When he'd
killed the whisky he leaned on a great big man God outside him, a shield
and defence. Can't you see that we've to stand up alone without God or
anything except ourselves? Can't you see that unless our strength is in
ourselves we'll never stand? That's what I'm trying to do--and I know
how hard it is."
"You? You're not a drunkard, Marcella," he said.
She smiled a little as she looked at him.
"You know, Louis, you're an awful duffer!" she said, and turned away.
But he lifted her over the wet floor into bed and, as he blew out the
candle, told the mosquitoes to go to hell, and kissed her face and her
hands, he thought he had effectually stilled her queer ethical
doubtings. And she felt very much alone and unguided, and not at all
able to stand up straight without a prop as she had preached to him.
For the next few days Louis was depressed and restless. She did not
understand him. She was not yet aware that his hunger came on in
periodic attacks and thought that she must have hurt him in some way to
make him so wretched. She tried to be especially gentle to him, but he
was rather difficult to please. He developed a habit of womanish, almost
shrewish, nagging that astounded her; he grumbled at his food, he
grumbled at the discomforts of living in one room; he made her feel
cheap when she kissed him by turning away and saying, "There, that's
enough, now!"; he found fault with her clothes and, one morning as she
was dressing, said he was tired of seeing her cleaning the room; she
seemed to think that that was all he needed--a nurse and a servant,
since she never troubled to make herself attractive to him.
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