'Apples' (Short Story) by L. P. Hartley

Apples

‘Uncle Tim, Uncle Tim!’ There was no escaping the voice. Uncle Tim hoisted himself out of his chair and limped towards the window. It still looked a long way off when the cry began again; close to, this time. ‘Coming!’ called Uncle Tim, but it made no difference; the mournful importunate anapaests followed each other without a break. ‘Uncle Tim, Uncle Tim!’ It was like a weary goods train climbing an incline. Uncle Tim threw open the window and leaned out.

‘Yes, Rupert?’

‘Oh, Uncle Tim,’ said the child, and stopped, as though hypnotized by his own incantation.

‘Well, Rupert?’

‘I want an apple,’ announced Rupert, with an air of detachment, and as though fetching his thoughts from afar. He proceeded with quick gasps. ‘I want you to get me one. They’re right up on the tree. Silly old tree!’

‘Why is the tree silly?’ asked Uncle Tim. He tried to speak indulgently, but a shadow of annoyance crossed his face.

‘Because I can’t get the apples,’ answered Rupert, his voice growing shrill. ‘Do come, Uncle Tim, please. I did say please.’

Uncle Tim was moving away when Rupert called him back.

‘Uncle Tim! Come through the window, it’s ever so much quicker. I must have the apples . . . I want them. I’ve wanted them ever since breakfast!’

‘I’m afraid I’m not an acrobat,’ said Uncle Tim.

‘You’re always thinking about your silly old leg,’ argued Rupert. ‘Mummy says so. It won’t hurt you.’

‘I’m not going to give it a chance,’ said Uncle Tim, and he definitely withdrew.

Rupert was standing by the apple tree when his uncle arrived, leaning against it with one hand as though to introduce it to its despoiler. Around him on the grass lay instruments of assault, stones, sticks, toy bricks, even a doll that belonged to his little sister. There was a horrible gaping hole in its brilliant cheek, and its dress wanted smoothing down. Overhead the apples gleamed in the morning sunlight, each with a kind of halo, intolerably bright.

Uncle Tim steadied himself against the lichen-coated trunk and shook it. The rigid trunk gave a little and vibrated with a strong shudder, as though in pain; the apples tossed, noiselessly knocking each other in frantic mirth. But not one fell. Flushed with his effort, Uncle Tim turned and saw Rupert, his face parallel with the sky, staring into the branches with a bemused expression.

‘Why, they’re not ripe,’ said Uncle Tim. ‘They won’t be ripe for a month.’

Rupert’s jaw dropped and his face crinkled like a pond when a breeze crosses it.

‘Don’t cry, Rupert,’ said Uncle Tim. ‘In a month’s time you’ll have heaps; you won’t know what to do with them, there’ll be so many.’

‘I shan’t want them then,’ said Rupert. ‘I want them now.’ He burst into tears.

The passing of thirty years had made a difference to the apple tree; even by the light of the candles Uncle Tim noticed that. There were five candles: four on the bridge-table and one on the improvised sideboard that held, rather precariously, the glasses and decanters. The tree seemed to have shrunk. Some of its lower boughs were dead; its plumpness was gone; its attitude was set and strained; its bark less adhesive. Even its leaves were sparse and small. But Rupert had bloomed. Not into a passion-flower, exactly, thought Uncle Tim, pausing just beyond the reach of the candle-light. The September night was dark, and very warm and still; the unwinking flames irradiated dully the great orb of Rupert’s face. It glowed like tarnished copper and seemed of one colour with his lips, as his features shared their generous contours. His head lolled on the back of a basket-chair whose cushioned rim creaked beneath its weight; but his half-closed eyes, independent of those movements, never left his partner. She was playing the hand, but at times her jewelled fingers came abruptly across, twitching her fur with a gesture always provisional, always repeated. Suddenly she stopped.

‘Four,’ said Rupert. ‘That’s the rubber.’

Uncle Tim came out of the shadow.

‘Isn’t it very damp?’ he said. ‘And rather late? It’s nearly three.’

Rupert was adding up the score and nobody spoke. At last Rupert said, ‘I make it twelve hundred. Anybody got anything different?’

No one challenged the score.

‘How do you feel about another?’ Rupert asked, still ignoring Uncle Tim.

The man on Rupert’s left found his voice.

‘It depends what you mean by another. Another whisky, yes.’

‘Help yourself,’ said Rupert, ‘and get me one too. It’s Crème de Menthe for you, Birdie?’

‘I don’t mind,’ said the lady so addressed.

During the pause that followed Rupert lit a cigar with great deliberation.

‘Well, who’s for going on?’ he asked. Again there was a silence, broken finally by the other woman. She spoke in a tone that sounded extraordinarily cool and sweet.

‘I think your uncle would like us to go in.’

‘Oh, him,’ said Rupert, rising heavily from his chair. ‘He has such Vic—Victorian ideas. Haven’t you, Uncle Tim?’

‘I don’t want to influence you,’ said Uncle Tim. ‘I only thought you mightn’t have noticed how late it was.’

‘Yes, it is late, deuced late,’ Rupert drawled, refilling his glass. ‘That’s what I like about it. Whisky, Uncle Tim? Drown your sorrows.’ He held the glass out with an unsteady hand. Meanwhile all the players had risen.

‘I want to go to bye-bye,’ said the other man.

‘Put me in my little bed,’ carolled Birdie, and they laughed.

Everyone blew out a candle except Rupert, who could not extinguish his, and finally knocked it on to the ground where it continued to burn until smothered by his foot. The sudden darkness was confusing. Even Uncle Tim felt it; but Rupert lost his balance and fell heavily against the trunk of the apple tree. It seemed as though all the fruit had ripened simultaneously. It thudded softly on the turf, pattered sharply on the card-table, and crashed among the glasses. Uncle Tim struck a match to ascertain the damage. It was negligible. The fruit was lying all round in pre-Raphaelite profusion. Rupert recovered himself.

‘Apples!’ he cried. ‘Look at those bloody apples!’ He stooped to pick one up, but his stomach revolted from it and, clutching the tree, he tossed it, wounded by his teeth, away into the darkness.

The match went out.

‘What about these things?’ called Uncle Tim, who could not keep pace with the others. It was beginning to rain. ‘Shall I leave them, Rupert?’ There was no answer.

N.B.—The text is subject to copyright in India. It is published here for educational purposes only. 

What I Feel:

   Hartley's 'Apples' is a purely symbolic story. Written in the vogue of modernistic technique, there is little outward action. Only two snapshot-like incidents are presented in this very short story. But it is difficult to say what does the apple actually symbolize. It may be assumed that the writer's dislike for the Victorian orthodoxy and moral of restraint takes the 'forbidden fruit' apple as its symbol. Uncle While old Uncle Tim is a typical representative of the Victorian society--he considers that one should have the sense of self-control, Rupert is scornful of it. The style of the story is deceptively simple.