Extract No. 04
Page No. 49/50
[Lines, “Her wretched ……….twenty years”
SOURCE: SCERT QUESTION BANK
Read
the first activity, the extract and do all the activities that follow.
Her
wretched self again, no doubt! She had always been a fretful, weak,
unsatisfactory mother, a wobbly wife, lolling about in a kind of twilight
existence with nothing very clear or very bold, or
more one thing than another, like all her brothers and sisters, except perhaps
Herbert- they were all the same poor water-veined creatures who did nothing.
Then in the midst of this creeping, crawling life, suddenly she was on the
crest of a wave. Wretched fly - where had she read the story that kept coming
into her mind about the fly and the saucer? -struggled out. Yes, she had those
moments. But now that she was forty, they might come more and more seldom. By
degrees she would cease to struggle any more. But that was deplorable! That was
not to be endured! that made her feel ashamed of herself !
She would go to the London Library tomorrow. She would find
some wonderful, helpful, astonishing book, quite by chance, a book by a
clergyman, by an American no one had ever heard of; or she would walk down the
Strand and drop, accidentally, into a hall where a miner was telling about the
life in the pit, and suddenly she would become a new person. She would be
absolutely transformed. She would wear a uniform; she would be called Sister
Somebody; she would never give a thought to clothes again. And for ever after
she would be perfectly clear about Charles Burt and Miss Milan and this room
and that room; and it would be always, day after day, as if she were lying in
the sun or carving the mutton. It would be it! So she got up from the blue
sofa, and the yellow buttoning the looking-glass got up too, and she waved her
hand to Charles and Rose to show them she did not depend on them one scrap, and
the yellow button moved out of the looking-glass, and all the spears were
gathered into her breast as she walked towards Mrs. Dalloway and said “Good
night. “But it’s too early to go,” said Mrs. Dalloway, who was always so
charming. “I’m afraid I must,” said Mabel Waring. “But,” she added
in her weak, wobbly voice which only sounded ridiculous when she tried to
strengthen it, “I have enjoyed myself enormously.” ‘I have enjoyed myself,” she
said to Mr. Dalloway, whom she met on the stairs. “Lies, lies, lies!” she said
to herself, going downstairs, and “Right in the saucer!” she said to herself as
she thanked Mrs. Barnet for helping her and wrapped
herself, round and round and round, in the Chinese cloak she had worn these
twenty years.
A1. True or false : (02)
i) Mable was not stable in her life. (T)
ii) Mable decided to read a book by an American clergyman. (T)
iiI) Mrs. Barmet was not helpful to Mable. (F)
iv ) Mable enjoyed herself in the party as per her own declaration. (T)
A2. Find out : (02)
Find out
expressions that show that Mable was not contented with her life (sense of
inadequacy)
She had always been
a fretful, weak, unsatisfactory mother, a wobbly wife, lolling about in a kind
of twilight existence with nothing very clear or very bold, or more one thing
than another, like all her brothers and sisters, except perhaps Herbert- they were
all the same poor water-veined creatures who did nothing.
A3. Describe : (02)
Describe the sentences that shows the transformation of Mable.
She
would become a new person. She would be absolutely transformed. She would wear
a uniform; she would be called Sister Somebody; she would never give a thought
to clothes again.
A4. Personal Response : (02)
Are you an optimistic person or a
pessimistic person? How far is it useful to you in your day to day life.
(This is a Practice Activity for students.)
A5.Language study : (02)
a) I have enjoyed myself
enormously.
( Rewrite the
sentence using present perfect continuous tense)
I have been enjoying myself enormously.
b) “I have enjoyed
myself,” she said to Mr.Dalloway.
(
Rewrite in Reported speech)
She told
Mr.Dalloway that she had enjoyed
herself.
A6. Vocabulary : (02)
Find out words from the extract which
mean the following.
a) Restless = fretful
b) Sleeveless coat = cloak
c) Feeling very happy = crest of wave
d) Gradually = by degrees
