The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy (acx book reading txt) 📕

Jolyon wreathed himself in smoke before he answered: “Yes, I saw her.”

“How was she?”

“Very well.”

There was another silence; then Soames roused himself in his chair.

“When I saw you last,” he said, “I was in two minds. We talked, and you expressed your opinion. I don’t wish to reopen that discussion. I only wanted to say this: My position with her is extremely difficult. I don’t want you to go using your influence against me. What happened is a very long time ago. I’m going to ask her to let bygones be bygones.”

“You have asked her, you know,” murmured Jolyon.

“The idea was new to her then; it came as a shock. But the more she thinks of it, the more she must see that it’s the only way out for both of us.”

“That’s not my impression of her state of mind,” said Jolyon with particular calm. “And, forgive my saying, you misconceive the matter if you think reason comes into it at all.”

He saw his cousin’s pale face grow paler⁠—he had used, without knowing it, Irene’s own words.

“Thanks,” muttered Soames, “but I see things perhaps more plainly than you think. I only want to be sure that you won’t try to influence her against me.”

“I don’t know what makes you think I have any influence,” said Jolyon; “but if I have I’m bound to use it in the direction of what I think is her happiness. I am what they call a ‘feminist,’ I believe.”

“Feminist!” repeated Soames, as if seeking to gain time. “Does that mean that you’re against me?”

“Bluntly,” said Jolyon, “I’m against any woman living with any man whom she definitely dislikes. It appears to me rotten.”

“And I suppose each time you see her you put your opinions into her mind.”

“I am not likely to be seeing her.”

“Not going back to Paris?”

“Not so far as I know,” said Jolyon, conscious of the intent watchfulness in Soames’ face.

“Well, that’s all I had to say. Anyone who comes between man and wife, you know, incurs heavy responsibility.”

Jolyon rose and made him a slight bow.

“Goodbye,” he said, and, without offering to shake hands, moved away, leaving Soames staring after him. “We Forsytes,” thought Jolyon, hailing a cab, “are very civilised. With simpler folk that might have come to a row. If it weren’t for my boy going to the war⁠—” The war! A gust of his old doubt swept over him. A precious war! Domination of peoples or of women! Attempts to master and possess those who did not want you! The negation of gentle decency! Possession, vested rights; and anyone “agin” ’em⁠—outcast! “Thank Heaven!” he thought, “I always felt ‘agin’ ’em, anyway!” Yes! Even before his first disastrous marriage he could remember fuming over the bludgeoning of Ireland, or the matrimonial suits of women trying to be free of men they loathed. Parsons would have it that freedom of soul and body were quite different things! Pernicious doctrine! Body and soul could not thus be separated. Free will was the strength of any tie, and not its weakness. “I ought to have told Soames,” he thought, “that I think him comic. Ah! but he’s tragic, too!” Was there anything, indeed, more tragic in the world than a man enslaved by his own possessive instinct, who couldn’t see the sky for it, or even enter fully into what another person felt! “I must write and warn her,” he thought; “he’s going to have another try.” And all the way home to Robin Hill he rebelled at the strength of that duty to his son which prevented him from posting back to Paris.⁠ ⁠…

But Soames sat long in his chair, the prey of a no less gnawing ache⁠—a jealous ache, as if it had been revealed to him that this fellow held precedence of himself, and had spun fresh threads of resistance to his way out. “Does that mean that you’re against me?” he had got nothing out of that disingenuous question. Feminist! Phrasey fellow! “I mustn’t rush things,” he thought. “I have some breathing space; he’s not going back to Paris, unless he was lying. I’ll let the spring come!” Though how the spring could serve him, save by adding to his ache, he could not tell. And gazing down into the street, where figures were passing from pool to pool of the light from the high lamps, he thought: “Nothing seems any good⁠—nothing seems worth while. I’m loney⁠—that’s the trouble.”

He closed his eyes; and at once he seemed to see Irene, in a dark street below a church⁠—passing, turning her neck so that he caught the gleam of her eyes and her white forehead under a little dark hat, which had gold spangles on it and a veil hanging down behind. He opened his eyes⁠—so vividly he had seen her! A woman was passing below, but not she! Oh no, there was nothing there!

Imogen’s frocks for her first season exercised the judgment of her mother and the purse of her grandfather all through the month of March. With Forsyte tenacity Winifred quested for perfection. It took her mind off the slowly approaching rite which would give her a freedom but doubtfully desired; took her mind, too, off her boy and his fast approaching departure for a war from which the news remained disquieting. Like bees busy on summer flowers, or bright gadflies hovering and darting over spiky autumn blossoms, she and her “little daughter,” tall nearly as herself and with a bust measurement not far inferior, hovered in the shops of Regent Street, the establishments of Hanover Square and of Bond Street, lost in consideration and the feel of fabrics. Dozens of young women of striking deportment and peculiar gait paraded before Winifred and Imogen, draped in “creations.” The models⁠—“Very new, modom; quite the latest thing⁠—” which those two reluctantly turned down, would have filled a museum; the models which they were obliged to have nearly emptied James’ bank. It was no good doing