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Show 33 Nine Now the pain begins. In the days following Robeck's confession, his humor is restored; he putters around the house as if cured of a long illness; but Annis' tranquility is destroyed, and she retreats into the corners of the house. Robeck spends more time at home, less time in his laboratory, now that he senses something is wrong. But he sees Annis less often: he does not find her moving about the kitchen, or reading enormous piles of books, or writing voluminous stacks of letters; he does not have that warm sense of her presence which has always filled the house. There is a small, rather dark extra room, hidden behind the bedroom; she has always used it as a study, but now he sees that she spends much of her time there, noiselessly, seeming to do nothing. The door stands only slightly ajar. He knocks. "John? Come in." He opens the door gradually, slides himself in. He has always been careful not to disturb his wife when she is here, and to respect the privacy of this small space of hers, but she has welcomed him into this room often before, and he remembers it as an enthusiastic outward display of her characeristic clutter: it is small, warm, stuffed with notices, postcards, pictures taped to the walls. Clippings from newspapers protrude from the leaves of books, half-finished letters spill from the typewriter, and everywhere plants thrive, long lush luxuriant vines which grow up from pots at the base of the windows, over the lintels, and track across the ceiling. He has always seen her as a |
