A Woman's Will

“Our friend.”

“Why did he say what?”

“Why did he say that I was stupid? I have never been but nice to him.”

She looked startled.

“He never said that you were stupid.”

“You said that he told you that I was stupid.”

“No, I did not. I said that he warned me that – ”

“Oh, it matters not,” he broke in, shrugging his shoulders slightly, “ça ne me fait rien. What he may think of me matters me not at all. Pauvre garçon, he is so most uninteresting himself that I cannot expect interest from him. Ecoutez-donc! for him nothing exists but golf; for him where golf is there is something, elsewhere there is nothing anywhere. What did he say to me of Paris? he said that for him Paris was nothing, because no one plays golf; he said he could throw a dog all over the grounds any morning. I did not ask him what dog, or why a dog, for I thought it was not truly a dog, but just his bad American argot; and, if I must speak truth, pardon me that I find it very good that so stupid a fellow finds me dull. If he found me amusing, I should naturally know that I, too, must be a fool.”

He put the violet to his lips and smiled a little.

“He speaks but English,” he added; “he knows but golf, he has been around the world and has seen nothing. I am quite content to have such a man despise me.”

Then he was silent, biting the purple flower. Rosina rested her chin upon her hand.

“Please go on,” she said briefly, “I am listening.”

He looked at her and smiled.

“I do like Americans,” he went on, “and I see that all the women have small waists, and do not grow so large so soon, but I do not see why they do not learn many things and so become much more nice; why, for example, are they so ignorant of all the world and think their own country alone fine?”

“Are we so?”

“Yes, of a truth. Because I speak English I meet very many of America, and they always want to talk, so naturally I must listen, because no one can arrive at speaking louder surely. And so I must always hear how good the light is in America, and how warm the houses are in America, and how high the buildings are in America, and how much everything has cost – always how much everything has cost; that is always very faithfully told to me. And while I listen I must feel how very narrow to so speak is. And afterwards when I go on to hear how very poor the light is here, and how very cold the hotels are here, I certainly must feel how very ill-bred that is.”

He paused to get a fresh violet, and then continued:

“I see no possible beauty for a place of four walls fifty mètres high; and there can be no health where all is so hot night and day; and so I only listen and am content to be counted so stupid. Why do you go to Zurich Monday?”

The question terminated his monologue with such suddenness that she started involuntarily.

“Why do you ask?”

“Naturally because I want to know.”

“I go because I am anxious to be out of Switzerland before the first of July.”

“But Switzerland is very nice in July.”

“I know; and it is also very crowded.”

“Where shall you be in July?”

“I am not sure; probably in the Tyrol.”

He got up from his seat, went to the chimney-piece, lifted up a vase and turned it about in his hand with a critical air. Then he faced her again and said, with emphasis:

“I shall remain here all summer.”

“In Lucerne?”

“Yes; not perhaps always at the hotel, but somewhere on the lake. I am born here.”

“You are Swiss, then?”

“Yes; if I am Swiss because I am born here.”

“Were you born in Lucerne?”

“No, but at a place which my father had then by Fluellen. It is for that that I love the Vierwaldstattersee.”

“I wish that I had been born here,” Rosina murmured thoughtfully.

“Where are you born?”

“In the fourth house of a row of sixteen, all just alike.”

“How most American!”

She laughed a little.

“I amuse you?” he asked, with a look of pleased non-understanding.

“Oh, so very much!”

He came a little forward and smiled down at her.

“We are really friends, are we not?”

She looked into his big, earnest eyes.

“I think so,” she answered simply, with a little nod.

He moved slowly across the room and, going to the window, turned his back upon her.

“It is cooler out now, let us go out and walk. I like to walk, and you do too, do you not? yes?”

“Oh, please stop saying ‘yes’ like that, it makes me so horribly nervous.”

He continued to look out of the window.

“Are you nervous?” he said. “I am sorry, because it is very bad to be nervous.”