365. Some Do Not... - Part Two cont.

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Part Two

III. 

This may be my favorite section of the book, where we meet Mark and Mark, for all intents and purposes, meets Christopher.

I had forgotten one of the more brilliant instances of Christopher’s doomed luck. If his becoming the “mascot” of the Wannop family started rumors all over his world, you would have thought it would at least would have gained him credit with his father... wrong. Not only was his father put out at no longer being called on for help and advice, but we also learn, thanks to the omniscient narrator, that his father had thought of marrying Valentine himself.

P202 [Mark] “You had a cheque dishonored at the club this morning?”

Christopher said:
“Yes.”
Mark waited for explanations. Christopher was pleased at the speed with which the news had traveled: it confirmed what he had said to Port Scatho...

Mark was troubled. Used as he had been for thirty years to the vociferous south he had forgotten that there were taciturnities still... he had got into the habit of considering himself almost the only laconic being in the world. He suddenly remembered with discomfort -- but also with satisfaction -- that his brother was his brother.
...

P214 Christopher said [to Mark]:
“I doubt if liar is the right word. He [Ruggles] picked up things that were said against me. No doubt he reported them faithfully enough. Things are said against me, I don’t know why.”

“Because,” Mark said with emphasis, “you treat these south country swine with the contempt that they deserve. They’re incapable of understanding the motives of a gentleman. If you live among dogs they’ll think you have the motives of a dog. What other motives can they give you?” He added: “I thought you’d been buried so long under their muck that you were as mucky as they!”

P215 Tietjens looked at his brother with the respect one has to give to a man ignorant but shrewd. It was a discovery that his brother was shrewd. [Presumably this “Tietjens” is Christopher]

P216 ... Mark said. “You’ve got Groby to all intents and purposes...”

Christopher said:
“Thanks. I don’t want it.”
“Got your knife into me?” Mark asked.
“Yes. I’ve got my knife into you,” Christopher answered. “Into the whole bloody lot of you, and Ruggles’ and ffolliott’s and our father!”

Mark said: “Ah!”
“You don’t suppose I wouldn’t have?” Christopher asked.

“Oh, I don’t suppose you wouldn’t have,” Mark answered. “I thought you were a soft sort of bloke. I see you aren’t.”

“I’m as North Riding as yourself!” Christopher answered.
...

P220 “No. I’m coming in,” Mark said. “I want to speak with Hogarth... About the transport wagon parks in Regent park. I manage all those beastly things and a lot more.”

“They say you do it damn well,” Christopher said. “They say you’re indispensable.” He was aware that his brother desired to stay with him as long as possible. He desired it himself.
...

[They meet Valentine]
P221 ... He added: “This is my brother Mark.”

...she said to Mark:
“I didn’t know Mr Tietjens had a brother. Or hardly. I’ve never heard him speak of you.”

Mark grinned feebly, exhibiting to the lady the brilliant lining of his hat.

“I don’t suppose anyone has ever heard me speak of him,” he said, “but he’s my brother all right!”

[Valentine asks Christopher if he’s “Mrs Macmasters that is’s” lover because Sylvia told her this. Christopher sets her straight]

P223 Christopher said:
“Come along. I’ve been answering tomfool questions all day. I’ve got another tomfool to see here, then I’m through.”

She said:
“I can’t come with you, crying like this.”
He answered:
“Oh, yes you can. This is the place where women cry.” [Where casualties are posted.] He added: “Besides there’s Mark. He’s a comforting ass.”
He delivered her over to Mark.
“Here look after Miss Wannop,” he said. “You want to talk to her anyhow, don’t you?” and he hurried ahead of them....

IV

This is such a Ford Madox Ford section. There are about three pages of Mark talking with Valentine and telling her his father “wanted your mother to be comfortable... He wants you to be comfortable too. . . .” and so solving their pressing financial situation that has been causing Valentine so much stress. Then we are in Valentine’s head for thirty-two pages recalling everything from the start of the war to her recent break with Mrs Macmaster.

V

And we are still in Valentine’s head. We are now brought up to the present including the phone conversation between Sylvia and Valentine at the beginning of this Part that we didn’t quite hear. The one where Sylvia tells Valentine, “Young woman! You’d better keep off the grass.  Mrs Duchemin is already my husband’s mistress. You keep off.” It is interesting that everyone believes all the rumors about Christopher. When he is in their presence people seem to believe he’s pure as the driven snow but he’s instantly pure as the driven slush when there’s gossip.

From page 229 to page 277 it's all in Valentine's head before we finally return to where Valentine is still sitting with Mark waiting for Christopher. And now for the love scene. Ready?

P 279 ...He had led her past swans -- or possibly huts; she never remembered which -- to a seat that had over it, or near it, a weeping willow. He had said, gasping, too, like a fish:

“Will you be my mistress to-night? I am going out to-morrow at 8.30 from Waterloo.”

P280 She had answered:
“Yes! Be at such and such a studio just before twelve. . . . I have to see my brother home. . . . He will be drunk. . . .” She meant to say: “Oh my darling, I have wanted you so much. . . .”
She said instead:
“I have arranged the cushions. . . .”


90 days of pandemic social distancing

The bees have gotten about all they’re going to get out of the flowering bush outside my window. That pretty much signals the start of summer for me. The next change I see will be when the maple tree turns color in the fall. I don’t expect all that much will have changed by then. I will still be social distancing and sheltering in place for the most part. It’s going to be the strangest year of my life.

Excepting errands around the building, like doing my laundry, watering the plants, sweeping and the like, I usually only leave my apartment once a day for exercise or twice if I have to go to the market or a restaurant for takeaway. Next week I’ll be venturing all the way to the bank, which I seem to need to hit once a month.

What I miss most, (not including food) and what I fantasize about attempting if it does reopen this year, is the bank cafe. I have still not had a drop of iced tea (or alcohol) this whole time. I would so like to grab my usual iced tea -- even if it has to be in a disposable cup -- and find an isolated spot to work on some project for several hours. It is a big place with good HVAC, so this doesn’t seem impossible to me.

I can’t imagine returning to the gym. Some of my usual restaurants/cafes I probably could try again, but the calculus of risk might not be worth it. We are probably weeks away from this even being an option and if the cases and deaths continue to rise, as is likely, I may not even be able to consider this by then. 

I do keep thinking of The Magic Mountain -- which should surprise no one who has read any of my blogs. The quality of time under lockdown. The importance of food and exercise and routine and the variation of that routine. All these things from the book are now daily considerations for me. Hans had the advantage in every way. He was really only restricted to his little Alpine valley. I’m limited to my hill, but even on my hill and in my building my actions are limited. And Hans only had to wear a mask for Fasching. I have a variety of masks for different activities outside my apartment, and have been attempting -- still without any luck -- to obtain better masks for several months now.

What I most envy Hans Castorp: His five prepared meals a day. His terrace with a view of the valley. His social life, including dueling mentors. On-site health professionals. If this goes on for over a year I may need to change the order of some of these items.

VI

And another prime example of how Ford chooses to tell a story. For the tale of how Christopher spent his last evening in London before returning to France and the Great War, we start... with him returning home at half-past three in the morning and falling into a chair in the dark,

P280 ...He imagined that no man had ever been so tired and that no man had ever been so alone!...

Their night of passion has come to this,

P281 “...Our hands didn’t meet. . . . I don’t believe I’ve shaken hands. . . . I don’t believe I’ve touched the girl . . . in my life. . . . Never once!... English, you know . . . But yes, she put her arm over my shoulders. . . . On the bank! . . . On such short acquaintance! I said to myself then . . . Well, we’ve made up for it since then. Or no! Not made up! . . . Atoned. . . . As Sylvia so aptly put it; at that moment mother was dying. . . .”

When they finally get her drunk brother home he passes out on the sofa -- where she had arranged the cushions.

P283 ...He had exclaimed:
“It’s perhaps too . . . untidy . . .”
She had said:
“Yes! Yes . . . Ugly . . . Too . . . oh . . . private!”
...

...he had added: “We’re the sort that . . . do not!”
She had answered, quickly too:
“Yes -- that’s it. We’re that sort!”...

And then they are off to talk about the party at Macmaster’s that Valentine didn’t attend as she has broken with Mrs Macmaster. Where Christopher learns that Macmaster has gotten a knighthood for a bit of statistics work Christopher had done as a joke showing that the French had suffered hardly at all if you just counted the bricks destroyed and not the output of the farms, mines, and factories occupied since the war began. This marks the end of his relationship with Macmaster as they can not really stand having him around as they can’t pay back all the money Christopher loaned Macmaster to get him established. That and the fact that Mrs Duchemin that was has always hated him.

And with that whimper, we end the first volume of Parade’s End.

364. Some Do Not... - Part Two

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Part Two

P166 [Sylvia] She looked at Tietjens now with a sort of gloating curiosity. How was it possible that the most honorable man she knew should be so overwhelmed by foul and baseless rumors? It made you suspect that honor had, in itself, a quality of the evil eye. . . . 

So this brings up another aspect of this story that I intend to keep an eye on, the Stoic perspective. Christopher is for all intents and purposes the Stoic Job. Entirely honorable and yet everyone suspects him of every kind of dishonor. And he responds in good Stoic fashion by simply keeping on keeping on.

P173 [Sylvia to Christopher] “...But, oh, Christopher Tietjens, have you ever considered how foully you’ve used me!”

Tietjens looked at her attentively, as if with magpie anguish. [??]

“If,” Sylvia went on with her denunciation, “you had once in our lives said to me: ‘You whore! You bitch! You killed my mother. May you rot in hell for it. . . .’ If you’d only once said something like it . . . about the child! About Perowne! . . . you might have done something to bring us together. . . .”

Tietjens said:
“That’s, of course, true!”

“I know,” Sylvia said, “you can’t help it. . . . But when, in your famous country family pride -- though a youngest son! -- you say to yourself: And I daresay if . . . Of, Christ! . . . you’re shot in the trenches you’ll say it . . . oh, between the saddle and the ground! That you never did a dishonourable action. . . . And, mind you, I believe that no other man save one [Christ, presumably] ever had more right to say it than you. . . .”

Tietjens said:
“You believe that!”

P173 “As I hope to stand before my Redeemer,” Sylvia said, “I believe it. . . . But, in the name of the Almighty, how could any woman live beside you . . . and be for ever forgiven? Or no: not forgiven; ignored! . . . Well, be proud when you die because of your honor. But, God, you be humble about . . . your errors in judgement. You know what it is to ride a horse miles with too tight a curb-chain and it’s tongue cut almost in half. . . . You remember the groom your father had who had the trick of turning the hunters out like that. . . . And you horse-whipped him, and you’ve told me you’ve almost cried ever so often afterwards for thinking of that mare’s mouth. . . Well! Think of this mare’s mouth sometimes! You’ve ridden me like that for seven years. . . .”
...

“Don’t you know, Christopher Tietjens, that there is only one man from whom a woman could take ‘Neither I condemn thee’ and not hate him more than she hates the fiend! . . .”

So this is where I got the horse idea. I should have known if was from Ford.

Next Sylvia is talking about how Christopher should “sleep with the Wannop girl to-night; you’re going out to be killed to-morrow.”

“...I’ve been a wicked woman. I have ruined you. I am not going to listen to you.”

He said:
P174 “I daresay you have ruined me. That’s nothing to me. I am completely indifferent.”
...

“I don’t care. I can’t help it. Those are -- those should be -- the conditions of life amongst decent people...”
...

Now we come to the bit about the Groby curse and the heir of Groby which I must include.

P175 Sylvia said:
“You mean that I may bring the child up as a Catholic.”

Tietjens said:
“A Roman Catholic. . . . You’ll teach him, please, to use that term before myself if I ever see him again. . . .”

Sylvia said:
“Oh, I thank God that he has softened your heart. This will take the curse off this house.”

Tietjens shook his head:
“I think not,” he said, “off  you, perhaps. Off Groby very likely. It was, perhaps, time that there should be a Papist owner of Groby again...”
...

P176 “...I fought your influence because it was Papist, while I was a whole man. But I’m not a whole man any more, and the evil eye that is on me might transfer itself to him.”

He stopped and said:
“For I must to the greenwood go. Alone a banished man. . . . But have him well protected against the evil eye. . . .”
...

178 [Sylvia] “...Your father died of a broken heart,” she said, “because your brother’s best friend, Ruggles, told him you were a squit who lived on women’s money and had got the daughter of his oldest friend with child. . . .”

Tietjens said:
“Oh! Ah! Yes! . . . I suspected that. I knew it, really. I suppose the poor dear knows better now. Or perhaps he doesn’t. . . . It doesn’t matter.”

II

This is one of the sections that are slowly built up to where everything finally happens. Strangely though, there’s nothing I feel I need to quote.

But I did have an irresistible thought while reading this again. Keep in mind that I now have both the book and the Tom Stoppard miniseries starring Benedict Cumberbatch in my head as I read. At the climax of this scene after Christopher has been ruined by Brownie, a banker in love with Sylvia, he goes from being overdrawn for a matter of hours the previous day to having Sylvia being thwarted at depositing a thousand pounds into his account, his brother Mark offering him a thousand pounds a year, and finally Lord Port Scatho, Brownie’s uncle and the head of the bank, saying Christopher can draw on his personal account. 

So it seems to me that they could have done one take of this scene in which Cumberbatch reacts to all this by yelling “I’m rich!” and running out of the room. Then one take of the subsequent scene with Mark and Valentine could be shot with Cumberbatch holding bags of candy and with chocolate smeared on his face. If nothing else it would be the hit of the blooper reel.

363. Some Do Not... Part One cont.

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Some Do Not... 

V

We get Mrs Duchemin and Valentine in conversation before the “breakfast.”

P 81 Miss Wannop said:
“Wait a minute. I haven’t finished. I want to say this: I never talk about that stage of my career [when she was in service after her father died] because I’m ashamed of it. I’m ashamed of it because I think I did the wrong thing, not for any other reason. I did it on impulse and I stuck to it out of obstinacy. I mean it would probably have been more sensible to go round with the hat to benevolent people, for the keep of mother and to complete my education. But if I’ve inherited the Wannop ill-luck, we’ve inherited the Wannop pride. And I couldn’t do it...”

Couldn’t this be said of Christopher as well? About the pride?

P83 “...I could harangue the whole crowd when I got them together. But speak to one man in cold blood I couldn’t. . . . Of course I did speak to a fat golfing idiot with bulging eyes, to get him to save Gertie. But that was different.”

Great way to have the love interest describe her future mate.

...

“Oh, the right man!”Miss Wannop said. “Thanks for tactfully changing the subject. The right man for me, when he comes along, will be a married man. That’s the Wannop luck!”

Christopher, upon first properly seeing Valentine at breakfast, and after having learned the evening before that half the world thinks her his mistress.

P88 “By Jove . . .” he said to himself: “It’s true! What a jolly little mistress she’d make!”
...

...He looked back at Miss Wannop [after dismissing Mrs Duchemin], and considered that she would make a good wife for Macmaster; Macmaster liked bouncing girls and this girl was quite lady enough.

What’s funny about this is that Macmaster, when first meeting Mrs Duchemin, was pairing her with Christopher. 

I don’t quite understand Mrs Duchemin’s instant antipathy towards Christopher. It’s important for the plot of the story, but you’d think a person would tend to make allowances for the best friend of the person they’re falling in love with.

VI

This is the part I’ve been waiting for.

P109 [Mrs Wannop to Christopher] “My dear boy!” she said, “My dear boy; it’s such a satisfaction to have you under my roof!” [They are in fact on the road to her house.]

The black horse reared on end, the patriarch [I have no idea. A type of bit?] sawing at its mouth. Mrs. Wannop said unconcernedly: “Stephen Joel! I haven’t done talking.”

Tietjens was gazing enraged at the lower part of the horse’s sweat-smeared stomach.

“You soon will have,” he said, “with the girth in that state. Your neck will be broken soon.”
..

P110 Tietjens addressed the driver with some ferocity:

“Here; get down, you,” he said. He held himself the head of the horse whose nostrils were wide with emotion; it rubbed its forehead almost immediately against his chest. He said: “Yes! Yes! There! There!” It’s limbs lost their tauntness. The aged driver scrambled down from the high seat... Tietjens fired indignant orders at him:

“Lead the horse into the shade of the tree. Don’t touch his bit: his mouth’s sore... blast you, don’t you see you’ve got a thirteen hands pony’s harness for a sixteen and a half hands horse. Let the bit out three holes: it’s cutting the animal’s tongue in half...”

“Loosen that bit, confound you,” he said to the driver. “Ah! You’re afraid.”

He loosened the bit himself, covering his fingers with greasy harness polish which he hated...

... He stood back and looked at the horse: it had dropped its head and lifted its near hind foot, resting the toe on the ground: an attitude of relaxation.

“He’ll stand now!” he said. He undid the girth, bending down uncomfortably, perspiring and greasy; the girth strap parted in his hand.
...

P112 ...This fellow hasn’t been swindling you. He’s got you deuced good value for money, but he doesn’t know what’s suited for ladies; a white pony and a basket-work chaise is what you want.”
“Oh, I like a bit of spirit,” Mrs Wannop said.
“Of course you do,” Tietjens answered: “but this turn-out’s too much.”
...

[To the driver] ...”You did damn well. Only you’re not what you were, are you, at thirty? And the horse looked to be a devil and the cart so high you couldn’t get out once you were in. And you kept it in the sun for two hours waiting for your mistress.”

“There wer’ a bit o’ lewth ‘longside stable wall,” the driver muttered.

“Well! He didn’t like waiting,”...

P112 Tietjens addressed Miss Wannop:
“What hands your mother’s got.” he said, “it isn’t often one sees a woman with hands like that of a horse’s mouth...”

“I suppose you think that’s a mighty fine performance,” she said. 

“I didn’t make a very good job of the girth,” he said. “Let’s get off this road.”

“Setting poor, weak women in their places,” Miss Wannop continued. “Soothing the horse like a man with a charm. I suppose you soothe women like that too. I pity your wife. . . . The English country male! And making a devoted vassal at sight of the handy-man, The feudal system all complete. . .”
...

...”I’m sorry I was rude to you. But it is irritating to have to stand like a stuffed rabbit while a man is acting like a regular Admirable Crichton, and cool and collected, with the English country gentleman air and all.”

Tietjens winced, The young woman had come a little too near the knuckle of his wife’s frequent denunciations of himself. And she exclaimed:

“No! That’s not fair!I’m an ungrateful pig! You didn’t show a bit more side really than a capable workman must who’s doing his job in the midst of a crowd of duffers...”

So. There will be more, much more, but here we have Christopher and horses vs Christopher and women. He sees horses and knows how to care for them. And his line about this being too much horse for their needs applies to Sylvia and himself. What he needs is what he says Mrs Wannop needs, a “white pony.” In other words Valentine.

So we are at the point in this story where in Pride and Prejudice we first see that Darcy and Elizabeth are made for each other. Or maybe we are at the point where Darcy realizes this but is so struggling with his pride that he can only offend Elizabeth. Alas, I don’t think Valentine ever does see Groby.

VII

P124 Jumping down from the high step of the dog-cart the girl completely disappeared into the silver... she was gone more completely than if she had dropped into deep water, into snow... Here there had been nothing.

The constation interested him...  


P125 He would have asked: “Are you all right?” but to express more concern than the “look out.” which he had expended already, would have detracted from his stolidity. He was Yorkshire and stolid; she south country and soft, emotional, given to such ejaculations as “I hope you’re not hurt,” when the Yorkshireman only grunts...

He returned to his constations of the concealing effect of water vapour...

P142 [Christopher to Campion after Campion’s car has injured the horse in the fog] “Go away,” he said, “say what you like. Do what you like! But as you go through Rye send up the horse-ambulance from the vet.’s. Don’t forget that. I’m going to save this horse. . . .”

“You know Chris,” the General said, “you’re the most wonderful hand with a horse . . . There isn’t another man in England . . .”

“I know it,” Tietjens said. “Go away. And send up that ambulance...”


Day 83 of the pandemic 

I haven’t written for a while. Chaotic times. Now the pandemic has been pushed aside by another Black Lives Matter moment. It does surprise me that Minneapolis is so often behind these episodes. It could be anywhere, given the racism in America, so I guess Minnesota is as good a trigger point as any. I have friends in the neighborhood where Mr Floyd was murdered so I've been following events as well as I can at this remove.

At any rate, the protests are still going on here and around the country, though the looting seems to have stopped locally. The shopping district below me was hard hit and I lost my drugstore. But here on the hill the only change has been more windows boarded up, just as the plywood was starting to come down for the pandemic. We have been stuck at 43 deaths from COVID-19 for quite some time now -- which is good. But the expectation is that the numbers may start going up as a result of the crowding at protests. We shall see. 

I’ve now made two attempts to buy better face masks online and have nothing to show for it. One online vendor’s system died even before we got to the credit card information. The other seemed to work, but I canceled the purchase after a couple weeks passed with no goods and no response to my inquiries. This isn’t a problem now but it may become a problem when things start to open up again, possibly later this month.

In other pandemic news, the big three when it comes to daily deaths are now the USA, Brasil, and Mexico. The published numbers for several countries are rather suspicious. Mexico has a surprisingly low number of cases for the death rate, no doubt because they aren’t doing much testing. Russia has a huge number of cases but few deaths, I imagine a comparison of year to year deaths will tell a different tale. The USA is up to 111,000 confirmed COVID-19 deaths and still going strong at around a thousand a day. 250,000 before the election still looks like a reasonable number.

362. Some Do Not. . . - Introduction, Part One

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Parade’s End

by Ford Madox Ford, 1924-1928

Introduction by Robie Macauley

I had to go to Wiki to learn who Robie Macauley was. 


An interesting life. He was responsible for the great writing I enjoyed in Playboy back in the ‘60s and then went to Houghton Mifflin when I was in the retail book business. But as much as I would like to praise him here, I can’t really say much for his introduction. I’m sure it is fine and probably contains insights I’m overlooking, but he doesn’t help me understand the political or religious aspects of the work. Like what Ford means by “Tory” and to what extent Chrisopher is a Protestant Christ figure. And Macauley may be a generation too late to grasp the significance of horses in the work, especially with regard to Sylvia and Valentine. This reading, we will see if that insight really holds up.

Interesting to note that the last volume of In Search of Lost Time was published before the last volume of Parade's End. I wouldn't have guessed that.

Some Do Not. . .

by Ford Madox Ford


Part One

P10 The hansom ran through nearly empty streets, it being very early for the public official quarters. The hoofs of the horse clattered precipitately. Tietjens preferred a hansom, horses being made for gentlefolk...
...

P11 When he paid the cabman, in front of a grey cement portal with a gabled arch, reaching up, he said:

‘You’ve been giving the mare less licorice in her mash. I told you she’d go better.’

P12 “The cabman, sith a scarlet, varnished face, a shiny hat, a drab box-cloth coat and a gardenia in his buttonhole, said:
‘Ah! Trust you to remember , sir.’

P14 ...he [Macmaster] hadn’t got over that morning. He had looked up from his coffee cup -- over the rim -- and had taken in a blue-grey sheet of notepaper in Tietjen’s fingers [the letter from Sylvia asking to be taken back], shaking, inscribed in the large broad-nibbed writing of that detestable harridan. And Tietjens had been staring -- staring with the intentness of a maddened horse -- at his, Macmaster’s, face...

P15 He could still feel the blow, physical, in the pit of his stomach! He had thought Tietjens was going mad: that he was mad. It had passed. Tietjens had assumed the mask of his indolent, insolent self...

II

Here we are introduced to Sylvia’s mother, Mrs Satterthwaite, and Father Consett and we first meet Sylvia. Sylvia is presented as utterly hateful but not all that different from her mother when it comes to men. But there’s nothing here about horses so I’m not going to bother quoting... but this would be a good section to reread after finishing the work as there is a huge amount of foreshadowing.

III

Had forgotten that Christopher and I share a dislike for the game of golf.

IV


This is where we learn that everyone already believes Christopher is cheating on Sylvia with Valentine, even though they hadn’t yet met. Since I read that Ford was a fan of Jane Austen, I now see in this the seeming inevitability in many of Austen’s novels. The couples are usually obvious, the question is how will it come about. (I was only able to finish Mansfield Park because I couldn’t see how it was going to end, not realizing how different attitudes were back then towards first cousins marrying.) The difference here is the problem is entirely Christopher's. Or Christopher. It could all be resolved in a chapter or two if Christopher weren’t so much who he is. It’s really a wonder that Valentine doesn’t end up hating him as much as Sylvia does.