#chapter 31

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What a horrenduous chapter to write. @snowwraith helped me immensly with the erotica cringe, so if you want you could check out their cool goblin comic Ruinous Fortune

“When the night wind rose higher Barney would shut the door and light a lamp and read to her—poetry and essays and gorgeous, dim chronicles of ancient wars. Barney never would read novels: he vowed they bored him.”

I will be stereotypically sexist here: He is such a man. I like this touch of realism. (I kind-of get annoyed when young straight men are fans of Wuthering Heights in romance novels, I am saying this as a fan of Wuthering Heights myself. I am not saying this never happens in real life but it still kind of takes me out of a story. I like that Barney has the reading habits of someone’s dad.)

“Warm fire—books—comfort—safety from storm—our cats on the rug.”

Secrets to a happy life.

“Which was luck—for she hadn’t even Redfern’s Liniment. She had thoughtfully bought a bottle at the Port and Barney had hurled it into frozen Mistawis with a scowl.

“Bring no more of that devilish stuff here,” he had ordered briefly. It was the first and last time he had spoken harshly to her.”

Unlike the John Foster twist, which I think is well-laid-out and even touching, I find the Redfern twist clumsy. It has some things going for it, but it is still the book’s biggest flaw. And I really feel that Montgomery did not plan it from the start?

“One evening they came upon a snowdrift far back in an old clearing which was in the exact likeness of a beautiful woman’s profile. Seen too close by, the resemblance was lost, as in the fairy-tale of the Castle of St. John. Seen from behind, it was a shapeless oddity. But at just the right distance and angle the outline was so perfect that when they came suddenly upon it, gleaming out against the dark background of spruce in the glow of that winter sunset they both exclaimed in amazement. There was a low, noble brow, a straight, classic nose, lips and chin and cheek-curve modelled as if some goddess of old time had sat to the sculptor, and a breast of such cold, swelling purity as the very spirit of the winter woods might display.

“‘All the beauty that old Greece and Rome, sung painted, taught,’” quoted Barney.”

I find it interesting that the narrative voice constantly likens Nature to Women.

Is this an allegory for Valancy’s “hidden beauty”? I guess it is, but the profile doesn’t seem to resemble Valancy’s.

“‘All the tintings of winter woods are extremely delicate and elusive,’” recalled Valancy. “‘When the brief afternoon wanes and the sun just touches the tops of the hills, there seems to be all over the woods an abundance, not of colour, but of the spirit of colour. There is really nothing but pure white after all, but one has the impression of fairy-like blendings of rose and violet, opal and heliotrope on the slopes—in the dingles and along the curves of the forest-land. You feel sure the tint is there, but when you look at it directly it is gone. From the corner of your eye you are aware that it is lurking over yonder in a spot where there was nothing but pale purity a moment ago. Only just when the sun is setting is there a fleeting moment of real colour. Then the redness streams out over the snow and incarnadines the hills and rivers and smites the crest of the pines with flame. Just a few minutes of transfiguration and revelation—and it is gone.’

Beautiful description. Good job John Foster.

“Good Lord, do you learn all that fellow’s books by heart?” was Barney’s disgusted reaction as he strode off.

“John Foster’s books were all that saved my soul alive the past five years,” averred Valancy.”

Valancy quoting long passages from John Foster’s books (which are prose works mind you) by heart is indeed very impressive.

“She never had any skates of her own, but some of the other girls had lent her theirs and she seemed to have a natural knack of it.”

I read on the tag someone saying Valancy maybe had childhood friends and did not even realize it! It seems to be the case, it was the case with Cissy too. I find this realistic too, when you hate yourself that colors the way you interpret others’ reactions to you.

“Something frivolous and unnecessary,” said Valancy, who had got a pair of goloshes last Christmas and two long-sleeved, woolen undervests the year before. And so on back.

To her delight, Barney gave her a necklace of pearl beads. Valancy had wanted a string of milky pearl beads—like congealed moonshine—all her life. And these were so pretty. All that worried her was that they were really too good. They must have cost a great deal—fifteen dollars, at least. Could Barney afford that? She didn’t know a thing about his finances. She had refused to let him buy any of her clothes—she had enough for that, she told him, as long as she would need clothes. In a round, black jar on the chimney-piece Barney put money for their household expenses—always enough. The jar was never empty, though Valancy never caught him replenishing it. He couldn’t have much, of course, and that necklace—but Valancy tossed care aside. She would wear it and enjoy it. It was the first pretty thing she had ever had.”