Stoner

Stoner had turned back when she began to speak, and he looked at her with an amazement that did not show on his face. Her eyes were fixed straight before her, her face was blank, and her lips moved as if, without understanding, she read from an invisible book. He walked slowly across the room and sat down beside her. She did not seem to notice him; her eyes remained fixed straight ahead, and she continued to tell him about herself, as he had asked her to do. He wanted to tell her to stop, to comfort her, to touch her. He did not move or speak.

She continued to talk, and after a while he began to hear what she was saying. Years later it was to occur to him that in that hour and a half on that December evening of their first extended time together, she told him more about herself than she ever told him again. And when it was over, he felt that they were strangers in a way that he had not thought they would be, and he knew that he was in love.

“I must tell you, sir, that I had not considered these material matters before. Edith’s happiness is, of course, my—If you believe that Edith would be unhappy, then I must . . .” He paused, searching for words. He wanted to tell Edith’s father of his love for his daughter, of his certainty of their happiness together, of the kind of life they could have. But he did not go on. He caught on Horace Bostwick’s face such an expression of concern, dismay, and something like fear that he was surprised into silence.”

They went into marriage innocent, but innocent in profoundly different ways. They were both virginal, and they were conscious of their inexperience; but whereas William, having been raised on a farm, took as unremarkable the natural processes of life, they were to Edith profoundly mysterious and unexpected. She knew nothing of them, and there was something within her which did not wish to know of them.

Within a month he knew that his marriage was a failure; within a year he stopped hoping that it would improve. He learned silence and did not insist upon his love. If he spoke to her or touched her in tenderness, she turned away from him within herself and became wordless, enduring, and for days afterward drove herself to new limits of exhaustion.

“Be a shame if he didn’t. I always thought that was one of the main reasons he joined up. To see some of Europe.”

“Europe,” Edith said distinctly.

“Yeah,” Finch said. “Old Dave didn’t want too many things, but he did want to see Europe before he died.”

“I was going to Europe once,” Edith said. She was smiling, and her eyes glittered helplessly. “Do you remember, Willy? I was going with my Aunt Emma just before we got married. Do you remember?”

“I remember,” Stoner said.

So for the first year of her life, Grace Stoner knew only her father’s touch, and his voice, and his love.

Edith’s smile widened; there was a pale smear of lipstick on one of her teeth. She turned to William and asked, “Do I look different?”

“Yes,” William said. “Very charming. Very pretty.”

She laughed at him and shook her head. “Poor Willy,” she said. Then she turned again to her daughter. “I am different, I believe,” she said to her. “I really believe I am.”

But William Stoner knew that she was speaking to him. And at that moment, somehow, he also knew that beyond her intention or understanding, unknown to herself, Edith was trying to announce to him a new declaration of war.

“I’ve never wanted to admit it to myself,” he said with something like tranquility, “but you really do hate me, don’t you, Edith?”

“What?” The amazement in her voice was genuine. “Oh, Willy!” She laughed clearly and unrestrainedly. “Don’t be foolish. Of course not. You’re my husband.”

“Don’t use the child.” He could not keep his voice from trembling. “You don’t have to any longer; you know that. Anything else. But if you keep on using Grace, I’ll—" He did not finish.

After a moment Edith said, “You’ll what?” She spoke quietly and without challenge. “All you could do is leave me, and you’d never do that. We both know it.”

And she would not consider leaving Columbia. If it came to that, she said, she and Grace could always move in with Aunt Emma; she was getting very feeble and would welcome the company.

So he dropped the possibility almost as soon as he broached it. He was to teach that summer, and two of his classes were ones in which he had a particular interest; they had been scheduled before Lomax became chairman. He resolved to give them all of his attention, for he knew that it might be some time before he had a chance to teach them again.

In his forty-third year William Stoner learned what others, much younger, had learned before him: that the person one loves at first is not the person one loves at last, and that love is not an end but a process through which one person attempts to know another.

“Oh, Willy,” Edith said and laughed indulgently. “Did you think I didn’t know about your—little flirtation? Why, I’ve known it all along. What’s her name? I heard it, but I’ve forgotten what it is.”

In its shock and confusion his mind grasped but one word; and when he spoke his voice sounded to him petulantly annoyed. “You don’t understand,” he said. “There’s no—flirtation, as you call it. It’s—”

“Oh, Willy,” she said and laughed again. “You look so flustered. Oh, I know all about these things. A man your age and all. It’s natural, I suppose. At least they say it is.”