Willing to Die

Sheridan Le Fanu

Description

Sheridan Le Fanu's final novel Willing to Die is an emotionally evocative look at the most vexing of all mysteries: suicide. In what some critics regard as his most ambitious work, Le Fanu leaves behind the sometimes conventional plot constructions of his earlier career and attempts something much more interesting, bringing together a fragmented jumble of clues and puzzle pieces to get at the truth of a tragic life that ended much too soon.

Informations

• Publié par: The Floating Press
• Date de parution: 01 septembre 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781776586479
• Langue: English

Extrait

WILLING TO DIE
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SHERIDAN LE FANU
 
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Willing to Die First published in 1872 Epub ISBN 978-1-77658-647-9 Also available: PDF ISBN 978-1-77658-648-6 © 2013 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
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To the Reader Chapter I - An Arrival Chapter II - Our Curiosity is Piqued Chapter III - The Thief in the Night Chapter IV - My Father Chapter V - The Little Black Book Chapter VI - A Stranger Appears Chapter VII - Tasso Chapter VIII - Thunder Chapter IX - Awakened Chapter X - A Sight from the Windows Chapter XI - Catastrophe Chapter XII - Our Guest Chapter XIII - Meeting in the Garden Chapter XIV - The Intruder Chapter XV - A Warning Chapter XVI - Doubts Chapter XVII - Lemuel Blount Chapter XVIII - Identified Chapter XIX - Pistols for Two Chapter XX - The Wood of Plas Ylwd Chapter XXI - The Patient at Plas Ylwd Chapter XXII - The Outlaw Chapter XXIII - A Journey Chapter XXIV - Arrivals Chapter XXV - The Doctor's News Chapter XXVI - Lady Lorrimer Chapter XXVII - What Can She Mean? Chapter XXVIII - A Semi-Quarrel Chapter XXIX - My Bouquet Chapter XXX - The Knight of the Black Castle Chapter XXXI - Rustication Chapter XXXII - At the George and Dragon Chapter XXXIII - Notice to Quit Chapter XXXIV - Sir Harry's Answer Chapter XXXV - Lady Mardykes's Ball Chapter XXXVI - News of Lady Lorrimer Chapter XXXVII - A Last Look Chapter XXXVIII - Storm Chapter XXXIX - Farewell, Miss Ware Chapter XL - A Rainy Day Chapter XLI - The Flitting Chapter XLII - A Forlorn Hope Chapter XLIII - Cold Steel Chapter XLIV - An Ominous Visit Chapter XLV - Confidential Chapter XLVI - After Office Hours Chapter XLVII - Sir Harry Speaks Chapter XLVIII - The Old Love Chapter XLIX - Alone in the World Chapter L - A Protector Chapter LI - A Warning Chapter LII - Mine Enemy Chapter LIII - One More Chance Chapter LIV - Dangerous Ground Chapter LV - Mr. Carmel Takes His Leave Chapter LVI - "Love Took up the Glass of Time" Chapter LVII - An Awkward Proposal Chapter LVIII - Danger Chapter LIX - An Intruder Chapter LX - Sir Harry's Key Chapter LXI - A Discovery Chapter LXII - Sir Harry Withdraws Chapter LXIII - At the Three Nuns Chapter LXIV - The Will Chapter LXV - The Serpent's Smile Chapter LXVI - Laura Grey Chapter LXVII - A Chapter of Explanations Chapter LXVIII - The Last of the Rokestones Chapter LXIX - Search for the Will Chapter LXX - A Disappointment Chapter LXXI - A Woman's Heart
To the Reader
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First, I must tell you how I intend to relate my story. Having neverbefore undertaken to write a long narrative, I have considered and laiddown a few rules which I shall observe. Some of these are unquestionablygood; others, I daresay, offend against the canons of composition; but Iadopt them, because they will enable me to tell my story better than,with my imperfect experience, better rules possibly would. In the firstplace, I shall represent the people with whom I had to deal quitefairly. I have met some bad people, some indifferent, and some who atthis distance of time seem to me like angels in the unchanging light ofheaven.
My narrative shall be arranged in the order of the events; I shall notrecapitulate or anticipate.
What I have learned from others, and did not witness, that which Inarrate, in part, from the hints of living witnesses, and, in part,conjecturally, I shall record in the historic third person; and I shallwrite it down with as much confidence and particularity as if I hadactually seen it; in that respect imitating, I believe, all greathistorians, modern and ancient. But the scenes in which I have been anactor, that which my eyes have seen, and my ears heard, I will relateaccordingly. If I can be clear and true, my clumsiness and irregularity,I hope, will be forgiven me.
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My name is Ethel Ware.
I am not an interesting person by any means. You shall judge. I shall beforty-two my next birthday. That anniversary will occur on the first ofMay, 1873; and I am unmarried.
I don't look quite the old maid I am, they tell me. They say I don'tlook five-and-thirty, and I am conscious, sitting before the glass, thatthere is nothing sour or peevish in my features. What does it matter,even to me? I shall, of course, never marry; and, honestly, I don't careto please any one. If I cared twopence how I looked, I should probablylook worse than I do.
I wish to be honest. I have looked in the glass since I wrote thatsentence. I have just seen the faded picture of what may have been apretty, at least what is called a piquant face; a forehead broad andwell-formed, over which the still dark-brown hair grows low; large andrather good grey eyes and features, with nothing tragic, nothingclassic—just fairly good.
I think there was always energy in my face! I think I remember, longago, something at times comic; at times, also, something sad and tender,and even dreamy, as I fixed flowers in my hair or talked to my image inthe glass. All that has been knocked out of me pretty well. What I dosee there now is resolution.
There are processes of artificial hatching in use, if I rememberrightly, in Egypt, by which you may, at your discretion, make the birdall beak, or all claw, all head, or all drumstick, as you please todevelope it, before the shell breaks, by a special application of heat.It is a chick, no doubt, but a monstrous chick; and something like sucha chick was I. Circumstances, in my very early days, hatched mycharacter altogether out of equilibrium.
The caloric had been applied quite different in my mother's case, andproduced a prodigy of quite another sort.
I loved my mother with a very warm, but, I am now conscious, with asomewhat contemptuous affection. It never was an angry nor an arrogantcontempt; a very tender one, on the contrary. She loved me, I am sure,as well as she was capable of loving a child—better than she ever lovedmy sister—and I would have laid down my life for her; but, with all mylove, I looked down upon her, although I did not know it, till I thoughtmy life over in the melancholy honesty of solitude.
I am not romantic. If I ever was it is time I should be cured of allthat. I can laugh heartily, but I think I sigh more than most people.
I am not a bit shy, but I like solitude; partly because I regard my kindwith not unjust suspicion.
I am speaking very frankly. I enjoy, perhaps you think cynically, thishard-featured self-delineation. I don't spare myself; I need not spareany one else. But I am not a cynic. There is vacillation and timidity inthat ironical egotism. It is something deeper with me. I don't delightin that sordid philosophy. I have encountered magnanimity andself-devotion on earth. It is not true that there is neither nobilitynor beauty in human nature, that is not also more or less shabby andgrotesque.
I have an odd story to tell. On my father's side I am the grand-daughterof a viscount; on my mother's, the grand-daughter of a baronet. I havehad my early glimpses of the great world, and a wondrous long stareround the dark world beneath it.
When I lower my hand, and in one of the momentary reveries that tempt adesultory writer tickle my cheek slowly with the feathered end of mypen—for I don't incise my sentences with a point of steel, but, in theold fashion, wing my words with a possibly too appropriate grey-gooseplume—I look through a tall window in an old house on the scenery Ihave loved best and earliest in the world. The noble Welsh mountains areon my right, the purple headlands stooping grandly into the waves; Ilook upon the sea, the enchanted element, my first love and my last! Howoften I lean upon my hand and smile back upon the waters that silentlysmile on me, rejoicing under the summer heavens; and in wintrymoonlights, when the north wind drives the awful waves upon the rocks,and I see the foam shooting cloud after cloud into the air, I havefound myself, after long hours, still gazing, as if my breath werefrozen, on the one peaked black rock, thinking what the storm and foamonce gave me up there, until, with a sudden terror, and a gasp, I wakefrom the spell, and recoil from the white image, as if a spirit had beentalking with me all the time.
From this same window, in the fore-ground, I see, in morning light ormelancholy sunset, with very perfect and friendly trust, the shadowy oldchurchyard, where I have arranged my narrow bed shall be. There mymother-earth, at last, shall hold me in her bosom, and I shall find myanodyne and rest. There over me shall hover through the old churchwindows faintly the sweet hymns and the voices in prayer I heard longago; there the shadow of tower and tree shall slowly move over the grassabove me, from dawn till night, and there, within the fresh and solemnsound of its waves, I shall lie near the ceaseless fall and flow of thesea I loved so well.
I am not sorry, as I sit here, with my vain recollections and my direfulknowledge, that my life has been what it was.
A member of the upper ten thousand, I should have known nothing. I havebought my knowledge dear. But truth is a priceless jewel. Would you partwith it, fellow-mourner, and return to the simplicities and illusions ofearly days? Consider the question truly; be honest; and you will answer"No." In the volume of memory, every page of which, like "CorneliusAgrippa's bloody book," has power to evoke a spectre, would you yeterase a line? We can willingly part with nothing that ever was part ofmind, or memory, or self. The lamentable past is our own for ever.