“I hope that you both will be very happy, Peter.”
And some absurd remnant of belief in miracles curled up and died in me,
almost painlessly.
“Must you be so damn formal, Patricia?”
I answered him quite earnestly. “Yes, Peter, I have to be formal. I
don’t know you very well, nowadays, and I never knew Judith well.”
“Do you still know me well enough to visit my garden, and have a Tom
Collins’ with me?”
“I think I know you well enough for that.”
We walked across Washington Square, and up Fifth Avenue, slowly, without
talking, as he and I might walk with other people, when he and I grew
old.
The garden had a diminutive fountain that tinkled pleasantly, and
painted canvas chairs, and one of those trees of indeterminate species
that should be called “New York Yard Tree.” I looked at the moon shining
through its crooked branches, while Peter went to mix Tom Collins’, and
I tried not to think about anything at all.
When Peter came back, I said, “Why are you marrying Judith?” I did not
want to know why he was marrying Judith, but that would do as well, to
make conversation, as any other subject.
“Oh, she’s a pleasant girl and I’m fond of her. I don’t want to talk
about that, though. I thought we might spend an evening talking about
you and me.”
I felt that I could not bear to talk with Peter about him and me.
Feelings, hopes, even opinions as to Peter had gone from me so slowly,
so very slowly, through months and years. I did not want them back. I
did not want to be hurt any more.
“I don’t think there’s much to say, about you-and-me, Peter. Label us as
just a couple of the minor tragedies of Prohibition, or examples of the
Younger Generation on the wane, and let it go at that.”
“I don’t mean to go in for any lengthy analysis of who was to blame for
what. But there are things I should like to tell you.”
He began to walk up and down, under the Yard Tree. When he spoke again,
his voice was strained.
“Patricia, I loved you very much, and I treated you very badly.”
“No worse than I treated you, perhaps, Peter.”
He said, “I don’t remember very well what it was all about. We were
young, and we loved each other, and we ‘wanted to be free.’ It doesn’t
make much sense.”
“I never was able to draw any Great Moral Lesson from it, myself, Pete.”
“I shall make Judith a much better husband than I ever made you,
Patricia.”
“No doubt. But am I expected to extract any great comfort from that? I
am not old enough yet to be an altruist. Will you give me another
drink?”
He filled my glass, and his own.