‘Oh, for God’s sake, don’t go on like this!’ he cried, dropping on the ground beside her and burying his face in her lap. Divorce him ... condemn him again to that awful loneliness ... where he couldn’t hear her voice....
‘Why couldn’t you go on letting me believe?’ he said, his arms tightly clutching her knees while he kept his face buried. ‘Why couldn’t you? As though I cared what you did before! It made us happy, anyhow, and I wish to God you’d go on doing it. But you’ve only got to get away from this infernal place to be as you used to be, and you didn’t always go to that woman, and I fell in love with you just as you were, and why shouldn’t I love you just as you are?’
‘Because I’m old, and you’re not. Because I’ve grown old since we married. Because I was too old to be married to some one so young. And you know I’m old. You see it now. You see it so plainly that you can’t bear to look at me.’
‘Oh, my God—the stuff, the stuff. I’m your husband, and I’m going to take care of you. Yes, I am, Catherine—for ever and ever. Useless to argue. I can’t live without the sound of your voice. I can’t. And how can you live without me? You couldn’t. You’re the most pitiful little thing——’
‘I’m not. I’m quite sensible. I haven’t been, but I am now.’
‘Oh, damn being sensible! Be what you were before. Good God, Catherine,’ he went on, hiding his face, clutching her knees, ‘do you think a man wants his wife to scrub herself with yellow soap as if she were the kitchen table, and then come all shiny to him and say, “See, I’m the Truth”? And she isn’t the truth. She’s no more the truth shiny than powdered—she’s only appearance, anyway, she’s only a symbol—the symbol of the spirit in her which is what one is really loving the whole time——’
‘What has happened is much more than that,’ she interrupted.
‘Oh yes, yes—I know. Death. You’re going to tell me that all this sort of thing seems rot to you now that you’ve been with death——’
‘So it does. And I’ve finished with it.’
‘Oh Lord—women,’ he groaned, burying his face deeper, as if he could hide from his unhappiness. ‘Do you suppose I haven’t been with death too, and seen it dozens of times? What do you think I was doing in the War? But women can’t take the simplest things naturally—and they can’t take the natural things simply, either. What can be more simple and natural than death? I didn’t throw away my silk handkerchiefs and leave off shaving because my friends died——’