A Spy in the House of Love Read Online Free PDF Page B

her
from sediments, water seepage and barnacles. Philip lies beside her, only his
head is above hers, and his feet extend further down than hers. He lies asleep,
content, breathing very deeply. She sits up in the moonlight, angry, restless,
defeated. The fever had reached its peak, and waned separately from her desire,
leaving it unfulfilled, stranded. High fever and no climax—Anger, Anger—at this
core which will not melt, while Sabina wills to be like man, free to possess
and desire in adventure, to enjoy a stranger. Her body will not melt, will not
obey her fantasy of freedom. It cheated her of the adventure she had pursued.
The fever, the hope, the mirage, the suspended desire, unfulfilled, would
remain with her all night and the next day, burn undimmed within her and make
others who saw her say: “How sensual she is!”
    Philip awakened and smiled gratefully. He had
given and taken and was content.
    Sabina lay thinking she would not see him
again, and wishing desperately she might. He was talking about his childhood
and his love of snow. He had loved to ski. Then without transition, some image
came to disturb this idyllic scene and he said: “Women will never leave me
alone.”
    Sabina said: “If you ever want to be with a
woman who will not always expect you to make love, come to me. I will
understand.”
    “ Youre wonderful to
say that, Sabina. Women are so offended if you are not always ready and in the
mood to play the romantic lover, when you look the part.”
    It was her words which brought him back the
next day when he had confessed to her that he never spent more than one evening
with a woman for: “After that she begins to demand too much, to lay claims…”
    He came and they walked to the sand dunes. He
was talkative but always impersonal. Secretly Sabina hoped he might tell her
something that would melt the unmeltable sensual
core, that she might respond, that he might break through her resistance.
    Then the absurdity of her expectation amazed
her: seeking another kind of fusion because she had failed to achieve the
sensual one, when what she wanted was only the sensual one, to reach man’s
freedom in adventure, to arrive at enjoyment without dependence which might
liberate her from all her anxieties connected with love.
    For a moment she saw her love anxieties as
resembling those of a drug addict, of alcoholics, of gamblers. The same
irresistible impulse, tension, compulsion and then depression following the
yielding to the impulse, revulsion, bitterness, depression, and the compulsion
once more…
    Three times the sea, the sun, and the moon
witnessed and mocked her efforts at truly possessing Philip, this adventure,
this man whom other women so envied her.
    And now in the city, in autumn purple, she was
walking towards his apartment after a telephone call from him. The bells on the
Indian ring he had given her were tinkling merrily.
    She remembered her fear that he would vanish
with the summer. He had not asked for her address. The day before he left, a
friend arrived. He had spoken of this woman with reserve. Sabina had divined
that she was the essential one. She was a singer, he had taught her, music
bound them. Sabina heard in his voice a tone of respect which she did not like
to inspire, but which was like Alan’s tone when he talked about her. For this
other woman Philip had the sympathy Alan had for Sabina. He spoke tenderly of
her health not being good, to Sabina who had kept so fiercely the secret of
being cold when they swam, or tired when they walked too long, or feverish in
too much sun.
    Sabina invented a superstitious game: if this
woman were beautiful, then Sabina would not see him again. If not, if she was
the steadfastly loved one, then Sabina could be the whim, the caprice, the
drug, the fever.
    When Sabina saw her she was amazed. The woman
was not beautiful. She was pale, self-effacing. But in her presence Philip
walked softly, happy, subdued in his happiness, less erect, less