ENOCH AND THE GORILLA ENOCH EMERY / TUTORIALOUTLET DOT COM ENOCH AND THE GORILLA ENOCH EMERY / TUTORIALOUTLET | Page 7

Enoch’s humiliation was so sharp and painful that he turned around three times before he realized which direction he wanted to go in. Then he ran off into the rain as fast as he could. In spite of himself, Enoch couldn’t get over the expectation that something was going to happen to him. The virtue of hope, in Enoch, was made up of two parts suspicion and one part lust. It operated on him all the rest of the day. He had only a vague idea what he wanted, but he was not a boy without ambition: he wanted to become something. He wanted to better his condition. He wanted, some day, to see a line of people waiting to shake his hand. All afternoon he fidgeted and fooled in his room, biting his nails and shredding what was left of the silk off the landlady’s umbrella. Finally he denuded it entirely and broke off the spokes. What was left was a black stick with a sharp steel point at one end and a dog’s head at the other. It might have been an instrument for some specialized kind of torture that had gone out of fashion. Enoch walked up and down his room with it under his arm and realized that it would distinguish him on the sidewalk. About seven o’clock in the evening he put on his coat and took the stick and headed for a little restaurant two blocks away. He had the sense that he was setting off to get some honor, but he was very nervous,