AI Classic Books

80114.

80115.

80116.

80117.

80118.

80119.

80120.

80121.

80122.

80123.

80124.

80125.

80126.

80127.

80128.

80129.

80130.

80131.

80132.

80133.

80134.

80135.

80136.

80137.

80138.

80139.

80140.

80141.

80142.

80143.

80144.

80145.

80146.

80147.

80148.

It was wonderful, Scrap’s voice. It had given her, in the ten years since she came out, all the triumphs that intelligence and wit can have, because it made whatever she said seem memorable. She ought, with a throat formation like that, to have been a singer, but in every kind of music Scrap was dumb except this one music of the speaking voice; and what a fascination, what a spell lay in that. Such was the loveliness of her face and the beauty of her colouring that there was not a man into whose eyes at the sight of her there did not leap a flame of intensest interest; but, when he heard her voice, the flame in that man’s eyes was caught and fixed. It was the same with every man, educated and uneducated, old, young, desirable themselves or undesirable, men of her own world and bus-conductors, generals and Tommies—during the war she had had a perplexing time—bishops equally with vergers—round about her confirmation startling occurrences had taken place—wholesome and unwholesome, rich and penniless, brilliant or idiotic; and it made no difference at all what they were, or how long and securely married: into the eyes of every one of them, when they saw her, leapt this flame, and when they heard her it stayed there.

80149.

80150.

But gradually experiences gathered round her. After all, she had to take trouble, she had to make efforts, because, she discovered with astonishment and rage, she had to defend herself. That look, that leaping look, meant that she was going to be grabbed at. Some of those who had it were more humble than others, especially if they were young, but they all, according to their several ability, grabbed; and she who had entered the world so jauntily, with her head in the air and the completest confidence in anybody whose hair was grey, began to distrust, and then to dislike, and soon to shrink away from, and presently to be indignant. Sometimes it was just as if she didn’t belong to herself, wasn’t her own at all, but was regarded as a universal thing, a sort of beauty-of-all-work. Really men . . . And she found herself involved in queer, vague quarrels, being curiously hated. Really women . . . And when the war came, and she flung herself into it along with everybody else, it finished her. Really generals . . .

80151.

80152.

80153.

80154.

A deep cynicism took hold of the unhappy Scrap. Her inside grew hoary with disillusionment, while her gracious and charming outside continued to make the world more beautiful. What had the future in it for her? She would not be able, after such a preparation, to take hold of it. She was fit for nothing; she had wasted all this time being beautiful. Presently she wouldn’t be beautiful, and what then? Scrap didn’t know what then, it appalled her to wonder even. Tired as she was of being conspicuous she was at least used to that, she had never known anything else; and to become inconspicuous, to fade, to grow shabby and dim, would probably be most painful. And once she began, what years and years of it there would be! Imagine, thought Scrap, having most of one’s life at the wrong end. Imagine being old for two or three times as long as being young. Stupid, stupid. Everything was stupid. There wasn’t a thing she wanted to do. There were thousands of things she didn’t want to do. Avoidance, silence, invisibility, if possible unconsciousness—these negations were all she asked for at the moment; and here, even here, she was not allowed a minute’s peace, and this absurd woman must come pretending, merely because she wanted to exercise power and make her go to bed and make her—hideous—drink castor oil, that she thought she was ill.

80155.

80156.

80157.

80158.

80159.

80160.

80161.

80162.

80163.

80164.

80165.

80166.

80167.

80168.

80169.

80170.

80171.

80172.

80173.

80174.

80175.

80176.

80177.

80178.

80179.

80180.

80181.

80182.

80183.

80184.

80185.

80186.

80187.

80188.

80189.

80190.

80191.

80192.

80193.

80194.

80195.

80196.

80197.

80198.

80199.

80200.

80201.

80202.

80203.

80204.

80205.

80206.

80207.

80208.

80209.

80210.

80211.

80212.

80213.

80214.