And covered with
flowers, always hungry and thirsty for the sun and the fabulous wind
and bright showers of rain. It had become an entrenched camp, lying
silent, sullen, verdureless, under a gray sky. He stood solitary
against the world. His approaches were closed. He was blind, and he
was also deaf and dumb.
Against that what can young fellows do who wish for nothing but to
rest themselves and talk about their friends and enemies? They had
come and they had tried. They had raised their voices even higher
than before. Their boasts had grown louder, more presumptuous, more
preposterous, until, before the cold separation of that unmoving and
as if contemptuous presence in the cobbler's chair, they burst of
their own air, like toy balloons. And they went and left Boaz alone.
There was another thing which served, if not to keep them away, at
least not to entice them back. That was the aspect of the place. It
was not cheerful. It invited no one. In its way that fire-bitten
ruin grew to be almost as great a scandal as the act itself had been.
It was plainly an eyesore. A valuable property, on the town's main
thoroughfare--and an eyesore! The neighbouring owners protested.
Their protestations might as well have gone against a stone wall.
Pages:
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490
491
492
493
494