PARTISAN REVIEW
sick .... Last night I thought I'd take a tablet so I could get to
sleep; I thought if I took more I'd sleep better, and if I took them
all I'd sleep, and no dreams, and never wake up again, I'd be
dead ....
(She is crying.)
....
I swallowed twelve of them ....
in hot water .... Like a log. And I
did
have a dream. I dreamed
that everything was the way it is. I woke up with a start, so happy
because it
was
a dream; and when I found out that it was true,
that I was alone, that my head wasn't resting on your shoulder and
my legs weren't between your legs, I felt that I couldn't, that I
simply couldn't
go on living .... light; light and cold, and I couldn't
feel my heart beating and death was long in coming and since I
was in awful pain, finally I called up Martha. I didn't have courage
to die alone .... Darling .... Darling ....
It
was four o'clock
in the morning. She came with that doctor who lives in her house.
My temperature was 'way above a hundred. It seems it's very hard
to poison yourself, you always get the dose wrong. The doctor made
out a prescription and Martha stayed here with me until this even–
ing. I begged her to go away because you had said that you'd phone
for the last time, and I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to talk
.... Very well, yes .... No more .... Yes, that's the truth ....
A little fever .... 100.3 .... comes from nerves .... don't worry
about me .... What a mess I make of things! Here I'd sworn not
to upset you, to let you go without any fuss, to say goodbye as
if
we were going to see each .other tomorrow .... I'm a fool ....
yes, yes, a fool! . . . . . What's hard is to ring off, to bring on the
dark ....
(She is crying.)
....
Hello! I thought we'd been cut
off .... You're so good, darling .... My poor darling, and I've
hurt you so .... Yes, speak, speak, say anything at all .... I was
suffering so much I could have rolled on the ground but when you
speak that's enough and I feel
all
right, and close my eyes. You
know, sometimes when we were in bed and I'd have my ear there
against your chest, and you were talking, I could hear your voice
exactly the way it sounds tonight on the phone .... Coward? ....
I'm the one that's a coward. I'd promised myself .... I .... Good
heavens! You? who .... you .... you, who've never given me
anything but happiness . . . . But, darling, I keep telling you, that
isn't it at all. You see, I knew-I
knew-and
I was simply waiting
for what has happened. Mter all there are so many women ,who
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