“They are, as well as many other things. Really, I am amazed, Prudencia. I’d have expected you to inform yourself before coming here,” admonished her host.
“Do people who believe that sort of thing still exist? I thought those old ideas of returning to a simple, traditional, family-based economy had vanished long ago.”
“They definitely still exist. You’re in the place where almost all of them live in this country. And they’re not only from this country. Or hadn’t you also noticed the intriguing variety of surnames we have here?”
“I’m surprised you’re one of them. I’d never have dreamed you were a utopian.”
Horacio took a generous gulp of brandy and regarded her affectionately.
“It would be utopian to imagine that the present-day world could go into reverse and completely reorganize itself. But there’s nothing utopian about this village, Prudencia. What we are is hugely privileged. Nowadays, to live quietly and simply you have to take refuge in a small community, a village or hamlet where the din and aggression of the overgrown cities can’t reach; a remote corner like this, where you know nevertheless that about a couple of hundred miles away, just in case”—he smiled—“a vigorous, vibrant metropolis exists.”
Pensively, Miss Prim placed her empty glass on the table.
“This does seem like a very prosperous place.”
“It is, in all senses.”
“So you’re all refugees from the city, romantic fugitives?”
“We have escaped the city, you’re right, but not all for the same reasons. Some, like old Judge Bassett and I, made the decision after having got all we possibly could out of life, because we knew that finding a quiet, cultured environment like the one that’s grown up here is a rare freedom. Others, like Herminia Treaumont, are reformers. They’ve come to believe that contemporary life wears women out, debases the family, and crushes the human capacity for thought, and they want to try something different. And there’s a third group, to which your Man in the Wing Chair belongs, whose aim is to escape from the dragon. They want to protect their children from the influences of the world, to return to the purity of old customs, recover the splendor of an ancient culture.”
Horacio paused to pour himself another glass of brandy.
“Do you understand what I’m trying to tell you, Prudencia? You can’t build yourself a world made to measure, but you can build a village. In a way, all of us here belong to a club of refugees. Your employer is one of the few inhabitants with family roots in San Ireneo. He came back a few years ago and set it all up. You may not know it, but his father’s family has lived here for centuries.”
Miss Prim, who had been listening closely to her friend’s explanation, now sighed in resignation.
“Horacio, is there anything else I should know about this village?”
“Of course there is, my dear,” he replied with a wink before draining his glass. “ButI’mnot going totellyou what it is.”
I. G.K. Chesterton
6
“Well? Why did you take the job?” the Man in the Wing Chair asked Miss Prim a few days later. He was nonchalantly eating a slice of pineapple.
She did not reply. Busy cleaning and labeling a five-volume edition of the Venerable Bede’sEcclesiastical History of the English People, she pretended not to hear the question. It was a luminously bright day, and sunbeams lit up the thick layer of dust on the books and the subtle honey tones in her hair.
“Come now, Prudencia, you heard me perfectly well. Tell me, why would a woman with all your qualifications accept an obscure little job like this?”
Miss Prim looked up, realizing she wasn’t going to be able to avoid a conversation. Apart from what was essential to her duties as librarian, she hadn’t said a word to her employer since the incident in the kitchen on her birthday. She didn’t want to speak to him, she really didn’t. Deep down she felt a profound conviction that sheshouldn’tspeak to him. For some reason, she became absurdly nervous and could hardly conceal her annoyance if they came across each other in a room or passed in the corridor. She peered at him from the corner of her eye as he calmly ate his piece of fruit in the November sun. Then she looked down and decided to answer him.
“I think it was to escape the noise.”
The Man in the Wing Chair couldn’t help smiling.
“Miss Prim, since we first met you’ve never disappointed me with any of your replies. It’s a wonderful thing to ask you questions. There’s not the slightest trace of small talk in you. So it was the noise... Do you mean the noise of the city?”
Prudencia, a volume of the Venerable Bede still clasped in her hand, looked at him with pity.
“I mean the noise of the mind, the clamor.”
He looked at her with interest.
“The clamor?”
“That’s right.”
