now they came like the whispered taunts given an airy shape passing before my dulled eyes - avigail , my wife , avigail and i together with a house of little ones , avigail and i amid trivial tasks and arbors of trailing vines , in weariness and with soft tender skin , dare one think of that , the brush of lips , yes , and a body crooked snugly against me in the night-to-night dark - ah , the essence of all that would have followed , and could have followed , if i 'd taken her as my wife , if i 'd done what every man in the village expected of me , what my brothers had expected of me long before the other men , if i 'd done what custom and tradition required of me .