Riceyman Steps quotes

The man stopped on the half-landing and swung round with a casual air of purposelessness which, however, concealed, imperfectly, a definite design. The suspicious and cynical, slyly watching his movements, would have thought: “What’s that fellow after?”

A man interested in a strange woman acquires one equine attribute⁠—he can look in two directions at once. This man could, and did, look in two directions at once.

Below him and straight in front he saw a cobbled section of King’s Cross Road—a hell of noise and dust and dirt, with the County of London tramcars, and motor-lorries and heavy horse-drawn vans sweeping north and south in a vast clangour of iron thudding …

The shop was full of bays formed by bookshelves protruding at right-angles from the walls. The first bay was well lighted and tidy; but the others, as they receded into the gloomy backward of the shop, were darker and darker and untidier and untidier.

The effect was of mysterious and vast populations of books imprisoned forever in everlasting shade, chained, deprived of air and sun and movement, hopeless, resigned, martyrized.

The bookseller stepped over piles of cast books into the farthest bay, which was carpeted a foot thick with a disorder of volumes, and lighted a candle.

When Mr. Arb died he left a sum of money surprisingly large in view of the fact that clerks of works do not receive high salaries. Architects, hearing of the nice comfortable fortune, were more surprised than contractors.

A clerk of works has great power. A clerk of works may be human.

Mrs. Arb found herself with an income but no home, no habit of home life, and no masculine guidance or protection. She was heart-stricken, and—what was worse—she was thoroughly disorganized. Her immense vitality had no outlet.

She then noticed a faint light in Mr. Earlforward’s shop, and dashed across. Through the window she could see Mr. Earlforward walking in his shop with a candle in his hand. She tattooed wildly on the window.

A tramcar thundered down King’s Cross Road, tremendously heedless of murders.

After a brief, terrible interval the lock of Mr. Earlforward’s portal grated, and Mr. Earlforward appeared blandly in the doorway holding the candle.

Arb. He owed his prestige at that moment, however, not to any real ability to decide immediately and courageously upon the right, effective course to follow, but to the simple fact that his reactions were very slow.

Mr. Earlforward was always afraid after the event.

He limped vigorously into the dangers of Mrs. Arb’s dwelling with his placidity undisturbed by the realization of those dangers. And he had no conception of what he should do. Mrs. Arb followed timorously.

The areas, except one or two, were obscene. The Square had once been genteel; it ought now to have been picturesque, but was not. It was merely decrepit, foul and slatternly. It had no attractiveness of any sort.

Evolution had swirled round it, missed it, and left it.

Neither electricity nor telephones had ever invaded it, and scores of windows still had Venetian blinds. All men except its inhabitants and the tax-collector, the rate-collector, and the school attendance officer had forgotten Riceyman Square.

Upon that point she had taken pleasure in yielding to him. So long as you were genuinely married, the method had only a secondary importance. She admitted—to herself—that in desiring the church she might have been conventional, superstitious.

She was eager to yield, as some women are eager to be beaten.

Morbidity, of course! But not wholly. Self-preservation was in it, as well as voluptuousness. Mr. Earlforward’s individuality frightened while enchanting her. She found she could cure the fright by intense acquiescence. And why not acquiesce? He was her fate.

She missed the warm, soft body of the furniture-polisher’s child, with whom she had slept so long.

Some people are never satisfied.

What all the sightseers did completely react to was the distorting mirrors, which induced a never-ceasing loud tinkle and guffaw of mirth through the entire afternoon. Violet laughed like anything at the horrid reflection of herself.

“Well,” she giggled, “they do say you wouldn’t know yourself if you met yourself in the street. I can believe it.”

Rather subtle, that, thought Henry, as he smiled blandly at her truly surprising gaiety. He hurried her away to the cinematograph. The hall was full. He had never in his life been to a picture-theatre. Why should he have gone?

He did not know what to think. But he suspected his angel of some celestial scheming against him; and he considered that she was beginning rather early and that his first business must be to set her in the true, wifely path.

Suspicion is a wonderful collector of evidence in its own support.

He recalled her agitation when he had decided to tear up the programme for the day and go home earlier; the agitation had soon passed, but during the journey to Clerkenwell it had certainly recurred, increasing somewhat as they neared the destination.

“Oh, just one tiny piece more!” And with burning eyes she bent down and bit off a morsel from the slice in Henry’s hand.

“I am living!” shouted an unheard voice in Henry’s soul.

A fearful silence. Thunder seemed to rumble menacingly round the horizon; nature itself cowered. Henry blushed slightly, pulling at his beard. Then his voice, quiet, bland, soothing, sweet, inexorable:

“Up to thirty, eat as much as you can. After thirty, as much as you want. After fifty, as little as you can do with.”

“No. But I eat as much as I want. I’m the only judge of how much I want. We’re all different. My health is quite good.”

Looking at it none could suppose that the shop had ever been sheeted and asleep, or that a little milk-can was but recently squatting at the foot of its locked door.

Mysterious magic of a daily ritual, unperceived by the priest and priestesses!

Mr. Earlforward was writing out the tail-end of a long bill in the office. He could not use his antique typewriter for bills, because it would not tabulate satisfactorily. He wore his new eyeglasses, memorial of Violet’s sole victory over him.

“You couldn’t make anything out of him.” He might be tired; he might not be tired. He might have been roused from his bed at 2 a.m.; he might have slept excellently in perfect tranquillity. You didn’t know; you never would know.

The secrets of the night were locked up in that trimly dressed bosom.

He was the doctor, exclusively. But one thing showed him human; he had once again disturbed the sequence of his daily programme in order to visit T. T. Riceyman’s.

he might not be tired. He might have been roused from his bed at 2 a.m.; he might have slept excellently in perfect tranquillity. You didn’t know; you never would know. The secrets of the night were locked up in that trimly dressed bosom.

He was the doctor, exclusively.

But one thing showed him human; he had once again disturbed the sequence of his daily programme in order to visit T. T. Riceyman’s.

“I don’t think I’ll go into a hospital, doctor,” he said quietly, turning his face away.

The words were mild, the resolution invincible.

The doctor crossed over to look him in the face. Their eyes met in fierce hostility. The doctor was beaten.

She ought to be coming. Had she got a bit above herself? Thought she was the boss of the whole place, no doubt, and could do as she chose! An excellent creature, trustworthy, devoted. … And yet—in some things they were all alike.

Give them an inch and they’d take an ell.

He must be after her. Now what was it he had noticed, or thought he had noticed, when he was last awake? Oh, yes! That was it. His keys. He had missed them from the top of the chest of drawers.

… and desperately ill and desperately determined not to be ill, and the wife far off in the hospital, and of her own helplessness, and she simply could not bear to look at the shabby old shoe—which some unknown girl had once worn in flashing pride.

All the enigma of the universe was in that shoe, with its curved high heel perched lifeless on a mahogany tray of the everlasting wardrobe.

Elsie had never heard of the enigma of the universe, but it was present with her in many hours of her existence.

All the enigma of the universe was in that shoe, with its curved high heel perched lifeless on a mahogany tray of the everlasting wardrobe.

Elsie had never heard of the enigma of the universe, but it was present with her in many hours of her existence.

“Was the operation going to be done this morning or this afternoon?” He knew that the operation had been fixed for the morning, but he had to account to Elsie for his apparent lack of curiosity.

To see the shop was like revisiting after an immense period the land of his youth. He recognized one by one the landmarks. Here was the loaded bookstand, with its pair of castors, which she had devised.

The shop was like a mausoleum of trade.

His trade had ceased. It had to be brought back to life, galvanized into activity. Could he do it? He must and he would do it. He was capable of the intensest effort. His very sorrow was inspiring him.

He would have to obtain her keys and open it and examine its contents. He took his own keys from his pocket, and, not very easily, unlocked his safe, and swung forward its door. The familiar act soothed him.

The sublime spectacle of the safe, sole symbol of security in a world of perils, enheartened him.

After all …

His splendid fortitude, his superhuman courage to recreate his existence over the ruins of it and to defy fate, were broken down.

Life was bigger, more cruel, more awful than he had imagined.

Mr. Earlforward’s chair was tilted and had only been saved from toppling over, with Mr. Earlforward in it, by the fact that its left arm had caught under the ledge of the desk.

The electric light was patient; so was Mr. Earlforward.

He was leaning over the right arm of the chair, his body at half a right angle to the perpendicular, and his face towards the floor.