The Enchanted April

by Elizabeth von Arnim

Why couldn’t two unhappy people refresh each other on their way through this dusty business of life by a little talk—real, natural talk, about what they felt, what they would have liked, what they still tried to hope?

For years she had been able to be happy only by forgetting happiness. She wanted to stay like that. She wanted to shut out everything that would remind her of beautiful things, that might set her off again longing, desiring....

she also was older, and certainly calmer; and she herself had no doubt too that she was wiser.

the very way Mrs. Arbuthnot parted her hair suggested a great calm that could only proceed from wisdom.

She looked as though she were hiding something discreditable but delightful.

so important and beautiful—love, home, complete communion of thoughts, complete immersion in each other’s interests.

To be missed, to be needed, from whatever motive, was, she thought, better than the complete loneliness of not being missed or needed at all.

She made him think of his mother, of his nurse, of all things kind and comforting, besides having the attraction of not being his mother or his nurse.

What would she see out of her window? A shining world, or a world of rain? But it would be beautiful; whatever it was would be beautiful.

“And the name of the chamber,” she thought, quoting and smiling round at it, “was Peace.”

She stared. Such beauty; and she there to see it. Such beauty; and she alive to feel it.

It was as though she could hardly stay inside herself, it was as though she were too small to hold so much of joy, it was as though she were washed through with light.

she found herself blessing God for her creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life, but above all for His inestimable Love; out loud; in a burst of acknowledgment.

while this was the simple happiness of complete harmony with her surroundings, the happiness that asks for nothing, that just accepts, just breathes, just is.

You didn’t take your clothes to parties; they took you. It was quite a mistake to think that a woman, a really well-dressed woman, wore out her clothes; it was the clothes that wore out the woman—dragging her about at all hours of the day and night.

then good-bye to her dream of thirty restful, silent days, lying unmolested in the sun, getting her feathers smooth again, not being spoken to, not waited on, not grabbed at and monopolised, but just recovering from the fatigue, the deep and melancholy fatigue, of the too much.

It was more than tiresome, it was maddening. Nature was determined that she should look and sound angelic. She could never be disagreeable or rude without being completely misunderstood.

Mrs. Wilkins said she was sure no one, however old and tough, could resist the effects of perfect beauty.

Was it possible that loneliness had nothing to do with circumstances, but only with the way one met them?

No good could come out of the thinking of a beautiful young woman.

True she was old, true she was unbeautiful, true she therefore had no reason to smile, but kind ladies smiled, reason or no. They smiled, not because they were happy but because they wished to make happy.

Did happiness so completely protect one? Did it make one so untouchable, so wise?

A great desire to love and be friends, to love everybody, to be friends with everybody, seemed to be invading Lotty—a desire for sheer goodness.

I’m so happy, I’m so well, I feel so fearfully wholesome. This place—why, it makes me feel flooded with love.”

The great thing is to have lots of love about. I don’t see,” she went on, “at least I don’t see here, though I did at home, that it matters who loves as long as somebody does.

“Oh no, no—it’s dreadful,” cried Mrs. Wilkins. “It’s as if one had no clothes on.” “But I like that,” said Lady Caroline.

I hate authors. I wouldn’t mind them so much if they didn’t write books.

Ha!

How and where husbands slept should be known only to their wives. Sometimes it was not known to them, and then the marriage had less happy moments; but these moments were not talked about either; the decencies continued to be preserved.

March was restless, and could be hard and cold in its brightness; but April came along softly like a blessing, and if it were a fine April it was so beautiful that it was impossible not to feel different, not to feel stirred and touched.

She, so to speak, at once flung off all her garments and dived straight into glory, unhesitatingly, with a cry of rapture.

Reading was very important; the proper exercise and development of one’s mind was a paramount duty.

How beautiful it was. And what was the good of it with no one there, no one who loved being with one, who belonged to one, to whom one could say, “Look.” And wouldn’t one say, “Look—dearest?” Yes, one would say dearest and the sweet word, just to say it to somebody who loved one, would make one happy.

she wanted to cling to something tangible, to love something living, something that one could hold against one’s heart, that one could see and touch and do things for.

All day long she was invisible, and would come back in the late afternoon looking a perfect sight, her hair full of bits of moss, and her freckles worse than ever.

it seemed so extraordinary to be as happy as all that on so little.

it was quite plain that everything she did and said was effortless, and that she was just simply, completely happy.

There was nothing like an intelligent, not too young man for profitable and pleasurable companionship.

And the more he treated her as though she were really very nice, the more Lotty expanded and became really very nice, and the more he, affected in his turn, became really very nice himself; so that they went round and round, not in a vicious but in a highly virtuous circle.

got up and went down every morning to the sea, and in spite of the cool nights making the water cold early had his dip as a man should, and came up to breakfast rubbing his hands and feeling, as he told Mrs. Fisher, prepared for anything.

One should continue (of course with dignity) to develop, however old one may be. She had nothing against developing, against further ripeness, because as long as one was alive one was not dead—obviously,

It would be as abject as begging the very microbe that was infecting one for protection against its disease.

It is true she liked him most when he wasn’t there, but then she usually liked everybody most when they weren’t there.

was it not better to feel young somewhere rather than old everywhere? Time enough to be old everywhere again, inside as well as out,

The lamp was arranged conveniently for reading, but she was not reading. Her great dead friends did not seem worth reading that night. They always said the same things now—over and over again they said the same things, and nothing new was to be got out of them any more for ever. No doubt they were greater than any one was now, but they had this immense disadvantage, that they were dead. Nothing further was to be expected of them; while of the living, what might one not still expect? She craved for the living, the developing—the crystallised and finished wearied her.

It did seem that people could only be really happy in pairs—any sorts of pairs, not in the least necessarily lovers, but pairs of friends, pairs of mothers and children, of brothers and sisters—and