Prev | Current Page 116 | Next

Bennett, Arnold, 1867-1931

"The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories"

" And she lifted off the glass.
"What use can the doctor be?" Margaret asked. "Only spoil the poor man's
night for nothing. And he's had a lot of bad nights lately. He told me
to be--prepared."
The servant said:
"Yes, mum.. But I'd better run for him. That's what doctors is for."
As soon as the front-door banged on the excited servant, my wife fell on
that body with a loud cry, and stroked it passionately, and I could see
her tears dropping on it. She wept without any restraint. She loved me
very much; I knew that. But the fact that she loved me only increased my
horror that she should be caressing that body, which was not me at all,
which had nothing whatever to do with me, which was loathsome, vile, and
as insensible as a log to the expressions of her love. She was not
weeping over me. She was weeping over an abomination. She was all wrong,
all tragically wrong, and I could not set her right. Her woe desolated
me. We had been happy together for sixteen years. Her error desolated
me, as a painful farce. But a slow, horrible change in my own
consciousness made me forget her grief in my own increasing misery.


Pages:
104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128