A Journey - Page 2

by so direct a temperament. She
still loved him, of course; but he was gradually, undefinably ceasing to
be himself. The man she had married had been strong, active, gently
masterful: the male whose pleasure it is to clear a way through the
material obstructions of life; but now it was she who was the protector,
he who must be shielded from importunities and given his drops or his
beef-juice though the skies were falling. The routine of the sick-room
bewildered her; this punctual administering of medicine seemed as idle as
some uncomprehended religious mummery.

There were moments, indeed, when warm gushes of pity swept away her
instinctive resentment of his condition, when she still found his old self
in his eyes as they groped for each other through the dense medium of his
weakness. But these moments had grown rare. Sometimes he frightened her:
his sunken expressionless face seemed that of a stranger; his voice was
weak and hoarse; his thin-lipped smile a mere muscular contraction. Her
hand avoided his damp soft skin, which had lost the familiar roughness of
health: she caught herself furtively watching him as she might have
watched a strange animal. It frightened her to feel that this was the man
she loved; there were hours when to tell him what she suffered seemed the
one escape from her fears. But in general she judged herself more
leniently, reflecting that she had perhaps been too long alone with him,
and that she would feel differently when they were at home again,
surrounded by her robust and buoyant family. How she had rejoiced when the
doctors at last gave their consent to his going home! She knew, of course,
what the decision meant; they both knew. It meant that he was to die; but
they dressed the truth in hopeful euphuisms, and at times, in the joy of
preparation, she really forgot the purpose of their journey, and slipped
into an eager allusion to next year's plans.

At last the day of leaving came. She had a dreadful fear that they would
never get away; that somehow at the last moment he would fail her; that
the doctors held one of their accustomed treacheries in reserve; but
nothing happened. They drove to the station, he was installed in a seat
with a rug over his knees and a cushion at his back, and she hung out of
the window waving unregretful farewells to the acquaintances she had
really never liked till then.

The first twenty-four hours had passed off well. He revived a little and
it amused him to look out of the window and to observe the humours of the
car. The second day he began to grow weary and to chafe under the
dispassionate stare of the freckled child with the lump of chewing-gum.
She had to explain to the child's mother that her husband was too ill to
be disturbed: a