"I needn't be a fool about it!" he muttered through his teeth.
He fell asleep that night with a sense of the closeness of her face. Dimly and dazed he remembered that her lips had seemed to drink him up. Engulfed in her, he lay sleeping at length. And yet was he truly asleep? From what world came this enamel can with the rusted edges, from the real world, from the world of unintelligible dreams? Oh, yes, of course; he recognized it! It was the can that hung on a nail over the scullery sink. They were filling the can with water, unseen and pale hands holding it to the guttering tap. "Don't think of them!" the girl said, "think of my lips! Aren't they juicy, aren't they sweet?" But processionally, as though that cheap can were a flagon of holy wines, they were bearing it away, along the lobby, and towards the front door. The cat was crying eerily from a shut room. Tick—tick—tick! moaned the clock. Candles fluttering! ... Good girl, Mamie! Here she was, with flushed cheeks and tossing hair! Wouldn't let them have it all their own way, she wouldn't! The can of water stood—why, why? stood at the pavement's edge. She lifted the can and threw the water away, but the can dropped from her fingers, and here once more was the can at the pavement's edge, full once more with dark, mournful waters. "Never mind them!" she whispered. She bent towards him, her eyes desirous. Yet ever quenchless, like a vase of tears, the can stood at the pavement's edge. And here was Mrs. Levine, sodden flour on her apron, and long, torn wools fluttering from her shawl. She was wringing her hands. She bent towards the can of water. "Look away!" said the girl fiercely. A rumbling of wheels...
A cock was crowing. The leaves of a full tree were swishing against the window. Philip opened to the dawn red and apprehensive eyes.
But his first remembrance as he stared towards the oblong of eight lights was not the girl, not all the grape-dark kissing; it was a sudden stab of contrition—"The letter! My mother's signature! By God, what a swine I was! I forgot!"
Mrs. Kraft read the names of the recipients of letters during breakfast. Nothing? Nothing for Philip Massel! He stared savagely towards Mrs. Kraft. She might have read out his name alongside of the fools she had mentioned; he needed his letter a thousand times more than they! He turned resentful eyes towards Mamie. Mamie was chattering sweetly with Mrs. Hannetstein. He stumbled into the garden and sat disconsolately against a trunk. The self-satisfied buzzing of a bee over its tremendously exaggerated labours annoyed him acutely. Minutes passed. His despondency and irritation became more and more unbearably stupid. He had allowed himself to forget her, he had allowed those hungry quiet eyes to slip from his heaven, he had allowed—oh, what a maddeningly fierce scarlet was the geranium in those precise window-boxes! What an insane monotony of triplicate phrases that shallow fat bird sang yonder, the bird with the mottled breast! What a gawky youth was this passing through the front gate with a bumpkin leer and corkscrew feet, a foolish little ochre envelope held stiffly before him! He leaned back against the tree and closed his eyes tiredly. How long would it take before she would really be about? Of course it had been a boast, a joke, that she'd have a monstrous kuggel to greet his return! His head was buzzing foolishly.
"Philip Massel! A telegram for you!" Of course that had nothing to do with him! Who the hell was Philip Massel, anyhow? He heard the metallic tinkling of a grasshopper, and saw against his shut eyelids huge yellow spheres like brandy-balls and blue rings and spectral vapours.
"Philip Massel! Didn't you hear? A telegram, I said!"
The bumpkin was grinning towards him. At the front door Mrs. Kraft stood, arm outstretched. Philip turned a frightened face from youth to woman, from woman to youth. He came forward and opened the envelope.
"Mother dangerous return immediately.
CHANNAH,"
he read.