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The Sea Lady Chapter 6 · The H. G. Wells Library

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Speaker 1: Chapter six of The Sea Lady. This LibriVox recording is
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Speaker 1: in the public domain recording by Thomas Copeland. The Sea
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Speaker 1: Lady by H. G. Wells, Chapter the sixth symptomatic one.
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Speaker 1: My cousin Melville is never very clear about his dates.
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Speaker 1: Now this is greatly to be regretted, because it would
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Speaker 1: be very illuminating, indeed, if one could tell just how
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Speaker 1: many days elapsed before he came upon Chatteris in intimate
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Speaker 1: conversation with the Sea Lady. He was going along the
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Speaker 1: front of the leaves with some books from the public
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Speaker 1: library that Miss Glendower had suddenly wished to consult, and
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Speaker 1: which she, with that entire ignorance of his lack of
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Speaker 1: admiration for her, which was part of her want of
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Speaker 1: charm for him, had bidden him bring her. It was
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Speaker 1: in one of those sheltered paths just under the brow
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Speaker 1: which gives such a pleasant and characteristic charm to Folkestone,
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Speaker 1: that he came upon a little group of the Sea
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Speaker 1: Lady's bath chair. Chatteris was seated in one of the
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Speaker 1: wooden seats that are embedded in the bank, and was
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Speaker 1: leaning forward and looking into the Sea Lady's face, and
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Speaker 1: she was speaking with a smile that struck Melville even
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Speaker 1: at the time, as being a little special in its quality,
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Speaker 1: and she seems to have been capable of many charming smiles.
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Speaker 1: Parker was a little distance away, where a sort of
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Speaker 1: bastion projects and gives a wide view of the pier
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Speaker 1: and harbor and the coast of France, regarding it all
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Speaker 1: with a qualified disfavor. And the bath chairman was crumpled
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Speaker 1: up against the bank, lost in that wistful melancholy that
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Speaker 1: the constant perambulation of broken humanity necessarily engenders. My cousin
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Speaker 1: slackened his pace a little and came up and joined them.
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Speaker 1: The conversation hung at his approach. Chatteris sat back a little,
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Speaker 1: but there seemed no resentment, and he sought a topic
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Speaker 1: for the three to discuss in the books. Melville carried books,
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Speaker 1: he said, for miss Glendower, said Melville, Oh, said Chatteris,
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Speaker 1: What are they about, asked the sea lady. Land Tenure,
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Speaker 1: said Melville. That's hardly my subject, said the Sea Lady,
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Speaker 1: and Chatteris joined in her smile as if he saw
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Speaker 1: a chest. There was a little pause. You are contesting,
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Speaker 1: hythe said Melville. Fate points that way. Said Chatteris. They
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Speaker 1: threaten a dissolution for September. It will come in a month,
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Speaker 1: said Chatteris, with the inimitable tone of one who knows.
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Speaker 1: In that case, we shall soon be busy, and I
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Speaker 1: may canvas, said the sea lady. I never have, Miss Waters,
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Speaker 1: explained Chatteris, has been telling me she means to help us.
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Speaker 1: He met Melville's eye. Frankly, it's rough work, miss Waters,
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Speaker 1: said Melville. I don't mind that. It's fun and I
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Speaker 1: want to help. I really do want to help, mister Chatteris.
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Speaker 1: You know that's encouraging. I could go round with you
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Speaker 1: in my bath chair. It would be a picnic, said Chatteris.
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Speaker 1: I mean to help anyhow, said the sea lady. You
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Speaker 1: know the case for the plaintiff, asked Melville. She looked
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Speaker 1: at him. You've got your arguments. I shall ask them
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Speaker 1: to vote for mister Chatteris, and afterwards, when I see them,
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Speaker 1: I shall remember them and smile and wave my hand.
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Speaker 1: What else is there? Nothing, said Chatteris, and shut the
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Speaker 1: lid on Melville. I wish I had an argument as good.
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Speaker 1: What sort of people are they here? Asked Melville. Isn't
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Speaker 1: there a smuggling interest to conciliate. I haven't asked that. Said, chatteris,
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Speaker 1: smuggling is over and passed. You know, forty years ago.
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Speaker 1: It always has been. Forty years ago. They trotted out
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Speaker 1: the last of the smugglers. Interesting old man full of reminiscences.
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Speaker 1: When there was a count of the saxon shore, he
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Speaker 1: remembered smuggling forty years ago. Really, I doubt if there
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Speaker 1: ever was any smuggling. The existing coast guard is a
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Speaker 1: sacrifice to a vein superstition, Why, cried the sea lady.
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Speaker 1: Only about five weeks ago I saw quite near here.
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Speaker 1: She stopped abruptly and caught Melville's eye. He grasped her
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Speaker 1: difficulty in a paper, He suggested, Yes, in a paper,
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Speaker 1: she said, Seizing a rope, he threw her. Well, said,
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Speaker 1: chatteris there is smuggling, still, said the sea lady, with
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Speaker 1: an air of some one who decides not to tell
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Speaker 1: an anecdote that is suddenly found to be half forgotten.
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Speaker 1: There's no doubt it happens, said chatteris missing it all,
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Speaker 1: but it doesn't appear in the electioneering. I certainly sha'd
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Speaker 1: agitate for a faster revenue cutter. However, things may be
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Speaker 1: in that respect, I take the line that they are
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Speaker 1: very well as they are. That's my line, of course.
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Speaker 1: And he looked out to see the eyes of Melville
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Speaker 1: and the sea Lady had an intimate moment there, you know,
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Speaker 1: is just a specimen of the sort of thing we do,
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Speaker 1: said Chatteris. Are you prepared to be as intricate as that? Quite?
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Speaker 1: Said the sea lady. My cousin was reminded of an anecdote.
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Speaker 1: The talk degenerated into anecdotes of canvassing and ran shallow.
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Speaker 1: My cousin was just gathering that missus Bunting and miss
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Speaker 1: Bunting had been with the sea Lady and had gone
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Speaker 1: into the town to a shop. When they returned, Chatteris
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Speaker 1: rose to greet them and explained what had been by
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Speaker 1: no means apparent before that he was on his way
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Speaker 1: to Adeline, and after a few further trivialities, he and
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Speaker 1: Melville went on together. A brief silence fell between them.
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Speaker 1: Who is that, miss Waters, said Chatteris friend, and missus
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Speaker 1: Bunting prevaricated Melville. So I gather she seems a very
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Speaker 1: charming person. She is, she's interesting. Her illness seems to
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Speaker 1: throw her up. It makes a passive thing of her,
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Speaker 1: like a picture or something that's imaginary, imagined. Anyhow, she
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Speaker 1: sits there and smiles and responds. Her eyes have something intimate.
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Speaker 1: And yet my cousin offered no assistance. Where did missus
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Speaker 1: Bunting find her? My cousin had to gather himself together
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Speaker 1: for a second or so. There's something, he said deliberately
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Speaker 1: that Missus Bunting doesn't seem to suppose. What can it be? Oh,
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Speaker 1: it's bound to be all right, said Melville, rather weakly.
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Speaker 1: It's strange too, Missus Bunting is usually so disposed. Melville
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Speaker 1: left that to itself. That's what one feels, said chatterers.
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Speaker 1: What mystery my cousin shares with me a profound detestation
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Speaker 1: of that high mystic method of treating women. He likes
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Speaker 1: women to be finite and nice. In fact, he likes
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Speaker 1: everything to be finite and nice. So he merely grunted.
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Speaker 1: But Chatteris was not to be stopped by that. He
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Speaker 1: passed to a critical note. No doubt, it's all illusion.
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Speaker 1: All women are impressionists. A patch a light, you get
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Speaker 1: an effect, and that is all you are meant to get.
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Speaker 1: I suppose she gets an effect, But how that's the mystery.
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Speaker 1: It's not merely beauty. There's plenty of beauty in the world,
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Speaker 1: but not of these effects the eyes. I fancy, he
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Speaker 1: dwelt on that for a moment. There's really nothing in eyes,
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Speaker 1: you know, Chatterer, said my cousin Melville, borrowing an alien
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Speaker 1: argument and a tone of analytical cynicism for me. Have
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Speaker 1: you ever looked at eyes through a hole in a sheet? Oh?
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Speaker 1: I don't know, said Chatters. I don't mean the mere
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Speaker 1: physical eye. Perhaps it's the look of health and the
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Speaker 1: bath chair. A bold discord. You don't know what's the matter, Melville.
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Speaker 1: How I gather from Bunting its a disablement, not a deformity,
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Speaker 1: He ought to know. I'm not so sure of that.
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Speaker 1: You don't happen to know the nature of her disablement.
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Speaker 1: I can't tell it all, said Melville, in a speculative tone.
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Speaker 1: It struck him he was getting to prefer Kad better.
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Speaker 1: The subject seemed exhausted. They spoke of a common friend,
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Speaker 1: whom the sight of the matron suggested. Then they did
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Speaker 1: not talk at all for a time, until the stir
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Speaker 1: and interest of the bandstand was passed. Then chatteris threw
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Speaker 1: out a thought complex business feminine motives. He remarked, how
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Speaker 1: this canvassing? She can't be interested in philanthropic liberalism.
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Speaker 2: There's a difference in the type. And besides, it's a
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Speaker 2: personal matter, not necessarily is it. Surely there's not such
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Speaker 2: an intellectual gap between the sexes if you can get interested.
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Speaker 1: Oh, I know. Besides, it's not a question of principles.
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Speaker 1: It's the fun of electioneering fun. There's no knowing what
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Speaker 1: won't interest the feminine mind, said Melville, and added, or
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Speaker 1: what will? Chatteris did not answer. It's the direct visiting instinct,
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Speaker 1: I suppose, said Melville. They all have it. It's the canvassing.
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Speaker 1: All women liked to go into houses that don't belong
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Speaker 1: to them. Very likely, said Chatteris shortly, and failing a
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Speaker 1: reply from Melville, he gave way to secret meditations. It
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Speaker 1: would seem still of a fairly agreeable sort. The twelve
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Speaker 1: o'clock gun thudded from Shorncliff camp by Joe, says Chatterus,
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Speaker 1: and quickened his steps. They found Adeline busy amidst her papers.
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Speaker 1: As they entered, she pointed reproachfully, yet with the protrusion
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Speaker 1: of a certain Marcella like undertone of sweetness at the clock.
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Speaker 1: The apologies of Chatters were effusive and winning, and involved
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Speaker 1: no mention of the Sea Lady. On the leaves, Melville
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Speaker 1: delivered his books and left them, already wading deeply into
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Speaker 1: the details of the district organization that the local Liberal
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Speaker 1: organizer had submitted two. A little while after the return
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Speaker 1: of Chatteris my cousin. Melville and the Sea Lady were
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Speaker 1: under the ilex at the end of the sea garden,
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Speaker 1: and in disregarding Parker, as every one was accustomed to do,
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Speaker 1: who was in a garden chair doing some afternoon work
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Speaker 1: at a proper distance, there was nobody with them at all.
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Speaker 1: Fred and the girls were out cycling. Fred had gone
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Speaker 1: with them at the Sea Lady's request, and Miss Glendower
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Speaker 1: and missus Bunting were at hythe calling diplomatically on some
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Speaker 1: rather horrid local people who might be serviceable to Harry
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Speaker 1: in his electioneering. Mister Bunting was out fishing. He was
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Speaker 1: not fond of fishing, but he was in many respects
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Speaker 1: an exceptionally resolute little man, and he had taken to
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Speaker 1: fishing every day in the afternoon after luncheon in order
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Speaker 1: to break himself of what Missus Bunting called his ridiculous
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Speaker 1: habit of getting sea sick whenever he went out in
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Speaker 1: a boat. He said that if fishing from a boat
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Speaker 1: with pieces of mussels for bait after luncheon would not
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Speaker 1: break the habit, nothing would, And certainly it seemed at
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Speaker 1: times as if it were going to break everything that
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Speaker 1: was in him. But the habit escaped. This, however, is
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Speaker 1: at aggression. These two, I say, were sitting in the
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Speaker 1: ample shade under the evergreen oak, and Melville I imagine
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Speaker 1: was in those fine, faintly patterned flannels that in the
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Speaker 1: year eighteen ninety nine combined correctness with ease. He was,
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Speaker 1: no doubt looking at the shaded face of the sea
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Speaker 1: lady framed in a frame of sunlit yellow green lawn
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Speaker 1: and black green inlet s leaves. At least so my
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Speaker 1: impulse for very similitude conceives it. And she at first
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Speaker 1: was pensive and downcast. That afternoon and afterwards she was
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Speaker 1: interested and looked into his eyes. Either she must have
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Speaker 1: suggested that he might smoke, or else he asked anyhow
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Speaker 1: his cigarettes were produced. She looked at them with an
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Speaker 1: arrested gesture, and he hung for a moment, doubtful on
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Speaker 1: her gesture. I suppose you, he said, I never learned.
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Speaker 1: He glanced at Parker and then met the sea lady's regard.
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Speaker 1: It's one of the things I came for, she said.
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Speaker 1: He took the only course. She accepted a cigarette and
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Speaker 1: examined it thoughtfully. Down there, she said, it's just one
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Speaker 1: of the things. You will understand. We get nothing but
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Speaker 1: saturated tobacco. Some of the mermen there's something they have
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Speaker 1: picked up from the sailors quids. I think they call it,
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Speaker 1: but that's too horrid for words. She dismissed the unpleasant
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Speaker 1: topic by a movement and lapsed into thought. My cousin
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Speaker 1: clicked his match box. She had a momentary doubt and
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Speaker 1: glanced towards the house. Missus bunting. She asked several times,
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Speaker 1: I understand, She asked the same thing. She wouldn't mind,
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Speaker 1: said Melville, and stopped. She won't think it improper, he amplified.
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Speaker 1: If nobody else thinks it improper, there's nobody else, said
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Speaker 1: the sea lady, glancing at Parker, and my cousin lit
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Speaker 1: the match. My cousin has an indirect habit of mind
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Speaker 1: with all general and all personal things. His desperation to
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Speaker 1: get at them obliquely amounts almost to a passion. He
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Speaker 1: could no more go straight to a crisis than a
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Speaker 1: cat could to a stranger. He came off at a
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Speaker 1: tangent now, as he was sitting forward and scrutinizing her
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Speaker 1: first very creditable efforts to draw. I just wonder, he said,
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Speaker 1: exactly what it was you did come for? She smiled
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Speaker 1: at him over a little jet of smoke. Why this,
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Speaker 1: she said? And and dressing? She smiled again, after a
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Speaker 1: momentary hesitation, and all this sort of thing, she said,
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Speaker 1: as if she felt she had answered him, perhaps a
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Speaker 1: little below his deserts. Her gesture indicated the house and
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Speaker 1: the lawn, and my cousin. Melville wondered, just exactly how
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Speaker 1: much else am I doing it? Right, asked the sea lady, beautifully,
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Speaker 1: said my cousin, with a faint sigh in his voice.
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Speaker 1: What do you think of it? It was worth coming for,
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Speaker 1: said the sea lady, smiling into his eyes. But did
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Speaker 1: you really just come? She filled in his gap to
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Speaker 1: see what life was like on land? Here? Isn't that enough?
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Speaker 1: Melville's cigarette had failed to light he regarded its blighted
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Speaker 1: career pensively. Life, he said, isn't all this sort of thing,
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Speaker 1: this thing sunlight, cigarette smoking, talk looking nice, but it's
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Speaker 1: made up not altogether. For example, Oh, you know what
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Speaker 1: you know, said Melville, and would not look at her.
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Speaker 1: I decline to know, she said, after a little pause. Besides,
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Speaker 1: he said, yes, you told missus Bunting. It occurred to
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Speaker 1: him that he was telling tales, but that scruple came
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Speaker 1: too late. Well, something about a soul? She made no
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Speaker 1: immediate answer. He looked up and her eyes were smiling.
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Speaker 1: Mister Melville, she said, innocently, what is a soul? Well,
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Speaker 1: said my cousin readily, and then paused for a space.
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Speaker 1: A soul, said he, and knocked an imaginary ash from
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Speaker 1: his extincts. You're head a soul, he repeated, and glanced
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Speaker 1: at Parker. A soul, you know, he said again, and
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Speaker 1: looked at the sea lady with the air of a
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Speaker 1: man who is handling a difficult matter with skillful care.
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Speaker 1: Come to think of it, he said, it's a rather
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Speaker 1: complicated matter to explain to a being without one, to
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Speaker 1: any one, said my cousin Melville, suddenly admitting his difficulty.
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Speaker 1: He meditated upon her eyes for a moment. Besides, he said,
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Speaker 1: you know what a soul is perfectly well, no, she answered,
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Speaker 1: I don't you know as well as I do. Ah,
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Speaker 1: that may be different. You came to get a soul,
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Speaker 1: Perhaps I don't want one? Why if one hasn't one?
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Speaker 1: Ah there, and my cousin shrugged his shoulders. But really,
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Speaker 1: you know, it's just the generality of it that makes
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Speaker 1: it hard to define. Everybody has a soul, everyone except me.
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Speaker 1: I'm not certain of that, missus Bunting, certainly at mister Bunting,
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Speaker 1: everyone has Miss Glendower lots the sea lady mused. She
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Speaker 1: went off at a tangent abruptly, Mister Melville, she said,
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Speaker 1: what is a union of souls? Melville flicked his extinct
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Speaker 1: cigarette suddenly into an elbow shape, and then threw it away.
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Speaker 1: The phrase may have awakened some reminiscence. It's an extra,
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Speaker 1: he said. It's a sort of flourish and sometimes, as
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Speaker 1: like leaving cards by footmen, a substitute for the real presence.
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Speaker 1: There came a gap. He remained downcast, trying to find
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Speaker 1: a way towards whatever it was that was in his mind.
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Speaker 1: To say, conceivably. He did not clearly know what that
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Speaker 1: might be until he came to it. The Sea Lady
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Speaker 1: abandoned an attempt to understand him in favor of a
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Speaker 1: more urgent topping. Do you think miss Glendower and mister Chatteris?
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Speaker 1: Melville looked up at her. He noticed she had hung
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Speaker 1: on the latter name decidedly. He said, it's just what
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Speaker 1: they would do. Then he spoke again, Chatteris, He said, yes,
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Speaker 1: said she. I thought so, said Melville. The Sea Lady
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Speaker 1: regarded him gravely. They scrutinized each other with an unprecedented intimacy.
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Speaker 1: Melville was suddenly direct. It was a discovery that it
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Speaker 1: seemed he ought to have made all along. He felt
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Speaker 1: quite unaccountably bitter. He spoke with a twitch of the mouth,
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Speaker 1: and his voice had a note of accusation. You want
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Speaker 1: to talk about him, she nodded, still grave Well I don't,
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Speaker 1: He changed his note, but I will if you wish it.
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Speaker 1: I thought you would. Oh you know, said Melville, discovering
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Speaker 1: his extinct cigarette was within reach of a vindictive heel.
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Speaker 1: She said nothing, Well, said Melville, I saw him first.
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Speaker 1: She apologized some years ago where in the south seas
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Speaker 1: near Tonga, and that is really what you came for.
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Speaker 1: This time, her manner was convincing, she admitted. Yes, Melville
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Speaker 1: was carefully impartial. He's slightly, he admitted, and well built,
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Speaker 1: and a decent chap, A decent chap. But I don't
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Speaker 1: see why you he went off at a tangent. He
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Speaker 1: didn't see you. Oh no. Melville's pose and tone suggested
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Speaker 1: a mind of extreme liberality. I don't see why you came,
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Speaker 1: he said, nor what you mean to do. You see,
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Speaker 1: with an air of noting a trifling but valid obstacle.
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Speaker 1: There's miss Glendower, is there? She said? Well, isn't there?
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Speaker 1: That's just it, she said, And besides, after all, you know,
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Speaker 1: why should you? I admit it's unreasonable, she said, But
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Speaker 1: why reason about it? It's a matter of the imagination
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Speaker 1: for him. How should I know how it takes him?
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Speaker 1: That is what I want to know. Melville looked her
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Speaker 1: in the eyes again. You know you're not playing fair,
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Speaker 1: he said to her, to any one, why because you
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Speaker 1: are immortal and unencumbered, because you can do everything you
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Speaker 1: want to do, and we cannot. I don't know why
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Speaker 1: we cannot, but we cannot. Here we are, with our
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Speaker 1: short lives and our little souls to save or lose,
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Speaker 1: fussing for our little concerns. And you, out of the elements,
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Speaker 1: come and beckon. The elements have their rights, she said.
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Speaker 1: And then the elements are the elements, you know, that
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Speaker 1: is what you forget. Imagination, certainly, that's the element, those
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Speaker 1: elements of your chemists, Yes, are all imagination. There isn't
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Speaker 1: any other, she went on. And all the elements of
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Speaker 1: your life, the life you imagine you are living, the
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Speaker 1: little things you must do, the little cares, the extraordinary
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Speaker 1: little duties, the day by day, the hypnotic limitations. All
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Speaker 1: these things are a fancy that has taken hold of
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Speaker 1: you too strongly for you to shake off. You daren't
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Speaker 1: you mustn't. You can't To us who watch you, you
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Speaker 1: watch us, Oh, yes, we watch you, and sometimes we
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Speaker 1: envy you, not only for the dry air and the sunlight,
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Speaker 1: and the shadows of trees, and the feeling of mourning,
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Speaker 1: and the pleasantness of many such things, but because your
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Speaker 1: lives begin and end, because you look towards an end.
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Speaker 1: She reverted to her former topic. But you are so limited,
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Speaker 1: so tied. The little time you have you use so poorly.
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Speaker 1: You begin and you end, and all the time between.
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Speaker 1: It is as if you were enchanted. You are afraid
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Speaker 1: to do this that would be delightful to do. You
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Speaker 1: must do that, though you know all the time it
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Speaker 1: is stupid and disagreeable. Just think of the things, even
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Speaker 1: the little things you mustn't do up there on the
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Speaker 1: LEAs in this hot weather. All the people are sitting
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Speaker 1: in stuffy, ugly clothes, ever so much too much clothes,
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Speaker 1: hot tight boots, you know, when they have the most
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Speaker 1: lovely pink feet, some of them we see, and they
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Speaker 1: are all with little to talk about, and nothing to
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Speaker 1: look at, and bound not to do all sorts of
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Speaker 1: natural things, and bound to do all sorts of preposterous things.
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Speaker 1: Why are they bound? Why are they letting life slip
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Speaker 1: by them? Just as if they wouldn't all of them
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Speaker 1: presently be dead. Suppose you were to go up there
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Speaker 1: in a bathing dress and a white cotton hat. It
24:37
Speaker 1: wouldn't be proper, cried Melville. Why not, it would be outrageous.
24:44
Speaker 1: But any one may see you like that on the beach.
24:47
Speaker 1: That's different. It isn't different, you dream, It's different, and
24:53
Speaker 1: in just the same way you dream all the other
24:56
Speaker 1: things they are proper or improper, or good or bad
24:59
Speaker 1: to do, because you are in a dream, a fantastic,
25:03
Speaker 1: unwholesome little dream, so small, so infinitely small. I saw
25:11
Speaker 1: you the other day, dreadfully worried about a spot of
25:13
Speaker 1: ink on your sleeve. Almost the whole afternoon. My cousin
25:18
Speaker 1: looked distressed. She abandoned the ink spot. Your life, I
25:23
Speaker 1: tell you, is a dream, a dream, and you can't
25:26
Speaker 1: wake out of it. And if so, why do you
25:30
Speaker 1: tell me? She made no answer. For a space, Why
25:34
Speaker 1: do you tell me, he insisted. He heard the rustle
25:38
Speaker 1: of her movement as she bent towards him. She came
25:42
Speaker 1: warmly close to him. She spoke in a gently confidential undertone,
25:48
Speaker 1: as one who imparts a secret that is not to
25:51
Speaker 1: be too lightly given. Because she said, there are better
25:57
Speaker 1: dreams three. For a moment, it seemed to Melville that
26:05
Speaker 1: he had been addressed by something quite other than the
26:08
Speaker 1: pleasant lady in the bath chair before him. But how
26:13
Speaker 1: he began and stopped, He remained silent, with a perplexed face.
26:19
Speaker 1: She leaned back and glanced away from him, and when
26:22
Speaker 1: at last she turned and spoke again specific realities closed
26:27
Speaker 1: in on him once more. Why shouldn't I, she asked,
26:32
Speaker 1: If I want to, shouldn't What if I fancy chatteris,
26:38
Speaker 1: one might think of obstacles, he reflected. He's not hers,
26:42
Speaker 1: she said, In a way, he's trying to be, said Melville,
26:47
Speaker 1: trying to be. He has to be what he is.
26:51
Speaker 1: Nothing can make him hers. If you weren't dreaming, you
26:55
Speaker 1: would see that my cousin was silent. She's not real,
26:59
Speaker 1: she went on. She's a mass of fancies and vanities.
27:03
Speaker 1: She gets everything out of books. She gets herself out.
27:06
Speaker 2: Of a book.
27:07
Speaker 1: You can see her doing it here. What is she seeking?
27:11
Speaker 1: What is she trying to do? All this work, all
27:14
Speaker 1: this political stuff of hers? She talks of the condition
27:18
Speaker 1: of the poor. What is the condition of the poor?
27:22
Speaker 1: A dreary tossing on a bed of existence, a perpetual
27:25
Speaker 1: fear of consequences that perpetually distresses them. Lives of anxiety
27:30
Speaker 1: they lead because they do not know what a dream
27:33
Speaker 1: the whole thing is. Suppose they were not anxious and afraid.
27:38
Speaker 1: And what does she care for the condition of the poor?
27:40
Speaker 1: After all, it is only a point of departure in
27:43
Speaker 1: her dream, in her heart She does not want their
27:46
Speaker 1: dreams to be happier. In her heart, she has no
27:50
Speaker 1: passion for them. Only her dream is that she should
27:53
Speaker 1: be prominently doing good, asserting herself, controlling their affairs amidst
27:59
Speaker 1: thanks and praise and blessings. Her dream of serious things
28:05
Speaker 1: a rout of phantoms, pursuing a phantom ignis fatulus, the
28:10
Speaker 1: afterglow of a mirage, vanity of vanities. It's real enough
28:16
Speaker 1: to her, as real as she can make it, you know.
28:20
Speaker 1: But she isn't real herself. She begins badly, and he,
28:25
Speaker 1: you know, he doesn't believe in it. I'm not so
28:29
Speaker 1: sure I am. Now. He's a complicated being. He will
28:35
Speaker 1: ravel out, said the sea lady. I think you misjudge
28:39
Speaker 1: him about that work of his. Anyhow, said Melville. He's
28:43
Speaker 1: a man rather divided against himself. He added abruptly, we
28:47
Speaker 1: all are he recovered himself from the generality. It's vague,
28:52
Speaker 1: I admit, a sort of vague wish to do something decent.
28:55
Speaker 1: You know that he has a sort of vague wish.
28:59
Speaker 1: She can see. But he means well, said Melville, clinging
29:04
Speaker 1: to his proposition. He means nothing, only very dimly. He
29:10
Speaker 1: suspects yes, what you too are beginning to suspect that
29:16
Speaker 1: other things may be conceivable, even if they are not possible,
29:21
Speaker 1: That this life of yours is not everything, that it
29:26
Speaker 1: is not to be taken too seriously, because there are
29:31
Speaker 1: better dreams. The song of the sirens was in her voice.
29:37
Speaker 1: My cousin would not look at her face. I know
29:41
Speaker 1: nothing of any other dreams, he said. One has oneself
29:44
Speaker 1: and this life, and that is enough to manage. What
29:47
Speaker 1: other dreams can there be? Anyhow, we are in the dream.
29:53
Speaker 1: We have to accept it. Besides, you know, that's going
29:56
Speaker 1: off the question we were talking of Chatteris, and why
30:00
Speaker 1: you have come for him? Why should you come? Why
30:03
Speaker 1: should any one outside come into this world? Because we
30:08
Speaker 1: are permitted to come, we immortals. And why if we
30:12
Speaker 1: choose to do so and taste this life that passes
30:16
Speaker 1: and continues as rain that falls to the ground, why
30:20
Speaker 1: should we not do it? Why should we abstain? And Chatteris?
30:24
Speaker 1: If he pleases me, He roused himself to a titanic
30:29
Speaker 1: effort against an oppression that was coming over him. He
30:32
Speaker 1: tried to get the thing down to a definite small case,
30:35
Speaker 1: an incident and affair of considerations but look here, you know,
30:41
Speaker 1: he said, What precisely do you mean to do if
30:44
Speaker 1: you get him? You don't seriously intend to keep up
30:47
Speaker 1: the game to that extent. You don't mean positively in
30:51
Speaker 1: our terrestrial fashion, you know, to marry him. The sea
30:56
Speaker 1: lady laughed at his recovery of the practical tone. Well
31:00
Speaker 1: why not, she asked, and go about in a bath chair?
31:05
Speaker 1: And no, that's not it. What is it? He looked
31:09
Speaker 1: up into her eyes, and it was like looking into
31:13
Speaker 1: deep water. Down in that deep there stirred impalpable things.
31:18
Speaker 1: She smiled at him. No, she said, I shan't marry
31:23
Speaker 1: him and go about in a bath chair and grow old,
31:26
Speaker 1: as all earthly women must. It's the dust, I think,
31:29
Speaker 1: and the dryness of the air, and the way you
31:32
Speaker 1: begin and end. You burn too fast, you flare and
31:36
Speaker 1: sink and die. This life of yours, the illnesses and
31:42
Speaker 1: the growing old, when the skin wears shabby and the
31:45
Speaker 1: light is out of the hair, and the teeth. Not
31:49
Speaker 1: even for love would I face it. No, But then
31:54
Speaker 1: you know, her voice sank to a low whisper. There
31:58
Speaker 1: are better her dreams? What dreams repelled? Melville? What do
32:04
Speaker 1: you mean? What are you. What do you mean by
32:07
Speaker 1: coming into this life, you who pretend to be a woman,
32:10
Speaker 1: and whispering, whispering to us who are in it, to
32:14
Speaker 1: us who have no escape. But there is an escape,
32:18
Speaker 1: said the sea lady. How for some there is an
32:22
Speaker 1: escape when the whole life rushes to a moment. And
32:26
Speaker 1: then she stopped. Now there is clearly no sense in
32:31
Speaker 1: this sentence to my mind, even from a lady of
32:34
Speaker 1: an essentially imaginary sort who comes out of the sea.
32:38
Speaker 1: How can a whole life rush to a moment? But
32:42
Speaker 1: whatever it was she really did say, there is no
32:45
Speaker 1: doubt she left it half unsaid. He glanced up at
32:49
Speaker 1: her abrupt pause, and she was looking at the house.
32:56
Speaker 2: Ah.
32:59
Speaker 1: There it was Missus Bunting's voice, floating athwart the lawn,
33:04
Speaker 1: the voice of the ascendant, present of invincibly sensible things.
33:09
Speaker 1: The world grew real again to Melville. He seemed to
33:12
Speaker 1: wake up, to start back from some delusive trance that
33:16
Speaker 1: crept upon him. He looked at the Sea Lady as
33:19
Speaker 1: if he were already incredulous of the things they had said,
33:23
Speaker 1: as if he had been asleep and dreamed the talk.
33:27
Speaker 1: Some light seemed to go out, some fancy faded. His
33:31
Speaker 1: eye rested upon the inscription flamps bath chair proprietor just
33:37
Speaker 1: visible under her arm. We've got perhaps a little more
33:41
Speaker 1: serious than, he said, doubtfully. And then what you have
33:45
Speaker 1: been saying? Did you exactly mean? The rustle of missus
33:50
Speaker 1: Bunting's advance became audible, and Parker moved and coughed. He
33:55
Speaker 1: was quite sure they had been more serious than another time.
34:01
Speaker 1: Perhaps had all these things really been said? Or was
34:06
Speaker 1: he under some fantastic hallucination. He had a sudden thought,
34:11
Speaker 1: where's your cigarette, he asked, But her cigarette had ended
34:15
Speaker 1: long ago? And what have you been talking about so long?
34:19
Speaker 1: Saying Missus Bunting, with an almost motherly hand on the
34:23
Speaker 1: back of Melville's chair. Oh, said Melville, at a loss
34:28
Speaker 1: for once, and suddenly rising from his chair to face her,
34:32
Speaker 1: and then to the sea lady with an artificially easy smile.
34:35
Speaker 1: What have we been talking about? All sorts of things?
34:39
Speaker 1: I dare say, said Missus Bunting in what might almost
34:43
Speaker 1: be called an arch manner, And she honored Melville with
34:46
Speaker 1: a special smile, one of those smiles that are morally
34:50
Speaker 1: almost winks. My cousin caught all the archness full in
34:54
Speaker 1: the face, and for four seconds he stared at Missus
34:58
Speaker 1: Bunting in amazement wanted breath. Then they all laughed together,
35:03
Speaker 1: and Missus Bunting sat down pleasantly and remarked quite audibly
35:07
Speaker 1: to herself, as if I couldn't guess four, I gather
35:16
Speaker 1: that after this talk, Melville fell into an extraordinary net
35:19
Speaker 1: of doubting in the first place, and what was most distressing,
35:25
Speaker 1: he doubted whether this conversation could possibly have happened at all,
35:29
Speaker 1: and if it had, whether his memory had not played
35:32
Speaker 1: him some trick in modifying and intensifying the import of
35:36
Speaker 1: it all. My cousin occasionally dreams conversations of so sober
35:40
Speaker 1: and probable a sort as to mingle quite perplexingly with
35:44
Speaker 1: his real experiences. Was this one of these occasions? He
35:49
Speaker 1: found himself taking up and scrutinizing, as it were, first
35:53
Speaker 1: this remembered sentence, and then that had she really said
35:57
Speaker 1: this thing? And quite in this way his memory of
36:02
Speaker 1: their conversation was never quite the same for two days together.
36:06
Speaker 1: Had she really and deliberately foreshadowed for chatteris some obscure
36:11
Speaker 1: and mystical submergence. What intensified and complicated his doubts. Most
36:19
Speaker 1: was the Sea Lady's subsequent serene freedom from allusion to
36:23
Speaker 1: anything that might or might not have passed. She behaved
36:28
Speaker 1: just as she had always behaved, neither in added intimacy
36:32
Speaker 1: nor that distance that follows indiscreet confidences appeared in her manner,
36:37
Speaker 1: And amidst this crop of questions arose presently quite a
36:41
Speaker 1: new set of doubts, as if he were not already
36:45
Speaker 1: sufficiently equipped. The Sea Lady alleged she had come to
36:49
Speaker 1: the world that lives on land for Chatteris, and then
36:55
Speaker 1: he had not hitherto looked ahead to see precisely what
36:58
Speaker 1: would happen to Chattering, to Miss Glendower, to the Buntings,
37:03
Speaker 1: or any one, when, as seemed highly probable, Chatteris was got.
37:08
Speaker 1: There were other dreams, There was another existence and elsewhere,
37:14
Speaker 1: and Chatteris was to go there, so she said. But
37:19
Speaker 1: it came into Melville's mind with a quite disproportionate force
37:23
Speaker 1: and vividness that once long ago he had seen a
37:26
Speaker 1: picture of a man and a mermaid rushing downward through
37:30
Speaker 1: deep water. Could it possibly be that sort of thing?
37:34
Speaker 1: In the year eighteen hundred and ninety nine, conceivably if
37:40
Speaker 1: she had said these things, did she mean them, and
37:43
Speaker 1: if she meant them, and this definite campaign of capture
37:47
Speaker 1: was in hand, what was an orderly, sane, living, well
37:51
Speaker 1: dressed bachelor of the world to do? Look on until
37:56
Speaker 1: things ended in a catastrophe. One figure, his face almost aged,
38:02
Speaker 1: he appears to have hovered about the house on the
38:05
Speaker 1: Sandgate Riviera to a scandalous extent, failing always to get
38:10
Speaker 1: a sufficiently long and intimate tete a tete with the
38:13
Speaker 1: sea lady, to settle once for all his doubts as
38:16
Speaker 1: to what really had been said and what he had
38:18
Speaker 1: dreamed or fancied in their talk. Never had he been
38:23
Speaker 1: so exceedingly disturbed as he was by the twist this
38:27
Speaker 1: talk had taken. Never had his habitual pose of humorous
38:31
Speaker 1: acquiescence in life been quite so difficult to keep up.
38:36
Speaker 1: He became positively absent minded. You know, if it's like that,
38:41
Speaker 1: it's serious. Was the burden of his private mutterings. His
38:46
Speaker 1: condition was palpable even to Missus Bunting, But she misunderstood
38:51
Speaker 1: his nature. She said something. Finally, and quite abruptly, he
38:56
Speaker 1: set off to London in a state of frantic determination,
38:59
Speaker 1: to get out of it all. The sea Lady wished
39:02
Speaker 1: him good buy in Missus Bunting's presence, as if there
39:05
Speaker 1: had never been anything unusual between them. I suppose one
39:10
Speaker 1: may contrive to understand something of his disturbance. He had
39:14
Speaker 1: made quite considerable sacrifices to the world, He had great
39:19
Speaker 1: pains found his place and his way in it. He
39:22
Speaker 1: had imagined he had really got the hang of it,
39:25
Speaker 1: as people say, and was having an interesting time. And then,
39:30
Speaker 1: you know, to encounter a voice that subsequently insists upon
39:35
Speaker 1: haunting you with there are better dreams to hear a
39:39
Speaker 1: tale that threatens complications, disasters, broken hearts, and not to
39:44
Speaker 1: have the faintest idea of the proper thing to do.
39:49
Speaker 1: But I do not think he would have bolded from
39:52
Speaker 1: Sandgate until he had really got some more definite answer
39:55
Speaker 1: to the question what better dreams? Until he had surprised
40:00
Speaker 1: or forced some clearer illumination from the passive invalid. If
40:05
Speaker 1: Missus Bunting one morning had not very tactfully dropped a hint,
40:11
Speaker 1: you know, Missus Bunting, and you can imagine what she
40:15
Speaker 1: tactfully hinted just at that time, but with her own
40:20
Speaker 1: girls and the Glendower girls. Her imagination was positively inflame
40:25
Speaker 1: for matrimony. She was a matrimonial fanatic. She would have
40:30
Speaker 1: married anybody to anything, just for the fun of doing it.
40:34
Speaker 1: And the idea of paring off poor Melville to this
40:36
Speaker 1: mysterious immortal with a scaly tale seems to have appeared
40:41
Speaker 1: to her the most natural thing in the world, A
40:45
Speaker 1: propos of nothing whatever. I fancy, she remarked, Your opportunity
40:49
Speaker 1: is now, mister Melville, My opportunity, cried Melville, trying madly
40:55
Speaker 1: not to understand in the face of her pink resolution.
41:00
Speaker 1: Notpoly now, she cried. But when we go back to
41:03
Speaker 1: London with her, there will be ever so many people
41:06
Speaker 1: running after her. I fancy Melville said something about carrying
41:11
Speaker 1: the thing too far. He doesn't remember what he did say.
41:15
Speaker 1: I don't think he even knew at the time. However,
41:18
Speaker 1: he fled back to London in August, and was there
41:22
Speaker 1: so miserably at loose ends that he had not the
41:24
Speaker 1: will to get out of the place. On this passage
41:27
Speaker 1: in the story, he does not dwell, and such very
41:31
Speaker 1: similitude as may be, must be supplied by my imagination.
41:35
Speaker 1: I imagine him in his charmingly appointed flat, a flat that
41:39
Speaker 1: is light without being trivial, and artistic, with no want
41:43
Speaker 1: of dignity or sincerity, finding a loss of interest in
41:47
Speaker 1: his books, a loss of beauty in the silver he
41:50
Speaker 1: not too vehemently collects. I imagine him wandering into that
41:55
Speaker 1: dainty little bedroom of his, and around into the dressing room,
41:59
Speaker 1: and there, wrapped in a blank contemplation of the seven
42:02
Speaker 1: and twenty pairs of trousers, all creasing neatly in their
42:06
Speaker 1: proper stretches, that are necessary to his conception of a
42:09
Speaker 1: wise and happy man for every occasion he has learnt,
42:13
Speaker 1: in a natural, easy progress to knowledge, the exquisitely appropriate
42:18
Speaker 1: pair of trousers, the permissible upper garment, the becoming gesture
42:23
Speaker 1: and word. He was a man who had mastered his world.
42:27
Speaker 1: And then you know, the whisper, there are better dreams?
42:34
Speaker 1: What dreams? I imagine him asking, with a defensive note,
42:39
Speaker 1: whatever transparents the world might have had, whatever suggestion of
42:43
Speaker 1: something beyond there in the sea garden at Sandgate. I
42:48
Speaker 1: fancy that in Melville's apartments in London it was indisputably opaque.
42:54
Speaker 1: And damn it, he cried, if these dreams of her chatteris,
42:58
Speaker 1: why should she tell me suppose I had the chance
43:02
Speaker 1: of them, whatever they are, he reflected, with a terrible
43:07
Speaker 1: sincerity in the nature of his will. No, and then
43:11
Speaker 1: again no. And if one mustn't have em, why should
43:16
Speaker 1: one know about him and be worried by them? If
43:19
Speaker 1: she comes to do mischief, why shouldn't she do mischief
43:23
Speaker 1: without making me an accomplice. He walks up and down,
43:27
Speaker 1: and stops at last and stares out of his window
43:29
Speaker 1: on the jaded summer traffic going Haymarket Way. He sees
43:34
Speaker 1: nothing of that traffic. He sees the little sea garden
43:38
Speaker 1: at Sandgate, and that little group of people, very small
43:41
Speaker 1: and bright, and something something hanging over them. It isn't
43:47
Speaker 1: fair on them, or me or anybody. Then, you know.
43:52
Speaker 1: Quite suddenly, I imagine him swearing. I imagine him at his luncheon,
43:58
Speaker 1: Emil he usually treats with the coming gravity. I imagine
44:02
Speaker 1: the waiter marking the kindly self indulgence of his clean
44:05
Speaker 1: shaven face, and advancing with that air of intimate participation
44:10
Speaker 1: the good waiter shows to such as he esteems. I
44:14
Speaker 1: figure the respectful pause, the respectful enquiry. Oh anything, cries Melville,
44:21
Speaker 1: and the waiter retires amazed. Five to add to Melville's distress,
44:29
Speaker 1: as petty discomforts do add to all genuine trouble. His
44:33
Speaker 1: club house was undergoing an operation and was full of
44:36
Speaker 1: builders and decorators. They had gouged out its windows and
44:40
Speaker 1: gagged its hall with scaffolding, and he it is like
44:44
Speaker 1: were guests of a stranger club that had several members
44:47
Speaker 1: who blew. They seemed never to do anything but blow
44:52
Speaker 1: and sigh and russell papers and go to sleep about
44:55
Speaker 1: the place. They were like blight spots on the handsome
44:59
Speaker 1: plant of this host club, and had counted for little
45:02
Speaker 1: with Melville in the state he was in that all
45:04
Speaker 1: the fidgety breathers were persons of eminent position. But it
45:09
Speaker 1: was this temporary dislocation of his world that brought him
45:13
Speaker 1: unexpectedly into a quasi confidential talk with Chatteris one afternoon,
45:19
Speaker 1: For Chatteris was one of the less eminent and amorphous
45:22
Speaker 1: members of this club that was sheltering Melville's club. Melville
45:26
Speaker 1: had taken a punch. He was in that mood when
45:29
Speaker 1: a man takes up anything and was reading. He did
45:32
Speaker 1: not know exactly what. Presently he sighed looked up and
45:37
Speaker 1: discovered Chatteris entering the room. He was surprised to see Chatteris,
45:42
Speaker 1: startled and just faintly alarmed, and Chatteris, as was evident,
45:47
Speaker 1: was surprised and disconcerted to see him. Chatteris stood in
45:51
Speaker 1: as awkward an attitude as he was capable of staring unfavorably,
45:55
Speaker 1: and for a moment or so he gave no sign
45:58
Speaker 1: of recognition. Then he nodded and came forward reluctantly. His
46:03
Speaker 1: every movement suggested the will without the wit to escape
46:08
Speaker 1: you here? He said? What are you doing away from
46:12
Speaker 1: High that this time? Asked Melville. I came here to
46:16
Speaker 1: write a letter, said Chatteris. He looked about him rather helplessly.
46:21
Speaker 1: Then he sat down beside Melville and demanded a cigarette.
46:25
Speaker 1: Suddenly he plunged into intimacy. It is doubtful whether I
46:29
Speaker 1: shall contest High, he remarked, yes. Yes, He lit his cigarette,
46:36
Speaker 1: would you, he asked? Not a bit of it, said Melville.
46:41
Speaker 1: But then it's not in my line, is it mine?
46:45
Speaker 1: Isn't it a little late in the day to drop it,
46:48
Speaker 1: said Melville. You've been put up for it. Now every
46:52
Speaker 1: one's at work. Miss Glendower, I know, said Chatteris. Well,
46:59
Speaker 1: I don't seem to want to go on, my dear man.
47:04
Speaker 1: It's a bit of overwork. Perhaps I'm off color. Things
47:07
Speaker 1: have gone flat. That's why I'm up here. He did
47:11
Speaker 1: a very absurd thing. He threw away a quarter smoked
47:14
Speaker 1: cigarette and almost immediately demanded another. You've been a little
47:20
Speaker 1: immoderate with your statistics, said Melville. Chatter has said something
47:24
Speaker 1: that struck Melville as having somehow been said before election. Progress,
47:30
Speaker 1: good of humanity, public spirit. None of these things interest me, really,
47:35
Speaker 1: he said, at least not just now. Melville waited. One
47:40
Speaker 1: gets brought up in an atmosphere in which it's always
47:43
Speaker 1: being whispered that one should go for a career. You
47:47
Speaker 1: learn it at your mother's knee. They never give you
47:50
Speaker 1: time to find out what you really want. They keep
47:52
Speaker 1: on shoving you at that. They form your character, they
47:55
Speaker 1: rule your mind, They rush you into it. They didn't
47:59
Speaker 1: rush me, said Melville. They rushed me anyhow, And here
48:03
Speaker 1: I am. You don't want a career. Well, look what
48:08
Speaker 1: it is, Oh, if you look at what things are.
48:13
Speaker 1: First of all, the messing about to get into the house,
48:16
Speaker 1: these confounded parties mean nothing absolutely nothing. They aren't even
48:20
Speaker 1: decent factions. You blithered a damned committees of damned tradesmen
48:25
Speaker 1: whose sole idea for this world is to get overpaid
48:28
Speaker 1: for their self respect. You whisper and hobnob with local
48:32
Speaker 1: solicitors and get yourself seen about with them. You ask
48:36
Speaker 1: about the charities and institutions, and lunch and chatter and
48:40
Speaker 1: chum with every conceivable form of human conceit and pushfulness
48:45
Speaker 1: and trickery. He broke off. It isn't as if they
48:50
Speaker 1: were up to anything. They're working in their way, just
48:53
Speaker 1: as you are working in your way. It's the same
48:56
Speaker 1: game with all of them. They chase a phantom gratification.
49:01
Speaker 1: They toil and quarrel and envy night and day in
49:04
Speaker 1: the perpetual attempt to persuade themselves, in spite of everything,
49:08
Speaker 1: that they are real and a success. He stopped and smoked.
49:13
Speaker 1: Melville was spiteful, yes, he admitted, But I thought your
49:18
Speaker 1: little movement was to be something more than party politics
49:21
Speaker 1: and self advancement. He left his sentence interrogatively incomplete. The
49:28
Speaker 1: condition of the poor, he said, well said chatteris regarding
49:34
Speaker 1: him with a sort of stony admission in his blue eyes.
49:38
Speaker 1: Melville dodged the look at Sandgate. He said, there was,
49:42
Speaker 1: you know, a certain atmosphere of belief. I know, said
49:46
Speaker 1: Chatteris for the second time. That's the devil of it,
49:50
Speaker 1: said Chatteris, after a pause. If I don't believe in
49:54
Speaker 1: the game I'm playing, if I'm left high and dry
49:57
Speaker 1: on this shoal, with the tide of belief gone past me,
50:02
Speaker 1: it isn't my planning anyhow. I know the decent thing
50:05
Speaker 1: I ought to do. I mean to do it in
50:08
Speaker 1: the end. I mean to do it, and talking in
50:11
Speaker 1: this way to relieve my mind. I've started the game
50:13
Speaker 1: and I must see it out. I've put my hand
50:16
Speaker 1: to the plow and I mustn't go back. That's why
50:19
Speaker 1: I came to London to get it over with myself.
50:22
Speaker 1: It was running up against you set me off. You
50:26
Speaker 1: caught me at the crisis, ah, said Melville. But for
50:31
Speaker 1: all that, the thing is, as I said, none of
50:34
Speaker 1: these things interest me really. It won't alter the fact
50:38
Speaker 1: that I am committed to fight a phantom election about nothing,
50:42
Speaker 1: in particular for a party that's been dead ten years,
50:46
Speaker 1: and if the ghosts win, go into the Parliament as
50:49
Speaker 1: a constituent specter there it is as a mental phenomenon.
50:56
Speaker 1: He reiterated his cardinal article. The interest is dead, he said,
51:01
Speaker 1: the will has no soul. He became more critical. He
51:05
Speaker 1: bent a little closer to Melville's ear. It isn't really
51:09
Speaker 1: that I don't believe. When I say I don't believe
51:12
Speaker 1: in these things, I go too far. I do.
51:15
Speaker 2: I know.
51:16
Speaker 1: The electioneering, the intriguing is a means to an end.
51:20
Speaker 1: There is work to be done, sound work and important work.
51:23
Speaker 1: Only Melville turned an eye on him over his cigarette end.
51:29
Speaker 1: Chatteris met It seemed for a moment to cling to it.
51:33
Speaker 1: He became absurdly confidential. He was evidently in the direst
51:38
Speaker 1: need of a confidential ear. I don't want to do it.
51:43
Speaker 1: When I sit down to it, square myself down in
51:46
Speaker 1: the chair, you know, and say, now for the rest
51:49
Speaker 1: of my life, this is it, This is your life.
51:53
Speaker 1: Chatteris There comes a sort of terror, Melville, hm said
51:58
Speaker 1: Melville and turned away. Then he turned on Chatteris with
52:02
Speaker 1: the air of a family physician, and tapped his shoulder
52:06
Speaker 1: three times as he spoke, You've had too much statistics chatteris,
52:12
Speaker 1: he said. He let that soak in. Then He turned
52:16
Speaker 1: about towards his interlocutor and toyed with a clubbed ash tray.
52:21
Speaker 1: It's every day has overtaken you, he said. You can't
52:24
Speaker 1: see the wood for the trees. You forget the spacious
52:28
Speaker 1: design you are engaged upon in the heavy details of
52:31
Speaker 1: the moment. You are like a painter who has been
52:34
Speaker 1: working hard upon something very small and exacting in a corner.
52:39
Speaker 1: You want to step back and look at the whole thing. No,
52:43
Speaker 1: said chatteress. That isn't quite it. Melville indicated that he
52:48
Speaker 1: knew better. I keep on stepping back and looking at it,
52:53
Speaker 1: said Chatteris. Just lately, I've scarcely done anything else. I'll
52:57
Speaker 1: admit it's a spacious and noble thing, political work done well.
53:02
Speaker 1: Only I admire it. But it doesn't grip my imagination.
53:08
Speaker 1: That's where the trouble comes in. What does grip your imagination?
53:12
Speaker 1: Asked Melville. He was absolutely certain the sea lady had
53:16
Speaker 1: been talking this paralysis into Chatteris, and he wanted to
53:20
Speaker 1: see just how far she had gone. For example, he tested,
53:25
Speaker 1: are there by any chance other dreams? Chatteris gave no
53:31
Speaker 1: sign of the phrase. Melville dismissed his suspicion. But do
53:36
Speaker 1: you mean other dreams, asked Chatteris. Is there conceivably another way,
53:42
Speaker 1: another sort of life, some other aspect. It's out of
53:46
Speaker 1: the question, said Chatteris. He added, rather remarkably, Adeline's awfully good.
53:54
Speaker 1: My cousin Melville acquiesced silently in Adeline's goodness. All this,
53:59
Speaker 1: you know, is a mood. My life is made for me,
54:03
Speaker 1: and it's a very good life. It's better that I
54:05
Speaker 1: deserve heaps, said Melville, much, said Chatteris, defiantly. Ever so much,
54:13
Speaker 1: endorsed Melville. Let's talk of other things, said Chatteris. It's
54:17
Speaker 1: what even the street boys now called morbid nowadays to
54:22
Speaker 1: doubt for a moment, the absolute final all this and
54:26
Speaker 1: nothing else in the worldishness of whatever you happen to
54:29
Speaker 1: be doing. My cousin Melville, however, could think of no
54:34
Speaker 1: other sufficiently interesting topic. You left them all right at sandgate,
54:38
Speaker 1: he said, after a pause, except little bunting, seedy bin fishing,
54:45
Speaker 1: of course, breezes in the spring tides and miss waters.
54:51
Speaker 1: Chatteris shot a suspicious glance at him. He affected the
54:55
Speaker 1: off hand style. She is quite well, he said, looks
54:59
Speaker 1: just as charming as ever, she really means that canvassing.
55:03
Speaker 1: She's spoken of it again. She'll do a lot for you,
55:07
Speaker 1: said Melville, and left a fine, wide pause. Chatteris assumed
55:12
Speaker 1: the tone of a man who gossips. Who is this
55:15
Speaker 1: miss Waters? He asked? A very charming person, said Melville,
55:19
Speaker 1: and said no more. Chatteris waited, and his pretense of
55:24
Speaker 1: airy gossip vanished. He became very much in earnest. Look here,
55:28
Speaker 1: he said, who is this miss Waters? How should I know?
55:32
Speaker 1: Prevaricated Melville. Well you do know, and the others know
55:37
Speaker 1: who is she? Melville met his eyes. Won't they tell you?
55:42
Speaker 1: He asked, that's just it? Said, chatteris, Why do you
55:46
Speaker 1: want to know? Why shouldn't I know? There's a sort
55:50
Speaker 1: of promise to keep it dark? Keep what dark? My
55:54
Speaker 1: cousin gestured, It can't be anything wrong. My cousin made
55:59
Speaker 1: no sense. Sign she may have had experiences. My cousin
56:06
Speaker 1: reflected a moment on the possibilities of the deep sea life.
56:10
Speaker 1: She has had them, he said, I don't care if
56:13
Speaker 1: she has. There came a pause. Look here, Melville said, chatteris,
56:19
Speaker 1: I want to know this unless it's a thing to
56:22
Speaker 1: be specially kept from me. I don't like being among
56:25
Speaker 1: a lot of people who treat me as an outsider.
56:29
Speaker 1: What is this something about miss Waters? What does miss
56:33
Speaker 1: Glendower say vague things? She doesn't like her, and she
56:37
Speaker 1: won't say why, And missus Bunting goes about with discretion
56:41
Speaker 1: written all over her, And she herself looks at you,
56:45
Speaker 1: and that maide of hers looks the thing's worrying me.
56:50
Speaker 1: Why don't you ask the lady herself? How can I
56:54
Speaker 1: till I know what it is? Confounded? I'm asking you
56:58
Speaker 1: plainly enough, well, said Melville. And at the moment he
57:03
Speaker 1: had really decided to tell Chatteris, but he hung upon
57:07
Speaker 1: the manner presentation. He thought in the moment to say
57:12
Speaker 1: the truth is she is a mermaid. Then, as instantly
57:16
Speaker 1: he perceived how incredible this would be, he always suspected
57:20
Speaker 1: Chatteris of a capacity for being continental and romantic. The
57:25
Speaker 1: man might fly out at him for saying such a
57:27
Speaker 1: thing of a lady. A dreadful doubt fell upon Melville,
57:32
Speaker 1: as you know, he had never seen that tale with
57:35
Speaker 1: his own eyes. In these surroundings, there came to him
57:39
Speaker 1: such an incredulity of the sea lady as he had
57:42
Speaker 1: not felt even when first Missus Bunting told him of her.
57:46
Speaker 1: All about him was an atmosphere of solid reality, such
57:49
Speaker 1: as one can breathe only in a first class London club.
57:53
Speaker 1: Everywhere ponderous arm chairs met the eye. There were massive
57:57
Speaker 1: tables in abundance, and match boxes of solid rock. The
58:02
Speaker 1: matches were of some specially large, heavy sort. On a
58:06
Speaker 1: ponderous elephant legged, green baized table. Near at hand were
58:10
Speaker 1: several copies of the Times, the Currant Punch, an inkpot
58:15
Speaker 1: of solid brass, and a paper weight of lead. There
58:19
Speaker 1: are other dreams. It seemed impossible. The breathing of an
58:25
Speaker 1: eminent person in a chair in the far corner became
58:28
Speaker 1: very distinct in that interval. It was heavy and resolute,
58:32
Speaker 1: like the sound of a stonemason's saw. It insisted upon
58:37
Speaker 1: itself as the touchstone of reality. It seemed to say,
58:40
Speaker 1: at the first whisper of a thing so utterly improbable
58:44
Speaker 1: as a mermaid, it would snort and choke. You wouldn't
58:48
Speaker 1: believe me if I told you, said Melville. Well tell
58:51
Speaker 1: me anyhow. My cousin looked at an empty chair beside him.
58:56
Speaker 1: It was evidently stuffed with the very best horse hair
58:59
Speaker 1: that money could procure stuffed with infinite skill and an
59:03
Speaker 1: almost religious care. It preached in the open invitation of
59:07
Speaker 1: his expanded arms, that man does not live by bread alone,
59:12
Speaker 1: inasmuch as afterwards he needs an app an utterly dreamless
59:17
Speaker 1: chair mermaids. He felt that he was, after all, quite
59:23
Speaker 1: possibly the victim of a foolish delusion hypnotized by Missus
59:27
Speaker 1: Bunting's beliefs. Was there not some more plausible interpretation, some
59:33
Speaker 1: phrase that would lie out bridgeways from the plausible to
59:37
Speaker 1: the truth. It's no good, he groaned at last. Chatteris
59:42
Speaker 1: had been watching him furtively. Oh I don't care a hang,
59:46
Speaker 1: he said, and shied his second cigarette into the massively
59:49
Speaker 1: decorated fireplace. It's no affair of mine. Then, quite abruptly,
59:53
Speaker 1: he sprang to his feet and gesticulated with an ineffectual hand.
59:58
Speaker 1: You needn't, he said, and seemed to intend to say
1:00:03
Speaker 1: many regrettable things meanwhile, until his intention ripened, he sawed
1:00:09
Speaker 1: the air with his ineffectual hand. I fancy He ended
1:00:13
Speaker 1: by failing to find a thing sufficiently regrettable to express
1:00:17
Speaker 1: the pungency of the moment. He flung about and went
1:00:20
Speaker 1: towards the door, don't he said, to the back of
1:00:24
Speaker 1: the newspaper of the breathing member. If you don't want to,
1:00:28
Speaker 1: he said to the respectful waiter at the door. All
1:00:32
Speaker 1: porter heard that he didn't care. He was damned if
1:00:36
Speaker 1: he did, he might be one of these here guests,
1:00:40
Speaker 1: said the hall porter greatly shopped. That's what comes of
1:00:44
Speaker 1: letting em in so young. Six Melville overcame an impulse
1:00:52
Speaker 1: to follow him. Confound the fellow, said he, And then
1:00:57
Speaker 1: as the whole outburst came into focus, he said, with
1:01:00
Speaker 1: still more emphasis, confound the fellow. He stood up and
1:01:05
Speaker 1: became aware that the member who had been asleep was
1:01:08
Speaker 1: now regarding him with malevolent eyes. He perceived it was
1:01:12
Speaker 1: a hard and invincible malevolence, and that no petty apologetics
1:01:17
Speaker 1: of demeanor could veil against it. He turned about and
1:01:20
Speaker 1: went towards the door. The interview had done my cousin good.
1:01:25
Speaker 1: His misery and distress had lifted. He was presently bathed
1:01:30
Speaker 1: in a profound moral indignation, and that is the very
1:01:33
Speaker 1: antithesis of doubt and unhappiness. The more he thought it over,
1:01:37
Speaker 1: the more his indignation with Chatteris grew. That sudden unreasonable
1:01:42
Speaker 1: outbreak altered all the perspectives of the case. He wished
1:01:47
Speaker 1: very much that he could meet Chatteris again and discuss
1:01:50
Speaker 1: the whole matter from a new footing. Think of it,
1:01:54
Speaker 1: he thought so vividly and so verbally that he was
1:01:57
Speaker 1: nearly talking to himself as he went along. It shaped
1:02:00
Speaker 1: itself into an outspoken discourse in his mind. Was there
1:02:05
Speaker 1: ever a more ungracious, ungrateful, unreasonable creature than this same Chatteris.
1:02:11
Speaker 1: He was the spoiled child of fortune. Things came to him,
1:02:15
Speaker 1: things were given to him. His very blunders brought more
1:02:19
Speaker 1: to him than other men's successes. Out of every thousand men,
1:02:24
Speaker 1: nine hundred ninety nine might well find food for envy
1:02:28
Speaker 1: in this way. Luck had served him many a one
1:02:31
Speaker 1: has toiled all his life and taken at last gratefully
1:02:35
Speaker 1: the merest fraction of all that had thrust itself upon
1:02:38
Speaker 1: this insatiable, thankless young man. Even I thought mc cousin
1:02:44
Speaker 1: might envy him in several ways. And then at the
1:02:49
Speaker 1: mere first onset of duty, nay, at the mere first
1:02:53
Speaker 1: whisper of restraint, this insubordination, this protest and flight, think
1:03:00
Speaker 1: urged my cousin of the common lot of men. Think
1:03:04
Speaker 1: of the many who suffer from hunger. It was a painful,
1:03:07
Speaker 1: socialistic sort of line to take, but in his mood
1:03:10
Speaker 1: of moral indignation, my cousin pursued it relentlessly. Think of
1:03:14
Speaker 1: many who suffer from hunger, who lead lives of unremitting toil,
1:03:19
Speaker 1: who go fearful, who go squalid and withal strive in
1:03:23
Speaker 1: a sort of dumb, resolute way, their utmost to do
1:03:26
Speaker 1: their duty, or at any rate, what they think to
1:03:29
Speaker 1: be their duty. Think of the chaste, poor women in
1:03:33
Speaker 1: the world. Think again, of the many honest souls who
1:03:36
Speaker 1: aspire to the service of their kind, and are so
1:03:39
Speaker 1: hemmed about and preoccupied that they may not give it.
1:03:43
Speaker 1: And then this pitiful creature comes with his mental gifts,
1:03:48
Speaker 1: his gifts of position and opportunity, the stimulus of great ideas,
1:03:53
Speaker 1: and a fiancee who is not only rich and beautiful,
1:03:57
Speaker 1: she is beautiful, but also the best of all possible
1:04:02
Speaker 1: helpers for him. And he turns away. It isn't good enough.
1:04:08
Speaker 1: It takes no hold upon his imagination. If you please,
1:04:12
Speaker 1: it isn't beautiful enough for him. And what's the plain
1:04:15
Speaker 1: truth of the matter, What does the man want? What
1:04:18
Speaker 1: does he expect? My cousin's moral indignation took him the
1:04:24
Speaker 1: whole length of Piccadilly, and along by Rotten Row, and
1:04:28
Speaker 1: along the flowery garden walks almost into Kensington High Street,
1:04:32
Speaker 1: and so around by the Serpentine to his home, and
1:04:36
Speaker 1: it gave him such an appetite for dinner as he
1:04:39
Speaker 1: had not had for many days. Life was bright for
1:04:42
Speaker 1: him all that evening, and he sat down at last,
1:04:45
Speaker 1: at two o'clock in the morning, before a needlessly knit,
1:04:48
Speaker 1: delightfully fuselutting fire in his flat, to smoke one sound
1:04:53
Speaker 1: cigar before he went to bed. No, he said, suddenly,
1:04:58
Speaker 1: I am not mobbid I take the gifts the gods
1:05:02
Speaker 1: will give me. I try to make myself happy, and
1:05:06
Speaker 1: a few other people happy too, to do a few
1:05:09
Speaker 1: little duties decently, and that is enough for me. I
1:05:13
Speaker 1: don't look too deeply into things, and I don't look
1:05:16
Speaker 1: too widely about things. A few old simple ideals. Hum
1:05:23
Speaker 1: Chatteris is a dreamer with an impossible extravagant discontent. What
1:05:28
Speaker 1: does he dream of? Three parts, he is a dreamer
1:05:32
Speaker 1: and the fourth part spoiled child dreamer Other dreams? What
1:05:41
Speaker 1: other dreams could she? Mean my cousin fell into profound musings.
1:05:47
Speaker 1: Then he started, looked about him, saw the time by
1:05:51
Speaker 1: his rathbone clock, got up suddenly and went to bed.
1:05:55
Speaker 1: End of Chapter six, recording by Thomas Copeland.
1:06:01
Speaker 2: Assa