In
his presence there was no danger, could be no danger. He would never
attempt to approach too closely, to touch her with his hands. She was
safe with him.
In his apartment in the evening the man sat under the electric light
with his wife and his mother-in-law. In the next room his two children
were asleep. In a short time his wife would have another child. He had
been with her to a picture show and presently they would get into bed
together.
He would lie awake thinking, would hear the creaking of the springs of a
bed from where, in another room, his mother-in-law was crawling under
the sheets. Life was too intimate. He would lie awake eager,
expectant--expecting what?
Nothing. Presently one of the children would cry. It wanted to get out
of bed and sit on the po-po. Nothing strange or unusual or lovely would
or could happen. Life was too close, intimate. Nothing that could happen
in the apartment could in any way stir him. The things his wife might
say, her occasional half-hearted outbursts of passion, the goodness of
his stout mother-in-law who did the work of a servant without pay--
He sat in the apartment under the electric light pretending to read a
newspaper--thinking. He looked at his hands. They were large, shapeless,
a workingman's hands.
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