at my lodgings. We had one room and our
meals cost us sixpence each. Cheap as it was, it was a struggle
for me to earn money at all. I remember feeling ill and anxious
once, and sustaining myself by the thought of my father wheeling
the heavy truck up the street when he married my mother. And I
decided to wheel my truck, too.

A. seemed happy and her love increased, if possible; at first,
though, she must have found me a trying lover, for I made her
kneel and pray with me two or three times a day, which she did
with such a queer expression of face. Sometimes her feelings got
the better of her, and she would say: "Oh, damn it, Fred, you are
always praying." And then I would be shocked and she would be
sorry.... Coitus was frequent; she commenced to like it now....

A. was not looking well one evening when she came in, and lay
down on the bed. Presently she commenced to make a strange noise,
and I saw her eyes were closed and her hands clenched. "Ah," said
the landlady, who came in to help me; "she has epileptic fits."
When her convulsions were over she looked blankly at us, knitting
her brows and evidently puzzling her poor brain to remember who
we were. For many years it was my fate to see her looking at me
thus, at first stony and estranged, like a dweller in another
star, then half-recalling with extended hand, then forgetting
again with hand to mouth, then the gradual dawn of memory and
love, and final full recognition. "It's Fred, my Fred!" I never
got used to it; it always moved me to tears.... It was not to be
thought that we had no quarrels. I still had fits of bad temper,
and sometimes they came into collision with A.'s temper. It hurt
my vanity considerably to see how soon she relinquished the
respectful, patient, spaniel-bearing she had when we were
traveling. I said some cruel things to her and she retorted. One
would have thought, to hear us, that all affection was over. But
when the mood of rage wore itself out we would both be sorry and
make it up with tears, and be very happy in spite of our poverty.

I think it was lust that prevented me from striving to fulfill my
ambitions. A. let me do anything I liked, at all times of day or
night, although she seemed surprised at my proceedings sometimes,
for it was becoming a fever of lubricity with me. She still
th