Howards End E. M. Forster (best summer reads of all time .TXT) 📖

moment. So tired was she that her attention had actually wandered to the teeth⁠—the teeth that had been thrust into the tree’s bark to medicate it. From where she sat she could see them gleam. She had been trying to count them. “Leonard is a better growth than madness,” she said. “I was afraid that you would react against Paul until you went over the verge.”

“I did react until I found poor Leonard. I am steady now. I shan’t ever like your Henry, dearest Meg, or even speak kindly about him, but all that blinding hate is over. I shall never rave against Wilcoxes any more. I understand how you married him, and you will now be very happy.”

Margaret did not reply.

“Yes,” repeated Helen, her voice growing more tender, “I do at last understand.”

“Except Mrs. Wilcox, dearest, no one understands our little movements.”

“Because in death⁠—I agree.”

“Not quite. I feel that you and I and Henry are only fragments of that woman’s mind. She knows everything. She is everything. She is the house, and the tree that leans over it. People have their own deaths as well as their own lives, and even if there is nothing beyond death, we shall differ in our nothingness. I cannot believe that knowledge such as hers will perish with knowledge such as mine. She knew about realities. She knew when people were in love, though she was not in the room. I don’t doubt that she knew when Henry deceived her.”

“Good night, Mrs. Wilcox,” called a voice.

“Oh, good night, Miss Avery.”

“Why should Miss Avery work for us?” Helen murmured.

“Why, indeed?”

Miss Avery crossed the lawn and merged into the hedge that divided it from the farm. An old gap, which Mr. Wilcox had filled up, had reappeared, and her track through the dew followed the path that he had turfed over, when he improved the garden and made it possible for games.

“This is not quite our house yet,” said Helen. “When Miss Avery called, I felt we are only a couple of tourists.”

“We shall be that everywhere, and forever.”

“But affectionate tourists.”

“But tourists who pretend each hotel is their home.”

“I can’t pretend very long,” said Helen. “Sitting under this tree one forgets, but I know that tomorrow I shall see the moon rise out of Germany. Not all your goodness can alter the facts of the case. Unless you will come with me.”

Margaret thought for a moment. In the past year she had grown so fond of England that to leave it was a real grief. Yet what detained her? No doubt Henry would pardon her outburst, and go on blustering and muddling into a ripe old age. But what was the good? She had just as soon vanish from his mind.

“Are you serious in asking me, Helen? Should I get on with your Monica?”

“You would not, but I am serious in asking you.”

“Still, no more plans now. And no more reminiscences.”

They were silent for a little. It was Helen’s evening.

The present flowed by them like a stream. The tree rustled. It had made music before they were born, and would continue after their deaths, but its song was of the moment. The moment had passed. The tree rustled again. Their senses were sharpened, and they seemed to apprehend life. Life passed. The tree rustled again.

“Sleep now,” said Margaret.

The peace of the country was entering into her. It has no commerce with memory, and little with hope. Least of all is it concerned with the hopes of the next five minutes. It is the peace of the present, which passes understanding. Its murmur came “now,” and “now” once more as they trod the gravel, and “now,” as the moonlight fell upon their father’s sword. They passed upstairs, kissed, and amidst the endless iterations fell asleep. The house had enshadowed the tree at first, but as the moon rose higher the two disentangled, and were clear for a few moments at midnight. Margaret awoke and looked into the garden. How incomprehensible that Leonard Bast should have won her this night of peace! Was he also part of Mrs. Wilcox’s mind?

XLI

Far different was Leonard’s development. The months after Oniton, whatever minor troubles they might bring him, were all overshadowed by Remorse. When Helen looked back she could philosophise, or she could look into the future and plan for her child. But the father saw nothing beyond his own sin. Weeks afterwards, in the midst of other occupations, he would suddenly cry out, “Brute⁠—you brute, I couldn’t have⁠—” and be rent into two people who held dialogues. Or brown rain would descend, blotting out faces and the sky. Even Jacky noticed the change in him. Most terrible were his sufferings when he awoke from sleep. Sometimes he was happy at first, but grew conscious of a burden hanging to him and weighing down his thoughts when they would move. Or little irons scorched his body. Or a sword stabbed him. He would sit at the edge of his bed, holding his heart and moaning, “Oh what shall I do, whatever shall I do?” Nothing brought ease. He could put distance between him and the trespass, but it grew in his soul.

Remorse is not among the eternal verities. The Greeks were right to dethrone her. Her action is too capricious, as though the Erinyes selected for punishment only certain men and certain sins. And of all means to regeneration Remorse is surely the most wasteful. It cuts away healthy tissues with the poisoned. It is a knife that probes far deeper than the evil. Leonard was driven straight through its torments and emerged pure, but enfeebled⁠—a better man, who would never lose control of himself again, but also a smaller man, who had less to control. Nor did purity mean peace. The use of the knife can become a habit as hard to shake off as passion itself, and Leonard continued to start with a cry out of dreams.

He built up a situation that was far enough from