H. Wells - Ann Veronica

"Suppose now--look at this long snow-slope and then that blue

deep beyond--do you see that round pool of color in the ice--a

thousand feet or more below? Yes? Well, think--we've got to go

but ten steps and lie down and put our arms about each other.

See? Down we should rush in a foam--in a cloud of snow--to

flight and a dream. All the rest of our lives would be together

then, Ann Veronica. Every moment. And no ill-chances."

"If you tempt me too much ," she said, after a silence, "I shall

do it. I need only just jump up and throw myself upon you. I'm

a desperate young woman. And then as we went down you'd try to

explain. And that would spoil it. . . . You know you don't mean

it."

"No, I don't. But I liked to say it."

"Rather! But I wonder why you don't mean it?"

"Because, I suppose, the other thing is better. What other

reason could there be? It's more complex, but it's better.

THIS, this glissade, would be damned scoundrelism. You know

that, and I know that, though we might be put to it to find a

reason why. It would be swindling. Drawing the pay of life and

then not living. And besides--We're going to live, Ann

Veronica! Oh, the things we'll do, the life we'll lead! There'll

be trouble in it at times--you and I aren't going to run without

friction. But we've got the brains to get over that, and tongues

in our heads to talk to each other. We sha'n't hang up on any

misunderstanding. Not us. And we're going to fight that old

world down there. That old world that had shoved up that silly

old hotel, and all the rest of it. . . . If we don't live it

will think we are afraid of it. . . . Die, indeed! We're going

to do work; we're going to unfold about each other; we're going

to have children."

"Girls!" cried Ann Veronica.

"Boys!" said Capes.

"Both!" said Ann Veronica. "Lots of 'em!"

Capes chuckled. "You delicate female!"

"Who cares," said Ann Veronica, "seeing it's you? Warm, soft

little wonders! Of course I want them."

Part 9

"All sorts of things we're going to do," said Capes; "all sorts

of times we're going to have. Sooner or later we'll certainly do

something to clean those prisons you told me about--limewash the

underside of life. You and I. We can love on a snow cornice, we

can love over a pail of whitewash. Love anywhere. Anywhere!

Moonlight and music--pleasing, you know, but quite unnecessary.

We met dissecting dogfish. . . . Do you remember your first day

with me? . . . Do you indeed remember? The smell of decay and

cheap methylated spirit! . . . My dear! we've had so many

moments! I used to go over the times we'd had together, the

things we'd said--like a rosary of beads. But now it's beads by

the cask--like the hold of a West African trader. It feels like

too much gold-dust clutched in one's hand. One doesn't want to

lose a grain. And one must--some of it must slip through one's

fingers."

"I don't care if it does," said Ann Veronica. "I don't care a

rap for remembering. I care for you. This moment couldn't be

better until the next moment comes. That's how it takes me. Why

should WE hoard? We aren't going out presently, like Japanese

lanterns in a gale. It's the poor dears who do, who know they

will, know they can't keep it up, who need to clutch at way-side

flowers. And put 'em in little books for remembrance. Flattened

flowers aren't for the likes of us. Moments, indeed! We like

each other fresh and fresh. It isn't illusions--for us. We two

just love each other --the real, identical other--all the time."

"The real, identical other," said Capes, and took and bit the tip

of her little finger.

"There's no delusions, so far as I know," said Ann Veronica.

"I don't believe there is one. If there is, it's a mere

wrapping--there's better underneath. It's only as if I'd begun

to know you the day before yesterday or there-abouts. You keep

on coming truer, after you have seemed to come altogether true.

You. . . . brick!"

Part 10

"To think," he cried, "you are ten years younger than I! . . .

There are times when you make me feel a little thing at your

feet--a young, silly, protected thing. Do you know, Ann Veronica,

it is all a lie about your birth certificate; a forgery--and

fooling at that. You are one of the Immortals. Immortal! You

were in the beginning, and all the men in the world who have

known what love is have worshipped at your feet. You have

converted me to--Lester Ward! You are my dear friend, you are a

slip of a girl, but there are moments when my head has been on

your breast, when your heart has been beating close to my ears,

when I have known you for the goddess, when I have wished myself

your slave, when I have wished that you could kill me for the joy

of being killed by you. You are the High Priestess of Life. . .

."

"Your priestess," whispered Ann Veronica, softly. "A silly little

priestess who knew nothing of life at all until she came to you."

Part 11

They sat for a time without speaking a word, in an enormous

shining globe of mutual satisfaction.

"Well," said Capes, at length, "we've to go down, Ann Veronica.

Life waits for us."

He stood up and waited for her to move.

"Gods!" cried Ann Veronica, and kept him standing. "And to think

that it's not a full year ago since I was a black-hearted rebel

school-girl, distressed, puzzled, perplexed, not understanding

that this great force of love was bursting its way through me!

All those nameless discontents--they were no more than love's

birth-pangs. I felt--I felt living in a masked world. I felt as

though I had bandaged eyes. I felt--wrapped in thick cobwebs.

They blinded me. They got in my mouth. And now--Dear! Dear!

The dayspring from on high hath visited me. I love. I am loved.

I want to shout! I want to sing! I am glad! I am glad to be

alive because you are alive! I am glad to be a woman because you

are a man! I am glad! I am glad! I am glad! I thank God for

life and you. I thank God for His sunlight on your face. I

thank God for the beauty you love and the faults you love. I

thank God for the very skin that is peeling from your nose, for

all things great and small that make us what we are. This is

grace I am saying! Oh! my dear! all the joy and weeping of life

are mixed in me now and all the gratitude. Never a new-born

dragon-fly that spread its wings in the morning has felt as glad

as I!"

CHAPTER THE SEVENTEENTH

IN PERSPECTIVE

Part 1

About four years and a quarter later--to be exact, it was four

years and four months--Mr. and Mrs. Capes stood side by side upon

an old Persian carpet that did duty as a hearthrug in the

dining-room of their flat and surveyed a shining dinner-table set

for four people, lit by skilfully-shaded electric lights,

brightened by frequent gleams of silver, and carefully and simply

adorned with sweet-pea blossom. Capes had altered scarcely at

all during the interval, except for a new quality of smartness in

the cut of his clothes, but Ann Veronica was nearly half an inch

taller; her face was at once stronger and softer, her neck firmer

and rounder, and her carriage definitely more womanly than it had

been in the days of her rebellion. She was a woman now to the

tips of her fingers; she had said good-bye to her girlhood in the

old garden four years and a quarter ago. She was dressed in a

simple evening gown of soft creamy silk, with a yoke of dark old