My Mortal Enemy quotes

I wanted her to, but I felt I didn’t have half a chance with her; her charming, fluent voice, her clear light enunciation bewildered me. And I was never sure whether she was making fun of me or of the thing we were talking about.

Her sarcasm was so quick, so fine at the point—it was like being touched by a metal so cold that one doesn’t know whether one is burned or chilled.

I was fascinated, but very ill at ease, and I was glad when Oswald Henshawe arrived from the hotel.

I wondered for a moment whether they might have come down from Chicago on different trains; for she was clearly glad to see him—glad not merely that he was safe and had got round on time, but because his presence gave her lively personal pleasure.

I was not accustomed to that kind of feeling in people long married.

Mr. Henshawe was less perplexing than his wife, and he looked more as I had expected him to look. The prominent bones of his face gave him a rather military air; a broad, rugged forehead, high cheek-bones, a high nose, slightly arched.

“And I advise ye to think well,” he told her. “It’s better to be a stray dog in this world than a man without money. I’ve tried both ways, and I know.

A poor man stinks, and God hates him.

”

He could do so, because he had never adopted her. If she did not, she would inherit two-thirds of his property—the remaining third was to go to the church. “And I advise ye to think well,” he told her. “

It’s better to be a stray dog in this world than a man without money.

I’ve tried both ways, and I know. A poor man stinks, and God hates him.”

“Happy? Oh, yes! As happy as most people.”

That answer was disheartening; the very point of their story was that they should be much happier than other people.

When I was older I used to walk around the Driscoll place alone very often, especially on spring days, after school, and watch the nuns pacing so mildly and measuredly among the blossoming trees where Myra used to give garden-parties and have the band to …

The snow fell lightly all the afternoon, and friendly old men with brooms kept sweeping the paths—very ready to talk to a girl from the country, and to brush off a bench so that she could sit down.

The trees and shrubbery seemed well-groomed and sociable, like pleasant people.

The snow lay in clinging folds on the bushes, and outlined every twig of every tree—a line of white upon a line of black. Madison Square Garden, new and spacious then, looked to me so light and fanciful, and Saint Gaudens’ Diana, of which Mrs.

and the sound was musical, seemed to come from the throat of spring. Not far away, on the corner, was an old man selling English violets, each bunch wrapped in oiled paper to protect them from the snow.

Here, I felt, winter brought no desolation; it was tamed, like a polar bear led on a leash by a beautiful lady.

About the Square the pale blue shadows grew denser and drew closer.

I loved it from the moment I entered it; such solidly built, high-ceiled rooms, with snug fire-places and wide doors and deep windows. The long, heavy velvet curtains and the velvet chairs were a wonderful plum-colour, like ripe purple fruit.

The curtains were lined with that rich cream-colour that lies under the blue skin of ripe figs.

Oswald was standing by the fire, drinking a whisky and soda while he waited for us. He put his glass down on the mantel as we opened the door, and forgot all about it.

When they came back to us Mrs. Henshawe stood beside Gray while he put on his caped cloak, talking encouragingly. “The opals are beautiful, but I’m afraid of them, Ewan. Oswald would laugh at me, but all the same they have a bad history.

Love itself draws on a woman nearly all the bad luck in the world; why, for mercy’s sake, add opals?

He brought two bracelets for me to decide between them, Oswald, both lovely. However did they let you carry off two, Ewan?”

As we walked home she slipped her arm through mine, and we fell a little behind the other two. “See the moon coming out, Nellie—behind the tower. It wakens the guilt in me.

No playing with love; and I’d sworn a great oath never to meddle again.

You send a handsome fellow like Ewan Gray to a fine girl like Esther, and it’s Christmas eve, and they rise above us and the white world around us, and there isn’t anybody, not a tramp on the park benches, that wouldn’t wish them well—and …

They were looking out, but did not see us. I noticed that she was really quite a head shorter than he, and she leaned a little towards him.

When she was peaceful, she was like a dove with its wings folded.

There was something about them, as they stood in the lighted window, that would have discouraged me from meddling, but it did not shake my aunt.

Henshawe in Central Park. We walked for miles, stopped to watch the skating, and finally had tea at the Casino, where she told me about some of the singers and actors I would meet at her apartment on New Year’s eve.

Her account of her friends was often more interesting to me than the people themselves.

After tea she hailed a hansom and asked the man to drive us about the park a little, as a fine sunset was coming on.

As we were walking home she tried to tell me more about Miss Aylward, but tenderness for her friend and bitter rebellion at her fate choked her voice. She suffered physical anguish for that poor girl.

My aunt often said that Myra was incorrigibly extravagant; but I saw that her chief extravagance was in caring for so many people, and in caring for them so much.

When she but mentioned the name of some one whom she admired, one got an instant impression that the person must be wonderful, her voice invested the name with a sort of grace.

I regretted having noticed the man in the loge, for all the rest of the afternoon I could feel the bitterness working in her. I knew that she was suffering.

The scene on the stage was obliterated for her; the drama was in her mind.

She was going over it all again; arguing, accusing, denouncing.

As we left the theatre she sighed: “Oh, Nellie, I wish you hadn’t seen him! It’s all very well to tell us to forgive our enemies; our enemies can never hurt us very much.

But oh, what about forgiving our friends?

”—she beat on her fur collar with her two gloved hands—“that’s where the rub comes!”

And now everything was in ruins. The air was still and cold like the air in a refrigerating-room. What I felt was fear; I was afraid to look or speak or move. Everything about me seemed evil.

When kindness has left people, even for a few moments, we become afraid of them, as if their reason had left them. When it has left a place where we have always found it, it is like shipwreck; we drop from security into something malevolent and bottomless.

“It’s all right, Nellie.” Oswald recovered himself and put a hand on my shoulder. “Myra isn’t half so furious with me as she pretends. I’ll get my hat and we’ll be off.” He was in his smoking-jacket, and had been sitting at his desk, writing.

It seemed to curl and twist about like a little snake.

Letting herself think harm of anyone she loved seemed to change her nature, even her features.

It was dark when we got into Pittsburgh. The Pullman porter took Myra’s luggage to the end of the car. She bade us good-bye, started to leave us, then turned back with an icy little smile.

All this made me melancholy—more than the dreariness of my own case.

I was young, and it didn’t matter so much about me; for youth there is always the hope, the certainty, of better things.

But an old man, a gentleman, living in this shabby, comfortless place, cleaning his neckties of a Sunday morning and humming to himself ... it depressed me unreasonably. I was glad when his outer door shut softly and I heard no more of him.

“Ah, but teaching, Nellie! I don’t like that, not even for a temporary expedient. It’s a cul-de-sac. Generous young people use themselves all up at it; they have no sense.

Only the stupid and the phlegmatic should teach.

”

“Very well, dear.” She sighed. “But I’m ambitious for you. I’ve no patience with young people when they drift. I wish I could live their lives for them; I’d know how!

But there it is; by the time you’ve learned the short cuts, your feet puff up so that you can’t take the road at all.

Now tell me about your mother and my Lydia.”

While I told her any amusing gossip I could remember about my family, she sat crippled but powerful in her brilliant wrappings.

She looked strong and broken, generous and tyrannical, a witty and rather wicked old woman, who hated life for its defeats, and loved it for its absurdities.

I recalled her angry laugh, and how she had always greeted shock or sorrow with that dry, exultant chuckle which seemed to say: “Ah-ha, I have one more piece of evidence, one more, against the hideous injustice God permits in this world!”

Oh, that’s the cruelty of being poor; it leaves you at the mercy of such pigs!

Money is a protection, a cloak; it can buy one quiet, and some sort of dignity.

” She leaned back, exhausted, and shut her eyes.

She looked up at me with a soft smile—her face could still be very lovely in a tender moment. “I’ve had such a beautiful hour, dear; or has it been longer?

Light and silence: they heal all one’s wounds—all but one, and that is healed by dark and silence.

I find I don’t miss clever talk, the kind I always used to have about me, when I can have silence. It’s like cold water poured over fever.”

I sat down beside her, and we watched the sun dropping lower toward his final plunge into the Pacific. “I’d love to see this place at dawn,” Myra said suddenly. “That is always such a forgiving time.

When that first cold, bright streak comes over the water, it’s as if all our sins were pardoned; as if the sky leaned over the earth and kissed it and gave it absolution.

You know how the great sinners always came home to die in some religious house, and the abbot or the abbess went out and received them with a kiss?”

He smiled and straightened his shoulders. “Ah, but she isn’t people! She’s Molly Driscoll, and there was never anybody else like her.

She can’t endure, but she has enough desperate courage for a regiment.

”

because I know what it is to be old and lonely and disappointed. Yes, and because as we grow old we become more and more the stuff our forbears put into us. I can feel his savagery strengthen in me.

We think we are so individual and so misunderstood when we are young; but the nature our strain of blood carries is inside there, waiting, like our skeleton.

”

When I put the gold back into the trunk and started making the tea, she said: “Oswald, of course, doesn’t know the extent of my resources. We’ve often needed a hundred dollars or two so bitter bad; he wouldn’t understand.

But that is money I keep for unearthly purposes; the needs of this world don’t touch it.

”

“To throw his youth away like that, and shoot himself at twenty-three!

People are always talking about the joys of youth—but, oh, how youth can suffer!

I’ve not forgotten; those hot southern Illinois nights, when Oswald was in New York, and I had no word from him except through Liddy, and I used to lie on the floor all night and listen to the express trains go by. I’ve not forgotten.”

Perhaps I can’t forgive him for the harm I did him. Perhaps that’s it. When there are children, that feeling goes through natural changes. But when it remains so personal ... something gives way in one.

In age we lose everything; even the power to love.

”

He’s a sentimentalist, always was; he can look back on the best of those days when we were young and loved each other, and make himself believe it was all like that. It wasn’t. I was always a grasping, worldly woman; I was never satisfied.

All the same, in age, when the flowers are so few, it’s a great unkindness to destroy any that are left in a man’s heart.

” The tears rolled down her cheeks, she leaned back, looking up at the ceiling. She had stopped speaking because her voice broke. Presently she began again resolutely. “But I’m made so. People can be lovers and enemies at the same time, you know.

The tears rolled down her cheeks, she leaned back, looking up at the ceiling. She had stopped speaking because her voice broke. Presently she began again resolutely. “But I’m made so.

People can be lovers and enemies at the same time, you know.

We were.... A man and woman draw apart from that long embrace, and see what they have done to each other. Perhaps I can’t forgive him for the harm I did him. Perhaps that’s it. When there are children, that feeling goes through natural changes.

The tears rolled down her cheeks, she leaned back, looking up at the ceiling. She had stopped speaking because her voice broke. Presently she began again resolutely. “But I’m made so. People can be lovers and enemies at the same time, you know. We were....

A man and woman draw apart from that long embrace, and see what they have done to each other.

Perhaps I can’t forgive him for the harm I did him. Perhaps that’s it. When there are children, that feeling goes through natural changes. But when it remains so personal ... something gives way in one. In age we lose everything;

Presently she began again resolutely. “But I’m made so. People can be lovers and enemies at the same time, you know. We were.... A man and woman draw apart from that long embrace, and see what they have done to each other.

Perhaps I can’t forgive him for the harm I did him.

Perhaps that’s it. When there are children, that feeling goes through natural changes. But when it remains so personal ... something gives way in one. In age we lose everything; even the power to love.”

“Ah, Father Fay, that isn’t the reason!

Religion is different from everything else; because in religion seeking is finding.

”