stretches—enjoying the stretch—liking the approach of slumber! Now she moves off—puts out her light, climbs into her bed—grows warm I suppose, and sleeps . . .
She sleeps, in a sort of innocence. So did I, once. I wait a moment, then take out my mother''s picture and hold it close to my mouth.
That''s her, I whisper. That''s her. She''s your daughter now!
How effortless it seems! But when I have locked my mother''s face away I lie, uneasily. My uncle''s clock shudders and strikes. Some animal shrieks, like a child, in the park. I close my eyes and think— what I have not thought so vividly of, in years—of the madhouse, my first home; of the wild-eyed women, the lunatics; and of the nurses. I remember all at once the nurses'' rooms, the mattings of coir, a piece of text on the limewashed wall: My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me. I remember an attic stair, a walk upon the roof, the softness of lead beneath my fingernail, the frightful drop to the ground—
I must fall into sleep, thinking this. I must plunge to the deepest layers of the night. But then, I am woken—or, not quite woken, not quite drawn free from the tugging of the dark. For I open my eyes and am bewildered—perfectly bewildered—and filled with dread. I look at my form in the bed and it seems shifting and queer—now large, now small, now broken up with spaces; and I cannot say what age I am. I begin to shake. I call out. I call for Agnes. I have quite forgotten that she has gone. I have forgotten Richard Rivers, and all our plot. I call for Agnes, and it seems to me she comes; but she comes, to take away my lamp. I think she must do it to punish me. ''Don''t take the light!'' I say; but she takes it, she leaves me in the terrible darkness and I hear the sighing of doors, the passage of feet, beyond the curtain. It seems to me then that much time passes before the light comes back. But when Agnes lifts it and sees my face, she screams.①本①作①品①由①思①兔①在①線①閱①讀①網①友①整①理①上①傳①