“Their eyes met and the look of each seemed to fascinate the other.”
This superb line appears in the middle of a life-changing conversation between Alfred Yule and Marian. Gissing doesn’t linger too much on the sentence level, but when he does, there is a chill and a thrill.
Victor Duke’s story, in the middle of a chapter called “Catastrophe,” is still shocking. A whole new novel behind that brief encounter.
Nothing makes Alfred Yule more hateful when he reads the letter, learns of the lost money, gives the letter to his wife to share with Marian, listens to her fainting, and then says to his wife:
“Attend to her. I suppose you know better than I do what to do when a person faints.”
A very striking sequence of events.
Join us on December 13 for a virtual discussion of New Grub Street with Yiyun Li.
Yule is nothing, if not consistent. Marian, in her way too, has taken on some of the characteristics of her bull-headed father. And even the poor friendless surgeon who has lost everything, what are we to make of him? He works for free, so it's hard to sympathize with him too. He needs more belief in his worth. There is so much wrong in this world, it's a wonder anybody can find any will to live. Morale is low, and one is put in mind of Chekhov's "Misery". "Catastrophe" might be stretching it, Mr. Gissing. I mean, to the world this is mere child's play. We are God's playthings.
"Their eyes met, and the look of each seemed to fascinate the other." Like Yiyun Li, this is the very line that struck me. A chill and a thrill is exactly right in describing the feeling it evokes.
Alfred Yule's kindness to Victor Duke. I have seen that this phenomenon among humans of one being kind to strangers and cruel to loved ones is not as unusual as one might think.