heda Still Life painting

heda Still Life paintingJohn William Waterhouse Destiny 1900 paintingJohn William Waterhouse The Siren painting
preferred the neutral phrase to the more loaded _visions_ -- by which she'd been plagued ever since her decision to scorn oxygen cylinders and conquer Chomolungma on lung power alone. The effort of raising him, slinging his arm around her shoulders and half-carrying him to her flat -- more than half, if the truth be told -- fully persuaded her that he was no chimera, but heavy flesh and blood. Her feet stung her all the way and the pain reawakened all the resentments she'd stifled when she thought him dead. What was she supposed to do with him now, the lummox, sprawled out across her bed? God, but she'd forgotten what a sprawler the man was, how during the night he colonized your side of the bed and denuded you entirely of bedclothes. But other sentiments, too, had re-emerged, and these won the day; for here he was, sleeping beneath her protection, the abandoned hope: at long last, love.
He slept almost round the clock for a week, waking up only to satisfy the minimum requirements of hunger and hygiene, saying almost nothing. His