English, asked by shreya04, 1 year ago

What is the difference between old generation and young generation? according to chapter16 of novel three men in a boat.

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Answered by divyakesipeddi56
1
Chapter -16

The men come to Reading , an unattractive place, and J. provides a brief history. They meet some friends of theirs by chance in a steam launch, and ask for a tow. J. enjoys being towed, moving along at a brisk pace, but complains - with tongue in cheek - that the only problem with it is that so many smaller boats are always getting in the way. Ten miles past Reading, they cast off from the steam launch and J. claims his turn at rowing is over, since they are now past Reading . The others do not agree with his assessment and he takes the oars.

After a short time, they see something black floating in the water and approach it to see what it is. They are startled to find it is the body of a woman. Some men on the shore, who have already seen the body, take..

 

My friends ' launch cast us loose just below the grotto, and then Harris wanted to make out that it was my turn to pull. This seemed to me most unreasonable. It had been arranged in the morning that I should bring the boat up to three miles above Reading . Well, here we were, ten miles above Reading ! Surely it was now their turn again.

I could not get either George or Harris to see the matter in its proper light, however; so, to save argument, I took the sculls. I had not been pulling for more than a minute or so, when George noticed something black floating on the water, and we drew up to it. George leant over, as we neared it, and laid hold of it. And then he drew back with a cry, and a blanched face.

It was the dead body of a woman. It lay very lightly on the water, and the face was sweet and calm. It was not a beautiful face; it was too prematurely aged-looking, too thin and drawn, to be that; but it was a gentle, lovable face, in spite of its stamp of pinch and poverty, and upon it was that look of restful peace that comes to the faces of the sick sometimes when at last the pain has left them.

Fortunately for us — we having no desire to be kept hanging about coroners ' courts — some men on the bank had seen the body too, and now took charge of it from us.

We found out the woman 's story afterwards. Of course it was the old, old vulgar tragedy. She had loved and been deceived — or had deceived herself. Anyhow, she had sinned — some of us do now and then — and her family and friends, naturally shocked and indignant, had closed their doors against her.

Left to fight the world alone, with the millstone of her shame around her neck, she had sunk ever lower and lower. For a while she had kept both herself and the child on the twelve shillings a week that twelve hours ' drudgery a day procured her, paying six shillings out of it for the child, and keeping her own body and soul together on the remainder.

Six shillings a week does not keep body and soul together very unitedly. They want to get away from each other when there is only such a very slight bond as that between them; and one day, I suppose, the pain and the dull monotony of it all had stood before her eyes plainer than usual, and the mocking spectre had frightened her. She had made one last appeal to friends, but, against the chill wall of their respectability, the voice of the erring outcast fell unheeded; and then she had gone to see her child — had held it in her arms and kissed it, in a weary, dull sort of way, and without betraying any particular emotion of any kind, and had left it, after putting into its hand a penny box of chocolate she had bought it, and afterwards, with her last few shillings, had taken a ticket and come down to Goring.

It seemed that the bitterest thoughts of her life must have centred about the wooded reaches and the bright green meadows around Goring; but women strangely hug the knife that stabs them, and, perhaps, amidst the gall, there may have mingled also sunny memories of sweetest hours, spent upon those shadowed deeps over which the great trees bend their branches down so low.

She had wandered about the woods by the river 's brink all day, and then, when evening fell and the grey twilight spread its dusky robe upon the waters, she stretched her arms out to the silent river that had known her sorrow and her joy. And the old river had taken her into its gentle arms, and had laid her weary head upon its bosom, and had hushed away the pain.

Thus had she sinned in all things — sinned in living and in dying. God help her! and all other sinners, if any more there be

shreya04: Thankyou so much for ur help.....u helped me a lot by explaining this answer to me
divyakesipeddi56: its ok
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