Angela’s big, good-humored face was momentarily disfigured by a scowl. “What the hell is it to you? . . . Aw, . . . fergit it! . . . What you look at me like that for? Come on.”
But Wilfred stood still. His feet were weighted down.
“What you waiting for? What’s the matter wit’ me, you look like that? Come on. . . .”
Wilfred went towards the bed like an automaton. He looked at her. After all there was nothing astounding in her unveiling. It was just a human body, the complement to his own; one was instinctively familiar with it. He recognized dispassionately that it was a generous, comely woman’s body, without blemish. He was reminded of fruitfulness; it was a body fit for Ceres, for Eve. What lovely, dimpling hollows! what a magical texture in woman’s skin!—But it didn’t seem to matter. What mattered terribly, and made him tremble, was the strangeness of the soul that inhabited this woman’s body, sending him such queer intimations through her eyes, all the while her tongue was so glib and matter-of-fact. Their bodies might press together as one, but their souls were sundered by an immensity of space. . . . How piteous!
“What you look at me like that for, fella?”
Once more Wilfred stood in front of the bureau with one hand upon it, his head lowered. Angela was busy in the corner behind him. He did not feel that anything of moment had happened to him. He was not changed. . . . Was that all? . . . But, no! He had failed; that’s what it meant. He was not human enough to take fire and burn in the beautiful human way. He was just a sort of figment of a man; an hallucination. He fulfilled himself only in imagination. Faced with reality, he dissolved. A dreadful fear gripped him. It was like falling through space. His hand tightened hard on the edge of the bureau, as if to convince himself that here was a real flesh and blood hand gripping palpable matter. . . . The edge of the bureau was blackened by many cigarette burns. The men who had laid those cigarettes down, their bodies had burned!
The girl came, and passed an arm around his shoulders. “You’re a wonderful fella!” she murmured. “I like you.”
Oh, yes! thought Wilfred. Flattery is a part of her business.
On the hand that lay on the bureau, Wilfred sported an antique ring of no great value. She turned it round on his finger. “Give it to me for a keepsake, fella,” she whispered cajolingly.