She had not acted with intentional rudeness or
indifference--indeed, she had felt incapable of an intention. Simply,
she had forgotten, for the first time perhaps in her life, an ordinary
act of courtesy, as an old person sometimes forgets you are there and
withdraws into himself. Androvsky had said nothing, had not tried to
attract her attention to himself. She had heard his steps die away on
the verandah. Then, mechanically, she had undressed and got into bed,
where she was now mechanically counting the passing moments.
Presently she became aware of her own stillness and connected it with
the stillness of the dead woman, by the tent. She lay, as it were,
watching her own corpse as a Catholic keeps vigil beside a body that has
not yet been put into the grave. But in this chamber of death there were
no flowers, no lighted candles, no lips that moved in prayer. She
had gone to bed without praying. She remembered that now, but with
indifference. Dead people do not pray. The living pray for them. But
even the watcher could not pray. Another hour struck in the belfry of
the church. She listened to the chime and left off counting the moments,
and this act of cessation made more perfect the peace of the dead woman.
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