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There’s something wrong with me. I’m going to end up an old maid.” “There’s no such thing as an old maid.” “Wh-what would you call a middle-aged lady who’s never married?” “A woman with standards?” West suggested.
“But life is what novels are about. A novel can contain more truth than a thousand newspaper articles or scientific papers. It can make you imagine, just for a little while, that you’re someone else—and then you understand more about people who are different from you.”
But unfortunately, true love never seemed to happen to someone who was looking for it. Love was a prankster, preferring to sneak up on people who were busy doing other things.
“There’s nothing wrong about not knowing something. The stupid people are the ones who think they know everything.”
“‘I’ll never marry’ is the song of every libertine and the refrain of every rake. However, most of them eventually succumb to the inevitable.”
Unable to resolve the paradox on his own, Tom decided to consult the known authority on such matters: Jane Austen.
The deeper meaning of the novel, however, had remained a mystery. As far as Tom could tell, the point of Persuasion was never to let relatives interfere with one’s engagement.
He returned home with Don Quixote, Les Misérables, and A Tale of Two Cities, although he wasn’t sure why he was compelled to read them. Maybe it was the sense they all contained clues to an elusive secret. Maybe if he read enough novels about the problems of fictional people, he might find some clue about how to solve his own.
The last time they had been together, they’d waltzed in a winter garden. Now, they were de-lousing a pestilent street urchin. It wasn’t exactly progress.
“Bingley?” Tom repeated. “From Pride and Prejudice. Haven’t you read that one yet?” “I don’t need to,” Tom said. “If it’s Austen, I already know the plot: two people who fall in love after they have a terrible misunderstanding and have many long conversations about it. Then they marry. The end.” “Sounds orwful,” Bazzle said.
Kathleen turned in his arms to regard the trio of goldfinches. “I wonder what they’ll do,” she mused aloud, “now that they’re out in the world, in the open air?” He snuggled her back against him, and nuzzled her cheek. “Whatever they want.”
