I
swear to you that the breaking up of our little group was an unthinkable event.
Supposing that you should come upon us sitting together at one of the little
tables in front of the club house, let us say, at Homburg, taking tea of an
afternoon and watching the miniature golf, you would have said that, as human
affairs go, we were an extraordinarily safe castle. We were, if you will, one
of those tall ships with the white sails upon a blue sea, one of those things
that seem the proudest and the safest of all the beautiful and safe things that
God has permitted the mind of men to frame. Where better could one take refuge?
Where better?
Permanence?
Stability? I can't believe it's gone. I can't believe that that long, tranquil
life vanished in four crashing days at the end of nine years and six weeks. On
every possible occasion and in every possible circumstance we knew where to go,
where to sit, which table we unanimously should choose; and we could rise and
go, all four together, without a signal from any one of us, always to the music
of the Kur orchestra, always in the temperate sunshine, or, if it rained, in
discreet shelters. No, indeed, it can't be gone. Isn't there any heaven where
old beautiful dances, old beautiful intimacies prolong themselves?
For,
if for me we were four people with the same tastes, with the same desires,
acting—or, no, not acting—sitting here and there unanimously, isn't that the
truth? So it may well be with Edward Ashburnham, with Leonora his wife and with
poor dear Florence. And, if you come to think of it, isn't it a little odd that
the physical rottenness of at least
two pillars of our four-square house never presented itself to my mind as a
menace to its security? It doesn't so present itself now though the two of them
are actually dead. I don't know....
I know
nothing—nothing in the world—of the hearts of men. I only know that I am
alone—horribly alone. No fireplace will ever again witness, for me, friendly
intercourse. No smoking-room will ever be other than peopled with incalculable
similarity among smoke rings. Yet, in the name of God, what should I know if I
don't know the life of the fireplace and of the smoking-room, since my whole
life has been passed in those places? The warm fireplace!—Well, there was
Florence: I believe that for the twelve years her life lasted, after the storm
that seemed irretrievably to have weakened her heart—I don't believe that for
one minute she was out of my sight, except when she was safely tucked up in bed
and I should be downstairs, talking to some good fellow or other in some lounge
or smoking-room or taking my final turn with a cigar before going to bed. I
don't, you understand, blame Florence. But how can she have known what she
knew? How could she have got to know it? To know it so fully. Heavens! There
doesn't seem to have been the actual time. It must have been when I was taking
my baths, and my Swedish exercises, being manicured. Leading the life I did, of
the constant, stressed nurse, I had to do something to keep myself fit. It must
have been then! Yet even that can't have been enough time to get the
tremendously long conversations full of worldly wisdom that Leonora has
reported to me since their deaths. And is it possible to imagine that during our
prescribed walks in Nauheim and the neighbourhood she found time to carry on
the extended negotiations which she did carry on between Edward Ashburnham and
his wife? And isn't it incredible that during all that time Edward and Leonora
never spoke a word to each other in private? What is one to think of humanity?
For I swear to you
that they were the model couple. He was as devoted as it was possible to be
without appearing silly. So well set up, with such honest blue eyes, such a
touch of stupidity, such a warm goodheartedness! And she—so tall, so splendid
in the saddle, so fair! Yes, Leonora was extraordinarily fair and so
extraordinarily the real thing that she seemed too good to be true. You don't,
I mean, as a rule, get it all so superlatively together. To be the county
family, to look the county family, to be so appropriately and perfectly
wealthy; to be so perfect in manner—even just to the saving touch of insolence
that seems to be necessary. To have all that and to be all that! No, it was too
good to be true. And yet, only this afternoon, talking over the whole matter
she said to me: "Once I tried to have a lover but I was so sick at the
heart, so utterly worn out that I had to send him away." That struck me as
the most amazing thing I had ever heard. She said "I was actually in a
man's arms. Such a nice chap! Such a dear fellow! And I was saying to myself,
fiercely, expressing it between my teeth, as they say in novels—and really
closing them together: I was saying to myself: 'Now, I'm in for it and I'll
really have a good time for once in my life—for once in my life!' It was in the
dark, in a carriage, coming back from a hunt ball. Eleven miles we had to
drive! And then suddenly the bitterness of the endless poverty, of the endless
acting—it fell on me like a stain, it spoilt everything. Yes, I had to realize
that I had been spoilt even for the good time when it came. And I burst out
crying and I cried and I cried for the whole eleven miles. Just imagine me
crying! And just imagine me making a fool of the poor dear chap like that. It
certainly wasn't playing the game, was it now?"… (adapted in easier
English)
Vocabulario
Rottenness: Being
in a state of putrefaction or decay
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