Chapter 2 #3
After hesitating a moment, Miss Prim decided to tell him all about it.
She was very tired and she longed to pour it all out, to unload the burden of her anguish onto other shoulders.
Throughout her life she had made huge efforts to be virtuous and to overcome her faults, and had emerged victorious from many battles, but now she had to admit defeat and acknowledge that her delicacy, the quality she had elevated to the status of an art, was simply a cover.
“So you see,” she said, after recounting the story of her love of animals, the vet, and Judge Bassett, “I’m a common hypocrite, a liar.”
“I’d say you’re more of a fool,” was her companion’s succinct reply.
Miss Prim looked at him aghast, then abruptly unfastened her seat belt.
“Stop the car immediately,” she said with barely contained rage.
“What?”
“I said, stop the car immediately. I’m not staying in here with you a moment longer.”
The Man in the Wing Chair pulled over, turned off the ignition, and lifted both hands from the steering wheel.
“Why the hell must you always be so extreme?”
“Extreme? You think I’m extreme? You get me to open my heart to you, you promise to be tactful, and then when I fall into your trap and confide my concerns, you respond with an insult.
Do I need to remind you that you called me a fool?
You, who pride yourself on being gentlemanly. You, no one else.”
“Yes, me,” he replied abruptly. “Make no mistake, Prudencia, I’m a man like any other, maybe worse than others. I hope it doesn’t come as a shock to you because it definitely doesn’t to me.”
She made to open the car door, but he put out an arm and firmly held her back.
“Listen carefully. I called you a fool because I think getting upset over what you told me is to behave like a fool. I’m a frank man, probably a little too frank, and you’re right, I’m not very tactful.
But you should know me well enough by now to understand that though I may not be a model of tact, I’m a decent person.
If I tell you to confide in me it’s because I want to help.
So let me speak and listen to what I have to say. ”
“Only if you take back your insult,” she said stonily.
“Fine, I take back what I said. But, for the record, it wasn’t an insult. I was describing your behavior, I wasn’t describing you.”
“Please, don’t start with your theological distinctions. You’re not going to trick me again.”
“Would you please just listen?” he insisted, pronouncing the words slowly and deliberately.
Miss Prim raised her eyes and looked at him.
The day had started badly. It had been a mistake to attend the meeting at the tearoom.
It had also been a mistake to let him give her a lift to the village.
Had she not accepted his offer, she wouldn’t have had to listen to all that praise heaped upon the beauty of another woman.
Nor would she have got carried away flirting with the young vet, much less spouted all that nonsense about how much she liked animals.
She, who had always been afraid of dogs and disliked cats. How could she have been so stupid?
“No, you’re right, I am a fool,” she said with tears in her eyes.
He took her tenderly by the hand and looked at her with an expression that she didn’t know how to interpret.
“Come on, you’re not a fool, Prudencia. You just act like one.
Please don’t cry. People like me can’t handle tears; we haven’t been granted that gift.
Listen to me: the fact is, there are some things that make you suffer, and they make you suffer because you don’t fully understand them, that’s all. ”
She wiped away her tears and smiled.
“Between us it always boils down to that, doesn’t it? You understand things that I don’t.”
“No, that’s not right, at least not quite. Will you listen to me now?”
Miss Prim assured him that she would. He switched on the engine, offered her another sip of brandy, and shifted in his seat before speaking.
“First of all, there’s no such thing as definitive victory over one’s faults, Prudencia.
It’s not an arena in which mere willpower works.
Our nature is defective, like an old, broken locomotive, so however hard we try, we’re bound to fail.
Getting upset about it is absurd and, though it might make you angry to hear it, arrogant too.
You won’t like this but, when we fail, what we have to do is ask for help from the machine’s maker.
And always allow the maker to improve things with a good application of oil from time to time. ”
“That’s a religious explanation, and I’m not a religious woman. Please don’t use that argument with me, it’s not valid,” she said, her nose red from crying as well as from the cold.
He leaned his head back and laughed.
“That answer isn’t worthy of a lucid mind, Prudencia.
And it’s a product of the anti-Thomist education you’re so proud of.
The question here, and in any other discussion, is not whether my argument is religious, but whether it’s right.
Can’t you see the difference? Give me your counterargument, Prudencia.
Say you think that what I’ve said is wrong and explain why, but don’t tell me that my argument fails because it’s religious.
The only reason it might not work here or anywhere else is simply because it’s wrong. ”
“All right then, I’m telling you it doesn’t work because it’s wrong.”
“Really? That means you think human beings can achieve perfection and maintain moral excellence through their own efforts. Don’t you think that to err is human? Do you really think man never fails?”
“Of course I don’t, I know perfectly well that it’s human to make mistakes and that nobody’s perfect.”
“In other words, deep down you think that a large part of what I’ve said is true. The thing is, you only recognize the truth when it’s dressed up as secularism.”
Miss Prim looked at the Man in the Wing Chair through the growing darkness and wondered bitterly why, even at such gloomy moments, a conversation with him was so much more interesting than any she had with other people; why the most obstinate and odious of his species was also the most stimulating to talk to.
“I’m cold. Would you mind taking me home now?”
“Mind? I’m always happy to take you home, Prudencia.”