So long had life together been that nowthe second of January fell againon Tuesday, making her astonished browlift like a windshield wiper in the rain, so that her misty sadness cleared, and showed a cloudless distance waiting up the road.
So long had life together been that oncethe snow began to fall, it seemed unending;that, lest the flakes should make her eyelids wince,I'd shield them with my hand, and they, pretending not to believe that cherishing of eyes, would beat against my palm like butterflies.
So alien had all novelty becomethat sleep's entanglements would put to shamewhatever depths the analysts might plumb;that when my lips blew out the candle flame, her lips, fluttering from my shoulder, sought to join my own, without another thought.
So long had life together been that allthat tattered brood of papered roses went,and a whole birch grove grew upon the wall,and we had money by some accident, and tonguelike on the sea, for thirty days, the sunset threatened Turkey with its blaze.
So long had life together been withoutbooks, chairs, utensils--only that ancient bed--that the triangle, before it came about,had been a perpendicular, the head of some acquaintance hovering above two points which had been coalesced by love.
So long had life together been that sheand I, with our joint shadows, had composeda double door, a door which, even if wewere lost in work or sleep, was always closed; somehow its halves were split and we went right through them into the future, into night.
