The Realization of Death

In that moment when she, Gabriel's wife, fell asleep she dies not awakening for another moment to see her beloved. "He watched her while she slept as though he and she had never lived together as man and wife." Gabriel saw his wife lifeless but like she was in such a deep sleep that it seems that their marriage never existed. He starts to realize the beauty of his dead wife. "His curious eyes rested long upon her face and on her hair: and, as he thought of what she must have been then, in that time her first girlish beauty, a strange friendly pity for her entered his soul." He also began to realize just how much he loved her and took pity on her lifeless body knowing that she will not return to him. Gabriel seems to change by taking pity on his wife but to take pity on his aunt, "Poor Aunt Julia! She, too, would soon be a shade with the shade of Patrick Morkan and his singing Arrayed for the Bridal. Soon, perhaps, he would be sitting in that same drawing-room, dressed in black, his silk hat on his knees." He seems to think that since his wife has died the same will happen to his aunt and the rest of his family. If death has come to take his wife, death will soon come and take the rest of his family leaving him alone. Once he had gone back and seen his wife's body he lay beside her, "He thought of how she who lay beside him had locked in her heart for so many years that image of her lover's eyes when he had told her that he did not wish to love." He felt that he let her down but telling her that he did not wish to live and now that she is gone he regrets it because the image of his eyes as he said that to her was still in her heart and he had no way to retrieve it or take back what he said. He also began to change and show his true feelings to his wife. He began to cry, show emotions of love, and while still conscious he began to not comprehend his extistence in the real world and not among the dead. In this instance he became lost among the living and to himself but to him the world of the dead seemed to live and made him fall as if he were the snow falling on the window pane.