Help me find this short story!

[lilith44]

Years ago I read a short story. The general plot concerns a man who is friends with a woman. As time passes, it becomes clear that more than a shallow friendship is open to the man, but he chooses not to pursue any depth of emotional intimacy. The woman then dies and the man is standing at her grave, more or less without any real feeling. He notices another man a ways off, revealing great pain, sobbing at the gravesite of his presumed loved on. In that instant, the protagonist suddenly in a moment of horror realizes what he has passed up all his life; the joy and wonder and involvement in a relationship so deep that immense pain is the only possible response to its absence.

This may be inaccurate in ways, but it's what I remember, and the last scene in particular. Does this ring a bell with anyone? I'd love to find and re-read that story.

[Emmy Castrol]

This is probably not the short story you are looking for but the plot and theme reminds me of one of James Joyce's short stories, A painful case. The main character develops a friendship with a middle aged woman (being middle aged himself, of course) and when she wants something more than platonic, he backs away and does not hear about her until he reads of her death in the paper, where it is implicated that she threw herself in front of a running train. However, the main character in 'A painful case' is never standing in a graveyard and at the end of story, there is no other man grieving but there is a couple making out.

[General Urko]

I believe you're thinking of "The Beast in the Jungle" by Henry James.

[lilith44]

I believe you're thinking of "The Beast in the Jungle" by Henry James.

Bingo. Thank you so much.