Page 590 - sons-and-lovers

time to time. And so often he found her blue eyes fixed on
him. And when their eyes met, she smiled. He worked away
again mechanically, producing good stuff without knowing
what he was doing.
Sometimes he came in, very pale and still, with watch-
ful, sudden eyes, like a man who is drunk almost to death.
They were both afraid of the veils that were ripping between
them.
Then she pretended to be better, chattered to him gaily,
made a great fuss over some scraps of news. For they had
both come to the condition when they had to make much of
the trifles, lest they should give in to the big thing, and their
human independence would go smash. They were afraid, so
they made light of things and were gay.
Sometimes as she lay he knew she was thinking of the
past. Her mouth gradually shut hard in a line. She was hold-
ing herself rigid, so that she might die without ever uttering
the great cry that was tearing from her. He never forgot that
hard, utterly lonely and stubborn clenching of her mouth,
which persisted for weeks. Sometimes, when it was lighter,
she talked about her husband. Now she hated him. She did
not forgive him. She could not bear him to be in the room.
And a few things, the things that had been most bitter to
her, came up again so strongly that they broke from her, and
she told her son.
He felt as if his life were being destroyed, piece by piece,
within him. Often the tears came suddenly. He ran to the
station, the tear-drops falling on the pavement. Often
he could not go on with his work. The pen stopped writ-