Earth Abides

“It is strange,” thought Ish. “She has none of those things on which I used to count so much—not education, not even high intelligence. She supplies no ideas. Yet she has a greatness within her and the final affirmation. Without her, in these last few weeks, we would have despaired and lost hold of life and gone under.” And he felt himself humble beside her.

At last one day he saw her sitting near him, and on her face was such great weariness as he had never seen on a face before. He was appalled. Then suddenly he was happy, for he knew that she would never have sat there and let her weariness show unless the future was safe. Yet it was such a weariness as he scarcely thought could exist. Suddenly he knew that behind such weariness must also lie great grief.

At that moment too he realized that he himself was now on the road to convalescence, probably less weary than she, able to share the load.

He looked at her and smiled, and even in her weariness she smiled back.

“Tell me,” he said gently.

She hesitated, and he was thinking wildly. Walt?—no, Walt was not sick. He brought me a glass of water today. Jack?—no, I am sure that I have heard his voice; he was very strong. Josey would it be? Or Mary? It might be more than one.

“Share it with me,” he said to her. “I am well enough now.” And still he was thinking wildly. It must not be that one. He was not strong, but the weakest often endure illness the best. No, not he!

“Five—up and down the street—five are dead.”

“Which ones?” he said, bracing himself.

“They are all children.”

“What—about ours?” he said, knowing that she was sheltering him still, his fear suddenly dominating. “Yes, five days ago,” she said.

Then he saw her lips start to form the word, and he knew, even before he heard the sounds: “Joey.”

What is the good of anything? (So he thought, and he asked nothing more.) The Chosen One! The rest might have followed; he only could carry the light. The Child of the Promise! Then he closed his eyes, and lay still.

Chapter 9

The weeks of his convalescence dragged along. Very slowly, his physical strength came back to him. Yet, even behind his physical strength, his mental vigor lagged. Looking in a mirror, he saw his hair now showing streaks of gray. “Am I old already?” he thought. “No, not really old!” At least he knew that in some ways he would never be the same. Some fine youthful courage and confidence had faded.

Always he had prided himself on being able to think honestly, to face intellectually whatever must be faced. Now he found his mind swerving off when his thoughts drew near to certain subjects. Well, he was still weak; after a while, he would go ahead once more.

Sometimes (and this frightened him) he found himself refusing to admit the actuality, making plans as if Joey were still there, escaping into the happiness of fantasy. He realized that he had always had something of this tendency. At times it had been an advantage, as when it had enabled him to readjust imaginatively when he had first been left alone. But now he was escaping because the reality seemed too bleak to be faced. Repeatedly a line of poetry, from the wide reading of all those years, came into his head when he tried to breast reality:

Never glad confident morning again!

No, never again! Joey was gone, and Charlie’s shadow lay over them, and the all-necessary State had arisen, with death in its hands. And everything that he had tried to do so hopefully in that glad morning had failed. He questioned why. Then often in mere despair he fled into fantasy.

When he could think more calmly, the irony of all things impressed him more and more. What you were preparing against—that never happened! All the best-laid plans could not prevent the disaster against which no plans had been laid.

Most of the time he had to be alone. Some of the others still needed care, and what strength remained in Em had to be devoted to them. He would have liked to talk to Ezra, but Ezra too was not yet out of bed. Except for Em and Ezra, now that Joey was gone, there was no one to whom his heart really went out.

One afternoon he awoke from a nap, and saw Em sitting near his bed. With only half-opened eyes, he looked at her. She had not yet noticed that he was awake. She was still weary-looking, but no longer with the terrible weariness that he had seen before. There was grief too, but a calm covered it. There was no despair. As for fear, he no longer even thought of searching for that!

She looked at him, and noticed his opened eyes, and smiled quickly. Suddenly he knew that this was the time when he must face it.

“I must talk with you,” he said, though his voice was scarcely more than a whisper, as if he were still asleep. Then he paused.

“Yes,” she said quietly, “I am here…. Go on…. I am here.”