Saving Face


"My esteem for your whole family is very sincere; but if I have been so unfortunate as to give rise to a belief of more than I felt, or meant to express, I shall reproach myself for not having been more guarded in my professions of that esteem."

This is John Willoughby, a character in Austen's Sense & Sensibility. In the letter from which this text is lifted, JW is wiggling out of his very public love affair with one of the protagonists, the innocent and passionate Marianne Dashwood. He is being superficially gallant in blaming himself for her misunderstanding of his words and deeds.

Of all the authors I love and admire, I think Austen's rules for living life are the most practical, if not the most true. Her attention to the civilities is what keeps the wheels of social interaction turning. She puts the civil in civilization.

I have three sisters. I am very close with each of them. Their friends are my friends. They have included me in their plans, schemes and lives as far back as I can remember. My sister T has been my best friend all my life. We would joke that we did not need to make friends because we had each other. At my wedding she read a passage from the Book of Ruth that I particularly chose. As she recited "Wither thou goest, I will go," I knew we were referring to my husband and myself, but also to T and myself. We had referred to this passage always.

But up until about 6 months ago, she and I had not really even spoken for nearly 3 years. It is a trip to even type that phrase. We live less than 3 miles apart. Our children go to the same school. But we fell completely apart somewhere around 3 or 4 years ago. There was an erosion, and a few awful watershed incidents, and then silence. Judgemental, angry, hurt, egotistical silence. For years.

There never was any acknowledgement of the falling out, nor will there ever be. Somewhere around a few months ago, we began to reinvent our relationship.

It's distant and careful. I can live with this, because I am more guarded with her now than I have ever been with any person because I was so completely bereft when she and I crumbled. Pride goeth before the fall, I know. Yes, I am sure that of the Seven Deadly Sins, Pride is my weakness, and could easily lead to my downfall.

Here is where Austen creeps in: That there has never been an open discussion about what happened and why. No blame will ever be assigned. No purge. No Come to Jesus. None and never. She and I are each the most prideful people I have ever known, and in order to become friends again, it is by tacit agreement that we allow each other to save face entirely by just picking it up and moving on.

Austen would approve. Her characters are allowed to save face. Their pride is intact. They are never brought low by the truth being broadcast, regardless of their sin, because the truth usually hurts innocent parties as well. It is for the greater good that it be allowed to remain in the past.

But what happens to Austen's sinners? She leaves that to fate or karma or the Justice of God. It comes around.

Willoughby throws over Marianne, his true love, in order to engage himself to a cold but very rich woman. He needs the money, you see. As Marianne's sister later states:

"But does it thence follow that, had he married you, he would have been happy? The inconveniencies would have been different. He would then have suffered under the pecuniary distresses which, because they are removed, he now reckons as nothing. He would have had a wife of whose temper he could make no complaint, but he would have been always necessitous -- always poor; and probably would soon have learnt to rank the innumerable comforts of a clear estate and good income as of far more importance, even to domestic happiness, than the mere temper of a wife."

Karma bit Willoughby in the shorts. He has money but a wife he does not love. He broke faith with Marianne, but was allowed to get away with it without censure because to bring him to task would hurt Marianne, her family, her social standing, etc.

I am all for being allowed to save face. Pretending it did not happen is fine with me, if one is prepared to pay the price.

Regarding my sister, we communicate regularly now, but strangely enough, we communicate through music or movies or books. ALL we talk about are cbooks we have read, character analysis, motivations, music we are listening to recently, movies we have seen and our reactiosn to them. We communicate (sad but true) through the Netflix interface more than in person.

For now, it is almost fine with me. I feel like I'm learning to walk again after having casts on both legs for years. I'm really glad I'm walking, but I hate myself for being clumsy enough to allow the break to happen. Pride goeth before the fall.