After I had kissed my mother in the dim bedroom—for instead of her lamp, only a single candle burned on the stool at her side—I went to open the window at her request. Just as I turned back into the room, Dr. Galbraith entered and resumed his seat at the side of the bed. I saw that more of his flowers were strewn on the floor and my mother clutched a spray of lilies-of-the-valley in her hand. She had not been working on her embroidery; there were signs of no activity at all, and to my relief, I saw that there were also no signs that the doctor had been drinking here. Beside the window was our clothes closet—a rod across which had been stretched a cretonne curtain—and I stepped back into the large shadow it cast, less out of the desire to spy than out of reluctance to pass the doctor and be required to speak to him again.

“All righty,” he said. “We’ll just have a look at this clogged-up ventilator and then I’ll be running along. Will you just slip your nightie down over your shoulder, please?”

My mother obeyed docilely, gazing the while at her nosegay. “Isn’t it sweet,” she murmured, “just like little darling bells.”

Dr. Galbraith ran his hand over the smooth round of her shoulder and a look of alarm fled over her face as she glanced up at him. Almost shyly he looked away and fumbled at the clasp of his stethoscope case. But he did not complete the business. “Oh, Shura!” he cried. “Let’s not pretend any longer!” He slipped his arm under my mother’s shoulders and drew her up to him, covering her face with long kisses as his whole body shuddered.

My mother struggled and screamed, her head flung back and her eyes dilating as the stubborn man continued to kiss her neck. “Sonia! God Almighty!” I stepped forward into the weak light but the doctor was oblivious of me. “Darling, forgive me, I frightened you.” His forehead glimmered with drops of sweat which he wiped off with the back of his hand. My mother, whimpering, could not take her fascinated eyes from him while he, as if he were paralyzed, hovered over her, afraid to kiss her again, yet afraid to move lest he break the enchantment cast by her unworldly eyes.