On Wednesdays I usually post reblogs or songs I like. Today I'm putting up a passage from Evelyn Waugh's magnificent Brideshead Revisited, which I just finished. Spoiler alert, it is from the last chapter of the novel. If you don't believe in books, the BBC miniseries with Jeremy Irons and Anthony Andrews is outstanding and accurate.
"I didn't know till today. Oh, my dear, if you could only understand. Then I could bear to part, or bear it better. I should say my heart was breaking, if I believed in broken hearts. I can't marry you, Charles; I can't ever be with you again."
"I know."
"How can you know?"
"What will you do"
"Just go on -- alone. How can I tell you what I shall do? You know the whole of me. You know I'm not one for a life of mourning. I've always been bad. Probably I shall be bad again, punished again. But the worse I am, the more I need God. I can't shut myself out from his mercy. That is what it would mean; starting a life with you, without him. One can only hope to see one step ahead. But I saw today there was one thing unforgivable -- like things in the schoolroom, so bad they were unpunishable, that only mummy could deal with -- the bad thing I was on the point of doing, that I'm not quite bad enough to do; to set up a rival good to God's. Why should I be allowed to understand that, and not you, Charles? It may be because of mummy, nanny, Cordelia, Sebastian -- perhaps Bridey and Mrs. Muspratt -- keeping my name in their prayers; or it may be a private bargain between me and God, that if I give up this one thing I want so much, however bad I am, he won't quite despair of me in the end.
"Now we shall both be alone, and I shall have no way of making you understand."
"I don't want to make it easier for you," I said; "I hope your heart may break; but I do understand."
I finally read Brideshead last year (I think it was last year). I was so upset that I hadn't read it sooner! Such a good book.
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