Saving Agnes Read Online Free PDF Page A

place,’ he said, smiling calmly at her in a manner which hinted that he did not find anything in her stature to suggest the conquest might be somewhat over his head. ‘My name’s John. Some of my friends think we look alike.’
    She did not, then or afterwards, point out the obvious dissimilarity between them. He found her in the dining hall the next day and asked her to meet him later that evening. For the next two weeks he visited her constantly, and when he found her out even left notes adorned with small drawings apparently etched by his own hand.
    Agnes took her dilemma to Nina, who, she was assured, had seen it all before. Every man had a short man inside him, Nina explained, but those whose shortness took a physical form felt that a world of injustices had been heaped upon them for which they must be compensated. Consequently, the short man would make it his mission to have everything he felt his deficit precluded. Look, for example, at how many of the world’s richest men were short.
    Agnes, feeling that this seminar, elegant though it was, had little relevance to her original query, took it upon herself to mention that the deficit in question was a matter merely of an inch, two at the most, and surely did not, therefore, merit such suspicions of megalomania. Nina advised her not to be deceived, but nevertheless hastened towards her point. The spoils just mentioned, she explained, were but the preliminaries, the foothills of the short man’s Himalaya. For what, after all, was the only thing in whose procurement the short manwould realistically be disadvantaged? What did the tall man automatically lay claim to, the laws of nature and attraction admitting him entrance, on which his shorter companion had no purchase? The answer? Tall women. And what did every short man want? A woman taller than him. The fame and fortune, Nina added, were merely the currency by which such an accessory could, according to male logic, be bought.
    But what of those who failed to complete this arduous course? Agnes asked. The man in question seemed even shorter of cash than he was of limb. Pity them not, said Nina, for they have long since given in to hubris and despair; which description made Agnes feel that perhaps she had more in common with him than she’d thought and should look again.
    She began to anticipate his visits, and had trouble sleeping at night. Before long, she found it difficult to think of anything other than him. Soon she found she could not eat, and she grew thin. Her physical metamorphosis, however, could not be wholly explained by her loss of appetite.
    â€˜You’ve shrunk,’ he said one day, as they were walking in the park.
    She made reference to the biological findings which claimed the effects of vertical growth were irreversible.
    â€˜You have!’ he insisted. ‘Look, measure yourself against me.’
    She did, and did it again before a critical audience when they returned home. All were agreed upon this rarest of phenomena. She had, it seemed, grown smaller. At the time she had marvelled at this evidence of the force of his personality. Through sheer love, it seemed, he had made her his perfect match. It did not occur to her to wonder why, if this were indeed so, he had not succeeded instead in making himself taller.
    Greta, whose logic hit the mark with the spectacular arbitrariness of someone jumping off a building and surviving at the cost of those below, took a more succinct view when Agnes related this story, some years later, in the offices of
Diplomat’s Week.
‘There’s nothing in the whole world more depressingthan sitting next to a guy whose thighs are smaller than yours,’ she said, nodding sagely.
    People used to take them for brother and sister in a manner Agnes found morally reprehensible. For her, it was more like looking into a mirror and being greeted with a reflection of herself that she liked. He instructed her not just in the art of