It was so quiet. Alice thought about Bent. There was something clearly laughable about the thought of having a child with him, and not the least heroic in hiding it from him. A child? A little wrinkled thing under powder-blue ruffles, staring out at the world with the unknowing intelligent gaze of an infant. A bond between two who loved one another; but their love couldn’t bear a bond like that. They agreed on that from the beginning. He was burdened enough by a wife who let him do whatever he wanted, as long as she and their child were supported and the outer appearance of civility and domesticity was maintained. Why should Alice come and disrupt that calm? She looked at her relationship to Bent with cool reason. He was only loving if she kept it easy and ephemeral. In that way she had extended it to nearly a year, and when they hadn’t had any accidents, they had become careless. It was mostly her fault. A person doesn’t go around thinking they will break their leg every time they cross the street. And anyway she wasn’t going to reproach others for something that happened to her. And if it were the man’s body that had to go through this, she knew that Bent would never have complained to her about it, just as he barely complained to her about his marriage tedium, which naturally was not as tedious as the way he expressed it to her, albeit tactfully. When he came home from work, their child jumped up to greet him, and he picked it up in his arms and they played together. Then he kissed his wife and was happy about her pretty, domestic appearance, the finely set table, the aromas emanating from the kitchen, and his desk, which alone bore the mark of his disorganized habits and his quick-witted mind with its clear, cool, reasoning intellect, which she loved about him. But all of this was conjecture on her part. He never talked about it, and she wasn’t curious. She abhorred the usual: My wife doesn’t understand me, etc. She had patiently shared him with this strange woman whom she had never seen. Don’t demand much, and you’ll get more. And if she just caressed his forehead, the memory of his life apart from hers was gone for several hours. This is how she held onto his love, and he didn’t harm either of them. Neither of us, she stated clearly in her mind. For some reason it was important to recognize that.