"Why don't you go on with your wood-carving?" she said. "Why
don't you finish your Adam and Eve?"
But she did not care for the Adam and Eve, and he never put
another stroke to it. She jeered at the Eve, saying, "She is
like a little marionette. Why is she so small? You've made Adam
as big as God, and Eve like a doll."
"It is impudence to say that Woman was made out of Man's
body," she continued, "when every man is born of woman. What
impudence men have, what arrogance!"
In a rage one day, after trying to work on the board, and
failing, so that his belly was a flame of nausea, he chopped up
the whole panel and put it on the fire. She did not know. He
went about for some days very quiet and subdued after it.
"Where is the Adam and Eve board?" she asked him.
"Burnt."
She looked at him.
"But your carving?"
"I burned it."
"When?"
She did not believe him.
"On Friday night."
"When I was at the Marsh?"
"Yes."
She said no more.
Then, when he had gone to work, she wept for a whole day, and
was much chastened in spirit. So that a new, fragile flame of
love came out of the ashes of this last pain.
Directly, it occurred to her that she was with child. There
was a great trembling of wonder and anticipation through her
soul. She wanted a child. Not that she loved babies so much,
though she was touched by all young things. But she wanted to
bear children. And a certain hunger in her heart wanted to unite
her husband with herself, in a child.
She wanted a son. She felt, a son would be everything. She
wanted to tell her husband. But it was such a trembling,
intimate thing to tell him, and he was at this time hard and
unresponsive. So that she went away and wept. It was such a
waste of a beautiful opportunity, such a frost that nipped in
the bud one of the beautiful moments of her life. She went about
heavy and tremulous with her secret, wanting to touch him, oh,
most delicately, and see his face, dark and sensitive, attend to
her news. She waited and waited for him to become gentle and
still towards her. But he was always harsh and he bullied
her.
So that the buds shrivelled from her confidence, she was
chilled. She went down to the Marsh.
"Well," said her father, looking at her and seeing her at the
first glance, "what's amiss wi' you now?"
The tears came at the touch of his careful love.
"Nothing," she said.
"Can't you hit it off, you two?" he said.
"He's so obstinate," she quivered; but her soul was obdurate
itself.