But with that half a step back one image retired, and bearing his green eyes on her he recovered, the half-step and another with it so that Esther shrank back against the chest holding the shirts out farther still between them and she repeated — What is it?
The door opened, flung open. Music burst in.
— What do you…
— Sorry.
Broken shapes, gray Glen Urquhart mitigated by blond hair in a wild panache, shattered the wall; a peripheral pattern instantly restored as the door bangs, closed.
— What was it?
— Purcell.
— No. Her hands lay in his, under the squared white mass of the shirts, cold nails and soft lined joints against his hard palms.
— The music?
— No. Her thumbs out, and palms up with the weight on them, her shoulders relax, and her hands open further, to draw up as instantly there is no support, first his right hand gone, clearly gone, and then with an instant's paroxysm the left.
And then the weight of those shirts, lifted away, and her hands rise empty, round-fingered, untapering and separate.
The mass of the shirts broke on the bed as he dropped them there, and took his left hand in his right where veins stood out in swollen tributaries rising between the roughed mounds of the knuckles, breaking in detail on the fingers whose severity they articulated.
— That night. . Esther said staring at his hands, her own withdrawn to shelter the hollows, heels on bone and the round ends of her fingers appointing that soft declivity which rose above them until her thumbs could not meet across her waist. — That night, she repeated, curling her finger-ends in upon the yielding bank, and the tips of her thumbs touched. — When I wanted to… manicure you? She looked up at his face, and with the effort smiled until she said, — And you. . drew away just like that. . each word draining the smile from her face, and she lowered her eyes, and her empty hands came down to her sides.
She waited, and heard no response, but watching saw his lips go tight. — What have you been doing all this time? she demanded of him, and sat on the bed.
He turned back to the shirts, which he'd just left stacked unevenly on the bed, and commenced to arrange them in a careful pile. — Nothing, he answered automatically.
— Nothing! she repeated, and sat up straight.
— A few things. . working, sort of… experimental things.
— Painting? What kind of things, then?
— Yes, sort of… that kind of thing.
— Painting?
He looked up at her, quickly and away, back to what he was doing, squaring the pile between his hands. — Looking around us today, he said with effort, — there doesn't seem to be… much that's worth doing.
— Well what good is it then?. . she burst out at him, — going on only to find out what's not worth doing?
— You find… he mumbled, — if you can find, that way. .
— Are you very ill? Esther said.
— 111? He looked up pale and surprised.
— Everything is just like it was, isn't it. Only worse. She started speaking rapidly again, as she got to her feet. — You've just got everything tangled up worse and worse, haven't you. Why the way you pulled your hands away from me just now, as though they were something. .
— Esther. .
— And your guilt complexes and everything else, it's just gotten worse, hasn't it, all of it. And the way you pulled your hands away from me just now, it was just like when we were first married and I hardly knew you, and the longer we were married the less you. . won't you talk to me? even now, won't you talk to me?
— Really Esther, I… I didn't come here to argue with you. He sounded again himself she remembered, and she pursued,
— You won't argue, you'll say things like that but you won't argue, you won't talk… to me. .
— Damn it, I… Esther, I just came in to get some things.
— Get them then! Take them! Take them!
He busied himself folding the shirts up with the gray suit, tightening his lips against the sounds which escaped her.
— Because there's no one, is there. You're alone now, aren't you. Are you alone now?
— Esther, good God. . please…
— Ignorance and desire, you've told me. . Oh, you've told me so many things, haven't you. All of our highest goals are inhuman ones, you told me, do you remember? I don't forget. But remorse binds us here together in ignorance and desire, and. . and. . not salt tears then, but. . She gasped again, shuddered but would not give in. — And what is it now, this reality you used to talk about, she went on more quietly. — As though you could deny, and have nothing to replace what you take away, as though. . Oh yes, zero does not exist, you told me. Zero does not exist! And here 1… I watched you turn into no one right here in front of me, and just a… a pose became a life, until you were trying to make negative things do the work of positive ones. And your family and your childhood, and your illness then and studying for the ministry, and. . when I married you we used to talk about all that intelligently, and I thought you were outside it, and understood it, but you're not, you're not, and you never will be, you never will get out of it, and you never. . you never will let yourself be happy. Esther was talking rapidly again, and she paused as though to give effect to the softness of her voice as she went on, though her memory crowded details upon her and it was these she fought. — There are things like joy in this world, there are, there are wonderful things, and there is goodness and kindness, and you shrug your shoulders. And I used to think that was fun, that you understood things so well when you did that, but finally that's all you can do, isn't it. Isn't it.
He stood across the bed holding his bundle up before him, meeting her eyes, provoked, and he smiled, ready to speak.
— And your smile, she went on, — even your smile isn't alive, because you abdicated, you moved out of life, and you. .
— But the past, he broke in, — every instant the past is reshaping itself, it shifts and breaks and changes, and every minute we're finding, I was right… I was wrong, until. .
Esther plundered the fragments her memory threw up to her, taking them any way, seizing them as they rose and clinging to each one until she'd thrust it out between them. — The boundaries between good and evil must be defined again, they must be reestablished, that's what a man must do today, isn't it? A man! Wasn't it?… She paused, retaining hold on that for a moment longer, raising her hand to her forehead in fact as though doing so, considering its details and lowering her voice. — Yes, you couldn't have a world in which the problem of evil could be solved with a little cunning, she added, word by word, dully, — and you. . Oh yes, by confessing, to set up order once more between yourself and the world. . Esther's voice tailed off as she stared down at the bed between them.
— Yes, go on, go on with it, he said eagerly when she stopped, staring at her.
For as it happened, this point had come from a play she'd read shortly after Otto had sailed for Central America, a play by Silone called And He Hid Himself: but even now, looking up, Esther saw these words on the lips before her, slightly parted in expectation. She began again, — I wish. .
— Yes, you understand, he burst in, — you understand, that's why this is crucial, you understand, don't you. How this is going to expiate. .
— Expiate! She accepted him again, standing there with his hand out.
— And that it isn't just expiation, but. . that's why it is crucial, because this is the only way we can know ourselves to be real, is this moral action, you understand don't you, the only way to know others are real. .