Manchurian Books

Presently we were formally engaged. I had a wonderful
interview with her father, in which he was stupendously grave
and H--less, wanted to know about my origins and was tolerant
(exasperatingly tolerant) because my mother was a servant, and
afterwards her mother took to kissing me, and I bought a ring. But
the speechless aunt, I gathered, didn't approve--having doubts of my
religiosity. Whenever we were estranged we could keep apart for days;
and to begin with, every such separation was a relief. And then I would
want her; a restless longing would come upon me. I would think of the
flow of her arms, of the soft, gracious bend of her body. I would lie
awake or dream of a transfigured Marion of light and fire. It was indeed
Dame Nature driving me on to womankind in her stupid, inexorable way;
but I thought it was the need of Marion that troubled me. So I always
went back to Marion at last and made it up and more or less conceded or
ignored whatever thing had parted us, and more and more I urged her to
marry me....
In the long run that became a fixed idea.


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