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Just then, after a minute of allowing this air of hostility to doits work, she
moved and spoke. He was looking for some piece of harness to replace
anotherwhich had probably broken.
The woman dominated, swayed,
attracted,repelled him as she pleased. Then, shortly before Christmas, a chance
meeting came about in thekitchen.
A strange hesitancy took possession of
him.
Her featuresbecame hollow under her mask.
It was Bobby who rented a meadow
where the two had never cutbefore. I had neverbeen inside a dentists office.
It
was Bobby who rented a meadow where the two had never cutbefore.
He started out
very early in the morning, at sun-up. In him, however, all sexual instincts
were dead. He felt as if he carried the experience of a world,carried it as an
actual load on his shoulders.
To this that he had intended to buy her off.
Niels could not help spying upon her sometimes.
He never shaved anylonger, his
hair hung low.
Could he have stood up under such a strain?
He was glad he could
interpret his action soclearly, so accurately. Seeing that Niels was doing this
for him, hewould not leave him while he was what he was. One fact stood out:
she had givenher body . Her eyes held him, looking at him, derisively, looking
at hisshrinking figure and drooping head .
He went straight across the open and
intothe stable whence he had watched her a while ago.
She looked at him,
questioningly, almost curiously. Heheard her passing through the dining room,
into the hall, and upthe stairs. Had he, Niels wronged the woman, intentionally
or not? No matter where he turned in his agony, he saw no help for it; hesaw no
way out.
Then the head of the man was lifted and obstructed the
womanslook.
Thefrown on his brow deepened into a scowl. Could he have stood up
under such a strain?
For a moment he felt that he must pitch forward and faint.
Something, he knew not what, prompted him to do so.
Again he was going tocarry
out a preconceived plan.
I cannot stay here, a prisoner, condemned toa
life-sentence. But in thosefew seconds Niels had seen a number of things. If he
avoided people in thissettlement, the people also avoided him.
So it all came
back to this that he should not have fallen .
Then he stepped back to the
little window.
The woman whose laughter had died away followed every one of
hismovements with her eye.
Then he went out tobring in a few armfuls of wood
for the heater in the dining room.
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