Husband and wife -- Fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction
There was that side to it, too. It was the aspect of the case on which
I dwelt all through my lonely dinner. I had not forgotten Boyd
Averill’s reception of me on the Sunday of the luncheon; I never should
forget it. There is something in being in the house of a man who is
anxious to get you out of it unlike any other form of humiliation. The
very fact that he refrains from pointedly showing you the door only
gives time for the ignominy to sink in. Nothing but the habit of doing
certain things in a certain way carried me through those two hours and
enabled me to take my departure without incivility. On going down the
steps the sense that I had been kicked out was far more keen than if
Averill had given way to the actual physical grossness.
Some of this feeling, I admit, was fanciful. It was due to the
disturbed imagination natural to a man whose mental equipment has been
put awry. Averill had been courteous throughout my visit. More than
that, he was by nature kindly. Anywhere but in his own house his
attitude to me would have been cordial, and for anything I needed he
would have backed me with more than his good-will.
Nevertheless, that Sunday rankled as a poisoned memory, and one from
which I found it impossible wholly to dissociate any member of his
family. Though I could blame Mrs. Averill a little, I could blame Miss
Averill not at all; and yet she belonged to the household in which I had
been made to feel an unwelcome guest. That in itself might give me a
clue to her sentiment toward me.
As I went on with my dinner I came to the conclusion that it did give me
such a clue. I was the idiot Malvolio thinking himself beloved of
Viola. Where there was nothing but a balked philanthropy I was looking
for the tender heart. The dictionary teemed with terms that applied to
such a situation, and I began to heap them on myself.
I heaped them on myself with a sense not of relief, but of
disappointment. That was the odd discovery I made, as much to my
surprise as my chagrin. Falling in love with anybody was no part of my
program. It was out of the question for obvious reasons. In addition
to these I was in love with some one else.
That is to say, I knew I had been in love; I knew that in the portion of
my life that had become obscured there had been an emotional drama of
which the consciousness remained. It remained as a dream remains when
we remember the vividness and forget the facts—but it remained. I could
view my personality somewhat as you view a countryside after a storm has
passed over it. Without having witnessed the storm you can tell what it
was from the havoc left behind. There was some such havoc in myself.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account