IV

March sunlight came palely through the window that was dingy with the drippings of two-day old snow, and shone along the crinkled counterpane on Peter’s bed. Under the crisp blue and whiteness, the doctor slept, peacefully. I could touch his shoulder, by sitting up and stretching out my arm, but I did not want to, at all.

Peter said, yesterday, “Don’t mourn me long.”

In a sense, my dear Peter, I mourned you only seven hours, but I may be going to mourn you all my life besides. The doctor is an efficient person. I do not like him much, though. The way he shifts from professional to passionate manner, and back again, is a bit automatic. Hot water faucet, cold water faucet, hot water faucet . . . He must have been Don Juan of some hospital staff six or seven years ago. But he solved one night for me, and that was what I thought I wanted.

(I wonder if Peter is waking up by himself, or not. Peter.—I could scream and beat my fists against the floor and sob hours and days and weeks to have you back—to have the year 1922, again. And all that would happen, if I began, is that I would wake up the doctor. He would fish bromide tablets out of his dinner jacket pocket, for the emergency, I do not doubt.

He will have to telephone for a cab to get home in those dinner clothes. Wonder if he will sleep all day.)

I did sleep well, extraordinarily enough. One is not supposed to; one is supposed to lie awake biting sheets, or something of the sort, when one’s husband deserts. But I was so tired.

It feels remarkable to be a deserted wife when one is only twenty-four. Not what I planned to do with my life, precisely. I planned to be a Red Cross nurse, in time for another war. Was just sixteen in the war, and felt sick because I was too young to marry someone on his last leave, for my-country’s-sake, under a flag.

Peter was too young, too. He would have looked marvellous in a uniform . . . naval aviation green. But most of those did not get across. Peter marching with sun shining on his blond hair.

Oh God, if I begin to cry I shall not be able to stop. Better get up, and see what there is for that doctor’s breakfast. I want to be all dressed when he wakes.

Left leg out of bed, right leg out of bed, negligee, slippers. I feel very clear-headed. We did not drink much. The doctor probably believes in keeping fit. (I must ask him, I bet he will mention “mens sana in corpore sano.”) They had that on the wall of the gymnasium in school.

I believe in keeping fit myself. I shall go do calisthenics in the livingroom, I do not want him waking and watching me. Calisthenics every morning—and nights when there is nothing exigent to prevent, are ten minutes sacred to the memory of an athletic adolescence.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. They help. I like touching my toes to the floor over my head. Calisthenics make me feel like a warm, live animal rolling about in a pasture. Liquor makes everything go far off, too, but it makes me feel like a mind wandering freely through space, not like a warm body in a pasture.

Better go look at the doctor. He sleeps on. “After life’s fitful fever,” no, that is something else. I will have a shower, now. Someone should invent a method for using bath salts in a shower, then it would be perfect.

I am actually hungry. People are not supposed to be able to eat with broken hearts. I feel like an alarm clock wound up too tight. I must not think . . . count sheep jumping a fence . . . no that is for going to sleep.

I will wear my blue jersey dress with white collars and cuffs . . . it looks so chaste. Lord, I have been more chased than chaste. Oh damn, I must get myself together, that man will be waking up. I wonder what his first name is. I forgot to ask. Should I look it up in the telephone book?

I wonder what Nora ordered for breakfast. She is a very good maid. It is a good thing she does not come on Sundays. I shall have to get her another job; Gretchen will snap her up. I cannot keep this apartment. What will become of me? A bad end no doubt—walking Sixth Avenue, and touching Peter on the arm begging for fifty cents—like hell.

This kitchen is nice and sunny. Give the doctor orange juice, of course, it is full of vitamins.

There are duck eggs. . . . Nora went to Jefferson Market and bought duck eggs, for Pete’s Sunday breakfast because she knows he is absurdly fond of them. I am going to cry, now, only for a minute though. . . . The duck eggs will do for the doctor. There are no others. They are nicest shirred.

“Good morning, Patricia . . . you look very fresh.”

“I’ve been doing calisthenics.”

“The mens sana idea?”

(Hold everything while he kisses you. Count sheep fence jumping. A kiss does not take long.)

He is a more percipient young man than I thought. “Are you having morning-after reactions? I’m sorry, my dear.”

“It’s all right. I’m just a bit—what my husband used to call jittery.”

“That’s understandable. Have you such a masculine accessory as a razor, Patricia?”

“Silly little gold one . . . in my dressing table. I’ll get it—can you manage with that?” (Pete used a big straight one . . . that was what I was going to slash my wrists with . . . he packed it . . . the bathroom has gone feminine over night.)

The doctor talked about medicine, vitamins, ductless glands and things, at breakfast. He was extremely percipient. And he liked duck eggs.

He called the Brevoort for a cab. Then, “I’m going to be tactful, and wait for you to telephone me, Patricia, because I don’t want you to feel that I’m thrusting myself on you.”

I smiled, looking friendly, I hope.

“I’m somewhat older than you . . . and should like to give you a small piece of advice—or warning, if I may?”

“Of course, and I’m sorry if I’m being childish this morning, Doctor.”

“Not at all . . . Perhaps you don’t realize that as a young woman—and an extremely attractive one—separated from her husband—men are going to consider you the fairest game in the world. You’ll get used to it, and adjust yourself. At first it may be difficult.” . . . (Well, why doesn’t he get to his advice? Is he going to suggest a course in the Psychology of Sex? I should not be so impatient, he has been very kind to me. That must be his taxi-man ringing the doorbell.)

“Try to remember that the banality about time healing everything is quite true.”

(Is that all the medical profession has to offer me? How much time does it take is what I want to know.)

“Yes, taxi, wait outside a minute.”

“Meanwhile, Patricia, don’t take things too hard.”

He smiled. “It was one of the pleasantest nights of my life,” he said quite gravely.

He picked up his hat, refrained from kissing me, and held out his hand. For that last I was suddenly so warmly grateful that I could smile, really gaily, and say what was truth at the moment. “I am glad you stayed.”

“I shall hope that you telephone, Patricia.” The door closed behind him—a completely comprehending and nice man.

I knew that I would never telephone—that I would never see him again. He understood that, too.

The telephone rang. It was Lucia. Very beautiful Lucia was—ex-wife of a man named Archibald. I met Arch once; had known Lucia casually some time, at the Advertising Club. She seemed to be taking more interest in me of late, since she knew I had been having what department store help call “family troubles.”

“I hear from a friend of a friend of Rickey’s, that your husband and Rick celebrated your husband’s return to bachelor life, at the Yale Club last night?”

“I shouldn’t wonder, Lucia. He left before dinner yesterday.”

A little silence.

“How are you feeling?”

“All right, I guess.” (It is going to be awful to have people asking how I feel all the time, as if I were convalescing from typhoid.)

“Come up and have tea with me?”

“Love to.”

“And Pat, it’s not bad being an ex-wife when you get used to it. I quite like the life.”

“Tell me about it at tea.”

“ ’Right.”

Ex-wife—ex-wife of Peter puts on a beaver coat and fresh white gloves. I cannot bear being ex-wife of Peter.

The late sun of Sunday afternoon shone on ex-wife of Peter walking fast uptown, through the crowds of funny people recovering from too-huge dinners by waddling a few blocks along Fifth Avenue. (I can tell by the expression of men’s faces that I am looking well. I look just the same as I did last week, probably, and shall not look much different next week, or for five years, or even ten, if I take exercise. In five years or ten, shall I walk, still wanting to meet Peter in the middle of the next block?)

Park Avenue.

Lucia is a red-haired oval-faced madonna in a black velvet dress. She is much slimmer than a Titian madonna though—a sort of a cross between Titian’s and Burne-Jones’ women.

“Pat, I’m giving you a highball instead of tea.”

“Lucia, don’t break the news gently, but does one ever get over it?”

She sipped a highball. She held a cigarette in long thin fingers. She regarded me sympathetically, then appraisingly. She grinned a gaminesque grin, that set oddly on her lovely face. She looked as if I were being very funny indeed. She did not answer.

“One doesn’t ever get over it, does one?”

She threw her cigarette into the fireplace, impatiently. “I’ll make a prophecy, Pat. In three years you won’t remember the colour of his eyes.”

“That’s a comfort.”

“Do you think so?” said Lucia.