Conrad Aiken: Conversation; or, Pilgrims' Progress

“Candidly, yes!”

“Very well, then, Ee — we’ve come to a definite parting of the ways. That’s flat. From now on, my work will be private. I don’t want you to know a thing about it, or to inquire about it, or to look at it. It’s going to be none of your damned business. If you have no faith in it, as has become increasingly clear, then you can have no part in it. And all the more so because of the very fact that I do myself feel unsure about it. It’s bad enough to have to fight my own self-doubts, but I can’t have an additional enemy in my own house — and that’s what you’ve become. So from now on, as far as my career is concerned, I’m going my own way.”

“Is that fair? You asked for my opinion and I gave it—”

“The first law of life is self-preservation!”

“I see. So you’re going to separate yourself even more from me, as if you hadn’t already separated yourself quite enough, with this arrangement of living in the country and working in town. And that’s all right for your precious career, but what about mine?”

“Yours!”

“Yes, mine. That surprises you, doesn’t it? To think that I should expect a career? And that’s funny, too. Women don’t really exist, do they? Not for you, they don’t! It never occurs to you that nature intended us for something, and something beyond just being your slaves.”

“Slaves. Don’t be an ass!”

“Aren’t you being rather an ass yourself? I hate you when you talk like that.”

“You can hate all you like, but I won’t listen to such damned silly nonsense.”

“Why not? Are you afraid of it? That’s it, poor Timothy, you’re afraid of it, aren’t you? You can’t really face a woman, can you? You can’t face or understand her necessities, and so therefore you simply deny them. Absurdly simple for you, isn’t it? Much too simple. And it won’t work. I’ve got to live, too — whether with or without you — and there’s a minimum of love and happiness and well-being without which it’s impossible. I’m a woman, I was made for those things, I need them — oh, it’s no use your laughing — it may sound like platitudes, but it’s true. And I want more children while I’m young , I want and need babies, I want them, but I’m not allowed to have them because of your wonderful career, and the necessity of living economically for it, and without servants—”

“May I remind you that we agreed about that—”

“Oh, we agreed about it, all right.”

“Then I fail to see what you’re kicking about?”

“But I was a fool to agree, I was signing my own death warrant, I ought to have known better than to do it — I did it only because I loved you, and wanted to give you a chance — and anyway I thought it might somehow work, and that if you were happy you would be more generous—”

“More generous! What more could I possibly have given you!”

“Oh, I don’t mean only money, and servants, and the obvious things, like that — I mean the intangibles, too, I mean affection, I mean companionship — being talked to, for instance, you never talk to me any more—”

“That’s not true.”

“It is true. It’s been true almost ever since Buzzer was born. You’ve increasingly left me alone by myself, it never even occurs to you to have a conversation with me, in the evening, unless other people are present, or to take me for a walk, as you do Buzzer.”

“Why, I never heard anything so ridiculous and untrue in my life! What on earth are you talking about — a conversation !”

“Oh, it’s true. You stop and think about it. From the time Buzzer was born, and the next six months, when I was so tied down, and couldn’t do things with you as much — that was the beginning, and it’s got steadily worse ever since. When do you ever talk to me? What do you ever discuss with me? Oh, no, it’s your old superiority complex, I suppose, your feeling that the female isn’t your intellectual equal—”

“What absolute nonsense — you simply don’t know what you’re saying! Good lord, what do you think marriage is? Do you think two people can go on indefinitely, day after day, year after year, holding set-piece conversations, polite little discussions, with each other — is that your idea? Heaven forbid — it would drive me mad. You can’t do things like that. Life isn’t like that . We may not have any beautiful highbrow Platonic dialogues at breakfast, or while we do the dishes, but to say that we don’t have any talk at all is simply an outrageous and thumping lie. We talk all the time — morning, noon, and night — it may be casual and fragmentary — of course, it is — but when two people are as intimate as we are that’s what talk naturally becomes. Good god, Enid, you really are becoming impossible. What’s the use of discussing anything with you if you’re going to misconceive and misconstrue every mortal thing like this?”

“You’re very glib — you can always defend yourself, can’t you? By turning your back on the facts. You know what I’m saying is true. And it’s deeper than that, it’s more than that — it isn’t only your not talking with me, it’s everything of that kind. It’s your never thinking of taking me anywhere, or planning anything with me, any more. I don’t mean anything important, I mean just little things. How many shared pleasures do we have any more? Precious few, and you know it. And it’s because you’ve turned away your affection, and companionship, partly because you’ve turned them on to Buzzer (and you needn’t stare at me like that, it’s true, and it’s perfectly natural! I felt it at the time, and I’ve felt it ever since) — you’ve more and more separated yourself, withdrawn yourself — but where is it going to lead us? We can’t go on like this, I can’t go on, it’s drying me up, it’s making me mean and hard and selfish—”

“I see. It’s all going to be fathered on me, is it? No, Enid, that won’t work. I’m not going to swallow that, not by a damned sight. You get this into your head and keep it in your head, that the real trouble has been your constant and increasing interference with everything connected with my work and career. From the moment Buzzer was born, you’ve ceased to co-operate with me — from that very moment. That was the signal for the beginning of the pressure, and you’ve never relaxed it for a second. Oh, no! You evidently made up your mind that a possible artist was all very well, but that a breadwinner was much more important — so you went to work in every conceivable way, trying to wean me from my friends, or to give me new and ‘better’ ones, and to change subtly the whole mode of our life in a direction you thought more suitable. And with mother’s help, too— that was clear enough, that heavy and priggish hand from New Bedford! We had to live in the right street, and know the right people, and do the right things — and so, of course, more money was needed — and so the vicious circle had rounded on itself. And then it began to be suggested that perhaps my work had better be changed — or perhaps I could do something else , like society portraits. Pretty damned cunning! And the whole of my original idea, my ambition, my career — good god, it just makes me rage to think of it — was to be scrapped, and for what? For financial security and social ambition. And that being so, what it comes down to is this: that you married me under false pretences. You were keen enough on my being a painter beforehand, weren’t you? And you swore you would help me in every possible way. Well— now look at it. If it’s blown up, it’s your own silly fault. And I’ll tell you this right now — that I’m not going to be driven a single step farther . My surrender today about Jim is the last I’m going to make. From now on I’m going to stick to my own notion of how to run my career, and I don’t want any interference from any one — you or your mother either!”