[The Cruise of the Jasper B. by Don Marquis]@TWC D-Link bookThe Cruise of the Jasper B. CHAPTER IX 11/14
The young anarchist, whose eyes were bright with fever, was talking rapidly in a weak but high-pitched singsong voice. "He's off on the poems again," said the Doctor, after listening a moment.
"But wait, he'll get back to Loge.
It's been one or the other for an hour now." "I spit upon your flag," shrilled Giuseppe Jones, feebly declamatory. "'I spit--I spit--but, as I spit, I weep.'" He paused for a moment, and then began at the beginning and repeated all of the lines which Cleggett had read from the little book.
One gathered that it was Giuseppe's favorite poem. "'I spit upon the whole damned thing!'" he shrilled, and then with a sad shake of his head: "But, as I spit, I weep!" If the poem was Giuseppe's favorite poem, this was evidently his favorite line, for he said it over and over again--"'But, as I spit, I weep'"-- in a breathless babble that was very wearing on the nerves. But suddenly he interrupted himself; the poems seemed to pass from his mind.
"Loge!" he said, raising himself on his elbow and staring, with a frown not at, but through, Cleggett: "Logan--it isn't square!" There was suffering and perplexity in his gaze; he was evidently living over again some painful scene. "I'm a revolutionist, Loge, not a crook! I won't do it, Loge!" Watching him, it was impossible not to understand that the struggle, which his delirium made real and present again, had stamped itself into the texture of his spirit.
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