What relief it was for me to see her retreating form! The respite allowed me some moments to collect my wits and speak to Bliss in the manner to which we were accustomed, the manner of men who do not know each other well but are regarded as colleagues and thus have immediately a common vocabulary that must be respected before any dislike or love can form.
I did not often encounter William Bliss at school, since he was married and therefore did not reside in college rooms; nor did we ever have occasion to work together, coming as we did from separate disciplines. Also, Bliss was older than I by a good twenty years, and thus I regarded him as from a different generation. He directed me to the front parlor.
I cannot exaggerate the feeling of claustrophobia that room produced, the claustrophobia of months spent indoors, of oxygen seemingly sucked from the air by the plethora of ornate pieces and dozens of objets, each demanding the eye’s attention, so that one felt not only breathless and oppressed, but also as though a migraine were imminent. It was a room that with its rosewood spool turnings and carved oak trefoils, its gilded mirrors and marble-topped tables, its serpentine tendrils of overgrown plants and cast-iron lanterns, its stenciled stripes and floral motifs, its flocked wallpaper and glass curtains, its oriental rugs and Chinese vases and fringed tablecloths and its iron clock — not to mention the dozens of daguerreotypes in silver and wood and marquetry frames that seemed to cover every available surface — leached the vitality from the body. (A man’s body, at least, for one deduced immediately that the room reflected a woman’s taste; even Moxon’s rooms, at their very worst, might have been considered spare by comparison.) Because of all the plants in the windows, only the dimmest light entered the room, and how Bliss had been able to read a newspaper there, I do not know, though perhaps he had been reading in his study. It was evidence at the very least that William Bliss must have loved his wife very much to put up with so much excess.
“Van Tassel, do sit down.”
“Thank you.”
“There might be good. Oh, let me move that for you.”
“No, I can do it.”
“You know, I cannot thank you enough. My wife says you were a hero.”
“Nonsense, it was no more than any man would have done.”
“You are too modest. Is the college abuzz?”
“I daresay. I have canceled my classes.”
“Have you indeed? What a splendid idea.”
Sometimes it seems to me that all of life is a struggle to contain the natural impulses of the body and spirit, and that what we call character represents only the degree to which we are successful in this endeavor. At that time in my life, when I was a younger man, it was often a desperate struggle — to take exercise when one did not want to, to refrain from striking a student who much deserved the blow, to put aside one’s naked ambition in the service of others, to conquer rampant desires that if left unchecked might manifest themselves in shocking behaviors — and as with all struggles, I was occasionally not victorious in these battles. Thus, I fear there were disturbing ruptures in my composure, as when I lost my temper and berated a student most harshly, satisfying the anger in myself but leaving the student trembling; or as when I was unable to refrain from speaking badly of a colleague to gain the favor of another; or as when the mask of impeccable deportment dropped for a moment and revealed the depth of want beneath, as must have happened, however briefly, in the silence that followed Etna’s entry into the room in which her uncle and I were sitting.
Bliss and I stood politely, and already I was anxious lest the color I could feel rising at the sides of my neck and into my face (a further legacy of the Dutch blood of my ancestors) betray me. My mouth trembled, a twitch I sought to hide by pressing a knuckle to my upper lip; and thus I discovered, to my deep chagrin, the blush rising all the while like a flood tide on the night of a full moon, that I had not shaved that morning and a coarse stubble covered my cheek and jaw.
(I was never well — though often joyous, never well — in Etna’s presence.)
She set the tray down and gestured for us to sit.
“Professor Van Tassel. I hope you did not suffer as a result of your service to our family,” she said.
“Van Tassel tells me that twenty perished in the fire,” Bliss said to his niece.
Etna accepted this news with remarkable equanimity, unlike so many of her sex who might have felt it necessary to exclaim at the announcement of ill fortune.
“I am afraid our fire brigade proved itself most inadequate in the event,” I said. “I am sure there will be an inquiry.”
“I should like to know who it was who had the foresight to open those windows in the dining room,” Etna said, offering me a cup of tea. “I should like to thank him personally.”
Already I was jealous of this imagined man — for surely it was a man, though no one had yet stepped forward — for being the recipient of Etna’s gratitude. “One so often does not wish to be singled out for heroics,” I said inanely.
Etna Bliss had a habit, I would later discover, of smiling slightly even though her eyes were expressionless, thus giving the impression of inward thinking while not appearing to be impolite. This she did then; and I will say that when she smiled (lips not parted, only the slightest upward curving of her mouth), her face softened so thoroughly that she seemed altogether the diminutive and pliant woman one hopes for in a lover, and something else — even pretty. Yes, though she was not beautiful, she was pretty in those moments. In later years, it would sometimes be a torment to me to be shut out from the inner thoughts that produced that fleeting smile.
My fingers were slipping badly on the cup handle, causing the china to rattle in its saucer. I was forced to bend to my tea in rather boorish fashion. This disconcerted me so much that I set the cup down and folded my trembling hands in my lap. I crossed my legs and noticed that my foot was jiggling.
“And the little girl?” I asked. “Has she recovered from her ordeal?”
“I rather think that had it not been for the cold, she would have found the event terribly exciting,” Etna said. “This morning, she could speak of little else.”
I watched Etna bring her own cup to her lips and noted that there was no trembling in those long fingers.
“Van Tassel teaches English Literature and Rhetoric at the college,” Bliss said.
“An acceptable passion,” I added, smiling in her direction. She did not smile back, but neither did she look away, and I fancy she studied me for a moment then. “And are you in Thrupp for an extended visit?” I asked, unable to stifle my curiosity any longer.
“Yes, I am,” she said. “You do not like your tea?”
“I like it very much,” I answered, lifting the saucer and once again attempting to put the cup to my lips.
“My niece is here,” Bliss explained, “until such time as she can settle herself, though we are enjoying her company so much that I hope that moment shan’t be for a long while yet.”
“My mother passed away recently,” Etna said. “And unfortunately I was forced to put her house up for sale. I am staying with my aunt and uncle until such time as a settlement of the estate can be made.”
“I am sorry about your mother,” I said, though how could I have been at all sorry if such an event — even death — had brought Etna Bliss to Thrupp? “I hope it was not sudden.”
“No, she had been ill for some time.”
“And your father?” I asked.
“My father passed away some years ago,” she said.
“Forgive me,” I said.
“Not at all,” she said. “I also have two sisters, who are married.”
“I see. And where was your house?”
“In Exeter.”
“Etna’s arrival is most fortuitous,” Bliss said, “since my daughter and her husband are in San Francisco, visiting his family for Christmas.”
“I see,” I said again, remembering vaguely a thin, smartly dressed young woman who had sometimes accompanied Bliss
to college social occasions.
“Evelyn and I should be quite lonely without Etna and my granddaughter in residence. I hope she shall stay on long after my daughter returns.”
I am certain it was then that I first saw a faint look of alarm pass across the features of the woman who sat opposite to me, and I believe I understood at once that the prospect of confinement within those overfurnished rooms was not one that Etna Bliss relished. Perhaps she, too, felt the oxygen being sucked from her body by the side tables and the spiky vines. At that moment, a door within me opened.
I sat forward, already a petitioner.
“You have a most excellent escort in your uncle, I am sure,” I said, “but I should be delighted to show you some of the modest treasures Thrupp has to offer, namely the Metcalf Library and the Elliot Collection. Have you been to either?”
“No, I have not,” she said, and I sensed once again that the prospect of leaving that house might not be an entirely unpleasant one to her.
“Etna has been helpful with my granddaughter, Aurelia,” Bliss said by way of explanation. “But I am afraid we have kept her from enjoying herself with persons her own age.”
I wondered how old Etna Bliss was exactly. Surely twenty-four at the least, but not more than twenty-eight? Just off the cusp of marriageable. I thought I detected in Etna a slightly new scrutiny of me as well, one that had been summoned forth by my bold petition. I wished then I had spent the necessary minutes that morning at my toilet so as to present a more pleasing and prosperous aspect, both to her and to Bliss. He would not think a professor’s salary an adequate sum on which to raise a family (and indeed it was not), and I should have to inform him, when the moment was appropriate, that in fact I was in possession of a modest fortune and could afford to keep a wife. I let my thoughts run ahead in this fantastical manner until Etna abruptly stood.
“I fear I have left my aunt too long,” she said. She put out her hand. “Good-bye, Professor Van Tassel.”
Again, her hand was warm in my own. I could not help glancing once more at the presentation of her bosom, a lovely promontory that seemingly begged to be examined, and I wondered then (how quickly thoughts of possession cause jealousy to blossom) if some other man had once put his hand there, if, in fact, this handsome and stately creature before me had had many lovers. Perhaps this thought — and certainly my wayward glance — betrayed me, for she put a hand to the very place I studied, as if to cover herself.
And then she was gone.
I exchanged some further pleasantries with Bliss, so as not to seem rude, but it was all I could do to linger even a moment longer in that fetid greenhouse, craving as I did not only a breath of fresh air but also an opportunity to think upon the person of Etna Bliss and add to my small cache of memories, which I should continue to mine ceaselessly in her absence: a half dozen sentences, the strain of black-and-bronze silk over a bosom, and an entirely naked, if fleeting, look of fear at the prospect of imprisonment. Armed with these precious, if fragile, possessions, I then went in search of my breakfast.
The view outside my window has deteriorated from the muted blues of the Vermont hills and the navy ribbon of the Connecticut River as we make our way south from White River Junction, where I boarded the train. I have had the good fortune to secure a compartment to myself on this, the first leg of my journey; and as I shall be taking a sleeper from New York City, I have hope of remaining secluded, which is what I wished for when I made the booking. I confess that I am somewhat nervous about the prospect of a visit to southern Florida, since I have heard worrying tales of scorpions and fire ants and malaria-ridden mosquitoes, as well as the terrible heat. Accordingly, I have packed, amongst my books and papers and Etna’s tin cake box, two white linen suits, several thin cotton shirts, and a new pair of canvas shoes. My only difficulty will be my mourning clothes, which I cannot avoid, since I shall have to wear them to my sister’s funeral, the point of my journey. I had these garments taken out of storage and delivered to my tailor directly for pressing, for I could not bear to have to look at them, the clothes giving off, as they must, the scent not only of death, but also of nearly annihilating guilt — not to mention the heart’s ruin.
We are passing now the mill towns of Holyoke and Chicopee in Massachusetts, blights upon the New England landscape that, however necessary, always put me in mind of the drearier essays of Hazlitt and Carlyle. But I have found, if I narrow my eyes just so, that I can blur this geography somewhat and fix my gaze upon only those attributes of these cities that are bearable: the uneven planes of glass in the windows of the abandoned mill buildings, for example; or a polished black-and-maroon automobile parked intriguingly at the end of a deserted street; or a woman in a short skirt and kerchief fighting her way against the wind toward a church. Perhaps it is this trick of willfully blurred but occasionally keen vision, or the rocking of the moving compartment, or the comforting clacking of the train wheels upon the rails, or, more likely, the idea of a desk (a table, really), on which I have set my pen and notebook, inside a moving vehicle — the sense of one’s own library at speed — that invites me now to begin a personal narrative I have long wanted to write, but for which I have always lacked the necessary strength… (And in that ellipsis, I have just engaged in a lengthy debate with myself as to whether or not to reveal, with complete honesty, the events I wish to record, and I have decided that this document will be as worthless as a floating fragment of ash if I resort to fiction, even fiction by omission. So I will tell the entire truth on these pages, even if this causes me the greatest pain — and it will, it will!)…(Though I must add, in a further parenthesis, that I am only too aware that I can cross out offending sentences later and recopy the text and then edit the narrative should I find the resulting truth too unbearable to read. And is this not so for every story one writes or speaks in one’s lifetime? How, for example, will the death of my sister be portrayed to me when I reach my destination? Will the anecdotes of the death watch not change radically depending on the teller of the tale and on the details which have been left out, such as particular physical agonies that a daughter or a cousin might deem too unseemly to reveal?)
I have some understanding of the potential benefits of committing one’s thoughts — and in this case, one’s memories — to paper, for I have published various monographs and essays within my field, most notably my celebrated treatise on Scott’s Marmion, and my less well known but no less critically well received commentary upon the Sir Roger de Coverley Papers in The Spectator. Of course, such a venture as that upon which I now embark this twentieth day of September 1933 is filled more with terror than with imagined reward, for I know not what feelings such a narrative may evoke; but I am determined to do so for the sake of my son, Nicodemus, who will almost certainly one day ask a question it will take all of his father’s courage to answer.
We have had some slight excitement here aboard the train, and I confess I am just now recovering from the shock of the event. Approaching New Haven, there was a great screech and then a jolt of terrific proportions. The car that I was in derailed itself, so that all was upended within my compartment, and I was knocked quite hard against the luggage rack. I have sustained a nasty bruise on my forehead as a result, but I hope that such will have largely disappeared by the time I reach Florida.
I will not write here of the fright the accident gave me, but I did think for a moment that I might die, and in the next instant (how swift the imagination) contemplated my own funeral; but then I began to worry about who should come to such an event, and so I abandoned this avenue of thought. I did ponder, as the trainmen were taking us off the injured vehicle, the prospect of not continuing on my journey and instead returning to New Hampshire. Although it then occurred to me that I should have to do so by train, and, if that were the case, what was the difference between that trip and one to Florida, apart from duration? So I am once again ensconced in my moving library (a different compartment, in fact a sleeper), my books no worse for the acci
dent, but the tin cake box, in which Etna’s letters remain, so severely dented at one corner that it lists badly to one side as it sits across from me on the seat. (Accusingly, I rather think.)
I have just had a good meal of roast pork and prunes with a fruity wine, as well as a shimmering apple custard for dessert, so I am more than a little satisfied and can with complete contentment contemplate a pleasant evening of writing (for this part of my narrative contains not a little joy) and then a night of good sleep, which doubtless shall be swiftly induced by the rhythmic rocking of my vehicle.
Inspired by my brief visit to the Bliss residence, I set out with an ambition not equaled in me before or since to win the hand of the woman whose voice and hair and skin seemed to have permeated every membrane of my body and breached every boundary of my soul. Such a state, I have sometimes thought, must be akin to that rapture that defines the life of the religious mystic — a sense of the body filled with the spirit of God. I hope it is not blasphemous to make such a comparison, but I do not think I have ever been so close to a state of grace as I was in the weeks and months of my courtship of Etna Bliss, a state of grace that showed itself in my speech and gestures and a nearly irrepressible smile. I was seen by others to be not only kinder and more compassionate during this period, but also more physically appealing than I had ever been, perhaps explaining why Miss Bliss was not entirely put off by the prospect of accompanying me on various outings.
Students remarked upon my new leniency, and if they took advantage of it, I did not care. Colleagues, unaccustomed to encountering in me anything but a serious mien, seemed at first puzzled by and then responsive to my transformation. I was asked, during this period, to head up a committee that was to look into the notion of revitalizing the English Literature curriculum for the coming academic year. I was also invited to chaperone the Winter Ball (I remember being delighted and thinking immediately that of course I could invite Etna to share this pleasant duty with me). Noah Fitch, the Senior Professor of English Literature and Rhetoric, asked me to spend Christmas with his family (though secretly I was angling for — but did not receive — an invitation to the Bliss house for Christmas dinner), and John Birch Clark, a former tutor of mine at Dartmouth, gave a soiree to which I was invited. Alas, I could not persuade Etna to join me at this event, since it would require an overnight stay in Hanover, which was, of course, bliss for me to contemplate. (I will try to refrain from playing endlessly upon Etna’s patronym, however tempting; though in those early weeks I exhausted the word in my thoughts, as if I were creating endless variations upon a rhapsodic phrase of music.) During this time, I cultivated a tailor and ordered three new suits of clothes, my previous garments bearing the somewhat shabby look of the schoolmaster. I scarcely remember my weeks at college then. I have no doubt my students’ examinations benefited from my exuberant spirits, for I shed, in those few months, the dull persona of the professor in favor of the more impassioned demeanor of the suitor. If my students learned anything at all that winter term of 1899, it was only that love is capable of transforming even most self-disciplined and emotionally shuttered of persons.