410
W.S.
MERWIN
resort where both dynasties had summer houses. Only one portrait
of her is known to have survived. It shows the girl at the time when
they first met - already beautiful: slender, dark-haired, her ex–
pression gentle, delicate, remote. She had pretended not to notice
his
early, clumsy suit. During the first winters her name was coupled
with one boy after another from the same schools which he attended.
But one summer, perhaps out of mere indolence, she had paid
him
more attention, or at least had spent more time in his company
than before, and their families had come to take the relation
be–
tween them for granted - though neither of the young people did
so. They were spoken of for a winter or so almost as though they
were engaged. Between the assumption, which he met on all hands,
of his future with her, and the secret barrenness of his hopes, he
became aware of an abyss that would swallow everything he knew.
During college he had seen as much as possible of a succession
of other girls. He had even formed attachments with several of them,
lasting for a matter of months. But she was the one whom he tried
not to want, and the longing for her grew with him. He proposed
to her before he left college and she listened to
him
quietly and told
him she wanted to wait. Then she had gone abroad with her family
and he was not surprised when, shortly after their return, he received
an announcement of her engagement to someone else.
They had continued to see each other, occasionally. She had
had a daughter. He too had married - twice, once hilariously, both
times disastrously. He had had no children.
Her marriage too had ended in divorce, after fifteen years. Her
husband spent his summers on his own estate, and her daughter was
sent to be with him in June. She herself had returned to visit her
family, in the northern resort. There she had seen her former suitor
again. There had been a second courtship, to which he deliberately
imparted an
air
of casual urbanity that was as contrived - on
his
part - as the stillness of the breath above a triggerfinger.
It
worked.
They were married during the following winter. Nothing is known of
tlleir life together. Outwardly it was placid. She died a year later,
while swimming.
The entrance to the museum is guarded by wardens
in
plain
dark uniforms without metal buttons or insignia of any kind. Inside
the main portal is a vast hall, with another marble pedestal
in
the
