"What are you doing? What are you doing?"
And she hid her face in his mantle in order not to show the emotion, of which she was always ashamed.
They had engaged two very inferior rooms; one was dark and the other uncomfortable, looking out on a factory. His wife worked in the kitchen and resigned herself to her fate, for her maternal feelings were aroused, though not yet completely. He suffered when he saw her toiling the whole day at the kitchen-range and in the scullery, and sometimes felt a twinge of conscience.
When he wished to help her to carry something heavy, she refused to be helped, for she insisted strongly that he should not be seen engaged in any feminine occupation, nor would she allow him to wait on her or to do her any small service. All storms were over now; a quiet stillness prevailed; the days passed one after the other in unvaried monotony. They lived alone together and had no social intercourse nor distractions.
But poverty came. The trial about his book had frightened the publishers and theatres. But the worst of all was that he could not write.
And what he could write, he did not wish to, for the plot of the story affected a family to whom he owed a debt of gratitude. Now when he would soon have two families to provide for, he trembled before the future with its increased duties, for a growing dislike to exercise his calling as an author had finally culminated in disgust.
What an occupation—to flay his fellow-creatures and offer their skins for sale. Like a hunter who, when pressed hard by hunger, cuts off his dog's tail, eats the flesh, and gives the bone—its own bone—to the dog. What an occupation to spy out people's secrets, expose the birth-marks of his best friend, dissect his wife like a rabbit for vivisection, and act like a Croat, cutting down, violating, burning, and selling. Fie!
In despair he sat down and wrote from his notes a survey of the most important epochs of the world's history. He hoped, or in his need imagined that he might in this way strike out a new path for himself as an historian, which had been the dream of his youth, before he became an author.
His wife knew what he was writing and that it would bring in no money, but controlled herself; perhaps his ardent conviction had persuaded her that there was something in it. She did not complain, but on the contrary cheered him up and offered to translate the work into English.
A month passed, quiet, peaceful but melancholy. They felt that they were not enough for each other in this absolute loneliness. They lamented it but sought for no society. He, with wider experience than hers, hoped that the child on its arrival would be satisfying company for them both.