Free The Equations of Love by Ethel Wilson

she thought humbly that Myrtle and Mort were an ideal couple. These little incursions into life last her for some time. She wants no more. She could not have less. She receives no mail. She writes no letters. At Christmas time she selects two cards and sends them to her married sisters. She receives, latterly, two cards.
    By the time, now, that Vicky Tritt is thirty-nine, she is little Miss Tritt who has drawn her cloak of anonymity so closely about her that the dreaming eye does not observe her. She is anonymous, as a fly is anonymous. To the alert and glancing eye she is like so many others that she is indistinguishable, but is recognisable when seen repeatedly in the same place, as, behind the counter where she sells the notions; or customarily leaning against the rail down by the docks watching – as you do‐theseagulls; or sitting, withdrawn, in a pew at St. James Church; but you will not know her again when you see her in another place; the place has to be united with the person before Miss Tritt exists as Miss Tritt. This satisfies her. She has not thought all this out, but she has so ordered (if that definite word may be used) her timorous life that she is able to avoid all notice on the part of potential acquaintances, or, worse than that, of friends. She is sufficient unto herself, in a parched way, and yet she is sometimes lonely with a vast loneliness that for a dreadful moment appals. She goes her way by day and by night and all is well enough; and then suddenly she is aware of a loneliness which is insupportable. What makes her suddenly aware and alone? It is not the crowd in the street, for the anonymity of the continually passing crowd suits her; it is, perhaps, the greeting with delight of woman with woman, of man with woman – not of man with man, which stirs nothing; it is the ascending again of the stairs and going into her bedroom and feeling in the dark for the light which hangs small and naked in the middle of the room; it is the emptiness of time and occupation, the desert that lies between now and sleep; it is the inexplicable fusion of something within her and something without. Yet she does not desire company; like the fakir who has for so long held his arm unused that it is now atrophied, so Miss Tritt’s power of friendship is vanished, gone. The fakir forgets his useless arm; Miss Tritt forgets, on the whole, that she is lonely.
    But this special loneliness, which at unexpected times overwhelms her because it seems as though it will never end – and it will not – is as it were a revelation of something vast which lies concealed behind a curtain. It is insupportable, like the sorrow of humanity, and one dare not look, for, like the sorrow of humanity, it is there. This much she knows fromthe frightening glimpse which she for a moment sees. She averts her gaze and must at once busy herself with small tangible objects. She will walk. She will devise activities to keep her hands and body occupied. So she hastens to avoid the revelation of her insupportable loneliness by means of small physical activities which at last – through the similar years – become a routine. This routine at length rules her life, though not unpleasantly. From this routine, arid as it may seem to those whose lives, fortunately for them, can hardly contain their fullness, there grow, at least, small pleasures, and, at last, a continuing blessing.
    Seven days are in a week and Vicky has to fill them. Take away the day’s work and there remain only the evenings, occasional Saturday afternoons, and Sundays to be filled. Mercifully, she eats and sleeps. She prepares her evening meal in her room – no, not a meal, it is just something to eat. Then, if the season is summer and the day still light, she will walk down to the waterfront – it is not far – and watch the seagulls. They, too, are as anonymous as the crowd of people on Hastings Street and make no demands upon her. How pleasant it is to lean against the rail,