IN THIS bitterly divided country, a disturbing number of conversations now start with the exclamation, “Sons of bitches!” Then comes the delicate task of discerning to whom this insult refers. Is the speaker angry with the government installed by a coup last month, or is the bile directed at the overthrown Muslim Brotherhood and its fellow travellers?

Given the pace of gory events, it can be hard to guess. On the morning of August 19th, news that police had fired tear gas into a packed prison lorry, asphyxiating 36 Islamist suspects, prompted widespread outrage. Yet within hours sympathies tilted back, as the news broke that Islamist gunmen in the Sinai peninsula had seized 25 unarmed police returning by bus from leave, and had shot them by the road.

Most often it is the Brothers that take the blame, though as the death toll from seven weeks of unrest approaches 2,000, the overwhelming bulk of victims has been on their side. In addition to the sour experience of one year under the inept rule of the Brotherhood’s man, Muhammad Morsi, before his overthrow on July 3rd, a ceaseless campaign of vilification in Egypt’s press has had its intended effect. “They deserve it” is the kind of callous remark reserved for what many now condemn in blanket terms as “terrorists”.

Particularly in big cities, Egyptians by and large continue to rally behind their army, whose soft-spoken chief, General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, has proved a persuasive television performer. There is little public liking for the police, who have done most of the killing, but the Brothers’ claim that their massive protests against the coup have been entirely peaceful is undermined by well-aired imagery and testimony showing that masked gunmen have lurked among the crowds. More than 100 soldiers and policemen have died in the violence.

It helps that relative calm has now settled in, following a crescendo of bloodletting after the security forces stormed two pro-Brotherhood sit-ins in Cairo on August 14th. Much of the country remains under a dusk-to-dawn curfew, but banks and government offices have reopened. The capital’s stockmarket is making modest gains.

The state’s hammer-blows against the Brotherhood have begun to blunt its response. Empowered now by emergency laws, the police have swept up more than 1,500 of the group’s sympathisers, in addition to senior leaders, including the supreme guide, Muhammad Badia. Daily protests continue, but with dwindling turn-outs, often provoking hostility from pro-government citizens.

Brotherhood sources recount intense internal debates about what course now to take. Some counsel a retreat underground, some advocate defiance and even violence. So far, pacifist voices have largely prevailed, at least inside the Brotherhood itself. But its allies include a broad range of Islamist groups. Some, such as jihadist gangs in Sinai that have mounted daily attacks against security forces, are far fiercer.

Burning resentment lingers more widely among dedicated Islamists, who make up perhaps a quarter of Egyptians. This is not due only to thwarted hopes and fury at what they see as a counter-revolution against Egypt’s nascent democracy, but to personal tragedy. The dead so far include Mr Badia’s own son, the daughter of another senior official and a grandson of the Brotherhood’s founder, Hassan al-Banna. But many victims hail from other Islamist groups, or had simply come out to protest against the army’s seizure of power.

So far the government has done nothing to assuage the pain, or to suggest that the Brothers could be welcomed back into politics soon. Moving ahead with a “road map” declared by General Sisi, it has announced constitutional changes that include a dilution of “Islamic” wording and a future ban on parties “based on religion” which is intended to exclude the Brotherhood. A more liberal branch of the interim cabinet has lobbied for the government to endorse a charter with pledges of inclusiveness and a commitment to democracy and the rule of law, so as to clear the air and coax Islamists to accept their defeat. Yet this looks likely to be ignored.

For the time being, the Egyptian state’s harder men feel immune from criticism. They have responded fiercely to pressure from Western countries and from the European Union, which has announced a ban on the sale of security equipment. Officials accuse critics of supporting terrorism and have fanned a vitriolic campaign against foreign journalists for purportedly pro-Brotherhood bias.

Much of this is bluster, inflated by a long state tradition of repeating slogans until they become accepted facts. But the government also has powerful backers. With its former chief ally, America, in retreat from the region, rich Arab countries have stepped in. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, whose ruling families detest the Brotherhood for its secrecy and seemingly tentacular reach, have already pledged $12 billion in aid, a sum that dwarfs potential Western funds.

Even so, the stridency of the government’s propaganda, the harshness of its methods and the reappearance of faces from the fallen regime of Hosni Mubarak all leave a bad taste for many Egyptians, including secularists who cheered the Brotherhood’s departure.

As if to exemplify what many regard as a counter-revolution, Egyptian courts announced on August 21st that Mr Mubarak, who had been held in prison on varied charges, could no longer legally be detained. This may have been a procedural outcome, not a political decision. Even so, for Mr Mubarak to walk free would be a grim reminder that so much of the promise of Egypt’s revolution has fizzled.