The Present and the Past Read Online Free PDF

heroic scale,’ said Cassius, as if this were a too ambitious claim.
    â€˜Just on the ordinary scale,’ said his wife.
    â€˜Now here is a letter come by hand,’ said Cassius. ‘And I declare the one I dreaded! I might have known it. I expect I did know in my mind, and that is what put me into such a state. Well, what a thing to confront a man in the first half of the day, and cast a cloud over the rest of it!’
    â€˜Letters usually come at breakfast,’ said his father. ‘And then the effect might be on the whole day.’
    â€˜And that is helpful, is it? And common is the commonplace, and empty chaff well meant for grain. That things are common would not make my own less bitter. Never morning wore to evening but something of the kind took place.’
    â€˜It does sound rather like the whole day,’ said Flavia.
    â€˜Yes, you can be clever about it. How does that affect the position?’
    â€˜I think it improves it a little. What does the letter say?’
    â€˜Read it to us, my boy,’ said Mr Clare.
    â€˜Oh, yes, and have you and Flavia throwing your wit over it, and treating me as if I were a culprit, instead of a man expectedto be married to two wives at once, and to offer up one of them to the mockery of the other. What a demand to be made on a man! I could not have believed it.’
    â€˜I do not believe it,’ said his wife.
    â€˜Come, you can be explicit, my boy,’ said Mr Clare.
    â€˜I am putting it as plainly as I can. Surely two wives is explicit enough for anyone. Or would you want it to be ten? Would that be more explicit?’
    â€˜No, it would be less,’ said Flavia. ‘It would need a good deal more explanation.’
    â€˜Well, have the truth,’ said her husband. ‘Have it and make what you can of it. Here am I told by my first wife that she is coming to encounter my second, and to break up our family life, and take our children away from us, and be a heroine and a martyr through it all! Though she does not want to see me. Oh, no, there is no mention of that. Though what harm it would do her I am at a loss to say. She did it day and night for five years.’
    â€˜And felt she could do it no longer,’ said Flavia, in an expressionless tone.
    â€˜And I felt the same, I can tell you, and felt it no less. To have those eyes boring straight into mine, as if they would read my very soul, and probably find I hadn’t one into the bargain! It was as much as flesh and blood could stand. I had come to an end as much as she had.’
    â€˜Is she returning to the place for good?’ said Mr Clare.
    â€˜Coming back to her home, as she puts it,’ said Cassius, referring to the letter. ‘As if this house had not been her home for years! There is no need to be invidious, is there? Coming back to that brother and sister, and to that house with books all over it, and little else that I could ever see. Well, if she prefers it to this, I wish her joy of it.’
    â€˜She hardly has the choice of the two,’ said his father. ‘And she has come with a purpose and told you of it.’
    â€˜Oh, yes, she wants something for herself. There is no need to say that.’
    â€˜I should not have thought it need be said of her, from what I have heard,’ said Flavia.
    â€˜Yes, be magnanimous about her. We know your view of yourself.’
    â€˜It is the way to make it everyone’s view of her,’ said Mr Clare. ‘And there is no harm in her taking it.’
    â€˜Yes, I am the one who is criticized and condemned, and seen as a common creature blundering between two highminded women, and inflicting myself on both. That is my position. I must put up with it.’
    â€˜What is it that your first wife wants for herself?’ said Flavia.
    â€˜Oh, I thought you said she would not want anything.’
    â€˜But you did not take that view.’
    â€˜And I do not take it,’ said Cassius.