The Painted Veil quotes

you felt that she was criticising you, summing you up, watchful meanwhile of all that went on around her, and that the words she spoke had no connection with her thoughts.

Mrs. Garstin was a hard, cruel, managing, ambitious, parsimonious and stupid woman.

She was the daughter, one of five, of a solicitor in Liverpool and Bernard Garstin had met her when he was on the Northern Circuit. He had seemed then a young man of promise and her father said he would go far. He hadn’t.

She flattered herself that she could make as much show as anyone else at half the price. Her dinners were long and elaborate, but thrifty, and she could never persuade herself that people when they were eating and talking knew what they drank.

She wrapped sparkling Moselle in a napkin and thought her guests took it for champagne.

Bernard Garstin had a fair, though not a large practice. Men who had been called after him had long outstripped him. Mrs. Garstin made him stand for Parliament.

He was the only son of a prosperous surgeon who had been given a baronetcy during the war. Geoffrey would inherit a title—it is not very grand to be a medical baronet, but a title, thank God, is still a title—and a very comfortable fortune.

Kitty in a panic married Walter Fane.

She had known him but a little while and had never taken much notice of him.

They had a tenderness which she had never seen in them before, but there was something beseeching in them, like a dog’s that has been whipped, which slightly exasperated her.

“I think I improve on acquaintance,” he said.

“Of course you’re shy, aren’t you?”

I tried not to bore you with my love; I knew I couldn’t afford to do that and I was always on the lookout for the first sign that you were impatient with my affection.

What most husbands expect as a right I was prepared to receive as a favour.

”

“I had no illusions about you,” he said. “

I knew you were silly and frivolous and empty-headed. But I loved you.

I knew that your aims and ideals were vulgar and commonplace. But I loved you. I knew that you were second-rate. But I loved you.

Kitty, accustomed to flattery all her life, had never heard such things said to her before. Blind wrath, driving out fear, arose in her heart: it seemed to choke her, and she felt the blood-vessels in her temples swell and throb.

Wounded vanity can make a woman more vindictive than a lioness robbed of her cubs.

Kitty’s jaw, always a little too square, protruded with an apish hideousness and her beautiful eyes were black with malice. But she kept her temper in check.

The corners of his mouth drooped peevishly.

“Oh, my dear, it’s rather hard to take quite literally the things a man says when he’s in love with you.”

“And what’s to happen to me if Walter divorces me?”

“Oh, my dear, it’s rather hard to take quite literally the things a man says when he’s in love with you.”

“Didn’t you mean them?”

“And what’s to happen to me if Walter divorces me?”

“The only difference is that you don’t love me.”

“One can be very much in love with a woman without wishing to spend the rest of one’s life with her.”

She gave him a quick look and despair seized her. Heavy tears rolled down her cheeks.

If Walter was taking her to Mei-tan-fu as a punishment he was making a fool of himself, for what did she care now what became of her? She had nothing to live for any more.

It was rather hard to be finished with life at twenty-seven.

On the steamer that took them up the Western River Walter read incessantly, but at mealtimes he endeavoured to make some kind of conversation.

His eyebrows were fair and scanty. He looked like a funny little old boy. He helped himself constantly to liquor and as dinner proceeded it became evident that he was far from sober.

But if he was drunk it was without offensiveness, gaily, as a satyr might be who had stolen a wineskin from a sleeping shepherd.

He talked of Hong Kong; he had many friends there and he wanted to know about them. He had been down for the races a year before and he talked of ponies and their owners.

“I know. That is his stock in trade.

He’s made a science of popularity.

He has the gift of making everyone he meets feel that he is the one person in the world he wants to see.

It was as though the corner of a curtain were lifted for a moment, and she caught a glimpse of a world rich with a colour and significance she had not dreamt of.

He sat there, talking, laughing and drinking.

“Don’t you think you drink too much,” said Kitty to him boldly.

“Don’t you think you drink too much,” said Kitty to him boldly.

“It’s my great pleasure in life,” he answered. “Besides, it keeps the cholera out.”

When he left her he was generally drunk, but he carried his liquor well. It made him hilarious, but not disagreeable.

The dish was handed to Waddington, but he shook his head.

“Thank you very much, but I’m not thinking of committing suicide just yet.”

Walter smiled grimly and helped himself. Waddington said nothing more, in fact he became strangely taciturn, and soon after dinner he left them.

“It’s always dangerous, it’s madness now. You’ll kill yourself.”

“I thought that was the idea,” said Kitty.

She began to eat it coolly. She was seized with she knew not what spirit of bravado. She watched Walter with mocking eyes. She thought that he grew a trifle pale, but when the salad was handed to him he helped himself.

“I wish you could say that you never drink, Mr. Waddington.”

“I can at all events say that I never drink except to excess.”

The Mother Superior laughed and translated into French for Sister St. Joseph the flippant remark. She looked at him with lingering, friendly eyes.

there was that in her bearing which suggested ancient race; and she had the authority of one who has never known that it is possible to be disobeyed.

She had the condescension of a great lady and the humility of a saint.

There was in her strong, handsome and ravaged face an austerity that was passionate; and at the same time she had a solicitude and a gentleness which permitted those little children to cluster, noisy and unafraid, in the assurance of her deep affection.

“It is not easy work or pleasant work. I doubt if it would amuse you long.”

“Do you absolutely despise me, Walter?”

“No.” He hesitated and his voice was strange. “I despise myself.”

“Do you absolutely despise me, Walter?”

“No.” He hesitated and his voice was strange. “I despise myself.”

It was after dinner. As usual Walter sat by the lamp and read. He read every evening till Kitty went to bed and then went into a laboratory which he had fitted up in one of the bungalow’s empty rooms.

He put down his book and observed her reflectively. He seemed to gather his thoughts from a remote distance.

“Because I loved you.”

She flushed and looked away. She could not bear his cold, steady and appraising gaze. She understood what he meant. It was a little while before she answered.

Is it fair to blame me because you ascribed to me qualities I hadn’t got? I never tried to deceive you by pretending I was anything I wasn’t. I was just pretty and gay.

You don’t ask for a pearl necklace or a sable coat at a booth in a fair; you ask for a tin trumpet and a toy balloon.

”

What did it really matter if a silly woman had committed adultery and why should her husband, face to face with the sublime, give it a thought? It was strange that Walter with all his cleverness should have so little sense of proportion.

Because he had dressed a doll in gorgeous robes and set her in a sanctuary to worship her, and then discovered that the doll was filled with sawdust he could neither forgive himself nor her.

His soul was lacerated. It was all make-believe that he had lived on, and when the truth shattered it he thought reality itself was shattered. It was true enough, he would not forgive her because he could not forgive himself.

The Mother Superior opened the parlour door, but as she was going out she hesitated. Once more she gave Kitty a long, searching and sagacious look. Then she laid her hand gently on her arm.

“You know, my dear child, that one cannot find peace in work or in pleasure, in the world or in a convent, but only in one’s soul.”

Kitty gave a little start, but the Mother Superior passed swiftly out.

“I don’t understand anything. Life is so strange.

I feel like someone who’s lived all his life by a duck-pond and suddenly is shown the sea.

It makes me a little breathless, and yet it fills me with elation. I don’t want to die, I want to live. I’m beginning to feel a new courage.

“

Tao. Some of us look for the Way in opium and some in God, some of us in whisky and some in love. It is all the same Way and it leads nowhither.

”

It gave you quite a curious sensation, chilling but awe-inspiring, that she could walk on the same earth as you, attend to mundane affairs, and yet live so obviously upon a plane you could not reach. She once said to Kitty:

“It is not enough that a religious should be continually in prayer with Jesus; she should be herself a prayer.”

Though her conversation was interwoven with her religion, Kitty felt that this was natural to her and that no effort was made to influence the heretic.

“It was very hard for my father. I was his only daughter and men often have a deeper feeling for their daughters than they ever have for their sons.”

“It is a great misfortune to have a heart,” said Kitty, with a smile.

“It is a great good fortune to consecrate that heart to the love of Jesus Christ.”

The Mother Superior gave once more her aloof and yet beautiful smile.

“There is only one way to win hearts and that is to make oneself like unto those of whom one would be loved.”

Walter did not come back to dinner that evening. Kitty waited for him a little, for when he was detained in the city he always managed to send her word, but at last she sat down.

The thought haunted her now that in thus giving him peace of mind she would make the only possible amends for the anguish she had caused him.

It was a pity he had so little sense of humour: she could see them both, some day, laughing together at the way they had tormented themselves.

She was tired. She took the lamp into her room and undressed. She went to bed and presently fell asleep.

The officers saluted as she passed and she gravely bowed. They walked back across the courtyard and got into their chairs. She saw Waddington light a cigarette.

A little smoke lost in the air, that was the life of man.

Dawn was breaking now, and here and there a Chinaman was taking down the shutters of his shop. In its dark recesses, by the light of a taper, a woman was washing her hands and face.

In its dark recesses, by the light of a taper, a woman was washing her hands and face. In a teahouse at a corner a group of men were eating an early meal.

The grey, cold light of the rising day sidled along the narrow lanes like a thief.

There was a pale mist on the river and the masts of the crowded junks loomed through it like the lances of a phantom army. It was chilly as they crossed and Kitty huddled herself up in her gay and coloured shawl.

The pictures they paint, the music they compose, the books they write, and the lives they lead.

Of all these the richest in beauty is the beautiful life. That is the perfect work of art.

”

Kitty was conscious of a relaxation in the Superior’s demeanour. She saw that Kitty was prepared to yield and unconsciously she assumed a more gracious tone.

Kitty’s sense of humour was acute and her eyes twinkled as she reflected that even the saints liked to have their own way.

“Don’t think that I fail to appreciate the goodness of your heart, my dear child, and the admirable charity which makes you unwilling to abandon your self-imposed duties.”

Kitty stared straight in front of her. She faintly shrugged her shoulders. She knew that she could ascribe to herself no such exalted virtues. She wanted to stay because she had nowhere else to go.

It was a curious sensation this, that nobody in the world cared two straws whether she was alive or dead.

“I cannot understand that you should be reluctant to go home,” pursued the Superior amiably. “There are many foreigners in this country who would give a great deal to have your chance!”

He could not resist the facetious answer which came to his mind. Charlie smiled.

“Nothing suits you so well as black.”

She stared at him for a moment. Tears filled her eyes and she began to cry. Her beautiful face was distorted with grief. She did not seek to hide it, but lay on her back with her hands along her sides.

If the child was his, though she might never see him again, she could never entirely escape him. His power over her would reach out and he would still, obscurely but definitely, influence every day of her life.

“You really are the most vain and fatuous ass that it’s ever been my bad luck to run across,” she said.

As the ship steamed into Marseilles Kitty, looking at the rugged and beautiful outline of the coast glowing in the sunlight, on a sudden caught sight of the golden statue of the Blessed Virgin which stands upon the church of Sainte Marie de la Grace …