“Answer? Well.... You are right. Undoubtedly. In everything.”
“Then ...” (She tried to cover the minute
tremor with a smile but it did not escape me.) “Well, all right. I shall ... I shall leave you at once.”
Yet she remained drooping over the table. Drooping eyelids, drooping arms and legs. The pink check of the other was still on the table. I quickly opened this manuscript, “WE,” and with its pages I covered the check, trying to hide it from myself, rather than from O-.
“See, here, I am still busy writing. Already 101 pages! Something quite unexpected comes out in this writing.”
In a voice, in a shadow of a voice, “And do you remember ... how the other day I ... on the seventh page ... and it dropped....”
The tiny blue saucers filled to the borders; silently and rapidly the tears ran down her cheeks. And suddenly, like the dropping of the tears,—rushing forth,—words:
“I cannot ... I shall leave you in a moment. I shall never again ... and I don’t care.... Only I want, I must have a child! From you! Give me a child and I will leave. I will!”
I saw she was trembling all over beneath her unif, and I felt ... I too, would soon ... would.... I put my hands behind my back and smiled.
“What? You desire to go under the Machine of the Well-Doer?”