The Brass Bed
- Автор: Флора Флетчер
- Год: 1956
- Язык: английский
- Год: Lion Books
- Жанр: Романы для взрослых
Электронная книга - «The Brass Bed». Краткое содержание книги:
...and the root of it all lay hidden in the secret of THE BRASS BED.
“All right,” I said, “since you agree to keep it spiritual.”
I lay back beside her, and we held hands between us, and there was really something spiritual in it, some kind of communion or something, but there was something else there too, and it was this something else that I had to be careful about. Once I had not been careful about it, and the result had been fulfilling but unfortunate. We lay there for a long time without speaking, and it was warm in the room in spite of a slight breeze that came in through the open window, and I could hear outside the occasional chattering of the high-spirited squirrels against the soft, sleepy total of summer sounds. Eventually I turned my head and looked at her to see if she was asleep, but she was lying with her eyes wide open staring up at the ceiling, and I could see on her cheeks below her eyes the faint stain of her tears.
“What was the idea?” I said. “The one that might get us somewhere.”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “That one. Kirby is going away next month. The third week. He is going away on some kind of business, and I had the idea that you and I might go away too.”
“So simply? Just go away?”
“I thought we might go to a lake or a nice river or somewhere like that and stay in a quiet hotel or a cabin or something, and we could swim and dance and loaf around together, and best of all would be seeing each other the last thing at night and the first thing in the morning. Do you think that would be exciting?”
“Yes, I think it would be wonderfully exciting.”
“Will you go with me, then?”
“Are you serious?” I had an impulse to sit up.
“Oh, yes. I am perfectly serious.”
“But you can see, of course, that we can’t go.”
“No, I can’t see at all that we can’t go. Why can’t we?”
“Perhaps it would be better if I didn’t try to explain it. You are quite difficult to explain things to.”
“It seems to me that just the contrary is true. It seems to me that you are the difficult one. You say we don’t get anywhere, and I suggest a perfectly reasonable way to get somewhere, and now you don’t want to go. As I see it, that’s a very difficult attitude to understand.”
“You see things in a rather peculiar way, Jolly. Do you mind my saying that?”
“I don’t mind your saying it, but I don’t understand it. I seem to me to be reasonable.” Her tone suggested slight injury.
“I’m sure you do. I’m positive that you seem reasonable to you.”
“In what way am I unreasonable?” she wanted to know.
“Well, you are quite ready to have an affair, for instance, but a divorce is unthinkable.”
“Yes, it is. It is absolutely unthinkable. I explained carefully that Kirby would never agree to a divorce. It’s contrary to his principles — and also his vanity.”
“You could get a divorce whether he agreed to it or not.”
“I have also explained that it is contrary to my principles as well as his.”
“But adultery is not.”
“That’s different because I love you. Love purifies things.”
“Why couldn’t love purify a divorce?”
“Divorce is another matter altogether. Surely you can see that.”
“No, I can’t. I can’t see it at all.”
“That’s because you aren’t principled. You will have to take my word that it is another matter altogether.”
“All right. I take your word for it. And now I would like to start all over forgetting about it, and I would appreciate it if you would go home, or at least somewhere else.”
“Would you like to kiss me now?” she asked.
“I’d like to, but I won’t.”
She said, “Won’t you try to understand about the divorce?”
“Do you want to know what I really think about the divorce?”
“Yes, of course.”
“You won’t like it,” I warned.
“Nevertheless I would like to know.”
“I think the real reason you won’t get it is because Kirby is lousy with money, while I am not.”
“Really? Do you really think that?”
“That’s what I think.”
“That this business of principles is merely a kind of rationalization or something?”
“Yes.”
“Well, it’s possible that you may be right. I’m actually quite a greedy person, and you are almost terrifyingly poor. You’ll have to admit that.”
“I will indeed. I admit it.”
“Do you think there is the remotest chance that you might come into quite a lot of money pretty soon?”
“I can’t see any.”
“How about the goliard? Do you think he might earn you a lot?”
“I doubt it very much. I doubt that he ever earns me any at all.”
“That’s unfortunate. Now that you’ve clarified the point, I’m certain that I could bring myself to accept the divorce if you were only quite a lot richer.”
“I apologize for my poverty.” I tried to keep the bitterness out of my voice.
She cleared her throat. “I should also mention that Kirby, despite his other faults, is a very reverent person, and divorce is contrary to his religious beliefs.”
I didn’t say anything.
“You believe me, don’t you?” she asked wistfully.
I shrugged.
She raised herself up onto one elbow and twisted her body and looked down at me. I wanted at once to reach up and take hold of her, and so I shut my eyes to elude the temptation.
“Do you really want me to leave?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Do you still refuse to kiss me?”
“Yes.”
“In that case, do you mind if I kiss you?”
“You may do as you like about it.”
She kissed me then, and her lips were soft and sweet and leisurely. After the kiss, she got off the bed, and I continued to lie for a minute with my eyes closed. When I opened them, she had put on her hat and moved to the door and was standing there looking back at me.
“Will you reconsider going somewhere with me?” she said.
“I hope not.”
“Then I don’t suppose there is much use in our seeing each other again, is there?”
“I don’t suppose so.”
“Between the impossible divorce and your depressing attitude, it seems that we have absolutely nothing to accomplish.”
“That seems to be the case.”
She looked down at the floor.
“If only he were to die,” she said.
“Don’t say that,” I said. “You said it yesterday, and I wish you wouldn’t say it again.”
She looked up at me and then beyond me to the open window through which came the faint chattering of the squirrels.
“There is an odd thing about Kirby that has been put into my mind by the fact that you are going fishing,” she said. “In spite of his being very athletic and everything, he can’t swim a stroke. In fact, he is quite afraid of water.”
I thought that it was surely part of the death-wish, perhaps an oblique reference to a technique for murder, and it was very strange to lie there in the hot room filled with soft and common sounds and consider this uncommon probability. But then I looked at her sad and lovely face with the eyes still soft from recent tears, and it was no longer a tenable probability, or even possibility, and I was ashamed and sickened and wanted to ask her to forgive me, but I couldn’t.
After a while, she sighed and said, “Well, thank you very much for the beer.”
“Not at all,” I said. “I hope you enjoyed both the beer and the spiritual communion.”
The sadness was in her face, but she was not going to cry again. She went out and closed the door behind her, and I kept lying there across the bed after she was gone, and pretty soon I remembered that I had promised to tell her hello for Harvey and had forgotten to do it.