Conjure Wife by Fritz Leiber

up and down again, and then obediently scampered after his wife.
    Norman watched them. There was something unpleasantly impressive about the way Evelyn Sawtelle marched through the sheets of rain, getting both of them drenched to no purpose except to satisfy some strange obstinancy. He could see that Hervey was trying to hurry her and not succeeding. Lightning flared viciously, but there was no reaction apparent in her angular, awkward frame. Once again Norman became dimly aware of an alien, explosive motion deep within him.
    And so that little poodle dog of hers, he thought, is to have the final say on the educational policy of the sociology department. Then what the devil does Pollard want to see me for? To offer his commiserations?
    Almost an hour later he slammed out of Pollard’s office, tense with anger, wondering why he had not handed in his resignation on the spot. To be interrogated about his actions like some kid, on the obvious instigation of busybodies like Thompson and Mrs. Carr and Gracine Pollard! To have to listen to a lot of hogwash about his “attitudes” and “the Hempnell spirit,” with veiled insinuations about his “moral code.”
    At least he had given somewhat better than he had taken! At least he had forced a note of confusion into that suave, oratorical voice, and made those tufted gray eyebrows pop up and down more than once!
    He had to pass the Dean of Men’s office. Mrs. Gunnison was standing at the door. Like a big, oozy, tough-skinned slug, he told himself, noting her twisted stockings and handbag stuffed full as a grab bag, the inevitable camera dangling beside it. His exasperation shifted to her.
    “Yes, I cut myself!” he told her, observing the direction of her glance. His voice was hoarse from the tirade he had delivered to Pollard.
    Then he remembered something and did not stop to weigh his words. “Mrs. Gunnison, you picked up my wife’s diary last night… by mistake. Will you please give it to me?”
    “ You’re mistaken,” she replied tolerantly.
    “I saw you coming out of her bedroom with it.”
    Her eyes became lazy slits. “In that case you’d have mentioned it last night. You’re overwrought, Norman. I understand.” She nodded toward Pollard’s office. “It must have been quite a disappointment.”
    “I’m asking you to return the diary!”
    “And you’d really better look after that cut,” she continued unruffledly. “It doesn’t look any too well bandaged, and it seems to be bleeding. Infections can be nasty things.”
    He turned on his heel and walked away. Her reflection confronted him, murky and dim in the glass of the outer door. She was smiling.
    Outside Norman looked at his hand. Evidently he had opened the cut when he banged Pollard’s desk. He drew the bandage tighter.
    The storm had blown over. Yellow sunlight was flooding from under the low curtain of clouds to the west, flashing richly from the wet roofs and upper windows. Surplus rain was sprinkling from the trees. The campus was empty. A flurry of laughter from the girls’ dormitories etched itself, a light, harmless acid, on the silence. He shrugged aside his anger and let his senses absorb the new-washed beauty of the scene.
    He prided himself on being able to enjoy the moment at hand. It seemed to him one of the chief signs of maturity.
    He tried to think like a painter, identifying hues and shades, searching for the faint rose or green hidden in the shadows. There was really something to be said for Gothic architecture. Even though it was not functional, it carried the eye along pleasantly from one fanciful bit of stonework to the next. Now take those leafy finials topping the Estrey tower —
    And then suddenly the sunlight was colder than ice, the roofs of Hempnell were like the roofs of hell, and the faint laughter like the crystalline cachinnations of fiends. Before he knew it, he had swerved sharply away from Morton, off the path and onto the wet grass, although he was only