Though these services to Venus Epipontia, and these studies in the art of dress, did much to distract his thoughts and mitigate1 his earlier miseries2, it would be mere3 optimism to present Kipps as altogether happy. A vague dissatisfaction with life drifted about him, and every now and again enveloped4 him like a sea-fog. During these periods it was grayly evident that there was something, something vital in life, lacking. For no earthly reason that Kipps could discover, he was haunted by a suspicion that life was going wrong, or had already gone wrong in some irrevocable way. The ripening5 self-consciousness of adolescence6 developed this into a clearly felt insufficiency. It was all very well to carry gloves, open doors, never say ‘Miss’ to a girl, and walk ‘outside’, but were there not other things, conceivably even deeper things, before the complete thing was attained7? For example, certain matters of knowledge. He perceived great bogs8 of ignorance about him, fumbling9 traps, where other people, it was alleged10, real gentlemen and ladies, for example, and the clergy11, had knowledge and assurance, bogs which it was sometimes difficult to elude12. A girl arrived in the millinery department who could, she said, speak French and German. She snubbed certain advances, and a realisation of inferiority blistered13 Kipps. But he tried to pass the thing off as a joke by saying ‘Parlez-vous Francey’ whenever he met her, and inducing the junior apprentice14 to say the same.
He even made some dim, half-secret experiments towards remedying the deficiencies he suspected. He spent five shillings on five serial16 numbers of a Home Educator, and bought (and even thought of reading) a Shakespeare and a Bacon’s ‘Advancement of Learning,’ and the poems of Herrick from a chap who was hard up. He battled with Shakespeare all one Sunday afternoon, and found the ‘English Literature,’ with which Mr. Woodrow had equipped him, had vanished down some crack in his mind. He had no doubt it was very splendid stuff, but he couldn’t quite make out what it was all about. There was an occult meaning, he knew, in literature, and he had forgotten it. Moreover, he discovered one day, while taunting17 the junior apprentice with ignorance, that his ‘rivers of England’ had also slipped his memory, and he laboriously18 restored that fabric19 of rote20 learning: Ty Wear Tees ‘Umber —’
I suppose some such phase of discontent is a normal thing in every adolescence. The ripening mind seeks something upon which its will may crystallise, upon which its discursive21 emotions, growing more abundant with each year of life, may concentrate. For many, though not for all, it takes a religious direction; but in those particular years the mental atmosphere of Folkestone was exceptionally free from any revivalistic disturbance22 that might have reached Kipps’ mental being. Sometimes they fall in love. I have known this uneasiness end in different cases in a vow23 to read one book (not a novel) every week, to read the Bible through in a year, to pass in the Honours division of the London Matriculation examination, to become an accomplished24 chemist, and never more to tell a lie. It led Kipps finally into Technical Education, as we understand it in the south of England.
It was in the last year of his apprenticeship25 that he had pursued his researches after that missing qualification into the Folkestone Young Men’s Association, where Mr. Chester Coote prevailed. Mr. Chester Coote was a young man of semi-independent means, who inherited a share in a house agency, read Mrs. Humphry Ward15, and took an interest in social work. He was a whitish-faced young man, with a prominent nose, pale blue eyes, and a quivering quality in his voice. He was very active upon committees; he was very prominent and useful on all social occasions, in evidence upon platforms, and upon all those semi-public occasions when the Great descend26. He lived with an only sister. To Kipps and his kind in the Young Men’s Association he read a stimulating27 paper on ‘Self–Help.’ He said it was the noblest of all our distinctive28 English characteristics, and he was very much down upon the ‘over-educated’ Germans. At the close a young German hairdresser made a few commendatory remarks which developed somehow into an oration29 on Hanoverian politics. As he became excited he became guttural and obscure; the meeting sniggered cheerfully at such ridiculous English, and Kipps was so much amused that he forgot a private project to ask this Chester Coote how he might set about a little Self–Help on his own private account in such narrow margins31 of time as the System of Mr. Shalford spared him. But afterwards in the night-time it came to him again. It was a few months later, and after his apprenticeship was over, and Mr. Shalford had with depreciatory32 observations taken him on as an Improver at twenty pounds a year, that this question was revived by a casual article on Technical Education in a morning paper that a commercial traveller left behind him. It played the role of the word in season. Something in the nature of conversion33, a faint sort of concentration of purpose, really occurred in him then. The article was written with penetrating34 vehemence35, and it stimulated36 him to the pitch of inquiring about the local Science and Art Classes; and after he had told everybody in the shop about it, and taken the advice of all who supported his desperate resolution, he joined. At first he attended the class in Freehand, that being the subject taught on early closing night, and he had already made some progress in that extraordinary routine of reproducing freehand ‘copies’, which for two generations has passed with English people for instruction in art, when the dates of the classes were changed. Thereby38, just as the March winds were blowing, he was precipitated39 into the Woodcarving class, and his mind diverted first to this useful and broadening pursuit, and then to its teacher.
2
The class in woodcarving was an extremely select class, conducted at that time by a young lady named Walshingham; and as this young lady was destined41 by fortune to teach Kipps a great deal more than woodcarving, it will be well if the reader gets the picture of her correctly in mind. She was only a year or so older than he was, she had a pale, intellectual face, dark gray eyes and black hair, which she wore over her forehead in an original and striking way that she had adapted from a picture by Rossetti in the South Kensington Museum. She was slender, so that without ungainliness she had an effect of being tall, and her hands were shapely and white when they came into contrast with hands much exercised in rolling and blocking. She dressed in those loose and pleasant forms and those soft and tempered shades that arose in England in the socialistic-aesthetic epoch42, and remain to this day among us as the badge of those who read Turgenev’s novels, scorn current fiction, and think on higher planes. I think she was as beautiful as most beautiful people, and to Kipps she was altogether beautiful. She had, Kipps learnt, matriculated at London University, an astounding43 feat44 to his imagination, and the masterly way in which she demonstrated how to prod37 and worry honest pieces of wood into useless and unedifying patterns in relief, extorted45 his utmost admiration46.
At first when Kipps had learnt he was to be taught by a ‘girl’ he was inclined to resent it, the more so as Buggins had recently been very strong on the gross injustice47 of feminine employment. ‘We have to keep wives,’ said Buggins (though, as a matter of fact, he did not keep even one), ‘and how are we to do it with a lot of girls coming in to take the work out of our mouths?’ Afterwards, Kipps, in conjunction with Pearce, looked at it from another point of view, and thought it would be rather a ‘lark.’ Finally when he saw her, and saw her teaching and coming nearer to him with an impressive deliberation, he was breathless with awe48 and the quality of her dark, slender femininity.
The class consisted of two girls and a maiden49 lady of riper years, friends of Miss Walshingham’s, and anxious rather to support her in an interesting experiment than to become really expert woodcarvers; an elderly, oldish young man with spectacles and a black beard, who never spoke50 to any one, and who was evidently too shortsighted to see his work as a whole; a small boy, who was understood to have a ‘gift’ for wood-carving40; and a lodging-house keeper, who ‘took classes’ every winter, she told Mr. Kipps, as though they were a tonic51, and ‘found they did her good.’ And occasionally Mr. Chester Coote — refined and gentlemanly — would come into the class, with or without papers, ostensibly on committee business, but in reality to talk to the less attractive of the two girl-students, and sometimes a brother of Miss Walshingham’s, a slender, dark young man with a pale face and fluctuating resemblances to the young Napoleon, would arrive just at the end of the class-time to see his sister home.
All these personages impressed Kipps with a sense of inferiority that in the case of Miss Walshingham became positively53 abysmal54. The ideas and knowledge they appeared to have, their personal capacity and freedom, opened a new world to his imagination. These people came and went with a sense of absolute assurance, against an overwhelming background of plaster casts, diagrams and tables, benches and a blackboard, a background that seemed to him to be saturated55 with recondite56 knowledge and the occult and jealously guarded tips and secrets that constitute Art and the Higher Life. They went home, he imagined, to homes where the piano was played with distinction and freedom, and books littered the tables and foreign languages were habitually57 used. They had complicated meals, no doubt. They ‘knew etiquette,’ and how to avoid all the errors for which Kipps bought penny manuals —‘What to Avoid,’ ‘Common Errors in Speaking,’ and the like. He knew nothing about it all, nothing whatever; he was a creature of the outer darkness blinking in an unsuspected light.
He heard them speak easily and freely to one another of examinations, of books and paintings, of ‘last year’s Academy’— a little contemptuously — and once, just at the end of the class-time, Mr. Chester Coote and young Walshingham and the two girls argued about something or other called, he fancied, ‘Vagner,’ or ‘Vargner’— they seemed to say it both ways — and which presently shaped itself more definitely as the name of a man who made up music. (Carshot and Buggins weren’t in it with them.) Young Walshingham, it appeared, said something or other that was an ‘epigram,’ and they all applauded him. Kipps, I say, felt himself a creature of outer darkness, an inexcusable intruder in an altitudinous world. When the epigram happened he first of all smiled to pretend he understood, and instantly suppressed the smile to show he did not listen. Then he became extremely hot and uncomfortable, though nobody had noticed either phase.
It was clear his only chance of concealing58 his bottomless baseness was to hold his tongue, and meanwhile he chipped with earnest care and abased60 his soul before the very shadow of Miss Walshingham. She used to come and direct and advise him, with, he felt, an effort to conceal59 the scorn she had for him, and, indeed, it is true that at first she thought of him chiefly as the clumsy young man with the red ears.
And as soon as he emerged from the first effect of pure and awe-stricken humility61 — he was greatly helped to emerge from that condition to a perception of human equality by the need the lodging-house keeper was under to talk while she worked, and as she didn’t like Miss Walshingham and her friends very much, and the young man with spectacles was deaf, she naturally talked to Kipps — he perceived that he was in a state of adoration62 for Miss Walshingham that it seemed almost a blasphemous63 familiarity to speak of as being in love.
This state, you must understand, had nothing to do with ‘flirting’ or ‘spooning’ and that superficial passion that flashes from eye to eye upon the Leas and Pier64 — absolutely nothing. That he knew from the first. Her rather pallid65, intellectual young face beneath those sombre clouds of hair put her in a class apart; towards her the thought of ‘attentions’ paled and vanished. To approach such a being, to perform sacrifices and to perish obviously for her, seemed the limit he might aspire66 to, he or any man. For if his love was abasement67, at any rate it had this much of manliness68 that it covered all his sex. It had not yet come to Kipps to acknowledge any man as his better in his heart of hearts. When one does that the game is played, and one grows old indeed.
The rest of his sentimental69 interests vanished altogether in this great illumination. He meditated70 about her when he was blocking cretonne, her image was before his eyes at teatime, and blotted71 out the more immediate72 faces and made him silent and preoccupied73 and so careless in his bearing that the junior apprentice, sitting beside him, mocked at and parodied74 his enormous bites of bread and butter unreproved. He became conspicuously75 less popular on the ‘fancy’ side, the ‘costumes’ was chilly76 with him and the ‘millinery’ cutting. But he did not care. An intermittent77 correspondence with Flo Bates, that had gone on since she left Mr. Shalford’s desk for a position at Tunbridge, ‘nearer home,’ and which had roused Kipps in its earlier stages to unparalleled heights of epistolary effort, died out altogether by reason of his neglect. He heard with scarcely a pang78 that, as a consequence, perhaps, of his neglect, Flo was ‘carrying on with a chap who managed a farm.’
Every Thursday he jabbed and gouged80 at his wood, jabbing and gouging81 intersecting circles and diamond traceries, and that laboured inane82 which our mad world calls ornament83, and he watched Miss Walshingham furtively84 whenever she turned away. The circles, in consequence, were jabbed crooked85, and his panels, losing their symmetry, became comparatively pleasing to the untrained eye — and once he jabbed his finger. He would cheerfully have jabbed all his fingers if he could have found some means of using the opening to express himself of the vague emotions that possessed87 him. But he shirked conversation just as earnestly as he desired it; he feared that profound general ignorance of his might appear.
3
There came a time when she could not open one of the classroom windows. The man with the black beard pored over his chipping heedlessly . . .
It did not take Kipps a moment to grasp his opportunity. He dropped his gouge79 and stepped forward. ‘Lem me,’ he said . . .
He could not open the window either! ‘Oh, please don’t trouble,’ she said. ‘Sno trouble,’ he gasped88.
Still the sash stuck. He felt his manhood was at stake. He gathered himself together for a tremendous effort, and the pane86 broke with a snap, and he thrust his hand into the void beyond.
‘There!’ said Miss Walshingham, and the glass fell ringing into the courtyard below.
Then Kipps made to bring his hand back and felt the keen touch of the edge of the broken glass at his wrist. He turned dolefully. ‘I’m tremendously sorry,’ he said, in answer to the accusation89 in Miss Walshingham’s eyes. ‘I didn’t think it would break like that’— as if he had expected it to break in some quite different and entirely90 more satisfactory manner. The boy with the gift for woodcarving, having stared at Kipps’ face for a moment, became involved in a Laocoon struggle with a giggle91.
‘You’ve cut your wrist,’ said one of the girl friends, standing92 up and pointing. She was a pleasant-faced, greatly freckled93 girl, with a helpful disposition94, and she said, ‘You’ve cut your wrist’ as brightly as if she had been a trained nurse.
Kipps looked down and saw a swift line of scarlet95 rush down his hand. He perceived the other man-student regarding this with magnified eyes. ‘You have cut your wrist,’ said Miss Walshingham; and Kipps regarded his damage with greater interest.
‘He’s cut his wrist,’ said the maiden lady to the lodging-house keeper, and seemed in doubt what a lady should do.
‘It’s —’ she hesitated at the word ‘bleeding,’ and nodded to the lodging-house keeper instead. ‘Dreadfully,’ said the maiden lady, and tried to look and tried not to look at the same time.
‘Of course he’s cut his wrist,’ said the lodging-house keeper, momentarily quite annoyed at Kipps; and the other young lady, who thought Kipps rather common, went on quietly with her wood-cutting with an air of its being the proper thing to do — though nobody else seemed to know it.
‘You must tie it up,’ said Miss Walshingham.
‘We must tie it up,’ said the freckled girl.
‘I ‘adn’t the slightest idea that window was going to break like that,’ said Kipps, with candour. ‘Nort the slightest.’
He glanced again at the blood on his wrist, and it seemed to him that it was on the very point of dropping on the floor of that cultured class-room. So he very neatly96 licked it off, feeling at the same time for his handkerchief. ‘Oh, don’t!’ said Miss Walshingham as he did so, and the girl with the freckles97 made a movement of horror. The giggle got the better of the boy with the gift, and celebrated98 its triumph by unseemly noises, in spite of which it seemed to Kipps at the moment that the act that had made Miss Walshingham say, ‘Oh, don’t!’ was rather a desperate and manly52 treatment of what was, after all, a creditable injury.
‘It ought to be tied up,’ said the lodging-house keeper, holding her chisel99 upright in her hand. ‘It’s a bad cut to bleed like that.’
‘We must tie it up,’ said the freckled girl, and hesitated in front of Kipps. ‘Have you got a handkerchief?’ she said.
‘I dunno ‘ow I managed not to bring one,’ said Kipps. ‘I— Not ‘aving a cold, I suppose some ‘ow I didn’t think —!’ He checked a further flow of blood.
The girl with the freckles caught Miss Walshingham’s eye and held it for a moment. Both glanced at Kipps’ injury. The boy with the gift, who had reappeared with a chastened expression from some noisy pursuit beneath his desk, made the neglected motions of one who proffers100 shyly. Miss Walshingham, under the spell of the freckled girl’s eye, produced a handkerchief. The voice of the maiden lady could be heard in the background: ‘I’ve been through all the technical education Ambulance classes twice, and I know you go so if it’s a vein101, and so if it’s an artery102 — at least you go so for one, and so for the other, whichever it may be — but . . . ’
‘If you will give me your hand,’ said the freckled girl; and proceeded, with Miss Walshingham’s assistance, to bandage Kipps in a most businesslike way. Yes, they actually bandaged Kipps. They pulled up his cuffs103 — happily they were not a very frayed104 pair — and held his wrist and wrapped the soft handkerchief round it, and tightened105 the knot together. And Miss Walshingham’s face, the face of that almost divine Over-human came close to the face of Kipps.
‘We’re not hurting you, are we?’ she said.
‘Not a bit,’ said Kipps, as he would have said if they had been sawing his arm off. ‘We’re not experts, you know,’ said the freckled girl.
‘I’m sure it’s a dreadful cut,’ said Miss Walshingham.
‘It ain’t much, reely,’ said Kipps; ‘and you’re taking a lot of trouble. I’m sorry I broke that window. I can’t think what I could have been doing.’
‘It isn’t so much the cut at the time, it’s the poisoning afterwards,’ came the voice of the maiden lady. ‘Of course, I’m quite willing to pay for the window,’ panted Kipps opulently.
‘We must make it just as tight as possible to stop the bleeding,’ said the freckled girl.
‘I don’t think it’s much, reely,’ said Kipps. ‘I’m awful sorry I broke that window, though.’
Tut your finger on the knot, dear,’ said the freckled girl.
‘Eh?’ said Kipps. ‘I mean —’
Both the young ladies became very intent on the knot, and Mr. Kipps was very red and very intent upon the two young ladies.
‘Mortified, and had to be sawn off,’ said the maiden lady.
‘Sawn off,’ said the lodging-house keeper.
‘Sawn right off,’ said the maiden lady, and jabbed at her mangled106 design.
‘There,’ said the freckled girl, ‘I think that ought to do. You’re sure it’s not too tight?’
‘Not a bit,’ said Kipps.
He met Miss Walshingham’s eyes and smiled to show how little he cared for wounds and pain. ‘It’s only a little cut,’ he added.
The maiden lady appeared as an addition to their group. ‘You should have washed the wound, dear,’ she said. ‘I was just telling Miss Collis —’ She peered through her glasses at the bandage. ‘That doesn’t look quite right,’ she remarked critically. ‘You should have taken the ambulance classes. But I suppose it will have to do. Are you hurting?’
‘Not a bit,’ said Kipps; and smiled at them all with the air of a brave soldier in hospital. ‘I’m sure it must hurt,’ said Miss Walshingham.
‘Anyhow, you’re a very good patient,’ said the girl with the freckles.
Mr. Kipps became bright pink. ‘I’m only sorry I broke the window — that’s all,’ he said. ‘But who would have thought it was going to break like that?’
Pause.
‘I’m afraid you won’t be able to go on carving to-night,’ said Miss Walshingham. ‘I’ll try,’ said Kipps. ‘It reely doesn’t hurt — not anything to matter.’
Presently Miss Walshingham came to him as he carved heroically with his hand bandaged in her handkerchief. There was a touch of novel interest in her eyes. ‘I’m afraid you’re not getting on very fast,’ she said.
The freckled girl looked up and regarded Miss Walshingham.
‘I’m doing a little, anyhow,’ said Kipps. ‘I don’t want to waste any time. A feller like me hasn’t much time to spare.’
It struck the girls that there was a quality of modest disavowal about that ‘feller like me.’ It gave them a light into this obscure person, and Miss Walshingham ventured to commend his work as ‘promising’ and to ask whether he meant to follow it up. Kipps didn’t ‘altogether know’—‘things depended on so much,’ but if he was in Folkestone next winter he certainly should. It did not occur to Miss Walshingham at the time to ask why his progress in art depended upon his presence in Folkestone. There were some more questions and answers — they continued to talk to him for a little time even when Mr. Chester Coote had come into the room — and when at last the conversation had died out, it dawned upon Kipps just how much his cut wrist had done for him . . .
He went to sleep that night revising that conversation for the twentieth time, treasuring this and expanding that, and inserting things he might have said to Miss Walshingham — things he might still say about himself — in relation, more or less explicit108, to her. He wasn’t quite sure if he wouldn’t like his arm to mortify109 a bit, which would make him interesting, or to heal up absolutely, which would show the exceptional purity of his blood . . .
4
The affair of the broken window happened late in April, and the class came to an end in May. In that interval110 there were several small incidents and great developments of emotion. I have done Kipps no justice if I have made it seem that his face was unsightly. It was, as the freckled girl pointed111 out to Helen Walshingham, an ‘interesting’ face, and that aspect of him which presented chiefly erratic112 hair and glowing ears ceased to prevail.
They talked him over, and the freckled girl discovered there was something ‘wistful’ in his manner. They detected a ‘natural delicacy,’ and the freckled girl set herself to draw him out from that time forth113. The freckled girl was nineteen, and very wise and motherly and benevolent114, and really she greatly preferred drawing out Kipps to woodcarving. It was quite evident to her that Kipps was in love with Helen Walshingham, and it struck her as a queer and romantic and pathetic and extremely interesting phenomenon. And as at that time she regarded Helen as ‘simply lovely,’ it seemed only right and proper that she should assist Kipps in his modest efforts to place himself in a state of absolute abandon upon her altar.
Under her sympathetic management the position of Kipps was presently defined quite clearly. He was unhappy in his position — misunderstood. He told her he ‘didn’t seem to get on like’ with customers, and she translated this for him as ‘too sensitive.’ The discontent with his fate in life, the dreadful feeling that Education was slipping by him, troubles that time and usage were glazing115 over a little, revived to their old acuteness but not to their old hopelessness. As a basis for sympathy, indeed, they were even a source of pleasure.
And one day at dinner it happened that Carshot and Buggins fell talking of ‘these here writers,’ and how Dickens had been a labeller of blacking, and Thackeray ‘an artis’ who couldn’t sell a drawing,’ and how Samuel Johnson had walked to London without any boots, having thrown away his only pair ‘out of pride.’
‘It’s Luck,’ said Buggins, ‘to a very large extent. They just happen to hit on something that catches on, and there you are!’
‘Nice easy life they have of it, too,’ said Miss Mergle. ‘Write just an hour or so, and done for the day! Almost like gentlefolks.’
‘There’s more work in it than you’d think,’ said Carshot, stooping to a mouthful.
‘I wouldn’t mind changing for all that,’ said Buggins. ‘I’d like to see one of these here authors marking off with Jimmy.’
‘I think they copy from each other a good deal,’ said Miss Mergle.
‘Even then (chup, chup, chup),’ said Carshot, ‘there’s writing it out in their own hands.’
They proceeded to enlarge upon the literary life, on its ease and dignity, on the social recognition accorded to those who led it, and on the ample gratifications their vanity achieved. ‘Pictures everywhere — never get a new suit without being photographed — almost like Royalty,’ said Miss Mergle. And all this talk impressed the imagination of Kipps very greatly. Here was a class that seemed to bridge the gulf116. On the one hand essentially117 Low, but by fictitious118 circumstances capable of entering upon these levels of social superiority to which all true Englishmen aspire, these levels from which one may tip a butler, scorn a tailor, and even commune with those who lead ‘men’ into battle. ‘A’most like gentlefolks’— that was it! He brooded over these things in the afternoon, until they blossomed into daydreams119. Suppose, for example, he had chanced to write a book, a well-known book, under an assumed name, and yet kept on being a draper all the time . . . Impossible, of course; but suppose — It made quite a long dream.
And at the next woodcarving class he let it be drawn120 from him that his real choice in life was to be a Nawther —‘only one doesn’t get a chance.’
After this there were times when Kipps had the pleasant sense that comes of attracting interest. He was a mute, inglorious Dickens, or at any rate something of that sort, and they were all taking him at that. The discovery of this indefinable ‘something’ in him, the development of which was now painfully restricted and impossible, did much to bridge the gulf between himself and Miss Walshingham. He was unfortunate, he was futile121, but he was not ‘common’. Even now with help —? The two girls, and the freckled girl in particular, tried to ‘stir him up’ to some effort to do his imputed122 potentialities justice. They were still young enough to believe that to nice and niceish members of the male sex — more especially when under the stimulus123 of feminine encouragement — nothing is finally impossible.
The freckled girl was, I say, the stage manager of this affair, but Miss Walshingham was the presiding divinity. A touch of proprietorship124 came in her eyes at times when she looked at him. He was hers — unconditionally125 — and she knew it.
To her directly, Kipps scarcely ever made a speech. The enterprising things that he was continually devising to say to her, he usually did not say, or said, with a suitable modification126, to the girl with the freckles. And one day the girl with the freckles smote127 him to the heart. She said to him, looking across the class-room to where her friend reached a cast from the shelf, ‘I do think Helen Walshingham is sometimes the most lovely person in the world. Look at her now!’
Kipps gasped for a moment. The moment lengthened128, and she regarded him as an intelligent young surgeon might regard an operation without anaesthetics. ‘You’re right,’ he said, and then looked at her with an entire abandonment of visage.
She coloured under his glare of silent avowal107, and he blushed brightly. ‘I think so, too,’ he said hoarsely129, cleared his throat, and, after a meditative130 moment, proceeded sacramentally with his woodcarving.
‘You are wonderful,’ said the freckled girl to Miss Walshingham, apropos131 of nothing, as they went on their way home together. ‘He simply adores you.’
‘But, my dear, what have I done?’ said Helen.
‘That’s just it,’ said the freckled girl. ‘What have you done?’
And then with a terrible swiftness came the last class of the course to terminate this relationship altogether. Kipps was careless of dates, and the thing came upon him with an effect of abrupt132 surprise. Just as his petals133 were expanding so hopefully, ‘Finis,’ and the thing was at an end. But Kipps did not fully30 appreciate that the end was indeed and really and truly the end until he was back in the emporium after the end was over.
The end began practically in the middle of the last class, when the freckled girl broached134 the topic of terminations. She developed the question of just how he was going on after the class ended. She hoped he would stick to certain resolutions of self-improvement he had breathed. She said quite honestly that he owed it to himself to develop his possibilities. He expressed firm resolve, but dwelt on difficulties. He had no books. She instructed him how to get books from the public library. He was to get a form of application for a ticket signed by a ratepayer, and he said ‘of course’ when she said Mr. Shalford would do that, though all the time he knew perfectly135 well it would ‘never do’ to ask Mr. Shalford for anything of the sort. She explained that she was going to North Wales for the summer, information he received without immediate regret. At intervals136 he expressed his intention of going on with woodcarving when the summer was over, and once he added, ‘if —’
She considered herself extremely delicate not to press for the completion of that ‘if —’
After that talk there was an interval of languid woodcarving and watching Miss Walshingham.
Then presently there came a bustle137 of packing, a great ceremony of handshaking all round by Miss Collis and the maiden lady of ripe years, and then Kipps found himself outside the class-room, on the landing with his two friends. It seemed to him he had only just learnt that this was the last class of all. There came a little pause, and the freckled girl suddenly went back into the class-room, and left Kipps and Miss Walshingham alone together for the first time. Kipps was instantly breathless. She looked at his face with a glance that mingled138 sympathy and curiosity, and held out her white hand.
‘Well, good-bye, Mr. Kipps,’ she said.
He took her hand and held it, ‘I’d do anything,’ said Kipps, and had not the temerity139 to add ‘for you.’ He stopped awkwardly.
He shook her hand and said ‘Good-bye.’
There was a little pause. ‘I hope you will have a pleasant holiday,’ she said.
‘I shall come back to the class next year, anyhow,’ said Kipps, valiantly140, and turned abruptly141 to the stairs.
‘I hope you will,’ said Miss Walshingham. He turned back towards her.
‘Really?’ he said.
‘I hope everybody will come back.’
‘I will — anyhow,’ said Kipps. ‘You may count on that;’ and he tried to make his tones significant.
They looked at one another through a little pause.
‘Good-bye,’ she said.
Kipps lifted his hat.
She turned towards the class-room.
‘Well?’ said the freckled girl, coming back towards her.
‘Nothing,’ said Helen. ‘At least — presently.’
And she became very energetic about some scattered142 tools on a desk. The freckled girl went out and stood for a moment at the head of the stairs. When she came back she looked very hard at her friend. The incident struck her as important — wonderfully important. It was unassimilable, of course, and absurd, but there it was, the thing that is so cardinal143 to a girl, the emotion, the subservience144, the crowning triumph of her sex. She could not help feeling that Helen took it on the whole a little too hardly.
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mitigate
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| vt.（使）减轻，（使）缓和 | |
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miseries
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| n.痛苦( misery的名词复数 )；痛苦的事；穷困；常发牢骚的人 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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4
enveloped
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| v.包围，笼罩，包住( envelop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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ripening
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| v.成熟，使熟( ripen的现在分词 )；熟化；熟成 | |
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adolescence
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| n.青春期，青少年 | |
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attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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8
bogs
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| n.沼泽，泥塘( bog的名词复数 )；厕所v.（使）陷入泥沼， （使）陷入困境( bog的第三人称单数 )；妨碍，阻碍 | |
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9
fumbling
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| n. 摸索,漏接 v. 摸索,摸弄,笨拙的处理 | |
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alleged
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| a.被指控的，嫌疑的 | |
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clergy
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| n.[总称]牧师，神职人员 | |
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elude
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| v.躲避，困惑 | |
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blistered
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| adj.水疮状的，泡状的v.（使）起水泡( blister的过去式和过去分词 )；（使表皮等）涨破，爆裂 | |
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apprentice
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| n.学徒，徒弟 | |
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15
ward
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| n.守卫，监护，病房，行政区，由监护人或法院保护的人（尤指儿童）；vt.守护，躲开 | |
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16
serial
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| n.连本影片，连本电视节目；adj.连续的 | |
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taunting
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| 嘲讽( taunt的现在分词 )； 嘲弄； 辱骂； 奚落 | |
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laboriously
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| adv.艰苦地；费力地；辛勤地；（文体等）佶屈聱牙地 | |
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fabric
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| n.织物，织品，布；构造，结构，组织 | |
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20
rote
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| n.死记硬背，生搬硬套 | |
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21
discursive
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| adj.离题的，无层次的 | |
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22
disturbance
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| n.动乱，骚动；打扰，干扰；(身心)失调 | |
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23
vow
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| n.誓(言)，誓约；v.起誓，立誓 | |
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24
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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25
apprenticeship
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| n.学徒身份；学徒期 | |
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26
descend
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| vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降 | |
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27
stimulating
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| adj.有启发性的，能激发人思考的 | |
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28
distinctive
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| adj.特别的，有特色的，与众不同的 | |
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29
oration
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| n.演说，致辞，叙述法 | |
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30
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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31
margins
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| 边( margin的名词复数 )； 利润； 页边空白； 差数 | |
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32
depreciatory
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| adj.贬值的，蔑视的 | |
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33
conversion
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| n.转化，转换，转变 | |
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34
penetrating
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| adj.（声音）响亮的，尖锐的adj.（气味）刺激的adj.（思想）敏锐的，有洞察力的 | |
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35
vehemence
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| n.热切；激烈；愤怒 | |
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36
stimulated
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| a.刺激的 | |
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37
prod
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| vt.戳，刺；刺激，激励 | |
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38
thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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39
precipitated
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| v.（突如其来地）使发生( precipitate的过去式和过去分词 )；促成；猛然摔下；使沉淀 | |
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40
carving
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| n.雕刻品，雕花 | |
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41
destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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42
epoch
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| n.(新)时代；历元 | |
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43
astounding
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| adj.使人震惊的vt.使震惊，使大吃一惊astound的现在分词) | |
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44
feat
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| n.功绩；武艺，技艺；adj.灵巧的，漂亮的，合适的 | |
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45
extorted
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| v.敲诈( extort的过去式和过去分词 )；曲解 | |
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46
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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47
injustice
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| n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利 | |
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48
awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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49
maiden
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| n.少女，处女；adj.未婚的，纯洁的，无经验的 | |
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50
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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51
tonic
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| n./adj.滋补品，补药，强身的，健体的 | |
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52
manly
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| adj.有男子气概的；adv.男子般地，果断地 | |
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53
positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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54
abysmal
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| adj.无底的，深不可测的，极深的；糟透的，极坏的；完全的 | |
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55
saturated
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| a.饱和的，充满的 | |
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56
recondite
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| adj.深奥的，难解的 | |
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57
habitually
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| ad.习惯地，通常地 | |
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58
concealing
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，遮住( conceal的现在分词 ) | |
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59
conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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60
abased
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| 使谦卑( abase的过去式和过去分词 )； 使感到羞耻； 使降低（地位、身份等）； 降下 | |
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61
humility
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| n.谦逊，谦恭 | |
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62
adoration
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| n.爱慕，崇拜 | |
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63
blasphemous
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| adj.亵渎神明的，不敬神的 | |
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64
pier
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| n.码头；桥墩，桥柱；[建]窗间壁，支柱 | |
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65
pallid
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| adj.苍白的，呆板的 | |
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66
aspire
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| vi.(to，after)渴望，追求，有志于 | |
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67
abasement
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| n.滥用 | |
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68
manliness
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| 刚毅 | |
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69
sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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70
meditated
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| 深思，沉思，冥想( meditate的过去式和过去分词 )； 内心策划，考虑 | |
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71
blotted
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| 涂污( blot的过去式和过去分词 )； （用吸墨纸）吸干 | |
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72
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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73
preoccupied
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| adj.全神贯注的，入神的；被抢先占有的；心事重重的v.占据（某人）思想，使对…全神贯注，使专心于( preoccupy的过去式) | |
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74
parodied
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| v.滑稽地模仿，拙劣地模仿( parody的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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75
conspicuously
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| ad.明显地，惹人注目地 | |
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76
chilly
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| adj.凉快的，寒冷的 | |
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77
intermittent
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| adj.间歇的，断断续续的 | |
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78
pang
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| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
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79
gouge
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| v.凿；挖出；n.半圆凿；凿孔；欺诈 | |
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80
gouged
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| v.凿( gouge的过去式和过去分词 )；乱要价；（在…中）抠出…；挖出… | |
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81
gouging
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| n.刨削[槽]v.凿( gouge的现在分词 )；乱要价；（在…中）抠出…；挖出… | |
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82
inane
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| adj.空虚的，愚蠢的，空洞的 | |
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83
ornament
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| v.装饰，美化；n.装饰，装饰物 | |
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84
furtively
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| adv. 偷偷地, 暗中地 | |
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85
crooked
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| adj.弯曲的；不诚实的，狡猾的，不正当的 | |
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86
pane
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| n.窗格玻璃，长方块 | |
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87
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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88
gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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89
accusation
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| n.控告，指责，谴责 | |
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90
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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91
giggle
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| n.痴笑，咯咯地笑；v.咯咯地笑着说 | |
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92
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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93
freckled
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| adj.雀斑；斑点；晒斑；（使）生雀斑v.雀斑，斑点( freckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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94
disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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95
scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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96
neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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97
freckles
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| n.雀斑，斑点( freckle的名词复数 ) | |
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98
celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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99
chisel
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| n.凿子；v.用凿子刻，雕，凿 | |
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100
proffers
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| v.提供，贡献，提出( proffer的第三人称单数 ) | |
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101
vein
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| n.血管，静脉；叶脉，纹理；情绪；vt.使成脉络 | |
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102
artery
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| n.干线，要道；动脉 | |
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103
cuffs
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| n.袖口( cuff的名词复数 )v.掌打，拳打( cuff的第三人称单数 ) | |
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104
frayed
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| adj.磨损的v.（使布、绳等）磨损，磨破( fray的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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105
tightened
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| 收紧( tighten的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）变紧； （使）绷紧； 加紧 | |
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106
mangled
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| vt.乱砍（mangle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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107
avowal
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| n.公开宣称，坦白承认 | |
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108
explicit
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| adj.详述的，明确的；坦率的；显然的 | |
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109
mortify
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| v.克制，禁欲，使受辱 | |
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110
interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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111
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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112
erratic
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| adj.古怪的，反复无常的，不稳定的 | |
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113
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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114
benevolent
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| adj.仁慈的，乐善好施的 | |
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115
glazing
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| n.玻璃装配业；玻璃窗；上釉；上光v.装玻璃( glaze的现在分词 )；上釉于，上光；（目光）变得呆滞无神 | |
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116
gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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117
essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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118
fictitious
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| adj.虚构的，假设的；空头的 | |
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119
daydreams
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| n.白日梦( daydream的名词复数 )v.想入非非，空想( daydream的第三人称单数 ) | |
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120
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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121
futile
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| adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的 | |
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122
imputed
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| v.把（错误等）归咎于( impute的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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123
stimulus
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| n.刺激，刺激物，促进因素，引起兴奋的事物 | |
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124
proprietorship
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| n.所有（权）；所有权 | |
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125
unconditionally
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| adv.无条件地 | |
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126
modification
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| n.修改，改进，缓和，减轻 | |
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127
smote
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| v.猛打，重击，打击( smite的过去式 ) | |
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128
lengthened
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| （时间或空间）延长，伸长( lengthen的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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129
hoarsely
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| adv.嘶哑地 | |
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130
meditative
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| adj.沉思的，冥想的 | |
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131
apropos
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| adv.恰好地；adj.恰当的；关于 | |
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132
abrupt
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| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
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133
petals
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| n.花瓣( petal的名词复数 ) | |
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134
broached
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| v.谈起( broach的过去式和过去分词 )；打开并开始用；用凿子扩大（或修光）；（在桶上）钻孔取液体 | |
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135
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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136
intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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137
bustle
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| v.喧扰地忙乱，匆忙，奔忙；n.忙碌；喧闹 | |
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138
mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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139
temerity
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| n.鲁莽，冒失 | |
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140
valiantly
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| adv.勇敢地，英勇地；雄赳赳 | |
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141
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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142
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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143
cardinal
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| n.(天主教的)红衣主教；adj.首要的，基本的 | |
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144
subservience
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| n.有利，有益；从属（地位），附属性；屈从，恭顺；媚态 | |
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