Not the way he had beat off the baby's ghost — all bang and shriek with windows smashed andicily iars rolled in a heap. But she moved him nonetheless, and Paul D didn't know how to stop itbecause it looked like he was moving himself. Imperceptibly, downright reasonably, he wasmoving out of 124.

　　The beginning was so simple. One day, after supper, he sat in the rocker by the stove, bone-tired,river-whipped, and fell asleep. He woke to the footsteps of Sethe coming down the white stairs tomake breakfast.

　　"I thought you went out somewhere," she said.

　　Paul D moaned, surprised to find himself exactly where he was the last time he looked.

　　"Don't tell me I slept in this chair the whole night."Sethe laughed. "Me? I won't say a word to you.""Why didn't you rouse me?""I did. Called you two or three times. I gave it up around midnight and then I thought you went outsomewhere."He stood, expecting his back to fight it. But it didn't. Not a creak or a stiff joint anywhere. In facthe felt refreshed. Some things are like that, he thought, good-sleep places. The base of certain treeshere and there; a wharf, a bench, a rowboat once, a haystack usually, not always bed, and here,now, a rocking chair, which was strange because in his experience furniture was the worst placefor a good-sleep sleep.

　　The next evening he did it again and then again. He was accustomed to sex with Sethe just aboutevery day, and to avoid the confusion Beloved's shining caused him he still made it his business totake her back upstairs in the morning, or lie down with her after supper. But he found a way and areason to spend the longest part of the night in the rocker. He told himself it must be his back —something supportive it needed for a weakness left over from sleeping in a box in Georgia.

　　It went on that way and might have stayed that way but one evening, after supper, after Sethe, hecame downstairs, sat in the rocker and didn't want to be there. He stood up and realized he didn'twant to go upstairs either. Irritable and longing for rest, he opened the door to Baby Suggs' roomand ............