Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) (150 page)

Mr.
Bradegar's
attention
flooded
from
ears
to
eyes.
He
opened
240

HEARD:
THE
ROUSING
OF
MR.
BRADEGAR

them,
found
the
sheet
was
over
them,
pushed
it
aside
with
an
impatiently
anxious
finger—and,
in
a
flash,
realized
what
had
happened. His
whole
body
signaled
it.
Every
sense,
with
a
sort
of
cannonading broadside,
thundered
the
fact.
He
blinked
his
eyes—yes,
the
room was
light,
but
he
could
see
only
faintly,
blurredly.
He
moved
his
legs, yes,
with
difficulty.
He
knew
at
once:
he
was
not
the
sort
of
fool
that fools
himself.
He
knew
how
to
diagnose
that
curious
sense
of
constriction,
that
feeling
as
though
one
were
walking
along
the
foot
of the
bed,
that
imaginary
sensation.
Of
course,
it
was
the
typical
projection
phenomenon,
the
massive
sensation-pattem
similar
to
the
acute nerve
response
which
the
leg-amputation
patient
feels
when
he
says his
toes
are
being
pinched.

Mr.
Bradegar
again
stretched
a
little,
to
be
quite
sure.
Yes,
there wasn't
a
shadow
of
doubt—that
illusion
of
being
restricted,
of
touching
the
foot
of
the
bed,
could
mean
only
one
thing.
He
knew
he couldn't
actually
be
doing
so,
because,
as
it
happened,
he'd
had
that bed
built
to
make
impossible
precisely
that
horizontal
nocturnal
ambulation.
As
a
boy
he'd
hated
a
too-short
bed
in
which
he'd
been
made to
go
on
sleeping
when
he'd
outgrown
it—really
a
child's
cot—and he'd
made
a
promise
to
himself,
which
he'd
kept,
that
when
he
grew up
he'd
have
a
footless
bed
and
one
in
which,
stretch
as
you
would, you
just
couldn't
touch
the
end.
Mabel
had
laughed
at
him
and,
later, had
been
annoyed.
He'd
grown
to
be
a
tall
man.
She'd
said
a
seven-foot
bed
was
nonsense—looked
positively
unbalanced.
He'd
replied that
a
bed
was
balanced
if
it
stood
steady
on
its
four
feet
and,
anyhow,
it
wasn't
for
looks
but
for
closing
your
eyes
in.
Of
course,
she'd replied
that,
at
least
as
long
as
they
were
up
and
about,
she
didn't
see why
her
mouth
should
be
shut
by
his
snapping.
It
was
one
of
those useless,
fruitless,
but
fecund
quarrels.
They'd
found
by
then
that
they could
quarrel
over
anything,
by
the
time
he
was
making
enough money
for
her
always
to
be
wanting
more,
and
he
without
any
time but
to
make
it.

He
felt
with
his
foot
once
more.
Not
a
doubt
of
it.
Well,
he'd
like to
see
Mabel's
face
when
she
heard
the
news—remorse
for
a
moment, then
relief—until
his
lawyer,
whom
she'd
ring
up
quick
enough,
gave her
the
will
in
brief.

Thinking
of
Mabel's
face
reminded
him
to
repeat
the
visual check-up.
He
opened
his
eyes
again,
which
had
closed
as
he
felt
about with
his
feet
under
the
bedclothes.
True
enough,
eyes
answered
to toes,
repeating
the
first
message
that
they'd
given
him
at
the
clock's summons.
His
eyes
confirmed
the
numbed
constricted
feeling
of
his legs,
interpreting
the
general
condition
in
their
particular
terms.
He was
seeing
as
blurredly
as
he
felt
numbly.
He'd
face
the
music:
those starts
in
the
night,
he
knew
now
exactly
what
they
were.
One,
two, three,
the
little
lesions
had
taken
place.
He'd
had
a
serial
stroke:
he was
quite
extensively
paralyzed.