Chapter 22 Chapter 21

My habit of keeping silent when I was unhappy, or rather, my cold and hateful feature of being silent when I was unhappy, used to frighten Valeria into a bewilderment.She's always whimpering and crying and saying, "Ce qui me rend folle, cest que je ne sais a quoi tu penses quand tu es commea" I try to keep quiet about Charlotte too - and she just chirps Carried on talking, not taking my silence seriously at all.What an astonishing woman!I used to retreat to my old room, which is now a formal studio, muttering that after all I had a scholarly treatise to write, while Charlotte happily went on beautifying the home, Write a few letters, talk on the phone in a soft, vibrating voice.From the window through the quivering varnished aspen leaves I could see her crossing the street, content to post a letter to Miss Phelan's sister.

The week since our last visit to the still sands of Hourglass Lake, with scattered showers and overcast skies, was the most depressing week I can remember.Then came two or three dim gleams of hope—before finally the sun broke through. Then it occurred to me that I had a well-organized and sound mind, and it would be better to use it.If I dared not interfere with my wife's plans for her daughter (sunburned darker and hotter every day in hopelessly distant sunny weather), I would Surely one can think of a way of asserting one's authority generally, which may later be used on a particular occasion.Charlotte herself offered me a good chance one evening.

"I have some unexpected news for you," she said, scooping up a ladle of soup, and looking at me affectionately. "In autumn, we are going to England." I gulped down my ladle of soup, wiped my mouth on a pink napkin (oh, the cool, gorgeous napkins at the Milano Hotel!), and said, "I have some unexpected news for you too, My dear. Neither of us is going to England." "Yo, what's going on?" she said, looking more surprised than I expected--looking at my hand (where I was automatically folding, tearing, and crumpled, then torn).But my smiling face reassured her somewhat.

"It's a very simple question," I replied, "even in the nicest of families, like ours, not all the decisions are made by the wife. Some things have to be made by the husband. I can well imagine a situation like yours. The thrill a healthy American girl must feel when she crosses the Atlantic on the same ocean liner as Mrs. Bumble—or frozen meat king Sam Bumble, or a Hollywood slut. I too No doubt, when you and I are pictured, your eyes are frank and bright, and I suppress my envious admiration when I look at the Palace Guards, the Red Guards, the Guards of the Tower of London, or whatever they are called. , we'd make a pretty pretty ad for a travel agency. But I just happen to dislike Europe very much, including happy, old England. You know I have only some very bleak associations with that decaying old world. Your magazine The colorful advertisements in the TV show can't change the situation."

"Honey," said Charlotte, "I really—" "No, wait a minute. The present problem is only accidental. I care about the general trend. When you asked me to leave my work and spend the afternoon sunbathing on the lake, I readily obeyed you, and for the sake of You became a tanned, charismatic man instead of a scholar and, well, a teacher. When you led me to play bridge and drink whiskey with the lovely Farlows, I meekly Follow you. No, wait a minute. When you decorate your home, I don't interfere with your plans. When you decide—when you make decisions on various issues, I may completely, or say, Some disagree with you—but I say nothing. I don't mind individual issues, but I can't ignore general ones. I like to be at your disposal, but every game has its rules. I It's not being mean, I'm not being mean at all. Don't do that again. I also have a small but clear voice for half the family."

Then she came to me, knelt down, shook her head slowly but violently, and tugged at my pants.She said she was never aware of the situation.She said I was her ruler and god.She said Louise was gone, let's go to bed right away and make out.She said I had to forgive her or she would die. This little thing made me very proud.I whispered to her that it wasn't a matter of asking for forgiveness, but a matter of changing her style.Determined to make the most of this favorable opportunity, I spent a good deal of time coldly and gloomily setting to work—or at least pretending to be. The "studio couch" that used to be in my room has long since become the couch it's always been.Charlotte had told me from our first union that the room would slowly be converted into an official "writer's den."Two or three days after the "British Incident" I was sitting in a very comfortable new easy chair with a large volume of books on my lap when Charlotte knocked on the door with her ring finger and strolled into the room.How different her movements are from my Lolita's!When Luo Mianta used to come to see me in her dirty blue jeans, she always smelled of the fruit trees in the nymphet land, looked clumsy, crazy, and seemed a little bit depraved, and the clothes under the shirt The buttons weren't fastened either.However, let me tell you one thing.Behind the brashness of little Haze and the composure of big Haze flowed an elusive energy, exhaled the same breath, murmured the same voice.A great French doctor once told my father that among close relatives even the slightest gurgling of the stomach has the same "sound."

In this way Charlotte strolled into the room.She felt that everything was out of harmony between us.The night before and the night before that, as soon as we went to bed, I pretended to be asleep and got up at dawn. She gently asked me if she was "bossing me". "Not at the moment," I said, turning over volume C of the Girls' Encyclopedia and examining a picture printed on the "bottom edge," as the printers called it. Charlotte went to a small mock-mahogany table with a drawer and put one hand on it.The little table was undoubtedly ugly, but that did not bother her.

"I've been meaning to ask you," she said (not coquettishly, but practically), "why did you keep this thing locked up? Are you going to keep it in this room? It looks so stupid .” "Let it go," I said.I was flipping to "Camping in Scandinavia". "Do you have a key?" "It's hidden." "Oh……" "Lock up the love letter." She gave me one of those wounded doe eyes that irritated me a lot, and then, not quite sure whether I meant it or how to carry on with the conversation, she stood by and watched me go slowly. Flipping through pages (campus, Canada, pocket camera, candy), staring at the window instead of the glass, tapping on it with sharp, rose-almond-shaped nails.

Presently (I turned to "Canoeing" or "Grey-backed Mallard"), she came to my chair and sat down on the arm of it with a leisurely heavy plop, and I was immediately filled with the same kind of love my first wife had. The smell of that used perfume. "Would Your Excellency wish to spend the fall just here?" she asked, pointing with her pinky to an autumn scene in a conservative eastern state. "Why?" (Very clearly and slowly.) She shrugged. (Probably Harold used to take time off like this. Fishing season. Reflexive to her.) "I think I know what it is," she said, still pointing with her little finger. "I remember there was a hotel there, 'The Enchanted Hunter'. It looked quaint, didn't it? The food was excellent. And nobody bothered anyone."

She rubbed her face against my temples.Valeria soon stopped doing so. "Would you like something special for supper, dear? John and Joan are coming over later." I snorted in reply.She kissed my bottom lip, said cheerfully that she was going to bake a cake (a tradition from my days as a lodger and thought I loved her cakes), and then left alone I am free. I carefully placed the open book where she had sat (the pages of which used to flow down like waves, but were blocked by a pencil stuck in the book), and examined where the key was hidden. : The key is tucked away awkwardly under an expensive old safety razor I used to use; I stopped using that razor after she bought me a much cheaper and better one up.Was this an ideal hiding place—under the razor, in the recess of that velvet-lined box?That box was stored in a small case that held my various business papers.Is there anything else I can improve?Weird how hard it is to hide something - especially when one's wife is constantly fiddling with furniture.