“Have I? I’m sorry if I’m repetitious. What have you been thinking about while you’ve been here?”
“Just before you came I was trying not to think at all, and before that I was standing at the edge of the bluff and wishing that I had the nerve to throw myself down.”
“You don’t mean that, Lisa.”
“Don’t I? All right, have it your own way. I don’t mean it.”
“I’ve tried very hard to make you satisfied.”
“Oh, it isn’t your fault that you’ve become involved in an impossible situation. I am well aware of that. It’s my fault, and I am perfectly willing to acknowledge it.”
“It’s not your fault. So far as I can see, there is no blame attached to either of us. I wish you would stop being so ready to condemn yourself.”
“It must be very annoying to you.”
“No. I only wish I knew why you get so depressed. Have you had a bad day?”
“Not particularly. It was neither better nor worse than most other days, which is bad enough, God knows.”
“Perhaps you need more to do. Something to keep you occupied and interested.”
She laughed. “You mean like occupational therapy? Thank you for being so concerned.”
“You’ve been drinking. Have you been to Em Page’s bar again?”
“Yes. I was there for quite a long time and had quite a few drinks.”
“I thought you had decided not to go there alone any more.”
“I did decide that. I promised myself that I wouldn’t go, but now I’ve started going again. I’m very good at breaking promises. It’s one of the things I’m best at.”
“You say that as if you were proud of it.”
“I’m not proud of it. It’s the truth that I can’t think of anything I’ve ever done in my life that I’m proud of. Not a single thing. It is only that I am very tired and worn out with pretending. There is a certain relief in facing things squarely. It’s called catharsis, I think. I went to a psychiatrist once, and that is what he called it.”
“There is also a certain relief for some people in assuming guilt that is not properly theirs. I didn’t know you had gone to a psychiatrist. When was it?”
“I was in college at the time.”
“Why did you go?”
“My parents sent me because I tried to kill myself, and it frightened them. I was very cowardly about it, of course. I might have done it in a way that would have been certain if I’d had the nerve, but I didn’t. I only took some sleeping tablets, and it was not successful.”
“It is not always unsuccessful. My mother did that, and it worked very well. She took the tablets at night and was dead in the morning.”
“I was under the impression that your mother died of a heart condition.”
“That’s the impression that practically everyone is under, thanks to the code of the Laweses. In the code of the Laweses, unpleasant things are carefully disguised as something else. But that is irrelevant and hardly worth talking about. Why did you try to kill yourself?”
“For the same reason your mother actually did kill herself, I suppose. Because I felt that I didn’t want to live any longer.”
“That’s hardly an answer.”
“Yes, it is. It is the answer to the question you asked.”
“All right. Why did you feel that you didn’t want to live any longer?”
“Well, that’s another question and needs another answer. I could say that I was depressed, but then you would want to know why I was depressed, and pretty soon I would have to tell you something you certainly don’t want to hear.”
“If we are going to make a success of our marriage, there are many things, I think, that I should hear.”
“Are you still holding to the hope that we can make a success of our marriage?”
“Aren’t you?”
“No. It is quite hopeless.”
“Then why do you stay?”
“You know why I stay. Because I promised to try for a year, and the year is not up.”
“But you are quite good at breaking promises. It’s one of the things you’re best at. Isn’t that what you said?”
“Nevertheless; this is one that I am trying to keep. I will go away if you want me to, however. You only have to say so.”
“I don’t want you to go, Lisa. Our year is just over half gone. I’m still convinced that we can reach a satisfactory adjustment in time.”
“You think we can learn to love each other? You honestly think that?”
“Perhaps not. Not in a physical way, at least. But there are other values.”
“Spiritual values, you mean? One hears so much about them, but I’m not sure I know just what they are. I am no philosopher, you understand, but it seems to me that thought and emotion do not exist independently. They must surely have at least a physical source, and if the source is no good, if it is distorted or in some way wrong, the thought and emotion are also distorted and wrong, and that is just too bad for the person concerned.”
“Do you deny the possibility of any kind of correction?”
“In my case, I deny it. Last December in Miami I honestly thought that it might be possible, and I have tried to go on thinking it, but now I am sure that it is not so.”
“Have you never loved anyone at all, Lisa?”
“Are you sure you want me to answer that? I told you that I am very tired and worn out with pretending. If I answer, I will tell you the truth.”
“I wish you would.”
She had not looked at him since he had sat down beside her. She did not look at him now. She continued to start out across the river valley to the ridge on the other side, and the light had now left the crest, and the darkening air swelled and collapsed and swelled again with the persistent rhythm of the unseen cicadas in the listless trees.
“Very well, then,” she said. “I have loved more than once with an ardor that would surprise you. In the beginning there was a girl named Alison, and it was a long time ago. It seems to me, anyhow, like a long time. She was tall and slim and strong and very good at games and things like that, and it was my opinion that she was the most wonderful person who had ever been born or was ever likely to be born. I loved her very much, and for a while she loved me too, but then she didn’t love me any more, and this was because of something that happened. I wrote her a note and lost it, and someone found it, a teacher in the school we went to, and that was the end of it, of course, and it was all my fault. She said that I was careless about the note, which was true, and I didn’t blame her for being angry, and I still don’t blame her. No one understood about it, and we were treated like criminals, and it isn’t right for someone like her to be treated that way. I would have given up everyone else for her sake, the whole world, but she said that I was a fool and that she never wanted to see me again. It wasn’t quite that way, however. I did see her many times afterward, but we were like strangers, and it was far worse than not seeing her at all. Do you want me to go on?”
“I’m not sure that I understand what you are trying to tell me.”
“I think you are. I think you are very sure. Later, one summer at a lake, there was someone else. It didn’t amount to much. It was just something that happened in the summer and was not expected to last or to mean any more than it obviously did. After that there was no one else for quite a long time, but I was often very depressed, and it was then, sometimes during that period, that I took the barbiturates but did not die. I wanted to die, I believe I was sincere in that, but I did not want to do any of the things that would have made dying certain, and after the attempt which failed I did not try again. Eventually I was glad for a while that I hadn’t succeeded in dying, however, for I was in college then, Midland City College, and there was a teacher there who taught French. She was French herself, I believe, or had been born in France at least, and she was very sleek and sophisticated, and all the men in her class were excited about her, which was a great joke on them that they never understood. It was wonderful with her at first, as if I had been lifted to a new, exhilarating life, but it couldn’t last long because of circumstances. Because of her position in the college, I mean. You can see that, of course. The perils were multiplied, and the consequences of exposure were far too severe to be risked indefinitely. I have found that nothing can survive in the shadow of a constant threat. Nothing on earth has the strength for that.”