Like a bruised woman, she was out of her bed. She placed the coffee on the gas-burner, and took a bath. Cornelia had no pleasure of her body. Unclothing herself, she did not care to look at her lean nakedness. It was as if she had feared to find great bruises upon it. She laid her gaunt hands on her breast and shivered, for it was cold and the water was none too hot which she had heated. She noticed how small were her breasts and that they had begun to droop. She remembered that once they had been beautiful and that she had been tempted to use them for a model; she had not dared, since then people would look on them. And after all, they were girl breasts, not those of a mother. Now they were neither. They were beginning to shrink and narrow and droop. They were becoming the breasts of a woman who had not lived. Yet, looking at them now, Cornelia felt no sorrow or regret. She took this fading as she took the world--the world outside her. She was outside herself. She did not care if her breasts were no longer beautiful. Who, indeed, had ever seen them? What good had she had of their beauty? She stood before her dresser and put on her clothes. She dressed meticulously. There was no warmth in the care with which she braided her thin hair and knotted it into a Psyche back of her head. What was her hair to her? There was no warmth in her choice among her waists of the one she would wear that morning. She smoothed the loose ends under the belt and tidied the little linen collar. Her hands were fast at their work. They did not fail: also they did not linger. Very neatly, Cornelia spread a napkin for a cloth on the table and placed down the tray and proceeded to eat her breakfast. She took a slice of bread and butter and an egg, and two strong cups of black coffee. She loved coffee. It was her one real vice. Lately she had needed it more than ever. Night gave her no rest: and coffee weakened the pall of morning. She cleared away her dishes. There was her work before her and it was time to be working.