Latest / The H. G. Wells Library / Ann Veronica Chapter 8 - Biology

Transcript

Ann Veronica Chapter 8 - Biology · The H. G. Wells Library

0:03
Speaker 1: Chapter eight of Anne Veronica. This is a LibriVox recording.
0:09
Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
0:12
Speaker 1: information not to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording
0:17
Speaker 1: by Joy Chan and Veronica by H. G. Wells. Chapter
0:23
Speaker 1: the eighth Biology, Part One January found Anne Veronica a
0:31
Speaker 1: student in the Biological Laboratory of the Central Imperial College
0:35
Speaker 1: that towers up from among the back streets in the
0:38
Speaker 1: angle between Euston Road and Great Portland Street. She was
0:42
Speaker 1: working very steadily at the advanced course in comparative anatomy,
0:46
Speaker 1: wonderfully relieved to have her mind engaged upon one methodically
0:49
Speaker 1: developing theme in the place of the discursive uncertainties of
0:53
Speaker 1: the previous two months, and doing her utmost to keep
0:57
Speaker 1: right in the back of her mind and out of
0:59
Speaker 1: sight the facts firstly that she had achieved this haven
1:03
Speaker 1: of satisfactory activity by incurring a debt to Rammage of
1:06
Speaker 1: forty pounds, and secondly that her present position was necessarily
1:11
Speaker 1: temporary and her outlook quite uncertain. The Biological laboratory had
1:16
Speaker 1: an atmosphere that was all its own. It was at
1:20
Speaker 1: the top of the building and looked clear over a
1:22
Speaker 1: clustering mass of inferior buildings towards Regent's Park. It was
1:26
Speaker 1: long and narrow, a well lit, well ventilated, quiet gallery
1:31
Speaker 1: of small tables and sinks, pervaded by a thin smell
1:34
Speaker 1: of methylated spirit and of a mitigated and sterilized organic decay.
1:40
Speaker 1: Along the inner side was a wonderfully arranged series of
1:43
Speaker 1: displayed specimens that Russell himself had prepared. The supreme effect
1:49
Speaker 1: for Anne Veronica was as surpassing relevance. It made every
1:53
Speaker 1: other atmosphere she knew seemed discursive and confused. The whole
1:57
Speaker 1: place and everything in it aimed at one thing, to illustrate,
2:00
Speaker 1: to elaborate, to criticize, and illuminate, and make ever plainer
2:05
Speaker 1: and plainer the significance of animal and vegetable structure. It
2:10
Speaker 1: dealt from floor to ceiling and end to end with
2:13
Speaker 1: the theory of the forms of life. The very duster
2:15
Speaker 1: by the blackboard was there to do its share in
2:17
Speaker 1: that work, the very washes in the taps. The room
2:21
Speaker 1: was more simply concentrated in aim even than a church,
2:25
Speaker 1: so that perhaps a large part of its satisfyingness was
2:28
Speaker 1: due contrasted with the confused movement and presences of a
2:32
Speaker 1: fabian meeting, or the inexplicable enthusiasm behind the suffrage demand,
2:37
Speaker 1: with the speeches that were partly egotistical displays, partly artful maneuvers,
2:42
Speaker 1: and partly incoherent cries for unsoundly formulated ends, compared with
2:47
Speaker 1: the comings and goings of audiences and supporters that were
2:50
Speaker 1: like the eddy driven drift of paper in the street.
2:53
Speaker 1: This long, quiet, methodical chamber shone like a star seen
2:57
Speaker 1: through clouds, day after day. For a measured hour in
3:02
Speaker 1: the lecture theater. With elaborate power and patience, Russell pieced
3:07
Speaker 1: together difficulty and suggestion, instance and counter instance in the
3:11
Speaker 1: elaborate construction of the family tree of life. And then
3:15
Speaker 1: the students went into the long laboratory and followed out
3:18
Speaker 1: these facts in almost living tissue with microscope and scalpel,
3:22
Speaker 1: probe and microtome, and the utmost of their skill and
3:26
Speaker 1: care making now and then arraid into the compact museum
3:30
Speaker 1: of illustration next door, in which specimens and models and
3:33
Speaker 1: directions stood in disciplined ranks under the direction of the
3:37
Speaker 1: demonstrator capes. There was a couple of blackboards at each
3:41
Speaker 1: end of the aisle of tables, and at these Capes,
3:44
Speaker 1: with quick and nervous speech that contrasted vividly with Russell's slow,
3:48
Speaker 1: definitive articulation, directed the dissection and made illuminating comments on
3:54
Speaker 1: the structures under examination. Then he would come along the laboratory,
3:59
Speaker 1: sitting down each student in turn, checking the work and
4:02
Speaker 1: discussing its difficulties and answering questions arising out of Russell's lecture.
4:09
Speaker 1: And Veronica had come to the Imperial College, obsessed by
4:12
Speaker 1: the great figure of Russell, by the part he had
4:15
Speaker 1: played in the Darrhinian controversies, and by the resolute effect
4:18
Speaker 1: of the grim lipped, yellow lionine face beneath the mane
4:22
Speaker 1: of silvery hair. Capes was rather discovery. Capes was something superadded.
4:28
Speaker 1: Russell burned like a beacon, but Capes illuminated by darting
4:32
Speaker 1: flashes and through light, even if it was but momentary
4:36
Speaker 1: light into a hundred corners that Russell left steadfastly in
4:40
Speaker 1: the shade. Capes was an exceptionally fair man of two
4:44
Speaker 1: or three and thirty, so readily blonde that it was
4:47
Speaker 1: a mercy he had escaped light eyelashes and with a
4:50
Speaker 1: miner but by no means contemptible reputation of his own.
4:55
Speaker 1: He talked at the blackboard in a pleasant, very slightly
4:58
Speaker 1: lisping voice with a curious spot, and was sometimes very
5:02
Speaker 1: clumsy in his exposition, and sometimes very vivid. He dissected
5:08
Speaker 1: rather awkwardly and hurriedly, but on the whole effectively, and
5:12
Speaker 1: drew with an impatient directness that made up in significance
5:15
Speaker 1: what it lacked in precision. Across the blackboard, the colored
5:19
Speaker 1: chalks flew like flights of variously tinted rockets, as diagram
5:23
Speaker 1: after diagram flickered into being. There happened that year to
5:28
Speaker 1: be an unusual proportion of girls and women in the
5:30
Speaker 1: Advanced Laboratory, perhaps because the class as a whole was
5:34
Speaker 1: an exceptionally small one. It numbered nine, and four of
5:38
Speaker 1: these were women's students. As a consequence of its small size,
5:43
Speaker 1: it was possible to get along with the work on
5:45
Speaker 1: a much easier and more colloquial footing than a larger
5:48
Speaker 1: class would have permitted, And a custom had grown up
5:51
Speaker 1: of a general tea at four o'clock under the auspices
5:54
Speaker 1: of a Miss Garvis, a tall and graceful girl of
5:57
Speaker 1: distinguished intellectual incompetence, in whom the hostess instinct seemed to
6:02
Speaker 1: be abnormally developed. Capes would come to these teas he
6:07
Speaker 1: evidently liked to come, and he would appear in the
6:09
Speaker 1: doorway of the preparation room, a pleasing note of shyness
6:13
Speaker 1: in his manner, hovering for an invitation from the first.
6:17
Speaker 1: Anne Veronica found him an exceptionally interesting man to begin with.
6:22
Speaker 1: He struck her as being the most variable person she
6:24
Speaker 1: had ever encountered. At times he was brilliant and masterful,
6:29
Speaker 1: talked round and over every one, and would have been
6:31
Speaker 1: domineering if he had not been extraordinarily kindly. At times
6:36
Speaker 1: he was almost monosyllabic and defeated Miss Scaves's most skillful
6:40
Speaker 1: attempts to draw him out. Sometimes he was obviously irritable
6:44
Speaker 1: and uncomfortable and unfortunate in his efforts to seem at ease,
6:49
Speaker 1: And sometimes he overflowed with a peculiarly malignant wit that
6:53
Speaker 1: played with devastating effect upon any topics that had the
6:57
Speaker 1: courage to face it. Anne Veronica, his experiences of men
7:01
Speaker 1: had been among more stable types, Teddy who was always absurd,
7:06
Speaker 1: her father, who was always authoritative and sentimental, Manning, who
7:10
Speaker 1: was always Manning, and most of the others she had
7:13
Speaker 1: met had she felt the same deadfastness. Goops, she was sure,
7:18
Speaker 1: was always high browed and slow and socratic. And Rammage too.
7:22
Speaker 1: About Rammage, there would always be that air of avidity,
7:26
Speaker 1: that air of knowledge and inquiry, the mixture of things
7:29
Speaker 1: in his talk that were rather good with things that
7:31
Speaker 1: were rather poor. But one could not count with any
7:35
Speaker 1: confidence upon Capes. The Five Men's students were a mixed company.
7:41
Speaker 1: There was a very white faced youngster of eighteen who
7:44
Speaker 1: brushed back his hair exactly in Russell's manner, and was
7:47
Speaker 1: disposed to be uncomfortably silent when he was near her,
7:50
Speaker 1: and to whom she felt it was only Christian kindness
7:53
Speaker 1: to be consistently pleasant, and a lax young man of
7:56
Speaker 1: five and twenty in navy blue. He mingled marks and
7:59
Speaker 1: baborn with the more orthodox gods of the biological pantheon.
8:04
Speaker 1: There was a short, red faced, resolute youth who inherited
8:07
Speaker 1: an authoritative attitude upon bacteriology from his father. A Japanese
8:13
Speaker 1: student of unassuming manners who drew beautifully and had an
8:17
Speaker 1: imperfect knowledge of English, and a dark, unwashed scotchman with
8:22
Speaker 1: complicated spectacles who would come every morning as a sort
8:25
Speaker 1: of volunteer supplementary demonstrator, looked very closely at her work
8:29
Speaker 1: and her tell her that her dissections were faiish or
8:32
Speaker 1: very faiish, indeed or high above the normal female standard,
8:37
Speaker 1: hover as if for some outbreak of passionate gratitude, and
8:41
Speaker 1: with admiring retrospects that made the faceted spectacles gleam like diamonds,
8:45
Speaker 1: returned to his own place. The women, and Veronica thought,
8:50
Speaker 1: were not quite so interesting as the men. There were
8:53
Speaker 1: two schoolmistresses, one of whom Miss Clegg might have been
8:57
Speaker 1: a first cousin to Miss Miniver, she had so many
9:00
Speaker 1: Mineva traits. There was a pure occupied girl whose name
9:03
Speaker 1: Anne Veronica never learned, but who worked remarkably well. And
9:07
Speaker 1: Miss Garvus, who began by attracting her very greatly she
9:11
Speaker 1: moved so beautifully, and ended by giving her the impression
9:14
Speaker 1: that moving beautifully was the beginning and end of her being.
9:22
Speaker 1: Part two. The next few weeks were a time of
9:25
Speaker 1: the very liveliest thought and growth for Anne Veronica. The
9:29
Speaker 1: crowding impressions of the previous weeks seemed to run together directly.
9:33
Speaker 1: Her mind left the chaotic search for employment and came
9:36
Speaker 1: to touch again with the coherent and systematic development of ideas.
9:41
Speaker 1: The advanced work at the Central Imperial College was in
9:44
Speaker 1: the closest touch with living interests and current controversies. It
9:48
Speaker 1: drew its illustrations and material from Russell's two great researches
9:53
Speaker 1: upon the relation of the brachiopods the echinodo bata, and
9:57
Speaker 1: upon the secondary antertiar mammalian and suono mammalian factors in
10:01
Speaker 1: the free laval forms of various marine organisms. Moreover, a
10:06
Speaker 1: rigorous fire of mutual criticism was going on now between
10:09
Speaker 1: the Imperial College and the Cambridge Mendelians, and echoed in
10:13
Speaker 1: the lectures from beginning to end. It was first hand stuff,
10:18
Speaker 1: but the influence of the science radiated far beyond its
10:21
Speaker 1: own special field, beyond those beautiful but highly technical problems
10:25
Speaker 1: with which we do not propose for a moment to
10:27
Speaker 1: trouble the naturally terrified reader. Biology is an extraordinarily digestive science.
10:34
Speaker 1: It throws out a number of broad experimental generalizations, and
10:38
Speaker 1: then sets out to bring into harmony or relation with these,
10:41
Speaker 1: an infinitely multifarious collection of phenomena, the little streaks upon
10:45
Speaker 1: the germinating area of an egg, the nervous movements of
10:48
Speaker 1: an impatient horse, the trick of a calculating boy, the
10:52
Speaker 1: senses of a fish, the fungus at the root of
10:55
Speaker 1: a garden flower, and the slime upon a sea wet rock.
10:59
Speaker 1: Ten thousand such things beare their witness and illuminated. And
11:03
Speaker 1: not only did these tentacular generalizations gather all the facts
11:06
Speaker 1: of natural history and comparative anatomy together, but they seemed
11:11
Speaker 1: always stretching out further and further into a world of
11:14
Speaker 1: interests that lay all together outside their legitimate bounds. It
11:19
Speaker 1: came to Anne Veronica one night, after a long talk
11:22
Speaker 1: with miss Miniver as a sudden, remarkable thing, as a
11:26
Speaker 1: grotesque novel aspect, that this slowly elaborating biological scheme had
11:31
Speaker 1: something more than an academic interest for herself, and not
11:34
Speaker 1: only so, but that it was, after all, a more
11:37
Speaker 1: systematic and particular method of examining just the same questions
11:41
Speaker 1: that underlay the discussions of the Fabian Society, the talk
11:45
Speaker 1: of the West Central Arts Club, the chatter of the
11:48
Speaker 1: studios and the deep, the bottomless discussions of the simple
11:52
Speaker 1: life homes. It was the same biles whose nature and
11:55
Speaker 1: drift and ways and methods and aspects engaged them all.
12:00
Speaker 1: And she she, in her own person, too, was this
12:03
Speaker 1: eternal bios beginning again its recurrent journey to selection and
12:08
Speaker 1: multiplication and failure or survival. But this was but a
12:13
Speaker 1: momentary gleam of personal application, and at this time she
12:17
Speaker 1: followed it up no further. And now Ann Veronica's evenings
12:21
Speaker 1: were also becoming very busy. She pursued her interest in
12:25
Speaker 1: the socialist movement and in the Suffragist agitation. In the
12:28
Speaker 1: company of Miss Minnever, they went to various central and
12:32
Speaker 1: local Fabian gatherings and to a number of suffrage meetings.
12:36
Speaker 1: Teddy Widget hovered on the fringe of all these gatherings,
12:39
Speaker 1: blinking at Anne Veronica and occasionally making a wildly friendly
12:43
Speaker 1: dash at her and carrying her Miss Miniver off to
12:45
Speaker 1: drink cocoa with a choice diversity of other youthful and
12:49
Speaker 1: congenial Fabians. After the meetings, then mister Manning loomed up
12:54
Speaker 1: ever and again into her world, full of a futile solicitude,
12:58
Speaker 1: and almost always declaring her she was splendid, splendid and
13:01
Speaker 1: wishing he could talk things out with her teas. He
13:05
Speaker 1: contributed to the Commissariat of Anne Veronica's campaign quite a
13:08
Speaker 1: number of teas. He would get her to come to
13:11
Speaker 1: tea with him, usually in a pleasant tea room over
13:14
Speaker 1: a fruit shop in Tottenham Court Road, and he would
13:17
Speaker 1: discuss his own point of view and hint at a
13:19
Speaker 1: thousand devotions were she but to command him, and he
13:22
Speaker 1: would express various artistic sensibilities and esthetic appreciations in carefully
13:28
Speaker 1: punctuated sentences and a large, clear voice. At Christmas he
13:33
Speaker 1: gave her a set of a small edition of Meredith's novels,
13:36
Speaker 1: very prettily bound and flexible leather, being guided in the
13:39
Speaker 1: choice of an author, as he intimated, rather by her
13:43
Speaker 1: preferences than his own. There was something markedly and deliberately
13:48
Speaker 1: liberal minded in his manner, and all their encounters he
13:51
Speaker 1: conveyed not only his sense of the extreme want of
13:53
Speaker 1: correctitude in their unsanctioned meetings, but also that, so far
13:57
Speaker 1: as he was concerned, this irregular mattered not at all.
14:01
Speaker 1: That he had flung and kept on flinging such considerations
14:05
Speaker 1: to the wind. And in addition, she was now seeing
14:09
Speaker 1: and talking to Rammage almost weakly on a theory which
14:12
Speaker 1: she took very gravely, that they were exceptionally friends. He
14:16
Speaker 1: would ask her to come to dinner with him in
14:18
Speaker 1: some little Italian or semi Bohemian restaurant in the district
14:22
Speaker 1: towards Soho, or in one of the more stylish and
14:25
Speaker 1: magnificent establishments around Piccadilly Circus, and for the most part
14:29
Speaker 1: she did not care to refuse, nor indeed did she
14:33
Speaker 1: want to refuse, these dinners, from their lavish display of
14:37
Speaker 1: ambiguous ordeuvs to their skimpy ices and dishes of frill paper,
14:41
Speaker 1: with their Chianti flasks and Palmesan dishes, and their polyglock
14:44
Speaker 1: waiters on polygot clarintel were very funny and bright, and
14:49
Speaker 1: she really liked Rammage and valued his help and advice.
14:53
Speaker 1: It was interesting to see how different and characteristic his
14:56
Speaker 1: mode of approach was to all sorts of questions that
14:59
Speaker 1: interested her, and it was amusing to discover this other
15:02
Speaker 1: side to the life of a morning Side Park inhabitant.
15:05
Speaker 1: She had thought that all Morningside Park householders came home
15:08
Speaker 1: before seven at the latest, as her father usually did.
15:12
Speaker 1: Rammage talked always about women or some woman's concern and
15:16
Speaker 1: very much about Anne Veronica's own outlook upon life. He
15:20
Speaker 1: was always drawing contrast between a woman's lot and a man's,
15:23
Speaker 1: and treating her as a wonderful new departure in this comparison.
15:27
Speaker 1: And Veronica liked their relationship all the more because it
15:30
Speaker 1: was an unusual one. After these dinners, they would have
15:34
Speaker 1: a walk, usually to the Thames Embankment to see the
15:37
Speaker 1: two sweeps a river on either side of Waterloo Bridge,
15:41
Speaker 1: and then they would part at Westminster Bridge perhaps and
15:44
Speaker 1: he would go on to Waterloo. Once he suggested they
15:47
Speaker 1: should go to a music hall and see a wonderful
15:49
Speaker 1: new dancer, but Anne Veronica did not feel she cared
15:52
Speaker 1: to see a new dancer, so instead they talked of
15:55
Speaker 1: dancing and what it might mean in a human life.
15:58
Speaker 1: Ann Veronica thought it was a spontaneous release of energy
16:01
Speaker 1: expressive of well being, but Ramage thought that by dancing,
16:05
Speaker 1: men and such birds and animals as dance come to
16:08
Speaker 1: feel and think of their bodies. This intercourse, which had
16:12
Speaker 1: been planned to warm and Veronica to a familiar affection
16:15
Speaker 1: with Ramage, was certainly warming Ramage to a constantly deepening
16:19
Speaker 1: interest in and Veronica. He felt that he was getting
16:22
Speaker 1: on with her very slowly, indeed, but he did not
16:25
Speaker 1: see how he could get on faster. He had, he felt,
16:28
Speaker 1: to create certain ideas and vivify certain curiosities and feelings
16:33
Speaker 1: in her, And till that was done, a certain experience
16:36
Speaker 1: of life assured him that a girl is a locked
16:39
Speaker 1: coldness against a man's approach. She had all the fascination
16:43
Speaker 1: of being absolutely perplexing in this respect. On the one hand,
16:47
Speaker 1: she seemed to think plainly and simply, and would talk
16:50
Speaker 1: serenely and freely about topics that most women had been
16:53
Speaker 1: trained either to avoid or conceal. And on the other
16:56
Speaker 1: she was unconscious or else she had an air of
16:59
Speaker 1: being an conscious that was the riddle to all sorts
17:02
Speaker 1: of personal applications that almost any girl or woman one
17:05
Speaker 1: might have thought would have made. He was always doing
17:10
Speaker 1: his best to call her attention to the fact that
17:12
Speaker 1: he was a man of spirit and quality and experience,
17:15
Speaker 1: and she a young and beautiful woman, and that all
17:18
Speaker 1: sorts of constructions upon their relationship were possible, trusting her
17:22
Speaker 1: to go on from that to the idea that all
17:24
Speaker 1: sorts of relationships were possible. She responded with an unfaltering
17:28
Speaker 1: appearance of insensibility, and never as a young and beautiful woman,
17:32
Speaker 1: conscious of sex, always in the character of an intelligent
17:35
Speaker 1: girl student. His perception of her personal beauty deepened and
17:40
Speaker 1: quickened with each encounter. Every now and then her general
17:44
Speaker 1: presence became radiantly dazzling in his eyes. She would appear
17:48
Speaker 1: in the street, coming toward him, a surprise, so fine
17:51
Speaker 1: and smiling and welcoming was she so expanded and illuminated
17:55
Speaker 1: and living in contrast with his mere expectation. Or he
18:00
Speaker 1: would find something, a wave in her hair, a little
18:03
Speaker 1: line in the contour of her brow or neck, that
18:05
Speaker 1: made an exquisite discovery. He was beginning to think about
18:10
Speaker 1: her inordinately. He would sit in his inner office and
18:13
Speaker 1: compose conversations with her, penetrating, illuminating, and nearly conclusive, conversations
18:19
Speaker 1: that never proved to be of the slightest use at
18:21
Speaker 1: all with her when he met her face to face,
18:24
Speaker 1: and he began also at times to wake at night
18:26
Speaker 1: and think about her. He thought of her and himself,
18:30
Speaker 1: and no longer in that vein of incidental adventure in
18:32
Speaker 1: which he had begun. He thought too of the fretful,
18:35
Speaker 1: invalid who lay in the next room to his, whose
18:38
Speaker 1: money had created his business and made his position in
18:41
Speaker 1: the world. I've had most of the things I wanted,
18:45
Speaker 1: said Rammage in the stillness of the night, Part three.
18:53
Speaker 1: For a time, Anne Veronica's family had desisted from direct
18:56
Speaker 1: offers of a free pardon. They were evidently waiting for
18:59
Speaker 1: her resources to come to an end. Neither father, aunt,
19:03
Speaker 1: nor brothers made a sign. And then one afternoon in
19:07
Speaker 1: early February, her aunt came up, in a state between
19:10
Speaker 1: expostulation and dignified resentment, but obviously very anxious for Anne
19:15
Speaker 1: Veronica's welfare. I had a dream in the night, she said.
19:19
Speaker 1: I saw you in a sort of sloping, slippery place,
19:22
Speaker 1: holding on by your hands and slipping. You seemed to
19:26
Speaker 1: me to be slipping and slipping, and your face was white.
19:29
Speaker 1: It was really most vivid, most vivid. You seemed to
19:33
Speaker 1: be slipping and just going to tumble and holding on.
19:36
Speaker 1: It made me wake up, And there I lay thinking
19:38
Speaker 1: of you spending your nights up here, all alone and
19:41
Speaker 1: no one to look after you. I wondered what you
19:44
Speaker 1: could be doing and what might be happening to you,
19:47
Speaker 1: I said to myself at once, either this is a
19:49
Speaker 1: coincidence of the caper source. But I made sure it
19:52
Speaker 1: was you. I felt I must do something anyhow, and
19:56
Speaker 1: up I came just as soon as I could to
19:57
Speaker 1: see you. She had spoken rather rapidly. I can't help
20:03
Speaker 1: saying it, she said, with the quality of her voice altering.
20:07
Speaker 1: But I do not think it is right for an
20:09
Speaker 1: unprotected girl to be in London alone as you are.
20:14
Speaker 1: But I'm quite equal to taking care of myself. Aunt.
20:17
Speaker 1: It must be most uncomfortable here. It is most uncomfortable
20:21
Speaker 1: for everyone concerned. She spoke with a certain asperity. She
20:27
Speaker 1: felt that Anne Veronica had duped her in that dream,
20:30
Speaker 1: and now that she had come up to London, she
20:32
Speaker 1: might as well speak her mind. No Christmas dinner, she said,
20:36
Speaker 1: or anything nice. One doesn't even know what you're doing.
20:41
Speaker 1: I'm going on working for my degree. Why couldn't you
20:44
Speaker 1: do that at home? I'm working at the Imperial College,
20:49
Speaker 1: you see, Aunt. It's the only possible way for me
20:51
Speaker 1: to get a good degree in my subjects. And father
20:53
Speaker 1: won't hear of it. There'd only be endless rouse if
20:56
Speaker 1: I was at home. And how could I come home
20:58
Speaker 1: when he locks me in rooms? And all that? I
21:02
Speaker 1: do wish this wasn't going on, said Miss Stanley, after
21:06
Speaker 1: a pause. I do wish you and your father could
21:08
Speaker 1: come to some agreement. Anne Veronica responded with conviction. I
21:14
Speaker 1: wish so too. Can't we arrange something? Can't we make
21:19
Speaker 1: a sort of treaty? He wouldn't keep it. He would
21:23
Speaker 1: get very cross one evening, and no one would dare
21:25
Speaker 1: to remind him of it. How can you say such things?
21:29
Speaker 1: But he would Still, it isn't your place to say
21:33
Speaker 1: so it prevents a treaty. Couldn't I make a treaty,
21:40
Speaker 1: Anne Veronica thought, and could not see any possible treaty
21:43
Speaker 1: that would leave it open for her to have quasi
21:45
Speaker 1: surreptitious dinners with Rammage, or go on walking round the
21:48
Speaker 1: London squares discussing socialism with Miss Miniver toward the small hours.
21:53
Speaker 1: She had tasted freedom now, and so far she had
21:56
Speaker 1: not felt the need of protection. Still, there certainly was
21:59
Speaker 1: some thing in the idea of a treaty. I don't
22:03
Speaker 1: see at all how you can be managing, said Miss Stanley,
22:07
Speaker 1: and ann Veronica hastened to reply, I do on very little.
22:12
Speaker 1: Her mind went back to that treaty, and aren't there
22:16
Speaker 1: fees to pay at the Imperial College. Her aunt was
22:19
Speaker 1: saying a disagreeable question. There are a few fees, then
22:25
Speaker 1: how have you managed bother? Said Anne Veronica to herself,
22:29
Speaker 1: and tried not to look guilty. I was able to
22:32
Speaker 1: borrow the money, borrow the money. But who lent you
22:36
Speaker 1: the money? A friend? Said Anne Veronica. She felt herself
22:41
Speaker 1: getting into a corner. She sought hastily in her mind
22:44
Speaker 1: for a plausible answer to an obvious question that didn't come.
22:49
Speaker 1: Her aunt went off at a tangent but my dear
22:52
Speaker 1: Anne Veronica, you'll be getting into debt. And Veronica at once,
22:58
Speaker 1: and with a feeling of immense relief, took refuge in
23:00
Speaker 1: her dignity, I think, Aunt, she said, you must trust
23:05
Speaker 1: to my self respect to keep me out of that.
23:09
Speaker 1: For the moment, her aunt could not think of any
23:11
Speaker 1: reply to this counter stroke, and Anne Veronica followed up
23:15
Speaker 1: her advantage by a sudden inquiry about her abandoned boots.
23:19
Speaker 1: But in the train going home, her aunt reasoned it out.
23:23
Speaker 1: If she is borrowing money, said miss Stanley, she must
23:26
Speaker 1: be getting it a debt. It's all nonsense. Part four.
23:34
Speaker 1: It was by imperceptible degrees that Capes became important in
23:37
Speaker 1: Anne Veronica's thoughts. But then he began to take steps,
23:41
Speaker 1: and at last strides to something more and more like predominance.
23:46
Speaker 1: She began by being interested in his demonstrations and his
23:49
Speaker 1: biological theory. Then she was attracted by his character, and
23:54
Speaker 1: then in a manner, she fell in love with his mind.
23:58
Speaker 1: One day they were at tea in the Laboroy, and
24:00
Speaker 1: a discussion sprang up about the question of women's suffrage.
24:04
Speaker 1: The movement was then in its earlier militant phases, and
24:07
Speaker 1: one of the women, only Miss Garvis, opposed it. Though
24:11
Speaker 1: Anne Veronica was disposed to be lukewarm, but a man's
24:15
Speaker 1: opposition always inclined her to the suffrage side. She had
24:18
Speaker 1: a curious feeling of loyalty in seeing the more aggressive
24:21
Speaker 1: women through Capes was irritatingly judicial in the matter, neither
24:26
Speaker 1: absurdly against, in which case one might have smashed him,
24:29
Speaker 1: or hopelessly undecided but tepidly skeptical. Miss Clegg and the
24:34
Speaker 1: youngest girl made a vigorous attack on Miss Galvas, who
24:37
Speaker 1: had said she thought women lost something infinitely precious by
24:41
Speaker 1: mingling in the conflicts of life. The discussion wandered and
24:44
Speaker 1: was punctuated with bread and butter. Capes was inclined to
24:48
Speaker 1: support Miss Clegg until Miss Garvis cornered him by quoting
24:51
Speaker 1: him against himself and citing a recent paper in the
24:54
Speaker 1: nineteenth century in which, following Atkinson, he had made a
24:58
Speaker 1: vigorous and damaging attack on less Ward's case for the
25:01
Speaker 1: primitive metriarchate and the predominant importance of the female throughout
25:05
Speaker 1: the animal kingdom. Anne Veronica was not aware of this
25:09
Speaker 1: literary side of her teacher. She had a little tinge
25:12
Speaker 1: of annoyance at Miss Garvuss's advantage. Afterwards, she hunted up
25:16
Speaker 1: the article in question, and it seemed to her quite
25:19
Speaker 1: delightfully written, and argued Capes had the gift of easy,
25:22
Speaker 1: unaffected writing coupled with very clear and logical thinking, and
25:27
Speaker 1: to follow his written thought gave her the sensation of
25:29
Speaker 1: cutting things with a perfectly new, perfectly sharp knife. She
25:34
Speaker 1: found herself anxious to read more of him, and the
25:36
Speaker 1: next Wednesday she went to the British Museum and hunted
25:39
Speaker 1: first among the half Crown magazines for his essays, and
25:43
Speaker 1: then through various scientific quarterlies for his research papers. The
25:47
Speaker 1: Ordinary Research Paper when it is not extravagant, theorizing is
25:51
Speaker 1: apt to be rather sawdusty in texture, and Anne Veronica
25:54
Speaker 1: was delighted to find the same easy and confident luminosity
25:58
Speaker 1: that distinguished his work for the general reader. She returned
26:02
Speaker 1: to these latter, and at the back of her mind
26:05
Speaker 1: as she looked them over again, was a very distinctive
26:08
Speaker 1: resolve to quote them after the manner of Miss Garvs
26:10
Speaker 1: at the very first opportunity. When she got home to
26:14
Speaker 1: her lodgings that evening, she reflected with something like surprise
26:16
Speaker 1: upon her half day's employment, and decided that it showed
26:20
Speaker 1: nothing more nor less than that Capes was a really
26:23
Speaker 1: very interest in pursing. Indeed, and then she fell into
26:26
Speaker 1: amusing about Capes. She wondered why he was so distinctive,
26:30
Speaker 1: so unlike are the men, And it never occurred to
26:33
Speaker 1: her for some time that this might be because she was
26:36
Speaker 1: falling in love with him. Part five. Yet Anne Veronica
26:42
Speaker 1: was thinking a very great deal about love. A dozen
26:46
Speaker 1: shynesses and intellectual barriers were being outflanked or broken down
26:49
Speaker 1: in her mind. All the influences about her work, with
26:53
Speaker 1: her own predisposition and against all the traditions of her
26:56
Speaker 1: home and upbringing to deal with the facts of life
26:59
Speaker 1: in an unabashed mann, Rammage, by a hundred skillful hints,
27:03
Speaker 1: had led her to realize that the problem of her
27:05
Speaker 1: own life was inseparably associated with, and indeed only one
27:09
Speaker 1: special case of the problems of any woman's life, and
27:13
Speaker 1: that the problem of a woman's life is love. A
27:17
Speaker 1: young man comes into life asking how best he may
27:19
Speaker 1: place himself, Rammage had said. A woman comes into life
27:23
Speaker 1: thinking instinctively how best she may give herself. She noted
27:28
Speaker 1: that as a good saying, and germinated and spread tentacles
27:31
Speaker 1: of explanation through her brain. The biological laboratory, perpetually viewing
27:36
Speaker 1: life as pairing and breeding, and selection and again pairing
27:40
Speaker 1: and breeding, seemed only a translated generalization of that assertion,
27:45
Speaker 1: and all the talk of the miniver people and the
27:47
Speaker 1: widget people seemed always to be like a ship in
27:49
Speaker 1: adverse weather on the lee shore of love. For seven years,
27:53
Speaker 1: said Anne Veronica, I have been trying to keep myself
27:56
Speaker 1: from thinking about love. I have been training myself to
28:00
Speaker 1: look askance at beautiful things. She gave her sup permission
28:04
Speaker 1: now to look at this squarely. She made herself a
28:07
Speaker 1: private declaration of liberty. This is mere nonsense, mere tongue
28:11
Speaker 1: tied fear, she said, This is the slavery of the
28:14
Speaker 1: veiled life. I might as well be at Morningside Park.
28:17
Speaker 1: This business of love is the supreme affair in life.
28:20
Speaker 1: It is the woman's one event and crisis that makes
28:23
Speaker 1: up for all her other restrictions. And I cower, as
28:26
Speaker 1: we all cower, with a blushing and parentalized mind, until
28:29
Speaker 1: it overtakes me. I'll be hanged if I do. But
28:34
Speaker 1: she could not talk freely about love. She found for
28:36
Speaker 1: all that manumission Rummage seemed always fencing about the forbidden topic,
28:41
Speaker 1: probing for openings, and she wondered why she did not
28:44
Speaker 1: give him them. But something instinctive prevented that, And with
28:48
Speaker 1: the finest resolve not to be silly and prudish, she
28:51
Speaker 1: found that whenever he became at all bold in this matter,
28:54
Speaker 1: she became severely scientific and impersonal, almost entomological. Indeed, in
28:59
Speaker 1: her method, she killed every remark as he made it
29:02
Speaker 1: and pinned it out for examination in the biological laboratory.
29:06
Speaker 1: That was their invincible tone. But she disapproved more and
29:11
Speaker 1: more of her own mental austerity. Here was an experienced
29:15
Speaker 1: man of the world, her friend, who evidently took a
29:18
Speaker 1: great interest in this supreme topic and was willing to
29:21
Speaker 1: give her the benefit of his experiences. Why should not
29:24
Speaker 1: she be at her ease with him? Why should not
29:27
Speaker 1: she know things? It is hard enough any hew or
29:30
Speaker 1: human being to learn, she decided, But it is a
29:33
Speaker 1: dozen times more difficult than it need be because of
29:35
Speaker 1: all this locking of the lips and thoughts. She contrived
29:39
Speaker 1: to break down the barriers of shyness at last in
29:41
Speaker 1: one direction, and talked one night of Love and the
29:44
Speaker 1: Facts of Love with Miss Minov. But Miss Minova was
29:47
Speaker 1: highly unsatisfactory. She repeated phrases of missus Goop's advanced people,
29:53
Speaker 1: she said, with an air of great elucidation, tend to
29:56
Speaker 1: generalize love. He prayeth best, who loveth best all things,
30:00
Speaker 1: both great and small. For my own part, I go
30:03
Speaker 1: about loving, Yes, but men, Anne Veronica plunging, don't you
30:09
Speaker 1: want the love of men? For some seconds they remained silent,
30:14
Speaker 1: both shocked by this question. Miss Minerva looked over her
30:18
Speaker 1: glasses at her friend, almost bayfully. No, she said, at last,
30:23
Speaker 1: with something in her voice that reminded Anne Veronica of
30:26
Speaker 1: a sprung tennis racket. I've been through all that, she
30:30
Speaker 1: went on. After a pause, she spoke slowly. I have
30:35
Speaker 1: never yet met a man whose intellect I could respect.
30:40
Speaker 1: Anne Veronica looked at her thoughtfully for a moment and
30:43
Speaker 1: decided to persist on principle. But if you had, she said,
30:48
Speaker 1: I can't imagine it, said Miss Minneva. And think think
30:53
Speaker 1: Her voice sank of the horrible coarseness. What coarseness? Said
30:59
Speaker 1: Anne Verona, My dear v Her voice became very low.
31:05
Speaker 1: Don't you know, oh? I know well. Her face was
31:11
Speaker 1: an unaccustomed pink, and Veronica ignored her friend's confusion. Don't
31:17
Speaker 1: we all rather humbug about the coarseness, all we women?
31:20
Speaker 1: I mean, said she. She decided to go on after
31:24
Speaker 1: a momentary halt. We pretend bodies are ugly. Really they
31:28
Speaker 1: are the most beautiful things in the world. We pretend
31:31
Speaker 1: we never think of everything that makes us what we are. No,
31:35
Speaker 1: cried Miss Miniver almost vehebently, you are wrong. I did
31:39
Speaker 1: not think you thought such things. Bodies bodies horrible things.
31:43
Speaker 1: We are souls. Love lives on a higher plain. We
31:47
Speaker 1: are not animals. If ever, I did meet a man
31:50
Speaker 1: I could love, I should love him. Her voice dropped again. Platonically,
31:56
Speaker 1: she made her glasses glint absolutely platonically, she said, soul
32:02
Speaker 1: to soul. She turned her face to the fire, gripped
32:06
Speaker 1: her hands upon her elbows, and drew her thin shoulders
32:10
Speaker 1: together in a shrug. Ah, she said, and Veronica watched
32:15
Speaker 1: her and wondered about her. We do not want the men,
32:18
Speaker 1: said miss Miniver. We do not want them, with their
32:21
Speaker 1: sneers and loud laughter, empty, silly, coarse brutes. Brutes. They
32:26
Speaker 1: are the brutes still with us. Science some day may
32:29
Speaker 1: teach us a way to do without them. It is
32:32
Speaker 1: only the women matter. It is not every sort of
32:34
Speaker 1: creature needs these males. Some have no males. There's green fly,
32:41
Speaker 1: admitted Anne Veronica. And even then the conversation hung for
32:47
Speaker 1: a thoughtful moment, and Veronica readjusted her chin on her hand.
32:53
Speaker 1: I wonder which of us is right, she said. I
32:56
Speaker 1: haven't a scrap of this sort of aversion. Tolstoy is
33:01
Speaker 1: so good about this, said miss Minoval, regardless of her
33:04
Speaker 1: friend's attitude. He sees through it all, the higher life
33:08
Speaker 1: and the lower. He sees men all defiled by coarse thoughts,
33:12
Speaker 1: coarse ways of living, cruelties simply because they are hardened
33:15
Speaker 1: by by bestiality and poisoned by the juices of meats
33:19
Speaker 1: lain in anger and fermented drinks, fancy drinks that have
33:23
Speaker 1: been swarmed in by thousands and thousands of horrible little bacteria.
33:28
Speaker 1: It's yeast, said An Veronica, A vegetable, it's all the same,
33:33
Speaker 1: said Miss MINEV. And then they are swollen up and
33:36
Speaker 1: inflamed and drunken with matter. They are blinded to all
33:39
Speaker 1: fine and subtle things. They look at life with bloodshot
33:42
Speaker 1: eyes and dilated nostrils. They are arbitrary and unjust, and dogmatic,
33:46
Speaker 1: and brutish and lustful. But do you really think men's
33:51
Speaker 1: minds are altered by the fruit they eat? I know it,
33:55
Speaker 1: said Miss minivh expert credo. When I am leading a
33:59
Speaker 1: true life, a pure and simple life, free of all
34:01
Speaker 1: stimulants and excitements, I think, I think, oh, with pellucid clearness.
34:07
Speaker 1: But if I so much as take a mouthful of
34:08
Speaker 1: meat or anything, the mirror is all blurred. Part six.
34:18
Speaker 1: Then arising she knew not how like a newborn appetite
34:22
Speaker 1: came a craving in Ann Veronica for the sight and
34:25
Speaker 1: sound of beauty. It was as if her esthetic sense
34:29
Speaker 1: had become inflamed. Her mind turned and accused itself of
34:32
Speaker 1: having been cold and hard. She began to look for
34:35
Speaker 1: beauty and discover it in unexpected aspects and places. Hitherto,
34:40
Speaker 1: she had seen it chiefly in pictures and other works
34:42
Speaker 1: of art, incidentally, and as a thing taken out of life.
34:47
Speaker 1: Now the sense of beauty was spreading to a multitude
34:49
Speaker 1: of hitherto unsuspected aspects of the world about her. The
34:53
Speaker 1: thought of beauty became an obsession. It interwove with her
34:56
Speaker 1: biological work. She found herself asking more and more curiously, why,
35:02
Speaker 1: on the principle of the survival of the fittest have
35:04
Speaker 1: I any sense of beauty at all? That enabled her
35:08
Speaker 1: to go on thinking about beauty when it seemed to
35:11
Speaker 1: her right that she should be thinking about biology. She
35:15
Speaker 1: was very greatly exercised by the two systems of values,
35:18
Speaker 1: the two series of explanations that her comparative anatomy on
35:21
Speaker 1: the one hand and her sense of beauty on the
35:23
Speaker 1: other set going in her thoughts. She could not make
35:27
Speaker 1: up her mind which was the finer, more elemental thing
35:30
Speaker 1: which gave its values to the other. Was it that
35:33
Speaker 1: the struggle of things to survive produced, as a sort
35:35
Speaker 1: of necessary by product, these intense preferences and appreciations. Or
35:40
Speaker 1: was it that some mystical outer thing, some great force,
35:43
Speaker 1: drove life beauty would even in spite of expediency, regardless
35:47
Speaker 1: of survival value, in all the manifest discretions of life.
35:51
Speaker 1: She went to Capes with that riddle and put it
35:53
Speaker 1: to him very carefully and clearly, and he talked well.
35:57
Speaker 1: He always talked at some length when she took a
35:59
Speaker 1: difficulty to him, and sent her to a various literature
36:02
Speaker 1: upon the markings of butterflies, the incomprehensible elaboration and splendor
36:06
Speaker 1: of birds of paradise and humming bird's plumes, the patterning
36:10
Speaker 1: of tigers and a leopard's spots. He was interesting and inconclusive,
36:16
Speaker 1: and the original papers to which he referred her discursive
36:19
Speaker 1: were at best only suggestive. Afterward, one afternoon he hovered
36:24
Speaker 1: about her, and came and sat beside her, and talked
36:27
Speaker 1: of beauty and the riddle of beauty for some time.
36:30
Speaker 1: He displayed a quite unprofessional vein of mysticism in the matter.
36:33
Speaker 1: He contrasted with Russell, whose intellectual methods were, so to speak,
36:38
Speaker 1: skeptically dogmatic. They talk drifted to the beauty of music,
36:42
Speaker 1: and they took that up again at tea time, but
36:45
Speaker 1: as the student sat about Miss Garvas's teapot and drank
36:48
Speaker 1: tea or smoked cigarettes, the talk got away from capes.
36:52
Speaker 1: The scotchman informed and Veronica that your view of beauty
36:55
Speaker 1: necessarily depended on your metaphysical premises, and the young man
36:59
Speaker 1: with the Russell like hair became anxious to distinguish himself
37:02
Speaker 1: by telling the Japanese student that Western art was symmetrical
37:05
Speaker 1: and Eastern art asymmetrical, and that among the higher organisms,
37:10
Speaker 1: the tendency was toward an external symmetry, veiling an internal
37:13
Speaker 1: want of balance. And Veronica decided she would have to
37:17
Speaker 1: go on with capes another day, and looking up, discovered
37:20
Speaker 1: him sitting on a stool with his hands in his
37:22
Speaker 1: pocket and his head a little on one side, regarding
37:25
Speaker 1: her with a thoughtful expression. She met his eye for
37:29
Speaker 1: a moment in curious surprise. He turned his eyes and
37:32
Speaker 1: stared at Miss Gavas like one who wakes from a reverie,
37:35
Speaker 1: and then got up and strolled down the laboratory toward
37:37
Speaker 1: his refuge, the preparation room. Part seven. Then one day
37:46
Speaker 1: a little thing happened that clothed itself in significance. She
37:50
Speaker 1: had been working upon a ribbon of microtome sections of
37:52
Speaker 1: the developing salamander, and he came to see what she
37:55
Speaker 1: had made of them. She stood up, and he sat
37:58
Speaker 1: down at the microscope, and for a time he was
38:01
Speaker 1: busy scrutinizing one section after another. She looked down at
38:05
Speaker 1: him and saw that the sunlight was gleaming from his cheeks,
38:08
Speaker 1: and that all over his cheeks was a fine golden
38:10
Speaker 1: down of delicate hairs. And at the sight something leapt
38:14
Speaker 1: within her. Something changed for her. She became aware of
38:18
Speaker 1: his presence as she had never been aware of any
38:21
Speaker 1: human being in her life before. She became aware of
38:24
Speaker 1: the modeling of his ear, of the muscles of his neck,
38:27
Speaker 1: and the textures of the hair that came off his brow,
38:30
Speaker 1: the soft, minute curve of eyelid that she could just
38:33
Speaker 1: see beyond his brow. She perceived all these familiar objects
38:37
Speaker 1: as though they were acutely beautiful things. They were, she
38:41
Speaker 1: realized acutely beautiful things. Her sense followed the shoulders under
38:46
Speaker 1: his coat down to wear. His flexible, sensitive looking hand
38:50
Speaker 1: rested lightly upon the table. She felt him as something
38:53
Speaker 1: solid and strong and trustworthy beyond measure. The perception of
38:58
Speaker 1: him flooded her being. He got up. Here's something rather good,
39:03
Speaker 1: he said, and with a start and an effort, she
39:06
Speaker 1: took his place at the microscope. While he stood beside
39:09
Speaker 1: her and almost leaning over her, she found she was
39:12
Speaker 1: trembling at his nearness and full of a thrilling dread
39:15
Speaker 1: that he might touch her. She pulled herself together and
39:18
Speaker 1: put her eye to the eye piece. You see the pointer,
39:21
Speaker 1: he asked, I see the pointer? She said. It's like this,
39:27
Speaker 1: he said, and dragged a stool beside her, and sat
39:30
Speaker 1: down with his elbow four inches from hers, and made
39:32
Speaker 1: a sketch. Then he got up and left her. She
39:36
Speaker 1: had a feeling at his departure as of an immense
39:39
Speaker 1: cavity of something enormously gone. She could not tell whether
39:43
Speaker 1: it was infinite regret or infinite relief. But now Anne
39:47
Speaker 1: Veronica knew what was the matter with her. Part nine.
39:54
Speaker 1: The realization that she was in love flooded Anne Veronica's
39:57
Speaker 1: mind and altered the quality of all its topic. She
40:01
Speaker 1: began to think persistently of Capes, And it seemed to
40:04
Speaker 1: her now that for some weeks at least she must
40:06
Speaker 1: have been thinking persistently of him unawares. She was surprised
40:10
Speaker 1: to find how stored her mind was with impressions and
40:13
Speaker 1: memories of him, how vividly she remembered his gestures and
40:17
Speaker 1: little things that he had said. It occurred to her
40:20
Speaker 1: that it was absurd and wrong to be so continuously
40:22
Speaker 1: thinking of one engrossing topic, and she made a strenuous
40:26
Speaker 1: effort to force her mind to other questions. But it
40:29
Speaker 1: was extraordinary what seemingly irrelevant things could restore her to
40:33
Speaker 1: the thought of Capes again. And when she went to sleep,
40:36
Speaker 1: then always Capes became the novel and wonderful guest of
40:39
Speaker 1: her dreams. For a time, it really seemed all sufficient
40:43
Speaker 1: to her that she should love. That Capes should love
40:46
Speaker 1: her seemed beyond the compass of her imagination. Indeed, she
40:50
Speaker 1: did not want to think of him as loving her.
40:53
Speaker 1: She wanted to think of him as her beloved person,
40:55
Speaker 1: to be near him and watch him, to have him
40:58
Speaker 1: going about doing this and that, saying this and that,
41:01
Speaker 1: unconscious of her, while she too remained unconscious of herself.
41:06
Speaker 1: To think of him as loving her would make all
41:08
Speaker 1: that different. Then he would turn his face to her,
41:11
Speaker 1: and she would have to think of herself in his eyes.
41:14
Speaker 1: She would become defensive. What she did would be the
41:17
Speaker 1: thing that mattered. He would require things of her. She
41:20
Speaker 1: would be passionately concerned to meet his requirements. Loving was
41:25
Speaker 1: better than that loving with self forgetfulness, pure delighting in
41:29
Speaker 1: another human being. She felt that with Capes near to her,
41:32
Speaker 1: she would be content always to go on loving. She
41:36
Speaker 1: went next day to the schools, and her world seemed
41:39
Speaker 1: all made of happiness, just worked up roughly into shapes
41:42
Speaker 1: and occasions and duties. She felt she could do her
41:45
Speaker 1: microscope work all the better for being in love. She
41:48
Speaker 1: winced when first she heard the preparation room door open
41:51
Speaker 1: and Capes came down the laboratory. But when at last
41:54
Speaker 1: he reached her, she was self possessed. She put a
41:57
Speaker 1: stool for him at a little distance from her own,
42:00
Speaker 1: and after he had seen the day's work, he hesitated
42:02
Speaker 1: and then plunged into a resumption of their discussion about beauty.
42:08
Speaker 1: I think, he said, I was a little too mystical
42:11
Speaker 1: about beauty the other day. I like the mystical way,
42:15
Speaker 1: she said, our business here is the right way. I've
42:20
Speaker 1: been thinking. You know, I'm not sure that primarily the
42:23
Speaker 1: perception of beauty isn't just intensity of feeling, free from pain,
42:27
Speaker 1: intensity of perception without any tissue destruction. I like the
42:33
Speaker 1: mystical way better, said Anne Veronica. In thought, A number
42:37
Speaker 1: of beautiful things are not intense, but delicacy, for example,
42:42
Speaker 1: may be intensely perceived. But why is one face beautiful
42:47
Speaker 1: and another not, objected Anne Veronica. On your theory, any
42:51
Speaker 1: two faces side by side in the sunlight ought to
42:53
Speaker 1: be equally beautiful. One must get them with exactly the
42:57
Speaker 1: same intensity. He did not agree with that. I don't
43:02
Speaker 1: mean simply intensity of sensation, I said intensity of perception.
43:07
Speaker 1: You may perceive harmony, proportioned rhythm intensely. They are things
43:12
Speaker 1: faint and slight in themselves as physical facts, but they
43:15
Speaker 1: are like the detonator of a bomb. They let loose
43:18
Speaker 1: the explosive. There's the internal factor as well as the external.
43:22
Speaker 1: I don't know if I express myself clearly. I mean
43:25
Speaker 1: that the point is that vividness of perception is the
43:28
Speaker 1: essential factor of beauty. But of course vividness may be
43:32
Speaker 1: created by a whisper. That brings us back, said Anne Veronica,
43:38
Speaker 1: to the mystery, why should some things and not others
43:41
Speaker 1: open the deeps? Well, that might, after all be an
43:45
Speaker 1: outcome of selection, like the preference for blue flowers, which
43:49
Speaker 1: are not nearly so bright as yellow of some insects.
43:53
Speaker 1: That doesn't explain sunsets, not quite so easily as it
43:58
Speaker 1: explains an insect alighting on colored paper. But perhaps if
44:02
Speaker 1: people didn't like clear, bright, healthy eyes, which is biologically understandable,
44:07
Speaker 1: they couldn't like precious stones. One thing may be a
44:10
Speaker 1: necessary collateral of the others. And after all, a fine,
44:14
Speaker 1: clear sky of bright colors is the signal to come
44:17
Speaker 1: out of hiding and rejoice and go on with life.
44:21
Speaker 1: Hum said Anne Veronica and shook her head. Kate smiled
44:26
Speaker 1: cheerfully with his eyes meeting hers. I throw it out
44:29
Speaker 1: in passing, he said. What I'm after is that beauty
44:33
Speaker 1: isn't a special inserted sort of thing. That's my idea.
44:37
Speaker 1: It's just life, pure life, life, nascent, running clear and strong.
44:43
Speaker 1: He stood up to go on to the next student.
44:47
Speaker 1: There's more bid beauty, said Anne Veronica. I wonder if
44:51
Speaker 1: there is, said Capes and paused, and then bent down
44:55
Speaker 1: over the boy who wore his hair like Russell. Anne
44:58
Speaker 1: Veronica surveyed his li back for a moment, and then
45:01
Speaker 1: drew her microscope toward her. Then, for a time she
45:05
Speaker 1: sat very still. She felt that she had passed a
45:08
Speaker 1: difficult corner, and that now she could go on talking
45:10
Speaker 1: with him again, just as she had been used to
45:13
Speaker 1: do before she understood what was the matter with her.
45:16
Speaker 1: She had one idea, she found very clear in her mind,
45:19
Speaker 1: that she would get a research scholarship and so contrive
45:23
Speaker 1: another year in the laboratory. Now I see what everything means,
45:28
Speaker 1: said Anne Veronica to herself. And it really felt, for
45:31
Speaker 1: some days as though the secret of the universe that
45:33
Speaker 1: had been wrapped and hidden from her so obstinately, was
45:36
Speaker 1: at last altogether displayed. End of Chapter eight