THE COMPLETE SHORT STORIES OF RUDYARD KIPLING: 440+ Tales in One Edition. Rudyard Kipling
What do you wear these huge dagger bonnet-skewers for? They're big enough to kill a man with.
SHE. Oh! Don't kill me, though. You're sticking it into my head! Let me do it. You men are so clumsy.
HE. Have you had many opportunities of comparing us—in this sort of work?
SHE. Guy, what is my name?
HE. Eh! I don't follow.
SHE. Here's my cardcase. Can you read?
HE. Yes. Well?
SHE. Well, that answers your question. You know the other man's name. Am I sufficiently humbled, or would you like to ask me if there is any one else?
HE. I see now. My darling, I never meant that for an instant. I was only joking. There! Lucky there's no one on the road. They'd be scandalized.
SHE. They'll be more scandalized before the end.
HE. Do-on't! I don't like you to talk in that way.
SHE. Unreasonable man! Who asked me to face the situation and accept it? Tell me, do I look like Mrs. Penner? Do I look like a naughty woman? Swear I don't! Give me your word of honor, my honorable friend, that I'm not like Mrs. Buzgago. That's the way she stands, with her hands clasped at the back of her head. D'you like that?
HE. Don't be affected.
SHE. I'm not. I'm Mrs. Buzgago. Listen!
Pendant une anne' toute entiere
Le regiment n'a pas r'paru.
Au Ministere de la Guerre
On le r'porta comme perdu.
On se r'noncait a r'trouver sa trace,
Quand un matin subitement,
On le vit r'paraitre sur la place
L'Colonel toujours en avant.
That's the way she rolls her r's. Am I like her?
HE. No, but I object when you go on like an actress and sing stuff of that kind. Where in the world did you pick up the Chanson du Colonel? It isn't a drawing-room song. It isn't proper.
SHE. Mrs. Buzgago taught it me. She is both drawing-room and proper, and in another month she'll shut her drawing-room to me, and thank God she isn't as improper as I am. Oh, Guy, Guy! I wish I was like some women and had no scruples about—what is it Keene says?—"Wearing a corpse's hair and being false to the bread they eat."
HE. I am only a man of limited intelligence, and just now, very bewildered. When you have quite finished flashing through all your moods tell me, and I'll try to understand the last one.
SHE. Moods, Guy! I haven't any. I'm sixteen years old and you're just twenty, and you've been waiting for two hours outside the school in the cold. And now I've met you, and now we're walking home together. Does that suit you, My Imperial Majesty?
HE. No. We aren't children. Why can't you be rational?
SHE. He asks me that when I'm going to commit suicide for his sake, and, and—I don't want to be French and rave about my mother, but have I ever told you that I have a mother, and a brother who was my pet before I married? He's married now. Can't you imagine the pleasure that the news of the elopement will give him? Have you any people at Home, Guy, to be pleased with your performances?
HE. One or two. One can't make omelets without breaking eggs.
SHE. (slowly). I don't see the necessity—
HE. Hah! What do you mean?
SHE. Shall I speak the truth?
HE. Under the circumstances, perhaps it would be as well.
SHE. Guy, I'm afraid.
HE. I thought we'd settled all that. What of?
SHE. Of you.
HE. Oh, damn it all! The old business! This is too had!
SHE. Of you.
HE. And what now?
SHE. What do you think of me?
HE. Beside the question altogether. What do you intend to do?
SHE. I daren't risk it. I'm afraid. If I could only cheat—
HE. A la Buzgago? No, thanks. That's the one point on which I have any notion of Honor. I won't eat his salt and steal too. I'll loot openly or not at all.
SHE. I never meant anything else.
HE. Then, why in the world do you pretend not to be willing to come?
SHE. It's not pretence, Guy. I am afraid.
HE. Please explain.
SHE. It can't last, Guy. It can't last. You'll get angry, and then you'll swear, and then you'll get jealous, and then you'll mistrust me—you do now—and you yourself will be the best reason for doubting. And I—what shall I do? I shall be no better than Mrs. Buzgago found out—no better than any one. And you'll know that. Oh, Guy, can't you see?
HE. I see that you are desperately unreasonable, little woman.
SHE. There! The moment I begin to object, you get angry. What will you do when I am only your property—stolen property? It can't be, Guy. It can't be! I thought it could, but it can't. You'll get tired of me.
HE. I tell you I shall not. Won't anything make you understand that?
SHE. There, can't you see? If you speak to me like that now, you'll call me horrible names later, if I don't do everything as you like. And if you were cruel to me, Guy, where should I go—where should I go? I can't trust you. Oh! I can't trust you!
HE. I suppose I ought to say that I can trust you. I've ample reason.
SHE. Please don't, dear. It hurts as much as if you hit me.
HE. It isn't exactly pleasant for me.
SHE. I can't help it. I wish I were dead! I can't trust you, and I don't trust myself. Oh, Guy, let it die away and be forgotten!
HE. Too late now. I don't understand you—I won't—and I can't trust myself to talk this evening. May I call tomorrow?
SHE. Yes. No! Oh, give me time! The day after. I get into my 'rickshaw here and meet Him at Peliti's. You ride.
HE. I'll go on to Peliti's too. I think I want a drink. My world's knocked about my ears and the stars are falling. Who are those brutes howling in the Old Library?
SHE. They're rehearsing the singing-quadrilles for the Fancy Ball. Can't you hear Mrs. Buzgago's voice? She has a solo. It's quite a new idea. Listen.
MRS. BUZGAGO (in the Old Library, con. molt. exp.).
See-saw! Margery Daw! Sold her bed to lie upon straw. Wasn't she a silly slut To sell her bed and lie upon dirt?
Captain Congleton, I'm going to alter that to "flirt." It sound better.
HE. No, I've changed my mind about the drink. Good night, little lady. I shall see you tomorrow?
SHE. Yes. Good night, Guy. Don't be angry with me.
HE. Angry! You know I trust you absolutely. Good night and—God bless you!
(Three seconds later. Alone.) Hmm! I'd give something to discover whether there's another man at the back of all this.
A Second-Rate Woman
Est fuga, volvitur rota,
On we drift; where looms the dim port?
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