From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [370]
Dana held all the cards. And with that sanguine beef-eating middleclass assurance, that Warden who had never had it suddenly hated more implacably than ever, Dana knew he held all the cards. All Dana had to do was sit tight and wait, give her her head like you always give a nervous high-spirited mare her head. (You never snaffle a high-spirited mare, gentlemen; and you never set your foot down with a high-spirited wife.)
You just wait, gentlemen. And employ patience, that greatest of all virtues.
Eventually she will get tired of love again bruised and shivering, warm for you in the spasm of her guilt again, to renew her strength once more, before going out on the next adventure. For as long as you silently accusingly keep the hearth waiting for her her sense of obligation and guilt, plus her innate love of warmth, will never let her escape it, gentlemen.
Dana had Society, Respectability, Tradition, Moral judgment, Time, Security (especially Security), and the generations of cuckolded husbands who had provided him with lessons in how to win by employing patience.
Dana Holmes could afford to laugh at Milt Warden who had the audacity to try to defeat this array of heavy artillery with the popgun of Love. Because could you just point out to me once, please, sir, one single time that Love had ever bought anything? In these United States of the United Middle Class of Solid-Fronted United Greater America?
And Milt Warden felt this every time he watched her drive her husband’s battered Buick club coupé back home again.
Probably, Milt Warden thought the many times he watched her drive off down King Street through the traffic, she had come creeping back home often enough in the past that Dana knew the procedure ahead of time in advance.
Probably, Milt Warden thought the many times he watched her taillight disappear into a myriad of other taillights from the corners she had let him out on, she lets him have enough in between times to keep him hanging fire from going all the way and divorcing her.
Maybe, he thought the many times he carried the argument on out to its logical end, she even lets him have some now and then during the big love affairs, if she gauges the wind and finds it going against her. Maybe she’s going home to do it right now.
Certainly Dana would not let her get away with all she’s getting by, not unless he was getting something. Because Milt Warden knew positively that he wouldnt.
Probably, Milt Warden thought the many times he watched her leave him and go on back home, she doesnt really mind it. A woman couldnt live with a man for twelve or fifteen years without at least getting used to it, without its becoming at least less than uncomfortable.
Because Milt Warden thought all of these things, every time he watched her drive the Buick home.
His trouble was when he had admitted to her and to himself that he loved her. That was always the greatest single blunder in this game. That put him in her power as Dana had never been in her power. She could make him do anything now, even become an officer, now that she was sure he did love her. He was no longer a free agent, and as a result the old wild terrible strength that had been the power and pride of Milt Warden was gone.
But he only thought these things when he watched her driving back home. He never seemed to think them when he was with her. When he was with her, he only thought about how fine it was to be in love.
He got home early enough to make out his application for Infantry Officer’s extension course before chow. The remaining Bloom papers were still on his desk and he shoved them out of the way to make out the application. Then he signed it and put it on Holmes’s desk and went back to the Bloom papers and finished them up and sat back in his chair to await chow, and further developments.
Within a week the developments came, and Ike Galovitch