The Enchanter Read Online Free PDF Page B

measure of how far he had come, evaluated the entire instability and spectrality of his calculations, this whole quiet madness, the evident error of the obsession, which was free and genuine only when flowering within the confines of fantasy but which had now deviated from that sole legitimate form, to embark (with the pathetic diligence of a lunatic, a cripple, an obtuse child—yes, at any moment it would be rebuffed and thrashed!) on designs and actions that lay within the sole competence of adult, material life. And he could still get out of it! Flee immediately, then send a hurried letter to that person explaining that cohabitation was impossible for him (anyreasons would do), that only a somewhat eccentric sense of compassion (expand) had motivated his commitment to support her, and that now, having legitimated it forever (be more specific), he was once again withdrawing into his fairyland obscurity.
    “On the other hand,” he continued mentally, under the impression that he was still pursuing the same sober line of reasoning (and not noticing that a banished barefoot creature had returned by the back door), “how simple it would be if dear Mummy were to die tomorrow. But no—she’s in no hurry, she has sunk her teeth into life, and will hang on, and what do I stand to gain if she takes her time dying, and what arrives for her funeral will be a touch-me-not of sixteen or a stranger of twenty? How simple it would be” (he reflected, pausing, quite appropriately, by the illuminated display window of a pharmacy) “if there were some poison handy.… Certainly wouldn’t need much, if, for her, a cup of chocolate is as deadly as strychnine! But a poisoner leaves his cigarette ash in the descended elevator.… Besides, they’ll inevitably open her up, out of sheer habit.” And even though reason and conscience vied with each other (all the while egging him on a little) in affirming that in any case, even if he were to find an untraceable poison, he was not one to commit murder (unless, perhaps, the poison were quite, quite untraceable, and even then—in the extreme hypothesis—for the sole purpose of curtailing the tormentsof a wife who was doomed, no matter what), he gave free rein to the theoretical development of an impossible thought as his absent gaze stumbled on impeccably packaged vials, the model of a liver, a panopticon of soaps, the reciprocal, splendidly coral-colored smiles of a feminine head and a masculine one gazing gratefully at each other. Then he slitted his eyes, cleared his throat, and, after a moment’s hesitation, entered the pharmacy.
    When he returned home it was dark in the apartment—the hope darted through his mind that she might already be asleep, but, alas, the door to her bedroom had been underlined with rulerlike precision by a fine-honed point of light.
    “Charlatans …,” he thought with a grim contortion. “We’ll have to stick to the original version. I’ll say good night to the dear departed and turn in.” (What about tomorrow? What about the next day? What about all the days after that?)
    But in the middle of his farewell speeches about his migraine, by her luxuriant headboard, things suddenly, unexpectedly, and spontaneously took a sharply angled turn and identity became immaterial, so that, after the fact, it was with astonishment that he discovered the corpse of the miraculously vanquished giantess and gazed at the moiré girdle that almost totally concealed her scar.
    Of late she had been feeling tolerably well (the only complaint that still tormented her was eructation), but,during the very first days of their marriage, the pains she knew from the previous winter quietly reappeared. She posited, not unpoetically, that the massive, grouchy organ that had, as it were, dozed away “like an old dog” amid the warmth of incessant pampering was now jealous of her heart, a newcomer that “had been given but a single pat.” Be that as it may, she spent a good month in