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- [00:00]
Faith Moore
Hello and welcome to Storytime for Grown Ups. I'm Faith Moore and this season we're reading the Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. Each episode I'll read a few chapters from the book, pausing from time to time to give brief explanations so it's easier to follow along. It's like an audiobook with built in notes. So brew a pot of tea, find a cozy chair and settle in. It's story time. Hi, everyone. Welcome back.
- [00:44]
Unknown
Okay, so I have to confess to a moment of temporary insanity.
- [00:49]
Faith Moore
Last time I told you two things.
- [00:51]
Unknown
That are actually not true, not completely untrue, but I got two things a little bit wrong. And all I can say is I think I just went a little crazy and hopefully you don't lock me up.
- [01:01]
Faith Moore
In a madhouse under an assumed name. But the first is that I told you that the trailer for Summer Session.
- [01:07]
Unknown
Was going to drop on Saturday, May 16.
- [01:10]
Faith Moore
But May 16 is a Friday, so that can't possibly be true.
- [01:14]
Unknown
It's in fact going to drop on Saturday, May 17th. So it's all queued up and ready to go. So make sure you're subscribed because then.
- [01:21]
Faith Moore
The trailer telling you what we're going.
- [01:23]
Unknown
To be talking about all summer, what we're going to do during Summer Session is going to drop on that day, Saturday, Saturday, May 17th. So make sure you're subscribed. The other thing that I said was that the last episode of the Woman in White was going to be May 26th. It is, but that is the day that we're going to do the final episode, which will be the conclusion. We won't have any chapters. We will have finished the book and that's when I'm going to answer your questions about the final chapters and we'll kind of wrap everything up, come back to some of the things that we've been talking about and film finish up this journey together. That's May 26th. So in fact, the final chapters of the book will come out on May 22, the Thursday before that, which means that the tea time, which is on May 27, will be the day after that final episode, not the day after the chapters, which is what I said last time. So sorry about that. Hopefully that clears things up. Okay, so lots to talk about today. I got so, so many emails, many of you asking the same questions. So we're going to talk about that. And lots happened last time. We have a lot to talk about. So let's get to it. Don't forget to subscribe, don't forget to tap the five stars leave a positive review. If you can, become a member of.
- [02:38]
Faith Moore
The Drawing Room and join us on.
- [02:40]
Unknown
The 27th at 8pm Eastern to talk about the end of the book. Buy some merch, make a financial donation. If you can, tell a friend, get in touch with me. Whatever it is, join, Listen, be a part of this show in whatever way feels right and best for you. I'm so glad that you're here. Okay, so last time we read Hartright's narrative chapters three and four. Today we're going to read Heart Writes Narrative chapters five and six. So let's talk about what we read last time. And then as I say, we have a lot to discuss, a couple of kind of technical details and just a little bit more to dig into after the recap. But here it is. Here's the recap. Okay, so where we left off. Time passes, spring arrives and Walter notices.
- [03:27]
Faith Moore
That Laura is seeming more and more.
- [03:29]
Unknown
Like her old self.
- [03:30]
Faith Moore
The only thing is that she doesn't remember anything from her time in the.
- [03:34]
Unknown
Asylum and she kind of freaks out when anybody tries to talk to her.
- [03:37]
Faith Moore
About what happened during that time. The more that Laura becomes her old self though, the more that Walter begins to fall in love with her again and the more it seems that she.
- [03:48]
Unknown
Is falling in love with him, him again too.
- [03:50]
Faith Moore
So finally he decides that he wants to ask her to marry him. He takes Marian and Laura to the seaside and asks for Marian's blessing. He explains that he understands that Laura.
- [04:00]
Unknown
May never get her fortune back and that if she marries him, they might be poor forever.
- [04:05]
Faith Moore
Marian is happy that Walter wants to.
- [04:07]
Unknown
Marry Laura and she gives her blessing.
- [04:08]
Faith Moore
So then Laura comes in and they.
- [04:10]
Unknown
Confess their love and soon after that they are married.
- [04:13]
Faith Moore
So then for a while after their.
- [04:15]
Unknown
Wedding, Walter is so happy that he kind of loses track of his mission.
- [04:19]
Faith Moore
But one night he sees Laura crying in her sleep and he knows that.
- [04:22]
Unknown
He has to pursue Count Fosco because a confession from Fosco is the only way he can think of now that.
- [04:29]
Faith Moore
Might restore Laura's identity. So he starts by trying to learn.
- [04:32]
Unknown
As much as he can about Fosco.
- [04:34]
Faith Moore
He looks back over Marian's journal entries and suddenly he wonders if perhaps Fosco is an actual spy, like a real spy against England. He realizes that it's the year of.
- [04:45]
Unknown
The Crystal palace exhibition and there are a lot of foreigners in London for that.
- [04:48]
Faith Moore
And he thinks that Fosco is a very high level spy coordina other spies.
- [04:54]
Unknown
For the Italian government. And that Mrs. Rubell was actually one of those spies.
- [04:58]
Faith Moore
So, based on this theory, Walter decides.
- [05:00]
Unknown
To talk to his friend Pesca, who is also Italian, to see if he knows anything about Fosco.
- [05:07]
Faith Moore
Before that, though, Walter goes to observe.
- [05:10]
Unknown
Fosco because he's never actually seen him before. And he follows him down the street and figures out that he's going to be going to the opera that night.
- [05:17]
Faith Moore
And so Walter has a friend who can get him two tickets to the opera. So he invites Pesca to go with him.
- [05:22]
Unknown
And that's where we left them. Walter and Pescoe will go to the.
- [05:26]
Faith Moore
Opera to see if Pescoe recognizes Fosco.
- [05:29]
Unknown
And if he can tell Walter anything about him. Alright, I've got three comments today. The first comes from Danya Ivory. She says, I'm enjoying the writings of Wilkie Collins now that you have introduced him to me.
- [05:41]
Faith Moore
He seems to think of every detail, which makes me surprised that he has.
- [05:45]
Unknown
Already married Laura and Walter. How can Walter marry a dead woman?
- [05:50]
Faith Moore
Surely there was a death certificate. Did they not check for those when.
- [05:53]
Unknown
People got married back then? Did he marry her under an assumed identity? Anne? The second comes from Ben Moser. Ben writes, wow, Fosco a spy. His character reminds me so much of a villain from an old James Bond movie. It's way cool that we not only have a standard mystery, but a spy novel as well. And the last comment comes from Tsivia. She writes it. Yay.
- [06:18]
Faith Moore
Pesca is back. I like him.
- [06:20]
Unknown
Okay, so after the last episode, my email box was absolutely inundated with emails that were essentially some version of Dania's question.
- [06:30]
Faith Moore
How can Walter marry Laura before her.
- [06:32]
Unknown
Identity has been established? Right. We talked a while ago about how Walter couldn't marry Laura as Anne because Walter would know she's not Anne, so he wouldn't consider that a proper marriage. Also because Laura and Walter would have known at that point when we were talking about it before, they would have known that Laura was actually already married to Sir Percival. So even though Anne Catherick could marry because she wasn't already married, Laura couldn't. And Walter and Laura both knew that Laura was.
- [07:00]
Faith Moore
Laura and Walter would never go forward.
- [07:02]
Unknown
With a bigamous marriage. So now Sir Percival is dead, which.
- [07:07]
Faith Moore
Means that Laura isn't married.
- [07:09]
Unknown
Also, her money is all gone, so she's just as poor as Walter is. Remember, that was another problem with Laura, Laura marrying Walter. The actual initial problem in the first place was that Laura was too far above Walter socially. And even now, if Laura, getting her identity back would also mean getting back a ton of Money. Walter might be seen as trying to take advantage of that and, like, get rich from the marriage, so he wouldn't have done that either. But now she's not married and she's poor, so he can marry her. Except for the fact, as all of you pointed out in your emails, that. That no one believes that Laura is Laura except for Marian and Walter. So how could they get married? What name did they give so we could get into the weeds of like, Victorian marriage laws and how marriages were conducted and what loopholes Walter and Laura could have used? But generally I think this is just kind of a plot hole or an omission on Wilkie Collins's part. And honestly, there are a lot in the book. My favorite is when Mrs. Catherick writes her letter to Walter and she says that no one could ever, ever trace the writer of this letter because she's used absolutely no names. Except if you actually read the letter, it says that her daughter's name is Anne and the lady who looked after anne was named Mrs. Clements and that they all lived in old Welmingham. So, so much for not revealing names. I think that's just an error on Wilkie Collins's part. And I think this thing with the marriage kind of is too, which, by the way, it doesn't make the book a bad book. The whole thing isn't airtight. But to my mind, at least it's close enough. And I actually find these little slip up, these little kind of quirks sort of endearing. And my advice is to just go with it. Okay, but if you want an explanation, though, I would say that it was possible to elope during this time and people didn't really have any form of like, ID or anything. There was no driver's license back then. So if they found a priest who was willing to dispense with the usual rules about getting married, which at the time had to do with like, announcing the marriage publicly and then waiting to make sure that there were no objections to it and having at least two witnesses and things like that. If they found a priest who was willing to marry them without all that, they could just say yes, hello, my name is Walter Hartright. This is my fiance, Laura Fairley, and we would like to get married, please. And if they both consented, then they could probably get away with it. So feel free to imagine that that is what they did. Or feel free to just sort of chuckle about Wilkie Collins not covering every single one of his bases and then move on and kind of allow yourself.
- [09:40]
Faith Moore
To just go with the flow of.
- [09:42]
Unknown
The story, because that means that Walter and Laura are married and hooray, right? I mean, I know we talked last time about sometimes wishing that Walter could get with Marian, but in reality, Walter doesn't love Marian like he loves Laura, and Laura loves him. And she's the whole reason he's been doing all this investigating and fighting bad guys and everything. So, yeah, we want them to be happy and yeah, we want them to get married, and they are. Let's be happy for them. And let's take Walter at his word that somehow he was able to accomplish this in a morally upstanding way. And also that at least one of his reasons for wanting to marry her is that he can act better in her interests as her husband than as just some random guy who isn't connected to her really at all. And one really sweet thing I think about this whole sequence that leads up to their marriage and right after it, is that Walter, who has been this kind of avenging angel, Walter 2.0, this justice seeking machine, right? Walter suddenly turns very, very human again. You know, his hands shake when he touches Laura's. His speech falters, he feels awkward around her. He finds himself like, mooning over his little sketch of her. He turns into a sort of lovesick schoolboy, which I don't know about you, but I actually find kind of endearing. You know, before when he was just Walter, the kind of hapless drawing master, it was a little much. But now he's showing us his human side after all this time of being the strong protector and provider and everything. It's really sweet, I think. And we have to also kind of take Walter's word that Laura is in fact restored to her old self. Her mental infirmity has resolved itself, except for this amnesia that she has around the events of the conspiracy. And she's now the Laura that we remember, who, as we talked about a few times before, actually does have more personality and more backbone and more courage than we might have originally thought. So she is restored to herself, and in loving her, Walter reveals that he is still human and that Laura can reduce him to a pile of mush. And that's really kind of lovely and sweet, I think. But of course, the honeymoon is already over. And now the only way to reinstate Laura's identity is, as we've been saying through the Count, and I'm totally with Ben in his letter here, the fact that it turns out that Count Fosco might be a literal spy, I think that's just fantastic. I Mean, it's so wacky and over the top, right? It's nuts.
- [12:08]
Faith Moore
But this book is nuts.
- [12:10]
Unknown
It's been crazy and out there all along. And this latest revelation, I don't know about you, but it makes me laugh out loud. I just love it. All of a sudden, right at the very end, we are being told, as Ben says, that not only is this a mystery, not only is it a sensation novel, but it is a spy novel as well. Here's what Walter says about.
- [12:29]
Faith Moore
He says I suspected him of holding.
- [12:31]
Unknown
A position of authority, of being entrusted.
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Faith Moore
By the government which he secretly served.
- [12:36]
Unknown
With the organization and management of agents specially employed in this country, both men and women. And I believed Mrs. Rubell, who had been so opportunely found to act as.
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Faith Moore
Nurse at Blackwater park, to be in.
- [12:48]
Unknown
All probability, one of the number. So he's not just a spy, he's a spy master.
- [12:53]
Faith Moore
Right?
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Unknown
Fosco the spy master. And I mean, sure, right. You can see it, can't you? And it's fair narratively, I think Marian did tell us way back in her journal that he was getting all these weird envelopes with official government seals. So this isn't totally coming out of nowhere, but it's still kind of Looney Tunes. But also, it's brilliant. Because if Walter is right, and of course this is still just a guess on his part, but if he's right, it means that there may actually, actually.
- [13:19]
Faith Moore
Be a way to get at the Count.
- [13:21]
Unknown
Right before, we were thinking, how on earth is Walter going to get the Count to confess that Laura was still at Blackwater park when she was supposedly dead in London? Why would he confess to that? He'd be revealing his participation in a crime. He's not going to do that unless they've got something on him and they say confess or will reveal this thing the way that they were initially hoping to do with Percival's secret. But if he's a spy, then there are potentially all sorts of things that he doesn't want people to know about himself. And if Walter could figure out one of them, then he might have some leverage over him. So back to Detective Walter. Right now, Walter is trying to track down everything he can figure out about the Count. And off he goes again, following the Count all around, tracking him to the optician's shop where he gets the opera glass, then to the shop where he sees the ad for the opera, then to the cab where he requests to go to the opera box office. And this is actually the first time that Walter has ever seen The Count. And it's interesting, I think, that even Walter kind of falls under the Count's spell a little bit. Right? Here's what he, Marian, had prepared me for. His high stature, his monstrous corpulence, and his ostentatious mourning garments. But not for the horrible freshness and cheerfulness and vitality of the man. So he thinks he's horrible, but there's still this kind of terrible fascination about him. Something that even Walter can't help noticing. Which is what makes Fosco such a great character. Right? He is Fosco in all his glory. And we hear him with his birds, and we see him give the cake to the monkey and everything. It's been a while since we've really been with Fosco. So this is Collins reminding us of the full force of the guy.
- [15:06]
Faith Moore
Okay, so there he is.
- [15:08]
Unknown
And Detective Walter deduces that Fosco will be at the opera that night. And he contrives to go there, too, with Pesca. And I included Sivia's letter today because I got a lot like it. Did you cheer when you heard Pesca come back into the narrative? I can now confess that way back at the beginning of the book, I did tell a little fib. Right? I was telling you about how I was going to have to do a potentially very bad Italian accent. Because the point of Pesca's character really, is that he has an Italian accent. So I couldn't not do it. But I told you, don't worry. You don't have to suffer through my terrible accent for long. Because Pesca is only in this one little opening part of the story. Well, I lied. He's back. But I lied because I didn't want to give away that he comes back. I felt like that would be a spoiler. And since then, so many of you have written in to say that you wish there was more Pesca in the book. You've been very complimentary of my accent, which I still maintain is very bad. And I continue to apologize to any actual Italians who may be listening. But I only had one person write in to say, your accent is terrible. Please never do that again. But, you know, well, I'm sorry to that person, because Pesca's back. And I think for most of us, anyway, we're really happy to see him. And he's back because Walter hopes that as an Italian, he'll be able to recognize Fosco, a fellow Italian, and maybe he'll know something more about him that Walter might be able to use. So off they go. To the opera. And off we go to the opera to see if we can get any dirt on Count Fosco. Right? So let's see if we can do that. And of course, don't forget to write to me faithkmore.com and click on Contact or just scroll down into the show notes, check out all the links that are there and you'll find the link to the contact page. So please do get in touch.
- [16:57]
Faith Moore
All right, let's get started with Heart.
- [17:00]
Unknown
Rights Narrative Chapters five and six of the Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. It's story time.
- [17:12]
Faith Moore
Five the last notes of the introduction to the opera were being played, and.
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Unknown
The seats in the pit were all.
- [17:19]
Faith Moore
Filled when Pesca and I reached the theater. So the pit are the seats closest to the stage. The stalls are the seats right behind that. There was plenty of room, however, in the passage that ran round the pit, precisely the position best calculated to answer the purpose for which I was attending the performance. I went first to the barrier separating us from the stalls and looked for the count in that part of the theatre. He was not there. Returning along the passage on the left hand side from the stage and looking about me attentively, I discovered him in the pit. He occupied an excellent place, some 12 or 14 seats. From the end of a bench within three rows of the stalls, I placed myself exactly on a line with him, him Pesca, standing by my side. The professor was not yet aware of the purpose for which I had brought him to the theatre, and he was.
- [18:12]
Unknown
Rather surprised that we did not move.
- [18:14]
Faith Moore
Nearer to the stage. The curtain rose and the opera began. Throughout the whole of the first act we remained in our position, the Count absorbed by the orchestra and the stage, never casting so much as a chance glance at us. Not a note of Donizetti's delicious music was lost on him. There he sat, high above his neighbors, smiling and nodding his great head enjoyingly. From time to time, when the people near him applauded the close of an air, as an English audience in such circumstances always will applaud without the least consideration for the orchestral movement which immediately followed it, he looked round at them with an expression of compassionate remonstrance, and held up one hand with a gesture of polite entreaty at the more refined passages of the singing, at the more delicate phrases of the music which passed, unapplauded by others, his fat hands, adorned with perfectly fitting black kid gloves, softly patted each other in token of the cultivated appreciation of a musical man. At such times his oily murmur of Bravo, bra hummed through the silence like the purring of a great cat. His immediate neighbors on either side, hardy ruddy faced people from the country, basking amazedly in the sunshine of fashionable London, seeing and hearing him, began to follow his lead. Many a burst of applause from the pit that night started from the soft, comfortable patting of the black gloved hands. The man's voracious vanity devoured this implied tribute to his local and critical supremacy. With an appearance of the highest relish. Smiles rippled continuously over his fat face. He looked about him at the pauses in the music, serenely satisfied with himself and his fellow creatures. Yes, yes. These barbarous English people are learning something from me here, there and everywhere. I, Fosco, am an influence that is felt, a man who sits supreme. If ever face spoke, his face spoke then, and that was its language. The curtain fell on the first act and the audience rose to look about them. This was the time I had waited for, the time to try if Pesca knew him. Him. He rose with the rest and surveyed the occupants of the boxes grandly with his opera glass. At first his back was towards us, but he turned round in time to our side of the theatre and looked at the boxes above us, using his glass for a few minutes, then removing it, but still continuing to look up. This was the moment I chose, when his full face was in view for directing Pesca's attention to him. Do you know that man? I asked. Which man? My friend, the tall fat man standing there with his face towards us. Pesca raised himself on tiptoe and looked at the count. No, said the professor. The big fat man is a stranger to me. Is he famous? Why do you point him out? Because I have a particular reason for wishing to know something of him. Him?
- [21:45]
Unknown
He is a countryman of yours.
- [21:46]
Faith Moore
His name is Count Fosco. Do you know that name? Not I, Walter. Neither the name nor the man is known to me. Are you quite sure you don't recognize him? Look again. Look carefully.
- [22:02]
Unknown
I will tell you why I am.
- [22:03]
Faith Moore
So anxious about it when we leave the theater. Stop. Let me help you up here where you can see him better. I helped the little man to perch himself on the edge of the raised dais upon which the pit seats were all placed. Waist. His small stature was no hindrance to him. Here he could see over the heads of the ladies who were seated near the outermost part of the bench. A slim, light haired man standing by us, whom I had not noticed before, a man with a scar on his left cheek, looked attentively at Pesca as I helped him up, and then looked still more attentively, following the direction of Pesca's eyes at the count, our conversation might have reached his ears and might, as it struck me, have roused his curiosity. Meanwhile, Pesca fixed his eyes earnestly on the broad, full, smiling face, turned a little upward, exactly opposite to him. No, he said, I have never set my two eyes on that big fat man before in all my life. As he spoke, the count looked downwards, towards the boxes behind us on the pit tier. The eyes of the two Italians met. The instant before, I had been perfectly satisfied from his own reiterated assertion that Pesca did not know the count. The instant afterwards, I was equally certain that the count knew Pesca knew him, and, more surprising, still feared him as well. There was no mistaking the change that passed over the villain's face, the leaden hue that altered his yellow complexion in a moment, the sudden rigidity of all his features, the furtive scrutiny of his cold, grey eyes, the motionless stillness of him from head to foot told their own tale. A mortal dread had mastered him, body and soul. His own recognition of Pesca was the cause of it. The slim man with the scar on his cheek was still close by us. He had apparently drawn his inference from the effect produced on the count by the sight of Pesca, as I had drawn mine. He was a mild, gentlemanlike man, looking like a foreigner, and his interest in our proceedings was not expressed in anything approaching to an offensive manner. For my own part, I was so startled by the change in the count's face, so astounded at the entirely unexpected turn which events had taken, that I knew neither what to say or do next. Pesca roused me by stepping back to his former place at my side and speaking first. How are the fat man stares? He exclaimed. Is it at me? Am I famous? How can he know me when I don't know him? I kept my eyes still on the Count. I saw him move for the first time. When Pesca moved so as not to lose sight of the little man in the lower position in which he now stood, I was curious to see what would happen if Pesca's attention under these circumstances was withdrawn from him, and I accordingly asked the professor if he recognized any of his pupils that evening among the ladies in the box, Pesca immediately raised the large opera glass to his eyes and moved it slowly all round the upper part of the theatre, searching for his pupils with the most conscientious scrutiny. The moment he showed himself to be thus engaged, the count turned round, slipped past the persons who occupied seats on the farther side of him from where we stood, and disappeared in the middle passage, down the center of the pit. I caught Pesca by the arm, and to his inexpressible astonishment, hurried him round with me to the back of the pit to intercept the count. Before he could get to the door, somewhat to my surprise, the slim man hastened out before us, avoiding a stoppage caused by some people on our side of the pit leaving their places, by which Pesca and myself were delayed. When we reached the lobby, the count had disappeared, and the foreigner with the scar was gone too. Come home, I said. Come home, Pesca, to your lodgings. I must speak to you in private. I must speak directly. My soul. Bless my soul. Cried the professor in a state of the extremest bewilderment. What on earth is the matter? I walked on rapidly, without answering. The circumstances under which the count had left the theatre suggested to me that his extraordinary anxiety to escape Pesca might carry him to further extremities. Still, he might escape me, too, by leaving London. I doubted the future if I allowed him so much as a day's freedom.
- [26:42]
Unknown
To act as he pleased.
- [26:43]
Faith Moore
And I doubted that foreign stranger who had got the start of us, and whom I suspected of intentionally following him out. With this double distrust in my mind, I was not long in making Pesca understand what I wanted. As soon as we two were alone in his room, I increased his confusion and amazement a hundredfold by telling him what my purpose was as plainly and unreservedly as I have acknowledged it here.
- [27:09]
Unknown
My friend.
- [27:10]
Faith Moore
What can I do? Cried the professor piteously, appealing to me with both hands. Deuce. What a deuce. How can I help you, Walter, when I don't know the man? He knows you. He is afraid of you. He has left the theatre to escape you. Pesca, there must be a reason for this. Look back into your own life. Before you came to England. You left Italy, as you have told me yourself, for political reasons. You have never mentioned those reasons to me, and I don't inquire into them now. I only ask you to consult your own recollections, and to say, if they suggest no past cause for the terror which the first sight of you produced in man. To my unutterable surprise, these words, harmless as they appeared to me, produced the same astounding effect on Pesca which the sight of Pesca had produced on the count. The rosy face of my little friend whitened in an instant, and he drew back from me slowly, trembling from head to Foot, Walter, he said, you do not know what you ask. He spoke in a whisper. He looked at me as if I had suddenly revealed to him some hidden danger to both of us. In less than one minute of time he was so altered from the easy, lively, quaint little man of all my past experience, that if I had met him in the street, changed as I saw him now, I should most certainly not have known him again. Forgive me if I have unintentionally pained and shocked you, I replied. Remember the cruel wrong my wife has suffered at Count Fosco's hands. Remember that the wrong can never be redressed unless the means are in my power of forcing him to do her justice. I spoke in her interests. Pesca, I ask you again to forgive me. I can say no more. I rose to go. He stopped me before I reached the door. Wait, he said. You have shaken me from head to foot. You don't know how I left my country and why I left my country. Let me compose myself. Let me think if I can. I returned to my chair. He walked up and down the room, talking to himself incoherently in his own language. After several turns backwards and forwards, he suddenly came up to me. Me. And laid his little hands with a strange tenderness and solemnity on my breast. On your heart and soul, Walter, he said. Is there no other way to get to that man but the chance way through me? There is no other way, I answered. He left me again, opened the door of the room and looked out cautiously into the passage, closed it once more and came back. You won your right over me, Walter, he said, on the day when you saved my life. It was yours from that moment when you pleased to take it. Take it now. Yes, I mean what I say. My next words, as true as the good God is above us, will put my life into your hands. Hands. The trembling earnestness with which he uttered this extraordinary warning carried with it to my mind the conviction that he spoke the truth. Mind this, he went on, shaking his hands at me in the vehemence of his agitation. I hold no thread in my own mind between that man Vosco and the past time which I call back to me for your sake. If you find the thread, keep it to yourself. Tell me nothing. On my knees, I beg and pray. Let me be ignorant, Let me be innocent. Let me be blind to all the future as I am now. He said a few words, more hesitatingly and disconnectedly, then stopped again. I saw that the effort of expressing himself in English, on an occasion too serious to permit Him. The use of the quaint turns and phrases of his ordinary vocabulary was painfully increasing. The difficulty he had felt from the first in speaking to me at all. Having learned to read and understand his native language, though not to speak it in the earlier days of our intimate companionship, I now suggested to him that he should express himself in Italian, while I used English in putting any questions which might be necessary to my enlightenment. He accepted the proposal in his smooth, flowing language, spoken with a vehement agitation which betrayed itself in the perpetual working of his features, in the wildness and the suddenness of his foreign gesticulations, but never in the raising of his voice. I now heard the words which armed me to meet the last struggle that is left for this story to record. It is only right to mention here that I repeat Pesca's statement to me. With the careful suppressions and alterations which the serious nature of the subject and my own sense of duty to my friend demand. My first and last concealments from the reader are those which caution renders absolutely necessary in this portion of the narrative. So he's saying that he's not going to tell us everything that Pesca said. In order to help maintain Pesca's safety, He's just going to tell us what we need to know for this story. You know nothing of my motive for leaving Italy, he began, except that it was for political reasons. If I had been driven to this country by the persecution of my government, I should not have kept those reasons a secret from you or from anyone. I have concealed them because no government authority has pronounced the sentence of my exile. You have heard, Walter, of the political societies that are hidden in every great city on the continent of Europe. Europe. To one of those societies, I belonged in Italy and belong still in England. When I came to this country, I came by the direction of my chief. I was overzealous. In my younger time, I ran the risk of compromising myself and others. For those reasons, I was ordered to emigrate to England and to wait. I emigrated. I have waited. I wait still. So Pesca is a member of a secret organization, essentially of vigilantes. In his youth he was kind of a loose cannon. So they sent him to live in England and await future orders. That's what he's been doing all this time that he's been here. Tomorrow I may be called away. Ten years hence I may be called away. It is all one to me. I am here. I support myself by teaching, and I wait. I violate no oath. You shall hear why presently, in making my Confidence complete. By telling you the name of the society to which I belong, all I do is to put my life in your hands. If what I say to you now is ever known by others to have passed my lips, as certainly as we two sit here, I am a dead man. He whispered the next words in my ear. I keep the secret which he thus communicated. The society to which he belonged will be sufficiently individualized for the purpose of these pages. If I call it the Brotherhood on the few occasions when any reference to the subject will be needed in this place. The object of the Brotherhood, Pasco went on, is briefly the object of other political societies of the same sort. The destruction of tyranny and the assertion of the rights of the people. The principles of the Brotherhood are so long as a man's life is useful or even harmless, only he has the right to enjoy it. But if his life inflicts injury on the well being of his fellow men, from that moment he forfeits the right. And it is not only no crime, but a positive merit to deprive him of it so. Pesca's society takes down people who are harming others. It is not for me to say in what frightful circumstances of oppression and suffering this society took its rise. It is not for you to say, you Englishmen who have conquered your freedom so long ago. That you have conveniently forgotten what blood you shed. And what extremities you proceeded to in the conquering. It is not for you to say how far the worst of all exasperations may or may not carry the maddened men of an enslaved nation. The iron that has entered into our souls has gone too deep for you to find it. Leave the refugee alone. Laugh at him. Distrust him. Open your eyes in wonder at that secret self which smolders in him. Sometimes under the everyday respectability and tranquillity of a man like me, sometimes under the grinding poverty, the fierce squalor of men less lucky, less pliable, less patient than I am. But judge us not in the time of your first Charles, you might have done us justice. The long luxury of your own freedom has made you incapable, people, of doing us justice now. So he's trying to say that his organization never kills people without good reason, that they fight for what is right and good and seek to end oppression. All the deepest feelings of his nature seem to force themselves to the surface in those words. All his heart was poured out to me for the first time in our lives. But still his voice never rose, still his dread of the terrible revelation he was Making to me never left him him so far, he resumed. You think the Society like other societies. Its object, in your English opinion, is anarchy and the revolution. It takes the life of a bad king or a bad minister, as if the one and the other were dangerous wild beasts to be shot at the first opportunity. I grant you this. But the laws of the Brotherhood are the laws of no other political society on the face of the earth. The members are not known to one another. There is a president in Italy. There are presidents abroad. Each of these has his secretary. The presidents and the secretaries know the members, but the members among themselves are all strangers until their chiefs see fit in the political necessity of the time or in the private necessity of the society to make them known to each other. With such a safeguard as this. There is no oath among us on admittance. We are identified with the Brotherhood by a secret mark which we all bear, which lasts while our lives last. We are told to go about our ordinary business and to report ourselves to the president or the secretary four times a year, in the event of our services being required. We are warned, if we betray the Brotherhood or if we injure it by serving other interests, that we die by the principles of the Brotherhood. Die by the hand of a stranger who may be sent from the other end of the world to strike the blow, or by the hand of our own bosom friend who may have been a member unknown to us through all the years of our intimacy. Okay, so members of the Brotherhood don't know each other. They are known only to their superiors. If they ever tell anyone about the Brotherhood and their superiors find out, they will be assassinated. In the same way that they have been trained to assassinate political enemies. Sometimes the death is delayed. Sometimes it follows close on the treachery. It is our first business to know how to wait. Our second business to know how to obey when the word is spoken. Some of us may wait our lives through and may not be wanted. Some of us may be called to the work or the preparation for the work. The very day of our admission, I am myself the little, easy, cheerful man you know, who of his own accord, would hardly lift up his handkerchief to strike down the fly that buzzes about his face. I, in my younger time, under provocation so dreadful that I will not tell you of it, entered the Brotherhood by an impulse, as I might have killed myself by an impulse. I must remain in it now. It has got me, whatever I may think of it, in my better circumstances and my cooler manhood, to my dying day, while I was still in Italy I was chosen secretary, and all the members of that time who were brought face to face with my president were brought face to face also with me. So before Pascha left Italy, he was one of the superiors who did get to see the various agents of the Brotherhood. At that time I began to understand him. I saw the end towards which his extraordinary disclosure was now tending. He waited a moment, watching me, earnestly watching, till he had evidently guessed what was passing in my mind before he resumed. You have drawn your own conclusion already, he said. I see it in your face. Tell me nothing. Keep me out of the secret of your thoughts. Let me make my one last sacrifice of myself for your sake, and then have done with this subject, never to return to it again. He signed to me not to answer him. Rose removed his coat and rolled up the shirt sleeve on his left arm. I promised you that this confidence should be complete, he whispered, speaking close at my ear with his eyes looking watchfully at the door. Whatever comes of it, you shall not reproach me with having hidden anything from you which it was necessary to your own interest to know. I have said that the Brotherhood identifies its members by a mark that lasts for life. See the place and the mark on it for yourself. He raised his bare arm and showed me high on the upper part of it and in the inner side a brand deeply burnt in the flesh and stained of a bright blood red colour. I abstain from describing the device which the brand represented. Meaning he's not going to tell us what the brand looked like. It will be sufficient to say that it was circular in form and so small that it would have been completely covered by a shilling coin. Coin. A man who has this mark branded in this place, he said, covering his arm again, is a member of the Brotherhood. A man who has been false to the Brotherhood is discovered sooner or later by the chiefs who know him, presidents or secretaries as the case may be. And a man discovered by the chiefs is dead. No human laws can protect him. Remember what you have seen and heard, draw what conclusions you like, act as you please, but in the name of God, whatever you discover, whatever you do, tell me nothing, let me remain free from a responsibility which it horrifies me me to think of which I know in my conscience is not my responsibility. Now, for the last time, I say it on my honor as a gentleman, on my oath as a Christian. If the man you pointed out at the opera knows me, he is so altered or so disguised that I do not know him. I am ignorant of his proceedings or his Purposes in England. I never saw him. I never heard the name he goes by to my knowledge before tonight. I say no more. Okay, so Fosco recognizes Pesca because he saw Pesca when he joined the Brotherhood, right? The same organization that Pesca is a part of. But he's so changed or disguised since that time that Pesca doesn't recognize him now. And Fosco is so frightened because Fosco has gone against the Brotherhood in some way, which means that at some point the Brotherhood will kill him. So when he saw Pesca looking at him in the Opera, he assumed he was there, there to kill him. But Pesca doesn't want to know anything about this because he doesn't want to have to kill anybody. Leave me a little, Walter. I am overpowered by what has happened. I am shaken by what I have said. Let me try to be like myself again when we meet next. He dropped into a chair and, turning away from me, hid his face in his hands. I gently opened the door so as not to disturb him, and spoke my few parting words in low tones which he might hear or not as he pleased. Pleased. I will keep the memory of to night in my heart of hearts, I said. You shall never repent the trust you have reposed in me. May I come to you to morrow. May I come as early as 9 o' clock. Yes, Walter, he replied, looking up at me kindly and speaking in English once more, as if his one anxiety now was to get back to our former relations towards each other. Come to my little bit of breakfast before I go my ways among the pupils that I teach. Good night, Pesca. Good night, my friend. 6. My first conviction as soon as I found myself outside the house, was that no alternative was left me but to act at once on the information I had received to make sure of the Count that night, or to risk the loss if I only delayed till the morning of Laura's last chance. I looked at my watch. It was 10 o' clock. Not the shadow of a doubt crossed my mind of the purpose for which the Count had left the theatre. His escape from us that evening was beyond all question. The preliminary only to his escape from London. The mark of the Brotherhood was on his arm. I felt as certain of it as if he had shown me the brand and the betrayal of the Brotherhood was on his conscience. I had seen it in his recognition of Pascal Pesca. It was easy to understand why that recognition had not been mutual. A man of the Count's character would never risk the terrible consequences of turning spy without looking to his personal security quite as carefully as he looked to his golden reward. The shaven face which I had pointed out at the opera might have been covered by a beard in Pesca's time. His dark brown hair might be a wig. His name was evidently a false one. 1. The accident of time might have helped him as well. His immense corpulence might have come with his later years. There was every reason why Pesca should not have known him again. Every reason also why he should have known Pesca, whose singular personal appearance made a marked man of him go where he might. I have said that I felt certain of the purpose in the Count's mind when he escaped us at the theatre. How could I doubt it when I saw with my own eyes that he believed himself, in spite of the change in his appearance, to have been recognized by Pesca and to be therefore in danger of his life. If I could get speech to him that night, if I could show him that I too knew of the mortal peril in which he stood, what result would follow? Plainly this. One of us must be master of the situation. One of us must inevitably be at the mercy of the other. So Walter is saying that now he's going to use what he knows to try to blackmail Fosko Moscow. I owed it to myself to consider the chances against me before I confronted them. I owed it to my wife to do all that lay in my power to lessen the risk. The chances against me wanted no reckoning up. They were all merged in one. If the Count discovered by my own avowal that the direct way to his safety lay through my life, he was probably the last man in existence who would shrink from throwing me off my guard and taking that way when he had me alone within his reach. Meaning, if Fosco thinks the only person who knows about all this is Walter, he's going to just kill Walter. The only means of defense against him on which I could at all rely to lessen the risk presented themselves after a little careful thinking. Clearly enough, before I made any personal acknowledgment of my discovery in his presence, I must place the discovery itself where it would be ready for instant use against me. Him, and safe from any attempt at suppression on his part. If I laid the mine under his feet before I approached him, and if I left instructions with a third person to fire it on the expiration of a certain time, unless directions to the contrary were previously received under my own hand or from my own lips. In that event, the Count's security was absolutely dependent upon Mine and I might hold the vantage ground over him securely, even in his own house. Meaning if he writes down what he knows and gives some other person the authority to make it public, if he doesn't return at a set time, then he can hold that over the Count and potentially save his own life. This idea occurred to me when I was close to the new lodgings which he had taken on returning from the seaside. I went in without disturbing anyone, by the help of my key. A light was in the hall and I stole up with it to my workroom to make my preparations decisions and absolutely to commit myself to an interview with the Count before either Laura or Marian could have the slightest suspicion of what I intended to do. A letter addressed to Pesca represented the surest means of precaution, which it was now possible for me to take. I wrote as the man whom I pointed out to you at the opera is a member of the Brotherhood and has been false to his trust. Put both these assertions to the test instantly. You know the name he goes by in England. His address is number 5 Forest Road, St. John's Wood. On the love you once bore me, use the power entrusted to you without mercy and without delay. Against that man I have risked all and lost all, and the forfeit of my failure has been paid with my life.
- [50:23]
Unknown
So if Walter doesn't return to Pesca.
- [50:24]
Faith Moore
At an appointed time, Pesca will open this letter and because of his vows to the Brotherhood, he'll have to kill Fosco, or at least cause him to be killed. Killed. I signed and dated these lines, enclosed them in an envelope and sealed it up on the outside. I wrote this direction. Keep the enclosure unopened until 9 o' clock tomorrow morning. If you do not hear from me or see me before that time, break the seal when the clock strikes and read the contents. I added my initials and protected the hole by enclosing it in a second sealed envelope addressed to Pasco at his lodgings. Nothing remained to be done after this, but to find the means of sending my letter to its destination immediately. I should then have accomplished all that lay in my power. If anything happened to me in the Count's house, I had now provided for his answering it with his life that the means of preventing his escape under any circumstances whatever, were at Pesca's disposal if he chose to exert them. I did not for an instant doubt the extraordinary anxiety which he had expressed. To remain unenlightened as to the Count's identity, or, in other words, to be left uncertain enough about Facts to justify him to his own conscience in remaining passive, betrayed plainly that the means of exercising the terrible justice of the Brotherhood were ready to his hand, although as a naturally humane man he had shrunk from plainly saying as much in my precious presence. Meaning, if Pesca knows for certain that the Count betrayed the Brotherhood, Pesca will have to kill him. Pesca doesn't actually want to kill anyone, so he didn't want to know anything about the Count. But if the Count kills Walter, this letter will make it so that he has to the deadly certainty with which the vengeance of foreign political societies can hunt down a traitor to the cause, hide himself where he may had been too often exemplified even in my superficial experience to allow of any doubt, considering the subject only as a reader of newspapers. Cases recurred to my memory both in London and in Paris, of foreigners found stabbed in the streets whose assassins could never be traced. Of bodies and parts of bodies thrown into the Thames and the Seine by hands that could never be discovered. Of deaths by secret violence which could only be accounted for in one way. Way I have disguised nothing relating to myself in these pages, and I do not disguise here that I believed I had written Count Fosco's death warrant. If the fatal emergency happened which authorized Pesca to open my enclosure. I left my room to go down to the ground floor of the house and speak to the landlord about finding me a messenger. He happened to be ascending the stairs at the time and we met on the landing. His son, a quick lad, was the messenger. He proposed to me. On hearing what I wanted. We had the boy upstairs and I gave him his directions. He was to take the letter in a cab, to put it into Professor Pesca's own hands, and to bring me back a line of acknowledgment from that gentleman returning in the cab and keeping it at the door for my use. It was then nearly half past ten. I calculated that the boy might be back in 20 minutes minutes, and that I might drive to St. John's Wood on his return in 20 minutes more. When the lad had departed on his errand, I returned to my own room for a little while to put certain papers in order so that they might be easily found in case of the worst. The key of the old fashioned bureau in which the papers were kept I sealed up and left it on my table with Marian's name written on the outside of the little packet. This done, I went downstairs to the sitting room in which I expected to find Laura and Marian awaiting my return from the opera. I felt my hand trembling for the first time when I laid it on the lock of the door. No one was in the room but Marion. She was reading, and she looked at her watch in surprise when I came in. How early you are back, she said. You must have come away before the opera was over. Yes, I replied. Neither Pesca nor I waited for the end. Where is Laura? She had one of her bad headaches this evening, and I advised her to go to bed. When we had done tea, I left the room again on the pretext of wishing to see whether Laura was asleep. Marion's quick eyes were beginning to look inquiringly at my face. Marion's quick instinct was beginning to discover that I had something weighing on my mind when I entered the bedchamber and softly approached the bedside. By the dim flicker of the night lamp, my wife was asleep. We had not been married quite a month yet. If my heart was heavy, if my resolution for a moment faltered again when I looked at her face turned faithfully to my pillow in her sleep, when I saw her hand resting open on the coverlet as if it was waiting unconsciously for mine, surely there was some excuse for me. Me. I only allowed myself a few minutes to kneel down at the bedside and to look close at her. So close that her breath, as it came and went, fluttered on my face. I only touched her hand and her cheek with my lips at parting. She stirred in her sleep and murmured my name. But without waking, I lingered for an instant at the door to look at her again. God bless and keep you, my darling, I whispered and left her. Marion was at the stairhead waiting for me. She had a folded slip of paper in her hand. The landlord's son has brought this for you, she said. He has got a cab at the door. He says you ordered him to keep it at your disposal. Quite right. Marian, I want the cab. I am going out again. I descended the stairs as I spoke and looked into the sitting room to read the slip of paper by the light on the table. It contained these two sentences in Pesca's letter is received. If I don't see you before the time you mention, I will break the seal when the clock strikes. I placed the paper in my pocketbook and made for the door. Marian met me on the threshold and pushed me back into the room where the candle light fell full on my face. She held me by both hands and her eyes fastened searchingly on mine. I see, she said in a low, eager whisper. You are trying the last chance tonight. Yes, the last chance. And the best. I whispered back. Not alone. Oh, Walter, for God's sake, not alone. Let me go with you. Don't refuse me because I'm only a woman. I must go. I will go. I'll wait outside in the cab. It was my turn now to hold her. Her. She tried to break away from me and get down first to the door. If you want to help me, I said, stop here and sleep in my wife's room tonight. Only let me go away with my mind easy about Laura, and I answer for everything else. Come, Marion, give me a kiss and show that you have the courage to wait till I come back. I dared not allow her time to say a word more. She tried to hold me again. I unclasped her hands and was out of the room in a moment. The boy below heard me on the stairs and opened the hall door. I jumped into the cab before the driver could get off the box. Forest Road, St. John's Wood. I called to him through the front window. Double fare if you get there in a quarter of an hour. I'll do it, sir. I looked at my watch. 11 o' clock. Not a minute to lose the rapid motion of the cabin, the sense that every instant now was bringing me nearer to the count. The conviction that I was embarked at last without let or hindrance on my hazardous enterprise heated me into such a fever of excitement that I shouted to the man to go faster and faster as we left the streets and crossed St. John's Wood Road. My impatience so completely overpowered me that I stood up in the cab and stretched my head out of the window to see the end of the journey. Before we reached the it, just as a church clock in the distance struck the quarter past, we turned into the forest road. I stopped the driver a little away from the Count's house, paid and dismissed him and walked on to the door. As I approached the garden gate, I saw another person advancing toward it, also from the direction opposite to mine. We met under the gas lamp in the road and looked at each other. I instantly recognized the light haired foreigner with the scar on his cheek, and I thought he recognized me. He said nothing, and instead of stopping at the house as I did, he slowly walked on. Was he in the forest road by accident, or had he followed the Count home from the opera? I did not pursue those questions. After waiting a little till the foreigner had slowly passed out of sight, I rang the gate bell. It was then 20 minutes past 11, late enough to make it quite easy for the Count to get rid of me by the excuse that he was in bed. The only way of providing against this contingency was to send in my name without asking any preliminary questions, and to let him know at the same time that I had a serious motive for wishing to see him at that late hour. Accordingly, while I was waiting, I took out my card and wrote under my name on important business. The maidservant answered the door while I was writing the last word in pencil and asked me distrustfully what I pleased to watch. Be so good as to take that to your master, I replied, giving her the card. I saw by the girl's hesitation of manner that if I had asked for the count in the first instance, she would only have followed her instructions by telling me he was not at home. She was staggered by the confidence with which I gave her the card, meaning Walter has confused her by just acting like he knows that Fosco is at home rather than asking if he is at home. After staring at me in great perturbation, she went back into the house with my message, closing the door and leaving me to wait in the garden. In a minute or so she reappeared her master's compliments and would I be so obliging as to say what my business was? Take my compliments back, I replied, and say that the business cannot be mentioned to anyone but your master. She left me again, again returned, and this time asked me to walk in. I followed her at once. In another moment I was inside the Count's house. Thank you so much for listening. 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