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midst of some work or worry, she would glance from the narrow prison of herself at one such picture on the wall as if seeing it for the first time. Then something seemed to want to lightly touch her, as if something asleep were waking.… Stop! Oh please stop! Everything was very bright. A tree, for instance, in the sun, in the air, against a clear summer sky. But the tree seemed to rise up, the wind to blow gently. The tree moved. Was it flying? Yes, the whole earth was flying, the sun, the play of light and air—everything was light, swift, soft. Oh, stop, you relentless, bright world! She came closer to the picture, and the curtain in front of the mysterious stirred. It was linen, smelling of oil paint, earth, firm earth. But the wind was blowing, the tree waved its branches, life was in movement.
    Painted by a cripple, created out of nothing by a man who knew and loved movement, it is true, but who was now no more than a cumbersome body that had to be rolled out of bed into a chair. No, do not stop, we’re fleeing, we’re flying.
    Yes, something stirred in the dreaming woman about to be illuminated by an intuition that in this picture her husband was living, immortal, brilliant, swifter than ever; but she turned from it. There was nothing left now but canvas and paint, a flat surface colored in accordance with certain rules; nothing of movement, nothing of the man.
    More watering-places! Still more physicians! What did the world say? Two or three exhibitions—no one heard anything about them, saw anything of them; and no pictures were ever sold—thank God, there was no need of that. Now and then, on one of their restless journeys through the health resorts of the world, someone would seek them out; some young man, taciturn, awkward, gloomy, or another breaking out into a flood of words, with nervous movements, to announce a new era; such people did not encourage her to regard her husband’s pictures seriously.
    “The day is so beautiful; let us go for a drive.”
    “The light is good. I should like to paint another hour.”
    “I almost forget what it’s like outside. I shall die for lack of air.”
    “All right, sit by the window, open it—I’ve been wanting to paint you for a long time.”
    That was his way—friendly, serene, never angry, but not to be moved either. She talked, implored, got furious, made it up again, used wiles, asked for forgiveness. He was as a field over which pass wind, storm, sunshine, night frost and rain, accepting everything without seeming to change, yet in the end producing a harvest.
    Yes, the harvest came. But before it ripened something else happened, something for which she had fought, scolded, struggled, begged, for twenty years: one day he stood up, made a few steps, faltering at first, and then, with the same somewhat embarrassed, apologetic face of twenty years before, said: “I really think I can.”
    The affliction vanished as it had come, just as incomprehensively. All her eagerness, her zeal, had not been able to effect its departure; it had been beyond human influence—it was enough to make one despair.
    Meanwhile half a life—the better half—had passed. She was in her early forties, a forty-five-year-old husband at her side. An active life, an eager life without rest, full of plans, full of hopes, had slipped away. Now the hopes were fulfilled and there was nothing more to desire. All her plans, all her cares, hadlost their meaning. A whole life had crumbled to dust in the moment Edmund got up and walked.
    Incomprehensible heart of woman! “Here is your painting, Edmund. It only wants a few more touches. Won’t you?”
    “Painting, yes, painting,” he said absent-mindedly, glanced at it, and went out, where his thoughts had already gone.
    No, there was no time now to paint for even half an hour. He had had time, twenty years, to be ill, patiently, without complaint; now he had not a minute to spare. Outside, the whole of life was waiting for him in a whirl