Talifer

Talifer, blank‐verse narrative by E.A. Robinson, published in 1933.

Samuel Talifer, a middle‐aged businessman, who has been engaged to the attractive but rather immature Althea, is now about to marry Karen, a woman of exotic beauty and complex intellect, with whom he claims to have “found Peace.” This assertion amuses his wise and witty friend Dr. Quick, who sees that, while Althea genuinely loves and admires Talifer, Karen is motivated chiefly by a jealous hatred of Althea, and is interested in the theft of his affections rather than the man himself. Althea is meanwhile heartbroken, and the solitary Quick, who in his own way loves both women, can comfort her only by advising patience. Talifer and Karen are married, but immediately suffer from their extreme incompatibility. Karen, scholarly and remote, despises her undiscerning husband, who finds her impossibly refined and unsympathetic. The natural course of events, with Quick as catalyst, precipitates a crisis, during which Talifer secretly promises Althea that he will return to her, and Karen, because of a hysterical, ungrounded fear of murder by her husband, flees to the doctor's home. Quick sends her to his estate in Wales, to which he follows, while Talifer obtains a divorce and marries Althea. Two years later, the genial physician returns to find the Talifers happy at the birth of a son, and tells them that Karen has now devoted herself to study at Oxford.