TASKS for Chapters 28-29

I. Answer the following questions:

1. What seemed the most scaring for Julia in the talk with her son on the first day of his arrival?

This was his suggestion that if she went into an empty room and someone suddenly opened the door there would be nobody there.

2. How did Julia prepare for the play?

She studied her part. Julia did not deliberately create the character she was going to act by observation; she had a knack of getting into the shoes of the woman she had to portray so that she thought with her mind and felt with her senses. Her intuition suggested to her a hundred small touches that afterwards amazed people by their verisimilitude; but when they asked her where she had got them she could not say.

3. How did she act at the dress-rehearsal? Why?

 Julia spared herself. She had no intention of giving all she had to give till the first night.

5. Who did Julia talk to about her conversation with Roger? Why? What did she need to get from the conversation?

 She talked to Charles and she expected him to be sympathetic

6. Describe the state Julia was in before a first night? Compare her attitude towards first-night acting with the bygone years?

In bygone years she had been intolerably nervous before a first night. She had felt slightly sick all day and as the hours passed got into such a state that she almost thought she would have to leave the stage. But by now, after having passed through the ordeal so many times, she had acquired a certain nonchalance. Throughout the early part of the day she felt only happy and mildly excited; it was not till late in the afternoon that she began to feel ill at ease. She grew silent and wanted to be left alone. She also grew irritable, and Michael, having learnt from experience, took care to keep out of her way. Her hands and feet got cold and by the time she reached the theatre they were like lumps of ice. But still the apprehension that filled her was not unpleasant.

7. Who did she meet while wandering the streets of London at noon, 6 hours before the first night? Where did they go?

Julia met Tom and she agreed to have a cup of tea with him.

8. What thoughts accompanied Julia when she visited Tom's place?

The love that had consumed her then, the jealousy she had stifled, the ecstasy of surrender, it had no more reality than one of the innumerable parts she had played in the past. She relished her indifference.

9. Why did Julia change her attitude to Tom? What phrase does Julia pronounce to herself at the end of chapter 28? Comment on it.

Julia became indifferent to Tom and the phrase "I dare say there's something in what Roger said. Love isn't worth all the fuss they make about it" proves it.

10. Was the first night a success for Julia? For Avice? Why?

The first night was success for Julia, as she deliberately killed Avice’s performance.

 11. What was Tom's attitude towards Avice's acting? How does the scene in Julia's dressing-room characterize him?

Tom found Avice’s acting a rotten one. The scene in Julia’s dressing-room characterizes him as a man who is ready to give up a person if he/she is not successful.

 12. Why do you think Julia refused to supper with Tom that night?

Julia refused to supper with Tom that night, as that was the end with him and Avice.

13. How did Julia spend that night? Was it typical of her? Why did she prefer this?

She wanted to be alone and enjoy herself and that’s why she went to the restaurant. She did not want to share such a moment with anybody.

14. What was peculiar about Julia's appearance and order at the Berkeley? Do you feel that night was somehow significant to her? Why?

She neither painted her lips nor rouged her cheeks. She put on again the brown coat and skirt in which she had come to the theatre and the same hat. It was a felt hat with a brim, and this she pulled down over one eye so that it should hide as much of her face as possible. When she was ready she looked at herself in the glass. She did it to analyze her life and everything that happened to her. So that was a very important moment.

15. How does she reflect about the day passed? Does she feel satisfied? Why? Prove your point of view. It was enchanting to be alone and allow her mind to wander. She thought once more of Tom and spiritually shrugged a humorous shoulder. "It was an amusing experience."

16. Describe the place in a restaurant where Julia was having supper? What was special about it? Why had she chosen to be seated there?

The room in which she sat was connected by three archways with the big dining-room where they supped and danced; amid the crowd doubtless were a certain number who had been to the play. How surprised they would be if they knew that the quiet little woman in the corner of the adjoining room, her face half hidden by a felt hat, was Julia Lambert. It gave her a pleasant sense of independence to sit there unknown and unnoticed. They were acting a play for her and she was the audience. She caught brief glimpses of them as they passed the archway, young men and young women, young men and women not so young, men with bald heads and men with fat bellies, old harridans clinging desperately to their painted semblance of youth. Some were in love, and some were jealous, and some were indifferent.

17. What conclusion did Julia come to while sitting at the Berkeley and "throwing prudence to the winds?"

 “People are our raw material. We are the meaning of their lives. We take their silly little emotions and turn them into art, out of them we create beauty, and their significance is that they form the audience we must have to fulfil ourselves. They are the instruments on which we play, and what is an instrument without somebody to play on it?”