Le Mari Terrible

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Le Marie Terrible by H. G. Wells. This is a
LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
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Read by Christa Zeleski. You are always so sympathetic, she said,
and added reflectively, And one can talk of one's troubles

(00:23):
to you without any nonsense. I wondered dimly if she
meant as a challenge. I helped myself to a biscuit
thing that looked neither poisonous nor sandy. You are one
of the most puzzling human beings I ever met, I said,
a perfectly safe remark to any woman under any circumstances.
Do you find me so hard to understand? She said,

(00:45):
You are dreadfully complex. I bit at the biscuit thing
and found it full of a kind of creamy bird lime.
I wonder why women will arrange these unpleasant surprises for me.
I sickond of sweets twenty years ago. How so, she
was saying, and smiling her most brilliant smile. I have
no doubt she thought we were talking rather nicely, Oh,

(01:06):
said I, and waved the cream biscuit thing. You challenge
me to dissect you well, and that is precisely what
I cannot do. I am afraid you are very satirical,
she said, with a touch of disappointment. She is always
saying that when our conversation has become absolutely idiotic, as
it invariably does. I felt an inevitable desire to quote

(01:28):
Bogus Latin to her. It seemed the very language for her.
Malorum Fiduccia Parkoska Lebette, I said, in a low voice,
looking meaningfully into her eyes. Ah, she said, coloring a little,
and turning to pour hot water into the teapot, looking
very prettily at me over her arm as she did so.
That is one of the truest things that has ever

(01:50):
been said of sympathy, I remarked, don't you think so. Sympathy,
she said, is a very wonderful thing, A very precious thing.
You speak, said I, with a cough behind my hand,
as though you knew what it was to be lonely.
There is solitude even in a crowd, she said, and
looked round at the six other people, three discreet pairs

(02:10):
who were in the room. I too, I was beginning,
but hope dangle came with a tea cup, and seemed
inclined to linger he belongs to the nice boy class
and gives himself ridiculous airs of familiarity with grown up people.
Then the Giffins went, do you know I always take
such an interest in your work? She was saying to
me when her husband confound him came into the room.

(02:34):
He was a violent discord. He wore a short brown
jacket and carpet slippers, and three of his waistcoat buttons
were as usual undone good. Any tea left, Milly, he said,
and came and sat down in the arm chair beside
the table. How do deloloon? He said to the man
in the corner. Damn hot bellows, he remarked to me,
subsiding crinkly. She poured some more hot water into the teapot.

(02:58):
Why must charming Mary women always have these husbands? Is
very hot, I said. There was a perceptible pause. He
was one of those rather adiposed people who are not
disconcerted by conversational gaps. Are you working too? Working at Argonne?
He said? He is some kind of chemical investigator, I know.

(03:19):
He began at once to explain the most horribly complex
things about elements to me. She gave him his tea
and rose and went and talked to the other people
about autotypes. Yes, I said, not hearing what he was saying.
No would be more appropriate. He said, you are absent
minded bellows, not in love. I hope at your age. Really,

(03:39):
I am not thirty. But a certain perceptible thinness in
my hair may account for his invariably regarding me as
a contemporary. But he should understand that nowadays the beginnings
of baldness merely marked the virile epoch. I say, Milly,
he said out loud across the room. You haven't been
collecting bellows here, have you. She looked round, startled, and
I saw pained look come into her eyes. For the bazaar,

(04:02):
she said, not yet, dear. It seemed to me that
she shot a glance of entreaty at him. Then she
turned to the others again. My wife, he said, has
two distinctive traits. She is a born poetess and a
born collector. I ought to warn you. I did not know,
said I that she rhymed. I was speaking more of

(04:22):
the imaginative quality, the temperament that finds a splendor in
the grass, a glory in the flower that closed the
whole world in a vestiture of interpretation. Indeed, I said,
I thought she was watching us anxiously. He could not,
of course suspect, but I was relieved to fancy he
was simply talking nonsense. The magnificent figures of heroic, worshipful

(04:45):
and mysterious womanhood naturally appeal to her Cleopatra, Messalina, Beatrice,
the Madonna, and so forth. And she is writing, no,
she is acting. That is the real poetry of women
and children. A platonic Cleopatra, of infinite variety, spotless reputation,
and a large following her make believe is wonderful. She

(05:06):
would use Falstaff for Romeo without a twinge. If no
one else was at hand, she could exert herself to
break the heart of a soldier. I assure you, Bellows,
I heard her dress rustle behind me. I want some
more tea, he said to her. You misunderstood me about
the collecting Milly. What were you saying about Cleopatra, she said,
trying I think to look sternly at him. Scandal, he said,

(05:29):
but about the collecting Bellows. You must come to this bazaar,
she interrupted, I shall be delighted. I said boldly, Where
is it? And when about this collecting? He began. It
is in the aid of that delightful orphanage at Wimblingham,
she explained, and gave me an animated account of the charity.
He emptied his second cup of tea. May I have

(05:50):
a third cup? He said. The two girls signaled departure,
and her attention was distracted. She collects, and I will
confess she does it with extraordinary skill. The surreptitious addresses John,
She said over her shoulder. I wish you would tell
miss Smithers all those interesting things about Argonne. He gulped
down his third cup and rose with the easy obedience

(06:12):
of the trained husband. Presently she returned to the tea things.
Cannot I fill your cup? She asked. I really hope
John was not telling you his queer notions about me.
He says the most remarkable things. Quite lately he has
got it into his head that he has a formula
for my character. I wish I had, I said, with
a sigh. And he goes about explaining me to people

(06:33):
as though I was a mechanism scalp collector. I think
is the favorite phrase. Did he tell you? Don't you
think it perfectly horrid of him. But he doesn't understand you,
I said, not grasping his meaning. Quite at the minute
she sighed, you have, I said, with infinite meaning, my
sincere sympathy. I hesitated my whole sympathy. Thank you so much,

(06:56):
she said, quite as meaningly. I rose forthwith, and we
clasped hands, like souls who strike a compact. Yet, thinking
over what he said afterwards, I was troubled by a
fancy that there was the faintest suggestion of a smile
of triumph about her lips and mouth. Possibly it was
only an honorable pride. I suppose he has poisoned my

(07:17):
mine a little. Of course, I should not like to
think of myself as one of a fortuitously selected multitude
strung neatly together. If one may use the vulgarithm on
a piece of string, a stringful like a boy's string
of chestnuts, nice old gentlemen, nice boys, sympathetic and humorous
men of thirty kind fellows, gifted dreamers, and dashing blades,

(07:40):
all trailing after her. It is confoundedly bad form of
him anyhow to guide her visitors. She certainly took it
like a saint of course I shall see her again soon,
and we shall talk to one another about one another.
Something or other cropped up and prevented my going there
on her last Tuesday. And of Le Marie Teribla by H. G.

(08:01):
Wells