Latest / The H. G. Wells Library / Tono-Bungay Book 3 Chapter 3 - Parts 4-7

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Tono-Bungay Book 3 Chapter 3 - Parts 4-7 · The H. G. Wells Library

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Speaker 1: Book, third chapter, third parts four to seven of Tono Bungay.
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Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
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Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
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Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by William tom Co Tono
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Speaker 1: Bungay by H. G. Wells, Book, third chapter, third parts
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Speaker 1: four to seven four. All my later work in aeronautics
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Speaker 1: is associated in my memory with the quality of Beatrice,
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Speaker 1: with her incidental presence, with things she said and did,
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Speaker 1: and things I thought of that had reference to her.
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Speaker 1: In the spring of that year, I had got to
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Speaker 1: a flying machine that lacked nothing but longitudinal stability. My
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Speaker 1: model flew like a bird for fifty or a hundred
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Speaker 1: yards or so, and then either dived and broke its nose,
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Speaker 1: or what was commoner, reared up, slid back and smashed
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Speaker 1: its propeller. The rhythm of the pitching puzzled me. I
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Speaker 1: felt it must obey some laws not yet quite clearly stated.
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Speaker 1: I became therefore a student of theory and literature for
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Speaker 1: a time. I hit upon the string of considerations that
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Speaker 1: led me to what is called Ponderevo's principle, and my
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Speaker 1: f R. S and I worked this out in three
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Speaker 1: long papers. Meanwhile, I made a lot of turntable and
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Speaker 1: glider models and started in upon an idea of combining
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Speaker 1: gas bags and gliders. Balloon work was new to me.
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Speaker 1: I had made one or two ascents in the balloon
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Speaker 1: of the Aero Club before I started my gasometer and
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Speaker 1: the balloon shed, and gave Cothope a couple of months
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Speaker 1: with Sir Peter Rumchase. My uncle found part of the
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Speaker 1: money for these developments. He was growing interested and competitive
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Speaker 1: in this business because of Lord Boom's prize and the
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Speaker 1: amount of reclaim involved, and it was at his request
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Speaker 1: that I named my first navigable balloon Lord Robert's Alpha,
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Speaker 1: Lord Roberts A. Very nearly terminated all my investigations. My idea,
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Speaker 1: both in this and its more successful and famous younger brother,
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Speaker 1: Lord Roberts B, was to utilize the idea of a
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Speaker 1: contractile balloon with a rigid flat base, a balloon shaped
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Speaker 1: rather like an inverted boat that should almost support the apparatus,
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Speaker 1: but not quite. The gas bag was of the chambered
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Speaker 1: sort used for these long forms, and not with an
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Speaker 1: internal balloon net. The trouble was to make the thing contractual.
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Speaker 1: This I sought to do by fixing a long, fine
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Speaker 1: meshed silk net over it that was fastened to be
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Speaker 1: rolled up on two longitudinal rods. Practically, I contracted my
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Speaker 1: sausage gas bag by netting it down. The ends were
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Speaker 1: too complex for me to describe here, but I thought
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Speaker 1: them out elaborately, and they were very carefully planned. Lord
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Speaker 1: roberts A was furnished with a single big screw forward,
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Speaker 1: and there was a rudder aft. The engine was the
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Speaker 1: first one to be so to speak, right in the
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Speaker 1: plane of the gas bag. I lay immediately under the
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Speaker 1: balloon on a sort of glider framework, far away from
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Speaker 1: either engine or rudder, controlling them by wire pools constructed
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Speaker 1: on the principle of the well known bowed and break
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Speaker 1: of the cyclist. But Lord roberts A has been pretty
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Speaker 1: exhaustively figured and described in various aeronautical publications. The unforeseen
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Speaker 1: defect was the badness of the work in the silk netting.
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Speaker 1: It tore aft as soon as I began to contract
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Speaker 1: the balloon, and the last two segments immediately bulged through
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Speaker 1: the hole, exactly as an inner tube will bulge through
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Speaker 1: the ruptured outer cover of a pneumatic tire, and then
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Speaker 1: the sharp edge of the torn net cut the oiled
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Speaker 1: silk of the distended last segment along a weak seam
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Speaker 1: and burst it with a loud report. Up to that
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Speaker 1: point the whole thing had been going on extremely well
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Speaker 1: as a navigable balloon, and before I contracted it, the
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Speaker 1: Lord Robert's A was an unqualified success. It had run
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Speaker 1: out of the shed admirably at nine or ten miles
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Speaker 1: an hour or more, and although there was a gentle
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Speaker 1: southwester blowing, it had gone up and turned and faced
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Speaker 1: it as well as any craft of the sort I
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Speaker 1: have ever seen. I lay in my customary gladder position,
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Speaker 1: horizontal and face downward, and the invisibility of all the
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Speaker 1: machinery gave an extraordinary effect of independent levitation. Only by
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Speaker 1: looking up, as it were, and turning my head back
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Speaker 1: could I see the flat aeroplane bottom of the balloon,
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Speaker 1: and the rapid successive passages swish swish swish of the
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Speaker 1: vans of the propeller. I made a wide circle over
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Speaker 1: Lady Grove and Duffield and out towards Effingham, and came
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Speaker 1: back quite successfully to the starting point down below. In
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Speaker 1: the October sunlight were my sheds, and the little group
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Speaker 1: that had been summoned to witness the start. Their faces
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Speaker 1: craned upward, and most of them scrutinizing my expression. Through
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Speaker 1: field glasses, I could see Carnabie and Beatrice on horseback,
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Speaker 1: and two girls I did not know with them, Cothope,
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Speaker 1: and three or four workmen I employed, my aunt and
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Speaker 1: Missus Levenstein, who was staying with her on foot, and Democh,
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Speaker 1: the veterinary surgeon, and one or two others. My shadow
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Speaker 1: moved a little to the north of them, like the
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Speaker 1: shadow of a fish. At Lady Grove, the servants were
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Speaker 1: out on the lawn, and the Duffield School playgrounds swarmed
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Speaker 1: with children too indifferent to aeronautics to cease their playing.
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Speaker 1: But in the Crest Hill direction the place looked extraordinarily
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Speaker 1: squat and ugly. From above there were knots and strings
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Speaker 1: of staring workmen everywhere, not one of them working, but
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Speaker 1: all agape. But now I write it, it occurs to
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Speaker 1: me that perhaps it was their dinner hour. It was
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Speaker 1: certainly near twelve. I hung for a moment or so,
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Speaker 1: enjoying the soar, then turned about to face a clear
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Speaker 1: stretch of open down, let the engine out to full speed,
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Speaker 1: and set my rollers at work, rolling in the net
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Speaker 1: and so tightening the gas bags. Instantly the pace quickened
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Speaker 1: with the diminished resistance. In that moment before the bang,
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Speaker 1: I think I must have been really flying before the
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Speaker 1: net ripped, Just in the instant when my balloon was
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Speaker 1: added sistily, the whole apparatus was I am convinced heavier
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Speaker 1: than air. That, however, is a claim that has been disputed,
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Speaker 1: and in any case, this sort of priority is a
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Speaker 1: very trivial thing. Then came a sudden retardation, instantly followed
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Speaker 1: by it inexpressibly disconcerting tilt downward of the machine that
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Speaker 1: I still recall with horror. I couldn't see what was
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Speaker 1: happening at all, and I couldn't imagine it was a mysterious,
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Speaker 1: inexplicable dive. The thing, it seemed, without rhyme or reason,
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Speaker 1: was kicking up its heels in the air. The bank
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Speaker 1: followed immediately, and I perceived I was falling rapidly. I
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Speaker 1: was too much taken by surprise to think of the
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Speaker 1: proper cause of the report. I don't even know what
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Speaker 1: I made of it. I was obsessed I suppose, by
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Speaker 1: that perpetual dread of the modern aeronaut, a flash between
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Speaker 1: engine and balloon. Yet obviously I wasn't wrapped in flames.
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Speaker 1: I ought to have realized instantly it wasn't that I did.
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Speaker 1: At any rate, whatever other impressions there were, released the
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Speaker 1: winding of the outer net and let the balloon expand again,
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Speaker 1: and that, no doubt did something to break my fall.
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Speaker 1: I don't remember doing that. Indeed, all I do remember
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Speaker 1: is the giddy effect upon the landscape of falling swiftly
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Speaker 1: upon it down a flat spiral, the hurried rush of
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Speaker 1: fields and trees and cottages on my left shoulder, and
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Speaker 1: the overhung feeling as if the whole apparatus was pressing
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Speaker 1: down the top of my head. I didn't stop or
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Speaker 1: attempt to stop the screw that was going on, swish, swish,
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Speaker 1: swish all the time. Kathope really knows more about the
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Speaker 1: fall than I do. He describes the easterly start, the tilt,
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Speaker 1: and the appearance and bursting of a sort of bladder aft.
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Speaker 1: Then down. I swooped very swiftly, but not nearly so
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Speaker 1: steeply as I imagined I was doing fifteen or twenty degrees,
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Speaker 1: said Cathope. To be exact from him, it was that
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Speaker 1: I learnt that I let the nets loose again and
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Speaker 1: so arrested my fall. He thinks I was more in
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Speaker 1: control of myself than I remember, but I do not
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Speaker 1: see why I should have forgotten so excellent a resolution.
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Speaker 1: His impression is that I was really steering and trying
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Speaker 1: to drop into the farthing down beaches. You hit the trees,
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Speaker 1: he said, and the whole affair stood on its among them,
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Speaker 1: and then very slowly crumpled up. I saw you'd been
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Speaker 1: jerked out, as I thought, and I didn't stay for more.
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Speaker 1: I rushed for my bicycle. As a matter of fact,
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Speaker 1: it was purely accidental that I came down in the woods.
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Speaker 1: I am reasonably certain that I had no more control
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Speaker 1: then than a thing in a parcel. I remember, I
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Speaker 1: felt a sort of wincing. Now it comes, as the
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Speaker 1: trees rushed up to me if I remember that I
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Speaker 1: should remember steering. Then the propeller smashed. Everything stopped with
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Speaker 1: a jerk, and I was falling into a mass of
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Speaker 1: yellowing leaves and Lord Robert's a so it seemed to me,
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Speaker 1: was going back into the sky. I felt twigs and
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Speaker 1: things hit me in the face, but I didn't feel
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Speaker 1: injured at the time. I clutched at things that broke,
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Speaker 1: tumbled through a froth of green and yellow into a
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Speaker 1: shadowy world of great bark covered arms, and there, snatching wildly,
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Speaker 1: got a grip on a fair round branch and hung.
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Speaker 1: I became intensely alert and clear headed. I held by
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Speaker 1: that branch for a moment, and then looked about me,
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Speaker 1: and caught at another, and then found myself holding to
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Speaker 1: a practicable fork. I swung forward to that and got
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Speaker 1: a leg around it below its junction, and so was
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Speaker 1: able presently to clamber down. Climbing very coolly and deliberately,
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Speaker 1: I dropped ten feet or so from the lowest branch
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Speaker 1: and fell on my feet. That's all right, I said,
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Speaker 1: and stared up through the trees to see what I
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Speaker 1: could of the deflated and crumpled remains that had once
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Speaker 1: been Lord Robert's a festooned on the branches that had broken. Gods,
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Speaker 1: I said, what a tumble. I wiped something that trickled
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Speaker 1: from my face and was shocked to see my hand
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Speaker 1: covered with blood. I looked at myself and saw what
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Speaker 1: seemed to me an astonishing quantity of blood running down
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Speaker 1: my arm and shoulder. I perceived my mouth was full
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Speaker 1: of blood. It's a queer moment when one realizes one
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Speaker 1: is hurt, and perhaps badly hurt, and has still to
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Speaker 1: discover just how far one is hurt. I explored my
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Speaker 1: face carefully and found unfamiliar contours. On the left side,
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Speaker 1: the broken end of a branch had driven right through
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Speaker 1: my cheek, damaging my cheek and teeth and gums, and
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Speaker 1: left a splinter of itself stuck like an explorer's farthest
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Speaker 1: point flag in the upper maxillary. That and the sprained
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Speaker 1: wrist were all my damage. But I bled as though
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Speaker 1: I had been chopped to pieces, and it seemed to
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Speaker 1: me that my face had been driven in. I can't
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Speaker 1: describe just the horrible disgust I felt at that this
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Speaker 1: blood must be stopped anyhow, I said, thick headedly, I
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Speaker 1: wonder where there is a spider's web, and not twist
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Speaker 1: from a mind to take. But it was the only
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Speaker 1: treatment that occurred to me. I must have conceived some
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Speaker 1: idea of going home unaided, because I was thirty yards
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Speaker 1: from the tree before I dropped. Then a kind of
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Speaker 1: black disc appeared in the middle of the world and
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Speaker 1: rushed out to the edge of things and blotted them out.
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Speaker 1: I don't remember falling down. I fainted from excitement, discussed
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Speaker 1: at my injury and loss of blood, and lay there
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Speaker 1: until Cothope found me. He was the first to find me,
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Speaker 1: scorching as he did over the downland turf and making
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Speaker 1: a wide course to get the Carnoby plantations at their narrowest.
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Speaker 1: Then presently, while he was trying to apply the methodical
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Speaker 1: teachings of the Saint John's ambulance classes to a rather
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Speaker 1: abnormal case, Beatrice came galloping through the trees full tilt,
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Speaker 1: with Lord Carnaby hard behind her. And she was hatless,
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Speaker 1: muddy from a fall, and white as death, and cool
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Speaker 1: as a cucumber, too, said Cathope, turning it over in
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Speaker 1: his mind as he told me. They never seemed quite
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Speaker 1: to have their heads, and never seemed quite to lose him,
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Speaker 1: said Cathope, generalizing about the sex. Also, he witnessed she
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Speaker 1: acted with remarkable decision. The question was whether I should
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Speaker 1: be taken to the house her stepmother occupied at Bedley Corner,
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Speaker 1: the Carnaby dower House, or down to Carnaby's place at Easting.
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Speaker 1: Beatrice had no doubt in the matter, for she meant
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Speaker 1: to nurse me. Carnaby didn't seem to want that to happen.
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Speaker 1: She would have if it wasn't half so far, said Cathope.
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Speaker 1: She faced us out. I hate to be faced out
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Speaker 1: of my opinion, so I've taken a pedometer over it,
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Speaker 1: since it's exactly forty three yards further. Lord Carnaby looked
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Speaker 1: at her pretty straight, said Kathope, finishing the picture, and
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Speaker 1: then he gave in five. But my story has made
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Speaker 1: a jump from June to October, and during that time
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Speaker 1: my relations with Beatrice and the countryside that was her
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Speaker 1: setting had developed in many directions. She came and went
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Speaker 1: moving in an orbit for which I had no data,
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Speaker 1: going to London and Paris, and to Waitills and Northampton,
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Speaker 1: while her stepmother, on some independent system of her own,
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Speaker 1: also vanished and recurred intermittently. At home, they obeyed the
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Speaker 1: rule of an inflexible old maid. Charlotte and Beatrice exercised
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Speaker 1: all the rights of proprietorship in Carnaby's extensive stables. Her
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Speaker 1: interest in me was from the first undisguised. She found
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Speaker 1: her way to my work sheds and developed rapidly, in
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Speaker 1: spite of the sincere discouragement of Cathope, into a keen
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Speaker 1: amateur of aeronautics. She would come, sometimes in the morning,
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Speaker 1: sometimes in the afternoon, sometimes afoot with an Irish terrier,
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Speaker 1: sometimes riding. She would come for three or four days,
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Speaker 1: every day, vanish for a fortnight or three weeks return.
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Speaker 1: It was not long before I came to look for her.
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Speaker 1: From the first I found her immensely interesting to me.
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Speaker 1: She was a new feminine type. Altogether, I have made
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Speaker 1: it plain. I think how limited was my knowledge of whims.
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Speaker 1: But she made me not simply interested in her, but
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Speaker 1: in myself. She became for me something that greatly changes
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Speaker 1: a man's world. How shall I put it? She became
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Speaker 1: an audience. Since I have emerged from the emotional developments
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Speaker 1: of the affair, I have thought it out in a
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Speaker 1: hundred aspects, and it does seem to me that this
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Speaker 1: way in which men and women make audiences for one
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Speaker 1: another is a curiously influential force in their lives. For some,
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Speaker 1: it seems an audience is a vital necessity. They seek
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Speaker 1: audiences as creatures seek food. Others Again, my uncle among
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Speaker 1: them can play to an imaginary audience, I, I think,
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Speaker 1: have lived and can live without one. In my adolescence,
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Speaker 1: I was my own audience and my own court of honor.
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Speaker 1: And to have an audience in one's mind is to
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Speaker 1: play a part, to become self conscious and dramatic. For
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Speaker 1: many years I had been self forgetful and scientific. I
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Speaker 1: lived for work and impersonal interests until I found scrutiny, applause,
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Speaker 1: an expectation in Beatrice's eyes. Then I began to live
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Speaker 1: for the effect I imagined I made upon her, to
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Speaker 1: make that, very soon the principal value in my life.
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Speaker 1: I played to her. I did things for the look
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Speaker 1: of them. I began to dream more and more of
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Speaker 1: beautiful situations and fine poses and groupings with her and
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Speaker 1: for her. I put these things down because they puzzle me.
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Speaker 1: I think I was in love with Beatrice, as being
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Speaker 1: in love is usually understood, But it was quite a
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Speaker 1: different state altogether from my passionate hunger for Marion, or
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Speaker 1: my keen sensuous desire for and pleasure in Effie. These
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Speaker 1: were selfish, sincere things, fundamental and instinctive, as sincere as
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Speaker 1: the leap of a tiger but until matters drew to
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Speaker 1: a crisis with Beatrice, there was an immense, imaginative insurgence
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Speaker 1: of a quite different quality. I am setting down here
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Speaker 1: very gravely and perhaps absurdly, what are, no doubt elementary
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Speaker 1: commonplaces for innumerable people. This love that grew up between
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Speaker 1: Beatrice and myself was, I think, I put it, quite
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Speaker 1: tentatively and rather curiously romantic love. That unfortunate and truncated
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Speaker 1: affair of my uncle and the Scrimgore lady was really
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Speaker 1: of the same stuff, if a little different in quality.
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Speaker 1: I have to admit that the factor of audience was
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Speaker 1: of primary importance in either else. Its effect upon me
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Speaker 1: was to make me, in many respects adolescent again, and
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Speaker 1: made me keener upon the point of honor, and anxious
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Speaker 1: and eager to do high and splendid things, and in
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Speaker 1: particular brave things. So far it ennobled and upheld me,
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Speaker 1: but it did also pushed me towards vulgar and showy things.
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Speaker 1: At bottom, it was disingenuous. It gave my life the
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Speaker 1: quality of state scenery, with one side to the audience,
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Speaker 1: another side that wasn't meant to show, and an economy
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Speaker 1: of substance It certainly robbed my work of high patience
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Speaker 1: and quality. I cut down the toil of research in
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Speaker 1: my eagerness and her eagerness for fine flourishes in the
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Speaker 1: air flights that would tell I shirked the longer road.
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Speaker 1: And it robbed me too of any fine perception of absurdity.
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Speaker 1: Yet that was not everything in our relationship. The elemental
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Speaker 1: thing was there also. It came in very suddenly. It
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Speaker 1: was one day in the summer, though I do not
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Speaker 1: now recall, without reference to my experimental memoranda, whether it
18:39
Speaker 1: was in July or August. I was working with a
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Speaker 1: new and more birdlike aeroplane with wing curvatures studied from Lilienthal,
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Speaker 1: Pilcher and Phillips, that I thought would give a different
18:51
Speaker 1: rhythm for the pitching oscillations than anything I'd had before.
18:56
Speaker 1: I was soaring my long course from the framework on
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Speaker 1: the old barrow by my shed down to Tinker's corner.
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Speaker 1: It is a clear stretch of downland, except for two
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Speaker 1: or three thickets of box and thorn. To the right
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Speaker 1: of my course. One transverse trough in which there is
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Speaker 1: bush and a small rabbit warren comes in from the east.
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Speaker 1: I had started and was very intent on the peculiar
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Speaker 1: long swoop with which any new arrangement flew. Then, without
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Speaker 1: any sort of notice, right ahead of me appeared Beatrice,
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Speaker 1: riding towards Tinker's corner to waylay and talk to me.
19:31
Speaker 1: She looked round over her shoulder, saw me coming, touched
19:35
Speaker 1: her horse to a gallop, and then the brute bolted
19:38
Speaker 1: right into the path of my machine. There was a
19:41
Speaker 1: queer moment of doubt whether we shouldn't all smash together.
19:45
Speaker 1: I had to make up my mind very quickly whether
19:48
Speaker 1: I would pitch up and drop backward at once and
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Speaker 1: take my chance of falling undamaged, a poor chance it
19:54
Speaker 1: would have been, in order to avoid any risk to her,
19:58
Speaker 1: or whether I would lift against the wind and soar
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Speaker 1: right over her this ladder I did. She had already
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Speaker 1: got her horse in hand when I came up to her.
20:07
Speaker 1: Her woman's body lay along his neck, and she glanced
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Speaker 1: up as I, with wings spread and every nerve in
20:14
Speaker 1: a state of tension, swept over her. Then I had
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Speaker 1: landed and was going back to where her horse stood
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Speaker 1: still and trembling. We exchanged no greetings. She slid from
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Speaker 1: her saddle into my arms and for one instant I
20:28
Speaker 1: held her those great wings, she said, and that was
20:32
Speaker 1: all She lay in my arms, and I thought for
20:35
Speaker 1: a moment she had fainted very near a nasty accident,
20:39
Speaker 1: said Cathope, coming up and regarding our grouping with disfavor.
20:44
Speaker 1: He took her horse by the bridle. Very dangerous thing
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Speaker 1: coming across us. Like that, Beatrice disengaged herself from me,
20:51
Speaker 1: stood for a moment trembling, and then sat down on
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Speaker 1: the turf. I'll just sit down for a moment, she said, Oh, oh,
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Speaker 1: she said. She covered her face with her hands, while
21:03
Speaker 1: Cauthorpe looked at her with an expression between suspicion and impatience.
21:09
Speaker 1: For some moments, nobody moved. Then Kingthorpe remarked that perhaps
21:13
Speaker 1: we'd better get her water. As for me, I was
21:17
Speaker 1: filled with a new outrageous idea begotten I scarcely know
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Speaker 1: how from this incident, with its instant contacts and swift emotions,
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Speaker 1: and that was that I must make love to and
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Speaker 1: possess Beatrice. I see no particular reason why that thought
21:32
Speaker 1: should have come to me in that instant, but it did.
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Speaker 1: I do not believe that before then I had thought
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Speaker 1: of our relationship in such terms at all. Suddenly, as
21:42
Speaker 1: I remember it, the factor of passion came. She crouched
21:46
Speaker 1: there and I stood over her, and neither of us
21:49
Speaker 1: said a word. But it was just as though something
21:52
Speaker 1: had been shouted from the sky. Kuthope had gone twenty paces.
21:56
Speaker 1: Perhaps when she uncovered her face, I shod want any water,
22:01
Speaker 1: she said, call him back. Six after that the spirit
22:07
Speaker 1: of our relations changed. The old ease had gone. She
22:11
Speaker 1: came to me less frequently, and when she came she
22:14
Speaker 1: would have some one with her, usually old Carnaby, and
22:18
Speaker 1: he would do the bulk of the talking. All through
22:21
Speaker 1: September she was away. When we were alone together, there
22:26
Speaker 1: was a curious constraint. We became clouds of inexpressible feeling
22:30
Speaker 1: towards one another. We could think of nothing that was
22:33
Speaker 1: not too momentous for words. Then came the smash of
22:37
Speaker 1: Lord Robert's a and I found myself with a bandaged
22:41
Speaker 1: face in a bedroom in the bedly corner Dour house,
22:44
Speaker 1: with Beatrice presiding over an inefficient nurse, Lady Osprey very
22:49
Speaker 1: pink and shocked in the background, and my aunt jealously intervening.
22:54
Speaker 1: My injuries were much more showing than serious. And I
22:58
Speaker 1: could have been taken to Lady Grove next day, but
23:00
Speaker 1: Beatrice would not permit that and kept me at Bedley
23:04
Speaker 1: Corner three clear days. In the afternoon of the second day,
23:08
Speaker 1: she became extremely solicitous for the proper ration of the
23:11
Speaker 1: nurse packed her off for an hour in a brisk
23:14
Speaker 1: rein and sat by me alone. I asked her to
23:18
Speaker 1: marry me. All the whole, I must admit it was
23:22
Speaker 1: not a situation that lent itself to eloquence. I lay
23:25
Speaker 1: on my back and talked through bandages, and with some
23:29
Speaker 1: little difficulty, for my tongue and mouth had swollen. But
23:32
Speaker 1: I was feverish and in pain, and the emotional suspense
23:36
Speaker 1: I had been in so long with regard to her
23:39
Speaker 1: became now an unendurable impatience. Comfortable, she asked, yes, shall
23:46
Speaker 1: I read to you? No, I want to talk. You can't.
23:51
Speaker 1: I'd better talk to you. No, I said, I want
23:55
Speaker 1: to talk to you. She came and stood by my
23:58
Speaker 1: bedside and looked me in the eye. I don't I
24:01
Speaker 1: don't want you to talk to me, she said. I
24:04
Speaker 1: thought you couldn't talk. I get few chances of you.
24:10
Speaker 1: You'd better not talk. Don't talk now let me chatter instead.
24:14
Speaker 1: You ought not to talk. It isn't much, I said,
24:18
Speaker 1: I'd rather you didn't. I'm not going to be disfigured,
24:21
Speaker 1: I said, only a scar oh, she said, as if
24:26
Speaker 1: she had expected something quite different. Did you think you'd
24:29
Speaker 1: become a sort of gargoyle, long kirte. I didn't know,
24:35
Speaker 1: But that's all right, jolly flowers. Those are Michaelmas daisies,
24:40
Speaker 1: she said. I'm glad you're not disfigured. And those are
24:43
Speaker 1: perennial sunflowers. Do you know no flowers at all? When
24:48
Speaker 1: I saw you on the ground, I certainly thought you
24:50
Speaker 1: were dead. You ought to have been by all the
24:53
Speaker 1: rules of the game, she said some other things, But
24:56
Speaker 1: I was thinking of my next move. Are we social equals?
25:01
Speaker 1: I said abruptly. She stared at me. Queer question, she said,
25:07
Speaker 1: but are we hum difficult to say? But why do
25:12
Speaker 1: you ask? Is a daughter of a courtesy baron who
25:15
Speaker 1: died of general disreputableness, I believe before his father. I
25:20
Speaker 1: give it up. Does it matter? No? My mind is confused.
25:25
Speaker 1: I want to know if you will marry me. She
25:29
Speaker 1: whitened and said nothing. I suddenly felt I must plead
25:33
Speaker 1: with her. Damn these bandages, I said, breaking into ineffectual
25:38
Speaker 1: feberal rage. She roused herself to her duties as nurse.
25:43
Speaker 1: What are you doing? Why are you trying to sit up?
25:46
Speaker 1: Sit down? Don't touch your bandages. I told you not
25:50
Speaker 1: to talk. She stood helpless for a moment, then took
25:54
Speaker 1: me firmly by the shoulders and pushed me back upon
25:57
Speaker 1: the pillow. She gripped the wrist of the hand I
25:59
Speaker 1: had raised to my face. I told you not to talk,
26:03
Speaker 1: she whispered, close to my face. I asked you not
26:06
Speaker 1: to talk. Why couldn't you do as I asked you.
26:10
Speaker 1: You've been avoiding me for a month, I said, I
26:13
Speaker 1: know you might have known. Put your hand back down
26:17
Speaker 1: by your side. I obeyed. She sat on the edge
26:21
Speaker 1: of the bed. A flush had come to her cheeks,
26:24
Speaker 1: and her eyes were very bright. I asked you, she repeated,
26:28
Speaker 1: not to talk. My eyes, questioned her mutely. She put
26:33
Speaker 1: her hand on my chest. Her eyes were tormented. How
26:37
Speaker 1: can I answer you now, she said? How can I
26:41
Speaker 1: say anything now? What do you mean? I asked? She
26:45
Speaker 1: made no answer. Do you mean it must be no?
26:49
Speaker 1: She nodded, But I said, and my whole soul was
26:53
Speaker 1: full of accusations. I know, she said. I can't explain.
26:58
Speaker 1: I can't, but it has to be. No, it can't be.
27:02
Speaker 1: It's utterly, finally, forever impossible. Keep your hands still, but
27:08
Speaker 1: I said, when we met again, I can't marry. I
27:12
Speaker 1: can't and won't. She stood up. Why did you talk,
27:17
Speaker 1: she cried, couldn't you see she seemed to have something
27:21
Speaker 1: it was impossible to say. She came to the table
27:25
Speaker 1: beside my bed and pulled the Michaelmas daisies away. Why
27:29
Speaker 1: did you talk like that? She said, in a tone
27:32
Speaker 1: of infinite bitterness, to begin like that. But what is it?
27:37
Speaker 1: I said? Is it some circumstance my social position? Oh damn,
27:42
Speaker 1: your social position, she cried. She went and stood at
27:47
Speaker 1: the further window, staring out at the rain. For a
27:50
Speaker 1: long time we were absolutely still. The wind and rain
27:53
Speaker 1: came in little gusts upon the pane. She turned to
27:56
Speaker 1: me abruptly. You didn't ask me if I loved you,
28:01
Speaker 1: she said, Oh, if it's that, said I It's not that,
28:06
Speaker 1: she said, But if you want to know, she paused,
28:10
Speaker 1: I do, she said. We stared at one another. I
28:15
Speaker 1: do with all my heart. If you want to know, then,
28:20
Speaker 1: why the devil, I asked. She made no answer. She
28:24
Speaker 1: walked across the room to the piano and began to
28:26
Speaker 1: play rather noisily and rapidly, with oddgusts of emphasis, the
28:31
Speaker 1: Shepherd's pipe music from the last act in Tristan and Isolda.
28:36
Speaker 1: Presently she missed a note, failed again, ran her finger
28:39
Speaker 1: heavily up the scale, struck the piano passionately with her fist,
28:44
Speaker 1: making a feeble jar. In the trouble, jumped up and
28:47
Speaker 1: went out of the room. The nurse found me, still
28:50
Speaker 1: wearing my helmet of bandages, partially dressed, and pottering around
28:54
Speaker 1: the room to find the rest of my clothes. I
28:57
Speaker 1: was in a state of exasperated hunger for bed, and
29:00
Speaker 1: I was too inflamed and weakened to conceal the state
29:03
Speaker 1: of my mind. I was feebly angry because of the
29:07
Speaker 1: irritation of dressing, and particularly of the struggle to put
29:10
Speaker 1: on my trousers without being able to see my legs.
29:14
Speaker 1: I was staggering about, and once I had fallen over
29:17
Speaker 1: a chair, and I had upset the jar of michaelmas
29:20
Speaker 1: Daisy's I must have been a detestable spectacle I'll go
29:25
Speaker 1: back to bed, said I if I may have a
29:28
Speaker 1: word with miss Beatrice, I've got something to say to her.
29:31
Speaker 1: That's why i'm dressing. My point was conceited, but there
29:36
Speaker 1: were long delays. Whether the household had my ultimatum or
29:40
Speaker 1: whether she told Beatrice directly, I do not know. And
29:43
Speaker 1: what Lady Osbury could have made of it in the
29:46
Speaker 1: former case, I don't imagine. At last, Beatrice came and
29:51
Speaker 1: stood by my bedside. Well, she said. All I want
29:56
Speaker 1: to say, I said, with a querulous note of a
29:59
Speaker 1: miss understood child, is that I can't take this as final.
30:03
Speaker 1: I want to see you and talk when i'm better,
30:06
Speaker 1: and write. I can't do anything now. I can't argue.
30:11
Speaker 1: I was overtaken with self pity and began to snibble.
30:15
Speaker 1: I can't rest, you see, I can't do anything. She
30:20
Speaker 1: sat down beside me again and spoke softly. I promise
30:24
Speaker 1: I will talk it all over with you again when
30:27
Speaker 1: you are well. I promise I will meet you somewhere
30:30
Speaker 1: so that we can talk. You can't talk now. I
30:35
Speaker 1: asked you not to talk. Now. All you want to know,
30:38
Speaker 1: you shall know. Will that do I'd like to know?
30:43
Speaker 1: She looked round to see the door was closed, stood
30:46
Speaker 1: up and went to it. Then she crouched beside me
30:49
Speaker 1: and began whispering very softly and rapidly, with her face
30:53
Speaker 1: close to me. Dear, she said, I love you. If
30:57
Speaker 1: it will make you happy to marry me, I will
30:59
Speaker 1: marry you. I was in a mood just now, a stupid,
31:03
Speaker 1: inconsiderate mood. Of course I will marry you. You are
31:07
Speaker 1: my prince, my king. Women are such things of mood,
31:11
Speaker 1: or I would have behaved differently. We say no when
31:15
Speaker 1: we mean yes and fly into crises. So now, yes, yes,
31:21
Speaker 1: yes I will. I can't even kiss you. Give me
31:25
Speaker 1: your hand to kiss that understand? I am yours? Do
31:30
Speaker 1: you understand? I am yours, just as if we had
31:33
Speaker 1: been married fifty years your wife Beatrice? Is that enough? Now?
31:40
Speaker 1: Now will you rest? Yes? I said, But why there
31:46
Speaker 1: are complications. There are difficulties. When you are better, you
31:50
Speaker 1: will be able to understand them. But now they don't matter.
31:55
Speaker 1: Only you know. This must be secret for a time,
31:58
Speaker 1: absolutely secret between. Will you promise that? Yes, I said,
32:04
Speaker 1: I understand. I wish I could kiss you. She laid
32:08
Speaker 1: her head down beside mine for a moment, and then
32:10
Speaker 1: she kissed my hand. I don't care what difficulties there are,
32:14
Speaker 1: I said, and I shut my eyes seven. But I
32:21
Speaker 1: was only beginning to gauge the unaccountable elements in Beatrice.
32:25
Speaker 1: For a week after my return to Lady Grove, I
32:28
Speaker 1: had no sign of her. And then she called with
32:30
Speaker 1: Lady Osprey and brought a huge bunch of perennial sunflowers
32:34
Speaker 1: and michaelmas Daisy's just the old flowers there were in
32:38
Speaker 1: your room, said my aunt, with a relentless eye on me.
32:42
Speaker 1: I didn't get any talk alone with Beatrice then, and
32:45
Speaker 1: she took occasion to tell us she was going to
32:47
Speaker 1: London for some indefinite number of weeks. I couldn't even
32:51
Speaker 1: pledge her to write to me, and when she did,
32:54
Speaker 1: it was a brief, enigmatical friendly letter with not a
32:57
Speaker 1: word of the reality between us. I wrote back a
33:01
Speaker 1: love letter, my first love letter, and she made no
33:05
Speaker 1: reply for eight days. Then came a scrawl, I can't
33:09
Speaker 1: write letters, wait till we can talk. Are you better?
33:14
Speaker 1: I think the reader would be amused if he could
33:16
Speaker 1: see the papers on my desk as I write all this,
33:19
Speaker 1: the mangled and disfigured pages, the experimental arrangements of notes,
33:24
Speaker 1: the sheets of suggestions balanced in constellations, the blotesque intellectual
33:29
Speaker 1: battle grounds over which I have been fighting. I find
33:33
Speaker 1: this account of my relations to Beatrice quite the most
33:36
Speaker 1: difficult part of my story to write. I happen to
33:39
Speaker 1: be a very objective minded person. I forget my moods,
33:43
Speaker 1: and this was so much an affair of moods. And
33:46
Speaker 1: even such moods and emotions as I recall, are very
33:49
Speaker 1: difficult to convey to me. It is about as difficult
33:53
Speaker 1: as describing a taste or assent. Then, the objective story
33:58
Speaker 1: is made up of little things that are difficult to
34:00
Speaker 1: set in a proper order, and love in an hysterical passion,
34:05
Speaker 1: now high, now low, now exalted, and now intensely physical.
34:11
Speaker 1: No one has ever yet dared to tell a love
34:13
Speaker 1: story completely, its alternations, its comings and goings, its debased moments,
34:19
Speaker 1: its hate. The love stories we tell tell only the
34:23
Speaker 1: net consequence, the ruling effect. How can I rescue from
34:28
Speaker 1: the past now, the mystical quality of Beatrice, my intense
34:32
Speaker 1: longing for her, the overwhelming, irrational, formless desire. How could
34:37
Speaker 1: I explain how intimately that worship mingled with a high
34:41
Speaker 1: impatient resolved to make her mind to take her by
34:44
Speaker 1: strength and courage to do my loving in a violent,
34:47
Speaker 1: heroic manner. And then the doubts, the puzzled, the rest
34:51
Speaker 1: at the fact of her fluctuations, had her refusal to
34:54
Speaker 1: marry me, At the fact that, even when at last
34:57
Speaker 1: she returned to Bedley Corner, she seem to evade me.
35:02
Speaker 1: That exasperated me and perplexed me beyond measure. I felt
35:07
Speaker 1: that it was treachery. I thought of every conceivable explanation,
35:11
Speaker 1: and the most exalted and romantic confidence in her did
35:14
Speaker 1: not simply alternate, but mingled with the basest misgivings. And
35:20
Speaker 1: into the tangle of memories comes a figure of Carnaby,
35:24
Speaker 1: coming out slowly from the background to a position of
35:27
Speaker 1: significance as an influence, as a predominant strand in the
35:31
Speaker 1: nets that kept us apart as a rival. What were
35:35
Speaker 1: the forces that pulled her away from me? When it
35:37
Speaker 1: was so clearly manifest she loved me? Did she think
35:41
Speaker 1: of marrying him? Had I invaded some long planned scheme?
35:46
Speaker 1: It was evident he did not like me, that in
35:48
Speaker 1: some way I spoiled the world for him. She returned
35:52
Speaker 1: to Bedly corner, and for some weeks she was flitting
35:55
Speaker 1: about me, and never once could I have talked with
35:58
Speaker 1: her alone. When she came to my sheds, Carnaby was
36:02
Speaker 1: always with her, jealously observant, why the devil couldn't she
36:07
Speaker 1: send him about his business. The days slipped by, and
36:10
Speaker 1: my anger gathered. All this mingles with the makings of
36:14
Speaker 1: Lord roberts B I had resolved upon that one night,
36:18
Speaker 1: as I lay awake at Bedley Corner, I got it
36:21
Speaker 1: planned out before the bandages were off my face. I
36:24
Speaker 1: conceived this second navigable balloon in a grandiose manner. It
36:29
Speaker 1: was to be a second Lord roberts A, only more so.
36:33
Speaker 1: It was to be three times as big, large enough
36:36
Speaker 1: to carry three men, and it was to be an
36:39
Speaker 1: altogether triumphant vindication of my claims upon the air. The
36:43
Speaker 1: framework was to be hollow, like a bird's bones, air tight,
36:47
Speaker 1: and the air pumped in or out, and the weight
36:50
Speaker 1: of fuel I carried changed. I talked much and boasted
36:54
Speaker 1: to Cothope, whom I suspected of skepticisms, about this new
36:58
Speaker 1: type of what it would do. And it progressed slowly.
37:03
Speaker 1: It progressed slowly because I was restless and uncertain. At
37:07
Speaker 1: times I would go away to London to snatch some
37:10
Speaker 1: chance of seeing Beatrice there. At times, nothing but a
37:13
Speaker 1: day of gliding and hard and dangerous exercise would satisfy me.
37:19
Speaker 1: And now in the newspapers, in conversation and everything about me,
37:23
Speaker 1: arose a new invader of my mental states. Something was
37:27
Speaker 1: happening to the great schemes of my uncle's affairs. People
37:31
Speaker 1: were beginning to doubt, to question. It was the first
37:34
Speaker 1: quiver of his tremendous insecurity, the first wobble of that
37:38
Speaker 1: gigantic credit top he had kept spinning so long. There
37:43
Speaker 1: were comings and goings. November and December slipped by. I
37:48
Speaker 1: had two unsatisfactory meetings with Beatrice, meetings that had no privacy,
37:52
Speaker 1: in which we said things of the sort that need
37:55
Speaker 1: atmosphere baldly and furtively. I wrote to her several times,
38:00
Speaker 1: and she wrote back notes that I would sometimes respond
38:03
Speaker 1: to altogether, sometimes condemn as insincere evasions. You don't understand
38:09
Speaker 1: I can't just now explain. Be patient with me, leave
38:13
Speaker 1: things a little while to me, she wrote. I would
38:17
Speaker 1: talk aloud to these notes and wrangle over them in
38:20
Speaker 1: my workroom while the plans of Lord Roberts b waited.
38:24
Speaker 1: You don't give me a chance, I would say, why
38:27
Speaker 1: don't you let me know the secret. That's what I'm for,
38:30
Speaker 1: to settle difficulties, to tell difficulties too. And at last
38:35
Speaker 1: I could hold out no longer against these accumulating pressures.
38:39
Speaker 1: I took an arrogant, outrageous line that left her no loopholes.
38:44
Speaker 1: I behaved as though we were living in a melodrama.
38:47
Speaker 1: You must come and talk to me, I wrote, or
38:50
Speaker 1: I will come and take you. I want you, and
38:53
Speaker 1: the time runs away. We met in a ride in
38:57
Speaker 1: the upper plantations. It must have been early in January,
39:01
Speaker 1: for there was snow on the ground and on the
39:03
Speaker 1: branches of the trees. We walked to and fro for
39:06
Speaker 1: an hour or more, and from the first I pitched
39:09
Speaker 1: the key high in romance and made understandings impossible. It
39:13
Speaker 1: was our worst time together. I boasted like an actor,
39:17
Speaker 1: and she, I know not why, was tired and spiritless.
39:22
Speaker 1: Now I think over that talk in the light of
39:24
Speaker 1: all that has happened since, I can imagine how she
39:27
Speaker 1: came to me, full of a human appeal. I was
39:30
Speaker 1: too foolish to let her make I don't know. I
39:33
Speaker 1: confess I have never completely understood Beatrice. I confess I
39:37
Speaker 1: am still perplexed at many things she said and did
39:41
Speaker 1: that afternoon. Anyhow, I was impossible, I posed and scolded.
39:46
Speaker 1: I was. I said it for taking the universe by
39:49
Speaker 1: the throat, if it was only that she said. But
39:54
Speaker 1: though I heard, I did not heed her. At last,
39:58
Speaker 1: she gave way to me and talked no more. Instead,
40:01
Speaker 1: she looked at me as a thing beyond her controlling,
40:05
Speaker 1: but none the less interesting, much as she had looked
40:08
Speaker 1: at me from behind the skirts of Lady drew in
40:10
Speaker 1: the warren when we were children together. Once even I thought,
40:15
Speaker 1: she smiled faintly. What are the difficulties, I cried, There's
40:21
Speaker 1: no difficulty. I will not overcome for you. Do your
40:24
Speaker 1: people think I'm no equal for you? Who says it?
40:28
Speaker 1: My dear tell me to win a title. I'll do
40:31
Speaker 1: it in five years. Here am I just grown a
40:34
Speaker 1: man at the sight of you. I have wanted something
40:37
Speaker 1: to fight for. Let me fight for you. I'm rich
40:41
Speaker 1: without intending it. Let me mean it. Give me an
40:44
Speaker 1: honorable excuse for it, and I'll put all this rotten
40:47
Speaker 1: old warren of England at your feet. I said such
40:51
Speaker 1: things as that, I write them down here in all
40:54
Speaker 1: their resounding base pride, I said, these empty and foolish things,
40:59
Speaker 1: and they are part of me. Why should I still
41:02
Speaker 1: cling to pride and be ashamed? I shouted her down.
41:07
Speaker 1: I passed from much metogomania to petty accusations. You think
41:12
Speaker 1: Carnaby is a better man than I, I said, No,
41:16
Speaker 1: she cried, stung to speech. No, you think we're unsubstantial.
41:23
Speaker 1: You've listened to all these rumors. Bloom has started because
41:27
Speaker 1: we talked of a newspaper of our own. When you
41:30
Speaker 1: are with me, you know I'm a man. When you
41:33
Speaker 1: get away from me, you think I'm a cheat and
41:35
Speaker 1: a cad. There's not a word of truth in the
41:38
Speaker 1: things they say about us. I've been slack, I've left things.
41:42
Speaker 1: But we have only to exert ourselves. You do not
41:46
Speaker 1: know how wide and far we have spread our nets.
41:49
Speaker 1: Even now we have a coup an expedition in hand.
41:53
Speaker 1: It will put us on a footing. Her eyes asked mutely,
41:57
Speaker 1: and asked in vain, that I would cease to boast
42:00
Speaker 1: of the very qualities she admired in me. In the night,
42:03
Speaker 1: I could not sleep for thinking of that talk and
42:06
Speaker 1: the vulgar things I had said in it, I could
42:09
Speaker 1: not understand the drift my mind had taken. I was
42:12
Speaker 1: acutely disgusted, and my unwonted doubts about myself spread from
42:17
Speaker 1: a merely personal discontent to our financial position. It was
42:22
Speaker 1: all very well to talk, as I had done, of
42:25
Speaker 1: wealth and power and peerages. But what did I know
42:28
Speaker 1: nowadays of my uncle's position. Suppose in the midst of
42:32
Speaker 1: such boasting and confidence there came upon some turn I
42:36
Speaker 1: did not suspect, some rottenness he had concealed from me.
42:40
Speaker 1: I resolved I had been playing with aeronautics long enough.
42:44
Speaker 1: The next morning I would go to him and have
42:47
Speaker 1: things clear between us. I caught an early train and
42:50
Speaker 1: went up to the Hardingham. I went up to the
42:53
Speaker 1: Hardingham through a dense London fog to see how things
42:57
Speaker 1: really stood. Before I had talked to my uncle for
43:00
Speaker 1: ten minutes. I felt like a man who has just
43:03
Speaker 1: awakened an o blique inhospitable room out of a grandiose dream.
43:09
Speaker 1: End of book, third chapter, third parts four to seven.
43:15
Speaker 1: Recording by William tom Coe