Phases of an Inferior Planet

"I am sure I don't see how my objection to living upon fried cabbage could reflect upon you. I did not know you cared for it."

"You know I do not. But I don't see why you should make a fuss about a wholesome article of food."

"It is not wholesome. It is exceedingly indigestible."

"At any rate, it belongs to your neighbors. You aren't forced to eat it."

"No, but you implied that the time would come when I'd be glad to. I merely said it never would."

"Then let the cabbage be damned," said Algarcife.

"Gladly," responded Mariana, and they said no more.

Algarcife selected a manuscript from his desk and went out. He felt as if his nerves had quickened into ramifying wires through which a current of electricity was passing. He was not angry with Mariana. He was angry with no one, but he was racked by the agony of diseased sensibilities, and, though rationally he endeavored to be sympathetic in his bearing to his wife, his rational nature seemed ploughed by the press of his nerves, and for the first time in his life he found self-restraint beyond his grasp.

As he ascended the steps of the newspaper office where he was to leave the manuscript, he ran against a man whom he knew and who stared at him in astonishment.

"My God, Algarcife, you are a ghost! What have you been doing?"

"Wrestling with Providence," returned Algarcife, shortly. "Hardly a becoming job."

"Well, take my advice and leave off at the first round. If you don't mind the comparison, you bear a close resemblance to that Egyptian mummy in the museum."

"No doubt. But that Egyptian has a damned sight the best of it. He lived three thousand years ago."

And he passed on.

It was several nights after this that he started from a heavy sleep to find that Mariana had left his side. Rising upon his elbow, he glanced about the room, and saw her white-robed form revealed in nebulous indistinctness against the open window. Her head was resting upon her clasped hands and she was looking out into the night.

"Mariana," he said.

Her voice came with a muffled sound from the obscurity.

"Yes."

"What are you doing?"

The white figure stirred slightly.

"Thinking," she answered.

"Don't think. It is a confounded mistake. Go to sleep."

"I can't sleep. It is so hot."

"Lie down and I will fan you."

"No."

Algarcife turned over wearily, and for a time there was silence.

Suddenly Mariana spoke, her voice wavering a little.

"Anthony – are you asleep?"

"No."

Again she was silent, and again her voice wavered as it rose.

"I have been thinking about – about how poor we are. Will it ever be better?"

"I cannot say. Don't think of it?"

"But I must think of it. I am trying to find a way out of it. Is there any way?"

"None that I know of."

Mariana half rose and sat down again.

"There is one," she said, "and I – "

"What do you mean?" Algarcife demanded, starting up.

Her voice came slowly.

"I mean that I am – that it is better – that I am – going away."

For a moment the stillness seemed tangible in its oppressiveness. Mariana's head had fallen upon her hands, and as she stared at the electric light on the opposite corner she heard Anthony's heavy breathing. A moth circled about the ball of light, showing to her fixed gaze like some black spirit of evil hovering above a planet.

Algarcife's tones fell cold and constrained.

"To leave me, you mean?"

"It is the only way."

"Where will you go?"

Something that was not grief and yet akin to it choked Mariana as she answered.

"I have an offer. The one that – that I told you of. It is an excellent opening – so Morani says. The company goes abroad – next week. And I know the part."

"And you wish to go?" His voice hurt her with its absence of color.

She lifted her hands and let them fall in her lap. Her gaze left the electric light, where the moth was still revolving in its little orbit.

"It is not choice," she replied; "it is necessity. What else is there to do – except starve? Can we go on living like this day after day, you killing yourself with work, I a drag? It is better that I should go – better for us both."

He hesitated a moment as if in thought, and when he spoke it was with judicial calm.