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Excerpt from Threescore and Ten
But when I read through what I've put down I see what nonsense it is. Coming to terms With life! As though I'm any more likely to succeed now in domg what I've failed to do throughout my seventy-six years. The truth is, Liz zie, when I wrote that about coming to terms With life I'd worked myself up into a state. By thinking of you I'd taken on something of your strength. But that was yesterday and today's today, and I can see now that though I was trying to be truthful I was projecting something of the feeling of strength I had then into my account of riding home with Will.
Oh, I set out stout-heartedly enough, and all through the drive I felt you near to me, very near, as though you were holding my hand. Will was in the driver's seat of course; I sat in the back. It was where he'd put me and where I wanted to be. Talk was the last thing either of us wished for. He sat driving that machine, the master of it, and I stared at the back of his neck. It was red, I thought, with anger, and I could imagine the set of his jaw and the thin line of his angry compressed lips. And I thought - it struck me suddenly as it had never done before - Will is a boss! A master was what we called them when we were young. I felt very small and frightened at that, not at all a giant.
He wasn't my boss of course, but still he was a boss, and it made me sad, for the knowledge seemed to get in the way between us: you know, Lizzie, I've been against bosses all my life. Yes, I know what you will say; but good or bad, Lizzie, bosses are always bosses.
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