Brideshead Revisited

by Evelyn Waugh

It was odd, wanting to give something one had lost oneself.

the little circle of gin and vermouth in the glasses lengthened to oval, contracted again, with the sway of the carriage, touched the lip, lapped back again, never spilt;

There Julia sat, in a tight little gold tunic and a white gown, one hand in the water idly turning an emerald ring to catch the fire of the sunset; the carved animals mounted over her dark head in a cumulus of green moss and glowing stone and dense shadow, and the waters round them flashed and bubbled and broke into scattered flames.

“Plans, divorce, war—on an evening like this.” “Sometimes,” said Julia, “I feel the past and the future pressing so hard on either side that there’s no room for the present at all.”

“perhaps all our loves are merely hints and symbols; vagabond-language scrawled on gate-posts and paving-stones along the weary road that others have tramped before us; perhaps you and I are types and this sadness which sometimes falls between us springs from disappointment in our search, each straining through and beyond the other, snatching a glimpse now and then of the shadow which turns the corner always a pace or two ahead of us.”

“His heart; some long word at the heart. He is dying of a long word.”

Nor could I have spoken, for the answer to her question was still unformed; the sense that the fate of more souls than one was at issue; that the snow was beginning to shift on the high slopes.

“He’s got a wonderful will to live, hasn’t he?” “Would you put it like that? I should say a great fear of death.” “Is there a difference?” “Oh dear, yes. He doesn’t derive any strength from his fear, you know. It’s wearing him out.”