Page "fiction" Paragraph 354

The men were huddled in those lairs.

Adam knew the names of some.

He knew the faces of all, hairy or shaven, old or young, fat or thin, suffering or hardened, sad or gay, good or bad.

When they stood about his tent, chaffing each other, exchanging their obscenities, cursing command or weather, he had studied their faces.

He had had the need to understand what life lurked behind the mask of flesh, behind the oath, the banter, the sadness.

Once covertly looking at Simms Purdew, the only man in the world whom he hated, he had seen the heavy, slack, bestubbled jaw open and close to emit the cruel, obscene banter, and had seen the pale-blue eyes go watery with whisky and merriment, and suddenly he was not seeing the face of that vile creature.

He was seeing, somehow, the face of a young boy, the boy Simms Purdew must once have been, a boy with sorrel hair, and blue eyes dancing with gaiety, and the boy mouth grinning trustfully among the freckles.