— Look here, Andy, old man — I think I’d better go. You two had better talk it over first — don’t you think so, Bertha.
— Yes.
— Nope. Nothing doing. This is now a famille à trois. Family conference. Every one to be represented. Though I must say you don’t either of you seem to have much to say. Strikes me the scene is a little disappointing. Oughtn’t you to say you were waiting for a streetcar? Or came back for your umbrella? Did you lose your motor bike? You know, something like that. But of course the thing isn’t really a surprise to any of us, is it — we’ve all seen it coming for such a long time — months and months — Jesus, I’ve got to laugh.
He laughed, pushing his shoulders against the mantel, while Tom, his face white and strained, handed a cocktail to Bertha. She took it mechanically, without looking at it, and as mechanically drank it.
— Why did you come back tonight, she said.
— Why? Because a little bird told me.
— I don’t think it was very sporting of you.
— Neither do I. But what can you do. I’ve never faced a situation quite like this, my dear, and you must forgive me if my technique is a little crude. As I remarked to begin with, it’s a melodrama; and in a melodrama, you’ve got to behave like actors in a melodrama, haven’t you? Suppose I’d telephoned from the club. Everything spoiled, postponed, all of us left in doubt and suspense and agony, nothing settled. What the hell was the use of that? I thought of it, believe me — looked at the telephones — but, no, I decided it must be cut off with a knife. Psst — and done.… Here’s how.
Tom had perched himself on the arm of the big chair, and was tapping his glass with a finger-nail.
— You’re perfectly right, he murmured — Perfectly right. Of course I don’t need to say how sorry—
— Oh, no. We needn’t go into that. We all know how sorry. One of those awkward complexes, nicht wahr, in which delight and sorrow are so painfully and inextricably mixed. I’ll give you credit for the sorrow, which I know must be real. Of course. Naturally. You like me — I like you — we’re old friends, aren’t we — knew each other before we knew Bertha — grew up together — how couldn’t you feel sorry? Same here. I feel sorry, too, though it may surprise you. Sorry for you and Bertha and myself in about equal portions. Yes. A sort of weltschmerz. Perhaps a little sorrier for myself than for either of you, which is selfish of me, but you’ll forgive me. I suppose, as a matter of fact, I ought to kill you? I even thought of it. I thought of it at the corner of Garden and Shepard Street: had a vision of my revolver lying brightly at the bottom of my steamer trunk. But that would be ridiculous.
He walked over to Bertha, lifted her chin with his hand so that her eyes were raised toward his own, looked idly into them for an instant, saw that they were now hard and tearless, and turned toward Tom with a conscious brightening of expression.
— Besides, you’ve got on one of your most beautiful waistcoats, and the handsomest tweed suit in Cambridge, and I couldn’t bear to spoil them. And if I missed — good God. You’d kill me with one hand. In self-defense. And I’d rather go mad than die. Oh, much.… Jesus.
— Thank you, said Tom — I appreciate your esthetic tact.
— Don’t mention, old fellow — there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you. Step right up and help yourself.… But as I was saying. What was I saying?
He frowned into his glass, then covered it with his hand. Tired. His wits were gone. He was saying things badly, saying the wrong things, off the track somehow. Something else must be found, some other direction, something deeper, more to the point, more plangent and poignant. Profound abstractions, self-sacrifice, nobility, a great constellation of bright and beautiful stars. A vast bouquet of planets in a purple sky.
— Why don’t you say something, Berty? God knows you usually have enough—
— What is there to say. It’s done.
— I suppose you didn’t think of consulting me about it.
— Yes, I did. But it came too vaguely, and then too suddenly—
— He swept you off your feet.
— Oh, for the love of mud, Andy!
Tom stood up, very straight and angry.
— I wonder if you quite realize your own part in this situation, Andy. For six months you’ve left me practically alone. You’ve been drunk night after night. If Tom behaved decently to me, did a little something to make things happier for me — if I could get a little enjoyment out of life—
— I see. Yes, indeed. Tom as the good Samaritan. The neglected wife. But I suppose it hasn’t occurred to you that it was partly just because I saw this business beginning that I withdrew myself?
— Oh, no! You can’t get away with that. Oh, no. It had begun before that, and you know it.
Silence. This wasn’t right at all. He stared at the carpet. He felt their eyes fixed upon him, and for the moment wasn’t quite sure that he could look at them. A deep pain opened somewhere within him, a deep sadness, an enormous sense of lostness and futility. It was all no use. Impossible to explain. What on earth could one do with words? Memories? Ideas? A trifling little barter of facts? He walked to the table, refilled his glass, went to the window beside the couch and looked out, looked down into the rain-dark street, where the twin lights of Shepard Hall entrance illuminated the boardwalk, sodden with water. Perhaps it was himself, after all, who was wrong. Was it wholly impossible? Ten years. The dance of places, the dance of rooms, the dance of houses. Bertha plus one, Bertha plus two, Bertha plus three, Bertha plus four. Bertha at the Coffee Party, at the skating rink, on the toboggan at Oakley, on the river at Concord, the Sudbury, the Assabet, walking in spring along the granite lip of the Frog Pond — and now Bertha here, Bertha belonging no longer only to himself, if indeed she belonged at all. Where was it all gone? Where was it now? It was nowhere. It was gone forever. Nothing could now ever be the same in the world, never again. This was no longer his Berty, that was not Tom — two new persons sat in the room with him, two strangers who looked at him with hostility and misunderstanding, whose minds and memories were now allied against his own. He was outnumbered, outmaneuvred, outwitted. What was the use. Better get completely drunk, and let it all go to hell. Speak out his bitterness and be damned to them. Yes. Be damned to them. Let them go to hell and stay there.
— All right, Tom, I suppose you’re right — you’d better go home and leave this to Berty and me. Go on, get out. Put on your damned little galoshes and gloves and carry your pretty little malacca. But first I’d just like to call you, to your white face, a worm: a curious and very handsome worm. Don’t you think so?
He lifted his glass in a toast and drank it off. He had come quite close to Tom, and they were looking with an extraordinary amiability into each other’s eyes. Protractedly. Exchanging what? He felt his gaze move subtly from one to the other of Tom’s two eyes, was for a moment conscious of Tom’s ancient embarrassment at having to look at a glass eye, and felt it now as a peculiar but too fortuitous advantage. He was pleased at the thought.
— Good night, Bertha, Tom said.
— Wait a minute. There’s one more thing. I suppose you’ll want to marry her, and make an honest women of her? It’ll be a divorce, of course?
— Andy! Is that quite necessary?
Bertha flung the words at him crookedly as she flung off the black velvet band from her hair, which she tossed angrily to the right.
— Perhaps not — perhaps not.… Go on, Tom — get out.
From the doorway, he watched Tom pulling on the galoshes, straining and flushing. This was fun. Awkward moment for Tom.