The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter: Part Two: Chapters 1–5

She wouldn’t have liked it so much if she had had to take a stenographic course like Hazel and Etta had done—but she got special permission and took mechanical shop like a boy.

On written lessons she cracked such questions as ‘Name eight famous contemporaries of Doctor Johnson,’ and ‘Quote ten lines from “The Vicar of Wakefield.’”

She squelched him in a hurry: ‘You go eat grass!’

She stood in front of the mirror a long time, and finally decided she either looked like a sap or else she looked very beautiful.

This was probably the first chance he had got to spiel these ideas out to somebody.

Her eyes had been drugged and misty from the ether and then they hardened like glass.

He continued to look into her face. Except for the bluish pallor there was little difference.

A fat bee crawled across the top of the dresser, and adroitly Biff caught it in his hand and put it out the open window.

The undertaker answered his questions in an oily, unctuous voice.

His shop was also a bedroom, and the baby Mick pulled around with her in a wagon sat quietly on a pallet on the floor.

He was to be a pallbearer at the funeral.

Her dancing teacher is going to give her a solo in the soirée.

In a little while they would leave for the church where the funeral would be held. In his mind he went through the motions of the ceremony. The church—riding dirge-paced behind the hearse with Lucile and Baby—the group of people standing with bowed heads in the September sunshine.

He leaned earnestly across the table and kept his eyes on the mute’s face.

Because often old men’s voices grow high and reedy and they take on a mincing walk.

Because often old men’s voices grow high and reedy and they take on a mincing walk.

Everything for the past twenty years docketed and outlined and complete.

He showed him a successful skin graft made on the face of a woman patient who had been severely burned.

He treated a syphilitic child and pointed out to Mr. Singer the scaling eruption on the palms of the hand, the dull, opaque surface of the eye, the sloping upper front incisors.

He gave nickels to the children, and because of his quietness and decorum he did not disturb the patients as would have another visitor.

With him he spoke of chemistry and the enigma of the universe.

Her hair was not oiled and combed as usual, her eyes were bloodshot as though she had partaken of strong drink.

‘Course we does, sir,’ said Highboy deferentially.

The words rose inchoately to his throat and he could not speak them.

Always when he used to come in with his family to see Daisy he would have himself examined and take home medicine and salves for the whole group of them.

Then with sudden clinical interest he observed the white man’s face, for in his eyes he saw a strange, fixed, and withdrawn look of madness.

When he returned he brought with him a scuttle of coal and some kindling. Jake watched him kneel before the hearth.

He sees the world as it is and he looks back thousands of years to see how it all come about. He watches the slow agglutination of capital and power and he sees its pinnacle today.

There was a privy in the back and a hydrant on the stoop.

He never lighted the oil lamp by his bed unless he wanted to read. The acrid smell of burning oil in the cold room nauseated him.

The loneliness in him was so keen that he was filled with terror.

He stuck his little finger out from his glass and haughtily twisted his mustache.

As I say I never knew but one—and he was a seedy little teetotaler whose breath stunk.

As I say I never knew but one—and he was a seedy little teetotaler whose breath stunk.

In the constitution (drawn up by myself) certain statutes dealt with the swapping of our motto from “Action” to “Freedom” as soon as our work was through.

When he spoke of food his face was fierce with gusto.

As they descended the stairs he continued to talk with nervous volubility.

And at last the deluge of swollen words took shape and he delivered them to the mute with drunken emphasis: ‘The things they have done to us! The truths they have turned into lies. The ideals they have fouled and made vile...'

They have made the word freedom a blasphemy.

She walked in that same prissy, dainty way. You could tell that she knew they were all looking at her.