and full
of desire. We kept the thing a guilty secret, and were resolved to
satisfy it against all the world. In this state it was we drifted
in the most accidental way against some other blindly seeking
creature, and linked like nascent atoms.
We were obsessed by the books we read, by all the talk about us
that once we had linked ourselves we were linked for life. Then
afterwards we discovered that other was also an egotism, a thing
of ideas and impulses, that failed to correspond with ours.
So it was, I say, with the young of my class and most of the young
people in our world. So it came about that I sought Nettie on the
Sunday afternoon and suddenly came upon her, light bodied, slenderly
feminine, hazel eyed, with her soft sweet young face under the shady
brim of her hat of straw, the pretty Venus I had resolved should
be wholly and exclusively mine.
There, all unaware of me still, she stood, my essential feminine,
the embodiment of the inner thing in life for me—and moreover an
unknown other, a person like myself.
She held a little book in her hand, open as if she were walking
along and reading it. That chanced to be her pose, but indeed she was
standing quite still, looking away towards the gray and lichenous
shrubbery wall and, as I think now, listening. Her lips were a
little apart, curved to that faint, sweet shadow of a smile.
Section 3
I recall with a vivid precision her queer start when she heard the
rustle of my approaching feet, her surprise, her eyes almost of
dismay for me. I could recollect, I believe, every significant word
she spoke during our meeting, and most of what I said to her. At
least, it seems I could, though indeed I may deceive myself. But
I will not make the attempt. We were both too ill-educated to
speak our full meanings, we stamped out our feelings with clumsy
stereotyped phrases; you who are better taught would fail to catch
our intention. The effect would be inanity. But our first words
I may give you, because though they conveyed nothing to me at the
time, afterwards they meant much.
"YOU, Willie!" she said.
"I have come," I said—forgetting in the instant all the elaborate
things I had intended to say. "I thought I would surprise you—"
"Surprise me?"
"Yes."
She stared at me for a moment. I can see her pretty face now as
it looked at me—her impenetrable dear face. She laughed a queer
little laugh and her color went for a moment, and then so soon as
she had spoken, came back again.
"Surprise me at what?" she said with a rising note.
I was too intent to explain myself to think of what might lie in
that.
"I wanted to tell you," I said, "that I didn't mean quite . . .
the things I put in my letter."
Section 4
When I and Nettie had been sixteen we had been just of an age and
contemporaries altogether. Now we were a year and three-quarters
older, and she—her metamorphosis was almost complete, and I was
still only at the beginning of a man's long adolescence.
In an instant she grasped the situation. The hidden motives of her
quick ripened little mind flashed out their intuitive scheme of
action. She treated me with that neat perfection of understanding
a young woman has for a boy.
"But how did you come?" she asked.
I told her I had walked.
"Walked!" In an instant she was leading me towards the gardens.
I MUST be tired. I must come home with her at once and sit down.
Indeed it was near tea-time (the Stuarts had tea at the old-fashioned
hour of five). Every one would be SO surprised to see me. Fancy
walking! Fancy! But she supposed a man thought nothing of seventeen
miles. When COULD I have started!
All the while, keeping me at a distance, without even the touch of
her hand.
"But, Nettie! I came over to talk to you?"
"My dear boy! Tea first, if you please! And besides—aren't we
talking?"
The "dear boy" was a new note, that sounded oddly to me.
She quickened her pace a little.
"I wanted to explain—" I began.
Whatever I wanted to explain I had no chance to do so. I
of desire. We kept the thing a guilty secret, and were resolved to
satisfy it against all the world. In this state it was we drifted
in the most accidental way against some other blindly seeking
creature, and linked like nascent atoms.
We were obsessed by the books we read, by all the talk about us
that once we had linked ourselves we were linked for life. Then
afterwards we discovered that other was also an egotism, a thing
of ideas and impulses, that failed to correspond with ours.
So it was, I say, with the young of my class and most of the young
people in our world. So it came about that I sought Nettie on the
Sunday afternoon and suddenly came upon her, light bodied, slenderly
feminine, hazel eyed, with her soft sweet young face under the shady
brim of her hat of straw, the pretty Venus I had resolved should
be wholly and exclusively mine.
There, all unaware of me still, she stood, my essential feminine,
the embodiment of the inner thing in life for me—and moreover an
unknown other, a person like myself.
She held a little book in her hand, open as if she were walking
along and reading it. That chanced to be her pose, but indeed she was
standing quite still, looking away towards the gray and lichenous
shrubbery wall and, as I think now, listening. Her lips were a
little apart, curved to that faint, sweet shadow of a smile.
Section 3
I recall with a vivid precision her queer start when she heard the
rustle of my approaching feet, her surprise, her eyes almost of
dismay for me. I could recollect, I believe, every significant word
she spoke during our meeting, and most of what I said to her. At
least, it seems I could, though indeed I may deceive myself. But
I will not make the attempt. We were both too ill-educated to
speak our full meanings, we stamped out our feelings with clumsy
stereotyped phrases; you who are better taught would fail to catch
our intention. The effect would be inanity. But our first words
I may give you, because though they conveyed nothing to me at the
time, afterwards they meant much.
"YOU, Willie!" she said.
"I have come," I said—forgetting in the instant all the elaborate
things I had intended to say. "I thought I would surprise you—"
"Surprise me?"
"Yes."
She stared at me for a moment. I can see her pretty face now as
it looked at me—her impenetrable dear face. She laughed a queer
little laugh and her color went for a moment, and then so soon as
she had spoken, came back again.
"Surprise me at what?" she said with a rising note.
I was too intent to explain myself to think of what might lie in
that.
"I wanted to tell you," I said, "that I didn't mean quite . . .
the things I put in my letter."
Section 4
When I and Nettie had been sixteen we had been just of an age and
contemporaries altogether. Now we were a year and three-quarters
older, and she—her metamorphosis was almost complete, and I was
still only at the beginning of a man's long adolescence.
In an instant she grasped the situation. The hidden motives of her
quick ripened little mind flashed out their intuitive scheme of
action. She treated me with that neat perfection of understanding
a young woman has for a boy.
"But how did you come?" she asked.
I told her I had walked.
"Walked!" In an instant she was leading me towards the gardens.
I MUST be tired. I must come home with her at once and sit down.
Indeed it was near tea-time (the Stuarts had tea at the old-fashioned
hour of five). Every one would be SO surprised to see me. Fancy
walking! Fancy! But she supposed a man thought nothing of seventeen
miles. When COULD I have started!
All the while, keeping me at a distance, without even the touch of
her hand.
"But, Nettie! I came over to talk to you?"
"My dear boy! Tea first, if you please! And besides—aren't we
talking?"
The "dear boy" was a new note, that sounded oddly to me.
She quickened her pace a little.
"I wanted to explain—" I began.
Whatever I wanted to explain I had no chance to do so. I
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