The Reluctant Trophy Wife by Judith Petres Balogh

Author:Judith Petres Balogh [Balogh, Judith Petres]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: uploadable
Publisher: UNKNOWN
Published: 2017-02-19T00:00:00+00:00

THIRTEEN

Gradually she adjusted her life to fit the slow pace of the village. Time played tricks on her. While she produced page after page for the emerging novel, it would rush by at a dizzy speed and before she realized its passage it was Sunday, and lunch at Sarah’s cottage. Then it would slow down to a gentle pace and pass in luxurious laziness and she had a hard time remembering which day of the week it was. She slept a great deal, much more than she was used to and it felt good. She also devoted time to learn the language. It was more difficult than she first anticipated, but decided that if young American children with dubious commitment to the task could learn to spell correctly twenty-five words a week, she then could easily learn twenty Hungarian words a day, considering that she was highly motivated. She found the grammar difficult, and never really understood how to use the suffixes correctly, of which there were far too many. On the other hand she was greatly relieved that at least it was a phonetically honest, consistent and logical language. Juli néni was an admiring audience and soon Lena was able to exchange simple conversations with her or say pleasantries to people she met during her walks.

Unless she had an errand to do in the village or in the next town, less than two dozen kilometers away, Lena usually took her walks in the morning when the air was still cool. It was a time devoted to sort through impressions and problems, or to think about the development of the characters, or the plot in her book. As time passed the morning walks were gradually longer. The more she walked and the more she meditated, the clearer were her goals, her expectations and her place in life. She discovered the pleasure of being her own company, and knew that she was gradually developing a streak in her character, which was at odds with her role as the trophy wife.

At times during these solitary walks she carried on a silent monologue explaining to Clyde how sometimes the very best intentions have the perverted habit of turning out with opposite results. She pointed out to him that her transformation into a different person was solely his fault, because he alone planned this ridiculous exile. Through it he unwittingly exposed her to people, who were congenial, and whose ideas, which she was gradually absorbing, would scandalize their social circle or at least make her quite ridiculous in their eyes. Yes Clyde, she told him across the miles, these two people are gradually changing your trophy wife into somebody who would not please you quite so much. Had you let me stay home and had kept me under your relentless influence and surveillance, I probably would never have changed my thinking and preferences, or perhaps the change would not have come so rapidly, so unexpectedly.

These silent and mostly unfair attacks did not make her any happier.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.