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The Old Wives' Tale
Reading suggestions
Table of Contents
Preface to this Edition
BOOK I. Mrs. Baines
Chapter 1. The Square
I
II
III
Chapter 2. The Tooth
I
II
III
Chapter 3. A Battle
I
II
III
IV
V
Chapter 4. Elephant
I
II
III
IV
Chapter 5. The Traveller
I
II
III
IV
Chapter 6. Escapade
I
II
III
IV
Chapter 7. A Defeat
I
II
III
BOOK II. Constance
Chapter 1. Revolution
I
II
III
IV
Chapter 2. Christmas and the Future
I
II
III
IV
Chapter 3. Cyril
I
II
Chapter 4. Crime
I
II
III
Chapter 5. Another Crime
I
II
III
IV
VI
Chapter 6. The Widow
I
II
III
Chapter 7. Bricks and Mortar
I
II
III
Chapter 8. The Proudest Mother
I
II
III
BOOK III. Sophia
Chapter 1. The Elopement
I
II
Chapter 2. Supper
I
II
Chapter 3. An Ambition Satisfied
I
II
III
IV
Chapter 4. A Crisis for Gerald
I
II
III
IV
V
Chapter 5. Fever
I
II
III
IV
V
Chapter 6. The Siege
I
II
III
IV
V
Chapter 7. Success
I
II
III
BOOK IV. What Life is
Chapter 1. Frensham’s
I
II
III
IV
V
Chapter 2. The Meeting
I
II
III
Chapter 3. Towards Hotel Life
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
Chapter 4. End of Sophia
I
II
III
IV
Chapter 5. End of Constance
I
II
III
IV
V
Arnold Bennett
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She nodded again; he loosed her arm, and she turned away. She could not have spoken. Glittering tears enriched her eyes. She was saddened into a profound and sudden grief by the ridiculousness of the scene. She had youth, physical perfection; she brimmed with energy, with the sense of vital power; all existence lay before her; when she put her lips together she felt capable of outvying no matter whom in fortitude of resolution. She had always hated the shop. She did not understand how her mother and Constance could bring themselves to be deferential and flattering to every customer that entered. No, she did not understand it; but her mother (though a proud woman) and Constance seemed to practise such behaviour so naturally, so unquestioningly, that she had never imparted to either of them her feelings; she guessed that she would not be comprehended. But long ago she had decided that she would never “go into the shop.” She knew that she would be expected to do something, and she had fixed on teaching as the one possibility. These decisions had formed part of her inner life for years past. She had not mentioned them, being secretive and scarcely anxious for unpleasantness. But she had been slowly preparing herself to mention them. The extraordinary announcement that she was to leave school at the same time as Constance had taken her unawares, before the preparations ripening in her mind were complete — before, as it were, she had girded up her loins for the fray. She had been caught unready, and the opposing forces had obtained the advantage of her. But did they suppose she was beaten?
No argument from her mother! No hearing, even! Just a curt and haughty ‘Let me hear no more of this’! And so the great desire of her life, nourished year after year in her inmost bosom, was to be flouted and sacrificed with a word! Her mother did not appear ridiculous in the affair, for her mother was a genuine power, commanding by turns genuine love and genuine hate, and always, till then, obedience and the respect of reason. It was her father who appeared tragically ridiculous; and, in turn, the whole movement against her grew grotesque in its absurdity. Here was this antique wreck, helpless, useless, powerless — merely pathetic — actually thinking that he had only to mumble in order to make her ‘understand’! He knew nothing; he perceived nothing; he was a ferocious egoist, like most bedridden invalids, out of touch with life — and he thought himself justified in making destinies, and capable of making them! Sophia could not, perhaps, define the feelings which overwhelmed her; but she was conscious of their tendency. They aged her, by years. They aged her so that, in a kind of momentary ecstasy of insight, she felt older than her father himself.
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