The End Of The Affair

Bendrix spends the night with Henry, the first time he has stayed at the Miles home. They stay up late, drinking whisky and talking about Sarah and their jealousies. Henry tells Bendrix how it happened. The night the two of them met on the common—when Henry told Bendrix about the detective agency—Sarah was out in the inclement weather and caught a cold. The illness spread, but Sarah told no one and stayed in bed. Sarah did not leave the bed until, eight days ago, she left the house for reasons Henry cannot fathom and came home “soaked through worse than the first time” (72). Her condition worsens and a doctor tells Henry that, if Sarah had taken penicillin a week before, she might have survived. Sarah died at four o’clock in the morning, the day Henry called Bendrix. Henry was not there, neither was the nurse.

Bendrix decides that he does not hate Henry, but he hates God, if God exists. Henry does not know how to handle the death in a practical sense. Although they talk, Sarah looms “at the end of every path” (73) of conversation. Sarah will be cremated in two days’ time, and Bendrix think to himself that he wants her to be “burnt up” (73).