Chapter 6
During her last few days in San Ireneo de Arnois, Miss Prim tried to avoid the Man in the Wing Chair.
She wasn’t sure if it was her imagination, but during that time of suitcases, packages, and farewells, she had the feeling that he was avoiding her just as assiduously.
The weather had turned particularly cold, as it always did in late February, and the frozen fields beyond gave the house and garden the aspect of a lifeless landscape painting.
On the morning of her departure she was in her room checking her packing one last time.
Everything was there—the few books she had brought with her, her clothes and shoes, one or two personal objects, and the countless presents received in the past few hours from friends and neighbors all over the village.
Miss Prim contemplated the pile of luggage with a sad smile.
After inspecting the chest of drawers and bedside tables to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything, she straightened up and let her melancholy gaze rest on the view outside the window.
At that moment, she was startled by a snowball striking the glass with a dull thud.
She opened the door onto the balcony and looked down.
There in the garden, bundled up to his eyes, stood the Man in the Wing Chair.
“Will you come down?” he called out.
“Come down? It’s several degrees below zero—not a good day for a stroll in the garden.”
He smiled, or so she deduced from the crinkling of his eyes, the only part of his face that was visible.
“I think it’s a perfect day. For the garden and for you there won’t be a better one. I won’t have the pleasure of seeing you both together after today.”
“That’s true,” murmured Miss Prim.
“What did you say?” he shouted.
“I said that’s true,” she repeated more loudly. “But the gardener’s picking me up in half an hour. I haven’t got time to chat.”
He came and stood right beneath the window.
“Come on, Prudencia, surely you’ve got time to say goodbye?”
Elbows resting on the parapet, she thought for a moment.
“You’re right. Let me get my coat and I’ll be straight down.”
Hurrying downstairs, the librarian realized she had been invaded by a familiar anxiety which she hated to admit she hadn’t mastered—despite the sleepless nights, all the conversations and confidences, the tears spilled; despite the rebukes and well-meaning advice she’d received on the absurdity of her sudden access of love—despite it all, she hadn’t mastered the anxiety.
She hadn’t overcome that upset, that violent disturbance which had plunged her perfectly and carefully cultivated equilibrium to the bottom of the ocean.
“You should take more exercise; you’re very flushed.”
“Oh!” she said, wondering for the umpteenth time why he seemed unable to appreciate the distinction between honesty and tactlessness.
It was cold—intensely, bleakly cold—as they headed to the south side of the garden where an old wooden summerhouse stood, full of gardening tools, empty pots, useless junk of all shapes and sizes, a white-painted table, and four decrepit garden chairs that had been around for more years than anyone could remember.
“Why don’t you fix this place up?” asked Miss Prim, sitting down on one of the chairs.
“Because I like it like this.”
“Why?” Somewhere inside her the librarian could hear a clashing of swords.
He regarded her in silence, as if gauging whether her question had been innocent or more of a provocation.
“Why what?”
“Why do you only like old things?”
“That’s not quite true. I like some new things.”
“Really?” she asked. “Name one.”
He smiled in a way she now understood.
“You, for instance.”
She sighed in feigned dismay.
“I don’t know whether to take that as a compliment. I’m glad you don’t think of me as old, but I’m not sure it’s flattering to be considered a thing.”
He laughed and she felt her eyes fill with tears. She lowered her head and, when she looked up, her eyes met his.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “The thought of leaving makes me sad.”
“Really?”
Miss Prim looked at him with a mixture of surprise and reproach.
“Of course,” she said, eyes glistening.
“I’m glad to hear it,” he said, “because I’m sorry you’re leaving too. You’ve been a marvelous opponent, as well as great company. I’ll miss our arguments.”
She dropped her gaze, a mischievous smile playing on her lips.
“Don’t lie. You know perfectly well that I’ve never been any sort of opponent for you. You’ve won all the arguments, you’ve twisted my words, and you’ve always done me the favor of infuriating me.”
“That’s a favor?” he said wryly.
“Yes,” she said, unbowed. “When I arrived I was reluctant to entertain any viewpoint other than my own. In that respect I’m afraid I’m rather like you.”
“Well, I have to admit that your attacks have helped me understand certain things.”
Resisting the urge to say she had never attacked anyone, Miss Prim straightened slightly in her chair and leaned forward.
“Such as?” she asked.
“Such as what you call delicacy, I suppose.”
“That surprises me,” she said, pleased. “I thought you despised it.”
“That’s not true.”
“I thought you considered it—how shall I put it?—a soft quality.”
“I consider it a feminine attribute.” Prudencia grimaced. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t think it can, or even should, be present in a man’s character.”
“But it’s not in yours.”
“No. That’s why knowing you has been so enriching.”
They were quiet for a few minutes, watching the falling snow through the summerhouse windows.
Then Miss Prim said: “I’d like to thank you.”
“For what?”
“For nothing, and for everything. I just think I should. I’ll probably realize at some stage that I should have thanked you and, when that happens, I don’t want to feel that I missed my chance. Do you see?”
“Not at all,” he said baldly.
She stared at him, crestfallen, wondering how such brilliance and such exasperating, blunt, pigheaded insensitivity could coexist within the same person.
She felt she’d been perfectly clear. Half of humanity, if not all, had at some time experienced the intuition, the conviction that they should thank someone for something.
But many had let the words die on their lips, and Miss Prim didn’t want to be one of them.
“You are a strange person. You absolutely lack empathy,” she said.
“And yet you are fond of me,” he said.
“Vanity is another of your great faults,” she continued, unperturbed. “I’d say I respect you. With that, I think I’ve said enough.”
The Man in the Wing Chair smiled.
“But we’re friends, even so,” he said, looking into her eyes.
“We are,” she replied in a whisper. Then, in one of the emotional outbursts that seized her occasionally and made her say things abruptly and almost breathlessly, she added: “Do you really believe that love between two very different people is impossible?”
He stood up and pulled the door of the old summerhouse half closed so the snow didn’t blow in.
“I’ve never said that,” he replied, returning to his seat. “No, I don’t think it’s impossible. I’d say it’s very common.”
“But you . . . ” stammered Miss Prim, astonished by the strange recklessness that had impelled her to say such a thing, “you and Herminia . . . ”
“We separated because we were very different?” The Man in the Wing Chair shook his head. “You haven’t understood, Prudencia. You haven’t understood at all what I tried to explain the other day.”
“Perhaps you didn’t explain it well,” she replied coolly, annoyed by the idea of being classified as a person who understood nothing. “Perhaps you were too cryptic.”
“Right, well, I’ll make it easy then.”
Miss Prim wondered if, in defense of her own dignity, she shouldn’t object to this didactic condescension but, as so often with her employer, curiosity overcame pride.
“I’m listening.”
“Imagine for a moment that you and I—two very different people—decided to go to St. Petersburg together. Are you following me?”
“Perfectly.”
“You’ll agree that we would probably argue for the entire trip.”
“Very probably.”
“I’d want to stay in monasteries and converse with old starets, whereas you would insist on booking luxurious, spotlessly clean hotels.
I’d want to meander through small, insignificant villages and hamlets on our way; you’d no doubt have our route strictly planned and would find it annoying to stop off at places with little historic or cultural interest. But eventually, despite all these difficulties, you and I would arrive in St. Petersburg. ”
“And what then?” asked the librarian, resting her elbows on the table.
“Let me continue, I’m doing my best not to be cryptic. Now imagine that we decided to go on another journey. But this time you wanted to go to St. Petersburg and I wanted to go to Tahiti. What do you think would happen?”
Miss Prim smiled sadly.
“Sooner or later we’d go our separate ways,” she said.
“I see you understand now.”
“Unless,” said the librarian softly after a long pause, “unless I convinced you to go to St. Petersburg instead of Tahiti.”
He took off his gloves and regarded her with interest.
“But that’s part of the problem, Prudencia. I don’t want anyone convincing me to go to St. Petersburg, and if I thought there was any chance of anyone succeeding, I wouldn’t take the risk.”
“But also, the thing is,” Miss Prim searched for the words, “the thing is, you might convince me to go to Tahiti.”
The Man in the Wing Chair was silent for a moment that seemed to the librarian to last an eternity.
“I’d go to the ends of the earth to convince you to come to Tahiti,” he said with a strange intensity to his voice. “I’d do anything in my power, absolutely anything. But I think the journey would be a failure—a terrible failure—unless you were sure at the outset you wanted to know Tahiti.”
“You’ve never tried to convince me to go to Tahiti,” she said quietly.
“How do you know?”
“How do I know what?”
“How do you know I haven’t tried?”