Isabel Character Analysis

“Do you know, I’ve got an idea that I want to do more with my life than sell bonds.”

“All right then. Go into a law office or study medicine.”

“No, I don’t want to do that either.”

“What do you want to do then?”

“Loaf,” he replied calmly.

“The dead look so terribly dead when they’re dead.”

“What do you mean exactly?” she asked, troubled.

“Just that.” He gave her a rueful smile. “You have a lot of time to think when you’re up in the air by yourself. You get odd ideas like that.”

“What sort of ideas?”

“Vague,” he said smiling. “Incoherent. Confused.”

Isabel thought this over for a while.

Don’t you think if you took a job they might sort themselves out and you’d know where you were?”

“I’ve thought of that. I had a notion that I might go to work with a carpenter or in a garage.”

“Oh, Larry, people would think you were crazy.”

“Would that matter?”

“To me, yes.”

“You think of a fellow who an hour before was so full of life and fun, and he’s lying dead; it’s all so cruel and so meaningless. It’s hard not to ask yourself what life is all about and whether there’s any sense to it or whether it’s all a tragic blunder of blind fate.”

“You’re impractical. You don’t know what you’re asking me to do. I’m young, I want to have fun. I want to do all the things that people do. I want to go to parties, I want to go to dances, I want to play golf and ride horseback. I want to wear nice clothes. Can’t you imagine what it means to a girl not to be as well dressed as the rest of her crowd?”

“I wish I could make you see how much fuller the life I offer you is than anything you have a conception of. I wish I could make you see how exciting the life of the spirit is and how rich in experience. It’s illimitable. It’s such a happy life. There’s only one thing like it, when you’re up in a plane by yourself, high, high, and only infinity surrounds you. You feel such a sense of exhilaration that you wouldn’t exchange it for all the power and glory in the world.”

[…] “But Larry,” she interrupted him desperately, “don’t you see you’re asking something of me that I’m not fitted for, that I’m not interested in and don’t want to be interested in? How often have I got to repeat to you that I’m just an ordinary, normal girl.”

They talked of the parties they had been to and the parties they were going to. They gossiped about the latest scandal. They tore their friends to pieces. They bandied great names from one to the other. They seemed to know everybody. They were in on all the secrets. Almost in a breath they touched on the latest play, the latest dressmaker, the latest portrait painter, and the latest mistress of the latest premier. One would have thought there was nothing they didn’t know. Isabel listened with ravishment. It all seemed to her wonderfully civilized. This really was life. It gave her a thrilling sense of being in the midst of things. This was real.

“It’s a long arduous road he’s starting to travel, but it may be that at the end of it he’ll find what he’s seeking.”

“What’s that?”

“Hasn’t it occurred to you? It seems to me that in what he said to you he indicated it pretty plainly. God. […] Unfortunately you don’t know what experience he had in the war that so profoundly moved him. I think it was some sudden shock for which he was unprepared. I suggest to you that whatever it was that happened to Larry filled him with a sense of the transiency of life, and an anguish to be sure that there was a compensation for the sin and sorrow of the world.”

“D’you wish you had married [Larry]?”

She smiled engagingly.

“I’ve been happy with Gray. He’s been a wonderful husband. You know, until the crash came we had a grand time together. We like the same people, and we like doing the same things. He’s very sweet. And it’s nice being adored; he’s just as much in love with me as when we first married […]”

I asked myself if she thought she’d answered the question.

“Are you very much in love with Larry?”

“God damn you, I’ve never loved anyone else.”

“Why did you marry Gray?”

“I had to marry somebody. He was mad about me and Mamma wanted me to marry him. Everybody told me I was well rid of Larry.”

“Sophie wallows in the gutter because she likes it. Other women have lost their husbands and children. It wasn’t that that made her evil. Evil doesn’t spring from good. The evil was there always. When that motor accident broke her defenses it set her free to be herself. Don’t waste your pity on her; she’s now at heart what she always has been.”

“The idea came to me when Uncle Elliott made all that fuss about this damned Polish liqueur. I thought it beastly, but I pretended it was the most wonderful stuff I’d ever tasted. I was certain that if [Sophie] got a chance she’d never have the strength to resist. That’s why I took her to the dress show. That’s why I offered to make her a present of her wedding dress. That day, when she was going to have the last fitting, I told Antoine I’d have the zubrovka [the Polish liqueur] after lunch and then I told him I was expecting a lady and to ask her to wait and offer her some coffee and to leave the liqueur in case she fancied a glass.”

“Do you know, I’ve got an idea that I want to do more with my life than sell bonds.”

“All right then. Go into a law office or study medicine.”

“No, I don’t want to do that either.”

“What do you want to do then?”

“Loaf,” he replied calmly.

“The dead look so terribly dead when they’re dead.”

“What do you mean exactly?” she asked, troubled.

“Just that.” He gave her a rueful smile. “You have a lot of time to think when you’re up in the air by yourself. You get odd ideas like that.”

“What sort of ideas?”

“Vague,” he said smiling. “Incoherent. Confused.”

Isabel thought this over for a while.

Don’t you think if you took a job they might sort themselves out and you’d know where you were?”

“I’ve thought of that. I had a notion that I might go to work with a carpenter or in a garage.”

“Oh, Larry, people would think you were crazy.”

“Would that matter?”

“To me, yes.”

“You think of a fellow who an hour before was so full of life and fun, and he’s lying dead; it’s all so cruel and so meaningless. It’s hard not to ask yourself what life is all about and whether there’s any sense to it or whether it’s all a tragic blunder of blind fate.”

“You’re impractical. You don’t know what you’re asking me to do. I’m young, I want to have fun. I want to do all the things that people do. I want to go to parties, I want to go to dances, I want to play golf and ride horseback. I want to wear nice clothes. Can’t you imagine what it means to a girl not to be as well dressed as the rest of her crowd?”

“I wish I could make you see how much fuller the life I offer you is than anything you have a conception of. I wish I could make you see how exciting the life of the spirit is and how rich in experience. It’s illimitable. It’s such a happy life. There’s only one thing like it, when you’re up in a plane by yourself, high, high, and only infinity surrounds you. You feel such a sense of exhilaration that you wouldn’t exchange it for all the power and glory in the world.”

[…] “But Larry,” she interrupted him desperately, “don’t you see you’re asking something of me that I’m not fitted for, that I’m not interested in and don’t want to be interested in? How often have I got to repeat to you that I’m just an ordinary, normal girl.”

They talked of the parties they had been to and the parties they were going to. They gossiped about the latest scandal. They tore their friends to pieces. They bandied great names from one to the other. They seemed to know everybody. They were in on all the secrets. Almost in a breath they touched on the latest play, the latest dressmaker, the latest portrait painter, and the latest mistress of the latest premier. One would have thought there was nothing they didn’t know. Isabel listened with ravishment. It all seemed to her wonderfully civilized. This really was life. It gave her a thrilling sense of being in the midst of things. This was real.

“It’s a long arduous road he’s starting to travel, but it may be that at the end of it he’ll find what he’s seeking.”

“What’s that?”

“Hasn’t it occurred to you? It seems to me that in what he said to you he indicated it pretty plainly. God. […] Unfortunately you don’t know what experience he had in the war that so profoundly moved him. I think it was some sudden shock for which he was unprepared. I suggest to you that whatever it was that happened to Larry filled him with a sense of the transiency of life, and an anguish to be sure that there was a compensation for the sin and sorrow of the world.”

“D’you wish you had married [Larry]?”

She smiled engagingly.

“I’ve been happy with Gray. He’s been a wonderful husband. You know, until the crash came we had a grand time together. We like the same people, and we like doing the same things. He’s very sweet. And it’s nice being adored; he’s just as much in love with me as when we first married […]”

I asked myself if she thought she’d answered the question.

“Are you very much in love with Larry?”

“God damn you, I’ve never loved anyone else.”

“Why did you marry Gray?”

“I had to marry somebody. He was mad about me and Mamma wanted me to marry him. Everybody told me I was well rid of Larry.”

“Sophie wallows in the gutter because she likes it. Other women have lost their husbands and children. It wasn’t that that made her evil. Evil doesn’t spring from good. The evil was there always. When that motor accident broke her defenses it set her free to be herself. Don’t waste your pity on her; she’s now at heart what she always has been.”

“The idea came to me when Uncle Elliott made all that fuss about this damned Polish liqueur. I thought it beastly, but I pretended it was the most wonderful stuff I’d ever tasted. I was certain that if [Sophie] got a chance she’d never have the strength to resist. That’s why I took her to the dress show. That’s why I offered to make her a present of her wedding dress. That day, when she was going to have the last fitting, I told Antoine I’d have the zubrovka [the Polish liqueur] after lunch and then I told him I was expecting a lady and to ask her to wait and offer her some coffee and to leave the liqueur in case she fancied a glass.”