Status Updates From The Custom of the Country (...

“Poor Undine! She was what the gods had made her—a creature of skin-deep reactions, a mote in the beam of pleasure. He had no desire to “preach down” such heart as she had—he felt only a stronger wish to reach it, teach it, move it to something of the pity that filled his own. They were fellow-victims in the noyade of marriage, but if they ceased to struggle perhaps the drowning would be easier for both…”

“It’s normal for a man to work hard for a woman—what’s abnormal is his not caring to tell her anything about it….But why? Because it’s against the custom of the country. And whose fault is that? The man’s again—I don’t mean Ralph I mean the genus he belongs to: homo sapiens, Americanus. Why haven’t we taught our women to take an interest in our work? Simply because we don’t take enough interest in THEM.””

“She tried to shut her eyes to the face; but a moment later it was replaced by another, a small odd likeness of itself; and with a cry of compunction she started up from her furs. “Mercy! It’s the boy’s birthday—I was to take him to his grandmother’s. She was to have a cake for him and Ralph was to come up town. I KNEW there was something I’d forgotten!”” Yikes!

“ Peace of mind, she said to herself, was all she needed to make her happy—and that was just what Ralph had never given her! At the thought his face seemed to rise before her, with the sharp lines of care between the eyes: it was almost like a part of his “nagging” that he should thrust himself in at such a moment!”

“ Her fitful humours had vanished, and she showed qualities of comradeship that seemed the promise of a deeper understanding. But this very hope made him more subject to her moods, more fearful of disturbing the harmony between them. Least of all could he broach the subject of money: he had too keen a memory of the way her lips could narrow, and her eyes turn from him as if he were a stranger.”

“He had assumed that Undine’s allowance, with the addition of his own small income, would be enough to satisfy their needs. His own were few, and had always been within his means; but his wife’s daily requirements, combined with her intermittent outbreaks of extravagance, had thrown out all his calculations, and they were already seriously exceeding their income.”

“Her mind was as destitute of beauty and mystery as the prairie school-house in which she had been educated…He was beginning to understand this, and learning to adapt himself to the narrow compass of her experience. The task of opening new windows in her mind was inspiring enough to give him infinite patience; and he would not yet own to himself that her pliancy and variety were imitative rather than spontaneous.”

“ He had seen her face droop as he suggested the possibility of an escape from the crowds in Switzerland, and it came to him, with the sharpness of a knife-thrust, that a crowd was what she wanted—that she was sick to death of being alone with him.”

“It was characteristic of her that she remembered her failures as keenly as her triumphs, and that the passionate desire to obliterate, to “get even” with them, was always among the latent incentives of her conduct. Now at last she was having what she wanted—she was in conscious possession of the “real thing”; and through her other, diffused, sensations Ralph’s adoration gave her such a last refinement of pleasure…”

“ Marry—but whom, in the name of light and freedom? The daughters of his own race sold themselves to the Invaders; the daughters of the Invaders bought their husbands as they bought an opera-box. It ought all to have been transacted on the Stock Exchange.”

“ It was precisely at this point that there dawned on Undine what was to be one of the guiding principles of her career: “IT’S BETTER TO WATCH THAN TO ASK QUESTIONS.””

“She had two ways of getting things out of him against his principles; the tender wheedling way, and the harsh-lipped and cold—and he did not know which he dreaded most. As a child they had admired her assertiveness, had made Apex ring with their boasts of it; but it had long since cowed Mrs. Spragg, and it was beginning to frighten her husband.” Undine’s poor parents…

“ Yet in the drawing-room, with the ladies, where Mrs. Fairford came and sat by her, the spirit of caution once more prevailed. She wanted to be noticed but she dreaded to be patronized, and here again her hostess’s gradations of tone were confusing.”

“Undine was fiercely independent and yet passionately imitative. She wanted to surprise every one by her dash and originality, but she could not help modelling herself on the last person she met, and the confusion of ideals thus produced caused her much perturbation when she had to choose between two courses.”

i got the physical copy of this edition bc i liked the art and i like it when the pages have rough edges but it’s glued terribly and the pages are tearing off from the spine what the hell 😭

on another note this is really good, very the gilded age hbo vibes