Into Sam's mind came a picture of the cold, silent water moving in great
masses under the night sky and he thought that in the world of men there
was a force as resistless, as little understood, as little talked of,
moving always forward, silent, powerful--the force of sex. He wondered how
the force would be broken in his own case, against what breakwater it
would spend itself. At midnight, he went home across the city and crept
into his alcove in the Pergrin house, puzzled and for the time utterly
tired. In his bed, he turned his face to the wall and resolutely closing
his eyes tried to sleep. "There are things not to be understood," he told
himself. "To live decently is a matter of good sense. I will keep thinking
of what I want to do and not go into such a place again."
One day, when he had been in Chicago two years, there happened an incident
of another sort, an incident so grotesque, so Pan-like, so full of youth,
that for days after it happened he thought of it with delight, and walked
in the streets or sat in a passenger train laughing joyfully at the
remembrance of some new detail of the affair.
Sam, who was the son of Windy McPherson and who had more than once
ruthlessly condemned all men who put liquor into their mouths, got drunk,
and for eighteen hours went shouting poetry, singing songs, and yelling at
the stars like a wood god on the bend.
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