"It has been raining for too long already, darling.
At night sometimes when I wake, I imagine I'm quite buried under all the rain."
"You must come to me at night," said I. "Then you won't have such thoughts any more.
On the contrary, it's nice if you're with somebody and it's dark and it's raining outside."
"Perhaps," she replied leaning against me.
"I quite like it when it rains on a Sunday," said I. "You see then so much better how lucky you are.
We're here together, have a good warm room and a free day ahead—that seems to me a lot already."
Her face brightened.
"Yes, we are lucky, aren't we?" "It seems to me we are marvellously lucky.
When I think of before—my God I I never thought I would be so lucky again."
"It's lovely when you say that.
Then I believe it too.
You must say it oftener."
"Don't I say it often enough?"
"No."
"Maybe," said I. "I think I'm not very loving.
I don't know why, but I just can't be.
Yet I would like to be."
"You don't have to be, darling, I understand you as you are.
Only sometimes one does like to hear it, all the same."
"From now on I'll tell you every time.
Even though it makes me feel absurd."
"Ach, absurd," she replied. "In love there is nothing absurd."
"No, thank God," said I. "Otherwise it would be dreadful to think what it turns you into."
We had breakfast together, then Pat lay down in bed again.
Jaffe had ordered it so.
"Will you stay here?" she. asked from under her covers.
"If you like," said I.
"Of course, I like; but you don't have to—"
I sat down by the bed.
"I didn't mean it that way.
I only remember you said once you didn't like people watching while you were asleep."
"Once, yes—but now I'm frightened sometimes, by my-• self."
"I was that way too, once. In hospital, after an operation.
I used to be frightened to go to sleep at night.
I would always stay awake and read or think about something, and only fall asleep when it grew light. But that passes."
She laid her cheek on my hand.
"You get frightened you won't come back, Robby."
"Yes," said I, "but you do come back, and it passes.
I'm proof of it.
You always come back—if not quite to the same place."
"That's just it," she replied already a bit sleepy, her eyes half-closed. "I'm afraid of that too.
But you'll see to it, won't you?" "I'll see to it," said I, stroking her forehead and her hair, which also seemed to be tired. "I'm an old, wakeful soldier."
She breathed deeper and turned a bit on her side.
A minute later she was fast asleep.
I sat by the window and looked again out into the rain.
It was now driving in grey gusts past the window panes, and the house was like a little island in the endless dreariness.
I was anxious, for it was rare for Pat to be dispirited and sad in the morning.
But then I remembered that only a few days ago she had been still lively and gay, and that it would perhaps be all different when she woke again.
I knew she thought a lot about her illness, and I knew too from Jaffe that it had not improved—but I had seen so many dead in my time, that any illness was for me still life and hope. I knew a man could die from wounds—I had had ample experience of that—but for that very reason I often found it hard to believe that an illness in which one remained exteriorly whole could be dangerous too.