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Ann Veronica Chapter 16 - In the mountains · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Chapter sixteen of Anne Veronica. This is a LibriVox recording.
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  Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
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  Speaker 1: information not to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording
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  Speaker 1: by Joy Chan and Veronica by H. G. Wells, Chapter
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  Speaker 1: the sixteenth in the Mountains, Part one. Next day, Anne
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  Speaker 1: Veronica and Capes felt like newborn things. It seemed to
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  Speaker 1: them they could never have been really alive before, but
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  Speaker 1: only dimly anticipating existence. They sat face to face beneath
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  Speaker 1: an experienced looking rucksack and a brand new portmanteau and
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  Speaker 1: a leather handbag in the afternoon boat train that goes
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  Speaker 1: from charing Cross to Folkstone for below. They tried to
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  Speaker 1: read illustrated papers in an unconcerned manner and with forced
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  Speaker 1: attention lest they should catch the leaping exultation in each
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  Speaker 1: other's eyes, and they admired kent sedulously from the windows.
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  Speaker 1: They crossed the channel in sunshine and a breeze that
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  Speaker 1: just ruffled the sea to glittering scales of silver. Some
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  Speaker 1: of the people who watched them standing side by side
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  Speaker 1: thought they must be nearly wedded because of their happy faces,
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  Speaker 1: and others that they were an old established couple because
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  Speaker 1: of their easy confidence in each other. At Boulogne, they
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  Speaker 1: took train to Basil. Next morning they breakfasted together in
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  Speaker 1: the buffet of that station, and thence they caught the
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  Speaker 1: Interlarkin Express and so went by way of Spees to Frutigen.
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  Speaker 1: There was no railway beyond Frutigen in those days. They
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  Speaker 1: sent their baggage by post a counderstake, and walked along
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  Speaker 1: the mule path to the left of the stream to
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  Speaker 1: that queer hollow among the precipices Blouse Sea, where the
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  Speaker 1: petrifying branches of trees lie in the blue deeps of
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  Speaker 1: an icy lake, and pine trees clamber among gigantic boulders.
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  Speaker 1: A little inn flying a Swiss flatles under a great rock.
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  Speaker 1: And there they put aside their knapsacks and lunched and
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  Speaker 1: rested in the midday shadow of the gorge and the
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  Speaker 1: scent of resin. And later they paddled in a boat
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  Speaker 1: above the mysterious deeps of the sea and peered down
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  Speaker 1: into the green blues and the blue greens. Together. By
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  Speaker 1: that time it seemed to them they had lived together
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  Speaker 1: twenty years, except for one memorable school excursion to Paris
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  Speaker 1: and Veronica had never yet been outside England, so that
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  Speaker 1: it seemed to her the whole world had changed, the
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  Speaker 1: very light of it had changed. Instead of English villas
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  Speaker 1: and cottages, there were chalets and Italian built houses shining white.
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  Speaker 1: There were lakes of emerald and sapphire, and clustering castles,
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  Speaker 1: and such sweeps of hill and mountain, such shining uplands
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  Speaker 1: of snow as she had never seen before. Everything was
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  Speaker 1: fresh and bright. From the kindly manners of the Frutican
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  Speaker 1: cobbler who hammered mountain nails into her boots, to the
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  Speaker 1: unfamiliar wild flowers that spangled the ways and capes, had
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  Speaker 1: changed into the easiest and jolliest companion in the world.
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  Speaker 1: The mere fact that he was there in the train,
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  Speaker 1: alongside her, helping her, sitting opposite to her in the
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  Speaker 1: dining car, presently sleeping on a seat within a yard
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  Speaker 1: of her, made her heart sing until she was afraid
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  Speaker 1: their fellow passengers would hear it. It was too good
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  Speaker 1: to be true. She would not sleep for fear of
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  Speaker 1: losing a moment of that sense of his proximity, to
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  Speaker 1: walk beside him, dressed akin to him, rucksacked and companionable
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  Speaker 1: was bliss in itself. Each step she took was like
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  Speaker 1: stepping once more across the threshold of heaven. One trouble, however,
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  Speaker 1: shot its slanting bolts athwart the shining warmth of that
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  Speaker 1: opening day and marred its perfection. And that was the
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  Speaker 1: thought of her father. She had treated him badly. She
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  Speaker 1: had hurt him and her aunt. She had done wrong
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  Speaker 1: by their standards, and she would never persuade them that
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  Speaker 1: she had done right. She thought of Father in the
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  Speaker 1: garden and of her aunt with her patience, as she
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  Speaker 1: had seen them. How many ages was it to go
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  Speaker 1: just one day? Intervened? She felt as if she had
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  Speaker 1: struck them unawares. The thought of them distressed her, without
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  Speaker 1: subtracting at all from the oceans of happiness in which
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  Speaker 1: she swam. But she wished she could put the things
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  Speaker 1: she had done in some way to them, so that
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  Speaker 1: it would not hurt them so much as the truth
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  Speaker 1: would certainly do. The thought of their faces, and particularly
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  Speaker 1: of her aunt's, as it would meet the fact, disconcerted, unfriendly, condemning, pained,
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  Speaker 1: occurred to her again and again. Oh, I wish she
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  Speaker 1: said that people thought alike about these things. Capees watched
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  Speaker 1: the limpid water dripping from his oar. I wish they did,
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  Speaker 1: he said, But they don't. I feel all this is
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  Speaker 1: the rightest of all conceivable things. I want to tell
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  Speaker 1: every one. I want to boast myself. I know I
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  Speaker 1: told them a lie. I told them lies. I wrote
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  Speaker 1: three letters yesterday and tore them up. It was so
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  Speaker 1: hopeless to put it to them at last, I told
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  Speaker 1: a story. You didn't tell them our position. I implied
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  Speaker 1: we'd get married. They'll find out. They'll know not yet,
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  Speaker 1: sooner or later, possibly bit by bit. But it was
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  Speaker 1: hopelessly hard to put I said. I knew he disliked
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  Speaker 1: and distrusted you in your work, that you shared all
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  Speaker 1: Russell's opinions. He hates Russell beyond measure, and that we
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  Speaker 1: couldn't possibly face a conventional marriage. What else could one say?
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  Speaker 1: I left him to suppose a registry. Perhaps, Capes let
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  Speaker 1: his awe smack on the water. Do you mind very much?
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  Speaker 1: He shook his head. But it makes me feel inhuman,
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  Speaker 1: he added, and me it's the perpetual trouble, he said,
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  Speaker 1: of parent and child. They can't help seeing things in
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  Speaker 1: the way they do, Nor can we. We don't think
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  Speaker 1: they are right, but they don't think we are a
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  Speaker 1: deadlock in a very definite sense. We are in the wrong,
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  Speaker 1: hopelessly in the wrong. But it's just this. Who was
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  Speaker 1: to be hurt? I wish no one had to be hurt,
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  Speaker 1: said Anne Veronica. When one is happy, I don't like
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  Speaker 1: to think of them. Last time I left home, I
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  Speaker 1: felt as hard as nails. But this is all different.
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  Speaker 1: It is different. There's a sort of instinct of rebellion,
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  Speaker 1: said Capes. It isn't anything to do with our times.
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  Speaker 1: Particularly people think it is what they are wrong. It's
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  Speaker 1: to do with adolescence. Long before religion and society heard
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  Speaker 1: of doubt, girls were all for midnight coaches and Gretna Green.
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  Speaker 1: It's a sort of home leaving instinct. He followed up
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  Speaker 1: a line of thought. There's another instinct too, he went on,
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  Speaker 1: in a state of suppression. Unless I'm very much mistaken
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  Speaker 1: a child expelling instinct, I wonder there's no family uniting
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  Speaker 1: instinct anyhow. Its habit and sentiment and material convenience hold
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  Speaker 1: families together. After adolescence. There's always friction, conflict, unwilling concessions. Always.
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  Speaker 1: I don't believe there is any strong natural affection at
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  Speaker 1: all between parents and growing up children. There wasn't, I know,
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  Speaker 1: between myself and my father. I didn't allow myself to
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  Speaker 1: see things as they were in those days. Now I do.
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  Speaker 1: I bored him, I hated him. I suppose that shocks
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  Speaker 1: one's ideas. It's true there are sentimental and traditional deferences
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  Speaker 1: and reverences I know between father and son. But that's
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  Speaker 1: just exactly what prevents the development of an easy friendship.
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  Speaker 1: Father worshiping sons are abnormal, and they're no good, no
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  Speaker 1: good at all. One's got to be a better man
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  Speaker 1: than one's father, or what is the good of successive generations?
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  Speaker 1: Life is rebellion or nothing. He rode a stroke and
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  Speaker 1: watched the swirl of water from his all broaden and
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  Speaker 1: die away. At last he took up his thoughts again.
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  Speaker 1: I wonder if some day one won't need to rebel
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  Speaker 1: against customs and laws, if this discord will have gone
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  Speaker 1: some day? Perhaps who knows, the old won't coddle and
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  Speaker 1: hamper the young, and the young won't need to fly
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  Speaker 1: in the faces of the old. They'll face facts as facts,
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  Speaker 1: and understand oh to face facts. Gods, what a world
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  Speaker 1: it might be if people face facts, unders standing understanding,
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  Speaker 1: there is no other salvation. Some day, older people perhaps
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  Speaker 1: will trouble to understand younger people, and there won't be
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  Speaker 1: these fierce disruptions. There won't be barriers. One must defy
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  Speaker 1: or perish. That's really our choice, now, defy or futility.
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  Speaker 1: The world perhaps will be educated out of its idea
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  Speaker 1: of fixed standards. I wonder, aunt, Veronica, if when our
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  Speaker 1: time comes, we shall be any wiser. And Veronica watched
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  Speaker 1: a water beetle fussing across the green depths. One can't
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  Speaker 1: tell I'm a female thing at bottom. I like high
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  Speaker 1: tone for a flourish and stars and ideas, but I
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  Speaker 1: want my things. Part two Capes thought, it's odd. I
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  Speaker 1: have no doubt in my mind that what we are
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  Speaker 1: doing is wrong, he said, And yet I do it
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  Speaker 1: without compunction. I never felt so absolutely right, said Anne. Veronica.
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  Speaker 1: You are a female thing at bottom, He admitted. I'm
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  Speaker 1: not nearly so sure as you as for me. I
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  Speaker 1: look twice at it. Life is two things. That's how
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  Speaker 1: I see it, two things mixed and muddled up together.
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  Speaker 1: Life is morality. Life is adventure Squire and master Adventure
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  Speaker 1: rules ad morality looks up the trains in the bread shaw.
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  Speaker 1: Morality tells you what is right, and adventure moves you.
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  Speaker 1: If morality means anything, it means keeping bounds, respecting implications,
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  Speaker 1: respecting implicit bounds. If individuality means anything, it means breaking
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  Speaker 1: bounds adventure. Will you be moral and your species or
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  Speaker 1: immoral and yourself. We've decided to be immoral. We needn't
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  Speaker 1: try and give ourselves airs. We've deserted the posts in
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  Speaker 1: which we found ourselves, cut our duties, expose ourselves to
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  Speaker 1: risks that may destroy any sort of social usefulness in us.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know. One keeps rules in order to be
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  Speaker 1: one's self. One studies nature in order not to be
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  Speaker 1: blindly ruled by her. There's no sense in morality, I suppose,
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  Speaker 1: unless you are fundamentally immoral. She watched his face as
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  Speaker 1: he traced his way through these speculative thickets. Look at
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  Speaker 1: our affair, he went on, looking up at her. No
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  Speaker 1: power on earth will persuade me. We're not too rather
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  Speaker 1: disreputable persons. You desert your home, I throw up useful teaching, risk,
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  Speaker 1: every hope in your career. Here we are absconding, pretending
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  Speaker 1: to be what We are not shady, to say the
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  Speaker 1: least of it is not a bit of good pretending
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  Speaker 1: there's any higher truth or wonderful principle in this business.
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  Speaker 1: There isn't. We never started out in any high browed
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  Speaker 1: manner to scandalize and shalify. When first you left your home,
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  Speaker 1: you had no idea that I was the hidden impulse.
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  Speaker 1: I wasn't. You came out like an aunt for your
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  Speaker 1: nuptial flight. It was just a chance that we in
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  Speaker 1: particular hit against each other. Nothing predestined about it. We
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  Speaker 1: just hit against each other. And here we are flying
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  Speaker 1: off at a tangent, a little surprised at what we
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  Speaker 1: are doing, all our principles abandoned, and tremendously and quite
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  Speaker 1: unreasonably proud of ourselves. Out of all this we have
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  Speaker 1: struck a sort of harmony, and it's gorgeous, glorious, said
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  Speaker 1: Anne Veronica. Would you like us if someone told you
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  Speaker 1: the bare outline of our story and what we are doing.
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  Speaker 1: I shouldn't mind, said Anne Veronica. But if some one
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  Speaker 1: else ask your advice. If someone else said, here is
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  Speaker 1: my teacher, a jaded married man on the verge of
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  Speaker 1: middle age, and he and I have a violent passion
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  Speaker 1: for one another. We propose to disregard all our ties,
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  Speaker 1: all our obligations, all the established prohibitions of society, and
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  Speaker 1: begin life together afresh. What would you tell her if
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  Speaker 1: she asked advice? I should say she wasn't fit to
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  Speaker 1: do anything of the sort. I should say that heavier
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  Speaker 1: doubt was enough to condemn it. But waive that point.
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  Speaker 1: It would be different all the same. It wouldn't be you.
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  Speaker 1: It wouldn't be you either. I suppose that's the gist
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  Speaker 1: of the whole thing. He stared at a little eddy.
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  Speaker 1: The rules, all right, so long as there isn't a case.
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  Speaker 1: Rules are for established things, like the pieces and positions
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  Speaker 1: of a game. Men and women are not established things.
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  Speaker 1: Their experiments, all of them. Every human being is a
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  Speaker 1: new thing. Exist to do new things. Find the thing
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  Speaker 1: you want to do most intensely. Make sure that's it,
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  Speaker 1: and do it with all your might. You live well
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  Speaker 1: and good. If you die well and good, your purpose
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  Speaker 1: is done well. This is our thing. He woke the
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  Speaker 1: glassy water to swirling activity again, and made the deep
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  Speaker 1: blue shapes below writhe and shiver. This is my thing,
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  Speaker 1: said Anne Veronica softly, with thoughtful eyes, upon him. Then
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  Speaker 1: she looked up the sweep of pine trees, to the
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  Speaker 1: towering sunlit cliffs and the high heaven above, and then
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  Speaker 1: back to his face. She drew in a deep breath
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  Speaker 1: of the sweet mountain air. Her eyes were soft and grave,
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  Speaker 1: and there was the faintest of smiles upon her resolute lips.
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  Speaker 1: Part three. Later, they loitered along a winding path above
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  Speaker 1: the inn and made love to one another. Their journey
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  Speaker 1: had made them indolent. The afternoon was warm, and it
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  Speaker 1: seemed impossible to breathe the sweeter air. The flowers and turf,
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  Speaker 1: a wild strawberry, a rare butterfly, and suchlike. Little intimate
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  Speaker 1: things had become more interesting than mountains. Their flitting hands
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  Speaker 1: were always touching. Deep silences came between them. I had
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  Speaker 1: thought to go on to Candesteg, said Kates. But this
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  Speaker 1: is a pleasant place. There is not a soul in
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  Speaker 1: the inn but ourselves. Let us stay the night here.
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  Speaker 1: Then we can loiter and gossip to our heart's content, agreed,
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  Speaker 1: said Anne Veronica. After all, at our honeymoon, all we
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  Speaker 1: shall get, said Anne Veronica. This place is very beautiful.
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  Speaker 1: Any place would be beautiful, said Anne Veronica in a
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  Speaker 1: low voice. For a time, they walked in silence. I wonder,
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  Speaker 1: she began, presently. Why I love you, and love you
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  Speaker 1: so much. I know now what it is to be
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  Speaker 1: an abandoned female. I am an abandoned female. I'm not
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  Speaker 1: ashamed of the things I'm doing. I want to put
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  Speaker 1: myself into your hands, you know. I wish I could
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  Speaker 1: roll my little body up small and squeeze it into
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  Speaker 1: your hand and grip your fingers upon it tight. I
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  Speaker 1: want you to hold me and have me so everything. Everything,
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  Speaker 1: it's a pure joy of giving giving to you. I
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  Speaker 1: have never spoken of these things to any human being,
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  Speaker 1: just dreamed and ran away, even from my dreams. It
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  Speaker 1: is as if my lips had been sealed about them.
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  Speaker 1: And now I break the eels for you only I wish.
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  Speaker 1: I wish to day I was a thousand times ten
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  Speaker 1: thousand times more beautiful. Capes lifted her hand and kissed it.
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  Speaker 1: You are a thousand times more beautiful, he said, than
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  Speaker 1: anything else could be. You are you. You are all
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  Speaker 1: the beauty in the world. Beauty doesn't mean, never has
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  Speaker 1: meant anything anything at all, but you. It heralded, you
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  Speaker 1: promised you. Part four. They lay side by side in
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  Speaker 1: a shallow nest of turf and mosses, among boulders and
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  Speaker 1: stunted bushes on a high rock, and watched the day
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  Speaker 1: sky deep into evening between the vast precipices overhead, and
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  Speaker 1: looked over the tree tops down the widening gorge. A
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  Speaker 1: distant suggestion of chalets and a glimpse of the road
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  Speaker 1: set them talking for a time of the world they
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  Speaker 1: had left behind. Cape spoke casually of their plans for work.
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  Speaker 1: It's a flabby, loose willed world we have to face.
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  Speaker 1: It won't even know whether to be scandalized at us
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  Speaker 1: or forgiving. It will hold aloof a little under sigh,
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  Speaker 1: whether to pelt or not. That depends whether we carry
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  Speaker 1: ourselves as though we expected pelting, said An Veronica. We
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  Speaker 1: won't no fear. Then, as we succeed, it will begin
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  Speaker 1: to settle back to us. It will do its best
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  Speaker 1: to overlook things if we let it, poor dear, that's
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  Speaker 1: if we succeed. If we fail, said Capes. Then we
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  Speaker 1: aren't going to fail, said an Veronica. Life seemed a
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  Speaker 1: very brave and glorious enterprise to an Veronica. That day.
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  Speaker 1: She was quivering with the sense of capes at her
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  Speaker 1: side and glowing with heroic love. It seemed to her
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  Speaker 1: that if they put their hands jointly against the alps
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  Speaker 1: and pushed, they would be able to push them aside.
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  Speaker 1: She lay and nibbled at a sprig of dwarf rhododendron. Fail,
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  Speaker 1: she said Part five presently at a curt of Anne Veronica
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  Speaker 1: to ask about the journey he had planned. He had
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  Speaker 1: his sections of the Sea freed map folded in his pocket,
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  Speaker 1: and he squatted up with his legs crossed like an
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  Speaker 1: Indian idol, while she laid pro in beside him and
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  Speaker 1: followed every movement of his indicatory finger. Here, he said,
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  Speaker 1: is this blow sea? And here we rest until to morrow.
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  Speaker 1: I think we rest here until to morrow. There was
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  Speaker 1: a brief silence. It is a very pleasant place, said
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  Speaker 1: Anne Veronica, biting a rhododendron stalk through, and with that
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  Speaker 1: faint shadow of a smile returning to her lips, and
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  Speaker 1: then said Anne Veronica, Then we go on to this place,
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  Speaker 1: the ocean in sea. It's a lake among precipices, and
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  Speaker 1: there is a little inn where we can stay and
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  Speaker 1: sit and eat our dinner at a pleasant table that
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  Speaker 1: looks upon the lake. For some days we shall be
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  Speaker 1: very idle there among the trees and rocks. There are
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  Speaker 1: boats on the lag, and shady depths and wildernesses of
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  Speaker 1: pine wood. After a day or so, perhaps we will
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  Speaker 1: go on one or two little excursions and see how
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  Speaker 1: good your head is. A mild scramble or so, and
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  Speaker 1: then up to a hut on a pass just here,
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  Speaker 1: and out upon the bloomless alp glacier that spreads out
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  Speaker 1: so and so. She roused herself from some dream. At
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  Speaker 1: the word glaciers, she said, under the wild frow which
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  Speaker 1: was named after you. He bent and kissed her hair,
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  Speaker 1: and paused, and then forced his attention back to the map.
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  Speaker 1: One day, he resumed, we will start off early and
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  Speaker 1: come down at a cander stake, and up these zigzags,
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  Speaker 1: and here and here and so pass this Douben sea
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  Speaker 1: to a tiny inn. It won't be busy yet, though
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  Speaker 1: we may get it all to ourselves. On the brim
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  Speaker 1: of the steepest zigzag, you can imagine thousands of feet
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  Speaker 1: of zigzag, And you will sit and eat lunch with me,
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  Speaker 1: and look out across the Rhone Valley and over blue
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  Speaker 1: distances beyond blue distances to the Matterhorn and Monte Rosa,
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  Speaker 1: and a long regiment of sunny, snowy mountains. And when
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  Speaker 1: we see them we shall at once want to go
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  Speaker 1: to them. That's the way with beautiful things. And down
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  Speaker 1: we shall go, like flies down a wall to look about,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: and so to look station here, and then by train
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: up the Rhone Valley and this little side valley to Stalden,
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: And there in the cool of the afternoon, we shall
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: start off upper gorge torrents and cliffs below us and
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: above us, to sleep in a half way in, and
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: go on next day to Sars Fie, Tars of the
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: magic Sars of the Pagan people. And there about Sars
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: are ice and snows again. And sometimes we will loiter
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: among the rocks and trees about Sars, or peep into
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: Samuel Butler's chapels, and sometimes we will climb up out
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: of the way of the other people, on to the
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: glaciers and snow. And for one expedition at least we
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: will go up this desolate valley here Tomark, and so
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: on to Monte Morro. There, indeed you see Monte Rosa
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: almost the best of all. Is it very beautiful? When
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: I saw it there. It was very beautiful, It was wonderful.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: It was the crowned queen of mountains and had robes
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: of shining white. It towered up high above the level
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: of the pass, thousands of feet still shining and white,
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: and below, thousands of feet below was a floor of
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: little wooly clouds. And then presently these clouds began to
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: wear thin and expose steep, deep slopes, going down and
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: down with grass and pine trees, down and down, and
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: at last through a great rent in the clouds, bare
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: roofs shining like very minute pinned heads, and a road
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: like a fiber of white silk. Macugnana and Italy. It
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: will be a fine day, It will have to be
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: when you first set eyes on Italy. That's as far
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: as we go. Can't we go down into Italy? No,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: he said, It won't run to that. Now. We must
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: wave our hands at the blue hills far away there
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: and go back to London and work. But Italy, Italy's
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: for a good girl, he said, and laid his hand
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: for a moment on her shoulder. She must look forward
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: to Italy, I say, she reflected. You are rather the master,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: you know, the idea struck him as novel. Of course,
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: I'm manager for this expedition, he said. After an interval
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: of self examination, she slid her cheek down the tweed
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: sleeve of his coat. Nice sleeve, she said, and came
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: to his hand and kissed it, I say, he cried.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: Look here, aren't you going a little too far? This?
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: This is degradation, making a fuss with sleeves. You mustn't
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: do things like that. Why not free woman an equal?
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: I do it of my own free will, said Ann Veronica,
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: kissing his hand again. It's nothing to what I will do.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: Oh well, he said a little doubtfully. It's just a phase,
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: and bent down and rested his hand on her shoulder
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: for a moment, with his heart beating and his nerves
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: a quiver. Then, as she lay very still, with her
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: hands clinched and her black hair tumbled about her face,
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: he came still closer and softly kissed the nape of
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: her neck. Part six. Most of the things that he
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: had planned they did, But they climbed more than he
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: had intended, because Ann Veronica approved rather a good climber,
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: steady headed and plucky, rather daring, but quite willing to
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: be cautious at his command. One of the things that
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: most surprised him in her was her capacity for blind
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: op being edience. She loved to be told to do things.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: He knew the circle of mountains about SaaS Fee fairly well.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: He had been there twice before. And it was fine
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: to get away from the straggling pedestrians into the high,
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: lonely places and sit and munch sandwiches and talk together
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: and do things together that were just a little difficult
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: and dangerous. And they could talk, they found, and never once,
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: it seemed, did their meaning and intention hitch. They were
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: enormously pleased with one another. They found each other beyond measure,
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: better than they had expected, if only because of the
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: want of substance in mere expectation. Their conversation degenerated again
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: and again into a strain of self congratulation that would
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: have irked an eavesdropper. You're I don't know, said Anne Veronica.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: You're splendid. It isn't that your splendid? Or I said cakes.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: But we satisfy one another. Heaven alone knows why so completely.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: The oddest fitness What is it made of? Texture of
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: skin and texture of mind, complexion and voice? I don't
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: think I've got illusions nor you. If I had never
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: meant anything of you at all, but a scrap of
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: your skin binding a book, Anne Veronica, I know I
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: would have kept that somewhere near to me. All your
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: faults are just jolly modeling to make you real and solid.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: The faults are the best part of it, said Anne Veronica.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: Why even our little vicious strains run the same way,
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: even our coarseness coarse, said Capes. We're not coarse, but
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: if we were, said Anne Veronica, I can talk to
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: you and you to me without a scrap of effort,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: said Capes. That's the essence of it. It's made up
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: of things as small as the diameter of hairs and
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: big as life and death. One always dreamed of this
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: and never believed it. It's the rarest luck, the wildest,
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: most impossible accident. Most people, everyone I know else, seem
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: to have mated with foreigners, and to talk uneasily in
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: unfamiliar tongues, to be afraid of the knowledge the other
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: one has, of the other one's perpetual misjudgment and misunderstandings.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: Why don't they wait, he added. Anne Veronica had one
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: of her flashes of insight. One doesn't wait, said Anne Veronica.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: She expanded that I shouldn't have waited, She said, I
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: might have muddled for a time, but it's as you say.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: I've had the rarest luck and fallen on my feet.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: We've both fallen on our feet. We're the rarest of mortals,
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: the real thing. There's not a compromise, nor a sham,
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: nor a concession between us. We aren't afraid. We don't bother,
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: we don't consider each other. We needn't that rapid life,
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: as you call it. We've burned the confounded dalst out
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: of it were stark stark, echoed Anne Veronica. Part seven.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: As they came back from that day's climb, it was
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: up the mitigone. They had to cross a shining space
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: of wet steep rocks between two grass slopes that needed
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: a little care. There were a few loose, broken fragments
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: of rock to reckon with upon the ledges, and one
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: place where hands did as much work as toes. They
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: used the rope, not that a rope was at all necessary,
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: but because Anne Veronica's exalted state of mind made the
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: fact of the rope agreeably symbolical and anyhow, it did
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: ensure a joint death in the event of some remotely
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: possible mischance. Capes went first, finding footholds and where the
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: drops of the strata edges came like long, awkward steps,
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: placing Ann Veronica's feet. About half way across this interval,
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: when everything seemed going well, Capes had a shock. Heavens,
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: exclaimed Anne Veronica with extraordinary passion, my God, and ceased
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: to move. Kates became rigid and adhesive. Nothing ensued, All right,
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: he asked, I'll have to pay it. Eh, I've forgotten something.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: Oh cusst eh, he said, I would what. That's the
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: devil of it, devil of what you do? Use far language,
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: forget about it like this, forget what? And I said
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't. I said I'd do anything. I said I'd
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: make shirts, shirts, shirts at one and something a dozen'
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: oh goodness, Bilking and Veronica you're a bilker. Pause, or
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: you'll tell me what all this is about, said Kates.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: It's about forty pounds. Capes waited patiently. Gee, I'm sorry,
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: but you've got to lend me forty pounds. It's some
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: sort of delirium, said Capes. The rarefied air. I thought
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: you had a better head. No, I'll explain lower. It's
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: all right, let's go on climbing now. It's a thing
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: I've unaccountably overlooked. All right, really, it can wait a
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: bit longer. I borrowed forty pounds from mister Rammage. Thank goodness,
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: you'll understand. That's why I chucked Manning. All right, I'm coming.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: But all this business has driven it clean out of
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: my head. That's why he was so annoyed. You know
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: who was annoyed, mister Rammage about the forty pounds. She
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: took a step, My dear, she added, by way of afterthought,
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: you do obliterate things. Part eight. They found themselves next
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: they talking love to one another, high up on some rocks,
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: above a steep bank of snow that overhung a precipice
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: on the eastern side of the Fie Glacier. By this time,
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: Cape's hair had bleached nearly white, and his skin had
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: become a skin of red copper shot with gold. They
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: were now both in a state of unprecedented physical fitness,
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: and such skirts as ann Veronica had had when she
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: entered the Valley of SaaS, were safely packed away in
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: the hotel, and she wore leather belt and loose knickerbockers
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: and puttees, a costume that suited the fine, long lines
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: of her limbs far better than any feminine walking dress
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: could do. Her complexion had resisted the snow glare wonderfully,
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: her skin had only deepened its natural warmth a little
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: under the alpine sun. She had pushed aside her azure veil,
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: taken off her snow glasses, and sat smiling under her
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: hand at the shining glories, the lit cornices, the blue shadows,
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: the softly rounded, enormous snow masses. The deep place is
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: full of quivering luminosity of the tash horn and dom.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: The sky was cloudless, effulgent. Blue Kate sat watching and
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: admiring her. And then he fell, praising the day and
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: fortune and their love for each other. Here we are,
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: he said, shining through each other like light through a
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: stained glass window, with this air in our blood, the
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: sunlight soaking us. Life is so good? Can it ever
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: be so good again? And Veronica put out a firm
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: hand and squeezed his arm. It's very good, she said,
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: It's glorious good. Suppose now look at this long snow
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: slope and then that blue deep beyond. Do you see
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: that round pool of color in the ice a thousand
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: feet or more below? Yes? Well, think we've got to
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: go but ten steps and lie down and put our
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: arms about each other. See down, we should rush in
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: a foam, in a cloud of snow, to flight and
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: a dream. All the rest of our lives would be
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: together then, Aunte Veronica, every moment, and no ill chances.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: If you tempt me too much, she said, after a silence,
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: I shall do it. I need only just to jump
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: up and throw myself upon you. I'm a desperate young woman.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: And then as we went down, you'd try to explain,
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: and that would spoil it. You know you don't mean it, No,
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: I don't, but I like to say it rather. But
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: I wonder why you don't mean it, because I suppose
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: the other thing is better. What other reason could there be?
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: It's more complex, but it's better. This this clacade would
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: be damned scoundronism. You know that, and I know that,
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: though we might be put to it to find a
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: reason why, it would be swindling, drawing the pay of life,
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: and they're not living. And besides, we're going to live,
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: Anne Veronica. Oh, the things will do. Then life will lead.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: There'll be trouble in it at times. You and I
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: aren't going to run without friction. But we've got the
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: brains to get over that, and tongues in our heads
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: to talk to each other. We sha'n't hang up on
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: any misunderstanding, not us. And we're going to fight that
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: old world down there, that old world that had shoved
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: up that silly old hotel and all the rest of it.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: If we don't live, it will think we are afraid
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: of it. Die. Indeed, we're going to do work. We're
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: going to unfold about each other. We're going to have children, girls,
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: said Anne Veronica, Boys, said Capes. Both said Anne Veronica,
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: lots of em. Capes chuckled. You delicate female, who cares,
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: said Anne Veronica, seeing it's you, warm, soft little wonders.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: Of course I want them. Part nine. All sorts of
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: things we're going to do, said Capes. All sorts of
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: times we're going to have. Sooner or later, we'll certainly
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: do something to clean those prisons. You told me about
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: lime wash. The underside of life. You and I we
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: can love on a snow cornice. We can love over
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: a pair of whitewash, love anywhere, anywhere, moonlight and music pleasing,
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: you know, but quite unnecessary. We met dissecting dogfish. Do
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: you remember your first day with me? Do you indeed
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: remember the smell of decay and cheap methylated spirit? My dear,
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: we've had so many moments. I used to go over
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: the times we'd had together, the things we'd said, like
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: a rosary of beads, But now it's beads by the cask,
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: like the hold of a West African trader. It feels
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: like too much gold dust clutched in one's hand. One
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: doesn't want to lose a grain, and one must. Some
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: of it must slip through one's fingers. I don't care
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: if it does, said Anne Veronica. I don't care, ratful remembering,
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: I care for you. This moment couldn't be better until
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: the next moment comes. That's how it takes me. Why
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: should we hoarde? We aren't going out presently, Like Japanese
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: lanterns in a gale. It's the poor DearS who do,
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: who know they will no, they can't keep it up,
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: who need to clutch at wayside flowers and put em
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: in little books for remembrance. Flatin flowers aren't for the
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: likes of us moments. Indeed, we like each other fresh
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: and fresh. It isn't illusions for us. We two just
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: love each other, the real identical other, all the time,
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: the real identical other, said Capes, and took and bit
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: the tip of her little finger. There's no delusion, so
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: far as I know, said Anne Veronica. I don't believe
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: there is one. If there is, it's a mere wrapping.
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: There's better underneath. It's only as if i'd begun to
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: know you the day before, yesterday or thereabouts. You keep
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: on coming truer after you have seemed to come altogether true.
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: You brick Part ten to think, he cried. You are
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: ten years younger than I. There are times when you
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: make me feel a little thing at your feet, a young, silly,
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: protected thing. Do you know, Anne Veronica, it is all
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: a lie about your birth certificate, a forgery and fooling
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: at that. You are one of the immortals, immortal you
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: were in the beginning, and all the men in the
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: world who have known what love is have worshiped at
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: your feet. You have converted me to bless the ward
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: you are my dear friend. You are a slip of
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: a girl. But there are moments when my head has
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: been on your breast, when your heart has been beating
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: close to my ears, when I have known you for
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: the goddess, when I have wished myself your slave, when
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: I have wished that you could kill me for the
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: joy of being killed by you. You are the high
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: priestess of life, Your priestess, whispered Anne Veronica softly, a
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: silly little priestess who knew nothing of life at all
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: until she came to you. Part eleven. They sat for
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: a time without speaking a word, in an enormous, shining
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: glow of mutual satisfaction. Well said Capes at length, We've
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: got to go down, Anne Veronica. Life waits for us.
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: He stood up and waited for her to move. Gods,
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: cried Anne Veronica, and kept him standing. And to think
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: that it's not a full year ago since I was
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: a black hearted, rebel schoolgirl, distressed, puzzled, perplexed, not understanding
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: that this great force of love was bursting its way
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: through me. All those nameless discontents, they were no more
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: than love's birth pangs. I felt. I felt living in
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: a masked world. I felt as though I had bandished eyes.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: I felt wrapped in thick cobwebs. They blinded me, they
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: got in my mouth. And now, dear dear, the dayspring
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: from on high hath visited me. I love, I am loved.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: I want to shout, I want to sing. I am glad.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: I am glad to be alive because you are alive.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: I am glad to be a woman because you are
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: a man. I am glad. I am glad. I am glad.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: I thank God for life in you. I thank God
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: for his sunlight on your face. I thank God for
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: the beauty you love and the faults you love. I
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: thank God for the very skin that is peeling from
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: your nose, for all things great and small that make
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: us what we are. This is grace, I am saying, Oh,
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: my dear, all the joy and weeping of life are
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: mixed in me now, and all the gratitude. Never a
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: new born dragon fly that spread its wings in the
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: morning has felt as glad as I. End of chapter sixteen.