The Bleeding Heart by Marilyn French Read Free Book Online

is that foolish?”
    “Because you can’t do it! Surely you must know that!”
    No, he doesn’t. President of his class, captain of the basketball team, engineering school, microbiology….
    “Well, anyway, I couldn’t do it.”
    “I’m sure your children are wonderful,” he said, squeezing her foot.
    She gazed at him. “Anyway, when Sydney—my youngest—was about two, I went back nights for a Ph.D. To BU. Can’t get a doctorate nights at Harvard. And then I got it and I began to teach, and I’ve been teaching ever since. I got tenure at Emmings a few years ago. I’ve had a couple of books published.”
    “Really? What about?” Eager.
    “The Renaissance. My first book was on the underlying meaning of the moral images in the great poets—Sidney, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton.”
    “Oh.” His face closed down again. “I’ve read Shakespeare, of course. I read a little Milton, but recall none of it. My favorite writer of that period is Bacon, Francis Bacon.”
    Of course. Would be. Francis Bacon, the great experimenter, believed in science, believed in spreading the word, overcoming medieval superstitions. Beginning of scientific world, popularization, industrial revolution. Yes.
    “The one who caught cold and died because he was experimenting with freezing food and went out into the snow to freeze a chicken?”
    He laughed. “The one.”
    Her back hurt and she realized she was hunched over more than usual. She pulled her shoulders back.
    “And what did he do? Your husband?”
    “He had a series of jobs, couldn’t find what he liked. He went into the mail-order business with his father, finally.”For years and years of discontent, he dallied while you played patient wife and worried about money: yes, I understand, Anthony, of course you should find something you really enjoy. After all, you will have to keep doing it for the rest of your life. Until Daddy got impatient and scooped him up: you’ve got to settle down, boy, you’re a father.
    “I wasn’t happy in the marriage, and we got divorced. The kids and I moved to Cambridge—we had been living in Newton. And,” she shrugged, “life went on. Both the kids went to Emmings. Tony’s a musician, he plays about five instruments, but prefers the guitar. He’s very talented. He works in a band out on the West Coast, in Berkeley. Sydney’s a poet, also very talented, I think, although she’s younger and it’s more difficult to tell. She lives in a commune in the country, up in New Hampshire. Two artists. Don’t know how I ever produced that. But I suspect Anthony had an artistic nature. He was never trained, his family had no sympathy with the arts, but I think he’d have liked to be a writer or a musician.”
    No need to say that neither of your children ever even finished school, that they are dropouts, dropouts from life as well. They wander the hills barefoot, both with their arms around women. No, that would shock him, he wouldn’t know what to say.
    Victor was gleaming at her. “It is pure miracle that you were on that train.”
    Yes. I know. Lovers’ favorite game: when did you first notice, what was it about me, how could you tell I was wonderful?
    But she gleamed back. “It’s a miracle you were.”
    He reached for her hand and she gave it to him.
    He kissed it, then looked up at her almost shyly. “You know … I don’t want you to think … I don’t, I really don’t go around picking up women on trains.”
    She laughed.
    “In fact, I had just … really, just yesterday … oh, there are these girls in my office, and I was thinking about, but then I thought, well, I decided, really, you know you decide things but then things sort of drift into your mind, and I decided again, once and for all, that I wouldn’t, wouldn’t have an affair.
    “And then I saw you sitting in that compartment. I saw you from outside and I absolutely had to come in. And then I couldn’t keep my eyes off you….”
    Oh, don’t, don’t hymn me.