Easy English ↔ Source English
Chapter 25
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. 1 source anchor has no easy-English match.
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01
Easy English
Archer was on the boat again. Other people stood and sat around him. Yet he felt a deep peace. This feeling both surprised and supported him.
Source English
Once more on the boat, and in the presence of others, Archer felt a tranquillity of spirit that surprised as much as it sustained him.
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02
Easy English
By common ideas, the day was a foolish failure. He did not even kiss Madame Olenska's hand. She gave him no promise of another meeting. He loved her, but his love had no answer. He might not see her for a long time.
Still, he felt almost ashamed of his calm. Their meeting gave him comfort. Ellen kept a perfect balance between two duties. They must be true to others. They must also be honest with themselves.
She did not plan this balance like a clever game. Her tears and broken words proved that. It came from her open and honest nature. This moved him deeply. It also made him calm.
Now the danger was past. He felt both love and wonder before her goodness. He was glad that pride did not rule him. He did not try to act like a great lover. He did not try to make her give in.
Source English
The day, according to any current valuation, had been a rather ridiculous failure; he had not so much as touched Madame Olenska's hand with his lips, or extracted one word from her that gave promise of farther opportunities. Nevertheless, for a man sick with unsatisfied love, and parting for an indefinite period from the object of his passion, he felt himself almost humiliatingly calm and comforted. It was the perfect balance she had held between their loyalty to others and their honesty to themselves that had so stirred and yet tranquillized him; a balance not artfully calculated, as her tears and her falterings showed, but resulting naturally from her unabashed sincerity. It filled him with a tender awe, now the danger was over, and made him thank the fates that no personal vanity, no sense of playing a part before sophisticated witnesses, had tempted him to tempt her. Even after they had clasped hands for good-bye at the Fall River station, and he had turned away alone, the conviction remained with him of having saved out of their meeting much more than he had sacrificed.
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03
Easy English
At Fall River station, they held hands and said goodbye. Then Archer turned away alone. Yet he felt that their meeting saved something important. What he gained seemed greater than what he lost.
He walked back to the club. The library there was empty. He sat alone and examined each moment with Ellen. He turned every second over in his mind.
One thing became clear. Ellen might choose to return to Europe. She might even return to her husband. But her old life did not call her back. The Count's new terms would not call her either.
She would go for another reason. She would leave if she became a danger to Archer. She feared that he might break their shared rule. They wanted to protect others from their love.
Ellen would stay near him under one condition. He must never ask her to come nearer. The choice now rested with him. He must keep her close enough for friendship. Yet he must also keep her safe and apart.
Source English
He wandered back to the club, and went and sat alone in the deserted library, turning and turning over in his thoughts every separate second of their hours together. It was clear to him, and it grew more clear under closer scrutiny, that if she should finally decide on returning to Europe--returning to her husband--it would not be because her old life tempted her, even on the new terms offered. No: she would go only if she felt herself becoming a temptation to Archer, a temptation to fall away from the standard they had both set up. Her choice would be to stay near him as long as he did not ask her to come nearer; and it depended on himself to keep her just there, safe but secluded.
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04
Easy English
These thoughts stayed with him on the train. They formed a golden mist around him. Through it, every face seemed far away. He felt no other traveler could understand him.
The next morning, the train reached New York. September heat filled the air. The long train was close and hard to breathe in. Tired faces passed Archer as he got off.
He still saw them through his golden mist. Then one face seemed to leave the crowd. It came closer and pulled him back to the world. Archer knew it at once.
He saw this young man outside the Parker House yesterday. The face did not look like an American hotel face. Now Archer noticed the same thing again. A weak memory began to move inside him.
Source English
In the train these thoughts were still with him. They enclosed him in a kind of golden haze, through which the faces about him looked remote and indistinct: he had a feeling that if he spoke to his fellow-travellers they would not understand what he was saying. In this state of abstraction he found himself, the following morning, waking to the reality of a stifling September day in New York. The heat-withered faces in the long train streamed past him, and he continued to stare at them through the same golden blur; but suddenly, as he left the station, one of the faces detached itself, came closer and forced itself upon his consciousness. It was, as he instantly recalled, the face of the young man he had seen, the day before, passing out of the Parker House, and had noted as not conforming to type, as not having an American hotel face.
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05
Easy English
The young man looked around in confusion. He seemed like a foreign traveler lost in America. American travel could be hard and cold. At last, he walked toward Archer.
He lifted his hat and spoke in English. "Surely, Monsieur, we met in London?"
Source English
The same thing struck him now; and again he became aware of a dim stir of former associations. The young man stood looking about him with the dazed air of the foreigner flung upon the harsh mercies of American travel; then he advanced toward Archer, lifted his hat, and said in English: "Surely, Monsieur, we met in London?"
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06
Easy English
"Ah, of course, in London!" Archer said. He took the man's hand with interest. "So you did get here, after all?"
Now Archer remembered him fully. He was the French teacher of young Carfry. His small face was clever but tired. It also looked thin and worried.
Source English
"Ah, to be sure: in London!" Archer grasped his hand with curiosity and sympathy. "So you did get here, after all?" he exclaimed, casting a wondering eye on the astute and haggard little countenance of young Carfry's French tutor.
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07
Easy English
"Oh, I got here, yes," M. Rivière said. His lips made a weak smile. "But I will not stay long. I return the day after tomorrow."
He held a light travel case in one neat hand. His hand still wore a glove. He looked at Archer with worry and doubt. There was also a quiet request in his eyes.
Source English
"Oh, I got here--yes," M. Rivière smiled with drawn lips. "But not for long; I return the day after tomorrow." He stood grasping his light valise in one neatly gloved hand, and gazing anxiously, perplexedly, almost appealingly, into Archer's face.
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08
Easy English
"I wonder, Monsieur," he began. "We met by such good luck. Might I ask you to..."
Source English
"I wonder, Monsieur, since I've had the good luck to run across you, if I might--"
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09
Easy English
"I was about to ask you something," Archer said. "Will you come to lunch? I mean downtown. Come to my office, and I will take you somewhere good."
Source English
"I was just going to suggest it: come to luncheon, won't you? Down town, I mean: if you'll look me up in my office I'll take you to a very decent restaurant in that quarter."
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10
Easy English
M. Rivière looked surprised and truly touched.
"You are too kind. But I only wanted directions to a carriage. There are no men to carry bags. No one here seems to listen."
Source English
M. Rivière was visibly touched and surprised. "You're too kind. But I was only going to ask if you would tell me how to reach some sort of conveyance. There are no porters, and no one here seems to listen--"
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11
Easy English
"I know," Archer said. "Our stations must surprise you. Ask for help, and they offer something to chew. Come with me, and I will get you out. You really must have lunch with me."
Source English
"I know: our American stations must surprise you. When you ask for a porter they give you chewing-gum. But if you'll come along I'll extricate you; and you must really lunch with me, you know."
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12
Easy English
The young man waited for one small moment. Then he thanked Archer many times. He said that he already had a lunch meeting. Still, his voice did not sound completely sure.
Source English
The young man, after a just perceptible hesitation, replied, with profuse thanks, and in a tone that did not carry complete conviction, that he was already engaged; but when they had reached the comparative reassurance of the street he asked if he might call that afternoon.
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13
Easy English
They reached the street, and he seemed calmer there. Then he asked to visit Archer that afternoon. Work was slow in the hot season. So Archer gave him a time.
Archer wrote his office address. The Frenchman put it in his pocket. He thanked Archer again and waved his hat widely. Then a street car pulled by horses carried him away.
Source English
Archer, at ease in the midsummer leisure of the office, fixed an hour and scribbled his address, which the Frenchman pocketed with reiterated thanks and a wide flourish of his hat. A horse-car received him, and Archer walked away.
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14
Easy English
Archer walked to his office. At the exact hour, M. Rivière appeared. His face was smooth, and his clothes were neat. But he still looked serious and worn.
Archer was alone. He offered his visitor a chair. Before sitting, the young man spoke quickly.
"I believe I saw you yesterday in Boston, sir."
Source English
Punctually at the hour M. Rivière appeared, shaved, smoothed-out, but still unmistakably drawn and serious. Archer was alone in his office, and the young man, before accepting the seat he proffered, began abruptly: "I believe I saw you, sir, yesterday in Boston."
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15
Easy English
The fact seemed to mean little. Archer was ready to agree. Then he noticed the man's fixed look. It held some secret, but it also offered a sudden light.
Source English
The statement was insignificant enough, and Archer was about to frame an assent when his words were checked by something mysterious yet illuminating in his visitor's insistent gaze.
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16
Easy English
"This is very strange," M. Rivière continued. "Our meeting is very strange because of my present position."
Source English
"It is extraordinary, very extraordinary," M. Rivière continued, "that we should have met in the circumstances in which I find myself."
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17
Easy English
"What position?" Archer asked.
Source English
"What circumstances?" Archer asked, wondering a little crudely if he needed money.
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18
Easy English
For a rather unkind moment, he wondered about money. Perhaps the Frenchman needed a loan. But M. Rivière kept studying his face.
"I did not come here to find work," he said. "I spoke of that when we last met. This time I came for a special task."
Source English
M. Rivière continued to study him with tentative eyes. "I have come, not to look for employment, as I spoke of doing when we last met, but on a special mission--"
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19
Easy English
"Ah," Archer said.
Suddenly the two meetings joined in his mind. He understood that the task concerned Ellen. He stopped and faced this new fact. M. Rivière also waited in silence.
Source English
"Ah--!" Archer exclaimed. In a flash the two meetings had connected themselves in his mind. He paused to take in the situation thus suddenly lighted up for him, and M. Rivière also remained silent, as if aware that what he had said was enough.
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20
Easy English
"A special task," Archer said at last.
Source English
"A special mission," Archer at length repeated.
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21
Easy English
The Frenchman opened his hands and lifted them a little. Both men looked across the office desk. Then Archer remembered his manners.
"Please sit down."
M. Rivière bent his head. He chose a chair some distance away. Then he waited again.
Source English
The young Frenchman, opening his palms, raised them slightly, and the two men continued to look at each other across the office-desk till Archer roused himself to say: "Do sit down"; whereupon M. Rivière bowed, took a distant chair, and again waited.
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22
Easy English
"You wanted my advice about this task?" Archer asked.
Source English
"It was about this mission that you wanted to consult me?" Archer finally asked.
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23
Easy English
M. Rivière lowered his head. "I did not come for myself. I have settled my own part. With your permission, I wish to discuss Countess Olenska."
Source English
M. Rivière bent his head. "Not in my own behalf: on that score I--I have fully dealt with myself. I should like--if I may--to speak to you about the Countess Olenska."
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24
Easy English
Archer expected those words. Still, they struck him like a bent branch. It seemed to fly back and hit his face. Blood rushed to his head.
Source English
Archer had known for the last few minutes that the words were coming; but when they came they sent the blood rushing to his temples as if he had been caught by a bent-back branch in a thicket.
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25
Easy English
"For whom do you speak?" he asked.
Source English
"And on whose behalf," he said, "do you wish to do this?"
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26
Easy English
M. Rivière faced the question bravely. "I might say that I speak for her. But that may sound too free. Let me say that I speak for simple justice."
Source English
M. Rivière met the question sturdily. "Well--I might say hers, if it did not sound like a liberty. Shall I say instead: on behalf of abstract justice?"
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27
Easy English
Archer looked at him with a cold smile. "In other words, you carry a message from Count Olenski."
Source English
Archer considered him ironically. "In other words: you are Count Olenski's messenger?"
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28
Easy English
The Frenchman's dark yellow face became red. "I do not carry one to you, Monsieur. I came to you for very different reasons."
Source English
He saw his blush more darkly reflected in M. Rivière's sallow countenance. "Not to you, Monsieur. If I come to you, it is on quite other grounds."
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29
Easy English
"What right do you have to choose another reason?" Archer asked. "You carry the Count's message. That is your position."
Source English
"What right have you, in the circumstances, to be on any other ground?" Archer retorted. "If you're an emissary you're an emissary."
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30
Easy English
The young man thought before answering. "My task is now over. It failed with Countess Olenska."
Source English
The young man considered. "My mission is over: as far as the Countess Olenska goes, it has failed."
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31
Easy English
"I cannot help that," Archer said coldly.
Source English
"I can't help that," Archer rejoined on the same note of irony.
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32
Easy English
"No, but you can help with something else." M. Rivière stopped. He turned his hat inside his careful hands. Then he looked into it before facing Archer.
"I believe you can make it fail with her family too."
Source English
"No: but you can help--" M. Rivière paused, turned his hat about in his still carefully gloved hands, looked into its lining and then back at Archer's face. "You can help, Monsieur, I am convinced, to make it equally a failure with her family."
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33
Easy English
Archer pushed back his chair and stood. "Then, by God, I will!"
He put his hands into his pockets. He stared down in anger. The Frenchman also stood, but he was a little shorter. His face returned to its usual pale color.
Source English
Archer pushed back his chair and stood up. "Well--and by God I will!" he exclaimed. He stood with his hands in his pockets, staring down wrathfully at the little Frenchman, whose face, though he too had risen, was still an inch or two below the line of Archer's eyes.
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34
Easy English
No easy-English paragraph was aligned to this source anchor.
Source English
M. Rivière paled to his normal hue: paler than that his complexion could hardly turn.
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35
Easy English
"Why did you think I would oppose her family?" Archer asked. "You must know that I am related to Madame Olenska. Why come to me?"
Source English
"Why the devil," Archer explosively continued, "should you have thought--since I suppose you're appealing to me on the ground of my relationship to Madame Olenska--that I should take a view contrary to the rest of her family?"
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36
Easy English
M. Rivière's face changed. Fear gave way to real pain. This usually clever young man now looked helpless.
"Oh, Monsieur," he said.
Source English
The change of expression in M. Rivière's face was for a time his only answer. His look passed from timidity to absolute distress: for a young man of his usually resourceful mien it would have been difficult to appear more disarmed and defenceless. "Oh, Monsieur--"
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37
Easy English
Archer continued before he could answer. "Many people are closer to the Countess. Why did you come to me? Why should I accept the Count's reasons more easily?"
Source English
"I can't imagine," Archer continued, "why you should have come to me when there are others so much nearer to the Countess; still less why you thought I should be more accessible to the arguments I suppose you were sent over with."
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38
Easy English
M. Rivière accepted the attack with a humble air. "The reasons I bring you are my own. They are not the reasons I brought from Europe."
Source English
M. Rivière took this onslaught with a disconcerting humility. "The arguments I want to present to you, Monsieur, are my own and not those I was sent over with."
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39
Easy English
"Then I have even less reason to hear them."
Source English
"Then I see still less reason for listening to them."
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40
Easy English
M. Rivière looked into his hat again. Perhaps Archer wanted him to put it on and leave. Then the young man made a firm choice.
"Monsieur, will you answer one question? Do you question my right to be here? Or do you believe this whole matter is closed?"
Source English
M. Rivière again looked into his hat, as if considering whether these last words were not a sufficiently broad hint to put it on and be gone. Then he spoke with sudden decision. "Monsieur--will you tell me one thing? Is it my right to be here that you question? Or do you perhaps believe the whole matter to be already closed?"
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41
Easy English
His calm strength made Archer feel foolish. His own anger now seemed rough and badly used. M. Rivière earned a hearing. Archer's face grew red, and he sat again.
Source English
His quiet insistence made Archer feel the clumsiness of his own bluster. M. Rivière had succeeded in imposing himself: Archer, reddening slightly, dropped into his chair again, and signed to the young man to be seated.
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42
Easy English
He pointed to the other chair. "I am sorry. But why is the matter not closed?"
Source English
"I beg your pardon: but why isn't the matter closed?"
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43
Easy English
M. Rivière looked at him in pain. "Do you agree with the family, then? I brought new offers from the Count. Do you think Madame Olenska must now return to her husband?"
Source English
M. Rivière gazed back at him with anguish. "You do, then, agree with the rest of the family that, in face of the new proposals I have brought, it is hardly possible for Madame Olenska not to return to her husband?"
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44
Easy English
"Good God!" Archer cried.
His visitor made a low sound. It showed that Archer finally understood.
Source English
"Good God!" Archer exclaimed; and his visitor gave out a low murmur of confirmation.
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45
Easy English
"Before I saw her, I visited Mr. Lovell Mingott," M. Rivière said. "Count Olenski asked me to see him. We talked several times before I went to Boston."
"I understand that he speaks for his mother," he continued. "Mrs. Manson Mingott has great power in the family."
Source English
"Before seeing her, I saw--at Count Olenski's request--Mr. Lovell Mingott, with whom I had several talks before going to Boston. I understand that he represents his mother's view; and that Mrs. Manson Mingott's influence is great throughout her family."
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46
Easy English
Archer sat without speaking. He felt like a man holding the edge of a falling cliff. The family did not ask for his advice. They did not even tell him about these talks.
This shocked him almost as much as Rivière's news. In one bright moment, Archer saw the reason. The tribe no longer trusted him. Its deep sense warned them that he stood against them.
Then he remembered May's words. She spoke during their drive from Mrs. Manson Mingott's house. It was the day of the Archery Meeting.
"Perhaps Ellen would be happier with her husband after all," May said then.
Archer remembered his angry answer. Since that day, May never spoke Ellen's name. Now he understood her earlier words. She used them to test him.
May wanted to learn which way his feelings moved. She must have told the family what she found. After that, they quietly left Archer out of their plans.
Source English
Archer sat silent, with the sense of clinging to the edge of a sliding precipice. The discovery that he had been excluded from a share in these negotiations, and even from the knowledge that they were on foot, caused him a surprise hardly dulled by the acuter wonder of what he was learning. He saw in a flash that if the family had ceased to consult him it was because some deep tribal instinct warned them that he was no longer on their side; and he recalled, with a start of comprehension, a remark of May's during their drive home from Mrs. Manson Mingott's on the day of the Archery Meeting: "Perhaps, after all, Ellen would be happier with her husband."
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47
Easy English
He almost admired their perfect family control. May accepted their choice and said nothing. She would refuse if her sense of right opposed them. But she probably agreed with the family.
They believed Ellen should live as an unhappy wife. To them, that was better than living apart from her husband. There was no use talking to Newland. Sometimes he refused to accept their most basic rules.
Source English
Even in the tumult of new discoveries Archer remembered his indignant exclamation, and the fact that since then his wife had never named Madame Olenska to him. Her careless allusion had no doubt been the straw held up to see which way the wind blew; the result had been reported to the family, and thereafter Archer had been tacitly omitted from their counsels. He admired the tribal discipline which made May bow to this decision. She would not have done so, he knew, had her conscience protested; but she probably shared the family view that Madame Olenska would be better off as an unhappy wife than as a separated one, and that there was no use in discussing the case with Newland, who had an awkward way of suddenly not seeming to take the most fundamental things for granted.
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48
Easy English
Archer looked up. M. Rivière watched him with worried eyes.
"Do you truly not know this, Monsieur?" he asked. "The family now doubts its right to oppose the Count. They may tell the Countess to accept his last offers."
Source English
Archer looked up and met his visitor's anxious gaze. "Don't you know, Monsieur--is it possible you don't know--that the family begin to doubt if they have the right to advise the Countess to refuse her husband's last proposals?"
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49
Easy English
"The offers you brought?"
Source English
"The proposals you brought?"
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50
Easy English
"The offers I brought."
Source English
"The proposals I brought."
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51
Easy English
Archer almost told him to mind his own business. Yet Rivière's eyes stopped him. The man was humble, but he was also brave. Archer answered his question with another.
"Why are you telling me this?"
Source English
It was on Archer's lips to exclaim that whatever he knew or did not know was no concern of M. Rivière's; but something in the humble and yet courageous tenacity of M. Rivière's gaze made him reject this conclusion, and he met the young man's question with another. "What is your object in speaking to me of this?"
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52
Easy English
The answer came at once. "I beg you with all my strength. Do not let her go back. Oh, do not let her!"
Source English
He had not to wait a moment for the answer. "To beg you, Monsieur--to beg you with all the force I'm capable of--not to let her go back.--Oh, don't let her!" M. Rivière exclaimed.
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53
Easy English
Archer stared at him with growing wonder. The man's pain was true. His purpose was just as real. Rivière had decided to risk everything.
He needed Archer to know his new belief. Nothing else mattered now.
Source English
Archer looked at him with increasing astonishment. There was no mistaking the sincerity of his distress or the strength of his determination: he had evidently resolved to let everything go by the board but the supreme need of thus putting himself on record. Archer considered.
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54
Easy English
"Did you say this to Countess Olenska?" Archer asked at last.
Source English
"May I ask," he said at length, "if this is the line you took with the Countess Olenska?"
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55
Easy English
M. Rivière grew red again. But his eyes remained steady.
Source English
M. Rivière reddened, but his eyes did not falter. "No, Monsieur: I accepted my mission in good faith. I really believed--for reasons I need not trouble you with--that it would be better for Madame Olenska to recover her situation, her fortune, the social consideration that her husband's standing gives her."
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56
Easy English
"No, Monsieur. I accepted my task honestly. I believed she should return when I came."
"I had reasons for that belief," he continued. "You do not need to hear them. She could regain her place and her money. Her husband's position could give her public respect again."
"That makes sense," Archer said. "You could not take the task without believing it."
Source English
"So I supposed: you could hardly have accepted such a mission otherwise."
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57
Easy English
"I would never have taken it."
Source English
"I should not have accepted it."
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58
Easy English
"Well, then?" Archer asked.
They studied each other for a long moment.
Source English
"Well, then--?" Archer paused again, and their eyes met in another protracted scrutiny.
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59
Easy English
"After I saw her, everything changed," M. Rivière said. "I listened to her. Then I knew that she was safer here."
Source English
"Ah, Monsieur, after I had seen her, after I had listened to her, I knew she was better off here."
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60
Easy English
"You knew that?"
Source English
"You knew--?"
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61
Easy English
"I did the Count's work honestly," the young man said. "I gave her all his reasons. I explained every offer. I added none of my own thoughts."
"The Countess listened with great patience," he continued. "She was kind enough to see me twice. She thought carefully about every point. During those two talks, my own mind changed."
Source English
"Monsieur, I discharged my mission faithfully: I put the Count's arguments, I stated his offers, without adding any comment of my own. The Countess was good enough to listen patiently; she carried her goodness so far as to see me twice; she considered impartially all I had come to say. And it was in the course of these two talks that I changed my mind, that I came to see things differently."
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62
Easy English
"What caused that change?" Archer asked.
Source English
"May I ask what led to this change?"
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63
Easy English
"I saw the change in her. That was enough."
Source English
"Simply seeing the change in her," M. Rivière replied.
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64
Easy English
"The change in her? Did you know her before?"
Source English
"The change in her? Then you knew her before?"
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65
Easy English
Color rose in M. Rivière's face. "I often saw her in her husband's house. I have known Count Olenski for many years. He would not send a stranger on this task."
Source English
The young man's colour again rose. "I used to see her in her husband's house. I have known Count Olenski for many years. You can imagine that he would not have sent a stranger on such a mission."
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66
Easy English
Archer looked away at the empty office walls. His eyes stopped on a calendar. Above it hung the rough face of the President. This strange talk seemed impossible under that American face.
All the wide United States lay under the President's rule. Yet here two men discussed a hidden European marriage. Archer's mind could hardly join those two worlds.
Source English
Archer's gaze, wandering away to the blank walls of the office, rested on a hanging calendar surmounted by the rugged features of the President of the United States. That such a conversation should be going on anywhere within the millions of square miles subject to his rule seemed as strange as anything that the imagination could invent.
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67
Easy English
"What kind of change did you see?" he asked.
Source English
"The change--what sort of a change?"
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68
Easy English
"Ah, Monsieur, I wish I could explain it." M. Rivière paused. "I learned something I never understood before. She is an American."
"She is an American of her own kind," he continued. "It is also your kind. Some European groups accept certain acts. They treat those acts as part of marriage."
"People there give and take for their own comfort," he said. "But an American like her cannot accept those things. To her, they cannot even be considered."
"Her family does not understand what those things are," he continued. "If they knew, they would fully oppose her return. Instead, they see the Count's wish as proof of love."
"They think he only wants his home and wife again. But the truth is not so simple. It is very far from simple."
Source English
"Ah, Monsieur, if I could tell you!" M. Rivière paused. "Tenez--the discovery, I suppose, of what I'd never thought of before: that she's an American. And that if you're an American of her kind--of your kind--things that are accepted in certain other societies, or at least put up with as part of a general convenient give-and-take--become unthinkable, simply unthinkable. If Madame Olenska's relations understood what these things were, their opposition to her returning would no doubt be as unconditional as her own; but they seem to regard her husband's wish to have her back as proof of an irresistible longing for domestic life." M. Rivière paused, and then added: "Whereas it's far from being as simple as that."
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69
Easy English
Archer looked back at the President's face. Then he looked down at his desk. Papers lay in untidy groups. For several seconds, he could not speak.
He heard M. Rivière push back his chair. The young man stood. When Archer looked up, he saw equal feeling in his visitor.
Source English
Archer looked back to the President of the United States, and then down at his desk and at the papers scattered on it. For a second or two he could not trust himself to speak. During this interval he heard M. Rivière's chair pushed back, and was aware that the young man had risen. When he glanced up again he saw that his visitor was as moved as himself.
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70
Easy English
"Thank you," Archer said simply.
Source English
"Thank you," Archer said simply.
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71
Easy English
"You have no reason to thank me, Monsieur. I should thank you instead." Rivière stopped because speech was hard. Then his voice became firm again.
"I want to add one thing," he said. "You asked if Count Olenski employs me. At this moment, he does. I returned to his service a few months ago."
"I had private reasons," he continued. "Such trouble can happen to anyone. Older and sick people depend on me. I needed to care for them."
"But today I came here and told you these things. From this moment, I consider my service ended. I will tell the Count when I return. I will also tell him my reasons."
"That is all, Monsieur."
Source English
"There's nothing to thank me for, Monsieur: it is I, rather--" M. Rivière broke off, as if speech for him too were difficult. "I should like, though," he continued in a firmer voice, "to add one thing. You asked me if I was in Count Olenski's employ. I am at this moment: I returned to him, a few months ago, for reasons of private necessity such as may happen to any one who has persons, ill and older persons, dependent on him. But from the moment that I have taken the step of coming here to say these things to you I consider myself discharged, and I shall tell him so on my return, and give him the reasons. That's all, Monsieur."
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72
Easy English
M. Rivière bowed and stepped back.
Source English
M. Rivière bowed and drew back a step.
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73
Easy English
"Thank you," Archer said again.
Then the two men shook hands.
Source English
"Thank you," Archer said again, as their hands met.