Wednesday, October 26, 2016

Women's Classic Literature Event: Group Check-In 4


The question for the fourth group check-in is this:

Share the most memorable scene from one of your reads for this event.

There was one scene from Rilla of Ingleside by Lucy Maud Montgomery that I have remembered clearly for decades.  As a teen, it was my favorite moment in the book because it was the part I laughed hardest over.  While rereading it this fall for the first time in probably twenty years, I kept wondering when that scene would crop up.  As I neared the end of the book, I began to wonder if I'd confused some other book with this, because I still hadn't gotten to it!  But finally, on page 260, there it was:

     "Mother and I went into Charlottetown yesterday to see the moving picture, 'Hearts of the World.'  I made an awful goose of myself -- father will never stop teasing me about it for the rest of my life.  but it all seemed so horribly real -- and I was so intensely interested that I forgot everything but the scenes I saw enacted before my eyes.  And then, quite near the last came a terribly exciting one.  The heroine was struggling with a horrible German soldier who was trying to drag her away.  I knew she had a knife -- I had seen her hide it, to have it in readiness -- and I couldn't understand why she didn't produce it and finish the brute.  I thought she must have forgotten it, and just at the tensest moment of the scene I lost my head altogether.  I just stood right up on my feet in that crowded house and shrieked at the top of my voice -- 'The knife is in your stocking -- the knife is in your stocking!'
     "I created a sensation!  The funny part was, that just as I said it, the girl did snatch out the knife and stab the soldier with it!
     "Everybody in the house laughed.  I came to my senses and fell back in my seat, overcome with mortification.  Mother was shaking with laughter.  I could have shaken her.  Why hadn't she pulled me down and choked me before I had made such an idiot of myself.  She protests that there wasn't time.
     "Fortunately the house was dark, and I don't believe there was anybody there who knew me.  And I thought I was becoming sensible and self-controlled and womanly!  It is plain I have some distance to go yet before I attain that devoutly desired consummation."

Those few paragraphs are still among my favorite in the book, and I chuckled over them while typing them up just now.  Also, I like that she somewhat references Hamlet with that last line, echoing his "'tis a consummation devoutly to be wished."

So far, I have read 16 books for this event, all listed on this page.  I aim to read 4 more by the end of December, to make it a nice, round 20.  We'll see if I get there!

2 comments:

  1. I love this scene too. It seems to offer just a shade of the liveliness we'd hope from Anne and her daughter. Just a glimpse!

    You and I have read a lot of the same titles for this event. Best wishes with your final four!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Exactly. This is what I want the whole book to be like. And the last couple of books too.

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