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Show old problem, one which you and he had never solved. When the time comes, it had begun, but you and he had never been able to specify concretely what would occur, when the time had come. "There's nothing in there," you repeat, but you see that he has already forgotten the purpose of his search. He stands aimlessly in the middle of the room, bent, unthinking, unimaginably old. After a while, you pull yourself to your feet, move unevenly across the room to meet him, and guide him slowly across the room to the couch. He sits, slowly, first marking out the spot where he will place himself, then guiding himself by slow degrees into it. Carefully, you sit beside him. Your hands meet, but the knuckles of them both are arched like pyramids, and the fingers so inflexible they no longer intertwine. "I've dreamt that over and over again," Annis Robeck tells her husband. She has begun the packing again: she lifts a limp flannel nightgown from one of the drawers of their dresser and holds it up by the shoulders to the light. John Robeck shifts uncomfortably on the small chintz chair. "In the dream, you're a hundred and five years old," Annis tells him. She runs her fingers through the frayed lace on the yoke of the nightgown. "It used to be nv^ mother's," she says absently of the nightgown, "it was supposed to be for Luel." Then she returns to the subject of the dream. "I'm a hundred and seven." "Luel wouldn't have worn it." "Do you know what a hundred and seven feels like?" she demands. "It feels |