I Rachel thought she understood all Louis' mental processes. With the tragic¹ self-confidence of the inexperienced wife, she was convinced that she had nothing to learn about the secret soul of the stranger to whom she had utterly² surrendered herself, reserving from him naught³ of the maiden⁴. Each fresh revelation of him she imagined to be final, completing her studies. In fact, it would have taken at least ten years of marriage to prove to her that a perception of ignorance is the summit of knowledge. She had not even realized that human nature is chiefly made up of illogical and absurd contradictions. Thus she left the house that Saturday morning gloomy, perhaps hopeless, certainly quite undecided as to the future, but serene⁶, sure of her immediate⁷ position, and sure that Louis would act like Louis. She knew that she had the upper hand, both physically⁸ and morally. The doctor had called and done his work, and given a very reassuring⁹ report. She left Louis to Mrs. Tams, as was entirely¹⁰ justifiable¹¹, merely informing him that she had necessary errands, and even this information she gave through her veil, a demure¹³ contrivance which she had adapted for the first time on her honeymoon¹⁴. It was his role to accept her august decisions.
 
The forenoon was better than the dawn. The sun had emerged; the moisture had nearly disappeared, except in the road; and the impulse of spring was moving in the trees and in the bodies of young women; the sky showed a virginal blue; the wandering clouds were milky¹⁵ and rounded, the breeze infinitely¹⁶ soft. It seemed to be in an earlier age that the dark colliers had silently climbed the steep of Bycars Lane amid the dankness and that the first column of smoke had risen forlornly from the chimney.
 
In spite of her desolated¹⁷ heart, and of her primness¹⁹, Rachel stepped forward airily. She was going forth²⁰ to an enormous event, namely, her first apparition²¹ in the shopping streets of the town on a Saturday morning as Mrs. Louis Fores, married woman. She might have postponed²² it, but into what future? Moreover, she was ashamed of being diffident about it. And, in the peculiar²³ condition of her mind, she would have been ashamed to let a spiritual crisis, however appalling²⁴, interfere²⁵ with the natural, obvious course of her duties. So far as the world was concerned, she was a happy married woman, who had to make her debut²⁶ as a shopping housewife, and hence she was determined²⁷ that her debut should be made.... And yet, possibly she might not have ventured away from the house at all, had she not felt that if she did not escape for a time from its unbreathable atmosphere into the liberty of the streets, she would stifle²⁸ and expire. Wherever she put herself in the house she could not feel alone. In the streets she felt alone, even when saluting²⁹ new acquaintances and being examined and probed by their critical stare. The sight of these acquaintances reminded her that she had a long list of calls to repay. And then the system of paying calls and repaying, and the whole system of society, seemed monstrously³⁰ fanciful and unreal to her. There was only one reality. The solid bricks of the pavement suddenly trembled under her feet as though she were passing over a suspension-bridge. The enterprise of shopping became idiotic³³, humorous, incredibly silly in the face of that reality.
 
Nevertheless, the social system of Bursley, as exemplified in Wedgwood Street and the market-place, its principal shopping thoroughfares, was extremely alluring³⁴, bright, and invigorating that morning. It almost intoxicated³⁵, and had, indeed, a similar effect to that of a sparkling drink. Rachel had never shopped at large with her own money before. She had executed commissions for Mrs. Maldon. She had been an unpaid³⁶ housekeeper³⁷ to her father and brother. Now she was shopping as mistress of a house and of money. She owed an account of her outlay³⁸ to nobody, not even to Louis. She recalled the humble³⁹ and fantastic Saturday night when she had shopped with Louis as reticule-carrier ... centuries since. The swiftness and unforeseeableness of events frightened the girl masquerading as a wise, perfected woman. Her heart lay like a weight in her corsage for an instant, and the next instant she was in the bright system again, because she was so young.
 
Here and there in the streets, and in small groups in the chief shops, you saw prim¹⁸ ladies of every age, each with a gloved hand clasped over a purse. (But sometimes the purse lay safe under the coverlet of a perambulator.) These purses made all the ladies equal, for their contents were absolutely secret from all save the owners. All the ladies were spending, and the delight of spending was theirs. And in theory every purse was inexhaustible. At any rate, it was impossible to conceive a purse empty. The system wore the face of the ideal. Manners were proper to the utmost degree; they neatly⁴⁰ marked the equality of the shoppers and the profound difference between the shoppers and the shopkeepers. All ladies were agreeable, all babies in perambulators were darlings. The homes thus represented by ladies and babies were clearly polite homes, where reigned⁴¹ suavity⁴², tranquillity⁴³, affection, and plenty. Civilization was justified⁴⁴ in Wedgwood Street and the market-place—and also, to some extent, in St. Luke's Square.... And Rachel was one of these ladies. Her gloved hand closed over a purse exactly in the style of the others. And her purse, regard being had to the inheritance of her husband, was supposed to hide vast sums; so much so that ladies who had descended⁴⁵ from distant heights in pony-carts gazed upon her with the respect due to a rival. All welcomed her into the exclusive, correct little world—not only the shopkeepers but the buyers therein. She represented youthful love. Her life must be, and was, an idyll! True, she had no perambulator, but aged⁴⁷" target="_blank">middle-aged⁴⁶ ladies greeted her with wistfulness in their voices and in their eyes.
 
She smiled often as she told and retold the story of Louis' accident, and gave positive assurances that he was in no danger, and would not bear a scar. She blushed often. She was shyly happy in her unhappiness. The experience alternated between the unreal and the real. The extraordinary complexity⁴⁸ of life was beginning to put its spell on her. She could not determine the relative values of the various facets⁴⁹ of the experience.
 
When she had done the important parts of her business, she thought she would go into the covered market, which, having one entrance in the market-place and another in Wedgwood Street, connects the two thoroughfares. She had never been into the covered market because Mrs. Maldon had a prejudice against its wares⁵⁰. She went out of mere¹² curiosity, just to enlarge her knowledge of her adopted town. The huge interior, with its glazed⁵¹ roof, was full of clatter⁵², shouting, and the smell of innumerable varieties of cheese. She passed a second-hand⁵³ bookstall without seeing it, and then discerned admirable potatoes at three-halfpence a peck less than she had been paying—and Mrs. Maldon was once more set down as an old lady with peculiarities⁵⁴. However, by the time Rachel had made a critical round of the entire place, with its birds in cages, popular songs at a penny, sweetstuffs, cheap cottons and woollens, bright tinware, colonial fleshmeat, sausage displays, and particularly its cheeses, Mrs. Maldon was already recovering her reputation as a woman whose death was an irreparable loss to the town.
 
As Rachel passed the negligible second-hand bookstall again, it was made visible to her by the fact that Councillor Thomas Batchgrew was just emerging from the shop behind it, with a large volume in his black-gloved hands. Thomas Batchgrew came out of the dark bookshop as a famous old actor, accustomed to decades of crude public worship, comes out of a fashionable restaurant into a fashionable thoroughfare. His satisfied and self-conscious countenance⁵⁵ showed that he knew that nearly everybody in sight was or ought to be acquainted with his identity and his renown⁵⁶, and showed also that his pretence⁵⁷ of being unaware⁵⁸ of this tremendous and luscious⁵⁹ fact was playful and not seriously meant to deceive a world of admirers. He was wearing a light tweed suit, with a fancy waistcoat and a hard, pale-grey hat. As he aged, his tendency to striking pale attire⁶⁰ was becoming accentuated⁶¹; at any rate, it had the advantage of harmonizing with his unique whiskers—those whiskers which differentiated⁶² him from all the rest of the human race in the Five Towns.
 
Rachel blushed, partly because he was suddenly so close to her, partly because she disapproved⁶³ of the cunning expression on his red, seamed face and was afraid he might divine her thoughts, and partly because she recalled the violent things she had said against him to Louis. But as soon as Thomas Batchgrew caught sight of her the expression of his faced changed in an instant to one of benevolence⁶⁴ and artless joy; the change in it was indeed dramatic.
 
And Rachel, pleased and flattered, said to herself, almost startled—
 
"He really admires me. And I do believe he always did."
 
And since admiration⁶⁵ is a sweet drug, whether offered by a rascal⁶⁶ or by the pure in heart, she forgot momentarily the horror of her domestic dilemma⁶⁷.
 
 
II
"Eh, lass!" Thomas Batchgrew was saying familiarly, after he had inquired about Louis, "I'm rare glad for thy sake it was no worse." His frank implication that he was glad only for her sake gratified and did not wound her as a wife.
 
The next moment he had dismissed the case of Louis and was displaying to her the volume which he carried. It was a folio Bible, printed by the Cornishman Tregorthy in the town of Bursley, within two hundred yards of where they were standing⁶⁸, in the earliest years of the nineteenth century—a bibliographical⁶⁹ curiosity, as Thomas Batchgrew vaguely⁷⁰ knew, for he wet his gloved thumb and, resting the book on one raised knee, roughly turned over several pages till he came to the title-page containing the word "Bursley," which he showed with pride to Rachel. Rachel, however, not being in the slightest degree a bibliophile⁷¹, discerned no interest whatever in the title-page. She merely murmured with politeness, "Oh, yes! Bursley," while animadverting privately⁷² on the old man's odious⁷³ trick of wetting his gloved thumb and leaving marks on the pages.
 
"The good old Book!" he said. "I've been after that volume for six months and more. I knew I should get it, but he's a stiff un—yon is," jerking his shoulder in the direction of the second-hand bookseller. Then he put the folio under his arm, delighted at the souvenir of having worsted somebody in a bargain, and repeated, "The good old Book!"
 
Rachel reflected—
 
"You unspeakable old sinner!"
 
Still, she liked his attitude towards herself. In addition to the book he insisted on carrying a small white parcel of hers which she had not put into the reticule. They climbed the steps out of the covered marke............