The Enchanted April

by Elizabeth von Arnim

Her novel of the previous year, Vera, a dark look at marital relations, was something of a sensation and had been compared by critics to the work of Jane Austen.

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?

who, like all the shy, once she was started plunged on, frightening herself to more and more speech by the sheer sound of what she had said last in her ears.

‘I see no end to it. There is no end to it. So that there ought to be a break, there ought to be intervals – in everybody’s interests. Why, it would really be being unselfish to go away and be happy for a little, because we would come back so much nicer. You see, after a bit everybody needs a holiday.’

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 . . .

Certainly he did seem to be one of those men, rare in her experience, who never looked at a woman from the predatory angle. The comfort of this, the simplification it brought into the relations of the party, was immense. From this point of view Mr Wilkins was simply ideal; he was unique and precious.