Can anyone help me understand this passage?

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The text in question is as follows:

"For that fact had suddenly slipped into place and become real for her as the niched marker on a whist tablet slips round with the pressure of your thumb. That rubber at least was made."

I'm thrown away by the author's choice of metaphor here. I can guess that whist is a card game? And a tablet is like a card? But what is "niched marker" ?
And the last part with the rubber is confusing too. Is that a proverb or a slang ? I've never heard of it.

Please tell me what you make of it. Thank you!

P.S: if it helps, the "fact" refers to the affair between a married man and his god-daughter, the "her" in the passage.

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@Yang1130,

All I can tell you is that the author is not very good. He's using words and phrases that most people do not understand. He makes it unnecessarily difficult to understand. I'm not sure who he's trying to impress, but most people will just give up and toss it. Most classic stories are easy to read and understand. That first sentence doesn't make any sense. It's not even metaphor; it's jibberish!

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Without context and/or knowing the "game," it's impossible for many people to interpret the sentence. I stand by my post.

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@Yang1130,

Yang1130 wrote:

The text in question is as follows:

"For that fact had suddenly slipped into place and become real for her as the niched marker on a whist tablet slips round with the pressure of your thumb. That rubber at least was made."

I'm thrown away by the author's choice of metaphor here. I can guess that whist is a card game? And a tablet is like a card? But what is "niched marker" ?
And the last part with the rubber is confusing too. Is that a proverb or a slang ? I've never heard of it.

Please tell me what you make of it. Thank you!

P.S: if it helps, the "fact" refers to the affair between a married man and his god-daughter, the "her" in the passage.

The Good Soldierwas written in 1915. I guess whist was a popular game at the time, and readers would be familiar with the details of the game and would grasp the meaning of the metaphor. I'm at a loss.

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"Rubber: The best of three games."
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whist

"A whist marker is a device for recording the current score in the game of whist."
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whist_marker

Bridge evolved from whist. This quote from an article about bridge might use "rubber" in a similar manner to whist (but there are probably some differences, as they are different games):

"The first team to win two games wins what is called the "rubber" and receives a large point bonus. Whoever has the highest point total after this bonus is assigned wins the match overall."
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_bridge

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@cicerone imposter,

Thank you for you opinion. Anyway, he did mention a game of whist earlier in the novel but it's still confusing to write so. You know these 19th century English writers...

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@InfraBlue,

That helps, thank you!

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@oralloy,

Very helpful, thank you!

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@cicerone imposter,

Quote:

All I can tell you is that the author is not very good.

Oops! That passage is from "The Good Soldier" by Ford Madox Ford. It is widely regarded as one of the best novels of the 20th century.

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Whist is an old, old card game. It is the game from which the card game bridge developed. Many of the terms are the same in bridge as they were in whist. African-Americans play a similar card game which they call bid wizz. A rubber, in whist or in bridge, is an undetermined number of hands dealt out, until one partnership or the other wins by achieving the necessary score. So "the rubber was made" means that she had accomplished her purpose, even if she had not been certain that that was what she wanted.

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@Yang1130,

You're welcome.

If I understand the rules right, "winning the rubber" should be a sizable advantage in winning the card game. It would entail winning two out of three rounds, and getting bonus points on top of that.

Victory might not be completely assured, because if your two victories were by a small margin and gained you only a few points, while your opponent's single victory was by a large margin and gained them a large amount of points, they might still win. But in most cases I would expect that winning the rubber would mean winning the game.

Can anyone help me understand this passage?

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