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The Passionate Friends Chapter 11 - The Last Meeting Parts 7-12 · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Chapter eleven, Part seven to twelve of The Passionate Friends
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  Speaker 1: by H. G. Wells. This LibriVox recording is in the
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  Speaker 1: public domain recording by Peter Eastman, Chapter the eleventh, The
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  Speaker 1: Last Meeting seven. I lay at the milk say Inn
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  Speaker 1: that night, and rose betimes and started down that wild
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  Speaker 1: gray gorge in the early morning light. I walked to Zaksen,
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  Speaker 1: caught an early train to Lucerne, and went on in
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  Speaker 1: the afternoon Toucomo. And there I stayed in the sunshine,
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  Speaker 1: taking a boat and rowing alone far up the lake,
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  Speaker 1: and lying in it, thinking of love and friendship and
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  Speaker 1: the accidents and significance of my life, and for the
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  Speaker 1: most part not thinking at all, but feeling, feeling the
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  Speaker 1: glow of our meeting and the finality of our separation,
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  Speaker 1: as one feels the clear glow of a sunset when
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  Speaker 1: the wind rises and the cold night air draws near.
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  Speaker 1: Everything was pervaded by the sense of her just over
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  Speaker 1: those mountains, I thought, is Mary. I was alone in
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  Speaker 1: my boat, but her presence filled the sky. It seemed
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  Speaker 1: to me that at any moment I could go to her,
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  Speaker 1: and the last vestige of any cloud between us for
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  Speaker 1: anything we had done or failed to do in those
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  Speaker 1: crises of distress and separation had vanished and gone altogether.
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  Speaker 1: In the afternoon, I wrote to Rachel. I had not
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  Speaker 1: ridden to her for three days, and even now I
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  Speaker 1: told her nothing of my meeting with Mary. I had
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  Speaker 1: not ridden partly because I could not decide whether I
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  Speaker 1: should tell her of that or not. In the end
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  Speaker 1: I tried to hide it from her. It seemed a
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  Speaker 1: little thing in regard to her, a thing that could
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  Speaker 1: not hurt her, a thing as detached from her life,
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  Speaker 1: and as inconsecutive as a dream in my head. Three
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  Speaker 1: days later I reached Milan, a day before the formal
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  Speaker 1: opening of the Peace Congress. But I found a telegram
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  Speaker 1: had come that morning to the post Astante to banish
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  Speaker 1: all thought of my pacific mission from my mind. It
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  Speaker 1: came from Paris, and its blue ribbon of text ran
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  Speaker 1: come back at once to London. Justin has been told
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  Speaker 1: of our meeting and is resolved upon divorce. Will do
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  Speaker 1: all in my power to explain and avert. But feel
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  Speaker 1: you should know at once there are some things so
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  Speaker 1: monstrously destructive to all we hold dear that for a
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  Speaker 1: time it is impossible to believe them. I remember now
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  Speaker 1: that as I read that amazing communication through. At the
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  Speaker 1: first reading, it was a little difficult to understand because
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  Speaker 1: the Italian operator had guessed at one or two of
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  Speaker 1: the words. No real sense of its meaning came to me.
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  Speaker 1: That followed sluggishly. I felt as one might feel when
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  Speaker 1: one opened some offensive anonymous letter or hear some preposterous threat.
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  Speaker 1: What nonsense, I said, fainththeartedly. I stood for a time
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  Speaker 1: at my bedroom window, trying to shake this fact altogether
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  Speaker 1: off my mind. But it stayed and became more and
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  Speaker 1: more real. Suddenly, with a start, I perceived it was real.
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  Speaker 1: I had to do things forthwith. I rang the bell
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  Speaker 1: and asked for an orario. I shan't want these rooms.
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  Speaker 1: I have to go back to England, I said, yes,
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  Speaker 1: I have had bad news. Eight. We've only got to explain.
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  Speaker 1: I told myself a hundred times during that long sleepless journey.
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  Speaker 1: The thundering wheel so close beneath my head echoed, explain, Oh, yes, explain, explain, explain,
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  Speaker 1: And something a voice to which I would not listen, urged,
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  Speaker 1: suppose they do not choose to believe what you explain.
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  Speaker 1: When I sat face to face with Maxwell Hardington, my solicitor,
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  Speaker 1: in his ink splashed, dirty yellow grained room with its
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  Speaker 1: rows of black tin boxes. I could no longer ignore
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  Speaker 1: that possibility. Maxwell Hardington sat back in his chair after
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  Speaker 1: his fashion, listening to my story, breathing noisily through his
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  Speaker 1: open mouth, perspiring little beads, and looking more out of
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  Speaker 1: condition than ever. I never knew a man so wine,
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  Speaker 1: sodden and so sharp witted. That's all very well, Stratton,
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  Speaker 1: he said, between ourselves, very unfortunate and all that sort
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  Speaker 1: of thing. But it doesn't satisfy justin evidently, and we've
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  Speaker 1: got to put a different look on it, if we can,
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  Speaker 1: before you go before a jury. You see, he seemed
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  Speaker 1: to be considering and rejecting unpalatable phrases. They won't understand,
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  Speaker 1: But I said, after all, I'm your chance of the
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  Speaker 1: same hotel. There must be more evidence than that you
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  Speaker 1: spent the night in adjacent rooms, he said, dryly, adjacented rooms,
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  Speaker 1: I cried. He regarded me for a moment with something
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  Speaker 1: bordering on admiration. Didn't you know, he said, No, they've
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  Speaker 1: routed that out. You were sleeping with your two heads
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  Speaker 1: within a yard of one another. Anyhow, thirty six you
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  Speaker 1: had and she had thirty seven, But I said and stopped.
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  Speaker 1: Maxwell Hardington's admiration gave place, I think, to a slight
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  Speaker 1: resentment at my sustained innocence. And Lady Mary changed rooms
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  Speaker 1: with her secretary two nights before to be near the
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  Speaker 1: vacant room. The secretary went into number twelve, on the
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  Speaker 1: floor below a larger room at thirteen francs a day,
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  Speaker 1: and when not exposed to the early daylight, he turned
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  Speaker 1: over a paper on his desk. You didn't know, of course,
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  Speaker 1: he said, But what I want to have, and his
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  Speaker 1: voice grew wrathful, is sure evidence that you didn't know.
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  Speaker 1: No jury on earth is going to believe you didn't
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  Speaker 1: know no jury why his mask dropped. No man on
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  Speaker 1: earth is going to be leave a yarn like that
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  Speaker 1: if that's all you have. Stratton nine, Our London house
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  Speaker 1: was not shut up. Two servants were there on board
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  Speaker 1: wages against the possibility of such a temporary return as
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  Speaker 1: I was now making. Rachel was away with you three
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  Speaker 1: children at Cromingham. I had not told her I was
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  Speaker 1: returning to London, and I had put up at one
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  Speaker 1: of my clubs until I had had a second interview
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  Speaker 1: with Maxwell Hardington. I still would not let myself think
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  Speaker 1: that it was possible that Mary and I would fail
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  Speaker 1: with our explanations. We had the common confidence of habitually
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  Speaker 1: unchallenged people that our word would be accepted. I had hoped, indeed,
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  Speaker 1: to get the whole affair settled and abolished without anything
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  Speaker 1: of it coming to Rachel's ears. Then at my leisure,
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  Speaker 1: I should be able to tell her exactly how things
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  Speaker 1: had come about. But each day made it clearer that
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  Speaker 1: things were not going to be settled, that the monstrous
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  Speaker 1: and the incredible was going to happen, and that Justin
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  Speaker 1: had set his mind implacably upon a divorce. My sense
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  Speaker 1: of complete innocence had already been shaken by Maxwell Hardington.
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  Speaker 1: I had come to perceive that we had been amazingly indiscreet.
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  Speaker 1: I was beginning to think we had been criminally indiscreet.
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  Speaker 1: I saw Maxwell Hardington for a second time, and it
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  Speaker 1: became clear to me I must abandon any hope of
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  Speaker 1: keeping things further from Rachel. I took my luggage round
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  Speaker 1: to my house, to the great astonishment of the two servants.
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  Speaker 1: They had supposed, of course, that I was in Italy.
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  Speaker 1: And then went down on the heels of a telegram
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  Speaker 1: to Rachel. I forget the wording of that telegram, but
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  Speaker 1: it was as little alarming as possible. I think I
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  Speaker 1: said something about back in London for documents, shall try
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  Speaker 1: to get down to you. I did not spesci any
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  Speaker 1: particular train, or indeed state definitely that I was coming
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  Speaker 1: that day. I had never been to Cromingham before I
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  Speaker 1: went to the house you occupied on the esplanade and
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  Speaker 1: learnt that you were all upon the beach. I walked
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  Speaker 1: along the sea wall, scrutinizing the various bright groups of
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  Speaker 1: children and nursemaids and holiday people that were scattered over
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  Speaker 1: the sands. It was a day of blazing sunshine, and
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  Speaker 1: between the bright sky and the silver drabs of the
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  Speaker 1: sand stretched the low levels of a sea that had
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  Speaker 1: its customary green gray, touched for once with something of
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  Speaker 1: the sapphire glow of the Mediterranean. Here and there were
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  Speaker 1: gay little umbrella tents or canvas shelters, and a bather
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  Speaker 1: or so, and pink and white waiting children broke the
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  Speaker 1: dazzling edge of foam. And I sought you with a
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  Speaker 1: kind of reluctance, as though finding you would bring nearer
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  Speaker 1: the black, irrational disaster that hung over us all. And
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  Speaker 1: when I found you at last, you were all radiantly
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  Speaker 1: happy and healthy, the prettiest of families, and only your
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  Speaker 1: mother was touched with any gravity deeper than the joy
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  Speaker 1: of sunshine and sea. You and Mademoiselle putin in those days,
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  Speaker 1: her ministrations were just beginning, were busy constructing a great
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  Speaker 1: sea wall that should really and truly stop the advancing tide. Rachel,
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  Speaker 1: too was a little apart, making with infinite contentment, an
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  Speaker 1: endless multitude of conical sand pies. With her little tin pail. Margaret,
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  Speaker 1: a pink inarticulate lump, scrabbled in the warm sand under
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  Speaker 1: Jessica's care for Mother sat and watched you thoughtfully, and
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  Speaker 1: before any of you knew that I was there, the
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  Speaker 1: shadow fell across you. All. You accepted my appearance when
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  Speaker 1: I ought to have been in Italy, with the unquestioning
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  Speaker 1: confidence with which you still take all my comings and goings.
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  Speaker 1: For you, Italy, America, any places just round the corner.
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  Speaker 1: I was kissed with affection but haste, and you got
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  Speaker 1: back to your sand works as speedily as possible. I
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  Speaker 1: inspected Rachel two's mounds. She was giving them the names
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  Speaker 1: of her various aunts and uncles, and patted the crowing Margaret,
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  Speaker 1: who ignored me. Rachel had sprung to her feet and
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  Speaker 1: kissed me, and now hovered radiant over me as I
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  Speaker 1: caressed you youngsters. It was all so warm, so real,
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  Speaker 1: that for an instant, the dark threat that hung over
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  Speaker 1: us all vanished from my skies, to return with the
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  Speaker 1: force of a blow. And what has brought you back?
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  Speaker 1: Said Rachel? I had expected a month of widowhood? What
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  Speaker 1: can have brought you back? The dancing gladness in her
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  Speaker 1: eyes vanished swiftly as she waited for an answer to
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  Speaker 1: her question. She caught the note of tragedy from my face.
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  Speaker 1: Why have you come back from Italy? She asked in
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  Speaker 1: an altered voice. Rachel I said, taking her arm, with
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  Speaker 1: a desolating sense of the futility and my gesture of protection,
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  Speaker 1: let us walk along the beach. I want to tell
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  Speaker 1: you something, something rather complicated. Is there going to be war, Stephen,
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  Speaker 1: she asked abruptly. It seemed then that this question, which
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  Speaker 1: merely concerned the welfare of a hundred million people or so,
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  Speaker 1: and pain, destruction and disaster, beyond measure was the most
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  Speaker 1: trivial of digressions. No, I said, I haven't thought about
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  Speaker 1: the war, but I thought you were thinking of nothing else.
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  Speaker 1: This has put it out of my head. It's something
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  Speaker 1: something disastrous to us. Something has happened to our money.
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  Speaker 1: I wish that was all. Then what is it? Her
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  Speaker 1: mind flashed out. It has something to do with Mary, Justin,
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  Speaker 1: how did you know that? I guessed, Well, it is you.
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  Speaker 1: See in Switzerland we met. You met by accident. She
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  Speaker 1: had been staying at the hotel on Excellent Alp. You
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  Speaker 1: slept there, cried Rachel. I didn't know she was in
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  Speaker 1: the hotel until the next day, and then you came
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  Speaker 1: away that day. But you talked together. Yes, and for
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  Speaker 1: some reason you never told me Stephen. You never told
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  Speaker 1: and you met. But why is this disaster? Because Justin knows,
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  Speaker 1: and he means to divorce her, and it may be
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  Speaker 1: he will succeed. Rachel's face had become white for some time.
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  Speaker 1: She said nothing, then slowly, and if he had not
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  Speaker 1: known and done that, I should never have known. I
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  Speaker 1: had no answer to make to that. It was true.
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  Speaker 1: Rachel's face was very still, and her eyes stared at
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  Speaker 1: the situation laid bare to her when you began. She
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  Speaker 1: choked presently when she wrote, I knew. I felt. She
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  Speaker 1: ceased for fear she might weep, And for a time
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  Speaker 1: we walked in silence. I suppose she said, desperately, at
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  Speaker 1: last he will get his divorce. I am afraid he will.
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  Speaker 1: There's no evidence you didn't. No, and I never treamt
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  Speaker 1: Then her passion tore at her. Stephen, my dear, she wept.
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  Speaker 1: You didn't. You didn't, Stephen, Indeed you didn't, did you.
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  Speaker 1: You kept faith with me as a husband should. It
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  Speaker 1: was an accident, a real accident, and there was no
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  Speaker 1: planning for you to meet together. It was as you say,
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  Speaker 1: I've never doubted your word ever, I've never doubted you
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  Speaker 1: well at any rate. I could answer that plainly, and
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  Speaker 1: I did. And you know, Stephen, she said, I believe you,
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  Speaker 1: and I can't believe you. My heart is tormented. Why
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  Speaker 1: did you write to her? Why did you to write
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  Speaker 1: and go on writing? And why did you tell me
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  Speaker 1: nothing of that meeting. I believe you because I can't
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  Speaker 1: do anything but believe you. It would kill me not
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  Speaker 1: to believe you in a thing that came so near
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  Speaker 1: to us and yet there it is like a knife
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  Speaker 1: being twisted in my heart that you met. Should I
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  Speaker 1: have known of your meeting, Stephen. Ever, I know I'm
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  Speaker 1: talking badly for you, but this thing strikes me suddenly
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  Speaker 1: out of this clear, beautiful sky and the children there,
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  Speaker 1: so happy in the sunshine. I was so happy, so
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  Speaker 1: happy with you coming. It will mean shames and law,
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  Speaker 1: courts and newspapers, losses of friends, losses of money and freedom,
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  Speaker 1: my mother and my people and you and all the
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  Speaker 1: work you do. People will never forget it, never forgive it.
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  Speaker 1: They will say, you promised. If she had never ridden,
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  Speaker 1: if she had kept to her bargain, we should still
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  Speaker 1: have met Stephen. Stephen, you must bear with me. This
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  Speaker 1: is a thing I said that falls, as you say,
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  Speaker 1: out of the sky. It seemed so natural for her
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  Speaker 1: to write, and the meeting. It is like some tremendous
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  Speaker 1: disaster of nature. I do not feel I have deserved it.
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  Speaker 1: It is irrational, But there it is, little Rachel of
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  Speaker 1: my heart, and we have to face it. Whatever happens,
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  Speaker 1: we have to go on. It doesn't alter the work
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  Speaker 1: we have to do. If it clips our wings, we
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  Speaker 1: have to hop along with clipped wings for you. I
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  Speaker 1: wish it could spare you and she, she too is
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  Speaker 1: a victim Rachel. She need not have written, said Rachel,
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  Speaker 1: need not have written. And then if you had met,
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  Speaker 1: she could not go on with that. It is so hard,
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  Speaker 1: I said to ask you to be just to her
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  Speaker 1: and me. I wish I could have come to you
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  Speaker 1: and married you without all that legacy of things remembered.
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  Speaker 1: I was what I was. One can't shake off a
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  Speaker 1: thing in one's blood. And besides, besides, I stopped helplessly
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  Speaker 1: ten and then Mary came herself to tell me there
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  Speaker 1: would be no divorce. She came to me unexpectedly. I
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  Speaker 1: had returned to town that evening, and next morning, as I
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: was sitting down in my study to answer some unimportant questions,
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  Speaker 1: Maxwell Hardington had sent me, my parlor maid appeared. Can
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  Speaker 1: you speak, she asked to lady Mary. Justin I stood
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  Speaker 1: up to receive my visitor. She came in a tall,
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  Speaker 1: dark figure and stood facing me in silence until the
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  Speaker 1: door had closed behind her. Her face was white and
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  Speaker 1: drawn and very grave. She stooped a little. I could
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  Speaker 1: see she had had no sleep. Never before had I
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  Speaker 1: seen her face marked by pain, and she hesitated my dear,
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  Speaker 1: I said, why have you come to me? I put
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  Speaker 1: a chair for her, and she sat down. For a moment.
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  Speaker 1: She controlled herself with difficulty. She put her hand over
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  Speaker 1: her eyes. She seemed on the verge of bitter weeping.
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  Speaker 1: I came, she said, at last, I came. I had
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  Speaker 1: to come to see you. I sat down in a
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  Speaker 1: chair beside her. It wasn't wise, I said, But never mind,
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  Speaker 1: you look so tired, my dear. She sat quite still
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  Speaker 1: for a little while. Then she moved her arm as
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  Speaker 1: though she felt for me blindly. And I put my
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  Speaker 1: arms about her and drew her head to my shoulder,
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  Speaker 1: and she wept. I knew she sobbed if I came
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  Speaker 1: to you. Presently her weeping was over. Get me a
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  Speaker 1: little cold water, Stephen, she said, Let me have a
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  Speaker 1: little cold water on my face. I've got my courage
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  Speaker 1: now again. Just then I was down too low. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: cold water, because I want to tell you things. You
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  Speaker 1: will be glad to hear. You, see, Stephen, she said,
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  Speaker 1: And now all her self possession had returned. There mustn't
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  Speaker 1: be a divorce. I thought it all out. And there
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  Speaker 1: needn't be a divorce, needn't be no what do you
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  Speaker 1: mean I can stop it? But how I can stop it,
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  Speaker 1: I can manage, I can make a bargain. It's very sweet,
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  Speaker 1: dear Stephen, to be here talking to you again. She
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  Speaker 1: stood up. Sit at your desk, my dear, she said,
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  Speaker 1: I'm all right now. That water was good, how good
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  Speaker 1: cold things can be. Sit down at your desk and
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  Speaker 1: let me sit here, and then I will talk to you.
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  Speaker 1: I've had such a time, my dear. Ah. She paused
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  Speaker 1: and stuck her elbows on the desk and looked me
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  Speaker 1: in the eyes, and suddenly that sweet, frank smile of
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  Speaker 1: hers swept like sunshine across the wintry desolation of her face.
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  Speaker 1: We've both been having a time, she said, This odd
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  Speaker 1: little world, it's battered us with its fists for such
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  Speaker 1: a little and we were both so ridiculously happy. Do
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  Speaker 1: you remember it? The rocks and the sunshine, and all
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  Speaker 1: those twisted and tangled little plants, and how the boat
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  Speaker 1: leaked and you bailed it out, and the parting, and
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  Speaker 1: how you trudged up that winding path away from me,
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  Speaker 1: a gray figure that stopped and waved, a little figure,
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  Speaker 1: such a virtuous figure. And then this storm, this awful hullaballoo, lawyers, curses, threats,
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  Speaker 1: and Stella Summersley satchel like a fury of denunciation. What
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  Speaker 1: hatred that woman has hidden from me? It must have accumulated.
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  Speaker 1: It's terrible to think, Stephen, how much I must have
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  Speaker 1: tried her. Oh how far away those alps are now, Stephen,
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  Speaker 1: like something in another life. And here we are among
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  Speaker 1: the consequences. But you are saying we could stop the divorce.
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  Speaker 1: Yes we can. I can, But I wanted to see
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  Speaker 1: you before I did. Somehow I don't feel lonely with you.
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  Speaker 1: I had to see you. It's good to see you.
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  Speaker 1: She looked me in the face, her tired eyes lit
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  Speaker 1: with a gleam of her former humor. Have you thought,
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  Speaker 1: she asked, of all that will happen if there is
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  Speaker 1: a divorce, I mean to fight every bit of it.
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  Speaker 1: They'll beat you. We'll see that, but they will. And
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: then why should one meet disaster half way? Stephen? She said?
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  Speaker 1: What will happen to you when I am not here
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  Speaker 1: to make you look at things? Because I shan't be here,
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: not within reach of you. There are times when I
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: feel like a mother to you, never more than now,
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: And then with rapid touches. She began to picture the
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: disaster before me. She pictured the court and her ineffectual denials.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: She made me realize the storm of hostility that was
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: bound to burst over us. And think of me, she said, stripped.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: I shall be an outcast, not while I live. But
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: what can you do for me? You will have Rachel?
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: How can you stand by me? You can't be cruel
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: to Rachel. You know you can't be cruel to Rachael.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: Look me in the face, even tell me yes? Then
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: how can you stand by me? Somehow? I cried foolishly
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: and stopped. They'll use me to break your back with costs,
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: and damna, there'll be those children of yours to think of?
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: My God, I cried aloud, Why do you torment me?
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: Haven't I thought enough of those things? Haven't I seen
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: the ruin and the shame, the hopeless trap, Men's trust
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: in me gone? My work scattered and ended again, My
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: children growing up to hear this and that exaggeration of
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: our story, and you, all the bravery of your life
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: scattered and wasted. The thing will pursue us, all cling
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: to us. It will be all the rest of our
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: lives for us I covered my face with my hands.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: When I looked up, her face was white and still
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: and full of a strange tenderness. I wouldn't have you, Stephen,
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't have you be cruel to Rachel. I just
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: wanted to know something. But we're wandering. We're talking nonsense.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: Because as I said, there need be no divorce. There
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: will be no divorce at all. That's what I came
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: to tell you. I shall have to pay in a way, Stephen,
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: not impossibly. Don't think it is anything impossible. Then she
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: bit her lips and sat still. My dear, I whispered,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: if we had taken one another at the beginning, But
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: she went on with her own thoughts. You love those
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: little children of yours, she said, and that trusting girl wife,
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: of course you love them. They're yours. Oh, they're so
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: deeply yours, yours. Oh, my dear, don't torture me. I
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: do love them, but I love you too. No, she said,
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: not as you do them. I made a movement of protest. No,
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: she said, whitely, radiant, with a serenity I had never
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: seen before in her face. You love me with your brain,
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: with your soul, if you like, I know my poor
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: bleeding Stephen. Aren't those tears there? Don't mind my seeing them? Stephen,
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: poor dear, poor dear, you love them with your inmost heart.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: Why should you mind that I see you do? All
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: my life I've been wrong, Stephen, And now I know
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: too late. It's the things we own, we love, the
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: things we buy with our lives. Always I have been hard.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: I've been a little hard, Stephen, my dear. I loved
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: you always. I have loved you, and always I have
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: tried to keep myself. It's too late. I don't know
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: why I am talking like this. But you see I
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: can make a bargain now, It's not an impossible bargain
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: and save you, and save your wife, and save your children.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: But how, I said, still doubting. Never mind how Stephen,
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: don't ask me how now? Nothing very difficult, easy. But
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: I shall write you no more letters, see you no
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: more never. And that's why I had to come you,
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: see why I was able to come to you, just
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: to see you and say good bye to you and
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: take leave of you, dear love that I threw away
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: and loved too late. She bit her lip and faced
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: me there, a sweet, flushed living thing with a tear
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: coursing down her cheek and her mouth now firm and steady.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: You can stop this divorce, I said, but how, Mary, No,
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: don't ask me how. At a price it's a bargain. No, no,
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: don't think that a bargain with Justin, but not degrading. Don't,
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: my dear, let the thought of it distress you. I
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: have to give earnests. Never, Dear, Never through all the
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: dusty rest of life again, will you and I speak together, Never,
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: even if we come face to face once more. No word, Mary,
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: I said, what is it you have to do? You
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: speak as if what is it? Justin demands, No, do
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: not ask me that. Tell me you see, we've so
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: much to talk about, Stephen. Tell me of all you
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: are going to do everything, because I've got to make
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: a great vow of renunciation of you. Not to think again,
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: not even to think of you again. No, no, I'm
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: not even to look for you in the papers any more.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: There's to be no tricks this time. And so you see,
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: I want to fill up my mind with you, to
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: store myself with you. Tell me your work is worth it,
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: that it's not like the work of everyone. Tell me,
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: Stephen that I want to believe that tremendously. Don't be modest,
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: now that will be cruel. I want to believe that
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: I am at last to do something that is worth doing,
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: something not fruitless. Are you to go into seclusion? I
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: asked suddenly, to be a nun. It is something like that.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: She said, very like that. But I have promised practically
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: not to tell you that. Tell me your soul, Stephen.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Now give me something I may keep in my mind
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: through through all those years of waiting. But where I cried?
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: What years of waiting? In a lonely place, my dear,
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: among mountains high and far away, very beautiful, but lonely,
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: a lake, great rocks, Yes, like that place, so odd.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: I shall have so much time to think, and I
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: shall have no papers, no news. I mustn't talk to
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: you of that. Don't let me talk to you of that.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: I want to hear about this world, this world I
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: am going to leave, And how you think you are
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: going on? Fighting in the hot and dusty struggle to
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: make the world cool and kind and reasonable, to train
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: minds better, to broaden ideas. All those things you believe in,
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: all those things you believe in and stick to even
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: when they are dull. Now I am leaving it. I
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: begin to see how fine it is to fight as
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: you want to fight, a tiresome, inglorious, life long fight,
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: you really believe, Stephen eleven. And then suddenly I read
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: her purpose. Mary I cried, and stood up and laid
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: my hand upon her arm. Tell me what it is
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: you mean to do? What do you mean to do?
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: She looked up at me defensively, and for a moment
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: neither of us spoke. Mary I said, and could not
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: say what was in my thoughts. You are wrong, she lied.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: At last, she stood up too and faced me. I
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: held her shoulder and looked into her eyes. The gong
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: of my little clock broke the silence. I must go, Stephen,
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: she said. I did not see how the time was
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: slipping by. I began to entreat her, and she to deny.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: You don't understand, she said, you don't understand, Stephen. I
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: had hoped you would understand. You see life not as
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: I see it. I wanted all sorts of splendid things.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: And you begin to argue, you are shocked, you refuse
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: to understand. No, no, take your hands off me, Stephen, dear,
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: and let me go. Let me go, But I said,
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: stupid and persistent, what are you going to do. I've
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: told you, Stephen, I've told you as much as I
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: can tell you, and you think this foolish thing, as
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: though I could do that, Stephen, if I promise, will
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: you let me go? Twelve My mind leaps from that
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: to the moment in the afternoon, when tor by intolerable
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: distresses and anxiety, I knocked and rang and again knocked
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: at the door of the house she occupied in South Street,
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: with the intention of making one last appeal to her
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: to live, if indeed it was death she had in mind.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: I had let her go from me, and instantly a
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: hundred neglected things had come into my head. I could
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: go away with her. I could threaten to die with her.
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: It seemed to me that nothing in all the world
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: mattered if only I could thrust back the dark hand
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: of death to which she had so manifestly turned. I knew.
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: I knew all along that her extorted promise would not
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: bind her. I knew, and I let the faintest shadow
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: of uncertainty weaken and restrain me, and I went to
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: her too late. I saw instantly that I was too late.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: When the door opened and showed me the scared face
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: of a young footman whose eyes were red with tears.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: Are you doctor, he asked, of my silence, I want,
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: I said, I must speak to lady Mary. He was
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: wordless for a moment. She she died, sir, he said,
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: she's died. Suddenly, his face quivered. He was blubbering. He
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: couldn't say anything more. He stood sniveling in the doorway
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: for some moments. I remained confronting him, as if I
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: would dispute his words. Some things the mind contests in
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: the face of invincible conviction. One wants to thrust back time.
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: End of chapter eleven.