Easy English ↔ Source English
Chapter 23
Source paragraphs anchor each row. Semantically matched easy-English paragraphs stay grouped beside the source they rewrite.
Easy-English paragraphs are matched to the source by meaning; numbering follows the source text.
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01
Easy English
The next morning, Newland left the Fall River train. Boston steamed in the middle of summer. Near the station, beer and coffee filled the air.
Old fruit added a sickly smell. Crowds moved through the streets without their coats. They acted like people sharing one house, walking toward the bathroom.
Source English
The next morning, when Archer got out of the Fall River train, he emerged upon a steaming midsummer Boston. The streets near the station were full of the smell of beer and coffee and decaying fruit and a shirt-sleeved populace moved through them with the intimate abandon of boarders going down the passage to the bathroom.
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02
Easy English
Newland found a cab and drove to the Somerset Club. He planned to eat breakfast there. Even the rich streets looked like untidy homes.
European cities never seemed so careless, even in great heat. Workers in light cotton rested on rich people's steps. The Common looked dirty after a huge outdoor party.
No place seemed less fitting for Ellen Olenska. Newland often imagined her in unlikely scenes. Yet he could not place her inside this empty, heat-beaten Boston.
Source English
Archer found a cab and drove to the Somerset Club for breakfast. Even the fashionable quarters had the air of untidy domesticity to which no excess of heat ever degrades the European cities. Care-takers in calico lounged on the door-steps of the wealthy, and the Common looked like a pleasure-ground on the morrow of a Masonic picnic. If Archer had tried to imagine Ellen Olenska in improbable scenes he could not have called up any into which it was more difficult to fit her than this heat-prostrated and deserted Boston.
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03
Easy English
He ate with a good appetite and careful order. First came a piece of melon. Then he read the morning paper while waiting for eggs and bread.
New energy filled him since the night before. He told May that business required him in Boston. He would take the Fall River boat that night.
The following evening, he would continue to New York. Everyone already expected him to return early that week. An office letter made his changed plan look honest.
When he returned from Portsmouth, the letter waited on the hall table. Chance placed it in plain sight for him. Newland almost felt ashamed.
His lie came too easily. For one troubling moment, he remembered Lawrence Lefferts. Lefferts arranged false plans perfectly when seeking freedom.
Source English
He breakfasted with appetite and method, beginning with a slice of melon, and studying a morning paper while he waited for his toast and scrambled eggs. A new sense of energy and activity had possessed him ever since he had announced to May the night before that he had business in Boston, and should take the Fall River boat that night and go on to New York the following evening. It had always been understood that he would return to town early in the week, and when he got back from his expedition to Portsmouth a letter from the office, which fate had conspicuously placed on a corner of the hall table, sufficed to justify his sudden change of plan. He was even ashamed of the ease with which the whole thing had been done: it reminded him, for an uncomfortable moment, of Lawrence Lefferts's masterly contrivances for securing his freedom. But this did not long trouble him, for he was not in an analytic mood.
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04
Easy English
The thought soon passed. Newland did not wish to study his own reasons. He finished breakfast, smoked, and read the Commercial Advertiser.
Two or three men he knew entered the club. They exchanged the usual greetings. Boston belonged to the same small world after all.
Still, Newland felt outside ordinary time and place. He seemed to slip through the fine threads holding his world together.
Source English
After breakfast he smoked a cigarette and glanced over the Commercial Advertiser. While he was thus engaged two or three men he knew came in, and the usual greetings were exchanged: it was the same world after all, though he had such a queer sense of having slipped through the meshes of time and space.
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05
Easy English
At half past nine, he entered the writing room. He wrote Ellen a short note. Then he sent a man to the Parker House in a cab.
The man must wait there for an answer. Newland hid behind another newspaper. He tried to judge the cab's travel time.
Source English
He looked at his watch, and finding that it was half-past nine got up and went into the writing-room. There he wrote a few lines, and ordered a messenger to take a cab to the Parker House and wait for the answer. He then sat down behind another newspaper and tried to calculate how long it would take a cab to get to the Parker House.
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06
Easy English
Suddenly a club servant spoke beside him. "The lady was out, sir."
"Out?" Newland repeated. The simple word sounded foreign.
Source English
"The lady was out, sir," he suddenly heard a waiter's voice at his elbow; and he stammered: "Out?--" as if it were a word in a strange language.
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07
Easy English
He stood and entered the hall. There must be some mistake. Ellen could not leave her hotel so early.
Then he grew angry with himself. Why did he wait until after breakfast? He should send the note as soon as he arrived.
Source English
He got up and went into the hall. It must be a mistake: she could not be out at that hour. He flushed with anger at his own stupidity: why had he not sent the note as soon as he arrived?
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08
Easy English
Newland took his hat and walking stick. Outside, Boston became strange, huge, and empty. He felt like a traveler from another land.
He waited on the club step. Then he decided to visit the Parker House. The hotel worker might be wrong.
Perhaps Ellen was still there. Newland started across the Common.
Source English
He found his hat and stick and went forth into the street. The city had suddenly become as strange and vast and empty as if he were a traveller from distant lands. For a moment he stood on the door-step hesitating; then he decided to go to the Parker House. What if the messenger had been misinformed, and she were still there?
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09
Easy English
On the first seat under a tree, he saw her. A grey silk sunshade covered her head. How could he imagine her with a pink one?
Ellen sat without energy, as if no duty waited. He saw the soft line of her face. Her hair rested in a low circle under a dark hat.
A long glove covered the hand holding her sunshade. It was marked with many small lines. Newland moved a few steps nearer.
Source English
He started to walk across the Common; and on the first bench, under a tree, he saw her sitting. She had a grey silk sunshade over her head--how could he ever have imagined her with a pink one? As he approached he was struck by her listless attitude: she sat there as if she had nothing else to do. He saw her drooping profile, and the knot of hair fastened low in the neck under her dark hat, and the long wrinkled glove on the hand that held the sunshade. He came a step or two nearer, and she turned and looked at him.
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10
Easy English
Ellen turned and saw him. "Oh," she said.
For the first time, surprise showed openly on her face. A slow smile soon replaced it. The smile held wonder and quiet pleasure.
Source English
"Oh"--she said; and for the first time he noticed a startled look on her face; but in another moment it gave way to a slow smile of wonder and contentment.
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11
Easy English
"Oh," she said again, with a different sound.
Newland stood above her and stared. Ellen did not rise. She moved aside and made room for him.
Source English
"Oh"--she murmured again, on a different note, as he stood looking down at her; and without rising she made a place for him on the bench.
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12
Easy English
"I came on business," he explained. "I just arrived."
For some reason, he pretended surprise at finding her. "But what are you doing in this empty place?"
Source English
"I'm here on business--just got here," Archer explained; and, without knowing why, he suddenly began to feign astonishment at seeing her. "But what on earth are you doing in this wilderness?" He had really no idea what he was saying: he felt as if he were shouting at her across endless distances, and she might vanish again before he could overtake her.
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13
Easy English
He hardly knew what he said. It felt like shouting across a great distance. Ellen might disappear before he reached her.
"I also came on business," she answered.
She turned until they faced each other. Newland barely heard the words. Her voice itself held him.
He suddenly knew that memory kept no true sound of it. He forgot its low notes. He forgot the slight roughness around some sounds.
Source English
"I? Oh, I'm here on business too," she answered, turning her head toward him so that they were face to face. The words hardly reached him: he was aware only of her voice, and of the startling fact that not an echo of it had remained in his memory. He had not even remembered that it was low-pitched, with a faint roughness on the consonants.
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14
Easy English
"You arrange your hair differently," he said.
His heart beat hard. The words felt final and dangerous.
Source English
"You do your hair differently," he said, his heart beating as if he had uttered something irrevocable.
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15
Easy English
"Differently? No. I only do my best without Nastasia."
Source English
"Differently? No--it's only that I do it as best I can when I'm without Nastasia."
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16
Easy English
"Is Nastasia not with you?"
Source English
"Nastasia; but isn't she with you?"
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17
Easy English
"No, I am alone. Bringing her for two days seemed useless."
Source English
"No; I'm alone. For two days it was not worth while to bring her."
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18
Easy English
"You are alone at the Parker House?"
Source English
"You're alone--at the Parker House?"
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19
Easy English
Old playful danger flashed in Ellen's eyes. "Does that seem unsafe to you?"
Source English
She looked at him with a flash of her old malice. "Does it strike you as dangerous?"
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20
Easy English
"Not unsafe."
Source English
"No; not dangerous--"
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21
Easy English
"But it breaks the rules? Yes, perhaps it does. I never thought about that. I just broke a much greater rule."
A light smile remained in her eyes. "I refused to take back some money. The money belonged to me."
Source English
"But unconventional? I see; I suppose it is." She considered a moment. "I hadn't thought of it, because I've just done something so much more unconventional." The faint tinge of irony lingered in her eyes. "I've just refused to take back a sum of money--that belonged to me."
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22
Easy English
Newland jumped up and walked several steps. Ellen closed her sunshade. She drew shapes in the small stones with its point.
After a moment, he returned. He stood directly before her.
Source English
Archer sprang up and moved a step or two away. She had furled her parasol and sat absently drawing patterns on the gravel. Presently he came back and stood before her.
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23
Easy English
"Someone came here to meet you?"
Source English
"Some one--has come here to meet you?"
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24
Easy English
"Yes."
Source English
"Yes."
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25
Easy English
"That person brought the offer?"
Source English
"With this offer?"
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26
Easy English
Ellen nodded.
Source English
She nodded.
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27
Easy English
"You refused because the offer had conditions?"
Source English
"And you refused--because of the conditions?"
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28
Easy English
"I refused," she said after a pause.
Source English
"I refused," she said after a moment.
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29
Easy English
Newland sat beside her again. "What were the conditions?"
Source English
He sat down by her again. "What were the conditions?"
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30
Easy English
"They were not very hard. I only needed to sit at his table sometimes. I would sit at its head."
Source English
"Oh, they were not onerous: just to sit at the head of his table now and then."
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31
Easy English
Silence fell between them. Newland's heart shut itself again. He reached for words and found none.
Source English
There was another interval of silence. Archer's heart had slammed itself shut in the queer way it had, and he sat vainly groping for a word.
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32
Easy English
"He wants you back at any price?"
Source English
"He wants you back--at any price?"
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33
Easy English
"At a high price. At least, the amount seems very large to me."
Source English
"Well--a considerable price. At least the sum is considerable for me."
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34
Easy English
Newland moved slowly around the question he feared. At last, he asked it.
Source English
He paused again, beating about the question he felt he must put.
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35
Easy English
"Did you come here to meet him?"
Source English
"It was to meet him here that you came?"
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36
Easy English
Ellen stared and then laughed. "Meet my husband here? At this time of year?"
"He is always at Cowes or Baden now."
Source English
She stared, and then burst into a laugh. "Meet him--my husband? Here? At this season he's always at Cowes or Baden."
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37
Easy English
"He sent someone?"
Source English
"He sent some one?"
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38
Easy English
"Yes."
Source English
"Yes."
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39
Easy English
"With a letter?"
Source English
"With a letter?"
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40
Easy English
She shook her head. "No, only a spoken message. My husband never writes. I think he sent me only one letter."
Color rose in Ellen's face. Newland's face became just as red. Both remembered that one terrible letter.
Source English
She shook her head. "No; just a message. He never writes. I don't think I've had more than one letter from him." The allusion brought the colour to her cheek, and it reflected itself in Archer's vivid blush.
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41
Easy English
"Why does he never write?" Newland asked.
Source English
"Why does he never write?"
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42
Easy English
"Why should he? That is what secretaries are for."
Source English
"Why should he? What does one have secretaries for?"
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43
Easy English
Ellen spoke the word as if it carried no hidden meaning. Newland almost asked whether the secretary came. The memory of Count Olenski's letter stopped him.
Source English
The young man's blush deepened. She had pronounced the word as if it had no more significance than any other in her vocabulary. For a moment it was on the tip of his tongue to ask: "Did he send his secretary, then?" But the remembrance of Count Olenski's only letter to his wife was too present to him. He paused again, and then took another plunge.
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44
Easy English
Instead, he tried another question. "And the man who brought this offer?"
Source English
"And the person?"--
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45
Easy English
Ellen still smiled. "He can leave whenever he wishes. But he plans to wait until this evening."
Source English
"The emissary? The emissary," Madame Olenska rejoined, still smiling, "might, for all I care, have left already; but he has insisted on waiting till this evening ... in case ... on the chance ..."
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46
Easy English
"He hopes I may change my mind."
"You came outside to think about that chance?"
Source English
"And you came out here to think the chance over?"
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47
Easy English
"I came out for air. The hotel is too hot and close. I shall take the afternoon train to Portsmouth."
Source English
"I came out to get a breath of air. The hotel's too stifling. I'm taking the afternoon train back to Portsmouth."
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48
Easy English
They watched people passing on the path. Neither spoke for a while. At last, Ellen looked at him again.
"You have not changed," she said.
Source English
They sat silent, not looking at each other, but straight ahead at the people passing along the path. Finally she turned her eyes again to his face and said: "You're not changed."
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49
Easy English
Newland wanted to answer that he changed before seeing her. Instead, he stood suddenly. He looked around the hot, untidy park.
Source English
He felt like answering: "I was, till I saw you again;" but instead he stood up abruptly and glanced about him at the untidy sweltering park.
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50
Easy English
"This place is terrible. Let us go onto the bay. The air will be cooler there."
"We can take the steam boat to Point Arley. Few people travel on Monday morning. My train leaves this evening."
"I am returning to New York. Why should we not go?"
Source English
"This is horrible. Why shouldn't we go out a little on the bay? There's a breeze, and it will be cooler. We might take the steamboat down to Point Arley." She glanced up at him hesitatingly and he went on: "On a Monday morning there won't be anybody on the boat. My train doesn't leave till evening: I'm going back to New York. Why shouldn't we?" he insisted, looking down at her; and suddenly he broke out: "Haven't we done all we could?"
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51
Easy English
He looked down at her and spoke from his pain. "Have we not done everything we could?"
"Oh," Ellen said again.
She stood and opened her sunshade. She studied the park as if asking it for advice. Remaining there seemed impossible.
Then she looked into his face. "You must not say such things to me."
Source English
"Oh"--she murmured again. She stood up and reopened her sunshade, glancing about her as if to take counsel of the scene, and assure herself of the impossibility of remaining in it. Then her eyes returned to his face. "You mustn't say things like that to me," she said.
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52
Easy English
"I shall say anything you wish, or nothing. I shall not speak unless you ask. What harm can our day cause?"
"I only want to hear you."
Source English
"I'll say anything you like; or nothing. I won't open my mouth unless you tell me to. What harm can it do to anybody? All I want is to listen to you," he stammered.
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53
Easy English
Ellen took out a little watch. Its face was gold, and it hung from a bright chain.
"Do not count the time," Newland cried. "Give me this day. I want to take you away from that man."
"When will he come?"
Source English
She drew out a little gold-faced watch on an enamelled chain. "Oh, don't calculate," he broke out; "give me the day! I want to get you away from that man. At what time was he coming?"
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54
Easy English
Again Ellen's face grew warm. "At eleven."
Source English
Her colour rose again. "At eleven."
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55
Easy English
"Then we must leave now."
Source English
"Then you must come at once."
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56
Easy English
"You need not fear anything if I stay."
"Nor should you fear if you come. I promise I only want your story. I want to know your life."
Source English
"You needn't be afraid--if I don't come."
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57
Easy English
"We last met a hundred years ago. Another hundred may pass before we meet again."
Source English
"Nor you either--if you do. I swear I only want to hear about you, to know what you've been doing. It's a hundred years since we've met--it may be another hundred before we meet again."
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58
Easy English
Ellen still could not decide. Her worried eyes searched his face.
"Why did you not come to the beach at Granny's?" she asked. "She sent you to find me."
Source English
She still wavered, her anxious eyes on his face. "Why didn't you come down to the beach to fetch me, the day I was at Granny's?" she asked.
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59
Easy English
"You never turned around. You did not know I was there. I promised not to come unless you looked back."
Newland laughed at his childish rule.
Source English
"Because you didn't look round--because you didn't know I was there. I swore I wouldn't unless you looked round." He laughed as the childishness of the confession struck him.
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60
Easy English
"But I chose not to look," Ellen said.
Source English
"But I didn't look round on purpose."
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61
Easy English
"You chose it?"
Source English
"On purpose?"
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62
Easy English
"I knew you were there. I saw the ponies when you arrived. That is why I walked down to the beach."
Source English
"I knew you were there; when you drove in I recognised the ponies. So I went down to the beach."
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63
Easy English
"You wanted to get as far from me as possible?"
Source English
"To get away from me as far as you could?"
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64
Easy English
Ellen spoke very softly. "As far from you as possible."
Source English
She repeated in a low voice: "To get away from you as far as I could."
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65
Easy English
Newland laughed again, now with a boy's delight. "Then you see it did no good."
"I may as well tell you the truth. My only Boston business was finding you. Now we must hurry or miss our boat."
Source English
He laughed out again, this time in boyish satisfaction. "Well, you see it's no use. I may as well tell you," he added, "that the business I came here for was just to find you. But, look here, we must start or we shall miss our boat."
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66
Easy English
"Our boat?" Ellen frowned, then smiled. "First I must return to the hotel. I need to leave a note."
Source English
"Our boat?" She frowned perplexedly, and then smiled. "Oh, but I must go back to the hotel first: I must leave a note--"
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67
Easy English
"Write as many notes as you like. You can write here."
Newland opened a small paper case. He removed a fountain pen, a pen that carried its own ink. He even found an envelope.
"Everything planned itself for us," he said. "Place the paper on your knee. I shall start the ink."
He struck the pen against the back of the seat. "These pens need special treatment. It is like shaking down a heat meter. Try now."
Source English
"As many notes as you please. You can write here." He drew out a note-case and one of the new stylographic pens. "I've even got an envelope--you see how everything's predestined! There--steady the thing on your knee, and I'll get the pen going in a second. They have to be humoured; wait--" He banged the hand that held the pen against the back of the bench. "It's like jerking down the mercury in a thermometer: just a trick. Now try--"
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68
Easy English
Ellen laughed and bent over the paper. She wrote on the case across her knees. Newland walked several steps away.
He looked happily at nothing. Passing people looked at Ellen. A finely dressed woman rarely wrote on her knee in the Common.
Source English
She laughed, and bending over the sheet of paper which he had laid on his note-case, began to write. Archer walked away a few steps, staring with radiant unseeing eyes at the passersby, who, in their turn, paused to stare at the unwonted sight of a fashionably-dressed lady writing a note on her knee on a bench in the Common.
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69
Easy English
Ellen put the paper in its envelope. She wrote a name outside and placed it in her pocket. Then she rose.
Source English
Madame Olenska slipped the sheet into the envelope, wrote a name on it, and put it into her pocket. Then she too stood up.
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70
Easy English
They walked back toward Beacon Street. Near the club, Newland saw the same public carriage. It carried his note to the Parker House.
This vehicle was a herdic, a small closed carriage for hire. Its soft seats faced each other. The driver now washed his hot face at a street water pipe.
Source English
They walked back toward Beacon Street, and near the club Archer caught sight of the plush-lined "herdic" which had carried his note to the Parker House, and whose driver was reposing from this effort by bathing his brow at the corner hydrant.
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71
Easy English
"I told you everything was planned for us," Newland said. "Here is our carriage."
They laughed at this small wonder. Finding a public carriage there was unusual. Boston still saw carriage stations as a foreign idea.
Source English
"I told you everything was predestined! Here's a cab for us. You see!" They laughed, astonished at the miracle of picking up a public conveyance at that hour, and in that unlikely spot, in a city where cab-stands were still a "foreign" novelty.
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72
Easy English
Newland checked his watch. They had time to stop at the Parker House. Afterward, they could drive to the steam boat.
Source English
Archer, looking at his watch, saw that there was time to drive to the Parker House before going to the steamboat landing. They rattled through the hot streets and drew up at the door of the hotel.
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73
Easy English
The herdic shook through the hot streets. It stopped before the hotel. Newland reached for Ellen's letter.
"Shall I carry it inside?" he asked.
Ellen shook her head. She jumped out and disappeared through the glass doors. It was only half past ten.
Still, Newland feared the messenger came early. The man might already sit among the travelers inside. Cold drinks stood near those waiting guests.
Source English
Archer held out his hand for the letter. "Shall I take it in?" he asked; but Madame Olenska, shaking her head, sprang out and disappeared through the glazed doors. It was barely half-past ten; but what if the emissary, impatient for her reply, and not knowing how else to employ his time, were already seated among the travellers with cooling drinks at their elbows of whom Archer had caught a glimpse as she went in?
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74
Easy English
Newland walked up and down beside the herdic. A young Sicilian offered to shine his shoes. The boy's eyes looked like Nastasia's.
An older Irish woman offered him peaches. Every few moments, the hotel doors opened. Hot men came out with straw hats pushed back.
Each looked at Newland while passing. He wondered why the doors opened so often. All those hot faces seemed alike.
Across the country, similar men crossed similar hotel doors. They flowed in and out without end.
Source English
He waited, pacing up and down before the herdic. A Sicilian youth with eyes like Nastasia's offered to shine his boots, and an Irish matron to sell him peaches; and every few moments the doors opened to let out hot men with straw hats tilted far back, who glanced at him as they went by. He marvelled that the door should open so often, and that all the people it let out should look so like each other, and so like all the other hot men who, at that hour, through the length and breadth of the land, were passing continuously in and out of the swinging doors of hotels.
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75
Easy English
Then one face broke the repeating pattern. Newland saw it only for a moment. His walk carried him far from the door.
He turned and saw a young pale man among the others. Some faces were long and tired. Others were round, surprised, or gentle.
This face held many things at once. Heat or worry almost put out its life. Still, it looked quicker and more awake.
Perhaps its foreign difference caused that effect. Newland hung from one thin thread of memory. Then the thread broke.
The face disappeared with the crowd. It seemed to belong to some foreign businessman. Newland returned to walking.
Source English
And then, suddenly, came a face that he could not relate to the other faces. He caught but a flash of it, for his pacings had carried him to the farthest point of his beat, and it was in turning back to the hotel that he saw, in a group of typical countenances--the lank and weary, the round and surprised, the lantern-jawed and mild--this other face that was so many more things at once, and things so different. It was that of a young man, pale too, and half-extinguished by the heat, or worry, or both, but somehow, quicker, vivider, more conscious; or perhaps seeming so because he was so different. Archer hung a moment on a thin thread of memory, but it snapped and floated off with the disappearing face--apparently that of some foreign business man, looking doubly foreign in such a setting. He vanished in the stream of passersby, and Archer resumed his patrol.
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76
Easy English
He did not want hotel guests seeing his watch. So he tried to count the minutes himself. Ellen soon seemed gone too long.
Perhaps she met her husband's messenger inside. Perhaps the man stopped her from leaving. Newland's fear became real pain.
Source English
He did not care to be seen watch in hand within view of the hotel, and his unaided reckoning of the lapse of time led him to conclude that, if Madame Olenska was so long in reappearing, it could only be because she had met the emissary and been waylaid by him. At the thought Archer's apprehension rose to anguish.
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77
Easy English
"If she does not return soon, I shall find her," he thought.
Source English
"If she doesn't come soon I'll go in and find her," he said.
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78
Easy English
The doors opened again, and Ellen stood beside him. They entered the herdic. Only then did Newland check his watch.
Ellen was gone for three minutes. The loose windows made a terrible noise. Talking became impossible as they crossed the broken stones toward the water.
Source English
The doors swung open again and she was at his side. They got into the herdic, and as it drove off he took out his watch and saw that she had been absent just three minutes. In the clatter of loose windows that made talk impossible they bumped over the disjointed cobblestones to the wharf.
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79
Easy English
They sat side by side on the half-empty boat. At first, they found almost nothing to say. Their silence spoke better than words.
They were free for a few hours and alone together. This fact filled the quiet between them.
Source English
Seated side by side on a bench of the half-empty boat they found that they had hardly anything to say to each other, or rather that what they had to say communicated itself best in the blessed silence of their release and their isolation.
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80
Easy English
Wide side wheels began to push the steam boat forward. The docks and ships moved away behind a curtain of heat. Newland's old world seemed to move away too.
He wanted to ask whether Ellen felt it. Perhaps they began a long journey with no return. But he feared disturbing her trust.
He truly did not want to betray it. For many nights, memory of their kiss burned on his lips. The day before, thoughts of Ellen ran through him like fire.
Now she sat beside him. Together, they moved into an unknown world. They reached a deeper closeness.
One touch might break it apart.
Source English
As the paddle-wheels began to turn, and wharves and shipping to recede through the veil of heat, it seemed to Archer that everything in the old familiar world of habit was receding also. He longed to ask Madame Olenska if she did not have the same feeling: the feeling that they were starting on some long voyage from which they might never return. But he was afraid to say it, or anything else that might disturb the delicate balance of her trust in him. In reality he had no wish to betray that trust. There had been days and nights when the memory of their kiss had burned and burned on his lips; the day before even, on the drive to Portsmouth, the thought of her had run through him like fire; but now that she was beside him, and they were drifting forth into this unknown world, they seemed to have reached the kind of deeper nearness that a touch may sunder.
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81
Easy English
The boat left the harbor and turned toward the open sea. A cool wind moved around them. The bay first rose in long smooth lines.
Soon little waves appeared, each with a white edge. A cover of heat still hung above Boston. Ahead, fresh water opened under the sun.
Far points of land reached into the bay. White lighthouses shone on them. Ellen rested against the boat's rail.
She opened her lips and drank the cool air. A long thin covering wound around her hat. Her face remained clear.
Newland saw calm happiness there. Ellen treated their journey as natural. She did not fear meeting someone they knew.
Nor did that danger make her too excited. This troubled Newland even more.
Source English
As the boat left the harbour and turned seaward a breeze stirred about them and the bay broke up into long oily undulations, then into ripples tipped with spray. The fog of sultriness still hung over the city, but ahead lay a fresh world of ruffled waters, and distant promontories with light-houses in the sun. Madame Olenska, leaning back against the boat-rail, drank in the coolness between parted lips. She had wound a long veil about her hat, but it left her face uncovered, and Archer was struck by the tranquil gaiety of her expression. She seemed to take their adventure as a matter of course, and to be neither in fear of unexpected encounters, nor (what was worse) unduly elated by their possibility.
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82
Easy English
At Point Arley, they entered a simple hotel. Newland hoped its eating room would be empty. Instead, noisy young men and women filled it.
They looked harmless and good. The hotel owner said they were schoolteachers on holiday. Newland's heart fell at their loud talk.
"This is impossible," he said. "I shall ask for a private room."
Source English
In the bare dining-room of the inn, which he had hoped they would have to themselves, they found a strident party of innocent-looking young men and women--school-teachers on a holiday, the landlord told them--and Archer's heart sank at the idea of having to talk through their noise.
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83
Easy English
Ellen raised no objection. She waited while he found one. The room opened onto a long wooden verandah.
Sea air entered through its windows. The room was cool and bare. A rough cloth with squares covered its table.
A bottle of pickled vegetables stood there. A blueberry pie rested under a cover. No secret couple ever found a more innocent room.
Newland saw the same joke in Ellen's small smile. She sat across from him without fear.
Ellen once escaped her husband. People said another man helped her. Such a woman might learn to accept strange scenes calmly.
Yet her peace removed the sharp edge from Newland's thought. She was quiet, simple, and unsurprised. Beside her, ordinary social rules disappeared.
Two old friends needed privacy. They carried years of words between them. Being alone together seemed the most natural thing in the world.
Source English
"This is hopeless--I'll ask for a private room," he said; and Madame Olenska, without offering any objection, waited while he went in search of it. The room opened on a long wooden verandah, with the sea coming in at the windows. It was bare and cool, with a table covered with a coarse checkered cloth and adorned by a bottle of pickles and a blueberry pie under a cage. No more guileless-looking cabinet particulier ever offered its shelter to a clandestine couple: Archer fancied he saw the sense of its reassurance in the faintly amused smile with which Madame Olenska sat down opposite to him. A woman who had run away from her husband--and reputedly with another man--was likely to have mastered the art of taking things for granted; but something in the quality of her composure took the edge from his irony. By being so quiet, so unsurprised and so simple she had managed to brush away the conventions and make him feel that to seek to be alone was the natural thing for two old friends who had so much to say to each other....