TWILIGHT SLEEP. Wharton,Edith

house had the first electric lift at Climax. Once, in England, we went to stay with the Duke of Humber, at Humber Castle — one of those huge parties, royalties and everything — golf and polo all day, and a ball every night; and, will you believe it, WE HAD TO WALK UP AND DOWN STAIRS! I don’t know what English people are made of. I suppose they’ve never been used to what we call comfort. The second day I told Herman I couldn’t stand those awful slippery stairs after two rounds of golf, and dancing till four in the morning. It was simply destroying my heart — the doctor has warned me so often! I wanted to leave right away — but Herman said it would offend the Duke. The Duke’s such a sweet old man. But, any way, I made Herman promise me a sapphire and emerald plaque from Carrier’s before I’d agree to stick it out. . .”

      The Marchesa’s little ferret face with sharp impassioned eyes darted conversationally forward. “The Duke of Humber? I know him so WELL. Dear old man! Ah, you also stayed at Humber? So often he invites me. We are related . . . yes, through his first wife, whose mother was a Venturini of the Calabrian branch: Donna Ottaviana. Yes. Another sister, Donna Rosmunda, the beauty of the family, married the Duke of Lepanto . . . a mediatized prince. . .”

      She stopped, and Manford read in her eyes the hasty inward interrogation: “Will they think that expression queer? I’m not sure myself just what ‘mediatized’ means. And these Americans! They stick at nothing, but they’re shocked at everything.” Aloud she continued: “A mediatized prince — but a man of the VERY HIGHEST character.”

      “Oh — ” murmured Mrs. Toy, puzzled but obviously relieved.

      Manford’s attention, tugging at its moorings, had broken loose again and was off and away.

      The how-many-eth dinner did that make this winter? And no end in sight! How could Pauline stand it? Why did she want to stand it? All those rest-cures, massages, rhythmic exercises, devised to restore the health of people who would have been as sound as bells if only they had led normal lives! Like that fool of a woman spreading her blond splendours so uselessly at his side, who couldn’t walk upstairs because she had danced all night! Pauline was just like that — never walked upstairs, and then had to do gymnastics, and have osteopathy, and call in Hindu sages, to prevent her muscles from getting atrophied . . . He had a vision of his mother, out on the Minnesota farm, before they moved into Delos — saw her sowing, digging potatoes, feeding chickens; saw her kneading, baking, cooking, washing, mending, catching and harnessing the half-broken colt to drive twelve miles in the snow for the doctor, one day when all the men were away, and his little sister had been so badly scalded . . . And there the old lady sat at Delos, in her nice little brick house, in her hale and hearty old age, built to outlive them all. — Wasn’t that perhaps the kind of life Manford himself had been meant for? Farming on a big scale, with all the modern appliances his forbears had lacked, outdoing everybody in the county, marketing his goods at the big centres, and cutting a swathe in state politics like his elder brother? Using his brains, muscles, the whole of him, body and soul, to do real things, bring about real results in the world, instead of all this artificial activity, this spinning around faster and faster in the void, and having to be continually rested and doctored to make up for exertions that led to nothing, nothing, nothing. . .

      “Of course we all know YOU could tell us if you would. Everybody knows the Lindons have gone to you for advice.” Mrs. Toy’s large shallow eyes floated the question toward him on a sea-blue wave of curiosity. “Not a word of truth? Oh, of course you have to say that! But everybody has been expecting there’d be trouble soon. . .”

      And, in a whisper, from the Marchesa’s side: “Teasing you about that mysterious Mahatma? Foolish woman! As long as dear Pauline believes in him, I’m satisfied. That was what I was saying to Pauline before dinner: ‘Whatever you and Dexter approve of, I approve of.’ That’s the reason why I’m so anxious to have my poor boy come to New York . . . my Michelangelo! If only you could see him I know you’d grow as fond of him as you are of our dear Jim: perhaps even take him into your office . . . Ah, that, dear Dexter, has always been my dream!”

      . . . What sort of a life, after all, if not this one? For of course that dream of a Western farm was all rubbish. What he really wanted was a life in which professional interests as far~reaching and absorbing as his own were somehow impossibly combined with great stretches of country quiet, books, horses and children — ah, children! Boys of his own — teaching them all sorts of country things; taking them for long trudges, telling them about trees and plants and birds — watching the squirrels, feeding the robins and thrushes in winter; and coming home in the dusk to firelight, lamplight, a tea-table groaning with jolly things, all the boys and girls (girls too, more little Nonas) grouped around, hungry and tingling from their long tramp — and a woman lifting a calm face from her book: a woman who looked so absurdly young to be their mother; so —

      “You’re looking at Jim’s wife?” The Marchesa broke in. “No wonder! Très en beauté, our Lita! — that dress, the very same colour as her hair, and those Indian emeralds . . . how clever of her! But a little difficult to talk to? Little too silent? No? Ah, not to YOU, perhaps — her dear father! Father-in-law, I mean — ”

      Silent! The word sent him off again. For in that other world, so ringing with children’s laughter, children’s wrangles, and all the healthy blustering noises of country life in a big family, there would somehow, underneath it all, be a great pool of silence, a reservoir on which one could always draw and flood one’s soul with peace. The vision was vague and contradictory, but it all seemed to meet and mingle in the woman’s eyes. . .

      Pauline was signalling from her table-end. He rose and offered his arm to the Marchesa.

      In the hall the strains of the famous Somaliland orchestra bumped and tossed downstairs from the ball-room to meet them. The ladies, headed by Mrs. Toy, flocked to the mirror-lined lift dissembled behind forced lilacs and Japanese plums; but Amalasuntha, on Manford’s arm, set her blunt black slipper on the marble tread.

      “I’m used to Roman palaces!”