A Vision of Light by Judith Merkle Riley Page B

grief whenever I entered it. I tried to determine what it was in the daytime, when the dark and my fears would not cloud the picture. There was nothing to make it horrible then—no strange bloodstain or rotten smell that would betray some secret wicked deed that had been done there. The room was clean and finely appointed. The walls were neatly whitewashed, and no cobwebs hung from the rafters. Clean rushes were strewn on the floor, intermixed with sweet herbs. Neat iron candle sconces guaranteed light at night. Several smallish, bright wool hangings on the wall kept the chill from oozing in, and well-fitted shutters kept the cold night winds from coming through the unglazed windows. Several stout chests, one of which held my husband’s tallies and records, and a table at which he could do accounts, completed the picture. If it had been in another man’s house, I suppose I might even have liked it.
    I was relieved on the second night when my husband simply fell asleep without bothering me, and I lay there a long time looking through a half-opened bed curtain at the corner of the ceiling. I tossed and turned that night, dreaming of something in the room that I could not quite make out. The next day I awoke feeling weak, with my face pale and dark circles beneath my eyes. No one made any comment as, day by day, the circles grew deeper, until my eyes looked sunken. By that time I was weary with lack of sleep and my husband’s nocturnal attentions. I had never imagined that life could be this dreary and painful, and I began to wish I would fall ill and die.
    The only person who seemed not to notice was my husband, who went about his business with the same cold energy as ever before. Did nothing, nothing at all, ever touch his heart? I began to observe him, to try to discover what hidden thing moved him. It was as useless as trying to discover the thoughts of an insect wandering up and down a crack in the floor. But as he came and went, I gradually began to understand that there are degrees of wealth, even among the wealthy, and that Lewis Small was one of those little creatures doomed to wait forever at the door of great society, hoping that by some lucky chance of dress or association, he might be admitted to the company of his betters. It was this craving to be among the great that informed his every action. God, how he wanted to rise! Like the busy insect that has carried off too large a crumb to push into his den, he poked and prodded, pulled and pried—all entirely in vain. His endless, useless efforts to better himself at any cost were what kept him busy, and explained the many contradictions in his life.
    Once I had discovered this principle, I found that observing him from the outside, as if I were a stranger, changed the things that would ordinarily make me ashamed of being near him into a source of endless interest. I got a sort of spiteful pleasure in watching his endless efforts to push his too large crumb, and knowing that it would never fit. The slightest opinion of any grand person was his unfailing guide, and since grand persons have many opinions, he was constantly in motion, trying first one thing and then another. He paraded me to Mass in blue, only to find that green was more fashionable. And so I went in green, even though it turned my complexion yellow. When the head of the merchant guild conducted his business at Mass, receiving petitioners and sending orders in a loud whisper, then so did Small. When piety was in vogue, then Small knelt and rolled his eyes heavenward. His sleeves grew long and short, his shoes elongated their points, only to have them retreat again, his manners and the dishes on his table all varied according to the words that blew on the wind of fashion.
    But my newfound source of interest in his activities by day did nothing to abate the terrors of the night. My new clothes began to appear large on me, and when I combed my hair, it seemed to have lost its shine. A small thing, I