It seemed
incredible. They were so weak now. They could not have lifted the
hammer now.
But that beard! That bristly, thick, square beard of a stranger!
His hands remembered it. Standing with his shoulders fallen forward
and his weak arms hanging down, Boaz began to shiver. The whole
thing was incredible. What was on the floor there, upheld in the
vast gulf of darkness, he could not see. Neither could he hear it;
smell it. Nor (if he did not move his foot) could he feel it. What
he did not hear, smell, or touch did not exist. It was not there.
Incredible!
But that beard! All the accumulated doubtings of those years fell
down upon him. After all, the thing he had been so fearful of in his
weak imaginings had happened. He had killed a stranger. He, Boaz
Negro, had murdered an innocent man!
And all on account of that beard. His deep panic made him
light-headed. He began to confuse cause and effect. If it were not
for that beard, it would have been that _cachorra_.
On this basis he began to reason with a crazy directness. And to act.
He went and pried open the door into the entry. From a shelf he took
down his razor. A big, heavy-heeled strop. His hands began to hurry.
And the mug, half full of soap.
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