The Return of Service

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Too many times you read a story nowadays and it’s not a story at all, not in the traditional sense. A traditional story has plot, character, and theme, to name three things it traditionally has. The following story, which contains a soupçon of mood in addition to the three major considerations named above, is intended as a modest “rearguard action in the service of a declining tradition.”

The plot is this: a woman of good family (we won’t say just how good the family is) marries a man of means. They live together in uneventful happiness for seven years until their love runs out. Then they split up but not before some bad times that leave scars of bitterness. Afterward, the bad times remain, particularly for the woman, and the good times are dashed on the rock of negligent memory, which is one of the themes of the story. Bad times in a marriage erase all memories of former happiness. The name of the woman of better than average family is Eve. What more is there to know of her? The answer to that question is the character part of the story.

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