ces, thinking, thinking, thinking
--trying to get his bearings. It was new work. If he met a friend, he
found that the habit of a lifetime had in some mysterious way vanished
--his arm hung limp, instead of involuntarily extending the hand for a
shake. It was the "nigger" in him asserting its humility, and he blushed
and was abashed. And the "nigger" in him was surprised when the white
friend put out his hand for a shake with him. He found the "nigger" in
him involuntarily giving the road, on the sidewalk, to a white rowdy and
loafer. When Rowena, the dearest thing his heart knew, the idol of his
secret worship, invited him in, the "nigger" in him made an embarrassed
excuse and was afraid to enter and sit with the dread white folks on
equal terms. The "nigger" in him went shrinking and skulking here and
there and yonder, and fancying it saw suspicion and maybe detection in
all faces, tones, and gestures. So strange and uncharacteristic was
Tom's conduct that people noticed it, and turned to look after him when
he passed on; and when he glanced back--as he could not help doing, in
spite of his best resistance--and caught that puzzled expression in a
person's face, it gave him a sick feeling, and he took himself out of
view as quickly as he could. He presently came to have a hunted sense
and a hunted look, and then he fled away to the hilltops and the
solitudes. He said to himself that the curse of Ham was upon him.
He dreaded his meals; the "nigger" in him was ashamed to sit at the white
folk's table, and feared discovery all the time; and once when Judge
Driscoll said, "What's the matter with you? You look as meek as a
nigger," he felt as secret murderers are said to feel when the accuser
says, "Thou art the man!" Tom said he was not well, and left the table.
His ostensible "aunt's" solicitudes and endearments were become a terror
to him, and he avoided them.
And all the time, hatred of his ostensible "uncle" was steadily growing
in his heart; for he said to himself, "He is white; and I am his chattel,
his property, his goods, and he can sell me, just as he could his dog."
For as much as a week after this, Tom imagined that his character had
undergone a pretty radical change. But that was because he did not know
himself.
In several ways his opinions were totally changed, and would never go
back to what they were before, but the main structure of his character
was not changed, and could not be changed. One or two very important
features of it were alte