The early dawn pushed in through the holes and cracks of the wooden window shutters, and, although the edges of the furniture were still blurred in the shadows of the night, Deborah’s eyes were already clear, her thoughts hard, her heart cool. She cast a glance upon the sleeping man and discovered the first white hairs in his black beard. He cleared his throat in his sleep. He snored.

Quickly she sprang before the blurred mirror. She combed through her thin hair with cold fingers, drew one strand after another over her forehead, and looked for white hairs. She thought she found a single one, grasped it with the hard tongs of two fingers, and tore it out. Then she opened her chemise before the mirror. She saw her flaccid breasts, lifted them, let them fall, stroked her hand over her empty yet swollen body, saw the blue branching veins on her thighs, and decided to go to bed again.

She turned, and her scared glance met the opened eye of her husband. ‘What are you looking at?’ she cried. He did not answer. It was as though the open eye did not belong to him, as though he himself still slept. It had opened independently of him. It had become independently inquisitive. The white of the eye seemed whiter than usual. The pupil was tiny. The eye reminded Deborah of a frozen lake with a black spot in it. It could hardly have been open a minute but to Deborah this minute seemed a decade.

Mendel’s eye closed again. He breathed quietly on. He was undoubtedly asleep. Outside, a distant trill from a million larks arose, above the house and under the sky. The dawning heat of the young day began to penetrate into the darkened room. Soon the clock would strike six, the hour when Mendel Singer was accustomed to rise. Deborah did not move. She remained where she had stood when she turned again towards the bed, with the mirror at her back. Never before had she stood thus, listening, without purpose, with no need, without curiosity, without desire. She was waiting for nothing. Yet it seemed to her that she was expecting something very special.