It was the wind, she told herself; no thief would have left the door standing open. Now she could feel the cold air spreading through the house, rising up the stairs and moving the curtains in the hall. She got out of bed and put on a wrapper. She turned on the hall light and started down the stairs, asking herself what it was she was afraid of in the dark rooms below. She was afraid of the dark, like a primitive or a child, but why? What was there about darkness that threatened her? She was afraid of the dark as she was afraid of the unknown, and what was the unknown but the force of evil, and why should she be afraid of this? She turned on the lights one after another. The rooms were empty, and the wind was enjoying the liberty of the place, scattering the mail on the hall table and peering under the edge of the rug. The wind was cold, and she shivered as she closed and locked the front door, but now she was unafraid and very much herself. In the morning she had a cold.
The doctor came several times during that week, and when she got no better he ordered her to go to the hospital. In the middle of the morning, she went upstairs to pack. She had been to the hospital in recent years only once, to have her son, and then the drives of pregnancy had carried her unthinkingly through her preparations. This time she carried no life within her; she carried, instead, an infection. And, alone in her bedroom, choosing a nightgown and a hairbrush, she felt as if she had been singled out to make some mysterious voyage. She was not a sentimental woman, and she had no sad thoughts about parting from the pleasant room she shared with her husband. She felt weary but not sick, although there was a cutting pain in her chest. A stranger watching her would have thought she was insane. Why did she empty the carnations into the wastebasket and rinse out the vase? Why did she count her stockings, lock her jewelry box and hide the key, glance at her bank balance, dust off the mantelpiece and stand in the middle of the room, looking as if she were listening to distant music? The foolish impulse to dust the mantelpiece was irresistible, but she had no idea why she did it, and anyhow it was time to go.
The hospital was new, and conscientious efforts had been made to make it a cheerful place, but her loveliness—you might say her elegance—was put at a disadvantage by the undisguisable atmosphere of regimentation, and she looked terribly out of place. A wheelchair was brought for her, but she refused to use it. She would have looked crestfallen and ridiculous, she knew, with her coat bunched up around her middle and her purse in her lap. A nurse took her upstairs and led her into a pleasant room, where she was told to undress and get into bed. While she was undressing, someone brought her lunch on a tray. It was a small matter, but she found it disconcerting to be given a chop and some canned fruit while she was half-naked and before the clocks had struck noon. She ate her lunch dutifully and the doctor came at two and told her she could count on being in the hospital ten days or two weeks. He would call Moses. She fell asleep, and woke at five with a fever.
The imagery of her fever was similar to the imagery of love. Her reveries were spacious, and she seemed to be promised the revelation of some truth that lay at the center of the labyrinthine and palatial structures where she wandered. The fever, as it got higher, eased the pain in her breast and made her indifferent to the heavy beating of her heart. The fever dreams seemed like a healthy employment of her imagination to distract her from the struggle that went on in her breast. She was standing at the head of a broad staircase with red walls. Many people were climbing the stairs. They had the attitudes of pilgrims. The climb was grueling and lengthy, and when she reached the summit she found herself in a grove of lemon trees and lay down on the grass to rest. When she woke from this dream, her nightgown and the bed linen were soaked with sweat. She rang for a nurse, who changed them.
