Now here were these flowers, put here to remind him, too late, of the wedding anniversary. And their beauty and innocence also called his angry attention to all the care she gave him. The room he was standing in spoke only of love. And it was her care for him that was driving him to despair — the ceaseless care that he understood, and could not return, and did not want, and could not avoid. He picked up the bowl of flowers so carelessly that some of the water splashed out, and he had to put his other hand to it to steady it. He would take the flowers downstairs and leave them somewhere, and in the morning he would not speak to her about them. And if she mentioned them he would simply say that he did not like flowers in the room. He had no choice. He had to get the flowers out of the room. They made him feel sick. As he turned from the desk the flowers all slipped sideways, and when he tried to right them, the bowl fell from his hand to the floor and broke into large pieces, making very little noise on the rug. He bent and picked up two of the pieces and fitted them together, and then he bent again and collected all the pieces and the flowers and put the whole lot on top of the desk. Then he sat down on the chair and put his face in his hands. He wouldn’t have had that happen for the world. He wouldn’t for the world deprive her of anything, or hurt her. The poor thing, she had meant no harm. He could have left the flowers. It wouldn’t have killed him, to have left them in the room for the one night.

He knew that what he had intended to do was far worse than what he had actually done. He was frightened now at the thought of what he had meant to do. He was more than frightened. He was terrified. What he had intended — to all intents and purposes he had done it. The breaking of the bowl had awakened him from a prophetic nightmare, and he knew that for the rest of his life he would be stealing down the stairs in this sleeping house with the bowl of flowers in his hands. Oh, yes, he would do it. Over and over again he would do it. He knew that. The temptation would always be too strong, the temptation or the provocation or whatever it was. His disappointment in her would always master him. He stood up. He was going to have to go downstairs now anyway to get a glass or something to put the flowers in, because without water they would be dead before morning.