| 228 | 229 | 230 | 231 | 232 |
| 1 | 90 | 179 | 269 | 358 |
|
rock of knowledge. "Don't you know? 'Aven't they told you--any of 'em?
Boomfood! You know--Boomfood. What all the election's about. Scientific
sort of stuff. 'Asn't no one ever told you?"
He thought prison had made his brother a fearful duffer not to know
that.
They made wide shots at each other by way of question and answer.
Between these scraps of talk were intervals of window-gazing. At first
the man's interest in things was vague and general. His imagination had
been busy with what old so-and-so would say, how so-and-so would look,
how he would say to all and sundry certain things that would present his
"putting away" in a mitigated light. This Boomfood came in at first as
it were a thing in an odd paragraph of the newspapers, then as a source
of intellectual difficulty with his brother. But it came to him
presently that Boomfood was persistently coming in upon any topic he
began.
In those days the world was a patchwork of transition, so that this
great new fact came to him in a series of shocks of contrast. The
process of change had not been uniform; it had spread from one centre of
distribution here and another centre there. The country was in patches:
great areas where the Food was still to come, and areas where it was
already in the soil and in the air, sporadic and contagious. It was a
bold new motif creeping in among ancient and venerable airs.
230
Page
Quick Jump
|