They Vowed It

Charlotte turns up at the prince's London house in the rain, asking for Maggie, and Maggie is out. Garth Greenwell reads what follows as the most extraordinary stretch of imagery in the novel: a rocket going up, past and future locked in an embrace, a lining of eiderdown around a thing nobody will name. Two people have insisted for four years that they do nothing. In these chapters James shows you, picture by picture, what their doing nothing does. It ends with a grievance, a promise, and one of the most famous pages Henry James ever wrote. Greenwell reads that page clause by clause, and it earns its reputation.