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🟡 Lifted Veil (Full Audiobook) | George Eliot · Occult & Supernatural Audiobooks: Forbidden Rituals, Esoteric Texts & Paranormal Tales

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  Speaker 1: Chapter one, Part one of The Lifted Veil. This is
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  Speaker 1: a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
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  Speaker 1: Recording by Bruce Pirie The Lifted Veil by George Eliot.
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  Speaker 1: Give me no light great heaven, but such as turns
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  Speaker 1: to energy of human fellowship, no powers beyond the growing
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  Speaker 1: heritage that makes completer manhood. Chapter one. The time of
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  Speaker 1: my end approaches. I have lately been subject to attacks
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  Speaker 1: of angina pectoris, and in the ordinary course of things,
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  Speaker 1: my physician tells me, I may fairly hope that my
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  Speaker 1: life will not be protracted many months, unless then I
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  Speaker 1: am cursed with an exceptional physical constitution, as I am
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  Speaker 1: cursed with an exceptional mental care character, I shall not
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  Speaker 1: much longer groan under the wearisome burthen of this earthly existence.
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  Speaker 1: If it were to be otherwise, if I were to
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  Speaker 1: live on to the age most men desire and provide for,
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  Speaker 1: I should for once have known whether the miseries of
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  Speaker 1: delusive expectation can outweigh the miseries of true pre vision.
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  Speaker 1: For I foresee when I shall die and everything that
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  Speaker 1: will happen in my last moments. Just a month from
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  Speaker 1: this day, on September twentieth, eighteen fifty, I shall be
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  Speaker 1: sitting in this chair in this study at ten o'clock
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  Speaker 1: at night, longing to die, weary of incessant insight and foresight,
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  Speaker 1: without delusions, and without hope. Just as I am watching
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  Speaker 1: a tongue of blue flame rising in the fire, and
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  Speaker 1: my lamp is burning low, the horrible contraction will begin
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  Speaker 1: at my chest. I shall only have time to reach
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  Speaker 1: the bell and pull it violently before the sense of
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  Speaker 1: suffocation will come. No one will answer my bell. I
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  Speaker 1: know why. My two servants are lovers and will have quarreled.
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  Speaker 1: My housekeeper will have rushed out of the house in
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  Speaker 1: a fury two hours before, hoping that Perry will believe
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  Speaker 1: she has gone to drown herself. Parry is alarmed at
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  Speaker 1: last and is gone out after her. The little scullery
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  Speaker 1: maid is asleep on a bench. She never answers the bell.
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  Speaker 1: It does not wake her. The sense of suffocation increases.
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  Speaker 1: My lamp goes out with a horrible stench. I make
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  Speaker 1: a great effort and snatch at the bell again. I
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  Speaker 1: long for life, and there is no help. I thirsted
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  Speaker 1: for the unknown. The thirst is gone, O God, Let
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  Speaker 1: me stay with the known and be weary of it.
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  Speaker 1: I am content agony of pain and suffocation. And all
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  Speaker 1: the while the earth, the fields, the pebbly brook at
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  Speaker 1: the bottom of the rookery, the fresh scent after the rain,
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  Speaker 1: the light of the morning through my chamber window, the
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  Speaker 1: warmth of the hearth after the frosty air. Will darkness
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  Speaker 1: close over them forever darkness, darkness, no pain, nothing but darkness.
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  Speaker 1: But I am passing on and on through the darkness.
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  Speaker 1: My thought stays in the darkness, but always with a
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  Speaker 1: sense of moving onward. Before that time comes, I wish
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  Speaker 1: to use my last hours of ease and strength in
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  Speaker 1: telling the strange story of my experience. I have never
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  Speaker 1: fully unbosomed myself to any human being. I have never
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  Speaker 1: been encouraged to trust much in the sympathy of my
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  Speaker 1: fellow men. But we have all a chance of meeting
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  Speaker 1: with some pity, some tenderness, some charity when we are dead.
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  Speaker 1: It is the living only who cannot be forgiven, the
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  Speaker 1: living only from whom men's indulgence and reals are held off,
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  Speaker 1: like the rain by the hard east. Wind, while the
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  Speaker 1: heart beats, bruise it it is your only opportunity. While
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  Speaker 1: the eye can still turn towards you with moist, timid entreaty,
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  Speaker 1: freeze it with an icy, unanswering gaze. While the ear
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  Speaker 1: that delicate messenger to the inmost sanctuary of the soul,
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  Speaker 1: can still take in the tones of kindness. Put it
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  Speaker 1: off with hard civility or sneering compliment or envious affectation
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  Speaker 1: of indifference. While the creative brain can still throb with
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  Speaker 1: the sense of injustice, with the yearning for brotherly recognition.
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  Speaker 1: Make haste oppress it with your ill considered judgments, your
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  Speaker 1: trivial comparisons, your careless misrepresentations. The heart will by and
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  Speaker 1: by be still ubisaiva indignatio ultarius corlacare niquet. The eye
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  Speaker 1: will cease to entreat, the ear will be deaf, the
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  Speaker 1: brain will have ceased from all wants as well as
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  Speaker 1: from all work. Then your charitable speeches may find vent.
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  Speaker 1: Then you may remember and pity the toil and the
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  Speaker 1: struggle and the failure. Then you may give due honor
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  Speaker 1: to the work achieved. Then you may find extenuation for errors,
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  Speaker 1: and may consent to bury them. That is a trivial
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  Speaker 1: schoolboy text. Why do I dwell on it? It has
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  Speaker 1: little reference to me, For I shall leave no works
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  Speaker 1: behind me for men to honor. I have no near
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  Speaker 1: relatives who will make up by weeping over my grave
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  Speaker 1: for the wounds they inflicted on me when I was
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  Speaker 1: among them. It is only the story of my life
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  Speaker 1: that will perhaps win a little more sympathy from strangers
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  Speaker 1: when I am dead than I ever believed it would
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  Speaker 1: obtain from my friends while I was living. My childhood
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  Speaker 1: perhaps seems happier to me than it really was by
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  Speaker 1: contrast with all the after years. For then the curtain
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  Speaker 1: of the future was as impenetrable to me as two
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  Speaker 1: other children. I had all their delight in the present hour,
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  Speaker 1: their sweet, indefinite hopes for the morrow. And I had
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  Speaker 1: a tender mother. Even now, after the dreary lapse of
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  Speaker 1: long years, A slight trace of sensation accompanies the remembrance
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  Speaker 1: of her caress as she held me on her knee,
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  Speaker 1: her arms round my little body, her cheek pressed on mine.
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  Speaker 1: I had a complaint of the eyes that made me
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  Speaker 1: blind for a little while, and she kept me on
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  Speaker 1: her knee from morning till night. That unequaled love soon
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  Speaker 1: vanished out of my life, and even to my childish consciousness,
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  Speaker 1: it was as if that life had become more chill.
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  Speaker 1: I rode my little white pony, with the groom by
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  Speaker 1: my side, as before, but there were no loving eyes
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  Speaker 1: looking at me as I mounted, no glad arms opened
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  Speaker 1: to me when I came back. Perhaps I missed my
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  Speaker 1: mother's love more than most children of seven or eight
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  Speaker 1: would have done, to whom the other pleasures of life
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  Speaker 1: remained as before. For I was certainly a very sensitive child.
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  Speaker 1: I remember still the mingled trepidation and delicious excitement with
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  Speaker 1: which I was affected, by the tramping of the horses
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  Speaker 1: on the pavement in the echoing stables, by the loud
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  Speaker 1: resonance of the groom's voices, by the booming bark of
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  Speaker 1: the dogs as my father's carriage thundered under the archway
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  Speaker 1: of the courtyard, by the din of the gong that
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  Speaker 1: gave notice of luncheon and dinner. The measured tramp of soldiery,
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  Speaker 1: which I sometimes heard from my father's house lay near
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  Speaker 1: a county town where there were large barracks, made me
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  Speaker 1: sob and tremble, And yet when they were gone past.
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  Speaker 1: I longed for them to come back again. I fancy
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  Speaker 1: my father thought me an odd child and had little
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  Speaker 1: fondness for me, though he was very careful in fulfilling
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  Speaker 1: what he regarded as a parent's duties. But he was
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  Speaker 1: already past the middle of life, and I was not
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  Speaker 1: his only son. My mother had been his second wife,
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  Speaker 1: and he was five and forty when he married her.
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  Speaker 1: He was a firm, unbending, intensely orderly man in root
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  Speaker 1: and stem, a banker, but with a flourishing graft of
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  Speaker 1: the act of landholder, aspiring to county influence. One of
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  Speaker 1: those people who are always like themselves from day to day,
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  Speaker 1: who are uninfluenced by the weather, and neither no melancholy
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  Speaker 1: nor high spirits. I held him in great awe, and
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  Speaker 1: appeared more timid and sensitive in his presence than at
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  Speaker 1: other times, a circumstance which perhaps helped to confirm him
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  Speaker 1: in the intention to educate me on a different plan
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  Speaker 1: from the prescriptive one with which he had complied in
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  Speaker 1: the case of my elder brother. Already a tall youth
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  Speaker 1: at Eton. My brother was to be his representative and successor.
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  Speaker 1: He must go to Eton and Oxford for the sake
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  Speaker 1: of making connections. Of course, my father was not a
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  Speaker 1: man to underrate the bearing of Latin satirists or Greek
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  Speaker 1: dramatists on the attainment of an aristocratic position. But intrinsically
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  Speaker 1: he had slight esteem for those dead but sceptud spirits,
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  Speaker 1: having qualified himself for forming an independent opinion by reading
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  Speaker 1: Potter's Eschylus and dipping into Francis Horace. To this negative view,
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  Speaker 1: he added a positive one, derived from a recent connection
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  Speaker 1: with mining speculations, namely, that a scientific education was the
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  Speaker 1: really useful training for a younger son. Moreover, it was
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  Speaker 1: clear that a shy, sensitive boy like me was not
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  Speaker 1: fit to encounter the rough experience of a public school.
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  Speaker 1: Mister Leatherall had said so very decided. Mister Letherall was
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  Speaker 1: a large man in spectacles, who one day took my
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  Speaker 1: small head between his large hands and pressed it here
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  Speaker 1: and there in an exploratory, auspicious manner. Then placed each
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  Speaker 1: of his great thumbs on my temples, and pushed me
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  Speaker 1: a little way from him, and stared at me with
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  Speaker 1: glittering spectacles. The contemplation appeared to displease him, for he
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  Speaker 1: frowned sternly and said to my father, drawing his thumbs
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  Speaker 1: across my eyebrows. The deficiency is there, sir. There and here,
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  Speaker 1: he added, touching the upper sides of my head, here
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  Speaker 1: is the excess that must be brought out, sir, and
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  Speaker 1: this must be laid to sleep. I was in a
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  Speaker 1: state of tremor, partly at the vague idea that I
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  Speaker 1: was the object of reprobation, partly in the agitation of
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  Speaker 1: my first hatred, hatred of this big spectacled man who
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  Speaker 1: pulled my I hid about as if he wanted to
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  Speaker 1: buy and cheapen it. I am not aware how much
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  Speaker 1: mister Leatherall had to do with the system afterwards adopted
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  Speaker 1: towards me, but it was presently clear that private tutors,
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  Speaker 1: natural history, science, and the modern languages were the appliances
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  Speaker 1: by which the defects of my organization were to be remedied.
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  Speaker 1: I was very stupid about machines, so I was to
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  Speaker 1: be greatly occupied with them. I had no memory for classification,
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  Speaker 1: so it was particularly necessary that I should study systematic
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  Speaker 1: zoology and botany. I was hungry for human deeds and
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  Speaker 1: humane motions, so I was to be plentifully crammed with
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  Speaker 1: the mechanical powers, the elementary bodies, and the phenomena of
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  Speaker 1: electricity and magnetism. A better constituted boy would certainly have
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  Speaker 1: profited under my intelligent tutors with their scientific apparatus, and
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  Speaker 1: would doubtless have found the phenomena of electricity and magnetism
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  Speaker 1: as a fascinating as I was every Thursday. Assured they
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  Speaker 1: were as it was, I could have pared off for
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  Speaker 1: ignorance of whatever was taught me with the worst Latin
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  Speaker 1: scholar that was ever turned out of a classical academy.
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  Speaker 1: I read Plutarch and Shakespeare and Don Quixote by the sly,
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  Speaker 1: and supplied myself in that way with wandering thoughts. While
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  Speaker 1: my tutor was assuring me that an improved man, as
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  Speaker 1: distinguished from an ignorant one, was a man who knew
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  Speaker 1: the reason why water ran downhill. I had no desire
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  Speaker 1: to be this improved man. I was glad of the
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  Speaker 1: running water. I could watch it and listen to it
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  Speaker 1: gurgling among the pebbles and bathing the bright green water
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  Speaker 1: plant by the hour together. I did not want to
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  Speaker 1: know why it ran. I had perfect confidence that there
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  Speaker 1: were good reasons for what was so very beautiful. There
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  Speaker 1: is no need to dwell on this part of my life.
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  Speaker 1: I had said enough to indicate that my nature was
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  Speaker 1: of the sensitive, unpractical ord, and that it grew up
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  Speaker 1: in an uncongenial medium which could never foster it into happy,
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  Speaker 1: healthy development. When I was sixteen, I was sent to
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  Speaker 1: Geneva to complete my course of education, and the change
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  Speaker 1: was a very happy one to me. For the first
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  Speaker 1: sight of the Alps with the setting sun on them
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  Speaker 1: as we descended the Jura, seemed to me like an
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  Speaker 1: entrance into heaven. And the three years of my life
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  Speaker 1: there were spent in a perpetual sense of exaltation, as
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  Speaker 1: if from a draft of delicious wine, at the presence
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  Speaker 1: of nature in all her awful loveliness. You will think,
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  Speaker 1: perhaps that I must have been a poet from this
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  Speaker 1: early sensibility to nature. But my lot was not so
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  Speaker 1: happy as that a poet pours forth his song and
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  Speaker 1: believes in the listening ear and answering soul to which
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  Speaker 1: his song will be floated sooner or later. But the
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  Speaker 1: poet's sensibility without his voice, the poet's sensibility that finds
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  Speaker 1: no vent but in silent tears on the sunny bank
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  Speaker 1: when the noonday light sparkles on the water, or in
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  Speaker 1: an inward shudder at the sound of harsh human tones
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  Speaker 1: the sight of a cold human eye. This dumb passion
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  Speaker 1: brings with it a fatal solitude of soul in the
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  Speaker 1: society of one's fellow men. My least solitary moments were
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  Speaker 1: those in which I pushed off in my boat at
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  Speaker 1: evening towards the center of the lake. It seemed to
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  Speaker 1: me that the sky and the glowing mountain tops and
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  Speaker 1: the wide blue water surrounded me with a cherishing love
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  Speaker 1: such as no human face had shed on me since
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  Speaker 1: my mother's love had vanished out of my life. I
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  Speaker 1: used to do as Jean Jacques did, lie down in
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  Speaker 1: my boat and let it glide where it would, while
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: I looked up at the departing glow leaving one mountain
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  Speaker 1: top after the other, as if the prophet's chariot of
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  Speaker 1: fire were passing over them on its way to the
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  Speaker 1: home of Light. Then, when the white summits were all
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  Speaker 1: sad and corpse like, I had to push homeward, for
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  Speaker 1: I was under careful surveillance and was allowed no late wanderings.
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  Speaker 1: This disposition of mine was not favorable to the formation
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  Speaker 1: of intimate friendships among the numerous youths of my own age,
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  Speaker 1: who are always to be found studying at Geneva. Yet
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  Speaker 1: I made one such friendship, and singularly enough, it was
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  Speaker 1: with a youth whose intellectual tendencies were the very reverse
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  Speaker 1: of my own. I shall call him Charles Mounier. His
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: real surname an English one, for he was of English extraction,
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  Speaker 1: having since become celebrated. He was an orphan who lived
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  Speaker 1: on a miserable pittance while he pursued the medical studies
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  Speaker 1: for which he had a special genius. Strange that, with
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  Speaker 1: my vague mind susceptible and unobservant, hating inquiry and given
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  Speaker 1: up to contemplation, I should have been drawn towards a
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  Speaker 1: youth whose strongest passion was science. But the bond was
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  Speaker 1: not an intellectual one. It came from a source that
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: can happily blend the stupid with the brilliant, the dreamy
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  Speaker 1: with the practical. It came from community of feeling. Charles
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: was poor and ugly, derided by Genevive's games, and not
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  Speaker 1: acceptable in drawing rooms. I saw that he was isolated
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  Speaker 1: as I was, though from a different cause, and stimulated
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: by a sympathetic resentment, I made timid advances towards him.
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  Speaker 1: It is enough to say that there sprang up as
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  Speaker 1: much comradeship between us as our different habits would allow.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: And in Charles's rare holidays, we went up the sleeve together,
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  Speaker 1: or took the boat to Vevais. While I listened dreamily
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  Speaker 1: to the monologues in which he unfolded his bold conceptions
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: of future experiment and discovery. I mingled them confusedly in
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: my mind, fought with glimpses of blue water and delicate
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: floating cloud, with the notes of birds and the distant
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: glitter of the glacier. He knew quite well that my
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  Speaker 1: mind was half absent, Yet he liked to talk to
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  Speaker 1: me in this way, For don't we talk of our
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  Speaker 1: hopes and our projects, even to dogs and birds when
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  Speaker 1: they love us. I have mentioned this one friendship because
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  Speaker 1: of its connection with a strange and terrible scene which
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: I shall have to narrate in my subsequent life. This
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: happier life at Geneva was put an end to by
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: a severe illness, which is partly a blank to me,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: partly a time of dimly remembered, suffering with the presence
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: of my father by my bed from time to time.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: Then came the languid monotony of convalescence, the days gradually
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: breaking into variety and distinctness as my strength enabled me
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: to take longer and longer drives. On one of these
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: more vividly remembered days, my father said to me, as
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  Speaker 1: he sat beside my sofa, when you are quite well
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: enough to travel, Latimer, I shall take you home with me.
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  Speaker 1: The journey will amuse you and do you good. For
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: I shall go through the Tyrol and Austria, and you
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: will see many new places our neighbors. The Fillmores are come.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: Alfred will join us at Basle, and we shall all
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: go together to Vienna and back by Prague. My father
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: was called away before he had finished his sentence, and
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: he left my mind resting on the word Prague, with
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  Speaker 1: a strange sense that a new and wondrous scene was
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: breaking upon me, a city under the broad sunshine that
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: seemed to me as if it were the summer sunshine
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: of a long past century, arrested in its course, unrefreshed
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: for ages by dews of night or the rushing rain
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: cloud scorching the dusty, weary, time eating and grandeur of
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: a people doomed to live on in the stale repetition
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: of memories like deposed and superannuated kings in their regal
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: gold in woven tatters. The city looked so thirsty that
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: the broad river seemed to me a sheet of metal,
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: and the blackened statues, as I passed under their blank
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: gaze along the unending bridge, with their ancient garments and
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  Speaker 1: their saintly crowns, seemed to me the real inhabitants and
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  Speaker 1: owners of this place, while the busy trivial men and
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: women hurrying to and fro were a swarm of ephemeral
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: visitants infesting it for a day. It was such grim,
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  Speaker 1: stony beings as these, I thought, who are the fathers
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  Speaker 1: of ancient faded children in those tanned, time fretted dwellings
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  Speaker 1: that crowd the steep before me, Who pay their court
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  Speaker 1: in the worn and crumbling pomp of the palace, which
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  Speaker 1: which is its monotonous length on the height, Who worship
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  Speaker 1: wearily in the stifling air of the churches, urged by
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  Speaker 1: no fear or hope, but compelled by their doom to
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: be ever old and undying to live on in the
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: rigidity of habit as they live on in perpetual mid day,
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  Speaker 1: without the repose of night or the new birth of morning.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: A stunning clang of metal suddenly thrilled through me, and
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: I became conscious of the objects in my room again.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: One of the fire irons had fallen. As Pierre opened
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  Speaker 1: the door to bring me my draft. My heart was
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: palpitating violently, and I begged Pierre to leave my draft
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: beside me. I would take it presently. As soon as
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: I was alone again, I began to ask myself whether
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: I had been sleeping. Was this a dream? This wonderfully
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: distinct vision, minute in its distinctness, down to a patch
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: of rainbow light eye the pavement transmitted through a colored lamp,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: in the shape of the star of a strange city,
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: quite unfamiliar to my imagination. I had seen no picture
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: of Prague. It lay in my mind as a mere name,
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: with vaguely remembered historical associations, ill defined memories of imperial
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: grandeur and religious wars. Nothing of this sort had ever
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: occurred in my dreaming experience before, for I had often
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: been humiliated because my dreams were only saved from being
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: utterly disjointed and commonplace by the frequent terrors of nightmare.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: But I could not believe that I had been asleep,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: for I remembered distinctly the gradual breaking inn of the
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: vision upon me, like the new images in a dissolving view,
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: or the growing distinctness of the landscape as the sun
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: lifts up the veil of the morning mist. And while
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: I was conscious of this incipient vision, I was also
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: conscious that Pierre came to tell my father mister Fillmore
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: was waiting for him, and that my father hurried out
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: of the room. No, it was not a dream, was it?
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: The thought was full of tremulous exultation. Was it the
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: poet's nature in me, hitherto only a troubled yearning sensibility,
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: now manifesting itself suddenly as spontaneous creation. Surely it was
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: in this way that Homer saw the plane of Troy,
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: that Dante saw the abodes of the departed, that Milton
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: saw the earthward flight of the tempter. Was it that
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: my illness had wrought some happy change in my organization,
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: given a firmer tension to my nerves, carried off some
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: dull obstruction I had often read of such effects in
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: works of fiction, at least, nay, in genuine biographies. I
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: had read of the subtileizing or exalting influence of some
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: diseases on the mental powers. Did not Novalis feel his
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: inspiration intensified under the progress of consumption. When my mind
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: had dwelt for some time on this blissful idea, it
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: seemed to me that I might perhaps test it by
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: an exertion of my will. The vision had begun when
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: my father was speaking of our going to Prague. I
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: did not, for a moment believe it was really a
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: representation of that city. I believed, I hoped it was
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: a picture that my newly liberated genius had painted in
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: fiery haste, with the colors snatched from leezy memory. Suppose
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: I were to fix my mind on some other place, Venice,
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: for example, which was far more familiar to my imagination
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: than Prague, perhaps the same sort of result would follow.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: I concentrated my thoughts on Venice. I stimulated my imagination
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: with poetic memories, and strove to feel myself present in Venice,
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: as I had felt myself present in Prague, but in
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: Vain I was only coloring the caniletto engravings that hung
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: in my old bedroom at home. The picture was a
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: shifting one, my mind wandering uncertainly in search of more
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: vivid images. I could see no accident of form or
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: shadow without conscious labor after the necessary conditions. It was
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: all prosaic effort, not rapt passivity, such as I had
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: experienced half an hour before. I was discouraged, but I
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: remembered that inspiration was fitful. For several days I was
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: in a state of excited expectation, watching for a recurrence
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: of my new gift. I sent my thoughts ranging over
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: my world of knowledge in the hope that they would
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: find some object which would send a reawakening vibration through
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: my slumbering genius. But no, my world remained as dim
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: as ever, and that flash of strange light refused to
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: come again, though I I watched for it with palpitating eagerness.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: My father accompanied me every day in a drive and
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: a gradually lengthening walk as my powers of walking increased,
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: and one evening he had agreed to come and fetch
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: me at twelve the next day that we might go
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: together to select a musical box and other purchases. Rigorously
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: demanded of a rich Englishman visiting Geneva. He was one
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: of the most punctual of men and bankers, and I
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: was always nervously anxious to be quite ready for him
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: at the appointed time. But to my surprise, at a
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: quarter past twelve, he had not appeared. I felt all
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: the impatience of a convalescent who has nothing particular to do,
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: and who has just taken a tonic in the prospect
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: of immediate exercise that would carry off the stimulus. Unable
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: to sit still and reserve my strength, I walked up
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: and down the room, looking out on the current of
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: the Rhone, just where it leaves the dark blue lagth,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: but thinking all the while of the possible causes that
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: could detain my father. Suddenly I was conscious that my
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: father was in the room, but not alone. There were
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: two persons with him. Strange. I had heard no footstep,
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: I had not seen the door open. But I saw
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: my father and at his right hand our neighbor, Missus Fillmore,
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: whom I remembered very well, though I had not seen
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: her for five years. She was a commonplace middle aged
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: woman in silk and cashmere. But the lady on the
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: left of my father was not more than twenty, A tall, slim,
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: willowy figure with luxuriant blonde hair arranged in cunning braids
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: and folds that looked almost too massive for the slight
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: figure and the small, featured, thin lipped face. They crowned,
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: but the face had not a girlish expression. The features
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: were sharp, the pale gray eyes at once acute, restless,
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: and sarcastic. They were fixed on me in half smiling curiosity,
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: and I felt a painful sensation, as if a sharp
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: wind were cutting at me. The pale green dress and
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: the green leaves that seemed to form a border about
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: her pale blonde hair made me think of a water nixy,
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: For my mind was full of German lyrics, and this pale,
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: fatal eyed woman with the green weeds looked like a
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: berth from some cold, sedgy stream, the daughter of an
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: aged river. Well, Latimer, you thought me long, my father said.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: But while the last word was in my ears, the
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: whole group vanished, and there was nothing between me and
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: the Chinese printed folding screen that stood before the door.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: I was cold and trembling. I could only tott her
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: forward and throw myself on the sofa. This strange new
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: power had manifested itself again. But was it a power?
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: Might it not rather be a disease, a sort of
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: intermittent delirium, concentrating my energy of brain into moments of
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: unhealthy activity and leaving my saner hours all the more
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: Barren I felt a dizzy sense of unreality in what
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: my eye rested on. I grasped the bell convulsively, like
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: one trying to free himself from nightmare, and rang it twice.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: Pierre came with a look of alarm in his face.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: Monsieur le sasouf papier, he said anxiously, I'm tired of waiting. Pierre,
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: I said, as distinctly and emphatically as I could, like
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: a man determined to be sober in spite of wine.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: I'm afraid something has happened to my father. He's usually
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: so punctual. Run to the Hotel de Berg and see
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: if he is there. Pierre left the room at once
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: with a soothing Pierre Monsieur, and I felt the better
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: for this scene of simple waking prose. Seeking to calm
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: myself still further, I went into my bedroom adjoining the salon,
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: and opened a case of eau de cologne, took out
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: a bottle, went through the process of taking out the
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: cork very neatly, and then rubbed the reviving spirit over
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: my hands and forehead and under my nostrils, drawing a
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: new delight from the scent because I had procured it
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: by slow details of labor and by no strange sudden madness.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: Already I had begun to taste something of the horror
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: that belongs to the lot of a human being whose
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: nature is not adjusted to simple human conditions. Still enjoying
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: the scent, I returned to the salon, but it was
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: not unoccupied, as it had been before I left it.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: In front of the Chinese folding screen, there was my father,
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: with Missus Fillmore on his right hand, and on his
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: left the slim blonde haired girl with the keen face
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: and the keen eyes fixed on me in half smile,
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: telling curiosity, Well, Latimer, you thought me long, My father said,
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: I heard no more, felt no more till I became
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: conscious that I was lying with my head low on
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: the sofa Pierre and my father by my side. As
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: soon as I was thoroughly revived, my father left the
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: room and presently returned saying, I've been to tell the
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: ladies how you are, Latimer. They were waiting in the
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: next room. We shall put off our shopping expedition to
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: day presently. He said that young lady is Bertha Grant,
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: missus Fillmore's orphan niece. Phillmore has adopted her, and she
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: lives with them, So you will have her for a
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: neighbor when we go home, perhaps for a near relation,
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: for there is a tenderness between her and Alfred I suspect,
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: and I should be gratified by the match, since Fillmore
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: means to provide for her in every way as if
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: she were his daughter. It had not occurred to me
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: that you knew nothing about her living with the Fillmoors.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: He made no further allusion to the fact of my
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: having fainted at the moment of seeing her, and I
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: would not for the world have told him the reason.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: I shrank from the idea of disclosing to anyone what
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: might be regarded as a pitiable peculiarity, most of all
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: from betraying it to my father, who would have suspected
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: my sanity. Ever after, I do not mean to dwell
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: with particularity on the details of my experience. I have
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: described these two cases at length because they had definite,
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: clearly traceable results in my after lot. End of Chapter one,
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: Part one, Chapter one, Part two of The Lifted Veil.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: Bruce Pirie The Lifted Veil by George Elliot, Chapter one,
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: Part two. Shortly after this last occurrence, I think the
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: very next day, I began to be aware of a
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: phase in my abnormal sensibility to which, from the languid
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: and slight nature of my intercourse with others since my illness,
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: I had not been alive before, this was the obtrusion
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: on my mind of the mental process going forward in
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: first one person and then another with whom I happened
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: to be in contact. The vagrant, frivolous ideas and emotions
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: of some uninteresting acquaintance Missus Fillmore, for example, would force
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: themselves on my consciousness, like an importunate ill played musical instrument,
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: or the loud activity of an imprisoned insect. But this
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: unpleasant sensibility was fitful and left me moments of rest,
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: when the souls of my companions were once more shut
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: out from me, and I felt a relief such as
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: silence brings to wearied nerves. I might have believed this
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: importunate insight to be merely a diseased activity of the imagination,
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: but that my prevision of incalculable words and actions proved
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: it to have a fixed relation to the mental process
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: in other minds. But this superadded consciousness wearying and annoying
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: enough when it urged on me. The trivial experience of
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: indifferent people became an intense pain and grief when it
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: seemed to be opening to me the souls of those
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: who were in a close relation to me. When the
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: rational talk, the graceful attentions, the wittily turned phrases, and
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: the kindly deeds which used to make the web of
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: their characters were seen as if thrust asunder by a
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: microscopic VS vision that showed all the intermediate frivolities, all
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: the suppressed egoism, all the struggling chaos of puerilities, meanness, vague,
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: capricious memories, and indolent makeshift thoughts from which human words
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: and deeds emerge like leaflets covering a fermenting heap. At Basel,
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: we were joined by my brother Alfred now a handsome,
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: self confident man of six and twenty, a thorough contrast
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: to my fragile, nervous, ineffectual self. I believe I was
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: held to have a sort of half womanish, half ghostly beauty.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: For the portrait painters, who are thick as weeds at Geneva,
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: had often asked me to sit to them, and I
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: had been the model of a dying minstrel in a
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: fancy picture. But I thoroughly disliked my own physique, and
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: nothing but the belief that it was a condition of
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: poetic genius would have reconciled me to it. That brief
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: hope was quite fled, and I saw in my face
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: now nothing but the stamp of a morbid organization, framed
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: for passive suffering, too feeble for the sublime resistance of
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: poetic production. Alfred, from whom I had been almost constantly separated,
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: and who in his present stage of character and appearance,
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: came before me as a perfect stranger, was bent on
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: being extremely friendly and brother like to me. He had
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: the superficial kindness of a good humored, self satisfied nature
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: that fears no rivalry and has encountered no contrarities. I
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: am not sure that my disposition was good enough for
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: me to have been quite free from envy towards him.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: Even if our desires had not clashed, and if I
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: had been in the healthy human condition which admits of
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: generous confidence and charitable construction, there must always have been
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: an antipathy between our nature. As it was, he became
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: in a few weeks an object of intense hatred to me,
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: and when he entered the room, still more when he spoke,
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: it was as if the sensation of grating metal had
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: set my teeth on edge. My diseased consciousness was more
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: intensely and continually occupied with his thoughts and emotions than
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: with those of any other person who came in my way.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: I was perpetually exasperated with the petty promptings of his conceit,
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: and his love of patronage, with his self complacent belief
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: in Bertha Grant's passion for him, with his half pitying
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: contempt for me, seen not in the ordinary indications of
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: intonation and phrase and slight action which an acute and
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: suspicious mind is on the watch for, but in all
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: their naked, skinless complication. For we were rivals, and our
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: desires clashed, though he was not away aware of it.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: I have said nothing yet of the effect Bertha Grant
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: produced in me on a nearer acquaintance. That effect was
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: chiefly determined by the fact that she made the only
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: exception among all the human beings about me to my
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: unhappy gift of insight. About Bertha, I was always in
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: a state of uncertainty. I could watch the expression of
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: her face and speculate on its meaning. I could ask
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: for her opinion with the real interest of ignorance. I
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: could listen for her words and watch for her smile
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: with hope and fear. She had for me the fascination
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: of an unraveled destiny. I say it was this fact
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: that chiefly determined the strong effect she produced on me.
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: For in the abstract, no womanly character could seem to
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: have less affinity for that of a shrinking, romantic, passionate
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: youth than Bertha's. She was keen, sarcastic, un imaginative, prematurely cynical,
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: remaining critical and unmoved in the most impressive scenes, inclined
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: to dissect all my favorite poems, and especially contemptuous towards
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: the German lyrics, which were my pet literature at that time.
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: To this moment, I am unable to define my feeling
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: towards her. It was not ordinary boyish admiration, for she
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: was the very opposite, even to the color of her hair,
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: of the ideal woman who still remained to me the
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: type of loveliness. And she was without that enthusiasm for
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: the great and good, which, even at the moment of
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: her strongest dominion over me, I should have declared to
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: be the highest element of character. But there is no
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: tyranny more complete than that which a self centered, negative
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: nature exercises over a morbidly sensitive nature, perpetually craving sympathy
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: and support. The most independent people feel the effect of
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: a man's silence in heightening their value for his opinion,
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: feel an additional triumph in conquering the reverence of a
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: critic habitually captious and satirical. No wonder, then, that an enthusiastic,
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: self distrusting youth should watch and wait before the closed
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: secret of a sarcastic woman's face, as if it were
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: the shrine of the doubtfully benignant deity who ruled his destiny.
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: For a young enthusiast is unable to imagine the total
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: negation in another mind of the emotions which are stirring
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: his own. They may be feeble, latent, inactive, he thinks,
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: but they are there. They may be called forth sometimes
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: in moments of happy hallucination. He believes they may be
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: there in all the greater strength, because he sees no
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: outward sign of them. And this effect, as I have intimated,
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: was heightened to its utmost intensity in me because Bertha
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: was the only being who remained for me in the
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: mysterious seclusion of soul that renders such youthful delusion possible. Doubtless,
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: there was another sort of fascination at work, that subtle
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: physical attraction which delights in cheating our psychological predictions and
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: in compelling the men who paint sylphs to fall in
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: love with some bann a brave thumb, heavy healed, and freckled.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: Bertha's behavior towards me was such as to encourage all
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: my illusions, to heighten my boyish passion, and make me
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: more and more dependent on her smiles. Looking back with
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: my present wretched knowledge, I conclude that her vanity and
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: love of power were intensely gratified by the belief that
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: I had fainted on first seeing her, purely from the
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: strong impression her person had produced on me. The most
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: prosaic woman likes to believe herself the object of a violent,
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: a poetic passion, and without a grain of romance in
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: her Bertha had that spirit of intrigue which gave piquancy
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: to the idea that the brother of the man she
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: meant to marry was dying with love and jealousy for
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: her sake. That she meant to marry my brother was
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: what at that time I did not believe, For though
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: he was assiduous in his attentions to her, and I
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: knew well enough that both he and my father had
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: made up their minds to this result, there was not
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: yet an understood engagement. There had been no explicit declaration,
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: and Bertha habitually, while she flirted with my brother and
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: accepted his homage in a way that implied to him
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: a thorough recognition of its intention, made me believe, by
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: the subtilest looks and phrases, feminine nothings which could never
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: be quoted against her, that he was really the object
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: of her secret ridicule, that she thought, as I did,
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: a Coxcomb, whom she would have pleasure in disappointing me.
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: She openly petted in my brother's presence, as if I
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: were too young and sickly ever to be thought of
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: as a lover. And that was a view he took
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: of me. But I believe she must inwardly have delighted
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: in the tremors into which she threw me, by the
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: coaxing way in which she patted my curls while she
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: laughed at my quotations. Such caresses were always given in
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: the presence of our friends, for when we were alone
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: together she affected a much greater distance towards me and
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: now and then took the opportunity, by words or slight actions,
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: to stimulate my foolish, timid hope that she really preferred me,
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: and why should she not follow her inclination. I was
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: not in so advantageous a position as my brother, but
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: I had fortune. I was not a year younger than
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: she was, and she was an heiress who would soon
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: be of age to decide for herself. The fluxu cuations
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: of hope and fear confined to this one channel, made
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: each day in her presence a delicious torment. There was
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: one deliberate act of hers, which especially helped to intoxicate me.
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: When we were at Vienna, her twentieth birthday occurred, and
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: as she was very fond of ornaments, we all took
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: the opportunity of the splendid jeweler's shops in that Teutonic
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: Paris to purchase her a birthday present of jewelry. Mine,
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: naturally was the least expensive. It was an opal ring.
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: The opal was my favorite stone because it seems to
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: blush and turn pale as if it had a soul.
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: I told Berth a sou when I gave it her,
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: and said that it was an emblem of the poetic
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: nature changing with the changing light of heaven and of
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: woman's eyes. In the evening, she appeared elegantly dressed and
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: wearing conspicuously all the birthday press except mine. I looked
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: eagerly at her fingers, but saw no opal. I had
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: no opportunity of noticing this to her during the evening,
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: But the next day, when I found her seated near
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: the window alone after breakfast, I said, you scorned to
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: wear my poor opal. I should have remembered that you
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: despised poetic natures and should have given you coral or turquoise,
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: or some other opaque unresponsive stone. Do I despise it?
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: She answered, taking hold of a delicate gold chain which
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: she always wore round her neck, and drawing out the
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: end from her bosom, with my ring hanging to it.
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: It hurts me a little, I can tell you, she said,
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: with her usual dubious smile, to wear it in that
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: secret place. And since your poetical nature is so stupid
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: as to prefer a more public position, I shall not
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: endure the pain any longer. She took off the ring
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: from the chain in put it on her finger, smiling still,
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: while the blood rushed to my cheeks. And I could
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: not trust myself to say a word of entreaty that
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: she would keep the ring where it was before. I
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: was completely fooled by this, and for two days shut
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: myself up in my own room whenever Bertha was absent,
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: that I might intoxicate myself afresh with the thought of
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: this scene and all that it implied. I should mention
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: that during these two months, which seemed a long life
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: to me, from the novelty and intensity of the pleasures
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: and pains, I underwent my diseased anticipation in other people's
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: consciousness continued to torment me. Now it was my father,
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: and now my brother, now Missus Fillmore, or her husband,
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: and now our German courier, whose stream of thought rushed
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: upon me like a ringing in the ears, not to
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: be got rid of, though it allowed my own impulses
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: and ideas to continue their uninterrupted course. It was like
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: a preternaturally heightened sense of hearing, making audible to one
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: a roar of sound where others find perfect stillness. The
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: weariness and disgust of this involuntary intrusion into other souls
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: was counteracted only by my ignorance of Bertha and my
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: growing passion for her, a passion enormously stimulated, if not
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: produced by that ignorance.
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: She was my.
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: Oasis of mystery in the dreary desert of knowledge. I
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: had never allowed my diseased condition to betray itself or
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: to drive me into any unusual speech or action, except once,
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: when in a moment of peculiar bitterness against my brother,
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: I had forestalled some words which I knew he was
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: going to utter, a clever observation which he had prepared beforehand.
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: He had occasionally a slightly affected hesitation in his speech,
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: and when he paused an instant after the second word,
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: my impatience and jealousy impelled me to continue the speech
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: for him, as if it were something we had both
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: learned by rote. He colored and looked astonished as well
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: as annoyed, and the words had no sooner escaped my
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: lips than I felt a shock of alarm lest such
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: an anticipation of words, very far from being words, of
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: course easy to divine, should have betrayed me as an
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: exceptional being, a sort of quiet energuman, whom everyone, Bertha
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: above all, would shudder at and avoid. But I magnified,
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: as usual the impression any word or deed of mine
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: could produce on others, for no one gave any sign
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: of having noticed my interruption as more than a rudeness
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: to be forgiven me on the score of my feeble
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: nervous condition. While this superadded consciousness of the actual was
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: almost constant with me, I had never had a recurrence
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: of that distinct prevision which I have described in relation
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: to my first interview with Bertha. And I was waiting
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: with eager curiosity to know whether or not my vision
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: of Prague would prove to have been an instance of
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: the same kind. A few days after the incident of
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: the Opal Ring, we were paying one of our frequent
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: visits to the Liechtenburg Palace. I could never look at
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: many pictures in succession, for pictures when they are at
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: all powerful, affect me so strongly that one or two
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: exhaust all my capability of contemplation. This morning I had
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: been looking at Giorgioni's picture of the cruel eyed woman,
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: said to be a likeness of Lucrezia Borgia. I had
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: stood long alone before it, fascinated by the terrible reality
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: of that cunning, relentless face, till I felt a strange,
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: poisoned sensation, as if I had long been inhaling a
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: fatal odor and was just beginning to be conscious of
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: its effects. Perhaps even then I should not have moved
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: away if the rest of the party had not returned
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: to this room and announced that they were going to
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: the Belvidere gallery to settle a bet which had arisen
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: between my brother and mister Fillmore about a portrait. I
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: followed them dreamily, and was hardly alive to what occurred
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: till they had all gone up to the gallery, leaving
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: me below, for I refused to come within sight of
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: another picture. That day, I made my way to the
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: Grand Terrace, since it was agreed that we should saunter
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: in the gardens. When the dispute had been decided, I
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: had been sitting here a short space, vaguely conscious of
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: trim gardens, with a city in green Hills in the distance.
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: When wishing to avoid the proximity of the sentinel, I
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: rose and walked down the broad stone steps, intending to
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: seat myself farther on in the gardens. Just as I
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: reached the gravel walk, I felt an awe arm slipped
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: within mine, and a light hand gently pressing my wrist.
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: In the same instant, a strange, intoxicating numbness passed over me,
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: like the continuance or climax of the sensation I was
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: still feeling from the gaze of Lucrezia Borgia, the gardens,
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: the summer sky, the consciousness of Bertha's arm being within mine,
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: all vanished, and I seemed to be suddenly in darkness,
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: out of which there gradually broke a dim firelight, and
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: I felt myself sitting in my father's leather chair in
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: the library at home. I knew the fireplace, the dogs
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: for the wood fire, the black marble chimney piece with
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: the white marble medallion of the dying Cleopatra in the center.
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: Intense and hopeless misery was pressing on my soul. The
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: light became stronger, for Bertha was en with a candle
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: in her hand. Bertha, my wife, with cruel eyes, with
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: green jewels and green leaves on her white ball dress.
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: Every hateful thought within her present to me, madman, idiot,
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: why don't you kill yourself? Then it was a moment
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: of hell. I saw into her pitiless soul, saw its
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: barren worldliness, its scorching hate, and felt it clothe me
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: round like an air. I was obliged to breathe. She
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: came with her candle and stood over me with a
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: bitter smile of contempt. I saw the great emerald brooch
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: on her bosom, a studded serpent with diamond eyes. I shuddered.
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: I despised this woman with the barren soul and mean thoughts.
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: But I felt helpless before her, as if she clutched
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: my bleeding heart and would clut till the last drop
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: of life blood ebbed away. She was my wife and
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: we hated each other. Gradually, the hearth, the dim library,
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: the candle light disappeared, seemed to melt away into a
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: background of light, the green serpent with the diamond eyes
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: remaining a dark image on the retina. Then I had
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: a sense of my eyelids quivering, and the living daylight
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: broke in upon me. I saw gardens and heard voices.
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: I was seated on the steps of the Belvidere Terrace,
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: and my friends were round me. The tumult of mind
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: into which I was thrown by this hideous vision made
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: me ill for several days and prolonged our stay at Vienna.
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: I shuddered with horror as the scene recurred to me,
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: and it recurred constantly, with all its minutieye, as if
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: they had been burnt into my memory. And yet such
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: is the madness of the human heart under the influence
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: of its immediate desires. I felt a wild, hell braving
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: joy that Bertha was to be mine for the fulfillment
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: of my former prevision concerning her first appearance before me.
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: Left me little hope that this last hideous glimpse of
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: the future was the mere diseased play of my own mind,
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: and had no relation to external realities. One thing alone
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: I looked towards as a possible means of casting doubt
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: on my terrible conviction, the discovery that my vision of
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: Prague had been false, and Prague was the next city
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: on our route. Meanwhile, I was no sooner in Bertha's
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: society again than I was as completely under her sway
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: as before. What if I saw into the heart of Bertha,
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: the matured woman, Bertha, my wife, Bertha the girl was
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: a fascinating secret to me. Still I trembled under her touch.
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: I felt the witchery of her presence. I yearned to
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: be assured of her love. The fear of poison is
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: feeble against the sense of thirst. Nay, I was just
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: as jealous of my brother as before, just as much
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: irritated by his small, patronizing ways. For my pride. My
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: diseased sensibility were there as they had always been, and
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: winced as inevitably under every offense as my eye winced
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: from an intruding mote. The future, even when brought within
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: the compass of feeling by a vision that made me shudder,
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: had still no more than the force of an idea
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: compared with the force of present emotion of my love
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: for Bertha, of my dislike and jealousy towards my brother.
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: It is an old story that men sell themselves to
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: the tempter and sign a bond with their blood, because
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: it is only to take effect at a distant day.
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: Then rush on to snatch the cup their souls thirst after,
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: with an impulse not the less savage, because there is
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: a dark shadow beside them. For evermore, there is no
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: short cut, no patent tram road to wisdom. After all
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: the centuries of invention. The soul's path lies through the
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: thorny wilderness, which must be still trodden in solitude with
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: bleeding feet, with sobs for help, as it was trodden
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: by them of old time. My mind speculated eagerly on
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: the means by which I should become my brother's successful rival,
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: For I was still too timid in my ignorance of
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: Bertha's actual feeling to venture on any step that would
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: urge from her an avowal of it. I thought I
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: should gain confidence even for this, if my vision of
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: Prague proved to have been voracious. And yet the horror
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: of that certitude behind the slim girl Bertha, whose words
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: and looks I watched, for whose touch was bliss. There
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: stood continually that Bertha, with the fuller form, the harder eyes,
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: the more rigid mouth, with the barren, selfish soul laid bare,
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: no longer a fascinating secret, but a measured fact, urging
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: itself perpetually on my unwilling sight. Are you unable to
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: give me your sympathy? You who read this? Are you
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: unable to imagine this double consciousness at work within me,
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: flowing on like two parallel streams which never mingle their
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: waters and blend into a common hue. Yet you must
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: have known something of the presentiments that spring from an
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: insight at war with passion, And my visions were only
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: like presentiments, intensified to horror. You have known the powerlessness
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: of ideas before the might of impulse, and by visions,
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: when once they had passed into memory, were mere ideas,
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: pale shadows that beckoned in vain, while my hand was
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: grasped by the living and the loved. In after days,
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: I thought, with bitter regret, that if I had foreseen
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: something more, or something different, if instead of that hideous
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: vision which poisoned the passion it could not destroy, or
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: if even along with it I could have had a
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: foreshadowing of that moment when I looked on my brother's
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: face for the last time, some softening influence would have
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: been shed over my feeling towards him. Pride and hatred
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: would surely have been subdued into pity, and the record
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: of those hidden sins would have been shortened. But this
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: is one of the vain thoughts with which we men
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: flatter ourselves. We try to believe that the egoism within
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: us would have easily been melted, and that it was
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: only the narrowness of our knowledge which hemmed in our generosity,
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: our awe, our human piety, and hindered them from submerging.
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: Our heart indifference to the sensations and emotions of our fellows.
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: Our tenderness and self renunciation seems strong when our egoism
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: has had its day, When after our mean striving for
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: a triumph that is to be another's loss, the triumph
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: comes suddenly and we shudder at it because it is
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: held out by the chill hand of death. Our arrival
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: in Prague happened at night, and I was glad of this,
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: for it seemed like a deferring of a terribly decisive
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: moment to be in the city for ours without seeing it.
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: As we were not to remain long in Prague, but
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: to go on so speedily to Dresden, it was proposed
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: that we should drive out the next morning and take
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: a general view of the place, as well as visit
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: some of its specially interesting spots, before the heat became oppressive,
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: for we were in August and the season was hot
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: and dry. But it happened that the ladies were rather
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: late at their morning toilet, and to my father's politely
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: repressed but perceptible annoyance, we were not in the carriage
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: till the morning was far advanced. I thought, with a
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: sense of relief, as we entered the Jews Quarter, where
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: we were to visit the old Synagogue, that we should
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: be kept in this flat, shut up part of the
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: city until we should all be too tired and too
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: warm to go farther, and so we should return without
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: seeing more than the streets through which we had already passed.
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: That would give me another day's suspense. Suspense the only
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: form in which a fearful spirit knows the solace of hope.
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: But as as I stood under the blackened, groined arches
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: of that old synagogue, made dimly visible by the seven
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: thin candles in the sacred lamp. While our Jewish cicerone
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: reached down the Book of the Law and read to
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: us in its ancient tongue, I felt a shuddering impression
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: that this strange building, with its shrunken lights, this surviving,
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: withered remnant of medieval Judaism, was of a peace with
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: my vision. Those darkened, dusty Christian saints, with their loftier
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: arches and their larger candles, needed the consolatory scorn with
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: which they might point to a more shriveled death in
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: life than their own, as I expected. When we left
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: the Jews Quarter, the elders of our party wished to
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: return to the hotel. But now, instead of rejoicing in
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: this as I had done beforehand, I felt a sudden,
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: over her powering impulse to go on at once to
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: the bridge and put an end to the suspense I
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: had been wishing to protract. I declared, with unusual decision
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: that I would get out of the carriage and walk
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: on alone. They might return without me. My father, thinking
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: this merely a sample of my usual poetic nonsense, objected
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: that I should only do myself harm by walking in
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: the heat. But when I persisted, he said angrily that
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: I might follow my own absurd devices, but that Schmidt,
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: our courier, must go with me. I assented to this
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: and set off with Schmidt towards the bridge. I had
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: no sooner passed from under the archway of the grand
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: old Gate leading onto the bridge, than a trembling seized me,
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: and I turned cold under the midday sun. Yet I
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: went on. I was in search of something, a small
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: detail which I remembered with special intensity as part of
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: my vision there. It was the patch of rainbow light
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: on the pavement, transmitted through a lamp in the shape
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: of a star. End of Chapter one, Chapter two, Part
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: one of The Lifted Veil. This LibriVox recording is in
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: the public domain recording by Bruce Pirie The Lifted Veil
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: by George Elliot, Chapter two. Before the autumn was at
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: an end, and while the brown leaves still stood thick
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: on the beaches in our park, my brother and Bertha
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: were engaged to each other, and it was understood that
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: their marriage was to take place early in the next spring.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: In spite of the certainty I had felt from that
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: moment on the bridge at Prague that Bertha would one
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: day be my wife. My constitutional timidity and distrust had
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: continued to benumb me, and the words in which I
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: had sometimes premeditated a confession of my love had died
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: away unuttered. The same conflict had gone on within me
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: as before, the longing for an assurance of love from
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: Bertha's lips. The dread lest a word of contempt and
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: denial should fall upon me like a corrosive acid. What
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: was the conviction of a distant necessity to me? I
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: trembled under a present glance. I hungered after a present joy.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: I was clogged and chilled by a present fear. And
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: so the days passed on. I witnessed Bertha's engagement and
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: heard her marriage discussed as if I were under a
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: conscious nightmare, knowing it was a dream that would vanish,
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: but feeling stifled under the grasp of hard, clutching fingers.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: When I was not in Bertha's presence, and I was
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: with her very often, for she continued to treat me
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: with a playful patronage that wakened no jealousy in my brother.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: I spent my time chiefly in wandering in strolling or
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: taking long rides while the daylight lasted, and then shutting
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: myself up with my unread books, for books had lost
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: the power of chaining my attention. My self consciousness was
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: heightened to that pitch of intensity in which our own
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: emotions take the form of a drama, which urges itself
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: imperatively on our contemplation, and we begin to weep less
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: under the sense of our suffering than at the thought
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: of it. I felt a sort of pitying anguish over
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: the pathos of my own lot, the lot of a
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: being finely organized for pain, but with hardly any fibers
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: that responded to pleasure. To whom the idea of future
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: evil robbed the present of its joy, and for whom
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: the idea of future good did not still the uneasiness
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: of a present yearning or a present dread. I went
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: dumbly through that stage of the poet's suffering, in which
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: he feels the delicious pang of utterance and makes an
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: image of his sorrows. I was left entirely without remonstrance
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: concerning this dreamy wayward life. I knew my father's thought
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: about me, that lad will never be good for anything.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: In life, he may waste his years in an insignificant way.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: On the income that falls to him, I shall not
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: trouble myself about a career for him. One mild morning
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: in the beginning of November, it happened that I was
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: standing outside the portico, patting lazy old Caesar, a Newfoundland,
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: almost blind with age, the only dog that ever took
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: any notice of me, for the very dogs shunned me
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: and fond on the happier people around me. When the
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: groom brought up my brother's horse, which was to carry
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: him to the hunt, and my brother himself appeared at
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: the door, florid, broad chested and self complacent, feeling what
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: a good natured fellow he was not to behave insolently
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: to us all on the strength of his great advantages. Latimer,
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: old boy, he said to me, in a tone of
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: compassionate cordiality, what a pity it is you don't have
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: a run with the hounds now and then? The finest
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: thing in the world for low spirits. Low spirits, I
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: thought bitterly, as he rode away. That is the sort
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: of phrase with which coarse, narrow natures like yours think
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: to describe experience. Of which you can know no more
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: than your horse knows. It is to such as you
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: that the good of this world falls. Riady, dullness, healthy selfishness,
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: good tempered conceit. These are the keys to happiness. The
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: quick thought came that my selfishness was even stronger than his.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: It was only a suffering selfishness instead of an enjoying one.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: But then again, my exasperating insight into Alfred's self complacent soul,
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: his freedom from all the doubts and fears, the unsatisfied yearnings,
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: the exquisite tortures of sensitiveness that had made the web
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: of my life, seemed to absolve me from all bonds
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: towards him. This man needed no pity, no love. Those
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: fine influences would have been as little felt by him
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: as the delicate white mist is felt by the rock
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: it caresses. There was no evil in store for him.
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: If he was not to marry Bertha, it would be
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: because he had found a lot pleasanter to himself. Mister
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: Fillmore's house lay not more than half a mile beyond
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: our own gates, And whenever I knew my brother was
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: gone in another direction, I went there for the chance
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: of finding Bertha at home later on in the day,
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: I walked thither by a rare accident. She was alone,
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: and we walked out in the grounds together, for she
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: seldom went on foot beyond the tree swept gravel walks.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: I remember, what a beautiful sylph she looked to me
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: as the low November sun shone on her blonde hair,
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: and she tripped along, teasing me with her usual light banter,
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: to which I listened half fondly, half moodily. It was
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: all the sign Bertha's mysterious in herself ever made to
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: me to day. Perhaps the moodiness predominated, for I had
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: not yet shaken off the access of jealous hate which
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: my brother had raised in me by his parting patronage.
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: Suddenly I interrupted and startled her by saying, almost fiercely, Bertha,
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: how can you love Alfred? She looked at me with
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: surprise for a moment, but soon her light smile came again,
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: and she answered, sarcastically, why do you suppose I love him?
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: How can you ask that, Bertha, what your wisdom thinks?
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: I must love the man I'm going to marry, the
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: most unpleasant thing in the world. I should quarrel with him,
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: I should be jealous of him. Our minage would be
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: conducted in a very ill bred manner. A little quiet
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: contempt contributes greatly to the elegance of life, Bertha, that
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: is not your real feeling. Why do you delight in
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: trying to deceive me my inventing such cynical speeches. I
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: need never take the trouble of invention in order to
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: deceive you, my small Tasso. That was the mocking name
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: she usually gave me. The easiest way to deceive a
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: poet is to tell him the truth. She was testing
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: the validity of her epigram in a daring way, and
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: for a moment, the shadow of my vision, the Bertha,
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: whose soul was no secret to me, passed between me
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: and the radiant girl, the playful sylph, whose feelings were
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: a fascinating mystery. I suppose I must have shuddered or
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: betrayed in some other way. My momentary chill of horror, Tasso,
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: she said, seizing my wrist and peeping round into my face.
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: Are you really beginning to discern what a heartless girl
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: I am? Why you are not half the poet I
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: thought you were? You are actually capable of believing the
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: truth about me. The shadow passed from between us and
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: was no longer the object nearest to me, The girl
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: whose light fingers grasped me, whose elfish, charming face looked
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: into mine, who I thought was betraying an interest in
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: my feelings that she would not have directly avowed. This warm,
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: breathing presence again possessed my senses and imagination, like a
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: returning siren melody which had been overpowered for an instant
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: by the roar of threatening waves. It was a moment
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: as delicious to me as the waking up to a
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: consciousness of youth after a dream of middle age. I
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: forgot everything but my pass us, and said, with swimming eyes, Bertha,
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: shall you love me when we are first married? I
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: wouldn't mind if you really loved me only for a
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: little while. Her look of astonishment as she loosed my
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: hand and started away from me recalled me to a
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: sense of my strange, my criminal indiscretion. Forgive me, I said, hurriedly,
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: as soon as I could speak again. I did not
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: know what I was saying. Ah Tasso's mad fit has
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: come on, I see, she answered quietly, for she had
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: recovered herself sooner than I had let him go home
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: and keep his head cool. I must go in where
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: the sun is setting. I left her full of indignation
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: against myself. I had let slip words which, if she
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: reflected on them, might rouse in her a suspicion of
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: my abnormal mental condition, a suspicion which, of all things
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: I dreaded, And besides that, I was ashamed of the
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: apparent baseness I had committed in uttering them to my
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: brother's betrothed wife. I wandered home, slowly, entering our park
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: through a private gate instead of by the lodges. As
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: I approached the house, I saw a man dashing off
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: at full speed from the stable yard across the park.
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: Had any accident happened at home? No, Perhaps it was
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: only one of my father's peremptory business errands that required
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: this headlong haste. Nevertheless, I quickened my pace without any
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: distinct motive, and was soon at the house. I will
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: not dwell on the scene I found there. My brother
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: was dead, had been pitched from his horse and killed
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: on the spot by a concussion of the brain. I
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: went up to the room where he lay, and where
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: my father was seated beside him with a look of
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: rigid despair. I had shunned my father more than any
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: one since our return home, for the radical antipathy between
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: our natures made my inner sight into his inner self
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: a constant affliction to me. But now as I went
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: up to him and stood beside him in sad silence,
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: I felt the presence of a new element that blended
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: us as we had never been blent before. My father
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: had been one of the most successful men in the
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: money getting world. He had had no sentimental sufferings, no illness.
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: The heaviest trouble that had befallen him was the death
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: of his first wife. But he married my mother soon after,
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: and I remember he seemed exactly the same to my
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: keen childish observation the week after her death, as before.
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: But now at last a sorrow had come, the sorrow
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: of old age, which suffers the more from the crushing
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: of its pride and its hopes in proportion as the
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: pride and hope are narrow and prosaic. His son was
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: to have been married soon would probably have stood for
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: the borough at the next election. That son's existence was
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: the best motive that could be alleged for making new
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: purchases of land every year to round off the estate.
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: It is a dreary thing to live on doing the
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: same things year after year without knowing why we do them.
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: Perhaps the tragedy of disappointed youth and passion is less
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: piteous than the tragedy of disappointed age and worldliness. As
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: I saw into the desolation of my father's heart, I
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: felt a movement of deep pity towards him, which was
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: the beginning of a new affection, an affection that grew
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: and strengthened in spite of the strange bitterness with which
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: he regarded me in the first month or two after
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: my brother's death. If it had not been for the
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: softening influence of my compassion for him, the first deep
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: compassion when I had ever felt, I should have been
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: stung by the perception that my father transferred the inheritance
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: of an eldest son to me with a mortified sense
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: that fate had compelled him to the unwelcome course of
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: caring for me as an important being. It was only
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: in spite of himself that he began to think of
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: me with anxious regard. There is hardly any neglected child
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: for whom death has made vacant a more favored place.
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: Who will not understand what I mean. Gradually, However, my
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: new deference to his wishes, the effect of that patience,
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: which was born of my pity for him, won upon
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: his affection, and he began to please himself with the
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: endeavor to make me fill my brother's place as fully
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: as my feebler personality would admit. I saw that the
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: prospect which by and by presented itself of my becoming
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: birth's husband was welcome to him, and he even contemplated
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: in my case what he had not intended in my brothers,
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: that his son and daughter in law should make one
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: household with him. My softened feelings towards my father made
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: this the happiest time I had known since childhood. These
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: last months in which I retained the delicious illusion of
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: loving Bertha, of longing and doubting and hoping that she
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: might love me, She behaved with a certain new consciousness
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: and distance towards me after my brother's death, and I
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: too was under a double constraint, that of delicacy towards
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: my brother's memory, and of anxiety as to the impression
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: my abrupt words had left on her. Mind. But the
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: additional screen, this mutual reserve, erected between us, only brought
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: me more completely under her power, no matter how empty
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: the adatom, so that the veil be thick enough. So
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: absolute is our soul's need of something hidden and uncertain,
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: for the maintenance of that doubt and hope and effort
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: which are the breath of its life, that if the
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: whole future were laid bare to us beyond today, the
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: interest of all mankind would be bent on the hours
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: that lie between. We should pant after the uncertainties of
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: our one morning and our one afternoon. We should rush
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: fiercely to the exchange for our last possibility of speculation,
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: of success, of disappointment. We should have a glut of
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: political profits for telling a crisis or a no crisis
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: within the only twenty four hours left open to prophecy.
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: Conceive the condition of the human mind. If all propositions
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: whatsoever were self evident, except one which was to become
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: self evident at the close of a summer's day, but
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: in the meantime might be the subject of question of hypothesis,
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: of debate, art and philosophy, literature and science would fasten
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: like bees on that one proposition which had the honey
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: of probability in it, and be the more eager because
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: their enjoyment would end with sunset. Our impulses, our spiritual
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: activities no more adjust themselves to the idea of their
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: future nullity than the beating of our heart or the
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: irritability of our muscles. Bertha, the slim, fair haired girl,
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: whose present thoughts and emotions were an enigma to me
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: amidst the fatiguing obviousness of the other minds around me,
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: was as absorbing to me as a single unknown today
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: as a single hypothetic proposition to remain problematic till sunset,
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: And all the cramped hemmed in belief and disbelief, trust
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: and distrust of my nature welled out in this one
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: narrow channel. And she made me believe that she loved me,
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: without ever quitting her tone of badinage and playful superiority.
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: She intoxicated me with the sense that I was necessary
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: to her, that she was never at ease unless I
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: was near her, submitting to her playful tyranny. It cost
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: a woman so little effort to beset us in this way.
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: A half repressed word, a moment's unexpected silence. Even an
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: easy fit of petulance on our account, will serve us
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: as hashish for a long while. Out of the subtlest
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: web of scarcely perceptible signs, she set me weaving the
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: fancy that she had always unconsciously loved me better than Alfred,
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: but that with the ignorant, fluttered sensibility of a young girl,
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: she had been imposed on by the charm that lay
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: for her. In the distinction of being admired and chosen
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: by a man who made so brilliant a figure in
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: the world as my brother, she satirized herself in a
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: very graceful way for her vanity and ambition. What was
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: it to me that I had the light of my
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: wretched pre vision on the fact that now it was
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: I who possessed at least all but the personal part
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: of my brother's advantages. Our sweet illusions are half of them,
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: conscious illusions, like effects of color that we know to
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: be made up of tinsel, broken glass, and rags. We
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: were married eighteen months after Alfred's death, one cold clear
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: morning in April, when there came hail and sunshine, both together,
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: and Bertha in her white silk and pale green leaves,
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: and the pale hues of her hair and face looked
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: like the spirit of the morning. My father was happier
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: than he had thought of being again. My marriage. He
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: felt sure would complete the desirable modification of my character
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: and make me practical and worldly enough to take my
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: place in society among sane men. For he delighted in
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: Bertha's tact and acuteness, and felt sure she would be
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: mistress of me and make me what she chose. I
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: was only twenty one and madly in love with her.
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: Poor father he kept that hope a little while after
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: our first year of marriage, and it was not quite
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: extinct when paralysis came and saved him from utter disappointment.
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: I shall hurry through the rest of my story, not
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: dwelling so much as I have hitherto done on my
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: inward experience. When people are well known to each other,
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: they talk rather of what befalls them externally, leaving their
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: feelings and sentiments to be inferred. We lived in a
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: round of visits for some time after our return home,
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: giving splendid dinner parties, and making a sensation in our
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: neighborhood by the new luster of our equipage. For my
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: father had reserved this display of his increased wealth for
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: the period of his son's menas marriage, and we gave
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: our acquaintances liberal opportunity for remarking that it was a
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: pity I made so poor a figure as an heir
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: and a bridegroom. The nervous fatigue of this existence, the
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: insincerities and platitudes which I had to live through twice
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: over through my inner and outward sense, would have been
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: maddening to me if I had not had that sort
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: of intoxicated callousness which came from the delights of a
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: first passion. A bride and bridegroom, surrounded by all the
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: appliances of wealth, hurried through the day by the whirl
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: of society, filling their solitary moments with hastily snatched caresses,
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: are prepared for their future life together, as the novice
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: is prepared for the cloister by experiencing its utmost contrast.
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: Through all these crowded, excited months, Bertha's inward self remained
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: shrouded from me, and I still read her thoughts only
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: through the language of her lips and demeanor. I still
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: had the human interest of wondering whether what I did
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: and said pleased her, of longing to hear a word
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: of affection, of giving a delicious exaggeration of meaning to
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: her smile. But I was conscious of a growing difference
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: in her manner towards me, sometimes strong enough to be
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: called haughty, coldness, cutting and chilling me, as the hail
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: had done that came across the sunshine on our marriage morning,
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: sometimes only perceptible in the dexterous avoidance of a tete
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: a tete walk or dinner to which I had been
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: looking forward. I had been deeply pained by this, had
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: even felt a sort of crushing of the heart from
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: the sense that my brief day of happiness was near
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: its setting. But still I remained dependent on Bertha, eager
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: for the last rays of a bliss that would soon
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: be gone, forever, hoping and watching for some afterglow more
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: beautiful from the impending night. I remember, how should I
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: not remember the time when that dependence and hope utterly
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: left me, When the sadness I had felt in Berth's
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: growing estrangement became a joy that I looked back upon
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: with longing, as a man might look back on the
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: last pains in a paralyzed limb. It was just after
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: the close of my father's last illness, which had necessarily
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: withdrawn us from society and thrown us more on each other.
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: It was the evening of my father's death. On that evening,
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: the veil which had shrouded Bertha's soul from me had
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: made me find in her alone among my fellow beings,
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: the blessed possibility of mystery and doubt and expectation was
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: first withdrawn. Perhaps it was the first day since the
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: beginning of my passion for her, in which that passion
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 1: was completely neutralized by the presence of an absorbing feeling
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: of another kind. I had been watching by my father's deathbed,
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: I had been witnessing the last fitful, yearning glance his
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: soul had cast back on the spent inheritance of life,
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: the last faint consciousness of love he had gathered from
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: the pressure of my hand. What are all our personal
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: loves when we have been sharing in that supreme agony
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: in the first moments, when we come away from the
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: presence of death, every other relation to the living is
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: merged to our feeling in the great relation of a
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: common nature and a common destiny. In that state of mind.
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: I joined Bertha in her private sitting room. She was
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: seated in a leaning posture on a settee, with her
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: back towards the door, the great rich coils of her
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: pale blonde hair surmounting her small neck visible above the
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: back of the settee. I remember, as I closed the
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 1: door behind me, a cold tremulousness seizing me, and a
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: vague sense of being hated and lonely, vague and strong,
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: like a presentiment. I know how I looked at that moment,
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: for I saw myself in Bertha's thought, as she lifted
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: her cutting gray eyes and looked at me, a miserable
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: ghost seer surrounded by phantoms in the noonday, trembling under
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: a breeze, when the leaves were still, without appetite for
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: the common objects of human desires, but pining after the moonbeams.
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: We were front to front with each other and judged
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: each other. The terrible moment of complete illumination had come
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: to me, and I saw that the darkness had hidden
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: no landscape from me, but only a blank prosaic wall.
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: From that evening forth through the sickening years which followed,
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: I saw all round the narrow room of this woman's soul,
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: all saw petty artifice and mere negation. Where I had
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: delighted to believe in coy sensibilities and in wit at
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: war with latent feeling, saw the light floating vanities of
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: the girl defining themselves into the systematic coquetry. The scheming,
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: selfishness of the woman, saw repulsion and antipathy harden into
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 1: cruel hatred, giving pain only for the sake of wreaking
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: itself for birth. iiO after her kind, felt the bitterness
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: of disillusion. She had believed that my wild poet's passion
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: for her would make me her slave, and that being
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: her slave I should execute her will in all things
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: with the essential shallowness of a negative, unimaginative nature. She
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: was unable to conceive the fact that sensibilities were anything
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 1: else than weaknesses. She had thought my weaknesses would put
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: me in her power, and she found them unmanageable forces.
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 1: Our positions were reversed. Before marriage, she had completely mastered
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: my imagination, for she was a secret to me, and
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: I created the unknown thought before which I trembled as
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: if it were hers. But now that her soul was
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: laid open to me, now that I was compelled to
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: share the privacy of her motives, to follow all the
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: petty devices that preceded her words and acts. She found
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: herself powerless with me except to produce in me the
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: chill shudder of repulsion. Powerless because I could be acted
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: on by no lever within her reach. I was dead
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: to worldly ambitions, to social vanities, to all the incentives
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: within the compass of her narrow imagination. And I lived
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: under influences utterly invisible to her. She was really pitiable
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: to have such a husband, and sow all the world
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: thought a graceful, brilliant woman like Bertha, who smiled on
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: morning callers, made a figure in ball rooms, and was
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: capable of that light repartee which from such a woman
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 1: is accepted as wit. Was secure of carrying off all
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: sympathy from a husband who was sickly abstracted, and, as
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: some suspected crack brained, even the servants in our house
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: gave her the balance of their regard and pity, for
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: there were no audible quarrels between us. Our alienation, our
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: repulsion from each other lay within the silence of our
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: own hearts. And if the mistress went out a great deal,
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: and seemed to dislike the Master's society. Was it not natural?
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: Poor thing? The Master was awed. I was kind and
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: just to my dependence, But I excited in them a
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: shrinking half contemptuous pity. For this class of men and
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: women are but slightly determined in their estimate of others
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: by general considerations or even experience of carrying. They judge
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: of persons as they judge of coins, and value those
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 1: who pass current at a high rate. After a time,
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: I interfered so little with Bertha's habits that it might
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: seem wonderful how her hatred towards me could grow so
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: intense and active as it did. But she had begun
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: to suspect, by some involuntary betrayal of mine, that there
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 1: was an abnormal power of penetration in me that fitfully
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: at least, I was strangely cognizant of her thoughts and intentions,
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: And she began to be haunted by a terror of me,
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: which alternated every now and then with defiance. She meditated
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: continually how the incubus could be shaken off her life,
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: how she could be freed from this hateful bond to
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: a being whom she at once despised as an imbecile
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: and dreaded as an inquisitor. For a long while, she
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 1: lived in the hope that my evident wretchedness would drive
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: me to the commission of suicide. But suicide was not
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: in my nature. I was too completely swayed by the
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: sense that I was in the grasp of unknown forces
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: to believe in my power of self release towards my
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: own destiny. I had become entirely passive, for my one
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: ardent desire had spent itself, and impulse no longer predominated
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 1: over knowledge. For this reason, I never thought of taking
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 1: any steps towards a complete separation, which would have made
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: our alienation evident to the world. Why should I rush
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: for help to a new course when I was only
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: suffering from the consequences of a deed which had been
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: the act of my intensest will. That would have been
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: the logic of one who had desires to gratify, and
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: I had no desires. But Bertha and I lived more
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 1: and more aloof from each other. The rich find it
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: easy to live married and apart. That course of our life,
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: which I have indicated in a few sentences, filled the
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: space of years, so much misery, so slow and hideous
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: a growth of hatred and sin may be compressed into
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 1: a sentence, and men judge of each other's lives through
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: this summary medium. They epitomize the experience of their fellow
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: mortal and pronounce judgment on him in neat syntax, and
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: feel themselves wise and virtuous conquerors over the temptations they
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: define in well selected predicates. Seven years of wretchedness glide
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: glibly over the lips of the man who has never
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: counted them out. In moments of chill, disappointment of head
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: and heart, throbbings of dread and vain, wrestling of remorse
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: and despair. We learn words by rote, but not their meaning,
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: that must be paid for with our life blood, and
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 1: printed in the subtle fibers of our nerves. But I
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 1: will hasten to finish my story. Brevity is justified at
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: once to those who readily understand, and to those who
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: will never understand. End of Chapter two, Part one, Chapter two,
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: Part two of The Lifted Veil. This LibriVox recording is
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: in the public domain. Recording by Bruce Pirie, The Lifted
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 1: Veil by George Eliot, Chapter two, Part two, Some years
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 1: after my father's death. I was sitting by the dim
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 1: firelight in my library one January evening, sitting in the
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 1: leather chair that used to be my father's, when Bertha
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: appeared at the door with a candle in her hand
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: and advanced towards me. I knew the bal dress she
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: had on, the white bal dress with the green jewels
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: shone upon by the light of the wax candle, which
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 1: lit up the medallion of the dying Cleopatra on the mantelpiece.
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 1: Why did she come to me before going out? I
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 1: had not seen her in the library, which was my
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 1: habitual place for months. Why did she stand before me
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 1: with the candle in her hand, with her cruel, contemptuous
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 1: eyes fixed on me, and the glittering serpent like a
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 1: familiar demon, on her breast. For a moment, I thought,
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: this fulfillment of my vision at Vienna, marked some dreadful
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 1: crisis in my fate. But I saw nothing in Bertha's
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 1: mind as she stood before me except scorn for the
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 1: look of overwhelming misery with which I sat before her.
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: Fool idiot, Why don't you kill yourself? Then? That was
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: her thought? But at length her thoughts reverted to her errand,
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: and she spoke aloud. The apparently indifferent nature of the
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: errand seemed to make a ridiculous anticlimax to my prevision
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: and my agitation. I have had to hire a new maid.
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: Fletcher is going to be married, and she wants me
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: to ask you to let her husband have the public
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 1: house and farm at Molton. I wish him to have it.
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 1: You must give the promise now, because Fletcher is going
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: tomorrow morning, and quickly, because I am in a hurry.
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: Very well, you may promise her, I said indifferently, and
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: Bertha swept out of the library again. I always shrank
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 1: from the sight of a new person, and all the
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: more when it was a person whose mental life was
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 1: likely to weary my reluctant insight with worldly, ignorant trivialities.
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: But I shrank especially from the sight of this new
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 1: maid because her advent had been announced to me at
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 1: a moment to which I could not cease to attach
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 1: some fatality. I had a vague dread that I should
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: find her mixed up with the dreary drama of my life,
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: that some new, sickening vision would reveal her to me
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: as an evil genius. When at last I did unavoidably
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 1: meet her, the vague dread was changed into definite disgust.
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 1: She was a tall, wiry, dark eyed woman, this missus Archer,
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 1: with a face handsome enough to give her coarse, hard nature,
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: the odious finish of bold, self confident coquetry that was
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: enough to make me avoid her. Quite apart from the
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: contemptuous feeling with which she contemplated me, I seldom saw her,
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: but I perceived that she rapidly became a favorite with
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: her mistress, And after the lapse of eight or nine months,
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 1: I began to be aware that there had arisen in
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: Bertha's mind towards this woman a mingled feeling of fear
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 1: and dependence, and that this feeling was associated with ill
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 1: defined images of candle light scenes in her dressing room
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 1: and the locking up of something in Bertha's cabinet. My
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 1: interviews with my had become so brief and so rarely solitary,
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: that I had no opportunity of perceiving these images in
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: her mind with more definiteness. The recollections of the past
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 1: become contracted in the rapidity of thought, till they sometimes
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: bear hardly A more distinct resemblance to the external reality
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: than the forms of an oriental alphabet to the objects
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 1: that suggested them. Besides, for the last year or more,
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 1: a modification had been going forward in my mental condition,
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: and was growing more and more marked. My insight into
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 1: the minds of those around me was becoming dimmer and
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 1: more fitful, and the ideas that crowded my double consciousness
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: became less and less dependent on any personal contact. All
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 1: that was personal in me seemed to be suffering a
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 1: gradual death, so that I was losing the organ through
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 1: which the personal agitations and projects of others could affect me.
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: But along with this relief from wearisome insight, there was
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 1: a new development of what I concluded, as I have
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 1: since found rightly to be a prevision of external scenes.
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 1: It was as if the relation between me and my
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 1: fellow men was more and more deadened, and my relation
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 1: to what we call the inanimate was quickened into new life.
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: The more I lived apart from society, and in proportion
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: as my wretchedness subsided from the violent throb of agonized
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 1: passion into the dullness of habitual pain, the more frequent
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 1: and vivid became such visions as that I had had,
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 1: of prague, of strange cities, of sandy plains, of gigantic ruins,
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 1: of midnight skies with strange bright constellations, of mountain passes,
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 1: of grassy nooks flecked with the afternoon sunshine through the boughs.
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 1: I was in the midst of such scenes, and in
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 1: all of them, one presence seemed to weigh on me.
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 1: In all these mighty shapes, the presence of something unknown
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 1: and pitiless, For continual suffering had annihilated religious faith within me.
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 1: To the utterly miserable, the unloving and the unloved, there
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 1: is no religion possible, no worship but a worship of devils.
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 1: And beyond all these, and continually recurring, was the vision
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 1: of my death, the pangs, the suffocation, the last struggle,
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 1: when life would be grasped at in vain things were
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 1: in this state near the end of the seventh year.
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 1: I have become entirely free from insight, from my abnormal
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 1: cognizance of any other consciousness than my own, and instead
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 1: of intruding involuntarily into the world of other minds, was
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 1: living continually in my own solitary future. Bertha was aware
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: that I was greatly changed. To my surprise, she had
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 1: of late seemed to seek opportunity of remaining in my society,
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 1: and had cultivated that kind of distant yet familiar talk
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 1: which is customary between a husband and wife who live
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 1: in polite and irrevocable alienation. I bore this with languid submission,
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 1: and without feeling enough interest in her motives to be
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 1: roused into keen observation. Yet I could not help perceiving
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 1: something triumphant and excited in her carriage, and the expression
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 1: of her face, something too subtle to express itself in
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 1: words or tones, but giving one the idea that she
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 1: lived in a state of expectation or hopeful suspense. My
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 1: chief feeling was satisfaction that her inner self was once
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 1: more shut out from me, and I almost reveled for
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 1: the moment in the absent melancholy that made me answer
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 1: her at cross purposes and betray utter ignorance of what
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 1: she had been saying. I remember well the look and
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 1: the smile with which she one day said, after a
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: mistake of this kind on my part, I used to
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: think that you were a clairvoyant, and that was the
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 1: reason why you were so bitter against other clairvoyants, wanting
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 1: to keep your monopoly. But I see now that you
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 1: have become rather duller than the rest of the world.
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 1: I said nothing in reply. It occurred to me that
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: her recent obtrusion of herself upon me might have been
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 1: prompted by the wish to test my power of detecting
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 1: some of her secrets. But I let the thought drop again.
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 1: At once. Her motives and her deeds had no interest
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 1: for me, and whatever pleasures she might be seeking, I
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 1: had no wish to balk her. There was still pity
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 1: in my soul, for every living thing, and Bertha was
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 1: living was surrounded with possibilities of misery. Just at this
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 1: time there occurred an event which roused me somewhat from
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 1: my inertia and gave me an interest in the passing
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 1: moment that I had thought impossible for me. It was
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 1: a visit from Charles Manier, who had written me word
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 1: that he was coming to England for relaxation from two
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 1: strengus labour and would like to see me. Monnier had
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 1: now a European reputation, but his letter to me expressed
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 1: that keen remembrance of an early regard, an early debt
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 1: of sympathy, which is inseparable from nobility of character, And
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 1: I too felt as if his presence would be to
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 1: me like a transient resurrection into a happier pre existence.
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 1: He came, and as far as possible, I renewed our
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 1: old pleasure of making tete tete excursions, though instead of
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 1: mountains and glaciers and the wide blue lake, we had
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: to content ourselves with mere slopes and ponds and artificial plantations.
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 1: The years had changed us both, but with what different result.
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 1: Monier was now a brilliant figure in society, to whom
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 1: elegant women pretended to listen, and whose acquaintance was boasted
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 1: of by noblemen ambitious of brains. He repressed with the
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 1: utmost delicacy, all betrayal of the shock which I am
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 1: sure he must have received from our meeting, or of
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 1: a desire to penetrate into my condition and circumstances, and sought,
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 1: by the utmost exertion of his charming social powers, to
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 1: make our reunion agreeable. Bertha was much struck by the
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 1: unexpected fascinations of a visitor whom she had expected to
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 1: find presentable only on the score of his celebrity. And
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 1: put forth all her coquetries and accomplishments. Apparently she succeeded
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 1: in attracting his admiration, for his manner towards her was
• 1:43:34
  Speaker 1: attentive and flattering. The effect of his presence on me
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 1: was so benignant, especially in those renewals of our old
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 1: teta tete wanderings, when he poured forth to me wonderful
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 1: narratives of his professional experience, that more than once, when
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 1: his talk turned on the psychological relations of disease, the
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 1: thought crossed my mind that if his stay with me
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 1: were long enough, I might possibly bring myself to tell
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 1: this man the secrets of my lot. Might there not
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 1: lie some remedy for me too in his science? Might
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 1: there not at least lie some comprehension and sympathy ready
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 1: for me in his large and susceptible mind. But the
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 1: thought only flickered feebly now and then, and died out
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 1: before it could become a wish. The horror I had
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 1: of a game breaking in on the privacy of another
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 1: soul made me, by an irrational instinct, draw the shroud
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 1: of concealment more closely around my own as we automatically
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 1: perform the gesture we feel to be wanting in another.
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 1: When Monye's visit was approaching its conclusion, there happened an
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 1: event which caused some excitement in our household, owing to
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 1: the surprisingly strong effect it appeared to produce on Bertha.
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 1: On Bertha, the self possessed, who usually seemed inaccessible to
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 1: feminine agitations and did even her hate in a self restrained,
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 1: hygienic manner, this event was the sudden severe illness of
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 1: her maid, missus Archer. I have reserved to this moment
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 1: the mention of a circumstance which had forced itself on
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 1: my notice shortly before Monie's arrival, namely, that there had
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 1: been some quarrel between Bertha and this maid, apparently during
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 1: a visit to a distant family in which she had
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 1: accompanied her mistress. I had overheard Archer speaking in a
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 1: tone of bitter insolence, which I should have thought an
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 1: adequate reason for immediate dismissal. No dismissal followed. On the contrary,
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 1: Bertha seemed to be silently putting up with personal inconveniences.
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 1: From the exhibitions of this woman's temper, I was the
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 1: more astonished to observe that her illness seemed a cause
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 1: of strong solicitude to Bertha, that she was at the
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 1: bedside night and day, and would allow no one else
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 1: to officiate as head near. It happened that our family
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 1: doctor was out on a holiday, an accident which made
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 1: Monier's presence in the house doubly welcome, and he apparently
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 1: entered into the case with an interest which seemed so
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 1: much stronger than the ordinary professional feeling that one day,
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 1: when he had fallen into a long Fitteth silence after
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 1: visiting her, I said to him, is this a very
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 1: peculiar case of disease, Monie? No, he answered, it is
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 1: an attack of paraitonitis, which will be fatal, but which
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 1: does not differ physically from many other cases that have
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 1: come under my observation. But I'll tell you what I
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 1: have on my mind. I want to make an experiment
• 1:46:41
  Speaker 1: on this woman. If you will give me permission, It
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 1: can do her no harm, will give her no pain,
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 1: for I shall not make it until life is extinct
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 1: to all purposes of sensation. I want to try the
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 1: effect of transfusing blood into her archeries. After the heart
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 1: has ceased to beat for some minutes. I have tried
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 1: the experiment again and again with animals that have died
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 1: of this disease with astounding results, and I want to
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 1: try it on a human subject. I have the small
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 1: tubes necessary in a case I have with me, and
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 1: the rest of the apparatus could be prepared readily. I
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 1: should use my own blood, take it from my own arm.
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 1: This woman won't live through the night. I'm convinced, and
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 1: I want you to promise me your assistance in making
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 1: the experiment. I can't do without another hand. But it
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 1: would perhaps not be well to call in a medical
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 1: assistant from among your provincial doctors. A disagreeable, foolish version
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 1: of the thing might get abroad. Have you spoken to
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 1: my wife on the subject, I said, because she appears
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 1: to be peculiarly sensitive about this woman. She has been
• 1:47:46
  Speaker 1: a favorite maide to tell you the truth, said Monie,
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 1: I don't want her to know about it. There are
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 1: always insuperable difficulties with women in these matters, and the
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 1: effect on the supposed dead body may be startling. You
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 1: and I will sit up together and be in readiness.
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 1: When certain symptoms appear, I shall take you in, and
• 1:48:06
  Speaker 1: at the right moment we must manage to get every
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 1: one else out of the room. I need not give
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 1: our farther conversation on the subject. He entered very fully
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 1: into the details, and overcame my repulsion from them by
• 1:48:19
  Speaker 1: exciting in me a mingled awe and curiosity concerning the
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 1: possible results of his experiment. We prepared everything, and he
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 1: instructed me in my part as assistant. He had not
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 1: told Bertha of his absolute conviction that Archer would not
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 1: survive through the night, and endeavored to persuade her to
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 1: leave the patient and take a knight's rest. But she
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 1: was obstinate, suspecting the fact that death was at hand,
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 1: and supposing that he wished merely to save her nerves,
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 1: she refused to leave the sick room. Monnier and I
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 1: sat up together in the library, he making frequent visits
• 1:48:56
  Speaker 1: to the sick room and returning with the information that
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 1: the case was taken king precisely the course he expected.
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 1: Once he said to me, can you imagine any cause
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 1: of ill feeling this woman has against her mistress, who
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 1: is so devoted to her. I think there was some
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 1: misunderstanding between them before her illness. Why do you ask?
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 1: Because I have observed for the last five or six hours,
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 1: since I fancy she has lost all hope of recovery.
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 1: There seems to be a strange prompting in her to
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 1: say something which pain and failing strength forbid her to utter.
• 1:49:32
  Speaker 1: And there is a look of hideous meaning in her eyes,
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 1: which she turns continually towards her mistress. In this disease,
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 1: the mind often remains singularly clear to the last. I
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 1: am not surprised at an indication of malevolent feeling in her,
• 1:49:49
  Speaker 1: I said, she is a woman who has always inspired
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 1: me with distrust and dislike, but she managed to insinuate
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 1: herself into her mistress's favor. He was silent after this,
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 1: looking at the fire with an air of absorption, till
• 1:50:03
  Speaker 1: he went upstairs again. He stayed away longer than usual,
• 1:50:07
  Speaker 1: and on returning, said to me quietly, come now. I
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 1: followed him to the chamber where death was hovering. The
• 1:50:15
  Speaker 1: dark hangings of the large bed made a background that
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 1: gave a strong relief to Bertha's pale face. As I entered.
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 1: She started forward as she saw me enter, and then
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 1: looked at Manie with an expression of angry inquiry. But
• 1:50:29
  Speaker 1: he lifted up his hand as if to impose silence
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 1: while he fixed his glance on the dying woman and
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 1: felt her pulse. The face was pinched and ghastly. A
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 1: cold perspiration was on the forehead, and the eyelids were
• 1:50:43
  Speaker 1: lowered so as to conceal the large, dark eyes. After
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 1: a minute or two, Monie walked round to the other
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 1: side of the bed where Bertha stood, and with his
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 1: usual air of gentle politeness towards her, begged her to
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 1: leave the patient under our care. Everything should be done
• 1:51:01
  Speaker 1: for her. She was no longer in the state to
• 1:51:03
  Speaker 1: be conscious of an affectionate presence. Bertha was hesitating, apparently
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 1: almost willing to believe his assurance and to comply. She
• 1:51:12
  Speaker 1: looked round at the ghastly dying face as if to
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 1: read the confirmation of that assurance, when for a moment
• 1:51:19
  Speaker 1: the lowered eyelids were raised again, and it seemed as
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 1: if the eyes were looking towards Bertha, but blankly. A
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 1: shudder passed through Bertha's frame, and she returned to her
• 1:51:30
  Speaker 1: station near the pillow, tacitly, implying that she would not
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 1: leave the room. The eyelids were lifted no more. Once
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 1: I looked at Bertha as she watched the face of
• 1:51:43
  Speaker 1: the dying one. She wore a rich pennoir, and her
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 1: blond hair was half covered by a lace cap. In
• 1:51:50
  Speaker 1: her attire, she was, as always an elegant woman, fit
• 1:51:54
  Speaker 1: to figure in a picture of modern aristocratic life. But
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 1: I asked myself how that face of hers could ever
• 1:52:02
  Speaker 1: have seemed to me the face of a woman born
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 1: of woman with memories of childhood, capable of pain, needing
• 1:52:09
  Speaker 1: to be fondled. The features at that moment seemed so
• 1:52:13
  Speaker 1: preternaturally sharp. The eyes were so hard and eager. She
• 1:52:19
  Speaker 1: looked like a cruel immortal finding her spiritual feast in
• 1:52:24
  Speaker 1: the agonies of a dying race. For across those hard
• 1:52:28
  Speaker 1: features there came something like a flash, when the last
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 1: hour had been breathed out, and we all felt that
• 1:52:35
  Speaker 1: the dark veil had completely fallen. What secret was there
• 1:52:40
  Speaker 1: between Bertha and this woman? I turned my eyes from
• 1:52:44
  Speaker 1: her with a horrible dread, lest my insight should return
• 1:52:49
  Speaker 1: and I should be obliged to see what had been
• 1:52:51
  Speaker 1: breeding about two unloving women's hearts. I felt that Bertha
• 1:52:56
  Speaker 1: had been watching for the moment of death as the
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 1: ceiling of her secret. I thanked heaven it could remain
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 1: sealed for me. Monie said quietly, she is gone. He
• 1:53:10
  Speaker 1: then gave his arm to Bertha, and she submitted to
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 1: be led out of the room. I suppose it was
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 1: at her order that two female attendants came into the
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 1: room and dismissed the younger one who had been present before.
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 1: When they entered, Manie had already opened the artery in
• 1:53:26
  Speaker 1: the long thin neck that lay rigid on the pillow,
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 1: and I dismissed them, ordering them to remain at a
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 1: distance till we rang. The doctor, I said, had an
• 1:53:37
  Speaker 1: operation to perform. He was not sure about the death.
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 1: For the next twenty minutes, I forgot everything but Manier
• 1:53:45
  Speaker 1: and the experiment in which he was so absorbed that
• 1:53:48
  Speaker 1: I think his senses would have been closed against all
• 1:53:50
  Speaker 1: sounds or sights which had no relation to it. It
• 1:53:54
  Speaker 1: was my task at first to keep up the artificial
• 1:53:57
  Speaker 1: respiration in the body after the transfusion had had been effected.
• 1:54:01
  Speaker 1: But presently Monie relieved me, and I could see the
• 1:54:04
  Speaker 1: wondrous slow return of life. The breast began to heave,
• 1:54:09
  Speaker 1: the inspirations became stronger, the eyelids quivered, and the soul
• 1:54:14
  Speaker 1: seemed to have returned beneath them. The artificial respiration was withdrawn. Still,
• 1:54:20
  Speaker 1: the breathing continued, and there was a movement of the lips.
• 1:54:25
  Speaker 1: Just then I heard the handle of the door moving.
• 1:54:28
  Speaker 1: I supposed Bertha had heard from the women that they
• 1:54:30
  Speaker 1: had been dismissed. Probably a vague fear had arisen in
• 1:54:34
  Speaker 1: her mind, for she entered with a look of alarm.
• 1:54:37
  Speaker 1: She came to the foot of the bed and gave
• 1:54:39
  Speaker 1: a stifled cry. The dead woman's eyes were wide open
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 1: and met hers in full recognition, the recognition of hate.
• 1:54:50
  Speaker 1: With a sudden, strong effort, the hand that Bertha had
• 1:54:53
  Speaker 1: thought forever still was pointed towards her, and the haggard
• 1:54:57
  Speaker 1: face moved. The gasping, eager voice said, you mean to
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 1: poison your husband. The poison is in the black cabinet.
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 1: I got it for you.
• 1:55:13
  Speaker 2: You laughed at me and told lies about me behind
• 1:55:17
  Speaker 2: my back, to make me disgusting because you were jealous.
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 1: Are you sorry now? The lips continued to murmur, but
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 1: the sounds were no longer distinct. Soon there was no sound,
• 1:55:35
  Speaker 1: only a slight movement. The flame had leaped out and
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 1: was being extinguished. The faster the wretched woman's heart strings
• 1:55:45
  Speaker 1: had been set to hatred and vengeance. The spirit of
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 1: life had swept the chords for an instant and was
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 1: gone again forever. Great God, is this what it is
• 1:55:58
  Speaker 1: to live again? To wake up with our unstilled thirst
• 1:56:03
  Speaker 1: upon us, with our unuttered curses rising to our lips,
• 1:56:07
  Speaker 1: with our muscles ready to act out their half committed sins.
• 1:56:12
  Speaker 1: Bertha stood pale at the foot of the bed, quivering
• 1:56:15
  Speaker 1: and helpless, despairing of devices, like a cunning animal whose
• 1:56:20
  Speaker 1: hiding places are surrounded by swift, advancing flame. Even Monnier
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 1: looked paralyzed life for that moment ceased to be a
• 1:56:30
  Speaker 1: scientific problem to him. As for me, this scene seemed
• 1:56:35
  Speaker 1: of one texture with the rest of my existence. Horror
• 1:56:39
  Speaker 1: was my familiar, and this new revelation was only like
• 1:56:43
  Speaker 1: an old pain recurring with new circumstances. Since then, Bertha
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 1: and I have lived apart, she in her own neighborhood,
• 1:56:54
  Speaker 1: the mistress of half our wealth, I as a wanderer
• 1:56:58
  Speaker 1: in foreign countries, until I came to this Devonshire nest
• 1:57:02
  Speaker 1: to die. Bertha lives pitied and admired for what had
• 1:57:07
  Speaker 1: I against that charming woman whom everyone but myself could
• 1:57:12
  Speaker 1: have been happy with. There had been no witness of
• 1:57:14
  Speaker 1: the scene in the dying room except Mane, And while
• 1:57:18
  Speaker 1: Munie lived, his lips were sealed by a promise to
• 1:57:21
  Speaker 1: me once or twice. Weary of wandering, I rested in
• 1:57:26
  Speaker 1: a favorite spot, and my heart went out towards the
• 1:57:29
  Speaker 1: men and women and children whose faces were becoming familiar
• 1:57:33
  Speaker 1: to me. But I was driven away again in terror
• 1:57:38
  Speaker 1: at the approach of my old insight, driven away to
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 1: live continually with the one unknown presence, revealed and yet
• 1:57:47
  Speaker 1: hidden by the moving curtain of the earth and sky,
• 1:57:51
  Speaker 1: till at last disease took hold of me and forced
• 1:57:55
  Speaker 1: me to rest here, forced me to live in dependence
• 1:57:59
  Speaker 1: on my servant. And then the curse of insight, of
• 1:58:03
  Speaker 1: my double consciousness, came again and has never left me.
• 1:58:09
  Speaker 1: I know all their narrow thoughts, their feeble regard, their
• 1:58:13
  Speaker 1: half wearied pity. It is the twentieth of September eighteen fifty.
• 1:58:21
  Speaker 1: I know these figures I have just written, as if
• 1:58:24
  Speaker 1: they were a long familiar inscription. I have seen them
• 1:58:28
  Speaker 1: on this page in my desk, unnumbered times, when the
• 1:58:33
  Speaker 1: scene of my dying struggle has opened upon me. End
• 1:58:39
  Speaker 1: of Chapter two. End of the Lifted Veil by George
• 1:58:44
  Speaker 1: Eliot