I remained in my rooms for several days. The vote to institute a department of physical culture was delayed a week. The outcome might have been predicted. And although by then I hardly cared about the matter, I have often wondered whether I should have been more persuasive and perhaps even victorious had Etna not abandoned me and had my voice contained a natural and convincing enthusiasm for my cause, or had I not presented such a haggard appearance on the stage. Thus there might not be, even today, a department of physical culture at Thrupp College. Which makes me ponder the nature of fate and coincidence: A man is propelled one minute sooner to his automobile because he decides not to stop to kiss his wife good-bye. As a consequence of this omission, he then crosses a bridge one minute before it collapses, taking all its traffic and doomed souls into the swirling and angry depths below. Oblivious, and safely out of harm’s way, our man continues on his journey.
I waited the week in a feverish grimace. On Saturday, I hired a coach to take me to Exeter. I gave no advance warning of my visit, for fear either Etna or her apparently formidable brother-in-law might forbid it.
The journey from Thrupp to Exeter could be made in one very long day and was then a rough journey, since there were no direct highways to that part of the state. One had to resort to the twisting lanes and village roads of a countryside not best known for its easy landscape. Thus I was in somewhat disheveled condition when I arrived in Exeter. Though my need to see Etna was keen, for once prudence held sway; I asked the weary driver of the coach to take me to a boardinghouse instead.
I doubt Exeter has changed much since I was there. It is a handsome academy town with many fine residences along its High and Water Streets. As the driver brought me into the village, I tried to imagine in which house Etna was prisoner. For that is how I saw her then — a servant, even a slave, in her brother-in-law’s possession. If I had before been determined to liberate her from the kindly though stifling household of her uncle, I was doubly resolved then to free her from the employ of the man who had contrived to steal from Etna her entire capital.
I spent a restless night in the home of a widow who had been forced to open her own considerable abode to the public. In my distraction and haste, I had neglected to pack a suitable kit and was forced to borrow from my landlady a razor and clean shirt and so on, which I promised to return as soon as my mission was accomplished. After an odd dinner of chutney and potatoes and brussels sprouts, I retired to my room and sat in a chair and thought about my plight and my mission. It was clear to me, as indeed it had been clear all along, that Etna did not care for me in the same way that I cared for her. (Would I have left Etna behind in Thrupp? Never.) At that time I attributed this imbalance to the physical and temperamental differences between men and women. Certainly men were capable of greater passion than women, were they not? And so, perforce, must always be the predators? And was there not a certain sport in the chase? Was I not expected to pursue Etna, no matter where she had gone? By then, of course, I had persuaded myself that she had left Thrupp against her will, whatever she had written in her letter. Though I had never met Josip Keep, I imagined him to be an intimidating presence, a man accustomed to having his wishes obeyed. And would Etna not have felt dutybound to help her sister with her children? Yes, surely she would. I had seen the way she was with her young cousin and had already admired the humor and patience she had displayed. But all of this was merely idle speculation on my part. I could no more have given Etna up than I could have taken my life. Indeed, she was my life now. I could not envision a future that did not include her.
And there was something else that I must admit to here: I could not cease from my pursuit until I had known Etna Bliss. I mean this in the sense it will be understood. It was not a desire I would freely have confessed to at that time, but there was in me the keenest need to touch and to experience Etna Bliss, a need I had recognized from the first time I saw her the night of the fire, a need that had grown only sharper as the days and weeks had progressed. Do all men feel this way when they meet their beloved? I do not know, for it is not a discussion I have ever had with any man or woman. I know only that the alternative was for me intolerable. If I did not pursue Etna, I was convinced, I would be tormented all my life by longing — a longing that no other woman would be able to slake. (And I must say that even today I am not certain that I was not correct in this assumption.)
That night, as I slept in the boardinghouse, I was haunted in my dreams by images of Etna: her skirts tangled in tree branches as she sought to fly, sheltering under a shelf of rock that quite suddenly fell upon her, and then soaring up and out from Noah Fitch’s office like a gull caught on an updraft. The next morning, I inquired as to the whereabouts of Keep’s home, and it gratified me to be told by my widow-landlady that the house was still known as the Bliss house and would be for years to come, the townsfolk preferring to pay homage to the ancestral owners and not its usurpers. I walked the not-very-great distance of a mile to the house I sought, the day clear and cold, but it was not the glory of the morning that increased my pace. No, it was the thought of seeing Etna again that gave me vigor: the knowledge that if I failed today, I was likely to fail for a lifetime.