out more often, to the "Red Lion" again,
to escape the madness of sitting next to her when she did not
belong to him, when she was as absent as any woman in
indifference could be. He could not stay at home. So he went to
the "Red Lion". And sometimes he got drunk. But he preserved his
measure, some things between them he never forfeited.

A tormented look came into his eyes, as if something were
always dogging him. He glanced sharp and quick, he could not
bear to sit still doing nothing. He had to go out, to find
company, to give himself away there. For he had no other outlet,
he could not work to give himself out, he had not the
knowledge.

As the months of her pregnancy went on, she left him more and
more alone, she was more and more unaware of him, his existence
was annulled. And he felt bound down, bound, unable to stir,
beginning to go mad, ready to rave. For she was quiet and
polite, as if he did not exist, as one is quiet and polite to a
servant.

Nevertheless she was great with his child, it was his turn to
submit. She sat opposite him, sewing, her foreign face
inscrutable and indifferent. He felt he wanted to break her into
acknowledgment of him, into awareness of him. It was
insufferable that she had so obliterated him. He would smash her
into regarding him. He had a raging agony of desire to do
so.

But something bigger in him withheld him, kept him
motionless. So he went out of the house for relief. Or he turned
to the little girl for her sympathy and her love, he appealed
with all his power to the small Anna. So soon they were like
lovers, father and child.

For he was afraid of his wife. As she sat there with bent
head, silent, working or reading, but so unutterably silent that
his heart seemed under the millstone of it, she became herself
like the upper millstone lying on him, crushing him, as
sometimes a heavy sky lies on the earth.

Yet he knew he could not tear her away from the heavy
obscurity into which she was merged. He must not try to tear her
into recognition of himself, and agreement with himself. It were
disastrous, impious. So, let him rage as he might, he must
withhold himself. But his wrists trembled and seemed mad, seemed
as if they would burst.

When, in November, the leaves came beating against the window
shutters, with a lashing sound, he started, and his eyes
flickered with flame. The dog looked up at him, he sunk his head
to the fire. But his wife was startled. He was awa