The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter: Part One: Chapters 1–3

He glided open the back of the case and his fat hand groped lovingly for some particular dainty inside which he had wanted.

In the dusk the two mutes walked slowly home together. At home Singer was always talking to Antonapoulos. His hands shaped the words in a swift series of designs.

After they had eaten, the big Greek would lie back on his sofa and slowly lick over each one of his teeth with his tongue, either from a certain delicacy or because he did not wish to lose the savor of the meal—while Singer washed the dishes.

The Greek never got on to the erratic movements of the knights and the sweeping mobility of the queens, but he learned to make a few set, opening moves.

But Antonapoulos was always bland, and no matter what happened the gentle, flaccid smile was still on his face.

If he rested at all it was only during a few hours before dawn—then he would drop bluntly into a sleep that lasted until the morning light struck suddenly beneath his opening eyelids like a scimitar.

His gait was agitated and he always kept his hands stuffed tight into the pockets of his trousers.

Then as the weeks passed the days grew warm and languorous.

In his face there came to be a brooding peace that is seen most often in the faces of the very sorrowful or the very wise.

On a black, sultry night in early summer Biff Brannon stood behind the cash register of the New York Café.

Biff waited stolidly, his elbow resting on the counter and his thumb mashing the tip of his long nose.

He watched especially a short, squat man in overalls who had become drunk and boisterous.

Talk—talk—talk. The words came out of his throat like a cataract.

He kept fingering the two coins and moving them around in a circle. At last he pushed them away. ‘And that’s a humble homage to liberty. To democracy and tyranny. To freedom and piracy.’

‘You can’t go around like this. Why, I’m surprised you haven’t been picked up for vagrancy. You ought to sober up. You need washing and your hair needs cutting. Motherogod! You’re not fit to walk around amongst people.’

‘Now, don’t take offense and get your dander up...'

He was like a person who had been somewhere that other people are not likely to go or had done something that others are not apt to do.

'...But it's different in that it took talent to figure that the earth is round. While this truth is so obvious it’s a miracle of all history that people don’t know. You savvy.’

‘And how come? Why has this miracle of ignorance endured? Because of one thing. A conspiracy. A vast and insidious conspiracy. Obscurantism.’

He wanted to ascertain if the mute really understood what was said to him.

The fellow nodded frequently and his face seemed contemplative.

The fellow was downright uncanny. People felt themselves watching him even before they knew that there was anything different about him. In this classic novel, the lonely inhabitants of a small Georgia town find companionship with John Singer, who is deaf and mute.

Biff yawned wanly, patting his open mouth with his fingertips until his jaw had relaxed.

He liable to broken his own head the way he were carrying on.

Biff was in a quandary.

Musingly he wondered just how he should manage the situation.

He was not crying any more, but he seemed to be brooding on something shameful and sullen.

He recalled the incidents in tedious detail and was still puzzled.

There was no noise or conversation, for each person seemed to be alone. The mutual distrust between the men who were just awakened and those who were ending a long night gave everyone a feeling of estrangement.

Always he was scrupulously clean from the belt upward. Every morning he soaped his chest and arms and neck and feet—and about twice during the season he got into the bathtub and cleaned all of his parts.

Deftly he reversed the sheets in all possible ways, putting the top one on the bottom, and turning them over and upside down.

And the way he gravitated around the deaf-mute and picked him out and tried to make him a free present of everything in him.

Mick brushed back her shaggy bangs with the palm of her hand. She had done this so often that there was a little row of cowlicks above her forehead.

She primped all the day long.

Inside was a cracked ukulele strung with two violin strings, a guitar string, and a banjo string.

‘That’s hunky-dory with me,’ Mick said.

I belongs to the Presbyterian Church and us don’t hold with all this rolling on the floor and talking in tongues. Us don’t get sanctified ever week and wallow around together.

Now Highboy he were Holiness boy before us were married. He loved to get the spirit ever Sunday and shout and sanctify hisself.

This afternoon you going to roam all over the place without never being satisfied. You going to traipse all around like you haves to find something lost.

Some of the doors were open to make a draught and there were many sounds in the house.