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tried to shake her loose and still retain his hold on the gun. This was awkward, for her firm-fleshed body had
become a cat's. She threw herself to one side, and with her grip at his throat nearly jerked him to the floor. He
straightened himself and whirled swiftly. Still faithful to her hold, her body followed the circle of his whirl so
that her feet left the floor, and she swung through the air fastened to his throat by her hands. The whirl
culminated in a collision with a chair, and the man and woman crashed to the floor in a wild struggling fall
that extended itself across half the length of the room.
Hans Nelson was half a second behind his wife in rising to the unexpected. His nerve processed and mental
processes were slower than hers. His was the grosser organism, and it had taken him half a second longer to
perceive, and determine, and proceed to do. She had already flown at Dennin and gripped his throat, when
Hans sprang to his feet. But her coolness was not his. He was in a blind fury, a Berserker rage. At the instant
he sprang from his chair his mouth opened and there issued forth a sound that was half roar, half bellow. The
whirl of the two bodies had already started, and still roaring, or bellowing, he pursued this whirl down the
room, overtaking it when it fell to the floor.
Hans hurled himself upon the prostrate man, striking madly with his fists. They were sledge-like blows, and
when Edith felt Dennin's body relax she loosed her grip and rolled clear. She lay on the floor, panting and
watching. The fury of blows continued to rain down. Dennin did not seem to mind the blows. He did not even
move. Then it dawned upon her that he was unconscious. She cried out to Hans to stop. She cried out again.
But he paid no heed to her voice. She caught him by the arm, but her clinging to it merely impeded his effort.
It was no reasoned impulse that stirred her to do what she then did. Nor was it a sense of pity, nor obedience
to the "Thou shalt not" of religion. Rather was it some sense of law, an ethic of her race and early
environment, that compelled her to interpose her body between her husband and the helpless murderer. It was
not until Hans knew he was striking his wife that he ceased. He allowed himself to be shoved away by her in
much the same way that a ferocious but obedient dog allows itself to be shoved away by its master. The
analogy went even farther. Deep in his throat, in an animal-like way, Hans's rage still rumbled, and several
times he made as though to spring back upon his prey and was only prevented by the woman's swiftly
interposed body.
Back and farther back Edith shoved her husband. She had never seen him in such a condition, and she was
more frightened of him than she had been of Dennin in the thick of the struggle. She could not believe that
Love of Life and Other Stories 42/78
Love of Life and Other Stories
this raging beast was her Hans, and with a shock she became suddenly aware of a shrinking, instinctive fear
that he might snap her hand in his teeth like any wild animal. For some seconds, unwilling to hurt her, yet
dogged in his desire to return to the attack, Hans dodged back and forth. But she resolutely dodged with him,
until the first glimmerings of reason returned and he gave over.
Both crawled to their feet. Hans staggered back against the wall, where he leaned, his face working, in his
throat the deep and continuous rumble that died away with the seconds and at last ceased. The time for the
reaction had come. Edith stood in the middle of the floor, wringing her hands, panting and gasping, her whole
body trembling violently.
Hans looked at nothing, but Edith's eyes wandered wildly from detail to detail of what had taken place.
Dennin lay without movement. The overturned chair, hurled onward in the mad whirl, lay near him. Partly
under him lay the shot-gun, still broken open at the breech. Spilling out of his right hand were the two
cartridges which he had failed to put into the gun and which he had clutched until consciousness left him.
Harkey lay on the floor, face downward, where he had fallen; while Dutchy rested forward on the table, his
yellow mop of hair buried in his mush-plate, the plate itself still tilted at an angle of forty-five degrees. This
tilted plate fascinated her. Why did it not fall down? It was ridiculous. It was not in the nature of things for a
mush-plate to up-end itself on the table, even if a man or so had been killed.
She glanced back at Dennin, but her eyes returned to the tilted plate. It was so ridiculous! She felt a hysterical
impulse to laugh. Then she noticed the silence, and forgot the plate in a desire for something to happen. The
monotonous drip of the coffee from the table to the floor merely emphasized the silence. Why did not Hans do
something? say something? She looked at him and was about to speak, when she discovered that her tongue
refused its wonted duty. There was a peculiar ache in her throat, and her mouth was dry and furry. She could
only look at Hans, who, in turn, looked at her.
Suddenly the silence was broken by a sharp, metallic clang. She screamed, jerking her eyes back to the table.
The plate had fallen down. Hans sighed as though awakening from sleep. The clang of the plate had aroused
them to life in a new world. The cabin epitomized the new world in which they must thenceforth live and
move. The old cabin was gone forever. The horizon of life was totally new and unfamiliar. The unexpected
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