How many sympathetic souls can
you reckon on in the world? One in ten, one in a hundred--in a
thousand--in ten thousand? Ah! What a sell these confessions are! What
a horrible sell! You seek sympathy, and all you get is the most
evanescent sense of relief--if you get that much. For a confession,
whatever it may be, stirs the secret depths of the hearer's character.
Often depths that he himself is but dimly aware of. And so the righteous
triumph secretly, the lucky are amused, the strong are disgusted, the
weak either upset or irritated with you according to the measure of their
sincerity with themselves. And all of them in their hearts brand you for
either mad or impudent . . . "
I had seldom seen Marlow so vehement, so pessimistic, so earnestly
cynical before. I cut his declamation short by asking what answer Flora
de Barral had given to his question. "Did the poor girl admit firing off
her confidences at Mrs. Fyne--eight pages of close writing--that sort of
thing?"
Marlow shook his head.
"She did not tell me. I accepted her silence, as a kind of answer and
remarked that it would have been better if she had simply announced the
fact to Mrs.
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