Taking the Veil (by Katherine Mansfield) Essay Example for Free

winning the Veil (by Katherine Mansfield) Es reciteIt seemed impossible that any 1 should be unhappy on such a beautiful morning. cryptograph was, decided Edna, except herself. The windows were flung wide in the houses. From within in that location came the sound of pianos, short(p) hands pursue after each other and ran away fluttered in the sunny gardens, all bright with spring flowers. roadway boys whistled, a short dog barked people passed by, walking so decreasely, so swiftly, they give eared as though they treasured to break into a run. immediately she actually saw in the distance a parasol of the year. mayhap dismantle Edna did not look quite as unhappy as she felt. It is not easy to look tragic at eighteen, when you are extremely pretty, with the cheeks and lips and shinning eyes of perfect health. Above all, when you are wearing a French blue frock and your new spring hat trimmed with cornflowers. True, she carried under her arm a intensity bound in horrid bl ack leather. Perhaps the book provided a gloomy note, except only by accident it was the ordinary Library binding.For Edna had made going to the Library an excuse for getting step up of the house to judge, to realize what had happened, to decide somehow what was to be do at once. An awful thing happened. instead suddenly, at the theatre end night, when she and Jimmy were seated side by side in the dress-circle, without a mowork forcets warning in fact, she had just finished a choco deep almond and passed the boxful to him again she had fallen in love with an actor. But fallen in love. The feeling was contradictory anything she had ever imagined before. It wasnt in the least pleasant. It was scarce thrilling. Unless you can call the most dreadful brainiac of hopeless misery, despair, agony and wretchedness, thrilling. Combined with the certainty that if that actor met her on the pavement after, magical spell Jimmy was transport their cab, she would follow him to the ends of the earth, at a nod, at a sign, without giving another thought to Jimmy or her father and mother or her happy home and countless friends again.. The play had begun fairly cheerfully. That was at the choco new-fashioned almond stage. hence the hero had gone blind. Terrible momentEdna had cried so such(prenominal) she had to imbibe Jimmys f gray-headeded, smooth-feeling handkerchief as well. Not that crying mattered. Whole rows were in tears. Even the men blew their noses with a loud trumpeting noise and tried to peer at the programme instead of looking at the stage. Jimmy, most mercifully dry-eyed for what would she have done without his handkerchief? squeezed her free hand, and whispered Cheer up, high-priced girl And it was then she had taken a hold water chocolate almond to please him and passed the box again. Then there had been that ghastly scene with the hero alone on the stage in a broken- surmount room at twilight, with a band playing outside and the sound of cheering coming from the street. He had tried ah How painfully, how pitifully to grope his way to the window. Hw had succeeded at last. There he stood holding the curtain while one beam of light, just one beam, shone full on his raised sightless face, and the band ill-defined away into the distance It was really, it was absolutely oh, the most it was simply in fact, from that moment Edna knew that life could never be the same. She drew her hand away from Jimmys, leaned back, and shut the chocolate box for ever. This at last was love Edna and Jimmy were engaged. She had had her hair up for a year and a half, they had been publicly engaged for a year. But, they had known they were going to marry each other ever since they walked in the Botanical Gardens with their nurses, and sit on the grass with a wine biscuit and a piece of barley-sugar each for their tea. It was so much an accepted thing that Edna had worn a wonderfully good imitation of an engagement-ring out of a banger all the time she was at school. And up till now they had been devoted to each other. But now it was everyplace. It was so completely over that Edna found difficult to believe that Jimmy did not realize it too. She smiled wisely, sadly, as she turned into the gardens of the Convent of the Sacred Heart and mounted the path that led through them to Hill Street. How much wagerer to know it now than to wait until after they were married Now it was possible that Jimmy would get over it.No, it was no use deceiving herself he would never get over it His life was wrecked, was ruined that was inevitable. But he was young.. Time, people always said, Time might make a small-minded, just a little difference. In forty years when he was an old man, he might be able to think of her calmly perhaps. But she, what did the upcoming hold for her? Edna had reached the top of the path. There under a new-leafed tree, hung with little bunches of duster flowers, she sat down on a green bench and looke d over the Convent flowerbeds. In the one near to her grew tender stocks, with a border of blue, shell-like pansies, with at one corner a clump of creamy freesias, their light spears of green criss-crossed over the flowers. The Convent pigeons were tumbling high in the air, and she could hear the voice of baby Agnes who was giving a singing lesson. Ah-me, sounded the deep tones of the conical buoy, and Ah-me, they were echoed .. If she did not marry Jimmy, of course she would marry nobody. The man she was in love with, the famous actor Edna had far too much common-sense not to realize that would never be.It was very odd. She didnt even want it to be. Her love was too intense for that. It had to be endured, silently it had to torment her. It was, she supposed, simply that kind of love. But, Edna cried Jimmy. jackpot you never change? Can I never hope again? Oh, what sorrow to have to say it, but it must be said. No, Jimmy, I will never change. Edna bowed her head and a little flower fell on her lap, and the voice of baby Agnes cried suddenly Ah-no, and the echo came, Ah-no.. At that moment the future was revealed. Edna saw it all. She was astonished it took her breath away at first. But, after all, what could be more natural? She would go into a convent.Her father and mother do everything to dissuade her, in vain. As for Jimmy, his state of mind hardly bears thinking about. Why cant they understand? How can they add to her suffering like this? The being is cruel, terribly cruel After a last scene when she gives away her jewellery and so on to her best friends she so calm, they so broken-hearted into a convent she goes. No, one moment. The very evening of her going is the actors last evening at Port Willin. He receives by a strange messenger a box. It is full of white flowers. But there is no name, no card. Nothing? Yes, under the roses, wrapped in a white handkerchief, Ednas last photograph with, written underneath,The world forgetting, by the world f orgot.Edna sat very tranquillize under the trees she clasped the black book in her fingers as though it were her missal. She takes the name of Sister Angela. Snip Snip All her lovely hair is cut off. Will she be allowed to send one curl to Jimmy? It is contrived somehow. And in a blue gown with a white headband Sister Angela goes from the convent to the chapel, from the chapel to the convent with something unearthly in her look, in her sorrowful eyes, and in the gentle smile with which they greet the little children who run to her. A saint She hears it whispered as she paces the chill, wax-smelling corridors. A saint And visitors to the chapel are told of the nun whose voice is heard above the other voices, of her youth, her beauty, of her tragic, tragic love. There is a man in this town whose life is ruinedA big bee, a golden furry fellow, crept into freesia, and the delicate flower leaned over, swung, agitate and then the bee flew away it fluttered still as though it were laug hing. Happy, careless flower Sister Angela looked at it and said, Now it is winter. One night, lying in her icy cell, she hears a cry. Some stray savage is out there in the garden, a kitten or a lamb or well, whatever little animal might be there. Up rises the sleepless nun. All in white, shivering but fearless, she goes and brings it in. But future(a) morning, when the bell rings for matins, she is found tossing in her fever. in delirium and she never recovers. In triple days all is over. The service has been said in the chapel, and she is buried in the corner of the cemetery mute for the nuns, where there are plain little crosses of wood. Rest in Peace, Sister Angela..Now it is evening. Two old people leaning on each other come slowly to the grave and kneel down sobbing, Our daughter Our only daughter Now there comes another. He is all in black he comes slowly. But when he is there and lifts his black hat, Edna sees to her horror his hair is snow-white. Jimmy Too late, too l ate The tears are running down his face he is crying now. Too late, too late The wind shakes the leafless trees in the churchyard. He gives one awful bitter cry. Ednas black book fell with a thud to garden path. She jumped up, her heart beating. My darling No, its not too late. Its all been a mistake, a terrible dream. Oh, that white hair How could she have done it? She has not done it.Oh, heavens Oh, what happiness She is free, young, and nobody knows her secret. Everything is still possible for her and Jimmy. The house they have planned may still be built, the little solemn boy with hands behind his back watching them plant the archetype roses may still be born. His baby sister.. But when Edna got as far as his baby-sister, she stretched out her arms as though the little love came flying through the air to her, and gazing at the garden, at the white sprays on the tree, at those darling pigeons blue against blue, and the Convent with its narrow windows, she realized that now at la st for the first time in her life she had never imagined any feeling like it before she knew what it was to be in love, but in love