Falconer+-+John+Cheever

Falconer 133
flames and a rush of shadows, but all he saw was a man hanging
up his wash to dry. The passiveness of the place bewildered him.
They could not all have been humiliated and gulled by nakedness
and a glittering tree, but that seemed to be the case. The place
seemed sleepy. Had they all retreated into the torpor he had
chosen when Chicken fired his mattress? He looked again at the
stranger hanging out his wash.
Farragut joined the others waiting in the corridor. Outside it had
begun to rain. Ransome went among them, collecting the forms
that had been photographed. These were useless and Farragut
watched Ransome with interest, for he was so secretive a man that
to follow any of his consecutive movements promised to be
revealing. What he did, when he had collected a dozen forms, was
to climb onto a chair. Ransome was a big man and the chair was
rickety and he checked his safety by shifting his weight. When he
felt secure he began to tear the forms into small pieces and cast
them, like a sower, over the heads and shoulders of the others. His
face was beaming and he sang “Silent Night.” The Cuckold picked
up a good bass, and considering the distance they had all come
from caroling, they formed a small, strong choir, singing
enthusiastically about the Virgin. The old carol and the scraps of
paper falling softly through the air onto their heads and shoulders
was not at all a bitter recollection on that suffocating rainy day,
but a light-hearted memory of some foolishness, linked to a fall of
snow.
Then they lined up and marched out. Another group of inmates
stood lined up in the tunnel, waiting their turn to be
photographed beside the tree. Farragut regarded them with the
pleasure and surprise with which one regards the crowd waiting to
get into the next show at a movie. That was the end to his
cheerfulness. As soon as they saw the faces of the guards in the
tunnel they saw that their Christmas was over.