He stared across and down at her for a long moment, trying to place her—then it all came back in sequence and his hatred for himself became even greater. She had cried and he had hit her in the face. She had not left him. He recalled dimly that he, too, had cried, and that was the reason she had stayed, clinging close to him in binding misery. But the stench of sour liquor pervaded the cheap hotel room, seeping in and out of the cracked yellow paint, rolling around the rusty shank of the fire extinguisher pipe jutting from one wall at ceiling level. The place was hot and muggy. He stumbled from the bed, dragging a sheet with him and stamped furiously at it, finally disengaging its cloying weight. He threw up the water-stained blind and the dim light of the gray airshaft poured across the bed. He turned in the face of it and stared at her naked body, sprawled sidewise across the mattress. It had been a lousy night. Poor slob of a broad. He slumped down in the seedy, overstuffed armchair near the silent radiator.
