A Dance of Forbidden Desires

This particular incident in the life of a young man has no true beginning or end. And you, who are elderly and have lost sight of youth's desires, may condemn it. Others, however, who are neither young nor elderly, might comprehend and take an interest in the study of a weird woman who created the illumination of a little area. When his episode started, Paul Verdayne was a young, impressionable, and naive man. He had faith in many deserving things, including himself, his mother, and others. For him, there were many certainties in life. He was certain that hunting was his favorite activity in the entire world. He felt confident in his ability to understand his own thoughts, thus he was positive that his love for Isabella Waring would endure forever. Ready to promise eternal fidelity with that pleasant inconsequence of youth in its irrationality, Canute's flatterers would have had him calm his emotions by riding the waves. And the wave- and emotion-creator grinned to Himself, if He wasn't already sick of grinning at the foolishness of the moles called humans who, for the most part, live on His planet. Paul was young, fair, and strong, as I have mentioned. He had played for Eton's varsity team and graduated from Oxford with a record that should have made a handsome Englishman into the ideal athlete. He had not worried much about books. The way a hunting coat fit and a horse's gait were of greater importance, yet he managed to squeeze into his "Smalls" and "Mods," and his buddies thought he was anything but a fool. His mother, Lady Henrietta Verdayne, considered him to be a god among men. Like other people of his day, Paul traveled to London and visited the theaters, where flawlessly virtuous young women nightly display their naive charms in funny choruses dressed in the newest fashions. He consumed these houris as well and felt like a true man of the world. He had spent perhaps a year traveling to various country homes and dancing all season with the most beautiful debutantes. And one or two of the forty-year-old young married women had already identified him as their target. You can tell what kind of being Paul was by all of this. There are hundreds of people who are similar to him, and maybe they share the hidden traits he discovered during his incident, but they are still sound asleep. The Isabella Waring romance began with that March hunting accident that left him hospitalized with a broken collarbone and sprained ankle. She was the parson's daughter—and still is, for that matter!—and frequently visited Verdayne Place back then to compose Lady Henrietta's letters in between rounds of golf and hockey or a good run with the hounds. Isabella was incredibly friendly and delighted to be of assistance. Even though she wrote with large, red hands, she did it brilliantly. The Lady Henrietta, who was herself of the delicate Later Victorian Dresden China type, was unable to conceive of a situation in which her god-like son should defer to this earthly earth daughter! However, it began to fall. In the gloomy late evenings of his recuperation, Isabella read aloud the sporting journals to him, she played piquet with him, and she even bathed Pike, the king of rough terriers, herself! And on a dreadful day, as his mother entered the room, Paul regrettably kissed Isabella's big, pink lips. I'll conceal this aspect of his existence. Being a magnificent lady, the Lady Henrietta had the good fortune to act in such a manner on the occasion in question, but she was also a woman, and not a particularly intelligent one. As a result, Paul quickly became angered by resistance and began to believe that he was truly in love with this girl of the middle class who was so far beneath his high status. The harsh Sir Charles Verdayne remarked, "Let the boy have his fling." Damn everything! A man is not required to wed every woman he kisses. Lady Henrietta responded, "A gentleman does not deliberately kiss an unmarried girl unless he intends to make her his wife!" "I anticipate the worst!" Sir Charles chuckled and snorted, two unattractive behaviors that his lady wife had never been able to train him to stop. The affair therefore continued to grow! Paul was recommended to travel until about the middle of April for his health. Before you come back, Paul, your father and I cannot approve any engagements, stated Lady Henrietta. "If you still want to hurt your mother's feelings on July 1, your 23rd birthday, I suppose you have to do it. However, I first urge that you reflect without interruption for three months. Since this seemed acceptable, Paul agreed to begin his journey of Europe without having said the final, irrevocable words to Isabella Waring. Under a dripping tree in the path near the Vicarage gate, they exchanged their goodbyes while it was pouring rain. Paul and Isabella both had heights of about six feet two and were proportionally broad. If not for the lady's revealing petticoat and their nearly identical attire, it would have been difficult to tell them apart from a distance. She said, "Good-bye, old fellow. I won't forget you. We have been great friends. Paul, though, who was feeling nostalgic, stated it another way. He muttered, "Good-bye, darling," in a sweet voice that seemed to be trembling. "I will never, ever love another woman besides you in my entire life." The bird in the tree cried, "Cuckoo!" We are now getting closer to the episode. Paul found Paris boring because he had no interest in discovering its pleasures. He went to the races while mooning. His French was too uninteresting to make going to the theater enjoyable, and the pretty women who smiled at his blue eyes were defenders of him. He believed that a man who had just lately lost the only woman he could ever love had no business considering such things. How youthful, valiant, and sincere he was—poor Paul! He began using a guidebook to travel to places like Compiègne, Fontainebleau, and Versailles and came to the opinion that everything there was "beastly rot." He left France and fled to Switzerland as a result. You who read, do you know Switzerland? Are you aware of it at the start of May? An abundance of azure lakes, snow-capped mountains, the most heavenly green of new beeches, the somber shade of dark firs, and the energizing sensation of the air. I don't have to inform you about it if you do. However, you must now view it via Paul's perspective. If you want to continue reading this awful book, that is. He was driving from the station to the hotel when it started to pour with rain. He was at the height of his rage. It was chilly and when Paul lit the fire in the sitting room, it smoked. Pilatus' head was hidden in the mist, and the Bürgenstock was invisible. His longing was for his own cozy chamber at Verdayne Place with Isabella Waring's cheery voice counting point, quint, and quatorze. Sending him abroad is absurd. As though such therapy could work as a cure for a love like his. At his mother's foolishness, he nearly laughed. He yearned so much to sit down and write to his beloved. Write and describe how he detested everything and was barely making it until he could see her six feet of buxom charms again. However, Paul did not phrase it that way; in fact, he never even considered her charms or his desire for them. He made no analysis. He was really a magnificent English young animal of the highest caliber; you see, he was sound asleep to nuances as of yet. He had made a pledge not to write to Isabella, or at the very least, not a love letter. "Dear boy," the Lady Henrietta had said as she kissed him goodbye, "if you are very unhappy and feel you greatly wish to write to Miss Waring, I suppose you must do so, but let your letter be about the scenery and your impressions of travel, in no way to be interpreted as a declaration of affection or a promise of future union—I have your word, Paul, for that?"