Unit 5. Theatre (By W. S. Maugham)

I 1.Match the words and word combinations below with their definitions. Use them in the sentences of your own.

-undertone -to turn somebody round one’s little finger -to crow (with delight) -in point of fact -to go out of one’s way -to wheedle smth out of smb -to be alert -to have smth up one’s sleeve -to break oneself of something -to brazen out

-to keep smth secret for use at the right time in the future -a quiet voice -to take the trouble, make the special effort -to cure of -to be ready for possible danger -to express pride openly -to face trouble with unashamed confidence, as if one has done nothing wrong -actually, in reality -to obtain from smb by insincere pleasant persuading -to get someone to do whatever one wants

II 1.Read the text.

Michael flattered himself on his sense of humour. On the Sunday evening that followed his conversation with Dolly he strolled into Julia’s room while she was dressing. They were going to the pictures after an early dinner.

“Who’s coming tonight besides Charles?” he asked her.

“I couldn’t find another woman. I’ve asked Tom.”

“Good! I wanted to see him.”

He chuckled at the thought of the joke he had up his sleeve. Julia was looking forward to the evening. At the cinema she would arrange the seating so that Tom sat next to her and he would hold her hand while she chatted in undertones to Charles on the other side of her. Dear Charles, it was nice of him to have loved her so long and so devotedly; she would go out of her way to be very sweet to him. Charles and Tom arrived together. Tom was wearing his new dinner jacket for the first time and he and Julia exchanged a little private glance, of satisfaction on his part and of compliment on hers.

“Well, young feller,” said Michael heartily, rubbing his hands, “do you know what I hear about you? I hear that you are compromising my wife.”

Tom gave him a startled look and went scarlet. The habit of flushing mortified him horribly, but he could not break himself of it.

“Oh my dear,” cried Julia gaily, “how marvellous! I’ve been trying to get someone to compromise me all my life. Who told you, Michael?”

“A little bird,” he said archly.

“Well, Tom, if Michael divorces me you’ll have to marry me, you know.”

Charles smiled with his gentle, rather melancholy eyes.

“What have you been doing, Tom?” he asked.

Charles was gravely, Michael boisterously, diverted by the young man’s obvious embarrassment. Julia, though she seemed to share their amusement, was alert and watchful.

“Well, it appears that the young rip has been taking Julia to night clubs when she ought to have been in bed and asleep.”

Julia crowed with delight.

“Shall we deny it, Tom, or shall we brazen out?”

“Well, I’ll tell you what I said to the little bird,” Michael broke in. “I said to her, as long as Julia doesn’t want me to go to night clubs with her…”

Julia ceased to listen to what he said. Dolly, she thought, and oddly enough she described her to herself in exactly the words Michael had used a couple days before. Dinner was announced and their bright talk turned to other things. But though Julia took part in it with gaiety, though she appeared to be giving her guests all her attention and even listened with a show of appreciation to one of Michael’s theatrical stories that she had heard twenty times before, she was privately holding an animated conversation with Dolly. Dolly cowered before her while she told her exactly what she thought of her.

“You old cow,” she said to her. “How dare you interfere with my private concerns? No, don’t speak. Don’t try to excuse yourself. I know exactly what you said to Michael. It was unpardonable. I thought you were a friend of mine. I thought I could rely on you. Well, that finishes it. I’ll never speak to you again. Never. Never. D’you think I’m impressed by your rotten old money? Oh, it’s no good saying you didn’t mean it. Where would you be except for me, I should like to know. Any distinction you’ve got, the only importance you have in the world, is that you happen to know me. Who’s made your parties go all these years? D’you think that people came to them to see you? They came to see me. Never again. Never.” It was in point of fact a monologue rather than a conversation.

Later on, at the cinema, she sat next to Tom as she had intended and held his hand, but it seemed to her singularly unresponsive. Like a fish’s fin. She suspected that he was thinking uncomfortably of what Michael had said. She wished that she had had an opportunity of a few words with him so that she might have told him not to worry. After all no one could have carried off the incident with more brilliance than she had. Aplomb; that was the word. She wondered what it was exactly that Dolly had told Michael. She had better find out. It would not do to ask Michael, that would look as though she attached importance to it; she must find out from Dolly herself. It would be much wiser not to have a row with her. Julia smiled at the scene she would have with Dolly. She would be sweetness itself, she would wheedle it all out of her, and never give her an inkling that she was angry. It was curious that it should send a cold shiver down her back to think that people were talking about her. After all if she couldn’t do what she liked, who could? Her private life was nobody’s business. All the same one couldn’t deny that it wouldn’t be very nice if people were laughing at her. She wondered what Michael would do if he found out the truth. He couldn’t very well divorce her and continue to manage for her. If he had any sense he’d shut his eyes. But Michael was funny in some ways; every now and then he would get up on his hind legs and start doing his colonel stuff. He was quite capable of saying all of a sudden that damn it all, he must behave like a gentleman. Men were such fools; there wasn’t one of them who wouldn’t cut off his nose to spite his face. Of course it wouldn’t really matter very much to her. She could go and act in America for a year till the scandal had died down and then go into management with somebody else. But it would be a bore. And then there was Roger to consider; he’d feel it, poor lamb; he’d be humiliated, naturally it was no good shutting one’s eyes to the fact, at her age she’d look a perfect fool being divorced on account of a boy of three-and-twenty. Of course she wouldn’t be such a fool as to marry Tom. Would Charles marry her? She turned and in the half-light looked at his distinguished profile. He had been madly in love with her for years; he was one of those chivalrous idiots that a woman could turn round her little finger; perhaps he wouldn’t mind being co-respondent instead of Tom. That might be a very good way out. Lady Charles Tamerley. It sounded all right. Perhaps she had been a little imprudent. She had always been very careful when she went to Tom’s flat, but it might be that one of the chauffeurs in the mews had seen her go in or come out and had thought things. That class of people had such filthy minds. As far as the night clubs were concerned, she’d have been only too glad to go with Tom to quiet little places where no one would see them, but he didn’t like that. He loved a crowd, he wanted to see smart people, and be seen. He liked to show her off.

“Damn,” she said to herself. “Damn, damn.”

Julia didn’t enjoy her evening at the cinema as much as she had expected.

2.How many characters are there in the chapter you have read? Recall their names. What are the relations between them?

3.Who went to the pictures that night? How did they behave and why? Find words in the text that describe the behaviour of the characters and the way they feel. Do the ways the characters behave correspond to their inner state?

4.Find some episodes in the text proving that Julia is a brilliant actress even in everyday life.

5.How did Julia see the possible solution to the problem? What tactics will she eventually choose ?

6.Find the words in the text that mean the following:

making fun of people (adv)

humiliate, disgrace

playfully, lively

draw back, recoil

hint, clue, suggestion

to annoy or harm intentionally

courteous

someone charged with adultery with the wife or husband of a person wanting a divorce

impertinent, bold

dirty, unclean

7.Go back to the text once again and find informal phrases. If possible, replace them with neutral and formal ones.

III 1.Read the jokes and say whether they correspond to the situation described in the text. What characters of the story can they refer to?

1)The swiftest means of communication: telegraph, telephone and tell a woman.

2)He. All women are divided into three classes: the looked at, the looked over and the overlooked.

She. Really? And so are men: the intelligent, the handsome and the majority.

3)Jane. How old are you?

Mabel. I just turned twenty-three.

Jane. I get it. Thirty-two.

4)A Telling Story.

“She told me,” a woman complained to a friend, “that you told her the secret I told you not to tell her”.

“Well,” replied her friend in a hurt tone, “I told her not to tell you I told her”.

“Oh, dear,” sighed the first woman. “Well, don’t tell her I told you that she told me.”

How do these jokes characterize the relations between men and women, friendship between women? What does the text say in this respect?

2.Recall an episode from any book you’ve read where a person, suspected of having done something wrong, tries to conceal it. Were those attempts successful? Try to analyze the person’s behaviour.