You know you told me something Ive never forgotten and that again and again has made me think of you since; it was that tremendously hot day when we went to Sorrento, across the bay, for the breeze. What I allude to was what you said to me, on the way back, as we sat under the awning of the boat enjoying the cool. Have you forgotten?
He had forgotten, and was even more surprised than ashamed. But the great thing was that he saw in this no vulgar reminder of any sweet speech. The vanity of women had long memories, but she was making no claim on him of a compliment or a mistake. With another woman, a totally different one, he might have feared the recall possibly even some imbecile offer. So, in having to say that he had indeed forgotten, he was conscious rather of a loss than of a gain; he already saw an interest in the matter of her mention. I try to think-but I give it up. Yet I remember the Sorrento day.
Im not very sure you do, May Bartram after a moment said; and Im not very sure I ought to want you to. Its dreadful to bring a person back at any time to what he was ten years before. If youve lived away from it, she smiled, so much the better.
Ah if you havent why should I? he asked.
Lived away, you mean, from what I myself was?
From what I was. I was of course an ass, Marcher went on; but I would rather know from you just the sort of ass I was than-from the moment you have something in your mind-not know anything.
Still, however, she hesitated. But if youve completely ceased to be that sort-?
Why I can then all the more bear to know. Besides, perhaps I havent.
Perhaps. Yet if you havent, she added, I should suppose youd remember. Not indeed that I in the least connect with my impression the invidious name you use. If I had only thought you foolish, she explained, the thing I speak of wouldnt so have remained with me. It was about yourself. She waited as if it might come to him; but as, only meeting her eyes in wonder, he gave no sign, she burnt her ships. Has it ever happened?
Then it was that, while he continued to stare, a light broke for him and the blood slowly came to his face, which began to burn with recognition.
Do you mean I told you-? But he faltered, lest what came to him shouldnt be right, lest he should only give himself away.
It was something about yourself that it was natural one shouldnt forget-that is if one remembered you at all. Thats why I ask you, she smiled, if the thing you then spoke of has ever come to pass?
Oh then he saw, but he was lost in wonder and found himself embarrassed. This, he also saw, made her sorry for him, as if her allusion had been a mistake. It took him but a moment, however, to feel it hadnt been, much as it had been a surprise. After the first little shock of it her knowledge on the contrary began, even if rather strangely, to taste sweet to him. She was the only other person in the world then who would have it, and she had had it all these years, while the fact of his having so breathed his secret had unaccountably faded from him. No wonder they couldnt have met as if nothing had happened. I judge, he finally said, that I know what you mean. Only I had strangely enough lost any sense of having taken you so far into my confidence.
Is it because youve taken so many others as well?
Ive taken nobody. Not a creature since then.
So that Im the only person who knows?
The only person in the world.
Well, she quickly replied, I myself have never spoken. Ive never, never repeated of you what you told me. She looked at him so that he perfectly believed her. Their eyes met over it in such a way that he was without a doubt. And I never will.
She spoke with an earnestness that, as if almost excessive, put him at ease about her possible derision. Somehow the whole question was a new luxury to him-that is from the moment she was in possession. If she didnt take the sarcastic view she clearly took the sympathetic, and that was what he had had, in all the long time, from no one whomsoever. What he felt was that he couldnt at present have begun to tell her, and yet could profit perhaps exquisitely by the accident of having done so of old. Please dont then. Were just right as it is.
Oh I am, she laughed, if you are! To which she added: Then you do still feel in the same way?
It was impossible he shouldnt take to himself that she was really interested, though it all kept coming as a perfect surprise. He had thought of himself so long as abominably alone, and lo he wasnt alone a bit. He hadnt been, it appeared, for an hour-since those moments on the Sorrento boat. It was she who had been, he seemed to see as he looked at her-she who had been made so by the graceless fact of his lapse of fidelity. To tell her what he had told her-what had it been but to ask something of her? something that she had given, in her charity, without his having, by a remembrance, by a return of the spirit, failing another encounter, so much as thanked her. What he had asked of her had been simply at first not to laugh at him. She had beautifully not done so for ten years, and she was not doing so now. So he had endless gratitude to make up. Only for that he must see just how he had figured to her. What, exactly, was the account I gave-?
Of the way you did feel? Well, it was very simple. You said you had had from your earliest time, as the deepest thing within you, the sense of being kept for something rare and strange, possibly prodigious and terrible, that was sooner or later to happen to you, that you had in your bones the foreboding and the conviction of, and that would perhaps overwhelm you.
Do you call that very simple? John Marcher asked.
She thought a moment. It was perhaps because I seemed, as you spoke, to understand it.
You do understand it? he eagerly asked.
Again she kept her kind eyes on him. You still have the belief?
Oh! he exclaimed helplessly. There was too much to say.
Whatever its to be, she clearly made out, it hasnt yet come.
He shook his head in complete surrender now. It hasnt yet come. Only, you know, it isnt anything Im to do, to achieve in the world, to be distinguished or admired for. Im not such an ass as that. It would be much better, no doubt, if I were.
Its to be something youre merely to suffer?
Well, say to wait for-to have to meet, to face, to see suddenly break out in my life; possibly destroying all further consciousness, possibly annihilating me; possibly, on the other hand, only altering everything, striking at the root of all my world and leaving me to the consequences, however they shape themselves.
She took this in, but the light in her eyes continued for him not to be that of mockery. Isnt what you describe perhaps but the expectation-or at any rate the sense of danger, familiar to so many people-of falling in love?
John Marcher thought. Did you ask me that before?
No-I wasnt so free-and-easy then. But its what strikes me now.
Of course, he said after a moment, it strikes you. Of course it strikes me. Of course whats in store for me may be no more than that. The only thing is, he went on, that I think if it had been that I should by this time know.
Do you mean because youve been in love? And then as he but looked at her in silence: Youve been in love, and it hasnt meant such a cataclysm, hasnt proved the great affair?
Here I am, you see. It hasnt been overwhelming.
Then it hasnt been love, said May Bartram.
Well, I at least thought it was. I took it for that-Ive taken it till now. It was agreeable, it was delightful, it was miserable, he explained. But it wasnt strange. It wasnt what my affairs to be.
You want something all to yourself-something that nobody else knows or has known?
It isnt a question of what I want-God knows I dont want anything. Its only a question of the apprehension that haunts me-that I live with day by day.