Undiluted Love: Sick Imagination or Final Diagnosis?

Master

Georgie

Myrtle

Myrtle, a young orphan who is accepted and raised by the Hardy`s family.

Myrtle's idolization of Georgie is one of the many axles around which the novel turns. He is a surgeon in the

burgeoning medical world, son of a wealthy family and leads a comfortable life in Liverpool.

She is obsessed with the idea that Master Georgie needs her and she will do everything for him.

«It began to rain before I reached the Washington

Hotel. I hadn't my shawl, but a spot of damp was nothing to me. What did I care! I'd freeze stiff for Master

Georgie».

How strange it is that even a mode of walking

can inspire love. «Suddenly he shouted over his shoulder,

'Don't lag behind, Myrtle. Keep up with

me.' I was happy, for his

flung injunction signified he knew I was

there and didn't want me lost».

All these facts prove the idea that Myrtle runs mad on Master Georgie as she is capable of anything in order to be side by side with him.

'Am I to be sent away?' I

repeated, and he replied with

some irritation, 'No, Myrtle, no. All I ask is that you hide what

you know.'

After her return she lives side by side with Annie, Georgie Hardy’s wife and has to bring up the children.

«During the trip a most remarkable change took place in Myrtle - in her appearance, that is…Her face, once pale, turned golden in the sun and as she refused to cover her head, her hair leapt with threads of fiery colour. Result - it was as though Myrtle, previously lurking in mist, had now emerged into the light. But George hardly noticed the difference, he being so preoccupied with other matters.»

«It had been my conceit that it was enough to

give love, that to receive it would have altered the

nature of my obsession. When

passion is mutual, there is

always the danger of the fire burning to ashes. Rather

than lose love it was better never to have known

it…»

«It frightened me that the child who had trailed Master

Georgie at a distance was now treading on his heels, clamouring to be noticed. I knew I was in the wrong;

Georgie had made no promises, raised no

false hopes, and yet...»

If ever there is a woman with fairy dust in her eyes, it is she.

«Georgie was in the medical tent, fast asleep

on a straw mattress behind the instrument

table. His arm was flung out across the chest of

the fire-eater, who, covered in a hospital

night-shirt, the rouge still hectic on his cheeks, lay

on the bare ground beside him. This close, I

knew him; it was the duck-boy…»

No one can acknowledge Georgie’s attitude toward women and whether he loves anyone, except for

himself or not.

Undiluted Love: Sick Imagination or Final Diagnosis?

Master

Georgie

Myrtle