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Tono-Bungay Book 2 Chapter 2 - Parts 4-6 · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Book two, Chapter two, Parts four to six of Tono Bungay.
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  Speaker 1: This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox 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 libravox dot org. Reading done by Jules Harlck of Mississauga, Ontario, Canada.
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  Speaker 1: Tono Bungay by H. G. Wells, Book two, Chapter two,
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  Speaker 1: Part four. Ewart as a moral influence was unsatisfactory. I
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  Speaker 1: had made up my mind to put the whole thing
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  Speaker 1: before him, partly to see how he took it, and
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  Speaker 1: partly to hear how it sounded. When it was said,
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  Speaker 1: I asked him to come and eat with me in
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  Speaker 1: an Italian place near Panton Street, where one could get
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  Speaker 1: a curious, interesting, gluttoning sort of dinner for eighteen pence.
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  Speaker 1: He came with a disconcerting black eye that he wouldn't explain.
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  Speaker 1: Not so much a black eye, he said, as the
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  Speaker 1: aftermath of a purple patch. What's your difficulty. I'll tell
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  Speaker 1: you what the salad, I said, But as a matter
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  Speaker 1: of fact, I didn't tell him. I threw out that
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  Speaker 1: I was doubtful whether I ought to go into trade
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  Speaker 1: or stick to teaching in view of my deepening socialist proclivities,
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  Speaker 1: and he warming with the unaccustomed generosity of a sixteen
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  Speaker 1: penny Quiante ran on from that without any further inquiry
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  Speaker 1: as to my trouble. His utterances roved wide and loose
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  Speaker 1: the reality of life, My dear ponderevo, I remember him saying,
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  Speaker 1: very impressively, and punctuating with the nutcrackers as he spoke,
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  Speaker 1: is chromatic conflict and form. Get hold of that and
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  Speaker 1: let all these other questions go. The socialists will tell
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  Speaker 1: you one sort of color and shape is right, the
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  Speaker 1: individualist another. What does it all amount to? What does
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  Speaker 1: it all amount to? Nothing? I have no advice to
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  Speaker 1: give anyone except to avoid regrets. Be yourself, seek after
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  Speaker 1: such beautiful things as your own sense determines to be beautiful.
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  Speaker 1: And don't mind the headache in the morning, For what,
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  Speaker 1: after all is a morning? Ponder revel It isn't like
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  Speaker 1: the upper part of a day. He paused impressively. What
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  Speaker 1: rot I cried after a confused attempt to apprehend him,
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  Speaker 1: isn't it? And it's my bedrock wisdom in the matter.
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  Speaker 1: Take it or leave it, my dear George, Take it
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  Speaker 1: or leave it? He put down the nutcrackers out of
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  Speaker 1: my reach and lugged a greasy looking notebook from his pocket.
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  Speaker 1: I'm going to steal this mustard pot, he said. I
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  Speaker 1: made noises of remonstrance, only as a matter of design.
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  Speaker 1: I've got to do an old beast's tomb wholesale grosser.
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  Speaker 1: I'll put it on his corners, four mustard pots. I
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  Speaker 1: dare say he'd be glad of a mustard plaster now
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  Speaker 1: to cool him, poor devil where he is. But anyhow,
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  Speaker 1: here goes Part five. It came to me in the
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  Speaker 1: small hours that the real moral touchstone for this great
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  Speaker 1: doubting of mind was Marian. I lay composing statements of
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  Speaker 1: my problem and imagined myself delivering them to her, and she,
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  Speaker 1: goddess like and beautiful, giving her fine, simply worded judge.
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  Speaker 1: You see, it's just to give oneself over to the
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  Speaker 1: capitalistic system. I imagine myself saying, in good socialist jargon,
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  Speaker 1: it's surrendering all one's beliefs. We may succeed, we may
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  Speaker 1: grow rich, But where would the satisfaction be? Then she
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  Speaker 1: would say, no, that wouldn't be right, but the alternative
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  Speaker 1: is to wait. Then suddenly she would become a goddess.
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  Speaker 1: She would turn upon me frankly and nobly, with shining eyes,
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  Speaker 1: with arms held out. No, she would say, we love
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  Speaker 1: one another, Nothing ignoble shall ever touch. If we love
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  Speaker 1: one another, why wait to tell each other that, dear,
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  Speaker 1: what does it matter that we are poor and may
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  Speaker 1: keep poor? But indeed the conversation didn't go at all
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  Speaker 1: in that direction. At the sight of her, my nocturnal
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  Speaker 1: eloquence became preposterous, and all the moral values altered altogether.
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  Speaker 1: I had waited for her outside the door of the
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  Speaker 1: Parsian Robe establishment in Kensington High Street and walked home
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  Speaker 1: with her. Thence I remember how she emerged into the
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  Speaker 1: warm evening light, and that she wore a brown straw
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  Speaker 1: hat that made her for once not only beautiful but pretty.
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  Speaker 1: I like that hat, I said, by way of opening,
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  Speaker 1: and she smiled her rare, delightful smile at me. I
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  Speaker 1: love you, I said, in an undertone. As we jostled
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  Speaker 1: closer on the pavement. She shook her head forbiddingly, but
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  Speaker 1: she still smiled. Then, be sensible. The High Street pavement
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  Speaker 1: is too narrow and crowded for conversation, and we were
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  Speaker 1: some way westward before we spoke again. Look here, I said,
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  Speaker 1: I want you, marian Don't you understand I want you now?
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  Speaker 1: She cried warningly. I do not know if the reader
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  Speaker 1: will understand how a passionate lover, an immense admiration and desire,
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  Speaker 1: can be shot with a gleam of positive hatred. Such
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  Speaker 1: a gleam there was in me at the serene self
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  Speaker 1: complacency of that. Now it vanished almost before I felt it.
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  Speaker 1: I've found no warning in it of the antagonisms latent
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  Speaker 1: between us. Marian I said, this isn't a trifling matter
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  Speaker 1: to me. I love you. I would die to get you.
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  Speaker 1: Don't you care? But what is the good? You don't care?
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  Speaker 1: I cried, You don't care a rap? You know I care?
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  Speaker 1: She answered? If I didn't, if I didn't like you
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  Speaker 1: very much, should I let you come and meet me,
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  Speaker 1: go about with you? Well? Then, I said, promise to
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  Speaker 1: marry me. If I do, what difference will it make?
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  Speaker 1: We were separated by two men carrying a ladder, who
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  Speaker 1: drove between us unawares. Marian I asked, when we got
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  Speaker 1: it together again, I tell you I want you to
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  Speaker 1: marry me. We can't. Why not? We can't marry in
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  Speaker 1: the street. We could take our chance. I wish you
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  Speaker 1: wouldn't go on talking like this. What is the good?
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  Speaker 1: She suddenly gave way to gloom. It's no good marrying,
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  Speaker 1: she said, one's only miserable. I've seen other girls when
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  Speaker 1: one's alone, one has a little pocket money anyhow, one
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  Speaker 1: can go about a little. But think of being married
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  Speaker 1: and no money, and perhaps children. You can't be sure.
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  Speaker 1: She poured out this concentrated philosophy of her class and
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  Speaker 1: type in jerky, unco pleaded sentences, with knitted brows, with
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  Speaker 1: discontented eyes towards the westward glow forgetful, it seemed, for
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  Speaker 1: a moment even of me. Look here, Mary, and I
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  Speaker 1: said abruptly, what would you marry on? What is the good?
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  Speaker 1: She began? Would you marry on three hundred a year?
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  Speaker 1: She looked at me for a moment. That's six pounds
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  Speaker 1: a week, she said, one could manage on that easily.
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  Speaker 1: Smithy's brother, No, he only gets two hundred and fifty.
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  Speaker 1: He married a typewriting girl. Will you marry me if
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  Speaker 1: I get three hundred a year? She looked at me again,
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  Speaker 1: with a curious gleam of hope. If she said, I
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  Speaker 1: held out my hand and looked her in the eyes.
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  Speaker 1: It's a bargain, I said. She hesitated and touched my
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  Speaker 1: hand for an instant. It's silly, she remarked as she
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  Speaker 1: did so it means really where she paused, Yes, said
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  Speaker 1: I engaged. You'll have to wait years. What good can
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  Speaker 1: it do you? Not so many years? I answered. For
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  Speaker 1: a moment, she brooded. Then she glanced at me with
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  Speaker 1: a smile, half sweet, half wistful. That is stuck in
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  Speaker 1: my memory forever. I like you, she said, I shall
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  Speaker 1: like to be engaged to you, And faint on the
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  Speaker 1: threshold of hearing, I caught her ventured, Dear, it's odd
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  Speaker 1: that in writing this down my memory passed over all
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  Speaker 1: that intervened, and I feel it all again, and once
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  Speaker 1: again I'm Marian's boyish lover, taking great joy in such
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  Speaker 1: rare and little things. Part six. At last, I went
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  Speaker 1: to the address my uncle had given me in Gower
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  Speaker 1: Street and found my aunt Susan waiting tea for him.
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  Speaker 1: Directly I came into the room. I appreciated the change
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  Speaker 1: in outlook that the achievement of Tono Bungay had made,
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  Speaker 1: almost as vividly as when I saw my uncle's new hat.
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  Speaker 1: The furniture of the room struck upon my eye as
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  Speaker 1: almost stately. The chairs and sofa were covered with chintz,
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  Speaker 1: which gave it a dim, remote flavor of blades over
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  Speaker 1: the mantle, The cornice, the gas pendant were larger and
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  Speaker 1: finer than the sort of thing I had grown accustomed
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  Speaker 1: to in London. And I was shown in by a
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  Speaker 1: real housemate, with real tails to her cap and great
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  Speaker 1: quantities of reddish hair. There was my aunt too, looking
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  Speaker 1: bright and pretty in a blue patterned tea wrap with
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  Speaker 1: bows that seemed to me the quintessence of fashion. She
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  Speaker 1: was sitting in a chair by the open window, with
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  Speaker 1: quite a pile of yellow labeled books on the occasional table.
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  Speaker 1: Beside her. Before the large paper decorated fireplace, stood a
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  Speaker 1: three tiered cake stand displaying assorted cakes, and a tray
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  Speaker 1: with all the tea equipage except the teapot was on
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  Speaker 1: a large center table. The carpet was thick, and a
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  Speaker 1: spice of adventure was given it by a number of
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  Speaker 1: dyed sheepskin mats. Hello, said my aunt as I appeared.
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  Speaker 1: It's George. Shall I serve the tea now? Ma'am, said
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  Speaker 1: the real housemaid, surveying our greeting coldly. Not till mister
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  Speaker 1: Ponderevel comes Meggie, said my aunt, and grimaced with extraordinary
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  Speaker 1: swiftness and virulence. As the housemaid turned her back, Maggie,
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  Speaker 1: she calls herself, said my aunt, as the door closed
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  Speaker 1: and left me to infer a certain want of sympathy.
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  Speaker 1: You're looking very jolly, Aunt, said I. What do you
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  Speaker 1: think of all this old business he's got, asked my Aunt,
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  Speaker 1: seems a promising thing, I said, I suppose there is
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  Speaker 1: a business somewhere. Haven't you seen it? Afraid i'd say
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  Speaker 1: something at it, George. If I did so, he won't
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  Speaker 1: let me. It came on quite suddenly, brooding. He was
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  Speaker 1: and writing letters and sizzling something awful like a chestnut
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  Speaker 1: going to pop. Then he came home one day saying
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  Speaker 1: tono bungay till I thought he was clean off his onion,
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  Speaker 1: and singing what was it? I'm afloat, I'm afloat, I
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  Speaker 1: guessed the very thing you've heard him, and saying our
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  Speaker 1: fortunes were made took me out to the Holborn restaurant
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  Speaker 1: George dinner, and we had champagne, stuff that blows up
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  Speaker 1: the back of your nose and makes you go so
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  Speaker 1: and he said, at last he got things worthy of me,
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  Speaker 1: and we moved here next day. It's a swell house, George.
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  Speaker 1: Three pounds a week for the rooms, and he says
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  Speaker 1: the business will stand it. She looked at me doubtfully.
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  Speaker 1: Either do that or smash, I said, profoundly. We discussed
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  Speaker 1: the question for a moment, mutely with our eyes. My
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  Speaker 1: aunt slapped the pile of books from Moody's. I've been
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  Speaker 1: having such a go of reading, George, you never did.
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  Speaker 1: What do you think of the business, I asked, Well,
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  Speaker 1: they've let him have money, she said, and thought and
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  Speaker 1: raised her eyebrows. It's been a time, she went on,
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  Speaker 1: the flapping about me. He's sitting doing nothing and him
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  Speaker 1: on the go like a rocket. He's done wonders. But
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  Speaker 1: he wants you, George. He wants you sometimes. He's full
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  Speaker 1: of hope. Talks of when we're going to have a
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  Speaker 1: carriage and be in society. Makes it seem so natural
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  Speaker 1: and topsy turvy. I hardly know whether my old heels
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  Speaker 1: aren't up here listening to him, and my old head
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  Speaker 1: on the floor then he gets depressed, says he wants restraint,
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  Speaker 1: says he can make a splash but can't keep on.
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  Speaker 1: Says if you don't come in, everything will smash. But
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  Speaker 1: you are coming in. She paused and looked at me.
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  Speaker 1: Well you don't say you won't come in, but look here, Aunt,
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  Speaker 1: I said, do you understand quite it's a quack medicine.
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  Speaker 1: It's trash. There's no law against selling quack medicine that
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  Speaker 1: I know of, said my aunt. She thought for a
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  Speaker 1: minute and became unusually grave. It's our only chance, George,
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  Speaker 1: she said. If it doesn't go There came the slamming
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  Speaker 1: of a door and a loud bellowing from the next
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  Speaker 1: apartment through the folding doors. Here ere she roulk lies
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  Speaker 1: pooh tom bowl owling silly old concertina hark at him. George,
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  Speaker 1: she raised her voice. Don't sing that, you old walrus,
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  Speaker 1: you sing I'm afloat. One leaf of the folding doors opened,
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  Speaker 1: and my uncle appeared. Hello, George, come along at last,
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  Speaker 1: gossam teacake. Susan thought it over, George, he said abruptly, yes,
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  Speaker 1: said I coming in. I paused for a last moment
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  Speaker 1: and nodded, yes, Ah he cried, Why couldn't you say
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  Speaker 1: that a week ago. I've had false ideas about the world.
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  Speaker 1: I said, Oh, they don't matter. Now, Yes, I'll come,
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  Speaker 1: I'll take my chance with you. I won't hesitate again.
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  Speaker 1: And I didn't. I stuck to that resolution for seven
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  Speaker 1: long years. End of Book two, Chapter two, Parts four, five,
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  Speaker 1: and six.