The Corn Is Green Page #3

Then they are sent away to the mines

and in one week they're old men.

I see.

How many can read and write?

Next to none.

Next to none.

I wonder who started the ridiculous rumor

that this was a civilized world.

Well, since it's the only world

we have to live in,

I suppose we have

to make the best of it.

Too easy, Mr. Jones.

Much too soft and easy.

When I was a young girl I looked the world

into the eye and I decided I didn't like it.

I saw poverty and disease,

ignorance and injustice.

And in a small way, I've always done

what I could to fight them.

So now that I've had the good

fortune to come into this house

and a little money, what could I do

better than to continue to fight them?

Especially with you two to help me.

Would you please put

these in water?

- I?

- Yes, you, Miss Ronberry.

Sit down, won't you?

I used to meet friends of yours

at lectures in London.

You live alone.

You have just enough money.

You're not badly educated.

And time lies heavy on your hands.

Isn't that so?

Not at all.

When the proper gentleman appears...

Oh, no, Miss Ronberry. If you're

a spinster well on in her thirties,

he's lost his way and isn't coming.

Why don't you face the fact

and enjoy life the way I do?

When did you give up hope?

Oh, what a horrid expression.

I can't recall ever having

had any hope.

Visitors used to take a long look

at my figure and say:

"she's going to be the clever one. "

But a woman's only future is to marry

and fulfil the duties.

Nonsense.

I'd have made a shocking wife anyway.

But haven't you ever been in love?

I have never talked to a man

for more than 5 minutes in my life

without wanting to box his ears.

Which brings me to you, Mr. Jones.

My conscience is as clear as the snow.

I'm sure it is.

But I've inquired about you too.

Your father was a grocer with just enough

money to send you to grammar school.

With the result that you're educated

beyond your sphere

and yet failed to qualify

for the upper classes.

You feel frustrated

and fall back on being saved.

Am I right?

It is such a terrible thing

you have said that...

- I will have to think it over.

-Do.

In the meantime, would you two like to

stop moping and be very useful to me?

- Useful?

- Yes.

I'm going to start a school.

A school? What for?

What for? You see these books?

Hundreds of them.

And something wonderful

to read in each and every one.

These nippers are to be cut off

from that forever, are they? Why?

Just because they happen to be born

penniless in an uncivilized country?

- You're right.

- The ordinary children, you mean?

Yes, my dear. The ordinary children

who came into the world by exactly

the same process as you and I.

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