Part 2, Chapter 4

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Part two, Chapter four of Chance by Joseph Conrad. This
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LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by Petter
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Dan Chance Part two, chapter four Anthony and Flora Marlowe
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emerged out of the shadow of the bookcase to get
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himself a cigar from a box which stood on a
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little table by my side in the full light of
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the room. I saw in his eyes that slightly mocking
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expression with which he habitually covers up his sympathetic impulses
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of mirth and pity before the unreasonable complications the idealism
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of mankind puts into the simple but poignant problems of
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conduct on this earth. He selected and lit the cigar
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with affected care, then turned upon me. I had been
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looking at him silently, I suppose, he said, the mockery
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in his eyes, giving a pellucid quality to his tone,
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that you think it's high time I told you something definite.
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I mean something about that psychological cabin mystery of discomfort,
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for its obvious that it must be psychological, which affected
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so profoundly mister Franklin, the chief mate, and had even
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disturbed the serene innocence of mister Powell, the second of
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the ship Ferndale, commanded by Roderick Anthony, the son of
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the poet. You know you are going to confess now
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that you have failed to find it out, I said,
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in pretended indignation. It would serve you right if I
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told you that I have, But I won't. I haven't failed.
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I own though that for a time I was puzzled. However,
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I have now seen our power many times under the
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most favorable conditions. And besides, I came upon a most
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unexpected source of information. But never mind that the means
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don't concern you, except in so far as they belonged
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to the story. I'll admit that for some time the
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old maiden ladylike occupation of putting two and two together
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failed to procure a coherent theory. I'm speaking now as
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an investigator, a man of deductions. With what we know
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of Roderick Anthony and Flora de Barrel, I could not
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deduct an ordinary marital quarrel beautifully matured in less than
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a year, could I? If you ask me what is
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an ordinary marital quarrel, I will tell you that it
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is a difference about nothing. I mean these nothings which,
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as mister Powell told us, when we first met him.
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Sure people are so prone to start a row about
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and nurse into hatred from an idle sense of wrong,
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from perverted ambition. For spectacular reasons too, there are on
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earth no actors too humble and obscure not to have
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a gallery, that gallery which envenoms the play by stealthy jeers,
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counsels of anger, amused comments, or words of perfidious compassion. However,
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the Anthonys were free from all demoralizing influences. At sea,
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you know there is no gallery. You hear no tormenting
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echoes of your own littleness. There where either a great
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elemental voice roars defiantly under the sky, or else an
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elemental silence seems to be part of the infinite stillness
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of the universe. Remembering Flora de Barrel in the depths
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of moral misery, and Roderick Anthony carried away by a
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gust of tempestuous tenderness, I asked myself, is it all
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forgotten already? What could they have found to estrange them
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from each other? With this rapidity and this thoroughness of
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far from all temptations, in the peace of the sea,
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and in an isolation so complete that If it had
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not been the jealous devotion of the sentimental Franklin stimulating
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the attention of power, there would have been no record,
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no evidence of it at all. I must confess at
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once that it was Flora de Baryl whom I suspected.
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In this world, as at present, organized women are the
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suspected half of the population. There are good reasons for that.
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These reasons are so discoverable with a little reflection, that
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it is not worth my while to set them out
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to you. I will only mention this, that the part
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falling to women's share, being all influence, has an air
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of occult and mysterious action, something not altogether trustworthy, like
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all natural forces, which for us work in the dark
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because of our imperfect comprehension. If women were not a
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force of nature, blind in its strength and capricious in
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its power, they would not be mistrusted. As it is.
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One can't help it. You will say that this force,
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having been in the person of Flora de Barrel captured
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by Anthony, Why, yes, he had dealt with her masterfully.
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But man has captured electricity too. It lights him on
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his way, at warms his home, It will even cook
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his dinner for him, very much like a woman. But
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what sort of conquest would you call it? He knows
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nothing of it. He has got to be mighty care
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for what he is about with his captive, and the
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greater the demand he makes on it in the exaltation
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of his pride, the more likely it is to turn
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on him and burn him to a cinder. A far
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fetched enough parallel, I observed coldly to Marlowe. He had
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returned to the arm chair in the shadow of the bookcase.
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But accepting the meaning you have in your mind, it
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reduces itself to the knowledge of how to use it.
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And if you mean that this ravenous Anthony ravenous is
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good interrupted Marlowe. Here was a hungering and a thirsting
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for femininity to enter his life in a way no
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mere feminist could have the slightest conception of I reckon
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that this accounts for much of Find's disgust with him,
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Good little Fine, you have no idea what infernal mischief
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he had worked during his call at the hotel. But then,
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who could have suspected Anthony of being a heroic creature?
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There are several kinds of heroism, and one of them
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at least is idiotic. It is the one which wears
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the aspect of sublime delicacy. It is apparently the one
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of which the son of the dedicated poet was capable.
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He certainly resembled his father, who, by the way, wore
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out two women without any satisfaction to himself, because they
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did not come up to his super refined standard of
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the delicacy which is so perceptible in his verses. That's your, poet,
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he demands too much from others. The inarticulate son had
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set up a standard for himself with that need for
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embodying in his conduct, the dreams, the passion, the impulses.
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The poet puts into arrangements of verses which are dearer
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to him than his own self, and may make his
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own self appear sublime in the eyes of other people,
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and even in his own eyes. Did Anthony wish to
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appear sublime in his own eyes? I should not like
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to make that charge, though indeed there are other less
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noble ambitions at which the world does not dare to smile.
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But I don't think so. I do not even think
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that there was in what he did a conscious and
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lofty confidence in himself, a particularly pronounced sense of power,
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which leads men so often in to impossible or equivocal situations,
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looked at abstractedly, the way in which truth is often
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seen in its real shape. His life had been a
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life of solitude and silence and desire. Chance had thrown
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that girl in his way. And if we may smile
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at his violent conquest of Florid de Baryl, we must
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admit also that this eager appropriation was truly the act
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of a man of solitude and desire, a man also who,
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unless a complete imbecile, must have been a man of
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long and ardent reveries, where in the faculty of sincere
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passion matures slowly in the unexplored recesses of the heart.
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And I know also that a passion dominating or tyrannical,
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invading the whole man, and subjugating all his faculties to
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its own unique end, may conduct him whom its spurs
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and drives into all sorts of adventures, to the brink
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of unfathomable dangers, to the limits of folly and madness,
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and death. To the man, then of a silence made
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only more impressive by the inarticulate thunders and mutters of
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the great seas are not a stranger to the clatter
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of tongues. There comes the muscular, little Fine, the most
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marked representative of that mankind, whose voice is so strange
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to him, the husband of his sister, a personality standing
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out from the misty and remote multitude. He comes and
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throws at him more talk than he had ever heard,
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boomed out in an hour, and certainly touching the deepest
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things Anthony had ever discovered in himself, and flings words
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like unfair, whose very sound is abhorrent to him, Unfair,
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undue advantage, he unfair to that girl, cruel to her.
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No scorn could stand against the impression of such charges.
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Advanced with heat and conviction, They shook him. They were
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yet vibrating in the air of that stuffy hotel room, terrific, disturbing,
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impossible to get rid of. When the door opened and
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Flora de Barrell entered, he did not even notice that
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she was late. He was sitting on a sofa, plunged
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in gloom. Was it true? Having himself always said exactly
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what he meant, he imagined that people, unless they were liars,
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which of course his brother in law could not be,
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never said more than they meant. The deep chest voice
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of little Fine was still in his ear. He knows.
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Anthony said to himself. He thought he had better go
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away and never see her again. But she stood there
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before him, accusing and appealing. How could he abandon her?
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That was out of the question. She had no one,
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or rather she had some one. That father Anthony was
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willing to take him. At her valuation, this father may
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have been the victim of the most atrocious injustice. But
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what could a man coming out of jail do? An
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old man too, and then what sort of man? What
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would become of them? Both? Anthony shuddered slightly, and the
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faint smile with which Flora had entered the room faded
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on her lips. She was used to his impetuous tenderness,
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she was no longer afraid of it. But she had
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never seen him look like this before, and she suspected
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at once some new cruelty of life. He got up
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with his usual ardor, but as if sobered by a
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momentous resolve, and said, no, I can't let you out
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of my sight. I have seen you, You have told
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me your story. You are honest. You have never told
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me you loved me. She waited, saying to herself that
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he had never given her time, that he had never
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asked her, and that in truth she did not know.
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I am inclined to believe that she did not, as
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abundance of experience is not precisely her lot in life.
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A woman is seldom an expert in matters of sentiment.
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It is the man who can, and generally does, see
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himself pretty well inside and out. Woman's self possession is
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an outward thing. Inwardly they flutter, perhaps because they are
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or they feel themselves to be engaged. All this speaking
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generally in Florida Barrel's particular case, Ever since Anthony had
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suddenly broken his way into her hopeless and cruel existence,
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she lived like a person liberated from a condemned cell
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by a natural cataclysm, a tempest, an earthquake. Not absolutely terrified,
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because nothing can be worse than the eve of execution,
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but stunned, bewildered, abandoning herself passively. She did not want
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to make a sound, to move a limb. She hadn't
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the strength, what was the good, and deep down, almost unconsciously,
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she was seduced by the feeling of being supported by
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this violence. A sensation she had never experienced before in
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her life. She felt as if this whirlwind were calming
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down somehow, as if this feeling of support, which was
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tempting her to close her eyes delileciously and let herself
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be carried on and on into the unknown, undefiled by
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vile experiences or less certain had wavered threateningly. She tried
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to read something in his face, in that energetic, kindly
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face to which he had become accustomed so soon, But
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she was not yet capable of understanding its expression. Scared, discouraged,
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on the threshold of adolescence, plunged in moral misery of
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the bitterest kind. She had not learned to read, not
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that sort of language. If Anthony's love had been as
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egoistic as love generally is, it would have been greater
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than the egoism of his vanity or of his generosity,
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If you like, and all this could not have happened.
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He would not have hit upon that renunciation at which
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one does not know whether to grin or shudder. It
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is true too, that then his love would not have
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fastened itself upon the unhappy daughter of Debaryl. But it
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was a love born of that rare peace which is
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not akin to contempt, because rooted in an overwhelmingly strong
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capacity for tenderness, the tenderness of the fiery kind, the
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tenderness of silent, solitary men, the voluntary, passionate outcasts of
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their kind. At the time, I am forced to think
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that his vanity must have been enormous. What big eyes
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she has, he said to himself, amazed, no wonder, she
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was staring at him with all the might of her soul.
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Awakening slowly from a poisoned sleep in which he could
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only quiver with pain, but could neither expand nor move,
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he plunged into them, breathless and tense, deep deep, like
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a mad sailor, taking a desperate dye from the mast
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head into the blue, unfathomable sea. So many men have
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execrated and loved at the same time. And his vanity
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was immense. It had been touched to the quick by
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that muscular little feminist. Fine. Aye, ah take advantage of
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her helplessness. Aye unfair to that creature, that whisper missed,
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that white shadow, homeless in an ugly, dirty world. I
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could blow her away with a breath, he was saying
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to himself, with horror, Never all the supremely refined delicacy
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of tenderness expressed in so many fine lines of verse
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by Carly and Anthony grew to the size of a
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passion filling with inward sobs, the big frame of the
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man who had never in his life read a single
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one of those famous sonnets, singing of the most highly civilized,
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chivalrous love of those sonnets, which you know there's a
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volume of them. My addition has a portrait of the
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author at thirty and when I showed it to mister
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Powell the other day, he exclaimed, wonderful one would think
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this the portrait of Captain Anthony himself if I wanted
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to know what that if was. But Powell could not say.
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There was something, no doubt there was in fineness, perhaps
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the father, fastidious, cerebral, morbidly shrinking from all contacts, could
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only sing in harmonious numbers of what the sun felt,
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with a dumb and reckless sincerity possessed by most strong
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men's touching allusions as to the frailness of women and
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their spiritual fragility. It seemed to Anthony that he would
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be destroying, breaking something very precious inside that being, in fact,
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nothing less than partly murdering her. This seems a very
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extreme effect to flow from Fine's words, But Anthony, unaccustomed
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to the chatter of the firm earth, never stayed to
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ask himself what value these words could have in Fine's mouth,
256
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And indeed, the mere dark sound of them was utterly
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abhorrent to his native rectitude. Sea salted, hardened in the
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winds of wide horizons open as the day. He wished
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to blurt out his indignation, but she regarded him with
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an expectant dare which checked him. His visible discomfort made
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her uneasy. He could only repeat, Oh, yes, you're perfectly honest.
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You might have, but I daresay you are right. At
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any rate, you have never said anything to me which
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you didn't mean never, she whispered after a pause. He
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seemed distracted, choking with an emotion she could not understand,
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because it resembled embarrassment, a state of mind inconceivable in
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that man. She wondered what it was she had said,
268
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remembering that in very truth, she had hardly spoken to him,
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except when giving him the bare outline of her story,
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which he seemed to have hardly had the patience to hear.
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Waving at perpetually, aside with exclamations of horror and anger,
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with fiercely somber mutters enough enough, and with alarming starts
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from a forced stillness, as though he meant to rush
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out at once and take vengeance on somebody. She was
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saying to herself that he caught her words in the end,
276
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never letting her finish her thought. Honest, honest, Yes, certainly
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she had been that a letter to missus fine had
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been prompted by honesty. But she reflected sadly that she
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had never known what to say to him, that perhaps
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she had nothing to say. But you'll find out that
281
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I can be honest too, he burst out, in a
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menacing tone she had learned to appreciate, with an amused thrill,
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she waited for what was coming, but he hung in
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the wind. He looked round the room with disgust, as
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if he could see traces on the walls of all
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the casual tenants that had ever passed through it. People
287
00:17:39.759 --> 00:17:41.960
had quarreled in that room, They had been kN ill
288
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in it. There had been misery in that room, wickedness, crime,
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perhaps death. Most likely, this was not a fit place.
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He snatched up his hat. He had made up his mind.
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The ship, the ship he had known ever since she
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came off the stocks, his home, her shelter, the un contaminated,
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honest ship was the place. Let us go on board.
294
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We'll talk there, he said, and you will have to
295
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listen to me for whatever happens. No matter what they say,
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I cannot let you go. You can't say that misgivings
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or no misgivings. She could have done anything else but
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go on board. It was the appointed business of that morning.
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During the drive he was silent. Anthony was the last
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man to condemn conventionally any human being to scorn and despise,
301
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even deserved misfortune. He was ready to take old to
302
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barrel the convict on his daughter's valuation without the slightest reserve.
303
00:18:40.440 --> 00:18:42.880
But love like his, though it may drive one into
304
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risky folly, by the proud consciousness of its own strength,
305
00:18:46.480 --> 00:18:50.400
has a sagacity of its own and now, as if
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00:18:50.440 --> 00:18:53.240
lifted up into a higher and serene region by its
307
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purpose of renunciation, it gave him leisure to reflect for
308
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the first time in these last few days. He said
309
00:19:00.680 --> 00:19:04.000
to himself, I don't know that man. She does not
310
00:19:04.160 --> 00:19:07.119
know him either. She was barely sixteen when they locked
311
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him up. She was a child. What will he say,
312
00:19:10.200 --> 00:19:14.000
what will he do? No, he concluded, I cannot leave
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her behind with that man who had come into the
314
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world as if out of a grave. They went on
315
00:19:20.319 --> 00:19:23.200
board in silence, and it was after showing her round,
316
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and when they had returned to the saloon, that he
317
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assailed her in his fiery, masterful fashion. At first she
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did not understand. Then when she understood that he was
319
00:19:32.720 --> 00:19:35.680
giving her her leberty, she went stiff all over, her
320
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hand resting on the edge of the table, her face
321
00:19:38.279 --> 00:19:42.359
set like a carving of white marble. It was all over.
322
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It was as that abominable governess had said. She was insignificant, contemptible.
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Nobody could love her. Humiliation clung to her like a
324
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cold shroud, never to be shaken off, unwarmed by this
325
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madness of general. Yes, here your home. I can't give
326
00:20:04.640 --> 00:20:06.279
it to you and go away. But it is big
327
00:20:06.400 --> 00:20:09.680
enough for us too. You need not be afraid. If
328
00:20:09.720 --> 00:20:11.559
you say so, I shall not even look at you.
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00:20:12.079 --> 00:20:14.440
Remember that gray head of which you have been thinking
330
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night and day. Where is it going to rest? Where else?
331
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If not here? Where nothing evil can touch it. Don't
332
00:20:22.240 --> 00:20:24.559
you understand that I won't let you buy shelter from
333
00:20:24.559 --> 00:20:26.799
me at the cost of your very soul. I won't.
334
00:20:27.160 --> 00:20:30.000
You are too much part of me. I have found
335
00:20:30.039 --> 00:20:32.599
myself since I came upon you, and I would rather
336
00:20:32.680 --> 00:20:34.640
sell my own soul to the devil than let you
337
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go out of my keeping. But I must have the right.
338
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He went away brusquely to shut the door leading on deck,
339
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and came back the whole length of the cabin, repeating,
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I must have the legal right. Are you ashamed of
341
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letting people think you are my wife? He opened his
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arms as if to clasp her to his breast, but
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00:20:54.640 --> 00:20:57.839
mastered the impulse and shook his clenched hands at her, repeating,
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I must have the right, if only for your fara.
345
00:21:00.960 --> 00:21:04.200
I must have the right. Where would you take him to,
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00:21:04.279 --> 00:21:07.920
that infernal cardboard box maker? I don't know what keeps
347
00:21:07.920 --> 00:21:10.200
me from hunting him up in his virtuous home and
348
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bashing his head in. I can't bear the thought. Listen
349
00:21:14.160 --> 00:21:15.920
to me, Flora, Do you hear what I am saying
350
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to you? You are not so proud that you can't
351
00:21:18.000 --> 00:21:20.640
understand that I, as a man, have my pride too.
352
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He saw a tear glide down her white cheek from
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under each lowered lid. Then abruptly she walked out of
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the cabin. He stood for a moment, concentrated, reckoning his
355
00:21:33.720 --> 00:21:37.920
own strength, interrogating his heart, before he followed her hastily.
356
00:21:38.680 --> 00:21:42.039
Already she had reached the wharf. At the sound of
357
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his pursuing footsteps, her strength failed her. Where could she
358
00:21:45.799 --> 00:21:48.960
escape from this, from this new perfidy of life taking
359
00:21:49.039 --> 00:21:53.720
upon itself the form of magnanimity. His very voice was changed,
360
00:21:54.200 --> 00:21:57.960
the sustaining whirl, wounded letter down to stumble on again,
361
00:21:58.240 --> 00:22:01.839
weakened by the fresh stab, bereft of moral support, which
362
00:22:01.880 --> 00:22:04.319
is wanted in life more than all the charities of
363
00:22:04.359 --> 00:22:08.920
material help. She had never had it, never not from
364
00:22:08.960 --> 00:22:13.680
the fines. But where to go? Oh? Yes, this dock,
365
00:22:13.920 --> 00:22:17.279
a placid sheet of water close at hand. But there
366
00:22:17.319 --> 00:22:19.359
was that old man with him. She had walked hand
367
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in hand on the parade by the sea. She seemed
368
00:22:22.519 --> 00:22:25.640
to see him coming to meet her, pitiful, a little
369
00:22:25.680 --> 00:22:30.200
grayer with an appealing look and an extended, tremulous arm.
370
00:22:30.640 --> 00:22:32.599
It was for her now to take the hand of
371
00:22:32.640 --> 00:22:36.000
that wronged man, more helpless than a child. But where
372
00:22:36.039 --> 00:22:39.160
could she lead him where? And what was she to
373
00:22:39.200 --> 00:22:42.440
say to him? What words of cheer, of courage, and
374
00:22:42.480 --> 00:22:46.680
of hope? There were none. Heaven and Earth were mute,
375
00:22:47.000 --> 00:22:50.680
unconcerned at their meeting. But this other man was coming
376
00:22:50.759 --> 00:22:54.359
up behind her. He was very close now. His fiery
377
00:22:54.400 --> 00:22:59.000
person seemed to radiate heat, a tingling vibration into the atmosphere.
378
00:22:59.480 --> 00:23:04.039
She was exhausted, careless, afraid to stumble, ready to fall.
379
00:23:04.880 --> 00:23:08.200
She fancied she could hear his breathing. A wave of
380
00:23:08.440 --> 00:23:11.519
languid warmth overtook her. She seemed to lose touch with
381
00:23:11.559 --> 00:23:13.920
the ground under her feet, and when she felt him
382
00:23:13.960 --> 00:23:16.519
slip his hand under her arm, she made no attempt
383
00:23:16.519 --> 00:23:19.759
to disengage herself from that grasp which closed upon her
384
00:23:19.799 --> 00:23:24.759
limb insinuating and firm, he conducted her through the dangers
385
00:23:24.759 --> 00:23:29.039
of the quayside. Her sight was dim. A moving truck
386
00:23:29.160 --> 00:23:32.599
was like a mountain, gliding by, men passed by as
387
00:23:32.599 --> 00:23:35.480
if in a mist. And the buildings, the sheds, the
388
00:23:35.599 --> 00:23:41.359
unexpected open spaces, the ships had strange, distorted, dangerous shapes.
389
00:23:42.319 --> 00:23:44.240
She said to herself that it was good not to
390
00:23:44.279 --> 00:23:46.599
be bothered with what all these things meant in the
391
00:23:46.640 --> 00:23:50.119
scheme of creation, if indeed anything had a meaning or
392
00:23:50.119 --> 00:23:54.119
were just piled up matter without any sense. She felt
393
00:23:54.160 --> 00:23:57.759
how she had always been unrelated to this world. She
394
00:23:57.880 --> 00:24:00.400
was hanging on to it merely by that one arm
395
00:24:00.559 --> 00:24:05.200
grasped firmly just above the elbow. It was a captivity.
396
00:24:06.240 --> 00:24:09.279
So be it. Till they got out into the street
397
00:24:09.319 --> 00:24:12.559
and saw the hansom waiting outside the gates. Anthony spoke
398
00:24:12.599 --> 00:24:16.039
only once, beginning brusquely, but in a much gentler tone
399
00:24:16.079 --> 00:24:20.000
than she had ever heard from his lips. Of course,
400
00:24:20.079 --> 00:24:22.200
I ought to have known that you could not care
401
00:24:22.240 --> 00:24:28.200
for a man like me. A stranger. Silence gives consent, Yes, eh,
402
00:24:29.319 --> 00:24:32.160
I don't want any of that sort of consent. And
403
00:24:32.279 --> 00:24:35.279
unless some day you find you can speak, no, no,
404
00:24:35.440 --> 00:24:37.799
I shall never ask you for all the sign I
405
00:24:37.799 --> 00:24:40.119
will give you. You may go to your grave with
406
00:24:40.240 --> 00:24:43.799
sealed lips. But what I have said you must do.
407
00:24:45.599 --> 00:24:49.119
He bent his head over with tender care. At the
408
00:24:49.119 --> 00:24:52.559
same time, she felt her arm pressed and shaken inconspicuously,
409
00:24:53.000 --> 00:24:58.000
but in an undeniable manner. You must do it, a
410
00:24:58.079 --> 00:25:01.039
little shake that no passer by could know. And this
411
00:25:01.359 --> 00:25:03.519
was going on in a deserted part of the dog
412
00:25:04.559 --> 00:25:07.680
It must be done. You are listening to me, eh?
413
00:25:07.839 --> 00:25:12.319
Or would you go again to my sister? His ironic tone,
414
00:25:12.440 --> 00:25:15.799
perhaps from want of use, had an awful grating ferocity.
415
00:25:16.920 --> 00:25:19.160
Would you go to her, he pursued, in the same
416
00:25:19.200 --> 00:25:23.759
strange voice, your best friend, and say nicely? I am sorry?
417
00:25:24.599 --> 00:25:28.480
Would you No, you couldn't. There are things that even knew,
418
00:25:28.640 --> 00:25:33.839
poor dear lost girl couldn't stand. Eh. Die rather, that's it,
419
00:25:34.559 --> 00:25:37.559
of course? Or can you be thinking of taking your
420
00:25:37.599 --> 00:25:42.039
father to that infernal cousin's house. No, don't speak. I
421
00:25:42.079 --> 00:25:44.000
can't bear to think of it. I will follow you
422
00:25:44.079 --> 00:25:48.119
there and smash the door. The catch in his voice
423
00:25:48.160 --> 00:25:52.039
astonished her by its resemblance to a sob. It frightened
424
00:25:52.079 --> 00:25:55.039
her too. The thought that came to her head was
425
00:25:55.200 --> 00:25:59.000
he mustn't he was putting her into a hansom. Oh,
426
00:25:59.039 --> 00:26:02.559
he mustn't, he must. She was still more frightened by
427
00:26:02.559 --> 00:26:06.759
the discovery that he was shaking all over. Bewildered, shrinking
428
00:26:06.799 --> 00:26:09.920
into the far off corner, avoiding his eyes. She yet
429
00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:12.359
saw the quivering of his mouth and made a wild
430
00:26:12.400 --> 00:26:15.279
attempt at a smile, which broke the rigidity of her
431
00:26:15.319 --> 00:26:19.240
lips and set her teeth chattering. Suddenly, I'm not coming
432
00:26:19.279 --> 00:26:21.960
with you, he was saying, I'll tell a man, I
433
00:26:22.079 --> 00:26:25.160
can't better not. What is it? Are you cold? Come?
434
00:26:25.319 --> 00:26:28.519
What is it only to go to a confounded, stuffy room,
435
00:26:28.559 --> 00:26:30.680
a hole of an office, not a quarter of a Now,
436
00:26:31.000 --> 00:26:33.960
I'll come for you in ten days. Don't think of
437
00:26:34.000 --> 00:26:37.000
it too much, Think of no man, woman or child,
438
00:26:37.000 --> 00:26:39.839
of all that silly crowd cumbering the ground. Don't think
439
00:26:39.880 --> 00:26:43.680
of me either, think of yourself. Ah, nothing will be
440
00:26:43.720 --> 00:26:47.319
able to touch you. There at last, say nothing, don't move.
441
00:26:47.519 --> 00:26:49.839
I'll have everything arranged. And as long as you don't
442
00:26:49.880 --> 00:26:52.680
hate the sight of me, and you don't, there's nothing
443
00:26:52.680 --> 00:26:55.440
to be frightened about. One of their silly officers, with
444
00:26:55.559 --> 00:26:59.440
a couple of ink slingers of no consequence, poor scribbling devils.
445
00:27:01.079 --> 00:27:04.920
The handsome drove away with Florida barrel inside, without movement,
446
00:27:05.119 --> 00:27:08.480
without thought, only too glad to rest to be alone,
447
00:27:08.559 --> 00:27:12.519
and still moving away without effort. In solitude and silence,
448
00:27:14.240 --> 00:27:17.240
Anthony roamed the streets for hours, without being able to
449
00:27:17.279 --> 00:27:19.920
remember in the evening where he had been, in the
450
00:27:19.960 --> 00:27:23.920
manner of a happy and exalting lover. But nobody could
451
00:27:23.920 --> 00:27:26.720
have thought so from his face which bore no signs
452
00:27:26.720 --> 00:27:31.759
of blissful anticipation. Exulting. Indeed he was, but it was
453
00:27:31.799 --> 00:27:34.720
a special sort of exultation which seemed to take him
454
00:27:34.759 --> 00:27:39.440
by the throat like an enemy. Anthony's last words to
455
00:27:39.480 --> 00:27:42.359
Flora referred to the Registry Offers, where they were married
456
00:27:42.400 --> 00:27:46.279
ten days later. During that time, Anthony saw no one
457
00:27:46.400 --> 00:27:49.599
or anything, though he went about restlessly here and there
458
00:27:49.640 --> 00:27:54.200
amongst men and things. This special state is peculiar to
459
00:27:54.279 --> 00:27:56.559
common lovers, who are known to have no eyes for
460
00:27:56.640 --> 00:28:00.480
anything except for the contemplation actual or inward, of one
461
00:28:00.680 --> 00:28:03.920
human form, which, for them contains the soul of the
462
00:28:03.960 --> 00:28:08.680
whole world, in all its beauty, perfection, variety, and infinity.
463
00:28:09.839 --> 00:28:14.319
It must be extremely pleasant. But felicity was denied to
464
00:28:14.400 --> 00:28:18.480
Roderick Anthony's contemplation. He was not a common sort of lover,
465
00:28:18.920 --> 00:28:21.839
and he was punished for it. As if nature, which
466
00:28:21.880 --> 00:28:24.559
it is said of alles a vacuum, were so very
467
00:28:24.599 --> 00:28:29.480
conventional as to abhor every sort of exceptional conduct. Roderic
468
00:28:29.519 --> 00:28:33.440
Anthony had begun already to suffer that his Why perhaps
469
00:28:33.519 --> 00:28:36.920
he was so industrious in going about amongst his fellow men,
470
00:28:36.960 --> 00:28:40.240
who would have been surprised and humiliated had they known
471
00:28:40.279 --> 00:28:43.839
how little solidity and even existence they had in his eyes.
472
00:28:44.839 --> 00:28:48.119
But they could not suspect anything so queer. They saw
473
00:28:48.160 --> 00:28:52.039
nothing extraordinary in him during that fortnight. The proof of
474
00:28:52.079 --> 00:28:54.640
this is that they were willing to transact business with him.
475
00:28:54.960 --> 00:28:57.599
Obviously they were, since it is then that the offer
476
00:28:57.640 --> 00:29:00.400
of chartering his ship for the special purpose of proceeding
477
00:29:00.440 --> 00:29:02.759
to the Western Islands was put in his way by
478
00:29:02.759 --> 00:29:05.920
a firm of shipbrokers, who had no doubt of his sanity.
479
00:29:07.319 --> 00:29:10.240
He probably looked sane enough for all the practical purposes
480
00:29:10.240 --> 00:29:13.079
of commercial life, but I am not so certain that
481
00:29:13.119 --> 00:29:17.519
he really was quite sane at that time. However, he
482
00:29:17.599 --> 00:29:21.000
jumped at the offer. Providence itself was offering him this
483
00:29:21.119 --> 00:29:23.880
opportunity to accustom the girl to see life by a
484
00:29:23.920 --> 00:29:28.640
comparatively short trip. This was the time when everything that happened,
485
00:29:28.799 --> 00:29:33.519
everything he heard, casual words, unrelated phrases, seemed a provocation
486
00:29:33.759 --> 00:29:38.759
or an encouragement, confirmed him in his resolution. And indeed,
487
00:29:38.799 --> 00:29:41.960
to be busy with material affairs is the best preservative
488
00:29:42.000 --> 00:29:46.240
against reflection, fears, doubts, all these things which stand in
489
00:29:46.279 --> 00:29:49.880
the way of achievement. I suppose a fellow proposing to
490
00:29:49.920 --> 00:29:52.519
cut his throat would experience a sort of relief while
491
00:29:52.559 --> 00:29:57.759
occupied in stopping his razor carefully. And Anthony was extremely
492
00:29:57.799 --> 00:30:01.119
careful in preparing for himself and for the luckless Flora.
493
00:30:01.319 --> 00:30:05.440
An impossible existence, he went about it with no more
494
00:30:05.480 --> 00:30:07.960
tremors than if he had been stuffed with rags or
495
00:30:08.000 --> 00:30:12.039
made of iron instead of flesh and blood. An existence,
496
00:30:12.160 --> 00:30:15.319
mind you, which on shore, in the thick of mankind
497
00:30:15.480 --> 00:30:20.279
of varied interests, of distractions, of infinite opportunities to preserve
498
00:30:20.319 --> 00:30:24.279
your distance from each other is hardly conceivable. But on
499
00:30:24.319 --> 00:30:27.680
board ship at sea, on tete a tete for days
500
00:30:27.680 --> 00:30:31.599
and weeks and months together could mean nothing but mental torture,
501
00:30:31.960 --> 00:30:37.079
an exquisite absurdity of torment. He was a simple soul.
502
00:30:37.920 --> 00:30:42.440
His hopelessly masculine ingenuousness is displayed in a touching way
503
00:30:42.480 --> 00:30:45.559
by his care to procure some woman to attend on Flora.
504
00:30:46.799 --> 00:30:50.759
The condition of guaranteed perfect respectability gave him moments of
505
00:30:50.799 --> 00:30:54.680
anxious thought when he remembered suddenly his steward's wife. He
506
00:30:54.759 --> 00:30:59.279
must have exclaimed Eureaga with particular exultation. One does not
507
00:30:59.440 --> 00:31:02.680
like to call Anthony an ass but really to put
508
00:31:02.720 --> 00:31:05.960
any woman with insenting distance of such a secret, and
509
00:31:06.039 --> 00:31:09.839
suppose that she would not track it out. No woman,
510
00:31:09.920 --> 00:31:13.640
however simple, could be as ingenuous as that. I don't
511
00:31:13.640 --> 00:31:16.480
know how Flora de Barrel qualified him in her thoughts
512
00:31:16.519 --> 00:31:19.279
when he told her of having done this, amongst other things,
513
00:31:19.319 --> 00:31:23.119
intended to make her comfortable. I should think that, for
514
00:31:23.200 --> 00:31:27.079
all her simplicity, she must have been appalled. He stood
515
00:31:27.119 --> 00:31:30.319
before her on the appointed day outwardly calmer than she
516
00:31:30.359 --> 00:31:34.039
had ever seen him before. And this very calmness, that
517
00:31:34.440 --> 00:31:37.839
scrupulous attitude, which he felt bound in honor to assume
518
00:31:37.960 --> 00:31:41.720
then and forever, unless she would condescend to make a
519
00:31:41.839 --> 00:31:45.079
sign at some future time, added to the heaviness of
520
00:31:45.119 --> 00:31:50.680
her heart, innocent of the most pardonable guile. The night before,
521
00:31:50.720 --> 00:31:52.599
she had slept better than she had done for the
522
00:31:52.640 --> 00:31:57.359
past ten nights. Both youth and weariness will assert themselves
523
00:31:57.440 --> 00:32:00.799
in the end against the tyranny of nerve rackings stress.
524
00:32:01.480 --> 00:32:03.880
She had slept, but she woke up with her eyes
525
00:32:03.960 --> 00:32:07.079
full of tears. There were no traces of them when
526
00:32:07.119 --> 00:32:10.599
she met him in the shabby little parlor downstairs. She
527
00:32:10.640 --> 00:32:13.160
had swallowed them up. She was not going to let
528
00:32:13.200 --> 00:32:16.640
him see she felt bound in honor to accept the
529
00:32:16.680 --> 00:32:23.720
situation forever and ever, unless, ah unless she dissembled all
530
00:32:23.759 --> 00:32:26.920
her sentiments. But it was not duplicity on her part.
531
00:32:27.440 --> 00:32:29.759
Or she wanted was to get at the truth, to
532
00:32:29.839 --> 00:32:33.799
see what would come out of it. She beat him
533
00:32:33.839 --> 00:32:36.759
at his own honorable game, and the thoroughness of her
534
00:32:36.799 --> 00:32:41.160
serenity disconcerted Anthony a bit. It was he who stammered
535
00:32:41.200 --> 00:32:44.720
when it came to talking. The suppressed fierceness of his
536
00:32:44.880 --> 00:32:47.759
character carried him on after the first word or two,
537
00:32:47.920 --> 00:32:51.480
masterfully enough. But it was as if they both had
538
00:32:51.480 --> 00:32:55.279
taken a bite of the same bitter fruit. He was
539
00:32:55.319 --> 00:32:59.440
thinking with mournful regret, not unmixed with surprise, that fellow
540
00:32:59.519 --> 00:33:02.039
fine as been telling me the truth. She does not
541
00:33:02.359 --> 00:33:06.599
care for me a bit. It humiliated him and also
542
00:33:06.680 --> 00:33:09.960
increased his compassion for the girl, who, in this darkness
543
00:33:09.960 --> 00:33:13.640
of life, buffeted and despairing, had fallen into the grip
544
00:33:13.720 --> 00:33:17.799
of his stronger will, abandoning herself to his arms as
545
00:33:17.880 --> 00:33:22.039
on a night of shipwreck. Flora, on her side, with
546
00:33:22.279 --> 00:33:25.599
partial insight, for women are never blind, with a complete
547
00:33:25.759 --> 00:33:29.640
masculine blindness, looked on him with some pity and She
548
00:33:29.680 --> 00:33:34.200
felt pity for herself too. It was a rejection, a
549
00:33:34.319 --> 00:33:39.200
casting out, nothing new to her, But she who supposed
550
00:33:39.200 --> 00:33:42.720
all her sensibility dead by this time, discovered in herself
551
00:33:42.759 --> 00:33:47.319
a resentment of this ultimate betrayal. She had no resignation
552
00:33:47.519 --> 00:33:50.880
for this one. With a sort of mental sullenness, she
553
00:33:50.920 --> 00:33:54.640
said to herself, well, I am here, I am here
554
00:33:54.680 --> 00:33:57.319
without any nonsense. It is not my fault that I
555
00:33:57.359 --> 00:34:01.799
am a mere, worthless object of pity. And these things,
556
00:34:01.799 --> 00:34:04.440
which she could tell herself with a clear conscience, served
557
00:34:04.440 --> 00:34:07.519
her better than the passionate obstinacy of purpose could serve
558
00:34:07.640 --> 00:34:11.639
Roderick Anthony. She was much more sure of herself than
559
00:34:11.679 --> 00:34:16.079
he was. Such are the advantages of mere rectitude over
560
00:34:16.119 --> 00:34:20.519
the most exalted generosity. And so they went out to
561
00:34:20.559 --> 00:34:23.320
get married, the people of the house where she lodged,
562
00:34:23.320 --> 00:34:26.719
having no suspicion of anything of the sort, though only
563
00:34:26.760 --> 00:34:30.159
excited at a gentleman friend, a very fine man too,
564
00:34:30.400 --> 00:34:32.679
calling on Miss Smith for the first time since she
565
00:34:32.719 --> 00:34:35.960
had come to live in the house. When she returned,
566
00:34:36.239 --> 00:34:39.280
for she did come back alone, there were allusions made
567
00:34:39.320 --> 00:34:42.000
to that outing. She had to take her meals with
568
00:34:42.079 --> 00:34:45.840
these rather vulgar people. The woman of the house, a scraggy,
569
00:34:45.960 --> 00:34:51.159
genteel person, tried even to provoke confidences. Flora's white face
570
00:34:51.239 --> 00:34:54.000
with the deep blue eyes did not strike their hearts
571
00:34:54.039 --> 00:34:56.480
as it did the heart of Captain Anthony. As the
572
00:34:56.559 --> 00:35:00.840
very face of the suffering world. Her pain reserve had
573
00:35:00.840 --> 00:35:06.199
no power to war them into decency. Well, she returned alone,
574
00:35:06.519 --> 00:35:10.039
as in fact might have been expected. After leaving the
575
00:35:10.079 --> 00:35:13.239
Registry office, Flora de Barrel and Roderick Anthony had gone
576
00:35:13.280 --> 00:35:15.960
for a walk in a park. It must have been
577
00:35:16.000 --> 00:35:19.199
an East End park, but I'm not sure anyway, that's
578
00:35:19.199 --> 00:35:22.400
what they did. It was a sunny day, he said
579
00:35:22.400 --> 00:35:25.360
to her. Everything I have in the world belongs to you.
580
00:35:26.119 --> 00:35:28.559
I have seen to that without troubling my brother in law.
581
00:35:28.880 --> 00:35:33.119
They have no call to interfere. She walked with her
582
00:35:33.159 --> 00:35:36.199
hand resting lightly on his arm. He had offered it
583
00:35:36.280 --> 00:35:38.519
to her on coming out of the Registry office, and
584
00:35:38.599 --> 00:35:42.800
she had accepted it silently. Her head drooped. She seemed
585
00:35:42.800 --> 00:35:45.880
to be turning matters over in her mind, she said,
586
00:35:45.920 --> 00:35:48.719
alluding to the findes. They've been very good to me
587
00:35:49.760 --> 00:35:53.440
at that, he exclaimed, they have never understood you, well,
588
00:35:53.760 --> 00:35:57.400
not properly. My sister is not a bad woman, But
589
00:35:59.039 --> 00:36:02.719
Flora didn't pro asking herself whether he imagined that he
590
00:36:02.840 --> 00:36:07.559
himself understood her so much better, Anthony, dismissing his family
591
00:36:07.599 --> 00:36:10.880
out of his thoughts, went on, yes, everything is yours.
592
00:36:10.920 --> 00:36:13.920
I've kept nothing back as to the piece of paper
593
00:36:13.960 --> 00:36:16.440
we have just got from that miserable quill driver. If
594
00:36:16.480 --> 00:36:18.400
it wasn't for the law, I wouldn't mind if you
595
00:36:18.440 --> 00:36:21.920
tore it up here now on this spot. But don't
596
00:36:21.960 --> 00:36:24.840
you do it unless you should some day feel that
597
00:36:26.239 --> 00:36:31.840
he choked unexpectedly, She reflective hesitated a moment, then making
598
00:36:31.920 --> 00:36:35.719
up her mind bravely, neither am I keeping anything back
599
00:36:35.719 --> 00:36:39.760
from you? She had said it, but he, in his
600
00:36:39.880 --> 00:36:44.039
blind generosity, assumed that she was alluding to her deplorable history,
601
00:36:44.239 --> 00:36:47.639
and hastened to mutter, of course, of course, say no more.
602
00:36:47.960 --> 00:36:50.199
I have been lying awake thinking of it all no
603
00:36:50.440 --> 00:36:54.360
end of times. He made a movement with his other arm,
604
00:36:54.360 --> 00:36:57.519
as if restraining himself from shaking an indignant fist at
605
00:36:57.559 --> 00:37:00.599
the universe, and she never even attempted to look at him.
606
00:37:01.480 --> 00:37:06.320
His voice sounded strangely, incredibly lifeless in comparison with these
607
00:37:06.360 --> 00:37:09.920
tempestuous accents that in the broad fields in the dark
608
00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:12.880
garden had seemed to shake the very earth under her
609
00:37:12.960 --> 00:37:18.400
weary and hopeless feet. She regretted them, hearing the sigh
610
00:37:18.480 --> 00:37:21.400
which escaped to Anthony, instead of shaking his fist at
611
00:37:21.400 --> 00:37:24.400
the universe, began to pat her hand resting on his arm,
612
00:37:24.760 --> 00:37:29.239
and then desisted suddenly, as though he had burnt himself. Then,
613
00:37:29.440 --> 00:37:32.679
after a silence, you will have to go by yourself
614
00:37:32.719 --> 00:37:36.880
to morrow. I am no, I think I mustn't come better.
615
00:37:36.920 --> 00:37:39.760
Not what you too will have to say to each other,
616
00:37:40.960 --> 00:37:44.440
she interrupted him quickly. Father is an innocent man. He
617
00:37:44.559 --> 00:37:50.159
was cruelly wrong. Yes, that's why, Anthony insisted earnestly. And
618
00:37:50.199 --> 00:37:52.079
you are the only human being that can make it
619
00:37:52.199 --> 00:37:55.199
up to him. You alone must reconcile him of the
620
00:37:55.239 --> 00:37:58.800
world if anything can, But of course you shall. You'll
621
00:37:58.840 --> 00:38:02.199
have to find words. Oh you'll know, and then the
622
00:38:02.239 --> 00:38:06.480
sight of you alone would soothe. He's the gentlest of men,
623
00:38:06.679 --> 00:38:11.239
she interrupted again. Anthony shook his head. It would take
624
00:38:11.239 --> 00:38:14.400
no end of generosity, no end of gentleness to forgive
625
00:38:14.480 --> 00:38:17.239
such a dead set. For my part, I would have
626
00:38:17.360 --> 00:38:19.719
liked better to have been killed and done with it once.
627
00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:22.039
It could not have been worse for you. And I
628
00:38:22.079 --> 00:38:24.280
suppose it was of you that he was thinking most
629
00:38:24.360 --> 00:38:28.239
while those infernal lawyers were badgering him in court. Of you.
630
00:38:29.440 --> 00:38:31.559
And now I think of it, perhaps the sight of
631
00:38:31.599 --> 00:38:34.599
you may bring it all back to him. All these years,
632
00:38:34.880 --> 00:38:38.880
all these years, and you his child, left alone in
633
00:38:38.960 --> 00:38:42.840
the world. I would have gone crazy for even if
634
00:38:42.880 --> 00:38:46.079
he had done wrong. But he hasn't, insisted Flora de
635
00:38:46.119 --> 00:38:49.840
Barrel with a quite unexpected fierceness. You mustn't even suppose it,
636
00:38:50.039 --> 00:38:53.639
haven't you read the accounts of the trial. I'm not
637
00:38:53.679 --> 00:38:58.320
supposing anything. Anthony defended himself. He just remembered hearing of
638
00:38:58.360 --> 00:39:01.079
the trial. He assure her that he was far away
639
00:39:01.079 --> 00:39:04.440
from England the second voyage of the Ferndale. He was
640
00:39:04.480 --> 00:39:07.159
crossing the Pacific from Australia at the time and didn't
641
00:39:07.159 --> 00:39:11.199
see any papers for weeks and weeks. He interrupted himself
642
00:39:11.239 --> 00:39:13.920
to suggest, you had better tell him at once that
643
00:39:14.239 --> 00:39:18.199
you are happy. He had stammered a little, and Flora
644
00:39:18.239 --> 00:39:23.280
de Barrel uttered a deliberate and concise yes. A short
645
00:39:23.360 --> 00:39:27.880
silence ensued. She withdrew her hand from his arm. They stopped.
646
00:39:28.719 --> 00:39:33.559
Anthony looked as if a totally unexpected catastrophe had happened. Ah,
647
00:39:33.599 --> 00:39:36.960
he said, you mind? No, I think I had better.
648
00:39:37.039 --> 00:39:40.559
She murmured, I dare say, I dare say? Bring him
649
00:39:40.599 --> 00:39:44.760
along straight on board to morrow. Stop nowhere. She had
650
00:39:44.760 --> 00:39:48.079
a movement of vague gratitude, a momentary feeling of peace,
651
00:39:48.159 --> 00:39:51.519
which she referred to the man before her. She looked
652
00:39:51.599 --> 00:39:56.079
up at Anthony. His face was somber. He was miles away,
653
00:39:56.239 --> 00:39:59.199
and muttered, as if to himself, why could he want
654
00:39:59.239 --> 00:40:02.639
to stop? Though there's not a single being on earth
655
00:40:02.679 --> 00:40:04.679
that I would want to look at his dear face?
656
00:40:04.760 --> 00:40:07.639
Now to whom I would willingly take him, she said,
657
00:40:07.719 --> 00:40:10.480
extending her hand frankly and with a slight break in
658
00:40:10.559 --> 00:40:15.960
her voice. But you, Roderick. He took that hand, felt
659
00:40:15.960 --> 00:40:20.199
it very small and delicate in his broad palm. That's right,
660
00:40:20.599 --> 00:40:23.519
that's right, he said, with a conscious and hasty heart
661
00:40:23.519 --> 00:40:26.039
in us, and as if suddenly ashamed of the sound
662
00:40:26.079 --> 00:40:29.280
of his voice, turned half round and absolutely walked away
663
00:40:29.400 --> 00:40:33.719
from the motionless girl. He even resisted the temptation to
664
00:40:33.760 --> 00:40:37.000
look back till it was too late. The gravel path
665
00:40:37.079 --> 00:40:39.840
lay empty to the very gate of the park. She
666
00:40:40.000 --> 00:40:43.719
was gone, vanished. He had an impression that he had
667
00:40:43.760 --> 00:40:48.559
missed some sort of chance. He felt sad. That excited
668
00:40:48.639 --> 00:40:50.840
sense of his own conduct, which had kept him up
669
00:40:50.880 --> 00:40:54.000
for the last ten days, buoyed him no more. He
670
00:40:54.360 --> 00:40:59.840
had succeeded. He strolled on aimlessly, a prey to gentle melancholy.
671
00:41:00.760 --> 00:41:04.440
He walked and walked. There were but few people about
672
00:41:04.480 --> 00:41:08.280
in this breathing space of a poor neighborhood. Under certain
673
00:41:08.280 --> 00:41:10.960
conditions of life, there is precious little time left for
674
00:41:11.039 --> 00:41:14.480
mere breathing. But still a few here and there were
675
00:41:14.519 --> 00:41:18.519
indulging in that luxury. Yet few as they were, Captain Anthony,
676
00:41:18.639 --> 00:41:23.400
though the least exclusive of men, resented their presence. Solitude
677
00:41:23.480 --> 00:41:26.760
had been his best friend. He wanted some place where
678
00:41:26.760 --> 00:41:30.360
he could sit down and be alone, And in his need,
679
00:41:30.440 --> 00:41:32.719
his thoughts turned to the sea, which had given him
680
00:41:32.719 --> 00:41:37.440
so much of that congenial solitude. There if always with
681
00:41:37.559 --> 00:41:40.239
his ship, but that was an integral part of him.
682
00:41:40.559 --> 00:41:43.920
He could always be as solitary as he chose, Yes,
683
00:41:44.400 --> 00:41:48.079
get out to sea. The night of the town, with
684
00:41:48.159 --> 00:41:51.199
its strings of lights, rigid and crossed like a net
685
00:41:51.199 --> 00:41:55.199
of flames thrown over the somber immensity of walls closed
686
00:41:55.280 --> 00:41:59.480
round him with its artificial brilliance, overhung by an emphatic blackness,
687
00:41:59.800 --> 00:42:05.760
its unnatural animation of a restless, overdriven humanity, his thoughts,
688
00:42:05.840 --> 00:42:09.239
which somehow are inclined to pity. Every passing figure, Every
689
00:42:09.280 --> 00:42:12.880
single person glimpsed under a street lamp, fixed themselves at
690
00:42:13.000 --> 00:42:15.440
last upon a figure which certainly could not have been
691
00:42:15.480 --> 00:42:19.119
seen under the lamps on that particular night, a figure
692
00:42:19.559 --> 00:42:23.920
unknown to him, a figure shut up within high, unscalable
693
00:42:23.960 --> 00:42:28.480
walls of stone or bricks till next morning. The figure
694
00:42:28.519 --> 00:42:33.679
of Flora de Barrel's father, the barrel, the financier, the convict.
695
00:42:35.440 --> 00:42:38.280
There is something in that word, with its suggestions of
696
00:42:38.360 --> 00:42:42.760
guilt and retribution, which arrests the thought we feel ourselves
697
00:42:42.800 --> 00:42:46.079
in the presence of the power of organized society, a
698
00:42:46.159 --> 00:42:49.920
thing mysterious in itself, and still more mysterious in its effect,
699
00:42:51.079 --> 00:42:53.880
whether guilty or innocence. It was as if Old de
700
00:42:53.960 --> 00:42:58.199
Barrel had been down to the nether regions, impossible to
701
00:42:58.239 --> 00:43:00.440
imagine what he would bring out from there to the
702
00:43:00.519 --> 00:43:04.719
light of this world of uncondemned men. What would he think,
703
00:43:05.079 --> 00:43:07.880
what would he have to say? And what was one
704
00:43:07.920 --> 00:43:12.400
to say to him? Anthony, a little awed as one
705
00:43:12.519 --> 00:43:15.719
is by a range of feelings stretching beyond one's grasp,
706
00:43:16.159 --> 00:43:19.000
comforted himself by the thought that probably the old fellow
707
00:43:19.039 --> 00:43:22.039
would have little to say. He wouldn't want to talk
708
00:43:22.079 --> 00:43:25.559
about it, No man would. It must have been a
709
00:43:25.639 --> 00:43:29.679
real hell to him. And then Anthony, at the end
710
00:43:29.679 --> 00:43:31.320
of the day in which he had gone through a
711
00:43:31.360 --> 00:43:34.480
marriage ceremony with Flora de Barrel, ceased to think of
712
00:43:34.519 --> 00:43:38.320
Flora's father, except as in some sort the captive of
713
00:43:38.400 --> 00:43:42.880
his triumph. He turned to the mental contemplation of the white,
714
00:43:43.079 --> 00:43:46.360
delicate and appealing face with great blue eyes which he
715
00:43:46.400 --> 00:43:49.760
had seen weep and wonder and look profoundly at him,
716
00:43:50.119 --> 00:43:55.679
sometimes with incredulity, sometimes with doubt and pain, but always irresistible,
717
00:43:55.719 --> 00:43:58.559
and the power to find their way right into his breast,
718
00:43:59.079 --> 00:44:01.960
to stir there a deep response. Which was something more
719
00:44:02.039 --> 00:44:06.639
than love, he said to himself, as men understand it more?
720
00:44:07.360 --> 00:44:12.159
Or was it only something other? Yes, it was something other,
721
00:44:12.880 --> 00:44:16.559
more or less, something as incredible as the fulfillment of
722
00:44:16.599 --> 00:44:19.639
an amazing and startling dream in which he could take
723
00:44:19.679 --> 00:44:23.000
the world in his arms, all the suffering world, not
724
00:44:23.159 --> 00:44:27.159
to possess its pathetic fairness, but to console and cherish
725
00:44:27.199 --> 00:44:31.920
its sorrow. Anthony walked slowly to the ship, and that
726
00:44:32.159 --> 00:44:38.199
night slept without dreams. End of Part two, Chapter four,