20180413 Absent in the Spring. Agatha Christie

 애거사 크리스티가 본명을 숨기고 추리소설이 아닌 일반소설로 낸 책. 추리소설은 아니지만 마지막 5% 정도에 약간의 (예상된) 서스펙트가 있다. 영어원서임에도 불구하고 생각보다는 술술 읽었다.

p.35~39

'I hate office life. I hate it.'
...
'Oh I know, darling. It's been awfully stuffy and hard work and just sheer grind - not even interesting. But a partnership is different - I mean you'll have an interest in the whole thing.'
...
And he said, very quickly and eagerly, the words pouring out in a rush:
'I want to farm. There's Little Mead coming into the market. It's in a bad state - Horley's neglected it - but that's why one could get it cheap - and it's good land, mark you...'
And he had hurried on, outlining plans, talking in such technical terms that she had felt quite bewildered for she herself knew nothing of wheat or barley or the rotation of crops, or pedigreed stocks or dairy herds.
...
She said doubtfully, 'But darling, would you ever make a living out of it?...Well, you see - I mean, it isn't practical... I daresay - but life isn't holidays.
We've got the future to think of, Rodney. There's Tony.'
...
'How do you know,' he had asked, 'that I shall be happy?'
And she had answered briskly and gaily, 'I'm quite sure you will. You'll see.'
And she had nodded brightly and with authority.
He had sighed and said abruptly, 'All right then. Have it your own way.'

 

 

p.149~152

'Marriage,' said Rodney, 'is a contract entered into by two people, both of adult years, in the full possession of their faculties, and with a full knowledge of what they are undertaking. It is a specification of partnership, and each partner binds himself and herself specifically to honour the terms of that contract - that is, to stand by each other in certain eventualities - in sickness and in health, for richer for poorer, for better for worse.
'Because those words are uttered in a church, and with the approval and benediction of a pries, they are none the less a contract, just as any agreement entered into between two people in good faith is a contract. Because some of the obligations undertaken are not enforcible in a court of law, they are none the less binding on persons who have assumed them. I think you will agree that, equitably, that is so.
...
'No, I have one more thing to say. You realized, don't you, that Cargill is doing very valuable and important work, that his methods in treating tuberculosis have met with such striking success that he is a very prominent figure in the medical world, and that, unfortunately, a man's private affairs can affect his public career. That means that Cargill's work, his usefulness to humanity, will be seriously affected, if not destroyed, by what you are both proposing to do.'
Averil said, 'Are you trying to persuade me that it's my duty to give Rupert up so that he can continue to benefit humanity?'
There is a faint sneer in her voice.
'No,' said Rodney. 'I'm thinking of the poor devil himself...'
There was sudden vehement feeling in his voice.
'You can take it from me, Averil, that a man who's not doing the work he wants to do - the work he was made to do - is only half a man. I tell you as surely as I'm standing here, that if you take Rupert Cargill away from his work and make it impossible for him to go on with that work, the day will come when you will have to stand by and see the man you love unhappy, unfulfilled - old before his time - tired and disheartened - only living with half his life. And if you think your love, or any woman's love, can make up to him for that, thenI tell you plainly that you're damned sentimental little fool."
...
"That it's true? I can only say that it's what I believe to be true that it is what I know of my own knowledge.
I'm speaking to you ,Averil, as a  man - as well as a father.'

p.216
 From you have I been absent in the Spring.
 Yes, she thought, for a long time... ever since the spring... the spring when we first loved each other...
 "I've stayed where I was - Blanche was right - I'm the girl who left St.Anne's. Easy living, lazy thinking, please with my self, afraid of anything that might be painful...
 No courage...
 What can I do, she thought. What can I do?
 And she thought, I can go to him. I can say, 'I'm sorry. Forgive me...'
 Yes, I can say that... I can say, 'Forgive me. I didnt' know. I simply didn't know...'

p.242~244
 I might never have been away, thought Joan. I might never have been away...
 ...
 Averil, she thought, hadn't seen any difference in her. Well, after all, why should Averil see a difference?
...
She had imagined the whole thing. Imagined it all because of what that stupid woman Blanche Haggard - no, Blache Donovan - had said. Really, Blanche had looked too terrible - so old and coarse.
...
She had imagined all sorts of unpleasant things - that her children didn't like her - that Rodney had loved Leslie Shertston (of course he hadn't - what an idea! Poor Leslie.)

p.248
- So now I have told you everything, darling Dads. I daresay you guessed most of it already.
You needn't worry about me, I do realize just what a criminal, wicked little fool I have been.
Remember, Mother knows nothing.