“Could it be you are jealous of these men?”
His expression hardened. “My dear fellow, if you cannot avoid being stupid, do at least try to conceal it!” He looked away and collected his thoughts. “The point I was attempting to make is that these young men considered themselves to be in love too. They would rather have died than hurt Katya. And yet, they became the agents for great pain and suffering on her part. But of course, you assume you are unique. There is nothing more commonplace than the assumption that one is unique. But believe me when I tell you that you have already caused great pain, and you are in a position to cause even more.”
“I assure you that—”
“You are forever assuring me of something, Montjean! I have no interest in your assurances. I realize that your intentions are of the best. You lack the imagination required to be genuinely evil. Still, you are not going to tell me that your romantic daydreams have not included anticipations of physical delight, are you? Surely you have pictured Katya alone with you and willing, probably in some romantic setting, perhaps in your rooms?”
“That’s an outrage!” I said, recalling with mortification just such imaginings while awaiting Katya in Salies that first rainy afternoon when she came to collect her bicycle.
“It’s not an outrage at all. You’re a healthy young animal. And certainly you weren’t clutching at her yesterday in the garden in order to achieve a more intellectual level of conversation.”
“It is perfectly natural for love between a man and a woman to have its physical manifestations.”
“I am not denying that. I am only pointing out that somewhere in all your noble impulses to save Katya from the machinations of her evil brother, there is an element of desire and self-gratification that may be clouding your ability to judge what is best for her.”
My jaw tightened and I refused to respond.
“And—damn it, man!—the tragicomedy of all this is that you don’t know—could have no way to know—that it isn’t only a matter of your inflicting pain on Katya. You are yourself in considerable danger!”
“Danger of what kind?”
He drew a deep breath and turned away, and I had the impression that he had said more than he intended to.
“Danger from you and your pistol?” I pursued.
He shrugged. “That is a possibility, I suppose. But let us seek a more civilized means of moderating your nuisance. Are you willing to hear my proposals?”
“By all means. But I don’t consider myself in any way bound to accept them.”
“Pity. Well, naturally I considered forbidding you to come again to this house, and forbidding Katya to go into town to see you. But I don’t fancy the image of myself standing guard at the bottom of the lane, my pistol at the half-cock. And furthermore, it might not be effective. Katya is an independent spirit, both imaginative and resourceful. Worse yet, I shouldn’t be surprised if she imagined herself to be in love with you. Oh, do try to keep that insipid smile off your face, Montjean. After all, she fancied herself in love with those other fellows, too. So here is what I suggest. Let us return—and this time with fidelity—to our original arrangement. For the next week, you may visit us—every afternoon, if you must. For my part, I shall do my best to convince Father that your visits have to do with our newfound friendship, and you will cooperate in that deception. Most important, you will not seek to be alone with Katya. I shall have the delicacy to remain out of earshot as much as possible, so you two may exchange thoughts, memories, and cooings—even witticisms, if you’re up to it. But you must promise not to sneak off by yourselves as you did yesterday, and, above all, you must promise to keep your hands off her.”
“I resent phrases like ‘sneak off’ and ‘keep your hands off her.’ They do not describe what happened yesterday accurately, and they are repulsive insinuations.”
He waved my objections aside impatiently. “At all events, you know what I mean. If you agree to these conditions, then Katya will have your company—which, for reasons that escape understanding, she seems to take pleasure in—and you will have seven whole days of her charm and gentleness. I realize of course that you have dreamt of a lifetime of Katya, and I can’t really blame you. The lowly moth dreams of possessing the moon. But seven days is better than nothing. And, believe me,” he enunciated each word clearly, “nothing is your only alternative.” He sat back and pressed his thumb and forefinger into his eye sockets to relieve his fatigue.
“Are you finished?” I asked.
“Not quite.” He spoke without opening his eyes. “You must also undertake to assist me in keeping Father in his accustomed state of ignorance as to events around him.”
“Are you through now?”
“Probably not. But you have been good enough to hear me out with few interruptions. I suppose I must offer you the same consideration.”
“First, it is unjust of you to imply that I pried into your affairs to learn that you were making arrangements to leave Etcheverria. You must know that everything immediately becomes public knowledge in a provincial village. I learned of it quite by accident from my colleague, Dr. Gros.”
“Very well. How you found out is of little importance. My real objection is to your blurting it out to Katya with no concern about the shock it must have been to her.”
“I had no way to know that you were withholding your plans from her. I naturally assumed that something affecting her life so intensely would not be done behind her back.”
“Pain delayed is pain lessened.”
“Then you admit that she does not want to go? That leaving here will be painful for her?”
“I have never denied that. But the pain of leaving is nothing to the danger of staying.”
“So you tell me. But you refuse to explain what this great danger is.”
“You have no right to an explanation.”
“I believe that my feelings for Katya give me that right.”
“You are quite mistaken in that belief.”
“That’s your view.”
“My view is the only one that matters.”
“That, too, is merely your view.”
“Would I be correct in assuming that we have reached an impasse?”
I hated the lazy, nasal tone of his voice and the half-closed eyes settled on me as though I were an inanimate thing. But after a short pause I continued, “You obviously sought to hurt me by mentioning other men who have loved Katya. And I’ll confess that you succeeded to a degree. I had indeed thought she was somewhat younger than I, rather than somewhat older, and if the question of other loves before me had entered my mind—and it did not—I suppose I would have assumed that I was her first love, as she is mine.”
He looked at me with distant curiosity. “You really assume that Katya loves you? Have you any evidence for that?—beyond, of course, the heart having reasons the mind knows not of, and all that trash?”
I chose not to respond because, in fact, I had no evidence at all that she was more than fond of me. Describing more what I wished I felt than what I did, I said, “A man who loves a woman should feel a certain… gratitude, I suppose… towards anyone who has also loved and brought pleasure to her. You and I, in different ways, both love her. We ought not to be at odds with each other. I accept the fact that you think you’re doing what’s best for her. I think you’re terribly wrong, but I don’t doubt your motives. Whatever it is that you’re running away from, I am sure it’s wrong of you to deny Katya a chance to make a life for herself. But I don’t doubt your love for her.”
His customary expression of weary hauteur relaxed, and there was a trace of compassion in his voice when he said, “Perhaps I was cruelly vague when I spoke of the ‘men’ who had loved her. There was only one. In Paris. And I never meant to imply that she loved him in return. She was kind to him. She doubtless took pleasure in his company. But love? I rather doubt it.”