him.
“It has the authentic Hempnell flavor, don’t you think?” she observed.
He read:
Dear Tansy:
Where are you keeping yourself? I haven’t seen you on campus more than once or twice this last month. If you’re busy with something especially interesting, why not tell us about it? Why not come to tea this Saturday, and tell me all about yourself?
Hulda
P.S. You’re supposed to bring four dozen cookies to the Local Alumni Wives’ Reception the Satisrday after.
“Bather confused-sounding,” he said, “but I clearly perceive the keen bludgeon of Mrs. Gunnison. She looked particularly sloppy today.”
Tansy laughed. “Still, we have been pretty antisocial these last weeks. I believe I’ll ask them over for bridge tomorrow night. It’s short notice, but they’re usually free Wednesdays. And the Sawtelles.”
“Do we have to? That henpecker?”
Tansy laughed. “I don’t know how you would ever manage to get along without me —” She stopped short. “I’m afraid you’ll have to endure Evelyn. After all, Hervey’s the other important man in your department, and it’s expected that you see something of each other socially. To make two tables, I’ll invite the Carrs.”
“Three fearful females,” said Norman. “If they represent the average run of professors’ wives, I was lucky to get you.”
“I sometimes think the same thing about professors’ wives’ husbands,” said Tansy.
As they smoked over the coffee, she said hesitatingly, “Norm, I said I didn’t want to talk about last night. But now there’s something I want to tell you.”
He nodded.
“I didn’t tell you last night, Norm, but when we burned those… things, I was terribly frightened. I felt that we were knocking holes in walls that had taken me years to build, and that now there was nothing to keep out the —”
He said nothing, sat very still.
“Oh, it’s hard to explain, but ever since I began to… play with those things, I’ve been conscious of pressure from outside, A vague neurotic fear, something like the way you feel about trucks. Things trying to push their way in and get at us. And I’ve had to press them back, fight back at them with my — It’s like that test of strength men sometimes make, trying to force each other’s hand to the table. But that wasn’t what I was starting to say.
“I went to bed feeling miserable and scared. The pressure from outside kept tightening around me, and I couldn’t resist it, because we’d burned those things. And then suddenly, as I lay in the dark, about en hour after I went to bed, I got the most tremendous feeling of relief. The pressure vanished, as if I’d bobbed up to the surface after almost drowning. And I knew then… that I’d gotten over my craziness. That’s why I’m so happy.”
It was hard for Norman not to tell Tansy what he was thinking. Here was one more coincidence, hut it knocked the others into a cocked hat. At about the same time as he had burned the last charm, experiencing a sensation of fear, Tansy had felt a great relief. That would teach him to build theories on coincidences!
“For I was crazy in a way, dear,” she was saying. “There aren’t many people who would have taken it as you did.”
He said, “You weren’t crazy — which is a relative term, anyway, applicable to anyone. You were just fooled by the cussedness of things.”
“Cussedness?”
“Yes. The way nails sometimes insist on bending when you hammer, as if they were trying to. Or the way machinery refuses to work, Matter’s funny stuff. In large aggregates, it obeys natural law, but when you get down to the individual atom or electron, it’s largely a matter of chance or whim —” This conversation was not taking the direction he wanted it to, and he was thankful when Totem jumped onto the table, creating a diversion.
It turned out to be the pleasantest evening they had spent together in ages.
But next morning when he arrived at Morton, Norman
“It has the authentic Hempnell flavor, don’t you think?” she observed.
He read:
Dear Tansy:
Where are you keeping yourself? I haven’t seen you on campus more than once or twice this last month. If you’re busy with something especially interesting, why not tell us about it? Why not come to tea this Saturday, and tell me all about yourself?
Hulda
P.S. You’re supposed to bring four dozen cookies to the Local Alumni Wives’ Reception the Satisrday after.
“Bather confused-sounding,” he said, “but I clearly perceive the keen bludgeon of Mrs. Gunnison. She looked particularly sloppy today.”
Tansy laughed. “Still, we have been pretty antisocial these last weeks. I believe I’ll ask them over for bridge tomorrow night. It’s short notice, but they’re usually free Wednesdays. And the Sawtelles.”
“Do we have to? That henpecker?”
Tansy laughed. “I don’t know how you would ever manage to get along without me —” She stopped short. “I’m afraid you’ll have to endure Evelyn. After all, Hervey’s the other important man in your department, and it’s expected that you see something of each other socially. To make two tables, I’ll invite the Carrs.”
“Three fearful females,” said Norman. “If they represent the average run of professors’ wives, I was lucky to get you.”
“I sometimes think the same thing about professors’ wives’ husbands,” said Tansy.
As they smoked over the coffee, she said hesitatingly, “Norm, I said I didn’t want to talk about last night. But now there’s something I want to tell you.”
He nodded.
“I didn’t tell you last night, Norm, but when we burned those… things, I was terribly frightened. I felt that we were knocking holes in walls that had taken me years to build, and that now there was nothing to keep out the —”
He said nothing, sat very still.
“Oh, it’s hard to explain, but ever since I began to… play with those things, I’ve been conscious of pressure from outside, A vague neurotic fear, something like the way you feel about trucks. Things trying to push their way in and get at us. And I’ve had to press them back, fight back at them with my — It’s like that test of strength men sometimes make, trying to force each other’s hand to the table. But that wasn’t what I was starting to say.
“I went to bed feeling miserable and scared. The pressure from outside kept tightening around me, and I couldn’t resist it, because we’d burned those things. And then suddenly, as I lay in the dark, about en hour after I went to bed, I got the most tremendous feeling of relief. The pressure vanished, as if I’d bobbed up to the surface after almost drowning. And I knew then… that I’d gotten over my craziness. That’s why I’m so happy.”
It was hard for Norman not to tell Tansy what he was thinking. Here was one more coincidence, hut it knocked the others into a cocked hat. At about the same time as he had burned the last charm, experiencing a sensation of fear, Tansy had felt a great relief. That would teach him to build theories on coincidences!
“For I was crazy in a way, dear,” she was saying. “There aren’t many people who would have taken it as you did.”
He said, “You weren’t crazy — which is a relative term, anyway, applicable to anyone. You were just fooled by the cussedness of things.”
“Cussedness?”
“Yes. The way nails sometimes insist on bending when you hammer, as if they were trying to. Or the way machinery refuses to work, Matter’s funny stuff. In large aggregates, it obeys natural law, but when you get down to the individual atom or electron, it’s largely a matter of chance or whim —” This conversation was not taking the direction he wanted it to, and he was thankful when Totem jumped onto the table, creating a diversion.
It turned out to be the pleasantest evening they had spent together in ages.
But next morning when he arrived at Morton, Norman
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