He thinks he remembers her dress. He thinks he would know it
again if he saw it. But the truth is that he is remembering the woman
herself, her face, her voice, her eyes--above all, what she said, and
how she said it. If she wore a scarlet ribbon in her dark hair, a red
rose in another woman's hair will most unaccountably bring it all back
to him, and he will not know why he suddenly sees the whole picture
rise out of the past before his eyes, nor why his throat aches with
the memory of it.
I know one of these men, whose descriptions of a woman's dress are one
of the experiences of a lifetime. He loves the word bombazine. His
mother must have worn a gown of black bombazine during his
impressionable age. And he never will be successful in describing a
modern gown until bombazines again become the rage. This same dear man
brought back to his invalid wife a description of a fashionable noon
wedding, which consisted of the single item that the bride wore a blue
alpaca bonnet. It really would be of interest from a scientific point
of view to know what suggested that combination to any intelligence,
even if it were masculine.
I have more evidence to go on, however, when I wonder why the idea of
the cost penetrates this same man's brain when shown a new gown by any
member of his family, all of whom he is weak enough to adore.
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