Angle of Repose - Wallace Stegner [64]
Mr. Prager met us with a carriage–I enjoyed the disgust of the disappointed hack-men–howling fiends looking and acting as if ready to devour you. Mr. Prager’s name does not suggest the sort of man he is. His friend Ashburner and he should change names . . . Mr. Prager was educated at Freiburg and, pleasantly enough, two or three of his fellow students–Ashburner, Janin, etc.–are now in San Francisco. They are a very clever cosmopolitan sort of men–not easily enthusiastic–do not reveal themselves very much but draw out other people. They have been in strange countries–Japan, Mexico, South America, and those queer islands which it is so hard to remember geographically. Mr. Janin is the cynic of the trio. He is the most difficult to understand, and therefore the most fascinating. Mr. Prager is very handsome and has great harmoniousness–he never jars.
We were not in the gay set of San Francisco, but we were what seemed to me gay, after the mine. We drove on the sands below the Cliff House and through the Park. I greatly enjoyed being whirled past the long lines of spray, flashing in the sun. The water came to the horses’ feet, the sea line was dark keen blue against the sky. The weather was perfect all the while we were there, the evenings very lovely, moonlight softened by fog. We were out a good deal–receptions, dinners, etc. They are very learned about cooking in San Francisco-people seem to expect as a matter of course things which we consider luxurious. Oliver and I spent all our money immediately, and only stopped because we had no more to spend.
Pray give my love to your dearest mother. She was very kind to think of me. We cannot help thinking it natural that we should be forgotten. You cannot think what a bond it was between me and the ladies I met in San Francisco–our loving remembrance of our old homes. They are all young married women who followed their husbands out here. All had a certain general line of experience–all could tell the same story of homesickness, of the return, and, alas, of the strange change which made the old seem new and unfamiliar. It made me feel like crying to hear them speak of it. “We do not forget,” they all said, “but they have no place for us when we return. We must be reconciled, for what we left behind us can never be ours again. We have lost our life in the East–we must make a new life for ourselves here.” They were charming women, well-bred, gentle, and very adaptable. They would go anywhere in the world where their husbands’ businesses made it necessary, and make a home. But I fancied in all of them a lingering sentiment for the old home, a pathetic sense of being aliens in the new. I am determined not to share their misfortune. I should feel lost if I thought this country would see me old.
I know that you and Thomas are both growing in ways both deep and broad. It makes me tremble a little, for I am not conscious of any growth in myself, and I cannot let you grow away from me. I am so afraid when you see me again you will find me poor and common.
New Almaden, Dec. 11, 1876
Darling Augusta–
Unless your eyes trouble you, dear Augusta, please read this to yourself.
I have followed your advice in one of the two ways in which you recommended me to be anticipating the evil day that is coming –as to the hardening of the nipples–but I do not know what you mean by using oil. Is it the abdomen that is to be rubbed? I begin to have a painfully stretched feeling–would oil relieve that?
I spoke to you about the advice Mrs. Prager gave me about the future. Of course I know nothing about it practically, and it sounds dreadful–but every way is dreadful except the one which it seems cannot be relied on.
Mrs. P. said that Oliver must go to a physician and get shields of some kind. They are to be had at some druggists’. It sounds perfectly revolting, but one must face anything rather