Kathleen and Frank by Christopher Isherwood

Author:Christopher Isherwood
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-12-07T00:00:00+00:00

4

October the seventh, 1898, was Kathleen’s thirtieth birthday. She gives no hint that this anniversary depresses her, beyond noting that the weather is gray. Still, thirty is thirty, even nowadays; and in the nineteenth century it made you into la femme de trente ans. Certain men might confess to a preference for you, but it was a connoisseur’s preference, backed up by the claim that you were now more mature, more capable of emotional intensity, more experienced in the arts of love.

Poor Kathleen! As the Woman of Thirty she can’t be taken seriously for a moment. Still inexperienced and immature, her charms are the charms of her early twenties. Her behavior is appropriate to her youthful looks and therefore in danger of becoming increasingly artificial.

Most of her friends would probably admit that they no longer expect to see her married. If The Child hasn’t “spoilt her life” he has undoubtedly disillusioned her. She still likes some men as individuals, but she is building up a hostility toward the sex which she will never lose. (“All men are selfish,” Richard remembers her often saying.) Also, in self-defense, against the probable future in store for her, she is cultivating a disdain of marriage. She speaks of a woman she meets at a party as an “irresponsible sort of grownup child to whom it is absolutely essential to have a man and children.” Hearing of the unexpected engagement of a cousin, she comments, with evident dismay, “Thought she meant never to marry.” The majority of her female contemporaries are, of course, married already.

Indeed, Kathleen may be thought of, at this point, as one of those unfortunate girls who somehow get themselves caught in a generation gap. On one side of her is the generation of the Martyr-Wife; on the other, the generation of the New Woman. Across the gap, Lady Burton confronts the heroines of Bernard Shaw. Kathleen’s temperament is quite alien to the grimness of Lady Burton’s marriage rules, yet in her heart she does unwillingly believe that “life is duty.” She can admire Shaw’s Vivie Warren for boycotting men and their double standard, yet her conservatism and her strong sense of womanliness are outraged by Vivie’s mannish business ambitions.

Kathleen does sometimes dream of making an independent life for herself; two years ago she was talking half seriously to a friend about the possibility of their becoming missionaries in South Africa. But one can’t imagine her doing this, or even settling down to slum work with Jennie in Limehouse; she may have the necessary courage, but she lacks the conviction.

So, if she is to become an old maid, it will have to be on other people’s terms, not her own. This very year, Emily has given her a frightening demonstration of what it would be like to spend the rest of her youth as a daughter-nurse. Yet life with Emily would offer consolations as well as austerities; it would be a path of duty but also a nest of safety; it would be toilsome and tame but also snug and full of shared interests and tenderness.

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