Short Story: Honeymoon by Ivan Kilma

Honeymoon by Ivan Kilma is another short story I read online from a back issue of Zoetrope: All-Story.

"He drove with one hand, his other arm round the girl. Over the past year he had become used to driving in that mildly uncomfortable one-handed fashion, and the two of them had traveled like that across half of Europe, the German autobahns, the oddly deserted road between Chalons and Meaux..."

Here we see a man and a woman driving. They have known each other for too long and have been real close. Now she has got married to another man and is spending her honeymoon with this man. When they reach the place their destination, she asks him that they pretend it is their wedding and why not have a wedding feast. In that gothic house, there are five guests, one of them is a soldier and another a girl who seems to be smitten by the soldier. The man agrees to pretend although he wishes to be alone with her. While she is dancing with the soldier, he almost hates her. When at last they reach their room, she wishes to go out. They do go out and are almost in the verge of making love in a hut on top of a haystack, when they hear the soldier arriving with the girl.

At last they are alone and when she asks him if he loves her, he says no even though he is in love with her. He knows, she is using him yet he cannot do anything about it. He is too much in love with her.

"I love you," he said. "I love you madly and I'd give everything, absolutely everything for this moment with you."
"I know," she whispered. "I know. Dog," she then said quietly. "My dog!"

What I deduced from this story is that he is an older man and she opts not to marry him. So she goes and marries someone else but she spends her honeymoon with him, knowing that he can't refuse her. One ends up sympathising with the man and despising her.