Eh, what a fool I’ve been, what a fool!
Elizabeth tries to do her best to tame a feeling of anger that becomes stronger and stronger with every passing minute. Of course, it has already happened before and she knows the exact reason that Walt is late. She was “a fool” to forgive his excessive alcohol drinking that time! Could she even imagine when she agreed to marry him that she would have to live in that “dirty hole, rats and all,” constantly trying to improve every single thing, for him “to slink past his very door?” She is angry as him as much as she angry at herself.
But what sentimental luxury was this she was beginning?
Elizabeth feels a sudden urge to cry looking at the dead body of her husband. However, she can’t afford that “sentimental luxury,” because, let’s face it, Walt is not her first priority. She has to take care of “the children,” for, first and foremost, she is a mother. “At any rate” she is “absolutely necessary for them.” They are “her business” now. Walt’s death means that Elizabeth will have to “manage on the little pension” and look for other ways to earn money to provide children with everything they need. She can’t be weak, for there are the children who depend on her.
What have I been doing?
Elizabeth realized that “each time” Walt “had taken her,” they “had been two isolated beings, far apart as now.” They were equally “responsible” for that situation. Her unborn child was “like ice in her womb.” For as she “looked at the dead man,” “her mind cold and detached, said clearly: Who am I? What have I been doing?” She realized that she had been “fighting a husband who did not exist.” She knew “she had never seen him, he had never seen her.”
