Julia+Lambert+and+Michael+Gosselyn

Arakelyan Liya

Julia fell in love with Michael at first sight. She had never seen a more beautiful young man, and she pursued him relentlessly. Julia’s heart beat with delight. The prospect of spending a whole week with Michael was enchanting. But he never made love to her. Julia soon discovered that he did not much like spending money. She liked him for counting the pennies, she admired him because he hated to be in debt and even with the small salary he was getting managed to save up a little every week. Michael knew that Julia could act him, off the stage, but they got on together like a house on fire. Michael had never met anyone who’s a patch on Julia. They married and soon made a pretty good team. Michael was a kind and affectionate lover, but in a very short while seemed to take her a trifle for granted; by his manner, friendly but casual, you might have thought they had been married for years. But he showed great good nature in allowing Julia to make love to him. She never tired of praising his beauty. Julia knew she could not afford to bore him. She knew she must never let him feel that she was responsibility. He might desert her for a game of golf, or to lunch with a casual acquaintance, she never let him see for a moment that she was hurt. And with inkling that her success as an actress strengthened his feeling for her she worked like a dog to play well. Julia made him frantic scenes. She was jealous of his friends at the Green Room Club, jealous of the games that took him away from her, and jealous of the men’s luncheons he went to under the pretext that he must cultivate people who might be useful to them. The first year of their marriage would have been stormy expect for Michael’s placidity. It needed the excitement of getting a part or a first night, the gaiety of a party where he had drunk several glasses of champagne. Julia made him frantic scenes. She was jealous of his friends at the Green Room Club, jealous of the men’s luncheons he went to under the pretext that he must cultivate people who might be useful to them. It infuriated her that when she worked herself up into a passion of tears he should sit there quite calmly, with his hands crossed and a good- humored smile on his handsome face, as though she were merely making herself ridiculous. They had been lucky. They had managed to get fairly good parts together in a play that had proved a success. They were both acting when the war broke out. When Michael went out to France Julia bitterly regretted the reproaches she had so often heaped upon him, and made up her mind that if he were killed she would commit suicide. But it was just before the end of the war that she fell out of love with him. She was pregnant at that time. The baby was expected at the end of the year. She looked forward to Michael’s next leave as she had never done before. He came. They talked late into the night and then they went to bed. He pressed his mouth to hers. She was filled on a sudden with a faint disgust. She had to resist an inclination to push him away. Before, to her passionate nostrils his body, his young beautiful body, had seemed to have a perfume of flowers and honey, and this had been one of the things that had most enchained her to him, but now in some strange way it had left him. She realized that he no longer smelt like a youth, he smelt like a man. Her heart sank because she knew she had lost something that was infinitely precious to her, but at the same time she was filled with a sense of triumph, it seemed a revenge that she enjoyed for the unhappiness he had caused her; she was free of the bondage in which her senses had held her to him on equal terms. When she looked at him now she wondered what there was in him that had ever aroused in her such a frenzy of passion. Michael was relieved when he discovered that Julia no longer made any demands on him. He thought with satisfaction that the birth of the baby had calmed her down; he was bound to say that he had thought it might, and he was only sorry they had not had one before. Julia was much easier to get on with, she never made scenes any more, and he was happier than he had ever been before. It was a damned satisfactory marriage he had made, and when he looked at other people’s marriages he couldn’t help seeing he was one of the lucky ones. Julia was a damned good sort and clever. You could talk to her about anything in the world. Julia was surprised to discover in herself a strange feeling of pity for him because she no longer loved him. She was a kindly woman, and she realized that it would be a bitter blow to his pride if he ever had an inkling how little he meant to her. She continued to flatter him. She noticed that for long now he had come to listen complacently to her praise of his exquisite nose and beautiful eyes. She got a little private amusement by seeing how much he could swallow. His thrift, which in the early days had seemed an amusing, rather touching trait, now revolted her. Both Julia and Michael were successful. Julia was now a rich woman. She could not but admit that Michael was as careful of her money as of his own. He watched her investments and was as pleased when he could sell stocks at a profit on her account as if he had made the money for himself. No one could do other than admire the self- abnegation with which he sacrificed himself for her sake. Any ambition he may have had for himself he had abandoned in order to foster her career. Everybody praised him. A perfect husband. It seemed to her that none but she knew what it was like to live with a man who was such a monster of vanity. Morally she had the best of both worlds. Everyone knew that her marriage with Michael was exemplary. She was a pattern of conjugal fidelity.