Suhad came to deal with the prob-lem, the wick refusing to go either up or down; and there was nothing for it but to put it out, and to swallow her husband's unbroken grumbling because he would now have to wait ten minutes steeped in darkness.

Hardly had her shivering limbs settled into her bed when her husband's regular snoring found its way to her ears. And she tells herself that darkness, under its cover, works the greatest wonders and marvels of the world. Enough that it handed Suhad something like a victory for her view: before her and her husband looms the welcoming of a new year, with a sure stretch of long staying-up ahead. For her nature had furnished her with a contradiction whose motto is "one day we grieve and one day we rejoice," quite unlike her husband's logic and his moderation. But then she remembered that he had already turned the light switch at his bedside table — in token that the crisis was over — so she rises at once, feeling the floor with the tips of her toes for fear of waking the silence, and to forestall the leaping out of the pent-up light.

And she wrapped herself up anew, her feet two blocks of ice, her teeth chattering as she went on heaping the covers about her head, trying to sink once more toward sleep. And behold — the electric light bursts out laughing at her from the ceiling of her room. She rises, dazzled in sight and breath, and rushes to the switch on the wall to silence its mockery of her imagined slumber and her cheated warmth. And she paces the hall to the other rooms, to see whether some light had been forgotten, though she had taken care not to miss a single one. To her astonishment she finds

the kitchen lit, and to her fury she finds it in a state that bespeaks the maid's neglect of her duties — the plates and vessels, pots and utensils, in a riot that must surely have claimed some victims!! And misgivings began to beset her head: what if the maid had been negligent on purpose? Then there comes back to her ears — as though from years ago — her little son's crying for her to sit with him in the dark; and when she slipped in to look in on him, she found the maid at his side, motionless and drowsing.

Then she went back the way she came, her mind scattered, warming the coldness of the bed with the coldness of her body — and she could not tell which was the colder; and contradiction and perplexity returned to her. And she saw herself take refuge in the philosophy of resignation to fate, meeting the situation with optimism. No call for gloom: the night was still young, and before her lay eight or nine full hours, more than even a nursling asks of sleep. And for the same reason the opportunist philosophy of fact took its place, shaking the idleness

On putting the clock forward to save electricity

... A tall Indian man was asleep, when suddenly he felt the cold stinging him, and he discovered that the blanket over him was short and did not cover his feet... So, to remedy this deficiency, he did nothing less than cut a span's length off the blanket at the head end and join it to the bottom end... and thus his feet were covered!!...

off her and calling for productive work — the sewing in heaps, the mending in piles, and an age had passed since she last held a book... But what could she do? Drowsiness had stolen through her, and she was loosed from every tether. Welcome, then, to a sweet slumber, the very opposite of what tomorrow evening holds in store of delights and surprises. Hurrah, O sleep!!

And she had recovered her calm, and slumber had begun to play about her eyelids, and warmth and ease to lull her limbs; and she surrendered to a kind of trance. And there passed before her the dance floor — that roaring, tossing wave — when the lights die down as twelve o'clock draws near, and the shouts and cheers mount. And the horns blare, as if it were the Day of Gathering, and the whistles shriek, as if it were the Resurrection; and the ears are deafened with drumming and piping and ringing... It is the ring-ing, no doubt of it, the loudest of all the sounds. It rings in earnest, without respite, insistent, without relenting; here it is, ringing violently in her ears; it is here... then she is at home, in bed... And she starts up like one touched with madness, and hurries to the hall, and pounces on the receiver:

— Hello. Yes. — Mr. —? — This is the house of Mr. —'s uncle. He lives on the floor below. — I know. I only want a word with him on a pressing matter. — On holiday nights like this he is most likely out of the house. — If only you would make sure whether he is in! — I am sorry. Everyone here is asleep. Any message? — A friend of his who wants to ask him about the program for New Year's Eve. — By all means — telephone tomorrow. Good evening, and a happy new year in advance.

(And after she had put back the receiver) — Calamity take you — you and the electricity!!