I
My husband left me four years ago. Why—I don’t precisely understand,
and never did. Nor, I suspect, does he. Nowadays, when the catastrophe
that it seemed to be and its causes are matters equally inconsequential,
I am increasingly disposed to the belief that he brought himself to the
point of deserting me because I made such outrageous scenes at first
mention of the possibility.
Of course, during the frantic six months that preceded his actual
departure, he presented reasons for it, by dozens. I remember some of
them. At times he said I had lost my looks. At other times he said I had
nothing but looks to recommend me. He said I took no interest in his
interests. He said also that I insisted on thrusting myself into all of
them. He said I was spiritless, or temperamental; had no moral sense, or
was a prude. He said he wanted to marry the woman he really loved; and,
that once rid of me, he would not marry anyone else on a bet.
In the four years since, I have listened to the causes given for the
dismal ends of many marriages, and have come to believe my husband’s
list as sensible as most.
He grew tired of me; hunted about for reasons to justify his weariness;
and found them. They seemed valid to him. I suppose if I had tired of
him, I should have done the same thing.
But I was not tired of him; so I fought his going ruthlessly and very
stupidly. I was sure that if I fought I would win. I have never been as
sure of myself since, as I was then, when I was twenty-four. No stirring
of any ethical scruples about possessiveness, or idea of the futility of
coercing emotion, complicated my efforts to keep what I wanted.
At first, I think, I pretended to high motives—“stay for the sake of
our families,” and so on. Later, as I grew panicky, I experimented with
argument, rage, anguish, hysteria and threats of suicide; and refused to
admit to myself, until five minutes before he left, that he really might
go, in spite of everything. . . .
While he finished packing, I sat, beginning to believe it. I tried to
think of some last-minute miracle to manage: considered slashing my
wrists so that he would have to go get a doctor, and then to stay until
I recovered. But I recognized, in a world that had suddenly become an
altogether incredible place, that he might just walk out and leave me to
die of the slashes.
I hoped I looked devastated; I hoped I looked lovely. Then I remembered
that the armchair in which I sat was a wedding present from his Aunt
Janet, and wondered what one did with a husband’s relatives’ wedding
presents when a husband left. (In New York, one sells them to
impecunious young-married friends, ultimately.) The lamp beside me was
among the first of the modernistic ones. I remembered that Wanamaker’s
had not been paid for it.
The sound of trunk lids closing, stopped. He came in.
He stood there, looking handsome and stubborn and unhappy. I was
assailed by recollections of how good-looking I had thought him—first
time we met, a house-party at New Haven, four, no five
Springtimes. . . .
“I’m going to get a cab for my things,” he said.
“Peter, don’t go,” I said.
“What’s the use of that?” he said.
We regarded each other. And suddenly, after six months in which I had
always managed to find one more protest, relevant or otherwise, there
were no more.
I ached. We had loved each other for three years, and hated each other
half the fourth. It seemed such a long way to have journeyed from a gay
and confident beginning.
Apparently, he had a few last words to offer, if I could manage none. He
suppressed two or three beginnings.
“When will you divorce me, Patricia?”