The Quest of the Golden Girl [39]
late,--the sooner the better for the peace of the dreams that in the course of nature would soon spring up to take its place.
But while I realised all this, and, with a veritable aching of the heart at the loss of her, felt a curious satisfaction at the turn of events, still my own psychology became all the more a puzzle to me, and I asked myself, with some impatience, what I would be at, and what it was I really wanted.
Here had I but a few moments ago been holding in my hands the very dream I had set out to find, and here was I secretly rejoicing to be robbed of it! If Nicolete did not fulfil the conditions of that mystical Golden Girl, in professed search for whom I had set out that spring morning, well, the good genius of my pilgrimage felt it time to resign. Better give it up at once, and go back to my books and my bachelorhood, if I were so difficult to please. No wonder my kind providence felt provoked. It had provided me with the sweetest pink- and-porcelain dream of a girl, and might reasonably have concluded that his labours on my behalf were at an end.
But, really, there is no need to lecture me upon the charms and virtues of Nicolete, for I loved them from the first moment of our strange introduction, and I dream of them still. There was indeed only one quality of womanhood in which she was lacking, and in which, after much serious self- examination, I discovered the reason of my instinctive self-sacrifice of her,--SHE HAD NEVER SUFFERED. As my heart had warned me at the beginning, "she was hoping too much from life to spend one's days with." She lacked the subtle half-tones of experience. She lacked all that a pretty wrinkle or two might have given. There was no shadowy melancholy in her sky-clear eyes. She was gay indeed, and had a certain childish humour; but she had none of that humour which comes of the resigned perception that the world is out of joint, and that you were never born to set it right. These characteristics I had yet to find in woman. There was still, therefore, an object to my quest. Indeed my experience had provided me with a formula. I was in search of a woman who, in addition to every other feminine charm and virtue, was a woman who had suffered.
With this prayer I turned once more to the genius of my pilgrimage. "Grant me," I asked, "but this--A WOMAN WHO HAS SUFFERED!" and, apparently as a consequence, he became once more quite genial. He seemed to mean that a prayer so easy to grant would put any god into a good temper; and possibly he smiled with a deeper meaning too.
BOOK III
CHAPTER I
IN WHICH I RETURN TO MY RIGHT AGE AND ENCOUNTER A COMMON OBJECT OF THE COUNTRY
And so when the days of my mourning for Nicolete were ended (and in this sentence I pass over letters to and fro,--letters wild from Nicolete, letters wise from Aucassin, letters explanatory and apologetic from the Obstacle--how the Major-General had suddenly come home quite unexpectedly and compelled her to explain Nicolete's absence, etc., etc. Dear Obstacle! I should rather have enjoyed a pilgrimage with her too)--I found myself one afternoon again upon the road. The day had been very warm and dusty, and had turned sleepy towards tea-time.
I had now pretty clearly in my mind what I wanted. This time it was, all other things equal, to be "a woman who had suffered," and to this end, I had, before starting out once more, changed my age back again at the inn and written "Aetat. 30" after my name in the visitors' book. As a young man I was an evident failure, and so, having made the countersign, I was speedily transformed to my old self; and I must say that it was a most comfortable feeling, something like getting back again into an old coat or an old pair of shoes. I never wanted to be young again as long as I lived. Youth was too much like the Sunday clothes of one's boyhood. Moreover, I had a secret conviction that the woman I was now in search of would prefer one who had had some experience at being a man, who would bring her not the green plums of his love, but
But while I realised all this, and, with a veritable aching of the heart at the loss of her, felt a curious satisfaction at the turn of events, still my own psychology became all the more a puzzle to me, and I asked myself, with some impatience, what I would be at, and what it was I really wanted.
Here had I but a few moments ago been holding in my hands the very dream I had set out to find, and here was I secretly rejoicing to be robbed of it! If Nicolete did not fulfil the conditions of that mystical Golden Girl, in professed search for whom I had set out that spring morning, well, the good genius of my pilgrimage felt it time to resign. Better give it up at once, and go back to my books and my bachelorhood, if I were so difficult to please. No wonder my kind providence felt provoked. It had provided me with the sweetest pink- and-porcelain dream of a girl, and might reasonably have concluded that his labours on my behalf were at an end.
But, really, there is no need to lecture me upon the charms and virtues of Nicolete, for I loved them from the first moment of our strange introduction, and I dream of them still. There was indeed only one quality of womanhood in which she was lacking, and in which, after much serious self- examination, I discovered the reason of my instinctive self-sacrifice of her,--SHE HAD NEVER SUFFERED. As my heart had warned me at the beginning, "she was hoping too much from life to spend one's days with." She lacked the subtle half-tones of experience. She lacked all that a pretty wrinkle or two might have given. There was no shadowy melancholy in her sky-clear eyes. She was gay indeed, and had a certain childish humour; but she had none of that humour which comes of the resigned perception that the world is out of joint, and that you were never born to set it right. These characteristics I had yet to find in woman. There was still, therefore, an object to my quest. Indeed my experience had provided me with a formula. I was in search of a woman who, in addition to every other feminine charm and virtue, was a woman who had suffered.
With this prayer I turned once more to the genius of my pilgrimage. "Grant me," I asked, "but this--A WOMAN WHO HAS SUFFERED!" and, apparently as a consequence, he became once more quite genial. He seemed to mean that a prayer so easy to grant would put any god into a good temper; and possibly he smiled with a deeper meaning too.
BOOK III
CHAPTER I
IN WHICH I RETURN TO MY RIGHT AGE AND ENCOUNTER A COMMON OBJECT OF THE COUNTRY
And so when the days of my mourning for Nicolete were ended (and in this sentence I pass over letters to and fro,--letters wild from Nicolete, letters wise from Aucassin, letters explanatory and apologetic from the Obstacle--how the Major-General had suddenly come home quite unexpectedly and compelled her to explain Nicolete's absence, etc., etc. Dear Obstacle! I should rather have enjoyed a pilgrimage with her too)--I found myself one afternoon again upon the road. The day had been very warm and dusty, and had turned sleepy towards tea-time.
I had now pretty clearly in my mind what I wanted. This time it was, all other things equal, to be "a woman who had suffered," and to this end, I had, before starting out once more, changed my age back again at the inn and written "Aetat. 30" after my name in the visitors' book. As a young man I was an evident failure, and so, having made the countersign, I was speedily transformed to my old self; and I must say that it was a most comfortable feeling, something like getting back again into an old coat or an old pair of shoes. I never wanted to be young again as long as I lived. Youth was too much like the Sunday clothes of one's boyhood. Moreover, I had a secret conviction that the woman I was now in search of would prefer one who had had some experience at being a man, who would bring her not the green plums of his love, but