Excerpt from All He Ever Wanted by Anita Shreve, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Sometimes it seems to me that all of life is a struggle to contain the natural impulses of the body and spirit, and that what we call character represents only the degree to which we are successful in this endeavor. At that time in my life, when I was a younger man, it was often a desperate struggle — to take exercise when one did not want to, to refrain from striking a student who much deserved the blow, to put aside one’s naked ambition in the service of others, to conquer rampant desires that if left unchecked might manifest themselves in shocking behaviors — and as with all struggles, I was occasionally not victorious in these battles. Thus, I fear there were disturbing ruptures in my composure, as when I lost my temper and berated a student most harshly, satisfying the anger in myself but leaving the student trembling; or as when I was unable to refrain from speaking badly of a colleague to gain the favor of another; or as when the mask of impeccable deportment dropped for a moment and revealed the depth of want beneath, as must have happened, however briefly, in the silence that followed Etna’s entry into the room in which her uncle and I were sitting.

Bliss and I stood politely, and already I was anxious lest the color I could feel rising at the sides of my neck and into my face (a further legacy of the Dutch blood of my ancestors) betray me. My mouth trembled, a twitch I sought to hide by pressing a knuckle to my upper lip; and thus I discovered, to my deep chagrin, the blush rising all the while like a flood tide on the night of a full moon, that I had not shaved that morning and a coarse stubble covered my cheek and jaw.

(I was never well — though often joyous, never well — in Etna’s presence.)

She set the tray down and gestured for us to sit.

"Professor Van Tassel. I hope you did not suffer as a result of your service to our family," she said.

"Van Tassel tells me that twenty perished in the fire," Bliss said to his niece.

Etna accepted this news with remarkable equanimity, unlike so many of her sex who might have felt it necessary to exclaim at the announcement of ill fortune.

"I am afraid our fire brigade proved itself most inadequate in the event," I said. "I am sure there will be an inquiry."

"I should like to know who it was who had the foresight to open those windows in the dining room," Etna said, offering me a cup of tea. "I should like to thank him personally."

Already I was jealous of this imagined man — for surely it was a man, though no one had yet stepped forward — for being the recipient of Etna’s gratitude. "One so often does not wish to be singled out for heroics," I said inanely.

Etna Bliss had a habit, I would later discover, of smiling slightly even though her eyes were expressionless, thus giving the impression of inward thinking while not appearing to be impolite. This she did then; and I will say that when she smiled (lips not parted, only the slightest upward curving of her mouth), her face softened so thoroughly that she seemed altogether the diminutive and pliant woman one hopes for in a lover, and something else — even pretty. Yes, though she was not beautiful, she was pretty in those moments. In later years, it would sometimes be a torment to me to be shut out from the inner thoughts that produced that fleeting smile.

My fingers were slipping badly on the cup handle, causing the china to rattle in its saucer. I was forced to bend to my tea in rather boorish fashion. This disconcerted me so much that I set the cup down and folded my trembling hands in my lap. I crossed my legs and noticed that my foot was jiggling.

"And the little girl?" I asked. "Has she recovered from her ordeal?"

"I rather think that had it not been for the cold, she would have found the event terribly exciting," Etna said. "This morning, she could speak of little else."

From All He Ever Wanted by Anita Shreve. Copyright 2003. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher, Little, Brown & Company.