The End Of The Affair

“Henry was important, but important rather as an elephant is important, from the size of his department; there are some kinds of importance that remain hopelessly damned to unseriousness.”

Given the living arrangements which Henry and Bendrix eventually find for themselves, the early descriptions of Henry in the text are telling. Bendrix is a writer motivated by his own emotions. He describes relationships with people in terms of love and hate, always opting for the strongest possible emotive states. But his treatment of Henry is different and in a way, almost more damning. Henry is not a threat to Bendrix, so the terms of description are banal and boring. Henry is almost furniture, background decoration which emboldens Bendrix’s love affair with Sarah. Henry’s station in life gives him a great credibility, but Bendrix compares him to an elephant. This disrespectful, dismissive use of animalistic descriptions sets the tone for Bendrix’s early relationship with Henry and contrasts with the warm friendship the two enjoy in later life.

“When you are miserable, you envy other people's happiness.”

Throughout the opening pages of the book, the audience is introduced to Bendrix wallowing in his own misery. While such self-pity might quickly become tiresome, Greene excels in describing the specificity of Bendrix’s misery and the way it affects the world around him. Bendrix throws his miserable nature open to the world at large and extrapolates meaning from it to prevent statements such as this quote from being entirely self-indulgent. That he does this while in the company of Henry means that there is another person to share Bendrix’s misery; that they both share Sarah in common helps to foreshadow her own character and introduce her to the audience before she appears in the scene.

“We were fellow strangers.”

Bendrix’s loneliness is ever-present in the text though rarely remarked upon. Although he shows the audience the minute details of his life, Bendrix is rarely in the company of friends. He describes encounters with women, men, prostitutes, detectives, maids, and priests, though rarely has anything more than an amicable relationship with any of them. His job means that he finds himself alone for most of the day, and the only encounters he seems to truly relish are either those with Sarah (whom he loves) and those which contain conflict (with people who he dislikes). This makes his relationship with Henry so important: He sees a reflection of himself in the man who similarly lacks friends and close associates. They are fellow strangers in that they are both outcasts who find love in their relationship with Sarah.

“The old disturbance had returned and in that state of blackness one can no more tell the days than a blind man can notice the changes of light.”

After seeing Sarah again, Bendrix finds himself locked in a nadir of self-reflection. The “old disturbance” (10)—i.e., the sight of his former lover—has brought back all the feelings of longing and worry that Bendrix first encountered after their affair ended. The importance of this section, the opening of the second chapter, is that it lays the foundations for Bendrix’s increasingly extreme behavior. Motivated by jealousy, he will go to the detective agency, lie to gain entry to Smythe’s house, and then steal Sarah’s diary, all to satisfy his own loneliness. Bendrix makes a point of describing the extremity of his circumstance—that he is a blind man in need of the light—to justify his behavior to the audience. While he might not succeed in justifying his actions, he certainly succeeds in explaining his motivations.

“Hatred seems to operate the same glands as love: it even produces the same actions.”

One of the central tenets of The End of the Affair is the tension between love and hate, as well as the notion that these two emotions are not mutually exclusive. The relationship between Bendrix and Sarah is driven—at first—by a fierce, passionate love. But as Bendrix explains, this love metamorphosed into hate. When explaining these feelings of hatred, he states that the two emotions—though diametrically opposed—“operate the same glands” (15). That is to say, the same factors which motivate and effect love do the same for hate. He hates Sarah using many of the same muscles, memories, and glands as he did to love her. This hatred is fueled by love and his love, at times, is fueled by hatred. Thus, the actions which it produces are essentially the same.

“‘I’m sorry. I came by bus and the traffic was bad.’

I said, ‘The tube’s quicker.’

‘I know, but I didn’t want to be quick.’”

The relationship between Sarah and Bendrix is both very literary and very realistic. The literary nature of the narrator—Bendrix, who is so often “correct according to the rules of [his] craft” (4)—fuels the passionate, dramatic relationship. Bendrix wishes to see everything in emotional extremes, which he values above the mundane existence of men like Henry. The more realistic, quieter moments help to graft a subtext onto the more dramatic scenes. In the above quote, a minor inconvenience affects the reunion between Sarah and Bendrix. The subtleness of the exchange reveals Sarah’s hesitancy in coming to the meeting, while Bendrix lecturing her on the best way to handle her affairs teaches the audience about his own narcissistic self-assuredness. That such an important character moment comes during a discussion of tardiness is important. Compared to a later moment in the chapter—where Sarah’s coughing fit prevents the two from kissing—this subtle snatch of dialogue is a realistic inclusion that illustrates the nature of the two characters.

“When I began to realize how often we quarrelled, how often I picked on her with nervous irritation, I became aware that our love was doomed: love had turned into a love-affair with a beginning and an end.”

Although the affair between Bendrix and Sarah is portrayed as incredibly intense and passionate, Greene goes to great lengths to assure the reader that it was rarely perfect. Indeed, there are many moments Bendrix describes that can be considered quite the opposite. Regularly, Bendrix uses his intellect to diminish and insult Sarah, while simultaneously feeling insulted by her past affairs. Although this animosity might appear distressing to the reader, Bendrix reads it very differently. In the above quote, he describes their love as “doomed” (19), adding a tragic, literary quality to the affair, which others might not see. By speaking of his quarrels and irritations in such terms, he removes the relationship from its realistic roots and idealizes the situation: To him, the affair does not end because of minor factors but because of some overreaching grand tragedy. This is one way Bendrix copes with the loss of Sarah, though, as her diary demonstrates, the story he tells himself does not match the truth.

“‘It would be better if I called you,’ she told me, and caution, I thought, caution, how well she knows how to conduct an affair like this, and I remembered again the stair that always—‘always’ was the phrase she had used—squeaked.”

Bendrix is a jealous man. Even though he is in a relationship with a married woman, he struggles to deal with the thought that he is not the first (and not the last) of her lovers. In the quote above, Bendrix analyzes the minor quirks of Sarah’s words, searching for answers to his insecurities. As a man who prides himself on his knowledge and his superior intellect, being told how to conduct an affair rattles Bendrix on two levels. First, comparing himself to Sarah’s past lovers hurts his sexual pride. Second, her instruction hurts his intellectual pride, as he delights in demonstrating his superior knowledge on every occasion--such as when he lectures Sarah on the best way to reach the restaurant via public transport. He believes he should be the one giving advice, rather than receiving it.

“Unlike the rest of us she was unhaunted by guilt. In her view when a thing was done, it was done: remorse died with the act.”

Until the moment Bendrix reads Sarah’s diary, he misdiagnoses her on a regular basis. As her diary entries show, Sarah was in fact consumed by guilt and remorse. The sudden and sharp manner in which Sarah ended her affair with Bendrix leaves him to flounder, searching for a reason why the woman he loved left him. He often settles on negative explanations, such as this suggestion that Sarah is an unloving, guilt-free automaton who is capable of inhuman acts. These misdiagnoses reveal far more about Bendrix’s character than they do about Sarah’s. Bendrix himself is filled with remorse and guilt, worried that he did something wrong to make her leave.

“‘Already I want to abandon everything, everybody, but you,’ and onions I thought, with hatred, onions—that was the way in my time.”

In a novel replete with metaphors for love, the onions described in this quote are telling. Bendrix is remembering a scrap of writing, originally stolen by Parkis from Sarah’s wastepaper basket. Earlier in the novel, Sarah told Bendrix that there is nothing Henry “dislikes more than onions” (25), and the two bonded over their restaurant order, which included onions. Now, Bendrix is in a reflective mood, and Sarah’s words incite hatred. Sarah has gone back to Henry and accepted a life of mundanity rather than the passionate love Bendrix offered. The onions represent a life the lovers could have had together, one which Sarah has rejected. She has returned to her onion-free and Bendrix-free existence and the tiny memories Bendrix has of their time together anger and annoy him. Something as simple as an onion becomes a point of contention in their relationship, an object onto which Bendrix can project his hatred of Sarah.

“I have never understood why people who can swallow the enormous improbability of a personal God boggle at a personal Devil.”

While Sarah’s battle to find her own faith is more essential to the plot of the book, Bendrix’s explorations of religion are also important. In passages such as this, he discusses religion as though it is an abstract character flaw. He focuses on the “negative” aspects of religion: If people dismiss the existence of a personal God, he suggests, why do they dismiss a personal devil? A personal devil allows Bendrix to blame all his negative actions, temptations, and thoughts on an external party. In other words, he questions whether he should carry personal responsibility for his actions in a God-fearing world. Bendrix is one of the few characters who resolutely refuses to believe in religion. Ironically, he is also one of the characters who goes to the greatest lengths to absolve himself of guilt. Bendrix may not believe in a personal devil, but he nevertheless rejects his own culpability in the face of Sarah’s death.

“‘You pimped with your ignorance. You pimped by never learning how to make love with her, so she had to look elsewhere. You pimped by giving opportunities ... You pimped by being a bore and a fool, so now somebody who isn’t a bore and fool is playing about with her in Cedar Road.’”

This passage represents one of the few moments when Bendrix speaks his true thoughts to Henry. Earlier, he deliberately hides from Henry the nature of his relationship with Sarah, and, later, he spends a great deal of time considering Henry’s feelings before saying anything to him. In this quote, however, he directly accuses Henry of being boring, mundane, and a terrible husband. He blames Henry for the affair (in which Bendrix was a willing participant) and tries to rally Henry to his side by suggesting that a fresh infidelity is taking place. Later in the conversation, Bendrix does admit his own failings, but here his tone is dramatic, accusatory, and serious. That the men's relationship not only continues but prospers after this conversation speaks to the remarkable hole Sarah has left in both men’s lives.

“‘That was Galahad. Lancelot was found in bed with Guinevere.’ Why do we have this desire to tease the innocent? Is it envy? Mr. Parkis said sadly, looking across at his boy as though he had betrayed him, ‘I hadn’t heard.’”

In this quote, Parkis is explaining why he chose to name his son Lance. Bendrix, the better educated of the two, correct Parkis’s belief and reveals that his son is actually named after the adulterer, not the hero. This “desire to tease the innocent” (42) not only informs the audience about Bendrix’s character—that he cannot resist the opportunity to demonstrate his superior intelligence—but also hints at intra-class relations which are otherwise largely absent from the text. Parkis is one of the few working-class characters, and he is almost a caricature of a working-class figure: He is a cap-doffing, hard-working widower who is keen to please his social betters. Parkis goes to great lengths to impress people like Bendrix, only to have his intelligence dismissed for puerile sport. Bendrix’s “desire to tease” outweighs the sadness it stirs in the honest Parkis, and even though the revelation might be massive for Parkis, Bendrix quickly moves on and never thinks about the incident again. He little considers how or why Parkis might not possess the education needed to differentiate between figures in the Arthurian mythology, and he does not care.

“I wondered for a moment who M. was. How strange too and unfamiliar to think that one had been loved, that one’s presence had once had the power to make a difference between happiness and dullness in another’s day.”

The issue of Bendrix’s name is a frequent point of demarcation between authorial voice, as well as an indicator of people’s relationship with Bendrix. As he admits early in the text, very few people use Maurice Bendrix’s first name. Even he is so accustomed to using his last name that, at first, he doesn't recognize Sarah's use of his first initial and mistakes the reference for the name of another man. Because so few people refer to Bendrix as Maurice, those who do differentiate themselves. Sarah is the chief culprit; she is the only character to call him Maurice on a regular basis and often does so in her diary. Her use of the name suggests a closeness between the two that does not exist in Bendrix’s other relationships. Quite literally, they are on first name terms. By the time Bendrix comes to read the diary, his relationship with Sarah has been over for years and their familiarity has faded. Seeing this reference to his own first name stirs his nostalgia and his love. Bendrix attributes positive emotions (which are almost exclusively related to Sarah) to the name Maurice.

“I have always wanted to be liked or admired. I feel a terrible insecurity if a man turns on me, if I lose a friend. I don’t even want to lose a husband. I want everything, all the time, everywhere.”

The switch to Sarah’s diary is an important moment in the book. Not only does it move the plot forward, providing Bendrix (and the audience) with an explanation for why the affair ended, but it also allows for a contrast between the way in which Sarah has been portrayed by Bendrix up to this point in the novel. This opportunity for self-reflection provides Sarah with a great deal more depth than was previously suggested. Rather than simply being a master temptress, she becomes a conflicted, sympathetic character with her own motivations and flaws. In the quote above, for example, she reveals that her desire to be loved has motivated many of her actions. Her “terrible insecurity” can explain why she turns to someone like Bendrix and why someone like Henry is not enough. As Sarah admits, she wants “everything, all the time” (49) and is aware of how selfish this sounds.

“But what are you supposed to love then in the bitch and the fake?”

This self-awareness is carried throughout all the diary entries. Unlike Bendrix, Sarah does not always attempt to relate every minor emotion to some great explanation of the human condition. Rather, she ruthlessly self-investigates and tries to find conclusions to the questions that her internal conflicts continue to throw up. This level of self-awareness is almost a detriment to her character, in that she is able to recognize that she lives a false, impossible life which she desperately needs too much to change. The conflict within the diary stems from Sarah’s attempts to resolve this admission that she contains flaws with the idea that the only way to fix the flaws is to deny herself happiness. Unlike Bendrix’s depiction of Sarah as a creature of lust and instinct, the audience sees the terrible decisions which occupy Sarah’s thoughts on an almost-daily basis.

“It’s so unfair. While I loved Maurice, I loved Henry, and now I’m what they call good, I don’t love anyone at all. And You least of all.”

As the reader discovers when reading Sarah’s diary entries, there are three major figures in her life. They are Bendrix, her lover; Henry, her husband; and God, her belief in whom is not entirely certain. All three of these figures make demands of her and all three, taken individually, fail to satisfy her needs. Instead, they combine together to form an unholy trinity, each satisfying a different need. The issue—which Sarah describes in the quote as “unfair” (55)—is that she cannot enjoy all these three figures simultaneously. She must pick two, at most, and content herself with a life of half-satisfaction. If the diary is an attempt for Sarah to document and resolve this internal conflict, the audience is left with the impression of how impossible and precarious Sarah’s situation has become. Due to the nature of her promise to God and her marriage with Henry, there is no outcome which can satisfy her entirely. Instead, she is left to write in her diary in a desperate attempt to find a solution.

“‘Why not Bendrix? He gave me lunch at his club. A horrible lunch.’”

Throughout the course of the novel, Henry’s politeness and his adherence to social norms represent one of the few constants. He remains relentlessly pleasant, whether Bendrix is revealing Sarah’s infidelity or insulting their dinner guest, Father Crompton. Henry’s ability to hold his nerve almost never wavers—except in this instance, where he reveals an ability to be utterly scathing. The reader already knows that Henry sat and ate an entire bad meal because he thought it would be impolite to refuse. Later, the visage of politeness slips when he is speaking to Sarah, who, along with the audience, understands why she might be curious why he met with Bendrix. Henry is not directly accusing Sarah; he is merely offering the slightest hint that he might know her dark secret. In comparison with his politeness about the meal, the question he poses is comparably ruthless. It is perfectly tuned to fill Sarah’s mind with doubt before reminding her of his innate goodness. For just one moment, Henry allows himself to lash out at another person.

“Another promise to keep, and when I had made it I couldn’t bear to be with him any more. He’d won and Maurice had lost, and I hated him for his victory.”

Sarah’s decision to stay with Henry is one of the novel’s most crucial moments. The quote suggests that she stays with him not because she loves him—indeed, she admits that she “hated him” (63)—but because of the myriad other reasons that restrict her choice. These include the promise she made to God, as well as a devotion to the comfortable existence Henry can provide. While Henry might not be able to provide her with passion, she and Henry have an amicable, quiet love that offers some degree of satisfaction. The thought of abandoning this and destroying Henry’s life causes an internal conflict in Sarah. And she remains unwilling to break her promise to God. Henry’s victory costs everyone their happiness. Even Henry, in securing this victory, has had to learn hard truths about his wife.

“‘An awful thing’s happened. You ought to know. Sarah’s dead.’

How conventionally we behave at such moments. I said, ‘I’m terribly sorry, Henry.’

‘Are you doing anything tonight?’

‘No.’

‘I wish you’d come over for a drink. I don’t fancy being alone.’”

A key moment in the novel—Sarah’s death—occurs entirely away from the narrative. Bendrix, who has been waiting for Sarah to call, answers Henry’s call and receives the bad news. Given his investment in their future together and that he still believes—at this stage—that he and Sarah were going to be together, his devastation is underplayed. He can think of nothing more to say; in a blunt series of sentences, Bendrix hears the news and finds a future companion. Henry, however, has more agency in this moment. He asks Bendrix to provide him with company, recognizing that what Sarah primarily provided for him was companionship. Despite the strangeness of the circumstances, Henry takes control of the situation and reaches out to Bendrix, who can do little more than agree.

“What a fool I had been during three years to imagine that in any way I had possessed her. We are possessed by nobody, not even by ourselves.”

Sarah’s death facilitates several characters' realizations. Here, when Richard Smythe asks to see Sarah’s body, Bendrix gains a new perspective on his loss and the obsession he nurtured for so many years. As he watches a similar obsession consume Smythe, Bendrix sees himself. Smythe wants to take a lock of Sarah’s hair, and Bendrix realizes how inane and meaningless such a demonstration is: It provides him no possession over her memory or her spirit. Instead, Sarah is gone, and she is now denied to everyone. However, this relinquishing of Sarah does not last. Within days, Bendrix is dictating the nature of the funeral and becoming increasingly possessive over the way she is mourned. He believes that no one knew Sarah the way he did. He ignores reality and clings to her spirit. Even if Bendrix becomes less obsessed with Sarah, her memory still possesses him, long after her death.

“‘I always had a wish that it would ‘take’. Like vaccination.’”

Bendrix’s encounter with Sarah’s mother is significant on a few levels. Not only does Mrs. Bertram seem to annoy Henry and charm Bendrix, but she also recognizes the innate religion in Sarah’s character and provides an explanation, even as Bendrix hopes to deny its existence. When she was a child, a Catholic priest christened Sarah. At the time, it was a way for her mother to annoy and spite Sarah’s father, but the action is ascribed a greater meaning in this quote. Here, Mrs. Bertram notes her regret that the christening did not “take” (89). For Bendrix and the audience, who have seen clues suggesting Sarah did indeed have faith, this comment is ironic. But it is also an important clue as to why Sarah turned to religion so late in life: Her parents used such matters as a tool to win arguments, so, in Sarah’s own troubled marriage, she turned to religion for resolution. While she might not have found satisfaction, the secret baptism provides the possibility of a different future: If Sarah had known about her baptism, would she have become the same person? Much like Bendrix, Mrs. Bertram tried to control and manage Sarah.

“‘I shall never want to do that. I’m not the marrying kind. It was a great injury I did to Sarah when I married her. I know that now.’”

At the end of the novel, Bendrix and Henry are left alone with their regrets. Although they are together, both men maintain a Sarah-shaped hole in their lives. They deal with it in different ways: Bendrix writes about the situation, using his literary skills to dissolve and absolve his blame, while Henry chooses to blame himself, focusing on his inability to provide what she needed to be satisfied. Henry's pessimism separates him from Bendrix, who maintains a large ego, even though he is largely to blame for the circumstances of Sarah’s death. That Henry should be so self-critical makes him one of the novel’s most tragic characters: He is never able to escape his own self-doubt or his constant need for companionship. While Bendrix assuages the latter, he can do nothing about the former. Instead, Henry’s self-loathing enables Bendrix to avoid taking the blame for Sarah’s death.