Conrad Aiken: Conversation; or, Pilgrims' Progress

“I see.”

“Yes.”

“By god, I — and who are the saintly people who told you this?”

“Would any useful purpose be served by telling you?”

“They ought to be faced with it, the damned mischief-makers — and I suppose, of course, you didn’t—!”

“On the contrary, I did !”

“You shouldn’t have permitted them to raise the thing at all.”

“How could I help it? They merely said, besides, what everybody else is thinking . So what does it matter!”

“ Any loyal wife can prevent that sort of thing being said to her. You know that as well as I do. The truth is you’ve been looking for causes of complaint—”

“I have not!”

“—for the past six months. Oh, yes, you have. And if you can pick up a dirty little piece of gossip to fling in my face—”

“I did nothing of the sort. I’ve done nothing of the sort.”

“It looks very like it, doesn’t it? You complain about my friends, even compel me to drop them, you complain about my work, about our poverty, you complain about living in the country, you complain even because you have to do a little work yourself—”

“A little work! You try doing a morning’s washing!”

“—and now you complain because the neighbors gossip. Good god, Enid, what next? Oh, yes, and the schools, too — I’d forgotten about that — the schools aren’t good enough for Buzzer, and the children speak with simply atrocious accents! Is there anything else, while we’re on the subject? We might as well get right down to it. And when you’ve had your say, maybe I’ll have mine.”

“I’ve got plenty to say — I’ve had plenty to say — if you’d ever take the trouble to listen . And when I say listen, I mean listen . But I might as well be living alone, living in a vacuum, as far as getting any understanding is concerned—!”

“Ah, the old classic. So I don’t understand you any more.”

“If you even paid me as much attention as you pay to Buzzer — or gave me a little of the kind of imaginative sympathy you give to her—”

“Good god almighty, do you mean to say you’re going to be so low as to be jealous of your own child —?”

“It isn’t jealousy. I wouldn’t take it away from Buzzer, it’s very good for her, and it’s very lovely, too, it’s the nicest thing about you — but why couldn’t you give a little of it to me?”

“As if I hadn’t! And why the devil should I? What in hell do you give me? What? You do nothing but interfere with my life, my work, my career, my friends — the whole blasted business — and then you come running to me for understanding! Why don’t you run to your mother —it seems to be what you need!”

“Perhaps I will!”

“ She ought to understand you — you get more like her every day! You’re turning into a complete prig.”

“Oh.”

“Yes. A damned prig.”

“If you’re going to have recourse to swearing, simply—”

She had suddenly flushed, the high cheekbones were beautifully flushed, the green eyes widened as if deliberately for contempt, and she turned abruptly and went out, went through the hall and into the studio. He heard the two-toned squeak of the door, the clink of the tongs in the fireplace, the soft rustling thud of a pine log on to the other logs in the fire — that familiar, scaly, bark-scabbing sound, the red bark flaking and peeling — and he waited then for the creak of her wicker chair, but none came. She must be standing — she must simply be standing there — looking at the fire, looking out of the window — looking even at his pictures? Not likely! But standing in the intensity of her thought, standing and waiting. Yes — and implying too, by her departure on that particular note, that it was New Bedford she was thinking of, and the now twice-threatened return to her mother. Good god, how extraordinary, how simply grotesque — that actually, after all this time, they should now find themselves in this situation! Home and mother — how preposterous! He struck a chord at random, and looked up again at the Japanese print, in the dim candlelight. But that business of the “gossip,” and so ridiculously just now , as the affair with Nora was coming to an end, and especially in view of the fact that it had begun coming to an end precisely because they had decided to move into the country, to live in this village — how ironically and infuriatingly unfair that was, how typically silly an injustice! And Ee herself apparently disbelieving it—

But did she?

Or had it been a skillful tactical bit of probing?

No, probably not. But just the same the mere suggestion of a suspicion — whether hers, or George’s and Mabel’s, or Mrs. Murphy’s — shook him and made him angry; and all the more so because while in fact it was right — or partly — in principle it was wrong. Yes, there was something definitely mean about it, that was it — that they should suspect him of going to town — or even to New York, good heavens — in pursuance of a love affair; and abandoning poor Enid for that reason; when in truth the very opposite was the case, and it was Nora who had been abandoned — this was simply a piece of wanton invention and mischief-making. It was sickening. And without a shred of evidence or motive for it, either! His mere absences had led their imaginations to this, that was all — and the absences had been innocent. Not only innocent, but hard work, too, by god, and increasingly at the cost of what he had hoped to make his career! Yes, this was a genuine meanness, and of a sort that surprised him in George and Mabel. So that was the way their minds worked. Ah — and there was human nature for you, again — always suspect the worst, and whisper it where it will do the most good! By all means. And by all means separate a wife from her husband if you can, it’s very likely the kindest thing you can do! And drive the idealists, like Jim Connor, out of town — and forget the Miss Twitchells till they are dead.…

He started to strike a chord, but decided not to, and allowed his hands to lie relaxed on the keys. It would be better to be silent. Yes. Her silence in the studio, his silence in the dining room — and the battlefront, of course, halfway between, in the hall. But the finest irony of all, and the most infuriating part of the whole thing — if it hadn’t also been really damned funny — was that after having an affair, and in entire and successful secrecy, he should now be suspected when he was innocent. It was ridiculous, it made him feel helpless. In fact, what he really wanted to do was to go straight to them and tell them about it. “Look here, you blankety-blank fools and idiots, you low-minded suspicious imbeciles — do you think if I ever did have an affair I’d conduct it in such a way that simpletons like yourselves would entertain even the shadowiest ghost of a suspicion of it? Of course not. As is proved by the fact that when I was living in Boston I did have an affair, which none of you ever guessed for one minute. And now, you poor prunes, when I merely go to town three days a week, to work , your feculent little fancies have nothing better to do than this! Go crawl into a cesspool, will you? where you belong. Or into one of Mr. Will Pepoon’s bags!”

The visual image amused him, he half-smiled, involuntarily struck a note on the piano, then got up and went down into the rain-sounding kitchen for a glass of water. Amusing — yes! But the whole thing was now too complex, too difficult — and the feeling of insecurity, too, was beginning to be oppressive. Unfair, that he should have to bear the extra burden, just now, along with all this, of knowing about little Miss Twitchell — unfair, also, that into the same day should have come not only Nora’s letter, but that subtly disturbing dream as well. Why in god’s name had they had to quarrel now , when—