Page 120 - women-in-love

last summer in the bottled gooseberries.’
‘CAN one have knowledge only of the past?’ asked the
Baronet, pointedly. ‘Could we call our knowledge of the
laws of gravitation for instance, knowledge of the past?’
‘Yes,’ said Birkin.
‘There is a most beautiful thing in my book,’ suddenly
piped the little Italian woman. ‘It says the man came to the
door and threw his eyes down the street.’
There was a general laugh in the company. Miss Bradley
went and looked over the shoulder of the Contessa.
‘See!’ said the Contessa.
‘Bazarov came to the door and threw his eyes hurriedly
down the street,’ she read.
Again there was a loud laugh, the most startling of which
was the Baronet’s, which rattled out like a clatter of falling
stones.
‘What is the book?’ asked Alexander, promptly.
‘Fathers and Sons, by Turgenev,’ said the little foreigner,
pronouncing every syllable distinctly. She looked at the cov-
er, to verify herself.
‘An old American edition,’ said Birkin.
‘Ha!—of course—translated from the French,’ said Al-
exander, with a fine declamatory voice. ‘Bazarov ouvra la
porte et jeta les yeux dans la rue.’
He looked brightly round the company.
‘I wonder what the ‘hurriedly’ was,’ said Ursula.
They all began to guess.
And then, to the amazement of everybody, the maid
came hurrying with a large tea-tray. The afternoon had

120 Women in Love