“Well… not in those words.” Indeed, she had seemed committed to doing whatever Paul thought best. “But I am not sure she knows her own mind in this,” I added weakly.
“But you do? You know her mind? You know what’s best for her? Jesus, man! What gives you the right to interfere in this way?”
“I love her,” I said simply.
Paul did not sneer, as I thought he would. His reaction was yet more devastating. He sighed deeply, closed his eyes, and shook his head with fatigue. “You love her. You love her. God protect us from the well-intentioned!” He slumped into a chair across from me and spoke almost to himself. “Because you love her, you assume you have a right to blunder into our lives, causing hurt and harm you cannot even imagine. Because you love her, you are prepared to expose her to pain and shame. You love her! Christ, man, do you imagine I do not love her? Do you think her father doesn’t love her in his vague way?”
“I’m sure you do.”
“Well then?”
“But I am not sure you are considering the effect it has on a young woman, this packing her up and running off whenever the impulse is upon you. What is it you’re running from?”
“That’s not your affair.”
“My feelings for Katya make it my affair.”
His eyebrows lifted. “Your feelings—? Tell me, Montjean, how old do you think Katya is?”
“How old?” The non sequitur question seemed to me to be totally irrelevant.
“Yes. How old.”
“I don’t see that it matters.”
“There’s much you don’t see. I’ll tell you then: Katya is twenty-six.” He smiled faintly. “I’m in a particularly good position to know her age, as I am only fifteen minutes her junior. I am quite sure you took her to be much younger—nineteen or twenty. Everyone does. We inherited from our mother, if I may say it without appearing vain, both our physical beauty and a tendency to remain young-looking.”
“All right, I confess that I thought her to be younger than twenty-six. But I still don’t see—”
“The point is this: At twenty-six, do you suppose that Katya has not attracted the attentions of other young men than you? Can you imagine that you are the first person to be touched by her charm, her spirit, her freshness?”
“Could it be you are jealous of these men?”
His expression hardened. “My dear fellow, if you cannot avoid being stupid, do at least try to conceal it!” He looked away and collected his thoughts. “The point I was attempting to make is that these young men considered themselves to be in love too. They would rather have died than hurt Katya. And yet, they became the agents for great pain and suffering on her part. But of course, you assume you are unique. There is nothing more commonplace than the assumption that one is unique. But believe me when I tell you that you have already caused great pain, and you are in a position to cause even more.”
“I assure you that—”
“You are forever assuring me of something, Montjean! I have no interest in your assurances. I realize that your intentions are of the best. You lack the imagination required to be genuinely evil. Still, you are not going to tell me that your romantic daydreams have not included anticipations of physical delight, are you? Surely you have pictured Katya alone with you and willing, probably in some romantic setting, perhaps in your rooms?”
“That’s an outrage!” I said, recalling with mortification just such imaginings while awaiting Katya in Salies that first rainy afternoon when she came to collect her bicycle.
“It’s not an outrage at all. You’re a healthy young animal. And certainly you weren’t clutching at her yesterday in the garden in order to achieve a more intellectual level of conversation.”
“It is perfectly natural for love between a man and a woman to have its physical manifestations.”
“I am not denying that. I am only pointing out that somewhere in all your noble impulses to save Katya from the machinations of her evil brother, there is an element of desire and self-gratification that may be clouding your ability to judge what is best for her.”
My jaw tightened and I refused to respond.
“And—damn it, man!—the tragicomedy of all this is that you don’t know—could have no way to know—that it isn’t only a matter of your inflicting pain on Katya. You are yourself in considerable danger!”
“Danger of what kind?”
He drew a deep breath and turned away, and I had the impression that he had said more than he intended to.
“Danger from you and your pistol?” I pursued.
He shrugged. “That is a possibility, I suppose. But let us seek a more civilized means of moderating your nuisance. Are you willing to hear my proposals?”
“By all means. But I don’t consider myself in any way bound to accept them.”
“Pity. Well, naturally I considered forbidding you to come again to this house, and forbidding Katya to go into town to see you. But I don’t fancy the image of myself standing guard at the bottom of the lane, my pistol at the half-cock. And furthermore, it might not be effective. Katya is an independent spirit, both imaginative and resourceful. Worse yet, I shouldn’t be surprised if she imagined herself to be in love with you. Oh, do try to keep that insipid smile off your face, Montjean. After all, she fancied herself in love with those other fellows, too. So here is what I suggest. Let us return—and this time with fidelity—to our original arrangement. For the next week, you may visit us—every afternoon, if you must. For my part, I shall do my best to convince Father that your visits have to do with our newfound friendship, and you will cooperate in that deception. Most important, you will not seek to be alone with Katya. I shall have the delicacy to remain out of earshot as much as possible, so you two may exchange thoughts, memories, and cooings—even witticisms, if you’re up to it. But you must promise not to sneak off by yourselves as you did yesterday, and, above all, you must promise to keep your hands off her.”
“I resent phrases like ‘sneak off’ and ‘keep your hands off her.’ They do not describe what happened yesterday accurately, and they are repulsive insinuations.”
He waved my objections aside impatiently. “At all events, you know what I mean. If you agree to these conditions, then Katya will have your company—which, for reasons that escape understanding, she seems to take pleasure in—and you will have seven whole days of her charm and gentleness. I realize of course that you have dreamt of a lifetime of Katya, and I can’t really blame you. The lowly moth dreams of possessing the moon. But seven days is better than nothing. And, believe me,” he enunciated each word clearly, “nothing is your only alternative.” He sat back and pressed his thumb and forefinger into his eye sockets to relieve his fatigue.
“Are you finished?” I asked.
“Not quite.” He spoke without opening his eyes. “You must also undertake to assist me in keeping Father in his accustomed state of ignorance as to events around him.”
“Are you through now?”
“Probably not. But you have been good enough to hear me out with few interruptions. I suppose I must offer you the same consideration.”
“First, it is unjust of you to imply that I pried into your affairs to learn that you were making arrangements to leave Etcheverria. You must know that everything immediately becomes public knowledge in a provincial village. I learned of it quite by accident from my colleague, Dr. Gros.”
“Very well. How you found out is of little importance. My real objection is to your blurting it out to Katya with no concern about the shock it must have been to her.”
“I had no way to know that you were withholding your plans from her. I naturally assumed that something affecting her life so intensely would not be done behind her back.”
“Pain delayed is pain lessened.”
“Then you admit that she does not want to go? That leaving here will be painful for her?”