In
wondering what he should say to comfort her he fell asleep again, and
sleeping was worse than lying awake. For in his dreams he saw Xantippe
and his child starving and crying for food, and he was unable to help
them in any way. He lived over again the long day he had spent tramping
the streets of Alexandria searching for work. He saw the few tourists
still left in the town fat and happy; he saw the porters of the hotels
who had smiled on him pityingly and yet contemptuously; and he woke,
after each representation of the crude comedy, hot and yet cold with
perspiration, to feel the bed on which he lay shaking under the sobs of
his wife.
When at last day dawned Gregorio raised himself with an oath, and swore
to find food for his family and work for himself. The terrible debt he
owed to Amos he swore should not trouble him, laughing at his wife's
remonstrances. With the bright daylight had come a new courage, and,
hungry as he was, he felt able not only to satisfy their hunger, but so
skilfully to arrange matters that they would never feel hungry again.
Yet is was a terrible ordeal, that half-hour when the family should have
sat down to a table laden with food.
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