Three Score & Ten

He sighed.

‘I should like to die this night. Nothing so wonderful will ever happen to me again. I shall think of it all my life. I shall always have this evening to remember, the glimpse of your beauty and the recollection of this lovely spot. I shall always think of you as a goddess in heaven and I shall pray to you as though you were the Madonna.’

He lifted her hand to his lips and with an awkward, touching little bow, kissed it. She gently touched his face. Suddenly he fell on his knees and kissed the hem of her dress. Then a great exaltation seized her. She took his head in her hands, raising him towards her, and kissed his eyes and his mouth. There was something solemn and mystical in the action. She had a feeling that was strange to her. Her heart was filled with loving kindness.

He rose to his feet and passionately clasped her in his arms. He was twenty-three. She was not a goddess to pray to, but a woman to possess.

They went back into the silent house.

 W. Somerset Maugham, Up at the Villa

Before the grimy window rain fell from a darkening sky on the bomb-sites of Red Lion Square. Jane had looked out in an abstract pose before making her revelation to Nicholas. She now actually noticed the scene, it made her eyes feel miserable and her whole life appeared steeped in equivalent misery. She was disappointed in life, once more.

‘I’ll tell you another fact,’ said Nicholas. ‘I’m a crook too. What are you crying for?’

‘I’m crying for myself,’ said Jane. ‘I’m going to look for another job.’

‘Will you write a letter for me?’

‘What sort of letter?’

‘A crook-letter. From Charles Morgan to myself. Dear Mr Farringdon, When I first received your manuscript I was tempted to place it aside for my secretary to return to you with some polite excuse. But as happy chance would have it, before passing your work on to my secretary, I flicked over the pages and my eyes lit on…’

‘Lit on what?’ said Jane.

‘I’ll leave that to you. Only choose one of the most concise and brilliant passages when you come to write the letter. That will be difficult, I admit, since all are equally brilliant. But chose the piece you like best. Charles Morgan is to say he read that one piece, and then the whole, avidly, from start to finish. He is to say it’s a work of genius. He congratulates me on a work of genius, you realize. Then I show the letter to George.’

Jane’s life began to sprout once more, green with possibility. She recalled that she was only twenty-three, and smiled.

Muriel Spark, Girls of Slender Means