From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [488]
“All right,” Karen said cheerfully. “Then I guess thats settled. No divorce.”
“How does it feel to know you’ll have to live with a horror like me the rest of your life?” Holmes said contortedly.
“Not very nice,” Karen said cheerfully. “But then, on the other hand, there is the compensation of knowing you’ll have to live with me the rest of your life, too.”
“God!” Holmes said agonizingly, “how can you be so cruel? How can you sit there and smile? After what you’ve done. Didnt your responsibilities mean anything to you? Didnt the years of your marriage mean anything? Didnt your own son, our son, mean a damn thing to you? Dont you feel any shame?”
“I dont seem to,” Karen said. “Not a bit. Its odd, isnt it?”
“Well, you ought to!”
“I know,” Karen said. “But I dont. Its terrible, isnt it?”
“Terrible?” Holmes exclaimed frenziedly. “A woman of your background? and upbringing? and breeding? A happily married woman with an eight year old son? And you call it terrible?”
“I cant understand it myself,” Karen said cheerfully.
Gradually, one by one, the inviolable spears of right-mindedness were breaking themselves against this undentable armor of cheerfulness.
“Dont you know what you’ve done to me?”
“What have I done to you?”
“You’ve ruined my marriage, is all. You’ve knocked the bottom out from under my whole life. You were my wife. I trusted you.”
“Well, I’m sorry,” Karen said. “I’m truly, genuinely, sorry. To have done that to you. But I guess it couldnt be helped.”
“Why do you think I’ve done all I have? All this,” Holmes said contortedly. He spread his arms.
“Done all what.”
“Why, worked my ass off with this goddamned miserable boxing squad that I’ve hated. Brownnosed with Col Delbert and Gen Slater. Degraded myself. Had my nose rubbed in it.”
“I dont know. Why.”
“Why; for you, thats why. Because you’re my wife, and I love you. For you and our son and our home, thats why.”
“I always thought you did it because you wanted to get ahead,” Karen said.
“But why does a man want to get ahead? Do you think its just because he wants money? and power?”
“I had thought so.”
“What good will money and power do a man? If he’s alone. A man tries to get ahead because of his wife and his sons. So he can give them the things he’s never had. So he can make life nice for them. So he can have a home. And a family.”
“I guess I just have no gratitude,” Karen said.
“Gratitude!” Holmes said desperately. “For God’s sake, Karen!”
“Perhaps I’m amoral,” Karen said cheerfully. “You know, like criminals?”
Somehow or other, without quite knowing how, the last spear gone, broken against the unbreechable armor, Holmes found himself on the defensive. He was pleading.
“Where would this country be? If all the wives felt like that?”
“I have absolutely no idea,” Karen said. “In fact, I’ve never even considered the possibility.”
“A man hears about other men’s wives,” Holmes said. “But his own . . .”
“But you didnt think it could happen in your own home?”
“Happen!” Holmes said. “If anyone had told me it would happen in my home, I’d have killed them! I tried not to believe it. I told myself it wasnt true. As long as I possibly could.”
“But it has happened in your own home. Right?”
Holmes nodded dumbly. “I convinced myself it was all my imagination.”
“So it has to be dealt with. Right?”
“You dont know how a man feels,” Holmes said.
“No,” Karen said. “I suppose not.”
“Men dont feel like women do. About a thing like that. Women know it doesnt mean anything to a man. But it breaks a man all up, inside. It destroys his manhood.”
“I wonder why men feel so different from women?” Karen said.
“I dont know,” Holmes said miserably. “All I know is, they do.”
“I’ll tell you what,” Karen said cheerfully. “Its a lovely day out. I think I’ll go for a walk, then walk up to the Club and lunch by myself. I’m good and hungry. And then you’ll have time to decide before I get back.”
“Decide what?”
“What you’re going to do.”
“I’d rather you