It was the most confusing hour of the evening, when the sky merged with the night in a blur that disguises landmarks and falsifies distances.

It seemed as though all the beauty of the night had been poured out to mock his wretchedness,

Full of the same dumb melancholy that Ethan felt in his heart.

Ethan was seized with horror and shame,

Suffocated,

Swallowed.

He was a prisoner for life, and now his one ray of light was to be extinguished.

The life of her smiles, the warmth of her voice–only cold and dead words.

She had taken everything else from him; now she meant to take the one thing that made up for it all.

There were things he had to say to her before they parted–but he could not say them-not in that place of summer memories.

After the long silence

They had avowed their inclination so openly: Ethan for a moment had the illusion he was a free man.

The bit of hopeful young life was like the lighting of a fire on a cold hearth,

Ethan burned with desire and trembled with fear.

She had not resisted…

Still in the rosy haze of his hour with Mattie, the sight came with the intense precision of the last dream before waking, 

And seemed to take the shape before him in the woman who at every turn had barred his way,

Of the woman who would wait for him 

His wife’s face (with twisted monstrous lineaments) thrust itself between him and his goal.

Ethan had walked into a trap out of which there was no escape