larified noises that
can make a night seem so long. The distant click of the elevator,
depositing a night-hawk. A plong of the bed spring. Somebody's cough. A
train's shriek. The jerk of plumbing. A window being raised. That creak
which lies hidden in every darkness, like a mysterious knee-joint. By
three o'clock she was a quivering victim to these petty concepts, and
her pillow so explored that not a spot but what was rumpled to the
aching lay of her cheek.

Once Alma, as a rule supersensitive to her mother's slightest unrest,
floated up for the moment out of her young sleep, but she was very
drowsy and very tired and dream-tides were almost carrying her back, as
she said:

"Mama, are you all right?"

Simulating sleep, Mrs. Samstag lay tense until her daughter's breathing
resumed its light cadence.

Then at four o'clock, the kind of nervousness that Mrs. Samstag had
learned to fear, began to roll over her in waves, locking her throat and
curling her toes and her fingers, and her tongue up dry against the roof
of her mouth.

She must concentrate now--must steer her mind away from the craving!

Now then: West End Avenue. Louis liked the apartments there. Luxurious.
Quiet. Residential. Circassian walnut or mahogany dining room? Alma
should decide. A baby-grand piano. Later to be Alma's engagement gift
from, "Mama and--Papa." No, "Mama and Louis." Better so.

How her neck and her shoulder-blade, and now her elbow, were flaming
with the pain! She cried a little, far back in her throat with the small
hissing noise of a steam-radiator, and tried a poor futile scheme for
easing her head in the crotch of her elbow.

Now then: She must knit Louis some neckties. The silk-sweater-stitch
would do. Married in a traveling-suit. One of those smart dark-blue
twills like Mrs. Gronauer Junior's. Top-coat--sable. Louis' hair
thinning. Tonic. Oh God, let me sleep. Please, God. The wheeze rising in
her closed throat. That little threatening desire that must not shape
itself! It darted with the hither and thither of a bee bumbling against
a garden wall. No. No. Ugh! The vast chills of nervousness. The flaming,
the craving chills of desire!

Just this last giving-in. This once. To be rested and fresh for him
tomorrow. Then never again. The little beaded handbag. Oh God, help me.
That burning ache to rest and to uncurl of nervousness. All the
thousand, thousand little pores of her body, screaming each one, to be
placated. They hurt