Chapter VII: Flowers

HIS taxi passed a florist’s shop, and he leaned forward and pounded on the window. “Stop a minute. Yes, right here.”

It might be ridiculous-- But why should it be ridiculous? A girl who had a baby, a girl in bed in a hospital, would like to have flowers brought by a visitor, surely. Any girl!

In the shop, he looked about at the banked flowers in uncertainty.

“We have some very nice American Beauty roses,” said the salesman, leading him toward the glass fronted refrigerator. He took out a bunch of long stemmed buds. “Fifteen dollars a dozen.” Norman felt uncomfortable. He was vaguely apprehensive of the emotional inappropriateness of American Beauty roses for this occasion.

Something yellow caught his eye. “Jonquils,” he said. “Let me see those.”

“A dollar a dozen,” said the salesman, without enthusiasm.

Norman hesitated. A husband, a lover, a dear friend, might give the yellow flowers she liked. But what was he? Isabel had always that power of making him feel at a loss. From a moment of intimacy she could withdraw herself until he felt infinitely remote, the most casual of acquaintances, almost a stranger.

He bought the roses.

In the taxi, he had a disconcerting picture of himself, with stick and gloves and tissue-wrapped bouquet. It seemed altogether too jaunty. He felt like a silly-ass character in a story by P. G. Wodehouse. Vindictively he accused himself of being really that--a superficial person, with no capacity for dealing with the serious aspects of life. Yes, what should a P. G. Wodehouse young man be doing in a Tolstoian situation? But real life seemed to be like that.

Abruptly he knocked on the glass window. “Drive back to that florist’s,” he ordered.

The driver turned the corner, rounded the block, and drew up at the florist’s shop again.

“Give me two dozen jonquils,” said Norman to the salesman.

When they were wrapped up and paid for, he handed back the other bouquet. “You can keep these,” he said, and walked out.