He stared at Lennie and Tom in dismay. Lennie stroked his hair softly.
"There's y' ol' nut!" he said. "Tain't no bigger 'n it ever was. Just exactly same life-size."
Gradually Jack let himself be convinced. And at last he let them blow the candle out. He went to sleep.
He woke again with a frenzy working in him. He had pain, too. But far worse than the pain was the tearing of the raging discomfort, the frenzy of dislocation. And in his stiff swollen head, there was something he remembered but could not drag into light. What was it? What was it? In the frenzy of struggle to know, he went vague.
Then it came to him, words as plain as knives.
"And when I die In hell I shall lie With fire and chains And awful pains."
The Aunts had repeated this to him, as a child, when he was naughty. And it had always struck a vague terror into his soul. He had forgotten it. Now it came again.
"In hell I shall lie With fire and chains And awful pains."
He had a vivid realisation of this hell. That was where he lay at that very moment.
He had never wanted to be a good, loving little boy. Something in his bowels revolted from being a good, loving little boy, revolted in nausea. "But if you're not a good, loving little boy."
Then when you die In hell you will lie'--etc.
"Let me lie in hell, then," the bad and unloving little boy had answered, to the shocked horror of the Aunts. And the answer had scared even himself.
And now the hell was on him. And still he was not a good, loving little boy.
He remembered his lessons: Love your enemies.
"Do I love Easu?" he asked himself. And he writhed over in bed in disgust. He loathed Easu. If he could crush him absolutely to powder, he would crush him to powder. Make him extinct.
"Lord, Lord!" he groaned. "I loathe Easu. I loathe him."
What was amiss with him? Did he want to leave off loathing Easu? Was that the root of his sickness and fever?
But when he thought of Easu's figure and face, he knew he didn't want to leave off loathing him. He _did_ loathe him, whether he wanted to or not, and the fact to him was sacred. It went right through the core of him.
"Lord! Lord!" he groaned, writhing in fever. "Lord, help me to loathe him properly. Lord, I'll kill him if you want me to; and if you don't want me to, I won't. I'll kill him if you want me to. But if you don't want me to, I won't care any more."