She tried to avoid this feeling of loss for as long as she could. She first coerced an interest in Russian literature to be interested in something. She became fixated on drawing two sketches each morning and two each evening as if the world required myriad more still lives of apples in charcoal; and as if all that paper for the redundant work in drawing her owls was justified by the infinite variety of their poses. She suddenly became preoccupied with the pleasure and health of her hound. She felt that by feeding, walking, and washing it with more responsibility and care she could extend the life of this big German shepherd that they still called "Cat." She occupied herself with its pleasure (an ice cube habitually given for it to munch on as she was preparing breakfast, and an extra dog walk in the mid-afternoon). She viewed her actions as a humane gesture as if from the first attempts to domesticate the canine, securing the contentment or felicity of so many temporary generations of dying beasts, had been a constructive use of their masters' precious moments of life. And yet as buried as she was in the rubble of family, where shoddy and experimental construction was done without the mathematical formulas of engineers, her hobbies were natural. They were diversions and she knew that her diversions were a means to stop the pain. Suffocating as she was in that rubble, she could have come alive in a diminished form like all other creatures of chemosynthesis. Such translucent beings never considered their unhappiness. They never considered anything at all but just engaged in their habits, instincts, preoccupation, and general movement. She was just beginning to get the knack of avoiding her stray thoughts through Gin Rummy games, and winning some of them too, but then Hispanic Betty also left. Gabriele was surprised that she, an anti-social person who had mixed, gyrated, and blended with such aversion, had become such mush. She was a bit like one of the herd. She did not know fully what to do with herself or who she was. Most people might be that way indefinitely, but for her the few days that this lasted was an appalling time. It was made all the worse by a temptation to find herself in her former boyfriend within fantasies of him running toward her and sheltering her under his umbrella and within one of his arms. Eager for sanity, she decided upon another trip abroad.