The Signature of All Things

her to the bed, and she climbed in. He came into the bed from the other side, and met her in the middle. Immediately she had the awful thought that this bed was far too small for the both of them. She and Ambrose were both so tall. Where were their legs supposed to go? What about their arms? What if she kicked him in her sleep? What if she put an elbow into his eye, without knowing?
    She turned sideways, he turned sideways, and they faced each other.
    “Treasure of my soul,” he said. He took one of her hands, brought it to his lips, and kissed it, just above the knuckles, as he had been doing every night for the last month, since their engagement. “You have brought me such peace.”
    “Ambrose,” she replied, amazed by his name, amazed by his face.
    “It is in our sleep that we most closely glimpse the power of spirit,” he said. “Our minds will speak across this narrow distance. It will be here, together in nocturnal stillness, that we shall finally become unbound bytime, by space, by natural law and physical law. We shall roam the world however we like, in our dreams. We shall speak with the dead, transform into animals and objects, fly across time. Our intellects shall be nowhere to be found, and our minds will be unfettered.”
    “Thank you,” she said, senselessly. She could not think of what else to say, in response to such an unexpected speech. Was this some sort of wooing? Was this how they proceeded with things, up in Boston? She worried that her breath did not smell sweet. His breath smelled sweet. She wished that he would extinguish the lamp. Immediately, as though hearing her thoughts, he reached over and extinguished the lamp. The dark was better, more comfortable. She wanted to swim toward him. She felt him take up her hand again and press it to his lips.
    “Good night, my wife,” he said.
    He did not let go of her hand. Within a matter of moments—she could tell it by his breathing—he was asleep.
----
    O f everything Alma had imagined, hoped for, or feared as to what might transpire on her wedding night, this course of events had never occurred to her.
    Ambrose dozed on, steady and peaceful beside her, his hand clasped lightly and trustingly around hers, while Alma, eyes wide in the dark, lay still in the spreading silence. Bewilderment overcame her like something oily and dank. She sought possible explanations for this strange occurrence, paging through her mind for one interpretation after another, as one would do in science, with any experiment gone wildly wrong.
    Perhaps he would awaken, and they would recommence—or rather commence —with their marital pleasures? Perhaps he had not liked her nightdress? Perhaps she had appeared too modest? Or too eager? Was it the dead girl that he wanted? Was he thinking of his lost love from Framingham, all those years ago? Or perhaps he had been overcome by a fit of nerves? Was he unequal to love’s duties? But none of these explanations made sense, particularly not the last one. Alma knew enough of such matters to understand that the inability to conduct intercourse brought men the severest imaginable shame—but Ambrose did not seem ashamed at all. Nor had he even attempted intercourse. On the contrary, he slept as easefully asa man could possibly sleep. He slept like a rich burgher in a fine hotel. He slept like a king after a long day of boar hunting and jousting. He slept like a princely Mohammedan, sated by a dozen comely concubines. He slept like a child under a tree.
    Alma did not sleep. The night was hot, and she was uncomfortable lying on her side for so long, afraid to move, afraid to withdraw her hand from his. The pins and fasteners in her hair pressed into her scalp. Her shoulder was growing numb below her. After a long while, she finally released herself from his clasp and turned over onto her back, but it was useless: rest would not find her this night. She lay there in stiffness and alarm, her eyes wide open, her armpits damp, her mind searching without success for a comforting conclusion to this most surprising and unfavorable turn of affairs.
    At dawn, every bird on earth, merrily oblivious to her dread, began to sing. With the first rays of sunlight, Alma allowed herself to throw forward a spark of hope that her husband would awaken in the dawn and embrace her now. Perhaps they would begin it in the daylight—all the expected intimacies of matrimony.
    Ambrose did awaken, but he did not embrace her. He woke in a lively