My Mortal Enemy

By Willa Cather

The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of O Pioneers! presents a moving study of an ambitious woman and her troubled marriage in this 1926 novella.

When young Myra Driscoll is forced to choose between a large inheritance from her great-uncle and marrying the man she loves, she follows her heart. She and Oswald Henshawe leave their small Illinois town to pursue a future together in New York City.

Years later, fifteen-year-old Nellie Birdseye meets Myra Henshawe and her husband. She thinks of Myra as a legend at first. But the more Nellie gets to know the bold, seemingly sophisticated Myra, the more she sees the reality beneath the fantasy—and her romantic notions begin to slip away . . .

Known for novels like O Pioneers!, My Ántonia, and The Song of the Lark, Willa Cather wrote predominately about pioneers and the American West. In 1923, she won the Pulitzer Prize for her novel One of Ours.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Media
• Release date: Jan 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781504068222

Willa Cather

Born in 1873, Willa Cather was raised in Virginia and Nebraska. After graduating from the University of Nebraska she established herself as a theatre critic, journalist and teacher in Pittsburgh whilst also writing short stories and poems. She then moved to New York where she took a job as an investigative journalist before becoming a full-time writer. Cather enjoyed great literary success and won the Pulitzer Prize for her novel One of Ours. She’s now best known for her Prairie trilogy: O Pioneers!, The Song of the Lark and My Ántonia. She travelled extensively and died in New York in 1947.

Book preview

part I

I.

I first met Myra Henshawe when I was fifteen, but I had known about her ever since I could remember anything at all. She and her runaway marriage were the theme of the most interesting, indeed the only interesting, stories that were told in our family, on holidays or at family dinners. My mother and aunts still heard from Myra Driscoll, as they called her, and Aunt Lydia occasionally went to New York to visit her. She had been the brilliant and attractive figure among the friends of their girlhood, and her life had been as exciting and varied as ours was monotonous.

Though she had grown up in our town, Parthia, in southern Illinois, Myra Henshawe never, after her elopement, came back but once. It was in the year when I was finishing High School, and she must then have been a woman of forty-five. She came in the early autumn, with brief notice by telegraph. Her husband, who had a position in the New York offices of an Eastern railroad, was coming West on business, and they were going to stop over for two days in Parthia. He was to stay at the Parthian, as our new hotel was called, and Mrs. Henshawe would stay with Aunt Lydia.

I was a favourite with my Aunt Lydia. She had three big sons, but no daughter, and she thought my mother scarcely appreciated me. She was always, therefore, giving me what she called advantages, on the side. My mother and sister were asked to dinner at Aunt Lydia’s on the night of the Henshawes’ arrival, but she had whispered to me: I want you to come in early, an hour or so before the others, and get acquainted with Myra.

That evening I slipped quietly in at my aunt’s front door, and while I was taking off my wraps in the hall I could see, at the far end of the parlour, a short, plump woman in a black velvet dress, seated upon the sofa and softly playing on Cousin Bert’s guitar. She must have heard me, and, glancing up, she saw my reflection in a mirror; she put down the guitar, rose, and stood to await my approach. She stood markedly and pointedly still, with her shoulders back and her head lifted, as if to remind me that it was my business to get to her as quickly as possible and present myself as best I could. I was not accustomed to formality of any sort, but by her attitude she succeeded in conveying this idea to me.

I hastened across the room with so much bewilderment and concern in my face that she gave a short, commiserating laugh as she held out to me her plump, charming little hand.

Certainly this must be Lydia’s dear Nellie, of whom I have heard so much! And you must be fifteen now, by my mournful arithmetic—am I right?

What a beautiful voice, bright and gay and carelessly kind—but she continued to hold her head up haughtily. She always did this on meeting people—partly, I think, because she was beginning to have a double chin and was sensitive about it. Her deep-set, flashing grey eyes seemed to be taking me in altogether—estimating me. For all that she was no taller than I, I felt quite overpowered by her—and stupid, hopelessly clumsy and stupid. Her black hair was done high on her head, à la Pompadour, and there were curious, zigzag, curly streaks of glistening white in it, which made it look like the fleece of a Persian goat or some animal that bore silky fur. I could not meet the playful curiosity of her eyes at all, so I fastened my gaze upon a necklace of carved amethysts she wore inside the square-cut neck of her dress. I suppose I stared, for she said suddenly: Does this necklace annoy you? I’ll take it off if it does.

I was utterly speechless. I could feel my cheeks burning. Seeing that she had hurt me, she was sorry, threw her arm impulsively about me, drew me into the corner of the sofa and sat down beside me.

Oh, we’ll get used to each other! You see, I prod you because I’m certain that Lydia and your mother have spoiled you a little. You’ve been over-praised to me. It’s all very well to be clever, my dear, but you mustn’t be solemn about it—nothing is more tiresome. Now, let us get acquainted. Tell me about the things you like best; that’s the short cut to friendship. What do you like best in Parthia? The old Driscoll place? I knew it!

By the time her husband came in I had begun to think she was going to like me. I wanted her to, but I felt I didn’t have half a chance with her; her charming, fluent voice, her clear light enunciation bewildered me. And I was never sure whether she was making fun of me or of the thing we were talking about. Her sarcasm was so quick, so fine at the point—it was like being touched by a metal so cold that one doesn’t know whether one is burned or chilled. I was fascinated, but very ill at ease, and I was glad when Oswald Henshawe arrived from the hotel.

He came into the room without taking off his overcoat and went directly up to his wife, who rose and kissed him. Again I was some time in catching up with the situation; I wondered for a moment whether they might have come down from Chicago on different

Reviews for My Mortal Enemy

[drfuriosa · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

An interesting take on the labyrinths of the moral imagination.

[janeajones · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

My Mortal Enemy tells the tale of Myra Henshawe, who defied her great-uncle/guardian and lost her inheritance to elope with the love of her life in a grand gesture. The story is narrated by Nellie, niece of Lydia, Myra's childhood friend. In Part One, Nellie is 15 when she first meets Myra, now in her 40's. Part Two takes place 10 years later as Myra is dying, bitterly regretting much of her life. As narrator, Nellie is part innocent observer, part judge of character, and part authorial voice. There are the usual strengths in Cather's writing, but I found the novella rather truncated, stingy almost. I prefer Cather in her amplitude, rather than in a condensed, short form.

[a_musing · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I don't understand why this work is not "ranked" higher in Cather's ouevre - perhaps it was just not long enough for critics and classes. It's a gem.

[rbeffa_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a short novel/novella from the 1920's. The language and storytelling was beautiful. This turns out to be a rather sad story, eventually throwing ice water on running away for romantic love. We see parts of the life of Myra Henshawe and her husband Oswald through the eyes of young Nellie. Nellie is 15 when she first meets Myra at 45. Nellie has heard family stories, the stuff of legend, of the young Myra and is rather surprised at the reality. Myra seems to be rather quickly moving from nice to not so nice. Myra ends up living a broken life, having given up an inheritance to marry the man she loved. That isn't how it begins, but that is how it ends. Interesting set of characters and very descriptive scenes made this very much worth reading, but as I said, rather sad by the end.Cather is quite a writer. 3 1/2 - 4 stars

[auntmarge64 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Minor Cather but lyrical, as with most of her work. I usually find her sparseness lovely, but here it leaves a bit too much unsaid, so despite the beauty of the writing, there are too many loose ends.

[upstairsgirl · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What a strange, sad little book this is. I agree with the reviewer who recommends not reading Kilby's introduction to the Vintage Classics edition; it's muddled my thinking about the book completely.Cather, in her understated way, shows the reader the great tragedy of Myra Henshawe's life, which is that love, by itself, simply isn't enough to make Myra happy. Though Myra left her family and gave up her inheritance to marry her husband, their marriage is no more than ordinary, plagued by the same jealousies, banalities, and tiresome social obligations as everyone else's. Though Myra seems happy when we first meet her, later on, when she and her husband have fallen into poverty, she is ill and miserable, melodramatic and tyrranical, and, in fact, as ordinary in her unhappiness as she was in her previous happiness. Resentful of (and hateful towards) her husband, even as he acts as her nursemaid and provider, she allows her reduced circumstances to turn her into a whining, querulous, melodramatic old woman.Though it is tempting to view Myra's death as a redemption or a recovering of her dignity, it is, I think, simply another selfish act, the sad punctuation at the end of a life begun with a brilliant, grand gesture and yet lived with crushing ordinariness under a thin, brittle veneer of excitement and bliss.Beautifully terse, and well worth reading, though very different from much of Cather's other work.

[sidiki-8 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

it was my desire to read at least one book of WillaCather, so i picked this one up. i dont know what the hype is about for her writing. My Mortal Enemy is all ''telling'' with hardly any dialogues. it does contain some insightful passages and ''writerly'' phrases. i found the personality of Myra too realistic, with her insecurities and jealous streak, her temper tantrums and her treatment of her husband whom she married by giving up her inheritance. i like realistic protagonists who are flawed like us but Oswald's character has not been dealt with in as much detail, so it left me feeling unsatisfied. if there was any hidden meaning behind the words ''my mortal enemy'' as she utters them, it flew right over my head. i will not give up on her yet and give My Antonia a chance.

[gbill_7 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Rich girl renounces wealth to elope with boy, but it turns out that neither she nor he live "happily ever after". Cather writes with purity and simplicity in this novella, and the uttering of the title comes like a thunderbolt towards the end.Quotes:On married life:"'But they've been happy, anyhow?' I sometimes asked her.'Happy? Oh yes! As happy as most people.'That answer was disheartening; the very point of their story was that they should be much happier than other people."On middle age:"After I went home from that first glimpse of the real Myra Henshawe, twenty-five years older than I had always imagined her, I could not help feeling a little disappointed. John Driscoll and his niece had suddenly changed places in my mind, and he had got, after all, the more romantic part. Was it not better to get out of the world with such pomp and dramatic splendour than to linger in it, having to take account of shirts and railway trains, and getting a double chin into the bargain?"And this one as well, also reflecting unrealized potential:"I wondered, as on the first time I saw him, in my own town, at the contradiction in his face: the strong bones, and the curiously shaped eyes without any fire in them. I felt that his life had not suited him; that he possessed some kind of courage and force which slept, which in another sort of world might have asserted themselves brilliantly. I thought he ought to have been a soldier or an explorer."On nature, and redemption:"I'd love to see this place at dawn," Myra said suddenly. "That is always such a forgiving time. When that first cold, bright streak comes over the water, it's as if all our sins were pardoned; as if the sky leaned over the earth and kissed it and gave it absolution. You know how the great sinners always came home to die in some religious house, and the abbot or the abbess went out and received them with a kiss?"On youth:"We think we are so individual and so misunderstood when we are young; but the nature our strain of blood carries is inside there, waiting, like our exoskeleton.""To throw his youth away like that, and shoot himself at twenty-three! People are always talking about the joys of youth - but oh, how youth can suffer! I've not forgotten; those hot southern Illinois nights, when Oswald was in New York, and I had no word from him except through Liddy, and I used to lie on the floor all night and listen to the express trains go by. I've not forgotten."On artists:"How the great poets do shine on, Nellie! Into all the dark corners of the world. They have no night."Klein's introduction was insightful, though as with all introductions, read it at the end to avoid spoiling the story and such that you have your own opinions based on what you've read, it's then like getting another viewpoint which you can accept some bits of and leave others. Some of the bits I liked:"Willa Cather's mode was elegy, and as it must be for all elegists, the enemy was time, mortality itself.""Will Cather was to remark that 'human relationships are the tragic necessity of human life; that they can never be wholly satisfactory, that every ego is half the time greedily seeking them, and half the time pulling away from them.'""There were others at the time of her greatest production who also made a religion of craftsmanship - Gertrude Stein, who was her exact contemporary, Ezra Pound, Hemingway - but next to Willa Cather they seem sloganeers. She quite alone, and without making a public campaign of it, put in the work and acheived a relentless purity of style. Never so pure and relentless as in 'My Mortal Enemy'."

[chris.wolak · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This short novel certainly leaves a powerful impression. Once encountered who can ever forget the bitterness of Myra Henshawe?

My Mortal Enemy is a such a slippery and complex story. My thoughts below seem half-baked. You'd think it would be easier to talk about such a short novel, but I find it's harder to put down in writing what's on my mind about this one than other Cather novels that we've read so far.

My initial reaction to My Mortal Enemy was that it's a cautionary tale about youthful passions. Myra's turning her back on her uncle's money for love is certainly romantic and the stuff of legend, as Nellie makes clear in the opening paragraph, but unlike popular romances which end with the happy couple basking in their first blush of love, Cather shows the reality of how marriages--and individuals--can turn out.

Nellie is disappointed that Myra and Oswald haven't reached a higher level of happiness. When her Aunt Lydia says they are, "As happy as most people," Nellie thinks, "That answer was disheartening; the very point of their story was that they should be much happier than other people" (25). Where does this "should" come from? Fairy tales, of course. Or, for more recent generations, movies of the romantic comedy variety.

This issue of happiness is what captured my imagination during this reading. Happiness, Cather seems to be saying, is not necessarily found in marriage, casual friendships, or money, but in true, deep connection. This connection can be found with other people, one's creative passion, fulfilling work, art/poetry/music, or faith. Myra lacks this level of connection although she has some appreciation for music and literature. She is a drama queen, a narcissist; Someone who wants fame and fortune without seeming to take much action to attain it.

Right after Nellie's thoughts on the Henshawe's level of happiness, she launches into the fairy tale mythology of romantic love, specifically mentioning Sleeping Beauty. And then this leads into a recollection of Myra's Uncle Driscoll's funeral. At first this seems to be a seemingly incongruous juxtaposition. A fairy tale and now a funeral?

Myra's Uncle Driscoll did a lot not only for the Church, but for other people in need over his lifetime. When Nellie recollects the spectacular turnout and magnificence of Driscoll's funeral mass, it's easy to write it off with cynicism, saying that he bought off the Church. But the reality is that he was dead and the will was a done deal. The Church didn't have to have such a turn out or ceremony, but it did because Driscoll had a deep, mutual relationship with the community and his Church. It seems to have been a relationship based on faith and action.

Nellie says,

"In after years, when I went to other funerals, stark and grim enough, I thought of John Driscoll as having escaped the end of all flesh; it was as if he had been translated, with no dark conclusion to the pageant, no "night of the grave" about which our Protestant preachers talked. From the freshness of roses and lilies, from the glory of the high altar, he had gone straight to the greater glory, through smoking censers and candles and stars" (26-27).


Driscoll's funeral is presented as more of a fairy tale ending than is the romantic story of young love. Cather flips things upside down. The traditional fairy tale ends up being something more along the lines of a horror story.

Why did Myra's life turn out like it did? Her life certainly did not turn out as she had assumed it would. But whose does? She wasn't able to change or adapt to the reality of her situation because, I think, she had no deep connections to support or challenge her. She had no passion of her own. She had no faith in a higher power or in something greater than herself. And her friendships seemed to have been superficial because when anyone challenges her, she cuts them out of her life. When Nellie challenges Myra about how she treats Oswald, Myra tells her to leave and to stay away. She even locks Oswald out for days at a time. It's easy to imagine Myra doing the same with other friends throughout her life. One example is the writer who wouldn't lend the Henshawe's money back in their New York days.

Is Myra incapable of deep connection because she never knew herself? She says: "Oh, if youth but knew!....It's been the ruin of us both. We've destroyed each other. I should have stayed with my uncle. It was money I needed. We've thrown our lives away" (90-91). Oswald may not be living a completely self-actualize life, but he seems relatively content. He brushes off her dramatics with a calm acceptance and understanding of Myra simply being Myra.

Nellie thinks Oswald could have been cut out for a more adventurous life and he does later go to Alaska. However, he certainly doesn't seem to be destroyed by Myra: he still takes great care of himself and his appearance, takes interest in others, and he still loves Myra. He understands her delusions, as he calls them. Myra, on the other hand, doesn't seem to understand herself or him or anyone else. I think her claim that she needed money is really a desire to go back to childhood, when life was simpler for her and the consequences of her actions were not so detrimental.

Myra's return to Catholicism seems to be tied to her desperation and a desire to return to her childhood as well as to her delusions of grandeur and dramatics rather than any inner or spiritual change.

When Nellie picks up Myra's crucifix to straighten her sheets, the older woman, "put out her hand quickly and said: 'Give it to me. It means nothing to people who haven't suffered'" (109). Not only is Myra rude, she's being dramatic and narcissistic: she clearly thinks she's the only one who suffers. Later she does come to realize that others have suffered and that in the end she is and always has been her own worst enemy. But does she realize she's been the cause of her own suffering? Even in the end she causes others great anguish by lying and running away.

Unlike her Uncle whose life was celebrated with a spectacular mass and whose influence carries on in the community, Myra dies alone and her body is cremated (which belies her return to Catholicism). There was no mass and no mention of a service of any kind. Her ashes are buried, "in some lonely and unfrequented place in the mountains, or in the sea" (119). There's no chance for Myra to find the kind of happiness that Jim Burden thinks about in My Antonia: "That is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great." Myra's ashes were buried in a steel box.

Things I've been pondering:
Myra says, in response to something the priest said to her off the page that, "in religion seeking is finding." What did the priest say to her? What was she really seeking in the end? Does she have faith or was her clutching of the crucifix no different than the fortune teller who used to visit her? Does she commit suicide?