— Nothing! Nothing, any more than you share love with me. They hold out something, offer it down. They even give it but they never share it, they never share anything. Her coarse hair stood away from her face in disarray as she looked at his profile in the fire's light, uneven shocks of flame as one branch blazed up and another fell glowing, which seemed to make his features move, though nothing moved but his hands, taking a closer grip from which she half twisted. — Precision of suffering. privacy of suffering. if that's what it is, suffering, then you. share it. She was looking down, and shook her head slowly. — If you can't share it… you can't understand it in others, and if you can't understand it you can't respect it… and if you can't respect it, if you can't respect suffering.
The firelight had suddenly been penetrated by the sharp white lights of a car, which stopped at the curb, its siren droning down too deep to be heard. Beyond, other sirens and the clangor of bells violated the night almost upon them.
— O.K. Jack, what d'you call this?
— I… we… it's nothing, officer.
— Is this here your campfire?
— I don't know anything about the fire, Wyatt said, turning to face him, still supporting Esther. — Do I look like I…
— O.K. Jack, take it easy. Who's the little lady?
— This is my wife.
— You live here?
— No, we live uptown. My wife has just had a little too much to drink.'
— The both of you look like you've had a few too many. This your husband, lady?
— No. — Esther.
— He ain't yer husband?
— Look at him, Esther said raising her eyes. — Can't you see? Look at his eyes, can't you see he's a priest?
— Esther.
Suddenly the night around them disappeared in a blaze of red and white lights and the harmonic explosion of the sirens and bells, as a hose truck, an emergency vehicle, and a hook and ladder arrived, it seemed at the same instant. The policeman turned his back on them in the doorway. — It's just somebody's friggin Christmas tree, he called out.
— Are them the ones that lit it? came a voice from behind a red beam.
— You better get home to bed, Jack, the policeman said, turning to Wyatt.
— There aren't any cabs.
— Come on. I'll give you a lift, Father.
They drove uptown, in silence except for the constant static voice on the radio at their knees repeating its esoterics, signal thirty, signal thirty. car number one three seven, signal thirty.
Wyatt handed the policeman a five-dollar bill when they got out, and the policeman said, — Happy New Year, Father.
As he fitted the key in the door, Esther murmured, — I feel so old. He let her in, to the darkness and the scent of lavender. She sat down and said, — Leave the light off, as he crossed to the bright shaft of light that came from the drying lamp set up before the portrait in the studio.
— Wyatt, she said, — can't you say something to me.? Even if you don't believe it?
He did not appear to have heard, standing over the portrait. He turned off the hot lamp, lifted a small ultra-violet hand lamp and stood tapping his foot, waiting for it to warm up. There were sounds of Esther standing in the dark room, and her footsteps. The violet light gradually rose to its lurid fullness, and showed his drawn face and level unblinking eyes turned upon the portrait. The smooth surface was gone under the violet light: in the woman's face, the portions he had restored shone dead black, a face touched with the irregular chiaroscuric hand of lues and the plague, tissues ulcerated under the surface which reappeared, in complaisant continence the instant he turned the violet light from it, and upon the form of Esther who had come, looking over his shoulder, and fallen stricken there on the floor without a word.
Wyatt picked her up, and carried her across the dark room to the bedroom. — Don't try to carry me, she whispered, as he got her there and laid her down on the bed, losing his balance and coming down almost on top of her, where she suddenly held him. Then Esther reached out with one hand and turned on the soft bed lamp. He held her face between his hands, his thumbs meeting above her eyes, and drew his thumbs along her brows. Her eyes opened, bloodshot and the whites almost possessed by the flesh round them: his eyes above were still and hard, looking down unblinking. She reached up to catch his right hand and stop it, so that only his left thumb moved along her brow. — You look like a criminal, she said gently. His smile seemed to draw her lips together, her upper lip caught under her lower. — Why? she whispered. -Why do you fight it all so hard?
— There's still… so much more to do, he answered, as his smile k ft his face.
— So much what? If… you can't share your work with me. but does that mean you can't share anything? She moved under him, and put one hand up to his rough cheek. He did not answer. — You looked like a little boy, with the flames all over your face, she whispered.
— It was terrible, he commenced, — and that woman… 1
— A lonely little boy, getting upset over silly people.
— But Esther. when I realized how much you've talked to them, told them about me, about my father and. my mother, and guilt complexes and that dream I have that comes back, and saying that I needed analysis badly, and all sorts of… He paused. She was not crying.
— I had to talk to someone, she said. She scratched the palm of his right hand with her fingernails. — I wish. she said, moving under him. His right hand closed on her fingers, and they stopped.
He stroked her hair.
Then she moved so quickly, raising herself on her elbows, that her dress tore. — Do you think it can go on like this? she said loudly. His tight black jacket, unpadded and unpressed, bound his arms, but he did not stop to take it off; and then her eyes closed, his thumbs on the lids, and they shared the only intimacy they knew.
— What do you think about? she asked him, as they undressed.
— Think about? he repeated, looking up confused.
— Just. now, she said.
— Not thought. I don't think of anything, but. He drew on his cigarette, which was half smoked away. — It was strange. There were sapphires. I could see sapphires spread out, different sizes and different brilliances, and in different settings. Though some of them weren't set at all. And then I thought, yes I did think, I thought, if only I can keep thinking of these sapphires, and not lose them, not lose one of them, everything will be all right.
She turned out the light. — That must mean something. Like your dream. Your dream isn't hard to understand. Certainly not. after tonight.
— There's always the sense, he went on, — the sense of recalling something, of almost reaching it, and holding it… She leaned over to him, her hand caught his wrist and the coal of tobacco glowed, burning his fingers. In the darkness she did not notice. — And then it's. escaped again. It's escaped again, and there's only a sense of disappointment, of something irretrievably lost.
He raised his head.
— A cigarette, she said. — Why do you always leave me so quickly afterward? Why do you always want a cigarette right afterward?
— Reality, he answered.
— Reality? Otto repeated. — Well I always think of it as meaning the things you can't do anything about. This was an argument which many women might have welcomed; and, from the way he raised one eyebrow, it might appear that many had. Nevertheless, Esther continued to stare into the cup before her. — I mean. Otto commenced.
— I think he thinks of it as…
— Yes? he asked, after pausing politely.
— As nothing, she said. — As a great, empty nothing.
Before Otto could look (or try not to look) as uncomfortable as this made him, he was startled by her looking him square in the face across the table, to ask, — Do you like him?