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Ann Veronica Chapter 9 - Discords · The H. G. Wells Library

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Speaker 1: Chapter nine of Anne Veronica. This is a LibriVox recording.
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Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
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Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording
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Speaker 1: by Joy Chan and Veronica by H. G. Wells, Chapter
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Speaker 1: the ninth Discords, Part one. One afternoon, soon after Anne
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Speaker 1: Veronica's great discovery, a telegram came into laboratory for her.
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Speaker 1: It ran bored and nothing to do. Will you dine
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Speaker 1: with me tonight somewhere and talk? I shall be grateful, Rammage.
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Speaker 1: Ann Veronica was rather pleased by this. She had not
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Speaker 1: seen Rammage for ten or eleven days, and she was
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Speaker 1: quite ready for a gossip with him. And now her
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Speaker 1: mind was so full of the thought that she was
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Speaker 1: in love, in love that marvelous state that I really
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Speaker 1: believe she had some dim idea of talking to him
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Speaker 1: about it. At any rate, it would be good to
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Speaker 1: hear him saying the sort of things he did. Perhaps
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Speaker 1: now she would grasp them better. With this world shaking
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Speaker 1: secret brandishing itself about inside her head within a yard
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Speaker 1: of him, she was sorry to find Rammage a little
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Speaker 1: disposed to be melancholy. I have made over seven hundred
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Speaker 1: pounds in the last week. He said. That's exhilarating, said
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Speaker 1: Anne Veronica. Not a bit of it, he said. It's
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Speaker 1: only a scorn. Again, it's a score. You can buy
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Speaker 1: all sorts of things with nothing that one wants. He
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Speaker 1: turned to the waiter, who held a wine card. Nothing
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Speaker 1: can cheer me, he said, except champagne. He meditated this,
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Speaker 1: he said, and then no, is this sweeter? Very well?
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Speaker 1: Everything goes well with me, he said, folding his arms
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Speaker 1: under him and regarding Anne Veronica with the slightly project
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Speaker 1: eyes wide open. And I'm not happy. I believe I'm
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Speaker 1: in love. He leaned back for his soup. Presently, he resumed,
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Speaker 1: I believe I must be in love. You can't be that,
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Speaker 1: said Anne Veronica wisely, how do you know? Well, it
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Speaker 1: isn't exactly a depressing state, is it. You don't know?
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Speaker 1: One has theories, said Anne Veronica radiantly, Oh, theories. Being
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Speaker 1: in love is a fact. It ought to make one happy.
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Speaker 1: It's an unrest a longing. What's that? The wager had intervened, Parmesan,
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Speaker 1: take it away. He glanced at Anne Veronica's face, and
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Speaker 1: it seemed to him that she really was exceptionally radiant.
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Speaker 1: He wondered why she thought love made people happy, and
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Speaker 1: began to talk of the smilecs and pinks that adorned
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Speaker 1: the table. He filled her glass champagne. You must, he said,
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Speaker 1: because of my depression. They were eating quails when they
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Speaker 1: returned to the topic of love. What made you think,
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Speaker 1: he said, abruptly, with the gleam of avidity in his face,
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Speaker 1: that love makes people happy. I know it must. But
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Speaker 1: how he was she thought a little too insistent. Women
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Speaker 1: know these things by instinct, She answered, I wonder, he said,
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Speaker 1: if women do know things by instinct. I have my
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Speaker 1: doubts about feminine instinct. It's one of our conventional superstitions.
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Speaker 1: A woman is supposed to know when a man is
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Speaker 1: in love with her? Do you think she does? And
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Speaker 1: Veronica picked among her sallad with a judicial expression of face.
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Speaker 1: I think she would, she decided, Ah, said Rammage, impressively,
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Speaker 1: and Veronica looked up at him and found him regarding
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Speaker 1: her with eyes that were almost worrybegone, and into which
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Speaker 1: indeed he was trying to throw much more expression than
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Speaker 1: they could carry. There was a little pause between them,
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Speaker 1: full for Anne, Veronica of rapid, elusive suspicions and intimations.
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Speaker 1: Perhaps one talks nonsense about a woman's instinct, she said.
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Speaker 1: It's a way of avoiding explanations. And girls and women
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Speaker 1: perhaps are different. I don't know. I don't suppose a
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Speaker 1: girl can tell if a man is in love with
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Speaker 1: her or not in love with her. Her mind went
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Speaker 1: off to caps. Her thoughts took words for themselves. She can't.
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Speaker 1: I suppose it depends on her own state of mind.
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Speaker 1: If one wants a thing very much, perhaps one is
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Speaker 1: inclined to think one can't have it. I suppose if
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Speaker 1: one were to love someone, one would feel doubtful. And
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Speaker 1: if one were to love someone very much, it's just
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Speaker 1: so that one would be blindest just when one wanted
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Speaker 1: most to see. She stopped abruptly, afraid that Rammage might
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Speaker 1: be able to fur capes from the things she had said.
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Speaker 1: And indeed his face was very eager. Yes, he said
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Speaker 1: ann Veronica blushed, that's all, she said. I'm afraid I'm
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Speaker 1: a little confused about these things. Rammage looked at her,
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Speaker 1: and then fell into deep reflection. As the waiter came
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Speaker 1: to paragraph their talk again. Have you ever been to
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Speaker 1: the opera, and Veronica said, Rammage once or twice. Shall
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Speaker 1: we go now? I think I would like to listen
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Speaker 1: to music. What is there Tristan? I've never heard Tristan?
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Speaker 1: And is old that settles it will go. There's sure
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Speaker 1: to be a place somewhere. It's rather jolly of you,
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Speaker 1: said Anne Veronica. It's jolly of you to come, said Rammage.
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Speaker 1: So presently they got into a hansom together, and Anne
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Speaker 1: Veronica sat back, feeling very luxurious and pleasant, and looked
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Speaker 1: at the light and stir and misty glitter of the
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Speaker 1: street traffic from under slightly drooping eyelids, while Rammage sat
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Speaker 1: closer to her than he need have done, and glanced
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Speaker 1: ever and again at her face, and made to speak,
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Speaker 1: and said nothing. And when they got to Covent Garden,
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Speaker 1: Rammage secured one of the little upper boxes, and they
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Speaker 1: came into it. As the overture began. Anne Veronica took
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Speaker 1: off her jacket and sat down in the corner chair
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Speaker 1: and leaned forward to look into the great, hazy, warm
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Speaker 1: brown cavity of the house, and Rammage placed his chair
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Speaker 1: to sit beside her and near her, facing the stage.
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Speaker 1: The music took hold of her slowly as her eyes
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Speaker 1: wandered from the indistinct still ranks of the audience to
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Speaker 1: the little busy orchestra, with its quivering violins, its methodical
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Speaker 1: movements of brown and silver instruments, its brightly lit scores
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Speaker 1: and shaded lights. She had never been to the opera before,
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Speaker 1: except as one of a congested mass of people in
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Speaker 1: the cheaper seats, and with backs and heads and women's
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Speaker 1: hats for the frame of the spectacle. There was, by contrast,
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Speaker 1: a fine, large sense of space and ease in her
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Speaker 1: present position. The curtain rose out of the concluding bars
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Speaker 1: of the overture and revealed his sould on the prayer
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Speaker 1: of the barbaric ship. The voice of the young seamen
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Speaker 1: came floating down from the mastard, and the story of
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Speaker 1: the immortal lovers had begun. She knew the story only imperfectly,
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Speaker 1: and followed it now with a passionate and deepening interest.
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Speaker 1: The splendid voices sang on from phase to phase of
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Speaker 1: love's unfolding. The ship drove across the sea to the
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Speaker 1: beating rhythm of the rowers. The lovers broke into passionate
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Speaker 1: knowledge of themselves and each other, and then a jarring
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Speaker 1: intervention came. King Mark amidst the shouts of the sailormen,
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Speaker 1: and stood beside them. The curtain came for stooning slowly down,
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Speaker 1: the music ceased, the lights in the auditorium glowed out,
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Speaker 1: and Anne Veronica woke out of her confused dream of
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Speaker 1: involuntary and commanding love in a glory of sound and colors,
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Speaker 1: to discover that Rammage was sitting close beside her, with
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Speaker 1: one hand resting lightly on her. She made a quick
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Speaker 1: movement and the hand fell away. By God, Anne Veronica,
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Speaker 1: he said, sighing deeply, This stirs one. She sat quite still,
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Speaker 1: looking at him. I wish you and I had drunk
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Speaker 1: that love potion, he said. She found no ready reply
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Speaker 1: to that, and he went on. This music is the
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Speaker 1: food of love. It makes me desire life beyond measure, life,
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Speaker 1: life and love. It makes me want to be always young,
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Speaker 1: always strong, always devoting my life, and dying splendidly. It
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Speaker 1: is very beautiful, said Anne Veronica in a low tone.
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Speaker 1: They said no more for a moment, and each was
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Speaker 1: now acutely away of the other. Anne Veronica was excited
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Speaker 1: and puzzled, with a sense of a strange and disconcerting
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Speaker 1: new light breaking over her relations with Rammage. She had
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Speaker 1: never thought of him at all in that way before.
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Speaker 1: It did not shock her, it amazed her, interested her
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Speaker 1: beyond measure. But also, this must not go on. She
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Speaker 1: felt he was going to say something more, something still
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Speaker 1: more personal and intimate. She was curious and at the
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Speaker 1: same time clearly resolved she must not hear it. She
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Speaker 1: felt she must get him talking upon some impersonal theme
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Speaker 1: at any cost. She snatched about in her mind. What
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Speaker 1: is the exact force of a motif? She asked at random.
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Speaker 1: Before I heard much ragnarian music. I heard enthusiastic descriptions
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Speaker 1: of it from a mistress I didn't like at school.
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Speaker 1: She gave me an impression of a sort of patched quilt,
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Speaker 1: little bits of patterned stuff coming up again and again.
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Speaker 1: She stopped with an air of interrogation. Rammage looked at
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Speaker 1: her for a long and discriminating interval without speaking. He
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Speaker 1: seemed to be hesitating between two courses of action. I
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Speaker 1: don't know much about the technique of music, he said
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Speaker 1: at last, with his eyes upon her. It's a matter
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Speaker 1: of feeling with me. He contradicted himself by plunging into
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Speaker 1: an exposition of motifs by a tacit agreement. They ignored
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Speaker 1: the significant thing between them, ignored the slipping away of
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Speaker 1: the ground on which they had stood together, hitherto all
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Speaker 1: through the love music of the second act, until the
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Speaker 1: hunting horns of Mark break in upon the dream. Anne
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Speaker 1: Veronica's consciousness was flooded with the perception of a man
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Speaker 1: close beside her, preparing some new thing to say to her,
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Speaker 1: preparing perhaps a touch here, stretching hungry invisible tentacles about her.
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Speaker 1: She tried to think what she should do in this eventuality,
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Speaker 1: or that her mind had been and was full of
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Speaker 1: the thought of Capes, a huge generalized Cape's lover, and
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Speaker 1: in some incomprehensible way, Rammage was confused with Capes. She
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Speaker 1: had a grotesque disposition to persuade herself that this was
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Speaker 1: really Capes, who surrounded her, as it were, with wings
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Speaker 1: of desire. The fact that it was her trusted friend
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Speaker 1: making illicit love to her remained, in spite of all
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Speaker 1: her effort, an insignificant thing in her mind. The music
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Speaker 1: confused and distracted her, and made her struggle against a
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Speaker 1: feeling of intoxication. Her head swam, that was the inconvenience
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Speaker 1: of it. Her head was swimming. The music throbbed into
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Speaker 1: the warnings that preceded the king's irruption. Abruptly, he gripped
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Speaker 1: her wrist. I love you, Anne, Veronica. I love you
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Speaker 1: with all my heart and soul. She put her face
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Speaker 1: closer to his. She felt the warm nearness of his don't,
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Speaker 1: she said, and wrenched her wrist from his retaining hand.
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Speaker 1: My God, Anne, Veronica, he said, struggling to keep his
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Speaker 1: hold upon her. My God, tell me, tell me, now,
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Speaker 1: tell me you love me. His expression was, as it were,
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Speaker 1: rapaciously furtive. She answered in whispers, for there was the
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Speaker 1: white arm of a woman in the next box, peeping
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Speaker 1: beyond the petition, within a yard of him. My hand,
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Speaker 1: this isn't the place. He released her hand and talked
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Speaker 1: in eager undertones against an auditory background of urgency and distress,
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Speaker 1: and Veronica, he said, I tell you this is love.
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Speaker 1: I love the soles of your feet, I love your
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Speaker 1: very breath. I have tried not to tell you, tried
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Speaker 1: to be simply your friend. It is no good. I
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Speaker 1: want you. I worship you. I would do anything, I
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Speaker 1: would give anything to make you mine. Do you hear me?
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Speaker 1: Do you hear what I am saying love. He held
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Speaker 1: her arm and abandoned it again at her quick defensive movement.
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Speaker 1: For a long time, neither spoke again. She sat drawn
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Speaker 1: together in her chair in the corner of the box,
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Speaker 1: at a loss what to say or do. Afraid, curious, perplexed.
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Speaker 1: It seemed to her that it was her duty to
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Speaker 1: get up and clamor to go home to her room
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Speaker 1: to protest against his answers as an insult. But she
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Speaker 1: did not in the least want to do that. These
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Speaker 1: sweeping dignitaries were not within the compass of her will.
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Speaker 1: She remembered she liked Rammage and owed things to him,
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Speaker 1: and she was interested. She was profoundly interested. He was
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Speaker 1: in love with her. She tried to grasp all the
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Speaker 1: welter of values in the situation simultaneously and draw some
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Speaker 1: conclusion from their disorder. He began to talk again, in
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Speaker 1: quick undertones that she could not clearly hear. I have
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Speaker 1: loved you, he was saying, ever since you sat on
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Speaker 1: that gate and talked, I have always loved you. I
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Speaker 1: don't care what divides us, I don't care what else
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Speaker 1: there is in the world. I want you beyond measure
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Speaker 1: of reckoning. His voice rose and fell amidst the music
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Speaker 1: and the singing of Tristan and King Mark, like a
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Speaker 1: voice heard in a badly connected telephone. She stared at
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Speaker 1: his pleading face. She turned to the stage, and Tristan
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Speaker 1: was wounded in Kervinel's arms, with a sould at his feet,
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Speaker 1: and King Mark, the incarnation of masculine force and obligation,
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Speaker 1: the masculine creditor of love and beauty, stood over him.
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Speaker 1: And the second climax was ending in reeds and reek
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Speaker 1: of melodies, and then the curtain was coming down in
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Speaker 1: a series of short rushes. The music had ended, and
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Speaker 1: the people were staring and breaking out into applause, and
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Speaker 1: the lights of the auditorium were resuming. The lighting up
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Speaker 1: pierced the obscurity of the box, and Rammage stopped his
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Speaker 1: urgent flow of words abruptly and sat back. This helped
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Speaker 1: to restore and Veronica's self command. She turned her eyes
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Speaker 1: to him again and saw her late friend and pleasant
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Speaker 1: and trusted companion, who had seen fit suddenly to change
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Speaker 1: into a lover, babbling interesting inacceptable things. He looked eager
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Speaker 1: and flushed and troubled. His eyes caught at hers with
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Speaker 1: passionate inquiries. Tell me, he said, speak to me. She
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Speaker 1: realized it was possible to be sorry for him, acutely
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Speaker 1: sorry for the situation. Of course, this thing was absolutely impossible.
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Speaker 1: But she was disturbed, mysteriously disturbed. She remembered abruptly that
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Speaker 1: she was really living upon his money. She leaned forward
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Speaker 1: and addressed him, mister Rammage, she said, please, don't talk
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Speaker 1: like this. He made to speak and did not. I
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Speaker 1: don't want you to do it, to go on talking
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Speaker 1: to me. I don't want to hear you. If I
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Speaker 1: had known that you had meant to talk like this,
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Speaker 1: I wouldn't have come here. But how can I help it?
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Speaker 1: How can I keep silence? Please? She insisted, Please not now.
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Speaker 1: I must talk with you. I must say what I
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Speaker 1: have to say, but not now, not here it came,
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Speaker 1: he said, I never planned it, and now I have begun.
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Speaker 1: She felt acutely that he was entitled to explanations, and
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Speaker 1: as a cute that explanations were impossible. That night, she
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Speaker 1: wanted to think. Mister Rammage, She said, I can't not now.
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Speaker 1: Will you please not now? Or I must go. He
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Speaker 1: stared at her, trying to guess at the mystery of
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Speaker 1: her thoughts. You don't want to go No, but I must.
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Speaker 1: I ought, I must talk about this. Indeed I must
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Speaker 1: not now. But I love you. I love you unendurably.
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Speaker 1: Then don't talk to me now. I don't want you
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Speaker 1: to talk to me now. There is a place. This
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Speaker 1: isn't the place you have misunderstood. I can't explain. They
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Speaker 1: regarded one another, each blinded to the other. Forgive me,
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Speaker 1: he decided to say at last, and his voice had
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Speaker 1: a little quiver of emotion, and he laid his hand
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Speaker 1: on hers, upon her knee. I am the most foolish
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Speaker 1: of men. I was stupid, stupid and impulsive, beyond measure
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Speaker 1: to burst upon you in this way. I I am
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Speaker 1: a lovesick idiot and not accountable for my actions. Will
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Speaker 1: you forgive me if I say no more? She looked
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Speaker 1: at him with perplexed, earnest eyes. Pretend he said that
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Speaker 1: all I have said hasn't been said, and let us
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Speaker 1: go on without evening. Why not imagine I've had a
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Speaker 1: fit of hysteria, that I've come round, Yes, she said,
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Speaker 1: and abruptly she liked him enormously. She felt this was
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Speaker 1: the sensible way out of this oddly sinister situation. He
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Speaker 1: still watched her and questioned her. And let us have
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Speaker 1: a talk about this some other time, somewhere where we
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Speaker 1: can talk without interruption, will you, she thought? And it
17:51
Speaker 1: seemed to him she had never looked so self disciplined
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Speaker 1: and deliberate and beautiful. Yes, she said, that is what
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Speaker 1: we ought to do. But now she doubted again of
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Speaker 1: the quality of the armistice they had just made. He
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Speaker 1: had a wild impulse to shout. Agreed, he said, with
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Speaker 1: queer exultation, and his grip tightened on her hand. And
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Speaker 1: to night we are friends. We are friends, said Anne Veronica,
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Speaker 1: and drew her hand quickly away from him. To night
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Speaker 1: we are as we have always been, except that this
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Speaker 1: music we have been swimming in is divine. While I
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Speaker 1: have been pestering you, have you heard it? At least
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Speaker 1: you heard the first act and all the third actors
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Speaker 1: love sick music. Tristan dying in a soult, coming to
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Speaker 1: crown his death. Wagner had just been in love when
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Speaker 1: he wrote it. All It begins with that queer piccolo solo.
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Speaker 1: Now I shall never hear it, but what this evening
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Speaker 1: will come pouring back over me? The light sank the
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Speaker 1: prelude to the third act was beginning. The music rose
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Speaker 1: and fell in crowded intimations of love separated lovers separated
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Speaker 1: with scars and memories between them, and the curtain went
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Speaker 1: reefing up to display Tristan lying wounded on his couch
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Speaker 1: and the shepherd crouching with his pipe. Part two. They
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Speaker 1: had their explanations the next evening, but they were explanations
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Speaker 1: in quite other terms than Anne Veronica had anticipated, quite
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Speaker 1: other and much more startling and illuminating terms. Rammage came
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Speaker 1: for her at her lodgings, and she met him graciously
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Speaker 1: and kindly, as the queen who knows she must needs
19:37
Speaker 1: give sorrow to a faithful liege. She was unusually soft
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Speaker 1: and gentle in her manner to him. He was wearing
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Speaker 1: a new silk hat with a slightly more generous brim
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Speaker 1: than its predecessor, and it suited his type of face,
19:50
Speaker 1: robbed his dark eyes a little of their aggressiveness, and
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Speaker 1: gave him a solid and dignified and benevolent air. A
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Speaker 1: faint anticipation of triumph showed in his manner, and a
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Speaker 1: subdued excitement. We'll go to a place where we can
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Speaker 1: have a private room, he said, then then we can
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Speaker 1: talk things out. So they went this time to the
20:12
Speaker 1: Rococo in Germain Street, and upstairs to a landing, upon
20:16
Speaker 1: which stood a bald headed waiter with whiskers like a
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Speaker 1: French admiral and discretion beyond all limits. In his manner
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Speaker 1: he seemed to have expected them. He ushered them with
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Speaker 1: an amiable flat hand into a minute apartment with a
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Speaker 1: little gas stove, a silk crimson covered sofa, and a
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Speaker 1: bright little table gay with knapery and hot house flowers.
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Speaker 1: Odd little room, said Anne Veronica, dimly apprehending that obtrusive sofa.
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Speaker 1: One can talk without undertones, so to speak, said Rammage.
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Speaker 1: It's private. He stood, looking at the preparations before them
20:54
Speaker 1: with an unusual preoccupation of manner, then roused himself to
20:58
Speaker 1: take her jacket a little awkwardly, and handed to the waiter,
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Speaker 1: who hung it in the corner of the room. It
21:04
Speaker 1: appeared he had already ordered dinner and wine, and the
21:07
Speaker 1: whisked waiter waved in his subordinate with the soup forthwith.
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Speaker 1: I'm going to talk of indifferent themes, said Rammeadge, a
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Speaker 1: little fussily, until these interruptions of the service are over.
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Speaker 1: Then then we shall be together. How did you like? Tristan?
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Speaker 1: And Veronica paused the fraction of a second before her
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Speaker 1: reply came. I thought much of it. Amazingly beautiful, isn't it?
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Speaker 1: And to think that man got it all out of
21:36
Speaker 1: the poorest little love story for a respectable titled lady,
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Speaker 1: have you read of it? Never? It gives in a
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Speaker 1: nutshell the miracle of art and the imagination. You get
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Speaker 1: this queer, irascible musician, quite impossibly and unfortunately in love
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Speaker 1: with a wealthy patroness. And then out of his brain
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Speaker 1: comes this a tapestry of glorious music, setting out love
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Speaker 1: to love lovers who love in spite of all that
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Speaker 1: is wise and respectable and right. And Veronica thought she
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Speaker 1: did not want to seem to shrink from conversation, but
22:11
Speaker 1: all sorts of odd questions were running through her mind.
22:16
Speaker 1: I wonder why people in love are so defiant, so
22:18
Speaker 1: careless of other considerations. The very hares grow brave. I
22:24
Speaker 1: suppose because it is the chief thing in life. He
22:27
Speaker 1: stopped and said earnestly, it is the chief thing in life,
22:31
Speaker 1: and everything else goes down before it, everything, my dear, everything.
22:37
Speaker 1: But we have got to talk upon indifferent themes until
22:39
Speaker 1: we have done with this blond young gentleman from Bavaria.
22:44
Speaker 1: The dinner came to an end at last, and the
22:46
Speaker 1: whisked waiter presented his bill and evacuated the apartment and
22:50
Speaker 1: closed the door behind him with an almost ostentatious discretion.
22:55
Speaker 1: Rammage stood up and suddenly turned the key in the
22:57
Speaker 1: door in an off hand manner. Now, he said, no
23:01
Speaker 1: one can blunder in upon us. We are alone, and
23:04
Speaker 1: we can say and do what we please. We too,
23:08
Speaker 1: He stood still looking at her, and Veronica tried to
23:13
Speaker 1: seem absolutely unconcerned. The turning of the key startled her,
23:17
Speaker 1: but she did not see how she could make an objection.
23:20
Speaker 1: She felt she had stepped into a world of unknown usages.
23:25
Speaker 1: I have waited for this, he said, and stood quite still,
23:29
Speaker 1: looking at her until the silence became oppressive. Won't you
23:34
Speaker 1: sit down, she said, and tell me what you want
23:37
Speaker 1: to say. Her voice was flat and faint. Suddenly she
23:42
Speaker 1: had become afraid. She struggled not to be afraid. After all,
23:47
Speaker 1: what could happen? He was looking at her very hard
23:52
Speaker 1: and earnestly, and Veronica, he said, Then before she could
23:58
Speaker 1: say a word to arrest. He was at her side,
24:01
Speaker 1: don't she said weakly, as he had bent down and
24:05
Speaker 1: put one arm about her, and seized her hands with
24:08
Speaker 1: his disengaged hand and kissed her, kissed her almost upon
24:11
Speaker 1: her lips. He seemed to do ten things before she
24:15
Speaker 1: could think to do one, to leap upon her and
24:17
Speaker 1: take possession and Veronica's universe, which had never been altogether
24:22
Speaker 1: so respectful to her as she could have wished. Gave
24:26
Speaker 1: a shout and whirled head over heels. Everything in the
24:29
Speaker 1: world had changed for her. If hate could kill Rammage
24:33
Speaker 1: would have been killed by a flash of hate. Mister Rammage,
24:37
Speaker 1: she cried, and struggled to her feet, My darling, he said,
24:42
Speaker 1: clasping her resolutely in his arms, My dearest mister Rammage.
24:48
Speaker 1: She began, and his mouth sealed hers, and his breath
24:51
Speaker 1: was mixed with her breath. Her eye at his four
24:55
Speaker 1: inches away, and he was glaring, immense and full of resolution,
25:00
Speaker 1: a stupendous monster of an eye. She shut her lips hard,
25:05
Speaker 1: her jaw hardened, and she set herself to struggle with him.
25:09
Speaker 1: She wrenched her head away from his grip and got
25:11
Speaker 1: her arm between his chest and hers. They began to
25:15
Speaker 1: wrestle fiercely. Each became frightfully aware of the other as
25:19
Speaker 1: a plastic, energetic body, of the strong muscles of neck
25:22
Speaker 1: against cheek, of hands, gripping shoulder blade and waist. How
25:27
Speaker 1: dare you? She panted with her world, screaming and grimacing
25:31
Speaker 1: insult at her, how dare you? They were both astonished
25:36
Speaker 1: at the other's strength. Perhaps Rammage was the more astonished.
25:40
Speaker 1: Anne Veronica had been an ardent hockey player and had
25:43
Speaker 1: a course of jiu jitsu in the high school. Her
25:46
Speaker 1: defense ceased rapidly to be in any sense ladylike, and
25:49
Speaker 1: became vigorous and effective. A strand of black hair that
25:53
Speaker 1: had escaped its hairpins came athwart Rammage's eyes, and then
25:56
Speaker 1: the knuckles of a small but very hardly clenched fist
26:00
Speaker 1: had thrust itself with extreme effectiveness and painfulness under his
26:04
Speaker 1: drawbone and ear. Let go, said Anne Veronica through her teeth,
26:10
Speaker 1: strenuously inflicting agony. And he cried out sharply and let
26:14
Speaker 1: go and receded a pace. Now, said Anne Veronica, why
26:19
Speaker 1: did you dare to do that? Part three. Each of
26:27
Speaker 1: them stared at the other, set in a universe that
26:30
Speaker 1: had changed its system of values with kaleidoscopic completeness. She
26:35
Speaker 1: was flushed, and her eyes were bright and angry. Her
26:38
Speaker 1: breath came sobbing, and her hair was all abroad in
26:41
Speaker 1: wandering strands of black. He too was flushed and ruffled.
26:46
Speaker 1: One side of his collar had slipped from its stud
26:49
Speaker 1: and he held a hand to the corner of his jaw.
26:52
Speaker 1: You vixen, said mister Rammage, speaking the simplest first thought
26:57
Speaker 1: of his heart. You had no right, panted an Veronica.
27:02
Speaker 1: Why on earth? He asked, did you hurt me like that?
27:08
Speaker 1: And Veronica did her best to think she had not
27:10
Speaker 1: deliberately attempted to cause him pain. She ignored his question.
27:15
Speaker 1: I never dreamt, she said, What on earth did you
27:19
Speaker 1: expect me to do? Then he asked Part four. Interpretation
27:28
Speaker 1: came pouring down upon her almost blindingly. She understood. Now
27:32
Speaker 1: the room, the waiter, the whole situation. She understood. She
27:37
Speaker 1: leapt to a world of shabby knowledge, of furtive base realizations.
27:42
Speaker 1: She wanted to cry out upon herself for the uttermost
27:44
Speaker 1: fool in existence. I thought you wanted to have a
27:47
Speaker 1: talk to me, she said, I wanted to make love
27:51
Speaker 1: to you you knew it, he added in her momentary silence.
27:57
Speaker 1: You said you were in love with me, said Anne Veronica.
28:01
Speaker 1: I wanted to explain. I said I loved and wanted you.
28:06
Speaker 1: The brutality of his first astonishment was evaporating. I am
28:10
Speaker 1: in love with you, you know, I am in love
28:12
Speaker 1: with you. And then you go and half thoughtle me.
28:16
Speaker 1: I believe you've crushed a gland or something. It feels
28:19
Speaker 1: like it. I'm sorry, said Anne Veronica. What else was
28:24
Speaker 1: I to do? For some seconds she stood watching him,
28:28
Speaker 1: and both were thinking very quickly. Her state of mind
28:32
Speaker 1: would have seemed altogether discreditable to her grandmother. She ought
28:36
Speaker 1: to have been disposed to faint and scream at all
28:38
Speaker 1: these happenings. She ought to have maintained a front of
28:41
Speaker 1: outraged dignity to veil the sinking of her heart. She
28:45
Speaker 1: would like to have to tell it so. But indeed,
28:48
Speaker 1: that is not at all a good description of fertitude.
28:51
Speaker 1: She was an indignant queen, no doubt. She was alarmed
28:54
Speaker 1: and disgusted within limits. But she was highly excited, and
28:58
Speaker 1: there was something some low adventurous strain in her being,
29:02
Speaker 1: some element subtle, at least, if base going about the
29:06
Speaker 1: rioting ways and crowded, insurgent meeting places of her mind,
29:11
Speaker 1: declaring that the whole affair was after all, they are
29:14
Speaker 1: the only words that express it a very great like. Indeed,
29:19
Speaker 1: at the bottom of her heart, she was not a
29:21
Speaker 1: bit afraid of Rammage. She had unaccountable gleams of sympathy
29:25
Speaker 1: with and liking for him, And the grotesquest fact was
29:29
Speaker 1: that she did not so much loathe as experience, with
29:32
Speaker 1: a quite critical condemnation, this strange sensation of being kissed.
29:37
Speaker 1: Never before had any human being kissed her lips. It
29:41
Speaker 1: was only some hours after that these ambiguous elements evaporated
29:45
Speaker 1: and vanished, and loathing came, and she really began to
29:49
Speaker 1: be thoroughly sick and ashamed of the whole disgraceful quarrel
29:52
Speaker 1: and scuffle. He, for his part, was trying to grasp
29:56
Speaker 1: the series of unexpected reactions that had so wrecked their
29:59
Speaker 1: tes a tate. He had meant to be master of
30:02
Speaker 1: his fate that evening, and it had escaped him altogether.
30:06
Speaker 1: It had, as it were, blown up at the concussion
30:09
Speaker 1: of his first step. It dawned upon him that he
30:12
Speaker 1: had been abominably used by Anne Veronica, Look here, he said,
30:18
Speaker 1: I brought you here to make love to you. I
30:21
Speaker 1: didn't understand your idea of making love. You had better
30:26
Speaker 1: let me go again. Not yet, he said, I do
30:30
Speaker 1: love you. I love you all the more for the
30:33
Speaker 1: streak of sheer devil in you. You are the most beautiful,
30:36
Speaker 1: the most deliable thing I have ever met in this world.
30:40
Speaker 1: It was good to kiss you, even at the price.
30:42
Speaker 1: But by Jove, you are fierce. You are like those
30:45
Speaker 1: Roman women who carry stilettos in their hair. I came
30:50
Speaker 1: here to talk reasonably, mister Rammage. It is abominable. What
30:55
Speaker 1: is the use of keeping up this note of indignation,
30:57
Speaker 1: Anne Veronica? Here I am. I am your lover, burning
31:01
Speaker 1: for you. I mean to have you. Don't frown me
31:04
Speaker 1: off now, don't go back into Victorian respectability and pretend
31:08
Speaker 1: you don't know, and you can't think, and all the
31:10
Speaker 1: rest of it. One comes at last to the step
31:12
Speaker 1: from dreams to reality. This is your moment. No one
31:16
Speaker 1: will ever love you as I love you now. I
31:19
Speaker 1: have been dreaming of your body and you night after night.
31:22
Speaker 1: I have been imagining, mister Rammage. I came here. I
31:27
Speaker 1: didn't suppose for one moment you would dare nonsense. That
31:32
Speaker 1: is your mistake. You are too intellectual. You want to
31:35
Speaker 1: do everything with your mind. You are afraid of kisses,
31:39
Speaker 1: you are afraid of the warmth in your blood. It's
31:42
Speaker 1: just because all that side of your life hasn't fairly begun.
31:46
Speaker 1: He made a step toward her. Mister Rammage, she said, sharply,
31:51
Speaker 1: I have to make it plain to you. I don't
31:54
Speaker 1: think you understand. I don't love you. I don't I
31:58
Speaker 1: can't love you. I love someone else else. It is repulsive.
32:02
Speaker 1: It disgusted me that you should touch me. He stared
32:07
Speaker 1: in amazement at this new aspect of the situation. You
32:11
Speaker 1: love someone else, he repeated, I love some one else.
32:15
Speaker 1: I could not dream of loving you. And then he
32:20
Speaker 1: flashed his whole conception of the relations of men and
32:22
Speaker 1: women upon her in one astonishing question. His hand went
32:27
Speaker 1: with an almost instinctive inquiry to his drawbone. Again. Then,
32:31
Speaker 1: why the devil, he demanded, Do you let me stand
32:35
Speaker 1: you dinners and the opera? And why do you come
32:37
Speaker 1: to a cabinet particular with me? He became radiant with anger.
32:43
Speaker 1: You mean to tell me, he said, that you have
32:46
Speaker 1: a lover while I have been keeping you, yes, keeping
32:49
Speaker 1: you this view of life, he hurled at her, as
32:54
Speaker 1: if it were an offensive missile. It stunned her. She
32:57
Speaker 1: felt she must fly before it, and could no longer
32:59
Speaker 1: do so. She did not think for one moment what
33:03
Speaker 1: interpretation he might put upon the word lover. Mister Rammage,
33:08
Speaker 1: she said, clinging to her one point. I want to
33:11
Speaker 1: get out of this horrible little room. It has all
33:14
Speaker 1: been a mistake. I have been stupid and foolish. Will
33:18
Speaker 1: you unlock that door? Never? He said, confound your lover.
33:23
Speaker 1: Look here, do you really think I am going to
33:25
Speaker 1: run you while he makes love to you? No fear
33:28
Speaker 1: and never heard of anything so cool. If he wants you,
33:31
Speaker 1: let him get you. You're mine. I've paid for you
33:35
Speaker 1: and help you, and I'm going to conquer you somehow
33:37
Speaker 1: if I have to break you to do it. Hitherto
33:40
Speaker 1: you've seen only my easy, kindly side. But now confound it,
33:44
Speaker 1: how can you prevent it? I will kiss you, you won't,
33:49
Speaker 1: said Anne Veronica, with the clearest note of determination. He
33:54
Speaker 1: seemed to be about to move toward her. She stepped
33:57
Speaker 1: back quickly, and her hand knocked a wine glass from
33:59
Speaker 1: the table to smash noisily on the floor. She caught
34:02
Speaker 1: at the idea, if you come a step nearer to me,
34:06
Speaker 1: she said, I will smash every glass on this table. Then,
34:10
Speaker 1: by God, he said, you'll be locked up, and Veronica
34:15
Speaker 1: was disconcerted. For a moment. She had a vision of
34:18
Speaker 1: policemen reproving magistrates a crowded court, public disgrace. She saw
34:24
Speaker 1: her aunt in tears, her father white face and hard hit.
34:28
Speaker 1: Don't come nearer, she said. There was a discreet knocking
34:32
Speaker 1: at the door, and Rammage's face changed. No, she said
34:36
Speaker 1: under her breath, you can't face it, and she knew
34:40
Speaker 1: that she was safe. He went to the door. It's
34:45
Speaker 1: all right, he said, reassuringly to the inquirer without and
34:50
Speaker 1: Veronica glanced at the mirror to discover a flushed and
34:53
Speaker 1: disheveled disorder. She began at once a hasty readjustment of
34:57
Speaker 1: her hair. While Rammage parleyed with inawe interrogations, a glass
35:02
Speaker 1: slipped from the table. He explained, no fadutou no ne'
35:06
Speaker 1: it beat re donla not presently. Presently That conversation ended,
35:13
Speaker 1: and he turned to her again. I am going, she said, grimly,
35:17
Speaker 1: with three hairpins in her mouth. She took her hat
35:21
Speaker 1: from the pig in the corner and began to put
35:23
Speaker 1: it on. He regarded that perennial miracle of pinning with
35:27
Speaker 1: wrathful eyes. Look here, Anne Veronica, he began. I want
35:32
Speaker 1: a plain word with you about all this. Do you
35:34
Speaker 1: mean to tell me you didn't understand why I wanted
35:37
Speaker 1: you to come here? Not a bit of it, said
35:41
Speaker 1: Anne Veronica, stoutly. You didn't expect that I should kiss you?
35:46
Speaker 1: How was I to know that a man would would
35:48
Speaker 1: think it was possible when there was nothing, no love?
35:53
Speaker 1: How did I know there wasn't love? That silenced her
35:57
Speaker 1: for a moment. And what on earth? He said? Do
36:01
Speaker 1: you think the world is made of? Why do you
36:03
Speaker 1: think I have been doing things for you the abstract
36:06
Speaker 1: pleasure of goodness? Are you one of the members of
36:09
Speaker 1: that great white sisterhood that takes and does not give
36:12
Speaker 1: the good? Accepting woman? Do you really suppose a girl
36:16
Speaker 1: is entitled to live at three quarters on any man
36:19
Speaker 1: she meets without giving any return? I thought, said Ann Veronica,
36:25
Speaker 1: you are my friend. Friend. What have a man and
36:29
Speaker 1: a girl in common to make them friends? Ask that
36:32
Speaker 1: lover of yours and even with friends which you'ld have
36:35
Speaker 1: at all give on one side and all take on
36:37
Speaker 1: the other. Does he know I keep you. You won't
36:41
Speaker 1: have a man's lips near you, but you'll eat out
36:43
Speaker 1: of his hand fast enough. Ann Veronica was stung to
36:47
Speaker 1: helpless anger. Mister Rammage. She cried, you are outrageous, You
36:53
Speaker 1: understand nothing, You are horrible. Will you let me get
36:57
Speaker 1: out of this room? No, cried Rammage, hear me out.
37:02
Speaker 1: I'll have that satisfaction anyhow. You women, with your tricks
37:05
Speaker 1: of evasion, your sex are swindlers. You have all the
37:09
Speaker 1: instinctive dexterity of parasites. You make yourself charming. For help,
37:13
Speaker 1: you climb by disappointing men. This lover of yours he
37:17
Speaker 1: doesn't know, cried Anne Veronica. Well you know, Ann Veronica
37:23
Speaker 1: could have wept with vexation. Indeed, a note of weeping
37:27
Speaker 1: broke her voice for a moment as she burst out.
37:30
Speaker 1: You know as well as I do that money was
37:32
Speaker 1: alone alone. You yourself called it alone euphemism. We both
37:39
Speaker 1: understood that you shall have every penny of it back.
37:43
Speaker 1: I'll frame it when I get it. I'll pay you
37:46
Speaker 1: if I have to work at shirt making at threepence
37:48
Speaker 1: an hour. You'll never pay me, you think you will.
37:52
Speaker 1: It's your way of glossing over the ethical position. It's
37:55
Speaker 1: the sort of way a woman always does gloss over
37:57
Speaker 1: her ethical positions. Your order pends all of you by instinct.
38:02
Speaker 1: Only you good ones. Shirk you shirk a straightforward and
38:06
Speaker 1: decent return for what you get from us, taking refuge
38:09
Speaker 1: in purity and delicacy and such like. When it comes
38:11
Speaker 1: to payment, mister Rammage said, Anne Veronica, I want to
38:16
Speaker 1: go now, Part five, But she did not get away.
38:26
Speaker 1: Just then. Rammage's bitterness passed as abruptly as his aggression. Oh,
38:32
Speaker 1: Anne Veronica, he cried, I cannot let you go like this.
38:35
Speaker 1: You don't understand, you can't possibly understand. He began a
38:41
Speaker 1: confused explanation, a perplexing, contradictory apology for his urgency and wrath.
38:46
Speaker 1: He loved Anne Veronica. He said he was so mad
38:49
Speaker 1: to have her that he defeated himself and did crude
38:52
Speaker 1: and alarming and senseless things. His vicious abusiveness vanished. He
38:57
Speaker 1: suddenly became eloquent and plausible. He did make her perceive
39:01
Speaker 1: something of the acute, tormenting desire for her that had
39:04
Speaker 1: arisen in him and possessed him. She stood, as it were,
39:08
Speaker 1: directed doorward, with her eyes watching every movement, listening to him,
39:13
Speaker 1: repelled by him, and yet dimly understanding at any rate.
39:17
Speaker 1: He made it very clear that night that there was
39:19
Speaker 1: an inradicable discord in life, a jarring something that must
39:23
Speaker 1: shatter all her dreams of a way of living for
39:25
Speaker 1: women that would enable them to be free and spacious
39:28
Speaker 1: and friendly with men. And that was the passionate predisposition
39:32
Speaker 1: of men to believe that the love of women can
39:35
Speaker 1: be earned and won and controlled and compelled. He flung
39:40
Speaker 1: aside all his talk of help and disinterested friendship, as
39:43
Speaker 1: though it had never been even a disguise between them,
39:46
Speaker 1: as though from the first it was no more than
39:48
Speaker 1: a fancy dress. They had put quite understandingly upon their relationship.
39:53
Speaker 1: He had set out to win her, and she had
39:56
Speaker 1: let him start. And at the thought of that other lover,
39:59
Speaker 1: he was convinced that that beloved person was a lover,
40:03
Speaker 1: and she found herself unable to say a word to
40:05
Speaker 1: explain to him that this other person, the person she loved,
40:09
Speaker 1: did not even know of her love. Rammage grew angry
40:12
Speaker 1: and savage once more, and returned suddenly to gibe and insult.
40:17
Speaker 1: Men do services for the love of women, and the
40:20
Speaker 1: woman who takes must pay. Such was the simple code
40:23
Speaker 1: that displayed itself in all his thoughts. He left that
40:27
Speaker 1: arid rule, clear of the least mist of refinement or delicacy.
40:31
Speaker 1: That he should pay forty pounds to help this girl
40:34
Speaker 1: who preferred another man was no less in his eyes
40:37
Speaker 1: than a fraud and mockery. That made her denial a
40:40
Speaker 1: maddening and outrageous disgrace to him, And this though he
40:44
Speaker 1: was evidently passionately in love with her. For a while
40:48
Speaker 1: he threatened her. You have put all your life in
40:51
Speaker 1: my hands, he declared. Think of that check you endorsed there,
40:54
Speaker 1: it is against you. I defy you to explain it away.
40:58
Speaker 1: What do you think people will make that? What will
41:01
Speaker 1: this lover of yours make of that? At intervals, Anne
41:05
Speaker 1: Veronica demanded to go, declaring her undying resolve to repay
41:09
Speaker 1: him at any cost, and made short movements doorward. But
41:14
Speaker 1: at last this ordeal was over, and Rammage opened the door.
41:18
Speaker 1: She emerged with a white face and wide open eyes,
41:20
Speaker 1: upon a little red lit landing. She went past three
41:24
Speaker 1: keenly observant and ostentatiously preoccupied waiters, down the thick carpeted
41:29
Speaker 1: staircase and out of the Hotel Rococo, that remarkable laboratory
41:33
Speaker 1: of relationships, passed the tall porter in blue and Crimson
41:37
Speaker 1: into a cool, clear night. Part six. When Anne Veronica
41:47
Speaker 1: reached her little bed sitting room again, every nerve in
41:50
Speaker 1: her body was quivering with shame and self disgust. She
41:54
Speaker 1: threw hat and coat on the bed and sat down
41:56
Speaker 1: before the fire. And now, she said, splintering the surviving
42:01
Speaker 1: piece of coal into indignant flame, spurting fragments with one
42:05
Speaker 1: dexterous blow. What am I to do? I'm in a hole.
42:09
Speaker 1: Mess is a better word, expresses it better. I'm in
42:13
Speaker 1: a mess, A nasty mess, a filthy mess. Oh, no
42:17
Speaker 1: end of a mess. Do you hear, Anne Veronica? You're
42:21
Speaker 1: in a nasty, filthy, unforgivable mess. Haven't I just made
42:25
Speaker 1: a silly mess of things? Forty pounds I haven't got twenty?
42:31
Speaker 1: She got up, stamped with her foot, and then, suddenly,
42:35
Speaker 1: remembering the lodger below, sat down and wrenched off her boots.
42:39
Speaker 1: This is what comes of being a young woman up
42:41
Speaker 1: to date. By jove, I'm beginning to have my doubts
42:45
Speaker 1: about freedom, You silly young woman, Anne Veronica, You silly
42:49
Speaker 1: young woman. The smeariness of the thing, the smeariness of
42:53
Speaker 1: this sort of thing. Moored about she fell to rubbing
42:57
Speaker 1: her insulted lips savagely with the back of her hand. Ah,
43:01
Speaker 1: she said. The young women of Jane Alston's time didn't
43:05
Speaker 1: get into this sort of scrape, at least one thinks. So.
43:09
Speaker 1: I wonder if some of them did and it didn't
43:11
Speaker 1: get reported. Aunt Jane had her quiet moments. Most of
43:16
Speaker 1: them didn't anyhow. They were properly brought up and sat
43:19
Speaker 1: still and straight and took the luck fate brought them
43:22
Speaker 1: as gentlewomen should. And they had an idea of what
43:25
Speaker 1: men were like. Behind all their nicety, they knew they
43:27
Speaker 1: were all boogey in disguise. I didn't. I didn't after all.
43:34
Speaker 1: For a time her mind ran on daintiness and its
43:36
Speaker 1: defensive restraints, as though it was the one desirable thing.
43:41
Speaker 1: That world of fine printed cambrics and escorted maidens, of
43:44
Speaker 1: delicate secondary meanings and refined elusiveness presented itself to her
43:49
Speaker 1: imagination with the brightness of a lost paradise, as indeed
43:52
Speaker 1: for many women it is a lost paradise. I wonder
43:56
Speaker 1: if there is anything wrong with my manners, she said,
43:59
Speaker 1: I wonder if I've been properly brought up, if I
44:02
Speaker 1: had been quite quiet and white and dignified, wouldn't it
44:06
Speaker 1: have been different? Would he have dared? For some creditable
44:11
Speaker 1: moments in her life, Anne Veronica was utterly disgusted with herself.
44:15
Speaker 1: She was wrung with a passionate and belated desire to
44:18
Speaker 1: move gently, to speak softly and ambiguously, to be in
44:21
Speaker 1: effect prim Horrible details recurred to her. Why, among other things,
44:28
Speaker 1: did I put my knuckles in his neck deliberately to
44:31
Speaker 1: hurt him? She tried to sound the humorous note, are
44:37
Speaker 1: you aware, Aunte Veronica? You nearly throttled that gentleman. Then
44:42
Speaker 1: she reviled her own foolish way of putting it. You
44:45
Speaker 1: ass an imbecile, Aunt Veronica, you female cad cad cad.
44:51
Speaker 1: Why aren't you folded up clean and lavender as every
44:53
Speaker 1: young woman ought to be? What have you been doing
44:56
Speaker 1: with yourself? She raked into the fire with the poker,
45:01
Speaker 1: all of which doesn't help me in the slightest degree
45:04
Speaker 1: to pay back that money. That night was the most
45:08
Speaker 1: intolerable one that Anne Veronica had ever spent. She washed
45:12
Speaker 1: her face with unwonted elaboration before she went to bed.
45:16
Speaker 1: This time, there was no doubt. She did not sleep.
45:19
Speaker 1: The more she disentangled the lines of her situation, the
45:22
Speaker 1: deeper grew herself discussed. Occasionally, the mere fact of lying
45:27
Speaker 1: in bed became unendurable, and she rolled out and marched
45:30
Speaker 1: about her room and whispered abuse of herself, usually until
45:34
Speaker 1: she hid against some article of furniture. Then she would
45:37
Speaker 1: have quiet times in which she would say to herself, now,
45:40
Speaker 1: look here, let me think it all out. For the
45:44
Speaker 1: first time, it seemed to her she faced the facts
45:47
Speaker 1: of a woman's position in the world, the meager realities
45:50
Speaker 1: of such freedom as it permitted her, the almost unavoidable
45:54
Speaker 1: obligation to some individual man under which she must labor
45:58
Speaker 1: for even a foothold in the world. She had flung
46:01
Speaker 1: away from her father's support with the finest assumption of
46:04
Speaker 1: personal independence, and here she was in a mess because
46:08
Speaker 1: it had been impossible for her to avoid leaning upon
46:10
Speaker 1: another man. She had thought, what had she thought that
46:15
Speaker 1: this dependence of women was? But an illusion which needed
46:18
Speaker 1: only to be denied to vanish. She had denied it
46:21
Speaker 1: with vigor, and here she was. She did not so
46:25
Speaker 1: much exhaust this general question as passed from it to
46:28
Speaker 1: her insoluble individual problem again, What am I to do?
46:34
Speaker 1: She wanted first of all to fling the forty pounds
46:37
Speaker 1: back into Ramage's face, but she had spent nearly half
46:40
Speaker 1: of it and had no conception of how such a
46:43
Speaker 1: sum could be made good Again, she thought of all
46:46
Speaker 1: sorts of odd and desperate experience, and with passionate petulance,
46:49
Speaker 1: rejected them all. She took refuge in beating her pillow
46:54
Speaker 1: and inventing insulting epithets for herself. She got up, drew
46:59
Speaker 1: up her blood, and stared out of window at a
47:01
Speaker 1: dawn cold vision of chimneys for a time, and then
47:05
Speaker 1: went and sat on the edge of her bed. What
47:08
Speaker 1: was the alternative to going home? No alternative appeared in
47:12
Speaker 1: that darkness. It seems intolerable that she should go home
47:16
Speaker 1: and admit herself beaten. She did most urgently desire to
47:20
Speaker 1: save her face in Morningside Park, and for long hours
47:23
Speaker 1: she could think of no way of putting it that
47:25
Speaker 1: would not be in the nature of uncondition or admission
47:28
Speaker 1: of defeat. I'd rather go as a chorus girl, she said.
47:33
Speaker 1: She was not very clear about the position and duties
47:36
Speaker 1: of a chorus girl, but it certainly had the air
47:38
Speaker 1: of being a last desperate resort. There sprang from that
47:42
Speaker 1: a vague hope that perhaps she might extort a capitulation
47:45
Speaker 1: from her father by a threat to seek that position.
47:49
Speaker 1: And then, with overwhelming clearness, it came to her that
47:52
Speaker 1: whatever happened, she would never be able to tell her
47:54
Speaker 1: father about her debt. The completest capitulation would not wipe
47:58
Speaker 1: out that trouble, and she felt that if she went
48:01
Speaker 1: home it was imperative to pay. She would always be
48:05
Speaker 1: going to and throw up the avenue. Getting glimpses of
48:07
Speaker 1: Rammage seeing him in trains for a time, she promenaded
48:12
Speaker 1: the room. Why did I ever take that loan? An
48:16
Speaker 1: idiot girl in an asylum would have known better than that.
48:19
Speaker 1: Vulgarity of soul and innocence of mind the worst of
48:22
Speaker 1: all conceivable combinations. I wish some one would kill Rammage
48:26
Speaker 1: by extant, but then they would find that check in
48:29
Speaker 1: dorse in his bureau. I wonder what he will do
48:34
Speaker 1: She tried to imagine situations that might arise out of
48:37
Speaker 1: Rammage's antagonism, for he had been so bitter and savage
48:41
Speaker 1: that she could not believe that he would leave things
48:43
Speaker 1: as they were. The next morning, she went out with
48:46
Speaker 1: her post office savings bank book and telegraphed for a
48:49
Speaker 1: warrant to draw out all the money she had in
48:51
Speaker 1: the world. It amounted to two and twenty pounds. She
48:56
Speaker 1: addressed an envelope to Rammage and scrawled on a half
48:59
Speaker 1: sheet of paper, the rest shall follow. The money would
49:03
Speaker 1: be available the afternoon, and she would send him four
49:06
Speaker 1: five pound notes, the rest she meant to keep for
49:09
Speaker 1: her immediate necessities. A little relieved by this step to
49:13
Speaker 1: ord Rey and statement, she went on to the Imperial
49:16
Speaker 1: College to forget her muddle of problems for a time,
49:18
Speaker 1: if she could, in the presence of Capes Part seven.
49:28
Speaker 1: For a time, the biological laboratory was full of healing virtue.
49:32
Speaker 1: Her sleepless night had left her languid, but not stupefied,
49:35
Speaker 1: and for an hour or so the work distracted her
49:37
Speaker 1: altogether from her troubles. Then, after Capes had been through
49:41
Speaker 1: her work and had gone on, it came to her
49:43
Speaker 1: that the fabric of this life of hers was doomed
49:46
Speaker 1: to almost immediate collapse, that in a little while these
49:49
Speaker 1: studies would cease, and perhaps she would never set eyes
49:52
Speaker 1: on him again. After that, consolations fled. The overnight nervous
49:58
Speaker 1: strain began to tell. She became inattentive to the work
50:01
Speaker 1: before her, and it did not get on. She felt
50:05
Speaker 1: sleepy and unusually irritable. She lunched at a creamery in
50:09
Speaker 1: Great Portland Street, and as the day was full of
50:11
Speaker 1: wintry sunshine, spent the rest of the lunch hour in
50:14
Speaker 1: a drowsy gloom, which she imagined to be thought upon
50:17
Speaker 1: the problems of her position. On a seat in Regent's Park,
50:22
Speaker 1: a girl of fifteen or sixteen gave her a handbill
50:25
Speaker 1: that she regarded as a tract until she saw votes
50:28
Speaker 1: were women at the top. That turned her mind to
50:31
Speaker 1: the more generalized aspects of her perplexities. Again, she had
50:35
Speaker 1: never been so disposed to agree that the position of
50:37
Speaker 1: women in the modern world is intolerable. Capes joined the
50:44
Speaker 1: students at tea and displayed himself in an impish mood
50:47
Speaker 1: that sometimes possessed him. He did not notice that Anne
50:50
Speaker 1: Veronica was preoccupied and heavy eyed. Miss Claire raised the
50:54
Speaker 1: question of women's suffrage, and he set himself to provoke
50:58
Speaker 1: a deal between her and Miss Garvis. The youth with
51:01
Speaker 1: the hair brushed back and the spectacled Scotchman joined in
51:04
Speaker 1: the fray for and against the women's vote. Ever and again,
51:08
Speaker 1: Capes appealed to Anne Veronica. He liked to draw her in,
51:12
Speaker 1: and she did her best to talk, but she did
51:14
Speaker 1: not talk readily, and in order to say something, she
51:17
Speaker 1: plunged a little, and felt she plunged. Cape scored back
51:21
Speaker 1: with an uncompromising vigor. That was his way of complimenting
51:24
Speaker 1: her intelligence. But this afternoon it discovered an unusual vein
51:28
Speaker 1: of irritability in her. He had been reading Belfort backs
51:32
Speaker 1: and declared himself a convert. He contrasted the lot of
51:35
Speaker 1: women in general with the lot of men, presented, men
51:38
Speaker 1: as patient, self immolating martyrs and women as the pampered
51:42
Speaker 1: favorites of nature, a vein of conviction mingled with his burlesque.
51:47
Speaker 1: For a time he and miss Clay contradicted one another.
51:51
Speaker 1: The question ceased to be a tea table talk and
51:54
Speaker 1: became suddenly tragically real. For Anne Veronica. There he sat,
51:59
Speaker 1: cheerfully friendly in his sex's freedom. The man she loved,
52:03
Speaker 1: the one man she cared, should unlock the way to
52:06
Speaker 1: the wide world for her imprisoned feminine possibilities, And he
52:09
Speaker 1: seemed regardless that she stifled under his eyes. He made
52:13
Speaker 1: a jest of all this passionate insurgence of the souls
52:16
Speaker 1: of women against the fate of their conditions. Miss Gavis
52:20
Speaker 1: repeated again and almost in the same words she used
52:23
Speaker 1: at every discussion her contribution to the great question. She
52:28
Speaker 1: thought that women were not made for the struggle and
52:30
Speaker 1: turmoil of life. Their place was the little world, the home.
52:35
Speaker 1: That their power lay not in votes, but in influence
52:38
Speaker 1: over men, and in making the minds of their children
52:40
Speaker 1: fine and splendid. Women should understand men's affairs, perhaps, said
52:46
Speaker 1: Miss Gervas, But to mingle in them is just to
52:49
Speaker 1: sacrifice that power of influencing they can exercise. Now there
52:54
Speaker 1: is something sound in that position, said Capes, intervening as
52:58
Speaker 1: if to defend Miss Guar against a possible attack from
53:01
Speaker 1: Anne Veronica. It may not be just and so forth,
53:05
Speaker 1: but after all, it is how things are. Women are
53:09
Speaker 1: not in the world in the same sense that men
53:11
Speaker 1: are fighting individuals in a scramble. I don't see how
53:14
Speaker 1: they can be. Every home is a little recess, a
53:18
Speaker 1: niche out of the world of business and competition, in
53:21
Speaker 1: which women and the future shelter. A little pit, said
53:25
Speaker 1: Anne Veronica, a little prison. It's just as often a
53:30
Speaker 1: little refuge. Anyhow, that is how things are. And the
53:35
Speaker 1: man stands as the master at the mouth of the
53:37
Speaker 1: den as sentinel. You forget all the mass of training
53:41
Speaker 1: and tradition and instinct that go to make him a
53:44
Speaker 1: tolerable master. Nature is a mother. Her sympathies have always
53:48
Speaker 1: been feminist, and she has tempered the man to the
53:51
Speaker 1: shorn woman. I wish, said Anne Veronica, with sudden anger,
53:56
Speaker 1: that you could know what it is to live in
53:58
Speaker 1: a pit. She stood up as she spoke and put
54:02
Speaker 1: down her cut beside Miss Gervas's. She addressed Capes as
54:05
Speaker 1: though she spoke to him alone. I can't endure it,
54:09
Speaker 1: she said. Every One turned to her in astonishment. She
54:13
Speaker 1: felt she had to go on. No man can realize
54:17
Speaker 1: she said, what that pit can be. The way the
54:21
Speaker 1: way we are led on. We are taught to believe
54:23
Speaker 1: we are free in the world, to think we are queens.
54:26
Speaker 1: Then we find out, we find out no man will
54:29
Speaker 1: treat a woman fairly as man to man. No man
54:32
Speaker 1: he wants you or he doesn't, and then he helps
54:35
Speaker 1: some other woman against you. What you say is probably
54:39
Speaker 1: all true and necessary, But think of the disillusionment. Except
54:42
Speaker 1: for our sakes. We have minds like men, desires like men.
54:46
Speaker 1: We come out into the world, some of us. She
54:50
Speaker 1: paused her words as she said them seemed to her
54:53
Speaker 1: to mean nothing, and there was so much that struggled
54:56
Speaker 1: for expression. Women are mocked, she said, whenever they tried
55:01
Speaker 1: to take hold of life. A man into venes. She felt,
55:05
Speaker 1: with a sudden horror that she might weep. She wished
55:08
Speaker 1: she had not stood up. She wondered wildly why she
55:11
Speaker 1: had stood up. No one spoke, and she was impelled
55:14
Speaker 1: to flounder on. Think of the mockery, she said, Think
55:19
Speaker 1: how dumb we find ourselves and stifled. I know we
55:22
Speaker 1: seem to have a sort of freedom. Have you ever
55:24
Speaker 1: tried to run and jump in petticoats, mister capes, Well,
55:28
Speaker 1: think what it must be to live in them, soul
55:30
Speaker 1: and mind and body. It's fun for a man to
55:33
Speaker 1: jest at our position. I wasn't jesting, said Capes. Abruptly,
55:40
Speaker 1: she stood face to face with him. His voice cut
55:43
Speaker 1: across her speech and made her stop abruptly. She was
55:46
Speaker 1: sore and overstrung, and it was intolerable to her that
55:50
Speaker 1: he should stand within three yards of her, unsuspectingly and
55:53
Speaker 1: with an incalculably vast power over her happiness. She wassore
55:58
Speaker 1: with the perplexities of her posterous position. She was sick
56:02
Speaker 1: of herself, of her life, of everything but him, and
56:06
Speaker 1: for him. All her masked and hidden being was crying out.
56:10
Speaker 1: She stopped abruptly at the sound of his voice and
56:12
Speaker 1: lost the thread of what she was saying. In the pause,
56:16
Speaker 1: she realized the attention of the others converged upon her,
56:19
Speaker 1: and that the tears were breaming over her eyes. She
56:22
Speaker 1: felt a storm of emotion surging up within her. She
56:26
Speaker 1: became aware of the Scotch student regarding her with stupendous amazement,
56:30
Speaker 1: a teacup poison, one hairy hand, and his faceted glasses
56:34
Speaker 1: showing a various enlargement of segments of his eye. The
56:39
Speaker 1: door into the passage offered itself with an irresistible invitation.
56:43
Speaker 1: The one alternative to a public inexplicable passion of weeping
56:48
Speaker 1: Caps flashed to an understanding of her intention, sprang to
56:51
Speaker 1: his feet and opened the door for her retreat. Part eight.
57:00
Speaker 1: Why should I ever come back? She said to herself
57:03
Speaker 1: as she went down the staircase. She went to the
57:06
Speaker 1: post office and drew out and sent off her money
57:09
Speaker 1: to Rammage. And then she came out into the street,
57:12
Speaker 1: sure only of one thing that she could not return
57:15
Speaker 1: directly to her lodgings. She wanted air and the distraction
57:19
Speaker 1: of having moving and changing things about her. The evenings
57:23
Speaker 1: were beginning to draw out, and it would not be
57:25
Speaker 1: dark for an hour. She resolved to walk across the
57:28
Speaker 1: park to the Zoological Gardens and so on by way
57:32
Speaker 1: of Primrose Hill to Hampstead Heath. There she would wander
57:35
Speaker 1: about in the kindly darkness and think things out. Presently,
57:40
Speaker 1: she became aware of footsteps hurrying after her, and glanced
57:43
Speaker 1: back to find Miss Clegg, a little out of breath
57:46
Speaker 1: in pursuit. Ann Veronica halted her pace and Miss Cleig
57:50
Speaker 1: came alongside. Do you go across the park? Not usually?
57:56
Speaker 1: But I'm going to day I want to walk. I'm
57:59
Speaker 1: not surprised at it. I thought, mister Capes most trying.
58:04
Speaker 1: Oh it wasn't that. I've had a headache all day.
58:08
Speaker 1: I thought mister Cape's most unfair. Miss Clake went on,
58:12
Speaker 1: in a small, even voice, most unfair. I'm glad you
58:16
Speaker 1: spoke out as you did. I didn't mind that little
58:20
Speaker 1: argument you gave it him well what you said wanted saying.
58:25
Speaker 1: After you went, he got up and took refuge in
58:27
Speaker 1: the preparation room, or else I would have finished him.
58:31
Speaker 1: And Veronica said nothing, and Miss Claik went on, he
58:35
Speaker 1: very often is most unfair. He has a way of
58:39
Speaker 1: sitting on people. He wouldn't be like it if people
58:42
Speaker 1: did it to him. He jumps the words out of
58:44
Speaker 1: your mouth. He takes hold of what you have to
58:46
Speaker 1: say before you have had time to express it properly. Pause.
58:52
Speaker 1: I suppose he's frightfully clever, said miss Clake. He's a
58:57
Speaker 1: fellow of the Royal Society. And he can't be much
58:59
Speaker 1: over thirty, said Miss Cleaik. He writes very well, said
59:04
Speaker 1: Anne Veronica. He can't be more than thirty. He must
59:07
Speaker 1: have married when he was quite a young man, married,
59:11
Speaker 1: said Anne Veronica. Didn't you know he was married? Asked
59:16
Speaker 1: miss Clegg and was struck by thought that made her
59:19
Speaker 1: glance quickly at her companion. Anne Veronica had no answer
59:23
Speaker 1: for a moment. She turned her head away sharply. Some
59:27
Speaker 1: automaton within her produced, in a quite unfamiliar voice, the
59:31
Speaker 1: remark they're playing football. It's too far for the ball
59:36
Speaker 1: to reach us, said Miss Clegg. I didn't know mister
59:40
Speaker 1: Capes was married, said Anne Veronica, resuming the conversation with
59:44
Speaker 1: an entire disappearance of her former lassitude. Oh yes, said
59:49
Speaker 1: miss Clegg. I thought every one knew, no, said Anne Veronica,
59:54
Speaker 1: off handedly, never heard anything of it. I thought every
59:58
Speaker 1: one knew. I thought every one had heard about it.
1:00:02
Speaker 1: But why he's married, and I believe living separated from
1:00:07
Speaker 1: his wife. There was a case or something some years ago.
1:00:12
Speaker 1: What case, a divorce or something, I don't know, but
1:00:16
Speaker 1: I have heard that he almost had to leave the
1:00:18
Speaker 1: schools if it hadn't been for Professor Russell standing up
1:00:22
Speaker 1: for him. They say he would have had to leave.
1:00:25
Speaker 1: Was he divorced? Do you mean no? But he got
1:00:28
Speaker 1: himself mixed up in a divorce case. I forget the particulars,
1:00:32
Speaker 1: but I know it was something very disagreeable. It was
1:00:35
Speaker 1: among artistic people. Anne Veronica was silent for a while.
1:00:41
Speaker 1: I thought every one had heard, said miss clegg or
1:00:44
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have said anything about it. I suppose all men,
1:00:49
Speaker 1: said Anne Veronica, in a tone of detached criticism. Get
1:00:52
Speaker 1: some such entanglement, and anyhow, it doesn't matter to us.
1:00:57
Speaker 1: She turned abruptly at right angles to the path they fell.
1:01:01
Speaker 1: This is my way back to my side of the park,
1:01:03
Speaker 1: she said. I thought you were coming right across the park.
1:01:08
Speaker 1: Oh no, said Anne Veronica. I have some work to do.
1:01:11
Speaker 1: I just wanted a breath of air, and they'll shut
1:01:13
Speaker 1: the gates presently. It's not far from Twilight Part nine.
1:01:21
Speaker 1: She was sitting brooding over her fire about ten o'clock
1:01:24
Speaker 1: that night when a sealed and registered envelope was brought
1:01:27
Speaker 1: up to her. She opened it and drew out a
1:01:30
Speaker 1: letter and folded within it where the notes she had
1:01:33
Speaker 1: sent off to Rammage that day. The letter began, My
1:01:37
Speaker 1: dearest girl, I cannot let you do this foolish thing.
1:01:42
Speaker 1: She crumpled notes and letter together in her hand, and then,
1:01:46
Speaker 1: with a passionate gesture, flung them into the fire. Instantly,
1:01:50
Speaker 1: she seized the poker and made a desperate effort to
1:01:52
Speaker 1: get them out again, but she was only able to
1:01:55
Speaker 1: save a corner of the letter the twenty pounds burned
1:01:58
Speaker 1: with avidity, she remained for some seconds crouching at the fender,
1:02:03
Speaker 1: poker in hand. By jove, she said, standing up at last,
1:02:10
Speaker 1: that about finishes it and Veronica end of chapter nine