“I don’t know. We’ll settle that when tomorrow comes. This is today.”
“And what a day, from start to finish!… How kind you are to me, Carey.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“A hundred reasons if you weren’t you.”
“But I am, I always am.”
He was silent for a few moments, then said: “D’you think I’ll ever be able to do any work again?”
“Of course you will.”
“I wonder…”
He had spoken so sadly and sincerely, not dramatically at all, that she sat down on the bed and took the hand that did not hold the cigar. She thought with calmness: If he dies, what will _I_ do? Will I be free or will freedom be another kind of bondage to all I can remember? Because so long as he’s alive, anywhere, with anybody… and if that be love, let it flow from me to him whenever he needs it, as now… Oh, Paul, why did I ever meet you if it were not for this, yet why did I ever meet you if it were only for this? So I’m back at last, or you are, it doesn’t matter which, but it’s late, isn’t it?… it’s so terribly late…
She whispered: “You will work again, when you’re rested enough. I’ll help you, I’ll be with you—you know you can count on me. I can work too —I’ll do another picture or a stage play or something. And one of these days, darling, but not yet—because you need that long rest —one of these days, though, you’ll make that picture about children you talked of—the one where the camera itself is a child—you were going to tell me about it once when someone came in and interrupted… don’t you remember?”
He seemed not to at first, but soon he either did so or else began to think about it as if it were a new idea. She did not want to excite him, but the look that came into his face was the look of life itself and it brought life to her. “I think I’d shoot from three feet above the ground,” he muttered. “Everything in a child’s-eye view—a child’s proportion —a smile makes the sun shine twice as bright—we could get a lighting effect for that… and the eye widening like a lens— everything big when it loves something—an apple, a toy, the mother’s breast, a dog as big as a horse…”
He closed his eyes, sighing contentedly. After a little while she knew he was asleep again, so she took the cigar from his hand and laid it down.
* * *
THE END
James Hilton, Morning Journey
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