“You’ll agree that we would probably argue for the entire trip.”
“Very probably.”
“I’d want to stay in monasteries and converse with oldstarets, whereas you would insist on booking luxurious, spotlessly clean hotels. I’d want to meander through small, insignificant villages and hamlets on our way; you’d no doubt have our route strictly planned and would find it annoying to stop off at places with little historic or cultural interest. But eventually, despite all these difficulties, you and I would arrive in St. Petersburg.”
“And what then?” asked the librarian, resting her elbows on the table.
“Let me continue, I’m doing my best not to be cryptic. Now imagine that we decided to go on another journey. But this time you wanted to go to St. Petersburg and I wanted to go to Tahiti. What do you think would happen?”
Miss Prim smiled sadly.
“Sooner or later we’d go our separate ways,” she said.
“I see you understand now.”
“Unless,” said the librarian softly after a long pause, “unless I convinced you to go to St. Petersburg instead of Tahiti.”
He took off his gloves and regarded her with interest.
“But that’s part of the problem, Prudencia. I don’t want anyone convincing me to go to St. Petersburg, and if I thought there was any chance of anyone succeeding, I wouldn’t take the risk.”
“But also, the thing is,” Miss Prim searched for the words, “the thing is, you might convince me to go to Tahiti.”
The Man in the Wing Chair was silent for a moment that seemed to the librarian to last an eternity.
“I’d go to the ends of the earth to convince you to come to Tahiti,” he said with a strange intensity to his voice. “I’d do anything in my power, absolutely anything. But I think the journey would be a failure—a terrible failure—unless you were sure at the outset you wanted to know Tahiti.”
“You’ve never tried to convince me to go to Tahiti,” she said quietly.
“How do you know?”
“How do I know what?”
“How do you know I haven’t tried?”
“Because you’ve never forced or pressured me into anything. You’ve never done anything to try to convince me. That’s probably why we’re friends; you’ve always respected my opinions.”
He leaned back in the battered metal summerhouse chair.
“That’s true. I’ve never forced or pressured you. But if I haven’t, it’s only because I thought it would be counterproductive. Don’t attribute virtues to me—since you consider it a virtue—that I don’t possess.”
“Whatever the reason,” said the librarian, “you haven’t gone to the ends of the earth to persuade me to join you in Tahiti.”
“You don’t think so?” he asked with a smile. “Perhaps one day you’ll realize that one can go to the ends of the earth without leaving one’s room, Prudencia.”
“Now you’re being cryptic again,” she said, then went on in a jesting tone: “Tell me something. If I’d wanted to go to Tahiti, if I’d never thought of going to St. Petersburg, would you have dared invite me on that journey with you?”
The Man in the Wing Chair bowed his head with a smile.
Then, looking into her eyes, he asked softly: “And what about you? Would you have come?”
She was about to reply when the gardener’s wrinkled, sullen face appeared at the door.
“It’s time, miss.”
Flushed, Miss Prim got to her feet. Rising at the same time, her employer held out his hand and said: “It’s very cold in St. Petersburg, Prudencia. I know, I’ve been there. But maybe some day...” He broke off.
She crept to the door without a word. On the threshold, she turned and looked at the Man in the Wing Chair one last time.
