Sylva

Had I been in a completely normal state I believe that so much vulgarity and Dorothy’s laughter would have promptly driven me out of that room forever. But the powder box was, as usual, lying about on the table like a simple salt cellar, and indeed everybody helped himself almost absent-mindedly, as if to a pinch of salt, thus sustaining a blissful torpor in anticipation of more violent exploits. So that I too, I am afraid, gave a cowardly snicker in answer to Viola’s obscenities, and the one I have reported is just a specimen. All the same, her filth left an indelibly nauseous imprint on my mind, and heightened my disgust. Whereas Dorothy’s spineless submissiveness, the same no doubt that she had shown to her infamous husband, and for similar reasons, gradually made me lose all hope of ever being able to wrest her away. Perhaps it made me also lose all desire for her-and well before I even realized it.

In point of fact, I believe I soon realized (though maybe only confusedly at first) that the choice was no longer the one I had foreseen. It no longer lay in the pressing alternative of saving Dorothy or abandoning her, but in the no less pressing one of abandoning her or being shipwrecked with her. I continue to think, though, that she loved me-with the love of a praying mantis; only she too realized very soon that I would prove recalcitrant and not allow her to suck my brains. At all events, the frenzied ardor she showed in those first days, when I did not resist the drive to drag me down, was lazily abandoned as soon as she felt me draw back-or at least so I imagined. Why else did she begin to treat me with sly indignity-if the term still means anything in this context?

I well remember the last slights. Returning from one of the brief strolls I took to ventilate my mind as well as my lungs, like a frog coming up for air, I found the door closed. I mounted the stairs and there indeed were the two women, almost comatose, gorged with drugs. Dorothy raised a languid hand to show the powder box, clearly meaning: “Help yourself if you care to.” She could not have informed me more openly that I was merely being tolerated.

I left them and stayed away for two days. Dorothy called me upon the second evening. “What’s the matter? Please come!” When I arrived, she wept. It was a spark of hope and I thought my time had come. I implored her to leave this room, this house, and settle at the hotel with me. She did not answer but her tears had dried. She threw herself back on the bed and remained motionless for a long time, looking up at the ceiling. I did not speak either. I was waiting. At last she murmured, still without moving, “Come back tomorrow.” I left the room wordlessly and she let me go.

The next day was a Sunday. When I walked into the room, the other woman was there. I turned on my heels, but she caught my arm, made me sit down by force. “Come on! Come on!” she said, sitting down opposite me. “Let’s have it out.”

Dorothy was sprawling on an armchair, munching her Turkish delight. She avoided my eyes.

For a few seconds, Viola observed each of us in turn, her eyes screwed up ironically. “Well?” she said. “A lover’s quarrel?” She must have seen me stiffen and went on in a less mocking tone: “Why do you complicate things? We were getting on so well, the three of us. Wouldn’t I have more reason than you to show jealousy? Everything would be all right if you’d do your bit. But don’t imagine that I’ll ever give up this adorable kitten-to anyone. You may as well give up hope. She is attached to me, and faithful too, like a kitten. Aren’t you, my little puss?” She held out one arm and Dorothy, letting herself slide down from the armchair, came and squatted at her knees, laid her cheek on one thigh, and from there gazed at me with placid eyes.

That is the last picture I have of Dorothy. More than all her slow, vile self-abasement, that spineless look of bestial cowardice confirmed that the battle was lost. Her father had told me, “The worst of it is that she seems happy.” Perhaps it wasn’t the right word. Rather than happy, I would say that she had contentedly sunk into a peaceful abdication, a definite renunciation of what little human freedom she had conserved until that day.

An hour later I was on the train taking me back to Wardley Station.

Chapter 29