Julia’s+double+nature

**Julia's double nature** (Podsekayeva Marina )
**Character features of Julia Lambert can be easily observed throughout the novel. We may follow her speech, her manners, behaviour and even thoughts in different situations of her life. Julia was a great actress. She was a born actress. So, we see how it influences her life, her manners of behaviour in the relationships with Michael, Tom Fennel, Charles Tamerley, Dolly de Vries and others. Thanks to her actress' skills she knew how to conduct herself __in any society__**:

//" Julia often went to the luncheon parties he was fond of giving at his house in Hill Street. At the bottom of her heart she had a profound contempt for the great ladies and the noble lords she met there, because she was a working woman and an artist, but she knew the connexion was u seful...// //Julia was not a brilliant conversationalist, but her eyes were so bright, her manner so intelligent, that once she had learnt the language of society she passed for a very amusing woman. She had a great gift of mimicry, which ordinarily she kept in check thinking it was bad for her acting, but in these circles she turned it to good accout and by means of it acquired the reputation of a wit. She was pleased that they liked her, these smart, idle women, but she laughed at them up her sleeve because they were dazzled by her glamour. She wondered what they would think if they really knew how unromantic the life of a successful actress was, the hard work it entailed, the constant care one had to take of oneself and the regular, monotonous habits which were essential. But she good-naturedly offered them advice on make-up and let them copy her clothes."// **(p.88, ch.11)**


 * She was acting constantly: at home, on the scene, and even with her closed friends. Thus, in the relationships with __Charles Tamerley__, who was in love with her, we may see the following:**

//"...She knew that he had fallen in love with her some time before he knew it himself. She found it rather comic. From her standpoint he was a middle-aged man, and she thought of him as a nice old thing..."// ** (p. 92, ch. 11) ** //“Poor lamb,” she said to herself, “he’s such a hell of a gentleman he doesn’t know what to do about it.”// //But she had already prepared her course of conduct for the declaration which she felt he would sooner or later bring himself to make. One thing she was going to make quite clear to him. She wasn’t going to let him think that because he was a lord and she was an actress he had only to beckon and she would hop into bed with him. If he tried that sort of thing she’d play the outraged heroine on him, with the outflung arm and the index extended in the same line, as Jane Taitbout had taught her to make the gesture, pointed at the door. On the other hand if he was shattered and tongue-tied, she’d be all tremulous herself, sobs in the voice and all that, and she’d say it had never dawned on her that he felt like that about her, and no, no, it would break Michael’s heart. They’d have a good cry together and then everything would be all right. With his beautiful manners she could count upon him not making a nuisance of himself when she had once got it into his head that there was nothing doing."// **(p. 93, ch. 11)**


 * It should be also noticed that Julia demonstrates her double nature __in the episode with miniature Charles gave to her and after it__** :

//".....He took a miniature out of his pocket and gave it to her... Julia looked at the pretty, clever face, with the powdered hair, and wondered whether the stones that framed the little picture were diamonds or only paste.// //“Oh, Charles, how can you! You are sweet.”.....// .....//Then Julia did a disgraceful thing. She sat down and for a minute looked silently at the miniature. Timing it perfectly, she raised her eyes till they met Charles’s. She could cry almost at will, it was one of her most telling accomplishments, and now without a sound, without a sob, the tears poured down her cheeks. With her mouth slightly open, with the look in her eyes of a child that has been deeply hurt and does not know why, the effect was unbearably pathetic.// ..... //“Clara’s making me scenes about you. She’s found out I’m in love with you. It’s only common sense that we shouldn’t see one another any more.”// //This time Julia slightly shook her head. She gave a sob. She leant back in the chair and turned her head aside. Her whole body seemed to express the hopelessness of her grief. Flesh and blood couldn’t stand it..... // //She turned her tear-stained face to him (“God, what a sight I must look now”) and gave him her lips. He kissed her tenderly. It was the first time he had ever kissed her.// //“I don’t want to lose you,” she muttered huskily.// //When he went away she got up and looked in the glass.//

//“You rotten bitch,” she said to herself.// //But she giggled as though she were not in the least ashamed and then went into the bathroom to wash her face and eyes. She felt wonderfully exhilarated. She heard Michael come in and called out to him.// //“Michael, look at that miniature Charles has just given me. It’s on the chimney-piece. Are those diamonds or paste?.....”// **(p. 94-96, ch. 11)**

//"..... It was not that she had any scruples about being his mistress; if he had been an actor who loved her so much and had loved her so long she would not have minded popping into bed with him out of sheer good nature; but she just did not fancy him. She was very fond of him, but he was so elegant, so well -bred, so cultured, she could not think of him as a lover. It would be like going to bed with an objetd’art. And his love of art filled her with a faint derision; after all she was a creator, when all was said and done he was only the public. He wished her to elope with him.// //“The damned fool,” she thought. “As if I’d give up my career to bury myself in some hole in Italy!.....”// **(p. 96-97, ch.11)**
 * __Julia's attitude to Charles is twofold__. Though she could not bear the thought of falling in love with him, she didn't want to lose him. We may observe it through the following context :**

//"...It often seemed to her that she was two persons, the actress, the popular favourite, the best-dressed woman in London, and that was a shadow; and the woman she was playing at night, and that was the substance.// //“Damned if I know what genius is,” she said to herself...."// **(p. 140-141, ch. 14)**
 * __J__**__uli**a had often asked herself what did people mean when they said an actress had genius?**__

**__Through the relationships with Tom Fennel we may also see how changes her character__, her thoughts and intentions had nothing in common with her actions :** //"Charles Tamerley always said that what an actress needed was not intelligence, but sensibility, and he might be right; perhaps she wasn’t clever, but her feelings were alert and she trusted them. They told her now that she must never tell Tom that she loved him. She was careful to make it plain to him that she laid no claims on him and that he was free to do whatever he liked. She took up the attitude that the whole thing was a bit of nonsense to which neither of them must attach importance. But she left nothing undone to bind him to her. He liked parties and she took him to parties...."// ** (p. 127, ch. 14) ** //"She was in a black rage. This was the last straw. Tom had neglected her for a fortnight, he had not even treated her with civility, and she had been angelic....Any other woman would have told him that if he couldn’t behave with common decency he’d better get out. Selfish, stupid and common, that’s what he was. She almost wished he wasn’t going tomorrow so that she could have the pleasure of turning him out bag and baggage..... She knew where he was most sensitive and how she could most cruelly wound him. That would get him on the raw. She felt a faint sensation of relief as she turned the scheme over in her mind. She was impatient to carry out her part of it at once, and they had no sooner got home than she went up to her room. She got four single pounds out of her bag and a ten-shilling note. She wrote a brief letter...."// **(p. 152-153, ch. 14)** //“I wasn’t in a rage. I can’t think how you got such an idea in your head. It was so natural that you should want to go to the party. You can’t think I’m such a beast as to grudge you a little fun in your fortnight’s holiday. My poor lamb, my only fear was that you would be bored. I so wanted you to have a good time.”// // “You’re everything in the world to me. You know that. I’m so lonely and your friendship meant a great deal to me. I’m surrounded by hangers-on and parasites and I knew you were disinterested. I felt I could rely on you. I so loved being with you. You were the only person in the world with whom I could be entirely myself. Don’t you know what a pleasure it was to me to help you a little? It wasn’t for your sake I made you little presents, it was for my own; it made me so happy to see you using the things I’d given you. If you’d cared for me at all they wouldn’t have humiliated you, you’d have been touched to owe me something.”// **(p.160-161, ch.15)** //“How lucky I am that I can cry without my eyelids swelling,” she said. She massaged them a little. “All the same, what mugs men are.”// //"She was happy. Everything would be all right now. She had got him back. But somewhere, at the back of her mind or in the bottom of her heart, was a feeling of ever so slight contempt for Tom because he was such a simple fool."// **(p. 163-164, ch. 15)**