The Pilgrim Hawk by Glenway Wescott

his emotions, and still amorous. He had acquired Eva in Morocco; and she certainly had Moorish blood though she called herself Italian. She was half his age and lovely, although of an increasing billowy fatness; pale in the way that seems sallow at times, silvery at other times. Ricketts was a fine Cockney, bright-eyed and sharp-nosed. He sat at the table in the middle of the room in a spoiled young male attitude, with a bottle of wine half empty and half a plate of Eva’s little Moorish cakes.
    Dinner was flourishing; that I could tell by the smell of it. Along with which I breathed the early summer wafting in: a tart exhalation of the sod, a scent of some shrub that was like a dark candy. In spite of the open door, the stove going full tilt for the squabs and the strawberry tart made the room hot, which brought out the men’s untidy healthy body odor. Eva had one of those cheap North African perfumes in a little cake like a rubber eraser, and had put that on to excess, which, alas, I fancied, was for the young Englishman’s benefit. And the mood of the room, the morality or psychology of the three together, was as confusing as this fragrant air in it. Eva stood and stared at Ricketts. Her great eyes were a little reddened; probably she had been weeping; at the moment she was smiling vaguely. Ricketts poured the sour red wine down his throat half a glass at a time; and between throatfuls looked up at her with a becoming brightness. Jean pretended to be busy beside the stove with his back to them. But he agitated the pots and pans, and flashed glances over his shoulder, and replied to my questions about the tart and the cheese with a little more obscurity and more assurance than I liked.
    Then I happened to look outdoors. It pleased me to be able to see, in a little interval between two shrubs, the dreamy hawk hunched up on the rustic bench. And then, to my amazement, I saw Cullen on the left coming across the lawn. Very slowly, with a kind of noticeable alcoholic endeavor not to be noticed; on tiptoe, and as if the grass were a loud and slippery surface like a ballroom floor . . . Instantly I sensed that it was abnormal and scandalous. But I could not run out to see what he was up to, without making a little scandal myself. Jean and Eva and Ricketts would follow or at least watch. So there I stood, acting absent-minded, murmuring about the Camembert and the iced hock.
    Cullen vanished for a moment behind one of those two shrubs near Lucy’s perch. When he reappeared he was crouching, and hitching along on the balls of his feet, and steadying himself with one hand, closer and closer to her. The grotesque furtive approach indicated for one thing that he had no rational plan, no serious intention. For Lucy was hooded as well as leashed; she could not see him. He kept stretching out one hand, very tense; but he could scarcely have reached her from that quadruped position. I began to think it funny. But from the bedroom window Alex and Mrs. Cullen could have seen him as well as I: that was a pity . . .
    Perhaps it occurred to him. He scrambled to his feet, and somewhat assumed an attitude of knowing what he was about, and leaned over the bench with his back to me. Perhaps he was undoing the knot or knots of the leash. Evidently he was not alarming Lucy much; she opened her wings a few inches, as if expecting to be picked up. But he drew back, and to my dismay, my disgust, thrust his hand in his pocket and brought out a large pocketknife and opened it. Murder at last, I thought. It was Lucy’s turn; no more Lucy!
    Before I even got started to run out and stop him, he simply pushed her hard off the back of the bench, recoiling away from her at the same time. It was obvious how afraid of her he was. With a large indignant flutter she landed on the grass. He had cut the leash; he had not cut her throat. Also he had unhooded her. On the grass for a moment she took a rapid confused look in every direction. Then with