I might have guessed what was coming, of course, but I didn’t; and in consequence, as I see now, I made things all the harder for her. What she wanted was sympathy, understanding, guidance; what I gave her, unwittingly, late that night, was a rather nasty little lecture. I had had a few drinks too many, and her unshakable flippancy had ended by irritating me. I told her once again that she had no soul, no heart, would be lost; and while I did indeed say these things without anger, I nevertheless said them seriously, and said them (what was worse) between kisses. How intolerably that must have hurt her! And what a fool she must have thought me. That she took it admirably is, in the circumstances, the highest praise I could give her. She merely covered my mouth with her hand, and said, “Wait,” and then, with a curious air of abstraction and gentleness, ran her fingers through my hair, stopped the gesture as soon as it had begun, laughed, and fell asleep.
And at breakfast it all came out.
“Now,” she said, “holding up this nice red apple in the healthy morning sunlight, and preparing to bite it, I’ll tell you. I’ve been bad.”
“Bad?”
“Bad! Very bad. New Haven wouldn’t have any idea.”
“You wouldn’t kid me, would you?”
“I’ve had six affairs since I saw you last. And they’ve been a perfect scream.”
“Coralyn!”
“Oh, don’t for God’s sake look pious! Have a prune.”
“I don’t like prunes. They look so senile.”
“So do you.”
“Well, tell me about it. I don’t know whether to say I’m sorry or glad.”
“Why be either? Ain’t nature grand? I’ve had a good time.”
“No, I don’t think you have. I suppose Rivière is one of them!”
“Of course—don’t be an ass. So was the policeman. So was the novelist. So was the publisher.”
“Coralyn, you’re a damned fool.”
“Don’t I know it? But I wanted to hear you say it.”
She smiled across the small bare table at me, and as she smiled her eyes suddenly brightened with tears. Unblinking, still smiling, she let the tears fall. And without the slightest change in her voice she said:
“I’m afraid, Philip! I’m afraid. I really am.”
We talked about it all morning. She said she couldn’t understand it—it had just happened. She had been bored, lonely, wanted excitement, needed to feel that men were attracted to her, liked the attentions of men, especially literary men. As for the policeman—well, that was just a mad and slightly drunken experiment. What harm was there in it? She didn’t regret it at all.
I began to feel slightly sick about the whole thing, and found myself replying to her in arid monosyllables. Then I was ashamed. I told her frankly that all this had somewhat changed my feelings about her; she smiled, and said she was sure it had. Then, assuring her repeatedly that I had no real moral objections to what she was doing, I begged her to believe, as I believed, that such a way of living would bring her to ruin. She would become spiritually bankrupt. The whole thing would become meaningless. She wasn’t sure—she quarreled with me about the word spiritual. What was spiritual? I found, not unnaturally, that I wasn’t any too sure of its meaning myself; so I shifted to more material grounds. What of her life, viewed as a whole? Suppose she wanted, later, to marry, etc., etc., and the man she wanted to marry.…
“Yes, darling Philip, you’re so good but I know all that. That’s in the first grade, you learn it when you learn genders and conjugations.”
“So you do. But you learn other truths as well; and truth is truth.”
“And west is left and east is right, and never the twain shall meet.”
“Good Lord, Coralyn, you’re hopeless. What’s the use of talking to you?”
“None, I fear. I’ve simply got to go through with it. Ain’t it awful?”
“No—it really isn’t. Don’t, whatever you think, think that!” (This was my one feeble moment of magnanimity.) “It will come out all right. But for heaven’s sake don’t be in such a rush to seize life with both hands—! You’ll get them both burnt.”
“I burned both hands before the fire of life: let that be on my little headstone.”
More and more, as we bantered in this fashion, I had a feeling of entire helplessness. What on earth could I do? My time was growing short—I knew I must leave her at twelve, not to see her again for months—and this only added to my misery. What was going to happen to her now? She liked me, she liked to think that I respected, or even loved her; and now I had unmistakably given her the impression that I no longer did either. I walked up and down her shabby little sitting room, looking now and then angrily at Rivière’s pipes and coats and things (what sort of chap was he, anyway?) and tried vainly to formulate some sort of plan. The only thing I could think of was to urge her to marry. But why, she countered, if it was her nature, as it seemed to be, to be frivolous, should she marry? For in that case she would make not one, but two, people unhappy. She hadn’t yet encountered a man with whom she would want to live for more than a week. She thought men as a race were detestable, conceited, boring creatures, interesting only because they were so naively and disingenuously unscrupulous.
What answer was there to this? None. I looked at my watch, and glared at Coralyn, and packed my things, frowning, and all she did was to offer me from time to time a marshmallow or an apple or a little present for Mabel. A present for Mabel! A singular moment for that, as Coralyn, confound her, damned well knew. And nevertheless, here was this extraordinary thing between us, this deep understanding which not even petulant badinage could effectually conceal. We were both of us unhappy, and we parted unhappy, and the only assurance I extracted from Coralyn was that she would really, and quite soon, come down to New Haven for a week-end.… Even to this, however, she added that she would probably bring a young man, a prospective bridegroom, for my “august inspection and approval.”… And, laughing once more, she shut the door between us.
IV.
As it turned out, it wasn’t merely months before I saw Coralyn again—it was a year and a half. I wrote to her twice and got no answer. (I suggested that she reply to me at my office.) About seven months after the New York episode, a postcard came from Paris, addressed in her handwriting, with nothing on it but the word “So!”, a cryptic utterance which I confess I never fathomed. What on earth did she mean by it? Mabel and I turned it over and over (it was a picture of the Eiffel Tower!) but came to no conclusion. Perhaps her business had taken her abroad? I thought of her French partner, and said nothing. Perhaps she was married? A holiday merely? In which case she was, of course, prosperous.…
All of which was to be solved for me when she did, eventually, turn up, but only after (and only very shortly after) another odd little episode had befallen me.
It began with a telephone call. A male voice asked me if I could dine with him—he was an old friend of Coralyn. He didn’t want to see me in the office, in office hours—it was rather a private and delicate business—did I mind? My curiosity was aroused and I made an appointment for dinner with him.