Daniel was terrified as he looked into her face, and saw her thoughts written there as if in letters of fire: We belong to each other for time and eternity. That was her confession of faith. VII She lay wide awake until late at night. She heard him go into the kitchen and get a drink of water and then return to his room. He had forbidden her to come to the door and ask whether he was not going to bed soon: she was not to do this, it made no difference how late it was. Then he lay beside her, his head on his arm, and looked at her with eyes that had lost their earthly, temporal glow. Man, where are your eyes anyway, she would have liked to exclaim. And yet she knew where they were; she knew, too, that it is dangerous to disturb a somnambulist by calling to him. One night he had found it impossible to do his work. He sat down on the edge of the bed and stared into the light of the lamp for an hour or so, hating himself. Gertrude saw how he raged at himself; how he really fed, nourished his lack of confidence in himself. But she could not say anything. A publisher had returned one of his manuscripts with a courteous but depressing conventional rejection slip. Daniel spoke disparagingly of his talents; he had lost hope in his future; he was bitter at the world; he felt that he was condemned to a life of unceasing obscurity. The only thing she could do was look at him; merely look at him. He became tired of having her look at him; a fresh, vigorous remark would have served his purpose much better, he thought. She measured her work and his not in terms of reward; she did not seek for connection of any kind between privation and hope; nor did she measure Daniel’s love in terms of tender expressions and embraces. She waited for him with much patience. In time her patience irritated him. “A little bit more activity and insistence would not hurt you,” he said one day, and thrust her timid, beseeching hands from him. He saw himself cared for: He had a home, a person who prepared his meals, washed his clothes, and faithfully attended to his other household needs. He should have been grateful. He was, too, but he could not show it. He was grateful when he was alone, but in Gertrude’s presence his gratitude turned to defiance. If he was away from home, he thought with pleasure of his return; he pictured Gertrude’s joy at seeing him again. But when he was with her, he indulged in silent criticism, and wanted to have everything about her different.