"Just what I expected, darling.
You don't know anything at all about me."
"True," said I; "but that is what makes it so nice.
The more we know one another, the more we misunderstand one another.
And the nearer we know one another, the more estranged we become.
Look at the Hasses, for instance— they know everything about each other and yet are more distasteful to one another than total strangers."
She put on the little black cap and examined it in the mirror.
"What you said then is only half-true, Robby."
"That's the way with all truths," I replied. "We never get further than that.
That's what makes us human.
And God knows we make trouble with our half-truths.
With the whole truth we couldn't live at all."
She took off the hat and put it away.
Then she turned round, and, as she did so, caught sight of my nose.
"What's this?" she asked, alarmed.
"Nothing serious.
It only looks so.
When I was working under the car something dropped on me."
She eyed me incredulously.
"Goodness knows where you've been.
You never tell me anything, do you?
I know as little of you as you do of me."
"And that's the best way," said I.
She fetched a basin of water and a cloth and made me a compress.
Then she contemplated me once more.
"It looks like a punch.
And your neck is scratched too.
You've had some adventure or other, darling."
"My biggest adventure to-day is still to come," said I.
She looked at me surprised.
"So late, Robby?
Are you going out, then?"
"I'm staying here," I replied, throwing the compress away and taking her in my arms. "I'm staying here with you the whole evening."
Chapter XX
August was warm and clear, and in September too the weather was still almost summery—but then, toward the end of September, it started to rain. Clouds hung low all day over the city, the eaves dripped, then the storms began and, one Sunday when I waked early and went to the window, I saw in the trees of the graveyard sulphur-yellow flecks and the first bare branches.
I remained some time standing at the window.
It had been curious, these months since we had come back from the sea; I had always, every hour, been conscious that Pat must go away in the autumn, but I had known it as one knows so many things—that the years are passing, that one is getting older, that one cannot live forever.
The present had been stronger; it had always thrust aside every other thought, and as long as Pat was there, and the trees still green, words such as "autumn" and "going away" and "parting" had been no more than pale shadows on the horizon, making one feel only the more intensely the joy of being near, of being still together.
I looked out on the damp, rain-drenched graveyard, at the gravestones covered with dirty, brown leaves.
Like some bloodless beast the mist overnight had sucked the green sap from the leaves of the trees; feeble and limp they hung from the twigs; each new gust of wind that passed through them tore off fresh ones, and drove them before it—and like a sharp, cutting pain I was suddenly aware for the first time that the parting would soon be there, soon become a reality, even as the autumn that had crept through the tree tops outside and left behind its yellow traces had become a reality.
I listened into the next room. Pat was still asleep. I went to the door and stood there awhile.
She was sleeping quietly, not coughing.
For an instant a sudden hope rose up: I pictured to myself that to-day, or to-morrow, or in the next few days, Jaffe would ring up to tell me she need not go away. Then I remembered the nights when I had heard the rustle of her breathing, the regular, muffled, grating noise that came and went like the sound of a very distant, thin saw—and the hope was extinguished again as swiftly as it had flickered up.
I went back to the window and again looked out into the rain.
Then I sat down at the writing-table and began counting my money.
I reckoned how long it would last for Pat, but that made me miserable and I shut it away again.
I looked at the clock.
It was shortly before seven.
It wanted at least two hours before Pat would wake.
So I hastily dressed to go out and do a bit more driving.