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The Passionate Friends Chapter 9 - The Spirit of the New World Parts 1-7 · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Chapter nine, parts one to seven 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 ninth, The
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  Speaker 1: Spirit of the New World One. I met Rachel again
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  Speaker 1: in Germany through the devices of my cousin the first
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  Speaker 1: in Leslingen. I had finished seeing what I wanted to
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  Speaker 1: see in Westphalia, and I was preparing to go to
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  Speaker 1: the United States. There, I thought I should be able
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  Speaker 1: to complete and round off that large view of the
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  Speaker 1: human process I had been developing in my mind. But
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  Speaker 1: my departure was delayed by an attack of influenza that
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  Speaker 1: I picked up at a socialist congress in Eunuch. And
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  Speaker 1: the dear der Clocht, hearing of this, and having her
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  Speaker 1: own views of my destiny descended upon me while I
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  Speaker 1: was still in bed there, made me get up and
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  Speaker 1: carried off in her car to take care of me
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  Speaker 1: herself at her villa at Beaupart, telling me nothing of
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  Speaker 1: any fellow guests I might encounter. She had a villa
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  Speaker 1: upon the Rhine, under a hill of vineyards, where she
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  Speaker 1: devoted herself. She was a widow to match making and
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  Speaker 1: belated regrets for the childlessness that necessitated a perpetual borrowing
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  Speaker 1: of material for her pursuit. She had a motor car,
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  Speaker 1: a steam launch, several rowing boats and canoes, a tennis lawn,
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  Speaker 1: a rambling garden, a devious house, and a rapid mind,
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  Speaker 1: and in fact, everything that was necessary for throwing young
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  Speaker 1: people together. She made her surprise seem easy and natural,
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  Speaker 1: and with returning health, I found myself already back upon
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  Speaker 1: my old footing of friendly intimacy with Rachel. I found
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  Speaker 1: her a new and yet a familiar Rachel. She had grown.
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  Speaker 1: She was no longer a schoolgirl, crystalline clear, with gleams
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  Speaker 1: of emotion and understanding. And what she had lost in transparency,
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  Speaker 1: she had gained in depth, and she had become well informed.
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  Speaker 1: She had been reading very widely and well I could see,
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  Speaker 1: and not simply reading, but talking and listening and thinking.
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  Speaker 1: She showed a vivid interest in the current of home politics.
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  Speaker 1: At that time, the last government of mister Balfour was
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  Speaker 1: ebbing to its end, and my old Transvaal friends, the
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  Speaker 1: Chinese Coolies, were to avenge themselves on their importers. The
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  Speaker 1: Teriff reformers my father detested, were still struggling to unseat
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  Speaker 1: the Premiere from his leadership of Conservatism. It was queer
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  Speaker 1: to hear once more after my asiatic wanderings and dreamings,
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  Speaker 1: those West End dinner table politics, those speculations about Winston's future,
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  Speaker 1: and the possibility of Lloyd George or Ramsay mac donald
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  Speaker 1: or macnamara taking office with the Liberals, and whether there
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  Speaker 1: might not ultimately be a middle party in which Haldane
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  Speaker 1: and Balfour Gray and the Cecils could meet upon common ground.
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  Speaker 1: It seemed now not only very small, but very far off.
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  Speaker 1: She told me too, of the huge popularity of King Edward.
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  Speaker 1: He had proved to be interested, curious, understanding and clever,
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  Speaker 1: an unexpectedly successful king. She described how he was breaking
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  Speaker 1: out of the narrow official limits that had kept his
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  Speaker 1: mother in a kind of social band box, extending his
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  Speaker 1: soult and informality of friendliness to all sorts of men.
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  Speaker 1: He had won the heart of Will Crook's the labor
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  Speaker 1: member for Poplar, for example, made John Burns a social success,
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  Speaker 1: and warmed all France for England. I surveyed this novel
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  Speaker 1: picture of the English throne diffusing amiability. I suppose it's
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  Speaker 1: what the throne ought to do, said Rachel. If it
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  Speaker 1: can't be inspiration at any rate, it can tolerate and
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  Speaker 1: reconcile and take the ill bred bitterness out of politics.
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  Speaker 1: My father might have said that. I got that from
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  Speaker 1: your father, she said, and added, after a momentary pause,
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  Speaker 1: I go over and talk to him. You talk to
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  Speaker 1: my father, I like to, Or rather I listen and
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  Speaker 1: take it in. I go over in the afternoon. I
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  Speaker 1: go sometimes twice or three times a week. That's kind
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  Speaker 1: of you, not at all, you see. It sounds impudent,
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  Speaker 1: I know, for a girl to say so, But we've
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  Speaker 1: so many interests in common. Two. I was more and
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  Speaker 1: more interested by Rachel as the days went on. A
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  Speaker 1: man must be stupid who does not know that a
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  Speaker 1: woman is happy in his presence. And for two years
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  Speaker 1: now and more I had met no one with a
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  Speaker 1: very strong personal feeling for me. And quite apart from that,
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  Speaker 1: her mind was extraordinarily interesting to me, because it was
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  Speaker 1: at once so active and so clear, and so limited
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  Speaker 1: by her entirely English circumstances. She had the prosperous English outlook.
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  Speaker 1: She didn't so much see the wide world as get
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  Speaker 1: glimpses of it through the tangle of Westminster, and of
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  Speaker 1: west End and week end limitations. She wasn't even aware
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  Speaker 1: of that greater, unprosperous England, already sulking and darkling outside
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  Speaker 1: her political world, that greater England which was presently to
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  Speaker 1: make its first audible intimations of discontent in that remarkable
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  Speaker 1: anti climax to King George's coronation, the railway strike. India,
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  Speaker 1: for her was the land of people's cousins. Many and
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  Speaker 1: the German dreadnoughts spoked far larger, and all the tremendous
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  Speaker 1: gathering forces of the East were beyond the range of
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  Speaker 1: her imagination. I set myself to widen her horizons. I
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  Speaker 1: told her something of the intention and range of my travels,
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  Speaker 1: and something of the views that were growing out of
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  Speaker 1: their experiences. I have a clear little picture in my
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  Speaker 1: mind of an excursion we made to that huge national
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  Speaker 1: Dunkmol which rears its head out of the amiable vineyards
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  Speaker 1: of Osmannshausen and Rudesheim over against Bingen. We landed at
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  Speaker 1: the former place, went up its little funicular to eat
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  Speaker 1: our lunch and to drink its red wine at the
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  Speaker 1: pleasant inn above, and then strolled along through the woods
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  Speaker 1: to the monument. The Fuston fell behind with her unwilling escort,
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  Speaker 1: a newly arrived medical student from England, a very pleasant
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  Speaker 1: youngster named Berwick, who was all too obviously anxious to
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  Speaker 1: change places with me. She devised delays, and meanwhile, I,
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  Speaker 1: as yet unaware of the state of affairs, went on
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  Speaker 1: with Rachel to that towering florid monument with its vast
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  Speaker 1: gesticulating Germania, which triumphs over the conquered provinces. We fell
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  Speaker 1: talking of war and the passions and delusions that lead
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  Speaker 1: to war. Rachel's thoughts were strongly colored by those ideas
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  Speaker 1: of a natural rivalry between Germany and England, and of
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  Speaker 1: a necessary revenge for France, which have for nearly forty
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  Speaker 1: years diverted the bulk of European thought and energy to
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  Speaker 1: the mere waste of military preparations. I jarred with an
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  Speaker 1: edifice of preconceptions. When I scoffed and scolded at these assumptions.
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  Speaker 1: Our two great peoples are disputing for the leadership of
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  Speaker 1: the world, I said, And meanwhile the whole world sweeps
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  Speaker 1: past us. We are drifting into a quarrelsome backwater. I
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  Speaker 1: began to tell of the fermentation and new beginnings that
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  Speaker 1: were everywhere perceptible throughout the East. Of the vast masses
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  Speaker 1: of human ability and energy that were coming into action
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  Speaker 1: in China and India, of the unlimited future of both
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  Speaker 1: North and South America, of the mere accidentalness of the
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  Speaker 1: European advantage. History, I said, is already shifting the significance
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  Speaker 1: out of Western Europe altogether, and we English cannot see it.
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  Speaker 1: We can see no further than Berlin. And these Germans
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  Speaker 1: can think of nothing better than to taunt the French
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  Speaker 1: with such tawdry effigies. As this Europe goes on today,
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  Speaker 1: as India went on in the eighteenth century, making aimless history,
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  Speaker 1: and the sands of opportunity run and run. I shrugged
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  Speaker 1: my shoulders, and we stood for a little while, looking
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  Speaker 1: down on the shining crescent of the Rhine. Suppose said Rachel,
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  Speaker 1: that some one were to say that in the house,
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  Speaker 1: the house, I said, doesn't hear things at my pitch
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  Speaker 1: bat outcries too shrill altogether, it might if you She halted,
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  Speaker 1: hesitated for a moment on the question, and asked, abruptly,
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  Speaker 1: when are you coming back to England? Mister Stratton, certainly
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  Speaker 1: not for six months, I said. A movement of her
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  Speaker 1: eyes made me aware of the Thurston in Berwick emerging
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  Speaker 1: from the trees, and then asked Rachel, I didn't want
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  Speaker 1: to answer that question, in which the personal note sounded
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  Speaker 1: so clearly. I am going to America to see America,
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  Speaker 1: I said, And America may be rather a big thing
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  Speaker 1: to see. You must see it. I want to be
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  Speaker 1: sure of it as something comprehensive. I want to get
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  Speaker 1: a general effect of it. Rachel hesitated, looked back to
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  Speaker 1: measure the distance of the Furston and her companion, and
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  Speaker 1: put her question again, but this time with significance that
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  Speaker 1: did not seem even to want to hide itself. Then
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  Speaker 1: will you come back? She said. Her face flamed scarlet,
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  Speaker 1: but her eyes met mine boldly. Between us, there was
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  Speaker 1: a flash of complete understanding. My answer, if it was
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  Speaker 1: lame and ungallant to such a challenge, was at least
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  Speaker 1: perfectly honest. I can't make up my mind, I said,
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  Speaker 1: I've been near, making plans, taking steps. Something holds me back.
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  Speaker 1: I had no time for an explanation. I can't make
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  Speaker 1: up my mind, I repeated. She stood for a moment,
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  Speaker 1: rather stiffly, staring away toward the blue hills of Ozaz.
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  Speaker 1: Then she turned, with a smiling and undisturbed countenance to
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  Speaker 1: the Thurston her crimson had given place to white. The
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  Speaker 1: triumph of it, she said, with a slight gesture to
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  Speaker 1: the flamboyant Teudonism that towered over us, and boldly repeating
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  Speaker 1: words I had used scarcely five minutes before, makes me angry.
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  Speaker 1: They conquered ungraciously. She had overlooked something in her effort
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  Speaker 1: to seem entirely self possessed. She collapsed. My dear, she cried,
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  Speaker 1: I forgot. Oh, I'm only a German by marriage, cried
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  Speaker 1: the firstan. And I can assure you I quite understand
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  Speaker 1: about the triumph of it, she surveyed, the achievement of
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  Speaker 1: her countrymen. It is ungracious, But indeed it's only a
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  Speaker 1: sort of artlessness. If you see the thing properly. It's
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  Speaker 1: not vulgarity, it's childishness. They've hardly got over it yet,
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  Speaker 1: their intense astonishment at being any good at war, that large,
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  Speaker 1: throaty victory. She's not so militant as she seems. She's
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  Speaker 1: too plump. Of course, what a German really appreciates is nutrition.
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  Speaker 1: But I quite agree with you both. I'm beginning to
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  Speaker 1: want my tea, mister Stratton Rachel. Her eyes had been
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  Speaker 1: on Rachel as she chattered. The girl had turned to
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  Speaker 1: the distant hills again and had forgotten even to pretend
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  Speaker 1: to listen to the answer she had evoked. Now she
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  Speaker 1: came back sharply to the sound of her name. Tea,
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  Speaker 1: said the first. Euston, Oh, cried Rachel. Yes, yes, certainly,
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  Speaker 1: rather Tea three. It was clear to me after that
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  Speaker 1: that I must, as people say, have things out with Rachel.
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  Speaker 1: But before I could do anything of the sort, the
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  Speaker 1: first and pounced upon me. She made me sit up.
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  Speaker 1: That night, after her other guests had gone to their
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  Speaker 1: rooms in the cozy, little turred apartment, she called her
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  Speaker 1: study and devoted to the reading of whatever was most
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  Speaker 1: notorious in contemporary British fiction. Sit down, she said, Buy
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  Speaker 1: fire in that chair there and tell me all about it.
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  Speaker 1: It's no good you're pretending you don't know what I mean.
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  Speaker 1: What are you up to with her? And why don't
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  Speaker 1: you go straight to your manifest destiny as a decent
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  Speaker 1: man should, Because manifestly it isn't my destiny. I said,
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  Speaker 1: stuff said the firston, you know perfectly well why I
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  Speaker 1: am out of England. Everybody knows, except, of course, quite
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  Speaker 1: young persons who are being carefully brought up. Does she
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  Speaker 1: know She doesn't seem to. Well, that's what I want
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  Speaker 1: to know. Need she know? Well, it does seem rather essential.
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  Speaker 1: I suppose if you think so, will you tell her?
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  Speaker 1: Tell her yourself, if she must be told down there
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  Speaker 1: in Surrey. She must have seen things and heard things.
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  Speaker 1: But I don't see that. She wants a lot of
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  Speaker 1: ancient history. If it is ancient history, oh, two years
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  Speaker 1: and a half, it's an era. I made no answer
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  Speaker 1: to that, but sat staring into the fire while my
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  Speaker 1: cousin watched my face. At length, I made my confession.
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  Speaker 1: I don't think it is ancient history at all, I said,
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  Speaker 1: I think if I met Mary again, now you mean
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  Speaker 1: lady Mary justin of course, it would be good for
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  Speaker 1: your mind if you remembered to call her by her
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  Speaker 1: proper name. You think if you met her again, you
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  Speaker 1: too would begin to carry on. But you see you
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  Speaker 1: aren't going to meet her. Everybody will see that doesn't happen.
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  Speaker 1: I mean that. I well, you'd better not say it. Besides,
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  Speaker 1: it's nonsense. I doubt if you've given her a thought
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  Speaker 1: for weeks and weeks until I came here. Perhaps that
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  Speaker 1: was almost nearly true. But you've stirred me up, sweet cousin,
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  Speaker 1: and old things, old memories and habits have come to
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  Speaker 1: the surface again. Mary wrote herself over my life in
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  Speaker 1: all sorts of places. I can't tell you I've never
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  Speaker 1: talked of her to anyone. I'm not able very well
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  Speaker 1: to talk about my feelings. Perhaps a man of my
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  Speaker 1: sort doesn't love twice over. I disregarded a note of
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  Speaker 1: dissent for my cousin that was also magic, all my youth,
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  Speaker 1: all my hope, all the splendid adventure of it. Why
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  Speaker 1: should one pretend I'm giving none of that to Rachel.
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  Speaker 1: It isn't there any more to give, one would think,
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  Speaker 1: remarked the first, and there was no gift of healing.
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  Speaker 1: She waited for me to speak, and then, irritated by
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  Speaker 1: my silence, struck at me sharply with that wicked little
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  Speaker 1: tongue of hers. Do you think that lady Mary Justin
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  Speaker 1: thinks of you as you think of her? Do you
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  Speaker 1: think she hasn't settled down? I looked up at her quickly.
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  Speaker 1: She's just going to have a second child. The Thurston
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  Speaker 1: flung out, Yes, that did astonish me. I suppose my
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  Speaker 1: face showed it. That girl, said the firston, That clean
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: girl would have sooner died ten thousand deaths. And she's
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  Speaker 1: never never been anything to you. I think that for
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: an instant she had been frightened at her own words.
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  Speaker 1: She was now quite angry and short of breath. She
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: had contrived a rapid indignation against Mary and myself. I
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: didn't know Mary had had any child at all. I said,
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  Speaker 1: this makes two, said the firston, and held up a
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: brace of fingers with scarcely a year and a half
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  Speaker 1: between them, not much more any It was natural. I
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  Speaker 1: suppose a natural female indecency. I don't blame her. When
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  Speaker 1: a woman gives in. She ought to do it thoroughly.
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  Speaker 1: But I don't see that it leaves you much scope
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  Speaker 1: for philandering. Stephen does it? And there you are, and
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  Speaker 1: here is Rachel, And why don't you make a clean
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  Speaker 1: job of your life? I didn't understand. I wonder what
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  Speaker 1: you imagined, I reflected, I wonder what I did. I
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  Speaker 1: suppose I thought of Mary just as I had left
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  Speaker 1: her always I remained with my mind filled with confused
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: images of Mary, memories, astonishment. I perceived the Thurston was talking,
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  Speaker 1: wandering about. She was saying, like a huntsman without a horse,
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  Speaker 1: You've got work to do, blood in your veins. I'm
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  Speaker 1: not one of your women, Stephen, you ought to have
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  Speaker 1: a wife. Rachel's too good, I said, at the end
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: of a pause, and perceiving I had to say something
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  Speaker 1: to be that sort of wife. No woman's too good
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  Speaker 1: for a man, said the first in von Leslingcoln, with conviction.
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  Speaker 1: It's what God made her for. Four. My visit to
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: Beaupart was drawing to an end before I had a
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: clear opportunity to have things out with Rachel. It was
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: in a little garden under the very shadow of that
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: gracious cathedral at Vance, the sort of little garden to
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: which one is admitted by ringing a bell and tipping
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: a custodian. I think vonce is in many respects one
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  Speaker 1: of the most beautiful cathedrals I have ever seen, so
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: perfectly proportioned, so delicately faded, so aloof, so free from
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  Speaker 1: pride or presumption. And it rises over this green and
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: flowery piece, a towering lithe light brown, sunlit, easy thing
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  Speaker 1: as unconsciously and irrelevantly splendid as a tall ship in
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  Speaker 1: the evening glow under oppress of canvas. We looked up
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  Speaker 1: at it for a time, and then went on with
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: the talk to which we had been coming slowly since
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: the Fuston had packed a saw for it while she
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: went into the town with Berwick to buy toys for
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: her gate keeper's children. I had talked about myself and
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: the gradual replacement of my ambition to play a part
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: in imperial politics by wider intentions, you know, I asked abruptly,
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  Speaker 1: why I left England? She thought, through the briefest of pauses. No,
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  Speaker 1: she decided at last. I made love, I said to
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: Lady Mary Justin, and we were found out we couldn't
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: go away together. Why not, she interjected, It was impossible.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: For some moments neither of us spoke something she said,
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: and then some fague report and left these fragments to
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  Speaker 1: be her reply. We were old playmates, we were children together.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: We have something that draws us to each other. She
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: made a mistake in marrying. We were both very young,
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: and the situation was difficult, and then afterwards we were
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: thrown together. But you see that has made a great
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  Speaker 1: difference to my life. It's turned me off the rails
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: on which men of my sort usually run. I've had
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  Speaker 1: to look to these other things. They've become more to
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: me than to most people. If only because of that,
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  Speaker 1: you mean, these ideas of yours learning as much as
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  Speaker 1: you can about the world, and then doing what you
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  Speaker 1: can to help other people to a better understanding. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: I said, and that will fill your life. It ought to.
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  Speaker 1: I suppose it ought. I suppose you find it does.
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  Speaker 1: Don't you think it ought to fill my life? I
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: wondered if it did. But why shouldn't it It's so
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: so cold? My questioning silence made her attempt to explain.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: One wants life more beautiful than that. She said, one
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: wants there are things, one needs things nearer one. We
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: became aware of a jangling at the janitor's bell. Our
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: opportunity for talk was slipping away, and we were both
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: still undecided, both blunderingly nervous and insecure. We were hurried
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  Speaker 1: into clumsy phrases that afterwards we would have given much
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  Speaker 1: to recall. But how could life be more beautiful, I said,
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  Speaker 1: than when it serves big human ends? Her brows were knit.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: She seemed to be listening for the sound of the
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: unlocking gate, but she said and plunged. One wants to
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: be loved, surely one needs that. You see for me,
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: that's gone. Why should it be gone? It is? One
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: doesn't begin again, I mean myself. You can You've never begun,
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: not when you've loved, loved. Really, I forced that on her.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: I over emphasized. It was real love, you know, the
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: real thing. I don't mean the mere imaginative love, blindfolded love,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: but love that see you. I want you to understand
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: that I loved altogether across the lawn under its trim,
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: flowering trees appear at Berwick, loaded with little parcels and
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: manifestly eager to separate us and the first, and as
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: manifestly putting on the drag. There's a sort of love,
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: I hurried, that doesn't renew itself. Ever, don't let yourself
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: believe it does. Something else may come in its place,
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: but that is different. It's youth, a wonderful newness. Look
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: at that youngster. He can love you like that. I've
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: watched him. He does, you know he does, yes, she said,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: as hurriedly. But then you see I don't love him.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: You don't, I can't. But he's such a fresh, clean
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: human being. That's not all, said Rachel. That's not all.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: You don't understand. The two drew near. It is so
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: hard to explain, she said, thinks that one hardly sees
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: for oneself. Sometimes it seems one cannot help one's self.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: You can't choose. You are taken. She seemed about to
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: say something more, and stopped and bit her lip. In
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: another moment, I was standing up, and the firston was
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: calling to us across ten feet of space. Such a
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: moosin little toy shops. We've got a heap of things.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: Just look at him, He smiled, over his load, with
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: anxious eyes upon her faces. Ten separate parcels, he said,
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: appealing for Rachel's sympathy. I'm doing my best not to complain,
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: and rather adroitly, he contrived to let two of them slip,
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: and rptured Rachel to assist him. He didn't relinquish her again.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: Five the Thurston and I followed them along the broad,
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: pleasant tree lined street towards the railway station. A boy
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: of that age ought not to marry a girl of
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: that age, said the Furston, breaking a silence. I didn't answer, well,
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: she said, domineering, my dear cousin, I said, I know
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: all that you have in your mind. I admit I
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: covet her. You can't make me more jealous than I am.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: She's clean and sweet. It is marvelous how the god
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: of the rest of the world can have made a
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: thing so brave and honest and wonderful. She's better than flowers.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: But I think I am going away to night. Nevertheless,
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: you don't mean you're going to carry chivalry to the
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: point of giving that boy a chance, for he hasn't
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: one while you are about No, you see, I want
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: to give Rachel a chance. You know as well as
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: I do the things in my mind that you've got
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: to forget that I don't forget, that you're bound in
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: honor to forget. And who could help you better? I'm going,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: I said, and then wrathfully, if you think I want
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: to use Rachel as a sort of dressing for my
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: old sores, I left the sentence unfinished. Oh nonsense, cried
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: the firston, and wouldn't speak to me again until we
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: got to that entirely teutonic art station. That is not
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: the least among the sites of oms sores. Indeed, said
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: the firston. Presently, as we walked up the end of
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: the platform, there's nothing, said the Furston, with an unusual
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: note of petulance. She'd like better. I can't think what
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: men are coming to she went on. You are in
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: love with her, or you wouldn't be so generous, And
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: she's head over heels with you, and here you are.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: I'll give you one more chance. I won't take it,
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: I interrupted. It isn't fair. I tell you, I won't
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: take it. I'll go two days earlier to prevent you
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: unless you promise me. Of course, I see how things
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: are with her. She's not a sphinx. But it isn't fair.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: It isn't not to her or to him or myself.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: He's got some claims. He's got more right to her
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: than I. Huh, boy like that. No man has any
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: rights about women until he's thirty. And as for me
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: and all the pains I've taken, Oh, I hate fauns,
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: dust and ashes. Well, here, thank Heaven comes the train.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: If nothing else could stir you, Stephen, at least I
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: could have imagined some decent impulse of gratitude to me Stephen,
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: You're disgusting. You've absolutely spoiled this trip for me, absolutely,
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: when only a little reasonableness on your part. Oh, She
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: left her sentence unfinished. Berwick and I had to make
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: any conversation that was needed. On the way back to
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: Beaupart Rachel did not talk, and the Furston did not
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: want to six directly, I had parted from Rachel's questioning eyes.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: I wanted to go back to them. It seems to
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: me now that all the way across to America, in
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: that magnificent German liner I joined at Hamburg, I was
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: thinking and confused alli nations of her and of Mary.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: There are turns of thought that still bring back, inseparably
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: with them, the faint echo of the airs of the
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: excellent but industrious band that glorified our crossing. I had
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: been extraordinarily shocked and concerned at the thought of Mary
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: bearing children. It is a grotesque thing to confess, but
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: I had never let myself imagine the possibility of such
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: a thing for her, who had been so immensely mine.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: We are the oddest creatures, little son beasts and barbarians
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: and brains, neither one nor the other, but all confusedly
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: and here was I who had given up Mary and
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: resigned her, and freed myself from her, as I thought,
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: altogether cast back again into my old pit by the
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: most obvious and necessary consequence of her surrender and mine.
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: And it's just there, and in that relation that we
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: men and women are so elaborately insecure. We try to
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: love as equals and behave as equals, and concede a
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: level freedom, and then comes a crisis. Our laboriously contrived
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: edifice of liberty collapses, and we perceive that so far
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: as sex goes, the woman remains to the man no
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: more than a possession, capable of loyalty or treachery. There still,
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: at that barbaric stage, the situation stands. You see, I
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: had always wanted to own Mary, and always she had
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: disputed that. That is our whole story, the story of
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: an instinctive subjugation, struggling against a passionate desire for fellowship.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: She had denied herself to me, taken herself away. That
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: much I could endure. But now came this blazing fact
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: that showed her, as it seemed, in the most material
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: and conclusive way overcome. I had storms of retrospective passion
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: at the thoroughness of her surrender. Yes, and that's in
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: every one of us, in every one. I wonder if
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: in all decent, law abiding London there lives a single,
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: healthy adult man who has not, at times longed to
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: trample and kill for once. I think the first and
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: miscalculated consequences. I think I should have engaged myself to
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: Rachel before I went to America, if it had not
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: been for the Thurston's revelation. But this so tore me
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: that I can no longer go on falling in love again,
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: naturally and sweetly. No man falls in love if he
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: has just been flayed. I could no longer think of
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: Rachel accept as a foil to Mary. I was moved
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: to marry her by a new set of motives, to
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: flank her, so to speak, in Mary's face, and from
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: the fierce vulgarity of that, at least I recoiled and
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: let her go. As I have told you seven, I
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: had thought all that was over. I remember my struggles
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: to recover my peace. I remember how very late one
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: night I went up to the promenade deck to smoke
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: a cigar before turning in. It was a warm, moonlit night,
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: the broad low waves of ebony water, that when sea
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: thing passed below, fumed luminous and were streaked and starred
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: with phosphorescence. The recumbent moon, past its fall and sinking westward,
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: seemed bigger than I had ever seen it before, and
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: the roundness of the watery globe was manifest about the
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: edge of the sky. One had that sense, so rare
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: on land, so common in the night at sea, of
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: the world as a conceivable sphere, and of interstellar space,
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: as of something clear and close at hand. There came
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: back to me again that feeling I had lost for
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: a time in Germany, of being not myself but man
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: consciously on his little planet, communing with God. But my
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: spirit was saying all the time, I am still in
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: my pit, in my pit, after all, I am still
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: in my pit. And then there broke the answer on
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: my mind that all our lives we must struggle out
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: of our pits. That to struggle out of our pit
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: is this life. There is no individual life but that,
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: and that there comes no escape here, no end to
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: that effort until the release of death. Continually or frequently
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: we may taste salvation, but never may we achieve it.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: While we are things of substance. Each moment in our
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: lives we come to the test and are lost again
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: or saved again. To be assured of one's security is
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: to forget and fall away. And standing at the rail
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: with these thoughts in my mind, suddenly I prayed. I
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: remember how the engine throbs beat through me like the
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: beating of a heart, and that far below, among the
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: dim lights that came up from the emigrants and the steerage,
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: there was a tinkling music as I prayed, and a
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: man's voice singing a plaintive air in some strange slavonic tongue,
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: that voice of the invisible singer, and the spirit of
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: the unknown song maker, and the serenity of the sky.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: They were all I perceived, no more and no less
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: than things in myself that I did not understand. They
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: were out beyond the range of understanding, and yet they
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: fell into the completest harmony that night, with all that
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: I seemed to understand. End of Chapter nine, Parts one
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: to seven.