INSERT TO BLUE HILL
In Blue Hill, we're not always on our own. There are times when our parents arrive, bringing guests. We then cut down to size and respectfully withdraw to nursery status. This is more than a mere switch of environment. There is, for example the introduction of Family Prayers: we assemble after breakfast in the Living Room. Father — at this time it seems fitting to call him Father — creates what I can only call a feeling of Sanctity. This is hard to explain but we all feel it. We all file in, our household of maids and their fresh aprons; Janet with the baby on her knee; Mother, very trim in white shirtwaist, high collar, with wide belt around her incredibly small waist; and of course all us children. It begins with the Doxology which rings out in Mother's voice. Mother has a loud, strong soprano, and unabashed and wholehearted, she leads with "Praise God With Whom All Mercies…" I cringe. For no reason Mother's singing voice gives me horrors.
We all join in. After this, Father reads from the Bible. This is very moving. Father can put more meaning into the Bible than anyone else. He has a warm Celtic voice, deeply moving. He stands before us in his black and a clerical collar. (He'll be off immediately afterwards in knickers to his golf game.) Following the reading, the usual prayer will follow. for this we kneel, heads bowed before our chairs.
Picture to yourself a film stopped. Here it is — on this particular morning, stopped before our eyes. The assembly, half standing, half turned about to kneel, and Father's hand raised…Father's eyes are upon me. He's caught me. The film now moves on and with it, more shocking than a shout, comes the awesome hush in Father's voice. "Yawn?" Into the dead silence comes Father's voice. "Yawn?" — the deep reproach of it! "In the presence of your Maker."
There are no words for a Revelation. Nor do I remember what followed. Punishment? A scolding? At ten years old, life is a flow of experiences. But a seed dropped into that flow and stayed unnoticed, for after the flash of awe that came in the paralyzing moment of Father's reproach, the seed was out of sight. Was it a mustard seed?
FINAL CHAPTER
Unrest is stirring. Under her frivolity, I see that searching look that has come back to Mother's eyes; and when you ask her, she answers after a long return from afar. And Janet mutters, her grim lips quiver and she and Bobs are like one. "The only wee bit of comfort I have," says Janet. And Bobs, four now and spectacularly beautiful, answers, virtuous and loyal, "Don't we hate this appartemento Via Veneto." And Stu kicks furniture. Aloof, unapproachable, he pounds a pillow. And Winter has plans. She wants an American school and she wants American friends. In short Frustration. It's time to leave Italy; we must go home.
We come home. It's the end of a chapter, the beginning of a new. We're home to a new world, different from the one we left before we went to Italy. Exciting of course; different in manners and customs. There's a tarnish on the shining glamour and a restless feeling…. Sudden ! Instantaneous! Is love like that? We meet in a doorway; it is a tea. On Sunday when the college students come to New York where the debutante dances and parties, Sunday is the day of teas/ The rooms are crowded. I am at the entrance, in the hall, talking to my friends. In the midst of a sentence, I turn — I shalll never forget that sudden whirl around as if I had been siezed by soldiers, and it brought me face too face with someone I had never seen before. He was coming into the room in a purposeful rush (so like him) i see an out-of-door sort of ruddy face. He is on his way, purposeful and erect, in a hurry, and he stops. Is it for an instant or a century? He continues on his way and I am left. He is gone but only long enough to find our hostess and bring her back to introduce us, for one does not speak to a girl without first INTRODUCTION.
And what of me? What has happened to me? Something has happened. This is not love; there is nothing ecstatic or dreamy in this feeling. I compare it to the moment at the top of a roller coaster in the car about to tke off in a downward plunge, and I am looking down. Indescribable. But that's how I'm feeling. It's at the fifth meeting (the first time I have seen him alone) that the Proposal comes. He is never one to hesitate.
A spring night in New York; that special city spring with its own glamour. The Ritz Ballroom; dancing, dancing, not speaking, just dancing and when he leaves me at home, he stops a moment and he tells me - asks me - and I don't panic. He leaves, taking my promise with him, a promise without panic. Until the next morning when a florist box arrives with long-stemmed American Beauty roses. Now comes panic, and when he telephones, i am breathless - in breathless panic. "No" I explain, "I didn't mean…it's all a mistake. I can't marry you." I can't explain it. I think this is not love; not yet, I've nothing to give. And this is the way it went - a year and a half. We are never engaged for longer than five days at a time "Give me back that ring!" "Take your ring!" and so on and on. And if it 's not love, what is it then? What is a tornado? A tornado is real and what is this feeling that has me in a panic? It's not romance. There's no soft glow and candles. Romance has gone. Panic has gone, finally. "Of course," I answer, "as soon as you like," and this time I mean it.
So romance is gone. "Night's candles are burned out,and jocund day…" No, stop right there. Daylight is not "jocund". Daylight is relentless. Daylight is Truth. To those who wish me happiness at my wedding, I feel, "Don't wish me happiness; love is not happiness." Love is pain — and heaven. Love is Riches. Love is the Pits, and it is the Heights. Love is the wrench and the pain of giving. Giving all one has, so… So there is no more. Reality takes over and marriage and children and Life itself. This is the end. The war comes, marriage is serious, and a world that we know has gone. It will never come back. It can never happen again.
