782
PARTISAN REVIEW
daughters "so well," she replies, "They never got to meet anyone else
but dukes and earls."
If
the story isn't true, it's to the point .
Love is not blind, and it is also not deaf. It is possible to fall in
love with a voice, a timbre, a certain way of talking, a charming ac–
cent. Many inexplicable love affairs, especially those of the long past
where we have only photographs or paintings to go by, would prob–
ably be better understood if we could hear the lovers speak. Many a
warped-looking and ill-favored Caliban has been endowed with a
winning, mellow and irresistible voice . Many a shapely and gor–
geous Ferdinand caws like an adenoidal crow. And the same with
women . One often sees how a husky, sexy voice takes a raddled face
further in love than does a little-girl twang issuing from a smooth–
cheeked nymph .
The first time I was aware of two people in love was when an
English master and an art mistress at my school got engaged. They
observed the utmost discretion in front of the girls, but we registered
their every move and glance when they happened to meet in the cor–
ridors . We exchanged endless information on this subject. These
two teachers were not at all loverlike. Both were already middle–
aged (and alas must now be dead, or else aged ninety-nine) . He was
tall and gawky with a long horselike face and eyes, too, not unhorse–
like. She was dumpy, with the same shape over and under her waist,
which was more or less tied-in around the middle . They were both
pleasant characters. I liked him better, because he was fond of En–
glish literature; she, on the other hand, was inclined to stick her fore–
finger onto my painting and say, "What does it mean?
It
doesn't
mean anything." Which of course was true, and I didn't take it
amiss .
The only puzzling thing about this love affair was what he, or
anybody, could see in her. What she could see in him was also dif–
ficult to place, but still, he had something you could call "person–
ality." She, none. We pondered on this at the same time as we noted
how he followed her with his eyes- they were dark and vertically
long- and how she, apparently oblivious of his enamored long-eyed
look, would stump off upon her stodgy way, on her little peglike
legs, with never a smile nor a light in her eyes. One thing we
learned: love is incomprehensible. He saw the same person as we
saw, but he saw something extra. It never occurred to us to think
that perhaps she was an excellent cook, which might very likely have
been the magic element in the love affair. It might also have been the
case that neither of them had really had time to meet anybody else.
