It must be, Ruth thought, that she was going to die in the spring. She felt the season's mockery--such inexplicable desolation, such sludge in the heart. She could almost burst--could one burst with joylessness? What she was feeling was too strange, too contrary, too isolated for a mere emotion. It had to be a premonition--one of being finally whisked away after much boring flailing and flapping and the pained, purposeless work that constituted life. And in spring, no less: A premonition of death. A rehearsal. A secretary's call to remind of the appointment. Of course, it had always been in the spring that she'd discovered her husband's affairs. But the last one was years ago, and what did she care about all that now; there had been a parade of flings. In the end, they'd made her laugh: Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha ! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!...