Conrad Aiken - The Collected Short Stories of Conrad Aiken

“I remarked, earlier, on the inevitable step-by-step progression of such affairs, from the less to the more intense, and this was no exception. With each night, as we approached nearer to America and the American winter, the weather grew colder—but nothing could daunt us. On the last night, when we climbed up for our farewell meeting, it was actually snowing. We had our heavy coats on—and there we stood, being literally drifted under, while the ship plunged and corkscrewed in a gigantic sea. It was marvelous—as if the elements themselves were conspiring with us to give our Liebestod a touch of grandiosity. No—grandeur! For it was that . Certainly, with Lovely, it had become a grand passion. I admit that I’d never had any idea what terrific force a passion could have. It she could have torn me limb from limb, as the Bacchantes tore—who was it? I’ve forgotten his name—she’d have done so. As it was, she kissed me with a kiss that was more like flame, lambent flame, than I could have conceived it to be: restless, rapid, devouring. She even opened my waistcoat, and slid her hand in against my heart; and we stood there, motionless in the blizzard for all the world like a pair of stanchions or davits, and apparently as lifeless.

“What happened then is the thing that gives its whole point to the story—if it has a point at all—and it’s essential that you should see it in the right way. If you regard the thing as merely a tidbit of scandal, and hope for a climax of the approved smoking-room style, you’ll be disappointed, and you’ll miss what is to my mind the real beauty and pathos, or rather tragedy, of the actual event. I need hardly say that when we finally groped our way down below again, shaking the snow off our hats and coats, we were in no mood to separate. It was late—eleven-thirty—for one hour had stretched to two; and when we stood in the corridor to say good night we found ourselves alone, in a ship which to all intents and purposes had gone to sleep. We said good night: I had my hand on her wrist: and then, once more surrendering to an impulse that seemed to come from her rather than from myself, I asked her to come to my room. The question seemed to hang there for a long while, portentously reverberating, catastrophically reverberating, while we stared at each other: and then, shutting her eyes as if in an agony, she said ‘ no .’ I didn’t urge her. I merely added that I would wait for her—that I would expect her in three minutes—told her how to find my stateroom—and that I would leave the door ajar. With this, I turned my back and departed. She stood there, unmoving.

“In three minutes, she came into my room. When I embraced her, and told her how happy she had made me, I felt that she was trembling—trembling violently. She was in a queer passive trancelike state; and while I kissed her, she kept her dark eyes wide open, as if she were desperately looking for something, something unresolved or unresolvable. And then, gently detaching herself from me, and leaning her back against the door, she said the most completely surprising and most completely terrifying thing that was ever said to me. ‘I am yours—’ she said—‘irrevocably and utterly yours. I must stay here with you, if you like. But I must tell you that if I do this, then I shall never, never, never , as long as I live, let you go. I’ll follow you everywhere—I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth. Your wife won’t matter to me, nor my husband, nor social scandal, nor anything: I will sacrifice everything to be near you, and I’ll never give you up, so help me God. I’ve got to tell you that. And then you can decide whether you want me to stay.…’

“Well!… To say that I was frightened doesn’t begin to suggest to you what I felt. In a second—a second —my spurious (perhaps not wholly spurious) passion for her had vanished. I stared at her as if at a total stranger who had somehow blundered into my stateroom; and I felt incredibly foolish and false. What on earth could I do?… Nothing. Absolutely nothing! If I’d been of more heroic mold, or anything at all of a Don Juan (which Heaven knows I’m not), I suppose I’d have made the final grand gesture and taken, unflinching, the final risk. But being a mere timid married man, unquestionably loyal and decidedly less than moyen sensuel , I was, to be quite frank, in a horrible funk, and could find nothing to do but look silly. I must have looked damned silly. But I did manage, after a moment, to pull myself together—and I said, with as much gravity as I could muster, that so great a sacrifice, on her part, was out of the question, and that of course any such permanent relation between us could not for a minute be considered. She gave me a queer, long, hard look, at that, with her hand on the doorknob—rather uncomfortably, as if she had suddenly seen me for the first time—and then said a flurried little goodbye, gave me her hand, and was gone.… And I never spoke with her again.”

Fred took off his spectacles and stared.

“Well, I’ll be— sunk ,” he said.

“Sunk isn’t the word,” murmured the Professor. “I never heard such an outrageous anticlimax in all my life. You mean to say—”

Words failed him. He felt himself to be visibly speechless. So far—so agonizingly far—in pursuit of an ignis fatuus ! To Karnak and back for a grain of sand! He finished his whisky at a gulp.

“Well, Bill,” he added, rising, “I congratulate you on your firm moral stand. It was splendid. Worthy of the best traditions of the college. Anyway, it’s a blamed good story, and now I’ve got to go home.”

“It’s a hum-dinger,” said Fred. “Did it really happen like that?”

“Absolutely, word for word.”

“Well, it’s a hum-dinger.”

The waiter being summoned, they paid the bill, put on their coats and galoshes, and climbed the worn stairs. The Professor felt himself to be a little unsteady on his feet, but perfectly clear-headed—perfectly. And he visualized the final scene in the stateroom with astonishing distinctness. There were certain details, however, about which he wished Bill had been a little more specific. Had they, or had they not, actually—

He was interrupted in this sly speculation by Fred’s asking him if he would like to ride in a taxi as far as Charles Street.

“Yes,” he said, and stepped in beside Fred, waving a hand to Bill, who was remaining behind.

“Good night!”

“Good night!”

They were off, and in three minutes had stopped at the corner of Charles and Beacon streets. It was snowing again, as he plodded up the hill—large soft flakes. Well, well—well, well! To think of a thing like that! Now if such a thing would only happen to him—

He inserted his key in the lock, and it stuck again. It wouldn’t go in any farther, or come out, or turn. Damn. He wrestled with it—he tugged at it—it was no use. Backing away into the street, he surveyed the front of the house to see if there were any lights. None. The servants, of course, had gone to bed. No light in Mrs. Trask’s room, either. Damn again. A hundred purple damns. He rang the bell, and nothing happened. Not a sound of a footstep. He rang again, prolongedly, and heard the bell trilling remotely in the distance, with the lost and melodramatic sound of a stage-bell. And the—joy!—the light in the hallway brightened, and the door opened. It was Mrs. Trask herself, clutching an ample black silk dressing-gown about her throat.

“I’m sorry,” he said—“my key has gone and got stuck. I think it must be defective. I’m afraid it will have to stay there.”

He pointed to the guilty key, smiling. Mrs. Trask smiled, too—he had the idea that she was smiling suggestively. Thinking him drunk, perhaps—because of the key? Or was it merely that she liked him?…