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Book 1Fifteen
On the morning after they heard Otello, Lucy cut out her practising because Harry had asked her to take him through the Art Museum. It was a rather gentle, sunny morning, and as they walked over toward Michigan Avenue they stopped to do a little shopping. Lucy caught at every pretext for delay. Last year when they went through the Museum together they had disagreed violently about almost everything, and had come away in a bad humour. Marshall Field`s was a much better place for Harry, and it was fun choosing handkerchiefs and neckties for him. But he kept looking at his watch, and got her to the galleries soon after they were open. He was careful not to make any comments that would irritate her; she could actually feel caution in his step and voice. What a fury she must have been last spring! Not once did she catch that smart squint in his eyes. He did, occasionally, square his shoulders before a picture and twist his mouth awry, as if he would like to call the painter`s bluff; but he did not try to be funny. When they reached a loan exhibit of French Impressionists he broke down, and began pointing out figures that were not correctly drawn.
"Now, you`ll admit, Lucy--" he would begin persuasively.
"Certainly I admit, but I don`t think it matters. I don`t know anything about pictures, but I think some are meant to represent objects, and others are meant to express a kind of feeling merely, and then accuracy doesn`t matter."
"But anatomy is a fact," he insisted, "and facts are at the bottom of everything."
She did not answer him impatiently, as she would have done once, but bent her head a little and spoke in a quiet voice which disconcerted him. "Are they, Harry? I`m not so sure."
He didn`t reply to this. Something in her tone had made him feel very tenderly toward her. She must be tired, he thought. He saw a door open, leading to one of the stone porticos at the back of the building, that looked on the Lake. He touched Lucy`s elbow.
"Let`s go out on that balcony and get some fresh air."
The morning had grown warmer, but a mist had come up which hid the sky-line. The water was faintly blue, and above it everything was soft; a silvery mist with changing blue and green at the heart of it, far out. Even the grey gulls flew by on languid wings. The air felt full of spring showers. On a morning like this . . . Lucy felt an ache come up in her throat. When she looked off at that soft promise of spring, spring already happening in the colours of the sky before it had come on earth, such a longing awoke in her that it seemed as if it would break her heart. That happiness she had so lately found, where was it? Everything threatened it, the way of the world was against it. It had escaped her. She had lost it as one can lose a ravishing melody, remembering the mood of it, the kind of joy it gave, but unable to recall precisely the air itself. And she couldn`t breathe in this other kind of life. It stifled her, woke in her a frantic fear-- the fear of falling back into it forever. If only one could lose one`s life and one`s body and be nothing but one`s desire; if the rest could melt away, and that could float with the gulls, out yonder where the blue and green were changing!
A far-away voice was saying something about lunch. She came back with a start.
"No, Harry, please. I have a headache, and I want to get home as quickly as I can. If I am to go with you tonight, I must lie down and try to get over this."
All that afternoon Lucy stayed quietly in her room. She told herself that she would see Harry Gordon`s vacation through and do her best for him. There shouldn`t be one flash of temper to regret afterwards. It wasn`t his fault that she had changed so much. She was sorry now that she had ever let him come at all, but she must make the best of it. She had enjoyed going to four operas, one right after another. She hadn`t heard a great many in her life; she was too busy and too poor. They had listened like two young people who had good seats and who were there to be pleased with everything. Tonight they would hear Traviata, and for tomorrow, Saturday, they had chosen the matinee instead of the evening performance, because Lucy had never heard Lohengrin, and she especially wanted to.
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