Latest / The H. G. Wells Library / Tono-Bungay Book 2 Chapter 4 - Parts 7-9

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Tono-Bungay Book 2 Chapter 4 - Parts 7-9 · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Book, second chapter, fourth parts seven to nine of Tono Bungay.
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  Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
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  Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
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  Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by William Tomkoe. Ton O
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  Speaker 1: Bungay by H. G. Wells, Book, second chapter, fourth parts
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  Speaker 1: seven to nine. Seven. I came back after a week's
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  Speaker 1: absence to my home again, a changed man. I had
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  Speaker 1: lived out my first rush of passion for Effie, had
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  Speaker 1: come to a contemplation of my position. I had gaged
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  Speaker 1: Effie's place in the scheme of things and parted from
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  Speaker 1: her for a time. She was back in her place
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  Speaker 1: at Raggot Street after a temporary indisposition. I did not
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  Speaker 1: feel in any way penitent or ashamed. I know as
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  Speaker 1: I opened the little cat iron gate that kept Marian's
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  Speaker 1: front garden and Pampa's grass from the wandering dog. Indeed,
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  Speaker 1: if anything, I felt as if I had vindicated some
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  Speaker 1: right that had been in question. I came back to
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  Speaker 1: Marian with no sense of wrong doing at all, with
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  Speaker 1: indeed a new friendliness towards her. I don't know how
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  Speaker 1: it may be proper to feel on such occasions, That
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  Speaker 1: is how I felt. I followed her in our drawing room,
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  Speaker 1: standing beside the tall lamp stand that half filled the bay,
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  Speaker 1: as though she had just turned from watching for me
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  Speaker 1: at the window. There was something in her pale face
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  Speaker 1: that arrested me. She looked as if she had not
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  Speaker 1: been sleeping. She did not come forward to greet me.
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  Speaker 1: You've come home, she said, as I wrote to you.
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  Speaker 1: She stood very still, a dusky figure against the bright window.
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  Speaker 1: Where have you been, she asked, east coast? I said, easily.
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  Speaker 1: She paused for a moment, I know, she said. I
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  Speaker 1: stared at her. It was the most amazing moment in
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  Speaker 1: any life, by jove, I said, at last, I believe
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  Speaker 1: you do, and then you come home to me. I
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  Speaker 1: walked to the hearth rug and stood quite still there
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  Speaker 1: regarding this new situation. I didn't dream. She began, How
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  Speaker 1: could you do such a thing? It seemed a long
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  Speaker 1: interval before either of us spoke another word. Who knows
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  Speaker 1: about it? I asked, at last, Smithy's brother. They were
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  Speaker 1: at Cromer confound Cromer. Yes, how could you bring yourself?
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  Speaker 1: I felt a spasm of petulant annoyance at this unexpected catastrophe.
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  Speaker 1: I should like to wring Smithy's brother's neck, I said,
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  Speaker 1: Marian spoke in dry, broken fragments of sentences. You. I'd
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  Speaker 1: always thought that anyhow, you couldn't deceive me. I suppose
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  Speaker 1: all men are horrid about this. It doesn't strike me
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  Speaker 1: as horrid. It seems to me the most necessary consequence
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  Speaker 1: and natural thing in the world. I became aware of
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  Speaker 1: some one moving about in the passage and went and
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  Speaker 1: shut the door of the room. Then I walked back
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  Speaker 1: to the hearth rug and turned. It's rough on you,
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  Speaker 1: I said, But I didn't mean you to know. You've
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  Speaker 1: never cared for me. I've had the devil of a time.
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  Speaker 1: Why should you mind? She sat down in a draped
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  Speaker 1: arm chair. I have cared for you, she said. I
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  Speaker 1: shrugged my shoulders. I suppose she said, she cares for you.
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  Speaker 1: I had no answer. Where is she now? Oh? Does
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  Speaker 1: it matter to you? Look here, Marian, this this I
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  Speaker 1: didn't anticipate. I didn't mean this thing to smash down
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  Speaker 1: on you like this, but you know something had to happen.
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  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, sorry to the bottom of my heart that
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  Speaker 1: things have come to this between us. But indeed I'm
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  Speaker 1: taken by surprise. I don't know where I am. I
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  Speaker 1: don't know how we got here. Things took me by surprise.
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  Speaker 1: I found myself alone with her one day. I kissed her.
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  Speaker 1: I went on. It seemed stupid to go back, And besides,
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  Speaker 1: why should I have gone back? Why should I? From
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  Speaker 1: first to last, I've hardly thought of it as touching you. Damn.
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  Speaker 1: She scrutinized my face and pulled at the balfringe of
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  Speaker 1: the little table beside her. To think of it, she said,
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  Speaker 1: I don't believe I can ever touch you again. We
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  Speaker 1: kept a long silence. I was only beginning to realize
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  Speaker 1: in the most superficial way the immense catastrophe that had
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  Speaker 1: happened between us. Enormous issues had rushed upon us. I
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  Speaker 1: felt unprepared and altogether inadequate. I was unreasonably angry. There
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  Speaker 1: came a rush of stupid expressions to my mind that
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  Speaker 1: my rising sense of the supreme importance of the moment
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  Speaker 1: saved me from saying. The gap of silence widened until
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  Speaker 1: it threatened to become the vast memorable margin of some
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  Speaker 1: one among a thousand trivial possibilities of speech that would
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  Speaker 1: vex our relations forever. Our little general servant tapped at
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  Speaker 1: the door. Marian always liked the servant to tap, and
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  Speaker 1: appeared tea mim, she said, and vanished, leaving the door open.
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  Speaker 1: I will go upstairs, said I, and stopped. I will
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  Speaker 1: go upstairs, I repeated, and put my bag in the
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  Speaker 1: spare room. We remained motionless and silent for a few seconds.
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  Speaker 1: Mother is having tea with us to day, Marian remarked
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  Speaker 1: at last, and dropped the worried end of a ball
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  Speaker 1: fringe and stood up slowly. And so, with this immense
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  Speaker 1: discussion of our change relations hanging over us, we presently
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  Speaker 1: had tea with the unsuspecting Missus Ramboat and the spaniel.
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  Speaker 1: Missus Rambolt was too well trained in her position to
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  Speaker 1: remark upon our somber preoccupation. She kept a thin trickle
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  Speaker 1: of talk going and told us, I remember that mister
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  Speaker 1: Rambolt was troubled about his cannas they don't come up,
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  Speaker 1: and they won't come up. He's been round and had
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  Speaker 1: an explanation with the man who sold him the bulbs,
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  Speaker 1: and he's very heated and upset. The spaniel was a
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  Speaker 1: great bore, begging and doing small tricks, first at one
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  Speaker 1: and then at the other of us, neither of us
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  Speaker 1: used his name. You see, we had called him Miggles
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  Speaker 1: and made a sort of trio in the baby talk
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  Speaker 1: of Muttney and Miggles and ming eight. Then presently we
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  Speaker 1: resumed our monstrous, momentous dialogue. I can't now make out
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  Speaker 1: how long that dialogue went on. It spread itself, I know,
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  Speaker 1: in heavy fragments, over either three days or four. I
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  Speaker 1: remember myself grouped with Marian talking, sitting on our bed
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  Speaker 1: in her room, talking standing in our dining room, saving
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  Speaker 1: this thing or that. Twice we went for long walks,
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  Speaker 1: and we had a long evening alone together with jaded
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  Speaker 1: nerves and hearts that fluctuated between a hard and dreary
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  Speaker 1: recognition of facts and on my part at least a strange,
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  Speaker 1: unwonted tenderness, because in some extraordinary way, this crisis had
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  Speaker 1: destroyed our mutual apathy and made us feel one another again.
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  Speaker 1: It was a dialogue that had discrepant parts, that fell
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  Speaker 1: into lumps of talk that failed to join on to
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  Speaker 1: their predecessors, that began again at a different level, higher
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  Speaker 1: or lower, that assumed new aspects in the intervals and
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  Speaker 1: assimilated new considerations. We discussed the fact that we two
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  Speaker 1: were no longer lovers. Never before had we faced that.
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  Speaker 1: It seems a strange thing to write, but as I
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  Speaker 1: look back, I see clearly that though several days were
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  Speaker 1: the time when Marian and I were closest together, looked
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  Speaker 1: for the first and last time, faithfully and steadfastly into
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  Speaker 1: each other's soul. For those days only, there were no pretenses.
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  Speaker 1: I made no concessions to her, nor she to me.
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  Speaker 1: We concealed nothing, exaggerated nothing we had done with pretending.
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  Speaker 1: We had it out plainly and soberly with each other.
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  Speaker 1: Mood followed mood and got its stark expression. Of course,
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  Speaker 1: there was quarreling between us, bitter quarreling, and we said
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  Speaker 1: things to one another, long, pent up things that bruised
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  Speaker 1: and crushed and cut. But over it all in my
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  Speaker 1: memory now is an effect of deliberate confrontation, and the
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  Speaker 1: figure of Marian stands up, pale, melancholy, tears stained, injured,
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  Speaker 1: implacable and dignified. You love her, she asked once, and
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  Speaker 1: jerked that doubt into my mind. I struggled with tangled
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  Speaker 1: ideas and emotions. I don't know what love is. It's
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  Speaker 1: all sorts of things. It's made up of a dozen
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  Speaker 1: strands twisted in a thousand ways. But you want her,
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  Speaker 1: You want her now when you think of her, Yes,
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  Speaker 1: I reflected, I want her right enough? And me, where
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  Speaker 1: do I come in? I suppose you come in here? Well,
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  Speaker 1: But what are you going to do do? I said,
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  Speaker 1: with the exasperation of the situation growing upon me, What
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  Speaker 1: do you want me to do? As I look back
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  Speaker 1: upon all that time, across a gulf of fifteen active years,
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  Speaker 1: I find I see it with an understanding judgment. I
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  Speaker 1: see it as if it were the business of some
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  Speaker 1: one else, indeed of two other people, intimately known, yet
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  Speaker 1: judged without passion. I see now that this shock, this sudden,
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  Speaker 1: immense disillusionment, did in real fact bring out a mind
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  Speaker 1: and soul in Marian, that for the first time she
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  Speaker 1: emerged from habits, timidities, imitations, phrases, and a certain narrow
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  Speaker 1: will impulse and became a personality. Her ruling motive at
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  Speaker 1: first was I think, an indignant and outraged pride. This
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  Speaker 1: situation must end. She asked me categorically to give up Effie,
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  Speaker 1: and I full of fresh and glowing memories. Absolutely refused.
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  Speaker 1: It's too late, marian, I said, it can't be done
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  Speaker 1: like that. Then we can't very well go on living together.
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  Speaker 1: She said, can we very well? I deliberated, If you
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  Speaker 1: must have it so well, can we? Can you stay
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  Speaker 1: in this house? I mean if I go away? I dunno.
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  Speaker 1: I don't think I could. Then what do you want?
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  Speaker 1: Slowly we worked our way from point to point until
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  Speaker 1: at last the word divorce was before us. If we
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  Speaker 1: can't live together, we ought to be free, said Marian,
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  Speaker 1: I don't know anything of divorce. I said, if you
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  Speaker 1: mean that, I don't know how it is done. I
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  Speaker 1: shall have to ask somebody or look it up. Perhaps,
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  Speaker 1: after all, it is the thing to do, we may
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  Speaker 1: as well face it. We began to talk ourselves into
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  Speaker 1: a realization of what our divergent futures might be. I
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  Speaker 1: came back on the evening of that day with my
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  Speaker 1: questions answered by a solicitor. We can't, as a matter
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  Speaker 1: of fact, I said, get divorced as things are apparently,
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  Speaker 1: so far as the law goes, you've got to stand
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  Speaker 1: this sort of thing. It's silly, but that is the law. However,
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  Speaker 1: it's easy to arrange a divorce. In addition to adultery,
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  Speaker 1: there must be desertion or cruelty. To establish cruelty, I
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  Speaker 1: should have to strike you or something of that sort
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  Speaker 1: before witnesses. That's impossible, but it's simple to desert you. Legally,
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  Speaker 1: I have to go away from you. That's all I
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  Speaker 1: can go on sending you money, and you bring a suit.
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  Speaker 1: What is it? The restitution of conjugal rights? The court
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  Speaker 1: orders me to return. I disobey, Then you can go
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  Speaker 1: on to divorce me. You get a decree NISI, and
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  Speaker 1: once more the court tries to make me come back.
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  Speaker 1: If we don't make it up within six months, and
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  Speaker 1: if you don't behave scandalously, the decree is made absolute.
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  Speaker 1: That's the end of the fuss. That's how one gets unmarried.
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  Speaker 1: It's easier, you see, to marry than unmarry. And then
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  Speaker 1: how do I live? What becomes of me? You'll have
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  Speaker 1: an income they call it alimony, from a third to
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  Speaker 1: a half of my present income. More if you like,
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  Speaker 1: I don't mind three hundred a year. Say you've got
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  Speaker 1: your old people to keep, and you'll need all that,
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  Speaker 1: and then then you'll be free, both of us, and
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  Speaker 1: all this life you've hated. I looked up at her
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  Speaker 1: wrung and bitter face. I haven't hated it. I lied,
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  Speaker 1: my voice near breaking with the pain of it all,
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  Speaker 1: have you nine? The perplexing thing about life is the
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  Speaker 1: irresolvable complexity of reality, of things and relations alike. Nothing
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  Speaker 1: is simple. Every wrong done has a certain justice in it,
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  Speaker 1: and every good deed has dregs of evil. As for us,
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  Speaker 1: young still and still without self knowledge, resounded a hundred
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  Speaker 1: discordant notes. In the harsh angle of that shock. We
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  Speaker 1: were furiously angry with each other, tender with each other,
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  Speaker 1: callously selfish, generously self sacrificing. I remember Marian saying innumerable
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  Speaker 1: detached things that didn't hang together, one with another, that
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  Speaker 1: contradicted one another, that were nevertheless, all in their places,
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  Speaker 1: profoundly true and sincere. I see them now as so
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  Speaker 1: many vain experiments. In her effort to apprehend the crumpled
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  Speaker 1: confusions of our complex moral landslide, some I found irritating
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  Speaker 1: beyond measure, I answered her, sometimes quite abominably. Of course,
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  Speaker 1: she would say, again and again, my life has been
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  Speaker 1: a failure. I've besieged you for three years, I would retort,
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  Speaker 1: asking it not to be you've done as you pleased,
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  Speaker 1: if I've turned away at last, or again, she would
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  Speaker 1: revive all the stresses before our marriage. How you must
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  Speaker 1: hate me, I made you. Wait. Well, now I suppose
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  Speaker 1: you have your revenge. Revenge, I echoed. Then she would
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  Speaker 1: try over the aspects of our new separated lives. I
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  Speaker 1: ought to earn my own living, she would insist. I
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  Speaker 1: want to be quite independent. I've always hated London. Perhaps
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  Speaker 1: I shall try a poultry farm and bees. You won't
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  Speaker 1: mind at first my being a burden. Afterwards we've settled
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  Speaker 1: all that, I said, I suppose you will hate me anyhow.
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  Speaker 1: There were times when she seemed to regard our separation
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  Speaker 1: with absolute complacency, when she would plan all sorts of
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  Speaker 1: freedoms and characteristic interests. I shall go out a lot
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  Speaker 1: with Smithy, she said, And once she said an ugly
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  Speaker 1: thing that I did indeed hate her for that I
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  Speaker 1: cannot even now quite forgive her. Your aunt will rejoice
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  Speaker 1: at all this. She never cared for me. Into my
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  Speaker 1: memory of these pains and stresses comes the figure of Smithy,
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  Speaker 1: full charged with emotion, so breathless in the presence of
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  Speaker 1: the hall, villain of the piece that she could make
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  Speaker 1: no articulate sounds. She had long, tearful confidences with Marian,
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  Speaker 1: I know sympathetic close clingings. There were moments when only
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  Speaker 1: absolute speechlessness prevented her giving me a stupendous talking to.
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  Speaker 1: I could see it in her eye, the wrong things
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  Speaker 1: she would have said. And I recalled too, missus Rambod's
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  Speaker 1: slow awakening to something in the air, the growing expression
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  Speaker 1: of solicitude in her eye, only her well trained fear
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  Speaker 1: of Marian keeping her from speech. And at last, through
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  Speaker 1: all this welter, like a thing faded and altogether beyond
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  Speaker 1: our control, parting came to Marian and me. I hardened
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  Speaker 1: my heart or I could not have gone for At
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  Speaker 1: the last it came to Marian that she was parting
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  Speaker 1: from me forever, That overbore all other things had turned
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  Speaker 1: our last hour to anguish. She forgot for a time
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  Speaker 1: the prospect of moving into a new house. She forgot
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  Speaker 1: the outrage on her proprietorship and pride. For the first
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  Speaker 1: time in her life, she really showed strong emotions in
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  Speaker 1: regard to me for the first time, perhaps they really
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  Speaker 1: came to her. She began to weep, slow, reluctant, tears.
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  Speaker 1: I came into her room and found her a sprawl
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  Speaker 1: on the bed, weeping. I didn't know, she cried, Oh,
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  Speaker 1: I didn't understand. I've been a fool. All my life
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  Speaker 1: is a wreck. I shall be alone. Mutiny, mutiny, don't
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  Speaker 1: leave me, Oh, mutiny, I didn't understand. I had to
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  Speaker 1: harden my heart. Indeed, for it seemed to me at
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  Speaker 1: moments in those last hours together, that at last, too late,
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  Speaker 1: the longed for thing had happened, and Marian had come alive.
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  Speaker 1: A new born hunger for me lit her eyes. Don't
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  Speaker 1: leave me, she said, don't leave me. She clung to me,
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  Speaker 1: She kissed me with tear salt lips. I was promised
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  Speaker 1: now and pledged, and I hearted my heart against this
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  Speaker 1: impossible dawn. Yet it seems to me that there were
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  Speaker 1: moments when it needed but a cry, but one were
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  Speaker 1: to have united us again for all our lives. Could
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  Speaker 1: we have united again? Would that passage have enlightened us forever?
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  Speaker 1: Or should we have fallen back in a week or
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  Speaker 1: so into the old estrangement, the old temperamental opposition of
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  Speaker 1: that there is now no telling. Our own resolve carried
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  Speaker 1: us on our predestined way we behaved more and more
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  Speaker 1: like separating lovers, parting inexorably. But all the preparations we
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: had set going worked on like a machine, and we
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  Speaker 1: made no attempt to stop them. My trunks and boxes
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  Speaker 1: went to the station. I packed my bag, with Marian
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: standing before me. We were like children who had hurt
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  Speaker 1: each other horribly in sheer stupidity, who didn't know now
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  Speaker 1: how to remedy it. We belonged to each other immensely, immensely.
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  Speaker 1: The cab came to the little iron gate, good bye,
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  Speaker 1: I said good bye. For a moment, we held one
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  Speaker 1: another in each other's arms and kissed incredibly without malice.
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  Speaker 1: We heard our little servant in the passage going to
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  Speaker 1: open the door for the last time. We pressed ourselves
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  Speaker 1: to one another. We were not lovers nor enemies, but
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  Speaker 1: two human souls in a frank community of pain. I
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  Speaker 1: tore myself from her, go away, I said to the servant.
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  Speaker 1: Seeing that Marian had followed me down, I felt her
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  Speaker 1: standing behind me as I spoke to the cabman. I
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  Speaker 1: got into the cab resolutely, not looking back, and then
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  Speaker 1: as it started, jumped up, craned out and looked at
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  Speaker 1: the door. It was wide open, but she had disappeared.
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  Speaker 1: I wonder I suppose she ran upstairs. End of Book,
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  Speaker 1: second Chapter four, Parts seven to nine. Recording by William
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  Speaker 1: tom Coe