The Lone Pilgrim Read Free Page B

you are afraid to enter it, wondering what you might find: a little chapel, a stand of birches, wolves, snakes, the worst you can imagine, or the best. You take one timid step forward, but then you realize you are not alone. You take someone’s hand—Gilbert Seigh’s—and strain through the darkness to see ahead.

The Boyish Lover
    When Jane Mayer met Cordy Spaacks, she was at that stage of life in which all things look possible. She was full of energy and high spirits. The windows of her apartment faced a pretty street. She had begun to teach for the first time, and her students had liked her at once. The face that was reflected back at her from the mirror was more than confident—it was willing. She felt rather as athletes feel when they are in top form. Her life had assumed a shape she found entirely agreeable, and the circumstances she found herself in filled her with happiness. She was absolutely ripe to fall in love.
    She met Cordy at a faculty tea. This tea was held for the Humanities Department, in which Jane taught English literature. Cordy was in the Physics Department, but the Humanities tea was famous for excellent if small sandwiches, and Cordy liked a free meal when he could find one. Each Thursday he ambled over to the formal room in which the tea was held, guest of a pal in the French Department. This pal, the sort of well-meaning fool you get to play Cupid in a campus production about Saint Valentine, had met Jane, who was new to the university. He also knew that Cordy was unattached, and since Jane and Cordy struck him as two of the most attractive people he had ever seen, he felt an obligation to bring them together. He knew that Cordy had been divorced. He did not know that Cordy had spent the last four months of his unhappy four-year marriage in almost total silence or that the failure of this marriage was in large part attributable to Cordy, who had wed a slightly addled girl and then paid her back for it. This, however, is not the sort of information that generally falls into the hands of nonprofessional matchmakers, and it was with a sort of flourish that he led Cordy over to Jane.
    Jane had just come from delivering a lecture on Charlotte Bronte and she was in fine appetite. The introduction was made as she stood next to a plate of the famous sandwiches. The well-meaning pal withdrew beaming, leaving Cordy to watch Jane knock back seven of these sandwiches and wash them down with a cup of lukewarm tea.
    â€œAre all your appetites that voracious?” asked Cordy.
    â€œYes,” said Jane. “Aren’t everyone’s?”
    Thus they announced themselves, had either bothered to notice. That small interchange might have been a pair of policy statements, and neither would have needed to say another word. Instead, Jane thought that the word Cordy brought to mind was “winsome.” He had a true grin, a slightly manic chuckle, and a very beautiful mouth. Furthermore, he was clearly smart—she could tell at once. Cordy noticed that Jane’s hair was the color of taffy, that her eyes were green, and that she was a unique combination of style and intelligence. They retired to a corner to begin a conversation during which they fluttered brilliance at one another. They agreed instantly on everything. Jane felt her best self emerge—charming, passionate, and original. Fate had handed her the perfect other. In Cordy’s brown eyes Jane saw the reflection of the effect she was creating. Cordy, who before his marriage had broken hearts in many of our nation’s finer institutions of higher learning, was captivated. After several days of similar meetings in other settings and one spectacular kiss, the setup for which Cordy engineered by taking the ribbon out of Jane’s hair, they were inseparable. Night after night you might see them in the library, their chairs close together. Under the table, if you were on your hands and knees, you could see Jane’s