“I do not say you should or that it would do good. I only try to show that the young lady, charming and important as she is, is not the most magnetic or important thing in your life. Romantic love is a curious byproduct of west European feudalism that Africans and Asiatics can only criticize gingerly. You shake your head with obstinacy; you do not believe me. Good, then I have not hurt you.” “I can’t see that youve helped me much, either.” “Ay! What did you expect from the black man of Haiti? Miracles?” “Nothing less will do any good I’m afraid. Now I suppose youll tell me I’ll get over it in time; that it’s just an adolescent languishing anyway.” He looked at me reproachfully. “No, Hodge. I hope I should never be the one to think suffering is tied to age or time. As for getting over it, why, we all get over everything in the end, but no matter how desirable absolute peace is, few of us are willing to give up experience prematurely.” Later, I compared what Enfandin told me with what Tyss might have said. Did the responsibility of holding Tirzah lie with me and not with both of us, or with fate or chance? Or were events so circumscribed by inevitabilities that even to think of struggling with them was foolish? I also asked myself if I had been too proud, too hypersensitive. I had tried to make her see my viewpoint by arguing, by fighting hers; might it not be possible, without giving up essentials, to approach her more gently? To divert her, not from her ambitions, but from her contempt for mine? Full of resolves, I left the store after eight; eager walking brought me to our meeting place in Reservoir Square early, but the nearby churchbells had hardly sounded the quarter hour when she said, “Hodge.” Her unusual promptness was a good omen; I was filled with warm optimism. “Tirzah, I saw you this afternoon—” “Did you? I thought you were so busy with Sambo you would never look up.” “Why do you call him that? Do you think—” “Oh for Heavens sake, don’t start making speeches at me. I call him Sambo because it sounds nicer than Rastus.” All my resolutions about trying to see her point of view! “I call him M’sieu Enfandin because that’s his name.” “Have you no pride? No, I suppose you havent. Just some strange manners. Well, I can put up with your eccentricities, but other people wouldnt understand. What do you think Mrs Smythe would say?” “Never having met the lady, I havent the faintest idea.” “I have, and I agree with her. Would you like me to be chummy with a naked cannibal with a ring in his nose?” “But Enfandin doesnt wear a ring in his nose, and you must have seen he was fully dressed. Maybe he eats missionaries in secret, but that couldnt offend Mrs Smythe since appearances would be saved.” “I’m serious, Hodge.” “So am I. Enfandin is my only friend.”