Browning chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1941-1953, 1946-02-22

to her that she was alone all the
time, though this was not true, for
a great many friends came to see
her. She was grateful, but they could
not penetrate her loneliness. The
shock had been too great. Some
times she wished they would stop
coming in, talking and making her
answer, but it did not matter very
much. She simply drifted from day
into night and back into day again,
without expectation. Whatever hap
pened around her, she was not real
ly aware of anything except that Ar
thur was dead, she had to get
through the time without him, and
she hoped she could do so without
being too much of nuisance to any,
body
Several weeks after the end of the
war she received tactfully worded
letter from the Red Cross, telling
her that Arthur had died in a Ger
man field hospital. There were some
gentle phrases about how the
stretcher-bearers paid no attention
to international differences in their
errands of mercy. Before she had
read halfway down the page Eliza
beth recognized it as a form letter
composed by some expert writer to
soften the regret that would be felt
by recipients on learning that their
loved ones had had to spend their
last hours among foreigners. It was
very kind of them, no doubt, to have
gone to the trouble of getting up such
pretty letter, but neither this nor
any other literature could help her.
She tore the sheet of paper into
small pieces and let them dribble
out of her hand into the wastebasket.
BY this time it was as if her single
pain had changed into a thousand
small ones striking her with swift
short anguish, each in a different
place from the one before. Earlier,
there had been no details. Now what
ever she saw, every object she
touched, stabbed her with its own
small blade of memory. She could
not pick up table-napkin without
remembering what fun she and Ar
thur had had choosing the linens for
their home. Every time she opened
the china-closet she could hear their
secret laughter as they garnished
the top shelf with the atrocities some
of their relatives had thrust on them
| as wedding presents. If she looked
out of front window she could al
most see Arthur coming down the
| street from his office and raising his
| head to see if he could catch sight
| of her anywhere and wave at her
before he came into the house. Ar
thur was everywhere, so wildly that
| there were even moments when she
| forgot he would not be there any
more. She would wake up in the
night and begin to turn over softly
so as not to disturb him; sometimes
if the library door was closed she
would find herself tiptoeing past it,
lest the sound of her approach in
terrupt the work he had brought
home to do. When this happened
she would bring herself up with
start that reminded her, But he
isn't there, he'll never be there
again." The pain would slash into
her, deep and quick, until she
thought, This is worse than it was
at first. And there'll never be any,
thing else. Arthur is dead"
She did not make any display Of
her grief. This was partly because
she had an Unborn dread of public
weeping, but mainly because it did
not occur to her to do so. What she
and Arthur had shared had been
too profound for them ever to talk
about it except to each other. Now
it would have seemed sacrilegious
and obscene to try to tell anybody
else what he had meant to her. Ar
thur had been her husband; no mat
ter how much his friends had
! valued him, he did not stand in that
relationship to anyone but herself,
and only she could feel the severing
of that tie So she bore what she
| had to bear alone and in silence.
And then one morning, in the
spring after the Armistice, she dis
covered that she did not have much
money left to live on.
It gave her a start, not because
she had thought she was rich but
because in the past few months she
had not thought about it at all. She
had been spending very little, me-
chemically writing checks for such
necessities as food and rent since
it was part of the unacceptable rou-
tine. When a phone call from I'm.
Gle Clarence-who had again con-
stituted himself her guardian, as he
saw she was in no state to attend
to her affairs herself-advised her
that she should meet him at the
bank the next morning, she obeyed
his summons, mildly wondering
what it was about. Uncle Clarence
and the bank vice president told her
it was to make arrangements for
her pension as a SO dier's widow.