Where Angels Fear to TreadForster, E. M. (Edward Morgan)
General
Where Angels Fear to Tread
Forster, E. M. (Edward Morgan)
Culture conflict -- Fiction; Historical fiction; Humorous stories; Middle class -- England -- Fiction
“He. Her. If you don’t look out he’ll murder you. I wish he would.”
“Tut tut, tutlet! You’d find a corpse extraordinarily inconvenient.”
Then he tried to be less aggravating. “I heartily dislike the fellow,
but we know he didn’t murder her. In that letter, though she said a lot,
she never said he was physically cruel.”
“He has murdered her. The things he did--things one can’t even
mention--”
“Things which one must mention if one’s to talk at all. And things which
one must keep in their proper place. Because he was unfaithful to his
wife, it doesn’t follow that in every way he’s absolutely vile.” He
looked at the city. It seemed to approve his remark.
“It’s the supreme test. The man who is unchivalrous to a woman--”
“Oh, stow it! Take it to the Back Kitchen. It’s no more a supreme test
than anything else. The Italians never were chivalrous from the first.
If you condemn him for that, you’ll condemn the whole lot.”
“I condemn the whole lot.”
“And the French as well?”
“And the French as well.”
“Things aren’t so jolly easy,” said Philip, more to himself than to her.
But for Harriet things were easy, though not jolly, and she turned upon
her brother yet again. “What about the baby, pray? You’ve said a lot of
smart things and whittled away morality and religion and I don’t know
what; but what about the baby? You think me a fool, but I’ve been
noticing you all today, and you haven’t mentioned the baby once. You
haven’t thought about it, even. You don’t care. Philip! I shall not
speak to you. You are intolerable.”
She kept her promise, and never opened her lips all the rest of the way.
But her eyes glowed with anger and resolution. For she was a straight,
brave woman, as well as a peevish one.
Philip acknowledged her reproof to be true. He did not care about the
baby one straw. Nevertheless, he meant to do his duty, and he was fairly
confident of success. If Gino would have sold his wife for a thousand
lire, for how much less would he not sell his child? It was just a
commercial transaction. Why should it interfere with other things? His
eyes were fixed on the towers again, just as they had been fixed when he
drove with Miss Abbott. But this time his thoughts were pleasanter, for
he had no such grave business on his mind. It was in the spirit of the
cultivated tourist that he approached his destination.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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