Latest / The H. G. Wells Library / The Dream Chapter the Sixth - Marriage in War Time Parts 3 to 6

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The Dream Chapter the Sixth - Marriage in War Time Parts 3 to 6 · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Section nineteen of The Dream, a novel. This is a
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  Speaker 1: liberbox recording. All Liberal Boxer recordings are in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit liberyvox dot org.
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  Speaker 2: The Dream, a novel by H. G.
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  Speaker 1: Wells, Section nineteen, Chapter six, Marriage in Wartime, Parts three,
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  Speaker 1: two six, Part three. It would seem the queerest story
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  Speaker 1: in the world if I told you how we two
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  Speaker 1: youngsters spend that day, We who were such strangers that
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  Speaker 1: we did not know each other's names, Andy, who were
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  Speaker 1: already drawn so closely together.
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  Speaker 2: It was a day of.
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  Speaker 1: Kindly beauty and warmth, and we rambled westward until we
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  Speaker 1: came to reach that dropped steeply to a silvery tree
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  Speaker 1: bordered canal. And along that ridge we went until we
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  Speaker 1: reached a village and a friendly inn, where there were
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  Speaker 1: biscuits and cheese and some apples to make a lunch
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  Speaker 1: upon for our time. A mood of shyness followed our
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  Speaker 1: first vowels. Then Hetty talked of her home and of
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  Speaker 1: her place in the world. It was only after we
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  Speaker 1: had eaten together that we became easy and familiar with
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  Speaker 1: each other. It was only as the sun was sinking
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  Speaker 1: in the west and our day due to its golden end,
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  Speaker 1: that we embraced suddenly as we set together on a
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  Speaker 1: fell tree in a wood, and that I learned from her,
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  Speaker 1: what a sweet and wonderful delight the kiss of love.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe Part four Sarnak paused it happened two thousand years ago,
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  Speaker 1: but it seems to me that it happened just six
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  Speaker 1: years from now.
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  Speaker 2: Once more, I'm back in that.
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  Speaker 1: Wood, among the long, warm shadows of the evening, and
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  Speaker 1: all my dreams and imaginations awake to reality, with Hetty's
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  Speaker 1: body in my arms and her lips to mine. I
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  Speaker 1: have been able to tell you my story hitherto with
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  Speaker 1: a sort of wonder and detachment, as though I showed
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  Speaker 1: it to.
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  Speaker 2: You through a telescope.
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  Speaker 1: But I have been telling you over much, perhaps of
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  Speaker 1: Anny and Matilda Good, because I have had a sort
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  Speaker 1: of reluctance about Hetty. She is still so fresh in
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  Speaker 1: my mind that she seems, as I name her, to
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  Speaker 1: come even here and to be living still a perplexity
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  Speaker 1: between Sandrea, who is so like her and so unlike her,
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  Speaker 1: and myself. I love her again and hate her again,
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  Speaker 1: as though I was still that assistant editor, that writer
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  Speaker 1: of rubbish in lost and forgotten Thunderstone.
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  Speaker 2: House in dead Ault, London.
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  Speaker 1: And I can't describe things now, said Sarnaud, as I
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: have described them up to this, I seem no longer
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  Speaker 1: to look back into past things. My memories are living
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: and suffering. They inflame and hurt. I loved Hetty. She
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  Speaker 1: was all the delight of love to me. I married her,
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  Speaker 1: I divorced her. I repented of the divorce, and I
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: was killed for her sake. And it seems as if
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: I was killed not a day ago. I married while
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: I was in England, before I was passed for active service.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: Again.
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  Speaker 1: After my wound, I was wounded in the arm, Sarnak
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  Speaker 1: stopped and felt his arm. Sundray looked sharply at it
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  Speaker 1: and ran her hand down it from shoulder to elbow,
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  Speaker 1: as if to reassure herself. The others burst into laughter
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: at her manifest anxiety and her expression of relief, the
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  Speaker 1: guest master being particularly delighted. I was wounded. Nevertheless, I
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: was a sitting up case in the ambulance. I could
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  Speaker 1: tell you stories about the nurses and the hospital, and
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  Speaker 1: how we had a panic about a submarine as we
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  Speaker 1: crossed to England. I married Haddy before I went back,
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  Speaker 1: because we were now all together lovers, and it was
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  Speaker 1: just possible she might have a child.
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  Speaker 2: And moreover, there was a.
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  Speaker 1: Business about allowances if I got killed. That was an
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  Speaker 1: added inducement to marry. In those days of haphazard death
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  Speaker 1: for a young there was a worldwide favor of love
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  Speaker 1: making and countless such snatched marriages. She had never got
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  Speaker 1: to France, as she had said she hoped to do,
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  Speaker 1: for most of the time she was driving a car
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  Speaker 1: for the Ministry of Supplies in London. We spent two
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  Speaker 1: days a wild endearment, the only honeymoon we could get,
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  Speaker 1: at her mother's farm at Peyton Links, a little hamlet
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  Speaker 1: near Chasinghnger. I do not think I have told you
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  Speaker 1: that she was the only daughter of a farmer, and
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  Speaker 1: that Miss Marcus, her mother, was a widow. Hetty had
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  Speaker 1: been a clever girl, an elementary school teacher, and bookish
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  Speaker 1: and enterprising for the country place. She had never mentioned
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  Speaker 1: me to her mother until she had written to tell
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  Speaker 1: of her approaching marriage. When her mother had driven us
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  Speaker 1: from the station to the farm, and I had helped
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  Speaker 1: her to put away the pony. The old lady's non
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  Speaker 1: committal manner relaxed, and she said, well, it might have
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  Speaker 1: been worse you looks and fairy's shoulders for one who's
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  Speaker 1: town bred. You can kiss me, my boy, though Smith
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  Speaker 1: is a poor exchange for Marcus. And I can't see
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  Speaker 1: how anyone can ever expect to get a living for
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  Speaker 1: man and wife at a fancy trade like publishing. I'd
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: hoped it first she meant a publican, But publishing, she says,
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  Speaker 1: it is whether you are properly old enough for heady.
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  Speaker 2: Time will show.
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  Speaker 1: Time did show very rapidly that I was not properly
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  Speaker 1: old enough for heady, though I resisted the demonstration with
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  Speaker 1: passionate vigor. In this world of ours, we are, by comparison,
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  Speaker 1: very simple and direct. In that old world we should
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: have seemed shockingly seeneople and dreaded. It is not only
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  Speaker 1: that they wrapped up and heat their bodies in all
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  Speaker 1: sorts of queer garments and rippings, but also that they
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  Speaker 1: wrapped up and distorted and hit their minds and wild.
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  Speaker 1: We today have the same simple and clean ideas all
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  Speaker 1: over the world about sexual restraints and sexual freedoms. People
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  Speaker 1: in those days had the most various and complicated codes,
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  Speaker 1: half hidden and half confessed, and not merely half hidden,
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  Speaker 1: but imperfectly realized, subconscious rather than thought out and settled.
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  Speaker 1: Few of these codes respected the freedom of other people
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  Speaker 1: or set any bounds to the most extravagant developments of jealousy.
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  Speaker 1: And while Hetty's thoughts about love and marriage had been
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  Speaker 1: nourished on a diet of countryside folk and then of
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  Speaker 1: novels and poetry, devoured with avidity, and had had tremendous
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  Speaker 1: releases in the lags atmosphere of wartime London, I, in
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  Speaker 1: spite of my love for and faith and Fanny, had
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  Speaker 1: almost unwittingly adopted the rigid standards of my mother. As
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  Speaker 1: we used to say in those days, Hetti's was a
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  Speaker 1: much more artistic temperament than mine. For my part, I
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  Speaker 1: did not so much think as assumed that the worship
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  Speaker 1: of a man for a woman gave place to mastery
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  Speaker 1: as soon as her.
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  Speaker 2: Love was one.
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  Speaker 1: That the problem of absolute fidelity for both flowers was
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  Speaker 1: to be facilitated on his side by an absolute submissiveness
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  Speaker 1: on hers and about her.
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  Speaker 2: Wherever she went.
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  Speaker 1: Invisible but real, there had to be a sort of
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  Speaker 1: cloistered quality. It was implicit. Moreover, that she had never
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  Speaker 1: thought of love before she met her pretdistant and triumphant lover.
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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous and impossible, you will say, But Sundray here has
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  Speaker 1: read the all novels, and she can witness that that
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  Speaker 1: was the code. Sunray nodded, that's the spirit of them,
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  Speaker 1: she said. Well, in fact, Hetty was not only half
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  Speaker 1: a year older than I, but age beyond me in
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  Speaker 1: the business of love.
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  Speaker 2: She was my teacher.
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  Speaker 1: While I had been reading about Adams and Darwing and
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  Speaker 1: exploration and socialism, she had been sucking the honey of
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  Speaker 1: sensuous passion from hints and half hints in all the
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  Speaker 1: romances and poems from Shakespeare and all playwrights, and not
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  Speaker 1: only I realize now from books. She took me as
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  Speaker 1: a one, Captures and Thames and Animal and made my
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  Speaker 1: senses and my imagination hers. Our honeymoon was magical and wonderful.
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  Speaker 1: She delighted in me and made me drunken with delights.
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  Speaker 1: And then we parted wonderfully with the taste of her
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  Speaker 1: salt tears on my lips, and I went off to
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  Speaker 1: the last five months of the war.
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  Speaker 2: I can see her now.
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  Speaker 1: Slender as a tall boy in her khaki breeches and
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  Speaker 1: dry uniform, waving.
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  Speaker 2: To my train.
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  Speaker 1: As I drew out of chasing hanger stasion. She wrote
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  Speaker 1: adorable and whimsical love letters that made me ache to
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  Speaker 1: be with her again. And just when we were forcing
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  Speaker 1: the great German barrier of the Hindenburg Line, came one
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  Speaker 1: to tell me we were to have a child. She
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  Speaker 1: had not told me of it before, she said, because
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  Speaker 1: she had not been quite sure of it.
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  Speaker 2: Now she was sure.
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  Speaker 1: Would I love her still, now that she would be
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  Speaker 1: no longer slim and gracious? Love her still? I was
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  Speaker 1: filled with monstrous pride. I wrote back to tell her
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  Speaker 1: how my job at Thunderstone House was being saved for me,
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  Speaker 1: how I would certainly get a little house, a dear
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  Speaker 1: little house, in some London suburb. How I would worship
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  Speaker 1: and cherish her. Her answer was at once tender and unusual.
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  Speaker 1: She said I was too good to her, far too good.
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  Speaker 1: She repeated with extraordinary passion that she loved me, had
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  Speaker 1: never loved, and could never love anyone but me, That
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  Speaker 1: she hated my absence more than she could tell. And
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  Speaker 1: then I was to do everything I could move heaven
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  Speaker 1: and earth to get my discharge and come home to
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  Speaker 1: her and be with her, and never, never, never leave
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  Speaker 1: her again. She had never wanted my arms about her
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  Speaker 1: as she wanted them now. I read nothing between the
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  Speaker 1: lines of that outbreak. It seemed just a new mood
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  Speaker 1: amidst the variety of her moods. Thunderstone House wanted me
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  Speaker 1: back as soon as possible, and the war had done
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  Speaker 1: much to increase the power and influence of all magazine
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  Speaker 1: publishers and newspaper proprietors. I got out of the army
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  Speaker 1: within three months of the armistice, and came back to
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  Speaker 1: a very soft and tender and submissive heady, a new heady,
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  Speaker 1: more wonderful even than the old. She was evidently more
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  Speaker 1: passionately in love with me than ever. We took some
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  Speaker 1: furnished rooms in a part of London called Richmond, near
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  Speaker 1: the Thames, in the Great Park, and we sought vainly
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  Speaker 1: for that bright little house in which our child was
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  Speaker 1: to be born. But there were no bright little houses available,
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  Speaker 1: and slowly a dark shadow who fell across the first
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  Speaker 1: brightness of our reunion. The seasonable days passed, but Hetty's
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  Speaker 1: child was not born. It was not born, indeed, until
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  Speaker 1: it was nearly two months too late for it.
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  Speaker 2: To be my child. Part five.
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  Speaker 1: We are trained from earliest childhood in the world to
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  Speaker 1: be tolerant and understanding of others, and to be weary
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  Speaker 1: and disciplined with our own wayward impulses.
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  Speaker 2: We are given from.
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  Speaker 1: The first a clear knowledge of our entangled nature. It
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  Speaker 1: will be hard for you to understand how harsh and
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  Speaker 1: how this ingenious the old world was. You live in
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  Speaker 1: a world that is, as we used to say, better bread.
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  Speaker 1: You will find it difficult to imagine the sudden storm
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  Speaker 1: of temptation and excitement and forgetfulness in Hetty's newly aroused
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  Speaker 1: being that had betrayed her into disloyalty. And still more
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  Speaker 1: difficult will you find the tangle of fear and desperate
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  Speaker 1: dishonesty that held her silent from any plain speech with me.
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  Speaker 2: After my return.
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  Speaker 1: But Hatch spoken instead of leaving it to me to suspect, discover,
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  Speaker 1: and accuse. I doubt if she would have found any
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  Speaker 1: more mercy in me for her pitiful and abominable lapse.
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  Speaker 1: I see now that from the day I returned to Hetty,
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  Speaker 1: she was trying to tell me of her disaster and
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  Speaker 1: failing to find a possible way of doing so. But
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  Speaker 1: the vague intimations in her words and manner dropped like
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  Speaker 1: seats into my mind and germinated there. She was passionately
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  Speaker 1: excited and made happy by my coming back. Our first
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  Speaker 1: week together was the happiest week of my old world life.
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  Speaker 1: Fanny came to see us once, and we went and
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  Speaker 1: had a dinner at her flat, and something had happened
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  Speaker 1: to her too. I knew not what to make her
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  Speaker 1: very happy. Fanny liked Hetty. When she kissed me good
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  Speaker 1: night after her dinner, she helped me and whispered, she's
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  Speaker 1: a deer. I thought I'd be jealous of your wife, Harry,
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  Speaker 1: but I love her. Yes, we were very happy for
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  Speaker 1: that week. We walked along together back to our rooms
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  Speaker 1: instead of taking a taxi. What it was better for
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  Speaker 1: Hetty to walk a happy week It was that stretched
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  Speaker 1: almost to happy fortnight, and then the shadows of suspicion
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  Speaker 1: gathered and deepened.
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  Speaker 2: It was in bed, in the.
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  Speaker 1: Darkness of the night, that I was at last moved
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  Speaker 1: to speak plainly to Hetty. I woke up and lay
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: awake for a long time, very still and staring at
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: my bleak realization of what had happened to us. Then
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  Speaker 1: I turned over, sat up in bed, and said, Hetty,
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  Speaker 1: this child is not mine.
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  Speaker 2: She answered.
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  Speaker 1: At once it was plain she too had been awake.
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  Speaker 1: She answered, in a muffled voice, as though her face lay.
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  Speaker 2: Against the pillow. No, you said, no. She stirred, and
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  Speaker 2: her voice came clearer.
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  Speaker 1: I said, no, oh, husband, boy, I wish I was dead.
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  Speaker 1: I wish to God I was dead. I sat still,
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  Speaker 1: and she said no more. We remained like two fear
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  Speaker 1: stricken creatures in the jungle, motionless in an immense silence
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  Speaker 1: and darkness.
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  Speaker 2: At last, she moved.
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  Speaker 1: Her hand crept out towards me, seek me, and at
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: that advance I recoiled. I seemed to hang for a
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: moment between two courses of action, and then I gave
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: myself over to rage. You touch me, I cried, and
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: got out of bed and began to walk.
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  Speaker 2: About the room.
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  Speaker 1: I knew it, I shouted, I knew it, I felt it,
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  Speaker 1: and I have loved you. You cheat, your foul thing,
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: you lying cheat.
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: Part six.
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  Speaker 1: I think I described to you earlier in the story
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  Speaker 1: how my family behaved when Fanny left us, how we
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: all seemed to be acting and keeping up a noise
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: of indignation, as we were afraid of some different and
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: disturbing realizations coming through to us should that barrage of
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: make believe morality fail. And just as my father and
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: my mother behaved in that downstairs kitchen in Cherry Gardens,
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: so now I behaved in that desolating crisis between myself
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  Speaker 1: and Heady. I stormed about the room. I hurled insults
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  Speaker 1: at her. I would not let the facts that she
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: was a beaten and weeping thin, that she certainly loved me,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: and then her pay tortured me prevail against my heart
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: duty to my outraged pride. I lit the gas I
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: don't remember when, and the scene went on in that
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: watery Victorian light. I began dressing, for never more was
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: I to lie in bed with Hetty. I meant to dress,
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: and having said my say to go out of the house.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: So I had to be scornful and loudly indignant. But
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: also I had to find my various garments, pull my
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: shirt out my head, and lace up my boots, so
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: that there were interludes in the storm when Hetty could
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: say something that I had to hear. It all happened
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: in an evening. She said, it isn't as though I
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: had planned to betray you. It was his last day
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: before he left, and he was wreched. It was the
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: thought of you made me go with him. It was
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: just kindness. There were two of our girls going to
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: have dinner with their boys, and they asked me to come,
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: and that was how I met him.
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  Speaker 2: Officers.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: They were all three and schoolfellows, Londoners, three boys who
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: were going over just as you were. It seemed rotten
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: not to make a party for them. I was struggling
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: with my color and stud but I tried to achieve sarcasm.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: I see, I said, under the circumstances, mere politeness dictated
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: what you did. Oh my god, listen how it happened, Harry.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: Don't shout at me again for a minute. Afterwards, he
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: asked me to come to his rooms. He said the
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: others were coming on. He seemed such a harmless sword,
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: very he seemed the sword would surely get killed, and
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: I was sorry for him. He was fairer, like you, fairer,
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: and it seemed all different that night. And then he
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: got hold of me and kissed me. And I struggled,
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: but I didn't seem to have the strength to resist.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: I didn't realize somehow, that's pretty evident that I can
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: believe you've got no pity, Harry. Perhaps it's just I
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: suppose I ought to have seen the risk. But we
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: aren't all strong like you. Some of us are pulled
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: this way, and that some of us to.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: The thing we hate.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: I did what I could. It was like waking up
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: to realize what had happened. He wanted me to stay
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: with him. I ran out from his rooms. I've never
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: seen him since. He's written, but I haven't answered. He
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: knew you were a soldier's wife.
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: He's rotten. He knew it.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: He planned it while we were at dinner. He prayed
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: and promised and lied. He said he wanted just a kiss,
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: just one kiss for kindness. He began with that kiss.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: I'd been drinking wine, and I'm not used to wine. Oh, Harry, husband, boy,
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: if I could have died, but I'd kissed and played
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: about with boys before.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: I met you.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: It seemed so little until it was too late, and
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: here we are, said I. I came and sat down
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: on the bed and stared at Heady's disheveled distress. She
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: was suddenly pitiful and pretty. I suppose I ought to
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: go and kill this swine, I said, I feel more
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: like killing you kill me, she said.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: I wish you would. What's his name?
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: Where's he now? He doesn't matter? A rep said Hetty.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: You may hang for me if you like, but you
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: shan't hang for a thing like that. I tell you
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: he doesn't matter.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: He's a dirty accident. He happened.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: You are shilling him him, she said, I'm shilling you.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: I stared at her.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: Again.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: Came a moment when I seemed to hang undecided at
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: a parting of two courses, and again I decided to
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: explode into a rage. My god, I cried, and then
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: louder and standing up.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: My God. Then I rented at her.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: I suppose I've only got myself to blame for all this.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: What did I know of what you were before I
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: met you? I guess I wasn't the first, and I
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: guess he won't be the last.
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: What do names matter?
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: I guess you thanked Heaven for a green dad when
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: you met me, and so on. I passd about the
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: room as I raved. She set up on the bed,
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: her hair disordered and her eyes tearful, regarding me with
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: a still and mournful face. Oh Harry, she would say,
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: ever and again, or oh boy, While I lit my
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: clumsy fancy rove through a wilderness of coarse reproaches, Ever
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: and again, I would come up to her and stand
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: over her. Tell me his name, I would shout, and
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: she would shake her head. At last, I was dressed.
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: I looked at my watch. Five. What are you going
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: to do, she asked. I don't know.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: Go. I suppose I can't stay here. I should be sick.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: I shall get most of my things together and go.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: I'll find a lodging somewhere. It's nearly dawn. I'll go
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: before you need get up. Meanwhile, i'll sit in the
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: other room. I can lie on the sofa for a bit.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: But the fire's not lit, she said, And it's cold.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: It's not even late, and you'll need some coffee. She
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: stared at me with eyes full of solicitude, and forthwith.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: She shuffled out of bed and slipped her feet into
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: her bedroom slippers and put on a gate dressing gown
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: that had been a great delight to us.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: Ten days ago.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: She went meekly by me, moving her poor heavy body
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: rather wearily, and found some firelighters in a cupboard and
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: nailt by the fireplace, and began to rake out the
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: ashes of the overnight fire. I made no movement to
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: prevent her.
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: I began to.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: Collect together various books and small possessions I intended to
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: take with me. She was only apprehending the situation very slowly.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: She turned to me in the middle of her fire lighting.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: I suppose you leave me a little money to go
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: on with.
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: She said.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: That gave me a base opportunity. I leave you money,
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: all right, I sneered. I suppose I've got to keep
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: you until.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: We are free.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: Then it will be his job or the next man's.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: She occupied herself with the fire. She filled a kettle
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: and put it ready. Then she sat down in an
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: armchair by the hearth. Her face was white and drawn,
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: but she shed no tears. I went to the window
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: and pulled up the blind and stared at the street outside,
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: with its street lamps still alight. Everything was gaunt and
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: bleak in the colorless called horror of the early dawn.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: I shall go to mother, she said, shivering and pulling
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: her dressing gown about her shoulders. It will be dreadful
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: for her to know what has happened. But she is kind,
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: she'll be kinder than anyone. I shall go to her.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: You can do what you like, I said, Harry. She said,
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: I've never loved any man but you. If I could
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: kill this child, if it would please you, if I
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: killed this child, she spoke with white lips. Yes, I
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: tried all. I knew some things I couldn't bring myself
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: to do. And now it's a thing that's alive. We
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: stared at one another in silence for some moments. No,
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: I said, at last, I can't stand it. I can't
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: endure it. Nothing can alter it. Now you tell a tale.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: How do I know you've cheated once and you can
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: cheat again. You gave yourself to that swine. If I
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: live to one hundred, I'll never forgive that you gave
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: your How do I know you didn't tempt him? You
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: gave You can go go where you gave yourself. There
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: are things no this man can forgive, things that are
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: dirty to forgive. He stole you, and you let him
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: steal you, and he can have you. I wish if
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: you'd had the beginnings of a sense of honor, you'd
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: never have let me come back to you to think
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: of these last days here, and you, you with this
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: secret next your heart, the fifthness of it, you, you
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: whom I loved.
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: I was weeping.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: Sarnak paused and stared into the fire. Yes, he said,
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: I was weeping. And the tears I shed, It's wonderful.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: The tears I shed were tears of the purest self pity.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: And all the time I saw the thing from my
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: own standpoint alone, blind to the answering tragedy in Heady's heart.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: And the most grotesque thing is that all the time
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: she was getting me a coffee, and that when it
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: was ready, I drank her coffee. At the end, she
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: wanted to kiss me, to kiss me goodbye, she said,
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: And I rebuffed her and struck her. When she came
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: near me. I went only to thrust her back, but
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: my hand clenched at the opportunity.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: Harry, she whispered.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: She stood like a stun thing, watched me go, and
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: then turned suddenly and swiftly and ran back to the bedroom.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: I stemmed the outer door and went downstairs into the
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: empty morning. Richmond streets all together empty of traffic. They
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: were under the flash of Dawn. I carried my bag
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: towards the railway station that would take me to London.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: My bag was heavy with the things I had brought away,
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: and it dragged upon my arms, and I felt myself
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: a tragically illused, but honorably self vindicated young man. End
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: of section nineteen