An Agitation

‘I wished to hear the sound of your voice,’ he said.

‘You’ve heard it, and you see it says nothing very sweet.’

‘It gives me pleasure, all the same.’ And with this he got up.

She had felt pain and displeasure on receiving early that day the news he was in Florence and by her leave would come within an hour to see her. She had been vexed and distressed, though she had sent back word by his messenger that he might come when he would. She had not been better pleased when she saw him; his being there at all was so full of heavy implications. It implied things she could never assent to—rights, reproaches, remonstrance, rebuke, the expectation of making her change her purpose. These things, however, if implied, had not been expressed; and now our young lady, strangely enough, began to resent her visitor’s remarkable self-control. There was a dumb misery about him that irritated her; there was a manly staying of his hand that made her heart beat faster. She felt her agitation rising, and she said to herself that she was angry in the way a woman is angry when she has been in the wrong. She was not in the wrong; she had fortunately not that bitterness to swallow; but, all the same, she wished he would denounce her a little. She had wished his visit would be short; it had no purpose, no propriety; yet now that he seemed to be turning away she felt a sudden horror of his leaving her without uttering a word that would give her an opportunity to defend herself more than she had done in writing to him a month before, in a few carefully chosen words, to announce her engagement. If she were not in the wrong, however, why should she desire to defend herself? It was an excess of generosity on Isabel’s part to desire that Mr Goodwood should be angry.

This is a passage from Portrait of A Lady and though it was written several years ago, I think this passage poignant because of its relevance to human interaction. Specifically, trysts and interludes.

An agitation, though it was, to be around Goodwood, our female character desires him to strike out in anger, tell her she’s wrong. It is such a familiar feeling; the desire to see emotion. If we feel that another person is terribly composed when we know them to be angry, we would wait for that moment for him to yell, to scream, to let go of his emotions. This would do so righteously, for then that Other would be doing us an injustice. Instead, the person sits or stands calmly before us, knowing how to handle her purpose/his purpose. What is one to do? Accept it and with so much unsaid, there is that “dumb misery about him” that Isabel saw and detested so very much.

Goodwood has such self discipline as to accept things as they are. While I won’t go into detail about the circumstances of the foregoing story, the plight is one all of us have dealt with. Isabel has bad news and he hears it calmly, with the desire to see her, to be near her, even though everything feels like a letdown. When one wants something so greatly and it doesn’t come, having that self-control he has amounts to something. The game men and women often play with one another amounts to a lot of suffering but also a lot of happiness, but often that “remarkable self-control” is what wins. Let the feelings play out, let a person know how you feel, but not to show it off, is what kills. I’m not sure how I feel about that. It reminds me of why I sometimes play the game, myself. I may not wish to do so, but when the time comes and I yearn to have something, I may wait patiently for it and then see if that self discipline is fruitful. It has proven to be so fruitful in the past, it is hard to disregard its power in the future. Unfortunately, it is a small game of deception to hide such emotion. But, it is also a considerably protective way of dealing with one’s heart. And this is something my loved ones have always reminded me to guard before anything else.