MONA SARNOSA / EL INVIDENTE

This is an excerpt from a little essay I had to make at class about my own academic translations of D.H. Lawrence's tales Monkey Nuts and The Blind Man.

MONA SARNOSA / EL INVIDENTE
D.H. Lawrence - traducido por Sandra Dermark
Memoria de traducción (Fragmentos)

A mí me fueron asignados los relatos “The Blind Man” y “Monkey Nuts”, sobre cuyas traducciones que yo he realizado versará esta memoria. Ambos cuentos están ambientados en la campiña inglesa durante la Primera Guerra Mundial y protagonizados por soldados retirados a este entorno ostensiblemente más apacible desde el Frente Occidental, pero que, a pesar de su deseo de paz, se ven envueltos en catárticos triángulos amorosos. Los temas que se tratan son universales: el amor, la sexualidad, la intimidad, el impacto de la guerra, los roles sexuales o de género, la soledad, los celos, las diferencias y las relaciones entre las personas. De fondo también planea, en ambos relatos, una cuestión en torno a las relaciones humanas que aún da de qué hablar: si los opuestos se atraen o si cada oveja está mejor con su pareja. Lo que sí que queda claro en ambos cuentos es que dos son compañía y tres son multitud.

2.2. “The Blind Man”

Maurice Pervin, un hombretón corpulento, sensible y con alma de niño, invidente a raíz de heridas infligidas en combate, vive en su granja del sur de Inglaterra con su cara mitad, la bella escocesa Isabel (a través de cuyo punto de vista, en general, se nos presenta el relato). Una noche oscura y tormentosa de noviembre, el matrimonio Pervin, aislado en principio del mundo exterior, recibe la visita de Bertie Reid, amigo de la infancia de Isabel y un abogado con éxito; extravertido y de apariencia frágil, pero emocionalmente frío, el letrado contrasta intensamente con su cuñado. La tensión entre los dos hombres va creciendo hasta el inevitable desenlace, cuando Maurice invade la intimidad de Bertie al tocarle para conocerle, apretando poco a poco cada parte del cuerpo de su cuñado, lo cual, para el joven abogado, supone una intimidad insoportable.

2.3. “Monkey Nuts”

El cabo Albert, cuarentón socarrón e irónico, y el soldado raso Joe, joven sensible de veintitantos años, están acantonados en una estación de ferrovía rural durante unos preciosos días de primavera. El cabo y el soldado tienen una relación más íntima que la de simples amigos, yo diría incluso ligeramente homoerótica, que recuerda a las relaciones, en otros períodos de la historia militar, entre erasta y erómeno o entre caballero y escudero: un veterano mayor y un joven inexperto. La aparición de la voluptuosa señorita M. Stokes, una de las muchas voluntarias que ocupan puestos de trabajo vacantes (debido a la guerra), alta y rubia como una valquiria, de quien Joe se enamora locamente, abre una brecha entre los dos militares. A medida que Joe va acortando las distancias con la joven, el cabo es presa de los celos, acuñando el apodo “Monkey Nuts” (“Mona Sarnosa”), a partir de las iniciales de la voluntaria, que usa para referirse a ella a sus espaldas, estando tête-à-tête con el soldado raso. Al final, al enfriarse la relación entre Joe y la señorita Stokes, el soldado corta con su novia espoleado por Albert, llamando a la joven, por primera vez, “Monkey Nuts” (“Mona Sarnosa”) a la cara a gritos. Los dos hombres pueden, al fin, volver a estar juntos sin terceros en discordia.

4. PROBLEMAS DE TRADUCCIÓN

4.1. En general: variedades diastráticas/diafásicas, tuteo y ustedeo

En la lengua inglesa actual existe un único pronombre de segunda persona, “you,” sin distinciones de número o de formalidad. Ya que estos cuentos vieron la luz en la década de 1910 y están ambientados en la misma época, consideré oportuno aportar la diferencia entre tratamientos de “tú/vosotros” y “usted/ustedes” en los diálogos de mis traducciones. En este apartado, ahondaré en las relaciones entre dichos personajes y las razones que me han motivado a optar por el ustedeo o el tuteo, amén de las correcciones que introduje al respecto, sugeridas por nuestro tutor, Josep Marco.

En “The Blind Man”, Maurice (el invidente que da título al relato, que perdió la vista en combate) e Isabel Pervin son esposos, mientras que Bertie Reid es amigo de la infancia de ella y un desconocido para él; en el mismo relato, también aparecen varios sirvientes de la casa de campo del matrimonio Pervin. A estos últimos, he decidido que Isabel les tutee: al fin y al cabo, una granja mediana no es una mansión, y la relación entre servicio y señores es bastante estrecha en este contexto. Como marido y mujer, y además como marido discapacitado y mujer con la obligación de cuidar de él, los Pervin de mi traducción se tutean obviamente entre ellos. Siendo amigos íntimos desde niños que no se veían desde hace años, Isabel y Bertie también se tutean; mientras que Maurice, que apenas conoce a Bertie, trata al tercero en discordia de usted y viceversa.

En “Monkey Nuts”, tenemos entre manos un triángulo entre dos camaradas, un cabo de mediana edad y un joven soldado raso, y una de las muchas voluntarias que cubrieron puestos de trabajo dejados vacantes por hombres llamados a filas. El cabo y el soldado tienen una relación más íntima que la de simples amigos, yo diría incluso ligeramente homoerótica, que recuerda a relaciones de pareja similares en otros períodos de la historia militar: un veterano mayor y un joven inexperto. La voluntaria aparece como tercera en discordia: el soldado raso se enamora de ella, despertando los celos del cabo, que la ve como a una intrusa.

4.2. En “The Blind Man”

Este relato me ha presentado, ante todo, decisiones a tomar en torno a la cuestión del tuteo y el ustedeo, ut supra (ver 4.1.). Otro aspecto que me ha resultado complicado han sido los monólogos interiores de Isabel: a menudo, el narrador pasa a describir lo que ella siente y piensa, la realidad desde su punto de vista.

4.3. En “Monkey Nuts”

El hecho de que el juego de palabras del título constituya el Leitmotiv que vertebra todo el relato se me presentó como una buena prueba para mis destrezas de creadora de juegos de palabras; pasé tres días intentando resolver el interrogante antes de dar, finalmente y por fortuna, con “Mona Sarnosa”.

Para poner el juego de palabras en contexto, os ofrezco los pasajes más relevantes donde aparece el Leitmotiv:

1)                  El soldado Joe ha recibido un telegrama de la señorita Stokes, lo cual intriga al cabo Albert.

Albert was just unbuttoning his braces. He desisted, took the telegram form, and turned towards the candle to read it.

‘Meet me Belbury Station 6.00 p.m. today. M.S.,’ he read, sotto voce. His face took on its fun-and-nonsense look.

‘Who’s M.S.?’ he asked, looking shrewdly at Joe.

‘You know as well as I do,’ said Joe, non-committal.

‘M.S.,’ repeated Albert. ‘Blamed if I know, boy. Is it a woman?’

[···] ‘Oh, I’ll stand out of the way, boy, if that’s it,’ said Albert to Joe. Then he turned mischievously to Miss Stokes. ‘He wants to know what M. stands for,’ he said, confidentially.

‘Monkeys,’ she replied, turning to her horses.

‘What’s M.S.?’ said Albert.

‘Monkey nuts,’ she retorted, leading off her team.

Albert looked after her a little discomfited. Joe had flushed dark, and cursed Albert in his heart.

2)                  Joe está sin palabras después de la primera cita. El monstruo de ojos verdes se apodera de Albert:

Next day Joe was silent, sullen. Albert could make nothing of him. He proposed a walk after tea.

‘I’m going somewhere,’ said Joe.

‘Where — Monkey nuts?’ asked the corporal. But Joe’s brow only became darker.

3)                  Regresando a casa de noche, los dos militares se encuentran de repente con la señorita Stokes. Albert reacciona:

But Miss Stokes did not speak: she only stared with large, icy blue eyes at him. He became self-conscious, lifted up his chin, walked with his nose in the air, and whistled at random. So they went down the quiet, deserted grey lane. He was whistling the air: ‘I’m Gilbert, the filbert, the colonel of the nuts.’

4)                  Al final, habiéndose enfriado su relación, Joe corta con su novia animado por Albert:

And Joe was crouching already to jump off the truck to obey her, when Albert put his hand on his shoulder.

‘Half a minute, boy! Where are you off? Work’s work, and nuts is nuts. You stop here.’

Joe slowly straightened himself.

[···]

She stood and watched.

‘Joe!’ Her voice rang for the third time.

Joe turned and looked at her, and a slow, jeering smile gathered on his face.

‘Monkey nuts!’ he replied, in a tone mocking her call.

She turned white — dead white. The men thought she would fall.

Este juego de palabras, por ende, se prestaba como un verdadero interrogante dado a que jugaba con las iniciales de la voluntaria, M.S. (Mary/Margaret/Molly...? Stokes), y una expresión que, en original, contendría todos estos significados:

●                    Cacahuetes (“nueces de mono”)

●                    Loca como una mona

●                    “Huevos” (testículos) de mono

●                    Chichones

●                    Pamplinas

La elección de “Mona Sarnosa” fue un auténtico momento eureka, tan acertado que se ha granjeado el aprecio de Josep Marco y de Pilar Ezpeleta, los cuales han optado por mantener mi opción en el pasado a limpio de la traducción. He aquí los fragmentos del original en que surge y cobra relevancia el juego de palabras (como sintagma entero) en mi traducción:

1)    Albert estaba empezando a quitarse los tirantes. Desistió, cogió el telegrama y se giró hacia el candelabro para leerlo.

—“NOS VEMOS ESTACIÓN BELBURY HOY 18:00 STOP M.S. STOP” —leyó en voz baja. Su cara volvió a asumir una expresión divertida y disparatada.

—¿Quién es M.S.? —preguntó, dirigiéndole a Joe una astuta mirada.

—Lo sabes tan bien como yo —respondió Joe, evasivo.

—M.S. —repitió Albert —Que me parta un rayo si yo lo supiera, hijo… ¿Es una mujer?

[···]

—Quiere saber lo que quiere decir esa M —le dijo el cabo confidencialmente.

—Monos —respondió ella, volviendo la atención a sus caballos.

—¿Qué quiere decir “M.S.”? —preguntó Albert.

—Mona Sarnosa —replicó ella, guiando a un lado a los percherones.

Albert la miró, un poco desconcertado. Joe había adquirido un rubor oscuro y maldecía a Albert en su corazón.

2)    Al día siguiente, Joe permaneció en silencio, huraño. Albert no podía hacer nada al respecto. Le propuso un paseo después de la hora del té.

—Voy a algún lugar —dijo Joe.

—¿Dónde...? ¿Con la Mona Sarnosa? —preguntó el cabo. Pero la mente de Joe sólo se llenó de más borrascas.

4.2) —¡Joe! —alzó la voz por tercera vez.

Joe se volvió y la miró, y, lentamente, una sonrisa de mofa se dibujó en su rostro.

—¡Mona Sarnosa! —respondió, en un tono que imitaba la llamada de ella.

Ella se puso blanca… como una muerta. Los hombres creyeron que se desmayaría.

El “nuts” que aparece en los fragmentos 3) y 4) fue traducido como “sarna” a secas, manteniendo la misma implicitud de “mona sarnosa”:

3)    Pero la señorita Stokes no dijo nada: tan sólo le miraba fijamente con esos grandes ojos de un azul glacial. Él se sintió cohibido, levantó la barbilla, siguió caminando con la cabeza erguida, silbando a voleo. Así que recorrieron el camino gris, en silencio y desierto. Él estaba silbando la melodía de una canción que rezaba: “Soy Gilbert, el canalla, el coronel de la sarna”.

4.1) Y Joe ya estaba tomando impulso para saltar del vagón y obedecer a su señal cuando Albert le puso una mano en el hombro.

—¡Un segundo, hijo! ¿A dónde te vas? El trabajo es trabajo, y la sarna es sarna. Te detienes aquí.

Lentamente, Joe se enderezó.

La letra de la canción también se adaptó para que rimara, ya que, además, la conexión entre “Gilbert”-”filbert” (por rima) y “filbert”-”nuts” (semántica) se había perdido al traducir “nuts” como “sarna”. La rima con “canalla”-”sarna”, aunque asonante, tiene su gracia y su ritmo.

5. CONCLUSIONES

Junto con el Trabajo de Fin de Grado, las prácticas externas han supuesto uno de mis dos grandes desafíos al final de cuatro o cinco (si contamos este curso 2016-2017 y mi única asignatura pendiente obligatoria) años de carrera universitaria. Los dos relatos cuya traducción me fue asignada me han absorbido por completo, transportándome a la campiña inglesa del siglo pasado y presentándome a unos personajes que igualmente podrían haber sido personas de carne y hueso.

Y han sido las prácticas mi verdadera prueba de fuego en el aspecto práctico de la traducción, ya que me han enseñado lo esencial acerca de mis propios puntos fuertes y débiles y me han animado a poner toda la carne en el asador. La traducción de “Monkey Nuts” como “Mona Sarnosa” (el juego de palabras, en general), una decisión compleja pero sin dejar de ser acertada, ha supuesto un hito en mi experiencia como traductora de juegos de palabras, aguzando aún más esta destreza, por no hablar de las correcciones realizadas en mis traducciones de tiempos verbales y mis elecciones de traducción para el pronombre “you” como “tú/vosotros” o “usted/ustedes”.

En resumen: si el TFG fue mi prueba de fuego de teoría como traductora, estos cuentecillos lo han sido a la hora de la práctica. Hay mucho en común entre la temática y los mensajes de Otelo (sobre cuya ópera verdiana traducida al alemán versa mi Trabajo de Fin de Grado) y los de estos dos relatos, separados unos tres siglos del Bardo, y, aún así, es fácil ver en Albert y Joe a Yago y Rodrigo de verde caqui; ídem a Maurice e Isabel como Otelo y Desdémona, siendo Bertie obviamente el homólogo de Cassio. Los nombres y la vestimenta cambian, pero la esencia de los personajes y de las relaciones entre ellos permanece. Podría decirse que mi TFG y mis prácticas externas, o al menos los dos cuentos que he traducido por completo, forman un díptico en cierto modo. Estas dos experiencias de fin de grado conforman juntas el culmen de mi carrera universitaria y un punto de inflexión en mi corta pero azarosa vida.

KEEPING UP WITH THE EASTWOODS

More on my favourite D.H. Lawrence characters, a couple who cross the limits of gender roles and social constraints without regretting it at all...

The Eastwoods. They are a couple who are not
married legally. The Jewish woman ran away from her husband and now loves a
younger poor man named Major Eastwood. They live together.

Major Eastwood has this tenderness.

Major Eastwood tells the importance of desire. He
thinks “that desire is the most wonderful thing in life. Anybody who can really feel
it, is a king, and I envy nobody else (GSNSL 1078).” He tells the difference between desire
and lust. Major Eastwood looks like Mellors in Lady Chatterley’s Lover in thought.

 Eastwoods who are dauntless to pursue their love life. 

 Lawrence's portrayal of Mrs. Eastwood, a woman whose positive flouting of conventional morality is countervened by her cosmopolitanism and materialism - qualities deemed antithetical to true Englishness...
"the little Jewess"... her own ironical alliance with society's prejudiced notions of race and class.
...she is blasted (Mrs. Eastwood) for being Jewish, for living in an unmarried state with a younger man, and for having left her children...
Mrs. Eastwood is a particularly unstable figure.
Although liberated sexually, economically, and socially,
she is implicitly faulted for her mobility: for buying the Major,
for moving out of her Jewish world, for taking control and exercising power.
Mrs. Eastwood is a sexually alluring and dangerous other.
Mrs. Eastwood, for example, is a very small woman with a rather large nose.

Characters like the Eastwoods are affected by social snobbery.

There is frozen water: Major Eastwood has been "resurrected" from being buried for
twenty hours under snow.

Un hombre y una mujer. Se acercan los dos al fuego (es febrero y amenaza nieve), y preguntan si se pueden calentar (su coche es descapotado). La mujer dice que están en su "luna de miel", mientras esperan la sentencia de divorcio de Mr. Fawcett, un conocido ingeniero de la localidad. Ella es hebrea, y madre de dos hijitos, cuya custodia se le concederá en cuanto "se case" con el hombre. Este es el comandante Charles Eastwood, rubio, atlético, y cinco o seis años más joven que ella, que tiene 37 años. 
Eastwood se entera que los dos sirvieron en el mismo regimiento en Flandes durante la guerra.

Se relata la animada y detallada descripción de los Eastwood.
El cottage de los Eastwood, donde viven juntos y hacen todas las faenas de la casa sin servidumbre. La hebrea se escandaliza. En cambio, el comandante muestra más comprensión.

 la medio divorciada Mrs. Fawcett y el maquereau Eastwood.
Son realmente muy agradables. Y se casarán dentro de un mes, más o menos.

Mrs. Fawcett (Honor Blackman) and Major Eastwood (Mark Burns), two people living in sin, much to the chagrin of the moralistic townsfolk. 

the sympathetic Eastwoods.

The subplot of the Eastwoods

Mrs Fawcett, who has left her rich husband to live with her boy-friend,
Major Eastwood, who is some years younger.
The Eastwoods are unusual and interesting people.

Major Eastwood, during the war.

The subplot of the Eastwoods will decisively help understanding
of love and sex. The Eastwoods represent an inversion of the rules of the society: 
she is a rich woman who has bribed a handsome, athletic man into becoming her husband. Recognition of Major Easwood as an object of female desire, and as a man economically dependant on a woman broadens our scope substantially and shows us an altemative to the conventional sexual behaviour, according to which women are only objects, and not subjects, of sexual desire.

the scandalously unmarried couple

the Eastwoods, a woman “in the coat of many dead little animals” whom the narrator decides is “probably a Jewess,” and a man she calls her husband, with fur gloves and a pipe (71).

Perhaps the othering of Mrs. Eastwood, and her alleged decadence, is meant to

contrast with or double the othering of the Gypsies; the Eastwoods exemplify

bourgeois materialism, and appear to be the embodiment of all that Lawrence disliked

about England in general and Eastwood, his home town, in particular.

the bourgeois decadence of the Eastwoods

the Eastwoods appear to emblematize the Modern - —with their open admission of adultery -

Oddly, their situation— in which “Mrs. Eastwood” admits to being a “Mrs. Fawcett” on the verge of

divorce, the “mother of two children,” on an adulterous “honeymoon” with the younger Major

Eastwood— parallels that of Lawrence and Frieda. Perhaps he saw their situation, mirrored by the Eastwoods,

as decadent and corrupt.

A couple who are very different; they are the Eastwoods. They aren’t married – yet – but plan to be as soon as the woman has completed her divorce. She is a wealthy Jewess, and he is a Nordic Adonis, and they are living together while the legal affairs are running their course. 

very interesting woman (whose situation is also partially autobiographical to the author and his wife), Jewess, who left her husband, well known engineer Simon Fawcett for young major Eastwood.
 this couple
 the couple 
 the Major Eastwood and her beloved Little Jewess

the shockingly living-in-sin pair Mrs Fawcett and Maj Eastwood 


Fawcett-Eastwood represent different aspects of the free, expressive life, and serve to increase the alternatives to conventional values concerning love and marriage.

Mrs. Fawcett (played delightfully by the fabulous Honor Blackman) enters with her charming and gorgeous boyfriend - Major Eastwood. (played by the late and extremely handsome Mark Burns).

CHARLES EASTWOOD IN REAL LIFE

D.H. Lawrence actually drew upon a real-life tall and blond young officer for his character of Major Charles Eastwood. Though the model was actually one Sir Charles Rosenthal, of higher rank (a general) and with a different surname.

More information on this site (wonderful Eastwood/Rosenthal shrine!):

http://www.dhlawrencesocietyaustralia.com.au/SCALY%20BACK/page%2051.html

And more about Rosenthal himself here:

http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/rosenthal-sir-charles-8268

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Rosenthal

CHARLES EASTWOOD

A tall and blond young officer, blue-eyed if possible.
Such is my Traumprinz.
Now D.H. Lawrence created a supporting character that fits astonishingly into this mold, over-used in my works of fiction.
Major Charles Eastwood.
So young, and yet, a veteran of the Great War (whose centennial is celebrated his year)!
He's married to an open-minded Jewish divorcée and the stepfather of her children... AND IT'S HE WHO DOES THE HOUSEWORK!


She advanced, dressed in a sleek but bulky coat of sable fur. A man followed, in a blue great-coat; pulling off his fur gloves and pulling out a pipe.
“It looked so tempting,” said the woman in the coat of many dead little animals, smiling a broad, half-condescending, half-hesitant simper, around the company.
No one said a word.
She advanced to the fire, shuddering a little inside her coat, with the cold. They had been driving in an open car.
She was a very small woman, with a rather large nose: probably a Jewess. Tiny almost as a child, in that sable coat she looked much more bulky than she should, and her wide, rather resentful brown eyes of a spoilt Jewess gazed oddly out of her expensive get-up.

She crouched over the low fire, spreading her little hands, on which diamonds and emeralds glittered.
“Ugh!” she shuddered. “Of course we ought not to have come in an open car! But my husband won’t even let me say I’m cold!” She looked round at him with her large, childish, reproachful eyes, that had still the canny shrewdness of a bourgeois Jewess: a rich one, probably.

Apparently she was in love, in a Jewess’s curious way, with the big, blond man. He looked back at her with his abstracted blue eyes, that seemed to have no lashes, and a small smile creased his smooth, curiously naked cheeks. The smile didn’t mean anything at all.
He was a man one connects instantly with winter sports, skiing and skating. Athletic, unconnected with life, he slowly filled his pipe, pressing in the tobacco with long, powerful reddened finger.
The Jewess looked at him to see if she got any response from him. Nothing at all, but that odd, blank smile. She turned again to the fire, tilting her eyebrows and looking at her small, white, spread hands.
He slipped off his heavily lined coat, and appeared in one of the handsome, sharp-patterned knitted jerseys, in yellow and grey and black, over well-cut trousers, rather wide. Yes, they were both expensive! And he had a magnificent figure, an athletic, prominent chest. Like an experienced camper, he began building the fire together, quietly: like a soldier on campaign.

“We’re on our honeymoon,” said the little Jewess.
She spoke in a rather high, defiant voice, like some bird, a jay, or a crook, calling.

“Yes! Before we’re married! Have you heard of Simon Fawcett?”— she named a wealthy and well-known engineer of the north country. “Well, I’m Mrs. Fawcett, and he’s just divorcing me!”

She was an honest little thing, but perhaps her honesty was TOO rational. Perhaps it partly explained the notorious unscrupulousness of the well-known Simon Fawcett.
“Yes! As soon as we get the divorce, I’m going to marry Major Eastwood.”
Her cards were now all on the table. She was not going to deceive anybody.

Behind her, the two men were talking briefly. She glanced round, and fixed the gipsy with her big brown eyes.
He was looking up, as if shyly, at the big fellow in the sparkling jersey, who was standing pipe in mouth, man to man, looking down.
“With the horses back of Arras,” said the gipsy, in a low voice.
They were talking war. The gipsy had served with the artillery teams, in the Major’s own regiment.
“Ein schöner Mensch! (A beautiful person!)” said the Jewess. “A handsome man, eh?”
For her, too, the gipsy was one of the common men, the Tommies.

The Major came back, and slung himself into his coat.
“Come!” called the Jewess to the peeping children, as the blond man wheeled away the bicycle. “Come! Come here!” and taking out her little purse, she held out a shilling.
“Come!” she cried. “Come and take it!”
 The old woman called hoarsely to the children, from the enclosure. The two elder children came stealing forward. The Jewess gave them the two bits of silver, a shilling and a florin, which she had in her purse, and again the hoarse voice of the unseen old woman was heard.
The gipsy descended from his caravan and strolled to the fire. The Jewess searched his face with the peculiar bourgeois boldness of her race.
“You were in the war, in Major Eastwood’s regiment!” she said.
“Yes, lady!”
“Imagine you both being here now!— It’s going to snow —” she looked up at the sky.
“Later on,” said the man, looking at the sky.

He too had gone inaccessible. His race was very old, in its peculiar battle with established society, and had no conception of winning. Only now and then it could score.
But since the war, even the old sporting chance of scoring now and then, was pretty well quenched. There was no question of yielding. The gipsy’s eyes still had their bold look: but it was hardened and directed far away, the touch of insolent intimacy was gone. He had been through the war.

The little Jewess, mother of two children, was taking her wealth away from the well-known engineer and transferring it to the penniless, sporting young Major Eastwood, who must be five or six years younger than she.
 
The blond man returned.
“A cigarette, Charles!” cried the little Jewess, plaintively.
He took out his case, slowly, with his slow, athletic movement. Something sensitive in him made him slow, cautious, as if he had hurt himself against people. He gave a cigarette to his wife.

“Well goodbye!” said the Jewess, with her odd bourgeois free-masonry. “Thank you for the warm fire.”

The little Jewess had only to wait three months now, for the final decree. She had boldly rented a small summer cottage, by the moors up at Scoresby, not far from the hills. Now it was dead winter, and she and the Major lived in comparative isolation, without any maid-servant. He had already resigned his commission in the regular army, and called himself Mr. Eastwood. In fact, they were already Mr. and Mrs. Eastwood, to the common world.
The little Jewess was thirty-six, and her two children were both over twelve years of age. The husband had agreed that she should have the custody, as soon as she was married to Eastwood.
So there they were, this queer couple, the tiny, finely-formed little Jewess with her big, resentful, reproachful eyes, and her mop of carefully-barbered black, curly hair, an elegant little thing in her way, and the big, pale-eyed young man, powerful and wintry, the remnant surely of some old uncanny Danish stock: living together in a small modern house near the moors and the hills, and doing their own housework.
It was a funny household. The cottage was hired furnished, but the little Jewess had brought along her dearest pieces of furniture. She had an odd little taste for the rococco, strange curving cupboards inlaid with mother of pearl, tortoiseshell, ebony, heaven knows what; strange tall flamboyant chairs, from Italy, with sea-green brocade: astonishing saints with wind-blown, richly-coloured carven garments and pink faces: shelves of weird old Saxe and Capo di Monte figurines: and finally, a strange assortment of astonishing pictures painted on the back of glass, done, probably in the early years of the nineteenth century, or in the late eighteenth.
In this crowded and extraordinary interior, a whole system of stoves had been installed into the cottage, every corner was warm, almost hot. And there was the tiny rococo figurine of the Jewess herself, in a perfect little frock, and an apron, putting slices of ham on the dish, while the great snow-bird of a major, in a white sweater and grey trousers, cut bread, mixed mustard, prepared coffee, and did all the rest. He had even made the dish of jugged hare which followed the cold meats and caviare. The silver and the china were really valuable, part of the bride’s trousseau. The Major drank beer from a silver mug, the little Jewess had champagne in a lovely glass, the Major brought in coffee. They talked away. The little Jewess had a burning indignation against her first husband. She was intensely moral, so moral, that she was a divorcée. The Major too, strange wintry bird, so powerful, handsome, too, in his way, but pale round the eyes as if he had no eyelashes, like a bird, he too had a curious indignation against life, because of the false morality. That powerful, athletic chest hid a strange, snowy sort of anger. And his tenderness for the little Jewess was based on his sense of outraged justice, the abstract morality of the north blowing him, like a strange wind, into isolation.
As the afternoon drew on, they went to the kitchen, the Major pushed back his sleeves, showing his powerful athletic white arms, and carefully, deftly washed the dishes, while the woman wiped. It was not for nothing his muscles were trained. Then he went round attending to the stoves of the small house, which only needed a moment or two of care each day.
I am really amazed by this couple.
"The most extraordinary people!” And a detailed description.
“I think they sound rather nice!“I like the Major doing the housework, and looking so frightfully Bond-streety with it all. I should think, WHEN THEY’RE MARRIED, it would be rather fun knowing them.”

The very strangeness of the connection between the tiny Jewess and that pale-eyed, athletic young officer made me envy her.

Eastwood piqued my fancy. Such a smart young officer, awfully good class, so calm and amazing with a motor-car, and quite a champion swimmer, it was intriguing to see him quietly, calmly washing dishes, smoking his pipe, doing his job so alert and skilful. Or, with the same interested care with which he made his investigation into the mysterious inside of an automobile, concocting jugged hare in the cottage kitchen. Then going out in the icy weather and cleaning his car till it looked like a live thing, like a cat when she has licked herself. Then coming in to talk so unassumingly and responsively, if briefly, with the little Jewess. And apparently, never bored. Sitting at the window with his pipe, in bad weather, silent for hours, abstracted, musing, yet with his athletic body alert in its stillness.

"What about it?” he said, taking his pipe from his mouth, the unemotional point of a smile in his eyes.
“I’m perfectly all right today, and I shall be all right tomorrow,” he said, with a cold, decided look. “Why shouldn’t my future be continuous todays and tomorrows?”
His anger was of the soft, snowy sort, which comfortably muffles the soul.

“I!” bawled the tiny Jewess. “I! My goodness, don’t I!” She looked with reflective gloom at Eastwood, who was smoking his pipe, the dimples of his disconnected amusement showing on his smooth, scrupulous face. He had a very fine, smooth skin, which yet did not suffer from the weather, so that his face looked naked as a baby’s. But it was not a round face: it was characteristic enough, and took queer ironical dimples, like a mask which is comic but frozen. 

“Is there never any man that makes you feel quite, quite different?” said the Jewess, with another big-eyed look at Eastwood. He smoked, utterly unimplicated.

“A cat may look at a king,” calmly interposed the Major, and now his face had the smiles of a cat’s face.

“I think,” said the Major, taking his pipe from his mouth, “that desire is the most wonderful thing in life. Anybody who can really feel it, is a king, and I envy nobody else!” He put back his pipe.
The Jewess looked at him stupefied.
“But Charles!” she cried. “Every common low man in Halifax feels nothing else!”
He again took his pipe from his mouth.
“That’s merely appetite,” he said.

“I didn’t say marry him,” said Charles.

Charles smoked for some moments.
“That gipsy was the best man we had, with horses. Nearly died of pneumonia. I thought he WAS dead. He’s a resurrected man to me. I’m a resurrected man myself, as far as that goes. I was buried for twenty hours under snow,” he said. “And not much the worse for it, when they dug me out.”
There was a frozen pause in the conversation.
“They dug me out by accident,” he said.
 And he put back his pipe.

The half-divorced Mrs. Fawcett and the maquereau Eastwood...  “A young sponge going off with a woman older than himself, so that he can live on her money! The woman leaving her home and her children! I don’t know where you get your idea of honesty. — And you seem to be very well acquainted with them, considering you say you just know them. Where did you meet them?” Their detractors say this about them.


To me, he is neither a maquereau nor a young sponge.