The Old Wives Tale

The Old Wives' Tale

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Old Wives' Tale, by Arnold
Bennett (#5 in our series by Arnold Bennett)
Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the
header without written permission.
Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is
important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how
the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a
donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since
1971**
*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of
Volunteers!*****
Title: The Old Wives' Tale
Author: Arnold Bennett
Release Date: March, 2004 [EBook #5247] [Yes, we are more than one
year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on June 10, 2002]

Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE OLD
WIVES' TALE ***

Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading
Team

The Old Wives' Tale
Arnold Bennett

To W. W. K.

PREFACE TO THIS EDITION
In the autumn of 1903 I used to dine frequently in a restaurant in the
Rue de Clichy, Paris. Here were, among others, two waitresses that
attracted my attention. One was a beautiful, pale young girl, to whom I
never spoke, for she was employed far away from the table which I
affected. The other, a stout, middle-aged managing Breton woman, had
sole command over my table and me, and gradually she began to
assume such a maternal tone towards me that I saw I should be
compelled to leave that restaurant. If I was absent for a couple of nights
running she would reproach me sharply: "What! you are unfaithful to
me?" Once, when I complained about some French beans, she informed
me roundly that French beans were a subject which I did not
understand. I then decided to be eternally unfaithful to her, and I
abandoned the restaurant. A few nights before the final parting an old

woman came into the restaurant to dine. She was fat, shapeless, ugly,
and grotesque. She had a ridiculous voice, and ridiculous gestures. It
was easy to see that she lived alone, and that in the long lapse of years
she had developed the kind of peculiarity which induces guffaws
among the thoughtless. She was burdened with a lot of small parcels,
which she kept dropping. She chose one seat; and then, not liking it,
chose another; and then another. In a few moments she had the whole
restaurant laughing at her. That my middle-aged Breton should laugh
was indifferent to me, but I was pained to see a coarse grimace of
giggling on the pale face of the beautiful young waitress to whom I had
never spoken.
I reflected, concerning the grotesque diner: "This woman was once
young, slim, perhaps beautiful; certainly free from these ridiculous
mannerisms. Very probably she is unconscious of her singularities. Her
case is a tragedy. One ought to be able to make a heartrending novel
out of the history of a woman such as she." Every stout, ageing woman
is not grotesque--far from it!--but there is an extreme pathos in the
mere fact that every stout ageing woman was once a young girl with the
unique charm of youth in her form and movements and in her mind.
And the fact that the change from the young girl to the stout ageing
woman is made up of an infinite number of infinitesimal changes, each
unperceived by her, only intensifies the pathos.
It was at this instant that I was visited by the idea of writing the book
which ultimately became "The Old Wives' Tale." Of course I felt that
the woman who caused the ignoble mirth in the restaurant would not
serve me as a type of heroine. For she was much too old and obviously
unsympathetic. It is an absolute rule that the principal character of a
novel must not be unsympathetic, and the whole modern tendency of
realistic fiction is against oddness in a prominent figure. I knew that I
must choose the sort of woman who would pass unnoticed in a crowd.
I put the idea aside for a long time, but it was never very distant from
me. For several reasons it made a special appeal to me. I had always
been a convinced admirer of