As long as the door of his wife’s bedroom, in which she had died, remained closed and the room behind it empty, Mr. Derdon thought of nothing else. The emptiness beyond the door excited him, and he began to dream about it at night, and in his tired mind the door was open to him, and then — mistake — it was not open to him, and it expanded and contracted, being first a very big room and then a very little room, but never its own size, and it developed extra doors, strange doors that frightened him. And after these dreams he awoke in the morning exhausted, as though he suffered nightmares, when all he had done was to dream of his wife’s bedroom. His sister, his maiden sister, had come to Dublin to keep house for him, and on the very few occasions when she went out, the woman who cleaned was there fussing around him and looking after him. They felt he should not be left alone at this time. He wondered what did they mean, “at this time.” It was not a case of this, that, or the other time. At the moment, it was simply before Rose died and after Rose died, and when they said to him “at this time,” did they mean that he was never to be left a minute to himself for the rest of his life? They bothered him, always hovering around him, and he wondered, in bewilderment, at all the freedom he had had only a month, even ten days, ago, all the freedom he had had and had not valued. Then, before, he had been immeasurably free. He marveled at the freedom he had had. He wondered at it. He had been free as a bird. Then, while Rose was alive, he could have wandered up and down the hall in front of that closed door, if he had wanted to. He could have walked up and down there all day long, passing up the hall, and passing back, and no questions would have been asked of him. She would never have thought of questioning him. He could have wandered there at will, for as long as he liked. Of course, he would probably have said something. He might have said, “I just thought I’d take a little exercise,” or something like that. And then she would have said nothing. She might have smiled or nodded in that awkward way she had, as though her neck was not accustomed to little gracious gestures, as indeed it was not, but she would not have said anything. She would have gone on to do whatever she was doing and she wouldn’t have asked him any questions. She might have said — there was just a chance she might have said — “Oh, exercising yourself, if that’s what you want to do,” meaning to sound casual and easy, and managing only to sound clumsy, like a shy child trying to be smart. But it was more than likely that she would have given him only a shamefaced smile, as though she had no right to see what he was doing at all, and gone away, off, on to whatever little job she had in hand. She would have gone and he would have been left with that silence of hers that gave him unlimited freedom, or what he knew now to be unlimited freedom, although then it had seemed to be only a burden, that burden of indefiniteness that left him always wondering what it was he had not done that he should have done, or had not said that he should have said. He never knew where he was with her. He never knew exactly what he had done or how he had spent his time, since there was no definite point where he could stop and measure what he had done, or how he had spent the time he had spent. Indefinite, now she made him indefinite to himself, and how could he mourn her, when there was hardly anything he could remember about her apart from the obvious facts that she had been gentle, quiet, uncomplaining, beautiful — or at least more or less beautiful in her youth — things like that. He literally could not remember very much about her. He began to believe that she had been invisible, but when he thought that, he felt that he might cry with fear, because how could he even think that, when they were there talking about his dead wife and he knew he had had a wife for more than forty years and they had had a son and the son had vanished into the priesthood, and here he was now and he could hardly remember one solitary thing about her and not really remember seeing her very much. And how could he grieve for what he could not define, or mourn for what had vanished without a trace. That was it — she had made no impression. Somehow or another, however she had done it, she had managed to live with a man, a sensitive, kindhearted man, for more than forty years without making the slightest impression on him. She had always been impossible. Several times, long ago, he had said as much to her. “You are impossible,” he had said to her. And she had said nothing. She had said nothing and she had given him nothing, nothing to be angry about and nothing to be sad about and nothing to laugh at and nothing to wonder at and nothing at all to remember. She had given him nothing and she had left him nothing, and by leaving him nothing she had taken away from him the one thing that might have been a rock of strength to him now — that rock of grief where he might have rested in blessed isolation, not able to see or hear or speak or think with the sorrow that filled and destroyed him. But that monumental grief would now remain as it was, only a dream of grief that seemed from where he sat to be a dream of peace, because he knew that in that dreadful suffering he would find peace at last, and then he could rest himself, knowing he had done the right and proper thing, and had felt the right and proper emotions, those that represent the just tribute we must pay to death. But it was no use. He felt nothing. He could see and hear and so on, the same as usual, and he even had a little appetite for his food.