All He Ever Wanted(16)

She stood, and I stood with her. “I hope you will allow me to call upon you again,” I said.

Surely she hesitated too long for good manners, under the pretext of searching for her gloves. She turned to me.

“Yes, thank you,” she said simply. But did Etna Bliss understand that the freedom, both physical and spiritual, that she longed for might come only with a price?


My suit began in earnest. If the way to Etna Bliss’s heart was through books, then I should become, I determined, an extensive lending library of one. And I believe I saw, even on the first day I went calling with Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines, that Etna understood the currency of my petition. Though she gave little away, it was difficult not to take her acquiescence as something more than acquiescence. In other words, I had hope.

I established a pattern of calling twice a week, and there cannot have been any doubt in that household as to my intentions. Indeed, I should have been regarded as entirely dishonorable had I occupied so much of Etna’s time with no future in mind at all. I could see that Bliss himself was baffled, though less baffled, I am bound to say when I began to reveal, in odd bits of conversation, the extent of my modest fortune. Perhaps, in the end, he regarded me as a solution to a mildly thorny problem.

As often as was feasible that winter, Etna and I left the Bliss house and went walking, returning at the end of these excursions to take tea with Bliss or with his wife. I would arrive punctually at three o’clock, nearly desperate to see Etna after an absence of three or four days. Following some brief pleasantries, Etna would don her cloak and hat and then take my arm, and I would feel a profound excitement. I craved the sensation as a man will his laudanum, and it seemed proof that Etna Bliss was someone with whom I had been destined to mate, someone whom I was fated to have loved. (I cannot help but wonder, however, if we do not invent our own destiny, design our own fate, to suit our circumstances. How much of love is a trick of the mind, a mere feat of verbal acrobatics, to accommodate persons who just happen to cross our path and who suit our needs at one particular moment in time? I have never known the answer to this conundrum, and indeed I do not think it possible to determine such an answer, since the physical effects of either are equally profound, so much so as to blur any distinction between merely convenient and truly decreed.)

(A train of thought is an out-of-control vehicle, is it not, careering wildly from place to place, more dangerous than my own derailed one?)

Etna would take my arm, and together we would stroll out into the elements; and was there ever a man who wished more for spring to come early, not only so that there might be more fine days for our outings, but also so that there might be fewer layers of clothing between Etna’s hand and my arm? Our discourse tended toward the books I had brought the previous visit. She read voraciously and, I must say, rather attentively. Truth to tell, I had read nearly all of the volumes at an earlier point in my life, either for my classes or for my own studies, and some of them, such as the Haggard, bored me utterly. But I feigned interest when necessary, which was not hard to do, since Etna’s own enthusiasm was so infectious. I did think at times how marvelous a teacher she might herself have become (quite possibly a better teacher than I, I am compelled to write here), and what a waste it was that this woman had no one upon whom to bestow her considerable gifts. I began to see that she would be an excellent mother, for she had great tenderness, which I had occasion to observe in her relations with her young cousin Aurelia, as well as a true love of learning, which can be no bad thing in a mother, particularly if she is able to impart such a desire to her sons.

(I daresay I sound opportunistic here, but these are thoughts formed more in retrospect than at the time, when I was in a state of such helpless physical thrall that I could not have made sound or even calculated decisions. And though much came later — and though I have found some ease in a life devoid of passion — I cannot say other than that I miss it.

Oh, how I miss it!)

(But was I fond of Etna Bliss? Did I actually like her? Certainly, she had many charming qualities, such as a talent for patience and a helpless laugh, and she had a lovely way of swooping down to a child’s level to speak with him or her that was enchanting to witness; but, truth to tell, I was always a little afraid of her, in awe of Etna, in the way of a supplicant before a benefactor. Though I do not think she ever used that power against me, I believe she was always aware of it and understood this great imbalance between us.)

The weeks passed in this manner. I cannot say pleasantly, for the word is, I think, too tame. Rather, I remember those days as fraught with a certain kind of peril lest I do or say something that might cause Etna to regard me with alarm. They were as well days of great turbulence of the heart, of unparalled joy of the spirit, and of a thrill within the blood such as I had never known before. And, if I may say so, there was, upon occasion, a glimmer of joy upon Etna’s face as well. I remember vividly, for example, one afternoon in January — the sky so clear it seemed artificial, its blue and the snow’s white nearly garish in their audacity and adamantine sparkle — when I had arranged for a long sleigh ride through the nearby countryside that so delighted Etna that she lost her reserve altogether. It had been some time since I had traveled by sleigh myself, and so I had forgotten the speed, the sheer rush of air, that such a conveyance can produce. Etna and I had soapstones in our laps that had been set near to a fire and still retained considerable heat. The rugs that were wrapped over us thus made a kind of cocoon. Only our faces stung with the bitter cold, but we could not mind, as the air was exhilarating. As we rode, the sleigh bells keeping time with the rhythmic movement of the horses, the sun began to set, turning the plains of snow and the branches of the trees — even the firs — a deep but vivid rose, so that all the world appeared to be glowing from within as if with a benevolent infusion. As this stirring color reached its zenith, the horses, perhaps sensing this moment of perfection (or, more likely, wishing to return to a warm barn), sped around a corner so fast that the sleigh tipped onto one runner. Etna squealed and grabbed my hand. She and I continued to hold on to each other in a seeming transport of delight that closely mimicked, if not actually was, a kind of passion. Then, to my surprise and bliss (there it is again, that word), she did not release my hand when the sleigh righted itself. Rather, she laced her gloved fingers into my own, a gift so unexpected, I went rigid with happiness. The driver, a local farmer down on his luck, muttered an apology on behalf of the reckless horses, when I, of course, wanted only to thank the man. Thus it was that Etna and I reached that marvelous physical milestone — that of holding hands in affection — allowing me to make this a habit on subsequent occasions.