Night Air and Morning Tensions — Alice Adams

Virgil Adams lies sick in bed, arguing with his nurse Miss Perry about keeping the windows open at night. He clings to his mother's old warning that night air is dangerous, while Miss Perry dismisses the fear as outdated superstition left over from swamp mosquitoes before window screens existed. Through a restless dawn he listens to the industrial city waking: milk wagons, factory whistles, sparrows, and workers whose laughter feels like an insult to his exhaustion. Everything presses on his nerves, and even the night-light seems to stir a painful sense that his life has narrowed to complaint and helplessness. When his wife visits, cheerful talk about recovery quickly turns into the real subject: she wants him, once he is well, to leave his job at Lamb and Company and find something better. She calls the business a hole and pleads for the children's sake, while he angrily defends his work and accuses her of using his illness to manipulate him. She leaves in tears; he mutters a bitter prayer about daily bread, recognizing her performance as nothing new. The chapter sets the Adams marriage at a crossroads where pride, financial strain, and old habits collide with a family's hunger for upward movement.