FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173  
174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   187   188   189   190   191   192   193   194   195   196   197   198   >>   >|  
ast conditional loyalty which men may depend on in their dealings with each other. I believe that any woman would rather trust a man. The difficulty in such a delicate case was how to get on terms. So we held our peace in the odious uproar of that wide roadway thronged with heavy carts. Great vans carrying enormous piled-up loads advanced swaying like mountains. It was as if the whole world existed only for selling and buying and those who had nothing to do with the movement of merchandise were of no account. "You must be tired," I said. One had to say something if only to assert oneself against that wearisome, passionless and crushing uproar. She raised her eyes for a moment. No, she was not. Not very. She had not walked all the way. She came by train as far as Whitechapel Station and had only walked from there. She had had an ugly pilgrimage; but whether of love or of necessity who could tell? And that precisely was what I should have liked to get at. This was not however a question to be asked point-blank, and I could not think of any effective circumlocution. It occurred to me too that she might conceivably know nothing of it herself--I mean by reflection. That young woman had been obviously considering death. She had gone the length of forming some conception of it. But as to its companion fatality--love, she, I was certain, had never reflected upon its meaning. With that man in the hotel, whom I did not know, and this girl standing before me in the street I felt that it was an exceptional case. He had broken away from his surroundings; she stood outside the pale. One aspect of conventions which people who declaim against them lose sight of is that conventions make both joy and suffering easier to bear in a becoming manner. But those two were outside all conventions. They would be as untrammelled in a sense as the first man and the first woman. The trouble was that I could not imagine anything about Flora de Barral and the brother of Mrs Fyne. Or, if you like, I could imagine _anything_ which comes practically to the same thing. Darkness and chaos are first cousins. I should have liked to ask the girl for a word which would give my imagination its line. But how was one to venture so far? I can be rough sometimes but I am not naturally impertinent. I would have liked to ask her for instance: "Do you know what you have done with yourself?" A question like that. Anyhow it was time for
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173  
174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   187   188   189   190   191   192   193   194   195   196   197   198   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
conventions
 

walked

 

imagine

 
uproar
 

question

 

surroundings

 

companion

 

aspect

 

length

 

forming


conception

 
street
 

exceptional

 
fatality
 
standing
 

reflected

 

meaning

 

broken

 

untrammelled

 

imagination


venture

 

cousins

 

Darkness

 

Anyhow

 

instance

 
naturally
 

impertinent

 

practically

 

suffering

 

easier


declaim

 

manner

 
brother
 

Barral

 

trouble

 

people

 

enormous

 

advanced

 

carrying

 

thronged


swaying
 
mountains
 

movement

 

merchandise

 

account

 
buying
 

existed

 
selling
 
roadway
 

dealings