To me she was a new feminine type
altogether--I have made it plain, I think, how limited was my knowledge
of women. But she made me not simply interested in her, but in myself.
She became for me something that greatly changes a man's world. How
shall I put it? She became an audience. Since I've emerged from the
emotional developments of the affair I have thought it out in a hundred
aspects, and it does seem to me that this way in which men and women
make audiences for one another is a curiously influential force in their
lives. For some it seems an audience is a vital necessity, they seek
audiences as creatures seek food; others again, my uncle among them,
can play to an imaginary audience. I, I think, have lived and can live
without one. In my adolescence I was my own audience and my own court
of honour. And to have an audience in one's mind is to play a part,
to become self-conscious and dramatic. For many years I had been
self-forgetful and scientific. I had lived for work and impersonal
interests until I found scrutiny, applause and expectation in Beatrice's
eyes.
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