Crambe repetita (33)
Over his head loomed the shadow of the Institute, the yellow brick building on the hill where the old people crept in the sun, ekeing out the week’s little wad of tobacco, meekly eating the bread of charity and idleness. In the Institute garden grew nothing, it seemed, but rhubarb and cabbages, sharper than the tooth of a horse dressed in blouse and skirt, watery with the water which would turn out in the end to be thicker, more dependable, than blood.