| 3:14a |
@@@@@(For want of a richer word he picks up the
@@@@@(For want of a richer word he picks up the military expression
There were all those men, and there had been someone above them, ordering them, changing perhaps forever the fiber of their livesIn the darkness he looks blankly at the field, tantalized by the largest vision that has ever entered his soul
There were things one could do
To command all thatHe is choked with the intensity of his emotion, the rage, the exaltation, the undefined and mighty hunger
He returns a captain (temporary), is promoted and demoted in the same order, made first lieutenant (permanent)There is his marriage with Margaret against the subtle opposition of her parents, the brief honeymoon, and they settle down at an Army post, drift in the pleasantly vacant circle of parties and Saturday night dances at the officers' club
Their lovemaking is fantastic for a time:
He must subdue her, absorb her, rip her apart and consume her
This motif is concealed for a month or two, clouded over by their mutual inexperience, by the strangeness, the unfamiliarity, but it must come out eventuallyAnd for a half year, almost a year, they have love passages of intense fury, enraged and powerful, which leave him sobbing from exhaustion and frustration on her breast
Do you love me, are you mine, love me
I'll take you apart, I'll eat you, oh, I'll make you mine, I'll make you mine, you bitch
And surprising profanity, words he is startled to hear himself speak
Margaret is kindled by it, exalted for a time, sees it as passion, glows and becomes rounded, but only for a timeAfter a year it is completely naked, apparent to her, that he is alone, that he fights out battles with himself upon her body, and something withers in herThere is all the authority she has left, the family and the Boston streets and the history hanging upon them, and she has left it, to be caught in a more terrifying authority, a greater demand
This is all of course beneath words, would be unbearable if it were ever said, but their marriage re-forms, assumes a light and hypocritical companionship with a void at the center, and very little love-making now, painfully isolated when it occursHe retreats from her, licks his wounds, and twists in the circle beyond which he cannot breakTheir social life becomes far more important
She busies herself with running her house, keeping a list of the delicate debits and credits of entertainment and visitingIt always takes them two hours to figure out the list for their monthly party
Once they spend a week wondering if they can invite the General to their house, discuss the elaborate arguments on either sideThey conclude it would be in bad taste, might hurt them even if he came, but a few nights later Captain Cummings wrestles with the problem again, wakes up at dawn and knows it is a chance he must take
They plan it very carefully, picking a weekend when the General has no obligations and it seems as if none will develop |