Part I, chap. 3, Page 31
Mind, I am not saying that this is not the most desirable type of life in the world; that it is not an almost unreasonably high standard. For it is really nauseating, when you detest it, to have to eat every day several slices of thin, tepid, pink india rubber, and it is disagreeable to have to drink brandy when you would prefer to be cheered up by warm, sweet Kummel. And it is nasty to have to take a cold bath in the morning when what you really want is a hot one at night. And it stirs a little of the faith of your fathers that is deep down within you to have to have it taken for granted that you are an Episcopalian when really you are an old-fashioned Philadelphia Quaker.
But these things have to be done; it is the cock that the whole of this society owes to Aesculapius. Part I, chap. 3, page 29: (The looking over Leonora gave him the first time they met)
And suddenly, into those cold, slightly defiant, almost defensive china blue orbs, there came a warmth, a tenderness, a friendly recognition… oh, it was very charming and very touching – and quite mortifying. It was the look of a mother to her son, of a sister to her brother. It implied trust; it implied the want of any necessity for barriers. By God, she looked at me as if I were an invalid – as any kind woman may look at a poor chap in a bath chair. Part I, chap. 5, page 40: (Regarding Florence and ‘attacks’ brought on by running for the train)
Well, she was a good actress. And I would be in hell. In hell, I tell you. For in Florence I had at once a wife and an unattained mistress – that is what it comes to – and in the retaining of her in this world I had my occupation, my career, my ambition. It is not often that these things are united in one body. Leonora was a good actress too. By Jove she was good! I tell you, she would listen to me by the hour, evolving my plans for a shock-proof world. It is true that, at times I used to notice about her face an air of inattention as if she were listening, a mother, to the child at her knee, or as if, precisely, I were myself the patient.
Part I, chap. 4, pages 37-38: (The ‘protest scene,’ Leonora realizes that Florence is ‘moving’ on Edward)
She continued looking up into Captain Ashburnham’s eyes: “It’s because of that piece of paper that you’re honest, sober, industrious, provident, and clean-lived. If it weren’t for that piece of paper you’d be like the Irish or the Italians or the Poles, but particularly the Irish….”
And she laid one finger upon Captain Ashburnham’s wrist.
I was aware of something treacherous, something frightful, something evil in the day. I can’t define it and can’t find a simile for it. It wasn’t as if a snake had looked out of a hole. No, it was as if my heart had missed a beat. It was as if we were going to run and cry out; all four of us in separate directions, averting our heads. In Ashburnham’s face I know that there was absolute panic. I was horribly frightened and then I discovered that the pain in my left wrist was caused by Leonora’s clutching it:
“I can’t stand this,” she said with a most extraordinary passion; “I must get out of this.”
I was horribly frightened. It came to me for a moment, though I hadn’t time to think it, that she must be a madly jealous woman….
“Don’t you see?” she said, “don’t you see what’s going on?” The panic again stopped my heart….
She ran her hand with a singular clawing motion upwards over her forehead. Her eyes were enormously distended; her face was exactly that of a person looking into the pit of hell and seeing horrors there….Part I, chap. 5, page 51: (After the ‘protest scene’)
At any rate the measure of my relief when Leonora said that she was an Irish Catholic gives you the measure of my affection for that couple. It was an affection so intense that even to this day I cannot think of Edward without sighing. I do not believe that I could have gone one any more without them. I was getting too tired. And I verily believe too, that if my suspicion that Leonora was jealous of Florence had been the reason she gave for her outburst I should have turned upon Florence with the maddest kind of rage. Jealousy would have been incurable.
Part III, chap. 1, page 76: (After Bagshawe’s revelation and Florence’s death)
But I have given you absolutely the whole of my recollection of that evening, as it is the whole of my recollection of the succeeding three or four days. I was in a state just simply cataleptic. They put me to bed and I stayed there; they brought me my clothes and I dressed; they led me to an open grave and I stood beside it. If they had taken me to the edge of a river, or if they had flung me beneath a railway train I should have been drowned or mangled in the same spirit. I was the walking dead.Part IV, chap.6, page 158: (Edward tells Dowell that he loves Nancy)
Those were the quietest moments that I have ever known. Then suddenly Edward looked me straight in the eyes and said:
“Look here, old man, I wish you would drive with Nancy and me to the station to-morrow.”
I said that of course I would drive with him and Nancy to the station on the morrow. He lay there for a long time, looking along the line of his knees at the fluttering fire and then suddenly, in a perfectly calm voice, and without lifting his eyes, he said:
“I am so desperately in love with Nancy Rufford that I am dying of it.”
Poor devil – he hadn’t meant to speak of it. But I guess he just had to speak to somebody and I appeared to be like a woman or a solicitor. He talked all night.Part III, chap. 1, page 73: (After Edward’s funeral. He is also told of Florence’s suicide)
“O stop here for ever and ever if you can.” And then she added, “You couldn’t be more of a brother to me, or more of a counselor, or more of a support. You are all the consolation I have in the world. And isn’t it odd to think that, if your wife hadn’t been my husband’s mistress, you would probably never have been here at all?”
That was how I got the news – full in the face, like that. I didn’t say anything and I don’t suppose I felt anything, unless maybe it was with that mysterious and unconscious self that underlies most people.