Miss Prim clenched her jaw so tightly that her teeth ground together. Losing her temper now would be the worst thing she could do when she was being accused of sentimentality. Instead, she must prove that sentiment did not hamper proper reasoning. She struggled for a few seconds that seemed to last for ever.
“Tell me,” she said with forced sweetness, “how do you manage to be so cold?”
He looked up in amazement.
“Cold? Me? You think I’m cold?”
“You detest sentimentality; you just said so.”
“That’s true, I do, but it doesn’t make me a cold person. Sentimentality is one thing, sentiment is another, Prudencia. Sentimentality is a pathology of the mind, or of the emotions, if you like, which swell up, outgrow their proper place, go crazy, obscure judgment. Not being sentimental doesn’t mean that one lacks feelings, but simply that one knows how to channel them. The ideal—and I’m sure you agree—is to possess a cool head and a tender heart.”
The librarian remained silent for a few moments while she released her jaw. As usual, this discussion with him had given her a headache. She didn’t understand the logic of the conversation. How had they reached this point? When had they gone from women’s literature to the pathology of the emotions?
“Dickens used to read Mrs. Gaskell. Your hero, Cardinal Newman, read Jane Austen. And Henry James read Edith Wharton,” she said determinedly.
“Three good writers. Three intelligent and unsentimental women.”
“The question is not whether they’re good or bad writers, or whether they’re sentimental. The question is whether there was a time when men—great men—read novels written by women.”
“True,” said the Man in the Wing Chair, pushing his seat even farther away from the fireplace. “But in my opinion this is for two good reasons. One, a woman publishing a novel still had an allure of audacity; and two, women provided a reasonable but different view of the world. Nowadays women’s writing has lost its capacity to make us change our gaze, look at things in a different way. When I read a novel by a woman I get the impression that the author is doing nothing more than looking at herself.”
Miss Prim stared fixedly at her employer. She was shocked by how easily he maintained all sorts of outrageous opinions. Most people would feel ashamed of thinking, let alone saying, such things. He said them calmly, almost cheerfully.
“Maybe women look at themselves now because they’ve spent too long looking at others,” she muttered.
“Come on, Prudencia, that’s much too simplistic for you.”
“You’re wrong,” she said, leaping to her feet and going back to the shelf she’d been working on. “Nothing is too simplistic for me. I’m a woman ruled by sentiment, remember?”
The Man in the Wing Chair stood and, gathering up his hat, coat, and scarf, headed to the library door.
“I’d say you’re a woman who looks at herself far too much.”
“Really?” she heard herself say in a trembling voice, her back to him. “And what about you? Do you look at yourself?”
He turned his head and said with a half smile from the door: “I have to confess that I find it much more interesting to look at you.”
As soon as he left the room, Miss Prim’s trembling turned into a stream of fat tears that poured silently down her face. She felt she had been insulted, ill-treated, and mocked. She was tired of the dialectical game where she was the mouse and he the cat. But one thing annoyed and hurt her more than anything else: the conviction that he was quite unaware of his ill-treatment of her and never had the slightest intention of playing any game; the awareness that the person who had caused her anguish was quite oblivious of her drama—her petty, silly drama; and the fact that, much to her regret, that person had become important to her. He was the question mark on Hortensia and Emma’s list of potential husbands; that was the truth, and it was useless to try to hide it from herself any longer. She knew the symptoms. She knew them all too well.
What did he really think of her? Miss Prim freely confessed her ignorance on the matter. At times he seemed attracted to her, no point denying it; but then at others he plainly saw in her all of humanity’s deformities and character flaws, making her believe that the attraction existed only in her mind. A deeply sentimental and somewhat impulsive mind, as he made sure to remind her regularly. It was also possible that his attitude was due to his interest in becoming some sort of Pygmalion and turning her into the perfect example of her sex. Miss Prim shuddered at the possibility of having to play the part of Galatea or, even worse, Eliza Doolittle, in that particular drama. But that wasn’t all: there was a third, even more terrible hypothesis, so terrible that she shivered at the thought. Maybe he spent his spare time engaging in these wide-ranging debates with her because, purely and simply, he had nothing better to do.
At this point, the librarian’s distress overflowed. She had to do something to settle her doubts. She must do something.
After discreetly blowing her nose, she gazed out of the French windows that opened onto the garden. Snow was still falling in large, heavy flakes. Walking to the village in such weather was unthinkable, but she needed to get there urgently. The time had come to have a frank conversation with the ladies of San Ireneo: to lay her cards on the table in the ridiculous detective game of searching for a husband, consult their opinion on the situation with her employer and ask them what she should do. As she gloomily watched the snow, sure the conversation would have to wait until the weather improved, she caught sight of the gardener emerging from the greenhouse and heading to the garage. Lightning-quick, she jumped to her feet, grabbed a warm coat, scarf, and Wellington boots, and rushed out to ask for a lift to the village.
The journey was slow and tedious, partly because driving in the snow required extreme caution, partly because the gardener kept his mouth resolutely shut out of loyalty to the cook, with whom he had been friends for many years. At last they reached the village, and he dropped Miss Prim at Hortensia Oeillet’s house. The florist was surprised and delighted to see her.
“My dear Prudencia, what an unexpected pleasure on such a dreadful afternoon! Come in, take off your coat, and sit down while I make tea,” she cried.
“Please, don’t trouble yourself, I’ve just had tea. But a cup of hot chocolate would do me good. And would you mind preparing a liter of coffee?”
Hortensia Oeillet looked at her guest in dismay.
“A liter of coffee? My goodness, this must be serious.”
“No, it’s not serious but it is important. I’ve come because I need advice, from you and your friends, all of you eminently sensible ladies. What I mean is, I need you to convene a sort of...”
“Extraordinary conclave?”
