never see the world except as the generality to which I must be the exception. she might even have closed the door quietly enough not to wake the sleepers. .

Who is Sarah?Out of what shadows does she come?I do not know
Who is Sarah?Out of what shadows does she come?I do not know. he did not argue. a look about the eyes. ??May I proceed???She was silent. that he had not vanished into thin air. he thought she was about to say more.Yet this distance. on. she still sometimes allowed herself to stand and stare. invincible eyes a tear. for parents. I am afraid. Poulteney??s ??person?? was at that moment sitting in the downstairs kitchen at Mrs. Tories like Mrs.He murmured. In summer it is the nearest this country can offer to a tropical jungle. became suddenly a brink over an abyss. but Sam did most of the talking. sir. He would speak to Sam; by heavens. The entire world was not for them only a push or a switch away. the safe distance; and this girl.

It was an evening that Charles would normally have en-joyed; not least perhaps because the doctor permitted himself little freedoms of language and fact in some of his tales. They looked down on her; and she looked up through them.. Poulteney had ever heard of the word ??lesbian??; and if she had.. for she had turned.??That there bag o?? soot will be delivered as bordered.??She began then??as if the question had been expected??to speak rapidly; almost repeating a speech. A stunted thorn grew towards the back of its arena. ??I fear I don??t explain myself well. you leave me the more grateful. only to have two days?? rain on a holiday to change districts. the country was charming.. Her sharper ears had heard a sound. his heart beating.The vicar of Lyme at that time was a comparatively emancipated man theologically. Or at least he tried to look seriously around him; but the little slope on which he found himself.????Kindly put that instrument down. and disappeared into the interior shadows. for he had been born a Catholic; he was. Mrs.

The air was full of their honeyed musk. must seem to a stranger to my nature and circum-stances at that time so great that it cannot be but criminal. for which light duty he might take the day as his reward (not all Victorian employers were directly responsible for communism). Understanding never grew from violation. an English Juliet with her flat-footed nurse.These ??foreigners?? were. at such a moment.??I do not know her.In other words. she was born with a computer in her heart. we have paid our homage to Neptune.Nor did Ernestina. pray? Because he could hardly enter any London drawing room without finding abundant examples of the objects of his interest.. controlled and clear. But Marlborough House and Mary had suited each other as well as a tomb would a goldfinch; and when one day Mrs..??My good woman. She was certainly dazzled by Sam to begin with: he was very much a superior being. Yet behind it lay a very modern phrase: Come clean. I am sure it is sufficiently old. rose steeply from the shingled beach where Monmouth entered upon his idiocy.

and the white stars of wild strawberry.????What you are suggesting is??I must insist that Mrs.??And my sweet. locked in a mutual incomprehension. One day she set out with the intention of walking into the woods. if cook had a day off.??And now Grogan. He took a step back.????The new room is better?????Yes. and the couple continued down the Cobb. beware.But though death may be delayed. Ernestina had already warned Charles of this; that he must regard himself as no more than a beast in a menagerie and take as amiably as he could the crude stares and the poking umbrellas. lies today in that direction. Even if Charles had not had the further prospects he did. when he called dutifully at ten o??clock at Aunt Tranter??s house. sir. The second simple fact is that she was an opium-addict??but before you think I am wildly sacrificing plausibility to sensation. like most men of his time. with Lyell and Darwin still alive? Be a statesman. and meet Sarah again. an explanation.

he the vicar of Lyme had described as ??a man of excellent principles. Yellow ribbons and daffodils. though always shaded with sorrow and often intense in feeling; but above all.[* I had better here. out of its glass case in the drawing room at Winsyatt. I have no right to desire these things. which hid the awkward fact that it was also his pleasure to do so.??Mrs. when they see on the map where they were lost. ??I fancy that??s one bag of fundamentalist wind that will think twice before blowing on this part of the Dorset littoral again. The gorse was in full bloom. but Sarah??s were strong. had more than one vocabulary.Her eyes were suddenly on his.????Indeed I did.??There was silence. He most wisely provided the girl with a better education than one would expect.??Miss Sarah was present at this conversation. Thus they are in the same position as the drunkard brought up before the Lord Mayor. if not on his lips. neat civilization behind his back. that they had things to discover.

pray?????I should have thought you might have wished to prolong an opportunity to hold my arm without impropriety. though not rare; every village had its dozen or so smocked elders. That is why. could drive her. As she lay in her bedroom she reflected on the terrible mathematical doubt that increasingly haunted her; whether the Lord calculated charity by what one had given or by what one could have afforded to give. If no one dares speak of them.????He made advances.??But you surely can??t pretend that all governesses are unhappy??or remain unmarried?????All like myself. It also required a response from him . Black Ven. Her look back lasted two or three seconds at most; then she resumed her stare to the south. ??I possess this now. It was not only that she ceased abruptly to be the tacit favorite of the household when the young lady from London arrived; but the young lady from London came also with trunkfuls of the latest London and Paris fashions. fussed over. or at any rate with the enigma she presented. one morning only a few weeks after Miss Sarah had taken up her duties. Perhaps I believed I owed it to myself to appear mistress of my destiny. The gentleman is . But Sarah passed quietly on and over. He knew it as he stared at her bowed head. Grogan recommended that she be moved out of the maids?? dormitory and given a room with more light.????My dear Tina.

?? Something new had crept into her voice..?? And all the more peremptory. force the pace. without feminine affectation. ??Now this girl??what is her name??? Mary???this charming Miss Mary may be great fun to tease and be teased by??let me finish??but I am told she is a gentle trusting creature at heart.??I have no one to turn to. Usually she came to recover from the season; this year she was sent early to gather strength for the marriage.?? Sarah looked down before the accusing eyes. and even then she would not look at him; instead. Because I have set myself beyond the pale. an added sweet. and promised to share her penal solitude. in short. . It is not their fault if the world requires such attainments of them.155. out of sight of the Dairy.Sam first fell for her because she was a summer??s day after the drab dollymops and gays* who had constituted his past sexual experience. irrefutably in the style of a quar-ter-century before: that is. his imagination was always ready to fill the gap. She visited.

You may see it still in the drawings of the great illustrators of the time??in Phiz??s work. His discov-eries blew like a great wind. I think our ancestors?? isolation was like the greater space they enjoyed: it can only be envied. with the consequence that this little stretch of twelve miles or so of blue lias coast has lost more land to the sea in the course of history than almost any other in England. my dear lady. he added a pleasant astringency to Lyme society; for when he was with you you felt he was always hovering a little. People knew less of each other. the most meaningful space. very cool; a slate floor; and heavy with the smell of ripening cheese. she took exceedingly good care of their spiritual welfare. Talbot did not take her back?????Madam. you won??t. Who is this French lieutenant?????A man she is said to have . ??Ernestina my dear . but so absent-minded . He hesitated a moment then; but the memory of the surly look on the dissenting dairyman??s face kept Charles to his original chivalrous intention: to show the poor woman that not ev-erybody in her world was a barbarian. a tiny Piraeus to a microscopic Athens.. He drew himself up. The long-departed Mr. Fairley did not know him.??He could not go on.

The cultivated chequer of green and red-brown breaks. which would have been rather nearer the truth. I will not argue. no.There were. But one image??an actual illustration from one of Mrs. This woman went into deep mourning.. you bear. No mother superior could have wished more to hear the confession of an erring member of her flock. he rarely did. when she was convalescent. small person who always wore black. Smithson.??That girl I dismissed??she has given you no further trou-ble???Mrs. will one day redeem Mrs. please .??It is most kind of you to have looked for them. How should I not know it??? She added bitterly. so that he could see the side of her face. when it was stripped of its formal outdoor mask; too little achieved.This father.

by one of those inexplicable intuitions. But somehow the moment had not seemed opportune. ??Do not misunderstand me. you say. On one day there was a long excursion to Sidmouth; the mornings of the others were taken up by visits or other more agreeable diversions. blue flowers like microscopic cherubs?? genitals. If for no other reason. Her weeping she hid. more learned and altogether more nobly gendered pair down by the sea. in the case of Charles. but it is to the point that laudanum. Charles had been but a brief victim of the old lady??s power; and it was natural that they should think of her who was a permanent one. since she was not unaware of Mrs.??Mrs. But it was a woman asleep. Lyell??s Principles of Geology.????No gentleman who cares for his good name can be seen with the scarlet woman of Lyme. She be the French Loot??n??nt??s Hoer. she took advan-tage of one of the solicitous vicar??s visits and cautiously examined her conscience. It was certainly this which made him walk that afternoon to the place. the ineffable .He came at last to the very edge of the rampart above her.

Gradually he worked his way up to the foot of the bluffs where the fallen flints were thickest. Then he moved forward to the edge of the plateau. most evidently sunk in immemorial sleep; while Charles the natu-rally selected (the adverb carries both its senses) was pure intellect. of limitation.????Which means you were most hateful. It seemed to both envelop and reject him; as if he was a figure in a dream.Mrs. Stonebarrow. It was not a very great education. between us is quite impossible in my present circumstances. Four years ago my father was declared bankrupt. trying to imagine why she should not wish it known that she came among these innocent woods. Fursey-Harris to call.??If she springs on you I shall defend you and prove my poor gallantry. the second suffered it. and that.??They stopped. Above all.. By himself he might have hesitated. Charles showed little sympathy. Half Harley Street had examined her.

?? He obeyed her with a smile. When the fifth day came.. A girl of nineteen or so. and an inferior who depended on her for many of the pleasures of his table.??If you are determined to be a sour old bachelor. Again her bonnet was in her hand.. glanced at him with a smile. to have Charles. he knew. I think no child. Per-haps what was said between us did not seem very real to me because of that. an uncon-scious alienation effect of the Brechtian kind (??This is your mayor reading a passage from the Bible??) but the very contrary: she spoke directly of the suffering of Christ. to his own amazement. On Mary??s part it was but self-protection. The problem was not fitting in all that one wanted to do. gardeners. Charles made the Roman sign of mercy.. but a little lacking in her usual vivacity. It seemed clear to him that it was not Sarah in herself who attracted him??how could she.

Charles called himself a Darwinist. and not being very successfully resisted. and Mrs. This was certainly why the poem struck so deep into so many feminine hearts in that decade. especially when the plump salmon lay in anatomized ruins and the gentlemen proceeded to a decanter of port. then he would be in very hot water indeed. Again Charles stiffened. in any case. The public right of way must be left sacrosanct; and there were even some disgusting sensualists among the Councilors who argued that a walk to the Dairy was an innocent pleasure; and the Donkey??s Green Ball no more than an annual jape. sir. we shall never be yours. when it was stripped of its formal outdoor mask; too little achieved. In summer it is the nearest this country can offer to a tropical jungle. a chaste alabaster nudity. and suffer. considerable piles of fallen flint. They were enormous. One was her social inferior. besides. He died there a year later.??I think it is better if I leave. the nearest acknowledgment to an apology she had ever been known to muster.

By which he means. ??I found a lodging house by the harbor. What was unnatural was his now quite distinct sense of guilt. an exquisitely pure. a chaste alabaster nudity. staring out to sea. known locally as Ware Cleeves. a rider clopped peacefully down towards the sea. I came upon you inadvertently. but candlelight never did badly by any woman.????I am told you are constant in your attendance at divine service. Poulteney??then still audibly asleep??would have wished paradise to flood in upon her. So her relation with Aunt Tranter was much more that of a high-spirited child. I did not promise him. but also for any fatal sign that the words of the psalmist were not being taken very much to the reader??s heart. Please let us turn back. it seemed. seen sleeping so. The result. But to a less tax-paying. cold. But Sarah passed quietly on and over.

strolling beside the still swelling but now mild sea. a husband.One needs no further explanation. did Ernestina. Poulteney. in the fullest sense of that word. Watching the little doctor??s mischievous eyes and Aunt Tranter??s jolliness he had a whiff of corollary nausea for his own time: its stifling propriety. Grogan called his ??cabin. Tranter??s called; but the bowl of milk shrieked .????And are scientific now? Shall we make the perilous de-scent?????On the way back. if not in actual words. and then look hastily down and away. as you will see??confuse progress with happiness. while Charles knew very well that his was also partly a companion??his Sancho Panza. yet easy to unbend when the company was to his taste. abandoned woman. who sat as implacably in her armchair as the Queen on her throne.??He meant it merely as encouragement to continue; but she took him literally.??Then let us hear no more of this foolishness. and she had heard Sam knock on the front door downstairs; she had heard the wicked and irreverent Mary open it??a murmur of voices and then a distinct. I am to walk in the paths of righteousness. His travels abroad had regrettably rubbed away some of that patina of profound humorlessness (called by the Victorian earnestness.

for a substantial fraction of the running costs of his church and also for the happy performance of his nonliturgical duties among the poor; and the other was the representa-tive of God. since two white ankles could be seen beneath the rich green coat and above the black boots that delicately trod the revetment; and perched over the netted chignon.. though it still suggested some of the old universal reproach.??Because you have traveled. Charles opened the white doors to it and stood in the waft of the hot.. But his feet strode on all the faster..?? And then he turned and walked away.She murmured. and the white stars of wild strawberry. but emerged in the clear (voyant trop pour nier.Your predicament.??He is married!????Miss Woodruff!??But she took no notice. Smithson. The beating of his heart like some huge clock;And then the strong pulse falter and stand still. Grogan was.One of the commonest symptoms of wealth today is de-structive neurosis; in his century it was tranquil boredom.Our broader-minded three had come early. Charles had found himself curious to know what political views the doctor held; and by way of getting to the subject asked whom the two busts that sat whitely among his host??s books might be of. raised its stern head.

A girl of nineteen or so. I gravely suspect. abstaining) was greeted with smiles from the average man.*[* The stanzas from In Metnoriam I have quoted at the beginning of this chapter are very relevant here.And let us start happily.?? Mrs. which did more harm than good.????It is too large for me. Tests vary in shape. Good Mrs.. But you must remember that at the time of which I write few had even heard of Lyell??s masterwork. madymosseile. between us is quite impossible in my present circumstances. But you have been told this?????The mere circumstance. he saw only a shy and wide-eyed sympathy. Besides he was a very good doctor. Had Miss Woodruff been in wiser employ I have no doubt this sad business would not have taken place.????I possess none. But by then she had already acted; gathering up her skirt she walked swiftly over the grass to the east. was plunged in affectionate contemplation of his features. A time came when Varguennes could no longer hide the na-ture of his real intentions towards me.

. But he would never violate a woman against her will. before whom she had metaphorically to kneel. Perhaps I heard what he did not mean. a liar. as you will see in a minute; but she was a far from insipid person.. look at this. Poulteney. But they don??t. Tranter??????Has the kindest heart. flirtatious surface the girl had a gentle affectionateness; and she did not stint.All this.When. Who is this French lieutenant?????A man she is said to have . She did not get on well with the other pupils. I could fill a book with reasons. colleagues. my wit is beyond you. the Morea.??But Charles stopped the disgruntled Sam at the door and accused him with the shaving brush. a young widow.

and with fellow hobbyists he would say indignantly that the Echinodermia had been ??shamefully neglected. it is nothing but a large wood. as if she might faint should any gentleman dare to address her. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell them about the girl; a facetious way of describing how he had come upon her entered his mind; and yet seemed a sort of treachery. I am expected in Broad Street. hesitated. if not on his lips. The path climbed and curved slightly inward beside an ivy-grown stone wall and then??in the unkind manner of paths?? forked without indication. He heard then a sound as of a falling stone. as if the girl cared more for health than a fashion-ably pale and languid-cheeked complexion. But this cruel thought no sooner entered Charles??s head than he dismissed it. in the form of myxomatosis. with no sound but the lowing of a calf from some distant field above and inland; the clapped wings and cooings of the wood pigeons; and the barely perceptible wash of the tranquil sea far through the trees below. I am not yet mad.????I possess none. He could not be angry with her. and there was that in her look which made her subsequent words no more than a concession to convention..??Charles! Now Charles. a sure symptom of an inherent moral decay; but he never entered society without being ogled by the mamas. Her color was high. Talbot was an extremely kindhearted but a not very perspicacious young woman; and though she would have liked to take Sarah back??indeed.

it is as much as to say it fears itself. It was not strange because it was more real. doctor of the time called it Our-Lordanum. seemingly with-out emotion. ??We know more about the fossils out there on the beach than we do about what takes place in that girl??s mind. naturally and unstoppably as water out of a woodland spring. she won??t be moved... no opportunities to continue his exploration of the Undercliff presented themselves. But it was not a sun trap many would have chosen. ??and a divilish bit better too!???? Charles smiled. vast. he wondered whether it was not a vanity that made her so often carry her bonnet in her hand. strolling beside the still swelling but now mild sea. Too pleas-ing. He was slim. At last she went on. for reviewers. the anus..??I.

??And so the man.The morning. sir. this district. was the father of modern geology. but they felt more free of each other.????The new room is better?????Yes.It is a best seller of the 1860s: the Honorable Mrs. For Charles. Poulteney had marked. for your offer of assistance. floated in the luminous clearing behind Sarah??s dark figure. Since they were holding hands.. Weimar. So let us see how Charles and Ernestina are crossing one particular such desert. in short. quote George Eliot??s famous epigram: ??God is inconceivable. Perhaps it was out of a timid modesty. I was afraid lest you had been taken ill. But I must repeat that I find myself amazed that you should . ma??m.

he would speak to Sam. It could be written so: ??A happier domestic atmosphere.????In close proximity to a gin palace.????Is that what made you laugh?????Yes. something singu-larly like a flash of defiance. I??ll spread sail of silver and I??ll steer towards the sun. . But I must repeat that I find myself amazed that you should . they would not have missed the opportunity of telling me.. He came to his sense of what was proper.????Quod est demonstrandum. near Beaminster. in place of the desire to do good for good??s sake. it was hard to say. jumping a century. Fairley had so nobly forced herself to do her duty.?? Charles too looked at the ground.??I wish you to show that this . never see the world except as the generality to which I must be the exception. she might even have closed the door quietly enough not to wake the sleepers. .