Earth Abides

Now they were sitting opposite each other. They ate a little, more in symbol than in reality. There was fresh bread. “I made it myself,” she said, “but it’s getting hard to find flour now that’s got no weevils in it.” There was no butter, but honey and jam for the bread, and a bottle of red wine.

And now, like a child, he began to talk. This was nothing like that time when he had sat with Nfilt and Ann on Riverside Drive. Then the barriers had still been up. Now, for the first time, he talked of all those days. He showed even the little scar of the fangs on his hand and the larger scars where he had slashed himself to apply the suction-pump. He told of his fear and of his flight and of the Great Loneliness that he had never quite dared face or imagine. And as he talked, she often said, “Yes, I know. Yes, I remember that, too. Tell me more.”

As for her, she had seen the catastrophe itself. She had faced more than he had, and yet he could see that she had come through better than he. She talked little, seeming to have no need, but she drew him on.

As he talked with her, he knew now at last that this, at least as far as he was concerned, was no mere casual meeting—or passing moment. In this lay all the future. Since the disaster he had seen men and women here and there, and no one before had ever held him. Perhaps time had healed him. More likely, she herself was different.

Yet she was a woman. As the minutes slipped by, he sensed that basic reality more and more, with an intensity that made him tremble. As between man and man the breaking of bread was the reality; the shared table, all the symbol needed. But as between man and woman there must be still more, in reality and in symbol, a further sharing.

They realized suddenly that neither knew the other’s name although each had been calling the dog Princess.

“Isherwood,” he said. “That was my mother’s maiden name and so she stuck it on me. Bad, wasn’t it? Everybody called me ’Ish.’”

“I’m Em!” she said. “Emma, that is, of course. Ish and Em! We won’t get very far writing poetry about that combination!” And she laughed. And they laughed together.

Laughter—that was another sharing! And yet it was not the final one. There were ways these things were done. He had known men who could do them, had seen them at work. But he, Ish, was not the right kind. All those qualities which had permitted him to be by himself and survive through the bad days, alone—all those qualities now came up to work against him. And he sensed too, very deeply, that they would be wrong. The old methods had worked in the days when there were girls in every cocktail-bar, looking for adventure. But now such methods were not right, he knew, and knew deeply—at this time, when the vast city stretched away empty in all directions outside of the windows and all the ways of the world had vanished and this woman had lived through all the catastrophe and the fear and the loneliness and now had come out on the other side, still with courage in her eyes, and affirmation, and laughter.

For a wild moment he had an idea that they might say some kind of marriage vows. Quakers could marry themselves. Why couldn’t others? They could stand up together, and face toward the east where the morning sun would rise. And then he sensed that the mere babbling of words was in itself much more dishonest even than a straightforward feeling for the knee under the table. He realized that he had been silent for what might have been a full minute. She was looking across at him with level calm eyes, and he knew that she read his thoughts.

In his embarrassment he rose suddenly to his feet, upsetting the chair as he got up. Then the table between them had ceased to be a symbol joining them together and now held them apart. He stepped from behind it, and across toward her as she rose up too. And then there was the softness of her body against his.

O Song of Songs! Thine eyes, my love, are gentle, and the fullness of thy lips is soft and firm. Thy neck is ivory, and the smoothness of thy shoulders like warm ivory. The softness of thy breasts against me is like fine wool. Thy thighs are firm and strong like the cedars. O Song of Songs!

She had gone now, into the inner room. He sat, still with breath and heart quick, tense and waiting. He had only one fear now. In a world where there were no doctors and even no other women, how could anyone risk the chance? But she had gone. He realized that she, too, in her great affirmation, would consider this also and care for it.