Conrad Aiken - The Collected Short Stories of Conrad Aiken

In fact, one thing you could say for Sidney was, that he was generous—generous to a fault. She often thought of that. She always thought of it especially on the first of the month, when the check for the separation allowance turned up, as punctually as the calendar—sometimes he even sent her something extra. On these days, when she bustled to the bank with the check tucked into her glove to deposit it and pay the rent, she always felt so secure and happy that she had a very special state of mind about Sidney, something that was almost affection. Of course, it couldn’t be affection, but it was like it—and it was just that feeling, with perhaps the loneliness which had upset her to begin with, which had misled her at last into writing him. It was easy enough now, as she had so often said to Emma, to see what had made her do it; she was sorry for him; but it only went to show how right she had been in the whole idea.

Just the same, it had been natural enough to write to him in that affectionate and grateful way; and when he had answered by so pathetically asking her to let him come to see her she had certainly thought it might be worth trying; even Emma had thought so; perhaps they would find after all that the differences between them were superficial; they could patch things up, maybe she would go back to Boston to live wih him. The idea actually excited her—she remembered how she had found herself looking forward to having him come. Emma had offered to put him up for the night, so as to prevent embarrassment. And the thought of having him see her new apartment for the first time, with the canaries and the goldfish and the oriental rugs, and the Encyclopædia Britannica, had given her a very funny feeling, almost like being unfaithful. The day before he came she could hardly sit still. She kept walking to and fro round the apartment, moving the rugs and the chairs, and patting the cushions—and all the time wondering if two years would have changed him much, and what they would say. Naturally, she hadn’t held out any real hope to him in her letter, she had only told him she would be willing to talk with him, that was all. He had no right to expect anything else, she had made that clear. However, there was no sense in not being friendly about these things, was there? Even if you were separated you could behave like a civilized human being; Emma agreed with her about that. It was the only decent thing to do. But when the day came, and when finally that afternoon she heard him breeze into Emma’s front hall, stamping his feet, and went out to meet him, and saw him wearing the wing collar and the stringy little white tie, and the rubbers, and his little gray eyes shining behind the glasses with the cord, and when the very first thing he said was, just as if nothing at all had ever happened, “Well, as I live and breathe, if it isn’t Gladys!”—and then stood there, not knowing whether to kiss her or shake hands—it was just a misdeal, that was all, just another misdeal.

The whole thing went down, smack, like a house of cards. She could hardly bring herself to shake hands with him, or look at him—she suddenly wanted to cry. She rushed into Emma’s room and stayed there on the bed for an hour, crying—Emma kept running in and saying for God’s sake pull yourself together, at least go out and talk to him for a while, he’s hurt, you can’t treat him like this; the poor man doesn’t know whether he’s going or coming; come on now, Gladys, and be a good sport. He’s sitting on the sofa in there with his head down like a horse, not knowing what to say; you simply can’t treat him like that. The least you can do is go out and tell him you’re sorry and that it was a mistake, and that he’d better not stay, or take him round to your apartment and talk it over with him quietly and then send him back to Boston. Come on now.

But of course she couldn’t do it—she couldn’t even go with him to the station. Emma went with him, and told him on the platform while they were waiting for the train that it was no use, it had all been a terrible mistake, and she was sorry, they were both sorry, Gladys sent word that she was very sorry. And afterwards, she had said it was so pathetic seeing him with his brand-new suitcase there beside him on the platform, his suitcase which he hadn’t even opened, just taking it back to Boston where he came from.… When the train finally came, he almost forgot his suitcase; she thought he would have liked to leave it behind.

The towel-supply man came running back with a basket, flung it into the wagon, banged the dripping doors shut, and then jumped nimbly up to his seat, unhooking the reins. Automatically, but as if still deep in thought, the horse leaned slowly forward, lowered his head a little, and began to move. A long day was still ahead of him, a day of crowded and noisy streets, streets full of surprises and terrors and rain, muddy uneven cobbles and greasy smooth asphalt. The wagon and the man would be always there behind him; an incalculable sequence of accidents and adventures was before him. What did he think about, as he plodded from one dirty restaurant to another, one hotel to another, carrying towels? Probably nothing at all; certainly no such sentimental thing as a green meadow, nor anything so ridiculous as a story about living and breathing. It was enough, even if one was a slave, to live and breathe. For life, after all, isn’t a short story.

When Walter Coolidge Swift woke up in his room at the Adams House he could see at once from the darkness of the morning that it was snowing, or about to snow. Turning over in bed, he saw the large flakes gliding down against the sooty wall of the court, outside the window, far apart and peaceful and leisurely; and immediately a sensation of relaxation and luxury overcame him. He smiled, clasped his hands under his head, half closed his eyes, and gave himself up to reminiscence. It was odd, the way this always happened—not the snow, of course, but the way that every time he came to the Adams House, on his semi-annual visits from New Hampshire, this same mood arose in him. No sooner would he be awake, in the morning, than he would begin thinking about the good old days when he lived in Boston—about the bars he had loved—Frank Locke’s, the Holland House, Jacot’s, the Nip, the Bell-in-Hand—about the theaters, the burlesque shows, the prize-fights, the ball-games—and then at the end, always, he would think, and most of all, about Eunice. Why was it that this never happened to him at home? He supposed it must be because he was always busy—busy at the office, busy with his wife, Daisy, and the children, busy at the Club. There was never any time for sentimental reminiscences. And besides, he had really settled down when they moved to Nashua—all that gay life had stopped as suddenly as if it had been cut off with a knife. With no theaters to speak of, no bars at all, and no boon companions, he had found himself with no longer much motive for dissipation, and in the twinkling of an eye his whole mode of life had changed.

Natural enough, no doubt—natural enough; but just as natural, too, when he came to Boston, to think delightedly of that other life, eight years ago, and all its pleasures. The old crowd was gone. Scarcely a soul was left that he knew, or much wanted to see: even the newspapers had changed. And the old Record office, that battered disorderly firetrap, where he had spent so many free hours, and helped Mike at midnight with his reviews of the latest musical comedy—that too was vanished, and with it every man and woman whom he had known there. The Negress elevator girl with red hair—Bill Farley, the sports writer, who had spanked the Follies girl in the lobby of the Lenox, and who had later died of consumption—the Virgin Queen, with the enormous breasts, who had edited the household page—where were they now? Where was gallant little Mary, who nightly picked her husband, Hal, out of the gutter beside Frank Locke’s, and did his work for him in addition to her own? Nice people, nice people, and quite possibly dead.… And where, above all, was Eunice?