make her attempt them, and when the stresses passed, and even the memory of them grew pale, she would regret ever assaying the leap. She was a reasonable being, she would listen. And this wouldn’t be lying to her.
‘Maggie,’ he began laboriously, ‘have you really thought what you’re suggesting? You know who you are, and what you are, nobody knows it better. A world figure, and going to be even greater…’
‘I could,’ she agreed very quietly, ‘given the right circumstances.’
‘And I’m the right circumstances? Wake up, girl, for God’s sake! I don’t have to go into details about myself, and I’m not going to. Don’t pretend you can’t evaluate well enough to get my number right.’
‘Better, perhaps,’ she said fiercely, ‘than you.’
‘All right, let it go. But you know very well what I mean. You belong in a world about which I know nothing, among people with whom I have nothing in common, except, perhaps, a liking for music, and that wouldn’t get me far. It’s a live, mobile, important world, with no room for hangers-on. You know what I’m talking about as well as I do. Do you think that would be an easy marriage?’
‘All right,’ she said after a long pause, her eyes wide and watchful on his face, ‘I do know what you’re talking about, and no, it won’t be easy. Did you ever hear of a marriage that was? But this one will be more difficult than most, I know it. And fathoms deeper! I’m not glossing over anything. I don’t know any of the answers, those we have to find as we go. I’m simply telling you that there isn’t any alternative! Marriage may be difficult, but separation is impossible. After what we’ve been through together, after what we know about each other, what do you suppose the ordinary pinpricks can do to us? Do you think two people ever drew as near as we have, and managed to pull themselves apart again without bleeding to death?’
He didn’t know whether she had reached that argument by a lucky inspiration or by serious thought, but as soon as she had said it he saw that it was irresistibly true, and thanked God for it, since resistance was becoming unendurable. For better or worse, they had grown together until separation would have been extreme mutilation, a death before death.
Whether she had convinced him, or whether he had surrendered only to his own awful longing to be convinced, however it happened, suddenly she was in his arms. They had, after all, no option but to make their own rules, having strayed so far out of range of any others. Maybe she could never have married anyone now for the ordinary, socially respected reasons. Maybe he would really turn out to be what she wanted, and what she would continue to want, life-long. Please God, he thought. And God help us both, because we’re going to need it! But when he kissed her all his lingering forebodings vanished like the mists dissolving over Lake Constance, and there was no room left in him for anything but incredulous gratitude and joy.
After a while they disentangled themselves silently and solemnly, and drove on mute and dazed with achievement into Scheidenau.
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APPENDIX
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‘Wo die schonen Trompeten blasen,’ from
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[scanned anonymously in a galaxy far far away]
