I could not argue with her then about these things. My knowledge was so
much less than hers. But although it was a relief to find that she
would not marry me, there was still a feeling of deep injustice. There
seemed a despicable cheat in taking from her so much more than I could
give. It seemed ultimately unfair to accept a love I could not wholly
return. But she brushed aside any efforts to explain. She ran to her
room, and bringing a copy of the Rubaiyat, preached me quite a sermon on
the quatrain about Omar’s astronomy, how he had revised the calendar,
struck off dead yesterday and the unborn tomorrow. Love, she said, was
subjective, its joy came from loving, rather than from being loved.
Then suddenly she became timorous. Perhaps she was being "invasive,"
perhaps I did not want her to love me....
My scruples went by the board with a rush. I surely did want her. And
I was able to convince her of it.
*V*
Our relations having been for the time determined, Ann set about to
reform me. She was really horrified at the isolated life I had been
leading. That I took little interest in humanity, none at all in public
life and only by chance knew who was mayor of the city, shocked her.
Every evening, after her other patients had been settled for the night,
she brought me the papers. There was no love-making—only one kiss—until
she had read to me for half an hour. It bored me to extinction, but she
insisted that it was good for me. I had to listen, because each evening
she examined me on what she had read the night before. So I acquired a
certain amount of unrelated information about millionaire divorces,
murders and municipal politics.
Her next step was to make me associate with the other patients.
"Bored?" she scolded. "It’s a sin to be bored. They’re people—human
beings—just as good as you are. You’re not interested in Mrs.
Stickney’s husband? You’re not interested in Mr. Blake’s business
worries? Those are the two great facts of life. The woman half of the
world is thinking about men. The man half is thinking about business.
They are the two things which are really most interesting."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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