Conrad Aiken - The Collected Short Stories of Conrad Aiken

“You know, those late Beethoven things are wonderful—wonderful.” He put down the tray and removed the stopper from the decanter. “The purity of the absolute. For pure and continuous ecstasy—”

“Purity!… You seem to have purity on the brain.… Thanks, Harry.”

“Here’s looking at you.… Old times.”

“Old times.”

They sipped at the lightly held glasses and smiled.

“I wish,” she then said, in a tone that struck him as new and a little forced—as if, in fact, she were nerving herself to something—“that you’d do me a favor.”

“You bet.”

“If I thought there was any way in which I could save you, Harry—any way at all—I’d do it. Anything. And if ever you feel yourself on the brink of proposing to her—or if anything goes wrong—I mean, if she should let you down in any way, or not turn out what you thought—well, then, I wish you’d propose to me. Propose to me first.… Come to Bermuda with me. That’s what I mean.”

She drew her feet beneath her, in the chair, and smiled at him brightly but nervously.

“Heavens, Gertrude, how you do astonish me!”

“Do I?… I’ve always, in a funny sort of way, been in love with you, you know.”

“Well—since you mention it—I’ve had my moments with you .”

“Was one of them two years ago in Portsmouth?…”

“How did you know?”

“Do you think a woman doesn’t guess these things?… I not only knew but I also knew that you knew that I knew.”

“Well, I’ll be damned!”

He sighed, he smiled foolishly, and for the moment he felt that he didn’t quite dare to meet her eyes. He remembered that ride in Tommy’s old Packard, and how she had so obviously leaned her shoulder against him; and afterwards, when they were looking at the etchings in the Palfrey House, how she had kept detaching him from the others, calling to him to come and look at this or that picture, and standing, as he did so, so very close to him. The temptation had been very sharp, very exciting; but nevertheless he had run away from it, precipitately, the next day.

“You do alarm me,” he added weakly. “And, in this age of withering candor, I don’t see why I shouldn’t admit that the idea is frightfully nice. But it hardly seems quite fair to May.”

“Oh, bother May!… May can perfectly well look after herself—don’t you worry about May.… What I’m thinking of is what is fair to you .”

“How angelic of you!”

“Not a bit. It’s selfish of me. Deeply. Why not be perfectly frank about these things? I don’t believe in muddling along with a lot of misunderstandings and misconceptions.… It’s unfair to May; but what I feel is that it’s only by that kind of treachery to May that you can ever escape from her. I don’t say you would escape from her—but you might. And for your own sake you should .… Quite incidentally, of course, you’d make me very happy.”

“If it weren’t for May, it would make me very happy too. But you won’t mind my saying that this May thing is very different. I’m in love with her in an extraordinary way—a way that I can’t find any adequate symbol for.… Call it the shy arbutus, if you like.”

“Oh, damn you and your shy arbutus!”

She sprang up, flung her scarf angrily into the chair, and went swiftly across the room to the desk. She put down her sherry glass beside the brass candlestick (made in the likeness of a griffin), revolved it once or twice between thumb and finger, and then picked it up again, turning back toward the fireplace. He twisted himself about in his chair so as to watch her. She stood looking at him, with her fair head flung back and the glass held before her. She was looking at him in an extraordinary manner—as if, in some remote, chemical way, she were assaying him, wondering which catalyzer to try next. Melodrama? Tenderness? Persuasion? Aloofness?… She hesitated. He felt sure, for an instant, that she was going to come and perch herself on the arm of his chair, and perhaps even put her arm round his neck. And he wasn’t sure that he would so very much mind it. Mightn’t it—even—be the beginning of the end? The notion both horrified and pleased him. Perhaps this was exactly what he had hoped for? It would be very easy—in these circumstances—to forget May. It was positively as if she were being drawn away from him. Gertrude would kiss him; and the kiss would be a spider’s kiss; it would numb him into forgetfulness. She would wrap him up in the soft silk of oblivion, paralyze him with the narcotic, insidious poison of her love. And May—what would May be to him then? Nothing. The faintest and farthest off of recollected whispers; a sigh, or the bursting of a bubble, worlds away. Once he had betrayed her, he would be free of her. Good Lord—how horrible!… The whole thing became suddenly, with a profound shock, a reality again.

She came back toward him, tentatively, with slow steps, slow and long and lagging, as if, catlike, she were feeling the rug with her claws. She held her head a little on one side and her eyes were narrowed with a kind of doubting affection. When she stood close to his chair she thrust the fingers of her right hand quickly into his hair, gave it a gentle pull, and then, as quickly withdrawing, went to the fender. He smiled at her during this action, but she gave him no smile in answer.

“Shall we turn on the radio”—she said lightly—“and have a little jazz?”

“If you like.… No—let’s not. This is too interesting.”

“Interesting!… Ho, ho!”

“Well, it is, Gertrude.”

“So, I dare say, is—hell.”

“Oh, come now—it isn’t as bad as that.”

“But what further is there to say? It’s finished.”

“But is it?”

“That, my dear, dear Harry, is for you to say; and you’ve as good as said so, haven’t you? You’ve been awfully nice about it.”

He felt a little awkward—he felt that in a way she was taking an unfair advantage of him. And yet he couldn’t see exactly how. He sat up straight in his chair, with his hands on his knees, frowning and smiling.

“If you could only like May!” he murmured. “If you could only see in her what I see in her—her amazing spiritual beauty! Then, I’m sure—”

“Give me some more sherry, Harry—I’m cold. And my scarf.”

“Why, you’re shivering!”

“Yes, I’m shivering. And my aged teeth are chattering. And my pulse is both high and erratic. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

She smiled at him bitterly and coldly as he picked up the silver scarf from the chair; but the smile became really challenging as he held up the scarf for her turning shoulder. It became brilliant. It became beautiful. He allowed his hands to rest on her shoulders and looked at her intently, feeling for her a sudden wave of tenderness and pity, and of something else as well.

“The sherry!” she said, mocking.

“All right—I’ll get it.”

“Well— get it.”

He inclined his face and gave her a quick kiss—and then another—at which she made no protest and no retreat; and then turned away, dropping his hands.

“And now let’s have some jazz,” she cried, as he filled her glass from the decanter. “I feel like dancing.…”

“The devil you do!” he said.

She emptied her glass, and turned her back to put it on the mantelpiece. She did this quite simply, without any sort of self-consciousness; there was nothing histrionic in the gesture; it was the entire naturalness of the action that made it, somehow, heart-breaking. And instantly he moved to her and touched her arm, just above the elbow, with his hand. She began trembling when she felt his touch, but she did not turn. And as he felt her trembling it was as if, also, he felt in himself the tiny beginning tremor of a great disaster. He was going to embrace her—he was going to give himself up. And May, stooping for arbutus in the wood, became remote, was swept off into the ultimate, into the infinite, into the forgotten. May was at last definitely lost—May was dead. He experienced a pang, as of some small spring broken in his heart, painful but obscure; the dropping of a single white petal; and that—for the moment—was all.