IX

The perplexing thing about life is the irresolvable complexity of
reality, of things and relations alike. Nothing is simple. Every wrong
done has a certain justice in it, and every good deed has dregs of evil.
As for us, young still, and still without self-knowledge, resounded
a hundred discordant notes in the harsh angle of that shock. We were
furiously angry with each other, tender with each other, callously
selfish, generously self-sacrificing.

I remember Marion saying innumerable detached things that didn't hang
together one with another, that contradicted one another, that were,
nevertheless, all in their places profoundly true and sincere. I see
them now as so many vain experiments in her effort to apprehend the
crumpled confusions of our complex moral landslide. Some I found
irritating beyond measure. I answered her--sometimes quite abominably.

"Of course," she would say again and again, "my life has been a
failure."

"I've besieged you for three years," I would retort "asking it not to
be. You've done as you pleased. If I've turned away at last--"

Or again she would revive all the stresses before our marriage.

"How you must hate me! I made you wait. Well now--I suppose you have
your revenge."

"REVENGE!" I echoed.