My heart and my flesh

by Elizabeth Madox Roberts

Second Voice: This house, it’s full of devils. [Screaming.] Full of demons.

Third Voice: “See,” they said. “Look, look, she ate the dog bread.” What else is there around? Between her teeth a crust of the dog bread.

Theodosia: And very good bread it is. Don’t be too light with the dog bread.

First Voice: The foul breath of an old fox-killing bitch on a hot pone and a clock strikes. That’s what time is. There is nothing comparable to it on any other planet. Nothing like it.

Third Voice: You are a murderer yourself. You, Theodosia. And an adulteress. Which of the commandments have you not broken?

Theodosia: I thought that was finished, settled. I thought I’d put that by.

Third Voice: What honor did you show your father? Why didn’t you honor him as he wanted to be honored? Easy to know and lived in the same house.

Time was measured then by the walking of a dog over a hearth, but the day, Wednesday, stood apart from time as having some entity of its own, some extra faculty. She saw innumerable dogs walking in procession across a hearth, ticking time, yesterday and tomorrow, forever, as far back as memory could reach. A warmth then began to drown her memory of Tilly and she knew in some inner way that it was afternoon and that Frank would come. A pleasant sense of Frank stole over her. He would talk a little of his success in the courts and gossip of law secrets, wills, marriage settlements, threatened procedures, giving comradeship. Perhaps he would grow amorous, offering compliments. Through him she would touch the world again. The vignettes on the border were fading with the waning day, the birds being still, the sun set. She sat up in the bed suddenly, the act a sudden cry to the departing light. Except for a few patches of lit upland, the landscape was dark now, settling into the shadows where the hills arose, biting at the sky with sullen lines along the west hill rim. Weak from the strain of sitting up suddenly she sank into a momentary apathy, but her breathing was one continuous burden borne by the prophecy which was already clearly stated as fact. She arose from the bed as if some determination had come to her. She felt herself moving slowly, but with little forward rushes of settled opinion, going straight without dalliance. She mended the fire without stint of the wood and dressed herself in the first gown that came to her hand, the gray wool gown, and took the scarf to her shoulders. Her hands trembled with exhaustion, but she lit the lamp and carried it to the lower hall and set it on the table there.

She went to her aunt’s room and lingered a little by the fire, taking a farewell of her by a quiet lingering, a few commonplace speeches passing between them, the old sayings of the months that were past. Of the two ordeals that lay before her she regarded Frank as the more difficult, for he and his disposal had not been predicted by prophecy or settled to an act, he being rather a menace within her own body where it reached toward life. The aunt settled to her book again, and Theodosia stood by the door of the room, waiting and listening, and presently there was a noise at the front door of the house. She went into the hall then, and, Old Mam and Tilly following after her, she let them come or she laid her hand on Old Mam’s neck to keep her at hand. Frank was coming into the hall, was standing at the door looking cautiously back into the gloom of the half-lit spaces beyond the stairs.

She held Old Mam by the collar and called to Tilly, keeping them near. At the foot of the stairs she spoke to Frank across the ten feet that lay between them and she moved backward toward the steps, mounting the first, taking the dogs with her, holding them fast. He was arguing, outraged and unbelieving, growing angry. “I hold no grudge against you,” she said. She kept the dogs close to her, holding their collars. “I will never see you again,” she said. “But I hold no grudge.” She had gone half-way up the steps now, but the ascent was difficult, the dogs unwilling to come. The dogs dragged her back; “They make it too hard,” she thought, half yielding to their strength at the point where her own strength failed. Frank was commanding, accusing, saying she had not been fair.