Twilight Sleep by Edith Wharton Read Free Book Online Page B

education hardly up to it; and the
discrepancy between what he would have been capable of enjoying had
his mind been prepared for it, and what it could actually take in,
made him modest and almost shy in what he considered cultivated
society. He had long believed his wife to be cultivated because
she had fits of book–buying and there was an expensively bound
library in the New York house. In his raw youth, in the old Delos
days, he had got together a little library of his own in which
Robert Ingersoll's lectures represented science, the sermons of the
Reverend Frank Gunsaulus of Chicago, theology, John Burroughs,
natural history, and Jared Sparks and Bancroft almost the whole of
history. He had gradually discovered the inadequacy of these
guides, but without ever having done much to replace them. Now and
then, when he was not too tired, and had the rare chance of a quiet
evening, he picked up a book from Pauline's table; but the works
she acquired were so heterogeneous, and of such unequal value, that
he rarely found one worth reading. Mrs. Tallentyre's "Voltaire"
had been a revelation: he discovered, to his surprise, that he had
never really known who Voltaire was, or what sort of a world he had
lived in, and why his name had survived it. After that, Manford
decided to start in on a course of European history, and got as far
as taking the first volume of Macaulay up to bed. But he was tired
at night, and found Macaulay's periods too long (though their
eloquence appealed to his forensic instinct): and there had never
been time for that course of history.
    In his early wedded days, before he knew much of his wife's world,
he had dreamed of quiet evenings at home, when Pauline would read
instructive books aloud while he sat by the fire and turned over
his briefs in some quiet inner chamber of his mind. But Pauline
had never known any one who wanted to be read aloud to except
children getting over infantile complaints. She regarded the
desire almost as a symptom of illness, and decided that Dexter
needed "rousing," and that she must do more to amuse him. As soon
as she was able after Nona's birth she girt herself up for this new
duty; and from that day Manford's life, out of office hours, had
been one of almost incessant social activity. At first the endless
going out had bewildered, then for a while amused and flattered
him, then gradually grown to be a soothing routine, a sort of mild
drug–taking after the high pressure of professional hours; but of
late it had become simply a bore, a duty to be persisted in because—
as he had at last discovered—Pauline could not live without it.
After twenty years of marriage he was only just beginning to
exercise his intellectual acumen on his wife.
    The thought of Pauline made him glance at his clock: she would be
coming in a moment. He unhooked the receiver again, and named,
impatiently, the same number as before. "Out, you say? Still?"
(The same stupid voice making the same stupid answer!) "Oh, no; no
matter. I say IT'S NO MATTER," he almost shouted, replacing the
receiver. Of all idiotic servants—!
    Miss Vollard, the susceptible type–writer, shot a shingled head
around the door, said "ALL right" with an envious sigh to some one
outside, and effaced herself before the brisk entrance of her
employer's wife. Manford got to his feet.
    "Well, my dear—" He pushed an armchair near the fire, solicitous,
still a little awed by her presence—the beautiful Mrs. Wyant who
had deigned to marry him. Pauline, throwing back her furs, cast a
quick house–keeping glance about her. The scent she used always
reminded him of a superior disinfectant; and in another moment, he
knew, she would find some pretext for assuring herself, by the
application of a gloved finger–tip, that there was no dust on desk
or mantelpiece. She had very nearly obliged him, when he moved
into his new office, to have concave surbases, as in a hospital
ward or a hygienic nursery. She had adopted with enthusiasm