Read Online Five Roundabouts to Heaven by John Bingham - Free Book Online Page A

hearts, as she had done, as she would do again if she were widowed; that other people, therefore, had no fuller an emotional life than she had.
    But that evening she seemed not to be content to let the matter stand. She seemed to be seeking an assurance from Bartels himself that she was right.
    She said hopefully:
    “Don’t you think I’m right, Barty? Don’t you think it’s true that people see this love-stuff through a kind of rosy mist of self-deception?”
    Bartels took a deep breath. “No, I don’t,” he said flatly. “I believe in love.”
    Beatrice reached to take a cigarette from a small table at her side. The lamplight fell on her red hair and fair complexion. She looked young and soft and, because she spoke in a low voice, somehow defenceless. But Bartels, hardening his heart, said:
    “You think as you do, because you have not met the right man, yet.”
    “Perhaps I’m not made like other women,” she replied hopelessly. “I don’t know. I can’t feel this great overwhelming passion which people call love. I just can’t feel it about any man.”
    Bartels said again, dully: “That’s because you have not met the right man. If you met the right man, you would feel it.”
    But she shook her head. “I can’t give the adulation, the worship, the adoration, because I don’t feel it. It’s not in me to give it to any man. I can’t help it. That’s the way I am. I can feel physical passion, affection, comradeship, but that’s all.”
    “When you are in love,” said Bartels, “you want to give, to protect, and to cherish, too. But above all you want to give.”
    “That, to me, is a form of magic in which I don’t believe.”
    Bartels said: “Magic? Yes, it’s magic all right. A formation of the eyes, a half-smile, the carriage of the head, each of these things can bring about love. It’s magic all right. But a common enough type.”
    “To me love means one thing.”
    “What is that?”
    “Sex.”
    “Bed?”
    “Bed,” said Beatrice. “All the rest of it, the romantic dreams, the self-deception, what you call the wish to give and give, it all boils down to that. Bed. Love means bed. The rest is comradeship.”
    Even Bartels had never before heard her express such a disillusioning opinion. He was shocked and amazed. He shook his head.
    “You’re wrong,” he said, gently. “You’re utterly wrong.”
    He felt an urgent wish to convince her that she was on the wrong track. It astonished and dismayed him that she should persist in this way of thinking.
    Suddenly, unpredictable as she so often was, she said:
    “But I do love you, in my own way. I do, really.”
    “Do you?” He smiled affectionately at her. “Perhaps you do.”
    “Only I can’t think anybody wonderful, because I try to see people with what I believe are the eyes of truth.”
    “Why?” asked Bartels quickly. “Why force it on yourself? Why be so practical? Why not live with a little fantasy, if it helps?”
    “I can’t.”
    “Why not?” persisted Bartels. “Why can’t you?”
    “Perhaps because I believe that truth, reality, is the most important thing in the world. It’s not easy. It involves being truthful with yourself, and that’s difficult. I try to be truthful with myself.”
    “I think you succeed. Sometimes disastrously so.”
    The little clock on the mantelpiece struck eleven, musically, harmoniously. Bartels felt cool and level-headed now, alert and vigilant, poised to strike the blow which he had planned. With a conscious effort he excluded any emotion from his mind, any pity from his heart.
    He heard Beatrice say: “You should have married a different woman, Barty. I love you, but it’s not what you mean by love. You should have married a softer, more effeminate woman than me. The thing you need most, I can’t give you. I try hard, but I can’t. That’s the tragedy of it. But I’ve given you everything I could. I’ve tried to be a good wife to you.”
    “You’ve succeeded in being a