midday
The folding canvas bedstead stood nearly in the middle of the room , stood anyhow , parallel to no wall , as if it had been , in the process of transportation to some remote place , dropped casually there by tired bearers . And on the tumbled blankets that lay in a disordered heap on its edge , Joanna sat almost all day with her stockingless feet upon one of the bed pillows that were somehow always kicking about the floor . She sat there , vaguely tormented at times by the thought of her absent husband , but most of the time thinking tearfully of nothing at all , looking with swimming eyes at her little son -- at the big-headed , pasty-faced , and sickly Louis Willems -- who rolled a glass inkstand , solid with dried ink , about the floor , and tottered after it with the portentous gravity of demeanour and absolute absorption by the business in hand that characterize the pursuits of early childhood . Through the half-open shutter a ray of sunlight , a ray merciless and crude , came into the room , beat in the early morning upon the safe in the far-off corner , then , travelling against the sun , cut at midday the big desk in two with its solid and clean-edged brilliance ; with its hot brilliance in which a swarm of flies hovered in dancing flight over some dirty plate forgotten there amongst yellow papers for many a day . And towards the evening the cynical ray seemed to cling to the ragged petticoat , lingered on it with wicked enjoyment of that misery it had exposed all day ; lingered on the corner of the dusty bookshelf , in a red glow intense and mocking , till it was suddenly snatched by the setting sun out of the way of the coming night . And the night entered the room . The night abrupt , impenetrable and all-filling with its flood of darkness ; the night cool and merciful ; the blind night that saw nothing , but could hear the fretful whimpering of the child , the creak of the bedstead , Joanna 's deep sighs as she turned over , sleepless , in the confused conviction of her wickedness , thinking of that man masterful , fair-headed , and strong -- a man hard perhaps , but her husband ; her clever and handsome husband to whom she had acted so cruelly on the advice of bad people , if her own people ; and of her poor , dear , deceived mother .