Brideshead Revisited: Key Quotations: Chapter 5 (Book 3)



Brideshead Revisited: Key Quotations: Chapter 5 (Book 3)

When the day came, Cordelia went to the station and we remained to greet him at home. It was a bleak and gusty day. Cottages and lodges were decorated; plans for a bonfire that night and for the village silver band to play on the terrace, were put down, but the house flag, that had not flown for twenty-five years, was hoisted over the pediment, and flapped sharply against the leaden sky. Whatever harsh voices might be bawling into the microphones of central Europe, and whatever lathes spinning in the armament factories, the return of Lord Marchmain was a matter of first importance in his own neighbourhood. (p. 294)

Julia gave a little sigh of surprise and touched my hand. We had seen him nine months ago at Monte Carlo, where he had been a stately and upright figure, little changed from when I first met him at Venice. Now he was an old man. (p. 295)

There was a little heraldic chair by the chimney piece, one of a set which stood against the walls, a little, inhospitable, flat-seated thing, a mere excuse for the elaborate armorial painting on its back, on which, perhaps, no one, not even a weary footman, had ever sat since it was made; there Lord Marchmain sat and wiped his eyes. (p. 295)

Discuss the significance of Lord Marchmain’s ‘death bed’.

‘I have never been much moved by family piety until now,’ he said, ‘but I am frankly appalled at the prospect of – of Beryl taking what was once my mother’s place in this house. Why should that uncouth pair sit here childless while the place crumbles about their ears? (p. 300)

‘…I think you and I could be very happy here.’

It opened a prospect; the prospect one gained at the turn of the avenue, as I had first seen it with Sebastian, of the secluded valley, the lakes falling away one below the other, the old house in the foreground, the rest of the world abandoned and forgotten; a world of its own of peace and love and beauty; a soldier’s dream in a foreign bivouac; such a prospect perhaps as a high pinnacle of the temple afforded after the hungry days in the desert and the jackal-haunted nights. Need I reproach myself if sometimes I was taken by the vision? (p. 302)

I knew these fierce moods of Julia’s, such as had overtaken her at the fountain in moonlight, and dimly surmised their origin; I knew they could not be assuaged by words. Nor could I have spoken, for the answer to her question was still unformed; the sense that the fate of more souls than one was at issue; that the snow was beginning to shift on the high slopes. (pp. 305-6)

‘There were four of you,’ I said. ‘Cara didn’t know the first thing it was about, and may or may not have believed it; you knew a bit and didn’t believe a word; Cordelia knew about as much and believed it madly; only poor Bridey knew and believed, and I thought he made a pretty poor show when it came to explaining. And people go round saying “At least Catholics know what they believe.” We had a fair cross-section tonight – ‘

‘Oh Charles, don’t rant. I shall begin to think you’re getting doubts yourself.’ (p. 310)

The nearer our marriage got, the more wistfully, I noticed, Julia spoke of it; war was growing nearer, too – we neither of us doubted that – but Julia’s tender, remote, it sometimes seemed, desperate longing did not come from any uncertainty outside herself; it suddenly darkened, too into brief accesses of hate when she seemed to throw herself against the restraints of her love for me like a caged animal against bars. (p. 310)

Next to death, perhaps because they are like death, he feared darkness and loneliness. He liked to have us in his room and the lights burnt all night among the gilt figures…’ (p. 311)

Discuss Lord Marchmain’s ‘diatribe’ on pp. 311-313, beginning ‘Better today…’ and ending ‘open the windows.’

Then I knelt, too, and prayed: ‘Oh God, if there is a God, forgive him his sins, if there is such a thing as sin,’ and the man on the bed opened his eyes and gave a sigh, the sort of sigh I imagine people give at the moment of death… I prayed more simply, ‘God forgive him his sins,’ and ‘Please God, make him accept your forgiveness.’ (p. 317)

Julia said: ‘Here in the shadow, in the corner of the stair – a minute to say good-bye.’

‘So long to say so little.’

‘You knew?’

‘Since this morning; since before this morning; all this year.’ (p. 318)

The avalanche was down, the hillside swept bare behind it; the last echoes died on the white slopes; the new mound glittered and lay still in the silent valley. (p. 319)

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