Mean drunks approaching along a street made him awkward and tense. In the old days he would, if not fight, certainly stand upon his dignity and seek out a policeman to take care of the ruffian, but now he did not know precisely what rights to stand on if the man followed him to the cop calling him that name. He was at a loss as to his role in the city now. Assume he was merely another citizen? Then what if the cop happened to be the kind to take him for an alien always running to the law instead of defending himself? He knew from old experience what his own attitude had been toward such innocents. And yet if he defended himself what compassion could he expect of the passersby-while the drunk kept ringing out that dreadful name ? How could a man fight alone, so terribly alone ?

His mind was stuck, in these days that passed so regularly and with such seeming calm, but a mind must move and his moved in the only direction open – toward the finest dissection of violence. In the most awkward places he would come awake to the clenching of his fists, aware that he had been envisioning himself in a fist-fight. Brutal questions wormed into him. How hard must he strike to knock a man down? Could he hit a man on the chin without breaking his hand? Did he have the power to knock a man down? He moved about in the city in his usual paths and the city was new and his honor stalked him demanding its due.

And it drained away his inner ease, it burdened him with a secret new personality. He could no longer simply enter a restaurant and innocently sit down to a meal. Certain Call and broad types of fair-haired men, with whom he fancied his appearance most in contrast, threw him off balance. When they happened to be seated nearby he found himself speaking quite softly, always wary of the loudness in his tone. Before reaching for something on the table he first unconsciously made sure that he would not knock anything over. When he spoke he kept his hands under the table, although he had always needed gestures. In the glances of people, in the fleet warpings of their eyes, he sought to learn where he stood, for despite his constant self-warnings that he was becoming over-sensitive about it, that he was really not being noticed by nine out of ten people, he still could not tell what was being said in innocence and what was designed to carry meaning for him. And he felt the pressure closing more firmly on his life. Often, to destroy any impression of closefistedness, he left larger tips than he used to and was repaid amply by waitresses’ smiles. He no longer dared to dally before a cashier to count his change – he had always done that, but not any more. The city, the people around him had come somehow to encircle him with their darting eyes; in the streets and public places he no longer felt anonymous. The things he had done all his life as a gentile, the most innocent habits of his person, had been turned into the tokens of an alien and evil personality, a personality that was slowly, he felt, implacably being foisted upon him. And wherever he went he was trying to underplay that personality, discarding it in every way he knew while at the same time denying that he possessed it. He felt as though he were constantly living around the subway pillars, for he kept trying to decide how many minds their violent inscriptions really represented. The secret newspapers he had called them once, the real conscience of the millions, the unedited cry of the people. But even then he had not been sure how many hated, really. How many on this avenue would come to his aid? How many on his block at home? How many would come out for his sake in the darkness of that night …?