Latest / The Turn of the Screw / Way It Came - Henry James

Transcript

Way It Came - Henry James · The Turn of the Screw

0:00
Speaker 1: Chapter one of the Way It Came. This is a
0:07
Speaker 1: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
0:13
Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
0:22
Speaker 1: Recording by Tony Addison The Way It Came by Henry James.
0:34
Speaker 1: I find, as you prophesied, much that's interesting, but little
0:40
Speaker 1: that helps the delicate question the possibility of publication. Her
0:47
Speaker 1: diaries are less systematic than I hoped. She only had
0:52
Speaker 1: a blessed habit of noting and narrating. She summarized, she saved.
1:00
Speaker 1: She appears seldom, indeed, to have let a good story
1:05
Speaker 1: pass without catching it on the wing. I allude, of course,
1:11
Speaker 1: not so much to things she heard, as to things
1:15
Speaker 1: she saw and felt. She writes sometimes of herself, sometimes
1:23
Speaker 1: of others, sometimes of the combination. It's under this last
1:31
Speaker 1: rubric that she's usually most vivid, but it's not you
1:36
Speaker 1: will understand when she's most vivid, that she's always most
1:43
Speaker 1: publishable to tell the truth. She's fearfully indiscreet, or has
1:52
Speaker 1: at least all the material for making me so. Take
1:57
Speaker 1: as an instance, the fragment I send you after dividing
2:02
Speaker 1: it for your convenience into several small chapters. It is
2:09
Speaker 1: the contents of a thin, blank book which I have
2:13
Speaker 1: had copied out, and which has the merit of being
2:18
Speaker 1: nearly enough a rounded thing, an intelligible whole. These pages
2:26
Speaker 1: evidently date from years ago. I've read with the liveliest
2:32
Speaker 1: wonder the statement they so circumstantially make, and done my
2:38
Speaker 1: best to swallow the prodigy they leave to be inferred.
2:43
Speaker 1: These things would be striking, wouldn't they to any reader?
2:49
Speaker 1: But can you imagine for a moment my placing such
2:54
Speaker 1: a document before the world, even though as if she
2:59
Speaker 1: has so a desire that the world should have the
3:02
Speaker 1: benefit of it. She has given her friends neither name
3:07
Speaker 1: nor initials. Have you any sort of clue to their identity?
3:15
Speaker 1: I leave her the floor one. I know perfectly, of course,
3:24
Speaker 1: that I brought it upon myself, but that doesn't make
3:28
Speaker 1: it any better. I was the first to speak of
3:31
Speaker 1: her to him. He had never even heard her mentioned.
3:36
Speaker 1: Even if I had happened not to speak, someone else
3:39
Speaker 1: would have made up for it. I tried afterwards to
3:42
Speaker 1: find comfort in that reflection. But the comfort of reflections
3:47
Speaker 1: is thin. The only comfort that counts in life is
3:51
Speaker 1: not to have been a fool. That's a beatitude I
3:55
Speaker 1: shall doubtless never enjoy. Why you ought to meet her
4:00
Speaker 1: and talk it over? Is what I immediately said. Birds
4:05
Speaker 1: of a feather flocked together. I told him who she was,
4:09
Speaker 1: and that there were birds of a feather, Because if
4:13
Speaker 1: he had had in youth a strange adventure, she had
4:19
Speaker 1: had about the same time just such another. It was
4:24
Speaker 1: well known to her friends, an incident she was constantly
4:28
Speaker 1: called on to describe. She was charming, clever, pretty unhappy.
4:35
Speaker 1: But it was nonetheless the thing to which she had
4:38
Speaker 1: originally owed her reputation. Being at the age of eighteen,
4:46
Speaker 1: somewhere abroad with an aunt, she had had a vision
4:51
Speaker 1: of one of her parents at the moment of death.
4:55
Speaker 1: The parent was in England, hundreds of miles away, and
5:00
Speaker 1: so far as she knew, neither dying nor dead. It
5:04
Speaker 1: was by day in the museum of some great foreign town.
5:10
Speaker 1: She had passed alone in advance of her companions, into
5:15
Speaker 1: a small room containing some famous work of art, and
5:20
Speaker 1: occupied at that moment by two other persons. One of
5:26
Speaker 1: these was an old custodian, the second. Before observing him,
5:33
Speaker 1: she took for a stranger a tourist. She was merely
5:37
Speaker 1: conscious that he was bareheaded and seated on a bench.
5:43
Speaker 1: The instant her eyes rested on him, however, she beheld
5:47
Speaker 1: to her amazement. Her father, who as if he had
5:51
Speaker 1: long waited for her, looked at her in singular distress,
5:56
Speaker 1: with an impatience that was akin to reproach. She rushed
6:00
Speaker 1: to him with a bewildered cry, Papa, what is it?
6:06
Speaker 1: But this was followed by an exhibition of still livelier feeling,
6:11
Speaker 1: when on her movement, he simply vanished, leaving the custodian
6:16
Speaker 1: and her relations, who were at her heels, to gather
6:20
Speaker 1: round her in dismay. These persons, the official, the aunt,
6:27
Speaker 1: the cousins were therefore, in a manner witnesses of the fact,
6:33
Speaker 1: the fact at least of the impression made on her.
6:38
Speaker 1: And there was the further testimony of a doctor who
6:41
Speaker 1: was attending one of the party, and to whom it
6:44
Speaker 1: was immediately afterwards communicated. He gave her a remedy for hysterics,
6:51
Speaker 1: but said to the aunt privately, wait and see if
6:56
Speaker 1: something doesn't happen at home. Something had happened. The poor father,
7:03
Speaker 1: suddenly and violently seized, had died that morning the aunt
7:09
Speaker 1: the mother's sister received before the day was out a
7:14
Speaker 1: telegram announcing the event and requesting her to prepare her
7:18
Speaker 1: niece for it. Her niece was already prepared, and the
7:23
Speaker 1: girl's sense of this visitation remained, of course indelible. We had,
7:30
Speaker 1: all as her friends, had it conveyed to us, and
7:35
Speaker 1: had conveyed it creepily to each other. Twelve years had elapsed,
7:42
Speaker 1: and as a woman who had made an unhappy marriage
7:46
Speaker 1: and lived apart from her husband, she had become interesting
7:50
Speaker 1: from other sources. But since the name she now bore
7:55
Speaker 1: was a name frequently born, and since moreover her judicial
8:01
Speaker 1: separation as things were going, could hardly count as a distinction,
8:07
Speaker 1: it was usual to qualify her as the one you
8:12
Speaker 1: know who saw her father's ghost. As for him, dear man,
8:19
Speaker 1: he had seen his mother's I had never heard of
8:23
Speaker 1: that till this occasion, on which a closer, a pleasanter acquaintance,
8:30
Speaker 1: led him, through some turn of the subject of our talk,
8:34
Speaker 1: to mention it and to inspire me in so doing,
8:38
Speaker 1: with the impulse to let him know that he had
8:41
Speaker 1: a rival in the field, a person with whom he
8:44
Speaker 1: could compare notes. Later on, his story became for him,
8:50
Speaker 1: perhaps because of my unduly repeating it likewise a convenient
8:56
Speaker 1: worldly label, But it had not a year before been
9:02
Speaker 1: the ground on which he was introduced to me. He
9:06
Speaker 1: had other merits, just as she poor thing had others.
9:12
Speaker 1: I can honestly say that I was quite aware of
9:15
Speaker 1: them from the first I discovered them, sooner than he
9:20
Speaker 1: discovered mine. I remember how it struck me, even at
9:25
Speaker 1: the time, that his sense of mind was quickened by
9:30
Speaker 1: my having been able to match, though not indeed straight
9:34
Speaker 1: from my own experience, his curious anecdote. It dated this anecdote,
9:44
Speaker 1: as hers did, from some dozen years before, a year
9:50
Speaker 1: in which at Oxford he had, for some reason of
9:54
Speaker 1: his own, been staying on into the long He had
9:59
Speaker 1: been in the August afternoon on the river. Coming back
10:04
Speaker 1: into his room while it was still distinct daylight, he
10:08
Speaker 1: found his mother standing there, as if her eyes had
10:12
Speaker 1: been fixed on the door. He had had a letter
10:15
Speaker 1: from her that morning out of Wales, where she was
10:18
Speaker 1: staying with her father. At the sight of him, she
10:22
Speaker 1: smiled with extraordinary radiance and extended her arms to him,
10:28
Speaker 1: And then as he sprang forward and joyfully opened his own,
10:33
Speaker 1: she vanished from the place. He wrote to her that night,
10:38
Speaker 1: telling her what had happened. The letter had been carefully preserved.
10:45
Speaker 1: The next morning he heard of her death. He was,
10:49
Speaker 1: through this chance of urtor, extremely struck with the little
10:55
Speaker 1: prodigy I was able to produce for him. He had
10:59
Speaker 1: never mounted another case. Certainly they ought to meet my
11:05
Speaker 1: friend and he, certainly they would have something in common.
11:12
Speaker 1: I would arrange this, wouldn't I If she didn't mind
11:18
Speaker 1: for himself. He didn't mind in the least. I had
11:22
Speaker 1: promised to speak to her of the matter as soon
11:25
Speaker 1: as possible, and within the week I was able to
11:29
Speaker 1: do so. She minded as little as he. She was
11:34
Speaker 1: perfectly willing to see him, And yet no meeting was
11:39
Speaker 1: to occur, as meetings are commonly understood. Two. That's just
11:50
Speaker 1: half my tale, the extraordinary way it was hindered. This
11:56
Speaker 1: was the fault of a series of accidents. But the
12:01
Speaker 1: accidents continued for years and became, for me and for
12:06
Speaker 1: others a subject of hilarity. With either party, they were
12:12
Speaker 1: droll enough at first, then they grew rather a bore.
12:17
Speaker 1: The odd thing was that both parties were amenable. It
12:22
Speaker 1: wasn't a case of their being indifferent, much less of
12:25
Speaker 1: their being indisposed. It was one of the caprices of Charnce, aided,
12:32
Speaker 1: I suppose, by some opposition of their interests and habits.
12:38
Speaker 1: His were centered in his office, his eternal inspectorship, which
12:44
Speaker 1: left him small leisure, constantly calling him away and making
12:48
Speaker 1: him break engagements. He liked society, but he found it
12:53
Speaker 1: everywhere and took it at a run. I never knew
12:58
Speaker 1: at a given moment where he was, and there were
13:02
Speaker 1: times when, for months together I never saw him. She
13:06
Speaker 1: was on her side, practically suburban. She lived at Richmond
13:12
Speaker 1: and never went out. She was a woman of distinction,
13:18
Speaker 1: but not of fashion, and felt, as people said her situation,
13:25
Speaker 1: decidedly proud and rather whimsical. She lived her life as
13:32
Speaker 1: she had planned it. There were things one could do
13:36
Speaker 1: with her, but one couldn't make her come to one's parties.
13:41
Speaker 1: One went, indeed, a little more than seemed quite convenient
13:46
Speaker 1: to hers, which consisted of her cousin, a cup of
13:51
Speaker 1: tea and the view. The tea was good, but the
13:57
Speaker 1: view was familiar, though perhaps not like the cousin, a
14:02
Speaker 1: disagreeable old maid who had been of the group at
14:06
Speaker 1: the museum, and with whom she now lived offensively. So
14:13
Speaker 1: this a connection with an inferior relative, which had partly
14:18
Speaker 1: an economical motive. She proclaimed her companion a marvelous manager.
14:25
Speaker 1: Was one of the little perversities we had to forgive of.
14:30
Speaker 1: Another was her estimate of the proprieties created by her
14:35
Speaker 1: rupture with her husband. That was extreme. Many persons called
14:42
Speaker 1: it even morbid. She made no advances, She cultivated scruples,
14:51
Speaker 1: she suspected, or I should perhaps rather say she remembered slights.
14:59
Speaker 1: She was one of the few women I have known
15:02
Speaker 1: whom that particular predicament had rendered modest rather than bold,
15:08
Speaker 1: dear thing. She had some delicacy, especially marked with the
15:15
Speaker 1: limits she had set to possible attentions from men. It
15:20
Speaker 1: was always her thought that her husband was waiting to
15:24
Speaker 1: pounce on her. She discouraged if she didn't forbid the
15:30
Speaker 1: visits of male persons not seen all. She said she
15:35
Speaker 1: could never be too careful. When I first mentioned to
15:40
Speaker 1: her that I had a friend whom fate had distinguished
15:44
Speaker 1: in the same weird way as herself, I put her
15:49
Speaker 1: quite at liberty to say, oh, bring him out to
15:52
Speaker 1: see me. I should probably have been able to bring
15:56
Speaker 1: him and a situation, perfectly innocent, or at any rate
16:01
Speaker 1: comparatively simple, who would have been created? But she uttered
16:06
Speaker 1: no such word. She only said, I must meet him, certainly, Yes,
16:11
Speaker 1: I shall look out for him. That caused the first delay.
16:17
Speaker 1: And meanwhile various things happened. One of them was that
16:23
Speaker 1: as time went on she made charming as she was
16:28
Speaker 1: more and more friends, and that it regularly befell that
16:35
Speaker 1: these friends were sufficiently also friends of his to bring
16:40
Speaker 1: him up in conversation. It was odd that, without belonging,
16:47
Speaker 1: as it were, to the same world, or, according to
16:52
Speaker 1: the horrid term, the same set my baffled pair should
16:58
Speaker 1: have happened in so many cases to fall in with
17:03
Speaker 1: the same people and make them join in the funny chorus.
17:09
Speaker 1: She had friends who didn't know each other, but who
17:13
Speaker 1: inevitably and punctually recommended him. She had also the sort
17:20
Speaker 1: of originality, the intrinsic interest that led her to be
17:26
Speaker 1: kept by each of us as a kind of private resource,
17:31
Speaker 1: cultivated jealously, more or less in secret, As a person
17:36
Speaker 1: whom one didn't meet in society, whom it was not
17:41
Speaker 1: for everyone, whom it was not for the vulgar to approach,
17:47
Speaker 1: and with whom therefore acquaintance was particularly difficult and particularly precious.
17:56
Speaker 1: We saw her separately with appointments and conditions, and found
18:01
Speaker 1: it made on the whole for harmony not to tell
18:05
Speaker 1: each other. Somebody had always had a note from her,
18:10
Speaker 1: still later than somebody else. There was some silly woman who,
18:17
Speaker 1: for a long time among the unprivileged owed to three
18:22
Speaker 1: simple visits to Richmond, a reputation for being intimate with
18:28
Speaker 1: lots of awfully clever, out of the way people. Every
18:33
Speaker 1: one has had friends, it has seemed a happy thought
18:37
Speaker 1: to bring together, and every one remembers that his happiest
18:42
Speaker 1: thoughts have not been his greatest successes. But I doubt
18:47
Speaker 1: if there was ever a case in which the failure
18:51
Speaker 1: was in such direct proportion to the quantity of influence
18:55
Speaker 1: set in motion. It is really, perhaps here the quantity
19:01
Speaker 1: of influence that was most remarkable. My lady and gentlemen
19:09
Speaker 1: each declared to me and others that it was like
19:13
Speaker 1: the subject of a roaring fast. The reason first given
19:19
Speaker 1: had with time dropped out of sight, and fifty better
19:23
Speaker 1: ones flourished on top of it. They were so awfully alike.
19:28
Speaker 1: They had the same ideas and tricks and tastes, the
19:32
Speaker 1: same prejudices and superstitions and heiresses. They said the same
19:38
Speaker 1: things and sometimes did them. They liked and disliked the
19:44
Speaker 1: same persons and places, the same books, authors, and styles.
19:50
Speaker 1: Any One could see a certain identity even in their
19:54
Speaker 1: looks and their features. It established much of a propriety
19:59
Speaker 1: that the they were, in common parlance, equally nice and
20:04
Speaker 1: almost equally handsome. But the great sameness, for wonder and
20:11
Speaker 1: chatter was their rare perversity in regard to being photographed.
20:18
Speaker 1: They were the only persons ever heard of who had
20:22
Speaker 1: never been taken and who had a passionate objection to it.
20:28
Speaker 1: If they just wouldn't be for anything, anyone could say,
20:33
Speaker 1: I had loudly complained of this him in particular, I
20:38
Speaker 1: had so vainly desired to be able to show on
20:41
Speaker 1: my drawing room chimney piece in a Bond Street frame.
20:46
Speaker 1: It was, at any rate, the very liveliest of all
20:50
Speaker 1: the reasons why they ought to know each other, all
20:53
Speaker 1: the lively reasons reduced to naught by the strange law
20:59
Speaker 1: that had made them banged so many doors in each
21:02
Speaker 1: other's face, made them the buckets and the well, the
21:06
Speaker 1: two ends of the seesaw the two parties in the state,
21:11
Speaker 1: so that when one was up, the other was down.
21:15
Speaker 1: When one was out, the other was in. Neither by
21:20
Speaker 1: any possibility entering your house till the other had left it,
21:26
Speaker 1: or leaving it all unawares till the other was at hand.
21:31
Speaker 1: They only arrived when they had been given up, which
21:35
Speaker 1: was precisely also when they departed. They were, in a word,
21:42
Speaker 1: all turnate and incompatible. They missed each other with an
21:48
Speaker 1: inveteracy that could be explained only by its being preconcerted.
21:55
Speaker 1: It was, however, so far from preconcerted, that it had
22:00
Speaker 1: ended literally after several years, by disappointing and annoying them.
22:08
Speaker 1: I don't think their curiosity was lively till it had
22:11
Speaker 1: been proved utterly vain. A great deal was of course
22:16
Speaker 1: done to help them, but it merely laid wires for
22:19
Speaker 1: them to trip. To give examples, I should have to
22:23
Speaker 1: have taken notes, but I happened to remember that neither
22:28
Speaker 1: had ever been able to dine on the right occasion.
22:32
Speaker 1: The right occasion for each was the occasion that would
22:37
Speaker 1: be wrong for the other. On the wrong one. They
22:41
Speaker 1: were most punctual, and there were never any but wrong ones.
22:46
Speaker 1: The very elements conspired, and the constitution of man reinforced them.
22:53
Speaker 1: A cold, a headache, a bereavement, a storm, a fog,
22:59
Speaker 1: an earth, earthquake, a cataclysm infallibly intervened. The whole business
23:06
Speaker 1: was beyond the joke, yet as a joke, it had
23:10
Speaker 1: still to be taken, though one couldn't help feeling that
23:15
Speaker 1: the joke had made the situation serious, had produced on
23:19
Speaker 1: the part of each a consciousness, an awkwardness, a positive
23:25
Speaker 1: dread of the last accident of all, the only one
23:30
Speaker 1: with any freshness left, the accident that would bring them
23:35
Speaker 1: face to face. The final effect of its predecessors had
23:41
Speaker 1: been to kindle this instinct. They were quite ashamed, perhaps
23:46
Speaker 1: even a little, of each other. So much preparation, so
23:51
Speaker 1: much frustration, What indeed could be good enough for it
23:56
Speaker 1: all to lead up to a mere meeting would be
24:01
Speaker 1: mere flatness. Did I see them at the end of years?
24:06
Speaker 1: They often asked, just stupidly. Confronted if they were bored
24:14
Speaker 1: by the joke, they might be worse bored by something else.
24:20
Speaker 1: They made exactly the same reflections, and each in some
24:25
Speaker 1: manner was sure to hear of the others. I really
24:30
Speaker 1: think it was this peculiar diffidence that finally controlled the situation.
24:38
Speaker 1: I mean that if they had failed for the first
24:41
Speaker 1: year or two because they couldn't help it, they kept
24:45
Speaker 1: up therebit because they had what shall I call it,
24:51
Speaker 1: grown nervous. It really took some lurking volition to account
24:58
Speaker 1: for anything so absurd. Three, When to crown our long acquaintance,
25:10
Speaker 1: I accepted his renewed offer of marriage, It was humorously said,
25:16
Speaker 1: I know that I had made the gift of his
25:20
Speaker 1: photograph a condition. This was so far true that I
25:25
Speaker 1: had refused to give him mine without it. At any rate,
25:30
Speaker 1: I had him at last in his high distinction on
25:35
Speaker 1: the chimney piece, where the day she called to congratulate me,
25:40
Speaker 1: she came nearer than she had ever done to seeing him.
25:45
Speaker 1: He had set her in being taken an example which
25:49
Speaker 1: I invited her to follow. He had sacrificed his perversity.
25:55
Speaker 1: Wouldn't she sacrifice hers? She too, must give me something
26:01
Speaker 1: on my engagement. Wouldn't she give me the companion piece?
26:07
Speaker 1: She laughed and shook her head. She had headshakes whose
26:13
Speaker 1: impulse seemed to come from as far away as the
26:17
Speaker 1: breeze that stirs a flower. The companion piece to the
26:22
Speaker 1: portrait of my future husband was the portrait of his
26:27
Speaker 1: future wife. She had taken us, and she could depart
26:32
Speaker 1: from it as little as she could explain it. It
26:36
Speaker 1: was a prejudice, an aunt tete mont a vow she
26:42
Speaker 1: would live and die unphotographed. Now too, she was alone
26:52
Speaker 1: in that state. This was what she liked. It made
26:56
Speaker 1: us so much more original. She rejoiced in the fall
27:01
Speaker 1: of her late associate and looked a long time at
27:05
Speaker 1: his picture, about which she made no memorable remark, though
27:10
Speaker 1: she even turned it over to see the bag about
27:15
Speaker 1: our engagement. She was charming, full of cordiality and sympathy.
27:21
Speaker 1: You've known him even longer than I've not, she said,
27:27
Speaker 1: and that seems a very long time. She understood how
27:33
Speaker 1: we had jogged together over hill and dale, and how
27:38
Speaker 1: inevitable it was that we should now rest together. I'm
27:44
Speaker 1: deafenite abat all this, because what followed is so strange
27:49
Speaker 1: that it's a kind of belief to me to mark
27:53
Speaker 1: the point up to which our relations were as natural
27:56
Speaker 1: as ever. It was I my self who, in a
28:01
Speaker 1: sudden madness, altered and destroyed them. I see now that
28:07
Speaker 1: she gave me no pretext, and that I only found
28:11
Speaker 1: one in the way she looked at the fine face
28:14
Speaker 1: in the Bond Street frame. How then would I have
28:19
Speaker 1: had a look at it. What I had wanted from
28:22
Speaker 1: the first was to make a care for him. Well,
28:28
Speaker 1: that was what I still wanted up to the moment
28:32
Speaker 1: of her having promised me that he would on this
28:35
Speaker 1: occasion really aid me to break the stelly spell that
28:40
Speaker 1: had kept them asunder. I had arranged with him to
28:44
Speaker 1: do his part if she would as triumphantly do hers.
28:50
Speaker 1: I was on a different footing. Now, I was on
28:54
Speaker 1: a footing to answer for him. I would positively engage
29:00
Speaker 1: that at five on the following Saturday, he would be
29:04
Speaker 1: on that spot. He was out of town on pressing business,
29:10
Speaker 1: but pledged to keep his promise to the letter, he
29:13
Speaker 1: would return on purpose and in abundant time. Are you
29:19
Speaker 1: perfectly sure, I remember, she asked, looking grave and considering.
29:26
Speaker 1: I thought she had turned a little pale. She was tired,
29:31
Speaker 1: she was indisposed. It was a pity he was to
29:36
Speaker 1: see her, after all, at so poor a moment, if
29:40
Speaker 1: he only could have seen her five years before. However,
29:46
Speaker 1: I replied that this time I was sure and that
29:50
Speaker 1: success therefore had depended simply on herself. At five o'clock
29:57
Speaker 1: on the Saturday, she would find him in a particular chair.
30:02
Speaker 1: I pointed out, the one in which he usually sat,
30:06
Speaker 1: and in which, though this I didn't mention, he had
30:10
Speaker 1: been sitting when the week before he put the question
30:15
Speaker 1: of our future to me in the way that had
30:18
Speaker 1: brought me round. She looked at it in silence, just
30:23
Speaker 1: as she had looked at the photograph, while I repeated
30:27
Speaker 1: for the twentieth time that it was too preposterous. It
30:31
Speaker 1: shouldn't somehow be feasible to introduce to one's dearest friend
30:37
Speaker 1: one's second self. Am I your dearest friend? She asked,
30:45
Speaker 1: with a smile that for a moment brought back her beauty.
30:50
Speaker 1: I replied by pressing her to my bosom, after which
30:54
Speaker 1: she said, well, I'll come. I'm extraordinarily afraid, but you
31:01
Speaker 1: may count on me. When she had left me, I
31:05
Speaker 1: began to wonder what she was afraid of. Where she
31:09
Speaker 1: had spoken as if she fully meant it. The next day,
31:14
Speaker 1: late in the afternoon, I had three lines from her.
31:19
Speaker 1: She had found on getting home the announcement of her
31:22
Speaker 1: husband's death. She had not seen him for seven years.
31:27
Speaker 1: But she wished me to know it in this way
31:29
Speaker 1: before I should hear of it in another. It made, however,
31:34
Speaker 1: in her life, strange and sad to say, so little
31:37
Speaker 1: difference that she would scrupulously keep her appointment. I rejoiced
31:43
Speaker 1: for her. I supposed it would make at least the
31:47
Speaker 1: difference of her having more money. But even in this diversion,
31:52
Speaker 1: far from forgetting that she had said she was afraid,
31:57
Speaker 1: I seemed to catch sight of a reason for being so.
32:02
Speaker 1: Her fear, as the evening went on, became contagious, and
32:07
Speaker 1: the contagion took in my breast the form of a
32:10
Speaker 1: sudden panic. It wasn't jealousy. It was the dread of jealousy.
32:16
Speaker 1: I called myself a fool for not having been quiet
32:19
Speaker 1: till we were man and wife. After that I should
32:23
Speaker 1: somehow feel secure. It was only a question of waiting
32:27
Speaker 1: another month, a trifle, surely for people who had waited
32:32
Speaker 1: so long. It had been plain enough she was nervous,
32:37
Speaker 1: and now that she was free, she naturally wouldn't be less.
32:42
Speaker 1: So what was her nervousness therefore, but a presentiment? She
32:48
Speaker 1: had been hitherto the victim of interference, But it was
32:53
Speaker 1: quite possible she would henceforth be the source of it.
32:58
Speaker 1: The victim in that case would be my simple self.
33:05
Speaker 1: What had the interference been but the finger of providence
33:09
Speaker 1: pointing out a danger. The danger was, of course, for
33:14
Speaker 1: poor me. It had been kept at bay by a
33:18
Speaker 1: series of accidents unexampled in their frequency. But the reign
33:24
Speaker 1: of accident was now visibly at an end. I had
33:29
Speaker 1: an intimate conviction that both parties would keep the tryst.
33:34
Speaker 1: It was more and more impressed upon me that they
33:37
Speaker 1: were approaching converging. We had talked about breaking the spell. Well,
33:43
Speaker 1: it would be effectually broken, unless, indeed, it should merely
33:48
Speaker 1: take another form and overdo their encounters as it had
33:53
Speaker 1: overdone their escapes. This was something I couldn't sit still for.
33:59
Speaker 1: Thinking of it kept me awake at midnight. I was
34:04
Speaker 1: full of unrest. At last, I felt there was only
34:07
Speaker 1: one way of laying the ghost. If the reign of
34:11
Speaker 1: accident was over, I must just take up the succession.
34:17
Speaker 1: I sat down and wrote a hurried note which would
34:22
Speaker 1: meet him on his return, and which, as the servants
34:26
Speaker 1: had gone to bed, I sallied forth, bare headed into
34:30
Speaker 1: the empty gusty street to drop into the nearest pillar box.
34:36
Speaker 1: It was to tell him that I shouldn't be able
34:39
Speaker 1: to be at home in the afternoon, as I had hoped,
34:43
Speaker 1: and that he must postpone his visit till dinner time.
34:48
Speaker 1: This was an implication that he would find me alone four.
34:57
Speaker 1: When accordingly, at five she presented herself. I naturally felt
35:03
Speaker 1: false and base. My act had been a momentary madness,
35:09
Speaker 1: but I had at least to be consistent. She remained
35:14
Speaker 1: an hour. He of course, never came, and I could
35:19
Speaker 1: only persist in my perfidy. I had thought it best
35:24
Speaker 1: to let her come singular. As this now seems to me,
35:30
Speaker 1: I thought it diminished my guilt. Yet as she sat there,
35:35
Speaker 1: so visibly white and weary, stricken with a sense of
35:39
Speaker 1: everything her husband's death had opened up, I felt an
35:44
Speaker 1: almost intolerable pang of pity and remorse. If I didn't
35:49
Speaker 1: tell her on the spot what I had done, it
35:52
Speaker 1: was because I was too ashamed. I feigned astonishment. I
35:58
Speaker 1: feigned it to the end. I protested that if ever
36:02
Speaker 1: I had had confidence, I had had it that day.
36:06
Speaker 1: I blush as I tell my story. I take it
36:10
Speaker 1: as my penance. There was nothing indignant I didn't say
36:15
Speaker 1: about him. I invented suppositions, attenuations, I admitted, in stupefaction
36:24
Speaker 1: as the hands of the clock traveled that their luck
36:28
Speaker 1: hadn't turned. She smiled at this vision of their luck.
36:34
Speaker 1: But she looked anxious. She looked unusual. The only thing
36:41
Speaker 1: that kept me up was the fact that, oddly enough
36:46
Speaker 1: she wore morning, no great depths of crape, but simple
36:53
Speaker 1: and scrupulous black. She had in her bonnet three small,
37:00
Speaker 1: all black feathers. She carried a little muff of astrakham.
37:07
Speaker 1: This put me, by the aid of some acute reflection,
37:11
Speaker 1: a little in the right. She had written to me
37:14
Speaker 1: that the sudden event made no difference for her, But
37:19
Speaker 1: apparently it made as much difference as that. If she
37:24
Speaker 1: was inclined to the usual forms, why didn't she observe
37:28
Speaker 1: that of not going the first day or two out
37:31
Speaker 1: to tea there was someone she wanted so much to
37:35
Speaker 1: see that she couldn't wait till her husband was buried.
37:41
Speaker 1: Such a betrayal of eagerness made me hard and cruel
37:45
Speaker 1: enough to practice my odious deceit. Though at the same
37:50
Speaker 1: time as the hour waxed and waned, I suspected in
37:54
Speaker 1: her something deeper still than disappointment, and somewhat less successfully concealed.
38:04
Speaker 1: I mean a strange underlying relief, the soft, low emission
38:10
Speaker 1: of the breath that comes when a danger is past.
38:15
Speaker 1: What happened as she spent a barren hour with me
38:20
Speaker 1: was that at last she gave him up, She let
38:24
Speaker 1: him go forever. She made the most graceful joke of
38:29
Speaker 1: it that I've ever seen made of anything. But it
38:33
Speaker 1: was for all that a great date in her life.
38:38
Speaker 1: She spoke with her mild gaiety, of all the other
38:42
Speaker 1: vain times, the long game of hide and seek, the
38:48
Speaker 1: unprecedented queerness of such a relation. For it was or
38:57
Speaker 1: had been a relation, wasn't it? Hadn't it? That was
39:04
Speaker 1: just the absurd part of it. When she got up
39:08
Speaker 1: to go, I said to her that it was more
39:12
Speaker 1: a relation than ever, but that I hadn't the face
39:16
Speaker 1: after what had occurred, to propose to her, for the
39:20
Speaker 1: present another opportunity. It was plain that the only valid
39:26
Speaker 1: opportunity would be my accomplished marriage. Of course she would
39:32
Speaker 1: be at my wedding. It was even to be hoped
39:36
Speaker 1: that he would. If I am, he won't be, she declared,
39:44
Speaker 1: with a laugh. I admitted there might be something in that.
39:50
Speaker 1: The thing was, therefore to get us safely married first.
39:55
Speaker 1: That won't help us. Nothing will help us, she said,
40:00
Speaker 1: She kissed me farewell. I shall never never see him.
40:05
Speaker 1: It was with those words she left me. I could
40:09
Speaker 1: bear her disappointment, as I've called it, But when a
40:14
Speaker 1: couple of hours later I received him at dinner, I
40:18
Speaker 1: found that I couldn't bear his The way my maneuver
40:23
Speaker 1: might have effected him had not been particularly present to me,
40:29
Speaker 1: but the result of it was the first word of
40:31
Speaker 1: reproach that had ever yet dropped from him. I say
40:36
Speaker 1: reproach because that expression is scarcely too strong for the
40:42
Speaker 1: terms in which he conveyed to me his surprise that
40:46
Speaker 1: under the extraordinary circumstances I should not have found some
40:51
Speaker 1: means not to deprive him of such an occasion. I
40:56
Speaker 1: might really have managed either not to be a blog,
41:00
Speaker 1: to go out, or to let them meeting take place.
41:03
Speaker 1: All the same, they would probably have got on in
41:07
Speaker 1: my drawing room without me. At this I quite broke down.
41:11
Speaker 1: I confessed my iniquity and the miserable reason of it.
41:16
Speaker 1: I had not put her up, and I had not
41:19
Speaker 1: gone out. She had been there, and after waiting for
41:23
Speaker 1: him an hour, had departed in the belief that he
41:26
Speaker 1: had been absent by his own fault. She must think
41:30
Speaker 1: me a precious brute, he exclaimed. Did she say of
41:35
Speaker 1: me what she had a right to say? I assure
41:39
Speaker 1: you she said nothing that showed the least feeling. She
41:43
Speaker 1: looked at your photograph. She even turned round the back
41:46
Speaker 1: of it, on which your address happens to be inscribed.
41:50
Speaker 1: Yet it provoked her to no demonstration. She doesn't care
41:54
Speaker 1: so much as all that. Then, why are you afraid
41:58
Speaker 1: of her? It was not of her. I was afraid.
42:01
Speaker 1: It was of you. Did you think I would fall
42:04
Speaker 1: in love with her? You never alluded to such a
42:07
Speaker 1: possibility before, he went on, as I remained silent, admirable
42:13
Speaker 1: person as you pronounced her. That wasn't the light in
42:17
Speaker 1: which you showed her to me? Do you mean that
42:20
Speaker 1: if it had been, you would have managed by this
42:24
Speaker 1: time to catch a glimpse of her. I didn't fear things, then,
42:28
Speaker 1: I added, I hadn't the same reason he kissed me
42:33
Speaker 1: at this, And when I remembered that she had done
42:36
Speaker 1: so an hour or two before, I felt for an
42:39
Speaker 1: instant as if he were taking from my lips the
42:43
Speaker 1: very pressure of hers. In spite of kisses. The incident
42:49
Speaker 1: had shed a certain chill, and I suffered horribly from
42:54
Speaker 1: the sense that he had seen me guilty of a fraud.
42:58
Speaker 1: He had seen it only through my frank avowal. But
43:02
Speaker 1: I was as unhappy as if I had a stain
43:05
Speaker 1: to efface. I couldn't get over the manner of his
43:09
Speaker 1: looking at me when I spoke of her apparent indifference
43:13
Speaker 1: to his not having come. For the first time since
43:17
Speaker 1: I had known him, he seemed to have expressed a
43:20
Speaker 1: doubt of my word. Before we parted. I told him
43:26
Speaker 1: that I would undeceiver start the first thing in the
43:30
Speaker 1: morning for Richmond, and there let her know that he
43:33
Speaker 1: had been blameless. At this he kissed me again. I
43:39
Speaker 1: would expiate my sin, I said, I would humble myself
43:43
Speaker 1: in the dust. I would confess and ask to be forgiven.
43:49
Speaker 1: At this he kissed me once more. End of chapter one,
44:08
Speaker 1: Chapter two of The Way It Came by Henry James.
44:16
Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by
44:22
Speaker 1: Tony Addison The Way It Came by Henry James five
44:35
Speaker 1: in the train the next day. This struck me as
44:38
Speaker 1: a good deal bim to have consented to. But my
44:42
Speaker 1: purpose was firm enough to carry me on. I mounted
44:47
Speaker 1: the long hill to where the view begins, and then
44:50
Speaker 1: I knocked at her door. I was a trifle mystified
44:55
Speaker 1: by the fact that her blinds were still drawn, reflecting
45:00
Speaker 1: that if in the stress of my compunction, I had
45:03
Speaker 1: come early, I had certainly yet allowed people time to
45:07
Speaker 1: get up at home. Mum, she has left home forever.
45:16
Speaker 1: I was extraordinarily startled by this announcement of the elderly parlormaid.
45:23
Speaker 1: She has gone away. She's dead, Mum. Please. Then, as
45:31
Speaker 1: I gasped at the horrible word she died last night,
45:38
Speaker 1: the loud cry that escaped me sounded even in my
45:42
Speaker 1: own ears, like some harsh violation of the hour. I
45:49
Speaker 1: felt for the moment as if I had killed her.
45:53
Speaker 1: I turned faint and saw through a vagueness the woman
45:58
Speaker 1: hold out her arm to me. Of what next happened.
46:04
Speaker 1: I have no recollection, nor of anything but my friend's
46:09
Speaker 1: poor stupid cousin in a darkened room after an interval
46:13
Speaker 1: that I supposed very brief sobbing at me in a smothered,
46:19
Speaker 1: accusatory way, I can't say how long it took me
46:24
Speaker 1: to understand, to believe, and then to press back with
46:28
Speaker 1: an immense effort that pang of responsibility, which superstitiously insanely
46:36
Speaker 1: had been at first almost all I was conscious of.
46:40
Speaker 1: The doctor after the fact had been superlatively wise and clear.
46:47
Speaker 1: He was satisfied of a long latent weakness of the heart,
46:51
Speaker 1: determined probably years before by the agitations and terrors to
46:57
Speaker 1: which her marriage had introduced her. She had had in
47:01
Speaker 1: those days cruel scenes with her husband. She had been
47:06
Speaker 1: in fear of her life. All emotion, everything in the
47:11
Speaker 1: nature of anxiety and suspense, had been after that to
47:17
Speaker 1: be strongly deprecated, as in her marked cultivation of a
47:23
Speaker 1: quiet life. She was evidently well aware. But who could
47:28
Speaker 1: say that any one, especially a real lady, could be
47:33
Speaker 1: successfully protected from every little rub She had had one
47:38
Speaker 1: a day or two before in the news of her
47:41
Speaker 1: husband's death, for there were shocks of all kinds, not
47:46
Speaker 1: only those of grief and surprise. For that matter, she
47:51
Speaker 1: had never dreamed of so near a release. It had
47:55
Speaker 1: looked uncommonly as if he would live as long as herself.
48:00
Speaker 1: Then in the evening in town she had manifestly had another.
48:06
Speaker 1: Something must have happened there which it would be indispensable
48:10
Speaker 1: to clear up. She had come back very late, it
48:14
Speaker 1: was past eleven o'clock, and on being met in the
48:17
Speaker 1: hall by her cousin, who was extremely anxious, had said
48:22
Speaker 1: that she was tired and must rest a moment before
48:26
Speaker 1: mounting the stairs. They had passed together into the dining room,
48:33
Speaker 1: her companion proposing a glass of wine and bustling to
48:37
Speaker 1: the sideboard to pour it out. This took but a moment,
48:42
Speaker 1: and when my informant turned round, our poor friend had
48:47
Speaker 1: not had time to seat herself. Suddenly, with a little
48:52
Speaker 1: moan that was barely audible, she dropped upon the sofa.
48:57
Speaker 1: She was dead. What unknown little rubb had dealt to
49:04
Speaker 1: the blow? What shop, in the name of wonder had
49:10
Speaker 1: she had in town? I mentioned immediately the only one
49:16
Speaker 1: I could imagine her having failed to meet at my house,
49:21
Speaker 1: to which, by invitation for the purpose she had come
49:24
Speaker 1: at five o'clock, the gentleman I was to be married to,
49:29
Speaker 1: who had been accidentally kept away, and with whom she
49:33
Speaker 1: had no acquaintance. Whatever. This obviously counted for little, But
49:39
Speaker 1: something else might easily have occurred nothing in the London
49:44
Speaker 1: streets was more possible than an accident, especially an accident
49:49
Speaker 1: in those desperate cabs. What had she done? Where had
49:54
Speaker 1: she gone? On leaving my house? I had taken for
49:58
Speaker 1: granted she had gone straight home. We both presently remembered
50:03
Speaker 1: that in her excursions to town she sometimes for convenience,
50:08
Speaker 1: for refreshment, spent an hour or two at the Gentlewoman,
50:13
Speaker 1: the Quiet Little Ladies Club, and I promised that it
50:17
Speaker 1: should be my first care to make at that establishment.
50:21
Speaker 1: Thorough inquired. Then we entered the dim and dreadful chamber
50:27
Speaker 1: where she lay locked up in death, and where, asking
50:31
Speaker 1: after a little to be left alone with her, I
50:35
Speaker 1: remained for half an hour. Death had made her, had
50:39
Speaker 1: kept her beautiful. But I felt above all, as I
50:43
Speaker 1: kneeled at her bed, that it had made her, had
50:47
Speaker 1: kept her silent, It had turned the key on something
50:52
Speaker 1: I was concerned to know. On my return from Richmond,
50:58
Speaker 1: and after another duty had been performed, I drove to
51:02
Speaker 1: his chambers. It was the first time, but I had
51:07
Speaker 1: often wanted to see them. On the staircase, which, as
51:12
Speaker 1: the house contained twenty sets of rooms, was unrestrictedly public,
51:17
Speaker 1: I met his servant who went back with me and
51:20
Speaker 1: ushered me in. At the sound of my entrance, he
51:25
Speaker 1: appeared in the doorway of a further room, and the
51:28
Speaker 1: instant we were alone, I produced my news, She's dead dead.
51:35
Speaker 1: He was tremendously struck, and I observed that he had
51:39
Speaker 1: no need to ask whom In this abruptness I meant
51:44
Speaker 1: she died. Last evening, just after leaving me, he stirred
51:49
Speaker 1: with the strangest expression, his eyes searching for mine, as
51:55
Speaker 1: if they were looking for a trap. Last evening after
51:59
Speaker 1: leaving you, he repeated my words in stupefaction. Then he
52:05
Speaker 1: brought out so that it was in stupefaction I heard impossible.
52:12
Speaker 1: I saw her, You saw her on that spot where
52:18
Speaker 1: you stand. This brought back to me after an instant,
52:23
Speaker 1: as if to help me to take it, in the
52:26
Speaker 1: memory of the strange warning of his youth in the
52:30
Speaker 1: hour of death. I understand, as you so beautifully saw
52:35
Speaker 1: your mother. Ah, not as I saw my mother. Not
52:40
Speaker 1: that way, not that way. He was deeply moved by
52:43
Speaker 1: my news, far more moved, I perceived, than he would
52:47
Speaker 1: have been the day before. It gave me a vivid
52:51
Speaker 1: sense that as I had then said to myself there
52:55
Speaker 1: was indeed a relation between them, and that he had
52:58
Speaker 1: actually been face to face with her. Such an idea,
53:04
Speaker 1: by its reassertion of his extraordinary privilege, would have suddenly
53:10
Speaker 1: presented him as painfully abnormal, had he not so vehemently
53:16
Speaker 1: insisted on the difference. I saw her living, I saw
53:21
Speaker 1: her to speak to her. I saw her as I
53:24
Speaker 1: see you now. It is remarkable that for a moment,
53:31
Speaker 1: though only for a moment, I found relief in the
53:35
Speaker 1: more personal, as it were, but also the more natural
53:40
Speaker 1: of the two phenomena. The next as I embraced this
53:46
Speaker 1: image of her having come to him on leaving me,
53:50
Speaker 1: and of just what it accounted for in the disposal
53:53
Speaker 1: of her time, I demanded, with a shade of harshness
53:58
Speaker 1: of which I was aware, what on earth did she
54:02
Speaker 1: come for? He had now had a minute to think,
54:07
Speaker 1: to recover himself and judge of effects, so that if
54:11
Speaker 1: it were still with excited eyes he spoke. He showed
54:16
Speaker 1: a conscious redness, and made an inconsequent attempt to smile
54:21
Speaker 1: away the gravity of his words. She came just to
54:27
Speaker 1: see me. She came after what had passed at your house,
54:34
Speaker 1: so that we should, after all at last meet. The
54:38
Speaker 1: impulse seemed to me exquisite, and that was the way
54:42
Speaker 1: I took it. I looked round the room where she
54:46
Speaker 1: had been, where she had been and I never had been.
54:52
Speaker 1: And was the way you took it? The way she
54:56
Speaker 1: expressed it. She only pressed it by being here and
55:03
Speaker 1: by letting me look at her. That was enough, he exclaimed,
55:07
Speaker 1: with a singular laugh. I wondered more and more. You
55:13
Speaker 1: mean she didn't speak to you? She said nothing. She
55:18
Speaker 1: only looked at me as I looked at her. And
55:22
Speaker 1: you didn't speak either, He gave me again his painful smile.
55:28
Speaker 1: I thought, of you, the situation was every way delicate.
55:33
Speaker 1: I used the finest tact. But she saw she had
55:37
Speaker 1: pleased me. He even repeated his dissonant laugh. She evidently
55:44
Speaker 1: pleased you. Then I thought a moment, How long did
55:49
Speaker 1: she stay? How can I say? It seemed twenty minutes,
55:55
Speaker 1: but it was probably a good deal less twenty minutes
55:59
Speaker 1: of silence. I began to have my definite view, and
56:04
Speaker 1: now in fact, quite a clutch at it. Do you
56:08
Speaker 1: know you're telling me a story positively monstrous? He had
56:13
Speaker 1: been standing with his back to the fire at this
56:17
Speaker 1: with a pleading look he came to me. I beseech you, dearest,
56:21
Speaker 1: to take it kindly. I could take it kindly, and
56:26
Speaker 1: I signified as much, but I couldn't somehow, as he
56:31
Speaker 1: rather awkwardly opened his arms, let him draw me to him.
56:37
Speaker 1: So there fell between us for an appreciable time, the
56:42
Speaker 1: discomfort of a great silence. Six He broke it presently
56:53
Speaker 1: by saying, there's absolutely no doubt of her death, and
57:00
Speaker 1: fortunately none. I've just risen from my knees by the
57:04
Speaker 1: bed where they've laid her out. He fixed his eyes
57:08
Speaker 1: hard on the floor, then he raised them to mine.
57:13
Speaker 1: How does she look? She looks at peace. He turned
57:20
Speaker 1: away again while I watched him, But after a moment
57:25
Speaker 1: he began at what hour? Then? It must have been
57:30
Speaker 1: near midnight She dropped as she reached her house, from
57:35
Speaker 1: an affection of the heart, which she knew herself and
57:39
Speaker 1: her physician knew her to have, but of which patiently,
57:44
Speaker 1: bravely she had never spoken to me. He listened intently,
57:50
Speaker 1: and for a minute he was unable to speak. At
57:54
Speaker 1: last he broke out with an accent of which the
57:57
Speaker 1: almost boyish confidence, the really sublime simplicity, rings in my
58:03
Speaker 1: ears as I write wasn't she wonderful? Even at the time,
58:11
Speaker 1: I was able to do it justice enough to remark
58:14
Speaker 1: in reply that I had always told him so. But
58:19
Speaker 1: the next minute, as if after speaking he had caught
58:23
Speaker 1: a glimpse of what he might have made me feel,
58:26
Speaker 1: he went on quickly. You see that if she didn't
58:30
Speaker 1: get home till midnight, I instantly took him up. There
58:36
Speaker 1: was plenty of time for you to have seen it.
58:39
Speaker 1: How so I inquired, when you didn't leave my house
58:43
Speaker 1: till late. I don't remember the very moment. I was preoccupied,
58:49
Speaker 1: But you know that, though you said you had lots
58:51
Speaker 1: to do, you sat for some time after dinner. She
58:57
Speaker 1: on her side, was all the evening, the gentle woman.
59:02
Speaker 1: I've just come from there. I've ascertained she had tea there.
59:07
Speaker 1: She remained a long long time. What was she doing?
59:15
Speaker 1: Or the long long time? I saw that he was
59:21
Speaker 1: eager to challenge at every step my account of the matter,
59:26
Speaker 1: And the more he showed this, the more I found
59:29
Speaker 1: myself disposed to insist on that account, to prefer with
59:33
Speaker 1: apparent perversity, an explanation which only deepened the marvel and
59:39
Speaker 1: the mystery. But which of the two prodigies. It had
59:44
Speaker 1: to choose from my reviving jealousy found easiest to accept.
59:51
Speaker 1: He stood there, pleading with a candor that now seems
59:55
Speaker 1: to me beautiful for the privilege of having, in spite
59:58
Speaker 1: of supreme defeat, known the living woman. While I, with
1:00:05
Speaker 1: a passion I wonder at today, though it still smolders
1:00:09
Speaker 1: in a manner in its ashes, could only reply that,
1:00:14
Speaker 1: through a strange gift shared by her with his mother,
1:00:18
Speaker 1: and on her own side likewise hereditary, the miracle of
1:00:24
Speaker 1: his youth had been renewed for him, the miracle of
1:00:28
Speaker 1: hers for her. She had been to him, yes, and
1:00:34
Speaker 1: by an impulse as charming as he liked. But oh,
1:00:38
Speaker 1: she had not been in the body. It was a
1:00:42
Speaker 1: simple question of evidence I had had. I assured him
1:00:48
Speaker 1: a definite statement of what she had done most of
1:00:52
Speaker 1: the time at the little club. The place was almost empty,
1:00:58
Speaker 1: but the servants had noticed that she had sat motionless
1:01:03
Speaker 1: in the deep chair by the drawing room fire. She
1:01:07
Speaker 1: had leaned back her head, she had closed her eyes.
1:01:12
Speaker 1: She had seemed softly to sleep. I see, But to
1:01:18
Speaker 1: what o'clock that I was obliged to answer? The servants
1:01:25
Speaker 1: fail me a little. The portress, in particular, is unfortunately
1:01:31
Speaker 1: a fool. Though even she too is supposed to be
1:01:35
Speaker 1: a gentlewoman. She was evidently at that period of the
1:01:40
Speaker 1: evening without a substitute, and against regulations, absent for some
1:01:47
Speaker 1: little time from the cage in which it's a business
1:01:50
Speaker 1: to watch the comings and goings. She's muddled, She pulpably prevaricates.
1:01:59
Speaker 1: So I can't positively, from her observation give you an hour.
1:02:04
Speaker 1: But it was remarked toward half past ten that our
1:02:09
Speaker 1: poor friend was no longer in the club. She came
1:02:14
Speaker 1: straight here, and from here she went straight to the train.
1:02:19
Speaker 1: She couldn't have run it so close. I declared that
1:02:23
Speaker 1: was a thing she particularly never did. There was no
1:02:28
Speaker 1: need of running it close, my dear, she had plenty
1:02:30
Speaker 1: of time. Your memory is at fault about my having
1:02:34
Speaker 1: left you late. I left you, as it happens, unusually early.
1:02:39
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. My stay with you seemed long, for I
1:02:43
Speaker 1: was back here by ten to put yourself into your slippers.
1:02:47
Speaker 1: I rejoined and fall asleep in your chair. You slept
1:02:52
Speaker 1: till morning. You saw her in a dream. He looked
1:02:56
Speaker 1: at me in silence, and with somber eyes, eyes that
1:03:01
Speaker 1: showed me. He had some irritation to repress. Presently, I
1:03:07
Speaker 1: went on, you had a visit at an extraordinary hour
1:03:11
Speaker 1: from a lady, Sir, Nothing in the world is more probable.
1:03:17
Speaker 1: But there are ladies and ladies. How in the name
1:03:21
Speaker 1: of goodness, if she was unannounced and dumb, and you
1:03:26
Speaker 1: had into the bargain never seen the least portrait of her,
1:03:31
Speaker 1: how could you identify the person we're talking of? Haven't I,
1:03:37
Speaker 1: to absolute satiety, heard her describe. I'll describe her for
1:03:43
Speaker 1: you in every particular, don't I exclaimed, with a promptness
1:03:50
Speaker 1: that made him laugh once more. I colored at this,
1:03:54
Speaker 1: but I continued. Did your servant introduce her? He wasn't here.
1:04:00
Speaker 1: He is always away when he's wanted. One of the
1:04:04
Speaker 1: features of this big house is that from the street door,
1:04:07
Speaker 1: the different floors are accessible practically without challenge. My servant
1:04:13
Speaker 1: makes love to a young person employed in the rooms
1:04:16
Speaker 1: above these, and he had a long pout of it
1:04:19
Speaker 1: last evening. When he's out on that job, he leaves
1:04:23
Speaker 1: my outer door on the staircase so much a jar
1:04:27
Speaker 1: as to enable him to step back without a sound.
1:04:31
Speaker 1: The door then only requires a push. She pushed it
1:04:35
Speaker 1: that simply took a little courage, a little. It took tons,
1:04:42
Speaker 1: and it took all sorts of impossible calculations. Well she
1:04:48
Speaker 1: had them, she made them, mind you, I don't deny
1:04:55
Speaker 1: for a moment. He added that it was very, very wonderful.
1:05:03
Speaker 1: Something in his tone prevented me for a while from
1:05:08
Speaker 1: trusting myself to speak. At last, I said, how did
1:05:15
Speaker 1: she come to know where you live? By remembering the
1:05:20
Speaker 1: address on the little label? These shop people happily left,
1:05:23
Speaker 1: sticking to the frame I had had made for my photograph.
1:05:28
Speaker 1: And how was she dressed? In mourning? My own dear,
1:05:35
Speaker 1: No great depths of crape, but simple and scrupulous black.
1:05:41
Speaker 1: She had in her bonnet three small black feathers. She
1:05:46
Speaker 1: carried a little muff of astrakh, and she has near
1:05:51
Speaker 1: the left eye, He continued, a tiny vertical sky. I
1:05:57
Speaker 1: stopped him short remark of a caress from her husband.
1:06:03
Speaker 1: Then I added, how close you must have been to it?
1:06:08
Speaker 1: He made no answer to this, and I thought he blushed, observing,
1:06:13
Speaker 1: which I broke straight up. Well, goodbye, you won't stay
1:06:17
Speaker 1: a little. He came to me again tenderly, and this
1:06:21
Speaker 1: time I suffered him. Her visit had its beauty, he
1:06:25
Speaker 1: murmured as he held me, But yours has a greater one.
1:06:30
Speaker 1: I let him kiss me, but I remembered, as I
1:06:33
Speaker 1: had remembered the day before, that the last kiss she
1:06:37
Speaker 1: had given, as I supposed in this world, had been
1:06:42
Speaker 1: for the lips he touched. I'm life, you see, I answered,
1:06:48
Speaker 1: What you saw last night was death, It was life,
1:06:53
Speaker 1: it was life. He spoke with a kind of soft, stubbornness,
1:06:59
Speaker 1: and I dis engaged myself. We stood looking at each
1:07:03
Speaker 1: other hard. You described the scene so far as you
1:07:08
Speaker 1: describe it at all, in turns that are incomprehensible. She
1:07:14
Speaker 1: was in the room before you knew it. I looked
1:07:17
Speaker 1: up from my letter writing at that table under the lamp.
1:07:21
Speaker 1: I had been wholly absorbed in it, and she stood
1:07:26
Speaker 1: before me. Then what did you do? I sprang up
1:07:31
Speaker 1: with an ejaculation, and she, with a smile, laid her
1:07:36
Speaker 1: finger ever so warningly, yet with a sort of delicate
1:07:41
Speaker 1: dignity to her lips. I knew it meant silence, But
1:07:46
Speaker 1: the strange thing was that it seemed immediately to explain
1:07:51
Speaker 1: and to justify her. We, at any rate, stood for
1:07:56
Speaker 1: a time that, as I've told you, I can't calculate
1:07:59
Speaker 1: face of it was just as you and I stand now,
1:08:04
Speaker 1: simply staring. He impatiently protested, Ah, we're not staring, yes,
1:08:12
Speaker 1: but we're talking. Well, we were after a fashion. He
1:08:19
Speaker 1: lost himself in the memory of it. It was as
1:08:23
Speaker 1: friendly as this. I had it on my tongue's end
1:08:28
Speaker 1: to ask if that was saying much for it, but
1:08:31
Speaker 1: I remarked instead that what they had evidently done was
1:08:36
Speaker 1: to gaze in mutual admiration. Then I inquired whether his
1:08:42
Speaker 1: recognition of her had been immediate. Not quite, he replied,
1:08:48
Speaker 1: for of course I didn't expect it, but it came
1:08:52
Speaker 1: to me long before she went to She was who
1:08:55
Speaker 1: she could only be, I thought a little. And how
1:09:00
Speaker 1: did she at last go? Just as she arrived, the
1:09:05
Speaker 1: door was open behind her, and she passed out. Was
1:09:09
Speaker 1: she rapid? Slow? Rather quick? But looking behind her, he added,
1:09:16
Speaker 1: with a smile, I let her go, for I perfectly
1:09:20
Speaker 1: understood that I was to take it as she wished.
1:09:25
Speaker 1: I was conscious of exhaling a long, vague sigh. Well
1:09:31
Speaker 1: you must take it now as I wish. You must
1:09:34
Speaker 1: let me go. At this, he drew near me again,
1:09:39
Speaker 1: detaining and persuading me declaring with all dew gallantry that
1:09:45
Speaker 1: I was a very different matter. I would have given
1:09:49
Speaker 1: anything to have been able to ask him if he
1:09:52
Speaker 1: had touched her, But the words refused to form themselves.
1:09:57
Speaker 1: I knew well enough how horrid and vulgar they would send.
1:10:02
Speaker 1: I said something else, I forget exactly what it was,
1:10:07
Speaker 1: feebly tortuous, and intended to make him tell me without
1:10:12
Speaker 1: my putting the question. But he didn't tell me. He
1:10:16
Speaker 1: only repeated, as if from a glimpse of the propriety
1:10:20
Speaker 1: of soothing and consoling me. The sense of his declaration
1:10:25
Speaker 1: of some minutes before, the assurance that she was indeed exquisite,
1:10:32
Speaker 1: as I had always insisted, but that I was his
1:10:36
Speaker 1: real friend and his very own forever. This led me
1:10:42
Speaker 1: to reassert, in the spirit of my previous rejoinder, that
1:10:47
Speaker 1: I had at least the merit of being alive, which
1:10:51
Speaker 1: in turn drew from him again the flash of contradiction.
1:10:55
Speaker 1: I dreaded, Oh, she was alive, she was she? She
1:11:01
Speaker 1: was dead? She was dead. I asseverated with an energy,
1:11:06
Speaker 1: a determination that it should be so, which comes back
1:11:11
Speaker 1: to me now almost as grotesque. But the sound of
1:11:14
Speaker 1: the word as it rang out filled me suddenly with horror,
1:11:20
Speaker 1: and all the natural emotion, the meaning of it might
1:11:23
Speaker 1: be boked in other conditions, gathered and broke in a flood.
1:11:28
Speaker 1: It rolled over me that here was a great affection quenched,
1:11:34
Speaker 1: and how much I had loved and trusted her. I
1:11:38
Speaker 1: had a vision at the same time of the lonely
1:11:41
Speaker 1: beauty of her end. She's gone, She's lost to us forever.
1:11:47
Speaker 1: I burst into sobs. That's exactly what I feel, he exclaimed,
1:11:53
Speaker 1: speaking with extreme kindness and pressing me to him for comfort.
1:11:59
Speaker 1: She's gone, she's lost to us for ever. So what
1:12:03
Speaker 1: does it matter now? He bent over me, And when
1:12:08
Speaker 1: his face had touched mine, I scarcely knew if it
1:12:13
Speaker 1: were wet with my tears or with his own. Seven
1:12:22
Speaker 1: It was my theory, my conviction. It became, as I
1:12:26
Speaker 1: may say, my attitude, that they had still never met.
1:12:32
Speaker 1: And it was just on this ground that I said
1:12:35
Speaker 1: to myself it would be generous to ask him to
1:12:38
Speaker 1: stand with me beside her grave. He did so, very
1:12:43
Speaker 1: modestly and tenderly, and I assumed, though he himself clearly
1:12:48
Speaker 1: cared nothing for the danger, that the solemnity of the
1:12:52
Speaker 1: occasion largely made up of persons who had known them
1:12:56
Speaker 1: both and had a sense of the long joke, who
1:13:00
Speaker 1: would sufficiently deprive his presence of all light association on
1:13:06
Speaker 1: the question of what had happened the evening of her death.
1:13:09
Speaker 1: Little more passed between us. I had been overtaken by
1:13:13
Speaker 1: a horror of the element of evidence. It seemed gross
1:13:18
Speaker 1: and prying on either hypothesis. He, on his side, had
1:13:23
Speaker 1: none to produce, none at least but a statement of
1:13:28
Speaker 1: his house porter on his own admission, a most casual
1:13:32
Speaker 1: and intermittent personage, that between the hours of ten o'clock
1:13:37
Speaker 1: and midnight, no less than three ladies in deep black
1:13:42
Speaker 1: had flitted in and out of the place. This proved
1:13:45
Speaker 1: far too much. We had neither of us any use
1:13:49
Speaker 1: for three. He knew that I consider that I had
1:13:53
Speaker 1: accounted for every fragment of her time, and we dropped
1:13:58
Speaker 1: the matter as settled. We abstain from further discussion. What
1:14:04
Speaker 1: I knew, however, was that he abstained to please meet,
1:14:09
Speaker 1: Rather than because he yielded to my reasons. He didn't yield.
1:14:14
Speaker 1: He was only indulgent. He clung to his interpretation because
1:14:20
Speaker 1: he liked it better. He liked it better. I held
1:14:24
Speaker 1: because it had more to say to his vanity that
1:14:29
Speaker 1: in a similar position would not have been its effect
1:14:32
Speaker 1: on me, though I had doubtless quite as much. But
1:14:36
Speaker 1: these are things of individual humor as to which no
1:14:40
Speaker 1: person can judge for another. I should have supposed it
1:14:44
Speaker 1: more gratifying to be the subject of one of those
1:14:48
Speaker 1: inexplicable occurrences that are chronicled in thrilling books and dispute
1:14:54
Speaker 1: that about at learned meetings, I could conceive, on the
1:14:59
Speaker 1: part of a bee being just engulfed in the infinite
1:15:03
Speaker 1: and still vibrating with human emotion, of nothing more fine
1:15:08
Speaker 1: and pure, more high and august than such an impulse
1:15:13
Speaker 1: of reparation, of admonition, or even of curiosity. That was beautiful,
1:15:21
Speaker 1: if one would, And I should, in his place have
1:15:26
Speaker 1: thought more of myself for being so distinguished. It was
1:15:30
Speaker 1: public that he had already that he had long been distinguished.
1:15:35
Speaker 1: And what was this, in itself but almost a proof
1:15:41
Speaker 1: Each of the strange visitations contributed to establish the other.
1:15:47
Speaker 1: He had a different feeling. But he had also, I
1:15:52
Speaker 1: hastened to add, an unmistakable desire not to make a stand, or,
1:15:57
Speaker 1: as they say, a fuss about it. I might believe
1:16:01
Speaker 1: what I liked, the more so that the whole thing was,
1:16:05
Speaker 1: in a manner, a mystery of my producing. It was
1:16:08
Speaker 1: an event of my history, a puzzle of my consciousness,
1:16:13
Speaker 1: not of his. Therefore he would take about it any
1:16:17
Speaker 1: tone that struck me as convenient. We had, both, at
1:16:21
Speaker 1: all events, other business on hand. We were pressed with
1:16:25
Speaker 1: preparations for our marriage. Mine were assuredly urgent. But I
1:16:32
Speaker 1: found as the days went on that to believe what
1:16:35
Speaker 1: I liked was to believe what I was more and
1:16:39
Speaker 1: more intimately convinced of. I found also that I didn't
1:16:45
Speaker 1: like it so much as that came to or that
1:16:48
Speaker 1: the pleasure at all events was far from being the
1:16:52
Speaker 1: cause of my conviction. My obsession, as I may really
1:16:57
Speaker 1: call it, and as I began to perceive, refused to
1:17:01
Speaker 1: be elbowed away as I had hoped by my sense
1:17:05
Speaker 1: of paramount duties. If I had a great deal to do,
1:17:10
Speaker 1: I had still more to think about. And the moment
1:17:13
Speaker 1: came when my occupations were gravely menaced by my thoughts.
1:17:19
Speaker 1: I see it all now, I feel it, I live
1:17:22
Speaker 1: it over. It's terribly void of joy, It's full, indeed
1:17:27
Speaker 1: overflowing a bitterness and yet I must do myself justice.
1:17:33
Speaker 1: I couldn't possibly be other than I was. The same
1:17:37
Speaker 1: strange impressions. Had I to meet them again, who would
1:17:41
Speaker 1: produce the same deep anguish, the same sharp doubts, the
1:17:48
Speaker 1: same still sharp as certain tis. Oh, it's all easier
1:17:53
Speaker 1: to remember than to write. But even if I could
1:17:57
Speaker 1: retrace the business hour by hour, could find terms with
1:18:02
Speaker 1: the inexpressible, the ugliness and the pain would quickly stay
1:18:06
Speaker 1: my hand. Let me then note very simply and briefly,
1:18:11
Speaker 1: that a week before our wedding day, three weeks after
1:18:15
Speaker 1: her death, I became fully aware that I had something
1:18:20
Speaker 1: very serious to look in the face, and that if
1:18:23
Speaker 1: I was to make this effort, I must make it
1:18:26
Speaker 1: on the spot, and before another hour should elapsed my
1:18:32
Speaker 1: unextinguished jealousy. That was the Medusa mask. It hadn't died
1:18:39
Speaker 1: with her death. It had lividly survived, and it was
1:18:43
Speaker 1: fed by suspicions unspeakable. They would be unspeakable to day,
1:18:50
Speaker 1: that is, if I hadn't felt the sharp need of
1:18:54
Speaker 1: uttering them at the time. This need took possession of
1:19:00
Speaker 1: me to save me as it appeared from my fate.
1:19:05
Speaker 1: When once it had done so, I saw in the
1:19:08
Speaker 1: urgency of the case, the diminishing hours and shrinking interval
1:19:14
Speaker 1: only one issue, that of absolute promptness and frankness. I
1:19:19
Speaker 1: could at least not do him the wrong of delaying
1:19:23
Speaker 1: another day. I could at least treat my difficulty as
1:19:28
Speaker 1: too fine for subterfuge. Therefore, very quietly, but nonetheless abruptly
1:19:36
Speaker 1: and hideously, I put it before him on a certain evening,
1:19:42
Speaker 1: that we must reconsider our situation and recognize that it
1:19:47
Speaker 1: had completely altered. He stared, bravely, How has it altered?
1:19:54
Speaker 1: Another person has come between us? He hesitated a moment.
1:19:59
Speaker 1: I I won't pretend not to know whom you mean.
1:20:03
Speaker 1: He smiled in pity for my aberration, But he meant
1:20:06
Speaker 1: to be kind. A woman dead and buried. She's buried,
1:20:12
Speaker 1: but she's not dead. She's dead for the world. She's
1:20:16
Speaker 1: dead for me, but she's not dead for you. You
1:20:20
Speaker 1: hark back to the different construction we put on her
1:20:24
Speaker 1: appearance that evening, No, I answered, I hark back to nothing.
1:20:30
Speaker 1: I've the need of it. I've more than enough with
1:20:33
Speaker 1: what's before me. And pray, darling, what is that You're
1:20:38
Speaker 1: completely changed by? That absurd that it? He'll laughed, not
1:20:45
Speaker 1: so much by that one as by other absurd that
1:20:48
Speaker 1: is that have followed it, and what may they have been.
1:20:54
Speaker 1: We had faced each other fairly with eyes that didn't flinch,
1:20:59
Speaker 1: But he's had a dim, strange light, and my certitude
1:21:03
Speaker 1: triumphed in his perceptible paleness. Do you really pretend? I
1:21:08
Speaker 1: asked not to know what they are, my dear child,
1:21:13
Speaker 1: He replied, you described them to sketulate. I considered a moment.
1:21:20
Speaker 1: One may well be embarrassed to finish the picture. But
1:21:24
Speaker 1: from that point of view, and from the beginning, what
1:21:28
Speaker 1: was ever more embarrassing than your idiosyncrasy? He was extremely vague,
1:21:37
Speaker 1: my idiosyncrasy. You're notorious your peculiar power. He gave a
1:21:46
Speaker 1: great shrug of impatience, a groan of overdone disdain. Oh,
1:21:53
Speaker 1: my peculiar power. Your accessibility to forms of life, I
1:21:59
Speaker 1: call went on your command of impressions, appearances, contacts closed
1:22:07
Speaker 1: for our gain or our loss to the rest of us.
1:22:11
Speaker 1: That was originally a part of the deep interest with
1:22:15
Speaker 1: which you inspired me, one of the reasons I was amused.
1:22:20
Speaker 1: I was indeed positively proud to know you. It was
1:22:24
Speaker 1: a magnificent distinction. It's a magnificent distinction still, but of
1:22:30
Speaker 1: course I had no prevision then of the way it
1:22:34
Speaker 1: would operate now, And even had that been the case,
1:22:39
Speaker 1: I should have had none of the extraordinary way in
1:22:43
Speaker 1: which its action would affect me. To what in the
1:22:47
Speaker 1: name of goodness? He pleadingly inquired, Are you fantastically alluding? Then,
1:22:55
Speaker 1: as I remained silent, gathering a tone for my charge,
1:23:01
Speaker 1: how in the world does it operate? He went on,
1:23:05
Speaker 1: And how in the world are you affected? She missed
1:23:12
Speaker 1: you for five years, I said, But she never misses you.
1:23:17
Speaker 1: Now you're making it up, making it up. He had
1:23:22
Speaker 1: begun to turn from white to red. You see her,
1:23:26
Speaker 1: you see her, You see her every night. He gave
1:23:29
Speaker 1: a loud sound of derision, but it was not a
1:23:33
Speaker 1: genuine one. She comes to you as she came that evening,
1:23:36
Speaker 1: I declared, Having tried it, Chipan, she liked it. I
1:23:41
Speaker 1: was able, with God's help to speak without blind passion
1:23:46
Speaker 1: or vulgar violence. But those were the exact words, and
1:23:52
Speaker 1: far from sketchy. They then appeared to me that I uttered.
1:23:57
Speaker 1: He had turned away in his laughter, clapping his hands
1:24:01
Speaker 1: at my folly, But in an instant he faced me
1:24:05
Speaker 1: again with a change of expression that struck me. Do
1:24:10
Speaker 1: you dare to deny? I asked that you habitually see her.
1:24:15
Speaker 1: He had taken the line of indulgence, of meeting me
1:24:19
Speaker 1: half way and kindly humoring me at all events. To
1:24:24
Speaker 1: my astonishment, he suddenly said, well, my dear, what I do.
1:24:30
Speaker 1: It's your natural right. It belongs to your constitution and
1:24:35
Speaker 1: to your wonderful, if not perhaps quite enviable fortune. But
1:24:41
Speaker 1: you will easily understand that it separates us. I unconditionally
1:24:46
Speaker 1: release you, release me. You must choose between me and hurt.
1:24:53
Speaker 1: He looked at me hard I see. Then he walked
1:24:58
Speaker 1: away a little, as if asking what I had said
1:25:01
Speaker 1: and thinking how he had best treated. At last, he
1:25:05
Speaker 1: turned upon me afresh, How on earth do you know
1:25:09
Speaker 1: such an awfully private thing? You mean, because you've tried
1:25:14
Speaker 1: so hard to hide it. It is awfully private, and
1:25:19
Speaker 1: you may believe I shall never betray you. You've done
1:25:22
Speaker 1: your best, You acted your part, You behave poor dear,
1:25:27
Speaker 1: loyally and admirably. Therefore, I've watched you in silence, playing
1:25:33
Speaker 1: my part too. I've noted every drop in your voice,
1:25:37
Speaker 1: every absence in your eyes, every effort in your indifferent hands.
1:25:42
Speaker 1: I've waited till I was utterly sure and miserably unhappy.
1:25:47
Speaker 1: How can you hide it when you're abjectly in love
1:25:51
Speaker 1: with her, when you're sick almost to depth with the
1:25:54
Speaker 1: joy of what she gives you. I checked his quick
1:25:57
Speaker 1: protest with a quicker gesture. You'll love her as you've
1:26:01
Speaker 1: never loved, and passion for passion, she gives it straight back.
1:26:06
Speaker 1: She rules you, she holds you, She has you, or
1:26:09
Speaker 1: a woman in such a case as mine, divines and
1:26:12
Speaker 1: feels and sees. She's not an idiot who has to
1:26:16
Speaker 1: be credibly informed. You've come to me mechanically, compunctuously, with
1:26:22
Speaker 1: the dregs of your tenderness and the remnant of your life.
1:26:26
Speaker 1: I can renounce you, but I can't share you. The
1:26:30
Speaker 1: best of you is hers. I know what it is,
1:26:32
Speaker 1: and I freely give you up to her forever. He
1:26:36
Speaker 1: made a gallant fight, but it couldn't be patched up.
1:26:41
Speaker 1: He repeated his denial, he retracted his admission, He ridiculed
1:26:46
Speaker 1: my charge, of which I freely granted him. Moreover, the
1:26:50
Speaker 1: indefensible extravagance. I didn't pretend for a moment that we
1:26:56
Speaker 1: were talking of common things. I didn't pretend, for a
1:26:59
Speaker 1: moment moment that he and she were common people. Pray,
1:27:04
Speaker 1: if they had been, how should I ever have cared
1:27:07
Speaker 1: for them? They had enjoyed a rare extension of being,
1:27:12
Speaker 1: and they had caught me up in their flight. Only
1:27:15
Speaker 1: I couldn't breathe in such an air, and I promptly
1:27:19
Speaker 1: asked to be set down. Everything in the facts was monstrous,
1:27:24
Speaker 1: and most of all my lucid perception of them. The
1:27:29
Speaker 1: only thing allied to nature and truth was my having
1:27:33
Speaker 1: to act on that perception. I felt, after I had
1:27:38
Speaker 1: spoken in this sense, that my assurance was complete. Nothing
1:27:43
Speaker 1: had been wanting to it, but the sight of my
1:27:45
Speaker 1: effect on him. He disguised, indeed the effect in a
1:27:50
Speaker 1: cloud of chap, a diversion that gained him time and
1:27:55
Speaker 1: covered his retreat. He challenged my sincerity, my sanity, almost
1:28:02
Speaker 1: my humanity, and that of course widened our breach and
1:28:07
Speaker 1: confirmed our rupture. He did everything in short, but convinced
1:28:12
Speaker 1: me either that I was wrong or that he was unhappy.
1:28:17
Speaker 1: We separated, and I left him to his inconceivable communion.
1:28:24
Speaker 1: He never married any more than I've done when six
1:28:29
Speaker 1: years later, in solitude and silence, I heard of his death,
1:28:35
Speaker 1: I hailed it as a direct contribution to my theory.
1:28:39
Speaker 1: It was sudden, it was never properly accounted for. It
1:28:45
Speaker 1: was surrounded by circumstances in which, for Oh, I took
1:28:48
Speaker 1: them to pieces. I distinctly read an intention, the mark
1:28:54
Speaker 1: of his own hidden. And it was the result of
1:29:00
Speaker 1: a long necessity, of an unquenchable desire to say exactly
1:29:07
Speaker 1: what I mean. It was a response to an irresistible call.
1:29:16
Speaker 1: And of chapter two and of the way it came
1:29:22
Speaker 1: by Henry James,