How Gabriel Became Thompson

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
How Gabriel Became Thompson by H. G. Wells. This is
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Read by CHRISTA Zeleski, How Gabriel became Thompson After the

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packed matrimonial There are nine possible events. All post matrimonial
stories belong to one or other of these nine classes
indicated by these possibilities. The characters, the accessories may vary indefinitely,
but the tale is always to be classified under one
of these heads. For each party to the marriage says

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one of these three things. First, it is not as
I expected, but it will do very well contentment. Secondly,
it is not as I expected, but we must manage compromise.
Or lastly, it is not as I expected and I
will not endure it catastrophe. The permutations of these three formula,

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taken two at a time, are nine, forming the diapasan
of marriage. Now the best stories as stories, are to
be made by taking number three in its five possible
combinations and solving your situation by the method of murder
or elopement. Number one with itself gives only a nauseating

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spectacle of married people kissing in company. Number two alone
or with one affords no vivid sensations. Stories on these
lines are but sunset pieces at best. The young people
go hither and thither, buying furniture, receiving and returning cards,
and the like, while the clouds of glory they trailed
after them from the romantic time, fade by imperceptible degrees.

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At last they look round and remark, or do not remark,
that the light is out of the sky, and the
world blue and cold. The change, indeed, is sometimes so
steady and so gradual, that I doubt if some of
them ever know the extent of their loss. But what
a splendid time is that of the pre matrimonial flights,
before the ephemeris of the human imagination accomplishes its destiny.

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How the world glows. Only the untried know the infinite
strength of the untried. There are innumerable things to be,
and no one has done them. The tale of those
who have failed and died has no meaning in our ears.
What ambitious student has not sat and talked with his
sympathetic friend, lending and borrowing ears in a fair commerce

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of boasting of the great deeds germinating This boasting of
the future is the cement of all youthful friendships, as
boasting of the past is of those of age. But
the former have a divine warmth of nature, which the
latter lack. Gabriel, my own friend, was a splendid exemplification
of this romance period of life. Gabriel Thompson was his name,

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but at first it was jester or to call him Gabriel,
for he had golden hair that flowed over his collar
and a beardless, angelic face. His soul was full of love,
of great deeds and justice, and our common conversation was
the entire reform by a few simple expedients of human society. Later, however,

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it became necessary to call him Thompson. That will explain
the title. It is a story of compromise, of the
clipping or shedding of the archangelic pinions by which he soared.
I remember the evening when gabrielle told me he was
in love. We had discoursed of the mystical woman's soul
that sways men. Gabriel with divine warmth and eye in

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colder strain. Indeed, as regards that particular fire. I have
always been a bit of salamander. Presently, however, Gabriel swooped
down to the concrete. I felt more than one twinge
of jealousy as he rushed into details with a transient
nervousness of manner unusual to him. He gave no name
or dates. Is she beautiful, I said, perceiving he raved

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little in that direction. Her futures are not regularly beautiful, plain,
Oh dear, no, Indeed she has the greatest of all beauty,
the beauty of expression. You need to talk to her
a kind of upward adoring look, I thought. Is she cultured?
She has read very few books, and yet she had

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a most wonderful insight into things. Several times, as I
have been timidly feeling my way to this or that
advanced view of ours, she has come out to meet me,
as it were, And I found that, in this seclusion
of her quiet country town, she had thought out things
and arrived at the very same ends as we, with
all our advantages, have done. She must be quick witted.

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She is indeed a more subtle and yet purer mind
I never met. I am giving her some of Ruskin's
books now, he is a revelation to her. She says,
she finds so much in him that has been in
her own mind, dimly perfectly expressed Carnile, she must read
after that Wordsworth Browning, And so he went on. She

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was quite womanly. Gabriel was very insistent upon that. She
entirely agreed with him that a woman's sphere was her home.
She did not want votes. At that time he was
smarting a little from a controversy with Miss Gowland m B.
Who did this wonderful girl was quite content to accompany
his song. So he was assured to be the compliment

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of his existence, his good angel, and his armor bearer
in that fight for the writing of the world which
his soul craved. After he was to be her teacher,
servant as a king is the servant of his people,
and true knight. I felt more and more jealous. Scarcely
two months before we had agreed that a new reformation

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was needed, and I was cast in the role of
Erasmus and Gabriel as Luther. This arrangement arrived at over
our youthful pipe. Solemnly enough was all forgotten. Now my
share was to hear of this absolutely new manifestation of
the feminine. I was interested only in her imperfections, as
they showed dimly through Gabrielle's panegyric. For once, Gabrielle, with

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his bright face, his shining eyes, his rhetorical gestures, and
his buoyant flow of words, absolutely bored and pained me.
I cared for him a lot at that time, and
had promised myself a creditable career by his side. I
had indeed forgotten the feminine until Gabrielle remembered it, Perhaps
that evening, or at any rate, some evening about that time,

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two other friends discussed the same love affair of Gabrielle's.
I think Gabrielle is a pretty name, dear, said one.
Now dearest, said the other, holding up one dainty finger
with an air of great solemnity. I want you to
tell me just exactly what you think of him. He
has a lovely profile. You must make him grow a
mustache and cut his hair, you want to say, And

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dare not many you have no moral courage. Yes he
does look a little effeminate now, but he is awfully clever,
he writes, you know, and he sends me such dreadfully
difficult books to read. I am getting quite learned. It
must be jolly to have a really clever husband, one
that is well known and has people running after his autograph.

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And all that you will be cutting poor me sunk
to the besauded condition of a wine merchant's wife. Dead.
You shall always come to see me, dear, on my
domestic days. But really, Minnie, I am going to be
dreadfully happy. You know. Gabrielle is going to do all
kinds of scientific researches. And I shall help him copy

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his things out and put his experiments out for him,
and all that I shall make him be an f
R s and he will give performances at soirees like
that handsome man we saw who did something clever in
a bottle. Gabrielle's shadow would look splendid in profile on
a white screen. Isn't he a socialist or anarchist or something?

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All young men with anything in them are like that. Now.
It is a kind of intellectual measles, Dear. I don't
think any the worse of a young man for that.
It is like his smoking pipes instead of cigars or cigarettes,
and not wearing gloves. You must see gabriel after I
have polished him for a year, Yes, said Minnie. This
is a woman's work. We cut and polish these rough diamonds,

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and they take all the credit for the flash and sparkle.
But if it were not for us, there would be
no gentleman in the world. Oh, Gabriel, dear is naturally
a gentleman, unpolished, dear, as you admit well. So they talked,
sitting cozily in dainty chairs. Long before the marriage, This
little Delilah of his cut his hair. He came to

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me less frequently, and one evening he explained that he
thought he was clearer headed when he smoked less. Besides
which the smell of tobacco hung about once so much.
Thereafter he ceased to be Gabriel to me, and became
Gabriel Thompson. And one memorable day I had a kind
of phantasm of the living, a vision of a fair

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haired man with a bees waxed mustache, dressed in an
ample frock coat and light gloves. It was my prophet,
curled and scented. The vision fluttered between me and my
book shelves for a moment and vanished, And I knew
at once that my Gabrielle. The world mender was lost
to me forever. Soon after came the visiting cards of

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the Happy Pair. I understand that the correct thing to
do is to call upon your newly married friends when
they are settled, and see what kind of furniture they have.
I did this by way of quiet sarcasm. I wore
my old velveteen jacket. Missus Thompson said I looked quite bohemian,
and the only consolation I had was to think that

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Thompson had a conscience. I asked him point blank about
the New Reformation, and she answered for him that he
was dreadfully busy at research. I saw Thompson look across
at me with a dumb request not to press the matter.
But I had no particular kindness for Thompson. Was he
not the man who had murdered my prophet Gabrielle and
buried him away in himself. I insisted upon social evils,

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the need of leaders for the people, and all our
old themes. Presently, my Gabrielle awoke in Thompson again and
began to talk. There is a passage, he said, presently
in Sesame and Lilies, the book you liked so much dear,
how does it go? I'm sure you know it. Ah.
Here is the book. It lay on the table, one
of the many volumes he had bought for her, one

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I remembered that had come like a revelation to her.
He took it up and turned over the pages. When
I saw the pages were all uncut, I felt sorry
for the man. He stared at the book as though
he hardly grasped the import of the thing. Then he
put it down again with force and an explative Gabriel
said the wife. I rose to go, but Gabriel was

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white with anger. You never opened the book, he said
to his wife, And you told me you had read it.
Missus Thompson turned to me. Must you go, she asked?
So I left them face to face with each other.
It was what one might call their real introduction to
one another. Each had played to the other of being
what the other dreamt. And now that little comedy was over.

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Missus Thompson had repeated Gabriel's conclusions after him to please him,
and he had acted as a gentleman, according to her lights.
But that unfortunate book had ended it. As I went out,
I heard her begin to think, Gabriel that in the
second month of our marriage. You should curse me and
he why did you only pretend to read my book?

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I suppose she did it to please him, but I
do not know if she made this excuse. It is,
for a womanly woman, a perfectly adequate excuse for any
little duplicity she commits. I fancy there must have been
a long discussion that afternoon. Practically it amounted to this
that each had made married a stranger in mistake for
an imaginary person. Such a complication, though common enough, requires

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very deliberate consideration, amid considerable mutual forbearance. On the contrary,
their talk that afternoon was heated, and it ended with
domestic thunder, which is the slamming of doors. Missus Thompson
was calm and reasonable throughout, but Gabrielle did a deal
of walking to and fro throwing books with violence onto
the floor, and invective. Generally, He had imagined that his

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marriage was to be an idyllic episode from which he
was to return presently to his dream of a new Reformation.
Gabrielle well to the fore wife, inspiring, helpful and advisatory,
He felt himself cut off from all this at once,
and first he tried to vent his dismay and displeasure
on his wife, and being defeated by her polite coolness,

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he took it out on the books, the carpet, and
the front door. She was dreadfully pained at his temper
and unreasonableness, annoyed more particularly at his letting the servants
hear the quarrel. She could not help asking herself what
they would say. Moreover, she was afraid he might do
something rash or ridiculous, so that she decided to talk

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the matter over with Minnie, who was now a wine
merchant's wife. I told him he could hardly expect me
to read all the books he inundated the house with,
especially when I had all my things to see to,
and he simply raved. He went on, dreadfully dear, swore
at me, and insulted me. Asked me if I thought
was fair treatment towards a man with a mission in

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the world to marry him under false pretenses. I said
there were no false pretenses, except that he had behaved
like a gentleman, and that when I trusted myself in
his hands, I thought he would always do so. He
almost cried when he said that he had looked to
me to be his help and inspiration, just as if
he had been going abroad as a missionary or something

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of that kind. I do think that kind of talk silly.
If I had behaved badly to him, Minnie, he could
not have been worse all this ranting and bother because
I did not read his silly old books. Rather than
have this scene, dear, I would have read every one
from cover to cover. You can't think how I have
reproached myself for not cutting those leaves so missus Thompson

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Minnie judiciously heard her through two or three times before
she attempted any consolation or advice. He is certainly going
on badly, my dear, but we all have our troubles.
It is quite enough to make you really ill. I
should have been if I had not kept so cool.
You bear up wonderfully. He does not deserve it, of course, dear,

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if you were ill, when he comes home again, really ill,
I be not just a headache so that all the
house would be hushed, he might have the grace to
feel ashamed of himself. You are too brave. It only
makes a man rave worse than ever to stand up
to him. They all hate to be told the truth
about themselves, and they shout bully you down. But your Gabrielle,

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any real man would not hit a really sick woman.
It is almost a pity. I am so well, then,
said Missus Thompson, scarcely grasping the new idea. Yet it's
the excitement you, poor dear, said Minnie, that keeps you
up now. But you will find the reaction presently, mark
my words. And sure enough Missus Thompson had hardly reached

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home when this reaction came upon her, and she was
helped upstairs by the sympathetic and half confidential Pardner made,
and all the blinds were straightway drawn and the house hushed. Meanwhile,
Gabrielle had been with me. Don't speak about it to me,
I said. I will not be the man to come
between husband and wife, especially when the wife is Missus Thompson.

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For heaven's sake, don't mock me, said gabriel I have
been cruelly deceived. Here I am at five and twenty,
with all my cardcastles in a heap. It is not
only that about Sesame and Lili's I have been finding
her out since the marriage that book with you. There
was the last straw. She is no help meet for me.
Her ideas are shallow and vain, her ways are always crooked.

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She is just a commonplace woman of the world. What
can a man do for others? What can he do
for himself with a woman like that? So he raved.
I did not join him, but I must own my
silence was sympathetic presently. However, after a pause, he started
to his feet and flung his chair headlong. I will
not endure it, he shouted, repeating as the attentive reader

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will notice Formula three. Why should the error of three
months dwarf and ruin a life. I will not live
with her. I will go abroad. What are these customs
and ceremonies, these flimsy ordinances, that they should chain me
back from all my possibilities. I tell you I will
part from her. I never married her. I married my ideal,
and she is no ideal of mine. He caught up

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his hat in his hand. He stood splendid, almost heroic,
holding his right hand for mine. Gabrielle, I said to him,
calling him by that name, for the last time, you
have had a bitter disappointment. I cannot advise you the
law of matrimony like the law of gravitation. No respectable
man disputes whatever you do. May you farewell. No cat

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and dog compromise for me, said gabrielle and so went
out right valiantly with my secret blessing. He noticed the
blinds in the front of the house were all down,
but being a man, he did not grasp the full
symbolism of this. He knocked for admission, a firm, clear knock.
Missus Thompson, at that moment, was upstairs, hurriedly putting away

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her bonnet, which she had thought of happily in time.
The partner maid let him in noiselessly with a funereal
expression of face. This startled him, for she was a flourishing,
noisy sort of girl. Please, sir, she said, in a whisper,
holding out his bath slippers, do you mind putting these on?
Missus is very ill? Indeed, why what is the matter,

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asked Gabriel in his natural voice, trying to keep up
his militant front. She regular broke down, sir, after you
left her, said the pardon maid reproachfully in an almost
noiseless whisper, and therewith handing him the slippers. She glided away,
leaving him to his conscience. Needless to say, she did
not mention Missus Thompson's visit to Minnie. Gabriel stood in

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confused thought for a minute, and then sat down on
one of the hall chairs and quietly changed his boots.
He had not expected this. He sat meditating vaguely over
his discarded boots for some time. He would have to
postpone his climax after all nuisance. Then his chivalry began
to awake. Perhaps he had been hitting unnecessarily hard. She

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was only a weak woman, and he had come home
to do battle and finish with her as if she
were a dragon. Certainly his ways were violent. She had
seemed cool enough during their quarrel. But then women, he
had read, are clever at hiding their pain. Though the
art nevertheless, may have gone will home. What if she
really cared for him? He remembered all the wrath, sorrow,

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and bitterness of his denunciation. Had he been heedlessly carried away. Presently,
he rose and stole upstairs. He would look at her.
It was a fatal resolution. His wife was lying dressed
upon the bed in the darkened room, her pale cheeks
were wet, and her eyes were closed, so that the damp,
long lashes lay upon her cheek. Her hair, which was

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abundant and beautiful, indeed, her chief beauty, was down. In
one hand she held her smelling salts, and the other
lay limp and extended. There was an expression of pain
on her face. She seemed to have cried herself to sleep.
Gabriel could hardly realize that this sorrowful little figure was
the human being he had raged against ten minutes ago.

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There came over my Gabriel. I suppose a great wave
of generous emotion. I admit, though it worked to my hurt,
that there was some greatness in his forgetting his world
mending at that moment. Had he not held her in
his arms, had not she trusted the happiness of her
life to him. He was not one of those intellectual
prigs who passed their dearest through the fire for some

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moloch of an idea. He had thought his career was
to be stifled by his wife. He had not realized
how his assertion of this would break her down. Poor
little girl with a disheveled hair, poor little sissy. The
New Reformation receded through an illimitable perspective to the smallest speck.
She sighed in her sleep. Oh, Gabriel, she said, with

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a sob in her voice. Gabriel could scarcely imagine why
he had just been so angry. She was dreaming of
him the New Reformation vanished. He knelt by the bed,
full of self reproach and took her hand. Her eyes
slowly opened. She looked in his face and saw she
had conquered. I have been a brute, he said, this

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emancipator of his second Gabriel. She whispered faintly, Gabriel, dear,
and closed her eyes again. I have been a brute,
repeated Gabriel. Gabriel, she said, Promise me something, anything, dear,
said Gabriel, Promise me you will never speak to that
hord man again. Now the horde Man referred to was myself.

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And will you believe it, dear reader, Gabriel, who had
left my home scarcely ten minutes vowing he would do
or die, promised. This is the plain and simple story
of how Gabriel became Thompson, so that there was no
Gabriel any more for me. I and the New Reformation
were buried under the foundation stone of their compromise, and

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there was, in spite of Gabriel's repetition of Formula three,
no catastrophe. From that day to this Thompson and I
have met and crossed one another in highways and byways,
but never a word has passed between us after my
first rebuff. But I understand through a friend, and it
is a curious example of the metabolia of memory that
Thompson is under the impression that I incited him to

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desert his wife. The health of Missus Thompson is and
has been very uncertain since that day. It had been
a tactical necessity. Thompson has to be gentle and careful
in all his doings. He takes her to church regularly,
and they have a prominent pew, and he keeps all
the observances. However, the scientific research languished somehow, and he

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is not a fellow of the Royal Society yet, though
it led to several profitable patents. He has one of
the best houses on Putney Hill, and Missus Thompson bears
up bravely against her uncertain health and gives really very
brilliant garden parties. She has dropped many because She is
deceitful and lives in one of the smaller houses in

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the Upper Richmond Road. Thompson is said to be apathetic
in society and irritable in business. His health has been
poor lately through an excessive consumption of cigars. And Of
How Gabriel became Thompson by H. G. Wells