“Why not just answer me?” I protested. She had come to the hem of the gown, which she pulled free of the skirt in one long shriek.
LATER, WHEN MY husband came upstairs, I heard his footsteps stop before my door. He had drunk wine and brandy at supper, as he often does when the prospect of murdering negroes is before him. I lay still, staring at the doorknob, but it did not turn and presently he went on to his own room.
When Walter was born, I lost what little desire I had for my husband. I knew he was driven to my bed because he feared he had fathered the only son he would ever have. I was nearly blind with resentment and could only get through the ordeal of our conjugal encounters by recourse to a steadily waning sense of duty. I’ve no doubt my repugnance showed. I was too proud to beg for my freedom, my husband too absorbed in his own passion to notice my suffering. My revulsion turned to resistance and I discovered that this inflamed him further, that it could be useful as a means of bringing the unpleasant process to a speedy conclusion. And so I practiced a mock resistance. Afterward I wept with frustration while my panting husband collapsed at my side. “Don’t cry,” he said, patting my shoulder as he drifted off to sleep. “We will have a child. I’m sure of it.”
It was not long after my consultation with Dr. Sanchez that I found the means to make my husband quit my bed. Indeed, Dr. Sanchez unwittingly provided it—it was the sleeping tincture. I found that if I drank two glasses of port at supper and took two spoons of this excellent medicine before getting into bed, I was so perfectly indifferent to my husband that I could endure his embraces without feeling anything at all. I offered neither encouragement nor resistance; I was there and not there at the same time. This frustrated him beyond endurance. He pushed and pulled at me, repeated my name, all to no avail. One night, after only a few weeks of this campaign, he pulled me up roughly by my arms and slapped me hard across the face. I smiled and fell back on the pillow, tasting blood. I brought my fingers to my lips, smearing a little of the blood across my cheek. Abruptly he pulled away from me and sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing his face between his hands. “Manon,” he said. “What are you doing?”
“Are you finished already?” I asked agreeably.
“I’ve not much interest in making love to a corpse,” he said.
I laughed. How wonderful that he would call what we were doing “making love,” how amusing that he drew the line at a corpse. “If I am dead,” I said, “it is because you have killed me.”
He turned to look at me. To my surprise there were tears standing in his eyes. “The doctor is right,” he said. “You are unbalanced.”
“Is that his diagnosis?” I said.
He turned away, bending to the floor to pull on his trousers.
Unbalanced, I thought. So that was the name they had for a woman who could not pretend a villain was as good as a decent man. I closed my eyes and opened them again against a wave of nausea. The doctor was right; the balance was not perfect. A little less port in the mix, and maybe a few more drops of the tincture. “I don’t care,” I said as my husband took up his boots and went to the door.
He looked back at me, confounded.
“I don’t care what you do,” I said. “I don’t care what you think. I just want you to leave me alone.”
“So be it,” he said, and went out.
THERE IS CHOLERA and yellow fever in New Orleans. We have heard rumors of it, but Dr. Landry, stopping here this morning to rest his horse on his way to the city, gave us an alarming confirmation. In the last weeks the cases have been multiplying rapidly, hundreds are already dead, and he does not doubt that a full epidemic is under way. The yellow fever is more dangerous to those who have not long resided in the area—the Americans are particularly prone to contract it— but cholera respects no barriers and even carries away the negroes, who are immune to many diseases that attack the more delicate constitution of the Creole. He bade me bring my mother out of town.
My husband made a thoughtful face at this suggestion, dissembling his real feelings. Mother’s rare visits to this house have met with little success. She gives my husband unsolicited advice about farm matters, even criticizing his management of the livestock. Her servant, Peek, doesn’t get on with Delphine, and there is a good deal of sullenness in the kitchen. Worst of all for him, I’ve no doubt, is the necessity to hide the true state of his relations with Sarah. When Walter was a baby and easily banished to the quarter, it was easier, but even then he was forced to curb his temper and his eye when Sarah was about. Mother repeatedly remarks that it is uncommon to have a woman serve at table; why do we not have a proper butler? I enjoy his discomfiture, but unfortunately Mother’s criticism extends to my conduct as well. She encourages me to show more warmth to my husband, even if I do not feel it, as it is my duty and, with practice, must become my pleasure. She repeatedly cites the tiresome adage about flies, honey, and vinegar, as if it contains the wisdom of the ages.