"Thank God!" said Oliver, with equal vulgarity.

"But I have decided that Biddy and the baby that is to come—if I'm a Negro, then they're Negroes, and no more of this shame about 存在 what we are that you white men have put over on us."

"やめる," said Uncle Oliver. "I see," said Uncle Oliver. "So you ーするつもりである to visit on these two innocents the—oh, let's call it the 示す of—"

"No, let's not call it that. What you don't understand is that I don't any longer think they'd be better off as white children. I don't think my Negro friends are inferior to a parchment-長，率いる like you. Not to be rude, you know."

"I see. やめる."

*

Now Oliver's 会社／堅い had 代表するd the Eisenherz 広い地所, and Oliver knew all about Sylvan Park real-広い地所 肩書を与えるs and about "制限する covenants," those gentlemanly 協定s whereby white purchasers of 所有物／資産／財産 agreed never to sell to any Negro, not even to Dumas or St. Augustine. All of Grand 共和国, except the Five Points, Swede Hollow, Canoe 高さs and a few tracts of 押し寄せる／沼地-land, was now covered by these 制限する covenants, which have been the most delightful of 装置s for tactfully 説 to all clean and ambitious Negroes that the better whites preferred them to be dirty, unambitious, and distant.

Oliver also knew a 広大な／多数の／重要な 取引，協定 about the Sant Tabac, and he went to Boone Havock and Rodney Aldwick to discuss it, though 非，不，無 of the three was on the 公式の／役人 roll of Sant Tabac members.

*

Neil and Vestal heard the street door の近くに, that Sunday afternoon, and then, in the dining-room, the sound of Biddy, crying 猛烈に. When they galloped in, she raised her 長，率いる to 星／主役にする at them mutinously, her wet 注目する，もくろむs red and desolate. She choked, "Mummy, Mrs. Staubermeyer says I'm a nigger."

"Oh—"

"Am I a nigger?"

"Only as much as your father and mother are, and you can see for yourself how much that is," Vestal swore, "and we think we're pretty nice, don't you?"

"Am I a nigger like Little 黒人／ボイコット Sambo? Or that 汚い boy on the shoeblacking can?"

"Not a bit like Little 黒人／ボイコット Sambo. More like Uncle Ash. Or Nora."

"Oh, I love them!"

"Biddy! Quick! What happened?"

"I was playing with Teddy and Tessie Staubermeyer and Teddy said I was a nigger, and I said no I wasn't, and he said his papa and mama were all the time laughing at my daddy because he is a nigger and so I'm a nigger, too, Teddy said, and he said I couldn't play with them any more unless I all undressed, and I didn't want—"

"What's all this?" Neil's 怒り／怒る was that of a 冷淡な man.

"He said and Tessie said, if I was a nigger, I was a slave, and slaves aren't good for nothing except to take off their 着せる／賦与するs and parade around in 前線 of their masters, 明らかにする-naked. And then Mrs. Staubermeyer, she was listening to us from the porch—"

"She was?"

"—and she said no, they didn't せねばならない make me undress, it was too 冷淡な, but it was a good joke on me, though, my daddy was so high and mighty and he wasn't nothing but a nigger, she said, and I better get out of there and go home. And I went."

They 説得するd Biddy into laughing before she was put to bed, and she 発表するd that while she was a Negro like Nora Davis, she was also an Indian princess 指名するd Rosemary Kitten 日光. She was already 充てるd to both of those romantic 緊張するs, with a sentimentality her father could never 達成する.

Outside her room, Neil growled, "I'm sorry she had to get the news that way, from a family of degenerates. Come. We're going to have a talk with the Staubermeyers."

On his way 負かす／撃墜する the hall, he ちらりと見ることd into his "den" and noticed his favorite Winchester on the 塀で囲む. He made no particular 関係, but he did remember that he was an excellent ライフル銃／探して盗む-発射 and that this form of sport is not 妨げるd by a lame 脚.

*

Cedric Staubermeyer, 売買業者 in paints and carpets, was not meaty and resolute like his neighbor, Mr. W. S. Vander. He was puffy and pouting and unpunctual, but in his hysteria he was dangerous. When he 設立する Neil and Vestal at his 前線 door—it was of golden oak, with 逮捕する curtain inside a diamond-形態／調整d plate-glass 挿入する—he looked embarrassed and sulkily muttered, "Come in."

The mantel in the parlor was also of golden oak, with a plate-glass mirror, and on the more-or-いっそう少なく Oriental （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する-cover was a 小冊子 by Jat Snood.

Mrs. Staubermeyer was a loftier character than her husband: a vixen with 解放する／自由な-running gray hair. She stood with her 武器 in two sharp V's.

Neil 発言／述べるd, "I'm not going to talk about calling the police or any of that monkey-商売／仕事, but if there's any repetition of what happened to my daughter this afternoon, I'm going to start trouble."

"And just how?" 需要・要求するd Mrs. Staubermeyer.

As that was a challenge hard to 会合，会う, Neil was relieved when Cedric started shrieking, "You'll start trouble? You'll get into trouble, more trouble, you mean! Got any idea how glad this 近隣 would be to get rid of all you coons? 含むing yours truly! I always had an idea you were a nigger or something, Kingsblood, because you got along so 井戸／弁護士席 with the kikes and the wops!"

Vestal bored in, "Are you two cultured Gentiles aware that your son 示唆するd that my daughter take off her 着せる／賦与するs?"

Mrs. Staubermeyer laughed, like the scratch of a とじ込み／提出する, and she giggled, "Oh, he's 事実上 a grown man, that way. All the Staubermeyer men 円熟した so 早期に. And let me tell you, madam, that we don't never want your daughter to come into our yard again, so you needn't worry!"

*

For days, Biddy was alternately afraid and わずかに proud of her misadventure, and in sleep she trembled. さまざまな more or いっそう少なく horrible 見解／翻訳／版s of what had happened skipped about the 近隣, and in no few of them, Biddy had been flagrantly indecent. They kept her at home as much as they could, and they rejoiced:

"Anyway, thank Heaven, she always will have a nice yard of her own to play in."

一時期／支部 54

It was 明らかにする／漏らすd to Mr. Oliver Beehouse that since Sylvan Park was altogether 保護するd by 制限する covenants, when Neil Kingsblood had 契約d to buy his house, 支援する in 1941, he had, by 隠すing the fact that he was "colored," been 有罪の of 墓／厳粛／彫る／重大な 罪，犯罪s against Mr. Eisenherz, Mr. Stopple, the 明言する／公表する health code, the 憲法, the Bible, and Magna Carta. Oliver supposed that when his niece, Vestal, saw her husband not only 失業した but houseless, she would leave him. Oliver knew a 広大な／多数の／重要な 取引，協定 about 会社／団体 税金s but not much about women.

One other person knew as surprisingly little about them, and that was Neil. He assumed that because Vestal 支援するd him in saucing Uncle Oliver, because she let Biddy believe that both her parents were "colored," he could count on her 存在 his true 信奉者 all the way.

But one afternoon when she （機の）カム home from work, not many days after, it was （疑いを）晴らす that there was no 洪水ing font of patience and love in her at all. She looked at his 着せる／賦与するs with disfavor, and 匂いをかぐd, "Aren't you letting yourself get 肉親，親類d of sloppy? You've got to try and keep neat, if you ever are going to get a decent 職業."

"I can't afford a new 控訴, but I've been careful about 小衝突ing and 圧力（をかける）ing this one."

"There's an ick, jam or something, on your tie."

"I'm no fuss-Prutt!"

It was a family phrase which once they had 設立する funny, but Vestal did not smile as she continued the attack: "And another 調印する of your losing your 支配する, and it worries me, is the fact that you want to run away from me so often. You spend so much time with these lowdown soap-boxers, like this fellow Brewster—is that the preacher's 指名する?"

"It is, and you know it is. And let me tell you that I don't spend a ４半期/4分の1 as much time away from you, with my race—though I せねばならない—as I used to spend playing poker with Judd's ギャング（団） or going 追跡（する）ing and 一般に wasting time. You think my real 利益／興味 as a boy 改革運動家 is a bore, 反して you used to think that my foolin' with games was manly and noble."

"I still do! As compared with these fanatic field-days where you and the other crackpots 配列し直す the world."

"Vestal!"

"井戸／弁護士席, I'm tired of it, tired clean through. I think I'll take a little nap before I get supper. Tired! What really makes it hard for me, Neil, is that you're two people: the boy I married and a Negro whose 利益／興味s I don't know at all. Which of them am I married to now?"

In his 苦しめる at never 存在 able to chart Vestal's 忠義, he went for counsel to his mother. It was a lively spring afternoon outside, with clouds playing tag with the sun, but his mother sat over solitaire in a room with the shades 負かす／撃墜する, a 冷気／寒がらせる ghost of a woman, like the soul of a baby in limbo.

He begged, "Mom, how can I 説得する Vestal that she's no worse off than millions of Negro women?"

"I don't think you can, Boy, and she is worse off, if she thinks she is. I'm not sure but that you せねばならない tell her to go, go far off, when the new baby comes. You'll be lonely—you got no idea how lonely—as lonely as you've made Joan and me. But I imagine things will get worse with Vestal and you. She's a spirited girl. Maybe you せねばならない ask her to go before they do get worse."

"Maybe."

*

In late spring, when the snow still filtered 負かす／撃墜する for half an hour now and then and 隠すd the plum blossoms and lilacs and flowering almond, but when the trees were almost in 十分な leaf, that 十分な-団体／死体d ex-外交官, Mr. Berthold Eisenherz, left his Florida 郊外住宅 and migrated home as though he were going into 追放する.

With his 注目する，もくろむs 直す／買収する，八百長をするd on a 調印するd photograph of H.E. the Rt. Hon. Sir Reginald Widescombe, G.C.M.G., on a satinwood （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する in his library at Hillhouse, with his fingertips together, each of them like a miniature of his polite bald 長，率いる, Mr. Eisenherz listened while Mr. William Stopple explained that by selling 所有物／資産／財産 to this Neil Kingsblood, a 悪名高い Negro agitator, they had been 有罪の of breaking the covenant and 負傷させるing the 公正，普通株主権 of the innocent white 所有物／資産／財産-支えるもの／所有者s in Sylvan Park. That they had been ignorant of the fellow's taint was probably no excuse in 法律 and, what was worse than any 合法的な foot-slipping, if they didn't do something at once, Mr. Eisenherz's remaining unsold 所有物／資産／財産 in the 新規加入 might 減少（する） in value.

Had it dropped yet? worried Mr. Eisenherz.

No, not yet, but everybody knew that it would, because everybody knew that all Negroes like this fellow were unbathed and noisy, and while he, Mr. Stopple, had no prejudices, and neither had he, Mr. Eisenherz, still facts were facts. Weren't they?

Bertie Eisenherz had been very fond of the mulatto mistress he had had for two years while he was with the 公使館 in Portugal, and he was irritated by all this insular imbecility, but he needed the money, he always needed the money, for the 維持／整備 of his 不安定な 有罪の判決 that he was a 広大な／多数の／重要な gentleman. And though he was 充てるd to his Renoir and his autographed 始める，決める of Henry James, he was legitimately the grandson of Simon Eisenherz, the shrewdest and most resolute pilferer of Indian forest-land 肩書を与えるs in Northern Minnesota.

And so:

Neil received from the 法律-会社／堅い in which Rodney Aldwick was a partner a letter bleakly asking him to call.

He went in warily to see Aldwick, who 手配中の，お尋ね者 to shake 手渡すs and who was altogether on the friendly and jolly 味方する:

"Neil, 本人自身で I think this whole 事柄 is picayune nonsense, but unfortunately, under the 制限する-covenant custom, both your neighbors and poor old 法案 Stopple's 会社／堅い could 告訴する you for having 購入（する）d your home on fraudulent pretenses, knowing all the while that you were—colored, shall we say?"

He looked at Neil brightly, as if を待つing the 楽しみ of having him get angry and rave that he had not "known all the while." Neil sat bulkily still and Aldwick, a little disappointed, went on:

"Mr. Eisenherz is still willing to refund what you paid. But he is no longer just 申し込む／申し出ing it; he is 主張するing. He 需要・要求するs that you を引き渡す the place at once. After all, what is it? Just another house and lot, that's all. If you 辞退する, he will take 合法的な 活動／戦闘, and I imagine that in the 解決／入植地, any costs that Mr. Eisenherz may be 軍隊d to を受ける will be 査定する／（税金などを）課すd against you. And they will be かなりの. I'll see to that! Ha, ha. 井戸／弁護士席, my dear fellow? After all, you know!"

"It's my house, bought 合法的に, honestly paid for, and I stick."

"Oh, come now, Neil, we're both of us men of the world."

"Not me."

"You know that this has nothing to do with 推論する／理由 or 合法性, Neil. If the Sylvan Park suburbanites want to keep their tedious 近隣 lily-white, they will, you know, and you'd be happier in a more cosmopolitan 地区. Same like me."

"You heard me."

"Yes—yes—I heard you, my friend. So in all geniality let me tell you that we shall とじ込み／提出する 控訴 and chase you out of the house, with 速度(を上げる）. If you 辞退する to go, you will be 刑務所，拘置所d for 法廷侮辱（罪）. So! I'll be seeing you."

Neil took the 事例／患者 to Sweeney Fishberg, which was to 布告する that he had a righteous 原因（となる） and that he would probably lose it. Sweeney was half Jew and half Irish, half 共産主義者 and half Roman カトリック教徒, half propagandist against all prejudice and half cynic about all 宣伝. He was St. Francis rewritten by Henry Mencken, Lenin with footnotes by George Schuyler. He liked to talk with Clem Brazenstar, but he preferred to go 追跡（する）ing with Boone Havock.

He 概算の, "You could fight on the ground that they can't 証明する you're a Negro at all, or on the ground that in this 明言する／公表する, as small a number of Negro 遺伝子s as you have don't 合法的に 構成する you a Negro."

"No," Neil said stubbornly, "I want to fight out the whole 商売／仕事 of 制限する covenants. We'll make 'em 違法な. Now that they've 軍隊d me to be a Negro, I'm going to be one."

"You 肉親，親類d of helped 'em on the 軍隊ing, didn't you? So you're another chronic 殉教者. I thought you were too good a golfer for that. Still fighting to save John Brown from the gallows? Why do all you cranks and abolitionists come to me? I'm a Boston カトリック教徒 and a 共和国の／共和党の. The 事例／患者 would cost you a lot of money that you 港／避難所't got, with the bumbling Beehouses 支援 棒, the young Lord God, and my services will 始める，決める you 支援する a lot more than you'd think from this ratty office. No, you better 得る，とらえる old Bertie's 申し込む／申し出, and こそこそ動く up and paint swastikas on his house at night and—All 権利, all 権利, all 権利! Don't badger me! I'll take it, and I'll 新たな展開 Aldwick's 砕くd neck off!"

*

Slipping under 棒's vigilant arm, Sweeney Fishberg went 直接／まっすぐに to Bertie Eisenherz and got his 同意 to having the 事例／患者 延期するd till 落ちる, in the hope, eternal の中で 過激なs like Sweeney, that God would awaken in the next three or four months and see what His children on earth were doing to one another.

The news of the 延期, the news that they would have to 耐える the dreadful Kingsbloods for another season, started a 燃焼 in Sylvan Park. W. S. Vander and Cedric Staubermeyer, shuddering at 存在 汚染するd by Biddy, were heard 叫び声をあげるing, "We're not going to wait for no 法廷，裁判所 活動／戦闘! We're going to 運動 those niggers out of here before our 所有物／資産／財産 is 廃虚d!"

Since their zeal was not directed that way, 非，不，無 of them even thought of Neil's mother, who may have had more "Negro 血" than her son.

*

That warm evening, Prince dashed up and 負かす／撃墜する the yard, a happy dog and, for one of middle age, 十分な of romance. They heard him singing a small, contented, doggy song of love. But something made him uneasy, and presently he （機の）カム to the 審査するd open window with low barks of 調査. Neil went out to the yard to 安心させる him, and when he patted that sleek 長，率いる, Prince mooned up with adoration, and rolled away again, to look into the unusual 事柄 of a night-roistering squirrel.

When Neil had settled with his newspaper, he heard, from just outside, the astonishing 衝突，墜落 of a shotgun. He leaped up and, にもかかわらず Vestal's wail of "Don't go—don't!" he slipped out to the stoop.

Prince lay 近づく the sidewalk, a 集まり of raw meat, already 強化するing. As Neil gaped, he felt something 小衝突 by him like a 微風, and Biddy, in pajamas, had run out and was ひさまづくing beside the stilled dog, her one only remaining playmate. In the dusk, Neil thought he saw the dog's 長，率いる 解除する in a reproachful look.

Vestal moaned, "Oh, the cowards! Neil! It could be you, next time—or Biddy!" Two evenings later, he 設立する their 運送／保菌者-brought newspaper on the lawn, torn to pieces, and next morning, a straggling 調印する "Nigger get out" had been painted on the 味方する of their garage. That day, though the organization was supposed to be dead in Grand 共和国, he got a 十分な-dress Ku Klux Klan 警告: "You better get out of this 近隣 quick don't think we are fooling this is sent to you in the 指名する of the cross of Christ, decent womanhood and American civilization."

All they could do, in the still and listening evenings, was to sit and wait, sit and listen, waiting.

*

Mr. Josephus Lovejoy Smith—but he 調印するd it "Jos L. Smith"—was born in Upper New York 明言する／公表する, and he 断言するd, "No, I'm not 関係のある to Joseph Smith, the Mormon, though he used to talk with the angels 権利 近づく where I was born. But I am distant 肉親，親類 to Gerrit Smith, who raised abolitionist hell and teetotaler hell, and continued to be a respectable land-promoter."

He was a fat, immobile, gentle man of sixty who had a 調書をとる／予約する and toy and stationery shop of 長所, just off Chippewa Avenue. He was a lowchurchman, a 権利-of-中心 共和国の／共和党の, but his abolitionist tradition, and a 悔いる that Gerrit Smith had 否定するd his 同盟（する）, John Brown, at the last, had always made him feel 有罪の that he had not "done more for the poor darkies." But he did not know what to do, except to be indignant over newspaper accounts of lynchings and to sell as many 調書をとる／予約するs by Myrdal and Cayton and Du Bois as he could.

Neil and Vestal had bought magazines and Christmas cards in his shop. His brown house, which 似ているd a large sitting 女／おっせかい屋, was not far from theirs, and they had seen him taking walks, under an umbrella, in the rain. But they had never said anything more to him than "Good morning" or "Have you any water-color 始める，決めるs?"

When he （機の）カム calling and sat 負かす／撃墜する breathless in their living-room, they were perplexed.

He puffed, "You might not be 利益／興味d, but my father was in the last year of the Civil War, as a boy. My mother's father was a 陸軍大佐 in a Vermont 連隊 and he was 関係のある to Owen Lovejoy, who was, I believe, a desperate anti-slavery man. But—I hope I'm not intruding, but I felt that I must come and tell you that I have been 審理，公聴会—in fact, I was approached to join the ギャング（団）—there is a 計画（する） の中で some of the folks around here to 暴徒 your house and 運動 you out."

"They really mean it?" from Neil.

"May I ask if you will defend your house—if you will fight?"

Neil looked inquiringly at Vestal, and she answered, "To the 限界!" Neil droned, "I would rather they didn't start anything, but if they do, I have some guns here."

Mr. Smith considered, "I don't believe I 持つ／拘留する with 暴力／激しさ or the use of 小火器 in general. I don't even 追跡（する） pa'tridges more than once a year. But I don't like this 暴徒 支配する. If you can use some ten-計器 shotgun 爆撃するs, I'd be glad to lend them to you. It's やめる an old gun that I have. By the way, the fellow that （機の）カム to enlist me, I tried to get out of him—he was Curtiss Havock, your next-door neighbor—I asked him what night they 計画（する） it for, but he wouldn't tell me. And incidentally, Mr. Kingsblood—Neil—would you like to go to work for me in my 蓄える／店—starting tomorrow, if you'd care to?"

*

"You know," said Vestal afterwards, "there is something to race differences. No ギャング（団） of Negroes, however mean they are, could be as hideous as Curtiss and Feathering and the Staubermeyers. I'm beginning to get annoyed."

*

His day at Smith's 調書をとる／予約する 蓄える／店 was disappointingly casual. No one 星／主役にするd at him, no one 反対するd to receiving 1 doz. bl. pencils #2 from his 黒人／ボイコット 手渡す. Vestal （機の）カム over from Tarr's to have lunch with him, and they took the bus home together, and nobody paid any attention to them, and they felt silly—and then they did not feel silly at all, but 脅すd all over again. For one Mr. Matozas, a man with an 1890 cyclist's mustache, a 探偵，刑事 on the Special Squad of the Safety Commissioner (which meant 長，指導者 of police), （機の）カム calling that evening, slyly making with his derby hat.

"Just 肉親，親類d of on some 決まりきった仕事 調査s for the Commissioner," he gurgled.

Vestal—she did not like him nor his derby nor the leather-covered billy 明白な in his 味方する pocket—snapped, "Tell the Commissioner that you 設立する this family 事実上の／代理 suspiciously: staying home in their own house, listening to 'This Land of Freedom' program on the 無線で通信する, and reading a speech by 大統領 Truman."

Matozas was a 広大な／多数の／重要な laugher, chronic, though his red knuckles had been 分裂（する）. He laughed, and he said, "Yuh, I'll sure tell the Commissioner that. He'll be glad one family is behaving itself, in this gin—hoisting town! That's a 罰金 little girl you got."

"Yes. We've noticed that. But when did you ever see her? She's been in bed for half an hour now."

"Oh, I get around. The Special Squad gets around やめる a lot."

Neil took 告発（する），告訴（する）／料金. "What do you want?"

"The Commissioner thought there's something you folks せねばならない know. Of course ordinarily, with your wife 関係のある to 助言者／カウンセラー Beehouse, the Commissioner would come to see you himself, but 裁判官 Beehouse has come out flatfooted and told us that he doesn't want any part of this 商売／仕事, and the 法律 will have to take its course."

"What 法律? What course? I wish you'd make your 脅しs a little clearer!" said Neil.

"脅しs? And me coming here to tip you off that if you want to pack up and move out 権利 away, our Squad will give you any help we can! But if you don't—Mind you, I don't know nothing about no 暴徒s, but it would be just too bad if a 暴徒 組み立てる／集結するd, 違法な, and we got here too late! Good night, folks."

Neil said then, "The Commissioner, this fellow's boss, isn't only an 任命された人 of 市長 Fleeron but a 広大な／多数の／重要な friend of his, and of Wilbur Feathering and, curiously enough, of 棒 Aldwick. I think we better get Biddy out of here, quick."

They 選ぶd up the baby and dressed her without her ever やめる awakening, and Neil carried her to Mother Kingsblood's, Vestal stalking beside him like Diana in a camel's-hair topcoat. They almost ran on the way 支援する, so apprehensive were they.

From the darkened living-room they kept watch on the street. Neil brought his favorite ライフル銃／探して盗む 負かす／撃墜する from his den. His fingers felt 冷静な／正味の on the バーレル／樽. The evening was pleasant, tempting the strollers out after the long 監禁，拘置 of the Northern winter, yet there were rather too many people ambling by, neighbors and strangers, and Neil fancied that everybody 停止（させる）d わずかに and 星／主役にするd at the house.

And の中で the strollers, やめる separate and casual, they noticed 探偵，刑事 Matozas, 市長 Fleeron, and Mr. Wilbur Feathering.

And nothing happened, nothing at all, and they went to bed. They did not sleep 井戸／弁護士席, and Neil kept rising, to look out. There was nothing 怪しげな...except that 探偵，刑事 Matozas was standing by a cottonwood tree in Curtiss Havock's yard, smoking cigarettes, all night long. Perhaps he just liked cottonwood trees and cigarettes.

At breakfast, when Neil said "It'll be tonight, sure," she nodded, and he pleaded, "Don't you want to やめる?"

"Never!"

"I can get some of the boys to come in—say, a colored captain I know, Captain Windeck. Why don't you go to your father's for tonight, and not bother us?"

"Do you want me to go?"

"Yes, I think I do."

"井戸／弁護士席, I'm not going! I stick," said Vestal.

*

Pat Saxinar left the Marxian nunnery of her 解決／入植地-house that day and （機の）カム to see Neil in the Smith 蓄える／店. From her father, the 疎遠にするd Uncle Emery, she had 噂するs that Neil's house was to be 爆弾d.

Neil telephoned to Phil Windeck at the garage where Phil had a new 職業, virtuous and underpaid, and to Evan Brewster, but neither of them knew anything 明確に. He wished that Ash and Ryan Woolcape were in town. He tried to reach Dr. 対処する Anderson, for that bulky 化学者／薬剤師, to whom his Negro friends were 正確に／まさに like his white friends, only わずかに more so, would be a competent bruiser in a fight. But 対処する and Peace Anderson were in Milwaukee.

At the 蓄える／店, Mr. Smith brought him two boxes of shotgun 爆撃するs, but Mr. Smith said only, "Uh—some 爆撃するs I happened to come across. You might want to go 追跡（する）ing, next 落ちる." To Neil these 爆撃するs were of value only as antiques and symbols of 約束. They were ten-計器, and he hadn't seen a ten-計器 shotgun since the Civil War.

Vestal and he again returned together on the bus. They had the nervous calmness of before-the-戦う／戦い, and they did not feel moved to 準備する anything for their dinner beyond 挟むs and coffee. He no longer 示唆するd that Vestal 砂漠. It was not that she said anything in particular, but she had the look of 戦う／戦い.

They 急いでd over to Mother Kingsblood's to see Biddy, 急いでd 支援する. Neil began to bring his guns and 弾薬／武器 負かす／撃墜する to the living-room.

From that room, which they again kept dark, they could watch the small, 半分-circular stoop, and when the bell rang they saw Pat Saxinar out there, and 認める her with enthusiasm.

Three minutes later, at another bell-（犯罪の）一味, the 歩哨 Vestal called out, "It's a nice-looking young man, some 肉親，親類d of a 兵士, in what I think is an American Legion uniform. Hot stuff. Golly, I think he's colored."

She let in Phil Windeck, soldierly again and 削減する, with a .45 (a)自動的な／(n)自動拳銃 in his pocket. She was as casual with him as with Pat—more 平易な and casual than with the next 新採用する, who was Sweeney Fishberg.

That grumbler was bushy-haired and tart, and about as soldierly as Professor Einstein. He was growling, "This is a service we give all our （弁護士の）依頼人s, and most of 'em need it." He disapproved of Phil's (a)自動的な／(n)自動拳銃; it was 違法な, useless and tended to 暴力／激しさ. But he 手渡すd it 支援する.

Then, fat and stooped, walking slowly 負かす／撃墜する the middle of the street, 隠すing nothing from anybody, carrying his enormous shotgun unsportingly over his shoulder, his nose like a rabbit's but his 注目する，もくろむs like an 老年の 強硬派's, （機の）カム Josephus Lovejoy Smith, 以前は of the 共和国の／共和党の 郡 委員会. And 権利 after him, walking nervously and looking 負かす／撃墜する as if he was thinking hard, carrying a マカジキ repeating-ライフル銃／探して盗む in a neat 事例／患者, appeared Lucian Firelock, who said to Pat, at the door, "Good evening. Is Mr. Kingsblood at home? Oh, good evening, Neil. Good evening, Nurse."

The Nurse, に引き続いて him, was Sophie Concord, in uniform with a dark cape over it.

She 単に nodded to Neil, but to Vestal she said cheerily, "I thought I might be able to help you, Mrs. Kingsblood, if there's any cooking to do—or any nursing."

Last of all, in the clerical collar and 黒人／ボイコット waistcoat that he rarely wore, with a ライフル銃／探して盗む under his arm, was the Reverend Evan Brewster, S.T.D.

Lucian Firelock said to him, "Have you any （警察などへの）密告，告訴（状） about the 最初の／主要なs in Mississippi, Mr. Brewster?"

It had been harder for him to call Evan "Mister" than to call him "General" or "Eminence."

Jos. L. Smith was introduced to Phil Windeck and Evan. He shook 手渡すs 堅固に, and afterward said to Neil, "I don't think I have met any colored gentlemen socially before. They seem to have scarcely any accent."

The party became cheerful. It was a Sylvan Park evening of 早期に summer, with birds and the sound of playing children and peace over everything, with plenty of guns and 弾薬／武器, and hot coffee by 儀礼 of Vestal and Sophie. Neil gave a lesson in the 扱うing of guns to Sophie, who had the unprejudiced idea of の近くにing both 注目する，もくろむs when she pulled the 誘発する／引き起こす, and Vestal laughed with them. Since most of them had not dined, she started to cook ham and eggs, but Evan took it away from her, and showed how a dining-car cook can turn a fried egg by flipping it in 空気／公表する.

"This whole combination of party and 小火器," said Evan, "makes me think of when I first 熟考する／考慮するd Greek, with a Congregational 大臣 in Massachusetts. He had a shack for his 熟考する／考慮する, in the garden, and he used to sit with his Greek Testament on a card-（米）棚上げする／（英）提議する in 前線 of him, and a .22 ライフル銃／探して盗む ready to マリファナ the rabbits that ate his carrots—"

They heard a 激しく揺する 粉砕するing through the sun-room window. They slipped to the 前線 of the house, to see people gathered across the street, in the thin 不明瞭...But Evan carefully turned off the gas in the kitchen before he turned to war, and brought out a plate of the eggs that had already been cooked. The 包囲するd 選ぶd them up in their 手渡すs and ate, while Neil turned off all the lights. The people in the 隣接地の yards were moving about, shadowy, not laughing. It was absurd to think of them as dangerous. But Neil 地位，任命するd his guards はっきりと.

Vestal 主張するd, "Phone the police, Neil."

"Don't think it'll do any good."

"かもしれない have a 合法的な value," said Fishberg.

When Neil reached the desk sergeant at police （警察，軍隊などの）本部 by telephone, the sergeant was evasive. "People 一連の会議、交渉／完成する your house, Mister? Whaddayuh got? A menagerie?"

"They're 脅すing us. I'm a, 井戸／弁護士席, a Negro, and they're trying to run us out."

"Ain't that mean of 'em! Nigger, eh? Where yuh say you live? Mayo Street?"

"I told you before."

"Sure, I know all about you, Kingsblood. We have （警察などへの）密告，告訴（状） there's a few kids roughhousing around there. What the hell are you? An old maid? I always heard you zigs were 脅すd of your own 影をつくる／尾行するs. Can't you stand a little good-natured charivariing without bothering the police 軍隊? We—" A yawn. "—got something more important to do."

Neil 報告（する）／憶測d to his army, "That's 利益／興味ing. The police knew all about this, even before it started. And 市長 Fleeron is one of the neighbors that want to 運動 me away. 罰金 fellows, the police."

"And how!" said Sweeney Fishberg. "You've never been on a picket-line."

There was no more laughter. Neil had chosen for his own 解雇する／砲火／射撃ing-地位，任命する one window of the living-room, had 駅／配置するd Phil Windeck at the other. He fretted at Vestal, "You stand 支援する in the dining-room, way 支援する. You got to be careful about the new baby."

It occurred to Sweeney to telephone the office of 郡保安官 Alex Snowflower, who was not 支配するd by Fleeron. Sweeney worked the hook up and 負かす／撃墜する, in the dimness, and said uncomfortably, "The phone wire has just been 削減（する）."

Lucian Firelock was annoyed and bewildered that he should be on this 味方する of the バリケード. But he turned decisively to Phil with, "Mr. Windeck, where should you 攻撃する，衝突する a man if you want to stop him but not kill him, not 傷つける him 不正に, Phil?"

The background of 郊外の street could not have been more placid, with the 支店s in a gently moving 審査する across the 冷静な／正味の lamplighted windows over the way. But against this background, the menace grew 速く. Dozens and then 得点する／非難する／２０s of men and excited women filled the yards opposite, oozed into the street. 積極的な men 押し進めるd 今後 in the 中心, men whose 殺し屋 直面するs were the more grotesque above their pert 関係, their 近づく-gentlemanly tweed jackets.

They 中止するd to be human 存在s; they became 泡s on a dark cataract of hate. Rigid in the living-room, Neil saw that the leaders of the 暴徒 were Wilbur Feathering, the Reverend Dr. Jat Snood, Harold W. Whittick and Cedric Staubermeyer, with the flat-長，率いるd but sturdy W. S. Vander as war-長，指導者. に引き続いて them were seventy or eighty 直面する-screwed, hot-発言する／表明するd maniacs: poor neighbors, 繁栄する neighbors, a blot of 堅いs whom Neil had never seen, with 怒った pietists from Snood's tabernacle.

But he could also make out a good many people who were flapping their 武器 and bobbing up and 負かす／撃墜する in 抗議する: Charley Sayward, S. Ashiel Denver, Norman and Rita Kamber, and the lovely Violet Crenway, who worked up the general homicidal 緊張 by 叫び声をあげるing, "Oh, be careful, everybody be careful!" while her delicate 直面する was rosy with the joys of horror. And a 要塞 of five 聖職者のs—Buncer, Gadd, Lenstra, Father 容赦 and Rabbi Sarouk—stood together, their 手渡すs flung high, 警告 支援する the （人が）群がる—twenty years too late.

Through all the 組み立てる／集結するing, Sweeney Fishberg, by the light of a pocket たいまつ, was casually 公式文書，認めるing 負かす／撃墜する their 指名するs, as 未来 証言，証人／目撃するs. Neither Randy Spruce nor 市長 Fleeron nor Rodney Aldwick was to be seen, but there were unrecognizable people up on Judd Browler's roof.

At first the （人が）群がる stayed in the streets at Neil's corner, or in the yards of Curtiss Havock and Orlo Vay, with no perceptible 反対s from the owners. But they were 辛勝する／優位ing up on the sidewalks at the 前線 and 味方する of Neil's yard, and the 抗議するing 大臣s had been 押し進めるd 支援する into the tree-厚い 不明瞭.

"You heard he killed his father!" cried an unknown, and a dozen unknowns answered, "Sure, and we'll get him for it!"

There was a 転換 then, and for a time Neil did not see what it meant. Swinging into the （人が）群がる, 長，率いるd for his 前線 door, three men marched like the 大陸のs of 1776: John Woolcape, Albert Woolcape, and Borus Bugdoll. There was nothing to choose の中で the scholar, the haggling laundryman and the 脅迫者，不正手段で暴利を得る者 for pure, high fury, but it was Albert, who had tried so hard not to be a Negro belligerent, who could be heard shrieking, "You let us pass!"

The （人が）群がる realized, from Borus's color, what they were, and eddied about them. Neil did not see them again. He saw only the 本体，大部分／ばら積みの of the （人が）群がる, saw the clubs rising, and heard one 叫び声をあげる.

Now, like a slow tide of mud, the （人が）群がる moved into Neil's own yard. Not thinking, not much afraid, 乱暴／暴力を加えるd at their trespass, Neil stumped to the 前線 door, 打ち明けるd and opened it, and stood in the doorway, ライフル銃／探して盗む on his arm. He was conscious of how fresh and pleasant the 空気／公表する was, and conscious that behind him were Phil, and Vestal with an absurdly large (a)自動的な／(n)自動拳銃 ピストル.

He called out, "I'm going to kill the next fellow that takes a step."

They froze.

From the 前線 of the （人が）群がる, his 発言する／表明する rough and resolute, Vander the lumberjack croaked, "Don't talk like a fool! You're going to move out of this 近隣 tonight, or we'll 涙／ほころび the house 負かす／撃墜する and take care of every damn nigger in it!"

Neil said with chilliness, "Mr. Vander?"

"Yuh?"

"We ordinarily say 'Negro,' not 'nigger.'"

Jat Snood let loose. "Come on, brethren! Get going! It's the work of the Lord! Let's go!"

Neil nuzzled his ライフル銃／探して盗む at his shoulder, and Feathering yelped, "Look out for him!" But Vander snarled, "He don't dare!"

So Vander and Snood and Feathering swayed toward Neil together. As they did, there was a 発射 from the （人が）群がる, and a 弾丸, passing over Neil's shoulder, got Vestal. He heard her gasp; for a second turned his 長，率いる toward her. She snapped, "It's nothing. Just touched m' arm. Let 'em have it!"

But Neil took his time, because he was a 的 発射, and because he was meticulously choosing の中で Vander, Snood, Feathering. Really, Vander should come first, but the missionary from hell had his 長所s—

Then he 解雇する／砲火／射撃d. His first 発射 caught the Reverend Dr. Jat Snood in his 権利 thigh, and he went 負かす／撃墜する. The second got Feathering's 権利 膝, but unfortunately the third—perhaps Neil was nervous by now—行方不明になるd Vander, nipped off a toe of Cedric Staubermeyer, and sent him home howling.

The （人が）群がる つまずくd backward, beginning to shoot. Then Mr. Jos. L. Smith, from an upstairs window—that of Biddy's pink-and-white little room—let go with his ten-計器 大砲, and ぱらぱら雨d quail 発射 over the whole 旅団, and they broke, 叫び声をあげるing for 援助（する）.

The policemen in their patrol wagon must have been waiting not two 封鎖するs away. As Mr. Smith's 大砲 roared, the gong was heard, the patrol wagon 押し進めるd politely through the 退却／保養地ing （人が）群がる, and the policemen leaped out and trotted toward Neil and Phil and Vestal in the doorway.

At their 長，率いる was 探偵，刑事 Matozas. He and his gallants must have had careful orders. They 掴むd Neil and Phil, but at Vestal, who stood just inside the door with Sophie beginning to 包帯 her arm, Matozas growled, "Get 支援する in the house there, you. We don't want you. We just want these niggers—starting all this 暴動, 狙撃 目だつ 国民s!"

Vestal put aside Sophie's ministrations with an affectionate pat, and spoke to Mr. Matozas 明確に: "Then you'll have to take me. Didn't you know I'm a Negro, too?"

One policeman muttered to another, "I didn't know she was a tar-baby," and his mate 明らかにする／漏らすd, "Don't be so dumb. Can't you see it by her jaw?"

Matozas 命令（する）d, "井戸／弁護士席, we're not going to take you, no such a damn thing, and you get 支援する in there and やめる trying to work up sympathy!"

He reached for her arm.

"Oh, you'll take me!" said Vestal, やめる sweetly, and brought the butt of her (a)自動的な／(n)自動拳銃 負かす／撃墜する on the 探偵，刑事's 長，率いる.

As she was herded with Neil toward the patrol wagon, she squeezed his arm. "Are you as 脅すd as I am? Will you 持つ／拘留する my 手渡す in the wagon? It looks so dark in there, but if you 持つ／拘留する my 手渡す, I shan't be too 脅すd. What a wonderful start this is for little Booker T.! Neil! Listen! Listen to Josephus Smith bawling out the policemen. There must be lots of good white men, aren't there?"

"Keep moving," said a policeman.

"We're moving," said Vestal.

THE END

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