Chapter 15 - Page 2

paper reminded him she was gone.
But he had been with her. He wanted everything to stand still,
so that he could be with her again.

The days passed, the weeks. But everything seemed to have fused,
gone into a conglomerated mass. He could not tell one day
from another, one week from another, hardly one place from another.
Nothing was distinct or distinguishable. Often he lost himself
for an hour at a time, could not remember what he had done.

One evening he came home late to his lodging. The fire was
burning low; everybody was in bed. He threw on some more coal,
glanced at the table, and decided he wanted no supper. Then he
sat down in the arm-chair. It was perfectly still. He did not
know anything, yet he saw the dim smoke wavering up the chimney.
Presently two mice came out, cautiously, nibbling the fallen crumbs.
He watched them as it were from a long way off. The church clock
struck two. Far away he could hear the sharp clinking of the trucks
on the railway. No, it was not they that were far away. They were
there in their places. But where was he himself?

The time passed. The two mice, careering wildly, scampered cheekily
over his slippers. He had not moved a muscle. He did not want
to move. He was not thinking of anything. It was easier so.
There was no wrench of knowing anything. Then, from time to time,
some other consciousness, working mechanically, flashed into
sharp phrases.

"What am I doing?"

And out of the semi-intoxicated trance came the answer:

"Destroying myself."

Then a dull, live feeling, gone in an instant, told him that it
was wrong. After a while, suddenly came the question:

"Why wrong?"

Again there was no answer, but a stroke of hot stubbornness
inside his chest resisted his own annihilation.

There was a sound of a heavy cart clanking down the road.
Suddenly the electric light went out; there was a bruising thud
in the penny-in-the-slot meter. He did not stir, but sat gazing
in front of him. Only the mice had scuttled, and the fire glowed red
in the dark room.

Then, quite mechanically and more distinctly, the conversation
began again inside him.

"She's dead. What was it all for--her struggle?"

That was his despair wanting to go after her.

"You're alive."

"She's not."

"She is--in you."

Suddenly he felt tired with the burden of it.

"You've got to keep alive for her sake," said his will in him.

Something felt sulky, as if it would not rouse.

"You've got to carry forward her living, and what she had done,
go on with it."

But he did not want to. He wanted to give up.

"But you can go on with your painting," said the will in him.