Free The Black Prince (Penguin Classics) by Iris Murdoch Page B

I’d watch.’
    ‘Rachel, you don’t mean this. Please don’t talk in this awful sort of theatrical way. Of course you’ll forgive him. I’m sure there were faults on both sides. After all you hit him too, you put your monogram on his cheek.’
    ‘Ach – ’ Her exclamation expressed harsh, almost vulgar, disgust. ‘Never,’ she said, ‘never, never. Oh I am – so unhappy—’ The whimpering and the spilling tears began again. Her face was flaming hot.
    ‘Stop, please. You must rest. Do take some aspirins. Try to sleep a little. I’ll get you some tea, would you like that?’
    ‘Sleep! With my mind in this state! He has sent me to hell. He has taken my whole life from me. He has spoilt the world. I am as clever as he is. He has just blocked me off from everything. I can’t work, I can’t think, I can’t be, because of him. His stuff crawls over everything, he takes away all my things and turns them into his things. I’ve never been myself or lived my own life at all. I’ve always been afraid of him, that’s what it comes to. All men despise all women really. All women fear all men really. Men are physically stronger, that’s what it comes to, that what’s behind it all. Of course they’re bullies, they can end any argument. Ask any poor woman in the slums, she knows. He has given me a black eye, like any common brawler, any drunken husband like you hear of in the courts. He has hit me before, oh this isn’t the first time by any means. He didn’t know it, I never told him, but the first time he hit me our marriage came to an end. And he talks about me to other women, I know he does, he confides in other women and discusses me with them. They all admire him so and flatter him so. He has taken away my life from me and spoilt it, breaking every little piece of it, like the breaking of every bone in one’s body, every little thing ruined and spoilt and taken away.’
    ‘Rachel, don’t, don’t, don’t, I won’t listen, you don’t mean any of this rigmarole. Don’t say such things to me. You’ll regret it later.’
    ‘I’m just as clever as he is. He wouldn’t let me take a job. I obeyed him, I’ve always obeyed him. I haven’t any private things. He owns the world. It’s all his, his, his. I won’t save him at the end. I’ll watch him drown. I’ll watch him burn.’
    ‘You don’t mean it, Rachel. Better not say it.’
    ‘And I won’t forgive you either for having seen me like this with my face bruised to pieces and heard me talk horridly like this. I’ll smile at you again but I won’t forgive you in my heart.’
    ‘Rachel, Rachel, you are upsetting me so!’
    ‘And now you’ll go downstairs and talk about me vilely to him. I know how men talk.’
    ‘No, no—’
    ‘I fill you with disgust. A broken whimpering middle-aged woman.’
    ‘No—’
    ‘ Ach – ’ Again the horrible sound of aggressive violent disgust.
    ‘Go away now, leave me please. Leave me alone with my thoughts and my torture and my punishment. I shall cry all night, all night. Sorry, Bradley. Tell Arnold I’m going to rest now. Tell him not to come near me again today. Tomorrow I will try to be as usual. There will be no recriminations, no reproaches, nothing. How can I reproach him? He will become angry again, he will frighten me again. Better to be a slave. Tell him I will be as usual tomorrow. Of course he knows that, he won’t worry, he’s feeling better already. Only let me not see him today.’
    ‘All right, I’ll tell him. Don’t be cross with me, Rachel. It’s not my fault.’
    ‘Oh, go away.’
    ‘Shall I get you some tea? The doctor said tea.’
    ‘Go away.’
    I went out of the room and closed the door quietly behind me. I heard a soft bound and then the key turning in the lock. I went down the stairs feeling very shaken and, yes, she had been right, disgusted.
    It had become darker, the sun no longer shining, and the interior of the house seemed brown and chill. I made my way to the