The children couldn’t give many details about what had happened at the school. At break time, when they were playing in the garden, they’d heard the teacher murmur: “My God, he’s come back.”
They had all turned to see, standing at the gate, a tall, heavily built man in an old coat and muddy boots, smiling, full of emotion.
“His eyes wereswimmingwith tears,” said Eksi, whose precocious love of reading exceeded her verbal fluency by quite a margin.
“You mean brimming, dear,” her grandmother corrected her, peering at the child fondly over her reading glasses.
“Miss Mott’s husband is as big as one of the giants in Gulliver, Grandmama,” said Deka.
The old lady said she hoped that Mr. Mott’s apology to his wife for all his years of absence would be at least half as big as Swift’s giants, and that Miss Mott would make him pay an equally large penance.
“Grandmama, if Miss Mott is married, why isn’t she called Mrs. Mott?” asked Eksi.
“Well, because Mr. Mott left the house one day and never came back. You’re much too young to understand, but if there’s one thing worse than being a widow it’s being married to a man who’s disappeared. Poor Eugenia Mott,” said the older woman to Miss Prim, “couldn’t bear people continually asking where her husband was, so one day she decided to become a ‘Miss,’ start a new life, and forget all about trying to explain.”
“A very sensible decision,” said the librarian.
“My thoughts exactly.”
As the weeks passed, Miss Prim had felt increasingly at ease in the old lady’s company. She didn’t approve of her patrician rudeness—to do so would have been contrary to her own nature, and Miss Prim never did anything that was contrary to her nature—but she was starting to appreciate the somewhat sharp-edged candor that showed itself in merciless judgments as well as in deliciously sincere praise. In the older woman’s character the librarian had found an elucidation of the amazing toughness she’d always admired in venerable dynastic families: the cast-iron capacity to preserve one’s own opinions and habits through wars, reversals of fortune, and revolutions. The skill of remembering at all times who one was and where one came from rather than bothering, as modern people did, with trying to guess where one was headed.
“Prudencia,” said the old lady, “maybe we should go and visit Eugenia. Women like her often don’t know how to react to such changes. I wouldn’t want that swine to make a fool of her again.”
Miss Prim agreed that the possibility of Eugenia Mott being made a fool of again was something to consider, and she gladly accepted the old lady’s suggestion. They both rose, leaving aside their respective tasks, and prepared to go out into the cold winter afternoon, with the maid as their chauffeur.
Eugenia Mott’s house was on the outskirts of San Ireneo. It was a small stone building with white window frames and a small front door, and shutters in bright red that stood out like brushstrokes in an oil painting. Clumps of beautiful late chrysanthemums lent the house the old-fashioned charm typical of most of the homes in San Ireneo. As they approached, Miss Prim was lost in thought when a line unexpectedly came to mind:
What beauty will save the world?
Who had said that? It must have been a Russian; it sounded just like the kind of thing a Russian would say. It definitely wasn’t obscure, she was sure she’d read it and heard it on countless occasions and in different forms, but she couldn’t remember the author. As she watched the maid struggle with the latch on the garden gate, it occurred to her that the Man in the Wing Chair would probably know.
“The front door’s open, madam. Should we go in?”
“Of course we should. The poor woman must be in the arms of grief,” replied the old lady firmly, pushing the door open and stepping into the narrow hall.
“What beauty will save the world?” the librarian repeated to herself as she followed the old lady to the door of Miss Mott’s living room. The Man in the Wing Chair would know the quotation; she’d ask him as soon as she got back to the house.
“For the love of God, Eugenia!”
Startled by the old lady’s exclamation, Miss Prim peered over her shoulder into the room. There in the middle, Miss Mott could be seen sheltering in someone’s arms. Arms that looked nothing like Prudencia’s idea of the arms of grief, arms that were wrapped around her in a gesture of consolation.
“Hello, Mother, I’m glad you’ve arrived,” said the owner of the arms, gently detaching a tearful Miss Mott from around his neck.
Miss Prim was stunned to see Miss Mott in the arms of the Man in the Wing Chair. Naturally, she wasn’t alarmed; she wasn’t a woman prone to alarm. Nor did she jump to conclusions; Eugenia Mott’s age, together with her natural slow-wittedness, made even a glimmer of romance between the two parties inconceivable. But Miss Prim definitely feltsomething. It wasn’t jealousy; Miss Prim was contemptuous of people who were tormented by jealousy. Nor was it repulsion; if she was honest with herself, there was nothing about the Man in the Wing Chair that even remotely inspired repulsion. She would even allow that, aesthetically speaking, her employer was the kind of human being who was pleasing to the eye. Miss Prim wasn’t ashamed of this opinion, nor did she draw any conclusions from it. Her deep-rooted appreciation of beauty led her to arrive at her opinion with just the same ease as she would about a swan or a horse.
So what was she feeling? The answer came to her as she silently observed his unhurried explanations and his mother’s stiff attempts to console the afflicted Miss Mott: she feltenvy. Envy of the middle-aged village schoolteacher? Miss Prim had to admit that it was so. It wasn’t the fact of seeing Miss Mott in her employer’s arms, but the display of attention and sensitivity that he had never shownher. The librarian was inwardly ashamed by the idea that anyone might read in her eyes what she was thinking. And also, for the first time, she wondered if the moment hadn’t come to ask the ladies of San Ireneo to help her find a husband. After all, a reaction such as this could only be the product of what psychotherapists called transference. Maybe she did need a husband. Maybe she needed one urgently.
“Eugenia, I trust you’re not going to say yes,” said the old lady sternly, drawing Miss Prim out of her marital fantasy.
“Mother...” the Man in the Wing Chair admonished.
“You think I shouldn’t forgive him?” asked the teacher plaintively. “Maybe I shouldn’t, but I’ve dreamed so many times of him returning, and he seems so sorry.”
“Nonsense,” snapped the old lady. “Of course he’s sorry. When he left he was still young and full of life, and the world was exciting. Now he’s reaching the age when we all realize it no longer is exciting.”
“Stop it, Mother, that’s enough.”
“You think I should say no?” whimpered Eugenia Mott.
