Читать книгу The Parts Men Play - Beverley Baxter - Страница 45

'I feel,' he said, 'that I can only vaguely understand what you mean. But is it not possible that you are looking at it too much from the standpoint of an individualist?'

'Women are all individualists,' she broke in; 'or they are until society breaks their spirit. This lumping of people into generations and tuning your son's brain to the same pitch as his medieval ancestors' doesn't interest women—that's man's performance. The great thing about a woman is her own life, isn't it? And the great event in a woman's life is when she has a child—because it's hers. This class and family stuff comes from men, because their names are perpetuated, not ours. There is no snobbery equal to men's; it is more noticeable with women, because it isn't instinctive with them, and they have to talk to show it.'

'Then,' said Selwyn, 'in addition to an Irish Rebellion, we may look for one from English women?'

'Yes. I don't know when, but it will come.'

He produced a cigarette-case. 'Would you care for a cigarette now?' he asked.

'No, thanks. But you smoke.'

'Poor England!' he said in pretended seriousness, tapping the table with the end of the cigarette, 'with two revolutions on her hands, and neither party knowing what it wants.'