Well, I guess you know what happened. Or I guess you don’t know either. Because you don’t know Myra, which makes you about as lucky as a person can get. Anyways, she turned over on her back all of a sudden, and opened her eyes.

“And just what,” she said, “do you think you’re doing?”

I told her I was getting ready to take a trip over to the county where Ken Lacey was sheriff. I’d probably be gone until late that night,I said, and we’d probably get real lonesome for each other, so maybe we ought to get together first.

“Huh!” she said, almost spitting the word at me. “Do you think I’d want you, even if I was of a mind to have relations with a man?”

“Well,” I said. “I kind of thought maybe you might. I mean, I kind of hoped so. I mean, after all, why not?”

“Because I can hardly stand the sight of you, that’s why! Because you’re stupid!”

“Well,” I said. “I ain’t sure I can agree with you, Myra. I mean, I ain’t saying you’re wrong but I ain’t saying you’re right, either. Anyways, even if I am stupid, you can’t hardly fault me for it. They’s lots of stupid people in the world.”

“You’re not only stupid but you’re spineless,” she said. “You’re about the poorest excuse for nothing I ever laid eyes on!”

“Well, looky,” I said. “If you feel that way, why for did you marry me?”

“Listen to him! Listen to the beast!” she said. “As if he didn’t know why! As if he didn’t know that I had to marry him after he raped me!”

Well, that made me kind of sore, you know. She was always saying I’d raped her, and it always made me kind of sore. I couldn’t really argue about her saying I was stupid and spineless, because I probably ain’t real smart—who wants a smart sheriff?—and I figure it’s a lot nicer to turn your back on trouble than it is to look at it. I mean, what the heck, we all got trouble enough of our own without butting in on other people’s.

But when she said I was a rapist, ‘that’ was something else. I mean, there just wasn’t a word of truth in it. Because it just didn’t make sense.

Why for would a fella like me rape a woman, when he had so many generous gals chasing him?

“Well, I’ll tell you about this rape business,” I said, getting kind of red in the face as I rebuttoned my shirt. “I ain’t saying you’re a liar, because that wouldn’t be polite. But I’ll tell you this, ma’am. If I loved liars, I’d hug you to death.”

Well, that really started her off. She started blubbering and bawling like a calf in a hail storm. And of course that woke up her half-witted brother, Lennie. So he came rushing in, blubbering and rolling his eyes and slobbering all over his chin.