Michael Malone - Weebly

imprisoning, then killing, its captive. He cursed the fact
that he was placed in a position of initiating a
conversation in which he must comfort Luke.
Such conversations struck him as inevitably
awkward and embarrassing to both sides—"I'm deeply
sorry"; "Thank you for your sympathy"—for they fell
necessarily into rote memorizations like other polite
forms of address. Smalter believed strongly in standard
formalities, handcuffs on the flailing assaults of the
savage heart. But good manners, he acknowledged,
could not mix with the bluntness of death. He had
nothing polite to say about such a barbarian. Still, he
could not pretend to read a newspaper while he could
hear, twenty feet away, the methodical stacking of
supplies, the never interrupted movement with which he
knew Luke was striving to hold off that old ugly fact
that is so rightly antithetic and incomprehensible to the
young. On the other hand, nor could he, railing against
loss, rush back there, crush Luke in his arms, and
soothe him with the salve of tears. Father Highwick
could have, but Mr. Smalter could no more howl
through the facade of his social self than he could have