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Daphne du Maurier

Daphne du Maurier Books

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Rebecca

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Julius

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JAMAICA INN

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MY COUSIN RACHEL

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The Scapegoat

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The Doll

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Don't look now

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Castle Dor

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Hungry Hill

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The Breakthrough

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“Don’t you see," she would explain, "that when I see anything or do anything there is no joy in keeping it to myself? I want to give everything to you. If I am alone and I see a picture that I love, or I read some passage from a book, I think to myself there is no meaning in this unless he knows it too. You are such a part of me that to stand alone leaves me dumb, without speech, without eyes. A tree with hatched branches, like someone with no hands. Life is valueless unless I can share everything with you – beauty, ugliness, pain. There must be no shadows between us, no quiet corners in our hearts.”

“It embarrassed her, as a child, to think that her father had fallen in love, or, if men must love, then it should have been someone else, someone dark, mysterious and profoundly clever, not an ordinary person who was impatient for no reason and cross when one was late for lunch.”

“She tried to say his name and call to him, but her strength was gone from her. He saw by her eyes that she knew she was dying, and that her faith was gone and she was afraid. He saw that she did not believe in God, or continuation After death, and that this was the end for her and she would never see him again. She would be a candle blown in the darkness. He saw by her eyes that she knew now he could have saved her had he wanted, but he chose to let her die, and she did not understand.”

“They are not brave, the days when we are twenty-one. They are full of little cowardices, little fears without foundation, and one is so easily bruised, so swiftly wounded, one falls to the first barbed word. Today, wrapped in the complacent armor of approaching middle age, the infinitesimal pricks of day by day brush one lightly and are soon forgotten, but then - how a careless word would linger, becoming a fiery stigma, and how a look, a glance over a shoulder, branded themselves as things eternal.”

“It seemed incredible to me now that I had never understood. I wondered how many people there were in the world who suffered, and continued to suffer, because they could not break out from their own web of shyness and reserve, and in their blindness and folly built up a great distorted wall in front of them that hid the truth. This was what I had done. I had built up false pictures in my mind and sat before them. I had never had the courage to demand the truth.”

“I am glad it cannot happen twice, the fever of first love. For it is a fever, and a burden, too, whatever the poets may say. They are not brave, the days when we are twenty-one. They are full of little cowardices, little fears without foundation, and one is so easily bruised, so swiftly wounded, one falls to the first barbed word. To-day, wrapped in the complacent armour of approaching middle age, the infinitesimal pricks of day by day brush one but lightly and are soon forgotten, but then--how a careless word would linger, becoming a fiery stigma, and how a look, a glance over a shoulder, branded themselves as things eternal. A denial heralded the thrice crowing of a cock, and an insincerity was like the kiss of Judas. The adult mind can lie with untroubled conscience and a gay composure, but in those days even a small deception scoured the tongue, lashing one against the stake itself.”

“She had no will of her own now, no consecutive thought, no power of concentration; she was being dashed and hurtled into a chaos that blinded her, some bottomless pit, some sweet, appalling nothingness. [...] Papa who played her on a thousand strings, she dancing to his tune like a doll on wires - Papa who harped at her and would not let her be. He was cruel, he was relentless, he was like some oppressive, suffocating power that stifled her and could not be warded off; he gave her all these bewildering sounds and sensations without causing so that she was like a child stuffed with sweets cloying and rich; they were rammed down her throat and into her belly, filling her, exhausting her, making her a drum of excitement and anguish and emotion that was gripping in its savage intensity. It was too much for her, too strong. She felt as though she were a dry stack in a deep wood, and he had put a match to her and was watching her burn.”

“She would be the victor, she would never be possessed. Nothing could hurt her now. In her life she would go out and do as she pleased and take the things that waited for her, She and Papa were two branches on a tree, and he had tried to see if he was stronger than she. He thought he had won. He thought he had beaten her down and she would let him go on thinking this as long as it suited her. She would keep him by her side and draw upon his strength; his life was her life, his flesh and blood were her flesh and blood, but it would never be he who was master. She held him between her hands and he did not know. When two forces came against each other and struggled and battled for supremacy one of the two must suffer and be hurt.”

“Every moment was to be grasped because it would not appen again. 'This I had e had, and this, and this,' to taste life and smell it and grasp it, to bave It even if he could not hold it, knowing that be was aged and wise beyond his years, for 'When I am twenty I shall be old and the I shan't want these things,' said Julius. And every song be sang was an adieu, and every movement a gesture of farewell. He sought exhaustion in all its forms, deliberately he made a fetish of sensation and the enjoyment of unbounding health became a sensuous experience. 'If I do everything when I am nineteen I shan't want to do anything later,' be thought. If he had never known what it was to be a child, at least he would know how a big should live; and while he plunged headlong into every folly of mischief and adventure and vice, it was as though part of him stood aside, watching the figure of himself with his hands to his hips, waving good-bye to his own boyhood.”

“Once you were used to this you did not want to go back, it got into your blood and kept you - this voice of luxury folding and wrapping you were soft caressing fingers. It was smooth and warm life the texture of velvet, it was cool and soothing like a linen sheet, it shone white and still like the pearls Rachel wore, and slowly, cunningly, with infinite subtlety it wove a web around your hands and feet, it cast a chain about your neck.”

“Will my little cat starve in Paris?' he asked. 'I don't know,' said Père. 'I don't know who will take us in or where we shall go. Cats are never happy in strange places. You ought to have left her behind. She would have fed herself. Someone would take care of her.' 'No,' whispered Julius, 'no - never, never anyone but me. What is mine cannot belong to another person. Père, do you understand? Tell me you understand.”

“And as he sat there alone, he knew that never again would he have any sensation of peace or contentment, that never would his days or his nights be free from anguish and bitter distress. Because of what he had seen and heard that evening he would be driven tormented to mental horror as yet unknown to him and feared, there would be no rest for him until he had crushed and hidden and made secure into eternity his own creation, possessed for ever or returned to the place from whence it came.”

“You gave me a marvellous sensation when you played,” I told her, “it was beautiful, intoxicating, I shall never forget it. You have a rare – no – a very dangerous talent.” She was silent, and then spoke in her restrained, breathless little voice. “I played for you,” she said, “I wanted to see what it was like to play to a man.” Her words bewildered me, they seemed utterly inexplicable. She was not lying, her eyes looked straight into mine, and she was smiling.”

“Why should you mind?' she said. He brushed the remark away. 'How do you think I'm going to live if I'm never to be certain of you, day or night?' he said to her. She shrugged her shoulders. 'It's not my affair if you choose to make a fool of yourself,' she told him. There was a pause and then she said: 'You might have known this would happen. I'm nearly twenty-five, my life's my own, after all.”