Gene is confident that the outdoor weather will keep Leper calm and at peace, since it always had before. At the mention of Brinker Hadley Leper imagines how funny it would be to see his face on a woman's body and begins crying maniacally, declaring that he must be a psycho as the army had said. Gene begins to get upset again, since Leper talks endlessly about body parts being on furniture and how he had seen his corporal's face on a woman's body and about a man who had slept near him in the army who coughed terribly. Although he has never even seen the fighting lines in Europe, the war has already broken and defeated him just as the winter had defeated the landscape around Devon. It is not even the war itself but the mere thought of its destruction that has injured Leper.
Gene begins to think that their footsteps breaking through the frozen snow are like rifle shots.
Gene leaves Leper standing out in the snow, talking to himself, while he runs back towards the town, eager to catch a return bus to Devon. Brinker had accused him of this before, but Gene had been able to remain calm. Leper was much more direct, and Gene responded with violence. Click for our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service .