conversations.from: human
conversations.value: a description for a book titled Little Tales of Misogyny about Strangers, Train, Price with the genre: Literature & Fiction, Short Stories & Anthologies
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: the author (19211995) was the author of more than twenty novels, including Strangers on a Train, The Price of Salt,The Blunderer and The Talented Mr. Ripley, as well as numerous short stories.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: the first three paragraphs for this book
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Little Tales of Misogyny
  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
  Father: 'You asked for her hand and you have it. But it is my opinion that you wanted other things and took them.'
  Father: 'Whatever do you think I mean? You cannot deny that I am more honourable than you, because you took something from my family without asking, whereas when you asked for my daughter's hand, I gave it.'
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Delete the last sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Little Tales of Misogyny
  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
  Father: 'You asked for her hand and you have it. But it is my opinion that you wanted other things and took them.'
  Father: 'Whatever do you think I mean? You cannot deny that I am more honourable than you, because you took something from my family without asking, whereas when you asked for my daughter's hand, I gave it.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: four more paragraphs
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Elaine came to see him. Was she pregnant again? No. Impossible. It was just that he was so used to seeing her pregnant. She seemed remote. She was fulfilled, Douglas remembered.
  There are lots of girls like Mildred, homeless, yet never without a roof – most of the time the ceiling of a hotel room, sometimes that of bachelor digs, of a yacht's cabin if they're lucky, a tent, or a caravan. Such girls are bed-objects, the kind of thing one acquires like a hot-water bottle, a travelling iron, an electric shoe-shiner, any little luxury of life. It is an advantage to them if they can cook a bit, but they certainly don't have to talk, in any language. Also they are interchangeable, like unblocked currency or international postal-reply coupons. Their value can go up or down, depending on their age and the man currently in possession.
  She had floundered around in school till fourteen, when everyone including her parents had deemed it senseless for her to continue. She would marry early, her parents thought. Instead, Mildred ran away from home, or rather was taken away by a car salesman when she was barely fifteen. Under the salesman's direction, she wrote reassuring letters home, saying she had a job in a nearby town as a waitress and was living in a flat with two other girls.
  By the time she was eighteen, Mildred had been to Capri, Mexico City, Paris, even Japan, and to Brazil several times, where men usually dumped her, since they were often on the run from something. She had been a second prize, as it were, for one American President-elect the night of his victory. She had been lent for two days to a sheikh in London, who had rewarded her with a rather kinky gold goblet which she had subsequently lost – not that she liked the goblet, but it must have been worth a fortune, and she often thought of its loss with regret. If she ever wished to change her man, she would simply visit an expensive bar in Rio or anywhere, on her own, and pick up another man who would be pleased to add her to his expense account, and back she would go to America or Germany or Sweden. Mildred couldn't have cared less what country she was in.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: the last five paragraphs
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The big evening came, and twenty-two people arrived between 7.30 and 8 p.m. in a series of private cars and taxis. Margot and a hired butler and Dolly drifted about with trays of drinks and hot canapes and cheese dips. The dining table had been let out to its greatest length – a handsome field of white linen now, silver candelabra, and three vases of red carnations.
  And all went well. The women praised the appearance of the table, praised the soup. The men pronounced the claret excellent. The president of Harold's bank proposed a toast to Margot. Then Margot began to feel ill. She had a second coffee, and accepted a second brandy which she didn't want, but one of Harold's senior colleagues had offered it. Then she ducked into her bedroom and took a benzedrine. She was not in the habit of taking pick-up pills, and had these only because she had recently begged her doctor for them. 'Just in case', and had been given them because she had promised not to abuse them. Ten minutes later, Margot felt up in the air, almost flying, and she became alarmed. She went back to her bedroom and took a mild sleeping pill. She drank another brandy, which someone pressed upon her. Harold proposed another toast, to his bank, and this was followed a few minutes later by a generally proposed toast to Harold, because it was his birthday. Margot dutifully partook of all these toasts. In the last moments of the party, Margot felt she was walking in her sleep, as if she were a ghost, or someone else. When the door closed after the last guest, she collapsed on the floor.
  But Margot was convinced she had passed out, and that their guests had thought she was drunk. Harold showed Margot appreciative notes he had received from several of their guests, but Margot interpreted them as polite merely.
  Once home from the hospital, Margot took to knitting. She had always knitted a little. Now she undertook a vast enterprise: to knit coverlets for every bed in the house (eight counting the twin beds in the two guest rooms). Margot neglected her Yoga meditation, but not her exercises, as she knitted and knitted from 6 a.m. until nearly 2 a.m., hardly pausing to eat.
  The doctor told Harold to consult a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist had a chat with Margot, then said to Harold, 'We must let her continue knitting, otherwise she may become worse. When she has got all the coverlets done, perhaps we can talk to her.'