(1936) Keep the Aspidistra Flying by George Orwell

Author:George Orwell [Orwell, George]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-01-14T05:00:00+00:00

She threw her arm over her face and rolled over on her side, away from him, suddenly ashamed.

'What is it?' he repeated.

'How could you be so THOUGHTLESS?'

'What do you mean--thoughtless?'

'Oh! you know what I mean!'

His heart shrank. He did know what she meant; but he had never thought of it till this moment. And of course--oh, yes!--he ought to have thought of it. He stood up and turned away from her. Suddenly he knew that he could go no further with this business. In a wet field on a Sunday afternoon--and in mid-winter at that! Impossible! It seemed so right, so natural only a minute ago; now it seemed merely squalid and ugly.

'I didn't expect THIS,' he said bitterly.

'But I couldn't help it, Gordon! You ought to have--you know.'

'You don't think I go in for that kind of thing, do you?'

'But what else can we do? I can't have a baby, can I?'

'You must take your chance.'

'Oh, Gordon, how impossible you are!'

She lay looking up at him, her face full of distress, too overcome for the moment even to remember that she was naked. His disappointment had turned to anger. There you are, you see! Money again! Even the most secret action of your life you don't escape it; you've still got to spoil everything with filthy cold-blooded precautions for money's sake. Money, money, always money! Even in the bridal bed, the finger of the money-god intruding! In the heights or in the depths, he is there. He walked a pace or two up and down, his hands in his pockets.

'Money again, you see!' he said. 'Even at a moment like this it's got the power to stand over us and bully us. Even when we're alone and miles from anywhere, with not a soul to see us.'

'What's MONEY got to do with it?'

'I tell you it'd never enter your head to worry about a baby if it wasn't for the money. You'd WANT the baby if it wasn't for that. You say you "can't" have a baby. What do you mean, you "can't" have a baby? You mean you daren't; because you'd lose your job and I've got no money and all of us would starve. This birth-control business! It's just another way they've found out of bullying us. And you want to acquiesce in it, apparently.'

'But what am I to do, Gordon? What am I to do?'

At this moment the sun disappeared behind the clouds. It became perceptibly colder. After all, the scene was grotesque--the naked woman lying in the grass, the dressed man standing moodily by with his hands in his pockets. She'd catch her death of cold in another moment, lying there like that. The whole thing was absurd and indecent.

'But what else am I to do?' she repeated.

'I should think you might start by putting your clothes on,' he said coldly.

He had only said it to avenge his irritation; but its result was to make her so painfully and obviously embarrassed that he had to turn his back on her.

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