Rebecca

by Daphne du Maurier

I believe there is a theory that men and women emerge finer and stronger after suffering, and that to advance in this or any world we must endure ordeal by fire. This we have done in full measure, ironic though it seems.

We placate ourselves with this theory, make it so we don't succumb to the hopelessness we might feel in the aftermath of the trail we endured.

We have both known fear, and loneliness, and very great distress. I suppose sooner or later in the life of everyone comes a moment of trial.

It does seem so. By our own hand or anothers.

I might say that we have paid for freedom.

As have I.

Happiness is not a possession to be prized, it is a quality of thought, a state of mind.

Happiness is ours, if we choose it. It is not an end to reach.

We both appreciate simplicity, and we are sometimes bored—well, boredom is a pleasing antidote to fear.

We should all get bored from time to time. It is good for the brain, it stimulates creativity.

I think it was the expression on her face that gave me my first feeling of unrest. Instinctively I thought, “She is comparing me to Rebecca”; and sharp as a sword the shadow came between us…

Listen to you instincts.

And confidence is a quality I prize, although it has come to me a little late in the day.

“She’s spoiled, Mr. de Winter, that’s her trouble. Most girls would give their eyes for the chance of seeing Monte.” “Wouldn’t that rather defeat the purpose?” he said, smiling.

Haha love it, puttng her in her place like that. She wont like it.

I don’t think she understood him for a moment.

She just did not listen to him.

“I don’t possess one,” he said quietly; “perhaps you would like to do it for me?”

LOLLL

Perhaps you have not heard of it.”

oof

Men do such extraordinary things.

They do, don't they.

“By the way, dear,” she said, as we walked along the corridor, “don’t think I mean to be unkind, but you put yourself just a teeny bit forward this afternoon. Your efforts to monopolize the conversation quite embarrassed me, and I’m sure it did him. Men loathe that sort of thing.”

Ah yes... Atributing your own insecurities on someone else. Classic.

I am glad it cannot happen twice, the fever of first love. For it is a fever, and a burden, too, whatever the poets may say. They are not brave, the days when we are twenty-one. They are full of little cowardices, little fears without foundation, and one is so easily bruised, so swiftly wounded, one falls to the first barbed word.

We feel so vulnerable, so small and so insecure. Trying to decode all their behaviours, rethinking and overthinking all yours... It's maddening and exhausting.

What degradation lay in being young,

Right?

“and stop biting those nails, they are ugly enough already.”

Lol the fuck bro.

“I suppose you are young enough to be my daughter,

Gross

“No, I’m asking you to marry me, you little fool.”

Mh no thank you. You said yourself you're old enough to be her father.

“You are almost as ignorant as Mrs. Van Hopper, and just as unintelligent.

Great... Insulting your -wannabe- bride to be.

It’s a pity you have to grow up.”

Gross AF You plan to marry her!

I was ashamed already, and angry with him for laughing. So women did not make those confessions to men. I had a lot to learn.

You tell everybody how you feel about them, hom much you love them. Men who laugh after you confess your feelings are not the sort you should take lessons on etiquette from. Fuck them.

“I’m being rather a brute to you, aren’t I?”

I can see my lord might have a touch of the 'tism. But please good fellow you have done this before.

I wondered if he would tell the waiter, take my arm smilingly and say, “You must congratulate us, Mademoiselle and I are going to be married.” And all the other waiters would hear, would bow to us, would smile, and we would pass into the lounge, a wave of excitement following us, a flutter of expectation.

Her inner monologue is still very childlike, no full grown man should marry this girl. It is insane to me that it used to be standard practice in our society for barely pubescent girls to marry a man their fathers age, and in some cases even older than that. Disgusting

“Does forty-two seem very old to you?”

Ok, she's in her early 20s and not a teen but still... He's almost twice her age... The fuck is wrong with you.

“You forget,” he said, “I had that sort of wedding before.”

But she has not, you dick.

tangerine. No time. The tangerine was very bitter. No, he had not said anything about being in love.

One of the red flags she would have picked up on, if she was not so young.

I took my nail scissors from the dressing-case and cut the page, looking over my shoulder like a criminal. I cut the page right out of the book. I left no jagged edges, and the book looked white and clean when the page was gone. A new book, that had not been touched. I tore the page up in many little fragments and threw them into the wastepaper basket.

Like a child. A little jealous child who has not yet learned that people have had lives before they met them. A child that has not yet learned empathy. Who's incapable of controling their selfish and destructive urges so they act on them withoit thinking of the consequenses or how their behaviour affects another.

“He’s only forty-two,” I said, “and I’m old for my age.”

But of course you are... *eyes rolling so far back they might roll out of my head*

The past would not exist for either of us; we were starting afresh, he and I. The past had blown away like the ashes in the wastepaper basket.

Ah yes, magic it all away. That's going to work juuuust great.

I knew then that he had mistaken my silence for fatigue, and it had not occurred to him I dreaded this arrival at Manderley as much as I had longed for it in theory.

Because I do not think Max cares all that much for you hon.

They wanted to see what I was like.

Duh? You'd be the same.

And you don’t have to worry about the house, Mrs. Danvers does everything. Just leave it all to her.

Don't like that. He gives his orders just so. They almost don't sound condescending. Almost.

It seemed remote to me, and far too distant, the time when I too should smile and be at ease, and I wished it could come quickly; that I could be old even, with gray hair and slow of step, having lived here many years—anything but the timid, foolish creature I felt myself to be.

I notice she's always dreaming about the future; how her life will be. But almost never do we see her enjoying her present, how her life is. It's quite sad to me.

It’s all right, you won’t have to say anything, I’ll do it all.”

You don't have to say anything at all. But you can if you want to. Is what you should say Maxim.

but when she took my hand hers was limp and heavy, deathly cold, and it lay in mine like a lifeless thing.

The disrespect.

asking no questions of the past and future,

You're more content making it up in your mind, creating fantasies.

content with the little glory of the living present.

For once.

Run along and make friends with Mrs. Danvers; it’s a good opportunity.”

This feels very condescending to me.

“No, not from this wing,” she answered; “you can’t even hear it, either. You would not know the sea was anywhere near, from this wing.”

How many times can someone mention 'this wing' in short succession, without it getting suspicious.

“it’s usual, you know, for ladies in your position to have a personal maid.”

Bitch

“I came here when the first Mrs. de Winter was a bride,” she said, and her voice, which had hitherto, as I said, been dull and toneless, was harsh now with unexpected animation, with life and meaning, and there was a spot of color on the gaunt cheekbones.

Was she in love with Rebecca..? In any way, there was love there. She hates our girl because Max has replaced her lady of the house? Something like that, right?

And the windows look down across the lawns to the sea.”

You fucking bitch...

Then I saw a shadow flit across her face, and she drew back against the wall, effacing herself, as a step sounded outside and Maxim came into the room.

Bet he said not to mention any of this.

Unconsciously, I shivered as though someone had opened the door behind me and let a draft into the room. I was sitting in Rebecca’s chair, I was leaning against Rebecca’s cushion, and the dog had come to me and laid his head upon my knee because that had been his custom, and he remembered, in the past, she had given sugar to him there.

And so it begins.

If she doesn’t like you she’ll tell you so, to your face.”

Love it.

wondered if there was not some virtue in the quality of insincerity.

Lol

“Mrs. de Winter always used the morning room.

I don't give two shits about what Mrs. De Winter did or did not do.

“Mrs. de Winter always did all her correspondence and telephoning in the morning room, after breakfast.

Stop that. Don't compare her to Rebecca. The fuck.

rhododendrons,

Ugly and stinking flowers in my opinion btw.

I went and sat down at the writing desk, and I thought how strange it was that this room, so lovely and so rich in color, should be, at the same time, so businesslike and purposeful.

What would be the point otherwise? Why have something functional and not have it made beautiful? It's literally the whole point.