The day of the locust by Nathanael West Page A

peddle your tripe!" Mary shouted.
    17
    On the day of Harry's funeral Tod was drunk: He hadn't seen Faye since she went off with Mary Dove, but he knew that he was certain to find her at the undertaking parlor and he wanted to have the courage to quarrel with her. He started drinking at lunch. When he got to Holsepp's in the late afternoon, he had passed the brave state and was well into the ugly one.
    He found Harry in his box, waiting to be wheeled out for exhibition in the adjoining chapel. The casket was open and the old man looked quite snug. Drawn up to a little below his shoulders and folded back to show its fancy lining was an ivory satin coverlet. Under his head was a tiny lace cushion. He was wearing a Tuxedo, or at least had on a black bow-tie with his stiff shirt and wing collar. His face had been newly shaved, his eyebrows shaped and plucked and his lips and cheeks rouged. He looked like the interlocutor in a minstrel show.
    Tod bowed his head as though in silent prayer when he heard someone come in. He recognized Mrs. Johnson's voice and turned carefully to face her. He caught her eye and nodded, but she ignored him. She was busy with a man in a badly fitting frock coat.
    "It's the principle of the thing," she scolded. "Your estimate said bronze. Those handles ain't bronze and you know it."
    "But I asked Miss Greener," whined the man. "She okayed them."
    "I don't care. I'm surprised at you, trying to save a few dollars by fobbing off a set of cheap gun-metal handles on the poor child."
    Tod didn't wait for the undertaker to answer. He had seen Faye pass the door on the arm of one of the Lee sisters. When he caught up with her, he didn't know what to say. She misunderstood his agitation and was touched. She sobbed a little for him.
    She had never looked more beautiful. She was wearing a new, very tight black dress and her platinum hair was tucked up in a shining bun under a black straw sailor. Ever so often, she carried a tiny lace handkerchief to her eyes and made it flutter there for a moment. But all he could think of was that she had earned the money for her outfit on her back.
    She grew uneasy under his stare and started to edge away. He caught her arm.
    "May I speak with you for a minute, alone?"
    Miss Lee took the hint and left.
    "What is it?" Faye asked.
    "Not here," he whispered, making mystery out of his uncertainty,
    He led her along the hall until he found an empty showroom. On the walls were framed photographs of important funerals and on little stands and tables were samples of coffin materials, and models of tombstones and mausoleums.
    Not knowing what to say, he accented his awkwardness, playing the inoffensive fool.
    She smiled and became almost friendly.
    "Give out, you big dope."
    "A kiss..."
    "Sure, baby," she laughed, "only don't muss me." They pecked at each other.
    She tried to get away, but he held her. She became annoyed and demanded an explanation. He searched his head for one. It wasn't his head he should have searched, however.
    She was leaning toward him, drooping slightly, but not from fatigue. He had seen young birches droop like that at midday when-they are over-heavy with sun.
    "You're drunk," she said, pushing him away.
    "Please," he begged.
    "Le'go, you bastard."
    Raging at him, she was still beautiful. That was because her beauty was structural like a tree's, not a quality of her mind or heart. Perhaps even whoring couldn't damage it for that reason, only age or accident or disease.
    In a minute she would scream for help. He had to say something. She wouldn't understand the aesthetic argument and with what values could he back up the moral one? The economic didn't make sense either. Whoring certainly paid. Half of the customer's thirty dollars. Say ten men a week.
    She kicked at his shins, but he held on to her. Suddenly he began to talk. He had found an argument. Disease would destroy her beauty. He shouted at her like a Y.M.C.A. lecturer on sex hygiene.
    She stopped struggling