MS-HRC-SB-4-3

[1201] Five years now it had been going on, five or six, not more.
[1202] She told herself she had a woman's disease, but half-heartedly.
[1203] Night seemed less night in the kitchen pervaded with the every-
day tribulations, day less dead. [1204] It helped her, when things were
bad, to cling with her fingers to the worn table at which her
family would soon be united, waiting for her to serve them, and
to feel about her, ready for use, the lifelong pots and pans.
[1205] She opened the door and looked out.

[1206] The moon had gone, but the
stars were shining. [1207] She stood gazing up at them. [1208] It was a scene
that had sometimes solaced her. [1209] She went to the well and grasped
the chain. [1210] The bucke^t was at the bottom, the windlass locked.
[1211] So it was. [1212] Her fingers strayed along the sinuous links. [1213] Her mind
was a press of formless questions, mingling and crumbling limply
away. [1214] Some seemed to have to do with her daughter, that minor
worry, [1215] now lying sleepless in her bed, listening.

[1216] Hearing her
mother moving about she was on the point of getting up and going
down to her. [1217] But it was only the next day, or the day after, that
she decided to tell her what Sapo had told her, namely that he
was going away and would not come back.

[1218] Then, as people do when
someone even insignificant dies, they summoned up such memories
as he had left them, helping one another and trying to agree.
[1219] But we all know that little flame and its flickerings in the
wild shadows. [1220] And agreement only comes a little later, with the
forgetting.

[1221] Mortal tedium. [1222] One day I took counsel of an Israelite on the
subject of conation. [1223] That must have been when I was still looking