The End of the Affair

One morning Henry comes into the house late and explains that he went gone to Father Crompton’s church to hear him say Mass for Sarah—and that he invited Father Crompton over for dinner. Bendrix says that he will leave for the night, but Henry asks him to stay because Crompton had been “a friend of Sarah’s.” Bendrix asks Henry if he is “turning a believer too,” but Henry incredulously tells Bendrix that he is not. Father Crompton comes to dinner and Bendrix keeps thinking that the priest “was the man who had kept Sarah from [Bendrix].”

Henry tries to make conversation with Father Crompton, but the priest only gives short answers to most of his comments. Finally, Henry says that he hasn’t prayed in a long time—not since he was a child—and the priest tells him that any kind of prayer is good because it is “a recognition of God’s power.” Bendrix scornfully compares prayer to “touching wood or avoiding lines on the pavement,” but Father Crompton tells him that even superstition can be good because it’s “the beginning of wisdom.”

The doorbell rings and Bendrix runs to get it. A woman hands Bendrix a package from Mr. Parkis which contains a book and a letter. In the letter, Mr. Parkis explains that he asked for the book because Lance, who was sick and needed surgery, begged for a memento from Sarah. On the night he received the book, Mr. Parkis prayed to God, his wife, and Sarah to help Lance get better. In the morning, Lance was well again. Mr. Parkis says that there is an inscription in the book. When Bendrix flips the book open, he sees that Sarah had scribbled something about reading the book when one is “sick in bed.”

Bendrix asks Henry if he looked in the book that he gave to Mr. Parkis. Henry says that he didn’t and asks why. Bendrix explains that it must be a coincidence before handing Mr. Parkis’s letter to Henry and Father Crompton to read. After reading the letter and the inscription in Sarah’s book, Father Crompton notes that Sarah was a good woman and that “There’s no harm in praying to the dead as well as for them.” Suddenly, Bendrix loses his temper and says that Sarah “was nothing of the sort” and that she deceived everyone. Henry tries to get Bendrix to stop, but Father Crompton tells him to let Bendrix go on. Bendrix states that Sarah had been with a lot of men and tells Father Crompton to go back to his church.

Henry apologizes for Bendrix’s outburst, but Father Crompton says that there is no need to apologize because he “know[s] when a man’s in pain.” Furious, Bendrix proclaims that he isn’t “in pain,” but “in hate.” Bendrix tells them that he hates Sarah and Henry and Father Crompton, which prompts the priest to tell Bendrix that he is “a good hater.” With tears in his eyes, Bendrix angrily walks out of the room. Bendrix tells himself to “be reasonable.” Bendrix wonders to himself if one can “really hate and love” at the same time and then thinks of all the things about himself that he hates, including the fact that he  pursued Sarah in the first place and his “untrusting mind.”

Bendrix grabs Sarah’s diary out of his nightstand and opens it to the entry where she wonders what it would mean if she hated God. To himself, Bendrix thinks that hating Sarah or himself is only loving Sarah or himself. To God, Bendrix says that the only one worth hating is God if he exists. Bendrix then “[speaks] to the Sarah [he doesn’t] believe in” and asks her what kind of life he is supposed to live without her. He tells her that when she was alive and he loved her, he had lost his appetite for food and other women—and that if he were to love God then he would “cease to be Bendrix,” which makes him afraid.