Silas Marner George Eliot (christmas read aloud .TXT) đ
- Author: George Eliot
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She was silent.
âI oughtnât to have left the child unowned: I oughtnât to have kept it from you. But I couldnât bear to give you up, Nancy. I was led away into marrying herâ âI suffered for it.â
Still Nancy was silent, looking down; and he almost expected that she would presently get up and say she would go to her fatherâs. How could she have any mercy for faults that must seem so black to her, with her simple, severe notions?
But at last she lifted up her eyes to his again and spoke. There was no indignation in her voiceâ âonly deep regret.
âGodfrey, if you had but told me this six years ago, we could have done some of our duty by the child. Do you think Iâd have refused to take her in, if Iâd known she was yours?â
At that moment Godfrey felt all the bitterness of an error that was not simply futile, but had defeated its own end. He had not measured this wife with whom he had lived so long. But she spoke again, with more agitation.
âAndâ âOh, Godfreyâ âif weâd had her from the first, if youâd taken to her as you ought, sheâd have loved me for her motherâ âand youâd have been happier with me: I could better have bore my little baby dying, and our life might have been more like what we used to think it âud be.â
The tears fell, and Nancy ceased to speak.
âBut you wouldnât have married me then, Nancy, if Iâd told you,â said Godfrey, urged, in the bitterness of his self-reproach, to prove to himself that his conduct had not been utter folly. âYou may think you would now, but you wouldnât then. With your pride and your fatherâs, youâd have hated having anything to do with me after the talk thereâd have been.â
âI canât say what I should have done about that, Godfrey. I should never have married anybody else. But I wasnât worth doing wrong forâ ânothing is in this world. Nothing is so good as it seems beforehandâ ânot even our marrying wasnât, you see.â There was a faint sad smile on Nancyâs face as she said the last words.
âIâm a worse man than you thought I was, Nancy,â said Godfrey, rather tremulously. âCan you forgive me ever?â
âThe wrong to me is but little, Godfrey: youâve made it up to meâ âyouâve been good to me for fifteen years. Itâs another you did the wrong to; and I doubt it can never be all made up for.â
âBut we can take Eppie now,â said Godfrey. âI wonât mind the world knowing at last. Iâll be plain and open for the rest oâ my life.â
âItâll be different coming to us, now sheâs grown up,â said Nancy, shaking her head sadly. âBut itâs your duty to acknowledge her and provide for her; and Iâll do my part by her, and pray to God Almighty to make her love me.â
âThen weâll go together to Silas Marnerâs this very night, as soon as everythingâs quiet at the Stone-pits.â
XIXBetween eight and nine oâclock that evening, Eppie and Silas were seated alone in the cottage. After the great excitement the weaver had undergone from the events of the afternoon, he had felt a longing for this quietude, and had even begged Mrs. Winthrop and Aaron, who had naturally lingered behind everyone else, to leave him alone with his child. The excitement had not passed away: it had only reached that stage when the keenness of the susceptibility makes external stimulus intolerableâ âwhen there is no sense of weariness, but rather an intensity of inward life, under which sleep is an impossibility. Anyone who has watched such moments in other men remembers the brightness of the eyes and the strange definiteness that comes over coarse features from that transient influence. It is as if a new fineness of ear for all spiritual voices had sent wonder-working vibrations through the heavy mortal frameâ âas if âbeauty born of murmuring soundâ had passed into the face of the listener.
Silasâs face showed that sort of transfiguration, as he sat in his armchair and looked at Eppie. She had drawn her own chair towards his knees, and leaned forward, holding both his hands, while she looked up at him. On the table near them, lit by a candle, lay the recovered goldâ âthe old long-loved gold, ranged in orderly heaps, as Silas used to range it in the days when it was his only joy. He had been telling her how he used to count it every night, and how his soul was utterly desolate till she was sent to him.
âAt first, Iâd a sort oâ feeling come across me now and then,â he was saying in a subdued tone, âas if you might be changed into the gold again; for sometimes, turn my head which way I would, I seemed to see the gold; and I thought I should be glad if I could feel it, and find it was come back. But that didnât last long. After a bit, I should have thought it was a curse come again, if it had drove you from me, for Iâd got to feel the need oâ your looks and your voice and the touch oâ your little fingers. You didnât know then, Eppie, when you were such a little âunâ âyou didnât know what your old father Silas felt for you.â
âBut I know now, father,â said Eppie. âIf it hadnât been for you, theyâd have taken me to the workhouse, and thereâd have been nobody to love me.â
âEh, my precious child, the blessing was mine. If you hadnât been sent to save me, I should haâ gone to the grave in my misery. The money was taken away from me in time; and you see itâs been keptâ âkept till it was wanted for you. Itâs wonderfulâ âour life is wonderful.â
Silas sat in silence a few minutes, looking at the money. âIt takes no hold
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