THE PRETTY LADY
A Novel
by
ARNOLD BENNETT
1918
"_Virtue has never yet been adequately represented by any
who have had any claim to be considered virtuous. It is the
sub-vicious who best understand virtue. Let the virtuous
people stick to describing vice--which they can do well
enough_."
SAMUEL BUTLER
CONTENTS
Chapter
1. THE PROMENADE
2. THE POWER
3. THE FLAT
4. CONFIDENCE
5. OSTEND
6. THE ALBANY
7. FOR THE EMPIRE
8. BOOTS
9. THE CLUB
10. THE MISSION
11. THE TELEGRAM
12. RENDEZVOUS
13. IN COMMITTEE
14. QUEEN
15. EVENING OUT
16. THE VIRGIN
17. SUNDAY AFTERNOON
18. THE MYSTIC
19. THE VISIT
20. MASCOT
21. THE LEAVE-TRAIN
22. GETTING ON WITH THE WAR
23. THE CALL
24. THE SOLDIER
25. THE RING
26. THE RETURN
27. THE CLYDE
28. SALOME
29. THE STREETS
30. THE CHILD'S ARM
31. "ROMANCE"
32. MRS. BRAIDING
33. THE ROOF
34. IN THE BOUDOIR
35. QUEEN DEAD
36. COLLAPSE
37. THE INVISIBLE POWERS
38. THE VICTORY
39. IDYLL
40. THE WINDOW
41. THE ENVOY
Chapter I
THE PROMENADE
The piece was a West End success so brilliant that even if you
belonged to the intellectual despisers of the British theatre you
could not hold up your head in the world unless you had seen it; even
for such as you it was undeniably a success of curiosity at least.
The stage scene flamed extravagantly with crude orange and viridian
light, a rectangle of bedazzling illumination; on the boards, in the
midst of great width, with great depth behind them and arching height
above, tiny squeaking figures ogled the primeval passion in gesture
and innuendo. From the arc of the upper circle convergent beams of
light pierced through gloom and broke violently on this group of the
half-clad lovely and the swathed grotesque. The group did not quail.
In fullest publicity it was licensed to say that which in private
could not be said where men and women meet, and that which could
not be printed. It gave a voice to the silent appeal of pictures and
posters and illustrated weeklies all over the town; it disturbed the
silence of the most secret groves in the vast, undiscovered hearts of
men and women young and old. The half-clad lovely were protected from
the satyrs in the audience by an impalpable screen made of light and
of ascending music in which strings, brass, and concussion
exemplified the naïve sensuality of lyrical niggers. The guffaw which,
occasionally leaping sharply out of the dim, mysterious auditorium,
surged round the silhouetted conductor and drove like a cyclone
between the barriers of plush and gilt and fat cupids on to the
stage--this huge guffaw seemed to indicate what might have happened if
the magic protection of the impalpable screen had not been there.
Behind the audience came the restless Promenade, where was the reality
which the stage reflected. There it was, multitudinous, obtainable,
seizable, dumbly imploring to be carried off. The stage, very daring,
yet dared no more than hint at the existence of the bright and joyous
reality. But there it was, under the same roof.
Christine entered with Madame Larivaudière. Between shoulders and
broad hats, as through a telescope, she glimpsed in the far distance
the illusive, glowing oblong of the stage; then the silhouetted
conductor and the tops of instruments; then the dark, curved
concentric rows of spectators. Lastly she took in the Promenade, in
which she stood. She surveyed the Promenade with a professional eye.
It instantly shocked her, not as it might have shocked one ignorant
of human nature and history, but by reason of its frigidity, its
constraint, its solemnity, its pretence. In one glance she embraced
all the figures, moving or stationary, against the hedge of shoulders
in front and against the mirrors behind--all of them: the programme
girls, the cigarette girls, the chocolate girls, the cloak-room girls,
the waiters, the overseers, as well as the vivid courtesans and their
clientèle in black, tweed, or khaki. With scarcely an exception they
all had the same strange look, the same absence of gesture. They
were northern, blond, self-contained, terribly impassive. Christine
impulsively exclaimed--and the faint cry was dragged out of her, out
of the bottom of her heart, by what she saw:
"My god! How mournful it is!"
Lise Larivaudière, a stout and benevolent Bruxelloise, agreed with
uncomprehending indulgence. The two chatted together for a few
moments, each ceremoniously addressing the other as "Madame,"
"Madame," and then they parted, insinuating themselves separately into
the slow, confused traffic of the Promenade.