Where Angels Fear to Tread by E. M. Forster (best free ereader TXT) 📕

has a pleasant voice. She is not beautiful; I cannot pretend that to you for a moment. But she is what I require.”

The baby gave a piercing yell.

“Oh, do take care!” begged Miss Abbott. “You are squeezing it.”

“It is nothing. If he cries silently then you may be frightened. He thinks I am going to wash him, and he is quite right.”

“Wash him!” she cried. “You? Here?” The homely piece of news seemed to shatter all her plans. She had spent a long half hour in elaborate approaches, in high moral attacks; she had neither frightened her enemy nor made him angry, nor interfered with the least detail of his domestic life.

“I had gone to the Farmacia,” he continued, “and was sitting there comfortably, when suddenly I remembered that Perfetta had heated water an hour ago⁠—over there, look, covered with a cushion. I came away at once, for really he must be washed. You must excuse me. I can put it off no longer.”

“I have wasted your time,” she said feebly.

He walked sternly to the loggia and drew from it a large earthenware bowl. It was dirty inside; he dusted it with a tablecloth. Then he fetched the hot water, which was in a copper pot. He poured it out. He added cold. He felt in his pocket and brought out a piece of soap. Then he took up the baby, and, holding his cigar between his teeth, began to unwrap it. Miss Abbott turned to go.

“But why are you going? Excuse me if I wash him while we talk.”

“I have nothing more to say,” said Miss Abbott. All she could do now was to find Philip, confess her miserable defeat, and bid him go in her stead and prosper better. She cursed her feebleness; she longed to expose it, without apologies or tears.

“Oh, but stop a moment!” he cried. “You have not seen him yet.”

“I have seen as much as I want, thank you.”

The last wrapping slid off. He held out to her in his two hands a little kicking image of bronze.

“Take him!”

She would not touch the child.

“I must go at once,” she cried; for the tears⁠—the wrong tears⁠—were hurrying to her eyes.

“Who would have believed his mother was blonde? For he is brown all over⁠—brown every inch of him. Ah, but how beautiful he is! And he is mine; mine forever. Even if he hates me he will be mine. He cannot help it; he is made out of me; I am his father.”

It was too late to go. She could not tell why, but it was too late. She turned away her head when Gino lifted his son to his lips. This was something too remote from the prettiness of the nursery. The man was majestic; he was a part of Nature; in no ordinary love scene could he ever be so great. For a wonderful physical tie binds the parents to the children; and⁠—by some sad, strange irony⁠—it does not bind us children to our parents. For if it did, if we could answer their love not with gratitude but with equal love, life would lose much of its pathos and much of its squalor, and we might be wonderfully happy. Gino passionately embracing, Miss Abbott reverently averting her eyes⁠—both of them had parents whom they did not love so very much.

“May I help you to wash him?” she asked humbly.

He gave her his son without speaking, and they knelt side by side, tucking up their sleeves. The child had stopped crying, and his arms and legs were agitated by some overpowering joy. Miss Abbott had a woman’s pleasure in cleaning anything⁠—more especially when the thing was human. She understood little babies from long experience in a district, and Gino soon ceased to give her directions, and only gave her thanks.

“It is very kind of you,” he murmured, “especially in your beautiful dress. He is nearly clean already. Why, I take the whole morning! There is so much more of a baby than one expects. And Perfetta washes him just as she washes clothes. Then he screams for hours. My wife is to have a light hand. Ah, how he kicks! Has he splashed you? I am very sorry.”

“I am ready for a soft towel now,” said Miss Abbott, who was strangely exalted by the service.

“Certainly! certainly!” He strode in a knowing way to a cupboard. But he had no idea where the soft towel was. Generally he dabbed the baby on the first dry thing he found.

“And if you had any powder.”

He struck his forehead despairingly. Apparently the stock of powder was just exhausted.

She sacrificed her own clean handkerchief. He put a chair for her on the loggia, which faced westward, and was still pleasant and cool. There she sat, with twenty miles of view behind her, and he placed the dripping baby on her knee. It shone now with health and beauty: it seemed to reflect light, like a copper vessel. Just such a baby Bellini sets languid on his mother’s lap, or Signorelli flings wriggling on pavements of marble, or Lorenzo di Credi, more reverent but less divine, lays carefully among flowers, with his head upon a wisp of golden straw. For a time Gino contemplated them standing. Then, to get a better view, he knelt by the side of the chair, with his hands clasped before him.

So they were when Philip entered, and saw, to all intents and purposes, the Virgin and Child, with Donor.

“Hullo!” he exclaimed; for he was glad to find things in such cheerful trim.

She did not greet him, but rose up unsteadily and handed the baby to his father.

“No, do stop!” whispered Philip. “I got your note. I’m not offended; you’re quite right. I really want you; I could never have done it alone.”

No words came from her, but she raised her hands to her mouth, like one who is in sudden agony.

“Signorina, do stop a little⁠—after all your kindness.”

She burst into tears.

“What is it?” said Philip