Portrait of Jennie Page #6

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How still it is.

Listen.

The whole city is asleep.

- No one left in the world but us.

- No one but us.

Lifes beginning again.

Look, the little boat

with its lights on.

The nights over. Its tomorrow.

Jennie, I am not going to

think of this summer in future.

I'll be right to you.

Far and above how I came

about it don't know.

I know we were meant for each other.

The strings of our lives

were woven together,

and neither the world nor

time can tear us apart.

Oh Eben, I wish you finish my portrait.

Do you think people can

know what lies ahead?

I mean, whats going to happen to them?

You know how you feel sad

about things sometimes?

About things that had never happened?

Perhaps there are things that

are going to happen to us.

Perhaps we know it

and are just afraid to admit to ourselves.

I guess its silly.

I guess its just my funny mind.

- Where are we?

-Together.

My poor darling, you must

be worn out. I'm sorry.

- I fell asleep.

- Yes, come here.

Look there.

Its finished.

- Is it really me?

- Its you.

Portrait of Jennie.

- I think its a fine painting.

- Really?

I think it will make you famous.

One day, it will hang in a museum,

people will come from all

over the world to see it.

If they do it, you will be

my worthy promissory.

- It will be you.

- Thank you, Eben.

And now, you may sign.

I want to always sit and

watch you paint.

Now that I've found the perfect

model, I'll paint her again and again.

I didn't mean that. I mean I want you to

paint all the beautiful things in the world.

You must be everything in the world.

But Eben, these pictures of yours,

of the sea, and the Land's End light,

each time I see them,

my heart seems to stop.

Curious. Tell us suppose there

is a sort of forlorn sort of place.

Tell that thought about any more.

- Tell me about Paris. Did you study there ?

- Yes, indeed.

Oh Eben, I wish we would be

there. I would be such fun.

Good you are chatting.

I'll take you to the Luxembourg,

to the fair of Fontainebleau.

Oh! Yes.

Well to the forest of

Saint Cloud in the spring

and drink new wine under the trees.

I feel as if I'm over there already,

as if we can spend our

whole like together.

What is it that makes a man

and woman know it

or the men and women in the

world they belong to each other?

Is it just chance, That they live

in the world the same time?

You think its possible

we might have been others, in other

time zones we might have loved

might have loved us ?

No, no no others.

Among all the people who lived

from worlds end to worlds end,

there's just one you must love,

one you must seek till you find him.

You, Eben. You, my love.

- I must go. Eben.

- Please don't go, Jennie.

I don't want to, but we will

meet again when summer ends.

- Are you sure, Jennie?

- I don't know quite well.

The wind blows, the sea flows.

I want to be sure.

Tell me you're sure.

I'm sure, Jennie.

I'll get my things.

- Oh Eben, what a lovely scarf.

- It's yours, Jennie.

The present for me?

I thought you'd like it.

I've been saving it for a long time.

Ever since we first met in the park.

In the afternoons

the sun slanted lower over the city.

Sometimes in the evening,

a wedge of wild ducks

waded south,

against the Manhattan sky.

summer turned away, to fall,

but Jennie did not return.

I felt a dreadful loneliness.

Where was she ?

Yonder, Yonder

Was the home of my sweetheart

Yonder, yonder

was so long ago

I remember my lover

And the kiss of no other

No other love

Yonder, yonder

was so long ago.

I suppose I reminded me for

minding my own business,

but you can't quit alone,

or be yourself.

Gus, you don't understand.

Like supposing, I mean

if one is supposing...

Supposing what, Gus ?

Supposing she did never come back.

She's got to.

- Can't be other...

- But if something happen to her?

Don't you have to go on

living pal, don't you?

You never believed the whole

thing, have you, Gus?

- Don't pick up words in your mouth.

- Doesn't matter.

Doesn't matter if you believe it, doesn't

matter whether anybody believes

- because I know.

- Sure you do, sure.

Weren't you telling me

she goes to a convent ?

She's not there anymore.

She graduated.

Yeah, but the sisters are great

ones for keeping in touch.

She liked the sisters. There was

one who was her favourite.

Why don't you ask her?

Jennie said she felt closer

to the truth there.

I'll drive you up first thing in the morning,

if you promise to get a good night sleep.

- If I slept, I 'll owe you for the ride.

- Your money don't signify.

As my mother used to say :

"If you got friendship in your heart, sure you don't..."

What was it your mother used to say?

I don't know what I expected

to find in the convent.

I knew only that it was there that

Jennie had found some inner truth.

It was there that she had said to me :

"I think he knows, Eben."

For the first time since I had last seen Jennie,

I had a feeling of not being alone.

A feeling that the world and

Jennie and I were one.

But if for a while ,

we had lost our way?

Yesterday rose again ahead of us.

We had found beauty together,

and we could never lose it.

What was it you wished to see me about?

Well, I wanted to ask you about

a girl who graduated from here.

Quite possibly you might have some

information as to where she is.

I nuns. We often keep in touch

with the girls after they leave.

- What is her name?

- Jennie Appleton.

Jennie Appleton ?

Yes. You remember it,

don't you ?

Yes, I remember Jennie very well.

Even though she was not of our faith,

Jennie was one of my favourite pupils.

An lovely girl, with a

strange spiritual beauty,

and a gentle kind of sadness

that always troubled her.

I think that describes her perfectly.

Any idea where she is?

Why Jennie died.

- When?

- Years ago.

Oh I'm afraid, I shocked you.

Well, no.

We obviously aren't speaking

of the same person.

Did you know her family?

No, I just know they were

killed in an accident.

A wire broke? They were

trapeze performers?

I'm afraid it must be the

same Jennie Appleton.

Her aunt brought her to us,

shortly after her parents death.

She stayed with us

untill she graduated.

Then her aunt came and took up

to New England for the summer.

We corresponded a great deal.

Would you care if I read

you one of her letters?

Yes please.

Won't you sit down.

I was so touched by her

letters that I saved them.

The last one she ever wrote to me.

"My dear Sister Marie of Mercy,

we are returning very soon.

"The summer has been a very

long and a lonely one.

"How I want to see you again

and sit and talk to you about

all that is been worrying me.

"I know you tried to teach me

how beautiful the world is,

"and how it keeps on

being beautiful everyday,

"no matter what happens to us.

"But sometimes , I have

the dreadful feeling

"that this beauty will never

be complete for me,

"that I will never find someone to love,

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