Priscilla and Charybdis: A Story of Alternatives

by Frank Frankfort Moore

“If she were but sitting in that other chair—nay, why the other chair? Why should there not be only one chair between us?” He fancied her sitting where he sat, her head among the cushions—oh, that perfect head, with its glory of hair, shining like some of the embroidery of that satin cushion at his shoulder! He pulled up the pillow and put his cheek close to it. Oh, if only she were there! He would sit on the rest for her feet, and hold them in his hands and put his face down upon the arch of their instep. He had seen her feet that day when she had been watching the game, by the side of her friends, and he knew what they would be like to kiss. And then he would kneel by the side of the chair and put his head down to the cushion that was below hers, so that their faces—their lips—should not be far apart—not further apart than a finger’s breadth—sometimes not even so far.

And they would be silent together, drinking deep of the delight of each other’s silence. For what would they have to talk about on such a night as this?

And while he sat there, abandoning himself to the abandonment of Nature—that glorious Nature whose passionate heart was beating in everything under the stars of this June night—a nightingale began to sing out of the darkness of the shrubbery. He listened to it, feeling that that singing was the most complete expression of the passion of June.

But the incompleteness of his life—sitting there alone, full of that longing which the nightingale could so interpret! Why was she not here beside him—in his arms?

A window was being opened in one of the rooms above where he sat. Why was not that the window of her room? Why was it not opened to let her speak out to him—to whisper to him that she was there—waiting for him—waiting for him? He was a sane man under the influence of a pure passion—a passion whose chief property it is to stimulate the imagination even of the unimaginative; and every sound that he heard breaking the silence of this exquisite summer night had this effect upon him. He felt that he could not live without her. He had fallen into such a condition of thinking about her as made it impossible for him to weigh in connection with her such considerations as prudence, propriety and Mrs. Grundy; all that he knew, or was capable of knowing, was that he loved her, and that he wanted her to be with him always—he loved her and nothing else in the world; he was incapable of loving anything else in the world. She absorbed all the love of which he was capable. He felt that he should be deserving of the fate of Ananias and Sapphira his wife if he had kept back any of his possessions of love from her to bestow upon some one else. He cared nothing for anything in the heaven above or the earth beneath, or the waters that are under the earth, apart from her; but with her he felt that he loved them all!

This was the condition of the man who had never in his life been involved in an affair in which love played any but the most subordinate part. He had had his chances, as most men who have lived for nearly thirty years with no recognized occupation usually have. If he had caused the worldly mothers of eligible daughters (and too many of them) who were aware of his prospects, to hold him in contempt, he had at the same time caused the husbands of uncertain wives no uneasiness whatever He had had his little episodes, of course—those patches of pattern which go so far to relieve the fabric of a man’s life from monotony; but, to continue the simile, this pattern had not been printed in fast colours; it had not stood the test of time or cold water, but had faded out of his life, leaving scarcely a trace behind. He had never believed himself to be capable of rising to the dizzy heights of such a passion as this in whose grasp he felt himself, high above the earth and all earthly considerations. He was astonished at first when he found himself walking about the turf of the tennis ground in order to catch a glimpse of her—detesting the play, and so making it pretty hot for his opponents because it stood between her and himself; cursing the nice people who had found her so nice that they took care to keep her near themselves; and at last leaving the ground in sheer despair of being able to find her alone, so that he could sit beside her and watch her face, or the exquisite lines of her figure down to her fairy feet which he wanted to kiss.

He had driven to his home at something in excess of the legal maximum, hating her (as he thought—the most solid proof of his love for her) and hating himself for being such a fool as he felt himself to be.

The necessity for strategy in talking to his mother helped to bring him within the range of ordinary well-ordered life once more, and he had ridden his soul on the curb, so to speak, ever since; but now his mother had gone to bed, and here he was stretched at full length on his chair, having abandoned himself to his passion—thrown out every ounce of ballast in order that he might get a little nearer to the stars that were as soft as pearls above him.

He had ceased to be astonished at himself. He had reached that rarer atmosphere where the conditions of life are altogether different from those that prevail on lower levels, and where extravagance of thought is simply the result of breathing the air. His intoxication took the form of feeling that he was on the brink of a great happiness—that he was a king on the eve of a great victory—that he was so considerable a person in the world that he could carry out with a high hand every purpose in life. In his heart was all the swagger of those braggart warriors strutting about in armour and feathers on the walls of Troy or beneath them.

And in this condition of intoxication and its consequent hallucination he remained until the stars of the one hour of the summer night waxed paler than pearls in the exquisite dawn of the summer day.