Original subtitles

Fanny broke it.

she thought when I told her that that would be the best thing to do with it.

it wasn't you see my idea. on the contrary. I'd left it there for you to see.

it's the golden bowl.

the one you saw the little antique shop in Bloomsbury so long ago

when you went there with Charlotte.

when you spent those hours with her

unknown to me a day or two before our marriage.

it was shown to you both but you didn't take it.

you left it in a way I suppose, for me.

I came on it by an extraordinary coincidence looking for a present for my father.

of course I knew nothing about it then.

what I know now I've learned since.

I mean about you and her.

it's the same one all right.

that you and she argued about.

you can examine it if you want.

in fact you may even like to keep it.

the pieces can't be put together. I've no more use for it.

but what in the world has Fanny to do with it?

I thought she would know, know more I mean, about what I just learned.

and did she?

she tried to help me in her own way

and she tried to help you.

she's done her best for you never forget that.

and she's helped me along further than I could have come without her.

she gained me time and that these last three months has been everything.

three months?

counting from the night you came home so late from Matcham

and your visit to Gloucester.

for that was the beginning. that was when I began to think of you having had for a long time

... two relations with Charlotte. - two?

oh you may have had fifty of the same kind.

I'm talking of there being more than just the one sort!

the sort that father and I so long supposed.

we never dreamed there could be another.

until that visit to Matcham when I saw what might be going on.

and you saw that I saw didn't you? both of you did. you and her.

and your father does he...

you're drawing immense conclusions from small matters.

it's true...

we took two or three hours together on the eve of my marriage, yes.

it was to find a small present for you.

naturally we couldn't tell you about it because it was precisely for you.

it's true too we came upon this crystal cup.

and we didn't take it.

it was cracked.

what did you take?

nothing I think at that place.

what did you take then at any other since that was the purpose of your little expedition?

didn't we get you anything.

how did the shopkeeper come to connect us with you?

he delivered it here later in the day to this very room.

ah I see.

yes he saw the photos of you and her in here

and recognized them.

he even remembered your having discussed making each other presents.

- well but we didn't. - no apparently not.

and nor to me either.

you received then nothing at all?

nothing from her but an apology for empty hands and empty pockets.

as if it mattered anyway. but the apology was touchingly made.

- I'm sure it was meant. - oh I'm sure it was meant too.

I'm sure I'd have had my little gift if she could have found what she wanted,

and I'm sure she could have found what she wanted if her mind hadn't been otherwise preoccupied.

with me you mean.

I mean that the idea of your finding me a gift

had NOTHING to do with your taking the morning together.

- that's not entirely true. - isn't it?

isn't it a fact that what it had most to do with was that you couldn't resist

once you were face to face again the temptation of being alone together?

and wasn't the reason for that

that there'd been so much between you before?

you've never been as sacred to me as you were then.

unless perhaps you've become so now.

it's clear you didn't want to offend us. it's clear from the precautions you both took.

THAT I think made me see more clearly than anything else.

- see what? - that you were older and more intimate

friends than I had any reason to suppose.

would that have made a difference to your marrying me?

perhaps not to my marrying you

but the question's much bigger than that isn't it?

yes

perhaps it would have been better if you hadn't come in this evening.

in fact I had a feeling you might not.

why not?

well you have so many commitments on your time.

and then again you old Italians... you're so deep.

it's you my dear. you are deep.

I it seems need to be.

at any rate all I intended tonight was that you should know that I know.

the difference that makes to you we shall see.

does anyone else know?

why ask me?

ask Charlotte.

she's in a better position to know than I am.

after all she's his wife!

I know nothing but what you tell me.

she doesn't know then.

then I have told you all I shall ever tell you.

for the rest find out for yourself!

I told you once that Maggie was an extraordinary young woman and I think now you'll begin to

see what I mean. for she was fighting, and this you must remember, not simply to save

her marriage, but fighting to prevent even a breath of what she knew reaching her father.

find out she'd replied to her husband when he'd asked her if anyone else knew, meaning of course

her father. but she wasn't prepared to give him any help at all and who can blame her?

but she must have believed then that her father knew nothing and if he came to know

it'd bring his own marriage to an end. and if that happened well...

her own could never again be repaired bearing as it would such a weight of guilt.

so she trod carefully. well she had to.

I told you you may remember

that they had all decided to spend the rest of the summer at Fawns.

Charlotte and mr Verver had already gone down.

Maggie and the prince were to leave that night,

Fanny and I were to go down in a day or so for a long stay.

there were to be other guests many of them coming and going at different times.

Charlotte's decision to fill the house with rather more guests than usual

was something Maggie was grateful for as it turned out. she felt she could more easily

keep up her appearance the more people there were around her.

at the same time

it made any little notion Charlotte may have had of a private little tete tete with her

more difficult to bring off and that kind of meeting

Maggie knew instinctively she wanted to avoid.

Fanny of course was dying to know what had passed between Maggie and her husband.

but she too had found it difficult to get her alone long enough to hear the details.

and then one afternoon after lunch her curiosity was partially satisfied.

[chatter and laughter]

shall we take coffee outside?

[indistinct chatter]

he's never told her. is that what you want to know?

of that I'm at last satisfied.

nothing is passed between them. she doesn't know that I know

and he clearly doesn't mean to tell her.

... he's keeping quiet then on purpose. - on purpose.

... he'll never tell her now. - poor Charlotte.

but there's one thing I don't understand how could she not have pressed him for an answer?

how could she not have asked him on his honor if you know?

- but she has. I'm sure of it. - well then...

- he'll have said no. - against even her direct appeal for the truth?

against even that.

he'll simply you mean, to have lied to her.

- he'll simply have lied to her. - poor Charlotte.

... but she'll suspect. she's bound to. - yes but she'll never know.

only perhaps that the prince has grown tired of her.

[Maggie] hmm.

it was odd. the oddest thing I ever saw.

here she was a woman betrayed meeting the first crisis in her married life well in her life really

in a manner that really left everything finally to her husband. and he took it as if he got a bunch of

keys and a list of instructions. as if he'd said; well leave it to me but let me do it my own way.

and so she had. it was as if he'd further said to her; leave me my reserve don't question it.

it's all I have now don't you see?

and in return I promise you something or other, grown under cover of it,

that will make you a return for your patience.

and his not having told Charlotte of what had passed between himself and his wife

was in a way a measure of his promise.

why didn't he tell her?

well I suppose because he wanted to avoid the changed relationship

between the two women...

that would follow such a disclosure, and which his father-in-law was bound to notice.

and he didn't want that any more than Maggie. so he preferred to reassure and deceive but

when Fanny said poor Charlotte I knew exactly what she meant.

for whatever you may think of Charlotte

it was the cruelest thing imaginable that could be done to a woman

as much in love as she was to leave her suspended in midair and just uh just wondering.

and Maggie knew it.

yet she saw no other way being the sort of girl she was.

the prince had seen that and had taken it from her and acted on it

and she would act on it further.

she knew that Charlotte suspected something,

felt that Charlotte was troubled

and only waiting the right moment to test that trouble on her lover's wife.

she could sense the panic rising in Charlotte's breast

as if she were a bird in a cage

suspended in a room into which a cat had just walked.

she saw the flutterings, the beating of wings, the trembling of feathers around the throat.

when she saw Charlotte's face it seemed to her that she,

Maggie, was outside and Charlotte a prisoner looking at her through bars.

and Maggie instinctively drew back whenever she found herself too near.

as she watched them that evening from her chair she had the distinct impression

that she held them all on the palm of her hand, and that unless she were careful,

one or more of them would lose his balance and topple off and break,

and she must have wondered too, it must have crossed her mind

that had she been but a different sort of woman,

all that high decorum that hung over the card table could be blown to smithereens...

by just one word from her.

she must have been tempted for one horrible moment

by the possibility of springing up and screaming out her wrong.

of seeing them all stare and turn pale

as she sounded out their doom in a single sentence.

but of course she did nothing of the sort.

as she met each pair of eyes

it was as if she became aware of their collective peril.

and that it was left only to her to avoid it.

she must have longed I suppose

to have been some other kind of woman who could stand on her rights to be resentful

to indulge the rages of jealousy in the protests of passion...

but she wasn't and she couldn't.

that look of Charlotte's mr Verver had been unmistakable.

it was as if she were adding him as another string to her bow.

she didn't know if Maggie knew or not,

but just in case she did, and just in case she contemplated doing anything about it,

she was reminding her of what was at stake. and Maggie needed no reminding.

it's very close inside.

I thought I'd come out for a breath of air.

[Bob] it was as if the creature had escaped by force from its cage

and now stood across her path with no hope of her circling it.

the air's heavy.

I think there'll be a storm.

would you like my shawl?

I've been wanting and for longer than you'd believe...

to put a question to you.

it's been a little hard these last few days to find a moment to talk to you.

what question is that?

have you any ground for complaint against me?

is there any wrong you feel I've done you?

I feel at least I have a right to ask.

whatever makes you ask that?

the desire to know, naturally.

I've sensed for some time that you've been worried about something.

is it to do with me?

why on earth should you think that?

but that's not for me to say.

I don't know of any point at which I may have failed you and if I have it's been unconscious.

but you've only to say

if i'm mistaken then so much the better.

well you have been mistaken.

are you sure that it's all been my mistake?

all I can say is you've received a false impression.

well I'm relieved.

you understand that I had to mention it.

I feel better now that it's in the open.

are you quite sure?

your anxiety is misconceived Charlotte.

how could you hurt me?

I've never thought of you except as wonderful and good and you know that.

you could hardly ask for more.

it's much more my dear than I would ever dream of asking.

I only wanted you to put my mind at rest.

well then it should be.

- honestly? - honestly.

will you kiss me on it then? - of course.

- you don't think I'm selfish? - no.

I'll believe it when Amerigo complains of you.

but isn't it just he who is my selfishness?

well hasn't the girl a right to be selfish about her husband?

are you um

are you jealous of him Mags?

don't you think when you love in the most abysmal and unutterable way

you're rather beyond that sort of thing?

and is that the way you love him?

I dare say.

I guess I've never been jealous.

no I don't think you have.

well that makes us a pair.

- we're all right. - we're all right I suppose.

and no more talk about your being selfish.

that's something else.

I use people.

how?

I make them pay for my happiness.

what does Amerigo pay?

- I wasn't thinking of him. - who then?

you.

oh me.

yes everything around me goes on by your incredible permission

and at your expense.

well naturally you go on at my expense

I wouldn't have it otherwise.

after all I'm your father.

but how can you use me?

by sacrificing you.

what in the world to?

didn't I sacrifice you to my marriage?

you call that sacrificing me?

wasn't it? isn't it?

depends on what you make of what I wanted from it.

isn't that the point?

that I don't make anything of it at all.

I mean I don't put myself out to do so, I just accept it for whatever it is.

and whatever is it then?

well that's the point again.

I've never concerned myself with that.

it's as if we agreed never to discuss it.

I just take from you all I can get.

what's wrong with that?

well it's charming for me.

I've had nothing to do but to continue to adore you.

but what's that from the decent daughter to such a father.

too much one might say.

you're not suggesting...

my natural course once you'd set up for yourself was to...

ship you back to the States.

you know Mags when you talk to me this way

you make me wish I had shipped.

you make me quite feel that it might just be the best place for us.

- us? - Charlotte me.

in fact if we should ship it would serve you right.

and if you say much more we will ship.

well...

if you did...

I'd be as much as ever the cause of what you do.

in fact I have the least doubt of it of you being up to it if you thought...

I might get anything out of it.

do you see what I mean about sacrificing you?

my dear

I'll let you know

when I feel you've begun to sacrifice me.

begun?

because that'll be the day when you cease to believe in me.

I believe in you

more than anyone.

more than anyone at all?

than anyone at all.

and that's the way I think you believe in me.

bar the way, yes.

and if that separation represented for her

the ultimate sacrifice...

she knew that it also represented for Charlotte her doom.

yes she had that sharp intimation that Charlotte was doomed

and she took no pleasure in it as other women might

nor in Charlotte's coming gradual realization of it.

a realization that must have begun soon after the scene between the two young women when Charlotte,

Maggie had no difficulty in visualizing it,

reported what had passed between them.

I tackled her on the subject and she knows nothing.

I'm quite satisfied.

you should be careful your satisfaction doesn't give more away than you intend.

but we're all right I, I tell you.

I don't think that's quite the right tone to adopt.

then what tone in god's name am I to adopt?

what is it? what is it with you!

in the days that followed that scene with her father

amid all the comings and goings of guests Maggie sensed and felt things with a sharpness

that she'd never before been capable of. as if all her senses have been restrung to constant pitch.

and that even a breath of wind might draw a chord from them.

and she saw too...

as if with Charlotte's eyes, saw her make out the figure of a quiet little gentleman, who mostly wore

as he moved alone across the field of vision, a straw hat. a white waistcoat, and blue necktie.

keeping a cigar in his teeth and his hands in his pocket while he slowly

meditatively measured the perspective of the park.

and it gave her a gradual and growing anxiety,

as if she saw the distant but indistinct approach of her fate bound up in him.

wherever he went in those days Maggie saw him

and saw him as Charlotte must have seen him.

a meditative sort of man in a straw hat with his indescribable heir of weaving his spell.

it was as if he was singing to himself sotto voces he went and as if Charlotte were hovering, watching,

listening to make out the song. she hung behind him with emphasized attention.

she stopped when he stopped it was as if they were in some way joined.

and Maggie saw that it was as if he held in one of his pocketed hands the end of a long silken

cord loop around Charlotte's beautiful neck.

he didn't twitch it, yet was there. he didn't drag her,

but she came.

and such was Verver’s seeming control of the situation that his wife's

presence didn't prevent him from addressing to his daughter a smile. a wordless smile.

but the smile was nonetheless a soft shake of the twisted silken rope that seemed to loop her neck.

when Maggie saw that smile she knew what it meant.

it was as though he had actually spoken to her

put it all in words.

yes, you see

I lead her now by the neck...

lead her to her doom.

and she doesn't so much as know what it is.

though she has a fear in her heart

which if you had the chance to put your ear there

as I have

you would hear...

thump thump thump.

she thinks it may be, her doom that is,

that awful place over there in the states.

that American City that I built.

awful for her.

but she's afraid to ask don't you see.

just as she's afraid of not asking.

just as she's afraid now of so many things that multiply around her like...

portents and betrayals that she doesn't understand.

she'll know however, when she does know.

[Bob] it was then that Maggie saw that Charlotte knew what her doom was.

that she was to be separated from her lover and to all intents and purposes never to see him again.

and because she loved, Charlotte loved,

Maggie felt the pain of that separation for Charlotte

as if a pound of flesh were being torn from her side.

felt it most terribly one day...

when the place was full of guests

and Charlotte was acting as guide for all the exhibits, performing the role of dutiful wife

to a renowned collector.

[Charlotte] same origin or period are wonderful as they are but taste quite so perfect.

they've been put on later time by a process of which there are very few examples and none quite

so important is this which is really very unique, so that though the whole thing is rather baroque,

its value as a specimen is absolutely quite...

god it sounds like the shriek of a soul in pain.

can't she at least stop!

and she knew too now

why it was that Amerigo took to going so frequently out to town.

he'd given as his excuse the need to arrange a new collection of books he had bought.

but she saw him instead

sitting endless hours silently in a chair at home.

staring before him through the smoke of ceaseless cigarettes

as far away as he could get from the sound of Charlotte's voice which to him...

was like the cry of a soul in torment.

and Maggie knew there was nothing she could do for him except to leave him to suffer alone.

so Maggie had almost accomplished what she'd set out to do

but there was one thing more she would do if she could

as those summer days at Fawns drew to a close

she found herself

more and more haunted by a vision

a vision as she described it to herself

of a soul in torment.

perhaps because she herself loved so abysmally and so unutterably

as she'd said to her father

she could take no bitter pleasure in her own victory.

she hadn't started the war so to speak but

the sight of the enemy stricken and helpless

rose up constantly before her.

she felt somehow

a desperate need to say something to her to make a last demonstration for her support.

to do something

that might assuage the icy despair she knew had wrapped itself around Charlotte's heart.

well you've done it.

what does it strike you I've done?

what you wanted. they're going.

your father's chosen and now she knows.

she sees it all before her and there's nothing she can do about it.

she can't speak resist or or even move a finger.

that's what's the matter with her.

has she told you?

I don't need to be told, I can see.

I can see the long miles of ocean

in that dreadful great country.

state after state

which has never seemed to me so big or so terrible.

nor I dare say to her.

I see them never come back.

it will be won't it? forever.

I can see practically everything.

what I don't see is him.

I don't make him out at all.

Amerigo?

oh no your father.

how he feels. do you?

I know nothing.

if I did...

well if you did/

I should die.

it was as though there were nowhere Charlotte could find

to bring her soul into the shade.

nowhere she could rest without wanting to move on again.

she was like a wounded animal running in endless circles in a vain attempt to remove itself

from the source of the pain.

a blind physical quest for peace.

for one moment I suppose Charlotte

must have thought Maggie had come to retract the lie she'd told her that night on the terrace.

for Charlotte must have guessed by now it was a lie

and to face her with the truth now, out in the open.

and then she saw almost as quickly

that Maggie had come out to her because she knew her to be doomed.

doomed to a separation.

it was like a knife in her heart.

I brought you the first volume of the book you borrowed.

the one you took as the second.

I'm glad you've come.

there's something I've been wanting to say to you.

I'm tired you know.

I'm tired of this life we've been leading.

you like it I know

but...

I've dreamed another dream.

I have an idea that greatly appeals to me. I've had it for a long time.

I think we're wrong. I don't think our real life is here.

our?

my husband's and I.

it's not for you but for him that I'm speaking.

I see. my father.

naturally.

who else?

I must course risk your thinking me selfish.

for you know what it involves.

but I must place my husband first.

of course. it's where I place mine.

you won't quarrel with me then?

so much the better. my mind's made up.

- to do what? - to take him home.

where he really belongs and not to wait.

- you mean soon? - I mean at once.

I would like at last to have him a little to myself.

it may seem strange to you but I want to keep the man I married.

you'll go immediately?

as soon as we can get off.

the removal of everything is after all just a detail.

I want a definite break and I want it now.

you want to take my father from me?

now I see how much you loathe my marriage.

... now I see how you've worked against me. - oh Charlotte.

you haven't worked against me.

what does it matter if I failed?

you admit then that you failed?

yes I failed.

i'm not stopping my dear I know you've accompanied shortly.

yes.

- let me get you some tea. - oh no thank you.

I was passing I just wanted to ask you and Amerigo

if you've nothing better to do to dine with us tomorrow.

- that's sweet of you. - oh no excuses.

we'll be at home in any case you can leave it till the last minute.

I think he won't want to go out.

trust him my dear. let him come through on his own.

oh I'll do that.

... it's just my nature to think. - to think too much

well if I hadn't thought too much --

you wouldn't be where you are now. well that's true I suppose.

your thinking saved you both.

saved us?

father and me?

... aren't we the ones that are lost? - lost?

to each other.

yes even more so than Charlotte and Amerigo because somehow for them it's...

right. it's just.

but for us it's...

it's only sad and strange.

but doesn't it complete the purpose of his marriage to leave yours more free?

and doesn't that mean that it's his way of of making more of a success of his own?

I suppose so.

so he must know what you know.

well I suppose it's more a matter of how much he knows.

how much,, I mean they did, how far they went.

do you think he does?

know at least something?

your father's beyond me.

- do you know? - how much? how far?

I told you before I know absolutely nothing.

well that's what I know.

and Charlotte? do you think she knows a little of how much your father knows?

for Charlotte to know a little would be for her to know everything.

and you don't think she does.

no.

or for her that must be some kind of torment.

poor Charlotte.

I was just leaving.

come tomorrow if you feel like it, not if you don't.

they should be here soon.

what did Fanny want?

to ask us to dine with them tomorrow night.

she thought that I might be low with them leaving and everything.

she ought to have known you.

that's what stays with me.

she ought to have understood you better.

Charlotte?

well what I mean is that she doesn't even know that you know.

she knows my dear.

she knows.

in her heart she knows enough

but she won't let us see it. she won't let us see she's unhappy.

it's terrible you know. it's always terrible for women.

she's making her life.

she'll make it.

and while she's about it she's making ours.

you too must help to make it.

you must help.

you think I haven't been?

these last few weeks?

you've kept up for so long a silence.

it hurts.

it hurts.

yes I know what I've kept up.

will you do one thing more for me?

is there even one thing left?

I'll do anything.

anything.

wait.

just wait

until they've been?

till they've gone.

till we cease to see them

till we're really alone.

oh if that's all.

if that's all.

- and you'll go straight to American City? - straight? yes.

no stops at all. he has things he wants to do there and as we're going, I'm glad we didn't delay things.

and you'll like that?

you mustn't stay on here you know.

Fawns is all there for you of course

till the end of my tenure anyway.

although with half it's best things gone it probably won't be quite the same.

no I should miss its nicest things.

to be back there without...

Charlotte, it's more than I think I could do.

because no dear Charlotte is incomparable.

oh yes Charlotte is...

great.

you see now how right I was.

to do it for you anyway.

- I don't see what you could have done without her. - no.

it was a risk but...

well..

now we see.

we see.

- I know her better. - you know her best.

it's success father isn't it?

success.

well...

time we were leaving.

I think my dear it's time.

of course.

well then let's go.

hmm

what are you dreaming about?

hmm well I'm just thinking.

the Ververs, Maggie, and her husband.

yes a rum affair very rum affair.

I suppose you would call it that.

- well what would you call it? - beautiful. sad but beautiful.

you did rather well considering.

considering what?

what a mess you made of everything.

I don't know why I bother to talk to you about anything.