The Bell - Iris Murdoch [88]
With Paul, nothing had gone right since he had made that little speech about Catherine. It was not that Dora was jealous, or that Paul was really infatuated with Catherine. It was just that Dora had then estimated, with a devastating exactness which was usually alien to her, how much of sheer contempt there was in Paul's love; and always would be, she reflected, since she had few illusions about her ability to change herself. It did not occur to her to wonder if Paul might change, or indeed to hope from him anything at all. She felt his contempt as destructive of her, and his love, consequently, as unwelcome. Yet all the time, in a shy roundabout way, she loved him herself, rather hopelessly and gloomily, as one might love someone to whom one had never spoken.
They had started quarrelling again. Dora had gone round to the parlours, several times, to look at Paul's books; but, apart from one or two pictures, they seemed to her dull and Paul exclaimed bitterly about boring her, which made it all the harder for her to show interest. She left him alone now during the day, and mooched about by herself, or else performed small tasks in the house under the direction of Mrs Mark. She felt herself watched. Everyone, she imagined, was covertly observing her to see if she was cheerful, to see if she was settling down again with her husband. She felt organized and shut in. Mrs Mark had now suggested three times that it would be a good idea if she had a talk with Mother Clare; and on the third occasion out of sheer inertia Dora had said perhaps she would sometime. Today, no doubt, Mrs Mark would try to pin her down to a definite appointment. Dora stubbed out her cigarette carefully on the back of a matchbox and began to get up.
On the way to the window she looked at herself in the tall mirror. She was wearing her blue nylon pyjamas which had been lost with the suitcase. She looked at herself gravely, wondering if she was really thinner, and whether cutting down on alcohol had improved her complexion. But she could not interest herself in what she saw or quite believe in it. She could not even focus her eyes properly upon the stupefied face of her image. She went on and leaned out of the window. The sun was shining, the lake was hard and full of reflections, the Norman tower presented to her one golden face and one receding into shadow. Dora had the odd feeling that all this was inside her head. There was no way of breaking into this scene, for it was all imaginary.
Rather startled at this feeling, she began to dress and tried to think about something practical. But the dazed feeling of unreality continued. It was as if her consciousness had eaten up its surroundings. Everything was now subjective. Even, she remembered, Paul this morning had been subjective. His love-making had been remote, like something that she imagined, like a half-waking fantasy, and not at all like an encounter with another real human being. Dora wondered if she was ill. Perhaps she ought to borrow Mark Strafford's thermometer, to ask for something from the medicine chest. She went again to the window, and an idea occurred to her of trying somehow to break into the idle motionless scene. She thought that if she threw something very hard out of the window it would fall into the lake with a splash and disturb the reflections. She opened the window wider and looked for something to throw. The match-box was not heavy enough. She took her lipstick, and leaning well