Read Online The End of the Affair by Graham Greene - Free Book Online
Authors: Graham Greene
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as part of the picture, and I feel an enormous desire to draw attention to myself, to shout in his ear, ‘You can’t ignore me. Here I am. Whatever happened later, Sarah loved me then.’
Sarah and I used to have long arguments on jealousy. I was jealous even of the past, of which she spoke to me frankly as it came up - the affairs that meant nothing at all (except possibly the unconscious desire to find that final spasm Henry had so woefully failed to evoke). She was as loyal to her lovers as she was to Henry, but what should have provided me with some comfort (for undoubtedly she would be loyal to me too) angered me. There was a time when she would laugh at my anger, simply refusing to believe that it was genuine, just as she refused to believe in her own beauty, and I would be just as angry because she refused to be jealous of my past or my possible future. I refused to believe that love could take any other form than mine: I measured love by the extent of my jealousy, and by that standard of course she could not love me at all.
The arguments always took the same form and I only describe one particular occasion because on that occasion the argument ended in action - a stupid action leading nowhere, unless eventually to this doubt that always comes when I begin to write, the feeling that after all perhaps she was right and I was wrong.
I remember saying angrily, ‘This is just a hang-over from your old frigidity. A frigid woman is never jealous, you simply haven’t caught up yet on ordinary human emotions.’
It angered me that she didn’t make any claim. ‘You may be right. I’m only saying I want you to be happy. I hate your being unhappy. I don’t mind anything you do that makes you happy.’
‘You just want an excuse. If I sleep with somebody else, you feel you can do the same - any time.’
‘That’s neither here nor there. I want you to be happy, that’s all.’
‘You’d make my bed for me?’
‘Perhaps.’
Insecurity is the worst sense that lovers feel: sometimes the most humdrum desireless marriage seems better. Insecurity twists meanings and poisons trust. In a closely beleaguered city every sentry is a potential traitor. Even before the days of Mr Parkis I was trying to check on her: I would catch her out in small lies, evasions that meant nothing except her fear of me. For every lie I would magnify into a betrayal, and even in the most open statement I would read hidden meanings. Because I couldn’t bear the thought of her so much as touching another man, I feared it all the time, and I saw intimacy in the most casual movement of the hand.
‘Wouldn’t you want me to be happy, rather than miserable?’ she asked with unbearable logic.
‘I’d rather be dead or see you dead,’ I said, ‘than with another man. I’m not eccentric. That’s ordinary human love. Ask anybody. They’d all say the same - if they loved at all.’ I jibed at her. ‘Anyone who loves is jealous.’
We were in my room. We had come there at a safe time of day, the late spring afternoon, in order to make love; for once we had hours of time ahead of us and so I squandered it all in a quarrel and there was no love to make. She sat down on the bed and said, ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you angry. I expect you’re right.’ But I wouldn’t let her alone. I hated her because I wished to think she didn’t love me: I wanted to get her out of my system. What grievance, I wonder now, had I got against her, whether she loved me or not? She had been loyal to me for nearly a year, she had given me a great deal of pleasure, she had put up with my moods, and what had I given her in return apart from the momentary pleasure? I had come into this affair with my eyes open, knowing that one day this must end, and yet, when the sense of insecurity, the logical belief in the hopeless future descended like melancholia, I would badger her and badger her, as though I wanted to bring the future in now at the door, an
Sarah and I used to have long arguments on jealousy. I was jealous even of the past, of which she spoke to me frankly as it came up - the affairs that meant nothing at all (except possibly the unconscious desire to find that final spasm Henry had so woefully failed to evoke). She was as loyal to her lovers as she was to Henry, but what should have provided me with some comfort (for undoubtedly she would be loyal to me too) angered me. There was a time when she would laugh at my anger, simply refusing to believe that it was genuine, just as she refused to believe in her own beauty, and I would be just as angry because she refused to be jealous of my past or my possible future. I refused to believe that love could take any other form than mine: I measured love by the extent of my jealousy, and by that standard of course she could not love me at all.
The arguments always took the same form and I only describe one particular occasion because on that occasion the argument ended in action - a stupid action leading nowhere, unless eventually to this doubt that always comes when I begin to write, the feeling that after all perhaps she was right and I was wrong.
I remember saying angrily, ‘This is just a hang-over from your old frigidity. A frigid woman is never jealous, you simply haven’t caught up yet on ordinary human emotions.’
It angered me that she didn’t make any claim. ‘You may be right. I’m only saying I want you to be happy. I hate your being unhappy. I don’t mind anything you do that makes you happy.’
‘You just want an excuse. If I sleep with somebody else, you feel you can do the same - any time.’
‘That’s neither here nor there. I want you to be happy, that’s all.’
‘You’d make my bed for me?’
‘Perhaps.’
Insecurity is the worst sense that lovers feel: sometimes the most humdrum desireless marriage seems better. Insecurity twists meanings and poisons trust. In a closely beleaguered city every sentry is a potential traitor. Even before the days of Mr Parkis I was trying to check on her: I would catch her out in small lies, evasions that meant nothing except her fear of me. For every lie I would magnify into a betrayal, and even in the most open statement I would read hidden meanings. Because I couldn’t bear the thought of her so much as touching another man, I feared it all the time, and I saw intimacy in the most casual movement of the hand.
‘Wouldn’t you want me to be happy, rather than miserable?’ she asked with unbearable logic.
‘I’d rather be dead or see you dead,’ I said, ‘than with another man. I’m not eccentric. That’s ordinary human love. Ask anybody. They’d all say the same - if they loved at all.’ I jibed at her. ‘Anyone who loves is jealous.’
We were in my room. We had come there at a safe time of day, the late spring afternoon, in order to make love; for once we had hours of time ahead of us and so I squandered it all in a quarrel and there was no love to make. She sat down on the bed and said, ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you angry. I expect you’re right.’ But I wouldn’t let her alone. I hated her because I wished to think she didn’t love me: I wanted to get her out of my system. What grievance, I wonder now, had I got against her, whether she loved me or not? She had been loyal to me for nearly a year, she had given me a great deal of pleasure, she had put up with my moods, and what had I given her in return apart from the momentary pleasure? I had come into this affair with my eyes open, knowing that one day this must end, and yet, when the sense of insecurity, the logical belief in the hopeless future descended like melancholia, I would badger her and badger her, as though I wanted to bring the future in now at the door, an
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