The butcher’s windows opposite attracted his attention. Two gas lights were burning there vividly. Rugo could see flanks of beef laid out in pans, little ruddy pools collecting about them like insertion. Fowl hung by the necks and several hams lured the passer-by as they swung softly this way and that.
He opened his door hesitatingly and shutting it carefully stepped out into the roadway.
He crossed over and leaned his head against the glass. He looked in very close now, and he could see the film that shrouded the dead eyes of the fowl and the hares. Slabs of liver laid out in heaps, flanked by cuts of tripe, drew his attention.
A strange sensation had hold of him in the pit of his stomach. It seemed to him that he was turning pale. He raised his hand to his beard and tugged at it.
Two or three red hairs separated and came out. He held them up between him and the light. Then he darted in the back door of the shop.
Presently he emerged carrying a box. With the furtive and hurried step of a man who is being observed he crossed the street. He opened the door of his own little shop and, locking it quickly, he put the box in the corner and turned down the light.
It was very dark and he stumbled. A little reflection came from the meat shop window and touched the rims of his cardboards, and his pattern book full of the funny strutting gentlemen. His heart was beating horribly against his side. He began to question himself and stopped. He could never do it unless he made his mind a resolute thing. He clenched his teeth, blinking his eyes as he did so. He began to shiver.
Presently he threw himself on the ground in the corner near the box, his arms over his head, his face flat upon the dust and grime of the boards. He must do it quickly—but he couldn’t do it.
His mind began to wander again. He thought of the road, red and yellow with the dying leaves of Autumn, of the great swaying shadows and the sunlight breaking in between in little jagged spots like flowers. He remembered the mosquitoes, and he got to his knees and let his hands hang down at his sides.
The Summer had always been so pretty; the rains left the fields so bright and sudden when they came into view over the top of the hill. The ploughing had been good, he had really enjoyed that after all, only then he had not known just how much he did enjoy it. What a pity that he had not known what a good thing it all was then.