Vivian Young Ones Quotes

Very young, I was not able to find myself interesting without intelligent response. I required the company of minds attuned to my own, but no one around gave me back the words I needed to hear.

My father had a sister, Mady, who had married badly and ‘ruined her life.’ Her story was a classic. She had fallen in love before the war with an American adventurer, married him against her family’s wishes, and been disinherited by my grandfather. Mady followed her husband romantically across the sea. In America he promptly abandoned her. By the time my parents arrived in America Mady was already a broken woman, sick and prematurely old, living a life two steps removed from destitution. My father, of course, immediately put her on an allowance and made her welcome in his home. But the iron laws of Victorian transgression had been set in motion and it was really all over for Mady. You know what it meant for a woman to have been so disgraced and disinherited in those years? She had the mark of Cain on her. She would live, barely tolerated, on the edge of respectable society for the rest of her life. A year after we arrived in America, I was eleven years old, a cousin of mine was married out of our house. We lived then in a lovely brownstone on New York’s Upper West Side. The entire house had been cleaned and decorated for the wedding. Everything sparkled and shone, from the basement kitchen to the third-floor bedrooms. In a small room on the second floor the women gathered around the bride, preening, fixing their dresses, distributing bouquets of flowers. I was allowed to be there because I was only a child. There was a bunch of long-stemmed roses lying on the bed, blood-red and beautiful, each rose perfection. Mady walked over to them. I remember the other women were wearing magnificent dresses, embroidered and bejeweled. Mady was wearing only a simple white satin blouse and a long black skirt with no ornamentation whatever. She picked up one of the roses, sniffed deeply at it, held it against her face. Then she walked over to a mirror and held the rose against her white blouse. Immediately, the entire look of her plain costume was altered; the rose transferred its color to Mady’s face, brightening her eyes. Suddenly, she looked lovely, and young again. She found a long needle-like pin and began to pin the rose to her blouse. My mother noticed what Mady was doing and walked over to her. Imperiously, she took the rose out of Mady’s hand and said, ‘No, Mady, those flowers are for the bride.’ Mady hastily said, ‘Oh, of course, I’m sorry, how stupid of me not to have realized that,’ and her face instantly assumed its usual mask of patient obligation. “I experienced in that moment an intensity of pain against which I have measured every subsequent pain of life. My heart ached so for Mady I thought I would perish on the spot. Loneliness broke, wave after wave, over my young head and one word burned in my brain. Over and over again, through my tears, I murmured, ‘Unjust! Unjust!’ I knew that if Mady had been one of the ‘ladies’ of the house my mother would never have taken the rose out of her hand in that manner. The memory of what had happened in the bedroom pierced me repeatedly throughout that whole long day, making me feel ill and wounded each time it returned. Mady’s loneliness became mine. I felt connected, as though by an invisible thread, to her alone of all the people in the house. But the odd thing was I never actually went near her all that day. I wanted to comfort her, let her know that I at least loved her and felt for her. But I couldn’t. In fact, I avoided her. In spite of everything, I felt her to be a pariah, and that my attachment to her made me a pariah, also. It was as though we were floating, two pariahs, through the house, among all those relations, related to no one, not even to each other. It was an extraordinary experience, one I can still taste to this day. I was never again able to address myself directly to Mady’s loneliness until I joined the Communist Party. When I joined the Party the stifled memory of that strange wedding day came back to me. . .

Her parents are on the young side, and they plan to retire early and enjoy their money. These things are never put into words, yet there is no doubt about their expectations. Vivian is the same way. She somehow makes everything clear without being blunt or even raising her voice. After she presented Sean, for example, with her timeline for having their one (and only) child, she added: “And, of course, I will be staying home.” “Of course,” he replied, although he had assumed she wanted to work. She had seemed so gung-ho ambitious when they met. “I could go back to work, but almost all my income would go to child care, so what’s the point of that?” “Of course,” he repeated. “Which means you’ll probably want to leave the newspaper and go into a corporate position.” “Of—what?” They had been living in Charlotte then. It was a hot newspaper, coming off a Pulitzer win for its coverage of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, part of a much-respected chain. Sean, who used his aborted premed education to position himself as a medical reporter, had planned to go as far as he could there, then move on to one of the big dogs, the Washington Post or the New York Times. It was not an unreasonable dream in 1989. It would not have been an unreasonable dream even ten years later. Twenty years later—the chain that owned the paper doesn’t even exist anymore. If he had followed his heart, he might have been one of the lucky ones, safe and sound at a big national newspaper when all the other papers started to shrink. But he was long gone from journalism by then, exiled to corporate communications, first in Charlotte’s banking industry, now for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida. He makes good money, and he earns that salary in income-tax-free Florida. It was enough—just—to buy Vivian the house she expected in a neighborhood she deemed worthy, Old Northeast, although without a water view. It’s a good life. Really. Together more than twenty years, they never fight or raise their voices. They disagree. They often disagree. Then Sean explains his side and Vivian explains

One day in May, the whiteness in Milo’s brain turns into that of a flock of Canadian geese that fills the entire sky. Pan to the young man staring up at them. Clinging to his arm is a pert and pretty, dark-haired girl by the name of Viviane, also looking up. Their mouths are open in amazement. Milo recites a few lines from “The Wild Swans at Coole.” De trees are in deir autumn beauty, De woodland paths are dry, Under de October twilight de water Mirrors a still sky; Upon de brimming water among de stones Are nine-and-fifty swans. Viviane looks at him adoringly. “Sounds beautiful!” she says. “Who’s it by?” “Yeats.” “Never heard of him.

You and I come from such completely different backgrounds, Viv. I was planning to be a nun!” Viv’s eyes widened in shock, but very briefly. “Well, you’d have been some kick-ass nun, that’s for sure. I’ve seen you with your boys—they don’t even sass. But something obviously changed your mind about the convent…” “Patrick Riordan, Sr., my husband. He hounded me until I gave in and dated him, then married him. And he’s been the only man in my life. The only one. I can’t imagine another man…” “You must have loved him very much.” “Well, of course I did, but that’s got nothing to do with it. I’m just far too mature to be thinking about a relationship with a man. Those days are gone. It was hard enough for me when I was young and my body was—” She stopped, unable to finish. “What? Maureen, you’re beautiful! Your figure is amazing! You play sports and your mind is quick and you seem so confident.” Maureen snorted. “Of course I’m confident. With my clothes on!” She took a drink of her wine. “Patrick was and will be the only husband of my lifetime.” Vivian

Perhaps one of us should talk to him?” Eugene suggested. “If we find out his story, there might be nothing to fear.” “Our young apprentice has a point,” Sebastian said with enough surprise in his voice to draw a scowl from the younger man. “It’s upsetting to have a tiger about and not know if it’s hungry. Go speak to him, Eugene.” “No thank you. I had the idea.” “Well I certainly can’t,” Sebastian said. “I’m far too talkative. It’s a trait that has often led to problems. We don’t want to provoke the man unnecessarily. What about you, Samuel?” “Are you insane? You don’t send a lamb to question a tiger. The soldier should go. He has nothing to be afraid of. Even a murderer would think twice before challenging a man with two swords.” They all looked at Hadrian. “What do you want to know?” “His name,” Sebastian suggested. “Where he’s from. What he does-” “If he’s the murderer-” Vivian burst in. “I’m not so sure you’ll want to lead with that,” Samuel said. “But isn’t that what we all want to know?” “Yes, but who would admit to such a thing? Better to get enough information to build a picture and then infer the truth from that.” “But if you ask straight out, that will serve as a warning that we’re wise to him and on our guard. Any plans he might have will be spoiled and abandoned.” “How about I just see how things go,” Hadrian said, rising.

He never had no letters come. If he’d been courting he’d have had some every day or so. Young women like to know that their men are not moving about so much. I know. I’ve been one myself.

younger man rose from beside Glennis’s sister Vivian with a sad smile that suggested he understood the ways of the world but loved it anyway. He looked to be a professional man of some sort, perhaps a promising scholar or judge, the kind of man whose easy manner and handsome face encouraged trust and caused young girls to giggle. Something about his earnest yet worldly smile also made Dr. Winterjay look, eerily, a bit like Julia’s beau back in London. David too could both admire and tease in the same glance, inviting one into the intimate game that was modern gallantry.

[In marriage you] go through stages, like acts in a play. Act One, you fall in love, and the birds twitter and the bees go buzz, and you'll never love somebody else as long as you both shall live, amen. Act Two, enter the baby carriage, and all of a sudden he catches sight of a pair of firm young tits and figures life is short. Act Three...you realize there's no point letting the husbands have all the fun. [Vivian Schuyler]