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Tell me, Eleanor. D’you ever think of the past? I’ve been thinking of Lily, the woman I might have married.
When Simon asks this question of Eleanor, he is already immersed in reminiscing about what could be his most cherished and simultaneously most disturbing memory: his failed proposal to Lily. His question seems to be directed at discovering whether Eleanor has similar thoughts, and it hints at the possibility of an internal conflict: he may feel guilty for dwelling on Lily as he walks with Eleanor and the children, or he may feel remorse and longing for that lost relationship. Neither, of course, proves to be entirely true. Simon’s reflections on the past, remembered in extraordinary detail, are nostalgic recollections that have been recast, a matter of maturity and the passing of time. On reflection, he remembers the event and Lily’s decision as a matter of chance or fate, associated with the flight of a dragonfly. If there had been pain at the time, which certainly was the case, he has self-corrected through the vehicle of nostalgia. He now thinks that the dragonfly “never settled anywhere—of course not, happily not, or I shouldn’t be walking here with Eleanor and the children. . . .” It is nostalgia that permits Simon to preserve and share a memory significant to who he has become, helping him reconcile the past with a present that he accepts and enjoys.
I took out my watch and marked the hour when I would allow myself to think of the kiss for five minutes only.
Eleanor, after a pause, tells Simon that she doesn’t mind his thinking about the past or about Lily. She thinks that everybody reminisces about the past at some point in life, and she feels that the stronger the memory, the more one thinks about it. She reveals that she too has a particularly strong memory, one in which she had been painting and was kissed on the neck by an old woman with a wart on her nose. As with Simon, the memory may reveal an internal conflict: she may feel a nostalgic longing for her artistic past. Unlike Simon, however, Eleanor has not recast the memory or integrated it into a positive view of her present life. Instead, she resists and tries to control how often she remembers it, although admitting that it was a precious memory. Eleanor asserts that the past is behind them, yet memories linger, entwined with their happiness and reality. Nostalgia, for Eleanor, leads her to cling to an unlived life, unable to reconcile that past event with the conditions and duties of her present life.
