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Vidya wrote: "But what about Mrs. Sinico's role in it ........ What do you people think about throwing your life off (surely she must have realised she is fading away from life ) over somebody who doesn't even have the courage to judge emotions for what they are ........ Tho' as somebody had already said there are enough Duffys and Sinicos around to make this story very very realistic. Again a story which I could very easily relate to. And I found it a sad one coz it actually happens and the tragedy is the ease with which people throw emotions out of their life without thinkign twice." Joyce does not loose many words over Mrs. Sinico in this story. She is in the background, the victim. I don't think that she is fading away, if that means that she is getting old. If we can guess anything at all about Mrs. Sinico, her life has become eventless, kind of one day merging into the next, no ups and no downs. Like the lives of millions of people in the world. Vidya, do you know THE one great story about the loneliness of such women is An Antidote to Boredom by Shashi Deshpande in her collection of short stories: Intrusion and Other Stories? I try to imagine Mrs. Sinico leading a silent life, though she has a husband and a daughter. Silence has descended on that house, like the inevitable fog in Switzerland. So when she found Mr. Duffy who took some interest in her, talked to her about his ideas, he must have opened a new world for Mrs. Sinico. And the loss therefore was doubly great when he walked out on her. She gives herself up to drinking, and finally throws herself in front of a train. What desperation! In that Joyce's words, "Every bond, is a bond to sorrow" is very true. May be it is truer than I had realised till today. I also wonder whether Mr. Duffy misunderstood Mrs. Sinico's gesture when she took his hand and pressed it to her cheek. He immediately saw it as bringing them sexually closer. He wrote down later, "Love between man and man is impossible because there must not be sexual intercourse and freiendship between man and woman is impossible because there must be sexual intercourse." What if Mrs. Sinico had taken his hand as a gesture of affection, simple and pure affection which one can feel for another fellow human being because one feels that one's heart pulsates in rhythm with the other heart? With no sexual thoughts at all? Such unnecessary misunderstanding. Such a tortoise-life like life. Such an avoidable tragedy. Chandra |
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