She lay with her back to him, far over on her side of the bed. He could see where her hip rose, and vaguely through the covering the outline of her limbs. Her shoulders were crumpled forward, and the upper one responded to her breathing, and marked it. Under her arm, crossed in front of her, he knew was the swelling of her breast.
And then at the neck was the place where the hair was parted and braided, the braids wound forward about her eyes—a very peculiar way to treat one's hair.
What a different thing a woman was! He had seen her lying so countless times, and yet the strangeness had never worn off. Indeed, curiously enough, there seemed even more of it now than when they had just married, and she was entirely new.
He often thought a woman didn't seem exactly a person—that is, not like him, and he was certainly a person—but something else; just as good, perhaps, but quite other. Her body, of course—well, agreeable as it might be, still he was glad he wasn't made that way, for it seemed so ineffective.
And one of them could stand a good man on his head. He simply couldn't get the hang of that. If a man was angry and sulked, he didn't mind. In fact, he preferred it to being knocked about as the big fellow sometimes did to him. He had never cared what man sulked, his brother or father or any of them.
And yet this woman, she——he looked at her intently, earnestly, as if finally to solve her—she was very beautiful. And she was his wife.
He crept into bed, very softly, for she might wake up. But then, it briefly occurred to him, what if she did! He was perfectly sober—at least to all intents and purposes. He could talk perfectly straight; he felt sure of that.
Perhaps she would now wake of her own accord. That would be the best solution, and then he could appear drowsy, as if he, too, had just been aroused from sleep.
He sighed loudly and turned himself over in the bed, but she gave no sign.
"Georgia," he whispered very low.