the beggar maid

patrick blatchford was in love with rose. this had become a fixed, even furious, idea with him.

for her, a continual surprise. he wanted to marry her. he waited for her after classes, moved inand walked beside her, so that anybody she was talking to would have to reckon with his presence.

he would not talk, when these friends or classmates of hers were around, but he would try to catchher eye, so that he could indicate by a cold incredulous look what he thought of their conversation.

rose was flattered, but nervous. a girl named nancy falls, a friend of hers, mispronouncedmetternich in his presence. he said to her later, “how can you be friends with people like that?”

nancy and rose had gone and sold their blood together, at victoria hospital. they each gotfifteen dollars. they spent most of the money on evening shoes, tarty silver sandals. then becausethey were sure the bloodletting had caused them to lose weight they had hot fudge sundaes atboomers. why was rose unable to defend nancy to patrick?

patrick was twenty-four years old, a graduate student, planning to be a history professor. hewas tall, thin, fair, and good-looking, though he had a long pale-red birthmark, dribbling like a teardown his temple and his cheek. he apologized for it, but said it was fading, as he got older. whenhe was forty, it would have faded away. it was not the birthmark that canceled out his good looks,rose thought. (something did cancel them out, or at least diminish them, for her; she had to keepreminding herself they were there.) there was something edgy, jumpy, disconcerting, about him.

his voice would break under stress—with her, it seemed he was always under stress—he knockeddishes and cups off tables, spilled drinks and bowls of peanuts, like a comedian. he was not acomedian; nothing could be further from his intentions. he came from british columbia. hisfamily was rich.

he arrived early to pick rose up, when they were going to the movies. he wouldn’t knock, heknew he was early. he sat on the step outside dr. henshawe’s door. this was in the winter, it wasdark out, but there was a little coach lamp beside the door.

“oh, rose! come and look!” called dr. henshawe, in her soft, amused voice, and they lookeddown together from the dark window of the study. “the poor young man,” said dr. henshawetenderly. dr. henshawe was in her seventies. she was a former english professor, fastidious andlively. she had a lame leg, but a still youthfully, charmingly tilted head, with white braids woundaround it.

she called patrick poor because he was in love, and perhaps also because he was a male,doomed to push and blunder. even from up here he looked stubborn and pitiable, determined anddependent, sitting out there in the cold.

“guarding the door,” dr. henshawe said. “oh, rose!”

another time she said disturbingly, “oh, dear, i’m afraid he is after the wrong girl.”

rose didn’t like her saying that. she didn’t like her laughing at patrick. she didn’t like patricksitting out on the steps that way, either. he was asking to be laughed at. he was the mostvulnerable person rose had ever known, he made himself so, didn’t know anything aboutprotecting himself. but he was also full of cruel judgments, he was full of conceit.

“you are a scholar, rose,” dr. henshawe would say. “this will interest you.” then shewould read aloud something from the paper, or, more likely, something from canadian forum orthe atlantic monthly. dr. henshawe had at one time headed the city’s school board, she was afounding member of the c.c.f. she still sat on committees, wrote letters to the paper, reviewedbooks. her father and mother had been medical missionaries; she had been born in china. herhouse was small and perfect. polished floors, glowing rugs, chinese vases, bowls and landscapes,black carved screens. much that rose could not appreciate, at the time. she could not reallydistinguish between the little jade animals on dr. henshawe’s mantelpiece, and the ornamentsdisplayed in the jewelry store window, in hanratty, though she could now distinguish betweeneither of these and the things flo bought from the five-and-ten.

she could not really decide how much she liked being at dr. henshawe’s. at times she feltdiscouraged, sitting in the dining room with a linen napkin on her knee, eating from fine whiteplates on blue placemats. for one thing, there was never enough to eat, and she had taken tobuying doughnuts and chocolate bars and hiding them in her room. the canary swung on its perchin the dining room window and dr. henshawe directed conversation. she talked about politics,about writers. she mentioned frank scott and dorothy livesay. she said rose must read them.

rose must read this, she must read that. rose became sullenly determined not to. she was readingthomas mann. she was reading tolstoy.

before she came to dr. henshawe’s, rose had never heard of the working class. she took thedesignation home.

“this would have to be the last part of town where they put the sewers,” flo said.

“of course,” rose said coolly. “this is the working-class part of town.”

“working class?” said flo. “not if the ones around here can help it.” dr. henshawe’s house haddone one thing. it had destroyed the naturalness, the taken-for-granted background, of home. togo back there was to go quite literally into a crude light. flo had put fluorescent lights in the storeand the kitchen. there was also, in a corner of the kitchen, a floor lamp flo had won at bingo; itsshade was permanently wrapped in wide strips of cellophane. what dr. henshawe’s house andflo’s house did best, in rose’s opinion, was discredit each other. in dr. henshawe’s charmingrooms there was always for rose the raw knowledge of home, an indigestible lump, and at home,now, her sense of order and modulation elsewhere exposed such embarrassing sad poverty, inpeople who never thought themselves poor. poverty was not just wretchedness, as dr. henshaweseemed to think, it was not just deprivation. it meant having those ugly tube lights and being proudof them. it meant continual talk of money and malicious talk about new things people had boughtand whether they were paid for. it meant pride and jealousy flaring over something like the newpair of plastic curtains, imitating lace, that flo had bought for the front window. that as well ashanging your clothes on nails behind the door and being able to hear every sound from thebathroom. it meant decorating your walls with a number of admonitions, pious and cheerful andmildly bawdy.

the lord is my shepherd

believe in the lord jesus christ

and thou shall be saved

why did flo have those, when she wasn’t even religious? they were what people had, commonas calendars.

this is my kitchen and i will do

as i darned please

more than two persons to a bed

is danger0us and unlawful

billy pope had brought that one. what would patrick have to say about them? what wouldsomeone who was offended by a mispronunciation of metternich think of billy pope’s stories?

billy pope worked in tyde’s butcher shop. what he talked about most frequently now was thed.p., the belgian, who had come to work there, and got on billy pope’s nerves with his impudentsinging of french songs and his naive notions of getting on in this country, buying a butcher shopof his own.

“don’t you think you can come over here and get yourself ideas,” billy pope said to the d.p.

“it’s youse workin for us, and don’t think that’ll change into us workin for youse.” that shut himup, billy pope said.

patrick would say from time to time that since her home was only fifty miles away he ought tocome up and meet rose’s family.

“there’s only my stepmother.”

“it’s too bad i couldn’t have met your father.”

rashly, she had presented her father to patrick as a reader of history, an amateur scholar. thatwas not exactly a lie, but it did not give a truthful picture of the circumstances.

“is your stepmother your guardian?”

rose had to say she did not know.

“well, your father must have appointed a guardian for you in his will. who administers hisestate?”

his estate. rose thought an estate was land, such as people owned in england.

patrick thought it was rather charming of her to think that. “no, his money and stocks and soon. what he left.”

“i don’t think he left any.”

“don’t be silly,” patrick said.

and sometimes dr. henshawe would say, “well, you are a scholar, you are not interested inthat.” usually she was speaking of some event at the college; a pep rally, a football game, a dance.

and usually she was right; rose was not interested. but she was not eager to admit it. she did notseek or relish that definition of herself.

on the stairway wall hung graduation photographs of all the other girls, scholarship girls, whohad lived with dr. henshawe. most of them had got to be teachers, then mothers. one was adietician, two were librarians, one was a professor of english, like dr. henshawe herself. rose didnot care for the look of them, for their soft-focused meekly smiling gratitude, their large teeth andmaidenly rolls of hair. they seemed to be urging on her some deadly secular piety. there were noactresses among them, no brassy magazine journalists; none of them had latched on to the sort oflife rose wanted for herself. she wanted to perform in public. she thought she wanted to be anactress but she never tried to act, was afraid to go near the college drama productions. she knewshe couldn’t sing or dance. she would really have liked to play the harp, but she had no ear formusic. she wanted to be known and envied, slim and clever. she told dr. henshawe that if shehad been a man she would have wanted to be a foreign correspondent.

“then you must be one,” cried dr. henshawe alarmingly. “the future will be wide open, forwomen. you must concentrate on languages. you must take courses in political science. andeconomics. perhaps you could get a job on the paper for the summer. i have friends there.”

rose was frightened at the idea of working on a paper, and she hated the introductoryeconomics course; she was looking for a way of dropping it. it was dangerous to mention things todr. henshawe.

she had got to live with dr. henshawe by accident. another girl had been picked to movein, but she got sick; she had t.b., and went instead to a sanatorium. dr. henshawe came up to thecollege office on the second day of registration to get the names of some other scholarshipfreshmen.

rose had been in the office just a little while before, asking where the meeting of thescholarship students was to be held. she had lost her notice. the bursar was giving a talk to thenew scholarship students, telling them of ways to earn money and live cheaply and explaining thehigh standards of performance to be expected of them here, if they wanted their payments to keepcoming.

rose found out the number of the room, and started up the stairs to the first floor. a girl cameup beside her and said, “are you on your way to three-oh-twelve, too?”

they walked together, telling each other the details of their scholarships. rose did not yet havea place to live, she was staying at the y. she did not really have enough money to be here at all.

she had a scholarship for her tuition and the county prize to buy her books and a bursary of threehundred dollars to live on; that was all.

“you’ll have to get a job,” the other girl said. she had a larger bursary, because she was inscience (that’s where the money is, the money’s all in science, she said seriously), but she washoping to get a job in the cafeteria. she had a room in somebody’s basement. how much doesyour room cost, how much does a hot plate cost, rose asked her, her head swimming with anxiouscalculations.

this girl wore her hair in a roll. she wore a crepe blouse, yellowed and shining from washingand ironing. her breasts were large and sagging. she probably wore a dirty-pink hooked-up-the-side brassiere. she had a scaly patch on one cheek.

“this must be it,” she said.

there was a little window in the door. they could look through at the other scholarship winnersalready assembled and waiting. it seemed to rose that she saw four or five girls of the samestooped and matronly type as the girl who was beside her, and several bright-eyed, self-satisfiedbabyish-looking boys. it seemed to be the rule that girl scholarship winners looked about forty andboys about twelve. it was not possible, of course, that they all looked like this. it was not possiblethat in one glance through the window of the door rose could detect traces of eczema, stainedunderarms, dandruff, moldy deposits on the teeth and crusty flakes in the corners of the eyes. thatwas only what she thought. but there was a pall over them, she was not mistaken, there was a trueterrible pall of eagerness and docility. how else could they have supplied so many right answers,so many pleasing answers, how else distinguished themselves and got themselves here? and rosehad done the same.

“i have to go to the john,” she said.

she could see herself, working in the cafeteria. her figure, broad enough already, broadened outstill more by the green cotton uniform, her face red and her hair stringy from the heat. dishing upstew and fried chicken for those of inferior intelligence and handsomer means. blocked off by thesteam tables, the uniform, by decent hard work that nobody need be ashamed of, by publiclyproclaimed braininess and poverty. boys could get away with that, barely. for girls it was fatal.

poverty in girls is not attractive unless combined with sweet sluttishness, stupidity. braininess isnot attractive unless combined with some signs of elegance; class. was this true, and was shefoolish enough to care? it was; she was.

she went back to the first floor where the halls were crowded with ordinary students who werenot on scholarships, who would not be expected to get a’s and be grateful and live cheap.

enviable and innocent, they milled around the registration tables in their new purple and whiteblazers, their purple frosh beanies, yelling reminders to each other, confused information,nonsensical insults. she walked among them feeling bitterly superior and despondent. the skirt ofher green corduroy suit kept falling back between her legs as she walked. the material was limp;she should have spent more and bought the heavier weight. she thought now that the jacket wasnot properly cut either, though it had looked all right at home. the whole outfit had been made bya dressmaker in hanratty, a friend of flo’s, whose main concern had been that there should be norevelations of the figure. when rose asked if the skirt couldn’t be made tighter this woman hadsaid, “you wouldn’t want your b.t.m. to show, now would you?” and rose hadn’t wanted to sayshe didn’t care.

another thing the dressmaker said was, “i thought now you was through school you’d begetting a job and help out at home.”

a woman walking down the hail stopped rose.

“aren’t you one of the scholarship girls?”

it was the registrar’s secretary. rose thought she was going to be reprimanded, for not being atthe meeting, and she was going to say she felt sick. she prepared her face for this lie. but thesecretary said, “come with me, now. i’ve got somebody i want you to meet.”

dr. henshawe was making a charming nuisance of herself in the office. she liked poor girls,bright girls, but they had to be fairly good-looking girls.

“i think this could be your lucky day,” the secretary said, leading rose. “if you could put apleasanter expression on your face.”

rose hated being told that, but she smiled obediently.

within the hour she was taken home with dr. henshawe, installed in the house with the chinesescreens and vases, and told she was a scholar.

she got a job working in the library of the college, instead of in the cafeteria. dr. henshawewas a friend of the head librarian. she worked on saturday afternoons. she worked in the stacks,putting books away. on saturday afternoons in the fall the library was nearly empty, because ofthe football games. the narrow windows were open to the leafy campus, the football field, the dryfall country. the distant songs and shouts came drifting in.

the college buildings were not old at all, but they were built to look old. they were built ofstone. the arts building had a tower, and the library had casement windows, which might havebeen designed for shooting arrows through. the buildings and the books in the library were whatpleased rose most about the place. the life that usually filled it, and that was now drained away,concentrated around the football field, letting loose those noises, seemed to her inappropriate anddistracting. the cheers and songs were idiotic, if you listened to the words. what did they want tobuild such dignified buildings for, if they were going to sing songs like that?

she knew enough not to reveal these opinions. if anybody said to her, “it’s awful you have towork saturdays and can’t get to any of the games,” she would fervently agree.

once a man grabbed her bare leg, between her sock and her skirt. it happened in the agriculturesection, down at the bottom of the stacks. only the faculty, graduate students, and employees hadaccess to the stacks, though someone could have hoisted himself through a ground-floor window,if he was skinny. she had seen a man crouched down looking at the books on a low shelf, furtheralong. as she reached up to push a book into place he passed behind her. he bent and grabbed herleg, all in one smooth startling motion, and then was gone. she could feel for quite a while wherehis fingers had dug in. it didn’t seem to her a sexual touch, it was more like a joke, though not atall a friendly one. she heard him run away, or felt him running; the metal shelves were vibrating.

then they stopped. there was no sound of him. she walked around looking between the stacks,looking into the carrels. suppose she did see him, or bumped into him around a corner, what didshe intend to do? she did not know. it was simply necessary to look for him, as in some tensechildish game. she looked down at the sturdy pinkish calf of her leg. amazing, that out of the bluesomebody had wanted to blotch and punish it.

there were usually a few graduate students working in the carrels, even on saturday afternoons.

more rarely, a professor. every carrel she looked into was empty; until she came to the one in thecorner. she poked her head in freely, by this time not expecting anybody. then she had to say shewas sorry.

there was a young man with a book on his lap, books on the floor, papers all around him. roseasked him if he had seen anybody run past. he said no.

she told him what had happened. she didn’t tell him because she was frightened or disgusted,as he seemed afterwards to think, but just because she had to tell somebody; it was so odd. shewas not prepared at all for his response. his long neck and face turned red, the flush entirelyabsorbing a birthmark down the side of his cheek. he was thin and fair. he stood up without anythought for the book in his lap or the papers in front of him. the book thumped on the floor. agreat sheaf of papers, pushed across the desk, upset his ink bottle.

“how vile,” he said.

“grab the ink,” rose said. he leaned to catch the bottle and knocked it on to the floor.

fortunately the top was on, and it did not break.

“did he hurt you?”

“no, not really.”

“come on upstairs. we’ll report it.”

“oh, no.”

“he can’t get away with that. it shouldn’t be allowed.”

“there isn’t anybody to report to,” rose said with relief. “the librarian goes off at noon onsaturdays.”

“it’s disgusting,” he said in a high-pitched, excitable voice. rose was sorry now that she hadtold him anything, and said she had to get back to work.

“are you really all right?”

“oh yes.”

“i’ll be right here. just call me if he comes back.”

that was patrick. if she had been trying to make him fall in love with her, there was no betterway she could have chosen. he had many chivalric notions, which he pretended to mock, bysaying certain words and phrases as if in quotation marks. the fair sex, he would say, and damselin distress. coming to his carrel with that story, rose had turned herself into a damsel in distress.

the pretended irony would not fool anybody; it was clear that he did wish to operate in a world ofknights and ladies; outrages; devotions.

she continued to see him in the library, every saturday, and often she met him walking acrossthe campus or in the cafeteria. he made a point of greeting her with courtesy and concern, saying,“how are you,” in a way that suggested she might have suffered a further attack, or might still berecovering from the first one. he always flushed deeply when he saw her, and she thought that thiswas because the memory of what she had told him so embarrassed him. later she found out it wasbecause he was in love.

he discovered her name, and where she lived. he phoned her at dr. henshawe’s house andasked her to go to the movies. at first when he said, “this is patrick blatchford speaking.” rosecould not think who it was, but after a moment she recognized the high, rather aggrieved andtremulous voice. she said she would go. this was partly because dr. henshawe was always sayingshe was glad rose did not waste her time running around with boys.

rather soon after she started to go out with him, she said to patrick, “wouldn’t it be funny if itwas you grabbed my leg that day in the library?”

he did not think it would be funny. he was horrified that she would think such a thing.

she said she was only joking. she said she meant that it would be a good twist in a story; maybea maugham story, or a hitchcock movie. they had just been to see a hitchcock movie.

“you know, if hitchcock made a movie out of something like that, you could be a wildinsatiable leg- grabber with one half of your personality, and the other half could be a timidscholar.”

he didn’t like that either.

“is that how i seem to you, a timid scholar?” it seemed to her he deepened his voice, introduceda few growling notes, drew in his chin, as if for a joke. but he seldom joked with her; he didn’tthink joking was suitable when you were in love.

“i didn’t say you were a timid scholar or a leg-grabber. it was just an idea.”

after a while he said, “i suppose i don’t seem very manly.”

she was startled and irritated by such exposure. he took such chances; had nothing ever taughthim not to take such chances? but maybe he didn’t, after all. he knew she would have to saysomething reassuring. though she was longing not to, she longed to say judiciously, “well, no.

you don’t.”

but that would not actually be true. he did seem masculine to her. because he took thosechances. only a man could be so careless and demanding.

“we come from two different worlds,” she said to him, on another occasion. she felt like acharacter in a play, saying that. “my people are poor people. you would think the place i lived inwas a dump.”

now she was the one who was being dishonest, pretending to throw herself on his mercy; for ofcourse she did not expect him to say, oh, well, if you come from poor people and live in a dump,then i will have to withdraw my offer.

“but i’m glad,” said patrick. “i’m glad you’re poor. you’re so lovely. you’re like the beggarmaid.”

“who?”

“king cophetua and the beggar maid. you know. the painting.

don’t you know that painting?”

patrick had a trick—no, it was not a trick, patrick had no tricks— patrick had a way ofexpressing surprise, fairly scornful surprise, when people did not know something he knew, andsimilar scorn, similar surprise, whenever they had bothered to know something he did not. hisarrogance and humility were both oddly exaggerated. the arrogance, rose decided in time, mustcome from being rich, though patrick was never arrogant about that in itself. his sisters, when shemet them, turned out to be the same way, disgusted with anybody who did not know about horsesor sailing, and just as disgusted by anybody knowing about music, say, or politics. patrick andthey could do little together but radiate disgust. but wasn’t billy pope as bad, wasn’t flo as bad,when it came to arrogance? maybe. there was a difference, though, and the difference was thatbilly pope and flo were not protected. things could get at them: d.p.’s; people speaking frenchon the radio; changes. patrick and his sisters behaved as if things could never get at them. theirvoices, when they quarreled at the table, were astonishingly childish; their demands for food theyliked, their petulance at seeing anything on the table they didn’t like, were those of children. theyhad never had to defer and polish themselves and win favor in the world, they never would haveto, and that was because they were rich.

rose had no idea at the beginning, how rich patrick was. nobody believed that. everybodybelieved she had been calculating and clever, and she was so far from clever, in that way, that shereally did not mind if they believed it. it turned out that other girls had been trying, and had notstruck, as she had, the necessary note. older girls, sorority girls, who had never noticed her before,began to look at her with puzzlement and respect. even dr. henshawe, when she saw that thingswere more serious than she had supposed, and settled rose down to have a talk about it, assumedthat she would have an eye on the money.

“it is no small triumph to attract the attentions of the heir to a mercantile empire,” said dr.

henshawe, being ironic and serious at the same time. “i don’t despise wealth,” she said.

“sometimes i wish i had some of it.” (did she really suppose she had not?) “i am sure you willlearn how to put it to good uses. but what about your ambitions, rose? what about your studiesand your degree? are you going to forget all that so soon?”

mercantile empire was a rather grand way of putting it. patrick’s family owned a chain ofdepartment stores in british columbia. all patrick had said to rose was that his father ownedsome stores. when she said two different worlds to him she was thinking that he probably lived insome substantial house like the houses in dr. henshawe’s neighborhood. she was thinking of themost prosperous merchants in hanratty. she could not realize what a coup she had made becauseit would have been a coup for her if the butcher’s son had fallen for her, or the jeweler’s; peoplewould say she had done well.

she had a look at that painting. she looked it up in an art book in the library. she studied thebeggar maid, meek and voluptuous, with her shy white feet. the milky surrender of her, thehelplessness and gratitude. was that how patrick saw rose? was that how she could be? shewould need that king, sharp and swarthy as he looked, even in his trance of passion, clever andbarbaric. he could make a puddle of her, with his fierce desire. there would be no apologizingwith him, none of that flinching, that lack of faith, that seemed to be revealed in all transactionswith patrick.

she could not turn patrick down. she could not do it. it was not the amount of money but theamount of love he offered that she could not ignore; she believed that she felt sorry for him, thatshe had to help him out. it was as if he had come up to her in a crowd carrying a large, simple,dazzling object—a huge egg, maybe, of solid silver, something of doubtful use and punishingweight—and was offering it to her, in fact thrusting it at her, begging her to take some of theweight of it off him. if she thrust it back, how could he bear it? but that explanation left somethingout. it left out her own appetite, which was not for wealth but for worship. the size, the weight,the shine, of what he said was love (and she did not doubt him) had to impress her, even thoughshe had never asked for it. it did not seem likely such an offering would come her way again.

patrick himself, though worshipful, did in some oblique way acknowledge her luck.

she had always thought this would happen, that somebody would look at her and love hertotally and helplessly. at the same time she had thought that nobody would, nobody would wanther at all, and up until now, nobody had. what made you wanted was nothing you did, it wassomething you had, and how could you ever tell whether you had it? she would look at herself inthe glass and think: wife, sweetheart. those mild lovely words. how could they apply to her? itwas a miracle; it was a mistake. it was what she had dreamed of; it was not what she wanted.

she grew very tired, irritable, sleepless. she tried to think admiringly of patrick. his lean, fair-skinned face was really very handsome. he must know a number of things. he graded papers,presided at examinations, he was finishing his thesis. there was a smell of pipe tobacco and roughwool about him, that she liked. he was twenty-four. no other girl she knew, who had a boyfriend,had one as old as that.

then without warning she thought of him saying, “i suppose i don’t seem very manly.” shethought of him saying, “do you love me? do you really love me?” he would look at her in ascared and threatening way. then when she said yes he said how lucky he was, how lucky theywere, he mentioned friends of his and their girls, comparing their love affairs unfavorably to hisand rose’s. rose would shiver with irritation and misery. she was sick of herself as much as him,she was sick of the picture they made at this moment, walking across a snowy downtown park, herbare hand snuggled in patrick’s, in his pocket. some outrageous and cruel things were beingshouted, inside her. she had to do something, to keep them from getting out. she started ticklingand teasing him.

outside dr. henshawe’s back door, in the snow, she kissed him, tried to make him open hismouth, she did scandalous things to him. when he kissed her his lips were soft; his tongue wasshy; he collapsed over rather than held her, she could not find any force in him.

“you’re lovely. you have lovely skin. such fair eyebrows. you’re so delicate.”

she was pleased to hear that, anybody would be. but she said warningly, “i’m not so delicate,really. i’m quite large.”

“you don’t know how i love you. there’s a book i have called the white goddess. every timei look at the tide it reminds me of you.”

she wriggled away from him. she bent down and got a handful of snow from the drift by thesteps and clapped it on his head.

“my white god.”

he shook the snow out. she scooped up some more and threw it at him. he didn’t laugh, he wassurprised and alarmed. she brushed the snow off his eyebrows and licked it off his ears. she waslaughing, though she felt desperate rather than merry. she didn’t know what made her do this.

“dr. hen-shawe,” patrick hissed at her. the tender poetic voice he used for rhapsodizing abouther could entirely disappear, could change to remonstrance, exasperation, with no steps at allbetween.

“dr. henshawe will hear you!”

“dr. henshawe says you are an honorable young man,” rose said dreamily. “i think she’s inlove with you.” it was true; dr. henshawe had said that. and it was true that he was. he couldn’tbear the way rose was talking. she blew at the snow in his hair. “why don’t you go in anddeflower her? i’m sure she’s a virgin. that’s her window. why don’t you?” she rubbed his hair,then slipped her hand inside his overcoat and rubbed the front of his pants. “you’re hard!” shesaid triumphantly. “oh, patrick! you’ve got a hard-on for dr. henshawe!” she had never saidanything like this before, never come near behaving like this.

“shut up!” said patrick, tormented. but she couldn’t. she raised her head and in a loud whisperpretended to call towards an upstairs window, “dr. henshawe! come and see what patrick’s gotfor you!” her bullying hand went for his fly.

to stop her, to keep her quiet, patrick had to struggle with her. he got a hand over her mouth,with the other hand beating her away from his zipper. the big loose sleeves of his overcoat beat ather like floppy wings. as soon as he started to fight she was relieved—that was what she wantedfrom him, some sort of action. but she had to keep resisting, until he really proved himselfstronger. she was afraid he might not be able to.

but he was. he forced her down, down, to her knees, face down in the snow. he pulled herarms back and rubbed her face in the snow. then he let her go, and almost spoiled it.

“are you all right? are you? i’m sorry. rose?”

she staggered up and shoved her snowy face into his. he backed off.

“kiss me! kiss the snow! i love you!”

“do you?” he said plaintively, and brushed the snow from a corner of her mouth and kissed her,with understandable bewilderment. “do you?”

then the light came on, flooding them and the trampled snow, and dr. henshawe was callingover their heads.

“rose! rose!”

she called in a patient, encouraging voice, as if rose was lost in a fog nearby, and neededdirecting home.

“do you love him, rose?” said dr. henshawe. “now, think about it. do you?” her voicewas full of doubt and seriousness. rose took a deep breath and answered as it filled with calmemotion, “yes, i do.”

“well, then.”

in the middle of the night rose woke up and ate chocolate bars.

she craved sweets. often in class or in the middle of a movie she started thinking about fudgecupcakes, brownies, some kind of cake dr. henshawe bought at the european bakery; it was filledwith dollops of rich bitter chocolate, that ran out on the plate. whenever she tried to think aboutherself and patrick, whenever she made up her mind to decide what she really felt, these cravingsintervened.

she was putting on weight, and had developed a nest of pimples between her eyebrows.

her bedroom was cold, being over the garage, with windows on three sides. otherwise it waspleasant. over the bed hung framed photographs of greek skies and ruins, taken by dr. henshaweherself on her mediterranean trip.

she was writing an essay on yeats’s plays. in one of the plays a young bride is lured away bythe fairies from her sensible unbearable marriage.

“come away, oh, human child …” rose read, and her eyes filled up with tears for herself, as ifshe was that shy elusive virgin, too fine for the bewildered peasants who have entrapped her. inactual fact she was the peasant, shocking high-minded patrick, but he did not look for escape.

she took down one of those greek photographs and defaced the wallpaper, writing the start of apoem which had come to her while she ate chocolate bars in bed and the wind from gibbons parkbanged at the garage walls.

heedless in my dark womb

i bear a madman’s child....

she never wrote any more of it, and wondered sometimes if she had meant headless. she nevertried to rub it out, either.

patrick shared an apartment with two other graduate students. he lived plainly, did not owna car or belong to a fraternity. his clothes had an ordinary academic shabbiness. his friends werethe sons of teachers and ministers. he said his father had all but disowned him, for becoming anintellectual. he said he would never go back into business.

they came back to the apartment in the early afternoon when they knew both the other studentswould be out. the apartment was cold. they undressed quickly and got into patrick’s bed. nowwas the time. they clung together, shivering and giggling. rose was doing the giggling. she felt aneed to be continually playful. she was terrified that they would not manage it, that there was agreat humiliation in store, a great exposure of their poor deceits and stratagems. but the deceitsand stratagems were only hers. patrick was never a fraud; he managed, in spite of giganticembarrassment, apologies; he passed through some amazed pantings and flounderings, to peace.

rose was no help, presenting instead of an honest passivity much twisting and flutteringeagerness, unpracticed counterfeit of passion. she was pleased when it was accomplished; she didnot have to counterfeit that. they had done what others did, they had done what lovers did. shethought of celebration. what occurred to her was something delicious to eat, a sundae at boomers,apple pie with hot cinnamon sauce. she was not at all prepared for patrick’s idea, which was tostay where they were and try again.

when pleasure presented itself, the fifth or sixth time they were together, she was thrown out ofgear entirely, her passionate carrying-on was silenced.

patrick said, “what’s the matter?”

“nothing!” rose said, turning herself radiant and attentive once more. but she kept forgetting,the new developments interfered, and she had finally to give in to that struggle, more or lessignoring patrick. when she could take note of him again she overwhelmed him with gratitude; shewas really grateful now, and she wanted to be forgiven, though she could not say so, for all herpretended gratitude, her patronizing, her doubts.

why should she doubt so much, she thought, lying comfortably in the bed while patrick went tomake some instant coffee. might it not be possible, to feel as she pretended? if this sexual surprisewas possible, wasn’t anything? patrick was not much help; his chivalry and self-abasement, nextdoor to his scoldings, did discourage her. but wasn’t the real fault hers? her conviction thatanyone who could fall in love with her must be hopelessly lacking, must finally be revealed as afool? so she took note of anything that was foolish about patrick, even though she thought shewas looking for things that were masterful, admirable. at this moment, in his bed, in his room,surrounded by his books and clothes, his shoe brushes and typewriter, some tacked-up cartoons—she sat up in bed to look at them, and they really were quite funny, he must allow things to befunny when she was not here—she could see him as a likable, intelligent, even humorous person;no hero; no fool. perhaps they could be ordinary. if only, when he came back in, he would notstart thanking and fondling and worshiping her. she didn’t like worship, really; it was only theidea of it she liked. on the other hand, she didn’t like it when he started to correct and criticizeher. there was much he planned to change.

patrick loved her. what did he love? not her accent, which he was trying hard to alter, thoughshe was often mutinous and unreasonable, declaring in the face of all evidence that she did nothave a country accent, everybody talked the way she did. not her jittery sexual boldness (his reliefat her virginity matched hers at his competence). she could make him flinch at a vulgar word, adrawling tone. all the time, moving and speaking, she was destroying herself for him, yet helooked right through her, through all the distractions she was creating, and loved some obedientimage that she herself could not see. and his hopes were high. her accent could be eliminated, herfriends could be discredited and removed, her vulgarity could be discouraged.

what about all the rest of her? energy, laziness, vanity, discontent, ambition? she concealed allthat. he had no idea. for all her doubts about him, she never wanted him to fall out of love withher.

they made two trips.

they went to british columbia, on the train, during the easter holidays. his parents sent patrickmoney for his ticket. he paid for rose, using up what he had in the bank and borrowing from oneof his roommates. he told her not to reveal to his parents that she had not paid for her own ticket.

she saw that he meant to conceal that she was poor. he knew nothing about women’s clothes, orhe would not have thought that possible. though she had done the best she could. she hadborrowed dr. henshawe’s raincoat for the coastal weather. it was a bit long, but otherwise allright, due to dr. henshawe’s classically youthful tastes. she had sold more blood and bought afuzzy angora sweater, peach-colored, which was extremely messy and looked like a small-towngirl’s idea of dressing up. she always realized things like that as soon as a purchase was made, notbefore.

patrick’s parents lived on vancouver island, near sidney. about half an acre of clipped greenlawn—green in the middle of winter; march seemed like the middle of winter to rose—slopeddown to a stone wall and a narrow pebbly beach and salt water. the house was half stone, halfstucco-and-timber. it was built in the tudor style, and others. the windows of the living room, thedining room, the den, all faced the sea, and because of the strong winds that sometimes blewonshore, they were made of thick glass, plate- glass rose supposed, like the windows of theautomobile showroom in hanratty. the seaward wall of the dining room was all windows, curvingout in a gentle bay; you looked through the thick curved glass as through the bottom of a bottle.

the sideboard too had a curving, gleaming belly, and seemed as big as a boat. size was noticeableeverywhere and particularly thickness. thickness of towels and rugs and handles of knives andforks, and silences. there was a terrible amount of luxury and unease. after a day or so there rosebecame so discouraged that her wrists and ankles felt weak. picking up her knife and fork was achore; cutting and chewing the perfect roast beef was almost beyond her; she got short of breathclimbing the stairs. she had never known before how some places could choke you off, choke offyour very life. she had not known this in spite of a number of very unfriendly places she had beenin.

the first morning, patrick’s mother took her for a walk in the grounds, pointing out thegreenhouse, the cottage where “the couple” lived: a charming, ivied, shuttered cottage, bigger thandr. henshawe’s house. the couple, the servants, were more gently spoken, more discreet anddignified, than anyone rose could think of in hanratty, and indeed they were superior in theseways to patrick’s family.

patrick’s mother showed her the rose garden, the kitchen garden. there were many low stonewalls.

“patrick built them,” said his mother. she explained anything with an indifference that borderedon distaste. “he built all these walls.”

rose’s voice came out full of false assurance, eager and inappropriately enthusiastic.

“he must be a true scot,” she said. patrick was a scot, in spite of his name. the blatchfords hadcome from glasgow. “weren’t the best stonemasons always scotsmen?” (she had learned quiterecently not to say “scotch.”) “maybe he had stonemason ancestors.”

she cringed afterwards, thinking of these efforts, the pretense of ease and gaiety, as cheap andimitative as her clothes.

“no,” said patrick’s mother. “no. i don’t think they were stonema-sons.” something like fogwent out from her: affront, disapproval, dismay. rose thought that perhaps she had been offendedby the suggestion that her husband’s family might have worked with their hands. when she got toknow her better — or had observed her longer; it was impossible to get to know her — sheunderstood that patrick’s mother disliked anything fanciful, speculative, abstract, in conversation.

she would also, of course, dislike rose’s chatty tone. any interest beyond the factualconsideration of the matter at hand—food, weather, invitations, furniture, servants—seemed to hersloppy, ill-bred, and dangerous. it was all right to say, “this is a warm day,” but not, “this dayreminds me of when we used to—” she hated people being reminded.

she was the only child of one of the early lumber barons of vancouver island. she had beenborn in a vanished northern settlement. but whenever patrick tried to get her to talk about the past,whenever he asked her for the simplest sort of information— what steamers went up the coast,what year was the settlement abandoned, what was the route of the first logging railway—shewould say irritably, “i don’t know. how would i know about that?” this irritation was thestrongest note that ever got into her words.

neither did patrick’s father care for this concern about the past. many things, most things, aboutpatrick, seemed to strike him as bad signs.

“what do you want to know all that for?” he shouted down the table. he was a short square-shouldered man, red-faced, astonishingly belligerent. patrick looked like his mother, who was tall,fair, and elegant in the most muted way possible, as if her clothes, her makeup, her style, werechosen with an ideal neutrality in mind.

“because i am interested in history,” said patrick in an angry, pompous, but nervously breakingvoice.

“because-i-am-interested-in-history” said his sister marion in an immediate parody, break andall. “history!”

the sisters joan and marion were younger than patrick, older than rose. unlike patrick theyshowed no nervousness, no cracks in self-satisfaction. at an earlier meal they had questionedrose.

“do you ride?”

“no.”

“do you sail?”

“no.”

“play tennis? play golf? play badminton?”

“no. no. no.”

“perhaps she is an intellectual genius, like patrick,” the father said.

and patrick, to rose’s horror and embarrassment, began to shout at the table in general anaccount of her scholarships and prizes. what did he hope for? was he so witless as to think suchbragging would subdue them, would bring out anything but further scorn? against patrick, againsthis shouting boasts, his contempt for sports and television, his so-called intellectual interests, thefamily seemed united. but this alliance was only temporary. the father’s dislike of his daughterswas minor only in comparison with his dislike of patrick. he railed at them too, when he couldspare a moment; he jeered at the amount of time they spent at their games, complained about thecost of their equipment, their boats, their horses. and they wrangled with each other, on obscurequestions of scores and borrowings and damages. all complained to the mother about the food,which was plentiful and delicious. the mother spoke as little as possible to anyone and to tell thetruth rose did not blame her. she had never imagined so much true malevolence collected in oneplace. billy pope was a bigot and a grumbler, flo was capricious, unjust, and gossipy, her father,when he was alive, had been capable of cold judgments and unremitting disapproval; butcompared to patrick’s family, all rose’s own people seemed jovial and content.

“are they always like this?” she said to patrick. “is it me? they don’t like me.”

“they don’t like you because i chose you,” said patrick with some satisfaction.

they lay on the stony beach after dark, in their raincoats, hugged and kissed and uncomfortably,unsuccessfully, attempted more. rose got seaweed stains on dr. henshawe’s coat. patrick said,“you see why i need you? i need you so much!”

she took him to hanratty. it was just as bad as she had thought it would be. flo had gone togreat trouble, and cooked a meal of scalloped potatoes, turnips, big country sausages which were aspecial present from billy pope, from the butcher shop. patrick detested coarse-textured food, andmade no pretense of eating it. the table was spread with a plastic cloth, they ate under the tube offluorescent light. the centerpiece was new and especially for the occasion. a plastic swan, limegreen in color, with slits in the wings, in which were stuck folded, colored paper napkins. billypope, reminded to take one, grunted, refused. otherwise he was on dismally good behavior. wordhad reached him, word had reached both of them, of rose’s triumph. it had come from theirsuperiors in hanratty; otherwise they could not have believed it. customers in the butcher shop—formidable ladies, the dentist’s wife, the veterinarian’s wife— had said to billy pope that theyheard rose had picked herself up a millionaire. rose knew billy pope would go back to worktomorrow with stories of the millionaire, or millionaire’s son, and that all these stories wouldfocus on his—billy pope’s—forthright and unintimi-dated behavior in the situation.

“we just set him down and give him some sausages, don’t make no difference to us what hecomes from!”

she knew flo would have her comments too, that patrick’s nervousness would not escape her,that she would be able to mimic his voice and his flapping hands that had knocked over theketchup bottle. but at present they both sat hunched over the table in miserable eclipse. rose triedto start some conversation, talking brightly, unnaturally, rather as if she was an interviewer tryingto draw out a couple of simple local people. she felt ashamed on more levels than she could count.

she was ashamed of the food and the swan and the plastic tablecloth; ashamed for patrick, thegloomy snob, who made a startled grimace when flo passed him the toothpick-holder; ashamedfor flo with her timidity and hypocrisy and pretensions; most of all ashamed for herself. shedidn’t even have any way that she could talk, and sound natural. with patrick there, she couldn’tslip back into an accent closer to flo’s, billy pope’s and hanratty’s. that accent jarred on her earsnow, anyway. it seemed to involve not just a different pronunciation but a whole differentapproach to talking. talking was shouting; the words were separated and emphasized so thatpeople could bombard each other with them. and the things people said were like lines from themost hackneyed rural comedy. wal if a feller took a notion to, they said. they really said that.

seeing them through patrick’s eyes, hearing them through his ears, rose too had to be amazed.

she was trying to get them to talk about local history, some things she thought patrick might beinterested in. presently flo did begin to talk, she could only be held in so long, whatever hermisgivings. the conversation took another line from anything rose had intended.

“the line i lived on when i was just young,” flo said, “it was the worst place ever created forsuiciding.”

“a line is a concession road. in the township,” rose said to patrick. she had doubts about whatwas coming, and rightly so, for then patrick got to hear about a man who cut his own throat, hisown throat, from ear to ear, a man who shot himself the first time and didn’t do enough damage,so he loaded up and fired again and managed it, another man who hanged himself using a chain,the kind of chain you hook on a tractor with, so it was a wonder his head was not torn off.

tore off, flo said.

she went on to a woman who, though not a suicide, had been dead in her house a week beforeshe was found, and that was in the summer. she asked patrick to imagine it. all this happened,said flo, within five miles of where she herself was born. she was presenting credentials, nottrying to horrify patrick, at least not more than was acceptable, in a social way; she did not meanto disconcert him. how could he understand that?

“you were right,” said patrick, as they left hanratty on the bus. “it is a dump. you must be gladto get away.”

rose felt immediately that he should not have said that.

“of course that’s not your real mother,” patrick said. “your real parents can’t have been likethat.” rose did not like his saying that either, though it was what she believed, herself. she sawthat he was trying to provide for her a more genteel background, perhaps something like thehomes of his poor friends: a few books about, a tea tray, and mended linen, worn good taste;proud, tired, educated people. what a coward he was, she thought angrily, but she knew that sheherself was the coward, not knowing any way to be comfortable with her own people or thekitchen or any of it. years later she would learn how to use it, she would be able to amuse orintimidate right-thinking people at dinner parties with glimpses of her early home. at the momentshe felt confusion, misery.

nevertheless her loyalty was starting. now that she was sure of getting away, a layer of loyaltyand protectiveness was hardening around every memory she had, around the store and the town,the flat, somewhat scrubby, unremarkable countryside. she would oppose this secretly to patrick’sviews of mountains and ocean, his stone and timbered mansion. her allegiances were far moreproud and stubborn than his.

but it turned out he was not leaving anything behind.

patrick gave her a diamond ring and announced that he was giving up being a historian forher sake. he was going into his father’s business.

she said she thought he hated his father’s business. he said that he could not afford to take suchan attitude now that he would have a wife to support.

it seemed that patrick’s desire to marry even to marry rose, had been taken by his father as asign of sanity. great streaks of bounty were mixed in with all the ill will in that family. his fatherat once offered a job in one of the stores, offered to buy them a house. patrick was as incapable ofturning down this offer as rose was of turning down patrick’s, and his reasons were as littlemercenary as hers.

“will we have a house like your parents?” rose said. she really thought it might be necessary tostart off in that style.

“well, maybe not at first. not quite so—”

“i don’t want a house like that! i don’t want to live like that!” “we’ll live however you like.

we’ll have whatever kind of house you like.”

provided it’s not a dump, she thought nastily.

girls she hardly knew stopped and asked to see her ring, admired it, wished her happiness.

when she went back to hanratty for a weekend, alone this time, thank god, she met the dentist’swife on the main street.

“oh, rose, isn’t it wonderful! when are you coming back again? we’re going to give a tea foryou, the ladies in town all want to give a tea for you!”

this woman had never spoken to rose, never given any sign before of knowing who she was.

paths were opening now, barriers were softening. and rose—oh, this was the worst, this was theshame of it—rose, instead of cutting the dentist’s wife, was blushing and skittishly flashing herdiamond and saying yes, that would be a lovely idea. when people said how happy she must beshe did think herself happy. it was as simple as that. she dimpled and sparkled and turned herselfinto a fiancée with no trouble at all. where will you live, people said and she said oh, in britishcolumbia! that added more magic to the tale. is it really beautiful there, they said, is it neverwinter?

“oh, yes!” cried rose, “oh, no!”

she woke up early, got up and dressed and let herself out of the side door of dr.

henshawe’s garage. it was too early for the buses to be running. she walked through the city topatrick’s apartment. she walked across the park. around the south african war memorial a pairof greyhounds were leaping and playing, an old woman standing by, holding their leashes. thesun was just up, shining on their pale hides. the grass was wet. daffodils and narcisus in bloom.

patrick came to the door, tousled, frowning sleepily, in his gray and maroon striped pajamas.

“rose! what’s the matter?”

she couldn’t say anything. he pulled her into the apartment. she put her arms around him andhid her face against his chest and in a stagey voice said, “please patrick. please let me not marryyou.”

“are you sick? what’s the matter?”

“please let me not marry you,” she said again, with even less conviction.

“you’re crazy.”

she didn’t blame him for thinking so. her voice sounded so unnatural, wheedling, silly. as soonas he opened the door and she faced the fact of him, his sleepy eyes, his pajamas, she saw thatwhat she had come to do was enormous, impossible. she would have to explain everything to him,and of course she could not do it. she could not make him see her necessity. she could not findany tone of voice, any expression of the face, that would serve her.

“are you upset?” said patrick. “what’s happened?”

“nothing.”

“how did you get here anyway?”

“walked.”

she had been fighting back a need to go to the bathroom. it seemed that if she went to thebathroom she would destroy some of the strength of her case. but she had to. she freed herself.

she said, “wait a minute, i’m going to the john.”

when she came out patrick had the electric kettle going, was measuring out instant coffee. helooked decent and bewildered.

“i’m not really awake,” he said. “now. sit down. first of all, are you premenstrual?”

“no.” but she realized with dismay that she was, and that he might be able to figure it out,because they had been worried last month.

“well, if you’re not premenstrual, and nothing’s happened to upset you, then what is all thisabout?”

“i don’t want to get married,” she said, backing away from the cruelty of i don’t want to marryyou.

“when did you come to this decision?” “long ago. this morning.”

they were talking in whispers. rose looked at the clock. it was a little after seven.

“when do the others get up?”

“about eight.”

“is there milk for the coffee?” she went to the refrigerator. “quiet with the door,” said patrick,too late.

“i’m sorry,” she said, in her strange silly voice.

“we went for a walk last night and everything was fine. you come this morning and tell me youdon’t want to get married. why don’t you want to get married?”

“i just don’t. i don’t want to be married.”

“what else do you want to do?”

“i don’t know.”

patrick kept staring at her sternly, drinking his coffee. he who used to plead with her do youlove me, do you really, did not bring the subject up now.

“well i know.”

“what?”

“i know who’s been talking to you.”

“nobody has been talking to me.”

“oh, no. well, i bet. dr. henshawe has.”

“no.”

“some people don’t have a very high opinion of her. they think she has an influence on girls.

she doesn’t like the girls who live with her to have boyfriends. does she? you even told me that.

she doesn’t like them to be normal.”

“that’s not it.”

“what did she say to you, rose?”

“she didn’t say anything.” rose began to cry.

“are you sure?”

“oh, patrick, listen, please, i can’t marry you, please, i don’t know why, i can’t, please, i’msorry, believe me, i can’t,” rose babbled at him, weeping, and patrick saying, “ssh! you’ll wakethem up!” lifted or dragged her out of the kitchen chair and took her to his room, where she sat onthe bed. he shut the door. she held her arms across her stomach, and rocked back and forth.

“what is it rose? what’s the matter? are you sick!”

“it’s just so hard to tell you!”

“tell me what?”

“what i just did tell you.”

“i mean have you found out you have t.b. or something?” “no!”

“is there something in your family you haven’t told me about?

insanity?” said patrick encouragingly.

“no!” rose rocked and wept.

“so what is it?”

“i don’t love you!” she said. “i don’t love you. i don’t love you.” she fell on the bed and put herhead in the pillow. “i’m so sorry. i’m so sorry. i can’t help it.”

after a moment or two patrick said, “well. if you don’t love me you don’t love me. i’m notforcing you to.” his voice sounded strained and spiteful, against the reasonableness of what hewas saying. “i just wonder,” he said, “if you know what you do want. i don’t think you do. i don’tthink you have any idea what you want. you’re just in a state.”

“i don’t have to know what i want to know what i don’t want!” rose said, turning over. thisreleased her. “i never loved you.”

“ssh. you’ll wake them. we have to stop.”

“i never loved you. i never wanted to. it was a mistake.”

“all right. all right. you made your point.”

patrick’s face was so white the birthmark stood out like a cut, and that only made her eager tocontinue.

“why am i supposed to love you? why do you act as if there was something wrong with me if ididn’t? you despise me. you despise my family and my background and you think you are doingme a great favor—”

“i fell in love with you,” patrick said. “i don’t despise you. oh, rose. i worship you.”

“you’re a sissy,” rose said. “you’re a prude.” she jumped off the bed with great pleasure asshe said this. she felt full of energy. more was coming. terrible things were coming.

“you don’t even know how to make love right. i always wanted to get out of this from the veryfirst. i felt sorry for you. you won’t look where you’re going, you’re always knocking things over,just because you can’t be bothered, you can’t be bothered noticing anything, you’re so wrapped upin yourself, and you’re always bragging, it’s so stupid, you don’t even know how to brag right, ifyou really want to impress people you’ll never do it, the way you do it all they do is laugh at you!”

patrick sat on the bed and looked up at her, his face open to whatever she would say. shewanted to beat and beat him, to say worse and worse, uglier and crueller, things. she took a breath,drew in air, to stop the things she felt rising in her from getting out.

“i don’t want to see you, ever!” she said viciously. but at the door she turned and said in anormal and regretful voice, “good-bye.”

patrick wrote her a note: “i don’t understand what happened the other day and i wantto talk to you about it. but i think we should wait for two weeks and not see or talk to each otherand find out how we feel at the end of that time.”

rose had forgotten all about giving him back his ring. when she came out of his apartmentbuilding that morning she was still wearing it. she couldn’t go back, and it seemed too valuable tosend through the mail. she continued to wear it, mostly because she did not want to have to telldr. henshawe what had happened. she was relieved to get patrick’s note. she thought that shecould give him back the ring then.

she thought about what patrick had said about dr. henshawe. no doubt there was some truth inthat, else why should she be so reluctant to tell dr. henshawe she had broken her engagement—sounwilling to face her sensible approval, her restrained, relieved congratulations?

she told dr. henshawe that she was not seeing patrick while she studied for her exams. rosecould see that even that pleased her.

she told no one that her situation had changed. it was not just dr. henshawe she didn’t wantknowing. she didn’t like giving up being envied; the experience was so new to her.

she tried to think what to do next. she could not stay on at dr. henshawe’s. it seemed clear thatif she escaped from patrick, she must escape from dr. henshawe too. and she did not want to stayon at the college, with people knowing about her broken engagement, with the girls who nowcongratulated her saying they had known all along it was a fluke, her getting patrick. she wouldhave to get a job.

the head librarian had offered her a job for the summer but that was perhaps at dr.

henshawe’s suggestion. once she moved out, the offer might not hold. she knew that instead ofstudying for her exams she ought to be downtown, applying for work as a filing clerk at theinsurance offices, applying at bell telephone, at the department stores. the idea frightened her.

she kept on studying. that was the one thing she really knew how to do. she was a scholarshipstudent after all.

on saturday afternoon, when she was working at the library, she saw patrick. she did not seehim by accident. she went down to the bottom floor, trying not to make a noise on the spiralingmetal staircase. there was a place in the stacks where she could stand, almost in darkness, and seeinto his carrel. she did that. she couldn’t see his face. she saw his long pink neck and the old plaidshirt he wore on saturdays. his long neck. his bony shoulders. she was no longer irritated by him,no longer frightened by him; she was free. she could look at him as she would look at anybody.

she could appreciate him. he had behaved well. he had not tried to rouse her pity, he had notbullied her, he had not molested her with pitiful telephone calls and letters. he had not come andsat on dr. henshawe’s doorstep. he was an honorable person, and he would never know how sheacknowledged that, how she was grateful for it. the things she had said to him made her ashamednow. and they were not even true. not all of them. he did know how to make love. she was somoved, made so gentle and wistful, by the sight of him, that she wanted to give him something,some surprising bounty, she wished to undo his unhappiness.

then she had a compelling picture of herself. she was running softly into patrick’s carrel, shewas throwing her arms around him from behind, she was giving everything back to him. would hetake it from her, would he still want it? she saw them laughing and crying, explaining, forgiving. ilove you, i do love you, it’s all right, i was terrible, i didn’t mean it, i was just crazy, i love you,it’s all right. this was a violent temptation for her; it was barely resistable. she had an impulse tohurl herself. whether it was off a cliff or into a warm bed of welcoming grass and flowers, shereally could not tell.

it was not resistable, after all. she did it.

when rose afterwards reviewed and talked about this moment in her life—for shewent through a period, like most people nowadays, of talking freely about her most privatedecisions, to friends and lovers and party acquaintances whom she might never see again, whilethey did the same—she said that comradely compassion had overcome her, she was not proofagainst the sight of a bare bent neck. then she went further into it, and said greed, greed. she saidshe had run to him and clung to him and overcome his suspicions and kissed and cried andreinstated herself simply because she did not know how to do without his love and his promise tolook after her; she was frightened of the world and she had not been able to think up any otherplan for herself. when she was seeing life in economic terms, or was with people who did, shesaid that only middle-class people had choices anyway, that if she had had the price of a trainticket to toronto her life would have been different.

nonsense, she might say later, never mind that, it was really vanity, it was vanity pure andsimple, to resurrect him, to bring him back his happiness. to see if she could do that. she couldnot resist such a test of power. she explained then that she had paid for it. she said that she andpatrick had been married ten years, and that during that time the scenes of the first break-up andreconciliation had been periodically repeated, with her saying again all the things she had said thefirst time, and the things she had held back, and many other things which occurred to her. shehopes she did not tell people (but thinks she did) that she used to beat her head against the bedpost,that she smashed a gravy boat through a dining-room window; that she was so frightened, sosickened by what she had done that she lay in bed, shivering, and begged and begged for hisforgiveness. which he granted. sometimes she flew at him; sometimes he beat her. the nextmorning they would get up early and make a special breakfast, they would sit eating bacon andeggs and drinking filtered coffee, worn out, bewildered, treating each other with shamefacedkindness.

what do you think triggers the reaction? they would say.

do you think we ought to take a holiday? a holiday together?

holidays alone?

a waste, a sham, those efforts, as it turned out. but they worked for the moment. calmed down,they would say that most people probably went through the same things like this, in a marriage,and indeed they seemed to know mostly people who did. they could not separate until enoughdamage had been done, until nearly mortal damage had been done, to keep them apart. and untilrose could get a job and make her own money, so perhaps there was a very ordinary reason afterall.

what she never said to anybody, never confided, was that she sometimes thought it had notbeen pity or greed or cowardice or vanity but something quite different, like a vision of happiness.

in view of everything else she had told she could hardly tell that. it seems very odd; she can’tjustify it. she doesn’t mean that they had perfectly ordinary, bearable times in their marriage, longbusy stretches of wallpapering and vacationing and meals and shopping and worrying about achild’s illness, but that sometimes, without reason or warning, happiness, the possibility ofhappiness, would surprise them. then it was as if they were in different though identical-seemingskins, as if there existed a radiantly kind and innocent rose and patrick, hardly ever visible, in theshadow of their usual selves. perhaps it was that patrick she saw when she was free of him,invisible to him, looking into his carrel. perhaps it was. she should have left him there.

she knew that was how she had seen him; she knows it, because it happened again. she was ina toronto airport, in the middle of the night. this was about nine years after she and patrick weredivorced. she had become fairly well-known by this time, her face was familiar to many people inthis country. she did a television program on which she interviewed politicians, actors, writers,personalities, and many ordinary people who were angry about something the government or thepolice or a union had done to them. sometimes she talked to people who had seen strange sights,ufo’s, or sea monsters, or who had unusual accomplishments or collections, or kept up someobsolete custom.

she was alone. no one was meeting her. she had just come in on a delayed flight fromyellowknife. she was tired and bedraggled. she saw patrick standing with his back to her, at acoffee bar. he wore a raincoat. he was heavier than he had been, but she knew him at once. andshe had the same feeling that this was a person she was bound to, that by a certain magical, yetpossible trick, they could find and trust each other, and that to begin this all that she had to do wasgo up and touch him on the shoulder, surprise him with his happiness.

she did not do this, of course, but she did stop. she was standing still when he turned around,heading for one of the little plastic tables and curved seats grouped in front of the coffee bar. allhis skinniness and academic shabbiness, his look of prim authoritarianism, was gone. he hadsmoothed out, filled out, into such a modish and agreeable, responsible, slightly complacent-looking man. his birthmark had faded. she thought how haggard and dreary she must look, in herrumpled trenchcoat, her long, graying hair fallen forward around her face, old mascara smudgedunder her eyes.

he made a face at her. it was a truly hateful, savagely warning, face; infantile, self-indulgent,yet calculated; it was a timed explosion of disgust and loathing. it was hard to believe. but she sawit.

sometimes when rose was talking to someone in front of the television cameras she wouldsense the desire in them to make a face. she would sense it in all sorts of people, in skillfulpoliticians and witty liberal bishops and honored humanitarians, in housewives who had witnessednatural disasters and in workmen who had performed heroic rescues or been cheated out ofdisability pensions. they were longing to sabotage themselves, to make a face or say a dirty word.

was this the face they all wanted to make? to show somebody, to show everybody? theywouldn’t do it, though; they wouldn’t get the chance. special circumstances were required. a luridunreal place, the middle of the night, a staggering unhinging weariness, the sudden, hallucinatoryappearance of your true enemy.

she hurried away then, down the long vari-colored corridor, shaking. she had seen patrick;patrick had seen her; he had made that face. but she was not really able to understand how shecould be an enemy. how could anybody hate rose so much, at the very moment when she wasready to come forward with her good will, her smiling confession of exhaustion, her air ofdiffident faith in civilized overtures?

oh, patrick could. patrick could.