The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne
A timeless classic dealing with the complexity and hardships of relationships, addiction and faith.Judith Hearne, a Catholic middle-aged spinster, moves into yet another bed-sit in Belfast. A socially isolated woman of modest means, she teaches piano to a handful of students to pass the day. Her only social activity is tea with the O'Neill family, who secretly dread her weekly visits.Judith soon meets wealthy James Madden and fantasises about marrying this lively, debonair man. But Madden sees her in an entirely different light, as a potential investor in a business proposal. On realising that her feelings are not reciprocated, she turns to an old addiction – alcohol. Having confessed her problems to an indifferent priest, she soon loses her faith and binges further. She wonders what place there is for her in a world that so values family ties and faith, both of which she is without.
Читать The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne онлайн беплатно
BRIAN MOORE
The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne
Harper Perennial
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 77â85 Fulham Palace Road Hammersmith London W6 8JB
Previously published in paperback by Grafton Books 1965
(reprinted eleven times) and by Flamingo 1994 (reprinted eleven times)
First published in Great Britain by André Deutsch Ltd 1955
Copyright © Brian Moore 1955
PS Section copyright © Sarah OâReilly 2007
PS⢠is a trademark of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
The publisher asserts Brian Mooreâs moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the authorâs imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.
Source ISBN: 9780007255610
Ebook Edition © JULY 2012 ISBN 9780007405909 Version: 2014â07â11
To Jacqueline
Contents
P.S. Ideas, Interviews & Features â¦
Prodigal Son: A biographical sketch of Brian Moore
Writing Judith Hearne
Have You Read?
The first thing Miss Judith Hearne unpacked in her new lodgings was the silver-framed photograph of her aunt. The place for her aunt, ever since the sad day of the funeral, was on the mantelpiece of whatever bed-sitting-room Miss Hearne happened to be living in. And as she put her up now, the photograph eyes were stern and questioning, sharing Miss Hearneâs own misgivings about the condition of the bedsprings, the shabbiness of the furniture and the run-down part of Belfast in which the room was situated.
After she had arranged the photograph so that her dear aunt could look at her from the exact centre of the mantelpiece, Miss Hearne unwrapped the white tissue paper which covered the coloured oleograph of the Sacred Heart. His place was at the head of the bed. His fingers raised in benediction. His eyes kindly yet accusing. He was old and the painted halo around His head was beginning to show little cracks. He had looked down on Miss Hearne for a long time, almost half her lifetime.
The trouble about hanging the Sacred Heart, Miss Hearne discovered, was that there was no picture hook in the right place. She had bought some picture hooks but she had no hammer. So she laid the Sacred Heart down on the bed and went to the bay window to see how the room looked from there.
The street outside was a university bywater, once a good residential area, which had lately been reduced to the level of taking in paying guests. Miss Hearne stared at the houses opposite and thought of her auntâs day when there were only private families in this street, at least one maid to every house, and dinner was at night, not at noon. All gone now, all those people dead and all the houses partitioned off into flats, the bedrooms cut in two, kitchenettes jammed into linen closets, linoleum on the floors and âTo Letâ cards in the bay windows. Like this house, she thought. This bed-sitting-room must have been the master bedroom. Or even a drawing-room. And look at it now. She turned from the window to the photograph on the mantelpiece. All changed, she told it, all changed since your day. And Iâm the one who has to put up with it.
But then she shook her head to chase the silly cobwebs from her mind. She walked across the room, inspecting the surface. The carpet wasnât bad at all, just a bit worn in the middle part, and a chair could be put there. The bed could be moved out an inch from the wall to hide that stain. And there on the bed was the Sacred Heart, lying face down, waiting to be put up in His proper place. Nothing for it, Miss Hearne said to herself, but to go down and ask the new landlady for the loan of a hammer.
