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In the Days of the Comet Book Third Chapter First Section 4 · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Book three, chapter one, section four of In the Days
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  Speaker 1: of the Comet. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox
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  Speaker 1: recordings are in the public domain. For more information or
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  Speaker 1: to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. In the Days
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  Speaker 1: of the Comet by H. G. Wells, Book three, Chapter one,
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  Speaker 1: section four. What are we to do? Asked verol. Nettie
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  Speaker 1: drew a deep crimson carnation from the bowl before us,
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  Speaker 1: and began very neatly and deliberately to turn down the
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  Speaker 1: sepals of its calyx and remove one by one its petals.
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  Speaker 1: I remember that went on through all our talk. She
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  Speaker 1: put those ragged crimson shreds in a long row, and
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  Speaker 1: adjusted them and readjusted them. When at last I was
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  Speaker 1: alone with these vestiges, the pattern was still incomplete, Well
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  Speaker 1: said I. The matter seems fairly simple, you too, I
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  Speaker 1: swallowed it. Love one another, I paused. They answered me
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  Speaker 1: by silence, by a thoughtful silence. You belonged to each other.
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  Speaker 1: I thought it over and looked at it from any
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  Speaker 1: points of view. I happened to want impossible things. I
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  Speaker 1: behaved badly. I had no right to pursue you. I
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  Speaker 1: turned to verol, you hold yourself bound to her. He nodded, assent.
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  Speaker 1: No social influence, no fading out of all this generous
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  Speaker 1: clearness in the air, for that might happen, will change
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  Speaker 1: you back, he answered me, with honest eyes meeting mine. No, Ledford, No,
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  Speaker 1: I did not know you, I said, I thought of
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  Speaker 1: you as something very different from this I was. He interpolated. Now,
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  Speaker 1: I said, it's all changed. Then I halted for my
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  Speaker 1: thread and slipped away from me. As for me, I
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  Speaker 1: went on and glanced at Nettie's downcast face, and then
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  Speaker 1: sat fold with my eyes upon the flowers between us.
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  Speaker 1: Since I am swayed and shall be swayed by an
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  Speaker 1: affection for Nettie, since that affection is rich with the
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  Speaker 1: seeds of desire. Since to see her yours and wholly
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  Speaker 1: yours is not to be endured by me, I must
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  Speaker 1: turn about and go from you. You must avoid me,
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  Speaker 1: and I you. We must divide the world like Jacob
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  Speaker 1: and Esau. I must direct myself with all the will
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  Speaker 1: I have to other things. After all, this passion is
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  Speaker 1: not life. It is perhaps for brutes and savages, but
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  Speaker 1: for men. No, we must part, and I must forget
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  Speaker 1: what else is there, but that I did not look up.
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  Speaker 1: I sat very tense, with the red petals printing and
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  Speaker 1: indelible memory in my brain. But I felt the ascent
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  Speaker 1: of Verel's pose. There were some moments of silence, and
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  Speaker 1: then Nettie spoke, But she said and ceased. I waited
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  Speaker 1: for a little while. I sighed and leaned back in
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  Speaker 1: my chair. It is perfectly simple, I smiled, now that
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  Speaker 1: we have cool heads. But is it simple? Asked Nettie,
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  Speaker 1: and slashed my discourse out of being. I looked up
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  Speaker 1: and found her with her eyes on Verol. You see,
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  Speaker 1: she said, I like Willie. It's hard to say what
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  Speaker 1: one feels. But I don't want him to go away
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  Speaker 1: like that. But then objected Verol. How no, said Nettie,
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  Speaker 1: and swept her half arranged carnation pedals back into a
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  Speaker 1: heap of confusion. She began to arrange them very quickly,
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  Speaker 1: in one long straight line. It's so difficult. I've never before,
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  Speaker 1: in all my life, tried to get to the bottom
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  Speaker 1: of my mind. For one thing, I've not treated Willie properly.
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  Speaker 1: He he counted on me. I know he did. I
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  Speaker 1: was his hope. I was a promised delight, something, something
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  Speaker 1: to crown life better than anything he had ever had,
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  Speaker 1: and the secret pride he lived upon me. I knew
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  Speaker 1: when we two began to meet together, you and I,
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  Speaker 1: it was a sort of treachery to him, treachery, I said,
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  Speaker 1: you were only feeling your way through all these perplexities.
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  Speaker 1: You thought it treachery. I don't know. I did in
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  Speaker 1: a sense. I think so still, for you had need
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  Speaker 1: of me. I made a slight protest at this doctrine,
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  Speaker 1: but fell thinking. And even when he was trying to
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  Speaker 1: kill us, she said to her lover, I felt for
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  Speaker 1: him down in the bottom of my mind. I can
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  Speaker 1: understand all the horrible things, the humiliation, the humiliation he
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  Speaker 1: went through. Yes, I said, but I don't see. I
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  Speaker 1: don't see. I am only trying to see. But you know, Willie,
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  Speaker 1: you are a part of my life. I have known
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  Speaker 1: you longer than I have known Edward. I know you better. Indeed,
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  Speaker 1: I know you with all my my heart. You think
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  Speaker 1: all your talk was thrown away upon me, that I
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  Speaker 1: never understood that side of you, or your ambitions or anything.
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  Speaker 1: I did more than I thought at the time. Now
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  Speaker 1: now it is all clear to me what I had
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  Speaker 1: to understand in you was something deeper than Edward brought me.
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  Speaker 1: I have it now. You are a part of my life,
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  Speaker 1: and I don't want to cut all that off from me,
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  Speaker 1: now that I have comprehended it, and throw it away.
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  Speaker 1: But you love Verral. Love is such a queer thing.
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  Speaker 1: Is there one love? I mean, only one love? She
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  Speaker 1: turned to Verol. I know I love you. I can
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  Speaker 1: speak out about that now. Before this morning I couldn't
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  Speaker 1: have done. It's just as though my mind had got
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  Speaker 1: out of a scented prison. But what is it, this
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  Speaker 1: love for you? It's a mass of fancies, things about you,
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  Speaker 1: ways you look, ways you have. It's the senses and
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  Speaker 1: the senses of certain beauties, flattery too, things you said,
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  Speaker 1: hopes and deceptions for myself and all that had rolled
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  Speaker 1: up together and taken to itself the wild help of
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  Speaker 1: those deep emotions that slumbered in my body. It seemed everything,
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  Speaker 1: but it wasn't. How can I describe it? It was
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  Speaker 1: like having a very bright lamp with a thick shade.
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  Speaker 1: Everything else in the room was hidden, but you take
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  Speaker 1: the shade off, and there they are. It is the
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  Speaker 1: same light still there, only it lights every one. Her
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  Speaker 1: voice ceased for a while. No one spoke, and Nettie,
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  Speaker 1: with a quick movement, swept the petals into the shape
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  Speaker 1: of a pyramid. Figures of speech always distract me, and
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  Speaker 1: it ran through my mind like some puzzling refrain. It
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  Speaker 1: is still the same light. No woman believes these things,
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  Speaker 1: she asserted abruptly, What things No woman ever has believed them.
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  Speaker 1: You have to choose a man, said Verrall, apprehending her
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  Speaker 1: before I did. We're brought up to that, We're told
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  Speaker 1: it's in the books, in stories, in the way people look,
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  Speaker 1: in the way they behave. One day they'll come a man.
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  Speaker 1: He'll be everything. No one else will be anything. Leave
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  Speaker 1: everything else live in him. And the man, too is
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  Speaker 1: taught that of some woman, said Veroll. Only men don't
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  Speaker 1: believe it. They have more obstinate minds. Men have never
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  Speaker 1: behaved as though they believed it. One need not be
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  Speaker 1: old to know that by nature they don't believe it.
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  Speaker 1: But a woman believes nothing. By nature, she goes into
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  Speaker 1: a mold, hiding her secret thoughts, almost from herself. She
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  Speaker 1: used to I said, you haven't said Veroll anyhow I've
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  Speaker 1: come out. It's this comet and Willie and because I
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  Speaker 1: never really believed in the mold at all, even if
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  Speaker 1: I thought I did. It's stupid to send Willie off, shamed,
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  Speaker 1: cast out, never to see him again when I like
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  Speaker 1: him as much as I do. It's cruel. It's wicked
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  Speaker 1: and ugly to prance over him as if he was
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  Speaker 1: a defeated enemy and pretend I'm going to be happy
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  Speaker 1: just the same. There's no sense in a rule of
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  Speaker 1: life that prescribes that it's selfish. It's brutish. It's like
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  Speaker 1: something that has no sense. I there was a sob
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  Speaker 1: in her voice, Willie, I won't I sat lowering, I mused,
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  Speaker 1: with my eyes upon her quick fingers. It is brutish,
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  Speaker 1: I said at last, with a careful, unemotional deliberation. Nevertheless,
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  Speaker 1: it is in the nature of things. No, you see,
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  Speaker 1: after all, we are still half brutes, Nettie, and men,
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  Speaker 1: as you say, are more obstinate than women. The comet
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  Speaker 1: hasn't altered that. It's only made it clearer. We've come
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  Speaker 1: into being through a tumult of blind forces. I come
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  Speaker 1: back to what I said just now. We have found
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  Speaker 1: our poor, reasonable minds, our wills to live well, ourselves
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  Speaker 1: adrift on a wash of instincts, passions, instinctive prejudices, half
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  Speaker 1: animal stupidities. Here we are like people clinging to something,
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  Speaker 1: like people awakening upon a raft. We come back at
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  Speaker 1: last to my question, said Verol softly, What are we
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  Speaker 1: to do? Part? I said, you see, Nettie, these bodies
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  Speaker 1: of ours and not the bodies of angels. They are
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  Speaker 1: the same bodies. I have read somewhere that in our
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  Speaker 1: bodies you can find evidence of the lowliest ancestry. That
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  Speaker 1: about our inward ears, I think it is, and about
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  Speaker 1: our teeth there remains still something of the fish, that
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  Speaker 1: there are bones that recall little what is it marsupial forebears,
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  Speaker 1: and the hundred traces of the ape. Even your beautiful body, Nettie,
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  Speaker 1: carries this taint. No hear me out. I lean forward earnestly.
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  Speaker 1: Our emotions, our passions, our desires. The substance of them,
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  Speaker 1: like the substance of our bodies, is an anom more
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  Speaker 1: a competing thing as well as a desiring thing. You
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  Speaker 1: speak to us now, a mind to minds. One can
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  Speaker 1: do that when one has had exercise, and when one
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  Speaker 1: has eaten, when one is not doing anything, But when
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  Speaker 1: one turns to live. One turns again to matter, Yes,
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  Speaker 1: said Nettie, slowly following me. But you control it only
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  Speaker 1: through a measure of obedience. There is no magic in
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  Speaker 1: the business. To conquer matter. We must divide the enemy
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  Speaker 1: and take matter as an ally. Nowadays it is indeed
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  Speaker 1: true by faith a man can remove mountains. He can
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  Speaker 1: say to a mountain, be thou removed, and be thou
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  Speaker 1: cast into the sea. But he does it because he
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  Speaker 1: helps and trusts his brother men, because he has the
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  Speaker 1: wit and patience and courage to win over to his side. Iron, steel, obedience, dynamite, cranes, trucks,
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  Speaker 1: the money of other people. To conquer my desire for you,
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  Speaker 1: I must not perpetually thwart it by your presence. I
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  Speaker 1: must go away so that I may not see you.
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  Speaker 1: I must take up other interests, thrust myself into struggles
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  Speaker 1: and discussions, and forget, said Nettie. Not forget, I said,
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  Speaker 1: But anyhow, cease to brood upon you. She hung on
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  Speaker 1: that for some moments. No, she said, demolished her last pattern,
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  Speaker 1: and looked up at Veroll as he stirred. Verol leant
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  Speaker 1: forward on the table, elbows upon it, and the fingers
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  Speaker 1: of his two hands intertwined, you know, he said, I
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  Speaker 1: haven't thought much of these things at school and the university.
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  Speaker 1: One doesn't. It was part of the system to prevent it.
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  Speaker 1: They'll alter all that, no doubt. We see me thought
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  Speaker 1: to be skating about over questions that one came to
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  Speaker 1: at last in Greek, with very orum readings in Plato,
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  Speaker 1: but which it never occurred to any one to translate
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  Speaker 1: out of a dead language into living realities. He halted,
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  Speaker 1: and then answered some unspoken question from his own mind
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  Speaker 1: with no. I think with Leadford Nettie that, as he
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  Speaker 1: put it, it's in the nature of things for men
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  Speaker 1: to be exclusive. Minds are free things and go about
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  Speaker 1: the world, but only one man can possess a woman.
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  Speaker 1: You must dismiss rivals. We are made for the struggle
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  Speaker 1: for existence. We are the struggle for existence. The things
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  Speaker 1: that live are the struggle for existence incarnate. And that
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  Speaker 1: works out that the men struggle for their mates. For
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  Speaker 1: each woman one prevails, the others go away like animals,
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  Speaker 1: said Nettie. Yes, there are many things in life, I said,
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  Speaker 1: but that is the rough universal truth. But said Nettie,
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  Speaker 1: you don't struggle. That has been altered because men have minds,
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  Speaker 1: you choose, I said. If I don't choose to choose,
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  Speaker 1: you have chosen. She gave a little impatience. Oh, why
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  Speaker 1: are women always the slaves of sex? Is this the
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  Speaker 1: great age of reason and light that has come to alter?
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  Speaker 1: Nothing of that? And men too? I think it is
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  Speaker 1: all stupid. I do not believe this is the right
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  Speaker 1: solution of the thing, or anything but the bad habits
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  Speaker 1: of the time. That was instinct. You don't let your
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  Speaker 1: instincts rule you in a lot of other things. Here
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  Speaker 1: am I between you? Here is Edward. I love him
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  Speaker 1: because he is gay, pleasant, and because I like him.
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  Speaker 1: Here is Willie, a part of me, my first secret,
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  Speaker 1: my oldest friend. Why must I not have both? Am
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  Speaker 1: I not a mind that you must think of me
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  Speaker 1: as nothing but a woman? Imagine me always as a
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  Speaker 1: thing to struggle for? She paused, and then she made
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  Speaker 1: her distressful proposition to me. Let us free, keep together,
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  Speaker 1: she said, let us not part to part is hate Willie?
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  Speaker 1: Why should we not anyhow keep friends meet and talk talk?
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  Speaker 1: I said about this sort of thing. I looked across
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  Speaker 1: at Verol and met his eyes, and we studied one another.
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  Speaker 1: It was the clean, straight scrutiny of honest antagonism. No
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  Speaker 1: I decided between us. Nothing of that sort can be ever,
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  Speaker 1: said Nettie. Never, I said, convinced, I made an effort
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  Speaker 1: within myself. We cannot tamper with the law and custom
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  Speaker 1: of these things, I said. These passions are too close
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  Speaker 1: to one's essential self. Better surgery than a lingering disease.
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  Speaker 1: From Nettie, my love asks all. A man's love is
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  Speaker 1: not devotion. It is a demand, a challenge. And besides,
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  Speaker 1: and here I forced my theme, I have given myself
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  Speaker 1: now to a new mistress. And it is I, Nettie,
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  Speaker 1: who am unfaithful. Behind you and above you rises the
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  Speaker 1: coming city of the world, and I am in that building.
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  Speaker 1: Dear heart, you are only happiness, and that indeed that cause.
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  Speaker 1: If it is only that my life blood shall christen
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  Speaker 1: the foundation stones, I could almost hope that should be
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  Speaker 1: my part, Betty, I will join myself in that. I
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  Speaker 1: threw all the conviction I could into these words. No
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  Speaker 1: conflict of passion, I added, a little lamely must distract me.
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  Speaker 1: There was a pause. Then we must part, said Nettie,
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  Speaker 1: with the eyes of a woman one strikes in the face.
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  Speaker 1: I nodded ascent. There was a little pause, and then
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  Speaker 1: I stood up. We stood up, all three. We parted,
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  Speaker 1: almost sullenly, with no more memorable words, and I was
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  Speaker 1: left presently in the arbor alone. I do not think
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  Speaker 1: I watched them go. I only remember myself left there,
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  Speaker 1: somehow horribly empty. And then I sat down again and
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  Speaker 1: fell into a deep, shapeless musing end of Book three,
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  Speaker 1: Chapter one, Section four