Greene on Capri by Shirley Hazzard

Author:Shirley Hazzard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: 1998-09-16T04:00:00+00:00

I was so muddled in my head, I thought, there’s been a mistake. She must still be alive. For a moment until I realised what had happened, I was—disappointed. That was the terrible thing. I thought “now the anxiety begins, and the pain,” but when I realised what had happened, then it was all right, she was dead, I could begin to forget her.

That phenomenon, of death, false hope, and repudiation, is evoked throughout literature. Tacitus calls it “the double bereavement.” It is found in Shakespeare, and in Byron. In Conrad, it is a theme of The Planter of Malata. In Proust, it is again associated with a muddle of telegrams. Oscar Wilde, resurrecting the mythical Ernest from supposed extinction, elicits it from Miss Prism:

After we had all been resigned to his loss, his sudden return seems to me peculiarly distressing.

In Graham’s case, the observation was drawn from events of his own life; in particular, from a disordered announcement of his father’s death. The ability to refresh innate perception with specific modernity was among his most attractive gifts, accurate and compassionate.

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