GREY SLEEP
By CHARLES HORN
TIMES there were in her married life when Meta Hansen asked for death. Not many times, true, but each one stood out terrifically, even after she believed she had made herself over.
Worst of all of these were the days following the death of her firstborn, a boy, and the days following the death of her last born, a girl. After these were the times when David, her husband, had found her pets, the two white rats, where she had hidden them in the shed back of the house. David had held her off and watched coldly while the fat grey cat caught the rats, one after the other. (The cat was the property of a neighbor.)
Last of all of her petitions for death came, it seemed, when David tipped into the yard the two geranium plants that for a day had decked the side window of the little living room. David crushed the red blossoms under his heel.
"Foolishness! Soft foolishness!" he growled, both when disposing of the white rats and the red flowers. "A woman ain’t got no time for them things. A woman has her work to do."
The most terrific death, then, Meta would have kissed as it came to her.
All these occurrences came to pass in the first five years of her married life, and looking back frequently—but more infrequently—she had asked questions. Had these times taken something out of her? Had they deadened her passionate longing for love? Had these cruelties—twice at the hands of her husbandand twice at the hands of her God—made her reconciled to life?
She believed they had. For more than fifteen years she had taught herself that she must bend every nerve of her body, every thought of her consciousness, every impulse of her hours, to David, and as he willed. His actions had taught her that she must not be soft; that she must not disturb him with caresses; that she must not interrupt his hours with chatter; that she must not have impulses of affection, except as he willed and at his command. Her life became a series of "must nots."
Months after the death of her last child, with her eyes on a yellow-haired, lusty, three-year-old boy, Meta timidly suggested an adoption. Her arms were aching, her bosoms lifting and pulling with the great yearning each time she saw the child. Her mother-heart, starved for love, hungered for him. He would bring the great completeness to her hours. And they could get this child. Tentatively she had arranged this. Timidly she carried the question to David.
"Talk not to me of other people's brats!" he roared. "Why should we take things that ain't for us?"
Then, after a long silence, and just as her lips trembled on the edge of another plea:
