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The Dream Chapter the Sixth - Marriage in War Time Parts 1 and 2 · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Section eighteen of The Dream, a novel. This is a
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  Speaker 1: Libertybox recording. All libertyvox recordings are in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit libertywox dot org.
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  Speaker 1: The Dream and Novel by H. G. Wells, Section eighteen,
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  Speaker 1: Chapter six. Marriage in Wartime, Parts one, end two, Part
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  Speaker 1: one and now, said Sarnak comes a change of costume.
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  Speaker 2: You have been thinking of me.
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  Speaker 1: I suppose as a gawky youth of seventeen or eighteen,
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  Speaker 1: dressed in those ill feeding, wholesale clothes we used to
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  Speaker 1: call ready mates. That youth a white collar round his neck,
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  Speaker 1: and a black jacket and dark gray trousers of a
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  Speaker 1: confused furtive patterning, and his head was a black hemisphere
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  Speaker 1: with a little brim called a bowler. Now he changed
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  Speaker 1: into another sort of ready mates, even more ill, fitting
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  Speaker 1: the khaki uniform of a young British soldier in the
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  Speaker 1: Great World War against Germany in nineteen fourteen, Annold Domini
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  Speaker 1: a magic wand the want of political catastrophe waved to
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  Speaker 1: and fro over Europe. In the aspect of that world changed,
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  Speaker 1: Accumulation gave place to destruction, and all the generation of
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  Speaker 1: young men I have described as being put together from
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  Speaker 1: such shops as those one saw in Chips presently went
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  Speaker 1: into a khaki and fell into ranks and tramped off
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  Speaker 1: to the lines of ditches and desolation that had extended
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  Speaker 1: themselves across Europe. It was a war of holes and
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  Speaker 1: barbed wire and bombs and big guns, like no war
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  Speaker 1: that had ever happened before. It was a change of
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  Speaker 1: phase in the world model. It was like some liquid
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  Speaker 1: which has been growing hotter and hotther suddenly beginning to boil,
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  Speaker 1: and very swiftly boiling over. Or it was like a
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  Speaker 1: tobaggon track in the mountains when after a long, easy,
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  Speaker 1: almost level around, one comes to a swift drop and
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  Speaker 1: the wild zigzag of downward curves. It was the same
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  Speaker 1: old downward ran at a dramatic point change of costume.
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  Speaker 1: There was an change of atmosphere. I can still recall
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  Speaker 1: the scared excitements of the August days when the war began,
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  Speaker 1: and how incredulous we English were when we heard that
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  Speaker 1: our own little army was being driven back before the
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  Speaker 1: German hosts like a splattering kitten pushed by a broom,
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  Speaker 1: and that the French lions were collapsing. Then came the
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  Speaker 1: radio of September. At the beginning, we British youngsters had
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  Speaker 1: been excited spectators. But as the tale of our army's
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  Speaker 1: efforts and losses came home to us, we crowded to
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  Speaker 1: the recruiting offices by thousands and scores of thousands, until
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  Speaker 1: at last our volunteers could be counted by the million.
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  Speaker 2: I went with the crowd.
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  Speaker 1: It may seem a curious thing to you that I
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  Speaker 1: lived through all the Great World War against Germany, That
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  Speaker 1: I was a soldier in it, and was wounded, and
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  Speaker 1: went back and took part in the final offensive. That
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  Speaker 1: my brother Ernest became a sergeant and won a Middle
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  Speaker 1: for gallantry, and was killed within a few weeks of
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  Speaker 1: the concluding armistice, That all the circumstances of my life
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  Speaker 1: were revolutionized by the war, And that nevertheless, it does
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  Speaker 1: not come into the story of my life, is a
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  Speaker 1: thing of importance in itself to that story. As I
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  Speaker 1: think of it now, I think of the Great World
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  Speaker 1: War as a sort of geography or atmospheric fact, like
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  Speaker 1: living ten miles from your working place, or being married
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  Speaker 1: in an apprial shower. One would have to travel the
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  Speaker 1: ten miles every day, or put up an umbrella as
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  Speaker 1: one came out of church, But it wouldn't touch what
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  Speaker 1: one was intimately, or altered in any essential, the living.
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  Speaker 2: Substance of one's life.
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  Speaker 1: Of course, the World War killed and tortured millions of US,
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  Speaker 1: impoverished us all, and dislocated the whole world. But that
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  Speaker 1: only meant that so many millions went out of life,
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  Speaker 1: and that there was a fractional increase in everyone's anxiety
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  Speaker 1: and disorder. It didn't change the nature and passions, the
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  Speaker 1: ignorances and bad habits of thought of the millions who remained.
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  Speaker 1: The World War rose out of these ignorances and misconceptions,
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  Speaker 1: and it did nothing to alter them. After it was
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  Speaker 1: all over, the world was a good deal rattled and
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  Speaker 1: much shabbier than before, but it was still the same old, mean,
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  Speaker 1: and haphazard world, acquisitive, divided, candidly patriotic, idiotically prolific, duty, disease,
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  Speaker 1: spiteful and conceited. It has taken two score centuries of
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  Speaker 1: research and teaching, training, thought and work to make any
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  Speaker 1: great alteration in that. I admit the outbreak of the
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  Speaker 1: World War had a really tremendous air of being an
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  Speaker 1: end and the beginning. There were great days in it
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  Speaker 1: at first, and for us British, as much as for
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  Speaker 1: any people, we apprehended the thing in splendid terms. We thought,
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  Speaker 1: quite honestly, I speak of the common people, that the
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  Speaker 1: imperialism of Central Europe were wholly wrong, and that we
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  Speaker 1: were wholly right. Hundreds of thousands of us gave ourselves
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  Speaker 1: gladly in the.
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  Speaker 2: Sincere belief that the new world was to.
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  Speaker 1: Be worn by victory. That spirit was not confined to
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  Speaker 1: Britain nor to either side in this war. I am
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  Speaker 1: convinced that the years nineteen fourteen, nineteen fifteen and nineteen
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  Speaker 1: sixteen saw finer crops of brave and generous deeds and
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  Speaker 1: noble sacrifices, of heroic toil and heroic passions than any
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  Speaker 1: years that ever came beIN in the whole history of mankind,
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  Speaker 1: or within any of the years that followed. For many centuries,
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  Speaker 1: the young people were wonderful. Death and honor reaped gloriously
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  Speaker 1: among them. And then the inherent unsoundness of the issue
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  Speaker 1: began to wear through, and that false dawn faded out
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  Speaker 1: of men's hearts. By the end of nineteen seventeen. The
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  Speaker 1: whole world was a disillusioned world, with but one hope left,
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  Speaker 1: the idealism of the United States of America and the
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  Speaker 1: still untested greatness of President Wilson. But of that and
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  Speaker 1: what it came to you read about in the history books, and.
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  Speaker 2: I will not talk about it now.
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  Speaker 1: A god in that man's position might have unified the
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  Speaker 1: world in the twentieth century and saved it centuries of
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  Speaker 1: tragic struggle. President Wilson was not a god. And I
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  Speaker 1: do not think I need to tell you very much
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  Speaker 1: of the war itself. As I saw it. It was
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  Speaker 1: a strange phase in human experience, and it was described
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  Speaker 1: and painted and photographed and put on a record very completely.
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  Speaker 1: Most of us have read quite a lot about it,
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  Speaker 1: except of course, Firefly. You know how human life concentrated
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  Speaker 1: for four whole years upon the trenches that stretched across
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  Speaker 1: Europe on either front of Germany. You know how thousands
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  Speaker 1: of miles of land were turned into wildernesses of mud
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  Speaker 1: holes and wire. Nowadays, of course, nobody reads the books
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  Speaker 1: of the generals and admirals and politicians of that time,
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  Speaker 1: and all the official war histories sleep the eternal sleep
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  Speaker 1: in the vaults of the great libraries. But probably you
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  Speaker 1: have all read one or two such human books as
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  Speaker 1: Enid Pignol's Diary without Dates, or Coxwell's Ermitage and the
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  Speaker 1: curate or barbous Litheux, or Arthur Green's Story of a
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  Speaker 1: Prisoner of War, or that curious anthology the war stories
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  Speaker 1: of Private Thomas Atkins. And probably you have seen photographs
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  Speaker 1: and films, and also pictures painted by such men as
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  Speaker 1: Nevinson and Orpen and Mure head Bone and will Rothenstein.
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  Speaker 1: All of them, I can certify now are very true
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  Speaker 1: books and pictures, the tale of desolation passing like the
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  Speaker 1: shadow of an eclipse across the human scene.
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  Speaker 2: But the mind has the power.
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  Speaker 1: Of reducing and effacing every sort of impression that drags
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  Speaker 1: pain with it.
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  Speaker 2: I spent great.
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  Speaker 1: Parts out of two years in that noxious gun poked
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  Speaker 1: land of haste and hiding, and that time now seems
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  Speaker 1: less than many days of my peacetime life.
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  Speaker 2: I killed two men with a.
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  Speaker 1: Bay in it in a trench, and it remains as
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  Speaker 1: though it was done by someone else and had no
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  Speaker 1: significance for me at all. I remember much more clearly
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  Speaker 1: that I felt very sick when afterwards, I found my
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  Speaker 1: sleeve saturated with blood and blood on my hand, and
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  Speaker 1: how I tried to get it off by rubbing my
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  Speaker 1: arm in the sand because there was no water to
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  Speaker 1: be got in the trenches. Life was hideously uncomfortable and tedious.
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  Speaker 1: And why it lasted I was, I know, interminably bored
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  Speaker 1: by the drag of the hours.
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  Speaker 2: But all those hours.
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  Speaker 1: Are concentrated now into a record of the fact. I
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  Speaker 1: remember the shock of the first shell that burst near me,
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  Speaker 1: and how slowly the smoke and dust unfolded, and how
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  Speaker 1: there was a redness in the smoke, and how for
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  Speaker 1: a time it blotted out the light. The shell burst
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  Speaker 1: in a field of yellow flowering weeds and stubble against
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  Speaker 1: the sun. But I do not recall what preceded it,
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  Speaker 1: nor what it. Shellbursts rattled me more and more as
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  Speaker 1: the war went on, but they left weaker and weaker pictures.
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  Speaker 1: One of my most vivid memories of that time is
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  Speaker 1: the excitement of my first leave from the front, and
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  Speaker 1: how my party arrived at Victoria Station and were guided
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  Speaker 1: in a clattering throng to a sort of transport train
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  Speaker 1: called the underground railway by elderly volunteers wearing brasserts. I
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  Speaker 1: was still muddy from the trenches. There had been no
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  Speaker 1: time for a wash and a brush up, and I
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  Speaker 1: was carrying my rifle and other gear. We crowded into
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  Speaker 1: a brightly lit first class carriage, in which were a
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  Speaker 1: number of people and even dress who were going out
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  Speaker 1: to dinner and to the theater. There couldn't have been
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  Speaker 1: more vivid contrast if I had seen Firefly there, in
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  Speaker 1: all her loveliness. There was one young man, not much
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  Speaker 1: older than myself, between two gorgeously dressed women. He had
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  Speaker 1: a little white bow under his pink chin and a
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  Speaker 1: silk neck wrap. He had a black cloak with a
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  Speaker 1: cape and an opera head. I suppose he was an invalid,
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  Speaker 1: but he looked as fit as I. I felt a
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  Speaker 1: momentary impulse to say something humulating to him. I don't
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  Speaker 1: think I did. I do not remember that I did.
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  Speaker 1: But I looked at him, and then at the brown
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  Speaker 1: stain on my sleeve, and the wonder of life possessed me.
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  Speaker 1: No I said nothing. I was in a state of
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  Speaker 1: intense exhilaration. The other fellow were gay and inclined to
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  Speaker 1: be noisy. One or two were a little drunk, But
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  Speaker 1: I was quietly exalted. I seemed to be hearing and
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  Speaker 1: seeing and perceiving with such an acuteness as I had
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  Speaker 1: never known before. Fanny I should see on the morrow,
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  Speaker 1: But that evening I hoped to see Headie Marcus, with
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  Speaker 1: whom I was in love. I was in love with
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  Speaker 1: her with an intensity that only soldier boys who had
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  Speaker 1: been living in the mud of Flanders for half a
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  Speaker 1: year could understand. Part two, How asked Sarnak, Can I
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  Speaker 1: make you see HEADI Marcus, dark eyed, warm skinned, wayward
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  Speaker 1: and fragile, who brought me to love and death two
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  Speaker 1: thousand years ago? In a way, she was like Sunray.
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  Speaker 1: Here was of her type. She had the same darkness
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  Speaker 1: in her eyes, the same still bearing. She was like
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  Speaker 1: Sunray's hungry sister, with a touch of fire in her blood. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: and she had those same stumpy little fingers.
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  Speaker 2: Look at them.
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  Speaker 1: I met her on those very downs.
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  Speaker 2: I used to.
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  Speaker 1: Walk over with my father when I was a boy,
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  Speaker 1: to steal the produce from Lord Bramble's gardens. I had
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  Speaker 1: a short leave before I was drafted to France, and
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  Speaker 1: I did not spend it in London with Matilda Good
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  Speaker 1: and Fanny, as you may think I should have done.
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  Speaker 1: But I went with three other youngsters who had enough
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  Speaker 1: money to do so, to Cliffstone. I don't know whether
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  Speaker 1: I can make it clear to you why I went
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  Speaker 1: to Cliffstone. I was excited at the thought of going
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  Speaker 1: into the actual warfare. I meant to do brave and
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  Speaker 1: wonderful things over there. But also I was terribly overshadowed
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  Speaker 1: by the thought that I might be killed. I did
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  Speaker 1: not think of wounds or suffering. I do not think
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  Speaker 1: I feared those things at all. But I had a
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  Speaker 1: profound dread and hatred of extinction before ever I had
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  Speaker 1: fully lived, before I had ever tasted many of the
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  Speaker 1: most alluring things in life. I had always promised myself
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  Speaker 1: love and great adventures with women, and I was passionately
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  Speaker 1: distressed at the possibility of being cheated of those intensities.
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  Speaker 1: All of young innocence were in the same case. It
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  Speaker 1: was I who had thought of Cliffstone nearer to our
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: training camp, with its band and promenade and its fleeting
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  Speaker 1: glancing girls. There, if anywhere, it seemed to me, we
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  Speaker 1: must snatch something from life before the great shells splashed
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  Speaker 1: us to pieces, and the clay of Flanders devoured us.
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  Speaker 1: We sneaked off from our families, with those fires of
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  Speaker 1: protesting romance in our brains and veins.
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  Speaker 2: You cannot imagine.
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  Speaker 1: How many millions of leads they were in Europe, then,
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  Speaker 1: pitifully eager not to miss altogether the secret and magic
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  Speaker 1: experiences of love before they died. I cannot tell you
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  Speaker 1: of the pothouses and prostitutes that lay in wait for us,
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  Speaker 1: all of the gaunt moonlight on the beach. I cannot
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  Speaker 1: tell you of temptation and ignorance and disease. It's too
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  Speaker 1: ugly to tell you. Such things are past and done with,
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  Speaker 1: and men suffer them no more. We groped in darkness,
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  Speaker 1: where now men walk in the light. One of my
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  Speaker 1: mates had an ugly misadventure. All had ugly experiences, and
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: I escaped by chance, rather than any merit of my own,
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  Speaker 1: from those slowly snares. I was, for a moment fastidious,
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  Speaker 1: and I recoiled. And I had not drunken as the
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  Speaker 1: others had, because some streak of pride in me had
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  Speaker 1: made me habitually weary with drink. But I was in
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  Speaker 1: a storm of excitements and distresses. I was slipping into
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  Speaker 1: the pit, though I hated it, and to escape it,
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  Speaker 1: I set myself to revive my memories of the days
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  Speaker 1: when I was a boy. I went to Cherry Gardens
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  Speaker 1: to see the old home, and then to my father's grave.
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  Speaker 1: It was neat and pretty with Fanny's money. And then
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  Speaker 1: I determined to walk over the downs to recall if
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  Speaker 1: I could, something of the wonder that I had felt
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  Speaker 1: when first I went over them to Chasing Hanger. And also,
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  Speaker 1: if you understand me, I felt love and the romance
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  Speaker 1: would be there. I hadn't abandoned the quest that had
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: brought me to Cliffstone. I had only jumped a foul
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: ditch on my way. When I was a child, I
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: had supposed heaven was over the downs, and certainly the
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  Speaker 1: golden sumwher sense its were. It seemed natural to turn
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  Speaker 1: my back on a cliff stone and go up into
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  Speaker 1: the only really lovely country I had ever known. If
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: I wanted to find romance, and I found it. I
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  Speaker 1: was thrilled, but not a bit surprised when I saw
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  Speaker 1: Heady a pair over the skylon of the hill and
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: come right over the brow and stand with her hands
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  Speaker 1: behind her back, and the sun shining on her hair,
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: looking out across the woods and corn fields to breathe,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: and the distant marshes and the sea. She had taken
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: her head off and was holding it behind her. She
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: wore an ivory colored silk blouse, very open at the neck,
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: and it was just as though you could see her
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: body through the flimsy stuff. She dropped into a sitting position,
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  Speaker 1: now looking at her world, and now plucking at the
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  Speaker 1: little dwarfish flowers in the downland turf. I stood for
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  Speaker 1: a time agape at her. Then my whole being was
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  Speaker 1: filled with a tremulous.
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  Speaker 2: Resolve to talk to her.
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  Speaker 1: My path curled up the slope and carried me over
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  Speaker 1: the shoulder of the hill.
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  Speaker 2: Not very far from her.
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  Speaker 1: I followed it, stopping ever and again as if to
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: look at the land and see below, until it brought
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: me as near to her as it could. And then
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: I left it, and with a clumsy affectation of carelessness,
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: strolled up to the summit until I stood beside her,
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: and about six yards away. I pretended not to observe her.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: I clenched my hands to keep myself control. She had
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: become aware of me, and she was quite motionless, now
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: sitting up and looking at me. But she did not
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: seem in the least dismayed your fine face. She had
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: sun ray and your dark eyes. And I have never
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: known anyone, not even you, who could keep a face
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: so still, not rigid or hard or staring. It was,
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: but quietly, profoundly still, like a face in some beautiful picture.
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  Speaker 2: I was all a.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: Tremble, my heart was beating fast, but I kept my
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: wits about me. Was there a very lovelier view? I said,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: I suppose that bit of blue there that looks like
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: a raft where the water shines, I suppose that de tenseness.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: She did not answer for what seemed a long time.
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  Speaker 1: She surveyed me with an unfathomable expression. Then she spoke,
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  Speaker 1: And as she spoke she smiled. You know that dangeness
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  Speaker 1: as well as I do. I smiled at her smile.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: Shy pretenses were not for her. I came a step
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: or so nearer, with a conversational air. I have known
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  Speaker 1: this view, I said, since I was a boy of ten.
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  Speaker 1: But I didn't know anyone else said any value upon it,
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  Speaker 1: nor I she said. I came to look at it,
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  Speaker 1: perhaps for the last time.
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  Speaker 2: She vouchsafed. I'm going away. I'm going away too.
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  Speaker 1: Over there, she asked, and nodded her head to where
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: the land of France hung like a cloud in the sky.
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  Speaker 1: In a week or so, I'll get to France too,
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: but not so soon as a week or two. But
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: I'm going into the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps, and I
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: know I shall get over there at last. I join
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  Speaker 1: up tomorrow. How can one stay at home with all
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: you boys out there getting.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: She was going to say, getting.
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  Speaker 1: Killed, but she caught the word back and finished it
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: with getting into all sorts of danger and trouble. One
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: has to go, I said. She looked at me with
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: her head a little on one side. Tell me, she said,
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: do you want to go?
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: Not a bit?
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  Speaker 1: I hate the whole monstrous business, but there is no
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: way out. The Germans have put it on us and
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: we have to go through with it. That was how
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: we all saw it in England during the war. But
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: I wan't stop now to argue what really caused a
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: war that ended two thousand years ago. The Germans put
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: it on us. I hate going. I wanted to go
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: on with the work I was doing. Now everything is upset,
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: everything she said, and thought for some moments I had
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: going too.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: She said.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: It drags on week after week, months after months, I complained,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: the boredom of it, the drills, the salutes, the silly
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: little officers. If only they would take us and raffle
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: us and kill us and have done with it, so
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: that we could either die or go home and do
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: something sensible. My life is being wasted. I have been
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: in the machine a year, and I've only got thus
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: far on my way to France. When I see a
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: German soldier at last, I shall want to kiss him.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: I shall be so glad. But either I shall kill
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: him or he will kill me, and that will.
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: Be the end of the story.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: And yet one can't keep out of it, she said.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: And there's something tremendous about it.
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: She went on.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: Once or twice I have been up here when there
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: were air raids. I live quite close here. These air
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: raids get more and more frequent nowadays. I don't know
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: what they are coming to. You see the searchlights now
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: every night, waving like the arms of a drunken man all.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: Over the sky.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: But before that you hear the pheasants in the woods,
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: clacking and crying. They always hear it first. Other birds
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: take it up. They cry and twitter, and then far
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: away the guns begin rumbling, at first a little sound
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: pot then like a wolf of a horse dog, and
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: then one gun after another picks it up as the
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: raid comes nearer. Sometimes you can catch the whirr of
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: the engines of the gothas. There is a great gun
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: behind a farmhouse. Wait there, and you wait for that,
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: and when it fires, it hits you on the chest.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: Hardly anything is to be seen except the searchlights. There
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: is a little flicker in the sky and star shells.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: But the gun's right. It's made, but its immense. It
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: takes you. Either you are wild with fright, or you
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: are wild with excitement. I can't sleep. I woke about
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: my room and long to be out. Twice I've gone
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: out into the night, into the moonlight, with everything a quiver,
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: gone for long walks. Once shrapnel fell in our orchards
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: with a hiss like rain. It dripped the bark of
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: the apple trees and tore off twigs and branches, and
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: killed a hedgehog. I found the little wrege in the morning,
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: nearly cut in two death haphazard. I don't mind the
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: death and danger so much. But it's the in the
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: world I can't endure. Even in the daytime. Sometimes you
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: can't quite hear them, but you can feel the guns
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: over beyond there. Our old servant, she said, believes it's
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: the end of the world for us.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: It may be, I said.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: She made no answer. I looked at her face, and
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: my imagination right. I began to talk with a bear.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: Simplicity such as we rarely attained in that shy and
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: entangled age. But my heart was beating fast. For years,
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: I said, I have dreamt of the love of a girl.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: It was to have been the crown of life. I
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: have saved myself up for it. I have had a
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: friend or so, but it wasn't love. Now I'm near
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: to going out there. It's only a few days before
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: I go over there to whatever is waiting for me.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: And when it seems beyond hope, I come upon someone.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: Don't think me mad, Please don't think I'm lying. I'm
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: in love with you, Indeed I am. You seem altogether
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: beautiful to me, your voice, your eyes, everything, I could
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: worship you. I couldn't say a word more For a
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: moment or so. I rolled over on the turf and
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: looked her in the face. I'm sorry, I said, I'm silly,
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: young Tommy suddenly in love, oh, desperately in love. Her
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: grave face regarded me. She did not look frightened or disconcerted.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: Perhaps her heart beat faster than I thought, But her
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: voice when she spoke was constrained.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: Why are you talking like that? You've just met me?
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: How can you love me? It isn't possible people should
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: love like this. I've seen you long enough.
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: I could not talk.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: I met her eyes, her dropped before mine, the warm
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: color mounted to her cheeks. She beat her lips. You,
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: she said, in a low voice. Are just in love
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: with love? Anyhow? I am in love, I said. She
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: plucked a spray of mined flowers and forgot it in
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: her hand. This is your last day, she asked, and
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: made my heart beat faster. It may be my last altogether.
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: For this sort of thing.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: Who can tell for a long time anyhow? Why should
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: it hurt you to let me love you today? Why
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: shouldn't you be kind to me?
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: Civil to me? Anyhow?
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: I don't ask for so very much. If suppose we
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: went for a walk together, just a long walk. If
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: we spend most of day together, somewhere we might get
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: something to eat, she said, consider me gravely. Suppose I did,
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: she said, as if to herself. Suppose I did, What
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: harm could it do?
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: You? What harm could it do? She repeated, with her
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: eyes on mine.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: If I had been older and more experienced, I might
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: have known from her warm, flushed face and her dark
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: eyes that she too was in love with love that day,
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: and that our encounter was as exciting for her as
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: for me.
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: Suddenly she smiled, She.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: Showed herself for an instant as ready as myself. Her
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: constraint had vanished. I'll come, she decided, and rose with
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: an effortless ease to her feet, and then, at my
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: eager movement as I sprang up for her. But you'll
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: have to be good.
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: You know. It's just a walk and a talk.
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: Why shouldn't we if we keep away from the village
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: End of section eighteen.