‘Harriet,’ he said, suddenly, ‘what do you think about life? I mean, do you find it good on the whole? Worth living?’
(He could, at any rate, trust her not to protest, archly: ‘That’s a nice thing to ask on one’s honeymoon!’)
She turned to him with a quick readiness, as though here was the opportunity to say something she had been wanting to say for a long time:
‘Yes! I’ve always felt absolutely certain it was good — if only one could get it straightened out. I’ve hated almost everything that ever happened to me, but I knew all the time it was just things that were wrong, not everything. Even when I felt most awful I never thought of killing myself or wanting to die — only of somehow getting out of the mess and starting again.’
‘That’s rather admirable. With me it’s always been the other way round. I can enjoy practically everything that comes along — while it is happening. Only I have to keep on doing things, because, if once I stop, it all seems a lot of rot and I don’t care a damn if I go west tomorrow. At least, that’s what I should have said. Now — I don’t know. I’m beginning to think there may be something in it after all… Harriet –‘
‘It sounds like Jack Spratt and his wife.’
‘If there was any possible way of straightening it out for you… We’ve begun well, haven’t we, with this awful bloddy mess? When we once get clear of it, I’d give anything. But there you are, you see, it’s the same thing over again.’
‘But that’s what I’m trying to tell you. It ought to be, but it isn’t. Things have come straight. I always knew they would if one hung on long enough, waiting for a miracle.’
‘Honestly, Harriet?’
‘Well, it seems like a miracle to be able to look forward — to — to see all the minutes in front of one come hopping along with something marvellous in them, instead of just saying, Well, that one didn’t actually hurt and the next may be quite bearable if only something beastly doesn’t come pouncing out –‘
‘As bad as that?’
‘No, not really, because one got used to it — to being everlastingly tightened up to face things, you see. But when one doesn’t have to anymore, it’s different — I can’t tell you what a difference it makes. You — you — you — Oh, damn and blast you, Peter, you know you’re making me feel exactly like Heaven, so what’s the sense of trying to spare your feelings?’