Hugh Walpole

“ I could not deny that Chippet was right. Business was business, and however attractive I found Mrs. Farbman, something must be done to further our plans. And yet how strange and even, in an obscure way, romantic those hours in her company were! I have never known so truly stupid a woman as Mrs. Farbman was, nor have I ever known any woman capable of such a flood of apparently clever conversation that was finally quite meaningless. It was with this meaningless flood that she surrounded and overwhelmed poor Mr. Fleming. ”

“ We go in for men's work, men's lives, men's ways of thought, and then we have to cling on like drowning men to a raft, cling on to a boat that's overcrowded already, the occupants of which are always digging at us with boat-hooks to push us back into the sea again, and shouting with joy when we drop off and drown. ”

“ Monsieur Duhamel's first glance at Mrs. Farbman told him that here was an intellectual woman indeed. Mrs. Farbman's first glance at the sole meunière told her that this was a restaurant sans peur et sans reproche. I would not like to say that she was a greedy woman. I have never been able to understand why a really æsthetic appreciation of food should be held to count against a man. I fancy that good food beautifully cooked was Mrs. Farbman's approach to the spirit of beauty, and it was an approach that had been throughout her hard and rather dreary life consistently denied to her. ”

“ I have a scorn of human beings who are unable themselves to remove burdens for which they themselves are responsible, and that scorn was going to make my work difficult for me in many ways. What would happen, I could not but ask myself, if it was in these cases to be always the bore who roused my sympathy instead of the sufferers from the bore? Well, if that were so, I should learn something more about my fellow-beings than I had known before, and that same learning is, I imagine, the chief aid to knowing something more about oneself, which, in its own turn, is the first purpose of life. ”

“ On the very next evening Chippet and I had our first meal in the house of the Flemings. Because I am a realistic novelist, there is nothing, I suppose, in this modern world of ours that can possibly surprise me. The Flemings' house, Mr. Fleming, the numerous little Flemings, and the great Mrs. Farbman herself, were all exactly as I had expected them. There is something to me strangely depressing about Golders Green, and the Flemings' house would have been depressing anywhere. ”

“ She was always producing a fountain-pen from the centre of her masculine bosom and taking innumerable little notes in little pocket-books, writing them down with an air of finality as though it were the day of the last judgment and she was settling the destinies of all the poor human beings who were waiting in frightened, huddled masses at her large, uncomely feet. ”

“ Farbman is clever. However much one detests her, one can't deny that."
"In short," said Chippet, wearing a look of grave importance, "what you want us to do is to remove Mrs. Farbman with the greatest kindness, but in such a way that she will never return again."
"I don't mind about the kindness," said Mrs. Fleming, looking at us very innocently, "I won't hide from you that a little suffering, physical or otherwise, would do her no sort of harm, but of course," she hurriedly added, "there must be no question of our involving ourselves with the law in any way." ”

“ Fleming will be delighted to see the last of me, and Mrs. Fleming, of course, will light such a bonfire of ecstasy when I'm gone that it will illumine the whole of Golders Green for miles around. But where am I to go? What am I to do? I've been calling myself for years a modern woman, and there's another side, you know, to the modern woman question that many people don't consider. ”

“ Physical beauty meant nothing to him, or so little as not to matter, but a clever woman, or even a stupid woman who seemed to him clever, excited him to a frenzy of admiration and desire. What he liked best was to have as a habitual customer some member of the opposite sex who, while she discussed his sole meunière and his Chateaubriand steak with real human appreciation, was also able to give him a little philosophy, a few words about the advancement of women, and a hint or two as to Bergson. ”

“ I remember once, at the Zoo, seeing a large monkey in the corner of its cage, chattering, making fantastic gestures, scratching itself in impossible places, doing everything it could to attract the attention of a group of bored and superior monkeys who. were half asleep in another corner, and in the eyes of that large monkey there was a look of the most desperate loneliness I have ever witnessed in animal or man. Such loneliness was there in the eyes of Mrs. Farbman. ”

“ Fleming had surmounted the initial difficulty of speaking to complete strangers on this rather piratical subject, she was enjoying herself immensely, and was looking forward to seeing Mrs. Farbman tortured with red pincers by several long-tailed devils in a miniature Hades. Of such are even the mildest and most gentle women when another woman has interfered with their personal liberty. ”

“ Fleming. "We have two children, and my place, of course, is in my home. Devoted though we are, we have spent a considerable amount of time away from one another, and that I am sorry to say has afforded an opportunity for someone else to gain a control over my husband that he deplores just as deeply as I do myself."
"Please explain," said Chippet. "If he deplores it, I should have thought it the easiest thing in the world——"
"Oh, you don't know my husband!" Mrs. Fleming broke in. "He is one of the kindest men in the whole world, as she very well knows." ”

“ We will not define to you more nearly what precisely is intended by the term "bore." We do not do so because in the first place time is precious, and in these days paper expensive, and for the second more excellent reason that what is a Bore to One is not a Bore to Another. We are in this case addressing you personally and individually. We ask you to look round and, considering your household, decide whether there is not one person, man, woman, or child, whom you would like to see removed from your immediate vicinity. ”

“ From cocoa-nuts to boot-trees everything can to-day, when transit is so rapid and trade so often dishonest, be supplied. We flatter ourselves, however, that we have discovered one almost universal need that has hitherto most curiously escaped the attention of the benefactors of the human race. Sir (or Madam) , have you not in your immediate household or in your surrounding circle of friends and acquaintances a Bore? ... We admit that the question is abrupt and startling, and that is why we have placed after it in the most modern and realistic manner those suspensive dots. ”

“ The unfortunate thing was, as he had so often confided to me, that intellectual women were so seldom interested in cooking, "and, after all," he explained to me, "I have nothing to offer such a woman except a good meal, a kind heart, and an attentive manner." ”

“ An occasional visit during those three months does not count against us. The way we would put it would be that, after watching the case for three months, we are all definitely of the opinion that Mrs. Farbman's attentions have been removed elsewhere, and we shall settle this question by asking Mrs. Farbman herself as to whether this is so. Are these terms satisfactory to you?"
"One hundred pounds is a great deal of money," said Mrs. Fleming, her beautiful eyes filling with tears.
I saw that Chippet would probably be touched if I left them alone. ”

“ A murderer! Yes, that's all very well, but we had our business to consider, and at the end of the first fortnight we were bound to confess that we were dangerously near to defeat. Other things were happening at this time, other clients were coming to us—of whom I may speak on another occasion—and Borden was conducting one of these with every prospect of success, but this affair of the Flemings was for Chippet and me, our ewe lamb, our first-born, our precious pet. Chippet was nearly in tears whenever he thought of it. ”

“ Farbman, as I have described her to you, is a good deal of a caricature, and to that I would reply that more people are caricatures than you probably know, and that many people are caricatures at first sight and cease to be so when we know them a little better. ”

“ He has been engaged during the last eight months on a very important work on tadpoles and their development, and unfortunately my occupation in my household affairs and the children, and Mrs. Farbman's knowledge of shorthand, have given her an opportunity for being continually in his company."
"Is she in love with him?" Chippet interrupted. "Would you mind describing her to us? "
"She is a tall woman," said Mrs. Fleming, "rather like a man in woman's clothes. ”

“ Fleming, but you must understand that we cannot absolutely pledge ourselves to success. Our terms are that you pay us one hundred pounds if our endeavours succeed, and fifty pounds in any case, succeed or fail. We cannot, of course, pledge our word that Mrs. Farbman will never return to you again. We can only promise you that we will not claim success until she has been removed from you for three months. ”

“ You may be assured that we would not do so were it not for the fact that we believe that we have a suggestion of real interest to make to you. It is admittedly difficult, in these times of progress and over-sophistication, to discover some need of human beings hitherto unsatisfied. ”

“ Fleming, tears filling her eyes. "I feel better already—I feel that I can say anything to you."
"You can," said Chippet, "you can indeed,"
"About two years ago," continued Mrs. Fleming, "in Newcastle, after a lecture that my husband had given on 'Newts and their Home Life,' a lady came up and spoke to him and showed such evident interest in all that he had said that he could not but be pleased and flattered. ”

“ She must be well over forty, although she told us the other day that she had just celebrated her thirty-first birthday, and looked as though she expected us to give her a present, which I believe my husband would have done if I had not been there to stop it. She is a very dominating person, and, to speak quite frankly, our whole house is in terror of her. She comes to almost all our meals, and, of course, we are not very wealthy, and she eats with a very good appetite. ”

“ If, on the other hand, and human nature being what it is, in the more likely case there is such a one, we do beg you to apply to us and to see whether we cannot do something for you whether in improvement or modification or even in the total disappearance of your personal and individual Bore. ”

“ We looked at one another steadily for quite a long time.
"You're a clever young man," she said. "You're observant. You will get on. I will dine with you to-night."
The next scene of this voracious history was played out in the little, white, low-ceilinged upstairs room of the Vin Blanc. A new actor was added to an already competent company. This was little Monsieur Pierre Duhamel (no relation, by the way, to the author of "Vie des Martyrs") , the proprietor of the Vin Blanc. I have known Monsieur Duhamel through a considerable number of years. ”