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

Taking the Veil (by Katherine Mansfield) EssayIt seemed impossible that either bingle should be unhappy on such a beautiful morning. Nobody was, decided Edna, except herself. The windows were flung wide in the houses. From within in that location came the sound of pianos, little hands chased later each other and ran away fluttered in the sunny gardens, all bright with spring flowers. Street boys whistled, a little dog barked people passed by, walking so lightly, so swiftly, they looked as though they wanted to break into a affect. straightaway she actually proverb in the distance a parasol of the year. Perhaps all the same 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 double-dyed(a) health. Above all, when you are wearing a French bluing frock and your new spring hat trimmed with cornflowers. True, she carried under her arm a disc bound in horrid bl ack leather. Perhaps the book provided a gloomy note, but only by accident it was the ordinary Library binding.For Edna had make going to the Library an excuse for getting out of the house to think, to take a shit what had happened, to decide somehow what was to be done this instant. An awful thing happened. Quite suddenly, at the theatre last night, when she and Jimmy were seated side by side in the dress-circle, without a moments warning in fact, she had just complete a chocolate almond and passed the box to him again she had fallen in whap with an actor. merely fallen in love. The feeling was unlike anything she had of all time imagined before. It wasnt in the least pleasant. It was hardly thrilling. Unless you can call the most dreadful sen sit downion of hopeless misery, despair, agony and wretchedness, thrilling. Combined with the certainty that if that actor met her on the pavement after, while Jimmy was fetching their cab, she would follow him to the ends of the e arth, at a nod, at a sign, without giving another thought to Jimmy or her generate and mother or her happy home and countless friends again.. The play had begun fairly cheer fully. That was at the chocolate almond stage. Then the hero had gone blind. frightening momentEdna had cried so much she had to borrow Jimmys folded, smooth-feeling hanky 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, darling girl And it was because she had taken a last chocolate almond to please him and passed the box again. Then thither had been that ghastly scene with the hero alone on the stage in a deserted room at twilight, with a band playing away(p) and the sound of cheering coming from the street. He had tried ah How painful ly, 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 faded 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 n incessantly 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 pig up for a year and a half, they had been publicly engaged for a year. plainly, they had known they were going to marry each other ever since they walked in the Botanical Gardens with their nurses, and sat on the grass with a wine biscuit and a piece of barley-sugar each for their tea. It was so much an received thing that Edna had worn a wonderfully good imitation of an engagement-ring out of a cracker all the time she was at school. And up till now they had been devoted to each other. But now it was over. It was so completely over that Edna found difficult to believe that Jimmy did not realize it too. She smiled wisely, sadly, as she turn into the gardens of the Convent of the Sacred Heart and mounted the path that led through them to Hill Street. How much better 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 neer get over it His life was wrecked, was ruined that was inevitable. But he was youthfulness.. Time, people always said, Time faculty make a little, 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 future hold for her? Edna had reached the top of the path. There under a new-leafed tree, hung with little bunches of fresh flowers, she sat down on a green bench and looked over the Convent flowerbeds. In the one nearest to her grew t ender stocks, with a border of blue, shell-like pansies, with at one ecological niche 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 Sister Agnes who was giving a relation lesson. Ah-me, sounded the deep tones of the nun, 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 real 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. Can 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 drop off on her lap, and the voice of Sister Agnes c ried 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 world is cruel, dreadfully 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, write underneath,The world forgetting, by the world forgot.Edna sat very still under the trees she claspe d the black book in her fingers as though it were her missal. She takes the name of Sister Angela. trot 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, shook and then the bee flew away it fluttered still as though it were laughing. Happy, careless flower Sister Angela looked at it and sai d, Now it is winter. One night, lying in her icy cell, she hears a cry. approximately stray animal 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 next morning, when the bell rings for matins, she is found tossing in her fever. in delirium and she never recovers. In three days all is over. The service has been said in the chapel, and she is buried in the corner of the cemetery reserved 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 get into 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 late The tears are running down his face he is crying n ow. 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 standard 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 last for the first time in her life she had never imagine d any feeling like it before she knew what it was to be in love, but in love