Yet here he paused to admit a curious thing:  it was not only Esther’s bad habits which vexed him, but habits quite unblameworthy in themselves which he never would have noticed in another, irritated him in her.  He disliked her manner of standing, of walking, of sitting in a chair, of folding her hands.  Like a lover, he was conscious of her proximity without seeing her.  Like a lover, too, his eyes followed her every movement, his ear noted every change in her voice.  But then, instead of being charmed by everything as the lover is, everything jarred upon him.

What was the meaning of this?  Tonight the anomaly pressed upon him:  he reviewed his position.  Here was he, quite a young man, just twenty-six years of age, married to Esther, and bound to live with her so long as life should last—­twenty, forty, perhaps fifty years more.  Every day of those years to be spent in her society; he and she face to face, soul to soul; they two alone amid all the whirling, busy, indifferent world.  So near together in semblance; in truth, so far apart as regards all that makes life dear.

Willoughby groaned.  From the woman he did not love, whom he had never loved, he might not again go free; so much he recognized.  The feeling he had once entertained for Esther, strange compound of mistaken chivalry and flattered vanity, was long since extinct; but what, then, was the sentiment with which she inspired him?  For he was not indifferent to her—­no, never for one instant could he persuade himself he was indifferent, never for one instant could he banish her from his thoughts.  His mind’s eye followed her during his hours of absence as pertinaciously as his bodily eye dwelt upon her actual presence.  She was the principal object of the universe to him, the centre around which his wheel of life revolved with an appalling fidelity.

What did it mean?  What could it mean? he asked himself with anguish.

And the sweat broke out upon his forehead and his hands grew cold, for on a sudden the truth lay there like a written word upon the tablecloth before him.  This woman, whom he had taken to himself for better, for worse, inspired him with a passion, intense indeed, all-masterful, soul-subduing as Love itself....  But when he understood the terror of his Hatred, he laid his head upon his arms and wept, not facile tears like Esther’s, but tears wrung out from his agonizing, unavailing regret.

‘A POOR STICK’

By Arthur Morrison

(Tales of Mean Streets, London:  Methuen and Co., 1894) Published by permission of Methuen and Co.