John Galsworthy

“ Autumn was getting hold of the old oak-tree, its leaves were browning. Sunshine had been plentiful and hot this summer. As with trees, so with men's lives! 'I ought to live long,' thought Jolyon; 'I'm getting mildewed for want of heat. If I can't work, I shall be off to Paris.' But memory of Paris gave him no pleasure. Besides, how could he go? He must stay and see what Soames was going to do. 'I'm her trustee. I can't leave her unprotected,' he thought. It had been striking him as curious how very clearly he could still see Irene in her little drawing-room which he had only twice entered. ”

“ Noel's hand tugged at his arm. "Isn't beauty terribly alive," she murmured, "like a lovely person? it makes you ache to kiss it."
His lips felt parched. "There is a beauty beyond all that," he said stubbornly.
"Where?"
"Holiness, duty, faith. O Nollie, my love!" But Noel's hand tightened on his arm.
"Shall I tell you what I should like?" she whispered. "To take God's hand and show Him things. I'm certain He's not seen everything."
A shudder went through Pierson, one of those queer sudden shivers, which come from a strange note in a voice, or a new sharp scent or sight. ”

“ With the wisdom of a long life old Jolyon did not speak. Even grief sobbed itself out in time; only Time was good for sorrow—Time who saw the passing of each mood, each emotion in turn; Time the layer-to-rest. There came into his mind the words: 'As panteth the hart after cooling streams'—but they were of no use to him. Then, conscious of a scent of violets, he knew she was drying her eyes. He put his chin forward, pressed his moustache against her forehead, and felt her shake with a quivering of her whole body, as of a tree which shakes itself free of raindrops. ”

“ Irene turned, her face was deadly pale, her eyes burning dark.
"God made me as I am," she said; "wicked if you like—but not so wicked that I'll give myself again to a man I hate."
The sunlight gleamed on her hair as she moved away, and seemed to lay a caress all down her clinging cream-coloured frock.
Soames could neither speak nor move. That word 'hate'—so extreme, so primitive—made all the Forsyte in him tremble. With a deep imprecation he strode away from where she had vanished, and ran almost into the arms of the lady sauntering back—the fool, the shadowing fool! ”

“ Fiorsen said hoarsely:
"You do not love me. If you loved me, I should feel it through your lips. I should see it in your eyes. Oh, love me, Gyp! You shall!"
But to say to Love: "Stand and deliver!" was not the way to touch Gyp. It seemed to her mere ill-bred stupidity. She froze against him in soul, all the more that she yielded her body. When a woman refuses nothing to one whom she does not really love, shadows are already falling on the bride-house. And Fiorsen knew it; but his self-control about equalled that of the two puppies. ”

“ The official leaned out, like an old dog from a kennel.
"Why," he said in a surprised voice, "it's Mr. Jolyon Forsyte! So it is!
Haven't seen you, sir, for years. Dear me! Times aren't what they were.
Why! you and your brother, and that auctioneer—Mr. Traquair, and Mr.
Nicholas Treffry—you used to have six or seven stalls here regular every
season. And how are you, sir? We don't get younger!"
The colour in old Jolyon's eyes deepened; he paid his guinea. They had not forgotten him. He marched in, to the sounds of the overture, like an old war-horse to battle. ”

“ If Irene broke such laws, what does it matter?"
"It's not for me to disagree there," said Jolyon; "but that's all quite beside the mark. This is a matter of human feeling."
"Of course it is," cried June, "the human feeling of those two young things."
"My dear," said Jolyon with gentle exasperation; "you're talking nonsense."
"I'm not. If they prove to be really fond of each other, why should they be made unhappy because of the past?"
"You haven't lived that past. I have—through the feelings of my wife; through my own nerves and my imagination, as only one who is devoted can." ”

“ There were no signs of life about the cottage, and she would not stop, too eager to be at home again, to see the old rooms, and smell the old savour of the house, to get to her old mare, and feel its nose nuzzling her for sugar. It was so good to be back once more, feeling strong and well and able to ride. The smile of the inscrutable Markey at the front door was a joy to her, even the darkness of the hall, where a gleam of last sunlight fell across the skin of Winton's first tiger, on which she had so often sunk down dead tired after hunting. ”

“ Old Jolyon stood, still as death, his eyes fixed on the body. Who shall tell of what he was thinking? Of himself, when his hair was brown like the hair of that young fellow dead before him? Of himself, with his battle just beginning, the long, long battle he had loved; the battle that was over for this young man almost before it had begun? Of his grand-daughter, with her broken hopes? Of that other woman? Of the strangeness, and the pity of it? And the irony, inscrutable, and bitter of that end? Justice! There was no justice for men, for they were ever in the dark! ”

“ Could a man own anything prettier than this dining-table with its deep tints, the starry, soft-petalled roses, the ruby-coloured glass, and quaint silver furnishing; could a man own anything prettier than the woman who sat at it? Gratitude was no virtue among Forsytes, who, competitive, and full of common-sense, had no occasion for it; and Soames only experienced a sense of exasperation amounting to pain, that he did not own her as it was his right to own her, that he could not, as by stretching out his hand to that rose, pluck her and sniff the very secrets of her heart. ”

“ Something turned over in Pierson's heart; he flung up his hand to his eyes.
"The poor men in it!" he said. "How terrible!"
Noel's voice answered, hard and pitiless:
"They needn't have come. They're murderers!"
Yes, they were murderers—but how terrible! And he stood quivering, with his hands pressed to his face, till the cheering had died out into silence.
"Let's pray, Nollie!" he whispered. "O God, Who in Thy great mercy hath delivered us from peril, take into Thy keeping the souls of these our enemies, consumed by Thy wrath before our eyes; give us the power to pity them—men like ourselves." ”

“ Jon (not simplified spelling, but short for Jolyon, which is a name in my family, they say) is the sort that lights up and goes out; about five feet ten, still growing, and I believe he's going to be a poet. If you laugh at me I've done with you forever. I perceive all sorts of difficulties, but you know when I really want a thing I get it. One of the chief effects of love is that you see the air sort of inhabited, like seeing a face in the moon; and you feel—you feel dancey and soft at the same time, with a funny sensation—like a continual first sniff of orange—blossom—Just above your stays. ”

“ George Forsyte, of course, was an old chap, but this Profond might be about his own age; Val felt extremely young, as if the Mayfly filly were a toy at which those two had laughed. The animal had lost reality.
"That 'small' mare"—he seemed to hear the voice of Monsieur Profond —"what do you see in her?—we must all die!"
And George Forsyte, crony of his father, racing still! The Mayfly strain—was it any better than any other? He might just as well have a flutter with his money instead.
"No, by gum!" he muttered suddenly, "if it's no good breeding horses, it's no good doing anything. ”

“ If one never loved, one would never feel lonely—like that poor girl. And yet! No—there was no "and yet." Who that was free would wish to become a slave? A slave—like Daphne Wing! A slave—like her own husband to his want of a wife who did not love him. A slave like her father had been—still was, to a memory. And watching the sunlight on the bracken, Gyp thought: 'Love! Keep far from me. I don't want you. I shall never want you!'
Every morning that week she made her way to the cottage, and every morning had to pass through the hands of Mrs. Wagge. ”

“ An owl flew, queeking, queeking; a bat flitted by; the moonlight brightened and broadened on the water. How long was she going to roam about like this! He went back to the window, and suddenly saw her coming down to the bank. She stood quite close, on the landing-stage. And Soames watched, clenching his hands. Should he speak to her? His excitement was intense. The stillness of her figure, its youth, its absorption in despair, in longing, in—itself. He would always remember it, moonlit like that; and the faint sweet reek of the river and the shivering of the willow leaves. ”

“ There in the cool, and the scent of vanilla and ammonia, away from flies, the three Alderneys were chewing the quiet cud; just milked, waiting for evening, to be turned out again into the lower field. One turned a lazy head, a lustrous eye; Jolyon could see the slobber on its grey lower lip. He saw everything with passionate clearness, in the agitation of his nerves—all that in his time he had adored and tried to paint—wonder of light and shade and colour. No wonder the legend put Christ into a manger—what more devotional than the eyes and moon-white horns of a chewing cow in the warm dusk! ”

“ Winton looked straight at her and answered:
"Ah, too happy!"
Without a quiver, he met those tear-darkened, dilated eyes straining at his; with a heavy sigh, she once more turned away, and, brushing her handkerchief across her face, drew down her veil.
It was not true—he knew from the mutterings of Gyp's fever—but no one, not even Summerhay's mother, should hear a whisper if he could help it. At the door, he murmured:
"I don't know whether my girl will get through, or what she will do after. When Fate hits, she hits too hard. And you! Good-bye." ”

“ In those hours, Gyp had some real sensations of romance. The sea was so blue, the rocks and wooded spurs of that Southern coast so dreamy in the bright land-haze. Oblivious of "the old salt," he would put his arm round her; out there, she could swallow down her sense of form, and be grateful for feeling nearer to him in spirit. She made loyal efforts to understand him in these weeks that were bringing a certain disillusionment. The elemental part of marriage was not the trouble; if she did not herself feel passion, she did not resent his. ”

“ And Baryn was walking in the study; he was so busy he had only given her one kiss.
When she was gone, Gyp opened the window and let the wind full into her face. If only it would blow out of her heart this sickening sense that all was over, no matter how he might pretend to love her out of pity! In a nature like hers, so doubting and self-distrustful, confidence, once shaken to the roots, could never be restored. A proud nature that went all lengths in love could never be content with a half-love. She had been born too doubting, proud, and jealous, yet made to love too utterly. ”

“ Bosinney was pleading, and she so quiet, so soft, yet immovable in her passivity, sat looking over the grass.
Was he the man to carry her off, that tender, passive being, who would never stir a step for herself? Who had given him all herself, and would die for him, but perhaps would never run away with him!
It seemed to young Jolyon that he could hear her saying: "But, darling, it would ruin you!" For he himself had experienced to the full the gnawing fear at the bottom of each woman's heart that she is a drag on the man she loves. ”

“ Would she believe he had done his best? And under that sunlight faring on the elms, hazels, hollies of the lane and those unexploited fields, Soames felt dread. She would be terribly upset! He must appeal to her pride. That boy had given her up, declared part and lot with the woman who so long ago had given her father up! Soames clenched his hands. Given him up, and why? What had been wrong with him? And once more he felt the malaise of one who contemplates himself as seen by another—like a dog who chances on his refection in a mirror and is intrigued and anxious at the unseizable thing. ”

“ That evening in Park Lane, watching his father dine, he was overwhelmed by his old longing for a son—a son, to watch him eat as he went down the years, to be taken on his knee as James on a time had been wont to take him; a son of his own begetting, who could understand him because he was the same flesh and blood—understand, and comfort him, and become more rich and cultured than himself because he would start even better off. To get old—like that thin, grey wiry-frail figure sitting there—and be quite alone with possessions heaping up around him ”

“ Irene smiled. And it was as if something shone through; not mere spirituality—serener, completer, more alluring.
"History!" she answered; "I once told Uncle Jolyon that love was for ever. Well, it isn't. Only aversion lasts."
Jolyon stared at her. Had she got over Bosinney at last?
"Yes!" he said, "aversion's deeper than love or hate because it's a natural product of the nerves, and we don't change them."
"I came to tell you that Soames has been to see me. He said a thing that frightened me. He said: 'You are still my wife!'"
"What!" ejaculated Jolyon. "You ought not to live alone." ”

“ He had become one burning mood—that, and nothing more.
To be out, especially amongst trees, was the only solace.
And he sat for a long time that evening under a large lime-tree on a knoll above the Serpentine. There was very little breeze, just enough to keep alive a kind of whispering. What if men and women, when they had lived their gusty lives, became trees! What if someone who had burned and ached were now spreading over him this leafy peace—this blue-black shadow against the stars? Or were the stars, perhaps, the souls of men and women escaped for ever from love and longing? ”

“ Soames dropped his hand.
"Irene," he said, "let bygones be bygones. If I can, surely you might. Let's begin again, as if nothing had been. Won't you?" His voice was wistful, and his eyes, resting on her face, had in them a sort of supplication.
She, who was standing literally with her back against the wall, gave a little gulp, and that was all her answer. Soames went on:
"Can you really want to live all your days half-dead in this little hole? Come back to me, and I'll give you all you want. You shall live your own life; I swear it."
He saw her face quiver ironically. ”