Latest / The H. G. Wells Library / The Passionate Friends Chapter 6 - Lady Mary Justin Parts 1-5

Transcript

The Passionate Friends Chapter 6 - Lady Mary Justin Parts 1-5 · The H. G. Wells Library

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Chapter six, parts one to five of The Passionate Friends
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: by H. G. Wells. This LibriVox recording is in the
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: public domain recording by Peter Eastman, Chapter the sixth, Lady
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Mary Justin One. I did not see Lady Mary Justin
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: for nearly seven months after my return to England. Of course,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: I had known that a meeting was inevitable, and I
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: had taken that very carefully into consideration before I decided
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: to leave South Africa. But many things had happened to
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: me during those crowded years, so that it seemed possible
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: that that former magic would no longer sway and distress me.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Not only had new imaginative interests taken hold of me,
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: but I had parted from adolescence. I was a man.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: I had been through a great war, seen death abundantly,
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: seen hardship and passion, and known hunger and shame and desire.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: A hundred disillusioning revelations of the quality of life had
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: come to me once. For example, when we were taking
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: some people to the concentration camps, it had been necessary
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: to assist at the premature birth of a child by
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: the wayside, a startlingly gory and agonizing business for a
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: young man to deal with heavens. How it shocked me.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: I could give a score of such grim pictures and
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: queer pictures. And it wasn't only the earthlier aspects of
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: the life about me, but also of the life within
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: me that I had been discovering. The first wonder and innocence,
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: the worshiping dawn, clear passion of youth had gone out
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: of me forever. Two we met at a dinner. It
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: was at a house the Tarfrells had taken for the
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: season in Mayfair. The drawing room was a big, white
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: square apartment with several big pictures and a pane of
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: plate glass above the fireplace, in the position in which
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: one usually finds a mirror. This showed another room beyond,
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: containing an exceptionally large, gloriously colored portrait in pastel, larger
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: than I had ever thought pastels could be. Except for
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: the pictures, both rooms were almost colorless. It was a
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: brilliant dinner, with a predominating note of ruby. Three of
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: the women wore ruby velvet, and Ellerslie was present, just
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: back from Arabia, and Ethel Manton, Lady Hendon, and the
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Duchess of Kleines. I was greeted by Lady Tarfrell, spoke
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: to Ellerslie and Lady Hendon, and then discovered a lady
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: in a dress of blue and pearls, standing quite still
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: under a picture in the opposite corner of the room
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: and regarding me attentively. It was Mary. Some man was
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: beside her, a tall gray man with a broad crimson ribbon,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: and I think he must have spoken of me to her.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: It was as if she had just turned to look
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: at me constantly during those intervening months I had been
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: thinking of meeting her. None the less, there was a shock,
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: not so much of surprise as of deferred anticipation. There
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: she stood, like something amazingly forgotten that was now amazingly recalled.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: She struck me, in that brief, crowded instant of recognition,
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: as being exactly the person she had been when we
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: had made love in Burnmore Park. There were her eyes,
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: at once frank and sidelong, the old familiar sweep of
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: her hair, the old familiar tilt of the chin, the
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: faint humor of her lip, And at the same time
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: she seemed to be something altogether different from the memories
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: I had cherished. She was something graver something inherently more
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: splendid than they had recorded. Her face lit now with recognition.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: I went to cross to her at once, with some
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: dull obviousness upon my lips. And so you are back
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: from Africa at last, she said, still and smiling. I
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: saw about you in the papers. You had a good time.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: I had great good luck, I replied. I never dreamt,
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: when we were boy and girl together that you would
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: make a soldier. I think I said that luck made soldiers.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: Then I think we found a difficulty in going on
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: with our talk, and began a dull little argument that
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: would have been stupidly egotistical on my part if it
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: hadn't been so obviously merely clumsy, about luck making soldiers
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: or only finding them out. I saw that she had
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: not intended to convey any doubt of my military capacity,
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: but only of that natural insensitiveness which is supposed to
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: be needed in a soldier. But our minds were remote
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: from the words upon our lips. We were like ephagias,
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: who say one thing while they intend something altogether different.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: The impulse that had brought me across to her had
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: brought me up to a wall of impossible utterances. It
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: was with a real quality of rescue that our hostess
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: came between us to tell us our partners at the
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: dinner table, and to introduce me to mine. You shall
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: have him again on your other side, she said to
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: Lady Mary, with a charming smile for me, treating me
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: as if I was a lion in request instead of
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: the mere outsider I was. We talked very little at dinner,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: Both of us, I think, were quite unequal to the occasion.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: Whatever meetings we had imagined, certainly neither of us had
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: thought of this very possible encounter. A long, disconcerting hour
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: side by side, I began to remember old happenings with
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: an astonishing vividness. There within six inches of me was
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: the hand I had kissed. Her voice was the same
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: to its lightest shade. Her hair flowed off her forehead
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: with the same amazingly familiar wave. Was she too remembering?
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: But I perhaps had changed altogether? Why did you go
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: away as you did? She asked abruptly, when for a
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: moment we were isolated conversationally. Why did you never write?
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: She had still that phantom lisp? What else could I do?
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: She turned away from me and answered the man on
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: her left, who had just addressed her. When the mid
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: dinner change came. We talked a little about indifferent things,
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: making a stiff conversation like a bridge over a torrent
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: of unspoken intimacies. We discussed something I think Lady Tarverll's
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: flowers and the cape flora and gardens. She told me
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: she had a Japanese garden with three Japanese gardeners. They
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: were wonderful little men to watch, hummingbird gardeners, she called them.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: They wear their native costume. We are your neighbors in Surrey,
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: she said, going off abruptly from that. We are quite
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: near to your father. She paused, with that characteristic effect
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: of deliberation in her closed lips. Then she added, I
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: can see the trees behind your father's house from the
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: window of my room. Yes, I said, you take all
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: our southward skyline. She turned her face to me with
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: the manner of a great lady, adding a new acquaintance
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: to her collection. But her eyes met mine very steadily
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: and intimately. Mister Stratton, she said, it was the first
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: time in her life she had called me that when
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: we come back to Surrey, I want you to come
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: and see me and tell me of all the things
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: you are going to do, will you three? That meeting,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: that revival must have been late in November or early
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: in December. Already by that time I had met your mother.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: I write to you, little son, not to you as
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: you are now, but to the man you are someday
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: to be. I write to understand myself, and so far
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: as I can understand, to make you understand, so that
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: I want you to go back with me for a
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: time into the days before your birth. To think not
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: of that dear spirit of love who broods over you,
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: three children, that wise sure mother who rules your life,
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: but of a young and slender girl, Rachel, more younger
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: then than you will be when at last the story
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: comes into your hands. For unless you think of her
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: as being a girl, if you let your present knowledge
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: of her fill out this part of our story, you
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: will fail to understand the proportions of these two in
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: my life. So I shall write of her here as
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: Rachel Moore, as if she were someone as completely dissociated
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: from yourself as Lady Mary, as if she were someone
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: in the story of my life who had as little
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: to do with yours. I had met her in September
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: the house my father lived in is about twelve miles
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: away from your mother's home at Riding Hangar, and I
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: was taken over by Percy Rstall in his motor car.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: Rustall had just become a convert to this new mode
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: of locomotion, and he was very active, with a huge,
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: malignant looking French car that opened behind and had a
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: kind of poke bonnet and all sorts of features that
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: have since disappeared from the automobile world. He took every
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: one that he could lay hands upon for rides. He
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: called it extending their range, and he called upon everyone
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: else to show off the car. He was responsible for
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: more introduction and social admixture in that part of Surrey
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: than had occurred during the previous century. We punctured in
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: the writing Hanger drive restled it his own repairs, and
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: so it was we stayed for nearly four hours, and
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: instead of a mere caller, I became a familiar friend
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: of the family. Your mother then was still not eighteen,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: a soft white slip of a being, tall, slender, brown haired,
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: and silent, with very still deep dark eyes. She and
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: your three aunts formed a very gracious group of young women. Indeed,
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: Alice then is now the most assertive with a gay
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: initiative and a fluent tongue. Mollie already a sun brown gipsy,
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: and Nora still a pig tailed thing of lank legs
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: and wild embraces, and the pinkest of swift pink blushes.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: Your uncle Sidney, with his shy, lank moodiness, acted the
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: brotherly part of a foil. There were several stray visitors,
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: young men and maidens. There were always stray visitors in
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: those days at riding Hangar, and your grandmother, rosy and
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: bride eyed, maintained a gentle flow of creature, comforts and
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: kindly but humorous observations. I do not remember your grandfather
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: on this occasion. Probably he wasn't there. There was tea,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: and we played tennis and walked about, and occasionally visited Restal,
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: who was getting dirtier and dirtier, and crosser and crosser
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: at his repairs, and spreading a continually more remarkable assemblage
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: of parts and instruments over the grass about him. He
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: looked at last, more like a pitch in the Caledonian
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: market than a decent country gentleman. An afternoon call, and
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: then back to more tennis and more talk. We fell
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: into a discussion of teriff re form. As we sat
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: taking tea. Two of the visitor youths were strongly infected
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: by the new teachings which were overshadowing the outlook of
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: British imperialism. Some mean phrase about not conquering Africa for
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: the German bag man, some ugly turn of thought that
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: at a touch brought down empire to the level of
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: a tradesman's advantage, fell from one of them and stirred
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: me to sudden indignation. I began to talk of things
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: that had been gathering in my mind for some time.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: I do not know what I said. It was in
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: the vein of my father's talk, no doubt, but I
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: think that for once I may have been eloquent, and
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: in the midst of my demand for ideals in politics
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: that were wider and deeper than artful buying and selling,
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: that looked beyond a vulgar aggression and a churl's dread
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: and hatred of foreign things will, I struggled to say
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: how great and noble a thing empire might be. I
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: saw Rachel's face. This, it was manifest, was a new
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: kind of talk to her. Her dark eyes were alight
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: with a beautiful enthusiasm for what I was trying to say,
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: and for what in the light of that glowing reception
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: I seemed to be. I felt that queer shame one
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: feels when one is taken suddenly at the full value
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: of one's utmost expressions. I felt as though I had
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: cheated her, was passing myself off for something as great
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: and splendid as the empire of my dreams. It is
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: hard to dissociate oneself from the fine things to which
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: one aspires. I stopped, almost abruptly, dumbly. Her eyes bade
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: me go on. But when I spoke again, it was
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: at a lower level. That look in Rachel's eyes remained
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: with me. My mind had flashed very rapidly from the
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: realization of its significance to the thought that if one
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: could be sure of that, then indeed one could pitch
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: oneself high. Rachel, I felt, had something for me that
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: I needed profoundly, without ever having known before that I
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: needed it. She had the supreme gifts of belief and
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: devotion in that instant's gleam, it seemed she held them
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: out to me. Never before in my life had it
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: seemed credible to me that anyone could give me that,
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: or that I could hope for such a gift of
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: support and sacrifice. Love as I had known it had
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: been a community and an alliance, a frank, abundant meeting.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: But this was another kind of love that shown for
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: an instant and promised, and vanished shyly out of sight.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: As I and Rachel looked at one another, some interruption occurred.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: Restall came, i think, blackened by progress, to drink a
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: cup of tea and negotiate the loan of a kitchen skewer.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: A kitchen skewer, it appeared, was all that was needed
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: to complete his reconstruction in the avenue. Norah darted off
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: for a kitchen skewer while Restall drank, and then there
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: was a drift to tennis, and Rachel and I were partners.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: All this time. I was in a state of startled
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: attention towards her, full of this astounding impression that something
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: wonderful and unprecedented had flowed out from her towards my life,
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: full too, of doubts now whether that shining response had
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: ever occurred, whether some trick of light and my brain
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: had not deceived me I wanted tremendously to talk to her,
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: and did not know how to begin in any serious fashion.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: Beyond everything, I wanted to see again that deep onset
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: of belief. Come again, said your grandmother to me, Come again.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: After she had tried in vain to make Restal stay
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: for an informal supper. I was all for staying, but
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: Rustell said darkly. There are the lamps, but they will
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: be all right, said missus Moore. I can't trust em,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: said Rustall, with a deepening gloom. Not after that, the
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: motor car looked self conscious and uncomfortable, but said nothing
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: by way of excuse, and Rustall took me off in it,
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: like one whose son has set forever. I wouldn't be surprised,
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: said Rustal, as we went down the drive. If the
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: damn thing turned a somersault, it might do anything. Those
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: were the brighter days of motoring. The next time I
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: went over, released from Rustal's limitations, and stayed to a
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: jolly family supper, I found remarkably few obstacles in my
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: way to a better acquaintance with Rachel. You see, I
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: was an entirely eligible and desirable young man in Missus
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: Moore's eyes four. When I recall these long past emotions again,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: I am struck by the profound, essential difference between my
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: feelings for your mother and for Mary. They were so
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: different that it seemed scarcely rational to me that they
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: should be called by the same name. Yet each was
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: love profoundly deep and sincere. The contrast lies, i think,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: in our relative ages and our relative maturity that altered
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: the quality of all our emotions. The one was the
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: love of a man of six and twenty, exceptionally seasoned
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: and experienced and responsible for his years, for a girl
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: still at school, a girl attractively beautiful, mysterious, and unknown
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: to him. The other was the love of coevils who
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: had been playmates and intimate companions, and of whom the
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: woman was certainly as capable and wilful as the man. Now,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: it is exceptional for men to love women of their
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: own age. It is the commoner thing that they should
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: love maidens younger and often much younger than themselves. This
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: is true more particularly of our own class. The masculine
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: third day and forties marry the feminine twenties. All the
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: prevailing sentiment and usage between the sexes rises naturally out
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: of that. We treat the seniority as though it were
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: a virile characteristic. We treat the man as though he
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: were a natural senior. We expect a weakness, a timid
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: deference in the girl. I and Mary had loved one
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: another as two rivers run together on the way to
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: the sea. We had grown up side by side to
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: the moment when we kissed. But I sought your mother.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: I watched her and desired her, and chose her very
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: tenderly and worshipfully, indeed to be mine. I do not
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: remember that there was any corresponding intention in my mind
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: to be hers. I do not think that that idea
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: came in at all. She was something to be one,
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: something playing and inferior and retreating part, and I was
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: artificial in all my attitudes to her. I thought of
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: what would interest her, what would please her. I knew
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: from the outset that what she saw in me to
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: rouse that deep, shy glow of exultation in her face
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: was illusion. Illusion. It was my business to sustain, and
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: so I won her. And long years had to pass,
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: years of secret loneliness and hidden feelings, of preposterous pretenses
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: and covert perplexities, before we escaped from that crippling tradition
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: of inequality, and looked into one another's eyes with understanding
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: and forgiveness, a woman and a man. I made no
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: great secret of the interest and attraction I found in Rachel,
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: and the wars made none of their entire approval of me.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: I walked over on the second occasion, and write Hanger
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: opened out a great flower of genial appreciation that I
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: came alone, hiding nothing of its dawning perception that it
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: was Rachel in particular. I came to see. Your grandmother's
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: match making was as honest as the day. There was
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: the same salad of family and visitors as on the
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: former afternoon, and this time I met freshman who was
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: destined to marry Alice. There was tea, tennis, and, by
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: her grandmother's suggestion, a walk to see the sunset from
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: the crest of the hill. Rachel and I walked across
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: the breezy moorland together while I talked and tempted her
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: to talk what I wonder did? We talk about English scenery,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: I think, and African scenery, and the Wheeld about us,
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: and the long history of the Wield and its present
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: and future, and at last, even a little of politics.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: I had never explored the mind of a girl of
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: seventeen before. There was a surprise in all she knew,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: and a delight in all she didn't know, and about herself,
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: a candor, a fresh simplicity of outlook that was sweeter
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: than the clear air about us, sweeter than sunshine or
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: the rising song of a lark. She believed so gallantly
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: and beautifully, she was so perfectly, unaffectedly and certainly prepared
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: to be a brave and noble person, if only life
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: would let her. And she hadn't as yet any suspicion
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: that life might make that difficult. I went to Riding
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: Hanger a number of times in the spring and early summer.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: I talked a great deal with Rachel, and still I
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: did not make love to her. It was always in
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: my mind that I would make love to her. The
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: heavens and earth and all her family were propitious, glowing
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: golden with consent and approval. I thought she was the
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: most wonderful and beautiful thing in life. And her eyes,
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: the intonation of her voice, her hurrying color, and a
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: hundred little involuntary signs told me how she quickened at
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: my coming, but there was a shyness. I loved her
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: as one loves and admires a white flower, or a
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: beautiful child, some stranger's child. I felt that I might
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: make her afraid of me. I had never before thought
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: that to make love is a coarse thing. But still
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: at high summer, when I met Mary again, no definite
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: thing had been said between myself and Rachel. But we knew,
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: each of us knew that somewhere in a world less palpable,
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: in fairyland and in dreamland, we had met and made
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: our vows. Five. You see how far my imagination had
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: gone towards readjustment when Mary returned into my life. You
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: see how strange and distant it was to meet her again,
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: changed completely into the great lady she had intended to be,
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: speaking to me with the restrained and practiced charm of
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: a woman who is young and beautiful and prominent and
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: powerful and secure. There was no immediate sense of shock
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: in that resumption of our broken intercourse. It seemed to
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: me that night simply that something odd and curious had occurred.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: I do not remember how we parted that evening, or
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: whether we even saw each other after dinner was over,
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: But from that hour forth, may, by insensible degrees, resumed
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: her old predominance in my mind. I woke up in
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: the night and thought about her, And next day I
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: found myself thinking of her, remembering things out of the past,
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: and recalling and examining every detail of the overnight encounter.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: How cold and ineffective we had been, both of us,
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: We had been like people resuming a disused and partially
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: forgotten language. Had she changed towards me? Did she indeed
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: want to see me again? Or was that invitation a
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: mere demonstration of how entirely unimportant seeing me or not
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: seeing me had become? Then I would find myself thinking,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: with the utmost particularity of her face, had it changed
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: at all? Was it altogether changed? I seemed to have
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: forgotten everything and remembered everything. That peculiar slight thickness of
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: her eyelids that gave her eyes their tenderness, that light
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: firmness of her lips. Of course she would want to
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: talk to me, as now I perceived I wanted to
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: talk to her. Was I in love with her? Still?
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: It seemed to me then that I was not. It
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: had not been that hesitating fierceness, that pride and demand
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: and doubt, which is passionate love, that had made all
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: my sensations strange to me As I sat beside her,
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: it had been something larger and finer, something great and
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: embracing a return to fellowship. Here beside me, veiled from
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: me only by her transient embarrassment and the tarnish of
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: separation and silences, was the one person who had ever
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: broken down the crust of shy insincerity which is so
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: incurable my characteristic, and talked intimately of the inmost things
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: of life. To me. I discovered now for the first
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: time how intense had been my loneliness for the past
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: five years. I discovered now that through all those years
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: I had been hungry for such talk as Mary alone
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: could give me. My mind was filled with talk, filled
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: with things I desired to say to her. That chaos
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: began to take on a multitudinous expression at the touch
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: of her spirit. I began to imagine conversations with her,
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: to prepare reports for her of those new worlds of
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: sensation and activity I had discovered since that boyish parting.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: But when at last that talk came, it was altogether
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: different from any of those I had invented, she wrote
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: to me when she came down into Surrey, and I
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: walked over to Marden's. The next afternoon I found her
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: in her own sitting room, a beautiful characteristic apartment with
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: tall French windows hung with blue curtains, a large writing desk,
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: and a great litter of books. The room gave upon
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: a broad sunlit terrace with a balustradding of yellowish stone,
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: on which there stood great oleanders. Beyond was a flower garden,
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: and then the dark shadows of cypresses. She was standing
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: as I came in to her, as though she had
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: seen me coming across the lawns and had been awaiting
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: my entrance. I thought you might come to day, she said,
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: and told the man servant to deny her to other callers.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: Again she produced that queer effect of being at once
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: altogether the same and altogether different from the merry I
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: had known. Justin She said, is in Paris? He comes
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: back on Friday. I saw then that the change lay
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: in her bearing, that for the easy confidence of the girl,
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: she had now the deliberate dignity and control of a
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: married woman, A very splendidly and spaciously married woman. Her
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: manner had been purged of impulse since we had met.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: She had stood the mistress of great houses and had
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: dealt with thousands of people. You walked over to me,
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: I walked, I said, It is nearly a straight path,
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: you know it. You came over the heather beyond our pinewood,
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: she confirmed. And then I think we talked some polite
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: unrealities about Surrey scenery and the weather. It was so
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: formal that, by a common impulse, we let the topic
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: suddenly die. We stood through a pause, a hesitation. Were
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: we indeed to go on at that altitude of cold civility.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: She turned to the window, as if the view was
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: to serve again. Sit down, she said, and dropped into
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: a chair against the light, looking away from me across
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: the wide green space of afternoon sunshine. I sat down
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: on the little sofa at a loss also, and so,
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: she said, turning her face to me, Suddenly you come
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: back into my life. And I was amazed to see
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: that the brightness of her eyes was tears. We've lived
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: five years, you, I said, clumsily, have done all sorts
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: of things. I hear of you, patronizing young artists, organizing experiments,
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: in village education. Yes, she said, I've done all sorts
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: of things. One has to forced unreal things for the
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: most part. You, I expect, have done all sorts of
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: things also, But yours have been real things. All things,
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: I remarked sententiously, are real, and all of them a
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: little unreal. South Africa has been wonderful, and now it
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: is all over. One doubts if it really happened like
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: that incredulous mood after a storm of passion. You've come
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: back for good, for good. I want to do things
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: in England politics, if I can get into that again.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: A pause. There came the characteristic moment of deliberation that
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: I remembered so well. I never meant you, she said,
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: to go away. You could have written. You never answered
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: the notes I say, And I was frantic, I said,
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: with loss and jealousy. I wanted to forget, and you forgot.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: I did my best. I did my best, said Mary.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: And now have you forgotten nothing? Nor I I thought
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: I had until I saw you again. I've thought of
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: you endlessly. I've wanted to talk to you. We had
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: a way of talking together, but you went away. You
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: turned your back as though all that was nothing. Not
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: worth having you. You trove home my marriage, Stephen. You
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: made me know what a thing of sex a woman
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: is to a man, and how little else She paused.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: You see, I said slowly. You had made me, as
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: people say in life with you. I don't know if
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: you remember everything. She looked me in the eyes for
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: a moment. I hadn't been fair, she said, with an
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: abrupt abandonment of accusation. But you know, Stephen, that night
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: I meant to explain. And afterwards things sometimes go as
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: one hasn't expected them to go, even the things one
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: has planned to say. I suppose I treated you disgustingly,
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: I protested, Yes, she said, I treated you as I did,
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: and I thought you would stand it. I knew. I
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: knew then as well as you do now that male
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: to my female you wouldn't stand it. But somehow I
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: thought there were other things, things that could override that. Not,
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: I said, for a boy of one and twenty, but
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: in a man of twenty six, I weighed the question,
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: things are different, I said, And then yes, anyhow, now
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: if I may come back penitent to a friendship, We
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: looked at one another, gravely, faintly in our ears, sounded
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: the music of past and distant things. We pretended to
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: hear nothing of that, tried honestly to hear nothing of it.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: I had not remembered how steadfast and quiet her face
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: could be. Yes, she said, a friendship. I've always had
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: you in my mind, Stephen, she said. When I saw
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: I couldn't marry you, it seemed to me I had
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: better marry and be free of any further hope. I
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: thought we could get over that. Let's get it over.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: I thought, now, at any rate, we have got over that.
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: Her eyes verified her words a little doubtfully. And we
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: can talk, and you can tell me of your life
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: and the things you want to do that make life
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: worth living. Oh, life has been stupid without you, Stephen,
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: large and expensive and aimless. Tell me of your politics,
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: they say, justin told me you think of parliament. I
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: want to do that. I have been thinking. In fact,
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: I am going to stand. I found myself hesitating on
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: the verge of phrases in the quality of a review article.
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: It was too unreal for her presence, And yet it
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: was this she seemed to want from me. This, I said,
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: is a phase of great opportunity. The war has stirred
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: the empire to a sense of itself, to a sense
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: of what it might be. Of course, this tariff reform
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: row is a squalid nuisance. It may kill out all
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: the fine spirit again before anything is done, everything will
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: become a haggle, a chaffering of figures. All the more
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: reason why we should try and save things from the
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: commercial traveler. If the Empire is anything at all, it
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: is something infinitely more than a combination in restraint of trade. Yes,
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: she said, and you want to take that line, the
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: high line. If one does not take the high line,
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: I said, what does one go into politics? For? Stephen?
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: She smiled, you haven't lost a sort of simplicity. People
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: go into politics because it looks important. Because other people
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: go into politics because they can get titles and a
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: sense of influence and other things. And then there are quarrels,
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: old crunches to serve. These are roughnesses of the surface,
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: Old Stephen, she cried, with the note of a mother.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: They will worry you in politics, I laughed. Perhaps I'm
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: not altogether so simple. Oh you'll get through. You have
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: a way of going on. But I shall have to
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: watch over you, I see, I shall have to watch
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: over you tell me of the things you mean to do.
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: Where are you standing? I began to tell her, a
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: little disjointedly, of the probabilities of my Yorkshire constituency. End
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: of Chapter six, Parts one to five.