Charles Snow: Time of Hope

I was twenty-eight, and I could still hope. Those random encouragements were blowing in the warm wind, and I felt, as well as the strength of acceptance, a hope of the fibres, a hope of young manhood. That night, I had come to terms with what I must do. But I breathed the scent of the limes, and the half-thought visited me: ‘She said that she had come to the end. As for me, I am nowhere near the end.’

I looked up at her window. I had delayed going in to her, but I could delay no longer. The house was quiet. I opened the door of her room. She was standing, so still that she might have been frozen, by the trunk.

She said: ‘I told you to leave me alone.’

I said: ‘I can’t let you go.’

For a second her face was smooth as though with shock. Then it hardened again.

‘I’ve told you, I shall go tonight.’

I said: ‘I can’t let you go at all.’

She asked: ‘Do you know what you’re saying?’

I said: ‘I know very well.’ I added: ‘I’m saying that I shall never speak to you as I did tonight. Not as long as we live.’

‘You know what you’ll lose?’

I repeated: ‘I know very well.’

‘I trust you,’ she cried. ‘I trust you.’ Her control was near to snapping, but suddenly she braced herself again and said harshly: ‘It won’t be any different. I can’t make it any easier for you.’

I nodded my head, and then smiled at her.

In the same harsh tone, she said: ‘You’re all I’ve got.’ Her face was working. She said again: ‘You’re all I’ve got.’

She crumpled up, almost as if she were fainting. I sat on the sofa, and she sank her head into my lap, without another word or sound. Time and time again I stroked her hair. Outside the window, the tops of the trees were swaying in the wind.