Free Encounters: stories by Elizabeth Bowen, Robarts - University of Toronto Page A

nothing wrong in your sort of egoism. It's only your self-consciousness that brings it to life at all. In the middle

    of your abject and terrible unselfishness you feel a tiny strain of resistance, and it worries you so much that it has rubbed you sore. It's mere morbidity on your part, that's what I condemn about it. Turn your family out into the street and carouse for a fortnight and you'll be a better man at the end of it. Mine is healthy animal spirits, mine is sheer exuberance; yours is a badgered, hectic, unavowed resistance to the people you love best in the world because, unknowingly, you still love yourself better."
    "You wouldn't know the meaning of healthy animal spirits with six children on my income. I suppose what you are trying to say about me, is... the turning of the worm?"
    "No,"said Marcia,"not exactly turning. I wonder if I am making a fool of myself? I don't believe you are an egoist at all. My ideas are beginning to desert me; I am really incapable of a sustained monologue on any subject under the sun. You see, generally I talk in circles; I mean, I say something cryptic, that sounds clever and stimulates the activities of other people's 109

    minds, and when the conversation has reached a cHmax of briUiancy I knock down my hammer, Hke an auctioneer, on somebody else's epigram, cap it with another, and smile round at them all with calm assurance and finality. By that time everybody is in a sort of glow, each believing that he or she has laid the largest and finest of the conversational eggs.
    "Goodness, youVe finished. Would you just call through the window and ask that woman if there's anything else to eat? She's been taking such an interest in our conversation and our profiles. Say strawberries if possible, because otherwise I have a premonition it will be blancmange."
    The stranger put his head and shoulders through the window. Marcia studied his narrow back in the shabby tweed jacket, his thinning hair and the frayed edges of his collar. One hand gripped the back of his chair; she thought,"How terrible to see a man who isn't sunburnt."She listened to his muhied conversation with the waitress, and pushed her plate away, deploring the oiliness of the salad.
    With flushed face he reappeared, and two plump arms came through the window after him, removed their plates, and clattered on to the table a big bowl of strawberries and a small greyish blancmange in a thick glass dish.
    "I wonder if I'm tiring you,"said Marcia remorsefully."I know you came out here to be quiet, and I've done nothing but sharpen my theories on you ever since we made common cause against the coffee-room—it was worth while, too, wasn't it? Never mind, I'll let you go directly after lunch, and you shall find the tranquillity you came to look for underneath a lime-tree loud with bees. (I never take the slightest interest in Nature, but I always remember that touch about the bees. I came across it in a book.) I see a book in your pocket. If I wasn't here you'd be reading with it propped up against the water-jug, blissfully dipping your strawberries into the salt and wondering why they tasted so funny. But do let's eat them in our fingers, anyway. I never eat them with a spoon unless there's cream.... My husband says he finds me too exhilarating for a prolonged tete-a-tete''

    He smiled at her with embarrassment, then leant his elbow on the warm rail of the verandah and looked down on to the road.
    "It's so hot,"he said with sudden petulance,"so beastly hot. I didn't realise how hot it was going to be or I wouldn't have bicycled out."
    "It's not very hot here, is it 1 Those leaves"
    "No, but I was thinking about the hotness everywhere else. This makes it worse."
    "Fancy bicycling. Do let me give you some blancmange; I think it is an heirloom. Did you come far?"
    "From Lewisham."He added,"I work in a publisher's office."
    "A publisher—how interesting. I wonder if you could do anything to help a boy I know; such a charming boy! He has