Sylva

I had not found the remote lodging at the bottom of Galveston Lane without some trouble. In the narrow, dark staircase smelling of cold fried fish, a clergyman in a threadbare coat, who seemed drunk to me, had flattened himself against the wall to let me pass; he must have missed a couple of steps on resuming his descent, for I heard him swear. It was not quite a boardinghouse nor exactly a block of furnished small flats. The brickwork outside had been painted white, which made the façade look almost smart with its little black, brass-plated front door, surmounted by a triangular pediment. But the inside seemed to have lain asleep for a century under a shroud of dust.

Dorothy held out to me a casual hand, neither getting up nor interrupting her chewing of the sugary paste. She did not look any thinner. On the contrary, she seemed to have put on weight, but beneath the make-up which she must have spread on her cheeks with careless haste after my telephone call, the skin was white, almost transparent. The swollen eyelids were edged with a too-rosy, almost red line. The face as a whole resembled certain water-lily blooms just when they are about to rot. She smiled without pleasure-the fixed smile of a tired saleswoman.

“Take a seat,” she mumbled as she chewed, “and help yourself.” She pushed the china bowl toward me. “Sweet of you to have forgiven me. What are you doing in London?”

“Nothing. I’ve come to see you.”

I pushed the bowl back with my hand.

“Sweet of you,” she repeated. “You don’t care for Turkish delight?”

“I loathe it.”

“I’ve always doted on it, ever since I was a little girl. They wouldn’t let me have it because it’s fattening. I’m getting my own back. Well,” she said, “now you’ve seen me. Anything you want?”

I disregarded the insolence.

“I have come to court you. The harvest is in, and I have time on my hands before the autumn plowing. I’m settling down a stone’s throw from here, at Bonington House. In this way I’ll only have a few yards to come to present my loving respects to you.”

There was a gleam in her eyes-the first I had seen since I was there. With two fingers she had just picked up a flabby chunk of sweet stuff from the sticky bowl, but she put it back. She wiped her sugary fingers on the panther skin.

“You’re not going to impose your presence on me every day, are you?” she asked.

“I’ve come to court you,” I repeated. “Those words have a definite meaning. Have you any other suitor?”

“I won’t open the door to you.”

“You’ll leave me out on the landing?”

“Yes. You don’t love me. You’re just working yourself up. You’re being a nuisance.”

“You’ll judge after our wedding if I love you or not.”

“I ask you to leave me at once.”

“Dorothy, tell me frankly, and once for all: would you talk like that if Sylva did not exist?”

“She does exist and you can’t do anything about it. However, set your mind at rest. I’d talk just like that.”

“Have you taken a dislike to me?”

“Heavens, no! I like you very much. As much as ever. But there’s somebody I like even better: that’s me.”

“But you’re destroying yourself!”

“One can destroy oneself out of self-love. Didn’t I give you a lecture on that subject, one rather awful evening? The lecture may have been grotesque, but what I said was true.”

“You’re just frightened of life because of that rotten marriage. I’ll make you forget it.”

“You’re talking nonsense. I’m not frightened of anything. Neither of life nor death. Nor of falling low in the esteem of fools.”

“Whom do you call fools?”

“People of your type who organize life as if it had a purpose. Which it hasn’t. It’s perfectly meaningless. Oh, all this is so trite! Must I repeat those commonplaces? I am tired, Albert.”

As if to show me that she really was tired, she let her head fall on the cushion and closed her eyes.

“Love,” I told her, “can give a meaning to the most senseless life. Suppose you made up your mind to love me?”

She opened her eyes without raising her head. Her gaze, glinting between her eyelids, reached me as through the narrow slats of a Venetian blind.

“I no longer feel at all inclined to love. And even less inclined to give my life an artificial aim. You don’t understand anything, Albert. I seem to… well, yes… to be killing myself slowly. Perhaps. But, as the saying goes, I’m in no hurry. Life has no meaning, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t plenty of pleasures to offer. And I like pleasures, especially those that don’t give too much trouble, because life also offers a lot of idiotic suffering, and that I’m against. I am all for pleasure and all against suffering, even ever so little. Is that so hard to understand? Love? To love you? I accept the pleasures of love, but refuse its ties. The least tie hurts as soon as you tug at it. No, don’t count on me. Never. But who’s forcing us to marry? What a funny idea, my sweet.”