I

My husband left me four years ago. Why—I don’t precisely understand, and never did. Nor, I suspect, does he. Nowadays, when the catastrophe that it seemed to be and its causes are matters equally inconsequential, I am increasingly disposed to the belief that he brought himself to the point of deserting me because I made such outrageous scenes at first mention of the possibility.

Of course, during the frantic six months that preceded his actual departure, he presented reasons for it, by dozens. I remember some of them. At times he said I had lost my looks. At other times he said I had nothing but looks to recommend me. He said I took no interest in his interests. He said also that I insisted on thrusting myself into all of them. He said I was spiritless, or temperamental; had no moral sense, or was a prude. He said he wanted to marry the woman he really loved; and, that once rid of me, he would not marry anyone else on a bet.

In the four years since, I have listened to the causes given for the dismal ends of many marriages, and have come to believe my husband’s list as sensible as most.

He grew tired of me; hunted about for reasons to justify his weariness; and found them. They seemed valid to him. I suppose if I had tired of him, I should have done the same thing.

But I was not tired of him; so I fought his going ruthlessly and very stupidly. I was sure that if I fought I would win. I have never been as sure of myself since, as I was then, when I was twenty-four. No stirring of any ethical scruples about possessiveness, or idea of the futility of coercing emotion, complicated my efforts to keep what I wanted.

At first, I think, I pretended to high motives—“stay for the sake of our families,” and so on. Later, as I grew panicky, I experimented with argument, rage, anguish, hysteria and threats of suicide; and refused to admit to myself, until five minutes before he left, that he really might go, in spite of everything. . . .

While he finished packing, I sat, beginning to believe it. I tried to think of some last-minute miracle to manage: considered slashing my wrists so that he would have to go get a doctor, and then to stay until I recovered. But I recognized, in a world that had suddenly become an altogether incredible place, that he might just walk out and leave me to die of the slashes.

I hoped I looked devastated; I hoped I looked lovely. Then I remembered that the armchair in which I sat was a wedding present from his Aunt Janet, and wondered what one did with a husband’s relatives’ wedding presents when a husband left. (In New York, one sells them to impecunious young-married friends, ultimately.) The lamp beside me was among the first of the modernistic ones. I remembered that Wanamaker’s had not been paid for it.

The sound of trunk lids closing, stopped. He came in.

He stood there, looking handsome and stubborn and unhappy. I was assailed by recollections of how good-looking I had thought him—first time we met, a house-party at New Haven, four, no five Springtimes. . . .

“I’m going to get a cab for my things,” he said.

“Peter, don’t go,” I said.

“What’s the use of that?” he said.

We regarded each other. And suddenly, after six months in which I had always managed to find one more protest, relevant or otherwise, there were no more.

I ached. We had loved each other for three years, and hated each other half the fourth. It seemed such a long way to have journeyed from a gay and confident beginning.

Apparently, he had a few last words to offer, if I could manage none. He suppressed two or three beginnings.

“When will you divorce me, Patricia?”

I said, “On the far side of hell.”

He shrugged. He was not even angry. He just looked tired.

“Have it your own way, Patty.” (He had not called me “Patty” for months. “Pat,” casually; “Patricia,” furiously.)

Then he said, “Well, don’t mourn me long, old de-ah.” He came and patted my hair, and went out.

My last and silliest inspiration arrived. I thought, “If he doesn’t get his trunks, he can’t go,” and I bolted the apartment door. He came back with the cab driver, and knocked. I sat very still. He shouted, “If you don’t open that door, I’ll break it in.” He would have done it. So I opened the door. He threw his keys on a table. “I shan’t ever need these,” he said.

I went back to sitting in the armchair. Trunks and bags and taxi-man and husband departed, noisily. I thought, “This is the end. Why don’t I cry or something?”