This Was Ivor Trent полностью

“It was hell. For a few months I hoped I’d have a child. I didn’t want one particularly, but it was my last chance. Do you understand that? No! You won’t understand that. Anyway, it didn’t happen. I had a nervous breakdown instead. Consternation! The family summoned! The great panacea of afterwards had failed. Physicians arrived. Injections were pumped into me. One young doctor said I needed ‘an outlet.’ He was sacked immediately. Two eminent greybeards then approached. One said nothing, and the other agreed with him. Loaded with guineas, they heavily vanished. Then, having refused to have all my teeth out, and having refused to have my appendix removed, I was sent to a nursing home on the East Coast—in the winter. Do you know the East Coast well? No? Then you should go there—in the winter. The air is—really—very remarkable.”

“Still, I got better slowly,” she went on. “Paul only came at week-ends. And I met a woman there I liked: grey-haired, very lined, with eyes that were saying good-bye to life. I sobbed my story out to her one night. ‘Tell me, what can I do?’ I kept saying. She took me in her arms and kissed me. That was all. Then she went away. So I spoke to another woman. And she said: ‘Learn to love your husband—it’s your only chance.’”

“Well—and then?” Rendell asked, as she remained silent.

“What? Oh yes! I came back to London and began to try to love Paul. Have you ever tried to love anyone?”

“No. I imagine it’s not easy.”

“There are several methods—and I tried them all. One was to keep repeating all Paul’s virtues. He was so kind, so indulgent, so solid, so dependable, so punctual! That list became my rosary. But, somehow, this method wasn’t a scintillating success, so I tried another. I kept telling myself how fortunate I was, I had a home, food, cars, lovely clothes, jewels, servants. I kept telling myself that I was free because I had such a large cage. Then I began to wander about the streets, staring at old women selling matches—or crouching in corners, covered with rags. I tried to become happy by studying the misery of others. But, somehow, it didn’t work. Then I stayed in the flat and tried to imagine what it must be like to live in a slum. And I discovered that I was living in a slum—of a different kind. Then I became religious, and tried to believe that my marriage was the will of God. But that didn’t work either, because I knew it wasn’t. It was the united will of my parents and Paul. And then—well, then—I had another nervous collapse. Rather an unpleasant one.”

She put her hand to her forehead, a shiver rippling her body.

“I—I felt queer—mentally. It was odd, rather frightening. Sometimes I forgot I was married. Once, when Paul came to see me in the nursing home, I asked who he was. But that wasn’t all. I was terrified of that day when I should look back across the flat, monotonous years and be forced to say: ‘Yes, that was my life. I have lived like that, and—before long—I shall die. It is nearly over, and it has been—that!’”

She paused for a moment, then went on:

“Also, I began to be afraid of air-raids. When I was fourteen, a bomb had fallen near our house. Still, I got better—slowly. The doctor kept saying that what I needed was ballast. I suppose that was why, eventually, Paul took me for a long sea trip.”

She leaned back and laughed, stretching her hands toward the fire.

“Don’t get impatient,” she continued, “the climax approaches. We returned to England, and then, soon—just as my third nervous collapse was approaching—I met Ivor Trent.”

“How long had you been married then?”

“About three years. I was twenty-seven. I had read Ivor’s books, of course. Some people we had met on the trip asked us to dinner, and he was there. He was in the hall when we arrived. While Paul was taking off his overcoat, we stood motionless, looking at each other.”

There was silence, till she said slowly:

“Somehow I’ve got to make you understand.”

Then she described graphically her life with Vivian—its regularity, its monotony. The oppressively solid luxury of the flat: Paul’s City friends: the same conversations endlessly repeated in different words: the restaurants they visited: the plays they saw—everything defined, everything organised, everything hardened by habit. Not only did she evoke her life with Vivian, and the atmosphere investing it, but she also made Rendell feel the numbing effect of this repetitive existence.

“That was my life when I met Ivor. And I had had two nervous collapses as a result of it. And I was on the way to a third.”

“I shall tell you everything,” she said slowly. “The night I met Ivor I felt we were alone, although I hardly spoke to him and scarcely looked at him. He talked a good deal and I—heard my own language again. I was afraid of him. I was afraid of his power over me. When we said good-bye, I dared not look at him. The next afternoon he rang me up.”