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In the Days of the Comet Book Third Chapter Third Section 4 · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Book three, chapter three, Section four of In the Days
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  Speaker 1: of the Comet. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox
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  Speaker 1: recordings are in the public domain. For more information or
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  Speaker 1: to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. In the Days
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  Speaker 1: of the Comet by H. G. Wells, Book three, Chapter three,
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  Speaker 1: Section four. It seems to me as if the intense
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  Speaker 1: memory of Nettie vanished utterly out of my mind at
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  Speaker 1: the touch of Anna's lips. I loved Anna. We went
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  Speaker 1: to the council of our group commune it was then called,
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  Speaker 1: and she was given me in marriage, and within a
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  Speaker 1: year she had borne me a son. We saw much
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  Speaker 1: of one another and talked ourselves very close together. My
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  Speaker 1: faithful friend she became and has been always, and for
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  Speaker 1: a time we were passion lovers. Always she has loved
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  Speaker 1: me and kept my soul full of tender gratitude and
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  Speaker 1: love for her always. When we met, our hands and
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  Speaker 1: eyes clasped in friendly greeting. All through our lives from
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  Speaker 1: that hour we have been each other's secure help and refuge,
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  Speaker 1: each other's ungrudging fastness of help, and sweetly frank and
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  Speaker 1: open speech. And after a little while, my love and
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  Speaker 1: desire for Nettie returned as though it had never faded away.
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  Speaker 1: No one will have a difficulty now in understanding how
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  Speaker 1: that could be. But in the evil days of the
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  Speaker 1: world malaria, that would have been held me the most
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  Speaker 1: impossible thing. I should have had to crush that second
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  Speaker 1: love out of my thoughts, to have kept its secret
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  Speaker 1: from Anna, to have lied about it to all the world.
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  Speaker 1: The old world theory was there was only one love.
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  Speaker 1: We who flowed up upon a sea of love find
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  Speaker 1: that hard to understand. The whole nature of a man
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  Speaker 1: was supposed to go out to the one girl or
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  Speaker 1: woman who possessed him her whole nature to go out
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  Speaker 1: to him. Nothing was left over. It was a discreditable
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  Speaker 1: thing to have any overplus at all. They formed a secret,
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  Speaker 1: secluded system of two two and such children. As she
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  Speaker 1: bore him all other women, he was held bound to
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  Speaker 1: find no beauty in, no sweetness, no interest, and she
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  Speaker 1: likewise in no other man. The old time, men and
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  Speaker 1: women went apart in couples, into defensive little houses, like beasts,
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  Speaker 1: into little pits. And in these homes they sat down,
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  Speaker 1: purposing to love, but really coming very soon to jealous
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  Speaker 1: Watching of this extravagant mutual proprietorship. All freshness passed very
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  Speaker 1: speedily out of their love, out of their conversation, all pride,
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  Speaker 1: out of their common life. To permit each other freedom
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  Speaker 1: was blank dishonor that I and Anna should love, and,
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  Speaker 1: after our love journey together, go about our separate lives
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  Speaker 1: and dine at public tables until the advent of her
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  Speaker 1: motherhood would have seemed a terrible strain upon our unmitikable loyalty.
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  Speaker 1: And that I should have it in me to go
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  Speaker 1: on loving Nettie, who loved indifferent manner both their all
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  Speaker 1: and me would have outraged the very quintessence of the
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  Speaker 1: old convention. In the old days, love is a cruel,
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  Speaker 1: proprietary thing. But now Anna could let Nettie live in
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  Speaker 1: the world of my mind as freely as a rose
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  Speaker 1: will suffer the presence of white lilies. If I could
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  Speaker 1: hear notes that were not in her compass. She was glad,
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  Speaker 1: because she loved me, that I should listen to other
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  Speaker 1: music than hers, and she too could see the beauty
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  Speaker 1: of Nettie. Life is so rich and generous now, giving
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  Speaker 1: friendship and the thousand tender interests and helps and comforts
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  Speaker 1: that no one stints another of the full realization of
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  Speaker 1: all possibilities of beauty. For me, from the beginning, Nettie
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  Speaker 1: was the figure of beauty, the shape and color of
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  Speaker 1: the divine principle that lights the world. For every one.
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  Speaker 1: There are certain types, certain faces and forms, gestures, voices,
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  Speaker 1: and intonations that have that inexplicable, unanalyzable quality. These come
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  Speaker 1: through the crowd of kindly, friendly fellow men and women
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  Speaker 1: one's own. These touch one mysteriously, stir deeps that must
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  Speaker 1: otherwise slumber, pierce and interpret the world. To refuse this
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  Speaker 1: interpretation is to refuse the sun, to darken and deaden
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  Speaker 1: all life. I loved Nettie. I loved all who were
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  Speaker 1: like her in the measure that they were like her
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  Speaker 1: in voice or eyes, or form or smile. And between
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  Speaker 1: my wife and me there was no bitterness that the
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  Speaker 1: Greek goddess for life, giver aphrodite, queen of the living seas,
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  Speaker 1: came to my imagination. So it qualified our mutual love
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  Speaker 1: not at all, Since now in our changed world, love
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  Speaker 1: is unstinted. It is a golden net about our globe
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  Speaker 1: that nets all humanity together. I thought of Nettie, much
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  Speaker 1: and always movingly. Beautiful things restored me to her, All
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  Speaker 1: fine music, all pure, deep color, all tender and solemn things.
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  Speaker 1: The stars were hers, and the mystery of moonlight. The
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  Speaker 1: sun she wore in her hair, powdered finely beaten into
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  Speaker 1: gleams and threads of sunlight in the wisps and strands
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  Speaker 1: of her hair. Then suddenly, one day a letter came
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  Speaker 1: to me from her, in her unaltered, clear handwriting, but
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  Speaker 1: in a new language of expression, telling me many things.
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  Speaker 1: She had learned of my mother's death, and the thought
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  Speaker 1: of me had grown so strong as to pierce the
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  Speaker 1: silence I had imposed on her. We wrote to one
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  Speaker 1: another like common friends, with a certain restraint between us
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  Speaker 1: at first, and with a great longing to see her
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  Speaker 1: once more arising in my heart. For a time I
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  Speaker 1: left at hunger unexpressed, and then I was moved to
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  Speaker 1: tell it to her. And so on New Year's Day
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  Speaker 1: of the year four, she came to Lochester and me,
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  Speaker 1: how I remember that, coming across the gulf of fifty years,
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  Speaker 1: I went out across the park to meet her, so
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  Speaker 1: that we should meet alone. The windless morning was clear
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  Speaker 1: and cold, the ground new carpeted with snow, and all
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  Speaker 1: the trees motionless lace and glitter of frosty crystals. The
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  Speaker 1: rising sun had touched the white with a spirit of gold,
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  Speaker 1: and my heart beat and sang within me. I remember
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  Speaker 1: now the snowy shoulder of the down sunlit against the
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  Speaker 1: bright blue sky, and presently I saw the woman I
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  Speaker 1: loved coming through the white, still trees. I had made
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  Speaker 1: a goddess of Nettie, and behold she was a fellow creature.
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  Speaker 1: She came warm, wrapt and tremulous to me, with a
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  Speaker 1: tender promise of tears in her eyes, with her hands
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  Speaker 1: outstretched and that dear smile quivering upon her lips. She
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  Speaker 1: stepped out of the dream I had made of her,
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  Speaker 1: a thing of needs and regrets and human kindliness. Her hands,
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  Speaker 1: as I took them, were a little cold. The goddess
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  Speaker 1: shone through her, indeed glowed in all her body. She
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  Speaker 1: was a worshipful temple of love for me. Yes, but
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  Speaker 1: I could feel like a thing new discovered the texture
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  Speaker 1: and sinews of her living, her dear personal and mortal hands.
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  Speaker 1: End of Book three, Chapter three, Section four