Читать книгу Broken Butterflies онлайн

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It had been borne in on him that in her heart she welcomed this as an opportunity to end, through propitious circumstance, a relationship which had become apathetic, a marriage which had failed. He could understand her feeling—the thought was not unfamiliar to him—but she had evidently progressed much farther than had he on the road of indifference. Further conversations had brought the same result. She had resolutely refused to place credence in his belief that life in a new country might revive affection. She was not romantic, she had said, and it was plain that separation would cause neither of them to suffer. He had felt that had she given him but a little encouragement, the slightest sympathy, he might ardently have swept her over to his belief that here lay a chance for renewal of the affection of the first years; but her indifference had chilled him.

So they had parted, phlegmatically. Now he felt certain that this episode had come to an end. He had tried marriage, and it had been a failure. And such a stupid failure. There had been no other woman, and, he felt sure, no other man. It had failed simply through inanition. Still, it might have been worse. At least, there was no heartbreak, no anguish. He had tried the marriage experiment. Probably he would never have been content until he had tried it. Now, he had found that it did not work; yet he was not much the worse. He enjoyed the company of women only in the manner of a mild stimulant. Thus he would live henceforth. He would have his new work to occupy him, and curiosity to lift the curtain veiling the mystery of marriage would not affect him. Like men who regard lack of desire for liquor as an asset, thus he felt that his freedom from relation to, from craving for woman would be an advantage. It would make for a peaceful and well-ordered life.