By this time she was slipping her panties on. I hadn't bothered to shove my prick back in my trousers. It was getting limp now; it fell on the grass, dejected.
«Well, let's have something to eat then,» I said. «If we can't fuck we can always eat.»
«Yes,
«Fucking,» I said, «not sleeping.»
«I wish you'd stop talking to me that way.» She began to undo the lunch. «You have to spoil everything. I thought we might have a peaceful day, just once. You always said you wanted to take us out on a picnic. You never did. Not once. You thought of nothing but yourself, your friends, your women. I was a fool to think you might change. You don't care about your child—you've hardly noticed her. You can't even restrain yourself in her presence. You'd take me in front of her and pretend that it was innocent. You're vile.... I'm glad it's all over. By this time next week I'll be free... I'll be rid of your forever. You've poisoned me. You've made me bitter and hateful. You make me despise myself. Since I know you I don't recognize myself any more.
I've become what you wanted me to become. You never loved me...
As I brought the sandwich to my mouth I smelled the odor of her cunt on my fingers. I sniffed my fingers while looking up at her with a grin.
«You're disgusting!» she said.
«Not so very, my lady. It smells good to me, even if you are a hateful sour-puss. I like it. It's the only thing about you I like.»
She was furious now. She began to weep.
«Weeping because I said I liked your cunt! What a woman! Jesus, I'm the one who ought to do the despising. What sort of woman are you?»
Her tears became more copious. Just then the child came running up. What was the matter? Why was mother crying?
«It's nothing,» said Maude, drying her tears. «I turned my ankle.» A few dry sobs belched from her despite her efforts to restrain herself. She bent over the basket and selected a sandwich for the child.
«Why don't you do something, Henry?» said the child. She sat there looking from one to the other with a grave, puzzled look.
I got to my knees and rubbed Maude's ankle.
«Don't touch me!» she said harshly.
«But he wants to make it better,» said the child.
«Yes, daddy'll make it better,» I said, rubbing the ankle gently, and then patting the calf of her leg.
«Kiss her,» said the child. «Kiss her and make the tears go away.»
I bent forward and kissed Maude on the cheek. To my astonishment she flung her arms around me and kissed me violently on the mouth. The child also put her arms around us and kissed us.
Suddenly Maude had a fresh spasm of weeping. This time it was really pitiful to behold. I felt sorry for her. I put my arms around her tenderly and comforted her.
«.God,» she sobbed, «what a farce!»
«But it isn't,» I said. «I mean it sincerely. I'm sorry, sorry for everything.»
«Don't cry any more,» begged the child. «I want to eat. I want Henry to take me over there,» and she pointed with her little hand to a copse of wood at the edge of the field. «I want you to come too.»
«To think this is the only time... and it had to be like this.» She was sniffling now.
«Don't say that, Maude. The day isn't over yet. Let's forget about all that. Come on, let's eat.»
Reluctantly, wearily, it seemed, she picked up a sandwich and held it to her mouth. «I can't eat,» she murmured, dropping the sandwich.
«Come on, yes you can!» I urged, putting my arm around her again.
«You act this way now... and later you'll do something to spoil it.»
«No I won't... I promise you.»
«Kiss her again,» said the child.
I leaned over and kissed her softly and gently on the lips. She seemed really placated now. A soft light came into her eyes.
«Why can't you be like this always?» she said, after a brief pause.
«I am,» I said, «when I'm given a chance. I don't like to fight with you. Why should I? We're not man and wife any longer.»
«Then why do you treat me the way you do?
Why do you always make love to me? Why don't you leave me alone?»
«I'm not making love to you,» I answered. «It's not love, it's passion. That's not a crime, is it? For God's sake, let's not start that all over again. I'm going to treat you the way you want to be treated—
«I don't ask that. I don't say you shouldn't touch me. But it's the
She was munching her sandwich half-heartedly. Suddenly there was a gleam in her eye. She put on a coy, roguish expression.
«I could get married to-morrow, if I wanted to,» she continued. «You never thought that, did you? I've had three proposals already, as a matter of fact. The last one was from...» and here she mentioned the lawyer's name.
«Yes,
«Well, that explains things. Now I know why he's taken such a passionate interest in the case.»
I knew she didn't care for him, this Rocambolesque, any more than she cared for the doctor who explored her vagina with a rubber finger. She didn't care for anybody really; all she wanted was peace, surcease from pain. She wanted a lap to sit on in the dark, a prick to enter her mysteriously, a babble of words to drown her unmentionable desires. Lawyer what's-his-name would do of course. Why not? He would be as faithful as a fountain pen, as discreet as a rat trap, as provident as an insurance policy. He was a walking briefcase with pigeon holes in his belfry; he was a salamander with a heart of pastrami. He was shocked, was he, to learn that I had brought another woman to my own home? Shocked to learn that I had left the used condoms on the edge of the sink? Shocked that I had stayed for breakfast with my paramour? A snail is shocked when a drop of rain hits its shell. A general is shocked when he learns that his garrison has been massacred in his absence. God himself is shocked doubtless when He sees how revoltingly stupid and insensitive the human beast really is. But I doubt if angels are ever shocked—not even by the presence of the insane.
I was trying to give her the dialectics of the moral dynamism. I twisted my tongue in the endeavour to make her understand the marriage of the animal and the divine. She understood about as well as a layman understands when you explain the fourth dimension. She talked about delicacy and respect, as if they were pieces of angel cake. Sex was an animal locked up in a zoo which one visited now and then in order to study evolution.
Towards evening we rode back to the city, the last stretch in the elevated train, the child asleep in my arms. Mamma and Papa returning from the picnic grounds. Below, the city spread out with senseless geometrical rigidity, an evil dream rearing itself architecturally. A dream from which it is impossible to awaken. Mr. and Mrs. Megalopolitan with their offspring. Hobbled and fettered. Suspended in the sky like so much venison. A pair of every kind hanging by the hocks. At one end of the line starvation; at the other end bankruptcy. Between stations the pawnbroker, with three golden balls to signify the triune God of birth, buggery and blight. Happy days. A fog rolling in from Rockaway. Nature folding up like a dead leaf—at Mineola. Every now and then the doors open and shut:
